by Gloria Bevan
She put him off with a light, “I don’t know yet.” But inwardly she shuddered. Never again would she be a shearer’s cook. Let the gang find someone else to do their cooking for them—or starve!
As the days passed stress and weariness had their way with her so that she didn’t think quite so much—well, not all the time, about Mark Hillyer, who was the cause of all this. If he hadn’t challenged her, practically forcing her into the job ... Her mind seemed to have crystallized into a single fixed idea. Stick it out. You can do it if you try! It won’t be for long, for there were now only three days left, then two. Then at last the final morning broke.
As was his usual custom Rusty was waiting for her in the truck and they went to the shed together. To Angela his weather-reddened face looked even more cheerful than usual. “Well, girl, you’ll get your pay tonight. Hardest work you ever put in, I’ll be bound!”
She flashed her gay warm smile. “I couldn’t have done it at all but for you!”
As they took the curving driveway between dew-wet lawns her thoughts wandered. Tonight she could claim her wages from the boss, prove to him that in spite of his unconcealed doubts in the matter of employing her to work with the shearing gang she had proved herself equal to the challenge. She couldn’t wait to meet him again. All at once she felt herself coming to life. With suddenly heightened perception she was aware of a lightening in the sky, a breathless hush as though everything in the world waited for something that was about to happen, something unexpected and altogether wonderful. Or was that merely her own sense of relief at the end of a tough assignment? Odd to realise that this morning for the first time she would enter the shed without the usual sick feeling at the pit of her stomach, the sensation of forcing herself to cope with all but insurmountable difficulties. A deepening flush of pink in the sky gave promise of a flawless summer day. No doubt Mark Hillyer would be enjoying it with his lovely blonde girl-friend who seemed to spend so much of her time visiting Waikare. Once or twice on returning to the homestead at the end of a hectic day, Angela had caught a glimpse of the two riding back along the track together. Probably later they enjoyed a dip in the pool, but Angela, once her head touched the pillow, fell into an exhausted sleep until morning and the laughter and voices that echoed from the blue-tiled pool no longer disturbed her.
Jill she ran into at odd times in the house. On each occasion Angela had enquired as to Brian’s progress and always the answer was the same. “I think he’s better, but he’s not saying much yet. If only he didn’t keep having those headaches...” All at once Angela remembered her promise to Mark that she would stay on here until Brian was sufficiently recovered for her to pass on to him Martha’s message. What if she had to remain here after the weekend? She would just have to cross that particular bridge when she came to it. Somehow, oddly enough, she didn’t seem to mind the thought of a delay.
At dinner that night the gang were happy and relaxed. Laughter and teasing remarks flew around the table. “Say, Miss Twentyman,” the Maori member of the gang eyed her shyly, “you coming with us to White Mountain station on Monday?”
“Sorry.” Angela shook her head. “I thought Mark would have told you. For me this was just a fill-in.”
“A oncer, eh?” The liquid dark eyes appeared genuinely regretful.
“Afraid so.”
At that moment a chorus of men’s deep voices rang out and beneath the table heavy boots stamped in unison. “We want Twentyman! We want Twentyman!”
Angela put both hands over her ears, laughing, and in the end the gang took their leave, each man taking her hand in a powerful grip and wishing her luck in her next job. Rusty they chaffed goodnaturedly about his employment as assistant cook, with emphasis on his nickname.
John was the last to leave. Lingering in the doorway, he retained her hand in his firm clasp. “Wish I could have seen something of you, but there’s never been any time to ourselves, worse luck! Look, I’m staying on here for the weekend. Like to come out with me tomorrow night? We could take in a dance—”
She pulled a face. “Dance? After this week I feel I’ll never be able to move again!”
“You’ll feel differently tomorrow, you’ll see!”
“Wherever could there be a dance around this district?”
“It’s over at Te Awau, only a few miles away as the crow flies or the Land Rover goes. Say you’ll come?” He was very persuasive, the brown eyes pleading, “Please, Angela?”
“Oh, all right, then.”
His face lighted up. “Tremendous! I’ll come around to the house tomorrow night and pick you up about eight.” He hesitated. “There’s just one thing—I’d better warn you that I haven’t any transport, but if you don’t mind roughing it, packing in with the rest of the gang in the truck?”
“I don’t mind!” A country dance would be an experience—that was, if she recovered sufficient energy to enjoy it.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
As he left her she became aware that Rusty was eyeing her, a smile crinkling his leathery face. “That’s the spirit! Do you good to get out a bit, get some fresh air. Nice lad, John, you’ll be all right with him.”
Angela wondered why Rusty appeared to think she needed someone to look after her. The answer came unbidden. Alter that cooking effort of hers, no wonder!
She dropped down on to a stool. “Seems funny, John working with the shearing gang. Somehow he seems different, more like a city man. He speaks differently, a little, and he’s not nearly so tanned as the others.”
“Oh, it happens that way sometimes, and he’s got his reasons. He’s a city bloke right enough or used to be. Now he’s given that away and bought a block of land up in the hills. It’s a property that’s never been broken in, just a sea of scrub and tea-tree. He’ll need all the cash he can get together to get it cleared. That’s why he’s spending the summer shearing. He badly needs the money—and the experience!”
“Now I get it.” For the last time Angela ran a wet mop over the linoleum on the floor.
“Heard what you told the gang about leaving,” Rusty observed shrewdly. “Had enough, eh?”
“It’s not exactly my thing, if you know what I mean?”
Rusty chuckled. “You did a fine job for all that. Didn’t hear any complaints about the food, did you?”
Angela ran the mop beneath the table and obligingly Rusty shifted his short legs. “That was because of you, and don’t pretend it wasn’t! If you hadn’t come along that first day I’d have—well, I just don’t know what would have happened. I’d have got the sack, I guess. That reminds me, you must take half the pay. You’ve really earned every cent of it.”
“I’ll do no such thing!”
She paused, eyeing him enquiringly. “Why ever not?”
“Cause I’m being paid for it already, that’s why. The boss sees to that.”
The boss? A dreadful suspicion was growing in her mind. She said slowly, “Then you didn’t just wander in on your own account to help me. He told you to?”
Rusty had got to his feet and was busy closing cupboard doors, turning off the refrigerator. “Part of the job. Don’t thank me, thank the boss. He doesn’t miss much, does Mark. Probably thought things were getting a bit beyond you. Didn’t say so mind you. He just sort of suggested in a quiet way that if I wasn’t too busy maybe I could lend a hand down at the shed. Not that I’m complaining. I’d have done it like a shot if I’d thought of it, but no, it was him. If you want to thank anyone you’ll have to thank Mark.”
“All the same...” But it was all too clear. The feeling of elation, of triumph and success in coping with a difficult situation, came tumbling down and once again she found herself indebted to him. Fate seemed to hand him all the advantages.
It was his brother who had been let down through Martha’s change of heart, his shearing gang that would have been in difficulties with her inept cooking had he not come to the rescue. And Rusty actually thought she should thank him!
A
fter a week of the most exhausting work Angela had ever done in her life it was sheer bliss to lie back in bed and watch a sunburst of flame lighting up the window before turning over and returning to sleep.
The next thing of which Angela was aware was a tap at the door, then a small feminine figure in a short cotton brunch coat came into the room.
“Morning!” She glanced up to see Jill’s smiling freckled face. “Feel like some tea?”
“Tea? What luxury!” Angela propped herself on an elbow while the other girl perched at the end of the bed, swinging a tanned leg.
“Tell me,” said Angela as she sipped her tea, “how’s Brian getting along? I’ve scarcely seen anyone in the house to speak to all week. Is there any real improvement yet?”
“Well,” Jill’s light brown lashes swept down to hide her eyes, “he’s a little better. Yesterday he talked to me quite a lot and he got up for a short while. I peeped in to see him just now, but he’s still asleep.” She sighed. “I do wish,” she murmured wistfully, “that he’d hurry up and get really well. I’ve just got to get back to work soon. The boy they had staying is leaving and I can’t leave them shorthanded.” She rose and went to the window. “The men have gone out to work on number four block. Have you been over there yet?”
“No.” All at once Angela felt an illogical shaft of disappointment. She had seen so little of this back country station and soon she would be leaving here for ever. She couldn’t understand herself feeling so regretful, considering all she had endured during the past week. Aloud she said ruefully, “The only place I know well is the cookhouse and the shearing shed.”
She was aware that Jill was eyeing her curiously. “Now the shearing’s over, if you’re not staying with the gang I suppose you won’t be going on to the next station with them?”
“No.” Clearly some explanation was due, but what could she say? “Actually I might be here for a day or so longer. Mark said something about it,” she said evasively.
Caught in a web of deceit, she found herself wishing that Mark Hillyer had told his aunt and this nice young girl the real reason for hoi being here. Seeing he had said nothing, however, she could scarcely admit to the truth.
“Mark said you’re fresh out from England.” Jill’s tanned fingers twisted a corner of the crocheted bedcover. “Did you come out by ship?”
“I did, actually.” Breathlessly Angela awaited the question she was dreading.
It came. “I don’t suppose you happened to run across a girl named—”
“Crikey, look what I’ve done!” Angela stared down at the tea spreading over the spread.
“Quick, here’s a towel!” In the flurry of the moment the awkward moment passed, but Angela made a mental vow that she would tell both Jill and Doris the true facts just as soon as she had that talk with Brian. She found as the day went on, however, that it would not be possible for a time to bring everything out into the open.
When breakfast was over she made her way to Brian’s room, but found Jill already there, the man’s sweater she was knitting falling over her knees. She put a finger to her lips indicating the sleeping man and Angela tiptoed away. In the bathroom she washed her hair, then seated herself on the steps in the sunshine and began to comb out the long wet strands. Presently the housekeeper dropped down beside her. “I forgot all about it at breakfast, Angela. I’ve got a message for you from Mark. He says I’m not to let you hurry away. Seems he wants you to see something of the country before you leave. He says to tell you to stick around and tomorrow he’ll be free to take you for a drive in the Land Rover.”
So this was to be the excuse offered to the rest of the family for her staying on at the end of the shearing. Show the English girl around the place ... good public relations. Aloud she murmured, “Kind of you to have me.”
“Nonsense, my dear! We love having folk to stay, especially someone young and pretty like you!”
She really means it, Angela thought, and felt a warm glow around her heart.
“It’s funny how everyone’s plans keep changing,” Doris was saying, “ever since Brian came home hurt.”
There was a wistful note in Doris’s voice that prompted Angela to say, “How do you mean?”
“Well, one thing was Mark’s study trip overseas that I told you about, exchanging ideas with the experts in other countries on wool grading, sheep farming, you know? Even if Brian had been a lot more recovered than he is he still wouldn’t have been fit enough to take over the management of the station while Mark was away, especially as—” She broke off and in answer to Angela’s enquiring look went on after a moment, “It’s just that Brian isn’t really interested in the job here and never has been. Oh, he’s been brought up on the station, he knows the work and he’s stronger than he looks. He and Mark have a fairly satisfactory arrangement on the place really. Mark looks after the stock, all the sheep and black steers you see around on the paddocks, and Brian takes care of the agricultural side of things, sees to the boundary fences and keeps the bridges in order. But without Mark to depend on he’d be lost in an emergency and he’s not much of a hand at handling staff.”
Doris smiled. “I suppose it’s because he’s entirely different from his brother. Maybe the trouble is that Mark has always taken the full responsibility for Waikare and Brian’s got into the habit of depending on him. Of course he’s much younger. Mind you,” she ran on, “it could have something to do with the boys’ parents being killed in a car smash when the children were quite young. Brian was only five years old at the time and Jill—they’d taken her into the family by then—was a tot of three. Oh, the children were looked after well enough, relatives came to the rescue and saw to that. Every time I came over here on a visit to the homestead I used to notice how Mark seemed to have taken over the special care of his brother. Guess it’s just got to be a habit.”
Angela nodded. She was thinking that she had already come up against Mark Hillyer’s protective attitude towards his kid brother, to her cost. On another level her thoughts were busy with the woman seated beside her on the step in the sunshine. Angela asked, “Was that the only difference Brian’s accident made to other folks’ plans around here? I mean, Mark having to cancel his overseas study trip?”
Doris’s smile was wry. “Wasn’t that enough?” Her lips drooped and Angela caught the shadow in the grey eyes. She said gently, “Not you too?”
“How did you guess?” Doris turned towards her. “I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it’s my daughter,” she ran on in a burst of confidence. “She’s all I’ve got and she lives down in Christchurch in the South Island. She and her husband Jim are expecting a new baby, it’s due any day now. I’m just longing to see it! I had everything arranged to go down to Christchurch just before the baby came and stay for a month. It would have given Eve a chance to do nothing but look after the wee girl. She’s got three boys already, all steps and stairs, but this time it’ll be a girl. It’s just got to be!”
Angela laughed. “How do you mean ‘got to be’?”
“It’s myself I’m thinking about mostly,” Doris confessed, “all this pink knitting I’ve done each time a new baby is expected down there. Jackets, leginette sets, bonnets with silk ribbons, candy pink cot covers embroidered in tiny rosebuds ... I’ve a drawer in my bedroom simply crammed with them, all waiting to be used.”
“And you still think-pink and keep hoping?” Angela enquired incredulously,
“Of course. Isn’t there something to do with a law of averages?” Doris enquired vaguely.
“I wouldn’t bet on it!”
“Well, anyway. I’ve just finished sewing the buttons on a dream of a peach-coloured angel-frock with panties to match. I meant to take it with me when I went south. Now,” she said on a long sigh, “I guess it will just have to be posted instead.”
“You’re not making just one little blue set? Just in case?” Angela pursued.
“Well,” Doris admitted reluctantly, “I did run up a little white
jacket and a pair of blue-and-white booties, but,” with renewed optimism, “I’m sure I won’t need them this time. Actually,” she went on in a worried tone, “it’s Eve I’m thinking about more than myself, though I’m awfully disappointed over not going to see her. She and Jim run a tourist motel. She’s such a busy person, especially right at the height of the tourist season, and always so cheerful and bright. I just wish...” her voice trailed disconsolately away.
Impulsively Angela sent her a warm smile, said happily, “Doris, don’t post that pink baby set. You might be able to take it down to the South Island after all. I happen to be out of a job, you need someone to fill in for a few weeks. So why can’t I stay on for a while and let you get away?”
An expression of excitement lighted Doris’s eyes. “Brian doesn’t really need me especially. All he wants is someone in the house to cook meals, look in on him occasionally when Jill goes back to the farm tomorrow.”
“That is,” Angela reminded her, “if the rest of the staff can put up with my cooking. Just plain food and no frills, shearing, gang style. So long as the men don’t mind?”
The menfolk, and one man in particular! Mark Hillyer with his sardonic smile and “the cold blue Hillyer eyes”. What was she saying? But it was already too late for regrets, for Doris was eyeing her in delighted amazement. “Would you, Angela, would you really? I can’t think why I didn’t think of that solution to the problem myself.”
Angela said hesitantly, “The boss—he won’t mind?”
“Mark?” It was clear to Angela that Doris’s thoughts were already far away in Christchurch. “Heavens, no, why should he? He was real worried about my having to cancel that plane booking last week.”
“Enough to put up with me for another month, do you think?”
“Of course! He’ll be delighted! You’ll see when I tell him the news!”
Somehow Angela entertained some reservations on that score. She wondered if Doris would feel so confident regarding the boss’s reaction to the plan were she to be aware of Mark Hillyer’s private opinion of “Martha’s friend”. She brought her mind back to Doris’s animated tones. “I’ll tell Mark about this idea the moment he comes in—or would you rather talk to him yourself?”