Dorothy Eden (37 page)

“They won’t come while you’re here.”

“Don’t they like me either?”

“You silly little creature. Who else do you imagine doesn’t like you?”

“Uncle Milton,” said the child flatly. “He says I’ll have to go to boarding school. I poke about too much. It’s only because I found his chair yesterday. I thought he was in it, but he wasn’t. There was only a lot of pillows and a rug. It looked just like a man, anyway. I pushed it down the hall.” She flashed round at Abby. “Well, I couldn’t help it if he was in the toilet.” She began to giggle. “And then, you see, he couldn’t get out because I’d wheeled the chair away. He was yelling for Mary. He can only walk two steps on his sticks. So now,” she finished, “they say I have to go to boarding school. If you ask me, all this persecution started because I took that lipstick of Mummy’s.”

“Persecution! What words you use.”

“It’s what they do to martyrs,” Deirdre explained, looking martyred. “Are you using the lipstick?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, good. I’m glad the burglar didn’t take it.”

“That’s not a thing burglars usually take,” Abby said mildly.

“I don’t know. It had a gold case. They’d look for gold, wouldn’t they? Will you wear the lipstick to my party tonight?”

“Am I being invited to your party?”

“If you want to come,” said Deirdre indifferently.

“Who else will be there?”

“Oh, just us. My father might come.”

“Your fa—” Abby swung the child round. “Deirdre, what is this? You didn’t tell me your father was home.”

“He isn’t home, but he’s in Sydney. Mummy was talking to someone on the telephone. She said ‘Now Reg is back—’” The narrow pale eyes looked up at Abby. “Reg is his name.”

“But why don’t you ask your mother?” Abby said. “Surely she’d tell you.”

“What’s the use? No one tells me anything. They say I’m not to be trusted.” Deirdre picked up a stone and threw it at the kookaburras, making them fly off. “Neither am I.” She giggled suddenly. “Uncle Milton was furious. Absolutely furious.”

“What about?”

“About being stuck in the toilet, of course. But honestly there were so many pillows there was no room for him in that old chair.”

Suddenly the kookaburras, sitting safely in the gum tree at the end of the garden, began to laugh raucously. Haw, haw, haw, ho, ho ho…

“Deirdre,” said Abby urgently, “does someone still walk in your house at night?”

“Sometimes. I don’t always hear because I’m asleep. Now I’m not sure if it’s old Jock or my father. I think it’s father.” She looked up with her sly glance. “But you don’t have to believe me. I tell lies, they say.”

“Are you telling me lies now?”

There was a rapping at the big window of the Moffatt’s house. Mary’s face shone palely.

“Deirdre! Deirdre, come in out of the sun. You know you’ve been sick.”

“Deirdre! Are you telling lies when you say you think your father walks in the house at night?”

For answer Deirdre gave a clever imitation of the kookaburras’ sardonic laughter.

“See you tonight at my party,” she shouted, running off. Her narrow, foxy little face was mocking and defiant. Under the defiance Abby sensed the fear. With cold certainty she knew the child was hiding some nightmare…

And that brought her back herself into the dreary circle of confusion and apprehension and doubt. Doubt of everyone, including her own husband…

Again the sun shone in the brazen sky. Before it got too hot, Abby went into the garden to plant out the box of geraniums that had arrived yesterday. She planned a border along the house where the ground had already been prepared. Even so, it was a hot, tiring task. Lizards flashed out of sight, and a spider much too large for comfort scuttled under a rock. The geraniums already showed tips of color, brilliant crimsons and scarlets. Pastel colors were wrong in this country. Everything had to be vivid and flaring, even the red earth.

Abby was aware of Jock watching her from his boat, probably resentful that yesterday she had refused him work, and now did a hot, tedious task herself. The eyes would be at the Moffatts’ windows, too. Why had she been so foolish as to refuse Luke’s offer to move? Why had she let Luke’s fondness for a place he had planned and built sway her? She shouldn’t be so impulsive and self-sacrificing. Because in the end this place would get her down. She knew it would. She couldn’t be treated like a goldfish in a pool forever, watched and poked at and talked about. It would have been wiser to uproot Luke at the beginning.

She had been swayed by a moment of sentiment, not wanting to bring more of that strange anxiety to Luke’s face.

For even he must have known that burglary had something phoney about it. Lola’s protestations of innocence, Jock’s convenient alibi, Mrs. Moffatt’s anxious care of her that did not include alarm. Surprisingly did not include alarm…Deirdre’s new dress, remembered at last…Round and round the thoughts went in Abby’s brain, as intolerable as the flies that buzzed about her hot face.

Were they all just trying to frighten her? For some reason of their own? Perhaps to drive her away so that Lola could have Luke, because she had always regarded him as her property…

Even Deirdre’s present of the lipstick might have been engineered, anticipating what Luke’s reaction would be…

“Abby! Abby!”

Abby started up, straightening her aching back. Mary was coming down the path.

“You look so hot down there. Mother said to bring you up for a cold drink. You shouldn’t work in the sun like that. You’ll soon learn not to.”

Mary looked cool in her green cotton dress. But she always looked cool. If anything upset her she only went more pale and quiet. It was a pity, Abby thought, that she had this inward shrinking from all the Moffatts, for Mary looked as if she needed a friend.

There was nothing to do now but to accept the invitation.

“Thank you, Mary, I’d love a cold drink. Just let me wash.”

The shutters were half closed in the Moffatt’s drawing-room, and the dim light was faintly green. They were all there, Mrs. Moffatt, Mary, Milton and Deirdre. A tray with tall glasses and a jug of iced beer stood on the table.

Mrs. Moffatt put aside her piece of tapestry and wools to welcome Abby. She had more beads than ever round her scrawny neck, and looked like a colored chandelier. Her little, brown face smiled eagerly.

“Abby dear, have you recovered from that nasty upset yesterday? Lola says the police discovered nothing, not even finger prints. Burglars are too clever nowadays. I once saw a picture of a burglar’s kit. There were amazing things in it, even to some sort of article that looked like knitting needles.”

“I believe they now use a kind of periscope to put through the keyhole,” Milton observed. “Mary, are you getting us drinks?”

Mary sprang up to fill the tall glasses. Ice chinked with a cool sound.

It’s really extraordinarily hot for early spring. We’ll still get plenty of cold nights. Will you have some beer, Abby?”

“What are you planting in the garden, Abby?” Mrs. Moffatt asked.

“Geraniums.”

“Very nice. Naturally we’re interested, since you comprise our view. We must get something done about our garden, Mary.”

“I know, Mother. When I get time. Wouldn’t it be nice to be rich, and employ someone else to do all the work.”

“But can’t we afford someone? Even one man?”

Milton looked at Abby.

“This is our favorite conversation, dreaming of being rich. One never knows, miracles can happen. My wife believes so, anyway.”

Mary smiled, but there was something unreadable in her dark eyes. She did have some dream, of course. It would be an escapist one, in which, first of all, her husband could walk again. Poor Mary. Dreaming didn’t accomplish anything except making the present endurable.

“Well, did you have a nice time last night?” Mrs. Moffatt asked briskly, changing the subject.

“Wonderful, thank you,” Abby answered, and thought that like Deirdre she was telling lies. For the evening hadn’t been a success. Much as he had struggled to be attentive and entertaining, Luke had not been able to keep up his pretence of gaiety. There had been long silences between them, and that odd constraint that was now almost always there. There had been candlelight and music and good food. And they had made conversation like two rather nervous strangers who had just met.

Yet this morning Luke had driven away with Lola talking animatedly.

“Wasn’t Luke thoughtful, to whisk you away like that from your unpleasant experience. It was just what you needed.”

“Yes,” said Abby and turned to Milton. “I hope you got a good report from the doctor yesterday.”

“Oh, the usual. The usual.” Milton’s dark brows frowned. He moved his large, strong hands restlessly on the arms of the chair. “He had the nerve to suggest occupational therapy. I told him I was interested in nothing but walking. If one of his charming therapists could teach me that, I’d listen.”

Mary touched his shoulder.

“You will, Milton. You will.”

She must drive him mad with her hovering, Abby thought. Yet what else was there for it, unless he went to some kind of institution.

“Milton goes into hospital again next Monday,” she explained to Abby. “He always gets keyed up before that. But perhaps it won’t be so painful this time, love.”

“I could stand the pain if it accomplished something. Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t let’s sit here talking about a hulk like me. You know I can’t stand it.”

He glowered again at his wife, and she smiled placatingly.

“Of course not. Does Abby know we’re planning a week-end away first? We’re going kangaroo shooting. Milton enjoys that. Don’t you, darling?”

“Make the blighters jump,” Milton muttered.

“And you’re to stay with me,” Mrs. Moffatt said to Abby. “Naturally you don’t want to do anything so bloodthirsty. Lola said you didn’t care for the idea at all.”

“No, I don’t. I think it’s gruesome.”

Milton looked at her with his pale, prominent eyes. He didn’t bother to hide his contempt.

“Then you’d better stay here. We’ll only be away a couple of days. Luke enjoys it.”

“Has he been before?” Abby asked, thinking that here was something else Luke hadn’t told her.

“Not with us. But every good Australian knows how to use a gun. Lola’s as useful as a man with one. Not Mary, though. She’s squeamish. Aren’t you, my love?”

Mary flinched from his contempt. Abby realized she hated the thought of the expedition, but that she had to go because of Milton. No one else could look after him. He wanted her around. She wouldn’t dare to oppose him.

Who would, thought Abby, looking at his strong introspective face. His illness made him mean, but did he need to be that mean? She decided to throw a stone into the cool murky pool of this drawing-room.

“Deirdre says she’s having a birthday party tonight, and wants me to come.”

“That’s right, dear. You can, can’t you?” Mrs. Moffatt was smiling eagerly.

“Yes. I’d love to. Especially to meet Deirdre’s father.”

The stone crashed almost audibly. There was a shattered silence. Then Mrs. Moffatt said bewilderedly,

“What has Deirdre been telling you? That her father has come home? But she isn’t always truthful, I’m afraid.”

She looked towards the child who sat in a corner, her head bent over a book. Her hair was hanging over her eyes. She had no intention of being lured into looking up and meeting anybody’s reproachful gaze.

“Good gracious!” said Mary. “What else has she been telling you, Abby? I saw her having a long conversation with you this morning.”

“She told us that Barry Smith had broken all those pieces of her jigsaw puzzle,” said Mrs. Moffatt. “When she knows very well Barry hasn’t been here for months. She won’t have him to play. I’m afraid she did the damage herself, quite deliberately.”

“She’ll have to be sent to boarding school,” Milton said impatiently. “I keep on telling you. She’s growing into a barbarian. And an untruthful one at that.”

“It’s her birthday,” Abby said involuntarily.

“All the more reason why she shouldn’t tell lies,” declared Mrs. Moffatt. “Really, Deirdre. How can you be so wicked?”

Deirdre lifted a haughty face.

“I happen to know my father might come tonight. I just happen to know.”

“And how do you happen to know?” asked her grandmother.

“No one here tells me anything. So why should I tell people things?”

“You see?” said Mrs. Moffatt helplessly.

Milton added in a grimly satisfied voice, “I’ve been telling you this for long enough. The child’s impossible. She even steals things, as you know. She took that lipstick of her mother’s and gave it away. That’s the true sign of a disturbed mentality.”

And whose fault was it that she had a disturbed mentality, Abby thought furiously. Whose fault? Her casual butterfly mother’s, or these other two women revolving timidly round a sick man? Or the missing father’s?

She put down her glass, saying quietly and pointedly, “I don’t suppose she was born with a disturbed mentality. I hardly think any child is. And now I must go. Thank you for the drink. I’ll be seeing you tonight. I hope you have a cake with candles, Deirdre.”

“That baby stuff!” said Deirdre, with her usual vigor. She had developed armor, that little one. Angry words slid off her fragile shoulders.

“Well, at least I hope you wear your new dress.”

Abby smiled again politely, and made her thankful departure. What a family! How could Luke stand them? Except that poor little wretch, Deirdre, of course. The child who seemed to have no attractive attributes except her name.

Abby decided to go shopping this afternoon to find her a birthday present, something that would appeal even to her unorthodox and unchildish taste.

A
BBY KNEW SHE WAS
going up to Kings Cross again. She had promised Luke to forget the foolish mix-up and he trusted her promise. But since then her suspicions had been aroused again, chiefly because the Moffatt family couldn’t let her forget that lipstick. She felt certain that it was the clue to the whole mystery, and if Luke couldn’t, or wouldn’t, explain it, she would find out for herself.