Amy's Touch (27 page)

Danny was safe, and he was well. Thank God! Randall read Danny’s words at breakneck pace, then again, more slowly. The letter detailed his journey from Gindaroo to Melbourne, his work on a freighter, but was more concerned with what he was doing now and how much he was enjoying it. Randall blinked, trying to imagine his brother on a boat, letting out the hawser ropes, dropping anchor, loading and unloading cargo, learning about navigation and how to read charts and currents. But then he remembered that Danny had always loved the idea of going to sea, and had been one of the few soldiers on the troop ships going to and from the Great War who had enjoyed the voyages. Still, it was a life completely alien to his experience on Drovers. And it came as a surprise that Danny liked it and had confided to Joe his intention to build a business and a life in the South Pacific.

Randall let a smile soften his stern expression. His little brother was standing on his own two feet and making his way in the world, without anyone’s help. Very commendable. And if, at some time in the future, he chose to return home, there would always be a place for him at Drovers. Having read his sentences enquiring about Amy, though—his words so careful and precise—it was obvious that Danny still cared, which made Randall doubt that he would return.

Reading Danny’s letter one more time, Randall felt a great weight, a mixture of anxiety and guilt, lift off him. His brother hadn’t become a misfit, a drifter, as Randall had feared he might. He had found something he wanted to do with his life and was doing it.

He must tell Amy, Randall thought; she’d want to know that Danny was doing well. But first…He saw Clem Yarborough wiping down the counter and called to him.

‘Clem, I’d like a couple of cases of beer for Drovers.’

Clem nodded. ‘Of course, Randall. I’ll get them from the storeroom.’

Randall paid for the cases and his and Joe’s beers then helped Clem load up the back seat of the Ford.

T
he sun beat through the fabric of Danny’s cotton shirt, negating the relief he was getting from an offshore wind as he held the wheel of the lugger to the course Abe had plotted. Last week Abe had promoted him to first mate, and he was continually instructing Danny on navigational matters and how to read the tides and to sail at night using the stars and the sextant as a guide.

It was a shock to realise that more than six months had passed since Danny had first boarded the
Geraldine
, and in that time it had become clear that Abe Hennin wasn’t a well man. A doctor in Fiji said his heart was slowing, worn down by years of hard labour hefting cargo—the Dutchman had first gone to sea when he was twelve years old. Dr Singh said he needed to start taking things easy. Danny knew Abe had ignored the doctor’s suggestion—it was difficult for a man who’d worked hard all his life to suddenly stop doing so—but recently Danny was being given more control over the day-to-day running of the lugger and supervising of the four-man crew. The corners of Danny’s mouth tugged upwards in silent amusement. He had never been in charge of anything or anyone before, and he’d responded to the task with an ability and enthusiasm that surprised even himself.

Back on Drovers, Edward, then Randall, had been in charge, but now the two able seamen, the engineer and the cook came to Danny for advice and supervision. Danny was wise enough to work out what
Abe was doing: grooming him to take over the
Geraldine
as her captain. That was why he was trying to teach Danny everything he could quickly, before retirement was forced upon him.

A few years ago the thought of being in charge of men, of a craft, would have scared the pants off Danny. He considered himself a follower, not a leader, but strangely, after having left his life and Amy behind, he’d found a maturity he hadn’t known he possessed. Did he miss Amy? His hands gripped the lugger’s wheel till the knuckles turned white. Like he would miss the air he breathed that kept him alive! And he missed the familiarity of Drovers, and Randall too—as brothers they’d been close: doing chores together, mustering, sitting on the back porch talking about the day’s events over a bottle of beer. Part of him longed to know how things were going there, whether Randall and Amy were happy and together, but that fool of a friend of his, Joe, hadn’t had the decency to reply to the letter Danny had sent him. His eyebrows lifted then dropped in acceptance of the fact that his
friend
was only curious about the things that interested him. Still, he’d continue to write to him from time to time and hope that one day Joe would remember his manners and respond.

Abe came into the wheelhouse. ‘There’s a blow building to the east. We should try to make port before nightfall. Don’t want to be at sea at night, ’cause when we were in Samoa I heard a rumour that pirates from the north are moving south. They often attack at dusk or sunrise.’

Danny schooled his mouth not to smile. Abe was a perennial worrier, ever since, many years ago, he was boarded by pirates and had his cargo stolen. He also worried about losing cargo overboard or the lugger foundering in a storm. ‘We should be fine. We’re running with the wind and she’s doing better than six knots an hour.’

‘Everything’s under control then?’

‘Aye, Captain.’

‘You’ll keep the shotgun close, just in case?’

Danny gave an affirmative nod. He always did.

Abe yawned. ‘Then I’ll take a nap in my bunk, son. Wake me when we get close to port, will you?’

‘Aye.’

Alone again, Danny let his thoughts wander to the possibility of buying the lugger when Abe retired. He’d been saving every penny he could, becoming a real-life Scrooge, but he didn’t have anywhere near enough. Nor did he have sufficient credibility with a bank to secure a
loan. What he needed was…a lot of money, fast. He frowned as he checked the compass and made an adjustment to the wheel, steering the lugger back on course.

Amy was pleased with herself. The meeting had just concluded, with those attending unconditionally accepting the constitution of the Country Women’s League of the Flinders Ranges, and they’d already planned their first money-raising project: a district-wide drive to build a football field that would also be an area for country shows, on land donated to the town upon the recent death of Byron Ellis’s mother. It would be known as the Mabel Ellis Sports Field. The goal was a considerable undertaking and Amy knew she would need to liaise with both churches and various government bodies for financial and public support. Nothing was going to happen quickly, she had been at pains to make the membership understand that, but it was a start, and that was the important thing.

There had been a few dissenters. Bill and Margaret Walpole had tried to disrupt the meeting, asking a good many irrelevant and foolish questions, and when that hadn’t met with success, Bill stood up and began to berate those present, angry that he wasn’t having the impact he wanted.

‘You should be doing what you do best, what women have always done. Stay at home, cook, care for your husbands and raise your families. Everything else should be left to the men, because we’re better equipped and qualified to do it.’

‘What a load of rubbish!’ Dot Quinton responded in her forthright way. ‘Very few of the men in the district, other than Reverend Whitton and the Catholic priest, have done anything beneficial for the community as a whole. You’re all too busy raising sheep and cattle and wheat.’

‘Now, Dot, I think you’re being a bit unfair,’ Margaret Walpole objected in her quiet voice. ‘Have you forgotten that Bill and some of the other pastoralists raised money to build the memorial to the local men who’d fallen in the Great War.’

‘Which was commendable,’ Amy put in graciously. ‘But we women realise how busy the men are, and as you can see by the number of women here,’ she had counted fifteen, which was a reasonable representation for the town and district, ‘there are many who want to do more.’

Winnie Cohen, normally reserved in company, spoke her mind. ‘If
we wait for the men of the Flinders to find the time to build a sports field or make additions to the hospital or provide better toilet facilities for the school, we’ll all be old and grey before anything happens.’

The women chorused loudly, ‘Hear, hear.’

‘Well, don’t expect any financial support from the Walpoles.’ Seeing that he hadn’t made a dent in their intentions, Bill urged his wife to rise. He rammed his hat on his head, giving Amy and those who made eye contact with him a disdainful glare, then took his wife’s elbow and stormed out of the hall.

‘Now, as I was saying…’ Amy said smoothly, dismissing Bill’s lack of community spirit with a smile, ‘any ideas you have on future projects would be most welcome. There’s a suggestion box on the table if you’d care to scribble something down.’

Winnie Cohen came up to Amy after the meeting adjourned. ‘Clem got a phone call at the pub from the editor of the Hawker newspaper. He said he’d like to put a report in the
Chronicle
on what we’re doing.’ Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. ‘Isn’t it wonderful that a big town like Hawker is interested?’

Dot Quinton was on Amy’s other side and was quick to answer. ‘It is, and not before time either. The editor could have been supportive from the beginning, but like a lot of country men, he didn’t believe we had the wherewithal to get things going.’

‘Perhaps so, but it’s important not to get people offside, Dot,’ Amy said diplomatically. ‘We need all the support we can get, and men like the
Chronicle
editor, and local as well as state politicians taking us seriously, will, I hope, be more of a help than a hindrance. Winnie, could you write up the report?’ she requested. ‘It would be good to do it from a member’s perspective rather than the president’s.’

‘I don’t know. Are you sure?’ Winnie was hesitant.

Dot butted in again. ‘Why don’t we write it together, Winnie?’

Amy smiled at Dot. ‘A wonderful idea.’ She was still quietly amazed by how much Dot Quinton had changed since her son’s brush with death. It was as if she had become a different person: interested, caring, though still dogmatic when she wanted to push a point. In fact, more good than bad had come from that dreadful flu epidemic last winter and from saving Christine Cummings and her twins’ lives. People looked at Amy differently, treated her differently. With a definite sense of relief, she realised that she was no longer the town’s pariah.

She expected to find Randall waiting outside the meeting hall and wasn’t disappointed. He usually contrived to be in town when her meetings took place.

‘Randall, what a surprise,’ she said, tongue-in-cheek, smiling up at him because she couldn’t help herself. Over the last few months she had seen very little of him. Both had seemed content to keep their own counsel, but when they were together all the feelings she had sublimated and tried to squash since Danny’s departure came back as strong as ever.

A dark eyebrow lifted at the sarcasm but he didn’t respond to it. ‘Joe got another letter from Danny. I bought it from him. I thought you might like to read it over a cup of tea at the tea shoppe.’

Amy was well aware that the letter and cup of tea were a subterfuge. He wanted to spend a little time with her. ‘Thank you. The meeting went well and I’m in the mood for a celebratory cup of tea.’

Sitting in the tea shoppe with its lace-edged tablecloths and china crockery, Amy experienced a burst of nostalgia because it reminded her of tea shoppes that, as a child, she had frequented with her mother in Adelaide. That seemed so long ago. Here she was in a far-flung country town, almost twenty-eight years old, the matron of a small hospital and now the president of the first country women’s league in the state. Her mother, who’d championed women’s rights last century, would be proud of what she’d achieved. She gave a barely audible sigh and tucked the melancholy back into her subconscious.

‘The meeting went according to plan?’

Amy nodded. ‘It did. Particularly after Bill and Margaret Walpole left. I don’t like to speak ill of people, but he is a mean-spirited man.’

‘Bill wants to be boss cocky, to feel that he’s running the show. If the formation of a women’s league had been his idea or Margaret’s, instead of yours, he’d support it to the hilt.’

‘I’m hoping that as we grow and gain respect it won’t be exclusively women, that some men in the Flinders will want to be involved.’

Randall’s head tilted to one side as he gave her words consideration. ‘It will be like that, in time. Still, it’s a fact that generally country men are notorious for not liking change.’ He paused while the young waitress brought their pot of tea, a dainty jug of milk and a small silver tray containing several iced cupcakes. Randall let Amy pour the tea
then reached for the sugar bowl. Lifting the lid he put two generous teaspoons of sugar into his cup.

‘You said you had another letter from Danny,’ Amy prompted as she sipped her tea.

‘The letter came to Joe. He sold it to me.’

‘That wouldn’t impress Danny.’ Amy’s tone was critical of such crass behaviour. ‘If Danny wanted you or me to know where he was and what he was doing, surely he would have written directly to one of us?’

‘Perhaps, but maybe he’s not comfortable with doing that.’ Randall took the creased letter out of his trouser pocket and handed it to Amy to read. As she gave the letter her full attention he watched her expression change from being pensive, to interested, and finally to delight.

She folded the letter up and put it back in its envelope. ‘I’m pleased. Danny appears to be thriving.’

Randall didn’t doubt the sincerity in her tone. That Danny was happy with his lot and making a go of things at sea had eased his conscience considerably—in fact, enough to press for the answer to a question he had been longing to ask the woman he loved for more than a year.

He reached across and took hold of Amy’s right hand, covering it with his own. ‘Amy…’ Usually articulate, he suddenly found it hard to say what was in his heart and mind. ‘We…we’ve done the right thing; we’ve waited. I can’t see a reason for us to wait any longer.’ He inhaled a calming breath. ‘Amy Carmichael, will you marry me?’