The Mutual Look

by Dingwell, Joyce

  `I know I can.'

  `Then' ... a narrow smile ... 'I'll forgive today's Johnny cakes.'

  Jane said consideringly, 'I don't know whether it's your prerogative to forgive them or not.'

  `In my employment time, it is.'

  `And—out of employment time?'

  `You mean before nine and after five? But a stablehand always should be available for emergencies, didn't you

  know that, or were the Little Down rules different, Miss Sidney?'

  `The same. But I did have complete days off.'

  `As you will have here.'

  `And then, Mr. Bowers?'

  `And then? Oh, of course, you mean is it my prerogative then?'

  know it's not.'

  `Then why do you ask me.'

  didn't, I—' Suddenly Jane felt this was all too much, and she turned away.

  But she turned back to ask : 'Was that all, Mr. Bower?' `All, Miss Sidney.'

  `Am I still to teach the children?'

  `Still to teach them, Miss Sidney.'

  `In five days?'

  `Five days.'

  `Good evening, Mr. Bower.'

  `Good evening, Miss Sidney.' '

  Going into the big house, Jane passed Maureen sitting on the steps and polishing her boots. She was a pretty girl at any time, but she looked particularly pretty now, bent over the leather as she brushed assiduously, her long thick nutbrown hair touching her pink cheeks. No wonder Rod-den—

  `I'm not generally this funny, Jane,' she smiled, 'but my fellow's coming. That sounds like the hit parade, doesn't it? My Fellow's Coming.'

  The second song in an hour. Johnny cakes with John had been the other.

  `He's flying over,' Maureen went on. He's at Fetherfell across the Divide. Mr. Bower lets him have his second Cessna so he can flip over to see me. Oh, horrors !' She began removing boot polish from her ring. shouldn't wear it when I'm working,' she grimaced, 'but it's very pretty, isn't it? It was bought in England.' She put her hand up to Jane.

  Jane pretended to examine it ... well, she thought, what else could she do? She could scarcely say, 'I know it already, Maureen, you see it was my ring.'

  She said : 'Yes, very pretty.'

  As she left the girl she told her, 'Thank you for showing it to me,' but she really meant thank you for telling me Rodden is coming.

  For when he arrives, she was thinking, I won't be here.

  Her duties were over for twenty-four hours, except that self-appointed duty she had insisted Tim accept from her for the alternate feeding of Wendy's Pride. But she felt confident she could slip out unnoticed when she did that. Anyway, the small plane would not fly at night; Rodden either would be inside the house with his fiancée, or back at Fetherfell again.

  She felt unhappy over her subterfuge with Maureen. She meant no deceit, she felt very attracted to the young strapper, but what else was there? She had to live with these girls. She wanted to live with them amicably. But no two women on earth, Jane thought, could live really amicably when one of them wore the other's ring. Then Kate, she considered, contemporary in age to Maureen, once ... or if ... she ever knew the truth, undoubtedly would support her friend. It was all very distasteful, but ... again ... what else was there?

  She went down to the library that Bowers provided for all its hands and chose some books. Her first feed was at eleven, and she did not intend to sleep before that in case she really slept. Not ... tolerantly ... that Tim would criticize, he was no big boss.

  The books she chose dealt with hop-growing and training a swimming champion. She smiled at her instinctive choice, then, hearing a craft circling over the house, from the sound of it a light craft, she wasted no time in taking the books upstairs.

  She estimated that Maureen would ride out on the jeep to collect Rodden. Being lovers ... strange how that had no

  effect on her at all ... they would take their time to come in again. So Jane went down to the canteen at once for her evening meal. She met the nutritionist, several more of the hands, which was what she had wanted to do, but resisted their appeals, for in a male establishment like a stud it was ahnost an S.O.S., to stay on for some record playing.

  She went upstairs again, lay down and read. She heard a light plane take off again just at last light, and knew that Rodden had left.

  At ten she got up, put on her overalls, then went down the steps and out of the house. Across to the stud kitchen. She knew now where everything was, and she set to making Wendy's Pride's bottle with the same efficiency that she had made Turtle Dove's, Billy Boy's, Bella's ... half a dozen other's in her old strapper days. Back at Little Down, Rusty had always boasted that she was a dab hand on a bottle. `We might even make a mother of you one day,' he had forecast. Jane smiled ruefully at that.

  She had just finished warming it, and was testing it on the back of her hand, when the light in the kitchen went out. The plant was a local one, power had to be self-supplied up here, so either for conservation it was switched off at a certain hour ... she must remember next time to bring a lantern ... or it had failed.

  Then a hand was gripping her shoulders, turning her round. But the hand did not stop her from crying out, a mouth did. A mouth pressed on hers.

  In the small light from an outside lamp ... so nothing had failed, the darkness, like the mouth, had been deliberate ... Jane saw the outlines of a face—a man's face.

  `Rodden!' she cried.

  She pulled herself away. It was not so hard; evidently Rodden ... she knew a disgust ... had expected her co-operation, her participation, not her distaste, for he had not steeled his grip.

  what's this?' he demanded laughingly of her withdrawal. 'Going to play hard to get?'

  `I'm not here to be "got" at all!'

  `Oh, come off it, Janey, as soon as Bill Bower told me—very tactfully, of course, mindful of sparing me any more distress' ... a short laugh ... 'that you were coming out here, I knew what was in the wind.'

  `If you were thinking—'

  `I was.'

  `Then you couldn't have been more wrong. I wouldn't come after you, Rodden, if—' She paused, not wanting to use old clichés but finding that this one filled her needs—'... if you were the last man on earth!'

  `But you came,' he persisted.

  To look after the stock Rusty was sending out. Rusty was good enough to give me a share of them.'

  `Yes, I heard about that,' Rodden said with interest. 'A fifth or something, wasn't it?'

  `A fifth.'

  `Anyway,' Rodden resumed, 'it was as good an excuse as any.'

  `For what?'

  `Janey, you used not to waste time like this,' he sighed. `For what, Rodden?'

  `Us, my dear girl. You've come to your senses, as I did, the moment I got back here.'

  `The moment before or after Maureen?'

  `Ah' ... evidently quite pleased that Jane had found out that she had not been indispensable ... 'I expected that.' As she did not comment, he went on, 'I can explain that.'

  `I'm not interested,' she snapped.

  `You see, darling, you were there but Maureen was here, and that, to a man, is the all-important factor.'

  `Rodden, I'm not interested.'

  `But Maureen is a wily witch, if she could have managed it she would have had it all down in writing, but the next best evidence was something on her finger. I didn't mind, there's more rings—and more girls—in the world, particularly one girl. You, Jane.'

  `Rodden, can't you understand, I'm not interested in you.' But Jane knew she could not pretend uninterest in Maureen.

  `Why have you built her up like this?'—`My fellow's coming,' Maureen, fresh young Maureen had carolled.

  `Don't make a bete noir out of me—it takes two, remember.'

  He was one of the most unpleasant men she ever had encountered. How on earth had she

  There were steps on the path that led to the stud kitchen. The light was still out, so it made Rodden's escape easy. Feeling absurdly heavy-hearted, though the hea
viness, she knew, was for Maureen, Jane switched on the light just in time to catch William Bower turning the corner of the nearest building, then coming across to where she now stood at the door.

  At the same time she saw that Rodden had left.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WILLIAM BOWER looked at the feeding bottle Jane still held in her hand. 'You don't have to do this, Miss Sidney.' `It's all right,' she insisted.

  `You're not paid for it.'

  `I'm doing it because I want to, Mr. Bower, because—'

  `Love is ten cold nights in a paddock?'

  'Wendy's Pride is in a cosy stable and it's a beautiful night.'

  `Well,' he said, 'so long as Tim didn't ask you to.'

  `Tim had to be persuaded to let me help out. He'll do the midnight and small hours and then I'll come on again at dawn.'

  `Oh, no, you won't!'

  `But the foal at this stage must have hourly feeds,' she protested.

  `And will have, but not with you at the holding end of the bottle.'

  `Tim has to have some rest—he told me that Persian Daughter is ready for her foaling at any moment and he believes it could be twins.'

  `Yes, he has his hands full, and I wouldn't want him to forgo those few hours' sleep, but you are not doing it for him, Miss Sidney.'

  `Why? I mean why apart from it not being my job at this moment?'

  `Because,' he said frankly, 'you look done in.'

  `Done in?'

  `You look' ... he searched for a word ... 'concerned.'

  Concerned ... she was more than concerned, she was terribly worried for Maureen. For a mad moment she felt like telling this man, asking for his advice. Then she re-

  membered how concerned he had been in his turn—but for Rodden. You could say if there were sides, that 'William Bower was on Rodden's.

  She said nothing, and after waiting a moment, perhaps for an explanation, but Jane could not tell from that enigmatical face, he said, 'Is the bottle ready, then?'

  think I'd better warm it again, it might have got cold.' 'It couldn't have. I've only been here several minutes and you were coming out of the door.'

  'All the same,' she evaded, and turning to the stove she quickly fixed it up to the desired temperature again. When she turned, he was still there. When she left the kitchen and went down to the stable, he went with her. Well, it was his filly, his stable, his stud.

  There is nothing so appealing in the world, Jane thought a few minutes later, than a foal. Already Wendy's Pride had lost her wobble, but her not-quite-certain-yet spindle legs still could not judge distances, and when she came to meet Jane ... or the bottle, more probably ... she did it with that lovable awkwardness of all new young things. Jane gave her a taste of the goodies by putting her finger in the bottle and then in the filly's mouth. After which Wendy's Pride sucked deliciously. A little guidance, a lot of patience and a steady allotment of encouragement, pats and assurances, and Wendy's Pride soon was enjoying a good meal.

  Jane had forgotten William Bower. Her preoccupation with the soft pansy-eyed thing so desperately dependent on her pushed everything else aside. It was almost with a start that she focused the man again.

  I'd forgotten about you,' she admitted a little foolishly.

  He did not reply. His preoccupation had not been with the filly foal, so he had done no forgetting. He had stood watching her. It was with an effort, though he did not let her see it, that he took his glance away.

  'Now back to the house,' he said a little gruffly. Tll see Tim and tell him I'll do your shifts. For that matter Rod-

  den could do them—he flew in this evening and he's stopping the night. Bill Walsh, my pathologist, fortunately also a pilot, is taking the opportunity to see Fetherfell's bright lights.' He laughed—but cut short the laugh to ask sharply : 'Do you always flinch when you hear his name?'

  `I don't know Mr. Walsh.'

  `I didn't mean Bill, I meant Gair. Do you always flinch?' `I didn't,' she protested.

  `I assure you that you flinched. You better take a hold of yourself, Miss Sidney—if you flinch at his name, how will you be face to face?'

  T return the bottle to the kitchen and go to bed,' Jane said.

  Ill return it,' William Bower altered. 'Think over what I just asked you before you slip off to sleep tonight. I don't want you to lie awake, like an employer I want my money's worth from my employee, but some time or later you're going to meet up with Gair, and it's best to know ahead how you intend to handle that occasion. Because' ... a pause now, a warning one? ... 'he's betrothed.'—Betrothed, thought Jane a little hysterically. What a ridiculously old-fashioned word for a modern, sophisticated man!—Ile's Maureen's now, and I wouldn't like any broken hearts to mend on this stud as well as our inevitable broken fetlocks and the rest.'

  `But the human casualties are flown out, aren't they?' `You know what I mean.'

  `Yes, I do. But I don't think there'll be anything to mend.'

  `I'd like your promise about that.'

  `Mr. Bower, I'm tired,' Jane sighed.

  `Your promise, Miss Sidney.'

  `I promise, I promise, I promise ! Will that do?'

  `One would have done,' he asnswered, 'but said from the heart.'

  `You're intolerable!' she flashed.

  `You know what to do then?'

  She followed his meaning. She asked coolly : 'How much would my one-fifth return me?'

  `I'll tally it up, let you know in the morning.'

  `Then I'll sleep on that.'

  `As well as the other,' was his final advice. He stood back, let her pass him, then hurry up to the house. She had the fear that Rodden might not have returned to Maureen, that he might have been waiting behind some bush to see, and talk to, her again. She ran. She was breathless by the time she got to her room.

  There she stood a long while at the window, thinking ... trying to find a solution.

  She still had not reached any decision, when, suddenly recalling Bower's `... like any employer I want my money's worth,' she made at least one decision, and went to bed.

  Jane made friends with Harry the next morning, apologizing over the untouched hamper, telling him how John had taken them to his house for hot cakes.

  `Were they good cakes?' asked Harry jealously, and Jane grabbed her chance.

  `Good, but nothing like your raisin scones, Harry.'

  `I've put some into today's tuck, Miss Sidney, along with a slab of my cut-and-come-again. Lots of large places like Bowers, and certainly all projects, buy in big squares of sawdust instead of making their own cakes in their own kitchens. That's my name for it, sawdust, for that's what the tack tastes like. But not me. There's nothing like homemade, I say.'

  `I say, too,' appeased Jane. 'Thank you, Harry, there won't be a crumb of this left.' She really intended that. No wandering off with John today.

  As it happened, John did not come, but he left a message, Indian scout fashion, at the base of a tree.

  The twins were enthralled tracking it down, and Jane thought what good father material John Rivers was for thinking of this. As far as she could see William Bower made no effort at all. He was a born bachelor. And yet, her

  thoughts ran on, he had looked furiously across his desk at her and called : 'My youngsters would be with me, and so, by heaven, would my wife.'--So sometimes ...

  `Here it is!' yelled Robert, who had first discovered the arrows on the ground and the mysterious which meant, as all small boys know, more paces. 'It's a letter,' he thrilled, `for you, Jane.'

  Jane smiled, took and read it. 'It's for all of us,' she announced. She read to her wide-eyed audience :

  `Congratulations, Secret Three,

  At finding this beneath a tree.'

  This was a block of chocolate.

  `I cannot join you, more's the sorrow,

  Let's hope for better things tomorrow.'

  `He's beaut,' awarded Robert.

  `Jane's not,' pouted Roberta, seeing Jane take the chocolate firmly from
them.

  `It's strictly for swimmers,' bribed Jane. `First one to do three strokes without my finger under their chin gets a block.'

  Roberta won. She actually swam first. But Jane considered she would not advance very quickly from that level. On the other hand, Robert, like all boys seeing more danger, though slower to strike out, struck further and faster once he started. However, by hamper time they both could account for themselves for several yards, so Jane voted it a successful morning.

  They ate every crumb from the hamper, as Jane had promised Harry, then the chocolate was split up, and the three lay back on the bank. It was unusual for Robert and Roberta not to be on their feet at once, exploring, discovering, but tracking the chocolate and, then earning the right to eat the chocolate had evidently exhausted them. The sun filtered down through the trees, the sand was a warm soft

  bed, the stream was a lullaby, and the two youngsters slept.

  Jane dozed, too, but not as deeply as the twins, for she heard the jeep. She leaned up on an elbow to see William Bower sauntering across to the beach. As he came nearer she indicated the children, then put her finger to her lips.

  He nodded, and she got quietly up and joined him.

  'They look as though they're resting on their laurels,' he said.

  'They are. Roberta did four strokes. Robert did six.' 'Excellent. I said five days, but I didn't expect—' 'In five days they'll be swimming the creek. Did you

  come down to see how they were progressing?'

  'You didn't let me finish, Miss Sidney. I said five days, but I didn't expect you wouldn't have half that time. I've had a message from quarantine to get our first contingent out. I can't ignore it, room at Q is very precious. So we'll have to go up tomorrow.'

  'And I'll start my real work.'

  reckon you've been doing that here.' He said it sincerely.

  Jane flushed with pleasure, she did feel satisfied with her results.

  wouldn't like them to slip back, though,' she said regretfuLly.

  'They won't. There's Maureen and Kate to fall back on. Maureen, for obvious reasons, has her attention across the Divide and not down the valley, but Kate would be quite keen, I think. She's a good swimmer, and would, I feel sure, like to carry on where you leave off.'