The Tender Winds of Spring (8 page)

‘I have been doing that, more or less, ever since Abel advised me to.’

‘Oh, Mr. Passant told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. So it was Mr. Passant, then, who found out about the possible mine?’

‘Yes, Gavin.’

‘I see,’ Gavin said again. ‘Dear Josie, I know you’re overwrought, and I don’t wish to worry you at such a time, but where and why does Abel Passant come into all this?’

‘He was here right in this house when I heard the news. It was he who told me. Then he was here when the children first arrived. Naturally he feels involved. Does that answer you, Gavin?’

‘I expect so, but it does seem odd for him to take quite so much interest.
Active
interest.’

‘No doubt he’s anxious to get rid of us, as it is his property, remember.’

‘He could tell you to go.’

‘I don’t think he would care to do that,’ said Jo.

‘Then how would finding out about a mine get rid of anyone?’ Gavin’s voice was sharp.

‘Well, it would establish the children’s financial independence and he wouldn’t feel a heel throwing us all out.’ It was the first time Jo had thought of it like that, but now it made sense.

‘Also benefit him—in another way?’

‘What other Way?’ Jo looked at Gavin in puzzlement. ‘Of course he couldn’t benefit, Gavin, he’s as unconnected with the children’ ... she pointed to where the trio still sat listlessly in the garden ... ‘as I am.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Gavin. But Jo could see he was not convinced.

‘As I told you over the telephone, dear,’ he resumed, ‘I want you now to take your time. Especially after this new discovery.’

‘New discovery?’

‘The piece of information Passant came up with.’

‘The mine?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what difference could it make?’

‘None, of course. Most certainly none. Really, dear, you’re a little touchy today.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought for a moment the new discovery, as you put it, had changed your mind from one to three,’ Jo said daringly.

‘Well,’ Gavin admitted, ‘it could. After all, I’m not a rich man.’

Jo looked at him with incredulity, but she wiped it off quickly.

‘I understand, Gavin. Oh, here comes Miss Trent now. She must have only gone up and down the mountain and not seen Abel. What a shame! I promised her tea. Will you stop?’

‘By all means,’ said Gavin eagerly, going out to the verandah with Jo.

Erica, neat even following a trip up the mountain which always dishevelled Jo, smiled and put her hand into Gavin’s extended one when Jo made the introductions.

While Jo put on the kettle for the tea, the pair remained on the verandah, talking in low voices. That would please Gavin, Jo knew, he liked low voices, quietness, neatness, composure. Even though Abel had not been in the camp and she had made the trip for nothing, Erica Trent was still quiet, neat and controlled. She seemed that kind of girl.

When Jo took out the tea on a tray and Gavin said: ‘I’ve been telling Erica briefly the unhappy position we’re in and she understands,’ Jo almost expected Erica to take control, suggest a solution. But Erica, it seemed, had other things on her mind.

‘I missed Abel and it’s imperative I see him,’ she sighed.

‘He could be back later, or he could remain down one of the valleys directing a clearing for a new planting,’ Jo proffered.

‘Which doesn’t help, and it’s quite important.’

‘Then please stay here. We have plenty of room.’

‘I’m sure Erica doesn’t want to be involved with your worries, Josie,’ came in Gavin at once, ‘since she has worries’ ... he looked enquiringly at Erica and Erica amended ‘concerns’ in place of ‘worries’ ... ‘of her own. Now I suggest instead that she comes back to town and that I book her into a hotel, then you can contact us when to come out.’ Us, noted Jo.

Erica seemed pleased about that, so it was arranged that when Abel Passant turned up again at Tender Winds Jo should let Erica or Gavin know.

‘I shall enjoy looking around your town,’ Erica said prettily to Gavin. ‘I must confess that although, like Abel, I’m “country”, I’m still at heart city-slanted. I mean’—another smile at Gavin—‘the country is in you, or not, and I’m afraid in my case it’s not.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Gavin hastened to assure her. ‘I feel exactly the same myself. I quite dislike the general disorder of the hinterland and beyond. Leaves, logs, mud.’ He gave a shrug of distaste. ‘Now Josie is a different type altogether. She has eaten of the apple of ruralism.’

‘Of the
banana
,’ broke in Jo with a laugh.

‘And likes to feel herself committed.’

‘I
am
committed,’ Jo said. She looked out on her steep little mountains in their shining green except where the plastic covered the great hands of bananas. The big blue blobs looked like giant cornflowers.

‘It’s very lovely,’ Erica admitted, ‘but—’

‘But you prefer pavements, lights, shops?’ Gavin smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘Then what’s stopping us?’ Gavin said it quite skittishly for Gavin, and putting down their teacups they bade Jo goodbye, Gavin with an affectionate kiss, then, Gavin bravely first in his car, Erica suitably behind in hers, they went down the track that wound out to the coastal town.

Abel Passant pulled up minutes afterwards, and he was not in a good mood.

‘I had to shove off the road into the bush’—the track was a strictly one-car track—‘to let two cars pass. Two, mark you. What is this? Broadway? The first looked like your Gavin.’

‘And the second,’ broke in Jo, ‘was your Erica.’

‘What?’ He looked at Jo in disbelief.

‘Erica Trent. Yes, that’s true. She came to see you. Even went up the flying fox after you.’

‘Oh, lor’!’

‘You say that about a girl as pretty as she is?’

‘Yes, Erica’s pretty enough, but—’

Before he could follow that up, Jo said: ‘I’m to ring her in town when you’re here. I asked her to stop at Tender Winds, but she’s not country-slanted.’

‘No,’ Abel said grimly, ‘only Passant-slanted.’

‘What?’ Now it was Jo letting out that disbelieving sound. ‘Why don’t you want her? A beautiful girl like that? I mean,’ she amended hastily, ‘I don’t want to be told, of course.’

‘You’d better be, though.’ He drew a breath. ‘Erica Trent has come after me. Doesn’t that suggest anything?’

‘Should it?’

‘What would you expect to be suggested if you followed a man from the middle of the west to the coast?’

‘A preference for the sea,’ said Jo promptly, ‘even’ she added frivolously, ‘ a liking for bananas.’

‘Don’t try to be smart,’ he advised. ‘Wouldn’t it also suggest an eye for me?’

‘Why should she have an eye, as you put it, for you?’

All at once, and quite unexpected, the new banana boss stepped forward towards Jo. He stepped so close to her that for the first time Jo noticed the intensity of his blue eyes. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ he asked.

There was a pause. With an effort... why should it be an effort? ... Jo broke the silence.

‘Erica Trent said—’ she began, and then found she could not think of anything else to say.

For the blue eyes were still near her, unwaveringly near her, looking down into her own eyes, asking as well as his question another—breathless—question.

Jo turned sharply away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Whether
you want to hear it or not you’re being told.’ Abel’s voice halted Jo’s withdrawal.

‘I’m not listening,’ she refused.

‘I am the victim of my father.’ Abel said it clearly, so clearly that Jo had to follow the words in spite of herself. ‘He wants me to marry Erica Trent.’

‘Good heavens!’ Jo could not stop that scornful outburst. ‘That sort of thing went out years ago, and, anyway, it’s the girl who’s coerced, not the man.’

‘I’m not being coerced, far from it. I’m not marrying Erica.’

‘Perhaps she feels the same about you.’

‘Having followed me here?’ he scorned.

‘To tell you so?’ Jo suggested.

‘Very unlikely. No, she came after me to corner me, Josephine.’

Jo smiled disbelievingly.

‘Why would your father want a marriage between you and Erica?’

‘Well, I scarcely think it would be to see me settled,’ Abel answered sourly, ‘that kind of paternal attention is always reserved for females. No, it appears that there’s been something between Erica’s father and mine.’

‘What kind of thing?’

‘Any trouble concerning my father is likely to centre on money.’

Jo was trapped in the room. Abel Passant stood between her and the door. She decided she might as well listen, because it appeared he had no intention of letting her leave until she had heard. Anyway, she was curious.

‘Does a westerner ever leave the west?’ she doubted.

‘This one did. I did. But then I was not born into the life, I only inherited it.’

Jo’s face plainly spoke her bewilderment How, she wondered, could he inherit when his father was still alive?

‘No, I did not inherit from my father. My father is still making a general nuisance of himself. From my uncle.’

‘And you didn’t care for your inheritance?’

‘No, you’re quite wrong there. I did. I like anything not enclosed in four walls and away from cities. Abel meaning Breath, remember. The breath of the open, I like to think. Oh, yes, I liked it. But I have to admit I like this part better. I expect you could say I’m not a flat-lands bloke but more the undulating type.’

‘More a banana boss?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t come here because of that. I simply sold out and left for anywhere to escape a net. A matrimonial net.’

‘Isn’t that a little dramatic?’

‘It wasn’t when my respected’ ... Abel laughed sourly ... ‘parent kept tightening that net.’

‘But why? Did he fancy you and Erica together?’

‘More likely he fancied yet another handy exit from yet another gambling debt.’

‘Owed to—?’

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘Erica’s father?’

‘Yes. The same type, incidentally, as Dad. A good fellow, too, I suppose, but—’ Abel spread his big hands.

‘Did the Trents live near you?’ Jo was recalling Erica’s ‘... like Abel, I’m “country”.’ She had smiled at Gavin.

‘Next property. Fate couldn’t have been more unkind to me, bringing those two old rogues together. Anyway, the last wager between them was my final straw. It appeared I was the only thing left my father had to speculate.’

‘You’re not serious?’ asked Jo.

‘Why am I here, then?’

‘But those sort of things just don’t happen.’

‘Well, this time that sort of thing just did.’

‘But Erica ... I can’t believe ... she looks so nice.’

‘Probably is nice, but probably is not averse, like all women, to a plain gold ring. Probably tired of living at home, anyhow.’

‘But a girl with looks like Erica’s would have no trouble getting a plain gold ring anywhere.’

‘I don’t know,’ Abel shrugged. ‘You’re not doing so well yourself.’

‘Gavin and I are engaged.’

‘But it’s still not a plain gold ring, is it?’

Jo ignored that. ‘The story is too ridiculous,’ she dismissed. ‘I refuse to believe that that nice girl would follow you up here for such a reason.’

‘Well, I can tell you this, she hasn’t come to converse about the weather. Use your common sense, Josephine, why otherwise would she appear suddenly like this?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Jo. ‘I also don’t know why you let it get to that stage. You said once that money is needed to buy people off. Why didn’t you do just that?’

‘Because I’d been doing it for too many years for my father, to no avail.’ Abel looked at Jo rather closely. ‘You really do listen to me, don’t you? Do you remember what else I said?’

‘No.’

‘I think you would, though. I said one needs more for extra mouths.’

‘But you haven’t any.’

‘Put it this way,’ he drawled, ‘I believe I had a prescience, even then, that I
might
have need. So instead of extricating my father by money, I escaped, came up the coast and bought in here.’

‘And now they’ve found you.’

‘Clever girl, you’re catching on. Erica has followed me. Behind Erica will be her father.’

‘And you will escape again?’

‘Never.’

‘Because you can see it would only be a matter of time and they’d follow you again?’

‘No, Josephine, because I’ve eaten of the banana,’ Abel said steadily. He was looking straight at Jo.

‘Musa sapientum.’
For some reason Jo could not meet his eyes. ‘Thank you for telling me, anyhow. It doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous now.’

A moment went past in silence. Abel Passant broke it. ‘We’ll leave all that now, because I have something to put to you.’ He waited briefly. ‘Josephine, I’m going to take action. You won’t agree, but I still feel strongly it should be done.’

‘Yes?’

‘Like most westerners I flew my own plane. As a matter of fact it’s here right now in the plateau hangar. I am going to take you and the kids up.’

‘Oh, no!’ gasped Jo.

‘You see? I said you wouldn’t agree.’

‘How could I?’ Jo was staring at him with wide, unbelieving, horrified eyes. ‘I just don’t know how you could even think of such a thing, let alone propose it!’

‘You’re saying this now, and I’m not going to fight you.

But I want you to think it over, give it a lot of thought, then I believe you will agree it makes good sense.’

‘It’s—it’s unspeakable.’

‘It isn’t, though, it’s the oldest salve in the world—the hair of the dog. Oh, I’m sorry, I know that’s putting it crudely, but it’s
right,
Josephine, and you must do it.’

‘Go up with you in these mountains where Gee ... where she...’

‘I’m a good pilot,’ he assured her.

‘So was Mark.’

‘Yes, I believe so, and what happened to him could happen again, but it still has to be done. You must see that.’

‘No!’

‘This is the twentieth century,’ Abel insisted. ‘Getting towards the latter part of it. You can’t possibly restrict these modern children from something as natural to them as a billycart once was to me.’

‘I can and I will. The very thought of it’s repugnant. You’re repugnant!’

‘All right, Josephine, but still think about it. You have out there,’ he nodded to the garden, ‘a trio of misfits. Yes, you have. You’ve told me so yourself. This may be no help at all. It may be no more diverting or stimulating to them than a school picnic. But it has to be
tried.
’ A pause. ‘More important still,
you
have to be tried.’

‘Me? Oh, no, Mr. Passant, I’ll never go.’

‘You’ll let me take the kids up without you?’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Then you’ll come?’

‘No.’

‘Well, what then?’

‘Nothing. Nothing. You have no jurisdiction over the children. I’ll just refuse to let them go.’

‘Having jurisdiction yourself?’ he insinuated. He waited. ‘Or, given time, jurisdiction over one. How are you progressing with that one, Josephine? Have you and Gavin come to an agreement yet?’

‘I’m not being diverted, Mr. Passant. The children and I will not be going up with you.’

He did not argue about it. He simply shrugged.

‘Think about it, anyway,’ he said.

Without another word he left.

Jo did not think about it. To her the idea was utterly preposterous. These children had lost their father while he was doing what Abel Passant proposed to do now. How could the man not realise that nothing but harm and terror could come from what he had asked of her? Then, though she could not remember Abel including her specifically in the therapy, so called, only as someone, who, too, came along, what of a girl who had lost her sister, her twin? Perhaps he had meant it in all sincerity, but it was out of the question, it was not even to be considered. So Jo deliberately did not think about it, and would not have thought ... had it not been for the school report.

Then she had to think.

The school report was folded in Dicky’s pants pocket, school pants that Jo had taken from his bag to launder.

She had been caught with Dicky’s pockets before. She had washed one with a screw, a pencil stub and a box of matches in it, another with a dead frog. So now she was forewarned and searched first.

She withdrew the paper and saw that it was a term report to be handed to a parent. For a moment she was unable to see ‘Mallison School for Boys—Richard Grant.’ There was no father now to receive it. Then she steadied herself and read.

It was not private, so she had no qualms in scanning it. If there was something promising in the report, she would praise him. It could help. If there was nothing she would say nothing.

Richard Grant. Fifth Grade.

His English was indifferent, so were History, Geography and Social Studies. Then she saw quite outstanding marks for Mathematics and all the things that go with Mathematics. His teacher’s notes in the Remarks column beside the Maths subjects observed: ‘Richard has a distinct flair for the tangible, might even make an aero designer one day.’ ‘Not bad,’ said Jo proudly, ‘at his age.’

She folded up the report and put it in her own pocket.

At lunch she said outright—no longer did she use strategy with these children, it was useless: ‘I read your report, Dicky. It was in the pocket of your school pants. Do you mind?’

Dicky shrugged.

‘I was very impressed. Your marks for Maths and Maths Drawing and all that were extremely good.’

‘I bet the rest wasn’t any good,’ sniffed Amanda.

Dicky ignored both his sister and Jo, but his face went pink and he looked definitely pleased. Jo decided to go on. ‘Have you always been interested in subjects like that?’

‘I hate poetry and stuff,’ he muttered.

‘But you do like graphs, and engines, and mechanisms, and—’ A pause. ‘And planes?’

‘Yep.’

‘Been up in a plane, Dicky?’

‘No.’

‘None of us has been up.’ It was from Amanda.

‘Then—’ Jo had been about to ask them how they had travelled to school from wherever it was they had lived, for certainly mines weren’t found in the suburbs, that is if Abel had been right about a mine, when Amanda broke in.

‘Then why didn’t we come up here with them?’ she finished for Jo.

‘With Mark and Geraldine, you mean. No, I know that already, dear. They were coming from quite a different direction and it would have been a bit extravagant to go around and pick you up. I’m sure otherwise they’d have been glad to fit you in.’

‘But we didn’t want to go because they didn’t want us.’ It was Amanda now, and coldly.

‘Mark and Geraldine? Not they. Of course they wanted you, only... Well, one day you’ll understand. So’... before there could be any more post-mortems ... ‘you haven’t flown, then?’

‘No.’

‘Would you like to?’

No answer.

Reluctantly but inevitably Jo looked searchingly at the three faces. There was definite interest in Amanda’s and Sukey’s ...
but in Dicky’s there was longing.

Jo could not bear that longing. She got up and went to the door. ‘I thought I heard a car,’ she said, but it was untrue. She had heard no car, but she was hearing a crash. She was hearing it all again, all that had resounded that day. The deep reverberating thud that she had put down to one of the big mahoganies, and all the time ... all the time ...

Oh, no, she could not re-live that memory. She stood at the door much longer than she needed." She could not bring herself to turn round to look at Dicky. Then at last she did.

He was not there. He had left. The girls still sat on, but they said nothing. Jo said nothing more on the subject, either. Not then.

But it was on her mind, and she could not turn away from it. It was the first eagerness she had found in three un-eager children, for the shopping had only been a flash in a pan. The first interest in children she wanted desperately to be eager and interested, for without enthusiasm what hope did you have?

During the day she kept herself busy, but even then Abel’s proposal kept intruding in spite of herself. Dicky’s first-ever show of interest. Amanda’s and Sukey’s, too, in a lesser way.