Master of Ransome: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  More because her spirits were not to be dampened than for any other reason, Sara put on a very pretty new blue dress for dinner that evening. It was of fine polished poplin, had a flared skirt, with a square framed neckline. The neckline showed off the soft contours of her throat and face, and the colour gave a hint of blue to the colour of her eyes.

  There were some times in life, Sara reflected, when a secretary had to become a person just to prove to herself she sometimes was a person and not always a machine.

  When she went into the billiard room for the before-dinner drinks Sam Benson was the first to pay her a compliment.

  ‘My!’ he said. ‘Where’ve you been hiding that pretty dress, young ’un? Not keeping it for the boy-friend when he comes up?’

  Sara shook her head.

  ‘Sam,’ she said, ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend. And sometimes I haven’t got a sense of humour about being teased.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘As my best friend on Ransome, would you not make that not-very-funny joke again? You see, both Mr. Camdens are my bosses. I have to work with them, and this kind of teasing could be an embarrassment.’

  Sam cocked one eyebrow inquiringly. Seeing the girl was really very serious he conceded her point.

  ‘All right. Subject’s closed. Let’s talk about the weather. How are you standing up to the heat?’

  ‘I like it, but whether I would like it so much if I stayed here for the whole of the Dry I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s better than the Wet, you take my word for it. Turkish bath weather. Knocks most of ’em to pieces.’

  Mrs. Camden, endlessly crocheting lace, called Sara over. As usual Marion sat with her mother and favoured Sara with her half friendly, half ironic smile as she balanced a cocktail with one hand and waved a cigarette in the other.

  ‘My! My! Pretty dress!’ Marion said. ‘Any more tucked away like that?’

  ‘I’ve got a nice dress for your party, Marion. I suppose I will be able to see something of the party?’

  Marion threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘You haven’t been to a house-party on a station before? Why, it’s everywhere. You couldn’t keep out of it if you wanted to. Nowhere to hide from people who aren’t partying all over the place. You’ll need more than one dress.’

  ‘Sara can wear the one she’s got on,’ Mrs. Camden said with her more than sweet smile. ‘You do look pretty, dear. It reminds me of when I was young. I always wore blue when the young men were around. You ought to talk to the jackaroos dear. They’d like to have a nice girl like you …’

  ‘They can’t all have her, Mother,’ Marion said. ‘It’s a monogamous world … even north of twenty-six.’

  ‘I was going to ask you something,’ Mrs. Camden went on. ‘Now, whatever was it? That pretty dress sent it right out of my mind.’

  ‘You were going to ask Sara about the yacht.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Mrs. Camden put down her lace-work and looked at Sara with as winning a smile as she could conjure up. ‘You must be awfully close to Greg, dear, being his secretary. I want you to win him over for me. When the families all get here and have a meeting I’m going to put the idea of my yacht to them … and I want Greg to help me. You fix it for me, will you, dear? Wear that pretty dress. Any girl could get anything from him in a dress like that.’

  Sara couldn’t help smiling at the ingenuousness of Mrs. Camden’s words. Obviously she had no idea that her son was as tough a business man, as well as station manager, as he was. Also he was very honourable and upright. Even Julia’s lovely clothes and superb appearance did not move Greg on station matters. Perhaps Julia might move him in other matters, matters of the heart, but not in station affairs. Sara was sure of that. And for some inscrutable reason she was sorry if Julia could affect Greg’s heart.

  While Mrs. Camden was prattling on about her yacht and the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, Greg came into the room. He had just showered and his hair was polished down on his head, smooth and still wet. He walked across the room to the men at the table by the window and Sara could not help marvelling at the firm, agile way in which he carried himself and the freshness of his whole appearance. No one looking at this man, and not being informed, would dream he had been up before sun-up … five o’clock … and been more or less in the saddle or down at the yards in the blazing heat all day.

  He must have great reserves of physical strength, Sara reflected. She felt a tenderness of pride in her new boss.

  But where was Julia?

  Sara had passed her in the passage and Julia had raised supercilious eyebrows at the blue dress, but so far she hadn’t put in an appearance for a before-dinner drink.

  ‘And so, dear, we’ll be able to do lots of things together,’ Mrs. Camden was saying. ‘With the whole homestead to ourselves we’ll be able to go into all our plans about what we’ll tell the families when they come up. You will help me, won’t you, dear?’

  Sara looked at Mrs. Camden, startled. She hadn’t been listening.

  ‘It will be quite easy, dear. You and I will be able to tell Mrs. Whittle about the food we’ll have. Sucking pigs, lobsters, Pavlova cakes … and the lovely food the young people like. Then, of course, I must go through some accounts with you. Then there’s all my letters …’

  ‘When … when did you say, Mrs. Camden?’ Sara asked.

  ‘Marion! This wretched Marion of mine is deserting me to go out to the cattle camps with the boys! It’ll ruin her complexion for the party, I keep telling her. And there are two MacKensies coming from Turra Station. She really ought to try and marry one of them. Three-quarters of a million acres!’

  Dinner was announced, and at that moment Julia made her entrance. Her blue dress outshone Sara’s. It was the same colour, but so beautifully made, the rhinestones decorating the bodice glittered and the tight swathed skirt proclaimed that Julia’s arithmetic was 33-23-33. The perfect figure.

  Greg Camden turned round from the window and when he saw Julia he smiled.

  There was the kind of silence that a properly timed entrance is expected to make.

  ‘Why, Julia,’ Sam Benson said, ‘you look as if you’ve never done a day’s work in your life in that outfit.’

  ‘I wasn’t born to work,’ said Julia, taking a cigarette from Greg. ‘I’ll have a gin and lemon, thanks, Dave.’ This to the jackaroo who raised a bottle and one questioning eyebrow.

  Greg lit Julia’s cigarette for her and Sara could not help noticing the hint of a smile he had on his lips.

  ‘What would the menfolk do without the decorations of the day,’ he said. ‘It’s not for women to work. Only to look beautiful.’

  ‘If I had a million dollars I’d give it all to my wife to wear,’ Sam said. ‘But mind you, she’d have to look like it. Don’t you reckon, Greg?’

  ‘I think it would be worth it.’

  Sara, the other side of the room, took a cigarette from Marion and lit it. She wanted to do something to ease her anger. She was feminist enough to resent that men should think of women as either ornaments or chattels. Yet, in fairness to Greg Camden, how else could he think of them? Probably he had spent all his life, except his schooldays, on Ransome station and quite clearly the womenfolk there fitted exactly into these two categories. Mrs. Camden, Marion and Julia were the decorations. Mrs. Whittle and herself the chattels. Herself not wanted … to begin with, anyway.

  That, Sara supposed, is what bothered Greg about herself when she first arrived. Was she going to be an ornament … Clifford’s ornament … or a chattel?

  She had turned out to be a chattel and that was what had eased his manner. She would be useful after all. Good! But it was the Julias and the Marions of the world he admitted to his intimate circle and treated as equals.

  Women were meant to look beautiful … irrespective of their character qualities!

  If Sara hadn’t had such a high opinion of Greg Camden she would have thought that his possible fate at Julia’s hands served him right. As it was, she felt bot
h saddened, and angry.

  Chapter Six

  After dinner the following evening Sam Benson played billiards with one of the jackaroos while Mrs. Camden, Marion and Sara sat in a group at the end of the room talking to one of the other young Englishmen. Neither Julia nor Greg had appeared since dinner.

  Marion was asking the jackaroo about the colt Greg had been breaking-in the last two days.

  ‘Is this one of Greg’s long jobs or short ones?’ she asked. ‘I meant to go down to the yards this morning to see how far he’d got.’

  ‘He’s going to be a little beauty,’ the jackaroo said of the horse. ‘Full of intelligence. Any other breaker in the north would have him in hand in two days. But not Greg. Greg never works that way.’

  ‘Greg never breaks a horse,’ Mrs. Camden said unexpectedly. ‘He makes them.’

  ‘Wins them,’ said Marion.

  ‘I wouldn’t even put it that way, Marion,’ said the jackaroo. ‘I think he just puts the whole thing to the colt as an intellectual discussion.’

  Everyone, including Sara, laughed.

  ‘I mean that.’ The young jackaroo spoke with some vehemence. ‘I’ll swear it’s an approach to horse sense. What do you think, Sara?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen a horse broken in.’

  ‘You come down in the morning and watch Greg handle this one. It’s an education in itself.’

  ‘I’d like to …’ Sara hesitated. ‘But I’m a working woman, you know.’

  ‘We’re all working on Ransome,’ the jackaroo said, ‘but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t stop off to watch Greg handling blood stock in the yard. Hey, Sam!’ he called across the room. ‘How about Sara coming down to the yards in the morning? She’s never seen a young horse broken in.’

  Sam, squinting down his stick, hesitated, decided to chalk it and then looked over the table at Sara.

  ‘You come down, young ’un. You’re missing a treat sitting up here maltreating my typewriter while everyone else is holding up the fence at the yard.’

  Sara hesitated. Everyone else seemed to take it for granted she not only should but could go.

  ‘I’ll ask Greg …’ she began.

  ‘Ask Greg be blowed,’ said Marion. ‘He didn’t expect you to do much work before you ever arrived here. He must have been getting the shock of his life the last few days.’

  ‘Nearly every girl who comes to Ransome comes to have a good time,’ Mrs. Camden said. ‘You must have a good time too, dear.’

  Well, at least Mrs. Camden didn’t want Sara to miss all the treats!

  ‘I’ll try and be there,’ was all the answer she allowed herself. Her training was too deeply ingrained in her system for her to walk out on a prescribed job without permission.

  In the morning she tentatively asked Greg if she could some time go down to the yards.

  He looked surprised.

  ‘Haven’t you been down there yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t been beyond the store.’

  ‘Good heavens, you don’t even know what the place looks like? The homestead’s no criterion of station life, you know.’

  Sara was only human and could not help some slight disappointment in man’s selfishness to a secretary’s labours. Sara had heard of men in the city, who, being out at work all day, insisted that their women at home were doing nothing … just because the man wasn’t there to see the work done.

  Greg looked thoughtful.

  ‘You’d better see something of the place before you go home,’ he said abruptly.

  Sara hoped this meant permission. Greg got up from his chair and went over to the window. He stood, his back to Sara, looking out. Sara stole glances at him from between the fringes of her eyelids.

  He wore the tight-fitting pants he usually wore when he went out riding first thing in the morning, and for the first time she noticed that his tight-fitting boots, under the short leggings, had higher heels than usual.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you later,’ he said, suddenly turning, and with a quick gesture picked up his hat … it was an old one … and left the room.

  ‘I guess that means permission,’ Sara said to herself.

  She put the cover on the typewriter and walked to the window where Greg had lately been standing. She saw him come round the side of the house and speak to Andy Patterson, who had been bending over some of the reticulation pipes leading from the pump-house into the garden. Then Greg went rapidly through the garden, and as he went through the gate a stable boy appeared riding a horse and leading another. Sara saw Greg spring up in the saddle and the two of them jog-trot away through the outbuildings that flanked this side of the house.

  Sara longed to be able to ride. The way Greg went up into the saddle was something that filled her heart with envy. It was so light and yet there was so much strength implicit in the movement. She supposed he was born in the saddle.

  ‘Morning, Sara,’ said Andy, raising his cabbage hat high in the air. ‘What you doing out here at this hour? You haven’t had breakfast yet.’

  ‘Oh, yes I have. I have mine at half past six like everyone else now. It was only on my first day I was a laggard.’

  ‘Hum. Soon learned that life begins and ends with the rising and the setting of the sun once you’re over the twenty-sixth parallel, hey?’

  ‘I’m learning a lot and very fast, Andy. What I want to learn today is how a man breaks a horse. Where do I go down to the yards and how can I get there … and be there without being seen or heard?’

  ‘It’s only half a mile down. I’ll get you a hoss. You go and put some right things on instead of that billowy skirt.’

  Sara looked sadly at Andy.

  ‘I’d love a “hoss”,’ she said. ‘But, Andy, I can’t ride.’ She felt as if she was admitting she hadn’t been baptised.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Half of them that comes up here can’t ride. Always have to have a dozen hacks kicking around for the city folks that have ambitions. You go and do what I said and I’ll get you the kind of hoss that doesn’t know how to throw a baby, let alone a lady.’

  ‘Oh, Andy, thank you. You are a darling.’

  ‘Here! Save that for Clifford. I’m not looking for any fights with Clifford once he comes rampaging up here.’

  ‘Clifford is no concern of mine,’ Sara said tartly, but she softened it with a smile as she turned and went back into the homestead.

  The jeans would have to do. Well, who’s going to look at me, anyhow, she thought. No one while Julia is around.

  Within twenty minutes Sara was back at the garden gate, looking much sprucer than she herself thought in a shining white cotton shirt blouse, sleeves rolled up in a professional style, and the dark blue jeans and sun hat in their right places.

  Andy was coming round the outside paddock on horseback and leading another.

  He threw his leg over the saddle and slid off.

  ‘Up you go,’ he said. ‘Get the ball of your foot on the stirrup … so. Now, hand on the pommel. Woof… she’s up.’

  Sara was elated. She was up on the horse and found it comfortable and she was able to take an elevated view of mankind.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely, Andy. What happens next? Don’t let him gallop away with me, will you?’

  ‘It’s a her and her name is Gentle Annie. Better shorten the stirrups for you. Teach you to ride English fashion. You’re not likely to need the good old Aussie’s jog-trot. Straight back, now press with the knees. Hold the reins so … Good! Press on the balls of your feet and rise gently off the saddle when she comes up, and you won’t get the bumps. We’ll go slow.’

  Andy mounted his own horse and they walked them together away from the homestead.

  ‘Feeling okay?’ he asked with a grin.

  ‘Absolutely okay!’ said Sara joyously.

  ‘Right. Well, now we’ll trot. Take it gently and with rhythm. Off we go!’

  Sara bumped a little at first but almost immediately got into the r
ise and fall of the trot.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ Andy shouted. ‘We’ll do a mild canter now. Stick firm in the saddle and give with the horse.’

  The canter, mild though it was, brought them up to the yards.

  ‘Well, how was that?’

  ‘Lovely!’ said Sara. ‘I want to keep on doing it all day. Only I want to watch Greg break-in the horse too.’

  ‘You’ll be sore enough after that little stretch. You’d better join the gallery on the fence and give a certain part of your anatomy a rest. Now wait till I show you how to get off.’

  Within a few minutes Sara was on the ground feeling, some odd way, that she was several inches shorter than she really was.

  ‘Hitch up this way,’ said Andy, completing his lesson. ‘Now for an inch on the fence …’

  He moved in his rolling gait towards the considerable crowd taking up every inch of sitting room on the rails.

  ‘Move along for a lady.’

  There were grunts of assent as several stockmen squeezed themselves together but their eyes were on the yard, too intent on what was going on there to take any notice of Sara. Andy hoisted Sara up on the rails, and as there was no room for him he left her.

  Sara had never felt so happy in her life. She took in the long, lean, sunburned men around her. She looked at the wide-brimmed hats, as dusty as the desert itself, wedged down on their brows or pushed on the backs of their heads; the small cluster of lean, burned women who must be the stockmen’s wives and Julia … cool, immaculate in pale primrose jodhpurs and soft silk shirt.

  Julia sat on a part of the fence that was shaded by the high rails of the in-yard with the homestead jackaroos on either side of her.

  Sara remembered Julia’s earlier comment. ‘Doesn’t anyone work on Ransome?’ Evidently the breaking of a blood horse by Greg Camden was something that called for a gallery. Otherwise Sara could not see the overseer calling a halt in the day’s work.

  In the yard was a very young horse. It stood in the middle, its forefeet together, its ears back, the whites of its eyes showing. Greg Camden was quietly walking along the inside of the far fence rhythmically swinging a halter.