by Amanda Doyle
‘I can’t see any need to hurry, Artie,’ she replied mildly. ‘Surely it’s better to be slow and steady, and learn thoroughly while I’m about it?’
‘There ain’t time for that,’ retorted Artie obscurely, and it seemed that the others were in agreement with him.
‘I think we’ll take you for a longer ride tomorrow, Lindsay,’ Shorty told her. ‘Mickie and I will come back early. What you need is a longer spell in the saddle, to get the proper feel of it. This way, we’re stopping and starting too much.’
‘Very well, if you think it will help.’
Lindsay was amenable to any suggestion that might be of benefit. She was actually enjoying her riding lessons, and it was thrilling to be past that tedious stage of having to be led once she was outside the yard. She was certainly beginning to acquire more confidence, and was well content with her own advancement However, the men had all been so kind, had put so much time and effort into her initiation, that she was willing to please them in any way she could.
She came back from that expedition so stiff and sore that she could hardly move when she finally slid from the saddle. Her nose was sunburnt because her hat had kept sliding back when Dusty trotted or cantered, and her face was scarlet with effort, beaded with a fine dew of perspiration, and smeared by several trails of grime where she had been swiping at the wayward flies which got under her veil.
She was going to be late for tea! Lindsay quickened her pace, awkwardly because of the stiffness of her limbs, the soreness of her racked muscles. She slammed the wicket gate in the white fence, and raced up the path, head down—smack into Rod Bennett.
‘Hold on there!’
He gripped her arm, steadied her, and then stepped back a little. He was already changed, into a blue shirt tonight, with a cravat at his neck instead of a tie. The effect was one of rakish charm. As dark as the devil, thought Lindsay, and with the same dangerous fascination! Her heart was pounding, and a pulse beat in her throat. The breathlessness she was experiencing had little to do with the fact that she had been hurrying.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I just wasn’t thinking where I was going, I’m afraid.’
She looked up to find Rod’s eyes crinkling at the corners as he inspected her state of dusty dishevelment. When his eyes reached her trousers, he had to grin, quite openly. His teeth glinted in the half light.
‘I must say you’re a ball of fashion, Lindsay. Have you been having some more riding lessons?’
‘How did you know about my riding lessons?’ she asked in surprise. He had never put in an appearance at them, and the only glimpses of him that she had caught were of a distant figure, usually in the company of another distant figure—Carleen, of course.
‘It’s my business to know what goes on on my own station, Lindsay,’ he reminded her with a strangely quizzical expression. ‘How are you coming on, by the way?’
‘Not very fast, it appears,’ she admitted humbly. ‘I am quite pleased with my progress, but the men don’t seem to be. They say I’ll never win the—er—knockout stakes at this rate.’
Rod’s grey gaze sharpened. His eyes narrowed with a keenness that made her feel uncomfortably self-conscious all of a sudden.
‘Do they, by George! So that’s what they say, eh?’ He stroked his chin with a brown, square-tipped finger. ‘I’ve noticed them all there, putting you and Dusty through your paces every night, and I reckoned they must be up to something.’
‘Yes, they’ve all been so kind. They want me to learn—and of course I want it, too. I had a pony once, long ago, at—er—at Batlow.’ She paused uncertainly, wishing she hadn’t said that. She waited for the quick frown that the mention of her childhood home usually brought, but surprisingly, it did not come. Rod was still stroking his chin. He appeared deep in thought.
‘Did you, Lindsay?’ was all he replied, abstractedly.
‘Yes, a dear little coloured one, brown and white.’ She hesitated, then—‘What is it, Rod, this knockout stakes? Something to do with the Races at Peperina?’
‘No, not at Peperina, Lindsay.’
‘But a race?’
‘I suppose you could call it that,’ he murmured gravely. ‘A race, but with no set time or place for the finish.’
Lindsay wiped her palm over her moist forehead in a sudden, worried gesture, carrying the dusty smear near one eyebrow right across to her temple.
‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed nervously, ‘I do hope they aren’t expecting me to enter for it. I’d never be good enough.’
Rod caught her hand on its way back from making the new dust-streak, and said sharply,
‘Good God, Lindsay! What have you done here?’
He turned her palm upwards and inspected it more closely. Her hand in his looked strangely pale and small.
‘They’re blisters,’ she told him simply. ‘I went for a long, long ride today. I keep wanting to use both hands on the reins, but they all say I’ve got to learn to control the horse with just one hand, because of opening gates and carrying things. They say that everyone out here can ride with only one hand, so I did it the whole time today. That’s why I’ve got blisters.’
‘I see.’ He released his grasp. ‘You’d better put something on them. Are you feeling stiff?’
‘A bit.’
‘Have a good hot bath instead of a shower tonight, Lindsay. Take your time, and soak. It will help the stiffness to go away, and it doesn’t matter if you’re late for tea, just once.’
‘I will, Rod. Thank you.’
‘Lindsay.’
‘Yes?’
He looked down at her, his sternness softening visibly. ‘Don’t worry about the knockout stakes too much,’ he advised her kindly. ‘If the men happen to mention them again, just say that Rod says there would be no point in you entering for them in any case. Have you got that? Rod says.’ She sighed relievedly.
‘I’m glad. I won’t worry any more, then, Rod.’ She turned to go.
‘That’s right. There’s no necessity to worry. And—Lindsay?’
‘Yes?’ She turned back.
‘About not being good enough’—he put a hand beneath her chin, tilted her face gently, looked right into her eyes with a quite unfamiliar expression in his own steady grey ones—‘I think that sometimes, Lindsay, you’re inclined to underestimate yourself?
A rustle sounded through the gauze near by. Then the veranda door swung open, and Carleen appeared.
‘Oh, there you are, Rod! How nice of you to suggest a walk in the garden before tea. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Good gracious, Lindsay, you aren’t even changed yet. You’ll be late for tea if you don’t hurry?
‘I’m—just going? Lindsay whispered huskily.
‘Take your time? Rod reminded her as she went. ‘It doesn’t matter at all if tea is late tonight.’
Lindsay did not suppose that it did! Not tonight! With a heart that ached unbearably, she watched Carleen link her arm through Rod’s and wander down the path at his side in a drift of French perfume. It obviously mattered to neither of them that supper might be late! Lindsay went stiffly to her room, peeled off her dusty clothes, and soaked. She felt curiously depressed—so much so, indeed, that she did not even bother to put on her “best” skirt and blouse for the meal. Her faded blue one matched her own faded blue mood, and so on it went, along with several dabs of cold cream to the tip of her sunburnt nose and forehead. Her skin would probably peel, she realised gloomily, and peering into the mirror she could discern a thickening crop of freckles. Freckles! Lindsay powdered them despairingly, and made her way to the dining-room.
Rod appeared to be in an unusually benign mood tonight. He smiled a lot, and adopted a leisurely, bantering tone with Carleen, who as always centred the conversation upon herself as much as possible. When Rod was in one of these teasing moods of his, he suddenly seemed much younger—carefree—as if he had purposely shelved his many responsibilities for the evening with the express intention of enjoying himself. This was the way he
had been with Margie, and now he was the same with Carleen. There was something about both of these young women that appealed to Rod, without a doubt.
With Lindsay, he was different.
Reserved? Inscrutable? Lindsay sought in her mind for the correct definition, failed to find it.
What else could she expect, in all honesty? She was simply the book-keeper—the unforgivably female book-keeper—and as such she received the somewhat distant consideration of a courteous employer who was indubitably a very busy man, with lots of more important things about which to think than his personal approach to the more sensitive among his employees.
Watching covertly as he engaged in a bout of diverting repartee with Carleen, his mouth curving in a cynically attractive manner, his eyes glinting appreciatively as she leaned towards him, Lindsay remembered that moment outside this evening with a curious little pang. Just for one second, as he gazed down at her in the gloaming with that darkening expression, it had seemed to Lindsay as though he was seeing her, for the very first time, in a human light. She could still feel the warmth and firmness of his hand as he took hers, the strength of his fingers, the kindness beneath his lazy amusement over her khaki store trousers with their bulging bottom and rolled-up cuffs.
Just for one second, out there in the garden, it had seemed to Lindsay as though some hidden, unbidden magic had drawn herself and Rod together in its spell. Something quite intangible had been happening, something that had set Lindsay’s nerves deliciously aquiver.
And then the gauze door had creaked on its hinges. With Carleen’s appearance, the magic moment had fled—probably for ever.
Lindsay could not imagine any girl being lucky enough to have a moment such as that one with Rod twice in any lifetime!
CHAPTER 8
The following week Margie brought a party of young people over to play tennis.
Shorty and Mick, the two jackaroos, joined in, and together with Carleen and Lindsay, made up a party of eight. The boys worked hard for a couple of evenings beforehand, sprinkling the court with water, rolling it, and marking out new white lines with lime. Lindsay did all she could to help, carrying water, moving the strings that they had stretched out as a guide to straightness, and bringing them mugs of tea or beer at intervals. Carleen was conspicuous by her absence, although she did appear once or twice, simulating interest in their progress, but at the same time taking care not to linger sufficiently long to be given something to do.
The visitors who walked up from the plane with Margie all had on crisp white tennis clothes, and even Mickie and Shorty, when they came whistling up from their quarters, looked unfamiliarly smart in their white shorts and shirts, socks, and whitened tennis shoes, their muscular limbs appearing more brown and sinewy than ever in contrast.
Lindsay knew that her own shorts and shirt were, as always, a compromise, but she was proud of her sandshoes, which the boys had whitened for her when they were doing their own, and which had come up like new. She found herself looking forward to the afternoon enormously.
She played a passable game of tennis, and once she learned that Rod himself had opted out on the pretext of doing some work in his office, felt her self-consciousness slipping away. He would ‘be around’, he assured them, and would certainly attend the barbecue lunch on the lawn, and would come out from time to time to cheer them on and see who was winning. Even Carleen’s own pleas could not persuade him to change his mind about playing, and when she discovered his intention not to take part, she immediately said that in that case, she wouldn’t either. She was Sure he could do with some company, and she’d promise not to distract him if his work was really as important as all that.
Only Margie’s diplomatic intervention saved the numbers from being thrown out by having one girl too few. With an ungracious shrug, Carleen finally agreed to take part.
‘Not the easiest of visitors to have around, I should imagine,’ Margie murmured softly, looking after Carleen as she strolled away. ‘How do you get on with her, Lindsay, I wonder?’
Lindsay, too, watched the elegant blonde girl as she stopped to chat to the people in Margie’s party. She ignored Mick and Shorty, just as she ignored all the other employees on Gundooee, hardly deigning to pass the time of day with them. As for Sibbie and Bella and those other loyal and friendly aborigines from the gunyahs down on the creek, she avoided these with a noticeable fastidiousness that almost amounted to mysophobia.
Today Carleen had on a sleeveless tennis dress with a brief, pleated skirt that swung in a pretty, kilted effect about her long, slender legs. Her hair was tied back with a broad red ribbon that matched the little scarlet motif on her pocket. She was laughing in that familiarly husky, attractive way at something one of the men was saying to her, spinning her racket carelessly with one hand as she replied.
‘I don’t see very much of her, Margie,’ Lindsay admitted, shrugging briefly. ‘None of us do, really, except for Rod.’
‘I see.’ The other girl looked thoughtful, and just a little bit puzzled. ‘Is she staying for very long, do you know, Lindsay?’
‘Until she’s quite better—I’m quoting Rod now. She’s had—er—bronchitis, or something, I believe.’ Lindsay was vague.
Margie raised an eyebrow, smiled openly, that pretty, candid smile that showed her pearly, even teeth.
‘She looks as strong as an ox, if you ask me—disgustingly healthy, in fact. Oh well, come on, Lindsay. Shall we go and help Mannie and Rod start the barbecue?’
Following Margie over the lawn, Lindsay found herself hoping that Margie’s own feelings had not been hurt by her revelation that Rod and Carleen were so frequently in each other’s company. There had been such an odd look in her eye for a fleeting second, and Lindsay wondered if Margie, for all her gaiety and undiscriminating friendliness towards everyone, might not be vulnerable where Rod himself was concerned. That was what Mac had hinted in the kitchen one day, and it was all too possible that he could be right. People like Margie were better than most at concealing the depth of their emotions, and Lindsay hoped, quite fervently, that Carleen would not in some way inflict a hurt on this friendly girl whom she was beginning to like so much. Margie was worth ten of Carleen, she thought fiercely. How blind men could be, if they were dazzled by that lovely, shallow facade!
The barbecue was a success, by any standards. Large succulent steaks from the station’s corkroom were grilled over the open fire, and accompanied by an assortment of salads and fruits prepared by Mannie and Lindsay. Rod was turning the steaks, doling out potatoes which he had buried in their jackets in the hot ashes to cook. He handled the operation with the dexterity born of many years of preparing meals in the great outdoors with a minimum of culinary equipment.
Margie and her crowd had brought cold desserts as their contribution to the lunch, and after that Rod boiled the billy, in the traditional country way, placing a small, sappy eucalypt bough carefully across the top to disperse the smoke, and tapping the blackened billy all round when he had brewed-up, to sink the tea-leaves to the bottom. They drank the tea scalding hot. It was a refreshing finish to what for Lindsay had been an excitingly unusual meal, although the others, even Carleen, were obviously well versed in the barbecue art.
Afterwards they all lay around for a while to recover, in the plots of shade on the lawn, talking idly, smoking, exchanging views and stories. Then the first doubles players tossed for service, and wandered over to the court, and Lindsay, Margie, Shorty, and Mick began to clear up the remains of the picnic and carry things into the house, insisting that Mannie should leave everything to them, and go to lie down on her bed for her afternoon sleep, as she was accustomed to doing each day.
By the time they returned, Rod had dealt with the lying embers of his fire and had strolled across to watch the tennis in progress. When they approached he stood up, moved to one end of the long wooden garden seat to make room for them all, and then they all sat down again. Lindsay, at the other end of the bench, hoped that he would soon
tire of looking on, and that he would have gone back to his office before her own turn came.
He didn’t, of course. When Carleen and the others came off, he passed around the beer and iced fruit juice from the table just behind him, and chatted to his visitors.
‘You play a very neat game, Carleen.’ She heard his deep voice among the others. ‘That’s quite a backhand you have, and you obviously use that pretty little head in tennis, as in everything else. That lob of yours broke deadlock, and then you were home and dry.’
‘How nice of you. Rod, to notice. I do wish you would play, too, though. Won’t you change your mind?’
‘Not today, I think. I might give you a game of singles some time, if you like, now that the boys have the court in order. I don’t promise to spare you, though, just because you happen to look so delectably feminine. I’ll be out to win, I assure you.’
She gave a small, secretive smile.
‘Darling, you never do spare me, do you? I thrive on it, Rod, that masterful touch! And remember—I am out to win, too, so that should be interesting, shouldn’t it?’ she murmured.
Lindsay looked away. They were talking in riddles which she did not understand, but the smug, complacent expression on Carleen’s face sent little shivers down her spine, for no particular reason.
Her eyes met Margie’s, and what Margie did then surprised her. She closed one eye, and winked at Lindsay, quite solemnly—and Lindsay knew that she, too, had heard that snippet of conversation.
Lindsay never made up her mind, afterwards, whether it was that upsetting morsel of conversation, or Rod’s own presence on the sidelines, which was responsible for her lack of concentration, but whatever it was, Shorty must have cursed his inept partner soundly more than once under his breath. Apart from one or two miraculous recoveries, she had never played such appalling tennis in her life. She slammed, whacked, hooked, hesitated—all with disastrous consequences. And then a singing ball from Mick put an end to it all.
