by Amanda Doyle
Oh dear! Poor Herb! And poor Lindsay. This was obviously one of the more challenging assignments that came the way of the Gundooee book-keeper!
Lindsay did her best. Between them they concocted quite the strangest epistle it had ever been her privilege to witness, mainly because of Herb’s readiness to take instant offence if she did not adopt his own somewhat couthy suggestions. Ah well. He knew the distant Nell much better than Lindsay did herself, so who was she to argue?
She typed out the resulting letter, watched Herb scrawl his name painstakingly at the bottom, and addressed the envelope. By the time it was all done, and Herb had bidden her a satisfied goodnight, she felt quite limp and exhausted, as though all her natural creativeness had been drained out of her.
It was something, at least, that Herb was so pleased! He had dusted off his hat with the triumphant air of one who has achieved a difficult goal, and had gone sauntering off into the night whistling breathily through his naked gums.
Lindsay found that she was smiling to herself as she included Herb’s letter in the out-going bundle on mail-day, wondering idly what Nell’s reaction would be when she got it. There had been no suggestion on her husband’s part that he missed her to any great extent! Indeed, apart from one or two meaty reminiscences unblushingly recounted by the prosaic Herb, the letter was innocuous in the extreme, and not by any stretch of imagination could it have been termed a passionate document. Lindsay could only hope that Nell, whose bridal bliss had been so short-lived, would not be disappointed!
The mail-bag contained a second letter from Carleen. What a week for letters, one way and another, thought Lindsay, slitting it open forthwith. She took the single sheet of paper from its tissue-lined envelope, and found herself beginning to tremble so violently that she had to sit down quite quickly.
Her face felt drained of colour and her breath came in funny little shallow gasps.
Disbelievingly, she read it again.
‘How typical of you, Lindsay, to refuse me even a tiny little favour after all Mummy and Daddy have done for you. It would have been so easy for you to invite a relative out there for a while, but that was too much to hope for, wasn’t it? Or did you start getting silly ideas of your own when I told you who Rod Bennett is? I hope not, because, my dear, you wouldn’t stand a chance, and you know it. But that’s no reason to be a dog-in-the-manger about him, is it. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, and in the end perhaps it’s even to the good that he doesn’t know we’re even distantly related. I mean, with you on the payroll there, I prefer to have a separate identity altogether, so I have got Matt Standley, who is a friend of the Bennetts, to get me an invitation to Gundooee, and will be arriving shortly. As I shall be a guest, while you are in the category of an employee, I don’t think our paths will cross much at all. Should you be tempted to let it be known that we’re related, or in fact have ever seen each other before, then my advice is, don’t do it, Lindsay. It would be too bad if Rod Bennett got to find out that you came there under false pretences, wouldn’t it, pretending that you didn’t know the post was for a man, when you and I both know you did? I gather he’s the sort who’d hate to be made a fool of by any woman, least of all a minor employee. Matt tells me that he was quite furious about the mix-up over some woman book-keeper at the time, and that you’re only there on sufferance because you didn’t seem to have anywhere to go, so I shouldn’t think you’d last a minute if he knew how you’d bluffed him. Well, Lindsay, all the best, and I shall look forward to seeing you soon—as a complete stranger, of course. Yours in haste, Carleen.’
Lindsay crumpled up the note and put it in the waste-paper basket, as if by simply throwing it away she could dispense with the whole problem.
It was not as easy as that, though! When Carleen set her mind on something, she always got it Always! She had made up her mind to come to Gundooee, and so she was coming, with or without her cousin’s connivance. Lindsay’s imagination baulked at the reason behind Carleen’s decision.
It was too dreadful, too blatant, even to think about!
How had she managed it, though? How did Carleen ever manage to do all the things she wanted to do? By twisting the truth just the teeniest bit, Lindsay surmised. By a little artful pretence, a few well-chosen prevarications, a pathetic smile, a calculated and well-timed sigh.
But how, this time? How?
Lindsay knew that she would have to wait, and even then, perhaps she might never know. She was not in a position to mention Carleen’s name, or the fact that she had heard from her, or had forewarning of her coming. She had no idea when, or how, Carleen intended to come. All she had said was that it would be ‘soon’. She wasn’t the kind to procrastinate, once her mind was made up, so Lindsay could only suppose that ‘soon’ might even mean next week!
Only a few more days, perhaps, and then—Carleen. The thought was almost unbearable, but Lindsay knew that the reality itself would be worse! Gone the peace, the tranquillity, the fun with the jackaroos and station-hands. Even the status quo of her relationship with Rod Bennett would be bound to change. Just now, there was a state of truce, precarious, precious. A word of praise could bring a glow to Lindsay’s heart, a slow smile could transform her day. It was dangerous to become so—so—fond of someone, that the mere fact of being noticed by him could turn a mundane moment into a memorable one. Dangerous, and stupid. Lindsay, in her deepest self, knew that she was guilty of just such folly! She couldn’t help herself, although she knew it was a hopeless situation, a quite fruitless expenditure of this soul-searing emotion, made even more impossible by the mere fact that Rod was who he was.
All this was hard enough to contend with, and now—Carleen!
Lindsay found herself talking to the pilot and Mannie with strangely wooden effort. Even her smile felt stiff and strained, as though her cheeks would crack, and it was difficult to concentrate on what they were saying.
‘Margie was telling me she met you, Lindsay. She was full of plans about brightening things up for you here.’
They’d soon be brightened up all right, thought Lindsay bitterly, but not by Margie!
‘She’s nice, Mac. She was really sweet and friendly, just like you said. She’s going to bring some others over one day, and we’re going to play tennis, it seems.’
‘That’s Margie! Always on for a bit of action. She can handle that plane O.K., too. She’ll be trying to rope Rod in for a game, I expect.’
‘He’s busy these days.’ Mannie spoke from her position behind the tea-pot. ‘But he’ll be glad of some company for Lindsay. We do worry a little bit about you, dear. I’m not as young as I was, or I’d do more to make life exciting, and Rod has been convinced from the beginning that this was no post for a girl. Too lonely.’
‘But I love it, Mannie. I love it—The peace, the plains. I’ve got into the way of loving it all, just the way it is.’
I don’t want it to change. I don’t want it to be different, she wailed silently inside herself. But it will be, very soon. It’s bound to be different with Carleen.
Mannie did not appear to know anything at all about Carleen coming. If she had, Lindsay was certain that she would have mentioned it then, right there in the kitchen in front of the pilot. That was the way Mannie was—gentle, but forthright in the candid Outback tradition. There was no pretence in Mannie, no hypocrisy, although of course she possessed a certain tact which was entirely lacking in the blunt-spoken, casual station-hands. Lindsay was now more amused than hurt by their frank criticisms, to which she had at first been much too sensitive. Their motives were ones of true kindness, and the inclination to help along a ‘new chum’ engendered most of their forthright offers of advice. Once one fully understood that fact, one could be grateful for the basic honesty of their approach. One always knew how one stood with them, and in a more subtle way, one did with Mannie also.
No, if Mannie had heard anything at all about a visitor coming—especially a female visitor—she would have been sure to mention it just no
w. That meant that Rod had not told her about it, yet. He had not told anyone.
Lindsey was aware of her own tense expectancy each time there was a pause in the conversation after that. Dining even the most momentary silence, she would find her eyes fastened anxiously upon Rod’s stem, deeply tanned face, waiting, waiting, for that announcement. It was like waiting for the judge to don the black cap, thought Lindsay to herself, with a grim attempt at a humour she was far from feeling.
When he finally imparted the information, he did it, as Rod always did everything, unpredictably—in his own time, in his own fashion, and at his own pace.
He didn’t just work it into the conversation. He came specially put of his office to where Mannie and Lindsay were sitting comfortably in semi-darkness, and he came, she supposed, for that express purpose. They always sat there, she and Mannie, in the deck-chairs, looking out through the gauze to where the garden outlines were merging so rapidly into the night, chatting idly when they had something to say, lapsing into companionable silence when they hadn’t Rod generally retired to his study, working, reading, until the rest of the household had gone to bed.
Tonight, he was the one with something to say. Lindsay watched him switch off his office light, close the door, and come towards them along the veranda, a tall broad figure in pale drill trousers, a dazzlingly white shirt with uprolled sleeves, and the tie he always put on when he changed in the evening knotted neatly at his throat. His hair was damp from the shower, still smatted down tidily against his forehead, and as he drew up a third chair and took his place quite near, Lindsay could smell the faint, masculine aroma of cigarettes and shave-lotion.
Rod sat there for some moments, then stretched his legs out more comfortably in front of him and reached into his pocket for the makings. In the dimness his bare forearms were mahogany-coloured against the whiteness of his shirt. Lindsay caught the whiff of tobacco, knew that he was rubbing it around between his palms. A rustle of paper, the rasp of a match. Then smoke rising above his head—a tranquil plume that drifted peacefully away along the veranda.
When he had drawn on his cigarette in silence for a minute or two, he announced pleasantly,
‘I have a surprise up my sleeve for you, Mannie—for you and Lindsay.’
‘Yes, Rod?’ That was Mannie, immediately interested.
‘Yes. We’re going to have a visitor.’
‘Are we?’ The old lady showed no surprise. After all, Rod often had visitors at Gundooee, so why should she?
‘We are. I thought it would be a good thing for Lindsay, a little company about her own age, or at least, very little older. Another girl, at any rate.’ He stressed his point delicately.
‘Oh, that will be nice!’ Mannie was enthusiastic now. ‘Who is it, Rod? Someone who’s been before?’
‘No, she hasn’t been before, Mannie. In fact, I don’t even know her myself yet. She’s a friend of Matt Standley’s, and a very nice girl, he says. She’s been working too hard, it seems, and has had a particularly nasty bout of bronchitis—she’s prone to it, apparently. Did you say something, Lindsay?’ What Lindsay had actually said was ‘Piffle!’—under her breath, of course, but she had made a tiny sound unintentionally.
‘No, nothing, Rod.’
‘I beg your pardon, I thought you did. Well, anyway, her doctor has advised a dry inland climate for a while, plus peace and rest, and when Matt asked me to have her, I was naturally very glad to agree—for Lindsay’s sake. Did you say something, Lindsay?’
‘No, nothing at all. I thought I’d swallowed a mosquito, just for a moment I’m sure there’s one buzzing about, and my throat suddenly went all tickly.’
‘One rarely swallows a mosquito,’ Rod pointed out, leaning towards her in the gloom, and treating her to a suspiciously probing inspection. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, Matt said she’s been under considerable stress lately, and the combination of dry heat, rest and a bit of peace and quiet immediately made him think of Gundooee. I’m very glad he did, and it will be very nice for you to have another girl around, Lindsay. I often think you’re out with those men far more than is strictly necessary. It doesn’t seem right. This way, there will at least be two of you, and I’m sure you’ll become good friends in a very short time. I’ve said that she’s to stay just as long as she pleases. She’s a model, apparently, and has no more assignments in the immediate offing. Very wisely she deferred them until she’s quite well again, so I hope she may even stay for some months. I think the east room, don’t you, Mannie? It’s the coolest.’
‘Sibbie will make up the bed tomorrow. When is she coming, Rod, and how?’
‘On Thursday, in the early afternoon, I think. She’s chartering a flight direct from Sydney.’
She would! Trust Carleen to miss out on those interminable hours of train-ride, toiling through desolate wastes, and changing at a junction which should have been Emmadanda, only Emmadanda was a whole forty minutes further on, and then finding out that Emmadanda wasn’t a pretty little jacaranda-lined town but a one-horse outpost with two dogs and some crows and a rusty bucket shower, and waiting in grilling sunshine all alone for a plane you had been warned curtly not to miss, and coming down at Gundooee to find you weren’t as welcome as you had hoped because you happened to be a girl, and that you were, in fact, downright unwelcome in one person’s eyes, and that was the most dreadful thing of all, because they happened to be nice, expressive grey eyes, too, the sort you really wanted to have a welcome in. Trust Carleen to miss out on that!
A charter flight, direct from Sydney. And when she arrived, they’d know she was going to be a girl, because that’s what Rod had arranged for, and that’s what Rod would be expecting. A girl, both welcome and wanted.
‘Her name, by the way, is Carleen Vincent.’
Oh, Rod! I could have told you that! thought Lindsay sadly.
‘It’s a pretty name, Carleen,’ said Rod.
CHAPTER 7
When Carleen arrived she stepped daintily down from the aircraft, taking Rod’s extended hand to help her to the ground.
People always extended their hand to help Carleen—especially men! There was something about her fragile build, willowy slenderness and elegantly languid movements that called for such gestures. She had come to regard them as her prerogative, and was seldom disappointed.
Not today, anyway. You could tell by the way she peeped coyly up into Rod Bennett’s tough, brown face, and the way her mouth curved into a tiny, oblique smile, that Carleen was anything but disappointed. And you’d have said, by the way Rod’s lip curled faintly at the corner and his grey eyes kindled with surprised admiration, that he wasn’t disappointed, either.
Of course, Carleen, looking as she did today, would have merited such a glance from even a confirmed misogynist, and Rod Bennett certainly was not that. He liked girls, Mannie had stressed that often. Especially tall, sophisticated, pretty girls who vamped him with an openly flirtatious eye, invited him with the pursing of their soft, rouged mouths, who kept hold of his hand for just that extra, lingering moment, as Carleen was doing now.
‘Mr. Bennett?’ Rod?’ Her voice was attractively husky, with just the right degree of shy hesitation. ‘Oh, I’m so glad to be here! Matt has told me all about you, and I just knew that Gundooee was the very place to help me recover my strength and get quite well again. And this is Mannie—I’ve heard about you, too. And I suppose you must be Lindsay, the little book-keeper?’ Carleen’s eye sought Lindsay’s coolly, ‘How odd to find a woman occupying a post of that sort, isn’t it? Away out here one just naturally assumes that a man would be infinitely more suitable, somehow.’
‘Lindsay is making a surprisingly successful attempt at it’—Rod was watching Lindsay herself as he spoke, smiling quite kindly—‘although it certainly isn’t a usual position for a girl to find herself in. As you say, Carleen—I may call you that?—we do normally confine the position to the masculine field.’
‘I would have thought so, naturally, although I expe
ct as a temporary measure, that it works well enough. Would you mind carrying these for me, Lindsay? You can go ahead with them to my room if you like. I suppose you must know where it is?’
‘Yes—er—of course.’
Lindsay stepped forward quickly, took the vanity-case and handbag which were being held out imperiously.
Carleen smiled up at Rod with faint apology.
‘I still get a little bit tired, I’m afraid,’ Lindsay heard her telling him sweetly as she left them, ‘but I know I’m going to pick up very quickly now that I’m here. Do you have many other servants, Rod, to help you in the house? It looks quite enormous from here.’
His deep-toned reply was lost to Lindsay, who found that her teeth were clenched so firmly together that her jaw positively ached, and her fingers gripped the handles of Carleen’s bags so tightly that her knuckles showed white under the pressure.
She dumped the bags unceremoniously on a chair in the east bedroom, and turned to discover Carleen coming through the doorway with Rod just behind her.
‘I say, do be careful of that case, will you, Lindsay, and don’t go hurling it around like that? I’m not accustomed to having others treat my possessions so carelessly. I trust you aren’t so lackadaisical about everything, my dear?’ She put her hand to her forehead. Her beautifully-kept and manicured fingers were spread out in a touchingly weary gesture. ‘My goodness, it is warm, isn’t it, out here? Or perhaps it’s just that I’m still not quite myself.’ An apologetic smile in Rod’s direction. ‘I’m perfectly strong, really, but you must forgive me if I don’t appear so just now. It’s all very frustrating when one is unaccustomed to having been ill.’
‘Not at all, Carleen,’ Rod’s voice held a concern that must have gratified the girl who had sunk on to the bed with a gracefulness calculated to show those long, shapely legs and curvaceous hips to their best advantage. ‘You must take care, and only do just as much or as little as you feel able to. It’s much hotter here than in Sydney, of course, but once you’re acclimatized, you’ll probably find the dry heat easier to withstand than the humidity of the coast. Perhaps you should rest just now.’