Always a Rainbow Page 4

  She became aware that suspicion merged with the resentment in his eyes. “You’d better come in here and we’ll try and sort this out.” He threw open another door and she preceded him into a small room evidently used as an office. Sweeping aside a pile of account forms lying on a chair, he pushed it forward with a sandalled foot. “Sit down.” Then perching his long length on a corner of the desk he picked up a pipe. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “No, of course not.”

  He rammed tobacco into the bowl, struck a match, then blew out the flame. “Well, go on, I’m listening. If you’re not Martha Stanaway then who the devil are you?”

  She met his gaze unflinchingly with clear hazel eyes. “I’m Angela. Angela Twentyman, Martha’s friend.”

  At his startled glance she knew that at last she had cracked that cool composure of his. “Go on, Miss Twentyman.”

  “Well, you see, we came out from England together on the same ship and we got to know each other. I hadn’t seen Martha since we left the Ocean Monarch in Auckland a week ago—” It was his stare that was doing things to her, making her strangely unsure of herself. “And then,” she rushed on much too fast, “coming north on the bus today she told me she was planning to come to see your brother Brian. She said she had arranged a meeting with him at Waikare Station—”

  “True enough.” His tone was ironic.

  “And seeing I was on the lookout for something to do on a sheep farm (she must have been out of her cotton-pickin’ mind) we talked it over and decided that I’d come instead.” At his intimidating expression she faltered, “if I liked.”

  “Just like that!” he exploded. “You’d come instead!”

  To her chagrin she could feel the tell-tale colour creeping up her cheeks. “Yes, in a way. You see—”

  “I get it,” he cut in savagely. “No doubt you both had a hell of a lot of fun over arranging a practical joke like this!”

  Angela didn’t know how to answer the unprovoked attack. “Not really. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to come up here or not, so in the end I said I’d toss a coin and settle it that way—” Her bright smile died away beneath that implacable blue stare.

  “I see. Very simple ... toss a coin.”

  All at once she realised that she had made it sound exactly as he thought, a joke that had somehow misfired. The maddening part of it all was that it hadn’t been a joke at all. But he would never believe that. On another level she wondered why it was that this stranger’s opinion of her should matter to her.

  “It was only a job,” she offered in her soft husky tones. Why couldn’t he understand? He seemed determined to doubt the truth of her explanation, to believe her guilty of something of which she was entirely ignorant.

  He swept on unheedingly. “It wouldn’t have occurred to either of you to give a thought to his feelings, let him have a say in things? After all, if he was good enough to pay the passage out to New Zealand he was entitled to some choice in what happened afterwards, wouldn’t you say?”

  Angela’s thoughts were whirling. “Are you saying that your brother paid Martha’s fare out to New Zealand?”

  “That’s right. It was a one-way ticket because the arrangement was that they’d be married almost right away. He borrowed a thousand dollars from me to finance the trip, clothes, wedding gear, travel tickets, spending money. Would you consider yourself worth a thousand dollars, Miss—what did you say your name was?”

  “Twentyman,” she whispered. “Truly, Martha didn’t say a word to me about all this.”

  He shot her a sardonic look. “So you tell me. I’d better put you in the picture, then, fill you in on the missing bits. Just in case you don’t know all the facts about your friend,” he gave the word a mocking emphasis, “and my kid brother.”

  She shook her head. “Martha never mentioned him to me until today.”

  “She didn’t let on to you that they’d been pen-friends for two years?”

  “No!” With a sudden lift of her spirits Angela realised that he seemed prepared to believe at least part of her story. But not, unfortunately, the part that mattered.

  “Oh, Brian’s always had a thing about pen-friends. He’s got scads of them in countries all over the world, has had since he was a kid in high school. He’s one of those odd bods who can write reams to some girl he’s never met in his life, someone who lives on the other side of the globe, but put him face to face with a pretty girl right here and he clams up like an oyster. Not that Brian writes to girls as a rule. He acquired your friend Martha through corresponding with her brother, but somehow or other she began writing back to Brian instead. That would have been okay, but the idiot got all carried away about her.

  “The first I knew of it was a few months ago when he borrowed the money from me to bring her out to New Zealand. Seems they were all set for the wedding day once she arrived at Waikare. Brian’s a guy who doesn’t let on much of what he’s feeling. He never got around to showing me the girl’s picture even, the only information he ever passed on was that she had red hair. I gathered, though, that he’d made up his mind to marry the girl. I did my best to talk some sense into him—pointed out that he was doing a crazy thing in rushing into marriage blindfold with a girl he scarcely knew, but I might just as well have been talking to myself. Nothing I could say would make him see reason. He kept on saying it would work out.”

  Mark Hillyer’s lips tightened. “By the time the ship was due to berth in Auckland there was no holding him. He was to bring his Martha back to the station that day and then I’d see how well the idea would work out. He sold the old truck he had and got himself a brand new Chrysler car, a pricey job. Then off he went, all carried away with excitement and love of his fair lady.” His face hardened. “Three days later they brought him home in an ambulance from hospital.”

  He turned away, moving to a cabinet where decanters and glasses stood. “What’ll you have?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks. What—happened?”

  He studied the whisky in his glass, his voice grim. “Oh, he made the wharves all right, after the new Chrysler had let him down with a breakdown on the way and put him an hour late. When he got to the ship Martha had gone, no one knew where. There was no message left for him over the loudspeaker, no letter in her cabin, nothing.

  “He took it hard. Like I said, he’s a quiet reserved sort of guy, keeps things pretty much to himself. I gather he waited around the wharf most of the day hoping she’d turn up, thinking there must have been some slip-up over arrangements. A couple of times he rang back home, but there’d been no message left for him here either. When it looked hopeless hanging around any longer he drowned his disappointment in one of the pubs in the city. It must have been pretty late when he finally took off for home. He nearly made it too. A roadman came across the car in the morning. Well, you saw what was left of it. Brian was thrown out and lying beside the wrecked car. At first the man thought he was a goner, but he was breathing all right. So he phoned for an ambulance and I got the news from hospital.

  “Could have been worse considering the Chrysler’s a total write-off. Head injuries are the main trouble. They kept him in hospital for a couple of days, then sent him home. The doc says all he needs now is rest and quiet for a few days, no shocks, no worries. He’s under sedation now, of course, sleeps most of the time. But the doc assures me he’ll be a different man in a week’s time and before long he’ll be as good as new, except for the odd headache. So there you have it, Miss Twentyman!”

  “I can’t believe it,” Angela murmured dazedly. “Martha didn’t ever mention having a fiancé out here. She never wore an engagement ring—”

  “But she did have a boy-friend on the ship?”

  Angela hesitated. He had taken her by surprise, dam him, and she had no ready answer. Martha’s mocking tones echoed in her mind. “The prospects are terrific!” No doubt the prospects she had in mind were far more exciting than a lonely life in the outback as the wife of a young sheep farmer she had nev
er met. How right she had been in suspecting Martha’s motives! And imagine her having the nerve to invent that story to tell Harvey concerning herself! How easy it must have been too. Martha wouldn’t even have to invent it, seeing it was all true except that the facts applied to Martha herself. She wrenched her mind back to the deep quiet tones.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “You could be,” Angela admitted slowly, “but there was nothing definite. It could have been just a shipboard romance for all I know—”

  “But you think not?” If only he wouldn’t probe her with those icy blue eyes.

  “I just don’t know.”

  “You’re a rotten liar, you know.”

  “Well, it’s true!” she flung back at him. “I don’t know a thing about Martha’s affairs. She didn’t say a word to me about being engaged to your brother.”

  He shot her a suspicious glance. “And yet you were friends, you tell me?”

  “Not real friends, you understand. We used to get around with the same crowd on board ship, that was all.”

  His disbelieving stare did nothing to ease her mounting sense of confusion. “I can never make you understand!” she cried desperately. “Don’t you see, all I knew about coming up here was that it was a job. A work thing you get paid for.”

  “Almost you convince me, Miss Twentyman.” But she knew he was only being sarcastic. “And what,” he enquired drily, “was the particular job you had in mind when you got here? Or didn’t you enquire?”

  “Of course I did, but she didn’t tell me.”

  “Didn’t tell you? And you agreed to come all this way on the off chance, without having a clue of what your duties were to be?”

  “It was all done in such a hurry,” she protested defensively. “Martha only told me about it as we were nearing the township where you picked me up, but she did mention something about—” another trap loomed ahead but having begun she would have perforce to continue, “helping the wife with the housework ... or something.”

  The thick black brows rose in a mocking V. “Interesting, the wife bit, especially as that was to be her role, according to Brian’s reckoning.”

  His cool tone stung her into saying wildly. “I remember now! She did say something about helping the shearers—”

  “The shearers?” The moment the words were out she knew she had said the wrong thing. This time, judging by Mark Hillyer’s expression of stunned incredulity, she had really done it! So Martha had lied about that too.

  She realised he was eyeing her consideringly and somehow she distrusted the mocking twist of his lips. “You know something, Miss Twentyman? You’ve just given me an idea—”

  But her thoughts were elsewhere. “Tell me, did Martha know your brother had been hurt in an accident on his way back from meeting the ship?”

  “She knew.” The deep tones were inflexible. “I let her into all that when she rang me yesterday.”

  “I see.” So that was why Martha had planned to break her journey north and make a brief visit to the station. Apparently she did have some slight conscience in the matter. Trouble was that being Martha she had quieted her own misgivings by persuading another girl to take her place. It was just too bad that the “other girl” happened to be herself! And even worse that she found herself forced into explanations over something she knew nothing about with this grim-faced man. He was hateful, hateful! If Mark Hillyer were a typical New Zealand sheep farmer, employment on a station was the last job in the world she wanted. She gathered her thoughts together and all at once remembered the package in her care which up till this moment she had been too taken aback to think about. Drawing it from the woven flax kit on her arm, she held it out towards him. How odd, her fingers were shaking. Ridiculous really, for all this had nothing to do with her. At least the enclosures in the package would prove to him how mistaken he had been in his snap judgement of Martha—and herself. If only he wouldn’t persist in lumping them both together.

  “Martha asked me to give this to Brian, so I’ll leave it with you. I expect,” her voice quivered in spite of herself, “it’s the money your brother sent her.”

  He took the bulky envelope from her. “I wish I could share your faith in your friend’s motives, but I’m afraid I can’t, not after what’s been happening around here lately. Let’s make sure, shall we?” Slitting open the flap with a tanned finger, he took out a bundle of closely-written sheets of notepaper, tied with a blue ribbon. He flipped through the pages briefly, then tossed them aside. “There’s something else here too!” The next moment he shook on to the desk a small jeweller’s box and flicking open the lid revealed a glittering diamond solitaire ring lying on a bed of black velvet. “Nothing but the best, evidently! So that’s why he had to borrow the money from me for the fare!”

  Angela stared back at him with lips lightly parted.

  “Maybe you’ll agree with me now that Brian’s lost quite a lot through your friend, one way and another. His car, his savings and a heck of a lot of faith in human nature, I shouldn’t wonder. Still trying to vindicate your girl-friend?” He was pushing the love-letters back into the envelope, slipping the jeweller’s box in after them.

  “She wasn’t a great friend—”

  “So you said before.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela murmured inadequately. For what could you say to this embittered man who for some reason appeared to take full responsibility for the actions of his kid brother? “I only wish I could do something to help, to make up—”

  “You can, you know.”

  “Me?” She eyed him in amazement. “What could I do?”

  “Quite a lot in that direction, actually.” For a moment he was silent. “It wouldn’t occur to you, I suppose, that you happen to owe him something? At the very least some explanation, when he’s well enough to hear it, seeing that you’re in on this too?”

  “But I’m not! I keep telling you—” Close to tears, she floundered on, nervously twisting a strand of hair round and round her fingers. “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Oh, I forgot, you tossed for it, didn’t you?”

  All at once confusion and frustration merged into anger. She was furious that he refused to believe her. “I told you before that I wished I could do something—”

  “I’ll bet.” He was grim again.

  “Honestly! I mean it!”

  He bent on her that intent blue stare. “Well then, why not stick around for a while until Brian’s well enough to take the truth about his missing girl-friend? Why not hand this back to him yourself,” he indicated the jeweller’s box lying on the desk, “complete with explanations? The way things are at the moment once he gets to thinking things over he’ll worry himself out of quick recovery. Not knowing what happened, hoping against hope that Martha’ll be along with apologies and sweet talk for not meeting him at the ship. Better for him to have a clean cut, take it straight no matter how much it hurts at the time!”

  “Do you really think,” Angela cried incredulously, “that I’d stay on here after after...?” Her voice trailed away.

  “That’s the idea.” His tone hardened. “You can spell it out to him and hope he’ll believe you.”

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  All at once the answer had become awfully important. She found she was holding her breath.

  He smiled his cool lopsided smile. “My feelings don’t come into it. It’s Brian we’re concerned with. He’s taken a pretty bad knock through your girl-friend—”

  “Why do you keep calling her my girl-friend?”

  He ignored the interruption. “He’s the one who needs you around at the moment, the one you can help back to health—or didn’t you mean what you said just now about being sorry, wanting to help?”

  He had trapped her neatly and effectively. What made it worse was that he was aware that she had come here in search of employment. If only he didn’t guess as well that in some obscure way she did feel she owed his brother something, even though it wa
s really Martha who had caused all this trouble. It was a second-hand sort of guilt, but it was there, no doubt about that. She was unaware of the transparency of the thoughts passing across her troubled face. She brought her mind back to the vibrant tones.

  His voice said, “You said you wanted a job on the station.” His tone said, Or was that just another fabrication, something made up to suit the occasion?

  At last she got out in a choking voice, “I know I did, but that was before I knew all about your brother and Martha. Now everything’s different—”

  “No difference so far as you’re concerned, that is if what you’re saying is the truth.”

  She hated him and always would! Hated him so intensely that she just had to prove to him that she was far from the girl he took her to be. Another Martha, scheming, callous, self-seeking. Could that be her own soft tones agreeing to n.is preposterous proposal? “Just until your brother gets well enough for me to talk to him, then.”

  The slight lift to his lips told her that once that happened she would no longer be needed at Waikare. At his cool smile she was driven to retaliate, “And it’ll be okay about that shearing job it you do need a girl to give you a hand?” She was conscious of a sneaky hope that no such opening would exist. After all, he hadn’t taken her offer seriously before. On the contrary. The next moment hope did a nose-dive. His tone was mock-serious “Believe me, I do, Twenty—you don’t mind if I call you that?”

  Her soft lips tightened. “I can’t very well stop you.”

  “You couldn’t have dropped in at a more opportune time!” She didn’t trust the new soft note in his voice. “The shearing gang moved into their quarters yesterday, but it was too wet for them to do any work. Their cook got brassed off waiting around all day. She took off back to town and hasn’t been heard of since. Luckily the rain held them up this morning, but they’ll be all set to start tomorrow—if they can find a replacement. And that’s where you come in! They work a long day up here, six to six, but the money’s good, thirteen dollars a day and keep for a six-day week. Meals have to be bang on time, of course—but I’ll fill you in on that later.” He met her look of wide-eyed horror. “You did say,” he reminded her in that maddeningly soft tone, “that you wanted to give the shearers a hand?”