South of Capricorn (10 page)

‘Thank you, Kane.’ As usual, Gail felt awkward in his presence, and at times like this it was even worse, owing to the watchful and antagonistic eyes of Mrs. Farrell and Ertha.

Kane was opening a bottle of wine, and this he put on the table. Dave entered looking spruce in light flannels and a clean blue-shirt; he wore a tie, whereas the other men, Bevis and Chuck, wore cravats tucked loosely into the open-necked shirts they wore. Kane was in a linen suit of light blue, his white shirt gleaming against his throat.

Leta was allowed to stay up for dinner on two evenings a week, and this was one of those evenings. She sat on her father’s left, next to Dave. As usual, she had her various complaints, and these she was allowed to voice without interruption or censure from her father. Gail would at times protest and begin to threaten her, but invariably Kane would interfere, telling Gail that Leta was merely going through one particular stage of child development.

‘Child development?’ from Mrs. Farrell wrathfuIly. ‘How can you say a thing like that?’ At times when others were present she was restrained, since she had no intention of putting herself in a humiliating situation by affording her stepson an opportunity of asserting his authority. ‘What do you know about children?’

‘Enough to be able to say that my daughter is developing quite naturally.’

Even Gail gave a tiny gasp at this. Kane, however, was calmly filling up Dave’s wineglass before paying attention to his own. But he avoided Gail’s swift glance, quite deliberately, and began talking to Bevis, a tall and lanky stockman who had worked at Vernay Downs since he was a boy of sixteen, having come as a rouseabout but who was now one of the best horsemen on the station. Bronzed of face and tough, he had a serious disposition - something like Kane’s, Gail had already decided - and would often be found, sitting on the front verandah after dinner, deep in thought.

Chuck was sturdier in appearance, with muscles like knotted rope. He too was tanned and toughened by the outdoor life. A bachelor like Dave and Bevis, he had made Vernay Downs his permanent home, and was treated by Kane as one of the family. Not by Mrs. Farrell, however, who made no pretence of the fact that she would have made all three men live out had she been able to have her way. None of the men liked her; all of them declared Ertha to be a little more tolerable than her mother - and a deal more attractive in appearance. In fact, both Chuck and Bevis had pronounced her beautiful, while Dave remained non-committal, preserving his quiet uncommunicative demeanour whenever he happened to be in Gail’s company. This particular evening he was strangely brooding, and several odd glances had been sent her way.

‘Will you walk with me?’ he asked unexpectedly when after dinner Kane went off to his private room. ‘I don’t expect the Boss will object.’

They were on the verandah, Leta having been put to bed by Gail immediately the meal was finished. Mrs. Farrell and Ertha were also on the verandah, and glances were exchanged between them when Gail rose from her rattan chair and went off into the darkness tvith Dave.

‘Dave,’ began Gail when they were some distance from the people on the lighted verandah, ‘I do want to apologize for the lies I told you. That’s why I’ve come out with you now, so that I can say I’m sorry for deceiving you.’

‘It’s not incumbent on you to apologize to me.’ He spoke brusquely, walking with some speed so that Gail had to skip now and then in order to keep pace with him.

‘That’s true. Nevertheless, I am apologizing.’

He turned his head. In the dim light from a halfclouded moon she saw the thin smile that appeared on his mouth.

‘It would seem that you want us to be friends?’

‘Most certainly I do.’ They were walking into the bush, taking a path that was stony and narrow. All was still; the immensity of the vast silent spaces was like a world apart from that inhabited by man. It was awesome in its solitude; it held secrets that man would never understand.

Suddenly Dave stopped and stood looking down at her.

‘Is there really any need to apologize?’ he asked, and Gail, missing the odd inflection in his voice, replied at once,

‘Yes, I think so, Dave.’

‘I wonder if you understand me. What I’m really asking is ...’ He paused, hesitant for a space, but then making up his mind to speak. ‘Are you really Kane’s wife?’

She felt her heart jerk, and every nerve-end spring to the alert. So he had made a guess at the truth... What must she say? Lies being abhorrent to her she found herself floundering in a maze of uncertainty, asking questions which she had no time to answer. Should she tell him the truth? If she did, would he keep her secret? Also, would he think less of his employer for the deception? Still in a state of mental turmoil, she heard him say, answering his own question for her,

‘You’re not, Gail,’ and he added quickly, ‘but Leta is his child.’

She went quite pale, and her throat went dry.

‘Dave ... I...’

‘You don’t know what to say?’ Again the thin smile before he added, his tones rather more gentle now, ‘That’s not unnatural. I’ve put you in a spot, and you hadn’t a Buckley’s.’

Diverted for a second, she asked perplexedly,

‘What do you mean by that?

‘You hadn’t a chance. I meant to do it this way – by asking you to come out here with me and then putting the question to you unexpectedly, so that you hadn’t an opportunity of preparing an answer,’

It was her turn to smile, a weak smile and quivering, for she was filled with fear now and wished with all her heart that she had not been so eager to come out here so that she could make her apologies to Dave.

‘Such a question as you asked would have left me without an answer, no matter under what circumstances it was put to me.’

He made no comment on this statement, but went on to say that although he had made an accurate guess, there was still a good deal he did not understand. He spoke quickly, as if intending to keep her in so confused a state that she would answer his questions before she had time to prevaricate. He had been so shocked at first, he told her, that he was unable even to think, much less realize what had happened. Once he did have time to think, it had not taken him long to deduce that it was all a plan worked out by Kane.

‘Reflecting on some of the statements you’d made during our journey here,’ he went on, ‘I knew for sure that, one: you weren’t his wife, and two: that Leta was that “something” you were bringing to Kane. The child’s mother - what happened to her?’

‘She died.’

‘Was Kane married to her?’

Reluctantly she shook her head. It was a strange thing, but she hated the idea that Kane was that sort of man.

‘No, he admitted that he wasn’t - although Sandra always maintained that she was married to Leta’s father.’ Dave was looking interrogatingly at her and she thought she might as well tell him everything, for of a surety his intention was to continue questioning her until he had the whole story. When at length she stopped speaking he was shaking his head from side to side, a deep frown etched into his brow.

‘It’s quite beyond me that the Boss could be like that that he’d go over to England on holiday and leave a girl with a baby.’

‘He didn’t know about the baby then.’

‘No, so you said, but he isn’t the type to let a girl down in the way he appears to have let your cousin down.’

‘Appears? He definitely did let her down, and she’s dead because of it. Indirectly he’s responsible for Sandra’s death.’

Thoughtfully he said,

‘I don’t suppose there can be any mistake ...?’

‘It’s strange you should say that. I felt myself that he was an upright man. However, there’s no mistake; Sandra knew who the father was - Kane Farrell, the man who owned Vernay Downs Station.’

‘He gave her his address, and yet he then left her — just like that, without making any arrangements to see her again. It sounds all phoney to me.’

‘There’s nothing phoney about it, Dave. Kane’s admitted that he’s the father of Leta. He’s accepted her and intends keeping her, even when I’ve gone. He also admits that he should have sent Sandra money — when she wrote to him more than four years ago. She told him she had Leta, yet he never did anything to help her.’

Dave looked distressed.

‘I had such respect for the Boss,’ he said with a frown, ‘and such faith too. To have one’s faith shattered not only disillusions but it hurts as well.’

She said understandingly,

‘I know just how you feel. I don’t know him very well and yet I too feel faintly upset that he should be such a rotter, but he is a rotter and you’ve to accept that he is.’

‘I suppose I must,’ he owned after a long pause. ‘How little we know people!’

‘I’m glad it’s all cleared up,’ she told him with a sudden smile. ‘I felt so guilty, so blameworthy.’

He looked at her and responded to her smile.

‘I’m glad too, Gail. And because we share this secret I feel close to you—’

‘Oh, but...’ She did not know what to say, because she was unsure of her own feelings towards him. She had already owned that he was the type of man she had always admired, a strong man and rugged ... but then so was Kane a strong man and rugged, hardened from working outdoors, toughened as a man should be, if he were to be a real man, a truly masculine man.

‘Don’t say anything yet, Gail,’ he pleaded. ‘Let’s get to know one another, gradually, and pleasantly, as it should be.’

She shook her head.

‘We can’t become too friendly, Dave.’

‘Just what does the emphasis mean?’ His eyes were on her face and she could not mistake the admiration in them ... or the expression of hope. ‘You’re free, Gail, and you have no idea of the weight that was lifted from me after I’d made a guess at the truth.’

She was troubled, even though she knew without doubt that Dave held some sort of attraction for her.

‘There are too many obstacles,’ she told him. ‘Please, Dave, forget about anything beyond mere friendship between us.’

His eyes closely examined her face, taking in the anxiety in the beautiful eyes, the movement of the mouth.

‘You’ve said that you’ll be free to leave here once Mrs. Farrell and Ertha have gone. You’re going back to England - separating from Kane, for good this time; this is what he’ll spread around in explanation for your departure. This is what you’ve just told me.’

‘I said it was guesswork in the main. Kane must explain why I’ve gone. And I surmised he’ll just make the briefest of explanations. The simplest will be that I can’t stand the loneliness and so I’ve gone away.’

‘Leaving your child?’

She shrugged a trifle impatiently.

‘There are many difficulties, but they’re not my concern. For me - well, I promised to do a job, as it were, by posing as Kane’s wife. He’s paying me well, but in fairness to myself I must mention that it was Leta’s plight that influenced me more than anything else. For if Kane had refused to have her then she would have had to go into a children’s home on her arrival back in England. And that would have driven the child to dis-traction.’

He had to smile, although a little grimly.

‘And she would have driven many others to distraction.’

‘She isn’t improving at all.’ Gail was glad that the introduction of Leta had led the conversation on to safer lines.

‘She isn’t being chastised, so how can she improve?’

‘You know why Kane allows her to continue as she is. I’m very sure that when his stepmother has gone then he’ll do something about his child.’

‘I could do something with her,’ he returned musingly. ‘There’s something about her that attracts me ...’ He seemed to be far away - dreaming almost. ‘I can’t say what it is, but all I know is that I like the kid!’

‘You were becoming impatient with her when We were travelling here,’ she reminded him with a grimace.

‘I agree. But on that sort of a journey one’s nerves are never all they should be. There are so many things which can go wrong - such as breakdowns with the car, or someone taking ill. Just supposing one of us had taken ill? So you see, Gail, I was not quite myself. But now - well, whenever I’m with Leta I’m strangely happy.’ He was in a confiding mood, a young mood that did not seem to fit in with his tough and rugged appearance.

‘We must be getting back,’ she urged at length. ‘We’ve been out here ages!’

‘Yes, indeed we have.’ He glanced at his watch; Gail saw the luminous fingers and gave a small gasp.

‘Heavens, I didn’t think it was that time!’

‘Almost ten! Oh, well, there’s nothing to hurry for.’ And he walked leisurely back to the path which they had left over an hour and a half ago. The distance from the homestead seemed longer than Gail remembered it and she was more than a. little agitated when at last they arrived back. Mrs. Farrell was in the sitting-room and her dark and hostile eyes narrowed to mere slits as she said,

‘Kane was looking for you, Gail. I told him you and Dave had gone for a walk.’ Her eyes strayed significantly to the clock. ‘You’ve been gone for over two hours.’

Gail coloured, much to her annoyance; Dave’s face was dark and angry. But he made no comment and Gail realized that he must of course show some respect to the wife of the one-time Boss of Vernay Downs.

‘I’m off to bed,’ was all he said and, with a smile for Gail, he left the room.

‘Kane was not too pleased at your absence.’ Mrs. Farrell spoke with undisguised antagonism and her glance was one of contempt as she looked Gail up and down from her head to her feet and back again. ‘You and Dave appear to have had plenty to talk about.’

Gail’s eyes glimmered.

‘Is that a question?’ she inquired, adopting the haughty manner which on occasions she found necessary.

The woman shrugged, her mouth curved in a sneer.

‘What you and Dave do out there in the darkness has nothing to do with me.’ A pause and then with slow deliberation, ‘Tongues will wag and scandal flow, but then why should you care? You’ve been separated from Kane once, so it’s more than likely that you’ll be separated again.’