The Grazier's Wife Read online

  Just yesterday, a woman from a cattle property on the other side of Mareeba had brought in the detached top section of a lovely old sideboard, carefully wrapped in a sheet and stowed in the back of her ute. She wanted the sideboard’s mirror done up in time for her husband’s birthday party.

  ‘The sideboard’s very old,’ the woman, whose name was Jackie Drummond, had said. ‘It’s been in my husband’s family for generations and the mirror’s become spotty over the years.’ Then she’d pointed to the office across the road. ‘I know Brad Woods, the solicitor. He told me about you.’

  The solicitor had wandered over to Alice’s shop last week and poked his head through the doorway to the workshop, offering a cheery smile and a welcome to the neighbourhood. After chatting for a bit and showing a healthy curiosity in the work she was doing on the mahogany wardrobe, Brad Woods had invited her to join him and his wife and several locals at the pub that Friday evening for an easy meal.

  Alice had accepted the invitation and the evening had been very pleasant, a firsthand experience of country-town friendliness. Another tick in the box for Burralea.

  ‘Brad told me you can fix old mirrors,’ Jackie had said. ‘I think he said you re-silver them. Is that the right term?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Alice stifled the nervousness that squirmed, momentarily, in the pit of her stomach. She’d re-silvered several old mirrors in Brisbane. It had been a tricky task to master, but she’d followed the detailed instructions her grandfather had written in his ‘Blue Book’, and they’d all turned out just fine. She was only nervous now because this was her first important job in a brand-new business.

  Carefully, she studied the lovely old bevelled mirror. ‘There’s one small scratch in this corner down here. I can try to hand-polish it, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get rid of it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ said Jackie with a breezy wave of her hand. ‘It’s mainly the spots I want to clean up.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Re-silvering is perfect for clearing up age spots. Your mirror will look as good as new.’

  Jackie had been delighted and had made a joke about clearing her own age spots. They’d agreed on a price and now Alice had planned to start the job today, right after her breakfast.

  Sunlight streamed through the French doors that looked from Alice’s workroom onto the rather wild garden and the dank rainforest beyond the back fence. The day was windy, though, and she kept the doors closed. A branch of a lilly pilly tree scratched at the glass as she gently laid the top piece of Jackie Drummond’s sideboard on her workbench.

  Pulling her long curly hair away from her face, she twisted it into a careless knot. Anticipation hummed inside her as she ran her fingertips over the smooth silky-oak frame. Alice loved furniture liked this, the glowing amber-toned timber, the carved panels beneath the mirror and the decorative posts on either side of it. She loved the craftsmanship and the elegance, but also the history and the romance of knowing that others had loved it before her.

  Her reflection in the speckled mirror stared back at her and she saw her pale oval, too-serious face, her auburn hair still trying to curl despite being pulled back. She wondered how many others had looked into this silver rectangle. Part of her enjoyment of working with old things came from imagining those faces from the past.

  She pictured a 1920s bride on her wedding day, smoothing a simple, brow-hugging veil over her sleek bobbed hair. A young soldier proudly adjusting his chinstrap and the angle of his slouch hat.

  She saw a fair-haired mother in an elegant 1940s gown, holding up a rosy, round-cheeked baby, the two of them laughing at their reflections.

  Lovers. Their glances meeting in the mirror. Covert smiles.

  Okay. Enough.

  Alice shook her head to clear it, and focused on the job at hand. Her first task was to remove the backing that held the mirror in place.

  Thin sheets of silky-oak veneer had been secured over the back using tiny tacks. Black smears showed on the timber where many of the tacks had corroded. Alice set to work carefully, using a pair of long-nosed pliers to gently prise the tacks from their holes and then, with a thin chisel, she lifted the veneer.

  She went about the task methodically, unhurriedly, just as her grandfather might have done many years before her.

  So many hours of her childhood had been spent in the garage at the bottom of their garden. Sometimes her grandfather had let her help him with sanding and polishing, and she’d taken such pride in her work. He’d praised her to the skies and her love of the trade had been born.

  When all the tacks were free, Alice lifted the timber veneer and set it to lean safely against the far wall. Returning to the mirror, she discovered a layer of padding stowed behind it.

  Actually, it wasn’t mere padding, she realised on closer inspection. It was a thick manila envelope addressed in shaky handwriting.

  For the Drummond Family.

  Frowning, Alice picked the envelope up, gave it a light dusting with a dry rag and turned it over. On the back was the sender’s address, in the same shaky script: Stella Drummond, Ruthven Downs, November 1970.

  A chill skittered down Alice’s spine. Something about this discovery unsettled her, even though she knew it shouldn’t. This wasn’t the first time she’d found a surprise inside old furniture.

  Once before, when she was working for a restorer in Brisbane, she’d found a wedding ring that had been wedged in the back of a drawer thirty years earlier. Returning it to the owner had been a joyful occasion. Another time, she’d come across a copy of a Brisbane newspaper from 1915, which had also been placed behind a mirror in a sideboard, presumably as kind of time capsule for subsequent owners.

  Alice had shown it to the sideboard’s owners and they’d been delighted, and had agreed it should be returned to its hiding place. When Alice had reassembled the newly silvered mirror, she’d added a Courier Mail from the current day.

  Those finds had been fun, but this felt different. This almost certainly was different. This envelope had the appearance of a private family document. There were definitely papers inside.

  Testing the flap with a fingertip, Alice discovered that it wasn’t sealed. Gingerly, a little guiltily, she lifted it. There was another envelope inside and folded pages that might have been a letter.

  She knew this was none of her business and she resolved not to remove anything, but when she tilted the packet ever so slightly, she could read the thick, spiky handwriting on the second envelope.

  Instructions pertaining to the will of Magnus H Drummond.

  Alice gasped. Holy shit. What was this? She was sure Jackie Drummond knew nothing about it and suddenly her curiosity was replaced by concern. Instructions pertaining to a will sounded scarily serious, something that she shouldn’t hang on to any longer than necessary.

  She thought briefly about speaking to Brad Woods, the solicitor and Drummond family friend across the road, but she just as quickly dismissed the idea as inappropriate. This was a private matter. She’d taken note of Jackie Drummond’s phone number yesterday, so the sensible thing to do was to call her.

  Jackie answered quickly. ‘Oh, hi, Alice. How’s the mirror?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Alice assured her. ‘No problems. But I’ve found something rather interesting stowed behind it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, there’s an envelope addressed to your family.’

  ‘Goodness. How mysterious.’

  Jackie sounded amused and Alice didn’t want to alarm her. Rather than telling her about the will she said simply, ‘I have to collect something from Mareeba, and this afternoon’s as good a time as any. I could drop it off at your place.’

  ‘Well, that’s very kind. Are you sure it’s not too far out of your way?’

  Alice wasn’t totally sure of the location of Ruthven Downs, but Mareeba was only half an hour away and she had Maps on her phone. Besides, she wasn’t especially busy just yet, and she would feel happier when this envelop
e and its contents were where they belonged. With the Drummonds.

  6

  Alice had probably driven more kilometres in the month since she’d left Brisbane than she had in all the years before that. Driving in the country was a very different matter from the rush and impatience of city traffic, however.

  Today was sunny, the sky a perfect blue with soft white clouds, and farmlands spread on either side of the road like giant patchwork quilts. Paddocks of green pasture dotted with black and white dairy cows were interspersed by earthy blocks scattered with the remains of harvested cornstalks, or fields of legumes topped by lacy white flowers. In other paddocks, plantings of young macadamia trees were protected from the wind by borders of she-oaks.

  Every so often a farmhouse appeared, framed by a garden and shade trees and lawns as smooth as bowling greens. Looming beside or behind the houses, large, open, corrugated-iron barns were filled with hay bales, and machinery sheds sported expensive harvesters and tractors.

  As she drove further north, the smaller crops gave way to coffee and avocado plantations. Fields of sugar cane stood tall, their fluffy mauve spearheads waving in a light breeze. A sign for a roadside stall announced red pawpaws for sale.

  Around Mareeba the country became drier, the pockets of lush rainforest replaced by straggly bush. Alice called in at the second-hand furniture store, then pressed on along the Mulligan Highway. A road sign pointed north to Lakeland and Cooktown, legendary towns of the far north, frontier country that had always held a mysterious glamour for her.

  It was exciting to know that although she would only cover a small section of this road today, if she kept going, she would end up at Cape York, the very northern tip of Australia.

  Here the landscape was dotted with skinny gums and giant anthills as well as lovely green lagoons, and pale grassy paddocks where white and grey beef cattle grazed. In the distance a blue ridge of mountains loomed.

  The road dipped down over a pretty creek lined with weeping paperbarks, and it was on the other side of the next rise that Alice saw the impressive, solid-timber fence and gates, and a sign painted in black and white reading Ruthven Downs.

  Jackie had warned Alice that the chain on the gate wasn’t locked. Curiosity mounting, she turned off the bitumen, closed the gate carefully behind her, and continued along a well-graded dirt road.

  She began to feel a little nervous. Apart from yesterday’s meeting, she knew nothing about the Drummonds, but she’d instinctively liked Jackie. A slim blonde, probably in her late fifties, she’d been simply dressed in well-cut jeans and a white collared shirt tucked neatly into place with a brown leather belt. Her jewellery – gold earrings and a chunky gold chain – had looked expensive, befitting a successful grazier’s wife, but there was nothing snooty about her.

  To Alice, Jackie had seemed very down-to-earth and friendly.

  She was still thinking about this and reassuring herself that she was doing the right thing when her ute rattled over a cattle grid and the track emerged into open country again. Now she drove between paddocks where beef cattle grazed, then past stockyards with weathered timber fences. Beyond these lay the long, low homestead.

  Alice’s stomach tightened and she glanced again at the envelope lying on the passenger’s seat beside her. For the Drummonds’ sake, she hoped that the papers inside were nothing more than interesting facets of family history that had been hidden away for safekeeping. But now that the handover was imminent, she couldn’t help worrying.

  Had it been her imagination, or was there something sinister about that thick, black handwriting with instructions pertaining to the will of Magnus H Drummond?

  Why on earth had it been hidden?

  Pulling up in front of the homestead, Alice did her best to shake off the sense of foreboding. A glance in the rear-vision mirror showed her the extra freckles she’d gained since moving to the north. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind an ear and forced a smile. The smile looked nervous and she tried again. That was better.

  Okay. Deep breath. Stay cool.

  Collecting the envelope, she climbed out of the car. There were only three short steps to the verandah. A dog barked as she approached, and she saw a blue cattle dog rising from his shady spot on the verandah beneath a hanging basket of ferns.

  She supposed she should have known there’d be a dog on a property like this. She hovered on the bottom step, not sure if she should continue.

  But the dog didn’t look too ferocious, so she bravely continued and in a matter of moments, she was knocking at the open front door and looking down the homestead’s central hallway where a row of Akubra hats hung on the wall.

  The dog barked again and almost immediately Alice heard footsteps. Not the light steps of a woman, but a heavy-booted stride. Her heart sank and she prayed that Jackie was close behind.

  ‘Easy, Ralph,’ called a male voice, and then a figure appeared, backlit by the afternoon sunlight streaming through windows at the far end of the hallway. Alice could only see his silhouette – broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, the suggestion of low-slung jeans.

  It was only as he got closer that she realised he was young, around her age. And shirtless. Make that shirtless and impressive. A silly pulse started in her throat and she tried not to stare at the sudden appearance of bulky brown shoulders, of veins snaking over muscled arms, a broad bare chest, a scattering of hair arrowing downwards.

  ‘Hey, there.’ He gave his chest a self-conscious scratch. ‘I was – ah – was expecting one of the ringers.’

  With that he turned and snagged a shirt from the row of hooks on the wall in the hallway. The shirt was soft cotton, a faded blue, the same colour as his eyes, and he pulled it on and did up the buttons.

  Alice supposed she should be grateful, but it was like a strip­tease in reverse. As each inch of that intriguing chest disappeared, she had the devil’s own job to keep herself from staring.

  But it was time to remember exactly why she was here.

  ‘I was hoping to see Jackie,’ she said, keeping the envelope flat against her side. ‘I spoke to her this morning. I phoned her.’

  ‘Ah.’ Amusement shimmered in his smile. ‘So you must be the furniture restorer?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alice was used to guys smirking when they heard about her job. Defiantly lifting her chin, she said, ‘I’m Alice Miller.’

  To his credit, this guy didn’t smirk. ‘Hi, Alice. Seth Drummond.’ He offered her his hand and his grasp was firm. ‘My mother mentioned that you might call in.’

  So, this was Jackie’s son. His shoulders were now straining the shirt’s seams, but Alice carefully directed her gaze away from him and down the hall. ‘Is Jackie in?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid something came up. Some drama with the CWA cake stall and she had to race off. But she said you might be dropping off a packet or something?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alice would have preferred to speak to Jackie, but she supposed it was okay to hand these documents over to her son.

  She held out the envelope.

  ‘Thanks.’ Seth looked down at the envelope, frowning, then turned it over and read Stella Drummond’s name on the back. His frown deepened. ‘Where’d you say you found this?’

  ‘It was hidden behind the sideboard mirror.’

  ‘Hidden?’

  ‘Well, I’m only guessing, but it was jammed between the mirror and a sheet of timber veneer.’

  Seth pulled a face. ‘Weird.’ He gave the envelope a thoughtful tap. She noticed that his hands were strong and tanned and slightly rough-looking, no doubt from working with cattle and mending fences, or whatever it was that cattlemen did.

  ‘Thanks for bringing this out here,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure Mum gets it.’

  Her task was complete. She gave a little nod and took a step back.

  Seth Drummond let his smiling gaze linger on her a shade longer than was necessary. She knew he was checking her out, but it was a bit silly of her to be glad she’d worn her favourite paisley pr
int smock teamed with dark green jeans.

  ‘Great to meet you, Alice,’ he said. ‘Might see you around some time.’

  She was tempted to respond with a smile, but she was afraid it would be too coy. There was something different about Seth from the city guys she’d known, an air of practicality about him that seemed somehow more intensely masculine. And, to Alice’s annoyance, he made her feel flustered, like an awkward teenager.

  Ignoring the fluttery sensation, she said simply, ‘I’ll give Jackie a call when the mirror’s ready.’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  She turned quickly and marched with businesslike briskness across the verandah, down the steps and back to her car. She didn’t look at Seth Drummond again as she climbed in, started the motor and put the ute in reverse.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware that he remained standing, one big shoulder propped against the door jamb, watching her as she backed away. She felt stupidly self-conscious, but for­tunately she didn’t back into the ornamental birdbath that stood right on the edge of the lawn. As she turned the steering wheel and shifted into drive again, she put her foot down a little too hard. Fine gravel sprayed from beneath her tyres as she took off.

  What an idiot she was. Her face was flaming.

  Metres down the track, she realised she was still going too fast when she hit the first cattle grid. The ute didn’t just rattle over the grid this time. There was a loud crunch and a jarring sensation under her wheels.

  Guiltily, and a hell of a lot more cautiously, Alice edged her vehicle forward. All seemed fine at first, but then it happened again. Another jarring, scraping sound. Oh, God, what had she done?

  She pulled off the track and got out. Almost immediately she saw the flat back tyre.

  Shit. She was so angry with herself. How could she have been so stupid? So flustered by a guy? It wasn’t as if she’d lived under a rock and had never encountered the male of the species. In fact, she’d become rather jaded about men after her most recent dating experiences and she’d vowed to be cool-headed from now on. And she knew damned well that she was supposed to slow down over cattle grids.