15 August 1959
What Lucien did not know, when he begged her not to leave, was that Jean had in fact driven herself to his residence on Friday, and fully intended to drive herself home. The old madam, Mrs. Harker, had been in possession of a positively ancient truck that passed to Jean along with the pub, and it was still more than serviceable enough to sneak Jean from the Lock and Key to Lucien's fine house on Mycroft Avenue and take her home again. She had parked it well away from his home, of course, not wanting anyone to notice the unfamiliar vehicle parked on the Doctor's drive, and as soon as the door closed behind her she made her way there at once, stowing her little bag on the seat beside her and firing up the ancient engine.
Jean did not weep, as she drove slowly home. Her heart was not racing, and her mind was not cursing the cruel turns of fate that had brought her to this point. What she felt, in truth, was nothing. Her very soul seemed strangely numb, as the familiar sights of Ballarat swam slowly by her window,
She had known for weeks now that she must put an end to her dalliance with Lucien. She had known when she turned up on his doorstep on Friday evening that she meant to leave him. Each time his lips had dragged across her hand she had been whispering farewell to him, silently, etching his face, his kiss, the warmth of his hands into her memory, knowing it must be the last time they came together. Their falling out was the inevitable conclusion of everything that had come before, but she had not expected things to happen quite like this, and her heart could not yet fathom the blow that had been dealt to her.
Though Lucien had seemed flabbergasted by the sudden change in her demeanor towards him the truth was that as they lay together in his bed, as he spoke his mind so carelessly, several terrible realizations had crashed into Jean all at once, and coalesced into a single, towering certainty. The first blow had come when Lucien suggested he might leave Ballarat behind were it not for her; though he had smiled at her softly as he said it Jean had been horrified at the very prospect. That Lucien should be so willing to continue living in a place he did not want to be, a place where he was alone and lonesome, Matthew Lawson his only friend, left her wracked with an emotion that felt an awful lot like guilt. It spoke to the hopes he harbored for the future, she thought, hopes she had gone to his home on Friday intent on dashing. Perhaps she intrigued him, delighted him, sheltered him within the warmth of her body, and in that shelter she gave him cause to linger, but there was no more Jean could give him, and she was not certain he wanted more, in any case. He had spoken of how easily he could leave, how he could perhaps enjoy himself elsewhere, London, even, and Jean had been overcome with the thought that he should go. He should leave, should go out into the world, should go somewhere beautiful and cultured, should go and find himself a woman who could be with him, truly, could give him a home and her heart and everything he wanted. It wouldn't be right, she thought, to keep him chained to Ballarat, grasping for a dream that could never be realized.
The second blow had come only moments later, when he had so blithely suggested that Jean take Alderton to bed. Though he had been contrite he had not ever actually retracted his suggestion. He had apologized for wounding her pride, but had continued to insist that his plan was the only way. That Jean sleeping with that man was the only way to give Lucien what he wanted. And Jean's heart had swung from guilty to enraged in a moment.
There could be no clearer sign, she thought, of his true feelings for her. Yes, perhaps he cared for her, thought he loved her as he had said, but Jean was certain it was no more than fascination he felt for her. He was reckless, and impulsive, and had very little warmth in his life, and it was not so very shocking that he should become so besotted with her, that he should stay in Ballarat just for the opportunity it provided him to spend more time in her company. But whether he thought he loved her or not, when it came down to it Lucien had proven that when he looked at her he saw a whore, same as all the rest. His casual suggestion had been dripping with the implication that it was no great sacrifice, for Jean to give her body to any man, even one as vile as Derek Alderton, that she did so routinely and so cavalierly that he had expected no protest from her. To him she was a means to an end, and nothing more.
And so it had, in the end, been remarkably easy to leave him. Convinced that it would be for the best if Lucien left Ballarat for good, convinced he could not love her truly, or even if he did that they had no hope of a future forever, convinced that he was the same as all the rest, convinced that so long as the sex was enjoyable she'd keep his interest but lose him as soon as he grew bored of her, she had lifted her chin, and marched smartly from the house. There could be no doubt, she thought now, that this was how things ought to be. She had done the right thing.
And yet no sense of righteousness filled her now, as the fervor of their final conversation in his home faded into shadow. There was no relief, no resignation. Her heart felt oddly frozen, as if she could not quite yet grasp the enormity of what she had just done, as if in an effort to hide from the inevitable pain of it she had walled him off entirely. There were a dozen reasons, two dozen, a hundred, why she should never speak to Lucien Blake again, and yet...the reasoning of her mind had so often been defeated by the longing of her heart in the past. She had told herself, time and time again, that he could not love her truly, and yet each time he had touched her she had felt...she had felt loved, however briefly, for however long it took for the euphoria of his presence to fade and the old worries to resurface.
At long last, her heart had lost the war, and she felt as if it might not ever beat again.
But life soldiers on, no matter the unbearable weight of grief, and Jean's old truck trundled into the carpark behind the pub soon enough. It was early, yet; some of the girls might be eating their supper already, preparing for the Saturday night rush. Jean could go into the dining room and sit among her girls, see their smiles and listen to their gentle laughter, and be comforted by them; for a moment she considered it, but then she remembered that she was not due back until the following morning, and they would no doubt be full of questions. It would be better, Jean thought, to take some time to herself, some time to rest, to let the mark of Lucien's lips against her neck fade, before she faced them.
And so she entered the pub through the back door; it was locked as ever, but as lady of the house Jean had a key, and it was no difficult thing to slip herself up the back stairs unnoticed. Covering the distance from the stairs to her bedroom proved trickier; this level was a veritable warren of doors, and she had gone only a little ways when one of those doors opened, and Maureen stepped into view.
"Mrs. Beazley!" she cried, clearly shocked to find Jean in the corridor. "Is everything all right? I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."
Is everything all right? Jean thought faintly. Technically, she supposed it was. She had her home, and her health, and her girls. She had a plan to deal with Derek Alderton if and when he returned. She had done what she had known she must and ended things with Lucien, albeit somewhat ahead of schedule. Everything was exactly as it should have been. Why then, she wondered, did she feel as if a great, yawning chasm had opened up within her, as if she were tumbling into shadow?
"Quite all right," she forced herself to say, reaching out to pat Maureen gently on the arm.
"No," Maureen said slowly, her eyes searching Jean's face. "Something's happened. Will you tell me, Mrs. Beazley?"
That girl really is too clever for her own good, Jean thought sadly. Nothing ever got by Maureen; her clear bright eyes saw everything and everyone, and never missed a trick.
"I won't be seeing Doctor Blake again," Jean answered. There was no point in hiding it; Maureen would find out the truth soon enough, and it seemed the most delicate way to answer all of her questions at once, without having to endure a barrage of them. A world of pain was captured within that one sentence; Jean would not be seeing Lucien again, for he had wounded her, had proven himself to be a man like all the rest, had convinced her that no one, not even a handsome doctor with gentle hands, would ever see her as anything other than what she was, what she had been for so long now. It was not Jean's lot in life to be a wife again, to have a garden and a quiet kitchen and a piece of hope. She had chosen, long ago, and some choices, once made, could not be undone.
"Oh, Jean," Maureen said softly, and Jean smiled, to hear the girl call her by her given name. It happened so rarely; Jean preferred to maintain a certain level of decorum, and the young ladies who lived beneath her roof followed her rules and always called her Mrs. Beazley, kept their rooms clean and remembered their manners, but Maureen had slipped, just now, and Jean felt a sudden rush of fondness for her as a result. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Right now I think I want a bath, and perhaps a little rest," Jean answered. "I will come down, later. No sense in you wasting the night watching if you don't want to."
"No," Maureen said, shaking her head. "You stay up here. You've earned a night off. Go and have your bath and I'll bring you up something to eat, and a nice pot of tea."
"Really, Maureen, you don't have to-"
"I insist," Maureen answered, giving Jean a cheeky grin and nudging her gently. "Go on, then. I'll be back soon."
It was not often that Jean found herself on the receiving end of someone else's mothering, but she knew when she'd been beaten, and so she only nodded, and made her way down the corridor to her own room. The door closed behind her and she dropped her bag right there at her feet, looking out across the parlor. Her sons had grown from children to teenagers here in this place; in those days Jean had kept a little bed for herself in the parlor, and had divided the bedroom so that Jack and young Christopher might share it. They used to sit together on an old leather sofa by the fireplace on cold winter evenings, playing pontoon and laughing. It seemed a lifetime ago; Jack had been sent off to Melbourne by Doug Ashby the same year young Christopher joined the army, and Jean had lost both her boys at once. These rooms, which had once been full of the sound of their calling voices, had fallen silent. As they were silent now; Jean was alone, and she felt the weight of that solitude settle heavily on her shoulders.
A bath, she reminded herself, and so right there and then she began to unbutton her blouse, and as she crossed the distance from the doorway to her private bath she slowly shed her clothes, until at last she was naked and shivering, listening to the sound of the water running, trying not to remember the way it had felt, the night before, to lie in the warmth of Lucien's bathtub with his chest warm at her back, his arms around her. Better to forget such things, she thought. Better not to hope, to dream, to wish, for each time she did, she found only disappointment.