Boomerang Bride
By Margaret Pargeter
CHAPTER ONE
Vicki stretched full length on her narrow bed, trying to focus her tired eyes on the building across the road. She could see only blurred outlines. The curtains hung undrawn on either side of the window, two thin pieces of faded cotton. It must be because the panes hadn't been cleaned properly for days that she wasn't able to see out of them. Windows hazed over so quickly if they didn't get constant attention, and this she hadn't been able to give them since she got ill. It took her all her time looking after Graham.
. Restlessly she turned on her side, checking over anxiously to see if he was still sleeping. He was, and she collapsed on to her pillows again. Outside it was cold for October in Melbourne, but her head felt hot, her pillows uncomfortable, and she couldn't find the strength to pound them back into shape. The one sheet covering her felt sticky from her perspiring body and with tearful impatience she thrust it away. Her tummy felt funny. She hoped she wasn't going to be sick again.
She coughed, just once, but it started the pain in her ribs, making her throat dry and increasing the irritation. Quickly she swallowed, attempting to control a continuing desire to cough. Weakly she reached for her glass of water, taking a hasty drink. When the knock came to the door young Graham, in the makeshift cot beside her, stirred restively but didn't wake up., Pulling herself up on one elbow, Vicki glanced at him apprehensively. Then, as he resumed his contented sucking of one finger, she gave her attention to the door. It could only be Mrs. Parkes from the room across the landing. No other tenant in the house ever came near, only Mrs. Parkes because she was old and lonely and often had nothing much to do. Usually Vicki asked her in, but she hoped that tonight, if she' pretended to be asleep, Mrs. Parkes would go away.
When the knocking continued she decided the woman must want something urgently, yet she wasn't sure if her legs would carry her as far as the door. Swinging herself on to the edge of the bed, Vicki sat staring at it uncertainly. Mrs. Parkes was so good, looking after Graham while she was out at work;, even if she did charge exorbitantly. The least Vicki felt she could do was to go and see what seemed to be bothering her so much now.
The insistent knocking began again, this time louder. With an unhappy sigh, Vicki struggled into her wrap. 'One moment,' she called, I'm coming!'
Mrs. Parkes couldn't have heard, because she tried the door. Vicki, forcing her trembling legs to bear her weight, hobbled towards it, casting another anxious glance at her small son. Graham had been sleeping almost as badly as she had lately. For the first time she could remember she felt really cross with Mrs. Parkes. If he woke she might never get him back to sleep again.
Slipping the latch, she stooped to release the bolt, pulling the door open a little as she straightened unsteadily. She wasn't prepared to have it almost thrust back into her face. 'Mrs. Parkes!' she choked protestingly, nearly losing her balance.
Then her eyes widened, her voice faded; she was unable to speak. The room seemed to be going round and round and she with it, but she knew she didn't move— she couldn't. Because it wasn't Mrs. Parkes who stood on the threshold. It was old Graham McLeod and behind him, looking as grimly forbidding as ever, his grandson, Wade McLeod, her husband, whom she hadn't seen, or been in contact with, for over four years.
'Oh, no!' Vicki knew the horrified cry must have come from her own lips, but she was scarcely aware of uttering it. Stumbling backwards, she thrust out both hands defensively, as if attempting by such a helpless gesture to ward off the two men who advanced on her so ruthlessly. Their determination to sweep her out of their way was stamped on their faces, but she could only think of her son. 'No!,' she cried again, her voice shaking, 'you can't come inhere!'
For all the notice they took she might never have spoken. The old man pushed past her as if she didn't exist, but his grandson's cruelty was more refined. He made no immediate attempt to explore the poverty-stricken room behind her, but lounged his long length against the door, staring at her as hard as she stared at him. But while her surveillance was made up of anguish and shock, his held only cool calculation. If there was a hint of whiteness under the darkness of his tanned skin, she didn't notice.
His eyes raked her from head to toe and he seemed less than impressed by what he saw. 'So,' his voice was as hard as his eyes, 'I've caught up with you at last! The little wife who fled from Baccaroo,' who disappeared as surely as if she'd been wiped from the face of the earth.' His tone became almost savage as his glance went to where his grandfather bent silently over the cot. 'Why hadn't you the sense to keep out of my way permanently?'
Vicki shuddered. It was strange how, after all this time, each word he uttered cut her like a knife thrust, but, in the frozen, panic-stricken regions of her body and mind, she could feel no pain. She whispered hoarsely, her face without colour, 'I tried to. And it was you who told me to go. After you found out about—about'
'The baby?' He might have been talking about any man's child but his own. There was no trace of emotion anywhere about him. His voice was like steel, his powerful body without softness.
Vicki continued to stare at him dumbly, realising he was still her husband, in spite of the years of separation. He had worn that same remote, unforgiving expression on the morning he had found her in the bathroom. He looked older, but otherwise didn't seem to have changed much. His hair was as thick and dark as ever it had been, but now there were streaks of grey at his temples. His mouth looked thinner, as if it had been held too tightly for too long, and there were deep lines etched around it. These could have nothing to do with her. They were maybe not uncommon in men of his age. Vaguely she calculated, sorting it out, as every day of Wade's age seemed to take on a kind of ludicrous importance. He must be around thirty-six or seven; he had been almost thirty-three when she had married him.
'Wade!' A menacing shout removed Wade McLeod's eyes from her, to narrow on the stocky figure of his grandfather. The old man's face was a startling red, his breathing harsh, as though he had been running, but his expression, as he stared at Wade, was alight with triumph. 'Look what I've found here!'
Vicki, her mind having been temporarily blanked of everything but her husband, came suddenly back to earth. 'No!' she cried, as she had done a few moments ago, but with renewed fierceness. Fright giving strength to her weak limbs, she whirled to the side of the cot, facing old man McLeod like a small termagant. 'My son has nothing to do with you. I want you both to get out of here!'
She might never have spoken for all the notice the two men took of her. The old man glanced indifferently at her stark white face before turning back to stare down at the sleeping baby. Wade, by contrast, strolled over, taking his time, as if he couldn't care less what the cot held. Gazing at them wildly feeling about as defenceless as a small bird against two hovering hawks, Vicki wondered dully how she had ever hoped to escape them. To try and fight the all-powerful McLeods could only be courting disaster, and while Wade could be willing to let his son go, the old man never would. Not now that he had found out about him, the great-grandson he had longed for.
Neither men spoke. Of the two, surprisingly enough, considering what he was, the old man's face was the one which registered emotion. Wade's, Vicki saw, was almost as revealing as stone as he looked down on his own flesh and blood, the living baby he had, unwittingly, helped to make, one dark, passion-filled if loveless night which now seemed so long ago.
Vicki knew she must try and fight them. Whatever happened they mustn't be allowed to take young Graham from her. Desperately she willed some strength into her voice, thrusting the illness which made her so feebleminded aside. 'I'm not sure what you came for,' she whispered, 'but if you've satisfied your curiosity, will you please go? I
haven't been well.'
Old man McLeod spoke first, the vigour in his voice typical of his family and belying his eighty-odd years. He might have been a man ten or even fifteen years younger. He addressed Vicki fiery. 'I've come for my great-grandson, what else! The child you've taken such care to hide from Wade and me!'
She could understand why Wade had never told him, but this brought bitterness rather than gratitude to her heart. 'You can't have him!' She clutched the side of the cot protectively, trying to steady herself so they shouldn't guess how ill she was. Furiously she faced him across it. 'You don't know, anyway, that it is your great-grandchild. You have no proof.'
The only proof they could have, she reasoned, was that which Wade had practically shaken out of her on that last, awful morning. When she had sagged in his biting hands, tears streaming down her shocked, white face. But the information he had gathered then could, for all he knew, have been wrong. Perhaps this was why he had obviously never given the old man so much as a hint, although it had been chiefly because of his grandfather he had wanted no son.
'Proof?' she heard old McLeod laughing without any humour in his throat. There was only a leer on his dark old face which still held traces of his former handsomeness, the arrogant good looks Wade had inherited along with everything else which made the McLeods what they were today. They had everything but happiness, Vicki thought scornfully, and she wanted her son to have no part of that.
'Proof!' the old man repeated, as if he doubted her sanity. He waved, his hand towards the boy in the cot. Graham was beginning to stir, as if in his sleep he sensed an audience. 'Isn't this living proof? Is he not the spitting image of Wade at his age? He's a living, breathing McLeod if ever I saw one. He even sucks the little finger of his right hand, another McLeod habit, girl. I'm so convinced I'm not even going to check his left thigh, where I'm sure I would find the McLeod birthmark.'
Vicki swallowed, not realising she was taking great gulps of air. How could she hope to deny the obvious when not even the birthmark was to be disputed? She was aware of Wade, tall and lean, a bitter twist to his mouth, his broad shoulders, against which she had on too few occasions found comfort, cynically braced. There was not, on his expressionless face, one scrap of affection for either his wife or newly discovered son. His eyes were narrowed to dark, enigmatical slits, and as her own widened helplessly he turned away to walk to the window, evidently finding the view more interesting than his wife.
Feeling sick again, Vicki realised he would never forgive her. If he was here today k could only be because his grandfather had left him with little alternative. Then she remembered Wade had never done anything unless he wanted to. Hope stirred in her heart, a confused hope but hope none the less. Could it be that Wade had actually come to stop his grandfather from taking Graham?
'How did you find us?' Not yet having the courage to put this theory into words, her mind veered drunkenly in another direction. As she spoke to the old man, who had at least always been brutally frank with her, her hands went out automatically to soothe the restless baby. Beneath her loving if distracted administrations, young Graham turned completely over, smiling in his sleep. Vicki's heart jerked. She knew that smile so well. As the old man had just pointed out, it was a living replica' of Wade's. Wade's—in one of his rare, more gentle moments.
'How did we find you?' the old man snapped, without once taking his eyes from the cot. 'We found you because every thief makes a mistake sooner or later, my dear! Mind you, if I'd had any suspicion of this, I would have been after you as soon as you left. As things were, I didn't even know you and Wade were sleeping together. I .had no proof that his marriage was anything but a desire to revenge himself on me. I had no idea you were expecting his child!'
As Vicki swayed dizzily, he went on, taking no notice of her chalky face, 'You went, madam, to the Royal Melbourne Show last month. A friend of mine told us he had seen you there with a boy, obviously your son, who could only be a McLeod. It's taken a little time to trace you. None of us suspected you would be living in such a hovel, or it might have been sooner.'
'I see.' Vicki's sapphire eyes were blank, and she met his contemptuous stare despairingly. It was true she had taken Graham to the show at Ascot Vale. He was almost four years old and, aware of his growing love for animals, she hadn't been able to resist it. The Melbourne Show being such a huge affair, she had convinced herself she would never be recognised. Wade, she had recalled, usually went to the Royal Sydney Show at Easter, which was even more enormous.
Graham, for all he was so young, had become obsessed with the livestock, the ring events and sideshows. Vicki, marvelling at his obviously inherited instincts for such things, had given in to his pleas and stayed longer than she had intended. Someone must have spotted her and told the McLeods. The world, she decided bitterly, was full of people who ought to know better!
Wade's silence appeared t& encourage the old man-—not that he ever needed any prompting to express exactly what was on his mind. 'I think you had a nerve, girl, to try and rear a McLeod in a room like this.'
Vicki's gaze wandered slowly about her. The room wasn't usually in such a clutter, but Graham was a growing boy who didn't yet know the meaning of tidiness, and she had felt too ill lately to restrain him much. It would never do to say so, however. These men, she could see, would use every weapon they could find to take Graham from her. How could she, with scarcely a penny to her name, hope to fight them alone? Unless Wade would help her. Hope flared as she stared at her husband, as if willing him to turn and look at her. Graham was Wade's son. Without his consent the old man might have little say in the matter.
'Wade,' she begged, to his taut back, thinking to give him the loophole he might be seeking, 'you never wanted a son, you said so. And you don't really have definite proof.' Before he could answer his grandfather exclaimed triumphantly, waving a paper which he took from his pocket. I have here a copy of the boy's birth certificate— Graham Wade McLeod! So we don't want to hear any more about him not being Wade's child. I regret he doesn't have a different mother, but once on the station he'll soon forget you. Any soft ways you've learnt him can soon be stamped out.'
Fear caught Vicki by the throat, a horrible, all-consuming fear, such as she had felt only once or twice before. The first time had been on hearing her parents had been killed. The second, when Wade had sent her away, and the last time when she had been quite alone when Graham was born. But none of it had seemed worse than this. The old man's threats were like barbed shafts and she knew he meant every one of them. Wastage of speech had never been a McLeod failing. It wasn't so much concern for herself—long ago she had got past caring:—it was what they would do to Graham. Soon they would have him as ruthless and arrogant as themselves.
'You—you can't take him from me! The law wouldn't allow you,' she cried hysterically, but her anguished gasp went unheard.
'The law, huh!' old man McLeod mocked. 'The law, girl, would take one look at this room—and you, and would come to the only possible decision. You don't stand a chance!'
'Wade!' Again Vicki appealed to her silent husband. Why didn't he say something? She knew appearances were against her, the conditions under which she was living." Even her illness. Her hair hung lank. The soft, pale gold, which Wade had once told her reminded him of a baby's, was now an almost ugly brown with nearly two weeks' neglect, and her usually clear skin was mottled and blotched with the fever she had. The robe she wore was mended and old because all her spare cash went towards Graham. Her body, under the robe, was thin, almost to emaciation, through her, not having been able to eat for days. With a sinking heart Vicki realised she must be looking at least ten years older than barely twenty-three.
'I do have a job,' she said fiercely, to the old man, when Wade, instead of coming to her rescue, merely turned to stare at her indifferently, his dark eyes almost black. 'I know,' she continued, her soft mouth setting bravely, 'it could never compare with the McLeod empire, all those hundreds of thousands—or is
it millions of acres—the stations you own, but it is a job!'
The old man laughed harshly. 'Do you expect young Gray to thank you for such an inheritance, for depriving him of his rightful one?'
'I call him Graham,' Vicki corrected dully. Senselessly she went on defying him, knowing she could never fully explain. She had wanted to call him Wade. The first time she had seen her son she had been determined to christen him by his father's name. This was until she had realised that every time she used it it would bring terrible pain. So it bad had to be Graham, Wade's second name, one which she believed his mother had declined to use. The old man, Vicki knew, when he was addressed in any other way nowadays, was always Gray, a shorter version of Graham.
'He's young enough yet,' old man McLeod was saying smugly, 'to take kindly to change. And believe me,' his tone changed menacingly, as he lowered his brooding brows at the swaying girl before him, 'there's going to be some.'
Vicki's eyes widened on her tormentor, the pupils dilating with visible fear. Then, to her horror, the room began reeling around her again. Whatever happened she must get rid of them before she fainted. 'If you don't leave at once,' she gasped, 'I'll call someone to throw you out!'
The old man snorted abusively. 'Now who do you imagine is going to do that? Come on, Wade, we might as well, take the boy now and go.'
'No—you can't!' Vicki protested, shocked beyond every.-thing, terrified! She was unable to believe such a thing could actually be happening. Horror-stricken, she watched, with a kind of frozen immobility, as he reached down with his brown old hands to grasp the sleeping boy. It was then that she flew at him, but even as she moved great waves of darkness began hitting her and she knew no more. Her last thought was that Wade had done nothing to help her.
When Vicki came around she found herself in bed. It was a soft bed, it felt nice, and she only wanted to he there. It took real effort to raise her heavy eyelids properly, to force her dazed eyes to wander round the room she lay in. She realised she was in hospital. The white walls, the clinical cleanliness left her in no doubt, and a fretful frown marred the smooth paleness of her wide brow. It deepened in bewilderment as she discovered Wade by her bedside.
Boomerang bride Page 1
