The Tender Winds of Spring (6 page)

I suppose it’s only a trust from Gee, as he said, Jo mused, but all the same I’m going through with it. I must. Gavin, Gavin darling, please help!

The next day it seemed at first that Gavin would help. He came out, as he had promised, and because Abel had left early, Jo put off any telling she had to do until Abel’s presence made it necessary. Anyway, she would have had little chance. Gavin was in a more masterful mood today and his arms round Jo were tighter than she ever remembered.

‘I have something to say to you, something I know will please you,’ he announced.

‘Please me?’

‘It pleases all women. Nature intended the woman to be the homemaker, the heart of family life.’

‘What do you mean, Gavin?’

‘That waiting time we decided on, Josie—’

‘You mean our engagement year?’ It had been Gavin’s decision, Jo recalled.

‘Yes. Well, now I want our marriage sooner, much sooner. Having you every day at the office, seeing you frequently as I did, didn’t give me any idea of how much I wanted you just to myself. Josie, I want to shorten the engagement. Indeed, as soon as all this business is over I want us to be married.’ He looked at her triumphantly and waited for her response.

‘Gavin, children aren’t just a business,’ Jo said, ‘they’re real. They’re meant.’

‘So is my decision that we get married at once. Your absence has upset me very much, dear. I really need you. I’ll let you get through this week; settle whatever has to be settled, and then—’ Gavin kissed her.

‘But there’s still the children,’ Jo said pitifully. She loved Gavin, and she did want to get married. At the back of her mind she heard:
I
know men, and of them I know only one who would be willing
—’

‘Darling Josie,’ said Gavin, breaking into her thoughts, ‘I want
you,
not a family of children. Look, dear, if they were yours, though it’s very unlikely that I would ever have looked at you with children, it would be different. But they’re not. They’re nothing to you. I love you, my dear, and I want to marry you, not three children I scarcely know.’

‘No, Gavin.’

It went on for an hour or more. At the end of the time, Gavin said: ‘All right, it’s unfair, it’s unreasonable, but the fact remains that I do love you. I’m prepared, then, Josie, to take over the responsibility of one child. We can always put it in a school.’

‘One?’ Jo did not think about the school part yet.

‘Josie, be fair. I’m a young man, an ambitious young man. I adore you. You couldn’t, indeed, no woman could ask for more than that.’

‘No, no, I suppose not.’

‘Then your answer, my love?’

‘I—I still don’t know.’

‘You don’t know which child, you mean? Well, it’s difficult, I agree. Offhand I would say the boy. Every man wants a son. But on the other hand girls are usually easier to manage, and also I was rather hoping that you would provide our son yourself. Which leaves us with the girls. Which girl? The smaller one, who obviously because of her tender years would be able to be brought up our way, or the older, quite a presentable child, indeed moderately pretty?’

‘Gavin, I—’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘Gavin, I have a headache.’ She hadn’t, but she could think of nothing else to say.

‘Then I’m going to give you the rest of the week to come to a decision,’ Gavin said magnanimously. ‘You must admit that at least I’ve been wonderfully fair with you.’

‘You have been wonderfully fair, Gavin.’

‘Then I’ll leave you to think it over. Think over the fact that I’m perfectly willing to accept one of these unfortunate children.’

‘If the welfare authorities permit.’

‘My dear,’ said Gavin shocked, ‘there would be no question about that. The only stipulation required of a person of my standing would be a wife, and though it’s not all exactly as we planned, it could turn out fairly satisfactory. So, my dear, I leave you to make your decision. That surely is proof of my deep love for you. Not only will I accept a child, I will leave it to you to choose which child. You must admit I’ve been most generous, Josie.’

‘You have, Gavin, oh, you have!’

‘Then I’ll go back to town and re-open the office. It can’t have helped me having it shut like this. Goodbye, my dear. I expect to see a different girl in a week’s time. And Josie, I must commend you for listening to my advice regarding that person, that Passant man. I was pleased not to see him here today. He may be a man of substance, a new plantation owner would have to be, but it could still raise brows in certain quarters.’

‘Yes,’ said Jo faintly, faint because at that very minute she could see Abel’s car hurtling down to Tender Winds from the highway. The car did not come to the house, though. Abel must have seen Gavin’s own car and shot off instead into one of the many tracks into the bush.

It was not until Gavin had gone that Abel’s car emerged again, and a few minutes later the new banana boss marched into the house.

He said studiously, evidently remembering yesterday’s correction: ‘Fiancé, not guest, departed?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t look happy. Can I take that to mean it was not a pleasant interlude, or can I take it that it was pleasant and now you’re sorry to have him gone?’

Suddenly Jo felt at the end of her tether. ‘You can take it as you like,’ she snapped.

‘At least give me a clue.’

She turned away, but he came after her and turned her round again, turned her quite demandingly.

‘What’s wrong, Josephine?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Nothing, of course. Gavin has been wonderful. Not many men would have—well—’

‘Yes?’

‘Accepted what Gavin has accepted.’

‘You’re not telling me he’ll take the kids!’

‘He’ll take—one.’

‘One?’

‘I said one.’ Jo’s voice had risen a note, a dangerous note.

‘I see.’ Abel Passant was silent a moment. ‘So your preoccupation now is because you’re wondering which one?’

‘Something of the sort.’ Jo fairly flung it at him. She hated him for putting it into bare words. ‘Mr. Passant’ ... with fury ... ‘Mr. Passant, what are you doing?’ The fury was because very obviously and very unmistakably Jo knew what Abel was doing.

For Abel had taken a coin from his pocket and deliberately he was looking at her to give the call.

‘Heads it’s the boy, tails a girl. If a girl comes up, we’ll have to toss again to see which one of them wins, won’t we? Or’ ... and the coin spun up ... ‘loses? It’s just a matter of how you look at it, isn’t it, Josephine? Heads Dicky, tails the girls. Winner ... or loser ... decide which for yourself.’

Jo did not hear him out. She dropped what she was doing and ran desperately outside. She raced down the hill to the creek.

There, exhausted, she leaned against a tree and whispered: ‘Gee, help me, help me.’ But there was no answer, not even that dream echo, as yesterday, of Gee’s laughter.

Gee is not amused, Jo thought dully, and neither am I. Poor Gavin meant well. He never deserved to be jeered at like that. Abel Passant is a pig, a pig!

At length she straightened her shoulders and went up to the house again.

‘He’s having dinner up at the camp again,’ Dicky supplied. ‘He said to tell you.’

‘Thank you, Dicky,’ nodded Jo, appreciative that at least this time he had remembered.

Dicky,
she weighed up as she moved around the kitchen, all men want a son, and it seemed that Dicky was the first breakthrough she had had, for of his own accord Dicky had actually spoken to her.

Then she heard:

‘Who’s him?’ Sukey asked her brother. ‘Who told you?’

‘Under the table, of course,’ Dicky’s voice came pertly back. ‘Put the horse in the stable. Abel, the jam label.’

No, not Dicky, Jo eliminated.

Then Amanda came in coolly: ‘I quite like Abel.’

So—
Amanda
?

‘I like him better,’ Sukey said.

Sukey?

Amanda, Dicky, Sukey, one out of three. Heads the boy. Tails a girl.

Winner? Loser?

Jo stood at the sink, and all at once, uncontrollably, began to laugh.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dicky
came into the kitchen and stood looking at Jo. ‘What is funny?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, really.’ Jo took a hold of herself. ‘It’s just that I have to make a choice. Do you know what a choice is?’

‘Of course. Rice pudding or bread and butter pudding at school. But they’re not funny.’

‘No, dear,’ Jo agreed.

‘Grown-ups are funny, though. They laugh at things that aren’t funny.’

‘Like rice pudding and bread and butter pudding,’ Jo agreed. Yes, she decided again, it would have to be Dicky of the trio, the only one so far to speak to her of his own accord. ‘We’ll have dinner now, Dicky, seeing that we don’t have to wait for Abel.’

The meal was a silent one. Dicky, it appeared, had made his contribution for the day, and Amanda and Sukey only spoke when spoken to. It was uncanny, Jo despaired, for children were born communicators, natural chatterers. What had happened to these three that they shrank like snails at a touch, in their case only a verbal touch?

Abel did not come down to Tender "Winds that night. It appeared, Jo thought, that those country conventions of Gavin’s would have very little on which to base any brow-raising.

He turned up the next morning, though, and promptly sent the children into the garden.

‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I had it yesterday but I didn’t get round to it.’

‘No, only to tossing a coin,’ Jo reminded him coldly.

‘I’m sorry if I upset you, I was a little upset myself.’

‘I didn’t make the rule,’ Jo pointed out. ‘If you’re referring to—’

‘I was referring to it, and I’m sorry for the way I went on. As you said, it wasn’t your doing but his, and in all fairness I have to see his side.’

‘His name is Gavin.’

‘See Gavin’s side. He’s young and ambitious and very naturally he doesn’t want to start off in such an extremely married state.’

‘Extremely married state?’ she queried.

‘Three children must be extremely married. No, it would be asking too much.’

‘I never asked it of him,’ Jo defended herself again.

‘No, but I bet you made a stipulation, a kind of “either you do this or else”.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Accept a child or forget me.’

‘If I had made a stipulation, as you vulgarly put it, it would have been for all three, and anyway Gavin isn’t that kind.’

He shrugged and made no comment.

Biting back more angry words, Jo asked instead: ‘What was it you had to tell me?’

‘My report to you on yesterday’s investigations, Miss Millett. What I managed to discover from various sources, including schools, banks—no solicitor unfortunately—but—’

‘Yes?’

‘The Mines Department.’

‘What?’

‘I thought that would interest you. It did me.’

‘Why did you go there?’ she asked.

‘The bank told me that several deposits to them from Mark Grant had been made through the Mines Department. Of course I followed up the clue.’

‘And discovered?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ he shrugged.

‘Then why are you telling me? I mean, where does it get me?’

‘Nowhere, but it is a pointer.’

‘You’re suggesting that I should write to the Department?’

‘No, you would be as much a disinterested party in the Department’s eyes as I was, so would receive a similar answer.’

‘Which was?’

‘How are you connected with this? As you leave kindly close the door.’

‘But I am connected,’ she insisted.

‘You are
not,
Josephine, so face up to it. But use the clue on the kids themselves. A Mines Department naturally enough deals with mines. Perhaps this Mark had made a nickel find or something of the sort and been paid a royalty, perhaps there’s more to come. Probe around. Pump them.’

‘Yes,’ Jo said uncertainly. She wondered if this man called Abel had the faintest idea what he was asking. Pump those three clams!

‘Ask them about their father, their mother, where they were before they were at their school. Get anything at all from them that you can.’

‘Yes,’ said Jo again.

A few minutes went by in silence, thoughtful minutes. Then:

‘Still doing the elimination?’ Abel asked idly, but Jo knew the question was not in idleness, that he was listening keenly. For all his reassurance that he had known the position was not her doing, that he understood Gavin’s reaction, he was still blaming her and her fiancé. It made Jo answer him flippantly, carelessly, to hide the dismay she, too, felt.

‘Dicky so far,’ she shrugged. ‘He’s points ahead.’

‘Good for Dicky.’ A pause. ‘Or bad?’

‘I thought we’d finished all that.’

‘Yes, I did say so, didn’t I? Sorry, Josephine.’ Abel got up and went to the door. ‘I’m going to work in the plantation today. You start your pumping and I’ll be down later to hear any results.’ He saluted her and went out.

The children were on the verandah, ostensibly playing snakes and ladders, but really conferring under their breath. As Jo approached they made a show of movement to conceal their purpose, and if Dicky had not gone up the snake instead of down, Jo would not have taken any notice. But before she could comment, Amanda said quickly: ‘Playing the proper way gets a bore. We’re doing it averse.’

‘Reverse.’ Jo sat down beside the table. The snakes reminded her of something—the day she had taken the children down to the creek and her advice on snakes. ‘I don’t suppose in a boarding school you know much about snakes,’ she had said, and they had replied, or one of them had: ‘Not in boarding school but once at—’

Then Amanda had clammed up.

But where? Some place where there was a mine? A miner? Their father? Their mother? Well, it was no use waiting for them to come forward with any information and it was no use skirting around. She decided to ask outright. ‘Where used you go at school holidays?’

‘School.’

‘School? but—’

‘If there’s no one, I mean if there’s nowhere for you, you stay on at school.’

‘That must have been disappointing.’

‘No.’

‘Most children like to go home,’ Jo persisted.

‘We didn’t.’

‘I suppose it would depend on where home was.’ Jo cunningly did not make a question of it, she did it intentionally, but she still did not get a response. Also intentional?

‘You didn’t even see each other,’ she consoled.

‘Oh, yes, Amanda and Sukey are at the same school,’ Dicky told Jo, ‘and I’m next door. We’re a brother and sister school. Very soon it’s going to be one school. All mixed up.’ He said it with disapproval.

‘He means co-ed,’ said Amanda. She added: ‘Yuk.’ Sukey echoed: ‘Yuk.’

The conversation was getting away from the channel in which Jo wanted to keep it.

‘Did you take dancing and music?’ she asked the girls, feeling false as she said it, for she already knew they had not.

‘No.’

‘No extras?’

‘No, we didn’t want to.’

‘Didn’t want to,’ Sukey repeated.

Jo nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand, they cost a lot, and your father mightn’t have been able to afford a lot.’ No comment.

‘Not all fathers are bankers, shipowners, millionaires ... or miners.’

Not a face was raised, not an eye flicked.

Jo stuck it out for an hour, then she gave in. She went back into the house just as the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver. It was Gavin.

‘My poor dear,’ said Gavin, ‘how has it been today?’

‘The same, really. I mean, Gavin, you can’t expect—’

‘No, I can’t, but when one cares for somebody as I care for you, one gets impatient.’

Resisting an impulse to remind him: ‘You weren’t before,’ Jo said instead: ‘You mustn’t, Gavin.’

‘Tell that to my impatient heart, my dear. Meanwhile, can you give me an idea at least?’

‘Idea?’

‘Which child, Josie. After all, if I’m to be a parent—’

‘Oh, yes, the child.’

‘Any eliminations yet?’

‘All the time—that’s the trouble, Gavin.’

‘No trouble at all,’ Gavin said eagerly, ‘I don’t mind forgetting the whole thing, my dear.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant the trouble if we took the three.’

‘Josie!’

‘Yes, yes, I know, Gavin, I know you’ve been very gracious about it all, I know no man wants to start off so extremely married.’

‘Exactly, dear. You put the position perfectly.’

‘Actually it was Abel Passant who said that. He was very understanding for you.’

‘Really?’ said Gavin. ‘Well, dear, keep thinking and I’ll abide by your decision.’

‘Yes, Gavin. Thank you, Gavin. Goodbye, Gavin.’ Jo put down the phone.

Later in the afternoon Abel came down.

Jo reported her failure to find out anything, and he nodded.

‘I rather suspected that. I’ve been in touch with the schools again, had a word with several of the teachers. Unfortunately both schools are large establishments, not much of the individual, personal touch. But from what I can gather the kids were not the favourite pupils. Rather sullen little brutes there, I concluded, as they are here. Well, that was the message I got.’

‘They’re not sullen little brutes.’

‘Prove it,’ he shrugged. ‘But I did get one suggestion from a teacher of Sukey’s—younger than the others from the sound of her, so possibly still with a few ideals left. A lifetime of kids must shatter your dreams. This one suggested speaking about their friends.’ Abel paused. ‘If they had any. She said that rarely does a child not communicate with another child. And it could be true. Just now our trio are living in a world of long legs and big words.’

‘So?’

‘So I want you to try that angle. You could ask, for instance, what did they give their best friends ... very important people to the young, I can remember ... for farewell presents. If they say nothing, which they will, for one thing that I have established definitely is a lack of money, you can suggest they send them some now. Well, it’s a try.’ As he said it, Abel threw down a wad of notes.

‘That’s too much,’ gasped Jo.

‘Not divided by three kids, then divided again by heaven knows how many friends.’

‘Well, if you say so, but I still don’t know.’

‘Then just give it a go,’ he urged. He waited a moment. ‘Another thing. The Child Welfare.’

‘Yes?’

‘An officer is coming out.’

‘Whatever for?’ she asked.

‘Because the children are still here and not in there.’

‘Where?’

‘Where?’ he echoed. ‘Wherever it is they put them until they decide their fate.’

‘It sounds awful!’ protested Jo.

‘The officer coming out or the fate deciding?’

‘Both, the way I’m feeling now. I mean—well—those three—Oh, I just don’t know, Abel, they could even turn round and say I—I—’

‘Walloped them? My dear Josephine, these officers are trained. They can cop a lie on a child’s lips before it even comes out. Don’t fret, it will be all right.’ Another pause. ‘Nothing more to report from your side?’

‘Only Gavin. He rang up to know—’ Jo bit her lip.

‘Know which one? He’s in a bit of a hurry, isn’t he? He gave you a week before.’

‘Yes, but it’s different now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because ... well, because one does change one’s mind, you know, one does think differently. That’s life.’

‘Perhaps
I
have hurried things along,’ Abel suggested, ‘looking at you with lustful eyes.’

‘Oh, don’t be absurd!’

‘All the same, you say he’s getting anxious. Then you certainly must make up your mind, mustn’t you, Miss Millett?’

‘I’ve made it up. I’ve always had it made up.’

‘Then which one?’

‘I meant that I’ve always had it made up that it was Gavin for me.’

‘I thought,’ he said drily, ‘it was the kids we were talking about. Or are they just in passing?’

‘Mr. Passant, you’ve been a great help, and I do appreciate it, in fact I don’t know what I would have done without you, but—’

‘But?’

‘But this other isn’t your concern, is it? I mean, I do appreciate the time and care you’ve taken, but there comes a moment—’

‘I understand,’ he nodded. He went to the door. ‘Goodbye.’

Jo was after him in a flash. ‘Mr. Passant ... Abel ... I didn’t mean you to take it quite like that.’

‘Quite like what?’

‘Like walking out. I mean—well, I mean please don’t.’

‘You really mean touch the edges but don’t come any further.’

‘No,’ said Jo, ‘I really meant—’

He looked at her for a long searching moment. ‘You could have fooled me,’ he shrugged, ‘but I’ll still string along if you say so.’