Beautiful Lies (23 page)

Whatever compassion Mei had felt for Viola vanished. “She keeps it still?” The rest of her sentence went unfinished, but she was sure he heard it.
Despite the fact she's lost her mind?

“I can't say. My father doesn't have it, that's a dead cert. If he did, I think he'd bloody well send her off to hospital somewhere, and that would be that, wouldn't it?”

There was bitterness in his voice, and a certain fatalism. He was so accustomed to the rift between Viola and Archer that he probably knew there was no hope for anything better.

If Mei had come to Jimiramira for revenge alone, it had just been handed to her. The Pearl of Great Price hadn't brought happiness to Archer. It had nearly destroyed him and the woman he'd married. The pearl had sought its own revenge. But she hadn't come for revenge alone. She had come because of Thomas.

“This is difficult for you,” she said. “You must worry that your father will find this thing of value.”

“He looks for it every chance he gets. I've seen him. But Mum was always clever in an odd sort of way. Despite…” He shook his head. “In the past, she always hid it well. Now I'm not certain even
she
knows where it is. She moved it
and moved it, until she may not remember the last place she put it.”

“This is very sad for you.”

He reached out and took her hand. His was large and tanned. Hers was paler and delicate, despite the hard work she did. “I've gone on and on, haven't I? I shouldn't have burdened you.”

“You have helped me know your mother.”

“Well, I brought you here to see the bower. If the sun was shining, you'd have a better view of all his decorations. I'll bring you back someday, and we can see what he's been up to.” He squeezed her hand.

“Your father is not happy when I am in your company.”

“My father is not happy about anything, May.”

“He is your father, and you must do as he tells you.”

He tugged at her hand, a faint but discernible pressure. “Do you really believe that?”

“In China, children do as their parents say.”

“Have you ever been to China?”

She shook her head.

“Then you're not Chinese, are you? You're an Australian, just like me.”

“Not just like you.”

“No, and I'm glad. The things that are different are what I like best.”

She could feel her cheeks growing warmer. Bryce was looking at her as if she was someone important. But he didn't see the woman who had come to steal from his family.

“Is there a man waiting for you in Darwin?” He tugged her a little closer.

She concocted wild stories in the seconds while he waited for an answer, but in the end, she couldn't lie. “It is not right for you to care about a Chinese woman.”

“I don't. I care about an Australian.”

“Others will not see it that way.”

“What others? How many others do you see out here? How many women are willing to come out to this country and try their luck, May? You're one in a million. And does it matter where people's mothers and fathers came from when they're battling the plagues of fortune? Men out here take Aboriginal wives, and some of them even marry in Christian ceremonies. If you wanted me and I wanted you, who would stop us?”

“Your father.”

“He can be damned.”

“He might send you away.”

“No, I'm the only son he has.”

She thought long and well about her next words. “He is a man who will do anything to have his way.”

“He might be angry, May, but he wouldn't harm either of us.”

She knew better. Archer would kill her without thinking twice if he realized Bryce was falling in love with her. “You must promise you will not tell your father any of what you have told me.”

“You're afraid of him, aren't you?”

“He is your father. But he is not mine.”

“I promise, but I'll keep you safe, May.”

“We must go back to the house now.”

“Must we?”

She knew she must go to preserve her own safety. No matter what Bryce said, if he continued feeling as he did, Archer would sense it. Nothing good could come of this.

But she couldn't insist that her own hands drop to her sides when what they wanted was to reach for Bryce, to flutter along his shoulders until they caressed the contours
of his throat. And she couldn't insist that her lips speak the words that would free her from his attentions when they wanted only to kiss him.

This was the son of Archer Llewellyn, but his sad and lonely heart cried out to the sad and lonely heart of Tom Robeson's daughter.

She went into his arms and felt his lips warm and hard against hers. And for that brief ecstatic moment, she and Bryce were the only two people in the world.

T
he next morning, as if he suspected the attraction that had developed between Mei and Bryce, Archer sent his son with some of the other stockmen to ride the eastern boundaries. Archer said nothing of his suspicions, and she decided that his life was so much easier since she had come to Jimiramira that he was—temporarily, at least—reluctant to send her away.

Several days later Archer left, too, and she was alone with Viola and maddening swarms of insects that gloried in the sweat-drenched air. Dust was no longer a problem, but dampness seeped through every opening, and mold and mildew bloomed. She dragged herself through chores and used what energy was left to search unsuccessfully for the Pearl of Great Price.

The futility of her mission struck her on the third night after Archer's departure. She had draped a portion of the back veranda with netting and dragged mattresses outside so she and Viola could sleep where there might be a breeze. The nights, like the days, were sweltering, and although the
veranda was better than the house, fear of the darkness kept Viola awake.

“The devil's calling me!” Viola bolted up, her eyes wide in the moonlight.

The devil was a boobook owl, screeching his haunting “mopoke” into the outback night.

“Hush,” Mei murmured. “Go to sleep, missus.”

Dogs barking at the men's quarters became the hounds of hell. Giant moths landing on the net turned into winged fiends coming to carry Viola away.

“I'm right here,” Mei soothed over and over, like a lullaby. “I'll take care of you.”

When at last Viola fell into a troubled sleep, Mei lay with her hands beneath her head and gazed at the Southern Cross. On their walk, Bryce had told her that late at night, the stockmen marked time by waiting for the cross to turn over. She suspected the hour when it would tilt from the east to the west was coming soon, but what did it matter? Like every other day, today she had learned nothing that would help her find the pearl.

The task was impossible. She could methodically search every inch of Jimiramira, but while she was searching, Viola might remove the pearl from its hiding place and hide it somewhere Mei had already looked. The game could continue forever, with Viola always one step ahead of her.

She closed her eyes and turned to her side, shutting out the stars. With eyes closed, she tried to pretend she was in cool San Francisco with Thomas, who told her he had never wanted anything but to be reunited with her. Together they would begin a new life that would bring honor to their parents.

The vision, which normally comforted her, wouldn't come tonight. Instead she pictured Bryce, just before he'd
kissed her. His smile had been eager and worried, and when he had crushed her in his arms, she had never wanted to leave them.

She berated herself for losing sight of her goal, for preferring a murderer's son to her brother, but Bryce was real, and Thomas was a shadow. She opened her eyes, and that was when she saw Viola slowly, noiselessly sitting up.

Mei said nothing, hoping that Viola would lie down and fall back asleep without making another fuss. But if Viola had any lingering fears of the darkness, now they didn't matter. She peered over the railing, then in Mei's direction. Mei quickly closed her eyes and didn't open them again until she heard Viola move away from the mattress. Then she peeked through her lashes to see Viola moving stealthily toward a corner of the netting.

Viola lifted the net and, with surprising grace, slithered under it. Mei waited until Viola had entered the house before she followed, showing the same care Viola had not to make noise or give herself away.

The interior of the house was hot enough to make Mei catch her breath. She could see little, the contours of chairs, the length of a table, the outline of last year's calendar on one unplastered wall. She waited, hardly daring to ease her body into a better position, as she listened and watched for Viola.

A minute passed, then two. Just when she was beginning to think she would be forced to search, she heard a noise in the hall. She crept across the room to stand beside the doorway, just in time to see Viola slipping into Bryce's bedroom. She followed her and watched as Viola, oblivious to her presence, tilted a small table in the corner and felt along one leg.

Apparently the search was successful. Viola found something and held it close to her chest, crooning tunelessly for a moment before she righted the table.

Mei's heart beat faster. Whatever Viola had retrieved was small enough to have been easily hidden somewhere between the table leg and primitive claw foot, but the object could be as large as the Pearl of Great Price. She told herself Viola was crazy and might have retrieved nothing more than a nail or a splinter. But hope climbed inside her, wild ecstatic hope that her journey to Jimiramira had been for something after all.

When Viola started toward the door, Mei melted into an empty room across the hall, praying Viola had a different destination in mind. She watched as Viola started back the way she had come, and when it was safe, she trailed her. For a moment she was afraid Viola would return to the rear veranda and see she was missing. But Viola turned toward the front of the house and quietly slipped out the door.

Mei watched from a window until Viola stepped off the veranda. With her pale hair and white gown she was a ghostlike vision in the sultry darkness. Mei headed toward the door and followed, trying desperately to stay in the shadows as she kept Viola in sight. Somewhere in the distance thunder rattled softly like the initial warning growl of a watchdog, but Viola ignored it, moving steadily farther away.

Mei hid as best she could, but all the trees had been cleared from the vicinity of the house for fear of bushfires. She stayed in the shadow of the veranda until she was forced to dart to the first row of trees. Viola was far ahead of her and paid no attention to anything except her own quest. At last she slowed, then stopped.

Mei slipped closer when it was apparent Viola wasn't going any farther. She could hear Viola crooning again, loudly enough to drown out the crunching of leaves under Mei's bare feet.

She had been too busy trailing Viola to notice where they had ended up. Now she realized the small patch of trees was the same one where she and Viola had stopped to catch their breath that morning on their walk. The adventure had been memorable because Viola had whined continuously about the heat and shrieked curses when a wedgetail eagle circled above them.

In contrast, she seemed happy now. She held out her carefully cupped hand, palm up, and waved it from side to side. Then she bent low and placed whatever she was holding beside a protruding tree root. She straightened, stripped off her nightgown in one fluid motion, then, naked, stood swaying and gazing at the branches above her.

Viola's body was paler than the eucalpyt's bark, and for that moment she no longer seemed prematurely old or hollowed out by misfortune. She seemed like a girl, a wood nymph fanned by the whispering branches, dancing in the moonlight.

But she wasn't young. She was a sad, bitter woman with a hopelessly distorted vision of the world. Just as Mei had decided that everything Viola had done tonight was simply madness, Viola picked up whatever she had placed on the ground and popped it in her mouth. Then stepping on the highest root, she shimmied against the tree until she could reach the lowest branch.

And Viola began to climb.

Mei forgot to breathe. The sight of the naked woman climbing the tree, perhaps with the Pearl of Great Price in her mouth, was the strangest of her life. Viola was surprisingly fit. She climbed until she reached a limb about twelve feet from the ground, then she edged along it until Mei was certain it couldn't bear her weight.

Only then did she realize what Viola was going to do.
A nest the size of a dinner plate lay balanced between two smaller branches and Viola stopped just short of it. She reclined along the limb until her fingers could touch the nest. Mei couldn't see well enough to know for certain what happened next, but she could picture what she didn't see.

Viola removed the object from her mouth and dropped it into the nest; then, satisfied that the job was well done, she began a backwards journey.

Mei lingered just long enough to be sure Viola reached the ground safely. Then she fled, determined to reach the veranda before her mistress discovered she had been followed.

 

Mei couldn't return immediately to search the nest. Viola was restless for the remainder of the night, never falling so soundly asleep that Mei could take the risk. In the morning Viola was flushed and feverish, perhaps from the unaccustomed exertion of her midnight romp, but Mei was obliged to stay beside her, sponging her neck, face and arms with rags she soaked in water placed in the shade of the veranda to cool it.

When the humidity came to a head, then broke in a raging storm, Mei watched the torrential downpour and pictured the Pearl of Great Price washed from a flimsy nest of sticks and mud to be carried by rising waters into the heart of the Victoria River. And where did the Victoria empty? Did it flow out to sea? Would the pearl be returned to the setting that had created it?

Her thoughts were fanciful, but her fear was not. Viola seemed oblivious, as if by placing the pearl in a bird's nest, she had guaranteed its safety. But Mei knew that the nest and its contents might not survive the drenching. Just as certainly, she knew that going outside to rescue it would be lunacy.

Viola worsened by midafternoon, growing steadily hotter and more contentious. Mei fed her sips of boiled water and fanned her with the rain-dewed branch of a palm tree until Viola fell into a troubled sleep. When Mei had been sick as a child, her mother had visited Sheba Lane to consult an herbalist, who questioned her carefully about the illness. Then he had given Willow instructions and herbs to help Mei's body heal itself.

Now Mei had no instructions. Larry suggested a mixture of sulfur and treacle to make Viola vomit, but Mei saw no purpose in that. In the men's quarters there were quinine tablets for bush fever, but neither Larry nor Mei were sure that they were called for, and they were far too precious to waste.

“Save ‘em,” Larry said. “We'll know by tomorrow if she needs ‘em or no.”

He brought the evening meal to the house himself, but Viola, who was awake again, was too sick to eat, and Mei too busy to do more than swallow a few bites. There was no hope now that she could sneak out to the scrub and look for the pearl. Viola moaned and thrashed as her fever climbed, and it was all Mei could do to keep her in bed.

By midnight, when the sky was cloud-covered and starless, Viola's fever broke. For an hour she sweated so heavily that Mei was afraid she would melt away. Mei sponged and dried her and, when the worst was over, helped her into a clean gown. Finally Viola closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep. Exhausted, all Mei could do was wash herself and fall into bed.

She was feeding Viola breakfast the next morning when Archer and several of his men rode in. She waited until he came up to the house to tell him of Viola's illness.

“She was very sick, boss. I was afraid she might die.”

Archer, mud-stained and unshaven, motioned for her to move out of the doorway. “Well, she didn't, did she?”

Once again, she wondered about the intelligence or integrity of any man who had called this one friend. She folded her arms and didn't move. “I know little about how to take care of a person as sick as this.”

“Then learn.” He pushed past her, but he didn't stop by Viola's room to visit. He stayed at the homestead just long enough to change horses and have a meal; then he headed off again with a curt warning that he would be back that evening.

Mei saw her chances of retrieving the pearl—if it was the pearl—fading away. She couldn't risk being seen climbing the tree, most particularly not by Viola, who insisted on recuperating on the front veranda. At night, when Viola was finally in bed, Archer would be at home. And unless he had another bottle of rum hidden away, he would be alert and watchful. If he stayed at the house, she had no hope of eluding him.

For the next two days she watched for an opportunity to search the nest, and when she wasn't watching for a lucky moment, she was watching for Bryce's return. She didn't want to think about the future he envisioned here at Jimiramira. Despite nearly intolerable living conditions, she saw potential in the Territory for anyone willing to make sacrifices. Someday there would be sealed roads and modern conveniences. But she didn't want to imagine herself with Bryce beside her, wresting a living from the land and raising a family. That vision had no place for Thomas.

Still, she watched for him.

On the third day, Bryce rode into the homestead just before the evening meal. Early that morning, Archer had ridden out without word of his plans. When he didn't return
at his usual time, she had hoped that he planned to sleep away from the homestead. When he still didn't return in time to eat, she made plans to search the nest once Viola fell asleep.

Excitement had built inside her until the ring of horses' hooves destroyed it. Bryce and three of the stockmen were back, and now there were four new people to catch her in the act.

She waited for Bryce to come up to the house. That afternoon, as Viola napped, Mei had washed her own hair and left it loose to dry. Now, torn between braiding it or changing into a clean dress, she chose the dress and tied her hair back hastily with a pale blue ribbon. She knew what she would see if she had a mirror. A plain face, with features that were not quite Chinese, not quite European, and a slender, almost boyish, body.

But what did Bryce see when he gazed at her?

Whatever he saw pleased him. A slow smile lit his face when he found her in the parlor polishing piano keys. He rested his hands on her shoulders for a long look. “Your hair is beautiful that way.”

Color rose in her cheeks. “Your mother has been sick. You should see her now.”