The Sun Is Often Out

Chapter Three

Jessie was right. By the time the family were preparing to return to Gamboola Lance was engaged to Gertie Stewart. Their fathers had worked it all out over whiskey in Uncle Jago's study one afternoon in January, the wedding to take place in April, when the heat had dissipated but the winter rains yet to set in. Dr Stewart was well pleased with the match—his daughter's charm and beauty had secured her a fortune, and the eventual standing of mistress of Gamboola. Uncle Jago thought his son might have done better, but as his heir he gave him more freedoms than most, for he was already well provided for. Aunt Mary was placated only by Miss Stewart's education and success in the small society of Bathurst, knowing her limitations better than her husband. She passed muster, but only just. Jessie was, as expected, distinctly unimpressed, and May suffered her lectures as to why with quiet indifference. She believed that any girl who came between Jessie and her beloved Lance would receive the same opposition.

Walter and Olive gave no indication of their own feelings towards the marriage, if they had any at all. May did her best to avoid Walter yet not give the appearance of doing so—she had no inclination of when that strange feeling might come upon her again, and did not want to tempt fate. When she was lying in bed, the only bearable covering in the heat a cotton sheet, her mind often caught on him, on something he had said that day, and she let her stomach drop then as a preventative measure. Alone, that squirmy sensation was almost pleasurable. If she let it go on too long her skin would begin to tingle as if her entire body had gone to sleep while her mind still pictured his face.

He was to stay at Redruth another week before heading off to school in Sydney, so as the servants bustled around packing the family's trunks onto the carriages bound for Gamboola Walter said goodbye. Olive stood aside, for she remained in Bathurst with her governess. All was civilised as he went down the line, farewelling his father and brother with handshakes and his mother with a kiss on the cheek. When he reached Jessie she grabbed him into a hug and squeezed the wind out of him.

"Don't go making friends with a bunch of snobs," she whispered, and May noticed tears in her lower lashes. "If you come home with your nose in the air I'll knock it right off."

Walter laughed. "I promise. Don't give Miss Wilson too hard a time of it or I'll do the same." He turned to May. "You too. I know what a bad influence my sister is."

She nodded, and before she could be overwhelmed by any sensations decided to continue the joke. "Of course. Watch out for the zigzags."

"Thanks. Mother stocked me up with barley sugar for the train."

"Well, don't eat them all before you leave or you'll regret it."

May wasn't sure what to do next, so she imitated her uncle and stuck out her hand. Walter took it in his own and shook it. His hand was warm and dry, the only callus on his finger from excessive writing. It didn't seem the hand of a boy intended to work the land.

"Goodbye, May-bells," he said with a grin.

As the carriages trundled down the long drive she looked back. Olive turned to head inside but he waited, watching them leave.

*

The landscape as they passed out of the frenetic energy of Bathurst streets and into the countryside was as she had expected from her cousin's descriptions: yellowed fields that stretched to the horizon peppered with gum trees where magpies sang, rough fences made of wood and wire dividing each tract of land from the next, each land-wealthy squatter from his neighbour. Sometimes, a small homestead not so far from the main road, the residence of selectors who had wrestled their acres from the grasp of the squattocracy. Lance had assured her that her father and Uncle Jago had possessed the foresight not to fall into the trap the new land laws had laid for them. Gamboola and Arabinia were owned outright, purchased from the Crown once their flocks had been profitable enough to justify the outlay, though her uncle still farmed some runs that were under a leasehold. When she came of age, she would come into her property and its profits, and when she married the control of the run would be given over to this future husband.