Master of Ransome: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  ‘Perhaps you would prefer to consult Clifford? He’ll be here early next week.’ Greg had turned round and was looking at her with that direct and unwavering gaze that had disconcerted Sara once before. Her own eyes were held and she could not drop her gaze. Why did he look at her like that? Was he trying to read something deep inside her? Was he perhaps waiting to see her reaction to his mentioning of Clifford’s name?

  ‘Yes, please. I think perhaps I should. He is … he is my employer …’

  ‘The Ransome Pastoral Company is your employer, Sara. If, however, you feel you have special loyalties to Clifford, then, of course, you would wish to honour them.’ He sat down again, lit another cigarette and drew his glass towards him. He looked as if he might say something more … then changed his mind.

  ‘Finish your drink, Sara,’ he said instead. ‘Then perhaps you might leave me to get on with this stuff alone. I suppose you’ve got something to think about.’

  ‘Yes, I do want to think about it,’ Sara said. ‘It is a very kind offer, Greg, and I thank you for it.’

  ‘You don’t feel like accepting it?’

  ‘I’d love to accept it. I just don’t know whether it is the best thing … for us all.’

  He stood up as she went to leave the room. ‘It would be the best thing for Ransome. And for me,’ he said unexpectedly.

  It was a very bewildered Sara who found her way into the dining-room to make herself a cup of tea. She certainly did not feel like joining the others in the billiard room.

  She made her tea and carried it down to her room. She put the saucer over the cup to keep the tea hot while she stripped off and had a quick shower. She put on a light cotton house-gown and sat down to drink her tea. She found a packet of cigarettes on the table by her bed and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Now I know why thinkers always smoke,’ she reflected. A cigarette and a cup of tea! Were these the things that helped resolve the perplexities of everybody’s own little world?

  She wished now that Greg’s request had not been so unexpected and that she had had the power to see quickly and concisely all the details of the situation. A cooler person, she thought, would have been able to ask the necessary questions.

  She assumed she would be paid her present salary. But perhaps not. After all, she was getting her living at Ransome. Perhaps some allowance would have to be made for that. Then there was the security of her post with the Company in the city. She could not very well have said to Greg that her only loyalties to Clifford were the normal loyalties of a girl employed in a secretarial capacity to her employer. She could not say to Greg that if she fulfilled his evident anticipations she might become indispensable at Ransome … and become a sort of old maid family retainer. If she didn’t fulfil them how difficult might life become, marooned thousands of miles from anywhere and the prospects of her city job lost?

  Oddly enough, more than anything else, she felt that Julia and Mrs. Whittle were the real complications. Why she worried about Julia she could not say. Perhaps it was because there was in Julia’s manner an undercurrent of suspicion. It did not often show itself on the surface because Sara’s stay was expected to be so short. Hadn’t Julia warned her not to get too familiar with the Camdens? ‘As a family they’re as prickly as hedgehogs,’ Julia had said.

  Sara finished her cup of tea and her cigarette. She drew aside the curtains from her wide-open window, climbed into bed and switched off her light.

  One half of her … the romantic, adventurous half … said ‘Stay!’ The other half said, ‘You know what you’re giving up, but you don’t know what you’re taking on.’ Then she realised with a shock she had put that through to herself in a way that implied the decision was already made.

  ‘But it’s not,’ she said rebelliously. ‘It’s not. I want something more. Something more.’

  The tears were smarting behind her eyes. Something more than a millionaire life on a million acre property?

  Yes. She wanted love and warmth and happiness. Mrs. Whittle’s life must be very good, but it wasn’t good enough. Sara saw herself on Ransome as a second Mrs. Whittle. It wasn’t good enough.

  For the next two or three days work went on at Ransome as if no dilemma had appeared in Sara’s life. Greg did not mention the subject again. She presumed he was waiting for her to discuss it with Clifford.

  What had Greg meant when he had added that last remark: ‘It would be the best thing for Ransome. And for me …’

  On and off Sara worried about the meaning of these two cryptic statements. For there were two statements inherent in that remark. Something for Ransome, and something for himself. But what?

  She began to feel angry with Greg. He had disturbed her deeply. He should have been more explicit. He should have put the whole business proposition to her in a business-like fashion. He should have told her what he would expect of her if she stayed … where her place would be in the family life and in what particulars she would be a good thing for him.

  Of course, she knew very well she had been of great assistance to him. What she hadn’t known was that he had either noticed or appreciated it. Sara began to think he might at least have said so earlier instead of leaving her to feel that she had been ‘foist’ on him.

  He might have done and said a lot of things.

  What things?

  At last she boiled all her feelings down to one important one. ‘He might have made me feel welcome as well as needed.’

  Sara, on the horns of a dilemma, showed her worry more than she thought. She was preoccupied when she sat with the family in the billiard room. She was silent when she went riding with Marion. And her face, usually so content and sometimes merry, had a touch of sadness about it. She did not realise that others about her were watching her covertly.

  Supplies had come up from the south. Julia had her new wardrobe and the filing cabinets were installed in the office. Sara spent long hours there working out the key card.

  There was great activity in the environs of the homestead as more than one plant left for the mustering points miles away at the bores or water-holes scattered over the thousand square miles of Ransome grazing country.

  More than once Sara had ridden down to the bottom of the homestead paddock at sundown to watch a fleet of trucks and jeeps laden with stores going out to the first staging camp. More stirring was the sight of stockmen geared and mounted on their cattle horses and leading strings of other alternative mounts and swag horses. Sundown or the small hours of the morning were the times for the plants to move out from the homestead. That allowed them time to travel far in the coolest part of the twenty-four-hour day.

  The homestead party, including Marion and Julia, two of the jackaroos and Greg, left for their particular camp at four in the morning.

  Sara and Mrs. Whittle were left in charge of all the final arrangements for the arrival of the clan.

  The object of the mustering of the cattle into a number of camps before the party were so that those who came up to Ransome for the occasion would see as much of the cattle at key points as was possible. Actually, mustering … the combing again and again of rough, almost untraversable country … had been going on since the Wet had lifted.

  Greg gave Sara carte blanche to make any decisions necessary which might arise in his absence. In a sense this pleased Sara because it corroborated his former statement that she had done a lot for him and that he now had implicit confidence in her.

  Only Julia had left her barb behind.

  It was the evening of the departure of the homestead party for the cattle camp. The family had been sitting in the billiard room before making an early retirement. Greg was working with the book-keeper and overseer in his office. The jackaroos were already out at the cattle camps or were about to leave in the morning with the homestead party.

  They were talking about the imminent arrival of Clifford Camden.

  ‘You’ll have him to yourself, Sara,’ Marion said with a sly smile. ‘You, Clifford, and the whole of Rans
ome! Have fun but don’t get into mischief.’

  ‘I’m quite sure the first thing Mr. Clifford will want to do is to go out to the cattle,’ Sara said.

  ‘He’ll have Jack Brownrigg with him,’ Mrs. Camden said suddenly. ‘Now that’s a nice young man. Sara ought to get friendly with him instead of anyone as unsatisfactory as Clifford. Clifford has too many girls …’

  ‘And a lot of acres,’ Julia added meaningly. ‘However, if Sara has the kind of weather eye for the main chance a shrewd girl ought to have, Jack Brownrigg ought to be her mark. He happens to be a nice fellow and not being a Camden, is not so slippery a fish.’

  Mrs. Camden put down her lace-work.

  ‘Really, Julia, you do talk in a puzzling way. What Camdens are slippery fish? Of course Sara would take a liking to Jack. He’s a very nice young man … and much better-looking than Clifford …’

  ‘Oh, Clifford’s got looks enough,’ said Julia airily as she waved her amber cigarette-holder in the direction of the cigarette stand. ‘But he plays around. I’m sure Sara would see that for herself. But if he ever marries he will do what the other Camdens have all done. Marry in the interests of property and the Camdens.’

  She knocked the burnt-out cigarette butt from her holder, stood up, yawned and said, ‘Well, bed for me. We’ve a long ride tomorrow.’

  All the time Julia had been speaking Marion had been watching Sara with a quiet knowing smile. It occurred to Sara that Marion meant nothing by it except a mild curiosity to see how the other girl took these sallies. Marion always remained a little outside affairs and events. Sara had no possible way of knowing that there had been peace between Marion and Julia only because of her, Sara’s, presence.

  Sara kept her anger at Julia’s remarks under cover. She showed no sign of what she felt.

  ‘Jack Brownrigg?’ she said. ‘That name sounds familiar.’

  ‘He travelled on the mail plane with you. Is a part-owner in the air company.’ Julia was still standing and had not yet moved away. She was evidently determined to draw some kind of a retort from Sara. ‘Preferred to carry your case than mine.’

  ‘Jack Brownrigg’s just one person who is left stone cold by your particular variety of beauty, Julia,’ Marion said, now switching her curiosity and her quiet smile in Julia’s direction.

  ‘I am at the present moment not preoccupied with Jack Brownrigg,’ said Julia coldly.

  ‘Only with Greg and fifteen thousand head of cattle,’ said Marion suavely.

  ‘Very perspicacious of you, Marion! Well, good night all.’

  Sara’s opinion of Jack Brownrigg went even higher than it had been when she met him on the plane.

  She hoped he might be a pleasant companion if he was going to be several days at the homestead. Moreover, she hoped he would keep Clifford preoccupied. If she had to get rid of the prevalent idea that she had her cap set at Clifford she might well be able to do it by showing a preference for Jack Brownrigg’s company.

  At that moment Greg came into the room.

  ‘Sara,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you would give me a moment. There are some letters here I want to explain.’

  ‘I’ll come at once,’ Sara replied.

  He stood aside to let her go through the door. She felt very conscious of him walking along the carpeted passage behind her.

  If it was Julia, she wondered, would he notice that undulation? The idea suddenly broke the solemnity of several days. There was a real twinkle in her eyes when she entered the office.

  The book-keeper and the overseer had gone.

  Greg looked at her in surprise. Then he quickly bent over the table and began to explain the kind of replies he wanted her to send out to two letters lying open on the table.

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that in the morning and see they go on the outgoing plane.’

  ‘By the way, you know that Clifford and Jack Brownrigg will be coming in with the plane?’

  ‘Yes. They were talking about it in the billiard room tonight.’

  ‘You might perhaps talk over that matter with Clifford? I mean the possibility of your remaining on Ransome for some time.’

  Sara looked troubled again.

  ‘Do you mean for some indefinite time, Greg? Or were you thinking of a special period?’

  This question in turn troubled him. He stood by the table, tapping it with a pencil.

  ‘That, Sara, would be up to you.’

  It was all too unsatisfactory. How was she to explain to him she did not wish to throw over permanent security in a good firm for the sake of staying a period … long or short … on Ransome?

  ‘Sit down, Sara. I want to talk to you,’ he said suddenly.

  Sara sat down and Greg walked round the table to his own chair. He leaned both hands on the table.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you we’re always on the brink of trouble here. You see that for yourself? For some reason or other … and it must be something in you, Sara … we’ve had peace ever since you came. I haven’t had peace from warring family personalities for a long time. I rather value it now. I’m offering you a job purely in my own interests. That’s all. There’s no obligation on your part, however, to bother your head about me.’ This brought a flush to Sara’s cheeks.

  ‘But I do, Greg. I would like to be of service to you …’

  ‘If you didn’t feel it was your first duty to be of service to Clifford?’

  Sara’s mouth set in a line and her shoulders sagged a little. She shook her head.

  ‘It isn’t loyalty to Clifford as a person,’ she said. ‘Though there must be some loyalty to him as an employer. It was loyalty to myself I was thinking about.’

  ‘Oh! Then you haven’t made up your mind?’

  ‘I … I just don’t know …’

  ‘Very well.’ Greg’s manner was taut and conclusive. ‘I’ll see you when I come in about a week hence. You will defer to Mrs. Whittle on purely housekeeping matters, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She felt dismissed and stood up and went to the door.

  ‘Good night,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Good night,’ he said abruptly but he did not look up.

  Sara went out and quietly closed the door behind her. She did not see Greg Camden sit down and pass his hand slowly over his face.

  Chapter Eight

  In the morning came Clifford Camden and Jack Brownrigg. Sara heard the plane come in low over the homestead and land far down the outside paddock. A utility rushed out from the garages to pick up the mail and passengers. As usual there was great commotion amongst everyone left at the homestead while all the youths and older men had gone out to the various cattle camps.

  They all knew that Clifford Camden was coming, and Clifford generally meant extra rations of tobacco, sweets and gee-gaws from Woolworths.

  Sara was relieved as well as pleased to hear the plane go overhead. She had had an uncomfortable hour with Mrs. Camden in the office.

  Mrs. Camden had used Greg’s absence to try and get information, mostly concerning Ransome Company affairs which were not Sara’s province but rather that of the bookkeeper. Sara had had to stall off Mrs. Camden politely and try gently to persuade her she was quite unable to help her.

  ‘You know, Sara dear,’ Mrs. Camden said. ‘I own Ransome. It is my home. I must really stir myself and not let things get out of hand. I have to account to my brother and my nephews and nieces. They will want to know what I have been doing with their money and their property.’

  This was pathetic to Sara. It had been quite clear to her that Mrs. Camden wouldn’t be able to account for the housekeeping, let alone capital values and cattle sales.

  Sara nodded her head sympathetically for she did really feel sympathy for this woman who would so dearly like to believe she directed Ransome but who was incapable of doing anything more than direct her own toilette and the making of lace.

  ‘I wish I could help you, Mrs. Camden. I’m afraid I cannot. Sam Benson has all these affair
s in his hands. You must see him. I shouldn’t worry in the meantime. I know that Greg is very capably managing things.’

  ‘Yes, I know, dear. He’s a wonderful son. Always so nice to me. Never goes to bed without saying good night to me … and always brings me back such beautiful presents when he goes south.’ She leaned her head forward and dropped her voice to something like a confidential whisper. ‘I notice much more what’s going on than you’d think. Or than they think. I mean Julia and Greg …’

  Sara found herself flushing.

  ‘I think perhaps they would not care for me to discuss their relationship …’

  ‘It isn’t what you think, dear. Oh no! It’s Julia. She’s always got an overdraft. Once she could have had Greg, when he was a lot younger.’ She tossed her head. ‘Now she really wants him because he’s quite rich now. The wool clip down there on the Ashburton made a big difference to Ransome. But it isn’t just the money. Because Greg is so soft with her she’s come to think she could run him, and Ransome, if she had him. Do you think Greg would tell Julia things he doesn’t tell his own mother?’

  It was at this point Sara heard the plane go over the homestead.

  ‘There’s the mail,’ she said with relief. ‘It should bring Mr. Clifford with it. You must ask him all these questions, Mrs. Camden. He would know the answers … and I just don’t. I’m so sorry.’

  Mrs. Camden tapped her hand.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Sara. I wanted you to stay at the homestead while they were all away. I arranged it. I was sure you would help me …’

  Fortunately at that moment Mrs. Whittle appeared in the doorway. She gave Sara a quick, almost antagonistic glance. Sara could interpret Mrs. Whittle’s feelings. She neither wanted Mrs. Camden to suffer any indignity at Sara’s hands nor did she want Sara to discuss family affairs or betray Greg. As nothing was said Sara could not reassure her on these matters.

  ‘I have set tea in the drawing-room, Mrs. Camden,’ she said. ‘I know you always like to receive members of the family this way. The presentation silver service is on the round table. It looks very beautiful now the girls have given it a birthday polish. I’ve used the lace cloth too. It is the first time it has been used since you finished it.’