Raintree Valley

by Violet Winspear

  ‘I think you’re jealous of Joanna,’ he drawled.

  ‘You’re soft about her because she has blonde hair and a lah-di-dah voice. I think she’s stuck-up!’

  ‘Don’t be a child,’ he laughed lazily. ‘Joanna is a nice girl. She isn’t a greedy, selfish little dolly like you - ouch, you throw another nectarine at me and I’ll tan your—’ Suddenly there came the sound of a chair being thrust back, a scramble, a yelp, and then the laughter faded as Vance chased Bonney across the lawn and in among the trees. A parakeet let out a squawk, and silence prevailed as Joanna slowly relaxed in her chair at the table spread with Corraine silver.

  It was a relief to be invited to spend the evening with Lenita and her husband. Their bungalow was as delightful inside as out, with gay furnishings to which things from Italy added a warm charm, like the colour of Lenita’s hair and skin against Boye’s fairness. To see the couple together was to feel their love for each other, and Joanna fell a willing victim to the plump good looks of young Carlo. To hold him was a pleasure and a novelty, for after bathing him Lenita allowed Joanna to dry and powder him, and tuck him up for the night.

  As she leaned over the cot the night light gleamed on her hair and Carlo reached for the shining strand and she gave a laughing gasp of pain and pleasure.

  ‘You no longer gather your hair at the nape,’ said Lenita as she loosed her son’s strong young grip on Joanna’s hair.

  ‘No.’ Joanna smiled down into Carlo’s huge dark eyes. ‘It might be safer to go back to it ... the old urge to grab a girl by the hair seems to linger in the male of the species. Carlo mio, you’re going to be quite a lad when you grow up.’

  Carlo gurgled an affirmative, and his skin was soft and warm as Joanna bent and kissed him. ‘Buona sera, bello bambino,’ she murmured.

  They left the nursery and joined Boye in the lounge, where he was waiting to pour them a drink. ‘What do you think of the son of the house?’ he smiled.

  ‘He’s gorgeous.’ Joanna sank back against a cushion with her drink. She wore a casual grey-blue dress with a square lace collar that revealed the pale delicacy of her throat Her pale gold hair was a soft curve on her shoulders, with a central parting that gave her a look of demureness.

  ‘It’s nice for Nita to have you for a friend,’ Boye said sincerely. He gestured at the kitchen, from whence came the clatter of dishes and the appetizing aroma of an Italian sauce. ‘She’s the best, but I worry about her when I have to be away for the mustering. Now and then she gets homesick for Italy just as you must get a longing for your home and family in England. Most of the other women on the station are Australians. They’re born to living beyond the blue, but it’s hard for Nita when she gets a longing for the colour and bustle of a Roman market place, and the streets with houses set so close a couple of girls can gossip across the street without moving from their windowsills.’

  Boye studied the drink in his hand and looked sombre for a moment. ‘I’ve thought of taking Nita back to Italy and settling down there, but this job here at Raintree Valley is the best I’ve ever had. There isn’t a boss for thousands of miles as good as Adam Corraine. He pays fair and he acts fair, and in a few years if I want to branch out on my own he’ll help me. This is a land of, opportunity. Maybe not beautiful like Italy...’

  ‘I understand what you mean, Boye.’

  ‘You do?’ His eyes were eager on Joanna’s face. ‘You think I’m right to keep this job - you think Nita understands?’

  ‘She loves you,’ Joanna said simply. ‘I don’t suppose she pines for her homeland as much as you think she does. You and Carlo are her world - anyone can see that.’

  ‘She’s mine,’ Boye said frankly. ‘I’d give up living and working here if I thought Nita really wanted that...’

  ‘But I don’t!’ Lenita had entered the room so swiftly that she caught Boye in mid-sentence. ‘Signor husband, will you please not to worry because once in a while I get a little ache for the old country. Joanna knows! It lasts but a little time and then it is gone. My life is here with you — a few memories are not important.’

  ‘Nita—’

  ‘I will fetch the dinner.’ With a smile she was gone, to reappear almost at once with a large dish of spaghetti lavishly sprinkled with sauce and cheese. With laughing eyes Lenita assured her husband that she was not being nostalgic; she merely wished to show off her skill as an Italian cook. Apart from which Joanna must be browned off with steak and eggs!

  ‘How did you guess?’ The aroma of the spaghetti sauce teased Joanna’s nostrils, and she enjoyed every mouthful of the Italian food and the red wine.

  Afterwards they sat out on the small veranda, where it was good to breathe the cool air among the cluster of vines growing over the trelliswork. It was a grapevine, and the outline of mangoes could be seen on the trees on the lawn. The Dawsons had a good life and a nice home here in this lovely valley ... and the voice of a passing dream whispered something that Joanna didn’t dare to listen to. Boye strummed his guitar and Lenita talked softly about Carlo. The lights in the other bungalows went out one by one, and still they lingered over their coffee and Boye amused Joanna by telling her about his courtship of Lenita and the fierce protectiveness of her brother. ‘Do you know I didn’t get to kiss her until after the wedding!’

  Joanna’s laughter rang out. ‘Then it isn’t true, Boye, that only by a kiss can love be measured?’

  ‘Not in our case, Joanna.’ He shot a smile at Lenita. ‘One look into those Latin eyes and I was lost anyway. It’s the eyes that get a man, and the kissing is all the sweeter from being withheld.’

  ‘Australians are as old-fashioned as Latin men, did you know that, Joanna?’ Lenita caressed her husband’s face with eyes that sparkled in the half-dark. ‘They like a girl to be a home body and it shocks them that women should want more than to run a home.’

  ‘Do you want more, Nita?’ There was a smile in Boye’s voice.

  ‘I want always what I have now, caro mio, but Joanna comes from a land where women run businesses, write books, and go into politics.’

  ‘You a bachelor girl with business plans, Joanna?’

  ‘Hardly.’ She gave a laugh, and tried not to feel that flicker of pain about leaving the valley. ‘My only plan so far is to join my sister in New Zealand as soon as I can afford the air fare.’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’ Lenita murmured.

  ‘It’s what I have to do.’

  ‘Mia...’

  ‘All good things have to end some time - like dining here tonight with you and Boye. I’ve enjoyed every minute.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the homestead, Joanna.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Boye.’

  Lenita stood waving good night from the veranda, and Boye was opening the gate when the roadway gravel crunched beneath a deep tread and someone paused in the half dark and doffed a slouch hat. ‘I’m going your way,’ said a deep voice, and Joanna looked up at the speaker, a wing of pale hair across her cheek, her eyes wide and startled.

  ‘I don’t mind handing over my charge to the Boss,’ grinned Boye. ‘Good night, Joanna, and thanks for coming to eat with us.’

  ‘Thank you for having me.' Joanna’s heart beat rapidly as she waved towards the bungalow, and then fell into step beside Adam Corraine.

  ‘They’re a nice couple,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I like them very much.’

  ‘They have a fine youngster.’

  ‘Yes, a real bello bambino.’

  ‘You care for children, Miss Dowling?’

  ‘As much as any other single girl, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s mainly romance that concerns a young woman, eh?’

  ‘Not every minute of the day.’ A smile dented her lips. ‘There are times when my sole attention is upon a perfectly baked fruit pie.’

  ‘I have noticed that the fruit pies have improved.’

  ‘I’m planning something special for tomorrow. Aunt Charly has grown a large pumpkin and it see
ms a shame to let it go to seed.’

  ‘Pumpkins get cooked these days instead of enchanted?’

  ‘Cinderella can always-catch a taxi to the ball.’

  ‘Even a monoplane,’ he drawled.

  Her heart turned slowly over ... foolish of her to suppose that Adam was being friendly because the night was starry and her fair head reached only to his shoulder. She was the girl who endangered the plans he had made for Vance. He didn’t intend to let her forget that a plane had flown her into the valley and could just as easily fly her out.

  As he opened the gate to the homestead she stood withdrawn from him, and then as if to tease her a wind blew her hair against Adam’s face, an innocent touch she didn’t mean to give him. His look flashed down to her, as if her hair had whipped his cheek.

  ‘You usually wear your hair in a roll,’ he said.

  ‘A chignon.’ She tilted her chin. ‘When I’m working, but at the moment I’m off duty and free to wear my hair as I please. I’m sorry it blew in your eyes.’

  ‘It’s scented.’

  ‘Shampooed! I - I suppose the kitchen help is entitled to wash the smell of cooking grease out of her tiresome hair?’

  ‘Miss Dowling—’

  It sounded treacherously like darling, and all at once the anger and hurt brought tears to her eyes. She blinked rapidly and her lashes felt like small whips. ‘Y-you seem to think that I’m full of wiles, Mr. Corraine. Do you think that I’m trying to use them on you?’

  ‘To what purpose?’ he drawled.

  ‘Well, you are the master of Raintree. You are the biggest catch.’

  ‘It would take more than golden hair to net me.’

  ‘What would it take?’ she asked recklessly. ‘I’ll risk getting hurt for some things.’

  ‘Who has hurt you?’

  ‘Why, you and the spinifex bush.’

  ‘I haven’t touched you - you’re just touchy because on the day you arrived at Raintree I thought you wouldn’t have the stamina to stand our way of life.’

  ‘Are you saying you’re sorry for being wrong about me?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You mean I haven’t yet completed the obstacle course?’

  ‘There’s certainly no obstacle in the way of your wit, Miss Dowling. I wonder what it would take to rob you of a retort?’ Even as he spoke he caught her by the waist, under the light coat that draped her shoulders, and his hands locked her to his strong, work-supple body, while his eyes mocked the alarm on her star-lit face, pale against her softly blowing hair.

  ‘Lost for a wile?’ he mocked.

  Her lashes quivered and she was aware with all her senses of the magnetic strength that made it impossible for her to speak or move. At a distance one was aware of the power in this man ... close like this, the hard warmth of his touch right through the soft material of her dress, and she could hardly breathe for the tumult of her heartbeats. Let me go. The words clamoured but had no voice. Please.

  The plea was silent on her lips, but he knew, and with a rough little laugh he let her go. Now only their glances held, and she knew him to be as untamed as the valley and the rain-forest at the heart of it. He wasn’t possessive of them because they were his heritage. He was part of them ... they were his Eden.

  She backed away from him, and saw the glint of his teeth as he smiled.

  ‘You had to find out just how dangerous I can be. I had to find out just how innocent you are. I think we both learned something, don’t you?’

  ‘You know at least that there’ll be pumpkin pie for dessert tomorrow.’

  He laughed and lounged against the gate-post as Joanna threw him a hurried good night and hastened towards the house. She left him alone with the stars that shone big and gold in the Queensland sky — he belonged to the wild wonder of his land as perhaps he could never belong to a woman.

  Thursday was a somnolent day, as if everyone drew breath for the bustle to come. Aunt Charly discussed the party menu with Joanna when Bonney was out of earshot. ‘It’s nice for a girl to have an exciting party to remember.’ Charlotte smiled nostalgically. ‘I can still recall the thrill of mine when I was eighteen. Ice-cream and strawberries, a dance band, and flattering young men who took you for sugared icing and held you with kid gloves.’

  Joanna smiled, even as a pulse quickened in her throat. She seemed to feel again the touch of hands that knew their strength - hands that could mend and control machinery, that could help a foal or a calf into the world, whose roughness would snag the silk of a party dress.

  ‘I know what’s going through your mind.’

  Joanna gave Aunt Charly a startled look.

  ‘You’re thinking that the refinements seem out of place at Raintree, where the tang off the range blows through the house, and the men seem more at home in boots and spurs than dancing pumps.’ Aunt Charly laughed. ‘You have expressive eyes, Joanna. They turn you from a quiet girl into a bit of a sorceress. Smoke-blue eyes, like the haze in a summer sky.’

  ‘Now look,’ said Joanna, ‘we’re supposed to be planning the menu for the party sit-down.’

  ‘We’ll make ice-cream. There’s plenty of vanilla and strawberry essence, and we can add chunks of fruit.’

  ‘You seem more excited about the party than Bonney.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’ Aunt Charly admired a flower bowl which was cut like a water-lily with opening petals. ‘Girls of today are curiously blasé about the things we enjoyed so much. I think, Joanna, that being young in the old days held a quality of enchantment that is missing from life today — with all its modern improvements. We believed in romance, and we wore the kind of clothes that men liked, and enjoyed being feminine and protected. Tell me, as a girl of today don’t you sense there is something missing from your friendships with young men?’

  ‘I haven’t any young men.’

  ‘Vance likes you ... and I think he needs someone like you.’

  ‘Please, Aunt Charly...’

  ‘I mean it, Joanna. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to see that handsome devil settle down with a real nice girl. I believe firmly that he has it in him to make a good husband—’

  ‘I don’t think it would suit Mr. Corraine.’

  ‘You mean Adam?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s a good strong name to say, yet you never say it.’

  ‘I’m hardly on those sort of terms with him.’

  ‘Nonsense. The Corraines aren’t snobs. They don’t set themselves up as better than other people because they’re successful station-owners, Adam least of all.’ Charlotte’s eyes sharpened. ‘Don’t you like him?’

  ‘I think he’s a very resourceful and able man.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question, Joanna. Has Adam said anything to make you feel — unwanted?’

  ‘No - well, he told me in his blunt way not to get any ideas about Vance.’

  ‘He didn’t!’ Aunt Charly looked amazed.

  ‘He did,’ Joanna said with feeling. ‘He told me outright that I wasn’t the right girl for Vance.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never known Adam before to interfere in Vance’s affairs. Right from boys each has gone his own way with regard to their relaxations and their romances — though Adam always seemed to get more fun out of exploring the rain-forest than the beach at Hawk’s Bay.’

  This seemed so typical of the man that Joanna had to laugh. ‘You’re very fond of those two, aren’t you, Aunt Charly?’

  ‘They’re like the sons I never had, Joanna.’

  Joanna was moved by the look in Charlotte’s eyes, and she bent forward to kiss the lined cheek that long ago had been smooth as velvet, and tinged with pink to match her party dress as she stood beneath a sparkling chandelier to welcome her guests. So happy, so unaware that her heart was destined to be broken in Queensland.

  ‘What was your party dress like when you were eighteen?’ Joanna asked softly.

  ‘It was of pale pink lace trimmed with blue ribbons - my birthda
y cake was rich with wine and plums. We danced away the hours and I had a cavalier for each dance. I still remember how the brandy punch flared with a blue flame in the big silver bowl.’

  ‘We must have it for Bonney’s party,’ Joanna suggested. ‘In the bowl made from pirate silver.’

  Aunt Charly came out of her reverie and gazed for a long silent moment at Joanna. ‘I believe you are an exception these days, my dear. I believe you have a romantic heart. Guard it and forget the nonsense I have talked to you about marriage. You will love when you are ready to love, and I hope sincerely, Joanna, that your love is returned by the right man for you.’

  Joanna’s smile faltered on her lips. ‘We’ve become very serious ... let’s concentrate on the party.’

  The morning passed, and the boys had trooped in for lunch, and departed again, when Joanna found the envelope with her name on it, propped against the tea-caddy. Whoever had left it was aware that she always made herself a cup of tea after the bustle of getting the lunches served.

  Everything was very quiet as she tore open the envelope and read the note inside - it had been typed on the office machine and some of the letters were tipped with red, like little marks of danger. It was brief and to the point: Miss D. I have to make a flying visit to a neighbour. You might enjoy the trip, which should take a couple of hours there and back. Meet me at the airstrip if you feel inclined. Mr. G.

  A smile formed slowly on her lips. She guessed from the way the note was addressed and signed that it was Vance who was inviting her to spend a flying afternoon with him. His hand was healed. The prospect was pleasing. She would wear her cyclamen silk shirt and her best pair of blue jeans ... and Adam Corraine could think what he liked!

  The sky was a hot blue and the tropical trees along the airstrip stood motionless without the stirring of a leaf. Everything looked becalmed. The cattle had sought the shade of the mulgas, and if there were horsemen out on the range they were not visible. It was like a picture in colours of burnt amber, ash-green and burning blue. The air was warm and pungent.