‘Ah, there we are, right back to the very reason why I’ve come to see you and your daughter, madam.’
Meg’s bottom lip suddenly starts to quiver. ‘Can you imagine how sad that makes us, Mr Runche? Joey is my child, I love him more dearly than my life. Oh, how very much I wish I could share him with Jessie, with his auntie,’ she sobs softly.
Hester is suddenly aware that she’s not taken Richard Runche seriously enough and that Meg sees the threat posed by the dirty man in front of them much more clearly than she has. She curses herself inwardly for having lost her touch. Meg, so far, is handling the situation far better than she. Hester resumes her seat and silently takes up her cup of tea.
‘Ah, I’m so glad you feel this way about your sister, Mrs Thomas. I believe she has written to you both on several occasions — seven to be precise — to beg you to agree to her release. You did not respond to any of those letters. Why is that?’
‘I imagine that should be obvious,’ Hester says, her voice now greatly mollified. ‘We were naturally afraid she might harm the child, harm Meg’s baby.’
‘I believe she told you in the letters that she would first have to be declared sane by three separate doctors, experts. And that only after they had all agreed did she need your permission and custodial care for a period of six months. Doesn’t that suggest that the baby would have been quite safe?’
‘Yes, well, Mother and I agreed we couldn’t take the chance,’ Meg sniffs tearfully.
‘The doctors might be wrong,’ Hester says, then bites her lip, knowing what Runche will say next.
‘Doctors wrong? Three separate doctors? Experts in their field? Does it not occur to you that the one doctor who Jessica told you examined her in the first place might have been wrong?’ He looks at Hester. ‘Yet you were perfectly willing to allow him to commit her, to sign the papers involved, despite the fact that Jessica told you in her letters that he’d been drinking and was clearly overworked. One drunken, overworked doctor is right to commit Jessica but three sober experts may be wrong? Is that it?
‘You never once inquired after Jessica’s welfare, in fact you made no attempt whatsoever to contact her. You were quite happy to allow her to rot forever in that ghastly place. Is this really the act of a loving mother and a caring sister who laments the absence of a kind and loving aunt for the baby she claims as her own?’ Hester’s tea cup rattles as she places it down on the table again. ‘I think you’ve said quite enough, Mr Runche. We shall contact our own lawyer.’ She raises one eyebrow slightly. ‘Perhaps you know of Major General Septimus Cunningham-Thomas, who is also a noted Sydney barrister?’
Richard Runche leans back and chuckles. ‘A fine advocate, madam. None better in both war and peace. Perhaps we can show him this?’ The barrister puts his hand into his jacket pocket and withdraws the little Chinese silk baby dress.
Both women give an involuntary gasp. ‘Ah, you’ve seen it before. Pretty little dress, isn’t it? Mary Simpson liked it when she gave it to Jessica for her child. I believe some sixteen of what she refers to as “aunties” went shopping for this little dress.’
‘So?’ Meg turns to Hester. ‘Mother and I have never seen that dress.’
‘All the better, my dear. The testimony from Mary Simpson and her aunties will then bear out the truth that, unbeknownst to you, the dress was bought for Jessica’s baby.’
‘They’re blacks, the court would take no notice, not against the word of two white women,’ Hester snorts. ‘It’s their word against ours.’
‘A very sound point, Mrs Bergman. I admit, the courts are somewhat biased against our indigenous people.’ He pauses. ‘But I don’t think Mr George Thomas, your late husband’s father, will see it quite your way. And I dare say there will be others. There is nothing like a questionable will attached to a large inheritance to bring relatives out of the woodwork. In my experience, where money is concerned, families have a nasty habit of ... well, turning thoroughly horrid to each other.’
‘You don’t know what was in Jack’s will, Mr Runche.’
‘Oh, but I do, madam. The will has been published for probate. I am aware that a great deal of money and property is held in trust for the son of the late Jack Thomas. I imagine your late husband’s uncle, Major General Septimus Cunningham-Thomas, will be a very interested party should it be suggested that Joseph “Joey” Thomas is not legitimately his nephew’s son. What do you think?’
Meg suddenly rises and brings her hands up to her face and £lees from the verandah sobbing, leaving Hester with Richard Runche. Meg’s previous confid
ence has dissolved and she has reverted to her old panicky self. Hester is back in control, though now she is more cautious with the scruffy man seated in the wicker chair, nibbling on an oatmeal biscuit.
‘What is it you want, Mr Runche?’ she asks.
‘A very sensible question, Mrs Bergman, and the answer may well be less than you might suppose.’
‘I must warn you, Mr Runche, that we will fight for my daughter’s child, if it costs us every penny we’ve got.’ Hester can’t help herself and she realises once again that she has overstepped the mark with this sharp man, who seems to know what she is thinking.
‘Well then we are agreed, madam. I too shall fight for your daughter Jessica’s child with all the sensibility at my command.’ He pauses and his voice grows hard. ‘Unless we stop this nonsense.’ He shrugs and then in a perfectly modulated voice says, ‘Please, madam, no more empty threats. I think we should sit down and talk sensibly, don’t you?’
‘Mr Runche, Joey is the light of our lives. Please, I beg you, if some terrible miscarriage of justice should take place and you are skilful enough to take Meg’s precious child from her, how do you imagine the boy will fare in Jessica’s care? Do you for one moment think she can give him the advantages he will enjoy as my eldest daughter’s rightful child?’
‘Mrs Bergman, I am a bachelor, but I do know that Jessica is a young woman of outstanding character. She would love her child and care for it with all her heart and soul. While the boy may not enjoy the privileges your daughter Meg may bestow on him, I do have some experience of a privileged upbringing without love and I can tell you that a mother’s love is a fortune far greater than any other. Do not for one moment suppose that Jessica would disadvantage the boy in this regard.’ ‘Yes, well, we shall never find out,’ Hester says crisply. ‘He is not her child and we have a birth certificate to prove it.’
‘Oh dear, I see that you persist, madam. And I have a little silk dress and the evidence of seventeen people.’ ‘Aboriginals, itinerant blacks,’ Hester snaps. Richard Runche KC smiles and in a soft, reasonable voice says, ‘Well, let me tell you how I might go about the case, Mrs Bergman. That is, of course, if the Thomas family don’t pre-empt me, with Uncle Septimus and your daughter’s late husband’s father, George Thomas, leading the charge.
‘I will attempt, of course, to present all the salient facts, much as I have done to you today. I will go about discrediting your character and that of your eldest daughter. We have seen from your response to Jessica’s seven letters how easy this might be to do.’
‘Oh, but we shall deny that we ever received any letters,’ Hester says smugly.
‘Then you are unaware that it is standard practice for a copy to be made of every letter sent from a lunatic asylum?’ the lawyer lies. Pausing meaningfully, he then continues, ‘I am sure we will find other instances as well, all of which indicate a cruel indifference to your younger daughter’s suffering.’ He now holds up the little silk dress. ‘I would use this and the evidence of the aunties and of Mary Simpson.’