Island of escape (10 page)

Ellis felt a pang of sympathy for Leanne even though she sounded rather waspish. She poured her milk and ran water into the saucepan, quietly so they wouldn't hear her and be embarrassed. She heard Leanne saying, 'No one expects you to be an unpaid shearers' cook. It's all very well telling me he'll get someone next time he goes to Tassie, but that won't be till after the shearing. Now will it?'

`I suppose not,' Charlie
said, sounding uncomfortable. B
ut you don't have to do your block Ellis will help you—if you want to know, she said so herself when I went out to meet the plane.'

Ellis, on the point of taking her glass of milk upstairs, paused, and because her name had been mentioned, she actually strained her ears to hear what was said next. After all, she reasoned with herself, Leanne had burst in on her—

She heard Leanne laugh. 'How long do you imagine that'll last? She's more interested in Steve's lovemaking than in me or the shearers. She promised to get the dinner tonight, but she didn't. She was much too busy with your brother in her bedroom.'

Ellis's ears burned. Now Leanne was about to tell Charlie what she had seen, but he interjected sharply, `All right, so I don't want to hear about it. I guess she's in love with him, and that's okay as far as I'm concerned.'

`Well, she's a nitwit if she thinks he's in love with her,' Leanne said. 'He only loves himself, as Jan Webster discovered. And I meant what I said, Charlie—I won't stay here. If you don't just tell Steve we're going to Koolong, I'll—I'll leave you.'

`Let's not go over all that, Leanne,' Charlie said wearily. 'You're unreasonable—you don't know what you're talking about, and I'm going up to bed.'

Ellis gave a guilty start. Heavens ! Would he come to the kitchen to put the lights out? She didn't know what to do. She was going to suffer the indignity of being caught out, if she wasn't careful, and she glanced around her wildly, then quickly crossed the room and disappeared inside the pantry. After a minute, the light was switched off and there were sounds indicating that Leanne and Charlie were going upstairs. Ellis drank her milk in the darkness, groped her way to the sink and put her glass on the draining board. For some minutes she stood looking out at the garden where the tall blue and white lilies gleamed in the starlight. The thumping of her heart had settled down when at last she judged it safe to go up to her bedroom, though it wasn't until she was back in bed that she began to think about what she had heard.

First and foremost about herself, of course. Obviously, they both thought she was in love with Steve—was out to win him. The fact that Leanne was so sceptical about his feelings made it all the worse that she had seen Ellis, half undressed, in his arms.

But uneasy thoughts like these weren't going to

help her get to sleep, and she turned her thoughts to the place Leanne had mentioned—Koolong—and she wondered where it was, and whether Leanne had really meant it when she said she'd leave Charlie if he didn't take her there. They surely couldn't go away and leave her here alone with Steve ! But if they did, of course she didn't have to stay. She wasn't a prisoner—she could leave any time she liked. She could telephone to
White mark
for a taxi—take the plane to Melbourne or Launceston the moment she wanted to.

And, in fact, she had half a mind to do just that tomorrow, and put an end to this whole crazy situation.

But she didn't leave the following day. She didn't even think about it. The world at breakfast time, with the sky so blue and clear and the sun already so warm, was somehow reassuringly normal. No one would guess from their manner that Charlie and Leanne had been quarrelling last night—and neither would anyone guess, she reflected wryly, from the casual, abstracted way Steve treated her, that she had been—wrestling with him in her bedroom the previous evening.

But of course, Leanne didn't have to guess. Leanne knew.

`You girls can do what you like today,' Steve said as he got up from the breakfast table after he and Charlie had demolished a large meal of chops and eggs. 'Why don't you take Ellis over to the beach, Leanne—take a picnic with you. You can forget about us—have fun.'

Leanne grimaced. 'Have fun—in that awful old bomb of a car that's all the Gascoyne family seems able to spare for me ! It'll break down one of these days and I'll be stranded out there in the scrub with the snakes and the wallabies. We might as well stay home as usual and twiddle our thumbs.'

`Oh, Lee !' Charlie exclaimed, frowning. 'Don't be

so hard to get on with ! You might as well go to the beach—you've got a beaut new swimsuit

`And there'll be no one to see it but the seagulls,' Leanne turned away and Ellis saw her mouth trembling. If Steve saw it too, he was quite unmoved, for without another word he disappeared. Charlie hesitated, then came around the table to kiss his wife, but she pushed him away. `Go on—don't keep your big brother waiting.'

Abruptly, Charlie let her go and left the room. Ellis felt an uncomfortable witness. If she hadn't overheard that private conversation the previous night, she'd have been completely at a loss.

`What's up, Leanne?' she asked, beginning to pack up the breakfast dishes. 'Aren't you feeling well today?'

Leanne's eyes were smouldering. 'I'm just fed up with Steve pushing me around, that's all. Maybe you're the kind of girl who likes a man to order her about, but I'm not—particularly if he's not even my husband.'

`Oh, Steve wasn't really ordering you about, was he?' Ellis said reasonably—though she wondered why she should be championing Steve even remotely. 'He said we could do as we liked, didn't he?'

Leanne widened her eyes. 'And who is he to say I can do as I like? I'm married—I'm twenty-one—surely I can do as I like without having to get his permission. But you might as well know, Ellis, anyone who lives on this island with Steve Gascoyne hasn't a single solitary hope of doing what they like. They have to do what he likes. I don't even want to live here, but because Steve says so, here we are and here we stay. And now, as if that wasn't bad enough, I'm expected to do all the things Aunt Constance used to do. Well, I can't and I won't—and that's something he's going to find out very shortly.'

Ellis didn't know what to say. It was impossible to insist that Steve had brought her here to do the things Aunt Constance used to do. Leanne simply wouldn't believe her, not now she had seen Steve grappling with her in her bedroom. Finally she said mildly, 'I know I didn't do as I said and—and get the dinner last night, Leanne, but I am used to managing a household, and —and you can really leave things to me.'

I
have a good mind to do exactly that,' snapped Leanne. 'I'll show Steve Gascoyne ! It was all very well for an old person like Aunt Constance—she was on all the committees that exist, she was even on the council for a while, but that's not my thing—I'm young, I'm not sixty or seventy or however old she was.'

Ellis took up a pile of disks. 'Where would you like to live, Leanne?' she asked.

`At Koolong, of course.' Leanne actually looked surprised at the question, and she too took up some cups and saucers and followed Ellis out to the kitchen. `There, I wouldn't be expected to traipse around in an apron with a duster in one hand and a pile of dirty dishes in the other and—and a load of washing on my head. There's someone to do all those things at Koolong. The women can really please themselves what they do.'

Ellis listened thoughtfully and then said hesitantly, `I'm afraid I don't know where Koolong is. Should I?'

Leanne blinked. 'What? You mean you really don't know about Koolong? You've never heard of it?'

`No,' said Ellis mystified. 'You'll have to enlighten me.'

`Well, Koolong and the Gascoynes go together,' Leanne explained, raising her finely pencilled eyebrows. `Koolong is the Gascoynes. And you've never heard of it!'

`No, I haven't, Ellis repeated, a little irritated. She added, 'I've never mixed with country people.'

`Then you're starting at the top,' Leanne told her. `Koolong's in the Goulburn Valley in Victoria, and it's a sheep stud as well as producing the best Merino wool. Everyone who knows anything about sheep has heard of Koolong. There's the most beautiful old homestead on the property with absolutely everything modern inside.' She perched on the edge of the table and picked at the polish on her nails while Ellis got on with the work. 'There's a swimming pool and a tennis court and a ballroom—and a billiard table. And plenty of staff to do the work. They have parties there all the time, and you can go for a holiday in Melbourne or Hongkong or wherever you want. Anytime,' she added. `It's fabulous. They were having a second house built when I was there with Charlie on our honeymoon —for Diana and Christopher. Diana's Charlie's sister,' she explained, seeing the question on Ellis's face. 'She and Chris were married not long before we were.'

`And—Warrianda ' Ellis began, and paused.

`Oh, the old grandfather bought this place when Charlie's father took over at Koolong. He left it to Steve because he was the eldest or his favourite or something, I suppose,'. Leanne said uninterestedly, pushing back her heavy red hair 'Steve has a full share in Koolong as well, but he won't live there. He doesn't like it. He's a misanthrope, my mother says.' She suddenly widened her eyes and put a hand over her mouth. `Oh, I shouldn't have said that, should I?'

`It's all right,' said Ellis, flushing and knowing what Leanne thought about her relationship with Steve.

`Anyhow,' Leanne resumed, 'what I mean is that Charlie and I should be living there, not here. Charlie doesn't get his full share of the income from. Koolong

till he turns twenty-five—that's in two years' time—but there's no reason why we should be roughing it with his big brother for—for peanuts in the meantime. It's unfair. Steve should pay someone else if he needs help, but Charlie won't see it. He can't grow out of the idea that he's the youngest in the family and must do as he's told. Steve doesn't like me,' she concluded, 'and this idea of doing without a housekeeper is the last straw.'

Ellis stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and remarked without turning round, 'I suppose you wouldn't believe it if I said I was the housekeeper, Leanne.'

She heard the other girl give a brief laugh. 'I'm afraid I wouldn't. It's obvious you're Steve's new girlfriend.'

Ellis said nothing To contradict would be to lay herself open to giving all kinds of lengthy explanations, and she sighed inwardly and was trying to think of some way of changing the conversation when Leanne added, `I suppose I shouldn't have told you about Koolong since Steve hasn't.'

`What difference does it make?! Ellis looked at her in surprise.

`Well, Steve will never live there.'

`So what?' Ellis wanted to say, instead she asked mildly, 'Why not?'

Leanne shrugged. 'I haven't a clue. Charlie's never said. He used 'to live there—he and Colin, that's the second eldest, helped their father run the property. I don't know why Steve got out, but I do know he's got this kinky idea that Warrianda's the only place in the world. That and a little island he owns where he runs cattle.'

`Disillusion Island,' Ellis said slowly. 'Yes, he pointed it out to me when we flew over.'

Leanne shuddered. 'What a name! I've never been there and I never want to go, though it can't be much worse than here. I never dreamed I'd be incarcerated here when I married Charl
ie.
Pretty soon he's going to decide who he really wants to please—me or his brother.'

Ellis made no comment. It didn't seem very fair that Charlie should work on his brother's property for a mere pittance—for peanuts, as Leanne had said. Yet while she could well imagine Steve forcing his will on other people, Charlie didn't strike her as being exactly a weak character. Perhaps he was not as keen as his wife to live at Koolong, and she tried to remember what he had said last night. It was certainly Leanne who had been insisting he should tell Steve they were going to Koolong.

As if to settle the point, Leanne said moodily, 'We spent two glorious weeks of our honeymoon on Koolong. I honestly thought we were there to stay. Charlie and I are both gregarious—we love lots of people and parties. Then Steve flew up and spo
ilt it all. Next thing, we were
dumped here and we've been here ever since.'

Ellis decided not to sympathise but to remain neutral. Their problems weren't hers, and anyhow, the housekeeper shouldn't get involved in personalities. After a moment she asked Leanne if she thought they should make a start on clearing up Miss Gascoyne's room.

`Steve said something about it yesterday, I think,' she concluded.

Leanne shuddered. 'It's not a task I fancy tackling. Dead people's things—I think someone belonging to the family should do it—such as Diana,' she added.

Ellis remembered when her own aunt had died. Jan hadn't done a thing about sorting out her effects, and

young though she was, she had done it alone. Now she said, 'I'll talk to Steve about it. If he wants it left to his sister then we'll leave it, but if not, I can manage.'

Leanne gave her an odd look but didn't offer to help. It seemed to Ellis that she was stubbornly determined to do as little as she could.

Presently they both went upstairs to tidy their bedrooms. Leanne hadn't said a word about going to the beach, so Ellis said nothing about it either, and when she had finished her room she cleaned the bathroom, then after a slight hesitation decided to tidy Steve's room.