by Lucy Walker
Kate had never seen so much lustrous motor-car work in one small street. She blinked. The secretary in her whispered there was forty thousand pounds’ worth of motor cars right in front of her.
‘It’s raining pound notes, all right,’ she thought. ‘Or is it just merino wool?’ Hal had said that merino wool was worth more than money … whatever that meant.
She was later to discover the estate owners did not stop at one limousine. They had two or three, together with station waggons, utility trucks, giant wool trucks, tractors. Even a humble jeep.
Hal looked at Kate’s thin shoes.
‘Wait here and I’ll bring the “supersonic” over. It’s around the corner.’
He put the luggage down and crossed the wide muddy street. The sun was filtering through the tops of the trees now and the wet road began to steam. Kate could see steam rising from the picket fence at the end of the road.
A young man, face burned to ochre, hands gnarled and horny, came up to her in a curious rolling gait.
‘’Mornin’, miss. Hal gorn for the car? I’ll take this.’
He picked up the larger of her cases and rolled away across the muddy street. He was probably a farm hand. Kate hoped so. She didn’t think in so small a place he could be taking french leave of her possessions. Two other men stood near the edge of the footpath and eyed her curiously. When she looked at them they touched their hats awkwardly and looked away quickly. Kate didn’t know whether to speak or not.
At that moment she heard heavy boots clumping down the wooden steps from the station. It sounded like a brigade of soldiers but was only Rick Benallen. He stood smiling down at her.
‘Hal gone for the car?’
‘Yes …’ she said shyly.
Rick Benallen wasn’t shy. He smiled for all the world as if he knew all about her … the little prickle of anxiety that troubled her … as well as what went on in her secretarial head. It was nearly a conspiratorial smile.
‘I guess he’ll be here in a moment ‒ if he doesn’t start talking to someone. He’s a terror for talking, is Hal.’
Kate flushed.
‘He knows I’m waiting.’
One of Rick’s eyebrows went up as much as to say, ‘You don’t know Hal Weston as well as I do.’
He called the two men lounging on the path.
‘Hiya, Bill! You waiting for Hal? Go and rouse him out, will you? Mick, you take over the rest of this lady’s luggage.’
Rick turned to Kate again.
‘Hal introduce you to Bill and Mick?’ and when she shook her head, ‘Well, here they are. A couple of no-gooduns. This is Miss Osborne. She’s going to stay out at Appleton and you two take good care of her.’
The men grinned sheepishly and Bill made off hastily as if in search of Hal.
‘Come on,’ said Rick, taking Kate’s arm. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea. Bet you’re famished. Everyone is who gets off the seven-thirty.’
Kate looked uncertainly in Hal’s direction.
‘Hal will be an age. I know him,’ Rick said. He propelled Kate across the muddy road into a small teashop. There were only two tables and at both some people were sitting. A tiny elderly lady came through the clinking cane curtains.
She smiled happily at Rick.
‘Well, Mister Rick, and how are you?’
‘Fine, Miss Caporn. This is Miss Osborne, she’s fine too … you can see that. Right out of a band-box from Sydney. But she wants a cup of tea. We want two cups of tea, in fact. Just put them on the counter, and a buttered scone with each.’
‘Certainly, Mr. Rick. Anything for you, Mr. Rick. But couldn’t you wait a minute and have your tea in comfort? I don’t like the young lady standing there. You going to stay with Mr. Rick here, miss?’
Kate shook her head.
‘The young lady is waiting for one Mr. Harold Weston, Miss Caporn. She’s going to stay out at Appleton.’
Everyone in the little shop was looking Kate over. She pretended not to be uncomfortable.
Miss Caporn said ‘Oh!’ and stood considering Kate a minute. Kate felt rather relieved that her plain pink linen suit would stand up to any scrutiny … be it Blackwood or London.
‘Should have plenty of time,’ Miss Caporn said at last. ‘I know Mr. Hal. Never known him to hurry. Not for anyone I didn’t.’ Her glance now appraised the little white piqué hat that sat on Kate’s fair head like a flat bow.
‘She’ll need a brim to that hat if she’s going out in the sun with that complexion …’ she added to Rick. She turned and disappeared between the curtains and Rick gave Kate the suspicion of a wink as he leaned on the counter.
A short, frizzle-haired woman sitting at one of the tables smiled at him.
‘How you doin’, Rick?’ she asked. Her voice was high, nasal and like a chaff-cutting machine.
‘Fine, thank you, Mrs. Railton.’ He smiled at her. It was the same impish smile he had given both Kate and Miss Caporn.
‘It doesn’t mean a thing,’ Kate thought. ‘It’s just the way the muscles of his face work.’
She felt faintly disappointed and then faintly angry for feeling so.
‘Hal will wonder where I am,’ she said.
‘No he won’t,’ said Rick. ‘He’ll know.’ He sounded as if all this had happened before. Kate stiffened.
Heavy clumping boots ascended the two wooden steps into the tea-shop. Another brigade of soldiers surely!
‘Might have guessed it,’ said Hal, coming in. He pulled his slouch hat off. He leaned against the counter on the other side of Kate. He took up a good deal of the little shop.
‘I’m glad I’m found,’ Kate said simply. Surely Hal would look after her now ‒ and not leave her to Rick Benallen. Rick looked as if he was going to say something but turned sharply away and walked over to hold the curtain aside for Miss Caporn, who was coming through with two cups of tea.
‘One more for you, Mr. Hal, I suppose. You don’t deserve it …’
Kate’s mouth quivered a little as she looked at Hal. ‘I only feel like this because he hasn’t kissed me yet,’ she thought. She looked at his mouth. It was a good mouth and his teeth, though not even, were good strong white teeth. She had a longing to be kissed. She looked down at her cup of tea quickly.
‘Mother would say I was shameless,’ she thought. Quite suddenly she didn’t care about the wool and the limousines and Appleton. She only cared that soon … very soon … Hal should kiss her.
It was Rick Benallen who passed the sugar. He smiled down at her and there was the faintest wink in one eye.
‘And you can go to Jericho,’ she said under her breath. Then she laughed.
‘You’re a good sport, Rick,’ she said. ‘I suppose everybody tells you that.’
‘Yes, Kate. That’s just what they do say. Heaven only knows why.’
‘Have you two a monopoly of the sugar?’ said Hal.
The ‘super-sonic’ thrummed beautifully as they swept out of Blackwood. The road left the town in a wide circular run and ran gently uphill through a belt of forest jarrah. The trees were very big, their trunks black with the story of past brush fires. They were straight, tall, and very still. Overhead the branches with their oily pungent leaves kept the sunlight flickering as it found its early morning way down on to the straight wide gravel road. Kate sat in the front between Rick and Hal. In the seat behind sat the three men from Appleton.
‘How you feeling, Burns?’ Hal asked without turning his head. He was driving very fast but he kept his eyes on the winding road.
‘You know what, Hal? I feel terrible,’ said Burns. He was the short thick-set man with the horny hands who had taken Kate’s case.
The men in the back seat laughed.
‘What did you drink?’ Rick asked.
‘Everything, boss. Just blinkin’ everything.’
‘Burns has had a night out,’ Hal said to Kate.
‘How’d you come in?’ asked Rick.
‘Come in with the blinkin’ Cricks. They
reckoned they’d be goin’ back past Appleton round about midnight. But I got on it, boss. I sure blinkin’ well got on it. Then I remembered Hal was comin’ in for the young lady this mornin’ and I could get out again. So I got on it wors’n ever. I sure blinkin’ well did.’
‘There’s a terrible smell comin’ from this feller,’ said Bill. ‘How long you goin’ to be gettin’ home, Hal? He certainly does stink like he’s had a night out.’
‘I feel wors’n I stink,’ said Burns.
Kate turned round and looked at the three passengers. Burns had wrinkled up his face ‒ and his body ‒ in the corner of the luxury car. The other two lolled back like lords of the land, their hats pulled down over their eyes … every evidence of disdain and exhaustion in their attitudes.
‘You certainly are a quaint cargo,’ she thought. ‘It couldn’t happen in England.’
Burns’ look craved pity from her.
‘I most certainly do feel terrible,’ he said.
Kate laughed.
‘I most certainly do feel sorry for you.’ The idiom came so easily. She turned back and caught Rick’s eye. He smiled. She wondered if she sounded phony Australian. That was worse than sounding phony English.
They came through the belt of forest on the top of a wide shallow valley. The whole valley was laid out in orchards. The forest stood still, cut short on the far rim of the valley. The earth between the rows, miles and miles of rows of apple trees, was brown and steaming in the sun. The smell of the earth, the trees and the jarrahs was heavenly.
The car swept down the valley, over a wooden bridge, and a hundred yards up the rise turned sharply into a driveway. The car pulled up in twice its length.
Rick looked quickly across at Hal.
‘You going in, Hal?’
His voice had an edge of surprise.
‘Got a message for Peg. Get out and open the gate, one of you logs in the back!’
Kate was startled by the sudden peremptory arrogance in his command. So different from the easy-going way he had spoken to the men before. He sounded as if he might be put on the defensive by Rick’s question.
The gate swung open and Hal swept through.
‘Back in a minute,’ he shouted. It was Bill who had got out. Through the rear vision mirror Kate saw him clamber up on the fence and sit on a post, his legs on either side twined between the wires.
‘Will he have long to wait?’ Kate asked.
‘He can wait,’ Hal said.
There was another gate at which Hal left Mick this time. Then two hundred yards farther on a wide verandaed, low-roofed house sprawling against the slope of the hill. All around was apple orchard.
From the trees on the right came a ‘Coo-ee …’
The car came to a standstill and Hal sat leaning forward, his hands on the steering wheel. He made no attempt to get out. Whoever he had come to see would come to him. And he knew it.
A girl was coming down the slope through the trees. She wore khaki trousers and a shabby blue shirt. Her hair was short, dark and untidy. She had no make-up on and there was a dirt mark across her forehead. As she came she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It didn’t improve the dirt mark. She came up to the car and lifted one boot … she wore boots … on to the running board. She bent a little to look in the car.
‘Hallo, Hal! Hallo Rick!’
‘Howdy, mate!’ said Hal. His face had a cold, almost repellent arrogance about it. Kate felt her heart go cold.
Rick said, ‘Hallo, Peg … how’s the cockatoos?’
‘Five this morning,’ she said. ‘They didn’t get an apple. If I hadn’t got them they and their thousands of brothers would have got five hundred cases.’
‘This is Kate Osborne, Peg,’ Hal said. ‘She’s coming out to stay at Appleton.’
Peg bent her head lower and looked into the car.
‘How do you do?’ Kate said. Then she caught her lip. Somehow the greeting was formal and stiff. She hadn’t meant it that way. This girl was nice, was kind; was hurt somewhere deep inside her and it showed in her sensitive, mobile face.
Peg said, ‘Hallo! I guess I can call you Kate right away?’
She straightened herself and looked out over the orchard.
‘Blasted cockatoos!’ she said. ‘If I don’t get down the orchard before daybreak they turn the place into a shambles of broken apples.’
‘It blinkin’ well wouldn’t be so bad if they’d oney eat the blinkin’ apples too,’ Burns said. ‘All they blinkin’ well eat is the flamin’ pips.’
Kate said. ‘Oh, what a shame!’ and felt tongue-tied.
‘Your father about, Peg?’ Hal asked.
She looked at him and shook her head.
‘He’s shifting the sheep out-back.’
‘Tell him Bob Sinclair said they’re having a meeting to-night. He wants the old man there particularly.’
Peg looked at Hal with surprise.
‘But Dad knows about it. They wouldn’t have a meeting without him. There’s no fireworks without the bang.’
‘Bob just wanted to make sure,’ Hal said. ‘I told him I’d call in.’
‘I’ll remind him,’ Peg said. There was a surprised silence all round.
‘What you doing bringing a message from Bob Sinclair?’ she asked. ‘You’re on the other side of the fence. You and Mrs. Weston.’
Hal shrugged and started up the engine.
‘Happened to be passing,’ he said. ‘Thought you might like to meet Kate too.’
‘Well, thanks,’ said Peg. She bent down again. The smile she gave Kate was friendly. ‘Good-bye, Kate. I guess we’ll see one another soon.’
‘Good-bye,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’
The car swung round in a circle and raced towards the gate. Mick had it open. He shut it and jumped on the running board. He and Bill at the farther gate, were getting in as the car gathered speed racing up the long curved sloping hill that ran between the vast orchards.
‘You in a hell of a hurry, Hal?’ one of them asked.
Rick pushed his hat on the back of his head and sighed.
‘You hope to get to Appleton alive, Kate?’ he said with a smile.
‘I suppose speed is silly,’ Kate said. ‘But it’s such a gorgeous car … I can’t help liking it a little.’
‘So long as we don’t hit a cow, or something.’ This came from the back seat.
‘Last time someone hit a cow,’ Burns said. ‘It was on the bridge, bottom of the next hill. He was doin’ a blinkin’ eighty mile an hour. There was four of them in the car. They and the car was splashed all over the trees for a hundred yards. Too blinkin’ right they were. I helped pick the bits off. Had to bury something you know.’
Kate stole a look at Hal. His face softened again and he looked back at her. His smile warmed her a little. As they went down the next hill he eased the speed.
‘How far out of Blackwood do you live, Rick?’ Kate asked.
‘Twenty-one miles. Five farther on than Appleton. How are you at riding?’
‘Fair,’ she said.
‘I’ll expect you out every second day.’
‘Whose girl is she, anyway?’ said Hal.
Rick grinned.
‘Toss you,’ he said.
Kate laughed. She felt light-hearted again. She’d find out about Peg later.
Perhaps it was something to do with her father and the meeting that Hal spoke about that had brought that strange look to his face.
‘With all this manpower around me I think I’m going to have fun,’ she said.
‘Too blinkin’ right,’ said Burns. ‘Do anything for you, miss. Ask me any blinkin’ time you like.’
Bill and Mick said, ‘Oh yeah!’
Chapter Two
The car pulled up sharply at the wide timbered gates of Appleton. On either side the forest stood tall and sweet-smelling. The early morning sun pierced the leafy tops, spangling the wet road with sunshine. Half a mile inside the drive the f
orest ceased and cleared paddocks stood on either side. A boundary rider rode past in stately silence. Rick held up one hand in greeting but no one called out. The boundary rider raised his stockwhip but did not speak or smile.
‘Looks like a ghost rider of the prairies,’ Kate said.
‘That’s what they are. They don’t talk, those fellows,’ Rick said.
‘Is he one of your men, Hal?’
‘That’s Bellew,’ Hal said. ‘An Englishman … when he does speak. Sounds like something out of a book or off the stage. Nobody knows why he’s here or when he came to Australia. He huts out on the western boundary. Looks after the fences here and at Arundel … the de Berhans’ property.’
The wide gravelled road swept past some big sheds. It curved round into a grove of pine trees and beyond it was the homestead. It was like a small village. There were outhouses and cottages; a long row of garages and then a big stone house. The front of it was almost hidden by shrubs and flowering creepers. It was framed in pine trees. Behind it the forest swept up the hillside.
The super-sonic turned around the side of the house and stopped at a little garden gate about fifty yards from the house. They all began to pile out. Rick helped Kate out and Hal walked round the front of the car and opened the garden gate.
‘Welcome to Appleton,’ he said with a flourish.
The veranda which surrounded the house was enclosed with a fine mesh fly-wire. A door on to the veranda banged and a girl, somewhere about Kate’s age, came quickly down the path. She was so like Hal she could have been his twin … about six inches shorter.