Heroics, Sister Madge would have called it, and doubtless David thought the same.
It was nice to be back amongst the family again, to hear that Zoe was ruling the two younger children with a rod of iron and they seemed to love it, that Barry’s riding was greatly improved; that Marge was teaching him to dive.
She had been up three days when David flew up unexpectedly. The children had gone with Mike to meet him, but Clare had stayed behind, and when he came up the steps, the children hanging on to him, she met his shrewd questioning glance as calmly as she could.
He did not seem to be angry. But then neither was he the friendly man she had known at Baroona Hospital.
It was as if time had slipped back and he was the David Johnson she had known in England — courteous, kind but remote. This big man with the dark dusty hair and strange grey eyes was, indeed, a stranger again. Why?
What had happened? What had she done? Was he so angry with her because she had tried to help Jock?
His voice was impersonally friendly. “Take it easy for a week or two,” he told her. Barry was leaning against his chair. Val, Marge and Zoe had gone off somewhere, but they were still not alone. “By the way, I don’t know what you said to Mrs. Mackenzie, but she’s much better. She’s booked to go to Europe in four months and wondered if you’d like to go as her nurse-companion,” David said casually.
Clare stared at him. “Go to — Europe?”
David nodded. “I told her I’d arranged to pay your return fare to England, but she thought if you went with her you could use my money for pleasure.”
He spoke so coolly, she thought. It meant nothing to him that she might walk right out of his life. Or was he trying to get her right away – out of the country?
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m not going back to England,”, she said firmly.
David leaned forward. “You’re not?”
“I want to nurse out here,” Clare began.
Barry interrupted. “But not for always, Clare, only till you get married.” He stopped speaking abruptly,. his small face bright red, his hand flying to his mouth.
“Clare is getting married?” David repeated slowly, looking first at Barry and then at Clare.
“One – one day,” Barry gasped, then gave Clare an imploring look and rushed into the house.
David’s face grew cold and stern as he looked at Clare. “You’re engaged?” he asked.
She felt herself colouring. “Not – not really.”
“I don’t get it, Clare,” David said impatiently. “Not really, you say. Now you either are or you aren’t engaged. Which is it?”
“Well – well, I – I am engaged, but not properly. Oh, what’s the good, David? Please don’t ask me,” she said appealingly. “I would tell you if I could, but I promised Barry—”
David stood up, his face cold. “So you prefer to confide in Barry?”
“David, please.” Clare stood, too, and looked up at his coldly angry face..
“I warned you, Clare,” he told her. “I—”
“Please, David. I know.” She smiled. “I promise you I’m not being caught on the rebound.” Oh, why couldn’t she tell him the truth? This was silly, yet Barry trusted her. She turned away. “I’m sorry, David, but I can’t tell you.”
His voice changed, became urgent. “Promise me one thing, Clare — you won’t rush into anything?”
She smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry, David, there’s no fear of that.”
She looked away across Val’s lovely gardens where the sprinklers were turning rhythmically, spraying a fine curtain of water over the red and gold flowers. She heard his footsteps go away into the background and her hands tightened round the railing of the verandah.
It was so stupid, not being able to tell him the simple truth — yet it would mean letting. Barry down. David could so easily forget and tease the small boy about it —and Barry would stop trusting her. David had said nothing about her attempt to help Jock. He had spoken to her as if she was a stranger. And what of his letter?
He had asked her not to avoid him, yet when they were alone together, he had not said anything except try to make her break her word to Barry.
“Hi, Clare!” Mike came up the steps towards her, the sun glinting on his red hair. “Nice to have you around again.”
“Nice to be around,” she said.
He leant against the railing by her side. He wore spotless khaki jeans and a white shirt. In fact, he looked as if he had just had a shower.
“Thanks for rescuing me the other day,” she said lightly.
“You were doing fine. No need to rescue you.
Another half an hour and you’d have been with Jock.”
“Were we as close as that? I lost Lucas and—”
Mike smiled. “Lucas guessed what he had to do, so he galloped ahead to clear a place for the plane to land.
Fortunately the ground was pretty clear.”
“David sounded angry with me,” Clare said, looking ahead.
Mike, laughed. “He was scared. You looked awful, Clare — thick red dust over your face, swarming with flies, your eyes all bunged up.”
“Oh, I thought he was cross with me for doing a silly thing.”
“Silly thing? Nothing silly about it. What else could you have done?”
- “Oh, Mike, thanks. Thanks for everything,” Clare said, turning to him impulsively, putting her hand on his.
She heard a sound and turned. David was in the doorway, looking at them. He looked very Angry.
CHAPTER TEN
LATER, as she remembered the occasion, Clare tried to think why David had looked, momentarily, so angry.
The children had joined him immediately and the moment had vanished. Of course he had been annoyed with her because she would not tell him the “secret”
she and Barry shared, but was that enough? It was so rare for David to be angry that it made more impression on her than it might otherwise have done. First, David had’ not been angry, according to Mike, because she had tried to help Jock, the stockman. David had been very concerned for her, but then wasn’t he just as concerned for every sick person? Secondly, seeing her turn impulsively to Mike, did he think …? Could he be jealous? She felt suddenly alive … hopeful … but the next moment she knew she was, as usual, weaving ridiculous impossible dreams.
The next time the mail came, Max brought it, together with the supplies. There were several letters for Clare, one from her mother to say they were planning to go to Spain and that they would certainly think about coming to Australia.
Be very sure before you make any final plans, darling (her mother wrote). Life there sounds all right if you’re very rich, but it might not be so good if you were married to a poor man.
Mothers! Always jumping to conclusions. Was she thinking of Mike? It was true, Clare wrote a lot about him, but then he was always there, playing jokes, making them laugh. Her mother, too, would know how easy it was to turn to another person when you have been badly hurt in love, but she still did not know the real depths of her daughter’s humiliation. That, after all, was what was hardest to forget and to accept — the fact that Peter had never loved her, that she had imagined the whole thing. Just as she was in danger of imagining a wonderful romance with David. It might be an idea to seriously consider Mrs. Mackenzie’s offer and go back to England with her. If she still wanted she could come back there later.
One of the letters was from Eileen Mullins. Clare sat very still on the verandah as she read it through. They had been close friends from the day they met as raw probationers at Queen Anne’s Hospital, and it brought Eileen very close to her. Eileen had been ill, which was why she had not written before. She liked the sound of Australia and thought maybe she might try it for a couple of years, one day. And then had come the real exciting part.
You remember Peter told you that you had forced him into the engagement? (she wrote). That he loved another girl all the time? It was a pack of lies. I told
you so, but you preferred to believe him and let yourself be hurt. There was another girl, but he didn’t meet her until four months after you got engaged! How about that? It’s a pathologist in the hair, intense eyes and deep yoke. Most of the doctors gave her a runaround, but Peter was discreet. No one knew there was anything between them until you’d hospital, Robyn Haspenford. A nice girl, very dark gone, he left the hospital as planned, and then they got married secretly. She’d only been with us three months and had come straight from the U.S.A. How about that? They’re in America now and he has some job in a big medical centre. You’ll call me unkind, but I have to laugh, for I hear she keeps him on a tight rein. What made me mad at the time was the guilt complex he gave you — enough to make any girl shy off men for life. Hope it hasn’t had that effect on you. Peter certainly loved you and wanted to marry you until he discovered there were more useful fish in the sea! Love from all.
Clare drew a long deep sigh and looked up. She was free.
“Good news?” Val asked, startled by the look on Clare’s face.
Clare turned impulsively, her eyes shining. “As Barry would say, the bestest!”
As in a dream, she found her shady hat and walked out into the garden, seeing no one, just knowing something. She had not imagined Peter’s love for her.
Perhaps then it was the same with David? Perhaps he did love her. What about that strange letter? How was it that every time they were alone together they seemed to quarrel? Had he really been jealous of Mike?
Everything was suddenly different. She felt gay, light-hearted. The whole family noticed and remarked on it.
“You’re always laughing,” Marge said. “Why?”
“You look different,” Mike told her, his eyes puzzled.
Clare laughed happily. “I am different. I feel reborn.”
It was no idle phrase, for it exactly described how she I
did feel. It was always painful to be jilted— but that one could accept in time. At least it meant that she had been loved, even if she had lost the love. It had been infinitely worse to know that she had imagined it all, but now, she knew she had not. Peter had loved her.
She longed for David’s next visit. Now she could act naturally, now she need not watch each word she said, analyse each look he gave her? Suppose he did love her …
Suddenly she remembered Gillian. The girl he had wanted to marry — Barry’s stepmother — the girl Clare often felt he still loved, otherwise how could he so easily forgive her cruelty to Barry?
The days dragged by, but at last David was there, coming up the steps from the front gate, Marge and Barry hanging on to his arms. Clare stood in the doorway, looking at him. She had chosen a white dress Val had made for her, and brushed her hair until it shone.
She had no idea how eager and excited her eyes were, how warm her smile.
“Hi, David!” she said softly.
He stared as if amazed. “Hi, yourself! What’s happened, Clare? You look different.”
“She had good news from home, I mean England,”
Barry told him.
Clare was still smiling at David. “I feel different, David.”
“You’ve quite recovered?”
She laughed gaily. “I’ve never felt better in all my life.”
Val and Ian joined them, everyone drank tea and talked, but Clare was content just to sit and look at the man with the dark hair and strange grey eyes who kept looking at her with a puzzled and significant smile.
When he sought her out, later that evening when the moon was high, she would not avoid him – she would give him every chance to say what he wanted to say, what she hoped, more than anything in the world, was what she wanted to hear. That he loved her! She could be patient, although it was not easy, and as the day passed, the children went out to look after their ponies and Zoe was in the small sewing room, practising to use the electric sewing-machine. Clare curled up in a chair on the verandah and listened to Ian and David amicably arguing over the sale of land. Mike was nowhere around and Val was in the kitchen, talking with Mrs. Astor.
Clare lifted her head when she heard the distant roar of a car. Idly she watched the cloud of dust approaching, and inwardly she stifled a sigh. Casual passers-by, but Val would surely invite them in for a cool drink and a chat.
David turned to look at her. “By the way, Clare, I saw Simon Trenchard the other day, and he sent his best wishes.”
“Simon Trenchard?” Clare began, and then remembered. “Oh, the man I met at the hospital.”
“That’s right. I think he’s an admirer of yours,”
David said, his eyes puzzled.
“That’s absurd. I only met him for a few—” Clare began, and stopped.
The car had stopped outside the white gate. A woman was getting out of it, saying something to the driver, taking a case in her hand, and standing back as the car drove away quickly.
David and Ian were on their feet, their faces surprised. The girl turned and looked up at them, her foot hesitantly on the lower step, a nervous smile on her face. Clare saw a slight, lovely girl, wearing an unusual and attractive amber-coloured dress and coat. Glimpses of tawny gold hair showed under her wide-brimmed hat.
“Hi!” the girl said softly in a husky voice.
“Gillian!” David exclaimed.
Clare caught her breath. The way he spoke had told her everything. She watched, as if frozen, as he hurried down to meet her.
“Oh, David,” the girl said, her voice faltering. “It’s been so long, so very long—”
How lovely she was! Blue eyes, incredibly long dark curling lashes, a hesitant smile, as if she was afraid and confident in the same moment.
“It’s so good to see you again, David,” she said, holding out her hands.
“It’s good to see you, Gillian,” David told her warmly.
Ian was going down the steps, his voice warm with pleasure too.
“My dear Gillian! This is good!”
Gillian stood there, one hand held by each of the big men who towered above her. She looked up at them as if nervous.
“You don’t mind my coming like this, Ian? I mean, I felt that now everything was all right, I had to come.
How is – how is – my baby?”
.Clare was on her feet, her hands clenched as the anger swept through her. The two men looked as if they were bewitched, staring down at Gillian fatuously. Her baby! The little boy she had left without warning and without reason, because she could not face up to facts.
“He’s fine, Gillian,” David said reassuringly.
“I saw his photo in the paper. It was wonderful. I couldn’t believe it, David. My poor delicate little one, looking so well, so – so manly.” Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked at David. “How can I ever thank you enough?” She turned to Ian. “And you, too.
I knew Barry would be safe with you.”
Val was suddenly on the verandah, standing by Clare’s side.
“Who on earth—?” she began, and her face changed.
“I see!” She went down the steps. “Why, Gillian, what a surprise,” she said. “Long time no see,” she joked, but there was a cold note in her voice.
Deftly Gillian removed her hands from the men’s and turned to Val.
“Val, you look just the same, You haven’t changed at all. I’ve so much to tell you — to explain.”
“I’ll say!” Val’s voice was still cold. “Is this all your luggage? How long do you plan to stay?”
Clare, still standing and watching, shivered. How glad she was that Val had not welcomed her in this manner. But if Gillian noticed, she ignored it. “All I’ve got with me, for I managed to get a lift. The rest has to be collected. I don’t know how long, Val. Just until I can get things worked out and can find somewhere for Barry and me to live.”
Val’s face seemed to freeze with shock. “You and Barry?”
Gillian was looking puzzled. “Of course. He belongs to me.”
“But — but
you left him,” Val began.
Ian took them by the arms. “Let’s go up and relax,”
he suggested quietly, “and how about a long cool drink? You attend to that, David.” He spoke firmly.
“Of course,” David agreed, hurrying up the steps, and past Clare, who stood silently, her face pale and frightened.
Ian introduced Clare. “Our dear Pommie, Clare Butler, who came out to help Barry,” he said with a smile. “Clare, this is Gillian Hirst, Barry’s stepmother.”
Gillian gave her a brief smile. “I saw your photo in the paper. Why don’t you wear uniform?”
“Because Barry doesn’t need a nurse,” Clare said quickly.
“Then why—?” Gillian began, and stopped. She turned away and sat down. “It’s good to be back, Ian.
It hasn’t changed. It’s just like coming home.”
Ian was fussing in an unusual way, finding Gillian a cushion, asking if she was tired. “You’ll feel better after a drink,” he said.
Gillian pressed a fine, lace-edged handkerchief to her mouth, and looked at him with moist eyes. “Dear Ian, you always understood.” She looked across at Val, who was perched on the edge of her chair, her mouth a thin line of repressed emotion. “You never did, Val,” Gillian said wistfully. “I know you tried – but we’re so different. You’re strong and brave, and I – I was always a coward.”
Clare turned quietly, planning to slip away, worrying about Barry. He ought to be warned that his stepmother was here, prepared… .
“Sit down, Clare,” Val said with a new curtness.
“You’re part of the family.”
“Part of the family?” Gillian said, her voice changing as she turned to look at Clare as she, unhappily, sat down. “I thought you said Clare Butler?”
Gillian’s lovely frail, enticing face seemed to harden as she looked at Clare. She pulled off her hat and patted the tawny-coloured hair.
“Ian did,” Val said flatly. “She is still one of the family.”
Gillian laughed, and Clare thought she heard relief in it.
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