Secrets of the Springs Read online

  ‘Well,’ Marty said as the wheels stopped turning, ‘that’s that. Thank you, Ben. Will you stay for dinner? It just needs heating up. Listen to that wind!’

  I had cracked the door and could hear the creak and flog of the pines moving in the gale.

  ‘Not tonight, thanks all the same. It’s been a big day and you both need your rest. I’ll see you tomorrow, Orla – if that’s convenient?’

  ‘Yes, of course. And thank you for all your help, Ben.’

  ‘All in a day’s work. About ten okay?’ I assented and he said to Marty, ‘Where’s the key?’ He leaned to take it from her and, to my surprise, completed the movement by kissing her cheek. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’ It surprised her too. When he’d shut the front door behind us she stood bemused for a moment, her right hand rising to touch her face.

  ‘Well!’ she said, and there were volumes in that single word. It was freezing in the hall; the cold seemed to rise from the slate floor and a sudden howl of wind from beyond the sturdy door had my body shuddering.

  ‘For God’s sake, let’s get into the kitchen out of the cold.’

  A little while later when the stove’s warmth had done its job, I took another spoonful of thick vegetable soup and asked, ‘How long has Ben been sweet on you, Marty?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, as if I hadn’t heard that Well! ‘Of course he isn’t. Can’t friends kiss cheeks occasionally?’

  I grinned knowingly at her. ‘Friends, my foot. What’s the problem? You’re both adults and he’s a nice guy. What do you bet he’ll be offering you a job next? Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.’

  Marty lowered her spoon and a blank look replaced the mild flush my teasing had evoked. ‘Of course,’ she said slowly. ‘I hadn’t thought but – well, my job is over, isn’t it? And my home here.’ She looked bemusedly about the kitchen. ‘I’ve lived in this house for almost twenty years.’

  I said quickly, ‘Marty, I didn’t mean – of course you must stay here till the house is sold. Really, I need you to. It could take months to find a buyer. The place might get trashed if it’s left standing empty.’

  ‘Won’t you —’ she began.

  I shook my head. ‘We’ve discussed that. As soon as Ben can free up some money, I’m off.’

  She looked disappointed. ‘I see. I really thought, well, that you might have promised Palmer . . . Because he desperately wanted for you to come home. He had mellowed, you know. Once or twice he said – oh, they were just little things – but it made me think he might have been regretting that the two of you never got on.’

  ‘I didn’t promise him anything,’ I said with a hint of sharpness. ‘Really, it wasn’t much of a conversation – if you could even call it that. His mind was wandering and he didn’t make a great deal of sense. He said he was sorry; he said . . .’ I forced the words out, ‘that he loved me. And there was something – a letter, some sort of document anyway, in the cellar. Oh, and a little key – whatever that meant. I’ll look for it tomorrow.’

  She nodded. ‘That’d be the small brass key on his watch chain. He used a pocket watch,’ she explained. ‘He liked that better than having one on his wrist. It got in the way, I suppose. He was always doing heavy work at the agency, loading and unloading and stacking stuff.’

  ‘That should be easy enough to find – if you’re sure it’s right?’

  She nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I once asked him what it was for – the key. He said it locked up his secrets.’

  ‘Really?’ I finished my soup and cut a heel off the crusty loaf on the board between us, reaching for the butter. ‘What secrets?’

  Marty shrugged. ‘I expect he had some. Everyone does, after all. Or it could have been a joke.’

  The idea of Palmer McRae joking was almost as foreign as the notion of him having secrets. After a moment I said, ‘You have my sympathy, you know. I can’t claim that I’ll miss him, but you obviously will. He was lucky to have you.’

  ‘No,’ she answered quietly. ‘I was the lucky one, more so than you could ever imagine. And Orla, I would be grateful if you didn’t say anything again about Ben and me. And certainly not to him.’ Her tone was grave. ‘I have my reasons or I wouldn’t ask.’

  I stared at her in surprise. ‘I – Marty, I’m sorry, of course I won’t if . . .’ I was confused. ‘Are you already married?’ I wondered that such an obvious point should never have occurred to me before. Just because she passed as a single woman didn’t mean that she was.

  Ignoring the question, she rose and went to the stove. ‘Tea, or coffee? Just leave it, Orla, please. He’s a fine man; he’s done a lot for your uncle and for you. I don’t want him embarrassed.’

  ‘Yes, of course. May I have coffee? I think I’ll take it up with me. It’s been a tiring sort of day, and an early night won’t hurt.’

  Carrying my coffee mug I headed for the stairs, then paused by the hall table where the telephone sat. A quick glance at my watch assured me that it wasn’t yet late but when I dialled the Buchans’ place on the island, the phone rang out. Either they were not at home or so soundly asleep the persistent ringing didn’t rouse them. Never mind, I told myself, the news would keep till tomorrow.

  However, the following morning brought no better results. Frowning, I listened to the endless ringing, the sound conjuring images of the empty house with its cane mats and wide storm shutters. The silence was worrying; so unlike them. I wondered where they could possibly be. They travelled only rarely now, and surely they would have mentioned any upcoming trips? Some local event then, one that included breakfast? It seemed unlikely, so it was with a small nibble of disquiet in my heart that I went to the kitchen to break my own fast.

  When the washing up was done, Marty pulled a new roll of green garbage bags from the cupboard. ‘I thought, if you’d like me to help of course, that I could bag your uncle’s clothes this morning?’

  ‘Thank you, I would. I suppose we may as well get started on all that, but first, could you find me his watch – and show me where this cellar is?’

  ‘Of course. The watch will be in his bedside drawer. And the cellar’s under the stairs.’

  ‘That’s a cupboard,’ I objected. The vacuum cleaner and brooms had always lived in it.

  ‘The cellar’s beneath, below the foundations. There’s a trapdoor and a ladder. It’s quite small really, so the ladder’s very steep. Don’t fall – the floor’s concrete.’ She frowned. ‘I can’t think why he would have said – I mean, there’s nothing down there but the wine racks.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see. Have you got a torch?’

  ‘No need, he had a light installed.’ She opened the cupboard and flicked a switch. A bulb lit up in the angled ceiling created by the stairs as she pointed to a handgrip set into a panel of flooring. ‘Down there. Be careful, Orla.’

  I heaved the hinged trapdoor up and, carefully lowering myself onto the vertical ladder, descended into a brightly lit cell about two and a half metres square. Marty was right. A single glance was enough to see that it housed nothing beyond the wine racks fixed to three of the walls. The bottles that filled them glinted in the light. The ubiquitous daddy-long-legs had spun webs in the corners and the space held the musty smell of concrete and stale air. There was no visible keyhole and certainly no papers. Disappointed, I climbed out again, shutting the door on my late uncle’s collection.

  ‘Amazing.’ I shook my head. ‘It sounded like “cellar” but maybe it was something else. I’ll just have to go through his desk, and anywhere else he kept his private things.’

  ‘Unless it’s in the bank? He might have left any confidential papers there,’ Marty suggested.

  ‘Now that’s an idea. I’ll ask Ben, he should know if there’s a safe box, or whatever it’s called.’

  Ben, arriving on time, said he didn’t, but promised to enquire. He had a sheaf of accounts and bank statements with him and a copy of my uncle’s will, and over the following hour led me through the thickets and swamps of what I had inherit
ed. There were none of the sunny uplands I had envisaged, just debt and mortgages, and low prices.

  ‘There has to be something.’ I said heatedly. ‘You’re telling me that the bank, in effect, owns the agency. That this house will be hard – if not impossible – to sell for a reasonable price, and there’s no point in even thinking about listing the station?’

  ‘That’s not quite right, Orla,’ Ben said soothingly. ‘When the house sells there’ll be some spare cash. Yes, you can forget the agency; there’s no way to cover the mortgage, so the bank will certainly take the proceeds there. And while it wouldn’t be in your interest for me to encourage a sale of the station, you are of course at liberty to do so. It’s yours, after all. But you’d be throwing it away – along with all of Palmer’s work. It’s true that it’s barely breaking even, but he sacrificed his own business for it, you know. It wasn’t just the renovations on the agency that put him in the red. For a couple of years there it was only his contributions to the station that saved it from going under. Without his input the Park could well have shared Gem Hole’s fate, or Hammond Plains’.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked blankly. ‘Why would he do that – risk his own . . . I mean, what was the station to him?’

  ‘Perhaps he did it for you. To keep the Macrae name going there. His own grandfather started the property, after all. Maybe he didn’t want to be the Macrae that let all those others down.’

  ‘It was his father,’ I corrected, ‘my grandfather.’

  ‘Actually, it wasn’t.’ Ben smiled apologetically. ‘Gil’s always been the local historian, you know, and some of his knowledge of the area has rubbed off on me. Your great-grandfather took up the lease first. It was he who built that old stone hut just inside the boundary. You know where I mean.’ I nodded dumbly as he continued. ‘But the seasons were against him. He lasted three years, lost his sheep to a drought and left. Did what they all did and drifted to the Hill; must’ve done okay there because it was his son who eventually came back and made it work.’

  ‘Grandfather Charles? Really? Dad never told me that.’

  Ben shrugged. ‘Well, your great-grandfather was only there for three seasons – not long in the scheme of things. Look, I’m sorry it’s not better news, Orla. The upside is that things are slowly picking up for the industry. If you can hang on for another two, maybe three years, until prices improve, then maybe you could think about selling the Park. And who knows? By then a buyer might have turned up for this place, too.’

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ I said dryly. He simply nodded. There wasn’t exactly a thriving real estate market in Emu Springs and Palmer’s house was so different, so dark and unappealing, solid and shuttered-looking, that I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting it. Not at a price to cover the cost of its construction anyway. Most of the other homes were of fibro, or corrugated iron, with verandahs or shade-cloth covered patios for outdoor summer living. ‘I suppose I could sell the furniture. Is there an auction house in the Hill? We’d get nothing for it here.’

  ‘Bound to be,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll look into it for you. So what are your plans, Orla?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I rubbed my thumb over the table’s edge, the wood silky to my touch. ‘I suppose I should go out to the Park while I’m here.’ Which reminded me, there was a garage beside the house but I hadn’t been near it yet. ‘My uncle’s vehicle – is it here?’

  ‘A blue Nissan. But I doubt it’ll start, it hasn’t been driven for months. Never mind, I can run you out tomorrow if you like?’

  ‘Thanks. We’ll do that then.’ I glanced at the clock and rose. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a cuppa. I’ll put the kettle on and go find Marty.’

  Chapter Six

  It must have been talking about the Park that made me dream of the past that night. It had been literally years since I last did so. Waking, I lay for a moment letting the vividness of it fade, staring at the shadowy outline of the window visible through the open curtains. I had never slept with them drawn. Even as a child I had preferred to see the stars, or the dawn, rather than lie smothering in darkness.

  The dream had been of riding with my father, the sweet- smelling smoke of his pipe mingling with the scent of horse sweat and dust. Far in the distance the Barrier Range was humped against the sky, like a lavender line drawn with an unsteady brush, and the sun had turned the saltbush silver. I was on Bess, a sweet little brown mare with a crooked blaze and three white feet, and we were going mustering . . . Then the paddock faded in the way of dreams, and the horses with it, and I was swinging in the garden, soaring until my toes almost touched the tree as my mother pushed me. The sound of my delighted laughter filled the dream. ‘Higher, Mummy, higher!’ I could see her from the corner of my eye as her arms head thrown back, the wide brimmed sunhat slipping from the smooth fall of her dark hair. Then she too was gone, and the dream became a jumble of images and emotion. Fear, and loneliness. The awful aching emptiness of loss. I had lain there filled with a sadness that had taken a few moments to pass. History, I told myself. All behind me now.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Marty asked at breakfast and I nodded.

  ‘Mmm, thanks. What about you?’

  ‘Oh, I seemed to be packing clothes all night. Silly really – after all, they say dreams only last minutes, if not seconds.’ She scraped the marmalade jar. ‘That’s well and truly empty. I hope you didn’t want some?’

  ‘I’m right, thanks. Marty, Ben’s taking me out to Malvern Park today – sometime this morning, he said. I wondered if you’d like to come too? We could take a picnic lunch and a thermos – goodness knows if there’ll be gas in the stove out there. I thought I’d have a look through the homestead – in search of the missing keyhole. Would he have left whatever it is out there, do you think?’

  She considered this. ‘I suppose it’s possible. He was always back and forth. Though if it’s important I really think the bank is a better bet.’

  ‘Well, Ben’s looking into that too.’ I crunched my toast and fished out the little key from beneath my sweater where it now hung on a chain around my neck. ‘It’s so small,’ I said. ‘I can’t see it fitting much – not a desk drawer, and certainly not a safe.’

  ‘It’s more like a box key,’ she agreed, ‘or a tea caddy.’

  ‘Did you say tea caddy?’

  ‘Yes, the antique sort, from the days when tea was terribly expensive, and you locked it up from the servants.’ She caught my stare and smiled slightly. ‘I’ve read a bit about antiques and I assure you it happened. There aren’t so many about these days, but you never know.’

  ‘You mean Palmer could’ve had one?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. At least if he did I never saw it.’ She pondered a moment. ‘That needn’t rule it out though. He was a very private man, your uncle.’

  I sighed. ‘Great.’ Now I would have to turn out all the cup- boards in both houses just in case it existed. ‘But he said cellar,’ I grumbled. ‘I’m certain.’

  ‘Maybe he was thinking of the station. Could there be one there?’

  ‘I don’t see how. The floors are poured concrete.’ A ray of sunlight twinkled on the milk jug like a blessing alighting on the day. I heaved another sigh. ‘Nothing’s ever simple, is it?’

  Ben arrived just as I picked up the phone. Marty let him in and I mouthed, ‘Won’t be a moment,’ as he passed me in the hall.

  ‘Morning, Orla. Take your time,’ he responded as I listened to the phone ringing at the other end. Making allowances for their age – Kevin’s slight deafness, Rose’s stick – I waited, but in the end the ringing stopped and the dial tone resumed. Perturbed, I replaced the handset. It was the third time I had failed to contact them. I would just have to try again tonight. By then, I told myself, they must surely have returned from wherever it was they’d gone.

  Lunch was packed and waiting. ‘Wonderful,’ Ben said when he learned that Marty was coming too. ‘You deserve a day out.’ He gathered up the coldbox and
thermoses. ‘Bring a coat or you’ll freeze – it’s not the warmest old house. I rang Mark and he’s unlocked it for us.’

  I froze in the act of lifting my own wool-lined jacket from its hook by the back door.

  ‘Mark? Doesn’t he work at the agency now? I thought you said he’d gone from the Park?’

  ‘Did I? Oh,’ his face cleared, ‘I see – as overseer. It’s the position that’s gone, Orla, not the man. He’s – well, everything these days – manager, ringer, caretaker. I doubt Palmer could have pulled the station through these last few years without him. That said, it wouldn’t be easy for him to find work on another property now, so it’s not as if we’re taking advantage of him.’

  I folded the jacket carefully, watching my hands smooth it over my arm. ‘Why ever not? I thought he had a good reputation as a worker?’

  ‘I’m sure, but a stockman has to be able to ride. And since the accident —’

  I felt my hand clench on the cloth and deliberately loosened it. ‘He had an accident?’ My voice had risen and Ben was looking at me strangely. I stepped quickly towards the hall speaking over my shoulder. ‘That’s too bad. What happened? Have you got everything, Marty?’

  ‘I think so.’ She followed me, and Ben, encumbered with his load, answered absently as he wrestled to close the front door behind us.

  ‘He had a head-on with a semitrailer on the highway – oh, years ago. It must have been soon after you left because it was before the road was fully sealed. His wife was killed in the crash and he came very close to losing his leg. He’s not completely crippled but he can no longer ride. Palmer bought a farm bike for him to use instead. In the days when that sort of expense was still possible.’ His spare hand felt in his pocket for the car keys.