Teresa ... she supposed it was Teresa ... was a smiling Italian, and she showed Jane into the office. A tray of tea awaited, but, as he had said, he was taking brandy.
have my meals at the motel, or big house,' he tossed. 'You could say this is my wet canteen.'
'Yes, Harry told me you ate over there. He said' ... the slightest of pauses ... 'the twins eat here.'
'Of course. Adult talk, particularly stud and stable talk, is not always for tender ears. Tender, did I say? That pair?' He gave a dry laugh.
She would have liked to have given him her opinion of family, but he did not wear a receptive expression and he did not follow up the subject.
Will your clothes be all right after their dunking?' he asked. 'Any you have a doubt about report to the bookkeeper. He'll see to a recompense.'
'Thank you.'
`No, thank you for saving ... or at least making the gesture, for, thank heaven, it wasn't needed ... the kids' lives. Why the little devils went there is beyond me.'
`I would say it was a natural consequence. It's a warm dry day.'
`So you would forgive two brats going out of bounds to try themselves in a horse pool?'
`If they have no pool of their own, yes.'
`And why should I build a pool for them?'
`Why should you ...' she echoed aghast. Pony high priestess, indeed! This man put everything, even his children, second to horses. Though his reason, she added to add more fuel to her disgust, would be entirely monetary.
`I won't argue about that,' she said coldly.
`I had no intention of arguing,' he said more coldly back. Before she could make any rejoinder, he asked : 'Tea all right?'
`Thank you.'
He had lit his pipe and now the smoke wreaths were weaving upward.
`So you knew the children on the ship?'
`Yes, I met them. We became friendly.'
`Good God!' he disbelieved.
Angry, she retorted, 'I suppose that does seem unlikely to you.'
`Unlikely is the understatement of the year !'
A few minutes went past.
`How was it you came to rescue Robert?'
`I saw the children crossing from the house, recognized them, then went off after them. It was on the bottom step that I heard the scream.' She gave a remembering shiver. `I'm glad it was Robert who fell in, if it had been Roberta he would have jumped first without screaming as she did. It's the girls who scream.' She became aware that he was looking at her with that one raised eyebrow, and she squirmed.
`So you raced to lend succour?'
`Not exactly, I didn't know where to go. No one was around to ask. But luckily I saw a glimpse of the pool between some buildings.'
`Yes. I think it's a good idea, don't you?' He said it quite seriously, she saw in anger. 'A race across a beach, then a plunge through breakers would be preferable for a horse,' he went on, oblivious of her reception, 'but failing that He attended his pipe, and she watched him mutinously.
He did not even notice. That was the maddening part. He unmistakably believed he was doing the right thing supplying his horses with a pool while his children, while they
`So you haven't seen around the place yet?' he broke
in.
'No.'
`Then finish your tea.' He made it sound like an invitation, but she heard an order there. However, she wanted to examine her place of employment at some time, so it might as well be now, and under the boss's guidance; at least a boss should know all the answers.
`I have finished.' She got up. As they reached the door she asked : 'How are the children?'
`In bed. Strangely enough they submitted without protest. Must have been tuckered out.'
Jane thought to herself, remembering the way they had obeyed his voice on the ship, that it had been him and not the weariness that had had the effect. She followed him out of the house and through the gate to the stud.
`First, the kitchen,' William Bower said, 'and what goes with it. Not the human roast beef variety ... possibly you've seen that already.'
`Only it was tea and scones,' she nodded.
`Here' ... they had reached a building, neat, immaculate like all the buildings ... 'the magic formulas are dreamed up.'
`Are they magic?'
He grinned. 'Nothing is really magic with horseflesh, but
you can have a jolly good try by adopting good diet additives.' He led her in, and she stood in disbelief at benches of chrome and tile.
'Why not?' He said it defensively, and she knew she should have anticipated that and not shown her surprise. This man was before all else a businessman. His business was horses, these concoctions being encased in pellets were to make the business bigger and better. All the same, such equipment ...
To divert his attention from the feelings she felt must show, she asked, 'What's in the formula?'
'Apart from glucose, iron, calcium, which probably you've guessed anyway, it's strictly secret.'
'What about my consignment when they arrive?' 'Your fifth of them,' he corrected.
'They're not to participate?'
'Of course they can participate, but it still doesn't give you the right to learn a formula. For all I know you could be a spy in the camp. Besides
'Besides?' she asked furiously.
His answer disarmed her. Anything else he might have said could not have spread oil like these words did.
don't know what you delved in at Surrey, Miss Sid-ney,' he replied sincerely, 'but certainly your fellows don't look in need of formulas.'
'We dealt in soft rain and soft air,' she nodded, suddenly almost unbelievably nostalgic. She had to turn away. To her surprise, for she had not expected understanding ... an understanding of this variety ... from a hard, tough horse-man, he went, presumably to examine something, to the other end of the room. When he returned she had herself in control once more.
have my own resident nutritionist and pathologist,' he announced.
'Vet?' She was sorry the moment she asked that, it brought up the subject of Rodden Gair, but what she had been inquiring was whether the vet, too, was resident, or
only in attendance.
`Everyone resident,' William Bower said, and made no other comment on the matter. He turned to the door again. `Each stable,' he informed her as they walked out, 'has its own farrier's shop, its own automatic feed-mixing hopper. My silo holds some four thousand bushels of oats.'
`Could there be anything else?' she disbelieved as she walked on beside him; she frankly believed no stud could provide more.
`Hot and cold showers for the boys and girls.' He must have remembered what she had said on that last occasion when he had spoken of his stock as that, for he broke off quite abruptly. 'Covered walks,' he went on presently, 'that lead to the sand rolls.'
`I can't understand it,' Jane murmured.
`Can't understand indulging a horse?'
That was not what she had meant, she had been thinking of Rodden's scorn when she had elected to stay back at Little Down to see Melinda through her foaling, yet Rod-den Gair, she thought, had come from this stud. It seemed odd that in spite of all the luxury, all the indulgences, this man's employee had raised his brows at a simple human kindness. It made it all the more positive to Jane that any balm given to any of the stock here at Bowers welled from one reason only : Money.
He was talking, so reluctantly she had to listen.
`It has to be like this.' He was excusing the indulgences. `Australia is not a "natural" for horseflesh as are England, Ireland, America ... you can include New Zealand. We have to fight for what we achieve. Those others get it on a gold plate. Here's the clinic '
`Vet variety, of course.'
`I naturally run a casualty for the staff, but then there's always transport available to fly them over to Fetherfell across the Divide, which runs a fine hospital, and in which I support a ward.'
`Of course.' Jane could not help that.
We have a girl in here now ... I mea
n we have a filly,' he corrected himself quickly. 'Bessie has leg trouble.'
He went up to the pretty, chunky grey and Jane went, too, and fondled the satin head.
`However, we still follow the old rule of operating in an open paddock,' William Bower related. He laughed ruefully. 'You can put out thousands on a hospital, some more again on an X-ray machine, a sterilizing plant, but when it comes to a crisis ...' He shrugged.
`It's usually like that.' In spite of herself, of her determination to stand aloof, Jane said it eagerly. Experiences came pouring out ... she and Rusty spending days in a row in the rough acre on Stately Lady, because, in spite of her name, that elegant chestnut had refused to foal anywhere else.
`Yes,' William Bower broke in just as eagerly, 'that's the way it goes. Sometimes I think that love is not cloud nine, as the song goes, but ten cold nights in a paddock.'
Love is ten cold nights in a paddock. It had been eleven, Jane remembered, because Stately Lady had been lazy, and the paddock had been a meadow, but—
Jane was unaware that she was looking up at the man, unaware that he was looking back at her.
Then ... abruptly ... she became aware. She looked away again.
`You've just about seen it all.' His voice came matter-offactly, she could not have believed it was the same man who had broken in before : 'Sometimes I think that love is not cloud nine but ten cold nights in a paddock.'
He asked: 'Shall we go back? It's the only place actually to go, unless you drive out and go over a cliff.'
`But there must be roads to the valley.'
`Glorified tracks only.'
`But the timber down there has to get out.'
`Of course, but not by way of Plateau. No, the timbermen, hop-men, eucalyptus oil men ... yes, they go in for a mixed plate in the valley ... avail themselves of the road to
the coast. You could say we're fairly isolated up here, we're the top of the tree, so to speak, no way to get out except to fly or climb down, and that's why we have to be self-sufficient.'
They had reached the centre point of the stud again, it almost could have been called a village square, Jane thought, for Bowers was large enough to be a small village.
'So you swim,' he broke in casually.
`Yes,' Jane said, a little surprised.
'And the kids don't.'
Now she was considerably surprised, surprised at a father not knowing that. However, she did not know really about the children herself. She had not found out on the ship, and she had not really found out here, either. All she had known when she had reached the horse pool's edge was that a child was in difficulties and that the other child had made it difficult for herself by trying to help.
'It could be,' she said, 'that Robert stunned himself in the fall.'
didn't see any evidence on him I'll question him later, and if he and Roberta can't swim, then ' He was interrupted in what he was going to say by the bookkeeper com-ing over to discuss some matter. Jane was introduced to Stan Littleton, invited to call in to see how his side of the stud business functioned, then, as the men went off together, she turned back to the digs.
She had yet to meet the nutritionist, pathologist, probably a dozen grooms, a dozen exercising hands, and—the vet. She did not dwell on that.
A cantering behind her attracted her attention, and she turned to see two female strappers coming in from their duties. They could have been girls from Little Down had any girls beside herself served at Little Down, they could have been stablehands anywhere, with their fresh faces, bright eyes and wind-combed hair. They were young. Well, she had expected that. Only the unlucky in love reached her own age, Jane thought, without that confirming ring.
At that thought her eyes had dropped instinctively to the girl, Maureen ...
Jane would have recognized that ring in any corner of the world. She expected there could be many aquamarines with silver filigree settings, but there is always something about your own ring ...
Your own ring. What was she thinking about? She had sent the ring back to Rodden, it had not belonged to her any more.
And now, unless she was mistaken, Maureen wore it. Well, that made sense. Maureen was a very pretty girl, and Rodden, besides liking pretty girls, had worked here.
Jane accepted the girls' invitation to join them in a cup. She walked behind them to the canteen, answering their questions, asking questions of her own. But never the question she wanted to ask. It wasn't that there was any hurt left, she had accepted everything long ago, it was just that she wanted to know, for if you knew, then naturally you handled things better, and if Maureen was engaged to Rod-den, even though he now worked away from here there could come a time when she, Jane, and Rodden met up again. So it must be well-handled, Jane thought.
She was trying to handle her cup without spilling any tea, and it was difficult because at the same time she was endeavouring to manipulate herself into a better ring-observing position ... just to be sure ... when the canteen telephone pealed.
Harry answered it and said, 'Yes, Boss.' He turned to the tables and called : 'Mr. Bower wants to see you, Miss Sidney.'
Jane did not move. The house was no further than an enclosed yard away, surely, even though he was the boss
Harry finished : 'Over there.'
The topic of the Boss's call appeared concluded. The girls looked at her expectantly, then went on to something else. Everyone in the room looked quietly expectant ...
expectant of her immediate obedience. What an autocrat this fellow was! Again ... many times again ... Jane thought that.
But to sit on, to wait for him to come to her, and somewhere within her Jane accepted the fact that he wouldn't come, would only draw attention, something she did not want. Finishing her tea—at any rate she did that—Jane got up, nodded around, and left.
William Bower opened the door for her. Jane could hear dishes being clattered and presumed that Teresa was busy with nursery tea.
`I've found out that the brats can't swim,' he said, leading the way to the room where she had spoken with him earlier today. 'I examined Robert for any knock-out marks. No, he simply overbalanced, fell in, then couldn't right himself. A fine state of affairs.'
Fine, indeed! rankled Jane.
`So I asked him. He hated telling—went around it all ways before it came out.'
`That's natural,' Jane defended.
`Not being able to swim isn't. I intend to right it at once.'
`Where? The horse pool?'
`No.'
`There's another?'
`No, but there will be. I intend building one for the staff.'
For the staff! And yet when it came to his two children—
`However,' William Bower went on, 'that will take time ... months. Besides, even if it was fenced, grown-ups could still suffer from young trespassers, and no adult wants a youngster monkeying around.'
`So what do you do?'
`Down the valley we have the Urara River. There's a section of it that all of us residents have made safe and attractive. Thousands of tons of sand have been put down, old
logs removed. The shelf is very gradual. In fact you could say it's a real charmed stretch.'
The children will learn there?'
He was lighting his pipe.
`That depends on you.'
`On me?'
`Depends on whether you'll teach them.'
`I'd love to teach them. I feel very strongly about children swimming But I came here to work, remember, not to---'
`You have different ideas of work, then, than I have. To teach that pair an Australian crawl—'
believe dog-paddle will do as a start—after all, the purpose is to bring them to a pitch of saving their own lives, not winning a race.'
`Then will you?'
`My consignment—' she began.
`Won't be out for over a week.'
She looked at him levelly. 'If you're really saying I have nothing to do with Bowers, only to do with what Rusty is consigning t
o Bowers, say it.'
`One-fifth of it,' he put in.
`Are you saying that?'
`No. I'm asking you to teach the kids to swim. The same salary as if you were working on the horses.'
As she sat silent, he probed, 'What gives, Miss Sidney? I'm making a straightforward request of you. Does everything I say have to be met with suspicion?'
wasn't suspecting, I was disbelieving.'
`Isn't it the same?'
`Not that. I was disbelieving that a parent couldn't see to such a basic thing for a child as swimming.'
`Yes,' he agreed coolly. 'But then they're exceptional parents.'
She looked at him in more disbelief, disbelieving now that a man could not only hold such an opinion of himself, but openly flaunt it.
'I'm not asking for any excuses' ... he wouldn't, Jane seethed ... 'but when you have two exceptional people, you can't expect the niceties of ordinary parents.'
'Since when has preservation been a "nicety"?' she flashed.
'Yes, that was the wrong word,' he conceded. 'What I really meant to say was that Gareth has always been pre-occupied with his gift, while my cousin-in-law—'
'Your cousin-in-law?' Jane broke in.
He raised that brow again. 'Isn't there such?' he shrugged.
'You mean—the wife of your cousin)'
My cousin Gareth's wife Dorothy.' William Bower paused a moment, his eyes raking Jane's face. 'Owners,' he informed her drily, 'of the brats.'
CHAPTER FOUR
JANE sat silent, wishing desperately she could think of something to say, something to divert his amused attention from her flag-red cheeks and her obvious air of guilt. For she had been guilty without inquiring first of putting these children down as his, any naughtiness they flaunted as his fault.
But it was no use. Her mother had always laughed over Jane's air of guilt, she had said her daughter was an open book. Now the man opposite was reading the open book and smiling lopsidedly at her discomfiture.
The Mutual Look Page 5