The Rouseabout Girl (16 page)

‘Don’t they make a perfect couple, those two?’ Edna’s sentimental tones reached them clearly as they went out of the door. ‘He’s so tall, and she barely
reaches up to his shoulder
—’

Lanie was about to make a joke of Edna’s words, but glancing up into Jard’s face with its hard, unyielding expression, she thought better of it.

Outside the Land Rover was parked at the foot of the steps and she climbed up the step and slid into the passenger seat. He closed the door behind her, swung his tall frame effortlessly into the cab and set the sturdy vehicle in motion. Soon they were clattering over the cattlestop and moving to
w
ards the first of the gates.
Lanie
knew all about gates and how it was the passenger’s duty to open and c
l
ose them behind the vehicle. Almost, she was glad of an excuse to jump out of the Land Rover and climb in again. There was something about being seated close to Jard that was sending her senses noting in confusion. It didn’t help any that as they took the dusty track winding over the hills she was bumped and jostled, thrown against his hard muscular body as they traversed the darkening slopes. Clouds of dust caught in the headlamps of the vehicle indicated that other vehicles weren’t far away, even though they were out of sight around the sharp, tree-shaded bends.

Then they turned off, taking a track down a dark hill, and as they swung around a curve she caught sight of the dark outlines of a homestead high on a hill and far below, at the roadside, a great timber shed where lights blazed from wide open doors. Already she could glimpse the vehicles that were parked haphazardly around the high steps leading to the woolshed. She broke the long silence to eye Jard enquiringly. ‘We’re almost there?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right.’ His glance was on the winding road ahead and soon he had guided the vehicle down the slope and was easing the Land Rover in between a long stock transporter and a timber truck. Then he jumped down to open the passenger door and Lanie dropped lightly to the dried grass, already wet with dew

They’re here!’ A group of young people gathered around them and in a gale of talk and laughter they all moved towards the lighted building ahead. As they crowded up the steps Lanie realised that her companions were the everyday staff employed on the station, yet how different they appeared tonight in their gala attire. Especially the two girls, Mary and Debbie, with their freshly washed hair and skilfully applied make-up that enhanced their tanned complexions and clear bright eyes. Brent she scarcely recognised, his lean and lanky figure resplendent in cowboy gear he had evidently donned in anticipation of giving a musical item tonight—red-and-white checked cotton shirt, a heavily fringed leather jerkin, hip-hugging jeans. ‘Glad you made it,’ he whispered to Lanie, then she was borne along with the rest of the party as they surged through the opening into the big shed.

At the entrance they were welcomed by their hosts, a big quietly-spoken man and his smiling, pleasant-faced wife. Almost at once Jard was waylaid by a group of tanned young men whom Lanie took to be local sheep farmers. Already there was a crowd of people in the woolshed and as the banter echoed around her, Lanie stood gazing about her, her sweeping gaze taking in the colourful scene. Presses and tables had been pushed back against the walls, disguising the ‘woolshed’ image, and trailing greenery of long fronds of
punga
fern and fragrant five-finger, plucked from the bush, festooned bare corners. Trails of fairy lights were strung from high rafters, and hay bales set at intervals around the edge of the dance floor took care of the seating.

Her glance took in the sprinkling of older men with their leathery skins and calloused hands. With them were their wives, middle-aged, smiling women who were chatting with friends and evidently enjoying one of the rare social occasions in the district. Children were sliding up and down the grease-slippery floor. For the rest, there seemed to be a preponderance of young men, sun-weathered, athletic-looking types who were no doubt employed around the area as farm workers, shepherds and stockmen. It seemed to Lanie that tonight everyone for miles around had come to the dance—except Paula.

‘Tell me,’ all at once she became aware of a feminine voice cutting across the buzz of talk and laughter echoing around the big shed, ‘who is she? The girl in front of us with the Rangimarie crowd? Must be one of their visitors they have to stay for a week or so. I mean the one with the cute little face and the dimples.’

Lanie winced at the description of herself. And she with her topknot and all! She had hoped that pulling her hair severely back from her face would lend her some small degree of sophistication, but now ... Was she never to grow away from that childish image?

‘Didn’t you know? But of course you’ve been away from here for a while.’ Lanie was so irritated by what she had unwittingly overheard concerning herself that she was scarcely aware of a second feminine voice. Now the words carried clearly in her direction. ‘She’s the new temporary cook who’s filling in at Rangimarie while Edna’s away overseas.’

‘A cook?’
Voice number two was incredulous. ‘A girl like that? You’re having me on!’

‘It’s true! Jard and his dad brought her back with them from town.’

‘Now that I can believe, but the other
...’
The voice changed to a wistful note. ‘Fresh blood in the district! She’ll have lots of partners tonight. Funny, she doesn’t seem to have a boy-friend with her. She’s so pretty too.’ Voice number one was avid, gossipy. ‘But she did have a boy-friend when she arrived here, quite a serious relationship it was too. Paula happened t
o
be right there at the homestead when it happened. She saw the whole thing and she told me all about it. Elaine, the girl’s name is. Seems she was all set to be married to this city guy, they’d worked together at the same office and had known each other for ages. Then Elaine came to work here. She wanted employment on a big station, Paula told me, and she said the reason wasn’t hard to find. Anyway, this fellow from town followed her down here almost right away, drove all through the night to get here, and guess what? She was quite beastly to him, Paula told me, after he’d come all that way just to see her. She told him right away that the wedding plans were off!’

The other voice sounded younger, more innocent, the words tinged with bewilderment. ‘But why would she do that, all of a sudden? Just because of the new job?’

‘Not the job, stupid! Can’t you guess? The man! The wealthy guy who owns Rangimarie! Paula told me that anyone could see what her game was. Not that she wouldn’t be wasting her time, of course, when Jard and Paula
—
well, you know what I mean!’ The speakers moved out of earshot, but Lanie had already heard enough, more than enough. She felt sick. It had been bad enough to have had Trevor voicing those crazy insinuations about her coming here to work for purposes of her own, but Paula ... How could the other girl spread such lies about someone she didn’t even know? A dismaying thought ran through her mind. Had others here tonight besides herself been aware of the carrying tones of the unknown speakers?

At that moment, through the tumult of her thoughts, she became aware that all heads were turning towards the entrance as Paula swept into the big shed, a stunning figure in her low-cut gown, its clinging folds accentuating her slim figure.

She was running across the intervening space to greet Jard. ‘Darling,’ she cried delightedly, ‘you
came
!’
Laughingly, she raised herse
l
f on tiptoe to twine her a
rms
around his neck, then she kissed him full on the lips. There was a ripple of laughter from the onlookers and she swung around with a mischievous wink. ‘I’ll let you into a secret!’ For no reason at all, Lanie felt her heart plunge. ‘If I hadn’t chanced to ring up Rangimarie a while ago and found that he’d already left for this dance, he wouldn’t have got himself that kiss!’ Lanie’s heart steadied. ‘He had no idea that I was back home after my last trip. Just one of those stupid misunderstanding's,’ she ran on, ‘but everything’s all right now.’ Her smile, Lanie was forced to admit, was really something. ‘Isn’t that true, Jard?’ Her voice was a caress. ‘I’ll
—
’
the words trailed .into silence and her glance froze as she caught sight of Lanie’s small figure all but hidden among the crowd. The next minute she had recovered herself. ‘Listen!’ She was laughing up into Jard’s face, ‘They’re playing our tune. Remember?’ From the makeshift stage the musicians, a pianist and two young Maori guitar-players, had broken into a melody and the foot-tapping rhythm pulsed through the big shed. ‘Let’s start things moving, sha
ll
we?’

As Paula and Jard took the floor, a hush fell over the chattering crowd. Lanie, watching with the others, thought that Jard appeared relaxed and apparently unconscious of the intricate steps his feet were performing. Paula was following his lead. In her figure
-
hugging red dress with its long floating sleeves, she resembled, Lanie mused wistfully, a scarlet-winged butterfly. Paula’s eyes were sparkling and clearly she was enjoying the adulation of the onlookers.

‘Gee, I’m so sorry I’m late!’ The low contrite masculine tones fell on her ears and she swung around to find Mervyn at her side. Something in the expression of his steadfast brown eyes, or maybe it was the warmth of his smile, eased a little the chill sense of let-down that had been with her since the moment when she had found herself to be an unwilling witness to the malicious rumours that Paula had circulated around the district concerning her. She became aware of Mervyn’s remorseful tones. ‘The old bus let me down, refused to co-operate about starting, tonight of all nights! Been waiting long?’

‘Not long.’ Lanie endeavoured to concentrate on her companion, but she couldn’t seem to wrench her gaze from Jard and Paula who she could glimpse through the maze of swaying figures who had now joined them on the dance floor.

‘I scarcely recognised you.’ Mervyn's appreciative gaze swept Lanie’s petite young figure and small dimpled face. ‘Let’s not waste time,’ he suggested smilingly, and swept her on to the dance floor that was
now a scintillating, moving mass of colour.

When at last the pianist lifted his hands from the keyboard, Lanie was flushed and breathless. Mervyn led her from the dance floor, then almost at once the music resumed its rhythmic beat and before she realised what was happening, she found herself whisked away by Brent.

‘I
didn’t see you anywhere near,’ she commented in surprise as they moved to the intoxicating tempo, ‘where were you?’

‘Waiting and hovering, hoping for a chance of a dance with you!’ he grinned. ‘I knew I wouldn’t have a hope in hell if I didn’t do something about it!’

Strangely enough, she mused some time later, as things turned out it was the truth. Whether because of the novelty of an unfamiliar face at the back-country dance or because tonight men far outnumbered the girls, she couldn’t tell. She only knew that she was in such demand as a partner that before long even Mervyn’s good-tempered face wore a baffled expression. ‘Why,’ he groaned, ‘did I have to pick on the most popular girl in the place to want to dance
w
ith?’ Before long, however, by circumventing two bronzed young farmers who were bearing down in Lanie’s direction, he managed to approach her side in the nick of time.

It was only during the space between numbers from the band when Brent, carrying his guitar, mounted the makeshift stage, that she found time to catch her breath. ‘You have to be tough to go to these country dances,’ she told Mervyn laughingly. ‘They seem to be non-stop.’

His dark eyes held a twinkle. ‘Do you mind?’

She laughed. ‘Not really.’

‘Me neither, not when I’m with you!’

There was a sudden hush in the buzz of conversation echoing around the room as Brent plucked his guitar and his voice, the sort of voice,
Lanie
thought, that could do things to your heart, took up the melody.

‘I am a shepherd

With the stars for company.’

There was a haunting quality in the ballad, Lanie thought. It told of the long silences of the bush, of the loneliness of months spent in the isolation of a hut in remote country, far from human habitation. Or could it be his voice that touched her, she wondered, as Brent sang to the tempo of his throbbing guitar.

There was a lively lilt to the melody and before long everyone was joining in the foot-tapping chorus. In response to enthusiastic applause, Brent sang again and again until at last he left the stage to the accompaniment of stamping and calling from the audience.

Soon couples gathered once more on the dance floor and Lanie’s pattern of popularity as a partner was repeated all over again. It seemed, she thought with some amusement, that every unattached male in the woolshed tonight wished to compete for a dance with ‘the new girl from Rangimarie’. Everyone, that was, her steps faltered and she missed a beat, except Jard. Although why she should want him to partner her was beyond her comprehension except, she mused, as a means of taking her revenge on him. It wasn’t as if they even liked each other. Why should he care about her when, had the matter been left to him, he would not keep her for a day in his employ? Besides
—
unconsciously she sighed—he had his Paula. Paula who had partnered him for all but one of the numbers when he had appeared on the dance floor. Lanie knew, because she had been keeping count, just as a matter of interest of course she told herself. Unconsciously she lifted her rounded chin. Even if he should ask her to partner him on the dance floor at this late hour she would take great pleasure, she vowed silently, in turning him down. Not that she need have concerned herself, she thought wryly a long time later when the hours had fled by and it was almost dawn. Lanie's face was flushed with exertion and her topknot was all over the place when at last the musicians rose from their seats on the makeshift stage to announce the final dance of the evening.

From the other side of the shed Mervyn was striding purposefully in her direction, but at that moment a tall
figure appeared at her side and a vibrant, peremptory,
familiar
voice said, ‘Mine, I think!’ Before she had time to catch her breath, let alone tell him exactly what she had in mind, she found herself caught up in his arms. It
would
be waltz music, she thought faintly, that was throbbing from the guitars—a romantic, old-fashioned waltz to the tempo of an old ballad, Beneath a Maori Moon. Then she lost sight of her surroundings in the wild sweetness that flooded her senses. Jard was holding her firmly and closely, their steps matching as perfectly as if they had danced together many times. He was a faultless dancer and her own feet seemed to have wings. The crescendo of excitement mounted inside her, the world around her fell away and there was only she and Jard together, together, enmeshed in a golden web of me
l
ody.

When at last the music died away, Lanie felt as though she were coming back from somewhere far
a
way. Jard took her back to join the group from the homestead, and as the band struck up the rousing notes of Auld Lang Syne Lanie, still in her private dream, linked hands with someone, a moment later she realised it was Mervyn’s hand she was clasping, then the loud and enthusiastic singing filled the air.

Still under the influence of that last waltz, Lanie joined in with the others. Then suddenly, across the room, she encountered Paula’s baleful glance. The other girl’s lips were compressed in an ugly line and there was such a torrent of hate directed towards her that Lanie came back to reality with a rush. The singing had come to a rousing finish and now the human chain was breaking up and farewells were being said. All at once she realised that Mervyn was tugging at her arm. ‘I had to share you with the whole world tonight,’ he complained. ‘Tell me,’ she caught the note of urgency in his tone, ‘when can I see you again?’

‘I don’t know—soon, I guess,’ she murmured vaguely, her attention concentrated on Jard and Paula. The other girl was clinging to his arm and smiling up into his face. What were they saying? Lanie wondered.