Page 10 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
Johannes shrugged.‘Truth is, I don’t know.Most of the other young architects, they aren’t like us.If they aren’t married, they’re happy to be on their own.And I… I never quite get along with them.I don’t get invited to their gatherings away from the societies.Our family’s story is so notorious that everyone knows where we came from.And I can’t help but feel they are waiting for me to make a hash of things.To be gauche.The son of the street rat, showing who he really is.If I moved away, that might help me make a break, but I’m not ashamed of us.And as much as the noise and the fuss frustrate me, I also think I’d miss everyone.I’d be going from all this’—he nodded at the laughter, the frivolity, the chaos of his family— ‘to being alone every evening.I’d return to a silent room and a cold hearth in a boarding house with other bachelors.I can’t say I’m eager for that.How did you know it was time to step out on your own?’
‘The prison guard opened the cell and said I could leave.’Phineas stood and held out his hand, which Hazel grasped.‘My path through life is not likely to give you any guidance on how to make yours.But neither is the story of your parents, nor that of anyone you know.These are different times, and family Hempel comes from a different place than most.I am sorry not to offer more, but you’re going to have to forge your own path.’
Chapter Five
Florencetappedatthebuckle on the side of Mr Hempel’s folder as the cab slowed its approach.Had he made it himself?It had that homemade roughness to it while also displaying a fair amount of attention and skill.Not quite the look of a master, but not that of a student either.Like the embroidery on the edge of his waistcoat, the tan leather notebook carried an air of quiet precision.
Florence flexed her gloved fingers against the cold.The folder had been sewn from good leather, free of imperfections.A shiny brass clip held it closed, and the initials of his name—JLH—were stamped into the bottom corner with a little flourish on either side.Florence shot a glance out of the cab, as if someone might be watching her, and stripped off a glove to outline each fluid letter.What might the L stand for?Elegant and firm, steadfast and skilfully crafted, his practical folder with its delicate ornamentation was so much like him.
No man had ever looked at her that way before.Delightfully awkward, tongue-tied, even dotingly.In Australia, most men eyed a woman the same way they assessed a mare or a cow.They appraised her for her ability to work, and then to bear children.She, of course, had been found wanting on the former, which threw her ability to do the latter into doubt.So when George had made his offer, she’d been so overwhelmed with gratitude she’d immediately said yes.She’d never been one to catch a man’s eye.But this afternoon, as she trawled through her other interactions with Johannes and laid them down, one memory at a time, she could not deny the truth—her father’s young assistantlikedher.His gaze from across the room was not that of an older man who sought a union for a helpful business connection or to advance his prospects.It was a springtime look, naïve and as fragile as a bud.Would Johannes wish to court her?Would he write letters?Maybe he’d compose poems and most of them would be terrible, but some of them might be wonderful.Would he steal a kiss and then apologise?Would she be courted like a maid?Could she be young for once, without the weight of the future on her conscience?
Florence swallowed a flutter and pushed down the burst of curious heat that flared in her stomach.She was simply returning his folder.Nothing more.Just as she’d told her mother, she was setting out to take in fresh air and familiarise herself with the layout of the city.And in a way, she was.She just happened to be familiarising herself with the part of town where her father’s assistant lived.Pure coincidence.
Absolutely nothing more.
After one last stroke of the leather, Florence slipped her glove back on.The cab ground to a halt, and she lurched forward with the motion.The driver leapt from the seat and pulled the door open.Florence leant forward to look out into the street.
‘Are you certain this is the right address?Three Honeysuckle Street?’
‘Certain, ma’am.‘Tis the only Honeysuckle Street in all of London.’He pointed towards a cast-iron street sign fixed to a wall.‘Says so right there, if you don’t believe me.’He held out his palm.‘It’s extra if you’d like me to wait.’
Florence pulled a coin from her purse and dropped it into his palm.She climbed out of the carriage and stepped onto the footpath with a little jolt.Before her, a bright red door, the same shade as burnt skin or a late summer apple, rose at the top of a short set of stairs.The low sun dusted a layer of gold over everything, and a brass number 3 shone matte in the afternoon light.Florence crossed the path to stand at the bottom of the stairs.She had to steady herself on the cast-iron fence to peer up at the full height of the building.One, two, three, four,fivestories, plus a basement below the stairs.Clean white stucco fronted with gleaming windows and paint thick with care and pride.A sister married to a bank clerk, Johannes working as an assistant… she’d expected more austere accommodation.Florence turned to take in the rest of the street.A Palladian villa, a red brick townhouse, and in the distance, sandstone hiding amidst parklands, secured behind a tall fence.A pair of robins hopped between bare branches, chittering to one another before they took wing to a tree further away.
He must be leasing a room.There was no other explanation.
Florence lifted her skirt as she made her slow ascent to the red door.The knocker clapped heavy against the wood, the brassy ring echoing into the winter stillness, piercing the cold air.
The door opened.Florence blinked down at the small boy who stood at the entrance.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said.‘Do I know you?’
‘I don’t believe so.I’m Mrs Murray.I’m looking for Mr Hempel.’
‘Which one?’The child looked over his shoulder.He might have been ten or eleven, with a thin frame, gangly from fast-growing bones and too much activity.Despite his lean build, he had full cheeks and happy freckles.‘Father isn’t home yet, if you are after that Mr Hempel.And Grandpa doesn’t live here, so I don’t think you are looking for him, although he is here a lot, and he’s also a Mr Hempel.And Elliot has just gone to the park, if you wanted that Mr Hempel.And it can’t be me because I’m only eleven and we don’t know each other.My name is Amadeus.’He extended his hand, which she automatically shook.‘Everyone calls me Ammie.There’s also Johannes.He’s here, and he’s a Mr Hempel, too.’
‘Johannes!’Florence held up the folder.‘I am looking forthatMr Hempel.’
‘He’s working in the courtyard.Follow me.’And the child spun on his heel and disappeared through the side door.
Florence hesitated at the threshold.Her mother’s missives on London’s expectations on behaviour and all those books on etiquette she’d made Florence read on the voyage had all warned against overt familiarity.But most of Mother’s books had been thirty years old, relics she had carted across the ocean with her when she’d left the island, only to haul them back.
‘Are you coming?’Amadeus stuck his head around the corner.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To see Johannes.Isn’t that what you wanted?’
Florence stomped her boots and stepped inside.‘Shouldn’t you be taking me to a sitting room?Or a parlour?’
The boy appeared again, now frowning.‘Johannes isn’t in the sitting room.He’s outside.And the sitting room is upstairs, and if I took you there, I’d have to show you a seat and then come back down to fetch him, and he never listens, so I’d have to shout, and then he’d grumble, and I’d rather go out to the park to play with Nova before it gets too dark.’And he spun on his heel and strode out of sight.
There was a logic she could not argue with.Most likely, her mother would also be lost for words.Lest she be a stranger standing in the middle of a house, Florence followed the young Ammie through the door, then down the hallway and past a wide staircase of dark wood and carpet with scuffed edges.Past walls papered in lemon yellow and clogged with photographs and prints that hung frame to frame, none of them straight.Despite its dishevelled edges, the house breathed warmly with energy and pride.Down another short length of hall they went, before they emerged into the dining room.
The longest dining table Florence had ever seen filled almost the entire space, surrounded by wooden chairs.All of them were identical, with solid backs and curved tops, except that each chair had a different pattern carved into its wooden frame.Some had scrolls, others flowers, one a boat, and yet another, stars.Central to each arch, in a script so fine it appeared painted by brush or drawn in pen instead of chiselled, was a word… no, a name.Ottile, Nova, Beatrice, Johannes…
‘Johannes made them,’ Amadeus volunteered, pushing down the handle of a door on the far side of the room.‘He didn’t make the chairs.Mama bought them from a catalogue, but he carved everyone’s names into the backs.Although sometimes they are a bit of a bother.Rosie doesn’t live here anymore, but she still has a chair, and when people come to visit, they don’t always know where to sit because they don’t have their own chair.And Thaddeus is always stealing my chair because he can’t read yet and he likes my pictures better.’He shoved the door open.‘Johannes!Some lady has come to call!’The boy called Amadeus turned back to her.‘Pleased to meet you, Miss… Miss Lady.’And with a hurried wave, the child sped from the room.
Whatever the propriety of coming to call on her father’s employee might be, this went far beyond it.Her mother would have clutched her chest, clicked her tongue, and recited that same mantra,the rules are more rigid here.Florence waited, ears straining for some hint of movement that might be Mr Johannes Hempel coming to see her to a proper room… but no stomping boots or call of greeting came.Only a steady scratch and an occasional puff of breath echoed from beyond the door.
