Reaching for the Stars Page 9

  ‘We only knew one another by correspondence,’ said Ann, puzzled. ‘I don’t think she ever asked Aunt Cassie what I looked like. It never occurred to Aunt Cassie to say. I wonder why?’

  ‘Oh, we take those sort of things for granted, I suppose. We know what we look like ourselves and forget the other person doesn’t.’ Luie was very nonchalant about this. ‘I don’t see why Mrs. Franklin was surprised when you turned up. She should have gone to the trouble to find out what you looked like. Specially as she had Lang in mind …’

  ‘Frankly, I think she had my aunt Cassie in mind,’ Ann said, being fair. ‘Mrs. Franklin was awfully taken with her. Aunt Cassie is quite a character. You’ll see what I mean when she comes. You would think she ruled the earth from her manner, but underneath she has a heart of gold. Fortunately she reveals the heart very early in the piece and nobody gets really taken in by her grand manner.’

  ‘But Aunt Cassie is not you …’ said Luie. She changed gears to begin the steep climb up the first spur of the range.

  ‘No, but Aunt Cassie probably wanted to give me a change away from England and Mrs. Franklin probably invited me to please her. I can see it all now. Really … it was very good of Mrs. Franklin. I wish I didn’t feel an imposition.’

  ‘Don’t feel that way,’ Luie said with a laugh. ‘The place is full of visitors from time to time. Mrs. Franklin likes playing the grand lady too ‒ dispensing hospitality from the old colonial home in the hills and all that. Am I being catty? Well, I don’t care if I am. She’s not so uncatty to me, I can tell you. If it weren’t for Lang … Oh, let’s skip it, and talk of something else. Everything I say is sour grapes, anyway. Good job you’re not the golden-girl, Ann. This way we can like you. By the way ‒’

  Luie turned her head and smiled at Ann. The car swerved to the side of the road and Ann cried:

  ‘Look out, Luie!’

  The car missed a leaning jarrah tree by a foot.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Luie said. ‘I never hit anything. Haven’t yet, anyway. What I was going to say is ‒ I like you very much.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ann said gently.

  But how would they all like Claire? Well, Mrs. Franklin would ‒ that was clear.

  Luie, having talked so freely for the first part of the trip, now fell into a strange silence. This gave Ann freedom to think too.

  She wondered who had been the glamorous Vera Sunderland. The enigma of Lang’s care for Luie puzzled her too. Then there had been Lang’s clear directive to Ross that Ann herself was Ross’s girl. Ross had said so, in fun, of course. Lang had reminded Ross of that very purposefully.

  All day today Ann had been free of that faint spark of antagonism that had been lit when Lang, meeting the ship, had made it clear that to meet it was a ‘chore’. Now, going over this in her mind, the day lost some of its lustre.

  She had been a let-down, after all. Luie had said so. It was hard to take.

  Lang had liked her typing. That was something, but it wasn’t everything. Specially when he wanted to wrap her up in a parcel, tie her with string and hand her to Ross.

  A slow kind of anger began quietly to burn again inside her.

  Lang ran other people’s lives, including Luie Condon’s. Well, he was not going to run Ann Boyd. Never again would she let him light a little lamp inside her at four o’clock in the morning.

  She would get a job. That would take her mind from everything but work. It had all happened before, so she knew where lay her panacea.

  Besides … As a small point of personal pride she was not going to be a chore or a let-down to anyone on earth. One day she would demonstrate that to the Franklin family ‒ she hoped.

  Under these brave thoughts a little voice in Ann still cried ‒ it had all happened before ‒ love that had been denied, and work used to bury it. Did it always have to happen? For ever and ever till she was old, and it didn’t matter any more?

  With Claire coming ‒ and Luie silent beside her ‒ what else was there to expect?

  She’d get a job; and make a life of her own ‒ here, in this sunshine country.

  Chapter Seven

  Ann had bitter-sweet feelings when she finally took up her post as a typist in Franklin’s Wool Exporters Pty. Ltd.

  She had not been able to get over her conviction that she was a disappointment to Mrs. Franklin. In obscure ways everyone seemed unconsciously to remind her of it. She was not sorry for herself about this: merely determined to stand on her dignity ‒ to appease herself and no one else.

  Mrs. Franklin had been more than kind in taking her to meet other people; in asking other people to the homestead and even giving an evening party for the younger fraternity of the district to meet the newcomer. This generosity filled Ann with admiration for her hostess but at the same time made her all the more determined to slip gracefully out of a situation that was not easily tenable. Each time she met new people the same thing happened. They looked at her with startled curiosity before they were able to cover up with friendly good manners. Ann read it in every face.

  For the first time in her life she felt angry with Aunt Cassie. Aunt Cassie must have misled Mrs. Franklin. She had probably praised Ann’s qualities out of all recognition, entirely because she, Aunt Cassie, wanted to believe them herself; and partly because she had wanted to ensure that Ann had the opportunity of this wonderful trip to Australia.

  Ann thought she could see how it happened.

  Ann’s pride was lacerated; but her heart was also touched by the determined endeavour Mrs. Franklin made to give this visitor from another country a happy time.

  Meantime Lang went about his affairs as if nothing else in the world mattered but wool.

  He must be rich enough, Ann thought in her anger. Why does he have to go on making more and more money? Specially when his aunt is so good to him and would give anything to have a little more of his company.

  She was sad for Luie Condon. One moment, when the Condon girls were over at the Franklins’ homestead, Lang was all gentle care of Luie. The next moment he seemed to have forgotten her because he had to do something about getting on with his business.

  Oh Luie, Luie! Ann thought. If only you wouldn’t waste your time on him. If only you would get a job like me!

  Not Luie. To Ann’s surprise she found that the Condon parents were also very much against such an idea. They wouldn’t hear of Luie going to work at all.

  ‘She is happy at home,’ they said. ‘She doesn’t have to go to work. It’s not even necessary for Heather to earn a living. She likes doing it. Luie doesn’t.’

  Alas, the over-protected child! Ann thought. Lang had better marry her later, if not sooner, or she will be the girl-that-stayed-at-home. She’ll miss out on life altogether.

  Yet Luie was a charming unsophisticated creature. Ann was amused to see, in that first fortnight, that Ross, when he had finished his bids in the wool-sale, or in the days between them ‒ for the sales were sometimes only once a week ‒ was often at the Condon orchard and to be seen riding down the valley tracks with Luie.

  The weather had not warmed up enough for the waterskiing.

  Heather had certainly given Ann her first lessons in horse-riding during the second week-end of her visit, and Lang had instructed Ted, the jack-of-all-trades round the Franklin property, to teach her to drive a car. Ann could do a little of both at the end of a fortnight. These exciting experiences made her feel all the more ungrateful in insisting that she took a job.

  Really, life there in the Darling Ranges was wonderful fun, if it hadn’t been for Ann’s wounded pride, Lang’s preoccupation elsewhere, and Ann’s determination to do something about herself before Claire came.

  She just had to be somebody in her own right. It was that, or cry into her pillow at nights!

  Lang and Ross Dawson entered a mild but gentlemanly debate as to who was to have Ann’s services ‒ since she was determined to work.

  It was the old story, though one not yet a fortnight in age. Ross c
ould have her for a girl-friend but Lang would have her if she was useful.

  They were all on the veranda having afternoon tea on the third Sunday of Ann’s visit when this sparring as to who was to be Ann’s employer took place. For once Mrs. Franklin’s conscience pricked her on behalf of Ann, and she took Ross’s part against Lang.

  ‘Ann may want to stay in Australia no more than two or three months. That would be about the time the wool season lasts, Lang. I think you should let her go to Ross. You would no sooner have her trained to Miss Devine’s routine than she would be thinking of leaving.’

  Luie winked at Ann from behind her teacup and Heather gazed out over the veranda railings across the valley to the wall of trees that topped the far hillside. Heather’s mouth was pursed in a silent whistle.

  Some secret, hidden deep in Mrs. Franklin’s words, was no secret to the two Condon girls. But it all went over Ann’s head.

  ‘We tossed a coin over a glass of whisky in the study,’ Ross said. ‘As usual ‒ Lang won.’

  ‘He has a doubled-headed coin,’ Heather said. ‘I bet he used that.’

  Mrs. Franklin could hardly hide her annoyance at this remark.

  ‘Heather,’ she said with some asperity, ‘won’t you be late for your Sunday programme? You usually leave long before this.’

  ‘They filmed it for this week’s show,’ Heather said without taking her eyes from the distant hills. ‘All on account of Derek Winters having to go to the Eastern States for a special assignment. That’s why I went down to the coast on Wednesday.’

  Lang, lounging back in his easy chair, his hands behind his head, let his lazy amused eyes wander from one face to the other. They came to rest on Ann. Their expression altered infinitesimally. Ann saw it but could not read it.

  ‘We leave at seven-thirty in the morning, Ann,’ he said. ‘Are you an early riser?’

  ‘I will be,’ she said at once. ‘I hope it won’t be embarrassing for the boss to drive one of his employees to work each day. I was wondering if ‒ perhaps ‒’ She faltered. This was the sixty-four-dollar question she had been rehearsing all day. She wanted to bring it out smoothly.

  ‘Don’t you think,’ she said at last, looking at Mrs. Franklin and not Lang, ‘it might be better if I found accommodation somewhere near the wool-stores? Heather tells me that lots of the girls who work for the different wool-brokers share flats with one another. There might be a vacancy in one of them.’

  Mrs. Franklin was stiff with annoyance.

  ‘I cannot imagine your aunt, Mrs. Boyd, approving of your living in a flat with a group of girls ‒ of whom neither of you have any knowledge.’

  ‘Except that they work for one or other of the wool-brokers ‒ which means in a fraternity ‒ and everyone knows everyone else,’ Lang said. He spoke with quiet firmness, yet not unkindly, because obviously he did not want to hurt his aunt’s feelings.

  ‘You would prefer that I lived near my work?’ Ann asked quickly.

  ‘I would prefer nothing of the kind. I was merely giving a character reference to the girls who work for wool-brokers. They’re the cream of the typing world.’

  Mrs. Franklin was suddenly weakened by Lang’s intrusion in the discussion.

  ‘Very well, Lang,’ she said. ‘Just as you please.’

  He smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Ann stays here as our guest. And we travel to work every day till we’re tired of it. You agree, Ann?’

  She didn’t agree but he was too strong-minded for her. She knew in advance he would tumble all her arguments and win in the end. He did it all the time, so effortlessly, yet so remorselessly.

  Heather’s pursed lips produced a sound that was a real whistle. It was the first few bars of ‘The Victory March’.

  Luie had been playing with Jacko’s ears and she now stood up, and stretched herself. She had a lovely slender boyish figure.

  ‘Ross, please. You drive me home. Heather can bring herself later, in our car.’

  ‘Supposing I drive you both home,’ Lang said. He was still quiet, still ever-so-friendly in his manner; but still firm. ‘Ann has an engagement to show Ross the young orange trees in the nursery. We put them in last week.’ He glanced up quickly at Ross. ‘You’re staying for high tea, aren’t you, Ross? No wool-sale tomorrow, thank God.’

  Mrs. Franklin rattled teacups faintly. ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘Ross must stay for tea. Ann, put on your hat, dear. Even at this afternoon hour the sun can spoil that nice skin of yours.’

  It was as simply arranged as that.

  Lang drove Luie home and Heather went down to the coast to what she called ‘a studio appointment ‒ unofficially a party’. Ann, in the new brimmed linen hat Mrs. Franklin had helped her buy in the village store in Kalamunda, showed Ross the Franklins’ new addition to the seedling nursery.

  Down there, in the sweet-smelling solitude of a thousand plants, Ross and Ann looked at one another and laughed.

  ‘I don’t know how he does it,’ Ann said at last. ‘He doesn’t order. He doesn’t rule. Yet suddenly we’ve all done as he told us.’

  ‘It’s very easy when you have power,’ Ross said. ‘Lang has nothing against power, so long as he is the one who has it.’

  ‘But no power over you, surely? Or even the Condon girls?’

  ‘Oh yes. Over me because I want some bargain prices. I have to have them to square my company’s accounts this season. I want to buy combs and shirtings outside the auction room, and he knows it. He has power over Luie because the poor child can’t see anything in sight but Lang when Lang is around. He can count on Heather’s compliance because Heather will do what is best for Luie.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be best for Luie to go with you? She wanted it …’

  ‘I know,’ said Ross. ‘But she didn’t get her own way, did she?’ He took Ann’s arm. ‘Well, come on, my little amateur horticulturist. Show me the new seedlings, and the old ones. It seems that Lang thinks it’s important I should know an orange from a grapefruit tree.’

  They spent half an hour chatting away amongst the baby trees, then another half-hour walking down to the creek and trying to catch gilgies with their cupped hands. When they walked up to the homestead it was to learn that Lang was staying over at the Condons’ for the evening meal and that Mrs. Franklin proposed that she and Ann and Ross would spend the evening looking at TV.

  ‘There’s such a good programme,’ she said. ‘A film. Of course it was made in 1939 but I remember seeing it then so well. It was very good.’

  Ann and Ross were sure Mrs. Franklin would enjoy it. They said they were sure they would enjoy it too; and they said it politely.

  Later, Ann, leaning back in the comfortable TV chair, with her eyes closed because in the dim light no one would notice it, thought again of Lang’s tactics. He rarely had time to go to the Condons’, or any other homestead in the hills; yet he had gone tonight and stayed for high tea too. What he had really done was separate Luie and Ross, and unite Ross and Ann before a TV set.

  She felt a burning anger at thus being organised but she could do nothing about it. It was the way he knew when to smile. That was how he did it. It was a philosophy of handling women as half-grown children instead of as adults with minds of their own.

  The next morning Ann began her life as a business girl in a wool-brokers’ firm. She had learned that the store part of the business was less than half of it. It was the place where one saw the wool, instead of just dealing with it in letters and figures.

  The other half of the business was conducted round the outback wool and cattle centres, the agricultural districts; and with transport trains and shipping companies. The brokers bought and sold, bought and sold, all the time, quite apart from acting as agents for their country clients.

  Lang was deliberately three minutes late at the office near the wool-stores this first morning. He pulled his car up in the company car-park, leaned back in his seat and took out his cigarettes. He offered Ann one but she shook her head.


  ‘Too early in the morning,’ she said. She looked anxiously at the clock in the dashboard. ‘I hope that is fast, Lang. A mere typist can hardly tell her boss he ‒ and she ‒ might be late.’

  ‘The typist’s boss is waiting for Miss Devine to be de-hatted, combed and fluffed up; then sitting collectedly behind her table before he brings in the latest recruit.’ He lit the cigarette, flicked out the match. ‘If ever you come to manage a company, Ann, never make the mistake of catching your secretary out on her wrong foot. Her dignity is the most important thing in the whole business.’

  His eyes smiled. There was a glint of wickedness in them, also knowledge of the frailties of the fairer sex. Who had taught him all he knew about women?

  Ann had a chastened feeling. He knew too much about people. One could not escape him.

  ‘It’s bang on the hour, Lang,’ she said, looking at the clock. ‘I’m sure anyone as perfect as Miss Devine would be well and truly behind her table now. I’m nervous of her in advance.’

  ‘But not of the real boss?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a tiny silence.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll confront Miss Devine with a typist from the other side of the world, and see how she takes it.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, and they left the car. He did not speak again as they went into the office.

  Miss Devine was not in the least bit like the image that Lang had built of her. She was a very small woman, about thirty-five, with light brown fluffy hair and a mouth that smiled easily. Her eyes, which also smiled, had long tunnels of deep thinking behind them so that you knew she had more to her than a diminutive stature. She was as pleasant and easy a person, on first meeting, as Ann had ever met. She gave out with an eager nervous energy.