Elianne Read Free Page B

the others offered far more basic accommodation than those of South Mill Row, which were reserved for the permanently employed and most valuable of workers. Indeed, the hierarchy of Elianne could be immediately detected in the architecture of the housing allotted to its employees. To the north of the mill were the single men’s barracks, to the east and the west the rows of rudimentary cottages reserved for married workers, and then there was South Mill Row. After that there followed a further distinctly upwards curve, for the homes allotted to Elianne’s senior staff were a different matter altogether. There were at least a half a dozen of them dotted about the estate, gracious affairs of striking design: stilted wooden, Queensland-style houses with broad verandahs, perfectly suited to the climate.
    None, however, was as grand as Durham House. Always referred to simply as The Big House, the Durham family home was nothing short of magnificent. The Big House appeared three stories high, but it wasn’t really, this was just an illusion. The attractive white-painted lattice work flanking the broad stairs that led up to its first-floor verandah masked only storage space and a laundry, for this house too stood very tall on its stilts. Its elevation gained impressive views on all sides both of the river a quarter of a mile away and also of the plantation. From the balconies of The Big House the cane trains could be regularly observed during the crushing season, even at night, lights gleaming in the distance, feeding the hungry mill the hundred and fifty tons of cane it devoured every hour.
    Painted white with railings of green, and surrounded on all sides by wooden verandahs and upper-storey balconies, the house lounged in its landscaped gardens and tennis courts like an indolent giant. It was too huge and too opulent to be elegant, but also too beautiful to be crass, the finishing touches of oak doors and wooden-framed French windows saving it from even the harshest of critics. Hilda Durham had seen to that.
    Stan the Man had had the house designed along the lines of the original Elianne House, built by his grandfather in 1890, which, since the death of old Big Jim Durham twelve years previously, had served as home to Ivan Krantz and his family. Ivan was the estate’s managing accountant and company secretary. The only adjustment Stan had made to the original design of the house, or so he’d said at the time, was to quadruple the size of the place and add another storey with balconies.
    ‘The same only bigger,’ he’d assured his wife shortly before Neil was born. Hilda had loved the old house. In fact, she’d loved Elianne House far more than the modern residence Stan had had specially built as their marital home. ‘We’ll need the extra space with family on the way,’ he’d insisted, when she’d queried whether the size he envisaged might be a little vulgar, ‘and of course there are always the visitors. We must be able to accommodate our visitors in style. They expect it my dear, just as they did in Big Jim’s time.’
    It had been Hilda who had had the final say, however, particularly with regard to the interior. The grand oak staircase leading to the upper floor had become a principal feature, as had the wooden panelling in the main dining room and the various sitting rooms. Doors with frosted-glass panels featuring original designs, crystal chandeliers, wall-bracket light fittings of brass, lead-light and stained-glass windows, together with Hilda’s personal selection of objets d’art and paintings had completed the final touches. Stanley Durham very wisely never questioned his wife’s taste.
    Kate bounded up the front steps three at a time, the dogs flopping on the verandah; they were not allowed inside the house.
    The family was having morning tea in the smaller downstairs drawing room as she’d presumed they would be. Or at least as she’d presumed her mother would be. Hilda insisted upon morning and