Wife to Order: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  She could not keep the faintly bitter note from her voice. A few minutes ago she had glimpsed heaven. Now she saw only icy winter in Oliver’s face. And he had called her my dear child.

  ‘I’d better go and see if Millicent is downstairs,’ she said. ‘I expect Hannah is waiting to serve dinner.’

  She went quickly out of the room. For a few minutes she stood looking in the big gilt-framed mirror that hung in the hall.

  What was it that made them think of her as a child? Was it her face with its golden tinted skin that was so soft and smooth? Was it her round chin and perhaps the fact that time had not yet put two tiny furrows in the middle of her forehead like Millicent had? Or a groomed sophistication about her mouth, so meticulously reddened by lipstick, as Jane had? Was it that her hair needed the sun or a bright light to bring out the red lights while Jane’s red hair shone in any light at all?

  Or was it just that she came from Wybong? A place not on the pastoral map.

  But the map in Oliver’s study was three years old and a lot had happened in Wybong in the last three years! The mining, for instance.

  Millicent and Jane were both tall. Easily three inches taller than Carey and those three inches would give anyone a lot of authority. Perhaps it was that!

  Yes … the weight of physical evidence and background was against her. She would have to show she was adult in other ways. It might be a long job, and a careful one, but she would do it.

  If she had managed Uncle Tam … and all those stockmen … she would manage Two Creeks. But slowly. Softly and slowly so that they didn’t know it, and didn’t mind it.

  And for peace sake she would have to stop thinking about Oliver except as the VIP he was; then he would be happy and she herself would sleep dreamlessly at nights.

  On Monday morning the curtains were down and the temporary ones up in their place while the good ones were dispatched in the utility truck to the dry cleaners at Preston, the nearest Shire town.

  On the morning after Millicent’s arrival Carey said:

  ‘You do look tired, Millicent. You must be awfully glad to get out to the country to have a rest.’

  ‘Of course I’m tired,’ Millicent said. ‘But I haven’t time to rest. Only weaklings give in to the “tired feeling”.’ And she had gone on bustling about the place, going through Hannah’s inventory of silver; the book-keeper’s stock book in the station store, and supervising the pulling down of the curtains.

  At morning tea-time Carey said:

  ‘Do sit down for your tea, Millicent. You need the rest, you know. You’ll be able to do ever so much more if you are rested.’

  Then when they sat down she asked Millicent about her Melbourne activities during the preceding week.

  ‘No wonder you look so tired,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I’m certainly going to see you have a few early nights.’

  When Millicent, agreeing that early bed would be a heavenly change, had gone to bed that night, Carey brought her up a tray of tea and delicately cut sandwiches for supper.

  ‘You deserve some cosseting,’ Carey said. ‘A rest and a little spoiling is what you need. I don’t suppose anyone has ever really given you the treats you are always wearing yourself out giving to others.’

  It took two days of loving kindness and sympathy to convince Millicent that that was just what she needed and deserved.

  ‘Really,’ she said on the third morning when she sat down for morning tea. ‘I’ve had it. Looking after Cranston and Two Creeks is more than I ought to have to bear. I really should come here for a holiday and not for work.’

  ‘I expect that’s how Jane feels, too,’ Carey said, as she bit into a sandwich. ‘She has a terrific social programme in Melbourne, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Oh … out morning, noon and night,’ said Millicent with exasperation. Then remembering that Jane was her friend to whom she owed demonstrated loyalty, she added, ‘Of course she is so very much in demand. Jane Newbold’s presence anywhere is always an attraction. Do you know that women specially read the list of those present at Melbourne Cup to see what Jane Newbold was wearing? It’s always the sign of the fashion to come. She’s a jump ahead of everyone for smartness. Really, Carey, if you go anywhere with Jane you will be socially made. I suppose you realise that. Of course being a Reddin is quite enough but we as a family don’t care for being in the papers.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Carey gently, ‘beauty is something to be treasured and guarded. It gives you, Millicent, a lot of pleasure to see Jane always beautiful. You will have to see she has a rest while she is staying here. Then you’ll both probably go back to Melbourne and take it by storm.’

  ‘Jane certainly will.’

  ‘Yes … but she won’t rest if you don’t. And think of all the zest you’ll bring to your committees yourself. At the moment I suppose you feel too jaded even to think of committees.’

  ‘I certainly do. Carey, do you think you could see that Hannah puts all that silver back? And do see that there isn’t one single smudge on one piece. I always believe in demanding high standards and not letting anything ‒ anything ‒ pass that should be done better.’

  ‘Yes, of course I will, Millicent. If you put your feet up on that foot-rest you’ll find it more comfortable to read a magazine. I expect those magazines that come regularly are your order. I wish you’d look through them and tell me what recipes you advise as good ones.’

  Carey took the tea things quietly away in the direction of the pantry.

  On Thursday and Friday Millicent had got the habit of being the prima donna who needed cosseting and it was amazing how Hannah, Cook and the roustabout all vied with one another to see she was well cosseted, on her favourite lounge on the front veranda.

  Out of sheer loyalty Carey said nothing to Hannah or Cook, but once or twice their eyes met. Carey would not let her eyes speak for her but she knew there was infinite relief in their hearts that Millicent was no longer going through the nooks and crannies of Two Creeks like a spring wind.

  Oliver said nothing. Perhaps, always being away from the homestead he did not know the former degree of Millicent’s high-powered and disturbing energy. In a way Carey had a certain feeling of sympathy for Millicent.

  The homestead had indeed been beautifully kept and Millicent had indeed devoted many years of service to it. Oliver had accepted it all automatically … even as a right. Just as Uncle Tam accepted everything, and then thought he had done it all himself.

  Men! said Carey to herself and shook her head in rebuke.

  Then an hour later she laughed because she could not resist going over Oliver’s room with an all-seeing eye for fear there was a speck of dust, that his shirts had not been put away in perfect order, that his house-shoes … those recalcitrant wandering house-shoes that he sometimes left on the veranda, sometimes in the bathroom and which had once wandered unbidden into Carey’s room … were exactly where Oliver righteously expected them to be. They had always to be under the bureau with their heels proclaiming where they were easily to be found.

  Even as she laughed at herself she knew that doing these things might be making Oliver’s domestic life run smoothly for him, but it also did something for herself. Perhaps women were born, after all, to serve men. It satisfied some inner urge to love. It was something stronger than oneself.

  The first indication that Harry Martin’s arrival was imminent was a telephone call from Tim Wackett down at the stables at nine o’clock on Friday morning.

  ‘We’ve just had a telephone call through from the railhead at Preston asking us to send out a horse-box for three ponies on the freight train from Albury, Mrs. Reddin. Seems like they’re consigned to you. The stationmaster says there’s a man travelling along with them.’

  Carey had been passing through the passage with a vase of flowers in her hand when the telephone rang. At the news that those three brumbies had come after all she would have wrung her hands except that she had the telephone receiver in one hand and the flowers
in the other.

  ‘Oh, Tim,’ she cried, ‘it’s Harry Martin. Are you sure there are some horses, too?’

  ‘All I know is they’ve asked us to send out a horse-box or get Smithson in Preston to bring ’em out.’

  ‘Could you … I mean, would you send a box, Tim?’

  ‘Surely, if that’s what you want. Can’t ask Mr. Oliver. He’s gone into Preston himself in the big car. He’s gone to meet the up train for some engine parts wanted on the refrigeration plant.’

  ‘Then please do that. And Tim? Could I go, too? I mean in the horse-box with your driver?’

  ‘I guess so, only there won’t be room for three on the road out. I suppose that Harry Martin is coming right along to Two Creeks. Maybe if you could pick up Mr. Oliver in Preston there’d be room for the extra passenger in his car.’

  ‘We could try. If we don’t … well, I’m very small. I suppose I could squeeze in between Harry and the driver. That is, if your driver doesn’t mind. That track is very narrow and very busy, isn’t it?’

  Tim Wackett on the other end of the phone laughed.

  ‘The driver won’t mind. How about this Harry Martin?’

  ‘Oh, he won’t mind,’ said Carey confidently. ‘He’d do anything for me.’

  ‘Right-oh then! Can you be down at the stables in half an hour?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there, Tim.’

  Tony had come into the passage at the sound of Carey’s voice. He was sucking his pencil and listening with interest.

  ‘Can I come too, Carey?’

  ‘Don’t say “can”. Say “may”, Tony. No, darling. There’s hardly room for me and certainly not for a small boy.’

  ‘I can ride in the box with the horses.’

  ‘Not brumbies, darling. They’ve got wicked hooves and bad manners. Besides, you’ve got to get on with your work.’

  Tony kicked one foot against the other. ‘Don’t be tough, Carey. Please ‒ please …’

  ‘No wheedling. Listen, you finish your work and be down at the stables to meet us when we get back. You’re going to like Harry Martin, and don’t forget you’re going to work with him. On our farm.’

  Tony considered.

  ‘Oh … all right. I suppose,’ he said turning away. ‘Only don’t let Millicent get in my way while I’m busy, will you?’

  ‘Darling, she’s had breakfast in bed to-day … ready for the visit of Miss Jane Newbold. Supposing you keep out of her way for a change?’

  Tony looked balefully over his shoulder at Carey.

  ‘I suppose when this Harry Martin comes you’ll be too busy for me any more.’

  Carey put the vase of flowers down on the floor and knelt down by Tony. She put her arms around him.

  ‘Never, Tony,’ she said. ‘Never.’

  She couldn’t tell him he was necessary to her because he was someone to love in the kind of way that meant she could put her arms around someone and press a small head to her heart and drop heartfelt kisses on a waiting forehead.

  Funny, but Tony was the only person she had ever really kissed.

  Her father and Uncle Tam were not the kissing kind. A feather touch of a pair of lips on their foreheads at night time was all they wished. In receiving it they thought they were giving it.

  When Carey had left Wybong she had kissed sundry people on the brow … and at her wedding. She hadn’t even kissed Oliver at her wedding.

  What would really kissing someone, with the love pouring out from one’s heart, be like?

  Carey had forgotten Tony. Guiltily she sprang to her feet.

  ‘Run along, Tony darling,’ she said. ‘Be seeing you … down at the stables. What time will we get back from Preston, Tony? How far is it?’

  Tony liked being appealed to as an authority.

  ‘Four o’clock this afternoon … if you drive in quickly. It isn’t how far it is. It’s that you can’t drive horse-boxes with horses in ’em fast on that track.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to teach me.’

  She picked up the flowers and hurrying into the dining-room put them on the sideboard.

  She ran lightly upstairs and put on another more becoming blue dress and a small hat with a fluted brim. She looked quickly at herself in the mirror.

  ‘I’ll do,’ she thought. ‘But I do want Harry to think I look well, and happy.’

  She dusted her nose with powder and ran out of the room and down the staircase.

  ‘Hannah,’ she said, ‘will you tell Miss Millicent I’ve gone into Preston to meet Harry Martin. She will know who I mean.’

  She said nothing of the brumbies and the horse-box for she was praying in her heart there might be some stables … or sale-yards … in Preston where she and Harry could get rid of those horses.

  Whatever had happened that he hadn’t got her telegram at Albury? Of course it must have missed him. He would never have brought the horses on if he had known just what Oliver and Tim Wackett would say and do about them.

  As for seeing Oliver in Preston! Please God, that was just what she didn’t want to happen. Not until they had somehow lost those horses.

  It was close on midday when they got into Preston. The driver drove the horse-box straight into the railway yards where it took only a moment’s glance to see where the flats and stock trucks consigned to Preston had been shunted on to a side line.

  Beyond the side line and parallel with it were the consignment sheds for goods being unloaded from the parcels vans. The sheds with their knee-high platforms stood with their great wide doors rolled back as railway workers moved packing cases and smaller consignments into the shadowed interior of the sheds.

  Carey took it all in with unseeing eyes as she hurried along the dirt track beside the railway line, looking for the box-car that might be carrying the horses. Harry was too fond of his horses to be far away from them.

  Though she glanced towards the consignment sheds in case Harry might be waiting in the shade there she failed to see the figure of her husband sitting on a packing-case a few yards inside the shadowed shed.

  Oliver, his knees crossed, his hat on the case beside him, was talking to a railway official.

  The figure of a young woman walking quickly down beside the railway line was unusual enough to attract anybody’s attention. Oliver turned his head and then he stopped in the middle of what he was saying.

  He dropped his cigarette on to the rough cement floor and ground it out with his heel.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to the man with him. ‘What was it you were saying?’

  ‘Road transport could have brought this stuff in shorter time for you, Mr. Reddin, like you say. It was just bad luck it was consigned too late to catch the up train on Wednesday. If you could get your agent …’

  He too stopped. Then went on:

  ‘What the devil’s that girl doing wandering round those horse trucks? Don’t she know members of the public aren’t allowed inside the railway yards?’

  ‘Perhaps she is meeting someone,’ Oliver said evenly.

  ‘There’s only horses in those trucks. Oh, yeah … crikey! She’s meeting someone all right.’

  He was standing in the opening of the shed looking farther up the line. Oliver had not moved and he could no longer see Carey as she had passed out of sight beyond the door of the shed. He looked straight ahead at the stretch of line in front of him. He slowly took out another cigarette and lit it.

  The railway man allowed himself a crackle of humorous laughter.

  ‘Bang into his arms. Kissing him in broad daylight! Well, well, well! Love in the middle of a railway line. If they don’t pull apart some time before nightfall they’ll cop the next freight train due to shunt in there.’

  ‘Supposing you do something about it, in that case,’ Oliver said, still in his even controlled voice.

  ‘What … me? Interfere with love’s sweet dream? Not me. Anyhow I suppose the fellow is with one of them horse trucks. That gives her permissi
on to hang around his neck as well on prohibited railway premises, I suppose.’

  He laughed again.

  Oliver had smoked only half his cigarette but he threw it down, stood up and ground it out with his heel. He turned away from the opening giving on to the yards.

  ‘We’d better go and see if they’re through checking those cases for me.’

  ‘You want a porter, Mr. Reddin?’

  ‘I’ll send a man up from the agency to collect the cases and put them in the back of my car. Is there a way out into the street through the shed?’

  ‘Yeah. Just keep going ahead past the big boxes, then turn left off the goods office. They’ll fix your freight check for you over there.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Oliver said. He walked abruptly away.

  The railway man shook his head.

  ‘Nice chap, Mr. Reddin,’ he said to his off-sider. ‘But love’s just no topic that interests him. Couldn’t see anything funny in that pair standing there in the middle of a railway line kissing one another. What do you know? It takes all sorts to make a world. And he’s just married, so they say.’ He shook his head. ‘Guess I’d better move that pair of love-birds on. Freight train due in from the north any minute now.’

  Oliver walked out of the street entrance of the goods office and across the road to where he had parked his car. He got in, started up the engine. He looked back to check the rear traffic before he pulled out into the street, moved into top and drove quickly into the centre of the town.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Preston was like any other western town where the pursuits of its inhabitants were exclusively attached to the pastoral industry. There was a wide dusty main street and under the pepper trees towards its centre were wooden seats where the white-haired sages and old-timers held daily consultation on the state of the nation.

  One side of the street was lined with veranda-shaded pastoral agencies, and in a row were the four main banks operating in the state. At the corner was the court-house and the police station, separated by a new modern garage rich with a growth of bowsers forming a barricade between the footpath and the garage proper. On the other side of the road were sundry small shops dealing in drapery, tea and cakes; a newsagency, a small goods shop; the main store of Preston which dealt in everything from gum-boots to sewing-machines.