Down in the Forest: An Australian Outback Romance by Lucy Walker

Author:Lucy Walker [Walker, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: small town and rural, outback romance, clean romance, clean and wholesome, australian romance, autstralian rural romance, australian author, australian rural novels
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Small Town & Rural Romance)
Published: 2021-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

That fateful day Jill had flung herself into all the work at hand, and all the demands made of her.

The telephone had continued to ring incessantly.

Half the time she wondered why everyone else seemed so helpless! then she wondered why so many foolish persons cluttered up the world. There were any number of calls from people far, far distant from the fire-razed district who simply rang up socially, to get the news of what had happened; and in any event how was dear Mrs. Baxter? They hadn’t rung for weeks! How had she stood up to the heat?

Journalists and even radio news-hounds rang to know if there was any ‘human angle’ to the story. What about the three men who had lost their lives in the fire, for instance?

Why ring Kim? Jill wondered desperately, flat-out answering legitimate calls and arranging for succour or help to those who had a claim.

He was the big man of the district, was the obvious answer. The Shire officials were all out at the scene of the fire, as were the policeman and other major officials in Darjalup.

So ring Kim Baxter ‒ he’ll know! That had been the psychology behind all those calls.

Kim had not only done as much top-level planning for the immediate alleviation of hardship from his office in the homestead but inevitably had to go out on to his own property and help maintain some kind of a skeleton routine there. He’d sent as many men as he could spare to other people’s aid. He now had to do something about keeping everything on Bal-Annie from becoming chaos.

He and Jill had worked shoulder to shoulder in the office, then Kim had gone out, brought in Gem and his own horse, saddled them, and later they had begun the business of quietly drafting the Edens and stud bullocks back into their grazing paddocks.

When Kim went down to the saddling paddock to bring the horses in, Tuffy came into the office to see Jill.

She had put on a fresh dark-coloured alpaca dress with a neat white collar, and done her very pretty silvery white hair. She had obviously got ready for the occasion. She came in, very composed but just a little buttoned up about the lips, her round smooth face ‒ anxious.

Jill almost expected her to fold her hands and say:

‘Well now, young miss! Explain yourself.’

Instead Tuffy stood in the doorway and looked at Jill. Jill rose from behind the chair and looked at Tuffy.

In that moment’s silence the older woman read the plea in Jill’s face.

Unexpectedly her own face creased; then she held out her hands.

It was as simple as that.

Jill went straight round the table and took both the hands in her own then suddenly her forehead was pressed against Tuffy’s shoulder.

She straightened up quickly. Tuffy wouldn’t like anyone soft. That hadn’t been the way they had done things together yesterday.

Tuffy smiled and nodded her head sagaciously.

‘What you want, Jill,’ she said with a certain sombre precision, ‘is a good cup of tea.

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