The mountain that went to the sea (3 page)

rest of the shares.'

'Stop this Land-Rover and let me get out,' Jeckie demanded with icy dignity. She was actually gripping the door handle.

`Nuts!' Barton said with a laugh. 'That handle's on a double-lock, Juliet — Jeckie — so don't waste your time. Besides, we're all but up on the tableland now, and there's not a tree in sight, let alone a homestead. You haven't even a sun hat for tomorrow. So if you're wandering out there round about midday you'll find it up to a hundred and thirty in the sun. You'd be better off sticking around with beastly me. By the way, are we third cousins or fourth cousins?'

'Not having any interest in the matter I have not counted up,' Jeckie said with great but chilly dignity. 'I am not likely to have any interest in the matter. Now or ever.'

`Nor in me?'

`Now or ever.'

'Ho ho!
That leaves Andrew. Petto, I have to warn you Andrew is a hard nut to crack. If he has a heart, it will take some finding. Other females have tried —'

`I still want to get out of this Land-Rover.'

'But you can't. The door is double-locked.' Barton patted Jeckie's arm with his free hand. 'I'm only teasing, petto,' he said. 'Forget and forgive, huh?'

`Neither,' said Jeckie flatly. 'I'd like you to turn this car round and take me back to the airport.'

`No can do. We've just enough petrol to make Mallibee. And I've one cracked gasket. That means oil loss. Besides there's no plane south for two days. Look, over to your left, Jeckie. That rim of gold edging above Red Top Hill is the moon coming up. In a minute you'll see this place at the only time in twenty-four hours it looks beautiful. That'll cheer you up.'

`And forget what you said?'

`Can't think what came over me. Call it nor'west humour — at its worst. I'm sorry. Believe me?'

`Yes. Let's call it even. I'm tired so I suppose I'm cross — which is very bad-mannered considering —' `Considering what?'

`Well, I am Mallibee's guest, aren't I? Whose guest?

Andrew's or Great-Aunt Isobel's? I know it was she who has been writing to my mother.'

'Andrew's the manager and has the biggest whack of shares in the station. I guess you know all about that. Aunt Isobel runs the homestead. Don't be scared of her, Jeckie. She has a reserved manner sometimes, but somewhere deep down — like the mineral wealth under Mallibee Mountain — is hidden a heart of gold.'

Jeckie was doubtful from Barton's wicked grin whether he meant this last about Aunt Isobel, but her own heart was almost at base level, anyway, so it couldn't sink much lower.

Why had she been mad enough to come?

Like Barton, Jeckie too had known what the families were up to. So had her cousin Sheila Bowen who, report said, had actually evinced some interest in this ridiculous business of marketing brides. She'd been up to Mallibee some months earlier and had said she adored it. Meaning Mallibee? Or the prospect of marrying one of the Mallibee men?

Jeckie had only come herself because of her wounded pride. That futile love affair! Too stupid for words. She'd brought herself with her, alas! And couldn't run away from that.

'Trouble with me — ' she said aloud, a little subdued, 'I'm too impetuous. At least that's what my parents always say.'

'Impetuous about what?' Barton swung the Land-Rover round a great ironstone rock.

The moon had come up, an apricot ball hanging in the eastern sky like a Japanese lantern. The land, no longer so red and angry, was washed with light. Here and there away to the north, a scattering of mesa-topped mountains stood up like some mighty throw-up across the skyline; silent and still. The ghost gums were white; silent and still too.

It's beautiful,' Jeckie said slowly, lifting her heart a little out of her mixed anger and sadness. 'But terribly lonely ...'

'I'm glad you like the look of it,' Barton said affably. 'The moon's a help, isn't it! That great big kid's balloon!

All we need is a party.'

They drove on and on, the Land-Rover throwing up its cloud of dust behind. Groups of kangaroos loped through the undergrowth, and twice Barton swerved to avoid crashing into one. Attracted by the lights, it had raced towards them.

'You should have seen them when I was coming in,' he said. 'Hundreds of them. It was me or them for half the raking distance.'

'Is that why you were late?'

'Partly.'

`What was the other part?'

'Andrew had the last small mob of sheep to muster in. I gave a hand. First things first at Mallibee, Jeckie. Always.'

`You mean Andrew puts sheep before people?'

'You have to get your priorities right at Mallibee, Jeckie!' His grin was rather wicked but, as she wasn't looking, she did not see this.

Back in her corner she thought about it. Already she was beginning to feel the name 'Andrew' had the sound of a call-to-arms. Was Barton joking?

Hard to tell with these northwest types, she thought. So different.

Yet . . . odd because, back there at the airport, that man Jason — one of the three men having a sundowner —had been one nor'wester you could be sure of. He wouldn't be all those things like Shire President and Warden etcetera, if he hadn't been a reliable, likeable sort of person. And kind too! Now, would he?

She had been half asleep when her shoe fell off, but the half that wasn't asleep had known when he put the shoe back on her foot.

She'd taken a peek between half closed lids, and she had seen his smile. A good sort of smile.

It was midnight when Barton rattled the Land-Rover into the square in front of Mallibee homestead.

Jeckie was stiff and her clothes were on the crushed side as she slid out of the passenger seat and dropped to the grass verge.

Barton, hat doffed, made a mock bow as he held the door open for her. Before he had finished the flourishing, the veranda lights went up. Jeckie could see the homestead's open front door. Another powerful light broke out on a tall post at the side of the square.

She blinked her eyes as she tried to smooth down the creases of her skirt with one hand, and clutched at her carry-bag with the other.

Through the front door, on to the veranda, came a grey-haired lady. She was tall and very dignified. Handsome, too, but in an elderly way.

This must be Great-Aunt Isobel, Jeckie thought, feeling the slightest bit nervous.

'Is that you, Barton? Have you brought Juliet with you? They said over the late session that the plane landed at five o'clock.'

Jeckie made the tiniest grimace at that 'Juliet'. Nobody — but absolutely nobody — called her by her true name except her mother—and then only when she was cross. Even as a child the given name — Juliet — had called for too much teasing about 'this Romeo' or 'that Romeo'.

'She's here, safe and sound, Aunt Isobel,' Barton called as he heaved Jeckie's travel-bag from the back of the Land-Rover. 'She says she's eaten, and we didn't stop for snacks on the way. Hope you have the kettle on the bubble.'

Jeckie walked slowly into the light from the veranda. She looked rather small, a little forlorn, yet somehow stubbornly keeping up an air of confidence.

Aunt Isobel looked down from the veranda's top step, and Jeckie looked up. There was a momentary silence fraught with conjecture on both sides. 'Well, come along, child,' Aunt Isobel said at length, in a clear, authoritative voice. 'You must be tired. Don't stand there dallying. It's time you had a cup of tea. Then off to bed with you.'

Jeckie did not feel a child. She was nineteen years of age, and had a mind of her own, she hoped. So she was unduly wary.

She went up the three steps and took Aunt Isobel's outstretched hand. The older lady looked down into a pair of young, defensive, but very bright blue eyes.

She unbent, and patted Jeckie's hand. Then she gathered

up her managerial graces into dignified height again, and said, 'Well! So you're Alice Bennett's child. She was the daughter of the first Andrew Ashenden's fourth child, Francis. Of course, you know that already, don't you, my dear?'

Jeckie smiled just the littlest bit. This was because of the emphasis on the fourth child — someone way down the line from the Andrews and Bartons who went on succeeding in the first and second places down the generations.

'Yes, I did know that,' Jeckie said gently. 'Thank you for having me to stay with you, Aunt Isobel.'

'Great-Aunt Isobel, really. But we can leave the "Great" part out, can't we? Such a mouthful! Now come along inside. I've set some supper in the dining-room. The drawing-room is too pretentious for a midnight arrival.'

Drawing-room! Jeckie thought. Oh dear!

She wondered if everything about her stay at Mallibee Downs was to be old-fashioned.

As she followed Aunt Isobel across the entrance hall, then along a passage, she began to be thankful for Barton. Andrew, she felt in advance, was likely to be someone like the original Ashenden. Autocratic, and probably even more stiffly correct and out-of-this-modern-world than Aunt Isobel.

The dining-room was a big sombre, but beautiful room. It was so richly panelled in dark polished timber. In the centre was a long dining table, old and beautiful. So was the massive sideboard old and beautiful, and the eight hand-carved chairs set around the table. It was all so cared-for.

A snowy embroidered cloth was set out with tea things at the far end of the table.

'Now, my dear!' Aunt Isobel said in her clear, indulgent voice. 'If you go through that door there you'll find a small wash-room. I'm sure you'll want a quick brush-up before we have supper. We generally use it for visitors who come in unexpectedly. Sometimes uninvited too, I'm afraid. I'll make the tea. Barton will probably put the Land-Rover away then use the veranda bathroom for his wash-up.'

Jeckie, quite awed by now, did as she was told and made her way round the long table in through a panelled

door to the wash-room. She had indeed come into another world. It was the old old world of the first pioneers. Gracious, solid, and very Victorian.

Later, when she came back into the dining-room, Aunt Isobel had already seated herself before the massive tea tray at the side of the table.

'Sit over there, my dear,' she said, indicating the place opposite herself. 'Barton will sit on my right tonight.'

Jeckie glanced surreptitiously at the empty chair at the head of the table. It had not been pulled out.

'That's Andrew's place,' Aunt Isobel said, catching Jeckie's glance. 'He always sits at the top of the table. He is the head of the family, you know. But of course I don't have to tell you that. I'm sure you know all about the Ashenden family. Even if your surname is different, my dear, you are one of us.'

Jeckie was too tired to think of the right thing to say. Besides, she was beginning to feel that Aunt Isobel was a 'character' out of time. Aunt Isobel was probably using her voice the way her own grandmother had talked in the 'olden times'. Jeckie's mother had told her that Aunt Isobel had gone to a Boarding School in Sydney, then to a Finishing School in Switzerland. From Europe she had come straight back to Mallibee Downs and here she had stayed ever since, living as her parents and grandparents before her had lived.

She does all her buying by mail order, Mrs Bennett had said with an amused smile. She hasn't the faintest idea what the rest of Australia even looks like. Of course they don't have television as far north as Mallibee. Only the radio sessions.

Jeckie had always noticed that her own mother, too, often did her personal buying by mail order, and always said 'television' when most people said `TV.' And never put the milk in cups before the tea was poured in.

Mallibee could almost, but not quite, be home-from-home — as far as 'manner' was concerned.

Jeckie suddenly felt overwhelmingly homesick.

How crazy could she be?

'Help yourself to the milk and sugar, Juliet,' Aunt Isobel was saying in a directing tone of voice. Jeckie thought

her great-aunt did not approve of young women who daydreamed, or who sat in a trance because of sheer physical and nervous fatigue.

'Thank you,' Jeckie said, and was astonished at herself sounding so meek. She accepted the fact she was just too tired to be anything else. Tomorrow she would show them a brighter Jeckie. But now, tonight, she must ask them —these Ashendens — not to call her Juliet.

'My name's Jeckie,' she said aloud as she took the small silver milk jug, and shook her head at the matching sugar bowl. 'Nobody ever calls me anything but Jeckie.'

'Oh? Why is that?' Aunt Isobel asked, her voice chilly.

Barton came in at that moment. He still wore his slightly sardonic grin. He had heard his aunt's last few words.

He pulled out his chair and raised his eyebrows at Jeckie as he sat down.

'Shall I tell her?' he asked.

'Tell me what?' Aunt Isobel demanded from glacial heights.

"'Juliet" goes with "Romeo"? Barton said meaningly as he took a cup of tea from his aunt, then the milk and sugar from Jeckie.