Friendly hands patted Joanna on the shoulder, and then someone almost as tall as Adam came thrusting through the crowd to her side. ‘Joanna, what happened?’
‘Miss Dowling and Bushy decided to liven up the party.’ There was a sardonic smile on the Boss’s lips as he strolled away, still carrying the extinguisher.
‘You want some tucker, Boss,’ Bushy called out.
‘A steak sandwich, Bushy.’
‘I’ll bring it, Boss. Any pickles?’
A sardonic laugh came floating back to them, while Vance questioned in a low voice and the music started up again in the hall.
‘Yes, he’ll have some pickles with it,’ Bushy muttered, and all at once Joanna felt like laughing and crying. There was nothing tame, nothing easily known about Adam Corraine. He withheld his secret self, and loped up the steps of the veranda with the silence and suppleness of a man who never panicked. Boss of Raintree. What would the place be without him?
‘My dress,’ she said, for though the foam had brushed off it had left marks on the pale material. ‘If you don’t mind, Vance, I’d like to go back to the house.’
‘Sure, honey, I’ll take you.’
‘I’d like to walk.’ Suddenly she wanted to be alone and quiet. ‘You stay and enjoy the dance.’
‘Not without you, Joanna.’
‘Vance!’
It was Bonney, running across the lawn with the light of the lanterns turning her to a fairy thing. ‘Vance and Joanna, you’re to come in and dance. And Bushy, the Boss wants his steak sandwich.’
‘I’m coming with it, right now.’ Bushy ambled off, carrying the sandwich and two dill pickles on a plate. A life of sudden alarms and nerves built to take them had not left him as shaken as Joanna. She shrank from going back into that brightly lit hall, where all eyes would be upon her ... heroine of the hour who wanted to hide away.
‘Go and dance with Bonney,’ she urged. ‘I feel like a quiet walk, Vance. The night air will cool my head.’
‘Joanna ...’
‘Please.’ The sound of strain was in her voice. ‘I’m all on edge, prickly, like a cat that’s had a scare. Don’t insist on coming with me.’
‘You know the way?’ He looked uncertain, his hair rumpled from the dancing, hunched over her a little, as if to pluck her wilful slenderness close to him. ‘You weren’t hurt in any way, Joanna?’
She shook her head. ‘It was all too quick for that - like a dream. Bonney, dance with him!’
She turned away without further argument and hastened from the poppy-like girl and the man whose shoulder it would have been good to lean against, some other time. She made for the road that led past the bungalows to the hill crowned by the homestead. A tethered horse rattled his harness, and the music hung on the air with the smell of trees and the nutty tang of the many head of cattle, guarded down there on the range by the stockmen on duty. Boye Dawson among them. Lenita had not been at the dance - a young wife and mother, too much in love to dance with anyone but Boye.
Joanna saw the light on in the Dawson bungalow, but she passed by, smiling a little as she saw the moonlight agleam on the steel supports of baby Carlo’s swing. Little house of love, with blue shutters.
She left the lights behind, and the drifting music, and all was still but for herself moving along through the night with the young moon, a curve of pale gold against the velvet dark sky. The outlines of the homestead came into view and she paused beside the white gate and listened as a dog barked.
Was it a dog or a dingo, prowling around in the hope of stealing a chicken? She leaned against the five-barred gate, too spent to go further and at peace after the turmoil down on the lawn of the barn-hall. Oh dear, what had she got herself into? Viviana was miles away, and she was a lone English girl at Raintree, at the mercy of a gentle heart, and unprepared by her twenty-odd years with Gran for men as charming as Vance ... men as iron-strong and masterful as Adam Corraine.
She took a deep breath of the night air, and on impulse she loosed her hair from its chignon and let the wind blow it back from her temples. So good, the free wild scents from the valley. She climbed the gate and sat on the top bar, ash-blonde and still in the moonlight A breeze came whispering in her ears: ‘Call her once and come away.’
She smiled at the fancy, and then something made her turn her head and her heart quickened as a tall figure came quietly towards her. ‘Vance?’ Even as she spoke the name, she knew with all her nerves that only one man moved with such deliberation, as if the very soles of his feet had love for the soil of Raintree. The pale light of the moon shone on the lean strength of his face and showed the glint of mastery in his eyes.
‘Was it you who called me?’ She heard her own voice with surprise and the words it spoke.
‘The line came to me - it seemed appropriate.’ He drew near and his tallness brought his eyes level with hers, where she sat on the gate. ‘You didn’t come back to the dance - Aunt Charly was a little worried about you, and dancing is something I can take or leave alone.’
‘Are you asking me if I’m all right, Mr. Corraine?’ A smile just touched her lips, a nervous little appeal that he smile in return, just once.
His glance played over her as he propped a foot upon the rails of the gate and leaned his forearm against his thigh. ‘You might have got burned and run off like a young cat to lick your wound in secret.’
‘Do you think I’m a secretive person, Mr. Corraine?’
‘You’re a deep one, Miss Dowling.’
She gazed back at him, caught between the keen silver of his eyes and the night all around. They had never been so alone and she tried to hide behind her lashes from the strength that made her feel as helpless as that branch of mimosa Aunt Charly had talked about.
‘You acted too quickly for any real damage to be done — except to my dress. These light materials show marks easily, that was why I wouldn’t dance any more. Sheer female vanity.’
‘Is the dress a total write-off?’
‘As my best one, which it was. But after a good wash it will do for everyday.’
‘I caused the damage, so I’ll replace it.’
‘No, there’s really no need. I’m only too glad that Bushy wasn’t hint. He tries so hard to be useful with that one arm—’
‘He was a good all-round man in his day. A bit of a wanderer when younger, but whenever he turned up at Raintree for work my grandfather always took him on.’
‘He’s deeply grateful that you let him stay on at Raintree. I think to live here is to love the valley.’
‘I thought women were more concerned with loving a man?’
‘There are several loves in a woman’s life, as there are in a man’s.’
‘Have you known other men beside my cousin?’
She stared at Adam, and suddenly the wind felt cold.
His question had been deliberate, not casual, and he had followed her not from concern but to harp back to the early part of the evening, when he had come upon her just as Vance had taken forcible hold of her.
‘There was the boy who cleaned out the pig run for us, and old Jack who pruned the trees in the orchard. Then there was the butcher and the baker—’
She broke off with a cry as in that quick way of his Adam took her wrist in a grip impossible to break. ‘Don’t be clever with me,’ he said, and she felt the muted thunder in him, the whisper of lightning. ‘Vance isn’t for you, and you aren’t for him!’
‘I never said—’
‘You said he proposed to you.’
‘He meant it as a joke—’
‘A funny thing to joke about. Don’t you regard marriage as a serious matter, Miss Dowling?’
‘Of course I do—’
‘Then you can take my word for it that you won’t marry my cousin if I can prevent it.’
‘Your arrogance is beyond belief,’ she gasped. ‘You can’t boss people around as if they’re cattle.’
‘I can make sure they don’t wander in the wrong directio
n.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That Vance is wandering and I don’t like it.’
It took her breath away that he should say it outright ... his cool nerve was something to marvel at a moment before she lost her temper. ‘Anyone can see that you’re hidebound by family pride and property, and so you think every female stranger is out to become a part of your illustrious family. All I want is a job, for as long as it takes me to earn enough to pay my fare to New Zealand. That’s what I came for, funnily enough, Mr. Corraine, not to find a wealthy Australian husband!’
When she said that, his fingers tightened for a painful moment on her wrist and she became conscious of how close he was, so that she felt the warmth of his physique . warmer than his heart, with its plans all made for those who belonged to Raintree.
‘I’ve made my plans as well, Mr. Corraine. I’m saving my wages so I can join my sister as soon as possible.’
‘Have you heard from her?’
Not yet, but I wrote to her before I left Sydney and she knows I’m here. I took the liberty of assuming that I’d be suitable as a home-help.’
‘Miss Dowling—’
‘I felt your dislike of me from the moment we met, Mr. Corraine. First you took me for a gold-digger, now you’re worried in case your cousin marries the kitchen help. You also must take me for a little idiot if you think I don’t know when a man is playing at love.’ She gave a laugh that was half angry, half genuinely amused. ‘You really seem very mixed up about me. I’m just an ordinary girl with no wish in the world to disrupt your household or your plans for Vance.’
‘Not all that ordinary,’ he drawled. ‘Bushy would strike some girls as just an old one-armed codger who lives in the past.’
‘He’s rather lonely and divided from his family - I just happen to understand how he feels.’ Feeling the slack of Adam’s fingers she broke free of his touch, jumped down off the gate and ran away from him towards the house. It hurt to be misjudged, and despite her growing attachment to Raintree she wished she had enough money so she could fly away to Viviana. Suddenly she felt all choked up. It was true what she had said about the loneliness of being divided from loved ones. It overwhelmed her, coming on the heels of her fight with Adam Corraine, and tears filled her eyes and she blundered into a ghost-gum before she saw it.
‘Oh—’ It seemed like the last straw, and as Adam loomed she cried out: ‘Don’t touch me - I couldn’t bear it!’
‘Are you hurt?’ His voice sounded very distant and curt.
‘No.’ She ran on, into the house, and when she reached her room she flung herself across the bed and cried for home. Why had she left everything that was familiar to her, and loved? Why hadn’t she taken Gran’s advice and gone to work at the livery stable for Ian MacLean? That lad likes you,’ Gran had said. ‘He makes a fair living out of the riding school, and a young woman can’t ask for more than kindness and a bit of jam on her bread.’
Couldn’t she? Joanna wondered as she propped herself on her elbow and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A bit of security and a taste of jam seemed rather poor things in comparison to a dream of love so warm and vital and unassailable that nothing outside that strong dream of love could ever really hurt a girl.
Unusual thoughts for her to be having, and she found herself listening for the sound of footfalls in the house. All was quiet, and on impulse she went to the window and opened it carefully a little wider. There drifted upwards on the night air the aroma of tobacco smoke, and she knew the Boss was down there on the rear veranda, smoking his pipe and gazing at the mountains that guarded the valley.
It was an overwhelming thought that all the territory for miles around was Adam Corraine’s, handed on to him by his grandfather, to be handed on in his turn to ...?
Joanna’s heart beat faster than it should.
‘My cousin is a born bachelor,’ Vance had said. ‘He must take a bride ... or see Raintree go to a son of mine.’
Was that the answer to Adam’s arrogant behaviour down by the paddock gate? Did he plan to stay solitary and was taking it upon himself to select the mother for Vance’s son? It seemed very feudal, and yet the idea fitted in with the atmosphere at Raintree. The place was cut off from civilization, and Adam had been reared almost exclusively by a hard, proud, exacting man whom everyone had called King. It wasn’t so far-fetched really, that Adam should have made plans into which the girl stranger from England didn’t fit.
She took a troubled heart to bed with her ... she hadn’t dreamed that Adam Corraine thought so little of her that he couldn’t tolerate the idea of Vance loving her.
Whatever Adam Corraine’s private feelings, he kept his promise about the pony and Brindle was available for horseback riding whenever Joanna was free of her household duties for an hour or so.
She loved Brindle from the moment she mounted him and he did a little dance to let her know that he had some pepper in him. The saddle was a slightly worn one of Bonney’s, so it fitted her, but the stirrup leathers hung rather long and it was Adam who came to her side to shorten them. He glanced up at her and his look was a long, unsmiling one. ‘Now you should ride more comfortably.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled diffidently. ‘I can ride ... there’s no need to look at me as if I’m about to topple out of the saddle.’
Bonney’s pony Satin suddenly pranced, as if the girl tightened her grip on the bridle. Like Joanna she wore narrow trousers and a cotton shirt, with a slouch hat as protection against the sun. But around her neck there floated a scarlet chiffon scarf. She seemed fond of the colour as if it expressed a hint of fire in her temperament.
‘Have I got to look out for Joanna?’ she drawled. ‘I thought it was the companion’s job to look after me.’
Joanna tilted her chin, and the slouch of her hat made her eyes sparkle deep blue with challenge. ‘It does sound Edwardian to be called a companion, as if I should be wearing a full skirt and sitting side-saddle.’
She gave a laugh and felt the flick of masculine eyes over her slacks and shirt, a smoky blue colour with neat collar and cuffs. ‘Off with the pair of you. And if you ride in the forest, Bonney, don’t go too far.’
‘You’d have to come looking for us, Boss, if we went astray.’ Bonney gave him a saucy look from her saddle. ‘You’d be so annoyed at being taken away from your precious work, wouldn’t you? Or would you send Vance to search for us?’
‘Would you prefer Vance to rescue you?’ He took Bonney’s bridle and led her pony out of the stable. Joanna followed on Brindle, and the sun was warm, ripening the smell of horses and hay. She heard Bonney laugh softly.
‘As if I’d prefer anyone but you, Adam - you are the first man!’
Joanna felt his gaze upon them as they cantered away from the homestead, and she knew there was a smile deep in the sky-grey eyes, a gleam of sunshine and warmth aroused by his pretty and impudent ward - who seemed to be a little in love with him.
The sun flared across Corraine’s land like living gold, and a little way off Joanna saw a mob of kangaroos feeding among the woollybutts. Adam allowed small mobs of them on his property, and they certainly added a touch of charm and strangeness, like big rabbits up on their hind legs and hopping about with a sort of lovable clumsiness.
Bonney turned in her saddle and gave Joanna an inquiring look. ‘Do you want to see the forest?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t mind seeing a part of it, but we’d better not go too far.’
‘Are you afraid of the Boss?’
‘No. But if it’s possible to get lost in the rain-forest, then I’d sooner not tempt fate.’
‘It’s fun to tempt.’ Bonney gave a laugh. ‘That’s what women are for, otherwise it’s all cooking and drudgery. I’d hate to work at what you do.’
‘You’ll do a certain amount of it when you’re married,’ Joanna pointed out.
‘Not me! The help can run the home. I’m not going to wear myself out and not be attractive any more to - to the man I marry.’
/>
‘I take it he’ll have money?’ Joanna found herself amused by the girl, who spoke a lot like Viviana, and who had the same assurance about her prettiness and what it could do for her.
‘I wouldn’t want to be poor. I’d hate that more than anything.’
‘What if the man you loved lost all his money?’
‘I wouldn’t marry him. Being awfully poor makes a woman plain, and I’d hate that as well. When you’re pretty people like you, and let you have the things you want. Is it so bad to want nice things, and people being kind and pleasant to you?’
‘It’s perfectly natural, Bonney, but a kindness of heart has to go with a pretty face or it loses the glow that makes a flower bloom in the sun.’
‘Our kind of sun can kill a flower,’ Bonney taunted. ‘They bloom much more richly in the shadow of the forest. Orchids as big as a man’s hand, and gorgeous flame flowers - but I suppose your favourite is the rose - as you’re English.’
‘Yes, I have a love of roses.’ Joanna smiled. ‘We had a bush of them in the front garden of our cottage back home. Apricot-coloured tea-roses that grew in such clusters that their scent seemed to burst in through the windows and drench the house from morning till night.’
‘You sound homesick.’ Bonny looked curious. ‘Why did you come to Raintree? Was it to be with Vance?’
‘No! Good heavens, I needed a job. When Vance met me at Hawk’s Bay I was down to my last couple of pounds.’
‘You danced a lot with Vance at last Saturday’s frolic.’
‘We’re good friends,’ Joanna said quickly. ‘It doesn’t mean because two people dance together that they’re madly in love. Sometimes people in love are too shy to even look at each other in company.’
Bonney stared at Joanna, and suddenly her young mouth was sulky. ‘You talk like a schoolmarm, and look like one with your hair pulled back in a nape knot. Don’t kid me you didn’t come to Queensland looking for a husband. Everyone in the valley reckons so.’
‘Then everyone in the valley is wrong. I’m saving up to go to New Zealand, and now shall we have a short canter in the forest before I have to get back to my chores?’
Raintree Valley Page 8