Wife to Order: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  Wife to Order

  Lucy Walker

  Copyright © The Estate of Lucy Walker 2020

  This edition first published 2020 by Wyndham Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1961

  www.wyndhambooks.com/lucy-walker

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover artwork images © stockfour / Nick Fox (Shutterstock)

  Cover artwork design © Wyndham Media Ltd

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  Books by Lucy Walker

  from Wyndham Books

  The Call of the Pines

  Reaching for the Stars

  The River is Down

  Girl Alone

  The One Who Kisses

  The Ranger in the Hills

  Come Home, Dear

  Love in a Cloud

  Home at Sundown

  The Stranger in the North

  Wife to Order

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Books by Lucy Walker

  Chapter One

  Carey sat, her hands folded neatly in her lap, and looked across the distance of wide desk at the man Uncle Tam had brought her to see.

  Oliver Reddin had shaken hands with her, smiled briefly, and called her Miss Fraser.

  He was very tall, very good-looking, very well-groomed and had impeccable but distant manners. Carey felt that in straying into his presence she was wandering in strange lands. She had had the same feeling in coming to this great, rich, well-kept, industrious and beautiful station. The paddocks outside that window were rolling and green, stretching down great vistas of shallow undulating valleys to the creek, then up rolling rounded hills to the Great Dividing Range; blue with distance.

  Coming from a town outback of the grasslands, Carey’s eyes were wide with wonder at so much rich green beauty. She had never before seen the tender green of willows along a creek bed: or the deep green of a pine plantation growing on the slopes of the hill along the bottom of which had run the road she and Uncle Tam had come by.

  By Carey’s standards this wasn’t a homestead at all. It was a great lovely house, two storied and set about with wide gardens, standing dignified in an ocean of green grass.

  When a housemaid, in conventional black dress and white lace-edged apron, had shown them into the wide hall, Carey had looked around, captivated and awed. It must have shown in her face because Uncle Tam had touched her arm and said: ‘There, there, Carey!’ in a soothing voice. ‘There’s nothing to be worried about. Your father knew Mr. Reddin, and Mr. Reddin’s father before him. He won’t eat you. And he must have had something mighty good about him for your father to make him executor of your estate.’

  Carey couldn’t get over this word ‘estate’. She had always known her father had a property in Western Victoria and that it was what he called ‘share-farmed’. That is, there was a manager running it and taking a share of the profits. The profits had dwindled and dwindled disastrously. Her father had been too sick to make the effort to do anything about investigating the causes of the trouble way down in Western Victoria: and Uncle Tam had been too old. Besides, Carey’s father would never tell Uncle Tam anything about his affairs.

  Carey and her father had gone to live with Uncle Tam outback ten years ago now. That was when her father had first been taken with his illness. Uncle Tam had given them a home because someone had to keep an eye on the eight-year-old girl while his brother Reg slowly gave up his slender hold on life.

  For the first five or six years Carey had not known her father was ill and that that was the reason why they had gone to live with Uncle Tam.

  She had been a young gay little girl with a round sweet face and smiling, happy ways. The people in the dusty little town out beyond the range and across the dust bowl had taken Carey to their hearts. She had grown up to the age of eighteen in the shelter of her uncle’s ramshackle homestead and in the warm glow of everybody’s love.

  When she was sixteen people used sometimes to say Carey should go away to Sydney or Melbourne and learn some kind of trade or profession.

  ‘She’ll be needing it,’ they used to say, shaking their heads. ‘What with poor Reg Fraser the way he is, and you’re not so young Tam …’

  Uncle Tam would shake his head and say:

  ‘She can’t be leaving her father now. It wouldn’t be human. Yes, I know I’m getting on, but Reg has got a bit of property down there in Western Victoria … and she won’t be left with nothing. She’ll still be young when he’s gone and what with her pretty face and a bit of property she’ll have time to learn something that’ll help so as she’ll look after herself.’

  When Carey’s father died she was just eighteen years old. Her father’s will had been very simple. It left everything to Carey and made Mr. Oliver Reddin of Two Creeks, Victoria, executor of the estate.

  Uncle Tam had written to Mr. Reddin at once … and now he had brought Carey to see him.

  First they had had two days in Melbourne and Uncle Tam had taken Carey to Myers’s big store in Bourke Street and said to a woman in the dress department:

  ‘Fit her out, will you. And fix someone to buy her a nice hat like all the smart young ladies in Collins Street are wearing. And one of those long slim umbrellas that give them a bit of dash. Maybe she could have her hair cut … and all fixed up.’

  The woman, tall, grey-haired and kindly, had looked at the little old outback man and the young bewildered girl … and had smiled.

  ‘You go away, Mr. Fraser,’ she had said gently. ‘Come back at about three o’clock this afternoon. We’ll look after your niece.’

  ‘Well now, what about lunch …’ began the old man.

  ‘Don’t worry about lunch,’ said the kindly woman. ‘Miss Fraser can have something light while she is having her hair set … or before she has her
manicure.’

  ‘Manicure?’ Uncle Tam asked, astounded. Carey’s eyes had grown larger.

  ‘Of course. In Melbourne every young lady has her hands manicured.’

  Uncle Tam and Carey had exchanged a smile, and he had shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t thought of it, I’ll grant you. But if you think it necessary …’

  Carey looked at the woman’s long slender hands and the pink fingernails.

  ‘I’d like it,’ she said, and there was real shining pleasure in her eyes.

  ‘It’s absolutely necessary,’ the woman said again. Then she took Carey’s arm and waved Uncle Tam away.

  ‘When you smile like that, my dear, and when we’ve dressed you …’

  She let her words trail away into nothing, but before Carey’s inexperienced imaginative eyes there suddenly unrolled vistas of beauty and sophistication.

  Uncle Tam didn’t have very much money, but her father had left her an ‘estate’. Uncle Tam had said not to worry about the cost of anything. Mr. Reddin of Two Creeks would fix it all up.

  Now, in her new dress of royal blue silk that made her eyes a deeper blue and brought out the soft glow of her youthful face under the soft white small-brimmed hat, Carey sat in Mr. Reddin’s study and looked at him.

  He was obviously a very rich man. Carey certainly wouldn’t have to worry about what everything in the past two days had cost.

  Her light brown hair curled round her temples, and out of the corner of her eyes she could see one curl. Surreptitiously she blew from the side of her mouth to blow it back into place.

  At that moment Mr. Reddin, who had been talking technicalities of probate and overdrafts and creditors and about land falling back to virgin state, glanced across at Carey. She stopped blowing her curl, straightened her back and tried to look as if all her life she had worn charming hats and pretty blue silk dresses.

  She must remember to walk carefully when they left Mr. Reddin’s office. She had never before worn delicate slim-toed shoes with tiny narrow high heels.

  Mr. Reddin’s glance made her feel slightly anxious.

  In her own heart, when she stole sidelong glances at him, she had called him ‘terrific’, even though he was a lot older than herself. He would be at least thirty. Probably more. He was the most handsome and well-dressed man she had ever seen. And he spoke in a quiet, firm, cultivated voice. He had black hair and a straight nose and a very firm chin. He only smiled once … when they came in … and then she saw his teeth were white, even and strong. Ever since then his eyes, grey and clear, had been cold … and something more. Carey couldn’t think what that expression in his eyes was. Angry perhaps, except there wasn’t anything for him to be angry about surely. She herself had been very quiet, and Uncle Tam was much more quiet than he had ever been. He wasn’t arguing, which said a lot. Uncle Tam generally argued with everyone. Outback, Carey had spent a good deal of her time being nice and kind to people Uncle Tam had been arguing with, so they wouldn’t be offended. Someone had once called her a regular little peace-maker, and one time their storekeeper had said:

  ‘This town’ll look after those two Fraser brothers long as you’re alive, young Carey. Real dose of sunshine, you are. And always pouring oil on troubled waters into the bargain.’

  Sitting beside Mr. Reddin’s desk, his broad-brimmed felt hat on the floor beside him, his gnarled and ancient hands resting on the polished desk top, Uncle Tam was not arguing.

  Mr. Reddin didn’t know how lucky he was.

  He had looked away again now, so Carey blew on her curl again. She hoped it wasn’t out of place and spoiling the look of her new hat. She would have liked to look in the mirror of her new handbag … but wouldn’t do so in Mr. Reddin’s presence.

  Presently Mr. Reddin got up, dug his hands in his pockets and walked round the desk. Then he walked round Carey, looking at her.

  Carey’s eyes followed him so that her head too went round as he went round. Then she lowered her eyes and looked at her hands in her lap.

  She’d seen the stockmen outback walking round an animal when it was up for auction. He was looking over her points. Her back straightened again. Just who did he think he was? And what did he think she was? A bay gelding up for sale?

  All the same he was terrific. Wait till she got home again and told Harry Martin, the contractor, and Mrs. Weiner and the Dowsett sisters about him. They wouldn’t believe, of course. They’d think Melbourne had gone to her head.

  There was a long silence in the room. Carey looked at the thick patterned carpet beneath her feet. Her glance stole upwards as she looked at the heavy legs of the big mahogany desk table. It was a very old table, she knew. The Misses Dowsett on Landora station had old furniture like this. Their grandparents had brought it out from England when they came in the early days. The Misses Dowsett always explained that the fine tapering of their teaspoons was because they were ‘Georgian’. And they had a family crest on them.

  Mr. Reddin went back to his chair. Suddenly he put his hands, palm down, firmly on the desk.

  ‘Now, what’s to be done?’ he said.

  Carey could see quite clearly that he was angry. Very angry in a cold controlled kind of way.

  ‘You’ll have to figure it out somehow, Oliver,’ Uncle Tam said with a mollifying voice that rang a danger bell for Carey. Uncle Tam was up to something.

  ‘I can’t give her a home any longer. ’Sides, it’s no place for a young girl like Carey. Just take a look at her. She’s kinda soft bred. And all elegant as if she’s just come out of a finishing school. You couldn’t ask her to go back, now she’s a young lady, to a place like Wybong. There’s no one there but stockmen and rouseabouts and swaggies nesting round the town like magpies in September.’

  Carey’s startled eyes met her uncle’s, but rather sheepishly he looked away back to Mr. Reddin.

  ‘You see what I mean,’ Uncle Tam was saying. ‘You’re the executor, Mr. Reddin. There must be some way of saving that farm.’

  So this was why Uncle Tam had taken her to that huge store and had her dressed up, polished, manicured and shod; to pass her off on Mr. Reddin!

  Yes, she’d seen the station owners and drovers polishing up their best stock before auction day.

  ‘Uncle Tam …’ she said pleadingly.

  He leaned over and patted her hand.

  ‘There, there, Carey, don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘Mr. Reddin here will give you a home until such times …’

  ‘I’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Oliver Reddin flatly. His grey eyes were cold with anger. ‘You are Miss Fraser’s only living relative. Her uncle, in fact.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Uncle Tam with affected sadness. ‘She’s eighteen and outside the law so far as any relative having to keep her. I can’t give her a home any more, Mr. Reddin. And it’s not fair on the girl …’

  ‘Miss Fraser,’ Mr. Reddin said quietly, ‘would you mind sitting on one of those chairs over by the wall? I think it is better that your uncle and I discuss this in private.’

  ‘Very well, Mr. Reddin,’ Carey said quietly. She got up and walked across the big room to a row of semi-arm-chairs under the window. In a way she wanted to warn Mr. Reddin that Uncle Tam was probably up to something. On the other hand … she wasn’t sure. Now that her father was gone, perhaps it was true that Uncle Tam wanted to go on living on his own. He’d always done that before she and her father had been taken in and given a home all those years ago.

  Her heart was beating painfully fast. What should she do? What should she do if Uncle Tam would not take her home and Mr. Reddin didn’t want to bother finding some place for her to live?

  She sat thinking, as the two men at the other end of the room went on talking. Her heart beat so fast it almost hurt and unconsciously she clasped her hands and held them pressed against her breast to quiet that rapid beating, but it was a peculiarly poignant gesture.

  Mr. Reddin, at the other end of the room, saw it. He pul
led in the corners of his mouth and his eyes became angry again. He turned back to Uncle Tam. Carey thought she knew why Mr. Reddin was cold with anger. Her father had made him her executor probably without consulting him, and now he found her, and her affairs, a packet of trouble on his hands. Carey was sorry, but more than her sorrow was her own anger that he should show it all so plainly.

  The door, which had been closed when Carey and her uncle came in, began slowly and silently to open. First there was a crack and then there were the fingers of a small hand showing round the edge. Inch by inch the door opened wide enough to allow a small body to enter.

  Fascinated, Carey watched a boy enter the room, shut the door stealthily behind him and then walk tiptoe across the room towards herself. He sat down in the chair beside her and when he eased himself back on the seat his feet no longer touched the ground. He would be about seven years old, Carey thought.

  He looked up at her, and their eyes met.

  He was the strangest little boy she had ever seen.

  His hands were clean and his face was shining. Between his fingers and along the hairline was a dampness that told her he had just washed himself but not dried himself very well. There had been some attempt to do his hair which was badly in need of cutting but at the back the hair round the crown of his head stood on end as if it had been many a day since it had seen brush or comb. He wore rumpled khaki shirt and trousers with a not-so-clean pullover. His shoes and socks were wet and covered with mud.

  Whatever attempt he had made to clean himself up, it had not gone beyond his brown-eyed face, hands and the front part of his hair.

  Carey’s eyes were as wide as his were round as they stared at one another.

  Before she could speak Mr. Reddin had turned in his chair and suddenly saw the pair sitting side by side, silent, under the window. He stood up with a sudden movement.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he asked. He looked at the boy. ‘Where did you come from? Have you run away from that place again?’

  He came round the table and across the room and stood towering over the boy. The boy looked up at him, his face innocent and inquiring.