by Amanda Doyle
Mattie nodded.
“I must say your nice Aunt Allie does a fair trade in sheets when her nursing instincts are aroused!” Gib chuckled. “You’re tired, Mattie, that’s all that’s the matter, and I’m the cause, brute that I am.”
He took her hand between his two square, brown, strong ones, and looked deep into her eyes. Mattie felt the old, familiar tug that was almost hypnotic in its intensity.
“Trust me, Mattie, that’s all I ask,” said Gib softly. “Will you do that?”
Mattie nodded solemnly, without volition.
“Then don’t let me catch you looking like that again.” He released her hand. “I could have sworn you were near to tears.”
“Bunkum!” retorted Mattie with some of her old spirit, in a voice that would have made Miss Mottram shudder. “You must still be delirious if you thought such a thing!”
She picked up the jelly and carried it through with care to the table.
He would never know how near to tears she had been, and it was not because she was tired.
She would never like anyone to know that she had almost shed foolish tears over a piece of wafting thistledown, and the passing touch of a sunbeam’s warmth, and a girl with large, reproachful eyes who was called Annabelle.
CHAPTER NINE
THE day the survey party arrived was a still and sunny one. The air was soft with moisture after the rains, but the level of the river had dropped, and for nearly two weeks Gib had been harrowing the paddocks to a fine tilth, and had succeeded in sowing out the major portion.
Things were well under control, he assured Mattie. They had caught up now, and even if he had to spend a lot of time with the surveyors, Percy would be able to finish the remainder on his own.
The men came in two vehicles, a Land-Rover and a Toyota. The vehicles were laden with various equipment, which the men left in their place, only bringing into the house their own personal effects—a singly light case each. Probably they had done this sort of thing before, thought Mattie. By now they would know just what was necessary and what was not.
They looked quite nice men, really, she observed, and there was a slightly sheepish and apologetic air about them, because they knew they had come on a mission that was bound to be painful, and have unpleasant consequences for the occupants of the homestead. At the same time, they were to be offered the hospitality of that homestead.
It was a difficult position on both sides, but the leader of the party, an engineer in his late fifties called Mr. Lodge, had acquired a certain amount of tact and diplomacy over the years in similar situations, and eased any initial awkwardness with a pleasant and friendly manner. He had a fatherly twinkle in his eye, and a homely face, and Mattie liked him immediately.
Then there was the senior surveyor, probably somewhere around thirty, Mattie guessed, and two much younger assistants, one of whom had been detailed to help the surveyor, and the other to be a general clerk and secretary.
The boys were fresh-cheeked and cheerful and obviously regarded their mission in the nature of a bush adventure. They told her their names were Paul and Richard, and that this was their first trip out from
Sydney.
The surveyor was the only one that Mattie recognized as a type she knew very well indeed. He was of medium height, with wavy blond hair almost the colour of her own, and he had vivid blue eyes that appraised Mattie with open admiration. They were calculating, knowledgeable sort of eyes, and she guessed this unconcealed inspection of every girl who confronted them had been a habit of many years’ standing, so that they now did it unconsciously. Their owner did possess some more likeable attributes, however. He had handsome, even features and well-set ears, and even teeth that gave him almost a film-star look when he smiled, and he had a breezily friendly manner to which it was easy to respond. In fact, he spoke the sort of jargon that Mattie’s crowd in Sydney had been wont to speak. For him, it was his natural tongue, but for Mattie it was not. She could adopt it at will, though, and she had lived with it long enough to know that the extravagant phrases and overstatements that were a part of it were meant to be lighthearted and not to be taken seriously.
His name was Bob Rankin, and the first thing he said when he saw Mattie was “Wow!”
Mattie put out her hand to say how do you do, and ignored the exclamation, but Mr. Lodge gave him a paternal scowl, and said, “Now, Bob,” rather helplessly.
Bob Rankin said, “Well, someone’s got to say it! I’m damn sure we’re all thinking it!”
He kept her hand in his and reached for her other one, and told her, “Darling, you’re gorgeous! Who’d have thought it possible out here in the backwoods?”
Mattie tried to draw her hands away, but he narrowed his eyes on her, and continued, “You and I have met before, you know. But where? Rufino’s? The Palm Grove? Natalio’s? That’s it, Natalio’s! And you were with—let me see—Leonard Hickering, the racehorse owner?”
That was the moment that Gib chose to come round the corner of the veranda to meet the group. His long stride did not check until he reached them, but Mattie knew he had caught the other man’s words, and he’d have had to be blind not to see those clasped hands.
She managed introductions fairly well, she thought. Gib’s voice, as he replied to each one, was courteous and non-committal, and his face was unrevealing.
When Bob Rankin had shaken hands with Gib, he turned back to Mattie and continued enthusiastically,
“Yes, you were with Hickering, that’s right. I knew whenever I set eyes on you that we’d met before. Roselle and I are old friends.”
He beamed on the gathering at large, obviously overjoyed that he had the advantage over his fellows.
“Then perhaps Roselle will be glad to show you your rooms, and you can unpack your gear before I take over.” Gib’s voice was cool and even, but his eyes were like chips of ice as he looked her way. He had given the name Roselle a faint, distasteful inflection.
Mattie’s heart seemed to shrink with pain when she heard it.
She turned on her heel and asked the others to follow her, and the men picked up their cases and trooped over the boards in her wake.
Bob Rankin kept up a buoyant and amusing patter of conversation all the way. In other circumstances, Mattie might have joined in with some witty, meaningless repartee, but just now she was too annoyed with the man.
In fact just to prove to herself how annoyed she was, and to vent some of her pique on the unwitting cause, she gave Bob Rankin the stretcher with the horsehair mattress. That would teach him a lesson! Aunt Allie might say he was the least in need of postural correction. Mr. Lodge had a middle-aged corporation, and the two boys possessed adolescent stoops, while Bob Rankin was upright, and fit and athletic. He looked as though he was used to working all day an playing all night in the enjoyment of the peak of physical condition, but in Mattie’s eyes he was an easy winner in the Horsehair Mattress Stakes, just then!
She dragged her mind away from Gib with an effort, and directed her attention to the more immediate necessity of lunch for her increased household. She would be almost too busy to think for the next couple of weeks. There would be extra rooms to turn out, beds to make, washing to do, and meals to cook. She had asked Lucy and Nellie to come every day, but although they nodded sage black heads when she explained how important it was that they turn up each morning, and said, “Sure t’ing, missus,” with obliging smiles, she knew they were not to be counted upon to any great extent.
She had polished and cleaned the main dining-room, and had decided to serve all meals there. It meant carrying trays for quite some distance via the covered connecting veranda, but there were no drips and pools to dodge now that the rain was over, and Mattie found she could not bear the idea of these four strangers eating in the little room off the kitchen, where she and Gib had experienced those rare intimate moments, some pleasurable, some painful.
Mattie took her usual care in dressing that evening, although she hurried over her make-up,
because her mealtime preparations would now take longer. If today was to be a forerunner of what the others would be like, she hoped she would stand the pace. She had not had a moment’s respite since morning. No sooner was one meal finished than she had to start thinking of the next. It was a relief to be told that on certain days the men would be working farther away from the homestead area, and she would then be able to give them packed lunches and forget about them till evening.
Tonight she wore a simple dress of deep blue silk. It was perhaps the plainest and most “covered up” in Mattie s whole wardrobe, but although she made an honest effort to play down her appearance, the success of her attempt was doubtful. The high neck lent a queenliness to her head, and the bracelet-length sleeves and faintly flared skirt produced a tantalising simplicity rather than the demure effect which she had hoped for.
There was no point in changing again at this juncture, anyway. She would have to be content with her appearance as it was, and rush over to the kitchen.
Mattie found herself longing to hear the slow, firm steps that always heralded Gib’s approach. She hoped he would come tonight for the little tête-à-tête they often had in this precious half-hour before she served the evening meal. If he came, it would mean that he had understood about the morning. He would know that Mattie had not initiated that apparent familiarity with Bob Rankin. She had merely been polite and had tried to gloss things over as any good hostess should. She would make Gib understand just how little that sort of extravagant talk meant. She would tell him that she could not even remember meeting the man in Sydney, which in itself was perfectly true. She would even tell him about the horsehair mattress, and they would laugh together, and get back on to the old, happier footing.
When she heard the steps, she felt a surge of pleasure, which was quickly extinguished when she realized that they were not Gib’s.
They were Bob Rankin’s.
“Hullo, angel,” he said cheerfully, letting the gauze door swing shut behind him. “My, you look domesticated! Who’d have thought it of our lovely Roselle! The little woman bending over the stove, and all that.”
Mattie looked at him reprovingly.
“I’m not Roselle up here, Bob,” she said. “And I do wish you’d stop harking back to that big, bad city for a while. Things are different now.”
“Makes you homesick, does it? I’m sorry, sweet. I can see they’re different, actually. I’ve found out already! We’re out in the back country with a vengeance. I hope I’ve a sufficiently pioneering spirit to survive a night or two on that stretcher you’ve given me. No offence intended, but I lay down on it for a minute or two before my shower, and concluded it must have been specially designed for insomniacs. I mean, no one in their right mind could possibly want to go to sleep lying on that thing. I’m planning to roam around all night instead. You can take me for a walk, and show me the bush by moonlight, hm?”
Mattie shook her head firmly.
“No luck,” she said briskly. “I’m busy, Bob, you must see that. I haven’t the time nor the inclination for moonlight strolls. I’m not Roselle now, remember. I’m plain Mattie Bennett.”
“You’re still Roselle as far as I’m concerned—and anything but plain.”
Bob stepped swiftly behind her and put his arms around her waist. Mattie tried to disengage herself from his clasp, not only because she wasn’t in the mood for his harmless capers, but she had almost certainly heard the slow, firm sound of Gib’s elastic-sides on the veranda outside.
Her hands were covered in flour, and she wriggled to no avail. She stiffened, and Bob’s hold tightened too.
He put his face into her hair, somewhere behind her ear, and murmured,
“Mm, a Miss Dior girl. What a perfume! Quite fatal to insomniacs! You and I are going to dance by the light of the moon, Roselle.”
With a surge of sheer annoyance, Mattie found the strength to escape his hold, but not before she heard those steps outside in solid retreat, until they faded altogether.
Gib had come after all, but now there would be no tête-à-tête, no explanation, no reconciliation. There had been an awfully final sound about those retreating footsteps.
“Leave me alone!” Mattie begged Bob now. “I’ve work to get on with. I—I’d rather you didn’t come to the kitchen, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not such a good cook that I can keep my mind in two places at once. Now, please go, Bob.”
“O.K., gorgeous,” he agreed pleasantly. “No wooing in the kitchen. It’s a promise. But your mind isn’t always on the cooking, is it, so it’s a mere matter of see-you-later.”
“It is always on the cooking,” Mattie told him stoutly, making her meaning perfectly clear.
But Bob was not easily discouraged. In fact, he was incorrigible. When he got to the door, he put his head on one side, and winked at her.
“We’ll just have to see if we can’t get it off the cooking, then,” he said mischievously. “What a very tedious track for a mind like yours to run on!”
True to his word, however, he did not come to the kitchen again in the days that followed.
Neither did Gib.
Mattie carried a little nagging ache around with her wherever she went, because Gib’s grey eyes were winter-frost all the time now—grey and remote. He was courteous and helpful, and carried the trays for her whenever he was about, and he even smiled sometimes, but it never quite reached his eyes. It wasn’t just that he, as well as she, was extra busy. It didn’t take a minute to smile at someone with your eyes, after all, did it? He spent long hours closeted in the office with Mr. Lodge and Bob Rankin, and spent even longer hours out on the property making up for the time the surveyors’ visit was costing him. Mattie sometimes heard his steps going away out before dawn was breaking, but she was too tired to do more than register what the sound was, and doze off to sleep again, glad that her own day didn’t have to start for a little while yet.
In the evenings, now, her father got up for a short while, and sat on the gauzed veranda outside his room. He would shuffle out in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, and Aunt Allie sometimes gave him his tea at the small wicker table, and had her own with him. Afterwards she would bring the tray of dishes to the kitchen and join forces with Mattie, who was by that time clearing away the remains of the men’s meal.
In the autumn darkness that fell so swiftly, Mattie would often see the glow of Gib’s cigarette as he sat and talked to her father. She would hear the rise and fall of the men’s deep voices, and she would wonder what sort of things they spoke about that took so long to say.
Lex was getting stronger every day. Soon he was walking instead of shuffling, and his voice recovered some of its former vibrancy and purpose. Aunt Allie no longer rationed his visitors’ time quite so meagrely, and one evening, near the end of the men’s stay, Gib took Mr. Lodge along, and the three men sat and talked for more than an hour.
Aunt Allie, afterwards, was triumphant.
“That was a testing time for your father, dear,” she told Mattie. “And he came through it awfully well. He’s got back some of his old drive, and he’s beginning to look beyond this break with Twin Rivers to the years ahead. That’s the most wonderful sign, Mattie, that Lex is taking a grip on things again, and getting interested in the future. This illness isn’t going to have any lasting effects.”
Her eyes were shining, and her face looked serene, and somehow lovely. She loves him thought Mattie, she really does. I’m glad for them both. They’ll build a future together somewhere, and I’m glad. Poor Aunt Allie, so faithful, so loyal. She had waited a long time for the man she had always loved, and now she could look forward to their future—hers and Lex’s.
I’ll leave them to it, resolved Mattie. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll go away and leave them to it. I’d only be in the way, really.
“Your father will soon be back to normal, Mattie,” Aunt Allie went on. “Gib has taken the main worry off his shoulders at the most critical time, and he’ll be fit to
manage by himself again, when Gib goes.”
A knife twisted, cruelly, deep into Mattie’s heart. “When Gib goes.”
Aunt Allie had actually voiced the thought that had been haunting her for weeks now. Gib was only waiting until the visitors returned to Sydney, and then he, too, would be getting on his way.
“Can’t you stay a little longer, Gib?” Mattie had asked, but not, she hoped, with her heart in her eyes. She had more pride than that, especially in the face of Gib’s indifference.
Gib had watched her gravely.
“No, Mattie, I’m afraid not,” he replied.
Mattie had looked away quickly. She might have known the answer, mightn’t she? After all, he never stayed anywhere, not for long, did he? New Guinea.
The base camp. Twin Rivers. Where next? You couldn’t tie a man down when he had been born with a wanderlust, could you? You couldn’t capture a piece of thistledown, or trap a sunbeam.
Annabelle had tried, and she couldn’t either. Poor Annabelle. Mattie found it in her heart to be sorry for her. She knew what she must have suffered. No wonder Annabelle’s eyes were so big with reproach.
Mattie sighed. She often sighed these days. There was a certain strain attached to having a homestead full of hungry men, especially if you had to keep your mind on a cookery book when it wilfully wandered off along the wistful paths of the might-have-been.
She had lost weight lately. Her mirror told her that. It must be all this scurrying around she had to do. She had become ridiculously thin, in fact. Oh, well, she would be a howling success when she resumed her career. Stick-like models were “in” at the moment. Mattie made an ironic grimace at her reflection, and saw an answering irony creep into the peaty eyes looking back at her. There were shadows under those eyes now, and that wasn’t fashionable. She’d have to do something about that, she thought. They’ll go when Gib goes.
When Gib goes.
Mattie felt the old agony take her in its grip at the very thought.