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‘Is there all that much money in bananas, Baron David?’ she asked boldly.

‘We’ve left the coast,’ he reminded her impatiently. ‘J told you so on the way up. We’re now on a plateau.’

‘But there are bananas.’ Her glance had fallen on a huge platter of them on the hall table.

‘From the valley plantation,' he shrugged.

'You have that as well?’

‘Yes.’

‘As well as—what?’

‘But you already know. You must know.'

‘I don’t—I said so before.'

‘Too busy on other things down at the beach,' he said thinly. Before she could speak, he told her: ‘Yoothamurra, meaning Great Luck.'

‘Also meaning ?’

‘Meaning our—my stud.'

‘A stud. Yoothamurra Stud.’ Yes, yes, she
had
heard of
it, and it all
came back. It was a very big, very successful breeding and training complex. It had a long string of big racing firsts, an enviable breeding record. She had forgotten, but now she recalled. Yoothamurra ... Great Luck.

‘Horses,’ she half-mumbled.

‘Blood stuff,’ he told her.

‘Rewarding?’ She made a question of it.

He gave a dry laugh. ‘Croesus would have been well satisfied.’ A pause. ‘Now are you satisfied, Miss Travis? Is your curiosity—so-called—duly assuaged?’ Not giving her time to answer, he said: ‘If so, I’ll proceed to show you around.’ He strode down the hall, snapping on lights as he went, and perforce Paddy followed.

‘I’d keep it lit,’ he explained over his shoulder, ‘but we depend on our own plant here, so have to curb ourselves.’ He opened a door and nodded for Paddy to look in.

The rooms were all large and expensively furnished but shabby from age as well now, and Paddy reluctantly praised this to herself, for she had always loved good things grown old.

She was careful not to let him see her approval, though, as she peered round the many doors he flung open.

‘It’s very big,’ she said at last.

‘This is only half of it. My half. The other is identical, though not’ ... he grinned ... ‘identically furnished.’

‘I should think not. Heirlooms would be unwise for children.’

‘... Scarcely children.’

She looked quickly at him at that; she had imagined the usual age groups in this group of four. Say—five to ten, or six to twelve, or—Nothing younger than four, since Closer Families made it a rule that little ones were never boarded out while they were still in the nursery stage, and nothing older than sixteen, though sixteen-year-olds, of course, did occur when fifteen-year-olds had another birthday.

‘How many boys?’ she asked.

‘Four.’

‘How many gi ’ Paddy stopped. ‘But—but you said, your secretary said there were only four altogether.’

‘There are only four.’

‘All boys?’

‘All boys. Anything wrong in that?’

‘No, nothing wrong, but it’s considered ... I mean, the C.F.A. considers a mixed family as much better.’

‘They will be mixed ... with you.’

Paddy did not comment on that.

He was watching her narrowly.

‘I rather thought,’ he drawled, ‘you would relish the idea of being the sole female.’

‘I’m a house-mother. I accept what comes my way. But no doubt you’re pleased.’

‘Of course, but then I requested it that way.’

‘You requested all boys?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Closer Families allots, it doesn’t concede to requests.’

‘Like to bet on it?’ He was lighting a cigarette. In spite of the fact that he was as much a city man as a country ... he had that Sydney office ... he did it in the old bush manner. He rolled and moulded the cigarette himself. Paddy watched him fascinated, listening to the dry whisper of the flattened tobacco, the rumple of the paper. It was only when he was licking the edges together that she became aware that he was watching her watching him.

She flushed and half-turned away.

‘Yes, four boys,’ he resumed. ‘Like to guess their ages?’

‘Six, eight, ten, twelve, maybe thirteen. I know they’re all loners.’

‘That’s right, they’re loners, but you’re wrong with the ages.’

'Then five, seven, nine, eleven.’

‘You’re too far down, too junior. They’re not .such tender grapes, or should I say in these parts not such tender bananas.’

Paddy said, ‘I would sooner you tell me their ages.’

‘Begin at fourteen,’ he suggested.

She stared at him in disbelief, but somewhere in the disbelief the memory of this man saying on the trip up that the intake was of a ‘particular category.’—
Particular
category?

‘You can’t be serious,’ she said aloud.

‘Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and rising seventeen.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

'Then you’d better begin.’

'The Board wouldn’t allow it.’

‘Like to bet on it?’ he said again.

There was a silence for a few moments.

‘You must have made a very large donation,’ Paddy observed coldly.

‘I did.’

There was silence, then Paddy said, even more coldly: ‘But I can see why.’

‘House-mother?’

‘Cheap labour,’ she flung at him, ‘for your stud.’

‘You could add the plantation,’ he suggested amicably, ‘I can do with labour there as well. But as regards the stud, don’t forget girls work in studs, too, in fact in all my friends’ studs they’re more sought-after than boys. They have a touch.’ He exhaled. ‘Have you a touch?'

‘Only a touch of disgust at your sly method of assuring yourself of future help. Hands these days are very hard to get, I’m told.’

‘They are, indeed. I recently lost one very outstanding trainer,’ Magnus frowned.

‘But you won’t be in such a position again, will you ? Not if you play your cards right. Surely you’ll score one out of four.’

‘Horses are an affinity,’ he said shortly, ‘rapport is not a thing that can be ordered or arranged.’

‘And he had this gift, this ex-trainer of yours?’

There was a pause. Then:

‘He got results.’

‘Which you should continue to get surely with one out of four. Oh, yes, four boys was a very good idea.’

In answer he turned away from her, turned quite violently, and walked to the other end of the room. He stood there.

‘Damn you,’ he said at last.

‘What do you mean, Mr David?’

‘You know it’s not that, you know it’s—Jeremy.’

She went to retort, then stopped. ‘You mean,’ she deciphered quietly, ‘four Jeremys, one at fourteen, one at fifteen, one at sixteen, and one rising seventeen?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Jerry was their age too once.’

‘But he was ill, he was not as they are, he was not as he should have been. He missed that, and I missed it. He can’t have it ever, but I can, and I will. Oh, I know you don’t understand, but ’ His voice broke off, but when he came back to Paddy from the end of the room again he was composed once more.

‘Your next question,' he prompted, ‘will be why I got myself a house-mother when at those ages obviously a housekeeper would have done. But with Closer Families it was obligatory, and it had to be Closer Families— because of you.’

‘So you could assess me,' she nodded. ‘Find me wanting.’

‘Yes.'

‘You particularly requested me.'

‘Yes.’

‘And I, flattered, a willing victim, fell for the trap.’

‘Well, it had to happen some time,' he said, ‘you falling for a trap, I mean. How many traps have you set yourself?
One,
at least I know.’

Paddy ignored that. It was hard, but she made herself do it. Arguing would get nowhere with this man.

‘Mr David, is there anything else?’ she inquired.

‘Most certainly. Your room.’

‘That will be over there.’ Paddy pointed to the opposed side of the house.

‘Oh, no.’

‘But you said so. You said it wasn’t here. You said perish the thought.’

‘I also did not say you were to live over there.’ He gestured to where she had.

‘But ’

‘If it were daylight I would take you out and show you the architecture of this house.’

‘Castle,' she corrected frostily.

‘Well, it could be, for like most castles it comprises another inner wing. Your wing.’

‘Mine?’ she echoed. ‘But a house-mother lives
with
her wards. Not literally exactly, but ’

‘I should hope not, not with this advanced quartet.’

‘But still’ ... still ignoring him ... ‘as near to them as next door.’

‘Which you shall be. Your small wing is actually dovetailed between this side and that. You will be as next door to them as you will be to me.’ He smiled blandly. ‘But it isn’t done like that,’ Paddy fretted.

‘How would you know, you’ve never performed resident duties before.’

‘The personal, the intimate touch would be lost, Mr David.’

‘With them—or with me?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Then with four boys in their teens, one of them in his later teens, that is what I want, must have. I also think, because of your history, you should want it as well.’

‘There was no history,’ she said heatedly.

He merely shrugged.

‘Anyway, it’s all very irregular,’ she persisted, ‘everything about this assignment is irregular. The same sex throughout, the advanced ages, the ’

‘The ?’ he prompted.

‘The—the reason you’ve worked it out like this.’

‘I didn’t work it out, your principal did, after he heard my request.’

‘You mean after you put a large cheque in his hand.’ He did not comment on that, instead he demanded: ‘Finish what you started to say, tell me the reason why I worked it out like this.’

Paddy was beyond tactfulness and discretion now. She turned wildly on the man.

‘The reason, as you’ve already said, was Jerry. You feel you’ve been deprived of him at their ages, so you
have
brought them here to try to win back your lost years. Also you’ve brought me, to find out and to preserve any little thing I’d learned about Jerry but you had not.’

A few moments went by in utter silence. Somewhere
in
the big house a clock chimed and Paddy could feel each beat as though it was her heart. She dared not look at the man, but she could sense his deep rage ... and somewhere deeper, but she refused to acknowledge it, his deeper pain.

‘You disapprove of love, then?’ he asked at last.

‘No, but I don’t like your brand—possessive, enclosing, depriving everyone else.’

‘I’d hardly call you deprived. Your suite, you will find, is quite lavish.’

‘Not that,’ she almost shouted at him, ‘but Jerry as I knew him, that other witness to September. You’re only seeing Jerry’s passing as your deprivation, never your brother’s.’ A pause. ‘Never mine.’

‘So there was something,’ he said coldly.

'There was spring—something I believe you never had, Mr David. I think spring passed you by. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m tired, I’d like to ’

‘Gladly,’ he said thickly, and he advanced on her. Before Paddy could reply to him, could evade him, he pushed her to a door she had not noticed before. He opened it, almost threw in her bags, then almost threw in her.

‘You’ll find it self-contained,’ he said frigidly. ‘A woman comes in, so no need to think about breakfast or any other meals. You’re the “mother” only, not the housekeeper. There’ll be food in the refrigerator if you’re hungry. If you need anything, tap on the door, but don’t tap on the other door, the boys’ door. Their quarters are empty, they’re spending the night out at the stud.’

‘Isn’t that rather rash of you?’ Paddy shot at him.

‘No, they like sleeping at the stables.’

‘I meant—the other.’

‘What, Miss Travis?’

‘I meant if it was questionable of me with Jerry on an empty beach, couldn’t it be more questionable still with Jerry’s brother in an empty house—? Questionable for
you,
too. No one else in the house. A woman as close as next door.—No, don’t answer. I know the reply already. Perish the thought.’

‘You have it exactly. Goodnight, Miss Travis.’ He closed the door and Paddy turned the key.

After she had done so, she came blindly into the room, found a chair and sank down.

And cried.

Paddy
cried ... and cried.

She cried for Jerry. She cried because she was tired and discouraged. She cried because she had believed she had won this job on her merits, but as it had turned out the position had only been given to her because of Magnus David’s cheque. She cried because she was about to be tried and found wanting, and how could she not be found that when she
was
wanting, wanting very desperately at this moment for ordinary friendship, ordinary goodwill, ordinary kindness. He had given her nothing like that.

What was it he had said? she wept into her handkerchief. It had been something about her not being deprived, not with a suite like he was providing her. As though that could count, as though creature comfort mattered, but all the same Paddy emerged from the handkerchief and looked around.

Not knowing what to expect, she regarded her wing between two wings ... then gave a gasp. Why, it was quite beautiful, she saw. The same lovely old furniture adorned it, the same soft colours enhanced it, as the master unit. They might not be provided for the wards, but they had been for her.

She wondered what the windows looked out on. Just now they held only darkness and stars, but at daytime the view should be stunning, for he, Magnus David, had told her they were on a plateau, and a plateau would naturally command the countryside for miles.

The dovetailed flat consisted of a bed-sitting room, bathroom and small kitchen with eating recess should the occupier wish to dine alone. That would not happen, Paddy resolved, for she was a firm believer in a family sitting round a table (in this instance no male head, of course) though tonight she would have to eat alone ... and yes, she was getting hungry. The last time she had eaten had been on the train, and well down the coast. I'm sorry, Jerry, she said aloud, but you always did tell me I was hollow inside. She laughed a little at that and felt a great deal better. She knew Jerry would have liked that reminder.