`I'm sorry, but I wouldn't,' she said, and knew she sounded prim—which was, if she thought about it, laughable.
He put the ring down and came closer to her. 'What's Martin Webster been saying to you about me ?' he asked intently.
`Nothing,' she stammered, and felt her cheeks crimson.
`Nothing?' he repeated, and suddenly he had a hand on either side of her jaw and was tilting her face to his.
`Just that you're a—cynic,' she said indistinctly. She saw his pupils dilate and then her glance went as though compelled to his mouth.
`You knew that,' he said. 'I told you so myself. Did he advise you not to marry me?'
`I—I didn't tell him you'd asked me.'
His expression was mocking. 'You cheeped out your little story about being my housekeeper, I suppose,' he taunted.
`Something like that,' she agreed. With a violent movement she pulled. herself free of his hands and s
tood looking at him defiantly. B
ut I'm certainly not going to stay here and cook for your shearers if you're going to pester me. I'll—I'll leave. I'll take the plane out tomorrow.'
He smiled crookedly. 'I believe you're threatening me, Ellis. It won't work, you know. You can walk out any time it pleases you—now, if you like. I'll manage. The shearers will be fed if I have to cook for them myself—I'm quite capable of doing it, make no mistake. Everything will go without a hitch, so don't try to fool yourself I can't get along without you.'
Ellis bit her lip. He really didn't care if she went. He had the most detestable knack of knowing how to decimate her belief in her usefulness. He'd never been in the least impressed by her capabilities, he'd never given her one word of praise for anything she'd done.
She stammered angrily, `I'm not fooling myself. I'm quite sure you can get along without anybody, Steve Gascoyne ! '
He raised his dark eyebrows. 'We're talking about you in particular. In your specific role
as shearers' cook,' he added. B
ut I don't want to be rid of Ellis Lincoln. I'm beginning to like having a pretty girl around the place ... So right, as from now I'll treat you as you wish. You'll go on the wages sheet as shearers' cook.' Ellis stared at him blankly, hardly able to take in what he was saying.
`That's what you want, isn't it?' he said mockingly. Then with a brusque, 'Goodnight,' he let himself out of the room.
Ellis's knees felt suddenly weak. He had gone, and he had promised to leave her alone. She had won her point.
She stared vacantly at the spot where only a moment ago he had stood, and she could still feel the intensity of his green gaze. She had won—yet, curiously, she didn't feel she had won at all. In some puzzling way, she knew that he had won, and she suspected he was well aware of it.
Steve kept his promise. For the next few days he left her alone—in the sense she had meant it, that was. But that didn't mean that everything went smoothly between them. It didn't.
Despite her belief in her own dependability, she made mistakes. She was late with afternoon lunch the very first day and he came angrily over to the old homestead where she was hastily loading the hamper of sandwiches and the huge pot of tea into the car.
`How much longer are you going to take, for God's sake? I told you the breaks the men take are rigid. They have half an hour exactly, and they don't expect to wait around for half of that time and then have to gulp their tucker.'
`I'm sorry.' Ellis's face was flushed. `The—the clearing up after dinner took me longer than I expected—'
`Don't make excuses. The clearing up can wait, the men can't. Now get a move on. I'm paying you awarded wages, so keep on the ball, do you understand. Otherwise I'll sack you for incompetence.'
His words stung and Ellis didn't dare to glance at him. He could have no idea how it hurt her pride to be
taken to task like this. Somehow she hadn't expected it of him. She almost wished she'd gone on the plane today—back to Uncle Bill. She had a strange feeling that she had grown stronger while she'd been away—that if she went back to Melbourne now it wouldn't really break her heart to see Jan and Paul together.
She got into the car, and failed to start it, and heard Steve mutter an oath.
`Get over,' he grated, and she moved across the seat feeling a mixture of anger and fear. He got the car going with a jerk and a roar and neither of them spoke as he drove the couple of hundred yards to the shearing shed. Ellis felt a mass of nerves as she carried the hamper up the steps. The men were already sitting near the table around the big wool bins, and she murmured an apology and withdrew quickly. They had all been very polite to her at dinner time. She had given them plenty to eat—she had cooked too much, actually—but she thought they'd enjoyed their meal.
Now she stood in the dust at the foot of the steps and looked absentmindedly at the sheep—the woolly ones waiting to be shorn, the strangely white ones that had emerged from the tally pens—and thought about the men in the shed. They'd have been a whole lot friendlier and relaxed if she'd really looked like the cook, she was certain, or—or if she'd been Mrs Steve Gascoyne. As it was, they were uncertain of her. The wool classer, Mike, was the only one who'd said more than Good-day to her so far, and he'd asked where she was from—and then Steve had come along and he hadn't said anything more.
Over in the sunshine, Steve had the bonnet of the car up and was tinkering about with the engine, and Ellis stood uncertainly. She had an impulse to go back into the shed and watch the shearing. One of the dogs
came bounding down the steps and brushed past her in a friendly frolicsome way. This morning, she'd seen him lying cosily in the wool in one of the sorting bins, but he'd been very quickly called to order.
Suddenly she felt really tired. She still had a lot to do—and then there'd be dinner to prepare for herself and the two Gascoynes. How much easier it would have been with Leanne here to help !
Presently Steve slammed down the bonnet of the car and came towards her. 'It should be all right now,' he said briefly, and went into the shearing shed. Ellis waited another ten minutes before she went inside to deal with the debris from afternoon lunch.
`You're doing a good job, Ellis,' Charlie told her next day. 'Why don't you come in and watch the shearing? You're quite welcome, you know.'
`Some time,' Ellis said with a smile. `I'm in a bit of a rush right now—I have to get the dinner going.'
`It's a shame you have it all on your own,' he said apologetically. 'Leanne shouldn't have deserted. It's impossible to get a cook on this island—the women always turn to and do it, but it's hardly fair on you since you're a guest.'
She coloured and said with embarrassment, `I'm on the payroll, you know. I'm not working for nothing.'
At exactly that point Steve came up the steps. 'You'd better get back in the shed,' he told his brother curtly, and Charlie melted away instantly. 'My brother's on the payroll too,' he told Ellis equally curtly. 'We've got four shearers and they shear mighty fast. No one has time to stand about listening to women chatter.'
Ellis clenched her teeth and kept silent, though she longed to make some stinging retort. Stupid, she told herself. Now he was treating her as the boss would
treat the cook, why couldn't she be satisfied? What did she want from him? She stole a look at him and discovered he was rolling a cigarette and paying absolutely no attention to her. She might not have existed. He didn't think to ask her if she'd like to watch the shearing, she thought resentfully.
That day she made a delectable sauce to go with the roast chicken. The men polished it all off and she felt very pleased with herself. Steve had told her 'plain food,' but it just went to show they appreciated subtle seasonings. Gratified by her success, Ellis added date and walnut sandwiches to the cheese and sardine for afternoon lunch—and was chagrined later to discover they'd given her fancy stuff to their dogs. Worse still, Steve was there and fully aware of it. He told her, grabbing her by the arm harder than he had any right to do, `No fancy stuff, Ellis. You're not catering for a tea-party.'
She swallowed. 'I'm sorry.'
`Being sorry's no use. Just follow orders.'
Ellis didn't look at him. She'd thought of staying in the shed awhile to watch, but changed her mind. She'd had one reprimand and she didn't want another. He'd accuse her of wasting time—distracting the shearers. Anything.
The rest of the week passed reasonably smoothly—except that Ellis was beginning to feel she could sleep for a week, and she was sick of the very sight of food —and of the washing up bowl! On Friday she managed to spend a little time in the shed. Steve had taken the jeep out and when the men resumed work at three-thirty she stood near the big wool bins where she hoped she wouldn't be in the way, interested to see what went on. It was fascinating to watch one of the shearers open the little gate into the catching pen, seize a sheep be-
hind its front legs, then sit it on its hindquarters and drag it over to the shearing stand where the electric clippers hung. A few expert strokes, and the belly was trimmed, then with long sweeps the fleece was removed from each side of the body. After that it seemed no time at all till the sheep was being pushed through the trapdoor that led into the tally pen below. There was not a moment wasted, and wouldn't want to be—because a good shearer could shear a hundred and fifty sheep a day ! The dogs were enjoying themselves enormously, and when more sheep had to be let through to the catching pens, they would race over the sheep's backs and urge them to go where they were wanted.
Most intriguing of all, however, was to watch one of the hands pick up the newly shorn fleece and throw it on to the big classing table, where it came down all in one piece and looking absolutely enormous. There the dirty wool was removed, the fleece was classed, then rolled deftly into a bundle and tossed into one of the sorting bins.
Ellis watched for quite a while before she reluctantly moved away to take up her own tasks again.
Saturday the shearers didn't work, and it was bliss to have an easy day Ellis didn't even get up for breakfast—Steve had told her not to. 'You look really whacked, Ellis,' he'd said, though he hadn't sounded in the least sympathetic. 'Your weekends are free, you know.'
Ellis could have wept her relief, but shearers' cooks don't weep.
It was Charlie who called her down to lunch on Saturday. She'd slept till all hours—she hadn't the faintest interest in breakfast and no one had offered her even a cup of tea or coffee—then she'd taken a long
leisurely shower and washed her hair. She felt reasonably happy with her week's work, and yet at the same time she felt vaguely dissatisfied. Was it because Steve hadn't once said, 'You've done a good job'? He'd been so relentlessly hard on her all the week, as if she were no more than she had insisted she was—the cook.
She was dressed and her golden-brown hair was brushed out and shining when Charlie called at her door, 'Are you coming down, Ellis? Lunch is ready.'
Someone, she discovered, had prepared a delicious salad—built around avocado halves filled with a creamed crab mixture—the sort of thing you'd expect from a quality restaurant.
`It's crayfish, not crab,' Steve said when she commented on it. 'Local crays—and I bought the avocados the other day in Whitemark. You like it, do you?'
`It's fabulous,' she said after a second. It cost her an effort to admit it, because he must have prepared it, and it was a little deflating to find he really could cook.
She saw his mouth curve sardonically. 'Thanks for your generous praise.'
Ellis flushed and looked away from him. He and Charlie talked about shearing. One of the shearers was slow, and Steve remarked that he wouldn't employ him next year if he didn't smarten himself up. Ellis thought it unfair but didn't say so—she knew the men were paid according to the number of sheep they sheared.
`You're looking disapproving, Ellis,' said Steve. 'I'm not penalising the guy for being slow, but for doing a crook job in his determination to equal the others in numbers. He should satisfy himself with less money till he becomes more expert.'
Ellis felt crushed, but she wasn't going to apologise —after all, she hadn't said a word !
Presently Charlie remarked, 'I had a letter from
Leanne yesterday. She's planning a few days at Koolong.'
`I wish her joy of it,' said Steve, and a rather awkward silence fell. Ellis broke it by asking brightly, 'Are you going to North East River this weekend, Charlie? If you are, I'd like to go with you. I saw Martin Webster in town one day, and I promised to come if you were going.'
`Is that so?' Charlie sounded uneasy but not oversurprised—and Ellis knew Leanne must have told him she was the Websters' cousin. 'Well, I did think of going fishing tomorrow, so—'
`You'll have to go alone,' Steve cut in gratingly. 'Ellis is coming for a picnic to the beach with me.'
Ellis felt a curious sense of shock. This was the first she'd heard of a beach picnic—and she wasn't going. Yet though she opened her mouth to say so, she kept quiet after all. 'Not in front of Charlie,' she told herself uneasily. Then afterwards, when she went into the kitchen to help with the washing up, Steve said, 'Keep out, Ellis. This is your free day, remember.'