Master of Ransome: An Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  When she arrived at the office she saw that she needn’t have worried. Sam was doing very well for himself with a specially installed refrigerator and an impressive array of bottles.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ said Sam. ‘What? Brought your lunch with you? What goes on? Didn’t you think old Sam was capable of doing a spot of entertaining himself?’

  ‘I might have guessed, Sam. We haven’t seen you much up at the homestead and I thought you must be anti-social. I see I was wrong. You’re just very choosy.’

  ‘It’s not me that’s choosy, young ’un. It’s some of those fellers you’ve got up there at the homestead. A good yarn and a neat drop of Scotch with old Sam is more to the liking of some than gambols with the girls on the veranda.’

  ‘Are you expecting anyone to join you today?’

  ‘You never can tell. I just sit here like a spider in his parlour and see who walks in.’

  ‘So far it’s only me,’ said Sara, sitting herself down in the most comfortable chair that wasn’t Sam’s. She put her melon and the sandwiches on the table.

  Sam looked at her through half closed eyelids. He relaxed into his own chair and leaned back. He packed his pipe down with a new load of tobacco and looked up again at Sara. His eyes were still no more than slits in his face.

  ‘Young ’un,’ he said at length. ‘Don’t let me ever hear you make a statement like that again.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Sara in surprise.

  ‘A statement that includes those words “only me”. Who do you think you are, that you talk of yourself as “only me”? You’re the Missis of Ransome. An’ even without Ransome you’re Greg’s wife. You notice, mebbe, I left off the word Camden. Even without the Camden it’s something to be Greg’s wife. Supposin’ he was no more than a stockman on the north-west beat, he’s still worth being married to.’

  Sara looked at Sam thoughtfully.

  ‘You love him, don’t you, Sam? Why do you love him?’

  ‘Same reason you do. He’s the finest man north of twenty-six. And …’ He leaned forward and pointed the stem of his pipe at Sara. ‘From a young lady’s point of view he’s not such a bad-looking fella, either. You ask Julia.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sara slowly. ‘Ask Julia.’

  Sam leaned back in his chair.

  ‘Now we’ve come to the crux of it,’ he said. ‘That why you came down to have lunch with a fat old book-keeper?’

  ‘Yes. I think it was.’ She looked up. ‘I’ve no one else to talk to but you, Sam.’

  ‘Not Greg?’

  ‘Greg is always out and about. I don’t see him very much, you know.’

  ‘You could if you tried. Julia chases him all over the run.’

  Sara’s eyes were angry. ‘Is that what you would have me do?’

  Sam sucked on his pipe.

  ‘No,’ he said after a minute. ‘I don’t think I would.’

  They were silent for a few minutes.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s eat, and mebbe have a drink, eh? On full stomachs we can really loosen up.’

  Out of the refrigerator Sam produced some cold turkey and tomatoes. Sara opened the sandwiches from their packing of lettuce leaves.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Sam. ‘Hidden away here in my safe I’ve got a bottle of real Irish whisky. I think twice before I give anyone else but myself a nip of that.’

  Sara laughed.

  ‘You can put a teaspoonful in the bottom of a glass and fill it up with water, Sam. I won’t despise your precious Irish whisky. But I’d rather have a long drink than anything else.’

  Sam looked grieved. He did as Sara asked but looked sorrowfully at the glass he put on the table in front of her.

  ‘Drowned!’ he said. ‘Terrible waste. My father would turn in his grave to see it.’

  When they had eaten a little and sipped their respective drinks Sam asked Sara what it was that was troubling her.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between the ladies in the drawing-room. It depressed me. Somehow I suddenly wished I had someone to talk to. I wonder if one would have talked over these things with parents if one had had them at hand. Do young married people do that, do you think, Sam?’

  ‘So I’m to be Father? All right, give, Sara. What did you hear and when do you want me to hang ’em all out on the fence and beat ’em like carpets?’

  Sara laughed.

  ‘You sound like Jack Brownrigg. He offered to punch anybody’s nose for me.’ Sam was serious again.

  ‘Let’s leave Jack Brownrigg out of this. He complicates things more than you think, young ’un. Now what did you overhear?’

  ‘The ladies think that Greg and I don’t live close enough to one another. It isn’t very easy, Sam. Greg is so terribly busy, and how much we see of one another is our business. But I couldn’t help feeling miserable that I was the subject of gossip. I had felt I was helping very hard with the success of the party. All the time I was just somebody to be talked about.’

  ‘You’ll always be talked about. Everybody always is. Whatever kind of a person you are, good, bad or indifferent, you will be the subject of conversation between your friends and acquaintances. Why, we talk about you down here. Want to know what we say about you?’

  Sara looked at Sam in surprise.

  ‘We reckon you’re the best thing that ever hit Ransome. We reckon those bright eyes of yours and that clever peacemaking tongue of yours has done more for keeping the family together this muster than all the totals at the bottom of my books have done. Moreover, we like your pert little face and there isn’t a stockman on the station who wouldn’t put you in his pocket and ride off with you across the border, if it wasn’t for Greg already having a halter good and fast round your neck.’

  ‘Oh, Sam!’ Sara blushed. ‘You’re a flatterer.’

  ‘Not on your life, I’m not. Never flattered anyone in my life. Now let’s get back to the ladies in the drawing-room. Maybe you and Greg aren’t close enough together. He’s busy. It’s a terribly hard time for him with nearly a hundred people on the place as guests and the place to run too. Moreover, he’s got Lucifer’s pride. He wouldn’t eat out of your hand …’

  ‘Unless I ate out of his first?’ put in Sara quickly.

  ‘Now, I wasn’t going to say that. What I was going to say is this. Greg does things his own way, and in his own time. Give him time, Sara. You just carry on. You’re doing all right. But I’d clear that baggage Julia out of the place. Mind you, Julia can’t harm you. But she’s irritating.’ He paused.

  ‘She doesn’t irritate everybody. She doesn’t irritate Greg. She’s his cousin and he’s entitled to have her here if he wishes it.’

  ‘Ever seen Greg show irritation or what he’s feeling for anyone? Very close, Greg is, about his feelings. But he’s got ’em. You’ll be surprised one of these days. He’ll kick the whole works overboard when he’s good and ready. You’ll know all about it then, young ’un. Sparks’ll fly.’

  Yes, Sara thought. She’d nearly seen sparks fly today when Greg had roared at Nellie over the silver dishes. She did sense that Greg had the capacity for a blow-up in him. She wondered what it would be like if he blew up at her, Sara. Well, Sara had some spirit too. It ought to be a good fireworks show when they both blew up.

  Sara could not help smiling at this idea of histrionics. Surely she and Greg were much too much disciplined for such foolishness.

  But Sam saw the smile and the little lights in her eyes, and he leaned back in his chair.

  ‘That’s the girl,’ he said. ‘Stick that chin out … and to so-and-so with the ladies in the drawing-room.’

  ‘I’ll take your advice, Sam, and keep going. It’s done me good to have this talk with you. And now will you do something else for me?’

  ‘Fire away. You’ve only to ask.’

  Sara took a scrap of paper from her pocket. ‘You’re doing the session when the air opens up for Ransome, aren’t you, Sam? Would you send an order for me. I
took these numbers from David Jones’s catalogue and I’d like them sent through as soon as possible. Will I get the things quickest if I get them to send them by ordinary air-mail delivery or do you think it might be a good idea to get them to deliver them to Jack Brownrigg’s Airways office and then send him a wire? He’d know on his route what plane might be detouring for Ransome. He’d look after them for me, and see that I got them.’

  ‘What’s the hurry, young ’un? Why don’t you let ’em come by ordinary air-mail? Chances are you’d get ’em just as quick as Jack could get ’em through to you. That is unless you think that Jack ’ud take a flying visit to Ransome just to deliver them to you?’

  Sam was watching Sara through half closed eyelids again.

  ‘Oh no. I don’t want Jack to bring them,’ said Sara hastily. ‘He wouldn’t do anything as silly as that, surely? I just thought he’d contact any private plane coming this way, and they seem to be in and out all the time.’

  ‘I’d leave Jack Brownrigg out of it,’ Sam said evenly.

  Sara caught the note of seriousness in Sam’s voice.

  ‘Why, Sam …’ Then she broke off. Surely Sam, too, didn’t think the way the ladies in the drawing-room thought. A little flush of anger dyed her cheeks.

  ‘Then by ordinary air-mail, thank you, Sam. They aren’t as important as all that. If you really want to know, they’re ear-rings … dangling ones. Nice long dangling ones. To make my face look longer. There’ll be another evening dress party before everyone goes back and I want them to go with my new pearl satin dress.’

  Sara was looking at Sam with her chin well in the air.

  ‘Any objections to the improving of my appearance with a pair of dangling ear-rings?’ she asked.

  Sam took his pipe out and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to hide a smile. So young Sara was on her mettle, was she? She was going to see what a pair of dangling earrings would do to bolster up her confidence!

  ‘You know more about those things than I’ll ever know,’ he said at length. ‘If that’s what you want, young ’un, I’ll see you get ’em. And in record time.’

  There was the sound of footsteps outside and a sharp knock on the fly-screen door.

  ‘What’s been doing something in record time?’ It was Julia. ‘Are those stockmen from the Territory racing again?’

  ‘They never stop, Julia,’ said Sam, slowly rising from his chair. ‘Come in and cool us all down with that icy smile of yours. There’s a nice comfortable chair over there. Now what can Sara and I do for you?’

  Julia looked at the array of lunch remains and the empty glasses.

  ‘You two look as if you’ve been enjoying yourselves,’ she said.

  ‘We have,’ said Sam simply. ‘And now you’re here we’ll enjoy it better.’

  ‘I want guns, Sam,’ said Julia. ‘What sort of guns have you got in the store?’

  ‘Who you going to shoot first?’

  ‘It isn’t a “who”. It’s a “what”. I’m going to shoot crocodiles with the men tomorrow night.’

  ‘First I heard of a crocodile shoot tomorrow night,’ said Sam, looking at Sara.

  Sara shook her head in equal ignorance.

  ‘Greg’s rounding up two boatloads,’ said Julia, ‘I’m going too.’

  ‘Then you’d better ask Greg for a gun. He’s got a rack up there behind the office door.’

  ‘Greg doesn’t know yet. I’m simply going to be there at the crucial moment. When Greg finds me there he won’t say no. He never does.’

  Julia shot a sidelong glance at Sam. Sam did not miss it.

  ‘He always takes extra guns with him. You’ll have to have one of those. I can’t let those things out of the store without registering them with the police. You know that, Julia.’

  ‘Were you thinking of going, Sara?’ asked Julia.

  Sara was at a loss. Greg had made plans of which she knew nothing, and yet he had evidently told Julia. Sara didn’t want to admit Julia knew more of Greg’s movements than she did herself. Sara took the simple way out.

  ‘I’m not going, Julia. I can’t shoot and I imagine that women’ll be in the way. I think the men want a night out and I wouldn’t spoil it for them.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Julia with a supercilious smile. ‘Women, the right kind of women, never spoil things for men. There’s nothing they like more than pleasant female company when in a boat on the river.’

  She stood up.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll have to seek elsewhere,’ she added. ‘Probably Marion can raise a gun for me.’

  Sam let her out the screen door and stood watching her a minute as she walked slowly and gracefully towards the homestead gate.

  When he turned round his and Sara’s eyes met. He shook his head slightly.

  ‘All the same, there’s a lot of things about Julia I admire,’ said Sara, anticipating his next remark. ‘She always looks beautiful. She never looks ruffled. Her skin is never burnt and she can ride and shoot and face the desert and crocodiles without flinching.’

  ‘True,’ said Sam. ‘But then there’s an awful lot at stake, isn’t there?’

  His eyes looked searchingly into Sara’s. He said nothing and neither did she, but each knew what the other meant.

  The lateness of the night before and the activities of the morning had induced a soporific laziness in everybody that evening. Everybody, even the younger people, voted an early night, and so it was barely eight-thirty when Sara found herself in the office looking through the papers that had come in by a friendly traveller who had picked them up at the airport.

  She was standing by the table leafing through the papers when Greg came in.

  ‘Have you had some tea, Sara?’ he asked. ‘Or would you like a port wine and biscuit? I suppose, like everyone else, you’re going to bed too?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going to bed. I’m very tired. I don’t think I’ll have any supper. You look tired too, Greg. Do you have to work in here tonight?’

  ‘Not tonight. I’m going to bed. I’m taking some of the lads out on a crocodile hunt tomorrow night, and that will mean no sleep at all.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about it.’

  Greg, who by this time was looking through the mail, did not appear to notice the curious note in Sara’s voice. Nor did he appear to notice that she had heard already about the crocodile hunt. And not from him.

  He threw the bundle of mail on the table.

  ‘That can wait,’ he said. ‘I’m off to bed. You’ll probably be thankful to leave the office doors open tonight. It must have been rather airless for you these last few nights. I’m sorry.’

  ‘My windows are wide and let in plenty of air. All the same I’d rather have the doors open. I don’t feel so cut off then.’

  Greg looked at Sara quizzically.

  ‘Well, my room was darned airless,’ he said. ‘Sara, shall you and I go for an early ride tomorrow morning? I don’t seem to have seen much of you.’

  ‘I’ve been so busy.’

  ‘Splendidly busy,’ he said gently. ‘I ought to thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me. It was all part of the bargain, wasn’t it? Besides, I have liked doing …’

  She turned away to bite her tongue and prevent herself from saying too much. She had no right to have any feelings because the bargain had been that and no more. She had no right to have any feelings because Greg was a man wrapped up in his work and the only time he had to give to human relationships was in order to pigeon-hole people into the decorative or the useful.

  ‘You didn’t say whether you would like an early morning ride, Sara.’

  ‘Yes, I would, Greg. Very much. Thank you for thinking of it. Well …’ She hesitated in her own doorway. ‘Good night, Greg. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘It will be very early. Before the others stir, I think. I’ll call you. I’ll just get Dave to go down to the stables and tell them to bring in Stella and my own horse. Good night, sleep well.’

/>   It was barely dawn when Sara and Greg went down to the stables. Blue-Bag had the horses saddled and Andy Patterson was standing by with steaming mugs of tea.

  ‘You know, Sara,’ Andy said with a grin, ‘the first time you went up on a hoss I said to myself, “That girl’s a born rider. She’ll be out on a thoroughbred before the drovers hit the Wyndham track”. And I was right.’

  There was a third horse in a stall and Sara recognised it as the roan Julia used. With a pang of misgiving she wondered if Julia was coming too. Had Greg included her in the invitation? She felt that in going out early in the morning with Greg she had reached a certain mile-stone in their relations. She remembered the first morning at Ransome when she had seen Greg and Julia galloping up the rise on their return from a similar excursion. It had seemed to underline a relationship that must be close. Now here she was herself in the same role. She felt as petulant as a small child at the sight of Julia’s roan.

  However, Greg took no notice of the other horse, and presently held the stirrup to help Sara mount. He swung up into his own saddle and led the way out of the yard.

  ‘Now you got Greg with you, you can go play with the crocodiles, Sara,’ said Andy with a grin.

  Sara’s momentary depression dropped from her and she smiled back at Andy.

  ‘With Greg on hand,’ she said, ‘I can go play with anyone I like.’ She stole a glance at her husband from under a fringe of eyelashes but Greg showed no signs of having heard.

  ‘We’ll canter down to the creek crossing,’ he said. ‘I want to see how far along the pad they’ve brought the mob in from the Hiding camp.’

  Sara often thought about the strange names of the water-holes on the station. Some were just called ‘bores’ in numerical order. This was where wells had been sunk to reach the water underground. But the natural waterholes all had names that had something to do with their first finding. There was Deadman’s Camp, Hell’s Own, One Tree, You-and-Me, Love’s Lurking … and a host of others. Today they were to look at the cattle coming in from Hiding. Who, Sara wondered, had they found hiding at this water-hole in the early days? She would ask Greg some other time. At the moment he was cantering effortlessly down the ant-hill slope and some distance from her.