Always a Rainbow Page 5

  Never one to resist a challenge, especially this particular one, Angela lifted her chin and gritted her teeth. “Okay,” she said recklessly, “I’ll try.” Under her breath she added, “And heaven help the shearers!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “That’s it, then.”

  Even had Angela wished to retract her wild promise to take on this job pride would not now permit a change of mind. She comforted herself with the reflection that it was only for one week. One could surely endure anything for a mere seven days! Besides, if other women could cope, so could she! The thought sustained her against an almost overpowering temptation to call the whole thing off and go away just as soon as she could. But it was already too late for regrets. Mark had picked up her travel bag and stood waiting expectantly. “You’d better come up to the house and have a word with Doris. She’s a sort of aunt by marriage who keeps the place going for us.”

  In a dreamlike state of mind where nothing seemed to matter very much any more Angela accompanied him along a passage and into a spacious modern kitchen. The pleasant sunny room was painted in tonings of cinnamon and cream and the walls appeared to be entirely lined with cupboards. A huge freezer ran along the end of the room and sunshine sparked gleams in long stainless steel sink benches.

  A tall slender woman who was standing at the electric range swung around at their approach, and though the stranger tried to conceal her attitude with a forced smile Angela was aware, for the second time in a day, of being faced with an expression of antagonism and dislike.

  “It’s Martha, isn’t it? So you came after all?” Cold condemnation rang in her polite tones.

  Angela’s swift imploring glance went to Mark’s impassive face. Let him do the explaining as to how she came to be here. The whole situation was getting beyond her, and besides, she was becoming very tired of being mistaken for someone else, regarded as an intruder, someone who insisted on pushing herself into a home where she was definitely unwelcome.

  Mark made short work of introductions. “Wrong! This happens to be Miss Twentyman. Doris, Mrs. Blackman. I met her in town today,” he ran on evenly, “seems she was on the look-out for a country job, so I booked her in as shearers’ cook starting from tomorrow.”

  So he wasn’t going into explanations regarding the real position. He was saying nothing regarding her connection with Martha. Perhaps it was wiser to leave it that way. What did it matter? She would be here for such a short while.

  With a sense of relief Angela realised that the older woman’s expression had changed to one of friendly interest. For her part Angela felt an instant liking for this attractive-looking woman with short curling fair hair turning grey and clear tanned skin innocent of make-up.

  She realised Doris was saying with a smile, “Have you taken on that sort of job before. Miss Twentyman? Done much in the way of cooking, I mean?”

  Avoiding Mark’s penetrating blue stare, which she felt rather than saw, Angela said faintly, “A little,” and pushed away a mental picture of hurriedly thrown-together simple meals prepared for girl-friends in the tiny London flat.

  Mark said, “Miss Twentyman will be staying up at the house with us.”

  For some reason Angela couldn’t fathom the simple matter-of-fact statement appeared to surprise the housekeeper. “Not down at the shearers’ quarters?” she enquired blankly. “Up here?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mrs. Blackman appeared to recover herself. “Oh—I see. Well, there’s, oodles of room here, Miss Twentyman. I’ll give you my alarm clock tonight to make sure you don’t sleep in in the morning. Come along with me and I’ll show you to your room. You’ll want to unpack your things. After that we’ll have a cup of tea together.”

  Mark lifted a hand to his forehead in a careless gesture of farewell. “See you later about the job, Miss Twentyman.”

  Angela responded with her warm smile. “Thank you.”

  Oh, it was wonderful to be treated as a person in her own right once again rather than some sort of spare part belonging to Martha Stanaway! Even if being herself in her new position as cook for a shearing gang did involve a swift downward slide in the social scale.

  There seemed to be a number of rooms opening off the long, passageway, but at last her companion took her into a small neat bedroom simply furnished with a dressing table and chest of drawers. Fluffy orange-shaded sheepskin rugs lay on the floorboards and her travel bag lay on a neatly made bed covered with a hand-crocheted wool spread in tawny tonings of tans and golds.

  Mrs. Blackman crossed the room to fling open french doors and Angela caught a glimpse of a sunshiny porch. There were the shelves of flowering pot-plants and trailing greenery she had noticed when approaching the homestead. Her gaze travelled beyond to the slopes of sheep-dotted hills.

  “You’ll find the bathroom at the end of the passage,” Mrs. Blackman was saying. “In summer, showers instead of baths are the order of the day. We had a drop of rain yesterday and a bit today, but not enough to make much difference to the water supply. Come along to the kitchen when you’re ready, my dear.”

  My dear ... It was heartwarming to find oneself made so welcome in a strange place. During her brief stay in this new country this was the first occasion on which Angela had been invited to make a stay in a private residence. And away in the country too! Nice ... almost like home. Swiftly she caught herself up. Home! How could she have forgotten whose home this was! And she still had to face him tonight and be given her instructions as to details of the unfamiliar duties she had so rashly taken on. And only really because she just had to prove to him that she was capable of holding the job down. It must be her day for rushing into crazy decisions—first the journey to this faraway station in the hills, now letting herself in for a week’s work and heaven knows what else besides in the way of backbreaking physical toil.

  As she made her way along the passage something Martha had once said to her on the ship came back to mind with hurtful emphasis. “You’re so soft, Angela, honestly! If you go on believing everything folk tell you it’ll land you in trouble one of these days!” How right she was!

  In the bathroom with its huge array of towels Angela washed her hands, then returned to the airy bedroom to touch her mouth with lipstick and run a comb through wind-tangled hair. A little later when she made her way back to the kitchen she found Doris already seated at the long table in the centre of the room. The hot tea served with man-sized scones still warm from the oven refreshed her.

  Glancing around the spotless shining kitchen, she murmured, “You must have a lot to do here in the way of housekeeping—and looking after Brian,” she added awkwardly. This was the effect her employer’s censorious attitude was having on her, she thought wildly. Already he had made her feel embarrassed over the matter of the recent accident, as though she really had had something to do with it.

  Doris smiled. “Oh, I’m used to it. I’ve always lived in the country, I love it. And Brian’s no bother at all. I only wish he were, but up till now he just lies there. Oh, he wakes up when I bring him his meals, then off he goes to sleep again.”

  “Mr. Hillyer said he’ll be better before long.”

  “Yes, that’s what I keep telling myself. As to that Martha—” Unconsciously Angela braced herself for another hate session directed against the girl these people had never met.

  Propping her elbows on the table, Doris gazed reflectively over her teacup. “I don’t mind telling you I wasn’t feeling too pleased a while ago when I saw Mark bringing you into the house. That’s why I kept out of the way in the kitchen. When he took off today he told me he had some business in town he had to see about. I knew it must be something pretty important to make him drop everything and go when he’s so busy and shorthanded here. Then I saw you and your hair looked almost red in the sunshine and I was sure you were Martha. Isn’t it funny how wrong you can be when you jump to conclusions? That lovely hair of yours isn’t red at all, it’s a gorgeous dark copper, and I should have rem
embered that the shearers are due to start in the morning—if they can find a cook.” She eyed Angela enquiringly. “Mark did tell you about Brian’s accident? And about Martha not coming?”

  Angela nodded, her eyes downcast. “It was bad luck.”

  “Yes. I’m terribly sorry about the car smash, but as for that Martha, I think it’s a good thing that she didn’t turn up! In the end,” she announced calmly, “it will do Brian a lot of good. He’s always been ridiculously shy about girls, and this one that he used to write to away over in England—well, I’m sure he’d built a picture of her in his mind. Not that he ever talked about her, but I’ve known Brian since he was a little boy and I know how imaginative he is. Over the time they’d been corresponding he’d conjured up a girl from letters and distance, a dream-creature that no real girl would be able to live up to, even if she had turned up here to marry him. Just imagine, he’d actually made plans for an immediate wedding! Without ever having met her! Why, in a week they might have loathed each other. She could have been bad-tempered. She did have bright red hair. That’s the only thing Brian ever told us about her.”

  “Another thing too. What if one of them didn’t want to go through with the wedding once they’d seen their pen-friend in the flesh? Think how awkward that would be! Oh, Brian’s taken a bad knock, he’s been let down, but this way he’ll get over it all, in time. Anyway, the way I look at it a girl who doesn’t bother contacting him until she’s been a week in the country isn’t worth worrying about. Wouldn’t you agree?” Angela mumbled, “Maybe.” This she knew was the time to admit her own complicity in the affair, but seeing the boss had seen fit not to mention it ... Once again she couldn’t help thinking how delightful it was to be Miss Twentyman, without any complications, to have no connection whatever with Martha Stanaway. She brought her mind back to Doris.

  “Brian needed something like this to make him wake up, realise folk aren’t always how you’d like them to be ... especially girls. Mark doesn’t agree with me. He’s furious with this Martha Stanaway, blames her for the accident and everything. You’ve only got to look at him to know the way he feels about her, those cold blue Hillyer eyes of his. You wouldn’t think two brothers could be so different, would you? Brian’s like his mother, he’s a dreamer. He’d much rather have his head in a book than be out on the run. He’s a scribbler like she was too. Often when I’m tidying up his room I come across bits of verse written on scraps of paper. Occasionally I throw one of them away by mistake and he gets real mad with me.”

  Why, Angela wondered, was the housekeeper telling her all this? The effect of isolation, an opportunity of a chat with someone of her own sex, someone new? Aloud she asked, “Does he ever have any of his verses published?”

  “Once in a while. Last year he showed me some poems that he’d submitted to a literary publication way over in the States. I never saw anyone so proud as he was on the day the magazine arrived here with two of his verses printed in it. Not that I could make much sense of the poems myself, but I wouldn’t let on to him about that, of course. He’s one of those folk who are ever so easily discouraged by the slightest hint of criticism. He’s had a lot more luck with his articles, though. He calls them “bread-and-butter-stuff”, but the newspapers in the city buy all he sends them and actually pay him for them too!”

  “Good for him! What does he write about?”

  “Oh, country life, sheep-farming gen, what goes on around here through the varying seasons, that sort of thing. Folk in the cities seem to like to read about the outback and what it’s like to live on a sheep station up in the hills.” She smiled her cheerful smile. “Me, I’d rather be right here on the spot living it, droughts and slips on the road and all!” She broke off as the door was pushed open.

  “I knocked and knocked, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around—Oh, I didn’t know—” The voice stopped short in surprise and Angela glanced up to see a young girl with a freckled friendly face and straight brown hair falling to her shoulders. Her short cotton shift revealed legs tanned to almost the same shade as the leather sandals she wore on her feet.

  “Hello, Jill,” Doris appeared unsurprised to see the visitor, “this is Miss Twentyman.”

  Angela smiled. “Angela,” she corrected.

  To the younger girl Doris explained, “Angela’s cooking for the shearers. Mark signed her up today.”

  “Hello, Angela.” Jill’s anxious gaze returned to Doris. Clearly she had other matters on her mind. “Brian,” she asked with concern, “how is he? Is he any better today, do you think?”

  “Much the same as yesterday really, but—”

  “Has he been talking to you at all?”

  “Once or twice.”

  The young face fell. “Well, I suppose that’s something.” Jill slipped the bag from her shoulder down onto the table. “I’ve brought him some goodies.” She took a foil-covered dish from the bag. “He always said he liked the pizza pies I made. And I’ve brought him some early peaches from the orchard. He must start to take an interest in something soon.” The shadowed eyes belied the light words.

  “Of course he will. Why don’t you go in and see him?”

  Two deep dimples appeared in the sun-tanned cheeks. “What do you think I came over here for? See you.” With a smile the girl moved away.

  A quizzical smile curved Doris’s lips. “Now you can see for yourself why I’m not run off my feet looking after Brian. Jill plans to take up nursing, she’s just waiting until next month to start training at the hospital in Auckland. Meantime she says that looking after Brian is good practice for her, even though half the time he doesn’t even realise she’s there. She’s been coming over almost every day, usually earlier than this, and she stays with him for ages.”

  Angela looked after the girl as she hurried away. Her eyes twinkled. “I thought you told me Brian was shy with girls.”

  “Shy isn’t the word! He’d rather run a mile in the opposite direction than face someone new.”

  “Well, there seems to be one girl around here that he feels happy with.”

  “You mean Jill?” Doris’s voice held a careless note. “You can’t count her. She’s just a sister to him.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Not a real sister, of course, but as good as. Jill was brought up at the homestead with the two Hillyer boys. Years ago she was left an orphan. Her parents were strangers in the district and there was no one to look after her or care what happened to her. The Hillyers took pity on her, they’d always longed for a daughter anyway and she was only a few years younger than Brian. She and Brian always played together and they got on well together later on when they used to come back from boarding school in the holidays. This summer Jill took a job as land girl on a cattle farm over the hills. She’s just filling in the time until February when she’s due to start her hospital training in the city. It’s a long drive over here and back again, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Those two always were the best of friends.”

  Friends ... Angela had a feeling that Jill’s interest in Brian, her devotion to him even at times when he couldn’t be aware of her presence, indicated something a little more than a sisterly sympathy. Or could she be mistaken? Perhaps Jill happened to be that rare person known as a “born nurse”, someone anxious to help others back to health without ever counting the cost to themselves.

  She brought her thoughts back to the woman seated opposite her at the long table.

  “Usually I have a houseful of children staying all through the long summer holidays, but Brian’s accident put a stop to that for a while. The kids will be disappointed, but I expect there’ll still be time for them to come later once Brian is feeling better.”

  “It must have made a difference to everyone?”

  “Accidents do, don’t they? Mark doesn’t say much, but I guess he’s feeling pretty disappointed too over that trip he missed out on. A group of young sheep farmers were taking off for a conference overseas, then travelling around various
countries—England, America, Japan, studying farming methods and wool marketing. He would have learned a lot and had a holiday as well. He never ever takes any time off, but he was going to make an exception for this. He’d been looking forward to it, I know, and the plane takes off with the rest of the party this morning. He can’t leave the place, not with Brian laid up.” Doris sighed. “Just one of those things.”

  A tiny bulb lighted up in Angela’s mind. Here was yet another reason for Mark Hillyer’s bitter resentment against Martha and the accident that for some ridiculous reason he insisted on holding her partly to blame for. She pushed the thought away and said tentatively, “Could I help you get the dinner ready?”

  “No, you couldn’t!” Clear grey eyes twinkled back at her. “You’ll have enough of preparing meals in the next few days to last you all the rest of the season. No, I have everything prepared. There’s a rice custard in the oven and there’s cold mutton for tea tonight.” Doris rose from the table. “Come along and I’ll show you around outside—” She broke off, adding after a moment, “That is, if you’d care to have a look at everything. I expect sheep farms are pretty familiar in your line of work. See one, you see them all.”

  “Oh no,” Angela protested quickly, “I’d love to come with you.” How could she confess to this kindly stranger that she had landed from the ship from London only a week previously and her cooking experience for a shearing gang was zero? The small voice deep in her mind supplied its jeering answer. How can you help letting her know the truth?