Reaching for the Stars Page 12

  Even Ann, who knew Claire so well, took in her breath as she stood beside the barriers with Mrs. Franklin and looked across the tarmac at her cousin.

  Claire’s hair was longer and was done up in a beautiful pile on her head. She wore no hat. Her dress was a slim-fitting white dress, so plain it was striking. Her large handbag was the golden-honey colour of her hair. She stood at the top of the gangway, poised, elegant, film-starrish.

  Ann felt Mrs. Franklin stiffen, then lift up her head with a movement of surprise, then of satisfaction. She was looking at Claire; and she was silent with pleasure.

  Ann glanced up at Lang.

  He too was looking at Claire. He looked as if a pellet from a shotgun had zinged past his ear.

  Poor Aunt Cassie, Ann thought. Claire has stolen all her thunder! Then a little sadly she added: Poor me. Poor Luie. Poor everybody. Nobody is anybody any more, now Claire is here.

  Chapter Nine

  The greetings in the airport were almost over.

  Lang’s interest in Aunt Cassie was formal, tinctured with a kind attention. It was clear he had never met anyone quite like Aunt Cassie; though his manner was one of quizzical interest he was obviously enjoying himself.

  After the first embraces and introductions were over, he took the party upstairs to the Orbit Inn, where in a comfortable, carpeted lounge room they were able to sit down and exchange news. A steward appeared at the table and Lang gave the order. The excitement of arrival was too much for Aunt Cassie to gather her scattered wits or Mrs. Franklin to take her eyes from Claire.

  ‘My darling child,’ Aunt Cassie said to Ann when she had time to say anything other than statements about the plane trip, ‘you have changed the colour of your skin. What is it? It’s positively brown. You haven’t a disease, or anything? No, of course not! You look so well. Dear Mrs. Franklin, what do you feed her on? She looks well without being plump. How do you manage it? Now I, of course, have to watch my diet ‒ on account of rheumatism, you understand. But the figure suffers. It suffers. The figure, I mean, of course.’

  Aunt Cassie’s figure was always imposingly ample and no one would have dreamed of having her any different. She wouldn’t have been Aunt Cassie. Her beads cascaded over her bosom, her ear-rings dangled, even jingled now and again. Her rose-bedecked hat was so heavenly Ann couldn’t make up her mind if the other people in the airport were looking at Aunt Cassie or her hat. Could it be both?

  ‘Darling Ann!’ Claire said coolly, and proffered her cheek.

  Ann wanted to laugh. Claire posed for other people always, but now doing it for Ann’s benefit was something new.

  ‘I suppose you have what’s called a golden tan, darling,’ Claire went on. ‘It was unkind of Aunt Cassie to call it “brown”. All the same, it doesn’t suit you. I’ll lend you some of my new creams. This wretched plane trip! I had to leave half my wardrobe behind.’

  Claire had greeted Mrs. Franklin with a graceful hand and a cool ‒ because more effective ‒ ‘How-do-you-do?’

  She used the same elixir on Lang except that her glance lingered a shade longer. She watched him turn away, after a few minutes, as he promised to see to the luggage. When Aunt Cassie had been muddlesome about getting her freight tickets from her bag Lang had quietly taken the passport folder, extricated the luggage tickets, and given it back to her. Aunt Cassie might have been his aunt. Ann could see in that split second that was exactly how he would treat her from now on. He would run her with quiet efficiency and, like Mrs. Franklin, Aunt Cassie would protest but like it.

  A wave of people seemed to move aside as the party went forward to the upstairs lounge. Ann didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed, or to enjoy the novel situation. Perhaps in London she had taken Aunt Cassie’s eccentric appearance for granted. Here, she could suddenly see her in her own right.

  Mrs. Franklin was delighted, took herself two steps up her own social ladder and conducted herself accordingly ‒ a daughter of the landed gentry married into a line of cattle barons and sheep kings in this newer country.

  ‘This way, Mrs. Boyd. Do come and sit at the corner table. More private. I do hate people milling everywhere, don’t you?’

  ‘Claire dear,’ Ann said, ‘tell me quickly ‒ what happened that you decided to come? Your letters on that point were so vague. You made up your mind very suddenly.’

  Claire had no inhibitions where Ann was concerned. She always had told her the truth ‒ a somewhat cruel truth on occasions.

  ‘The men-friends defected. Both of them. At least I was tired of them. They stumbled over one another on the doorstep and that was that. Except, of course, I found out from Aunt Cassie that Mrs. Franklin’s relatives in England are quite distinguished and that up in Bradford the Franklin wool is something held in awe. There was only one thing to do. Come and see.’

  ‘You have!’ said Ann with a laugh. ‘And bought yourself a new wardrobe too. How on earth could you afford it? You look dazzling, Claire.’

  ‘One has to afford it if one is to make the right impression.’ Claire looked at her cousin with one faultless eyebrow raised. ‘I had to take into account that you, my sweet, were here first and I would have to cut out your advantage. You haven’t fallen in love with the nephew, I hope.’

  ‘If I had you would soon see to it that I fell out again,’ Ann said with a wry laugh. ‘But there are other girls attracted to him. A whole office full down at Franklin’s by the coast. They all adore him. He’s particularly spoilt and adored by a certain Miss Adele Devine.’

  ‘I thought there weren’t any girls here.’

  ‘There aren’t any that Mrs. Franklin approves of.’

  ‘Not even this Adele Devine?’

  ‘Oh, she is in a special category. I’ll tell you about her another day.’

  Claire arranged her beautiful careless smile and showed her shining teeth for a flashing moment.

  ‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘All I have to do is make Mrs. Franklin approve of me, and outshine all others.’

  It won’t be the first time, thought Ann. Aloud she advised:

  ‘Watch out for Lang. He has a will of his own and is in the habit of exerting it.’

  Claire’s eyes widened.

  ‘That makes him all the more interesting.’ She glanced over her shoulder to see if Lang had finished with Customs business in the lower court of the airport. ‘He’s rather devastating to look at,’ she finished. ‘All that height and shoulder and cold calculating eyes ‒’

  ‘Darling Claire, what rot you talk. His eyes are neither cold nor calculating. He actually smiled at you. He was quite impressed. It was not the reception I received, I can tell you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, darling Ann. You wouldn’t. Get a reception, I mean. You don’t try to make an appearance; a striking impact.’

  ‘I did. I had my blue flower hat from Harrods. It didn’t work.’

  ‘Probably because you are not the flower type.’

  After morning tea, with toasted sandwiches and hot scones, had been taken liberally by Aunt Cassie and sparingly by Mrs. Franklin and Claire, Ann had to kiss her aunt and cousin a temporary good-bye.

  ‘I’m a working girl,’ she said. ‘I’ll be an hour late today but Miss Devine said I could have time off if I was back by eleven o’clock. Tomorrow’s rush day and Thursday’s sale day ‒ so I can’t be spared for longer. Lang said he would see you settled in the hotel, Aunt Cassie.’

  ‘Very good of him, I’m sure. He’s a most charming man.’ Aunt Cassie looked at Lang through her lorgnette. ‘Just what I expected,’ she said. ‘You are a very kind person, Mr. Franklin. I shall be delighted to place myself in your hands.’

  ‘Would you spare Claire for the day, Mrs. Boyd?’ Mrs. Franklin asked. ‘I am sure you will want to rest. Landing in a new country is so arduous. We would like to take Claire to The Orchard. Lang will bring her back to the coast to rejoin you tonight.’

  Mrs. Franklin was showing her obvious delight in this dazzling girl brought to her very d
oorstep by Mrs. Boyd. This, of course, was the niece she had expected in the first place. How on earth had there come to be a mistake? The wrong one had come to Australia first. Oh well, she would unravel the mystery in time.

  Claire was watching Ann with considerable curiosity. First of all, Ann was not making any attempt to talk to Lang; or even draw any of his attention to herself. Next had come this bit about ‘Miss Devine’ saying she, Ann, could have time off. Miss Devine did not sound a person with a name like Adele and one who existed in some special category for Mrs. Franklin. She sounded like a female boss in a typing pool, and Claire, under all that finery, was a working girl with some experience of female bosses herself. Could it be that Ann had been doing some quiet leg-pulling at her cousin’s expense?

  Claire’s inquiries in the wool world of Bradford had afforded her quite an insight into the wool firms of Australia. The Franklins lived on a valuable property in the ranges east of Perth. They owned one station and had interests in others. They also owned and managed a wool-broking concern through which they sold all their own wool and a good deal belonging to other stations. All this she had discovered through one of her admirers who worked for a firm in Bradford.

  The Franklins, she decided, must have money. Lots and lots of it.

  ‘Some people would think I was a gold-digger,’ she laughed to herself. ‘How wrong they are. The nephew has to be worth it. After all, I do believe in love too. Merely looking at him, I would say he was doubly worth it.’

  Claire reassured herself on these points, tidied them away to the back of her mind, and looked around for Lang. He had given the table order, excused himself for a few minutes, and walked away through the glass door leading to the lower hall of the airport. This, Claire decided, could be the moment when she managed a little private tête-à-tête with him. Aunt Cassie and Mrs. Franklin were deep in their sprouting affection and admiration for one another.

  Claire uncrossed her beautiful legs and stood up. Aunt Cassie and Mrs. Franklin weren’t looking, they were so enraptured with one another. Claire glanced through the doorway to the inner balcony and glassed-in cocktail bar. No sign of Lang.

  She walked through the cocktail bar, deliberately not noticing that the heads of all the men sitting on high stools before the bar turned as she passed.

  She stopped at the landing above the staircase leading down into the lower hall. Lang was talking to Ann at the glass door leading to the car park. Claire watched them from a distance.

  There was no sign of any kind of attachment there, she decided with relief. After all, she didn’t like always cutting Ann out. The only thing she wished about Ann was that Ann would get a man for herself so far away that she, Claire, didn’t even know anything about him. It would save an awful lot of trouble.

  Claire wrinkled her fair brow in the attempt to define the expression on Ann’s face.

  ‘It’s as if she was talking to the manager of the airport ‒ someone who was about to give her orders, or something.’ Ann wasn’t exactly deferential in her manner but clearly wasn’t far removed from the typist who was being given dictation by the boss. And Lang?

  Well, Lang looked at Ann as if she was a nice little girl from the outer office who was nervous but who might any minute now turn up with a well-typed file of correspondence.

  Claire knew the situation well and recognised its every aspect. It had been her own life ‒ gone now for ever, she hoped.

  She needn’t have worried about Ann being first here, after all!

  Lang had followed Ann out of the inn upstairs, and had caught up with her as she was about to leave the building. He was now giving her a series of messages for Miss Devine.

  ‘You’ll have to explain I can’t make it back to the office, Ann. Can you remember two things in particular? A Mr. Renton is due to see me at three o’clock. Get Miss Devine to cancel the appointment and say I’ll ring first thing in the morning. The second one is more important. There’s an unexpected Triple-A merino clip in from Munthalla Station. The classer’s report is in my dispatch case in the office. I left it there last night. I want to rush through a catalogue if possible. Will you ask Miss Devine if she could put the love-hate pressure on a couple of girls to do it for me tonight? They’ll have to work back and won’t like it. The last two sales have caught them working fourteen hours a day for two days. Tell them I’m sorry about it, Ann.’

  ‘I’m sure someone will do it for you readily.’ Ann knew that most of the girls would do anything for him but she did not say this.

  ‘That’s two things.’ Lang wrinkled his brow and pulled the lobe of his right ear. Ann had noticed he often did this when he was raking his memory for something important. ‘There’s a third thing … You’ve two hours’ typing on Ross’s affairs this afternoon, haven’t you? Well, I don’t suppose you want to skip that, and I certainly don’t want to pull you off it, but scrap as much of it as you can. You will want to join your aunt for some kind of welcome celebrations, I expect.’

  Ann looked troubled. Franklin’s had kindly given Ross some typing services. She didn’t mind rushing Ross’s work and she knew he wouldn’t mind either, but she didn’t like to be going off to celebrations while at least two other girls had to work back ‒ probably till midnight.

  Lang watched her face. He lifted his head and stared for a moment at the dazzle of sun on the cement roads outside. Then his eyes came back to Ann.

  ‘You’ll know best, Ann,’ he said gently. ‘You decide which is the most important ‒ Ross’s work or Mrs. Boyd’s first night in Australia. I’m afraid you’ll have to make your own decision on that.’ He smiled, as if making such decisions easier for her by being complaisant himself. ‘Right?’

  Ann smiled back. She already knew where her decision would lie. ‘Right!’ she said.

  Lang stopped being manager of Franklin’s and became Lang from up at The Orchard. He grinned down at her amiably.

  ‘Atta-girl!’

  He held the glass door for her as she walked through. He stood a moment watching her cross the road to the car park, then get into one of the firm’s cars which had been specially allocated for today’s use. Ann had won her licence a week ago, with high praise from the traffic officer who had examined her. This had been much to Ted’s delight in his pupil. Lang had immediately ordered her to have the use of a firm’s car any time he was going home late.

  Lang turned round and went back to the inn.

  An airline officer had come forward to have some discussion with Aunt Cassie about the luggage. Claire had not wasted time, but had spent money in Delhi, Bangkok and Singapore with the result that her baggage was now overweight.

  Mrs. Franklin took the opportunity to leave Mrs. Boyd to these private and embarrassing discussions with Claire, who had returned to the table. She drifted easily towards the door of the cocktail bar to be out of earshot and immediately saw Lang ordering a counter drink for himself.

  This, Mrs. Franklin thought with shocked irritation, would never do.

  ‘Lang!’ she said reproachfully. ‘You shouldn’t do that with our guests waiting in the lounge …’

  There was an ironical glint in his eye as he ordered another drink for his aunt.

  ‘The airline officer asked me where to find Mrs. and Miss Boyd. I guessed his mission. It seemed to me the cocktail bar was the only discreet place for a tactful disappearing act.’

  He gave her the kind of look that always softened her; made her feel she was directing him while all the time he ruled her.

  ‘Well … I suppose it is a little awkward.’

  ‘Looking through the glass door at Mrs. Boyd I should say she had never felt less awkward in her life. She has that man eating out of her hand.’

  Mrs. Franklin followed the direction of Lang’s eyes. A look of quiet satisfaction crept over her own face.

  ‘I really believe, Lang, she could handle any situation. After all, she is a woman of a great social world. London is quite different from Western Australia.’
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br />   ‘I must go there some day.’ He smiled at her over the top of his glass. ‘Happy days, Aunt! Now what was it you wanted to say to me, in private.’

  Mrs. Franklin was momentarily cross. Really! The way he read her thoughts! She hadn’t been looking for him at all. Well, not entirely …

  She sipped the cocktail he had given her.

  ‘I suppose the sooner you know the better,’ she said with some asperity. ‘I don’t know how it happened, but Claire ‒ the beautiful girl who arrived with Mrs. Boyd this morning ‒ is the niece I invited to come out to stay with us. In the first place, I mean. Not Ann.’

  Lang put his glass on the counter, took out his cigarettes; selected one with care and lit it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Of course these things happen, I know. Mistakes, I mean. But how could one girl mistake an invitation explicitly sent to another? The first invitation I sent was to a niece called Claire. I remember it quite distinctly. Mrs. Boyd wrote to me mentioning her niece Ann. So I thought I must have made a mistake in the name, and I put all thought of it behind me ‒ specially as Mrs. Boyd’s real name is Claire ‒ that is how she signs it. I thought I must have muddled names: though that is most unusual for me.’

  ‘An ordinary mistake, I should say. We all make them.’ Lang watched his aunt through a wreath of cigarette smoke. ‘One Claire, one Ann. They were simply confused in your mind.’

  ‘Yes, but there was no mention that there was another girl called Claire ‒ after her great-aunt probably. Why didn’t anyone mention her in all that correspondence?’

  ‘That is easily cleared up. I should ask Mrs. Boyd, if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that. She is devoted to Ann. You can see that. Besides, she wrote to me about what a charming girl she was. I couldn’t possibly now tell her I meant my invitation for the other niece, Claire.’

  ‘Does it matter very much now that they are both here?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve a lot more explaining to do to everybody. Claire looks like the girl I expected and told everyone about. I might tell you now, Lang, I’m absolutely delighted she is here at last. But what am I to say to people? They would suspect duplicity: about Ann, I mean.’