Mail-order Bridegroom Part 34

She'i a great feminist. Always championing the rights- of women. She was the one who discovered I was musical, remember? She always asked me up tothe house to play for her. "

"Darling, take it I'll carry on the tradition," Marsh said suavely.

"I can just picture us. You with your lovely head bent to the keys. Me, relaxing in my favourite armchair, a single malt whisky in my right hand.

Peace. Harmony. I like anything you play."

"I thought you said it was torture listening to me practice," Roslyn accused him.

He glanced sideways, blue eyes sparkling.

"I lied. Secretly I was envious of your talent." Lined up with the all weather runway, he released the landing gear.

"This is a great day for us, Rosa. Be happy."

The late Lady Faulkner had been a splendid horsewoman and a champion show jumper in her youth and had continued Mac.u.mba's tradition of breeding and training high-quality polo ponies for the home and international market. It had proved a lucrative sideline to Mac.u.mba's beef trade. The breeding and training program continued under Joe Moore, head of Mac.u.mba's veterinarian laboratory. It was a venture Roslyn the horse lover had always been interested in, but Lady Faulkner had made sure she was barred from the stables complex except for the times Sir Charles himself had intervened on her behalf. It was Sir Charles who had once said she could sweet-talk any horse on the station, a gift she had inherited from her own hapless father.

Her fathers grave was in the station cemetery. She had looked down on it as they flew in. Her thoughts spiralled back to the day they had buried him.

It had been the worst of times, two days before Christmas. Her beautiful mother had been white to the lips, so overcome by grief she had to be led away. An image of herself arose, huddled against Marsh, a devastated young girl just home on holidays.

She had tried desperately not to break down. Her father had always calledher his "little cobber" and she. told herself she had to be brave for him. It was Marsh who had drawn her quite un selfconsciously into his arms, tellingher to let the tears come out. She might have been his little sister soclosely did they remain, she sobbing and sobbing, he stroking her long curlymop of hair tied with a black ribbon. Marsh had been there at every turn.Woven into the fabric of her life. Marsh had listened endlessly to herdreams and her rages. They shared the same sense of humour. They had beenthe greatest of friends.

Adolescence and the swift onset of s.e.xuality had changed all that.

One day she was an innocent child. The next, a budding woman barely able to cope with the intensity of her changed feelings. The Marsh she had looked on with great pride and pleasure, her dearest friend, her hero, was now the person she was terrified of being close to because of the tumultuous feelings that engulfed her. Marsh had often given her a fleeting kiss on the cheek, coming and going, or when she had been especially helpful around the place; now she wanted to turn up her mouth to him. To feel the delicious edges of his sculpted Ups.

She wanted his hands on her flowering body. He was totally, perfectly, acceptable to her. He could do what he liked.

Such a situation had only one consequence. He had. It was only when he turned away from her, she wanted vengeance. Even contemplating marriage she sdll wanted it at some subterranean level. It was a dilemma of the heart she would have to address. On the trip up to the homestead Roslyn looked around her with hungry eyes. There was no disrepair, no neglect on Mac.u.mba. The bungalows, sheds, the men's kitchen and canteen, the schoolhouse, the huge stables complex with its white-railed rings and horse paddocks were maintained in prime condition.

Silver-boled ghost gums grew in abundance as they approached the maincompound, the homestead set like a pearl in many acres of formal and informalgardens. A small stream, a tributary of Mac.u.mba Creek, which in flood becamea river, girdled the house, widening out to a lake in front and severalornamental pools as it wandered on its way. It was an enterprise begun byMarsh's great-grandmother. Charlotte, Surrey born and widely travelled. Theindomitable Charlotte, horrified by the vastness and 'utter savagery" of hernew environment had taken to conquering it with a pa.s.sion. She had workedtirelessly to create a wild garden. Any thoughts of a decent garden in asemi-desert environment was plainly out of the question. Yet she hadsucceeded so well her name had become legend. Over the years the gardens hadbecome more formalised with built-up terraces, archways, fountains, beautifulstatuary and an Indian summerhouse by the lake.

The effect was quite extraordinary coming as it did on the desert approaches.But nothing could surpa.s.s the sheer romance of the homestead for Roslyn.She had loved it as a child. She loved it still. Her blood always quickenedwhen she saw it. It rose out of the gra.s.sed terraces like a great white birdwith its wings outstretched.

There was the central colonnaded core, two long projecting wings. The stonepillars were perpetually wreathed in a white trumpet flower that blossomedprodigiously. It was only looking directly towards the portico that Roslynwas a.s.sailed by one of her visions.

The shade of Lady Faulkner. She stood just outside the front door with its lovely fan lights and side lights, tall and imperious in her riding clothes, swis.h.i.+ng that well-remembered riding crop.

Don't come in here, my girl, she warned. You are not and never will be good enough for my son.

Roslyn's slender body tensed as it had done so many times in the past. Whata powerful woman Lady Faulkner had been. Despising frailty in others butdriven by her own devils.

"What is it?" Marsh demanded, catching sight of her expression."I thought I saw your mother. She was standing right outside the door.""You and your imagination, Rosa," Marsh said in a neutral voice."There's no one and nothing to hurt you.""I never did feel comfortable walking into the homestead.""I thought you loved it?"She shook her head."I didn't say I didn't love it. It mightn't love me.""Nonsense!" Marsh drew the Jeep to a halt."Nothing is beyond you, Rosa. You're a million times stronger than you know." He turned to her, his blue eyes glazing with vitality. He lookedprofoundly pleased to be home. He swooped on her luggage and pulled it outonto the driveway and as he did so a middle-aged man in khaki trousers and amatching bush s.h.i.+rt came through the front door and hurried down the shortflight of stone steps.

"Don't you bother with those, Mr. Marsh. I'll take 'em."Roslyn swung around, extending her hand."Ernie! How good to see you.""Good to see you, Roslyn." Ernie Walker, part aboriginal, and a fixture around the homestead, gave Roslyn his white, infectious grin.

"The place ain't the same without you."

"I've brought you something." She met the liquid, dancing eyes.

"Don't tell me. The latest Slim Dusty?" Ernie named his favourite countryand western singer."Don't tell me you've got it?"Ernie shook his head."Woulda had it, though. Thanks a lot, Roslyn."Roslyn held up her hand."A present for all the kindnesses you poured out on me.""Saved your hide plenty of times and that's a fact!" Ernie agreed."You were one hair-raisin' kid."

They all looked back as Olivia Earnshaw, "Mrs. E." to just about everyone on the station, rushed through the front door, arms outstretched.

Roslyn immediately took off like a gazelle, so the two women fell into one another's arms at the top of the stairs. Roslyn rained kisses on her mother's cheeks, while the ready tears collected in Olivia's eyes.

"Darling, let me look at you!" Olivia peered beyond Roslyn to Marsh."I just knew you'd bring her back.""He's not a man to take no for an answer. You look wonderful, Mumma,"Roslyn said."You never age a minute."And it was almost true. Seen in the streaming sunlight, Olivia Earnshaw looked a decade younger than her fifty years and still beautiful. Her skin was unlined except for a few fine wrinkles around her sherry-coloured eyes.

Her thick black hair worn carelessly short was as glossy as her daughter's and only lightly dusted with silver.

Her body was as slim and erect as a girl's. Looking at mother and daughter, one was struck by me extraordinary resemblance, but whereas Roslyn's face hinted at banked- up pa.s.sions, Olivia's conveyed a certain natural docility.

Marsh looked from one to the other, his thick black lashes veiling his expression. Roslyn could be as obdurate as a Shetland pony but there was nothing she

wouldn't do for her mother. Liv was as enchanted with her daughter as ever. Both women were equally protective of the other. Both had suffered under his mother's hands. Though he had loved his mother andunderstood the demons that drove her, he had to accept she had done a lot ofdamage. It was for Roslyn to decide if she would allow the scars to heal.

They had a marvelous evening together with Marsh playing host. HarryWallace, resplendent in a cream safari suit with a silk cravat rakishly tiedat the throat, came up from his bungalow to join them, delighted to seeRoslyn and savouring Olivia's company for all she chose to misinterpret it.They had drinks and a platter of delicious canapes in the cool of the verandaand an hour or so later, dinner, which Olivia set up in the family room, alovely s.p.a.cious room half the size of the formal dining room, made all themore beautiful since Marsh had had the rear wall demolished and replaced withfloor-to-ceiling French doors and Palladian fanlights.

Tonight all the doors were open to the wide expanse of terrace and the breezedrifted in, totally seductive with the wonderful aromatic scents of exoticand native flowers.

"That was a marvelous meal, Liv!" Harry proclaimed, admiration in his hazel eyes.

"Cooking is an art form."

"So's landscaping. You're a genius, Harry."

"Am I ever!" Harry accepted Olivia's accolade as his due. He was a veryinteresting-looking, man in his late fifties, not handsome, but whipcordlean, his good English skin tanned to leather by the elements, rapidlythinning fair hair but a luxuriant moustache; a man women would always findattractive. His speaking voice was one of his greatest a.s.sets, cultured, resonant, full of a dry, tolerant humour. From his earliest days on Mac.u.mba he had been treated more as a family friend than an employee, even by Lady Faulkner.

Roslyn always thought it had a lot to do with his voice, so upper crust, and his easy, self-a.s.sured manner. Later on she suspected it was her mother as much as polo that kept Harry on the station.

"You know, Liv," he now confided, "it's always been an ambition of mine to open a restaurant in some fabulously beautiful place. North Queensland possibly. Glorious country. A cliff top overlooking the blue sea and the off-sh.o.r.e islands. I could build it and create a beautiful garden. You could supervise the cooking. Of course, you'd have to marry me."

"The things you say, Harry!" Olivia brushed the suggestion off as a joke.

"I think he's serious, Liv," Marsh said dryly.

Olivia only responded with a gurgle of laughter.

"He tells me something different each time he sees me."

"Marriage is always the bottom line, m'dear," Harry said gently.

"Sooner or later you'll take that in."

Roslyn glanced quickly at Marsh, vivid as a flame, and he winked, obviously used to these exchanges. Roslyn looked back at her mother.

Olivia's head was bent, her creamy cheeks flushed with the wine and sheer pleasure. She looked especially lovely tonight, Roslyn thought proudly. She could take her place anywhere. She was wearing the dress Roslyn had bought her, a simple wrap dress with little cap sleeves and a longer skirt, but the printed silk was beautiful; multicoloured sprigs of pansy like flowers on a white ground. It had been very expensive and it looked it. Mumma deserves the best, Roslyn thought fiercely. She had bombarded her mother with presents, but her main present was still tucked away for Christmas. Olivia wore her new Lancome makeup, too. Giggling like a couple of schoolgirls,Roslyn had made her mother sit still while she'd applied it. It broughtOlivia's lovely gentle features to full life. Even her expression had thedreamy tenderness of a film star.

What a waste! Roslyn thought for perhaps the umpteenth million time.My mother is a beautiful woman. She should have a full life. Perhaps it could still happen. If Roslyn married Marsh, her mother would be a.s.sured ofcomfort and security. She could travel, do anything she liked.They talked until nearing midnight when Marsh and Roslyn decided to take a stroll down to the lake. A huge, copper moon hung low in the sky and the white summerhouse took on a magical, romantic aspect.

"You know Harry's serious," Marsh said as they walked.

"He's been in love with Liv for years."

"Mumma doesn't think of him in that way," Roslyn answered, not without regret.

"We can't love to order."

"She's very fond of him just the same. She could be even fonder but she won't let him close."

"Surely Mac.u.mba's housekeeper, if not respectably married, has to live like a

nun?"

"You don't quit, do you?" Marsh said, with no bitterness in his voice but a question.

"I'm sorry." Roslyn took a deep breath, feeling remorse."We've had such a lovely night. Mumma is so happy.""But unfortunately for Harry her thoughts don't encompa.s.s remarriage.""Love is grief. Marsh," she said."Maybe Mumma, like me, yearned for the stars."

"What does that mean?" He glanced down at the dark head near his shoulder.

"Are you sure you don't know?"

She waited for his reaction and it wasn't long in coming.

"Let it lie." They had been walking arm in arm and she felt his musclesbunch.

"That's no answer. Marsh. Just something else to be swept under the carpet.Sir Charles was the fixed star in Mumma's firmament."

"As / recall, Liv was devastated by your father's death."

"I'm talking about after my father died. Mumma was so bereft and lonely.She wasn't exactly surrounded by a supportive family. She was virtually anorphan with an orphan's mentality. And there was your father. A man among men. You could hardly blame her. She made a decision and in a split secondlives changed. Your father became too important to us. We orbited around his star. But he couldn't give Mumma anything. He was a married man with a family. A deeply conventional man. A pillar of society. He'd made his commitment and I accept that as right and proper. I pay full reverence tothe sacrament of marriage. I'm only saying our lives were ruined. My mothersomehow sidestepped life, while mine has been overflowing with conflict andresentment."

"G.o.d knows that's true," Marsh agreed with bleak humour.

"We're none of us angels, Rosa. If Liv sometimes wept for the impossible,you might consider my father had his bad days, too. No one had to open mymother's eyes, either. She knew she had been found wanting quite early inher marriage."

Roslyn threw up her head, quite agitated by his words and their implication.

"What are you saying. Marsh?"

He shrugged, backing off.

"All families have secrets, Rosa.

Unhappiness can make people cruel. "

"But your mother was unkind to her own daughters!" Roslyn, a witness to

countless incidents, stated.

"Maybe she saw them as an extension of herself."

"How, in what way?"

Marsh let a moment pa.s.s.

"The knowledge that they were like her," he said.

"You thought my mother didn't love my father. You got that wrong. He

dominated her every waking moment. Theirs might have been as close to anarranged marriage as one can get, but my mother never could accept my fatherhadn't come to love her as she loved him.

There was no visible alienation, but she needed to take her unhappiness out on someone. And there was Liv. Liv and her beautiful little daughter.Right under her nose and in a position of deference. "

"It was cruel, Marsh.""Lord, yes!""There was no relations.h.i.+p, either!" Her voice trembled traitorously."My mother had a clear conscience. She has never done anything dishonourable in her life."

"I hope you're not suggesting my father might have made life difficult for