Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

The young man winced.

“Not much, old girl,” he confessed. “Four cocktails all told. They bucked me up, anyway. I was not feeling up to scratch all yesterday. I hate these dust-storms. Is it bad again today?”

“It’s vile. It is going to be worse than yesterday, I think. I’ve brought the morning-tea.”

“What’s the time?”

“A few minutes after ten. There’s nothing to get up for if you’re not fit.”

“Then I’ll snooze off again after I’ve drunk the tea. By the look of it and the sound of it no one of us will be able to work. Has there been a telephone message, or a telegram from Carie?”

“No. You’ve often asked that question lately. Are you expecting a wire?”

Borradale hesitated for a fraction of a second before saying:

“Well yes, perhaps. I’ve been hoping to receive a visit from a man from Brisbane. Personal matter, you know. I have been expecting him for a month. Oh, well, he’ll turn up some day.”

“Indeed!”

Stella waited for enlightenment, but did not press for it. When she turned to the windows from which she had a few minutes before drawn aside the curtains, the sinister day-light revealed clear, hazel eyes well spaced in a vital face. Her brother watched her as she crossed to the door, and it did not occur to him that she might be piqued by reason of his secrecy regarding the expected visit. Her dressing-gown was of white and gold, and her light-brown hair hung in two plaits down her back. He did realize how amazingly-feminine she was, and how wisely obstinate in her refusal to have her hair cut.

During her absence from the room he wearily sipped his tea, and when she returned carrying a small bottle he inquired what it contained.

“Aspirin, dear. Two tablets will put you right.”

“Hum! Thanks. How did you sleep?”

“I slept all right while I was at it, but I feel I have slept only for five minutes. Coming along for breakfast later?”

“Er-no. I am going to snooze till lunch and try not to dream about this beastly dust-storm.”

“Till lunch, then?”

“Until lunch.”Martin essayed a laugh. “Sounds like a toast, doesn’t it? Confound Mulray! I hate spirits, but he would have me slip across to the hotel with him. He’s the kind of man who won’t be denied, and one can’t drink beer at a dance.”

His sister drew the curtains before the windows after standing for a moment to observe the swirling veil of dust without. Softly she left the room and passed to her own room where her maid waited with her morning-tea.

Between theseBorradales there existed a real and even affection. They had never been heard in the recrimination not unusual in this relationship. Martin was well set up, slimly athletic, twenty-seven; his sister was remarkably attractive, but yet not beautiful. She was several years her brother’s junior. Both were keen on horses and tennis. Both preferred to drive a fast trotting-horse to a car. Both were cultured, having attended Adelaide’s best schools, but a university had been denied Martin because of their father’s untimely death when the young man was barely twenty. It had necessitated his instant return to Wirragatta.

Having graduated, Stella gladly joined her brother to work in harness with him. Their mother having predeceased their father, the estate had been willed equally to them, but there had never been any suggestion that it should be realized and portioned.

So Martin had settled down to master the details of what is an exceedingly intricate business, and, like his father, he was succeeding remarkably well. He was fortunate in that for the first five years he had had an able mentor in his father’s overseer. Only after that canny Scot had died did the young man realize what he owed him and feel the weight of responsibility of which his shoulders, till then, had been relieved.

Stella came home, and quite naturally managed the staff of domestics and efficiently ran the homestead. The world beyond far-away Broken Hill continued on its exciting social and political orbit, but at Wirragatta, as at Carie, it rolled placidly onward from year to year and left no regrets.

Neither of them vegetated, notwithstanding. Wirragatta was not a farm but a principality; the men were not yokels but clever sheepmen and fine horsemen. Many of them were well-read and well-informed. The neighbouring squatters were not country men but people modern in ideas, in dress, in manners. The internal combustion engine had wiped Cobb and Co.’s horse-drawn coaches off the tracks, and now was beginning to span andrespan the skies. The great depression was passing and hope burned in the hearts of men.

As theseBorradales had agreed, human activities outside the house were stopped by this second day of wind and blinding sand. The stockmen in their huts were unable even to read. The cooks swore and gave up their efforts to protect food. Even within the well-built homestead, even within Stella’s bedroom, where she sat reading a novel, the air was tinged with red dust. It was necessary, in order to read, to have the standard oil-lamp burning, there being no electric light at Wirragatta.

The wind boomed and whined about the house, and the colour of the oblong presented by the windows deepened to a sinister dark red as the day aged. Stella’s chair vibrated like a harp-string. The lamp smoked if the wick was turned to its normal height. Already her eyelids and the corners of her mouth were sticky with dust. And so, first reading and then dozing, Stella got through the morning.

At noon the maid appeared to ascertain her wishes about lunch. The girl’s hair was damp and wispy, and her face was stained by dust and coloured by heat. Knowing full well the terrible conditions faced by the cook, Stella suggested tea and toast. She invariably suggested; never ordered.

“Did anyone ring up this morning-or call?” she asked, reaching for the cigarettes.

“No, Miss Borradale. Oh-but then, of course, he wouldn’t count. A swagman came about eleven asking to see Mr. Borradale. Cook told him to go and camp till the winddropped, as she wasn’t going to have Mr. Borradale disturbed a day like this.”

“Poor man,” Stella said feelingly. “Did cook give him anything to eat?”

The maid shook her head.

“Oh, well, Mary, bring tea and toast. I will slip along to Mr. Borradale and see what he would like.”

Stella found her brother standing before the windows gazing out upon the red fog which now completely masked the orange-trees but a few yards distant. Her quick glance found his dressing-gowned figure instantly, noted the unusual orderliness of this most masculine room, its quiet furnishing, the occupant’s day clothes neatly folded and hung over a chair-back. Like all other rooms in the house today, the air in this was stale and clammy. At her entry Martin turned.

“Hullo, old girl! Just plain hell outside, isn’t it?”

“Just that, dear,” she agreed. “I am going to have tea and toast for lunch in consideration for cook and her difficulties-especially her temper.”

“That will suit me. Might I have it here? I don’t feel like dressing yet. Anyone telephone?”

“No. A swagman called at eleven, and cook told him to wait till the storm had died down. He wanted to see you.”

“Oh! Wants a job, I suppose.” Martin sighed. “Well, thank the Lord I’m not a swagman.”

Assured that her brother had recovered from the exertions of the previous evening, Stella returned to her room and suggested to the maid that a tray be taken to Mr. Borradale.

The afternoon was worse than had been the morning. When many women would have reviled the country and the temporarily uncomfortable conditions, Stella Borradale felt concern and sympathy for the stockmen in their rough huts, the team of dam-sinkers in their unprotected tents, and the two boundary-fence riders who patrolled the netted frontiers of this nine-hundred-thousand-acres kingdom called Wirragatta. She thought particularly of one of these fence-riders, Donald Dreyton, a man who mystified her, and she pictured him crouched in the only shelter provided by stacked camel-saddles.