Matilda's Last Waltz (2 page)

Mervyn had once dreamed of having a woman like Abigail for himself, but being only a station manager was not considered good enough. Money always went to money, and when Patrick O'Connor had come to him with his extraordinary offer, he'd jumped at the chance. How was he to know Mary was land rich but cash poor – and that Patrick's promises had been empty?

‘Sorry about Mary.'

Mervyn was startled from his dark thoughts. It was as if Ethan could read his mind.

‘Still, I reckon she suffered enough. Not good to have so much pain.' Ethan was staring off into the distance, his cheroot clenched between even, white teeth.

Mervyn grunted. Mary had taken a long time to die, but had never once complained or let that steely determination slip. He supposed he should have admired her but somehow her strength had merely weakened him. Her courage shattering his own feeble attempt to blot out the horrors of war and the pain in his leg. He'd felt cheated by the bargain he and Patrick had struck, trapped in a loveless marriage which denied him the respect he craved. No wonder he spent most of the time in Wallaby Flats.

‘How's Matilda taking it, Mervyn?'

Ethan's bright blue gaze rested on him for a moment then slid away, but Mervyn wondered if he'd caught a glimpse of disdain in that fleeting look or whether it was just his imagination. ‘She'll be right. Like her ma, that one.'

Ethan must have heard the acid note in his reply for he turned and looked at Mervyn more deliberately. ‘I don't reckon you came all this way-to talk about Mary and Matilda.'

That was typical of him. Never wasted time on trivialities when he could outmanoeuvre another man. Mervyn would have preferred to sit on the verandah for an hour or two, drinking beer as he watched the work go on around him and wait for his moment before broaching the reason for his visit. He drained his glass and dropped his foot from the railing. Might as well get it over and done with now Ethan had taken charge.

‘Things are a bit crook, mate. I don't feel the same about Churinga since I got back and I reckon, now Mary's gone, it's time to shoot through.'

Ethan chewed his cheroot, gaze drifting with the smoke. When he finally spoke, his tone was thoughtful. ‘The land's all you know, Mervyn. You're too old a dog to learn new tricks and Churinga's a nice little station after all the work Mary put in.'

There it was again. Praise for Mary. Didn't his years of labour count for anything? Mervyn clenched his fists and dug them into his lap. He needed another beer but his glass was empty and Ethan wasn't offering more.

‘Not compared to Kurrajong, it isn't. We need a new bore dug, the roof's falling in, termites are making a meal of the bunkhouse and the drought's killed off most of the lambs. The wool cheque won't barely cover the bills.'

Ethan stubbed out his cheroot, lifted his glass and drained it. ‘So what is it you want from me, Mervyn?'

Impatience welled in him. Ethan knew perfectly well what he wanted. Did he have to rub salt into the wound and make Mervyn grovel? ‘I want you to buy Churinga.' His tone was deliberately flat. No point in letting the other man know how desperate he was.

‘Ah.' Ethan smiled. It was a smirk of satisfaction, and knowing how Ethan had always looked down on him, Mervyn hated him for it.

‘Well?'

‘I'd have to think about it, of course. But perhaps we could come to an arrangement…'

Mervyn sat forward, eager to wind up negotiations. ‘You've always liked the land around Churinga, and with your property bordering mine, it would make you the biggest station in New South Wales.'

‘It would indeed.' Ethan raised one eyebrow, blue gaze steady beneath dark brows. ‘But haven't you forgotten one tiny detail?'

Mervyn swallowed. ‘What detail?' he asked nervously, avoiding Ethan's penetrating stare as he moistened his lips.

‘Matilda of course. Surely you hadn't forgotten your daughter's passion for Churinga?'

Relief drenched him and hastily he gathered his wits. It was all right, Ethan didn't know about the will after all. ‘Matilda's too young to meddle in men's business. She'll do as I say.'

Ethan stood and leaned against the ornamental railings. The sun was at his back, his expression inscrutable. ‘You're right, Mervyn. She is young, but she has a feel for the land that's as natural to her as breathing. I've seen her work, watched her ride as fast and as well as any jackaroo when she follows the mob at round-up. To lose that land would kill her spirit.'

Mervyn's patience snapped. He rose from his chair and towered over Ethan. ‘Look, mate, I've got a property you've been eyeing for years. I've also got debts. Whether Matilda loves the land is neither here nor there. I'm selling, and if you ain't buying there's others who'd be only too pleased to take it off my hands.'

‘How exactly do you plan to sell the land when it doesn't belong to you, Mervyn?'

The wind of Mervyn's temper blew itself out. He knew! The bastard had known all the time. ‘No one need find out,' he croaked. ‘We could do the deal now and I'll be gone. I ain't gonna tell no one.'

‘But I'll know, Mervyn.' Ethan's tone was arctic, his pause just long enough to make Mervyn itch to hit him. ‘Mary came to me several months ago, just after the doctor told her she didn't have much time. She was worried you might try and sell Churinga and leave Matilda with nothing. I advised her on how best to protect the girl's inheritance. She left that land in trust for Matilda. The bank has all the papers until she reaches twenty-five. So you see, Mervyn, there's no way you can sell it to pay off your gambling debts.'

Mervyn's gut rolled. He'd heard the rumours and hadn't wanted to believe them – until now.

‘The law says a wife's property belongs to her husband. Patrick promised it to me when I married her, and it's my right to sell it now. And anyway,' he blustered, ‘what was my missus doin' calling on you for advice?'

‘I was merely doing the neighbourly thing by lending her the services of my solicitor.' Ethan's face was stony as he picked up Mervyn's hat and held it out to him. ‘I might want Churinga but not enough to break my word to someone I respected. And I think you'll find that goes for most of the other squatters around here. G'day Mervyn.'

*   *   *

Ethan dug his hands into his pockets and leaned against the white verandah post as he watched Mervyn limp down the steps to his horse. The man's tug on the rein was vicious as he led it across the hard-baked dirt of the front approach to the cookhouse, and Ethan wondered if that temper had ever been loosed on Mary – or, God forbid, Matilda.

He glanced at the shearing shed before going back into the house. The season was almost over and the wool cheque would be welcome. Lack of rain meant expensive, bought-in feed, and if the sky was anything to go by, the drought would be with them for some time yet.

‘What did Merv Thomas want?'

Ethan eyed his twenty-year-old step-son and gave a humourless smile. ‘What do you think?'

Andrew's boots rang on the polished floor as they went into the study. ‘It's Matilda I feel sorry for. Fancy having to live with that mongrel.'

Andrew flopped into a leather chair and slung one leg over the arm. Ethan eyed him fondly. He might almost be twenty-one, but his strong, wiry figure and dark mop of auburn hair made him look younger. Although the boy had turned his back on the land, Ethan was as proud of him as if he'd been his own. Andrew's English education had been worth every penny. Now he was doing well at university and would afterwards take up a partnership in a prestigious law firm in Melbourne when he qualified.

‘I don't suppose there's much we can do, is there, Dad?'

‘Not our business, son.'

Andrew's blue eyes were thoughtful. ‘You didn't say that when Mary Thomas showed up here.'

Ethan swivelled his chair to face the window. Mervyn was heading down the track towards the first gate. It would take at least another day and night for him to reach Churinga. ‘That was different,' he muttered.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock Abigail had brought with her from Melbourne. Ethan's mind drifted as he stared out over his land. Yes, Mary had been different. Tough, indomitable little woman that she was, she'd had no armour against the terrible thing that had slowly eaten away at her insides. He could see her so clearly, it was as if she stood before him again.

Unlike Abigail's cool, fair beauty and striking height, Mary was small and angular with an abundance of red hair which she squashed beneath a disreputable felt hat. Freckles dusted her nose, and wide blue eyes and dark lashes stared back at him as she wrestled to still the black gelding dancing beneath her. She'd been furious, that first time they'd faced one another after her return to Churinga. The fences were down and her mob had got mixed in with his.

He smiled as he remembered the Irish temper of her. The way her eyes flashed and she tossed her head as she yelled into his face. It had taken the best part of a week to sort the mobs out and repair the fences, and by that time they had called an uneasy truce that hadn't quite become a friendship.

‘What's so funny, Dad?'

Andrew's voice dispelled the memories and Ethan dragged himself back to the present. ‘I don't think we need worry too much about Matilda. If she's anything like her mother, then it's Merv we should feel sorry for.'

‘You liked Mary, didn't you? How come you never…?'

‘She was another man's wife,' he snapped.

Andrew whistled. ‘Strewth! I did touch a nerve, didn't I?'

Ethan sighed as he remembered the time he'd had his chance and lost it. ‘If things had been different, then who's to say what might have been? If Mervyn hadn't come back so crippled from Gallipoli then…'

He let the unfinished sentence hang between them as the sights and sounds of war intruded into his mind. They still gave him nightmares, even after six years, but he was one of the lucky ones. Mervyn had finally been released from hospital almost two years after the war was over but was a different man from the one who'd eagerly caught the train in 1916. Gone was the lazy smile and careless charm and in their place was a shambling wreck who, after a long convalescence, found relief only in a bottle.

It was a poor substitute so far as his wife was concerned, Ethan thought. And I'm to blame, lord help me. He pulled his thoughts together. At least all the time Merv was bed-ridden she could keep an eye on her husband's drinking. But once he was up and back on a horse, he would disappear for weeks on end, leaving Mary to cope with the running of the station. She'd been tougher than he'd thought, and although his plans had come to nothing, Ethan couldn't help but respect her strength.

‘I admired her, yes. She did the best she could in a tough situation. Although she rarely asked for help, I tried to ease things the best I could for her.' He lit a cheroot and opened up the wool accounts book. There was work to be done and half the day had already been wasted.

Andrew unhooked his leg from the arm of the chair and sat forward. ‘If Merv runs up many more debts, Matilda won't have an inheritance. We could always make her an offer in a couple of years' time and get the land cheap.'

Ethan smiled around his cigar. ‘I plan on getting it free, son. No point in paying for something when you don't have to.'

Andrew cocked his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘How? Matilda's trust is hard won. She's not going to just give it away.'

Ethan tapped the side of his nose. ‘I've got plans, son. But patience is called for, and I don't want you shooting your mouth off.'

Andrew was about to speak when his father interrupted. ‘You leave it to me and I guarantee Churinga will be ours within the next five years.'

*   *   *

Matilda was restless. The silence in the house was heavy and she knew her father would soon return. He never disappeared for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and he'd been gone that long already.

The heat was intense, even inside, and the red dust she'd swept from the floor was beginning to settle again. Her ankle-length cotton dress clung to her as sweat rolled down her back. She unfastened the sacking apron and folded it over the back of a chair. The aroma of rabbit stew came from the oven and several flies buzzed around the ceiling. The fly papers she'd stuck to the kerosene lamp were black with bodies, despite the shutters and screen doors Mum had fixed a couple of years ago.

Dragging her hair from her sweaty face, she pinned it in an unruly coil on the top of her head. She hated her hair. There was too much of it and it wouldn't be tamed. And to add insult to injury, it was a pale imitation of her mother's Irish auburn.

Matilda pushed her way through the screen door and stood on the verandah. The heat was a furnace blast, bouncing off the impacted earth of the front yard fire break and shimmering on the horizon. The pepper trees in the home paddock drooped in it and the weeping willows by the creek looked exhausted, their fronds dipping uselessly towards the runnel of green sludge that still remained. ‘Rain,' she muttered. ‘We must have rain.'

The three steps leading down to the hitching post and front yard needed mending and she made a mental note to get it done. The house itself could have done with a bit of paint, and Dad's repair to the roof was already coming apart. But if she stood in the centre of the yard and half closed her eyes, she could see how Churinga would look if they had the money to do the repairs.

The lines of the house weren't grand, but the single-storey Queenslander was sturdily built on brick pilings, and sheltered on the south side by young pepper trees. The roof swooped down over the verandah which ran around three sides of the house and was finished off with ornate iron lattice work. A rugged stone chimney stood tall on the north wall, and the shutters and screens had been painted green.