by Amanda Doyle
Those cannas were sleeping, out there in the garden, and you’d have said even the trees were drowsing in the noonday sun. Their leaves were drooping in the heat, like the huge, floppy petals of the cannas. What exotic blooms those were, those cannas—and the colours—so vivid—they were blending now in an incredible way, before her eyes—the red and the orange and that darker red—all red—all dark—all black.
Rennie stirred. She might just as well snooze until Ash came back, and save her energy for that long journey ahead.
She had no idea what time it could possibly have been when she was roused by the sound of men’s voices coming from the veranda outside her room. Funny thing, that—she had thought that she was on the veranda outside her room, instead of here on her bed. Not that she minded, because when one felt as languorous as this, a bed was indubitably a very comfortable place to be.
‘—going to have a clean-up. I’ve had the devil of a long ride in!’
‘Never mind, you got here in time, although I must say I was beginning to wonder, when it got dark, if you would be in time—’
‘In time for what?’ That voice sounded deeply, crisply irritated. ‘How many did you say you gave her?’
‘Only three, out of the number eight bottle.’
‘Good God, you could knock a bullock-team out with that!’
‘You gave her that much yourself, just the other day.’ That voice was injured, no doubt about it. Rennie felt quite sorry for that voice! ‘That’s how I knew it’d be O.K.’
‘The dose is two, you idiot. I only made it three because she was under stress. And with alcohol too—I mean, that in itself increases the effectiveness. It’s a wonder you didn’t think—’
‘Well, I kept her here, didn’t I, as you instructed? Keep her there till I come, you said. At all costs, you said. I don’t care how you do it, you said. Keep her there, you said, even if you have to chain her to the veranda-post to do it!’
‘Well?’
‘Well, you can’t tie a lovely girl like that up to a veranda-post. What would you have done yourself? You didn’t seem too full of bright ideas when I called you up on the two-way. You only said what to do, you didn’t say how to do it.’
‘If I’d realized the possibilities in store, I’d have made a few suggestions, believe me!’ Very grimly, that was said.
‘Well, I don’t reckon I did too badly. I can tell you one thing, for a while I was absolutely stumped, before this idea came to me. Anyway, playing Cupid’s not my line.’
‘O.K., we’ll leave it.’ A chair scraped. ‘Pour me a whisky while I get a shower and shave, will, you, Cupid? And for Pete’s sake keep those meddlesome fingers away from the medicine-chest while you’re doing it!’
What a crazy, upside-down conversation! Rennie marvelled at the stupidity of it. Then, as two pairs of boots went away along the veranda and comfortable silence reigned once more, she went to sleep again.
When she woke, the first grey light showed her the outline of her window. Rennie got off the bed, surprised to find herself fully clothed, still dressed in the things she had changed into when she had got ready to go away to Meridian with Ash.
Something must have gone wrong somewhere, because she was still here, after all, and not in Meridian. Not even bumping over the plain towards it in the Blitzwaggon, but here, in her bedroom, at Barrindilloo. It was all very puzzling.
She groped for her sandals, slipped them on, automatically smoothed her rumpled head.
A sound on the veranda sent her to the window, peering out, and even as she turned, the light was flicked on, and Chad stood in the doorway.
Rennie simply put her hand to her throat and stared. Chad himself. She didn’t even attempt to fathom how he had got here, or why—it was all a part of this crazy, mixed-up day. She just stood there, gazed dumbly at the tall, broad-shouldered figure in the narrow moleskins, clean white shirt, newly-polished boots, took in the weary lines that grooved his freshly-shaven cheeks, the watchfulness in his probing eyes, the cynical twist that pulled at his mouth. He looked pale, tired, a little grim.
‘So, Renata. You thought you’d run out on me, did you?’
He took a step into the room as he drawled those words in a deceptively lazy way. She knew by now what that laziness could hide!
If he expected a reply, he didn’t get one. Rennie couldn’t speak. She found that she was trembling, ever so slightly.
She took her fingers away from her throat and clasped her hands tightly together in front of her. It was a gesture of appeal, of supplication, because she felt helpless to pretend any longer, and yet she knew she must. Oh, why couldn’t he have let her go? Why couldn’t she have got away?
‘Why did you come back, Chad?’ she heard herself ask finally, quietly, with a calm that surprised her.
‘Why were you running away?’ he countered smoothly, as he went on watching her in that curiously penetrating fashion. ‘You don’t intend to answer, I can see that.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘Or are you going to after all?’
He came over to where she stood, and now he was looking right down into her eyes. He still had that patient, controlled expression in his tanned face, as though he might be prepared to stand there for ever, waiting for her to reply. Rennie was aware of his nearness in a way that was torture. She could see the places where his hair was still dark-tipped with dampness after the shower, could catch the familiar aroma of his after-shave lotion; and that finely seamed scar that ran down the side of his stern face, on down his neck, to his collar, she could have reached out and touched it, he was so near; and that tiny muscle that flickered momentarily close to his jawline as it tightened just now, she could have smoothed away that tiny, almost imperceptible movement with one finger, without even moving from where she stood.
‘I—no, I—’
She gave it up. What could she say that wouldn’t be hopelessly revealing?
‘What if I told you that the reason I came back just now was the very same reason as the one which made you try to run away?’ he suggested carefully, and there were the beginnings of a smile in those green eyes as he said it. There was a message in them, those eyes, or at least, the beginnings of a message—the same message that had been there before—the one she couldn’t seem to understand—
‘I—I wouldn’t believe you. It would be impossible!’
‘On the contrary, nothing’s impossible.’
‘Please, Chad. I think this conversation is quite profitless.’
To her surprise, Chad agreed, somewhat grimly.
‘Yes, I’m beginning to think that, too,’ he said abruptly, and with one swift movement, he had taken her into his arms, imprisoned her there, and when she struggled, his hold merely tightened.
Rennie could only stay quite still, like a palpitating, frightened, captive bird. Chad’s eyes were holding hers. They were mesmerizing her.
‘Don’t fight me, Rennie darling,’ he was saying, and his voice was oddly husky, so that Rennie wondered if she could possibly have heard aright—‘Don’t fight me any more, little sweetheart. I’ve had one hell of a trip in—I never thought I’d be in time.’
His lips were close to her ear, and she felt them brushing across her cheek. They were travelling, very slowly, very intentionally, towards her mouth.
‘There are times,’ Chad murmured thickly—and Rennie only just caught the words—‘when conversation can be quite profitless.’
And then he kissed her, very tenderly, very gently, after which he took her face between his hands, and looked right into her eyes.
‘Well?’ Chad was quizzical. ‘Did you get the message this time?’
‘Oh, Chad!’ She melted into his arms again, ecstatic, only half believing even now. ‘You called me Rennie—like my friends do,’ she said, on a note of wonder.
‘I called you “darling”,’ he corrected sternly, ‘like mere friends don’t—or shouldn’t.’
‘Rennie and darling. You—I—you’ve never called me that before!’<
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‘Just once.’ His mouth lifted lopsidedly, in that endearing way. ‘But I couldn’t expect you to remember the occasion, right in the middle of a water-course that had just come down a banker, when I was trying my best to keep my balance for both of us, and save us from a ducking.’
‘But I did! I do!’
‘You pushed me away.’
‘Him. I pushed him away. I thought you were Keith.’
‘You said his name, quite clearly.’
‘Did I? I didn’t know that.’
‘That’s why I went away straight after, once I’d made sure you’d be all right—to leave the field to that Stamford cove.’ Chad grinned. ‘It took more will-power than I ever thought I possessed, but you seemed to have made your preference unpalatably plain.’
‘Oh, Chad!’ She gazed at him helplessly, and her eyes were brimming with an emotion she could no longer hide—‘that’s why I was going, too. Because of Leith.’
‘Leith!’ He was startled, it seemed, and not altogether pleased. ‘What the blazes has she to do with it?’
‘Well, I—I thought—I mean, I knew that there was this understanding between you.’
‘What understanding?’ He looked at her sharply, with an unwavering gaze, quite clearly puzzled. ‘Rennie, what are you talking about? What was this understanding I’m supposed to have had? When, by word or deed, have I ever led you to believe that there was an understanding—an insipid word, that! Too insipid for us—an understanding between myself and Leith? Have I ever said any such thing?’
‘N—no, Chad.’ He hadn’t of course, had he, really? He hadn’t.
‘Has anyone ever said any such thing?’ he insisted sternly.
‘No, Chad, they haven’t.’ Rennie met his eyes as unwaveringly as he had met hers. There were times in a girl’s life when she could afford to be generous, and Rennie knew that, for her, this was one of those times. She’d never tell, never. And some day she and Leith were going to be very good friends. Rennie was going to work hard at that friendship, because Leith was really a very nice person in many ways. She couldn’t find it in her heart to blame her for what she had tried to do.
‘Little goose!’ He drew her to him and kissed her again, and this time the tenderness got quite out of hand. It gave way eventually to a passion that left Rennie ecstatic and shaken—as shaken as Chad himself.
He put her from him, ran his fingers through his hair distractedly.
‘Dear heaven, Rennie, what you’ve put me through! Understandings, she says! I’ve loved you, I’ve meant to have you, from the moment I set eyes on you, that night down there in the city. You tried to escape me then, and you had a go just now, too, and if it hadn’t been for a bit of timely communication between old Ash there and me, I’d be having to chase all over the country, looking for you to bring you back! Well, I’m never going to let you go again, Rennie, do you hear? You’re going to be my wife, and to hell with “understandings” and conventional delays while the lady makes up her mind! Darling, will you marry me?’
There she was, back in his arms, and Chad was waiting for her answer. He was looking tender and impatient and demanding, all at the same time.
‘Whenever you say, Chad.’ A dimple peeped furtively, as Rennie concealed a smile. This was probably the only time in his life that the boss of Barrindilloo station had ever deferred to anyone, and it was probably the only time in her life that he would defer to her! Rennie, curiously, didn’t mind at all!
‘Do you think Ash could give me away?’ she asked meekly.
‘I don’t see why not. He’d better do something to make up for doping you in that atrociously ruthless fashion, hadn’t he?’
‘And Magda could be our flower-girl. She’d be sweet, wouldn’t she, as a little flower-girl?’
‘Mm.’ Chad’s eyes were on her face. It was doubtful if he was really listening.
‘Sweet,’ he repeated, in a tender, dreamy way.
‘And could Murtie come, and all the rest? I really would like Murtie and Elspeth too.’
‘Mm.’
‘Chad, are you listening?’
‘Yes, my darling little schemer, I’m listening, and the answer is yes. That wedding-day is going to be your day—our day—and you shall have it just whatever way you want it. And of course they’ll all be there—Murtie, Harry, the lot. I couldn’t get through a thing like a wedding without them, could I? It’ll be worse than a bangtail muster! But after we’re married, they can go off and paint the town. They can paint it red, or red, white and blue, for all I care—because I’ll have other things on my mind, and so will Mrs. Sandasen.’
‘Chad?’
‘Yes, Rennie?’
‘Chad, I’ve loved you for a very long time, too,’ she confessed a little shyly, with her face pressed against his shirt. ‘I’ve been thinking back, and I know now that that’s what it all meant, all the time I was fighting against it. I’ve been so stupid, not knowing what it was.’
And Leith hadn’t helped!
‘And now? You’re sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ She looked up at him, and Chad’s eyes were crinkling in that greenly teasing way. His white teeth glinted in his teak-brown face as he smiled down tenderly, as if he had got her message too.
‘Do you think we could have that wedding very soon?’ asked Rennie, on a whisper.
And down at the creek, the kookaburras started chuckling, gleefully, jubilantly, triumphantly, telling the world that the spirit fires had been lit and that the sun would soon be up, and that it was time for all the other earth-dwellers to get up too. They were laughing-in the dawn of a brand-new day—a wonderful, new day that somehow belonged, almost exclusively, to Rennie and Chad.
