{"product_id":"2940013773592","title":"Inheritors","description":"Under the ferocious heat of the Queensland midsummer afternoon the\u003cbr\u003eiron roof cracked and strained.  The family sitting round the table\u003cbr\u003ein the big dining-room of Cabell's Reach stared down anxiously at\u003cbr\u003etheir plates as though expecting the flimsy shell of rafters to\u003cbr\u003esplinter over their heads.  About them lay the debris of\u003cbr\u003efestivities into which fear had intruded, petrifying them with\u003cbr\u003etheir hands full of tinselled paper and the gewgaws vomited by bon-\u003cbr\u003ebons.  Against the distress, anger, or resentment on their faces,\u003cbr\u003ethese wilted proclamations of \"Peace and Goodwill\" and \"Merrie\u003cbr\u003eChristmas\" had the sardonic prominence of some monument of human\u003cbr\u003easpiration and piety left standing in a landscape rifted by war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDerek Cabell, glaring at the bowed heads of his wife and children,\u003cbr\u003ebrought his fist down on the arm of the chair again and cried,\u003cbr\u003e\"Shams!  Makebelieves!  Lies, I tell you.  Lies, lies, lies, like\u003cbr\u003eeverything else in the country.\"  He sucked the breath back through\u003cbr\u003ehis lips and held it for another long silence before he growled,\u003cbr\u003e\"Christmas!  In a hog-pen--in a den of thieves, upstarts, scum!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmma, at the bottom of the table, pushed a wisp of hair from her\u003cbr\u003edamp face, glanced at him impatiently, a trifle defiantly, reached\u003cbr\u003eout to pull the fly-cover over the remains of the pudding, and\u003cbr\u003eedged into her chair again, primly upright with her hands in her\u003cbr\u003elap.  Beside her Larry, their eldest son, lanky, morose, dark,\u003cbr\u003eturned a cup of tea in his big hands, sunburnt, work-stained, with\u003cbr\u003ethe tar caked under the nails.  Next to Cabell, Larry's younger\u003cbr\u003ebrother James fidgeted a finger under his high, stiff collar,\u003cbr\u003eopened his mouth to speak but thought better of it, brushed a speck\u003cbr\u003eof confetti from the lapel of his coat, and concentrated his\u003cbr\u003edisapproving stare on the wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor half a minute longer the only movement at the table was from\u003cbr\u003ethe youngest boy, Geoffrey.  His plump hand stabbed a fork into\u003cbr\u003epellets of bread and his washed-out little eyes flashed sly glances\u003cbr\u003etowards his father.  The girl, Harriet, on her father's right,\u003cbr\u003epressed herself back in her chair, with one hand on the edge of the\u003cbr\u003etable and the other at her throat.  Her eyes were fixed on her\u003cbr\u003efather's hands, clutched round the arms of his chair, the knuckles\u003cbr\u003eshining whitely.  In the grip of those hands she seemed to find the\u003cbr\u003eessence of some terrifying proposition.  Her eyes widened looking\u003cbr\u003eat them, and the heat flush deepened on her face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThus they awaited the next spasm of a familiar outburst--brought on\u003cbr\u003ethem, as always, by some trifle, some chance word--the bitterness\u003cbr\u003eof which confirmed dim suspicions they did not want to have\u003cbr\u003econfirmed, rumours that threw the shadows of a dishonourable past\u003cbr\u003eacross their young lives.  Fights, bloodshed, trickeries, shameful\u003cbr\u003eliaisons, and all the inhumanities of a time when men had struggled\u003cbr\u003efor a foothold in the new land--out of this dark drama their\u003cbr\u003eparents had come, scarred and stained by it, twisted and\u003cbr\u003eembittered.  Strange things were said of their father, Rusty Guts\u003cbr\u003eCabell, who arrived in this valley in 1847, forty-one years ago,\u003cbr\u003ewith a handful of sheep and cattle, slaughted the blacks, fought\u003cbr\u003eeverybody, dug himself in--very strange things that threatened to\u003cbr\u003eburden them for life.  But still stranger things loomed\u003cbr\u003eintimidatingly behind the personality of the old landtaker himself,\u003cbr\u003ebehind his outbursts of irascible protestation.  His shifty eyes,\u003cbr\u003ealways sliding sideways to door and window as though he expected\u003cbr\u003esomeone to come creeping on him, his secretive habits, the ugly\u003cbr\u003emarks on his face, but above all the eagerness to justify himself,\u003cbr\u003ewhich spoke through all his outcries against the country--these\u003cbr\u003ethings hinted at alarming mysteries, mysteries he seemed always\u003cbr\u003ethreatening to reveal, to concrete as inescapable facts, as\u003cbr\u003edisgraceful episodes in their own personal histories, that would\u003cbr\u003eshut them off for ever from their fellows and from all hope of\u003cbr\u003efulfilling life's bright promises.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083177246960,"sku":"2940013773592","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013773592_p0.jpg?v=1763590075","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013773592","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}