It Began in Te Rangi

by Gloria Bevan

  He shook his dark head. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to catch up with you, to let you know. She was killed, Maggie,’ his voice was low and strained, ‘it happened in a motor smash three months ago.’

  ‘Killed? But that’s frightful! Were you driving?’

  The full lips were set in a downward curve. ‘She was with—someone else at the time. Things didn’t work out so well after we left here,’ she had to strain to catch his low tone above the roar of the surf. ‘Could be it wasn’t all Andrea’s fault. It didn’t take long for both of us to—well, I think we both knew that we’d made a mistake. One thing, she was killed instantly, a head-on collision. She never knew what happened.’

  ‘I see,’ Maggie said slowly. So the whirlwind romance had blown itself out, and poor Andrea ... impossible to imagine Andrea not alive. She had always been so vital and full of fun, so outgoing. Now Colin had returned to New Zealand, seeking his old love, and she—why, she couldn’t care less about him! Almost guiltily she brought her mind back to his low confidential tones.

  ‘So then, just when I’d decided to cut my losses and come back to Hamilton. I was lucky enough to hear about this partnership thing coming up in your office. Believe me, I couldn’t get back fast enough. Took the first plane I could get from Sydney and went hotfoot to your apartment in Hamilton. I couldn’t believe it when no one seemed to have any clue as to where you’d taken off to. I asked everyone. Why, even your boss didn’t know where you’d got to. Said if he did he’d be sending for you, that he hadn’t had a satisfactory typist since you left! Heck, didn’t you even leave an address with the Post Office to have your mail sent on?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know where I was going. I was ... moving around a good bit, and anyway, there wasn’t anyone to care particularly—’

  ‘Well, there is now!’ Colin caught her hand and this time she couldn’t free herself from the warm pressure of his clasp. ‘Now that I’ve found you again, do you think I’m ever going to let you go? Not on your life! I’ve missed you, Maggie,’ his voice was low and tender, ‘more than you’ll ever know, but now that things are sorted out and I’ve found you again, everything’s going to be different! For a start you can tell that farm woman you’re working for just where she can take her mother’s helper job! You’ll have to make it plain to her that you’ve had enough of it and you’re leaving with a week’s notice. Tell her she’ll have to cope with her brats on her own—or get someone else.’ Before she could protest he was running on, his voice eager, excited. ‘No problem. Your old job’s waiting for you back in Hamilton—not that you’ll be there for long,’ his smile was meaningful. ‘That is, if I have any say in the matter. I’ve got—other plans for you, for us, Maggie. Together we can travel, have ourselves a ball—’

  ‘But I’m not leaving here,’ Maggie broke in, stemming the headlong rush of words, ‘not for a month or two anyway!’ She succeeded in wrenching her hand free. ‘I just can’t opt out of my job.’

  He stared at her, a puzzled frown lining his smooth forehead. ‘Why not?’

  Flustered, she sought wildly for sound reasons, but her mind had gone blank. ‘They—seem to like my funny crusty scones,’ she offered inadequately. At Colin’s incredulous look she added hastily: ‘Besides, I promised Danger—’ The name slipped out before she could stop to think.

  ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘I mean,’ she ran on hurriedly, ‘that I said I’d stay here for two more months. They were in a bit of a hole, actually, when I happened along, and it wouldn’t be fair to let them down.’

  ‘Forget it! There are swags of women all over the country wanting housekeeping jobs. They call them “home-helpers” or some such thing, don’t they?’ His voice was indifferent.

  ‘But they won’t come away up here to these remote districts,’ Maggie assured him. ‘They just won’t!’ Warming to her subject, she added: ‘There’s nowhere for them to go in their spare time, you see. They get stuck on the farm and they hate it!’

  He sent her a sceptical look. ‘You seem to be making out all right.’

  ‘Oh ... you mean the beach buggy? That was just so that I could come and collect some toheroas for dinner. I make them into fritters—’

  ‘I know all about toheroas;’ Colin broke in irritably. ‘What I don’t get is why the heck you seem to think you’ve got to stay in this godforsaken hole looking after these brats as though it were some sort of sacred trust.’

  ‘We are not brats!’ Mark, running back at that moment, had evidently caught Colin’s words. Planting his tanned feet squarely in front of Colin, he placed small hands on his hips and shouted aggressively, ‘You’re not going to take Maggie away! I won’t let you! See!’

  In spite of himself, Colin’s full lips broke into a reluctant smile as he eyed the small belligerent figure. ‘Okay, mate,’ he said soothingly, ‘I won’t take her away!’ In a low tone he added for Maggie’s benefit, ‘but I’ll do my best to persuade her to come with me, all the same!’

  He must, however, have reckoned without the keenness of Mark’s hearing. ‘She won’t go! She won’t!’ Mark’s roars of protest drew startled glances from nearby parties of toheroa-gatherers. ‘She’s going to stay with us, aren’t you, Maggie? For ever, ’never, ’never, so there!’

  ‘Oh come off it, young feller. You’re not the only male around here who wants her around. Come along, I’ll take you over to the others!’ Colin swooped down on the struggling, scarlet-faced boy and endeavoured to seat him on his shoulder, but Mark, with a furious kick of his bare foot, sent the horn-rimmed glasses spinning to the sand. Then, leaping down, he hurriedly picked himself up and ran away.

  ‘Little devil!’ Colin bent to retrieve his sunglasses and set them carefully in place—a trifle unsuccessfully. Maggie tried to suppress a smile. Colin was so neat, so pompous and self-opinionated. Why had she never realized it before? Now, out of the past she remembered more than one occasion when her own high spirits had been dampened by Colin’s silent disapproval. Imagine his trying to win Mark over by giving him a ride on his shoulder!

  He swung around towards Maggie, his voice sharpening. ‘What’s so funny?’

  Hastily she straightened her twitching lips. ‘Nothing, nothing. It’s just that Mark’s so little. Did you ever see anything so brave, defying you—’

  ‘Brave! Damned little nuisance, I’d call him! They seem to think they own you, these kids. It’s time you showed them where they get off—’

  ‘Oh well, it’s only for a few weeks.’ Maggie couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Colin. He was so obviously out of his element in this vast stretch of beach with uninhibited children and an ex-fiancée who had taken off into the blue and plainly wasn’t prepared to go along with his plans.

  ‘What that kid needs is a good belting.’ Colin was glowering after Mark’s small figure in red beach trunks. ‘His father should see to it!’

  ‘He can’t,’ Maggie spoke without thought, ‘he’s away.’

  ‘Away? What sort of a set-up is this you’re mixed up with?’ Plainly Colin’s law-trained mind was already probing into the discrepancies in Maggie’s vague account of her life at Amberley.

  ‘Oh, just temporarily,’ she said airily, ‘and anyway, Mark isn’t usually as bad as this. It’s just that he’s sort of fond of me. You know?’ Her great brown eyes twinkled up at him. ‘You could call it male jealousy!’

  But clearly Colin was in no mood for banter. ‘I’d call it plain bad temper! Oh, what the heck are we wasting time worrying about kids for? I can’t get over it yet,’ his expression softened as he gazed at her, ‘running into you like this, after I’d just about exhausted every way of finding you. I guess it’s like I told you,’ he said softly, ‘my lucky day.’

  ‘Well,’ Maggie said briskly, ‘it isn’t mine, and that’s for sure! I had to dig for ages to find my quota of ten toheroas, and just look at my nails—’ She extended a work-stained hand, the nails chipped and broken. ‘I often
wonder if it’s worth all this—getting shellfish, I mean.’

  Colin sent her hands a swift uncaring glance. ‘I wasn’t meaning that,’ he said pointedly. ‘Don’t you see what I’m trying to get through to you, Maggie? All this time, ever since I got back to New Zealand, I’ve been looking for you, and now— Damn! Not again!’ He broke off, staring with an angry frustrated glance at Philippa and Ian, who were wandering in their direction. Bless them, Maggie thought, they’ll never know how glad I am to see them right at this moment!

  ‘Look,’ Colin entreated a few minutes later as the children strolled down to the edge of the breakers, ‘can’t we get rid of them somehow? There’s something I’ve got to say, something pretty important ... don’t you understand?’

  The trouble was, Maggie reflected, that she understood only too well, and if Colin imagined that he had only to meet up with her again to pick up the pieces of a shattered love-affair, if he only knew how much her feelings towards him had changed. She’d have to make the situation plain to him before he left her today, otherwise he might track her down, and somehow she couldn’t endure the thought of Colin arriving at Amberley, discussing her with Danger. ‘All right then,’ she said, ‘let’s go back to the car. We can keep an eye on the children from there.’

  Colin’s plump face cleared. ‘Now you’re talking!’ There was a note of relief in his voice.

  Calling to the children, they retraced their steps and as they seated themselves in the luxuriously upholstered car, Colin thrust his head out of the window. ‘Go and find some toheroas—or something!’

  ‘We’re not allowed to get any more,’ Ian answered in his polite boyish tones.

  ‘Well, get something else, then! Shells, seaweed, anything! So long,’ he added in a low tone, ‘as you get the hell out of here!’

  ‘He means he wants us to scram,’ Philippa explained, quite without rancour, in her high, carrying treble. ‘He doesn’t want us around.’ Maggie giggled uncontrollably as groups kneeling on the wet sand turned to glance curiously towards Colin with his self-conscious, reddened face.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he muttered angrily, thumbing the starter. ‘We’re going along the beach,’ he shouted to the three on the beach. ‘You kids had better come along too.’

  Mark eyed him suspiciously. ‘Do we have to walk?’

  ‘That’s the idea!’

  ‘Why do we have to walk,’ the small boy argued, ‘when you’ve got lots of room for us inside the car?’

  For answer Colin angrily thumbed the starter, and the next moment the vehicle was moving along the moist sand. Maggie, glancing back over her shoulder, waved encouragement to the small figures trudging along in their wake. To Colin she said: ‘Don’t go too far up the beach,’ for they were heading towards the high cliffs.

  His black look told her that he would brook no advice in his present mood of resentment.

  ‘I mean,’ Maggie chose her words carefully, ‘it’s such a gorgeous car and you don’t want to get stuck in the soft stuff—’

  ‘I know what I’m doing!’ He spun the wheel with an angry jerk.

  Oh well, I did warn him, Maggie thought. Aloud she murmured, ‘So long as you don’t tangle in one of the streams—look out, there’s one right ahead!’

  But her warning came too late, for already the wheels were sinking in the soft sand. Colin, swearing softly under his breath, thumbed the accelerator again and again, but in vain.

  ‘It’s no use,’ Maggie said, ‘you’ll just have to get someone to come along and pull you out.’ She glanced along the sand, but at this particular spot the beach was deserted. Except for the groups they had left, the main body of picnickers were gathered at the far end of the stretch. Of course there was the beach buggy. Maggie wondered whether it would have the necessary power to pull out the big, heavy car. They’d have to do something. All at once she realized that the tide was coming in and over the flat expanse, would sweep rapidly in.

  Colin was frantic now, as he tried in vain to make progress, but the car remained motionless—worse, Maggie felt certain the wheels were gradually sinking deeper into the stream.

  The next moment she became aware of the children. They were waving and calling and as they came nearer she realized what Ian was shouting. ‘It’s okay! Here’s Danger!’

  Danger! But there was no time to think of anything else as the four-wheel-drive vehicle approached them and a dark head was thrust from the open Land-Rover. ‘Trouble?’

  At that moment he caught sight of Maggie, seated beside the driver. Astonishment, and something else, mingled in Danger’s glance as his eyes met hers. Almost, she thought in confusion, he looked hurt ... disappointed in her ... but how could that be? She must have imagined that fleeting expression in the blue stare. The next moment he was leaping out of the Land-Rover, coming to stand at the side of the stranded vehicle.

  ‘Friend of yours, Maggie?’ He sounded so pleasant, so polite, and yet—and yet—

  ‘It’s Colin,’ she said faintly, ‘Mr. Dangerfield—’ she shrank from stating that he happened to be her employer. She tried out her brightest smile. ‘I hope you’ve a tow rope with you?’

  ‘Never without it,’ Danger said cheerfully. ‘Not to worry. We’ll have you out before you know it!’

  Manoeuvring the Land-Rover until it was directly behind the maroon car, with deft movements he attached the heavy tow rope and then while the wheels of the car skidded free, at last the vehicle was dragged out of the stream and up on to firm sand.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ Colin watched while the rope was disengaged and stowed away in the Land-Rover.

  ‘We get used to this job up this way,’ Danger said. ‘I just came down to see if everything was okay down here. Get the toheroas, Maggie?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes!’ She was confused and uneasy.

  ‘Right! I’ll pick them up, take the kids back, with me. Jump in, all of you!’ At once the three climbed obediently into the Land-Rover.

  ‘So long.’ Danger lifted a lean bronzed hand in a gesture of farewell.

  ‘Thanks again!’ Colin called after the departing vehicle. He swung towards Maggie. ‘Thank the lord for that!’

  ‘You mean the tow?’

  ‘And taking those damned kids off our hands!’ He flung her a triumphant glance. ‘Bloke must have seen that they were getting in the way!’

  ‘I suppose.’ Maggie found herself praying that Colin’s supposition wasn’t correct. Wildly she searched her memory. That first night when she had met Danger, she had confided to him that she had been engaged to Cohn but that he had married her best friend instead. Of course Danger would remember, he never forgot anything, especially anything concerning herself that she preferred him to put from his mind. That was why he had left her and Colin alone today. Her heart took a sickening plunge. He thought, what else could he think in the circumstances, that she was still in love with Colin, a married man, and he with her.

  ‘So—at last!’ Colin guided the car up the track and braked to a stop in the shadow of the rugged clay cliff above. Switching off the ignition he turned to Maggie, lifting a long strand of her dark hair with unsteady fingers. ‘You know how I feel about you, you must—’ Suddenly his low tones were ragged with emotion. ‘I love you, Maggie. I always have ... your hair, your funny little square chin, the way you laugh. I’ve waited so long—for this!’ Before she could protest he caught her close, so close that she could do nothing but remain in his arms, tense and rigid, while he caressed her arms, her neck, and then she felt the pressure of his lips on hers, his warm breath on her face. It seemed an age before she could wrench herself free. Tossing back her tousled hair she took a deep breath. But why, oh, why did it have to be at that particular moment that another vehicle swept past them? A Land-Rover with a lean brown man at the wheel, a man who could not but have witnessed the little scene. There was no smile for Maggie now as he glanced towards her flushed face. ‘Forgot to collect the toheroas!’ He swung in the direction of the beach buggy
standing farther along the sand.

  ‘We’d be a darn sight more private in town,’ Colin muttered. ‘People turning up every five minutes!’

  Not people, Maggie thought over a sinking heart, only the one, person in the world who mattered. Danger. Now he’d think—what would he think? That she was resuming an old affair with a man who was married to her friend? How could she possibly explain matters to him, especially when he had eyed her with that stern implacable glance? The blue sky blurred around her and a deep anguish surged through her. But what did it matter to Danger she reminded herself despairingly, what she did with her life? It wasn’t as though he had the slightest interest in her. All that mattered really was making Colin realize now, this minute, that things weren’t as he took them to be between them.

  ‘It’s no use,’ she said, gently repulsing him as he made to take her once more in his arms.

  His full lips drooped petulantly. ‘You used to like me to kiss you.’ He threw an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him. ‘What do you mean,’ he asked softly, ‘it’s no use?’

  She twisted out of his grasp. ‘You know—you and me. It’s over, Colin. Don’t you see? For me, it is, anyway. I—just don’t feel the same way about you any more. Oh, I know it must sound awful after—after everything, but—’ she sought wildly in her mind for some way to soften the blow, ‘it’s been so long.’

  ‘Only a couple of years—’

  ‘Well, anyway, too long for me. I guess,’ she said gently, ‘I couldn’t have cared so much as I thought I did, or I wouldn’t be feeling this way now.’

  For a moment he was silent, staring at her sullenly, then he said suspiciously, ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there? Someone you’re wrapped up in here?’

  The blindly aimed shaft came so close to the truth that Maggie caught her breath.

  ‘No, no—’