Page 28 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘The other day…’ Johannes swivelled so that he faced her.‘Your father said if we win, he can pay the surgeon to fix you.What did he mean?’
Florence bit the inside of her cheek.She exhaled, and the glass fogged, turning the city beyond hazy and lost.All good things had to end.Especially for her.
‘I’m broken,’ she admitted.No point prevaricating.‘I had a fall when I was young.We were in a smaller town.Father was talking to the mayor and got distracted, and the postmaster’s son asked me if I’d like to ride his horse.It was a colt, still skittish, and it threw me.I broke in three places.A local bonesetter bandaged me, but we were a long way from home.By the time we got back to Sydney, my shoulder and knee had started to knit together wrong.There was a surgeon there who said he had trained with Lister, and he convinced my parents to let him operate, to try to fix the damage.He used wire pins and casts.He… he hadn’t done surgery like that before, only read about it.For almost a year, I was held together with wire and screws.Some things worked, but others didn’t.I hurt.A lot.My parents have found a new surgeon here in London.He has more experience, and he thinks he can help.For a fee.’
Johannes looked up but did not meet her eyes.Instead, they skimmed her body, her form.A hungry memory danced in them for a beat, then turned to pity.He was remembering them, together—she’d wager twenty pounds he was.But instead of replaying a lusty encounter, he was transforming her into her broken parts, her problem parts.He plucked at a loose thread on his knee.‘Why didn’t you tell me?I could have hurt you.’
‘I don’t owe you my pain,’ she snapped, then paused to settle her anger.It wasn’t his fault, although being angry at him still felt good.‘I didn’t tell you because I liked being young.I liked pretending my future was my own.And you didn’t hurt me.Quite’—her breath juddered as she inhaled—‘quite the opposite.’
She’d always have that, at least—the memory.When he moved into the world, when he found a woman who would keep his house, who would be strong enough to enjoy his weight in bed and give him children, she would still have the memory of that one time she’d pretended that it might have been her.
‘Tell me about the site,’ she said.She neither wanted nor needed his sympathy, and the sooner she could fling it from the cab and into the surrounding detritus of the street, the better.
He jutted his chin at the window.‘See for yourself.’
The cab eased, then rolled back with a little jerk as it came to a stop.The driver opened the door, and Johannes climbed out, then offered his hand in assistance.Florence took it, leaning on it as heavily as she needed to before stepping onto the uneven edge where road met vacant space.
‘The details for the competition are vague.’He kicked at a stone, and it rolled a little way before disappearing into a tuft of grass.‘Economical, makes a statement, solid, enduring.Within an unspecified but strict budget.’
‘Typical profiteering,’ she grumbled.‘They want a crystal palace and change from a pound.’
Johannes laughed.‘That’s what your father said.The soil changes along that section.’He pointed to the far edge of the empty block, where grass grew in uneven clumps.‘It’s softer.I don’t think it would take the weight of a large building without some additional buttressing.And then there is the problem of the footings.’
Florence walked the stretch of yard.Everyone would look at a pediment or whether an arch was crisply pointed or beautifully curved, but none of it mattered if the piles they drove into the ground did not find bedrock.And if they had to sink deep to locate stability, there’d be no money for hinges on doors, let alone for masons and artisans for stone flourishes and decorations.The success of everything depended on what went below the surface, but the assessors would only focus on what was visible above.She scuffed at the ground with the side of her boot, and the dark brown soil streaked a little.Another scrape, and the ground turned red as umber.
‘Something has been built here before.’She tapped the harder substance with her toe.A few stray slivers of clay, or maybe concrete, came loose.‘The city may have records.You may be lucky.If it is still solid, you can follow the foundations of the old building and save on the footings.Then you will free up budget for retaining walls along the water.But no wood this time.I will insist on stone or brick.’
He smirked.‘No wood in the water.Agreed.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Sheisobsessedwithyou.’
Johannes looked up from his drawing folder.His baby sister Hazel, all chubby legs and grabby hands, wiggled herself off Rosie’s small lap.She stepped around the low table, then propelled herself the short distance to Elise on the opposite sofa.He had tried to make an unnoticed escape from the chaos of Number 3 into the relative quiet of his sister’s house next door, but Hazel had spotted him in the foyer and wanted to follow.Rather than leave her behind and risk her crying and drawing the attention of all the children, he had brought her along.Elise leant down to tickle Hazel beneath the chin.Hazel gurgled into a laugh.
Rosie rubbed at her swollen side.‘So many sisters, yet you are her favourite.’
They both had so many sisters, but it was impossible not to imagine Elise as an additional one.The quiet girl and Rosie had been as thick as molasses since she’d first come to stay with her aunt.She had become a regular fixture in the Hempel household from then on, so much so that he’d carved her name into the back of one of the dining room chairs.
‘She likes me because I sneak her biscuits when her mother isn’t looking.’Elise slipped her hands under Hazel’s arms and pulled her onto her lap.‘Aunt Petunia was the same with Charlise and I.We’d come home covered in crumbs, and it would send Mother wild.’She laughed quietly, eyes misting over as she sank into the memory.Hazel gurgled and dropped back against Elise’s chest, and Elise’s laugh petered out, crackling like falling glass.
‘If you want help to try and find her…’ Rosie began.
Elise shook her head.She buried her nose in Hazel’s curls.‘I have tried.I’ve taken out advertisements in newspapers in Australia and every port along the way.Charlise doesn’t want to be found.’
How many years had it been since that Christmas?Six, or was it seven?It had been their second Christmas in the townhouse.There’d only been seven children then, and Father was still grumbling that he’d paid the deposit for Number 1 with the extra windows, but the damn bank clerk Babbage had somehow snaffled it.Johannes’s only memory of Sinclair was of a tall man using their kitchen to make ginger cordial for his mother, who had been so ill during her pregnancy with Ottile.It was only as the years progressed that he’d come to comprehend the ripples of that Christmas and what it had meant for Elise.He twisted in his seat to look out the window and across the street to the empty lot.
‘Your father bought Number 6?’he asked Elise.
‘That’s right,’ Elise said, her tone hedged with caution.
‘Who owns it now?’he asked.
Rosie shot him a hard look.Elise stroked Hazel’s curls.‘I do,’ she said softly.‘After Aunt Petunia’s intervention, she insisted Father gift it to me as my own property.He wanted it to be part of a marriage contract, but she wouldn’t budge.She said his determination to see Charlise wed to a title had done enough damage.Eventually, he relented.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’he asked.
‘Nothing.’She turned away.With one arm holding Hazel, Elise rearranged the papers that were spread before her on the table.She plucked out a sheet.‘What about Lucerne?’
