The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer Read Free Book Online Page A

difference to Sir Graham.
    But Keith had a
mother whom Melbourne society could not dismiss quite so easily, a woman whose
lineage stretched back to a senior naval officer in the First Fleet. Had she
been born a generation later, this tale might well have been about her, and not
her son.
    As Keith was his
only son-he was the second of three children, the other two being girls-Sir
Graham assumed from his birth that the boy would follow him into the newspaper
business, and to that end he set about educating him for the real world. Keith
paid his first visit to his father’s presses at the Melbourne Courier at the
age of three, and immediately became intoxicated by the smell of ink, the
pounding of typewriters and the clanging of machinery. From that moment on he would
accompany his father to the office whenever he was given the chance.
    Sir Graham never
discouraged Keith, and even allowed him to tag along whenever he disappeared
off to the racetrack on a Saturday afternoon.
    Lady Townsend
did not approve of such goings on, and insisted that young Keith should always
attend church the following morning. To her disappointment, their only son
quickly revealed a preference for the bookie rather than the preacher.
    Lady Townsend
became so determined to reverse this early decline that she set about a
counter-offensive. While Sir Graham was away in Perth on a long business trip,
she appointed a nanny called Florrie whose simple job description was: take the
children in hand. But Florrie, a widow in her fifties, proved no match for
Keith, aged four, and within weeks she was promising not to let his mother know
when he was taken to the racecourse.
    When Lady
Townsend eventually discovered this subterfuge, she waited for her husband to
make his annual trip to New Zealand, then placed an advertisement on the front
page of the London Times. Three months later, Miss Steadman disembarked at
Station Pier and reported to Toorak for duty.
    She turned out
to be everything her references had promised.
    The second
daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, educated at St.
    Leonard’s,
Dumfries, she knew exactly what was expected of her. Florrie remained as
devoted to the children as they were to her, but Miss Steadman seemed devoted
to nothing other than her vocation and the carrying out of what she considered
to be her bounden duty.
    She insisted on
being addressed at all times and by everyone, whatever their station, as Miss
Steadman, and left no one in any doubt where they fitted into her social scale.
The chauffeur intoned the words with a slight bow, Sir Graham with respect.
    From the day she
arrived, Miss Steadman organized the nursery in a fashion that would have
impressed an officer in the Black Watch, Keith tried everything, from charm to
sulking to bawling, to bring her into line, but he quickly discovered that she
could not be moved. His father would have come to the boy’s rescue had his wife
not continued to sing Miss Steadman’s praises-especially when it came to her
valiant attempts to teach the young gentleman to speak the King’s English.
    At the age of
five Keith began school, and at the end of the first week he complained to Miss
Steadman that none of the other boys wanted to play with him. She did not
consider it her place to tell the child that his father had made a great many
enemies over the years.
    The second week
turned out to be even worse, because Keith was continually bullied by a boy
called Desmond Motson, whose father had recently been involved in a mining scam
which had made the front page of the Melbourne Courier for several days. It
didn’t help that Motson was two inches taller and half a stone heavier than
Keith.
    Keith often
considered discussing the problem with his father. But as they only ever saw
each other at weekends, he contented himself with joining the old man in his
study on a Sunday morning to listen to his views on the contents of the
previous week’s Courier and Gazette, before comparing