by Nevil Shute
The outboard motor boat was there upon its trailer, just as Stan had told her. They took it up one weekend to Wallowa Lake and she braved the cold water, incredibly cold to her after Australia, to try water-skiing on a board first of all. She tried water-skis once or twice but never mastered them, mostly because she found the water and the wind so cold that she could only bear it for a little time. “I think you’ve got to be about fourteen years old for this,” she said.
Stan laughed. “I guess that’s right. It’s better down in Florida, ’n places like that.”
He taught her to fish for trout with a spinning rod in the swift waters of the Hazel River, or to troll for them in the lake behind the boat, and she caught a few small fish with great glee. These were the amusements of the weekend; in the week they used to go together to the outdoor drive-in movies in the Ford sedan which he had acquired through the firm, sitting together very close in the love scenes. Sometimes they would spend an evening at home looking at the television, and though this held the attention of the Laird family and provided a topic of conversation with the neighbours next day, the girl from Australia found little interest in it and came to regard it as a somewhat trivial way of spending an evening. However, she did it with the rest.
She found that The Frontier was a very real thing to Oregonians. Chatting to Sam Rapke in his hardware store one day after buying a new can-opener for Helen, he said, “I guess you find things kinda rugged here after Australia. Of course, this country ain’t been settled for so long, and we’ve quite a ways to go before we catch up with the Eastern States. My Granddad, he came over with the first settlers, way back in 1859. Hazel was a frontier town then, and I guess it’s one still.” She looked out through the door at Main Street while he rambled on and saw the paved road with the traffic lights, the air-conditioned movie theatre, the big cars parked, the gas station, the drugstore on the corner, its window full of electric razors, cameras, and hot-water bags. She said politely, “I guess that’s right.”
Making orange bread with Claudia one day, the older woman said, “Of course, way over in the Eastern States I reckon folks don’t cook at home the way we do. The Frontier was just forest country eighty years ago. My mother used to say when she was a girl the flour used to come in sacks by ox cart right from Omaha on the Missouri River through Nebraska and Wyoming, and it took three months to get here. Women had to learn to cook in those days and not waste things, ’n that’s why we do it still. Over in the Eastern States I guess you just go out and buy orange bread any time you want.”
“It’s pretty much like that with us still,” the girl said. “Our flour comes from Geraldton by truck—that’s about eight hundred miles.”
Auntie Claudia stared at her. “But you get bread delivered?”
Mollie shook her head. “We live in the country, quite a way from any town.”
The explanation satisfied the older woman. “Folks here living upon ranches, they have to come into town to buy stuff, too.”
Little by little, as the weeks went by, the Frontier began to get her down. She made a trip or two with the Laird family on horseback up into the mountain reserve, and quickly realised the virtues of the western saddle on the steep mountain trails. She learned the use of chaps to keep the legs dry when riding in an uncertain climate, and once or twice she saw a rider with a six-shooter belted at the waist, and was properly impressed. But when she commented upon it, she was told that it was carried from habit and for an occasional shot at a cougar, a mountain lion which preyed upon young calves. It was patently obvious to her that there were no bad men or hostile Indians around Hazel for loyal ranchers to defend themselves against by force of arms. If there were any bad men the local motorcycle cops looked after them, and as for Indians, she found that they lived in reservations at the expense of the taxpayer, and were paid a few dollars now and then to dress up in their ancient glory to walk in parades that glorified The Frontier, while the tourists photographed.
Little by little she developed a distaste for Western movies and T.V.
She walked round once or twice with Mr. Laird to visit with Dan Eberhart, and to inspect the building that he was converting from a garage into a home for Ruth and her four children. She liked Mr. Eberhart, as indeed she liked most people that she met in Hazel, a grey-haired, somewhat worried little man who ran a small sawmill and was reputed to drink whisky in the privacy of his home. She watched the building to completion and with Helen Laird went round to help him with the curtains, his wife being away with Ruth. The family were due to arrive back in the first week of September, and Helen Laird and Mollie spent a busy week before their arrival machining curtain material and going round to put them up and to see how they looked.
“I guess you folks made it look real pretty,” said Mr. Eberhart one evening, surveying their labours. “It looked kind of mean before, but now it certainly looks homey. Ruth and Aimée will be mighty pleased.”
As Ruth’s arrival drew near, Stanton Laird became vaguely concerned. He had never told Mollie of his teen-age escapade, preferring to forget it, but now he felt uneasily that some explanation might one day be necessary. It was all over now, and half forgotten in the dim past, of no concern to anybody, yet there was no denying that Chuck’s first-born son was getting to look very like himself. He did not think it likely that Mollie would notice it or that anyone would call her attention to the likeness, yet it was indisputably there, and it was something that she should know about before they married. He did not want to marry under any false pretences, and one day it would be necessary for him to tell her all about it. Yet he shrank from doing so because there never seemed to be a very good opportunity, and as the time of Ruth’s return drew near he grew thoughtful and depressed.
Early in September Mollie got a letter from David Cope. She had heard once or twice from her mother, rather stilted, laborious letters that did not conceal the effort of the writing or the affection that lay behind them, but which gave her very little news. She found the letter from the English boy more informative. It ran:
DEAR MOLLIE,
So far as I can make out nobody seems to be writing to you very much from home so here goes. The last of the Americans have gone away now and there’s nothing but a few slabs of concrete on the ground and the septic tank, and three three-thousand gallon water tanks which I bought off them with some piping and brought over here. Got them for only a couple of quid each, a snip, but they didn’t want the trouble of carting them away. Most of them have gone to a place called Camp Hill on the coast near Broome; they’re sinking another trial well there. I got a letter from Ted last week; he says the mosquitoes are hell and they’ve tried spraying the whole area with D.D.T. from an aeroplane.
We had a really good rain this winter after you went and all the creeks are running, kind of makes up for the rain we didn’t have last summer. The sheep are doing well, what’s left of them. You’ve got some marvellous feed on your place out past your Fourteen bore, saved my bloody bacon and I’ll never forget it.
Clem Rogerson sacked Fortunate about the time you went but he wouldn’t go away until they threatened to get the constable out from Onslow. The cops got him anyway because he got drunk in town and started playing with his knives in the bar, so Sergeant Hamilton knocked him out and put him in the cooler, and we heard that he was headed for the looney-bin. But that wasn’t right because I heard last week he was working in the hotel at Five Mile Crossing as barman, so there’ll be some fun and games before long.
Your Dad and the Judge went down to Onslow for the ram sales and the races and on the first day the Judge put fifty pounds on Laramie Girl to win and lost it. He was a bit full and said later that he thought he was putting five pounds on but he put fifty which was all he had, so after that he hadn’t got any money for grog except what your father gave him and that wasn’t very much so he came back in pretty good shape. Mike was up here for a week doing the year’s accounts with the Judge just after you went. I asked him how much Laragh was lo
sing each year, but he sort of grinned, so I don’t think they’re losing very much. Wish I could say the same.
I’ve been going over to Laragh quite a bit since you went away. They love getting your letters and hearing all about America, so go on writing even if they don’t write much themselves. Pat has been teaching me to drink rum his way with a chaser; I haven’t got up to his quarter bottle tot yet, but I’m still alive, anyway. It’s been dull here since you went away, but your father says he’ll find me a yellow girl or a good-looking gin, if you can imagine such a thing, so I’ll be right.
All the best,
DAVID
The girl from Australia treasured this letter, though she did not answer it for some time. It seemed disloyal to be carrying on a correspondence with David Cope when she was virtually engaged to Stanton Laird. Yet the letter brought a breath of the wide spaces that she had grown up in, and that she was beginning to miss. She did not show this letter to anybody because there were some things that could not be explained. She could never hope to make Helen Laird or Claudia understand about the Judge, or her father’s way with rum, or Fortunate, or David’s deplorable remark about the yellow girl. There were some things that she would never be able to talk freely about to her new relations in Hazel, kind and affectionate though they were. There were some things in her background that they would never understand.
She kept the letter to herself, and read it once or twice a day in private. It was lovely to get news from home.
Ruth arrived back in Hazel a few days later, with her mother and the four children. The car had been sold and they came wearily and economically by train from Texas, a three-day journey through El Paso to Los Angeles and so up through San Francisco to Portland and to Hazel. They arrived early one afternoon and Helen Laird went down with Claudia to meet them at the depot and assist them home to the new cottage in the back yard of the Eberhart home. They returned later with a depressing tale of two worn, haggard women and four weary, fretful children, all in urgent need of rest and kindness in the haven that was Hazel.
“They’re just plumb tired out, all of them,” Aunt Claudia said. “It’s quite a ways to come by railroad in this weather, and it must be mighty hot still down south. I’m going to set right down now and make four fruit pies. I just can’t imagine they’ll be wanting to do any cooking for a day or two.”
“I guess I’ll make a kettle of soup that she can give the baby,” Helen Laird said thoughtfully. “Potato soup, with some of the chicken stock. I’ll take it over in the morning and see if I can do the shopping for them while they get themselves settled.”
Mollie said, “Is there anything I can do, Helen?”
The older woman turned to the girl. “She brought back a whole sack of dirty diapers. I know she’d appreciate it if somebody would put those through the washing machine, ’n hang them out.”
The girl nodded. “I’ll go round and get them right away.”
She walked out in the warm September sunshine and round the corner of the shaded street, and up two blocks to the Eberhart home. She walked round to the back and in at the back door, as they were used to doing. In the kitchen she ran into a strange woman, a tired woman of twenty-nine or thirty with white scars on her forehead and one cheek, cooking up some baby food over the stove.
Mollie said, “I’m sorry—my name’s Mollie Regan. I’m stopping with the Lairds. Helen said there were some diapers here wanted washing.”
The woman smiled wearily. “I’ll say there’s some diapers. About seventy or eighty. I’m Ruth Sheraton. Have you come to do them?”
“That’s right,” said the girl. “I’ll take them and do them in our machine, and bring them back as soon as they’re dry in the morning.”
“They’re all yours, sister.” She went and fetched a bulging sack of waterproof cloth. “This is mighty nice of you,” she said. “You don’t want to carry them, though. Wait till Pa comes back with the car, ’n he’ll drop them off at the Laird house for you.”
“I can carry them,” the girl said. “They’re no weight.”
“You don’t mind walking down the street with a sack of diapers?”
“No. I don’t mind.”
The woman looked at her with interest. “Say,” she said, “you’re English or somethin’, aren’t you? You wouldn’t be the girl came back with Stanton from Australia?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Well, what do you know! Say, I’m real glad to know you. Chuck and Stan were mighty good friends.”
“I know,” said Mollie. “It was a terrible blow to Stanton when he heard.”
The woman nodded. “It would have been …” And then she said, “Chuck always had lots of fun, whatever he was doing. But when you go having lots of fun in airplanes, I guess things are liable to happen, and that’s all there is to it.”
The girl nodded. “I suppose so.” She picked up the bag. “I’ll let you have these back as soon as they’re ready, tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“I’ll be real grateful,” said the woman. “’Bye now.”
Stanton, coming to the house from work, found Mollie hanging out row after row of newly washed diapers on the clothes lines at the back of the house. “Say,” he remarked. “Getting a bit ahead of the game, aren’t you?”
Aunt Claudia, overhearing, said, “Stanton Laird! How dare you say a thing like that! You start right in now and apologise to Mollie!”
“That’s all right,” the girl said equably. “I’m used to that kind of a remark.”
“I never heard such behaviour! Make him apologise, Mollie.”
To keep the peace, Stanton said, “Guess I’ll apologise.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Say,” he asked, “are these all Ruthie’s?”
“No,” she said. “They’re the baby’s.”
Aunt Claudia, disgusted, went indoors.
He grinned. “That’s mighty nice of you, Mollie. I just looked in to see how she was making out, and she told me you’d been over.”
The girl said, “I’m so glad to be able to do something to help. She looks as if she’s had a rotten time.”
“I guess she has …” He picked up a few moist diapers and began hanging them on the line with her. “It’ll be better for her now she’s back in her home town.”
She nodded. “It was probably a mistake staying on in Texas, wasn’t it? I mean, the associations?”
“Uh-huh. It’s been kind of difficult for them all round. They had to live somewhere till Dan got the cottage ready for them.” He paused. “He was in the office today, wanting to sell his Ford.”
“Sell his car? They’ve only got the one, haven’t they?”
“That’s right. Fifty-one model. He won’t get so much for it.”
“Is that to pay for the cottage, Stan?”
He nodded. “I guess it’ll be pretty rugged going for them for a while.”
“But she gets a pension, doesn’t she?”
“That’s right. But a lieutenant’s pension ain’t so much, honey. She’s reckoning on finding some kind of a job later on, when things get settled down a bit. Half time.”
He wanted to talk to Mollie about Ruth and her first-born, but no opportunity arose that night. In the Laird home the plight of the Eberhart family was the main topic of conversation at supper, as it was in many of the homes in Hazel. The girl from Australia found this open discussion of another person’s troubles to be distasteful, an invasion of privacy that ought to be respected. Yet there was no denying the sincere good feeling and desire to help that lay behind it. The women talked of nothing else all evening, but through all the talk ran a current of plans to assist. Even Mr. Laird said once to his son, “You know somethin’? I guess I’ll offer him ten fifty, ’n be prepared to go up to eleven hundred.”
“It’s not worth that much, Dad. The motor’s just about shot.”
“We might not lose on it. Anyway, it’s a coupla hundred more’n he’d get any other place.�
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When Stanton went to bed that evening he was troubled and unable to sleep. He was deeply concerned with the plight of Ruth, but even more concerned that he had not told Mollie yet about their early escapades. He felt that he had drifted into a position of duplicity without in the least intending to do so. He knew now that he should have told Mollie about Ruth much earlier, back in Australia before ever she had come with him to the United States, and yet it had not seemed important then, an old trouble that was practically forgotten. It was going to be far more difficult to tell her now, but she must be told. Somehow or other he must find an opportunity to tell her the whole thing next day, or on the day after at the latest. In far-away Australia he had never dreamed that a position like this could arise.
He lay in deep distress, wondering how he could get Mollie alone next day and broach this difficult matter. About midnight he reached out for the Bible by his bedside and began to leaf it through in search of guidance. He found nothing relevant to his particular situation and was growing drowsy through the comfort of the familiar verses, when one that was strange to him jerked him suddenly awake:
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
He stared at the words aghast; surely they did not refer to him? He read the context; they very well might. He had looked for a message in the Book, and he had got it with a vengeance.
He did not get a lot of sleep that night. He lay tossing restlessly in bed till it occurred to him that he was hot, and he got up and turned the heat off at the register, and half an hour later he felt cold and got up and turned it on again. He went on exercising the thermostat all night, and still he couldn’t sleep. When dawn came it found him thick in the head and tired to death, but completely resolved that he must tell Mollie all about it, and tell her at once.
He did it after breakfast. He said, “Say, Mollie, come out in the garden. I got somethin’ I want to tell you.” She followed him, wondering, and he led her round behind the barbecue where there was a little privacy. And then he said, “Say, did you ever get in trouble when you were at school?”