Ella Page 9

  Mr. Canavan leaned forward. “That would be the Beaufort place. Right up your alley, you might say. The owner died six months back and the heirs would likely sell for the right price.”

  “The price couldn’t be righter than when they have a buyer. What price would they expect?”

  “The mortgage needs paying.” Mr. Canavan stood, walked to one of his shelves, and pulled out a packet of papers tied with a ribbon. “The discrepancy between that and the value would be in the vicinity of one to two hundred pounds. I’d say the owners would accept four hundred pounds with the stock, more or less.”

  Edward tapped his cheek. “I don’t need the place, not at this time. I will, however, think on it.”

  And think he did. He left the town wondering why Charlton had hidden himself on a steeply mortgaged property a minute fraction of the size of the land he would one day inherit. He wondered how long Charlton had been there. However, for the first time in three months, Edward not only knew where his grandson was, but he also had an excuse to visit the area regularly, having shown interest in the small parcel of land.

  Not many young men could leave a place like Farvista and be happy elsewhere. Had his grandson remained patient longer, Edward would have signed Farvista over to him, but during a long-running argument over one of Charlton’s many ideas, Charlton had said, “I don’t need your name to succeed,” by which he meant, “I don’t need you.”

  Hurt, of course, Edward had retaliated by saying, “In that case, you won’t need my money either.”

  Perhaps Charlton needed neither. But hasty-tempered Edward needed Charlton.

  Property owned alone was of no use to anyone.

  * * * *

  Ella sat opposite Cal during breakfast. Justifying her reaction after his expert lovemaking last night, she barely glanced at him. As a confirmed spinster, she couldn’t afford to take the episode seriously. She couldn’t marry; therefore, a momentary encounter might well be accepted as a favor for a favor.

  Although she could control her eyes, her insides thrummed with awareness. Beneath his clean but wrinkled shirt was a hard male body composed of the long, shifting muscles of his back, a rocklike abdomen, and tight buttocks. For one moment her gaze met his. His expression, as unreadable as ever, nonetheless caused an ache inside her, a yearning she couldn’t control.

  She breathed out, finding her toast suddenly too dry to swallow. Her first experience of his body had to be her last. Better she resist his attraction, for the man would leave in little more than a week and she would have no choice other than to forget him. She’d not been compromised, nor had he at this stage. Though he’d explored her body, she’d barely touched his. Better she didn’t even consider doing so.

  She cleared the breakfast table without knowing she had, without noticing that the men had left.

  “Did Jed kill and skin those two lambs yet?” Rose asked in the kitchen.

  Ella concentrated on her hands in the dish of hot water where she washed the thick white plates. She blinked, remembering that on the second Thursday of each month, Rose and Vianna took a trip to Noarlunga for supplies. “He put them in the trap and they’ve been sitting covered with wet burlap since before breakfast. Not five minutes ago, I saw him harness one of the chestnuts, and if you don’t mind, I asked him to tie the other one, too. You can get the hostler at the hotel to change them over before you come back. Both need exercise, and I won’t have time today.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. I’m only glad you’ll serve lunch for me. Are you sure you don’t want us to stay and help wash the breakfast plates?”

  “The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back. I’d rather wash plates than prepare the evening meal. I need to get the seed potatoes planted today, and that will be a long job.”

  “After the butcher buys the meat, I’ll be able to pay cash for the flour and sugar. That way I won’t need to get into a discussion about our overdue account at the grocery.”

  Ella shook her head, smiling. “You have the knack of twisting that poor, sweet grocer around your little finger. Any man, in fact.”

  Rose gave an unconcerned glance. “Not any man. Only those I don’t care about.” She checked the bread dough she had left for Ella to bake for lunch and went to fetch her hat and gloves.

  By the time she returned, Ella had almost finished washing the dishes. She’d been mulling over Rose’s last words, hearing the slightly bitter tone. “Have you met a man you care about?” She tried to sound diffident rather than curious.

  Rose shrugged. She wore a black straw pillbox hat tied with a wide black bow. A bunch of black and white feathers curled high at the back, and with her blond hair smartly arranged in a perfect knot, she looked truly elegant.

  “Did something happen to you in the city that you didn’t tell me about?”

  Rose paused and took a deep breath. “Nothing I want to discuss.” She smoothed on her black kid gloves.

  “Did you fall in love, Rose?”

  “Love! I met a fine, handsome young man who needed a wife with money. He made no bones about his poverty. While I was trying not to be too flattered by his proposal, Papa died. Then I realized I didn’t have the inheritance I thought. A woman with younger siblings and no money is of no use to an ambitious man.”

  “If that was his attitude, you’re better off without him.”

  Rose tightened her mouth. “Vianna,” she called. “Are you ready?”

  Vianna clattered into the kitchen. “I wish we didn’t have to take the meat with us. It stinks. Oh, and my shoes are growing tighter. I’m going to need a new pair soon.” She stared with significance at Ella.

  “I don’t know how we can make you stop growing. Stop feeding you, I suspect,” Ella said, escorting her sisters to the door.

  “That’s mean. I’m sure you buy new shoes when yours begin to pinch,” Vianna said over her shoulder as she ran to the trap waiting by the stables.

  Ella’s gaze met Rose’s. Rose nodded. “We’ll have to.”

  When the trap left, Ella dealt with the laundry but not as quickly as she would have liked, for she had a bundle of shirts from the shearers to pole out, too. Finally, with time to collect water for the next day’s laundry, she turned her gaze to the stable pump. Frowning, she hurried over to the stockman, who had dug a trench from the pump and along the side of the track, almost as far as the house. “Jed, whatever are you doing?”

  The stockman lifted his sweaty black face. “’elp Missy,” he said proudly. “Mr. Cal, ’e say trees need ribber so Missy don’t carry buckets no more.”

  “Ribber? River?”

  He indicated with his hands. “’ere.” Running his bare toe along the dry soil, he marked out a path, showing where a trail would veer to the orchard. The line branched off between each row. “’ere. Ebbrywhere.”

  “And if I just let the pump run long enough, this ditch will fill?”

  “Jed pump ebbry morning and no more Missy buckets.”

  “It’s brilliant, Jed. How clever you are. There’s quite a natural slope here. Did you think of this yourself?”

  He shook his head, still grinning. “Mr. Cal.”

  Ella debated going to thank Cal but decided she ought to keep away from him. Aside from that, if she interrupted him in the shed, the other men would stop to listen. Had he wanted a song and dance performed, he wouldn’t be Cal.

  She left Jed to his chore, knowing that if the idea worked, she would save many hours each week. This would make dipping possible for her and Jed, perhaps next Monday. She knew the regular spot Papa used in the billabong paddock.

  After inspecting the dipping trench, she noted that the wooden lining had lifted in places and the sloped run on either end had lost a few rungs. By the time she returned to the house, morning smoke-oh had ended. She put the bread on to bake, taking this quiet time to dust the house. When the delicious aroma of the cooked loaves filled the air, she put them on the table to cool. Then she co
llected the shirts and cloths from the line.

  Finally, she found time to brush her hair into as neat a knot as she could and set the cold meat and loaves on the table. She rang the dinner triangle. As the men arrived, she spooned relish into dishes and sliced tomatoes and onions. Her eyes wet and with a slight sniffle of self pity, she took these outside. She sat, blinking, with not another thing to do.

  The bread had been cut neatly and the meat sliced into the thinnest and most elegant portions she’d seen since Papa had been in his best mood. “Oh, my,” she said, clasping her hands in front. “To whom do I owe my thanks?”

  “Ned did the bread and Cal did the meat,” Alf said complacently. “Two proper ladies’ men they are, that’s for sure. Didn’t know we had such talent on the team.”

  “Stands to reason,” Benji said, his mouth disdainful. “Men who can shear have to be able to cut a fine line. Should we serve ourselves?”

  Ella nodded. The less formality, the less work for her, but not only that—the constraint eased. The men talked freely and entertainingly. While avoiding Cal’s gaze, Ella heard everything she did and didn’t want to know about sheep, shearing, packing, classing, and wool auctions.

  Cal maintained they needed their own auctions in the colony instead of having to send the wool to Victoria. He sat at the other end of the table, completely at ease. Unfortunately, every glance she took at him made her want him more. He filled an emptiness inside her she hadn’t known existed.

  In the early afternoon, the shoppers finally returned. Vianna brandished her new shoes with a pout of her mouth. “They fit but they’re sturdy enough to march to Noarlunga and back a hundred times without showing any sign of wear.”

  “I would have loved to have bought jeweled slippers for our princess,” Rose said with a droll glance. “But I didn’t have a choice. They only had boots in her size.” She folded the wrapping neatly. “I couldn’t pay cash for our groceries because the lambs were small, the butcher said, and by the pound he could only pay us four shillings for both. I used the account—again.” She shook her head. “I would have been too embarrassed to offer four shillings when we spent one pound, two and six.”

  “And those men who stopped in here the other day, the fat one and the thin one, they were in Noarlunga, too.” Vianna’s curls swung onto her face when she jerked off her bonnet. “They came over and petted the chestnuts. It’s funny how much they like horses, and it’s even stranger how much the horses don’t like them. Judy bit the thin one. I didn’t blame her. He still smells.”

  “You smell. He stinks,” Ella contradicted automatically.

  Vianna lifted up her nose and flounced out of the room.

  “I didn’t mean she stinks,” Ella said, staring in dismay at the empty doorway.

  “She’s cross because she wanted pretty shoes, not practical boots. I told her she could have what she wants when we live in the city.”

  As Ella put a portion of the new flour in a small sack for Jed, she wondered if they weren’t making too much of living in the city. She doubted their lives would change dramatically with a simple shift of abode. They would still have to scrimp, and they would still have to worry about money until she found a job.

  After she had finished ironing the men’s shirts, she inspected Jed’s ditch. She experimented by pumping the water until a flow filled the nearer section, and she then watched the stream travel about thirty feet before soaking into the earth. She wasn’t sure the idea would work, but she didn’t have time to fill the whole length.

  “Watering would be better with a hose,” Cal said from behind her. His dog nudged between them. “But you don’t have one. Failing that, a pipe would be good, too.”

  “We don’t have that either.”

  “We, er… I know of a house with bricked half-drains for the run-off after the rain. That would be your next best bet, but I think once the water has run along the trench a few times, and the mud has been baked dry in the sun, the stream will flow quite well.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” She moved to the other side of Cal to continue watching the water flow. “You usually are, blast it.”

  His dog moved between them again. He patted her without seeming to notice. Ella glanced Girl and noticed a smug, doggy grin.

  “Girl is quite a competitive female.” Ella stepped back to her original place beside Cal, and again the dog separated them.

  “She likes to have my attention. She has no one else.” Cal squinted at his dog, as if thinking. The meal’s triangle rang. He turned, then he stopped, catching Ella’s glance with a smoky stare. “As you can imagine, deaf working dogs are not in great demand. The stable master wanted to put her down. I wanted to see if I could train her. I proved my point, but I failed Girl. I should have remembered that a trainer’s job is to teach self-reliance to his pupil. Instead, I gave her dependence. I won’t make that same mistake again. Independence is too precious a thing to be ignored.”

  Ella stood, watching him stroll away. Independence was easily enough achieved for a male. For her, a woman, she needed money first.

  * * * *

  Ella woke just after dawn, yawned and stretched, rolled out of bed, and pattered barefooted to the kitchen. She filled her bedroom jug with heated water, which she took back to her bedroom.

  After tipping one cupful of water into her basin she soaped herself all over. Then, she stood in her basin on the floor. Her breath eased out with pure pleasure as she poured the rest of the water over her body, letting a waterfall flow from her shoulders to her toes. This shower of water in the morning always woke her and put her in a state of true contentment.

  After dressing in one of Mama’s old, faded, hand-me-down gowns, she lit the fire under the laundry copper. With Rose she prepared the day’s breakfast.

  The men arrived clean, neat, and not too talkative, except for Ned. “Sky’s gray,” he said, morosely. “If the rains come, we won’t be shearing, not if the wool’s wet.”

  “Predictin’ don’t do no good,” Alf answered. “We’ll just wait and see.”

  By the time breakfast finished, black clouds hovered over the hills. Ella put a small load of laundry in the copper. The boil began just as thunder rumbled. She poled out the steaming wash as fat droplets of rain hit the ground, skidding every which way in the dry dust. Before filling the clothesline, she waited for a pause in the downpour.

  The holding yard began to empty as the men pulled inside as many sheep as possible. Spotting yesterday’s shear sheltering in a white huddle near the woolshed, her skin prickled. She rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms while she waited for Jed to arrive with the next mob.

  More than uneasy, she sprinted inside for an umbrella. With her skirts gathered in one hand and the umbrella in the other, she raced through muddy puddles past the woolshed, past the curious sheep, and along the stirring billabong. She ran through the scrub to the river and along the riverbank to the Aborigines’ camp. She might have dashed through or past because she raced quite a distance and found nothing, no sign a camp had ever existed. Numbering at least twenty, the native men, women, and children had disappeared. She sped around in circles until, finally out of breath, she let the tip of her umbrella rest in the sand while she leaned over, gasping for air.

  The tumbling river reflected the heavy black sky. Eyes hot and chest leaden, she hauled the umbrella over her dripping head and clumped back to the homestead. After stamping most of the mud from her shoes outside the woolshed door, she finally entered, her smile watery. Only two of the yarded sheep remained unshorn. Tommy took one and Frank the other. The rest of the men, in various attitudes of relaxation, ankles crossed, hip shot, leaning against the wall or sitting on a rail, turned in a synchronized motion toward her.

  “Good morning,” she said, inelegantly wiping her wrist under her nose. “I see you’ve run out of work. For now, I can’t supply you with any more, but I’ll leave soon and round up the sheep for tomorrow.” She took a deep b
reath. “You all may as well go into town for the day.”

  “The sheep’d be too wet to shear anyhow.” Frank frowned. “Ned was right. He oughta be a weather forecaster. He’d make more money that way, a’cos he’s a mite slow as a shearer.” He grinned at the mustachioed lothario.

  The men didn’t move. She pushed strings of wet hair off her face. No doubt she looked like a crazy woman, holding an umbrella over her head indoors. Slowly, she lowered the shelter, watching droplets of water plop on the floor.

  Cal straightened. “Where’s Jed?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “They’ve gone walkabout. The camp has disappeared. Jed didn’t tell me he was going.”

  “Does he usually?”

  “I’m not usually the one who has to worry about this.” Slumped, she indicated the woolshed that already had upward of eighty bales of wool standing near the loading bay.

  “Right,” Cal stepped forward. “Since I won’t be shearing and since I don’t make money when I don’t shear, I’ll come with you to round up the sheep. That is, if you let me borrow one of your stock horses.”

  “Of course,” Ella answered, feeling the bones in her face disappear. She blinked hard. “You’d be very welcome.”

  “I don’t want to go into town.” Ned tightened his belt. “Nothin’ to do there. I’ll take one of them Clydesdales and go out with you as well.”

  “Me, too.” Frank grinned. “That’ll be a rare treat, riding one of them sofas.”

  Ella’s throat clogged with emotion. “I’ll just go and change.” Infused with new energy by these generous shearers, she turned and dashed off to the homestead.

  “Jed’s gone walkabout.” She passed Rose in the kitchen. “We’re going out to get the sheep, Cal and Ned and Frank and I. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

  The next time she raced past Rose, her sister held Papa’s hat and his oil slicker in her hands. “Be careful.” She looked serious. “I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

  The horses plodded through the drizzling rain to the first paddock. “The sheep from the farther reaches are here.” Cal edged his horse nearer to hers. “Jed brought them in yesterday. He put those we’ve shorn into the long paddock. You won’t have to go to the trouble of collecting them again before the dipping.”