Daring Masquerade (26 page)

"Don't expect much support from the townsfolk. Some of the other station owners would be sympathetic, but many of them have lost their sons, they're old men and haven't any fight left in them now."

"Print whatever you think is necessary to try and stop Bromley."

"Well, he is a millionaire. He wouldn't need the money. Maybe if we put a few obstacles in his path he might go elsewhere."

"I wouldn't bet on it," she said grimly. "What we need is support from the locals. If he has difficulty getting workers and supplies it might at least slow him down."

"He's probably got a couple of corrupt officials on the payroll, but if we keep the pressure up." He rubbed his chin. "Maybe that's the angle we should use. Corruption in high places always raises the public's ire."

Next, she called into the general store that also operated as an agency for the post office, to collect their mail.

Please let there be a letter from Ross. She desperately wanted to hear from him again.

Nothing, except a letter for Jack and a couple of bills. She swallowed a cry of disappointment. Feeling depressed, she started out of the store and bumped into someone. Male hands clamped around either arm, and even before she glanced up, by the way her flesh crawled, she knew they belonged to Clyde Bromley.

"If it isn't Mrs. Calvert."

"Mr. Bromley."

She shook his hands off and stepped back a pace, then attacked straight away. "I've reported your actions to the police. Those prisoners you're using bashed Jack."

A few interested spectators edged nearer.

"Really?"

"Yes. You're using prison labor from Beechworth to do your dirty work."

"I'd watch what you say." He gave her a threatening glare, his beady eyes embedded in a thick layer of fat.

"Deny you got those prisoners to burn Ross' land?"

"I'm warning you."

"What are you going to do?" She stood with her hands on her hips, staring him down. "Will you get them to bash me up like they did Jack," she yelled, throwing caution to the wind.

"I'd watch your mouth unless you want it shut permanently." Evil menace loaded his voice.

"Are you threatening me?"

The spectators edged away, making it quite clear they did not intend getting involved.

"Call it a friendly warning." He actually smiled, but not one she'd call friendly. "Come on, my dear. I know you're missing your husband." He lowered his voice still further. "If you're lonely in bed, I'd be happy to pleasure you."

She glared at him. "Let a fat pig like you maul me! I'd jump into a boiling cauldron first."

Spinning on her heel, she ignored Clyde's outrage and the shocked mutterings from the spectators and pushed past them. Almost at the door, she heard him growl.

"Calvert was a fool marrying that slut, even if he did get her in the family way."

She held her head high and kept on walking. If she turned around she would physically attack Bromley and rip his ugly, pudgy face to pieces with her fingernails. Once again, she had lost her temper, let her tongue race out of control.

What an idiot. She had played right into his hands.

Only one person could have relayed that information to him; Virginia. Ross must have told her.

Her heart weighed a ton in her breast, her head ached and she wanted to be violently ill. Gritting her teeth and swallowing down on her nausea, she mounted and galloped out of town. After about ten minutes, she slid off the horse, and on her hands and knees, vomited her heart out in the bushes beside the track. Feeling weak and sick, she somehow managed to remount and ride slowly towards Devil's Ridge.

At home, she all but staggered into the kitchen and slumped at the table.

"My head aches," she whimpered to Mrs. Bates. I can't keep my eyes open."

"You poor dear." Mrs. Bates produced a damp cloth sprinkled with lavender oil and laid it across her forehead. "I'll make you a nice cup of tea, then you lie down. I told Jack he shouldn't have let you go into town on your own."

She drank the tea gratefully and let the old lady lead her upstairs and help her undress. Feeling a hundred years old, she crawled between the sheets and closed her eyes.

Bromley had called her a slut in front of a dozen or more people. If that wasn't bad enough, he insinuated she tricked Ross into marriage by getting pregnant. It made everything sound so sordid. Worst of all, Ross must have told Virginia. The pain of that betrayal almost killed her. Had he perhaps complained to Virginia about it? Lamenting the fact common decency had forced him to offer marriage? It had to be him who told Virginia, no one else would have known. Tears soaked the pillow.

Oh, Ross, how could you?

She sat up, sending her head into a spin. Andrew would have known. She flopped back on the pillows. He probably told Sarah who would have gleefully relayed it to her dear friend Virginia. The ton weight crushing her chest and constricting her breathing lifted. Ross hadn't betrayed her at all. She closed her eyes and slept.

* * *

Within a fortnight of her visit to town and the publication of the paper, Harry began receiving unsigned hate mail.

"God Almighty." Jack let out a hissing breath. "Cowardly bastards. You were foolish talking to the press, girlie. They shouldn't have embellished the story like they did, but no decent person would write such filth. We should take them to the police."

"What good will it do?" Her shoulders slumped. "I wanted people to see what was happening here. I didn't want them spoiling this place."

"I know, I know." He patted her hand. "We have to be clever from now on. They'll be out to get us. We're the only ones with the guts to stand up to them. I'm going to ride into town, take these letters to the authorities. Bloody Jasper from the paper should have more sense."

Clearly Jack's ribs hadn't been broken, otherwise he would not have made such a speedy recovery. His eye remained half-shut, though, and the bruising and lacerations had not faded completely.

Depressed and sad after he left, she wandered down to Eric's plantation and buried her feet in the pine needles. Scooping them up in a pile until her legs were covered to the level of her knees, she leaned back against a tree, with her arms folded across her chest.

On the breeze, the noise of axes on wood drifted over to her. Already the cutting had begun. A snapping sound rent the air, the ground shuddered as a giant tree crashed down to earth, followed shortly afterwards by another and another. Her hands clasped over her ears failed to block out the noise. Flocks of frightened birds soared skywards as their homes disappeared. The destruction of the forest had begun in earnest.

I can't give up. I have to do something, but what?

She must use her head this time; remain cool and calm, without losing her temper. Wait until Jack came back from town and perhaps together they could come up with some plan of action.

Slowly, she climbed to her feet and traipsed towards the homestead. She waved to Mr. Wu who worked in his vegetable garden. Hughie had gone to check some of the fences so there was no one to talk to except Mrs. Bates.

Housework had never appealed to her, but she did not like untidiness either, so between the two of them they kept everything in order. The old lady did her best, but the majority of work fell on her. Maybe they should get another woman in to help. Someone prepared to come two or three times a week would be perfect, but almost impossible to find, especially now.

Domestics were hard to get even in the city according to the papers. Too many young girls wanted to earn big money working in the munitions factories or the woolen mills. I'll write to Elsie and ask her to come up. She could help with the baby later. Mrs. Bates, poor dear, was much too old. It would be nice to have someone young in the house, such a lonely house without Ross.

She couldn't even meet other women at the Red Cross meetings held in town to help the war effort. After Clyde Bromley's outburst, and all the trouble, they wouldn't welcome her to their meetings. She was virtually a social pariah.

Jack came back in the afternoon, hot, bothered and angry.

"They didn't bloody care." He tossed his hat at the hallstand and it missed. "I showed those letters to the police who said they couldn't do anything. Jasper from the paper has also received poison pen letters. Seems the townsfolk want the mill expanded. Want the money Bromley is spending."

He paced up and down. "He's got twenty men working fifty hours a week at the mill now. Even built a log chute. He's got several horse teams working at the one time. They drag the logs to a chute up on the ridge somewhere, they're stripped of bark before being sent down the chute to be milled. It's criminal."

"I sat in Eric's plantation and I could hear them chopping the trees down. The earth trembled when they fell to the ground. We've lost the fight, haven't we?"

"I'm beginning to think so. My God, young Harry, you stirred up a hornet's nest in town. Some people are baying for your blood."

"I know," she said bitterly. "Thanks to Bromley, they think I'm an immoral slut who trapped Ross into marriage."

"You're the best thing that ever happened to him. You sent him off to war a happy man. Don't let those old strumpets in town spoil things for you. When he gets back everything will be fine. He'll soon sort them out."

"What if he doesn't come back?" she whispered. "I don't think I'll be able to survive without him."

"He'll come back. You have to believe that."

"I'm trying, but it's hard when I haven't heard from him."

"It takes at least nine or ten weeks to get to England, more sometimes."

"I know, Jack, I should try to be cheerful but it's hard."

"Let's go to the kitchen and you can make me a cup of tea. I'm choking for a drink."

She stood and walked towards the black marble fireplace. Over the mantel hung two pictures, one a smiling young soldier with a reckless glow in his eyes, a head and shoulders portrait of Eric. In the other, Ross standing, his shiny leggings clearly visible and his officer's uniform immaculately tailored. He wore no hat, his hair was combed back but a wayward curl managed to flop across his forehead. He wasn't smiling, and his eyes looked somber. He wasn't a reckless adventurer like Eric, but had enlisted because he felt duty bound to fight for the Empire.

Over their tea, Jack raged about the mill again.

"They've got two ten-horsepower engines working twin saws capable of cutting forty to fifty thousand feet of timber a week. It's a big operation. Heard he picked up the mill for a song. That bastard is going to get even richer, and destroy the forest while he's at it."

"It's terrible."

"It's the messmate and blue gum he's really after. That crown land is covered with them. They can never be replaced," he went on bitterly. "The district's heritage is being chopped down to give more money to a millionaire. It's disgraceful."

"We've got to do something to stop him."

"Hope the bloody snow comes early." Jack banged his hand on the table, making the cutlery dance. It should stop him, or at least put a spoke in his wheel for a few weeks."

"It might be too late by then."

"I know, my dear. We could write letters to the politicians, I suppose, and try and garner support from them."

"They won't help us, they don't care. We'll have to do something ourselves."

"We have to think about this. Plan a strategy. I know you're young and impetuous, but promise me you won't do anything rash."

"All right, you write the letters, but if they don't work we'll have to try something else."

Chapter Thirteen

As the weeks passed, every door she tried to open slammed shut in her face. No one, it seemed, cared about the destruction Clyde Bromley wreaked in the bush. Day after day she endured the noise of the majestic giants of the forest crashing to the ground. A smoky haze hung over the mountains as piles of sawdust and wood chips smoldered day and night.

"I'm not putting up with this any longer." Harry stormed into the homestead. "Look at these sheets. They've got soot all over them."

"I know, dear, we'll just have to wash them again."

How could Mrs. Bates be so calm when she herself was so overwrought? She hadn't been sleeping well, worrying herself sick over Ross because there was still no word from him. Had something happened to him? The government would have notified her surely? Any news she received came from the newspapers. The Australians had landed in France.

She would go to the mill. Speak directly to the men working there and make them understand that Bromley had lied to them. Maybe they would walk off the job and go on strike. A long shot, but the only idea she could come up with.

Jack continually repaired vandalized fences. A dozen of their steers had wandered off or been stolen. Some, if not all, ended up on the timber workers' dinner plates. No-one would convince her otherwise.

The mid-morning autumn sun shone, weak and feeble with little warmth in it as she rode out of the yard. The English trees in the garden wore a cloak of yellow and red. Once blackened paddocks were now shot with green grass, but the magnificent old trees were lost forever.

The massive wheels of the timber wagons had gouged deep ruts into the road and she guided her horse around them. If the animal stepped in any of the holes it could snap a bone in its leg. Once the heavy winter rain came it would be a quagmire.

Fifteen minutes riding brought her to the mill. It stretched out like a small town with a blacksmith's shop, corn and chaff sheds, stables, even a few single roomed huts scattered around. She rode towards a group of several men who were congregated outside one of the larger buildings.

"I'm Ross Calvert's wife from Devil's Ridge," Harry announced with more boldness than she felt. "I've come to ask you not to take any more trees from the Crown land. You're wrecking the forests. It's virgin land and should be held in trust for future generations."

"Listen, lady, I've got a wife and four kids to support, I need this job."

"Can't you see, Bromley is using you? As soon as he's got all the timber he wants he'll up and leave. Your jobs will go; the countryside will be destroyed forever. My husband's away fighting, he's going to come back home and find everything ruined. You could stop this destruction."