‘Thank you,’ she appreciated, and watched him go to his car. What a considerate person he was!
He was as good as his word, and led her all the way to the gate, even opened the gate for her to pass through, then he waved her away, indicating that he would shut the gate again. In her rear vision mirror she saw him turn back to Uplands. A very nice man, she decided.
She negotiated the curves between the young pines to the homestead, saw a blaze of lights, and was about to garage her car when Burn West emerged from the other garage, his face, even in the less than half-light, stormy.
‘What in tarnation have you been doing to this hour?’ he greeted her. ‘I was just starting out to see if you’d had a puncture or been held up or something.’
‘Nothing,’ she answered politely, then thought to herself that it must sound like Jason. She reminded him a little testily that it was her afternoon off.
‘It’s night now,’ he came back. ‘You must have known when you left town that it would be dark before you got here!’
He was still taking it for granted that she had been to Mirramunna, nowhere else, and unfortunately, unfortunately for all her real pleasure in seeing Scott, she could not correct him. She would have loved to have been able to do that, say to him, ‘I took a country road, I never bothered about town,’ but she hadn’t, so she said instead, ‘I’m sorry I’ve inconvenienced you.’
‘It wasn’t that,’ he grumbled, ‘it was the fact of your returning alone by night over a still unfamiliar route.’ For some stubborn reason she did not tell him she had returned accompanied. She said, ‘Well, I did it, didn’t I?’ adding, as his face darkened at her pert answer, ‘I was held up a while by a car coming out of Uplands.’
‘Trev Trent’s place,’ he nodded. ‘All right then, this time you’re excused. I’ve always told Trev his gate is in a bad position, bang on the bend as it is. There’ll be an accident one day. Run along now, the bell has gone. I’ll put away your car.’
‘Thank you.’ Over her shoulder she asked, ‘Is Uplands on the river like West is?’ She was remembering how that man, Trev Trent, had suggested a meeting on the river. It had, she thought a little wistfully, sounded fun.
‘Only overlooking it,’ he called back. ‘Trev used to have to come down here for a swim or to pan. You must meet him some time. We went to school together, were, and are, and always will be thick as thieves, yet like true friends, not needing to be in each other’s pockets to proclaim that fact. He’s a tall, fair monster. You’ll like him. When he returns... yes, he’s away just now ... I’ll—’
He’s here at Uplands, he’s back, Frances started to call, but shrewdly she paused. If she described her meeting and her over-cautiousness with such a bosom friend she would certainly get derision from Burn West.—Yet, on the other hand, when West found out for himself, as probably he must, that she and Trent had already met, wouldn’t there be censure from this very difficult man because she had not informed him? Whatever I do, she sighed inwardly, it will be wrong. She stood trying to decide, and at that moment Jim the fencer hurried by saying he was late, and she would be, too, didn’t she know it was on, so there was no opportunity to say anything.
While Burn West garaged her car, Frances ran inside, found that Sandra had fed and bedded a sleepy Jason, so, after checking the boy, after combing her long gold hair, she went along to the communal board and the eager smiles of the overseer, bookie, Jim and the two jackeroos. She would talk to Burn over the meal.
Burn West did not come in.
CHAPTER FIVE
Frances had her plate filled by Jim, her fellow latecomer, and the fencer claimed because of this that it was his turn to sit near her. This suited Frances. Although she had made a vow to herself not to probe, and so far had kept to that vow, she felt in the instance of Trev Trent of Uplands that it was not so much a case of probing as protecting herself, protection against Burn West’s undoubted ridicule when he learned, as he must learn, being a thick-as-thief friend, that she had held his lifelong mate at arm’s length and allotted him the caution that had been impressed upon her. But, she thought helplessly, how had she been expected to know?
But she could try to discover something at least from Jim, and she drew the conversation at once around to his work. Surely it ... she concentrated on the fencing, not the carpentering ... wasn’t so onerous as it might have been, seeing the river took up one large side.
Jim said it was still considerable, more so since the boundary between West of the River and Uplands was very irregular.
‘Uplands doesn’t touch the Murrumbidgee, then?’ She had been told that by Burn, but she pretended ignorance.
‘No, it overlooks it. But it might just as well as far as Trent was ever concerned. Trev and Burn were friends from the day they learned to walk and promptly spent all their hours there on the bank.’
‘Is it a good place, Uplands? I mean like West is?’
‘Oh no. Never was. The older Trents were town people, they inherited Uplands and did their best with it, but it wasn’t a first thing with them as with the Wests. Trev likewise. He never had the feel for land as Burn did. I’d say he’s about given up now. He runs a prosperous travel agency in at Wagga Wagga and only commutes to the homestead when he feels like a spin. Tourism suits Trev, he was always one for fields afar. He’s away now.’
No, he’s back, Frances knew, but she didn’t get round to saying it. Jim was building a fence of potato, a field of peas, and he was showing her the vulnerable parts of a boundary. The jackeroos came in with their knowledge, but made more a lark of it. Someone flicked a piece of sausage and someone flicked the same back, and the fun was on.
Frances agreed to listen to recordings tonight as tomorrow, she said sternly, she was really determined to start serious instruction with Jason.
‘Wish you’d been my teacher,’ Toby said feelingly.
The next morning was spent on more poster filling, but in the afternoon Frances took the paints firmly away, much to Jason’s grievance.
‘I was going to paint the hills,’ he protested.
‘Pink?’
‘Yellow!’
‘Why, Jason?’ It was the time now for this.
‘Because it looks good.’
‘But you wouldn’t really like your hills bright pink, would you?’ She ruffled his hair. ‘Nor yellow?’
Jason said stubbornly that he would. He had stuck out his little lip because of the forbidden paints.
Frances brought out her equipment. It had been highly recommended and carefully chosen; mostly Montessori-inspired, it leaned heavily on the principle of freedom and self-discipline. Most of the occupations could have been handled by five-year-olds, but Jason though now half past seven seemed to have missed the years arriving there.
At first he glowered down on the thousand-bead chain, which comprised of hooking ten strips of ten beads each together until they numbered a thousand. But when Frances broke in at the first hundred and gave him an identifying numeral, he began to work eagerly for his second hundred, his third.
That afternoon they pondered over the inlaid wooden puzzles together; later an assortment of bells to make an octave—all kindergarten stuff, and this boy should be beyond that, but right from the beginning it was obvious that Jason, once he had conquered each step, would look further ahead. He might be three or four years behind in instruction, but in one day he had caught up with the pre-school he had missed.
He enjoyed it, too, he even abided the messier practical life activity that most splurge-minded four-year-olds delight in but which only wrinkled Jason’s nose, although he still performed it. This was the production of a plastic jug of water and a sponge. The jug was marked in large writing Nice Clean Water. Jason was to dean the table top, then pour the water into another container marked Old Dirty Water.
‘That was silly, France,’ he protested when he had finished.
She smiled at a little boy leaving the status of small time derisively behind.
> ‘You made a good job of the table, though. How about these numbered rods? You set them out like this.’
That absorbed him for the rest of the afternoon.
It was almost time, Frances thought quite excitedly that night, to tell Burn West to send for the correspondence lessons that she was to supervise. She planned to try the Reading game tomorrow, she felt sure Jason would lap it up thirstily.
Jason did. Adopting her college methods of H. for the out-of-breath sounds, W. for the windy ones, S. for the snaky fellows, she found Jason barely one step behind her all the way. Yes, the child was definitely bright.
‘When do I read a book?’ asked Jason. He already not only looked at CAT as the symbol of a small, furry animal, he actually understood it. And DOG. Tomorrow Frances planned the more difficult ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘th’. She was so elated that she was not surprised that it showed in her.
Going down the hall, Burn West stopped her, but it was a different arrest from that other time. And a different West.
‘Where are you getting those stars from?’ he asked.
‘Stars?’
‘Eyes. Smile—all over you, in you.’
‘It’s Jason. He’s just reacting in the way an educationist dreams. Of course I have an advantage in a smart little fellow, but it still makes me feel good.’
‘He has the advantage of a smart teacher, and that makes me feel good.’
‘Thank you. I think you can send for those lessons soon.’
‘Better than that, I’ll get them. I’m going up to Sydney this week. Tell me how far you’ve gone with the sonno, France.’
She told him a little breathlessly, and enjoyed the pleased surprise in his eyes.
‘A pity to slow down the process for a day,’ he regretted, ‘but I had a call from Doctor Muir. He wants to take a few progress plates of the lad.’
‘I’ll take him—’ She stopped herself in time, remembering how she was not to take Jason out in the car by herself.
If he heard the slip he did not betray it. ‘We’ll go tomorrow. From what Muir says it will be an all-day job.’
Jason, acquainted of his outing the next day, objected angrily. The process of further X-rays did not worry him—Frances suspected the poor little boy was past any medical nervousness—but the absence from lessons was an annoyance.
‘I’ll never read!’ he despaired.
They left after breakfast in Burn’s big estate wagon, Frances sitting beside Jason and carrying on the letter game by pointing out things and suggesting the letter for them, sheep, pony, fence. Sometimes she gave a wrong letter and Jason corrected her triumphantly. He was in quite a good mood when they came into Mirramunna.
They went straight to the hospital, and Scott wasted no time on the first set of plates. ‘Of course,’ he explained, ‘I’m not going for any detail, the plaster must come right off for that, but just a general trend.’
Frances, who was sharply aware that Scott was looking for any possible changes in the bones, any instance of septic disease as well as the leg’s general progress, was relieved when Scott’s face did not tighten ... how well she remembered that significant tightening of his face in the hospital ... as he looked at the first plates. It was decided that he do more in the afternoon, that meanwhile they all have lunch together.
Matron wanted to serve it in the hospital; she had been very effusive to Burn, and Frances suspected he was a valued patron. However, Burn West said that as it was an occasion they would go to the hotel.
Frances hesitated, feeling a closed room would be no joy for Jason, and Scott at once suggested the ice-cream parlour again.—She saw Burn’s brows lift at that ‘again’.
‘They serve a decent grill,’ said the doctor, ‘and the boy can have a soda with his lunch.’
Because of the tight look in Burn, Frances diplomatically came out with the best suggestion, or at least Jason voted it so. A picnic in the park. Yes, there actually was a small Mirramunna park by the river, replete with old-fashioned band rotunda, tables and benches and a great many flying gnats.
‘N—’ said the eager scholar about gnats.
‘It sounds like that,’ agreed Frances, ‘only it’s a funny word, it has a g in front of it.’
The men had gone over to get the picnic wherewithal, but when they came back it was with a party—cold beer for the adults, lemonade for Jason. Chicken salad. The chocolate cake beloved by children.
After the meal Frances took the little boy to the river’s edge to launch a few bark boats and Scott and Burn sat back talking together.
There were more plates in the afternoon, then tea in the hospital and home again, but on this occasion before the dark hour that Frances had arrived that other evening. As they passed Uplands Frances glanced at it, but there was no sign of a car.
She had dinner with Jason that evening. Very soon, Burn had said, he would bring· the boy to the dining room. Just as they were finishing the meal, Burn knocked and came in.
‘I’ll be away by the time you wake up, sonno,’ he said. It was for Frances as well. ‘Be a good boy, and who knows, I may bring something back.’
‘Like a book on gold?’
‘You couldn’t read it.’
Jason exchanged an obvious ... though childlike he didn’t realise it was obvious ... triumphant glance with Frances and did not argue that.
‘You be good, too, France,’ said Burn, and soon afterwards he strolled out.
She heard him go the next morning, and wondered how long he would be away. It would not be the same house without its master. For all his sternness at least she had to admit that. The river would be different without him.
They did more lessons in the morning, then in the afternoon Frances asked Jim, seeing he was working nearby, if they could go down to the panning beach. She knew Jason would love that and considered that Jim would be Burn’s necessary third. Jim agreed at once, even spent some time showing the boy his own method with a dolly pot, then he sauntered off, telling Frances he was only over the slope and to cooee if she wanted him.
It was glorious down on the river. If there was no gold, and there wasn’t today, not even fool’s gold, gold still abounded in the sun-sparkling surface ripples, in the wings of the tiny river things that fluttered between bank and water. Frances propped herself against an accommodating tree so as to be near enough if Jason got into difficulties, which seemed unlikely; for all his disability he was a steady little fellow. Also, she had chosen for him the safest part of the bank, level, firm, with no drop to speak of and even then a shallow shelf to the deeper water.
But for all her conscientious precaution she still did not play the part properly; she fell asleep. She was angry with herself when she woke up. Why, the child could have tripped, tumbled in, rolled down into the moving stream.
The first thing she was aware of coming out of her doze was Jason’s shrill indignation, for Jason never kept a check on that. ‘You made me lose a lump of gold, proper gold, not fool’s,’ he stormed. ‘I don’t like you one bit!’
‘I’m sorry, little man, but it seemed to me you were too near the edge. You are now.’ The intruder lifted Jason, kicking as far as a plastered leg could kick, further up the bank. ‘Again we meet,’ he greeted Frances.
‘Mr. Uplands,’ she responded with a smile, ‘or I should say Trent—Trevor Trent.’
He smiled back and did not correct her. He also obviously waited for her name.
‘I’m Frances,’ she complied.
‘I was just strolling by the river,’ he proffered pleasantly. ‘Oh yes, I saw your fencer.’ He gave a reassuring and understanding nod. ‘All’s well.’ He looked appreciatively around him. ‘How lovely it is down here.’
“You should know,’ she laughed meaningly, remembering what both Burn and Jim had said about boyhood days.
‘I should,’ he agreed. Then he asked, ‘Boss away, I hear.’
‘In Sydney. You haven’t been down to see him?’
‘Not yet. Perhaps
later ... But meanwhile I wanted to look at the little fellow. So’ ... smiling down at Burn’s sonno... ‘you’re Jason.’
‘Nothing,’ said Jason.
‘Panning, were you? Let me show you how to really get gold.’
‘I don’t like you, not a bit. You lost my big nugget!’
‘Jason!’ intervened Frances sternly.
‘He did so, France! And I know about gold already. I’ll know a lot more because he’s bringing me back a gold book.’
‘So you can read!’ admired Trent.
This time that remark did nothing to Jason. There was no elated exchange of glances with Frances. Jason simply stuck out his lip and repeated, ‘Nothing.’
‘I’m afraid when he’s like that, he’s like that,’ said Frances apologetically. ‘I think we’d better go back to the house.’
Trevor Trent ran his hand up the back of his hair and said regretfully, ‘I’d carry him for you, but I hardly think—’
Frances, looking at Jason’s enraged small face, ‘hardly thought’ as well.
‘You must excuse us,’ she sighed, ‘but that’s how it is. We’ll take it in easy stages. Don’t be concerned about us. But you could tell Jim if you run into him that we went on.’
‘I’ll do that,’ he smiled back. ‘Goodbye, old fellow.’
Jason did not even say ‘Nothing.’
They took a long time to get home because Jason stubbornly insisted on walking every step. A few yards from the house Jim caught them up and carried Jason inside, Jason not objecting to Jim.
‘Wondered where you’d gone,’ the fencer said, putting the boy down on the bed at Frances’ direction. Frances supposed that he had been on another slope as Trev had sauntered back.
The next day Jason was difficult. Several times he mentioned Trevor Trent, only calling him the man who had lost him his gold, repeating how he didn’t like him.
‘Your father does.’
‘I don’t call him that,’ glowered Jason.
‘No, you call him Burn, and this is an interesting thing, darling, it’s not spelt as you thought.’ Cunningly Frances tried to change the discussion into a lesson. But Jason was in a bad mood and was not going to learn.
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