Dolan of Sugar Hills (14 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

They flew directly to Townsville where they transferred to a chartered plane.

“Bob will put us down on Lindeman Island and we can get someone to run us over to Silverwake from there,” Cane said.

“Perhaps Tress will be waiting in the boat.”

Cane gave Sheila a quick look. “Do you think Tress would leave her?”

Sheila had heard often of this lovely northern flight, its almost unbelievable stretch of glorious coast, headland after headland, line of creamy surf on golden beach—but now she saw nothing at all. Instead she sat huddled in her own thoughts ... and Cane sat absorbed in his.

Sheila had found it hard to say goodbye to the Lucians; they had been her very good friends.

Grace, however, was surprisingly philosophical. “I knew it was too good to last,” she sighed. “I knew we couldn’t keep you.”

“I’m coming back, of course.”

Grace just smiled. When Sheila said the same thing to Doctor Gerry, he replied, “Goodbye, Sheila,” and took her hand.

The island plane landed on the Lindeman strip just as the sun was going down. Sheila knew that if she searched the evening sky she would see a frigate bird poised like something in porcelain before he stole his night’s meal. She thought of her own frigate-bird island with sudden longing. I wish I was going there, her heart cried out, not Silverwake, never Silverwake with its evil echoes, its dark forebodings of things to come.

A jeep ran them down from the strip to the jetty where a boat waited. As they pulled away from the island Sheila could see the holiday lodges lighting up for the night. The lamps were rainbow hued and they threw their reflection into the wine-dark Reef waters. Someone sang to a mandolin, someone laughed, everyone was in a holiday mood, but only an island or so away a lovely girl was going to die.

Sheila shivered, and though he sat on the other side of the boat and could not have seen her in the darkness Cane said softly, “It’s better, you know. She will be with him.”

“With Mark.” Why had she said that name? It brought back all the old fears again.

“Yes,” Cane said again, “with him.”

It was quite dark by the time they reached Silverwake. The launch put them off, then turned back for Lindeman. Silently Sheila and Cane went up to the house.

Molly met them at the door. She smiled sadly at Sheila, then looked at Cane. “No change. Is that Sydney doctor with you?”

“No.”

“He wouldn’t come?”

“He would have had it been any use. I knew the answer before I went, Molly, but I just had to make sure. Doctor Lucian says Watts will be able to cope now. Has he been today?”

“Yes, and is coming tomorrow. Come and take your things off, Shelley; and the kettle’s boiling.”

“May I see Fleur first?”

“She’s sleeping.”

“Just a quick glance.”

In answer Cane took Sheila’s arm and led her along the corridor to Fleur’s room.

Outside the room Tress was standing. Sheila was shocked at his appearance. He always had appeared to her something of a giant but now he seemed to have shrunk away to a shadow. His eyes, hollow, tortured, met Sheila’s without recognition. She hesitated a moment, but Cane impelled her gently past him and through the door.

She went softly across to the girl and looked down on her. Her first thought was: How did I think she was delicate before, when I see her now?

She remembered calling her the Ice Maiden that day on the rock outcrop, but her skin was blue white now, the veins showed out clearly in the transparency. One hand lay across the sheet. Sheila took it in hers. Its coldness numbed her own.

She rubbed it gently, but it was clear to her that whatever she did the warmth would never come back. She noticed that the room was warm and saw that something had been done that surely seldom was done up here in the north, a fire was lit. Tress brought in another log at that moment and put it beside the already glowing blaze.

How futile, Sheila thought sadly. Why couldn’t that poor fellow accept it? The little hand in her own remained just as cold.

She stood there until Cane impelled her out again. As she went along the corridor she saw Tress still in his waiting position.

Molly had the tea ready, and after she had drunk it Sheila felt a little better. She asked about sitting up with Fleur, but Cane shook his head.

“I’m doing the nights, you and Molly can arrange the days between you. I’d go to bed now if I were you, Sheila. You’ve come some thousand miles and more, you must be tired.”

She was tired, every bit of her, legs, shoulders, feet, eyes, but worse than the tiredness was the sense of emptiness. That seemed to assail her almost like a physical presence, she thought. She said good night and went along to her old room.

I must sleep,
she resolved,
I shall be needed tomorrow. I mustn’t lie remembering Mrs. Dolan’s steps along the hall, letting those thoughts about Cane come racing back again.

Before she got into bed she went to the window and drew aside the curtains. The dark night and the timeless stars gave her the feeling of quietude she so badly needed.

She drifted off to sleep after that, and awoke ready and refreshed.

Breakfast over, she took her first turn with Fleur. Around eleven, the doctor came in his launch. He promised to come the next day.

Molly brought in the lunch, then took over herself. Sheila took Molly afternoon tea, and took over ... and so the day went on.

Soon it was night again, and Cane’s turn. And still Tress waited like the faithful dog.

Two days went past. On the third day, Sheila sitting once more by the narrow bed, saw that Fleur had seemed to regain a little color.

Presently the girl opened her green blue eyes and really looked at Sheila for the first time. Then she smiled.

“Hello, Sheila.”

“Hello, darling.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Not very long.”

“Nuisance, aren’t I?”

“You’re never a nuisance, honey.”

Fleur smiled again, and dozed off. When she awoke she was even brighter.

Molly took over and Sheila sought out Cane.

“I think you should send Tress out for air, Cane. Make him go, he can’t stand there all the time.”

“I know, poor devil, but what can I do?” Cane shrugged.

“Fleur’s so much brighter,” insisted Sheila. “Make him realize that.” She had a sudden inspiration. “Send him down to the boats,” she proposed. “He loves the boats almost as much as he loves her.”

“I’ll try,” said Cane, not very optimistically. He went along the passage, and after a while came back with an unwilling Tress.

When they were both on the beach Sheila took her turn by the bedside once more. She noticed that Fleur’s faint color was now a pink carnation. Her eyes were big and lucid.

“Why am I here, Sheila?” she asked abruptly.

“You’ve been ill, dear.”

“Why am I ill?”

“We all get ill, Fleur.”

“Yes, but there is a reason. There is a reason for me. Do you know that reason, Sheila?”

“No, darling, why should I know? I’m very new up here remember.”

“Yes, but I think you know. Will you tell me, please?”

“Rest, Fleur.”

“I don’t want to rest, I want to know. It ... it’s something to do with ... out there, isn’t it?” She waved a thin white arm toward the window, and Sheila remembered her once standing on the outcrop of rock and staring outward as though to bridge a distance, not merely a distance between islands but somewhere a long way off.

There was a rather lengthy silence, and then, in a completely different voice, an awakened, alert voice, so opposed to her usually dreamy words, Fleur asked, “Where is Mark, Sheila?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

“He watches at night, darling.”

The girl made a little gesture of impatience. Her cheeks now, Sheila noted, were of flame.
I must call Molly,
she thought, but she did not like to leave Fleur at this moment. She wished she had not insisted that Tress be sent off.

Fleur said clearly, “No—Mark, Sheila, not his brother. ‘Mark, not Matthew. My Mark. Mark, my husband.” Her voice rose.

“Fleur, dear—”

The girl was struggling upward.

“There was a letter. I remember it now. It said that Mark—it told me that Mark—”

“Darling, do rest.”

“I want to. I want to rest terribly, Sheila, but I can’t until ... until—Oh, don’t you see that I must know, that I must find out?” She was sitting right up now. Sheila got to her feet, a little alarmed. She wished Molly would come down the corridor. She wondered if she should call out. No, that might only alarm the child. Oh, why had she asked Cane to take Tress away like that? Why had she found encouragement in those pink cheeks that were scarlet now, scarlet and excited? Poor lost little Fleur.

“There was a ship,” said Fleur. “My husband went on it. They were going to Antarctica. I remember now. Then there was a letter. It was not from Mark, it was from ... from ... he letter said ... it said...

“It was all down there, Sheila, down there in the expedition. He never came back from the expedition, and I loved him, oh, I loved him so very much.”

She lay back. The short fever seemed to be abating. Sheila took a deep breath of relief.

Then Fleur whispered quietly, “I’d like to look down there. Sheila, down to the south, Sheila.”

“Of course, darling, tomorrow. We’ll wheel you out.”

“No, now, Sheila, now, now, now.” Her voice begged it pathetically.

“That’s impossible, Fleur, don’t ask it of me.”

“I am asking. Open the window and let me just stand and look down to the south. It will only take a moment. I shall be very good. I promise you I’ll be good. Please, dear Sheila, bring me my gown.”

Sheila hesitated. Could it do any harm? Might it not calm the child? She put the pretty negligee around the thin shoulders.

“Your slippers,” she stipulated, and went down on her knees to slip them on Fleur’s little feet.

It all happened like a flash. Sheila could not credit the flight, the startling rapidity of it.

One moment Fleur was sitting obediently there and the next moment she had leaped up and run out. Shaking off the dressing gown, shaking away the sheets and blankets, shaking off all encumbrances as though she was a wind scattering away mist, Fleur sped through the door, along the passage, down the steps to the unguarded basement above the rocks.

“Cane—Molly!” screamed Sheila.

She put everything into that scream. It was violent, urgent, unmistakable.

Cane must have returned from the mooring. He was halfway to the house and he had the advantage of speed and strength. But Fleur’s bare feet were not human any longer, they were wings, they were unassailable, they flew. Like a bird, like a white gull in her thin white nightgown, she flew to the edge of the building.

“Darling, I’m coming, Mark, I’m coming!” Then Sheila saw Fleur stretch out her arms and fling herself out.

She had run to the edge after her, but Cane was there first.

When Sheila cried out in horror and put her hands over her eyes to shut out the sight, he took the hands down.

“Don’t do that, Sheila,” he said firmly. “Don’t torture yourself by not looking. It’s all right. See for yourself.”

She turned slowly around. She would not have turned but that he compelled her. Then when she did look she was glad. Always this moment might have agonized her, the thought of Fleur might have agonized her, but it was not like that at all.

By some miracle Fleur had missed the rocks and she was floating in the green silk water. Her lovely fair hair flowed out on each side. “Is she—could she be—?”

“No, Sheila, Fleur will be dead,” Cane said.

Tress was wading out toward the girl. They stood watching as he reached out and swung her into his arms. They saw him come ashore. He still did not put her down. He did not look up to them.

He trudged stolidly back to the house with his slender burden. When Cane went forward to relieve him he cried, “No—no,” and they fell silently behind him as he passed down the hall to Fleur’s room and put the girl back on the bed. There was a bruise around the temple, nothing more. Tress knelt down beside her and began to sob.

“Tress.” Cane said it gently. He touched the man’s shoulder. “Tress, old fellow ... Mark, old fellow...”

Sheila looked sharply up. Why had Cane called Tress Mark? Cane met her eyes and signaled for her to follow him out.

In the corridor his hand edged down mechanically for his cigarettes. “Can’t do anything yet,” he said. “He’ll only come out when he’s ready.”

“You called him Mark.”

“Did I?”

“Why did you call him Mark?”

“That’s his name.” Cane lit the cigarette. “Only we’ve always simply used Tress.”

“Not all of you used Tress,” Sheila murmured a little indistinctly. “Mark says ... Mark says” ... she was remembering, Mark who had been Tress all the time and she had thought Fleur meant—

The pieces were falling into place. The pattern was taking shape. Sheila looked up and saw Cane looking at her with sudden bright understanding in his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was a long time before Tress came out. It was hours before Sheila spoke with him. She managed to get him to the kitchen to drink a cup of tea, and, sitting at the big table, palms around the cup, head bent, he spoke in awkward jerky sentences.

“I loved her, I loved the little girl.”

“She loved you, too, Tress,” Sheila said.

“Yes, she did, didn’t she? The little one loved me, didn’t she, Miss Guthrie?”

“Very, very much,” Sheila assured him. “Often she would say to me things that you said to her. She would say ‘Mark says—Mark thinks’—and, of course, she meant you, Tress.” Sheila looked steadily at the man.

“Yes, she meant me,” he nodded. “She always called me Mark, not Tress.”

“And you talked to her a lot, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I always talked to the little girl.”

“Why did you love her so much?” Sheila asked presently.

Tress raised his doglike eyes.

“She was—” He stumbled awkwardly for a word, then finished vaguely, “little.”

Sheila believed she understood. She felt she could comprehend the attraction of frailty to strength, of the ethereal to the earthy.

“And I loved the little girl,” Tress continued somberly, “because the other one didn’t.”

“The other one?”

“Her. Mrs. Dolan. She was mean to the little one, just as she was to him before he died.”

“Mr. Dolan?”

“Yes,” said Tress. “I loved them both, and now—” Tress put his head on his hands “—they’ve gone.” Again he began to cry.

There were other things Sheila wanted to ask the man, but he was not in a fit state to be questioned any further. When Cane came in presently and insisted he go to bed, she was glad that Tress did not protest.

“He’s worn out, poor devil, he’ll be better after he sleeps.” Cane poured himself a cup of tea.

“Will he ever be better, Cane?” asked Sheila. “I mean—”

“You mean can he live without Fleur? I think so. Tress is a fellow who must have an affection fixation. My uncle was his affection fixation before he died. After that he transferred that fixation to Fleur—and, probably since she had married my uncle, possibly since she was unfriendly to Fleur, a fixation of hate went to my uncle’s wife.”

“It was a very great hate ... a dangerous hate,” Sheila said guardedly.

Cane lit up. “I don’t think so,” he drawled at length.’ “I don’t think it was dangerous, it was simply—” he shrugged “—lip talk. I don’t think one word of what Tress babbled about went any deeper than the depth of his poor unfortunate mind.

“My uncle took him over as a boy, Sheila. Tress was an orphan, and he adored my uncle from that day on.

“He had a simple mind, perhaps an obsessed mind, but never—” Cane looked straight at Sheila “—a truly vindictive one.

“The proof of that is in the fright he took when Mrs. Dolan died. He went to pieces and cleared out. I wondered at the time. Now I see it was simply a tortured conscience. He had had a certain thought in his mind so long that when something he wished happened he assumed for a period the actual guilt.

“I can see him clearly,” Cane continued, “always chewing over his wretched obsession, chewing over it every minute of every day, nurturing it, never letting it out of his mind, mumbling it under his breath, and, because Fleur was as she was, a little echo, totally and unconsciously impressionable, a carbon copy one could say, she said the things he said to her back to you, but you thought it...

“Yes,” said Sheila, head down, “and I’m sorry for that.”

Cane smoked a while.

“I can’t blame you,” he stated coolly. “Perhaps I should even be grateful, as I mentioned once before, for your not raising a panic and calling in the police. At least—” he exhaled, and his eyes behind the smoke were narrowed “—you had consideration, even if you did not have belief.”

“I had love.” She said it before she was aware of it.

She rose in agitation and he did not stop her.

She felt sure he must stop her before she reached the door. In a flash all the minutes that had gone before this minute, all the lovable things, the night of the dance at Sugar Hills, the night on Frigate Island, the night on the beach, all the breathless still silences, all the long moments between them came back to her, and she asked herself in pain,
Did
they mean nothing to him after all? Were they just a diversion?
They must have meant nothing, for now he was not moving, not coming after her to take her in his arms. She must only have been a pastime for him, a solace while this wretched business was settled, otherwise could he sit impassive, unresponsive, uncaring like that, could he let her go after she had cried out her heart, cried out to him “I had love”?

But Cane just sat.

Later Molly told her the arrangements ... first Fleur’s, then their own.

“I’ll go back with Cane to Sugar Hills as soon as everything is done. There’s lots to be attended to. The season is about to pack up and you have no idea what work that involves. Cane simply can’t be spared anymore.

“You can finish here and come along with Tress. Cane has been considering Tress. He has decided to try him at the Sugar Hills mooring on the mainland. The poor fellow loves boats, and that should occupy his thoughts. Also, Cane says, he can keep an eye on him there.”

“What of Silverwake?”

“It has come finally to Cane. Mrs. Dolan had no relatives. Cane doesn’t want it, so he is offering it to you.”

“To me?”

“He said it was yours in the first place,” explained Molly. “He said you only came out here because of Silverwake, so now it must be actually yours.”

“I don’t want it, either,” Sheila answered firmly.

“Cane anticipated that, too,” Molly shrugged, “in which case he will donate it to some charity for a holiday home. After all—” did Molly give her a quick searching look “—one island is enough.”

In a voice she could not recognize as hers Sheila asked, “One island?”

“Some ridiculous island between here and the mainland that Cane is negotiating about. Not at all suitable, either,” Molly sniffed, “because Cane openly admits that it’s almost entirely ringed by coral. However, if he wants to waste his money continually repairing reef holes in his boats—” and Molly sniffed again and shrugged.

“Is he going to build there?” Again Sheila could scarcely recognize her voice.

“Right on top of the hill. More money than sense.” But there was a little softness in Molly’s voice for all her scorn.

“What will he build?” asked Sheila.

Molly looked across at her. “You should know that,” she said in a quiet voice.

“
Why should I know?
”
Sheila
’
s tone, unlike Molly
’
s, was not quiet, it was even a little shrill.
“
How can I know?
”
she asked.
I said to him that I had love,
she was thinking resentfully,
but he simply sat on. What did he expect me to do? Put it in black and white? Beggar myself? Say, “I love you, Cane, and you only?” Go to him? Show him? Oh, how far must one humble oneself for this Cane Dolan?

As though she read her thoughts Molly said, “Up in this country it’s different, Shelley. A woman has to meet her man halfway, not just take a few steps.”

Sheila lifted her chin.
I went far enough,
she thought,
I
’
ll go no more.

“Otherwise,” Molly finished, “a man won’t come his halfway to you.”

“That’s a primitive outlook.”

■

“Perhaps,” suggested Molly with a smile, “we’re that sort of primitive land.”

Molly and Cane left very early the next day in the Sugar Hills boat. It was assumed that Tress and Sheila would do the closing up and that they would follow as soon as they could.

“There’s no need for me to go to Sugar Hills,” announced Sheila. “I have only the bags I left there to pick up, and they could be consigned down.”

“Look,” said Cane brusquely, “I’m going to be so busy when I reach the plantation I wouldn’t have time to take your bags as far as the front steps, let alone the conditional stop.”

“Then one of the men—” she proposed.

“They’ll be busy, too, we’ll all be busy. Molly will be busy. Sorry, Miss Guthrie, you’ll have to stand on your own feet.”

With that Cane turned and went down to the boat.

After they had gone, after the green wake had smoothed away, Sheila returned to the house and finished packing her things. She told Tress that she would be ready to leave soon, but it was late before they got away, Tress was very slow with his own bags, and even when he had finished he sat on a long while just looking at the island and the house, and Sheila had not the heart to stir him.

This place meant something to him, she thought, it meant the little girl he adored, it meant Fleur.

I always disliked it, it meant something foreboding to me, and now I’m glad to leave it, but Tress, poor fellow, saw it with different eyes.

It was dark by the time they reached the Sugar Hills wharf on the mainland. Hans was waiting there with the jeep. “A long while since I see you, Shelley,” he greeted warmly. “It is good you are back again.”

“I’m leaving at once, Hans,” she told the Dutchman.

“Oh, no, that is not true.” Hans laughed at her. “Why, in our little paper it says—”

“What paper?”

Hans did not answer that. He continued triumphantly, “Besides, it is too late, of course.”

“The down Sunlander doesn’t go through Sugar Hills till well after midnight.” About four in the morning, she remembered, the first faint gray light of day on the shining fields of tall grass.

“Yes, but it would not stop unless it was warned. It is too late for that tonight, and by tomorrow night—” Again the Dutchman laughed.

A little annoyed, Sheila climbed into the jeep. At the house Molly had her old room ready. She echoed what Hans had said.

“Of course you can’t leave tonight Sheila. We’d have to telephone a northern station for you to be picked up, and it’s too short a notice for that now.” She brewed the tea. “Want to read the newspaper?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s an interesting issue.”

“No,” said Sheila. I don’t belong here, she was thinking, I have been shown that very clearly. I don’t want to hear or to read or to know anything about Sugar Hills.

She did not see Cane. She did not see him the next morning. He must have left for the cutting before she got up.

After she had eaten her breakfast she asked Molly about phoning Townsville to arrange to be picked up by the next Sunlander.

“Presently,” evaded Molly. “I’m getting smoko ready now, Shelley, and besides, Townsville might not have opened its office.”

“A big railway office not opened by nine?”

“I’m busy, dear. Look, there’s the newspaper if you care to read it.”

“I’m not interested,” Sheila said.

“It’s a fine issue, Shelley.”

“You said that last night.”

Molly paused in her slicing of slab cake. “It’s a very fine issue,” she declared persuasively.

“Perhaps, but no, thank you.”

Sheila went out into the garden, then, because she had grown very fond of them and wanted to speak to them all again, say goodbye to them, she went down to the duplex units to see the children.

Through the papaw and mango thicket she went, past the croton bushes, along to the married cottages. In front of one of them ... the Italians’ she recognized ... was an old utility van. She saw that it was being piled with luggage, boxes, dolls’ prams, bassinets, hampers, a few cooking utensils.

Carlo came out with a toppling armful at that moment and Sheila called, “Carlo, what is this? Are you going away?”

“Hello, Misshelley; nice to see you, Misshelley; yes, we go now, Misshelley; my pop he says he leave early and get good Christmas job. But we come again next year, Misshelley, see you then, eh?”

“No, you won’t, Carlo, because I’m going too, by tonight’s train.”

“But you come back?”

“No, I don’t come back.”

“But my mom she says you do,” smiled Carlo implacably. “My mom she says it’s in the paper. She instructs Nino, my little brother, who is not respectful, you remember, she tells him ‘Next year you say Mrs. Cane, not Misshelley,’ to the lady.”

“In ... the paper?” echoed Sheila faintly.

“Yes, Misshelley. I read it, but I could not see why it made you Mrs. Cane, although my mom she said—”

Molly, too, had been anxious about the paper. Hans had. “What,” she asked Carlo a little dazedly, “is this paper?”

“It is our own paper,” he grinned, “our Sugar Hills paper. I get it for you.”

When he came out with it he offered: “I read it to you, Misshelley?”

“No.”

“I am reading very well. Misshelley, I read for my mom and pop.”

“No, I’ll read it myself.”

She was racing down the path to the cutting, racing, racing, but when the big cane toads warned her that she was nearing the swathe itself she remembered how a lady should behave and she calmed down. After all, she chided, it’s not good to answer an advertisement with too much haste.

But for all her determined decorum when she came within call of the workers she found herself again hurrying her steps. Was speed like this coming on halfway to your man, she thought, ashamed ... and then she thought,
What if I go the whole way to him, does it matter after all?

But she didn’t go the whole way. Someone saw what she held in her hand, saw the little newspaper, saw the eagerness, and someone detached himself from the group of men.

He wore a black singlet, like the others, as with them it might just as well have been his skin, for the rest of him absolutely matched ... and Sheila knew, without caring at all, as he threw down his knife and took a quick step to take her in his arms, that she was going to be very black afterward as well.