“Of course not, why should there be?”
“You tell me that. How are the books?”
She stood silent, not with him. How would he react if she said, “The books, the ones I flew over to Glen Ingle for, are miracles, one miracle called the first primer has opened up a new world, a second miracle is happening right now as Gavin turns the pages of Robin Hood.”
“Miss Staples?”
The formal address brought her back to him as much as its sharp interrogation. What had he been asking? Oh, yes, books.
She murmured a reply, but he did not appear satisfied. “Anything wrong?” he persisted.
“You asked that before. No, everything’s fine.” As right as it should be, she thought proudly, in spite of that man, Flack, for Gavin is not shut out any more.
He was still looking at her closely, and she remarked at random, “You were longer than we expected.”
“So at least you noticed that much.” His voice was dry.
“Was it finding someone to replace Miss Fox that delayed you?” She said it politely but incuriously, and he caught the uninterest, and his brows met.
“Did it have to be that to keep me?” he questioned. “Couldn’t it have been—a grass stone to be set?”
“I’m sorry if it detained you, you needn’t have bothered, I mean it wasn’t important.”
“I see that clearly now.”
Another silence came between them. Terese knew she must break it. “Did you find a replacement for Miss Fox?” she asked again.
“There will be no need. Their mother will be the replacement.”
“Here?”
“Why not?" His voice was cold.
“No reason, Mr. Dawson, I simply thought they might be going to her.”
“We’ve discussed it over a fortune of telephone calls between Sydney and London. Sybil is coming back.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Coming back. Coming back. All through her morning stops Terese kept hearing Arn’s cool, detached words. She could not have thought that something so right, so natural, could unsteady her so much. Every fiber in her shrank from the knowledge that Sybil Dawson was returning to Backdown. She tried to tell herself that it was wonderful for the girls, wonderful for Arn, but it was no use. Why was he having her at Homeward Bound again? It must be for more than a replacement to Foxie; if someone was prepared to pay the right salary a position can always be filled. Was the position now a little different? Entailing, as well as the care of children, the care of a man? Of a husband? Remembering Ginny’s frank ambitions, Terese changed that to ex-husband, but it still made no difference to the overall situation. Arn Dawson was bringing Sybil back.
She knew she had no right to feel as she did, she was nothing to him except—except a bone for a dog. His own words. And yet, she recalled achingly, there had been that deep, reaching warmth in him the day Plush’s calf was born when he had said, “The bone stops”, when his kiss of reward had not just the taste of congratulations.
Then there had been that sapphire day when she had found her grass stone, when the blue of the sapphire that she had not found had seemed to enwrap them both.
Other times—his mountain-blue eyes catching hers over a nursling tree. An engine cut to silence in an emergency runway and a low voice saying, “So you were homeward bound? ... Don’t spoil it ... Don’t pull a flower to pieces to see how it works.”
She became conscious that she was beginning to descend into the valley, and she braked. It did her good to plunge her foot down. Feeling her control of the van gave her a feeling of self-control. When she pulled up at the lower and official Homeward Bound stop she was as cool and efficient as ever.
Am Dawson was not there, though the girls were.
They climbed up in their turn, Janet selecting another Heidi ... she was going along the shelf ... and Jalna asking, “Have you Ali Baba and the boiling oil, Tree?”
Janet said happily as her book was stamped, "Our mother is coming back.”
“That’s splendid for you, darlings.” Terese paused. “And for Daddy.” She felt she had better include Arn.
“Yes,” agreed Janet, “I s’pose that’s what he wants, though I did hear Da tell Joe that he couldn’t care one way or other.”
Teresa finished Jalna’s stamping and said, “Next, please.” She was aware of a mounting anger. Even though she had been hurt at the announcement that Sybil Dawson was returning, it was no appeasement that Arn, according to Janet, was uncaring about it all. Instead, she felt indignant that a man should speak like that in the hearing of his children, it pushed her personal pangs aside and filled her with protest instead. In all fairness to Arn Dawson he probably had not known that the big ears of his little pitchers were listening, but as a father he should have taken more care. What could the girls think of a parent who said of their mother’s return that he couldn’t care one way or other?
Terese’s rage did Gavin good, if no one else. In spite of the decision she had made to return to Flack’s and continue the lessons, she still had not been wholeheartedly sure. Now she was sure. Even if—no, when—it all finished up in her dismissal, she could not feel she had transgressed so irreparably, not when the maker of the rules was a man who spoke like that of his wife in his children’s hearing. She found herself thinking of nothing else but Gavin’s lessons. At night when she should have been checking over her library lists, instead she checked their next reading.
One evening, sitting with the others round the fire, and brooding over Tanglewood Tales ... suitable for Gavin’s stage, or unsuitable ... Arn Dawson strolled in unannounced.
Guilt made her bang the book shut too quickly not to send brows raising—Arn’s included. She went a dull, annoyed red. How stupid of her! She could have left it open at the page she was studying and no one would have commented. As it was, Ginny gave a sly laugh, Joe teased, “Not letting us into the secret?” and Arn simply stood, eyes now narrowed.
“So you expect Sybil soon, boy.” Terese was glad to be out of the focus, even though Joe’s words hurt as much as Arn’s had hurt that morning when he had told her that his wife was coming back. “That’s how it should be,” Joe went on, “a mother for those kids of yours.”
Arn said briefly, “I agree.”
It was an unemotional agreement ... what else could you expect from a man who said of his wife’s return that he could not care one way or other?
Ginny carried in a tray. Terese noticed that there seemed a different atmosphere between Virginia and Am, no longer the hunter and the hunted, an easy friendship instead.
But Terese was not to escape to her room and to her preparations for tomorrow. Rising to go, Arn said, “I came over in the bookmobile, Miss Staples. One of the shelves appears to need adjustment since I saw it last. If you come out now I’ll show you, and you can tell me what you think.”
“Won’t tomorrow do?”
“I’d like to have it done by tomorrow. It won’t take long.”
He strode to the door, and after a moment’s hesitation Terese followed him. What else could she do?
It was a fine, clear night. Unlike the valley, the plateau’s beauty was in its cameo sharpness, no wreathing mists here, and each bush and tree was cut out by silver scissors that left their silver edge to mark where the blades had been. Their shoes scrunched on the frost-spiked grass, silver in the clipped moonlight, and when Arn flicked on the light in the bookmobile it sent a silver beam.
He did not even follow up the pretence of the shelf, he said directly, “I couldn’t talk in there, so I brought you out here. There’s something I want to discuss.”
“Yes, Mr. Dawson?”
He stood undecided for a moment, and then he took out and rolled a cigarette.
“I—well, it’s a damn cheek...”
“Please?”
“Flack,” he said briefly. “Down in the camp they’ve been talking about a change in him, in his surroundings. ‘All spruced up’ are the words.”
“Ye
s?” She marveled that she could say it so calmly.
“I have a policy, like where there’s smoke there’s fire, that where there’s improvement there’s a woman.”
“That’s nice of you, Mr. Dawson.”
“Don’t take it nicely,” he advised, “because I don’t.”
“You don’t want improvement?”
“Not in him. All I want for him is out.”
“But...” she began.
“He’s no good and never will be. Any so-called improvement would be superficial and for a certain purpose. It would last only as long as it took to achieve that purpose.”
“Why,” she dared, “are you telling me?”
“If you don’t know, and I can’t believe you do, I apologize most humbly. It’s just that I’ve always found a woman behind a thing like this, and you must admit that in women Backdown is decidedly restricted, so one of you must have the finger pointed at her.”
“Go on.” Still cool, still poised.
He did, and her coolness and poise left her, but she assured herself it did not show.
“Lou Chappy—forgive me, Ter—Miss Staples, said he saw a blue van go down Flack’s track.”
She did not speak, and after a pause he said, “I don’t blame you clamming up at such a suggestion, I would myself, but it still had to be passed on.”
“You think...” she murmured.
“No, I don’t think. Good lord, how could I? But I do know that Flack has pulled up his socks, and the boys are looking for the reason...” His voice trailed off.
He must have decided he had said enough, for he switched off the light preparatory to returning her to the cottage.
“Mr. Dawson—” She had better tell him, this thing had got beyond deceit.
“It’s over.” His white teeth gleamed in the silver light. He put his fingers under her arm and once more their feet scrunched on the frost-spiked grass.
Terese did not sleep that night. Long after the evening confidences had trailed into silence she lay weighing up each side of the issue, the side of Arn, proud yet trusting, trusting her, then the side of Gavin, needful, needing what she could give to him.
Ginny’s soft breathing punctuated the quiet, the usual night sounds of a house, the scuttlings, scurryings, rustlings, outside the house the thin bleats from their few sheep, the cackle of cockerels, and once, a long way off, the howl of a dingo.
Dawn pushed pale fingers over the window-sill, and Terese was still awake. But she had reached a decision. The need came first. She appreciated Arn’s trust, but it was Gavin’s need she would answer. She would continue the lessons.
She got through her morning schedule on time, and early in the afternoon descended the valley. She chose her moment to turn into Flack’s, making sure that no one else was on the track, but the precaution was only just that, simply a precaution, she knew she had no earthly hope of hiding indefinitely what she was doing. A postponement was all she asked, enough time to bring Gavin to the stage of self-help and personal progress.
She backed the van under the brush of trees and Gavin climbed in and pulled out the table. They set straight to work and put in a good, remunerative hour.
Gavin was closing his books and Terese was sitting back smiling at him when they heard the strong engine of a Land-Rover. Both pairs of eyes flew to the strip of window as Dawson’s wagon labored past their concealed truck and along the rutted track to the camp.
In another second it was out of sight round the bend, but it still had to come back.
Gavin looked uneasily at Terese, and she knew what he was thinking and feeling, thinking that this could be the end of his lessons yet feeling, for all his dismay, a distaste for the invidious position.
“I—I like Mr. Dawson,” he blurted.
“I know,” she soothed, “I know, Gavin.”
“You won’t come again, will you?”
She thought a moment, “Perhaps you could come to me?”
“He”—he meant Flack, of course—“would stop it.”
She nodded, knowing that Flack would. “I’ll be here on Wednesday, same place, same time. Run off now, Gavin, I’m leaving before Mr. Dawson returns. You might replace any bushes.” Before he could answer, she backed out and proceeded to the plateau.
On Wednesday she was there as she had said, but not Gavin. She waited five minutes, wondering whether to sound the siren softly to indicate her presence, wondering if there was anything wrong with the boy.
Another five minutes, and her finger resting on the siren button—or should she run the van down the camp track to see for herself?—or should she walk?
And then, almost like a scene in a play, two people were approaching Terese from opposite directions, Ed Flack coming from the camp to her, Arn Dawson coming from the plateau road. Both on foot. Both meeting after what seemed an interminable time but could only have been seconds beside the van.
They stopped dead some six feet apart, both the men the same height, the same build and strength, what Flack lost in slackness gaining in watchfulness, what Dawson gained in posture losing in sheer stiff-necked pride.
Terese held her breath in apprehension.
Abruptly she leaped out of the van to run between them, run with an urgency and a fear. Arn Dawson did not even glance at her, but he snapped, “Get back!”
Ed Flack did glance at her, though, and his eyes were warm. “Yes, do as he says,” he smiled. “There’s—other times.”
Terese did not move. They will fight, she thought, someone will be hurt ... Arn...
The next moment she was being impelled into the van, and it was like being thrust there by an avalanche. The avalanche that put her into position put himself into position as well. Behind the wheel.
“The key.” The demand was staccato.
“Here.” She handed it to him.
He thrust it into the ignition, roared the engine, the van bounded out of the bush and along the track.
Even through the violent noise Terese heard Flack’s derisive laugh.
Terese spoke first. She felt she had to break that hard, tight silence, to bring words, harsh though they would be, from that thinned mouth. She also wanted to tell Arn Dawson that she would leave Backdown before he could fire her.
“I’ll go at once, of course.”
“The devil you will!” He had swung the bookmobile into the first emergency runway. How different, she thought, from that other refuge in a mountain cut. There he had looked at her in gentle wonder, he had said, “Don’t pull a flower to pieces.”
Now, only a weed reared.
“The devil you will.” He repeated himself. “You play merry hell, then simply say, ‘I’ll resign’ and walk out. Just like that.”
“It’s my right. It’s my right as much as it’s your right to fire me.”
“Trying to beat me to the draw, is that it? You little fool, do you think I would have let you off like that? Do you think I intend to now?”
He was wrong, terribly wrong, but she did not argue. “If you’ve nothing to say...” she appealed.
“But I have. By heaven, I have. I shouldn’t, I know, it will solve nothing, but I still can’t see ... Oh, lord, Terese, I just can’t understand it, that’s all.”
“Understand—Gavin?”
“Gavin? Don’t bring the boy into a thing like this.”
She was silent. She could not follow him. How could she leave Gavin out? Unless he did not know about Gavin—but he must know.
“How did you know about—about...” she stammered.
“About the Flack episode? Lou Chappy started it ... no, the fact that the boys were commenting over the difference in Flack was the real beginning. Then Lou expressed surprise that I was permitting you to call on the Flack camp after all, and when I said you were not, he accepted that, though he added that it had looked like the library van.”
“Yes, you told me all that.”
“And you told me it was a lie.”
“I didn’t.”
“No, I realize that now, you just let it be inferred. All right, Terese, it’s every woman’s privilege to lie, or imply a lie, if the cause warrants it, but good lord, did it warrant it there?”
“But he can’t help it,” she protested. “It’s not his fault he’s there, what’s more he’s not what you think he is.”
“Any amount of ‘improving’, or ‘sprucing’ as the boys call it, still leaves him the wretched same. He’s plain rotten, can’t you see?”
“Flack?”
“Who else?”
“Why ... why, Gavin,” she replied.
“Gavin's different. Don’t drag him into this.”
“But without Gavin there’s nothing to tell you. Arn, I know what I’m talking about, but do you?”
He was looking at her with narrowed eyes, narrowed but still direct. “Yes. You’ve been meeting Flack. No”—as her face expressed surprise—“don’t try to put me off through Gavin again. Keep the lad out. In a manner, I suppose, it’s to be expected, Flack’s a good-looker in a flashy sort of way ... women probably go for that slant just for the devil.” He paused. “Sybil did.”
“But I don’t.” She said it almost dully, almost without interest. “I loathe Ed Flack.” Her voice was almost lack-luster. “It was not like you think. It was never the man but the boy, it was Gavin. I was teaching him.” She closed her lips.
“Art?” A little hard laugh escaped him. “I believe Gavin could teach you that. The boy has what it takes.”
“But not the learning to give it release.” Words were tumbling now. “Can’t you see what I’m trying to tell you, Arn? Gavin, until we started together a month ago, could neither read nor write. He still can’t write, but...”
She stopped, suddenly aware of eyes brightly glittering at her. No disinterest here. No shrugging sympathy. Instead...
“Say that again, Terese. Say it.”
“Gavin was illiterate.”
“And you—and you—oh, my love, my little sweet love!” With a quick encompassing gesture he had her in his arms. It was all the birds in the world singing, it was all the sunrises, all the rainbows, It was magic, it was bliss, but surely this man knew, as she did, that something was very wrong.
The Man From the Valley Page 11