Wedding at Blue River

by Dorothy Quentin

  Jane’s eyes were shining as she nodded. “If Lisa didn’t need me, I would like to work here,” she said thoughtfully.

  Dr. Banjo’s smile made one forget the scars on his face, the prematurely grey hair. She wondered what he meant when he said cryptically, “I think maybe you will always be needed at the Blue River, and you can be useful to us there. As Mollie said, Steve has a big family to care for out there.”

  Lisa, who was tired of hospitals, had made her excuses politely and gone back to the hotel with Steve and the Americans.

  “Do you really think she is better?” Jane asked now. The doctor’s brown eyes twinkled. “Much better! I think the cure probably began when you boarded the plane at Heathrow, and the young American may complete it. It will detach her mind from this guilt obsession, to fall in love, no?”

  “No!” Jane said with involuntary sharpness. “Not with Copper, anyway.”

  “Why—not with Copper? This Copper seems just the right sort of man for her. They speak the same language, though perhaps you have not realised that.” The doctor chuckled, sitting at the table with all the radio equipment on it. “But perhaps I am just a—how do you say—a stupid old matchmaker, no? Why do you look so anxious, Jane? I think perhaps it is time, also, that you stopped trying to be a mother to Lisa. She is well able to fend for herself, the little one.”

  Jane was unable to tell the kindly little man that she thought Steve was in love with Lisa; that she, Jane, was fiercely determined that no one should come between them ... Alison and her brother had hurt him enough. She couldn’t bear the idea that he should be hurt again, by Lisa, after his generosity to them.

  “Jake Warner is just a—a bird of passage,” she said lamely at last, “utterly absorbed in his job. Here today and gone tomorrow. He makes documentaries, you know, and he is always travelling.”

  “Nevertheless, when they were just now in my house, he gave me the impression of being more than a bird of passage,” Paul argued gently, “and I think there is something between those two.” He linked his hands, smiling a little at Jane’s worried expression. “Sometimes it happens like that,” he added quietly, “just like the popular songs. An instant attraction that will not be denied.”

  “ ‘Across a crowded room! ... Jane sounded more cynical than she intended. She closed her eyes, so she did not see the fleeting tenderness in the doctor’s expression. Instead, against her closed lids, she was seeing again Steve’s craggy face as he had smiled down at Lisa in the utility.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE first two days of the races passed very quickly, and when he was not busy with Pete and his camera, Copper was constantly with Lisa. It was Copper, and not Steve, who was always at hand now to push her chair; Copper, in his casual laconic way, who seemed to be deliberately staking out his claim. Jane, remembering Dr. Banjo’s diagnosis, watched and worried in the background, remembering that the Cosmos Film unit would be returning to Cairns on Saturday evening. But when she tried to remind Lisa of that fact, tactfully, Lisa refused to be drawn.

  When Jane was helping her sister to dress or undress, Lisa did not rattle on about Copper in her usual frank fashion—and that to Jane seemed ominous. If Lisa for the first time in her life didn’t want to discuss a new and attractive man, her feelings might be serious. She held her own with Copper, but she did not attempt her usual, half-ironical flirtation.

  Once she said, thoughtfully, “I might get Steve to take us to Cairns while they’re still filming. I’d like to see the monsoon hit the Great Barrier Reef.”

  “Darling, I haven’t got the rest of the money for the cottage yet. We can’t ask Steve to spend any more on us—we’d have to stay in a hotel. They’ll probably come to the Blue River in April.”

  “It’s a long time till April, and I don’t think Steve would mind lending us the money for a few weeks,” Lisa argued stubbornly, “after all, the cottage money is half mine, isn’t it?”

  “Of course.” Jane was bitterly hurt that Lisa should have to ask the question.

  “Then I’ll ask Steve—but not until after the race on Friday. That seems important to him, doesn’t it?” Lisa was cheerfully confident of her ability to wheedle this treat out of Steve and Jane hid her qualms. O’ what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! the old adage haunted her.

  But in spite of the worries at the back of her mind she could not help enjoying the races. There was such a festival atmosphere about the racecourse, and as ' Nubby had foretold they were constantly making new friends. The row of seats on the first tier of the grandstand, where Lisa’s chair could be easily installed, was always fully occupied by Steve’s party and his friends who came over to be introduced to the Lesleys. And Copper was always next to Lisa’s chair at the end of the row. Pete, with his driver Will Bates, was busy during the races taking tracking shots from the film truck.

  To Jamie’s delight, Georgie won the All-Comers on Rocket, and he was enriched by another five dollars.

  “If Uncle Steve wins on Ranger, I’ll get Mum a huge Christmas present! She will be home for Christmas, won’t she, Gran?”

  “Mebbe. It depends on how your great-gran is doing,” Mrs. Newbery closed her eyes for a moment against the bright scene on the racetrack, the cloudless sky, the sound of talk and laughter and thudding hooves. She was back in the stone cottage in Lochiemuir, wishing she could have been with her mother I in these last months ... but she couldn’t have left Steve in the lurch after that business in June, and Betty was a good girl. She would look after the old lady with loving care.

  To Joel’s disgust his horse Samson sprained a fetlock at the start of the eight furlongs and had to be withdrawn, and it was won by Billy Rogers on a pinto that Lisa said looked as if it had come straight out of Disneyland.

  It was Lisa who teased Joel, after the Ladies’ Handicap, “I thought you said you were short of women here, Joel. They look a promising enough field to me!”

  Certainly there were plenty of young and attractive women on horseback and in the stands. Lisa, looking critically at the riders in silk shirts and well-cut breeches, the girls and older women in gay summer clothes among the spectators, thought they would not have disgraced an Ascot meeting.

  Joel grinned sheepishly. “They come out in their war-paint for the races. But most of ’em is married, or bespoken. Or will be, by Saturday evening.”

  “It’s odd, the Blackmores not being here. I’ve never known them miss the races,” Mrs. Newbery said when the last event on Thursday—a steer-roping competition—was over.

  “Andy’ll be riding tomorrow,” Joel said drily, “he won’t miss the chance of winnin’ a thousand dollars!”

  Jane thought it was because Lisa was preoccupied with Copper that Steve was so attentive to her. He made a point of taking her to the tote to place her bets and Jamie’s and they spent a lot of time encouraging his friends in the saddling enclosure. So it seemed natural when he asked her to come and wish him and Ranger luck for the Pastoralist Stakes on Friday morning. It was the big race of the day.

  They went first to the tote to place Jamie’s five dollars on Ranger. Rather shyly, Jane added forty dollars of her own, and Steve’s dark eyebrows went up.

  “Plunging a bit, aren’t you? There’s class in this race—and twenty-five runners. We’ll have solid competition.”

  “Ranger’s going to win,” she smiled a little, “he told me so.”

  “Then you’d better come and remind him!” Steve grinned suddenly. There was a big crowd of people around the tote and the rails of the saddling enclosure. Steve guided her to a shady corner under a gum tree near the enclosure gate where the riders would come on to the track. “Wait here for us—I’ll go and meet Georgie and Ranger.”

  Jane nodded, leaning against the back of the tote building, utterly content not to think beyond the present, watching Steve’s tall figure weaving its way through the colourful moving crowd. She was looking forward to seeing him and Ranger win this race. Just for today, sh
e refused to allow anything to spoil the occasion.

  When she could no longer see Steve she watched the activity in the saddling enclosure, and waved to Tom Elliot who was adjusting Moonstrike’s girth.

  She recognised several of the riders whom she had met during the past two days. There was Conway Bassett of Fairfax, Sister Mollie’s brother. There was Lawley Stokes mounting Jabiru, and Paddy Shaughnessy on O’Riley ... Pete shouted a greeting from the back of his camera truck.

  Suddenly her heart lurched to a standstill. There was—but it couldn’t be. Jane thought she was going to faint, that she was having some ghastly hallucination. Yet the sun glinted on that unmistakable golden head before a broad-brimmed hat was thrust gaily on to it, cowboy-fashion.

  Someone opened the gate on to the course and Steve came out to her on foot; just inside the gates Georgie was holding Ranger, gentling him. The black stallion’s nostrils flared as he sensed the excitement all about him.

  “Jane! What the devil’s the matter? You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”

  Steve’s voice, worried and impatient, penetrated her shivering trance. She looked up at him, her face drained of colour, her eyes shadowed.

  “I—think I have—” she said faintly, “is—isn’t that Stewart over there, the other end of the saddling enclosure?”

  The crowd was thinning as it made its way towards the stands, leaving a clearway for the riders.

  Now, as Steve turned, they could see Stewart plainly. He was leaning down from the saddle, talking and laughing with the well-groomed woman in the safari suit standing beside the horse. His twin sister Alison. There was no mistaking her identity either.

  “My God! He’s got a nerve!” For a moment Steve looked as if he would stride into the enclosure and pull his cousin out of the saddle and settle his score once and for all, there in front of the crowd. Then suddenly he smiled at Jane, and put her hand inside his arm, and began walking her towards the enclosure.

  “I—can’t—” she whispered. But there was no escape from that compelling grip.

  “We’ll settle with Stewart later. Leave this to me—and, darling, smile! Smile at—that’s better. There’s only one way to get rid of—now smile and talk as if you hadn’t seen them—please, Jane!”

  “Ranger’s l-looking absolutely splendid, Steve!” she did her best, feeling dazed. Yet as they came up to the Finches the colour came back to her cheeks and as she looked up at the man on horseback anger gave her a sort of courage.

  As he turned his head and saw them, and the golden tan of his skin went a queer grey colour, and the laughing blue eyes stared at her and went suddenly completely blank, and the handsome mouth slackened like an idiot’s, Jane stopped trembling and looked at Stewart Finch with all the contempt that was in her heart.

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon, Stewart,” Steve said with a cheerful casualness that belied his set face. He slid his arm about Jane’s shoulders possessively. Georgie was leading Ranger towards them, oblivious of any tension, and none of the other riders paid them any attention at all.

  “I’m not on the Blue River territory,” Stewart said at last, insolently. Some expression came back into the blue eyes, but they were wary. “I’m riding High Jinks for Andy—I flew into the Marjorie yesterday. You don’t own the whole shire, Steve.”

  “So I see. I thought you would have had the sense to stay out of it all the same.” Steve’s deep voice actually seemed a little amused. “I think you’ve met Jane Lesley, my fiancée, Stewart, but she hasn’t met Alison. Stewart’s sister, darling.”

  Alison’s make-up could not hide the two spots of hectic colour in her cheeks as she drawled, “Well! This is rather sudden, Steve!” The smile she turned on Jane was bitter. She said very softly, “It’s funny, but a few months ago that introduction would have been the other way round! Steve and I were going to be married at the end of November, did you know?”

  “She knows.” Steve was laconic. A gesture from his hand stopped George coming any closer. “There’ll still be a wedding at Blue River, Alison.” He released Jane gently and looked directly at Stewart. He said quietly, “When the race is over you’re taking Alison back to Sydney, Stewart. Go where you damned well like, as long as it’s out of this shire. If you show your face here again you’ll go where you should have gone years ago, to prison.”

  “Charming!” Alison patted High Jinks on the neck.

  “I hope you leave this Outback overlord standing at the post, sweetie! I’m going to watch with Joan and Andy. Good luck, Stewart.”

  She turned and walked towards her friends without a backward glance. Steve mounted and held Ranger motionless a few feet away. Jane did not follow him at once. She was looking steadily at the man who had tricked her so despicably.

  “I was a fool, wasn’t I, Stewart? You see, we came—Lisa and I. You’ll see her on the stand—the pretty girl in the wheel chair. A cripple. If I were a man I think I’d thrash you for what you did to Lisa!”

  He leaned down from the saddle and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll explain everything, Janey. It was a—sort of joke. But on Steve, not on you and Lisa ... you can’t marry him! You came out to marry me—or is it the man with the Blue River you wanted?”

  Jane stared at him incredulously. She was finding it difficult to reconcile this handsome, sneering man with the man who had been her guest in Lilac Cottage, the man with the laughing blue eyes and the joke for everyone, the man so liberal with his—with the real Steve Forrest’s money. The man who had made love to her passionately, insistently, on his last evening in Melcoombe, bludgeoning promises out of her in return for a string of lies.

  Oblivious of Steve, holding Ranger steady beside the fidgeting High Jinks, of Alison and the Blackmores in the background, she said quietly, “I wouldn’t marry you now if you owned twenty Blue Rivers, Stewart.”

  “You little fool, you’ve spoiled everything!” Stewart snarled under his breath and moved away so sharply that she had to step back.

  Her face flaming, Jane kissed Ranger and whispered shakily, “Good luck, boy!”

  “That’s fine for Ranger. What do I get?”

  Amazingly, Steve was smiling down at her most lovingly. He held out a hand and drew her beside him and leaning down he kissed her long and deliberately. For Alison’s benefit, she supposed; but it was an earth-shaking experience.

  “I’ll see you over to the stand, darling,” he said when at last he released her. Like that she returned to her seat among the spectators, thankful for the trees and tote building that had hidden the scene from them, for their concentration on the strung-out, restless horses lining up for the big race.

  Copper spared Jane a glance as she took her seat l between Dr. Banjo and Joel. “You’ve got stars in your eyes, Jane—what have you been up to—fixing the race?”

  She laughed shakily. “Sort of.”

  “I sure hope you fixed it right. I’ve got a hundred dollars on that stallion of Steve’s.” The American passed his binoculars to Lisa. “This is the best bunch we’ve seen yet. There’s some breeding out there today,” he caught the flicker of a grin on Joel’s monkey-face and added apologetically, “I guess it doesn’t always win, though. Some pretty unlikely broncs put up a grand show in the other races.”

  “Ar,” the stockman rolled himself a cigarette and lighted it. The Americans amused him. He wondered what they would make of a real muster if they came to the Blue River in the autumn. Then they’d see the purpose of crossing speed horses with Clydesdales and Percherons; the working horses on a muster need enormous strength and staying power more than speed, and courage when it came to managing a mob a thousand strong; cattle grown strong and wilful on the rich new grass that came with the rains.

  He added quizzically, “Every one of those unlikely broncs is a possible Melbourne Cup winner fer the chap that rides him here. It’s every ringer’s dream—training a horse fer the Cup.”

  “I wish they’d get off, I can’t bear much more of this s
uspense!” Lisa laughed, passing the binoculars across the gangway to Jane. “That enormous roan seems to be making trouble.”

  Copper consulted his race card. “I guess that’s High Jinks, owned by Andrew Blackmore—is that right, Joel?”

  Joel nodded. He threw a significant glance at Mrs. Newbery, who was suddenly looking troubled. “By Andy Blackmore. But ridden by Stewart Finch, seemingly.”

  “Oh—I thought—I couldna see properly. May I borrow the glasses, Jane?”

  Jane passed them up. Her own eyesight was very good, and though they were sitting on the lowest tier of the stand they were still well raised above the course.

  “It’s incredible!” Nubby murmured, half to herself, “Not a soul mentioned he was staying with the Blackmores—oh, I’d forgotten, Marjorie has been off the air for days. Mebbe that explains it.”

  “Maybe he wanted to give us a surprise,” Joel commented without expression. “Alison’s with him. I just saw her with Andy and Joan in the other stand.”

  “I’m sorry he came,” Nubby said on a sigh. “He’s aye wanted tae beat Steve for the Pastoralist. It’ll make a vicious contest out of something that is just good sport.”

  Jamie’s eyes were round. “I thought Uncle Stewart had gone away for always! Will he be coming home with us tomorrow, Gran? Will Uncle Steve have another flamin’ row with him?”

  “Whist, Jamie! Whatever gave you that idea, boy?” Nubby said, her manner more absent-minded than usual.