Dilemma at Dulloora

DILEMMA AT DULLOORA Amanda Doyle

The brood of youngsters in Nat McMorran's charge at Dulloora Station in the Outback were nice, but a handful, and he was thankful when Jonty Ashburne came along to help out -- which meant that he could now think about marrying his fiancee Isobel, at last. But what did Jonty think about it all?

CHAPTER ONE It was hot in the C.W.A. Hall. More than merely hot. Stifling. From her raised position on the platform, Jonty could see the pepper-tree beyond the window sagging defeatedly in the blatant sun. In a thin speckle of shade beneath its boughs a dog lay panting. His pink tongue lolled, his flank heaved rhythmically as he drowsed, stirring every now and then to snap at an irritantly persistent fly. He was a mongrel dog, emaciated and unattractive, dry of coat, with a certain hungry desolation in his eyes. Beyond the pepper-tree and the dog and the small cloud of flies was the main street of Morilla—the only street, in fact—and it was at this moment lined with cars of every type and description, from dusty jalopies to gleaming saloons, from ragged Blitzes to shining station waggons. Almost all of the vehicles belonged to the people who sat in neat rows on wooden folding chairs in front of Jonty just now, watching her attentively as she worked. Some watched critically, others with mere politeness, as if they perhaps knew a good deal more than Jonty did herself about what she was doing. That wouldn't be impossible, she thought a little grimly to herself, as she reached for another egg, cracked it against the side of the bigger bowl, and separated it cleanly with what she hoped was a practised flourish. 'First of all, separate the whites from the yolks,' she intoned in her clear English voice, and the spectators nodded their encouragement.

She couldn't complain. She had been lucky, after all, to get this job, at a time when she had hardly been in a position to pick and choose. She had been assured, when she took on that homeward-bound cruise with the Peytons and their family, that her employment in Australia would be guaranteed for the next two years at the very least. To Jonty, still stunned by her mother's death and the fact that she was now alone in the world, each day had seemed like a lifetime of bewildering loneliness—a whole two years had seemed an eternity. Yet she had not hesitated to cut loose, to leave Britain behind her with scarcely a pang of regret. There was nothing to keep her there now, except for her memories, and she could carry those around with her easily enough, even from one end of the world to the other. Jonty grimaced as she stacked the eggshells together and turned to her audience once more. How innocent she had been not to realise that there must be some snag to a plum of a job like the Peyton one—fare paid from Tilbury to Sydney, generous salary, adequate time off, live 'as family', and one's future guaranteed for an extensive period after arrival. Jonty had discovered the snag almost at once. It was none other than Mr. Peyton himself! It soon became painfully evident that the two years of guaranteed employment were not the only thing to be counted upon, but the attentions of Mr. Peyton along with them I No doubt her predecessor had experienced the same problem, and that was why Mrs. Peyton remained aloof and hostile, the children wary and unco-operative. On the ship, the situation was diluted to some extent by all the fringe activities in which Jonty could possibly involve herself and her charges, but once the home port was reached, she realised that there was only one solution to her predicament. She found an unexpected ally in the weary Mrs. Peyton, who accepted her resignation with the minimum of fuss and

the maximum of poise, and even offered, with a somewhat frosty smile, to find her alternative employment. Jonty had declined the offer, in her typically independent way, and had later regretted it. The trouble was, she supposed, that she was untrained, unskilled at any particular profession. For the hundredth time since she had left St. Cyrus, after only one year of the nursing training upon which she had set her heart, Jonty found herself cursing the childhood illness which had left her with that weakness in one hip. It manifested itself in a limp that was barely discernible, except when she was very tired, and in normal circumstances she was able to conceal it altogether. However, the rigorous life in the wards, the constant standing, walking, and lifting, had found her out, and after that single year, devoted to the calling to which she now knew she could happily have dedicated her life, Jonty had been forced to face the fact that she was physically incapable of its demands, 'Can you cook?' the man at Lovalee Canners Ltd. had asked, and a smile of pure pleasure and relief had lit Jonty's anxious face at the question. Lovalee was, after all, her fifth interview that day, and her leg was aching almost as much with walking the city streets in search of addresses as her heart was with hopelessness at her singular lack of qualifications. 'Oh, yes, I can do that,' she asserted positively, before adding more cautiously, 'reasonably well, that is.' 'Hmm.'

The Lovalee man had given her an appraising look, and then seemed to make up his mind. 'Reasonably well will do,' he told her. He was almost as triumphant as she was, so maybe he had had a long, unsatisfactory day, too. 'You will have a fortnight's course before the tour, which will take you into remote country areas to demonstrate our products. You have a good speaking voice, which is essential; a pleasant appearance, too,' he added, then promptly deflated her ego by explaining, 'By that, I mean that your person appears neat and wellgroomed. Tidy hair, clean finger-nails'—the Lovalee man ran his fingers through his own hair frustratedly, leaving it anything but tidy—'If you could see some of the types I've interviewed today— positively septic, some of them,' he grumbled. 'How do I travel?' asked Jonty rather dazedly. It seemed she had actually landed this job! 'In one of the Company's caravans, naturally. We send our girls out in pairs, and the Lovalee vans are specially constructed to provide both sleeping accommodation and demonstration facilities, the complete range of our Lovalee Canned Fruits, our own unique gas ovens.' He sounded proud. 'And my companion -?' '—Will be Carole. She is one of our senior demonstrators, and the nicest possible person with whom to travel. Very efficient and levelheaded, Carole. Yours will be a minor role.' He put his hands together, smiling faintly. 'You will be the supporting cast, so to speak. You may safely leave all the really important business to your partner. That is why reasonable proficiency will do,' he enlightened her reassuringly. And, thus far, he had been right.

She and Carole were almost at the end of their tour, and she had managed to gloss over any gaps in her culinary knowledge-with a spate of breezy patter upon the merits of Lovalee tinned fruits. Her audiences throughout had been patient and friendly, as though they half-guessed that the slender, brown-haired demonstrator with the shy violet eyes and English voice was slightly out of her depth, in spite of the crisp green-and-white overall, the jaunty chef's cap perched cheekily to one side, and the bold 'Lovalee Canners Ltd' emblem which adorned her breast pocket. The places they had visited had been unbelievably remote, connected by interminable stretches of dusty, ridged dirt roads, that at times had seemed to Wiltshire-born Jonty little more than tracks over the desert. Morilla was the very last call on the itinerary, and she was handling it by herself because they had had a breakdown earlier in the week, and had found themselves two days behind schedule. Carole had elected to leave Morilla to Jonty, and do the three-day stint at Suddenly Plains herself. 'Morilla is only a tiny place, Jonty, but it does serve a wide area, so you're bound to get quite a good attendance. I'd skip it altogether, now that we're running late, except that we Sent the advertising leaflets ahead, and they'll be on the look-out for us. There's quite a decent hall there, and we can off-load one of the cookers for you, and a fridge. You can stay in the hotel—oh, yes, they do have one of those, my dear! They have one of almost everything in Morilla!' 'I liope I'll manage without you, Carole.' Jonty was somewhat dubious. 'What if they ask advanced questions?' They won't, sweetie. It's more in the nature of a day out for the Morilla neighbourhood than anything else, but don't tell Mr. Lovalee Canners that I said so, will you? Most of them can probably cook

better than either of us, if the truth be known. We're good entertainment value, though, so they'll turn out in strength, I'm sure. Just stick to the usual routine. Do the Pavlova cake on the middle day, and the pie and original tips on the last—and don't forget to dole out the free samples, will you, and the cookery leaflets?' 'I won't.' 'See you on Thursday, then. Be good.' ' I will.' Jonty had grinned ruefully. Impossible to be anything else in a funny little township like Morilla, hunched at the foot of a bleak, rocky range, at the end of nowhere, even if it had got one of everything! The first day hadn't gone too badly. Jonty got through an apricot upside-down cake (with Lovalee tinned apricots, of course) without disaster, and from thence had graduated to a prune- and- brandy mousse (with Lovalee prunes) and a cherry marzipan platter (with Lovalee cherries). The onlookers were all women, in bright cotton frocks and hats that strove hard to be smart as well as sun-stopping. Jonty, eyeing the rows of brown-skinned, sun-creased faces under those hats, decided that the combination of informal floral cotton and semi-formal straw hat was by and large unsuccessful, even slightly ridiculous. It was obviously difficult to be fashionable and practical and sun-protected all at the one time, and some of those hats certainly did look as though they had been performing their combined duties in this respect for a good number of years, just as the dresses were mostly of the safe, short-sleeved, button- fronted variety known as 'shirtwaister', which does not bow down to the dianging gimmicks of fashion. The garb was almost like a uniform, relieved simply by the variety of colour and print.

There was a single child in the audience, and a baby further down the same row. The baby wore only a nappy. It was tanned and fat and playful, and kept putting its chubby bare foot up to its mouth in a variety of impossible contortions while its mother listened and watched, ignoring the manoeuvres of the infant on her lap. The child was a girl. She sat slumped down in her wooden chair, swinging thin brown legs idly as she, too, listened. Her freckled nose wrinkled with concentration, her dark eyes were gimlet-bright with interest and curiosity. Jonty met her eye from time to time, drawn back to the fascination of that alert and lively little face, and once, when she smiled, the child had smiled back. She had a gamine grin, full of crooked teeth and fun and mischief, rewardingly friendly and spontaneous. She did not appear to belong to anybody in the audience, and during the whole afternoon she spoke to no one—just sat and watched and listened in a self-contained manner, swinging her legs and occasionally flicking her sandy pigtails, with a quick movement of her brown fingers. When the demonstration was over, the little girl glanced furtively along the rows of people, stood on sandal-tiptoe the better to inspect the area near the exit, then darted speedily down the side aisle and out of the hall. As she gathered her materials together, put the eggshells in the lidded refuse-bin provided by the hall authorities, and covered the remaining egg-yolks carefully with a piece of polythene before consigning them to the tiny fridge, Jonty could see the child through the dusty window-pane. She was squatting down beside the dog under the pepper- tree, with her thin brown arms around its neck, talking to it animatedly. In answer, the dog's tail thumped enthusiastically on the hot, baked ground, and it closed its eyes, savouring this unexpected attention.

Chairs scraped as the women rose, in ones and twos, gathering into small groups, or coming over to speak to Jonty as she tidied up. She recognised most of them from the day before. She had felt, this morning, when she confronted her audience, that they had become acquaintances instead of strangers overnight. There was the one in the apple-green straw hat again, waving to her as she took her seat; there the woman in the pink shirt-dress that looked a bit like a sheet; and there was the girl with the fat, crowing baby, settling herself beside the thin, unsmiling creature with whom she had sat at yesterday's demonstration. They must know and like each other, since they obviously chose to sit together, although the older one spent a vast amount of her time frowning at the infant when its gurglings rose to such a pitch as to threaten to drown Jonty's own soft English voice. 'Finished for the day, love?' 'Er—yes. I hope you found it interesting?' 'It makes a change, dear. Nice to get off the property once in a while, you know.' The woman's voice was nasally, unflatteringly indifferent. 'Yes, I can imagine that! It's a—a very remote place, Morilla, isn't it?' 'Remote? This? Not really, it isn't. It's because you're a Pommy, I suppose, that you might think that.' 'A Pommy?' 'Yes. English. That's what we call you English out here— not meaning it in a nasty way, mind you—not a bit I But I mean—well, you are different, aren't you?' 'Are we?' Jonty asked, startled.

'Well, of course! I mean, even that was a complete giveaway, thinking Morilla's remote. We've lots of places much more remote than Morilla, my dear—places in the real inside country, like Kopperamanna out on the Barcoo, and Innamincka and Oodnadatta. And the one everyone's heard of—Alice Springs.' 'Oh, yes, I've heard of that,' Jonty assured her informant proudly. 'But the others—what terribly queer names!' 'Abo names, that's why. The aborigines always named their places with great aptitude and accuracy, according to the landmarks and terrain of each particular locality. If a place was hot and dry, or stony, or hilly, or inhabited by eagles, or swans, or emus, then they said so when they named it, like as not. My hubby says you can often tell what a property will be like, simply by the name, without ever seeing it, sometimes—that's if you know the native meanings— and he ought to know, because he's a stock and station agent. Even Morilla is descriptive—it means a stony ' ridge, and you can't get more accurate than that, can you?' 'No, indeed!' agreed Jonty wholeheartedly, eyeing the barren range that reared up beyond the dusty huddle oi dwellings, in her square, window-paned line of vision, with the dog and the child and the pepper-tree in the foreground. 'Very accurate, as you say.' 'We've got other names, too, naturally, that are nothing to do with aborigines, as you'll have gathered already on your tour—whole districts with nothing but Scottish titles —all that's missing is the glens, you might say I—and others all Irish, after the exiles who christened them. There's even English,' added this particular C.W.A. member in a sudden concession of tolerance that brought a smile to Jonty's mobile mouth.

'Goodness! Never?' she uttered disbelievingly, but her eyes were sparkling with fun. The sparkle went unnoticed. 'Well, maybe not as far out as this, you understand. Like you, they must have reckoned it was too remote, and left it to the second generation to pioneer. A bit too different from England's green and pleasant land, I suppose.' The woman smiled now, quite kindly, but the curve had left Jonty's lips already, and the sparkle had died in her eye, too, as she drew her handkerchief from her emblazoned pocket, and wiped the perspiration from her beaded forehead. So hot! Yes, different it was! Almost overwhelmingly different. Almost frightening in its loneliness and barren aspect and forlorn, drab colourings, and palpitating heat. It had been all right so long as Carole had been with her, but Jonty was conscious that, alone, it could easily become frightening—that's if you were silly enough to let it. Jonty herself had no intention of allowing that. She wasn't going to be here much longer, only one more day, in fact. It would have been nicer if Carole had been able to be with her, but so far she had managed quite well by herself. Tomorrow would be her final day in Morilla, so she must not give way to this sudden panic that had inexplicably threatened to demoralise her just now, as the peculiar isolation of her position was suddenly borne in upon her. Tomorrow the pie, the leaflets, Carole, and then—.thankfully— departure from Morilla, the stony ridge at the back of nowhere. 'Well, dear, so long, and see you tomorrow.' The woman might almost have read her thoughts. There was a measure of reassurance in her voice, an almost maternal expression in her eye.

'Yes, tomorrow. Will you be coming? Thank you so much for attending the demonstration. You've all been most kind!' Jonty smiled her goodbyes as the last of the audience filed out of the hall, and presently she followed after them. When she approached the child and dog under the pepper-tree, Jonty stopped and opened the paper bag she had brought with her from the hall. 'Hullo. Is he yours, this dog?' she asked the little girl, who still squatted on her haunches, gazing up first at Jonty herself, and then, more inquisitively, at the bag which she was carrying. The sandy plaits swayed to the negating movement of the child's head. 'He isn't mine,' she responded in an engagingly straightforward manner. 'He isn't anyone's, I don't think. He's a stray.' She put a small brown hand to either side of the dog's face, and spoke to him, instead of to Jonty. 'You're a stray, aren't you, darling? Just a poor little stray, and nobody cares about you, just like me. We've nowhere to go, and we've nothing to do, have we, doggie darling, so we'll just be friends, won't we, doggie? We're friends already, see, aren't we?' she crooned. 'Two strays, that's what we are.' The dog's eyes melted with adoration at the murmured, loving, childish tones. His tongue licked feverishly at the brown, caressing fingers, and his tail thumped even harder on the ground than it had before. Jonty knelt down, too, and patted the animal's head. 'Look, I've brought him some of my pastry trimmings and cookery scraps. Do you think he'd like them?'

'Oh, yes! Thank you!' The girl accepted the proffered bag. 'Look, Desmond—look what the kind lady's brought you! Gosh, he's really and truly ravenous, isn't he! Same as me, aren't you, Desmond? I call him Desmond,' she explained seriously to Jonty, 'because he seemed so dismal. Dismal Desmond. But he won't be now, not when he's got all that inside him.' Jonty found herself inspecting this unusual little girl with barely concealed interest. A stray? Certainly those tanned arms and legs were thin, but scarcely undernourished, and the dark, expressive eyes were alert and intelligent. A stray? Surely not! And yet she had been alone for the whole day—first in the hall, and then outside. Now it would soon be dark, and she was still by herself, and appeared to be in no hurry to leave her newfound animal companion. 'Are—um—are you hungry, too?' Jonty asked now, cautiously. 'Really hungry, I mean? Because I've got some biscuits back there in the hall.' 'Have you, truly?' The dark eyes shone. 'I'd adore a biscuit, thanks, if it's not too much bother. I'd have had some of Desmond's, only he seemed to need them rather badly, didn't he?' She followed Jonty willingly enough back to the tin- roofed hall, and up on to the platform, where the demonstration equipment was. 'Mm, thanks.' The child sat down on the edge of the platform, legs dangling, and ate with relish. When Jonty poured a glass of lemon squash from her jug in the fridge, she drank that, too. Then she took a rather grubby handkerchief from the pocket of her cotton shorts, wiped her mouth and fingers carefully, and sighed contentedly.

'That was awfully good, thanks, Miss—er -' 'Jonty.' 'Jonty. Awfully good.' A pause, 'I haven't had a thing since breakfast, so I was famished, just like Desmond.' 'Not since breakfast? Oh surely that isn't right?' Jonty was genuinely puzzled. 'Who—er—who gave you breakfast?' she asked, hoping that the question would not prove tactless in the light of the child's apparently abandoned state. 'Oh, my stepmother gave me that—just a little bit, and very early. Not much, though. She doesn't give us lunch.' 'Not—not lunch? But surely you don't go the whole day without food?' Jonty was faintly shocked. 'She never gives us lunch. She's wicked, she really is. She hates us, and we hate her. She starves us—on purpose,' added the pathetic voice, observing the satisfactory reaction upon its listener of this tale of woe. 'Oh, surely not on purpose?' 'Oh, yes, she does! She's mean to us all the time, behind his back, that is. It's horrible, life is, just now. It really is!' 'But couldn't you—well—tell him?' suggested Jonty helpfully. 'I mean, perhaps he doesn't know, has never guessed, that you're being made rather miserable. Men don't, sometimes, you see, but it's just because they don't think, not because they don't care. Perhaps if you told him that you aren't very happy -'

'No.' The pigtails shook again—sadly, this time. 'It wouldn't be any use now. He's on her side all the time, you see, and she's so nasty and sneaky with us, but she's too clever to let him see. Of course, stepmothers are like that usually, aren't they? Sometimes they're quite brutal. Wicked and brutal. That's what Isobel is, too—brutal.' A sigh. 'She belts us, you know. I'll get beaten when I get home tonight, I shouldn't wonder. Beaten, and sent to bed without any tea. I'll be put in the lock-up. So it's a good thing I had those biscuits, isn't it?' The child slid resignedly off the dais and dusted the back of her shorts. Then she smiled that open, engaging smile— gamine and fetching—once more, and prepared to depart. 'Thanks again, Jonty. And for Desmond's scraps, too.' 'Not at all. It wasn't much.' Jonty hesitated. It seemed dreadful letting this poor little waif go off to her supperless homecoming, just like that! 'Here! Take an apple with you, to eat on your way home,' she said impulsively, her heart turning with pity at the sight of the thin, departing figure. 'I hope you get on all right,' she added gently, as she handed over the fruit. 'You know, perhaps in a way I'm luckier than I thought, because, although I don't actually have a home or a family or anything, I haven't got a stepmother like yours, and I don't get beaten and sent to bed without anything to eat! I'm really terribly sorry about your stepmother. It's most unfortunate for you.' The girl accepted the apple, shrugged her thin shoulders. 'Like I said, it's horrible,' she repeated. 'I expect it's worst of all for me, too, 'cos I'm the youngest.' White teeth snapped incisively together on the apple's rosy sphere. Beady eyes regarded Jonty curiously as she munched. 'I say, don't you have anyone, truly? No family, or father, or mother? Not even a stepmother, like Isobel?' 'Not anyone.'

'So where do you live, then?' 'Not anywhere, really. I just—er—move around.' 'With that other lady, in the caravan?' Jonty smiled at her inquisitor. 'Well, not really, not after tomorrow. You see,' she went on to explain, 'tomorrow is my last day in this job, so after that I simply don't know what I shall do. I'll just have to wait and see.' She made herself sound confident, but inside there was a nasty hollow feeling. She couldn't allow the child, or even herself, to guess at the exact extent of that hollowness and uncertainty, and because she had to disguise the sudden tremor in her voice and the anxiety in her eyes, she added, more brusquely than she intended, 'Well, run along now! I'm sure you should be going home!' 'O.K., Jonty.' A pause from the doorway. 'I say, if I'm not here tomorrow, will you feed Desmond?' 'If he's there, yes, I'll give him my scraps again.' 'He'll be there, because he seems to stay under that tree all the time now. He's made it his home, I should think. I'll try to get here myself, mind you, but I mightn't manage it. Sometimes they put me in the lock-up. Goodnight, Jonty.' 'Goodnight.' Jonty made her way in the gathering dusk to her hotel room. Eating her solitary meal in the gloomy, mosquito-gauzed dining room at the rear of the building, she felt acutely and inexplicably depressed. She felt depressed for herself, and for the thin, lonely

child with such a sad domestic background. And she felt sad, too, for Desmond. She wished, when she thought she heard him whining from Ms adopted pepper-tree home along the street, in the middle of the night, that Carole could be here to cheer her up. She wished, too, that her job was not ending tomorrow, because she had enjoyed it up till the moment when Carole had had to leave her by herself in Morilla.' Now she had only tomorrow left, and then—what? Jonty tried to ignore Desmond's faint whimperings, and eventually drifted once more into an uneasy sleep. When she arrived at the hall next day, her depression had been effectively banished by a cool shower, a lavish application of some Cologne which Carole had kindly given her to combat the heat, already making itself fek, and a breakfast of cold stewed fruit with tinned cream, followed by toast and marmalade and several cups of scalding tea. On her way to her final day's demonstration, Jonty fed the crusts from her toast to Desmond, who was lying placidly beneath the tree. He wolfed down her entire offering with gusto and a single swallow of incredible speed, then lay down again and closed his eyes. There was no sign of the little girl, nor was she in the C.W.A. hall when Jonty entered it. Already the place was packed. This, the last day, was the one upon which the free samples and cookery leaflets were to be distributed, and word must have got around, supposed Jonty realistically, adjusting her fresh, white cap, and buttoning newly-starched white pastry cuffs around her wrists. There must be at least twice as many people in her audience today as there had been yesterday. Again, all of them women, except for the fat brown baby, and—yes, my

goodness!—that was undoubtedly a man, in the third row from the back! And a very man-like sort of man, at that! Head and shoulders above the rest, he somehow looked quite out of place among all those cotton frocks and straw hats. It wasn't just his lean, hard-jawed face, with its jutting brows and penetrating grey eyes, nor his swarthy, muscular forearms, bare, as he sat with them folded across a broad, khaki-shirted chest. It was the fact that he was not interested that set him apart so conspicuously from the female company all about him. He wasn't the least bit interested—not in cookery demonstrations, anyway. He was simply looking for someone I He made no pretence about it, observed Jonty, half resentfully. He craned his neck and looked along the rows, methodically scrutinising each and every occupant in each and every chair with cold, half- closed eyes that seemed to see right through plump backs and straw hats and cotton shirtwaisters, just as if they weren't there at all. His wide mouth was set in the same uncompromising way in which his arms were folded, and his eyes, as they passed over the front row, rested coolly upon Jonty herself with brief interest, and then moved on. A small knot of latecomers came crowding through the door at that moment, effectively hemming him in. The man half-rose, saw that escape was apparently impossible, then settled down with an air of unflattering resignation into his chair once more. Rude creature! seethed Jonty. -If he wasn't interested, why had he come into the hall in the first place? His presence was distinctly distracting, to put it mildly! Jonty gathered her wits, calmed her ruffled feelings, and commenced her final cookery lecture. Today,' she told them in her clear, pretty voice, 'we are going to make an old favourite, using our egg-yolks in a Lingalonga Pie. And

for this particular pie there is scarcely anything more delicious with which to fill it than a one- pound tin of Lovalee canned peaches, sliced ready for use, as you may see from the illustration on the label.' She held up the tin, and involuntarily Jonty's eyes met the half-shut mocking grey ones in the third back row. The man's attention appeared to be captured at last, though. He was listening now with a casual interest, a half- grin lifting one corner of his mouth, eyes fastened with lazy speculation upon the diminutive figure on the platform. Jonty smoothed her hair under its pristine chefs bonnet with a selfconscious despair, and wished that he would go away. The only thing was, he couldn't, could he? He was shut in effectively by all those cotton shirtwaisters and reliable straw hats. He was committed! Jonty's eyes slid back thankfully to the tin in her hand, 'A sixteenounce can of Lovalee sliced peaches,' she repeated firmly. 'And of course, the egg-yolks. Here they are, our four egg-yolks.' She took the small bowl from the fridge, removed the polythene cover. 'Where do you get egg-yolks like that?' chipped in a deep, masculine, drawling voice. 'Our hens seem to lay the whites along with them,' Jonty paused, flustered. Oh, dear! She had forgotten to show them all how to fill the Pavlova—that is, until the words of this pestiferous man had reminded her! The meringue shell was still sitting in the oven, exactly where she had left it yesterday to dry out overnight She had

not only forgotten to remove the meringue and complete the Pavlova, as Carole had told her to be sure to do at the beginning of the final lecture. She had in consequence also omitted to pre-heat the oven for the pie which she now intended to make. It was all because of that man, she thought peevishly, opening the oven door hastily with hands that shook nervously, and withdrawing the Pavlova case. 'The whites were used yesterday to make this meringue case, which I shall presently fill with Lovalee Fruit Salad, diced ready for use,' she announced, fixing a reproving eye on her tormentor. 'If you had been here yesterday -' 'Heaven forbid!' The deep drawl could not fail to reach her ears. It brought appreciative feminine giggles from its own immediate vicinity. 'As you can all see'—Jonty's hands strove for steadiness, as they held the meringue shell aloft—'the Pavlova has been dried out perfectly by the simple method of turning off the cool oven in which it was cooked, and leaving it overnight exactly where it was.' She tapped the outside of the peaked white case. 'Crisp on the outside, deliriously mallowy on the inside, that is what to aim for. Combined with Lovalee diced fruit salad, and topped with whipped cream, it is an unbelievably delectable confection, with a truly festive appearance, as you shall see—er—later in the morning. Meanwhile, we turn on the oven for our Lingalonga pie, at setting four hundred—there—and then we take two egg- yolks -' 'You did say four, I think,' murmured a deep voice, helpfully. 'Two,' Jonty told him snappily. 'The other two will be incorporated in a chilled custard sauce to be served with the pie. Waste not, want

not.' She gave him a smile as chilly as the custard sauce was going to be. 'An admirable sentiment,' agreed the man imperturbably, and the mobile mouth curled a little further. Clearly, he was enjoying himself at her expense! 'Yes—well—well, where was I?' Jonty floundered. 'Two egg yolks -' that voice! 'Oh, yes, of course! We take two of the remaining egg- yolks, beat them vigorously with one teaspoon of sugar, and add them to the crumbled fats and flour with just a very little iced water -' Thank heaven she could do this bit with her eyes shut, thought Jonty. The morning dragged on, but the audience, at any rate, seemed unaware of the peculiar stiltedness of their demonstrator's movements this morning, the awkward clumsiness that assailed her fingers as they worked, the self-consciousness that attacked her speech. More than half-way through the proceedings, a movement beyond the window caught Jonty's eye for a second. Through the dusty pane she could see that the thin brown child with the sandy pigtails was back again, patting Desmond in the shade of the pepper-tree. Jonty's heart was unaccountably gladdened at the sight It was nice to know that that nasty stepmother had not locked up the little girl, after all, as she had feared—unless she had escaped, that is, and if she had, well, such unsympathetic adult behaviour deserved no less in retaliation!

Good luck to her, thought Jonty, and determined then and there to save one of each of her sample products to give to the child afterwards. At the end of the morning, she stood in the doorway, handed the rest of the samples to members of the audience as they departed, and gave out the cookery leaflets to those who expressed interest. They nearly all smiled a friendly goodbye, thanked her for the demonstrations, and clucked delightedly over the samples and leaflets. 'Goodbye.' 'Yes, most interesting. Thank you again.' . 'Perhaps you'll be back another year?' 'You did very well, dear. I've a good mind to write to the firm and tell them.' 'Goodbye.' 'Goodbye.' Jonty looked furtively around for the tall, sunburnt man who had made her morning such a misery, whether by design or accident or through sheer boredom she was never likely to know. He was nowhere to be seen, so he must have slipped out as soon as he could reach the door, while the women were coming up to the front to collect their samples. She gave a relieved sigh, collected the tiny tins she intended for the child, picked up the bag of scraps which she had saved for dismal Desmond, and stepped out into the blazing sun.

Already cars and trucks were starting up, reversing from their angled parking places along the wide street, and following each other out of town. As Jonty rounded the corner of the weatherboard hall, an unmistakable whining assailed her ears. Not only that, but the strangest sight met her eyes, as well! Desmond was standing, quivering, in the inadequate shade of the pepper-tree, but the little girl wasn't with him now. Jonty's small brown friend was being yanked smartly to her feet by a large, even darker brown hand, and a voice—that voice!—was saying in deep, carrying, accusing tones, 'Ah ha!' Playing hookey again, Deborah? I suspected as much! Now, just—you—come—with—me* A strong arm propelled the protesting child across the road, ignoring her squirmings and high-pitched squeals. Half-way over, her screams acquired a new dimension, and heads began to turn, whereupon the man said firmly, 'Shut up, Deb, for Pete's sake! It's not going to make one bit of difference, so why bother?' The bullying brute, to handle a little girl that way! Such a very little girl, too, compared with his great height! Jonty began to run, her heart beating at an alarming rate with sheer self-amazement that she even dared contemplate intervention, but someone else—something, rather—was evidently of the same opinion as she, and a good deal quicker to take positive action! From his cowering position underneath the pepper-tree, Desmond leapt to the rescue—a scrawny, mangy, loyal streak that rushed headlong across the road, either too deaf, or too indignant, to heed the approaching car. Jonty had only a split second in which to realise that the driver, with the sun beating directly on to a dusty

windscreen, could not possibly even see Desmond, let alone avoid him, and then she found herself rushing after him, hardly aware of what she was doing. 'Desmond! Desmond! Look out!' Her voice was so anguished that she hardly recognised it as her own. It came thinly from her throat in a manner quite unlike a confident cookery demonstrator for Lovalee Canners Limited. There was a brief scuffle, during which her fingers sought frantically in Desmond's unhealthy coat for a collar, found none. Then a squeal of brakes, a sickening thud as the vehicle's wing caught her a glancing blow on her side, and an even more sickening thud as she landed some feet away on the road, still clutching a bewildered canine body close against her. A mist gathered before her eyes at the pain that racked her hjp. It would be that side, wouldn't it, she thought despairingly, hardly aware that a moan of sheer fright had escaped her lips. If only she could move. If only she could even breathe properly, instead of gasping for air like this, 'Let go of the dog, you little fool.' A harsh voice spoke above her. She seemed to have heard that voice before, but where Firm fingers covered her own, forced her to relinquish her hold. She had almost forgotten about Desmond, so immersed in her own transient agony had she been. 'You can let him go now,' said the voice again, more calmly this time. 'You've probably saved his life, the mongrel hound though why you risked your own for that ill- begotten beast is quite beyond me.'

The pain of the sudden blow was passing now, and Jonty's breathing was steadier, too. She opened her eyes, took in the blurred circle of curious faces surrounding her, and then looked directly up into the face that was closest of all—too close, for Jonty's liking. It was, as she had known it was bound to be, the lean, hard-bitten, mahogany brown visage of her erstwhile persecutor in the hall.

CHAPTER TWO Her persecutor, and the persecutor of Debbie too. 'I wouldn't expect you to understand,' announced Jonty clearly, as she pushed away his supporting arm, sat up, and felt the back of her head gingerly. 'You—you tyrant!' she added for good measure, and was gratified to see the keenness in those steady grey eyes give way to a widening surprise. 'Take it easy.' He helped her to her feet, turned to the goggling bystanders. 'She'll be all right now, thanks, everyone. I'll take over from here.' Jonty stood quite still until the small crowd had dispersed, suffering his vice-like grip on her elbow in the meantime. Then she said, through clenched teeth, 'You'll do nothing of the sort!' 'Pardon?' He ignored her attempt to free herself, but continued to watch her closely. You would almost have said there was puzzlement, quite genuine puzzlement, in the level look she was receiving. 'You'll take over nothing, so far as I am concerned,' Jonty elucidated hotly. 'You've done quite enough as it is! You ruined my lecture— oh, yes, you did!—and then you nearly killed poor Desmond—and you bullied that poor little girl quite shamefully—I saw you with my own eyes. Quite apart from the fact that you choose to ignore that her life's made quite intolerable by that stepmother of hers. No wonder she ran away. I would, too, if I were in her shoes. People like you shouldn't be parents! There should be a law, or something!' Still retaining a firm grip with one hand, he placed the other on her forehead. 'Does your head hurt at all?' he asked anxiously.

Jonty snorted, 'You needn't try to evade the issue. You just aren't fit to be a father!' The grey hardened perceptibly. They took on a particularly steely glint that made Jonty quake. Perhaps she had gone too far? The slight shake he gave her sent a jab of pain through her hip again. 'Now, you just listen to me,' he said slowly and clearly and very severely indeed. 'There are one or two things we're going to get straight. Firstly, I did not interfere with your lecture.' 'You did.' 'Not intentionally. I had had a tip-off that Deborah was in there, and when I wanted to leave, I couldn't. You saw that for yourself. There must have been fifty women between me and that door.' 'So you settled down to amuse yourself.' There was a hint of a lift to the grim mouth. "What would you say if I told you that I was interested in picking up a few cookery hints?' 'I wouldn't believe you. I'd say you were a liar! I'd-—' 'O.K., O.K., we'll leave that for the present.' His mouth was back to its former stern line. 'Secondly,' he went on inexorably, 'I am not a father.' 'Not a -?'Jonty's head waggled slowly from side to side. 'Not,' he reiterated positively, moving his head too, to emphasise the point. 'At least, not so far as I'm aware,' he added, with a rather nasty

gleam in his eye. 'Now, where did you get that idea, I wonder?' The deep voice was as smooth as cream. Jonty swallowed, glancing involuntarily at Deborah, who was scuffing at a pebble in an uncomfortable fashion. 'Uncle Nat -' 'Yes, Debbie?' 'Uncle?' Jonty's eyes were wide. 'You mean -?' 'That's right. I'm Deborah's uncle. I also happen to be her guardian, her legal guardian, what's more—hers and the rest of that mob. Their father? No.' 'But her stepmother? I mean—er—Isobel -' 'Is my fiancee.' He favoured the blushing Jonty with a sardonic grin. 'At the moment she's doing her level best to help me cope, but it's not all that easy. I can't say I even blame her for not wanting kids of her own when we marry. It's -' he broke off abruptly. 'Poor Isobel is having quite a time,' he admitted ruefully. 'She's a wonderful girl, of course, but the poor darling can't even cook, and here she is, saddled with a proxy family of five lusty youngsters.' 'Five!' 'Five. And it certainly doesn't help when they play truant from school, as Debbie has been doing all this week, apparently.' 'But, Debbie, you said -' Jonty's accusation tailed off to nothing, because the little girl's face was quite scarlet with guilt and misery.

'Debbie says a lot of things that aren't strictly accurate,' intervened the uncle coolly. 'She romances, don't you, Deb? She rather enjoys pathetic, Cinderella sort of roles at the moment, and she has a positive fixation about wicked stepmothers. She got Grimm's Fairy Tales for Christmas.' He smiled at Jonty, from a great height, it seemed, and the smile somehow transformed his entire countenance. It softened the bleakness in the fine grey eyes, and deepened the lines that fanned out from their corners. 'I'm sorry if you were misled,' he told her, quite kindly. 'Now, let me see if you can walk.' Jonty moved cautiously, unable to prevent a grimace of pain as she did so. 'You are hurt! I thought it possible.' 'Rubbish,' she gasped. 'I'll be all right in a moment.' 'I'd prefer a doctor to look you over, all the same.' He was obviously not a man to brook argument, and Jonty, who felt she had lost enough dignity already in his eyes, allowed him to help her into his car, where he put her carefully into the passenger seat. 'Get in, Deborah. You may as well come, too, since you've missed the most important lessons of the day.' The child scrambled into the back seat of the big Holden. 'Which is the doctor's house?' Jonty looked along the street. 'There isn't a doctor here, actually—not in Morilla, if that's what you mean.'

'But there must be !' Jonty gazed up and down the road in distress, her eyes searching in vain for signs of a brass plate, at the very least 'Carole said there's one of everything in Morilla. She said so!' His lips twitched. 'Well, Carole was wrong, I'm afraid, whoever Carole might be. The nearest doctor is at Suddenly Plains, the big township over the ridge there. The road doesn't go over, of course; it goes around. It's only seventy miles or so. I'll soon have you there. Does it matter?' he added, taking in her very evident consternation, Jonty reached for the door-handle. 'I can't possibly go,' she announced decisively. 'I can't just disappear like that. Carole won't know where I am, for one thing. She's coming back for me, you see. Here, to Morilla.' The man leaned across her and removed her hand firmly from the door-clasp. He smelled faintly of tobacco and leather, of dust, and of shaving-lotion. It was an unfamiliarly masculine aroma that made Jonty crouch away from him and press herself against the luxurious upholstery at her back. 'You can and you will go, if I say so, Miss—er -?' 'Jonty,' supplied Debbie eagerly from the rear seat. Her beady dark eyes were darting from one adult to the other with interest, possibly to ascertain who might come out victor in the present dispute. 'Jonty?' 'It's Jonquil, actually,' Jonty informed him reluctantly. 'Jonquil Ashburne. I was very fair when I was born, you see, and—I mean— my mother couldn't possibly have known I'd be plain brown mousecolour when I grew up, could she? Not that I haven't wished a good many times since that she'd given it a bit more thought.' She sighed regretfully. 'One always feels called upon to explain, somehow.'

'Very well, Miss Ashburne, you need have no qualms about a simple trip to the doctor, I can assure you. You'll be perfectly safe in my hands. I haven't the remotest interest in either you, personally, or the derivation of your Christian name. I simply wish to assure myself that no physical harm has come to you through your foolish escapade, and then my one desire is to get back to my own homestead as quickly as possible, and forget the whole thing. A man can't be away from his property for long at this time of year without things cropping up, and frankly, I've wasted a hell of a time searching for Debbie as it is! I shall see that your friend is informed of your absence, and is told where you've gone.' Jonty hesitated. What a thoroughly nasty creature! Unsympathetic, domineering! For two pins, she'd have got out and walked off without another word, except that she was uncertain, just then, whether she would in fact be capable of walking at all. She felt shaken and bruised and stiff, and undoubtedly the blow to her side had not done her hip any good. The pain she felt there still, and the possibility of a recurrence of the old trouble, were a very present worry to Jonty at this moment. They were enough to make her bite her lip with vexation at the man's callous speech, and say resignedly, 'All right, I'll come. But not without Desmond,' she added, with a returning flash of spirit, having espied the woebegone creature cowering under the pepper-tree again, this time looking thoroughly chastened. 'Desmond?' His eyebrows rose. 'Desmond,' she repeated firmly. 'Over there. I refuse to leave poor Desmond behind. He's had a fright, too, poor thing. Look, he's still shivering, and it wasn't his fault at all, was it?' 'You mean that—that—animal?' he asked, incredulously.

'That's Desmond,' she agreed—adding stoutly, as she saw his features beginning to harden, 'if he doesn't go, I don't go, either. He's a stray, and nobody cares about him. We can't just leave him!'' With a muttered oath, her companion unwound his long legs from behind the steering wheel, got out of the car, and went around to the boot, returned presently with an empty sugar bag, which he spread out on the seat beside his niece. Desmond ignored his piercing whistle, and as he strode over to the cringing animal and scooped it into his arms, Debbie giggled uncontrollably. 'Good on you, Jonty!' She was trying to muffle her laughter before her uncle came back. 'I wish I could stand up to him like that!' 'Hush, Deborah,' admonished Jonty. She experienced a feeling of vague disloyalty to a fellow adult. Even if the man was a brute, it was not an enjoyable sensation. After all, one could hardly have called the child's own behaviour irreproachable, and her guardian's anger was almost understandable, in the light of Jonty's new-found knowledge of the circumstances. It was a mix-up all round, decided Jonty dolefully, and why she had had to become involved, goodness only knew! She cursed her own impulsiveness, and watched with a half guilty, half determined air, as the man came loping back and desposited the dog on the sugarbag with a careless thud. 'Are you always as difficult as this?' he enquired tersely, as he resumed his seat and pressed the starter. 'It wasn't Desmond's fault,' she defended herself doggedly. In the rear-vision mirror she could see Debbie's small brown hand patting the dog's head surreptitiously, could hear her whispered, 'Nice doggie, darling doggie.'

Even the man must have heard the licking noises as a pink, canine tongue caressed the little girl's thin brown wrist, hut he gave no sign. Instead he drove fast, without expression, staring straight ahead at the dusty road which snaked along the base of the stony ridge that had given the little town of Morilla its name. It was depressing scenery, decided Jonty, or maybe it was just that she herself was feeling unduly low at this moment. The hills rose sharply on their right, seared by deep, wild gullies of tumbled boulders and withered scrub. On the shoulders clung ironbarks and scattered box-trees—ragged, twisted specimens which told of a scanty and erratic rainfall. The creek-beds that wound their way down the pitted serries of the range were all dry, too, and looked as if they had been so for some time. Bleached, rank grasses clotted their courses here and there in tufted tangles, as lifeless as the pallid skeletons of ring-barked gums and the occasional cluster of gravel mounds that indicated some sort of human activity in the past. 'Old diggings,' the man at her side informed her briefly, as he licked the flap of the cigarette he had been fashioning, smoothed it down with a dexterous movement, and placed the finished article between his lips, all the while holding the big car steady on its course as he did so. 'What were they looking for, away out here?' 'Gold. You don't object to my smoking?' 'No. Not at all' His lighter flared, and smoke wreathed between them. 'You don't smoke yourself? I'm afraid I have no tailor-mades.'

'No, thank you,' she said politely, still staring in fascination at the scenery about her. 'Didn't they find any gold, then? Why did they all go away? It all looks so—so lonely, forlorn.' He shrugged. 'They found a little, but not enough to be economic. The first comers struck it lucky, and started a rash of prospectors who came haring out here to make their fortunes. Many sold up everything they possessed to make the trip, some died on the way, and many ended up ruined and broken, having lost their all in the process.' 'How sad. And what a dreadful place to end up destitute. One wonders what possessed them to gamble on such an uncertainty in the first place.' Again the nonchalant shrug. 'What drives men to do any of the seemingly silly things they do, Miss Ashburne? Ambition, greed, competition? Or sometimes the pure joy of the achievement itself, although not in this case, I grant you. No, they staked and lost, that's all. It happened a lot, all over Australia, in the old gold- fever days. It happens still, but perhaps less dramatically, in everyday life, come to that.' Jonty watched the tanned, competent hands, on the wheel beside her, the imperturbable, strong-jawed profile. 'You sound as if you approve of gambling,' she told Mm, almost censoriously. He glanced across at her, amused. 'Let's just say I'm willing to take a calculated risk when necessary, which is in essence a different thing altogether. You're hardly in a

position to point the moral, though, are yon?' he reminded her. 'How do you mean?' 'You took one hell of a gamble when you threw yourself in the path of that car a while ago, didn't you? And all for the sake of a lousy mongrel, a canine cast-out!' 'Perhaps mine was a calculated risk, too,' retorted Jonty, stung. 'Don't be idiotic, child. You didn't stop to calculate, you didn't even stop to think! Another foot, and you'd have been badly injured, if not killed.' She simmered in silence, restraining herself with an effort. Drat the man, did he have to rub it in? He might at least be a bit more sympathetic, but then she had known all along that he was scarcely human, hadn't she? The way he had needled her at her very own cookery demonstration, when he must have realised how nervous she was already? the way he had spoken to Debbie, even if he wasn't her father; the way he had dropped poor Desmond so unceremoniously on to that sugar-bag without even a single word of kindness; the way he wasn't really sorry at all for all those poor gold-rush people who had dug up all that gravel for nothing; all these things confirmed her already fixed opinion that he was nothing but an unfeeling monster. 'This friend of yours, Carole, where is she at the moment?' 'She is giving a demonstration at Suddenly Plains, in the firm's special caravan.' Jonty explained about the breakdown last week, and how they had found it necessary to split up in order to finish their tour on schedule.

'In that case, we'll contact her after you've seen the doctor, and you can travel back with her.' 'Wh-what if I miss her?' 'I'll make sure you don't. If she leaves earlier than anticipated, well meet on the road.' Jonty's lips twisted ruefully. He was obviously longing to rid himself of his unwanted cargo! 'Is there only one road?' 'Just one,' He smiled grimly. 'A Pommy like you might not even call it a road in places, so hold on to the leather strap there if you get tossed around a bit—that's what it's there for. You'll see what I mean presently.' And Jonty did. At one point, the track seemed to peter out altogether, and the car wandered, as if by instinct, in and out among clumps of scrub and ova: dry creek-beds, eventually ferreting out a more sophisticated route once more at the other end of the ridge. In the bade seat, Deborah had gone to sleep. Her thin body was slumped sideways, one arm flung across Desmond's rough coat in an unconsciously protective gesture, as though she feared her uncle might dispose of him somehow while she slept. Her mouth was relaxed, her face beguilingly innocent in slumber. Jonty sighed. But for that beguiling innocence of Deborah's, she might not now be in the depressing situation in which she found herself.

The man at the wheel must have caught the muffled sound as she expelled her breath. 'Tired? Why don't you follow. Debbie's example, and take a nap?' 'No, thank you.' Jonty's voice came stiffly. He needn't try to sound so solicitous now, she thought crossly to herself— not when he had made it plain earlier that he could hardly wait to discharge himself of his responsibility towards her! The wide shoulders shrugged in that maddeningly noncommittal way. 'Please yourself. It won't be long now till we're there, in any case. You can just see the township over there, across * the plains, if you look into the distance. Another twenty minutes or so should do it' After that he drove in silence, smoked another of his hand-rolled cigarettes, and did not look Jonty's way again until he drew up in front of a long, low, white building with spreading green lawns and formal cement-edged paths. Debbie opened her eyes as he was helping Jonty from the front seat, and pressed her nose against the window. One glance at the inviting expanse of lawn was enough to set her scrambling out of the car, dragging an unenthusiastic Desmond after her. 'Can we play on the grass, Uncle Nat, while you and Jonty are in there?' 'Stick to the lawn, then, and don't run over the flowerbeds, either you or the dog,' was the curt response. 'And if you do come inside, leave that animal in the car, and walk, don't run. They don't like kids tearing all over the place, not even in the Outpatients. Understood?' 'Yes, Uncle Nat.'

The child went off, but Jonty guessed that the irrepressible Debbie was only temporarily subdued. She was quite glad of the firm support at her elbow as she limped painfully up the shallow steps and into the Casualty Wing. The doctor who finally ushered her into a small, bare consulting room was young and brisk and cheerful. He appeared to know her escort by name. They called each other 'Nat' and 'Bruce' and after they had asked after each other in a friendly fashion, she was formally introduced, and her escort explained quickly what had occurred. 'Perhaps if you'd give her a quick check-over, to see that - she's still in one piece, I'll be able to get back to Dulloora before evening.' His eyes slid from his watch back to Jonty's pale face. 'I'll wait,' he told her briefly, as if sensing her momentary flutter of panic, and curious sense of alone- ness. As she disappeared through the door, Jonty saw him throw his broad-brimmed hat on to a small central table and take up a motoring magazine with an impatient air that said he was not inclined to wait too long. It seemed that he was as unprepared for the doctor's verdict as Jonty was herself. The dark, straight brows shot upwards in surprise. 'But surely -' 'No, I'd prefer to play safe, Nat, as I've already explained to Miss Ashburne herself. There's always the possibility of complications, and I'd like to have an X-ray or two, as well. We'll ward her for a couple of days.' He seemed amused at the joint reaction his words had produced upon his audience. 'Good lord, it's not a hardship, surely? You'll have a pleasant rest! We're as modern as paint out here—air-conditioning, the latest devices, up-to-date theatre wing— not that the last is likely to concern you I'

'But I have to get back to Carole!' wailed Jonty, as they walked back along a shining corridor to Admissions. 'And I haven't anything with me—it's all back there at Morilla,' she reminded the man who had forcibly brought her here, in accusing tones. 'Why, I—I haven't even a—a nightie!' 'Doubtless they provide hospital ones.' He sounded tired of the whole business. 'White flannelette—they're horrible!' Her voice quavered. 'In this climate? Don't be silly!' he barked, and Jonty was effectively silenced. At the Admissions window, they were joined by Deborah, whose eyes widened when she heard that Jonty was to remain as a patient for a few days. 'Gosh, you're lucky!' she breathed enviously. 'This is a super place, isn't it? Me an' Desmond have been having a fantastic time!' 'Now, if you'll just give me your particulars,' interrupted a friendly voice on the other side of the desk. 'Name?' 'Jonquil Ashburne.' 'Other Christian names?' 'Just Jonquil.' 'And Ashburne—with an "e"?' Jonty swallowed as she gave her birth date, acutely aware of the tall, broad figure just behind her. The faint aura of tobacco and leather was upsetting, because it meant that he was close enough to hear every word.

'Next of kin?' The question shook Jonty with its sheer unexpectedness. 'Pardon?' 'Next of kin, my dear? Just a formality, you know,' the woman told her reassuringly. 'But we must fill it in. Your closest relative, that means.' 'Well—er -' 'Jonty doesn't have any, do you, Jonty?' Debbie had come to lean her arms on the window-counter. Her eyes darted from one person to the other, pleased that she appeared to be capturing everyone's attention so successfully. 'Jonty doesn't have any relatives, anywhere, do you, Jonty? She hasn't got anyone, not a single soul, anywhere—not anywhere in the whole world, that is. Not even in England, so she didn't much mind leaving it, you see. She told me so. She hasn't even got an uncle, or a stepmo -I mean, well, not even an aunt like Isobel, or anything. And no one makes her go to school, or tells her when to get ready for bed or anything.' 'Is that correct?' the child's uncle enquired brusquely, 'or is it another of Debbie's fanciful inventions?' 'No, it happens to be true,' stated Jonty apologetically. 'We have to put something—someone?' The woman blinked at them helplessly. 'Just a formality. Just—er—someone -?' Jonty could hardly miss the sigh of resignation that emanated from somewhere behind her shoulder. The tobacco and leather smell got closer, too, as the man leaned forward and said expressionlessly, 'Very well, you can put me down. Nat McMorran.'

'Thank you, Mr. McMorran,' the woman beamed her relief. 'It's Dulloora, isn't it? Mister—Maxwell—Nathan— McMorran— Dulloora. There we are! Now, I'll just get a nurse to come and take you to your ward.' Jonty looked up at Nat McMorran, who was still standing close beside her. It was a long way to look up, and when she at last found his eyes, they were already looking down at her, with a half quizzical, half exasperated expression. 'Look, you didn't have to do that,' she told him, embarrassed in spite of herself. 'Leave it, child.' His dismissive gesture piqued her. So did that 'child.' 'I'm not a child,' she pointed out with dignity. 'I'm twenty-two.' 'Yes, I'd already worked that one out, from your date of birth,' he returned calmly. 'Twenty-two. It's hardly in one's dotage, is it?' 'All the same, I'm quite capable of looking after myself, from here on,' she added pointedly. 'So if you'll just be kind enough to contact Carole—shell be in the C.W.A, hall, here at Suddenly Plains—I shall make the necessary adjustment to my arrangement with her.' She extended her hand formally, held her head high, and met his eyes squarely. 'Goodbye, Mr. McMorran.' I'm not going to thank him, she told herself peevishly. After all, what have I got to thank him for? For bringing me here? Making me come? Upsetting my departure? 'Aren't you coming out to say goodbye to Desmond?' Deborah tugged at her skirt.

'I don't think so, darling.' Jonty bent down and hugged the little girl. 'Look after him, though, won't you?' 'Can't I come and see you? Can't we, Uncle Nat?' 'No, Debbie, it isn't in the least necessary,' she interposed hastily, aware of those large, impatient hands twirling the broad-brimmed hat in a manner which suggested that the owner was itching to be gone. 'After all, I'll only be here for a couple of days.' 'But you've nowhere to go,' flashed Debbie indignantly. 'How can you leave when you've nowhere to go? You said you hadn't, remember?' She turned to her uncle. 'Her job is finished, and she hasn't anywhere, she told me so, Uncle Nat.' Jonty's smile was forced, but she hoped it looked all right. The way the man's eyes were so intent, it was more difficult than she had supposed, to carry out a deception. She tried to appear indulgent towards the child, conspiratorial towards the uncle, at one and the same time, as she said with what she hoped was just the right hint of gentle amusement, 'Perhaps we were both telling each other tall stories, Debbie. Romancing—wasn't that your uncle's word for it?' 'But you said --' 'Will you come this way, please, Miss Ashburne?' Jonty was grateful for the interruption, even though it meant following the trim, starched figure of the ward sister down the long shiny corridor again. As she turned the corner at the far end, she looked bade, just once, but already Nat McMorran had gone. Minutes later, the purr of a powerful engine sounded along the road just outside, and Jonty

stood for perhaps a minute more after that, gazing blankly at the neatly made bed, with its white pillow and red blanket, and tall iron headboard, before she began slowly to take off her clothes and put on the white cotton shift which lay on the coverlet. Carole looked in late that afternoon. 'Jonty, you poor girl!' she cried, as she sat down on the bed and thrust a small posy of rather weedy-looking blooms into her erstwhile assistant's hands. 'Take them, my dear, for goodness' sake. They were all I could get in Suddenly Plains, I'm afraid. The colour's gay, but they smell awful.' 'What are they, Carole? How sweet of you!' 'Waratah? Desert Pea? How should I know? May I sit here—they won't mind, will they?' She glanced around, satisfied herself that nobody appeared to object if visitors deposited themselves upon patients' beds, and continued more soberly, 'Jonty, I was so sorry to hear from Mr. McMorran about your nasty accident. What a blessing he was on hand to pick you up, and what a terribly rash thing you did in dashing out into the path of a car like that' Jonty clenched her teeth. She might have known he'd tell it from that angle! 'Did he tell you the cause of the whole thing?' she couldn't refrain from asking. 'Some mongrel animal, it seems.' Carole clucked. 'You English and your dogs!' she chided, settling herself more comfortably. 'You wouldn't get an Aussie risking life and limb for a flea-ridden stray that he'd never seen before.' 'I suppose not—not if they all come as flinty as that— that—that McMorran creature,' agreed Jonty waspishly. Her senior looked at her in genuine surprise.

'You're still a little shaken, obviously, just as he said -' Her tone was reproving. 'Or is it the generation gap, perhaps? I thought him the most charming man—attractively tough without being boorish, and rugged without being exactly handsome in the traditional sense. However, it's neither here nor there^ since he's out of the picture now. The pressing question is, will you be able to accompany me back to the city in the caravan, and the answer is, naturally, no—although through no fault of your own,' Carole hastened to add, seeing Jonty's rather desolate expression. 'I can't wait for three or four days, Jonty, and perhaps find at the end of that time that you're still unable to come with me. There's a new factory opening down at Yanco, and I must be there for all sorts of reasons. I've contacted the firm, and they've given me authority to write you a cheque —they even added a bonus, in recognition of the work you did alone at Morilla. And they've" asked me to tell you that your services on this demonstration tour were much appreciated. Which sentiment I endorse myself, Jonty,' Carole assured her as she wrote and handed over the cheque. It's been a pleasure working with you—quite the nicest young assistant I've had for a long time I' With a few more words of praise, and a warm farewell handshake, Carole took herself off, and Jonty was left alone once more, sitting up in this strange country hospital in her white hospital gown, clutching a small posy of odorous red flowers, and a cheque from the Lovalee Canners Limited. Well, that was that, she told herself gloomily. That was the end of a very pleasant phase of employment, and what she should do from here on, she simply did not know. Start searching for something as soon as she got back to the city, she supposed, always provided that her leg was none the worse for its confrontation with that car.

Jonty found herself quite tense with anxiety about that, as well as a bit hollow about the future. It was because of her past medical history that the doctor wished to keep her under observation for several days, and she had a feeling that they were going to be a very lonely couple of days indeed, stuck away out here in a this little cottage hospital. Admittedly, Suddenly Plains was a distinct improvement upon Morilla, for, whereas Morilla had only one of everything, its larger neighbour looked as if it might possibly have at least two. All the same, it seemed to Jonty just then, when her sense of isolation had been accentuated by the departure of the only person whom she knew, Carole, that the days which lay ahead promised to be bleak ones indeed. She could not have been more wrong. Word appeared to have got around that that nice little demonstrator at the cookery thing over at Morrilla—the one with the big violet eyes and the soft English voice—had got into some sort of mix-up with a dog and a car, and had come off worst. And guess who had rescued her and brought her in—none other than Nat McMorran from out at Dulloora. Not Nat McMorran himself? Yes, really. But what was he doing over at Morilla? Well, by all accounts, he was chasing after one of those tiresome nephews or nieces, poor man. What, again? Well, that's what the bush telegraph was saying. It was either Mark or the youngest one—Deborah, wasn't it?—playing hookey from school. But surely not as far away as that? Away over at Morilla? Why, the poor man must have been nearly out of his mind with worry this time! Well, that's how the gossip goes. She got the bus over, and she didn't come home at all that night. Nat was absolutely furious, they say, but can you blame him, really? I don't suppose so, but I almost feel sorry for the child, whichever one it was. I must say, I'd hate to get on his wrong side! The gossip was batted to and fro up and down the ward—like a ping-pong ball, thought Jonty, whimsically— by all those warm-

hearted country Australians who called to see her in the ensuing days. Some of them had attended her cookery demonstrations, and others had not, but they all came with kind smiles and tiny gifts—a little cream, dear, we have Jerseys in the house- paddock—you won't have powder, so here's some Johnson's —a piece of that Lingalonga pie, just to show you that your lessons were not wasted—yes, I swear by this cologne stick in the heat, if you just stroke it on your wrists when you feel too warm—time to read?—a couple of paperbacks, that's all, but they'll pass the hours -' And the hours passed. Jonty didn't know where they went, those hours. Surrounded by fruit and flowers and-powder and perfume, plied with books and magazines and food and friends, she was not permitted to feel lonely or desolate for one moment. 'But how did you know I was here?* she asked, overcome with shyness, and a gladness of heart that was almost a physical pain, in the face of so much kindness. 'Jo, the mailman, told Nella down at the stores. That's the Post Office, too, you know. It's the hub of the community, you might say, Nella soon got the word around. She was at your demonstration, dear—not the last day, but she got the Pavlova all right, and the prune and brandy mousse.' A sigh. 'I tried that one out on my hubby when I got home, and half-way through I found I had no brandy, so Bill said wouldn't beer do just as well, but'—sadly—'it didn't. Even Bill had to admit that it was a terrible waste of beer.' 'For crying out loud, Edna! I thought your Bill'd like beer in anything,' laughed the visitor on the other side of Jonty's bed. 'You should have stuck to something safe, like the marzipan platter. It was delicious when I tried it at home. What, Sister? Is it really time to go? More people waiting? Do you know, Jonty, they're queueing

out there in the corridor to see you, and we're only allowed in two at a time, in case we make too much noise in the ward. You'd think you were Sophia Loren or someone, sitting up there holding court, eh? Who's next? My goodness, it's Sally Sorenson from out at Wurley Ponds, and she's got the baby with her. Must've been in at the clinic. Well, so long, Jonty.' 'So long. Goodbye. Thank you all for coming.' The nurses were every bit as friendly as the visitors, and so was the doctor. Often when he had nothing more pressing to do, he would come and sit by her bed for a friendly chat. He was young, attractive in a fair, clean-shaven way, and this was his first residential post since he had qualified. He and Jonty immediately found interests in common. To begin with, they both came from the city themselves, and were therefore able to compare notes on their relative impressions of the alternating bleakness and bounty with which nature appeared to have endowed the Australian bush landscape. He was a good listener as well as a lively conversationalist, and soon Jonty was telling him about her own abortive nursing aspirations, and confessing to the agonising anxiety which she had secretly experienced about her old injury ever since that car had hit her. He was instantly sympathetic, and reassuring. 'No, truly, Jonty, you're as good as new—or as good as formerly, which means almost as good as new, doesn't it? And you've learned to live very nicely with that "almost", by the sound of things, haven't you?' He smiled. 'As a matter of fact, I can see no medical reason for keeping you here any longer, alas, since you seem to have spread a general cheerfulness all around the place while you've been in! I'll arrange with Sister about your discharge. Tomorrow, if you like?' Jonty nodded. Tomorrow, or any other day. It made little difference to her, really. In one way, she would be sad to leave the shelter of

this cheerful, friendly place. In another, she should be grateful that her reason for leaving was the one for which she had prayed, a clean bill of health. But which day she left? No, it did not really matter, one way or the other. Tomorrow, for Jonty, meant no more and no less than the day before, or the day after it. It was a good thing, all the same, to have the Lovalee Canners Limited cheque safely tucked in her handbag. That would take care of her future for a little while, at least! That very evening, the night before her discharge, Jonty had another visitor, and if her former visitors had been a surprise, then so was this one, but in an altogether different way! It was already dark outside, with that sudden, complete sort of darkness that banishes the last pale glimmerings of daylight in one fell swoop. The ward light was dim, restful if you wanted it that way, and, if you didn't, there was a tiny reading lamp above the bed which gave a concentrated beam right on to the pillow. Jonty had settled for restfulness rather than reading. She had finished the paperbacks left by these kind, anonymous bush friends, and had today declined further offers of reading material, since she would be leaving tomorrow in any case. She heard steps along the passage, too firm and solid for any nurse's. They didn't sound quite like the tread of the doctor's neat white shoes, either. When they came into view, she could quite see why they had not sounded like shoes. The plain reason was that they were not shoes at all. They were boots. Tanned leather boots, with elastic sides and a defined sort of heel, stockman's boots. Jonty had seen those boots before—or at least, a slightly more dusty version of them I —

pressing the pedals of a big Holden saloon all the way from Morilla to. Suddenly Plains. Tonight the boots were polished, with the mellow gleam of chestnuts in the dim hospital light. Above the boots were pale drill trousers, narrow-cut, with a crisp vertical crease up the front, and above the trousers was a narrow hide belt, then a clean white shirt with rolled-up sleeves that made the owner's bare, muscular arms seem almost black by comparison. A tie of traditional pattern was knotted neatly around the wearer's sunburnt neck. Nat McMorran held his ever-present wide felt hat in one hand, and with the other he leaned over, flicked on Jonty's reading light, and treated her to one of those uncomfortably level and penetrating inspections of which he was all too capable. 'Good evening, Miss Ashburne.' He threw the hat on the foot of the bed, hitched his trousers, and sat down in the chair beside her. It was a skimpy chair of tubular steel construction, and much too small for his frame. 'You've quite recovered from your unfortunate experience, I see.' 'Yes, quite, thank you,' replied Jonty weakly. Shyness and surprise had almost deprived her of speech. There was, after all, something distinctly overwhelming about the unexpected presence of such a powerful, swarthily tanned and rather frighteningly stern man in one's tiny bare sanctuary in a small country cottage hospital. The grey gaze travelled over the diminutive figure, sitting bolt upright in the prim, red-blanketed bed. A ghost of a smile leavened the sternness of the grim mouth for a fleeting moment. 'You seem to have survived the white flannelette, after all?' he observed humorously.

'Yes—er—yes,' Jonty found her fingers clutching the sheet against her convulsively, cursing herself for her embarrassment and lack of poise. 'It's cotton, actually,' she hastened to explain, plucking at the coverlet in her search for some sort of eloquent reply. 'And you're to be discharged tomorrow, is that correct?' 'Yes, that's so.' He nodded. 'That's what I gathered from Bruce on my way in.' He paused for a second, apparently deep in thought-, and then he leaned towards her, causing the little chair to creak ominously. 'Miss Ashburne, I have a feeling, although you attempted to prevaricate in front of Debbie, that what she said the other day was actually, for once, the truth.' He faced her squarely, willing her to look at him. 'Miss Ashburne, is it, or is it not, a fact that you have nowhere in particular to go when you leave here—no alternative employment already arranged, no one to whom you are responsible in any way, or conversely, nobody who is responsible for you?' Jonty's eyes were held by his, in a sort of hypnotic stare that seemed to peer right into her mind. This must be what it would be like if someone jabbed you with a truth drug, or whatever it was, thought Jonty wildly. In the circumstances, it would be almost impossible to lie with any real conviction. 'Yes—er—no—not in particular,' she stammered incoherently. 'Now, what exactly does that mean? Yes? Or no?' His voice had softened, quite surprisingly, to an indulgent tone, and his words held a gentle, faintly amused patience which brought home to Jonty the inanity of her reply.

'I've nowhere.' Her eyes fell to her own fingers, still plucking nervously at the coverlet. 'No one to whom I'm responsible in any way. No one for whom I am responsible.' Pride made her sit up straight again. 'But I'm quite accustomed to looking after myself, of course. There's not the slightest need for anyone to do that.' 'Not anyone. Me.' 'I beg you pardon?' 'I'm offering you the chance to become responsible far someone, Miss Ashburne—for several people, indeed. For that brood of my late brother's, no less. They keep getting in my hair. In point of fact'—he regarded her soberly—I'm offering you a job. Now, will you, or won't you, accept?

CHAPTER THREE Jonty's eyes widened as she tried to grasp the implications of this question. 'A -? You mean -?' 'I mean that I'm offering you a position at my own homestead—at Dulloora, and that if you care to accept it, you're welcome to do so,' he returned deliberately. He didn't sound as if he cared, personally, one way or the other, thought Jonty bleakly, biting her lip. It would probably take a lot to make this square-jawed, saturnine creature beg for anything, no matter how much his late brother's brood, as he called them, were getting in his hair I It would certainly take a lot more than an unimportant, gauche little English orphan, with plain brown hair, and troubled violet eyes which now gazed at him in perplexity and indecision. 'I—don't know what to say.* He got to his feet, retrieved his hat from the foot of the bed. 'Think it over and let me know,' he told her off-handedly. 'No, I—I -' Jonty was suddenly panic-stricken at the thought that he might not even bother to ask her again, let alone come back. Obviously he had no time for ditherers! She licked her lips. 'I'll take it, thanks,' she said quickly, before she could mull it over further, and realising, at the same time, that she had probably sounded over-eager.

The man gazed down at her with narrowed eyes. 'You're quite sure?' 'Quite. If—if you think I shall be suitable?' 'That's up to you, isn't it?' was the deflating retort. 'Very well, Miss Ashburne, I shall call for you in the morning, at eleven o'clock. Please see that you're ready.' 'Yes, I—my things, though? They're over at Morilla, remember. I mean, I only have my—the clothes I was wearing when I arrived here,' 'I brought your clothes from Morilla this morning, and squared up your landlady. Your Lovalee friend, Carole, had already told her you'd be late getting back. You'll have to overlook the packing, I'm afraid. I'd rather rope steers, any day, than pack all that female gear into an undersized suitcase. Be ready at eleven sharp. I don't have time to wait around.' With the barest nod, he strode away, and the measured tread of those elastic-sided boots kept perfect time with the emphatic thumping of Jonty's own heart as she slid down flat beneath the coverlet. Now what had she done? she was asking herself almost hysterically. What had she let herself in for now? Her impulsiveness had already got her into this mess, and that had been her chance to extricate herself, hadn't it? Instead of doing that, she had committed herself still further, under some strange compulsion which had suddenly and precipitately gripped her. Still, it was a job, after all, wasn't it? And it had fallen right into her lap, in such a way that it had been difficult to refuse. She would not have much to do with the owner of Dulloora, either. He had made it

plain that her sphere of activities was to embrace the brood—the late brother's children—and that included the enchanting little Debbie, to whom Jonty had already felt herself irresistibly drawn. One could see Nat McMorran's point in all this, to be fair. It would leave him more time for all the other things he had to do. If he wanted to rope steers, then he could go and rope steers to his heart's content, thought Jonty, in blissful ignorance of what that occupation entailed anyway. And it would give, him more time to be with his fiancee, with his Isobel. No doubt it would suit Isobel, too, because she, in her turn, would have more time with him. Yes, decided Jonty, on a more cheerful note, it would be bound to be a satisfactory arrangement from all angles, not least from her own point of view. The nasty hollow feeling in the middle of her stomach had disappeared, and as she put on her clothes next morning, she found herself humming tunelessly beneath her breath. At precisely five minutes to eleven Jonty said her last goodbye to the nursing staff and followed meekly as Nat McMorran strode ahead of her down the long, polished corridor. He held the door at the end open, and as he stepped out after her into the hot, white sunlight, he clapped his broad- brimmed hat well down over his eyes in a gesture that was oddly final. At least, that was how it seemed to Jonty, as she walked ahead of him down the steps to where the Holden waited—final, and in a curious way, irrevocable. As he saw her into the passenger seat, he spoke abruptly. 'You're still inclined to limp a little, it appears to me.' 'Oh, I always do that, just ever so slightly,' she replied cheerfully, explaining in a matter-of-fact way about the legacy from her childhood, and hoping that he would not feel too embarrassed that

he had drawn attention to it. Then, as she became aware of the strangest expression chasing over his usually unreadable features as he listened, she felt her heart give a funny little lurch. 'It—doesn't matter, does it?' she asked anxiously. 'I mean, about the—er—the job? I promise it won't interfere with my work, I'll prove it, if you just give me the chance, Mr. McMorran.' Jonty couldn't understand herself, pleading like that. She was only accepting this post because of its sheer convenience, anyway— wasn't she? Why should his reply suddenly seem to matter so very acutely? 'No, of course it doesn't matter!' he snapped abruptly. 'It simply means that you took an even more foolish risk than I'd realised the other day. It also means,' he added, giving her a sudden, grave smile, 'that you're a very plucky young woman.' Jonty felt her tension ease at this unexpected praise. Altogether, he could be a very unexpected man, she told herself, as he slipped the gear into place arid swung the big car out on to the road without another word or glance. Unexpected. Unpredictable. Enigmatic She had to admit to a certain feeling of awe in his presence, and was glad to think that she would have little contact with him once they got to Dulloora, although in the final event she would of course be answerable to none other than Nat McMorran himself. He drove fast, as he had the other day, and this time with a preoccupation that precluded conversation. Only once, when a flock of white birds rose screeching from the grey-green foliage of a clump of trees, and Jonty exclaimed, 'Oh, how pretty! What are they?' did he reply.

'Corellas—white parrots. A lot of people wouldn't call them nearly as pretty as their more colourful cousins, the rosellas and lorikeets, which come in all sorts of brilliant and variegated hues. They can be a bit of a pest on the crops, these and the sulphur-crested cockies, but they make amusing pets for kids, and anything that keeps a child healthily occupied makes good sense to me at the moment. Mark's got two corellas,' he added dryly. 'Two? What fun!' Her eyes sparkled. 'Are they in a cage or can he let them out? It seems a pity to confine such lovely things.' Her gaze followed the upward, spiralling flight of the small flock until they were mere white cotton- puffs in the distant blue. His lips twisted wryly at her childish enthusiasm over what he obviously regarded as a trifle. 'They're free to move in and out of their cages through the day, but they don't bother going far, and he shuts them up at night. Corellas almost appear to enjoy captivity. They come to depend on human company, and can turn into very good talkers, too.' 'You mean real talk, like mynah birds and such-like?' 'Certainly, real talk—and not always complimentary,' he warned with a brief laugh, as he fished in his shirt pocket for the makings, and began the now-familiar procedure of rolling himself a smoke. Jonty decided that when Nat McMorran laughed, he looked quite human. Humour deepened the creases at his eyes, took the grimness from his mouth, and when he smiled she couldn't help noticing how attractively white his teeth were in contrast to the depth of his tan. She supposed you could hardly fail to get a tan in such a climate as this. Already she was beginning to wilt with the heat, as the sun's rays struck fiercely through the open window on her side of the car.

As if he followed her thoughts, her new employer asked abruptly, 'Do you possess a hat, Miss Ashburne? If so, I strongly advise you to wear it, or your mother's choice of christian name may turn out even more of a misnomer than you seem to think it already is.' A hat? Jonty thought of all those funny, old-fashioned straw hats in the C.W.A hall at Morilla, and stifled a giggle. She couldn't imagine herself in headgear of that sort, no matter how hot this inland sun, or how unlike a jonquil she became! 'I don't possess one,' she admitted gaily. 'But it doesn't matter. I go as brown as a conker in the summer, anyway.' 'As a what?* 'A conker. Didn't you ever play with conkers when you were little?' she enquired curiously, then added a bit uncertainly, 'No, I don't suppose you would have.' Jonty, when she really thought about it, couldn't imagine this big, tough, uncommunicative country man playing at anything much! Come to that, she couldn't imagine him even having been little! He looked the type who'd have known his mind from the beginning, the sort who'd have missed out on infancy altogether. He'd probably bossed his own mother around from the very cradle! Certainly he seemed to enjoy commanding the female of the species. Look how domineering he had been with Jonty herself, not to mention poor little Debbie, even if she had played hookey and disappeared for a whole night. And one had to admit that it was pretty high-handed behaviour, going and getting Jonty's belongings like that, and cramming them into her suitcase—(Jonty went quite pink at the thought!) —before he'd even consulted her wishes in the matter. Perhaps he was different with Isobel, though, hazarded Jonty, stealing a surreptitious glance at the hawk-like profile, the firm-set

jaw and brown column of throat in its open-necked khaki shirt. Perhaps his fiancee often saw the flash of those white, slightly crooked teeth, the softening in the grey sternness of his eyes, the deepening laughter-tines that could suddenly quirk the corners of his mouth. After all, he had referred to her as a 'darling girl' hadn't he? 'She's a darling girl,' he had said, quite dreamily, and he wasn't the kind of man to say something quite unnecessary like that unless he really meant it! 'You mentioned Mark.' Jonty broke the silence somewhat timorously after they had speeded another ten miles or so over the hard brown plains, without any further flights of pretty birds overhead, or for that matter, signs of life at all, either animal or human. 'And Deborah I already know. What are the others members of your brother's family called?' The man at the wheel frowned, as if he had to summon his thoughts to a topic that was, somehow, less than pleasing to dwell upon. 'Deborah is the youngest. Mark, next to her, is eleven. Then there's Rachel, who is fourteen—you'll like Rachel, she's a peaceable little thing, or at least, Isobel finds her so.' 'And? That's only three,' prompted Jonty, into the middle of another preoccupied silence. 'Then Cilla, and Warwick's the eldest. He's beginning to be quite my right-hand man about the property. Rides well, has a knack with both machinery and stock. My brother would have been proud of him, I think,' he added heavily. Jonty wanted to ask about the children's parents, how long ago they had died, and how, but she refrained. She must not presume upon such recent acquaintance by displaying what might be interpreted as blatant curiosity on the subject. She would no doubt learn, soon

enough, about all that was at present mere conjecture. The children, though, were different, weren't they? They were there, after all, and Jonty was very shortly going to be plunged into intimate contact with them as a family, so it was better that she should have a background report, however vague and unwillingly furnished, by the children's uncle and guardian, sitting here beside her. It was immediately noticeable that Warwick was the only member about whom Nat McMorran had displayed any real personal enthusiasm. Perhaps that was natural, since he was a boy, and the oldest, and probably the most responsible member of this orphaned brood, but it was also equally noticeable to Jonty that Cilla's name had been passed over very quickly, and that as he had uttered it, the man's brows had drawn together in something more than a frown— it had been an absolute scowl, indeed—and that his fingers at the wheel had tightened for a moment, so that the knuckles showed pale against the weathered brown backs of his hands. Strong hands, covered in fine, springy, bleached hairs, like his exposed brown forearms in the rolled shirt sleeves—Jonty brought her wandering attention back to the present topic of conversation between them. 'How old is Warwick?' 'Eighteen.' 'And Cilla's in between him and Rachel, which makes her—what? Sixteen?' 'Seventeen. There's barely a year between the two,' he informed her, adding abruptly, 'You'll meet them all presently, and doubtless they'll provide you with the rest of their personal details.' Jonty sat back against the luxurious leather seat, discouraged.

Poor Cilla! Perhaps she was the black sheet of the family? It was said that most largish families had one of those—a square peg, a misfit. Maybe, though, in this instance, poor seventeen-year-old Cilla had felt the loss of her parents more keenly than the others. Or maybe she was simply going through a difficult, 'teen-age' sort of phase. Jonty hadn't much experience of families or behaviour patterns, but one read enough about these things to have a smattering of knowledge, all the same. Whatever the reasons might be, it did appear that Cilla was out of sympathy with her uncle, quite definitely, at the moment, or he with her. Jonty, in complete ignorance, had only her intuition, and the tone of the man's voice, to guide her on that, though. Ah, well. As Nat McMorran had pointed out, she would soon be meeting them all, and she would then see for herself whether Cilla deserved those scowling brows and the irritated tightening of those strong, square-tipped fingers on the wheel of Nat McMorran's Holden. 'How much longer?' she asked, after another mile or so. He shot her a quick glance. 'Tired? Want to stretch your legs for a minute?' 'No, I'm all right, thanks. Just thirsty, actually. It must be the heat,' she excused herself apologetically. 'Why didn't you say so earlier?' He pulled in at the shoulder of the road, and reaching into the back seat, produced a water-bag and mug, and poured her a generous measure. 'It's silly to hold out if you're feeling dry and there's a cure on hand.' The hint of a smile took the sting out of his reproof. 'I didn't know that there was a cure on hand, did I?' Jonty pointed out with forgivable logic. Nat McMorran grinned at that—an unconcealed grin of pure amusement that brought those attractive wrinkles scurrying to the corners of his mouth and the sides of his eyes.

'That's a real corker of a Pommy remark,' he chided her gently. 'There's always a cure on hand out in these parts, or should be! Only a raving lunatic would set out on a trip of any length at all without some water handy somewhere. That's the first principle of bush survival, Miss Ashburne' —he shot a quick look at her uncovered head of shiny brown hair—'That, and a hat. It's the first thing you'll have to learn. After all, it can sometimes mean the difference between survival and -' He clicked his fingers eloquently to indicate a reverse fate. 'Have you had enough?' 'Thank you. It was just the dust,' Jonty hastened to explain. 'It sort of catches in one's throat a little bit, doesn't it?' . 'It'll be worse yet, I'm afraid.' He put the water-bag in the back again, and started the engine. 'There are some gates ahead soon— four, to be precise, and that's when our tail dust catches up on us, just like it did there just now.' 'Gates? Does that mean fences?' 'Well, naturally. We're coming into slightly better country. This is the rainy side of the Morilla ridge now, a better catchment area, you see. We have a higher average rainfall than the folk back at Morilla and Suddenly Plains, I can even boast some arable paddocks at Dulloora-—irrigated from the creek, of course, and therefore sometimes subject to crop failure, but arable, nevertheless.' He sounded proud of that, thought Jonty, very much aware of her ignorance upon all matters pertaining to country life. But she was learning, wasn't she? First about hats and water-bags, and now about arable paddocks and catchment areas. If she just kept quiet and listened, nodding now and then quite knowledgeably, as she was doing at this very minute, she might manage to bluff her way through without any more of those—what had he called them?— Pommy remarks.

Her wide, serious, violet eyes met his grey ones for an instant, as he transferred his glance from the road ahead to the slender, upright figure of his passenger, nodding away so wisely. In the grey eyes there leapt a tiny, darker spark of pure devilment, almost as if he had read her mind, and was secretly amused at that sagacious nodding of the small, queenly head at his side. Annoyed at her own transparency, Jonty abruptly stopped nodding and bit her lip instead, staring out of the window at the rapidly passing scenery without really seeing it at all. He was a disconcerting creature, this Nat'McMorran, swarthy as a pirate, but with an unexpected urbanity that, in the.right mood and at the right time, might even be interpreted as outright charm. He also had a presence—a very positive presence—that was so overwhelmingly masculine as to leave Jonty slightly breathless at his proximity, as they sped along, and she could only hope that he would put down the several steadying breaths she drew to the presence of that dust of which she had complained, and not, more accurately, to his own! A subtle change had taken place in the landscape as the miles passed. Although the sky was as baldy blue and cloudless as ever, and the light as hot and white with noonday glare, the vegetation was not as sparse and clumpy as iti had been, and the fiat drabness of the plains had given way to gently undulating slopes, dotted with more vigorous species of timber—gumtrees in several of their many eucalypt varieties, wilga, box, and pine. The gullies that divided the slopes in places were not the distorting, boulder-strewn scars of the Morilla ridge, but shallow indentations where the grass grew longer and greener than on the bluffs. The apple-gums near the roadside had substantial mottled trunks and dull-foliaged branches that spread in all directions, as if acknowledging the benison of their kinder terrain.

Once or twice Jonty thought she spied a small grey animal hopping quickly away among the trees, and the sight made her sit bolt upright with excitement and wonder. 'A kangaroo! Was it?' she asked. 'Wallabies, I'm afraid. A smaller species, but you're near enough when you say a 'roo,' Nat McMorran informed her. 'Why do you say afraid, like that?' she questioned, mildly indignant. 'They looked the sweetest little animals to me!' His lips twisted. 'Sweet they may be, Miss Ashburne, but they're also the devil of a nuisance. They come down in the night, and break the fences, and go off with a lot of the crop that we take the trouble to nurture and irrigate, when they're pushed for feed up in the higher country.' 'Well, one can hardly blame them for that,' pointed out Jonty reasonably. 'The poor little things have to live, don't they?' 'Maybe, but Australia's a pretty big place when you get down to thinking about it, and I reckon they've plenty of places to live without bothering my lucerne plots and irrigated cam,' he returned dryly. 'Now, don't go on about the dear tittle creatures only taking what is rightfully theirs, will you, or I'll begin to think you're a bit light in the upper deck, even for a Pommy!' Jonty's cheeks were scarlet with indignation. 'I think that's a—an uncalled-for remark, Mr. McMorran,' she rebuked him quite hotly, with quite the wrong effect, it seemed, because his firm mouth relaxed into a lazy grin, and his eyebrow, lifted in sardonic amusement at her spirited retort.

'Look, Miss Ashburne'—he spoke with exaggerated patience—'out here it's the survival of the fittest, and you've got to face that fact. It's a tough country, and we've got to be tough to last the distance. If we let ourselves go all soft and dreamy-eyed—oh, yes, you were!— about the dear little grey jumping Joeys that come down in the dark and devastate our crops; and the slinky, intelligent, graceful dingo that pits his devious wits against our own in forays on our sheep stock; and even those chattering flocks of white cockies and corellas that pick the grain from under our very noses—throw in a drought or two for good measure, a bush-fire, maybe a flood—we wouldn't be here, would we, if we didn't take a firm line? Sentiment has to leave off somewhere, you know, and that's the line where common sense takes over.' Jonty stared at him, openly disapproving. 'I think you—you're a very hard person indeed,' she said sternly, and her eyes were big and dark with censure. Nat McMorran gave a harsh little chuckle. 'Do you really?' he replied somewhat grimly. 'Then that also applies to every last right-minded pastoralist and grazier this side of the Black Stump! Not that I can expect you to feel any different, I suppose. Any girl who'd throw herself heedlessly into the path of an oncoming car for the sake of a mange-ridden, flea-infested flotsam of a dog -' 'Oh, poor Desmond!' To her shame, Jonty had to admit that she had forgotten all about that dejected, abandoned creature. 'Where is he now? You didn't -?' Her eyes widened with horror at the trend of her thoughts. 'Of course I didn't, Miss Ashburne. I'm not a murderer,' he assured her with such asperity that she felt—temporarily —quite chastened.

'Well, where is he, then?' she asked, in a subdued voice. The man sighed. 'He's at Dulloora, with Deborah,' he admitted resignedly. 'I finally agreed that she could keep the wretched animal, provided that she let me deal with him first.' 'Deal with him?' 'To begin with,' he informed her, eyeing her with almost dangerous firmness, 'I put him through the dipper to disinfect him.' 'Oh, poor Desmond! You wouldn't even have minded if he'd drowned, I dare say!' 'Then I gave him a medicinal drench to correct his—er— internal problems. Then I gave him a whiff to put him out, and removed two heavily decayed teeth that were preventing him from masticating properly. Then I -' 'Please,' interrupted Jonty weakly, 'that's enough! Is he still alive, after—after all that?' 'Of course he's still alive!' he told her irritably. 'One sometimes has to be cruel to be kind. Remember that, please. Miss Ashburne, and don't go undermining my authority with the children by any stupid displays of misplaced softness of heart, or you'll have me to reckon with. Do you understand?' Him to reckon with? Jonty would as soon reckon with an angry buffalo! she thought, shuddering. She certainly wouldn't do anything that was likely to bring Nat McMorran's wrath down upon her head. No one but a fool would risk that! 'Yes, Mr. McMorran, of course I understand,' she replied hastily, in her best appeasing manner, 'but I only -'

'Not buts. No onlys,' he barked in a deep voice that defied further argument. 'Here's the first gate, anyway, so see how you make out with that catch, will you? If need be, I'll show you how,' he added, in a tone that indicated the very real probability of his having to do so. Jonty struggled out of the car, right into a dust-ball that swirled about her as it overtook the now stationary vehicle. In her anxiety not to limp even the tiniest little bit, she went to the wrong end of the gate first, and spent a moment staring stupidly at the rusty hinges before realising her mistake. An impatient toot on the horn, and a brown thumb jerking in the other direction, told her that someone else had realised it, too! Jonty scurried to the other end, and wrestled with the catch. She seemed, even to herself, to take a very long time wrestling. Her face was a:t first merely tense with concentration, then pink with exertion, then red with frustration. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware that Nat McMorran's fingers had begun to beat an irritating tattoo on the outer side of the car door. 'Drat him, and drat this catch,' Jonty muttered to herself, as she strove to find a way to open it with fingers now fumbling with sheer nervousness. They had never had catches like this on any of the garden gates ill the London suburb where Jonty's mother had moved from Wiltshire. She had never seen such a rusty tangle of iron in all her life I It remained firmly knit-together like one of those Chinese puzzles, although she had now jiggled every loose piece that she could see, quite fruitlessly. What was she doing here, anyway? she asked herself crossly. What on earth had possessed her to accept such an alien job as this, no matter how desperate she had felt about the future? What was she, Jonty Ashburne, doing here, struggling with a rusty and recalcitrant

catch on a battered old wire-netted gate, under a sizzling sun in a country that was altogether too big and burnt and wide and bold after England's green-hedged lanes and clustered villages? As if in answer to her soul-searching self-catechism, a picture of Debbie's mischievous face, with its sandy pigtails, beady eyes, and piquant charm, swam between Jonty and that offending latch. For the child? Was that why she was doing this crazy thing? Surely not! Debbie's gamine image retreated, and another floated past—a sad, canine image, this, with imploring eyes that melted one's very heart, and a lolling pink tongue and ears that tended to lift hopefully at the merest sign of affection. Desmond? Well, all right, but she wouldn't be silly enough to take on an assignment as foreign to her as this for a dog, would she? Or would she? Heaven only knew! The man had got out of the car now, and was coming towards her with long, loping strides. He was frowning, in a manner that made Jonty quail. 'Look, Miss Ashburne -' His supple fingers did strange things to the catch, so that from being one inseparable tangle of iron it obediently divided itself into two distinct components, one still attached to the gate-post, the other a part of the gate which was already swinging open with a creak of its hinges that to Jonty's ears sounded akin to a laugh of pure derision. 'Get the idea?' To her surprise, his voice was unexpectedly patient. 'Er—yes, thank you,' she replied, with a devastating disregard for the truth, as he hovered over her, quite disturbingly near. 'Just slam it once I'm through, will you, and it will shut itself. The others are a simpler patent. You'll have no trouble with them.' -,

And he was right. The other gates were easy to figure out, and she managed to open and shut them with commendable speed. Perhaps she wasn't so stupid, after all, she told herself bracingly. Perhaps she would fit in at Dulloora station better than she had hoped, if she just kept her head, and didn't let Nat McMorran rattle her the way he did. After the fourth gate, the car breasted a rise, and then began to descend into a wide valley, a hidden basin surrounded on all sides by low, timber-clad hills. At the far end of the basin's floor was a scattering of white-roofed buildings, and as they approached by a narrow track along the edge of a creek, Jonty could see that one particularly concentrated cluster of roofs was enshrouded in a variety and abundant cloaking of tall trees, more decorative in colour and form than the more ordinary, stout-hearted gums that bordered the stream itself. A white-painted fence enclosed the whole, and she guessed that this must be the house—or the 'homestead', as Nat McMorran referred to it. 'Yes, that's the Dulloora homestead,' he confirmed, then proceeded to point out other buildings of importance among the many. 'The long low building to the left of it is the powerhouse. Feed-sheds to your right, then silos; wool-shed and shearers' quarters in the distance there, behind the silos; to the left the stockyards and horsepaddock; blacksmith's shop; 'station-hands' quarters; hut-cook's cottage; meat house -' His voice went on with a seemingly interminable list. 'It's a small town in itself, isn't it?' Jonty murmured shyly, suddenly overcome with awe at the complete strangeness and unexpectedness of it. Morilla may have been a funny little isolated country town, but even if it did have one of everything only, at least they were the things that one traditionally discovers in almost any town, anywhere—a

cafc, a post office-cum- general store, a children's playground, a neat row of quite suburban-looking dwellings on either side of a quiet, wide street. The scattered disorder of sheds and silos, yards and corrugatedroofed domestic-type buildings that went to make up the Dullora homestead as a whole, were at once impressive and oddly desolate to Jonty. They appeared, at this time of day, deserted and forsaken, squatting in a simmering shimmer of heat, as if they had been set down indiscriminately by some giant hand, and were now resigned to their chaotic pattern, simply sitting where they had been strewn and hunching themselves away from the relentless heat of the sun. Hens scratched idly about within the confines of a netted fowl-run, or walked with stilted tread along the perimeter of a shallow concrete water-trough, pecking delicately at their reflections. As the Holden wound its way along the principal track among the buildings, Jonty was aware of a mingling assortment of smells—oil, harness leather, fertilisers, the musty odour of a pile of bran-bags, all conglomerated with the dust and the sunny eucalypt fragrance in a bouquet that was essentially 'country', and outback sort of 'country', at that! The smell, the sweltering scatter of iron roofs, the deep, angled shadows, the slip-railed enclosures, were her first introduction to Dulloora, and the scene would be imprinted upon her memory for always, very probably, supposed Jonty, in silent amazement. Then they rattled over a ramp, and into another world. This was the world within the white palings. Almost immediately they were plunged into a cool dark tunnel of overhanging boughs, at the far end of which they emerged into the open sun once more, to a vista of wide. sweeping lawns, ordered flower-beds, and a rambling house whose gauze-meshed verandas

were reached by a series of shallow, vine-bordered steps. The gauze screen and solid wooden balustrade of the veranda continued right around the building, giving it an air of privacy—secrecy, almost— and solidarity that Jonty found both unusual and attractive. Here one, could doubtless enter through those green- painted portals, to an interior of civilised peace that would be dim and quiet and restful, where the ravages of drought or flood, fire or famine, or any other of Nature's untoward occurrences which went on outside the neat white paling fence, might temporarily be forgotten, under its therapeutic influence. Jonty thought that, if she had to work among those depressing and disordered sheds and outhouses for any length of time, she would soon come to regard this homestead as a sanctuary, where one could slough off the cares of the outside world in the depths of this soothing privacy and beneficent coolness. Was that how Nat McMorran himself regarded his very own house? Jonty wondered curiously. A glance in his direction showed her all too clearly that the reverse was, in fact, the case. As he went up the steps and opened the gauze door for her, took off his wide felt hat and followed her on to the veranda, it was obvious from the troubled darkness of his grey eyes, the tense firming of his jaw, the deepening of the lines about his mouth and the almost unconscious squaring of the broad shoulders, that Nat McMorran's troubles did not lie out there in the stark, beating sunlight, among his sheds and stockyards, sheep- pens and outhouses. They lay right here inside the secretive gauze perimeter Of the house itself. While to Jonty this house represented a charming retreat from the heat, the space, the strange, depressing clutter that was part of a large station's life, the heart from which beat the very pulse of the property, the hub of all its activities— while to her this house

represented the soft, gracious centre, after penetrating the crudely practical crust, to him his own home held little real pleasure for Nat McMorran. Jonty could tell, from the way his grey eyes narrowed lingeringly, affectionately, on the small wedge of outside world before he purposefully closed the door upon it, that Nat McMorran's sanctuary and escape lay out there, beyond the slip-rails.

CHAPTER FOUR The hall in which Jonty found herself standing had high ceilings and waxed pine floors. A large cedarwood chest stood at one side. A dresser with an assortment of pewter, porcelain, copperware, and small items of gold and silver, displayed upon its open shelves, rose almost to ceiling level against the opposite wall. 'My mother was a bit of a collector.' He had noted the direction of her gaze. 'It seemed a pity to dispense with them after she died, since they'd given her an entire lifetime's pleasure.' 'But I think they're charming,' breathed Jonty, lifting a small copper chafing-dish from its place and examining it with interest, before replacing it carefully in position. 'It would be a crime not to hang on to them after all her trouble in searching them out.' Nat McMorran grimaced. 'I doubt if Isobel would agree with you there.' His deep voice was amused. 'She hasn't taken very kindly to the fact that they frequently need to be polished and dusted, I'm afraid—rather more often than anything else in the house. Just go straight through there, will you? They don't seem to have noticed our arrival as yet.' Jonty walked obediently ahead of him down the smaller hall which led to the rear of the house. From somewhere in that direction came the sound of voices, raised in angry tones that corroborated only too clearly the fact that their arrival was as yet unnoticed. 'Well, I don't see why I can't, Isobel, I really don't!' A clear, girlish voice, that one, loud with protest.

"We won't go over it all again, thank you, Cilla.' The woman's reply was adamant, more restrained, the tone softer than the other, but with just a hint of impatience, all the same. "What have you got against him, anyway?' 'Nothing against him personally, Cilla. I thought you understood that? But in my view you are much too young to be pitched into that sort of sophisticated set-up and not emerge unscathed.' 'Too young?' A grunt. 'Sometimes I feel as old as old, as if my life has come and gone without anything ever happening to tell me there was a beginning, a middle and an end.' 'There's no need to be cynical.' 'Isn't there? Well, that's how I feel right now—cynical. It's funny how one isn't too young for all the dreary things, like bed-making and washing-up, and ironing all those shirts of Stan's and Rick's and Uncle Nat's, and doing the separator every morning, and mending the socks. It's really funny! I've been doing all those things for ever, or since we lost Mum and Dad, anyway. Long before you came here, Isobel, maybe even before Uncle Nat ever met you, I was doing all those things, because there was no one else but me to do them. I wasn't considered too young for all those dreary adult chores, even then, was I? And yet now, when I—oh, hullo, Uncle Nat!' The girl who swung around in surprise as they entered what was obviously the dining-room had long dark hair which hung straight from a centre parting, framing a narrow, lively face, with pointed chin and faintly aquiline nose. It could have been a striking face, thought Jonty, noting the wide spacing of fine brown eyes that were larger and more thoughtful than Debbie's inquisitive, beady ones, and the expressive quality of a pretty mouth. A; the moment the

eyes were smouldering with barely concealed resentment, and the mouth was spoilt by a sullen droop at the corners. 'Why, Nat, you're back! We didn't hear you come in." The woman who crossed the room to greet him was perhaps six or seven years older than Jonty, and possessed a poise and mature assurance that Jonty herself had already given up hope of ever acquiring. Isobel Roche was tall, blonde, and quite breathtakingly beautiful. She had learned how to play up her physical attributes, and carried herself proudly, in the certain knowledge that she was looking nothing less than her best—it was the very first thing about her to impress Jonty, that beautiful carriage! If there were any flaws to her seemingly perfect face and figure, then they had been most carefully concealed by assiduous attention to each detail of dress and grooming. Taking in the ordered obedience and skilful cut of the golden waves, the arch of plucked brows above serene, china-blue eyes, the carefully, made-up mouth, manicured nails, and the creaseless state of a classically simple and elegant skirt, which partnered an equally creaseless blouse of snowiest white, Jonty was suddenly made acutely aware of her own grubby state. Her cotton dress was crumpled and dusty, and there was a rust-mark on the front, where she had brushed against the iron gate-latch in her efiorts to get it to open. She smiled tentatively, first at the woman, and then at the girl. Isobel did not return the smile, but a tiny flicker of answering warmth removed the pout from Cilla's lips as she stepped past Jonty, and with unpredictable impulsiveness, kissed her uncle on the side of his tanned, clean-shaven cheek. 'Oh, Uncle Nat, I am glad you're back!'

Nat McMorran patted the girl's slender shoulder with a gesture of quick affection. 'If you really are glad to see me, Cilla, I wish you would demonstrate the fact by being more considerate to Isobel in my absence, and not argue with her the moment my back is turned,' he observed, in a repressed tone. His words of rebuke had cancelled out that affectionate pat altogether, thought Jonty, with a quick rush of sympathy for poor Cilla, whose reddening cheeks and hastily lowered eyes registered the rebuff almost immediately. No, no, you mustn't, Jonty wanted to cry, but of course she could hardly allow herself the satisfaction of participating in what was quite evidently a family affair. She quelled her indignation with difficulty. If he always handled his late brother's brood with such inept clumsiness, then he had only himself to thank if the atmosphere inside his house was not to his liking, she told herself with some feeling. Isobel's calm voice intervened. 'Thank you, Nat, but there's no need to rush to my protection on that score, my dear. I'm quite able to take care of myself, you know.' A faintly whimsical smile was turned upon her fiancé. 'I have things well under control.' 'I'm sure you have, Isobel.' The broad shoulders lifted momentarily. 'I merely meant that I'm grateful for all you do for us, and am out to discourage insubordination. I never intended to involve you in this, as you know. I realise it's not easy for you.' 'Poor Nat! You worry too much about all of us, but about me in particular, I think. You needn't, you know, darling. I never was one

to evade my responsibilities, as I'm sure Cilla is by now aware, even at the risk of making myself unpopular. I have the children's welfare very much at heart' A slightly chilly glance in Cilla's direction accompanied this last statement, before Isobel stretched out her hand politely to Jonty. 'And is this the person you've engaged to help me? How do you do, Miss -? Ashburne, was it?' 'Jonty Ashburne, How do you do?' Jonty acknowledged a cool, reserved hand-shake, found herself smiling hopefully into the other woman's face— hopefully, in order to try to discover some sort of message more warming than the cold brevity of that hand-clasp, but Isobel's lovely features wore a mask that was carefully and impersonally devoid of expression. 'Ah, yes, I remember now. It was mentioned that you had an unusual name. I shall call you Jonquil, though. I don't particularly care for diminutives for employees. You don't mind, do you?' she added sharply, noting Jonty's quick flush. 'No, not at all, of course,' replied Jonty hastily. 'I don't mind what you call me, Miss Roche. I—I only hope that I can be of some real help to you, whether as Jonquil or as Jonty is absolutely immaterial. It's just that my friends all call me Jonty,' she couldn't help adding, rather forlornly. 'Yes. Quite.' Isobel's murmur was polite but pointed. 'I'm going to call you Jonty,' announced Cilla blithely. with remarkable lack of diplomacy, or was it an intentional dig at Isobel? 'After all, Debbie already does, doesn't she? She's told us all about you, you see. We're very glad you could come, we truly are!' Jonty smiled, warmed by the girl's obvious sincerity.

"Where is Debbie? And Mark, and Rachel?' she asked. 'You see, I know all your names already!' Isobel glanced at her watch. They'll be on their way back from school shortly. I think you should get your late meal over before they come. We've all had ours, but I kept cold meat and salad, and the pudding is a cold one in any case, as I knew you'd be late today, Nat' She turned briskly to Cilla. 'Take Jonquil to her room, will you, Cilla, and show her where everything is. She might like to wash after that dusty journey.' 'Yes, of course. Come with me, will you?' 'And after that, you'd better finish doing out the laundry.' 'Yes, Isobel.' Cilla's words were polite, resigned, but after they had gone through the door, she allowed herself a tiny, tell-tale shrug of annoyance that did not escape Jonty, who was following. They crossed a trellised yard where there were grape and passionfruit vines running along wired frames, then on to another veranda, which skirted a small, separate, flat-roofed building. 'Your room is here, Jonty, and a bathroom through there, with a shower, all to yourself. I do hope you'll be comfortable.' She hesitated. 'If you get lonely, you're welcome to share the sleepout veranda with us. We all sleep there, except for Uncle Nat, and Isobel, of course. There's a spare stretcher that we can easily make up.' Thanks, Cilla, but perhaps I'd better stay where your— your almostaunt has decided to put me, for the time being, at any rate,' Jonty replied, half-tempted.

'Almost-aunt about covers it,' Cilla admitted gloomily, then giggled. 'Debbie told us all about the wicked stepmother thing, Jonty, and how you believed her, and about Uncle Nat finding out, and about his being so furious. We all thought it quite riotously funny!.' Jonty frowned, recalling Nat McMorran's grim-faced countenance on that occasion. 'Did you, Cilla? Well, I can't say I share your particular sense of humour, in that case,' she returned severely. 'Oh, you mustn't mind Uncle Nat.' The girl had interpreted Jonty's reminiscent frown correctly. 'His bark's worse than his bite, really, except when he's deliberately crossed, and then I'll admit one has to watch out' She sighed. 'He used to be quite different when we were muddling along on our own. It's only since Isobel came that he's got so tetchy about everything. Not that we can blame him, as Rick keeps reminding me. After all, they've put off their wedding date once already because of us. Oh, well, I'd better get back to the laundry. Gan you find your way over to the main building again?' 'Yes, thank you, Cilla. And thanks, too, for showing me to my room.' With a nod, and a fleeting smile, Cilla was gone. Jonty washed quickly, put on a clean but somewhat crushed cotton frock from her suitcase—he certainly had flung everything in, just as he had warned!—and retraced her steps, through the gauze door, past the cool green trellis of rampant vines, and on to the other veranda. From inside, a woman's clear but modulated voice reached her, and Jonty paused, hesitating to go further.

'I said a cook, Nat, not another child to supervise.' The tone was gently chiding. 'She's quite efficient, I can assure you, Isobel.' A deep male voice, this, firm and to the point. 'I actually saw her at work, because I got caught in that damned demonstration looking for Debbie.' A gurgle of laughter greeted this announcement. 'Poor Nat, caged in with all those women. You must have loved that!' 'Well, if I've found someone who can help you, out of the experience, it was probably a worthwhile one in the final count' 'Naturally, I'm grateful, my dear.' Isobel hesitated. 'I just hadn't realised that you intended her to live with us as one of the family, that's all. Don't you think we have enough family about us, as it is?' 'I think we have so many that another will make no difference.' Nat McMorran's voice was dry. 'And the child appears to be alone in the world. She'll be company for the others, and they for her. Between them, they may leave us with a little more time to ourselves, don't you think?' 'Oh, Nat! I wish -' Her words were silenced, perhaps by a kiss? 'So do I, darling.' The man's voice was muffled. 'But things will work out, if you're patient just a bit longer. I want it as much as you do, this marriage, but I couldn't just walk out, even for a honeymoon, with Debbie going through this semi-delinquent phase, now could I? So set another place at the table, Isobel, and sit with us while we eat. It'll do you good to rest for a moment.' "Very well, Nat.' The woman sounded calmer, and presently her steps echoed, going through to the kitchen.

Jonty waited until she heard those feminine footsteps coming back again, and then she, too, entered the room. It was a pleasantly proportioned, rectangular room, with windows along one end, outside which grew boxes of geraniums and petunias. Beyond, a green lawn spread itself about beds of portulaca and canna, and beyond that again rose the fringe of decorative trees that shut away the outer world. Cypress and bunya-bunya, wattle, cedar, sugar-gum, cork-elm, and basket willow, along with a host of others, formed a shady, impenetrable jungle screen to those corrugated iron sheds and silos and harness-rooms and feed- stores and stockyards and slip-railed horse paddocks past which Jonty and Nat McMorran had come a, short while ago. When Jonty came in, her employer got up from the table where he was already sitting with his chair in a sideways position and long legs stretched out in front of him. When he had seen her seated, he too resumed his chair, and indicated that she should begin her meal. Isobel had provided an essentially mundane repast. The cold roast mutton was inclined to be tough, the pinkish tinge in places denoting a degree of underdoneness that would better have suited a baron of beef. A couple of whole tomatoes were placed unimaginatively beside the meat, and next to the tomatoes were two halves of hard-boiled egg. The whole was garnished with a piece of limp lettuce. A furtive glance at her host's plate showed Jonty that in essence it held the same ingredients as her own, but in rather larger proportions. There were several more ill- carved chunks of the unappetising meat, a third piece of egg, and a couple of extra leaves of wilting lettuce. Never mind, Jonty told herself silently. She could soon improve this particular situation! Why, a few Lovalee prunes, stuffed with cream cheese, and a few chunks of pineapple from a Lovalee Tinee-tin (such an economical size for garnishes!) could

transform a meal of this sort beyond imagining. And if the lettuce had been crisped up in the fridge, and the tomatoes had been waterlilied, or even sliced— 'I beg your pardon?' She came out of her reverie to find that Isobel had addressed a question to her. 'I said do you take sugar and cream in your coffee?' Isobel's voice held a world of patience, and brought a quick blush to Jonty's cheeks. 'I'm so sorry, I was daydreaming,' Jonty excused herself quickly, still pink-faced. 'But you mustn't wait on me, Miss Roche!' She got up hastily and came around to the other end of the table to accept her cup, since the distance between herself and the other woman made the passing of it otherwise impossible. 'I don't intend to wait on you, I can assure you,' returned Nat McMorran's fiancee calmly, with that superb arid enviable poise. 'After today, I shall on the contrary expect you to serve the meals as well as cook them, if you'll be so kind. I'm not a bit good at it, and it will be a tremendous help to me, Jonquil, if you're able to do that?' Why, underneath that chilly manner, she sounded almost pleading. Jonty found herself responding unexpectedly to this more human aspect of the beautiful assured person at the far end of the long cedar table. It was comforting to discover that there was at least one chink in the other's seemingly flawless armour, after all! 'Yes, of course, Miss Roche. I'll do my best.' Jonty couldn't help sounding eager. The fact that her companion was a self-confessed non-starter in the culinary department gave her a confidence that she might otherwise not have had. Certainly it had been missing at those other demonstrations, where Carole had taken charge so efficiently, and, by her acknowledged superiority in every field of cookery, had soon

shown Jonty that her own standards were little better than mere 'assistant' ones, and likely to remain so. Here was her chance to prove to herself, and to everyone else at Dulloora, how much she had learned since that fateful morning when she had been signed on by Mr. Lovalee Canners himself. It would be nice to be appreciated, wonderful to be needed, if not as a person, then at least as a cook! Jonty glowed. She glowed all the time, as she cleared the table, and washed the dishes in the big, air-conditioned kitchen to which Isobel had taken her afterwards. It took some time to discover where everything was kept once it had been washed and dried, because Isobel had gone away, and there was no sign of Cilla, either. She had boiled a couple of dish-cloths and was hanging them over the stove-rail to dry, when heavy steps sounded along the passage,, and Nat McMorran entered the kitchen. He stood for a moment, seeming to tower above her as she turned from her task at the cooker. Bare-headed still, he was twisting that ever-present felt hat in his hands as he looked around him, evidently for the presence of someone other than Jonty. Perhaps he had expected to find Isobel here, to exchange a quick word or two before going out. 'Hullo.' It was all Jonty could think of to say, and it sounded so childishly awkward that she bit her lip in sheer vexation. 'Er—hullo.' The man's mouth trembled on the brink of a smile, and then evidently changed its mind. 'You have everything you require, Jonty? You're beginning to find your way around?' The question was a purely formal one, but he used her name—die one her friends did!—quite deliberately, as if he had made up his mind to do just that. At the same time, he was no more than

distantly polite, but Jonty could not help feeling an odd sense of comfort in the fact that he had evidently decided, quite intentionally, to use the dimunutive form of that horrid Christian name. It was nice to know that Nat McMorran, if not a friend, was at least declaring himself a neutral, she thought with relief. The name Jonquil had in the past been more often associated with headmistresses and Matrons and visits to the dentist's than with conversational exchanges among her acquaintances. Jonty found herself wincing every time Isobel said it. Isobel had already allied herself to the ranks of the formal, uninvolved, or authoritarian, in choosing to say that name in fulL Not that she didn't say it beautifully—she did! Isobel's voice was as attractive as the rest of her—modulated and controlled, with clear diction and a pleasant tone. All it lacked, for Jonty's liking, was even the merest suggestion of actual kindness, but perhaps one should not expect that particular quality, at the moment, from a woman who was engaged to a very attractive man and who had already had her wedding plans frustrated by his brood of adopted nephews and nieces. Attractive? Jonty pulled herself up sharply. Now why on earth should she think that, when she knew perfectly well that he was a tyrant of the first order? Still, if you liked tyrants, if you liked the swarthy, piratic, domineering type, you could say that— 'Well, Jonty?' 'Um—pardon?' 1 asked if you were beginning to feel a little bit more in touch with your surroundings, but I can see that you didn't hear a single word I said.' The grey eyes accused. 'Are you always given to wandering off into some sort of secret reverie like this? I hope not, because I'm about to inform you of the station meal-hours, and I have no intention of repeating myself.'

He proceeded to give this information forthwith, ticking the times off emphatically on his fingers as he said each one, and quite unabashed at Jonty's evident malaise, for which his rather nasty rebuke was entirely responsible. *So be sure to have the evening meal—dinner, that is, since we men are normally out in the middle of the day, and frequently take a packed lunch with us, and brew up out on die run—at seven o'clock prompt.' Jonty's eyes widened. "You mean tonight?' she squeaked. 'Goodness me, it must be almost four o'clock already?' "Well, of course I mean tonight I' he rasped impatiently. 'Tonight and every night!' He peered at her. 'What's the matter? Can't you do it? Then in heaven's name -why not have said so, back there at the hospital?' "Yes, I—I mean, I can do it, of course I can,' she replied a little bit desperately. 'It's just that everything is just a tiny bit strange. It—it takes longer just at first, when you don't know where things are kept, and what sort of meals the household is accustomed to.' Nat McMorran's grim smile came and went in a single small twist of that level mouth. 'This household is accustomed to almost anything,' he assured her briskly, 'so for God's sake don't go and get an attack of nerves at the very outset, or Isobel will say -' He broke off, shrugged. "Well, never mind about that, it isn't your concern. But do try to be independent from the start, will you, Jonty, and do things on your own initiative, or -' 'Or your fiancee will think you've brought home another child to add to the family,' Jonty finished for him quietly.

He gave her a lop-sided grin. 'So you did hear!' he exclaimed. 'I thought it possible!' His eyes held an unexpected glint of humour. 'Well, you must admit it's true, in a way. Standing there with your hair all over your forehead like that, and the alarm-bells ringing because dinner happens to be at seven o'clock, you look about-as sure of yourself as a ten-year-old.' 'Thank you.' Jonty drew herself up with dignity. 'I shall certainly have your meal ready for you at your usual time, Mr. McMorran, you may be sure of that! And I shall endeavour to give satisfaction in every way,' she added stiffly, brushing past him. 'Now, if you'll excuse me -' He stepped aside. "You'll have to excuse me, too, I'm afraid,' he told her abruptly, 'if I seem to have been unnecessarily candid.' 'You don't have to apologise,' Jonty assured him tonelessly. 'You have every right to say or think whatever you choose in your own house. But'—she glared at him, challenge in every line of her slender, upright form—'you're mistaken about one thing, and that's my self-confidence. There were no alarm bells ringing. Absolutely none!' she told him sternly. Nat McMorran's eyes sought hers, held them. Just for an instant an unpredictable expression flickered there, then vanished. A dark spark of emotion, half humorous, half tender, difficult to identify or define. "Weren't there?' he asked gently. 'Maybe my receiving- system got the vibrations wrong. I could have sworn there were!' He was laughing at her, wasn't he?

Jonty was shaking with an indignation which appeared to escape him, since he was already making for the door. There he turned with one hand on the knob, and added in a relenting tone— 'Get Cilla to fill in the blanks for you, if you can't find anything, will you, Jonty? It's a bit difficult just at first, so we shall overlook any shortcomings, I promise you.' With that he was gone, leaving Jonty with an overriding determination that there weren't going to be any shortcomings, not if she could help it! The children arrived home from school shortly after four o'clock. Jonty saw them on the skyline, small, distant figures on cantering ponies. Then they all disappeared into one of the valleys, and after they came over die final rise to the homestead, they were suddenly lost again, screened off by the clustering trees and neat white paling fence. An interval elapsed, during which they were no doubt unsaddling, watering, and feeding their mounts. Before Jonty could even detect the sound of footsteps she could hear a babble of excited mutterings, and then a piercing whistle, followed by an ear-splitting shout in Debbie's easily recognisable, treble voice. 'Coo-ee!' it announced itself, presumably to attract someone's attention to itself, and then, 'Is—she—here?' 'Ye-es!' That was Cilla's reply, from somewhere along the veranda. This interchange resulted in a veritable stampede of galloping feet, and a breathless trio of children arrived at the kitchen veranda, hotly pursued by an enthusiastic and energetic dog. Desmond? Jonty, from the window, could scarcely believe that this leaping, bounding, ecstatic canine could possibly be Desmond. But it was! A resuscitated, rejuvenated Desmond, whose coat shone and whose

nose was healthily moist, and who, when he opened his mouth wide and panted a welcome, as he was doing right now, displayed two conspicuous gaps where his decaying teeth had been removed— with the aid of 'a whiff of something' and a lot of determination on the part of Nat McMorran. Good old Uncle Nat! A tyrant he might be, but he certainly knew all about animal dentistry, admitted Jonty with a grudging thrust of respect. From her kneeling position, with her arms still about Desmond, she was aware of three pairs of eyes upon her— Debbie's familiar beady dark ones; Mark's, which were dark brown, too, but more like Cilla's; and Rachel's, grey and fine, the grey of Nat McMorran's own, slightly brooding, like his could be, but minus that uncomfortably critical intentness that the uncle's possessed. Rachel's stare was wide and innocent and friendly, and when she smiled it was a quite wonderful thing to see. A radiance and serenity spread from her beautiful grey eyes in a caressing warmth that all but reached out and physically touched one. A good thing the child was as yet quite unaware of the devastating power of that sudden smile! Rachel, as leader, spoke first. 'Hullo, Jonty. We hurried back today, because we hoped you'd be here,' she explained rather breathlessly, for all three of them, because they had all run up so fast from the yards that they were still gasping. 'We galloped right along the top of the Gubba ridge—it's quicker that way. I'm Rachel, by the way, and this is Mark. Go on, Mark, say something,' she prompted her young brother in a quick aside. Mark did.

'You aren't a bit like Uncle Nat said you were,' he stated almost accusingly. Jonty scrambled to hex feet, dusted the front of her cotton dress. 'Aren't I, Mark? I'm sorry about that.' And then a thought occurred to her, a rather unwelcome thought, but she had to know. 'Are you pleased, or disappointed?' she asked offhandedly. 'What I mean is'— she looked at him in a direct way—'better or worse, Mark? Which is it? I won't mind, you know, whichever you say,' she urged him gaily. 'Better,' stated Mark promptly. 'Much better!' They all burst out laughing at that. Even Jonty couldn't help it, but 'I thought as much!' she was saying darkly to herself, under cover of the general uproar. 'I heard him telling Isobel about you—didn't I, Deb?' They giggled again, and Jonty, although positively itching to learn just what had been said, immediately steered the conversation into safer channels. Not for anything could she stoop to pumping a child for that sort of information, and indeed, Mark's impish countenance at this moment indicated that his statements might be anything but accurate, and highly coloured by his own no doubt fertile imagination. In any case, they say that eavesdroppers seldom hear good of themselves, and Jonty supposed, if a little regretfully, that that sort of solidting for hidden information amounted to much the same thing! 'What do we do now?' she interposed swiftly. 'Do you have something to eat, or what? Some tea now, or do you wait till dinner? You'll all have to keep me on the right track, because I don't know the routine yet, you see.' She banished an intrusive vision of those

square-tipped brown fingers ticking off the routine meal-hours, one by one, and followed the children back into the kitchen. "We generally just have some biscuits and milk or squash or something,' Rachel informed her helpfully. 'Our mother used to make us little cakes in paper-cases, -but Isobel can't, so we just have biscuits. I can so remember, Mark, so there!' Debbie poked out an agile tongue as far as it would go in her brother's direction, then put it in again, in order to add, heavily, 'Bought biscuits, they are. That's them in the blue tin.' Rachel was already taking down the tin from the shelf. She was tall for her age, taller than Jonty by at least an inch, and she moved with the grace of a young gazelle. Like Cilla's, her hair was long and dark, but she wore it caught into a pony-tail at the nape of her neck, which from behind, as Jonty was seeing it now, looked smoothly brown and slender, and somehow oddly vulnerable. Two dark, two fair—or rather, sand-coloured, amended Jonty silently, for Mark's curls, like Debbie's pigtails, were the colour of wet sea-sand, pale-tipped where the sun had bleached them. 'Have a cup with us, won't you, Jonty? Perhaps you'd rather tea, while we have our milk?' suggested Rachel thoughtfully, and Jonty was more than pleased to accept. It was a delightfully homely sensation to find oneself sitting at the kitchen table with the three chattering children, while Desmond lay in the coolest corner, out of the shaft of sunlight which now streamed in through the gauze at the west window. Suddenly something occurred to Jonty, and she wondered how she could possibly have forgotten about Cilla up to this point. 'We'll call her, shall we?'

Debbie shook her head. 'She won't come, even if you do.' The sisters exchanged a look that was enough to tell Jonty, who happened to intercept it, that there was more to this than met the eye. 'Won't she? Why not?' Again the look passed between the two girls, and this time tfiey seemed slightly ill at ease. Mark helped out more obligingly. 'She doesn't have tea these days 'cos she's die -' 'Mark!' Rachel's face was stern, at odds with the grey softness of those lovely eyes. She pulled her brows together and gave her brother a fierce frown. 'Dieting?' Jonty smiled. 'Well, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? Lots of people do it It's better than finding one's skirts are suddenly tight around the middle.' 'It's not her skirts, it's her dress for the—it's her dresses,' Mark, amended lamely, scarlet-cheeked. 'She isn't going now, anyway, you stupid thing,' Debbie reminded him scornfully. 'Don't you remember, Isobel said she couldn't. So it doesn't matter now whether it fits or not, does it? She won't come, all the same,' she added, this time to Jonty. 'She's in a huff, and when she's in a huff she doesn't get hungry.' She stuffed the remaining half of her biscuit into her mouth, and removed the crumbs which still clung to her finger-tips by the

simple expedient of running her hands down the front of her pink denim blouse. 'I suppose she was very disappointed,' suggested Jonty offhandedly. It wouldn't do to sound too sympathetic towards Cilla, but at least the younger ones should realise that, at Cilla's age, disappointment constituted a quite valid reason for being 'in the huff'. It wasn't so long ago that Jonty couldn't remember, herself, just how crushing a disappointment could be at seventeen! Rachel nodded quietly, as if attuned to Jonty's own silent understanding. 'She still is. Disappointed,. I mean.' She leaned across the table confidingly. 'If I tell you something, Jonty, will you promise to keep it a secret? Shall we tell her?' she appealed to the others, who nodded solemnly. 'If she'll promise.' 'I promise, truly.' Rachel paused effectively. 'Well, it's this. Cilla's got a boy-friend.' 'Oh. Er—really?' Jonty didn't know quite what was expected of her, but it was immediately evident that all three children considered her reaction unsatisfactory. 'With long hair,' Debbie stressed, her eyes bright with emphasis. 'Past his ears,' Mark tacked on. 'Oh, far longer than that,' returned his younger sister scathingly.

"We've only seen him once, and that was weeks ago, so it must be longer now,' Rachel pointed out reasonably. "She met him in the play-park at Suddenly Plains, while Uncle Nat was in the Bank. He asked Cilla to go to a dance and she said she would, but when she told Uncle Nat he was simply furious, and Isobel has been telling her ever since all the reasons why she can't go.' 'She always takes his side,' muttered Mark resentfully. 'No, he takes hers. It was she who was first to say that Cilla couldn't go, remember, wasn't she?' 'But, darlings,' Jonty protested mildly, 'they were perfectly right, both of them. You can't just go out with some perfectly strange boy that you happen to bump into in the park. He might be anyone I You wouldn't know a thing about him I' 'Yes, we do. His name is Wyn Derrant, and he's a jackeroo over at Gubba, so he's bound to be all right. Oh, I know the name sounds funny,' Rachel said earnestly, 'but it sort of goes with the rest of him, if you know what I mean. Under all the hair he's really nice. He got us all an icecream, because Uncle Nat took simply ages coming out of the bank.' 'Didn't your—didn't Miss Roche meet him?' Rachel shook her head. 'No, she was having her hair done at the time. Neither of them did.' 'That was a pity,' replied Jonty rather soberly. 'If they had, they might have felt quite differently about him.' 'That's just what Cilla said. She wanted Isobel to phone up Mr. Raekwell over at Gubba, just to see that he was all right, only Isobel wouldn't.'

'Uncle Nat?' 'Nope. He thinks it's all forgotten about. He'd be hopping mad if he thought Cilla was still asking Isobel about it, so she only does it when he's out. I don't see why she won't phone up, if it'd get Cilla out of the huff, do you—but she says it was very forward of Cilla to make a date with a perfect stranger in the first place, and that she would die of mort—oh, mort something—if Mr. Raekwell got to know.' 'Mm, I can see the point,' murmured Jonty tactfully. 'It just sounds an awful mix-up on everyone's side, doesn't it? 'Never mind. She'll get over it,' she assured them blithely, because there were three rather miserable faces staring at her now— miserable, and somehow expectant, as if Jonty herself might be able to wave a magic wand and suddenly make everything come right! Fairy godmothers? Wicked stepmothers! If only life was as easily remedied as it was within the pages of the Brothers Grimm or Mr. Hans Andersen! One only had to note that misty wonderment creeping into Debbie's eyes right now to see that one person, at least, believed that miracles might yet be possible. She had gone off into a dream-world of her own, where her sister Cilla obviously figured as a sort of Cinderella, and Prince Charming was in all probability the shaggy-maned Wyn Derrant! Jonty had to admit to a sneaking sympathy for Isobel Roche. She had obviously taken rather too firm a stand at the outset—no doubt encouraged by that overbearing Uncle Nat I If only she had attempted to see Cilla's side at the very beginning, she might have been able to reason with the girl's guardian. After all, Isobel's indubitable charm was about the only thing likely to soften that hard creature's heart, and then they could have made it their business to

meet the young man, or at least make some form of discreet enquiry about him. It was unfortunate that Isobel had played her cards this way, because now she could not retreat without losing face, Jonty could quite see that. Cilla's 'huffi was a form of blackmail, intended to wear Isobel down into a state of acquiescence, if not complete submission. Impossible, in the circumstances, to bow to that sort of pressure without risking one's authority in the future. No, Isobel had her hands full. Jonty wished that she could do something to help her solve this particular problem, but there was nothing, really, that she could think of, right now. Her heart ached for Cilla, at her most sensitive and vulnerable, blundering in with a gaucheness and lack of tact, no doubt, where a more delicate approach might have yielded more successful results. She had hurried too much, but at seventeen, you did. You had that awful feeling that life was rushing past, and that it wouldn't wait for you. It was just as if the train of Experience was pulling out of the station of Adolescence, where you seemed to have been standing still, waiting and waiting, for ever so long, and then you suddenly thought the train was going to leave without you, and you ran to jump on, without even pausing to think! Jonty could recall those moments of impatience and despair that Cilla was no doubt enduring now, and that was why she felt so sorry and helpless, both at once. Ah, well, it wasn't her business, was it? It wasn't what she had come to Dulloora for. What she had been taken on to do by Nat McMorran was to cook. Cook? Good heavens! The time!

'The time?' she shrieked, leaping up and pushing back her mousebrown hair. 'The time?' Six o'clock, or nearly. One hour to have that dinner on the table, and she had not even begun. 'Oh, Rachel,' she gasped, 'you'll have to show me where everything is, and what I've to do! Can you?' As Jonty scurried about the kitchen, slightly hysterically, she could almost feel that masculine finger prodding her relentlessly on, right between the shoulder-blades, with short,-sharp, stabbing movements, like it had made against the fingers of the other hand as it spelt out the meal-times. In such haste was she, running to and fro under Rachel's gentle direction, that it did not even occur to her to wonder that Isobel, the acting mistress of the homestead, had done no more than show her to the kitchen to wash the luncheon dishes, and had thereafter abandoned her, leaving her to discover her duties for herself. Only later—much later—did it strike Jonty as somewhat odd. Ask Cilla, Nat McMorran had told her helpfully, but Cilla hadn't put in an appearance, either. Cilla, in 'the sulks', she could understand. But—Isobel?

CHAPTER FIVE "What does Uncle Nat like for dinner? I mean, what are his favourite things?' Jonty threw open the door of the cold-room and inspected the sides of beef and mutton that hung there, suspended from the ceiling on giant hooks. They swung silently in the slight draught created by the opening of the door. She shut it again hastily. 'You'd need to be a butcher, to do anything in there,' she said disgustedly, as she went instead to the fridge. 'And anyway, there isn't time.' 'Rick or Stan usually cut them into pieces for Isobel,' explained Debbie, who was plainly enjoying herself. They have proper cleavers and things. And Uncle Nat will eat practically anything, really, so long as it's dinner.' 'He'll have to,' murmured Jonty despairingly, under her breath. Tor tonight, at any rate.' The cold mutton from lunch would make a shepherd's pie, if she got the potatoes on straight away. 'He likes chokos, doesn't he?' put in Rachel quietly. 'Chokos in cheese sauce? He adores those, only Isobel can't make the sauce, because it goes lumpy with her. How about that? I'll get you some. There's a vine out at the back, behind the passion-fruit' 'Yes, please,' begged Jonty gratefully, her mind already at the pudding stage by now. 'We'll have to go and change, won't we, Debbie?' Rachel put the chokos down on the draining board at the sink, and turned

apologetically. 'Isobel will be mad if we're late, and I heard Cilla in the shower ages ago.' 'No, you mustn't be late.' Jonty was inspecting the pear- shaped, slightly prickly green objects that lay on the bench. 'What do I do with them?' Rachel's brows rose in surprise. 'You boil them, of course. You peel them and boil them. They're a bit like a squash, only not quite so watery.' She eyed Jonty curiously. 'Haven't you ever had them before?' A shake of the head brought forth peals of mirth from Debbie. 'You are funny, Jonty! Fancy never seeing a choko before!' 'Well, Uncle Nat didn't even know what a conker was, so there,' said Jonty rebelliously to their retreating backs. Deborah halted in the doorway. 'It's a chestnut, and you all play games with them,' she informed Jonty superciliously. 'It's in my Folk-tales of the British Isles, you see,' she added sweetly. They stared at each other, and then Jonty shrugged helplessly. 'I never came across a choko in a folk-tale book yet,' she admitted glumly, and then they all giggled together at the stupidity of that remark. 'Hurry.' She urged them through the door. 'You're a distracting influence, and I can't even think when you're around, Debbie! Thank you for your help, and cross your fingers for me, won't you!'

It was two minutes past the hour when Jonty served the meal that night, and she was immediately reminded of her tardiness by the pointed way in which Nat McMorran regarded his wrist-watch as they all took their places. Warwick, or 'Rick' as the rest of the family seemed to call him, was a tall, thin youth of surprisingly studious appearance. Tanned to very nearly the same teak depth as his uncle, he gave Jonty a wry smile as they were introduced, peered at her owlishly through a pair of thick-lensed spectacles—like a college professor just back from a seaside holiday, she decided—and said politely, 'You've forgotten to set for Stan—or didn't anyone tell you?' 'Cilla?' Nat McMorran was ready to frown in that direction—too ready, it appeared to Jonty, who muttered quickly that it was her own fault, and raced to procure extra cutlery for the young man Who was standing patiently beside Rick. 'I am sorry,' she mumbled, red-faced, as they sat down, and Cilla came hurrying aqross to the serving table to help pass the dishes. 'I'm to blame, Jonty,' she whispered contritely. 'I thought Isobel would have told you, honestly I did.' 'And I think she thought you had,' replied Jonty mildly. 'Who is Stan?' she added, in a whisper. 'The jackeroo. He sleeps down at the quarters, but he eats with us, and we do his washing, too. He's a change- daily boy, worst luck. All those shirts!' She made an expressive, half laughing, half serious face, before carrying the dinner plates to each place in turn. At last Jonty subsided thankfully into her chair. Her forehead felt moist, and brown tendrils of hair clung damply to her nape. Phew! That was a close-run thing! She had only just made the deadline

tonight. In future, she intended to watch that clock as if her life depended on it, in order to leave herself more time, since Nat Mcmomn appeared to be such a tyrant over punctuality. Tonight things had been so rushed that she had not even had time to brush her hair. As she began to eat, she was miserably conscious of the contrast her own untidy state made with that erf her freshlyshowered companions. Isobel, too, seemed aware of the very same thing. 'If you intend to dine with us, Jonquil, I think you should allow yourself sufficient time to change and neaten your appearance before the meal is served, don't you? I don't profess to be a competent cook myself, and yet even I have always managed to do that. One has to set an example to the younger ones.' 'Yes, Miss Roche. I'm sorry.' Jonty's eyes dropped to her plate. She had seldom felt more humiliated. One's very first dinner at Dulloora, and to be ticked off like this in front of the entire family I How awful! 'I—er—didn't have time this evening,' she pleaded without much conviction. 'I'm afraid I found myself running late.' 'You had a large part of the afternoon in which to prepare,' corrected Isobel, with unchallengeable accuracy. 'What kept you, then?' Jonty blushed, feeling acutely uncomfortable, because everyone now seemed to be gazing her way. All those eyes were upon her, right down the table. 'I—we—I spent a while talking to the children—to Mark and Debbie—didn't I, Rachel? Too long, perhaps. I just didn't notice the time passing.'

The older woman sighed, gave a faint shrug as her eyes met the level grey ones at the opposite end of the table. What did I tell you? that shrug seemed to say. Children? Another child. Irresponsible. 'Don't let it happen again,' was all she said, though—repressively— and Jonty, chastened, continued to eat in silence. Her dinner tasted like sawdust after that Perhaps it tasted the same to everyone, she thought wearily, because nobody commented, one way or the other. You'd never have guessed that chokos with cheese sauce on top were Nat McMorran's favourite vegetable, even though the chokos themselves were deliciously tender and delicately flavoured, the sauce as smooth as velvet. You'd never have guessed, by his grim mouth and inscrutable expression, that he was eating something he adored, would you? Jonty blinked away her disappointment, collected the empty plates, and went to get the pudding. After the meal was over, Isobel came to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, which she placed on a tray and carried from the room. Jonty could see that there were two cups set on the tray—pretty, tulip-shaped cups they were, and they looked curiously intimate and cosy, sitting side by side near the squat, earthenware coffee-pot and small silver sugar- bowl. When Isobel had left the kitchen, a patter of conversation broke out. Even Stan and Rick had come to help with the drying of the dishes. It was obviously a part of the family routing in which Stan joined, and there was much arguing, teasing, laughter, and squabbling before the last plate was put away in the cupboard, and the last item of cutlery despatched to the sideboard drawer. 'Don't take too much notice of Isobel, will you, Jonty?' Rick told her, under cover of the general noise and confusion. 'What I mean is,

don't take things to heart too much.' He peered at her kindly through those professorial spectacles. 'You've been very quiet since she spoke to you in there, I couldn't help noticing.' He sighed. 'I'm afraid tact isn't her Strong point, you know. It's the same with Cilla. They just strike sparks on each other the whole time. If you ask me, you look O.K. the way you are,' he added encouragingly. 'Doesn't she, Stan?' Stan inspected her appreciatively from a lofty height. 'Perfectly O.K.' He grinned. 'And the dinner was just great, Jonty. I love chokos in cheese sauce. They're my vary favourite thing.' Stan's favourite thing? Jonty's mouth fell open. She fixed an accusing eye upon Rachel, marched over to where she was kneeling at a low shelf, re-stacking plates with furious concentration. 'Rachel?' she murmured softly—and if Rachel had known Jonty better, she'd have realised that that particular sort of softness spelt danger. Rachel smiled serenely, as always, although her cheeks were somewhat pink. 'Don't be a spoilsport, Jonty. I mean. Uncle Nat likes them too, so what was the harm?' she reasoned disarmingly, in a whisper. 'Anyway, don't you think Stan's utterly fabulous? Much better than that hairy creep of Cilla's over at Gubba!' Jonty retreated wordlessly. To tell the truth, she was smitten dumb. First, Debbie, with her tales of wicked stepmothers and cruel uncles, and playing truant from school; then Cilla, with her moodiness and her secret assignations in the park; and now, Rachel—innocent,

uncomplicated Rachel! It seemed that even Rachel, her uncle's and Isobel's confessed idol, had after all got feet of clay! Jonty shook her head confusedly, folded the tea-towel and hung it up, It looked as though Nat McMorran was cherishing a nest of little vipers to his manly bosom, it really did! Jonty was beginning to think she'd as soon be responsible for a keg of gunpowder in the middle of a minefield, as be answerable, guardian-wise, for this little lot! After they left the kitchen, they all went out to the veranda and flopped into the chairs that were scattered there. Outside, it was completely dark and still, save for the occasional thin whine of a mosquito against the gauze and the intermittent shrilling of a cicada from across the lawn. A faint thread of tobacco smoke hovered in the air as Jonty drew up a deck-chair and sat down. At the far end of the veranda a shaft of light splintered the darkness, and from its vicinity came the murmur of voices, one deep and indistinct, the other of well-modulated but feminine pitch. The two voices, the tiny sliver of light in that well of darkness, seemed every bit as cosy and intimate as the two pretty coffee-cups, side by side on that little tray. "Want to come while I cover up Mark's cockies, Jonty? You haven't seen them yet, have you?' Rick's question broke into her thoughts, and Jonty found that she was strangely grateful for the interruption. 'I'd love to !' she told him enthusiastically. This way, then, and we won't have to go past Uncle Nat's office. He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's in there.'

Jonty followed him around the other corner of the veranda, and across the yard where the vines were, to a couple of large, wirenetted cages, obviously home-made, and roomy enough for the birds inside to fly about quite freely. Rick shone the torch he was carrying through the netting, in search of the occupants. 'Come on, Theodore, where are you, feller?' A flapping of wings brought a large white bird to the end of the cage, where it sank its claws into the netting and lurched sideways, eyeing them with an depression that was both fierce and comic at one and the same time. In the beam of light its eyes were jet-bright as they blinked at Jonty, and she could see the pretty rose colouring around its^ hooked beak, the blue feathering that tinted the eye area, and the yellow flush of the tail. 'Oh, how lovely!' she exclaimed, putting an experimental finger up to attract its attention. 'He's lovely!' 'Look out, Jonty,' warned Rick, and Jonty withdrew her finger hastily as the bird screeched in perfect mimicry, 'Look out, Jonty! He's lovely,' and fluttered off to swing upside down from a more central perch, regarding her cheekily. "Would he really hurt me?' she asked, restraining her laughter with difficulty as Theodore screamed again enthusiastically, 'Look out, Jonty! He's lovely!' from his upside down position. 'Only while you're strange, but he can give quite a good peck. Orlando is quieter, but not such a good talker. Here, Lando, come on.' 'And his beak doesn't look so fierce.'

That's right.' Rick's voice held approval at her perception. 'They're both the same family, the psittacidae, but Theodore is kakatoe tenuirostris, and Orlando is a sanguinea, or "little" corella. The difference is mainly in the size of the beak, and also the fact that Theodore's genus is the scarcer of the two.' 'You seem to know an awful lot about them,' Jonty said respectfully. Rick laughed as he threw an old horse-blanket over the top of both cages. They're my hobby, Jonty, that's why. I make a study of them, you see, especially the parrot species. Australia has some of the loveliest ones in the world—you'd have seen the common, sulphur-crested cockatoos on your drive from Suddenly Plains with Uncle Nat, I'm sure—the white and yellow ones—but much prettier than that are the pink and grey galahs, and the Major Mitchell is perhaps the most attractive one of all.' 'What an odd name for a bird! Was he called after a real person?' 'After Mitchell, the explorer, actually. The. sight of them cheered him up on his travels, and he made lots of references to them in his notes. They're pink cockatoos, to be accurate, but for all their beauty, they haven't the personality of old Theodore there and his kind.' 'Uncle Nat says they're a nuisance,' Jonty felt bound to inform him solemnly, recalling a scathing reference to those grain-stealing birds on the journey to Dulloora in the big Holden saloon. 'He would!' Rick's teeth gleamed in the torchlight "But they aren't entirely bad. They have their uses, too, you know, like almost everything that God saw fit to put on earth. For instance, they don't only steal Uncle Nat's crops. They also eat up the paddy-melon seeds—that's a sort of spreading noxious weed, and horses can go

blind and stiff if they take too much of it. And the cockatoos like the double- gee as well, although if sheep get going on it, it causes lameness. So you can see, they may be annoying little blighters, but they make their contribution as well.' Trust Uncle Nat to overlook the good! thought Jonty peevishly, but she didn't voice her thoughts aloud because it was obvious that Rick was genuinely fond of his uncle and guardian. Instead she said, Thank you for showing me, Rick,' and together they made their way back along the veranda. Stan had already gone back to his quarters. There was no sign of Rachel, either, Jonty couldn't help noticing, and then had to stifle a pang of guilt at the trend her thoughts had involuntarily taken, for Rachel's own voice called softly from the other veranda. 'Jonty! Mark and Debbie want you to come and say goodnight.' 'On the sleepout,' Rick told her. 'Over there, first turn left.' 'So many verandas,' murmured Jonty, smiling her gratitude for his directions, and making her way along to the sleepout. The ceiling light illuminated a row of stretchers, and on the furthest two bobbed the slight figures of Debbie and her young brother. Both looked innocent, indeed angelic, in striped pyjamas. They smelt of wet hair and toothpaste, and beyond the gauze came a somewhat stronger odour that undoubtedly belonged to Desmond. 'We--can't let him in for the night, Uncle Nat won't let us,' explained Debbie cheerfully. 'We smuggled him in the first evening, but they found out, 'cos he chased an imaginary something right through Isobel's bedroom.' 'So that's as close as he can get,' put in Mark. 'It was only a motif or a praying mantis or something, but Isobel kicked up an awful row,

and we can't have him in any more. Will yon read to us, Jonty? Rachel usually does, but we'd like you to, tonight' "Would you?' Rachel smiled gently, handing Jonty a thick volume. 'Do you always put them to bed?' There was a wistful expression on the lovely young face that nodded in answer to Jonty's question. "Yes, always—at least, ever since we lost our parents, I have.' Rachel's voice quavered, thickened. 'Our mother used to read to all of us. You wouldn't remember that, Deb, so don't start up about it' 'I can so too remember,' quoth Debbie automatically, hunching up her knees and making the distorted face with which she always accompanied this pronouncement 'Let's have the Tin Soldier. I like that one.' 'No, the one about the Princess, who felt a pea even through all those mattresses and that's how they knew she was real,' pleaded Mark. The Soldier tonight, the Princess tomorrow, then. Ladies first,' adjured Jonty firmly, discerning incipient rebellion on Mark's part. 'Ladies? Cor!' Mark breathed indignantly. That's what Isobel's always saying, too,' he informed Jonty in a disgusted tone. 'The Tin Soldier,' announced Jonty firmly, quelling the little boy with a warning look before she began to read, and very soon he was listening avidly, and Deborah was, too. Even Rachel sat listening quietly, clasping and unclasping her hands in a way that told Jonty her mind was not entirely on the story. Perhaps she was remembering those evenings when her own mother had read to them, just as Jonty was doing now. Maybe she was overcome with nostalgia, or maybe she was thinking of Stan, who was so fabulous and who probably loved chokos in cheese sauce far better than any girl, at this stage.

It was difficult to tell exactly what preoccupied Rachel just then, but there was a tender droop to her young mouth, a soft mistiness about her lovely eyes that made her seem, suddenly, so vulnerable and appealing that Jonty longed to put down the book and reach out to her and hug her. Behind that self-sufficiency lay a patent need for comfort, Jonty was sure of it. Yet, ever since her parents' death, Rachel had taken upon herself the mature task of comforting the younger ones. Isobel apparently liked her because she was not 'difficult', and Uncle Nat liked her because she did not bother his Isobel; Mark and Debbie obviously adored her because, in many ways, she replaced the mother whom they had lost, and Cilla was too introspective these days to worry much about anyone other than herself, and certainly gave little thought to her undemanding younger sister, whose naturally sunny nature ensured that she got on with absolutely everybody to a greater or lesser degree. It was a negative sort of favouritism, if Rachel did seem to be the favoured one, decided Jonty, as she covertly observed the changing expressions upon Rachel's unconsciously revealing features. It was the sort of approbation that toot good behaviour for granted and gave nothing in return, and yet such was the wistfulness in that child right now that Jonty, a newcomer, could sense what the others in this household were either too blind, too insensitive, too preoccupied, or simply too young, to see. 'Let's set the table for breakfast, shall we, and then sit a while longer on the veranda before bed,' Rachel suggest id, after they had finished the story, seen Mark and Debbie safely beneath their sheets, and switched off the sleepout light. 'Cilla usually helps me, but she keeps out of the way these days.' Rachel sighed as she laid out knives and forks at each place in the dining-room.

'Is she worried about something, do you think?' Jonty hesitated to pry, yet felt driven to ask, since it was obvious that Cilla's withdrawn and sullen behaviour must make life difficult for the entire community if she made a habit of carrying on as she had done this afternoon. 'Goodness knows what's biting her. Maybe it's just that she can't get on with Isobel, but she's never been as difficult as this about it before. Things weren't so bad until Isobel came, but she's sort of taken Uncle Nat away from us, if you know what I mean. He was like a—well, a real father to us after we lost our own one, and we all adore him, of course, only he's different now that Isobel has come. She sort of possesses him all the time.' 'Yes, I can see what you mean, Rachel, and I can see, too, that it's difficult for you all to understand, but, believe me, it's quite natural for a woman to want to have her fiancé to herself for a good bit of the time. I've never really been in love, but I should imagine I'd cherish those moments when we could be alone together, just like she does.' Rachel sought in the cupboard for the cruet set. 'That's what I keep telling Cilla, but she says that Isobel actually resents us. Personally, I don't think it's us she resents, but the fact that she's more or less had to give up her career. She ran a very successful photographic business— models, advertisements, all that sort of thing—in the city, you see, and I don't think she likes country life much, even though she's mad about Uncle Nat' 'But she'd have had to give that up when she married, anyway, wouldn't she?' Jonty pointed out reasonably. "You mustn't let yourself feel in any way to blame for that.' 'We can't help feeling the way we do, Jonty. You see, she really hoped that Uncle Nat would let her carry on the business, and that

he'd live down there and fly up to Dulloora now and then to see that things were O.K. He'd do almost anything for Isobel, I reckon I He must be awfully badly smitten to have agreed, because he hates city life, but they had it all arranged. They were going to get married—it was all planned out They were going to get a housekeeper for Nindinya—that's our home property—and put us all to boardingschool. And then Debbie got terribly bolshie about everything, and she stopped going to school on the sly. She'd come with us, and then she'd simply disappear, and she was crying all the time, and in the end Uncle Nat took us all here to his place, and he said he was going to give us all a proper "family" sort of home again, and he brought Isobel up here to get used to the idea, and used to us, too, only I don't think it's working out too well' 'I see.' Jonty was beginning to understand a great many things, in the light of Rachel's revelations. 'So Isobel gave up the photographic agency, after all?' Rachel shook her head. 'Not quite, she didn't. She's in partnership with another woman, so she still has a say in it, and she goes down sometimes to see how it's getting on. She's always much nicer when she comes back—she even brings us little presents— but it doesn't last for long before she gets narky with us again. And now it's Cilla who's being difficult, and not Debbie at all—well, hardly, except for the other day when she skipped off to Morilla on that bus, and that was only because they had a row about her keeping grubs in one of the pantry tins. She and Mark are trying to catch carp down at the creek, and the grubs were only for bait anyway, but Isobel said the holes they'd punched in the lid of the tin were so big that the grubs would crawl out, and she threw them away without asking. Deb was furious. She and Mark had spent a whole day pulling away at bark and lifting stones to find them.'

'I see,' repeated Jonty—weakly, this time. Grubs! Ugh! She had to admit that, in this instance, her sympathies were definitely divided. "Now"—Jonty changed the subject, briskly cheerful—'tell me what happens about breakfast?' What an odd person Isobel was, that she was apparently so ready to abandon the entire domestic scene without even bothering to ascertain the capabilities of the person to whom she was delegating its organisation! Jonty was beginning to suspect that there was a good deal of sheer impracticality in Isobel Roche's make-up, although evidently she was a competent and successful business woman. Perhaps it was simply that she refused to be bothered over matters that did not genuinely interest her, but it would at least have demonstrated some consideration for her successor had she-lingered on the premises long enough to give the minimum of guidance and a few simple hints! Rachel pulled her chair nearer to Jonty's, in the semi- darkness of the veranda. (There was still that small wedge of light from further along, and the murmur of voices continued to come from Nat McMorran's study.) 'We all have cereal and stewed fruit first, and then chops and eggs and bacon, or steak or liver, or something like that, and toast and stuff. All except for Debbie, she can't eat eggs because they make her sick, except in sandwiches.' 'And Stan has breakfast here, too?' 'Yes, that's right.' If Rachel blushed, it was too dark for Jonty to see it. 'And then we all go to school. We're lucky that we're near enough to ride, because it's half the fun, being able to go on the horses— we'd have missed that bit like anything at boarding-school. And we all take sandwiches, only Cilla and I will help you to make them up.'

'So that's three packs of sandwiches?' 'No, six, actually, because Uncle Nat and Stan and Rick take their lunch out too.' 'Six. I see.' Jonty was busy making mental notes. It looked as if she'd have to be up with the lark in the morning, because breakfast at Dulloora homestead sounded a very complicated affair indeed. 'And the men need a fill of tea and sugar for their pint- pots, arid you put the sandwiches in their saddle-bags which they leave on the kitchen dresser, and Uncle Nat likes cauliflower pickles with the cold meat in his sandwiches, but Rick likes chutney best, except for the mango kind, and Stan prefers tomato sauce.' "Wait, wait I' begged Jonty. 'I shall have to write it all down.' 'No, you won't,' Rachel laughed. "You'll soon get used to it, and we'll be there to see that you put the right lot in the right saddle-bag. Uncle Nat's is black, and Stan's is brown. Rick's is black, too, but one of the D's is missing off his. You can't mistake them.' 'You'd be surprised,' retorted Jonty with feeling, trying to imagine Nat McMorran's expression when he opened his lunch-pack to find chutney instead of his beloved cauliflower pickles—or was he the tomato sauce addict? Already she was confused! 'And what did you say they liked in the sandwiches, again?' she asked helplessly. 'Cold meat is what they like best, beef or mutton. There's always some left in the fridge.'

'Not tonight, there isn't,' Jonty stated bleakly. 'You've just eaten it. Shepherd's pie, remember?' 'Oh, well'—Rachel waived that problem airily—'a tin of something will do. Corned beef. Not that Uncle Nat approves of tins when there's so much meat on the hoof and the hook all around us. He said his mother always told him that anyone could produce something out of a tin, but it takes a real cook to make meals out of the raw product.' 'Oh, did he? When did he say that?' 'The other day, when he came back from hunting for Debbie. He got stuck in the crowd at some cookery demonstration over at Morilla— just fancy Deb getting as far as Morilla!—and he said there were tins all over the place,' Rachel informed her innocently. 'He stayed to listen because he thought he might pick up a few tips for Isobel, but it was all tinned cooking, and he didn't learn a thing. I heard him say to Isobel that any idiot could do that, when he came home.' 'Oh, yes, he did learn something,' replied Jonty between clenched teeth, now thoroughly incensed. 'He at least learned how to separate the yolk of an egg from the white, and he'd have learned even more than that if he hadn't made such a nuisance of himself, interrupting all the time!' Rachel clapped her hand to her mouth, eyes widening. 'Good gracious, Jonty!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean you were actually doing the demonstrating that day? It must have been you who gave Debbie all those lovely little samples, too. Oh, how awful of me!' 'Not at all, Rachel. I like to know where I stand.' Jonty laughed rather grimly. 'I don't think your Uncle Nat and I got off to a very good start, somehow, Rachel, but please don't worry about what you've just said. It's a wonder Debbie didn't tell you, anyhow.'

'Oh, Debbie couldn't. She came home in disgrace, and Uncle Nat forbade her to speak about her experiences. He always takes that line, because she's apt to embroider it all a bit, and Uncle's afraid that Mark might begin to think that running away's a clever and exciting thing to do, and try it out for himself. He says one in the family's enough! We never heard anything about a cookery demonstration from Deb, only about meeting a girl under the pepper-tree, and about the wicked stepmother bit. I'm glad Debbie did it this time, though, Jonty,' Rachel added warmly, 'or we mightn't have got you, might we?' 'Why, thank you, Rachel! I'm glad, too,' Jonty declared huskily, incredibly touched by the girl's spontaneous compliment. Well, she was glad, wasn't she? Glad, for the children's sake, because she felt that in some way she might be able to help them fill the gap in their lives that their parents' demise had created. Apprehensive, as far as Isobel was concerned, because so far her behaviour had not been very friendly. Worried, because Nat McMorran himself had a strangely disturbing effect upon her, although she was reluctant to admit that, even to herself. What if she got all those sandwiches muddled? What if she gave him the wrong saddle-bag? What if they expected her to hack some steak or chops or liver or something off those great, naked carcases, turning eerily on their hooks in the coldroom? What if 'I—I think I'd better go to bed now, Rachel,' she announced, her uncertainties almost getting the better of her. 'I think I'll have to get up very early in the morning!' Rachel pushed back her chair, and stood up, too.

'I'll wake you, if you like, Jonty? It's a pity you aren't sleeping on the sleepout with the rest of us, but Isobel told Cilla to make up one of the beds in the lock-up,' 'The lock-up?' Jonty was startled. 'That's our pet name for it,' Rachel explained with a smile, 'because Uncle Nat makes Debbie or Mark sleep there when they're being naughty. Sometimes he just has to separate them and send one of them to the sj5are bed in your room for a night, and we all call it "being sent to the lock-up". He won't be able to now, though, will he?' 'Not unless he thinks I'd make a good warder. There are two beds there, aren't there?' 'Mm, yes. But he only sends them one at a time, otherwise he wouldn't be separating them, would he?' pointed out Rachel with unquestionable logic. She stretched, yawned. 'Well, I think I'll go, too. I'll just say goodnight to Uncle Nat and Isobel. Will you be all right, Jonty?' 'Perfectly, thanks. And thank you, too, for helping me to know better what I'm supposed to do, Rachel. Goodnight.' 'Night, Jonty. Sweet dreams.' Rachel turned away towards the narrow shaft of light, and Jonty, after a moment's hesitation, walked in the other direction to her own room. There was no one else to whom to say goodnight, no sign of Rick or Cilla, and it was almost certain that neither Isobel Roche nor Nat McMorran would expect her to report to them before she retired, as the children obviously did. Indeed, Isobel would probably regard it, not only as an unwelcome interruption, but as an act of presumption, too.

Jonty felt rather forlorn as she crossed the quiet yard in the darkness. Her hip still ached slightly, so that her limp was more pronounced than usual, and she felt oddly depressed and alone now that Rachel had left her. Reaction, nervousness, she told herself bracingly. The newness of the place, the strangeness of the homestead, the long tiring drive, the unfamiliar company—any one of those things could have made her feel this way. Together, they were a formidable combination, and she would not have been human had she not experienced some degree of apprehension about her ability to adapt to these unaccustomed circumstances. The room which she had been allotted was, in fact, not at all goallike. It had two long windows at adjacent corners, and twin beds covered with fringed quilts of heavy white cotton. The floor was carpeted in a frankly utilitarian sisal cord, but pretty floral curtains and the warm gleam of polished pale-coloured furniture gave it a pleasantly homely air. The windows themselves were gauzed, as were the double dpors which gave on to an open veranda. Jonty stepped out on to that veranda now. From the railing she could see the dipping outlines of the main building's roofs silhouetted against the night sky. She looked in vain for the Southern Cross, but there were no such constellations in evidence tonight—no bright Milky Way glittering and winking up there in the heavens, but a rather sullen and sombre dome that seemed strangely akin to her own personal mood. From the shrubbery came the persistent shrill of that tireless cicada, and in the distance she could hear the muted strains of a transistor beating out the latest 'pop—Cilla's, perhaps, for Jonty found it difficult to relate that particular type of music to Rick's more studious and sophisticated appearance.

After she had showered and cleaned her teeth, Jonty felt better. She brushed her hair for several minutes, then turned back the white cotton coverlet, and got into bed. Lying there in the darkness, she allowed her mind to wander over the happenings of the past few weeks, wondering idly if Carole had reached Sydney yet, or whether she was not perhaps already on her way to Yanco. The last couple of days had had so many events crammed into them that Jonty had lost all track of time. Carole had been a pleasant travelling companion, though, and Jonty must look her up some day when she returned to the city. The job with Lovalee Canners Limited had been fun, too, really, after all that trouble trying to find suitable employment, and now Nat McMorran's own offer of a job had been providential, for Jonty had absolutely no idea what she would have done otherwise. In a way she, too, should be glad that Debbie had taken that bus to Morilla, or she wouldn't be here right now, would she? Recalling Rachel's warm-hearted enthusiasm as she had pointed out that fact, Jonty smiled drowsily before she dropped into an exhausted sleep. She had no idea how much later it was that she was so rudely awakened, or even what had woken her up. Something strange had happened, something abnormal, something nasty. It had brought her out of her deep sleep into terrified consciousness. But what? Jonty lay there tensely beneath the sheet, waiting, listening—-for what, she had not the slightest idea. Her cheeks felt oddly wet and cold. Perhaps with fear? No sound stirred the darkness save that of her own uneven breathing. Even the cicada out on the lawn had gone to sleep. Then came a faint rustling sound, quite close to her ear. The merest whisper of noise, but definitely a noise. Jonty froze, waited.

Nothing. Nothing more. Just as well, she told herself. Her mouth had gone dry, and her limbs felt like jelly. She'd never have had the courage to get out of bed and make for that light-switch anyway! She forced herself into calmness, turned on her side, and tried to compose herself for sleep once more. And then it happened again, the same rustling sound. Only this time something moved! Jonty felt it quite distinctly, against her shoulder, through the sheet. She screamed. It was a long, loud scream of pure terror, and she was hardly aware of what she did. Then, as she felt a cold, wet, slithery object cross her forehead, Jonty emitted a wail that would not have disgraced a banshee, and leapt out of bed. She was groping around hysterically along the wall in the darkness for the light-switch—which wall?—which wall?— when it was suddenly switched on abruptly by Nat McMorran, who seemed to have got there first. He was clad in blue silk pyjama trousers, and his bare brown chest was heaving, as if he had sprinted hard to get there quickly. His face was sallow beneath its heavy tan. There was something so reassuring, so heaven-sent, about Nat McMorran's tall, broad frame just then that Jonty's reaction was unthinking, a purely automatic reflex. She left the support of the wall where she had groped so unavailingly and flew into his arms, and in an answering reflex these same arms came up and around her, comfortingly, as she buried her head against him, shaking from head to foot. He held her there for seconds only, before he took a firm grip on her upper arms, and shook her sternly.

'In God's name, what is it?' he demanded severely. 'Why did you make that infernal row? A nightmare? You've woken up the whole house!' Jonty blinked up at him, dazed and white-faced. Lights had snapped on upon all the verandas, and steps were running across the yard. Isobel was clutching a quilted nylon housecoat about her, and her feet were thrust into velveteen mules, but the rest of the family were barefoot, breathless, and alive with curiosity. People seemed to peer inquisitively from all angles as Jonty and Nat McMorran faced each other, both pale, both breathless too, barely a foot apart. 'Well?' he barked. 'Pull yourself together, please, and tell me what it's about' Jonty gazed at him helplessly. She was still shivering uncontrollably in her checked cotton pyjamas as she sought for words. 'There's something there,' she announced almost unintelligibly. 'Something? Where?' 'Here. I mean, there. Here in my room.' 'Impossible! You've had a dream, Jonty, that's all.' 'No, not a dream. There is something, I tell you! I think it's in m-my b-bed. Look! There!' There was a vague, knobbly movement under the sheet, quite near the pillow. Nat McMorran was across the room in two strides, plucking back the bedclothes, and at the same time Mark let out a yelp of concern, and dived past his uncle's tall form.

'Don't hurt him, Uncle Nat! It's only Drummond!' 'Only—what?' Uncle Nat had already taken a firm grasp on his young nephew. He was holding him by the back of his pyjamas, and Mark, in bis turn, was holding something else. It was cupped in the shelter of his eager hands. 'It's only Drummond, see. Trust a girl to be scared of a harmless thing like Drummond,' he remarked disgustedly, then added 'Oops!' as he darted unsuccessfully after the slithery object that leapt from his palms as he opened them just the tiniest bit to show his uncle the cause of the confusion. Jonty, shuddering, caught a glimpse of a fat, wet creature with bulging eyes and a palpitating yellow throat, before Mark's quick hands descended and rendered it captive once more. 'A—frog,' she uttered weakly, despising her voice for the way in which it still wobbled. 'A toad, actually,' Mark corrected her firmly, 'although he's like a bullfrog, isn't he? That's how I called him Drummond, you know. Bulldog, bullfrog, see?' he explained patiently. 'That'll do, Markl' warned his uncle in a quiet dangerous voice. 'Perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me just what one of your toads is doing here, in Jonty's room?' The little boy shrugged his shoulders. 'I didn't know she was coming to the lock-up, Uncle,' he protested blandly. 'I'd have moved them if I'd known, honestly, but this is where I keep them, see. They're under the bed.'

'Mark, I made the bed, and I didn't see them,' Cilla said sharply, peering underneath the bedstead as she spoke. 'Under the other bed, Cilla, you chump. This one, see. There are five of them, and a few tadpoles, but Drummond's the only toad I've got I'm breeding them, actually,' he announced proudly to the room at large, before addressing Jonty once more. 'I can show you the difference between Drummond and a frog if you like?' 'N-no, thanks.' Jonty had begun to laugh helplessly. It was almost as if she couldn't stop. Nat McMorran permitted himself a reluctant grin, too. 'Get back to bed, everyone, please. And Mark, you take that lot and shut them up somewhere else for the night, do you hear? Lock them up,' he clarified sternly. 'Yes, Uncle Nat Here, Debbie, you take the taddies, and I'll bring the rest' When only herself and Nat McMorran were left, Jonty walked over to the bed, smoothed the sheets, and got in. "I'm sorry,' she said inadequately, because there didn't seem anything else that she could say, right then. He stood quite still, gazing across at her. There was a smile still hovering at his mouth, but his eyes were serious as he ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that was at once apologetic and oddly youthful, and contradicted her gently. 'No, Jonty, it's I who am sorry.' He hesitated perceptibly. 'Are you sure you'll be all right? Quite sure?'

'Quite sure, truly,' she assured him, with returning equilibrium. 'And—Mr. McMorran? Please don't be too hard on Mark, will you? He didn't mean me any harm.' The grey gaze dwelt thoughtfully on her slight figure, Sitting bolt upright in the bed, still pale-cheeked, her violet eyes pleading. For a moment she thought he was actually going to come to her side, but then his hand reached for the light-switch. "We'll see,' was all he would promise, as he flicked the switch and left her, closing the door firmly behind him.

CHAPTER SIX Isobel apologised next morning, too. She gave Jonty a rather prim, conciliatory smile, as she assured her that such a thing was not likely to occur again. She had already insisted that Mark release all the frogs and throw out his tadpoles, she said, adding that he was a really disgusting little boy, that it was time someone took a firmer hand with him, and that Jonquil must give herself a proper chance to settle into her new employment, and not be put off at the start by a child's foolish pranks. Jonty felt unable to comment, but she was secretly sorry that Isobel had taken that attitude.. In all probability Mark would now direct his justifiable feelings of resentment against Jonty herself, and she found herself in sympathy with him to a large degree, and wishing more than ever to be friendly with him. He was, after all, an engaging youngster! To her surprise, no such thing happened. Although he was uncharacteristically quiet at breakfast, he and Debbie were obviously a pair of extroverts who harboured no grudges, because when they had returned on their ponies from school that afternoon, they came bounding into the kitchen as cheerfully as they had the day before, with Desmond at their heels, and Rachel walking more sedately behind. It was obvious that the frog episode was already forgotten, relegated to the past. Both children's eyes widened when they saw the tea which Jonty had already laid out on the table. 'Gee whizz! It's iced cakes, Mark. Quick!' 'Pink icing, too!' Rachel, hearing the news, had increased her pace, and came racing up to survey the plates.

"They're just like Mummy used to make, Jonty.' Her eyes softened and misted as she gazed at them, and then she put her arms around Jonty and hugged her fervently. 'Thank you so much for doing that for us! It was just ever so kind.' 'Well, eat some, then,' said Jonty quickly, because for two pins she'd have hugged Rachel right back again—'Just to show me that they're edible.' 'Edible! They're scrumptious.' 'Can I give Desmond one?' asked Debbie. 'One, then—and don't you think Cilla might come and join us today, if we told her there were cakes?' 'I doubt it, Jonty.' A shadow flitted over Rachel's composed face. 'But I'll tell her, just in case.' She was back in a few moments, shaking her head. 'She says no, thanks. I knew she would, even though I told her it was pink icing,' she stated forlornly. Then I'll take her some,' Jonty said firmly, suddenly making up her mind. 'And a cup of tea, too. Surely she can't refuse if it's actually brought to her?' She placed a couple of cakes on a separate plate, poured a cup of tea for herself, and one for Cilla too, put all on a tray, and carried it purposefully along the veranda to the bedroom next the sleepout, where she knocked softly on the door. "Who is it?' Cilla's voice was wary.

"It's only me—Jonty.' 'Oh. Come in, then.' The invitation could hardly have been more tepid, but Jonty turned the door-knob and entered before the occupant could possibly change her mind. Cilla was crouched on the floor, surrounded by several large sheets of paper, a couple of sketching pads, charcoal, and an assortment of pencils, boxes, rubbers, ink. "What is it?' She pushed her long hair away from her eyes and looked at Jonty cautiously. 'Have I forgotten to do something? Did Isobel send you?' 'I thought you might like a cake while they're fresh.' Jonty put down the tray on the dressing-table timidly. Cilla's manner could be a bit unnerving, to put things mildly! 'I've already told Rachel I didn't want any,' she pointed out ungraciously. 'Yes, I know. I didn't believe her, actually. Everyone likes fresh cakes, don't they, and the children told me your mother used to make them for you. It doesn't matter, though. Don't think I mind, or anything.' Jonty looked around the room for a chair. "Would you be offended if I drank my tea before I take the tray back? It will be getting co^ by now.' 'No, of course not' Cilla sat back, looking faintly ashamed. 'I will have one since you've brought them, Jonty, and a cup of tea wouldn't go wrong, either. Was that one for me?' she asked, with an awkward attempt at appeasement for her lack of welcome, no doubt .

'Yes. Here. One for each of us, and one cake, too. They were both to be for you, really.' The two girls smiled at each other. When Cilla did that, her sullen pout disappeared, and her dark eyes warmed attractively. 'They are scrummy cakes, Jonty.' She stuffed the last bite into her mouth, and smiled again. 'Rachel's right Mummy used to make them for us. I'd forgotten how good they were,' she added, almost dreamily. They drank their tea in silence, and then Jonty leaned forward to see the papers on the floor. 'What are they?' she asked with interest 'Drawings of some sort?' Cilla flushed. 'Designs, actually. I do them in my spare time.' 'May I see?' Jonty picked up the sketches in turn and studied them. 'Why, they're good, Cilla—really good. They look almost—well, professional, to me.' Cilla's mouth took on an ironic twist. 'Now you've put your foot in it, Jonty. That's just what they're not— professional.' There was an underlying bitterness in her tone, of which one could not but be aware. Jonty looked at the drawings again. 'Do you mean you've had no training at all for this?' she asked in some surprise. 'Good gracious, girl! You must have a positive gift, if this is a purely amateur effort. You could go a long way if you developed it, I'm sure.'

'If,' Cilla sneered. "What's the use of ifs when they can never come to anything?' 'But why can't they come to something—in this case, at any rate?' Jonty asked blankly. Cilla sighed. The cynical droop to her mouth was back, and the warmth had gone from her eyes, too. They were dull, resentful. 'What's the use?' she said again, hopelessly. "You wouldn't understand, anyway, Jonty. One couldn't expect you to. After all, you've only just arrived, haven't you, so you don't even know the set-up.' 'You could enlighten me,' invited Jonty meekly. Cilla, however, remained silent, leafing through the designs absently, as though she was not even aware of what she was doing. Jonty reached forward and picked up the empty tea-cup, placed it on the tray alongside her own. 'Have you spoken to your Uncle Nat about it, Cilla?' The girl shook her head. 'Not to Uncle Nat, no. But Isobel knows. I told her I would love to do a proper course and make something of it.' 'And what did she say?' 'Oh, a lot of things, and they were all perfectly true—I suppose that's what makes it all so vexing!' Cilla's laugh was curiously brittle. 'She pointed out that I'm almost a woman—at eighteen you are, aren't you?—and that my first duty was to the family. She hadn't even known us when she got engaged to Uncle Nat, you see, and he

wasn't saddled with us, then, either. He's always been a country man, but he did get around a lot between the cities, and led a gay sort of life, played polo, ran some racehorses. Daddy always said he was the roué of the family, and heaven help the woman he finally settled' down with, because he's known a lot of women in his day. He's very attractive to them, you know,' Cilla explained solemnly. Jonty's lips twitched. Attractive? Well, yes, fair enough, if you cared for the domineering type, and as she had already decided that personally she did not, it was difficult to concede the point, 'And?' "Well, then he met Isobel, and Mummy and Dad said that at last this looked like Uncle Nat being hooked—I think they were quite pleased, because she was different then, at that stage. But we weren't on the scene then, either, you see. Then our parents got killed, and Uncle Nat took us on, and made himself responsible.' "Was it a—car?' "What eke?' The girl shrugged. 'It's happening every day, but never to someone you actually know, always to somebody else.' 'I'm sorry, Cilla.' What could one say? "You get used to it, as time goes on. At least, I think Rick and Rachel and I did, but Debbie got terribly awkward, and Mark has always been sort of lively, and things began to go wrong. Uncle Nat and Isobel had been going to get married, and that's when Isobel said they'd all have to go to boarding-school. And then Uncle Nat suddenly said No, that he wasn't going to do it, and that now was the time to try to hold the family together, to let the little ones get back their sense of security. They argued and argued, and in the end Uncle Nat brought us all over here to his place, and Isobel came up—to "get to know us", that's how Uncle Nat put it.' She sighed. 'I

don't think she likes what she's got to know, particularly,' she stated gloomily. 'Rick is the only one she gets on with, except for Rachel, who gets on with anybody anyway; and that's because he has a passion for photography. He's got some marvellous bird shots, you know, and they can talk for literally hours about exposures and lenses and shutter-speeds and so on.' 'And what about your designing?' prompted Jonty gently. Cilla shook her head. 'No, she feels quite differently about that, and I can quite see why. It's a threat to her own plans, that's the reason, and I'd probably be just the same, if I were in her shoes and it was my designing that was in question, instead of her photo business. She says that by the time I'm eighteen, I should be able to cope here until Mark and Debbie grow up, and she's going to resume her career at the agency, and Uncle Nat will go to and fro between us. She pointed out that I've got my whole life ahead of me, to do what I want. and she said that my designing will make a nice little hobby with which to fill in the time until Mark and Deb are old enough to look after themselves. A hobby V Cilla threw down the sketches and turned to Jonty with an almost desperate look. 'Honestly, Jonty, I'll be old and grey by then, won't I? Oh, why does it take such ages to grow up? I love them both, honestly I do, but it all takes such ages!' Jonty recognised this cri de coeur in utter helplessness. How, indeed, could one possibly speed the passage of time? It was a thing that obstinately refused to be interfered with. It refused to be urged forward, or conversely, delayed. It was something about which one was powerless to do a thing! Poor little Cilla, impatient to live, to do all the things she wanted to do, things for which she was genuinely gifted. No wonder she sat

there, wild-eyed, despairing, like a young animal-creature trapped by the inevitability of time itself! 'Shouldn't you have said something to Uncle Nat?' she asked thoughtfully, recalling, in spite of herself, the haven of those muscular arms last night, the heavenly reassurance of that broad chest against her cheek when she had buried her head against it in momentary panic There had been a rock-like quality about Nat McMorran which suggested that he would make a dependable ally in time of need. He didn't flap. He didn't panic. He simply took charge. Jonty had to admit to herself, unwillingly, that as well as providing a very competent physical refuge when called upon to do so, he would probably also be capable of giving wise counsel and considered judgement if one found oneself in a seemingly insoluble dilemma, such as Cilla's present predicament. His niece, apparently, thought otherwise, though for different reasons. 'I can't do that, Jonty. We've been enough of a complication as it is, and it would be a question of dividing his loyalties still further, wouldn't it? Sometimes he looks so lined and worried, all grim and grey-faced, not a bit like he used to be, and between us and Isobel, I don't wonder! I suppose we both tug him in different directions, and it isn't fair, after all he's done for us. We've always adored him. and he us. He used to be such fun in the old days, Jonty. You'd have liked him then, you really would.' Jonty slid Cilla a surreptitious glance, wondering if her personal antipathy to Nat McMorran could possibly have shown in her face at some time since her arrival, but the girl's remark was obviously a completely ingenuous one, without hidden inferences.

"Yes, I'm sure I would have,' Jonty assured her with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, before she got out of her chair and picked up the tray. 'I'll have to get going, won't II' she exclaimed. 'Or we'll be two minutes late again tonight, and I'll be in the doghouse.' Cilla made a wry face, giggled. 'That's where Mark's frogs are,' she whispered confidentially. 'Quite literally! In the dog-house,' Jonty's eyes widened. 'You mean he didn't throw them out after all?' 'Of course he didn't! Not Mark! They're in the kennel that Uncle Nat got ready for Desmond. Desmond won't use it, anyway. He's attached himself to Debbie more or less permanently, and he lies outside the gauze at the sleepout all night. The kennel has a door that shuts, and Mark put some fine bird-netting over the peep-hole in it Don't tell, though, will you?' 'I won't' Jonty did not know whether to feel guilt or relief at the secret knowledge she now carried around with her. After all, she had no wish to be a party to juvenile insubordination! She could not restrain a smile, all the same. No wonder Mark had shown no signs of harbouring resentment over the releasing of his pet frogs when, in fact, he had not parted with them at all! She t studied his freckled face as she read to him and Debbie later that evening. His bleached curls, wet-tipped from the bath, made an enchanting frame for his wide, intelligent forehead, and his dark eyes returned her gaze with innocent candour. The little mischief! She wondered just what he would say, were she to question him

about the fate of those revolting frogs, but as she had no wish to encourage prevarications she made no such enquiries, although sorely tempted. Once or twice she had seen him giving Deborah a meaning glance, and the two of them had collapsed into peals of laughter. After tea, he had taken a torch and disappeared for a full half-hour as soon as the washing-up session in the kitchen was over—to see that Orlando and Theodore were all right, he had said—but when he returned, Jonty could not help noticing that his thin brown hands were wet, and there were dark marks on the front of his clean khaki shorts. Ten minutes later they had dried away without trace, those tell-tale marks, and it was then that Jonty knew that they had indeed been spots of water, and that he had in all probability been attending to his amphibian friends! 'It's the Princess tonight, isn't it? The one who slept on all those mattresses?' 'Yes, my turn tonight,' Mark reminded her eagerly. That's a good one, I always think.' 'It's soppy, a boy wanting Princesses,' Debbie derided from her nextdoor stretcher. 'Why don't you have The Tinder Box, or something decent like that? Who wants to hear about a wishy-washy Princess?' 'I do.' Mark thrust out his chin in a belligerent way that could not help reminding Jonty of his uncle. 'And she's not soppy, not the one in the story, Debbie, and I'll bet you couldn't tell if there was a pea under your mattress right now, and you're only lying on one. She could tell it was there through a great big pile of them.' 'Of course I could tell!' 'You couldn't' 'I could, silly.'

'You couldn't, 'cos you aren't a Princess, see! Not that I care about bedtime stories—I'm too old, anyway—I only listen to them because you have to have them anyway—but only a Princess -' 'Ssh! We'll begin,' announced Jonty loudly, noting that the dispute was threatening to accelerate into a royal row, and admitting her inability to pronounce any judgement that could possibly satisfy both parties. She found the place hurriedly and began to read. Rachel sat quietly at the foot of Debbie's bed, as she had last night, and Jonty sat at the end of Mark's, while the two young ones remained still and attentive, deceptively angelic now that their interest had been captured, sitting up in their striped pyjamas with their chins resting on their knees as they listened. It was a homely scene, and Jonty savoured it. This was what being part of a family could mean, and she was thoroughly enjoying her inclusion in this magically intimate circle. Her clear enunciation and pure English voice were well suited to reading aloud, and she delighted in watching the changing expressions on the children's faces as she altered her voice to portray each different character. And then a dark, tall form stepped out from the shadows behind her. Rick? No, it was Uncle Nat. How long he had been standing there observing the cosy little scene, Jonty had no idea. She had heard no steps, had had no warning of his presence. He was supposed to be closeted in his office with Isobel, surely? Chatting over those two intimate, tulip-shaped coffee cups? But he certainly wasn't there, he was here instead, leaning over her shoulder and looking at the open pages from which she was reading.

She dared not take her eyes from the print in front of her, yet she was acutely aware of his nearness, not only because of the faint tweed-tobacco-leather aroma with- which he was now inevitably associated in her mind, but also because of the disturbing physical effect his proximity seemed to have upon her. There was a tightening in her chest, and her breathing got quite fluttery. Jonty tried her best to sustain her even tones as she read on, but it was almost impossible, with him standing there! 'And so they lived happily ever after,' she concluded thankfully, and shut the book with a decisive snap. 'It didn't say that at all,' murmured a deep, amused voice accusingly in her ear. 'Not in that particular story. You just added it onI' She looked around to find him watching her, hands thrust in the pockets of his pale drill trousers, his grey eyes brimming with laughter. 'Yes, it did.' 'No, it didn't. I could read the last paragraph, even from here.' 'Well, I'm sure they did live happily ever after,' she asserted stubbornly. 'I was only stating the obvious. You can, you know, if you're the story-teller. It's—er—it's reader's licence, quite permissible.' 'Is it indeed!' Nat McMorran smiled. His white teeth gleamed against the deep tan of his cheeks, and even in the rather poor light from the single veranda bulb she could see the mocking sparkle in his eyes. 'Do you always believe in happy endings like that, Jonty? Or is it just that you're an incredible optimist?' 'What's wrong with optimism?' she countered. 'You make it sound like a positive sin!'

'There's nothing wrong with it at all, except that it can sometimes lead to disillusionment—and that can be a painful experience,' he warned her. soberly. 'What's disill—dill—what did you say then, Uncle Nat? Dill— something?' Debbie's eyes were lively with inquisitiveness. 'Nothing you need know about, my pet.' Her uncle reached out and ruffled Mark's curls, then stooped to kiss his niece. 'And I hope you never will,' he muttered softly, as he turned away. 'Rachel?' "Yes, Uncle Nat, I'm going, too. Goodnight.' The girl went into his outstretched arms, and he kissed her gently. 'Goodnight, little one, and sleep tight,' he told her affectionately, then turned to Jonty briskly. 'If you're thinking of going to bed too, Jonty, I'll accompany you across the yard.' 'These's no need at all for that,' Jonty hastened to assure him stiffly, leaping up from the bed and putting the book on the little cane table near the children's stretchers. 'Perhaps not,' he returned equally formally, 'but I should prefer to reassure myself that there's no likelihood of the entire household being woken up again in the middle of the night by your extraordinarily penetrating screams.' 'Oh.' Jonty, for some reason, felt quite dampened at this unchivalrous explanation. She followed him in silence past the trellis of grape and passionfruit vines in the direction of her own room. A slinking black form followed warily at a distance. Desmond had left his vigilant position near the sleepout and was trailing them discreetly.

'A chaperone, I see,' Nat McMorran observed sardonically. 'A pity he can't get into his kennel, but at the moment it appears to be otherwise engaged,' he murmured, half-humorously, but without offering further enlightenment. So he knew, did he? He had discovered Mark's frogs and tadpoles in their new hiding-place and had chosen to turn a blind eye to the fact that they had not been thrown out as instructed. Who would have thought the man could be so human? thought Jonty in silent wonderment It was a side to him that she had not suspected he could possibly possess. 'Look out, Jonty I He's lovely I' screeched a raucous voice from the darkness, so unexpectedly that Jonty uttered an involuntary gasp of surprise and ran the last couple of yards to her own apartment. Nat McMorran was right behind her. He switched on the light, checked carefully around the room. 'It seems all right tonight,' he told her evenly, took in her reddened cheeks and hurried breathing. 'No need to be alarmed, if that's what's bothering you.' He smiled a little grimly. 'I don't know what that damn corella thinks he's playing at, but I can assume you I've never yet been guilty of seducing wide-eyed, innocent babes who believe in happy-ever-afters.' With that, he stalked out of the room, leaving Jonty to sink down on her bed in utter speechlessness. Half-way across the yard, she heard his heavy steps halt for just a .moment. It was a fair guess that he was covering up the* insolent Theodore with that old horse-blanket, before proceeding on his way back to Isobel! Next morning, and in the days and weeks that followed, Jonty found herself becoming increasingly familiar with the breakfast routine,

and by the time Cilla, and Rachel appeared she had more often than not already cut and packed the men's sandwich lunches—in the correct saddlebags, she hoped—and was busily engaged upon those for the school tucker-bags. These were canvas affairs which the children wore slung across their bodies as they rode, leaving their hands free to control their ponies. Their satchels were strapped to the D's on their saddles, in much the same manner as the men's saddle-bags, quart-pots, and various other paraphernalia with which they studded their horses' trappings before setting out each day. Sometimes Nat McMorran himself did not go on horseback at all, but instead took the jeep which shared the garage with the Holden, while down in one of the machinery sheds there was also a Blitzwaggon, and a couple of motor-bikes. Stan and Rick sometimes used the bikes, and so did the station- hands, if they happened to be mustering in one of the more level paddocks. They're no good in the hilly areas, though. You still need a horse for those,' explained Rick one day, when Jonty was out for a walk and came upon him servicing one of the machines. He was kneeling on the ground beside a chaff-bag, upon which he had methodically laid out all the parts that he was checking, cleaning, and greasing. He appeared as studious and knowledgeable as ever, and his hands moved with an assurance which to Jonty seemed little short of expert, as he reached for this tool and then that, peering short-sightedly through his strong-lensed glasses. 'Watch out for greenheads!' he warned her automatically, as she sat down beside him next to the chaff-bag. 'What are they?' She looked about her apprehensively. Rick sat back on his heels and laughed at her wary expression.

'You won't spot them as easily as all that,' he told her with some amusement. 'You really are a clown sometimes, Jonty!' "Was I being Pommy again?' she grinned back. 'What are they, anyway?' 'Ants. Not very big ones, but vicious little brutes, all the same. They can give you quite a sting, and sometimes you aren't aware that they're there until you actually feel them. Not like the bigger bulldogs and meat ants, which are more easily spotted.' "Thanks for the warning.' Jonty inspected the ground with thoroughness before settling down more comfortably. 'What a lot of horrid creepy-crawlies you have in this country, compared with homel * 'A lot of compensations, though, eh? Sunshine and surf. Especially that surf! Did you get any bathing when you lived in Sydney?' 'No.' Jonty thought back shudderingly to her abrupt departure from the Peytons' household, her endless search for further employment, her growing desperation when, by sheer good chance, she had met up with the Lovalee Canners man. 'I'm not a very good swimmer, anyway.' 'Because of your hip?' 'No, not that. They used to urge me to swim for that, as a remedial exercise, you know.' She responded to Rick's rather likeable candour with equal frankness. 'But I always swam in the public baths— heated ones, at that,' she admitted wryly. 'They were a different proposition entirely from those pounding, crashing breakers that roll in from the Pacific. Even without my disability, I doubt if I'd be good enough.'

'We've all got something to grizzle about, haven't we? Pass me that spanner there, will you? Yes, the box one, that's it.' Rick inspected the part he now held in a greasy hand. 'I can't see two yards without these wretched specs, for instance. When Dad was alive, I thought I'd do a stint in the Navy, but my eyesight wouldn't have passed anyway. One has to be realistic about one's dreams.' He screwed the part back on to the wheel with nimble fingers. 'I'm happy enough here with Uncle Nat, as it turns out. He's a great chap to work for, and he's keeping on Nindinya—that's our own place-—in the meantime, and says he'll put me back there in charge, once he reckons I'm good enough. Well, that's that!' Rick stood up, dusted the seat of his trousers automatic- i ally, and then pulled the motor-bike to an upright position as well. '* Jonty, too, scrambled to her feet. 'Do you want a pillion back to the sheds?' "Will it take us both?' She hesitated. 'I think perhaps I'd better walk,' she demurred. 'Maybe Uncle Nat wouldn't like it. He might not regard it as proper and dignified, might he?' Jonty had got into the habit of calling him 'Uncle Nat' when in the children's company, although to his face she was careful to address him respectfully as Mr. McMorran, just as she always called Isobel 'Miss Roche'. Only the other day, Rachel had queried that 'Miss Roche'. "Why don't you say Isobel, like the rest of us, Jonty? You've been here quite a while now, haven't you? You're like one of the family, almost, and I don't see why you can't "Miss Roche" sounds so fierce, somehow, and she won't let us even call her "aunt". She says she's far too young to be called that.'

"She hasn't invited me to call her anything but Miss Roche, Rachel,' Jonty observed gently, 'and until she does, I must go on doing it, dear.' 'Well, I can't see why she doesn't,' Rachel said again, indignantly. 'I can,' put in Cilla acidly. 'It's because if Jonty called her Isobel, she'd also be able to call Uncle Nat by his first name, too, and Isobel wouldn't like that.' 'Oh, hardly! Let's leave it, anyway,' Jonty had begged uncomfortably, wishing that the subject had never cropped up at all. 'All the same, it's true,' said Cilla, determined to have the last word. 'I know Isobel,' she had added obliquely, before she walked away. Recalling that recent conversation, Jonty was all the more certain that Isobel, if not Nat McMorran himself, would almost certainly take exception to her riding pillion on the back of Rick's motor-bike, should she happen to witness such an undignified event. 'No, I'll walk, Rick, thanks all the same,' she repeated now. That's what I came out for, after all.' 'As you like, then, Jonty.' He obviously did not mind, one way or the other. 'See you later. Oh, by the way, how would you like to come out to my "hide" one evening, to see the birds flying in? It's really something, watching them all coming in around the water-hole for the evening.' 'Why, Rick, I'd love that I' she exclaimed with enthusiasm. 'When might we do it?' 'Tomorrow evening, if you like. We'll have to get planted well before dusk, or they'll shy off. They're as cunning as can be in that

way, you know. We'll get Cilla and Rachel to look after the dinner for the others, if you can cook it in advance. They won't mind a bit.' Jonty beamed. 'I would really love that, thank you, Rick. I've never done anything like that before in my whole life.' 'O.K., then, it's a date.' 'It's a date,' repeated Jonty happily, not minding in the least that her words were already drowned by the noise of the motor-bike engine, as it roared to life under pressure of Rick's foot on the starter. Next morning she asked Isobel for permission to accompany Rick on his expedition that same evening. Approval, it seemed, came grudgingly to the other woman, who looked at her closely—as if I were sprouting a measles rash, at the very least! thought Jonty, before replying with an obvious show of reluctance. 'Very well, Jonquil. I suppose I must say yes, since we made no definite arrangements for any times off-duty when you arrived. Are you interested in such things?' she asked suspiciously. 'I'm interested in any new experience, Miss Roche,' returned Jonty innocently. 'And I must say I do admire some of those photographs Rick has taken. There must be a great art in capturing a candid close-up of a bird in its actual nesting-place.' 'The entire field of photography is an art in itself,' agreed Isobel, somewhat mollified. 'Although many people don't give it the credit it warrants. Rick is an intelligent and gifted boy, and furthermore, he has the necessary patience and single-mindedness to make a good job of what he sets out to do—unlike his sisters and brother, I'm

afraid. He has a really remarkable photograph of a cuckoo-strike pecking at a wild fig—perhaps you saw that?—and another of a cicada-bird that he got last time he was in Sydney. I'd like to enter them in an amateur's competition for him, but he's reluctant to do it. He's a retiring boy, you know. Says that if he did win a prize, he would be too shy to come down and receive it, and that he would hate the publicity. Did you ever hear such nonsense? It's an attitude I can't understand. In fact, perhaps you may be able to influence him, if you happen to be talking to him on the subject, Jonquil?' 'I could try,' was Jonty's dubious reply, 'but I don't think my words would carry much weight, I fear. Rick knows that I haven't the least idea about birds or photography. That's why I would like so very much to go this evening.' 'All right, then. But be sure to have everything ready for the rest of us, please, or at least get the meal to the stage where the girls can handle it,' Isobel reiterated, with a cautious smile which said that, while she was doing her best to be gracious, she had no intention of going back into the kitchen herself! Except to prepare the little, intimate pot of coffee for two, amended Jonty silently, as she walked away. Isobel did that each evening with the air of one performing a sacred, and pleasantly rewarding, rite. There was always a more amiable aura of friendliness to all and sundry about her as she carried that little tray carefully from the kitchen, while the rest of the family, and Jonty, got on with the washing- up. Rick took the jeep when he and Jonty left the homestead that afternoon. His equipment was stowed carefully in the back, together with a flask of tea and some sandwich® which he had asked her to bring, and a canvas water-bag which he flung in, too, at the last moment before departure.

'I thought we were going to a water-hole?' Jonty eyed this final item sceptically. 'You never know, do you?' Rick shrugged. It was a curiously adult gesture, almost a facsimile of his uncle's. 'It's a good long way, and there's nothing, not even a creek, between us and there, so it's as well to play safe. Uncle Nat would have my hide if I went without it' 'How far, Rick?' Jonty settled herself in the seat. It had a small, flat cushion, tough and comfortless in comparison with the soil leather upholstery in the Holden, and as they jolted down the tree-flanked avenue, she was aware that the springing, too, left much to be desired. 'About two and a half hours' drive. A bit longer coming back in the dark. We're making out to the plains again, you see, Jonty. It's all part of Dulloora, but the waterhole is near the boundary adjoining the real plains country, and this particular watering-place serves a vast, arid area out beyond. You'll see what I mean when we get there, by the variety and number of birds that use it.' As they left the homestead and its numerous outbuildings far behind them, and took a track that led through the nearer paddocks in the direction of the plains, Jonty sat back and reflected upon how well Rick had appeared to adjust to his situation in life in comparison with his younger sister Cilla. Although there was only a year between them, and in some ways his sister was perhaps more mature than he was, he had accepted the inevitable, or had at least arrived at a compromise which appeared to satisfy both his philosophy and his material ambitions. Or was that perhaps an unfair judgement upon poor Cilla, who simply happened to have been born with a more fiery nature and an impatience to succeed, which her brother did not have, and which was largely responsible for her present frustration and unhappiness.

Stealing a glance at Rick's composed profile, as he gave all his attention to manoeuvring the vehicle over the rutted road, one could sense an inner tranquillity about him that was at one with the late afternoon landscape all around them. The sun was low in the sky, and the western hills, behind which it was preparing now to sink, had gathered a rosy glow that shed reflection upon tree and stump, rock and gully. The air was completely still, pink, and unstirring, as musky and mystic as in a Buddhist temple. The leaves oh the wilga trees drooped and drowsed, as if already slumbering against the diffused pink cushion of cloud behind their heads. There was no hood on the jeep, and as the sun got lower, the enervating quality of daytime heat gave place to an evening warmth that was much more pleasant to bear. Once or twice, in the last gullies before they reached open country, Jonty spied the small, grey, leaping form of a wallaby, and when they had been travelling over the flat, poorer land for some time, Rick pointed out some of the wallaby's bigger cousins, the kangaroos. They sat upright, ears alert, heads turned sideways, as the jeep approached, and while some simply scratched their furry tummies and waited, tense and untrusting, till the vehicle had passed, others set up a mad race, bounding parallel with Rick and Jonty, keeping level with her shoulder, and then suddenly veering off in the direction of some stunted scrub at an incredible speed. The rose colour on the horizon had changed to gilt and flame. The hills were behind them now, and ahead stretched a seemingly endless expanse of low scrub and scattered clumps of bushy vegetation. A whistling, sighing sound overhead brought Jonty's eyes skyward once more.

'Tree-ducks.' Rick followed her gaze. They're night feeders, those ones. They're on their way out to feed right now, when most of the others are coming in. This is about as far south as you'll see a whistling tree-duck.' 'What a strange call they have I' 'Yes, that's how they get their name, of course. I'll show you some plumed ones when we get to the swamp. They're much more common, but both make that queer, whistling sound instead of a proper duck-like honk.' Rick was obviously in his element now, as he went on to expand the subject for Jonty's benefit. When a distant, lonely, trumpeting call came from across the plain, he stopped the jeep and said, 'Ah, now, Jonty, there's something for you! A brolga! We'll sit here and have our tea and sandwiches now, and listen for him again.' As they ate the food which she had brought, and drank hot tea from the flask, the sound was repeated, nearer this time, and was presently accompanied by the liquid, lilting contribution of more than one bird, answering that clarion call with muted gobblings. The clarity and closeness of the bold, trumpeting cry caused Rick to lean back in the seat, sighing almost dreamily. 'Some time,' he promised Jonty, 'I'm going to take you to see the brolgas dancing. It's one of the strangest and most romantic sights in the whole bird world, Jonty, and something you'll never forget, if we're lucky enough to witness it. I've only seen them once myself.' 'What are they like?' she asked curiously, watching enthusiasm kindle his eye as he half turned, listening again.

'The brolga? It's our Native Companion, you know. A long-legged, graceful crane, with pretty pink colouring about its head, and the dance it does is one of nature's miracles, I can tell you! It's a wonderful experience to watch than lining up to face each other, and then they begin their opening routine, advancing forward and then back, just like people in a square-dance. They shake out their feathered wings and bow to each other, prancing and gurgling as they perform a majestic sort of ceremony. Sometimes one will stop and call in a harsh raucous way, and this sends them into a really ecstatic ritual of steps, leaping high in the air on their long, stilted legs, and gliding down again like petals floating in the wind.' 'It must be wonderful Rick. Do you really think I might be lucky enough to see them some time?' There was something indisputably exciting even about that imperious, distant cry that carried so clearly right over the plains to where the jeep was parked. 'We'll try it some time, Jonty, because it's the ambition of almost anyone to see it, whether they have an active interest in wild life or not The aborigines use the brolga's dance as a basic pattern for a lot of their own corroborees, you know.' He pressed the starter, and set the vehicle in motion. 'Yes,' he affirmed again. 'We'll do it some time, Jonty, if you would really like to. It all depends on whether you find you enjoy tonight, though, doesn't it?' Jonty was quite sure that she was going to do that all right! * It was quite an experience, even now, jolting over the outback plains in an uncomfortable jeep, towards some lonesome, marshy watering-place, with that gilt-lined profile of hills behind on the horizon, and a wilderness of low scrub all about one.

Jonty did enjoy it, too. She enjoyed every single minute, almost right up to the moment when she fell into the water.

CHAPTER SEVEN The water-hole was a reedy swamp, bordered by stringy- bark and mulga and a couple of eucalypti of more impressive stature, whose buttress of roots readied right down the muddy bank to the rushes at the marsh edge. When they got there, Rick immediately went off to set his camera. 'I want to get some freckled duck,' he explained. 'They've taken over an old coot's nest, so I know exactly where I'll need to focus the lens. The trouble is to catch them on the nest They spend most of their time sitting around out there on that mud-bank. We'll need to wait until it's quite dark.' 'How will you get close enough, even then?' 1 won't have to. I can click the flash and shutter by remote control. The thing is to set up the camera and conceal it while they're still playing around over there. They're fairly rare, and it'd be a triumph if I could get this pair. It's late in the season for them, too. They generally head a bit further north once they've hatched and reared their young ones.' He walked away, picking a careful path through the reeds and bushes, and Jonty sat down happily on a fallen log that was smooth and dry, and bleached almost white by sun and time. From there, she watched the little black water-hens go scuttling fast into the rushes. Once they became accustomed to her presence, they appeared again, strutting confidently, and flicking their tails impudently as they moved about freely. A crested pigeon rustled his bronze wings and lifted himself to the safety of a high branch, from where he gave her an inquisitive inspection, and further out, in the middle of the lake, immense flocks of coot mingled with teal, black duck, ibis, and swans,

weaving their way in and out with a peculiarly mechanical and jerky movement that Jonty found fascinating to watch. There were pinkeared dud:, with their strange, frilly bills; curved-beaked egrets and patient heron; darters that disappeared under the water for lengthy intervals or swam rapidly with only their head and slanted neck protruding, so that they looked more like a fast-moving water-snake than a bird; graceful black swans with pretty red beaks; amiable pelicans that floundered cumbrously on webbed feet up the bank, or spooned the water with their ludicrously pouched bills. Rick came bad: presently to share her seat on the log, pointing and expounding as flock after flock of noisy binds came screaming in to water and perch for the night. As darkness eventually blanketed the scene, there was still a vast amount of shuffling of feathers and flapping of wings. Rick stood up quietly, and explained to her that he was now going to his 'hide', under cover of the final flutterings and jibberings. Jonty watched him creep stealthily away into the gathering blackness, feeling his path as he went He had told her to keep absolutely still until everything was quiet on the vast, marshy lake, and then he would stand a good chance of capturing a shot of die elusive freckled duck on their adopted nest She had a good idea of his exact position, because he had already shown her the coot's abandoned home, a skimpy affair just above the water-line, laid among the twigs of a small, overhanging bush. It was a long time before the bird-life on that inland lake decided to settle down for the night Jonty began to get cold, for the air had become as chilly now as it had been hot earlier on. She thought longingly of her cardigan, back there in the jeep, but decided against going to get it For one thing, it was now pitch-dark and Rick had the

torch, and for another her movements would doubtless have startled the birds. Half an hour later—or was it more?—Jonty was still marooned in her personal island of silence and solitariness upon that log. She was beginning to shiver now, and anxiety began to invade her mind. Why wasn't Rick back? Suppose something had happened to him? Could he have fallen in the inky blackness and hit his head? Perhaps he had done that on his way back to get her? 'Rick?' she called softly. 'Rick, are you there?' No answer came from the inky void about her, save for the stirrings of a couple of galahs in a tree somewhere behind her, and the high, grating night call of a coot near the water's edge. 'Rick?' Jonty could not have said just when panic took possession and reason departed. One moment she was sitting on her bleached log seat, tense and listening, waiting for the answer that did not come, and the next she was stumbling and slipping through the darkness, not daring to call out loudly, yet imploring with her soft cries for some sort of human reply. Bushes brushed at her legs, sharp twigs scratched as she pushed heedlessly on, and then she felt the slimy wetness of reeds. Her foot struck a stone, and Jonty pitched headlong. There was a resounding splash as her body met the water, an eerie shriek which she realised must have been her own, and then pandemonium broke loose on the lake. With harsh cries of alarm, screeched warnings, disturbed honkings, quacks and whistlings, the inhabitants, so rudely disturbed, rose with beating wings until the air was thick with the muffled terror of their flight.

A torch flicked on somewhere to the right, picked out Jonty's sodden prone figure in its beam, and came hurrying towards her. Jonty thought she had never been so glad to see a light in all her life. Already she was picking herself up out of the muddy shallows. The water did not reach beyond mid-calf, but she had succeeded in total immersion, all the same! 'Jonty! Are you all right?' Rick's voice! How blessedly reassuring! 'Oh, Rick, what an idiot you must think me!' she wailed, standing there looking at him in the dim torchlight, her thin dn^s clinging to her body, her hair plastered wetly over her face. 'I tripped. Have I ruined it all for you?' 'Not a bit!' he assured her cheerfully. 'I pulled my shutter control about ten minutes ago, actually. I was debating whether to try to crawl in and set for another shot when I heard that splash, and then you yelled. Are you all right? Here, give me your hand.' Jonty giggled weakly. 'I did yell, didn't I? I had no idea that I was so near the water's edge. I got such a fright, and so did all your feathered friends, it seems.' 'They'll come back and settle again soon, once we've put out the torch and stopped moving around.' Rick helped her from the water, played the beam of light over her soaking form. 'Heavens, Jonty! What an apparition! And you're shivering, too—like mad. Are you terribly cold?' 'A b-bit.' 'We'd better leave right away,' he decided immediately. 'It's a long drive back to the homestead, so we'd better not wait around, with you in that condition. I'll light you to the jeep and then get my stuff.'

He led her in and out among the spindly trees and saplings, and when they reached the vehicle he took his jacket from the back seat. 'Here, put this on over your own cardigan. They'll both get wet, but at least they'll help to break the breeze on the way home. Sure you'll be all right while I get my camera? I won't be more than a moment.' He blundered off hurriedly, and Jonty watched the comforting beam of his torch wending its way among the bushes, and finally back to where she sat waiting. Rick put all his impedimenta into the jeep and climbed in. 'I hope to goodness we can sneak in when we get home,' he said soberly. 'Isobel will have a fit if she sees you like that!' But Isobel wasn't the first to see them, after all, when they finally reached Dulloora. Everyone else was asleep, and it was Nat McMorran himself who came down the veranda steps and over to the garage, to survey her bedraggled figure. The current of air in the open jeep had dried her clothes, but it had also succeeded in chilling Jonty to the marrow. Her teeth chattered hopelessly, her limbs were shaking, and she was helpless to stop them. Her hair still clung to her scalp and cheeks in dry, muddy tendrils, and her sandals were hidden beneath a generous caking of the same slimy mud. Rick's jacket was much too large for her, and her slender, trembling figure seemed lost in its folds. As Nat McMorran held up the tilley lantern he carried— it was a far more powerful affair than Rick's torch, and emitted a strong hissing sound as it spread a bright glow for yards around—the pool of light reached her face. Jonty stared at him apprehensively. All eyes, she

must have looked, for even to herself they felt wide and anxious in the pale oval of her face. She could see his own face above hers, gazing at her incredulously. In the unearthly glow of the lantern its deep tan looked mudcoloured—rather like herself, thought Jonty, repressing a sudden wild desire to laugh I—but you couldn't risk a laugh when you were being subjected to such a frighteningly penetrating stare as that. Uncle Nat's narrowed eyes took in every aspect of her dismal appearance. 'You fell in—don't tell me,' he invited her in a deceptively friendly voice. 'Or did you simply elect to go for a midnight swim?' Jonty couldn't even raise a smile. She was too perished to respond to that particular brand of humour at this hour of the night. And then she saw that he was not attempting to be funny at all. He was actually possessed of a cold, calm fury that neither she nor Rick were fit to handle, although the latter did his best. 'She fell in, Uncle Nat. It was all a mistake. She tripped, you see.' Silence. 'Look, Uncle Nat, she's not grizzling about it, is she, so why should you?' The lantern swung away from Jonty to rake the boy's face instead. It was uncle and nephew who now stared at each other. Beside the older man's, Rick's slender, youthful body— however bravely he might be prepared to face the music— looked about as ineffectual in the hissing lamplight as a young sapling beside a mighty oak. 'How could she trip? Why did you allow it?'

'She just did,' Rick replied lamely. 'Now look here, sport'—and Jonty didn't like the way the mighty oak said that to the young sapling at all I—'when you invite a lady out for the evening, you look after her, you understand? I don't give a razoo whether it's the pictures or dancing or bird-watching or a trip to the moon itself, you look after her. You don't bring her home looking like—like -' Words appeared to fail him only temporarily, as he turned to Jonty. 'Get going, before you die of pneumonia,' he told her, between clenched teeth. 'I'll see you later, Rick.' Jonty hastened as fast as her numbed limbs would allow, very much aware of the impatiently curbed footsteps right behind her. 'It was m-my own f-fault,' she stuttered somewhat incoherently through frozen lips. 'I g-got off the l-log in the dark, and he t-told me not to.' 'I can believe that,' he avowed tersely. 'Do you ever do what anyone tells you, Jonty? If not, it's about time you started! How do you think I've felt, standing around out here, waiting and wondering, listening for that blasted jeep and imagining all sorts of terrible things?' Jonty was thankful to see the yard ahead. The passion-fruit vines and the trellis where the grapes grew meant that escape was at hand. The lock-up, her apartment, was only just beyond. 'You m-must know you don't have to w-worry about Rick, Mr. McM-M-Morran.' If only she weren't so paralysed with cold, she'd have told him where to get off. 'He's very c-capable, and he w-was looking after me. It was all m-my fault, I tell you.' She paused, to make her point.

'Keep going,' he commanded savagely, giving her a little shove forward. 'Go jump in the lake,' advised Theodore testily from beneath his horse-blanket 'Sink or swiml Sink or swim!' he screeched at their retreating figures. Nat McMorran held open the gauze door and pushed her through, switched on her bedroom light, and raked her slight, trembling, mud-stained figure from head to toe. 'If you laugh, I'll beat you,' he told her grimly, aware that her eyes were brimming with fun at the impudence of the irascible corella outside. 'Now get out of those things and into a bath. If you aren't in by the time I come back with a hot drink, I'll strip you myself.' 'Y-yes, Mr. McMorran,' she said meekly, adding more firmly, 'but please don't be t-too angry with Rick. If you are, he won't take me again, and th-then I won't ever see the b-brolgas.' 'The what?' The incredulous look was back. "The brolgas. D-dancing, you know. And I w-want to.' 'My God!' was all he said, in a tone of such utter exasperation that it had a quite alarming effect upon Jonty, who waited only long enough to hear his heavy steps go striding away across the yard before she began to drag off her clinging garments with frenzied haste. She hoped he wouldn't bother to come back with that hot drink— and for once, that night, her hopes were realised. She had just put on her pyjamas and climbed into bed, when the door opened and Isobel herself appeared. She was wearing her quilted housecoat and pretty velveteen mules, and carried a tray

upon which reposed a single mug of steaming cocoa and two arrowroot biscuits. 'Here,' she said, setting down the tray at the bedside and then taking up a position on the other bed—the one under which Mark's frogs had been. Even the way Isobel sat down was graceful and assured. Her dressing-gown was a gorgeous shade of fuchsia pink. It suited her smooth, honey- toned complexion and blonde hair. Those soft gold waves were so cleverly cut that they looked as immaculate as the sculptured head of an Aphrodite, even at this time of night. Jonty, who had perforce had to wash her hair in the bath just now, felt at a distinct disadvantage in her cheap cotton pyjamas, with her wet locks hanging in rats' tails about her ears. 'You'd better drink it while it's hot,' Isobel advised her stonily. 'You look as if you could do with it!' 'It was kind of you to bring it. Very kind indeed.' Jonty lifted the mug, while Isobel merely shrugged. 'I hope you weren't too disappointed that it was I who brought it,' she observed disingenuously. Jonty looked up quickly. There was something in the other woman's tone that made her feel uncomfortable, although she could think of no reason why she should. Searching Isobel's face for sarcasm or antipathy, she found none. 'I'm only sorry that you were woken up,' said Jonty sincerely. 'Yes, I'm sure you were,' came an oblique murmur by way of reply. Jonty finished the cocoa and replaced the mug on the tray. Already she felt very much better. The bath had warmed her limbs, and now

she was aware of a pleasant glow coursing through her body. It would not be difficult to fall asleep right now, but she must keep awake until Isobel went, at least. 'Thank you very much,' she said again. 'I'll take the tray back when I come over to the kitchen in the morning. There's no need for you to take it now, Miss Roche. I'm very grateful.' Isobel got up off the bed and walked to the door. 'Shall I put out the light for you, Jonquil?' 'Please, if it's not too much trouble. And—Miss Roche? -' 'Yes?' 'I do hope Mr. McMorran won't be too hard on Rick.' She hesitated. 'It wasn't Rick's fault at all, you know.' 'I'm sure it wasn't. Jonquil.' 'It was mine.' 'I'm quite aware of that, although perhaps I'm the only one who is,' Isobel replied coolly from the doorway. 'If you wished to draw attention to yourself, then it seems that you succeeded very well indeed, doesn't it?' 'I don't understand what you mean.' Jonty gazed at her worriedly. One couldn't have missed a certain venom in that remark. 'Don't you? Really?' Isobel's china-blue eyes narrowed, and the small smile she permitted herself was quite without humour. 'I'm beginning to think that perhaps I've underestimated you, Jonquil,

after all,' she said silkily, as she turned out the light, leaving Jonty to stare blankly into the darkness, all thoughts of sleep having temporarily fled. Even the effects of the cocoa could not prevent a small shiver from feathering right over her. Somehow, tonight, she had gained an enemy, and that enemy was clearly Isobel Roche. Tossing and turning, Jonty went over all the events of the evening in her mind, yet nowhere along the line could she pin-point a single reason for Isobel's undoubted antagonism and oblique remarks. She was still tormenting herself with the problem when she finally drifted into a restless slumber. At breakfast next morning, Isobel's behaviour was back to normal— that is to say, remote, impersonal, but carefully police. To Jonty's relief she had not referred again to last night's episode, but she might have guessed that it would be impossible to finish the meal without it being alluded to by one of the children. 'It was mean of you not to wake us, Rick! Me and Mark wanted to see her, all slimy and sopping.' 'That will do, Debbie.' The child's uncle passed her the honey jar, together with a look that could only be described as quelling. 'Well, we did, Uncle Nat. It's all very well for you, 'cos you did see her, but we didn't. Rick said you could only see the whites of her eyes, practically, when she got out of the marsh.' 'Rick's exaggerating.' He shot the older boy a glance that dared him to contradict.

'Why didn't you wake us, Uncle Nat? Give me one really decent reason,' invited Mark persistently through a mouthful of steak and egg. 'Your uncle didn't intend to waken anyone, Mark. Now will you all please eat your breakfast without further chatter? I'm sure Jonquil is tired of the subject. I know I certainly am!' Silence followed this observation, and when the meal was over, the children filed out to the kitchen in a somewhat subdued manner to collect their school-bags and lunches. Isobel always had this effect upon them, but it never lasted for very long, and by the time they waved goodbye to Jonty and went to get their ponies, their effervescent good spirits had returned in strength, and were threatening to bubble over. Rick spent the better part of that evening in his darkroom, developing his most recent film, and pronounced himself well pleased with the results. 'I'm glad I fell in afterwards, and not before,' smiled Jonty when he showed her the shots. 'It would only have meant a repeat, anyway, so don't give it another thought,' Rick told her kindly, then peered at her more closely through his thick-lensed spectacles. 'I say, are you sickening for something? You don't look quite right to me. Your eyes are all watery.' 'I think I'm getting a cold, but please don't say anything.' In actual fact, Jonty's throat was sore, and her eyeballs felt as if they had been sandpapered. It was impossible to disguise her symptoms for long. She felt stuffy and snuffly, and when she read to the children at night, her voice had lost its pure English enunciation, and

was hoarse and well- nigh unintelligible, so that Rachel had to take over the task instead. 'It's my own fault for being so stupid as to fall into the lake,' Jonty murmured apologetically, as she took herself off early to bed. Isobel agreed with her that she had only herself to thank. 'A foolish escapade, and quite unnecessary. Very Selfish, too, Jonquil, since you will probably give the germ to the entire household.' She paused. 'I don't intend to expose myself, actually. Nat knows well enough how badly I go down if I happen to catch cold, so I have decided that now might be as good a time as any to go to Sydney. I have to see my business partner, in any case, and have certain other things to attend to, so he is taking me to the afternoon train.' 'I'm sorry, Miss Roche,' returned Jonty miserably. 'I fed as if I'm to blame for you having to go, but I honestly did try not to catch cold on the way home. I had my own cardigan on, and Rick's jacket, too. I do hope I'm not going to be the means of everyone getting it' 'Well, never mind. It's obvious that nobody actually tries to get a cold, no matter what else they may do.' Isobel smiled at her with grudging kindness as she went to the door. 'As I've said, it suits me to go now, in any event, and I've actually managed something else as well, which will make my journey doubly worthwhile.' She turned triumphantly to Jonty. 'I'm taking Rick's photographs. He's agreed to let me enter them in this competition for him, together with his freckled duck from the other night.' 'Why, that's marvellous. I do hope he wins something.' 'I wouldn't consider entering them if I didn't think he had a chance,' Isobel pointed out on a faint note of rebuke. 'I shall probably be

away for four or five days, Jonquil, so that will give you time to recover from your cold. I do hope I escape it!' After she had left the kitchen, Jonty set about peeling some vegetables for the evening meal, reflecting as she did so on the strange contradictions in Isobel's nature. There was a basic kindness about her that now and then showed through, as in her interest in Rick and his hobby. Perhaps she had been a more congenial person before circumstances had necessitated such a dramatic change in her own and Nat McMorran's matrimonial plans? Jonty could imagine that, in her particular element, Isobel could be a very charming and likeable person indeed. It was unfortunate that she was unable, somehow, to communicate effectively with the young children. It seemed difficult for her, although she genuinely tried, to bring herself down to their level. It was probably their mutual interest in photography alone, which gave her common ground with Rick himself— that, and the fact that he was the eldest. Between herself and the two little ones stretched a positive chasm of non-understanding. Rachel just got by—as Rachel always would!— because of her sunny nature and almost intuitive understanding. And Cilla? Well, Cilla appeared to be out in the cold altogether. She spent her time keeping out of Isobel's way, and therefore largely out of Jonty's as well, and sometimes Jonty's heart ached for the sullen, beautiful young girl who seemed to have withdrawn herself from the family circle quite deliberately. Jonty could tell, from the way Nat McMorran's brows drew together, and from that brooding preoccupation that came into his eyes when they dwelt upon Cilla, that he was aware of the antipathy between niece and fiancee, but was powerless to find a remedy. Perhaps he thought, as Jonty hoped herself, that time, and maturity on Cilla's part, might solve the problem. That was the look he had, that was the impression he gave—one of heavy patience, as if aware that in a masculine and blundering way he might somehow upset the

delicately balanced status quo, and worsen the whole situation, if he intervened. There were times when Jonty found herself almost " touched by his carefully affectionate approach to the children, his patient forbearance with Cilla in particular. At these times the lines about his mouth and eyes were not those fascinating ones that appeared so suddenly and attractively when he smiled. These lines were different. They grooved his cheeks, pulled at his mouth, so that he. looked jaded, cynical, and at the same time oddly weary and helpless. Such helplessness was, of course, a complete contradiction of that forthright, commanding manner and the physical power of his tall, athletic frame—such a contradiction, indeed, that Jonty sometimes asked herself if she imagined it. And then she would notice the grim control that levelled his mouth, the tiny muscle of tension that tightened his jaw, and she would know then that she had not imagined it, after all. , Therefore, when Nat McMorran suggested a picnic, she was almost as glad for his own sake as for the children's that he would perhaps manage to use the light-hearted expedition which he had proposed, to escape from some of his omnipresent responsibilities for a while, even though his human ones were apparently going to accompany him! 'Do you think you could manage to pack something, Jonty? Something rather special, if you like.' He smiled whimsically. 'It's a long time since I've done anything like this with the kids, so we must make it an occasion.' Standing there, tentatively twirling his wide felt hat in his fingers, the question still in his eyes, he looked strangely young—boyish, and faintly apologetic.

'Yes, of course I could,' she nodded enthusiastically. 'Where are you thinking of going?' 'There's a favourite place a good bit down the creek, where the youngsters like to catch yabbies. It's a traditional spot.' 'Oh, I see.' 'You'll accompany us, of course.' 'Are you sure that you want me along?' she asked matter-of-factly. 'You'll be taking the horses, and I'm afraid I'm not much of a rider,' she went on to remind him candidly. 'No. We won't be going on horseback. We're taking the Blitz instead. There's a track all the way.' He looked down at her. 'Your cold isn't still bothering you, is it?' 'Heavens, no. I'd love to come, naturally. I've hardly ever been on a picnic.' Nat McMorran grinned. 'Well, we'll make this a dinkum bush one, in that case. Steak cooked on the open fire, and spuds done in the ashes. I'll deal with the meat and potatoes, Jonty, so all you'll need to do on your part is to get a few pannikins together, a decent-sized billy, and some tea and sugar.' She blinked. 'But I thought you said you wanted something special?' His mouth quirked lopsidedly.

'If you've never had it this way before, then it will be something special,' he replied gently, before striding off in the direction of the nieat-house, leaving Jonty standing by herself in the middle of the kitchen, suddenly too dazed to even think about such mundane necessities, as tea and sugar and pannikins and billy-cans. It was Saturday, and Isobel was coming home on Monday morning. The children were in high spirits as they clambered into the covered back of the Blitzwaggon. They all wore shorts and cotton shirts, except for Uncle Nat, who was still in his moleskins, and Jonty, who had settled for a skirt of gay floral material and an aertex blouse. She had never been in the habit of wearing shorts because, in the old days, she had felt it might call attention to that barely discernible limp on the occasions when it showed itself. Now, she never limped at all. Even after she had fallen into the shallow, muddy edge of the lake the other night, there had not been the slightest suspicion of a limp. The dry climate, the sunshine, the variety of the physical activities on this country property, seemed to have cured her of that old trouble. Today she was bare-legged, like the children, and wore the same sandals which had been immersed in the mud at the lake, and which she had thought would never be wearable again. Rick, however, had thought otherwise. He had painstakingly scraped off every last vestige of mud once they were dry, and had then dressed them with neatsfoot oil until they were supple once more. A final buffing with polish had restored them to their previous state. Jonty had decided this action to be altogether typical of Rick's thoughtfulness and thoroughness. She smiled at him now, through the mica window that divided the cab of the vehicle from the rear. Mark and Debbie were stowing home-made fishing rods —lengths of willow, with attached line, lead, and a cork floater. They also

threw in a couple of kerosene tins with holes punched in—their yabbie traps, these were—and glass jars taken from the kitchen preserving cupboard, filled with worms that still writhed, and fat yellow grubs. Jonty, when she learned of the use to which the jars were to be put, had told them not to bother returning them! Rick had tucked a mouth-organ into his shirt pocket before he climbed in. Rachel carried a piece of embroidery on a circular frame which she was doing for the school's end-of-year needlework exhibition, and Cilla had a sketching pad and a novel. It seemed that the two people in the front seat were the only ones with nothing to occupy them, thought Jonty in some amusement. Once they had got the picnic meal over, their declared intention was to be idle and simply do nothing. That's the whole point,' laughed Uncle Nat, when Mark suggested that he had overlooked bringing some sort of organised entertainment. 'You can do what you like, Mark, you and the rest, but I'm going to take it easy, just for today.' The picnic spot was at a bend in the creek, with a shallow bank on one side and a rocky slope on the other. On arrival everyone piled out and unloaded the vehicle. Almost immediately Uncle Nat got a fire going on the flat down at the water's edge, fashioning a. barbecue roughly with large stones, pitting the base to take the potatoes, and laying an old blackened grid-iron over the top. Jonty, from her perch on a big rock, watched him go down to the creek and scrub the potatoes to clean them, after which he brought

them back and laid them out near the fire to wait for enough coals to accumulate in which to bury them. Further downstream, Debbie and Mark were squatting on their haunches, baiting their yabbie-traps with lumps of fat. 'What are yabbies?' she asked now, as Nat McMorran came and sat down on the ground nearby, searching for tobacco and cigarette papers in the pocket of his khaki bush-shirt. 'A sort of freshwater crayfish. Mud-coloured, almost, and therefore quite hard to see.' 'Do you eat them?' 'I don't, personally, if that's what you mean. But the aborigines do, and I dare say we'd find them perfectly edible, too. There's so little on them, though, for all the bother, even though they can be as big as a small lobster.' He smiled faintly. 'One would need to be very hard up for tucker to appreciate them, and not have mountains of lovely steaks waiting to be grilled, not to mention coal- roasted spuds in their skins, as we're going to have. You did bring the butter, Jonty?' 'Yes, I put it in, like you said. I think I've remembered everything.' He leaned back on one elbow, inhaled his newly-rolled cigarette. 'It doesn't matter, anyway. That's what's so relaxing ..., about this sort of a picnic—nothing matters. It's what I prefer, anyway,' he averred, quite chattily for Nat McMorran, just as though he and Jonty were really friends. 'Isobel likes the more civilised procedure—you know, folding chairs, hot and cold storage flasks, and lots of pretty picnic- ware. Myself, I prefer just an honest bushtype smoko. I reckon all that bother cancels out the pleasure, the other way. Did you bring my beer, by the way?'

'What if I said no?' Jonty could not resist asking, with a sudden, impish twinkle. 'Then I'd say that this particular picnic wasn't civilised enough!' 'Rick put the tins down in the water, to keep cool.' 'Good on Rick! He's a thoughtful young customer, that.' 'With reason,' Jonty returned dryly, 'seeing that a couple of them are intended for himself.' Strange, how suddenly happy and free she felt, sitting here in a dappling of shade in her old cotton skirt and rejuvenated sandals, making idle conversation while the fire gathered heat, and the scented wood-smoke drifted lazily upwards through the crossed green branches which the man had erected over his makeshift fireplace, to hang the billy- can upon, later. When the potatoes were almost done, Nat McMorran laid out steaks on the grid, and called to everyone to come. Rick brought the cans of beer up from the creek, and Cilla, Rachel and Jonty put out hunks of freshly cut bread and unwrapped tie butter. 'I always lay my steak on the bread, as if it's a plate,' confided Rachel. -' 'I don't. I like my meat on its own,' said Cilla. 'I always spear mine on to a forked twig. I'd better go and find one now.' 'I did bring forks. Knives, too.' 'Nobody'll use them, Jonty, so you needn't have bothered. We all have our own methods of dealing with sizzling, blackened steaks, but I'm afraid they don't involve knives and forks,' laughed Rick. 'You'll have to overlook our manners for today.'

'I could overlook anything, almost, today,' she replied dreamily. 'It's all so gorgeous and peaceful, isn't it?' 'Not for long, it isn't. Here come Mark and Debbie.' They arrived in some haste, stumbling and slipping over the stones as they came. 'Wash, please,' ordered Uncle Nat, taking one brief look at their muddy hands. 'Oh, Uncle Nat t' 'Go on. Dip them in the water first, and shake the drips off, at the very least,' he elaborated firmly. 'Gee, what a fuss! I thought this was supposed to be a picnic.' muttered Mark. But he went, all the same, without further ado, and presently returned, wiping his palms down the sides of his shorts in two straight, muddy tracks. 'Mark, you're the limit!' said Cilla. 'Those were clean on this morning.' But even Cilla didn't manage to sound very cross—not with a large, juicy steak, still spitting with heat, impaled on the forked stick which she had found herself, and a split potato oozing with butter sitting neatly on the piece of bread beside her. Presently her uncle got up and hooked the billy of water above the fire to boil, and when it finally bubbled he tipped in the tea and placed a couple of thin, sappy gum-twigs across the top to disperse the smoke and bring up the flavour. When he had allowed it time to brew, he lifted the billy off its forked hook, and gently tapped its blackened sides to sink the leaves, and then he poured the scalding contents into the row of pannikins. They were tin ones which

retained the heat of the liquid inside them, and it was a long while before Jonty could manage to drink hers—unlike Nat McMorran, who sipped his carefully almost straight away in the traditional habit of the true bush- man. * Jonty was surprised how good that tea tasted. Whether the rites that had been performed in its making were responsible, or whether it was simply the cloudless day and the informal scene, she could not have said, but she found herself savouring every deliriously tangy mouthful. 'More?' 'Please.' She accepted another mugful, and carried it carefully over to her previous perch on the big rock. From here she had a view both up and down stream. Already Mark and Debbie were back at their dammed-up pool, hovering over their yabbie-traps. When they went away this time they had also taken their fishing rods with them, plus the jars of worms and grubs. Cilla had crossed the creek by a series of stepping-stones at a shallow point slightly upstream. Jonty could see her in the distance, seated on a fallen log half-way up the bank, sketching busily. Rick had chosen a place in the shade not far from where Mark and Debbie were paddling cautiously in the mud around their traps. He had taken out his mouth-organ, and a thin thread of music, strangely sad and lilting, came to Jonty as she drained the last dregs from her mug for the second time. Rachel, beside him, was already at work on her embroidery. Jonty saw Nat McMorran kick the fire together with the toe of his elastic-sided stockboot and throw a few more branches on, before he came strolling over to join her.

'We might have another smoko before we go home, yet, so I'll keep her going,' he told her, stretching himself out full length on his back on a bed of dry, fallen gumleaves, and placing his broad-brimmed hat right across his face, to shut out the light. Perhaps he was going to have a sleep? All Jonty could see of his face was his squared-off jaw and deeply tanned throat, so she had no means of knowing whether his eyes were actually shut or not. Just in case, she kept quite still, not attempting to talk. For a long time there was silence, broken only by an occasional excited shout from the children, and the reedy sound of Rick's mouth organ, accompanied now by Rachel's clear young voice. 'Wrap me up in my stock-whip and blanket, And bury me deep down below Where the dingoes and crows won't molest me, In the shade where the coolibahs grow.' It was a plaintive little song, and Rachel's voice was as true as a bell. The pure clarity of her singing should have sounded sad, but it did not. It merely sounded peaceful, contented, nostalgic. How could one possibly feel sad on a perfect day such as this? 'There's tea in the old battered billy— Set the pannikins all in a row, And we'll drink to the next merry meeting In the place where the good stockmen go. 'Wrap me up -' "What's a coolibah?' asked Jonty, when the song had stopped. She asked it quite softly, just in case Uncle Nat was asleep. He wasn't.

The hat moved slightly as he spoke from beneath it. 'A coolibah? It's a tree.' His words were muffled by the felt brim. 'And what does Dulloora mean? I've been wondering that, ever since I came.' 'Dulloora means "small grey birds". It's aboriginal.' 'Oh.' She was silent for so long that the man at her side raised his hat from his eyes to look at her. 'What's the matter? Are you disappointed that that's all it means? Not grand enough for you, is it?' 'Oh, not that.' 'What, then, Jonty?' The hat was back in place. She hesitated. 'Nothing, really. It is sort of insignificant, though, isn't it, for a wonderful property such as Dulloora? It's more like me,' she murmured thoughtfully, almost to herself. 'A small grey bird. That's what I think I am. Just an ordinary, insignificant little grey bird, that doesn't know quite where it's flying or where it will alight next' 'Are you fishing, by any chance?' came a deep drawl from beneath the hat -pardon?' 'Never mind. Forget it,' came the indistinct reply. 'In any case, you're more like a Willy Wagtail.' 'What does that mean?'

'Mm?' 'What's a Willy Wagtail like?' she asked curiously, and at the same moment there came an excited yell from Debbie. 'Uncle Nat! Uncle Nat! Quickly! We've caught three yabbies! Do come and see!' 'That's my peaceful afternoon gone for good now,' grumbled Nat McMorran ruefully, as he gathered his long form together and got " to his feet, clamping his hat down once more—this time in its rightful place on top of his head. 'What's it like, a Willy Wagtail? Wasn't that what you said?' 'A Willy Wagtail?' He looked down at her quizzically. 'If you don't know that, Jonty, then far be it from me to enlighten you,' he murmured teasingly, and there was just a hint of that lopsided grin as he walked away from her, in the direction of the creek.

CHAPTER EIGHT There was only one day after that idyllic interlude at the creek, and then Isobel came back and life resumed its former pattern. She brought small but imaginative gifts for everyone, and at first seemed in very good spirits, as if her little break from the Dulloora routine had done her good. Even Jonty received a present, although perhaps not quite such an imaginative one as the rest. 'Handkerchiefs,' said Isobel, thrusting a small, gift-wrapped package into her hand, as she added prosaically, 'I thought they might be useful for your cold, but you seem to have got over it.' 'They're always very useful, thank you, Miss Roche. It was very kind of you indeed.' 'Don't mention it, Jonquil. And how have you all got on in my absence?' 'Oh, quite well, really. There were no dramas of any sort,' Jonty assured the older woman. 'Life seems to go on in much the same routine from day to day.' 'Doesn't it! Station life in particular.' Isobel walked to the window, frowning. 'That's the dreary truth, I am afraid, about country life— the awful sameness of it. Don't you agree?' 'I rather like it, actually,' admitted Jonty shyly. It wasn't often that Isobel bothered to converse with her like this, and she was somewhat ill at ease. 'Do you?' Isobel swung around from the window and regarded her closely. 'What a strange little creature you are, Jonquil. I believe I

must be much more gregarious by nature than you. I thrive on rush and bustle, and the pressure of business, with people coming and going all the time. I enjoy feeling involved, it excites me. And once you've known the thrill of profit and loss, a career, as I have, it's difficult to gain any satisfaction from this more ordinary existence. But you? No. I think you actually use the country as a means of shelter, don't you? You like to hide yourself away, you like to be out of the madding crowd, stuck away here in this outback wilderness where there's never any difference between one day and the next.' She made a little moue of dissatisfaction. 'No challenge about it.' 'Oh, I would hardly say that,' maintained Jonty stoutly. 'And it's far from lonely and quiet, either, is it? I mean, with the children? The— er—the family?' Her voice trailed away, because Isobel's lovely features were now drawn into a disapproving scowl. 'Well, don't let's talk about it, anyway. I intend to go and finish my unpacking, and after that I shall have a rest. It's a ghastly journey, that, and I must admit I always find it hard to settle down for a few days when I return from the city. You must take no notice of what I say. I meant no reflection upon you, of course, when I said you appear to thrive on this dreary life. We're all different, aren't we?' She sighed. 'All different,' she repeated, as she left Jonty and went to her own bedroom. Jonty walked over to the lock-up and put the handkerchiefs away carefully in her chest of drawers. Then she went back to the house, took polish and cloths and a couple of old newspapers through to the front hall and spread them out on the floor next to the dresser, and began to take the small ornaments down, shelf by shelf, to shine them.

Jonty often did this when she had time on her hands. She enjoyed turning the items in her fingers to inspect the hallmarks, admire the designs, and it was gratifying to watch the metals spring into gleaming life beneath her hands, as she rubbed them with a gentleness that almost amounted to affection. The collection on one shelf in particular held an undeniable fascination for Jonty. This was a series of little cases and boxes, of varying shapes and sizes, some in the form of a tiny book, but most of long, flat, or cylindrical proportions. Some had as many as eight sides, some four, and some none at all because they were rounded. The materials from which they were made appeared as numerous as the cases themselves. There were delicately enamelled ones, and richly decorated silver ones. Some were of gold, others of gleaming mother-of-pearl, ivory, or even porcelain. The designs varied from filigree and carving right through to hand- painted flowers and country scenes. Yet none of these aspects attracted Jonty quite so much as did the contents themselves. They were of a singularly feminine nature, without exception—the small, intimate oddments that one might expect to find in a presentday sewing box, plus a lot of others besides, ones that were not so familiar. There were needles, thimbles, scissors, bodkins, buttonhooks, and even tiny penknives and pencils, and many of them were intricately chased or embossed. Jonty liked to imagine, by the contents, what sort of woman might have possessed each case. Some were elaborately fitted out, others held a few simple and basic necessities that were worn smooth with use.

She was always careful to polish the containers one at a time, tipping the contents out on to the newspaper, and then replacing the lid upon it as she cleaned each one. She was thus employed just now when footfalls sounded up the path outside, and presently took the front steps in a couple of strides. Then the gauze door swung open and shut again, and Nat McMorran himself came into the hall. His mind must have been on other things, because he looked quite startled at the sight of her kneeling there. 'Oh! It's you, Jonty, is it?' After a moment's hesitation, he hung his hat up on one of the coat-hooks, and squatted down beside her. 'At it again?' he remarked idly. 'You often polish those, I think, don't you? I've noticed how they've been shifting just lately.' The old, lazy amusement was in his voice. She flushed. 'They're so pretty,' she defended herself. 'It seems a shame to let them become tarnished.' She replaced a small, petal-shaped lid as she spoke, and took up the next one. 'You like those particularly?' Perhaps he had noticed the almost reverent tenderness with which she handled them. 'I think they're lovely,' she replied simply. 'I think they're by far the most fascinating things here, but what are they, exactly?' He picked one up, turned it over, weighing it in his palm consideringly. 'That is an etui,' he told her, putting it down again. 'They go right back to Anglo-Saxon times, although many of the ones here are actually only Victorian. Long ago, when times and clothes -were

very different, women used to carry them about with them, suspended from a girdle chain so that they were always there when needed.' 'Some of them look as though they were needed very often indeed,' Jonty remarked with a smile. 'That one there, for instance. See how worn it is.' 'Yes, and there's one quite the opposite—so elaborately equipped, and yet hardly used. I'd say that was probably a token of lasting adoration from some doting eighteenth- century husband to his submissive wife.' The grey eyes mocked her. 'These Ones don't look utilitarian, at all,' said Jonty quickly, trying to ignore that sardonic glance, and holding up a delicate porcelain affair for his inspection. 'Ah, no, they were somewhat different. Those ones are Sevres, actually. They were not meant to be carried around on chains. In France at that time it was popular to display them in a prominent position where everyone could see them. I dare say that the ladies in those days vied with each other over the grandeur and extravagance of their etuis, just as the modern misses do over their dresses. Times and fashions change.' He gave-her a quizzical look. 'Which one do you like best, Jonty?' 'Which one? Impossible to say!' 'No, come on. I'd like you to have one,' he told her unexpectedly. 'Me? Oh, no, I could never do that.' Her eyes were grave. 'Yes, you could, if I choose to give it to you,' he retorted somewhat arrogantly, 'And I do choose.' She hesitated still.

'I want to give you one, Jonty,' he assured her, and his voice was suddenly quite gentle and sincere. He nodded encouragingly. 'Please pick one out—one that you really like, mind. It would give me great pleasure for you to have one,' he added kindly, though his expression was completely unreadable. 'Truly?' 'Truly.' 'Well—it's difficult -' 'Any one at all. Your favourite.' Her hand hovered, finally selected one. 'May I have this little one, please—or perhaps it's too valuable,' she said anxiously. 'Is it gold?' Nat McMorran smiled. 'Not gold, Jonty, but pinchbeck. It's a yellow alloy of copper and zinc, simulating gold. Why do you like that one particularly? It's late seventeenth century, by the way.' She gazed at her treasure almost disbelievingly, and then turned to him. 'I like it because of all those lovely little flowers and leaves that cover the outside. And it's got such funny things inside. Look!' 'A thimble, two bodkins, a very worn toothpick, a snuff- spoon, an ear-spoon, and a button-hook. You're pleased with that?'

'It's the prettiest thing I've ever had,' she stated candidly. 'Thank you very much, Mr. McMorran.' 'Don't mention it,' he replied off-handedly with a return to that suavely urbane manner, as he rose to a standing position and retrieved his hat from the peg. 'It's only a trinket,' he reminded her carelessly, and then he went away down the hall, leaving Jonty to get back to her polishing. After she had rearranged all the articles on the shelves again-to her satisfaction, she went over to her bedroom and placed the pretty little etui in her own woven cane work- basket. To her delight it just fitted in nicely along one side. Jonty took it out again, and put in a few assorted needles and some safety-pins. That should link the present with the past, she told herself on a sight of satisfaction, replacing the lid and putting the article in her own sewing-basket once more. For a few moments she sat on the end of her bed, dreaming, conjecturing, asking herself for the hundredth time what sort of woman had possessed that little case, all those years ago. Had she been married or single, a 'grande dame" or a simple housewife? Perhaps she had been a chatelaine of some enormous castle, or maybe only the linen-room maid in a lesser establishment. Who could ever know? But had she been happy? That perhaps was the most important thing of all, to be happy with one's lot in life—and Jonty felt sure, somehow, that she had. There were certain signs of loving care about the worn items, as if the owner had actually enjoyed working with them, and had appreciated their usefulness. Who could tell—perhaps the humble person whose etui this once was had been a good deal happier than the owner of that delicately chased silver affair, with its intricate exterior and contents which had barely been touched?

The days went by, uneventfully. Too uneventfully, one would have said, for Isobel's liking, as she gradually became short-tempered with Jonty, and impatient with the children, in the same way as she had been prior to her visit to the city. Jonty found herself feeling genuinely sorry for the other woman. As Isobel had said, everyone is different, and she obviously found rio pleasure in being saddled with a ready- made family, derived no joy from Mark's and Debbie's childish exploits, which continued to furnish Jonty herself with a good bit of amusement. They still attended secretly to the frog collection in the kennel that had been meant for Desmond, and could not refrain from confiding in her when some of the tadpoles finally transformed themselves into frogs too. While the process was not without a certain fascination, Jonty, kneeling beside the kennel to inspect the latest arrivals, found them revolting in the extreme, recalling with a shudder that wet, slithery creature that had flipped right over her face in the darkness. No, frogs and toads were not for her, she told them heartily. Give her Desmond any day! Dear Desmond! He had taken to following Jonty about the place whenever Debbie was away at school, and then, as soon as Debbie reappeared, he would transfer his allegiance back to the little girl who had first been kind to him. Jonty did not mind a bit being 'second-best' in his affections. She enjoyed his company, and sometimes took him walking with her, down to the creek, or over to the horse-paddock, where he would crouch for ages quite happily, with eyes fastened on the spare stock horses which had not been taken out that day, following their every movement with ears at the alert. He never attempted to chase them, or even bite at their heels the way Nat McMorran's own blue cattle- dog did when he rode out on his stallion, but was simply content to crouch there and watch,

probably imagining himself to be the most wily and fearsome of canine protectors. Jonty had a suspicion that if one of the horses had actually come for him, he'd have run a mile, and left her to her fate. Silly Desmond! She was leaning idly on the sliprail one afternoon with the dog at her feet, when Rick and Stan rode in. They had been repairing fences all day long, and she watched them dump down their tools, heave the rolls of fencing wire off the sides of their saddles, and slacken the girths. Their actions were twintimed, each performing the same movement at the same time in a way that told one they had done it many times before, and which to Jonty seemed like the comically pre-arranged performance of a pair of actors in a silent charade. When they had watered and rubbed down their horses and turned them out, they came back with the bridles hanging over their arms, and picked up the saddles which they had left straddling the fence near to where Jonty was standing. 'Rick, what's a Willy Wagtail?' she asked off-handedly, because she had been wondering that for a good while now—ever since that picnic at the creek, in fact I —and the present moment seemed suddenly to be a suitable opportunity in which to satisfy her curiosity. 'A Willy Wagtail?' Rick replaced the saddle on the rail, and peered at her shortsightedly, his brown face kindling with enthusiasm as it always did at the mention of his favourite hobby. 'Ah, now, Jonty, that's an interesting little bird for you!'

'Really, Rick?' She couldn't help her eagerness. For some reason her heart had begun to beat quite fast 'In what way?' 'Well'—he leaned forward earnestly—'it's like this. You'd expect him to belong to the Motacillidae, wouldn't you, like all the other pipits and wagtails?' 'Er—would you?' 'Well, of course you would! But he doesn't at all. He's a Muscicapid, you see, really. A flycatcher. He's not a wagtail at all!' Rick stepped back with the air of one who has pronounced a great and exciting truth. He must have been bitterly disappointed if he expected his audience to respond in a like manner, for Jonty was already feeling too dazed to do more than blink. 'And what does that mean?' she asked weakly. 'I'm telling you, Jonty, aren't I? He's Muscicapidae and not Motacillidae, as you might think.' 'I didn't think any such thing I' she managed to murmur helplessly. Rick's eyes reproached her for this unnecessary interruption. 'Sub-family Rhipidurinae—the fantails,' he told her sternly. 'Your little Willy Wagtail is therefore a fantail, not a wagtail. Rhipidura Leucophrys, to be exact.' 'Oh, Rick!' Jonty was trying not to laugh, because she had no desire to risk offending him. 'I only meant'—she pointed out feebly—'what does it look like?' 'Good gracious me, Jonty!' His eyes behind the thick lenses opened wide with astonishment. 'You mean to say you've been here all this

time and you haven't seen a Willy Wagtail yet? It's about our commonest bird!' He shook his head disbelievingly. 'You must have done,' he repeated now. 'The little bird you see on the fence posts and in the paddocks, and very often hopping along the backs of the cattle and horses themselves?' 'There's one there!' shrieked Jonty delightedly, pointing to a tiny bird that was hopping cheerfully along the rump of one of the grazing stock-horses right now. It had the prettiest lime-yellow feathers, a pure white breast, and jet- black head, with a bright orange crescent around an inquisitively bright eye. 'What a darling, pretty little thing!' she exclaimed awesomely. 'That?' Rick had had to Walk nearer in order to be certain. 'That'—he told her, as he returned to her side—'is not a Willy Wagtail, Jonty. That's a honey-eater. White-naped. Melithreptus Lunatus.' 'Oh.' Silence for several moments, while she reassembled her ideas. 'But the Willie Wagtail looks a little bit like that?' she at last suggested, wistfully. 'No, not at all. Very plain indeed, compared with that one. Very dull colouring, compared with that brilliant contrast of yellow and black against the white shirt-front. The other is merely black and brown, with a little white underneath—nothing to rave about. Hey, Stan! Will you bring down some chaff, or shall I?' Jonty retraced her steps to the homestead slowly, feeling oddly deflated. For some odd reason, she wanted to cry—that is, if she had been the crying sort I Desmond, apparently sensing her mood, crept along dejectedly also, at her side.

A grey bird, or a little brown and black bird? There wasn't much difference, was there? Both were equally uninspiring, equally insignificant, equally dull. Well, why on earth should it matter? She asked herself that question irritably, trying to overcome the sense of anticlimax and depression which now assailed her. What had she hoped for? What could she have allowed herself to read into a chance remark by a man whose opinion of her couldn't possibly matter anyway? She knew she wasn't beautiful, didn't she, and she always had known it! Nothing had changed, nothing was different, and it simply didn't matter one jot, in any case. But, inside herself, Jonty knew that it did matter! Stumbling blindly back to the house, with Desmond slinking at her heels, she knew that it actually mattered very much indeed! She felt Unhappy, perplexed, almost physically winded, as if she had been dropped from a great height and had had all the breath knocked out of her. When she reached the side verandah, it was to find Rachel there, crying, and Jonty's thoughts were immediately and mercifully taken away from herself. Rachel was crying, as she did most things, gently, with a youthful dignity and lack of fuss. Big, hot tears rolled quietly down her cheeks as if unable to help themselves, but she made no noise. Even in weeping, she used self-control and restraint, as if loath to bother anyone or draw attention to herself unnecessarily. Beside her, Cilla was sitting in one of the canvas chairs, clucking in a harassed way over something. As Jonty drew near, she could see that the 'something" was a shirt.

'Rachel, whatever's wrong?' She hurried to put her arms about the girl comfortingly, and looked past her to her elder sister. 'What is it?' Cilla held up the shirt for Jonty's inspection. 'It's Stan's,' she said, rather unsympathetically. 'And look what she's gone and done—burnt a hole in the collar. I told her I would do his ironing, as I always do, but she went off behind my back and did it—and now look what's happened!' 'I wanted to surprise you.' Rachel's voice was muffled. 'Well, so you have,' retorted Cilla. 'And I dare say you'll have surprised Stan as well, since it happens to be his best shirt, I can't possibly fix it, Rachel. I mean, just look how bad it is. You must have had the iron absolutely boiling!' 'I didn't; Cilla, honestly. I'd already done the rest of the shirt, and it was all right for that. But I sort of pressed it down and held it there, because that part seemed thicker than the rest. And when I took the iron away, it—it -' The tears flowed anew. 'Well, you'll just have to tell him. I'm not going to.' 'Hush, Cilla! Here, let me see it.' Jonty took the shirt, and looked carefully at the scorched area. Although the burn was unsightly, it had only gone through one layer, and the underside of the collar itself was fortunately still intact. 'I don't think either of you will have to tell him,' she said soothingly. 'I believe I can take the collar off and patch it, and then put it on

again in reverse, so that the patch will be on the underside. Stan will never even notice, if I manage to do it neatly. You know what men are!' She smiled at them both confidently. 'Oh, Jonty, could you?' Rachel's young face was alight with hope. 'Do you really think you could do it so that he wouldn't notice? Or even just so that he could still wear it?' 'Of course I can. Now, don't cry any more, Rachel, and go and bathe your face. I won't do it now, because Stan and Rick will be up soon. I'll wait till tomorrow, when he's out, if you'd feel better that he doesn't know.' 'Jonty, thank you. You really are a pet! I don't know what we'd do without you, honestly.' Rachel gave her an impetuous hug and went off along the veranda, and Cilla gave a shrug and a half-smile as her sister disappeared. 'She would do it,' she told Jonty whimsically. 'Because it's Stan's, of course—or hadn't you noticed? Here, I'll put it in this table drawer, if you really think you can do something with it.' 'I'll try, anyway. How is the designing going?' 'I was in the middle of a textile one when I heard Rachel crying.' Cilla got up from the chair, tucked her shirt into the back of her shorts more neatly, and gave a slightly bitter smile. 'You'll note that Isobel never offers to take any of my designs and sketches with her when she goes to Sydney, only Rick's photos.' She sighed. 'I guess I really am her bete noir!' She disappeared into her bedroom, and Jonty, glancing at her watch, hurried off to start preparations for the dinner. Poor Rachel. Poor Cilla.

And poor me, she thought glumly. Quite why she was feeling so sorry for herself on this particular afternoon she could no! readily have said, except that it would certainly have been nicer to be one of those pretty little golden honey-eaters than a dull brown Willy Wagtail, which wasn't, after all, even much of an improvement upon being a small grey bird. Oh, well, she must cheer up! One couldn't be on top of the world all the time, but there was still no need to allow oneself to sink right down to the depths like this, was there? Nothing had changed. Everything at Dulloora was basically the same as it had been this morning, except for Rachel scorching Stan's shirt and getting in a stew about it—and Jonty was sure she could soon remedy that! Just to please Rachel, she would give Stan his favourite chokos in cheese sauce tonight. The crop was almost over, and when she went out to get them, she had to search the vines for quite a long time in order to find enough for the entire family. Nat McMorran himself crossed the yard as she was thus employed. They're almost over,' she told him, 'But I think I have enough. When do the passion-fruit come? I've been looking all the time since I got here, but I can't see a suspicion of any fruit' 'You'll look in vain, I'm afraid, Jonty. The vines don't bear, they are only for shade. We don't get enough rain here to make them fruit, or even enough humidity. They prefer more sub-tropical conditions than we can offer them.' 'Why plant them, then? Who put them in?' 'My mother did.' He looked down at her earnest face, raised a speculative eyebrow, and grinned. 'You're wondering why she did it, when she must have known perfectly well that they would never

fruit?' He chuckled briefly. 'She was an optimist, Jonty, just like you yourself. Like all those others, too, who save up their orange seeds and almond kernels, to grow little orange and almond trees in pots. They always expect them to fruit, too, no matter where it is in this world that they happen to be living. It must be something in a woman's make-up that makes her hope for the impossible.' Jonty stared into his teasing grey eyes. 'They just might though, mightn't they? There's always a chance?' There you are! Optimism again, pure, simple, and very illogical!' 'Well, the passion-fruit vines make a lovely shelter, at any rate,' she told him quite crossly, his obvious amusement arousing her to defiance. 'And you'll be always hunting through them, won't you, Jonty, in the belief that some day, some time, you'll find a tiny little passion-fruit miraculously nestling there I' he chided her gently in his deep voice, before cramming his hat back on his head at the rakish angle at which he always wore it, and striding off again, leaving Jonty there alone with her chokos. At dinner that evening she found herself more acutely aware of the man at the head of the table than ever before. It was as if some inner thread of compulsion pulled her eyes in his direction all the time. Tonight he wore a crisply clean blue shirt with his pale, narrowlegged trousers. His hair was dark and wet from the shower, his tanned cheeks freshly shaven, and the slicked- down hair, deep tan, and scarf knotted carelessly at his throat in place of a tie, made him appear darker, more devilish and piratic than ever. Like an oldworld smuggler, just back from a dip in the briny to unload illicit brandy, thought Jonty fancifully, dragging her eyes away again and dropping her gaze to her own plate.

'Chokos againl' queried Mark, and this time both Rachel and Jonty blushed. 'They're the last,' she told him quickly, 'So you won't be having them again for a long time.' 'Pity,' murmured Stan. 'As I told you Jonty, they're my very favourite vegetable.' This remark, coupled with Jonty's red face, sent Nat McMorran's mobile left brow shooting upwards as his eyes turned In her direction once more, with a glance that somehow spoke volumes to its recipient. She felt flustered and annoyed, and was completely unsettled for the rest of the meal. Surety he wouldn't think that she and Stan -? Heavens, it was laughable! How dare he even insinuate such a thing, when Stan was a good two years younger than she, in any case! Well, if it had done nothing else, it had at least attracted her uncle's attention away from Rachel, who was noticeably quiet and subdued this evening. After the washing-up was over, and Mark and Debbie ware in bed, Jonty found herself proposing something other than a bedtime story tonight, so that Rachel would not be able to go off into one of those nostalgic, and somehow sad, little excursions of the mind to which she was given. 'Let's play Ludo,' she suggested brightly. 'Or Snakes and Ladders?' put in Debbie. 'No, Ludo,' stated Mark firmly.

'But I want Snakes and Ladders—please,' wailed Debbie to Jonty, who appealed rather helplessly to Mark. 'Oh, all right,' he agreed gruffly. 'So long as we go up the snakes and down the ladders. I got sick of it the other way a long time ago.' 'We can have Ludo another time, Mark.' Rachel had pulled the little cane table over between the stretchers, and was already spreading out the board. 'Here, you can have first throw-' She passed him the dice and shaker. In spite of his initial protest, Mark enjoyed the game as much as Debbie in the end. Rachel was amused at the younger children's antics, and it was Jonty herself who had the most difficulty in concentrating, after all. Nat McMorran's dark, sardonic face seemed to hover between herself and the board all the time, his lips curling derisively, his eyes coolly amused. Jonty did not know what she'd have preferred in place of that open amusement, but it was a very unsatisfactory feeling to find oneself being laughed at, however kindly. Was that how he regarded her? As a mere source of entertainment? Tonight he had been especially guilty of making her feel like that, too. As if she could possibly have gone out of her way to cook Stan his chokos because she—Oh! 'I've won!' crowed Debbie. 'I'm home! And look at you, Jonty. You're coming last. What a pity we hadn't been playing the right way round, and then you wouldn't have had to go right down that big long ladder. You are almost back at the beginning again!' 'I don't think we'll have seconds and thirds tonight. Just winners.' Rachel leaned back and yawned. 'You don't mind not going on, Mark?'

'No, I don't mind.' Mark threw her the dice rather soberly. 'As a matter of fact, I'm thinking tonight.' Aren't we all? Jonty wanted to murmur, but she stopped herself in time. 'I'm thinking'—Mark continued, unaware that he had been in danger of interruption—'about what I'm going to give Rick for his birthday. It's next month, you know. It soon comes round.' 'Goodness, so it is!' exclaimed Rachel. 'And Cilla's is only two weeks after that.' 'I was thinking,' Mark continued in some preoccupation, 'that I might have given him Drummond. I bet nobody else will think of giving him a toad, so it'd be the only one he'd get. The trouble is, he's the only toad I've got, too. All those, tadpoles keep turning into frogs, and I haven't got a single other toad out of my whole breeding programme.' He gazed dismally at his listeners for a moment, and then brightened considerably. 'Of course, I might easily get one before Rick's birthday, and then I could give him Drummond.' 'Why not a new one, if you do get one?' asked Debbie. 'I mean, birthday presents are s'posed to be new, aren't they?' 'Well, it's because Drummond is older that I'd be giving him. 'Cos he'll have less time to live, see, won't he, than a new one?' 'That's the queerest reason I've ever heard for giving something away,' Rachel rebuked gently. 'Don't you think it sounds a bit—er— selfish, Mark?' 'Well, I like that, Rachie!' The little boy was highly indignant. 'He's my best toad! He's my favourite. My only!' His eyes were wounded, and there was no doubt his feelings* were somewhat ruffled, too. 'Anyway, I mightn't do it at all yet. I'll have to see if I get any more

in the meantime. If I don't, I don't know what I'll do. I mean, a frog would be a bit ordinary for Rick, wouldn't it? I hope I do get another toad, because if I don't, I might be stumped for something.' 'I've already got mine,' boasted Debbie. 'It's a notebook, and he can write things in it about his birds. It was ten cents actually. I got it in Morilla.' 'In Morilla?' Rachel looked at her young sister closely. 'Where did you get the money to buy it, Debbie? You went to Morilla from school. I mean, you don't take money to school, do you?' 'You do if you're going to run away, silly,' replied Debbie scathingly. 'You've got to plan it all, see. Of course I had money, you dope. I got it out of my piggy bank before I went off that morning. I even paid my bus fare to Morilla. A half single. I could only afford a single. Well, I really meant to come back again, of course, but I couldn't pay for another single back to school because I'd already bought Rick's notebook and I got ten cents' worth of assorted toffees as well, and anyway, I'd already missed the return bus by then.' 'I don't think -' Jonty began, remembering Uncle Nat's injunction that there were to be no recaps among the family upon Debbie's illegal exploits. 'Gee!' Mark broke in. 'You can't have any money left at all, with twenty cents gone and the bus money too.' 'But I have the notebook, haven't I? I've got my present all ready to give him, and you haven't. Ha! Ha!' 'But what about Cilla's?' 'Oh, I'll think of something,' Debbie assured her brother airily, and Jonty had no doubt at all that she would!

'I don't think,' she repeated weakly, 'that we'd better go on talking about it tonight. We can all put our heads together long before the time. If you put away the game, Rachel, I'll switch off the light. Goodnight, rascals.' ' 'Night, Jonty. Goodnight, Rachel. What are you giving him anyway?' . 'I'm making him a cravat, like Uncle Nat's, but don't say anything, will you? I'm doing it at school in sewing, so that he won't see. 'Night.' Jonty hugged them all, and went to her own room. Another month and it would be Rick's and Cilla's birthdays. How soon the time sped past! It was hard to believe that she had already been here at Dulloora for some months now. She was firmly entrenched, in the station's ways and the household's, and indeed had come to feel almost a part of the place, a part of the family. And soon there would be birthdays, thought Jonty drowsily, as she lay in the darkness thinking about it. Nice, family sort of things, birthdays. The giving of presents. A party celebration. She'd make a cake for each of them. Rachel would know the personal favourites, no doubt. Candles? Well, maybe, for although Rick and Cilla probably considered themselves too old for that sort of thing, such traditional trappings would certainly delight Debbie and Mark. She had a fair idea of what her own presents would be. Something related to their respective hobbies, although she couldn't run to anything very grand. She might manage to get into Suddenly Plains before then, to choose something personally, but if not, the mailman would do his best to oblige her. It wouldn't be the first time he had been asked to perform such a favour, judging by the odd assortment of items that were passed from himself to the waiting station-hands on mail days! He was a versatile shopper, to say the least!

Next morning the subject was temporarily shelved in the general rush of breakfast, cut lunches and school-hour farewells. From the kitchen window Jonty stood and watched, as she always did, for the moment when the ponies would emerge from the curtain of trees and cross the first paddock. At that stage Rachel was usually first, but by the time they had dipped into the first gully and reappeared for the second time, Mark's piebald was always in the lead, with Rachel next, and Debbie's little chestnut, Tinto, bringing up the rear. He must set that pony down that gully at a fearful pace, thought Jonty worriedly, to catch up and pass the others by such a margin! She always found herself tense and expectant of disaster as she waited, until she counted the three ponies on the skyline. She was standing stiffly at' the window, waiting to count them today, when Uncle Nat came in for his saddle-bag. 'What 'are you looking at there, Jonty? Is something wrong?' he asked quickly, coming to her side. 'Not looking at—looking for,' she corrected him meekly, slightly ashamed at her probable stupidity. 'I'm looking for Mark, to make sure he's still on the pony when he comes out of that first dip. He must go down at a really dangerous speed. I just like to see for myself that he's there when they reach the ridge.' He smiled, but in the nicest possible way. Not in that amused, sardonic fashion, but kindly, and his grey eyes were level and oddly penetrating as they surveyed her small, tensed figure and slightly anxious face. 'He'll be all right. It would take a bucking bronco itself to unseat Mark, and even that mightn't do it. He may not have much style, but he can cling like a bindi-eye, and has done ever since he was,small.'

A pause, then—'You really care about them, don't you, Jonty?' he observed thoughtfully, as if he found the discovery slightly surprising. 'I love them,' she said simply and honestly. 'I love them all. They are like the brothers and sisters I never had, I suppose.' 'Brothers and sisters!' He looked momentarily quite startled, and then the cynical, lopsided grin appeared. It was a self-ridiculing sort of grin, this time, though, not aimed at her at all, but directed rather to himself. 'I expect you're right about that, Jonty.' He ran a tanned hand over his chin consideringly, shook his head as if to clear away some mental cobwebs, and took his saddle-bag off the table. 'Well, I'd better be getting out. That sure makes me feel old, Jonty, but you're quite right, of course,' he murmured ruefully. 'Old?' She stared in consternation, then blushed heartily. 'Oh, but I didn't mean that, Mr. McMorran! Truly, I didn't! Good gracious, I never even thought such a thing, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn't -' 'Say it?' That quizzical eyebrow rose eloquently. 'But if you did, you'd be right, perfectly right. I'm pushing thirty, Jonty, and a man doesn't live as long as that, or in the way I've done, without cramming in a good many experiences. Whereas you—you're young—untouched—it's all ahead of you yet, the way it is for Rick and Cilla and Rachel and Debbie and that young scallywag Mark. Just the same, I hope they strike it lucky when the time comes, because they have had a pretty raw deal in many ways, and I want them to be blessed with all the things they want most in life. And that goes for you, too,' he added gently, as he went out of the door.

His words kept revolving in Jonty's mind as she sat on the veranda with her sewing-basket, unpicking the collar of Stan's shirt, and so did the look in his eyes when he had said them. Jonty had never seen quite that particular look in Nat McMorran's expressive grey eyes before. It had been quite indescribable. It had sort of wrapped itself around her—protectively, almost caressingly, and without doubt, disturbingly. She had felt her pulse quicken, and her senses begin to swirl in a quite unfamiliar, heady sort of way, so that she had been quite glad to sink into this canvas chair and perform the quiet task of repairwork that now occupied her. She looked up as Isobel stepped on to the veranda from her own room further along, and came towards her. 'Surely it's early in the day to be sitting down already, isn't it?' she suggested, but not unpleasantly. 'What's that you're doing there?' Jonty explained, holding up the offending shirt for Isobel's inspection. 'I'll have to do it while Stan is out for the day, or Rachel will feel bad. She was quite upset about it.' 'Poor Rachel, I'm sure she was only trying to be helpful. She's a good child.' Isobel's voice sharpened suddenly. 'What's that doing in your sewing-basket. Jonquil?' Her eyes were riveted upon the little pinchbeck etui which lay in the opened work-box. She picked it up, and turned it over slowly in her beautifully manicured fingers, her eyes repeating the question she had already asked. Jonty flushed at her tone.

'Mr. McMorran gave it to me,' she replied uncomfortably. 'Gave it to you?' Isobel queried suspiciously. 'Yes, Mils Roche. Surely you didn't think I would simply take it? He did give it to me, honestly.' Jonty was scarlet now, and on the defensive. "When did he do this?' asked the other woman carefully. 'Just the other day. I know I shouldn't have accepted it,' she demurred apologetically, 'but he insisted, and I didn't want to offend him by refusing. I was cleaning them at the time, you see, and he— he came past.' 'I see.' Isobel gave her a long, speculative look, and then shrugged suddenly. 'Oh, well, I shouldn't feel guilty about accepting it, my dear, if I were you. It doesn't mean a thing, really. It's only a trinket, after all,' she added carelessly, in much the same voice as he himself had said those very words. "Yes, Miss Roche.' Jonty met the other's eyes with humility. 'It's very pretty, and I admired it, although I'm afraid I shouldn't have. But that's what he said too, when he made me keep it—that it was only a trinket, anyway.' 'Quite,' agreed Isobel succinctly, with a faintly patronising smile, as she walked away again, leaving Jonty to her chore. But she had taken Jonty's heady, happy, pulse-quickening sensation away with her, it seemed. After she had gone, only a curious sense of bleakness remained.

CHAPTER NINE It must have been almost a week after that, when Jonty was lying restlessly in bed one night, trying without success to get to sleep, that she heard the faint creak of the gauze- door's hinge on the veranda on the opposite side of the yard from her own bedroom. She had not been sleeping well recently, because her thoughts simply would not stop churning around in her mind, whenever she lay down. Thoughts? Longings? Yearnings? Or just simple wishful thinking? Jonty could not identify the cause of her unhappiness and malaise. If she was, in fact, yearning for something, she had no very clear idea as to what it was. She only knew that there was some factor lacking in her existence, now, which had hitherto gone unnoticed. Her nocturnal ponderings, as her brain grappled with the problem and got nowhere, had begun to leave her wan and hollow-eyed. When she washed her face in the mornings she could not help noticing the shadows beneath her violet eyes, and the drawn pallor of her cheeks. Tonight was no better than the others. The cicada had stopped singing a long time ago, the entire household was quiet and at rest, and still sleep eluded Jonty. And then came the creaking of that hinge, and stealthy steps crossed the yard. Jonty slid out of bed as the steps were about to pass her window, and when she saw who it was she went hurriedly out on to her own small veranda. 'Cilla! What on earth are you doing at this hour?'

'Oh, darn!' The muttered oath gave way immediately to a pleading whisper. 'Do shut up, Jonty. You'll waken someone.'* 'What are you doing?' As she leaned over the rail and became accustomed to the darkness, her eyes widened as she took in the other's attire, for Cilla was wearing a checked cotton evening skirt, a wide, glittery belt that cinched her waist to a mere hand- span, and a gypsy blouse. Earrings gleamed fitfully in the dimness, and Jonty caught the glint of a broad gold choker at the girl's throat. 'Where are you going?' she asked uneasily, her heart beginning to thud uncomfortably. 'It's not your business, Jonty,' Cilla told her sullenly, dropping her head, and scuffing the ground with the toe of her black patent sandal. 'Oh, yes, it is!' returned Jonty firmly. 'You've woken me up, and that makes it my business.' She hopped over the veranda rail, barefooted, and confronted the girl who stood there so defiantly. 'If you don't tell me. Cilla, I'm going to waken your uncle, and you can tell him instead.' 'You wouldn't dare!' "You try me.' They glared at each other. It took Cilla a moment or two to be convinced, and then she shrugged nonchalantly. "Very well, then, I'll tell you. But if you tell anyone else or waken anyone, I'll never forgive you, Jonty. I mean that' Her voice shook slightly.

'Where?' To the wool-shed dance, over at Gubba.' 'Gubba? To meet that -? What was his name? Wyn Derrant?' 'That's my affair.' 'Mine too, now,' Jonty reminded her inexorably. "Well?' 'All right, so it's to meet Wyn Derrant What possible harm is there is that?' 'Cilla—darling—to do it this way——' Jonty's eyes were round with persuasion, her voice rough with anxiety. 'What other way is there?' "You—you could always ask. Do it openly, with permission?' 'Look, I tried that, didn't I, and where did it get me? Get out of my way, Jonty.' 'No, I won't. You've got to see reason. You can't just go gallivanting off alone in the middle of the night to some shearing-shed hop.' 'I won't be alone when I get there.' 'That almost makes it worse—sneaking out like this with the express intention of meeting someone.' 'Oh, tush!' Cilla's voice rose in desperation. 'How else can I do it, Jonty? You tell me! I'm young, can't you understand? I want to be in things, do just a few of the things that all the others my own age are doing. For all Isobel cares, I could stay here till I rot. Rot, d'you hear?' She was nearly crying. 'I only want a bit of fun, to see what

it's like, what everybody's wearing, what they're doing, what's the latest rave in dressing, and music and dancing and all the rest of it I just want to get the scene. What's so wrong with that? It's not a crime, is it? Look here, I'm not interested in Wyn Derrant in the way you think, but he'll get me in, won't he? I'll be one of them, just for a night. I'll go back to the drudgery and boredom, and I won't complain, honestly, not even about by designing career, ever again. Honestly. Just this time, and then I'll wait for Debbie and Mark to grow up, truly I will. Don't try to stop me, Jonty, please.' Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. The moonlight captured them, trembling on her long, curling lashes. 'Just one little memory? Is it asking so much?' 'How were you going to get there?' 'In the jeep. It's only seventeen miles. I'll push it the first little bit, and start it up away from the house.' 'You mean, I will push it,' Jonty corrected her firmly, having at last made up her mind. 'Your!' 'I'm coming with you, Cilla,' she stated flatly. 'Now, don't argue. I won't even come into the dance, if you don't want me to, but either I go with you, or I wake Uncle Nat. You haven't much choice, have you?' There was a lengthy pause, and then Cilla capitulated. 'All right then,' she assented sulkily. 'But hurry up. I'll have missed a bit of it as it is, by the time we get there.' 'Come into my room while I dress, will you?'

'Don't you trust me?' Cilla's white teeth glinted as she pushed back her long, dark hair and looked at Jonty. 'Not an inch! Go on, you go in first.' She followed the girl to her room, and once inside threw open the wardrobe door. 'What on earth shall I wear? Will a short dress do? I've nothing else.' 'Of course it will do, Jonty. Any length goes, these days, only do hurry.' Cilla crossed to the mirror and inspected her image critically. 'I've had this skirt since I was fourteen. Those bands lengthened it quite nicely, but it's frantically tight at the waist. That's why I've been dieting so hard This belt disguises the bulge, though, doesn't it?' Jonty's mouth fell open. 'Do you mean to tell me you've been planning this all along? It's not just a rather sudden and unwise impulse?' She was aghast. 'Does it make any difference?' Cilla asked, practically. 'I can't see that it does.' 'It's a—a moral issue,' Jonty retorted censoriously. 'Of course it makes a difference! It's premeditated!' 'Don't come, then.' Jonty gazed at Cilla helplessly. 'You know I have to come,' she groaned, pulling on the dress she had chosen and fumbling with the zipper. 'I've no more choice than you have about allowing me to.' When she was ready, the two of them stole out silently.

Jonty thought she had never in all her days felt more ill- at-ease, more guilt-stricken, than she did in those next few minutes as they tiptoed without speaking to the garage, where Cilla released the handbrake on the jeep and helped Jonty to push it out into the open. There, she climbed back into the driver's seat and instructed her selfappointed duenna what she was to do next. 'Just give her a good shove to get her going down the slope,' Cilla whispered. 'I'll wait for you at the bottom of the drive once I've got her started.' Jonty pushed for all she was worth, reflecting on the odd fact that jeeps, like ships, were apparently referred to in the feminine gender—or was that only Cilla? The fact upon which she did not dare to reflect, at that moment, was her own personal part in what, for Jonty, represented the most enormous and reprehensible deception of her entire life! She was panting hard as she hastened down the last few yards of the avenue and clambered unceremoniously into the waiting vehicle. The engine could hardly have been described as purring gently. It rumbled and coughed so loudly that Jonty gave a fearful glance behind her into the darkness, and said 'Hurry!' in an urgent voice. Good heavens! That she should be saying such a thing to Cilla, and in such circumstances! The whole world had suddenly turned topsyturvy, that it could possibly happen ! Nevertheless, it was happening. She cast another anxious glance behind her, and then expelled a pent-up sigh of relief as they chugged forward and left the Dulloora homestead far behind. Tonight Jonty was thankful to note that there was a cover over the vehicle, but she could not pretend that she enjoyed that journey over

to Gubba. Her conscience was tormenting her to an excruciating degree—and yet what else could she have done? What other decision could she possibly have made without forfeiting Cilla's confidence and affection, so hardly won over the past few months? Cilla, on the other hand, drove coolly and competently, and a good bit too fast. It was obvious that, unlike Jonty, she could scarcely wait to get to that dance in the Gubba woolshed. Her eyes were alight with anticipation, her young mouth soft and curving with eagerness at the thought of what lay in store. Even before they arrived, Jonty could hear the beat of amplified music drumming the air. The shed was bedecked with coloured lights, and from inside she could see a diffused red glow. Streamers draped the rafters, and paper chinese-lanterns hung from the wooden belt-conveyor that ran the length of the stands. 'No combs and cutters tonight! No expert or wool- classer or. piecepicker! No rouseabouts or shearers either, unless they're already in the crowd. Oh, Jonty, what fun! I'm so glad we camel' Cilla's voice trembled with excitement. 'Aren't you coming in?' 'I'll hang around,' replied Jonty cautiously, her nose wrinkling at the undisguisable odour of wool grease and tar, which mingled strangely with that of human beings, cold turkey, potato mayonnaise and other items which defied her sense of smell. 'Oh, there's Wyn! I'm off.' With a wave, Cilla had disappeared amid the crowd of young people who were gyrating and swaying to that deafening beat in the dim pink light ' Jonty caught brief glimpses of her after that, sometimes with the long-haired Wyn who had claimed her first, sometimes with other partners. Cilla danced with seeming tirelessness.

After a long time, Jonty found herself yawning and marvelling at the energy that drove the crowd on. The smoke and density of the atmosphere made her eyes smart, and her throat felt thick. A lot of dust seemed to have been raised, and no wonder, with the constant thumping of all those feet! She hovered on the fringe, sat for a while, walked around inspecting the layout—the pens with their slatted floors, the wool-press, the enormous weighing machine upon which the bales were checked, the brands and stencils hanging up on nails on the wall. She ate some cold turkey and a slice of ham, tried the Russian salad and a meringue or two, helped herself to fruit cup that had already lost most of its effervescence, and polished off a plate of surprisingly delicious fruit salad. Three-thirty found her pushing her way among the dancers in search of Cilla. 'I think we'd better be going now,' she said when she finally located her. 'Oh, no!' "Yes, Cilla, we'll have to. Otherwise we run the risk of being caught.' How like a hardened criminal she was talking now! 'All right then, Jonty.' Cilla reluctantly saw reason, much to her chaperone's relief. 'I'll meet you at the car in five minutes flat, so say your goodbyes right now, please, won't you, Cilla?' When Cilla came to the jeep and climbed in, she was humming dreamily. It was the same tune that the band were still playing inside the shed.

She slid behind the wheel, and then leaned over and kissed Jonty impulsively on the cheek. 'You're a sport, Jonty,' she told her warmly, 'and I'll never forget that you didn't tell. I'll keep my promise, too. I won't do it again. I won't ever even mention it. But it was marvellous, all the same.' She sighed happily as she let in the clutch and presently they were bouncing back along the road between Gubba and Dulloora. Jonty was quiet, partly because she was dead tired, partly because she was touched, if she had retained Cilla's affection and had at the same time prevented her from repeating such a headstrong action, she could not ask for more, she told herself contentedly. It had made her own part in the evening a litde more excusable. It had justified a difficult decision, had proved that it had been the right line to take, after all. Maybe, some time in the future, she could persuade Isobel to hold a young people's party for Rick and Cilla at Dulloora. After all, there was an even bigger shearing-shed there than the one at Gubba, and having had its potential as a dance-hall effectively demonstrated to her by tonight's transformation, Jonty warmed to the idea. All you'd need would be a few balloons and streamers and lights, lots of buffet-type food, and some music, and then you could leave them to get on with it. Not even a band, really. A record-player would do just as well. Rick could easily rig up some amplifiers from a pick-up. Why, you could even— 'What's the matter?' she asked sharply, aware that they had stopped. 'We're boiling, I'm afraid,' Cilla admitted worriedly. 'The fan-belt must have gone. What on earth -' She was, already jumping out, then put her head inside again.

'Have you got stockings on?' 'Yes.' 'Give me one then, will you? I've only got on tights. Sometimes a nylon stocking will get you home instead,' she explained, as Jonty dragged one off and handed it out the window to her. Cilla disappeared, and the bonnet went up, effectively blotting out what litde view Jonty had in the darkness. 'Ow! Oh, dear! Dash it!' Varied mutterings readied her ears, none of them very constructive from the sound of things. 'Haven't we a torch?' Jonty asked, leaning out of the window. 'No, unfortunately. That's the trouble. It's not the fan- belt, either, actually, but I'm afraid your stocking's gone,' Cilla was forced to admit regretfully. 'It touched the radiator in the dark, and it simply shrivelled up to nothing in my hand.' She came back to the driver's seat and scrambled in. "What are you doing now?' asked Jonty anxiously. 'Nothing.' 'Nothing?' "Well, not right at the moment. We'll have to wait until the radiator cools, and then I'll tip in water from the water- bag in the back seat there. There isn't any other for miles around.' 'And then?' Then we'll need to wait until it's light enough to see.'

'Oh, Cilla, no!' ' 'Fraid so. It may be the water-pump, but I can't see a thing in the dark. Don't worry, Jonty,' Cilla said calmly. 'I'm a fair mechanic, thanks to Rick, and there's a very good chance that I can fix whatever it is, once dawn breaks. We'll easily get home before anyone misses us,' she added comfortingly. But that was where Cilla was wrong. An interval had elapsed, after which the contents of the water-bag had been successfully transferred to the radiator, and Cilla had barely resumed her seat beside Jonty when powerful headlights seared the darkness, scouring the track as they approached. Even before he drew up and climbed out of the big Holden saloon, a clammy, fateful intuition had already told Jonty that it would be Nat McMorran. And it was! He unfolded himself swiftly from behind the wheel, slammed the door, and came over. 'Cilla?' 'Y-yes, Uncle Nat?' For the first time that evening Cilla's confidence appeared to have ebbed. 'What the devil do you think you're doing?' he shouted angrily. 'I went to shut up that dratted dog that was whining through the gauze and threatening to waken everyone on the veranda, and then I saw your bed was empty. What have you been up to?' And then his eyes discovered Jonty's own slight form, crouched in the passenger seat. *You I' The word was harsh with incredulity. He snapped on the torch he carried, played it over her face. 'Ah no, Jonty. Not you too.'

The way he added that, in a softer, disbelieving, disillusioned voice, almost wrenched Jonty's heart right out of her body. The light went around to the front of the vehicle. "You've broken down? Where's the trouble?' A series of terse, controlled questions, followed each time by trembling, falsetto replies. 'I've got spares with me. When I saw which vehicle was missing, I took that precaution.' He worked in utter silence, a silence that seemed to reach out and envelop Jonty like the coldness of a shroud. 'Now, Cilla, neutral, please, and start her up. That's it.' Jonty could hear him collecting his tools, putting them away in the boot of the Holden. 'Now, get going!' he snapped briefly. 'No. Wait.' He threw open Jonty's door. 'You come with me. Cilla, off you go. I'll be behind you in case there's more trouble.' The jeep jolted off with a celerity that demonstrated its driver's frightened and obedient state. In the saloon car, silence prevailed, save for the scrape of a match as it flared briefly to relight Nat McMorran's cigarette. In the eerie light from the dashboard his face was grey and inscrutable. "Where's your stocking?' Did those lynx eyes miss nothing, not even a detail such as that? 'Cilla burnt it on the radiator. She thought the fan-belt had broken.'

Silence again. For miles and miles, this time, it seemed. Jonty could feel her nerves tautening with each single one of those long miles. They were almost at snapping' point when the next question came. Not exactly a question, more like a sort of cool invitation. 'I would like to hear your explanation, please, if it doesn't seem an unduly inquisitive request.' Not just cool. Downright freezing. Jonty moistened her lips nervously. 'We went to the dance in the Gubba woolshed.' She knew, without even looking, the expression he'd be wearing, one eyebrow raised askance. 'So! You went to the dance in the Gubba woolshed. Just like that. You aided and abetted Cilla in a stupid, senseless escapade --' 'Not stupid and senseless, please. Can't you see what it means to her? Can't you see how she craves—needs—the companionship of others her own age? Can't you see, any of you, what it's doing to her, the stultifying existence she leads? I did it for her! She promised that, after this time, she'd never do anything like this again. It was an act of faith.' Jonty's voice was strangled, indignant. 'Can't you understand? Or perhaps you aren't given to credenda of that sort?' The man at the wheel sighed. 'You're trying to evade the issue, aren't you? You don't deny that you aided and abetted her?' 'I do. I do deny it.'

'Listen, Jonty, stop being provocative.' He was suddenly terse. 'Your very presence here speaks for itself. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't been in on the plan, would you? I just can't believe it,' he added, almost to himself and the bewilderment in his voice brought tears to her eyes. 'It wasn't like that,' she protested, willing him to understand. 'I heard her passing my window. I tried to persuade her not to do it.' 'And you weren't successful.' 'That's right.' She leaned forward to him eagerly. 'That's just exactly how it was! And when I saw that it was no good, that she was bent upon going, I decided that the only thing to do was to go too. To— to—to chaperone her.' 'It did not occur to you to come to me?' He had stopped the car now, and was half turned towards her, watching her closely with a strange expression. Jonty's tongue ran over her lips again. She dropped her eyes because she could not bear the way he was looking. Bleak? Ravaged? However you described it, it was a look that wounded her to the core. 'I'd have lost Cilla's trust, wouldn't I?' she pointed out helplessly, knowing that anything she chose to say would make little difference. 'I've managed to get on to quite affectionate terms with her this last while, to win her confidence. If I hadn't come with her tonight, I'd have lost everything I've worked for and now value. I'd have lost her confidence, forfeited her trust.' 'Her trust! And what about my trust?' Jonty was silent, as their eyes locked.

'Good God!' he suddenly burst out, despairingly, 'am I so unapproachable? So unreasonable? So—so divorced from your realms of thought that you couldn't have come to me, confided in me, allowed me to handle it for you? Does my trust mean nothing? No, I can see that it doesn't!' He turned away, passed a hand wearily over his eyes, and pressed the starter, putting the big car in motion once more. Jonty's throat was tight. 'She needed me,' she told him, and the words were barely decipherable because of that lump that wouldn't let her speak clearly. 'Cilla needs me, Mr. McMorran, and that's why her trust and confidence matter so much. She needs me, and you d-don't.' A muscle flickered in his cheek. She was aware of a tightening in his jaw and the tense control of his hands on the wheel, but he did not take his eyes off the road. He kept them fastened on the track. 'I see, Jonty.' The deep voice held a world of weariness and disillusion. 'Let's leave it, then, shall we? There's no point in going over it all again. I think I understand.' And it was then that some happened to Jonty—something totally unpredicted, earth-shaking, terrifying, soul- destroying. A tide of emotion swept over her such as she had never experienced before. It made her long to do the maddest things. To her horror, her shame, she found herself longing to do something that was too utterly impossible even to think about. She found herself wanting to take Nat McMorran's dark head between her hands, and smooth away the scowl on his brow. She wanted to erase those grim grooves in his lean, tanned cheeks with gentle fingers, soften that levelled mouth with kisses, murmur words that would let him know that his trust did matter, more than anything else ever could, that he mattered,

more than mere words or kisses or endearments could ever show him, that he mattered more to Jonty, right now, than any other person or any other thing in the whole wide world. She put her hand up to her mouth. Her fingers were shaking as they pressed themselves against her lips to stop the words tumbling out. She sat there, numb, dumbfounded, until the Holden ran into the garage and he came around to open her door. The jeep was already there, and Cilla had gone. No doubt she had decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and had removed her presence as quickly as possible. They walked in silence towards the house. As they crossed the yard, Theodore, who knew her footsteps even from under his horse-blanket, shrieked wilfully —'Look out, Jonty! He's lovely!'—but tonight it didn't make her laugh, it only made her want to cry. 'Goodnight.' With that one curt word, the man at her side walked on towards the main veranda, and Jonty's fumbling fingers found her own lightswitch. She kicked her shoes under the chair, pulled down the single nylon that remained, and flung it over the top, hung up her frock, put on her pyjamas and climbed into bed with the dazed, mechanical actions of a sleep-walker. Well, now she knew, didn't she? She knew what was the matter with her, the thing that had been eating away at her contentment and peace of mind these last few weeks. Never, in her wildest dreams— or nightmares?^—could she have imagined that it might be anything so awful as this!

What did you do, she wondered despairingly in the darkness, when you found yourself in love with a man who didn't return that particular feeling? Somebody else's man, in fact I Which made the situation even worse! Jonty shuddered. There was really only one thing you could do, wasn't there? There was only one course of action open to you, and that was to cut your losses and get out quickly. It was like the decision earlier tonight. It was a case of having no other choice. It took Jonty two full days to screw up her courage and go along to Nat McMorran's study to hand in her notice. She had been careful to choose a moment when Isobel would not be there. At the time that Jonty knocked firmly on the door, Cilla and Isobel were busy sorting out linen at the other end of the house. A deep voice told her to come in, and she turned the knob, opened the door, and entered. Jonty had never been in here before. It was a masculine place, utilitarian. There were maps on the walls, safes and filing cabinets, and a large desk with a tooled leather top which stood between herself and Nat McMorran. He got to his feet as he saw who it was, vacating a leather- padded swivel-type chair to do so. The whole of the tiny room was stamped with his presence, except for the two chintz-covered easy-chairs side by side by an open, and at present bare, fireplace. Those would be his and Isobel's chairs, the ones they sat in, to drink their coffee at night out of those pretty little tulip-shaped cups. 'Yes, Jonty? Sit down, if you like.' He pulled up a small cane stool. Not for, her that cosy chintz!

Jonty sat down obligingly, not because she did particularly like, but because her limbs were threatening to turn traitor and withdraw their support. She poised herself stiffly on the edge of the stool, knees together, hands clasped, as he took his own swivel-chair again on the other side of that expanse of olive leather and gilt tooling. "Well?' He smiled at her kindly, carefully impersonal. 'Is there something I can do for you?* When he smiled at all, even just tentatively, as he was doing now, Jonty felt a suffocating pang. It made her brave enough to state the reason for her presence in his study with more calmness and matterof-factness than she had dared to hope possible. 'I've come to speak to you about leaving Dulloora, Mr. McMorran.' Could that really be her voice, saying those fateful words? 'I would like to give notice in the proper manner, of course. Do you require a full month, or would two weeks be sufficient time in which to find a suitable replacement? I'm anxious to avoid any unnecessary inconvenience to the household, of course, so I shall abide by whatever you say. Perhaps you would discuss it with Miss Roche and let me know?' Jonty stood up quickly, mainly because she couldn't bear to sit there and watch the quick surprise in his expression give way to blank astonishment. For just a second he really did look as if he'd been pole-axed I she thought guiltily. Perhaps she had been unreasonably abrupt. Perhaps she should have sort of led up to it! Then the mask came down, and he, too, stood up. He seemed just to stand there, indecisively, as the clock on his desk ticked the minutes away. He wasn't looking at Jonty. He was looking down at the leather top of his desk, and she saw his brown fingers picking up a ruler that lay there and turning it over slowly, as if the figures on it interested him. Then he put it down again, and came around the desk to stand beside her.

'Tell me'—the clear grey eyes searched her face—'has your decision anything to do with what happened the other night? Because if so, if I seemed unnecessarily harsh -' Jonty didn't allow him to go on. 'Not at all,' she made herself say quite convincingly. 'You had every right to speak as you did.' She smiled apologetically, tried her best to sound careless. 'No, it's not anything like that, at all. I've been very happy here. It's just that- well, as I once said to you, if you remember, I'm like one of your small grey birds? Your "Dulloora"? I fly about a lot, you know, and never settle for very long anywhere. I just feel restless, if I'd like to spread my wings and fly away, all over again. It's been very pleasant, as I said, but you could put it this way'—she shrugged, oh so casually—'that this little bird thinks it's time to fly on. I must have—er— nomadic instincts I' 'I—see.' The eyes that regarded her were curiously bleak, possibly because country cook-companions were hard to come by, and Isobel would now have to return to the kitchen domain until they got someone else. Jonty watched that tiny, tell-tale muscle flicking near his jaw, and was almost as sorry for him as she was for herself. 'Well,' he told her gravely, with a fleeting smile that never reached his eyes at all, 'if that's how you feel, Jonty, there's nothing I can do but accept your notice, of course. I dare say, if you're as unsettled as you appear to be, that a fortnight would be preferable to a month, so we shall say two weeks from today, shall we?' 'Very well.' She hesitated. 'Will you tell the children, or shall I?' 'No. You may safely leave that to me. Is that all?' All? Good heavens! Wasn't that enough?

Jonty found herself mumbling something quite indeterminate and walking blindly to the door. The measure of her blindness was selfevident in that she couldn't seem to find the knob again because of the mistiness that had suddenly blurred her vision. Nat McMorran opened the door obligingly for her, however, and politely let her out of his study, and Jonty tottered down the hall, feeling wrung-out and overwrought after that harrowing experience.

CHAPTER TEN It was hard to believe, in the days that followed, that she had sealed her fate so irrevocably, that her time at Dulloora was nearly at an end. It was something—even if nothing more than a humble crumb that you accepted with gratitude!—to be within sight and sound of the man you loved. The prospect of the months and years that stretched ahead, without even a casual glimpse of that rangy, suntanned figure in the wide slouch hat, faded moleskins, and stockman's boots, was a daunting one indeed. Jonty had no idea how she was going to bear it, but bear it she must, and perhaps time would be kind to her and dim her memories so that their poignancy would lose the power to hurt. Jonty could almost have put her finger on the moment when their uncle told the children that she was intending to leave, although she had not heard him do so, and had no idea as to how he had gone about it. She could tell, by their puzzled glances, their subdued bewilderment, their almost accusing silence, that, whatever he bad told them, they could not possibly understand. They were full of quiet hurt and anxious foreboding. At breakfast one morning, Mark could contain himself no longer. 'Jonty, why do you have to go? Don't you like it here any more? Why do you -' 'Quiet, Mark!' Uncle Nat's voice silenced him instantly. 'I told you not to discuss it. You're too young to understand properly, but when one reaches Jonty's age, one is perfectly free to move about as one

wishes, and to go anywhere one wants. Now, get on with that chop, or you'll be late for school.' 'Yes, but why does she want to go?' The little boy turned a wounded gaze upon Jonty. 'Enough, Mark, do you hear?' "Yes, Uncle Nat.' With a resigned sigh, Mark resumed his meal, but he only toyed with his chop after that, pushing it around on the plate and halfheartedly scraping a small piece of meat off the bone, before he put it aside altogether. When he and Debbie left the kitchen later, with their lunch-bags over their shoulder and carrying their satchels, they kept close together, their heads drooping dejectedly, as though taking what comfort they could from each other's presence. Rachel followed, her slender young body erect and graceful, preferring to bear her misery and bewilderment alone. Jonty watched them through eyes that were bright with unspilt tears. She felt that, for them, her action amounted to little short of treachery. She was condemning them to a return to the old ways, wasn't she? To the isolation that could not be helped, because it was the isolation of youth against adulthood, and Isobel was unable somehow to bridge the gap effectually, however good her intentions. Cilla was making things hard—just as hard as the others, but in a different way. She went out of her way to be helpful, doing small, thoughtful things to save Jonty in numerous ways when she had never bothered before, as if perhaps, even now, there was a chance that Jonty might thus be coaxed to stay, after all. When Rick came for his saddle-bag, he paused in the doorway.

'I wondered if you'd like to see the brolgas before you go, Jonty?' He peered at her kindly. 'We could try it if you want to, because it will be your last chance, won't it?' Her last chance! What a forlorn truth that was! 'Yes, Rick, I'd love to.' She smiled a little mistily. 'Perhaps I'll .never be lucky enough to see them dance, though. Once m a lifetime, you said, didn't you—and I don't seem to be a very lucky person, I'm afraid,' she told him abjectly. 'There's always an outside chance,' Rick returned bracingly. He had remained his usual calm, uncomplicated, well- balanced self throughout these past few depressing days, and seemed aware of the need to keep Jonty's spirits up. 'We'll try tomorrow evening.' But of course they had no luck. The trumpeting call of a lone male bird floated over the plain, and when they got near enough to see him, there were no other Native Companions with him that evening. He stood by himself, alone in that vast expanse of country, stretched his long neck to give that insistent, quivering call, but tonight it went unanswered, and Jonty knew that she would never now see the brolgas dancing their quadrilles and minuets on the open scrub-dotted plains of the Great Outback. Not for her the breathtaking sight as they bowed and pranced, advanced and retreated, leapt gracefully aloft and parachuted gently to earth again, in a weird and miraculous spectacle such as Rick had once described. After several hours of waiting, it was obvious that their excursion tonight was going to prove fruitless, and finally even Rick had to acknowledge defeat. In silence they walked the long distance back to the jeep, and headed for home.

Home? Jonty pulled herself up short. She must stop thinking of Dulloora in that way, right here and now, or the parting when it came would only be harder. Gone now was that pleasant sense of permanence which she had acquired over these past happy months, to be replaced by the old gnawing anxiety as to what the future held in store. At the weekend, when Debbie and Mark and Rachel were at home all day from school, Jonty tried especially hard to make the two days into supremely joyful ones, but it was difficult to coax the children into any form of jollity. Even the little pink-iced cakes failed to raise a comment, and their smiles were strained and forced, their eyes wistful. It was her last weekend at Dulloora, and in spite of all her efforts, it had been a miserable failure! She waved with brittle gaiety as the children departed again on Monday morning, and by now she was almost looking forward to the moment of her own departure. She had not imagined that the interim could possibly be as painful and as demanding of her inner strength and resolution as it was in fact turning out to be. It was somewhere around mid-morning that Jonty noticed the three cream hide suitcases side by side on the veranda. They were expensive cases, with travel labels stuck on here and there, and by their side lay a crocodile-skin cosmetic-case and a folding umbrella in a tan silk cover. Obviously they belonged to Isobel. Perhaps she was going on another of her unpredictable excursions to the city, possibly even to interview a replacement for Jonty herself. Soon afterwards Isobel came along the path by the trellis of vines and knocked at Jonty's door. 'Are you there? May I come in?'

'Yes, of course.' Jonty opened the door, trying not to show her surprise at this unusual visit. 'Would you like to sit down, Miss Roche?' She drew forward the only chair in the room, but the older woman shook her head. * 'No, thank you, Jonquil. I shan't stay long. I've come to say goodbye, that's all. I'm going to Sydney this morning.' 'And you won't be back before I leave myself? It was nice of you to come over, in that case.' Isobel gave a cool, tight smile. She looked cool in every way, today—cool and smart and beautifully groomed, in a natural linenweave dress with white saddle-stitching on it. Jonty noticed that her shoes were of the same shade of crocodile-skin as the cosmetic case on the veranda. She was as composed as usual, except for the slightly uneasy manner in which she walked across the room, picked up Jonty's little hand-mirror to study her reflection critically for a moment, and then put it down again. 'Actually I won't be coming back at all,' she announced calmly, her eyes on Jonty as if to assess the other's reactions to these words. Jonty looked blank. 'Won't be coming back?' she repeated in stupefaction. 'No, Jonquil, not at all.' Isobel paused for a moment, and then continued in a businesslike manner. 'Mr. McMorran and I have decided to end our engagement, so there doesn't seem to be much point in my remaining here any longer.' 'I'm sorry.' Somehow Jonty recovered sufficiently from her surprise to say those words.

Poor Isobel! Whatever had gone wrong? Underneath that calm facade, she must be feeling hurt and sad, surely, and it must have been difficult for her, too, to come over to Jonty's own room to explain as she had done. One could admire her for that. "You needn't be sorry,' Isobel assured her, frowning slightly. 'The decision was by mutual consent. We're two different people now, it seems, from what we thought we were—or possibly the altered circumstances have made us so.' She sighed. 'Nat can't give me the things I crave most, you see. I'm only a small part of his life now, and I'm not prepared to share him with a parcel of children, for whom he's not willing to make other arrangements, and at the same time be expected to relinquish my own career. And I, it appears, can't give him the thing he wishes for, either. So the sensible and mature thing to do was obviously to call the whole thing off.' Jonty gazed at her in distress. However calmly and selfishly Isobel was able to regard this apparently logical ending, Jonty was quite certain that Nat McMorran would not be feeling like that at all! Why, he worshipped Isobel! One had only to see the way in which his loyalties were torn to realise the tremendous attraction she had for him. His love for her on the one hand, his sense of duty to her brother's family on the other, were the patent cause of that grimness, the brusqueness, the lines of worry and look of strain which had been so evident in him for some time now. He adored her, and there was no way out of this dilemma for him save abandoning the children, which was something he simply would not do. He must be feeling shattered, right now, however good a front he might manage to put on. Shattered and disillusioned and bereft. Jonty's heart began to ache at the very thought of what he must be going through. He had lost the thing most precious to him. He was paying a high price for his loyalty, indeed!

"Will my decision to leave make any difference to your own departure, Jonquil?' Isobel asked suddenly, giving her a curious look. 'Er—pardon?' Jonty came out of her daze, unable momentarily to find any sense in that question. 'I said'—Isobel paused with exaggerated patience, waiting to assure herself that she was really being attended to—'will the fact that I am going perhaps have Some effect upon your own plans?' 'No, none at all, Miss Roche. How could it?' 'I only meant that, if I were to go, then you might find yourself tempted to stay,' Isobel elaborated for her obligingly. Stay! Stay? And watch that poor man eating his heart out for this selfishly beautiful woman? Never! 'Never!' She said it aloud, emphatically, causing Isobel's eyebrows to lift in surprise at her vehemence. 'I mean, I could never do that,' Jonty went on more gently. 'I've made my own plans to leave Dulloora, and I shall go on with them as arranged.' 'I see.' Isobel gave her another of those oddly oblique looks. 'Well, in that case, the least I can do is to find someone to replace you as soon after I arrive as possible. Goodbye, Jonquil.' Jonty held out her hand. 'Goodbye, Miss Roche.' Isobel's fingers clasped Jonty's coolly for a brief moment of contact, and then she walked quickly from the room. Jonty could see her crossing the yard again shortly afterwards, a poised, attractive figure in the well-cut linen dress and shiny crocodile shoes.

Not long afterwards, Nat McMorran took the Holden .to the front veranda steps and put the cream hide suitcases in, one by one, and then the crocodile cosmetic case. Then he saw Isobel into the front passenger seat. Her neat golden head was just visible, side by side with his own dark one, as the big car slid silently forward and disappeared into the shade of-the avenue. After Isobel's departure the children, at least, brightened visibly. They dared to laugh out aloud, giggled at the table, and talked now and then with their mouths full, and on one occasion Mark used his knife to point accusingly at Debbie over some minor difference of opinion. Jonty viewed this deterioration somewhat guiltily. The big man at the head of the table appeared gravely silent and preoccupied. He seemed not to even notice the breaches of etiquette which were going on right under his nose. Doubtless he was having an inner struggle to overcome his sense of loss now that Isobel had gone, and was finding it difficult to come to terms with himself about it. 'No, Mark,' Jonty warned, and then shrugged hopelessly. What point could there possibly be in intervening, in involving herself once more, when there were only four more days to go? When the time came to say goodbye, Jonty discovered that it was Rick who had been deputed to drive her to Suddenly Plains to catch the train. He reversed the car up to the yard, and put her single shabby suitcase On to the back seat, while she went to find the family. Never would she forget those awful moments of farewell. Debbie kissed her tearfully and whispered, 'Wouldn't you just come back

sometimes to see Desmond? It was you and me that got him here, remember?' 'Perhaps some day, darling,' she lied weakly. "You could have Drummond, Jonty, if you like? In a jar, so you wouldn't even need to be frightened? I haven't got any more like him yet, but you can have him.' 'Oh, Mark!' She hugged the little boy to her, and then turned to Rachel, who simply kissed her silently, not attempting to say a word, but just staring with a brimming gaze that still held an element of hope and pleading. When Cilla's turn came, the girl hesitated, and then stepped forward. 'Jonty?' Her eyes were tortured with doubt. 'Are you certain it isn't because of what we did? Because of me?' Jonty's arms took Cilla to her almost despairingly. 'Cilla, you must never, never think such a thing, dear. I promise you, it has nothing whatever to do with that. You must put it right out of your mind, except to remember what a happy evening that was. Please, for my sake. It's just like your Uncle Nat said. One has the right to move on, you know, and the freedom to make up one's own mind. I— I'll write to you sometimes, and I'll let you know from time to time where I am.' She turned away, pale and stony-faced, and walked back to the car. Rick was already waiting at the wheel, and Nat McMorran was standing at the other side of the vehicle. He shook hands, put her into the seat and shut the door.

'Goodbye, Jonty.' He raised the broad-brimmed hat courteously, settled it back to its habitual angle, and then he turned and walked away. 'Goodbye, Jonty!' echoed Theodore raucously, and then it was all mercifully behind her. She found herself almost choking with emotion as the car slid down the avenue, and Rick tactfully kept his eyes on the road ahead. Somehow, as they drove away that day, Dulloora had never looked more beautiful. Even that straggling village of corrugated iron sheds and outbuildings had its appeal, because Jonty knew by now that it was typical of a big outback station, and that each and every one of those buildings had a particular use. They were there for a purpose, all making their own contribution to the running of Nat McMorran's homestead and the vast acres that surrounded it. The sun beat down in a blaze of white remorseless heat as they travelled, and when each gate came, the tail dust enveloped her as she got out, just as it had that day when she arrived with Uncle Nat. Her heart lurched at the mere thought of him, and her mind quickly shied away from such a painful topic. At the last gate, the one with the difficult catch, Jonty got out and struggled with it as before, and in the end Rick had to come and help her, just as he had done. It was the last straw for Jonty, somehow. A symbol of failure. She hadn't even mastered the catch on a country gate, so she couldn't really be a country person, could she? Things were as they were meant to be, and this was how it was all meant to end. She would never have fitted in at that great station homestead, not for very long.

After that she sagged defeatedly against the luxurious leather seat, and accepted the situation with a weariness that was nonetheless realistic. One had to be realistic. One had to face facts, even unpalatable ones. She sighed, almost unknowingly, and Rick broke the silence. 'A pity you're leaving us, Jonty. I hoped you'd be here for my birthday. Debbie told me I could expect a cake—with a full quota of candles, at that,' he added, with the gentle amusement that was typical of him. 'Yes, I know. I'm sorry, too, Rick.' 'Still, if that's the way, well—' he shrugged, 'I'm sure you know what you're doing, better than anyone else.' 'Yes, I hope so,' she agreed tonelessly. 'It will be funny, first without Isobel, and now you. We'll be right back to square one, won't we—just Uncle Nat and the five of us.' He, too, sighed. 'I can understand your angle, of course,' he went on to assure her kindly, taking in her pallor and curiously wooden expression. 'The atmosphere must have been difficult for you, especially when it was over you that they argued. I hope I'm luckier than Uncle Nat when my time comes. It's enough to put a bloke off falling in love at all, really. Pretty devilish for him, and embarrassing for you too.' Jonty's heart had missed several beats, and her breath seemed to catch in her throat in a strange little hiccup. She sat bolt upright and stared at him with widening eyes. 'What did you say, Rick?'

'I said, it must have been awkward for you, knowing that you were the reason for their final—er—' he grinned apologetically—'I was agoing to say "bust-up", but they were both a good bit more dignified than that! You know Uncle Nat!' 'I'm beginning to wonder if I do,' she told him huskily. 'Rick, please explain.' 'Explain?' It was his turn to look amazed. 'But don't you know? I assumed that you did.' 'I don't think I know anything, any more,' she confessed desperately. 'Tell me, Rick-—please.' 'I couldn't help hearing, really,' he deprecated. 'They weren't actually shouting, as I said, but their voices were raised, and I couldn't walk away at that juncture without causing embarrassment to them both.' 'Hurry, Rick,' her eyes begged him. 'Well, I don't know how it began, but I seemed to come in in the middle, so to speak. Isobel was saying to Uncle Nat that his feelings had changed, that he was a different person, that he felt differently towards her. And he didn't attempt to deny it. Maybe he had even told her it already, I just don't know. And then she accused him of being in love with you, and he didn't deny that, either. I must say, he was quite honest with her.' 'Oh, Rick! And then -?' Then she said something like "Well, it's easily seen that she's in love with you, too, and you can't pretend you don't know it." She was very angry, and so was he, but sort of quiet—you know Uncle Nat! And he just gave a bitter little laugh and said, very clearly and sort of gravely, so that I couldn't help overhearing every word, "My dear,

believe me, I will never have that sort of luck. She sees me as an ogre, and an ancient one, at that" And -' Oh, dear, dear Ogre! Turn the car around, please, Rick.' 'Around! You mean—back?' 'Back! Turn it around and take me back. Rick. Back to Dulloora, back to darling Uncle Nat, back to my precious, wonderful, ancient ogre! Hurry, Rick!' He had stopped the car. 'Have you taken leave of your senses, Jonty?' he asked anxiously, peering at her with short-sighted, Rick-like concern. 'I think I have, Rick. I must have!' she returned gaily, and then he gave a slowly spreading grin of understanding and swung the Holden around on the trade to face the other way. Rick opened the difficult gate again, and Jonty did the others. A! bunch of sulphur-crested cockatoos went spiralling up out of the trees at the last one—up and up, until they were just little cotton puffs against the blue. Rick let her out at the front steps. 'Where will he be, Rick? Where?' 'Try the office,' suggested Rick helpfully, before continuing on his way back to the garage. Jonty was already running through the hall.

She didn't even knock on the office door. She simply burst into the room, and then she stopped abruptly. Nat McMorran was seated on the other side of the desk, and his broad-brimmed felt hat was sitting on the flat, olive leather top. He didn't appear to be doing anything very much. He had the ruler in his hands, and he just seemed to be turning it to and fro and looking at the figures on it. When he raised his eyes and saw Jonty standing there, he stopped turning the ruler over, put it down, and got slowly to his feet. And then he simply stepped out from the desk, sideways, so that there was no desk now between himself and Jonty, and then he held out his arms, without saying anything at all. It was the darkening fire in the depths of his fine grey eyes that sent Jonty forward, almost without volition, into those outstretched arms, and then they came right around her and drew her dose against him. 'Jonty?' Just one half-questioning little murmur, right against her ear, before his lips brushed across her cheek and found her own ones. She felt the pressure of his mouth v against hers, and then he kissed her with a mixture of desperation, triumph, tenderness and savagery, until she was dizzy with a sense of rapture and passion. Finally she found herself dinging to him for support. 'Oh, Uncle Nat!' she breathed, when at last she could speak. 'Not uncle, Jonty. Never uncle.' He gave an odd, husky little chuckle, over the top of her head. 'Oh, Nat!' He was kissing her again, tenderly now, and then he put her from him gently, ran his fingers through his hair and groaned.

'How could you do it to me, Jonty?' he accused her in an oddly thick and indistinct voice. 'How could you torture me like that? How dare you leave me guessing, all this time? Sometimes thinking I was right, sometimes thinking I was wrong? And—hell!—I should know the way a woman's mind works better than to make a mistake like that!' like what?' 'Like that,' he muttered harshly. 'Letting you go like that Letting you walk right out of my life—or nearly—when I—when I—oh, hell!' He shook his head and pulled her roughly against him. 'Do you know what I was doing when you came in here just then?' he asked softly, his lips against her hair. 'I was sitting there, working out how I was going to track you down and get you back. She'll keep in touch, I said to myself. The kids have a hold on her that I haven't got, and she's bound to write to them before long. And when I find out where those letters are coming from, I'll go to wherever it is, and I'll woo her—tenderly and preciously, like she deserves, because she doesn't even know what it's all about, but I'll teach her, a step at a time, what being in love with her means to me, and I'll just have to keep hoping that some day, somehow, she's going to feel the same way. And then'—he tilted up her face, and gave a hint of that old, sardonic grin—'in the end I didn't have to do any of those things, did I, because the little bird came home to the nest all by herself.' 'Home.' Jonty's eyes were dreamy as she laid her head against his shirt, and then she stiffened, and drew away. 'What is it, darling?' 'It's you,' she stammered, accusing now. 'All those girlfriends you've had—oh, yes I I know, because Cilla told me you were the roue of

the family—and now me. How can I really believe all this when you—When you -' "When I what?' The grey eyes were level and unflinching, and his voice was patient, helpful, the one he sometimes used on Debbie. 'You called me—well, not quite, you didn't—but you said—' she took a breath—'I mean, I said on that picnic, if you remember, that I was like a small grey bird, and you said, "No, more like a Willy Wagtail."' "Well?" He grinned openly. 'Well,' Jonty told him huffily, 'I don't think that was a nice thing to say at all. You can't love me if you think I'm like a Willy Wagtail, can you?' His eyes were laughing down into hers. It was almost hopeless trying to resist, because he was too close, much too close. In fact, he was kissing her again, and Jonty was responding in spite of her resolution. She was ashamed of herself for being so weak, but it all centred around the inescapable fact that she had allowed herself to fall in love with a masterful and domineering man. 'Sweet pretty creature,' he muttered near her ear. 'My sweet pretty little creature. That's what the Willy Wagtail tells the world it is when it sings—not that we don't all know it already.' 'P -pardon?' "Didn't you know?' His mouth curved tenderly at the comers. 'I don't believe you! You're just making it up, to—to—to get out of something.'

'It tells the world it's a sweet pretty little creature, and that's just what it is. Go and ask Rick if you don't believe me.' He turned her around and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the door. 'Go on, my darling little disbeliever. I'll be waiting here for you. I've no intention of letting you run out on me again though, so don't try any tricks out there, will you?' Jonty went along the veranda. She could hear Rick banging at something in the garage. It turned out that it was one of the hub-caps on the Holden. He was slapping it into position with the flat of his hand, and it made a ringing noise against the wheel rim. When he saw her, he stood up and leaned against the wing of the car. 'Well, how did it go?' he asked sympathetically. 'Rick, what does a Willie Wagtail say when it sings?' He folded his arms and looked slightly surprised, but he answered her question, nevertheless. 'Well, there are two schools of thought on that,' he told her solemnly. 'Some say it says "sweet-pretty-creature".' 'And others?' She held her breath. 'Others say it puts a "little" in before the "creature". Sweet-prettylittle-creature. I've heard them doing it both ways.' He looked at her oddly, shook his head. 'Good heavens, Jonty, everybody knows that.' 'I didn't,' she confessed humbly. 'I can hardly believe it!' Rick was astounded. 'I mean, everyone knows that sweet-pretty-little-bird. It's probably the most friendly and best loved little bird in the whole of Australia. Why, it's held in the greatest affection by -'

But Jonty did not wait to hear more. She was on her way back to Nat. "Well?' His eyes were quizzical, his arms were opened invitingly, and Jonty flew right into them. He tipped her chin up and studied her face soberly. 'Do you trust me, Jonty? Enough to marry me?' 'Oh, Nat,' she whispered, and her eyes gave him the message even before he kissed her and got his answer for sure.