Dust of the Land Read online

  She cantered down the hill and up the drive to the house, the mare’s hooves splashing through the puddles. Bella dismounted. Shoulders hunched against the rain, face running water, she marched to the front door and rang the bell.

  A housemaid opened the door. Her startled eyes stretched wide.

  ‘Oh! Morning, miss.’

  She did not invite Bella into the house but stood blinking at her, seemingly at a loss what to say or do.

  ‘Good morning, Katie. Is Mr Charles in?’

  ‘Don’t rightly know, miss. I’m not sure –’

  Suddenly Mrs Simpson was there.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, surprise in her voice.

  She, too, did not invite Bella out of the rain.

  ‘Is Mr Charles here?’

  ‘Mr Charles is in London.’

  ‘In London?’ Bella was astonished.

  ‘He went up last night. I thought you knew. It was all very sudden. Something to do with the Hackney factory. He was going to let you know but Mr Hardy said that you’d already been told.’

  ‘Who would have told me?’

  ‘I assume the countess.’ Mrs Simpson was clearly floundering. ‘As she was here yesterday morning…’

  ‘I see,’ said Bella. And did, only too clearly. ‘When is he coming home?’

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ said Mrs Simpson, more awkwardly than ever.

  ‘Nobody told me anything,’ Bella said. ‘You say the countess was here?’

  ‘That was my understanding. I’m sorry…’

  ‘No need to apologise, Mrs Simpson. It’s not your fault.’

  She rode home, spurring Lady furiously up the hill, eyes narrowed against the rain that continued to fall. A drumbeat of mounting rage kept pace with the mare’s hooves as she galloped down the drive to Ripon Grange. A stablehand took the reins. Drenched and not caring, Bella marched into the house and went to look for her stepmother, whom she found at her writing desk. And who turned to survey her with raised eyebrows and a disbelieving laugh.

  ‘Arabella, you look like a ragamuffin.’

  Bella’s chin went up. ‘Perhaps you mean bait-digger,’ she said.

  The countess waved the remark away. ‘You are drenched,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for Charles. We were going riding together.’

  ‘In this weather?’ Again the tinkling laugh. ‘My dear child! What an extraordinary thing to do. Why don’t you have a hot bath and put on something a little more respectable, while I finish this letter? Then I shall order us some hot chocolate and we can have a nice chat.’

  Bella raised her voice. ‘I was waiting for Charles but he didn’t come.’

  ‘I am sorry –’

  ‘He didn’t come because he’s in London. As apparently you knew.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t know,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘You knew but didn’t tell me,’ Bella said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d arranged the whole thing.’

  ‘My dear, you’re upset,’ said the countess in a soothing voice. ‘I assure you I knew nothing about it.’

  ‘You were there.’

  ‘I am positive nothing was said about Charles going away. You know, Arabella,’ said the countess, ‘I am not saying Charles Hardy is insincere, but young men can be very fickle. They fall out of love as quickly as they fall in. I am not suggesting Charles has fallen out of love with you, but should that unhappily prove the case,’ the countess sighed, an older woman committed to helping her inexperienced stepdaughter, ‘the only thing to be done, I am afraid, is to move on. Hearts mend, and who knows when other opportunities will arise? And you know, my dear,’ Charlotte paused to give her words added weight, ‘at your age, a mature man has a great deal to offer.’

  All the way south, while the cinders flew back from the rushing locomotive and the darkness stole little by little out of a cloudy sky, Charles told himself the same thing over and over again. Bella could not be engaged. The countess was lying.

  Yet the following day, when he phoned the Grange from London, Mrs Delport, the countess’s new private secretary, confirmed what his father had told him.

  ‘We are so excited,’ she said.

  ‘I want to speak to Bella,’ he said.

  Only if he heard the news directly from her would he believe. But Bella, it seemed, was unavailable.

  He tried again the next day, with no better luck.

  Mrs Delport said: ‘I am sorry to have to say this, Mr Hardy, but we feel that in the circumstances it might be better if you did not try to speak to Arabella any more.’

  ‘Is that Bella’s opinion, too?’

  ‘Hers most of all,’ Mrs Delport said.

  Darkness became a living presence. Three days later, he was in Berlin. But he would not give up. If they would not let him speak to her he would write.

  And did so that very day.

  Bella took no notice of her stepmother’s warnings. Charles would come back; she knew that as certainly as she knew that day follows night. But he did not come back.

  Now there were the beginnings of sickness in her heart. Swallowing her pride, she rang Branksome. The telephone was answered by a man whose rich and fruity voice she did not recognise.

  ‘I wish to speak to Mr Charles,’ she said.

  ‘I am sorry but Mr Charles is out of the country.’

  ‘Do you have an address for him?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Do you know when he’s coming back?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. May I know –’

  Bella set her teeth. ‘Mrs Simpson, then.’

  Surely she would help, if she could?

  ‘I regret Mrs Simpson is also unavailable. May I know who is calling?’

  Bella put down the phone.

  She spoke to the staff at Ripon Grange: Mr Winchester the butler and Mrs Delport.

  ‘Have there been no phone calls for me?’

  ‘Nothing at all, Miss Arabella. Nothing.’

  She asked the same question every morning for a week but each day the answer was the same. They told her there was neither phone call nor letter, and slowly the calamity took shape before her. Charles was not coming back to her. Not soon; not ever.

  Each morning dawned in darkness, and inch by agonising inch she came to know the truth. Every romance she had read had spelt out the pain of heartbreak; now she experienced it for herself and it was worse than anything she could have imagined. Day after day she saddled up and rode out. Afterwards she remembered nothing but a blur of hedgerows and stone walls climbing the flank of the hill; gates to be opened and closed; open moors extending into a purple distance. As long as it was not back to Ripon Grange she did not care where she went. Even so, riding was hard: without warning tears would blind her, brought on by the sudden memory of Charles’s voice, or the look of love in his eyes as he smiled at her.

  One day she came to the chasm called Gaping Gill that she had visited so often with Charles. People said it was over three hundred feet deep, with a stream flowing into it. Driven by something outside herself, she dismounted and walked to the edge of the void. Below her the water poured, white-flecked, into the abyss. Its roar filled her, making thought impossible. She stood and waited for the nudge of an unseen hand. She closed her eyes and heard the uneasy beating of her heart.

  No, she thought.

  She stepped back from the drop. She remounted, face set, mouth determined, and rode away. Pain continued to claw her but life had the stronger claim. It posed a challenge, but the challenge would be met.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sitting alone in her office in the house she had named Desire Bella thought, now I know what it must have felt like to be an aristocrat in the French Revolution, cowering in the tumbril with the mob screaming and Madame La Guillotine waiting in the Place de la Revolution. But this victim was not prepared to expose her neck meekly to the falling blade. She would leap out of the cart and launch a counter-attack. The bank’s letter had been a sho
ck but she was over the worst of it now. With all her labours of the last forty years trembling in the balance, Bella was determined to face the challenge head on. She picked up her private phone and dialled. At the other end of the line the receiver lifted.

  ‘Gayle Hastings…’

  The voice was cool and noncommittal. Discretion was Gayle’s hallmark, and the discovery of concealed information.

  ‘Gayle,’ Bella said. ‘We have a problem. Industrial espionage. I want you here as soon as you can make it.’

  It was late Sunday afternoon but this couldn’t wait.

  ‘Good. Half an hour, then.’

  She hung up. Gayle Hastings was the best enquiry agent in the business. She would uncover the culprit, if anyone could.

  Next she tried to contact Martin Dexter, Peace and Richard. Martin had just got home; the babysitter said that Richard and Su-Ying were not back yet; Peace, predictably, was working.

  She told Martin and Peace what she wanted from them but not why.

  ‘I shall need the information tonight. As soon as you can get it to me.’

  Peace tried to argue. ‘Can’t it wait? We’re flat out here.’

  ‘Just do it, okay?’

  And put down the phone. I certainly got it wrong the day I named her Peace, Bella thought.

  Almost at once the phone rang.

  Never a dull moment, she thought. She picked it up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Hong of the Chinese Consulate.’

  So soon? Well, it was to be expected.

  ‘Put him on.’ She heard the click. ‘Mr Hong, I was glad to see you at the party. I am afraid the food was very poor, but I hope you can forgive me for that.’

  ‘The food was excellent.’ Mr Hong’s English was excellent, too, with the faint twang of the Mandarin speaker. ‘And your remarks, especially those relating to future co-operation between Australia and China… Inspirational, if I may say so. I have arranged for a transcript to be sent to my ambassador in Canberra. I am sure he will be equally impressed.’

  ‘It is kind of you to say so, Mr Hong. And how can I help you?’

  ‘My government believes that co-operation between our nations should be encouraged as a source of mutual benefit.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely.’

  ‘I would therefore like to suggest that we meet in my office to discuss certain practical measures that may help us achieve this objective.’

  ‘I would welcome that opportunity,’ Bella said. ‘When did you have in mind?’

  ‘Shall we say tomorrow morning at nine?’

  Her appointment with BradMin was scheduled for eleven-thirty. Depending on what happened this afternoon, Owen Freeth was pencilled in for ten. Those meetings apart, her diary was clear.

  Mr Hong has definitely heard something, Bella thought.

  She said: ‘I regret nine o’clock will not be convenient. However, I would welcome a meeting here, in my office, at eight. If that is not too early for you?’

  Bella did not know what Mr Hong was planning to say but was determined that any meeting would be on her terms or not at all.

  There was a pause; then Mr Hong said:

  ‘Eight-thirty will be suitable.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  Bella put down the phone and walked into the vast reception room. Now this crisis had erupted, every step across the marble floor had a new significance. All this – the marble, the drapes, the building – was legally hers. Its treasures were hers also. But for how long?

  She paused to examine the exquisite jade pieces presented to her on her first visit to China six years before; the Soong vase that she had bought at the same time and that experts told her was as fine as the specimen on display in the Beijing Art Museum; a pair of Hester Bateman candlesticks, with memories both loving and tragic; a Monet painting of water lilies in the artist’s garden at Giverny. Each was worth a fortune in the world’s terms, but to Bella they were valuable because they represented the highs and lows of her life: the births of her children and her husband’s death; the near-fatal accident that might have destroyed her but miraculously had not; and now the business deal with China that all being well would be the foundation of the company’s future wealth. The Monet had served a double purpose: she had bought it to console herself after Garth’s death but also to demonstrate her confidence in the mine and the future. It was a challenge thrown in the teeth of fate, declaring that, in defiance of all odds, she would succeed in what she had committed herself to do.

  The next few weeks, possibly even days, would determine whether they remained hers or not. Events were building to a climax that only that morning she could not have foreseen; now Mr Hong’s phone call had made it obvious that China, no doubt concerned for its iron ore supplies, intended to get involved. She felt the edges of her mind, sharp and hard as tempered steel, turn to meet the challenge. Her brain knew it was possible to fail but her will would not accept it.

  She walked restlessly around the room that, more than anywhere else, represented what had become her life. She might have remained happy as Garth Tucker’s wife on Miranda Downs. She had loved the cattle station from the moment she first set eyes on it; she loved it still. Her life there had been years of work, hardship and suffering, but also of joy. Her children had spent their early years there. Even after she had started to develop the Perth property in 1953, it had remained her home. In a sense it still was: to this day she carried within her memories of the dry months, each day blurred by heat and dust; the intermittent floods of the wet; the humidity and emptiness; the people with whom she had shared her days and from whom she had learnt so many secrets of the sacred earth.

  Fate had intervened. She had moved from the pastoral life into this palace, symbol of her dreams, and to the challenge of constructing a business with the potential to increase one hundredfold the wealth of this state and nation. It had become a sacred quest, absorbing her energy, intelligence and courage. She had battled the scepticism of a world that had not believed a woman capable of the task. She had fought banks, politicians and the law. Rivals had tried to destroy her. Somehow she had survived, yet now the edifice she had built was on the brink of collapse. If that happened, all would be lost; her sweat, tears and agony would have been in vain.

  She stared up at the Monet, admiring its serenity even as she drew deep breaths of air into her lungs. She had put too much of her life into this venture to fail now. She would not fail. Again and again she repeated it, as a mantra. She would not, would not, would not fail…

  Nor was she truly alone, because the past kept watch beside the present. Garth was beside her. She could sense the forceful masculinity that had first drawn her to him. He had been a true cattleman, and more than happy to let her take over the running of the mine, but he had always been there for her. He was there for her now, as were all those others who had been important to her over the years.

  Even Charles Hardy, the Yorkshire boy she had loved and lost… Now, as the crisis threatened to sweep her away, the image of Charles as she had last seen him returned. He had been so young and brave, smiling as he had waved what she had believed was only a temporary goodbye. To this day she did not know what had happened, only that her stepmother must have been behind it. Whatever she might have felt in the days of her agony, she did not now believe that Charles had abandoned her. She did not blame him for marrying either, however much it had pained her when she heard the news; she had done the same thing herself, after all. He would have been here for her now, she thought. Had he known, and if he were still alive.

  A click of heels on the marble floor as Deborah came looking for her.

  ‘Is the media on to it yet?’ Bella said.

  ‘The phone never stops.’

  ‘It’s bound to be hectic for a while. Just tell them what I told you.’

  ‘I shall.’

  Most would have been flustered by the pressure but Deborah looked as calm as she always did. It was a great day when I took he
r on, Bella thought. ‘You were looking for me?’

  ‘Mr Freeth is here.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Bella said. With all the artillery at my disposal, I am coming.

  Deborah on her heels, Bella returned to her office and sat down.

  ‘Shall I ask him to come in?’ Deborah said.

  ‘Give me a minute first.’

  She sat with her hands flat on the desk while she considered what she was going to say to this man who had advised on her legal affairs for so many years.

  Owen Freeth was over seventy but still fit. He was a bachelor who enjoyed parties and mixing with the movers and shakers of his world, yet as far as she knew had always taken care never to involve himself too closely with anyone. No doubt he would have said that distance aided sound judgement: the quality that his clients valued most in him and that over the years had made him both successful and rich.

  He and Garth had met in the early thirties and formed a strong if unlikely friendship. Garth had seen in Owen a quality that he had perhaps wished he had himself: the dispassionate nature that her cattleman husband, living on the tiptoes of his life, would never have. For Bella’s part, she respected both his opinions and his efficiency. When she wanted him to do something he did it quickly and well. They were friendly but not close friends: they were temperamentally too far apart for that. She knew he admired her courage and audacity, her unfailing instinct in matters of business and the law, but there were times when she suspected that her ruthlessness alarmed him.

  She and Garth had attended meetings with him together. She remembered very clearly the first time she had met him and how he had started off by treating her as a decorative addition to her husband’s life, someone whose function was to give style and support to her man. He had explained to her that a woman whose knowledge of life was confined to a cattle station was hardly qualified to compete with men whose natural milieu was the cut-throat world of business.

  ‘Nevertheless I intend to do it,’ she said.