A Thousand Candles

by Joyce Dingwell

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When a house is.

  Pippa slept at last with those four words ringing in her mind. When a house is not a place of rooms but a place of love, she interpreted, but how could he ask love of her when the only love he offered was for her brother? Apart from Davy any woman could have stood where she stood. He had told her that first day on the train that time too soon ran out for life as life should be lived. Rena had set him back ... probably others ... so now it had finally come to Pippa Bromley. No. Pippa Crag.

  ‘Missus,’ said a soft voice, ‘Missus,’ and Pippa opened her eyes to a smiling girl with white teeth and coffee skin. ‘Missus, you bin sleep long time. Missus Cass she sent me with cup of tea.’

  Pippa started to explain that she had been asleep only a short time, but found she felt so refreshed that it was unnecessary. She smiled at the girl and said, ‘Thank you—’ with a question in her voice. The girl responded, ‘Rosie.’

  ‘It’s very good of you, Rosie.’ She took the tea.

  ‘I’m kitchen girl,’ beamed Rosie. ‘I help Missus Cass. Your piccaninny ’e bin gone down with our pics.’

  ‘Davy is up?’

  ‘Dav-ee name belonga him? Yes, Missus. Your piccaninny, Missus?’

  ‘My brother.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rosie looked sympathetic. ‘Never mind, you have teetartaboo soon.’

  ‘Teetartaboo?’

  ‘Baby,’ smiled Rosie. ‘You and Boss have plenty babies.’ With pride she told Pippa, ‘I have four.’

  ‘Four!’ She only looked a girl, though probably she had married in her early teens.

  Pippa got up, gave her cup to Rosie, put on her dressing gown and found the bathroom. The water ran very hot for a while and she remembered last night that Crag had told her there was no need for any heating system up here, the main concern was to run water cold. But eventually it gushed cooler and then quite cool. She finished off the shower with the cool and came back to her room braced and refreshed. She put on a simple shift, buckled up sandals, combed her hair and etched in a hint of lipstick, then went along to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Cassidy was busy with more meat than Pippa had seen outside a butcher’s shop.

  ‘Up here we all kill our own, of course,’ she told Pippa. ‘Ben, he’s our butcher, has just brought in today’s meat to be dealt with.’

  ‘All beef?’

  ‘No lamb or mutton here, dear, it’s steak, steak, steak.’

  As Pippa gazed fascinated at the intimidating quantities of undercut, topside, chuck, sirloin and liver, Mrs. Cassidy said soothingly, ‘Don’t worry about it, you won’t be called upon to deal with it. Unless’ ... a quick inquiring glance at Pippa ... ‘you want to. Crag’s mother always left it to me, so naturally I thought you’d be the same. But I’m sure, Mrs. Crag, that if you wish—’

  ‘I don’t wish. I prefer things to go on as they went before. And I’m Pippa, Mrs. Cassidy.’

  ‘Cass or Cassy will do nicely,’ beamed the housekeeper, relieved to learn she still retained her position of kitchen boss. ‘I like this work. You could say I was brought up to it. My mother was a station cook and used to bring me along with her. Old Mrs. Crag used to spend all her time on the piccaninnies, then her daughter-in-law, Crag’s mother, did the same after her.’

  Pippa nodded, but did not comment. This Crag woman won’t, she thought hopelessly, because she won’t be here long enough, only as long as Davy ... Her throat contracted. She said a little huskily, ‘I’d like to help in that way, too, but I have my brother, and unhappily—’ Her voice trailed off.

  The next moment she was surprised by two warm arms around her. ‘There, lovie, it’s going to be all right. I know all about it, Crag told me, so don’t worry yourself trying to tell me now. And don’t think as you’ve been thinking, either. Miracles happen. They happen every day.’

  ‘I know, but can one happen soon enough?’

  ‘I see what you mean. Well, let me tell you something: this is the land of lots o’ time ... songs have been written about that. So I reckon young Davy will have lots o’ time, too, and while he’s having it those miracles will catch up.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Cassidy—Cassy!’ Tears were splashing down Pippa’s cheeks, but they were happy tears. Already she felt almost cheerful.

  ‘Sit down and get that breakfast into you, girl. That’s one rule at Falling Star: a big breakfast. On a station like this, with mobs and herds always on the move in or out, you always make certain of at least the first meal of the day.’

  ‘But that’s big enough for three meals!’ gasped Pippa at the sight of her laden plate, for it was surely the biggest steak she had ever seen.

  ‘The boy got it into him,’ pooh-poohed the housekeeper.

  ‘Davy did?’ Pippa looked incredulous. ‘He’s never eaten a proper breakfast in his life.’

  ‘He did this time. Look, if you don’t wrap yourself around it, as Crag always says, I’ll put another piece on.’

  Laughing ... and hungrier than she had believed she was, especially after the first bite of the plate-sized steak—Pippa proceeded to ‘wrap herself around it’.

  As she ate she watched Mrs. Cassidy with respect. The housekeeper was dealing with an almost incredible amount of meat.

  ‘Because of our climate we have to cook as much as possible at once, Pippa,’ she explained of the big roasts and rolls she was tucking into the vast oven, ‘then pack as much as we can into the freezer, and salt all that’s suitable for salting. Salt beef is for the boys when they’re out with the herds. That, and damper, and black tea, is all they’ll look at when they’re overlanding. When they come in it’s a different matter. They like a few fancy things then, even enjoy a slice of cake.’ Mrs. Cassidy laughed and floured another large joint.

  Pippa asked if she could help at least with the dishes, but was told that that was the kitchen girl’s job, that Rosie might be hurt to see Young Missus doing what she should be doing.

  You’ll soon find your niche,’ Mrs. Cassidy assured her, ‘this place is big enough to supply niches for all the world, I sometimes think. I often wonder why they made the Inside so big.’ As Pippa wandered outside she called, ‘Tea’s in half an hour.’

  Tea! After all that steak! Laughing, Pippa went down to look for Davy.

  She found him playing with the piccaninnies in a shady hollow, and he at once remonstrated, ‘You should wear a hat, Pippa, there’s ultra-violent rays, didn’t you know?’

  ‘Violet, darling.’—Crag’s tuition, she thought.—‘I’ll wear one next time. But’... giving him the opportunity that he obviously awaited ... ‘the piccaninnies don’t wear hats.’

  ‘It’s because of their skin which has more protective pigs.’ Davy must have been conscious that he was not exactly right, for he said hurriedly, ‘I’ve been in with the book-keeper. There’s a lot to do in Falling Star for a book-keeper. He has to check all the bills, and you should see the kitchen bill, but the book-keeper says that’s mainly because orders are always for three months.’

  ‘Yes, I expect you get through a lot of food in three months.’

  ‘But not candles,’ disbelieved Davy. ‘Me and the bookie—’

  ‘The book-keeper and I.’

  ‘Yes, us—well, we were surprised at a thousand candles.’

  ‘A thousand candles?’ Pippa was surprised herself. She said foolishly that they had their own electric plant here. Even if they hadn’t they wouldn’t need a thousand candles.

  ‘A thousand candles,’ Davy informed her, ‘is eight-four dozen take away eight. Me and the bookie ... I mean the book-keeper and I, us, we added it up, and we were very surprised. As the bookie ... the book-keeper says you’d think Crag would have ordered eighty-four dozen, or so many pounds, not a thousand candles.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pippa said absently. She was thinking of that first time she had gone to Ku and how Crag had told her of his father’s and mother’s life together. He had said, she recalled, that it was a thousand candles.
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br />   ‘Crag wouldn’t mean it seriously, Davy.’

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t order it. The bookie ... the bookkeeper is a very busy man, so I’ll ask Crag if he really wants—’

  ‘No, Davy!’—Why was she going on like this? she thought helplessly; it was obviously a silly error in the order, and anyway to forbid a child was only to rouse a child’s curiosity, and she did not want anything more said about candles. Fortunately, however, Davy had lost interest. He took her arm and carefully introduced her to all his playmates. There was Harold-Jimmy, Joey, Bobby, Trevor, Dougie, Paulie, Gary.

  ‘No girls?’

  ‘They’re playing houses,’ said Davy with the disgust expected from boys.—So children were the same the world over.

  All the gang were in for lunch, as it was called, but it could have been dinner, for it ran to three large courses, soup, beef, of course, a big boiled pudding.

  Pippa enjoyed the company of the stockmen again, with their ‘distance’ eyes, their rather old-world courtesy, their odour of ancient leather. The jackeroos, more her age, amused her with their competition in shirts and elastic-sided boots, their smart talk ... though she noticed that the last was kept to a minimum when Crag was around.

  She had thought that Davy had forgotten the candles, but, a piece of potato poised aloft, he said, ‘Crag, did you really mean a thousand candles on that grocery list to be brought out from town?’

  ‘Davy!’ remonstrated Pippa, and was annoyed at herself; it would have been better to have let the little boy have his say.

  ‘Me and the bookie ... I mean the book-keeper and I ... we thought it was a lot of candles.’

  ‘It is a lot, scrubber, but a thousand is the order.’ As he spoke Crag was looking at Pippa, and she felt the pink mounting her cheeks.

  Davy noticed the pink and reported, ‘She never wore a hat. You’d better speak to your wife, Crag.’

  ‘Reckon I will, scrubber, but at the proper time. Get yourself around that spotted dog.’

  ‘Spotted dog?’

  ‘Now you’re like Cass, she makes me say sultana pudding, but get yourself around it all the same, because after lunch you and Pippa are going out to watch a muster.’

  ‘Oh, Crag!’

  Pippa said nothing. She could scarcely refuse in front of all these men even if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to, she wanted to be with Davy ... and she, too, wanted to see a muster.

  They drove out in a different jeep, an extremely battered jeep, but evidently mechanically perfect, for it had no trouble with the bumps and rocks with which Crag confronted it. On a hill ... not really a hill, barely an incline, but now Pippa was seeing contours in the same way as the Insiders, Crag drew up the jeep for them to watch. The men and dogs were on the job, keeping the herd in a bunch, and Pippa noted the drovers sitting apparently relaxed in the saddle but actually sharp and alert.

  ‘Mustering is funny,’ said Crag by their side, ‘sometimes I could drive you bang down the middle and nothing happen, another time it only needs the rattle of a stirrup. You never know when you’re going to have a rush.’ At Pippa’s inquiring look he explained, ‘A panic. A stampede.’

  Even as he spoke, the mob began swinging. Pippa, who had been standing away from the jeep, turned sharply, and in doing so tripped and grazed her leg against the jeep wheel.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, embarrassed, as Crag immediately picked her up and put her into the back seat, lifting the injured leg to examine it. ‘It’s only a scratch.’

  ‘Had your tetanus shots, Pippa?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she laughed, ‘it’s barely touched.’

  ‘But the jeep’s old and rusty,’ he fussed.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘you only get tetanus in a deep wound. ‘Don’t be absurd, Crag.’

  ‘All right,’ he agreed, ‘but at least we’ll give you the earth treatment.’

  She watched amazed as he made a poultice of water from the flask and some of the red earth not polluted by the wheels of jeeps or hooves of herds, then placed it on her leg.

  ‘It’s absolutely sterile,’ he said, ‘so not to worry.’

  ‘It’s an old aboriginal cure, Missus,’ assured one of the stockmen, ‘and I’ve seen wonderful results.’

  ‘We don’t recommend it, of course,’ Crag went on, ‘civilization has made it harder and harder to find the really sterile stuff. But if you’re caught away from home, like we are, it’s a good thing to remember.’

  ‘Would it cure me?’ asked Davy, standing and watching with interest.

  There was silence. Then Crag bent over and made another poultice, a small one, and placed it carefully on Davy’s small brow.

  ‘Reckon so, scrubber,’ he said. 'Well, folk, had enough?’

  They saw camels on the way back, brumby ones whose ancestors had been brought in by the Afghans years ago. They were being herded by several cowboys ... Davy said it should be camelboys ... and seeing that the boy and Pippa were interested, Crag drove the jeep across the desert to where the camels were tethered.

  The horsemen explained that a demand had opened up for camels, but that they had to be taught first to lead. Apart from the camel sales the men were hoping the station owner would pay them a premium for taking the camels away from their property, for it was well-known that they ate the precious scrub, knocked down fences and upset the waterholes.

  Crag smoked his pipe as he listened, agreed as a station owner that they had a point there, but offered instead of a premium to buy a camel. A broken-in, rather mild-looking fellow was brought forward, and Pippa was given the job of holding the tow rope as they led him back to Falling Star.

  Here Davy had his first camel ride, and did quite well. Not so well Pippa, who did not care for the lunges forward, and when the animal dropped forward on its knees to let her off was so unprepared for the jolt that she somersaulted over its head. Davy adored that.

  Crag taught Davy to say ‘Hooshta’ to get the camel started, then they left him adoring the camel, along with all the piccaninnies, and went inside.

  ‘It’s been a good day, Crag,’ Pippa appreciated shyly.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll go down to where I’ve enclosed the brumbies we caught last month. The stallions are due to be broken in, though most of the mares are finished.’

  ‘You won’t involve Davy in this?’ said Pippa nervously.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he assured her, ‘horse-breaking takes years of learning. Though I’ve no doubt that one day the scrubber—’

  ‘Crag ... please!’ She turned away.

  ‘It could be true,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I mean you don’t know, Pippa.’

  ‘The doctors knew.’

  ‘But they also admitted that miracles can happen. How do you know that today a miracle didn’t happen?’

  ‘That poultice of red earth? Oh, Crag!’

  ‘I really meant how do you know that somewhere someone didn’t discover what we want discovered. But’ ... poking at his pipe ... ‘that red earth will do for a miracle right now, Pippa. You know what? The young ’un believes in it, he asked me was it all right to wash it off now that it had cured him. He has belief, and that’s a cure in itself.’

  She nodded, unable to reply.

  The next day, as promised, Crag drove them down to the horse-break. The brumbies were enclosed in a well-grassed saucer of land by the lagoon, that is well-grassed by Inside standards. The lagoon at present was nicely filled, and insects were weaving flight patterns over it, frogs croaking a raucous chorus.

  The jeep rimmed the shore until it reached the enclosure. Already the jackeroos and several of the stockmen were there, and one of the jacks was cutting out the ponies selected for the break, comprising a mare which had been put back from the former break because she was touchy and the first of the stallions.

  The other jack started the break with the touchy mare, unsatisfactorily in the beginning, the same, the jack called to Crag, as last time, and then, on Crag’s advice, using a more gent
le approach, and soon achieving success.

  ‘She only needed sympathy,’ said Crag to Pippa. ‘Mares most often are like that, we don’t have much trouble with them.’ He was eyeing a stallion thoughtfully. ‘With good handling and good sense, stallions are no great worry, either, but I don’t know about that fellow there. He’s all of seven or eight years, I’d say, and wild stallions of that age get set in their ways.’

  ‘He’s pretty, Crag,’ said Davy, and Pippa agreed with her brother. The stallion was a bright bay with a cream forehead and cream feet. But his eyes were unfriendly ... even more than that, thought Pippa, they smouldered.

  Crag approached him quietly, standing in front of him with a noose wide open, no pretext at all. Pippa had the idea that Crag felt as she did, that it would be no use trying to deceive this fellow. Crag dropped the loop over him, and beside her Pippa heard Davy draw in a deep breath.

  The stallion did not protest. He even waited while Crag opened and shut the gate, and after that he walked quietly for several circles with Crag, then repeated his docile waiting when Crag returned him to the enclosure.

  ‘You’ve done it, Crag, you’ve done it!’ called Davy excitedly when Crag came back to their side. ‘You’ve got him round. He likes you.’

  Crag attended his pipe. He was thoughtful.

  ‘Well, haven’t you, Crag?’ asked Davy impatiently.

  ‘The trouble is, I don’t know, scrubber, I don’t know at all. I think I’ll be watching that fellow. He’s much too quiet for my liking. I feel he’s looking me over. It isn’t normal for a stallion like he is not to fight the rope.’ Crag turned to Pippa and instructed in a low voice: ‘You’ll keep the scrubber away.’

  ‘Of course.’ She added in her turn: ‘And you’ll keep the piccaninnies off.’

  ‘What made you say that?’ They were walking back to the jeep now. ‘What brought the little fry into it?’