Deep in the Forest Read online

  Deep in the Forest - Joyce Dingwell

  Selina was going to marry Roger Peters — but unless they waited another three years, Selina would forfeit a large legacy and lose her beloved Tall Tops. She was prepared to wait; so was Roger. That maddening Joel Grant had no right to be so sarcastic about it all.

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  OTHER Harlequin Romances by JOYCE DINGWELL

  1401—ONE STRING FOR NURSE BOW 1426—GUARDIAN NURSE 1452—I AND MY HEART 1492—THE DRUMMER AND THE SONG 1517—CROWN OF FLOWERS 1541—CLOVE ORANGE 1566—SEPTEMBER STREET 1589—NICKEL WIFE 1615—A THOUSAND CANDLES 1633—RED GINGER BLOSSOM 1657—WIFE TO SIM 1688—THE POOL OF PINK LILIES 1738—THE MUTUAL LOOK 1772—SISTER PUSSYCAT 1808—THERE WERE THREE PRINCES 1826—THE HABIT OF LOVE 1856—THE CATTLEMAN 1867—FLAMINGO FLYING SOUTH 1887—LOVE AND LUCY BROWN 1910—CANE MUSIC 1932—THE KISSING GATE 1952—CORPORATION BOSS

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  Original hard cover edition published in 1975 by Mills & Boon Limited

  ISBN 373-01961-0

  Harlequin edition published April 1976

  Copyright © 1975 Joyce Dingwell. All rights reserved.

  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher. All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  THE jinker-flattened track from the valley often dodged large trees, sometimes crossed singing streams, occasionally stumbled over huge clinkers, but always wound up. Up, beneath a leafy roof that shut out the sky, up past unwanted logs mouldering into rich chocolate earth, up to the ledge, and the boss's house beneath the ledge, at the peak.

  But before the track reached Tall Tops, and the woodmen's chalets around Tall Tops, it passed the garages, petrol pumps, tool depositories and the mill. The power for the mill came from waste wood that fed giant boilers, and the purpose of the mill was to deal swiftly and accurately with hundreds of feet of once-proud forest. The process never failed to sadden Selina, since she loved the trees, but the mountains of resultant sawdust always brightened her again. Twenty tons were added to it daily, and each load took on a different gradation of gold. At least, Selina thought, some of the forest beauty was won back.

  Selina was always cheered, too, by the friendly waves from the chalets, from the bachelor woodsmen hoping to get a dance at the next ledge 'hop', from the children whose correspondence lessons she supervised and from their anxious mothers who hoped to keep it like that.

  The last chalet, more villa in size than chalet as befitted the overseer, particularly sent her spirits soar-

  ing. She had been attracted to Roger Peters from the moment he had arrived here from the Forestry Academy. She felt he was attracted to her.

  Snatching at a bar of song now, she turned the bend of the timber track . . . and her spirits zeroed. Him.

  `Him' in this instance was Joel Grant from Redgum Ridge, another large timber holding as was Tall Tops, but although Grant was affluent now, the big, rather Red Indian-looking man had come up the hard way, felling yellow box or ironbark for railway sleepers for years to set himself up to stock his large parcel of mountain, and now his past persisted. He was either Iron or Ironbark to everyone. What . . . and Selina whisked away a giggle.. . if he had been tagged Yellow Box instead ?

  "The lady seems amused." Iron Grant, who had evidently been visiting Tall Tops, was poking at his pipe with a twig and waiting for her to join him. She did not want to join him, but she supposed for politeness' sake she must. Besides, there was nowhere else to go.

  The man was not young . . . she had reached him by now . . . yet on the other hand he was not old. You couldn't be certain about his age, in fact the only thing you could be certain about Iron Grant was that he was tough.

  "No cedar, no maple about him," Roger had remarked demeaningly . . . Roger had introduced finer, more selective timber to Tall Tops . . . -"only stuff for mine props, ceiling joists—"

  "Railway sleepers," Selina had finished. They had both laughed scornfully, though Selina had been care-

  ful with her laughter. She was, and always had been, a little nervous with Iron Grant. However, it was too late now to hide today's laughter.

  "Yes, I am amused," she agreed perfunctorily. "Can I share the joke ?"

  "It was only something one of my children said." She knew he would know she meant one of her correspondence charges.

  "It's Saturday. They're not at lessons today, they're round at the pool. I've been supervising them." "Good of you."

  "Seeing I donated the pool" ... he said it quite naturally but, disliking him, Selina branded him boastful ... "I thought I should. I, too, like children. We two should think over that mutual liking one day." A deliberate pause. "Do something about it."

  She turned away in disgust. Really, Roger could not have said a truer thing, the man most certainly was not, and never would be, cedar.

  "No, only ironbark." He must have read her thoughts.

  "My choice was yellow box." She slipped past him and ran up the path to Tall Tops. As she went through the open door and down the long hall she heard his car, that big, imported, very expensive car simply reeking of prosperity that Roger, poor dear, bitterly envied, going along his private road to Red-gum Ridge.

  Tall Tops was a comfortable old house with nooks and ingles and verandahs and annexes simply everywhere. When Selina had first seen it she 'had thought it must be the biggest house in the world. Now she knew better. She knew by going there once, since

  Uncle Claud had insisted she drive him over, that Redgum Ridge was bigger and better, richer. There must be money in sleepers, joists and props, she had reported contemptuously to Roger, for she would not have dared to say it to Uncle Claud. He liked the fellow.

  "Of course," Roger had patronised in return.

  Dear Roger, Roger of the academic learning, not the learning that comes from an axe felling hardwood, it wasn't fair that Roger didn't have the Grant money instead. However . . . a fond little smile . . . money meant nothing, not when you—when both of you—She called : "Are you there, Unk ?" and began peeping in each of the rooms in turn.

  Unk was not really Uncle, nor any relation at all. When Selina had first gasped at the size of Tall Tops she had stood beside her elder sister and her mother, and Mrs. Lockwood, her mother, had come to housekeep. for Mr. Whittier, now Unk.

  The old bachelor, old even then, Selina remembered, so how old must Unk be now, had smiled and won them over at once—well, won Mrs. Lockwood and Selina. Madeleine, eleven to Selina's seven, had stood aloof.

  Madeleine had persisted in her aloofness, and at last in despair Mr. Whittier, who liked having happy people around him, had asked Madeleine would she like to go to a boarding school in Sydney.

  Madeleine, having made cer
tain which school, had liked the idea very much, and from then on they had only seen her during vacations, and, as she grew older, not even then, since she preferred to stay at the friends' homes rather than go bush. Mrs. Lock-

  wood had not worried; perhaps already she had recognised in Madeleine some of the traits she had known in her husband whom she had not heard of for years. As for Selina, she had not cared at all. She and Madeleine had never been close. Selina's only concern had been that one day she might wake up and find this wonderful world of trees, of ferns and wild orchids, of twilight jungles, of singing birds and singing streams ... yes, and gold-layered sawdust... was all a dream.

  But the dream had lasted. School for Selina, the same as school for the children in the chalets, had come through the post, and later when her mother had died life had gone on just the same, except for a dear one missing, for the girl and the old man. For old Uncle Claud.

  "Claud, where are you ?" Selina called in exasperation now. She always dropped niceties when she was running out of patience.

  "Uncle from saplings." Claud Whittier came out from behind a paper. "Who do you think you are, young 'un ?"

  "Not as young as you're thinking, and definitely not a sapling any more. I see you've had Ironbark for tea."

  "Joel's the name, and the tea was beer."

  "Beer certainly sounds more like him." Roger had a wonderful knowledge of wines, and he had even built a special cellar. "What did he want ?"

  "You have it the wrong way round. I wanted him." "What for ?"

  "Nosey !"

  "Sorry, Unk, but what should he know that I

  shouldn't ?"

  "Well, what's in my will, for one thing." The old man said it jocundly, but had Selina looked across at him she would have seen the hard look he gave her.

  "You and your old will !" she dismissed. "You'll live for years yet, probably be choked off in the end by parasitic fig."

  "Just so long as I fall in the wind and am not sawn or axed." Uncle added feelingly : "Or milled." "You'll grow fungus as a grounded log."

  "But orchids, too."

  "Darling, I promise I'll plant orchids all over you. Chops or steak ?" Here in the mountain where there were no stores, provisions had to be bought in bulk and then deep frozen.

  "Surprise me," said Uncle Claud, and took up his paper again.

  Selina went out to the country kitchen. Although Claud Whittier had allowed Selina's mother a free hand, and a generous hand, with everything, Mrs. Lockwood had preferred to keep the old house as she had found it, and particularly the kitchen. Mostly brown, raftered, cool even when big dinners were roasting, the white plates and cups, clean-gleaming in the colonial dresser, still winked a welcome every time Selina entered. It was one of those kitchens, she had always thought fancifully, from which the smell of gingerbread should steal. She had tried it out once on Roger, but he didn't like gingerbread. His preference for the four o'clock repast was wafer bread and butter and lemon tea. Roger had impeccable taste.

  She decided on chops for tonight, removed them from the freezer and took the hoary parcel to the

  window to start to thaw. As usual she looked out of the window, looked out and caught her breath. Will I ever, she thought with sweet pain, look out of Tall Tops' windows and not catch my breath ?

  The location was New South Wales, yet so close to the Queensland border that Uncle Claud often declared that most of his trees had their leaves in Queensland even though their roots were in the southern state. The climate was perfect for timber; there was the refreshing cool that comes with high places to suit the colder weather trees, but the sub-tropical lushness to encourage the more flamboyant specimens. Also .. . and another catch in Selina's breath . . . there were wild limes, wild orchids, trees that looked as though they were spattered with paint until you peered closer and saw that they were alive with rainbow parrots, there were lichens, unbelievable mosses, trails of old man's beard.

  Then there were the encroaching trees, not the disciplined ones for future milling, but the individuals that Uncle allowed to climb up the valley almost to Tall Tops' door. She knew them all now, and loved them all, blackwoods, sassafras, ash, walnut, silky oak, mahogany. One, a favourite 'boy', was a two-hundredfoot grey gum.

  "Too big for his boots," Unk always said, but he wouldn't allow him to be lopped. The grey was the child of an outcast from a white gum community a mile south. That sometimes happened in the eucalypt world. A ghetto of gum would resist the intrusion of a different variety of gum. This particular white gum valley must be one of the most beautiful valleys, Selina thought, in the world. Every tree trunk in it

  was, and had been, snow white as though whitewashed that way . . . until, some years ago, there was one grey intruder. The intruder had eventually perished, even an experienced forester could not have explained how or why, but not before seed had been sown, and another small tree begun its cycle. But safely away this time from the white gum ghetto . . . Uncle had seen to that ... and just to show them all the new grey had soared higher than the whites ever had aspired.

  "You may not be as beautiful," Uncle had said to the tree, "but I'll say this, you're gutsy."

  They called the grey The Big Feller.

  Selina looked beyond the grey gum to distant Redgum Ridge. His place. He was higher than Tall Tops, in fact his forest was the highest on all the ledge. She first had met 'him' when she had gone down with Unk to the tree nursery, which was tucked away safely in a sheltered valley near the boundary fence. The new man, Joel Grant, had been attending to his side of the fence. He had come forward at once and put his hand out to Unk, and Unk had grasped it.

  "Name of Grant—Joel Grant. I've taken over Redgum Ridge."

  "You chose well. I'm Claud Whittier of Tall Tops. This here is my most promising sapling." Uncle had brought Selina forward.

  "Yes," Joel Grant had agreed, "pushing up nicely." It hadn't been his words that had affronted Selina, though she hadn't cared much for them, either, it had been his eyes, bantering but unrevealing eyes, eyes that never moved from your face, yet eyes you still were sharply aware hadn't missed one indignant inch. How different, she had thought, from their new overseer,

  who had arrived that same week. Roger Peters had stepped forward, taken her hand, then with a little soft laugh to cover any embarrassment over the lovely old world courtesy, kissed it.

  Roger. She turned her glance from the highest point on the ledge, from Redgum Ridge, and looked down to the overseer's quarters instead. What a wonderful difference Roger had made to Carmody's house. When old Pat Carmody, the previous overseer, had retired, the house had been the same as when Pat had gone into it, fifteen years ago—brown, spare, very male.

  It was male still, but elegantly male. Roger had wonderful perception. Some might think that the colours Roger chose did not suit the forest scene, but, as Roger pointed out, when it came to interiors the scene outside should take second place to the setting inside, not vice versa.

  "You should have been a decorator, Roger," Selina had told him in admiration.

  "Perhaps, but the real money was here. I saw that at once."

  That was another thing about Roger, he had a good head for finance. Already he had almost doubled the planting in the nursery, and though Unk was not entirely in favour, he had to admit it could be profitable.

  "Which counts, sir." Roger always called Uncle Claud sir.

  "Maybe, but I like my boys to have plenty of room."

  "There is sufficient space, I assure you. Don't forget, sir, I've studied the theory side, I've graduated in it."

  "I'm not forgetting, young Peters." (Roger had stiffened at that, and Selina had not blamed him; she really should speak to Unk.) "But they're not just mill lengths, remember."

  Roger had smiled pleasantly and placatingly. That was one of the things she loved about him, he was always courteous, always perfectly polite and solicitous, always deferential to status such as Unk's status as boss. One of the things ? she smiled now to
herself. No, one of the many things.

  She saw Roger come to the front porch of his bungalow and look up to Tall Tops. He must be finished for the day. She placed the chops in a good thawing position, and went out of the back door and across to the overseer's villa. It was only some fifty yards away.

  Roger opened his door before she could knock. He must have seen her coming. He smiled and bowed her in, and she entered and looked around with fresh appreciation on all the tasteful things with which the overseer had surrounded himself.

  "Roger, it is nice."

  "It's nicer now you're here." He plumped a cushion for her and seated her. "What did you do with yourself today ?"

  "No school as it's Saturday, so I went down the valley. I thought you might be there."

  "At the cutting ?" His lip curled. Most of the trees were mechanically sawn, but the hard-to-get timber was axe-cut. Selina felt she understood his sensitive distaste.

  "I know," she soothed, "all those tree years trying to reach the sky, then suddenly, irrevocably,

  earthbound."

  "Actually, Selina, it's the dust. It flies everywhere."

  "Practical Roger !" She said it proudly. She admired Roger's clear thinking. If only Roger had had someone else's luck . . . she ignored years of hard grind . . . he would have made a fortune. Not that she wanted him to have a fortune, but he still would have, he had that capability. Thinking of Iron Grant made her mention the man now.

  "He was visiting Unk when I got back," she said. "Ironbark Grant, Roger."

  "Very interesting," Roger smiled teasingly, but a nice tease, not like the enigmatical Grant banter. "Was he visiting Mr. Whittier . . . or you ?"

  "Me ?" she echoed.

  "That's what I said, Selina."

  A little formally she answered : "I told you, Roger,

  I came back and he was there. He was just leaving." "Mission unsuccessful unless you were there ?"

  "Oh, Roger, you fool !"