by Lucy Walker
‘But your mother …’ Sara had begun, uneasily.
‘My mother is a shareholder in Ransome but the homestead is mine, Sara. I am merely following protocol in placing her on my left.’
This was the first time Sara had known that the actual homestead itself was Greg’s property. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why he had kept a control over the internal running of it. Mrs. Camden and Marion had never had that fundamental interest. Perhaps, too, it was Greg who ruled that the meals should be in conformity with what the men in the inside dining-room liked and wanted. The homestead was primarily for the domestic ease of the men running the station.
Sara could not help wondering where Greg would place Julia when the latter returned to Ransome. She was therefore, surprised when Greg referred it to her.
Mrs. Camden and Julia returned together a week later.
‘I think perhaps you had better arrange the table for the future,’ Greg said to Sara. ‘Except for you and my mother I have no particular wishes. When the others arrive I think you had better place the family in order of seniority of age.’
‘With visitors alternately between them?’
Greg smiled.
‘When the visitors arrive I’m afraid you’d better start the meals buffet style from the first arrival. As a matter of expediency we’ll have to wipe the family meal idea.’
After that Sara did not trouble Greg any more with domestic details. As Mrs. Camden and Julia were the first of the families to arrive, Sara placed Julia one down from herself, opposite Marion, who was one down from her mother. In the intervening seats she put Sam Benson in one and the oldest of the jackaroos in the other.
Nobody made any comment except Julia.
‘The old order changeth …’ she said coldly.
‘Yielding place to new.’ Marion finished the quotation for her. ‘Julia, do you have to smoke a cigarette with the soup?’
Julia had taken out her long amber holder and was fitting a cigarette to it.
‘I’m merely getting it ready. I shall smoke with the dessert. That is, of course, with Sara’s permission.’
Her tone was challenging and it was the first time she had mentioned Sara’s name since her arrival a few hours earlier. Sara’s heart sank but Sam came to the rescue.
‘You needn’t worry about Sara’s permission,’ he said to Julia with a grin. ‘Smoking yourself to death would be the shortest cut to peace round this place.’
‘Meaning what?’ asked Julia haughtily.
‘When you turn out in a dress like that, Julia, you don’t expect any of us to have any peace, do you?’
He had turned his hard words into a compliment, for Julia wore a beautiful dress of primrose silk. With her fair colouring and blue eyes she looked very much the ‘golden lady’. And knew it. She was as fresh as if she’d slept all day instead of having passed it in an aeroplane.
Sara had what she called a ‘waiting’ feeling where Julia was concerned. She was waiting for Julia to strike the first blow. She knew it would inevitably come. Julia wouldn’t give up Greg easily.
She wondered what she herself would do about it, if there was too much dissonance. She would wait and see Greg’s reaction, of course. He had put Sara in this place of seniority in the family to help him keep the peace. She would to her best … but not if it put her pride to too big a test. Sara had some respect for her immortal soul.
It was not long, of course, before Julia was fully aware of the circumstances of the marriage between Sara and Greg. The maids talked about it at length in the kitchen. Because they were housemaids they knew all about the use of the three rooms in the short passage.
It was on the night of the first big family dinner party that Julia showed her mettle.
All the members of the family had arrived. In their train were several of their children in their teens and two solicitors.
Except for the big front bedroom, which was allocated to Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, the most senior members … Mrs. Hunt being an aunt of Greg’s … the men were housed two to a dressing-room, and one wide sweep of veranda for sleeping; and the women two and three to a dressing-room and the veranda adjacent.
Mrs. Whittle had already explained to Sara that this was the only practical solution of the accommodation problem and something to which they were all used.
Marion and Julia shared Marion’s own room, and Julia’s former room was given up to a younger uncle and his solicitor.
Two extra leaves had been put in the dining-room table, and Sara had given up her afternoon siesta to decorating the table with all the old family silver and arranging such flowers as the garden produced and which would be likely to stay open long enough for the meal. Magnolias were too powerfully perfumed and the hibiscus might close its petals before the evening was over. Sara decided to risk the hibiscus and opened the curtains and blinds of one window to let in the light until the last possible moment.
She took great pains in dressing that night. She had to make some impression on the family. She wore a lovely soft midnight blue dress with a photo-frame neckline that she had bought before her original visit to Ransome and which had not yet been worn. It had been kept for a special occasion … and Sara thought this night to be special enough.
Greg had been showing his uncle, with the two solicitors in train, the horse yards, and they were all in late.
There was some scrambling between Greg and Sara for their bathroom, and many last-minute decisions to make. All the connecting doors were open as they dressed and they talked through them to one another.
At one stage Sara, in her dressing-gown, while putting on the vanishing cream before powdering her face, walked into the middle of the office to talk to Greg through his door.
‘The ducks are all carved ready, Greg. When they’re brought in they’ll appear to be whole but they will fall apart with a touch. It makes it quicker to serve and keeps it hotter.’
‘How did you learn to carve a duck like that?’
‘I didn’t. Hoh did it.’
‘You mean Hoh?’ He was amazed.
‘Yes. He’s a first-class cook as well as gardener, Greg. You didn’t know that, did you? I only found out because I wondered why he took so much trouble over his herbs. He told me herbs were the soul of all Oriental cooking and that once he had been chef in a big hotel in Singapore.’
‘If you say it will be all right, Sara, I’m sure it will.’
Sara retreated to her room and finished the creaming of her face. She was delicately dabbing the powder puff … a piece of lamb’s wool that Andy had fashioned into a pad for her … in front of the mirror when Greg came in. His chin was well in the air because he was tying his tie.
‘Did Mrs. Whittle tell you we usually toast the Queen in the billiard room before dinner? Sam Camden and that wretched Hunt man like their cigarettes with the soup.’
Sara had turned to the side to look at him while he spoke. A sudden tender feeling made her long to tie his tie for him.
Greg bent a little and peered into her mirror the better to see how he was going. Standing almost shoulder to shoulder with him, Sara watched his reflection in the mirror. It was fascinating watching a man fiddling with his tie. Greg’s tongue was in the corner of his mouth and in unconscious imitation so was Sara’s.
Their eyes met in the mirror and they both laughed. Greg turned, took Sara’s chin in one hand and kissed her lightly on the mouth. In another minute he was gone out of the room.
Sara’s hands trembled as she slipped her dress over her head.
Perhaps I was wrong. I should give in. I should take what he has to offer me ‒ even if it is only second best.
There was a tap on the door from Mrs. Whittle.
‘There’s a cable come over the air for you, Miss Sara.’
A cable! It would be from her parents. She opened it quickly.
MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY DARLING HAS YOUR NEW HUSBAND GIVEN YOU A KEY FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY STOP PARCEL FOLLOWING MOTHER AND DAD
&nb
sp; Sara stood looking at the cable aghast, and Greg came back into the doorway.
‘Are you ready? Why, what’s the matter, Sara?’
‘It’s … it’s my birthday. My twenty-first birthday.’
First there was surprise on Greg’s face and then something like anger. He strode into the room and took the cable from Sara’s hands and read it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?’
Sara put her hand up to her head.
‘Do you know I forgot what the date was. I never know the dates up here at Ransome. One seems out of the calendar world.’
‘You must at least have known the month … and that it was near.’
‘Yes, I thought about it last week. Then in all the scurry, and so much to do, I forgot.’
‘You forgot your twenty-first birthday?’
Sara looked straight in his eyes.
‘Yes, Greg, I forgot it. A lot of things have happened to me in the last two and a half weeks. Quite enough to forget, or care about, birthdays.’ She turned away from him. ‘Anyhow,’ she added, ‘it was on my marriage certificate.’
‘I don’t know what sort of a monster you think I am, Sara. But I would not have passed your birthday over if I had remembered.’
Sara forced a smile.
‘Neither of us remembered. So let’s call a truce on the subject of birthdays. I don’t know when yours is, either, Greg.’
He dropped his hand and looked down again at the cable.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
He put the cable on her dressing-table and turned back to her. His manner was consciously easier.
‘Shall we go and look at the dining-room? This is your first big dinner party, isn’t it?’
Sara recognised the truce and so she smiled. ‘Yes, let’s.’
When they were out in the hall he offered her his arm.
‘A birthday as well as a dinner party is worthy of ceremonial,’ he said.
They had reached the dining-room. Sara herself was proud of it. To vastness she had added dignity and a feminine softness.
‘I think you’ve done very well,’ Greg said.
‘Congratulate Mrs. Whittle. We did it together.’
‘I like to see that old silver centre-piece with the candles in use again on the table,’ said Greg. ‘What have you put in its place on the small sideboard?’
He walked over to the lesser sideboard on which was standing, in a glorious sheen, Mrs. Camden’s silver tea and coffee service.
‘And this,’ said Greg, putting his hand on an entrée dish. ‘It seems to have pride of place, and I don’t remember it.’
Sara, conscious of a wedding and a birthday without presents, put the tips of her fingers on the scrolling on the entrée dish. A look half sad, half tender, came over her face and she smiled softly.
‘That is my wedding present from Jack Brownrigg,’ she said.
Greg looked steadily at her and then, turning on his heel, crossed the dining-room to the door.
‘I think we’d better join the others in the billiard room,’ he said.
He did not offer Sara his arm and she thought now that the urgency of business was on him again, and all ceremony was forgotten.
As usual, Julia had been determined to out-dress them all, but for once Sara did not mind. There were so many fine dresses amongst the womenfolk … after all, the Camdens had money … that Julia did not stand out as will one lonely, lovely flower in a garden. Marion had, for once, taken pains and wore a beautiful model dress of pale green. Mrs. Camden outdid herself in flowing chiffons, necklaces, strings of pearls, bracelets and rings.
Greg asked the youngest jackaroo, just out from England, to give the toast to the Queen, and a few minutes later everyone was holding a frosted glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Julia, for the occasion, had produced another amber holder. Two inches longer than her former one. Several of them, including Julia, carried their cigarettes with them into the dining-room. Where an older generation had put finger bowls the present one put ash-trays. Mrs. Whittle, who knew the habits of the Camdens, had suggested this to Sara.
The family took their places and Sara, for this occasion, took the place at the far end. Mrs. Whittle was beside her to help with the vegetables so that Clifford Camden was placed on her left.
‘Well, how’s our Miss Brent?’ he said slyly. ‘You certainly made a success of yourself at Ransome.’
‘Sara’s my name,’ she said quietly to him. ‘Miss Brent has gone for ever.’
He took her left hand and made a play of kissing it.
‘ “Sara” it shall be, now and for ever,’ he said. ‘Madam … your servant!’ But he held Sara’s hand just a shade too long.
Half-way down the table Julia took note.
‘Look at Clifford being gallant,’ she said. ‘Clifford ought never to be put with the ladies. He’s not safe.’
But Sara had retrieved her hand and was speaking to Mr. Ashdown, one of the solicitors who had come to the family conclave and who was sitting beyond Mrs. Whittle. She did not notice that for a moment all heads were turned to her end of the table.
They had reached the dessert stage before Greg rose to his feet.
‘When we meet each year,’ he said, ‘we join together, irrespective of minor differences, in a toast to Ransome. Tonight I want to vary that by a few minutes. My first toast tonight is to my wife.’
Sara dropped her hand from her wine-glass and looked down the length of the table at Greg standing so easily, so much the master of the situation, at the other end of the table. His face, being above the shaded light of the centre-piece, was in shadow, but she could see the white edge of his teeth. He was not smiling.
Everyone lifted a glass … some higher than others.
‘To my wife,’ Greg said slowly. ‘It is her twenty-first birthday!’
There were general exclamations and someone said, ‘Good heavens! Two twenty-first birthdays. It’s Marion’s next week.’
‘How about bringing that what-have-it in now, Clifford?’ asked his uncle from the other end of the table.
‘The very psychological moment!’ exclaimed Clifford. He got up from his place and left the dining-room. He came back within a few minutes with the two maids carrying an enormous silver tea urn.
‘The family wedding present!’ said Clifford dramatically. ‘Where’ll you have it, Sara? Greg?’
‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful!’ Sara put her two hands together like a young girl in genuine rapture.
‘Perhaps on the lesser sideboard. Between the tea service and the coffee service,’ suggested Greg, leaving his place and going to the sideboard to make room.
‘Oh no, Greg … please,’ said Sara. ‘They all would dwarf one another. And my entrée dish looks so sweet there, right in the middle. Please let us have the urn on a table to itself. We could use this little serving table. Then it would be on the opposite side of the room and sort of … sort of balance the tea and coffee sets.’
‘Just as the lady says,’ said Clifford, directing operations with the maids. Then turning to Greg, ‘You leave it to your wife, old man. Women always know best about these things.’
The urn was placed on the table. Sara, who had left her place to indicate where she thought the urn would look best, now returned to the table.
‘Oh! Isn’t it beautiful!’ she said again, admiring the lights playing silver and blue on the lovely smooth surface.
‘And that’s not all,’ said Sam Benson. ‘Go on … Nellie … Mary … stop that footling giggling and bring in our present.’
The maids went out and came back with a vast silver tray.
‘From the boys and me, Mrs. Whittle taking first place, of course,’ said Sam grandiosely.
It was his turn to direct the maids, and this time the tray was placed without query upright against the wall behind the urn.
Sara’s eyes were shining.
‘It’s a lovely birthday,’ she said.
‘And a lovely wedding day?’ asked Julia. ‘After all, these are your wedding presents …’
I won’t let her spoil it for me, thought Sara. But Julia’s voice went on:
‘Quite a success altogether is our Sara. Out at the cattle camp Marion and I were tossing up whether it would be Clifford or Jack Brownrigg who was to be conquered. Good job we didn’t bet on it, isn’t it, Marion?’
There was a momentary and awful silence, for Julia was not joking. There was no fun or laughter in her voice.
It was Sam Benson, back in his place, who broke the silence.
‘Sara had conquered us all, Julia,’ he said in a voice now rather fruity with a number of drinks. ‘There’s not a man on the place who isn’t eating out of Sara’s hand. Don’t see why Clifford and Jack should get off scot-free … even if they do wear clothes made by a London tailor.’
A burst of laughter met this sally, and Sara found Mrs. Whittle’s eyes resting on her. Mrs. Whittle’s eyes said that no Camden … not even one recently married into the family … would behave at such a moment with anything but dignity.
Sara felt her back straightening.
‘Thank you for the compliment, Sam,’ she said. ‘It is always nice to be paid a compliment, isn’t it? Even one as nicely coloured as yours.’
‘The more the colour the more the compliment,’ said Sam. ‘I ever only paid one before. And she was a beautiful young woman too.’
There were cries of ‘Who? Tell us who, Sam.’
Julia, ousted in this battle of words, took no apparent interest in Sam’s personal story which he was now telling at length. She cracked nuts noisily.
‘When do we toast Ransome, Greg?’ she asked in her clear compelling voice. ‘That is what we all came for, isn’t it? I’m dying for my coffee, strictly laced with brandy.’
Sara met Greg’s eyes to see if now was the moment to rise. He nodded to her but there was no smile on his face.