Beneath this was a report on a signal box at Granville that had been broken into during the night. Tools and equipment had been removed, the place set on fire. Constables had discovered poles carefully laid across the railway tracks. They had been removed before the first train of the morning came through or it would certainly have been wrecked. Youths were blamed, though no one had been apprehended or charged. There had been other, similar incidents in recent weeks—whether copycat, the same perpetrators or quite unconnected, the newspaper did not speculate—but it clearly implied the Federation referendum was the catalyst. It was only a matter of time, it warned, until catastrophe.

Eleanor put the newspaper down. Who would do such a thing? There seemed nothing to be gained by it except destruction and, perhaps, death. Did men care so much about the referendum? No doubt, if you had a hand in your nation’s affairs, you did care. As a woman Eleanor had no hand in it. She did see that it had cast a wedge between them, she and Alasdair. For him the referendum, this idea of Federation, was everything. For her it was … a wedge.

But that was to pretend it was Federation that had caused this situation between them.

She took off her spectacles and sat for a time looking about the room. She had never sat at this end of the table before, had never seen the room from this angle. Everything was slightly different. It would be warmer at this end of the table, for the fireplace was at one’s back. One could no longer see the ormolu clock on the mantel or the candlesticks on either side of the clock or, above the fireplace, the William Strutt painting of terrified men and animals fleeing a bushfire. Instead, one faced the mahogany sideboard and the giant fern in its brass pot behind the doorway and the Charles Conder landscape of bathers enjoying Mentone Beach. The view from the window, too, was quite different. One could no longer see the road winding its way uphill or the frangipani tree outside the neighbouring house, but one could view the bay, distantly, and the sunlight twinkling on the water. It was quite different. And she preferred the Conder, she decided. Why should one always be staring at terrified men and animals and not at elegant ladies with parasols at a beach?

The note still held tightly in her hand.

Today then.

The door opened and Alice, as though astonished at the sight of her mistress seated at the master’s end of the table, stood in the doorway, quite motionless.