The mountain that went to the sea (2 page)

We-ll, was the familiar comment in the Shire, with a

million acres of pastoral run—loaded with all the minerals Aladdin might have envied —who's going to be anything but entertained by Ashenden politics?

'No, it's not my day for drinking,' Barton said briefly. He had nodded to Jason Bassett —a perfunctory greeting. Jason Bassett nodded back — politely. Jeckie glanced at him. She thought she caught a sparkle in his eyes. Come and gone.

Funny, she thought. Something's going on in this room and it's all to do with these four men. There's something cagey about the way they speak to one another, and nod to one another. Politeness for politeness' sake, and not for friendship.

'About your eating timetable, Jeckie,' Barton persisted, his eyes smiling at the girl. 'They were easy-going, prankish eyes. Dark, and friendly.

'The air hostess gave us a loaded tray on the plane just before we landed,' she said. couldn't possibly eat again now. But thank you, Barton — '

'I'll pick up that box of snacks while you gather your things,' he said. 'Just in case. We won't get to the homestead till after midnight. I saw your name on your case in the entrance as I came in.' His grin was still cheerful. I'll

pick it up as we go out. Right?'

Jeckie stirred herself and stood up. The three men appraised her again though the two mine men attempted to disguise this activity by burying their noses in the new round of drinks that had been slid over the cocktail bar.

Jason isn't cunning enough to be just peeking, Jeckie thought. He looked straight at me, and really smiled. I like him. He's rather a pet. I guess the other two are just bird-watchers.

Barton Ashenden went back through the palms, then emerged somewhere in the entrance to start asking for service from the girl somewhere in other regions of the asbestos and iron building.

Jeckie stood up, shaking off the last vestiges of darkness. She picked up her carry-all and walked towards the palms. Then she turned and smiled a goodbye. It was a lovely half-sad, half-glad smile, and lit her eyes so that they shone a startled shining blue.

Suddenly her feelings had gone into reverse. She felt —in an absurd kind of way — that she had been, here in this airfield inn, one of a company. All three of them — Jason and the two men from Westerly-Ann Mine — were really very gracious. Now she was leaving and going out into that vast outback world. Alone all over again. Alone —except for this distant cousin, Barton Ashenden. And she didn't really know him yet.

'Goodbye — ' she said, almost shyly.

'Goodbye, Pretty Girl!' the geologist called. 'We'll be seeing you!'

'I like that name— Jason,' Jeckie said as she climbed into the Land-Rover beside Barton. 'Names are different up here, aren't they? Barton, for instance. But that's a family name, isn't it?'

'That's it ! I'm commonly called Bart.'

'I like Bart.'

'Obliging of you,' he said with a grin. 'Forget that fellow Jason Bassett, Jeckie. He's not a friend to Mallibee. Andrew won't have a bar of him. So be a good girl and forget to mention you even met the blighter, will you?'

'Does Andrew officially approve everyone's list of friends at Mallibee Downs?' Jeckie asked, surprised.

Barton had started up the Land-Rover and it rolled forward.

'What Andrew says goes. If you want peace,' he advised. 'Now with me—well, I'm different!' His grin was almost engaging.

I wonder what that means? Jeckie asked herself, puzzled.

Daylight had faded. Within minutes it would be a blue-black night, the sky star-ridden. Jeckie knew all about the climate of this stretch of outback. Her mother had told her countless times.

Just now she was pondering over Barton's words: What Andrew says goes .. .

Her family always said — and various side issues and adjuncts of the family said — that every Andrew since the first one who had pioneered this lonely desolate country, had ruled the roost. And the family fortunes too. Seems they were all, one Andrew after another, men of iron will. But they'd done well with Mallibee Downs. They'd carved it out of wild spinifex plain and iron mesa mountains. And they'd made it pay. In fact, they'd made it pay so well that each and all of the descendants of the first Andrew had been loath to part with the portion left to them. In three generations this had caused trouble and tribulation. And bitter disagreement.

Scattered over the vast State were third and even fourth generation Ashendens who enjoyed a handsome dividend each year from Mallibee Downs. Yet the sons of the first Andrew had done all the work. And their sons after them. The three daughters had married out of the north into lesser farming families amid the green pastures and softer climate of the south west. Yet they, and their children, still reaped some of the handsome rewards of Mallibee Downs.

Hence the arrival of Jeckie— whose real name was Juliet — in the north west, en route for the ancestral acres of her mother's family. Behind hands, as it were, some members of the Ashenden family had been suggesting that the troubles between the relations would be solved if a marriage or two could take place. As between distant cousins for instance. Amalgamate the interests!

Jeckie and another cousin, Sheila Bowen, were the

objects of this subtle line of conjecture and thinking.

Marry the money, the name, and the acres together! What a wonderful idea!

But how to bring it off?

Jeckie, who had a mind of her own, knew very well what her parents and the far distant Great-Aunt Isobel up at Mallibee Downs were thinking — even daring to say. But she pretended not to know. Her opinion of those ideas was so scathing she didn't care to put it into words. That would have really blown the fuses!

Take a visit to the home of your pioneering forefathers, dear. Who knows? You just might fall in love with Andrew the Third. Preferably him, as he holds the greatest number of shares and is the eldest. Of course it's up to you, Jeckie, to see that he falls in love with you. Well, if not Andrew — then Barton. They didn't put it into actual words, but she could almost hear her mother and other relatives thinking aloud!

Moreover, she sensed the family thought it was important she moved in before her distant cousin, Sheila. Sheila too was due, on her mother's death, to inherit one of the outstanding shares in the company.

No! Nothing was ever put into words. But Jeckie sensed something of it was in the mind of Great-Aunt Isobel way up at Mallibee housekeeping for the brothers Andrew and Barton Ashenden. The thoughts were there —occasionally put into letters. Nebulous, faintly hopeful. Full of wishful thinking.

`Jeckie darling, why don't you take a holiday up to Mallibee Downs?' her mother, one aunt and an uncle said persuasively in various ways and at different times. 'It's a fabulous station. It would be rather nice to meet your distant relatives too. Of course they're so distant, blood-wise, that being relatives hardly matters. But you ought to take an interest, you know. After all, you will one day have a share ...'

Their powers of suggestion were there all right.

The dripping of water on stone . .. for Jeckie's heart had been formerly stone cold on the subject. She had been very much in love with a young naval officer temporarily stationed at the Naval Base. So she hadn't even listened, let alone taken notice when her parents, or an assortment

of aunts and cousins, had ladled out advice via the subtle technique of 'suggestion'.

Then later — just to put a charge in the blast-box — her naval officer, Edgerton Fyfe Brown, had been transferred. He wrote a sad, apologetic letter. His Commanding Officer had advised him to wait before hastily making marriage plans. Wait awhile, at any rate.

A career officer with just the right touch of ambition had of necessity to take notice of any advice proffered by such beings as Commanding Officers. That was, alas, a fact of life! Besides, he asked himself, had he, Edgerton, been quite fair to Jeckie? He was likely to be promoted shortly to the Diplomatic Branch of the Service. That meant Naval Attache to the Consular, even Ambassadorial Courts of Europe, Africa and Asia. Such a job made awful demands on a wife. The social life, and all that! Kotowing all over the place to all manner of people! Jeckie, he knew, was a country girl who loved horses, dogs, and other things that made country life habitable. His Commanding Officer had strongly advised consultation with Jeckie about these things. And above all — not to be

hasty. 'You must have time to think this over, my darling

Jeckie,' wrote Edgerton Fyfe Brown.

To Jeckie the message was all but a painting on a wall! Love was one thing, and a career was another. Sometimes never the twain did meet — happily.

Then — dreadful thought! She, Juliet Bennett, country girl was unsuitable? She could almost hear the thoughts of sundry career-minded people in the Diplomatic Branch of the Service.

Of course, they were right, she knew, and she would hate that kind of life. But all the same she was dreadfully hurt. She couldn't even bear to tell her parents after she in her turn had sent her own sad apologetic letter by return post.

'It's all over,' she said briefly. 'It was just a funmaking passing affair, wasn't it? Thank you for a lovely time!'

Jeckie's white face had spoken for itself but Mrs Bennett had taken a more practical view if her daughter's state of health,

`You're run down, darling. Why don't you take a holiday and go and make the acquaintance of your Ashenden cousins? They'd love to have you up there at Mallibee Downs. Aunt Isobel mentioned it again in her last Christmas letter . .

So all right, Jeckie would take a holiday! She needed one. She wasn't feeling up to scratch.

Anything to escape. Anything to run away. She wouldn't have time to think. She'd go up north and meet the related Ashendens, then everyone would be satisfied. They'd stop pressing her. She couldn't take any more pressing just now. Up there amongst the cattle barons and sheep kings, deep in a million-acre station, she would have other things to think about. She could weather out time. Besides, there were those huge mining ventures going on up there in the north. Copper, silver, platinum — even diamonds. But mostly iron ore. Her mother, who owned one of the few outside shares in Mallibee Downs, had been very angry about some of that mining going on on land that had once been part of Mallibee. One of the distant cousins had sold off part of the pastoral lease left to him by some daughter-descendant of old pioneering Andrew Ashenden. Dismay all round the family!

Well, it would all add another interest, Jeckie thought.

She was hurt and sad and tired, so she did not realize her thoughts were only brittle barriers, defined in brittle words, to cover up her wounded feelings. She had made a mistake. So what? She would bury it and start again.

Quite suddenly — because of her need — Jeckie's Ashenden relatives weren't hateful any more. Great-Aunt Isobel had written that they needed her — to help close the family ranks. Right now she needed them. Mallibee would be her refuge.

Now unexpectedly—sitting in a Land-Rover this late afternoon — Jeckie was heartsick again, and very, very tired. It

was something to do with being wrapped in all these part-

sad, part-aggressive thoughts. She must think about something else.

She curled up in her corner, put her bristles away, and wished she was very small and young again, so that she could have a little cry.

Barton Ashenden put his hand up roofwards and switched on the overhead light. He looked curiously at the girl who suddenly seemed so small, and who was so silent.

'You sick or something, Jeckie?' he asked. He sounded quite solicitous — which cheered Jeckie. Here was someone who seemed to care, even if it were only temporarily.

'Well, I wasn't sick on the plane. Do you think I could be having "delayed reaction"?'

'Could be,' he said judiciously. 'I've known strong men blanch when those bit-piece planes duck and dance up and down the air pressures once they're north of Twenty-six.'

'Well, it's nice of you to say so,' Jeckie said, sitting up again. 'Very chivalrous of you, Barton. I'm sure none of the nor'westers I've heard of would really blanch at anything. They're supposed to be strong and enduring. Neither cyclones, droughts nor floods can daunt them.'

'Don't be sarcastic, pet,' Barton admonished, stepping up his speed but still wearing his grin. 'Not around Andrew anyway. Incidentally — now you've come, and the news has got around, which of us do you intend to marry? Made up your mind yet?' His grin was more than just a little wicked.

Jeckie went still-all-over again. She felt outraged. First her mother and those distant relatives! Now this!

'I beg your pardon!' she said coldly.

'How dare I? Is that the next thing you're going to say? Listen, Cousin, what you ought to ask is, how did I know? About this cousin-marry-second-cousin thing. Well, I'll tell you anyway. Everyone knows in every nook and cranny of our contentious, far-flung family. It's this year's guessing game.' His voice changed to one of mimicry. 'Have you heard the latest? The Bennetts have packed "Juliet" off to meet the Mallibee mob. They're hoping something will come of it. Of course Great-Aunt Isobel has always thought the family name ought to marry the