by Amanda Doyle
“Clancy?” He stood in front of her, blocking the way.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said ungrammatically. “I was— I was just out for a walk.”
“I thought you’d clear out for a while after that scene before dimer,” he told her, with calm satisfaction. “Pretty disgusting, wasn’t it? I noticed you didn’t eat much, and I can’t say I blame you. It was enough to turn anyone’s stomach, the way she went for you—Tamara, I mean. After all you’ve done for her all these years. To think she lets him beat the daylights out of her and then blames you for sticking up for her. Poor Clancy! I’m sorry, kid, but I did warn you, didn’t I, eh? It’s happening like I said, isn’t it?”
Clancy sighed, bitterly.
“Yes, Johnny, it is. Just like you said. She—she— well, you heard her, Johnny. Whatever can I do?”
As soon as she’d said it, she wished the question unasked. Johnny’s bulk loomed over her, she could see his breadth silhouetted against the night sky. His voice took on a note of persuasion.
“Clancy, let’s get married—that’s the answer. Now don’t get me wrong. I won’t rush you. You can call the time, and I’ll wait till you say the word before I put the ring on your finger. But even if we were engaged, he’d have to go, don’t you see? You’ll be twenty-one in fourteen months, you’ll be your own boss, mistress of this place. Why, the natural person to run the place till you’re of age is your future husband, see? They can’t stop you getting engaged.” Johnny waited, quite still. Clancy’s brain seemed to have stood still too. She couldn’t think, she didn’t know what to do. She’d never been in this awful position before. However did you tell a man—a quick-tempered man like Johnny, that you didn’t want to marry him, even if he were the last man on earth; that you didn’t even like him, let alone love him; that even his physical nearness filled you with a sort of cold distaste?
“Come on, Clancy, say you will.” Again there was that low, soft, pleading note.
“Johnny, I—no, Johnny, I’m sorry, but I can’t ever marry you. I—I don’t feel I ever could. I don’t want to marry anyone. Please understand. Please don’t ask me again—ever.”
For one pulsating moment, he looked down at her. Then he was gripping her shoulders and shaking her roughly. His anger mounted with every second that passed.
“By God, you stubborn little filly!” he lashed her. “You stupid little fool. I’ve played it cool and hung back long enough. I’ve had enough of your prim little No, Johnny, sorry, Johnny. You’ll be sorry, but not in the way you think! I’ll get you in the end. I’ll clear him out and I’ll get you. You’ll waken up to yourself then, all right! But here’s a start, here’s a lesson to be going on with.”
He brought his face down to hers, one hand caught the wrist that came up to fend him off, the other went round her waist and dragged her to him. Clancy’s muffled protest was silenced as his lips closed over hers in a long, brutal, seeking kiss. She couldn’t breathe, her back ached as she bent away to evade him. In sick horror, she struggled a moment longer, then was still. After what seemed an eternity, her mouth was free, as his lips moved over her cheek, and she felt his unshaven chin near to her ear. His voice was hoarse. “Clancy, come on, Clancy, give a man a break.”
He let go her waist and clawed roughly at her shirt. With a hysterical sob, Clancy broke free, staggered as his arm fought to regain its hold. Then she was running, running, up the track, up to the house, to the lights that blinked out. She didn’t look back, her breath came in agonised gasps, rasping painfully in her throat, her cheek was stinging where the roughness had grazed it. Up the steps, along the veranda she ran, only slowing to a less reckless pace as she gained the safety of the hall. Inside, she stopped, and leaned weakly against the wall. Her legs refused to support her further.
The sitting-room door opened. Jed Seaforth came out.
“Clancy, I’ve been waiting to talk to you. Clancy?”
Clancy couldn’t move. She still had the back of her hand pressed over her bruised mouth, and her eyes were dilated with shock and fright as she looked at Jed. She took her hand away, and tried to speak. Her lips felt stiff and cracked. She couldn’t seem to form any words with them, and she found her whole body had begun to shake uncontrollably.
Without a word Jed half-carried her into the sitting-room, and put her gently on the couch. He deftly laid her flat, took away the cushion near her head, thrust it and another one under her knees, and said calmly, “Hold on, Clancy, I won’t be a minute.” He went through to the dining-room, came back to open the cupboard in the sitting-room, swore softly, and banged the door shut again. Clancy watched numbly as he drew a pigskin-covered flask from his hip-pocket, unscrewed the silver top, and poured into it a neat measure of amber spirit.
“Drink it, Clancy.”
Clancy could only gaze at him mutely.
Jed raised her head, tilted the cup, and forced the fiery liquid into her mouth without more ado. It stung the cracked place on her lip, so she swallowed it quickly. She could feel its bracing warmth coursing through her. Clancy lay back and closed her eyes. She was still shaking—she just couldn’t seem to stop.
Presently she felt Jed’s hand on her wrist. With a soothing movement he stroked her forearm with gentle, even pressure. He began to talk.
“Clancy, I know you’ve had a shock over Tamara. I’m sorry. I didn’t for a minute think she’d come out of her room and take sides like that, and I meant to tell you afterwards what I’d done. What she said was quite true; you know. We made a pact about playing truant, she was caught, and she was quite prepared to take the rap. She’s as game as Ned Kelly, and she harbours no spite against me. I admire her for that, don’t you? It takes a sterling character to admit to being wrong, and Tammy’s a fine little girl. She’ll grow into quite a woman some day. But she needs discipline. You can see that, Clancy? She needs it, and she appreciates it, and she responds to it. I guess you’ve been worried for some time over her lessons,” Jed said perceptively. “Well, I am too. You don’t want her to grow up lawless and uneducated, and I hate to see a promising kid going to waste. I just want you to know that my motives are good, Clancy—in Tammy’s best interests. Do you understand, Clancy?”
Clancy opened her eyes. She had stopped shaking now, but she found herself looking into Jed’s blue eyes, close to her own, in complete bewilderment.
He repeated his question.
“Do you understand?”
“Understand?”
“About Tamara.”
“About Tamara?” Clancy looked blank. Tamara? What about Tamara? Goodness, yes, Tamara! It seemed years ago, that business of Tamara, unreal, dream-like, remote—not like the overwhelming reality of Johnny Raustmann’s nightmare kiss. Clancy shivered again, revolted.
Jed’s eyes were on her, watching her. The apologetic note suddenly dropped from his voice, as he asked her coolly,
“Clancy, where were you just now—when you came in? Where had you been?”
“I—went for a walk.”
“Alone?”
“Yes—alone.”
Jed leaned over her again. “Clancy, would you like to tell me about your walk? Did anything happen to upset you? Something other than Tamara, perhaps?”
“Of—of course not!” Clancy looked up to find Jed’s shrewd blue eyes narrowed upon her thoughtfully.
“Remember what I said about being able to tell me anything, Clancy? I’m here to help. You can trust me, you know.”
Clancy had to look away. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said stonily.
Jed’s face seemed to close up, as he drew away from her.
“Then in that case,” he said sternly, reaching out and pointedly fastening the two gaping top buttons of her faded shirt, “I suggest you go to bed.”
He stood up.
“If it makes you feel any easier, lock your door,” he advised acidly, as he strode from the room.
CHAPTER 7
AS a matter of fact, Clancy did lock her door that
night. It was a stupid thing to do; she rebuked herself for her weakness, even as she did it; and in any case, it didn’t help her to sleep any better. In the morning, she was heavy-eyed but wakeful. She couldn’t sleep any longer, so she climbed carefully out of bed, dressed quietly so she wouldn’t waken the sleeping Tammy, and crept out, over to the kitchen. It was barely dawn, and some time until the breakfast hour. She’d make a batch of biscuits before she got down to cooking breakfast, Clancy decided. If she kept busy, perhaps she wouldn’t think so much. Thinking hurt!
Clancy took down the flour-sifter, carried her ingredients over to the marble-topped table in the window. To her surprise she saw Johnny Raustmann walking round the edge of the excavated dam of brown water at the back of the house. He was up early—up here early, at any rate, considering he hadn’t been coming near the house for breakfast lately.
She called to him now, in as normal a voice as she could manage, “Do you want your breakfast up here this morning?”
“I’ll get it down at the quarters, same as I’ve been doing,” was the somewhat surly reply. “I’ve got to get out on the run.” Johnny Raustmann paused. “You can tell the Big Chief, when he comes up, that the windmill isn’t working. Something wrong with the pump-rod, and I haven’t time to fix it.”
Clancy agreed coldly to pass on the message, and went on with her baking. By the time she got the butter and sugar creamed, the big oven would be hot enough to start. She carried on, methodically measuring her ingredients. Presently Tamara appeared, rubbing her eyes. She was none the worse for her chastisement, Clancy was relieved to see. She had on an ancient pair of jeans, shiny and hard at the seams, and her ankles protruded grasshopper fashion from the skimpy trouser-legs. She had a plait held tight between thumb and forefinger, and a rubber band in her other hand.
“Hello, Clan,” she greeted cheerfully. “You’re up early! I thought I’d slept in when I saw your bed was empty! Could you put the band on this for me, please? I’m hopeless at twisting it with my left hand.”
Clancy dusted the flour off her hands, and obliged.
She was thinking what prettiness and character lay underneath Tamara’s freckles. Someone else had said the same thing lately, she was sure, but she couldn’t think where she’d heard it. It was a true enough observation anyway. Affection flowed over as she scrutinised Tammy’s snub-nosed profile. It was an appealing one, somehow. She would look lovely in the yellow seersucker. Clancy must hurry to get it completed. It was difficult to find enough time, and Tammy was given to popping up in the oddest places unannounced, but so far she had managed to keep it hidden from her.
Tammy turned to thank her with a sudden, spontaneous squeeze. To Clancy’s injured heart, the impulsive gesture spoke volumes. The two sisters smiled at each other, understandingly. Now, Tammy begged, “Clancy, d’you think we could have flapjacks for breakfast, seeing we’re so early? You know—the ones you make in the little pan, and you flip them over and fold them up? Please, Clan, could we—just for a treat?”
Tamara could look persuasive when she liked.
“Of course we can, darling,” Clancy agreed warmly. She’d have done anything for Tammy this morning, in return for that gorgeous hug. “I’ll start them now, and I can make these biscuits later in the morning.”
Tammy clapped her hands, and did an energetic corroboree-dance round the wooden table in the middle of the room before departing to her room again to put some hair-ribbons over the rubber bands.
That was how it was that Clancy, who usually went down to the bungalow every morning, happened belatedly to be mixing her biscuits at the kitchen window when Jed Seaforth, armed with a greasy leather folder of tools under one arm, and a large Stilson wrench in the other hand, walked round the tank and over to the windmill. She saw him bent over something at the bottom of the shaft for some time, and as she tipped the last of the flour into her mixture, she idly registered the fact that he had abandoned work at ground level, and was climbing the iron ladder that led to the wooden-slatted inspection platform beneath the sails, some forty feet from the ground. Clancy carefully folded in the flour, tested the mixture for stiffness, added a small splash of milk. Jed had reached the top, and was climbing on to the small platform.
The next second, he slipped. Clancy saw him stand upright, lose his balance, and fall back over the edge.
One hand grasped unavailingly at the end of the wooden slats, and his body checked for an instant, only to hurtle down another twelve feet, where his left hand clutched and held an iron cross-bar, and his right hand came up quickly to secure the hold. He hung there, swinging, like a possum on a sapling. Clancy flung down her wooden spoon, and raced from the kitchen. All the way, as she ran full pelt, she heard her own voice calling, “Hang on, Jed! Hang on! I’m coming!”
She still said it as she scrambled up the ladder, careless with haste. She was still saying it rather breathlessly as she drew level with his swinging body. His knuckles were white where they gripped the iron. He was parallel with her, a little to her left, only a few feet away. He grinned along to her—a twisted sort of grin.
He said—he was as breathless as she was—“I’ll give a swing across, Clancy, and see if I can get one foot on the ladder. Hang on to me as best you can, but don’t fall yourself, there’s a good girl.” He suited the action to the word, there was a slight scramble as his foot found the rung, and Clancy, leaning as far out his way as she could, clung desperately to the plaited hide belt he wore round his narrow hips. Then, somehow, he had worked his entire body across. He was there on the ladder now, a little above her, both feet safely on the rung. Clancy heaved a relieved sigh. She couldn’t for the moment speak at all. Jed was perfectly still, his head resting sideways on the ladder’s shaft, one hand clinging grimly to it. Clancy, looking up anxiously, saw that his eyes were closed, and he was breathing heavily.
“Jed?”
Jed opened his eyes, turned outward a little to look down at her. Only then did Clancy realise his left arm was hanging uselessly, dangling down oddly towards her.
“Jed, you’re hurt!” Clancy couldn’t think why her voice quavered with distress, when she didn’t even like the man. Still, it wasn’t nice to see someone nearly killed in front of your very eyes. He hadn’t been killed, only he looked so white. If he fell now, though, he could be killed, even yet. Clancy renewed her determined hold on the leather belt.
“Jed?” She climbed up another two rungs, so that she was almost on top of him now. “Jed, can you hear me? We’ve got to get down. We’ve got to, Jed—do you hear? I’m going to guide your feet, and hang on to you. All you have to do is slide your hand down, each step we take. Don’t let go, though. Jed? Can you do it? Lower your right foot first each time—I’ve got you tight. You’ll be O.K.” Clancy’s voice had firmed to encouraging brightness.
She heard Jed say faintly, “Right, Clancy. Let’s go,” and the laborious descent began. It took a long time—an eternity, it seemed to Clancy, as they made their snail-like progress to the ground. Once there, Jed turned round to face her.
His face was grey, racked with pain, and sweat ran in a rivulet down his temple. His eyes closed again, and Clancy had to press her body against him and prevent him sagging to the ground. Oh, Jed, Jed, dear Jed. Let him be all right, she prayed. He opened his eyes, gave her an apologetic smile.
“It’s my shoulder, Clancy. It’s a dislocation, I think—it’s agony!” He paused briefly, took another deep, careful breath. “Think we’ll make it to the house?”
Clancy didn’t think they could, but she wouldn’t for the world have said so just then. Her mind, racing ahead, registered the fact that there was no one at the house, even if they did make it—no adult to help, that is—just little Tammy doing lessons on the front veranda. With all her might she called now, piercingly, “Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Tamm-ee!”
Tamara came running. When she was near enough, Clancy shouted, waving her back towards the house.
“Call up base and get the doctor,
Tammy—Jed’s hurt. Say it’s urgent.”
Tammy halted in her tracks, and after one anguished glance at the pair still standing together at the bottom of the windmill, fled to do as she was bid. Clancy said to Jed, “Right, Jed. Let’s try it now.” Jed hadn’t spoken again, and he didn’t speak now. He was saving his breath for the torture ahead. He was gasping quickly by the time they reached the veranda, and his face was ashen. Clancy’s own shoulder ached where it strove to bear his not inconsiderable weight, and the muscles of her legs felt wobbly. They came at last to the room that Mr. Parsins had occupied not so long ago, and collapsed together on the big brass-headed bed. Clancy found herself dragged down with Jed as he fell, and when she eased herself free and stood up, she saw that he had fainted. Helplessly she looked down at the white clean-cut face, the sternness relaxed, the pain momentarily wiped away by unconsciousness. She didn’t know what to do, she was no good at nursing, no good at anything. She felt desperate and frustrated by her own uselessness. Tenderness welled up in Clancy in that moment. Suddenly she couldn’t remember the bad things about Jed—only the good things. Only his kindness, his patience, his gentle deep voice, unraised even at its sternest. He’d been concerned for her last night—he’d wanted to help, he had helped a little, just as much as she had allowed him to. He was always there, dependable, trustworthy, and she had so far spurned his generous offers of assistance. She knew now that she had really longed to lean on him, and confide in him. She didn’t grudge him his success with Tammy—not one bit! It was she, Clancy, who had been the foolish one, not to see how good and kind and wonderful he was before this. Tammy had been wise, wise beyond her years—about Jed, if about nothing else. Perhaps children had a sixth sense about grown-ups. Perhaps they knew things intuitively, and they weren’t blinded by adult prejudices. Their hearts weren’t burdened by the unwanted, brutal, complicated behaviour of people like Johnny Raustmann.