by Amanda Doyle
. Finally, he asked,
“Are you Lex Bennett’s daughter?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Mattie came back to earth with a bump, reminded thus of who she was, and also of here present unenviable position. “Please sit down. Did you want to see my father? I’m afraid it’s not possible just now. He’s very ill.”
“So I gather.” The dryly spoken words recalled her recent conversation with Bryn. Of course this man would know! Why, he must have heard every word she had spoken while he stood there beyond the gauze door.
Mattie blushed fiercely.
The man had accepted her invitation to sit, and now stretched long legs comfortably in front of him from the depths of the chair opposite.
“Do you mind if I smoke, Miss—er—Bennett?”
Mattie nodded her assent, registering as she did so the incongruity of such innate politeness and those awful, tattered clothes and that awful, springy beard.
She was still grappling with her own embarrassment at being overheard by an unexpected eavesdropper—and such a grizzly character of a man, at that. Oh, how dreadful! Remembering some of the abuse she had hurled at Bryn, her colour deepened even more painfully.
“Do you know my father?” she asked cautiously, trying to place this stranger in some niche or profession, and finding that he fitted in absolutely nowhere.
Again came the casual shrug.
“Everyone knows—or knows of—your father, Miss Bennett. He’s a bit of a legend in the pastoral industry.”
“And are you connected with the pastoral industry, then?” Mattie was really curious by now.
The stranger smiled—a little wryly, she thought—showing good, strong, slightly uneven teeth that dazzled suddenly out of the horrid black bushiness of beard.
“You could say that,” he said, appearing genuinely amused at her inquisitiveness. “Even an ear of wheat can say it’s connected with the cream cake at the party, you know.”
Mattie thought that one over, and almost giggled. An ear of wheat wasn’t of much significance, when all was said and done, but nobody in their right mind could label this man opposite as insignificant. In spite of his shabby attire and dust-stained condition, he had a presence that was almost aggressive.
Right now, he had searched out some tobacco and papers from the flap-pocket of his shirt, and was rolling a cigarette with the speed and dexterity born of long practice.
Mattie watched him rub the tobacco carefully between his palms, shake it into the wafer-thin paper, and make a neat cylinder with thumb and forefinger. Then he licked it down, tapped the ends against his thumbnail, and placed it between his lips, slapping his trouser pockets in turn in search of matches.
Mattie looked at his strong brown hands as he cupped them about the tiny flame and bent his head to inhale. There was something about the typically masculine gesture that reminded her suddenly and sadly of Nick. He had always done the same when he lit up, and his hands had been like that, too—clever, capable and calm, their movements positive and assured and unhurried.
It hurt Mattie to think of Nick, and almost she disliked this man for reminding her of him in that small way.
“What do you want?” she asked now, at once haughty and impatient, again the poised and beautiful product of Miss Mottram’s careful training, once more Lex Bennett’s only daughter, who had just dismissed a man for stepping out of line, and who was not prepared to put up with any nonsense from another.
The bearded man gave her a level, considering look, as if he could see right through that poised veneer to the trembling, uncertain girl beyond it. He couldn’t, though! Mattie had no intention of letting her mask slip again.
“I looked in for the usual hand-out, Miss Bennett. I reckoned to make Twin Rivers homestead about sundown, and thought I’d ask the boss’s permission to doss down somewhere for the night. I heard back along the track that your father’s not well, but one of the hands pointed out the office.”
“Back along the—? You mean—?”
“I mean I’m a swagger, Miss Bennett, asking for a spot of tea and sugar to help me on my way in the morning.” The surprising grey eyes were challenging. “That’s surely not such an unusual request at a station such as this, or don’t—er—gentlemen of the road ever call at this homestead? I didn’t see any traditional warnings posted by my predecessors telling me to keep out.”
“No. I mean, yes. No,” Mattie murmured confusedly.
A tramp! The man was a tramp! A common, ordinary tramp! No, Mattie, not common, and not ordinary, but on his own admission a tramp. And he’d had the nerve—the absolute cheek—to stand there and eavesdrop on her slating of Bryn in her most unladylike and forthright manner without so much as a cough to make his presence known. Her name would be bandied about, laughed over, on the stock routes, over camp-fires, in the boundary-riders’ huts, from Adelaide to the Gulf, after this! And not only had he listened. After that, he’d had the temerity to actually enter her father’s office, uninvited, and had pushed her into this chair and revived her with water from his horrible, battered old swagman’s mug. Ugh! Well, at least it had been her water, or so he averred, and not some half-warm stuff out of his own dirty old swagman’s waterbag.
“Well?” He was still smoking quietly, watching her.
Mattie swallowed.
“You may have some rations, of course,” she told him stiffly “I—I’ll get them for you. And if you come up to the kitchen in—half an hour or so—I’ll give you a meal. You’ll find a place to bed down at the men’s quarters. Ask for Charlie Doherty. He’ll show you where.”
“Thanks, Miss Bennett.” The words were drawled, but there was an odd expression of relief in the way he said them. Mattie was aware that his whole body had been somehow still and tense, waiting for her reply. Now his powerful frame relaxed once more, and he stood up, towering over her, looking down with—could it be approval?—in his eyes, almost as if he had put her to some test, and was not disappointed in the result.
Really, Mattie! she chided herself. You’re imagining things, and what would you care, anyway, if some stray hobo sat in judgement on you, and found you wanting?
She stood up gracefully, annoyed to find that, tall as she was, she couldn’t see over the wide khaki barrier of the man’s shoulders as he confronted her.
He reached the door ahead of her, and held it open for her to pass through. An oddly gallant gesture from a tramp.
His next words were more odd still.
“I’ll just get Matilda,” he said conversationally. “I left her round the corner at the tank when I went for this pannikin, but I never sleep without her beside me.”
Mattie gaped.
“I beg your pardon?” she uttered coldly, aware that she sounded like an affronted schoolma’am.
The man stopped in his tracks, peering down at her in the weak shaft of light from the office doorway.
“Now what have I said to offend you?” He sounded amused.
“You used my name—Matilda—in a decidedly dubious context,” Mattie informed him, icy with discouragement.
“Matilda?” The grey eyes raked over her. “You mean your name is actually Matilda? Matilda Bennett?”
Mattie nodded, meeting his look unflinchingly. Her face felt pinched and strained, but her head was thrown back proudly, every line of her young body taut and defiant. She had just about had enough of men and their innuendoes for one night. If he laughed, she’d kill him!
“Steady on now, Miss Bennett.” To her surprise the man didn’t laugh. She’d been sure he would, but his voice was deep and kind and quite impersonal. “You’ve had a bit of a shake-up this evening, that’s obvious, but don’t go leaping to any distressing conclusions, there’s a good girl. I thought you’d realize Matilda was my swag—you know, my roll of bedding and clothing. Didn’t you know that “waltzing Matilda” means to hump one’s bluey or carry one’s swag? I used the word as a traditional term of reference. I’ve left my Matilda sitting beside the tank
stand there.” He chuckled softly in the darkness. “I’ll be back in half an hour for that meal, thanks—at the kitchen, of course,” he added as an afterthought, before he strode off into the night.
Dazedly, Mattie made her way to the kitchen quarters.
They were away to the rear of the house, connected by a covered veranda from whose roof hung baskets of fern and geranium. When it rained, the noise on the roof was unbelievable, and water dripped in through the holes in the corrugated iron, so that one was tempted to dodge and duck with one’s loaded tray on the way to and from the main dining-room.
Lex Bennett had not bothered to repair that particular roof, although the rest of the house was in good order. Since his wife died and the children were away at school, he had lost interest in meals and the niceties of their preparation and consumption, and looked after himself in the mornings. The two lubras, Lucy and Nellie, who came in to “do” for him during the day, were undependable and certainly not very thorough, but they were happy and willing, and laughed a lot, flaunting perfect white teeth in wide white smiles, looking momentarily dampened when “dat big-fella boss chided them for their slipshod ways and haphazard ministrations. As soon as Lex’s back was turned they would resume their giggling and chattering, for their sunny natures would not permit them to be serious for long. Perhaps it was as well that Lex had an evening meal sent up from the huts at night. Charlie Doherty brought it himself, and one of the lubras washed the dishes in the morning and carried them back to the men’s quarters, taking up as much time as she possibly could on the short journey to and fro.
When Mattie came home, Charlie stopped bringing a cooked meal in the evenings, although Lucy and Nellie still came up sometimes through the day to help in the house. They took an enthusiastic delight in Mattie’s lovely clothes, especially those with bright, gay colours. In fact, they looked at them so longingly, and clucked over them so admiringly, that Mattie gave them each one of her own cotton beach outfits of shirt and wrap-around skirt. It was impossible to button the slender garments around their ample figures, but they wore the shirts like waistcoats over their own dresses of wispy cotton, and trotted up each morning with the skirts fastened on like aprons, their black faces glistening with pleasure at the gaudy picture they presented in the stark, cloudless light.
Mattie wasn’t very good in the kitchen. Lex had predicted that she’d be “as good as useless” at 106 degrees and although the worst of the summer heat was now over, she felt his words had had more than a foundation of truth. Poor Mattie had been groomed and preened, coached and trained, for less practical occupations than the conjuring up of attractive meals from a modest selection of uninteresting ingredients, in a large, old-fashioned kitchen with little in the way of modern equipment to aid her. The mammoth black range at one end of the room had been her enemy ever since her return. She had been able, she thought, to cook quite passably on the neat little gas oven in her flat in Sydney. There she had the benefit of pre-packaged cuts of meat especially for grilling, of pre-cooked frozen foods that needed little attention and could not fail to turn out attractively.
Things were different here. The mail lorry only came once a week, the kerosene refrigerator was given to untimely breakdowns, the butter was apt to go rancid, and sometimes you had to sift crawly black things out of the flour. It wasn’t as though this was a typical outback homestead, thought Mattie drearily, as she threw yet another failure out to the expectant hens, and watched their bobbing heads as they rushed upon it. Many—indeed, most—of the remoter stations had as many modern facilities as did their city counterparts these days. They had freeze-units, and cooling systems and air-conditioning and electrical gadgets by the score. Only Lex just hadn’t bothered. Those things didn’t interest him, and why should they? He had no wife to keep up certain standards and no one could say his station equipment was not the most modern and labour-saving in the whole district. He was the area’s pioneer of new techniques and methods in all facets of property management. The house could look after itself. He wanted nothing from it but a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in.
With Lex’s illness, Mattie’s burden had increased.
The two nurses were strictly professional, and accepted punctually prepared meals as their right, which indeed it was. Mattie carried trays back and fore to the main dining-room for them, willing if weary and inexperienced.
It was a great relief when they left, and Aunt Allie came instead. She was a homely soul, a mother-figure to Mattie, and insisted that they save themselves a lot of trouble and time by eating in the “men’s dining room” off the kitchen.
Aunt Allie was able to give Mattie some badly-needed tips about the management of the old black stove and the finicky moods of the kerosene fridge. She had been a nurse at a mission hospital out “in the centre” for most of her days, and was practical to the finger-tips.
Even with Aunt Allie’s helpful hints, things sometimes went wrong, and the range would “throw a fit , and do the most unpredictable things.
That’s just what happened tonight. Mattie reflected bitterly that she had almost known it would.
She put the usual number of logs into the oven-box, but somehow they did not smoulder in their customary sullen fashion. They hissed and sparked and finally roared in devilish abandon. The soup was stuck to the base of the pan, the carrots had a decidedly singed smell about them, and the chops were charred. The potatoes had escaped, but her father’s milk pudding—fortunately the only part of his invalid supper not already prepared by Aunt Allie—had got burned on one side, and appeared to be scarcely cooked on the other.
Aunt Allie came from the pantry with Lex’s tray as Mattie bent to take it out of the oven. She was flushed with heat from the roaring fire as she had stood near enough to turn the spitting chops. She wore a green and white frilled apron that matched her dress, and she might have been modelling for the cover of a housewives’ magazine were it not for her perspiring forehead and harassed expression.
“Oh, Aunt Allie!” she wailed. “This wretched monster is in one of its moods. The pudding has turned out dreadfully, and it’s Father’s favourite. Just look at that!”
“Never mind, dear,” Aunt Allie soothed pacifically, “I’ll give him some from this side. There’s only you and me to have the rest, so it won’t matter.”
“It will matter.” Mattie felt peeved and childish and hot with her efforts. “There’s a tramp coming up for a meal, and it’s going to be horrible.”
Aunt Allie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“A tramp? Well, dear, they’re not a fussy breed, heaven knows. Thankful for what they can get, they are. They never look a gift horse in the mouth, believe me.”
“This one will,” stated Mattie obscurely. “We’ll leave him to it, anyway. I’ll set for him in the men’s dining-room, and we’ll have ours at the pastry table here.”
Aunt Allie thoughts were obviously elsewhere.
“Dear, get your father a glass of milk, will you—and a little water for his tablets afterwards? I’ll just go ahead and give him his supper first.”
Presently she disappeared with the tray, and Mattie turned her attention to cutting bread for the soup. She had completed her task, and was rescuing the chops from the imminent threat of incineration, when Aunt Allie reappeared.
At almost the same moment the man knocked on the door which gave on to the veranda, and entered.
Mattie, glancing over, noticed that he wore a clean white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and pale, spotless drill trousers. His boots were no longer covered with dust. They had been polished, and his hair was slicked down neatly, but his black beard was as rakish and unruly as before.
He walked straight across the room and removed the tray from Aunt Allie’s grasp.
“Where would you like it? Over here?” he queried politely.
“Thanks, young man. Over there will do nicely.”
Aunt Allie screwed her eyes up, and made little fluttering motions of surprise with
her hands behind the broad back to Mattie. Mattie purposely took no notice, although Aunt Allie’s meaning was clear. She was trying to say to Mattie, “What? This man a tramp? He can’t be!” Only Mattie could have told her that he was. A tramp. A vagabond. A hobo. What you will. In need of a handout, a meal and a bed. And in the morning he’d be off, “Waltzing Matilda,” had he not said?
Mattie did not realize, until she served out three portions of soup, that Aunt Allie was carrying each one into the dining-room. Only then did she notice that the older woman had removed the place-settings for the two of them from the pastry table, and transferred them, with the bread, to the “men’s dining-room” where they normally ate.
There were now three places set there, and the stranger was already sliding Aunt Allie’s chair in for her. He was standing, waiting to do the same for Mattie, so there was nothing for it but to untie her apron, push back her damp hair, and take her seat.
It now occurred to her that if they were all going to eat together she had better make some introductions. After all, the man was a swagman—a ship that would pass in the night—but it was the sort of tiny point of etiquette that Miss Mottram had regarded as being of great importance. Mattie knew, too, that while Miss Mottram would have deplored this man’s horrid bushy growth of beard and rolled shirt-sleeves, she would have approved of the manner in which he had ushered Aunt Allie and herself into their chairs. He had done it in a more or less absent-minded way, as though it were an ingrained habit, a part of his nature, and now his left hand was crumbling a piece of bread on his plate in the same absent-minded way, as if his thoughts were off in other realms.
Aunt Allie had begun to drink her soup, so Mattie delayed no longer.
She gave a small, apologetic cough to attract his attention.
The stranger looked up, half expectantly, as if he was aware of her intention and had merely been waiting for her to take the initiative.
“I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” Mattie said diffidently, “but I would like to introduce you to Aunt Allie—to Sister Marchant, who is at present nursing my father.”