TO Frances Tonger this was a night of nights, a time of gaiety and excitement which helped to alleviate the usual dullness of station life for a girl who had become accustomed to city life.
Her uncle was a model of courtesy, revealing to her and to his guests the best facet of his character, reminding her of what he was when she was a small child. Elderly Mr Wonkford, reputedly rich and owner of pastoral country south of Breakaway House, old-fashioned in his manners and dress, was a beau still, and one of her more obvious admirers. And then there was the slightly eccentric Major Gatley-Tomkins, arrayed in full regimentals and dancing with gooseneck spurs affixed to field boots. These two leavened the throng, added personality to the whole, and provided a salutary brake on the effervescent spirit of youth, especially as represented by the likes of Buck Ross.
“They say that heaven knows not time, Miss Frances, but having lived in heaven, I do not believe it,” Mr Wonkford told her when the music stopped and ended their dance. “Were I a genie I would wipe out all these people, retaining only the orchestra that we might dance forever.”
“That’s very nice of you, Mr Wonkford,” Frances said, smiling up into his long face, which so reminded her of pictures of the Duke of Wellington. “I’ve enjoyed it very much. Thank you!”
“From me is due all the thanks. And now, permit me to find you a seat. My duties as Master of Ceremonies compel me to leave your side.” He guided Frances to a vacant chair between a vivacious widow who had buried three husbands, and Morris Tonger who was talking with a visitor to a neighbouring station, a jovial man who had stolen much gold during the palmy days of the fields and now lived in respected retirement in Perth. Bowing low, Mr Wonkford added: “Au revoir, Miss Frances! Never again will I act as Master of Ceremonies.”
“Quaint old bird!” remarked the widow when Mr Wonkford had left.
“Very nice, though. I like old-fashioned people,” Frances returned.
“I don’t. They make me feel old.”
“They make me feel young.”
“They make me want to grow Dundreary whiskers,” interrupted Harry Tremayne. “I believe that with them I would look extraordinarily handsome, but, alas! I’m a slave to fashion. I have the honour, Miss Tonger, to present myself as your partner for this waltz. You see, old-fashioned gentlemen make me talk old-fashionedly.”
“Where did you learn it?” inquired the widow.
“Not in a drawing room, madam.”
“And not in the stockyards, eh Tremayne?” Tonger put in, a smile on his face but none in his eyes.
“You’re right, Mr Tonger. I’m a good Roman in doing always that which the Romans do.”
The widow examined Tremayne with increased interest, and Frances, although she badly wanted to refuse him, got up to dance in preference to talking to this woman whom she detested.
When they swung out on to the floor, Frances knew that here was a partner who could really dance. As Ann had done, she shyly studied his face, trying to guess his age, unable after two minutes’ silence to determine if he were younger than twenty-five or older than forty. When he grinned at her she doubted that he was older than twenty.
“You dance well,” he assured her unsmilingly – and then looked at least forty.
“I’m less interested by your compliments than by the reason you so rudely left me.”
“Ah! Couldn’t we defer explanations until after the dance? The confounded band will stop at any second.”
“I would like an explanation – now.”
“Very well,” he said sadly. “Just when we were about to dance I saw someone knock down a friend of mine known on Bowgada as Ned. It appears that without his sanction, Miss Hazit had left home for Breakaway House, and he came to take her back.”
“Miss Hazit? Who’s she?”
“Her Christian name is Nora.”
“Oh! But she’s not a ‘miss’ and her surname isn’t Hazit.”
“No? My mistake. I thought it was.”
For a few seconds there was silence between them. Then Frances burst out laughing. He knew the reason for her merriment, and shrewdly guessed the subject that had occupied her mind during the preceding period of pensive silence.
“You’re a keen observer,” she said more soberly.
“I am. And you do dance well.”
“Better than your friend?” she asked, wanting to hurt him.
“Yes, but so you should. You’re younger and lighter,” he argued, as though to insist that his compliment was not flattery. “My lovely Violet is a bit thick in the fetlock. She is, too, a bit thick in the forearm. But, nevertheless, physical thickness and fitness is no criterion of a woman’s goodness of heart or quickness of mind.”
“Your lovely Violet!” she echoed softly. “Are you engaged?”
“Eh? Oh – I beg your pardon. I didn’t quite catch what you said.”
“I asked a quite plain question. It was not an impertinence; for you referred to Miss Winters in endearing terms.”
Regarding her with knit brows, he said: “Do you think so? Is calling her ‘my lovely Violet’ a term of endearment?”
“Well, what am I to say to that?” she expostulated, for the first time laughing at him, her expression making him hold his breath. And seeing the flare of admiration in his eyes she laughed again.
After a little silence, he said: “Referring to Miss Winters as I did doesn’t strike me as a lover-like figure of speech. You see, I call my mother ‘Queen of my Heart’. My sister I call ‘Puss Cat’, and you, to myself, ‘Breakaway Flower’.” The sudden flush which swept into her face did not deter him from adding: “Now, now! Keep cool! Never get excited at what Harry Tremayne might say. I speak from my heart and think with my mind and never mix the two. Frankness is a guarantee of innocence.”
“Of that I’m not too sure.”
“Do I look like a villain?”
“No…”
“Or an angel?”
“Decidedly not.”
He sighed deeply. “Why do you say that? I’ve been thinking what a jolly fine fellow I am.”
“If you thought less and talked less you might be worth knowing,” she told him bitingly. Then searching his face with her eyes, she struck him a shrewd blow. “Are you related to Chief Inspector Tremayne?”
“Who’s he? A stock inspector or a rabbit inspector?” he asked, successfully masking the surprise her question gave him.
“Police,” she replied simply.
At that he laughed and daringly squeezed her waist. “If my old dad heard anyone referring to him as a policeman, and a chief inspector at that, he would sue for libel the first day he got out. Why, he’s a butcher, the head butcher in Fremantle gaol.”
“I don’t believe you. I know Mrs Tremayne and Mr Tremayne very well. You take very much after Mrs Tremayne.”
He was growing desperate beneath this stroke of ill fortune. “Look here!” he said. “I’d like to swap stories with you. Do you know that big balancing rock three miles south of here along the breakaway?”
“Yes… But I don’t swap stories with mere acquaintances.”
“Being your very dear friend, I’m glad to hear you say that,” he told her swiftly. “Wednesday at three o’clock I’ll be riding by that balancing rock, so I’ll turn in to it for an hour. When you leave here you ride out round the point of the headland, then along the foot of the breakaway till you come to a deep bay. In the centre of the bay is a short promontory on the lip of which is the balancing rock. Before you reach it, take one of the several cattle pads leading up through the great cracks in the breakaway lip, and there, at the base of the promontory on high land, you can secure your horse to a cork tree. When I arrive, we’ll climb to the top of the balancing rock, and there admire the scenery and have a good old pitch.”
“A pitch!”
“Conversation,” he corrected himself.
“I shan’t be there.”
“You will be there.”
“I tell you, I shall not be there, Mr Tremayne.”
He sighed. “You’re like the parson in the song giving out the church notices. When he announced the meeting of the Young Ladies’ Guild, he said: ‘I shall be there,’ like I’m saying now. What did I say? The music is stopping. I knew you’d spoil this dance. Now, remember! Three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon to the tick.”
“I shall not be there.”
“You will be there.”
“I shall…”
“Don’t waste breath. Life’s too short. You’ll have to give me another dance to make up for this one.” He looked at her card dangling from her dress. He was astonished to see that no man’s initials were against the very last one. Hastily he inscribed his own. When he looked up Frances saw that his mood was no longer gay. The expression in the depths of his grey-blue eyes shocked every nerve in her body.
“Thank you very, very much,” he said, in tones so low that his voice was barely above a whisper.
He guessed! He guessed why there were no initials against the last dance on her card. Frances became furious with him. “Oh, you are insufferable.”
“So you said on another occasion,” he bantered her, the old mood returned. “Au revoir, till the last dance. Here’s Mr Filson just dying to talk to you, and there’s my lovely Violet waiting for me to take her to supper. Bon jour, Herr Filson! I leave to your protection Breakaway – er – Miss Tonger.”
“You’ve been having an exciting time, Miss Tonger?” remarked Filson, as Tremayne sauntered across to Violet Winters.
“So much so that I wouldn’t be able to stand too much of it, Mr Filson. But you must be having a very quiet time. Don’t you care for bridge?”
“Not while I can watch you dancing.”
“That’s very nice of you, and as a reward you may take me to supper, if you like.”
“I should like. I should like ever so much.”
Despite his limp, Brett Filson was a distinguished figure in his dress clothes, against which were splashed the colours of several decorations. He escorted Frances round the ballroom in preference to winding a precarious passage through the throng gathering for another dance. They found seats at one of the big tables in the decorated wool room.
“Feel calmer now?” Brett asked.
“Much,” Frances replied. “Your Harry Tremayne is, what shall I say…”
“Delightfully boyish? Golden-hearted? A real man’s man?” Brett suggested.
“No…none of those nice things.”
“Dear me! You astonish me, Miss Tonger.”
“Did you know him before he came to Bowgada?” she asked, looking directly at her escort.
“No.”
“Do you know that his father is chief of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Perth?”
“Er…yes. Did he tell you?”
“No. Mr Tremayne hasn’t done all the guessing tonight. I know his people well. He bears a striking resemblance to his mother.”
“Does he?” For a little while Brett pondered. Here was a turn of the wheel which would have to be checked. “I wonder, would you mind keeping that a close secret?” he asked. “You see Tremayne is up here on a confidential mission.”
“Oh! I’m not sufficiently interested in Mr Tremayne that I would gossip about him or about his secret mission. I may wonder what that secret mission is, because it must be a police mission. You see, Mrs Tremayne told me all about her son, Harry, who was doing some fine work up in the Kimberleys among the Aborigines.”
“I would share a little secret with you were it not for my promise,” Brett conceded. “I promised not to divulge the nature of his mission. Will you promise to keep his identity a secret?”
“Yes, of course. It’s no business of mine.”
Again there was a pregnant silence between them. Watching her unobtrusively Brett saw that she was looking in the direction of Miss Winters and her escort leaving the supper room.
“Would you grant me a favour?” she presently asked him.
“Need you ask that? Command me.”
“Take me outside where I can have a cigarette, will you?” she entreated. “I’m just dying for one and I haven’t yet plucked up sufficient courage to defy my uncle’s prohibition.”
Brett laughed delightedly. The girl pleased him with her warm camaraderie after the cold aloofness bordering on snobbery which he had found in her on her return from that sojourn of years in Perth. “Let us conspire against your uncle without loss of time,” he urged.
So it was that they two, leaving the supper room, came to that door beyond which Tremayne had seen Ned knocked down. Out in the darkness the air was balmy and soft.
Brett led his companion along the wall of the great iron building till they reached a stack of weather-seasoned fence posts which provided a seat.
“Ah! That’s lovely!” the girl murmured ecstatically, inhaling deeply.
Across from them was the men’s kitchen. Bustling figures were revealed through the open doorway. Girls journeyed from the kitchen to the supper room laden with trays. One emerged from the kitchen. They saw distinctly that it was Nora. She was coming towards the shed, when a man dashed out of the skirting darkness, snatched her up in his arms and raced with her to Filson’s car. Then the car engine purred, the headlamps sent forward their beams, and the car speeded off towards Bowgada. They both saw that the man who had carried Nora away was Harry Tremayne.