Over the Blue Mountains Page 10

  “I know I shouldn’t,” Carol admitted. “But I don’t think she is the right girl for him. And now he’ll never escape, because nothing would induce Max to let down someone who was in her position.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Juliet agreed. And for a moment she looked nearly as gloomy as Carol.

  Max Ormathon’s matrimonial affairs were really no great concern of hers, of course. But the thought of his marrying Verity had suddenly become indescribably unwelcome to her.

  Although they made a start soon after six the next morning, Carol insisted on being up and seeing to it that they had a good breakfast. Juliet had said goodbye to the children the night before and had found considerable consolation in their assumption that she would, of course, be coming back fairly soon.

  Saying goodbye to Carol, however, proved much more of a wrench than she would have believed possible with someone she had known for less than two weeks.

  “Come back to us soon,” Henry said to her. “There’ll always be a welcome for you here.”

  And Carol kissed her at though she were indeed one of the family, and whispered, “Don’t sacrifice yourself for your relations too much, will you? They weren’t awfully willing to do much for you, remember.”

  “Uncle was,” Juliet said compassionately. “I keep on thinking how—how disappointed he looked when he found I wasn’t going to Melbourne with them. I feel I might have helped him a little if I’d been there when all this happened.”

  “It’s not very likely. But, of course, being nice, you would have to feel that way,” Carol said.

  Then she kissed her brother, and Juliet and he got into the car.

  So much—so much—had happened since they had driven up to Bakandi in this same car. It seemed to Juliet that she had discovered a whole world of safety and friendship since then. Now she was leaving all that—voluntarily, she supposed.

  But it will always be waiting there for me still, she tried to tell herself. Beyond the Blue Mountains.

  The very phrase seemed to have a hopeful, almost symbolic sound. And she repeated it to herself as they drove away.

  It was still hardly light, and Max said to her, “You’d better go to sleep again, if you can. It’s too cloudy a morning for you to see much of the dawn.”

  “I’ve seen the best dawn it’s possible to see,” she replied with a smile.

  And when she saw him smile reminiscently, too, she knew he, also, was recalling that morning they saw the sunrise from the Pyramids together.

  “You said you would never forget it.”

  “Did I?” She was astonished that he remembered that detail, and still more that he should recall it in that tone of pleasurable reminiscence. “Well, it’s true, of course.”

  “For me, too,” he said. And because she could think of nothing with which to answer that, she sat there silent beside him, thinking how wonderful the experience had been—and how indescribably unpleasant Verity had been about it afterward.

  They were silent for a long time after that. And presently, without consciously taking his advice, she fell asleep.

  When she awoke, she knew from the quality of the light that she must have slept until quite late into the morning.

  “Where are we?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  “About an hour’s drive from Katoomba.”

  “Do you mean that we’ve passed—passed...”

  “Tyrville? Yes. You were sound asleep at the time.”

  “Was I?”

  There seemed nothing to add to that. Only the fact itself somehow appeared to be of enormous significance to her.

  Tyrville—the place she had always supposed she would associate with pain and humiliation beyond description. Surely it should have had the evil power to pierce even her dreamless sleep and jerk her to the surface of unhappy consciousness.

  But it had done nothing of the sort. She had slept tranquilly as she passed through once more, in Max’s care.

  Was that it? Half-smiling, she glanced at the strong, reassuring profile of the man beside her. He had said he hoped she would always feel safe and happy when he was around. And she had—even in her sleep, and at the scene of the worst experience of her life.

  Illogically perhaps, it seemed to her suddenly that nothing very bad could happen to her now that Max had flung the almost careless mantle of his protection around her.

  There was really no basis for the idea, only it was a comforting one. And, as they descended nearer and nearer to Katoomba, and the tremendous sweep of the Leura Gorge, Juliet was happy in a way she could not quite explain to herself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  To Juliet, the return to Sydney—even though she and Max spent less than a couple of hours there—gave her at last something of the feeling of being a resident, rather than a visitor.

  Here was a place where she recognized landmarks and recalled personal experiences. And, if it was all very recent, at least it served to provide some background—some feeling that she was not a completely new arrival.

  They were fortunate enough to find space available on one of the several flights to Melbourne. And late in the afternoon Juliet found herself back at the airport that had furnished her with her first real impression of Australia. Only this time she was not the newest of arriving visitors. She was a reasonably seasoned traveler, preparing to fly farther on into a continent that she was already beginning to regard as home.

  Max proved to be a more enlivening traveling companion than her aunt had been, and Juliet thoroughly enjoyed the three and a half hours’ flight.

  Occasionally he pointed out to her clusters of lights below and told her what town or point of interest they represented. But she could gather little in the darkness, and even when they began to descend over Melbourne, only the tremendous extent of the lighted area identified this for her as one of the finest cities in the country.

  Absorbed though she was with her anxieties for her relations, Juliet still found time to look eagerly from the airport bus as they drove into town. But again the darkness prevented her from seeing a great deal, though Max pointed out some of the university buildings to her and even, in an access of unexpectedly personal recollection, the house where he had lived as a student.

  From the air terminal in town they took a taxi to a hotel in what Juliet could see was a wide and splendid street. This Max identified for her as Collins Street, and promised that she should see something of the city, under his guidance, sometime in the next few days.

  He engaged rooms for them both at the hotel, since it was obviously too late for them to descend on the Burletts with any expectation of accommodation. And then, with an anxious Juliet beside him, he telephoned to announce their arrival.

  From what she heard of his end of the conversation, Juliet gathered that it was to her unknown young cousin, Penelope, that he first spoke, and then to Verity.

  When she heard him say, “Why, darling, I’m here in Melbourne, and of course I’ll come along at once,” she moved away. For it was hardly for her to overhear what he had to say to his beloved.

  But for the first time since she had been with him Juliet suddenly felt isolated and shut away from him. It was natural, of course. Verity had a right to monopolize him in every sense at this moment. Only Juliet disliked the feeling intensely.

  Presently he raised his voice slightly, and she heard him say, “I have Juliet with me ... What’s that? No, she didn’t. We’ll explain when we see you.”

  Pleasant explanations, thought Juliet, with a slight grimace. But perhaps her own humiliation mattered little now in the face of their personal holocaust.

  “But, my dear—” a note of faintly irritated protest had entered Max’s tone, and Juliet was reminded that he must be tired after the early start, the long drive and then the plane journey “—my dear, she came specially with me all this way, to see what she could do for you all.”

  There was a short pause, while presumably Verity gave her views on what she thought Juliet
could do for them all.

  “I don’t think your mother will see things that way,” Max said dryly. “And certainly your father will not. Anyway, we’re coming along right away.”

  Juliet permitted herself a grim little smile at that. She had hardly supposed that Verity would welcome her with enthusiasm. But then it had not been for Verity that she had made this long journey. It had been for her uncle and, she supposed, to a certain extent, Aunt Katherine.

  Not that Juliet had many illusions left about her pretty, plaintive aunt. Only—this was a terrible thing that had happened to her, and Juliet could no more have abandoned her than she could have turned her back on a tiresome but injured child.

  With little more than ten minutes to wash and freshen up, Juliet rejoined Max in the hotel vestibule, and together they went by taxi to the Burletts’ house.

  On the way there, Juliet could not help recalling, with poignant clarity, her aunt’s casual, yet proud description of where they lived. “Near the Domain, dear, and overlooking Yarra. Rather a lovely house.”

  Poor Aunt Katherine. It was difficult to see how she could go on being the mistress of her lovely house.

  It was not a long drive and, as Juliet stood on the sidewalk for a moment, waiting while Max paid the taxi driver, she looked with intense, if rather melancholy, interest at the house.

  It was all on one floor, as Carol had told her most Australian houses were, but it was of superb design, and set in a beautifully kept flower garden. From the center doorway, verandas stretched on either side and appeared to encircle the house, and immense, beautifully designed windows gave promise of equally large and beautifully designed rooms within. Obviously the house of very wealthy people, it was in sad contrast to the present fortunes of the family.

  Max rejoined Juliet and together they passed through the delicate wrought-iron gate, and along the flagged path to the front door.

  But before they could ring or knock, the door was opened—not by Verity, as Juliet had expected—but by a fair-haired schoolgirl, with a pale, heart-shaped face, lit by big, dark-fringed gray eyes.

  She was vaguely familiar to Juliet, in some elusive way, though not at all like Verity, and when she spoke Juliet realized, with a not unpleasant shock, that the girl was subtly but unmistakably like herself.

  “Oh, Max, I’m so glad to see you!” And then she held out her hand to Juliet and said, “You’re my cousin, aren’t you?”

  Verity had used much the same words, of course, when they first met. But the way she had spoken had given Juliet no feeling of kinship at all. When this girl said, “You’re my cousin, aren’t you?” something deep and almost painful stirred in Juliet.

  “Yes. I’m Juliet,” she said. And she kissed her young cousin with some feeling.

  Penelope smiled then, in a pale, strained way, and she kept her hand in Juliet’s as they went into the house.

  “Verity is with mother at the moment,” she explained, when she had led them into a long, beautiful sitting room, furnished in pastel colors, with some beautiful inlaid woodwork. “She hasn’t been out of bed since this happened. Mother, I mean. In a way, she was almost as helpless as father.”

  “How is your father?” Max asked.

  The girl swallowed slightly.

  “He is better now. The doctor even says he will probably be able to get around quite well again. But I can’t imagine that he’ll ever be anything like himself again. He looks—shattered.”

  “People often do after a stroke,” Juliet said soothingly. “It’s amazing how completely they can recover.”

  “I didn’t mean in the physical sense—quite. I saw him at the nursing home today.”

  “You did?” Juliet thought Penelope was young to be put through that ordeal. But her young cousin answered quite calmly, “Oh, yes. Someone had to go and see him. Mother—couldn’t, and Verity didn’t want to.”

  “Do you mean that you went alone!”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Verity should have gone with you,” Juliet said before she could stop herself, and she thought Max agreed with her, though he said nothing.

  But Penelope shook her head.

  “Verity doesn’t want to see him. She says she feels too angry.”

  “Angry?” Juliet felt indignant, but because of the strained weariness in her young cousin’s expression she concealed the fact. “What reason has Verity to feel angry?”

  “She thinks it’s father’s fault, in a way, that all this has happened to us. She says he must have speculated—been rash.”

  “She is judging hastily at the moment, Penelope, because she is frightened and hurt,” Max said quietly. “Don’t attach too much importance to what she says just now.”

  Penelope sighed slightly, and some of her tension seemed to relax.

  “Perhaps you are right. I think I hear her coming now. I expect you’d like to talk to her, Max. And would you come and see mother, Juliet? She seemed pleased when I said you were here in Melbourne.”

  “Did she?” Juliet was touched, and a little gratified in spite of everything. “Yes, of course I will come.”

  When Verity entered the room—a sadder, more disillusioned-looking Verity than Juliet had ever seen before—she took no notice of her cousin or her sister, but went straight to Max and hid her face against him.

  It was, Juliet very much feared, her tacit acceptance of him as her fiancé, and any lingering hopes Juliet had entertained of Verity’s other admirer having materialized vanished.

  The situation was not one that concerned her vitally, she supposed, but she felt curiously depressed by it.

  “Will you come now?” Penelope asked Juliet.

  But, before she could answer, Max spoke in a kind, but curiously firm voice.

  “Look up, darling. Things aren’t so bad now we’re here. And don’t you want to greet Juliet? She has come a long way to see you.”

  There was the faintest note of authoritative prompting in his tone, and it was not, somehow, a note to be ignored.

  Verity looked up without enthusiasm. She was not crying, but she looked unhappy and faintly bitter. However, she greeted Juliet, though without any sign of pleasure, and then Penelope took her cousin out of the room.

  As they passed through the house, Juliet saw on every side signs of a far more luxurious style of living than any she had ever known. But it was not in her to grudge her relations any detail of this. She was only sorry and distressed that a terrible and drastic change must now lie before them.

  “This way.” Penelope opened a door into a spacious and elegant room that evidently looked out on the gardens at the back of the house. And, as she did so, a shadowy-eyed Aunt Katherine roused herself from a pile of lace-edged pillows and exclaimed, “Oh, Juliet! How nice of you to come, dear!”

  It was a much warmer reception than Juliet had expected, and it seemed to wipe out most of the less fortunate recollections of her aunt that Juliet had retained.

  “Dear Aunt Katherine, I’m so terribly sorry to hear about your troubles.” Juliet sat down by the bed and kissed her aunt warmly. “I felt I had to come, in case there was anything I could do to help.”

  “So good of you, child—from the midst of your own happiness,” Aunt Katherine said, her beautiful voice making the sentimental words sound wonderfully significant.

  But Juliet was not entirely concerned with the tone of voice. She supposed she had better deal right away with her aunt’s misapprehension about her own affairs.

  “I’m afraid things weren’t quite as you imagined, Aunt Katherine. I had my share of—of shock and disillusionment too.”

  “Oh, but you’re young,” her aunt protested plaintively. “You’ll get over it.”

  “I hope so.” Juliet smiled faintly. “I—think so.”

  “Of course you will,” declared Aunt Katherine, without even asking for particulars of what had happened to her niece.

  It was Penelope who said, with a note of sympathy which ruled out curiosity, “What happene
d, Juliet?”

  “My—fiancé had married someone else by the time I arrived.”

  “Oh, how dreadful,” Penelope said softly.

  Aunt Katherine exclaimed, with irritating lack of truth, “I always said there was something just a little—queer about that business.”

  With commendable self-control Juliet kept herself from pointing out that her aunt had never bothered to comment on her engagement in any way at all—except in so far as it might affect her own convenience. Instead, she said, “Well, I am doing my best to forget it all now. And Max and his sister have been more than kind to me.”

  “Max?” Her aunt looked at her with sudden keenness. “What had he to do with this, Juliet? And how comes it that he brought you here?”

  As naturally as possible, Juliet explained how she had gone to stay at Bakandi. She was determined that her aunt should not again have any grounds—just or unjust—for accusing her of slyly keeping things to herself.

  Aunt Katherine listened rather gloomily to the recital, and only said, “Oh, dear!” in a shocked tone once.

  But Juliet resolutely ignored these signs of disapproval, and when she had finished her story she added firmly. “I shall never cease to be thankful to Uncle Edmund for insisting that I should travel in Max’s care. I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if he had not been there.”

  “Ye-es. That’s true, of course,” Aunt Katherine conceded. And then, as her thoughts inevitably took another turn, “I suppose you know that this business has almost killed your poor uncle?”

  “Oh, mother!” It was a whisper of anguished protest from Penelope—which her mother ignored.

  “I know how he—collapsed. But Penelope says the doctors seem hopeful of a good recovery.”

  “Oh, Penelope doesn’t know,” exclaimed Penelope’s mother impatiently. “And, anyway, if he does recover—what then?”

  That was difficult to answer. And, feeling unable to give any adequate response, Juliet asked instead, “How bad is the ruin, Aunt Katherine? Does anyone know yet?”

  “Oh, my dear, I haven’t been able even to think about details,” her aunt declared sadly, if a little unhelpfully.