A Thousand Candles Read online

  ‘Salvation Jane,’ came in Davy, knowledgeable now, ‘only that’s a weed. Did you know, Crag, that—

  ‘Crag?’ Pippa put down her magazine, and the brown man explained, ‘On my invitation, miss, you have to call each other something.’

  ‘But Craig ... he means Craig, of course.’

  ‘Crag, not Craig. That’s the name I go by.

  ‘Unusual.’

  ‘Not really. It’s a “met” name out west. The Crags were pioneers.’

  ‘But Davy ... but my brother used it as a Christian name.’

  The brown man smiled. ‘I was baptised Clement. Me Clement! Clement Crag! Oh, no. I soon put a stop to that.’

  ‘Did you, Mr. Crag?’

  ‘Crag,’ he invited, ‘like the scrubber just said.’

  ‘Because you are?’ For some reason she had to bait him.

  ‘Only in the wrong hands, in the right ones I’m pretty level going.’ He looked at her and she saw that his eyes were almost the brown of his skin, more bronze than dark.

  ‘Did you know, Crag,’ Davy was trying to continue, not interested in their interchange, ‘that in England, where we come from, everything is different from here? It’s summer in winter and winter in summer and—’

  ‘And it’s autumn when the leaves fall,’ the man said.

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Davy, ‘and spring is in April.’

  ‘And did you know,’ came in the man, ‘that this year you get two bites of the cherry?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘September is the first of spring here,’ said Crag, ‘so with your spring already in England you’ll be having double spring.’

  ‘At your place,’ said Davy wistfully, ‘it would be double double spring, because you said it’s the most spring in all the world.’

  ‘That’s right, scrubber. If you and your sister feel like a bigger helping still on your plates, you come up to Falling Star.’

  ‘Is that its name?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Would there be room?’

  ‘For a scrubber your size!’

  ‘For Pippa, too.’

  ‘Pippa?’

  ‘Her.’ Davy indicated. ‘My sister.’

  ‘Pippa.’ The man appeared to taste it. ‘Our mornings at Falling Star begin at piccaninny daylight, not seven, but yes, scrubber, room for Pippa, too.’

  ‘So you know that poem,’ said Davy, pleased with his new friend. He explained of Pippa: ‘She was called that because she was born at seven and had eyes like hillsides.’

  ‘Still has, I reckon.’ The brown man was looking at Pippa, and, embarrassed, she looked away.

  ‘Also,’ continued Davy importantly, ‘our father was a poet.’

  ‘Then that settles it. A poet’s son would have to come to Yantumara.’

  ‘Is that Falling Star?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘We’re going to Tombonda,’ grieved Davy.

  ‘That means a hill. I’m going, too.’

  Pippa’s mouth, open to say as quietly but as finally as she could, not to put such wild ideas as going up north to a cattle station ... it sounded like cattle ... into the boy, closed again. Going to Tombonda, too!

  ‘But that’s not your country,’ Davy was protesting jealously, jealous for the country he had just heard about, ‘you’re scrubbers and brumbies and—’

  ‘So was my father’s country until he got too old to run a steer down at full gallop, and then—’

  ‘Flick it by its tail and pin it to the ground.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded the brown man. ‘So he came here for a rest.’

  ‘And you’ve come down to see him, Crag?’

  ‘Not any more, scrubber. He sees it all at the one time now from a good viewing cloud up there. No, I’ve come to check the place, and to’ ... He stopped. Presently he said, ‘Look, Davy, there’s a wombat for you.’ As the nose became a marshmallow again, the man turned to Pippa and finished: ‘And I’ve come to ask that girl next door what gives. Because’ ... paying no attention to Pippa’s implied uninterest.... ‘when I come to Tombonda when I’m old I want someone carrying on, like I did for my father, up at Falling Star.’ He stopped. ‘Do you follow?’

  ‘It doesn’t concern me,’ Pippa said coldly.

  ‘But do you see?’

  ‘It doesn’t concern me,’ she said again.

  Another pause ... then again he broke it.

  ‘Then would it concern you if I asked you to come instead?’ He was attending his pipe again, not looking at her.

  ‘What?’ Pippa sat straight up.

  ‘Because,’ he went on, ‘she isn’t coming or she would have been there by this time, and time runs out.’ He said it quite unabashed.

  ‘Are you the same person who just quoted that we live for ever?’ Pippa demanded, still taken aback by his impudent proposal. ‘Are you saying instead now that time runs out?’

  ‘No,’ he answered, ‘but I am saying that the time for living life as it should be lived runs out, Pippa.’—Pippa, indeed!—‘That that right design, God’s design, of man and woman, then later’ ... a significant nod in Davy’s direction ... ‘has to have its start.’

  He was unbelievable. The subject was unbelievable.

  ‘With Davy,’ she inserted incredulously at last, ‘assuming that children are your theme—’

  They are.’

  ‘You’d overcome time.’ Really, she froze, this person ...

  ‘That was what I was thinking,’ he nodded frankly, ‘family readymade.’

  ‘But not for long.’ She bit on her lip as the words escaped her.

  He held up a big hand cancelling what she had said, cancelling it so definitely she almost could have believed him. Only, of course, she mustn’t...

  ‘Besides,’ he resumed, ‘I’ve quite taken to the little scrubber. So after I see Rena—’

  ‘Rena?’ she gasped.

  ‘That’s where you’re going, isn’t it? Franklins. Has to be, it’s the only other property at Tombonda. The rest of the district consists of railway cottages and a few shops.’ He looked musingly at her for a few moments. ‘You know, Pippa,’ he shrugged, ‘you being here makes sense, or at least the young scrubber does.’ He gave a short laugh.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Pippa said.

  ‘Well, I hope you keep that up. It’s not a good understanding, I reckon. Tombonda’s the next stop. Only short intervals down here. Not like our part of the world.’

  ‘The big country?’ Davy was back with them again.

  ‘That’s right, scrubber. There we don’t deal in miles but thousands of square ones. Gear ready? We get off now.’ The brown man was swinging the bags down, swinging Davy down, swinging ... and Pippa rankled but had to comply ... Davy’s sister.

  There were two cars waiting beyond the small neat station, one empty, the other attended and ready to go. The first was a distinctly muddy landrover that looked as though it had seen a lot of action. The other was a well-polished sedan that looked like Rena. Pippa was not surprised when a driver came forward from the sedan and claimed them.

  Crag ... a ridiculous name ... went to the jeep and stepped into it without opening a door. He did not move off until after they had moved. In the rear vision mirror Pippa watched him behind them. He followed until their car swept at length into Uncle Preston’s park-like property on the station side of a wooded hill.

  The driver, seeing the direction of Pippa’s gaze, said: ‘Crag’s is on the other side, and that’s Crag now, he comes down now and then.’

  ‘From the big country,’ said Davy.

  ‘That’s right. Miss Rena meant to meet you today, miss, but at the last minute her father wasn’t the best.’

  ‘It didn’t matter, we enjoyed the train.’

  ‘Yes, and we met Crag,’ Davy put in.

  The driver looked as though he was going to say something, but evidently he changed his mind. He was emerging from an avenue of camphor laurels now and coming to a halt. The
halt was by a large, dark-red brick, two-storeyed house named Uplands. It was the sort of house that Pippa rather had imagined as Rena’s background—rich-looking, prosperous. The perfect scene for the girl now coming out of the front door and down the steps to meet them. Second cousin Rena. Very little different really from the attractive, somehow exclusive even in gym tunic Rena who had condescended now and then at school to smile and nod.

  But she was smiling winningly now, running to welcome them ... except that the smile stiffened when she turned at last from Davy to Pippa, and slowly, estimatingly, consideringly looked Pippa up and down. ‘You’ve changed,’ Rena said.

  Helping the driver with the bags, Pippa heard herself babbling about the corrective glasses having corrected, the brace having braced, and she wondered why she was being apologetic. Anyone would think I’d become a swan from a duckling, she thought wryly, whereas I’m simply a little less the owl and the rabbit than I used to be. It occurred to her ludicrously that she was using up a lot of creatures, and she gave a little laugh, but Rena did not laugh back. She was still looking her over, but when Pippa turned directly on her, feeling rather embarrassed by the close regard, to make some diverting ... she hoped ... remark, her second cousin went up the stairs and stood for a few moments talking to an elderly gentleman who had come out on the patio to watch them.

  That they were speaking of her was obvious by the quick flick of Rena’s eyes in her direction again, then a shrug and a nod from the man.

  He was thick-set and stolid, but something about the features acclaimed Rena to be his daughter.

  ‘Uncle Preston.’ Pippa prompted herself to go up the steps to the man and hold out her hand.

  ‘None of that, m’dear.’ He smiled expansively at her. ‘We’re kin, remember.’ His eyes roved over her.

  ‘Far off,’ she said faintly, not liking his rather un-uncle look.

  ‘Not too far for this.’ He kissed her appreciatively, his daughter looking on with cool amusement.

  ‘When you’re ready, Pippa,’ she said, ‘Daddy will show you where you’re to sleep.’ Her glance went briefly to him.

  Pippa turned back for Davy, but Uncle Preston had his hand under her elbow and was guiding her forward, squeezing her arm jocularly every now and then. Something seemed to be amusing him and he chuckled to himself.

  ‘That took some of the wind out of her sails,’ he ho-ho’d. ‘But’ ... proudly ... ‘being my Rena she soon showed who’s Miss Fixit.’

  For some distasteful reason she could not have put a finger on, Pippa did not ask the obvious questions. She permitted herself to be propelled up a wide staircase, then along a passage to a back room, for most obviously and most indisputably it was a back room.

  She did not mind that. After all, she had had back rooms all her life. Indeed, all Aunt Helen’s rooms could have been classed as back rooms, their old cottage being small and cheap as it was.

  But this room fairly cried out back room. It was as bare as a ward and held only a bed, a chest of drawers and a chair. The window was narrow and it missed the rural loveliness of the Southern Highlands, that treesy, hillocky charm that could have been home. Instead it looked down on an incinerator, several waste-bins, a mulch heap and a woodpile. Also quite unmistakably the room ... now Pippa had turned back from the window... had not been prepared.

  Uncle Preston was chuckling again; again he was looking Pippa up and down.

  ‘What’s she like? That’s what I asked her.’ He ho-ho’d once more. He came nearer to Pippa. ‘Do you know what she said?’

  ‘What, Uncle Preston?’

  ‘Do you know what that know-all girl of mine said? She said “Oh, just a little brown thing.” ’

  ‘Well, I have brown hair,’ Pippa said sensitively, not liking being the pivot of his attention.

  ‘Yes, and you’re small. But good things come in little packets, m’dear, and those eyes! And that sweet little face! Did I say welcome?’ He leaned over, but Pippa prevented quickly, ‘Yes, Uncle, you did.’

  He was easy to divert, thank goodness. He started chuckling over Rena again, whom obviously he both doted on and quarrelled with. ‘Didn’t expect a winner like you. That’ll upset her applecart.’

  ‘I’m not.’ In an inspiration Pippa added, ‘I mean not like your daughter.’

  They were the right words. Uncle Preston expanded visibly and agreed, ‘No. My Rena’s got it, hasn’t she? So she should, she’s had a fortune spent on her.’

  He was extremely proud of Rena, Pippa decided, but he would often disagree with her for the simple reason that they would be one of a sort, the sort, Pippa thought a little sinkingly, that years ago, and she recalled it now, Aunt Helen, usually the most discreet of people, had said: ‘Not the side of the family you want for yourself.’

  The arguments the pair must frequently have staged were proved in Uncle’s next words.

  ‘A fortune,’ he growled resentfully, ‘but fortunes run out, and if she keeps on with this silly whim she’s got now ... That’s why you’re put here, girl. Tucked safely away where you can’t be seen.’ He waved his arm round the room. ‘She didn’t expect you to be like you are. Oh, yes, I know my daughter.’

  ‘It’s quite sufficient,’ said Pippa of the room, ‘but where is Davy’s? I always sleep near Davy.’

  ‘Not necessary any more, Pippa.’ Rena had joined them and at once her glorious golden colouring lit up the drab interior. Pippa saw Uncle Preston looking adoringly at his only child.

  ‘I am taking over from you, pet,’ Rena said smilingly but definitely. ‘Poor little Pippa, tied down all these years.’

  ‘It hasn’t been a tie, Rena, and I would prefer—’

  ‘But she’s not going to, is she, Daddy?’ A quick sharp look at her father. ‘She’s going to relax. I am having darling Davy near me. No, no more words. Our little Martha has done her share of work. Unpack your things, pet, and then come down to tea.’

  Pippa stood for quite a while after Rena and her father had left. Her impulse was to go after them and have an understanding at once, tell them that Davy was her responsibility, that—

  But it seemed rude. They had paid the fares out, expensive fares, they had taken them under their roof. Not that Pippa’s corner was an attractive one, indeed it was quite unattractive, but it was still not costing a penny, and Rena was certainly taken up with Davy.

  She was glad after she had placed her things and gone down that she had not insisted on that understanding. Rena stood at the bottom of the stairs and she took Pippa’s arm and led her to a suite.

  Davy was sitting on a padded window bench playing with an expensive mechanical toy, and while he was so absorbed, Pippa let her glance rove round. She would have been unfair had she not allowed a cry of pleasure. The room was perfect for a boy. The furnishings were many-coloured, but brightly and youthfully so. The pictures were pictures boys liked. Not only these, but Rena had shown nursing sense in including a divan as well as a bed, almost as if she had known that a delicate child must rest other hours than the expected night hours.

  There were plenty of cupboards for books and toys and the wide-flung windows were cheerfully curtained.

  ‘Rena, it’s perfect! Quite perfect.’

  ‘It should be,’ grumbled Uncle Preston, who had come behind them, ‘not only cost me a packet to renovate but I had to pay a nurse as well for advice.’

  ‘Daddy, be quiet!’ Rena sounded annoyed; she probably wanted the praise for the arrangement for herself, but Pippa felt a warmth for her second cousin for going to the trouble of seeking skilled advice.

  ‘This was where you were to be,’ Uncle Preston was saying, nodding to an adjoining room, which, though no larger, was much more attractive than the room upstairs.

  ‘That’s what you get for not being that little brown thing, m’dear.’

  ‘We’ll have tea,’ Rena said abruptly. She gave her father a hard stare and he said no more.

  A maid brought tea and cakes to the patio. Un
cle Preston criticized the cakes as he munched them, saying they must have cost a few pennies to make ‘with that butter and all’.

  ‘My father is mean,’ said Rena quite coolly. ‘He counts the cents.’

  ‘If I hadn’t, young woman, you wouldn’t be where you are. Then where’s that, anyway? Hanging up your hat to a—’

  ‘Daddy!’

  Uncle Preston was silenced. But not for long. He explained to Pippa how thrift had got him on in the world.

  ‘I started in business as a boy, and then—’

  ‘Then you’re not a farmer, Uncle Preston?’ Pippa looked beyond the patio to the rural setting.

  ‘Lord, no, I only bought Uplands because her ladyship—’

  ‘That’s enough, Daddy!’ Rena gave another of her hard stares.

  Pippa said a little awkwardly that for a man of commerce Uncle Preston had shown excellent farming sense since the Southern Highlands appeared so lush and rich, but he laughed and brushed that aside.

  ‘No real farms here, girl, it’s more a showplace. Oh, yes, you’ll see fine orchards, prize cows and horses, but mostly it’s a retreat for retired country folk who have had their day out west but can’t face the confines of the city now they’re on in years. It’s quite a rich area, in its residents as well as its soil. Social, too.’

  Uncle Preston’s description tied up with their train companion’s account of the district, thought Pippa, though certainly that brown man with his pipe could never be described as social.

  Davy was rubbing his cake into crumbs and Pippa could see that Uncle Preston was watching him. Rena would be right, she thought, he would be mean in the little things; that was how he had got on. Her brother was tired, she decided. He needed rest.

  She got up, saying she would see to him, and Rena nodded casually—then suddenly, at the same time as a car pulled up on the drive, she jumped to her feet, fairly hustled Pippa out, and said, ‘No, I will. You go upstairs.’