by Margaret Way
“So the only one hundred per cent Australians are the Aborigines,” Carrie said, definitely sympathetic to the aboriginal displacement.
“The historic custodians of our land. Nowhere on the continent do you feel their ‘presence,’ their Dreamtime culture, more strongly than at the Red Centre. When I take you there, you’ll know what I mean.”
“I’m astonished at your continuing kindness.” She smiled. “Meanwhile we’re in the glorious tropics. It has its own unique characters.”
He made a little sound of agreement. “Brilliant skies, brilliant sea, brilliant landscapes. The dazzling light more than anything. The heightening of the senses. The most spectacular time is on the verge of the Wet that will come up in a month or so. The Wet brings the bush to flower. It brings cyclones, too. The big heat and humidity when you just want to sit with an ice-cold beer in one hand staring out over the garden. I never seem to get the chance. Do you ride, by the way?” he asked, suddenly serious.
“I haven’t done for a couple of years but I was taught properly. Dad saw to that. All of the children I knew, all my friends, belonged to a pony club.”
“Well, at least that’s off my mind!” He gave a low laugh. “The Australian love affair with horses. They’ve played such a role in opening up this country, especially the Outback. At one time I was pretty serious about joining the Australian Olympic team. The team Three Day Event and Show Jumping. I’d won a few trophies. I was good. I’d received a few approaches. That was when my father was alive and expected to go on living to a ripe old age. It didn’t happen,” he said grimly, “neither did my Olympic dream. I play polo. We all do and we still use horses to work our cattle. When anyone says horses are stupid creatures I see red. A horse’s courage and intelligence has saved many a stockman’s life. Horses are our mates in the Outback.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” Carrie reassured him. “They’re magnificent creatures. I cried when our Three Day Event team won their third consecutive gold at the 2000 Olympics. Our horsemen are marvellous when it’s tough, dangerous, going. As a complete contrast, I loved the horses performing to music in the dressage section. Responding to all those signals. If that’s not high intelligence, what is?”
“I agree.” He nodded. “So many who performed brilliantly. I was actually there in Sydney to congratulate Andrew Hoy and other members of the team. It’s still in my blood. I stayed for the pool and the equestrian events then I had to head back home.”
“Lucky you!” Carrie said lightly. “The TV coverage had to do me. It was wonderful.”
The miles flew and the talk became animated as they relived the Olympic experience.
“So it wasn’t all half crazy with grief over the loss of your career?” he asked eventually.
“Whole hours out,” she admitted, “with my accident forgotten. Those horrible moments when I knew we were about to crash. I even knew I was going to get hurt in a way that would affect my life.”
“Then it’s a bit of serious experimentation, isn’t it, being a governess?” He swung his head. “I’ve transported you out of your sheltered environment into the wild bush. Maramba, though, it doesn’t suffer anything like the isolation of Jimboola in the Channel Country or another out-station of ours up in the Gulf in crocodile country, is cut right off from all the excitements and activities of city life. You’ll be starved of a lot of things you’ve got used to.”
“I’ll cope,” she said briefly.
“You’ll have to,” he told her bluntly. “I’m a very busy man. I wouldn’t know how to act nursemaid.”
“Nursemaid! Heavens, I’m not going to bother you,” Catrina protested.
He didn’t try to hide his concern. “Regina is a great little kid. A real survivor, but like I told you, she’s a fair terror. She has a really worrying trick of hiding. She can find places no one including me has ever thought of. I cannot,” he emphasised, “do this baby-sitting thing. My grandmother suffers badly from arthritis. Some days she’s in a great deal of pain. We have a good aboriginal woman called Jada, married to our leading stockman, who looks after my grandmother’s needs. She’s like a personal maid but much closer, more family. She was born on the station. Neither can help out with Regina. My uncle’s wife has no great feeling for children. She doesn’t want children herself. Regina’s mother is, as I told you, a write-off. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Gainsford, runs the homestead like a five-star general. She’s super-efficient if not kind and cuddly. She does her best to control Regina’s little excesses of temperament but she can be a touch stern. Needless to say she and Regina don’t hit it off.”
“She wasn’t too sweet to me, either,” Carrie said dryly.
“You mean she didn’t believe you’d sent word?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“I expect Regina nicked it just for the hell of it,” he suggested wryly.
“She’s old enough to check the faxes and take mine in?” Carried asked in surprise.
He groaned. “Regina is six going on six hundred,” he said. “An old soul. I care about her very much.”
Although the tone was deeply sincere to Carrie’s ears it sounded a shade odd. “I would think so,” she said. “Who better than a father to love his daughter?”
“You would know,” he said, still with that undercurrent in his tone. “Anyway, you’re the boss. She’s a dreadful eater by the way.”
“That’s it. Give it all to me now,” Carrie crowed.
“Pecks at everything like a budgie. Has numerous hates. Throws things all over the place. Is very wilful. Always makes a drama of mealtime. Otherwise she’s a great kid.”
Carrie was undismayed. This was a child, after all, and a child in need of love and understanding. “I’ll just have to work out what she likes.” She spoke simply. “One thing I wanted to ask you?” She turned her head to look at him, struck by the bronzed glow of his skin, the inky blackness of his well-shaped brows.
“Fire away!” He gave her a brief brilliant glance.
“Did you tell anyone about my background?” she asked quietly. “The fact I was going to New York to study. My accident?”
“My grandmother only,” he told her. “It was told to her in confidence. She will respect it. Whatever you wish to do, Catrina, is up to you. All the rest of the family was told you were handpicked by my trusted solicitor.”
“Good. I don’t want to talk about my accident,” Carrie said. “You do understand?”
“Whatever makes you happy,” he responded almost gently. “For now. One day you’re going to have to talk it out. I know about bitter disappointments, Catrina, I can spare you the time.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MARAMBA Downs, taken up by Bruce McQuillan in the 1870s, started its huge run on the coast and ran in a north-westerly direction right up to the thickly wooded slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Driving through it, Carrie thought she had never seen more exotically beautiful country in her life. The sparkling clarity of the air rendered more brilliant the full palette of colours. The mountain ranges formed a backdrop, the turquoise sea to the east, the offshore islands and the Great Barrier Reef beyond, immediately inland superb grasslands; endless lush pastures of blue and green grasses with sleek Brahmin cattle grazing alongside prolific birdlife.
On the many lagoons Carrie was enchanted to see great flocks of swans, pelicans, ducks, the entrancing blue brolgas, the huge jabirus, the biggest bird in Australia, and flights of magpie geese that had ruined the rice industry in the tropical north to the extent not even the manoeuvres of the Australian Air Force could deter their attacks on the crop. In one pond white ibis had staked total claim, probing the bottom of the emerald pool with their long beaks, the surface laced with pink and white waterlilies. The atmosphere was so peaceful, so open, so free, she could literally breathe it in.
As they drove further into the heart of the station a large flight of birds suddenly rose from the waters, numerous in the air, the Royal Spoonbills she could identify and
concentrations of ducks with very pretty pale yellow plumes. She was about to ask Royce McQuillan their name when he spoke.
“Outbuildings coming up.” He lifted an indicating hand from the wheel. “The hangars and landing strip off to the right. One for the Beech Baron, the other for our two helicopters. We use them for musters and other purposes. The landing strip is all-weather, as it would have to be when we get the rains. There’s a building for just about everything. Freezing rooms, machinery, equipment, tack, saddles. We cure and tan our own leather. It’s important to have materials on hand for repair. Staff bungalows and bunkhouses on this side.” He indicated again. “The building with the blue roof is the gym and entertainment centre when the men can relax. You might think they get enough hard work in the saddle but they like working out. You won’t see the homestead until we’re almost upon it. The home gardens in some places have turned into a jungle. I’ll have to have it cleared. It’s almost a rainforest. Near the house it’s more open woodland. We don’t want snakes in the house but I have to warn you, you’re going to see a few. The thing to remember is snakes do their level best to keep out of our way. Of course if you’re unlucky to stand on one….” He shrugged expressively.
“I’ll watch where I put my feet,” Carrie guaranteed.
The outbuildings behind them, Royce drove more slowly, pointing out different features. “We’re in the home gardens now.”
Carrie was silent for a moment, thinking it was more like an enchanted forest than a garden. She stared out the window, transfixed by the extent of it, and the great diversity of vegetation. Palms towered, staghorns and elkhorns of incredible size were affixed to the great shade trees, tropical orchids quivered in the breeze, yellow, palest green, pure white, the rich purple of the Cooktown orchid, the state emblem. There were flowery shrubs of all kinds, hardy bromeliads, agaves and aloes, gorgeously coloured beds of foliage to rival the dense green and cascading everywhere flowering vines in every conceivable colour, the bright violet-blue of the morning glories, the pink, white, scarlet, orange and sunshine yellow of the trumpet flowers.
As she continued to look, the curving drive became straight, now it was lined on either side by sentinel Cuban Royals, their fronds moving above the shadowy canopy of the giant shade trees, the poincianas. It would be paradise when those trees broke out, Carrie thought. There were so many of them they would colour the very air.
Almost before she was aware of it the homestead rose up.
It was huge! Even bigger than she had envisioned from the photograph Melissa had shown her. A tropical mansion constructed of dark timbers, to meld perfectly with the environment. The building was two-storied, with great wrap-around verandahs on all sides, at least twelve feet in depth, she gauged, the roofline dipping protectively over it like a great shady hat. It was enormously impressive. Enormously picturesque. Just as in the photographs, a lagoon lay at the homestead’s feet ringed by all manner of tall water grasses and aquatic plants, sections of it floating the blue lotus, sacred flower of ancient Egypt, native to both Australia and North Africa. There was even a small boat amid the reeds.
“What a wonderful place to live,” she exclaimed. “It’s like something out of a Somerset Maugham story.” She loved the way the landscape flowed toward the house. Massive in anyone’s language, there had been minimal impact on the site.
He glanced at her, well pleased by her reaction. “That was the intention, Catrina. This isn’t the original homestead, by the way. That was destroyed in a cyclone many years ago. This one is cyclone-proof. We hope. My grandfather built it. He’d travelled widely in South East Asia. You’ll see the influences, outside and in.”
“Your own private kingdom,” she marvelled.
“It is.” There was pride in his voice, but an unmistakeable thread of grief. “But no man has complete control over life. Over nature. This may look like a man’s dream but life isn’t. Dreams as we both know can be very easily shattered.”
They arrived to a situation. Regina had gone missing, Royce was informed the moment he set foot on the verandah.
Mrs. Gainsford, a tall thin woman, thin face, thin body, thin voice, but looking decidedly frazzled, attempted to explain, standing there, hands folded, awaiting some kind of judgement. Never once did she look in Carrie’s direction. No, it was the “master” who was the only one of importance.
“I’ve done everything in my power, Mr. McQuillan, to see that Regina was here when you arrived,” she burst out. “In fact I was congratulating myself I had won the battle. It wasn’t until a half hour ago I realised Regina was nowhere in the house. Or nowhere I know about. It makes me look so foolish, so ineffective,” she concluded hotly, ready to put the blame on a six-year-old.
“Try to forget about it,” Royce McQuillan advised sardonically. “I know you do your best, Mrs. Gainsford.” He turned to Carrie. “This is our new governess, Catrina Russell. She’ll be responsible for Regina in future.”
“Splendid!” the housekeeper clipped off, her expression conveying she didn’t believe for a moment Carrie would succeed where she couldn’t. “I have your room ready, I’ll show you to it.”
“Thank you.” Carrie offered a smile before addressing Royce McQuillan directly. “Where do you suggest I might look for Regg… Regina?” She almost slipped and said Reggie. She had come to think of this little “terror” as Reggie.
“She’ll come out when she’s good and ready,” he said wryly. “Regina needs to make a statement more than most. Of course if she hasn’t shown herself by lunchtime we’ll have to organise a little search party.”
“She never touched a bite of breakfast, either,” Mrs. Gainsford broke in, looking like this was yet another grave offence. “I’m so sorry, Mr. McQuillan. I simply dread what more shocks Regina has in store for us.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the right moment but Carrie burst out laughing. A laugh she quickly snuffed at the cold stare in her direction. This was a woman she would have to work with, Carrie thought, though she had the decided feeling she and Mrs. Gainsford would never be onside.
“And where’s Mrs. McQuillan?” Royce was asking the housekeeper rather pointedly, giving Carrie quite a chill. For a moment she thought he meant his wife.
“Here, Royce!” a voice called, heavy with overtones. As though she had been watching, waiting in the wings, a striking-looking woman in her mid to late thirties with short, thick, smartly cropped fair hair, tanned skin and very bright blue eyes appeared, offering the master of the house a strangely provocative smile. “I wanted to be here the moment you arrived but I’ve been looking for Regina. Not that any of us can stop her when she wants to hide. And this, I take it, is the new governess?” The electric-blue gaze moved to Carrie.
Just a wee bit…. astonished? Definitely not friendly. Expect no support there, Carrie thought. An element of the furious look Sharon McQuillan had given her.
“My dear, you couldn’t have arrived at a better time,” this striking woman said, stalking forward on sandals with very high heels. At the last moment she paused beside Royce McQuillan, lifted her head and gave him a kiss on the cheek that lingered far too long. “Welcome home, Royce, I’ve missed you.”
He glanced down into her upturned face. “What in a matter of hours?”
To Carrie’s acute ears the tone was cutting, but Lindsey McQuillan—it had to be—appeared to revel in it.
He made to introduce them and Carrie found herself subjected to an even more intense scrutiny.
“I gather James Halliday recommended you for the job?” Lindsey McQuillan asked as though she was about to make notes. “I never did hear your exact qualifications?”
Carrie wasn’t flustered although it looked very much like Mrs. Lindsey McQuillan had taken a dislike to her on sight.
“They’re adequate, Mrs. McQuillan,” she said courteously.
“Well, we’ll see.” The other woman stared back as though she didn’t want to leave it there. “Regina’s governesses haven’t done so well
in the past.”
“Maybe you had something to do with that, Lyn,” Royce McQuillan tossed her way. “I’m hoping you’ll give Catrina your support.”
“Oh, I will. I will. Quite rightly.” She smiled back at him in that ominous intimate way, when she might have said, Not me! I haven’t got the energy. “Anything you want to know you must come to me.” She eyed the label on Carrie’s expensive T-shirt and didn’t appear comfortable with it.
Carrie obliged her with a thank you.
“Where’s Gran?” Royce suddenly asked, sounding to Carrie’s ears as though he didn’t want to leave her alone with his glamorous “aunt.”
“Resting,” Mrs. Gainsford supplied as Lindsey McQuillan held back from an answer. “It’s not one of her good days, but she’ll be wanting to meet the young lady later on.”
“Well, Carrie, I’ll leave you to get settled.” Royce gave her a bracing glance. “I have things to do.”
“Fine. I’ll be fine.”
Carrie’s assurances were all but drowned by Lindsey McQuillan’s cry of dismay. “But surely you’ve got time for a cup of coffee, Royce? I want to tell you all about a phone call I had from Ina.”
Immediately his face hardened. “It’ll keep. If Regina doesn’t show up in an hour or so, get word to me. I see Arundi working around the grounds. He can take one of the Jeeps. I’ll be at the Four Mile. Cam’s there, isn’t he?” he asked Lindsey with a twist of his raven head.
“I expect so,” she answered languidly. “He’s where you told him to be, Royce, darling. Naturally.”
Royce McQuillan moved off. They heard his voice outside telling someone to take Carrie’s luggage into the house.
“Come this way, Miss Russell,” the housekeeper said.
“Carrie, please,” Carrie suggested pleasantly.
Mrs. Gainsford scorned that. “I prefer to call you Miss Russell, if you don’t mind.”
“Makes me seem too much of a personage.” Carrie smiled.
“You’ll have to be something of a personage to keep Regina under control,” the housekeeper said with a tight mouth. “No mother! It’s showing dreadfully. Mr. McQuillan is a wonderful man. A very important man. He shouldn’t have all this worry on his mind.”
