In fact it was probably that, she told herself, which accounted for her new ease and fluency in socialising. A genuine desire to help him in the only way she seemed capable of. And she was a little amazed at how, with the right incentive, with determination, she was Anally coping with her old bogey—shyness. I could probably have done it years ago, she thought once. Rob was right... But then who can say what the right incentive will be, and perhaps it is all part of growing up—especially when you're a late starter as I must have been. I bet Evonne at eighteen was quite a different proposition!
It was this thought that prompted her to mention the subject to Evonne. If anyone had told her—say on the day of Moira Stapleton's interview—that she and Evonne could achieve a rapport such as they now had, she would have rejected the idea out of hand. But now she knew she was going to miss Evonne when she left Mirrabilla, miss her straightforwardness, her intelligence, her company, the fun they had had cataloguing all the bits of history they found and the research they had started which Evonne claimed was making them authorities on the wool industry of Australia.
'Just think,' Evonne was saying that wet and windy evening, when they were ensconced in front of the den fire surrounded by memorabilia, 'it all started out with George the Third who had a strange passion for sheep, and the wife of the Spanish Ambassador to London who had a passion for matching cream carriage horses. That's how Australia eventually rose to fame and fortune on the backs of millions of sheep!'
'That's ... stretching it a bit, isn't it?' Clarissa said with a grin.
'Not at all! And besides that, it's riveting stuff. Just imagine it—first a British fleet passes a Spanish fleet and they stop for a friendly chat during which the Spanish present the British with some merino ewes, presumably to fall back on when they run out of meat. But they don't run out of meat and the ewes make it back to England alive. Whereupon they come to the notice of Sir Joseph Banks—Captain Cook's famous botanist mate, as we were taught ad infinitum at primary school—and he decides they should be presented to the King, a keen experimental farmer. Now the King is wrapped in their fine wool as opposed to the coarser type of wool you get from English sheep, but he had a problem. No rams!'
'No?'
'No. Definitely a no-no, in fact, my dear Clarissa,' said Evonne, shaking her gleaming black curls vigorously. 'You see, they aren't stupid in Spain. They're doing a roaring trade in their lovely fine merino wool and they don't see why anyone else should horn in on it. Thus, it's forbidden to export
rams, which the Spanish Ambassador himself, when approached on the matter, regretfully explains. All right. We now have a classic impasse.'
'We do?'
'We do. He's a man of conscience, obviously, the Spanish Ambassador. However, it comes to some crafty person's notice that his wife is—well,' Evonne raised a hand and fluttered it from side to side, 'put it this way, she has at least one weakness. She desperately covets the pair of matching cream horses that draw the King's state coach. Would she be prepared to possibly deal a death blow to Spain's stranglehold on the merino wool trade in exchange for a pair of Hanoverian matching cream carriage horses the like of which no one else has but the King, though?'
'You tell me, Evonne!' laughed Clarissa.
'The lady would, believe it or not,' Evonne said. 'So they get her horses and she arranges—obviously bypassing the Ambassador who might have been a lot older and a doting, rather blind husband, don't you think? But anyway, she arranges to have some merino rams smuggled out of Spain in return. Oh, Clarissa,' Evonne stood up, 'what dull times we live in! I think I'd have loved to have been the wife of the Spanish Ambassador, but I tell you what,' she said, with her dark eyes alight with mischief and mystery, 'it would have cost them a whole lot more than two horses!'
Clarissa jumped up herself. 'You would have made a wonderful Spanish Ambassadress! I can just picture you in a ... blue velvet riding habit with your hair in ringlets under a big hat with a curving brim and a tall feather with.. . maybe a patch on your cheek and slapping your gloves gently on your knee while you
bargain oh, so delicately!' She suited actions to words, pirouetting and looking out as if from beneath a large hat and holding her hands together in front of her.
'I brought you two some cocoa,' said Mrs. Jacobs, appearing with a tray and looking at them askance. 'It's late and I'm going to bed,' she added in a tone of voice that suggested they might be better off there to.
Evonne and Clarissa dissolved into a fit of giggles, then Clarissa kissed her on the cheek. 'We haven't gone mad, Mrs. Jacobs. And I don't suppose we'll be much later ourselves. Thank you very much!'
'She mothers you, Clarry,' said Evonne a shade enviously as she bit into an oatmeal biscuit that had come with the cocoa.
'Mmm. So what happened next in this enthralling saga? Is it true, by the way?'
'Well, it was reported in the New South Wales Magazine of I883, according to C. S. W. Beam,' said Evonne. 'As to what happened next, there are two versions. I prefer the latter, but I wouldn't stake my reputation on it. Captain Macarthur bought eight of the sheep at a sale at Kew and imported them here.'
'What's the other version?'
Evonne's eyes twinkled. 'The other version is that once Captain Macarthur was here, colonising and so on, he decided there was only one way to support life in this godforsaken place, so he sent a request home for a very large quantity of rum to be shipped to the new colony, and a couple of sheep to keep his front lawn mown. But on the long sea voyage back, the message got garbled, and what he actually received eventually was a large quantity of sheep and only two casks of rum
'Ouch!' winced Clarissa, and they both laughed some more, then fell to sipping their cocoa.
'Evonne, what were you like when you were eighteen?' Clarissa asked suddenly.
Evonne raised an eyebrow. 'What's that got to do with merino sheep?'
'Nothing,' Clarissa said hastily. 'But I've found myself wondering...' She shrugged.
'Eighteen,' Evonne said slowly. 'I was brash, angry, determined to get out of the kind of life my mother had got herself trapped into.'
'Not shy, not...' Clarissa paused.
'No, although I wish now that I had been.'
Clarissa stared at her. 'Why?'
It was Evonne's turn to shrug. T might have saved myself some awful mistakes.'
'They couldn't have been so awful. I mean, you must have been bright and clever. Look where you are now.'
'Perhaps,' Evonne shrugged. 'But I took a few short cuts.'
'Oh. How?'
Evonne glanced at her. 'You wouldn't like to know, Clarry.'
'I would—tell me!'
'You obviously don't understand the allusion. Forget it,' Evonne said abruptly.
'Well—oh. Do you mean ...?'
'Yes. I slept with some men to ... further my various careers.'
'Is that how it first happened for you?' Clarissa asked quietly.
Evonne narrowed her eyes and stared into the fire. 'No, Clarry. I fell in love the first time—thought I did. I was about seventeen and a half, but I'd been working for two years and doing a night course in journalism. I thought I was the last word in sophistication and I
guess I couldn't wait to prove it. It—what I thought of as the love of my life—lasted three months. He obviously found it a pleasant enough interlude, but not even serious enough to say goodbye properly.'
‘What was he like?'
'Very macho, gorgeous, totally unwilling to be tied down to a girl who'd almost fallen into his bed in her eagerness, a girl who was too intense to have much sense of humour ... Intense, God!' Evonne said wryly, i had our whole life mapped out from the first time he kissed me.' She grimaced, then turned to Clarissa and blinked. 'Clarry, you're not crying for me, are you?'
'Yes,' sniffed Clarissa.
'You're crazy, you know!'
'I know, but I like you so much. And ... and you've been very cynical about men ever since?'
'Dear Aunt Abby,
' Evonne said ruefully, 'I don't think it's quite so simple. But don't you worry about me, I'll survive!'
Clarissa thought for a bit with her chin propped on her hand. 'Some people are very lucky, aren't they? I keep thinking about the Marchmonts, for some reason.'
'Well, they're a very striking couple.'
'And very much in love.'
'Yes. But they were divorced, you know.'
'What?' Clarissa stared at Evonne round-eyed. 'From each other?'
'Mmm. It caused a real buzz. I'm not sure how long they'd been married before the divorce, not very long, though—I mean a year or two. Then no sooner had the divorce become official than they remarried. Love must have triumphed in the end,' Evonne finished with a slightly ironic look.
'Oh, I'm so glad!' Clarissa said fervently. 'I wonder what it was all about, though?'
'I should imagine David Marchmont could be a hard man to deal with,' Evonne said drily. 'He's certainly a hard business man.'
'I don't know much about men at all,' said Clarissa, then bit her lip and couldn't imagine what had prompted her. And not for the first time, she found herself wishing Evonne was not an employee of Rob's. Also wondering if Evonne had an inkling that all was not as it appeared on the surface between her and Rob. She must find some things strange, she had thought from time to time. If our positions were reversed, I know I'd at least think it strange that Robert Randall had married a girl who couldn't even go out and about without having her hand held...
'You don't have to know much,' she heard Evonne say slowly. 'You only have to worry about one, and I think you must know him very well!'
'Yes. Yes, I do,' she said hastily. 'Talking of...' She lifted her head. 'Did you hear that?'
Evonne grinned. 'You're getting as bad as Sophie, only she doesn't make mistakes. He's in Melbourne tonight, remember?'
'Then who's coming in the front door? Mem should be barking her head off!' said Clarissa in low urgent tones, and they exchanged wide glances as curiously unsteady footsteps approached down the passage.
'Clarissa,' Evonne whispered, but Clarissa was rising stealthily. Then she stopped and stared and laughed with relief. "Rob It is you! You frightened the life out of us! Rob...?'
'Sorry about that,' said Rob with an effort. 'I should have let you know. Hello, Evonne.' He sat down with obvious relief and reached up unsteadily to pull off his
tie.
'Rob.’ Clarissa was on her feet in a flash and she knelt down in front of him. 'What is it? You look terrible!' And he did—pale, exhausted and shaken, as she'd never seen him look.
'Nothing,' he said with an attempt at a smile. 'A touch of flu, that's all. I must have picked up Sophie's virus belatedly.'
'Then why ... Rob, you're mad! You shouldn't have been driving around the countryside in the middle of the night!'
'Only from Albury. I suddenly decided I couldn't bear to be in Melbourne, so I flew to Albury ... Clarry, don't look like that, I'm not dying. I just feel a bit crook.'
Clarissa put out a hand and touched his face. 'You should have rung, stayed put,' she whispered. 'Come to bed now. I'll get the doctor first thing in the morning.'
'I don't need a doctor,' he protested, then he did grin. 'But I won't say no to bed! Well, this is hello and goodnight, Evonne, only I might need your help in the morning. This strike thing has reared its ugly head again.'
'Forget about that,' Clarissa said as Evonne murmured something. But it did occur to her that Evonne was looking a little pale herself, suddenly. She forgot about that almost immediately, though, as she steered Rob out of the room.
'No,' she said further down the passage, 'not in there. Here' She opened a door.
'Unless I'm hallucinating, this is your bedroom, Clarry.'
'I know,' she said, leading him in. 'And it's nice and warm, whereas yours will be cold. See, the fire's going
well and Mrs. Jacobs will have put a hot water bottle in the bed. Now don't argue with me about this, Rob,' she finished determinedly.
He half laughed as he stared down at her. 'No, ma'am,' he murmured, then grimaced and rubbed his temples.
'What is it?' she whispered. 'A headache?'
'Like a steel band being tightened all the time.' He looked around. 'But where will you.. .'
'Don't worry about it. Ill get your pajamas.' Clarissa went through the interleading door and came back with them. He was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. 'Can you manage?' she asked gently.
Rob looked up slowly and as if he was having difficulty focusing. 'Yes,' he said wearily, but she bent down and unlaced his shoes and helped him out of his jacket. The she said. 'I'm going to get you some aspirin and a hot drink.'
Evonne was hovering anxiously. 'Is he all right? I've never seen him.. . look like that.'
'Neither have I. I can't remember him ever being sick. He works too hard,' said Clarissa with sudden intensity. 'I keep telling him that!'
'What are you going to do?'
'Keep an eye on him tonight. And I'll get the doctor tomorrow, whatever he says. He might be able to talk some sense into him. You go to bed, Evonne. There's nothing you can do, and if I need help I'll wake up Mrs. Jacobs. Goodnight.'
'Goodnight,' Evonne said slowly, and turned away abruptly.
Rob was in her bed when she got back with the aspirin, lying with his hand over his eyes as if the light
hurt them. She switched on a lamp and doused the overhead light. 'Take these, Rob,' she said softly. He did, but seemed disinclined to drink much.
'Are you warm enough?I she asked him.
'Mmm ... Clarry, you don't have to stay up. I'll be all right,' he said in a slurred voice.
Clarissa didn't answer but sat on the side of the bed and touched his hair lightly, then started to stroke it. He didn't say anything, but she thought he sighed. And presently he fell asleep.
She did stay up, and was glad she had, because he was restless all night, sometimes shivering, sometimes sweating with fever so that she had to change his pyjama top.
The last time she did that, she gave him some more aspirin and patiently persuaded him to drink a lemon drink she'd made, knowing it was important to keep up his fluids. But the effort seemed to exhaust him and his head sagged heavily as she put her arms around him to ease him back against the pillows.
She stopped and held him in her arms with his head on her breast—and didn't know what was happening to her. Because it was as if her whole being was suddenly concentrated on that dark head. She felt her breasts swell and her nipples harden and her womb contract. She felt suffused with tenderness and love and anxiety. She felt as if she never wanted to release him, as if life could hold no more for her than to be able to hold him like that, to soothe him and take away the pain and the strain.
'Oh, God! Oh, Rob!' she whispered with sudden tears in her eyes. She laid her cheek on his hair. 'I love you. I... never stopped loving you, but now it seems I love you more than ever—and as a woman. Oh, Rob, what have I done?'
If Rob heard her, he gave no indication, and she guessed he was asleep again, so she held him as close as she dared, staring over his head with wide darkened eyes at the pattern of firelight on the wall. Then, at last, as he stirred restlessly, she helped him lie back and covered him up. And when he seemed to settle, she got up and put some wood on the Are, wrenching her mind to other things. Such as whether she should ignore the fact that it was a wet, freezing night and that he was basically a strong, healthy man, and call for the doctor now. But it was a twenty-five mile drive. I'll wait, she thought. That's what Mrs. Jacobs would do. The symptoms are the same as Sophie's, so it's mostly going to take care and rest.
Then it struck her that she was curiously unwilling to share this vigil with anyone, and she went back to the chair she had pulled up beside the bed and curled up in it so that she could watch him.
He seemed to be sleeping more peacefully now and she could look her fill. He looked younger as he slept, she thought, and oddly vulnerable, and
she trembled with sudden longing to have him back in her arms, but he didn't stir. So she waited and watched over him until at last the rain stopped and a pale dawn came.
Then she left the room stiffly, closing the door very carefully so as not to wake him.
'You should have woken me! I can't understand why I didn't hear anything! Look at you—you look exhausted, Mrs. Randall. Doesn't she, Miss Patterson?'
'Stop scolding me, Mrs. Jacobs,' protested Clarissa with a grin. 'There was nothing you could have done that I couldn't. Anyway, the doctor will be here in about an hour.'
'You could have got some sleep instead of sitting up
all night. Next thing we know you'll have caught it.'
'Did you ... sit up all night?' asked Evonne, her dark eyes looking heavy as if in fact she'd been the one to sit up all night.
Clarissa shrugged and bit into her toast. 'Now don't you start fussing about me, Evonne,' she said. 'Thank heavens it's stopped raining. We sometimes have trouble getting in and out of the place after a lot of rain. Mrs. Jacobs, I think we ought to keep Sophie away from Rob unless the doctor thinks it's safe,' she added.
Mrs. Jacobs snorted and Sophie, who was sitting beside Clarissa dunking strips of toast into her boiled egg, asked 'Daddy sick?'
'Yes, darling. Like you were. Oh, wow! You got an egg without a face this morning. But I...’
'I got it,' said Evonne. 'Sorry, but I didn't notice until it was too late—half eaten.'
'Neither did I—notice it,' Mrs. Jacobs said shortly. 'Didn't think you'd be bothered drawing faces on eggs this morning.'
'I always draw a face on Sophie's egg,' Clarissa said mildly, and stared at Mrs. Jacobs for a moment. Then she stood up and went over to her. 'Don't be cross with me,' she said softly. 'I wanted to sit up with Rob and I'm really as strong as a horse now.'
'He wouldn't want you to be ... overtiring yourself, Mrs. Randall.'
The Heart of the Matter Page 11
