by Lucy Walker
Ann had not been meant to hear this.
Why had Dr. Evans said that to Mrs. Franklin when to Ann he had been cheerful and optimistic?
It was comforting to be wanted and cared for. She had been so afraid Mrs. Franklin would miss Claire. Now Mrs. Franklin seemed almost to prefer Ann to be staying at The Orchard, and Claire to be working down at the wool-store.
The car coming round the valley had indeed been Ross’s car and he had brought Luie with him. Lang and Claire, with Mr. Condon, came back to the homestead in the wake of the car.
‘No one at home!’ Luie announced, tossing her head like a happy young colt. ‘So we ‒ Ross and I ‒ came over here in search. Hallo Pops and Mops and Ann and everybody, except Claire. I exclude Claire because I saw her last night and it was positively unforgivable the way she out-shone everyone else. It doesn’t give a girl a chance.’
‘Give me one hour with you in a beauty salon, Luie,’ Claire said with a short laugh, as she came up the veranda steps. ‘I’ll make you so that everyone will turn his head and look at you too.’
Luie was delighted. ‘You promise, Claire?’
‘I promise. Provided Franklin’s Proprietary Limited will give me half a day off to do it, of course.’ She glanced provokingly at Lang.
‘Franklin’s will not oblige,’ he said firmly. ‘Miss Devine is likely to say you can’t be spared.’
Luie pouted in earnest and Claire pretended to be disappointed.
The whole party stayed at The Orchard for late supper that night. Mrs. Franklin and Mr. and Mrs. Condon decided to watch TV. Ross and Lang played billiards in the long room next to the main lounge and the girls offered them advice in between sessions about hair-styles and what Claire thought of the girls who worked in Franklin’s.
At half past ten Mr. and Mrs. Condon drove Luie home and Ross accepted Mrs. Franklin’s invitation to stay the night.
‘I’ll get the spare room ready,’ she said.
Claire looked at Ross speculatively.
‘The moon over the orchard, and orange-blossom in the air, is splendid for invalids, Ross,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you push Ann’s wheelchair out on the veranda and make a thing of it? You won’t get a night like this once you’re back in England. Besides ‒ poor Ann is so lonely sitting up here all the week by herself.’
‘Ann is not in a wheelchair to begin with,’ said Ross. ‘But I’d certainly like to carry her.’
‘I can walk with a stick,’ Ann said. ‘And I am not lonely.’
There was a muffled shriek of horror from Claire.
‘Walk with a stick? Dear Ann, you mustn’t! You’re not allowed out of a chair. Dr. Evans said so. There’s some awful damage done to a ligament or something. It’s much worse than you think. Please, please, Ann darling, don’t attempt to walk. Not for weeks and weeks …’
Claire was too much in earnest. Ann sank back into the chair and looked from one face to another thoughtfully. Only Lang was looking directly at her. One eyebrow was raised sardonically as if it would amuse him to know what her reaction to these remarks would be. Ann did not feel inclined to satisfy him. Was he testing her? But why?
Ross was surprised. ‘Is it really as bad as that?’ he asked.
Claire nodded. ‘Well, not really, but nearly, if you know what I mean. The point is that Ann is an invalid and she is to be stopped doing anything foolish.’
Ross grinned. ‘Carrying her out on the veranda on a warm orange-scented night wouldn’t be your idea of foolishness?’
‘Not in the least.’ Claire was quite cool about this. ‘As a matter of fact, if Lang will take me I will go myself.’
‘Wouldn’t that be spoiling the moonlight and orange-blossom for Ross and Ann?’ Lang asked.
Ann saw that he was still watching her. He had not looked in Claire’s direction while he had been speaking.
She could have cried.
Those steadfast, inquiring eyes of his! He was so silent most of the time; so organised and so everywhere else but near at hand; yet when he looked at her like that ‒ the child in her grasped for the stars. They were the kind of stars she had thought about on the ship when they had sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar: the unattainable ones.
If he thought she knew about stars at all he probably thought her gazing should be done with Ross. He looked at her because he wanted to see how eager she would be about it.
‘If you’ll excuse me for tonight, Ross,’ she said quietly, ‘I think I’ll take Claire’s advice and treat myself as an invalid. I’ll watch TV until Mrs. Franklin is ready ‒ if you wouldn’t mind lending me an arm to get there.’
Suddenly her old sense of companionship with Ross came rushing back. As it had been at sea, he was there to befriend her again. How secure those blue-water days had been!
‘Perhaps you would watch it with me for a while? There’s more to see on the screen than out on the veranda.’
She nearly commended the moonlight, and the scents from the orchard, to Lang and Claire, but decided they would probably make up their own minds about that.
That was what Claire wanted, wasn’t it?
And here was she, Ann, back in the old, old form ‒ making things easy for Claire. How silly can a girl be when she herself is hurt, somewhere deep inside her?
Chapter Fifteen
Ann went on practising her walking, feeling each day her ankle growing stronger and stronger until to remain chair-bound had become nothing more than ridiculous nonsense.
Mrs. Franklin was horrified each time she caught Ann on her feet until Ann felt positively guilty about it. It puzzled her until on the Wednesday, on one of her quiet walks through the house to her room to fetch a book, she overheard Mrs. Franklin talking in the pantry to Nellie.
‘It’s so nice and companionable to have Ann sitting there so happily on the veranda. She enjoys soaking up the sun, just as her aunt does.’
‘Well, if you ask me, Mrs. Franklin, a young girl like that might like the sun but she’d be better off swimming or dancing. To my mind her ankle’s ‒’
‘You never did have much of a mind, Nellie. You don’t see the essential benefit to Ann of a good long rest. A nasty accident is accompanied by shock to the nervous system,’ Mrs. Franklin said quite shortly. They were doing the flowers together on the side veranda. ‘You haven’t said anything very much, I know, but I can see through you, Nellie. I’ve known you too many years not to see through you. I think we’ll put the roses in the white vases today …’
There was quite a silence while they discussed which roses went into which vases. Ann thought it was safe to stay in earshot while she hunted for the book she had been reading the day before. It only amused her to think Mrs. Franklin thought she might be suffering from nervous shock.
‘What you see in me, Mrs. Franklin,’ Nellie said cautiously, ‘is that I like this one best. Even if she was the wrong one to come out in the first place. I never did work out how there could have been such a mistake. Did Mrs. Boyd tell you, Mrs. Franklin?’
‘Not a word. I’m afraid I think it was Ann’s doing. You see, I quite distinctly remember now sending that first letter to a niece called Claire. When Ann was mentioned in a letter I thought I must have made a mistake because Mrs. Boyd’s true name is Claire. I thought I had confused the names. Now I know I didn’t make a mistake.’
‘I’m sure she’s not that kind of a girl …’
Ann was rooted to the carpet in her bedroom. The window was open. The sun on the orchard filled the air with the scent of burning gum leaves from one of Ted’s clearing fires. It was all mixed up with orange-blossom and the smell of red-turned earth. Except for the movement of the two people at the flower-table on the veranda there was silence everywhere all over the valley.
‘Well, duplicity is a strange thing,’ Mrs. Franklin went on sagely. ‘Its meaning is in the very word itself. It means two facets in one personality. One can have such a pleasant face to the world, and yet be capable of doing something not … not q
uite what one would expect, shall we say? I suppose the poor child wanted to come very much. It was such a temptation. I can’t say I really blame her. And she is quite charming ‒ really.’
‘I can’t see it, Mrs. Franklin. I just can’t see it,’ Nellie said stubbornly. ‘Not Miss Ann. Yes, I know you told everyone about a beautiful tall girl ‒ fair as a daffodil, you said. So very elegant, and all that; and this little one came along. I know how you felt ‒ having to explain to everyone and all that … I did feel for you, Mrs. Franklin, about that. All the same ‒’
Ann couldn’t bear it another minute. She forgot the book, the scents of the orchard, the blue mist of the far side of the valley and the bush world that was all around. She walked slowly down the carpeted passage out on to the veranda and sank back into her chair.
Duplicity!
The wrong girl had come. Claire had been invited, not herself.
Of course they had been surprised! Of course she had been a let-down!
Duplicity: double-dealing! Lang’s words. He had known all along that she was the wrong girl. He had been testing her out.
Ann buried her head in her hands.
He thought she was a liar and a cheat and he had asked her a question to trap her so that he could say, ‘I know what my aunt was up to, I just wanted to know what you were up to!’
Well, she had said ‒ No!
She hoped that had convinced him.
But it didn’t make any difference to the fact she was a let-down. She supposed that was as bad as being a liar and a cheat.
They were keeping her pinned to this chair on the veranda so that the right girl, Claire, would be working down there at Franklin’s with Lang.
What did she do now?
Well, she packed her case and went back to Aunt Cassie, of course. Aunt Cassie whose real name was Claire. Claire-Ann to be correct ‒ after whom both great-nieces had been named.
Ann stayed a long time on the veranda, no longer holding her head in her hands, but looking sadly out over the valley.
It was such a beautiful place.
It was such a pity!
She did not pack her case that day. A little time and thought told her she must do this thing carefully, and gracefully too. After all, it had not been Mrs. Franklin’s fault that the wrong girl had come. Mrs. Franklin had been kind and hospitable ‒ specially to Aunt Cassie, who really was a joke although she was also a darling. She was Ann’s darling great-aunt, at whose doorstep the fault of all this lay. Ann could see it all.
Ann thought she could make a move about Friday. That would be the tactful thing to do.
On Wednesday night Lang did not come home because the next day was wool-sale day. He probably worked back so late it was morning by the time he had finished. Ann conjured up tired pictures of Claire working back with him. The office with the soft glow of one light … supper afterwards …
All the time she thought of Lang, she thought of Claire, who was tall, fair, elegant and wanted. It had to be Claire who was wanted because she was the same type as this Vera Sunderland whom once Lang had loved. Since he had never looked at any other girl, he would look at Claire twice. It would be like Vera Sunderland coming back to him. Mrs. Franklin had thought it all out.
On Thursday night Lang came home, almost exhausted after thirty-six hours without sleep. Ann felt wretched in insisting as gently and nicely as she could that she returned to the hotel and Aunt Cassie for the week-end.
When she wanted to think of Lang tenderly she resorted to an unnatural hardness as a protection. Why did a man who had so much property and money have to work like that anyway?
‘I could go down with you tomorrow, Lang,’ she said.
He was so tired his eyes were drained of colour, the muscles of his face were set in lines of weariness. He looked at her as if he minded, which puzzled her. He looked at her for a long time, right into her eyes, too tired, probably, to reach for words. Ann did not falter under his gaze. She had to go, she knew that. This was the best and the only way to do it.
‘Very well, Ann,’ he said at last, quietly, gravely. ‘I will take you down to the coast tomorrow. I am very sorry you feel you must leave us.’ He turned away to pick up the evening paper from the table. ‘I shall miss you …’
She wasn’t certain she had heard the last words.
Mrs. Franklin and Nellie were a flutter of surprise.
‘You see, I really can walk quite well, dear Mrs. Franklin,’ Ann said. ‘I feel an impostor sitting about taking so much kindness from you. But I do thank you so very much for having me. The Orchard is the loveliest place I will ever stay in, I know …’
She had turned away.
Mrs. Franklin was also embarrassed and unexpectedly depressed at the going of this erstwhile-happy young girl. She had been a very pleasant companion. Only now did she realise how much of kind nature, and happiness, Ann had had. Perhaps it had been a mistake keeping her sitting about in a chair. She had lost all her smiles. Perhaps Nellie was right, after all …
Back at the riverside hotel Ann waited until the lunch-hour was over, and Aunt Cassie was probably relaxed enough to bear with an angry Ann.
She had to have it out with her aunt, though she hated doing it. She knew Aunt Cassie had connived at giving her the treat of a trip to Australia instead of Claire. Explanations had to come.
Her aunt, fortunately, gave her the opening gambit. They were drinking coffee in the deserted drawing-room.
‘That child really irritates me,’ Mrs. Boyd said. ‘I’m talking about Claire, dear. Why don’t you pay attention, Ann? You are daydreaming again. Claire has just heard in the office that you are back with me and she has rung up to have her things packed so she can go back to The Orchard in your place. She is sure Mrs. Franklin wants her. I hope she is not self-invited. I do think we have taken enough of the Franklins’ hospitality.’ Mrs. Boyd sighed, which meant rustling her many beads.
‘Claire has her own way all over again,’ she went on. ‘She will stay with the Franklins and work in the office too! It leaves you completely out on a limb. It’s all too clever for me ‒ the way she manoeuvres things.’
‘She does it, Aunt Cassie, because she knows you have always spent all your attention on me. You have never let Claire feel she is as important to you as I am.’
Mrs. Boyd reached for a handkerchief, her smelling-salts in her handbag and the fan that was lying on the sofa beside her. She fanned furiously ‒ not without occasion because it was very hot outside and the open windows allowed a lot of that warm air inside the room.
‘I never heard such rot in all my life. Why, I’m always giving Claire things. I even bought her a fur stole and said nothing when she changed the fur for mink. Absolutely outrageous, considering I am not a rich woman …’
‘You do not give her things, Aunt Cassie. You buy her off. It’s something quite different. Every time you think you haven’t given Claire the same love you have given me you feel guilty so you give her something. It is such a pity we couldn’t both have been brought up by you ‒ sharing everything ‒’
‘Nonsense. What rubbish you do talk, child. She has a mother of her own.’
‘I know ‒ but not as commonsensical as you are, Aunt Cassie. Nor as loving and as kind. Claire’s mother is a selfish person. She spoils Claire like you do ‒ to compensate.’
The fan stopped fluttering and Mrs. Boyd stared at Ann.
‘Well ‒ I must say ‒’ The timeless, proud yet kind face suddenly withered and was suddenly a little too old. ‘It wasn’t very kind of you to say that, Ann. I never really knew if I was doing the right thing or not. You see, I’m two generations older. My standards are Edward the Seventh and this is the reign of Elizabeth the Second. So modern ‒’
‘Now, would you please tell me why you rang the changes between Claire and me ‒ about coming to Australia,’ Ann asked quietly.
‘Oh dear! So I’m found out, am I? It was an absolute mistake at first, child. You must believe me. It’s the c
onfusion of the names. Your great-uncle Arthur, when he was alive, always said that more than one person in the family with the same name would lead to confusion. I pooh-poohed it; but of course he was absolutely right.’
A parlourmaid came across the floor to ask Ann to come to the telephone.
It was Heather Condon.
‘Ann, have you seen Luie?’
‘No. You sound upset, Heather. Has anything happened?’
‘Tell me first, please, Ann ‒ have you seen anything of Ross Dawson?’
‘No! Heather, please. What has happened?’
‘Nothing much that I can tell you now, Ann. Later. Lang is with me. We’ll find them ‒ I’m sure.’
There was a tiny silence.
‘You mean they’ve run away?’ Ann asked bleakly.
‘I didn’t want to tell you, Ann, so please don’t say anything to anyone yet. They may have gone swimming or something; except that Ross was not at the wool-sale yesterday. He rang-in a substitute. Lang guessed something was wrong. Lang and I spent half the night hunting the usual coffee bars and eating places.’
So that was why Lang was so exhausted! On pre-sale night too! Ann could have wrung her hands.
She tried to be consoling to Heather now.
‘Ross is an awfully nice person, Heather ‒’
‘It’s not Ross we’re worrying about. It’s Luie. She’s done it before, Ann, but somehow one or other of us has managed to find her in time. She falls in love with anyone who’s kind enough to look at her twice. It’s a sort of softheartedness. First it was one of the TV announcers when she worked in the office in the studio. It was dreadful for quite a while. Dad had to make her stay home. Then it was some muscle-big swimmer at the Surf Club. Then others. She can’t help it. She falls in love. She’s so guileless and innocent, and a little bit wilful about it. We’re so afraid for her. Someone has to keep a ball and chain on her all the time. Nobody would mind if it was the right man. And if she was consistent …’
Ann was stunned. Why hadn’t she seen it herself? Of course! That gay irresponsible laughter ‒ the tossing ponytail of soft silken hair ‒ the crying-child that was somewhere hidden behind Luie’s sensitive mobile mouth and soft quick-to-tears eyes! The double-dose of adolescence running late …