The Outback Engagement. Margaret Way
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then falling back to earth. Too often she submerged her tempestuous feelings in defying him. It made it that much easier for her to keep control. That was her lot in life. Keeping control.
Now she had to watch her father make his exit from life. It was an eerie experience, rather like a nightmare from which she would surely wake up. Jock McIvor’s heart attack at fifty six had not only rocked her to her core, it had rocked the entire Outback. Jock McIvor was in his way a legend. Millionaire cattle man, lady killer, sportsman (only a year before he had still been enjoying his favourite game of polo), raconteur, owner of an historic cattle station with its rambling old homestead that had in its heyday, to be strictly honest, her grandfather’s day, hosted many a visiting dignitary and V.I.P. Her father was a true bush identity though Darcy was painfully aware some people described him as a ruthless bastard. Still Jock McIvor was known the length and breadth of Outback Queensland and into the Northern Territory.
Unbelievably only six months before he had been a marvellous looking man, still outrageously handsome with flashing blue eyes, wonderful white teeth and a leonine mane that had slowly turned tawny from its once copper glory. Darcy had many fond memories of sitting around the camp fire listening to her father recount his stories to a fascinated audience who hung on his every word. On the down side it had to be said her father had been a hard-drinking, hard-living womaniser. There was no getting away from it. He was a big man with big appetites. It had been a problem. It once caused a crisis when photos surfaced of Jock and a well-known station wife caught in a public display of affection for want of a better word. The wronged husband had threatened a shotgun solution. Jock who had a lawless streak in him had only laughed when his daughter had been saddened and deeply embarrassed.
Yes, Jock McIvor had generally been acknowledged to be larger than life. Darcy had thought him invincible.
“When no man is!” Curt again. The entire Outback community knew Darcy and Curt had a powerful attachment both sought to play down. People argued there didn’t seem to be any rational explanation for why they were not together. Except maybe Jock McIvor’s running interference. They all knew Jock wasn’t a man to share.
A small sound from the bedroom tore Darcy from her troubled reverie. Her father was stirring, a whistling moan on his breath.
“Dad!” For once she didn’t bother with the “Jock” her father preferred her to call him. In the stress of the moment she didn’t care. She was a woman. Damn it! Emotional.
By the time she reached the bed her father’s eyes were opening slowly, painfully, as though it cost him a great effort. “Darcy.” His brow puckered. “Here as usual?”
Something about the way he said it took her aback. “Where else would I be?” She touched his hand tenderly willing herself not to cry. Her father hated tears so much sometimes she thought she had almost lost the ability to cry. She had been brought up to be brave, ignoring her sensitive female side as she tried to turn herself into the heir her father had always wanted yet somehow for all his dalliances had failed to produce.
“I’m finished, girl.” It was said flatly, without acceptance. More a hard digust that in former days would have been rage.
She was helpless to deny it. “Dad, I love you so much.”
“That’s the way you are. Loyal.” He fixed his sunken eyes on a life size portrait across the room. It had been painted not long before the inexorable break-up of the family. Two young girls about twelve and ten in immaculate riding gear, white silk shirts and fitted jodhpurs leaned towards a ravishingly pretty, blonde woman who was seated on a burgundy leather couch, similarly attired.
Dress for the portrait had been decided upon by Jock. Marian McIvor hadn’t cared for horses or riding. Courtney had followed suit. Courtney, an adorable miniature version of her mother had her arm around her mother’s waist. Darcy was perched like some long legged brolga on the arm of the couch, long straight dark hair falling over one shoulder, slanting aquamarine eyes staring gravely out at the viewer.
It had always seemed to her her colouring looked startlingly out of place beside Jock’s benchmark of beauty, the enchanting gold and blue of her mother and sister. From family photographs she knew she resembled her long dead paternal grandmother who had been famous for her stoic resilience and everyday heroisms in a vast lonely harsh environment. She even bore her grandmother’s maiden name, D’Arcy.
“You were always the serious one.” Her father gave a muffled groan, the marks of suffering all over him. “Look at you there. Poker faced. Beside your mother and sister you look damned nearly plain. But you were always as smart as a tack and you’ve been good. So good. I haven’t appreciated you enough. You were the one I could always trust.”
Sometimes the things her father said Darcy found horribly wounding. Anything but vain, she knew she was far from plain but her father had never wanted to accept her attractiveness or femininity. Perhaps as Curt continually pointed out her father saw great danger in allowing her to realise her womanly potential.
Father and daughter continued to stare at the portrait, one feeling a sense of attachment, the other, God knows what! “Why have you always kept the portrait in your room?” Darcy felt driven to ask. Her father’s harsh views were entrenched in her consciousness. Jock had always claimed he despised Darcy’s mother for leaving him, yet he opened his eyes on her first thing in the morning and closed his eyes on her at night.
“It’s the way it’s got to be!” A grim smile lifted the corner of Jock McIvor’s mouth. “I keep it, Darcy, to remind me what Marian did to me. She sucked all the love from my system. She should never have left me. It was cruel and it was wrong.”
“You didn’t try hard enough to get her back, Dad. You let them go.” The words were torn from Darcy like a bandage from a wound.
“It was your mother’s duty to return to me.” The gaunt face worked, the talons on the white sheet tensed. “When she refused I was finished with her. No woman makes a fool of Jock McIvor. A wife should follow her husband everywhere. She knew what she was getting into when she married me, what she had to accept. She was a bad wife.” His expression was at once bitter and bereft.
“Why didn’t she want to take me?” Darcy’s plaintive eyes were fixed upon her mother’s painted face. How many million times had she asked herself the question?
Her father shot her a peculiar glance. One she missed. “She wanted Courtney, the pretty one made in her own image. That was the deal. You were the changeling with your dark hair and those slanty eyes. Your mother and your sister subjected us to a massive betrayal, girl. Then she had the hide to punish me with an outrageous divorce settlement when she was the one to move out. Remarried, the faithless bitch. You know she wanted you to go to the wedding?”
For a minute Darcy looked at him blankly. “Oh…Dad, you’ve never mentioned this before.” The admission devastated her. She was left with the sick hollow feeling there might be many things her father had never told her when she had given him all her loyalty and trust.
“For God’s sake, be your age!” he said, anger seething behind his eyes. “There are lots of things I never told you. Because you didn’t need to know. The two of us had to cast your mother and sister aside to survive. Your mother was the enemy. We had to resist her with all our strength. Fact is, Courtney still remains my child. Your mother destroyed our relationship but now I’m dying I’ve had to confront certain issues. Because you’ve been the one to stay with me doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you Murraree, girl. It would take more than a woman to run it.”
Darcy took a deep breath, feeling like she had been plunged headfirst into a powerful disbelief. “What are you saying? Murraree is my home. My heritage. I know you’ve always wanted a son but haven’t I demonstrated my love for the land? I’ve worked long and hard. I carry my weight. If I can’t handle the station all on my own, there’s always a good overseer.” The idea of losing her birthright was absolutely intolerable.
“Overseer!” Jock McIvor rallied to spit out the word. “Damn it all, girl. When I’m gone men will try to take advantage of you. Don’t you realise that?