The River is Down: (An Australian Outback Romance) Page 14

  ‘Were the wild flowers out as you came through the sand-plain country, Cindie?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘It may have been too late in the season for some of them.’

  Cindie was startled. ‘There were everlastings all over,’ she said politely. ‘Carpets of them everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Leschenaultia too; south of the Greenough Flats ‒’

  He was still on his feet waiting for her to sit down.

  ‘Please, Nick, don’t stand. I’ll help Mary,’ she said, turning away. Again there was silence, and this time it was Mary’s turn to be amused. The effect Nick had on some people! Why did they have to be scared of him? Why couldn’t they take him at face value?

  ‘All right, Cindie,’ she said aloud. ‘The coffee’s in the pot if you’ll pour the water on it. The kettle’s just come to the boil.’ She turned to their guest. ‘It’s instant coffee, Nick. I’m afraid we don’t have time to percolate when we come in late.’

  ‘Everyone was late to-night, I understand. The mail, Mary?’

  ‘That, and the organising committee for the party. Not to mention the fire in the spinifex. The children have told me ‒’

  Cindie poured water into the coffee-pot, and Nick held a chair for Mary to sit down.

  ‘That’s what I came about,’ he said.

  Cindie pressed her lips together. Another lecture? She brought the tray to the table and began to pour the coffee. She did not look up.

  ‘I thought you were talking about wild flowers a minute ago,’ Mary said blandly.

  Nick sat down and picked up his cigarette again. ‘So I was.’ He was determined to make Cindie lift her head as she brought the coffee cup to him. He believed in shock treatment when he had to handle some people. ‘The mulla mulla, a beautiful mauve flower, is out all over the plain to the north,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the girl’s face. ‘There’s a sea of them round the Hammersley Ranges and across the Pilbarra at this time of the year. I must take you up some time to look at them, Cindie. Would you like to go? It’s a long trek ‒ several hundred miles!’

  His tactics, Mary saw, were right. Cindie’s lashed lifted, her eyes stared into his, startled, as if she wasn’t quite sure she had heard him right.

  Nick take her several hundred miles up north?

  The girl who, so he thought, carelessly lit fires in the spinifex?

  She felt grave suspicion ‒ that is, if her ears had heard right.

  ‘Yes,’ he repeated, taking the cup from her, no longer holding her gaze. He helped himself to sugar from the little tray, and stirred his coffee vigorously.

  ‘Thank you,’ he finished. ‘What an aromatic smell coffee always has! It’s a peace-making drink, don’t you think?’

  Cindie, puzzled, offered the coffee to Mary, and made no reply. This time it was her turn to be wary. She couldn’t afford to let Nick get at her this way. Perhaps, underneath this studied manner, he meant to keep Jim Vernon to himself and Erica. This could be his gentle-cruel way of showing his authority. He was softening her up for the blow.

  ‘You don’t take sugar, Mary,’ was all she said as she lifted her own cup from the tray and sat down ‒ as far from Nick as the table and the small room would permit.

  Mary glanced from one to the other with curiosity. She knew Nick, and his methods, but was not so certain yet of Cindie’s reaction to them.

  Nick broke the silence. ‘I came to make an apology.’ This was a stone dropping in a pool. More shock tactics.

  ‘An apology?’ Mary’s eyebrows went up. ‘Not like you, Nick. You’re not often wrong.’

  ‘More often than you think ‒ or than I let on,’ he said with a grin. ‘This time I’m anxious to make amends.’

  Cindie watched the little white bubble on the surface of her coffee.

  That’s good fortune, she told herself. Mother always liked a white bubble on her tea.

  She was determined not to take any unnecessary part in this conversation between the boss and Mary.

  ‘Cindie!’ Nick said, peremptorily, equally determined to make her look up? ‘I’ve come to apologise to you. Do you mind listening? Then I can go to bed with a clear conscience.’

  His conscience! So that was it, was it? All the same she did as he commanded and looked up. He could perhaps see now it had been lack of interest, not shyness, that had kept her looking down!

  She had no idea of the wonderful opalescent glow in her eyes as the light shone on them now.

  ‘I assumed you were in charge of the children, Cindie, when the fire started in the spinifex. I now know I was wrong, and that you were not there until later. Flan told me about it. I am sorry I was so short with you out by the rocks. Will you accept my apology when I tell you a fire in the spinifex is always a worry because it takes the men off the job to deal with it. That means loss of time, and we all get a little quick-tempered about it.’

  Cindie blinked her eyelids. With great self-control she mastered the flush that wanted to steal over her face.

  ‘Quite a speech, Nick,’ Mary said, as she guessed Cindie was searching for the right words. It wasn’t easy to accept an apology graciously, she knew. Specially when one hadn’t quite swallowed anger.

  ‘I should apologise to you, perhaps, Nick,’ Cindie said at length, regaining her poise. ‘I should not have been so upset. It was childish ‒’

  ‘I hardly gave you the chance to be anything else.’ His smile was truly contrite. Its unexpected charm touched Cindie’s heart like a tender finger on a receptive nerve.

  She blinked her eyes again. Was this really Nick? Mary saw her puzzlement and gave a short laugh.

  ‘I suppose you’ve got Jim Vernon pinned down talking muster and shearing with Erica and Flan,’ she said to Nick to change the subject, and clear the air.

  ‘With Erica, yes. Not Flan, I’m afraid. Jim is a lone talker, and Erica is a good listener when she wants to learn something. Flan’s only interest is road-making. Besides, he likes his own word in edgeways, now and again ‒’

  ‘You mean Jim’s quite a talker?’

  ‘Quite ‒ when he has a good listener like Erica.’

  Cindie’s heart dropped again. She hated being a meanie ‒ but why did Erica have to have everything? Even the capacity to be a good listener ‒ a quality so precious to men’s ego?

  After Nick had gone, Cindie seemed still to hear his footsteps, strong, yet so alone in all that universe of silence in which the camp slept. Her heart seemed to follow them as they faded into the distance.

  His, she knew, was a lonely job. The man at the top was always solitary. She should have been more gracious.

  Yet something deep inside her still rebelled. It was, of course, because he held her destiny in the hollow of his hand. He was in partnership with Erica over the rumoured takeover of Bindaroo! He was her boss, and could take her job from her. Yes, she was at his mercy.

  ‘There won’t be anything left of those coffee cups by the time you’ve finished rattling them about in the sink,’ Mary said. ‘Here, give over and I’ll wash while you wipe. What’s worrying you, Cindie? That little duet up at Nick’s house while Nick’s down here?’

  Cindie shook her head. ‘For one minute I wasn’t thinking of Jim. I was wondering why footsteps in the night always sound so fateful.’

  ‘My, my!’ Mary laughed. ‘You do have an imagination, Cindie. To me Nick’s footsteps are just a pair of desert-boots thumping and banging about when the boss is in a hurry or a rage.’

  ‘Rage? But not to-night ‒’

  ‘It’s when Nick’s dead quiet you have to start worrying. Don’t I know ‒’ Mary said prophetically. ‘To-night he was okay. On a good-will mission, and all that!’

  ‘Jim seems to like him very much.’

  ‘Here we go again!’ Mary really sounded peevish this time. ‘Back to Jim.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cindie met Mary’s eyes. ‘I like him very much.’

  ‘Like? Or love?’

  ‘Both,’ Cindie said soberly. ‘Very much. No
w you know, Mary.’

  The older woman stood quite still, her hands on the edges of the cloth which she was spreading on the lower rack.

  ‘So?’ she said. ‘Well, how about going to bed and making the best of it in your dreams? Meanwhile if I don’t get some sleep myself, all hell’ll break out in that canteen tomorrow ‒ from sheer bad temper.’

  The next morning Jim Vernon came into the canteen while Cindie was hard at work with her typewriter.

  He leaned both his hands on her table as he bent over to talk to her. She had been so preoccupied she had not lifted her head when he came in.

  ‘On the pay-roll, I hear.’ His broad friendly grin captured her heart again. ‘Well done, Cindie-brown-all-over. I put my tuppence on you the first day we met. How about our taking a walk tonight and swapping troubles?’

  When she’d looked up so quickly at the sound of his voice, her face and eyes all smiles, he’d thought about rainbows again. Then changed his mind. This was the rising sun breaking with all its tender splendour over the eastern loop of the sky.

  ‘Anyone ever tell you all the world loves a smiler, Cindie?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Sort of gladdens the heart!’

  ‘Oh, Jim! I’m so glad to see you. I had an awful fear that Nick might keep you to himself ‒’

  Jim’s brilliant blue eyes sparkled with real amusement now.

  ‘You sure do give yourself a lot of worries, sweetheart. Didn’t I tell you I came over the river to see one lass with a brace of violets for windows in her face, and a pack of troubles on her shoulders? Meet me ‒ the wandering knight all clad in khakis and carrying a ten-bale hat under his arm ‒ wanting a date with a pretty girl.’ He beamed down on her.

  Cindie laughed. ‘You probably think me a blockhead, Jim. I hope not. Of course I’ll walk, and talk with you too. I want to explain so much ‒’

  ‘Explain nothing now, Cindie. Later ‒’

  ‘Jim, you didn’t say anything to Nick, or to Erica, about … well about what was written on my cheque?’

  ‘No, Blue Eyes, I didn’t. Are you afraid that raking cheque is going to bounce, or something?’

  She knew by his grin that he didn’t really think that. She shook her head.

  ‘It’s the name on it,’ she explained. ‘But there’s a reason ‒’

  ‘And a good one, I’ll bet. I never put my money on a wrong horse yet, Cindie. I know style a mile off. I heard it coming up the track in that old Holden before I even clapped eyes on who was in it.’

  ‘Jim, you are a dear. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

  ‘Tell me to-night. Till then …’ He glanced round at Mary, who was sitting behind her table, head cocked on one side, looking at him with thoughtful interest. ‘I’ll just walk over and introduce myself to the dark lady with the jet eyes, and put myself at peace with her,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘My, how do you come to be working as assistant to someone as spry-looking as that?’

  As Jim moved across the canteen hall, Cindie watched Mary with a newly-awakened interest. Spry was hardly the word she herself would have used. Yet, now that she came to notice it, Mary did look nice this morning. Her hair was neatly swept back. She had on the nicest of her cotton frocks, one with a soft collar round the neck. Her lipstick wasn’t smeared, either, as it so often was after she had put the end of that pencil in and out of her mouth, on and off, as she worked.

  Cindie had forgotten, in the trouble course of her own thoughts, that visitors were so rare at the camp that the inmates were as interested in Jim as if he were an arrival from Mars. She remembered the side-looks and half-heard teasings she herself had received that first day.

  Of course Mary would want to see the new arrival ‒ and look her best for the occasion, too!

  Cindie suspected Hazel, Evie and Betty up in D’D row would probably think the overseer from Baanya who had come across the river on a log was the Master-Martian. They’d probably give him a super afternoon tea-party.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Golly, you do look nice, Cindie,’ Jinx said, as the children, washed and spruced for dinner that night, came into the living-room.

  Cindie was straining the vegetables as Mary sliced the roll of steaming corned beef.

  ‘Like a lovely lady,’ Myrtle added reflectively, as she looked over Cindie’s white dress with the pink spots. ‘I thought that when you first came. Then when I got used to your face I stopped thinking it. Now I think it all over again. It must be the dress, but your face looks nice too ‒’

  ‘And only corned beef for dinner!’ Jinx grumbled. ‘It’s hardly a party, is it?’

  ‘Don’t make personal remarks,’ Mary corrected them sharply. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen Cindie’s face tinge with pink at the children’s comments. ‘Don’t listen to gossip, you children. Don’t ask people their religion or bank accounts. Most of all, don’t make personal remarks.’

  ‘Mum’s legend! That’s what Nick calls it,’ Jinx put himself in front of his place at the table and began at once to draw figures on the cloth with the prongs of his fork. ‘The four Don’ts. That’s what Nick calls it! Our teacher on the air says there should be more doing than don’ting ‒’

  ‘Like playing with your fork and likely to make holes in the cloth?’ Mary demanded, bringing the children’s plates to the table. ‘Put your knife and fork in place, Jinx, and wait till Cindie and I are ready to sit down.’

  Cindie brought a bowl of potatoes and carrots and began to serve large helpings to the children.

  ‘Do you think I’m over-dressed, Jinx?’ she asked. ‘Every girl wants to wear a pretty frock sometimes. Besides, I bought it from Coles ‒ in case you think I’m showing off. Very light and cool: not expensive at all.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain to them, Cindie,’ Mary said. ‘It’s a nice dress and you look nice. Thank goodness for that. I like to see a young girl wear a pretty dress. If she doesn’t do that when she’s young, she won’t have much chance later. Too much hard work to bother about dressing up when you’ve two children, a house, and two hundred and seventeen men to look after.’

  There was a touch of heart-burning in those last words.

  ‘You look very nice yourself,’ Cindie said quickly, hiding a sudden compassion for Mary. ‘Your hair is so dark and thick. That little white streak makes it very distinguished. And you’ve wonderful eyes ‒ when you don’t snap them. Jim said you were “spry”. I think he admired you ‒’

  Mary smiled more amiably. ‘Thanks for that lot,’ she replied. ‘Next I’ll be dressing up like Cleopatra. Couldn’t be those three talkative wives up there giving us a jolt, could it, Cindie? Or maybe it’s only the newcomer from Baanya.’

  ‘Cindie’s blushing,’ Myrtle said. ‘I guess it’s Jim Vernon. Are you wearing that dress anywhere special to-night?’

  ‘Yes ‒ actually ‒’ Cindie was a little confused.

  ‘Not to see Nick or Miss Erica, of course,’ Jinx was supercilious about this. ‘They’re what Dicey George calls exclusive. I looked the word up in the dictionary. It means “shutting out” in one book; and “keeping to themselves” in another.’

  ‘It must be Jim Vernon, then,’ Myrtle insisted.

  ‘That’ll do, you two,’ Mary commanded flatly. ‘Get on with your dinner now, and let Cindie and me have ours in peace.’

  Cindie thought she’d better own up, in a natural way, so the children would stop putting wrong conclusions on what she did. ‘I am going to see Jim,’ she admitted. ‘All the same I like to wear this dress, and other summer ones I have too ‒ sometimes. I didn’t have the courage to put this one on before because I was afraid of the caustic remarks two small children might make.’

  ‘What’s “caustic” mean?’ Myrtle asked.

  ‘Look it up in the dictionary,’ Jinx advised. ‘You know what the teacher on the air said ‒ “Only ask when you can’t find out for yourself”.’

  ‘Brats!’ said Mary testily, but in an undertone to Cindi
e. ‘Now you know what I mean. There’s no peace when you’ve two children around who know better than their elders. Of course, “teacher” is always right, too!’

  It was clear to Mary that Cindie and Jim Vernon had a date. ‘Those wives up in D’D?’ she wondered. ‘Let’s hope they aren’t out snooping around. Every man in the camp will think Cindie is an open-go for dating. Then we’ll have Nick taking action and shunting out my help-all as soon as the river is down. Of course, he does have to be careful with so many men!’

  Cindie was proving so very useful. Mary decidedly didn’t want to go back to the rat-race of looking after the needs of a lot of helpless men at the pace she’d gone before Cindie came.

  ‘Like living in a willi-willi twenty-four hours a day,’ she said, thinking aloud.

  They all looked at her in surprise.

  ‘What is like living in a willi-willi?’ Cindie asked.

  ‘A construction camp. As I said before ‒ two children, one house, two hundred and seventeen men: and now you having to account for the fact you’re wearing a nice dress. Even if you did buy it in a chain store.’

  The meal was early over, for the children were hungry and made quick work of their food.

  ‘Off you go,’ Mary said to Cindie, as she pushed back her own chair. ‘For once Myrtle and Jinx can clear away and wash up. The sooner they learn the better. What’s more, it’ll teach them to mind their manners and not make personal remarks.’

  Mary shook her head a little as she glanced again at Cindie’s pretty dress. It was hard to own up, but she was just a little envious of that youth and what could be in front of Cindie if she had luck, as well as other gifts. She’d not had luck herself. Myrtle had been so young when her husband had been killed ‒ falling from a rig over a hole being tested for water, when surveying had begun on the first stages of the road. That’s why Nick had, against custom, given her, a woman, a job on the site. She supposed that too was luck in a way ‒ come to think of it!

  Cindie ran eagerly towards the canteen.

  Jim had said he would meet her by the steps, and she was already a few minutes late. Thank goodness Mary had decided the children were the washers-up for this last meal, else she would have felt guilty at leaving it.