The Autumn Guests

By Joy Hinckley

What do you do when 'the right thing to do' seems wrong?

Darling Downs, Australia, 1898. Young servant Ivy is left in charge of Hillview, a country guesthouse, while her mistress takes a few days away. It's the low season, so Ivy is confident she can handle it. But her boss' return is delayed, and unexpected guests lead to an escalating and dangerous situation, leaving Ivy faced with some difficult choices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joy Hinckley
• Release date: Dec 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393816812

Joy Hinckley

Joy Hinckley is an Australian writer, director, designer and actor.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Last of the Summer Visitors

MRS FEATHERSTONEHAUGH (pronounced ‘Fanshaw’, if you please) waved an arm at me, flapping her sausage-like fingers in the direction of the house. ‘They are on the hall dresser.’ I turned to go back to the house, but she huffed impatiently. ‘Give a hand here first, you inconsiderate chit.’

Bill Hoskins and I joined forces to heave the old lady into his carriage, and got her wedged in the seat beside Miss Pearse (hereinafter referred to as ‘The Unfortunate Miss P’).  This operation left Mr Hoskins and I struggling to keep straight faces, but made Mrs Featherstonehaugh crosser than ever. She set great store by appearances, and having to be hoisted around like a sack of potatoes had done little for her sense of dignity. Breathing heavily, she now addressed me once more.

‘Whenever you’re ready, girl,’ she wheezed. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Boots crunching on the white gravel of the driveway, I ran to the house, almost colliding with my employer Mrs Butler on the verandah. She was carrying the last of the hatboxes, sewing cases, and other what-nots to be loaded into the carriage. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Gloves?’

I nodded.

‘Next to the Visitor’s Book.’ With a small roll of her eyes and a half smile, she continued down the stairs and I dashed in to the house.

The Unfortunate Miss P and Mrs Featherstonehaugh were the last of our long-stay guests. We’d had a full house and been working non-stop all season, and could now look forward to more free time, and fewer guests for shorter stays. I was looking forward to it, even though it meant that without our seasonal staff Mrs B and I were ‘it’ for all tasks pleasant and unpleasant.

On the hall stand sat the soft, kid leather gloves, where they had been carelessly flung as Mrs Featherstonehaugh stopped to write in the Visitors’ Book. I would love to own such gloves. I picked them up, but there was no time to admire them. Trotting back towards the carriage, I pushed down the mutinous thought that if Mrs Featherstonehaugh fetched and carried for herself once in a while, she wouldn’t need to be hefted around like spuds. I smiled and handed the gloves up to her.

‘Your gloves, madam.’

Mrs Featherstonehaugh grimaced. Was that an attempt at a smile? I thought about it and decided it wasn’t.

‘You’re very welcome,’ I said, causing a gasp from my employer (which I was sorry for), and shocked surprise on the face of Mrs Featherstonehaugh (which I was not sorry for). Her expression grew thunderous as she longed to berate me for daring to remind such a well-bred lady as herself about manners. But she couldn’t do it without owning up to her lack of them. Ah well, as the old saying goes, may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and after three years of visits by the old bat, I knew that any compliments in the Visitor’s Book would be overbalanced by ‘suggestions for improvement’.

I know that Hillview relies on guests like Mrs Featherstonehaugh, ones who can afford to stay for the whole summer, and hold court for luncheon, dinner, musical recital and bridge party guests from the nearby resorts and districts. But even though I had been a general servant at Hillview for three years now, I still got cross about the guests who didn’t even see servants when all was to their liking, but never failed to complain loudly and at length if any little thing was wrong. Luckily for me, Mrs B was appreciative of my hard work, and put up with my occasional lapses in subservience. Still, I couldn’t help wishing that next year Mrs Featherstonehaugh would find another guest house to torment. I doubted it, she liked it here, whatever she might write in the book

Poor Unfortunate Miss P hunched her bony shoulders even further than usual in an effort to shrink herself into the furthest corner of the carriage, to make way for Mrs Featherstone’s spreading elbows and posterior. At least Miss P would only have to put up with her for the mile to the railway station. Mrs Featherstonehaugh would be travelling first class, while Miss P would be in the second class carriage, and would not have to converse – if that’s the right word – with her all the way to Brisbane.

Miss Pearse had been with us at the suggestion of her doctor, who prescribed clean, cool mountain air to restore lungs weakened after illness. Many of our guests come here to get stronger. The thinner mountain air encourages ‘respiratory gymnastics’ apparently. Plus, it’s less humid than the coast, and getting out and exercising is easier here than down the range. But Mrs Featherstonehaugh had so dominated and monopolised nervous little Miss Pearse with her gossip and long-winded tales of ‘my days in India’ as the toast of British society, that I fear the Unfortunate Miss P went home having breathed more stale hot air than any other kind.

Mr Hoskins helped his son Tommy to secure the ladies’ luggage in Tommy’s billygoat cart. Jemmy the goat made a little snap of protest at Tommy’s breeches when he saw how many bags he had to haul. Then Mr Hoskins climbed up into the driver’s seat of the carriage, tipped his hat with a ‘Good Day’, to Mrs B, winked at me, and clicked his tongue at Bert the horse. Off they rolled down the driveway and through the wide gate. The cart brought up the rear, with Miss Pearse’s trunk balanced on top of Mrs Featherstonehaugh’s, and Tommy balanced on top of the lot. Mrs B and I both let out a great exhalation at the same time, as the last of the season’s guests disappeared round the bend.

‘Poor Bert,’ I said. ‘That’s a two-horse job if ever I saw one.’

‘Hush, Ivy, you wicked girl,’ replied Mrs B. ‘I know Mrs Featherstonehaugh can be difficult, but I feel for her. I’m sure she’s not as wealthy or influential as she makes out. If she were, she’d stay at one of the more formal guesthouses’– she paused to tuck one of my stray wispy reddish curls behind my ear – ‘with lots of oh-so-neat uniformed servants pattering about in little starched white caps, and not at our place, with me and a bedraggled and impertinent miss in attendance. She acts that way out of insecurity. And here she can play hostess for three months of the year to the best society our little district can rustle up.’

‘One day, Mrs B, I will be as nice and understanding as you, I promise.’

Mrs B smiled and gently cuffed me on the ear. ‘Well then, not yet nice one, shall we read the Visitor’s Book?’

‘We shall most certainly not, Mrs B. Not till after you’ve had a nice feet-up with a good cup of tea at least. I’ll bring you one on the side verandah, shall I?’

‘Indeed you shall,’ said Mrs B with a smile and another long sigh. ‘And after that I’m going in and loosening my stays. We’re not expecting another soul today so I for one intend to get comfortable.’

We both laughed at that and she took my arm companionably as we walked, at a gentle pace instead of a mad gallop for once, back to the house. We parted company at the front door, me to go inside, and Mrs B to continue around the verandah to sit in her favourite cane chair, from where she could take in her beloved view, the vista that gave Hillview its name. Beyond the green lawn and flower beds the hill dropped away quickly, revealing the view stretching down the valley and across to the mountains.

Of course, during the summer months, when the house was filled with guests escaping the heat of Brisbane or the suburbs of Toowoomba, the chair, and the view, belonged to them. Mrs B and I were on our pins from before sunup to after midnight most days, with little chance to rest for long. We dropped into bed almost too exhausted to sleep, and repeated the cycle a few hours later.

Hillview was popular, and rightly so. Mrs B kept a charming and refined but cheery house, and presided over such an excellent table, that during the season we would be booked out months ahead. The full-time staff of Mrs B and I would be swelled by three, and extra servants were hired as needed on a casual basis. The numbers of permanent staff had to be small, as there were months when there was not much income.

Minnie the little housemaid and Bert (no relation to the horse) the lad of all work, had finished up as full-timers for the season a couple of days ago, as Mrs B and I could easily manage the work of two guests. Yesterday afternoon Mrs Tibbet the cook had assembled a cold collation for the evening meal, packed her portmanteau, and I had helped her to carry it up to the main road to catch the Cobb and Co evening coach on its way into Toowoomba. I suspect the coach service will be discontinued soon, with so many passengers preferring the railway. Mrs Tibbet would need to be brave then, because the idea of getting into a railway carriage made her very nervous. ‘Great rowdy puthering thing,’ she told me in her Scottish accent, ‘whooshing along like nobody’s business.’

Mrs Tibbet would come back out to Hillview during the off-season to cook for receptions, weddings and the like, but mostly she would spend the winter with her sister and aged mother in their cottage a few miles away.

That left just Mrs B and myself, and Dolph Krause, our two-day-a-week shy and awkward gardener, to see Hillview through the winter months.

We had no bookings for house guests at all for the next two weeks, which meant we could scrub and polish the house from top to bottom, tend to any repairs and maintenance, and take life a little easier. Mrs B would not begin placing advertisements into the press for another month at least, to give us this break. Which is not to say that if bookings came of their own accord we would turn them away. We would fit our other chores around paying guests and luncheon parties at any time of the year. One of the nicer things to look forward to in the cooler months was weddings. They were hard work, but lovely occasions, especially if the weather held and they could be in the garden.

For now, though, there was nothing much on the books. An idea came to me as I carried the tray with its little pot and cup and saucer onto the verandah. ‘Mrs B,’ I began, ‘as we’ve no guests and no receptions and only two bookings for lunches coming up, why don’t you take the week after next to visit your aunt in Brisbane? Stay for a couple of weeks? She writes to you so often, and you’ve never had a holiday since I came to work for you three years ago.’

Her face brightened, then immediately clouded. ‘Who would manage here? With no income coming in I can’t afford to hire anyone to replace me.’

‘I would, Mrs B. I know what needs to be done. You’ll only be away a short time. I can reply to most correspondence and any that I can’t deal with can probably wait till you get back.’

‘You’re only sixteen, Ivy.’

‘Nearly seventeen. And been earning my keep and sending money home for three years. You know I’m responsible, and the neighbours are only a couple of minutes’ walk away if I need help. And...I promise not to let my smart mouth run away with me.’

‘Do you really think you could? Truly?’

‘What, manage, or keep my smart mouth shut?’

Mrs B grinned. ‘Both.’

‘You know me, Mrs B. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t.’

‘That’s true.’ Her brow crinkled as a thought came to her. ‘Wouldn’t you be frightened here all alone at night?’

‘Safe as houses, Mrs B,’ I assured her. ‘We know everybody round here, after all. I promise I won’t climb any ladders or use the axe or any such till you get back. And here’s Daisy’, I added, as Daisy the dog, a feather-tailed and feather-brained sort-of-spaniel of considerable charm (which she used to wheedle bits of cake from indulgent visitors as they took tea on the lawn, giving her a considerable rear to go with her charm) came up the stairs and flopped at Mrs B’s feet. ‘She’ll guard me from intruders’.

‘Daisy!’ she laughed, then paused. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s a big decision’.

‘I would wonder what had happened to my dear Mrs B if you didn’t think about it,’ I replied.

She stood up and hugged me tightly. ‘How was I fortunate enough to find you, Ivy?’ she said.

‘How was I fortunate enough to find you, Mrs B? Who else would put up with my cheek? Now drink up that tea before it stews, and I’ll go and see to those rooms. ’

She sighed. ‘Thank you, Ivy. I’ll be along to help in a tick’.

‘What about your tea and your beautiful view? Not to mention the stays. This afternoon will be time enough for you to get back to work.’

She smiled and settled back into her chair with another sigh, this time a happier one.

‘I could absolutely use this tea now you mention it,’ she said.

Before going back inside I went to the wash house and built up the fire under the copper. I grated the soap, filled the tub, and swooshed the soap around with the wooden posser until it was dissolved in readiness for the pile of sheets and towels. Back in the house, I went to Mrs Featherstonehaugh’s room first. The old dear had left me a final gift in the chamber pot so I tackled that first, and lifted the window to its full height to air the place out. She’d mentioned a ‘very good quality dress’ she was leaving behind for our charity box. This turned out to be a well-worn hideous old number in need of a good scrub. Sheets off the bed and towels off the washstand, then into Miss P’s room for hers. Then it was off to the washhouse with the basket of sheets and towels and Mrs F’s old frock.

As I worked I thought about my impulsive offer. I got nervous for a bit, then steadied myself with a severe talking-to. Taking care of Hillview for a week or two was nothing compared to stories I’d heard of women only a little older than me coping alone for months in the outback while their menfolk were away with cattle. They had to deal with loneliness, snakes and heat, sick babies, predatory men who had to be