The Plantation - Di Morrissey [33]
Margaret turned to find Ho smiling at her expectantly. ‘Yes, please. We call it pawpaw at home, and I love it. And more tea, please.’
After eating breakfast, Margaret returned to the guest-room to fetch her sunhat and found that her bed had been made and that everything had been tidied and her suitcase repacked.
She decided to explore the house before heading into the garden. There was a formal lounge room and a bar room hung with some photographs of cricket teams. The room led to a dining room, with a teak dining setting and beside it was another room, which looked to be Eugene’s office. On its walls were the stuffed heads of various animals, including boars and deer. Further down the corridor was the master bedroom with a small dressing room beside it. To one side of the shaded verandah was a sleep-out, which was clearly used for casual accommodation. Behind the dining room Margaret could see a small detached building. When she reached it she discovered it was the kitchen. It contained a large wood-fired stove, a long wooden table and a sink, as well as a large pantry. A Chinese man dressed in cotton pants and a loose singlet was chopping vegetables on a heavy wooden block. He looked up in surprise as Margaret entered. Suddenly, Kim appeared from what appeared to be the laundry and the servants’ quarters.
‘Sorry, mem. You want something? I get,’ said Kim, ushering Margaret from what was clearly the servants’ domain.
‘No, thank you. I was just looking for the way to the garden.’
‘I show. Follow me.’ Kim showed her the door leading into the back garden.
‘Thank you.’ Margaret wandered across the grass to a fenced area where there were colourful shrubs, two large flowering trees, several pawpaw trees and a kitchen garden. What caught her attention were some stakes tied to a fence. These supported huge stands of flame and coral coloured miniature orchids. Winifred would have admired them as she had several orchids in pots that she prized and which she nurtured carefully. These orchids, however, looked to be growing untended and in great profusion.
The kitchen and the servants’ quarters were screened from the house and garden by a bamboo fence. Through the fence she could see a metal washing tub, several pails, a large pottery pitcher and a rough outdoor fireplace with a large shallow pan on top, like she’d seen the hawkers use. There were several rope chairs and two tiny rooms which she thought must house some of the domestic staff. Washing was hanging on a rope line. Margaret doubted if this was the sort of place where a mem would spend any time.
She turned away and walked around the house to the front driveway where Eugene’s black Oldsmobile was parked beneath the portico of plastered stone pillars supporting a tiled roof, covered in a rampant flowering vine. The exterior of the house was high, and its timber and stone gave it a stately appearance.
Lush plants grew under the side of the portico. The driveway leading to the house wound around a small circular garden before joining a narrow dirt road. There was no fence, front gate or demarcation between the house and the red laterite road lined on either side by palm trees. In the distance she could see thickly forested hills. As Margaret turned down the road she saw, for the first time, a section of young rubber trees.
An Indian who had been tending the garden stood and gave her a swift salute. ‘Memsahib require car?’
‘No, thank you. I’m just walking.’
He shook his head from side to side. ‘No good memsahib walk. Very hot. Many snakes.’
‘Snakes? Oh, I see. Thank you.’ She turned back towards the house.
The gardener crouched back down to the small border of flowers.
Margaret sat on the verandah and fanned herself. All the staff had asked if they could help her and they had been very respectful. Margaret was enchanted. Clearly while Charlotte Elliott was away, Margaret was the ‘boss mem’. No one at home in Brisbane would ever imagine living with so many servants.
She jumped up as she heard Roland’s Bedford truck returning.