A Change for Clancy

by Amanda Doyle

  Somehow Clancy kept bitterness out of her voice.

  “I’m sorry, poppet,” she made herself say lightly, “but you know I need you in the mornings, and you have some lessons to do then, before you go out.”

  “Oh, blow lessons!” Tamara picked up a duster and flounced off with exceedingly bad grace.

  Clancy bit her lips to stop tears coming. Yes, Johnny Raustmann was right. Tammy was turning against her, and it seemed she was helpless to prevent it. Any hold she had had was slipping from her grasp with each successive minute. How had Jed Seaforth managed to undermine her authority like this? What could he be saying to Tamara about her? Oh, it just wasn’t fair that he had gone to work on the one person in the world that Clancy loved, to put her against her very own aster.

  All sorts of unpleasant thoughts chased themselves around in Clancy’s head. Her face was pale with strain and unhappiness when she finally set Tamara’s lesson books out and marked the exercises to be done, before making her own way down to the bungalow. There she began on Johnny’s room, moving like an automaton, picking up the dirty shirt, collecting soiled handkerchiefs, making a mental note of a missing button and the hole in a sock as she thrust them into the laundry-bag; emptying the mug of cold shaving-water, shaking out the brush. She made the bed, polished and dusted, moved methodically down the hall, into the other bedroom.

  Clancy stood a moment, looking about her. Certainly the bed wasn’t made, but it was stripped right back to air, and a pair of striped pyjama trousers lay folded on the pillow. Some shaving gear and a pair of silver-backed hairbrushes stood neatly on the dressing-table, but there was no dirty mug of water with congealing froth, no soiled shirt or filthy socks lying about. Clancy found her eyes drawn to the photos on the table by the bed. From a double-leather folder a man and a woman looked at each other—Jed Seaforth’s parents, obviously. The man had the same broad brow, intent eyes and determined chin—probably the same firm mouth also, but the upper lip was somewhat obscured by a greying moustache. The woman wasn’t like Jed at all. She must have been beautiful when young, and even there, as she looked from the frame to her husband opposite, there was an undeniable quality of gentle charm and appealing candour about her that made Clancy study her again, more closely. Her eyes roved over the snapshots pieced together under a single large frame of glass—family groups, youthful parents holding a tiny baby, while a boy of about nine or ten looked down proudly. The baby must be Jed, and that would be his brother—just like you and me, Tamara had said—and that grubby-kneed small boy on a pony was certainly Jed, and there were the two brothers holding up a fish, only this time a skinny black boy with a watermelon grin was standing beside them with a spear.

  Clancy wiped slowly over the frame with her duster, and replaced it carefully. Two brothers, obviously close in companionship, if not in age. Like you and me, Tamara had said. Like we were, thought Clancy sadly. Like you and I used to be, Tammy, before he came to upset everything. She blinked widely as her eyes began to prick ominously, gave a determined sniff, gathered her dustpan and broom and shut the door behind her.

  As she passed the office, she turned the handle and peeped round. She didn’t know why she did it today—and now she wished she hadn’t! Jed Seaforth was sitting at the desk, a ledger in front of him, the tally-book, journal and various papers arranged neatly at either side. With a hasty murmur of apology, Clancy made to withdraw and close the door once more.

  “Wait!” The one word rang out sternly. Then, more gently, he added, “Come in, please, Clancy.”

  As she obeyed, he rose and drew up a chair for her. His great height seemed to dwarf the small room. When she was seated, he went back to his place at the desk, swivelled his chair round, and appraised her thoughtfully. Clancy stared back like a trapped rabbit. She had an awful feeling there was still a tear at the corner of her eye. She wished she could brush it off, but that would only draw attention to it.

  “Why are you down here, Clancy?”

  Clancy replied on a note of genuine surprise. “Why, I come here every morning, to clean up and keep the place tidy.”

  “Do you mean you look after Raustmann?”

  “Well, I—I suppose you could say that. I just make the bed and dust a bit, and do his washing. Mummy used to, you see, when he moved up here to be overseer.”

  “Have you been to my room, too?”

  Clancy blushed. “Yes, I have. I—I’m sorry if you didn’t mean me to. I just didn’t think. I only made the bed. I didn’t touch anything. Your room wasn’t untidy like Johnny’s,” she added, spurred to justice in spite of her resentment.

  Jed Seaforth frowned for a long moment, but when he spoke next, it was only to say absentmindedly, “Thank you, Clancy,” as if his mind was already back on other more important things—which it was, of course, all those books and accounts.

  “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, once more. “I didn’t intend to interrupt you.”

  Clancy had the feeling he was now watching her closely. His eyes had narrowed to shrewd blue slits. He seemed to hesitate a long time before he asked, “Do you often come in here, Clancy—into the office?”

  “Oh, no!” Clancy was shocked. “I never ever do. Johnny absolutely forbids it. I sometimes look round the door, because it seems so unthorough, somehow, to pass right over a room. But this is the first time I’ve ever been right in.” She looked about her with curiosity. It all looked different from this angle, but it was an austere, uninteresting place, she decided. Jed appeared to be satisfied. She rose to take her leave, and in a single movement he towered above her.

  “Clancy? Have you something on your mind? A problem of any sort?”

  Startled, she took a step back.

  “No! No, of course not,” she assured him hastily, looking towards the door with longing. She couldn’t pass him to reach it.

  “Clancy, I think you do have a problem—and I’m not often wrong.”

  He waited, but Clancy’s eyes remained stubbornly downcast. What was the use of replying, anyway? She could hardly say, yes, I do have a problem—you. Until you go away, Johnny Raustmann won’t leave me in peace, and Tamara won’t belong to me either, but if you want to help, just go away.

  Jed Seaforth put a hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to look up into his face, but there was no doubting the kindness in his voice as he said gently, “Clancy, if there’s anything worrying you—anything at all—I want you to tell me. I want you to come to me any time if you are troubled about things, and I’ll be able to help, you, do you understand? That’s what I’m here for. But I can’t do anything until I know what it’s all about, can I?”

  Clancy’s lip quivered. She gave a quick shrug of despair, dodged from beneath his hand, and hurriedly left the room.

  Jed gave a thwarted sigh and went back to the desk, but it was a long time before he resumed his work.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE next few days’ passed uneventfully. Clancy hardly saw Johnny Raustmann. He hadn’t been in for breakfast in the mornings, and she wondered if he and Jed Seaforth had crossed swords again. It was difficult to tell with Jed. He revealed nothing of what he was thinking. The first morning Johnny hadn’t appeared, he asked, “Raustmann not here yet?” and when she had shown him the note, he merely raised a thoughtful brow, and uttered no comment. Perhaps they had had an open quarrel down at the bungalow. The scrawled paper had said, “No breakfast for next few days. I’ll get mine earlier at the quarters.” Maybe Johnny thought that would snub the new manager. If he was hoping so, he would have been disappointed. Jed Seaforth ate as heartily and was as maddeningly unconcerned as ever.

  He and Tamara were firm friends now. Tammy did whatever he asked with a willingness to obey that, while it pleased Clancy from a disciplinary point of view, hurt her deeply. For with her, Tammy was as obstructive as ever, but Clancy tried to pretend to herself that she didn’t mind being excluded from that happy partnership. She immersed herself in her household tasks, took pride in. p
roducing the tastiest meals she could, and as a salve to her own conscience for its uncharitable resentment about Tammy, she started to make a new dress for her little sister. It had been a skirt and top of her own, in palest yellow seersucker, but the skirt had been tightly gathered on to a band, and she was surprised, after she had spent painstaking hours laboriously unpicking it, at the amount of material at her disposal. Clancy worked on it in secret moments, knowing how pleased Tamara would be when she surprised her with it. There was a time, not long ago, when Tammy had scoffed at wearing any feminine apparel, but now, thanks to Jed’s encouraging admiration, she took great pains to appear neat and tidy in the evenings, and Clancy realised sympathetically that the blue floral was destined to appear with monotonous regularity, if she didn’t do something about it.

  Jed appeared to spend most of his time in the office or round about the homestead, though each morning he checked with the station hands on the orders Johnny Raustmann had given them for the day, and several times Clancy had seen his tall figure at the huts down near the creek, deep in conversation with Snowball and Jackie. It was Tamara who told her of the aborigines’ excitement when Jed appeared on Bunda, for, although Clancy had never heard his name till Mr. Parsins informed her, that day, of his imminent arrival, it seemed that Jed Seaforth was something of a legend “up in the Territory,” and these same “boys” had met him before on other stations and had assured Tammy respectfully, “him plenty good-fella boss.” They anticipated with glee the arrival of Rex with the boss’s “outfit,” too. They knew all about Rex, his tribe, his history, the places he’d been on before he’d attached himself so faithfully to Jed Seaforth, though whether the information came from Jed himself or the infallible “bush telegraph,” Tammy hadn’t ascertained.

  In spite of herself, even Clancy was beginning to respond to Jed Seaforth’s patient, gentle handling.

  Since the day in the office, he had never probed again, and although she often caught him watching her closely, it didn’t produce that uncomfortable, tense feeling that prickled over her when Johnny Raustmann did the same thing. In fact, there was such kind concern in those blue eyes that several times Clancy had to will herself not to abandon her resistance to him—to beg for his help, reveal her dilemma, let him sort out all these ghastly troubles with which her life seemed to be chokingly intertwined just lately. Still, she reminded herself stubbornly, he was the complication—to remove the trouble at its source, that was the only sure way out. Then, when she was wavering, she would fight another losing battle with Tamara, and her heart would harden all over again, and so would her resolve to fight Jed Seaforth to the last ditch.

  Then came the day when Tammy defied them both—defied not only Clancy, but her adored Jed as well. Looking at the deserted table, the chair carelessly pushed back, and the lesson-books lying abandoned, Clancy had shrugged resignedly. Tamara obviously hadn’t been able to stand the pace of her newly ordered existence without a brief respite, an occasional reversion, to her old, pleasure-seeking pre-Jed ways. Clancy, amazed at the application with which Tamara attacked her morning lessons when Jed was about, was only surprised that this lapse hadn’t occurred sooner, so she decided that, just this once, she’d say nothing to Tammy about it. She had been working well, she deserved a break, and if Clancy didn’t “come down on her like a ton of bricks,” as Tammy had lately liked to accuse her of doing, she wouldn’t be called a spoil-sport or a wet-blanket—Tammy’s other favourite reproaches.

  Of course, Tamara herself spoiled Clancy’s plan by not turning up for lunch. Jed quirked an eyebrow at the empty place, and asked, “Where is Tamara?”

  “I don’t know. She’ll probably be back soon. She always is.”

  “Has she finished the lessons you set her this morning?”

  His eagle eye was fixed on her relentlessly. What could she do but admit her sister’s defection?

  “I see,” was all he said. Clancy looked up nervously, but he had resumed his meal calmly. He thanked her courteously as he rose, complimented her on the excellent lunch, picked up his broad-brimmed hat, and strode out into the hot sun towards the bungalow. Relieved, Clancy decided that she had better warn Tammy when she came in of her hero’s patent displeasure at her disappearance, and put the matter from her mind.

  It was therefore an unpleasant shock, at sundown, to see Jed Seaforth and Tamara riding side by side back to the yards. Clancy, putting the finishing touches to the evening meal, watched them let their horses go, and walk over to the homestead. As they drew near, Clancy could see that Tamara’s freckled face, under her shabby linen hat, was red with rebellion. Jed had his own wide hat in his hand, and his face was like a thundercloud. As they entered the house, Jed gave Tamara a little push in the direction of her room, and strode in after her, shutting the door firmly after him. It didn’t seem to worry him in the least that it was also Clancy’s bedroom, or that she had intended to change there and wash, before dinner. She hadn’t liked the way he closed the door. She’d even have felt better if he’d slammed it, but that quietly controlled turning of the knob just reeked of unswerving purpose. Now Clancy hovered nervously in the passage outside, uncertain what to do. She could hear the steady thrum of the deep, masculine voice through the wall, Tamara’s shrill l tone interrupting once or twice. The gauze door on to the veranda banged, and she heard Johnny Raustmann’s steps going towards the dining-room. Clancy glanced at her watch, impatient and nerve-racked.

  Heavens, yes! It was well past their usual meal-time, and here she was, not even ready! The voices continued still, and then—oh, horror! No! He couldn’t! He wouldn’t! Not even Jed Seaforth would dare to lay a finger on Tamara, surely?

  And yet through the wall came the unmistakable thuds of a hard hand on soft flesh, and the accompanying muffled sobs rose to a thin wail. Then the door opened, and Jed came out, almost knocking her down in the dim evening light of the hall. Surprised, he put his two hands to her shoulders to restore her wavering balance, and something gave way inside Clancy. Her face was suffused with rage, she beat on the broad expanse of chest before her with raining blows, hardly knowing what she did. Her breath came in gasps, her words poured out in a tide of such overwhelming anger as she had never known before.

  “How dare you! You beast—you unutterable, brutal, horrible beast! How dare you lay a hand on my sister? You’ve no right—no one gave you the right—no matter what she’s done, you—”

  “Steady on, Clancy.” Jed grasped her flailing wrists in a grip of iron, but his words were calmly spoken. Clancy found she couldn’t stop.

  “I’ll never forgive you—never! Poor Tammy! How could you? You should never have come here, d’you hear? Interfering, dictating, you nasty, bossy brute, you think you—”

  “Be quiet, Clancy!” Tamara had come out to stand beside Jed. Her eyes were puffy, her freckled skin blotched and tear-stained, and little sobs still clotted her throat every now and then as she spoke. “You’re the one who’s interfering! You stay out of this, and leave Jed alone. He does so have the right to give me a whacking, ‘cos he warned me first. In fact, he promised he would, if I ever played hooky again, so there! You’re only angry ‘cos you hate him. You’re always saying he shouldn’t have come—you and Johnny—I’ve heard you and I know you both want to get rid of—”

  “Tamara! Enough!” Jed’s voice was so stern that whatever Tamara had been going to say was bitten back in mid-sentence, but his eyes never left Clancy’s stricken face as he said quietly, “Go back to your room, Tammy, and stay there like I said.”

  Clancy leaned against the wall, wide-eyed with mortification, dazed with hurt at Tamara’s cruel rebuff. She had gone so white that Jed thought for a moment she was going to faint, but as he put out a hand to steady her she flinched away, managed to whisper woodenly, “I’ll get the dinner in.”

  As she turned to go, he said gently, “Yes, do that, Clancy. Just leave Tamara where she is. You and I will talk afterwards.”

  Clancy couldn’t eat much
. She pushed her food around uninterestedly, but at the compelling look she encountered, from Jed, she made a pretence, and even managed to swallow a few mouthfuls. Johnny Raustmann didn’t utter one word, and. disappeared as soon as he had finished. Clancy was quick to rise! when he did—anything to avoid Jed Seaforth until she had collected herself, recovered a little from Tamara’s traitorous intervention. Clancy was still stunned by it. She knew now that whatever Jed did or said to her, Tammy would forgive him anything. In a week he had won her completely. She loved him now—and not—and not—not her, not Clancy, any more.

  Clancy hastily stacked the dishes and went out into the night. She felt in need of action, of solitude, of cool, star-strewn sky and calm evening stillness to soothe her injured soul. She walked and walked, without purpose, not thinking—pushing from her mind the unwelcome thoughts that kept crowding in. It was wrong, terribly wrong, to be jealous like this! Jealousy was an evil thing, her mother had told her that, and now look at her! She despised herself! She should be glad, glad, that Tammy had met her match, had found someone to put an end to her lawless ways, whose judgement she respected, whose justice she defended—even against Clancy, who had always been her port in a storm, up till now. It was just that Tammy was all she had—the only person in the world she had, to love and care for, and Clancy wasn’t her port in a storm any longer. It seemed Jed Seaforth himself was the storm, the port, the shelter, everything to Tamara. She had sided with him, when Clancy was only trying to protect her. Clancy felt in some way bereft.

  She didn’t know how far she walked before she turned to retrace her path. Her mind still churned unpleasantly, but she felt calmer now, in control of herself and her emotions. She could see the lights of the homestead shining out, winking in the blackness of the inland night. Her feet trod an unerring path over the soft dust of the well-known track. She knew she was now just passing the fork to the bungalow. A figure loomed towards her—a man. Jed Seaforth must have been waiting for her, determined to interview her tonight. He’d know she must pass here to return to the house, and here he was. She squared her shoulders as the man approached, then felt her heart leap uncomfortably. She saw the glow of a cigarette. It wasn’t Jed Seaforth after all. It was Johnny Raustmann.