The Rouseabout Girl (10 page)

When she did steal a glance towards him he was busy scribbling telephone numbers and names in a jotter pad. What was the matter with her, to imagine the conversation would be of any great interest to the big boss? He was simply indifferent to her. A new and even more depressing thought ran through her mind. Could it be that he was disappointed that Trevor hadn’t been able to persuade her to leave the station with him? Trevor ... she writhed inwardly at the thought that he had taken trouble to confide in everyone here, giving them the impression that he and she were still planning their marriage. That this stint in the country was a mere impulse and the really important things in her life were
T
revor, marriage, their new home.

At that moment she became aware that Paula had come into the room, black hair swinging to her shoulders. How was it, Lanie wondered, that the other girl managed to resemble fashion models one saw in the display windows of city boutiques, even when wearing an open-necked shirt and blue jeans?

‘Hi, folks!’ Paula called gaily, but her smile was all for Jard. She helped herself to coffee, then turned to Lanie. ‘Morning! What have you done with Trevor? His car seems to
b
e missing from the driveway.’

As if you didn’t kno
w
.
Wildly Lanie sought in her mind for a suitable explanation. ‘He had to go back to town unexpectedly.
’

Paula raised pencilled eyebrows.
‘I’ll
say he did! I thought you two were all set for wedding bells and
all
the rest of it.’

Lanie averted her face. 'Not any more,’ she said, and realised the next moment that in her confusion she had put the matter
i
n the worst possible light. Now
everyone here would think
—

‘I’m
off home for a while,’ Paula was saying, ‘until I get problems again, Jard. I couldn't sort them out without your good advice. Now I know that you
approve of the mare
—
’

‘I’ll give you a hand to load her on the float.’ He had risen to his feet, tall, browned, by the summer sun and somehow immensely impressive, Lanie conceded to herself reluctantly. She brought her mind back to Jard’s tones.
‘I
f she’s anything like the last thoroughbred you brought along, we’re in for quite a performance.’

‘Nothing we can’t handle between us. ’Bye, Sandy, see you at the weekend. ’Bye, everyone.’ Her careless gesture of farewell included Lanie and Clara.

Left alone at the table, Clara stared after the man and girl who were passing through the gate and taking the path leading to a big transporter parked near the stables.

Lanie waited for Clara to make mention of Trevor’s sudden departure, but evidently the older woman was tactfully avoiding any mention of the matter. Thought she was never going,’ she muttered darkly. ‘Just because her sister was welcome as the day, she seems to think
it’s all the same with her and Jard
—
’ She broke off,
and something stronger than her avoidance of gossip brought the words to Lanie’s lips.

‘Maybe she’s right about that.’

Clara looked thoughtful. ‘Don’t ask me. He’s always nice to her, helps her with everything, horses, stock buying, investments, the lot—but then he’d do the same for anyone who needed help. He’s like that. He’ll go out of his way to give a hand to anyone who needs it.’

Lanie blinked. It was scarcely her experience of her employer, but she remained silent. ‘He seems to like her all right,’ Clara was saying, ‘but he’s known her for all those years, ever since she was a kid coming home for holidays from boarding school. I can see,’ she mused aloud, ‘that he’d have a soft spot for her because of her sister, but if she thinks she can twist him around her little finger the way she has with the other men friends she’s had ... Maybe that’s what attracts her to him. She can’t ever push him around. With Jard you never can tell. He might like her a lot or be might not, but it’s my belief she’s crazy about him, and always has been. She’s been engaged twice, but each time it was broken off by her. If you ask me, she can’t get him out of her heart—My goodness,’ she poured herself a second cup of tea, ‘I’m getting as soppy as Edna with her brides
—
you must have noticed all the wedding photographs in her room?’

Lanie laughed. ‘There are an awful lot of them, and so many years apart!’

‘I know. She’s such a practical soul, you have no idea. One of those no-nonsense sort of people, downright and all that. But she has this thing about weddings—must be a romantic at heart! The photographs of the brides and grooms are all relations of hers, some of them she hadn’t seen in years, but at the sight of a wedding invitation she would drop everything and go! Every once in a while she has a visit from some of them. I never recognise the women without their wedding finery, or the men either, for that matter. It was the same with this niece in London,’ she ran on. 'Edna had only seen the girl once, and that was when she was a baby. Then the family went overseas to live and they didn’t correspond. Then out of the blue came this wedding invitation all the way from England. The ceremony was to be held in three weeks’ time and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe Edna’s sister-in-law was hoping for a nice wedding gift from New Zealand without the expense of an extra guest. But they didn’t know Edna. She wrote right back accepting the invitation and saying she was coming to stay with her in-laws for a month. I bet that rocked them!

‘Anyway, she got a booking on Air New Zealand and managed to get away just before the air strike, or we hope she has. She planned to stay with her sister in Auckland for a few days before the plane was due to leave. Before we realised what was happening, she’d gone, and Jard had to rush up to town to try and get someone to fill in.’ Clara’s small face broke into a friendly smile. ‘I’m glad it was you.’ Immediately she spoiled the compliment by adding uncertainly, ‘Though I don’t know what Edna would think, your being so young and all ’

Lanie wrinkled her nose at her. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I suppose not.’ Clara’s voice was dubious, and Lanie got the impression that the absent cook brooked no opposition in her domain.

Standing at the sink bench while Clara dried the breakfast dishes, Lanie couldn’t tear her glance away from Jard and Paula. They were chatting together and neither appeared to be at all anxious to part company. Presently, however, they loaded a spirited black mare up a ramp and into the shining transporter, and still Jard lingered. Clearly he was deep in conversation with the girl seated in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Couldn’t he bear to part with her? Heavens, she chided herself the next moment, she was becoming as gossipy and foolishly sentimental as Clara! If this were the effect country living had on her
...
Country living, she thought wryly, so far as she was concerned, had consisted of being in the kitchen and dining room with brief trips to her own rooms. Soon, she promised herself, when she had become more used to her cooking stint, she would have more time. She would ask Sandy to find her a horse to ride, then she would really begin to enjoy herself. The nice thing about this visit was that she had weeks and weeks ahead of her. It was only Jard’s presence that spoiled her enjoyment. She would put him out of her mind and concentrate on just
being here.
It was the oddest thing, she thought a little later as she mixed scone dough in a basin, how much at home she felt here already. Maybe it was because she was a country girl at heart—and she had only just realised it!

As she watched the transporter moving up the winding drive and then turn into the lonely, bush
-
fringed road a sudden inexplicable happiness surged throu
gh
her. Because Trevor had at last accepted her decision for them not to meet again? Or could it be, the sneaky thought came unbidden, because Paula had left Rangimarie to return to her own home?

She was working in the kitchen an hour later when Jard entered the room, sending her senses spinning in wild confusion. Had he overheard Trevor’s wi
l
dly shouted words to her last night on the dark slope, she wondered, or hadn’t he? She thrust the thought away, realising that Jard had brought a companion with him, a deeply tanned young man with a shy grin and a boy’s lanky frame.

‘Lanie,’ said Jard, ‘this is Brent. He’s got himself a job with us as stockman. Lanie looks after the cooking,’ he explained, ‘with a bit of help, that is.’ His quizzical gaze rested on the cookbook lying open on the table. It features all mutton recipes and was entitled
Mary Had a Little Lamb.
The stranger took her hand in his crushing gr
ip.

‘Look after Brent, will you,' Jard was saying. ‘I expect he wouldn’t say no to a cuppa!’

Lanie nodded. ‘I’ll switch on the jug.’ Already she
had learned a
n unwritten law of the station,
that callers were
always
welcomed to the house with a drink of hot tea or coffee.

‘Come down to the stockyards when you’re ready,’ Jard told the new stockman, ‘and I’ll fix you up with a job—see you!’ He turned away, and Lanie gestured Brent to a seat.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ she told him. Why was it, she wondered, that she felt a sense of constraint only with Jard? There she went again, she
must
drag her thoughts away from him. ‘Have you come far?’ she asked Brent smilingly.

‘Far enough.’ Something in the modest tones made her suspect that the answer was an understatement. She sent him a laughing glance. ‘Like over the other side of the ranges?’

‘That’s right. I brought my dog team and my horse with me. Thought it was worth giving it a go, trying for work here,’ he was stirring sugar in his steaming cup. ‘They tell me that if a man can jack up a job with Jard Sanderson on Rangimarie station he’ll learn more in a year than anywhere else in double the time. So I gave in my notice where I was and tried my luck.’
Lucky
, to work for Jard! Lanie kept the disloyal thought to herself.

Because he looked young and somehow lonely, she left the pastry she had been rolling out and dropped down to a seat at the table opposite him. ‘How long were you working on the other station?’

Her genuine interest seemed to spark off an eager response. ‘Two years as a shepherd.’ He smiled at her surprised glance. ‘I’m not really a kid, I just look that way. It was okay,’ he went on after a moment, the boys were a good crowd and we got on fine in the bunkhouse. Then a year ago I was posted out to bush country, miles from civilisation, away from any human contact. At first I liked the sense of remoteness, but
lately I got the feeling—well
—
’ her undivided
attention seemed to spur him on to confide in her,
I
was getting so I didn’t know how to communicate with folk, turning into a loner.’ He smiled
self-consciously
, an endearing smile, Lanie thought. ‘I strum the old guitar a bit and I wrote a song about how I felt alone out there with just the stars at night. Guess it was the loneliness that got me going.’

Lanie leaned both elbows on the table, hands under her chin as she studied his downcast face. ‘I’d love to hear it
—
that song of yours.’

All at once his eyes were alight. ‘You don
’
t mean that?’

‘I do—honestly!’

‘Right now?’

‘This minute!’

He sent her a shy grin. ‘You’ve asked for it—look, I’ll go and get my guitar, parked it by the back door.’ He was harrying away, a tall gangling youth with a thin frame.

Back in the kitchen he dropped down to a chair. To her surprise he appeared to have lost his
self-consciousness
, work-roughened lingers plucking idly at the strings of the guitar. ‘Sure you want to hear this?’ His anxious gaze pleaded for reassurance.

She nodded smilingly, ‘I can’t wait!’

The next moment the lilting notes fell on the air and his voice, a surprisingly sweet tenor, took up the melody. At last the notes fell into silence.

‘I like it!’ Lanie’s voice rang with enthusiasm. ‘It’s good strong country music. I can almost hear the footbeats in the rhythm and the loneliness and the feeling of being at the edge of nowhere—Oh, I don’t know how to put it into words. Somehow it touches
me
—
’

‘Gee, thanks!’

It was true what she had told Brent, Lanie mused a little while later when he had left the house and she found herself humming the melody as she rolled out pastry for a pie and put it in the oven.

To her relief the mutton pie was a success, and after lunch was over and dishes cleared away she wandered outside past the long line of kennels for the sheepdogs and down towards the stables. When she reached the garages she stepped inside the building, looking around her at a red tractor, a battered truck, a long
modern
car. She was about to tum away when masculine voices reached her through the dividing wall and she guessed that two young shepherds were also in the garage. The next minute she realised they were talking about Brent. ‘Looked pretty young, for all that riding experience he’s been shouting a line about.
’

A second voice: ‘You’ve only got to take one look at him to see he’s just a kid, back from his first stint on a hill-country station. Well, we’ll soon start educating him
—
’

‘Wait until we give him that unbroken nag. He’ll take our word for it that it’s just one of the station hacks ’

‘He’ll soon find out
—
’

‘And how! That black devil lets you get up on the saddle, then
wham
!’

Guffaws of laughter followed.

Lanie shrank back in the shadows. She couldn’t divulge her presence without letting the young shepherds know that she had overheard their conversation. All she could do was to stay quietly here and hope they would soon go away. But if they imagined they were going to get away with the cruel joke they were planning to play on that young
stockman
—
She would warn Brent about it and he
would make an excuse to avoid the dangerous encounter.

A masculine voice cut across her thoughts. ‘Let’s get cracking or we’ll miss all the fun! There’s Rob bringing the horse down from the paddock now. Better get down there and be ready to pick up the pieces!’

Lanie had to force herself to wait in her hiding place until the two shepherds moved away. She thought swiftly, they’re going in the direction of the stockyards. Brent could be thrown and really badly hurt, if he’s not warned in time. Somehow she had to reach him before it was too late. She began to run and as she came in sight of the yards she caught sight of Brent’s lanky figure. He was perched on the railings by a grassy enclosure, waiting.

The sound of a vehicle behind her made her glance over her shoulder to see Jard at the wheel of his car, a huge woolly sheep in the passenger seat at his side.

With no thought but Brent’s imminent danger she planted herself firmly in the pathway and he slowed to a stop, regarding her in some surprise. ‘Lanie! What’s the hurry?’

‘Jard ’ she was out of breath, ‘you’ve got to help
me! Drive me down to 'the stockyards—it’s ever so important!’

‘Okay,
I’
m on the way there myself. If you don’t
mind taking a back seat. It’s Rutherford
—
’ He threw
open the rear door.

Swiftly she clambered into the car. ‘Why, is he special?’

‘Is he ever? I’ve specially imported Paitherford. I’m trying out an experiment with Drysdale rams with the idea of producing specially strong carpet wool ’

Lanie scarcely took in his words, her mind too taken up with her own problem to care about the huge woolly animal beside him. Jard started up the car, ‘What’s the trouble?’ His laconic tone only served to intensify her sense of urgency.

‘It’s that new boy, Brent.’ She threw him a harassed glance. ‘I’ve got to warn him! I couldn’t help overhearing something the other stockmen were saying. They’re going to put him on an unbroken horse, only he won’t know about that, just to see if he can ride as well as he says he can!’

‘I wouldn’t worry about young Brent,
’
came Jard's drawling voice, ‘he can look after himself.’

‘But he doesn’t
know,'
she cried. ‘He won’t be prepared! He could be killed in that first moment after he gets up in the saddle!’ She was too distraught to choose the words that burst from her lips.

‘You’re a bit too late to do the lifesaving bit anyway!’

With a sinking heart she realised Jard was right. A group of men had gathered at the railings of the enclosure, and even as they drew up at the stockyards, a black horse was led into the enclosure and Brent’s lanky form sprang lip into the saddle.

Jard and Lanie reached the railings at the same moment as, in a wild flurry of hooves, the unbroken horse leaped from the ground, bucking and rearing in a wild contained fury and determination. But what was happening? Lanie wondered. She stared wide-eyed as the rider,
a
n arm outstretched and a wide-brimmed felt hat in his hand, remained seated. ‘Wouldn’t you think,’ she breathed aloud, ‘that he was glued to the saddle!’

‘I told you he could look after himse
l
f.’

She threw him an accusing glance. ‘You
knew
?
All the time
—
’

‘That’s right.’

So only Jard, the thoughts ran through her mind, had failed to be deceived by the new stockman’s youthful appearance. She brought her attention back to the wildly prancing, bucking horse. At last, lathered in sweat, the mount quietened and Lanie cheered wildly with the rest of the onlookers as Brent rode quietly around the track. Then he dropped lightly to the ground and led the horse back to the entrance. Definitely, Lanie thought with glee, it was Brent’s day!

She turned a sparkling face to Jard. ‘Wasn’t that fantastic! What a triumph for Brent! You know something,’ in her excited state of mind she forgot Jard’s suspicious attitude towards her,
‘I’m
so thankful you didn’t get here in time to stop the proceedings. I’m glad we saw it all, you and me!’

She found herself enmeshed in his glance, only his eyes weren’t cold any more, they were full of light and something else, an expression that she hadn’t ever seen there before. It was only for a moment, then a curtain seemed to fall, leaving his eyes contained and expressionless, just—grey.