The mountain that went to the sea

by Walker, Lucy

  The mountain that want to the sea by Lucy Walker

  Jeckie came to the vast, lonely sheep station of Mallibee Downs for one reason only: to escape from a disastrous love affair. So she was outraged when the first question her cousin Barton Ashenden asked her was, ‘Which one of us do you intend to marry?’ Despite her determination not to become involved , Jeckie soon finds herself very much mixed up in the lives of her three distant cousins, especially the one who disturbs her the most. Remote and taciturn Andrew Ashenden is the undisputed head of the family, and a confirmed bachelor …

  Printed in Great Britain

  ISBN 00 613178

  LUCY WALKER The Mountain That Went to the Sea

  Collins FONTANA BOOKS

  First published by Wm. Collins 1971

  First issued in Fontana Books 1973

  © Lucy Walker 1971

  Collins Clear-Type Press London and Glasgow

  CONDITIONS OF SALE:

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,

  be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jeckie leaned her head against the back of the shabby arm-chair.

  She closed her eyes. It was hot. She was tired and not very happy.

  This was a small outback airport … a single waiting-room affair with a bar for quick drinks across one corner. The only thing that loomed in Jeckie’s mind at the moment was a large question. Why had she let herself be bulldozed into coming?

  Property! The old, old family story of property!

  She had sometimes thought it better for anyone to have no money, and no property, than have along with it, and attached to it, all the family dissensions that were to be found in her mother’s family. Her father’s farm — which was her home — was happy and good enough for anyone. So why did her mother have to cling to this Mallibee Station share? Better to let it go. Drop it into the ocean and say goodbye to it for ever.

  Jeckie’s mother was one of the descendants of old pioneering Great-Grandfather Ashenden of Mallibee Downs. They were a stiff-necked, debating lot, those Ashendens, Jeckie often thought. They were always arguing about what was to be done with bits and pieces of the station when really most of them, uncles, aunts and cousin — some of them to the third and fourth degree of relationship — lived hundreds and hundreds of miles away from it.

  Jeckie’s mother had for years been wanting her to go up and make the acquaintance of the distant cousins who carried the prestige name of Ashenden, and who lived and worked the original station of Mallibee Downs.

  Well, now she was here waiting to be called for by one of those same distant Ashenden cousins. Then to be driven miles and miles out over ironstone and spinifex country — somewhere towards the desert lands.

  Ah well!

  Jeckie draped her left leg over the knee of her right leg and curled up in the corner of the arm-chair. She wasn’t very big so she fitted the chair quite easily. Her left foot wavered in air and dropped its shoe on the floor. It didn’t matter. It was an old habit of Jeckie’s to shed a shoe … sometimes two shoes … when she curled up in an arm-chair.

  She forgot the two slim sunburned young men who were leaning their backs against the bar in the corner. She closed her eyes because she was tired, so she did not see the mild amusement her shoeless foot, making irritable circles in the air, was causing over in the corner.

  The two men, in khaki drill clothes, had amiable attractive smiles as they sipped their sundowners and watched Jeckie’s feckless airborne foot. Now and again it dive-bombed towards the floor as if to find its lost shoe of its own accord.

  `Pretty!’ One man made a judicious statement as he looked at Jeckie. ‘I like fair hair and I like blue eyes as long as they’re very blue.’

  ‘Same here,’ the other said. ‘The first thing you notice is those eyes. Sort of bright, and challenging. The way she walked in and over to that corner! She really has something. Quite a girl all right!’

  Right now she’s kind of lost-looking, though. Sort-of sad … in a way. Somebody ought to have been here to meet her.’

  `She’s one of the Ashenden cousins, I guess. I saw Mallibee Downs on the card on her case outside. She came in on the afternoon plane, and looked round as if she was expecting someone to meet her.’

  `Can’t be Andrew Ashenden. He’d be dead punctual. It has to be Barton. He’d be punctual if he remembered to look at his watch. I heard they’ve about finished the sheep muster out at Mallibee. You can bet your best Australian dollar that mustering will always come first with the Ashendens.’

  `And blow coming in a hundred and twenty miles for a relative! Even one as pretty as that one in the corner. King of the plains out there is Andrew Ashenden. One word from him, and Barton would’uv been on time. Andrew’s the Boss out there.’

  `Four generations of Ashendens, and the eldest son of the eldest son is always King Pin. Same in most of them land-owning families. Back in colonial times this country was nothing but heat, sorrow and sun. That’s when old Surveyor Ashenden came out here and settled. Quite a hero he was — so the legend says.’

  `Hey! Look who comes now.’

  A tall well-set man — thirtyish and a bit more — had come through the palms dividing the waiting-room from the entrance. There was a certain impressiveness about him, especially about his assured easy-going manner. His eyes were friendly. His smile broadened as he recognized the two men over by the bar.

  ‘Hi, Jason!’ the shorter of the two men called. ‘How about a sundowner? Come and join us. We’ve news for you. It just might brush off on that Mallibee mob. On King Andrew anyway, that’s for certain.’

  ‘Hi to both of you! I dropped in to see if you’d made it. You finished surveying that stretch of grassland?’

  ‘We have, and it’s all you expected it to be. There’s money in it for someone interested in cattle. It’s no good for Westerly-Ann Mine — I’ll tell you that.’

  Jason was half-way across the room, then he saw Jeckie curled up in the corner chair, her eyes closed. Her shoeless foot was wavering in the air — lost-looking like the tired and faintly sad expression in its owner’s face. At that moment the freelance foot descended floor-wards again, as if searching for something.

  Jason glanced at his friend and his grin grew wider. `We’ll talk about the land later. I’ve other things to do right now!’ Quietly he cat-walked across the floor, stooped, picked up the shoe and neatly fitted it to Jeckie’s foot. He straightened up. With his head on one side, he gazed down with benevolence on his handiwork.

  ‘It actually belongs,’ he remarked.

  Jeckie’s eyes flew open. She looked up, straight into other blue eyes that were smiling down at her impishly.

  `Thank you,’ she said stiffly, sitting up very straight now. She tossed aside a strand of bright honey-gold hair that had fallen across one eye. ‘Are you Barton? Or Andrew? I’ve been waiting — ‘

  He shook his head. He seemed to be very amused at

  that mistake: but in a kindly way.

  ‘Neither,’ he said. ‘I don’t even lay claim to the name of Ashenden.’

  ‘But you know them?’ Jeckie asked. Her turquoise blue eyes were nearly angry all over again. Her mouth was firm in order not to droop with disappointment.

  ‘Oh yes, I know them all right.’

  ‘You bet he does! ‘ one of the men over by the bar said with a laugh. ‘Jason knows everyone. Leastways everyone knows him. When you get ba
ck up across the tableland, Miss Ashenden, you’ll find he’s actually everyone himself. Shire President, Justice of the Peace, Warden of the Wardens’ Court, and what’s more important — he runs the only town store and the only town petrol pump. He’s— ‘

  ‘Jack of all trades!’ Jeckie finished for him. ‘But I’m only an Ashenden on my mother’s side. My name is Bennett. Jeckie Bennett.’

  ‘Very nice to meet you, Miss Bennett,’ the shorter man said. ‘Come on, Jason. You being that Jack of All Trades, you’re the most respectable one present. Please introduce

  us.’

  ‘Certainly. Miss Bennett, I’m Jason Bassett — two s’s instead of two n’s as in your. name. I’d like to present to you John Robertson, chief engineer at the Westerly-Ann Mine back over the range. And Marcus Donovan, the same company’s geologist. He’s the one looking for more iron when he’s not finding copper, silver and manganese. Just now he’s been obliging by surveying some pasture land for me. In his spare time, of course.’

  ‘Did you know Westerly-Ann Company is one of the biggest mining companies in the world, Miss Bennett?’ John Robertson spoke in a challenging way. ‘Up here we’ve been mixing trucks and trains and railway lines in amongst the sheep and cattle over the tableland back east.’ He spoke as if he anticipated some doubtful reaction to the mining activities.

  ‘Yes, I do know,’ Jeckie said coldly. She already knew of the conflicting interests between the mining company and the pastoralists. ‘And you, Mr Geologist, are responsible for pegging claims all over other people’s private grazing property, aren’t you?’

  She stopped because yet another man had come through the palms into the lounge. By his dress — the broad-brimmed pastoralist’s hat, the khaki drills; the sun-weathered skin and the slightly rolling gait — he was clearly more certainly a cattleman than any of the other three in the lounge.

  With a quick, almost wicked look, he took in the scene of Jeckie straight-backed in the arm-chair, and before her. an audience of three amused men.

  `So there you are,’ he said to Jeckie cheerfully. ‘They told me outside I’d find you here. They didn’t mention the company you’d be keeping.’

  `Hallo,’ Jeckie said. ‘Are you Andrew Ashenden, or Barton Ashenden?’ She carried her head high and at a slight angle. ‘Whichever — you’re late,’ she added.

  ‘I’m Barton Ashenden and I’m very late,’ he said with a grin. He took in everything about Jeckie. His grin signalled he was pleased with what he saw.

  Jeckie herself had the silly feeling she was meeting a deputation, or something. All these men around her! Her mother’s example, she supposed. Her mother always greeted visitors with an extended hand and a distant courteous but faintly grande-dame-ish manner. Jeckie’s father was only a small-time farmer — so she had always been embarrassed by that manner of her mother’s. Now she felt cross and a little forlorn to find herself accidentally imitating that very manner. Sort-of sitting straight-backed and holding Court!

  This was because she had fallen half asleep, of course. And was tired. Now these men had gathered around and begun taking stock of her. And here had come her very distant cousin, Barton. He’d caught her in this semi-circle of outbackers, each of whom seeemed to be sharing some kind of private joke concerning her. Or weren’t they?

  Well, not quite the Jason one. He was different. Kinder, she thought, in spite of being Shire President, Warden of the something-or-other Court, and owner of the only town store and only town petrol pump. ‘What town?’ she wondered. A town-pump meeting-place she supposed, and he — this one called Jason — kept the peace. Law-and-order in the outback!

  ‘Have you had something to eat, Jeckie?’ Barton

  Ashenden asked, dusting his hat against his knee. He had a hurrying look about him. ‘If not I’ll get the manager to stow away a carton of something for us in the Land-Rover. Sorry, but we can’t waste time — ‘

  ‘A hundred and twenty miles to the airport and a hundred and twenty miles out again. Not even time for a drink, Barton?’ the mine engineer asked. His eyebrows were doing a zigzag as he looked at the dark-haired, dark-eyed impatient member of the Royal Family of Ashenden. Everyone for hundreds of miles around knew about the Ashenden family and Mallibee Downs. They also knew of the State-wide Ashenden row about Westerly-Ann Mining Company having pegged claims over Mallibee’s sacred acres. It was a row still waiting for final settlement in the Warden’s Court. Everyone had known of the three-generation split in the Ashenden family’s holding in Mallibee Downs.

  We-ll, was the familiar comment in the Shire, with a

  million acres of pastoral run—loaded with all the minerals Aladdin might have envied —who’s going to be anything but entertained by Ashenden politics?

  ‘No, it’s not my day for drinking,’ Barton said briefly. He had nodded to Jason Bassett —a perfunctory greeting. Jason Bassett nodded back — politely. Jeckie glanced at him. She thought she caught a sparkle in his eyes. Come and gone.

  Funny, she thought. Something’s going on in this room and it’s all to do with these four men. There’s something cagey about the way they speak to one another, and nod to one another. Politeness for politeness’ sake, and not for friendship.

  ‘About your eating timetable, Jeckie,’ Barton persisted, his eyes smiling at the girl. ‘They were easy-going, prankish eyes. Dark, and friendly.

  ‘The air hostess gave us a loaded tray on the plane just before we landed,’ she said. couldn’t possibly eat again now. But thank you, Barton — ‘

  ‘I’ll pick up that box of snacks while you gather your things,’ he said. ‘Just in case. We won’t get to the homestead till after midnight. I saw your name on your case in the entrance as I came in.’ His grin was still cheerful. I’ll

  pick it up as we go out. Right?’

  Jeckie stirred herself and stood up. The three men appraised her again though the two mine men attempted to disguise this activity by burying their noses in the new round of drinks that had been slid over the cocktail bar.

  Jason isn’t cunning enough to be just peeking, Jeckie thought. He looked straight at me, and really smiled. I like him. He’s rather a pet. I guess the other two are just bird-watchers.

  Barton Ashenden went back through the palms, then emerged somewhere in the entrance to start asking for service from the girl somewhere in other regions of the asbestos and iron building.

  Jeckie stood up, shaking off the last vestiges of darkness. She picked up her carry-all and walked towards the palms. Then she turned and smiled a goodbye. It was a lovely half-sad, half-glad smile, and lit her eyes so that they shone a startled shining blue.

  Suddenly her feelings had gone into reverse. She felt —in an absurd kind of way — that she had been, here in this airfield inn, one of a company. All three of them — Jason and the two men from Westerly-Ann Mine — were really very gracious. Now she was leaving and going out into that vast outback world. Alone all over again. Alone —except for this distant cousin, Barton Ashenden. And she didn’t really know him yet.

  ‘Goodbye — ‘ she said, almost shyly.

  ‘Goodbye, Pretty Girl!’ the geologist called. ‘We’ll be seeing you!’

  ‘I like that name— Jason,’ Jeckie said as she climbed into the Land-Rover beside Barton. ‘Names are different up here, aren’t they? Barton, for instance. But that’s a family name, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s it ! I’m commonly called Bart.’

  ‘I like Bart.’

  ‘Obliging of you,’ he said with a grin. ‘Forget that fellow Jason Bassett, Jeckie. He’s not a friend to Mallibee. Andrew won’t have a bar of him. So be a good girl and forget to mention you even met the blighter, will you?’

  ‘Does Andrew officially approve everyone’s list of friends at Mallibee Downs?’ Jeckie asked, surprised.

  Barton had started up the Land-Rover and it rolled forward.

  ‘What Andrew says goes. If you want peace,’ he advised. ‘Now with me—well, I’m different!’ H
is grin was almost engaging.

  I wonder what that means? Jeckie asked herself, puzzled.

  Daylight had faded. Within minutes it would be a blue-black night, the sky star-ridden. Jeckie knew all about the climate of this stretch of outback. Her mother had told her countless times.

  Just now she was pondering over Barton’s words: What Andrew says goes .. .

  Her family always said — and various side issues and adjuncts of the family said — that every Andrew since the first one who had pioneered this lonely desolate country, had ruled the roost. And the family fortunes too. Seems they were all, one Andrew after another, men of iron will. But they’d done well with Mallibee Downs. They’d carved it out of wild spinifex plain and iron mesa mountains. And they’d made it pay. In fact, they’d made it pay so well that each and all of the descendants of the first Andrew had been loath to part with the portion left to them. In three generations this had caused trouble and tribulation. And bitter disagreement.

  Scattered over the vast State were third and even fourth generation Ashendens who enjoyed a handsome dividend each year from Mallibee Downs. Yet the sons of the first Andrew had done all the work. And their sons after them. The three daughters had married out of the north into lesser farming families amid the green pastures and softer climate of the south west. Yet they, and their children, still reaped some of the handsome rewards of Mallibee Downs.

  Hence the arrival of Jeckie— whose real name was Juliet — in the north west, en route for the ancestral acres of her mother’s family. Behind hands, as it were, some members of the Ashenden family had been suggesting that the troubles between the relations would be solved if a marriage or two could take place. As between distant cousins for instance. Amalgamate the interests!

  Jeckie and another cousin, Sheila Bowen, were the

  objects of this subtle line of conjecture and thinking.

  Marry the money, the name, and the acres together! What a wonderful idea!

  But how to bring it off?

  Jeckie, who had a mind of her own, knew very well what her parents and the far distant Great-Aunt Isobel up at Mallibee Downs were thinking — even daring to say. But she pretended not to know. Her opinion of those ideas was so scathing she didn’t care to put it into words. That would have really blown the fuses!