Sarah's Baby (12 page)

“You mean you've just discovered how much you care about him, Gran?” asked Kyall, his voice biting.

“Understand that you, more than anyone, have brought Sarah Dempsey to this town, Kyall,” Ruth responded, folding her hands. “I'm sorry, my darling, but I can't think she'll ever fill Joe's shoes. Or get anyone to trust her like they trusted Joe.”

Sweet Lord! Why didn't the words stick in her throat? For years now, Kyall had hardly believed a word his grandmother said. She was duplicity itself.

Sensing his skepticism, Ruth met her grandson's eyes. “At least try to appreciate my very real concerns. The town won't like discovering that Sarah isn't up to the job.”

Kyall's expression turned to one of mild irony. “Sure she is. Most of us, including Joe, think so, at any rate. Sorry, Gran.”

Ruth fought back a bitter retort. She and Kyall had quarreled enough. She was unhappy about it, desperate to restore what she thought of as her unassailable place in his heart. But, dressing for dinner in her bedroom, Ruth calmly and deliberately spread a few little dry seeds across the polished surface of a small antique table. So harmless looking. Joe wanted to talk to her about Molly Fairweather, did
he? Molly and her untimely, somewhat horrific, demise. Poor old Molly had wanted to speak to her, too. Molly wound up dead. So would Joe. A pity, but she could see right away that the whole issue would lead to trouble. She had the means at hand. Undetectable. Dear Sarah wasn't the only one who'd delved into native remedies. Not that a powerful poison came into that category, exactly. She'd always been interested in native sorcery—both beneficial and destructive. Many people questioned whether Aborigines really performed sorcery as they claimed. As far as Ruth was concerned, it worked. Molly had been talking for days of a strange feeling in her right leg. A sensation much like a burning sting. How did the disbeliever account for that? Still, no one would be any the wiser. Joe's sudden death would be interpreted as the will of God. He was already a dying man. Hastening the awful process could only be an act of compassion. Preferable to a long-drawn-out agony.

Molly Fairweather, on the other hand, deserved everything she got. Molly Fairweather, despite all the help Ruth had given her, had persuaded herself that the only way to save her immortal soul was to go public. It wasn't too late to put things right, she'd insisted.

“I'm positive, Mrs. McQueen,” Molly had shrieked, waving like a fool at the sky. “You'll help me, won't you? I have everyone's best interests at heart. You must tell your grandson and that poor girl. Her screams have haunted me all these years. I must've been mad. You asked too much. It was wicked, you know.” Here she grabbed Ruth roughly by the arm, staring into Ruth's eyes, letting go in near terror before she burst into tears. “Please, Mrs. McQueen,” Molly had begged. “Have pity.”

Naturally she'd been able to persuade Molly to wait a few days, explaining that they had to be very careful how
they went about putting things right. There was so much to consider.

Molly had agreed at once.

Poor Molly.

 

A
T SOME POINT
during the night Joe Randall woke up. He tried to grope for the light, but his limbs seemed paralyzed. He'd become nothing but bone. A skeleton in his pajamas. The night was black and he was drenched in a cold sweat. His heart pounded so violently he thought his rib cage would shatter under the bombardment. He tried to sit up, fell back totally disoriented, not recognizing the room where he lay. His symptoms confused him. Aberrations from the norm. Or the norm of terminal cancer. No nausea. No racking vomiting. But he couldn't seem to swallow and he had a strangely bitter taste in his mouth. Like scorched nuts. Or poison. Oddly, he didn't seem to be in pain. None of the tearing agony he was accustomed to, like the turn and twist of a blade in his guts. But he couldn't swallow. Couldn't breathe. Could barely move. He was obviously close to death and yet he'd been sure he had a little time left.

A familiar perfume reached his nostrils. A shape moved out of the farthest corner of the room. He stared at it, shivering hard. A ghost in a nightgown. It approached the bed. Joe shrank back instinctively, although he could make no sound.

In a dim flash he saw Ruth. Her face, suddenly illuminated, was as cold and severe as any executioner's. It hovered over him. Its fingers touched his face.
Ruth, were you there all the time?

“I've come to say goodbye, Joe,” she whispered.

She sounded sad.

No. This was the woman he had loved, despite her one hellish flaw.

“You made a terrible mistake, Joe,” she murmured, leaning against the bed. “How could you have been so stupid? Now you've got to die.” Very gently she bent her head to kiss him, and the terrible irony of it gave him a moment's brilliant clarity. “I swear I didn't want this, Joe, but you forced my hand. You'll never make that mistake again.”

Of course. It flooded Joe's faltering mind that he'd walked right into her trap. He'd been prepared for anything—he knew the wild Ruth of old. But not this. Though there was little or no air left in his frail, exhausted body, so miraculously, wondrously out of pain, Joe Randall managed one word: “Murderer!”

“Hush, Joe,” she soothed. “Who are you to judge me? How could you prove it? Tomorrow you'll be carried out on a stretcher. I'll walk behind you to the undertaker's van, seemingly unaware of the tears that stream down my face.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Our special relationship, never spoken about except behind my back, will be remembered. Our friendship goes back a long way, Joe. You built your career in this town because of me. I was the one who handpicked you and supported you in all your efforts. Naturally my emotions are involved. It's only to be expected, even by my family. The truth about your death will never even be suspected. Not provable, anyway. You were obviously dying. The whole town will turn out for your funeral, mourn your passing. I'll see to it that you're given an impressive headstone.”

Noooooo!

While Ruth stood motionless at the side of the bed, every light in Joe Randall's body went out.

A
T THE SAME TIME
the residents of Koomera Crossing were attending Joe Randall's funeral, Stella Hazelton came to her first conscious realization of the truth. All through their beloved daughter's childhood—she was their only child—Stella and her husband, Alan, had made jokes about how the two of them, quite ordinary really, could have produced such a ravishingly pretty and intelligent child.

“She's got my coloring!” Alan, fair and blue-eyed, always boasted, “but where did she get those gorgeous little features and that dimple in her chin?”

“Maybe she's a throwback to someone in the family?” Stella with her nondescript brown hair and gentle gray eyes would suggest. “Or she's simply God's great gift to us.” This with tears in her eyes.

“That she is, my love.” Alan always hugged his wife at this point. Three miscarriages, including one heartbreaking stillbirth, had followed the miracle of Noni's birth. The last one was life-threatening to Stella. Stella's doctor afterward told them that she and Alan should content themselves with their beautiful little girl. Alan had taken Stella's hand, squeezed it supportively. They would do as the doctor ordered. He couldn't bear the thought of losing his dearest Stella, his best mate, though she had cried and cried, saying it was so strange that Noni had come into the world perfectly, if so quietly. She remembered no vigor in her baby's cries.

Always she wanted to stop there, blocking out the memory of the vulnerable youngster in the next room of the maternity hospital. Fourteen, fifteen, it was hard to tell. She'd had an illegitimate child, of course. Not that she'd actually spoken more than a half a dozen words to the girl. The grandmother had been with the poor kid the whole time. A striking woman, obviously well-off with a beautifully modulated voice. Not kind, though. Stella remembered the hard edge.

The two of them had had their babies within an hour of each other, both of them emerging from the experience with unusual fragility. She was a sturdy girl from sturdy stock, but it had taken her quite a while to recover after Noni's birth. Her mother, delirious with joy, had come to her aid. The youngster's baby had died. It had developed respiratory problems, poor little mite. As a new mother herself, she'd been devastated by the girl's cries. No happy event for that poor girl, little more than a child herself.

When Alan had come to take her and their beautiful baby home, the girl had still been there, sedated for her suffering. Stella had wanted to say goodbye, whisper words of deepest sympathy, but the girl had been asleep, pale as a marble statue, her golden curling locks spread over the pillow like a halo. Her profile was as perfect as a painted angel's. The straight nose, the sculpted cheekbones, the lovely molded mouth…

The dimpled chin.

How remarkable she should remember that. Or had she, at the deepest level, been pushing it out of her mind? Noni—short for Fiona, after her mother—was their baby. Hers and Alan's. They had prayed and prayed she would conceive some three years into the marriage. No sign of a child. They'd both been highly emotional at that time. Both
on the verge of despair before she finally got pregnant after a peaceful beach holiday.

Such joy! She'd been almost overwhelmed by a sense of failure, but overnight had turned into a woman of confidence. The birth of their darling Noni had called forth the most wonderful maternal instincts. She was a good mother. Alan was a good father. Everyone said that.

“Take the Hazeltons. Such a happy family.” Only a few people took note of the fact that Noni resembled neither parent. As well, these same people pointed out, she shone at school, her intelligence clearly a lot higher than her mother's or father's. But these were women who liked to pass the odd spiteful remark.

Noni was
theirs.
Stella was positive until that day, the day of Joe Randall's funeral in a far-distant town. Her eyes red from weeping, sodden tissues balled at her feet, Stella sat holding one of her daughter's school photographs. Not the class photo. The individual portrait. Noni at fifteen. Class Captain. Grade 10. She was smiling, showing her beautiful white teeth. No dentist's bills there. Noni didn't have a single filling, while Stella had a mouthful of them. Noni's curling mane was pulled back into a single thick rope. Long hair, ponytail or braid, was a school requirement. There was such a sparkle in her glorious eyes. Brown, long-lashed velvet. Not her dad's light blue. And that beguiling shallow dimple in her chin…

I can't take this,
Stella thought in fear and trembling.
I can't even continue to speculate what might have happened. Noni is ours.
She was the most loved member of their family. Her grandparents on both sides adored her, to the extent that Stella's sister, Debra, with two girls around the same age, often got jealous.

The truth was lost fifteen years ago. This was her subconscious erupting like a volcano, Stella thought, punishing
her. Well, given a little time to hurdle the shock, she would suppress all knowledge. Noni was their golden child. Hers and Alan's.

Stella remained in her bedroom for the rest of the day, dozing fitfully or weeping, trying to manage her distress. Finally, when she heard the front door open and her darling Noni call out excitedly, “Mum, Mum, where are you? Guess what? Clemmie's invited me to spend the June holidays with them. Please, please, could I go? I'm dying to see the outback.”

Why not? Clemmie Hungerford was a lovely girl, a boarder at Noni's excellent school. The Hungerfords had a big pastoral property way out in Western Queensland. It would be a new experience for Noni. A wonderful experience!

Stella pulled herself together. She rose from the bed, went to the mirror and ran a comb through her hair before going downstairs to hear what else her daughter had to say. After all, she'd reared Noni. She'd done everything for her. She and Alan. That made Noni their daughter. No reasonable person would deny that.

 

S
ARAH BEGAN HER TENURE
at the hospital under sad circumstances. She hadn't expected Joe to go so quickly—but she consoled herself with the thought he'd been spared months of incredible pain and the terrible nausea that was one of his cancer's manifestations. She had been present at the funeral. The biggest surprise was Ruth McQueen's obvious distress. Joe's dying at the homestead must have come as a dreadful shock. Death was like that, even when expected. Ruth, for once, looked her age, a fragile figure in her elegant black outfit, her body vibrating with distress. Ruth was growing old. It came as almost as big a shock to Sarah as Joe's dying. Sarah continued to stare, watching
the tears slide down Ruth's white cheeks. Did this mean Ruth had to be considered human, after all?

“You trust her?” Harriet asked, majestic in a wide-brimmed black hat with a broad silver ribbon. They were walking away from the church service.

“I gather you don't, Harriet?” Sarah's tone was wry.

“I've yet to see Ruth McQueen prove herself human. That, in my opinion, was a total sham, an over-the-top display of crocodile tears. Ruth really cannot be trusted. But for some reason she wants us all to revise our opinion of her.”

“She must have a tender side,” Sarah suggested dubiously.

Harriet rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“She adores Kyall.”

“Ruth is suffering from a personality disorder, which is not to say Kyall isn't a splendid young man who has a wonderful way with women. But there are two kinds of grandmothers. The very good and the very bad. That's my conclusion, anyway.”

“But couldn't she be good
some
of the time?”

“She did build the hospital,” Harriet conceded.

“She and Joe were lovers at one time. Joe admitted it.”

“Poor old Joe!” Harriet said with a gusty sigh. “Proof that even a good man can be seduced into dangerous sex. Testosterone overriding all common sense.” She shook her head. “Though I have to admit, Ruth would've been really something when she put on her seductive garments. At any rate, she swept Joe off his feet.”

Sarah shivered, readily picturing Ruth in her younger days. But to kiss her would've been to taste poison. “Then she dumped him.”

“I fully expected her to swallow him up.” Harriet
glanced around at the other mourners. “We shouldn't be talking like this at a funeral, should we?”

“I suppose not, but I can't come up with anything pleasant. I feel awful about Joe.”

“None of us would've wanted him to go on suffering,” Harriet said quietly. “Not even Ruth, it seems. I suspect Joe would've got a kick out of her tears. But being the cynical old soul that I am, I have to wonder why the display of grief. Ruth worries me.” Harriet's expression intensified.

“Actually, she worries everyone.”

“How does this scenario sound?” Harriet asked, rubbing the high bridge of her nose. “Joe wants to square his conscience. He decides to tackle Ruth about Molly Fairweather. Molly didn't own that house, you know.”

“I do know.”

“How?” Harriet's thick dark brows executed their usual dance.

“Like you, Harriet, I did a search.”

“Very clever!” Harriet acknowledged. “But back to my scenario. Joe calls Ruth and tells her he wants to discuss Molly's sudden demise. How did the desert taipan fit in? What, pray, attracted it through Miss Fairweather's open doorway? He implies that Ruth was involved in some way. An incredibly foolish move on Joe's part. Ruth invites him to dinner at her very grand homestead. Afterward she offers him a nightcap.”

“Into which she's just broken a couple of cyanide capsules?” Sarah prompted dryly.

“Unless…unless…” Harriet snapped her fingers.

“What?”

“No…” Harriet looked at Sarah with an odd expression.

“It couldn't have happened like that if you're suggesting poison.” Sarah sounded shocked.

“Certainly it could,” Harriet argued. “Hasn't it passed
into folklore that Ruth once sent for a
kaidaitcha
man to learn his secrets?”

“What?”
Sarah's mouth fell open.

“All right, Ruby Hall once tried to sell me that story. I almost bought it. Ruth is a singularly strange woman. She needed her husband to keep her in line, and when he died…” Her words drifted off. “So why were you investigating ownership of the Sinclair house?”

“That, I'm afraid, opens up another line of inquiry.”

“I'm aware of that.” Harriet leaned closer, lowering her resonant voice. “When are you and Kyall going to make up? The sooner the better, my dear. He has all the attributes of a wonderful mate. For all his looks and glamour, he's the kind of man who would take his marriage vows very seriously.”

“But what kind of wife would I make?”

“The best.” Harriet's tone was both tender and bracing. “Don't let life pass you by, Sarah. You certainly should get married and have children. It's a far better choice than being on your own. Take it from a woman who knows.”

 

T
HEY WERE ALMOST
at Harriet's ancient car when Kyall caught up with them.

“Poor old Joe!” he said. “We're all going to miss him, but I'm glad he wasn't faced with a painful end.”

“Your grandmother is very upset,” Harriet didn't hesitate to say.

“Obviously she was a heck of a lot fonder of Joe than we realized. I think it's fairly safe at this point to acknowledge that they once had an affair. Hard to imagine, though.”

Not when Ruth in her prime was a sex-seeking missile, Harriet thought.

“Where are you going now?” Kyall asked Sarah.

“We were going to have something to eat at my place,” Harriet supplied. Until Sarah found somewhere she wanted to live, she was staying with her. “Would you care to join us?”

“I'd be delighted to, Harriet.” Kyall gave her his beautiful, open smile. “I can't remember a meal of yours that wasn't memorable.”

“Your grandmother wants to talk to you, Kyall, I think.” Sarah had resisted glancing in that direction, but now she noticed Ruth looking their way sternly and lifting an imperious hand.

Kyall turned his head. “I'll meet you at the house.”

“What in the wide world of odd behavior has Ruth got against you, Sarah?” Harriet asked when they were driving away. “I know having all that money and being the matriarch of the McQueen family has made her the world's worst snob, but she wasn't a McQueen by birth. I've met quite a few of the extended family over the years and they're not a bit like that.”

“I think it's got more to do with the fact that Kyall still wants me,” Sarah said. “She's a very self-sufficient woman, but Kyall's her blind spot. Mine, too,” she added almost immediately.

“To die for, as the young people used to say,” Harriet hooted, driving fast enough to be pulled over for speeding. “Except that Ruth's obsession is downright unhealthy. Ruth was a terrible mother to her son, Stewart, and to Enid. Both of them suffered. Enid's loveless upbringing probably explains her manner. She's been trying all her life to live up to her mother or her mother's expectations, but thank God she's failed. There's nothing really wrong with Enid. She would've been a different woman, I believe, had she and Max moved away from Wunnamurra, but Ruth wasn't going to have that. She cracked the whip. Put Enid and
Max to work. What love there was between them seems to have dissipated over the years. Max is an uncommonly nice man, too.”

“Too much the gentleman?” Sarah suggested ruefully. Harriet snorted. “He tried to get away once. Quite a few years ago.”

“Did he really?” Sarah was amazed.

“He's on pretty short emotional rations with Enid,” Harriet said. “Unlike her mother, Enid is not a passionate woman. I think Ruth's coldness when Enid was a child dehumanized her somewhat. Enid's the sort of woman who might put him off by saying things like, ‘Max, dear, I have a headache. Turn off the light.' Poor Max looked elsewhere, but I think Ruth brought some pressure to bear. Max stayed. More for Kyall than anyone else, although Kyall would've been seventeen or eighteen at the time. I honestly think Max will leave Enid one day, but it'll take up to six months for her to notice.”