The Call of the Pines

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The Call of the Pines Page 20

by Lucy Walker


  That is, to everyone except Tracy. She turned on Cherry with considerable disdain.

  ‘You might have told me you had that,’ she said. ‘We were supposed to share everything.’

  ‘Like cigarettes, for instance,’ said Cherry, and smiled so that her pretty teeth caught an edge of silver from the light in a tree nearby. ‘I did refrain from using it, and you can’t say the same of the cigarettes.’

  The ‘heart’s desire’ that Tracy had gained and which Stephen had spoken of in Cherry’s room at the Residency had been explained away.

  When Hugh and Betty had gone to see Tracy before they called on Cherry in the late afternoon Tracy had held out her hand as Hugh had come in and said: ‘I have saved your infant son’s life from the perils of the jungle. Namely pythons. I want my reward, please. One thousand pounds so I can go back to London and get on with my dancing.’

  Hugh who rarely laughed had thrown back his head and laughed loudly.

  ‘Okay, Tracy, you win,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trustee for your money long enough and you’ll be twenty-one in two months’ time. You can have some of it now.’

  Betty had said: ‘Wouldn’t it be much more fun to settle down and marry Stephen, Tracy ‒’

  ‘I considered it,’ Tracy had said from the depths of her pillows for she, like Cherry, was still in bed when the Dentons’ plane had flown in from Yulinga. ‘He works too hard. And by the same token so do the rest of you. I’d rather dance.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he asked you,’ Betty guessed shrewdly.

  ‘How right can you be!’ said Tracy. ‘Now if you’ll just sign a cheque or two as pin money in the meantime, Hugh darling, and then retire to some place else, I’ll get up and book my passage.’

  The occasion had been too joyous for the entire Denton family to do anything but laugh at Tracy and let her have her own way. Alan Donnelly later suggested it was she who had put that hoodoo on the plane. Anything to get before the footlights of Covent Garden.

  Stephen was the only one absent at the early stages of that dinner party.

  Alan Donnelly’s girl turned out to be petite, attractive and starry-eyed about being engaged to a hero-pilot. Alan was nearly smug but not so smug that he forgot to tell Cherry at frequent intervals what a marvellous pal she had been in troubled times.

  There was not only an atmosphere of gaiety about that gathering but also one of mysterious anticipation. This last had something to do with Stephen’s absence.

  Cherry gathered from desultory remarks that he had gone out to meet ‘that plane’. She hadn’t yet discovered what ‘that plane’ was nor why its importance. Planes came into Timor Bay from all over Australia. Alan’s girl had come in on one from Alice Springs. Whatever his purpose in meeting this one it had not yet been divulged but Cherry had a feeling everyone except herself was in some kind of a secret. There was an atmosphere of conspiracy. She did not try to probe it for she felt that if they had meant her to know they would have told her.

  Perhaps there were other unknown Denton relatives arriving. Perhaps it was a surprise in the form of letters or messages from home. That would be it. He’d gone to get the mail so there would be something special for Cherry as well as for everyone else.

  Dear Mummy and Dad! How thrilled they would be to know she was safe.

  Suddenly Cherry knew she couldn’t bear it if there weren’t any letters. Would they have had time to write and the mail get here? They would have heard the news yesterday midday when Alex Kunder had radioed from his car when he found them. That was now thirty-two hours ago. Yes, there would have been time if that mystery plane was from the West Coast instead of from Sydney or Adelaide.

  Well, she wouldn’t ask. She might be disappointed.

  They had had hors d’oeuvre and Hugh was discussing the wines with the steward when Cherry saw Stephen come out of the hotel entrance and begin to come across the half-lit garden towards them. He had someone with him. Two people, in fact. A man and woman, and he was walking between them. The woman’s hand was on his arm as if he was leading her with pride. The man walked with careful dignity on the other side of him. The light was behind them so Cherry couldn’t see who they were.

  Then suddenly her heart thumped.

  Was it? It couldn’t be! It was!

  She half rose in her chair, then sank down again. Then suddenly she stood up, pushed back her chair and ran across the garden.

  She was in her mother’s arms, then Dad’s arms. Then back to her mother again.

  She was saying the silliest things but none of them mattered. Mrs. Landin was saying, ‘There! There!’ and her husband was wiping his eyeglasses with immense care.

  Stephen stood back in the shadows. Presently he went towards the table, leaving the three of them alone for a few minutes. Later he turned round.

  ‘Come on, Cherry,’ he said firmly. ‘Bring my future mother and father-in-law over to meet my relatives.’

  Cherry was back to earth with a start.

  ‘Mummy ‒’ she said imploringly.

  ‘He’s told us all about it, dear,’ Mrs. Landin said. ‘On the way into town from the plane. And he was telling Dad all about it in the lounge while I had a bath, and changed. Poor Dad, he’s hardly had time to dress properly himself. But he doesn’t mind because he’s so pleased.’

  ‘Dad …’ Cherry began.

  ‘It’s made us very happy, Cherry,’ he said. ‘Now when his brother and wife come down south for their holiday in the Street of the Pines you and Stephen can come to us.’

  ‘And when we get too old and doddery for that,’ Mrs. Landin said excitedly, ‘we’re to have a small house on the station near you. Of course I’ve been up here in the north before. That’s how I knew about you, darling. And I know how big those stations are. Big enough for a hundred houses.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy!’ Cherry said desperately. ‘But he’s done all this without telling me.’

  ‘I know, dear. You see, he had to find out if you’d given us a promise about coming back at the end of the year. He knew it was someone, and his sister-in-law told him she thought it was Dad. Then, of course, he had to get our permission for you to break the promise. He is so honourable. I’ve heard it’s quite out-dated for young men to ask parents’ permission these days, but Stephen is not at all like that. Most correct and punctilious, I would say.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Go ahead. I like this Stephen very much. He’d have to measure up pretty big for me to give you up, you know that, don’t you, my dear?’

  Stephen had left the table. He came up behind Cherry now and slipped his arm along her shoulders.

  ‘The man from down south has given up, Cherry,’ he said softly.

  Stephen stood holding Cherry imprisoned by his arm while the older couple went across the garden to the table. Hugh Denton had stood up and was performing the introductions. From the distance Stephen and Cherry stood watching. At last Stephen put up his other hand and turned Cherry’s face towards him.

  ‘Well?’ he said, the old amused laugh in his voice. ‘You’re not going to ruin their pleasure, are you? They’d be terribly disappointed if you turned me down now.’

  Cherry swallowed to get rid of a strangled feeling in her throat.

  ‘Stephen, don’t you want to know if I love you?’ she pleaded.

  ‘You do, darling. It began the night you came to Yulinga, and has gone on ever since. And will go on for ever more. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  She nodded her head, half fearful, half madly happy.

  ‘Just call it chemistry,’ he said, ‘if you can’t say, “I love you”.’

  ‘Chemistry,’ said Cherry suddenly.

  The ice was broken. With a catch in her throat she went into his arms. He drew her back into the shadows of the trees and kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose and her chin. Then lovingly he kissed her mouth.

  ‘When this party is over,’ he promised, ‘I’ll bring you back here and tell you some more about how chemistry works.’


  ‘Yes, please,’ said Cherry. ‘I didn’t learn much about it at school.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Stephen sternly as he took her arm and led her back to the circle at the table.

  Hugh Denton saw them coming and was on his feet.

  ‘We’ve got the champagne poured,’ he said. ‘All we’re waiting for is the second couple to toast.’

  Cherry and Stephen were almost pushed down into two chairs beside Alan Donnelly and his fiancée. The glasses were raised and the champagne in them sparkled in the reflected lights from the trees.

  As the others drank, Stephen took Cherry’s hand and put it in the crook of his arm so that he could hold it pressed against his body. She turned her head and looked at his profile.

  Oh, Stephen! her heart cried. I love you. I love you. She was too shy to put it into words just then, but later, when they would be alone together …

  She looked at Dad, who was smiling at her.

  ‘To my daughter,’ he said proudly.

  Books by Lucy Walker

  from Wyndham Books

  The Call of the Pines

  Also coming in 2019

  Girl Alone

  The One Who Kisses

  The River is Down

  Reaching for the Stars

  Heaven is Here

  and more

  Wyndham Books is reissuing

  Lucy Walker’s novels in new ebook editions.

  Be the first to know about the next reissue

  by signing up to our free newsletter.

  www.wyndhambooks.com/lucy-walker

 

 

 


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