The cook nodded, and she and her helper began moving purposefully in the large, spotless kitchen as Alexandra left.
Returning to the parlor, Alexandra refilled the men's glasses and poured a small glass of sherry for herself, then sat down and joined the conversation.
For four years, the wool clip at Tibooburra Station had been so large that separate drays had been coming from Sydney for it, instead of those that went to Wayamba Station. Ever since then, the contacts between the stations had diminished. When the subject turned to the breeding of sheep, Pat was surprised to find that Alexandra and David had bought several purebred Merino rams from Camden Park during the past year.
David explained that Alexandra was friends with the Macarthurs, who had agreed to sell her the rams, and two stockmen had been sent to drive the sheep to the station. Within the next two or three years, he added, the cost of the rams should be offset by an increase in wool production. Pat asked to be informed of the results, then when David mentioned showing him improvements in the home paddock, he regretfully replied that he would have to leave early the next morning. David objected, trying to talk him into staying longer, but Pat insisted that he had to return to his station as soon as possible.
Alexandra added her protests to her husband's, but she had already suspected that the visit would be a short one. Sensitive to nuances of attitude in those she knew well, she had concluded that Pat had come for some specific reason that he would reveal in his own good time.
A few minutes before dinnertime, when the children were having their meal in the staff dining room off the kitchen, Alexandra went to check on them. After spending a few minutes with the boys, she left, feeling frustrated and uneasy. Morton had been eating heartily until she had gone into the room, then he had begun picking at his food.
Dinner went well, the food prepared as expertly as always, and the men ate well. Alexandra suspected that Pat might have preferred a billy of tea to the riesling, and even though she liked the wine, it was a preference she could understand. From time to time, she longed for tea from a fire-blackened billy, with its overtone of eucalyptus smoke.
After dinner, they returned to the parlor, where the men filled their pipes, and Alexandra poured brandy for David, more rum for Garrity, and a small glass of mint cordial for herself. For an hour, the conversation continued to be that of friends who have been apart for a time. Then, when Pat began talking about an official in the chief justice's office in Sydney, Alexandra knew he had arrived at the purpose of his visit.
"As a justice of the peace," Pat continued, "I've exchanged correspondence with him frequently over the years. We've become quite friendly, and he's notified me of various things that happened there. In his last letter, he said that the governor and his staff have decided to concentrate on surveying crown lands so they can be sold to raise revenues."
"Does he think that will affect us?" David asked. "This area hasn't even been officially explored, Pat. It can't be surveyed, because on the maps of the colony in Sydney, it's still a complete blank."
"Aye, for now," Pat agreed. "But some of the blanks are starting to be filled in." He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to David. "That's a copy of the latest map from the colonial surveyor's office, and you may keep it."
After glancing over the map, David handed it to Alexandra as he and Pat continued talking. Holding it to the light of the lamp on the table beside her chair,
she studied it. While it was primarily of the east coast to the north and south of Sydney, it was more complete than any map she had ever seen. New villages were shown, and it included river systems and other features in an arc some two hundred miles inland from Sydney.
She folded the map and put it aside, listening to Pat. He speculated that within a few years, the region would be explored, then declared crown lands. "We have only grazing licenses, David," he pointed out. "That's far from property titles, so we'll be on a slippery slope."
"Perhaps, but there are rights by tenure and useage. I'm not a lawyer, but I know that such rights exist in common law."
"Well, there's a lawyer in Sydney who I've done business with a few times, and I've written to him about this. If my station is threatened, I'll try the courts first, then lead and gunpowder last. But I thought I'd best warn you and Mistress Kerrick so you can plan your own measures."
David expressed his thanks, and Alexandra added hers. Turning to other things, the discussion continued for a time. Their friendship sealed by years of shared experiences, all three of them were reluctant to end the evening. Finally, the hour growing late, David showed Pat to his room as Alexandra went to the children's rooms.
Jonathan was sound asleep, but he immediately stirred when she bent over his bed to kiss him. He drowsily put his arms around her neck and kissed her, then fell back to his pillow, asleep again almost instantly.
Her other son was awake, his breathing shallow, but he acted as if he were asleep. "I shan't give you any peace and let you rest until you give me a kiss, Morton," she said teasingly.
He turned and kissed her, but it was perfunctory, and she could sense his coldness. Ignoring his attitude, she combed her fingers through his hair, tucking the covers around him, then left his room.
In their room, David prepared for bed as Alexandra sat in front of the dressing table and brushed her hair. They briefly discussed the problem of the land survey, then Alexandra mentioned her concern about Morton. "He seems more resentful and very cold toward me of late," she mused. "I wonder if I'm being too severe with him."
"Severe?" David echoed, laughing. Standing behind her, he pushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. "You're so sweet and gentle that you can't even be firm with the boys unless it's fully deserved."
Alexandra smiled at him in the mirror, then smothered a sigh and continued brushing her hair when he moved away. Long before, she had found out that he had a lack of moderation in his feelings, a characteristic that had made him suspicious of all women after his first wife had betrayed him. Instead of being loved, she was adored, with no faults as far as he could see. It was richly gratifying, but it also had its disadvantages.
The next day, after Pat left, Alexandra worked with the boys on their lessons for an hour before leaving them to go riding. She rode down the hill and out on the track to be alone for she had three things to ponder. The first was that she might be pregnant again. She and David longed for a daughter, and she weighed whether to tell him immediately. Then, not wanting to raise his hopes, she decided to wait until she was certain she was pregnant.
The other two mattersthe possibility that the region would eventually be seized as crown lands, and her relationship with Mortonwere far more complex, the solutions elusive. Increasingly, she had seen traits in Morton that reminded her of Enos Hinton. Just as Hinton had said, she was unable to exorcise the bushranger from her life.
Thinking about her problems, she stopped on the track and gazed over the home paddock. The warehouses, cookhouse, barracks, shearing shed and its pens, and other structures in the complex of buildings covered acres to the west of the hill. East of it, gardens, fruit orchards, and a dozen cottages for married stockmen spread along the creek. Further down the creek was an Aborigine village. The stone mansion overlooked all of it and the surrounding countryside from the plateau on the hill.
To her, the value of the station was on a scale where money was completely irrelevant. It was a way of life, and Alexandra shrank from thoughts of losing it. The home paddock was a teeming center of activity in a vast wilderness, the focal point of over a million acres where some seventy-five thousand sheep grazed. It provided full employment for scores of people, as well as substantial income for thousands more in the path of the tons of wool that eventually reached English mills.
That train of thought suddenly gave Alexandra an idea about how to protect the property. She had considered the course Pat had chosen, which could involve years of litigation, and dismissed it. What she wanted was a
means that would produce results quickly as well as conclusively, ending in a clear title to the land instead of the conditional right of occupancy that could be the result of a court settlement.
That clear title could be obtained only by a land grant, which seemed out of the question. Land near Sydney was sold in parcels that ranged up to a hundred acres, so it appeared unlikely that a request for a grant of over a million acres would be received favorably, to say the least. But as she pondered her idea, she recalled the map that Pat had brought, and a way of drawing favorable attention at the highest level occurred to her.
Her thoughts racing, she realized that even pursuing the idea was open to question, but at least it was a possibility. Deciding to investigate it, she rode back toward the house.
As she entered the house, Amy was coming down the stairs, her round, rosy face distraught. ''Thank goodness you're here, madame," the nurse said. "Master Morton has been misbehaving rather badly."
Alexandra drew in a deep breath and sighed grimly as she went up the stairs, and the nurse hurried after her. "What happened, Amy?"
"I noticed that he hadn't touched his sums," the nurse explained, "so I told him that he should set to work or you would be displeased with him. Then he became very angry, and . . . Well, you'll see, madame."
The woman opened the door for Alexandra. Sitting on his stool and frowning sullenly, Morton ignored her as she entered the room. His chalk board was tipped over onto the floor, and chalk scrawls were slashed over the sets of numbers she had drawn on the board. Jonathan worked feverishly, darting apprehensive glances at her.
"Amy, take Master Jonathan out into the gardens," she said.
The nurse beckoned and the boy ran to her. Then the door closed behind them.
"Morton," Alexandra said quietly, "if you can give me a reasonable explanation for this, I won't punish you." As he silently shrugged, her patience ended: "Tell me why you did this, Morton!" she snapped.
"I was angry," he muttered, still not looking at her.
Knowing it would be useless to question him further, Alexandra tried to convince herself that it had been the act of a rebellious, willful child. She wanted to believe that, but was unable to. His anger seemed too much like the blind, unreasoning rage that she had seen in Enos Hinton, the brutal, mindless striking out at any nearby object or person.
"I must think and decide upon an appropriate punishment," she told him. "Go and stand in the corner until I return."
He glared at her, then turned and went to a corner. Her blood ran cold as Alexandra clenched her hands into fists so tightly that her fingernails pressed into her palms, and she wanted to scream. In the instant that his gaze had met hers, she had seen Enos Hinton's feral eyes glowering out of her son's small face. Shaken to the depths of her being, she left the room.
Downstairs, she struggled to put that hate-filled glare out of her mind, and concentrated on her idea for getting a land grant and wondered if it was feasible. When she did, her difficulty with Morton fell into place with the idea, a possible solution to her problems with the boy occurring to her. She ran out of the house, looking for David.
He was at the windmill with two jackaroos helping him repair it. Going toward him, Alexandra felt the warm, comfortable sense of emotional and physical security he provided. Towering over the jackaroos, the large, powerful man she loved deeply appeared capable of anything. Alexandra knew, however, that she alone could resolve the problems with Morton, if indeed there was any solution at all.
When she took him aside and explained her idea, she was glad that she had said nothing about her uncertain pregnancy. She knew that if she had, he would have been obstinately against her traveling anywhere. He still objected, always wanting them to be together as much as possible.
"I can send for Adolarious," he told her. "Your way of going about getting a land grant is excellent, and it might well succeed. Adolarious can probably do what you need, but you don't have to go there. He should be more than glad to come here, considering the clothes and other things you've sent him over the years."
"Even so, he doesn't like to come here, and what I want done is entirely outside his duties as a stockman. But there's another reason why I want to go." She briefly explained what Morton had done, adding that she wanted to take him with her. "While we're by ourselves, away from all distractions, I may be able to reach a better understanding with him."
"Perhaps all he needs is a thrashing," David suggested, frowning.
"David, I would take a stock whip to him if I thought it would be of any avail. But defiance is only driven in deeper by a thrashing."
His frown fading, he smiled at her fondly. "Could you be seeing something of someone in the boy that isn't there?" he asked gently. "I know you've always feared that, love. But he's your son and mine, no one else's, and many boys are difficult to control."
"I'm only a mortal human being, David. If I were omnipotent, I would gaze into his nature like seeing into a crystal goblet. As it is, I can only interpret what seems to be there and act upon my beliefs."
"You're the most perfect human being God ever created," David assured her earnestly. Then he looked away, sighing and nodding. "Very well, Alexandra, I'll have some men escort you to the northwest paddock."
"David, I won't need a large escort, because I"
"You'll have an adequate escort," he said firmly, interrupting her. "You'll also have everything else needed for your safety and comfort, because I intend to see to it myself."
Alexandra smiled, standing on tiptoe to kiss him, then returned to the house.
Jonathan would have received the news about the journey with delight, regarding it as an adventure. Morton, however, appeared to view it as the punishment for his temper tantrum, nodding glumly when she told him.
At dawn the next morning, Alexandra and Morton set out with the escort. When she had first thought of going to see Adolarious, Alexandra had anticipated being accompanied by no more than a stockman and a jackaroo, but a long procession moved away from the house. Two stockmen had four jackaroos with them, along with eight pack horses loaded with everything she might possibly need, including canvas for a tent if it rained.
There was no threat of rain, only a few fleecy clouds against the rich blue of the sky as the sun rose. Over the years, tracks had developed between the paddocks. The horses moved at a slow trot as the track wound through great sweeps of spinifex and mallee, and past groves of gaunt shaggybarks and silvery, ghostly gum trees. In places, dead trees were rotting skeletons of wood, their bare, gray limbs stretched up to the sky.
Riding beside Alexandra, Morton was silent. She knew he would eventually talk to her out of sheer loneliness, away from his brother and Amy. A couple of the jackaroos were only a few years older than the boy, but Alexandra knew he would avoid their companionship. They were boisterously playful with each other, which Morton disliked.
Alexandra made no attempt to converse with him, enjoying the journey as she waited for him to talk. Amid the constant chatter of gloriously colorful lorikeets, rosellas, and cockatoos, she watched wombats, kangaroos, and other animals race away from the horses. Around every turn in the track was another view of the land she loved, the outback.
At sunset, they camped beside a billabong, and the jackaroos kindled two fires several yards apart. Through lack of recent practice, Alexandra burned a finger slightly while cooking, but the meal was more than worth it. The most delicious cuisine prepared by the cook suffered in comparison with the simple food prepared over a fire and eaten as the after-glow of sunset faded into dusk over the immense outback.
Morton spoke to Alexandra the next day, but it was mostly grumbling. Flies hovered and he said that he wished one day to be away from insects and never to have to ride a horse again. Following up on the conversational opening, Alexandra asked him what he wanted to do in life. "Simply get away from here," he replied, batting at flies.
"Very well, you can do that," she told him. "I love it here, but that doesn't
mean that you should. You could live in Sydney, if you wish."
The boy had apparently never seriously considered that he could live elsewhere, and he gazed at her thoughtfully as he weighed what she had said. Then he dropped the subject, talking desultorily about other things. At their campfire that evening, however, he brought it up again and told her about his ambitions, which were understandably vague at his age. They involved a sedentary way of life, an occupation in an urban setting.
"Perhaps a position as a functionary in the colonial government," Alexandra suggested. "Or in business, like my brother, Creighton."
"What does he do?"
Never interested in her brother before, Morton listened closely as she talked about Creighton. Since the death of their mother, he had moved into the family household with his wife and three daughters. He still managed the family business while her father concentrated on his law practice. Over the years, she had maintained an affectionate correspondence with Creighton. But she had never heard from her father, even when her mother had died.
In some of his letters, Creighton had mentioned facts about the family business. Alexandra told Morton about them, as well as what she could recall from when she had been with the family. In simple terms, she explained the principles behind investments in shipping, land, and the other business interests in which Creighton was involved.
The boy was keenly interested, and the conversation continued during the following days while they rode up the track. At noon on the day after they reached the huge northwest paddock, the permanent fold at the center of it came into view. The others dismounted to wait, and Alexandra rode ahead to the cluster of bark huts beside the fold.
Several small children peeked around the huts at Alexandra in timid curiosity, and the Aborigine woman beside the fire held a baby as well as a child almost large enough to walk. She pointed out the valley to the north where the flock was grazing, and Alexandra thanked her and turned toward it. Soon, the flock came into view. Although five of his children were employed in various positions on the station, Adolarious still had plenty of help, because four youths were with the dogs watching over the flock.
Outback Station Page 30