She saw the horse, standing quiet, and looked wildly around for its rider. He came from the side, a dark silhouette, and she saw at once he was not Johnny. A taller man, and more thick-set. For a moment he seemed terribly familiar, and then, as he came into the circle of light, she recognized him.
“Mr. Gray!” her breath caught, and her heart thumped unpleasantly. The black eyes widened in surprise, and then he was smiling.
“Jane Banister, as I live and breathe!”
“I...” she began, and glanced over her shoulder. “Oh Mr. Gray, my sister’s ever so sick!” The tears came pouring down her cheeks. “She just lies there, and... and I don’t know what to do. She’s the one who always knows what to do, and she was awful sick before and... and I think she’s going to die!”
“Hush,” he said sternly, and for a moment considered her white face with its huge, dark-shadowed eyes. “I stopped for a drink,” he added quietly, “before continuing on my way to Bathurst. Can you get me a drink, Jane, while I take a look at your sister?”
Jane nodded, wiping her cheeks, and went in to fetch his drink.
Hezekiah Gray followed her, and went through into the other room. There was a candle near the bed, already burnt well down. The woman was lying under a blanket, quite still, her face like alabaster beneath dark, irrepressible hair. He thought for a moment it was too late already, until he saw the way her hands clenched and unclenched on the blankets. He covered them with his own. Her flesh was dry and burning.
“Well,” he murmured, his expression unreadable as he looked down at her, “this is what you’ve come to, Miss Lizzie Banister.”
At the sound of her name she stirred a little, and the incredibly thick eyelashes swept up. Her eyes gleamed, but in a blurred way. She licked her lips, and tried to speak, but her voice was a mere croak. She licked her lips again, and looking around he saw a jug of water and poured some into a glass. He lifted her, holding her upright against him as she drank. The effort seemed to exhaust her, and she lay back down with a soft groan.
“Lizzie Banister?” he whispered, and brushed her dark hair back from her forehead. It was soft as silk, for all its riotous curl, and his hand trembled a little.
Lizzie, struggling against a world of darkness and death, felt his hand and heard his voice, and something in both prodded the old fighting spirit back to life. “I’m not dying,” she said harshly.
‘Well of course you’re not, Lizzie Banister!’ He put his finger on her lips, tracing their outline, and her eyes gazed up at him in a sort of baffled wonder. “I think, first of all, we should break that fever of yours,” he said, “and then we’ll see about getting you on to your feet again.”
Jane appeared behind him with a tankard, and he took it with a smile and drank.
“Is she...” Jane managed, but he shook his head.
“No more weeping,” he said sternly. “We have work to do.”
Lizzie, hovering between reality and delirium, remembered vague bits and pieces—being stripped down to her shift by a pair of firm masculine hands, and then covered with blankets until she perspired freely. She cried out, trying to escape the offending hands, but they held her firm. The devil seemed to have arrived to torment her, and no matter how she tried to escape him, he would not leave her alone.
“Drink this, Lizzie, or I’ll have to hold your nose until you do.”
She opened her eyes to glare at him, and saw how tired he looked, his shirt unbuttoned and his hair untidy and damp from the heat. Black eyes mocked her, unfathomable as the deepest ocean, and she gazed into them. Her mouth began to tremble with weakness, and a tear ran down her cheek.
“Don’t let me die,” she said shakily.
He was staring at her, and suddenly stooped and put his mouth against her own soft lips.
“I won’t let you die now, Lizzie,” he whispered. “Only saints die young,” and he grinned into her furious eyes.
“How do you know I’m not?” she hissed.
“A saint? Oh, Lizzie!”
He lifted her up, so that she could drink the warm broth. She took several mouthfuls before she shook her head. He put the bowl down, lowering her gently back on to the bed. For a moment he looked at her, expressionless. Her eyelashes flickered, sweeping her cheeks.
“How did you find us?” she said at last. The fact that he was here had not struck her as odd while she was so ill, but now, with her mind weary but clear, she thought it very odd indeed.
He smiled. “I was riding out to Bathurst. I have to get back to my farm. I stopped for a drink.”
Her eyes flickered again, and this time stayed closed. Her breathing slowed and deepened. After a moment he rose, and was at the door when Jane entered.
“I’ve heated water, if you wish to wash,” she whispered. “And Johnny’s back. He’s brought some medicine, but no doctor.”
Hezekiah Gray smiled. “No matter. The fever’s broken and she’s sleeping normally. I’m starving, by the way.”
She smiled. “Johnny’s tending to that, Mr Gray. I’ll just sit by Lizzie a while. And Mr. Gray... thank you, very much.”
He flicked her cheek with his finger, and left her.
Jane sat down by Lizzie’s bed, deep in thought. She had looked in earlier, unbeknown to Zek Gray, and had seen him kiss her. Lizzie and Mr. Gray! It seemed preposterous, and yet... Sighing, she rearranged her sister’s blankets, and settled to wait.
CHAPTER FOUR
“LIZZIE?” Jane’s cool hand on her brow. She smiled up at her sister’s drawn, anxious face. For a moment it hovered on the brink of tears, and then Jane broke into a beaming smile. “Oh Lizzie, I’m so glad you’re well again!”
“Johnny?”
“He’s sleeping. He couldn’t find anyone to come, and he was so upset.” Her blue eyes were tender. “Are you hungry? We’ve had our breakfast long ago. It’s almost noon, you know.”
“I’m thirsty, that’s all.”
“Mr. Gray has some brandy he said you’re to take with water.”
“Indeed!”
Jane bit her lip. “I know how you feel about him, Liz, but he’s been so good, and I think he saved your life.”
Lizzie glared at her a moment, and then sighed. “I wonder he bothered.”
“Liz, how can you be so ungrateful?” Jane whispered, and stalked out.
Lizzie closed her eyes. She was grateful to him of course, but she could hardly alter her opinion of him because of that, could she? And now that she came to recall their talk earlier, she seemed to remember him kissing her! How dare he take liberties with her weakness! Actually assaulting her when she was quite unable to defend herself! It only went to prove what an unscrupulous rake the man was.
A footstep in the doorway made her open her eyes. For a moment she thought... hoped, it was Johnny.
“Miss Banister?”
Johnny never spoke in that low, satyr’s voice.
“Mr. Gray.”
“Ah, you’re sounding more like your old disapproving self.”
He had washed and tidied his clothing, though he had left off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt halfway down his chest—both sins when visiting a sick-bed, in Lizzie’s eyes. That he looked very handsome was no excuse and certainly of no merit. She watched him distrustfully as he came closer, and put his palm on her forehead.
Black eyes danced down at her, the lines on his face deepening with laughter. Lines of dissipation, Lizzie thought darkly. Any man with such knowing, wicked eyes and such a cynical, world-weary smile must be dissipated.
“Must you frown like that, Lizzie?” the low voice mocked her. “It’s hideous.”
She scowled even more blackly.
He sighed. “Back to normal, are we? Well I’ve wasted quite enough time on you. I’ve my own business to attend to.”
As he turned away, she was struck with remorse. He had saved her life. And even lechers should be given thanks where thanks were due.
“Mr. Gray?”
He looked a
t her over his broad shoulder, eyebrows raised with mock inquiry.
“I’m... well, I’m sorry. Thank you for what you did.”
She was flushing like a child! She wished she didn’t have to lie there so much at a disadvantage. Jane had put her in a clean shift with a rather lower neckline than she liked, and she pulled the blanket up to her chin. He noticed the gesture and his mouth quirked.
“There’s really no need for such modesty, Miss Banister. You’ve got nothing there I didn’t become familiar with last night. And if I’d had intentions of forcing myself on you, God forbid, I could have done so then.”
He was laughing at her. “What do you mean?” she whispered, brown eyes wide.
“Who do you think washed you to keep your temperature down? Good fairies? And who was it stripped you of those rags you persist in wearing?”
“You didn’t!”
But now that she thought about it, she remembered his hands, and knew that he spoke the truth. The color flooded her face like a spring tide, and she bit her lip, staring at him over the blanket, shock and anger struggling for supremacy. He grinned at her, the wicked light dancing in his eyes.
“Who’d have thought it?” he mused, enjoying her discomfort. “Without your clothes, Lizzie Banister, you’re rather lovely. And believe me, I’m an expert on the subject.”
For a moment she stuttered, unable to think of anything bad enough to call him. He watched her in amusement, bold black eyes raking her covered form.
“How dare you?” she whispered, choking on humiliation and indignation.
An eyebrow quirked. “Would you have preferred I let you die? What odd rules our society has, Lizzie, when it is better for a maiden to die than be seen without her clothes!”
“You don’t understand,” she said darkly.
But he laughed, tossing over his shoulder, “Goodbye, Lizzie. I fear we shall meet again.”
She lay a moment, numb with the thought of him touching her... bathing her, until she realized her genuine horror was mixed with a sort of excitement that frightened her even more. Impure thoughts! Cook had warned her about them. A girl must be pure, modest and behave with circumspection in all matters. She must not associate with men of loose morals, and if she should be unlucky enough to come into contact with one of the creatures, she should be polite but cool and never, never put herself into a position where she might be taken advantage of.
Lizzie bit her lip nervously. Was it her fault she had fallen ill and been forced to depend upon Zek Gray? She had a feeling that Cook would think so, and Cook was her doyenne in such matters. And yet, wouldn’t it be uncharitable not to be grateful towards him? She sighed suddenly. It was all too much, and besides... she probably would never see him again, despite that cryptic farewell of his.
She slept, and continued to sleep much of the next day, eating and then sleeping again. It wasn’t until the following day that Jane told her Zek Gray had gone.
“But he promised to come by in a couple of weeks. To see how you were, he said.” Jane eyed her sister’s heightened color speculatively. ‘”He said you’re as strong as a horse... a mule he said, rather, and that you’ll soon be up again.”
Lizzie narrowed her eyes. “Did he indeed!”
Jane bit back a smile. He had certainly put the life back into her sister. And yet he wasn’t remotely lover-like in his actions towards her; not at all as he had acted towards Jane herself, when he was working towards the big seduction. After the kiss she’d witnessed Jane had expected more of the same, but all she had heard were insults and mockery, designed to send Lizzie’s starched morals into fits. How strange that someone as sensual and experienced as Zek Gray should be attracted to her plain-speaking, uncompromising, yes, puritan sister! But perhaps it was that very fact that attracted him. He would find Lizzie quite a new experience, after the flirts and the misses who flung themselves at his head, ripe and ready for seduction.
As the days passed Lizzie grew stronger, and wassoon up and about, getting under Jane’s feet. Quite a few travelers stopped at the tavern, and Jane had quickly got into the way of exchanging quips and comments, making them welcome. Johnny was always there to see they didn’t consider her charms part and parcel of the service, and noting the protective way he stood by her, Lizzie had begun to wonder if there wasn’t more than friendship between them.
There was a town called Evanstown about an hour’s ride up the Bathurst road, and Johnny took them there one morning. A few cottages and a tavern—which Johnny dismissed as second-rate—but little more than that. A struggling English seedling in the midst of the alien Australian bush, or that was how Lizzie thought of it, gazing about at the blatantly English air of the place. On the way back Johnny frightened them with tales of bushrangers.
“Mostly convicts who’ve bolted and turned to thieving for a living,” he said, urging Old Ned into a trot. “There’s been some bad ones, I can tell you! One family a few mile up the road were murdered a few years ago; and then there was a woman kidnapped over Penrith way. Of course, in the end, the soldiers usually catch ‘em, or shoot ‘em dead.”
Jane shuddered, and pressed closer to his side. “How horrible! I hope none decide to come to The Thirsty Felon, Johnny.”
He looked at her with warm, smiling eyes. “If they do, Jane, I’ll protect you. I’m a dab-hand with a gun meself, you know.”
“Oh?” Lizzie decided it was time for a change of subject, and, glancing uneasily over her shoulder resolutely set about it. “Were you in the army then, Mr. Duff?”
He looked at her, his face quite old suddenly. His pale eyes flickered away, and for a moment he stared over Ned’s ears. “No, Miss Lizzie, I weren’t a soldier. I come out here under Government Orders.”
Then, when she smiled blankly, “You don’t know what I mean, do you? I was transported, ma’am. A convict. I stole some fruit from the barrow I was working and was caught. I got seven years. When I got here I was with the Government gang first, carrying stuff from the wharves, you know. Later I got consigned down the Hawksbury River way. A fair master, he was. I got my ticket a year after, and my pardon a year after that. I worked on there for two more years, saving my money, until I bought this place. I reckon a little while more, and I’ll be spreadin’ out, no worries.”
There was a silence. Johnny had kept talking in his slow, easy voice. Perhaps he had realized they were shocked, and kept on until they were more used to the idea that he was an ex-convict. Jane swallowed, and after a moment rested her hand on his arm. He glanced at her, smiling, though his face was stiff, all the natural laughter gone out of him.
“It doesn’t matter to me, Johnny,” she said gently. “I’ve done things too, and... It just doesn’t matter.”
‘But Mr. Duff... Johnny, if people know you’re an . . . were a convict, won’t they stay away from your drinking establishment?” Lizzie’s wide eyes gazed into his.
For a moment he stared, and then chuckled at her unexpected naiviety.
“They can hardly do that,” he said, quite gently. “A lot of the people we see have been convicts, or are ticket-of-leave men—or are married to convicts or their kids.”
“Ticket-of . . . ?”
“If a convict is well behaved, and does his work roper, he can apply for a ‘ticket’, and that means he’s free to find work on his own account. He has to take a certain Government-set wage, o’ course. But he’s free in the sense of not having any master.”
“You mean your customers... but not all of them surely!” Lizzie was appalled.
“New South Wales is a penal colony, Lizzie,” Jane retorted repressively. “The first settlers were convicts. One must expect a certain percentage of the population to be convicts or their children.”
But Lizzie stared blindly at Johnnny, the idea of him being a criminal as yet totally unacceptable to her puritan ideals. Lizzie Banister was employed by a felon? Good Lord, no wonder he had called the place by that ridiculous name!
“Lizzie,” Jane hissed
, watching the expressions flit over her sister’s mobile features. “What does it matter what Johnny was or is? He’s been good to us, to you, and... and . . .” her eyes said the rest.
Johnny flicked her cheek with his finger, and smiled down at her warmly.
Lizzie’s shoulders slumped. A felon in the family. Good God, what was the world coming to?
***
After that Lizzie began to take more note of the customers, eyeing them as though she would recognize a convict among them by some peculiarity. A striped skin perhaps, as Jane snapped.
There were a few small-holdings about them in the bush too, and those folk started to drop by, especially when they heard there were women to be seen. Jane seemed to enjoy having the company, and joined in the fun. Lizzie noticed, however, that she always kept her distance, and though she might flirt, it was not a serious sort of flirting. And she always included Johnny in the goings-on, turning to smile at him, or wink, or touch his arm. They were already a couple, and Lizzie knew it would only be a short while before her worst fears were confirmed.
What would Mama have said to having a felon in the family!
But more horrific still, what would Cook have said?
The two girls were stitching outdoors in the sunshine one afternoon some weeks later, when Jane settled the matter once and for all. She had been quiet for some time, and finally put her sewing aside altogether.
“Lizzie?”
“Hmm?” Lizzie’s face had regained color, and she looked relaxed and happy. The sun had tanned her skin too, taking away the usual matt white, bringing out red lights in her dark curls.
Jane smiled a little, as if remembering something which pleased her. “I meant to tell you before, but... Lizzie, Johnny asked me to marry him. And I want to, very much.”
Lizzie didn’t speak for a moment, wondering whether to be glad or sorry. Jane was a pretty girl; she could have made a better match. And yet here she was, considering marriage to a man who lived miles from anywhere. And a felon to boot!
Lizzie, My Love Page 4