The Man From the Valley Page 4

  Long after the smoke from Ginny’s cigarette had wafted away Terese lay wide-eyed looking into the darkness, willing sleep to come.

  Little strange noises punctuated her semi-sleep, different noises from the street-cars and elevator doors of her flat in London, different from the engine whirr of the last few days; instead, the sleepy murmur of a night-bird, the distant howling of a dog, yet distinct from a dog somehow. A dingo perhaps? And, just as she was slipping off, the sound of a girl crying softly

  but brokenly. Hard little Ginny crying into her pillow, a muffled sound, so remote from that level, intentional, brittle “Hands off.”

  Terese woke to a sun-flooded room. Her first thoughts were of Ginny, and she glanced quickly to the companion bed, but, as she might have guessed, it was empty. That country girl would have been up hours ago, many hours by the brilliance of the sun. But when Terese looked at her watch she saw that it was not as late as she had thought, evidently up on the plateau the sun had a quality all its own.

  Terese slipped on a dressing-gown and went down the passage to find the bathroom. It was not actually a bath that was in the corner of the room, bringing a bath into the plateau would be rather a feat, but the cemented square did just as well, even better, for it was so large it was almost a small pool. To Terese’s delight the water ran hot. Joe, on Ginny’s orders, must have seen to the generator.

  She bathed, returned to her room and donned slacks and a sweater. Then, seeing or hearing no one around, she explored the rest of the house.

  It retained its bachelor quality all through. Whatever Ginny had given to Joe’s land, she certainly had not given to his house. Even the kitchen, surely a Woman’s domain, remained Joe’s. Terese made a cup of tea and at the same time she made her plans. An hour later she had arranged some leaf foliage from a tree outside the window in a jug on the table, she had cushions plumped and rugs straightened, she found a table-cloth, clean but pushed untidily away in a drawer, and had ironed out the crumples, she had even discovered the flour and how the stove functioned and made a batch of scones.

  She was standing at the door just as the pair, old Joe and young Ginny, emerged from a cluster of barns and walked toward the house.

  Ginny acknowledged “Hi” again in that same detached manner as yesterday; Joe’s beam of greeting widened as he entered the house, saw the difference, smelled the cooking.

  “The way to a man’s heart,” Ginny acclaimed, yet entirely without malice, but then it was Dawson’s place she had her eyes on now, not Joe’s.

  Terese looked at Joe. “Did Ginny tell you that Mr. Dawson was away?”

  “Yes, and I’ve cabled him pronto. Ginny had the address. Being Arn he won’t take long to reply.”

  “When you’re ready, Terese, I’ll give you a tour. Can you ride?”

  “I should say not as well as you.”

  Typical of Ginny, she did not argue that. “Ringo isn’t as good as Sandy, so you’ll be all right. Slacks will do fine. Come along.”

  Terese hurried out to the stable where Ginny was already saddling Ringo. Terese had not ridden since Drayhill, and then only in the Pony Club once a week, but she mounted ably enough, and Ringo set off beside the more spirited Sandy.

  Seen from a pony’s back the plateau appeared quite wide to Terese, and certainly very lovely. It was mostly clear of growth, but in the distance on all four sides trees gathered, making dim blue shadows in the unfolding green-gold of the grass, and Terese remembered seeing it from the air yesterday and knew that it was not the vast pasture it seemed from the saddle but merely a piece of mountaintop.

  Ginny was indicating to right and to left poultry runs, dairies, orchards, all in the same small strain as Pickpocket.

  “Can they make a living?” disbelieved Terese, looking at the size of the holdings.

  “They don’t expect to. The men on these holdings work in the valley on the timber but live up here. They run their section on weekends, with their wives’ help. You have to be a certain type to live all the time in the valley. In some places it’s almost perpetual twilight, it could get you down. Arn’s is the only place in all Backdown that includes both the plateau and the valley. He has his garages on the top, the house halfway down the mountain, the front gate almost in the gorge. His parents held on to all their land, not like Joe. Just as well”—she shrugged—“since Joe’s is to go back to the ti tree and gum.”

  There was the distant sound of a plane, and Terese remarked, “The Cessna’s coming in after all.”

  Ginny had pulled the reins on Sandy so sharply that the pony reared.

  “I’ll go back to Pickpocket now, Terese, I’ve lots to do. No need for you to return yet, you can go along to the strip and meet some of the people if you care to, someone always turns up when the Cessna puts down, or you can explore. You can’t get lost. It’s too small.”

  “But...” Terese had meant to say, “But can’t I help you?” By the time the words were on her lips, however, Ginny was out of earshot.

  She cantered on for a while, deciding against going to the strip, she had seen it yesterday and there was so much more to discover.

  She noted the titles of the properties leading from the track along the middle of the plateau, some humorous, some nostalgic, some simply their own name, but all beautifully printed and illustrated.

  Then she saw the sign Homeward Bound. It was on the highest elevation of the entire plateau, it dominated the rest. And, Terese realized a little shakily, it was dominating her. She was conscious that not only was that pulse beating in her temple but her heart thumping. Almost tremblingly she alighted from Ringo and approached the swinging board.

  Just like Pickpocket with its pilfering fingers, Sun Up with its morning sky, Homeward Bound had its own illustration, this time a trim ketch on its last tack. The dead Susan Dawson would not have chosen that, decided Terese, studying the board; her Homeward Bound would have been a sturdy ship, not a blithe ketch, and the homeward tack would have been into Southampton, or down the Thames, or the Mersey, or the Clyde. She wondered from where that English girl had come.

  A high fence, the very first fence she had encountered in Backdown, prevented Terese from peering into the valley that must lay not far behind it, for Ginny had said that Homeward Bound spread from the plateau to the creek. She was sorry about the fence, she longed to see the great gorges Joe had described, hear the ringing axes and singing saws, look down on the flaring waterfalls, the jungle growth, the perpetual twilight.

  A little disappointed, she turned to remount Ringo.

  A small stir on the other side of the fence stopped her. She wheeled round, saw nothing, not even a flurry of fur to indicate a dog or a cat, and decided she was imagining things when she saw the eyes. Two eyes. By the distance between them belonging to two people, and, by their height from the ground, belonging either to two people kneeling down or two little people. The clear, unwavering blue decided Terese that they belonged to little people. There was something about children’s eyes that was unmistakably young, a new, fresh, unused look. Smiling, Terese knelt down and put her own eye to a crack.

  This prompted the instant removal of the eyes and some exchanged excited whispers. Then Terese heard the two of them climbing the fence to look down on her. Still on her knees, she looked up and smiled, “Hello.”

  “Hello.” Evidently shyness consumed them, for they said no more, just looked down with those big, very blue eyes.

  Somehow she felt she had seen eyes like these before. It was absurd, blue eyes were blue eyes anywhere, but there was something about the setting here, the thick lashes, the intent regard. Where? Where?

  “You’re not Ginny.” The older girl had found her voice.

  “No, dear, I'm not.” Terese was getting up from her knees.

  “Ginny’s the only girl. The rest are mothers.” The smaller girl had found words as well.

  “She’s not any longer, I’m here, too. What are your names?”

  “I’m Janet and s
he’s Jalna. What’s yours?”

  “Terese.”

  “No, what’s your name?”

  “Terese.”

  “That’s what’s down the valley. Trees.”

  “And,” said the older maiden wisely, “you could only be one tree by yourself. What is your real name?”

  “I’m calling her Tree,” put in Jalna. “I like it. Can I call you Tree?”

  “Of course, Jalna,” Terese said.

  “Da won’t let you when he comes back. He makes us call Miss Fox Miss Fox, never Foxie.” They both went into peals of laughter.

  Terese smiled with them, but her mind was running ahead of the smile. Da. What she had called her father. Da. The significance came to her. This was Homeward Bound, these children belonged here, must belong then to Arn Dawson. They had said Da was away, and Dawson was away in England. Odd, but never had she thought of Arn Dawson as a married man and a father of a little family, even though on the way out Joe had said, “Trust Arn to look after his kids.” She supposed it was because Ginny had not given her that marital impression; she had said Hands Off; she had declared that Arn Dawson would marry because he would want a son. She had also said, Terese recalled probingly, that he had gone away for private reasons. Were the reasons something to do with the mother of these two small girls—but no small boy? Was there a rift, more than that, since Ginny spoke so calmly of her intentions, a definite break? For surely even Ginny, determined, hardbitten as she was, would not coolly plan to marry an already married man.

  “Da went after Mummy.” It was almost as though Janet was answering Terese’s question.

  “It’s a time of scissors,” said Jalna.

  “Sission,” corrected Janet. “You know, when you make up your mind.”

  “Decision, dear.”

  “Yes, d-sission. Oh, blow, there’s Foxie. We’ll have to go. Goodbye, Tree.”

  “G’bye, Tree,” Jalna echoed. The two small heads disappeared again.

  Terese went back to Ringo, cropping contentedly from the rich grasses. She mounted thoughtfully.

  Their eyes ... where had she seen eyes like that before? Very blue, unwavering, set in thick lashes. She shrugged the puzzle aside, smiling instead at the children’s Tree for Terese.

  Ringo cantered home very briskly, no doubt with a feedbag in view. He picked the track without Terese having to guide him, and went straight to the stable. Terese removed the saddle and hung it up, wiped down the pony, found his feed. Then she went up to the house.

  This time Joe and Ginny were waiting at the door for her, and they were smiling, holding their arms over their heads in a winning gesture.

  “Full approval,” called Ginny gaily. “You’re to go right ahead.”

  “Arn has cabled for you to start at once, not wait for him,” called Joe.

  Ginny was beaming her happiness for Terese, her own natural good-naturedness on top for a change.

  But when Joe added, “Peter made a special trip over in the Cessna with the answer—decent of Pete, I think,” she dropped her enthusiasm and mumbled something about seeing to Plush. Plush was the difficult cow.

  “Not the only difficult thing around here,” suggested Joe, following Terese into the house. He looked as though he would like to say more, but Terese, who had seen more than difficulty in Ginny’s closed-in little face, guided him back to Arn’s cable.

  “What did it say, Joe? Did it actually direct me to start?”

  Joe grinned. “In a way, Terese, though you, as far as Arn’s concerned, wouldn’t be the important factor, so you mustn’t mind.”

  He handed her the cable. It was brief and to the point. It was also pointedly impersonal.

  “Start the books.”

  Terese could have felt affronted at her total exclusion from Arn Dawson’s intimation had she not felt an almost overwhelming relief that she was not to be flown out of Backdown as Joe had warned.

  All the same he had a nerve, she inwardly fumed, and when she asked Joe, “How do I start?” she almost said instead, “How do I obey the king?”

  “The books are still packed in crates over at Homeward Bound,” explained Joe. “The utility’s all ready for you to take over.”

  “You mean everything’s been waiting all these weeks?”

  “All these months, Terese, nearly a year. Arn reckons the books are a pretty representative lot.”

  “How would he know?” Terese could not help that; as a librarian she was aware that the layman invariably, if unintentionally, chooses books of his own liking.

  “As well as a farmer and timberman, Arn is a scholar.”

  Ginny had returned from the barn.

  “How is Plush?” For some reason Terese did not want to discuss Dawson with Ginny, she supposed she still felt the embarrassment that she had last night when Ginny had warned, “Hands Off’.

  “I’m not happy about her. I’m not looking forward to that calf.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “You?”

  “Why not?”

  Ginny smiled faintly. “I’m afraid a difficult cow takes a little more than Animal Husbandry in one easy volume.”

  “I haven’t seen that publication.” Terese found speaking levelly rather difficult. Certainly the chip that Ginny carried could make the girl very irritating.

  But, typical of Ginny, she was sorry at once. She would not say so, though, not Ginny, instead she smiled, “We’ll go over this afternoon, Joe, and help Terese unpack the crates.”

  After lunch they set off in the jeep down the Pickpocket offshoot to the central track, then down that other offshoot that Terese had ridden that morning.

  “Why is there a fence?” asked Terese as they approached Homeward Bound.

  “Arn’s kids,” said Joe.

  “But it’s the only fence I’ve seen, and surely there are other children on the plateau.”

  “When they’re Arn’s, they’re special.” Ginny yawned more than spoke it.

  “Aren’t all children?” Terese did not mention having met the little girls this morning, she saw no reason to. She regretted this when, upon arrival, they recognized her at once and called excitedly, “It’s Tree again!”

  Ginny did not say anything, but she darted Terese one of her quick, estimating looks. There was a summoning voice farther down the path and the little girls ran off.

  The three adults went across to a large shed, and there Joe proudly drew aside the covers from a stout utility. He beamed widely as Terese caught her breath in admiration at the bright mountain-blue duco of the strong, snub-nosed little vehicle, simply but quite artistically printed, “Books.”

  “But this is quite wonderful!” she exclaimed.

  “We think so. Binaboo’s is a dull green, and all it has on it is the name of the shire.” Joe traced “Books” with a loving finger. “Gavin did well.”

  “Gavin?”

  “He’s our artist. He did all our house signs, too.”

  “The pilfering fingers, and...” Terese had been about to say “The homeward tack.” Instead, sensitive now to Ginny’s estimating look, she changed, “Stray Leaves.”

  “Have a peep inside,” invited Joe.

  “Books” was perfectly fitted. A small flight of easy stairs folded out from the back of the van, and once you reached the top of the little flight you were in a miniature library. The waiting shelves, waiting to be filled, ranged from above eye-level for the adults down to the floor, the lowest shelf obviously for the tinies.

  Terese stood enraptured, she could not have chosen a better layout herself.

  “It’s a four-wheel drive,” Joe was showing her. “You’ll have to have instruction on that. One of the lumbermen on a sickie can teach you.”

  “Joe means,” interpreted Ginny at Terese’s bewildered look, “that a timberman not working at the time will gladly give you a lesson or two.”

  “But if he’s sick...”

  “A sickie doesn’t mean you’re sick, not necessarily, you get these s
ick days allotted automatically, so, of course, you take them.”

  “Do the bosses agree?”

  “They encourage it. All work and no play, remember, and it’s very hard work, hard yacca they call it, down at a lumber camp.”

  “Now we’ll crack the crates,” Joe said.

  While he did so, Terese took a quick look at the list of contents of the first crate. It was an excellent selection; if the other crates produced such comprehensive cargoes she would be very proud of her books. She had every trust that the rest would be as representative after this sample, though, of course, as she had found in England, people’s tastes in reading were never really predictable. Outdoor types of men to whom one would instinctively offer a western would ask for a volume on soft-toy making or raising Bonsai trees, while little old ladies would make straight to the B. and G. (The blood and guts section, the girls impudently named the corner reserved for crime.) Remembering those days, little more than a week ago but now seeming years, another life, Terese smiled.

  “You’re pleased with the books,” Ginny approved.

  “Very pleased. I want to start at once. I want to catalog them, cover them, put them up on their shelves. I want to fix my date stamp. Get my bookmobile on the track and reach my first customer.” Her enthusiasm reached Ginny, who came impulsively forward to share it with an encouraging hug, all her reservation because the small girls had called “Its Tree again” vanished.

  Joe, however, curbed his own pleasure. “First things first, you must learn how to handle that truck, handle it like an expert. Arn would insist on that.”

  “I’ll start tomorrow if you can arrange it. This afternoon I’ll unpack and begin my catalog.”

  They worked for several hours without interruption and when they finished the fourth crate, they decided to call it a day.

  On the way to the gate something caught Terese’s eye, and she spun around. Before, talking with Joe and Ginny, the magnificence of the vista had either eluded her or had been concealed by a row of trees. Now, without the distraction of words, between the thick leaves the splendor of the valley fairly leaped up at her. She went as though impelled to the edge of the plateau to look down, and drew in her breath at the almost hurting beauty of the scene.