‘Like Moon Mountain,’ Evonne suggested as they drove past the sign. ‘What a lovely name!’
‘Mmm. Not far now. There’s Tyrrell’s on our right.’
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed suddenly.
‘What?’
‘The roses! Did you see all those rose bushes up the drive?’
‘We’ll go back for a wine-tasting and a rose-viewing this afternoon if you like.’ Rick turned the car off on to a side road to the right. ‘And there, just up the hill, is Peppers.’
A few minutes later, as the Porsche coasted to a stop, Evonne stared around at Peppers, slumbering in the afternoon sunlight, and was unwittingly entranced. It comprised several buildings, all with creamy yellow walls and dark green corrugated iron roofs. Where they had stopped looked on to a courtyard and garden with wings on three sides, shaded walkways around it, white-painted sash windows in the upper storeys, and if you hadn’t been told you would have thought you’d taken a step back in time.
‘Is… is it new?’ Evonne queried wonderingly.
Rick smiled at her. ‘Wait until you see inside!’
But her delight in Peppers was tempered as she finally stood in the middle of a beautifully, authentically early-Colonial-decorated guest-room with an old-fashioned dressing-table and wardrobe, old prints and lithographs on the wall, a bowl of exquisite roses on the table, frilled pillowcases on the double bed—their room.
‘You didn’t tell me about this,’ Evonne said jerkily.
‘I didn’t know they’d be fully booked, but,’ Rick shrugged, ‘it’s what I had in mind anyway, so two rooms could have been a waste.’
‘I can imagine!’
‘Can you? Perhaps you can—you came with me, after all.’
Evonne sat down on the end of the bed. ‘You said, when we left Brampton, there’d be no…there’d be no…’
‘Coercion? There won’t. There’s also an extra bed.’ He indicated the single divan that doubled as a settee with half a dozen plump little floral-covered cushions on it. ‘You can always banish me to that, if you like,’ he suggested with a sudden glint of amusement in his eyes.
‘You’re impossible, you know!’
‘I know. Look, before you start to feel all tragic again, may I make a suggestion?’
Evonne shot him a fiery glance, but bit her lip on the retort that rose to mind. She wondered bleakly if she was being ‘tragic’—a thought that made her wince. ‘All right, make your suggestion,’ she said coolly, however, and with the unspoken implication that it had better be good.
An hour later she had to admit to herself that it had been—the first part of his suggestion, at least.
‘I see what you mean,’ she said drowsily, from the yellow lounger she lay on, on the lawn in front of the poolroom which housed a sauna and spa, a heated indoor pool and the Pampering Place, where a masseuse offered massages, facials and other health and beauty treatments.
On the outdoor table between them and beneath a natural canvas and wooden umbrella, a bottle of wine raised its slender neck from a dewy silver ice bucket, two half-full wine-glasses stood, and the crumbs on a plate from the delicious smoked salmon sandwiches Rick had wangled from the kitchen because they had missed lunch.
‘It is magic, isn’t it?’ Rick said quietly from his lounger.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Evonne agreed, trailing her fingers on the lush green thick grass that was studded with flowering clover, and felt a desire to lie on it, to feel its rough texture on her body and the springiness of it beneath her weight. Above her the sky was blue and dotted with lazy clouds, and away to the east the ground fell away into a fold with some clumps of enormous ironbark gums and untouched bush, then gently rose again and was planted with vines in their serried rows. The only sounds to disturb the peace of the afternoon were the ying, y-i-n-g of a million cicadas in the bush, and the distant pop at irregular intervals of the air rifles used to frighten birds from the vines, and the only activity she could see was the occasional rise and fall of a tennis ball on the court that was on the other side of the grounds and down a slope.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked. ‘I feel almost as if we’re the only two here on earth.’
Rick grinned. ‘That’s the other magic of Peppers—during the week, anyway. I think a lot of their weekday trade is in the form of conferences and conventions, so most of the other guests are probably tucked away in conference-rooms, working busily. Things might come alive tonight.’
Evonne reached for her wine-glass and sipped slowly. They both wore swimming costumes, she her emerald and black one, and it was hot. As usual she had smoothed on a sun-block, but, and perhaps more noticeably after the humidity of the Whitsundays and North Queensland, the air was dry and clear—it’s like champagne, she thought.
‘I suppose I ought to start telling you now,’ she said after a while. ‘Having been rendered soothed and almost comatose by the sun, the wine, the place.’
‘Better than being overwrought,’ Rick said quietly.
‘And tragic,’ she said drily.
‘I’m sorry if that hurt…’
‘No, don’t be. The last thing I would want to be, and didn’t realise I might have become, is any kind of a tragic figure. Funnily enough, there’s not a great deal to tell.’
‘About Robert Randall?’
‘No. I… never slept with him. I… he didn’t even know how I felt until…’
Rick sat up and reached over and put a hand on hers. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’
‘I’ve told you the beginning. We had similar experiences at the beginning, if you recall.’
‘And there was nothing in between until Rob Randall hit your life?’
‘Do you know him?’ Evonne asked quickly, then bit her Up.
‘I’ve met him. I know his wife’s side of the family better—the Kingstons of Mirrabilla. I once—for a short period—went to the same school as Ian Kingston, although he was three years ahead of me. He was killed in a plane crash. And we were once invited to Mirrabilla where I met Clarissa Kingston… who’s now Mrs Robert Randall, I believe.’
Evonne closed her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘But go on—were you a multi-affaired person in the interim?’
Evonne’s lashes flew up. ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you a question like that!’
‘That’s the difference between us, Patterson,’ said Rick with his lips quirking. ‘But one day, perhaps, you’ll be possessed of the same curiosity.’
Evonne compressed her lips, then thought with sudden exasperation, why not tell him everything? I might get some peace if I do. ‘Twice-affaired—does that make me multi?’ she queried ironically.
‘A total of three in all those years? No, I’d hardly say so,’ he drawled.
‘Thank you,’ she replied grimly.
‘Were they worthwhile?’
‘No, they were not,’ she said precisely. ‘The first one was—I thought—another love of my life but again I got the brush-off, although,’ she paused, ‘he didn’t leave me quite empty-handed. It was also a business relationship, and instead of the proverbial diamond bracelet I got a promotion. So I finally got myself together, and said to myself, well, bingo! I’m getting the hang of this…’ She stopped and sighed and drank some more wine. ‘The next time, I wasn’t even surprised. And in exchange for another small step up the ladder, I made no fuss, no scenes, but…’ She stopped again and this time didn’t go on.
Until Rick said, ‘I know the feeling.’
Evonne turned her head to him. ‘Do you? I don’t think you could possibly…’
‘Cynicism can come to anyone, man or woman.’
‘Cynical—well, yes, I was that,’ she conceded wearily. ‘But it was more—it was the knowledge that I hadn’t changed. I still had the same lousy judgement, I still… was too intense, too ready to believe I was in love—the most dangerous person that existed for me was me. So I decided I’d get my promotions and diamond bracelets…’ she broke off
and smiled a little bitterly, ‘I was going to say the hard way, but whatever, on my feet, not my back.’
Rick smiled slightly.
Evonne laid her head back. ‘It was a real coup to get… to get the job at Randalls.’
‘And you fell in love with him.’
‘Yes.’
‘You said he didn’t even know?’
Evonne closed her eyes again. ‘No…until I had to tell him.’ The sun was warm on her eyelids.
‘How did you keep him from knowing—until then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said after a long time. ‘It wasn’t easy, but I suppose he wasn’t looking for it. He had… you see, he had a girl in his heart, who also happened to be his wife, but she was very young then, Clarissa… Clarry, but, more than young, I think she was very innocent, yet things weren’t right between them. I…’ her voice shook a little, ‘became a friend of hers, which was the last thing I wanted or believed could happen. She was everything I wasn’t and desperately wanted to be, and I resented her bitterly for that as well as for—him. But I couldn’t resist her warmth and her innate grace… she was that kind of person. She was also naive and trusting, and owing to circumstances I couldn’t control we got really close. At one stage I became her secretary-stroke-companion, as she used to call it, and I stayed at Mirrabilla and helped her…she’d never taken any part in his social life, the social part of his business life at least, and she was very nervous about it.’
Rick waited.
‘Then one day she found out how I felt about him. I… unwittingly I gave myself away completely, and because… because of the difficulties of their relationship, she thought it was reciprocal and I couldn’t make her believe it wasn’t, I couldn’t get through to her at all. I also knew it was a crisis time in their marriage for other reasons, so…’ Evonne broke off and opened her eyes, ‘I had to go and tell him what had happened, how I felt about him, how I’d given myself away to Clarry… without even knowing she was there at the time… how she wouldn’t listen and believed he felt the same way about me. It was the only thing I could do.’
This time as the silence stretched even the cicadas took a breathing space. ‘She was,’ Evonne said finally, ‘the only other girl I ever got close to.’
‘And you still, in your heart, feel you betrayed her?’
She sighed. ‘Yes. But it didn’t stop me loving him, although I left him—I mean, I resigned there and then and I’ve never seen him since, except once. I saw them both once, and from the way they were I couldn’t doubt she’d…finally grown up for him. There,’ she passed a hand over her eyes, but they were dry, ‘now you know the whole sad story, and all about me.’ She smiled wryly, it all sounded rather trite and…much ado about nothing, didn’t it?’
‘Except that you acted honourably. Perhaps you have more innate grace than you realise, Evonne.’
‘Yes—I acted honourably,’ she agreed. ‘In the end. I should never have let it get to that stage, though. I should have gone away from the moment I realised what was happening to me. Somehow, I just couldn’t.’
‘And you haven’t been able to forget him?’ She stared at the horizon unseeingly and said nothing.
‘Well,’ Rick sat back, ‘unfortunately or fortunately, we can’t all be Robert Randalls—I certainly can’t offer you the kind of empire he has, but I do have one thing he hasn’t got.’
Evonne sat up and refilled her wine-glass. ‘You don’t have to. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, or tragic, so you don’t have to jolt me out of it or offer any wise palliatives, or insults, for that matter—in fact, I’d rather you didn’t say another word on the subject. Let’s just forget it—you wanted to know, now you do.’
‘I was merely about to point out something you don’t seem to know about me, something I normally don’t trade on, in fact it’s often a darn nuisance, but… my psyche appears to be a bit bruised,’ Rick admitted.
‘Your what?’ she queried.
‘My ego,’ he repeated, and there was a wicked little glint in his eyes. ‘So, in the context of trying to measure up to Robert Randall, I thought I might tell you I am, as well as everything else I am, a baronet. Someone was bound to mention it eventually.’
Evonne had been sipping her wine and she choked suddenly. ‘You’re joking!’ she spluttered, but almost immediately remembered Basil Brush, and a few other little things such as the speculative look in his eye when she had once called Rick Mr Emerson, the confusion on Brampton when she’d asked for Mr Emerson…
‘Oh, to be honest, I’ve done nothing to earn it, one merely has to be one’s father’s son, but I did actually see myself once described as being eminently eligible on account of it.’ Rick raised his eyebrows. ‘And of course my looks. There’s an elderly estate in England that goes with it… it always rather annoyed my father before he died that I seemed to prefer Australia, but after all, my mother was an Australian. How am I doing now, in your estimation?’
Evonne stared at him, then started to laugh softly. ‘You’re____’ She couldn’t go on for a moment as the laughter shook her from head to toe, but finally she did say, ‘Sir Richard, you’re wonderful, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you!’
He grinned and stretched out a hand to her again. ‘I love you when you laugh. Come and have a spa with me and then a swim.’
She sobered. ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘I know you didn’t—it’s all right, I only wanted to change the mood. I also thought it might embarrass you if someone else told you.’
‘Just wait until I get my hands on your uncle Amos!’ Evonne exclaimed indignantly.
During their spa and swim, it occurred to Evonne that she felt curiously like a prisoner set free, oddly lighthearted, although nothing had changed. She was still the same person with the same problems—and she was sharing a room with her current main problem. What am I going to do about him? she wondered. What’s he going to spring on me next? I don’t have to be a genius to know… surely the magic of Peppers isn’t so powerful as to make me not even care? Yet I seem to be emotionally wrung out, dangerously detached from myself.
They left the spa and she became detached even from her thoughts as they plunged into the pool.
She rose to the surface, gasping. ‘If this is heated, I’d hate to feel it when it isn’t!’
‘I think they rely on solar power in the summer,’ said Rick, pointing to the clear plastic panels in the roof. ‘I promise you you’ll feel marvellous afterwards, though.’
Something slipped through her detachment as they returned to the room to get ready for dinner. She stood twisting her towel, feeling awkward and, because of it, irritated. She hadn’t unpacked, neither had Rick, and suddenly she knew it was an impossible situation, overwhelming, fencing her in.
‘Tell you what,’ he said, with ah oddly alert little look at her expression, ‘why don’t I shower and dress first and then clear out and leave you to it? I’ll take the opportunity to make myself known to this advertising mob. You could meet me in the bar when you’re ready. I’ve booked a table for dinner at seven-thirty.’
Evonne considered, then nodded, and within a remarkably short time she had the room to herself. She sat down on the bed for a few minutes, then with a sigh got up and unpacked a few things, and got ready herself.
She was still in a quiet, thoughtful mood as she made her way to the bar, stopping frequently to admire and touch some of the lovely things with which Peppers abounded—beautiful old tables, lamps, paintings, china vases and plates on stands from a bygone era, one particularly exquisite little plate painted with violets, the wooden floors and old rugs.
Rick was sitting on a bar stool talking energetically to a man, but although Evonne stopped a few feet away and behind him, he turned his head suddenly and stood up with a hand outstretched to her.
She hesitated as his gaze rested on her, taking in the simple cool carnation-pink voile dress, her loose hair and bare legs, her pink high-heeled sandals, her gol
d bracelet and string of small, perfectly matched pearls, her glossy pink lips, her eyes which were suddenly so uncertain…
Then the moment broke and she moved forward, but from then on, the evening—the events, the people she was introduced to—everything took on a curiously blurred outline.
She said little, and was dimly relieved when Rick dexterously avoided an invitation to dine with the fifteen or so advertising agency people gathered for the conference due to get under way the next day. She took in a vague impression of the charm of the diningroom—huge old dressers, dark bluey-green walls, pink floral tablecloths. She ate deliciously sweet grilled scampi, and pearl perch for the main course as the late daylight of eastern summertime faded and the lawns and creepers beyond the diningroom windows became shadows.
She said, out of the blue and apropos of nothing to Rick, ‘How did you know I was there? In the bar?’
‘Some sixth sense.’ His green eyes held hers until she looked away.
And when finally he suggested they have their coffee on the veranda, she acquiesced.
There was a moon rising and silvering the sweep of lawn below, the rose bushes and, beyond, the surface of a small dam.
‘I knew there’d be a moon,’ she whispered, holding her coffee-cup in both hands, then putting it down carefully because her hands were shaking.
‘Evonne?’
But she wouldn’t, couldn’t look at him—there were tears in her eyes anyway, as she said, ‘I have to be honest—I dressed for you,’ she fingered the carnation-pink voile, ‘I wanted to be young and… carefree for you, but I can’t. I didn’t even realise what I was doing, feeling, until you turned and looked at me in the bar. I thought…I’d even thought you were hemming me in. Now I know…’ She stopped helplessly.
‘You want to be—hemmed in?’ Rick said quietly.
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