Breakaway House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  The track led him to one end of the main street of the town, beyond which reared ugly poppet heads. First appeared single houses, all built of the same corrugated iron – the curse and also the blessing of Australia – and then adjoined shops without architectural symmetry, as though the inmates of a madhouse had laboured with feverish activity for just one day. The only brick-built structure was the hotel.

  A little rotund man ran out to meet him. “Good day, Mr Tremayne! Come in and have a snifter,” invited Mug Williams.

  “Have a snifter!” echoed Tremayne. “Why, of course. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Mug Williams’ mouth widened and his small grey eyes narrowed in evidence of his bonhomie. “Come on in,” he entreated. “Don’t waste time.”

  “Waste time!” Tremayne said, again in echo. “Lead me to the blessed fountain. I want to be waited on by beauty.”

  The lines of Mug Williams’ face stretched further in a smile. He winked by lowering the lid of his right eye the remaining fraction of an inch.

  The saloon bar was empty of customers but behind the counter waited Miss Ann Sayers. As Tremayne walked the short distance from doorway to counter he made up his mind what he would do.

  She was fair, was Ann Sayers. Her dark blue eyes were set wide apart in a face which could not possibly conceal guile or conceit. She was Helen to Frances Tonger’s Cleopatra, and Tremayne was to come to know that she could intelligently discuss racing and horses with the keenest of sportsmen, and with equal facility talk of all the famous murders and all the famous gold strikes. Her position behind a saloon bar demanded versatility even in a mining centre. In her private life her interests were centred on music and books.

  So it is that, thought Tremayne, as Williams and he breasted the counter. “Morning, Miss! I’ve been a teetotaller for fifty years, but Mr Williams tempted me and I have fallen.”

  “Meet Mr Tremayne from Bowgada, Miss Sayers,” said Mug. “Mine’s a pot.”

  “Two pots, please. I’m happy to meet you, Miss Sayers, and oh, so glad that I was tempted and fell,” Tremayne drawled without smiling.

  “Are you staying at Bowgada?” she asked, just a trifle eagerly.

  “I’m overseer out there, Miss Sayers. Well, Mug, here’s the skin off your chest. I’m going to the Breakaway House Ball, so I came in to see if I could hire a dress suit.”

  “You won’t hire no dress suit in Myme,” Williams pointed out with a chuckle.

  “Well, I can’t go to a ball in a lounge suit.”

  “Why not, Mr Tremayne? More than half the men will not be in evening clothes. And anyway, to be able to dance well is much more important than evening clothes,” interposed Miss Sayers.

  “Good!” Tremayne said, still unsmilingly. “I can throw a leg. Well, I’ve to do some shopping before lunch. See you later, Miss Sayers. Au revoir! ”

  He and Williams had reached the doorway when Ann Sayers said softly: “Mr Tremayne!”

  Tremayne strolled back to the counter, now smiling affably.

  “I forgot,” lied Ann Sayers, revealing the lie in her eyes and by the faint flush in her face, “I forgot to ask how Mr Filson was keeping.”

  “Oh! He’s all right,” Tremayne replied indifferently. “Of course, he’ll never be much good again. Pretty useless, poor devil.”

  “I…you’ve no right to say that,” she told him sharply. “Mr Filson was badly wounded in the war. He’s deserving of all sympathy. He’s…”

  She paused, Tremayne’s broad smile making her stop. Purposely he allowed her to see in his eyes what was in his mind. A crimson stain mounted into her creamy face.

  “I forgot something, too,” he said calmly. “I have a message from Mr Filson. He said that if you cared to accompany him to the Breakaway House Ball he would be delighted to escort you. I’m to tell you, in addition, that he’s remembered every moment of the last ball at Breakaway House.”

  “He said that?” she whispered.

  Tremayne nodded. “Of course. Think I made it up? Will you be ready to leave at five o’clock?”

  “Yes, Mr Tremayne. I shall be very glad to go.”

  “All right, then. How many maids in the hotel?”

  “Two.”

  “Engaged to be married.”

  “Both of them.”

  “Oh. What about the cook?”

  She was now looking curiously at her questioner. “Violet Winters is not engaged to be married, nor is she married.”

  “Well, I’ll see you after,” and, smiling again, Tremayne raked his hat and walked out of the bar to join Mug Williams on the footpath.

  “What kind of a woman is the cook, Mug?” he asked the little man.

  “Hefty, forty, nifty,” was the succinct answer.

  “Take a drink?”

  “Too right, I will.”

  “I’m referring to the cook, Mug.”

  “Oh…’er. Yes, too right!”

  “See you later then.”

  Tremayne again entered the hotel and in the main bar purchased a bottle of beer. With the bottle concealed inside him coat, he found his way to the kitchen.

  “Morning, cook. Nice day,” he said charmingly to the tall and broad woman mixing a salad at a side table. She swung round, to glare at him from his boots upwards.

  “Good day!” she responded sharply, indicating that she had not the slightest desire to talk with a stranger. Her face was red and damp, made so by the stove heat. Wisps of greying hair straggled down her forehead. Her eyes were brown, and not at the moment soft like a doe’s eyes.

  “I’ve just thought up a good idea,” Tremayne said with undaunted cheerfulness. “If I were to produce a nice cold bottle of beer, would you produce a nice hot cup of tea?”

  The woman’s irritation was smoothed away as though by the hands of Cupid. From a savage virago she became pleasantly maternal.

  “You fetch that bottle and see,” she said.

  Tremayne winked brazenly and produced his bottle. While the cook made a pot of tea he took a cup and saucer from the dresser, and a bottle-opener. Then he filled the glass and she filled the cup.

  “My name’s Harry Tremayne,” he said lightly. “Yours is Violet Winters. We’re introduced. You know anything about the squatter’s ball?”

  “Too right! I cooked for the squatter’s ball two years ago.”

  “Did you? Well, what about coming with me tonight? I’m working for Filson. I’m leaving with Miss Sayers at five sharp. Will you come?”

  “Oh, boy!” she chortled. “Do you mean it?”

  Smiling and nodding, Tremayne walked to the range, and there slipped into its maw the letter of introduction Brett had written to Ann Sayers.

  CHAPTER IX

  TREMAYNE BEHAVES QUEERLY

  AFTER lunch at the hotel, which he took at the licensee’s table in the company of the host, Mr Sayers, his wife and Ann Sayers, who had only come to Myme to “look after” her parents, Tremayne went shopping for Brett and himself, during which time he telephoned the squatter.

  Filson’s immediate requirements concerned the Bowgada homestead, but Tremayne needed clothes, and he took this opportunity to expend the balance he felt owing on the fox-scalps on clothes for Miss Hazit and her worshipping man. At five o’clock he was ready to leave with the Bowgada – and Breakaway House – guests.

  “How do I look?” asked Violet Winters, as she entered Miss Sayers’ room. “I want to look nice ’cos it’s years since a boy took me to a dance.”

  Ann Sayers checked the laughter which hovered on her lips when she saw the pleading light in the small brown eyes of the great ungainly woman. The cook wore a low-cut, short-skirted, one-piece gown of vivid blue voile trimmed with lace. The shortness of her dress emphasised the size of her silk-stockinged legs, and the low-cut neck-line, the vastness of her bust.

  “Let me do your hair and a few other things, and you won’t know yourself,” Ann Sayers urged, melted by the appeal in the other woman’s eyes and voice. “If you feel
right, you’ll be happy; if you feel wrong you’ll be miserable.”

  “Do you mean it?” asked the wondering cook, for socially, even in Myme, they were far apart. She wondered more when the barmaid rearranged her plentiful greying hair, touched her brows with pencil and her lips with rouge, and dusted her face with powder. “Why it ain’t me!” she exclaimed, on looking into a mirror. “What a lot of difference a little powder does make! And I’ll always be doing me hair this way.” Outside a klaxon blared impatiently. “Oh, drat him! Hark at him!”

  “Let him wait. Never be in a hurry to meet a boy,” Ann Sayers advised from her wider experience of men.

  “But…but he might go without us,” Violet protested.

  “Not he. Anyway, I’m almost ready. Now, now, wait for me! Don’t hurry so!”

  The cook’s triumph was complete when, sallying forth ahead of her companion, she found the presence of some dozen people forming an avenue similar to those which greet a bride emerging from a church. The two women were both respected and admired in Myme and there was quite a little crowd to greet them, among which were Mr Sayers, his wife and the entire staff, Mug Williams, two current drunks and the bank manager, while gathered about Filson’s car were several curious cows and small children.

  “Are you waiting for us?” Miss Winters asked Tremayne, who stood flanking the open door of the tonneau.

  “Are you Miss Winters?” he inquired, displaying astonishment and admiration on his face.

  Nodding happily, she squeezed his arm before he handed her into the car.

  Tremayne then helped Ann Sayers in and fussed with cushions for their comfort. When he was finally seated behind the wheel, he called to the children: “Take those cows away and drown ’em, please. I want to move off.” And with a cheer from the crowd he began the homeward journey, at first having carefully to avoid the many mobs of goats.

  He did not speak again until they had passed through the gate that indicated the Bowgada boundary. Having shut it behind them, he leaned with Australian casualness against the car. With that beaming grin which was so very attractive, he drawled: “I’ve got strict instructions not to bounce you up to the roof, and to get you to Bowgada at six o’clock punctually. It’s now a quarter to six and we have yet twenty miles to go. Consequently, we’ll have to travel at the speed of eighty miles an hour. So if you should get bounced up to the roof occasionally, don’t say anything.”

  “If you shakes me face to pieces you’ll hear more about it,” Miss Winters said with mock sternness, resolutely repressing a giggle.

  “It might be as well to get on with the journey, Mr Tremayne,” suggested Ann Sayers sweetly,

  “We’ll be there on time, don’t worry. This car can do a hundred and ten to the hour if coaxed a bit,” Tremayne told them, unhurriedly rolling himself a cigarette. He was beginning to like this open-faced woman more and more.

  He proved to be not the reckless speed demon he had threatened. However both women implored him not to be so careless in his manner of driving; he only had one hand on the wheel and spent most of the time half-turned towards them so that he could converse in his cheerful way.

  The urgency for speed was overstressed apparently, because he stopped the car for a minute so that his passengers could gaze enraptured at Round Hill, now a flaming gold reflecting the light of the westering sun; and again he pulled up when not far from the homestead so that they could enjoy the superb view of the breakaway valley from one of the many deeply indented “bays”.

  The sun was setting when they arrived at Bowgada, stopping outside the front gate which gave entry to what should have been a flower garden but was in fact devoted to vegetables. Filson came out to welcome them, his limp and his stick much in evidence. He was warm in his greetings yet controlled. Talking gaily, they entered the house where Millie English met them to escort the women to the guest room.

  “I thought I made it quite plain that I wasn’t intending to go to the ball?” Filson said to Tremayne when they were alone.

  “You did that,” Tremayne agreed nonchalantly.

  “I thought, further, it was understood that you were to ask Miss Sayers to accompany you to the ball, as you seemed keen on going?”

  “You bet!”

  “Why don’t you look at me?”

  “Look at you!” Tremayne exclaimed, transferring his gaze from the cigarette in the making to Brett Filson’s eyes. “You ain’t that handsome that a man’s got to look at you all the time.”

  For a space each tried hard with no success to bore into the other’s mind.

  “Surely you’ve no objection to explaining why you brought the cook?” Filson pressed, trying not to be impatient.

  “Objection! Of course not. I’m taking her to the ball.”

  “But what about Miss Sayers? You cannot take both to the ball, you know.”

  “Then in that case, Miss Sayers will have to remain here until my lovely Violet and I get back from the ball – unless you change your mind and take her yourself.”

  “I don’t quite get you,” Filson said thoughtfully.

  “Well – it seems simple enough to me. You’d better do a bunk now and get dressed. Miss Sayers is quite looking forward to going.”

  “I still don’t quite get you,” Filson persisted.

  Tremayne sighed. “I want to go to the ball and regulations state that I must take a female partner. Isn’t that right?”

  Filson nodded, by no means as dense as he made himself appear, which did not deceive the ex-policeman.

  “Good! I’m glad you follow me. Now, I go to Myme ostensibly to fetch Miss Sayers because you wanted her to go – not me. On the way I lose your letter of introduction, and while wondering what to do about it, I fell into the hotel kitchen – and there I saw my own sweet girlie. Get me? I’m for her and she’s for me, understand? But I’ve got orders to bring Miss Sayers, so’s there’s nothing else for it but to bring ’em both. Quite simple.”

  “You’re not by any chance an adept at making two plus two equal four, are you?” Brett asked quietly.

  “I couldn’t say, Brett, but I’m no damned good at answering riddles. You hurry up and get dressed now. I’ll have to get busy, too. See you after,” and Tremayne walked determinedly through to the kitchen.

  “Good night, my noble hangman! How’re things up your street?” he asked the busy Soddy Jackson.

  “You keep away, I’m engaged in my slavery,” the apostle of Bolshevism returned surlily.

  Tremayne drew close to Jackson’s rigid back. “Have a smoke-stack?” he asked, thrusting a cheap but fat cigar into Jackson’s line of vision,

  “Thanks! Put it on the dresser,” Jackson said ungraciously.

  “And when you’ve done your work, have a drink on me,” and Tremayne slipped a half-bottle of whisky into Jackson’s disengaged hand.

  The metamorphosis in the cook was an interesting phenomenon. Turning, he beamed upon Tremayne and the tip of his tongue slid backwards and forwards between his lips.

  “You’re a good ’un, Mr Tremayne. You’re one of us,” he said enthusiastically.

  “Not a bit, you’re a Bolshie, I’m a fire-stick wielder. There’s a lot of difference.”

  “Well, I’m gonna join your Fire-Stick Society. I always did think Bolshevism was a bit lukewarm for real men.”

  “Goodo! I’ll arrange your invitation,” Tremayne told him, and bolted to his room.

  THERE was nothing indicative either of flamboyant wealth or genteel poverty in any of the four people who sat down to dinner at Bowgada homestead that early evening. Four people who, elsewhere, would live on different planes of human society, here came into jolly association. Many a peeress has appeared less tastefully, if more fashionably dressed, than was Violet Winters; whilst in a city one would travel far before hearing a better modulated voice than that possessed by Ann Sayers. The fact that Brett Filson wore evening dress was to Tremayne no cause for either regret or jealousy. That man of the far north, where fine feath
ers do not make fine gentlemen, was dressed in a navy blue lounge suit and a soft-collared sports shirt. He was the kind of man who would not wear a starched shirt to attend a king’s levee.

  At the close of a well-cooked, but simple dinner, Millie English – despite Jackson’s protestations – removed the cloth and brought them coffee. Tremayne drifted over to the wireless on which he found a station relaying music, and Violet Winters took her coffee with him. For Brett, the evening was crowned by a tête-à-tête with Ann Sayers during which they discussed music and novels, and never once permitted their eyes to hold in meeting longer than a split second.

  At eight o’clock they left for Breakaway House, Ann and Brett occupying the tonneau and Violet sitting beside Tremayne who drove the car.

  Sliding southward, the mulga scrub, revealed by the headlights, appeared to be a world occupied by gnomes and fairies, and when they arrived at the sharp turn above the steep descent into the valley, it was to see a young moon hanging above the western breakaway slipping into a gulf between two dark spires outlined against the blush of the sky. And there a little to the north of west, a column of fire leaped upward from an invisible base.

  “It doesn’t seem worth going on,” Tremayne cried. “Breakaway House will be a cinder by the time we get there.”

  “The house will be all right,” Brett assured him. “That fire is the beacon lit every ball night to call us to the dance. Tonger, as his father before him, spends a lot of money to have that beacon constructed.”

  “Good idea, isn’t it, Mr Tremayne?” said Ann with a low, gay laugh.

  “It is, Miss Sayers.”

  “Tonger’s hands invite their friends to their own party round the beacon. Tonger permits them to kill a beast and gives them a case or two of jam and a bag of flour,” Brett further explained.

  “He must be generous,” Tremayne opined.

  “No one can justly accuse Tonger of being mean.”

  Beyond, ever beyond, flamed the great beacon welcoming them and others to Breakaway House. Twice they were stopped by wire gates. The flat land of the valley offered but an occasional shrub or cork tree to maintain touch with reality; for the road was good, and only its ceaseless unwinding before the headlights and the purring engine prevented the illusion of a magic carpet.