by Gloria Bevan
‘I didn’t know,’ she said in a muffled voice, ‘whether to ring and get Dr. Smith to call or not.’
‘Difficult to tell sometimes,’ he agreed still in that chilly, polite tone, ‘whether there’s a break or not, but there’s nothing to worry about. She’ll be right—Oh, Maggie—’
She was probably in for a lecture regarding her carelessness in allowing Phil to get hurt today. The week the child’s parents were due back to their home wasn’t exactly the ideal time for Phil to sustain an injury. She braced herself for the expected battle, and hoped that he would put her distressed appearance down to the accident of the morning.
‘You did it! You actually did it!’
‘Got her up on the Saint, you mean? It wasn’t really my doing,’ she confessed in a low voice.
‘Who, then?’
She raised her heavy glance. ‘It was Phil’s own idea. I—got such a fright. I was afraid her arm might have been broken.’
‘No, nothing like that. I’ll fix her up a sling.’
‘You will tell Mummy, won’t you,’ the child broke in anxiously, ‘that I did ride that horrible old Saint?’
‘Sure thing. Better keep quiet for a couple of days, though, Phil. Park up on your bed for the rest of the day. Okay?’ To Maggie he said: ‘Suppose the kids told you about Tony? Thought you’d like to know; might save you all the trouble of getting through to the hospital. It’s the devil’s own job to get through on the exchange at times.’
‘Thank you.’ How could he look so set and stern? Surely she couldn’t be all that forbidding, to make his expression change so when he looked at her.
‘You’ll be keen to get in to see him this afternoon?’
‘Yes. I—’
‘Thought so. I’ll be working over in the shed. The boys can come with us and they can nip back and keep an eye on Philippa now and again. Take the car. You can’t miss the hospital. It’s five miles along the main road past the beach. Quite a drive, but I guess you won’t mind about that—’
She turned dispiritedly away. Was that what he imagined? That she was so crazy about Tony that she couldn’t wait to see him again? Oh well, what did it matter what he thought?
‘Lunch is ready.’ She forced her tone to a light note.
Making a pretence of eating, she was aware of Mark’s curious gaze, but fortunately he made no comment on her lack of appetite, and at last the interminable meal was over. It was going to be a long, almost unendurable week, yet still crazily, hopelessly, she couldn’t bring herself to invent some excuse that would take her away from here at once, tonight even. Mrs. Wahonga could easily take over for a few days until Danger’s sister and her husband returned, but she knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t, tear herself away, even knowing well how he felt about her.
The long drive to the country hospital was after all a respite. No need to pretend to be happy, to make a show of eating, to listen endlessly for his step.
Afterwards she couldn’t have given any details of the scenery that went sliding past the open windows as she took the lonely northern roads winding between vast paddocks with their boundaries of softly waving toe-toe.
It was impossible to mistake the modern hospital, a low white stucco building, built to the sun, and surrounded by flower beds and sweeping lawns. A friendly nurse led her down long shining floors of the corridor to a sunny ward. At the last bed Maggie caught a glimpse of Tony’s sensitive young face. His hands were a mass of bandages, but he smiled up towards Maggie in delighted surprise. ‘You came all that way—Gee, Maggie, that’s great.’ He threw her a teasing glance. ‘I never knew you cared—Come to think of it, you look awfully white under all that tan. Anyone would think—’
‘Never mind about me!’ she cut in quickly. ‘It’s you who matters.’ She glanced down at the bandages on his chest. ‘Much pain?’
‘Not too bad now. Stupid thing to do, though. I knew it was too good to last, having you all to myself. That was the worst part of it, mucking everything up... for us...’
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled. ‘There’ll be another time. I’ll be seeing you again before I go.’
His pale eyes widened in surprise. ‘So soon? How come, Maggie?’
She shrugged her shoulders, turning her heavy gaze away from his curious glance. ‘Seems that Chris and her husband are coming back to Amberley sooner than they expected. At the end of the week, actually, so—’
‘So that makes two of us, Maggie.’
It was her turn to look astonished. A desolating feeling of dismay swept her. Did he mean, did he really mean that—Aloud she said: ‘You’re going away too?’
‘Guess so. I’ll need to be back in town for ’Varsity next term.’
‘Then,’ she hazarded, ‘you’ve decided—’
He lifted a shoulder beneath blue striped hospital pyjamas. ‘Had it decided for me, this morning! One thing, burning myself to blazes last night did some good. It brought things to a head. I know now that wherever I happen to finish up, it won’t be on a sheep station, and that’s for sure! Not now that Ann’s getting herself married—’
Her heart plunged. ‘Married?’ she whispered.
‘Sure. They fixed it up at last. Thought he’d never get around to it.’
She forced the words through stiff lips. ‘You mean, your sister Ann—’
He gave his light laugh. ‘You’ve guessed it! Jacked things up at last with her sheep-farmer. Seems he was waiting for her when she left the hospital last night and they both came up here this morning to tell me the big news. Going to put the other station on the market and move over to our place.’
But Maggie wasn’t listening. Her thoughts were spinning wildly and she was trying to understand. Last night Danger, after their return from the beach, had been shut away in his office. Shut away from her, she wouldn’t wonder, she mused bitterly. This morning he had been working away from the homestead, she knew.
‘You mean—’ She turned puzzled brown eyes, towards him.
Tony grinned. ‘I’d give a lot to know who did the proposing; I mean, she must have had a hand in things, pushed him along in the right direction! Can you see old Jim getting up enough courage to—’
‘Jim! Ann and Jim are getting married?’ she asked in a strange, husky tone.
He glanced at her in surprise. ‘Who else? They’ve got the big question settled at last; getting married right away. Beats me,’ he added aggrievedly, ‘what you’re looking so happy about.’
‘Am I?’ Hastily Maggie made an effort to compose her features, but she couldn’t hide the wild unreasoning hope that had taken possession of her. All this time she had been imagining everything to be so different. How clear it was now that Danger’s endless visits to the other sheep station, his swift response to Ann’s pleas for assistance, had been no more than the friendly gestures of a neighbour who was conscious of the plight of a girl struggling alone against almost insurmountable burdens of physical toil and financial problems. The next moment she came back to reality with a jerk. Not that Ann and Jim’s marriage could make the slightest difference to her. Nothing that anyone else did could alter Danger’s feeling towards one Maggie Sullivan, late of his employ. And she’d best not allow herself to forget it!
The sharp ring of a warning bell made Maggie realize that the brief visiting period was almost at an end. She got to her feet, smiling down at him. ‘I’d better be going—’
‘It’s a long trip,’ he agreed. ‘Nice of you to come all that way to see me, Maggie. Well,’ he sent her an oblique look, ‘I guess it’s goodbye—and good luck!’
‘Good luck?’ She turned back to him, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know. I guess,’ he went on in a low tone, ‘that I’ve known right from the start, only I tried to fool myself.’ His lips curved in a gentle smile. ‘I mightn’t be too much on the ball when it comes to sheep-farming gen, Maggie, but I can see as well as the next man when a guy and a girl are falling in love. Now that you’re talking of leaving Am
berley I can’t see Danger—’
A barb pierced her heart, but she tried to smile gaily. ‘You’re wrong, you know!’
‘Am I?’
The final bell shrilled through the long ward and with a sense of relief she lifted a hand in a gesture of farewell, then went to join the stream of visitors moving towards the doorway.
On the long drive back to the homestead she could no longer keep a tight rein on her emotions. Often she glimpsed the wide green farmlands burnished with gentle spring sunshine, through a mist of unshed tears. Bad enough, difficult enough, to get through this endless week without Tony jumping to that ridiculous idea—She only hoped that she’d succeeded in laughing him out of his fantastic notion that Danger could be in love with her—with her! How little Tony really knew of the bitter score. Danger despised her. He couldn’t care less that she was leaving Te Rangi for ever. Nor, come to that, could anyone else at Amberley. Tony was already looking forward to resuming his studies in the city, having renounced all thought of her simply because of that crazy idea he seemed to have got into his head. He must be out of his tiny mind.
The children were so absorbed in plans for their parents’ return that they seemed scarcely aware of Maggie’s existence. She was merely someone to care for the day-to-day essentials of living, the ordinary dull things. When it came to love, only Mark was loath to lose her, and he was so young, he would soon forget.
No doubt about it, she had failed all along the line. Failed with Danger utterly, and when it came to Philippa, the hollow victory of making good her challenge to the master of Amberley had ended only in disaster. Now Philippa would be more afraid than ever to mount the temperamental thoroughbred.
Thank heaven, she told herself bleakly, that a certain sense of familiarity with the long northern roads saved her from any wrong turnings, for in this state of mind she found difficulty in concentrating on her driving. She could think of nothing except one man, a man whom she had to learn to forget—somehow.
She didn’t hurry as she put the car away in the motor shed. There was all the time in the world—now. Slowly she went up the verandah steps and into the house, tossing her soft leather shoulder bag down on the table. It must have been the brightness of the late afternoon sunshine outside that had blinded her for a moment so that she hadn’t noticed the man standing by the long velvet curtains. He turned suddenly to face her and her brown eyes flew to meet his odd, unfathomable glance. If only she’d known that Danger was waiting for her here, she would never have come to this room.
‘He’s not worse, is he?’
‘Tony?’ She raised her heavy glance. ‘No, no.’ She produced a wavering smile. ‘He’s better, ever so much. Very bright really.’
‘Then why’ve you been crying?’
‘Crying?’ But she couldn’t meet that direct gaze. Swiftly she turned away, making for the door. ‘I’ll—make some tea,’ she said almost incoherently.
‘No, you won’t, Maggie!’ In a few swift strides he had blocked her way. Tall, lean, rangy, he gazed down at her. ‘You and I’ve got a bit of urgent business to fix up—’
‘I can’t think what!’ She tried to sound ungracious, but it was difficult with Danger looking at her as if, as if there were no longer any misunderstandings between them. For some reason she couldn’t understand, he seemed oddly stirred. His eyes were a dark blue, burning with a light she hadn’t seen for a long, long time. What had happened? Why was he looking at her like that? And why was she suddenly trembling?
‘After you took off today, I had a visitor. That Colin bloke—’
‘Colin!’ She stared up at him, wide-eyed.
‘That’s right! We got talking and he put me straight on a few matters. I put him in the picture over a few things too.’
Her heart was beginning to beat suffocatingly.
‘What—sort of things?’
‘Oh, about you and me. Why didn’t you tell me,’ he demanded in a low tone, ‘that Colin happened to be a free man? I got the impression all along that — well, skip it—’
‘You didn’t give me much chance,’ she protested faintly, trying to keep hold of her feelings which were rapidly flying out of control.
‘If you were crying because you didn’t want to leave here—if that’s it, Maggie—’
The sudden heart-catching tenderness in his low tones caught her unawares, so that she forgot to lie and pretend.
She found herself acting like someone in a trance. She nodded.
‘Just the place, Maggie?’
Still under the spell, she shook her head.
‘The children, then?’
‘No.’
‘Then,’ with a deep triumphant laugh he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the couch, ‘there’s no problem! You’re not leaving, you know!’ He held her close, cupping her small square chin in strong and sensitive hands. ‘You’re staying right here with me, for keeps! How does that strike you?’
Flushed with happiness, secure in his arms, she laughed softly. ‘I can’t imagine anything more wonderful.’
‘I can!’ Gathering her close, his lips sought her own and pulses leaping, she found herself responding to, that swift and urgent pressure. At last she drew herself free, her eyes dark pools of excitement. There was still something she had to know. ‘That other girl,’ she whispered, ‘the one who looked like me—’
‘Cathy? Forget her,’ the deep tones were laced with tenderness. ‘There never was anything between Cathy and me, anything that mattered. Oh, she was a bit like you, I’ll give you that! Had the same sort of face, that kind that goes to a man’s head, but she wasn’t you, my darling. They only made one of you,’ his tone deepened with pride, ‘and that happens to belong to me! I love you very much, Maggie. I have ever since that first night when you looked up at me from the hotel table. And if you think that I’m ever going to let you go again—’ A heady excitement swept her as once again he took her in his arms. It was heaven, Maggie thought contentedly. It was coming home. It was wild excitement and deep content all at once. ‘Is this a proposal, Mr. Dangerfield?’ she inquired laughingly a little later.
‘What else, Miss Sullivan?’ He was caressing her dark hair and neither was aware of the noiseless opening of the door.
It was a few moments later that Mrs. Wahonga came into the room. With a beaming smile towards Maggie and Danger, she put down on a low table at their side a tray with champagne and three stemmed goblets.
Maggie glanced up from the shelter of his arms, a glimmer of mischief in her dark eyes, ‘Now just how did she know? Maori mystique, would you say?’
‘Poof!’ Mrs. Wahonga disclaimed with her rich chuckle, watching Danger draw the cork, ‘didn’t take no Maori mystique to work that one out! Right from that first day when Maggie walked in here, I could tell what was going to happen. Anyone could see it! You two ... just made for each other.’
Tiny bubbles rose in the crystal as Danger raised his glass high. Pride and tenderness mingled in his deep tones and there was no doubt at all, Maggie thought happily, of how he really felt about her, not with that special look for her in his blue eyes. He said: ‘We’ll drink to that!’