Over the Blue Mountains

by Mary Burchell

  “Oh, Aunt Katherine, there isn’t any question of that! We—he has only recently lost his wife. There’s nothing more than a—a sort of sympathetic friendship between us. Please don’t think anything else.”

  Aunt Katherine looked genuinely amused—a rather rare circumstance with her.

  “I can never decide, darling, whether you are very naive or very clever,” she said. “You always put the accent in the wrong place. It’s perfectly true that this young man of yours has recently lost his wife. Poor thing. I’m very sorry,” added Aunt Katherine cheerfully. “But the important point is not that the loss is recent, but that it has taken place. He is in circulation again, if you like to look at it that way. Don’t remain in awed contemplation of the recentness of it all (if there is such a word) if you really want him. Otherwise someone else will snap him up again.”

  “But, Aunt Katherine—”

  “On the other hand,” continued Aunt Katherine, with the peculiar restlessness of which she was capable, “if all this modesty is just a pretty smoke screen, I must say you do it very well.”

  Juliet gave a vexed laugh. She and Aunt Katherine would never, never see things from the same standpoint, she knew, and it seemed rather useless to try to explain further.

  Besides, Juliet asked herself later when she was alone in her room, did she really know herself just what she felt or what she wanted? All the time she had been more or less alone with Martin she accepted the pleasant, soothing familiarity of it all. She thankfully “marked time” in an existence that had demanded too many vital decisions from her recently.

  But now that so much was settled and it seemed necessary to start some pattern of living, what place did she really want Martin to take in her life? Even supposing that he would never feel romantic about her again—though this was a little difficult to suppose when she remembered the way he sometimes looked at her—did she really want to think of him that way again?

  It’s all too recent—too sudden, Juliet told herself impatiently. Whatever Aunt Katherine says, I don’t want to rush into decisions—or even to form definite hopes.

  But, meanwhile, she was very glad that Martin made a good impression on the family when he met them and, in their various ways, they all seemed willing to absorb him into the new life.

  Without consulting Juliet, he found work with a land agent from Bathurst, who had a small branch office in Borralung. And on at least three or four evenings out of the week, he called in to see Juliet and her family. Sometimes he sat and played chess on the veranda with her uncle, sometimes he talked to Penelope and Andrew—with both of whom he was soon on excellent terms—and sometimes he and Juliet went out walking in the countryside.

  They were curiously peaceful and pleasant days, those first summer days with the family in the house at Borralung, and Juliet sometimes wondered why it was that, in spite of everything, she still felt restless occasionally, as though she were waiting for something of immense importance to happen.

  Once she half owned to this feeling when she was exchanging confidences with Penelope, who still seemed to her the one of her relations closest to her, in spite of the disparity in their ages.

  “I expect,” Penelope said shrewdly, “that it’s just that so much has happened to you in the last few months. You’ve got into the habit of expecting a sensation every other week.”

  Juliet laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “And, in a way, I suppose there’s nothing to look forward to at the moment until Verity’s marriage comes along.”

  “That’s a good way off still.” Juliet spoke rather quickly.

  “Yes. Though Max is going to Adelaide next week to see about taking over his place again and having the house put in order. I suppose that’s brought him and Verity to the point of discussing concrete plans.”

  “I ... suppose so.”

  “I hope she knows what she’s doing.” Penelope spoke with an air of gravity that made her seem older than she was.

  “Why, Penelope! She’s a very lucky girl. What do you mean?” Juliet exclaimed in surprise.

  “Just that, although I know she’s very lucky indeed from the point of view of Max as a person, and his position and everything—can you really see Verity contented and happy on a country estate?”

  Juliet thought she could not really see Verity contented and happy in any circumstances.

  “But—she knows exactly what she is taking on, Penelope. She must have weighed up all that.”

  “Of course. But when she weighed it all up, what had she to set it against?”

  Juliet gave her shrewd little cousin a disturbed glance.

  “You mean it was Max—or nothing?”

  “I mean that what Verity really wanted was a rich, indulgent husband who lived in town and liked traveling to Europe and that sort of thing. Max will be a rich, not too indulgent husband who lives in the country and has done all the traveling he wants to do for some time. I’m wondering how it will work out, that’s all.”

  “Well, they seem quite—I mean, very happy together,” Juliet said firmly.

  “I know. I was surprised when we came through Bathurst to see how—happily Verity seemed to have settled. She isn’t a naturally happy person, Juliet. But you’re perfectly right, she did seem like someone who had found what she wanted. I expect it’s going to be all right.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Juliet found herself at great pains to insist on this. “They’ll both be here for the weekend, and you’ll see for yourself.”

  “Oh, are they both coming?” Penelope looked pleased, not because she felt the lack of company herself, but because she knew her father was always less depressed when Max or his elder daughter appeared.

  “Yes. There was a letter from Aunt Katherine this morning. Verity wants to bring one of the Lawsons with her. They were those friends of Max with whom she stayed when she was first in Bathurst, you remember.”

  “I remember. Girl or man?”

  “Oh, a man of course,” Juliet said rather naively. Then they both laughed, because it was impossible to imagine Verity showing much interest in a girl friend. “You will have to come and share my room, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t mind a bit. Then Verity can have mine, and Max can go in with Andrew. Which will leave a room free for the Lawson man. Rather a lot of work for you, won’t it be, Juliet?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” insisted Juliet in her turn. “These people were very good to Verity when she was first in Bathurst. One can’t be anything but hospitable in return.”

  “I wonder why he wants to come. They are pretty well-to-do, aren’t they, and have a very lovely house in Bathurst? ’’

  “Yes. I saw it when we first left Verity there. Maybe he wants to come and see how the simple country folk live,” Juliet said with a laugh.

  But when Elmer Lawson turned up, along with Verity and Max, there was no question of his standing aloof from the general family life. He was a gay, lively young man who was prepared to address himself with great charm to Aunt Katherine or to come into the kitchen and help with the washing up.

  Indeed, Juliet’s respect for him went up to a very high level when she found that not only was he determined to help himself, he contrived to make Verity do so, too—and that with a reasonably good grace.

  “A firm hand, that’s what she needs,” he told Juliet, in front of Verity. And Verity only laughed.

  Really, if she goes on like this, I shall begin to grow fond of her, thought Juliet amusedly.

  But she was glad of all the assistance there was. It was an indescribably oppressive weekend. Even on the Friday evening, when the three arrived from Bathurst, it was hot and airless enough, but by the time they rose on Saturday morning, the sky was like a dull lid over their heads.

  Not a leaf or a blade of shriveled grass seemed to stir, and the only sign of activity was the ceaseless rustle and chatter of the cicadas.

  Juliet remembered then what Martin had said about them—how they became maddeni
ng when it was very hot. But she tried hard to ignore them—and also to ignore the way her thin dress clung to her as she moved about at half her usual pace.

  “How strange the sky looks, Max.” She was standing on the back veranda with him in the early afternoon, looking out toward the hill behind the house, and she thought she had never seen anything so menacing as the grayish yellow of the sky with the dark hill standing out in relief against it.

  “Yes. I don’t like the look of it at all.” Max had been rather silent all the morning, and she thought he seemed vaguely depressed—a most unusual condition with him.

  “Do you think there is going to be a storm?”

  “Could be.”

  “There is no air anywhere.” She held out her bare arm, on which a faint film of moisture gleamed. And, as she did so, she felt the first slight stirring of a breeze against it. “Oh, yes! There’s a tiny wind at last. Can you feel it?”

  “Yes, I felt it.” But he raised his face to it, not his hand, and he drew in a long breath, which flattened his nostrils.

  At something in his tone she turned and looked at him. She thought how deeply the strong lines of his face were etched, and how grim he was looking. Then he said quietly, almost conversationally, “Do you smell anything?”

  She drew in a deep breath in her turn.

  “N-no. I don’t think so.”

  “No—you might not. It’s only the first breath of it. But there’s a fire somewhere, Juliet.”

  In spite of the fact that she could neither see nor smell anything herself, Juliet experienced a curious chill at those words. Not a pleasant chill—though three minutes ago she would have welcomed any chill as pleasant—but a clammy sensation in the region of her spine.

  And with this went a sudden immense alertness, a wakeful quivering of every nerve, so that all at once she was like a sensitive receiving set tuned in to a powerful station.

  Juliet had no idea that what she was experiencing for the first time in her life was animal fear. That extraordinary elemental fear that only the elements can rouse.

  All she knew was that somewhere out beyond that hill—and now confirmed to even her inexperienced senses by the faint smell of burning borne on the increasing wind—was something far more immense and cruel and powerful than anything she had ever experienced before.

  “Max—” She turned to him. And as she did so the shrill sound of the telephone ripped through the silence of the house behind them.

  “It’s the alarm, I expect.” He put her aside almost roughly and went into the house.

  She ran after him, and at the same time—as though sensing that this was a telephone call that superseded all others—the rest of the family came running from various parts of the house.

  It was Max who reached the telephone first.

  “Yes,” they heard him say. “Yes. We’d just begun to smell it ourselves. All right. I’ll be along.”

  Then he put down the receiver and spoke, it seemed to Juliet, directly to her.

  “They’re alerting all the villages around and calling for volunteer fire beaters. There’s a fire started out beyond Melwood and it’s moving this way.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Bang goes our nice quiet weekend,” Elmer Lawson said in a tone of studied casualness. “Come on, Ormathon. I suppose you and I join the volunteers at this point.”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, must you go?” That was Verity, and the sharp note of fear and protest had something in it that Juliet had never heard in her voice before—deep and painful concern for someone other than herself.

  She loves Max, thought Juliet, in a moment of blinding revelation. She really loves him. And an indescribable depression, which had nothing to do with the fire, settled on her.

  “I’m coming, too!” Andrew announced, with a touch of blitheness in adventure that revealed him for the schoolboy he really still was.

  “No!” Aunt Katherine exclaimed sharply.

  And Max said more quietly, but with authority, “No, Andrew. You are needed here.”

  “Why me?” grumbled Andrew. “Why not one of you chaps?”

  “Yes,” Verity agreed eagerly. “Why not—one of you?”

  “Because Elmer and I shall be more use actually at the fire. There’s no need to anticipate any immediate danger here, but your father and Andrew together can handle any possible threat that might develop.”

  Max took command quite naturally and, in spite of a few grumbles and protests, no one seriously questioned his decisions.

  Just before he and Elmer left the house he took Juliet aside.

  “Now, remember—you are all under your uncle’s orders. He isn’t in a condition to be very active and that’s why I’m leaving Andrew, but he is perfectly capable of judging the situation and telling you what you all have to do.”

  “Max, is there any real ... danger here?” The whole thing seemed somehow fantastic—like a scene one witnessed on the stage but in which one took no part.

  “Probably not. But a change of wind or a stroke of bad luck can change a threat into a disaster. Keep either in the house or close to it and see that the others do the same. You’ll receive warning by telephone if there is any need to move out.”

  “To move out?” she repeated incredulously. “Leaving... all this, you mean?” Her helpless little gesture seemed to embrace the whole house that she had struggled to make so nice, the curtains she had made, the furniture she had arranged, the personal belongings that they all cherished.

  “It isn’t at all likely to be necessary.” His voice softened in concession to her distress. “But don’t attempt to disobey any order of the sort if it should come. In the final event, one’s life is the most precious of all one’s possessions,” Max reminded her grimly.

  “I’ll remember. And, Max—” she went a little pale suddenly and her hand was on his arm “—please remember that, too.”

  “I will, dear. Don’t worry.”

  He patted the fingers that rested on his arm and, indescribably comforted by the “dear,” she let him go.

  Already cars and an occasional motorcycle were flashing past along the road in front, and Max and Elmer, in Elmer’s low-slung sports car, joined the stream. Verity came and joined Juliet as she stood on the veranda watching, and presently she said, in bitterness and distress, “I don’t know why he had to go!”

  “Why, Verity—” real sympathy struggled with her acute awareness of why Max had had to go “—I suppose every woman could say that about her man. And if they all stayed away the fire would burn where and what it chose.”

  “But he doesn’t even belong here. It isn’t his home town.” That was true, of course, but a specious argument, which would hardly have appealed to Max, or any other man worth his salt.

  “I don’t think you could expect him to look at it that way,” Juliet said mildly.

  “Oh, I know, I know. And I suppose I wouldn’t love him if he thought differently,” was the astonishing thing that Verity muttered as she turned away.

  The frank avowal that she did love him was no more astonishing than the admission that she loved him because he insisted on doing what was right. And in that moment Juliet realized that, under all the selfishness and possessiveness and unkindness of which her cousin was capable, Verity did know—and presumably even cared—what was right and what was wrong.

  I can’t ever quite dislike her again, thought Juliet. And, in any case, there is the terrible bond of our both being horribly worried about Max. Oh, Max, Max! And suddenly her heart cried out for him at last, and she was astonished and dismayed by the strength of her feelings.

  “Girls, why don’t you come in and have tea?” demanded Aunt Katherine’s voice from within the house. “One must eat and drink, even if there is a bushfire. Particularly one must drink. I’m terribly thirsty in this thick and ghastly heat.”

  Recognizing this as her cue, Juliet went indoors and busied herself with the making of tea. Penelope joined her in the kitc
hen and, on impulse and prompted by the knowledge that the younger girl knew so much more of these things than she did herself, she said, “Penelope, will they be in real danger—Max and Elmer Lawson? What does one do exactly at a bushfire?”

  “They won’t necessarily be in any danger, Juliet.” Penelope gave her an odd glance of understanding, but Juliet was looking away and did not see. “There will be fire-fighting apparatus from several villages around, and the men who actually operate it. Maybe, if the fire’s widespread and the country open, lines of men with wet sacks will help to beat out the flames in the grass. The real danger is from burning trees falling, or from the wind changing suddenly and sweeping around to encircle them. But there’s no need to expect anything like that.”

  “But Verity seems so anxious!”

  “I know. I noticed that.”

  “She must be really in love with Max, Penelope.” Juliet recalled the previous conversation about her with something like compunction. “We were wrong when we thought otherwise.”

  “Perhaps,” Penelope said, and carried the tray of tea things into the other room.

  It was difficult to settle to anything. Even during tea Juliet noticed that her uncle got up two or three times and, going to the window, stared out frowningly toward the hill, which seemed even more sharply outlined against the sky now.

  “What is it, uncle?” she asked quickly, seeing him shake his head as he came back from one of these excursions.

  “Don’t like the look of it, that’s all,” her uncle replied rather disagreeably. “The smoke is beginning to drift over the hill.”

  “Does that mean—”

  “Don’t ask silly questions, Juliet. It could mean almost anything. But they must be having a tough fight for it where the fire really is,” Uncle Edmund admitted grudgingly.

  Verity pushed back her chair sharply and, getting up, went out of the room.

  “Oh, dear, can’t we talk about something more cheerful?” Aunt Katherine demanded.

  But no one seemed to find this a good idea.