by Amanda Doyle
Mattie was aware that he knew it as well as she did. It was there in his eyes—peat-brown, candid eyes, so like hers. Defeat. She felt a tug of love and sympathy towards the proud, stricken man, every time her eyes met his. They didn’t talk. Lex was too weak for more than a few whispered words at a time, and Aunt Allie had said that on no account must he be worried by anything. Not by anything at all.
And that was why Mattie, who found herself landed with this problem, realized that she would have to solve it, somehow, alone.
You couldn’t go up to your father when he was still severely ill, and admit that, like him, you wished after all that you’d been born a boy, and then the present complication would never have arisen. You couldn’t admit that your weapon of feminine attractiveness, once welcomed, had suddenly become something more than a nuisance, and that you’d give almost anything to acquire the powers of repulsion of one of Macbeth’s witches—at least until your father was better again.
Mattie shuddered. She could almost hear her father’s exasperated grunt of ‘Women! What did I tell you!’
No, she couldn’t tell Lex that the man he had appointed to take charge during his illness was nothing but a bounder and a philanderer, who was putting Lex’s own daughter in a completely untenable position.
Certainly Bryn had been the obvious choice in the emergency. Already he was the sheep overseer, and he had been at Twin Rivers long enough to have acquired a fair general knowledge of the running of the rest of the place. Inevitably, in his elevated role of temporary manager, he had had to come to the homestead more often, and Mattie had been the person with whom he had the most contact. She was the go-between for Bryn and her father, and it had been up to her to sift through the various problems that arose, and to decide which ones could safely be passed over to Lex for judgement, without causing him worry, and which ones might hinder his recovery.
Mattie was no fool. She had been aware for some time of that gleam in the man’s eyes, and the way they followed her about when she moved, but it was difficult for her to avoid him, when they had to be closeted together in the office in the evenings, making up accounts and ordering supplies. She had been as cold and impersonal and discouraging as it was possible to be, but last night things had come to a head.
Mattie got up from her log and started to walk up towards Art’s Crossing. If only she could leave the unwelcome memory of last night behind her! It had chased after her ever since Bryn spoke, reminding her that today was a mere postponement. There was always tonight, coming nearer all the time, and all the other evenings, too.
“Come on, Mattie,” Bryn had coaxed, but not very pleasantly. “You might be kinder to me, don’t you think, seeing we have to work together while your dad’s off?”
“Take your hands off me, will you, please, Bryn,” Mattie had enunciated coolly and imperiously. “I think you’re forgetting yourself and your position here.”
“That’s just what I’m not forgetting.” The hands had remained where they were, on either side of her as he had come up behind her where she sat at her father’s desk. “My position here’s important—or don’t you reckon it is? You might almost say I’m the key man at Twin Rivers just now, and for some time to come, mightn’t you? If I left, you’d be in a pickle, with only a second-year jackeroo next in seniority. And of course, the shock and worry might—do anything—to your father, or didn’t you think of that?”
“You beast, Bryn!” Mattie had really turned on him then, her lovely brown eyes blazing with anger and disdain. “That’s unforgivable, and you know it. You’re indispensable to Father at the moment—very well, I admit that. But what about the future? You don’t for a minute think Father would ever forgive you for trying this sort of blackmail on his daughter, do you? You’ve everything to lose, so just be sensible, and I—I’ll overlook this conversation.”
“No, you won’t.” Bryn was undaunted. “You’ll remember it, Mattie, if you care what happens to your dad and Twin Rivers. And I’m not nearly so interested in the future as I am in the present. You, me, and the present.”
Mattie had found herself beyond speech. With a look of pure, consuming contempt that would have vanquished a lesser foe, she walked, with her habitual poise and unconsciously beautiful carriage, out of the room.
A grand exit like that was all very well, but Mattie was aware that it hadn’t solved a thing. In fact, the only solution, the more she thought of it, was Bryn’s removal.
The alternative was unthinkable.
Could she manage without the man? It would be well-nigh impossible, as he very well knew, but she’d do it somehow. She wasn’t Lex Bennett’s daughter for nothing, was she? She’d get along one way or another, but the place was bound to slip, and—oh, that valuation! Why, oh, why did this have to happen now, just when her father was wanting the place to be in top production, a properly going concern?
Also, could she hide Bryn’s absence from Lex? Yes, she could handle that bit all right. At present it was only herself whom Aunt Allie would permit to see her father, and even then only for a few minutes at a time. She’d have to take Aunt Allie into her confidence, of course. It was a relief to have someone she could tell.
Even though Aunt Allie knew nothing much about the running of a station, she was a countrywoman, and she would be a sympathetic listener and a support morally.
Having made her decision, Mattie vowed that nothing would deter her from carrying it out. Her legs felt a little bit weak as she turned and climbed the river bank, and made her way back towards the house. She just didn’t dare think about tomorrow—without Bryn. Neither did she dare think about tonight—with Bryn. Just don’t think at all, Mattie, she advised herself brusquely. Act now, think afterwards. That’s the only way to get the thing done.
When Mattie reached the homestead, she went straight to her father’s office and took down the big, cloth-bound paybook.
She certainly wasn’t cut out for book-keeping, she decided, as she leafed rather dazedly through charts of wages found and not found, with dependents and without, dog allowances, meat allowances, income tax, payroll tax—all very perplexing, and unfortunately not included in Miss Mottram’s varied curriculum at the School of Modelling and Deportment. Little the wiser, Mattie closed the schedule, and ran her finger down the index to find Bryn’s name. She would look up what her father had been paying, but not the manner in which he arrived at it. That was beyond her. And for good measure, she would add on, not only a month in lieu, but an additional amount to spur the wretched fellow on his way, so that he couldn’t claim that the Bennetts—either of them—owed him a single farthing.
Conscience money?
Mattie laughed, a little grimly, and reached for her own cheque-book.
Just in case she did the wrong thing, she would write this one against her own account. She didn’t want her father to complain that she had put his books wrong, did she, and the good round figure she had arrived at had been deduced with peculiarly feminine lack of logic. It would be sure to irritate him, once he recovered sufficiently to be told. When he was better, he could work it out himself, enter it in his book, and pay her back. Meanwhile, she was pleased that her career had been remunerative, and that she was at least financially independent. Fashion photographers had paid generously for Mattie’s services in Sydney, and at this moment she was relieved that she had not squandered it all in stylish living.
“Matilda F. Bennet,” Mattie signed herself neatly and precisely at the bottom of the cheque.
Now all she had to do was wait until evening, when Bryn would be back, ring him on the office extension to the overseer’s cottage, and tell him to come up and collect his pay.
Mattie made her mind a purposeful blank, and marched off to have a shower.
The water was cool and soothing.
She felt better already, as she patted herself dry and sprayed herself liberally with a tangy, French-perfumed mist.
Then she selected her favourite dress, which was almost the sam
e sludge-green as the river pool below the homestead. It was sophisticated and plain, and expensively cut—a model from Claudine, in fact—and it did things to Mattie’s smooth brown complexion, and enormous peaty eyes. It did things for her morale as well.
There was nothing like wearing a lovely dress to make one feel good, and ready to tackle anything, she thought now, slipping on plain crocodile court shoes ; with low stacked heels, and inspecting the result critically in her wardrobe mirror. The faintest touch of , lipstick—she had made up her eyes with skill and restraint before slipping into her dress—a dab of powder, a polish of her fair, swinging hair with a silk handkerchief, and she was ready.
Ready? For what?
Mattie felt as if she were destined for the guillotine, at the very least. Not even the knowledge that she was looking her best could assuage that nasty, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She waited until six-thirty, and then she rang through, turning the handle of the old-fashioned extension bell with a hand that trembled slightly.
Mattie stood there in her father’s office, biting her lip nervously in the silence. Then there was a click at the other end, and Bryn’s voice came, brief and businesslike.
“Bryn here. What is it?”
Mattie decided to be equally brief and businesslike. Coolly she explained her decision.
“So is you’ll come up after tea”—like all Australians, she employed that misnomer for the evening meal on the station—“I’ll give you your cheque, and you can leave tomorrow.”
There was a moment’s complete silence at the other end of the line. Then Bryn spoke again.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
“No, my father doesn’t know, and at present he’s not going to,” Mattie informed him crisply. “Neither does he know anything about your unspeakable behaviour towards his daughter while he’s lying there ill. You’re the typical swell-headed male, aren’t you, Bryn? Did you think, because we’re depending on you entirely at the moment, that you could force me to fall into your arms with gratitude? The mere fact of your trying to coerce me against my will at a time like this has shown me what a cad you are, and the sooner you go away the better.”
“You’re being a bit hasty, sweetie, aren’t you?” Bryn sounded amused and conciliatory at the same time. Obviously he hadn’t taken her seriously. “How are you going to get along without me, I’d like to know?”
“I’ll get along,” retorted Mattie frigidly. “And so will Twin Rivers. No one is indispensable, and I—I’ll manage perfectly well without you, Bryn.”
There was a laugh this time.
“You’ll manage? And who’ll help you? Pirrett?”
“Yes, Pirrett. Dan Pirrett’s in his second year jackerooing here, and he’s intelligent and honest, and a gentleman in his behaviour, which is more than can be said for you.”
“He’s not any good with machinery, though, Mattie.” Bryn’s voice sounded sly. “Both the tractors need overhauling, and the seed-drill has to have some new parts. I’ve been leaving it over until next week at the latest to do it myself, since your father’s laid up. But maybe you don’t care if the sowing doesn’t get done on schedule, if at all?”
Mattie gripped the receiver with both hands. She had gone quite pale. Of course they must get on with all the seasonal work on time. Wasn’t the valuation hanging over them now? She couldn’t fail Lex at such a critical period.
“You—never mentioned that the tractors aren’t going properly, or that the sower needs repairing,” she said weakly, suspiciously.
“Why should I mention it?” She could almost see Bryn shrugging casually. “It’s my department, after all. You know your father and I dealt with all the arable between us. I’m the machinery man about the place, and always have been, and I don’t tell you everything I’m doing with the sheep, either, do I? Your father knows I can handle both those departments, and I didn’t intend to bother a slip of a girl with such things, and well you know it, Mattie. There’s only one thing I want from you, and you’ll be well advised not to be so high and mighty about dispensing your favours, or the place will really suffer. You mark my words.”
Mattie was furious. The insufferable creature, still trying to hold a pistol to her head! Well, she’d tell him what she thought of him, once and for all.
She did, too.
The words poured out, hot and scornful and uncaring.
“And the only favour I’ll ever, ever, dispense to you, Bryn, is to write you a cheque that you don’t deserve. You can come for it or not, now or in the morning, just as you like, but you’ll be out of here by tomorrow, and I’ll take full responsibility with my father. That’s final!”
Mattie made it even more final by replacing the receiver.
She leaned against the telephone-box on the wall, her head in her arms, shaking from head to foot. She felt drained and spent, and suddenly frightened now that she would be alone, except for poor Dan Pirrett, who knew nothing at all about machinery.
“Men!” she muttered wearily. “I hate the lot of them.”
“Do you, indeed?” A deep, admiring voice spoke from the darkness on the other side of the fly-screen door. “Maybe you do, at that. Stone the crows, but that was some brush-off!”
CHAPTER TWO
MATTIE relinquished her hold on the wall-telephone, and spun round towards the sound, startled.
She couldn’t see who was standing in the darkness on the other side of the wire-mesh door, but she’d have to find out. The voice certainly did not belong to any of the station hands. Someone else must have come to see her father, and had been directed to his office, and she would have to deal with him instead.
Mattie’s brain was telling her to go and open the door and turn on the outside light, but although she knew she should do it, her limbs refused to obey her will. So she just stood, shaking still, and feeling helpless and annoyed at her momentary weakness.
The man outside showed no such hesitation. The screen-door creaked on its hinge as he shut it behind him and stepped swiftly into the little office.
His movements were curiously agile and noiseless for such a big man. His height and breadth of shoulder seemed to dwarf the sparse furniture in the room. As far as Mattie was concerned at that precise moment, he was simply a nameless, bulky outline, with the edges all blurred because there were tears in her eyes that she had to control.
He took a couple of quick strides, grasped her arm, and sat her down none too gently in her father’s chair.
“Sit there,” he ordered, quite unnecessarily. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mattie sat.
Presently the stranger returned, this time the bearer of a rather battered enamel pannikin half full of water, which he bade her drink.
Automatically, she obeyed. It was cold and fresh and reviving. She supposed he must have got it from the rainwater tank outside, but the container certainly didn’t belong to the Twin Rivers kitchen. Mattie had not drunk out of such a shabby utensil since she had been on children’s picnics with Nick—not that she was fussy now, for the water served its purpose, and the threat of tears receded. She hardly trembled at all, and the man’s outline was not blurred any more.
Mattie stared as she took in his appearance.
His voice had been strong and vibrant and vigorous, the sort of voice one would expect in a man of his physique. Although it had the slight twang of the outback about it, it was at once educated and authoritative—a voice that had snapped out an order in the full expectancy of having it obeyed.
The man who owned the voice, though—why, he was a—a—an apparition! His clothes were worn and shabby, from the ancient khaki bushman’s shirt opened carelessly to reveal a powerful column of sunburned throat and hair-covered brown chest to the faded moleskin trousers and the dusty boots beneath them. Mattie’s eyes travelled up again to the man’s face, to find herself pinned by the narrow scrutiny of a pair of thoughtful grey eyes. Remarkable eyes. Wide-set, appraisin
g, the cool, clear colour of a midwinter frost. There was a network of fine lines at the corners, as though he narrowed them often like this, against sun and rain and glare and distance, so that his look would be careful and thorough and miss nothing of what it wanted to see.
The lines made deeper crinkles now, as a slight smile crept into the sombreness, and he spoke—just one word this time.
“Better?”
Mattie took a deep breath.
“Yes, I’m better now. I’m sorry you came at such a—an awkward moment. Thank you for the water.”
She handed back the pannikin.
He took it, his eyes not leaving her face, his wide shoulders lifting in the hint of a shrug.
“You’re welcome. It was your water in any case,” he told her laconically.
Mattie was aware that she still stared rather stupidly. One couldn’t help it really. That beard! It was black and abundant, as vigorous as its owner. It matched the bushy blackness of his brows above the piercing eyes, and the springiness of the dark hair that grew away from his broad forehead. His skin was weathered as teak, except for that tiny strip up there at his hairline, where his hat would come. A sun-strip, Mattie had always called it, ever since she was a little girl. All the stockmen out in the sun-scorched places of the great Australian inland had it in some degree, wide, narrow or almost invisible, according to the angle at which they wore their broad-brimmed bushmen’s hats.
He held no hat in his hand just now—only the mug from which she had so recently drunk. He twirled it carelessly on one lean, brown, square-tipped finger. His jaw, beneath that awful beard, would probably have the same clean, square line as his hands.
Mattie was beginning to feel better. She watched the gentle swing of the pannikin, to and fro, to and fro, while the stranger waited silently.