The Mutual Look

by Dingwell, Joyce

  `William,' she said to the face above hers.

  `Yes, Jane.'

  `Did Dandy fetch you?'

  In a way.'

  `Did he get the children up safely?'

  `Yes.'

  `Then bring you down here?'

  A pause. 'I reckoned he'd done enough, girl, so I did the rest myself.'

  `But he made it all right?' There was pride in Jane's voice.

  `He made it,' William said, and there was pride in his, too. 'Now be quiet a while, Jane. There's a gang on the way with a stretcher. We'll soon have you in bed.'

  `I'm not hurt,' she insisted.

  `No, just smoke-filled, wrenched, scratched, sprained and what-have-you.'

  `Is there anyone really hurt?'

  `No.'

  `Anything?'

  `just relax, Jane.'

  `Any—' The gang and the stretcher were approaching them.

  lust to make it easier for the boys, Jane, Tim's going to—well, after all, it's a steep haul.' Apologetically William stepped aside and Tim stepped forward and inserted a needle expertly into Jane's upper arm.

  She knew no more until she wakened in a bed she did not know.

  `You're in my house.' William Bower was sitting beside her. 'I thought it would be quieter.'

  `But there's nothing wrong with me.'

  `No,' William Bower agreed, 'nothing that won't mend.' `There's nothing wrong with anybody,' Jane recalled from him.

  `True.'

  Nor anything.' But he hadn't said that, she remembered. Her brain, still fuzzy, still uncertain, at least registered that fact.

  `William.' She struggled up to a sitting position. Tie back, Jane.'

  `You said—you said relax.'

  `Then do it.'

  `You said "Relax" when I asked you before.'

  `Then don't ask now, girl.'

  She looked at him and read him. Read what he

  didn't want to say.

  `It's Dandy, isn't it?'

  `Yes.'

  `He didn't get up. Then how are the twins all right?' `He got up. They're all right. But then '

  `Then you found he was injured? You found he was burned?'

  `No,' William said quietly, 'then he died, Jane.' He reached out his big hands to hers.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT was a severance. It was almost like an amputation. Right from his shaky beginnings Dandy had been Jane's fellow. 'Cry,' encouraged William, and Jane did.

  'Why?' she asked at last.

  'He had a weak heart, Jane, it's as answerable as that. Dandy climbed to the top, then that was it. Fortunately a party of us were scouting around there at the time and saw Dandy coming up with the kids.'

  'You say Dandy had a weak heart,' echoed Jane. She was remembering Dandy's clamminess today, remembering telling Dandy she would look into it. Only she had never guessed ...

  'Yes. Tim had suspected it and tested him. He had reported it to me.'

  'Then why didn't you ... I wouldn't have ridden him.' 'That was why,' William said simply.

  After a while he went on, 'He was going to go, anyhow, Jane, how much better then with turf under his hoof and wind through his mane.'

  can't understand Rusty,' Jane cried next.

  'Not telling you? Or for sending him) The first would have deprived you of each other, you would have kept him in his box, cosseted him, and that would have been an earlier putting down for Dandy, a putting down in a man-ner for you. As for sending him ... what else would Rusty have done?'

  'Yes,' Jane said slowly, for Rusty would never have abandoned Dandy to someone else, and he never would have had him destroyed.

  'It seems so purposeless for Dandy,' she fretted uselessly. 'With two kids' lives on his honour roll? Oh, no, girl.' Jane was silent as she thought of that.

  'We've both a few things to say.' William began again.

  `Why did you go there, Jane? To the valley? Had you been before?'

  `Yes.'

  `And not told me?'

  `I suppose I could say you hadn't asked.'

  `Yes, you could,' he nodded. 'We'd never reached the confiding stage.' He paused. 'Then.'

  She looked up at him, but he left it at that.

  `You better tell me,' he said. 'I intend to know.'

  `I went exploring on Gretel ... you might remember you

  commented that day on my several cuts and bruises.'

  `I do remember. They'd been professionally attended to.' `By a vet.'

  `You received a shot a few hours ago also by a vet. Tim. But I don't think it was Tim then.'

  It was Rodden. I didn't lie to you, I told you we'd met.' `By design?'

  `I went down to see the hut, and Rodden came out.' `What was he doing there?'

  `It was his retreat.'

  `Oh, come off it, Jane, does Rodden look like that? Like a pilgrim to a poetic retreat?'

  `No,' she said slowly, 'and I know now that it wasn't his place, then how was he there?'

  `It's my turn for a while. I'll try to be brief. Gair had gone down to claim his pickings.'

  `What do you mean?'

  `My ex-vet had met Roger Reynolds in some pub and the usual talk had evolved. Reynolds had put feelers out concerning friends he once had, a Mr. and Mrs. Courtney, cousins, he believed, of the Bower Gair worked for. In a carefully offhand way, but not carefully offhand enough for our shrewd Rodden, Reynolds mentioned children.'

  `Whatever for?'

  `You haven't guessed?'

  `No.'

  `I'll tell you now, then. It hasn't been substantiated per-

  sonally, but when Roger and Kate return I believe it will.' `The children said those two were being married.'

  `Yes.'

  `I never thought ... I never guessed ...'

  William lit his pipe, and they both waited for the smoke to wreathe up.

  `Rodden saw Reynolds' deep interest and reached a conclusion. He told Roger he knew somewhere he could stay if he wanted to delve further.'

  `It wasn't Rodden's place, then?' asked Jane.

  `No one's place particularly, though John Rivers did say some old man came now and then. Reynolds rushed it, made up some kind of art reason he knew Rodden would accept, a reward being Gair's real and only concern, and Roger undoubtedly guessing that.' A pause. 'I'm sorry, Jane.'

  `It's all right,' Jane said.

  `So Roger took up residence,' William shrugged. `How did he meet up with the children?'

  `Through you, actually, in the beginning.'

  `Yes, they wandered away from the eucalyptus distillery.'

  `Later,' said William, 'through Kate. She followed them, being a responsible young woman, and then ' He smiled.

  `I didn't know,' Jane said again. 'I could see that Kate had changed, matured, that there was a look to her.'

  `A mutual look,' William said.

  But I still don't understand about this man and the children,' Jane continued.

  `Do you recall that I told you I believed Gareth and Dorothy knew the real parents? That I suspected they were from the same circle?'

  `That man is a sculptor,' Jane said quietly, remembering the twins' chatter.

  `He was a very young member of that art circle, and because of his youth we must forgive him.' William tapped at his pipe.

  `Forgive?'

  `Forgive him for not waiting to find if a natural conclusion had brought a natural yield.'

  `You mean—' Jane asked.

  `Yes,' said William.

  `Roger didn't wait,' he went on presently, 'he didn't even think Not then. He had won himself an American scholarship, and he just left Lilith.'

  `She was the girl?'

  William nodded.

  `Where is she?' Jane asked.

  `She died. She was delicate, evidently. According to Dorothy's letter ... oh yes, there was a letter left for me by my cousin and his wife in case, but I didn't know that when I spoke to you before, I believed it was only a monetary direction.'

  `According to th
e letter ' prompted Jane.

  `Lilith was a leaf in the wind. Gareth and Dorothy were both artistic; they spoke that way.' William half-sighed. 'A leaf that would fall, were the actual words, and the leaf that was Lilith did fall, but the twins were born fine and sturdy, and they were adopted by my cousins.'

  `Then Roger Reynolds returned?'

  `Years after, and to a new circle. There must have been something nagging in him, for he asked questions, but no one had the answers. Then he remembered that Gareth and Dorothy Courtney had been closest to Lilith, a Lilith he had learned had since died. Then hearing in the way one does hear things that there were two children now with the Courtneys and of a certain age, he tracked Gareth and Dorothy down here just in time to miss them to ask them outright. Then he met up with Gair.'

  `How do you know all this?'

  told you, I have the letter.'

  `Not your cousins' part of it, William, Roger's.'

  spoke to Roger Reynolds an hour ago. He was just leaving for the church.'

  Jane said : 'He will not have our children!' She said it hotly, unaware of herself.

  But William was aware.

  'They are not, Jane, and never were.'

  love them.'

  `I'm not exactly antagonistic myself. But they were not for me. When they learned of the tragedy, was it to me they turned? No, they went instinctively to Roger, and you know why, don't you? It was the call of the same blood. They're Roger Reynolds' kids ... and Kate's, too, now. I don't know if you noticed, Jane, but' ... whimsically ... 'Kate wore the best dress.'

  noticed,' Jane said.

  'A lot of water has gone under the bridge that Roger stands on. He's a mature man now. He can't be penalized for youth, Jane. Also, he wants them, and they, though they don't realize or understand it, want him.'

  'And what about Kate?'

  'Kate wants them, too. It's all part of what happens when there's a mutual look.'

  'How is the valley?' Jane broke in a little frantically; she found she wanted to hold something off until she caught her breath, as it were. She needed time.

  It will recover. Australian fires clean up, but rarely destroy.'

  `And John's place?'

  'Untouched. He and his Ennie defended it successfully, they'll be a great team.' As before, William said: 'I'm sorry, Jane,' and she knew he meant John.

  'It's all right.' Jane repeated her reply.

  'Then it appears I'm quite clear,' William said matter-of-factly. 'No use you bringing out Tim, he and Maureen practically have announced their engagement.'

  'At no time had I any intention of bringing out Tim, as you put it, and I'm happy about them.' Jane stopped and looked at William. 'What do you mean you're clear?' she demanded.

  To put it to you.'

  Put what?' Jane stared incredulously at him

  `I want us to be married. Frankly I wanted that the first moment I saw you making a mess of your shipboard strapper chores.'

  `I didn't!'

  `You tethered them the wrong way, remember? But' ... a pause ... 'you knew how to tether my heart. I knew who you were, and I was determined to dislike you. You'd let Gair down.'

  `I hadn't!'

  `I know that now. In a way I knew it then. Rodden Gair was clever, but never an intrinsic character. However, in black and white it sounded as though you'd taken him up the garden path. I had to go on facts, Jane.'

  `Where is Rodden now?'

  `Oh, I haven't victimized him, in fact quite the opposite. I've secured him a very good city job, where he'll undoubtedly go right to the top by marrying the boss's daughter.'

  `He only looked on the commercial side,' Jane murmured, 'naturally I thought it was his boss's way, too.'

  `And you still don't know, do you? You know nothing about your boss's ways, nor' ... an oblique look... 'your boss.'

  'Co-director,' Jane corrected.

  `Of four-fifths. You have only one-fifth. Jane, lane, one-fifth of what?'

  `Of Gretel, San Marco, Ruthven, of—Mr. Bower! William! William, what on earth

  For William Bower had lifted her right out of the bed into his arms, she was in those arms tightly, so tightly that unless she struggled very effectively she would never break loose.

  `One-filth will do, Jane,' William Bower was saying. 'I would sooner you met me halfway, but I've enough for the whole way, and if you find you can't contribute—'

  `Contribute what?'

  `What it takes to make two. You see, girl, I love you. It

  only took one look.'

  `But a mutual look,' Jane said quietly, unprepared for the almost violent manner he now put her on her feet.

  `Don't say that if you don't mean it, Jane.' William held her at arm's length.

  `And if I do mean it, William?'

  `Then say it. Say it.'

  `What I have is five-fifths,' she told him. 'That makes the whole, doesn't it, William?'

  `And the look?' he reminded her jealously.

  `A mutual one. I said so. Oh, William' ... up in his big arms again ... 'everything is so perfect, so very perfect, yet Dandy ...'

  `Yes, Dandy. But it was to be, my sweet. Try to accept that.'

  She did accept it, though sadly, her head against his shoulder, his fingers tight on the flimsy stuff of the nightgown in which Teresa must have encased her. In a bitter sweetness she heard him say, `Oh, there was a cable from my uncle for you. Evidently he must have left out something in his answer regarding Dotsy.'

  `Dotsy's condition, when, but not by whom,' Jane murmured.

  `Yes, darling.' He handed her the envelope and she opened it up.

  She was crying and smiling as she looked up again from the message, crying because something was over, smiling because something would soon begin. A little shaky foal would begin, a fragment of wet ears, soft eyes and bewildered expression. Dotsy's foal.

  And ... handing William the cable ... Dandy's doing. For that was what was written.

  MISS SIDNEY STOP BOWERS STUD STOP PLATEAU STOP IT WAS DANDY STOP

  Then there was signed : RUSTY.

  All this, knew Jane in William's arms, and still Dandy,