The Tartan Touch (9 page)

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said softly.

I shook my head at him. I had never seen men move quicker than these young men, running from end to end of the shed with the heavy fleeces.

“I was in your way,” I said.

His face crinkled into a near smile, typical of the Outback Australian.

“Any time, lady,” he said. “A beauty like yourself is always welcome
.
My word, yes!”

His words flattered me, but I enjoyed his interest all the same
.
He was no more than a boy, and not to be taken seriously, but he did a man’s work and he did it well.

“Are you hurt?” Andrew asked me.

“No,” I answered him. But he put his arm round my waist all the same, to prevent any further accidents, he said, unaware of the sly, amused glances of the men all round him.

I freed myself the moment we left the shed, knowing that my embarrassment showed in my face, no matter how hard I tried to look composed
.

“I shall have to watch you,” Andrew said with a half-smile, “It’s as well you’re firmly shackled to me, or we’d have half the Outback coming to call!”

I gulped, unable to fill my lungs with air, shocked by the sheer injustice of his remark. I faced him angrily. “I’ll have you know, Andrew Fraser—”

“That you’re not as puritan as you pretend?” he interrupted me. “You don’t turn a hair when the men come home drunk. Nor do you mind when they swear a blue streak outside the kitchen door!”

I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. “They mean no harm!” I protested.

“And how do you know that?” he retorted.

How did I know? I couldn’t begin to explain! How could I tell him about the occasional
Ceilidh
I had known back home, when the whole district would join together for a gossip and a good sing-song? There a man could drink his fill and no one would think any the worse of him. Why should they? It was a man’s way. “They work very hard all day,” I said mutinously.

“And what has that got to do with it?”

“It makes them wild,” I explained. “It’s right that they should be or they’d break under the strain.”

Andrew put up a hand and brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across my face, “And is that why they all make eyes at you?” he asked me.

“Andrew Fraser!” I exclaimed, shocked.

“All right,” he said. “But just remember that I have eyes too, and that you are Mrs. Andrew Fraser of Mirrabooka!” He sounded more mocking than angry, despite his words.

“I’m not likely to forget it!” I answered, crushed
.

He gave me one of his rare smiles. “See that you don’t!”

I was glad to get back to the kitchen after that. I took out my rage on the kitchen range and beating all sense out of the bread-dough I had left to rise in the warmth from the fire. Didn’t he know that his name was safe enough with me? That I’d return it to him untarnished when the four years came to an end
?
And how glad I’d be to be once again plain Miss Kirsty MacTaggart, with no one to please but myself! Why then I’d be truly happy, without any interfering male to tell me what to do!

“Is the Boss Cocky about?”

I looked over my shoulder to see who was speaking. The eggs sizzled angrily in the pan in front of me. Another two days, Mary had said, and the shearers would be gone for another year.

“Who is it wanting him?” I countered.

“I think he’d better come himself,” the man said without haste. “Can you tell him he’s wanted?”

“I will,” I agreed reluctantly. I shoved the pan of nearly done eggs on to the cool part of
the
range and wiped my hands on my apron.

“He’d better hurry,” the man added, “or he’ll have a murder on his hands.”

His words sent me scurrying into the house to find Andrew. He was in the office, his chair tilted back and with his feet on the desk,

“I think there’s a fight!” I announced from the doorway.

He swung his legs on to the floor and stood up in a single movement. “Stay there!” he commanded me in a voice that brooked no argument. And then he
had gone
, loping down
the
corridor and out into the yard at the back.

I didn’t dare move until he came back. In an agony of indecision I worked on the problem of whether he had intended me to stay in the office, or whether I could safely dart back into the kitchen and rescue the now hard eggs. I sat down on the chair he had vacated and glanced down at the papers on his desk. They were all to do with wool and mining, his business concerns, and of little interest to me. But then I saw another paper, half hidden by the others, and I drew it out guiltily, knowing that I had no right to pry.

It was a letter from Margaret Fraser
,
written on heavy writing paper in bright green ink.

“Andy dar
l
ing,” it began. I held the sheet of paper so tightly that I saw my nails had made little marks in the paper and I hastily dropped it back on to the desk.

“Andy darling,

From all that Mary says, your marriage sounds a strange affair indeed! I rather think that I shall come to Mirrabooka and have a look for myself. Expect me when you see me, for I don’t want the bride to be forewarned of my arrival. I think she must have enough trouble on her hands!”

There was more on the other side of the page, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn the letter over. Instead, I bunched the papers back into a pile, wishing that I had not given way to the temptation of reading even that far.

Then Andrew came back into the room, his fists raw and the
corner
of his mouth bleeding a little.

“Oh, Andrew!” I exclaimed. It seemed to me that his hurt was quick retribution for my shabby behaviour. “Oh, Andrew, are you hurt?”

“I reckon not!” he laughed at me. “It wasn’t a serious fracas. To tell the truth, I quite enjoyed it!”

“Oh, Andrew!” I said again.

He glanced down at the desk in front of me and picked out Margaret Fraser’s letter with a flick of his fingers.

“I meant to tell you,” he said. “Margaret’s coming any time now—”

“I know,” I confessed, bitterly ashamed. I swallowed hard. “I read it!”

His grey eyes met mine. “Then you’ll know how to behave while she’s here!” he said dryly.

I didn’t answer. I fled down the corridor, back to the kitchen and the ruined eggs.

CHAPTER SIX

Mrs. Fraser f
lew up to Cue from Perth the day before the shearers left Mirrabooka. Andrew and Mary went to Cue to meet her. Mary had been strangely silent all day and I worried about her.

"It will be good for you to have your mother with you!” I told her cheerfully as she waited for Andrew to come out to the car.

“No, it won’t
!”
she said sharply.

I chose to ignore that. “She loves you very dearly—” I began
.

Mary looked as though she was going to cry. “She makes trouble between me and Andy every time she comes!” she interrupted me, a queer kind of desperation in her voice.

“Well, she won’t this time,” I said matter-of-factly.

She tried to laugh. “Will you stop her, Kirsty?”

“I won’t have to. When one understands another person really well, no one can make trouble between them
!”

“I wish I could believe you!” she sighed.

I waved them goodbye, standing, lonely, on the front porch. Someone had had to stay behind to see to the men’s lunch and it was natural that that someone should have been me, but I would have loved to have had a glimpse of the nearest town to Mirrabooka, now that Big Bell lay abandoned and empty, the great gold mine closed for ever.

The foreman was calling ‘Smoke-o’ as I went past the sheds. It meant that it was time for a break and time for me to provide them with the gallons of tea that
they poured down their throats, parched from the greasy stench of sheep and wool and the breathless heat outside.

“Reckon you’ll miss us next week, Miss Kirsty?” one of the men asked me. I recognised him as the man who had sent me for Andrew to break up the fight earlier in the week.

“Whisht!” I bade him with a frown. “Will I miss all the work you make?”

“Well, will you, Kirsty darling?” another asked, bolder than the rest.

I sighed. “Ay, I’ll miss you,” I admitted.

“Good on you, Mrs. Fraser!” the foreman smiled at me. “We’ll all be back next year to sample some more of your Scotch cooking. You’ve fed us like fighting cocks!”

I
sucked in my cheeks and looked at him. “And fighting cocks you’re like to remain!” I observed demurely.

They shouted with laughter. “You speak to your Andrew,” they advised me. “It takes a man to put him down on the floor. My word, but he knows how to handle himself in a barney!”

“I doubt but he’s had some practice!” I retorted
.

“It’s always the same when money changes hands over a silly sheep,” the foreman agreed, with
the
hint of a smile.

“Betting!” I exclaimed. I might have known that that was at the bottom of it. “It’s sinful wickedness to have nothing better to do with your wages!”

“
But it’s so easy, Kirsty,” one of the roustabouts cajoled me. “It’s mathematical too!” He took two silver pieces out of his pocket and showed them to me. “Now what are the odds of them both falling face down if I were to throw them up in the air?” he asked me.

I frowned at the coins, not having the slightest idea. “I wouldn’t want to say!” I objected.

“Have a guess,” he prompted me.

“Three to one,” I hazarded.

He looked at me with warm approval. A whole ring of men had gathered around us, their faces eager. “Come in, spinner!” one of them called out, and laughed. The two coins rose high in the sky, sparkling as the rays of
the
sun caught them. They fell heavily on to the ground and there was a mad rush forward to see whether they were heads or tails, and if both of them were the same
.

“You see how it is,” the roustabout said with a grin
.
“If you’d bet on them, you could have done yourself a good turn!”

“Don’t listen to him!” the foreman told me.
“The game’s illegal. One day the police will catch him and they’ll make
him
turn out his pockets
!”

“Never!” the boy boasted,
“I’
d like to see the police in the Murchison even try!”

“They broke up a game once,” the foreman reminisced. He broke off, embarrassed. “Ladies present,” he
said
regretfully. “Tell you some other time.” He glanced down at his watch. “Back to work, boys
.
” He gathered up the tin mugs and threw them into t
h
e cauldron that a few minutes before had been full of tea. “Thanks a lot, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. “See yer
!
”

I nodded gravely, warmed by their friendliness. I was singing when I went back into the kitchen and started the inevitable and never-ending washing-up.

Lunch was put back so as to give Margaret Fraser time to put her things in her room before coming to the table. She had stepped out of the front of Andrew’s old ute as though it had been a Rolls-Royce. I envied her her cool, soft dress and immaculate pink enamel on her nails.

“Hullo, my dear,” she said mildly when she saw me.

“Mrs. Fraser,” I answered. “You’re very welcome at Mirrabooka
.
”

“Is that so?” she drawled.

I kept my temper firmly under control. “We’ve been looking forward to your coming,” I said, daring her, or anyone else, to doubt my word.

“How sweet!” she murmured.

Mary threw me a helpless look and followed her mother into the house. I followed more slowly, carrying one of Margaret’s suitcases, for she had brought enough luggage to have brought every garment she possessed.

“The men have eaten,” I told Andrew, hoping I looked less harassed than I felt.

“I’ll go out to the shed and have a word with the foreman,” he said. “I want to be sure that they finish tonight. Will you be all right?” he added, his grey eyes dwelling on my face.

I nodded. “But haste you back!” I pleaded.

He smiled, “Right you are, mate!”

The memory of that meal will live with me until I die.
Mrs.
Fraser swept into the dining room with Mary a pace or so behind her.

“Do I sit in my usual place?” she asked of nobody in particular.

“I’ve put you on Andrew’s right,” I said dourly.

“It’s where I usually sit,” Mary added.

Margaret smiled casually in my direction. “You seem to take your duties very seriously,” she congratulated me. “You’ve quite settled in, haven’t you?”

I felt thoroughly unsettled. “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ve been so busy with the shearers coming.”

She laughed with a brittle air of gaiety. “You sound quite the little grazier’s wife!” she assured me. “But I suppose you know that?”

“Me? I scarcely know one end of a sheep from the other,” I protested. “Isn’t that so, Mary?”

Mary tossed her flaming red ha
ir. “I’m trying to teach her,” sh
e said to her mother. “It’s important for her to know the difference between Andy’s sheep and the Australian merino you see mostly in Western Australia. I was telling her the story of John Macarthur—”

“Must you, dear?” Margaret put in with a shrug of her shoulders.

“I think it’s very interesting!” Mary replied.

“And I think a young girl like you ought to have other interests besides sheep,” Margaret sighed. “When are you coming to Perth again? You need some new clothes, and it wouldn’t do you any harm to get to know some civilised people!”

“Meaning what?” Mary asked indignantly.

“Whatever you like,” Margaret said smoothly. “My own beginnings were very poor, as we all know, but your father was a Fraser and I think you have some duty to his memory.”

Mary looked downright sulky. “Father was a grazier just as much as Andy is!”

“Hardly,” her mother contradicted her. “Donald lived most of the time in Perth, if you remember.”

“Because you wanted to!” Mary accused her
.
I wished that Andrew would come back from the sheds. “Tell me about John Macarthur,” I said to Mary, not knowing what else to say.

Her face lit up, “He was an officer in the New South Wales Corps,” she began. “He started to breed sheep in 1794. He crossed some English rams with some Bengal rams which he had imported
.
Then he mated the offspring with a few Merino sheep he imported from Spain. The results were the first Australian merinos. Nowadays they produce half the world’s merino clip.”

She looked suddenly shy. “Frank Connor runs them on his station.”

Margaret’s face looked suddenly pinched. “I don’t want to hear any more about Frank Connor!” she snapped.

I took a deep breath. “But I think I know him!” I exclaimed with real pleasure. “He came to see us at the hotel in London!”

“You never told me!” Mary shot at me.

“I’d forgotten,” I admitted. “There were so many of them there and I hardly knew the names of any of them!”

Mary leaned back in her chair, grinning to herself. “But Frank stood out, didn’t he?”

I remembered the way he had kissed me and nodded. “I suppose he did,” I acknowledged
.

To my great relief, Andrew came into the dining room and took his place at the head of the table. “What are you all talking about?” he asked, pleasan
tl
y enough.

“Mary’s unsuitable friends,” Margaret said dryly
.
“Frank Connor.”

Andrew cast Mary a brief smile. “He isn’t around at the moment,” he commented “I saw him briefly in London.”

“His presence here or not is hardly the point,” Margaret put in. “
The
point is that Mary has such a limited circle in the Murchison
.
It’s time she came to Perth and had a bit of social life.”

Andrew looked stubborn. “Mary is a Fraser,” he said. “She has a substantial interest in Mirrabooka—”

“There’s no need for her to know personally every sheep on the station!” Margaret said angrily. “Besides when she marries, her husband can look after her interests. Isn’t that what you have in mind?”

“Maybe,” Andrew said briefly.

How suitable it all was, I thought. Fraser would marry Fraser and Andrew would control their joint fortune with even less interference than he had now. And I
?
I should be gone, with my part in the proceedings played out, having provided the necessary female presence to enable Andrew to keep Mary on Mirrabooka until she came of age and could make her own decisions, without recourse to the Court to whose care her father had left her.

“Well, it’s that I should like to prevent,” Margaret drawled, “I don’t see why she shouldn’t enjoy her own money.”

“Or why you shouldn’t enjoy it for her?” Andrew added lazily.

“Right,” Margaret acknowledged. “Donald had a certain duty towards me, don’t you think?”

Andrew’s grey eyes hardened. “I think you overplayed that particular hand when you denied that he had ever married you,” he said sternly.

“But, darling, what was I to do? Apparently he thought I was such a bad mother that I couldn’t be left in charge of my own child! It was the only way out of that particular legal entanglement
.
If I were an unmarried mother, she’d be all mine!”

“Not quite,” Andrew snapped back.

“Anyway, darling, you effectively put an end to that little plan, and now here we all are, dancing to any tune you care to play. You ought to be pleased
!
”