The mountain that went to the sea (15 page)

'Not to worry, Jane,' Andrew said. 'I have Jeckie.' Then he added drily, 'She seems in fine fettle for a first day in the wilds.' He ea.sed his long legs out of the car, walked round the bonnet and opened the passenger door for Jeckie.

'Thank you, Andrew,' she said, not looking at him 'It's a beautiful car, isn't it? I mean, so comfortable.'

`De luxe travelling compared with the way our mutual forbears came out here in the early days. You arrived here in one day. It took the first Andrew nine months — '

Jeckie looked up, straight at him. 'Yes, Andrew. You

did mention that before. He must have been a very wonderful man.'

The light was almost gone, but not so far gone that Jeckie did not catch the surprised expression in his face.

He didn't expect to get that—from me, she thought. I've only the smallest drop of Ashenden blood in my veins, but at least it's the spirited drop. And now Andrew knows about it.

Jane came down the steps towards them.

`There you are, my dear,' she said to Jeckie. 'You don't even look jaded! Bravo! It was rather wicked of Barton to take you off for the whole day. We had no idea he had such intentions. Andrew dear! Such an interesting message came over the air. I wrote it down for you exactly as I heard it.' She fished in her pocket and brought out a piece of paper on which had been scribbled a pencil note.

`Andrew Ashenden,' she read, a light note in her voice. `Outpost, Mallibee. Twenty-six North. Message reads—Since you have Jeckie Bennett with you, may I come too? Lots of love, Sheila. There you are, Andrew! Isn't that lovely? She has such a happy way of putting things, hasn't she? Aunt Isobel is delighted. She hopes you will say "Yes", Andrew.'

'Of course,' he said. 'You should have given the answer for me before the session closed down, Jane!'

'Well — Miss Isobel said it was your message, Andrew. It was only good manners to wait until you came in.'

'You'd both give the same answer if left to yourselves, is that it, Jane?' he asked quizzically. Even in the failing light Jeckie could see he wore an amused expression. Was he extra pleased because Sheila was coming? And how kindly was his expression as he looked at Jane!

'Of course we would,' Jane replied happily. 'It will be nice for Jeckie to have another girl to keep her company. Miss Isobel and I are not quite up to date about how to amuse young girls, you know.'

'I didn't know, but so be it.' Andrew was back to his dry self again. 'Now if you'll take Jeckie in with you, Jane, I'll garage the car. Did anyone let the slip-rail down for Peter's Prince?'

'Yes. I did — as soon as the light began to give out. Andrew dear, you always ask that question and you

always know that if you aren't in at sundown someone in the homestead will let that slip-rail down. Nobody would dare leave your beloved Peter's Prince in the paddock overnight.'

`It's good management to check, but thanks all the same, Jane. He's getting old. He needs care.'

`Come on, Jeckie,' Jane said. 'We'll leave Andrew to his last-minute jobs. Miss Isobel is dying to hear if you enjoyed yourself. And how far Barton took you.'

Jeckie loved horses, and it touched her quite deeply to know that Andrew — reserved to the point of remoteness about his authority on Mallibee, should have time to remember, without fail, to care for his faithful 'friend' Peter's Prince.

Days passed, then a week or two raced by, as Jeckie gradually became more familiar with the homestead and its surroundings. She loved every minute of those days and weeks. She had come to love every creak in the old timbers of the ancient homestead, and every hue of the blazing colours that were the banners of sun-up and sundown in that part of the wild west outback world. Oh, those colours! Where else in any world could the like be seen?

Mallibee itself was a little old-worldly. Aunt Isobel even more so. Yet Jeckie found the manner in which they led their life here in the Never-Never was fascinating. Within the homestead there was a quiet, very ordered way of living. It was almost as if the clock had stopped at least fifty years before. The furnishings were old-fashioned, and the manners were old-fashioned too. But there was a grace about it all. The gracious way of living.

In other directions the station — as an industry — was very advanced. There was the transceiver set, for instance. Even more impressive was the small two-seater plane that Barton and Andrew used to muster in the nearer of the sheep flocks. Once brought in from the bush boundaries,

T.M.W.T.S.

these sheep grazed along the further slopes of the creek bed — and at that stage the plane took over as a muster force to bring them nearer the yards.

One day Jane and Jeckie used the small runabout to go far out to the south paddocks to watch from the boundary fence. Andrew was in the air this time, while Barton with two stockmen moved close-in and finished the yarding.

Jeckie watched the plane swooping in long air-curves low over the ground, just above the sheep. She was quite nervous. At times she found herself literally holding her breath and saying a prayer for Andrew's safety.

'I know how you feel,' Jane said with a laugh 'I did that — the first time I saw Andrew mustering with the plane. He seemed almost to touch the paddock fence at times. But I'm so used to it now. Most of the sheep men with big runs up here muster by plane, once the sheep come in from the outer boundaries. But we don't talk about it in front of Miss Isobel. It still frightens her. We don't tell her the sheep are being mustered till they're yarded. She pretends not to hear the plane in the air, but that's her little secret, Jeckie. You will keep it, won't you?'

'Of course. But Andrew and Barton must be very good pilots,' Jeckie said.

'Oh yes. They trained the right way out at Jandakot. Andrew is very thorough about that sort of thing. Of course they can't use the main airport because it's under Civil Aviation, and there's no control tower there. That's why Barton had to go in for you by car.'

'Andrew is the sort of person who would be thorough about everything, I think — '

'Oh, Barton too, my dear. Only Barton doesn't have quite so much responsibility. He has more time to . . . well, to enjoy life ... as it were ...'

'Not in the air I hope,' Jeckie said anxiously.

Jane glanced sideways at her. There was a sudden light in her eyes.

'You and Barton do get on well together, don't you, Jeckie! Miss Isobel is so pleased. She wanted you ever so much to be — well — be specially friendly with Barton. I mean — he's really a very fine young man in spite of his teasing ways. He doesn't mean any harm, and he's so

thoughtful in the homestead. He'll make someone a nice husband one day — '

'I'm sure he will,' Jeckie said, suddenly feeling blank. She shaded her eyes to watch Andrew's plane soar up into the sky again, then circle back to the east, gaining distance and height, in order to swoop down on a group of stragglers just visible way down the long paddock.

I can almost guess what Jane is up to, she thought. Me for Barton and that lovely, laughter-making Sheila for Andrew. Lo! All the shares are back in the real Ashenden family! Except Mallibee Mountain of course. That is gone for ever.

She wondered how much Jane was just a little bit Aunt Isobel's shadow-thinker.

Jeckie had stopped feeling outraged at the suggestion of husband-hunting on her part, and girl-searching on the part of the Ashenden hierarchy. It was like turning people into a game of 'stocks and shares', she thought. It could be fun if, at the back of the game, at least some of the people at Mallibee didn't take the end results so seriously. Aunt Isobel and Jane spoke gently and kindly, but with the same voice, and they thought the same thoughts about everything on the earth — it seemed.

But Barton? Well — in some things. When he looked at her he always had a wicked, knowing grin on his attractive face, and in his dark, mischievous eyes. Jeckie felt that any moment — just for devilment's sake — he would start calling her 'Juliet' in earnest. From there he'd begin asking her where her 'Romeo' was at any given time . . . meaning Andrew in the sky, or Barton by the switch gate to the sheep yards.

Sometimes Aunt Isobel, over the afternoon tea ritual, when Andrew and Barton were out on the run, would dwell a little heavily on the virtues of the brothers. But to Jeckie specially, she would dwell more often on Barton's qualities.

bet,' Jeckie thought to herself more than once, 'when Sheila gets here Aunt Isobel will talk almost exclusively about Andrew's good points. 'That is — when she's talking to Sheila. Just how important can two shares in Mallibee be?'

Besides, both their mothers were alive! And please

God, well! The shares were not Sheila's or Jeckie's — yet.

When Jeckie thought too much about all this she began to feel affronted all over again. Sometimes, but only in rare moments, she thought it might have been better if she had never come to Mallibee at all!

In one mood Jeckie was nearly angry with them all! Oh! If only she could just be an ordinary visitor ! And one with no future in property at all! If only her mother had some other way of getting rid of that share! If she'd had a son, for instance!

In another mood she wondered if Andrew — so far up there on the heights of managership — even knew what went on in the minds of Aunt Isobel and the scheming mothers of Sheila and Jeckie. Barton only too obviously knew, but he seemed to think of it as a wonderful teasing point with which to pass the time of day.

Then on one night, just before she fell asleep, Jeckie had another da Ming mischievous idea of her own.

Suppose she married that renegade, Jason Bassett!

What fun that would be! Become engaged to Jason, then come back to Mallibee to listen over the air to everyone on the session boiling themselves in talk about it! How the air would ring!

Besides — she liked Jason. Well — it was something more than 'liked'. He was a darling! And how she would like to see him again! How could she manage it?

Jeckie's thoughts drifted on towards sleep.

She must find some way to hoodwink Barton into taking her to see Mallibee Mountain again. That is, what was left of the mountain by then. Maybe at the Turn-Off . . . there would be Jason and Jason's nice dog, Ranger.

Maybe she would lose her shoe again — slip it off the store's veranda into the bougainvillea perhaps. And Jason would find her shoe and put it on again.

It was so long long ago that Jeckie had read the `Cinderella' story she couldn't now remember for sure who put the shoe on Cinderella's foot.

It must have been Prince Charming. Well, Jason wasn't a P.C. — that was for sure. But he was a pet. That twinkle in his eye! And a sort-of kindness and lovingness in him all the time. He was a dear!

So — as an escape from thoughts of the undercurrent of conniving going on at Mallibee — Jeckie lay in her bed at nights and thought of Jason Bassett.

Sometimes she wondered at the way she'd stopped thinking of her first love so soon. Privately, now that all was over and love was that saddest of all sad things —a passing notion — Jeckie thought that those final decisions were right after all. She could not, in the wildest stretch of pre-sleep imagination, see herself a gracious figure at the head of a staircase in some 'Diplomatic' scene. Nor in a less exalted context could she see herself charming-up to the Captain's entourage — wife, children and career-makers.

No! Juliet Pamela Bennett was a farmer's daughter—one who sometimes had oats in her hair, and sometimes had the cow's milk spilled on her shoes. For a career-officer of the Navy she was definitely not suitable. She agreed. At long, long last — she agreed!

But up here, way off in the nor'west, she was a real somebody because one day she would be worth one valuable share in Mallibee Station!

Just to stop feeling sore . . . and she was very nearly asleep now . . . she would think — in her fantasy world —of marrying Jason Bassett. She could perhaps find peace that way.

Yet others would be hurt . .. Aunt Isobel. And Jane. Maybe whichever of the two brothers — Andrew or Barton — Sheila didn't marry.

But Sheila was going to marry Andrew. It was written in people's faces, and sometimes veiled in their words. Andrew .. .

On Monday morning a week later, Aunt Isobel decided it was time Jeckie saw the Ashenden silver collection. Jeckie at this moment was helping Jane clear away the last of the breakfast dishes.

'Oh . . but Miss Isobel,' Jane protested gently.

`Weren't we going to bring it all out for Sheila's visit? Do you think we might wait a few days?'

'No, Jane dear.' Aunt Isobel was folding her table napkin very neatly. 'You were out in the vegetable garden last evening when the open session was on. I meant

to tell you, but Cassie wanted me in the kitchen. The Carsons over at Nana Bindi have asked Sheila to spend a few days with them. You remember they took such a fancy to Sheila when they were over here for Easter? I only heard the radio telegram going outwards to Sheila but I think myself it would be more convenient if she did go to them first.'

Jane looked a little flabbergasted and quite anxious.

'Oh, but Miss Isobel! Sheila is our guest. The Nana Bindi people are always trying to steal our guests. It's that new modern homestead they've built, of course. I'm very much afraid they want to appear more important than the Ashendens.'