Deep in the Forest

by Joyce Dingwell

  "It was a nature lesson. The frogs are very good specimens."

  "But didn't any danger occur to you ?"

  "Of course not. The children love their big blue bathtub, naturally they wouldn't be attracted by a scummy pond like this."

  "But you were."

  "No, it was Ignace's cap."

  "Selina, are you all right ?" he demanded.

  "It's an astrakhan cap. His stepfather brought it with him from Europe. Because Ignace likes his step father he won't say no to him, but he'd much sooner nothing at all, or perhaps a footie beanie, or a fishing tam."

  "Repeat all that again. No—don't. You're trying to tell me, I think, that Ignace threw his cap into the pond."

  "I guess so. It was there, anyway. But I think when you question Ignace he'll say he Was only bending over and it fell off."

  "But what in heaven inspired you to leap in after it ?"

  "That was a foolishness," Selina admitted.

  "And that answer," said Joel of her admission, "is the understatement of the year. Why? Why, woman ?"

  "I simply saw the cap, didn't think, and jumped. I knew as soon as I hit the water how mad it all was, but it was too late. The water was flaccid, but there was still an undertow, and I found I couldn't fight against it. At first I hated the scum and the gnats and

  the slime, and then—"

  "And then you hated the pipe ?"

  "I don't remember that. I only remember a pull and a swirl, then something dark and clammy and choking. After that I remember waking up and feeling your" ... she flushed . . . "seeing your face near mine."

  "I was giving you the kiss of life. For your peace of mind we are not, as the children are obviously hoping, planning a wedding feast."

  "Did I take long to go through the race ?" she asked.

  "I only saw you after the effort," he said drily. "But thank heaven whoever originally built it made it large enough for a quick transit, and thank heaven, too, the years had not corroded the pipe so that it presented rusty edges to catch on to your clothes and hold you there."

  "I wonder who did build it," Selina said dreamily.

  "I don't know. But I can tell you who'll destroy it.

  First thing tomorrow morning Joel Grant will do so,

  with a stick of gelignite. Please keep your brats away." "Yes," she said docilely.

  "You, incidentally, are included."

  "Yes," said Selina. After all, what else could you say to a man who had just saved your life? She would probably have recovered without the—well, kiss, but, looking back on the darkness, on the choking, on the withdrawal from that bright shore, she was not so certain.

  "Thank you," she said shyly.

  "You would have been a nuisance dead," he shrugged.

  "How was it that you came here ?" she asked curiously.

  "It's my territory."

  "But why here? I mean, the old mill isn't among your usual visiting places."

  "You," he informed her, "are not a usual girl." In case she took that as a compliment, he added : "No, you're a damnfool one."

  "How—" she began again.

  "I was looking for you."

  "You had something for me to do?"

  "No, I had someone for you to see."

  She glanced at him in inquiry, and he went on :

  "A man. Youngish old or advanced middle-aged, take your pick. He got a lift up to Tall Tops from Tallow Wood. He's at the house now."

  "And he wants to see me ?"

  "You and Madeleine, but Madeleine, of course, is up at the Ridge. If you feel steady enough now, I'll get you up, and we'll start the walk back. Do it slow and lazy."

  He called to the children, and they began scampering homewards. He looked down at the cap Selina had brought with her through the race and asked : "What about this ?"

  "Ignace doesn't like it, and I doubt, anyway, if it will ever regain its previous glamour."

  "Not like you. You've recovered."

  "Glamour, too ?"

  "I said recovered. Now put your hand on my arm."

  "I'm all right," she insisted.

  "You stumbled just then. Don't be a fool. Besides—"

  "Yes ?"

  "Besides, I have something to tell you that might unsteady you even more than the race. You have to hear it before we get to the house."

  "Yes ?" she asked again.

  "The fellow who's waiting ... look, there he is now on the verandah."

  "I see." Selina's voice was faint, and Joel Grant paused and turned round to look at her to find out why.

  "He—he's the man I saw down at Tallow Wood," she told him.

  "Yes, I thought so. He got a lift up from there." "Madeleine saw him, too, and reported the same as I did."

  "I recall. Shabby and wistful."

  "Yes." Selina glanced across again. "Yes, he is the same person."

  "He is also," said Joel, and his hands tightened instinctively round Selina to give her more support, "something—someone else.

  "According to him, and according to papers I naturally asked for and he was able to produce, he is your—father."

  "My father !" she gasped.

  "Come along," said Joel sympathetically, his arm still around her.

  Selina was grateful for his support, in fact she knew she could not have done without it.

  Father, she was thinking, my father. Our father.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HALFWAY across to the verandah where the man waited, looking, Selina thought a little hysterically, rather like an anxious old dog, Selina found she could not continue without first taking stock of herself. She pretended to have to re-lace one of her canvas sneakers, entailing kneeling on the ground where she could not see those eager eyes on her.

  Pretending to help her, Iron knelt as well.

  "Take it easy, child," he advised.

  "Am I ?" she begged pitifully back. "Am I his child ?"

  "That's for you to decide."

  "How can I ? How can I?"

  "No memory to jolt you ? No flashback to the past ?"

  "He went soon after I was born. My mother seldom spoke about him—she was like that, she never asked anyone else to share her worries, but she did say once he had told her that the responsibility of two children was too much, especially when the second child was another girl. That's too tight." Selina winced. Joel had taken over the re-lacing and at her words he had pulled the cords very hard. If she had looked up she would have seen his tightened lips.

  "Sorry." His voice was gruff. "So you wouldn't possibly remember him," he said again.

  "Not possibly."

  "Madeleine ?"

  "It would be unlikely, she would be only four. Does—does she know yet ?"

  "Your sister? No. I thought we would break it later."

  "Later ?" she queried.

  "Selina, the man, if not actually old, is physically old. It must have been a great ordeal coming up here, fronting us—fronting you and Madeleine. We certainly can't send him away again."

  "We couldn't, anyway, could we, if he's—"

  "No." Joel said that firmly. "He will not be sent away today whatever happens. But there are a few things I would like to know. Madeleine may be able to help us. Some four-year-olds have remarkable memories. Small children register characteristics that adults often miss. Some quirk, for instance, some facial identification. Like a mole ... or a cleft chin." He waited a moment, then :

  "I think we'd better start walking again. He's still waiting."

  "Yes," murmured Selina reluctantly, and he gave her a quick look.

  "You feel you can see it through?"

  "If—if you stay with me."

  That seemed to surprise him. "Where else would I be ?"

  "Getting Madeleine, perhaps."

  "We'll both fetch Madeleine from the Ridge later. Thank heaven she's not here now. I don't blow how she'd react. You're different from your sister, Selina, you're like the trees in the valley, she is like the mill."

  "B
ut without the mill—" began Selina fairly.

  "There's still an axe to do the cutting, but without the trees there's nothing. But enough of this foolish talk, we're getting nowhere. Come along now." He got up from the ground, and Selina did, too.

  They walked to the verandah. There were lots of things that Selina urgently wanted to ask Joel first. How she would address the man. What she would say after she met him. She knew she could not, and would not be expected to, run forward and greet : "Father !" Then what?

  "Good morning—Mr. Lockwood," she said. "I'm Selina."

  "Selina," the man nodded.

  Selina looked at him covertly. It had been a recognised fact that she had resembled her mother. The same rather less than average height compared to Madeleine's poppy tallness, the same calm, or promise of calm when the years cured her of youthful impetuosity.

  Madeleine had not resembled her mother at all, Maddie was flamboyant, a lovely paradise bird. Because of this, the two girls, though never enlightened, had decided long ago that Madeleine was their father's girl.

  "Probably," Maddie had said many times, "I can blame him for all my bad points."

  But this man, this Mr. Lockwood, seemed as though he never had been flamboyant even in his green years. He was also only medium height. But ... and Selina felt an unwanted tug at her ever vulnerable heart ... he seemed gentle.

  "You must be tired," she said spontaneously. "Yes. Yes, I am rather."

  "Would you like to rest ? Shall I bring you some tea ?"

  "That would be very kind," he said.

  She led him to one of Tall Tops' many bedrooms, took off the counterpane and plumped up the pillow. She had an absurd impulse to say : "Sleep, Father," absurd because she still did not know, not really, absurd because if it was true he did not deserve that name.

  "I'll bring you some tea, Mr. Lockwood," she said hurriedly. She went out of the room.

  She found Joel in the kitchen already boiling up a kettle.

  "It's too bad," he burst out, "of all times to pick to arrive ! It's you who should be lying down, not him, you've just been through an ordeal only one in a million million go through. How many days in a lifetime does anyone go through a water race ?"

  "How many days in a year do you find a father ?"

  "Is he?"

  "I don't know." A biting on her lip. "I don't know."

  "Then take the fellow's tray in and we'll go up to the Ridge, tell Madeleine, get her reaction and views. This is a serious matter, Selina."

  "Yes, a father would be."

  "Also a pseudo-father would be. Try to consider it all coolly and unemotionally. How are we to know that this man hasn't heard about you ?"

  "About me ?"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake don't be so unworldly ! That you're an heiress, of course."

  "In three years' time," she reminded him, "unless—"

  "I think you can rule out that unless," he broke in brutally, "if you're meaning Roger. Roger won't be marrying you before the time's up."

  Not knowing why she said it, Selina replied : "Someone else might."

  "Yes." He answered it at once. "Someone else might and damn the money."

  "You mean forget tomorrow ?"

  "Didn't I say that from the first ?" he asked. Across the brown kitchen he looked unwaveringly at her. Straight, hard and unblinking, his eyes held hers.

  "I'll take in the tea," Selina said.

  But when she got to the bedroom, the man was asleep. He must have been exhausted. She stood looking down on him, the tray still in her hands. He looked even older in relaxation, more defeated, more pathetic ... more unloved. Poor fellow.

  But Selina could not say : "Poor Father." She went out to the kitchen again and asked dully : "Shall we go up now to tell Maddie ?"

  He nodded and led the way to the car.

  Madeleine was hanging drapes, and was so absorbed with her task that Selina had to tell her twice. "Madeleine, you must listen."

  "Uh-huh." Maddie had pins in her mouth. "Father's at the house."

  "What house ?"

  "Tall Tops."

  "Whose father ?"

  "Oh, Maddie, listen. Our father is there."

  "Our—" Madeleine stepped down from the small ladder. The pins already had scattered to the floor. "If this is your idea of a joke—"

  Now Joel came in. He did it firmly. "Your sister is not joking, Madeleine, she's speaking the truth, or what we believe could be the truth."

  "Father !"

  ,,yes.,,

  "It couldn't be !" exclaimed Madeleine.

  "But it could, and you know it. He would not be an old man, indeed he would only be what this man is, between fifty and sixty."

  "I can't believe it."

  "He has all the usual papers of identity. I scrutinised them closely and could find nothing wrong. He also spoke of his two daughters before I mentioned them. Spoke of them by name."

  "Did he know Mother had died?"

  "No. He was sorry about that."

  "Sorry— ?" Words failed Madeleine. She walked up and down the room trying to compose herself.

  Joel left her alone for a few moments, then he questioned her as he had questioned Selina. He said :

  "No memory to jolt you? No flashback to the past ?"

  "I was barely four when he left our mother to fend on her own. I can't remember anything about him, and I don't want to. He's not even a dim figure, only a damned figure—well, as far as I'm concerned, anyway, and I intend it to remain like that."

  "I can understand your feelings, Madeleine" ... it was still Joel ... "but can you actually do a thing like that ?"

  "Actually I can," said Madeleine harshly. "Mother had to work hard physically for us for the rest of her life. She used to leave me in a kindergarten and Selina

  in a creche while she scrubbed or put labels on tins or something of the sort. Later, when we were too old for nursery schools and creches, she decided to come to the bush and housekeep, find somewhere that would accept two children as well. She was still comparatively a young woman, and she had to turn round and do that because the man she unfortunately found herself landed with disliked responsibility." Madeleine's voice was rising again. She finished : "And you want me to throw my arms around him and say Father !"

  "No, my dear." Joel's voice was soothing. "But I do want you to take it easy, as Selina is taking it easy."

  "Then Selina can do what she likes. I'm not going down to meet him and you can tell him what you please. It's very obvious, anyhow, what he's come for. After all these years he suddenly recalls he has a family. 'Let me see,' he thinks, 'they must be rising twenty-two and twenty-six. Able to support me.' "

  "Madeleine !" Joel's voice was quite stern, but Madeline still stood her ground.

  "I'm not returning to Tall Tops while he's there. I'm staying here at the Ridge. Joel" . . . appealingly . . . "can't I stay here ?"

  "Yes. Yes, Madeleine. But I, of course, must go down to the house to watch over Selina. I have no reason to believe the fellow is anything but harmless, but I couldn't take the risk of leaving her alone in the house."

  "Roger can come up to watch me," broke in Selina, and for the first time in a fiery five minutes there was silence.

  "I think," said Madeleine in a more controlled voice, "it would be better for Joel to be there. After

  all, it's his house."

  "I think so," Joel agreed, "and in case you feel left left out on a branch and unprotected, Madeleine, I'll send Roger up to Redgum."

  There was something wrong here. Selina looked from Madeleine to Joel, from Joel to Madeleine, but if she saw it, they evidently didn't.

  "Do you like the drapes, Sellie ?" Typical of Madeleine, she had finished with the subject.

  "Yes. They're nice. Maddie, you will come down some time, won't you ?" Selina looked at her appealingly.

  "No—oh, perhaps." Madeleine must have seen a certain look now in Joel's face, and she unwillingly agreed. She told Selina that until she did co
me, to send up her clothes. Roger would bring them.

  Selina promised unreally . was all this actually happening? .. and presently Iron Grant drove back to the house.

  The days that followed were the most curious days that Selina had known in all her life. It was not the fact of this man about the house, she had always had a man, and men, about the house. It was what man.

  She still could not think of the quiet, kindly, anxious-to-please fellow as Father, somewhere deep in her she knew she never would, but she still could not help but like him. There was an innate gentleness about him, and he had never-ending patience with children. Would a man who obviously loved children have left his own? But if he was lying, acting out a scene, why? Who had told him about them? Their location? How Selina would be ... could be ... an

  heiress in three years' time ? It was all too confusing.

  Selina had even made herself consider her dead mother. Could it have been possible that Mother, dear, quiet, composed, serene Mummy, had been a difficult person to live with ? No, never. Then even if she had, surely two children would have stood for something. Her mother, she knew, had never had any help from her husband once he had left, never even had seen him again. It had been through her own efforts alone that the children had grown from toddlers to small girls, and after that dear Unk had held out his hand. But—Father ? Never.

  But in spite of all the damning evidence, Selina knew she still liked the man. He fitted into the house-hole very easily. In no time he was taking over quite a few of Selina's chores. He always did the dishes, prepared the vegetables, made the endless cups of tea that people at a timber camp seem to need. He was appreciative of everything, too, and, seeing she had so much less of the drabber household tasks to perform, Selina concentrated on, and very much enjoyed, the cooking.

  Another man apparently enjoyed it. Although the agreement in the beginning was only that Joel Grant would sleep at Tall Tops of a night, most often he was there for meals as well. Selina wondered frequently about the Ridge. Did Roger go up the mountain for meals as well as guard the house each evening? An odd arrangement that ... and yet only she had seemed to think so. Madeleine didn't. Nor Joel. Nor had Roger when he had been asked.