I was young yet, being only eighteen. Perhaps on my nineteenth birthday he would ask me. I pictured us in the library receiving Lynx’s congratulations. He would draw me into his arms and kiss me.
“Truly my daughter now,” he would say; and I would feel that happy glow within me. I, who had once been abandoned by my mother and had lost my father, would now be joyfully claimed by the Lynx as his daughter. These were dreams—but one has to be happy to dream pleasant-dreams.
There were footsteps behind me.
“Good day. Miss Nora.”
I felt suddenly cold with dread for it was Jacob Jagger who stood behind me. He was almost upon me as I sprang to my feet and faced him.
I was immediately aware of the silence all about me—the loneliness of the bush. In a flash I thought of the other occasion when he had stood close to me—but then Stirling and Adelaide were not far off.
“You!” I heard myself stutter.
“You don’t look very pleased to see me. And to think I’ve come here specially to see you!”
“How did you know—’ ” I make it my business to know what you’re about. Miss Nora. I saw you come this way and I said to myself, “Oh, it’s Kerry’s Creek this morning.”
“But why should you follow me?”
“You’ll know in good time. Don’t let’s rush this.”
“I don’t like your manner, Mr. Jagger.”
“I haven’t liked yours for a long time.”
“Then there can be no point in our continuing this conversation.” I turned away, but he had caught my arm and a feeling of terror came to me because I was immediately aware of his strength.
“I have to disagree again. Miss Nora.” He brought his fat, leering face close to mine.
“And this time,” he went on, “I call the tune.”
“You have forgotten that I may report this when I return.”
“You are not going to return just yet.”
“I fail to understand.”
“You are not as calm as you pretend to be, and I think you do understand a great deal.”
“You are being very offensive, Mr. Jagger. I don’t like you. f never have. Now please stand aside. I am ready to go back. Goodbye.”
He laughed most unpleasantly. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was terrified. A picture of Mary flashed into my mind. Had it happened so with her?
“You are not going yet. Miss Nora. I’ve something to say to you. I haven’t got a wife. I wouldn’t mind having one … if she were you.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“You call an honourable proposal of marriage nonsense?”
“Yes, when it comes from you. So now stand aside. If you attempt to detain me any longer you will regret it.”
He was still laughing at me; there was a tinge of purple in his face now; his mouth was ugly.
“So you manage affairs now at Whiteladies, do you? By God, Miss Nora, it’s time someone taught you a lesson.”
“I learn my own lessons, thank you.”
“Well, this morning you’re going to learn another. I’ve set my heart on you and nothing on earth is going to stop me having my way.”
I wrenched myself away from him and started to run to the tree where my horse was tethered. I hadn’t a chance. He was beside me; then he stood in front of me barring my way.
“Will you leave me, Mr. Jagger?” I panted.
“No, Miss Nora, I will not.”
“Then …”
He waited, mocking, his face working with a terrifying passion which I recognized as lust. This was what I had feared since I had first met him. He was a man who could not restrain his desires; he had no doubt found it easy to impose his will on some of the poor serving girls; and Lynx had made it easy for him. But he should realize that I was not as one of those, and that if he dared touch me he would have to answer to Lynx . and Stirling.
I tried to push past him but he caught me. His thick horrible lips were on my face. I caught at his hair and pulled it; but I was no match for him. I fought desperately; I kicked him and he gave a yell of pain, and for a moment I was free, running wildly towards my horse, but he was upon me.
I heard two kookaburras laughing as though at my plight. My breath was coming in great sobs; he was angry, hating me, I sensed, but his hatred did not lessen his desire, rather did it increase it.
He muttered that I was a she-devil. I wanted to shout back at him, to tell him I loathed him, that he would have to kill me before I gave in—but I needed my breath for the fight.
I was no weakling but he was a strong man. I heard myself praying: “Oh God, help me. Oh, Lynx … Lynx …”
Then I heard a voice, his voice, and for a. second I thought I had imagined it.
The voice said distinctly: “Jagger! Get up, Jagger.”
I was lying on the ground, panting, my riding jacket torn, my hair hanging about my face. I pushed it aside with a trembling hand and I saw him, more magnificent than he had ever seemed before, seated on a big white horse. His eyes were like blue ice.
He commanded: “Stand there, Jagger.”
Jagger obeyed as if in a trance. Then I saw Lynx raise his hand and I heard a deafening report.
Jagger was lying on the ground and there was blood.
Time appeared to stop. It seemed a very long time, but it could only have been for a few seconds that I lay there where Jagger had thrown me and Lynx remained still on his horse, the smoking pistol in his hand, calm, all-powerful.
“Don’t look, Nora,” he said.
“Get up. Get on your horse.”
I obeyed him as Jagger had done. I felt weak and could scarcely breathe, but I went to my horse and mounted. Lynx was beside me and quietly we rode back to Whiteladies.
Adelaide looked after me. I was so shocked that I just lay in my bed and said nothing. She brought me brandy and eggs in milk. I turned away and she insisted, ‘my father said you were to have these. ” So I took them and felt better.
She gave me something to drink that evening and I did not wake until morning. Then I felt different. I had slept without dreams which I did not think I should ever do again, for I believed that that scene with all its terror and its blood was imprinted on my mind for ever. I kept going over it: the moment when I had turned and seen Jagger and had known I was at his mercy at one in the bush; the mounting horror; and that other moment when Lynx had come as though in answer to my call; I could never forget the sight of him on the white horse and the cold way in which he raised his gun and fired.
“There was blood,” I kept saying to myself.
“On the bushes … on the ground … blood everywhere. Lynx has killed Jagger.” No, I assured myself, he has only wounded him. Even he would not dare kill a man.
That would make him a murderer.
But I knew in my heart that Lynx had killed Jagger and it was because of what he had attempted to do to me.
There was a hush over the house. A coffin had been made for Jagger. It was taken into the biggest of the sheds which had been built to store the bales of wool.
Every man in the Lynx Empire—the property, the house, the mine—was summoned to the shed. It was a strange, quiet day, a day of mourning, and yet more than that. It was as though some solemn ritual was about to take place.
Adelaide would say nothing. Stirling came and held me in his arms.
“You’re all right, Nora,” he said.
“Don’t ever worry again. Don’t ever think of it. You’re safe now.”
Adelaide came to my room.
“Nora, my father wants you to go to the wool shed. Don’t be afraid. You’ll feel better. I’m going with you and so ‘is Stirling.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“My father says you are not to be afraid again. He says we should have taken better care of you.”
“You were always warning me that I might get lost in the bush.”