Part 1 (2/2)

I left her with her mother, and went back towards Lord October, watching him from a distance taking a note from his wallet and offering it to Arthur. Arthur wouldn't accept it, even though he was English. He's been here so long, I thought, that he's as Australian as anyone. He'd hate to go back to Britain, whatever he says when he's drunk.

'You were right,' October said. 'He's a splendid chap, but no good for what I want. I didn't even suggest it.'

'Isn't it expecting a great deal of any stable lad, however bright, to uncover something which has got men like you up a gum-tree?'

He grimaced. 'Yes. That is one of the difficulties I mentioned. We're sc.r.a.ping the bottom of the barrel, though. Any idea is worth trying. Any. You can't realise how serious the situation is.'

We walked over to his car, and he opened the door.

'Well, thank you for your patience, Mr Roke. As I said, it was an impulse, coming here. I hope I haven't wasted too much of your afternoon?' He smiled, still looking slightly hesitant and disconcerted.

I shook my head and smiled back and he started the car, turned it, and drove off down the road. He was out of my thoughts before he was through the gate-posts.

Out of my thoughts; but not by a long way out of my life.

He came back again the next day at sundown. I found him sitting patiently smoking in the small blue car, having no doubt discovered that there was no one in the house. I walked back towards him from the stable block where I had been doing my share of the evening's ch.o.r.es, and reflected idly that he had again caught me at my dirtiest.

He got out of the car when he saw me coming, and stamped on his cigarette.

'Mr Roke.' He held out his hand, and I shook it.

This time he made no attempt to rush into speech. This time he had not come on impulse. There was absolutely no hesitation in his manner: instead, his natural air of authority was much more p.r.o.nounced, and it struck me that it was with this power that he set out to persuade a boardroom full of hard directors to agree to an unpopular proposal.

I knew instantly, then, why he had come back.

I looked at him warily for a moment: then gestured towards the house, and led him again into the living-room.

'A drink?' I asked. 'Whisky?'

'Thank you.' He took the gla.s.s.

'If you don't mind,' I said, 'I will go and change.' And think, I added privately.

Along in my room I showered and put on some decent trousers, socks and house-shoes, and a white poplin s.h.i.+rt with a navy blue silk tie. I brushed back my damp hair carefully in front of the mirror, and made sure my nails were clean. There was no point in entering an argument at a social disadvantage. Particularly with an earl as determined as this.

He stood up when I went back, and took in my changed appearance with one smooth glance.

I smiled fleetingly, and poured myself a drink, and another for him.

'I think,' he said, 'that you may have guessed why I am here.'

'Perhaps.'

'To persuade you to take the job I had in mind for Simmons,' he said without preamble, and without haste.

'Yes,' I said. I sipped my drink. 'And I can't do it.'

We stood there eyeing each other. I knew that what he was seeing was a good deal different from the Daniel Roke he had met before. More substantial. More the sort of person he would have expected to find, perhaps. Clothes maketh man, I thought wryly.

The day was fading, and I switched on the lights. The mountains outside the window retreated into darkness; just as well, as I judged I would need all my resolution, and they were both literally and figuratively ranged behind October. The trouble was, of course, that with more than half my mind I wanted to take a crack at his fantastic job. And I knew it was madness. I couldn't afford it, for one thing.

'I've learned a good deal about you now,' he said slowly. 'On my way from here yesterday it crossed my mind that it was a pity you were not Arthur Simmons; you would have been perfect. You did, if you will forgive me saying so, look the part.' He sounded apologetic.

'But not now?'

'You know you don't. You changed so that you wouldn't, I imagine. But you could again. Oh, I've no doubt that if I'd met you yesterday inside this house looking as civilised as you do at this moment, the thought would never have occurred to me. But when I saw you first, walking across the paddock very tattered and half bare and looking like a gipsy, I did in fact take you for the hired help... I'm sorry.'

I grinned faintly. 'It happens often, and I don't mind.'

'And there's your voice,' he said. 'That Australian accent of yours... I know it's not as strong as many I've heard, but it's as near to c.o.c.kney as dammit, and I expect you could broaden it a bit. You see,' he went on firmly, as he saw I was about to interrupt, 'if you put an educated Englishman into a stable as a lad, the chances are the others would know at once by his voice that he wasn't genuine. But they couldn't tell, with you. You look right, and you sound right. You seem to me the perfect answer to all our problems. A better answer than I could have dreamt of finding.'

'Physically,' I commented dryly.

He drank, and looked at me thoughtfully.

'In every way. You forget, I told you I know a good deal about you now. By the time I reached Perlooma yesterday afternoon I had decided to... er... investigate you, one might say, to find out what sort of man you really were... to see if there were the slightest chance of your being attracted by such a... a job.' He drank again, and paused, waiting.

'I can't take on anything like that,' I said. 'I have enough to do here.' The understatement of the month, I thought.

'Could you take on twenty thousand pounds?' He said it casually, conversationally.

The short answer to that was 'Yes'; but instead, after a moment's stillness, I said 'Australian, or English?'

His mouth curled down at the corners and his eyes narrowed. He was amused.

'English. Of course,' he said ironically.

I said nothing. I simply looked at him. As if reading my thoughts he sat down in an arm-chair, crossed his legs comfortably, and said 'I'll tell you what you would do with it, if you like. You would pay the fees of the medical school your sister Belinda has set her heart on. You would send your younger sister Helen to art school, as she wants. You would put enough aside for your thirteen-year-old brother Philip to become a lawyer, if he is still of the same mind when he grows up. You could employ more labour here, instead of working yourself into an early grave feeding, clothing, and paying school fees for your family.'

I suppose I should have been prepared for him to be thorough, but I felt a surge of anger that he should have pried so very intimately into my affairs. However, since the time when an angry retort had cost me the sale of a yearling who broke his leg the following week, I had learned to keep my tongue still whatever the provocation.

'I also have had two girls and a boy to educate,' he said. 'I know what it is costing you. My elder daughter is at university, and the twin boy and girl have recently left school.'

When I again said nothing, he continued, 'You were born in England, and were brought to Australia when you were a child. Your father, Howard Roke, was a barrister, a good one. He and your mother were drowned together in a sailing accident when you were eighteen. Since then you have supported yourself and your sisters and brother by horse dealing and breeding. I understand that you had intended to follow your father into the law, but instead used the money he left to set up business here, in what had been your holiday house. You have done well at it. The horses you sell have a reputation for being well broken in and beautifully mannered. You are thorough, and you are respected.'

He looked up at me, smiling. I stood stiffly. I could see there was still more to come.

He said 'Your headmaster at Geelong says you had a brain and are wasting it. Your bank manager says you spend little on yourself. Your doctor says you haven't had a holiday since you settled here nine years ago except for a month you spent in hospital once with a broken leg. Your pastor says you never go to church, and he takes a poor view of it.' He drank slowly.

Many doors, it seemed, were open to determined earls.

'And finally,' he added, with a lop-sided smile, 'the bar keeper of the Golden Platypus in Perlooma says he'd trust you with his sister, in spite of your good looks.'

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