The Tartan Touch

by Isobel Chace

  “It’s—it’s very dry,” I said. Try as I would, I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  “Right,” Mr. Fraser agreed laconically. “But you soon get to see the other things apart from the dust and the mulga.” He began to point out the different vegetation, taking great trouble with my ignorance. There were more varieties of trees than I would have believed, such as sandalwood, and what he called oak trees, and desert oaks, and cork oaks, gidge, kurrajong, quandong, native poplars and native pines, and, in the dried up creeks, were river and salmon gums. He even showed me a yeelbar tree, a rarity on the Murchison. It had a bright white trunk and leaves that divided into three, but there were none to be seen just then, for it shed its leaves in winter and it now had a vivid red blossom which went before the leaves would come again.

  “It’s a fine country, don’t you think?” he said.

  I tried to answer him. I tried to find the words that would please him in his pride in this great heat-scorched land of his. But there were none that came to me. I longed for the tender hues of Scotland; the blues and greens and the purple of the heather and the distant hills. I was sick with longing, or I thought that I was.

  His grey eyes studied me seriously. He was plainly at a loss to know what to do with me.

  “Four years isn’t a very long time, is it?” I said bravely.

  “It depends,” he murmured.

  “Ay,” I sighed, “but the seasons won’t mark the years here, stirring up longings for other things. In the manse, I would long to be free, often and often, wicked as I knew such thoughts to be, with my father ailing and there being only me at hand to nurse him—”

  “And now you find yourself in a new prison?” he said dryly.

  I looked about me again at the harsh prospect of Mirrabooka.

  “I’m not so daft!” I denied with spirit. “You shouldn’t heed me blethering on about things that can’t be changed! If I were back at the manse, I’d be sick for the sight of this country, In an apple orchard I’d long for an orange—”

  “And here you long for an apple?” he supplied for me.

  I smiled, ashamed of myself. “If it were crisp and juicy,” I confessed.

  To my surprise, he seemed more amused than angry, “I think we can find you some apples at the Homestead,” was all he said. “First thing, I’ll fetch them to you myself!”

  I shook my head at him, rebuking him with a look. But I no longer felt the coldness of the outsider and I thought perhaps I could love his land a little after all.

  “I thought we’d have little else but mutton to eat,” I confided, I hoped subtly changing the subject.

  “Oh, my word, no! Almost anything can be kept in the freezer these days. We have turkey and home-made hams, beef as well as lamb, and even the odd crayfish flown up from Geraldton!”

  Try as I would, I couldn’t restrain my laughter. “And apples!” I said.

  “And apples!” he confirmed. “Especially apples!” And thus it was that he brought me home to Mirrabooka, ostensibly as his wife, and I had my first sight of the house where he lived, the place I was tied to until his ward, Mary Fraser, came of age and could take her own place in the world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mirrabooka was an awkward kingdom. Mr. Fraser, the king, ruled with an easy hand, but until now he had had no consort to run the house other than as the bachelor quarters of a busy man who spent the greater part of his days out of doors. It had all been different, he told me, when his mother had been there, but since his father had died, she had married again and seldom visited the Murchison,

  To my eyes, it was a house of stature. It was built on a single floor, with plenty of rooms, most of them furnished with some of the loveliest furniture I had ever seen, some of it really old and brought from Scotland with the first of the Australian Frasers. But it was the gadgets that truly amazed me. There was a gadget for everything! The whole house was air-conditioned, but that was only a beginning. There were deep-freezers, refrigerators, store cupboards to make one gasp—even an electric kettle and an electric coffee percolator, the like of which I had never even thought of possessing. At the manse, we had only the kitchen range and we were grateful for it.

  It was sizzling hot outside and there wasn’t a sheep in sight as we drove up the front of the house. Mr. Fraser came round to my side of the old ute and held out his hand to me.

  “I reckon it would be out of place to carry you over the threshold,” he said.

  “I should think so!” I retorted.

  “Pity,” he said, without a glimmer of a smile.

  “Oh no!” I exclaimed. “I can stand on my own two feet!” I hesitated, wondering how it was that I was in two minds as to whether I should like him to carry me into the house. “The MacTaggarts—”

  “Are independent to the point of being stubborn!” he finished for me.

  “And just as well too!” I came back quickly. “We’re not ones to have romantic notions about a great deal of nonsense!”

  He gave me a truly wicked look through his grey steel eyes. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away!” he taunted me.

  It was base of him to take advantage of my weakness, There’s not a body in the world who doesn’t feel, the pull of his own native land. I professed not to have heard him, for my pride was somewhat dented, and, ignoring his outstretched hand, I took my first step on Mirrabooka soil.

  The coolness of the air-conditioning was as soft as the water from the burn that ran past the manse. Outside the sun and the Frasers could crush my spirits, but inside I felt the advantages were all mine. I could breathe again.

  “Well?” Mr. Fraser asked me as I looked around in amazement.

  But I never answered him, for a young girl came slowly into the room.

  “So you’re back!” she said to Mr. Fraser.

  “With a wife,” Andrew returned through clenched teeth.

  The young girl laughed. “I’ve heard all about her!” she said with contempt. “Mother says she’ll never do as Mrs. Andrew Fraser!”

  “Mary!” Andrew rapped out, in a voice I had never heard before and never wanted to hear again.

  I stopped him with a look. Mary Fraser was a beauty of some note. Her brave red hair could compete with any that had set the Highlands on fire, any that I had seen at least. It was no wonder that he wanted to keep her near him. I wanted to feast my own eyes on that vivid colour, which was only matched by the grass-green of her eyes.

  “Are you Mary Fraser?” I asked her gently. “I am Kirsty.”

  She didn’t want to smile at me, but I imagine she was naturally charming and found it hard to be anything else, even when her loyalty to her mother drove her.

  “Kirsty MacTaggart?” she said with amusement.

  “Kirsty Fraser,” Andrew put in, his temper still hot in his eyes.

  “Ay, Kirsty MacTaggart,” I agreed calmly. “That’s the name I was born with and it suits me well.”

  Mary laughed. “Yes, it does,” she said positively. “It’s funny, coming from the same place as my mother. You’re not at all alike!”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Nor are you and Mr. Fraser, come to that!” I retorted.

  Mary was intrigued. “Mr. Fraser,” she repeated, “I like that! It suits you, Andy. It suits your autocratic manner. Perhaps that’s what I shall call you?”

  He glared at us both, “Don’t you dare! One foolish female is enough to bear with at a time!”

  Mary grinned at him. “Who’d have thought you’d find a wife cute enough to beat you at your own game!” she teased him.

  “She has decent manners,” he reproved her.

  “Too right,” she drawled. She turned her laughing eyes on me. “Though my mother doesn’t think so,” she added.

  I blushed painfully. “I can’t think why I said what I did,” I confessed wretchedly. “I shall apologise to your mother, of course, when she comes—”

  “When she comes?” Mary said on a note of enquiry.

&
nbsp; “Did you not know? She said she was coming on a visit quite soon,” I told her.

  She looked at me in blank astonishment. “And you’ll allow it?” she said.

  “But of course she must come,” I said with dignity “Whatever made you think otherwise?”

  The girl shrugged, “She’s not the most popular character on the Murchison,” she said bluntly, “She always thinks everyone wants to keep her away.”

  “Nonsense!” I said flatly. “She’s your mother. Isn’t that reason enough for her to visit whenever she cares to?”

  The Frasers exchanged glances, “You might bite off more than you can chew,” Andrew warned me, but he didn’t seem displeased by my attitude.

  Mary was more specific. “It’s fatal to be humble with my mother!” she insisted.

  I thought of the Camerons I had known back home, folk who must have been her close relations. Margaret Cameron held no terrors for me.

  “Your mother will always be welcome here while I’m mistress of this house,” I said with finality. Andrew started and I was hard put to it not to blush and give the game away. I could boast all I liked, we both knew that while he was the master of Mirrabooka, I would never be mistress there.

  Mary decided herself to show me the house. She took me first to Andrew’s bedroom which his parents had once shared.

  “I expect you’ll be sleeping in here,” she said easily. “I’ll tell them to bring your luggage in just as soon as you’ve seen the whole house.”

  I winced away from my own thoughts. “Andrew and I prefer not to share a room,” I said tautly.

  Her green eyes glittered. “I don’t know what Andy will say to that!”

  I fell into the trap, daft as I am, because I was curious to know everything I could about Andrew Fraser. “Why not?” I said.

  She laughed out loud. “Don’t you know anything about Andy? He’s the greatest catch in Western Australia. Oh my, Kirsty, you’ve got a lot to answer to to all the girls round here!”

  “You mean—you mean Andrew is popular?” I suggested with difficulty.

  “Popular!” she echoed. “The girls all tie themselves in knots merely to dance with him. And he knows it!”

  “Are there so few men on the Murchison?” I asked her.

  “Good gracious!” she said slowly. “Where have you been? Don’t you know what mining towns are like? They’re full of men! And we have more to do with them than most of the Cockies, because Andy has mining interests apart from everything else. But leaving them out of it, there are all the other station owners, and their managers, and that’s just a start! It isn’t the competition that’s lacking, but they haven’t got Andy’s looks, nor his wool cheque!”

  “Is he—is he dreadfully rich?” I asked awkwardly.

  Her expressive eyes gave me a comprehensive look. “Bearably so!” she giggled. “But it isn’t only that! The thing is that Andy gives the appearance of being the strong, silent type. Right? But underneath he’s like some Eastern Pasha. There’s hardly a girl found here that he hasn’t had his name linked to at one time or another.”

  I swallowed. “I doubt there’s a great deal of gossip—”

  “And some!”

  “Well then—” I began.

  “You don’t believe me!” she said reproachfully. “Well, you can, you know. He could have had his pick of any girl for miles around!”

  He already had! But I could hardly tell her that. It must be hard for Andrew, I figured, to have to live under the same roof with his true love, and her a raving beauty, and never to give her a suspicion of how he felt.

  “Andrew Fraser is a fine man!” I said with such conviction that I was immediately embarrassed by my own vehemence.

  “Well, naturally you’d think so!” she teased me. “Come on and see the rest of the house!”

  She showed me her own room and I thought how different it was from anything I had known in my father’s manse. There was a whole battery of photographs of young men, covering practically the whole of one wall. My father would have skelped me for only knowing their names, but there’s safety in numbers and Mary had enough to show herself to be completely heartwhole. She was blissfully unconscious of my instinctive disapproval, and that was something to be grateful for. My father’s ghost was to stay in the manse in Scotland. This was a new country and a new life and his ways were foreign to it. I would be foolish to allow his ideas to hold me back in the face of my own reasoning.

  So I was quiet in the face of the luxury that pervaded the whole house. In time, I thought, I would manage the electric cleaners as well as anyone else. Why not? It would never have occurred to Mary, or even to the Aboriginal maid, that my instincts would have led me to go down on my knees to scrub those vast expanses of corridors. No one ever scrubbed anything here, which was not to say that everything wasn’t beautifully kept, for it was.

  I chose the bedroom next to Andrew’s for my own. It was a room which could have been used equally well as a dressing-room and probably had been in the days when his parents had lived in the house. It was not a particularly large room, but it was quite the most beautiful that I had ever inhabited. The bed was as soft as a cloud! There was, too, a fine bureau, with everything set out for writing and, in the top, a vast selection of books, hardly any of which I had read. Books become very important in the Australian Outback, when visitors are few, for the ideas they bring to men and women who might otherwise have grown lonely.

  But it was hard to convince Mary that this was the room I really wanted. She spoke to Andrew about it that night at dinner.

  “Does Kirsty snore?” she asked bluntly.

  Andrew looked embarrassed. “No,” he answered, frowning.

  “Then I can’t understand it,” the girl said frankly. “Why don’t you make her—”

  Andrew shook his head at her. “You shouldn’t speak about things you don’t understand,” he reproved her.

  “I’m not a child!” Mary retorted. “Even if you do treat me as one!”

  “An adult would know when to mind her own business!” he shot back at her.

  “I’ll remember that!” she informed him darkly.

  “You’re making a great fuss about nothing,” I told them both, with some asperity. “I choose to have a room of my own and that’s an end to the matter.”

  “Gosh,” said Mary, “I never would have thought that Andrew would allow his wife to tell him what to do!”

  I was taken aback by her frankness, “Oh, but I wouldn’t!” I denied hotly “It isn’t like that at all!” I looked anxiously at Andrew for help. His face was completely inscrutable.

  “Don’t make trouble, Mary,” he said almost casually.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologised immediately. She laughed suddenly. “I might have known that you’d be managing things in your own devious way!” she added brightly. “Poor Kirsty! Someone ought to warn her!”

  Andrew smiled slowly. “Do you mean to say you haven’t?” he asked her.

  “I told her you are quite the ladies’ man! That they flock around you hopefully on all and every occasion! But I didn’t say a word beyond that!”

  “Is there a word to say?” He sounded surprised.

  “Oh, Andrew!” she protested. “What about—”

  “Enough! Enough!” he pleaded.

  “I should think so! I chimed in. “It’s a shameless conversation—”

  Mary laughed outright. “Kirsty,” she giggled, “there’s nothing shameless in sizing up the opposition! It’s one of the few things I learned at my mother’s knee!”

  “Then she should have had something better to teach you,” I observed firmly. “It isn’t fitting for either of us to be discussing Andrew’s—” I broke off, not knowing how to put it.

  “Andrew’s affairs?” Mary riposted sweetly.

  It was I who blushed. “I’d not be so brazen!” I told her, my nose in the air.

  She laughed delightedly, “I wish my mother could hear you! Andy, I think you did you
rself a bit of good marrying Kirsty!”

  Andrew’s grey eyes slid over my face. “So do I,” he said gently.

  I felt my heart hammering within me, Now here was a fine thing, I thought, if his play-acting could have such an effect on me! I frowned fiercely down at my plate.

  “I think perhaps we’ll ask Miss Rowlatt to Mirrabooka when Margaret comes,” Andrew remarked slowly.

  Mary nodded at him acutely. “You should have told me,” was all she said. “I won’t tease any more, Andy. I promise.”

  There was no mistaking the deep affection he had for her as he looked at her for a long moment. “I knew I could count on you,” he said at last.

  Mary nodded. “Tit for tat? I’m counting on your support later on?”

  “You’re still only seventeen,” he reminded her doubtfully.

  “I won’t change my mind, not in a million years, so why not now?” she said sadly.

  “We’ll see,” he told her, “in a month or so.”

  Mary’s eyes lit up. “I’ll hold you to that!” she said with a whoop of joy.

  I wished I knew what they were talking about. I felt a stranger, shut out from their lives because I knew so little about them. The whole evening had been strange, I thought. The homestead, as they all called it, had come as a shock to me. It was so comfortable and well furnished. It scarcely seemed appropriate in the middle of a great, empty desert. Then, too, Mary had, told me that they always changed into clean clothes for dinner. It seemed odd to me to eat in state, with the candles lit and the silver shining on the table, when outside there was nothing but space and sheep. My father would have thought it vanity, but I was not so sure. It was pleasant for the whole family to meet together at least once a day, and it was a courtesy to each other to be clean and tidy for the occasion.

  The meal itself had come as a surprise too. We had begun with soup, which had been followed by roast lamb and a multitude of vegetables. Andrew finished his meal with biscuits and cheese, but Mary and I both ate fresh fruit. To my great surprise, Andrew took an apple himself and peeled it, cutting it into neat quarters, which he put on my plate.