by Lucy Walker
‘No, of you. You’re too good to throw yourself away.’
Peg looked at the ground.
‘Don’t go away yet, will you, Kate? A week or two won’t make any difference? It will be just the same then as now. And I want you to stay. It’s fine just knowing you’re here at Appleton. Up there,’ she nodded in the direction of the house, ‘they think I’ve come out to-day to be near Hal’s home and people. For once I haven’t. I came out to see you.’
‘Thank you for that. As a matter of fact, I promised to stay a few days over next week-end to help with the children while Annabel goes to Albany.’
‘And Hal and Beatrix will be away? Goody! You and I’ll fix up something, Kate. We’ll have a picnic to the Salt Lakes. I’ll get Mrs. de Berhans on to it.’
Her eyes sparkled. Kate thought the week-end might after all be fun.
Chapter Five
After sun-down the men came back from Blackwood. They were disconsolate. Blows had not been exchanged and heads had not rolled. Nobody vouchsafed any explanation, but Beatrix essayed a guess that the episode was not closed.
‘Everything will depend on the insurance company. If they start an inquiry the bonfire will go up. In the meantime the manager of Parsons and Sons is out of town.’
Hal’s mood could only be described as savage. As he came in the wire door on to the veranda his face was thunderous and he could hardly bring himself to exchange simple courtesies. Yesterday’s brumby hunt was gone from his mind. He did not even ask Kate about her experience. Kate watched his face as he sprawled back in the cane chair and drank long glasses of home-brewed hop beer. Something was on his mind. Evidently the burning down of the wool stores had some deeper significance for Hal, but he was saying nothing of it. Kate marvelled at her own patience and resignation to his indifference to her own well-being. She could not call it anything else but indifference.
After dinner they sat listening to recorded music in the billiard-room. Riley from the kitchen, very polished and wearing a lounge suit and collar and tie, sat unobtrusively in a corner and listened to the music.
‘He always comes in,’ Uncle Harry said. It was he who attended to the records on the pick-up. Uncle Harry sat very near the instrument and Kate hazarded a guess he heard the records more easily than ordinary human conversation.
Hal, still silent on the day’s events, seemed, however, to listen intently. About nine o’clock tea was made and everyone prepared to go to bed. Annabel fulfilled her last domestic act for the day. She took all the ashtrays outside.
‘Mother can’t stand the smell of stale tobacco in the mornings. It turns her stomach.’
Kate stood on the darkened veranda outside the billiard-room door. This vast room was built as an annexe off the western veranda under a separate roof. She waited until Hal had let the wire door close behind him. In deference to Mrs. Weston’s headache he did not let it bang.
For some unaccountable reason Kate felt tender towards Hal. He was, after all, like a spoiled child. Somehow or other the day had not turned out as he had wished. Or intended?
She banished the thought and quickly felt all the more tender to make up for the heresy of her thoughts. She knew she was being inconsistent herself. Yet this unexplained tenderness burgeoned forth. She was sorry for him. She felt a real and painful pity …
‘Hal dear …’
He lifted one hand and let it rest on her shoulder. For the first time since the morning before he looked at her and seemed to be really aware of her existence. His head was a little on one side, his eyebrows raised.
‘I haven’t been much company, Kate. I’m sorry!’
She was all contrition herself.
‘Are you tired, Hal?’ His hand on her shoulder tightened.
‘Wait till they’ve gone to bed, Kate. Let’s go for a walk down the pine grove.’
‘All right, Hal. I’m going to have a wash and brush-up. I’ll be out on the veranda outside my room in ten minutes.’ Her spirits lightened but she felt uneasy.
‘Don’t be a fool, Kate! His mood will never last. He’ll only hurt you again. You couldn’t live on pickings. And these are the pickings of love!’
But she washed her face and hands in the bathroom. She did her hair. She put on the finest powder and only a suggestion of lipstick. She looked at herself in the mirror and her hands flew to her face.
‘Oh Hal, if it would only last … this feeling. And if only I hadn’t spoken about you to Peg this afternoon!’
Noiselessly she lifted the catch on the glass doors of the french windows and tiptoed out on to the veranda. His cigarette was glowing at the end of the little path leading over the lawns towards the orchard.
There was dew on the grass and the moon was shining over the roof of the forest. The air was heavy with the night scents of garden flowers. A Pallid Cuckoo whistled plaintively in the gum trees.
‘Hal!’
Kate took the cigarette out of his hand and crushed it under her foot. She took his hands and drew them round her so she was in the circle of his arms.
His arms tightened a little. She felt his lips just brushing her hair.
Her own arms pressed anxiously. She lifted up her face.
‘Now kiss me … please, Hal.’
He kissed her.
Kate held him tighter. Then very slowly she let him go.
For a moment she rested her head against his chest. Then she withdrew from his arms.
‘What a pretty love scene we have provided for a moonlight night.’ She gave a little uncertain laugh.
‘You certainly wasted one good cigarette,’ he said half playfully.
‘Blow the cigarette. One kiss is worth ten of them. That is, for the one who is kissed.’
He ruffled her hair with one hand.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You know the old proverb? There is one who kisses and one who is kissed.’
‘Mmn,’ he said. He leaned forward and kissed her hair. ‘Very appropriate. And who does the kissing in this party?’
Kate turned away.
She had to struggle too hard. She was worn out before he even began to show response.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know! Come on, let’s go for that walk we talked about.’
She put her hand on his arm and began to walk towards the gate leading round the house to the main garden and the pine grove.
Hal allowed himself to be led away. Kate resolutely walked on.
Under the pine trees the needles lay like a thick carpet. The moon shone in eerie shafts across the earth. Everything was so still.
‘Don’t you feel something funny round the region of your heart, Hal?’
‘Not particularly, why?’
Kate was silent.
‘In a minute I’m going to hit you,’ she said suddenly and between her teeth.
‘Good heavens,’ said Hal. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Listen, you great blond baboon! If we were still in Sydney we would be laughing and dancing and occasionally kissing our way down this pine grove. And here where we could do it and nobody cares … you don’t even … you don’t want … Oh, Hal!’
Kate dropped his arm and stood still.
She felt indescribably cold. There was something about the moon and the trees and the distant reaches of paddock she could see through the trees that hurt her incalculably. If she had been a child she would have stamped her foot and screamed.
As it was, she stood still, her hands tightly clenched, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
‘What is it, Kate? What is the matter with you?’
‘Let’s go back,’ she said lamely. ‘I’m tired after all. And believe it or not, I’m cold.’
‘Certainly,’ said Hal brightly. He took her arm and became blithesome as they turned round and began to retrace their steps towards the garden gate and the house.
‘On such a night as this …’ he quoted. ‘Did Lorenzo and Jessica something and something and something? Anyhow what was
it that Lorenzo and Jessica did on such a night as this?’
‘They held hands, quoted a little poetry to one another, kissed politely … and went to bed.’
‘History repeating itself.’
Kate was silent for a few minutes. She felt as if she were trembling all over. ‘He is doing it on purpose … It is not human ‒ he is a cad!’
She steeled herself to be as mildly conversational as he was. He was setting the pace and the piece for their nocturnal philandering. Well … he should have it his way … in his own terms. But let him ever try to make love to her again …! She would reserve the moment of telling him what she really thought. She had promised Annabel and would keep that promise. Meantime she would teach Hal a sharp lesson or two …
When Kate crawled between her sheets she lay on her back. Her limbs were tensed with that sense of humiliation and frustration that only a young girl in her first serious love can feel when she knows with irrevocable certitude the loved one is not worth the tender, burgeoning love she was ready to give him.
‘Serve me right, serve me right, serve me right! I threw myself at him to-night. I tried to win him by making it a game …!’
She turned on her side and stared out through the open french door across the garden lawn and across the paddock. To the right the moonlight was catching the edge of the orchard with silver lights. In the big tree the Pallid Cuckoo persisted.
‘How lovely and quiet it is …’ she thought.
She remembered that last night she had thought of the silence as she lay in the spare bed at Benallens’ on the veranda. She had lain looking across the Benallens’ orchard and marvelling that a world could lie so still, so breathless with the silver beauty of a silent night.
She had stirred in the early hours. The chill of Australian night had touched her. There had been a sound! It had not been so silent after all! There had been the sound of someone coming softly round the veranda … of a rug spread gently over her. There had been the feel of softness and warmth … of cosiness … of well-being … of being looked after. She had stirred and turned and sighed and slept!
Kate, her face turned towards the sweep of paddock at Appleton, was remembering Allandale. She stirred, and sighed, and turned. And slept!
On Thursday Hal drove Kate over to Mrs. de Berhans at Arundel. In the morning an invitation had come for them all to go across to the neighbouring homestead for afternoon tea. At first it was agreed that all the women should go. By morning tea-time Mrs. Weston couldn’t see how Annabel could possibly get away because of the sewing she had to do before going to Albany. Finally Annabel, too, agreed that it was perhaps better if she stayed at home. Perhaps she did have too much sewing to do …
By midday Beatrix, in one of the sudden dark moods to which she was given, much as Hal was, decided she had wanted to go and see some remote farmer’s wife of whom Kate had not yet heard. By five past midday Mrs. Weston decided her head was beginning to ache again and she thought the whole thing had better be called off after all.
Mrs. de Berhans, hearing the doleful news, commanded Hal to the telephone.
‘You bring Kate over here like a good fellow, Hal. After all, it was Kate I wanted most to see.’
‘Righto,’ said Hal. He was as unpredictable in his affirmatives as he was in his negatives. ‘I’ll come across in the “super-sonic”.’
‘Just get your bonnet on,’ he said to Kate, ‘and come up to the garages at half past two.’
He clumped away out of the homestead and out of the garden towards the jam house. He did not bother to mention to anyone this new arrangement.
Kate smiled a little to herself. ‘Oh well,’ she thought. ‘I suppose it is not very courteous of me to keep it to myself too … but if I didn’t they’d find some way of stopping the outing.’
At twenty past two she came out on to the veranda wearing the pink linen suit and white petal hat she had on when she first arrived.
Beatrix was standing with one foot on a chair doing up her leggings.
‘Are you riding, Beatrix?’
‘Yes. What are you doing?’
‘Going in the “super-sonic” I think.’
‘To Mrs. de Berhans?’
‘To Mrs. de Berhans!’
Beatrix gave her a sly smile.
‘Good for you, Kate. I believe if you stayed long enough at Appleton we Westons would discover one can get one’s own way with a pink suit and a Sydney smile. By the way, why don’t you wear flowers in your hair? That’s what they do in Sydney, isn’t it?’
‘Isn’t my hat a good enough imitation?’
‘You’ll do, Kate. Don’t mind my filthy temper. We’re all on edge, you know. We don’t know how much, if anything, we’ve lost in the wool-shed fire. And it wouldn’t matter that much except for being the laugh of the district.’
Kate was surprised.
‘Mother was being smug about making more money through Parsons and Sons than foolish de Berhans and Co … who were dealing through one of the old established firms. The laugh is against us so far. Nearly all that wool in those stores was ours.’
Hal was backing the ‘Super-sonic’ out of the garage. It was a thing of luxury and beauty. Long, silver-grey, slung low to the road. It was meant for kings and Hollywood stars.
‘Except on the main roads it’s a white elephant,’ Hal said. ‘There’s not enough clearance for the side roads and stumpy tracks. I wish you could tell those English johnnies of yours what our country roads are like. They’d build their cars with a decent clearance.’
‘But Hal, thousands and thousands of British cars have come in here since the war.’
‘The only ones we could buy …’ Hal said morosely. The engine ticked over like a Swiss jewelled watch. They quietly thrummed along the road to the entrance.
‘Is clearance the only fault you find, Hal? To me this car brings a thrill of pride.’
He glanced at her and smiled. He looked human and kind, almost benign.
‘I’ve never owned anything I’m so proud of,’ he said. ‘It’s a magnificent car. All the same, it hasn’t the clearance for the side roads.’
Kate opened the two gates out on to the main Blackwood River road. It was like driving through an avenue. The jarrahs grew to an even height and their branches embraced overhead. The bush was quiet in the afternoon siesta.
‘Do you know who I like best of all in Blackwood?’ Kate asked suddenly.
‘If it’s not me, it’s Rick Benallen.’
‘It’s Peg.’
Hal was silent a moment. With one hand he took a cigarette from a case in the dashboard and fit it.
‘And why Peg?’
‘And why not? Everyone else likes her … pretty nearly the best in Blackwood.’
‘Are you being cryptic?’
‘No. I’m telling you I like her. Much too much to want to hurt her. I know you like her. Very much. What I can’t understand is why you want to hurt her.’
Hal drew on his cigarette. One hand on the driving wheel beat a mild tattoo with its fingers. He flicked the ash from his right-hand window.
‘My dear girl. Peg likes being hurt. She does everything possible to get herself hurt.’
‘You mean she perseveres in a friendship with the Westons, individually and collectively, in spite of their obvious though kindly contempt. If there is such a thing as “kindly” contempt.’
Hal frowned.
‘I think you’re getting out of your depth. You’re making generalisations about people you have known for ten days but who have known one another all their lives.’
Kate was silent a minute.
‘You could be right, Hal. All the same, I’m sorry for Peg. If she won’t help herself I think someone who is fond of her and who respects her would be quite justified in helping her.’
‘More conundrums.’
‘If I were here always, I’d drive a wedge between Peg and the Westons. Maybe I’d divert her attentions towards the Benallens. She’d be happier wi
th them.’
Kate half expected Hal to laugh, but when she glanced at him under her lashes she was quite taken aback by the look of sharp anger in his face.
They did not speak till they reached the main gate of Arundel. There was a farm-hand sitting on the top rail obviously waiting for them. He swung the gate open as soon as he saw the car and Hal did not change down. There was another farm-hand at the second gate.
Kate had a panicky feeling that now she ought to say something important to Hal. Its very importance frightened her. It would be too late to be sorry afterwards. (Boys flying their white-winged kites bring in their birds … but God Himself could not recall a thought put into words.)
‘You know, Hal, Peg Castillon is the only person who would marry you, suffer you, and go on loving you. But I suppose it is useless to ask you if you could give her enough affection in return to get you both as far as the altar anyway.’
She stopped appalled. She had not really meant that at all. She had meant to ask Hal’s assistance in conspiring to get Rick and Peg to see one another through rose-coloured spectacles. It was Rick and Peg she wanted to join together. And she had said this stupid thing in a stupid way. She turned almost frightened eyes on Hal as he pulled the hand brake on. He cut off the engine and leaned back in the corner of the seat and looked thoughtfully at Kate.
‘From time to time I think of it,’ he said. Then he opened his door. ‘Peg’s not cut to my cloth, though.’ He was outside and walking round the car to open the door for Kate. He looked at her with faintly raised eyebrows. ‘I prefer the tailored line.’
She got out of the car and stood facing him. She too was angry. She had to look up. All the time she spoke she was aware of his sheer masculine beauty.
‘I think I detest you, Hal. You are inhuman as well as unchivalrous. In terms of the concrete … an empty, though shining, scabbard.’
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Mrs. de Berhans crossing the wide patio veranda of Arundel to open the wire door.
Kate smiled up at her blond giant seraphically.
‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met that I could hate. And enjoy hating.’
Still smiling, she turned and held out her hand to Mrs. de Berhans.
