Strangers at the Cove Read online

  After lovingly tending to Bud and chatting to him about the events of the afternoon, Lexie returned to the house, found a biscuit, and flopped into a chair, her legs swinging over the side. “Mum, has anyone new moved into the neighbourhood since the last hols?”

  “Mmmm?” Her mother looked up from the recipe for the quiche she was preparing for dinner. “Neighbours? Yes, I haven’t met them. They appeared rather quietly a few days before you arrived. In fact, I wouldn’t have known anything about it had I not seen the real estate window the other day and noticed the old Reiby House had been let. Pass me another egg, darling … thanks.”

  “So you don’t know anything about them?”

  “That’s what I said,” her mother answered absently. “You’d better go and have a shower before your father gets back. And it might be a good time to get some of that artwork done for school, rather than leaving it to the last moment.”

  Lexie had been planning a mixed media project based on her home environment. Over the last few months she had collected bird feathers and empty birds’ eggs and now had a wonderful array of intensely colourful feathers ranging from deep blues to bright yellows and reds.

  Rolling her eyes, she left the room with Stacey’s comment ringing in her ears. “I wonder what age is old enough not to be told what to do all the time,” she mused.

  Three

  A Mystery Solved

  The following day dawned wet and miserable. Great! Lexie pulled the soft sheet over her head in a vain attempt at sleep. Who was she kidding?

  “Lexie! Come on Lex! Time to get up and give me a hand with the horses.” Dad was outside, tapping on the bedroom window. Stumbling across the room she peeped through the curtain and gave her father a grin.

  “Can’t come out – I can’t find my boots!”

  “Nice try … look on the verandah. They’re where you left them!”

  Once outside, although bitterly disappointed with the weather, she couldn’t resist smiling. Everything smelled wonderfully fresh. The rain was soft and the dark sky turned the sea into a fabulous stormy slate colour. She wondered if Stacey would come out in the rain.

  “About time,” her father said in a teasing tone. She grinned and pulled a funny face at him.

  “I found a little boy at the Cove yesterday,” Lexie remarked as she shovelled out one of the stalls. “Stacey.”

  “Oh?” he replied between hammer blows. One of the rails had come loose.

  “Who do you think he could be?” She leaned on the shovel and gazed into space. “He was pretty upset – wonder why? He’s got a sister, too. They might come down to the Cove today.”

  “Don’t know. You know, Lex, you’ll never finish if you just lean on it.” Her father chuckled and gave her shoulders a squeeze as he went by.

  At breakfast her mother gave her a short shopping list to pick up in town. The air was warm and steamy, now that the rain had ceased the clouds were parting to reveal a watery sun.

  Holman’s Cove was about twenty kilometres out of town but cutting across the Fowler paddocks shortened the distance considerably. Old Mr Fowler didn’t mind Lexie riding through his property.

  She skirted around his old weatherboard house. The building looked like it could do with some of the attention he was always lavishing on his tractor. They stopped for Bud to drink from the old-fashioned concrete horse trough, now full of water, then headed towards town, riding along the banks of the creek, under the cool shade of the weeping willows and river gums.

  It was a lovely way to go. For a creek it was quite deep, although there was not much water running in it at the moment – they could do with some decent rain. The sandy banks sloped sharply upwards. On some days it could provide quite a nature lesson with plenty of birdlife. She had seen the colourful small azure kingfishers here; they nested in the banks of the creek. A high-pitched piping sound pierced the gentle hum of insect noise and looking up, there he was, perched over the water in the river red gum, with his long, pointed beak, orange breast, and beautiful sky-blue head and back. You could not miss him.

  Boodarra, an aboriginal word meaning ‘water in caves’, had, like most Australian country towns, a very wide main street flanked by huge, old shady trees. Lexie loved the beautiful old buildings of colonial architecture. About five years ago now a Regional Hospital, where Mum worked, was built just out of town and even Lexie had noticed the increase in population. It was good in some respects but bad in others. She frowned at the thought. The primary school stayed open, but Lexie, riding Bud, had been forced to enter town through the back streets because of the increase in traffic. The town park provided a lush patch of green with its feature being a sculpture of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and rolled-up shirtsleeves crouching, panning for gold in a small pond. There were a couple of hotels, the usual houses, craft shop (well stocked by the locals), a general store and Mr. Ellis’s real estate agency that also served as the post office. This was her destination. Leaving Bud tethered to a tree in the knee-high grass out the back, Lexie entered the cool of the office.

  “Well, well. Lexie. How’s school? Good to be back, I bet.” He welcomed her with a smile and pushed his glasses onto his forehead.

  “It’s great. How’s Daniel?” Daniel, his son, and Lexie were old primary school friends.

  “He’s fine. He’ll be back any day now, too.”

  “Good. It’ll be great to catch up with him. Mr. Ellis, Mum was telling me Reiby House has been let.”

  “Yes. An elderly lady and two young children have moved in. Funnily enough the lady’s name is Reiby too. I commented that it was a bit of a coincidence but she didn’t seem too keen on talking, just wanted to make the necessary arrangements and get the key. Not a terribly friendly type. Doubt if they’ll last too long around here.”

  The shrill of the phone cut into their conversation and giving Lexie a wave and a smile, he reached to answer it.

  With her errands finished, she put the shopping in a saddlebag and decided to go home via Reiby House. By this time it was really getting warm, the clouds had cleared and the sun shone harshly down from a deep blue sky. Lexie adjusted her Akubra hat and feeling the heat of the sun through her T-shirt wished she had put block-out on her arms. Maybe Stacey would come over with his sister after all.

  Once again she took a shortcut through Fowler’s paddocks, avoiding the big curve in the road and riding past her own gate.

  Reiby House was a big old timber farmhouse in desperate need of repair. With wide verandahs encasing it on three sides and a red corrugated iron roof, it always reminded Lexie of what must have been the grand old days. The property surrounding it had not been tended in years and everything was overgrown. What used to be a tidy, well-laid out garden was now a plot of weeds of all shapes and sizes with the odd daisy plant and colourful pig-face rambling through.

  As she approached the gate Lexie suddenly experienced a feeling of foreboding, heightened by the sudden wail of a flock of glossy, jet-black ravens. As they rose in a cloud above the house, wheeling away above her, their raucous caws split the air, their beating wings thundering overhead. Spooked, Bud moved uneasily, needling the ground with his hooves. As one, they turned and galloped down the road.

  It was almost one o’clock when Lexie left Bud untethered at the back gate and dashed inside with her mother’s shopping.

  “At last! We wondered where you’d got to,” said her father, finishing his sandwich.

  “Sorry, can’t stay. Here’s your shopping, Mum. Bud and I are off to the Cove to meet Stacey.” Lexie grabbed a couple of apples and flew out the door.

  Her mother looked up at her father, eyebrows raised, “Stacey?”

  “A little boy she found at the cove yesterday. It’s a bit of a mystery and one our curious daughter is hoping to solve within the hour,” her father replied with a grin and gleam in his eye.

  “Oh, by the way,” the voice floated back from outside, “I dropped in to see Mr Ellis, and he said the old lady who’s ren
ted Reiby House is called Reiby, too. See you later!”

  Her parents’ eyes locked. “What did you say?” her father called rather sharply. He rose abruptly from the table as if to follow.

  “Wait,” Vicki said gently, laying her hand on his arm. “Let her go.”

  He sank back into his chair, head in his hands.

  “This day was always going to come,” his wife said softly.

  Reaching the beach Lexie took off Bud’s saddle and bridle and gave him the freedom to wander through the clear water with its gentle waves and the pleasure of rolling in the soft white sand on his own. Sitting in the warmth of the sun, munching on her crisp green apple, she wondered if she would have any visitors. Bud put his head over her shoulder, trying to get a bite of her apple. Laughing, she gave him half and watched as he wandered off, contented. It was pleasant now, the heat alleviated by a slight breeze that ruffled her hair. Laying down on a flat rock, hat over her face and lulled by the slap of the waves and the hiss as the water receded, it was not long before she was sleeping.

  Lexie woke to Bud nuzzling her ear and the sound of the ceaseless gentle plop of the waves against the rocks. Time had slipped by. Reaching for her hat she noticed a folded piece of paper placed neatly under a small rock by her side.

  “I’m not allowed out. Stacey told me about you and your beach. I hope we can meet sometime.” The handwriting was neat with a little heart shape dotting the ‘i’ in ‘sometime’.

  There was no one around and Lexie could only assume the note was from Stacey’s sister and that he had crept up while she was sleeping and left it for her. What a funny fellow. She stretched and stood up. Why hadn’t he woken her? She placed the note in her pocket, called Bud, saddled him up, and they made their way home.

  At the stables, she gave Bud a good rub down and led him, along with the others, into their stalls for the night. It was hard to be firm with Bud when he kept butting her to get at the hay she was putting out, and she couldn’t stop giggling. What a cheeky horse! With feeding finished she walked slowly towards the house, lost in thought.

  At dinner that night Lexie spoke of the note and reintroduced the subject of Reiby House.

  Sensing something in the air she turned to look at her father. He seemed to be studying his potatoes rather intently. “What are you looking at, Dad?” she asked.

  He started and looked at her quickly. “Nothing … nothing. Nice potatoes, darling,” he said and gave his wife a rather stretched smile.

  Well. Lexie squashed some peas onto her own potatoes. That was interesting. Why had Dad suddenly become so distant and quiet? She decided to talk to her mother later when an opportunity arose.

  When Mum came in to say goodnight Lexie grabbed the chance.

  “Mum, why did the name Reiby have that effect on Dad?”

  Her mother picked up the clothes left on the floor, hanging the jeans in the wardrobe. “Honestly, Lexie,” she said rather irritably, “you’d think at the age of fourteen you could hang your clothes up when you’ve taken them off. How on earth do you live with all the other girls in the boarding house?” Their eyes met.

  “What’s everyone’s problem!” Lexie sat bolt upright in bed. She wasn’t going to be deterred. “All I did was mention ‘Reiby’ and everyone’s going berserk. Who are these people? The house has always been there, I don’t remember anyone living there before, so what’s so special? The people have just decided to come back, what’s the big deal for heaven’s sake?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s all just come as a bit of a shock, out of the blue. You know.”

  “No, actually, I don’t know. Did Dad know these people before?”

  “Yes. Maybe it’s up to him to tell you about it, himself.”

  “Now. Can he tell me now? I can’t possibly sleep until I know.”

  Her mother shook her head in resignation and went slowly to the study. She could just hear her mother’s muffled comment and her father’s reply.

  “I suppose it has to be told sometime.” Hands plunged in his pockets he came down the hall.

  Seconds later he was sitting on Lexie’s bed with her mother perched on the edge of the desk. “It all happened a long time ago,” he said. Lexie felt like she was hearing a bedtime story; she snuggled down under the covers and gazed at her father expectantly.

  “When your grandparents first bought Holman’s Cove and built this house the Reibys were already one of the leading families in the area and had been for years. Very prosperous; always giving parties, entertaining politicians and other dignitaries. As you know, I was born shortly after my parents moved here, with your Uncle William born a few years later. Alice Reiby married a guy called Matthew Collins. They worked the Reiby property and lived in the house because Alice’s parents had moved into town. The same year I was born the Collins had a son called Jason. You with me so far?” he asked with a grin.

  “Well, Jason and I used to do everything together, went to school, got into mischief, you know, the normal sort of kid stuff. When we were about four, Jason’s sister was born, Clarissa, named after some aunt on his mother’s side. Jason, myself, William and Clarissa became quite a team as we grew older. Being sent off to school put things on hold but when we came back for holidays it was always the same. The four of us got along really well.” Here Lexie noticed her father move uncomfortably on the bed and glance awkwardly at her mother.

  “As teenagers, it became obvious that William started to see Clarissa in a different light, this caused the foursome to become a bit strained. Clarissa had grown into a very attractive young girl, I guess you could say it was a bit of puppy love on your Uncle William’s part. Jason and I started seeing less of him as he chose not to be included in our outings. Clarissa was spending more time with her school friends in the city and not coming home for every holiday or, if she did come home, she only stayed for a short time and then dashed off somewhere.” His eyes had taken on a faraway look.

  “One Christmas we were all home together for the first time in ages. The weather was beautiful so we decided to take a picnic and ride out to the lighthouse at The Point.”

  “How old were you then?” Lexie interjected.

  “I guess we were a few years older than you. Jason and I would’ve been at university by then. Anyway, we went on ahead and the other two were taking their time behind us. When we got to The Point I suppose there were a few clouds building on the horizon but we didn’t notice them. There was a lot of talk and we were larking around. After eating we lay in the grass and William and Clarissa went off for a walk, while Jason and I dozed. We were woken by raindrops and William yelling at us.” Her father got up off the bed abruptly and started to pace. Her mother went to him and put her hand on his arm.

  “Are you sure now is the time? Lexie will understand, you can tell her later.”

  “No.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I should’ve told her before. I’m alright.”

  Lexie sat up in bed, eyes wide. The scar. Was its story about to be revealed?

  Still pacing, her father went on. “Clarissa was putting all the picnic things away and William was rounding up the horses. The sky looked terrible; it was really dark yellowy-grey, almost black, and it wasn’t long before the rain was sheeting down. As we headed for home, lightning cut through the sky.” He hesitated, taking a deep breath and rubbing his knuckles. “One minute Clarissa was ahead of me and then the tree was struck; lightning split it straight down the middle. She didn’t stand a chance, another second and she would’ve been safe. My horse reared, I fought to stay in the saddle but was thrown through the falling tree. All I remember is falling in the middle of leaves and branches and the knowledge that somewhere underneath was Clarissa.”

  “Oh no!” Lexie rushed to her father, throwing her arms around him. “How awful! Poor Uncle William. Poor you. What happened?”

  “William stayed behind with Clarissa while Jason went for help. I was unconscious. It seems she received a massive
blow to the head and died instantly.” He shook his head at the memory.

  “What happened to the family after that?”

  “Well, the Collins’s left, just closed up the house and left. Jason and I wrote for a while but that petered out and I haven’t seen or heard of any of the Reibys, or Collins’s, since. It had a traumatic effect on your Uncle William. He became very quiet and kept to himself even more. He used to spend hours walking on the beach and worried your grandmother because he would swim out too far, almost as if …” he trailed off. After a moment he continued. “When he left school that year and went to university he made it quite clear he was leaving here permanently. As you know, he has been true to his word. He got College accommodation to study law and hasn’t been back here since. It upset our mother terribly; she was always going up to see him. That’s why we always see your Uncle William and his family at his place. Mind you, his law practice does keep him pretty busy anyway.”

  “So who do you think these Reibys are?” Lexie asked.

  Her mother stood up. “That’s enough for one session,” she said. “Good night, darling.” She gave her daughter a hug and kiss before leaving the room. Lexie looked at her father. The scar. How awful to see it every day and have it remind you of that tragic picnic. She gave him a warm hug. “Good night, Daddy. I do love you and I am so sorry about what happened.”

  FOUR

  Lexie’s Discovery

  The following morning her mother was called to the hospital. “I thought you said there was another physio working through the holidays,” a disappointed Lexie said.

  Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. It seems he’s ill and there’s a patient coming in later today. It’ll give me an opportunity to get some paperwork done while I’m there so I’ll go in early. Be back as soon as I can.”

  With a sense of impending discovery Lexie headed towards the stables. “Come on, Bud, old boy, we’re going for a ride.”