by Amanda Doyle
THE GIRL FOR GILLGONG
by
Amanda Doyle
All the way out to Gillgong Station Kerry heard nothing but the praises of Tad Brewster—‘good cove’, ‘decent feller’, ‘best boss this side of the North Pole’ ... But that wasn't at all the impression she got when she eventually met him!
CHAPTER ONE
The man across the desk at the wool firm to which she had been directed looked slightly blank, or perhaps his was the sort of face that always wore one of those mildly astonished expressions.
As he adjusted his spectacles and peered at her afresh, Kerry decided that it was a nice face—sort of kind, a little concerned even. Almost fatherly, she would have thought, if she had been in a position to make that kind of judgment, but of course at the orphanage you didn’t come into contact with fathers—yours or anyone else’s—so she couldn’t really tell. He hadn’t much hair. What there was of it was mostly concentrated into little tufts above each ear, and it was a beautiful silver colour. It made quite a metallic sort of contrast with his smooth brown scalp.
He was passing a hand over that shiny, tanned pate just now. To Kerry it appeared to be an agitated gesture, and the same agitation was in his voice, too, when he addressed her.
‘I suppose we are speaking of the same advertisement?’ he suggested doubtfully.
Kerry nodded. Her eyes were big and brown and very solemn.
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him politely. ‘It’s for the girl for Gillgong Station. Look, that one there.’
With a neatly-gloved forefinger, she pointed to the very place, on the page of the Sydney weekly that lay on his desk between them. She didn’t have to look, herself, to remember the words. There were few enough of them, goodness knows! In fact, it was its very baldness which had first attracted her attention to this particular item.
‘WANTED’—it said—‘GIRL FOR GILLGONG STATION, educated, resourceful, in good health, country-bred preferred.’
That was all. But for Kerry it had been enough to start a small ray of hope gleaming and spreading inside her. Someone was needing a girl. Oh, to find a place where one was really needed, especially if it was a residential post which offered one a home and keep as well. ‘Gillgong Station’. It had a far-away sort of outback ring, and there was no doubt that it must be a residential post. Gillgong Station didn’t sound the sort of place you could go backwards and forwards to daily.
The man was peering at her again, and this time there was no mistaking the paternal concern in his eyes.
‘It—it hasn’t been filled, has it?’ Kerry asked—suddenly, overwhelmingly anxious. Her dream-home vision shimmered in front of her, beginning to fade into uncertainty again. Perhaps someone else had needed a home, too, but they couldn’t need it as badly as she did! Oh, dear, she did hope she was still in time!
The man shook his head, and the dream-home image brightened again. She could almost see figures in the porch, reaching out friendly arms to welcome her. She could almost hear the voices—‘We are so glad you’ve come!’—‘How lucky for us that we found you!’ And then they were showing her to a little room for herself, a little room such as she had always longed for, one that she could call her very own.
‘No, Miss—er—Peyton. The—er—position has not been filled.’
Kerry placed her gloved hand over her heart, to still its mad gallop of relief.
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ she breathed joyfully. ‘I’m free to start straight away, as it happens. Isn’t that fortunate! If you’ll be so kind as to give me the address, tell me where Gillgong Station is—how to get there, you know—’
Her voice died away, because she had seen a frown gathering on the tufty man’s forehead. It drew his silver brows together into a single, bushy, metallic line.
‘Miss Peyton,’ he murmured discouragingly, ‘I—er—I think you can have little idea of what you may be taking on—the distances—the heat—the isolation—so many things to which you are unaccustomed.’
Kerry’s soft laughter bubbled over in pure relief.
‘Is that all?’ she said blithely. ‘Please, please don’t worry about that—about any one of those things. Distance doesn’t matter a bit, because I don’t have anyone at all to leave behind—no family or anything, I mean. And it’s very hot at times right here in Sydney, after all, isn’t it—humid, too, and I should think a dry heat might be nicer. And as for isolation—’ she laughed again—‘we lived a very quiet life at the orphanage, you know, and when I left to be companion to Miss Prissom, I didn’t see another person for weeks on end. I looked after the house for the trustees, too, after she died’—her voice wavered, because she had become quite fond of the remote little Miss Prissom—‘and I was there all alone until they got it sold.’
Miss Prissom hadn’t reciprocated her affection, nor had she rewarded it in even the smallest material degree. When she died, there had not been so much as a passing reference in her will to the loyalty of her young orphan-companion. Kerry hadn’t minded—not a bit! One of the very first lessons she had ever learned had been never to expect anything from life itself, or from other people. She had cared for the departed Miss Prissom’s large house with every bit as much conscientious attention as she would have given if her affection had been returned—polishing, scrubbing, cleaning meticulously; and on the day when she had handed it over to its new owners, she had been able to feel the sort of pride she might have felt had it been her very own home. The home she had never known.
The trustees had thanked her, and the new owners had expressed their pleasure, too. Kerry had found it a wrench to leave Miss Prissom’s house, but of course there had been no alternative. The new owners didn’t need a companion. They didn’t need Kerry in any capacity.
She was glad that she had saved carefully all the while she had been there. She was able to pay for board and lodging at a small guest-house off William Street, while she looked about for a residential post. So far, she had not found what she sought. ‘Generous time off’, they all promised—to where? With whom? ‘Own sitting-room, TV’—alone again, hearing voices through the wall, other people laughing, talking, but not with her, only with each other. She wouldn’t even have been able to pretend it was her home, the way she had been able to do at Miss Prissom’s, because they had all made it clear from the start that she would be on the outside, just a fringe-inhabitant, with certain inflexible hours and clearly defined duties. They didn’t want her for herself. They didn’t really need Kerry, they just needed a pair of hands now and then, and any anonymous, impersonal hands would do.
Kerry didn’t let her spirits droop because nobody wanted her. Somewhere, she was certain, there must be somebody who did. And that somebody, quite obviously, was at Gillgong Station! She had known it, the moment she had read that blunt appeal. She was the very girl for Gillgong Station!
The wool firm man didn’t seem to share her certainty.
“You—you’re so young,’ he demurred, pushing his spectacles back to the bridge of his nose.
‘Twenty-two,’ she replied. ‘That’s not young.’ Sometimes it felt very old indeed, she could have added. Especially when your purse was almost empty, and you had lodgings to pay for, and no present employment to still the nasty little butterflies of insecurity that kept fluttering about inside you each time you counted your dwindling finances.
‘So young,’ he repeated sternly. ‘Your educational requirements are satisfactory—’ he lifted the examination pass certificates which she had produced, not really looking at them, looking at her instead—‘But you don’t appear all that—er—robust, Miss Peyton, if you will forgive me for being personal. Good health is a prerequisite, you will have noticed?’
‘Oh, but gracious me,
I’m not always as thin as this, I promise you!’ she hastened to assure him eagerly. ‘It’s just that there was a lot to be done—you know, in a big house, all alone, after a—a death—so much to sort out, to tidy up. Perhaps I’m the tiniest bit pale, too, with being inside all the time—’ she scrubbed at her cheeks with her knuckles to bring up some colour—‘but usually I can look quite plump and—well — rosy, I really can!
The wool firm man was obviously sceptical. He looked so absolutely disbelieving and doubtful that Kerry felt the first leaden sinking of despair deep down inside her. It even weighted down the butterflies, so that they fluttered no longer. It made her large brown eyes seem even wider, huge with anxiety. Her cheeks now sported two bright patches where her knuckles had rubbed them, and her hair—straight and fair and flyaway—had flown away all over again, although she had been careful to slick it down beforehand. The overall effect was a feverish, clown-like innocence.
The wool firm man cleared his throat.
‘Would you call yourself—er—resourceful, Miss Peyton? Again, I must apologize for the need to be personal.’
Kerry’s expression cleared. She had the idea that the wool firm man’s defences might be crumbling. It was a cheering thought.
‘Oh, yes, most resourceful,’ she told him earnestly. ‘I mean—well, you do learn to stand on your own feet when you’re quite alone, you know. Why, from my very earliest memories of the orphanage, they laid great stress upon that. “You girls will one day have to be completely self-reliant, and at a much earlier age than normal children, since we can’t keep you here indefinitely, you understand.” That’s what they used to tell us, ever so often.’
The wool firm man blinked.
‘Unnecessarily forthright, surely, when dealing with er—well—deprived children?’ he opined in a faintly shocked voice.
‘No, not really.’ Kerry’s sunny nature shone through her loyal defences of the institution which had reared her, even though she thought, at the very same time, how nice it was of the wool firm man to feel that way. ‘We knew they were right, of course. We had to move out quickly to make room for other ones, you see. And—deprived? Goodness me, no! We were never that. We had plenty of food to eat, and clothes to wear—some of the donated ones were terribly funny and old-fashioned!—and of course they saw to it that we received an education. Not just an adequate one, either—’ she pointed proudly to the certificates, still lying with the newspaper on the desk between them—‘But a really sound, all-embracing, proper one.’
‘Er—quite.’ He nodded in somewhat abstracted agreement, before taking off his spectacles and caressing the bridge of his nose in continuing indecision. There was a little red mark between his eyes where they had rested. Perhaps they hurt him? You could always put a little pad of sticking-plaster on the glasses themselves if they did that. One of the Matrons at the Home had had to do it with hers. Maybe the wool firm man wouldn’t like to be told, though—or maybe his spectacles weren’t really bothering him at all. Right now he was looking at her as though she herself was the sole cause of his gesture.
‘I wonder what they want a girl for?’ she mused. ‘They don’t really say, do they. They don’t say much at all—just “Girl for Gillgong Station”.’
The wool firm man came out of his trance to treat her to a reproving stare.
‘The request is an entirely respectable one in every dimension, Miss Peyton,’ he told her sternly. ‘And that is the reason that someone like myself has been deputed to interview all applicants at the city end, so to speak. This, however, is the extent of my duty. It is not my place to conjecture or to inform, merely to interview the applicants.’
‘And I am the only applicant?’ Kerry suggested cunningly, pressing for an advantage.
‘Yes, Miss Peyton,’ he admitted heavily, ‘you are the sole applicant. In fact, we had almost regarded the whole matter as closed—an unprolific inquiry, you understand—when you appeared in the office today.’
‘Then—’ she leaned forward eagerly, smiling now into the wool firm man’s nice, kind, brown face—‘the position is mine? I can be the girl for Gillgong Station?’
‘I have little choice, it seems, but to engage you,’ said the wool firm man with definite misgiving.
Engaged! She was engaged! Kerry wanted to leap out of her chair and kiss that misgiving right off the wool firm man’s face. She wanted to hug away his uncertainty—he was very huggable, really, with those silver tufts of hair above each ear, and that homely bald head and benign expression. He didn’t need to look worried, for she wasn’t worried herself, was she? Everything was going to be just fine. They needed a girl for Gillgong Station, and she was a girl, needing to be needed, so everyone was bound to be happy with the arrangement. Even the wool firm man could be happy, now, because he had played the part required of him. The people at Gillgong Station would be very pleased with him, no doubt.
‘How do I get there?’ breathed Kerry on a rising tide of enthusiasm. Her eyes were shining with happiness, and her mouth couldn’t stop curving into a smile of pure pleasure and excitement. ‘To Gillgong Station?’ she reminded the wool firm man, who didn’t appear to share her present elation.
He stood up, pushing back his chair and collecting the certificates, shuffling them into order before he handed them to her.
‘You will be at Bankstown at nine tomorrow morning,’ he said.
‘Bankstown?’
‘Bankstown. The civil aerodrome.’ he repeated patiently. ‘Unless one is forced to overland it in a heavy vehicle, the most convenient way in and out of Gillgong Station is by air, naturally. Ask at the drome for Mr. Hunter.’
‘Mr. Hunter? Is he from Gillgong Station?’ she queried innocently.
The wool firm man appeared to find her curiosity unnerving.
‘Mr. Hunter is a neighbour, who happens to be in Sydney at this moment. He will take you part of the way, and the rest of the journey will be arranged from the other end. It is indeed fortunate that Mr. Hunter delayed his flight home for an extra day, otherwise your travelling plans might have been more complicated. I shall phone him at the Metropole and inform him of your impending departure for Gillgong. If you have second thoughts, Miss Peyton—if you reconsider for any reason—’ he eyed her as though he intended this suggestion to be taken very seriously indeed!—‘You must contact Mr. Hunter yourself at the hotel, to say that you will not, after all, be accompanying him. Is that perfectly clear?’
‘Perfectly clear,’ echoed Kerry cheerfully. ‘I shall be there at nine o’clock, or before nine actually. I can hardly wait, you see.’
She wrung the wool firm man’s hand warmly at the doorway.
‘Thank you very, very much!’ she told him gratefully.
‘There is little, if anything, to thank me for, my dear,’ he retorted almost gloomily. He put his hand into an inner waistcoat pocket, and extracted a neat, white visiting card. ‘If, in any event, you wish to contact me again, Miss Peyton, I am always available and at your service.’
Kerry did hug him then. He wasn’t expecting it, because his head somehow got in the way, and his spectacles were knocked askew. When she turned at the bottom step to wave good-bye, he was busy adjusting them again, and there was no doubt about it this time—the expression on his brown and silvery, wrinkled face was fatherly in the extreme!
Kerry skipped all the way up Bent Street, in spite of the heat beating up at her from the pavement. What did the heat matter, after all? Besides, the wool firm man had told her that it would be very hot at Gillgong Station, hadn’t he, so she had better get used to it right away. Suddenly she was glad that the hot sun was searing across her shoulder-blades, causing her cheap pink cotton dress to cling stickily to the middle of her back. It was a test, that sun. It told her that she could ‘take it’, and she could even run and jump in it as well, and still experience this bubbling feeling of triumph and wellbeing.
She skipped and bobbed right along Macquarie Street to a bus stop beyond, unawa
re of the glances she attracted in her bright frock and neat white shoes and gloves.
Back at the boarding-house, she packed her few possessions in her shabby navy suitcase. She hadn’t many clothes at all, and certainly no money to spare with which to outfit herself for her adventure. Perhaps that was as well, though, since she was going by plane. Even Kerry, who had never flown before, had heard that luggage must be restricted in an aircraft because of the problem of weight.
That evening she paid her bill, and went to bed early. There was no one to whom to say good-bye, in any case, except perhaps the wool firm man. She took out his little white card, read its inscription, and then put it carefully away in her purse again. She pulled on her checked cotton pyjamas, buttoned the shirt, and brushed her hair until it shone like polished candy-strands. Then she climbed into bed.
Heavy traffic trundled by in the main street behind the building. Headlights made moving patterns of shadow on the bare wall in front of her eyes. Gillgong—Gillgong—Gillgong. That’s what the tyres seemed to be saying as they rolled past her window. They were still saying it when Kerry at last fell asleep.
Next morning Kerry took extra special care over dressing. This was to be her big day, after all. This was the day that Gillgong Station was to get the girl for which it had advertised. She, Kerry, was the girl.
She put on fresh, brief underwear, and drew pretty honey-coloured nylons up the length of her tomboy-skinny legs. They were quite shapely legs, but much too thin, like the rest of her. Perhaps they would acquire a more feminine roundness when she put on some weight out there at Gillgong Station. On went the white shoes again, and her other cotton—a neat two-piece in a deep delphinium blue colour, with which she wore a crisp white blouse. It was a rather warmer outfit than her little pink sleeveless dress, but she felt that the occasion warranted as much formality as she could bring to it. She didn’t want Gillgong Station to think that they were getting just any girl, did she? She might not have the means to dress expensively, but the orphanage had taught her the value of simplicity and neatness, and the lovely blue colour looked fresh and girlish with her honey nylons and white shoes. She added the white gloves which she had worn for her interview—rinsed overnight, so that they were spotless—and on her head she placed a boater-shaped straw hat the very same pale toffee colour as her hair.
