by Lucy Walker
With a sigh of regret Mick would slow down a little. Five minutes later, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Mrs. Weston had begun to pay attention to something else, his foot would press gently on the accelerator.
‘Look at the Houstons’ orchard, Annabel … don’t believe they’ve put the drill down the orchard for months. Those are the kind of people who let the thrip get in and ruin us all … Mick! Mind your speed. You’re up again.’
‘Sorry, ma’am. I wasn’t noticing. The car runs so sweetly at sixty you only think it’s thirty.’
Annabel sat in a nervous silence in the back of the car. Baby had been left behind, but Sugar stood up between Annabel and Kate and paid rapt attention to the sliding road. Mrs. Weston turned her head.
‘Don’t forget the stores at Wilsons, Annabel. And there’s a sale on at the Co-operative Society. You’ll get threepence a yard off sheeting. It’s advertised. Find out how much the plastic costs for the bathroom curtains. I’ll think about them then.’
‘Plastic is cheap anyway, Mother. You might as well send to Perth and be done with it.’
‘You never can tell. You might as well find out anyway.’
‘After all, I’ve only got Saturday morning for shopping and two hours on Monday before the train leaves.’
‘Why don’t you wait for the Perth express that comes through in the afternoon, Annabel?’ This was from Kate, who had looked up the trains that morning. She could go home on that train. Otherwise there wasn’t one till Wednesday.
‘Oh, that would be too late,’ Annabel said hastily. ‘It wouldn’t be a good hour for anyone to come for me. The morning Kattanup cream train is the best.’
Kate said no more. She was watching, not without amusement, the sly smile Mick occasionally allowed himself as the speed of the car crept up while Mrs. Weston discoursed on household needs to Annabel, and how the speed surreptitiously slacked as soon as she looked like turning her head back to the business of covering the road to Blackwood.
They arrived in the little forest town half an hour before the train was due to arrive. ‘Let’s have tea,’ said Annabel.
‘Well, I’m not going to the hotel,’ Mrs. Weston said. ‘They charge too much and the tea’s always cold.’
‘No, let’s go to see Miss Caporn. She’ll tell us all the gossip too.’
Mick drove them up to the little shop where Kate had had her first cup of tea in Blackwood. In the afternoon sun the town looked dusty, drab and deserted. There was only one other car in the main street, and except for two men standing idly outside the hotel not a soul to be seen.
Mrs. Weston stood on the footpath and considered her chauffeur.
‘You can have your tea while we’re over at the station when the train comes in, Mick,’ she said. She opened her little black money purse and sought anxiously amongst the coins. Eventually she brought out a shilling. She gave it to Mick.
‘Tea and a scone is only eightpence … so you’re lucky.’
Mick grinned. He tossed the coin and favoured Kate with a wink. The car moved off.
‘Mother, really! Why, he’ll laugh at you. Every time he shifts a wool bale he knows he’s helping you make thousands.’
‘He took it all right,’ Mrs. Weston said with an air of satisfaction. ‘I didn’t notice him throw it away.’
They climbed up the two wooden steps into Miss Caporn’s shop. Kate had Sugar by the hand and had to lift her over the last. Thereafter Sugar insisted in trying to essay the gap herself.
‘Sugar, I’ll slap you,’ Annabel said with exasperation. And to Kate’s astonishment she did so. Sugar was equally astonished and gaped in silence at her mother.
‘I’m going to order your tea for you, Kate,’ Mrs. Weston said. Kate flushed.
‘Oh, please,’ she said. ‘It would give me so much pleasure to have you as my guests … just for a cup of tea.’
‘I don’t think you ought to do that, Kate …’ Mrs. Weston began reluctantly.
‘Of course not. Kate is our guest,’ Annabel said sharply again. When Miss Caporn came smiling through the cane curtains Annabel spoke with asperity.
‘We’ll all have tea, Miss Caporn. And scones or sandwiches … Whatever you’ve got. And if Mick comes in, give him tea too, please. And charge it all to Appleton.’
‘Now look here, Annabel …’ began Mrs. Weston.
‘Mother,’ said Annabel. There were almost tears in her eyes. They were all sitting at the little table now.
Kate leaned forward.
‘Annabel, don’t worry. Please. I understand just how you feel. I promise not to desert until you return and I promise that nothing will happen to me or the children.’
Annabel looked at Kate anxiously.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m nervy really. I should be having a month’s holiday instead of a week-end of business.’
‘If you want to make it longer, I’ll be here,’ Kate said.
Miss Caporn came through the door with the first instalment of the tea.
‘There was a telephone message for Miss Osborne,’ she said. ‘Miss Peg says will the car pick her up on the way out. She’ll sleep the night at Appleton if it’s all right by Mrs. Weston.’
Kate and Annabel smiled at one another. ‘Good old Peg!’ said Annabel.
But Mrs. Weston sat thoughtful on this one. Had Beatrix been there Kate was certain she would have commented on her mother’s silence.
‘She’s up to something …’ she would have said.
Kate, over her tea, wondered uneasily what Mrs. Weston could be up to. Or had she, Kate, got the Blackwood habit of disparagement and suspicion?
In due course the train arrived, waited its twenty minutes of ‘tea-time’ break and finally jolted on its way.
Kate felt tired.
There was a strain in waiting on a platform, seeing the crazy little steam train turn the curve nearly a mile away, then stop at the watering tanks for five minutes, then crawl ultimately into the wooden platform where the passengers disgorged out of the train to rush the tea counters of the railway tearooms.
The twenty-minute wait seemed as if it would never end. Sugar all but earned a slapping from each and all of them.
Kate, feeling suddenly sorry for the little girl, carried her down to the far end of the long platform to the trucking races where the sheep and cattle were entrained for their long journey north. From there they could see the train like a hot panting serpent being given a drink from the water tanks. Sugar, from being really naughty, became confiding and trusting.
‘One day I’m going on a train,’ she said. ‘One big day I’m going on a big train.’
Sugar, born and reared in a country of horses, motor vehicles and aeroplanes had never made a journey in a train.
Finally Annabel departed.
Kate and Mrs. Weston, very much in the atmosphere of anti-climax, left the station and got into the ‘super-sonic’.
Sugar was sleepy now and nestled against Kate.
‘We’ll call for Miss Castillon,’ Mrs. Weston told Mick. Kate felt relieved. For a horrid moment in Miss Caporn’s teashop she had wondered if the crafty look which had suddenly come into Mrs. Weston’s face had been a witness of her intention to frustrate Peg’s visit to Appleton.
But no. Far from it. Mrs. Weston showed every interest in Peg. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about that girl,’ she confided to Kate. ‘I think we ought to do something about Peg. Can’t do anything when Hal and Beatrix are around. They’re too bossy. Besides, they take a particular pleasure in spoiling everything I do.’
Kate reflected that the boot was on the other foot. However, she listened not unkindly to Mrs. Weston. Who knew, perhaps the old lady would improve without the son and daughter whom she spent her life goading and who in return were always goading her.
‘With Hal away I can do a lot with Peg,’ Mrs. Weston repeated. Kate wondered if she was supposed to make some kind of response to this.
‘Everyone wants to do somethin
g for Peg. Everyone likes her,’ she said.
Mrs. Weston was silent, but her thoughts were not unhappy. She wore an almost seraphic smile. Kate commented on the countryside … and the golden hour of the day … on the wish that Hal and Beatrix would have a good trip to Kattanup.
But Mrs. Weston remained uncommunicative for quite a long time. Her thoughts were not only preoccupying her but they evidently pleased her.
‘I know what that Arundel woman and Mrs. Benallen were up to yesterday …’ she vouchsafed at last. ‘I’m a lot more wily than they think me. I saw them. I saw their faces. I know what they were up to.’
Kate was bewildered.
‘I thought they were up to having a good picnic … and enjoying themselves,’ she said tentatively.
‘But with what object?’ Mrs. Weston pointed a finger at Kate. ‘With what object? Ha! I saw through them!’
There was another silence. They were running down the long slope now. In a minute Mick would swerve to the right into the gates of the Castillon orchard.
‘Beatrix saw through them too,’ Mrs. Weston proffered.
‘I … I really don’t understand,’ Kate said. But a cold hand was closing round her heart. She felt dread, but she didn’t know what she dreaded except that Mrs. Weston would do something not good and kind but cruel and calculating.
‘I think one ought to leave Peg alone …’ she said at last.
‘Oh, do you?’ said Mrs. Weston. ‘Oh, do you?’ She stared right into Kate’s face. ‘That wasn’t what you were thinking three days ago, Kate. I can read you, my girl. I can read you like a book. Three days ago you were busy thinking how you could get Peg out of Hal’s way. Now all of a sudden you’re thinking the opposite.’
Kate withdrew back into the corner of the car. She looked with horror at Mrs. Weston.
‘It doesn’t … it doesn’t really matter what I think …’ she said. ‘Only I think … we should both … leave Peg alone.’
‘Ha!’ Mrs. Weston said with a smug smile. ‘Well, we’ll see. We’ll see.’
The car swung a half circle and stopped outside the Castillon gate. Peg was sitting in characteristic fashion on the fence post. On the ground was a basket and a tennis racquet.
Mick got out and took possession of these.
‘Hullo everyone!’ said Peg, bending and gazing into the car. ‘My, what a small party. Where do I go?’
‘Hullo, Peg, dear.’ This was Mrs. Weston at her seraphic best. ‘Get in the back with Kate. What’s the racquet for? Were you thinking of playing tennis on Sunday?’
Peg got in the car.
‘I was thinking of taking Kate along. I promised Mrs. de Berhans I would. We can take the kids with us. There’s always plenty of kids up at the School Hall.’
Mick turned the car. Mrs. Weston was engrossed in Peg … and her plans, so with wicked glee Mick made a pretty run at sixty miles an hour knowing very well Mrs. Weston was too busy to notice.
Mrs. Weston nodded her head thoughtfully.
‘Tennis? Does Rick go up to tennis often, Peg? We must get him along there on Sunday. I think I’ll come too … just for a change. I want to see Rick.’
The cold hand round Kate’s heart tightened.
‘She knows …’ she thought. ‘She knows …!’
Peg said disinterestedly: ‘Rick? Oh, he comes along sometimes. All depends on the milking. Depends on how many men he’s let off. He does the chores on Sunday himself.’
‘Mrs. de Berhans would have him roped in … ’ Mrs. Weston said. ‘Well, I’ll probably go along myself. Or I might even think of something else for Kate … We don’t want her fretting now Hal’s away.’
There was a stony silence from the two girls.
Kate stole a side glance at Peg. Mrs. Weston turned her head to the front in time to see Mick swerve to miss a wallaby. While she remonstrated with him and his speed Peg leaned across Sugar and whispered in Kate’s ear:
‘What’s the old girl up to?’
Kate shook her head.
‘Well, whatever it is, whether it is for our own good or not, let’s frustrate it. Hey?’
Kate laughed.
‘It’s like a game,’ Peg said. ‘One move to Mrs. W. and two to P. and K. I’ve got a nasty hunch that she’s going to fascinate me with Rick.’
‘You’re very perspicacious, Peg. And why not anyway?’
Peg folded her arms and leaned back in the corner of the car.
‘And why not?’ she said. ‘I think I’ll take a slice of the old girl’s cake and see what it tastes like.’
Kate watched the advancing trees and the domed roof of leaves over the roadway.
And why not? she thought. Wasn’t it her own idea anyway?
Chapter Two
The evening of Annabel’s departure for Albany proved a strangely tranquil one. Baby, it appeared, had always lavished the greater proportion of her attention on Judity. She did not appear to miss her mother. She did not take it amiss that Kate instead of Annabel supervised the evening meal and final ablutions. It was Judity who held the child, cuddled the child and lavished inordinate endearments on her. Baby took it all as routine and went to bed in perfect amity with the world.
Sugar realised full well that her mother had departed for foreign parts, and this knowledge had a most sobering effect on the usually wilful little girl. She clung tenaciously to Kate’s hand, but other than that showed no tendency to be difficult. Far from troubling their grandmother with their crying or their noise they were almost phenomenally quiet. Kate and Peg together put Sugar to bed, read her a story and bestowed a modest allowance of kisses on her lovely fair forehead. Sugar, without demur, went to sleep.
Kate, joining Peg in the billiard-room, asked her to explain the miracle of this obedience.
‘Don’t know,’ said Peg. ‘I’m always minding kids for someone or other round Blackwood. Seems that as soon as their mother’s out of sight they become reformed characters. As soon as the maternal relative turns up they make up for lost time and put on a record exhibition of tantrums.’
‘I think Sugar and Baby are really very good children anyway,’ Kate said. ‘It’s the inordinate amount of fussing … the bathing, feeding, dressing … that seems to go on in allotted cycles all day that makes it appear as if they’re a handful. It’s not the children … it’s the work everyone does for them.’
‘Well, their difficulties have given me this nice quiet week-end at Appleton …’ said Peg. ‘I’m grateful to them.’
Kate leaned back in the armchair.
She was tired. Very tired. It really had been a business getting Annabel off!
Peg seemed to her to be different. She was more poised. There was an air of determination … and a little of preoccupation about her. ‘What are you thinking about Peg?’
The other girl looked at her for a long minute.
‘I’m thinking about me. I’m thinking about going in for glamour.’
Kate laughed.
‘You might well laugh!’ Peg said.
Kate leaned forward impulsively.
‘I’m so sorry, Peg … please don’t be offended with me. I’m not laughing at you … not in a hundred years. I’m laughing because you’ve decided to do the very thing I’ve been thinking about ever since I arrived. And somehow it is funny. You hate artificiality, don’t you? Your niceness is your naturalness. Still, with your features and your height… you could be a raving beauty … in time. And if you kept on trying.’
Peg got up and in deadly seriousness examined her face in a tall wall mirror at the side of the billiard-room. She turned slowly and critically to get all angles. She stood back to get a longer view of her figure. She examined this too … and with even greater solemnity.
Kate was puzzled. She would have expected Peg to be amused and amusing about such antics. To be clowning. Or at the worst shamefaced and sensitive. But something seemed to have changed her. She was very serious and went about the business of examining herself earnestly.
‘What makes you fall over?’
‘Clumsiness.’
She was very serious.
‘I suppose you could show me how to use make-up smoothly … the way you do. Are you any good at setting hair?’
‘Well, I could try, Peg. But you’d have to wash your hair first.’
‘There’s plenty of time to-morrow. As long as my hair is all right by Sunday.’
‘Sunday?’
‘The tennis. I might as well begin my glamour career on Sunday. Have you got any Sydney catalogues with you?’
‘No, but I’ve got one or two lovely fashion magazines. Shall I get them?’
‘Let’s go to your room. Uncle Harry won’t even miss us and it doesn’t look as if Mrs. Weston is going to put in an appearance to-night.’
Whatever had come over Peg?
When they reached Kate’s room the first thing Peg did was to go through the array of bottles and creams on the dressing-table. ‘What are they all for, Kate?’
‘It’s my skin …’ Kate said rather shamefacedly. ‘You see, it’s so fair … and I wasn’t brought up here and it’s never had a chance to toughen. So when I burn I frizzle up and look like a lobster. Even the hot air burns it … so I’ve just got to put creams on …’
‘All right, don’t explain, darling. I can see all that with a glance. That’s why Rick calls you Peaches …’
Peg suddenly sat down on the bed and stared pensively at the floor. She looked quite sad. Then when she looked up her dark eyes were full of anxiety.
‘Of course I know my skin is burnt to hide … and it never was fair and luscious anyway … but do you think, Kate … do you think if I covered it up from the sun and used all those creams … I could ever get it like … well like … peaches?’
Kate dared not laugh at Peg.
‘Peg, dear, anyone can make themselves a good skin … if they take care of it. It takes work, though. And you’ve got such a lot to undo.’
‘How do I begin?’
‘Well, a glass of water first thing in the morning clears the skin. Then a daily steam bath and face pack will help clean it of impurities. Then a cream massage … and some nutrition …’