The Grazier's Wife

by Barbara Hannay

  The silence in the kitchen was thunderous. Somewhere outside a distant cow bellowed.

  At last, very quietly, Hugh said, ‘What’s going on?’ His dark eyes were intense. ‘It’s strange enough that my mother would hide her diary, or whatever it is, in the first place. But now – if you’re hiding it too –’

  He gave a slow shake of his head. The muscles in his throat worked. ‘You’re not trying to protect me from bad news, are you?’

  Jackie’s heart slammed. What on earth could she say? She could feel tears welling behind her eyes and prickling her throat. She knew she was on the brink of telling him.

  But she couldn’t lift the lid on this problem now. Not when the party was so close, with everything planned and steaming full speed ahead. She had to bluff her way through it. To somehow try to stop Hugh.

  ‘I’ve only read bits,’ she said. ‘I know you should have been the first one to read it, Hugh. But the thing was – I – I was actually saving it for you.’ Suddenly she had a brainwave, the only solution possible. ‘I was saving it for your birthday. It was going to be part of your present. A surprise!’

  Seth, who’d been staring from one parent to the other with puzzled interest, now looked abashed. ‘Sorry, Mum. You never said.’

  Jackie ignored him. She was too busy holding her breath, waiting for her husband’s response to this unforgivable lie.

  Seth must have realised that Charlie was no longer in the room, and he went off to find him, calling his name.

  Hugh’s smile was uncertain. ‘That’s – a nice thought to surprise me.’ But he still didn’t look totally convinced. His smile faded and the puzzlement lingered.

  From down the hallway came the sound of Charlie’s giggles as Seth caught up with him.

  Hugh switched his gaze to the view through the kitchen window. He seemed to stare way off to a distant paddock where eagles had nested in a dead tree. Last week Jackie had joked with him about this precarious home for the noble eagles’ offspring, a haphazard handful of twigs shoved into the tree’s fork. Last week, their own world had been safe and secure.

  Seth popped his head around the kitchen doorway. He had Charlie propped on one hip and he eyed his parents cautiously. ‘If you guys don’t need me, I might head off to start working on that bore,’ he said.

  Jackie and Hugh spoke together.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  ‘I’ll mind Charlie,’ Jackie said, holding out her arms for her grandson.

  ‘I’ll be out there shortly, son,’ said Hugh.

  Seth hesitated a moment, watching with a baffled smile as if he was waiting for his parents to say something else.

  ‘Say bye-bye to Daddy,’ said Jackie, just a little too brightly, as she gave Seth a wave. ‘See you later.’

  As soon as Seth left, Hugh rounded on her. ‘So what’s this diary about?’

  Jackie’s heart took off again, but somehow she kept her voice steady. ‘It seems to be mostly about the war. When Stella was a nurse in Singapore.’

  His eyes widened. ‘That sounds interesting. I’d like to read it.’

  ‘Now?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, we’ve kind of spoiled the surprise, haven’t we?’

  ‘I guess.’ But Jackie was thinking of those fateful opening words in Stella’s diary.

  I have done a terrible thing . . .

  If ever there were words that raised questions, these did, especially when they were part of a message from a mother to her children. As soon as Hugh read this, he would want to know everything. He would scour Stella’s diary, reading much more closely than his wife had.

  Now Jackie wished she’d read those last few pages carefully to make sure there was no mention of Magnus’s instructions to his lawyer.

  ‘Seth wants you to check the bore and I need to give Charlie his breakfast. I’ll have it ready for you when you get back,’ she said, setting Charlie down.

  ‘Where is it?’ Hugh asked.

  Jackie stared at her husband, stunned by his uncharacteristic firmness.

  ‘It’s in the office.’ She went to the pantry cupboard to get Charlie’s porridge. ‘Why?’

  ‘Obviously, I’d like to read it.’ Hugh spoke with excessive pat­ience. ‘And I’d like to see it now.’

  ‘But the bore –’

  ‘Forget the bore. It can wait.’

  ‘And Charlie needs his breakfast.’

  ‘Jackie, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she snapped, slamming the pantry door closed. ‘Sit tight and I’ll bring it to you.’

  Hugh blinked, clearly surprised by her tone. Damn. She was only making things worse by letting him see that she was rattled.

  She drew a quick breath, trying to calm down. ‘If you’ll keep an eye on Charlie, I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said quietly. And with eyes demurely downcast, she left the room.

  By the time Jackie had reached the desk, she’d hatched a new plan. She took out Stella’s closely written pages and smoothed them with shaking hands.

  Then, carefully, she removed the top page and the last three pages and put them back in the drawer. She was confident that these middle pages weren’t especially problematic and, with luck, they would keep her husband happy for now. No, not just for now, but until after the party.

  She couldn’t quite believe she was being so duplicitous. These hidden documents were a serious threat to Hugh’s, and the entire family’s, happiness. And yet, she’d let a birthday party take priority.

  Was she really so dreadfully shallow? It was only a party, for heaven’s sake. She’d let the whole thing get out of hand.

  If she was honest, she knew she should seriously consider cancelling the party while they attended to this problem. After all, it had the potential to upset the entire family.

  Standing in the middle of the study, the diary pages in her hand, Jackie pictured ringing her friends, ringing everyone on the guest list and telling them the party was off, telling Maria not to bother with the lasagnes, telling Christy Hargreaves they wouldn’t need her Moroccan salad. Telling Flora – oh, dear, if there was a crisis, perhaps Flora should still come home. But she shouldn’t bring Oliver, should she?

  Jackie’s mind spun. She imagined going out to the kitchen to Hugh, handing him all the documents and telling him that the party would have to be cancelled. She pictured his face, and felt her mouth pull out of shape as tears threatened.

  Calm down.

  She took several deep breaths and tried to think clearly. Perhaps her original plan was okay. Perhaps she should stick to it.

  Yes, she should give Hugh these few pages, and then they’d deal with everything else later. Straight after the party. Squaring her shoulders, she felt better. She left the study.

  In the hallway she checked her reflection in the mirror and was alarmed to see how pale and strained she looked. She pinched her cheeks and practised smiling and, after several tries, decided she looked marginally calmer.

  Okay, let’s get this over with.

  She found Hugh in the kitchen feeding Charlie pieces of banana. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it’s not in a book. It’s just pages – more like a long letter. I hope it’s in order.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Hugh accepted the folded pages without examining them. He set them on the table and reached for Jackie’s hand. ‘Sorry I got stroppy.’ He rubbed his thumb affectionately over the back of her hand. ‘It’s just that the whole business seems strange. I’m puzzled about why Mum would hide something like this.’

  ‘I know.’ Jackie gave what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. ‘You might find out if you read it properly.’ Bending down, she kissed his creased forehead. ‘And try not to worry. We need to aim for a lovely, smooth lead-in to your party.’

  Hugh grinned. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said dryly.

  He stood, folded the pages and put them in the button-down pocket of his work shirt. As he left the room, Jackie wished she could follow her
own good advice about trying not to worry. But first, she had to read those last pages of Stella’s properly.

  23

  I waited so long for the end of the war, never dreaming it would bring me the greatest heartbreak of all.

  So many times during the long years of the war, Stella had tried to imagine her homecoming. She’d longed to see her parents, to feel the warmth of their welcoming hugs and to know that she could stay at home for as long as she wanted to.

  She’d imagined quiet afternoons on the verandah, chatting with neighbours over a cuppa, playing cards perhaps. She’d dreamed of riding her horse along the river bank, joking with her brothers and listening to their stories – it was years since she’d seen them.

  When the war’s end finally arrived, however, her return home was different from her fantasies in almost every way possible.

  To begin with, her little brother Mark, who’d been old enough to enlist for the last year of the war, was killed in Borneo just a few weeks before the Japanese surrender. This tragic news was a dreadful blow, made harder to bear by the fact that Stella’s other brother, Stephen, was still in Japan as part of the Occupation Force. He was waiting for a troop ship and had no idea when he would be home.

  To make matters even worse, Stella now knew that her friends and many others who’d left Singapore on the other two ships, the Vyner Brooke and Wah Sui, had lost their lives. This news weighed extra-heavily on Stella’s heart.

  But there was yet another blow – the cattle property that she had always regarded as her home had been sold. The owner, referred to by everyone in the district as Young Mr MacArthur, had been a bomber pilot with the RAAF, and when he was killed during the fighting in Europe, his aged parents had arranged for the property to be sold quickly.

  Stella’s parents had been left with no choice but to move, to manage a new place, much further west. The country was dry and inhospitable, and the new homestead was little more than an ugly fibro shed, so very different from the rambling, verandah-wrapped Queenslander of Stella’s childhood. There were no shade trees here, and the yard was bare and stony with straggling weeds instead of a pretty garden.

  Sadly, Stella’s mother was so grief-stricken and dispirited after losing Mark that she hadn’t the heart to brighten the place with her usual home-making touches. Stella did her best with the garden, but it was the middle of the dry season and she couldn’t achieve much.

  Of course, she never stopped worrying about Tom, but given her parents’ grief, her concerns for a man she’d met briefly at the beginning of the war felt rather self-indulgent. She kept her worries to herself, but she scoured the newspapers that eventually reached them, hunting for information about the British Army in Singapore, and she wept over the dreadful photos of the emaciated prisoners.

  Stella also wrote to Tom’s family again, asking after Tom and informing his parents of her change of address. Each week dragged as she waited for the post, but there was no response from the Kearneys.

  Then, the most surprising thing happened.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table with her mother, slicing onions for a beef stew, and wishing they had carrots or beans to add to the pot, when they heard the sound of a vehicle.

  ‘Car coming,’ her mum commented, without looking up from the potatoes she was peeling.

  A visitor was a complete novelty. Stella, being curious, went to the kitchen window to watch the cloud of dust bowling towards them over the flat, treeless plain.

  She wondered what they had to offer a guest. She’d made a batch of Anzac biscuits a few days earlier, and she tried to remember how many were left. If the visitor stayed long enough, she might have time for a hasty batch of scones.

  ‘I hope it’s not someone wanting to see your father,’ her mum remarked dolefully. ‘He’s way out riding the boundaries, won’t be back till sundown.’

  ‘You never know, it could be Stephen.’

  Her mother frowned, gave a doubtful shake of her head, but then she must have reconsidered this possibility. She paused in the middle of her peeling, and hope flared in her tired blue eyes, showing a brief glimpse of the pretty women she’d once been.

  Stella bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t spoken the thought aloud. There was every chance the caller wouldn’t be Stephen, and the last thing she wanted was to cause unnecessary disappointment for her mother.

  ‘Better get these things into the stew, so we can tidy up,’ she said.

  Quickly, she slid the onions from the chopping board into the pot and helped her mum to finish the potatoes. She put the potato peelings into the chook bucket, then wrapped the onion skins in newspaper and took them to the bin outside the kitchen door. While her mum wiped the tabletop, Stella washed her hands at the sink, and watched through the window as a truck emerged from the dust cloud.

  There was little time to check her appearance. The truck was already pulling up at the rusty front gate. The dogs barked, straining on their chains. Stella hated having them tied up, but it was necessary here at this new place. There were dingoes about and her father hadn’t yet managed to mend the fence around the house.

  ‘Quiet!’ her mother yelled at the dogs as she hurried to open the front door.

  Stella stayed at the kitchen window, watching as a tall, manly figure climbed down from the truck. His dark hair was cut short, back and sides, and he had a neat moustache. Even in civilian clothes – dark trousers and a white shirt – there was no mistaking his military bearing. The shock-wave of recognition made her gasp.

  Good heavens. It was Magnus Drummond.

  Stella was so surprised, she had to cling to the edge of the sink. How on earth had he found her?

  It was eighteen months since she’d last seen him in Townsville. At the time, he’d been on leave and had sought her out at the hospital. He’d persuaded her to have dinner with him and to walk with him in the moonlight along Townsville’s Strand. She’d known he was keen on her – she would have needed to be blind not to have seen that. Nevertheless, there was no ‘understanding’ between them.

  Now, her stomach knotted with a bewildering mix of excitement and dismay. Magnus Drummond had come all this way, and her mother had taken off her apron and hurried down the hall. Already, she was opening the front door to him.

  Slightly dizzy, Stella kept her grip on the sink as she drew calming breaths. She heard his deep voice.

  ‘Good morning. Are you Mrs Murray?’

  Her mother responded politely. ‘Yes, that’s right. How can I help you?’

  ‘I was hoping that Stella might be home.’

  ‘Oh? Oh, yes. Yes, she is. Oh – oh, just a minute, I’ll get her.’ Her mother’s quick footsteps pattered down the short hall. ‘Stella!’ she called, her voice high-pitched with excitement.

  When she came into the kitchen her eyes were huge and shining. Small spots of pink showed in her cheeks. ‘You have a visitor,’ she said, in a stage whisper.

  Stella nodded.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ her mother said next, motioning for Stella to go to him.

  ‘I can look after making the tea.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t be silly. Go and entertain your visitor.’

  Stella wished the hallway were longer, wished she had more time to compose herself, but suddenly she was there in the small ugly lounge room, crammed with the furniture her parents had brought from their old house.

  The tall man standing in the middle of the room made the space feel even more crowded.

  He smiled when he saw her. ‘Stella, hello. How lovely to see you again. It’s been such a long time.’

  She held out her hand to him. ‘This is a surprise, Lieutenant Drummond.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ll have to call me Magnus now. I’ve been demobbed.’

  ‘You must be so pleased about that. You seem fit and well.’ She knew she was talking too formally, like a nurse to a patient. She couldn’t help herself.

  If Magnus noticed, he didn’t show that he minded.
‘Yes, I’m completely recovered.’ He favoured her with another smile. ‘You look well, Stella.’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you. I – ah – I imagine you’ve been home to your property? I hope you found it in good condition.’

  ‘Not in too bad a shape, thank goodness. I’d de-stocked before I enlisted, so there were no cattle to worry about. Grass a mile high in places.’

  ‘Really? So there’s no drought up your way?’

  ‘No, quite the opposite. We’re harvesting stock feed to send south.’ Again Magnus smiled, and he really was quite handsome when he smiled. ‘It was a huge relief to see the old place again.’

  Now he looked about him at the empty armchairs, and Stella, whose mind had been racing in several directions at once, remembered her role as hostess. ‘Please, take a seat. You’ve come such a long way. My mother’s just making us some tea.’

  ‘How kind. Thank you.’

  Stella sat rather stiffly, while Magnus seemed completely relaxed, crossing one long leg easily over the other. She had to admit that his commanding demeanour gave their shabby lounge room a certain touch of class.

  ‘How did you find us?’ She had to ask. ‘My parents moved here only recently.’

  ‘It wasn’t hard,’ he said. ‘Most people I asked seemed to know your father. He’s a highly respected cattleman.’

  Stella couldn’t help being pleased to hear this. ‘So you’re out this way on business?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, but my business is purely social.’ Another smile. ‘You must know, Stella. I came to see you.’

  She couldn’t think how to respond to this. Back in Townsville, Magnus had told her that he would come to find her after the war, but she hadn’t really believed that he meant it.

  Tom Kearney had made the same promise, and her head and heart had remained filled to the brim with her longing to see him.

  Now, she felt a stirring of panic, almost as if she was falling into a trap. Where are you, Tom? Please, please write.

  She was rather grateful that her mother appeared just then, carrying a tray loaded with the tea things, including the plate of Anzacs.