Master of Ransome: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  Well, supposing they were down there talking to Greg? Supposing they were down there rebelling against what they would consider an impossible marriage? Perhaps Clifford was there too. Perhaps Mrs. Camden, easily swung over to the other side of the fence, was there!

  Well, what of it? Greg had renounced everything for Ransome … even them. And he had strength and pride. He would repel them once and for all. He was trustworthy, utterly trustworthy. His father had shown that in his last words.

  Still trembling, Sara tried to compose herself. Greg would tell her when he came up and together they would face the tide of family opinion. They were partners, and a partnership had to stand up to everything and stand together … for better or for worse. Last night …

  Sara brushed her hands across her eyes.

  ‘I’m mad,’ she said. ‘They’re probably not there at all.’

  Sara unlatched the double windows looking out over the street. How innocent it looked in the bright street lights with its taxis and motor cars keeping up an endless procession of traffic past the hotel. The air was fresh and dry and clean.

  Did they have a car down there somewhere, she wondered. She leaned over the windowsill the better to see the pavement beyond the shop verandas. Her heart lurched when she saw Greg walk out to the edge of the pavement and hail a taxi. When it came alongside he held open the door and turned his head back as if speaking to someone still under cover of the veranda.

  Julia came out of the shadows and prepared to step into the taxi. Then she drew back her foot and turned to Greg. She said something and suddenly her arm went round Greg’s neck. Greg stood there stiffly a moment, then he bent his head and kissed Julia on the cheek.

  Sara could bear no more.

  She shut the window and went back, through the sitting-room, to the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and fingered her wedding ring. She turned a little and caught sight of Greg’s pyjamas. She picked them up and held them against her cheek.

  ‘Perhaps he couldn’t help it. He’ll tell me when he comes up. He’ll tell me what happened.’

  The tears were hard and not to be shed … but they were behind her eyes. She didn’t have to pretend to herself any more about Greg. She was in love with him. It had started ages ago … she couldn’t remember when, but she had known it without recognising it the day they stopped after crossing the creek on their way home from the cattle camp, the day he had held the bridle of her horse and she had looked down and something had stirred in her heart. That was the elfin something that had been lying repressed in her heart when Greg had proposed this marriage. And sprung to life standing there in the church on her wedding day and lying here in Greg’s arms on her wedding night.

  She heard his footsteps coming along the corridor. He went into the sitting-room and then after a light knock on the door came into the bedroom.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Yes, his face looked tired again, and drawn.

  ‘I … I waited,’ said Sara. ‘You were a long time.’

  Greg walked over to the dressing-table and stubbed out his cigarette in an ash-tray. His back was to Sara but she could see his face in the mirror as he looked down at the ash-tray. It was troubled. Deeply troubled.

  ‘I had to see someone on business. It was a business acquaintance,’ he said harshly.

  Sara felt as if her world exploded around her ears. For a moment she could not see.

  He had lied to her.

  No; her heart cried. Julia is a business acquaintance. Yes, but she is much more. He has lied to me. If he puts his arms round me he will be putting them round Julia. He lied to me. And I trusted him. Nothing mattered so long as I trusted him.

  She looked down at the pyjamas in her hand, at the pattern on the carpet. She expected to see her world lying shattered there like a broken vase.

  She stood up unsteadily.

  Greg turned round.

  ‘You are tired, Sara …’

  She began to walk towards the adjoining room. Greg’s pyjamas were still in her hand. ‘Where are you taking them, Sara?’

  ‘To your room,’ she said. ‘I am tired.’ She paused at the door. ‘And we have to get up at three o’clock, don’t we?’

  Greg’s eyes met hers across the room. ‘Very well, Sara,’ he said evenly. ‘I understand.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Sara and Greg had finished their last-minute packing in the morning when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Greg said without looking up. Sara did not turn round because she expected a servant on special shift with the tea and toast.

  The door opened and a male voice said, ‘And a fine pair you are! I’ve come to drive you out to the airport.’

  They both turned round in surprise. Jack Brownrigg stood there, holding his hat and a parcel with one hand and brushing his fingers through his hair with the other.

  ‘Come in, Jack,’ Greg said. ‘That’s kind of you, but I’ve ordered a taxi.’

  ‘And I’ve dismissed it. You’re not going to dodge me both coming and going.’

  He walked into the room and put his parcel on the table. There was something rueful about his smile as he turned to Sara.

  ‘That’s your wedding present, Sara. I got to Perth in time to get that anyway. I had to ask the girl behind the counter what a man buys for the wedding present of the girl he intended to marry himself. I hope she’s got good taste.’ Jack grinned. ‘Of course I explained to her the girl had run away with another man.’

  Sara’s eyes widened.

  ‘Oh, Jack …’ she said. He was joking, of course.

  Greg looked from one to the other, startled.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d staked a claim, Jack …’

  ‘I didn’t know about you either. Never mind, old chap. The best man always wins.’

  Sara felt as if her breath had been taken away. What a strange world it was! Only a few weeks ago she had been sitting behind a typewriter in the Company office wondering if ever any young man would come her way. And here she was now, a married woman with another very pleasant young man declaring, only in fun of course, that he too had wanted to marry her.

  ‘Jack, you’re only joking.’

  ‘By golly, I’m not.’ There was real rue in his eyes as he looked at Sara. ‘Three days at a cattle camp with the nicest girl that had ever landed on Ransome? What do you think I am? A woman-hater? I’d have to have been that, Sara, to resist those smiles. Never mind … You’ve got a wonderful bloke in Greg.’

  He smiled sheepishly at Greg.

  ‘Now I know why you kicked up so much dust over that bet. She was your girl all the time. Why didn’t you tell a fellow?’

  Greg had had a look of surprise on his face. Suddenly he bent over a case, turned the key in the clasp and, straightening up, put the key in his pocket.

  ‘For the same reason that you didn’t tell me, Jack. I’m sorry. I wish I had known.’

  ‘Don’t take him seriously, Greg,’ said Sara. ‘He’s just being nice to me. Am I allowed to look at my wedding present now?’

  ‘You’ve got just five minutes,’ said Jack. He came over to the table and stood by Sara as she untied the wrappings. ‘Tell me if the girl behind the counter knows what the second-best fellow really feels like.’

  Sara uncovered a beautiful silver plate entrée dish.

  ‘Oh, Jack … it’s beautiful.’ Her fingers lovingly touched the embossed edges. ‘It’s really beautiful.’

  Her eyes were quite starry. As usual, unexpected kindness, like that of the girls in the beauty salon and the romantic clergyman’s wife, moved Sara to a suspicious shine behind the eyes.

  ‘My first wedding present.’ To herself she added just a little sadly. ‘My only wedding present!’

  She held the dish up so that the light reflected across its smooth rounded surfaces.

  ‘Jack, thank you so much.’

  She put the dish down and turned impulsively towards him. She stood on tiptoe and kissed hi
m on the cheek.

  ‘That’s my prerogative,’ said Jack. He turned Sara’s head and kissed her on the other cheek. ‘That’s for luck,’ he said. Then turning to Greg. ‘Well, come on, old chap. If you don’t come now I’ll clear out with Sara altogether. I’m bound for Alice Springs as soon as I get a clearing from the airport.’

  Greg picked up his bag and Jack took hold of Sara’s two cases. At that moment the maid with the tea knocked at the door.

  ‘We’re not in such a hurry as all that, Jack,’ Greg said. ‘We’ve got time for tea first … and we’ll need it.’

  ‘Shucks, they’ll give it to you on the plane. Oh well … if you must. I’ll carry these bags down while you get on with it.’

  Sara sat down by the table and poured out the tea. With a piece of toast half-way to her mouth she stopped and looked, her head tilted a little on one side, at her beautiful silver dish. She felt sad. Very sad.

  She had spent a wretched night. She had tossed about from side to side, longing for Greg … longing to clear up the misunderstanding, longing to feel her great trust in him again, fearing she had been stupid and blundering and had created a situation between them that she had dreaded and which her wedding night had dispelled. Yet all the time knowing that she could not have borne his arms around her while she herself thought of Julia … whether he did or not.

  When Greg had come in in the early hours to call her he had been pleasant to her, but quite formal and very aloof.

  Had he minded the lonely night too? she wondered.

  Somehow all the sadness and frustration of that night seemed to pale and die away in the shine of the beautiful silver dish.

  ‘My wedding present,’ she said and smiled half shyly, half eagerly at Greg.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ he said. He was silent a minute. ‘Actually it is not your first wedding present, Sara. I’m sorry I hadn’t mentioned it before but I arranged a marriage settlement the day before yesterday. It awaits your signature. That’s all.’

  ‘Thank you, Greg,’ Sara said, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t want anything like that, you know. It didn’t occur to me …’

  ‘It did to me. This partnership might not work out. You were entitled to some kind of security if you changed your mind at any time.’

  So he didn’t really anticipate a hundred per cent success! Sara put down her teacup. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Greg’s voice was the voice of a business man discussing the details of business. Had he ever been any different or had she dreamed it? Greg kissing her in the church? Greg holding her against his heart and saying … ‘Sara, shall I stay?’ They were dreams. They were phantoms. They had never existed.

  ‘I’ve finished my tea, Greg. I think I’d like to carry my wedding present myself.’

  She picked up her handbag and the entrée dish, scrappily covered in its former wrappings. She held it close to her. She felt as she once had felt when a very small child and she had been unjustly punished for an offence her sister had committed. She had taken her doll and held it close to her, drawing comfort from it.

  So now she took the silver dish and drew comfort from it.

  In Jack’s car, in the airport waiting-room, in the aeroplane itself she sat with the parcel on her lap, occasionally letting her fingers stray over it, occasionally letting her eyes rest lovingly on it.

  If Greg noticed she did not know. There was a wall of ice between them. She did not look at him except when she had to, because she couldn’t bear to see his eyes like marbles without light in them. She couldn’t bear to see his mouth and remember him kissing her.

  So she turned away, one hand caressing her silver dish and her eyes gazing out over the vast incredible distances that were sometimes desert, sometimes dried-out water-courses, sometimes forest and mountain and billabong.

  By mid-afternoon she was exhausted. She had not got over her basic fear of travelling in an aeroplane. All through the morning she had been disciplining herself to take notice of what was spread out on the earth beneath. She had stared with concentration at the mat of grey bush, the banana plantations, the curve of sea-line, the yellow desert, the red and blue mountains, the dark forest of the gorges. She had tried to tell herself, as she had on the journey south, that this was one of the world’s wonders, and a great experience.

  By mid-afternoon she gave up trying. It’s no good, she thought. I’m nervous in an aeroplane and I can’t fight it any more.

  Greg, in the seat beside her, was dozing. She supposed that people like Greg and Julia and Jack Brownrigg felt no anxiety because they were as much used to aeroplanes, big and small, as they were to a saddle on a thoroughbred horse.

  It was near midnight when they arrived at Ransome. They had changed the Dakota for the station Anson some time after dark at Derby and they had made the last hop with Sara in something little short of a daze. When the utility dropped them at the garden gate of the homestead she was almost swaying where she stood. She barely heard what was said and barely noticed that Greg took her arm as they walked up the path to the open door.

  Lights were streaming from the veranda and the whole house. Mrs. Whittle and Marion were waiting at the top of the steps for them.

  Sara braced herself anxiously but Mrs. Whittle’s manner was impeccable. She spoke to Greg first, however.

  ‘Welcome home, Mr. Greg.’

  Marion, Sara saw with intense relief, was no different from what she always was. Her manner was friendly and her smile the old amused, ironical one, as if the by-play of personalities on Ransome was a slightly salacious joke.

  ‘There’s supper in the drawing-room,’ she said. ‘We thought we’d better play mother’s part and welcome the new member of the family in the proper style. Witty’s even got out the silver tea service.’

  Someone carried the bags away and Sara found herself walking unsteadily into the hall of Ransome … the virtual mistress of it.

  She was unaware of the drama of the moment. She had not thought of this aspect of things before, and the altitude when flying had made her ears thrum. She could barely hear what was said. She found herself concentrating to understand what Mrs. Whittle was saying about their rooms.

  ‘We had no instructions, Mr. Greg, so I prepared the end room beyond the office. I’ve had the bookcase in the office removed so that the three rooms now connect. I thought perhaps this might do until you care to make suggestions. The main front room off the hall could be renovated, in time.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs. Whittle,’ Greg was saying. ‘The arrangements you have made are admirable for the time being.’

  ‘I’ve moved your things, Miss Sara. I hope I did right.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Sara.

  She felt relieved. She remembered having thought herself that those three rooms down the short passage would make a kind of private suite, with the office between two bedrooms.

  ‘Do you want to do things to your face before you have supper, Sara?’ Marion asked.

  ‘Yes, I think perhaps I do.’

  She was bewildered and went to turn down the long passage where her old room was. Marion laughed.

  ‘Not that way, goose. You’re Mrs. Camden now.’

  Sara blushed. Her eyes involuntarily went to Greg but he had turned away to speak to Mrs. Whittle.

  Sara turned down the short passage with Marion following her. The doors to all three rooms were wide open as was always the case in order to let the free flow of air cool down the house at night. Greg’s room was as it always had been, the office seemed untouched, but the third room, the one that was now hers, had been altered beyond recognition.

  Fresh muslin curtains stirred in the faint movement of air by the window. There were two beds covered with gay chintz covers. The dressing-table was impressive and Sara was certain it had not been here before. The other big furniture consisted of built-in cupboards the width of the south wall behind the door and a beautiful round table set under the window with two small simple easy-chairs beside it. On the sma
ll table between the two beds was a pretty ruched organdie lamp.

  The whole was soft and pretty. Sara felt touched. Marion and Mrs. Whittle must have worked hard to achieve this. They had made, in so short a time, as much of the room as could gladden anyone’s heart. Sara felt there could be no enmity in their hearts, at least. She turned to Marion.

  ‘Oh, how lovely! Marion, you are kind.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ said Marion unexpectedly and still wearing her odd smile. ‘Thank Witty. Nothing’s too good for a Camden where Witty is concerned. It nearly broke her heart not to get the big room in the front of the house ready. I stopped her on that one. It’s hideously old-fashioned, Sara. And a double bed. How the heck do you know if they want to sleep in a double bed in this climate, I asked her.’

  ‘This is very nice,’ said Sara lamely. ‘It is all that I could wish for the time being, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, Greg might have other ideas. You never can tell with Greg. He’s a past-master at vetoing and using the blue pencil without reference to other people. You probably know that by this time. Now stop blushing and do something to your face, Sara.’

  ‘Yes, I think I will,’ said Sara, bracing herself. Marion was being kind, but Sara wasn’t going to get any nearer to her than she had been before.

  ‘I think I’ll have to wash properly,’ Sara added. ‘I’m covered in dust.’

  ‘The bathroom’s off Greg’s room. You can see the door in his far wall through the office.’

  The light was on in Greg’s room and Sara could see the bathroom across the darkened office.

  Marion left Sara in order to attend to the supper in the drawing-room, and Sara drew her dress over her shoulders. She kicked off her shoes and, still in a daze of weariness, fumbled for her dressing-gown in her case. She felt as if the journey across the office and through Greg’s room to the bathroom was one she had hardly the energy to make. She still felt the lurch of the aeroplane in the air pockets.