Читать книгу Trial By Marriage - Lindsay Armstrong, Lindsay Armstrong - Страница 7

‘THIS is very kind of you, Sarah,’ Wendy Wilson said.

‘Not at all,’ Sarah replied as she sat at the home- stead kitchen table drinking some of Mrs Tibbs’ ex- cellent coffee the next morning. ‘Mr Wyatt asked me to help out if I could.’

‘Did he indeed?’ For some reason Wendy’s green eyes rested on Sarah with, if she wasn’t imagining it, Sarah thought, a tinge of hostility in them.

Although it was ten o’clock, Amy appeared not to have risen yet and it was Mrs Tibbs who had given the children breakfast and made them some play dough to occupy themselves with. ‘Amy,’ Wendy went on to say, ‘was so upset last night, we decided to let her sleep in this morning. I gather you’ve been ap- prised of her break-up with her husband?’

‘Yes. I’m very sorry,’ Sarah said quietly.

‘And I don’t suppose she’ll want to be too bothered with this barbecue so I’ll be deputising for her. If you could tell me what needs to be done Sarah, I’ll get working.’

‘All right.’ Sarah hid any surprise she might have felt; there was actually little because it hadn’t been hard to see from the barest acquaintance that Wendy was a much more determined and capable person than her best friend. She also looked far less exotic this morning in a pair of well-cut brown corduroy trousers, polished brown moccasins and a lightweight green jumper. Her lovely dark hair was also tied back and her nails, Sarah particularly noticed, had been filed to neat, shorter ovals and the fire-engine-red polish replaced by a colourless one. ‘If we give Jim Lawson a buzz, he can organise a couple of men to dig the barbecue pits, get the coals going and set up the spits. I—’

But Wendy immediately walked over to the phone on the wall, consulted the list of numbers stuck beside it and proceeded to call up the Lawsons.

Sarah couldn’t help raising an eyebrow, secretly, she hoped, but discovered Mrs Tibbs looking her way with a similar expression of ‘you don’t say!’ in her eyes. She then turned back to her sink.

It took ten minutes for Wendy and Jim Lawson to make the arrangements for the pits. Wendy particu- larly wanted to know where they would be dug, and why they would be dug in such a spot. Jim had ob- viously suggested the usual place—the square in front of the machinery shed which had some grass, a couple of huge old peppercorn trees and some permanent tables and benches, and which was the general gath- ering place, even the hub or the heart of the property—whereas Wendy had thought the home- stead back garden more appropriate. But she finally conceded and it was arranged that they should be able to start eating at five o’clock. She came back to the kitchen table and said, ‘Well, I gather the practice is to spit-roast the meat—Mrs Tibbs, would you be so kind as to select the meat from the cold room? Two men will be up to collect it. That leaves the salads, I guess,’ she added.

Mrs Tibbs snorted. ‘Salads! We’re not feeding a party of namby-pamby fancy people on this station, miss. Salads, my word!’ And she crossed her arms that were like sides of meat themselves in a gesture of outrage.

‘My mistake,’ Wendy murmured. ‘What do we eat on this here station?’

Sarah intervened hastily as Mrs Tibbs opened her mouth. ‘Rice is very popular. We generally have a few pots of curry or goulash, Jean Lawson makes a par- ticularly fine potato casserole and Mrs Tibbs does a tasty dish of ground maize meal that she serves with gravy.’

‘Very well,’ Wendy said with just the faintest ex- pression of distaste at the mention of maize meal. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind ringing the Lawsons back, Sarah, and asking Jean to do her potatoes? Is it anyone’s special prerogative to make the curry or goulash?’

‘I make the goulash or the curry, whichever I decide on,’ Mrs Tibbs pronounced, arms still akimbo.

‘Then I’ve had a wonderful idea,’ Wendy said in- geniously. ‘I make a really mean curry, Mrs Tibbs, so why don’t you do the goulash?’

‘You mean you want to make curry here in my kitchen?’

‘Yes, but I tell you what—if you don’t think it’s up to your curry, Mrs Tibbs, I’ll feed it to the pigs or whatever you’ve got here as an equivalent.’

‘Is that like a bet, miss?’ Mrs Tibbs enquired expressionlessly.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re on!’

‘Good. Now rice—’

‘I’ll do the rice,’ Sarah said as she struggled not to laugh.

‘Excellent.’ Wendy looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘What does everyone drink?’

‘Beer,’ both Sarah and Mrs Tibbs replied, although Mrs Tibbs added,

‘And you don’t want to go suggesting spirits or gut- rotting wine, miss. Many a fight has started that way!’

Wendy grimaced but said nothing further on the subject. ‘How many people will there be, do you think?’

‘Uh… ten, twenty-three, twenty-seven—about thirty-two; there are a couple of ringers in the camp but fourteen of those will be kids,’ Sarah said.

‘What a thought,’ Wendy murmured.

‘It’s all right. I usually take care of the kids. We play games and so on until the food is ready. If we’re eating at five we generally collect an hour or so earlier—’ Sarah stopped as Amy trailed into the kitchen in a beautiful silk housecoat but sporting a pale, woebegone expression.

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope this barbecue is off?’ she said petulantly.

At four o’clock that afternoon Sarah was at the bar- becue area, as were most of the other employees, but there was no sign of the homestead party as yet. And she detected a certain amount of tension that was not normally present as smoke drifted through the air and the roasting carcasses were turned slowly on their spits.

It was a beautiful afternoon as the sun started to sink, with a few streaks of cloud in a sky tinged with apricot, and most of the men, cattlemen born and bred, discarded their tall hats which normally ap- peared glued to their heads. Most of them also wore boots with heels and silver-studded belts and, looking around, you couldn’t doubt this was cowboy country, Queensland style, because, although Edgeleigh now possessed a helicopter with the word ‘WYATT’ painted on its side, a lot of the men had been born and bred to a saddle as well and the night paddocks with their complement of horses were not far away.

For a couple of minutes Sarah stopped what she was doing—arranging dishes on one of the wooden tables—and looked around a little dreamily. It was romantic to be stuck out so far away from anywhere, with these people with their slower but not necessarily less wise speech, their far-seeing eyes, their simple ways.

Then she noticed two Land Rovers approaching from the homestead, and everyone sat up.

It was Cliff Wyatt who contrived to break the ice in a masterly exhibition that Sarah could only ap- plaud secretly and wonder how he’d done it. But the fact remained that in ten minutes or so he had everyone drinking and talking, he had Amy placed between Jean and Cindy Lawson and he himself with a beer in hand, and was surrounded by the men.

‘Not bad,’ Mrs Tibbs remarked, plonking a pot down next to Sarah’s rice. ‘Him I could get along with. Her—that’s another matter,’ she added darkly.

‘Amy?’

‘Not She won’t stay long—the other one, with the green eyes like a cat.’

‘Well, she’s definitely not staying long,’ Sarah of- fered, and had Mrs Tibbs look at her with severe con- tempt. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she queried with a smile curving her lips. ‘Wasn’t her curry any good?’

‘Her curry is bloody good,’ Mrs Tibbs said. ‘That doesn’t mean I have to like her.’

‘I still don’t see how it’s going to be a problem,’ Sarah said with a faint frown.

‘Then I’ll spell it out for you even though you’re the teacher round here—she plans to be Mrs Cliff Wyatt one day, you mark my words.’

Sarah’s lips parted and her eyes widened. ‘Oh…’ she said very slowly.

‘Yep, makes sense, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not to the likes of you, right off, leastwise, being a bit naive on these subjects—’

‘I am not!’ Sarah protested.

‘Course you are,’ Mrs Tibbs replied indulgently. ‘Hasn’t the veterinarian been making eyes at you for months—but have you noticed? Seems to me not.’

Sarah swallowed in an unusually flustered way as she thought of Tim Markwell, whom she liked, but not in that way. ‘He hasn’t!’

‘Who hasn’t?’ Wendy Wilson asked as she de- livered another pot to the table from the Land Rover. ‘My curry,’ she added gently. ‘Mrs Tibbs has allowed me to present it. Sarah, you can do either of two things for me—help Amy out a bit or help Sally and Ben out by starting to organise the kids.’

Sarah controlled an urge to tell Wendy Wilson to go to hell and said stiffly, ‘Right, I’ll do the kids.’

Whereas Mrs Tibbs said to the world at large, ‘What did I tell you?’

It was a successful barbecue. Almost from the first Ben joined in the games with vigour and initiative and even Sally released Sarah’s hand eventually and con- sented to be part of things. And when the meal was served Sarah had them all sitting in a ring so that they ate in a fairly orderly manner but with much en- joyment and it was only when they’d all finished that she released them to run wild a bit in the firelit darkness to play an energetic game of Cowboys and Indians. And Wendy contrived to hold court with the wives and older daughters in an exhibition almost as masterly as Cliff Wyatt’s that all the same irritated Sarah for reasons that weren’t that easy to identify. At least, she did acknowledge honestly to herself, the other girl rubbed her up the wrong way, so whatever she did would probably be irritating, however well she did it.

But surely why this was so could have nothing to do with Wendy’s ambition to be Mrs Cliff Wyatt— or could it? she asked herself once then shook her head in a gesture of disbelief, but added to herself, I don’t even know if it’s true and not an odd fancy of Mrs Tibbs’! But the irony of that thought made her feel curiously uncomfortable so she resolutely closed her mind to the whole subject.

It was a lot harder to keep her mind closed when she was presented with undeniable verification of Mrs Tibbs’ theory that same evening.

She’d helped Mrs Tibbs clear up after the bar- becue—Amy had taken herself and the children to bed and Wendy and Cliff had disappeared. And after they’d scoured the last pot they had a cup of tea in the big kitchen, then Sarah yawned, said goodnight and let herself out of the back door to make her way home. It was about a quarter of a mile to her cottage and she pulled her jacket around her and rubbed her hands as she descended the back steps and walked around the house. The night was clear, starry and cold and she walked soundlessly on the grass for a few yards until she heard voices and stopped uncertainly. They were coming from above and in front of her, from the veranda, and she immediately recognised Wendy’s voice—not only her voice but what she was saying and the way she was saying it…

‘You must admit I did well tonight, darling.’

‘Very well,’ Cliff Wyatt answered.

‘Surely I deserve a bit more than that for… slaying so many dragons in a manner of speaking?’ Every husky, sexy intonation of Wendy’s voice carried clearly on the cold night air.

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘This,’ she said, and Sarah couldn’t help herself. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see both Wendy and Cliff Wyatt—not in any great detail but their outlines—and she saw Wendy move into his arms and gaze up into his eyes. They stood like that for a long moment then she saw Cliff Wyatt’s dark head lower to the paler glimmer of Wendy’s up- turned face and their lips meet.

That was when she turned and slipped away around the other side of the house.

‘But do you believe in Father Christmas, Miss Sutherland?’ Billy Pascoe said. He was a thin, in- tense, trouble-prone child with awkward dark hair that seemed to grow straight upwards and resisted his mother’s every attempt to tame it.

‘Well, it’s generally only little people who believe in Father Christmas, the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny, Billy, but I must admit that last Christmas I could have sworn I saw someone who looked exactly like Father Christmas getting around Edgeleigh on a horse—.’

‘You always tell us we’re not allowed to swear, miss!’

‘Yes, I do but this is a different kind of swearing and has nothing to do with the saying of rude words—.’

‘Anyway, he’s supposed to be on a reindeer and that was—’

‘Perhaps his reindeer were sick, Billy,’ Sarah inter- posed smoothly. ‘And now, as it’s two minutes to three and nearly time for the bell, you can collect the art books, Billy—Billy,’ she said calmly, and outstared him firmly until he subsided grudgingly and did as he was told. ‘And you, Ben, can put away the paints.’

Ben sprang up and did so obligingly—anything to do with art and painting appealed to Ben—then he said, looking over Sarah’s shoulder. ‘Oh, here’s Uncle Cliff!’

Sarah didn’t turn but reached for the bell and swung it. ‘All right, off you go.’

Cliff Wyatt waited until they’d all tumbled out of the schoolhouse before he said anything. Then he strolled in front of her and remarked, ‘That was a masterpiece of diplomacy, Miss Sutherland. I quite thought he’d got you over the matter of swearing.’

Sarah grimaced. ‘It’s the likes of Billy Pascoe who keep teachers honest. How long were you there?’

He grinned. ‘Not long—you seem to have a large proportion of under-nines in your school.’

‘I have three teenagers actually but there’s an exam coming up so I gave them study leave after lunch. It’s easier for them to work at home sometimes.’

‘Any budding geniuses?’ he queried.

Sarah shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that but Donald Laws on, Cindy’s brother, is very bright and should be able to go on to university—with a bit of luck.’

‘Such as?’

‘His father’s approval,’ she said quietly. ‘Jim is still a bit staggered, I think, to find he has a son who is more interested in the Theory of Relativity than cattle. And, to be honest, I’m getting out of my depth a little. He should be at a proper high school with a science

department but—’ she smiled briefly ‘—I’m sure

they’ll work it out. Have you come for your tour of the facilities? Where would you like to start?’ she added briskly.

He studied her for a moment with a faint frown in his eyes then said, ‘Perhaps not.’

Sarah eyed him exasperatedly. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t think this would be a good time for it.’

‘It’s a much better time now that school’s finished rather than sneaking up on me when I’ve got Billy Pascoe pinning me to the wall about Father Christmas in front of a whole lot of younger kids,’ she said crossly.

‘So that’s why you’re angry? But I thought you handled it very well—’

‘I’m not—angry,’ Sarah denied frustratedly and none too truthfully.

‘Constrained, then?’ he suggested. ‘As if I’ve done something to alienate you further?’

Sarah stared at him and discovered that her heart was beating oddly with a little pulse of panic. Surely he couldn’t have divined her peculiarly ambiguous state of mind since she’d witnessed him kissing Wendy Wilson on the veranda last night?

‘You’d be better off telling me,’ he said after a strangely tense little pause.

Sarah came to life. ‘No! I mean no, there’s nothing. Look, I’m quite fine actually so why don’t we get it over and done with… ?’ She trailed off on a lowering note as she realised how that sounded. ‘Oh, hell,’ she added hollowly, ‘perhaps you’re right.’

What he would have said then was to remain a mystery because as he looked her over with the frown still in his eyes Ben and Sally popped back into the schoolhouse demanding to know if he’d come to fetch them or what. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘why not?’ And added expressionlessly, ‘Another day, then, Miss Sutherland?’

‘Thank you. Yes. Whenever it suits you,’ Sarah said and groaned inwardly at how craven that sounded.

It was two weeks before she had anything more than passing contact with Cliff Wyatt but it was impossible to be unaware of his presence daily on the property. Her pupils and their parents were full of his doings, the changes he was making, and there was an air of hope and expectancy about the place rather than the sad feeling of whistling against the wind that had pre- vailed before it was sold.

It also became evident that Cliff Wyatt was not all sweetness and light, as Sarah could have told them, but an exacting boss who expected everyone to give their best and who could be coldly, cuttingly and sar- donically unpleasant in a devastatingly accurate manner when they didn’t. Nevertheless, this on the whole engendered a spirit of respect, she judged—and discovered that that irritated her as well.

All in all, she thought with a sigh once, the wretched man has contrived to set me on an uneven keel and I can’t seem to right myself. If I didn’t have to hear so much about him it might help and, of course, if I didn’t have to see him at all, that would help even more…

But it was not so easy to avoid seeing Cliff Wyatt although it was generally at a distance, but, even so, his height and easy carriage made him unmistakable, as did his air of authority, and, whether he was riding a horse, climbing into the helicopter which he piloted himself sometimes or simply striding to and from the homestead, she not only saw him often but felt the same stupid impact as she had the first time she’d laid eyes on him.

Of course it has to go away, she told herself more than once. I’m twenty-six! I’m not a giddy girl—and I don’t like him. You simply can’t be a rational adult and be obsessed with a man you don’t like…

That was how, unfortunately, as it turned out, on one of the occasions when she did come into contact with him briefly she also came to be more friendly than usual towards Tim Markwell, the vet, who was with him when they all met as she was shepherding the children back from a ramble they’d taken as part of a nature-study class.

Tim was not as tall as Cliff Wyatt but good-looking in a quiet way with a kind, gentle manner towards animals and humans alike. He flew his own plane from Longreach where he was based and his surgery covered hundreds of square miles. He was in his early thirties, she judged, and it was only after she’d bestowed a particularly warm smile upon him that she found herself hoping against hope that Mrs Tibbs had been wrong, and remembering uneasily that she’d been right about Wendy Wilson, though.

‘Hi, Sarah,’ Tim said easily but with a faint tinge of surprise in his eyes. ‘Been studying the local flora and fauna?’

‘Yes,’ she said wryly, ‘and I’m all talked out on the subject.’ In fact she did feel a bit tired, she realised, but for no real reason that she could fathom.

‘Why don’t you give them an early day?’ Cliff Wyatt suggested after subjecting her to a penetrating scrutiny.

‘Oh, no.’ Sarah looked shocked. ‘I couldn’t do that!’

‘Ah, but I could,’ he said, and turned to address the group of kids, who, delighted at their stroke of good fortune, needed no further invitation to scamper off delightedly.

‘How could you do that?’ Sarah said incredulously.

‘It was quite simple,’ he replied gravely but with a tinge of irony.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have!’

‘Why not? A couple of hours off isn’t going to harm them and it might even do you a bit of good.’

‘But it’s undermining my authority!’

‘I doubt it,’ he drawled. ‘Don’t you think you’re over-reacting?’ he added politely but in a way that somehow caused her to squirm inwardly and feel shrewish, and also added force to his point that she needed a break.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said abruptly and turned away.

‘Oh, by the way, Sarah,’ Tim said. ‘That sick wombat that I took to the surgery has recovered com- pletely and is in a fair way to becoming the bane of my life! He eats shoes and socks.’

Sarah turned back with a smile lighting her face. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased, Tim! Not about the shoes and socks but that he’s recovered. What will you do with him?’

‘I’ve got the feeling I’m stuck with him,’ Tim said ruefully. ‘Unless you’d like him back?’

Sarah grimaced. ‘I’m not sure that I could cope with a naughty wombat on top of—well, some naughty kids.’

‘Then I’ll spare you that fate!’

She spent that afternoon working on Cindy’s dress and taking herself to task over the image she ap- peared to be projecting of a slightly rattled teacher.

Three days later she was summoned to the home- stead and arrived to find Amy in tears, Wendy still in residence and Cliff Wyatt in an unpleasant, cutting mood.

‘Sit down, Sarah.’ They were assembled in the main lounge-cum-dining-room, a large, graceful room with a high ceiling and a wooden archway dividing it. The furniture, she noted in a quick glance around, was beautiful; there was a round mahogony dining-table with a central pedastal and eight chairs, a studded leather lounge suite and two exquisite Persian carpets on the restored wooden floor.

‘We’ve asked you to come up and give us your opinion as to whether Sally and Ben can be left here for a couple of weeks without their mother,’ Cliff Wyatt said.

Sarah blinked and Amy said tearfully, ‘Do you have to make it sound so awful? As if I really am aban- doning them?’

‘I’m not doing anything of the kind,’ he replied in clipped tones.’ What would be quite ridiculous, to my mind, is the idea of you carting them off for an in- definite period, upsetting their schooling and gen- erally unsettling them all round while you try to get

your life back together. Sarah—’ he turned to her

‘—as if it isn’t obvious, how are they settling in?’

Sarah said slowly, ‘Very well. Ben can be a bit of a handful at times but that’s nothing unusual for little boys, especially bright little boys. And now I’ve dis- covered he has quite a flair for art and loves to paint I’ve been giving him some extra art lessons, which he loves. As for Sally, she’s made a friend, they’re in- separable actually, and got over a lot of her shyness. I’d say they’re both happy and well-adjusted at the moment.’

‘And we can’t lay much of the responsibility for that at your door these days, Amy,’ her brother said pointedly.

The result was inevitable. Amy started to sob con- vulsively and Wendy murmured, ‘Cliff, I don’t think this is helping much.’

Sarah stood up. ‘I’ll—’

‘Sit down,’ Cliff Wyatt ordered.

But Sarah stood her ground with a little glint of anger in her eyes. ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ she replied evenly, and in truth, although she couldn’t help feeling some impatience with the ever-tearful Amy, she also couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her.

‘It has in the sense that if Amy could be assured of your interest in Sally and Ben she might go with a clearer conscience.’

Sarah returned his hard, probing look with a rather old-fashioned one of her own. ‘Naturally I’m interested in them,’ she said stiffly, ‘and if Mrs Tibbs needs a hand at all I’d be happy to help—.’

‘Good, that’s settled, then,’ Cliff Wyatt said decis- ively but Amy only sobbed harder and Sarah glared at him then walked over to the other girl and said gently,

‘They’ll be fine with us for a while, Amy. But I think you should let them know that it won’t be for long, and you should make every effort to be calm and loving before you go.’

‘I’ll try—I will!’ Amy wailed. ‘Oh, thank you, Sarah! I know Mrs Tibbs is very good with them but you’re such a sensible sort of person. I’ve watched you with the kids and so on…’ And she resolutely blew her nose, swallowed several times and managed a shaky smile.

‘The very personification of it,’ Cliff Wyatt mur- mured, while Sarah thought two thoughts—that she’d been unaware of Amy’s approval or that she’d even been interested enough to notice anything, and, sec- ondly, to wonder what she was getting herself into.