The Post at Gundoee

by Amanda Doyle

  The idea held a peculiar fascination for Lindsay, and so she pressed her nose to the gauze and viewed their departure with as much awe as if they had been John the Baptist departing for the Wilderness.

  When there was not even a dust-ball left, she gave a little sigh, and went to find Mannie. The old lady was in the kitchen, sorting through some articles for Sibbie and Bella to wash. She had delayed the laundry this week until Rod had left, so that she could include his things at the last minute.

  Lindsay noted her pallor and the blueness around her mouth with misgiving.

  ‘Let me do that for you, Mannie dear,’ she said quickly, hiding the rush of sympathy she couldn’t help feeling, ‘and I’ll do the lunch, too, today. Why don’t you go and lie down for a while? We might as well make the most of the men’s absence, don’t you think, and we can eat very lightly while Rod’s away, can’t we?’

  Mannie smiled wearily.

  ‘Perhaps I will. Thank you, Lindsay.’

  She was more than usually quiescent—a disquieting sign, Lindsay could not help feeling, with a strange sense of foreboding, but Carleen, in whom she later confided, merely shrugged and pointed out,

  ‘She’s old, Lindsay, isn’t she? I mean, what do you expect, at her age, out here in this wretched climate? It’s a wonder to me that Rod bothers to keep her on. An old people’s home would be more suitable, and she’d be comfortable there, with no responsibilities. He’s probably just putting it off until he gets married. In my opinion, there certainly would not be room for both that old woman and a wife here at Gundooee, and I shan’t hesitate to say so when the moment is right.’ Lindsay could only stare, quite horrified at Carleen’s callousness. What was more, the way she had spoken, it seemed as if Mannie had been right about that private understanding. ‘I shan’t hesitate’—‘when the moment is right’.

  A chill shiver ran through Lindsay. Carleen had spoken as if she was almost the mistress of Gundooee homestead already.

  ‘It’s always a mistake,’ continued Carleen reflectively, as if completely unaware of the effect her casual words were having upon her listener. ‘It’s been proved time and again that two women in the same house can be a fatal mistake.’

  ‘But surely an old lady, a dear, elderly person like Mannie could hardly make any difference, and when Rod is so—so fond—’

  ‘Too fond. Such sentimentality can cause friction, just as much as could the presence of a younger woman.’ Her eyes narrowed suddenly upon Lindsay, as she amended, softly, ‘Even younger women employees. Book-keepers, for instance.’

  ‘Carleen, please don’t talk like that to Mannie, will you, not yet—even if you’re thinking and feeling that way. If you could just help me to persuade her to take things a little easier, I’ll fill in for her. That’s all I want I—I shan’t expect you to have to do anything extra.’

  ‘It would be presumptuous of you if you did, darling. Just remember that I’m here as a visitor,’ Carleen pointed out silkily.

  In the end, persuasion was not required to induce Mannie to ease up a little. Fate took a hand instead, in the form of a collapse from which it was quite difficult to bring the old lady round. Carleen helped to carry her into her room and lay her on her bed, but it was Lindsay who later assisted her to undress, comforted her, and brought her a reviving cup of warm, sweet tea.

  ‘I think I should call up the doctor, Mannie,’ she suggested worriedly.

  ‘No, please don’t do that, Lindsay—not while Rod’s off. I’ll be all right if I rest. That’s all I need, my dear—a good rest in bed.’

  ‘But just to ask him?’

  ‘No, Lindsay, please don’t do that. I’d hate all the fuss.’

  Lindsay hesitated, but finally allowed herself to be dissuaded.

  The next few days were dreary ones. Lindsay missed Mannie’s company about the house, and soon came to realise that she had somehow acted as a buffer between herself and Carleen, who were beginning to get on each other’s nerves. Lindsay was normally able to conceal, or at least control, the irritation which Carleen’s behaviour frequently induced. Often, when she felt her fingers clenching into her palms with hurt or annoyance, she had simply walked away to see what Mannie might be doing. And Mannie, like as not, would start to tell her something, to talk about some entirely different topic, and Lindsay’s ire would begin to fade.

  Now she could not do that. There was no escape from Carleen’s baiting, and you would almost have said that the other girl was aware of that fact, perhaps even trading on it. She was not in a pleasant mood at all these days. Lindsay supposed it could only mean that she missed Rod’s company and masculine attentions.

  When, at the beginning of the next week, the rain started, the situation deteriorated even further. The dark, low-hanging clouds were a reflection of Carleen’s black mood, and the rain that drenched and drizzled by turns kept time with Lindsay’s own fits of depression and malaise. She took care to stay out of Carleen’s way as much as she possibly could, and derived a curious sense of comfort from going to Rod’s study, and looking at the wall map which hung there.

  It was comforting to be able to put one’s finger on the exact spot where those men were, comforting to know that their work must be almost done, out there at that little cross that was the Dinewan Block camp, comforting to think that they would soon be back at the homestead, and then this miserable phase would be over. Soon Carleen’s overbearing presence would be diluted once more by the banter and teasing of the jackaroos and station-hands, even if, at the same time, she must also witness the strengthening of the other girl’s association with Rod himself.

  ‘I wonder why you do it, Lindsay?’ Carleen’s voice, cool and composed, made her jump.

  ‘D-do what?’

  ‘I wonder why you come in here—into Rod’s own office—and stand there looking at his map all the time? What do you get out of it, Lindsay?’ There was a sarcastic glitter in her eye.

  ‘Why, nothing. I mean, I only come to look. Just to see where they are, sort of thing.’

  ‘You mean where Rod is, don’t you?’

  ‘I—didn’t say that.’ She tried to pass, but Carleen put a hand across the doorway and blocked her path with a deliberate movement. ‘Please let me go, Carleen. I have to get the breakfast.’

  ‘No, you didn’t say it, Lindsay’—Carleen ignored her request—‘It’s I who am saying it. You haven’t the guts to say it, have you? You’d rather just sneak in here and look at his things, at that map.’ She smiled nastily. ‘Tell me, Lindsay, what else do you do?’ she asked with cynical curiosity. ‘Do you stroke his possessions and moon in his chair, as well as gaze at his map? Perhaps you even go to his bedroom, and worship there in silence.’

  Lindsay stared.

  ‘Well, do you?’

  Lindsay felt the first faint quiver of alarm. She had never, ever, seen Carleen in quite this mood before. It was somehow rather frightening. It quite made one’s blood congeal.

  ‘Carleen, don’t be stupid! You don’t know what you’re saying!’

  There was a secretive smile hovering on those lovely lips, a smile quite without amusement.

  ‘Oh yes, I do. I know more than you think, my dear Lindsay. I’ve watched you, the way you look at him and leap to do his bidding. I’ve seen you come mooning in here since he’s been gone, too. I’ve even heard you confess that you’re in love with him. You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Carleen. Please!’

  ‘Oh yes, you are. I heard with my own ears. You didn’t deny it to Margie, did you, out there in the hall? You didn’t deny it to her as you’re doing to me.’ Carleen’s eyes were ice-pale. ‘I’ve known ever since I overheard you talking that day. I only suspected before, but then I knew. And if I hadn’t, the drooling way you looked into Rod’s eyes when he picked you up the other day was enough to tell me. Enough to tell him, too.’ She looked at Lindsay with naked dislike. ‘I believe you fell off that horse on purpose. All that nonsense about a stitch in your side ’
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br />   ‘Carleen, you must be mad!’ Lindsay’s mouth was dry, her eyes wide with dismay.

  Carleen gave a laugh that was oddly shrill and chilling.

  ‘Mad? No. But I will be if things carry on like this much longer, you little snake in the grass! How dare you stand there pretending that butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, that you don’t understand a word I’m saying, that you don’t want him, too. Well’—a shrug—‘you aren’t going to have the chance, Lindsay. You’re going, do you hear? Things were fine until you started all this “poor little girl” business—those blistered hands, your eye, that fall off Chalita. You can give up trying to draw attention to yourself all the time, and go.’

  ‘Wh-where would I go?’ Lindsay stammered, stupefied.

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care, but you’ll leave here, that’s the one sure thing! You’ll get out! If you don’t’—she passed a hand over her trembling mouth—‘if you don’t, I’ll tell Rod what a deceitful little creature you are, and he’ll make you go. Wouldn’t you rather leave of your own free will than under a cloud?’

  Lindsay squared her shoulders. Doormat! Doormat! chided a tiny voice inside her—and it seemed to be that voice which spoke just now, not her own one at all.

  ‘I don’t intend to leave, Carleen, of my own will or yours. If you tell Rod about my initial deception, I’ll tell him that you unlocked that cupboard and let Tommo get at that stuff, on purpose.’

  Carleen smirked.

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ she nodded calmly. ‘You haven’t the slightest hope of proving it, though, have you? It would simply be my word against yours, wouldn’t it, and if you lied in order to get this job in the first place, you could soon lie again, couldn’t you? As Rod said to you at that time, anyone who makes one false statement can always be expected to make another. Why should he believe you?’

  Lindsay’s shoulders sagged, but she would not admit defeat. She licked her lips.

  ‘Carleen, I—I’ve no intention of letting you bully me any longer. You’ve done it all your life and got away with it, but not any more. And I can tell you this—I am going to speak to Rod when he comes back. I’m going to confess everything, as I should have long ago. I know he’ll send me away, but not before he knows about you, too—how you schemed to get here, how you made me promise not to tell, and the reason why. He’ll loathe the pair of us, and we deserve it.’ She lifted her head, and looked the other girl soberly in the face. ‘I’ll admit to you now that I love Rod. I know he doesn’t even see me, doesn’t even know I exist, but I love him and I’m not ashamed of it. In fact, I’m proud of it! And because I do love him, I’m not going to stand by and see him go into marriage without his knowing the whole story, and then he can judge for himself. If I confess, you’re going to be exposed, too! You don’t love Rod, Carleen. You don’t love anyone. You’ve never cared for anyone except yourself in your whole life. Just yourself.’

  Carleen’s face was aflame with temper. She almost looked as though she was going to hit Lindsay. Indeed she raised her hand, palm open, and Lindsay found herself cowering away.

  ‘Shut up, will you. Shut up! I won’t listen! You aren’t going to spoil things for me, Lindsay, not now, not after going so far. I will have my way, I will, I will! I hate you, do you hear?’

  Her voice had risen to a scream. The colour had drained from her face, leaving it parchment-white, contorted with pure fury into an ugly mask. Carleen put her hands up to her face with a frustrated little moan and flounced away.

  Seconds later, from the living-room, there came a tinkling sound, the crash of breaking glass. Typically, Carleen must have taken out her rage and venom on some ornament! At almost the same moment, Lindsay heard a tiny noise from Mannie’s bedroom—a strange, lingering little sigh that broke the sudden silence following that crash.

  Still numbed and shaking from her confrontation with her cousin, she raced into the room, sick with dread, knowing instinctively that something was very far wrong. Then she stumbled back to the door, trying to rally her common sense for this new emergency.

  ‘Carleen! Carleen, come quickly. Please. Mannie’s ill, terribly ill. I think she—she may even be dying. Please come, Carleen—quickly!’

  To her credit, Carleen came, the tears of rage still wet on her cheeks.

  Together they lifted Mannie’s unconscious form, covered her with blankets, noted the heavy breathing, that strange blueness in her face.

  ‘We’ll have to call up the doctor, won’t we, Carleen? The Flying Doctor. We’ll have to get him here as quickly as possible.’

  She looked across to Carleen for support, for help, and was surprised to see the expression that came over her cousin’s beautiful, classic features. An indescribable expression, it was, calm and bitter and desperate all at once.

  And then Carleen shook her head. Kneeling there on the other side of the bed, with her face all pale and pinched and strained, and the tears drying rapidly beneath her eyes, she simply looked back at Lindsay—back and beyond her—and shook her head.

  ‘Lindsay, we can’t,’ she said in a curiously dead, shocked voice. ‘We can’t call up anyone. I’ve broken the transceiver.’

  Lindsay’s own heart seemed to stop for one terrifying, suffocating second.

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘I’ve broken it, Lindsay—the set I didn’t mean it—that alabaster vase, the big figurine, I was so furious—you know what my temper’s like.’ Carleen’s voice was no more than a whisper, with a note of pleading and despair in it that Lindsay had never thought to hear. She was moved to instant compassion at the other’s overwhelming air of shame and remorse.

  ‘What shall we do?’ she asked stupidly. Her brain seemed to have stopped functioning, events had crowded in so fast.

  Carleen wiped her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ she said hoarsely. ‘You do believe that, Lindsay? I didn’t aim on purpose, it just seemed to fly out of my hand, it’s so heavy. And you haven’t ordered batteries for the other one, have you—the set that needs recharging, down at the store?’

  ‘I was going to. Next mail-day.’ Lindsay’s tone was bleak.

  Between them, Mannie lay without moving. Still that laboured breathing, that dreadful blueness in her face.

  ‘You’ll have to go for help, Lindsay.’ Carleen stood up, smoothed down her skirt with sudden decision.

  ‘Help? How?’

  ‘You’ll have to go out and get Rod. You’ll need to ride out.’

  Lindsay looked askance.

  ‘Ride? Away out there? I’d never manage to do that, I’d never make it. You could, though, Carleen. It’s our only hope. If you could get to Rod and tell him, he could fly Mannie out to the Base hospital in his plane.’

  Carleen shook her head. Her normal colour was returning—and so was her normal voice!

  ‘Why should I go, for heaven’s sake? It’s not my place to do that, is it?’

  Lindsay stared. ‘But you can ride, and I can’t. You know that! And anyway, it was you who broke the transceiver, the wretched thing.’ Her patience was beginning to give way under the spell of the old, taunting look with which Carleen was favouring her.

  ‘And you forgot to order spares for the battery-set in the store,’ Carleen returned evenly. ‘You admitted as much last mail-day. It’s you who is the employee, after all, Lindsay, isn’t it, and your duty is clear. I’m merely a guest in this house, remember. Anyway’—she lifted her shoulders somewhat fatalistically—‘why should it really worry me whether Mannie lives or dies? She’s old, after all, and she might not like that Old Folks’ Home much, might she, in the end?’

  ‘You—oh!’

  ‘You hurry and put on your trousers, Lindsay, and I’ll catch and saddle your horse for you.’ As Lindsay turned blindly to the door, she heard Carleen add, ‘You’ll know where you’re making for better than I, anyway. You’ve certainly studied that map often enough!’

  Lindsay dragged on the baggy trousers she had borrowe
d from the store, crammed her hat with its bobbing fly-veil on her head. Then she filled one of the canvas water-bags that hung out on the veranda and ran down to the saddling yard—down through the deserted village of outbuildings that were all part of Gundooee homestead—past the little pink weatherboard cottage, past the store, enmeshed in a nightmare that this could really be happening to her.

  ‘Where’s Dusty?’

  Carleen looked up from the strap she was tightening around Chalita’s girth, and shrugged.

  ‘Not in, it seems. This is the only horse that’s handy.’

  Lindsay was aghast.

  ‘But I’ll never get there on Chalita, Carleen. Wh-what if she bolts?’

  ‘Just see to it that she bolts in the right direction, and you’ll get there all the quicker, won’t you?’ Carleen retorted tartly. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lindsay, be realistic. Even if Dusty was around for me to catch, you’d never get there on him—not all that distance, when it’s all you can do to even make him trot. Here, give me your water-bag.’