was a magnificent, double-storeyed building, the finest Caro had seen so far in Dunedin. Her fears that she would find Aunt Charlotte starving in a cobwebby attic somewhere began to evaporate. The last letter from here to Caro’s mother had been posted only three months before, and if Aunt Charlotte could afford to board here, she must be reasonably in funds.
Caro gave a wide berth to the entrance to the public bar—although it was only mid-morning, there sounded as if there were already a number of noisy patrons inside—and pushed open one of the big front doors.
Very nice. She put her bag on the ground and looked around in approval. The entry was most imposing, if very cold, being paved and colonnaded in pale grey marble. Carved kauri staircases swept discreetly up on either side, almost obscured by rich velvet drapes. Immediately in front of her, panelled doors stood ajar, giving a glimpse of tables set with heavy damask and sparkling silver. It was as impressive as any of Sydney’s grand hotels, with only the underlying smell of recently sawn wood betraying its newness.
‘Can I help you, miss?’
Caro turned to the thin, neat-looking man behind the reception desk with a smile. ‘I hope so, sir. I’m looking for Mrs Wilks. Mrs Jonas Wilks. I understand she was a guest here some months ago. Is she still here?’
The man cleared his throat. ‘Indeed, miss.’ She was subjected to a politely swift scrutiny. ‘May I tell her who is calling?’
Caro hesitated. She had thought long and hard about this situation, and had decided that a little vagueness might initially be desirable. After all, what if Aunt Charlotte felt the same about Caro’s family as Caro’s father did about Aunt Charlotte?
‘I’m a relative,’ she said warmly. Then, as the clerk hesitated, she smiled encouragingly. ‘I know she’ll want to see me.’
He disappeared up one of the great staircases, his shoes noiseless on the thick carpet, and she sat down to wait on one of the elegant chairs placed between the aspidistras around the foyer. Despite her care, her walking shoes were covered with a light layer of wet mud, and she glared at them in irritation. They and a pair of boots were the only footwear she had now. At home, in her closet, stood rows of boots and shoes and slippers. And as for her dresses—she thought with regret of the wardrobe she had been forced to leave behind her. While it had seemed a good idea at the time to run away from home virtually empty-handed, to show her father that she didn’t need anything from him to stand on her own two feet, it was now proving to be very tiresome managing with a single change of clothes. She sincerely hoped that her aunt wouldn’t mind her shabby appearance. Caro always liked to make a good impression.
She started as she realised that the clerk was standing beside her. Waves of disapproval were almost tangibly emanating from him, and she wondered what she could possibly have done to have earned his censure.
‘This way, miss,’ he said abruptly. ‘You can leave your bag behind the reception desk.’
She followed him up the staircase and along a wide hallway. Her mittened hands were trembling slightly and she clasped them together tightly in front of her waist. The clerk rapped quietly on a door and stood back to admit her.
The hotel room was large, with long windows that let in what winter light there was. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, illuminating a clutter of silver-topped bottles and jars on the dressing table. The air was scented with an odd, but not unpleasant, mix of rosewater and tobacco. Clothes and shoes were flung carelessly over the big bed and on the floor, as if someone had simply stepped out of them and left them lying there. Caro bent and picked up a dress that had impeded the opening of the door. The gentle scent of roses escaped from its folds of soft lace as she smoothed it out and looked around the room for the owner. The room, for all its mess, was charming and utterly feminine.
‘Mrs Wilks?’
There was reluctant movement under the pile of clothing and linen on the bed.
‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice asked croakily. She sounded cross, too, and it only then occurred to Caro that there would be only one reason why someone would still be in bed in the middle of the day.
‘I’m sorry if you’re not well, Mrs Wilks.’ Caro backed towards the door. ‘I’ll call later.’
The bedclothes were pushed back and a scowling face appeared. Caro’s mouth dropped open. For a few seconds it looked exactly as if her mother were lying there, blinking sleepily at her, except that her mother’s hair was red, not yellow, and her mother’s nightgowns were considerably more modest than her aunt’s. Then Mrs Wilks propped herself up on one elbow and Caro swiftly averted her eyes. Her aunt’s nightgown was not immodest, it was non-existent.
‘You,’ her aunt said flatly after a moment, ‘have to be one of Ben’s children.’
‘I’m Caroline,’ Caro said carefully. ‘The eldest.’
‘Mmm.’ Her aunt eyed her balefully. ‘So what are you doing here? I suppose it’s too much to hope that your father has at last decided to act like a human being and apologise for everything he’s done to me?’
This was much, much worse than Caro had dared dread. She took a deep breath and said somewhat shakily, ‘I don’t know, Mrs Wilks. He…he doesn’t know I’m here…’
‘Really?’ Her aunt sat bolt upright and again Caro had to avert her eyes. ‘You mean you’ve run away from home?’
‘Yes…’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because…because my father is unreasonable and unfair and…and…’ Her voice gave out through a combination of nerves and sudden, unexpected homesickness. There was a rustle of silk as her aunt mercifully pulled on a pink gown and then enveloped her in a soft, rose-scented hug.
‘You poor darling. He’s a brute of a man, I know. An unfeeling, callous bastard! Oh, what you and my poor sister must have had to put up with all these years…’
This was not strictly fair, but as Caro carefully extracted herself to say so, her aunt smiled at her with all the charm that had seen her through forty-four years and hundreds of men, and Caro felt herself melt into an adoring puddle. With her long, tousled hair tumbling over her pale-blue silk dressing-gown, and her eyes glowing with warm sympathy, her aunt looked like just like an exotic version of her beloved mother. Only the lines of experience and worldliness around Charlotte’s eyes and mouth were different, giving her a wistful, rather vulnerable look.
Charlotte watched the awestruck look on her niece’s face with satisfaction.
‘It’s lovely to meet you at last, Caroline.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Wilks…’
‘Aunt Charlotte, please, darling!’ She glanced swiftly over her shoulder at what looked to be a dressing-room door, and added, ‘Now, why don’t you go and tell Oliver downstairs that you want something hot to drink—your poor face is frozen!—and I’ll get dressed. Just give me half an hour, hmmm?’
Out in the hallway again, Caro hesitated. Who was Oliver? She raised her hand to knock on the door, but the sound of murmuring voices from inside her aunt’s bedroom made her pause. Perhaps her aunt was given to talking to herself. Caro shrugged her shoulders and went back downstairs.
The man who had first greeted her looked up from the papers on the registration desk.
