by Lucy Walker
Stephen wasted no time after he brought the car to a stop. He pulled on the handbrake with one hand and opened the drive door with the other. He got out and walked round the bonnet of the car as if to open the passenger’s door for Cherry but already his brother had done this. Stephen, a tall dark shadow, stopped in the lights of the car, took out a cigarette and after lighting it threw the match down on the ground with a flick of the wrist. He turned to the air-pilot who meanwhile had got himself out of the waggon by the far door.
‘You don’t smoke?’ Stephen said more as a statement than a question.
‘No,’ the young pilot laughed. ‘Don’t smoke, drink or swear. But I’ve one vice. I like the ladies.’
He joined Hugh Denton in removing Cherry’s baggage from the very rear seat of the car.
Cherry could see they had come to a stop at the homestead steps. Right beside them those three steps led up to a wide veranda. The front door and all the windows of the house stood wide open and uncovered so that, standing there beside the car, Cherry had a feeling she was seeing everything that belonged in that lighted house.
The front door opened straight into a large living-room decorated lavishly with indoor pot-plants and ferns. A small fair-haired woman was quietly crossing the floor, coming towards the door. The new governess was not sending this woman whoever she was, into a flurry of excitement; that was for certain.
In a front room at the side of the house a slim girl had just risen from a chair in front of a Transceiver set. She stretched, her hands reaching up towards the ceiling in an abandoned ballet-like gesture. She had red hair falling in smooth waves to her shoulders. Cherry could not see her face but could see the other girl wore a white silk overblouse and shining midnight-blue slacks.
The sight now of the girl in that gorgeous pair of slacks caused Cherry to expel her breath with relief. She had been right. Slacks were the right thing to wear even here.
It was nice, too, to feel there was someone her own age about. Stephen Denton had not mentioned this. But then, he hadn’t mentioned very much at all. Summed up, all he had said amounted to a swimming tank, a creek, his brother and sister-in-law, a little girl and a baby.
Cherry, standing quite still beside the car, was fascinated by that glimpse into the heart of someone else’s house. She realised the three men were still talking about cattle and droughts and this station and that station as they took the baggage and put it in a pile below the veranda steps.
‘Well, you have arrived!’ It was the pilot smiling at her through the filtered light that shed a path out into the night from the house.
‘Yes, so I have,’ said Cherry, coming to herself. She smiled back. ‘What happened to the other men? The ones drinking tea with you at the plane.’
‘They’re from the Yulinga outcamps. They don’t live up this way. ’Bout twenty-five miles t’other way. They came in for the mail.’
The two brothers Stephen and Hugh were standing talking to one another as if Cherry did not exist and as if getting home and into the homestead was nothing compared with the state of the station first and the nation last. They talked to one another in voices that were quiet and had no emphasis whatever.
They were curious people, these Dentons, Cherry thought. One minute they were so quick in their movements, and quick in their decisions too, and the next they were taking all the time in the world to settle their conversational affairs.
Moreover, very clearly, they had forgotten the new governess was here.
‘You stay at Yulinga overnight?’ Cherry was asking the pilot politely. She did not quite know what to do next. The Denton brothers had forgotten her, and she could hardly take herself, uninvited, up those three steps and across the veranda.
‘That’s right. Take off at sun-up to-morrow for Rushing Downs and Darwin.’
The fair woman inside the house had arrived at the front door now.
‘Oh, do come in,’ she said. Her voice was pleasant; she raised it a little as she said, ‘Did you bring Stephen with you, Hugh? And the governess?’
‘I’ve got her right here,’ the pilot answered instead of Hugh Denton. ‘Come on, Miss Landin, you must meet Mrs. Denton.’
He took her arm in a friendly way and assisted her up the steps. Curiously Cherry felt she did need that friendly gesture and that helping hand. She was suddenly tired to the point of collapse. When she spoke to the pilot she knew her voice was husky with exhaustion.
Mrs. Denton opened the wire screen door and came out on to the veranda. The light was behind her now and Cherry could not see her face clearly but she got the impression of a small, slight woman, slender-boned and perhaps frail.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ Mrs. Denton said. ‘I don’t feel as if I could carry on much longer without some help for Sandra and Peter. Not that Sandra’s any trouble. She’s not, but I’ve got to get Peter into the Flying Doctor base for his injections sometime in the next week or two before we’re cut off by the Wet.’ She looked up at Cherry inquiringly. ‘You’re not very old, are you? I do hope you won’t find it too lonely here. It’s so hard to keep white girls for long. Did you have a good trip?’
‘Yes, thank you, only it was very long ‒’
‘Of course it is. Well, you must sleep in tomorrow.’
Mrs. Denton looked past Cherry.
‘Hugh,’ she said again, ‘are you two ever coming in? Tracy’s here and bursting for a glimpse of Stephen.’
The two men, on the other side of the car, who did things sometimes fast and sometimes slow, now moved into action.
‘Righto, Betty,’ said Hugh, straightening himself up from where he had been leaning against the hood of the car.
Stephen swung about and came round to the foot of the steps.
‘Hallo, Betty,’ he said. He smiled at his sister-in-law as he mounted the steps. ‘You’ll like your new house down south. Big, airy, and a stone’s throw from the beach.’
He glanced at Cherry.
‘Isn’t that so, Miss Landin?’
‘Yes,’ said Cherry, eager to convey good news to this woman who seemed to be in need of it. ‘It’s one of the old colonial homes and they are lovely inside. Big high-ceilinged rooms, you know ‒’
She was suddenly aware of the slim, dancer-like figure of the red-haired girl in the blue velvet slacks standing in the doorway. Again the light was behind her and her face, a white oval, was not very clear. Her hair, however, was like fire against the backdrop of that lighted room which had trailing fernery in every nook and corner. And her figure, young, smooth and perfect in its symmetry, was a silhouette any artist would like to capture on paper.
Cherry forgot to go on with her description of that house on the other side of the Street of the Pines from her own home. She was watching Stephen drop his sister-in-law’s hand and turn his head to look at the girl in the doorway.
‘So Tracy’s here,’ he said softly. Cherry could not see his face but she thought he was probably smiling. ‘In good health, I see.’
‘Come inside and see for yourself,’ the girl said.
With one hand she opened the wire screen door, then turned sideways so that her back leaned against the door jamb. She rested her head against the woodwork so that her chin was lifted. Her profile was exquisite. She raised one knee and slid the sole of her foot upwards until it rested against the woodwork of the door frame. It was an alluring though casual pose.
Stephen said nothing though Cherry was sure that he again smiled.
This, then, was the girl. He had said he could marry her any moment if that was what would qualify him in Mrs. Landin’s eyes to take Cherry a thousand miles up the coast and several hundred miles inland.
He had been joking, of course, but there was always a seed of truth in every joke. There are always nuances about the relationships between two other people. This girl, whose name was Tracy, didn’t mind one atom that those nuances now announced to the group on the veranda that she was interested in one person only. That person was
Stephen Denton. She didn’t even glance at the new governess.
Mrs. Denton put her hand on Cherry’s arm.
‘Well, come inside,’ she said. ‘I’ve some supper ready, then I expect you’d like to go to bed. Time enough in the morning for the children.’ She turned to lead the way into the house. ‘If you two would mind remembering there are other people in the world and they’d like to go through the door,’ she said, addressing Tracy and Stephen, who were talking to one another and obstructing the doorway. ‘Oh, Miss Landin, I haven’t introduced you to my sister, Tracy Evans … Tracy, this is Sandra’s governess, Miss Landin.’
‘Cherry Landin,’ Cherry amended gently, then added, ‘How do you do?’
The only thing Tracy moved was her head. She turned it to look at the newcomer.
‘I suppose you’re frightfully tired,’ she said in an affected voice that implied this statement was the only conversation necessary to offer someone who had travelled so far since early morning. ‘Aeroplanes bore me to screams,’ she added.
‘Would you mind moving, Tracy,’ Mrs. Denton asked again. ‘You’ve got a whole month in which to talk to Stephen, and roughly half a million acres in which to do it. We would like to go in through the door, please.’
Tracy laughed. She let her foot slide down the door jamb until it touched the ground then with a flick of her shoulders she turned into the house. Cherry decided that Tracy’s back view in those ‘stoves,’ as she moved nonchalantly across the room, was the most seductive thing in the world.
Now, in the full light, and when Tracy turned round and slid backwards and downwards into an easy cane chair, Cherry decided that seductive was the emotive adjective descriptive of the whole of Tracy, back and front.
Not the least of the striking things about the girl were her face and hair. The bone structure of her face with its high cheekbones, short straight nose and pointed chin was unusual. It was made up with something white and opalescent so that it glowed. Her eyes and eyebrows were beautifully marked by soft shadow-shading of blue, and yes, green make-up. Her lips were outlined with a pale pink lipstick that somehow did not conflict with the deep glowing red of the hair that looked so casual as it swept down her cheeks, nearly to her shoulders, and yet did not have one shining hair out of place. Also it looked as if it had been dusted with some glow from the last of the sunset.
Cherry was terrifically impressed and just a little awed by the other girl’s magnificent, careless sophistication.
She had now slung her legs over the arm of the chair so the midnight-blue velvet slacks added to a vivid and tantalising colour scheme.
Cherry had seen models who looked like Tracy Evans; and magazine covers; and Kim Novak in the films. She’d never dreamed of finding such a person in the middle of a red earth desert on an outback cattle station.
‘You look like a witch’s brew,’ said Stephen, coming into the room and smiling down at Tracy. ‘A very bewitching brew, I had better amend hastily.’
‘So nice of you to like it,’ said Tracy casually.
‘Would you like to sit down,’ Mrs. Denton asked Cherry pleasantly and ignoring her sister, ‘or would you prefer to see your room and have a wash-up. You look tired …’
‘And dusty,’ Cherry added for her. ‘I would like just a few minutes to tidy myself, if you don’t mind …’
‘Well, come along. Your room is the end one on the left down this short passage. You’ll find the shower room through the french window at the end of the veranda.’
She turned and spoke to her husband who had just come into the living-room.
‘Hugh, will you turn the light on in the side veranda for Miss Landin? And you men, please use the tank shower room ‒’
As she drew aside the hanging cane curtain which covered the doorway into Cherry’s room she added: ‘Have your shower now and then slip on something light so you can go to bed straight after we’ve had some supper. You look as if you’re nearly dropping.’
‘I am,’ thought Cherry to herself, but aloud she said, ‘Thank you very much.’
‘The children are asleep so you’ll have to wait till morning to see them,’ Mrs. Denton added. She preceded Cherry into the room and looked round swiftly as if to see if she had forgotten anything in the preparation of the room. She turned round and smiled.
‘I do hope you will like it here,’ she said.
‘I’m sure I will,’ Cherry said gratefully.
‘Come into the living-room when you are ready,’ Mrs. Denton said as she went out, letting the cane curtain fall across the door with a musical rustle.
Cherry, dazed with tiredness, looked round the room.
‘In the morning,’ she said to herself, ‘I’ll really get to know you.’
It wasn’t the lovely modern cosy grey and pink of her own room at home. It was old-fashioned and the walls were papered with some dark floral design. It was not a big room but it held a wardrobe, a dressing-table and a bookcase full of books. Cherry noticed them with pleasure but looking at their titles was something beyond her now.
The floor was covered with a shining linoleum in dark colours and on either side of the bed, which looked comfortable, were sheepskin mats. The most interesting feature was the doorways, opposite one another, the far one leading on to the veranda. They were both covered with full-length cane curtains that hung in a myriad of vertical pieces of cane, strung together with beads. As Mrs. Denton had shown her into the room, and again when Mrs. Denton had left, the curtains made a pretty tinkling sound.
The atmosphere was warm so Cherry guessed that the reason for the open windows and doors was to allow the constant free passage of air. The cane curtains gave privacy but allowed for coolness. Later she found the only door that was capable of being shut and fastened was the shower room. She discovered this to be along a veranda which was a green tunnel of ferns. These enclosed growing plants stood about on wooden stands and hung from the rafters in wire baskets. It was cool, exotic and exciting.
It was all so different from anything Cherry had ever seen she felt sure she was going to enjoy living in this homestead ‒ once she could open her tired eyes wide enough to appreciate it all.
Putting something light on for supper was a problem. Cherry thought wistfully of her own velvet slacks but somehow wasn’t sure whether this was right for ‘the governess’ on her first evening. Tracy Evans belonged to the family so she was in a different position. Cherry finally put on a simple button-through cotton dress, slipped on her scuffs over bare feet, combed her hair quickly and neatly and put on a minimum of lipstick.
As she went to the door she had second thoughts about that make-up.
She was here more than a thousand miles from home and beginning a new life. She wanted to begin a new personality too. She couldn’t match Tracy with her make-up because she wouldn’t know how to go about it. But she could add something a little daring for the prissy miss who had sat in her parents’ living-room on the day of that interview.
Cherry took from her bag the new vanity case she had bought herself. It had been a secret and self-conscious buy, yet it had been something her heart had hankered for.
She let the shining black and silver lid spring back and stood looking rapturously at its contents. Miraculously her tiredness temporarily disappeared. In that little case lay all the enchantment of the world. It was Pandora’s box and the imps were colours arranged like a paintbox to be used either for rubbing delicately into the cheeks or around the eyelids. There was a mascara pencil in a gilt case and an eyebrow pencil to match it. There were three of the latest shades of lipstick and in the centre a square block of crème powder which one applied sparingly with the fingertips.
Cherry, one night at home after her parents had gone to bed, had tried them all out. She hadn’t achieved Tracy’s exotic and professional look but she had had results that had made her skip round her room ‒ in her new velvet slacks and new casual haircut ‒ with the sheer joy of being free to be modern.
Ho
w much dared she put on now without being too amateurish about it.
A slight … oh, ever so slight an application of the crème powder perhaps! And the eyebrow stick to make her eyebrows fly out just a weeny bit towards her temples. Not too much, but just a promise of what she might do someday when she really let her head go.
She was a new person in a new place, wasn’t she? All right, she would look new too!
Cherry spent another ten minutes in front of the mirror and the results pleased her greatly. She had forgotten all about being tired and thought the brightness of her eyes was due to the make-up.
She went out of her room, letting the cane curtain drop back to its own merry tune and walked down the passage which led directly into the living-room.
They were all sitting about drinking tea. On a small table were some sandwiches charmingly decorated with threads of lettuce and rings of capsicums. It was a light supper but all that anyone would need at this hour.
As Cherry came into the room the three men rose slowly, unfolding long legs, but they went on talking to one another without looking at the newcomer.
Cherry was a little disappointed. She was a new person and she would have liked someone to notice it. Mrs. Denton was busy adding water to the teapot from the hot water jug and Tracy did not look up from the magazine she was flicking through.
‘It is quite clear,’ thought Cherry ruefully, ‘that no one cares about my being here at all, except as someone to help with the children. As a personality I just don’t count.’
The men subsided back into their chairs like concertinas folding up and their voices went on and on. It was all about station affairs. Cherry, as she sat down, wondered what Mrs. Denton and Tracy thought about this exclusion from men’s affairs. They, undoubtedly, were used to it.
Mrs. Denton brought Cherry a cup of tea and put the sugar and plate of sandwiches on a small table beside her.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I do hope that will refresh you.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Cherry replied. ‘You are very kind.’
