by Anne Hampson
‘You’re not afraid?’ he asked, rather gently.
Tina shook her head.
‘They don’t attack you unless they’re starving, and only then if there's a pack of them. They’re timid, really.’
‘They are?’ with some considerable surprise. ‘I imagined them to be very venturesome.’
‘They used to be the domesticated dogs of the Aborigines—their trusted friends; it’s only since the white man came, bringing his sheep to tempt them, that the dingoes have come to be outlawed, with a price on their heads.’
‘What a shame! They’re hunted down now, aren’t they?’
‘We have to hunt them, unfortunately. Last year we shot over a hundred around the homestead.’ The tinge of regret in his voice could not be missed. It surprised Tina, although by now she was beginning to admit that there was a much softer side to Charles’s nature than appeared on the surface.
As they neared the homestead Tina said impulsively,
‘Thank you again, Charles, for coming after me,’ and then she blushed because of her private thoughts. Had he not come then their relationship would have remained distant, and dominated by antagonism on his part; as things were a friendliness—to say the least—had suddenly sprung up between them. Tina felt she had made considerable headway in her desire to convince Charles that she was genuinely sorry for the trouble she had caused. ‘And thank you too for not being angry.’
‘Angry?’ he repeated, puzzled.
‘Because I went off without saying where I was going.’
‘Why did you?’
‘One sometimes wants to be quite alone.’
‘You wanted to be alone?’
‘I felt unhappy.’ Tina swallowed hard. ‘When you’ve done wrong you are unhappy.’
‘You sound exceedingly contrite.’ A certain crispness edged his voice and she knew he was now dwelling on the disunity existing between his father and himself. She was naturally disinclined to reach back and bring forward the matter of her perfidy and deceit, so she adroitly changed the subject, aided by the appearance of the homestead lights which by their brilliance soon gave shape to the house itself.
‘Doesn’t it look pretty from here? The lights look as if they’re dancing on the lawn—because of the fluttering of the vine tendrils clinging to the supports of the verandah.’
Absently he nodded, but looked towards the homestead. It sprawled, yet retained an attractive elegance; it had about it a patrician air—to suit its owner—yet within, it possessed all the gentle cosiness of an English country cottage. A warmth pervaded its mellowed fitments—the cedarwoods and bloodwoods and floors of lovely spotted gum, the high stone fireplaces and solid window-frames. Musingly, Tina tried to imagine Charles’s mother, who had inherited this place, but who had died at a comparatively early age, leaving it to her son. Austin rarely spoke of Charles’s mother, and often Tina had wondered if the marriage had not been happy. Certainly Austin’s love for his second wife had been deeper than that for his first.
‘You appear to have taken a liking to the homestead?’
Tina smiled, recalling that on one or two previous occasions she had remarked on the attractiveness of the house.
‘It’s solid and comfortable and ... safe, somehow.’
‘Safe?’ he echoed, rather sharply as he turned to eye her strangely.
‘Protective, would perhaps be a more fitting description.’ Tina gave a small unsteady laugh, for even in the dim light she could see the lift of her companion’s eyebrows in a gesture of inquiry. ‘It—sort of—of enfolds you—’ She gave another, self-deprecating laugh and added, ‘I’m not very good at explaining.’
‘I hadn’t thought you’d have that impression of it,’ Charles said after a small reflective pause. And he added, a most odd inflection in his voice, ‘You’re a strange girl, Tina ... and a baffling one.’
She coloured slightly, but made no comment. In any case, they were almost home and Mac hailed them from the verandah where he was sitting with Austin, Moira and Flo.
‘We were just debating on whether to come out.’ Mac looked hard at Tina and, recalling all the trouble to which she had put everyone on that other occasion, she lowered her eyes, leaving it to Charles to explain that she hadn’t gone too far away this time, and he had soon caught her up. She looked gratefully at him, noted his half-smile, and all her world seemed for one fleeting moment to be rosy. Soon, though, she was weighed down with guilt, as Charles and his father never spoke a word to one another during the rest of the evening.
Moira came to Tina’s bedroom late that night. She and Austin had remained talking long after the others had gone to bed and Tina was almost asleep when her sister knocked on her door.
‘Is something wrong?’ asked Tina, sitting up and snapping on the bedside light.
‘Nothing seriously wrong.’ Moira subjected her sister to the kind of intense regard she had used earlier when she and Charles had returned from the bush together. ‘Father’s upset because you won’t go back to England with him. He asked me to talk to you about it.’
Easing to a more upright position, Tina drew the pillows against her back, for as Moira was making herself comfortable in a low satin-covered chair which she had brought close to the bed, it looked very much as if she intended staying a while.
‘I’m sorry about his being upset.’ Tina’s eyes shadowed and she became pensive for a moment. ‘Nevertheless,’ she continued resolutely, ‘I’m remaining here for the present.’
Moira’s regard became even more intense and Tina had difficulty in meeting her gaze.
‘Why?’ inquired Moira briefly—and very softly, her eyes narrowing almost to slits as a pause ensued, Tina having no immediate reply to offer.
‘Father knows why,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve caused trouble between him and Charles and I’m making up for it in this way.’
‘Doesn’t sound logical to me,’ commented Moira smoothly.
‘There’s some other reason, isn’t there?’
Impatiently Tina sighed, then went on to say,
‘I want to stay, and that should be a good enough reason.’
‘You’ve complained about your work, maintaining you had more to do than I; you said you were feeling ill; you asserted you disliked Charles All this—’ Slanting her brows Moira sent her sister a sceptical glance. ‘All this, and yet you want to stay? How very strange.’
Despite her efforts at calm Tina felt herself go red.
‘You know all about what happened, because I told you. I also said I wasn’t now willing to take advantage of the situation—’
‘After all that trouble in creating it?’
‘Moira, I’m not going into any details. For the last time: I’m not going home with Father.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Moira after a long while, ‘that you and I are staying here for the same reason—Charles.’
Startled, Tina looked swiftly at her.
‘You’re staying because of Charles, I know that—’
‘And so are you,’ interrupted Moira, anger creeping into her voice. ‘How you came to fall for him I’ll never know, seeing that you never had a good word for him—not even recently.’
The colour in Tina’s cheeks fluctuated, and she lowered her head, avoiding her sister’s gaze.
‘I—I don’t suppose he’d ever be serious about either of us.’
‘No?’ with a haughty lift of her brows which was reminiscent of a similar mannerism often used by Charles himself. ‘I fail to see how you can come to a conclusion like that when I’ve already said that Charles has told me he loves me.’
Flinching at this, Tina swallowed, aware of a contraction of her throat which, she felt, only tears would relieve.
‘He really said that?’ Tina was remembering Moira’s deliberate avoidance of her eyes, when this subject had come up on a previous occasion. Thinking about it afterwards, Tina had privately expressed doubts about the truth of her sister’s words.
‘Are yo
u accusing me of telling fibs?’
‘No ... but I feel that if Charles said he loved a girl then he would immediately ask her to marry him.’
‘And what makes you so sure he didn’t?’
Tina’s head jerked, and so did her heart.
‘He’s proposed to you—and you’ve refused him?’ Husky words, and spoken with difficulty. Tina was suddenly lost and alone again, and all she wanted in this moment was her father—his comforting arms around her, his sympathy and understanding.
‘I haven’t refused him,’ replied Moira, intently interested in a flower on the hem of her dress. She was idly tracing round it with one long slender finger. ‘I just haven’t made up my mind, that’s all.’ She glanced up from the flower and looked straight into Tina’s eyes. ‘I expect that if he’s begun being nice to you then it’s because he already regards you as a sister-in-law.’
Tina nodded dumbly, the idea having come to her a second or two before her sister voiced it.
‘Yes ... that must be why he’s changed towards me—’ She was speaking in a very low tone, almost to herself. ‘Do—do you think you’ll accept him, eventually?’
Moira glanced away.
‘I might; it all depends on whether he remains so stubborn about having an affair.’
‘You haven’t asked him to have an affair!’ gasped Tina in disbelief.
‘I hinted—’
‘No! Oh, Moira—you couldn’t have!’
‘Don’t be a prude, Tina,’ snapped Moira, frowning. ‘What’s come over you since coming out here? Be realistic, for heaven’s sake! Everybody has affairs these days.’
‘No, they don’t. And you yourself admitted you’ve never done that with a man.’
‘Not up till now, but as I also said, I hadn’t met anyone like Charles. You ...?’ Moira’s eyes glimmered with a sort of mocking amusement. ‘Don’t tell me you would be averse to having an affair with Charles?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of having an affair with him!’ Moira shrugged then, and went on to say,
‘In view of the fact that you haven’t a chance with our stepbrother, are you now going home with Father?’
It was a long while before Tina replied, for while she would now prefer to leave Farne River Downs, rather than endure the pain of seeing Charles and Moira as lovers, or husband and wife, depending on Charles’s decision, she could not forget that her chief reason for staying was in no way connected with her love for Charles. It was to make amends, and also in the hope that Austin would delay his departure, so giving him and Charles an opportunity of resolving their differences.
‘No, Moira,’ she said at last, ‘I’m not leaving here until my twelve months is up.’
‘You—!’ Dark colour fused Moira’s cheeks and her mouth went tight. ‘Don’t you mind being the lovesick onlooker?’
Sickened by such a question, Tina saw Moira as she really was. Incident upon incident came flooding in and with her eyes now opened Tina knew that although she herself had been guilty of exploiting Austin, Moira had been doubly so.
‘Do you mind leaving now?’ she said quietly, slipping the pillows away from her back. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
Moira seemed to hurl herself out of the chair.
‘You’ll be sorry! Charles won’t even look at you while I’m around, so you needn’t harbour any hopes!’
The door closed with far too much noise; everyone else was in bed and a deep silence had long since settled on the house.
Tina lay in the darkness, tired, yet unable to sleep. So much turmoil of mind; so many things happening to all of them—to Austin and Moira and Charles, and of course, herself. How smooth life had been before the upheaval of coming out here. Such a pleasant relationship between Austin and his stepdaughters, and between Moira and Tina herself. Charles had written regularly to his father, and Austin had been so happy in the anticipation of his son’s visits. Yes, all had been happy and content
Restlessly Tina tossed about in the bed. The others might have been content, but she now knew that her own so-called contentment had lacked what it takes for real peace of mind. How different was life here, she thought, from the sham of the life at home. The vigorous round of parties, the hectic search for something new, the seeking of relief from boredom by an orgy of clothes-buying or a trip to Paris. No wonder Charles, working as he did so close to nature, had called her and Moira a couple of parasites. With a pleasant back switch of memory she saw him riding in from a hard day’s mustering, hot and dusty in his tight denims and checked shirt, his slouch hat tilted to the back of his head for the sun was behind him, falling gently away to the rear of the mountains. So bronzed he looked, healthy and possessed of a lean and hardened strength gained through the outdoor life he led. Man and horse had seemed as one, galloping across the spinifex plain, making for home and the well-earned rest that follows the strenuous toil: the horse to the food and quiet peace of the home paddock, the man to a refreshing bath and a well-cooked meal served on elegant porcelain set out on a long, polished dining-table. And following had come the tranquil after-dinner hours spent in pleasant company on the cool and scented verandah which ran the whole length of the homestead. To Tina, with her new evaluations, this was contentment, a life of reality in contrast to the sham of her own previous existence. Supposing Charles married Moira: would she be content with reality, with the simple pleasures which those of the Outback must always make for themselves? Not by any stretch of imagination could Tina see her sister being happy for very long; the pull of the gay round must in the end snap the cord of marriage, and what then? Unable to bear the thought of Charles’s disillusionment and probable loneliness, Tina determinedly thrust her imaginings into the dark recesses of her mind and, surprising herself by the ability to relax, she soon fell into a state of hazy discontinuity of thought and within minutes sleep had claimed her.
The following morning she was feeding scraps to the jackos when Austin came up to her on the lawn. With a pang she noted the greyness about his mouth, the shadows that darkened his eyes.
‘I asked Moira to talk to you,’ he began, stopping at once when she shook her head.
‘I can’t go home with you, Father. I’m sorry—’
‘But why, child? I’m sure you wanted to at first.’
‘Of course I did. I plotted and schemed so that you’d insist on taking me back to England.’ Impatiently she gestured with her hand, an action that sent the kookaburras off into the gum tree where they set up a complaint at having to leave their food down there, on the lawn. ‘You won’t believe me, so I shan’t waste words. Charles will let me stay, and so I’m staying.’ Throwing down the remainder of the scraps, Tina moved away, so that the birds would come back and take their food. Austin fell into step beside her, but no more was said until they reached the house, and then, to her utter dismay, Austin said that Moira had told him Tina was in love with Charles. ‘Oh,’ gasped Tina, disgusted. ‘How could she tell you that! It’s the sort of thing one wants to keep secret!’
‘It’s true, then?’ Austin looked positively haggard now, and he was shaking his head in a gesture of self-reproach. ‘Why in the name of heaven did I send you out here in the first place? I must have been out of my mind!’
‘I came to learn about the real business of living, if you remember. Well, Father, I have learned about it.’
He stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
‘You’ve changed—’
‘Indeed I have, Father.’
‘You’re more serious, and more mature.’
They were in the sitting-room and she moved towards the sofa, but did not sit down.
‘So the change is for the better?’ She forced a smile, but her whole mind was concentrated on the information which Moira had given her father. That she had fallen in love with Charles was the last thing she would have wanted Austin to know. She felt embarrassed and humiliated, chiding herself for her remissness in not securing Moira’s promise that she would keep her knowled
ge to herself.
‘Yes,’ admitted Austin in answer to her question, ‘the change is for the better.’
Her smile was no longer forced.
‘I’m glad you like your new daughter,’ she said affectionately, and drawing close to him she slipped her arm through his. For a long moment there was silence and then, persuasively, ‘Your quarrel with Charles ... you won’t keep it up?’
She was pleading with her eyes, deliberately using them to advantage, but now they contained a depth of sincerity which had been absent on many occasions in the past when, between them, she and Moira had heartlessly used all their wiles to get what they wanted from their stepfather. He had been a pawn in their hands; it was understandable that Charles should be angered by it.
‘What puzzles me,’ Austin mused, by-passing her question for the present even though it was clear by his expression that her efforts had not been entirely wasted, ‘is how you could fall in love with Charles when he was treating you so badly.’
She moved away, frowning.
‘You still refuse to accept that I misled you, don’t you?’ A helpless little shrug accompanied her words and a small perplexed sigh issued from her father’s lips.
‘I can’t accept that you’d deliberately put my son in a bad light. It doesn’t make sense, Tina, not if you were in love with him.’