Always a Rainbow Read online

  Angela had never been the slightest bit clever at hiding her feelings. She could feel the colour hot on her cheeks.

  “That’s it,” Jill cried, “you knew her! You were a friend of hers! She sent you here, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There you are!” Jill’s tone was triumphant as she swung around towards Doris. “I told you! All that about getting a job here was just something to pull the wool over our eyes. All you wanted,” she threw a furious glance towards Angela, “was an excuse to get in here to make things worse than ever for poor Brian!”

  “I didn’t! I didn’t!” Angela dried a soup bowl for the third time. “It wasn’t like that at all! If you’d only let me tell you—” She rushed on before Jill could stop her and misunderstand the position even more. At least Angela would make her know. “It’s true we were on the ship together and we used to know each other, all the young ones did, but she didn’t say a word to me about coming to Waikare to be married to Brian. I hadn’t the faintest notion.”

  Jill’s sceptical young face hardened. “But you did come here with a message for Brian?”

  “I know, I know but it wasn’t like you think. If you’d only try to understand.” She was getting very weary of proffering this explanation that no one appeared to take seriously, but she forced herself to go on. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not, but this is the way it happened. I happened to meet Martha Stanaway again by accident, she was on the same bus as I was coming north and we got to talking. I told her I was on the lookout for a job on a sheep station in the North Island and she put me on to this place. She said she had been offered work here and had changed her mind about coming. She had intended stopping off at Waikare to explain why she wasn’t interested in the job. She said that if I liked I could take it on instead.”

  “What job?” demanded Jill suspiciously.

  “I don’t know. That’s what she told me, and I believed her.”

  Jill looked half convinced. “But,” she said thoughtfully, “you must have said something about her just now to make Brian so dreadfully upset all of a sudden.”

  “It was a message from Martha,” even to her own ears the words sounded phoney, a last-minute excuse to suit the occasion. “She asked me to tell him she was sorry and hand him a package she wanted him to have.”

  “A package?” Clearly Jill’s moment of understanding had vanished. “You mean a parcel of his letters to her, and the ring! I bet the engagement ring he sent over to her was in the packet too?”

  “Actually—”

  “I knew it! And don’t try to tell me you two didn’t hatch the whole scheme up between you. I’m not as green as all that—” She broke off. “Does Mark know about this, this story of yours?”

  “Of course.”

  “I bet he didn’t place much faith in a tale like that either.”

  Angela didn’t answer. She turned away before she could betray the trembling of her lips.

  “Mark’s pretty shrewd,” Jill persisted. “He wouldn’t be taken in by a story like that any more than I am!”

  Doris finished drying the dishes Angela had left on the draining board. “Don’t worry, Angela,” she said kindly, “I believe you! And if Jill had as much experience of human nature as I have she would too. All this fuss about Martha!” She flung the teatowel on a rail. “Even though he might not realise it at this moment it’s the best thing that ever happened to young Brian, getting out of that muddle he got himself into with Martha. She must have been an odd sort of girl, wanting to marry someone she’d never met. Probably she would have been horribly unsuitable for him. And anyway, who’s to say she hasn’t got another man friend by this time, perhaps someone she met on the voyage out from England. Someone she knows and likes, not just a silly pen-and-paper romance. Believe me Jill, he’s well rid of her. Any girl who would let him down without a word of explanation all this time could well make him a whole lot more miserable than he is now in the long run. He’ll get better—yes, he will, Jill, in spite of Angela’s message. The other way he’d be letting himself in for a lifetime of misery.” She went on composedly, “I can usually tell just by looking at them if folks are telling me the truth or not, and I’d put my money on Angela any day of the week.”

  Jill managed at last to get a word in. “Mark—”

  “Mark’s a Hillyer, and the Hillyers give nothing away. He’s entitled to his own opinion. I’m sorry you’ve got this bee in your bonnet, Jill, because you could have been a big help to Angela while I’m away.”

  Jill looked aghast. “You’re not leaving?”

  “Just for a month. I was planning to go and stay with Eve and see the new baby before everything here went haywire, remember? I’d given up the thought of going south, but now Angela’s offered to stay on here and look after things, so I’ll be able to make the trip after all. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “I can’t see,” Jill muttered sulkily, “why you believe every word she says. You seem to be wrapped up in her.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it. Either you believe in people or you don’t.” Angela could have thrown her arms around the crepey neck and hugged Doris. “She’s pretty and she’s got plenty of pluck. So she did know Martha. Well, what of it?” As a parting shot towards Jill she said significantly, “I should imagine that anyone who really cared for young Brian would be real grateful to Angela for telling him the truth, putting him out of that hell he’s been in for weeks, wondering, hoping against hope and all for nothing.” She smiled towards Angela. “I’d better let you in on the meal situation. We order food in big quantities, have it delivered down to the big shed at the entrance gates. The deep freeze is crammed full and there’s oodles of frozen stuff—fish, meat, vegetables, fruit pies.”

  Angela was scarcely listening to the cheerful tones. She was aware of the closing of the door and guessed that Jill had gone to Brian’s room. All unwittingly she had made an enemy. A pity, because she had liked the younger girl and up until half an hour ago Jill had seemed to like her. She sighed and brought her mind back to Doris’s voice.

  “There are swags of plastic bags with frozen corn fritters in them that I got ready ages ago. They’ll come in handy if you get stuck for something to serve for lunch. Meat pies too, so don’t mind making use of anything that’s quick and easy, that’s what they’re for—emergencies like you having to cope with everything all at once.”

  Angela nodded, her thoughts still with Jill. In this male-slanted household she would have welcomed the friendship of a girl of her age or thereabouts, especially someone she had liked from the start. Now that hope had fled.

  Odd that the prospect of coping with three meals a day no longer filled her with alarm. Perhaps because there would be time to .plan ahead, to dispose of a failure it need be and start again. Or was it that compared with the problems facing her such mundane matters faded into insignificance? Problems like Jill hating her. Probably, she thought with a sigh, Brian would feel the same way about her once he got around to thinking things out. And Mark ... somehow his lack of trust in her hurt most of all, she couldn’t think why.

  At the dinner table that evening Doris could talk of nothing but her forthcoming trip to the South Island. When at the end of the meal she paused Jill said suddenly, “Well, I’m staying on here. That is, if it’s okay with you Mark,” she added quickly. “Just until Brian gets on his feet again, I mean.”

  Mark’s voice was careless. “Please yourself. You don’t need to ask me. You know you’re always welcome here for as long as you like to stay. And if they can do without you on the farm—”

  “They’ll just have to. I’m not leaving Brian—” the small mouth closed mutinously and Angela could almost hear the unfinished sentence “in her clutches!”

  Her gaze went to the man seated at the head of the table. “I guess you won’t be needing me, then, if Jill’s staying on?”

  “No, you don’t, Twenty!” Mark reached for his pipe. “You don’t slide
out of it that easily! Jill might be staying for a month or she might not. Her plans are all up in the air. All depends on how Brian gets along. The rest of us have to depend on you so consider yourself hired, no matter what!”

  Angela couldn’t understand her sudden sense of relief.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Later that day as she wandered out of the house and out into the afternoon sunshine Angela couldn’t feel entirely unhappy in spite of the unpleasant situation in which she found herself at the station. Odd to think that although she had been at Waikare for a whole week she had as yet seen little of the property. And views from the house told her that there was a lot to see.

  Idly she strolled along the driveway, passing the garages and pausing to admire the roses blooming in the long gardens that bordered the path. A farm motor-cycle propped against a post no doubt was ridden by Kevin. Somehow she would imagine Mark Hillyer to be more at home on horseback rather than lurching over the rugged terrain of the hills on the “mountain goat” of which the young cadet spoke with such pride.

  As if in tune with her random thoughts at that moment she caught the soft thud of hoofbeats as a horseman came galloping down a grassy slope. He turned into the winding driveway and a few minutes later Mark drew rein beside her. “All alone today, Twenty?”

  She glanced up at him, the sun in her eyes. Something in his ironical inflection sparked a quick response. “If you’re thinking of John,” she snapped defensively, “I haven’t seen him since last night! I don’t even know where he is!”

  “I can answer that one for you.” Dropping lightly to the path, he reached up to the sweating horse, removing the saddle and fluffy sheepskin and slipping off the bridle “Off you go, old fellow.” He flung open a side gate and the big black stallion trotted into the house paddock. “I sent John back to Te Awau this morning with the truck and mechanic.”

  “Te Awau?” Angela bent to pluck a blade of grass. “Wasn’t that where the dance was last night?”

  “That’s right. Evidently the shearing gang struck trouble on the way back. Someone passed them half-way home, but they haven’t arrived back. Seeing they’re due to pack up their gear and move on to another station for an early start tomorrow I thought I’d better find out what’s happened to them.”

  “Oh.” She thought over what he had said. So he had been right in the matter of the gang’s transport difficulties. Thank heaven he had rescued her in the nick of time, otherwise she too would now find herself stranded somewhere in the hills miles from any habitation. Somehow, though, it was difficult to say “thank you”. She made a half-hearted attempt. “I guess I should be grateful—”

  “Think nothing of it, Twenty!” The blue eyes had a sardonic twinkle. “I can’t risk losing the cook, most important thing around the whole place! You’d be surprised!”

  “You mightn’t say that next week,” she told him gloomily.

  “Proof of the pudding. Twenty! And think what a Christian act you’d be doing in letting Doris off the chain for that holiday she’s been looking forward to so much.”

  She said in a low constrained tone, “I suppose you think it’s the least I can do ... the way things are?”

  “I told you before, Twenty, it’s not my concern. It’s over to Brian. You haven’t seen much of the place yet, I take it? Today’s a good day, not much doing on a Sunday.” His cool glance raked her slim figure, taking in the pale blue cotton shin open at the throat, the flared jeans with their wide embroidered legs. “Come as you are, you’ll do.”

  “Thanks very much.” Might as well get the unpleasant chore over with? Is that what you’re thinking, Mr. Mark Hillyer?

  “I’ll take you for a run around,” he was saying, “give you an idea of the property even if you can’t get around to seeing all five thousand acres of it at one go!” He picked up the saddle fleece and bridle and they strolled towards the shed. “Anyway, I guess if you’re from England it’ll all be new to you, so it won’t matter much.”

  Angela made no answer. She didn’t want to discuss England at the moment, for to do so would bring too close the subject of Martha, and she felt she never wanted to hear Martha Stanaway’s name ever again. If it hadn’t been for her ...

  Presently they moved towards the Land Rover and Mark held open the door of the passenger seat “Jump in.” She seated herself inside the vehicle and a few moments later they swept around the drive, passing the shepherds’ bungalows and he drew to a stop at the first gateway. “Get rid of those Perendales, will you?”

  With the toe of her rubber sandal she pushed at a woolly sheep dozing in a dust-bath, shooed another away and finally got the gate open and closed behind the Land Rover. Three gates further on they were out in open country amongst the sun-bleached hills.

  “This is the start of the run,” Mark told her as they swept up the steep winding grade of a cleared sheep-dotted hillside. Rubble and small stones tumbled down from the narrow track as they went on, then they reached the summit and Angela glanced down at a sea of tea-tree far below. It was very still. From the dust of the narrow track a hawk rose and circled over the homestead grounds. In the distance a shepherd on horseback patrolled a boundary fence and she noticed Mark’s keen glance searching the far paddocks.

  From here she could see cleared hills with bush running up the valleys, fences climbing to meet a hot blue sky and inlets of sea where small wavelets lapped the sand.

  Soon they were taking a winding grey ribbon of road and all at once she came in sight of a sheet of water, the beaten silver of a placid lake in a hollow in the hills. The far side of the water was choked with mangroves, but on the water near the track black swans sailed with majestic grace. Mark pulled to a stop in the shade of overhanging tree-ferns at the water’s edge.

  “Lovely!” In spite of herself Angela found she was enjoying the drive. “I’ve never seen black swans before.”

  “Plenty of them on the lake here. Just before you arrived we had a man up here from the acclimisation society, taking baby swans away to other lakes further south. The odd thing around this part of the country is that the swans take to the sea-water too, maybe because the bay near the homestead’s so sheltered.” “Really?” She turned her wide gaze towards him and once again she was conscious of the electric atmosphere as something potent, unseen, leaped between them. A moment later Mark was putting the vehicle into gear and they swept up the narrow track. The breeze that seemed to be always blowing up here in the hills was fresh and spiced with the tang of sea and bush. In spite of herself, in spite of everything, she couldn’t help but enjoy all this. It must be the novelty of her surroundings.

  All at once she caught sight of a wide swathe of cut grass running up a slope. “The track to the airfield,” Mark told her. “I had it bulldozed last winter. The trucks need a decent track to get up to the take-off. That shed at the top of the hill is where the super’s stacked. Couldn’t get along on the land without the supermen. When I took over here these hills were unproductive, covered in scrub and tea-tree. Now that the topdressing planes come over and scatter the dust over them—well, you can see what I mean. Here comes one of them now, off on a job at a station further north, by the direction he’s taking.”

  Angela watched the tiny plane as it skimmed the peaks, then disappeared in a haze of distance. Such daredevil tactics as flying low amongst these hills must, she reflected, require a lot of nerve.

  On and on, under the bluest sky she had ever seen. The wind was becoming stronger now, flick-flacking the green streamers of the cabbage trees, tossing long fronds of tree-ferns, bending the tattered creamy plumes of toa-toas. Everywhere she looked was movement and warmth and colour.. She stole a glance towards the man at her side. At that moment he swung around to face her and hurriedly she looked away. They were speeding up a slope towards the summit of yet another green peak and as he braked the Land Rover to a stop she gazed around her at the endless hilltops. “It’s very big, Waikare, isn’t it?”

  “Think so?” She was su
ddenly very much aware of his nearness. “Broken your news yet?”

  “Oh, you mean to your brother? Yes, I have. I went in to see him early this morning.” A shadow fell over her face and her voice dropped. “I don’t know whether it wouldn’t have been wiser to wait, though. He looked terribly upset. He was so pale all of a sudden, and Jill—”

  “Blames you for it?”

  “Yes, she’s pretty annoyed. You know,” her habit of blurting out her innermost thoughts asserted itself and she said impulsively, “I’d say she was in love with Brian.”

  “Would you now?” Amusement was in his laconic tone. “You seem to have romance on the brain. Twenty.”

  Angela was unaware that she was twisting a long strand of hair nervously around her finger. Why had she spoken so unthinkingly? Why give him further chances to ridicule her?

  He said in a milder tone, “Maybe you didn’t catch on about Jill’s position around here. Didn’t Doris put you wise about her being brought up at Waikare as one of the family? She’s like a sister to Brian, me too.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Angela persisted stubbornly. “I still think she cares for him a lot, whether he thinks of her in that way or not. That’s why,” she asserted in her soft husky tones, “she’s so mad with me and jealous of Martha.”

  “Oh, I guess she’s fond enough of him.” With a careless wave of a bronzed hand he dismissed her romantic imaginings. “Don’t worry about Brian, he’ll survive! From now on he’ll make great progress, you’ll see!”

  Angela wished she could share his optimism. If only she could forget Brian’s pale, shocked face when she had given him her message this morning. She wrenched her troubled thoughts back to the present.

  “I’ll take you down to have a look at the beach,” Mark was saying, and he swung the Land Rover around on the narrow track. They were bumping over steep undulating ground with pitches so high that as they topped each rise it was impossible to see down to the rutted ground below. They lurched on over the grassy slopes, slowing down to a snail’s pace as sheep scattered in mad panic around them. All at once Angela caught sight of white sand, the sunlit waters of the empty sea. Near at hand were boatsheds in a paddock sloping down to the beach and she asked him, “You keep a boat here?”