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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4051-h.zip b/4051-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f7a66c --- /dev/null +++ b/4051-h.zip diff --git a/4051-h/4051-h.htm b/4051-h/4051-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93706df --- /dev/null +++ b/4051-h/4051-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17237 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: smaller ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land + +Author: Rosa Praed + +Posting Date: June 29, 2009 [EBook #4051] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 21, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BRIDGET--NEVER-NEVER LAND *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER LAND. +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Rosa Praed (1851-1935) +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +(1915) +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H4> +BOOK I   <A HREF="#book1">FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA</A> +<BR> +BOOK II <A HREF="#book2">FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA</A> +<BR> +BOOK III <A HREF="#book3">FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="book1"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 1 +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called +the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a +primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on +the cliff—the Emu Point side—overlooking the broad Leichardt River. +The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran—Australian fashion—along the +front of the cottage, except for the two closed-in ends forming, one a +bathroom and the other a kind of store closet. Being raised a few feet +above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, and +this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must have +been planted at least thirty years. One of these, a stephanotis, showed +masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected would have +fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a +fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps. +The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with +her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a +thick-stemmed grape-vine, which made a dapple of shadow and sunshine +upon the boarded floor. Some bunches of late grapes—it was the very +beginning of March—hung upon the vine, and, at the other end of the +veranda, grew a passion creeper, its great purple fruit looking like +huge plums amidst its vivid green leaves. +</P> + +<P> +The roof of the veranda was low, with projecting eaves, below which a +bunch of yellowing bananas hung to ripen. In fact, the veranda and +garden beyond would have been paradise to a fruitarian. Against the +wall of the store-room, stood a large tin dish piled with melons, +pine-apples and miscellaneous garden produce, while, between the +veranda posts, could be seen a guava-tree, an elderly fig and a loquat +all in full bearing. The garden seemed a tangle of all manner of +vegetation—an oleander in bloom, a poinsettia, a yucca, lifting its +spike of waxen white blossoms, a narrow flower-border in which the +gardenias had become tall shrubs and the scented verbena shrubs almost +trees. As for the blend of perfume, it was dreamily intoxicating. Two +bamboos, guarding the side entrance gate, made a soft whispering that +heightened the dream-sense. The bottom of the garden looked an inchoate +mass of greenery topped by the upper boughs of tall straggling gum +trees, growing outside where the ground fell gradually to the river. +</P> + +<P> +From where Mrs Gildea sat, she had a view of almost the whole reach of +the river where it circles Emu Point. For, as is known to all who know +Leichardt's Town, the river winds in two great loops girdling two low +points, so that, in striking a bee-line across the whole town, business +and residential, one must cross the river three times. Mrs Gildea could +see the plan of the main street in the Middle Point and the roofs of +shops and offices. The busy wharves of the Leichardt's Land Steam +Navigation Company—familiarly, the L.L.S.N. Co.—lay opposite on her +right, while leftward, across the water, she could trace, as far as the +grape-vine would allow, the boundary of the Botanical Gardens and get a +sight of the white stone and grey slate end of the big Parliamentary +Buildings. +</P> + +<P> +The heat-haze over the town and the brilliant sun-sparkles on the river +suggested a cruel glare outside the shady veranda and over-grown old +garden. +</P> + +<P> +A pleasant study, if a bit distracting from its plenitude of +associations to Australian-born Joan Gildea, who, on her marriage, had +been transplanted into English soil, as care-free as a rose cut from +the parent stem, and who now, after nearly twenty years, had returned +to the scene of her youth—a widow, a working journalist and shorn of +most of her early illusions. +</P> + +<P> +Her typewriter stood on a bamboo table before her. A pile of Australian +Hansards for reference sat on a chair at convenient distance. A large +table with a green cloth, at her elbow, had at one end a tray with the +remains of her breakfast of tea, scones and fruit. The end nearest her +was littered with sheaves of manuscript, newspaper-cuttings, +photographs and sepia sketches—obviously for purposes of illustration: +gum-bottle, stylographs and the rest, with, also, several note-books +held open by bananas, recently plucked from the ripening bunch, to +serve as paper-weights. +</P> + +<P> +She had meant to be very busy that morning. There was her weekly letter +for THE IMPERIALIST to send off by to-morrow's mail, and, moreover, she +had to digest the reasons of the eminent journal for returning to her +an article that had not met with the editor's approval—the great +Gibbs: a potent newspaper-factor in the British policy of the day. +</P> + +<P> +It had been an immense honour when Mr Gibbs had chosen Joan Gildea from +amongst his staff for a roving commission to report upon the political, +financial, economic and social aspects of Australia, and upon Imperial +interests generally, as represented in various sideshows on her route. +</P> + +<P> +But it happened that she was now suffering from a change at the last +moment in that route—a substitution of the commplace P. & O. for the +more exciting Canadian Pacific, Mr Gibbs having suddenly decided that +Imperialism in Australia demanded his special correspondent's immediate +attention. +</P> + +<P> +For this story dates back to the time when Mr Joseph Chamberlain was in +office; when Imperialism, Free Trade and Yellow Labour were the catch +words of a party, and before the great Australian Commonwealth had +become an historical fact. +</P> + +<P> +THE IMPERIALIST's Special Correspondent looked worried. She was +wondering whether the English mail expected to-day would bring her +troublesome editorial instructions. She examined some of the +photographs and drawings with a dissatisfied air. A running +inarticulate commentary might have been put into words like this: +</P> + +<P> +'No good ... I can manage the letterpress all right once I get the hang +of things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a +gum-tree look as if it was growing .... And Gibbs hates having amateur +snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I +wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness +didn't Biddy join me! .... If she'd only had the decency to let me know +in time WHY she couldn't.... Money, I suppose—or a Man! .... Well, +I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary leg-up from me +again...' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea pulled the sheet she had been typing out of the machine, +inserted another, altered the notch to single spacing and rattled off +at top speed till the page was covered. The she appended her signature +and wrote this address: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + To the Lady Bridget O'Hara,<BR> + Care of Eliza Countess of Gaverick,<BR> + Upper Brook Street, London, W.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +on an envelope, into which she slipped her letter—a letter never to be +sent. +</P> + +<P> +A snap of the gate between the bamboos added a metallic note to the +tree's reedy whimperings, and the postman tramped along the short +garden path and up the veranda steps. +</P> + +<P> +'Morning, Mrs Gildea ... a heavy mail for you!' +</P> + +<P> +He planked down the usual editorial packet—two or three rolls of +proofs, a collection of newspapers, a bulky parcel of private +correspondence sent on by the porter of Mrs Gildea's London flat, some +local letters and, finally, two square envelopes, with the remark, as +he turned away on his round. 'My word! Mrs Gildea, those letters seem +to have done a bit of globe-trotting on their own, don't they!' +</P> + +<P> +For the envelopes were covered with directions, some in Japanese and +Chinese hieroglyphics, some in official red ink from various +postoffices, a few with the distinctive markings of British Legations +and Government Houses where the Special Correspondent should have +stayed, but did not—Only her own name showing through the +obliterations, and a final re-addressing by the Bank of Leichardt's +Land. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea recognised the impulsive, untidy but characteristic +handwriting of Lady Bridget O'Hara. +</P> + +<P> +'From Biddy at last!' she exclaimed, tore the flap of number one +letter, paused and laid it aside. 'Business first.' +</P> + +<P> +So she went carefully through the editorial communication. Mr Gibbs was +not quite so tiresome as she had feared he would be. After him, the +packet from her London flat was inspected and its contents laid aside +for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was +embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a +cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received at +Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her—first along the route +originally designed, afterwards, with zigzagging, retrogression and +much delay, along the one she had taken. That it had reached her at +all, said a good deal for Mrs Gildea's fame as a freely paragraphed +newspaper correspondent. +</P> + +<P> +The telegram was phrased thus: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +SORRY IMPOSSIBLE NO FUNDS OTHER REASONS WRITING BIDDY +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea's illuminative 'H'm!' implied that her two inductions had +been correct. No funds—and other reasons—meaning—a MAN. She scented +instantly another of Biddy's tempestuous love-affairs. Had it been +merely a question of lack of money with inclination goading, she felt +pretty certain that Lady Bridget would have contrived to beg, borrow or +steal—on a hazardous promissory note, after the happy-go-lucky +financial morals of that section of society to which by birth she +belonged. Or, failing these means, that she would have threatened some +mad enterprise and so have frightened her aunt Eliza Countess of +Gaverick into writing a cheque for three figures. Of course, less would +have been of no account. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea opened the two envelopes and sorted the pages in order of +their dates. The first had the address of a house in South Belgravia, +where lived Sir Luke Tallant of the Colonial Office and Rosamond his +wife—distant connections of the Gavericks. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget's letters were type-written, most carelessly, with the +mistakes corrected down the margin of the flimsy sheets in the manner +of author's proof—the whole appearance of them suggesting literary +'copy'. +</P> + +<P> +Likewise, the slapdash epistolary style of the MS., which had a certain +vividness of its own. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 2 +</H3> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'Dearest Joan, +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +You'll have got my wire. Vancouver was right, I suppose. I sent it from +Rome. Since then I have been at Montreux with Chris and Molly, and +since I came back to England with them, I've been in too chaotic a +state of mind to write letters. Really, Chris and Molly's atmosphere of +struggling to keep in the swim on next to nothing a year and of eking +out a precarious income by visits to second-rate country houses and +cadging on their London friends gets on my nerves to such an extent +that Luke and Rosamond's established "Colonial Office" sort of +respectability is quite refreshing by contrast. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I should have loved the Australian trip. Your "Bush" sounds perfectly +captivating, and, of course, I could do the illustrations you want. +Besides, I'm stony-broke and, financially, the great god Gibbs appeals +to me. I'd take my passage straight off—one would raise the money +somehow—if it wasn't for—There! It's out. A MAN has come and upset +the apple-cart.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea gave a funny little laugh. The letter answered her thought. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'"Oh, of course!" I can hear you sneer. "Just another of Biddy's +emotional interests—bound to fizzle out before very long." But this is +a good deal more than an emotional interest, and I don't think it will +fizzle out so quickly. For one thing, THIS man is quite different from +all the other men I've ever been interested in. The first moment I saw +him, I had the queerest sort of ARRESTED sensation. He's told me since, +that he felt exactly the same about me. Kind of lived before—"WHEN I +WAS A KING IN BABYLON AND YOU WERE A CHRISTIAN SLAVE" idea. Though I'm +quite certain that if I ever was a slave it must have been a Pagan and +not a Christian one. Joan, the experience was thrilling, positively +electrifying—Glamour—personal magnetism.... You couldn't possibly +understand unless you knew HIM. Descriptions are so hopeless. I'll +leave him to your imagination. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +By the way, Molly annoyed me horribly the other day. "You know, dear," +she had the audacity to remark, "he's not of OUR class, and if you +married him, you'd have to give up US! For could you suppose," she went +on to say, "that Chris and Mama—to say nothing of Aunt Eliza—would +tolerate an adventurer who tells tall stories about buried treasure and +native rebellions and expects one to be amused!" +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +OUR CLASS! Oh, how I detest the label! And that unspeakably dreadful +idea of social sheep and goats—and the unfathomable abyss between +Suburbia and Belgravia! Though I frankly own that to me Suburbia +represents the Absolutely Impossible. After all, one must go right into +the Wilderness to escape the conditions of that state of life to which +you happen to have been born. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well, that speech of Molly's came out of a fascinating account my +Soldier of Fortune gave us of how he stage-managed a revolution in +South America, and of an expedition he'd made in the Andes on the +strength of a local tradition about the Incas' hidden gold. I call him +my Soldier of Fortune—though he's not in any known Army list, because +it's what he called himself. Likewise a Champion of the Dispossessed. +He has an intense sympathy with the indigenous populations, and thinks +the British system of conquering and corrupting native races simply a +disgrace to civilisation. With all of which sentiments I entirely +agree. Luke has taken to him immensely, chiefly, I fancy, because he +was once private secretary to some Administrating Rajah in an +Eastern-Archipelago or Indian Island, and as Luke is hankering after a +colonial governorship, he wants to scrape up all the information he can +about such posts. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I answered Molly that one may have a violent attraction to a man +without in the least wanting to marry him, and that relieved her mind a +little. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +As for HIM, the attraction on his part seems equally violent. We do the +most shockingly unconventional things together. He tells me that I +carry him off his feet—that I've revolutionised his ideas about the +"nice English Girl" (useless to protest that I'm not an English girl +but a hybrid Celt). He says that I've wiped off his slate the scheme of +life he'd been planning for his latter years. A comfortable existence +in England—his doctor advises him to settle down in a temperate +climate—an appointment on some City Board—rubber shares and that kind +of thing—you know it all—a red brick house in South Kensington and +perhaps a little place in the country. He did not fill in the +picture—but I did for him—with the charmingly domesticated wife—well +connected: the typical "nice English Girl," heiress of a comfortable +fortune to supplement his own, which he candidly admitted needs +supplementing. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Of course he's not a mere vulgar fortune-hunter. He must be genuinely +in love with the nice English Girl. And that's where I upset HIS +apple-cart. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +In fact, we are both in an IMPASSE. I'm not eligible for his post and I +shouldn't want it if I were. To my mind marriage is only conceivable +with a barbarian or a millionaire. From the sordid atmosphere of +English conjugality upon an income of anything less than an assured +5,000 pounds a year, good Lord deliver me! And you know my reasons for +adding another clause to my litany. Good Lord deliver me also from +further experience of the exciting vicissitudes of a stock-jobbing +career! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Then again, apart from personal prejudices, I am appalled, quite +simply, at the cold-blooded marriage traffic that I see going on in +London. Any crime committed in the name of Love is forgivable, but to +sell a girl—soul and body to the highest bidder is to my mind, the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Frankly, I'm petrified with +amazement at the way in which mothers hurl their daughters at the head +of any man who will make a good settlement. There's Molly's sister—she +chases the game till she has corralled it, and once inside her walls +the unfortunate prey hasn't swallowed his first cup of tea before she +has wedded him in imagination to one of her girls—"How do you like Mr +CHOSE?" "Like him? What is there to like? He's the same as all the rest +of the men, and they're as like as a box of ninepins..." +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"But what do you think of him...?" "But really there's nothing to +think" ... "But don't you think he'd do for Hester?" etcetera, etcetera. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +She has just married the one before Hester to what she calls the +perfect type of an English country gentleman—meaning that he owns an +historical castle in Scotland, a coal mine in Wales and a mansion in +Park Lane. Heavens! I'd rather follow the fortunes of a Nihilist and be +sent to Siberia, or drive wild cattle and fight wild blacks with one of +your Bush cowboys, than I'd marry the perfect type of an English +country gentleman! Give me something REAL—anything but the +semi-detached indifference of most of the couples one knows. No. MY man +must be strong enough to carry ME off my feet and to break down all the +conventions of "OUR CLASS." Then, I'd cheerfully tramp through the +forest beside him, if it came to that, or cook his dinner in front of +our wigwam. Now, if my Soldier of Fortune were to ask me to climb the +Andes with him in search of that buried treasure! But he won't: and—I +confess it, Joan—I'm in mortal terror of his insisting upon my +entering the sphere of stock-jobbing respectability instead, and of my +being weak enough to consent. But we haven't got anywhere near that yet. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +So far, I'm just—living—trying to make up my mind what it is that I +want most. Do you know, that since my violent attraction to him—or +whatever you like to call it—all sorts of odd bits of revelation have +come to me as to the things that really matter! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +For one thing, I'm pretty certain that the ultimate end of Being is +Beauty and that Love means Beauty and Beauty means Love. The immediate +result of this discovery is that I'm buying clothes with a reckless +disregard of the state of my banking account. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I begin to understand and to sympathise with that pathetic striving +after beauty which one sees in the tawdry finery and exaggerated +hairdressing of a kitchenmaid—Rosamond Tallant has one who is +wonderful to behold as she mounts the area steps on her Sundays out. +Formerly I should have been horrified at that kitchenmaid. Now I have +quite a fellow-feeling with her piteous attempts to make herself +attractive to her young man, the grocer's boy or the under-footman I +suppose. Am I not at this very moment sitting with complexion cream +daubed on my face, in order that I may appear more attractive to MY +young man. I know now how Molly's maid—who is keeping company with +Luke's butler—feels when we all dine early for a theatre and Josephine +gets an evening out at the Earl's Court Exhibition with her gentleman. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Sounds beastly vulgar, doesn't it? But that's just what I'm making +myself pretty for—dinner there this evening at the French Restaurant +with MY gentleman. It's quite proper: we are a party of four—the other +two I may add are not in Rosamond's or Molly's set. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I've been interrupted—He has telephoned. The other pair have +disappointed us. Will I defy conventions and dine with HIM alone? +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Of course I will.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 3 +</H3> + +<P> +The particular sheet ended at this point. Mrs Gildea laid it down upon +the earlier ones and took another from the little pile which she had +spread in sequence for perusal. She smiled to herself in mournful +amusement. For she scarcely questioned the probability that her friend +would in due course become disillusioned of a very ordinary +individual—he certainly sounded a little like an adventurer—who for +some occult reason had been idealised by this great-souled, wayward and +utterly foolish creature. How many shattered idols had not Lady Bridget +picked up from beneath their over-turned pedestals and consigned to +Memory's dust-bin! On how many pyres had not that oft-widowed soul +committed suttee to be resurrected at the next freak of Destiny! And +yet with it all, there was something strangely elusive, curiously +virginal about Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +She had been in love so often: nevertheless, she had never loved. Joan +Gildea perfectly realised the distinction. Biddy had been as much, and +more in love with ideas as with persons. Art, Literature, Higher +Thought, Nature, Philanthrophy, Mysticism—she spelled everything with +a capital letter—Platonic Passion—the last most dangerous and most +recurrent. As soon as one Emotional Interest burned out another rose +from the ashes. And, while they lasted, she never counted the cost of +these emotional interests. +</P> + +<P> +But then she was an O'Hara: and all the O'Haras that had been were +recklessly extravagant, squandering alike their feelings and their +money. There wasn't a member of the house of Gaverick decently well to +do, excepting indeed Eliza, Countess of Gaverick. She had been a +Glasgow heiress and only belonged to the aristocracy by right of +marriage with Bridget's uncle, the late Lord Gaverick, who on the death +of his brother, about the time Bridget was grown up, had succeeded to +the earldom, but not to the estate. +</P> + +<P> +Gaverick Castle in the province of Connaught, which with the +unproductive lands appertaining to it, had been in the possession of +O'Haras from time immemorial, was sold by Bridget's father to pay his +debts. His brother—the heiress' husband, who, unlike the traditional +spendthrift O'Haras had accumulated a small fortune in business, was +able by some lucky chance to buy back the Castle—partly with his +wife's money—soon after his accession to the barren honours of the +family. His widow inherited the place as well as the rest of her +husband's property, and could do as she pleased with the whole. Thus +the present holder of that ancient Irish title, young, charming and +poor, stemming from a collateral branch, lived mainly upon his friends +and upon the hope that Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, might at her death +leave him the ancestral home and the wherewithal to maintain it. +</P> + +<P> +As for Bridget's father, the last but one Earl of Gaverick, his career +may be summed up as a series of dramatic episodes, matrimonial, social +and financial. +</P> + +<P> +His first wife had divorced him. His second wife—the mother of Lady +Bridget—had deserted him for an operatic tenor and had died shortly +afterwards. She herself had been an Italian singer. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Gaverick did not marry again, and Mrs Gildea had gathered that the +less said about his social adventures the better. Financially, he had +subsisted precariously as a company promoter. There had come a final +smash: and one morning the Earl of Gaverick had been found dead in his +bed, an empty medicine bottle by his side. As he had been in the habit +of taking chloral the Coroner's jury agreed upon the theory of an +overdose. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, Mrs Gildea could quite understand that apart from general views on +the marriage question, Lady Bridget O'Hara might well shrink from +further connection with City finance. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 4 +</H3> + +<P> +A naughty little gust—herald of the sub-tropical afternoon breeze that +comes up the Leichardt River from the sea, blew about the typed sheets +on the table, and, among them, those of Lady Bridget's letter, as Mrs +Gildea laid them down. +</P> + +<P> +While she collected the various pages of manuscript that had been +displaced and was bundling them together, with a banana on each sheaf +to keep it safe, there came a second snap of the gate and a man's voice +hailed her. +</P> + +<P> +It was the voice of a man who sang baritone, and his accent was an odd +combination of the Bush drawl grafted on to the mellifluous Gaelic, +from which race he had originated. +</P> + +<P> +'Any admittance, Mrs Gildea, except on business, during working hours?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, it is working hours Colin, but you happen to be business because +you're just the person I'm wanting to speak to, so come along.' +</P> + +<P> +'Good for me, Joan,' and the man came along, clearing the rest of the +garden path and the veranda steps in three strides. +</P> + +<P> +He gripped Mrs Gildea's hand. +</P> + +<P> +'You're nice and cool up here, and you get every bit of wind that's +going along the river,' he said. 'It's a good thing you kept this +humpey, Joan—a little nest for the bird to fly home to, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I'm glad, though it seemed a silly piece of sentiment ... and, as +you say, I always FELT the old bird might want to fly home for a bit +some day. Well, YOU look cool enough, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +'This is temperate zone for me after the Leura.... But it's a hot March +because we haven't had a proper rainy season, and I'll just stand here +and catch the breeze for a minute or two before I sit down.' +</P> + +<P> +He balanced himself on the veranda railing: took off his broad-brimmed +Panama hat and mopped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Mrs Gildea +surveyed him with interested admiration. +</P> + +<P> +A big man—large-limbed, bony—a typical Scotcher in that—with thin +flanks, a well-set up back and massive shoulders. His face was +browny-red all over except where the skin ran white under the hair and +there was a ruddier ring round the upper part of the throat. His nose +was thin between the eyes, broadening lower, high-bridged and with high +cut nostrils, showing the sensitive red when he was enraged—as not +infrequently happened. He had large honest blue eyes, intensely blue, +of the fiery description with a trick of dropping the lids when he was +in doubt or consideration. They were expressive eyes, as a rule keen +and hard, but they could soften unexpectedly under the influence of +emotion. At other times, according to the quality of the emotion, they +glowed literally like blue flames. He was considered queer-tempered, +rather sulky, and his face often took on a very unyielding expression. +</P> + +<P> +He had thick reddish-yellow eyebrows at the base of a slightly receding +forehead—wanting in benevolence, phrenologists would have said, and +with the bump of self-esteem considerably developed. His hair was +yellow, pure and simple—the color of spun silk, only coarser, and it +would have curled at the ends had he not worn it close-cropped. His +moustache and beard were rather deeper yellow, the beard short, +well-shaped—the cut of Colin McKeith's beard was almost his only +vanity—there was one other, the 'millionare strut' in town—and he had +the masculine habit of stroking and clasping his beard with his large +open-fingered hand—spatulate tips to his digits, the practical +hand—fairly well kept, though brown and hairy. +</P> + +<P> +There were lines in his face and a way of setting his features—that a +man gets when he has to front straight some cruel facts of human +existance—to calculate at a glance the chances of death from a black's +spear, a lost trail, an empty water-bag, the horns of a charging +bullock or even worse things than these. +</P> + +<P> +And such experiences had put a stamp on him, and distinguished him from +the ordinary ruck of men—these and his undeniable manliness, and good +looks. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled as he glanced amusedly from the littered wind-blown papers on +the table to his hostess' rather troubled face. +</P> + +<P> +'Well you seem to have a pretty fair show here of what you call +"copy,"' he said. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea met his look with one of frank pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +'That's what I want YOU for.' +</P> + +<P> +'What's the job?' he asked. 'You ought to know that literary "copy" is +not much in my line. Now if it had been yarding the fowls or cleaning +up the garden, I'd feel more at home as a lady's help.' +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, you take me back to Bungroopim—when it happened to be a slack +day for you on the run, and when the married couple had levanted and +I'd got an incompetent black-gin in the kitchen—or when the store +wanted tidying and you and I had a good old spree amongst the rubbish.' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed at a time-honoured joke. +</P> + +<P> +'Stick sugar-mats and weevilly four-bins; and a breeding paddock of +tarantulas and centipedes and white lizards to clear out. I WAS a bush +hobbledehoy in those days, Joan. It's close on twenty years ago.' +</P> + +<P> +Joan Gildea gave a little shudder. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and +a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know about that, Joan. I've had my spell of roughing +it—droving, mining, pioneering—humping bluey along the +track—stoney-broke: sold up by the bank and only just beginning now to +find out what Australia's worth.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's what I said—you are just beginning. Roughing it has made a +splendid man of you, Colin: and who would ever believe that you are +four years older than I am. Colin, you ought to get married.' +</P> + +<P> +'The Upper Leura is no place for the sort of wife I want,' he returned +shortly. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't see that. It isn't as if you were going to stop there always. +When you're rich enough you can put on a manager. You've got an +enormous piece of pretty good country, haven't you?' +</P> + +<P> +'One thousand square miles—and a lot more to be got for the +taking—mostly fair cattle pasture—now that we're going in for +Artesian bores. But it means capital, sinking wells three thousand feet +and more. It'll be three or four years at least before I can see a trip +to Europe—doing the thing in the way I mean to do it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Must you go to Europe for a wife? Aren't Australian girls good enough?' +</P> + +<P> +'I've always meant to try for the best. You taught me that, Joan, I +shall follow your example. You were an Australian girl.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea's face saddened. 'Well,' was all she said. +</P> + +<P> +'You see,' he went on, and the eyes took their narrow concentrated look +and suddenly blazed out as he straightened himself against the veranda +post, 'I know something of what marriage in the back block means: and +I've studied women—don't laugh—I mean theoretically—from books. I've +read history—always managed a couple of volumes or so in my +swag—nights and nights, by the light of a fat lamp and a camp fire. +I've studied the women of great times—ancient and modern—they're +always the same—and I've remarked the type of woman that's got +grit—capacity for fine things—You understand all that as well as I +do, Joan. Look at the women of the French Revolution for one +instance—the aristocrats, you know—well, I've realised that it takes +blood and breeding and tradition behind to carry a woman to the block +with a sure step and a proud smile ...' Suddenly, he became aware of +Joan's gaze, half surprised, wholly interested.... He reddened and +pulled himself up gruffly. +</P> + +<P> +'Sentimental rot, d'ye call it?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, Colin, I believe in all that and so do you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Blood and breeding and tradition—all the grand stuff that's been +grown in them on the NOBLESSE OBLIGE principle—self-respect, courage, +dignity—the stuff that gives staying power as well as the fire for +making good spunk.... Not that I'd put a pure-blood racer to haul up +logs for an iron-bark fence: any more than I'd set out to plant an +English lady of that sort to rough it on the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, why not? Do you want your wife to be like a canary in a cage?' +</P> + +<P> +'You know I don't hold with gilded cages and spoiling a woman who is +there to be your mate. But all the same, I shan't look out for MY wife +until I can afford to give her as good a show as she'd be likely to +have if the stopped at home. You see, a real woman must be a sportsman +in her way of taking life as much as a man, and I maintain as a general +proposition that it's the English lady—even one of your sneered-at +"Lady Clara Vere de Vere" lot who makes the best front against battle, +murder, and sudden death—if it has to come to that.... Just because,' +he went on, 'though she might have been brought up in a castle and +never have done a hand's turn that could be done for her, she's still +got in her veins the blood of fighting ancestors—men who were ready to +lay down their lives for God and King and country and their women's +honour—and of women too who'd maybe held the stronghold that had been +their husband's reward, and kept the flag flying, when to fail or +flinch meant death or worse.... Why, look at your Lady Nithisdales and +your Lady Russells and your Maria Theresas....' +</P> + +<P> +'And your Joan of Arc—who was a peasant girl—and your Charlotte +Corday....' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you beat me there.... And I wasn't intending to fire off a speech +anyway.... And anyway, Joan, its awful cheek to think I could ever get +the sort of wife I want, but if I can't, I won't have one at all.... +I'll have my money's worth. Romance—Ideals—something more LIFTING +than beef and mutton and cutting a bigger dash than your neighbour.... +See?' +</P> + +<P> +He broke off with a laugh, and the wonderfully vivid light that came +into his blue eyes made him look like an ardent youth. +</P> + +<P> +'And you a democrat!' jeered Mrs Gildea. 'You, a champion of the +people's rights; you, an Imperialist in the broadest sense of the term! +Oh, I really must put you into one of my articles as a certain type of +modern Australian. In fact, Colin, that's what I wanted to talk to you +about.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right, fire away. We'll drop the marriage question.' +</P> + +<P> +'To be resumed later.' A quizzical look passed over Mrs Gildea's mouth, +and then, 'Oh, what a pity!' she muttered to herself. +</P> + +<P> +'What's a pity?' +</P> + +<P> +'Never mind! The English mail's in—as you may see. I'll show you what +Mr Gibbs says. He didn't like my last letter. He says he wants bones +and sinews, not an artist's lay figure dressed in stage bushman's +clothes. There, Mr McKeith, among your other cogitations on the subject +of women, you may try to realise that the mission of a lady special +correspondent is not all'—she looked round for a metaphor—'Muscat +grapes and pineapple.' +</P> + +<P> +'Or cooked-up information from heads of departments; or got-up shows of +agricultural, mining and other industries. Or trips to the Bay to see +the model island prison in which our weary criminals rehabilitate their +enfeebled systems by cool sea-breezes and generous diet. Or ministerial +picnics to experimental cotton and sugar plantations the size of your +garden to prove that all tropical products can be raised to perfection +without mentioning the difficulty in a White Australia of finding the +labour to do it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, don't rub it in, Colin. I'm only a special reporter, and even +special reporters can't know everything. Now, do just sit down and let +me ask you questions. And first of all, do you want a whiskey peg or a +cup of tea, or what?—I've had my late breakfast.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'll have a smoke, please. Been swearing off store baccy now I'm down +from the Bush. I'm trying hard to smoke cigarettes like one of your +English toffs.' +</P> + +<P> +He pulled out a copper cigarette case with some hieroglyphical letters +and numbers stamped on it, which he regarded with a humorous smile. +</P> + +<P> +'Only cost a shilling, but now I've my brand across, it looks fine. You +know that by the Brands Act you've got to have a number and two letters +on every head of stock—My brand's the Mark of the Beast 666 C.K. See?' +</P> + +<P> +He fixed his cigarette into a new amber mouthpiece, made a wry face, +and began to smoke. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think much of your quality of cigarettes,' said Mrs Gildea. +'On the whole, I prefer your tobacco.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right. Give me my pipe any day—' And he pitched away the +cigarette and produced an ancient pipe, which he filled with tobacco +from an india-rubber pouch and lighted. 'Now, fire away.' +</P> + +<P> +'Not for a little bit yet. You must read my rejected article and my +official instructions, and then you'll have some grasp of the subjects +I want information upon. Here they are—Mr Gibbs first.' +</P> + +<P> +She handed him her editor's letters and pushed a small pile of +manuscript towards his elbow. +</P> + +<P> +'There. It will take you about a quarter of an hour to digest all that; +and meanwhile, if you don't mind the noise, I shall go on typing +something I've got to send off by to-morrow's mail.' +</P> + +<P> +She settled herself at the typewriter, her back partially turned to +him. The subject matter of what she was doing took all her attention. +She worked hard for about ten minutes, hearing sub-consciously the +rustle of papers under his hand and one or two faint ejaculations and a +queer little laugh he gave once or twice as he read. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he said: +</P> + +<P> +'I say, there's a mistake here. I've gone through your editor's +letters. He's sound; I think I can help you to get at what he wants. +But these other sheets have got mixed up with something else. I thought +at first it was a story you'd given me, and I went on reading and got +interested; and now I see it must have been written by some young woman +friend of yours'—if it's meant for a letter.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea turned with a dismayed exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +'Good gracious! You don't mean to say that I've given you her letter?' +</P> + +<P> +'Is it really a letter? Do women type letters? It reads to me much more +like what the heroine of a novel would be supposed to say than an +ordinary everyday girl. If that's a flesh and blood woman I'd like to +know her.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea took from him the three typed pages he had in his hand. They +were certainly part of Lady Bridget's letter—almost the whole of it, +for only the end and the beginning ones were missing. In her hurried +rearrangement of the wind-scattered sheets she had put these into the +wrong bundle. She ran her eye anxiously over the badly-typed slips, +which, with their marginal corrections and smart, allusive jargon of a +world entirely removed from Colin McKeith's experience, might easily +have misled him into the belief that he was reading literary 'copy.' Of +course he knew that Joan Gildea wrote novels as well as journalistic +stuff. +</P> + +<P> +He read her thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +'You needn't worry. There isn't the least clue to her identity—I +suppose that's what you're afraid of. Not a surname anywhere—I +couldn't have imagined a woman would write like that—give herself +away—as she does. But it's fine all the same. There'd be nothing small +about that woman, Joan. Do you know how it ended?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know yet. But I can guess.' +</P> + +<P> +'Eh?' He blew out rings of smoke with less than his usual deliberation. +'D'ye think she'll marry the chap?' +</P> + +<P> +'No—she never does.' +</P> + +<P> +'She's a flirt, then?' +</P> + +<P> +'Bid—' Mrs Gildrea swallowed the rest. 'SHE would scorn such a +commonplace suggestion. Do you remember that novel of Hardy's, THE +WELL-BELOVED? She's like the man there, who was always in love with the +same Ideal—under different forms—until he found that he'd made a +mistake, and then the game began all over again.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith ruminated. 'SHE'S like that, is she? ... The fellow is what +you'd call a bounder?' he exclaimed suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +'So I imagine.' +</P> + +<P> +'But she's in love with him—she must be, or she wouldn't write like +that?' +</P> + +<P> +'You don't know her. She can't do anything by halves—while she's doing +it.' +</P> + +<P> +'By Jove, that's what I like. There's a woman who'd never hang on the +fence. And her ideas about love and all that: it's splendid.' +</P> + +<P> +He brooded again a few moments, while Mrs Gildea sorted her papers +afresh; then he exclaimed: +</P> + +<P> +'It strikes me, she's one of the sort I was talking about just now.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, she WAS born in a castle.' +</P> + +<P> +'I guessed it.... You won't tell me her name?' +</P> + +<P> +'How could I—I ask you? After you'd read that!' +</P> + +<P> +'No. All right. You can trust me not to find out.' +</P> + +<P> +'Besides, she would never do for you.' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed quizzically. 'Well, I'm a barbarian, and it's possible I may +some day be a millionaire. But I'm not such a conceited cad as to +imagine a woman like that would ever fall in love with ME!' His voice +sank almost to a reverential tone. 'The only thing I do know is that if +I got the chance, I'd show her I was strong enough to carry her off to +my wigwam and she could do what she pleased afterwards. I'd be her +slave so long as she cared for me—and I'd never live with a woman who +didn't.' +</P> + +<P> +'My dear Colin, you're not likely to get the chance. Please forget that +you ever read that letter.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I can't do that; but as she's in London and we're over here, it's +not much odds anyway. Well, have you found the right sheets? Give them +to me if you have and then we can come to business.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 5 +</H3> + +<P> +Colin McKeith had been gone some time and Mrs Gildea, primed with fresh +ideas, had finished her article on the lines he suggested, before she +again tackled Lady Bridget's love-affair. +</P> + +<P> +The second letter (there is no need to reproduce the page of daring +sentiment that closed the first) was dated from Castle Gaverick in +South Connemara, and plunged straight into the tragic culmination. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'It's all over, Joan—was over soon after my last letter, but I've been +too wretched ever since to write. If you had been in England you might +have read in one of last week's "MORNING POST'S" that a marriage has +been arranged and will shortly take place between Mr Willoughby Maule, +formerly confidential adviser to His Highness the Rajah of +Kasalpore—and Evelyn Mary, only daughter of the late John Bagallay, +Esq, and the late Mrs Bagally of Bagallay Court, Birmingham. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Rosamond tells me that Luke told her that Evelyn Mary has been throwing +herself at Will's head ever since they met last year on a P. & O. +steamer between Singapore and Colombo. She and her chaperon went on a +tour round the world, it seems, just before Evelyn Mary came of age. I +wonder they did not get engaged then, and can only conclude—as there +was no ME then to upset the apple-cart—that he did not know how rich +she was going to be. Anyway, I feel certain that it was Evelyn Mary who +was at the back of his plan for settling down as a respectable +stock-jobber. Molly Gaverick—who is a cat—said she knew for certain +Willoughby Maule came to England with the fixed intention of marrying +for birth and position or for money, and that he fancied, in me, he'd +found both—she says that he took his impressions of us from the +paragraphs in the Society papers and thought us much richer an bigger +than we are, and that now he knows better he thinks it safer to drop +birth and make sure of money. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The Bagallays made theirs in nails. Last year Evelyn Mary came into a +fortune of a quarter of a million. I'm told that it's absolutely at her +own disposal. She was an only child. A quarter of a million would be an +immense temptation to a poor and ambitious man. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +And yet, Joan, I CAN'T believe that Will has been actuated by wholly +sordid motives. He may be an adventurer, but he is not a mean one. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Rosamond Tallant thinks it much more likely that because I didn't +introduce him to Aunt Eliza, and Chris and Molly never asked him to +dinner, he got the idea that I considered him good enough to amuse +myself with, but not good enough for serious consideration as a +husband. And it's quite true that I always shirked that point when it +was touched upon. If I must be perfectly honest with myself, I think I +was afraid of his putting me at the cannon's mouth and telling me I +must decide then and there to take him or leave him. Should I ever have +had the strength to give him up? He's so frightfully dear to me, that I +can't think of him now without a shudder at the thought of his +belonging to another woman. I never really believed it would come to +that. He once or twice hinted that there WAS a girl—the "nice English +girl" that I had chaffed him about. I had an idea that it was his way +of putting pressure on me. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The first time was the evening that I dined alone with him at the +Exhibition. Heavens! I grow hot this moment thinking that he may have +supposed I was in the HABIT of dining alone with men in French +restaurants at popular Exhibitions. I don't know why I did for this man +what I'd never done for any other, Partly, I fancy, because it never +dawned upon me that he could misunderstand me. Rosamond says I +idealised him too much, and that he's just the ordinary man and not the +tiniest bit of the Bayard I imagined him. I daresay she's right, and +that he may have laughed in his sleeve at my romantic rhapsodies. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +All the same, I never can convince myself that he is a mere +fortune-hunter. Perhaps the very fact that I didn't make the smallest +effort to wrest him from Mademoiselle Croesus when he tried to make me +jealous seemed proof to him that he was no more to me than a caprice. +So, when we made each other an atrocious scene and I told him to go off +to her, he simply took me at my word. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The scene began with my telling him about my sort of engagement to +Aubrey Blaine—whom as you know, I was really nearer to marrying than I +have been to marrying anybody. And yet, as I tried to explain to Will, +I didn't WANT to marry Aubrey. Only the mischief with me is always that +I can't hold back with one hand and give with the other... Will wasn't +able to enter into my feelings about that affair in the very least or +to understand how, when it came to the point, I realised that I +COULDN'T sink to domesticity on seven hundred a year. Fancy taking a +house in Pimlico or West Kensington, or one of those horrible places +with a man to whom you have a violent attraction and consulting with +your adored as to whether you could run to three maids and a Tweeny! +The sordidness of it would be too disenchanting. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +When I said something like that to Will, he flared up and we hurled +nasty speeches at each other, and finally he walked off slamming the +door—I used to hear that slam in my dreams sometimes—or it may have +been Luke coming in late—the Tallants' hall door makes a particularly +Kismetish bang. That was our real parting, though it wasn't the last. +He wrote to me—a bitter sort of farewell. And I did a mad thing. I +went to see him in his rooms. But when I got there, his +manner—something he said which offended me—one can't explain the +unexplainable—started the scene all over again. It was as if a mocking +demon came up between us. That time it was I who left him. The next +thing I heard was that he and Mademoiselle Croesus were engaged. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I wrote to him—I know it wasn't the proper sort of letter—I daresay +he saw through my pretended indifference. He sent me back my letters as +I had asked him to do—wrote me in quite the right strain—said he was +not worthy of me—that I'd shewn him I was far above him—that he might +not presume to think I could be happy with a man of his inadequate +means and position—that he could never forget me—and so on—but that +it was best as it is. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +And now I've got to get what consolation I can out of my own inner +conviction—that it IS best as it is, and that I ought to be thankful +for being still Bridget O'Hara, mistress of my own fate, and free yet +to sport about—sport!—oh, the irony of it—in what you call the +stormy sea of my emotions. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I make over to you the copyright of my sufferings.' +</P> + +<P> +The letter broke off abruptly. It was resumed on another sheet six +weeks later at Gaverick Castle. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'Rosamond Tallant has just sent me a writing case I left at their house +with these pages in it. I daren't read them over, but they'll give you +an idea of my state of mind during those last dreadful weeks in London. +My nerves are now in a little better condition. Since I came here, I've +set myself resolutely NOT to think of Will—that is, not more than I +can help; there are times when his ghost is extremely active. I'm +putting out brain-feelers, for I know that I should go to pieces +altogether if I didn't throw myself into some new interest. So that I'm +trying a system for the development of one's higher faculties that was +taught me by a queer old German professor I met at Caux last summer, +who was interested in the odd little second-sight experiences I've had +occasionally which I told him about. He made me do exercises in +deep-breathing and meditation—you shut yourself up, darken your room +and concentrate upon a subject—Beauty, Wisdom, Friendship, were some +of the subjects he gave me—and you can't think how thrillingly +absorbing it was. I worked frightfully hard at it for a bit, drinking +only distilled water and living on vegetables—you CAN do that in +Switzerland: you simply CAN'T in civilised society—And then came Rome +and the Willoughby Maule episode. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Episode! Has it come to that! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Ah Joan, I have a horrible suspicion that however much I may try to +persuade myself I'm concentrating upon some abstract theme, I've really +all the time been thinking of him. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Yesterday I took Friendship for my study in concentration. You, dear +thing, came up, naturally, and your image actually kept Will away for a +clear five seconds. I thought what a help it would be to be with you, +and afterwards I made the suggestion of an Australian trip on literary +business to Aunt Eliza, but it was no good. She is deeply engaged just +now in driving batches of stuffy relatives in a stuffy brougham—luckily +there's no room for me in it—to still stuffier garden parties. And, +besides, I don't feel that I can take any desperate step of that kind +until the Irrevocable has been written in Destiny's Book. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Will Maule is not married yet. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well, anyhow, the meditation on Friendship was comparatively +successful. Wisdom I found beyond me, and Beauty awakened painful +memories. To-day I mean to concentrate on wealth—one of my Professor's +theories is that if you concentrate regularly on a thing you are bound +in the long run to get what you set your mind upon, and I do find my +position of dependence upon Aunt Eliza too unspeakably galling. What a +monstrous injustice it seems that I—who if I had been born a boy, must +have been Earl of Gaverick, should be at the mercy of an ill-tempered, +miserly, old woman who may leave the home of my forefathers to a +crossing-sweeper if she pleases. I suppose it ought to go to Chris, but +one doesn't feel called upon to arraign Fate on behalf of a distant +cousin who by rights has no business to be Lord Gaverick at all. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm concentrating on Art too. Every day I do some inspirational +painting by the sea shore. I've made some studies of Wave-fairies for +the Children's Story Book we planned to do together. It's quite +invigorating to sport about with them in imagination, in a grey-green +stormy sea, out of reach of human banalities. I can feel the cold spray +as I paint and the sense of power and rest in the elemental forces—an +almost Wagnerian feeling of great Cosmic Realities.' +</P> + +<P> +Again Mrs Gildea smiled to herself. How like Biddy O'Hara! +</P> + +<P> +She couldn't be so utterly heart-broken if she was able to practise +deep breathing and concentration—Wealth, Friendship, Art—a pretty +comprehensive repertoire—and to prate on Cosmic Realities and the +Wagnerian feeling! +</P> + +<P> +But presently the tragic note shrieked again. Bridget went on: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'I am in a fever of suspense and misery wondering whether Will's +marriage will come off or if, at the last moment, it will be broken. He +has been obsessing me these last days. He too—I am certain of +it—dreads the Irrevocable, and regrets the rupture between us. I dream +of him continually—such restless, tantalising dreams. And yet my mood +is so contradictory. If the marriage WERE broken off and he stood +before me, free, and offered himself!— +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Could I bring myself to face our future together with all its +depoeticising influences, its almost certainty of friction? No. +Something deep down inside me says—has always said—"It would be a +mistake; this is not the real thing: we are not suited to each other; +the attraction might even turn to repulsion." Imagine the agony of that! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Life goes on here, all dribble, waste and fret—I cannot concentrate, I +cannot paint—the Wave-fairies won't play—Your Bush gobies appeal more +to my present humour. I feel a sort of nostalgia for the wild—though +my nostalgia is mental, and not from any former association. Do not be +surprised if some day you get a telegram saying that I am coming.' +</P> + +<P> +Another sheet. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'Will was married yesterday. I have just read the account of the +ceremony—I can see it all—the usual semi-smart opulent wedding—palms +lining the aisle, Orange blossom galore. The bride "beautiful in cream +satin and old lace"—Evelyn Mary is simply a LUMP—Pages in white +velvet—The fussy overdressed Bagallay crowd of friends—I hear there +are no "in-laws," And the bridegroom's face—dark, cynical—I know the +sort of miserable smile and the queer glitter in his eyes.—"I +WILLOUGHBY TAKE THEE EVELYN MARY... FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE...TILL +DEATH US DO PART "... There! I'm a blathering idiot to mind...I ought +to be dancing with joy at my escape. Let us end the chapter. The +incident is closed, I'm going for a long tramp by the sea and shall +post this on my way. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Your BIDDY.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 6 +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea was too busy in the next two or three weeks to trouble +herself unduly over Lady Bridget O'Hara's tragic love-affair. She had +to report on the small holders of property in Leichardt's Land and made +a trip for that purpose among the free-selectors in her own old +district. The TWENTY YEARS AFTER letter she wrote about this expedition +for THE IMPERIALIST was one of her best, and for that she was greatly +indebted to Colin McKeith's commentaries. +</P> + +<P> +Old associations with him had been vividly reawakened by this visit to +the home of her youth. She remembered, as if it had been yesterday, how +McKeith, a raw youth of eighteen with a horrible tragedy at the back of +his young life, had been picked up by her father and brought to +Bungroopim to learn the work of a cattle-station.... hitherto his +experience, such as it was, had been with sheep in the, then, unsettled +north. Joan was herself a girl in short frocks, three or four years +younger than Colin McKeith, and with no apparent prospect of ever +crossing the 'big fella Water,' as the Ubi Blacks called it, or of +joining the band of Bohemian scribblers in London. +</P> + +<P> +She remembered how quickly Colin had learned his work—remembered how +the shy self-contained lad, with always that grim memory of his boyhood +shaping a vengeful purpose in his mind and making him old for his +years, had developed the flair of the Bush in his hardy Scotch +constitution. She was compelled to own that he had developed, too, some +of the worst as well as the best of those Scotch qualities inherited +from his parents, expatriated though they had been, and from the +staunch clansmen behind them. He had the Scotch loyalty; likewise, the +Scotch tenacity of character which never forgot and very seldom +forgave; the Scotch obstinacy of purpose and opinion; the Scotch +acquisitiveness; a tendency too to 'nearness' in matters of small +expenditure which combined oddly with a generosity amounting almost to +recklessness in large enterprise. It was on the whole not a bad outfit +for a pioneer who meant to get on in his world. +</P> + +<P> +The beginnings were small, but indicative of the trend of his career. +He contrived, even when he was earning no salary but working only for +his 'tucker,' to get together a horse or two, a cow or two, a specially +good cattle-dog or two, which last he made the nucleus of a profitable +breed. The cows and bullocks he left at Bungroopim when the time came +for him to push out, reclaiming them after they had increased and +multiplied in those pleasant pastures like Jacob's herds in the fields +of Laban. +</P> + +<P> +Not that there was any seven years matrimonial question. There had been +no Leah. Or if Joan Gildea had ever played the part of Rachel in Colin +McKeith's sentimental dreams, those boyish dreams had left no serious +mark upon him. He had gone north to a newly-formed station and had +there out-bushed the bushman in his knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of +cattle and sheep and his amazing faculty for spotting country suitable +for either. Here no doubt his descent from generations of herdsmen had +stood him in good stead. +</P> + +<P> +He sold his knowledge to rich squatters in the settled districts who +employed him to take up new country for them and to manage the hundreds +of square miles and the thousands of stock from which they derived the +best part of their wealth. But he only managed for other men until he +had made enough money of his own to take up and stock new country for +himself. +</P> + +<P> +In a few years he had acquired a moderate-sized herd and established +himself with it on the almost unexplored reaches of the Upper Leura. +Life on that river never lacked dangerous adventure. McKeith's father +had owned a station on the Lower Leura—the bank took it in payment of +their mortgage after the catastrophe occurred. That station had been +the scene of one of the most horrible native outrages in the history of +Australia. The tragedy had set its mark on Colin McKeith. Left a +penniless boy after having worked his way to independent manhood he had +made it his purpose to pursue the wild black with relentless animosity. +</P> + +<P> +All along the Upper Leura to the fastnesses at the river's head where +his new station stood on the boundaries of civilisation he had gone, +mercilessly punishing native depredations. +</P> + +<P> +He had been put on trial by a humanitarian Government for so-called +manslaughter of natives, and had been acquitted under an administration +immediately succeeding it. Afterwards he had at the peril of his life, +made an exploring trip across the base of the northern peninsula of the +colony with the intention, as he phrased it, of 'shaking round a bit.' +He 'shook round' to some purpose, penetrated to the Big Bight, and got +on the tracks of a famous lost explorer. Colin McKeith solved the +mystery of that explorer's fate and had his revenge on the Government +which had impeached him by pocketing the reward which it had offered +any adventurous pioneer following on the lost explorer's steps. +</P> + +<P> +Later, McKeith was given a mission to explore and develop a certain +tract of fertile country between the heads of the Leura and the Big +Bight—the particular Premier instigating the mission being a +far-sighted politician who realised that a Japanese invasion of the +northern coast might eventually interfere very radically with the plan +for a White Australia. +</P> + +<P> +Colin McKeith threw into his own scheme of life a trip to Japan, by way +of India and China. He volunteered, too, for the Boer War, and did a +short term of service with the Australian Contingent in South Africa. +</P> + +<P> +He dreamed more and more of becoming an Empire-maker—a sort of +Australian Cecil Rhodes. But he was wise enough to realise that all +Empire-making cannot be on the Rhodesian scale. +</P> + +<P> +He realised that his personal fortune must first be secured. Without +money one can do nothing. Cecil Rhodes had had the natural wealth of +Rhodesia at his back. McKeith had set himself the task of opening up +the fine country out West, which he knew only needed a system of +irrigation by Artesian Bores to defy drought, the squatters curse. That +object once accomplished—he gave himself with luck and good seasons +five or six years—there would be nothing to stop his becoming a +patriot and a millionaire. +</P> + +<P> +But Colin went slowly and cannily—and that was why the Leichardt's +Land Government believed in him. He had the reputation of never +spending a penny on his private or public ambitions where a halfpenny +would serve his purpose, and he was known to be a man of deep counsels +and sparing of speech. Thus, no one knew exactly what was his business +down south at this time. Only the general remark was that Colin McKeith +had his head screwed on the right way and that some day he would come +out on top. +</P> + +<P> +But that there was deep down a spring of romance beneath that hard +Bushman's exterior, Joan Gildea, herself a romance writer, guessed +easily. And her intuition told her that a little thin bore had been +made in the direction of that vital spring of romance by his +inadvertent reading of Lady Bridget O'Hara's letter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 7 +</H3> + +<P> +Joan saw that McKeith was extremely anxious to know more about the +writer of that letter and the progress of that love-affair, though he +had given his word of honour that he would not try to find out her +identity. But he put subtle questions to Joan about her friends in +England and her acquaintance with the higher circles of society in +London. Once, he asked her straight out whether she had heard again +from her typewriting correspondent, and if the Soldier of Fortune had +proved himself a Bounder, as they had suspected? +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' Joan answered unguardedly. 'I'm thankful to say that he is +married to his heiress.' +</P> + +<P> +The eager light which suddenly shone in McKeith's eyes startled Mrs +Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'You don't mean to say that you're thinking of her like that?' she +exclaimed. 'It's no use, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +'Probably not,' he answered composedly. 'Tell me, how does she take it?' +</P> + +<P> +'Deadly seriously. She's practising Deep-breathing and Concentration to +try and drive the man from her thoughts.' +</P> + +<P> +'What! Oh, you mean Theosophy and that kind of thing. I went to hear +Mrs Annie Besant lecture once, and I couldn't make head or tail of it.' +</P> + +<P> +'No. You wouldn't. But it was a German Professor who taught B—— No. I +will NOT tell you her name.' +</P> + +<P> +'Anyway, I know that it begins with a "B." And I know that she's got +one relation called Molly, and another called Chris, and a friend whose +name is Rosamond—likewise that Rosamond is the wife of Luke.... By +Jove!' He stopped short and looked at Mrs Gildea with sharp +enlightenment. +</P> + +<P> +They were in the veranda of her cottage, and he was seated on the steps +smoking, his long legs stretched out against one veranda post, his +broad back against another. 'Seen the paper this morning?' he asked. +</P> + +<P> +'No. If you pass the CHRONICLE Office, I wish you'd lodge a complaint +for me against the vagaries of their distribution department. Twice +lately I haven't had the paper till the afternoon.' +</P> + +<P> +He pulled it from his pocket, and, leaning across, handed it to her. +</P> + +<P> +'Read the English Telegrams,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +Joan stopped cleaning her typewriter and examined the column of latest +intelligence. +</P> + +<P> +'Good gracious! So they've appointed Sir Luke Tallant new Governor of +Leichardt's Land!' +</P> + +<P> +'Luke!—A coincidence you'll say. No good telling me that. SHE wrote +that "Luke" was hankering after a colonial governorship.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, he's got it,' replied Mrs Gildea noncommittally. +</P> + +<P> +'And if you read the leading article you'll see that the CHRONICLE is +justly outraged at so important a post as that of Governor of +Leichardt's Land being given to an unknown man who has never served +outside the Colonial Office in London and who doesn't even belong to +the noble army of Peers.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's all nonsense. Luke Tallant's a friend of Chamberlain's, a +thorough Imperialist and a very good man for the post.' +</P> + +<P> +'You know him then?' +</P> + +<P> +'I know OF him.' +</P> + +<P> +'From HER?' +</P> + +<P> +'HER! Has it come to HER! Colin, if anyone had told me that you would +ever be fool enough to fall in love with a woman you've never seen, I +should have laughed outright. You don't even know what she's like.' +</P> + +<P> +'I can see her in my mind's eye, as I used to see the women I read +about by my camp fire. You'd never believe either what a queer +idealistic chap I can be when I'm mooning about the Bush. Don't you +know, Joan'—and his voice got suddenly grave and deep-toned—'you +ought to, for you were a bush girl and you've had men-kind out in the +Back Blocks—Don't you know that when a man has got to go on day after +day, week after week, year after year, fighting devils of loneliness +and worse—with nothing to look at except miles and miles of stark +staring gum trees and black, smelling GIDGEE* and dead-finish +scrub—and never the glimpse of a woman—not counting black gins—to +remind him he once had a mother and might have a wife. Well, can't you +see that his only chance of not growing into a rotten HATTER* is to +start picturing in his imagination all the beautiful things he's ever +seen or read about—the sort of lady-wife he hopes to have some day and +in making such a companion of her that she seems to him as real as the +stars and far more real than the gum trees. So as he'll keep saying to +her always in his thoughts: "I'll keep myself sound and wholesome for +your sake. I'll never forget that I'm a gentleman, so as YOU won't +shrink away from me in horror if ever I've the luck to come across YOU +down here on this Earth."' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Gidgee—Colloquial pronunciation of gidia, an Australian tree.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Hatter—A white man who prefers the society of blacks.] +</P> + +<P> +He stopped, fitted another cigarette from the copper case into the +holder and, before beginning upon it, said without looking at Mrs +Gildea: +</P> + +<P> +'I wouldn't spout like that to anybody but you, Joan. My word! Though I +see by your writing that you've a fair notion of how this cursed, grim, +glorious old Bush can play the deuce with a chap—body and brain and +soul—if he doesn't wear the right kind of talisman to safeguard +himself.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—I understand. And your talisman, Colin? What was your picture of +the lady-wife? Describe your Ideal and I'll tell you if SHE is the +least bit like it.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith smoked ruminatively for a few moments, his eyes narrowed. The +lines in his forehead and round his mouth showed plainly. He was gazing +out into space, far beyond the sun-flecked Leichardt River and the +Botanical Gardens, and the glaring city and the range of distant hills +on the horizon. +</P> + +<P> +'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'you can laugh at me if you like, but +I'll tell you how I see HER. She is tall—got a presence, so that if +SHE'S there, you'd know it and everybody else would know it, no matter +how many other women there might be in the place. Most big men take to +their opposites. Now, though I'm a big man I've never fancied a snippet +of a girl. Five foot seven of height is my measure of a woman, and a +good ten stone in the saddle—What are you laughing at, Joan? I'm out +there, I suppose?' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea controlled her muscles. +</P> + +<P> +'No, no, not in the least. In fact, your description fits the Ideal +Wife perfectly. Go on, Colin. Five foot seven and a good ten stone. How +is the rest of HER? Fair or dark—her hair now—and her eyes?' +</P> + +<P> +'Her hair—oh, it isn't fair—not yellow or noticeable in colour—like +those dyed beauties you see about. Her hair is dark, soft and cloudy +looking. And she's got a small head set like—like a lily on its +stem—and her hair is parted in the middle and coiled smoothly each +side and into a sort of Greek knot....' +</P> + +<P> +'In short, she's a cross between the Venus of Milo and the Madonna.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea was smiling amusedly. +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps.... Something of that sort. Dignity and sweetness, you +know—those are what I admire in a woman. But not too much of the +goddess or of the angel either. I shouldn't want always to have to load +up with a pedestal when we shifted camp, and the only shrine I'd keep +going for her would be in my heart. It's a Mate I'm wanting, as well as +an Ideal.... Now you're laughing again.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I'm not. I agree with you entirely—and so would SHE.' +</P> + +<P> +'There! You needn't tell me. I shouldn't wonder if I'd got the second +sight where SHE'S concerned.' +</P> + +<P> +Again Mrs Gildea smiled enigmatically. +</P> + +<P> +'I shouldn't wonder, Colin. But you haven't finished your personal +description. What about the colour of her eyes?' +</P> + +<P> +'Now I don't believe I could say exactly the colour of her eyes any +more than of her hair. They're the kind, to me, that have no colour. +Soft and melting and sort of mysterious—Deep and clear and with a +light far down in them like starlight reflected in a still lagoon.... I +say, Joan, you remember the old Eight Mile Water-hole on Dingo +Flat—middle of the patch of flooded gum and she-oak—that the Blacks +used to say had no bottom to it? HER eyes seemed to me a bit like that +water-hole—No bottom to her possibilities.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's true enough,' assented Mrs Gildea. 'There's no bottom to HER +possibilities.' +</P> + +<P> +'I could tell it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about +things—but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, +and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I +read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything +for a man she really loved.' +</P> + +<P> +He had a way of lowering his voice when he spoke of love—as if he felt +it a sacred subject; and this in him surprised Joan. She was +discovering a new Colin McKeith. She answered softly. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes. I think she would—IF she really loved him.' +</P> + +<P> +'What I haven't been able to make out is whether she did care—does +care—for that chap. You see, that would make a difference.' +</P> + +<P> +'A difference! How? What do you mean?' +</P> + +<P> +'I mean that I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I +wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told +me—and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two +and two together—that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our +new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife +is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay with them out +here?' +</P> + +<P> +The idea had already presented itself to Mrs Gildea, but she tried not +to show that it had, or that there had ever been any question of the +sort in Bridget's mind. Colin had not read the opening sheet of her +letter. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose more unlikely things than that have happened,' Joan said +neutrally. 'But really, Colin,' she went on with strenuous emphasis, 'I +can't understand this phase of you. You—a hard-headed Bushman, to be +dreaming romantic dreams and falling all of a sudden over head and ears +in love with—with a figment of your imagination—just because you +happen to have read by mistake some sentimental outpourings of a woman +you know nothing about and who would never forgive me if she knew I'd +let you see her letter.' +</P> + +<P> +'She won't know—You have my word of honour that I'll never give you +away over that letter—not under ANY circumstances, so you can set your +mind at rest on that score, Joan. And as to my falling in love with—a +figment of my own imagination'—he spat the words out savagely—'we'll +see how far your remark is justified when She does come out and I +recognise her—as I am convinced I shall do directly I set eyes on Her.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea burst into rather hysterical laughter, which manifestly +offended Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'We'll drop the subject, please,' he said stiffly. 'And now, Mrs +Gildea, I'm quite at your service for any information you desire about +the Big Bight country and the probability of a Japanese invasion so +soon as our future Commonwealth comes to crucial loggerheads with the +Eastern Powers on the question of a strictly White Australia.' +</P> + +<P> +After that Colin pointedly abstained from allusion to the Ideal Wife +and to Joan Gildea's Typewriting-Correspondent, as he had called her. +He was very busy himself at this time in connection with a threatened +labour strike that was agitating sheep and cattle owners of the Leura +District. Likewise with a report he had been asked to furnish of a +projected telegraph line for the opening of his 'Big Bight Country'. +Colin McKeith appeared to be deep in the confidence of the Leichardt's +Land Executive Council and to have taken up his abode for the winter +session in the Seat of Government, though he seemed to regard his +recent election for a Northern constituency as an unimportant episode +in a career ultimately consecrated to the elucidation of far-reaching +Imperial problems. +</P> + +<P> +Joan Gildea found him excellent 'copy,' and the great Gibbs +cablegrammed, in code, approval of her lately-tapped source of +information. +</P> + +<P> +She almost forgot Bridget O'Hara in her absorption in colonial topics. +But three weeks before the expected arrival of the new Governor of +Leichardt's Land a cablegram was shot at her from Colombo which made +her feel that there was no use in setting oneself against Destiny. This +was the wire: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> + EXPECT ME WITH TALLANTS BIDDY.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing to Colin McKeith about the message—partly because his +movements were erratic and he was a good deal away from Leichardt's +town just then. Thus Mrs Gildea did not know whether or not he had read +the flowery description telegraphed by a Melbourne correspondent who +interviewed Sir Luke Tallant and his party at that city and wired an +ecstatic paragraph about the beautiful Lady Bridget O'Hara who was +accompanying her friend and distant relative, the Honourable Lady +Tallant. +</P> + +<P> +Anyway, McKeith made no references to the newspaper correspondent's +rhapsodies when he paid Mrs Gildea a short visit two or three days +before the landing of the new Governor. But his very reticence and +something in his expression made Joan suspect that he was puzzled and +excited, and would have been glad had she volunteered any information +about Lady Tallant's companion. Joan, however, kept perverse silence. +In truth, she felt considerably nervous over the prospect. What was +going to happen when Colin McKeith set eyes on Bridget? +</P> + +<P> +Joan Gildea was a simple woman though circumstances had made her a +shrewd one, and she had all the elementary feminine instincts. She +believed in love and in strange affinities and in hidden threads of +destiny—all of which ideas fitted beautifully on to Bridget O'Hara's +personality, but not at all on to that of Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 8 +</H3> + +<P> +The first dinner-party given by Sir Luke and Lady Tallant at Government +House included Mrs Gildea and Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +These two met in the vestibule as they emerged respectively from the +ladies' and gentlemen's cloak-room. Both held back to allow certain +Members of the Ministry to enter the drawing-room before them, which +gave opportunity for an interchange of greetings. +</P> + +<P> +'Well!' both said at once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was +uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning. +'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where +have you been all these three weeks?' +</P> + +<P> +'At Alexandra City, close on the desert, where they bored for water and +struck ready-made gas—the whole place now is lighted with it. If you +like, I'll give you material for a first-rate article upon an uncommon +phenomenon of Nature.' +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you. I shall be grateful. Colin'—hesitatingly, 'I did think +you'd have come and looked after an old friend at the big Show in the +Botanical Gardens when the Governor made his State Entry.' +</P> + +<P> +'State Entry! Good Lord! Sir Luke Tallant has got a bit too much red +tape and too many airs about him to suit the Leichardt'stonians.' +</P> + +<P> +'You WERE there, then?' +</P> + +<P> +'Started for Alexandra City that afternoon.' +</P> + +<P> +'But you saw—Colin did you see—the Tallants and—their party? +</P> + +<P> +His face changed: it looked positively angry, and his jaw under the +neatly trimmed, sandy beard, protruded determinedly. But at that moment +a footman came towards them, and Mrs Gildea was handed on to an +imposing butler and ushered through a wide palm-screened doorway into +the large inner hall which had a gallery round it and the big staircase +at one end. Joan saw that the room, formerly stiffly furnished and used +chiefly as a ballroom, had been transmogrified with comfortable lounge +chairs and sofas, beautiful embroideries, screens, a spinet and many +flowers and books into a delightful general sitting-room. It seemed +quite full—mostly of official Leichardt'stonians. Joan looked for the +new Governor and his wife, or at least for Lady Biddy, but none of them +had yet put in an appearance. A handsome, fair-moustachioed young +aide-de-camp, looking very smart in his evening uniform with white +lapels, was fluttering round, his dinner list in his hand, and +introducing people who already knew each other. He looked distinctly +worried, so did the private secretary—sallow-faced, of a clerkish +type, and obviously without social qualifications—who was also +wandering round and trying ineffectively to do the right thing. The +aide-de-camp rushed forward to shake hands with Joan, exclaiming in a +relieved undertone: +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Mrs Gildea, do help me. I believe I've made an awful hash of it +all. People out here,' he murmured, 'ain't used to viceregal etiquette +as she is interpreted in Ceylon—that was my last post you know. They +seem to think his Excellency ought to have been standing at the door to +receive THEM, instead of their waiting to receive HIM.' +</P> + +<P> +Clearly, the aide-de-camp had failed to please, though he looked +spruced and his manners were beautiful. The Premier of Leichardt's +Land, a red-faced gentleman of blunt speech, was grumbling audibly to +the Attorney-General. Mrs Gildea caught snatches of discontent as she +passed from one to another. +</P> + +<P> +'Damned impertinence, I call it. A salaried official, no better than +any of us, giving himself royal airs.... May do in India... won't go +down in a free country like this.' +</P> + +<P> +The AIDE finished pairing his couples. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs Gildea, you're to go in with the Warden of the University. Of +course you know Dr Plumtree? Literature and learning is an obvious +combination, but' (in a confidential aside) 'if you KNEW the job I've +had to find out the right order of precedence. Mr McKeith, the Governor +will be so glad to meet you. Will you take in Lady Bridget O'Hara? +She's not down yet. You see,' he explained again to Mrs Gildea, 'we're +strictly official to-night and Debrett's out of it.' +</P> + +<P> +'So am I,' put in Colin McKeith. 'I guess that Lady Bridget would be +better pleased if she wasn't handed over to a rough bushman.' +</P> + +<P> +'Now, there you ARE quite out of it,' laughed the aide-de-camp. 'Lady +Bridget asked specially to be sent in with you,' and at Mrs Gildea's +enquiring smile, he explained once more: 'Sir Luke was speaking about +Mr McKeith, said his name had been mentioned at a meeting of the +Executive yesterday. Oh! you're top hole, Mr McKeith, I assure you.' +</P> + +<P> +The AIDE broke off suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +There was a rustle of silk on the grand staircase—the slam of a door +above, the sound of a laugh and the patter of little high-heeled shoes +on the parquet floor of the gallery. The AIDE darted to the foot of the +staircase and all eyes turned upward. +</P> + +<P> +The new Governor and his wife came down in slow and stately fashion, +arm-in-arm, Sir Luke looking very impressive with the Ribbon and Order +of St Michael and St George. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven but +for a heavy dark moustache, and carried his dignities with perhaps a +little too conscious an air—'Representative of the Throne' seemed +written all over him and no greater contrast could be imagined than the +new Governor presented to his predecessor, an elderly, impoverished +marquis who had the brain of a diplomatist and the manners of a British +farmer, and who with his homely wife had been immensely popular in +Leichardt's Land. +</P> + +<P> +Nor a greater contrast than the new Governor's wife to the fat, kindly, +old marchioness. Lady Tallant was a London woman, of about forty-five. +She had been excessively pretty, but had rather lost her looks after a +bad illness, and her worst affliction was now a tendency to +scragginess, cleverly concealed where the chest was no longer visible. +Obviously artificial outside, at any rate Lady Tallant was, as Mrs +Gildea had reason to believe, a genuine sort underneath. She had a +thin, high-nosed face of the conventional English aristocratic type, a +good deal rouged to-night, but with natural shadows under the eyes and +below the arch of the brows which were toned to correspond with the +evidently dyed hair. Her dress, a Paris creation of pale satin and +glistening embroidery, was draped to hide her thinness, and her neck +and throat were almost covered with strings of pearls and clusters of +clear-set diamonds. Judging from the way in which the +Leichardt'stonians stared at her as she came down the stairs, it seemed +probable that none of them had ever before seen anyone quite like Lady +Tallant. +</P> + +<P> +Joan Gildea's eyes passed quickly from Sir Luke and Lady Tallant to a +third figure behind them, on the half-landing, but first she realised +in a flashing glance that Colin McKeith's gaze had been all the while +riveted upon that figure. Not in astonishment—a proof to Joan that he +had seen it before—but in a kind of unwilling fascination, most +upsetting to Mrs Gildea's sense of responsibility in the matter. +</P> + +<P> +The Visionary Woman of the camp-fire! And she had let Colin McKeith +believe that Bridget O'Hara was the embodiment of his Ideal—height +five foot seven at the least: weight ten stone or more: smooth-parted, +Greek-coiled hair: a cross between a goddess and a Madonna—that was +Colin's Ideal—Good Heavens! What did he now behold? A very little +woman. One of the snippets he despised. Not an ounce of the traditional +dignity about her. Lady Bridget gave the impression of an +old-fashioned, precocious child, dressed up in a picture frock of soft +shining white stuff, hanging on a straight slender form and gathered +into a girdle at the waist, with a wisp of old lace flung carelessly +over the slight shoulders. She stood for a moment or two on the half +landing, then, as the aide-de-camp murmured in the Governor's ear at +the foot of the stairs, she came close to the bannisters and looked +down amusedly at the party in the hall. Her face was a little poked +forward—a small oval face, pale except for the redness of a rather +thin-lipped mouth—the upper lip like a scarlet bow—and the brilliance +of the eyes, deep-set under finely-drawn brows and with thick lashes, +golden-brown, and curling up at the tips. Peculiar eyes: Mrs Gildea, +who knew them well, never could decide their exact colour. The nose was +a delicate aquiline, the chin pointed. An untidy mass of wavy chestnut +hair stuck out in uneven puffs and insubordinate curls, all round the +small head. At this moment Mrs Gildea remembered a suggestive charm +sent to Lady Bridget by her cousin, Chris Gaverick, one Christmas, of a +miniature gold curry-comb. +</P> + +<P> +It was a vivid brief impression, for the girl moved on immediately, but +Joan noticed that Colin McKeith had arrested Lady Bridget's wandering +gaze. That was not surprising, for his great height and the +distinctiveness of his appearance, made him more likely than anyone +else present to attract her attention. Then, as she caught sight of +Joan, the interested, startled look changed to one of bright +recognition, the red lips smiled, showing dimples at their sensitive +corners. +</P> + +<P> +'His Excellency and Lady Tallant,' said the aide-de-camp, and Bridget +seemed hardly able to keep herself in the background while Sir Luke and +his wife advanced to greet the assembled guests. This, Lady Tallant did +with quite enchanting courtesy, making an apt apology for having kept +them waiting, which almost mollified the irate Premier. Bridget came +with a swift gliding movement to the side of her friend, squeezed her +hand and held it, while she talked in a soft rapid monotone. +</P> + +<P> +'How cool you look. I've never been so hot in my life. And the +mosquitoes! Rosamond is in despair. She says she really can't afford to +lose more flesh. Do you see how she has had to make herself up to hide +the mosquito bites? Luckily, I've got a skin that insects don't find +palatable....' +</P> + +<P> +They had of course met since the Landing. Joan had paid her formal +visit, had lunched at Government House, and was now on intimate terms +with the new people. Also, Lady Bridget had found her way to the +cottage on Emu Point. +</P> + +<P> +She looked round at the different groups and gave a cynical little +shrug. +</P> + +<P> +'Why! it's like everything one had left behind! I might be at a party +to the Colonial Delegates in London for all the difference there is. +Where's your barbarism, Joan? ... I'm pining for a savage existence.... +That's an excessively good-looking man'—her eyebrows indicated Colin +McKeith—'I do hope he is the man I asked for to take me in to +dinner—I told Vereker Wells that I wanted a new sensation—that man +looks as if he might give it to me—No, don't tell me: there's +excitement in uncertainty.' +</P> + +<P> +She went on in eager monologue, giving no time for replies. +</P> + +<P> +'It seems we've put the official backs up. Vereker Wells was determined +to follow Indian vice-regal precedents—so ridiculous—as I told him: +and as for Luke, he's got it on the brain that his mission is to uphold +the dignity of the British Throne. Like a NOUVEAU RICHE—terribly +afraid of doing the wrong thing and showing every moment that he's new +to the great Panjandrum part.... Ah so!' ... an ejaculatory trick of +Bridget's. 'He IS my fate!' +</P> + +<P> +Captain Vereker Wells brought up Colin who was holding himself stiffly, +limping just a little, as he did when he was nervous, and looking very +big and strong and masterful—likewise extraordinarily well-groomed and +tailored. +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget O'Hara, let me present Mr Colin McKeith.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Biddy looked up at Colin and he looked down at her. +</P> + +<P> +'Do you think I can POSSIBLY reach your arm?' as he held his elbow +crooked to about the level of her shoulder. 'You know I asked to be +sent in with you—it was rather bold of me, wasn't it? But if I had +known how VERY tall you are!' +</P> + +<P> +Mr McKeith lowered his arm, stooping over her, and Mrs Gildea heard him +say in a voice that sounded different somehow from his ordinary deep +drawl: +</P> + +<P> +'I wonder why I was chosen for this honour?' +</P> + +<P> +And Bridget's reply: +</P> + +<P> +'I'd been told that you were an explorer—that you're a kind of Bush +Cecil Rhodes—I don't know Mr Cecil Rhodes, but I have an adoration for +him—I wanted to talk to a real Bushman—I always felt that I should +like Australian Bushmen from Joan Gildea's description of them.... And +you....' +</P> + +<P> +The rest was lost, as the groups converged and the long line of couples +went forward. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 9 +</H3> + +<P> +It was not an altogether successful party. The dinner had portentous +suggestiveness; the Leidchardt'stonians were at first rather difficult. +Sir Luke a little too conscious of his responsibilities towards the +British Throne: Lady Tallant so brilliant as to be bewildering. But +except as it concerns Lady Bridget and McKeith, the Tallant's first +dinner-party at Government House is not of special importance in this +story. Mrs Gildea, very well occupied with Dr Plumtree, only caught +diagonal glimpses of her two friends a little lower down on the +opposite side of the table, and, in occasional lulls of conversation, +the musical ring of Lady Bridget's rapid chatter. Colin did not seem to +be talking much, but every time Mrs Gildea glanced at him, he appeared +absorbed in contemplation of the small pointed face and the farouche, +golden-brown eyes turned up to him from under the top heavy mass of +chestnut hair. Lady Bridget, at any rate, had a great deal to say for +herself, and Mrs Gildea wondered what was going to come of it all. +</P> + +<P> +Conversation became more general as champagne flowed and the courses +proceeded. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Luke, discreetly on the prowl for information, attacked Antipodean +questions—the Blacks for instance. He had observed the small company +of natives theatrically got up in the war-paint of former times, which, +grouped round the dais on which he had been received at the State +Landing, had furnished an effective bit of local colour to the pageant. +Up to what degree of latitude might these semi-civilised, and he feared +demoralised beings, be taken as a survival of the indigenous population +of Leichardt's Land? Did wild and dangerous Blacks still exist up north +and in the interior of the Colony? +</P> + +<P> +'You'd better ask McKeith about that, your Excellency,' said the +Premier. 'He knows more about the Blacks up north than any of us.' +</P> + +<P> +The Governor enquired as to the amenability of the Australian native to +missionary methods of civilisation, and one of the other Ministers +broke in with a laugh. +</P> + +<P> +'Bible in one hand and baccy in the other! No, Sir, the Exeter Hall and +General Gordon principles aren't workable with our Blacks. Kindness +doesn't do. The early pioneers soon found that out.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had stopped suddenly in her talk with Colin, and was +listening, her eyes glowering at her companion. +</P> + +<P> +'Why didn't kindness do?' she asked sharply. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes; Mr McKeith, tell us why the early pioneers abandoned the gentle +method,' said the Governor. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's face changed: it became dark and a dangerous fire blazed in +his blue eyes. +</P> + +<P> +'Because they found that the Blacks repaid kindness with +ingratitude—treachery—foul murder—' He pulled himself up as though +afraid of losing command of himself if he pursued the subject: his +voice thrilled with some deep-seated feeling. Mrs Gildea, who +understood the personal application, broke in across the table with an +apposite remark about her own early experiences of the Blacks. Lady +Bridget impatiently addressed McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'Go on. What do the Blacks do now to you people to make you treat them +unkindly?' +</P> + +<P> +'What do they do now—to us squatters you mean?' Colin had recovered +himself. 'Why they begin by spearing our cattle and then they take to +spearing ourselves.' +</P> + +<P> +'Did they ever spear you?' she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Colin smiled at her grimly. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, you wouldn't have noticed, of course, that I've got just a touch +of a limp—it's only if I'm not in my best form that it shows. I owe +that to a spear through my thigh one night that the Blacks rushed my +camp when I was asleep. And I'd given their gins rations that very +morning.' +</P> + +<P> +'And then?' Lady Bridget's voice was tense. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh then—after they'd murdered a white man or two, the rest of us +whites—there wasn't more than a handful of us at that time up on the +Leura—banded together and drove them off into the back country. We had +a dangerous job with those Blacks until King Mograbar was shot down.' +</P> + +<P> +'King Mograbar! How cruelly unjust. It was his country you were +STEALING.' She accentuated the last word with bitter scorn. +</P> + +<P> +'Well! If you come to that, I suppose Captain Cook was stealing when he +hoisted the British flag in Botany Bay,' said McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'And if he hadn't, what about the glorious British record, and the +March of Civilisation?' put in Vereker Wells. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget shot a scathing glance at the aide-de-camp. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't admire your glorious British record, I think it's nothing but +a record of robbery, murder, and cruelty, beginning with Ireland and +ending with South Africa.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! my dear!—I warn you,' said Lady Tallant, bending from her end of +the table and addressing the Leichardt'stonians generally. 'Lady +Bridget is a little Englander, a pro-Boer, a champion of the poor +oppressed native. If she had been alive then she'd have wanted to hand +India back to the Indians after the Mutiny, and now when she has made +Cecil Rhodes Emperor of Rhodesia, she'll give over all the rest again +to the Dutch.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget responded calmly to the indictment. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I would—if Cecil Rhodes were to decline the Emperorship of all +South Africa—which I should make his job.... But you'd better add on +that I'm a Socialist too, Rosamond, because I've become one, as you +know. I think the working man is in a shamefully unjust position, and +that the capitalists are no better than slave-drivers.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, not out here, my word!' exclaimed a Leichardt'stonian who happened +to be one of the old squattocracy. 'The landowners and the capitalists +are not slave-drivers, they are slave-driven. We've got to pay what the +Trades' Union organisers tell us—or else go without stockmen or +shearers. Fact is, our Labour War is only just beginning; and I can +tell you, Sir, that before a year is out the so-called bloated +capitalist and the sheep and cattle station owner will sing either +pretty big or very small.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think it will be very small—on MY station,' murmured McKeith. +'But it's quite true about the Labour War. They're organising, as they +call it, already all along the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +The Governor asked to have the Labour situation explained from the +squatters' point of view; and for a few minutes McKeith forgot to look +at Lady Bridget. He was on his own ground and knew what he was talking +about. +</P> + +<P> +'It's this way,' he began. 'You see, though, I'm cattle—and I'm the +furthest squatter out my way. But there are a few sheep stations down +the river, and there isn't an unlimited supply of either cattle-hands +or shearers, so we've got to look sharp about hiring them. Now, last +year, we—of course I'm classing myself with the sheep-owners, for we +all stand together—hired our shearers for seventeen shillings and +sixpence a day. Then, up come the Union organisers, form a Union of the +men and say to them: "You've got to pay ten shillings down to the Union +and sign a contract that you won't shear under twenty shillings a day." +The Organiser pockets the ten shillings, and makes three pounds a week +and his expenses besides, so it pays HIM pretty well. Well then, the +shearers go to the squatters. "All right," say they, "we'll shear your +sheep, but it's going to be twenty shillings instead of seventeen and +six." The squatters grumble, but they've got to have their sheep shorn, +and they pay the twenty shillings. Next year, I'm told, the word is to +go round that it's to be twenty-two and sixpence. Well sir, we're to +see what's to happen then!' +</P> + +<P> +The Labour talk lacked local picturesqueness. Sir Luke preferred the +Blacks, and started the question of danger to white men in the +out-districts. How far had officialdom penetrated into the back blocks? +He understood that Mr McKeith had explored for the laying of a +telegraph-line to the Big Bight. Could Mr McKeith give him any +information about all that? +</P> + +<P> +McKeith explained again. He had stopped a week, he said, at the last +outpost of Leichardt's land civilisation. The telegraph master there +lived in a hut made of sheets of corrugated zinc, raised on piles +twenty feet high and fortified against the Blacks. The entrance to it +was masked, spear-proof and had two men always on guard—there were +four men at the post. McKeith told a gruesome story of an assault by +the natives, and of rifles at work through gun-holes in the zinc tower. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget listened in silence. Now and then, she looked up at +McKeith, and, though her eyes gave forth ominous red-brown sparks, they +had in them something of the same unwilling fascination Joan Gildea had +noticed in the eyes of Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 10 +</H3> + +<P> +In the drawing room, before the men came in, Bridget talked to Joan +Gildea. They hadn't yet had, as Biddy reminded her, a regular +outpouring. The outpouring it should be stated, was always mostly on +Bridget's side. +</P> + +<P> +'When did you start Socialism?' Mrs Gildea asked. 'That's something +new, isn't it?' +</P> + +<P> +Biddy gave one of her slow smiles in which lips, eyes, brows, what +could be seen of them under her towzle of hair—all seemed to light up +together. +</P> + +<P> +'Why, I've always been a Socialist—in theory, you know. I've ALWAYS +rebelled against the established order of things.' +</P> + +<P> +'But latterly,' said Joan, 'I haven't heard anything about your +doings—not since you wrote from Castle Gaverick after—after Mr +Willoughby Maule's marriage?' +</P> + +<P> +The light died out of Bridget's face. 'Ah, I'll tell you—Do you know, +Rosamond saw them—the Willoughby Maules before we all left. She met +them at Shoolbred's—buying furniture. Rosamond said SHE was dragging +after him looking—a bundle—and cross and ill; and that he seemed +intensely bored. Poor Will!' +</P> + +<P> +There was silence, Bridget's thoughts seemed far away. +</P> + +<P> +'But about the Socialism?' prompted Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh well, Aunt Eliza made up her mind suddenly to consult her new +doctor—Aunt Eliza's chief excitement is changing her doctors, and she +grows quite youthful in the process. They say that love and religion +are the chief emotional interests of unattached women. I should add on +doctors when a woman is growing old. Don't you think, Joan, that in +that case, all three come invariably to the same thing?' +</P> + +<P> +'Love, religion and doctors! As emotional interests, do they come to +the same thing for elderly women?' repeated Mrs Gildea, as if she were +propounding a syllogism. 'No, certainly not, when the elderly woman +happens to be a hard-working journalist.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, there you have the pull—I suggested the idea to Rosamond the +other day and she gave a true Rosamondian answer. "They don't come at +all to the same thing," she said, "because usually you have to pay your +doctor and SOMETIMES your lover pays you." Rather smart, wasn't it?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, but I think you'd better warn Lady Tallant that the +Leichardt'stonian ladies are a bit Puritanical in their ideas of +repartee.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Rosamond is clever enough to have found that out already for +herself;' and the two glanced at Lady Tallant, who seemed to be playing +up quite satisfactorily to the female representatives of the +Ministerial circle. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you made friends with some Socialists when you were in +London?' went on Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'My dear, I would have made friends with Beelzebub just them, if he +would have helped me to escape from myself.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget sighed and paused. +</P> + +<P> +'But you ARE getting over it, Biddy—the disappointment about Mr Maule? +You ARE growing not to care?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't want to grow not to care—though, of course, now I should +prefer to care about someone or something that isn't Willoughby Maule, +I feel inside me that my salvation lies in caring—in caring +intensely.... But you wouldn't understand, Joan. You weren't built that +way.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' assented Mrs Gildea doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +'But,' went on Biddy brightly, 'I think sometimes that if one could get +to the pitch of feeling nothing matters, it would be a way of reaching +the "letting go" stage which one MUST arrive at before one can even +BEGIN to live in the Eternal.' +</P> + +<P> +There seemed something a little comic in the notion of Bridget O'Hara +living in the Eternal, and yet Mrs Gildea realised that there really +was a certain stable quality underneath the flashing, ever changing +temperamental sheath, which might perhaps form a base for the Verities +to rest upon. +</P> + +<P> +'Beelzebub didn't teach you that,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'No, quite the contrary. It all came out of my concentration studies +and the Higher Thought Centre where I met some most original +dears—Christian Scientists and Spiritualists—and then these +Socialists—not a bit on the lines of the old Fabians and Bernard +Shavians and the rest who used to believe only in Matter—specially +landed property matter—and in parcelling that out among themselves. My +friends are for parcelling out what they call the Divine Intelligence, +which they say will bring them everything they need for the good of +others and, incidentally, themselves. Of course none of them have a +penny. But they do contrive to get what they want for other people—it +was a soup kitchen this winter where they fed 11,000 starving poor. +Only, when they begin, they never have the smallest idea of HOW it's +going to be done.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget was so absorbed in her subject matter that she did not +notice the entrance of the men; but Mrs Gildea saw that Colin McKeith +was making straight towards them. He halted behind Bridget's chair. +Biddy went on in reply to a question from her friend. +</P> + +<P> +'You see, they argue this way, "We don't know," they say, "the HOW of +the simplest things in life, we don't know the HOW of our actual +existence—how we move or think—not even the HOW of the most ordinary +fact in science. We only know that there must be an Intelligence who +does know and who has forces at command and the power to set them in +motion."' +</P> + +<P> +'And how do we know that?' asked Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget turned with a start and looked at him solemnly for a second or +two. +</P> + +<P> +'You paralyse me: you are too big. I can't speak to you when you are +standing up. Please sit down.' +</P> + +<P> +He went to fetch a chair. At the moment, Lady Tallant came up. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, will you sing. Do for Heaven's sake make a sensation. Help me +out! You know how!' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had a funny inscrutable little smile and a gleam in her +eyes which crinkled up when she was going to say or do something rather +naughty. +</P> + +<P> +'I'll do my best, Rosamond. But you don't think it would be a dangerous +experiment, do you?' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Tallant laughed, and told Captain Vereker Wells to take her to the +piano. +</P> + +<P> +'YOU know that Biddy does a lot of mischief when she sings,' said the +Governor's wife, sitting down in Lady Bridget's vacant place beside Mrs +Gildea. Colin McKeith, still on the outskirts with his chair, stood +leaning upon it, watching the performer. +</P> + +<P> +The piano was in such a position that Lady Bridget faced him. +</P> + +<P> +A vain man might have fancied that she was singing at him, and that the +by-play of her song—the sudden eye-brightenings, the little twists of +her mouth, the head gestures, were for his particular benefit. +</P> + +<P> +She was singing one of the Neapolitan folk-songs which one hears along +the shores of the Mediterranean beyond Marseilles—a love song. +</P> + +<P> +Most people know that particular love-song. Lady Bridget gave it with +all the tricks and all the verve and whimsical audacity of a born +Italian singer. Well, she was Italian—on one side at least, and had +inherited the tricks and a certain quality of voice, irresistibly +catching. And she looked captivating as she sang—the small pointed +face within its frame of reddish-brown hair, the strange eyes, the +expressive red lips, alive with coquetry. The men—even the old +politicians, listened and stared, quite fascinated. +</P> + +<P> +Some of the Leichardt's Town ladies—good, homely wives and mothers +who, in their early married days of struggle, had toiled and cooked and +sewed, with no time to imagine an aspect of the Eternal Feminine of +which they had never had any experience, were perhaps a little shocked, +perhaps a little regretful. One or two others, younger, with budding +aspirations, but provincial in their ideals, were filled with wonder +and vague envy. +</P> + +<P> +A few of them had made the usual trip 'Home,' landing at Naples and +journeying to London, via Monte Carlo and Paris, and these felt they +had missed something in that journey which Lady Bridget was now +revealing to them. Joan Gildea, whose profession it was to realise +vividly such modes of life as came within her purview, felt herself +once more in the blue lands girdling the Sea of Story—It all came back +upon her—moonlight nights in Naples; on the Chiaja; looking down from +her windows on sunny gardens on the Riviera, and the strolling +minstrels in front of the hotel.... +</P> + +<P> +As for Colin McKeith who had never been in the Blue Land and knew +little even of the British Isles except for London—chiefly around St +Paul's School, Hammersmith—and the Scotch Manse where he had +occasionally spent his holidays—even he was transported from the +Government House drawing-room. Where? .... Not to the realm of visions +such as he had seen in the smoke of his camp fire. Oh no. He had never +dreamed of this kind of enchantment. +</P> + +<P> +A fresh impulse seized the singer. She struck a few chords. A familiar +lilt sounded. Her face and manner changed. She burst into the famous +song of CARMEN. She WAS CARMEN. One could almost see the swaying form, +the seductive flirt of fan. There could be no doubt that had the voice +been more powerful, Lady Bridget might have done well on the operatic +stage. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it had a TIMBRE, a peculiar, devil-may-care passion which produced +a very thrilling effect upon her audience. She got up when she had +finished in a dead silence and was half-way across the room before the +applause burst out. There was a little rush of men towards her. +</P> + +<P> +'Beats Zelie de Lussan and runs Calve hard,' said the Premier who had +made more than one trip to England and considered himself an authority +in the matter. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget skimmed through the groups of admirers, stopping to murmur +something to Lady Tallant who had met her half way; then stopped with +hands before her like a meek schoolgirl, in front of Mrs Gildea and +Colin McKeith—he almost the only man who had made no movement towards +her. Bridget sank into her former seat. +</P> + +<P> +'The last time I sang that was at a Factory Girls' entertainment at +Poplar,' she said... 'You should have seen them, Joan: they stood up +and tried to sing in chorus and some of them came on to the platform +and danced.... Mr McKeith you look at me as if I had been doing +something desperately improper. Don't you like the music of CARMEN?' +</P> + +<P> +Colin was staring at her dazedly. +</P> + +<P> +'It seemed to me a kind of witchcraft,' he said.... 'I should think you +might go on the stage and make a fortune like Melba.' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. 'Why my voice is a very poor thing. And besides, I could +never depend upon it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Everything just how you feel at the time, eh?' he said. 'You wouldn't +care what you did if you had a mind to do it.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' she answered. 'I shouldn't care in the least what I did if I had +a mind to do it.' +</P> + +<P> +There was the faintest mimicry of his half Scotch, half Australian +accent in her voice—a little husky, with now and then unsuspected +modulations. She looked at him and the gleam in her eyes and her +strange smile made him stare at her in a sort of fascination. Joan knew +those tricks of hers and knew that they boded mischief. She got up at +the moment saying that people were going and that she must bid Lady +Tallant good-night. +</P> + +<P> +Then the Premier's wife came up shyly; she wanted to thank Lady Bridget +for her singing. It had been as good as the Opera—They sometimes had +good opera companies in Leichardt's Town, etcetera, etcetera. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget made the prettiest curtsey, which bewildered the Premier's +wife and gave her food for speculation as to the manners and customs of +the British aristocracy. She had always understood you only curtsied to +Royalty. But she took it as a great compliment and never said anything +but kind words about Bridget ever after. +</P> + +<P> +Colin McKeith escorted Mrs Gildea to her cab and as they waited in the +vestibule, obtained from her a few more particulars of Lady Bridget +O'Hara's parentage and conditions. But he said not a word implying that +he had discovered her identity with the author of the typed letter. +</P> + +<P> +'I'll come along to-morrow morning if I can manage it, and tell you +about Alexandra City and the Gas-Bore,' he said carelessly as she shut +the fly door. Joan wondered whether he had caught Lady Biddy's parting +words in the drawing room. +</P> + +<P> +'If Rosamond doesn't insist on my doing some stuffy exploration with +her, I'll bring my sketches some time in the morning, Joan, and you can +see whether any of them would do for the great god Gibbs.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 11 +</H3> + +<P> +'And what are you going to do, Biddy? How long are you going to stay +with the Tallants?' +</P> + +<P> +'Until Rosamond gets tired of me—or I feel no further need of the +moral support of the British Throne,' answered Lady Bridget lightly. +'I'm not sure whether I shall be able to stand Luke's Jingo attitude in +regard to Labour and the Indigenous Population—all the Colonial +problems in capitals, observe. He does take his position so +strenuously; it's no good my reminding him that even the Queen is +obliged to respect a Constitutional government.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget took a cigarette from a gold case with her initials in tiny +precious stones across it, and handed the case to Mrs Gildea who shook +her head. +</P> + +<P> +'Still too old-fashioned to smoke! I should have thought you'd have +been driven to it here to keep the mosquitoes at a distance.... +</P> + +<P> +'Do you like my case, Joan? Willoughby Maule gave it to me,' she asked. +</P> + +<P> +'You didn't return it then?' +</P> + +<P> +'Why should I have hurt his feelings? We weren't engaged.' A meditative +pause and then suddenly, 'Evelyn Mary doesn't smoke. Nice girls don't!' +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, I shall be sorry for Evelyn Mary if the Maules are to live in +London and you go back there again—which I suppose you will do.' +</P> + +<P> +'You needn't suppose for certain that I shall go back.' She savoured +her cigarette slowly. 'I can't go on with that old life, the sort of +life one has to lead with Aunt Eliza and the Gavericks and their set. I +can't go on pushing and striving and rushing here and there in order to +be seen at the right houses and join the hunt after fleeing eligibles.' +</P> + +<P> +She gave a bitter little laugh, and then her tone changed to that +ripple of frivolity in which nevertheless Mrs Gildea discerned the +under-beat of tragedy. +</P> + +<P> +'Besides, even so, it's incongruous—impossible. I've come to the +conclusion that the only things which make London—as I've known +it—endurable are unlimited credit at a good dressmaker—Oh, and one of +the beautiful new motor-cars. You don't mind travelling from Dan to +Beersheba if you can do it in five minutes. But when you've got to +catch omnibuses or take the Tube, dressed in garden-party finery—well +it's all too disproportionate and tiresome.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea laughed. 'You must remember that I am out of all your fine +social business—except when I go as a reporter or look on from the +upper boxes.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's abominable: it's stifling,' exclaimed Lady Biddy, 'it kills all +the best part of one. You know I've tried time after time to strike out +on my own individual self, but I've always been brought back again by +my hopeless, hopeless lack of practical knowledge of how to earn a +livelihood. The one gift I'd inherited wasn't good enough to be of any +use—If my mother had only left me the whole of her voice, I'd have +been an opera-singer. But I don't think I could have stood the +drudgery—and I should have hated the publicity of it all.... Joan, how +did you ever manage to make yourself independent?' +</P> + +<P> +'By drudging,' said Mrs Gildea dryly. 'Besides, I was born differently. +And I was brought up with practical people.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mr McKeith, for instance. He told me about his having been what he +called a "cattle new-chum" on your father's station.' +</P> + +<P> +'He wasn't exactly a "new-chum." His father had owned a sheep-station +up in the unsettled districts. There was a tragedy—the place was sold +up when Colin was a boy. He wanted to learn how we did things further +south—and besides, he was left without a penny—that's how he came to +be with us.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! ... anyway, he's practical. But it isn't that side of him that +appeals to me. He believes in Missions—in a sort of way.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea laughed uneasily. 'So you have discovered the streak of +idealism in Colin. But'—she veered off hastily, 'I didn't want to talk +about Colin McKeith. What I want is to hear about your own state of +mind.' +</P> + +<P> +'My state of mind! That's chaotic. The fact is, I feel in a horrible +sort of transition state.... It's just as if one were trying to wind a +skein backwards—taking up one end and finding a confusion of knots; +then, taking up another and after forcing a few of the knots, giving +the thing up in despair. One knows the right end is there, but how to +find it through all that hopeless, woolly tangle!' +</P> + +<P> +'Still, you must have learned something about how to wind your skein +while you've been working through your various enterprises,' said Mrs +Gildea. She took up one of Bridget's sketches which were on the table +and looked at it thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +'This is quite charming, Biddy—if only it wasn't too fine for +reproduction. The block would cost more than the thing is worth.' +</P> + +<P> +Biddy made a MOUE. 'Oh, I know. Like me isn't it? Impracticable. But I +COULD do you some illustrations. I drew Rosamond entertaining the +Ministerial Circle last night and showed it to Vereker Wells while we +were waiting for breakfast. He nearly died with laughing. I couldn't +have dared to let Luke see it.' +</P> + +<P> +'That I can believe. And I should be murdered by the Leichardt'stonians +if I allowed it to be published. But if you'd come with me through the +Blue Mountains and caricature yourself exploring the Jenolan +Caves—like the "Lady of Quality" in the Dolomite Country I could do +something with that.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea alluded to their first and only collaboration as author and +artist. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I might. We'll think about it. And if I did perhaps I could make +money enough to keep me out here for a year or two travelling about.' +</P> + +<P> +Joan Gildea looked up in a startled way from the drawing she had been +studying, and asked with some eagerness: +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, do you really mean that you are thinking of stopping out here +for a year or two?' +</P> + +<P> +'I do. I want to shake myself free from the old clogs. I want to be +honest with myself and with—with the people who ARE honest with +themselves. I've always envied you, Joan. Your life is real at least. +You can put your finger on vital pulse beats. I should like to do as +you are doing, study and learn from a country that has no traditions, +but is making itself. I want to breathe Nature unadulterated—if I +could only reach the reality of her. Joan, I have the feeling that if +one could go right up to the Bush—far away from the Government House +atmosphere and Luke Tallant's red-tapism and the stupid imitation of +our English social shams—well, I think one might touch a more vital +set of heart-beats than the heart-beats of civilization.' +</P> + +<P> +'You are off civilization, Biddy?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes I am, I've had a horrible time. I was quite reckless and spent far +too much on clothes and things—but that's not what matters—it's the +effect on one's inner self that matters. And now I'm going through the +pangs of revulsion, and just wondering where I can find anything that's +true and satisfying. I believe it may be a kind of birth into a new +life—coming out here you know and all the rest.' +</P> + +<P> +She stopped, her long golden brown eyes fixed Sphinx-like on Joan, who +returned the gaze, but did not answer in words. Biddy went on: 'YOUR +work is practical—not idealistic. I believe the truth of it all is +that the idealists haven't built up on a practical basis. There's too +much POSE. Joan, I do think it's only the pinch of starvation that +knocks down the ridiculous POSE of people.' +</P> + +<P> +'True enough. Your cranks don't get much beyond POSE.—They think they +do, but they don't.' +</P> + +<P> +'Even the ones who believe in themselves—and who are in their way +truly sincere. Joan, do you know, there were moments at the meetings I +went to of those people—Christian Scientists, and my Spiritual +Socialists, and all those philo-factory-girls and tramps, and +philo-beasts, and philo-blacks and the rest of it—Moments when a +ghastly wonder would come over me whether, if we were all stranded on a +desert island with a shortage of food and water, it wouldn't be a case +of fighting for bare existence and of Nature red of tooth and claw.' +</P> + +<P> +'True for you, Lady Bridget. I like the way that's put,' broke in a +voice from the other side of the veranda railing. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget started and looked round, a sudden flush rushing upon the +ivory paleness of her face. If she had not had her back turned to the +garden; if she had not left the gate open behind her, and if the wind +in the bamboos had not then made a noisy rustling, she would have seen +the visitor or heard his steps on the gravel path. Or if she had not +been so absorbed in her subject and her cigarette she might have +noticed that Mrs Gildea had looked up quickly a minute before and given +a mute signal to the intruder not to interrupt the conversation +untowardly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 12 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget recovered herself as Colin McKeith mounted the steps and +made the two ladies a rather self-conscious salute. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you know that's a quotation,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'Weren't you a bit out?' he answered, and repeated the phrase. 'Excuse +my correcting you.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget shrugged. +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you. But I always thought men of action weren't great readers. +How did you do your reading?' +</P> + +<P> +'Some day—if you care to hear—I'll tell you.' +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him interestedly. 'Yes, I should care to hear.' +</P> + +<P> +'Not now,' put in Mrs Gildea. 'You've come this morning to tell us +about the Gas-Bore at Alexandra City, and, as it's got to go into my +next letter, I shall take some notes. Do look for a comfortable chair, +Colin, and you may smoke if you want to.' +</P> + +<P> +'This is good enough,' and he settled himself after his own fashion at +Lady Bridget's feet with his back against the veranda post and his long +legs sprawling over the steps. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget leaned out of the depths of her deep canvas chair and +offered him her cigarette case. +</P> + +<P> +He eyed it in amused criticism—the dull gold of the case, and the +initials in diamonds, sapphires and rubies set diagonally across it. +</P> + +<P> +'YOUR writing?' +</P> + +<P> +Again the faint pink rose in her paleness. +</P> + +<P> +'No, it's the writing of the person who gave it to me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Was it a man?' he asked bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget looked at him with slight haughtiness. +</P> + +<P> +'Really, Mr McKeith, I think you are—inquisitive.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I am. And I've Bush manners—not up to your form. Please excuse +my impertinence.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't mind Bush manners. They're—rather refreshing sometimes.... +But'—again extending and then half-withdrawing her offering hand. +'You'd despise my cigarettes?' +</P> + +<P> +He made an eager movement. +</P> + +<P> +'No I shouldn't. Choose me one, won't you—two—if I may have one to +keep.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why to keep?' She selected two of the dainty gold-tipped cigarettes, +and he received them almost as if they had been sacred symbols. One he +placed carefully, notwithstanding her laughing protest, in a +letter-case which he carried in an inner pocket. She tilted her face +forward for him to light the other cigarette at hers, and he did so, +always with that suggestion of reverence which sat so oddly upon him. +Mrs Gildea watching the pair was immensely struck by it. +</P> + +<P> +He smoked in silence for a few moments, his eyes still apparently +fascinated by the glittering initials on the case which now Bridget +attached to her chatelaine chain. She threw away the end of her +cigarette. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, so you've become the Governor's unconstitutional adviser?' she +said. 'Joan, do you know that Luke Tallant kept Mr McKeith talking and +smoking in the loggia just below my bedroom for hours last night after +every one had gone—I know, because I couldn't get to sleep.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith had all compunction, 'I'm downright sorry for that, Lady +Bridget. I'd have gone away if I'd only guessed your room was up above.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, it didn't matter. I'd lots to think about—my own shortcomings and +Luke's responsibilities.' +</P> + +<P> +'He takes them—hard,' hazarded McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'I hope you gave him good advice,' put in Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's lips twisted into a humorous smile. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I told Sir Luke that I didn't think he need bother himself just +yet awhile over that northern tour of inspection he's talking about.' +</P> + +<P> +'He wants to make a kind of royal progress, Joan, through the +Back-Blocks,' said Lady Biddy. +</P> + +<P> +'It'll mean a bit of stiff riding,' said McKeith, 'but I've offered to +show him round the Upper Leura anyway, and to find him a quiet hack.' +</P> + +<P> +'Rosamond flatly declines the Royal Progress,' said Bridget. 'I'm +coming instead of her.' +</P> + +<P> +'Can you ride?' he asked. +</P> + +<P> +'CAN I ride—Can any O'Hara ride! You needn't find ME a quiet hack.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right,' said McKeith. 'But I wouldn't make sure of that by putting +you on a buckjumper. It's a bargain then, Lady Bridget.' +</P> + +<P> +'A bargain—what?' +</P> + +<P> +'You promise to pay me a visit when the Governor makes his trip +north—when he carries out his notion of establishing military patrols +and a Maxim gun or two to put down Trades-Unionism and native outrages +in the Back-Blocks?' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget looked at him thoughtfully. He had pulled out his tobacco +pouch and was filling a well-worn pipe. 'You won't mind my pipe, will +you—as you're a smoker yourself. Mrs Gildea likes it best—And so do +I.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget sniffed his raw tobacco and made a tiny moue. 'Well, if +you prefer that—No, of course I don't mind. I see,' she went on, 'that +you favour the Maxim gun idea, Mr McKeith. I understand that you're one +of the Oppressors; and you and I wouldn't agree on that point.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr McKeith returned her look, all the hardness in his face softening to +an expression of almost tender indulgence. +</P> + +<P> +'We'd see about that. I might convert you—but in the Back-Blocks.' +</P> + +<P> +'Or I might convert YOU.' +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head, and then laughed in a shy, boyish way. +</P> + +<P> +'There's no knowing what might happen—but in the Back-Blocks.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget leaned forward. 'Tell me about them—Tell me about your +life in the Bush and what makes you hate the Blacks.' +</P> + +<P> +'What makes me hate the Blacks?' he repeated slowly and the soft look +on his face changed now to one very dour and grim. +</P> + +<P> +'You do hate them, don't you? Mr McKeith, the Premier told me something +about you last night, which simply filled me with horror. If I believed +it—or unless I knew that what you did had been in honourable warfare, +I don't think I could bear to speak to you again. Now, I'm going to ask +you if it's true.' +</P> + +<P> +'If what is true? Lady Bridget, I'll tell you the truth if you ask me +for it, about anything I've done. But—I warn you—ugly things +happen—in the Back-Blocks.' +</P> + +<P> +'The Premier said that you were the terror of the natives. He told me +about a gun you have with a great many notches on the barrel of it, and +he said that each notch represented a black-fellow that you had killed.' +</P> + +<P> +'I never killed a black-fellow except in fair fight, or under lawful +provocation. Many a time one of them has sneaked a spear at me from +behind a gum tree; and I'd have been done for if I hadn't been keeping +a sharp look-out.' +</P> + +<P> +'But you were taking their land,' Lady Bridget exclaimed impetuously, +'you had come, an invader, into their territory. What right had you to +do that? You were the aggressor. And you can't judge them by the moral +laws of civilised humanity. They fought in the only way they +understood.' +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget, there are moral laws, which all humanity—civilised or +savage understands. I'm not saying that no white man in the Bush has +ever violated these laws, I'm not saying that the Blacks hadn't +something on their side. I'm only saying that in my experience—it was +the black man and not the white man who was the aggressor. And when you +ask me what made me hate the Blacks—well—it isn't a pretty +story—but, if you like, I'll tell it to you some time.' +</P> + +<P> +'Tell me now,' she exclaimed, 'Oh, Joan ... Won't your notes keep?' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea had got up, a sheaf of pencils and a reporter's note book in +her hand. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, for a few minutes. But I've just remembered something I've got to +refer to in one of Mr Gibbs' letters. Don't mind me; I'll be back +presently.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith seemed to take no heed of her departure; his eyes were fixed on +Lady Bridget; there was in them a light of inward excitement. +</P> + +<P> +'Please go on,' she said, 'I want so much to hear.' +</P> + +<P> +He thought for a few moments, shook the ashes from his pipe and then +plunged into his story. +</P> + +<P> +'I've got to go back to when I was quite a youngster—taken from +school—I went to St Paul's in the Hammersmith Road—just before I was +seventeen. You see before that my father had scraped together his +little bit of money and we'd been living in West Kensington waiting +while he made out what we were all going to do. He wasn't any great +shakes, my father, in the way of birth, and fortune. I daresay, you +guessed that, Lady Bridget?' +</P> + +<P> +She tossed her head back impatiently. 'Oh what DOES that matter! Go on, +please.' +</P> + +<P> +'He'd been a farmer, Glasgow way'—McKeith still pronounced it +'Glesca,' 'and my mother was a minister's daughter, as good a woman and +as true a lady as ever breathed. But that's neither here nor there in +what turned out a bad business. Well, we all emigrated out here, and, +after a while, my old dad bought a station on the Lower Leura—taken in +he was, of course, over the deal, and not realising that it was +unsettled country in those days. So the whole family of us started up +from the coast to it.... He drove my mother and my two sisters just +grown up, and a woman servant—Marty—in a double buggy, and Jerry the +bullock driver and me in the dray with him and taught me to drive +bullocks. There were stock-boys, two of them riding along side. +</P> + +<P> +'It took us three and a half weeks, to reach the station, averaging +about thirty miles a day and camping out each night. +</P> + +<P> +'I'd like you to camp out in the Bush sometime, Lady Bridget, right +away from everything—it'ud be an experience that 'ud live with you all +your life—My word! It's like nothing else—lying straight under the +Southern Cross and watching its pointers, and, one by one, the stars +coming up above the gum trees—and the queer wild smell of the gums and +the loneliness of it all—not a sound until the birds begin at dawn but +the HOP-HOP of the Wallabies, and the funny noises of opossums, and the +crying of the curlews and native dogs—dingoes we call 'em.... Well, +there! I won't bother you with all that—though, truly, I tell you, +it's the nearest touch with the Infinite I'VE ever known.... Lord! I +remember the first night I camped right in the Bush—me rolled in my +blanket on one side of the fire, and Leura-Jim the black-boy on the +other. And the wonder of it all coming over me as I lay broad awake +thinking of the contrast between London and its teeming millions—and +the awful solitude of the Bush.... I wonder if your blood would have +run cold as mine did when the grass rustled under stealthy footsteps +and me thinking it was the blacks sneaking us—and the relief of +hearing three dismal howls and knowing it was dingoes and not blacks.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'd have loved it' murmured Bridget tensely. 'Go on, please.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I've got to come to the tragedy. It began this way through an +act of kindness on our journey up. We were going through the +bunya-bunya country not far from our station, when out of the Bush +there came a black gin with two half-caste girls, she ran up and +stopped the buggy and implored my mother's protection for her girls +because the Blacks wanted to kill and eat them.' +</P> + +<P> +'O ... oh!' Biddy made a shuddering exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +'Didn't I say the Blacks hadn't everything on their side—I ought to +explain though that in our district were large forests of a kind of +pine—there's one in this garden,' and he pointed to a pyramidal fir +tree with spreading branches of small pointed leaves spiked at the +ends, and with a cone of nuts about the size of a big man's head, +hanging from one of the branches. +</P> + +<P> +'That's the bunya-bunya, and the nuts are splendid roasted in the +ashes—if ever that one gets properly ripe—it has to be yellow, you +know—I'll ask Joan Gildea to let me roast it for you. Only it wouldn't +be the same thing at all as when it's done in a fire of gum logs, the +nuts covered with red ashes, and then peeled and washed down with +quartpot tea....' +</P> + +<P> +'Quartpot tea! What a lot you'll have to show me if—if I ever come to +your station in the Back-Blocks.' +</P> + +<P> +'Different from your London Life, eh? ... Your balls and dinners and +big shows and coaching meets in Hyde Park, and all the rest of the +flummery! Different, too, from your kid-glove fox-hunts over grass +fields and trimmed hedges and puddles of ditches—the sort of thing +you've been accustomed to, Lady Bridget, when you've gone out from your +castle for a sporting spree!' +</P> + +<P> +'A sporting spree!' She laughed with a child's merriment, and he joined +in the laugh, 'It's clear to me, Mr McKeith, that you've never hunted +in Ireland. And how did you know, by the way, that I'd lived in a +castle?' +</P> + +<P> +'I was led to believe that a good many of your kind owned historic +castles which your forefathers had won and defended with the sword,' he +answered, a little embarrassed. +</P> + +<P> +'That's true enough.... But if you could see Castle Gaverick! My old +Aunt is always talking of restoring it, but she never will, and if my +cousin Chris Gaverick ever does come into it, he'd rather spend his +money in doing something else.... But never mind that.... I want to +hear about the black gin and the half-caste girls, and if your mother +saved them from the cannibals ... and why the blacks wanted to eat +their own kind. Dog doesn't eat dog—at least, so they tell one.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's this way. Our blacks weren't regular cannibals, but in the bunya +season they'd all collect in the scrubs and feed on the nuts and +nothing else for months. Then after a bit they'd get meat-hungry, and +there not being many wild animals in Australia and only a few cattle in +those outlying districts, they'd satisfy their cravings by killing and +eating some of themselves—lubras—young girls—by preference, and, +naturally, half-castes, as having no particular tribal status, for +choice.' +</P> + +<P> +'Half-castes!' She repeated, a little puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +'These ones had Chinky blood in them—daughters of a Chinaman +fossicker.... We're not partial to the Chinese in Australia—only we +don't eat them, we expel them—methods just a bit dissimilar, but the +principle the same, you see.... Anyway, of course we took on the gin +and her girls, and for about a year didn't have any particular trouble +at the station with the blacks—though there was a shepherd speared in +one of the out-huts.... That was his fault, however, poor devil—the +old story—but it don't matter. The trouble came to a head with a black +boy, called Leura-Jimmy, that Jerry the bullock-driver brought up with +him and left at the station where he went down to the township for +store supplies—He took me with him—I told you I was learning +bullock-driving....' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith paused, and the dark look came upon his face. +</P> + +<P> +'And Leura-Jimmy?' put in Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, he was a fine, big fellow—plausible, too, and could speak pidgin +English—he was never weaned from his tribe, and he was a treacherous +scoundrel at heart.... As a precautionary measure, my father forbade +the blacks to come up to the head-station. But Jimmy fell in love with +the eldest of the half-caste girls. She encouraged him at first, then +took up with one of the stock-boys.... +</P> + +<P> +'It was the bunya season again, and the girls' old tribe, under their +King Mograbar—a devil incarnate in a brute—I sent him to Hell +afterwards with my own hand and never did a better deed'—McKeith's +brown fists clenched and the fury in his eyes blazed so that he himself +looked almost devilish for a moment. His face remained very grim and +dour as he proceeded. +</P> + +<P> +'Jimmy had got to know through the half-caste girl about our ways and +doings, and he made a diabolic plot with King Mograbar to get the +blacks into the house.... Every living soul was murdered ...surprised +in their sleep ... My father ... my mother ... my sisters ... God! ... +I can't speak of it....' +</P> + +<P> +He got up abruptly, jerking his long legs, and went to the further end +of the veranda, where he stood with set features and brows like a red +bar, below which staring eyes were fixed vacantly upon the avenue of +bunya trees in the long walk of the Botanical Gardens across the river. +But they did not see those bunya trees. What they saw was a row of +mutilated bodies, lying stark along the veranda of that head-station on +the Leura. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget was leaning forward in her squatter's chair, her fingers +grasping the arms of it, her face very white and her eyes staring too, +as though they also beheld the scene of horror. +</P> + +<P> +Presently McKeith came back, pale too, but quite composed. +</P> + +<P> +'I beg your pardon,' he said stiffly. 'Perhaps I should not have told +you.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's—horrible. But I'm glad to know. Thank you for telling me.' +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her wistfully. There was silence for a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +'And you ... you ... where were you?' she stammered. +</P> + +<P> +'Me! I was with the drays, you know. We got back about noon that +day.... If we'd been twelve hours sooner! Well, I suppose I should have +been murdered with the rest.... The blacks had gone off with their +loot.... We ... we buried our dead.... And then we ran up our best +horses and never drew rein for forty miles till we'd got to where a +band of the Native Police were camped.... And then ... we took what +vengeance we could.... It wasn't complete till a long time afterwards.' +</P> + +<P> +He was standing behind Bridget's chair, his eyes still gazing beyond +the river. He did not notice that she leaned back suddenly, and her +hands fell nervelessly to her lap. He felt a touch on his arm. It was +Mrs Gildea, who had come out to the veranda again. 'Colin,' she said, +'I want you to go and bring me my typewriter from the parlour. And then +you've got to dictate "copy," about the Alexandra City Gas-Bore. Please +go at once.' +</P> + +<P> +He obeyed. Mrs Gildea bent over Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy! ... You're not faint, are you?' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget roused herself and looked up at her friend rather +wildly.... 'No.... What do you take me for? ... I said I wanted real +things, Joan ... And I've got them.' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed a little hysterically. +</P> + +<P> +'All right! But we shall give you a taste of real Australia that isn't +quite so gruesome. That some of the tragedy belongs to the pioneer +days.... I could tell you things myself that my father has told me. ... +But I won't.... Mind, Colin McKeith is no more of a hero than a dozen +bush boys I knew when I first knew him. Yes, put it there, Colin, +please.... And now, if Biddy doesn't mind, we'll proceed to business, +which is my IMPERIALIST Letter. I suppose you haven't brought back any +snapshots of Alexandra City and your wonderful Gas-Bore that Mr Gibbs +could get worked up for his paper?' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 13 +</H3> + +<P> +That was not the only time Lady Bridget and McKeith met on Mrs Gildea's +veranda. In fact, Biddy, reminiscent of wild sea-excursions along the +shore by Castle Gaverick, developed a passion for what she called tame +boating on the Leichardt River. She found a suitable skiff in the +boat-house—the Government House grounds sloped to the water's edge, +and would row herself up and down the river reaches. It was easy to +round the point, skirt the Botanical Gardens, and, crossing above the +ferry, land below Mrs Gildea's cottage, then climb up the bank and +enter by a lower gate to the garden. Thus she would often turn up +unexpectedly of mornings for a chat with her friend in the veranda +study. +</P> + +<P> +At this time, Colin McKeith contracted a similar habit. He showed a +still greater interest in Mrs Gildea's journalistic work and professed +a strong desire to enlighten British statesmen, through the medium of +Mr Gibbs' admirable paper, on certain Imperial questions affecting +Australia—the danger of a Japanese invasion in the northern +waters—the establishment of a naval base by Germany in New Guinea—the +Yellow Labour Problem and so forth. He would intersperse his political +dissertation with racy bits of description of life in the Bush, and +would give the points of view of pearl fishers, miners, loafers, +officials in out-of-the-way townships, Labour reformers, sheep and +cattle owners—all of which vastly amused Lady Bridget, and was +valuable 'copy,' typed unscrupulously by Mrs Gildea. In fact, she owed +to it much of the success which, later, attended her journalistic +venture. Mrs Gildea thought at first that the 'copy' would be more +easily obtainable in the intervals before and after Lady Bridget's +arrival, or on the days when she failed to come. But, finding that +Colin was distinctly at his best as a narrator with Biddy for an +audience, she artfully arranged to take her notes under those +conditions. This lasted two or three weeks, during which period Sir +Luke and Lady Tallant conscientiously improved their acquaintance with +the new sphere of their labours. They visited hospitals, inspected +public buildings, inaugurated social schemes, and, to the strains of +'God Save the Queen,' performed many other insignificant public +functions, from which, as often as not, their guest, Lady Bridget, +basely cried off. +</P> + +<P> +On one such occasion, Joan, arrayed in her best, had patriotically gone +forth on a steaming March day to support their Excellencies, fondly +expecting that, as arranged, Lady Bridget and Colin would meet her. But +Lady Tallant, looking distinctly cross, accompanied the Governor alone. +Bridget, it appeared, had come down, just as the carriage drove up, in +her morning frock and garden hat, saying that she had a bad headache +and meant to spend the afternoon in a hammock by the river bank. As for +Colin, there was no sign of him. +</P> + +<P> +But when Mrs Gildea got home very tired, and hot she was made extremely +angry by hearing the voices of Lady Bridget and McKeith in the veranda +where they were drinking tea and, it seemed, holding a confidential +conversation. Mrs Gildea's gorge rose higher. She had to stop a minute +to try and recover her temper. Here was Biddy disburdening herself to +Colin of her family troubles and short-comings, showing herself and +them in the worst light, singing small to a man with whom it was highly +desirable she should maintain her dignity. Instead of that, she was +deliberately pulling down the barrier of rank and social position which +should exist between Lady Bridget O'Hara and the Factor's son, the +Out-Back squatter—Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +Biddy was saying: 'Oh, but you're as bad as that sort of person who +can't be made to realise that the oldest peerage in Ireland counts for +nothing in comparison with an oil-king's millions and being able to +entertain the right set.... And besides, really Mr McKeith, there's no +difference at all between us. You talk such a lot about YOUR +grandfather having been a Scotch peasant. Why! MY mother's father was +an Italian beggar—Ugh! haven't you seen them with their crutches and +things on the steps of the churches?—And my mother sang in the streets +of Naples until a kind musician heard her and had her trained to be a +opera singer.' +</P> + +<P> +'Your mother?' +</P> + +<P> +'My mother! That's where my CARMEN comes from—only that my voice, I'm +told, isn't to be compared with what hers was.... But that's not the +worst about my mother. Not that I blame her. I think that a woman has a +perfect right to leave her husband if she has ceased to care for him, +and that it's far more moral to live with a man you love and can't +marry, than with a husband you hate.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea cut short Lady Bridget's exposition of her views on morality +before McKeith had time to answer. Her voice was sharp as she went up +the steps and arraigned the pair. +</P> + +<P> +'Really, Biddy, I do call this too bad of you. May I ask how you and Mr +McKeith come to be drinking tea together in my veranda?' +</P> + +<P> +'Sure, and it's by accident intoirely,' answered Biddy, with a +whimsical look and the touch of the brogue she sometimes put on when a +situation became embarrassing. +</P> + +<P> +'A prearranged accident!' +</P> + +<P> +'No it wasn't, Joan. As a matter-of-fact, we were the last persons +either of us expected to meet.' +</P> + +<P> +'Honour bright,' put in McKeith. 'I'd forgotten all about the Pineapple +Products Exhibition, and I just dropped in at Government House to pay +my respects after a pleasant dinner two nights ago—What you'd call a +visit of digestion.' +</P> + +<P> +'And since when, Colin, have you become an observer of social +obligations?' jeered Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +He grinned, 'Ah! you have me there. Anyway, I asked for Lady Bridget, +and found her down by the boat-shed.' +</P> + +<P> +'And we thought it would be cooler on the water, so he rowed me round +the point. It was the most natural thing in the world that we should +discover we were thirsty, and that we should come up the garden and ask +your old woman to give us some tea. Don't be a cat, Joan. You never +used to be grudging of your hospitality.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea quickly recovered her usual genial demeanour. She poured +herself out a cup of tea, and remarked that it was refreshing after the +pine-apple syrups and other concoctions she had, as in duty bound, +sampled at the Show. Lady Bridget rattled along with questions about +the Function and the behaviour of the Government House party. Had Sir +Luke been too over-poweringly pompous? Was Lady Tallant really cross? +and had Vereker Wells made any more blunders? and so forth. But she did +not enlighten Mrs Gildea much about her doings with Colin McKeith, and +presently said she must go and make her peace with Rosamond. McKeith +accompanied her—naturally, since he had to row her back to the +Government House landing. There was something in the manner of the pair +that Mrs Gildea could not understand. Of course, Colin was in +love—that she knew already. But was Biddy merely playing with the big +primitive-souled bushman—or was it possible that she, too, could be in +love? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 14 +</H3> + +<P> +The next time Biddy came, Joan tackled matters boldly. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, I've had my marching orders. Mr Gibbs finds Leichardt's Land a +bit stale. I take train to Sydney next week and tour the Riverina, the +Blue Mountains and the country along the railway line to Melbourne. Are +you coming with me?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget gave a deprecatory laugh. 'I don't know what Rosamond would +say.' +</P> + +<P> +'She'd recognise the necessities of the situation. Besides, you could +come back again.' +</P> + +<P> +'I haven't been here a month. And I don't find Leichardt's Land stale. +On the contrary, I find it extremely stimulating. No, I think the +Riverina and the Blue Mountains will keep, as far as I'm concerned.' +</P> + +<P> +'But I won't keep. Mr Gibb and the drawings for THE IMPERIALIST won't +keep. The question is whether you want to make some money or not?' +</P> + +<P> +'It's the one thing I've WANTED to do all my life, and have never yet +succeeded in doing except when we collaborated in "The Lady of Quality." +</P> + +<P> +'Here's your chance for a continuation series, "The Lady of Quality in +the Bush." How does that sound?' +</P> + +<P> +'Rather clumsy and long, don't you think? "Lady Bridget in the Bush" +would be more alliterative and catching. Only I should be giving myself +away.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think you're doing that already,' said Mrs. Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'How do you mean, Joan? I don't see it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, you do. Look here, Biddy. Colin McKeith isn't Mr Willoughby +Maule.' +</P> + +<P> +'He's a hundred times better man, Joan.' +</P> + +<P> +'That you needn't tell me; and I'm glad you recognise the fact. But +from the point of view of "The Lady of Quality," would he be a better +husband?' +</P> + +<P> +'You forget, my dear, that I'm not the genuine article. I'm nothing but +a pinchbeck imitation of the real "Lady of Quality." If HIS grandfather +was a peasant, remember that my maternal grandparents were peasants +too. I told him so yesterday.' +</P> + +<P> +'Has it come to that? You go fast, Biddy. But I warn you—Colin McKeith +isn't the man to be trifled with. He knows his own mind. The question +is whether you know yours.' +</P> + +<P> +Biddy nodded her head like a Chinese Mandarin. +</P> + +<P> +'Two months ago you were wildly in love—or, at least, from your +letters one might have judged so—with another man,' said Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'No—no—don't call that love.' +</P> + +<P> +'Call it a violent attraction, then. I suspect the man could have made +you marry him if he had chosen. So far as I can understand, you +quarrelled because neither of you would face matrimony on what you +considered an inadequate income.' +</P> + +<P> +'Middle-class respectability—living in Pimlico or further Kensington,' +scoffed Biddy. 'Ordering sprats and plaice for dinner and pretending +they're soles and whitebait. Perambulators stuffing up the hall; paying +your own books and having your gown made at home! No, thank you. +'Possum skins and a black's gunya—that's Australese for a wigwam, +isn't it?—appeal to me infinitely more.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea threw up her hands. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, you haven't the faintest notion how dull and uncomfortable—how +utterly unpoetic—how sordid the life of a struggling bushman can be.' +</P> + +<P> +'No! You know, Joan, I think that it might be perfectly fascinating—if +one really cared for the bushman.' +</P> + +<P> +'Really cared! Have you EVER really cared for any man? COULD you ever +really care?' +</P> + +<P> +'That's what I've been asking myself. It would have to be someone quite +different from all the other men I've liked—something altogether above +the ordinary man, to make me REALLY care.' +</P> + +<P> +'You said that Mr Willoughby Maule was different from any man you'd +ever met. Each man you've ever fancied yourself in love with has been +different from all the rest.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget laughed rather uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +'How tiresomely exact you are, Joan! Of course, they were different. +Everybody is different from everybody else. And I attract marked types. +Will was more marked and more attractive—as well as attracted—that's +all.' +</P> + +<P> +'His attraction doesn't seem to have been as strong as self-interest, +any way,' said Joan, with deliberate terseness. +</P> + +<P> +The girl's small, pale face flushed to deep crimson for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +'Joan, you are cruel! You know that was the sting! And it wouldn't have +stung so if I hadn't cared. Sometimes I feel the maddest desire to hurt +him—to pay him out. I never felt like that about any of the +others—the ones I really did ALMOST want to marry. And then—at other +times I'd give ANYTHING just to have him again as he used to be.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm certain you weren't really in love with him,' exclaimed Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget seemed to be considering. 'Wasn't I?—I'm not so sure of that. +No—' she went on impetuously, 'I was not REALLY in love with him. He +had a magnetic influence over me as I told you. Perhaps I might get a +little under it again if he were to appear suddenly without his +wife—it turns me sick to think of a married man having a magnetic +influence over me.... Even if there was no wife—now. So, when you've +idealised a person and can't idealise him any more: C'EST FINI. There's +nothing but a ghost to come and make you uncomfortable sometimes—and +that CAN'T last.... Besides, I've been breathing the strong clear air +of your gum trees lately. It's a case of pull devil—pull bushman. Do +you see?' +</P> + +<P> +'I see, my dear, that you're idealising Colin McKeith, and let me tell +you that a bushman is very far removed from the super-man. Oh, Colin is +a fine enough specimen of a pioneer in a rough country. But his rough +life, his bush surroundings, and all the rest—why, he'd jar upon you +in a hundred ways if you were alone with him in them. Then—he's not of +your order—though I hate the phrase and I hate the kind of man. All +the same, Biddy, you may pretend to despise the men of your own class, +but I fancy that, after a spell of roughing it with Colin on the Upper +Leura, you'd hanker after something in them that Colin hasn't and never +will have.... And then,' Joan's swift imagination carried her on with a +rush, 'you don't know in the least the type of man he is. You'd have to +give in to him: he'd never give in to you. He's domineering, jealous, +vindictive and reserved. Before a month was out you'd quarrel, and +there would be no chance of your ever making it up again.' +</P> + +<P> +'I must say, Joan, that for a friend of his you're not an enthusiastic +advocate.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's because I'm so fond of Colin that I hate the thought of your +making him miserable. Anyway, however, you're bound to do that.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't see why.' +</P> + +<P> +'If you flirt with him and then drop him, he'll suffer, though he'll be +too proud to show it. And as for the alternative, it's out of the +question. You must see that it would be sheer folly.' +</P> + +<P> +'I've committed a great many follies,' said Bridget wistfully. +</P> + +<P> +'But, so far, none that are quite irrevocable.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, he hasn't asked me yet to commit this one.' +</P> + +<P> +'You're leading him on to it. Biddy, it is abominable of you to +encourage him as you do—coming here with him that day.... And you let +him take you riding....' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, he knows now that I CAN ride.' +</P> + +<P> +'And he's at Government House nearly every day—I can't think what Lady +Tallant is about to ask him so often to dinner.' +</P> + +<P> +'She likes him because he takes Luke off her hands. You know we've +nick-named him the Unconstitutional Adviser.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's rubbish. You sing to him.' +</P> + +<P> +'What harm is there in my singing to Colin McKeith?' +</P> + +<P> +'As if you didn't know well enough that you're perfectly irresistible +when you look at a man while you're singing those Neapolitan things. +Biddy, it won't do. Give it up.' +</P> + +<P> +'I can't do that, Joan.' She spoke with a strange earnestness. 'Don't +you see that it's giving me a chance.' +</P> + +<P> +'Of forgetting Mr Willoughby Maule!' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes.... But it's more than that.' +</P> + +<P> +'More than that.... Do you mean ... can you mean that you could love +Colin McKeith—for himself?' +</P> + +<P> +'Love is a big word, Joan. I've never said to any man—"I love you."' +She spoke the words now as if she were uttering a sacred formula. Her +voice reminded Mrs Gildea of something—the same note in the voice of +Colin McKeith when he, too, had spoken of love. Yet what she had said +was true. Bridget had talked often enough of falling 'in love'—which +she had always been at pains to define as a mere transitory +condition—not by any means the 'real thing,' and she had freely +confessed to violent attractions and even adorations. But, as she had +sometimes solemnly stated, she had never 'loved.' +</P> + +<P> +'I can't explain,' she went on. 'I know you think me a heartless, +emotional flirt. Yes, I am. I admit it. But there's a locked door in +the inner chamber—a shrine that no one has desecrated. The Goddess is +there, waiting—waiting to reveal herself.' +</P> + +<P> +'And so—all the rest have been—experiments?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, The Quest of the Ideal through the Forest of Illusion. I've often +thought, Joan, there was a lot in the motive of that novel of Thomas +Hardy's THE WELL BELOVED. But I seem to be mixing up my metaphor, and +it's time I went back to Government House.' She got up and began +putting on her gloves. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea laughed hysterically. Somehow, she could not imagine Colin +McKeith producing the golden key and masterfully taking possession of +Lady Bridget's locked shrine. She could only think of him as tricked, +deceived and suffering hideously at the end. She stammered out her +fear, beseeching Biddy to be merciful, but Biddy's mood had changed, +and she only smiled her Sphinx smile. +</P> + +<P> +'I think he's quite able to look after himself,' she said. 'And if he +isn't, sure, he must take the consequences.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 15 +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea could get nothing more out of Lady Bridget. She attacked +McKeith in a more tentative manner, but Colin was doggedly reticent. He +was taking the thing hardly. His way of facing a serious situation was +by setting his teeth and saying nothing. After these unsuccessful +attempts, Joan made opportunity, before leaving, for a private word on +the subject with Lady Tallant. But Rosamond Tallant treated the matter, +at first, very lightly. +</P> + +<P> +'Dear Mrs Gildea, you needn't worry, it's only Biddy's way. She must +have some excitement to keep her going. If it isn't one thing, it's +another. In London, I tried to interest her in Society, or Politics, +and the Opera—and now Luke is trying to interest her in Colonial +questions—but she always drifts back to—Men. She can't help it. And +the funny thing is, I don't believe that in her heart she is capable of +a serious attachment.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm not so sure of that,' answered Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'If so, she has had plenty of opportunities of proving it. But I wasn't +ever afraid even of Willoughby Maule. I was certain that would fizzle +out before real harm could come of it. And mercifully it did. He's +married a woman with a quarter of a million and the right to dispose of +it absolutely as she pleases. I heard that she signed a will on her +wedding day, leaving it all to him in the event of her death. Too great +a temptation, wasn't it? Though I do think if Biddy had chosen she +might have kept him in spite of Miss Bagalay and her money. As it is, +Colin McKeith, or else the novelty of it all out here—has driven him +out of her head. I felt sure of that when I asked her to come. You +needn't worry about her.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's not so much about Biddy that I'm worrying as about my old friend, +Colin McKeith,' said Mrs Gildea. 'It isn't fair that he should be made +a victim.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, well, it isn't altogether Biddy's fault that she attracts all +types of men.' And then Lady Tallant made exactly the same remark as +Lady Bridget. 'I think Mr McKeith is quite able to look after himself. +I don't pity him in the least. Didn't somebody say of Lady Something or +Other that to love her was a liberal education?' +</P> + +<P> +'Steele said it of Lady Elizabeth Hastings.' +</P> + +<P> +'I call it a liberal education for Colin McKeith to love Lady Bridget +O'Hara,' laughed Lady Tallant. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea changed her tactics and voiced her other fear—a more +insistent fear. +</P> + +<P> +'Has it ever occurred to you that Lady Bridget O'Hara might fall in +love with Colin McKeith?' +</P> + +<P> +'Why, my dear, she's wildly in love with him already,' rejoined Lady +Tallant, to Joan Gildea's surprise. +</P> + +<P> +'You've seen it?' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm not blind, and I know Biddy. But I've seen that she's taking this +affair differently from the others, and that's what makes me think it +has gone deeper. A very good thing for Biddy.' +</P> + +<P> +'You can't mean that it would be a good thing for Biddy to marry Colin +McKeith?' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Tallant's social manner was rather full of affectations. +Underneath it, however, lay commonsense and sympathy. She became +suddenly simple and direct. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, now, Mrs Gildea, let us look at the matter without prejudice. +You are fond of Biddy and so am I, but we know her drawbacks. +Naturally, it wouldn't be a good thing under ordinary conditions, but +is she likely to do much better?' +</P> + +<P> +'She has had plenty of chances.' +</P> + +<P> +'And thrown them all away. And though she looks so young, she is close +on thirty. Of course, with her looks and her fascination she ought to +have married well. I'm sure her friends have tried hard enough for her. +But what can you do with a girl who throws herself at the heads of +ineligibles, and when one trots out an unexceptionable PARTI and does +one's best to bring them together, goes off at a tangent and lets the +whole thing drop through. You know how it was with....' Lady Tallant +enumerted names. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea acquiesced mournfully. Lady Tallant continued: +</P> + +<P> +'The truth is, Biddy has tired out the patience of her relatives and +friends. Molly and Chris Gaverick got the hump over Willoughby +Maule—who would have done well enough if he had only had more money. +Old Eliza'—so Lady Tallant irreverently styled the Dowager Countess of +Gaverick—'told me herself that she was going to wash her hands of +Biddy. I shouldn't wonder if she didn't leave her a penny. And, after +all, it was her own fortune, and she has a horde of needy relatives. +She will consider that she has done her duty to the Gavericks if she +lets Chris have the Castle. When all's said and done, I don't see that +it would be such a bad thing for Biddy to marry a rich Australian +squatter.' +</P> + +<P> +'Colin McKeith is not rich.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, he will be. Sir Luke has been hearing all about him.' +</P> + +<P> +'He's not her equal. His father was just a land bailiff, and his +grandfather a crofter.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, what DOES that matter! In these days any of us would marry the +roughest of rough diamonds, provided he was decently well off. Biddy +has always been mad after adventure and an open-air life. She's an +original, and everything would be in keeping.' Lady Tallant went on +briskly. 'She would enjoy living among the blacks, provided they did +not murder her, and I suppose one could trust Mr McKeith for that.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, there's no danger from the blacks now,' put in Mrs Gildea. +</P> + +<P> +'And then she needn't be buried for ever in the Bush. Luke tells me +that Colin McKeith is certain to come to the fore in politics—I +daresay he will be Premier of Leichardt's Land before long. Biddy would +like bossing the show and airing her philanthropic crazes.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea shook her head doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin wouldn't agree with them. Besides, she would be expatriated.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh no. The big men over here are always taking trips to England, being +feted and made much of in Downing Street—Imperialist Policy and that +sort of thing—I can see Biddy at it.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea was silent. She scarcely knew Lady Tallant in this downright +mood. +</P> + +<P> +'There's no use blinking matters,' said that lady. 'At home, Biddy has +been a failure. That was why I persuaded her to come out with us. I +knew she wanted a fresh start badly.' +</P> + +<P> +It was quite true. Mrs Gildea remembered Bridget's confidences to +herself. She could not help feeling that Lady Tallant was right in the +main, and put forward no more objections. But she explained her own +plans and the necessity for her immediate departure from Leichardt's +Land—how she had hoped, too, to take Biddy with her and interest her +once more in literary and artistic work. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy won't go, she told me so, and I don't mean to let her,' said +Lady Tallant decidedly. 'We're short-handed till the new Private +Secretary gets here, and she helps me with my notes and things +generally. And if it wasn't for Biddy's singing, our dinners would be +too deadly dull for words.' +</P> + +<P> +Joan gave up in despair. She suspected that Lady Tallant's affectionate +candour was not unadulterated with selfishness. Finally, Rosamond +promised that she would interest and amuse Lady Bridget to such an +extent as would deter her from rash love-making for want of counter +excitement. Then, Joan reflected, Colin was pre-eminently a prudent +business man, and, as he had told her some time before, would have to +go back to the Upper Leura before the strenuous work of the Session +came on. This was always supposing that the present Ministry kept in +without going to the country upon certain Labour measures unacceptable +to the large land-owners, in which case it was just possible McKeith +might be thrown out of his seat. +</P> + +<P> +Events lay in the lap of the gods. Mrs Gildea wound up matters at the +Cottage and took train south, where she was soon wholly occupied in +describing the wonder of the Jenolan Caves and the wild gorges and +primaeval gum forests in the Blue Mountains. She was really too busy in +the interests of the IMPERIALIST to worry over her friend's love +affairs. In fact, she gleaned most of her information as to the +Leichardt's Town Government House Party from the newspapers she +happened upon at bush hotels. For Lady Bridget was evidently in a +reactionary mood as regards letter-writing and Colin McKeith never put +pen to paper, if he could avoid doing so, except on business. +</P> + +<P> +It was at Mossvale that she read a florid paragraph in the Ladies' Page +of a Sydney Journal, telling of the engagement of 'that intrepid +Pioneer and future Empire-builder, Mr Colin McKeith, to the Lady +Bridget O'Hara, niece of the late, and cousin of the present, Earl of +Gaverick'. +</P> + +<P> +Next post brought her three brief and characteristic letters. She +opened Lady Tallant's first: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'Government House,<BR> + Leichardt's Town.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'DEAR MRS GILDEA, +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I do hope this may catch you before the newspapers, which I find +announced the engagement rather prematurely last week. I am still of +opinion that Biddy might do much worse than marry Colin McKeith, +though, ENTRE NOUS, the settlements—or rather want of them—for Mr +McKeith tells us that he needs all his capital for making wells and +buying cattle, and he won't injure his prospects and Biddy's by tying +it up—does not at all please Sir Luke, who, before he would +countenance the marriage, insisted upon a cablegram being sent to the +Dowager Lady Gaverick. Her answer: "Not my business, must do as she +pleases," only confirms what I said to you, and I am afraid Biddy's +chances are worth nothing in that quarter. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The wedding is to be early in May, from Government House, of course, +and I need scarcely say how much we all hope you will come back for it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Always sincerely, +<BR> +ROSAMOND TALLANT. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +P.S.—No doubt, Biddy is giving you full details.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But Biddy did not indulge either in details or rhapsodies. She began: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'They say hanging and wiving go by destiny, and clearly my destiny is +to become the wife of Collin McKeith. I've always felt that the only +thing which could reconcile me to marriage would be marrying a MAN; and +at last I've found one. I want to tell you, Joan, that we've made an +agreement to ask each other no questions about respective Pasts. The +black-fellows he has slain—the one jarring note between us—are never +to be resuscitated. The men whose hearts I have broken and VICE VERSA +are dead and buried on the other side of the Equator, under a monument +of inviolable silence. Such are the terms of the marriage contract: and +you in especial must respect them. I need say no more, except this: +Have no fears for the happiness of +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Your BIDDY.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +From Colin in telegraphic conciseness: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'Tremendously happy. She's absolutely my Ideal—in everything but size.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +All very satisfactory and conclusive. But—Mrs Gildea could not escape +from a vague misgiving. She was not afraid of the ghost of Mr +Willoughby Maule: indeed, she argued favourably from the baldness of +Bridget's letter in comparison with the reams of sentiment she had +written upon the previous occasion. Nor did she feel uneasy on the +score of any others of Lady Bridget's bygone passions. But had this +complex, fastidious, physically-refined creature the least +comprehension of what life on the Upper Leura might mean? And how about +an Ideal dethroned from her pedestal and plumped down amid the crude +realities of the nethermost Bush? +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Gildea did not get to the wedding. She was ordered to report on the +mines of Western Australia, and was on the other side of the continent +when the marriage took place. In fact, it seemed doubtful whether she +would again meet Lady Bridget before her mission as Special +Correspondent ended. But the McKeiths were to spend their honeymoon in +travelling to his station on the Upper Leura, a distance of some +hundreds of miles from the nearest port, and quite out of THE +IMPERIALIST programme. +</P> + +<P> +She read, however, circumstantial accounts of the wedding, and there +were portraits of the pair—in which Colin looked grumpy and Lady +Bridget whimsically amused—snap shots, too, of the wedding cortege, in +which Sir Luke Tallant, fathering the Bride, appeared a pompous figure +in full uniform; and Lady Tallant in splendid panoply, most stately and +gracious. A long account followed of the bride's family connections, in +which the biographer touched upon the accident of sex that had deprived +her of the hereditary honours; the ancient descent of the Gavericks, +with a picture of the old Irish castle where Lady Bridget had been +brought up—and so forth, and so forth. Mrs Gildea sighed as she read, +and pictured in her imagination the wild wastes of the Never-Never Land +and the rough head-station which was to be Lady Bridget's home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="book2"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 1 +</H3> + +<P> +It was the way of the O'Haras to do things first and to consider +afterwards whether it were well or ill that they should be done. Many a +ruined O'Hara might have fared differently in life's battle had he +thought before he acted. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget was no exception to the rule of her family. She had +accepted Colin McKeith in a blind impulse of escape from the old +hedged-in existence of her order, of which she was quite tired and +where-in she had proved herself a failure. She had been attracted by +the idea that he represented, of wide spaces and primitive adventures. +She had always longed to travel in untrodden ways, and had loved +stories of romantic barbarism. And then, too, some queer glamour of the +man had got hold of her. She was intensely susceptible to personal +influence—his bigness, his simplicity, his strength and daring, and +the feeling that he was quite capable of mastering her, not only by +brute force—which always appeals to a certain type of woman—but by +power of will, by a tenacity of passion which she recognised even +through the shy reserve with which McKeith tried to cloak his +adoration. For she was goddess to him, as well as lady-love—and that +she realised plainly. A look from her would make him go white and his +large hands tremble; an unexpected grace from her would fill him with +reverent ecstasy. +</P> + +<P> +The thing happened one soft moonlit evening after dinner at Government +House, when she had strolled out alone to a secluded part of the +terrace, and he had followed her after the men left the dining-room. +She was in a mood of tempestuous raging against her ordained lot. +Letters had come from England that day which had irritated her and made +her wonder how she could endure any longer her galling state of +dependence. Eliza Countess of Gaverick had sent her a meagre cheque, +accompanied by a scathing rebuke of her extravagance. Some cutting +little sarcasms of Molly Gaverick's had likewise annoyed her, and she +fretted under the miserable sense of her inadequacy to the demands of a +world she despised and yet hankered after. Then Sir Luke had been +tiresomely pertinacious over some small dereliction on Bridget's part +from the canons of Government House etiquette, which he had requested +should not be repeated. Rosamond Tallant had been tiresome also and had +made her feel that even here she was no more than a dependent who must +conform to the wills of her official superiors. Joan Gildea might have +served as a safety-valve, but Joan was away in or near the Jenolan +Caves, and could not be got at unless Bridget chose to throw up other +things and go to her, which Bridget was not inclined to do. +</P> + +<P> +The whole thing was a tangle. If only it were possible to find a way +out that would not prove still more painfully complicated. +</P> + +<P> +At the moment the ting-tang of a steamer bell bound outward to the +northern coast, borne to her on the river-breeze, intensified her +desire for escape from conventional limitations. Oh! to find herself +under totally new conditions! The heavy fragrance of magnolia and +gardenia blossoms seemed freighted with exotic suggestion. The tropical +odours blended with the perfume of autumn roses, which made a trellis +over her head and overran the balustrades. The subtle mingling of +perfumes that float in the clear air of an Australian garden, when the +fierce heats of summer are gone, gave her a sense of almost +intoxication. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, Bridget was in the mood for any desperate leap into the +Unknown. Such was her unconscious thought as she crunched a spray of +verbena in her fingers and inhaled the scent which had always a faintly +heady effect upon her imagination. She was leaning on the stone kerb of +the balustrade, vague emotions stirring her, when she heard McKeith's +step on the gravel. Presently he stood beside her, his tall form, in +the well-cut evening suit which always became him best, towering head +and shoulders above her small stature. It was always a satisfaction to +Lady Bridget, fastidious in such masculine details, that he was +particular about his tailoring, and tonight he exhaled the scent of one +of Sir Luke Tallant's excellent cigars. There used to be a good deal of +chaff between them about one of his personal predilections which jarred +a little upon Bridget—his pipe and, particularly, the quality of his +tobacco. But he did not change it in spite of her chaff. She was +beginning to find a certain mule-like obstinacy about him in +unimportant details. +</P> + +<P> +'If you object to this, what WOULD you say to the store tobacco smoke +when I'm in the Bush?' he said. And then he had explained that, when +camping out with the stockmen on their expeditions after cattle, he +always smoked the same tobacco that he supplied to his hands. That was +according to HIS rule of social equality by the camp fire, he said.... +And where was all Lady Bridget's vaunted socialism if she jibbed at +such a simple illustration of the first principles of socialism? Of +course, Bridget had taken his banter in good part, and with a pretty +grimace had told him she would get out a consignment of the stuff her +Aunt Eliza gave at Christmas to the old men in their Irish village and +present him with it. +</P> + +<P> +He threw away the butt end of Sir Luke's cigar when he joined her. For +several moments he stood watching her—the picturesque little figure in +its dainty frock, the grace of the small head with its crop of untidy +hair, the pale pointed face—chin resting in the cup of one flower-like +hand, red lips—the upper one like Cupid's bow—slightly parted, +strange deep eyes gazing across the dark expanse of river to the +scattered lights on the high land opposite. Above, the Southern Cross, +set diagonally, in the dark clear sky gemmed with its myriad stars. +</P> + +<P> +There could be no doubt that Colin McKeith was in the grip of an +infatuation such as he had never known before in his life. It staggered +him. His breath caught in his throat and ended in an uncertain laugh. +He stuttered in sheer awkwardness. +</P> + +<P> +'I—I say ... you seem to be up in the clouds. You've been awfully down +in the mouth—all through dinner. Won't you tell me? Is anything the +matter?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget turned and looked at him. Her eyes were softly glistening, her +lips trembled. He thought of her as of a child seeking sympathy in a +strange land, where nobody understood her and somebody had been unkind. +He was intensely stirred by her impulsive appeal. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! I'm worried. I'm so alone in the world. Nobody wants me—here or +in England either. I was just wondering if I couldn't go off and join +Joan Gildea.... But she wouldn't want me either, perhaps.' +</P> + +<P> +He went closer, stooping over the balustrade. Magnetic threads seemed +to be drawing them to each other. He wanted to say, 'I want you,' but +dared not. He blurted forth instead? +</P> + +<P> +'What is it? I'd cut off my right hand if that would be of any use to +you. Good Lord! That does sound cheek! Only—you know—I'm big enough +to bully the whole of Leichardt's Land from the Governor down—and I'd +do it if you wanted me to. Just tell me what's worrying you?' +</P> + +<P> +'It's everything—the whole set of conditions from the day I was born +into them.' +</P> + +<P> +'Conditions are easy enough things to break, if you're determined to do +it. Look here—talk it out.... you can trust me.' +</P> + +<P> +Then she recklessly set the flood gates open—laughed with tears in the +laughter; drew a tragically amusing picture of her life—her anomalous +position, her dependence, her hatred of the pretences, the shifts, the +sordid bravado by means of which her impoverished Gaverick relatives +clung on to their social birthright, the toadying of the Dowager, the +worldly admonitions of Rosamond Tallant and her set—she used some of +the phrases he had himself read in that letter. Had he been in any +doubt as to its authorship that doubt must now be at rest. But he would +never tell her of that episode. For one thing, his promise to Joan +bound him. Like a stab came the remembrance of that man of whom Biddy +had written—the man towards whom she had confessed a violent +attraction—and who had behaved as a cad and a fortune-hunter would +naturally behave. That he could have weighed money in the balance with +THIS! She could not have cared for the fellow, or he MUST have thrown +over everything else for her. Was it possible that she had cared—that +she still cared? +</P> + +<P> +'Tell me,' he asked hoarsely. 'Is it that you are fretting after +somebody over there who—someone you can't marry? There must have been +a lot of men in your life. Perhaps there was one who—whom you—loved.' +</P> + +<P> +His voice dropped, as it had a way of doing when he touched the sacred +subject. +</P> + +<P> +'There have been a lot of men,' she admitted frankly. 'But there has +never been one true Man among them. I've never really in my heart +wanted to marry any of them, if that's what you mean—I don't like +marriage—OUR system of marriage—a bargain in the sale shop. So much +at such a price—birth, position, suitability, good looks—to be paid +for at the market value. Or else it's just because the man happens to +have taken a fancy to one, and while the fancy lasts doesn't think +whether or not it's a fair bargain—on either side. I've seen people +fall madly in love and marry like that. Then before very long the love +turns to hate and it's a case for the Divorce Court.' +</P> + +<P> +'Nothing of that is—love—not as I—and you—understand it.' +</P> + +<P> +She gave him one of her inscrutable looks and then turned again to the +stars. There was silence; Colin thought she must hear his heart +thumping, but she seemed lost in her dreams. He put out his big hand +and timidly, reverently, took hers, crushed verbena and all, as it lay +on the balustrade. It rested like a prisoned bird within his; he could +feel the nervous twitch of the little fingers. +</P> + +<P> +'There's another system of marriage—a better one, I think—where the +man doesn't ask for anything but the right to love until—until he has +compelled the woman's love in return.' +</P> + +<P> +'Compelled! I like that word. I could yield to my master. But he would +have to prove himself my master.' +</P> + +<P> +'Will you let me try?' McKeith said boldly. He grasped her hand tightly +as he spoke; she gave a little cry, for he had hurt her. He was all +compunction and gentleness in a moment. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you are strong!' she said. 'I almost think you could make me do +anything you chose.' +</P> + +<P> +'No—that isn't what I meant.' He seemed trying to steady himself. 'I'm +damned if I'd ever give up my free-will to anybody, and I wouldn't like +even the woman who was my mate to do it either. But love—that's a +different thing....' +</P> + +<P> +'Your mate!' she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +'You don't know the Bush idea of a real mate—shoulder to shoulder, +back to back—no getting behind one or the other—giving up your life +for your mate, if it came to a pinch.' +</P> + +<P> +'And that's your idea of—love?' +</P> + +<P> +'Something like it, only closer, dearer—a thing you couldn't talk +about even to your mate—unless your mate was your wife—a flower that +blooms once in your life, and that would never—if it were cut +off—come to bloom again. Look here,' he said fiercely, 'have you ever +felt for any one of the lot of men you spoke about just like that?' +</P> + +<P> +'N—no,' she answered slowly. +</P> + +<P> +'If you told me you had, I'd walk away now down those steps—' he +pointed to the flight of stone steps leading from the terrace to the +drive—'and you wouldn't see me any more.... But I'm not going to leave +you now, I mean to stick on for all I'm worth, so long as I see the +faintest chance of your giving me what I've set my heart on.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—well?' She stared at him in a fascinated manner. +</P> + +<P> +'Well—Bridget—I can't milady you. We're man and woman and nothing +else to-night....' +</P> + +<P> +She interrupted. 'I like you to say that. I feel now that WE, at least, +are real—not social shams.' +</P> + +<P> +'Bridget—you said you'd never found yet a Real Man to love you. Here's +one.' He patted his broad chest with his open palm. 'I'm a rough Bushy +and there's not a frill about me, but I'm bed-rock if you come to +Reality. I'm a lode you've never struck in your life before. There's +payable gold here, if you choose to work me.' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed nervously, considering him. +</P> + +<P> +'Mr McKeith, I'm sure that you're a perfect Mount Morgan, and you +certainly have a most original way of putting things. Do you happen to +own a gold mine, by the way?' +</P> + +<P> +He drew in his breath slowly, as if he were considering the check, then +he took her cue. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, well! I have pegged out a good many claims in my time and never +got much more than my tucker out of any of them—though there was a +show I came on once up the Gulf way that I've always been a bit sorry I +didn't stop and look into. But rations were short and the Blacks +bad.... However, that's neither here nor there, now. Gold mine or not, +I'm positive that I shall be a rich man before many years have +passed—all the richer for a true mate to stand by me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, of course,' she said hastily—'I wasn't thinking of that—whether +you were rich or not, I mean.' +</P> + +<P> +'I know you weren't. All the same, I suppose your grand relations would +consider me a presumptuous boor for daring to lift my eyes to you. And +yet, if I could make you love me, it wouldn't count for a blade of +grass that your father was born in a castle and mine in a crofter's +cabin.... Only—you know too—' he became timid and hesitant +again—'you know it isn't that I don't feel you as far above me, +almost, as those stars in the sky....' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh don't, don't, Mr McKeith. It isn't true, you know. I've told you +how I despise all that—all the life I've led.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I know. There's not such a difference between us when we stand as +we are now, right on the bed rock. You're like me in having a strain of +working-folk's blood in you. It's Nature you're hankering after—God's +sweet air and the breath of the gum trees and freedom for your soul.' +</P> + +<P> +'Freedom for my soul! How strange that you should understand.' +</P> + +<P> +'I understand better than you might think. You want more than freedom +to make you content. You want a kind of bondage that is the truest +freedom—Love—a strong man's love, a strong man's worship. And that's +what I'd give you, Bridget. Are you angry with me for saying it?' +</P> + +<P> +'No.' She turned her face straight to him without any shadow of +embarrassment. 'Mr McKeith, I'm too honest to pretend that I didn't +half expect this. I felt you were beginning to care for me, and I was +wondering whether I ought to let you go on.' +</P> + +<P> +'Whether you ought to let me! As if you would be able to hinder it! +Why, you couldn't stop me loving you. You might as well try to dam up +the river Leichardt with this little hand I'm holding.' +</P> + +<P> +She would have withdrawal it, but could not. +</P> + +<P> +'No, no. It isn't strong enough—this tiny, trembling hand, which I +could break to bits in mine if I wanted to. And could you prevent me +from taking you in my arms—you wee great lady—and carrying you right +away—away, out into the Bush where I'm on my own ground and where not +one of your swell men folk would have a chance to find you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think any one of them would want to.' she laughed again +tremulously. 'If it comes to that though, I fancy you'd have some +trouble in disposing of me against my will.' +</P> + +<P> +'Do you think I'd ever want you against your will! No. I'd sooner cut +the whole show, and let you scorn me at a distance as much as you +pleased.' +</P> + +<P> +'I—scorn you! ... I wouldn't scorn you.' +</P> + +<P> +'And even your scorn wouldn't kill my love,' he said, in that moved +voice that was so unlike his ordinary utterance—'because there's +nothing in the Universe, so far as I know it, that would be able to do +that. Why, it seems to me that my feeling for you is as much a part of +myself as the very blood in my heart. I knew you were the only woman in +the world for me the moment I saw you—so slim and small and strange, +the very contrary of what I'd always thought would be the kind of woman +I'd be in love with—that day when you came walking along that gangway +behind Lady Tallant. It was just a revelation, and then I bolted +straight off to Alexandra City.' +</P> + +<P> +'Which seems rather odd, doesn't it, in the circumstances?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, it's this way. I had to take a few days for getting over the +shock—for rubbing in the fact that what I wanted more than anything on +God's earth, now I'd seen it, was utterly beyond my reach.' +</P> + +<P> +'One might think I was an enchanted princess—a sort of Brunhilda +guarded by a fiery dragon.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's a good bit of how I looked on you—though I've never made much +out of Wagner—he isn't human enough for me.... And how could I have +dreamed then that you'd ever let me come as near you as I am this +evening!' +</P> + +<P> +'I must say, Mr McKeith, you haven't shown such extreme diffidence in +approaching me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah! Because you soon showed that Brunhilda's dragon was only +pasteboard and blue fire after all—one of the shams you despise. I'm +not afraid of him now.... Oh, it's wonderful.... It's beautiful....' +</P> + +<P> +He took her other hand and held the two covered over by his own as he +said with an odd solemnity: +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget O'Hara will you come away with me to the Bush, leaving +everything else behind you?' +</P> + +<P> +She stood very slender and erect, her eyes shining in the moonlight out +of her small pale face and fixed upon him thoughtfully as if she were +weighing his proposition. After a few minutes, she answered +deliberately. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, Mr Colin McKeith, I will go away with you into the Bush, leaving +everything else behind me—the old "Lady Bridget O'Hara" included.' +</P> + +<P> +He gave an indescribable ejaculation—joy, surprise, triumph—all were +in the utterance. Dropping her hands, he stooped to her and his arm +went round her. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! Biddy ... darling.' +</P> + +<P> +She knew he wanted to kiss her, and that he scarcely dared so +greatly.... As his beard brushed her cheek, she shrank and moved a step +from him. He, too, shrank, hurt by her rebuff. +</P> + +<P> +'You mustn't be—ardent,' she said. 'You must give me time to get +accustomed to—the fate I've chosen. You know the dragon isn't +altogether a sham. He's got a few kicks in him—yet.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 2 +</H3> + +<P> +On other occasions also Lady Bridget made McKeith feel that she +preferred good fellowship to love-making. She was perfectly charming, +always excellent company, and she had a sense of humour which delighted +him, but she did not encourage effusiveness. She seemed to want to hear +about the Bush a great deal more than she wanted to hear about his +feelings towards herself, and appeared anxious to show him that she +meant to be a thorough-going 'mate.' The phrase had taken her fancy. +</P> + +<P> +There was not much opportunity however, for exchanging sentimental +confidences. Everything was rush and hurry during the few weeks between +the engagement and the marriage. It was plain that Lady Tallant wished +to get the wedding over before she and the Governor started upon a tour +of the important stations in the settled districts round Leichardt's +Town, officially contemplated. Bridget had a shrewd suspicion, which +she confided to Colin, that Lady Tallant was getting tired of her. +Perhaps Bridget did not keep herself sufficiently in the background to +please the lady of Government House. Her unpunctuality too often +annoyed Sir Luke. +</P> + +<P> +Another reason for not delaying the marriage was that the Leichardt's +Land government was expected to go out of office on a Labour Bill, and +that an appeal to the country would certainly follow its defeat. In +that case McKeith's re-election would have to be considered, and an +electioneering honeymoon in one of the out-back districts was an +inspiring prospect to Lady Bridget. Then the preparation of a Bush +trousseau needed thought and discussion. She had not much money, +either, to buy her trousseau with. Bridget would have none of Sir +Luke's suggestions of conciliatory letters and cablegrams to Eliza Lady +Gaverick on the subject of settlements. She said she did not intend to +cadge any longer upon her rich relative, and that she preferred to +marry without settlements. Sir Luke was not satisfied with McKeith's +views upon the financial question, and had some difficulty in getting +him to tie up even the insignificant sum of three thousand pounds in +settlement upon his wife. Colin pointed out that his capital was all +invested in cattle, and that though things would be all right as long +as there were good seasons, a bad one would cripple him, and he would +need money to recoup his losses and buy fresh stock. Bridget took his +view and Sir Luke frowned, but did what he considered his duty so far +as the paltry settlement went. At all events, it was a satisfaction to +Colin McKeith's shrewd Scotch mind that nobody insisted upon getting +the better of him in the matter. He knew that Bridget never gave it a +second thought. She was much more interested in the social and racial +problems of this new country of her adoption, and especially in the +blacks. What time she could spare from her trousseau she spent in +reading books about them, which some of her official friends got her +from the Parliamentary Library, and had already learned to think of +herself as a 'bujeri* White Mary,' whose mission it might be to compose +the racial feud between blackman and white. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Bujeri—Black's term of commendation.] +</P> + +<P> +To Colin, knowing now the tragedy of his youth, she did not speak much +on this subject. The time went with startling rapidity. The two were +borne on the tide of Colin's wild elation and Bridget's more impersonal +enthusiasms. They were like travellers steaming through strange seas, +not knowing what they were going to find at the end of the voyage and +too excited to care. +</P> + +<P> +That was the way of Bridget O'Hara, but it was not the way of Colin +McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +Yet his closest intimates would scarcely have known him at this period. +He was as a man bewitched, with intervals only of his ordinary +commonsense. In these intervals the consciousness of glamour made him +vaguely uneasy. +</P> + +<P> +Had Joan Gildea been there she would have seen all this and would have +observed signs of over-strain in Bridget—something faintly +apprehensive yet obstinately determined. And Joan would have understood +that when an O'Hara woman gets the bit between her teeth, she will not +stop to look back or to consider whither she is galloping. Bridget kept +herself continually on the go. Latterly, even Colin was warned by her +nervous restlessness. When they were alone together, which was not +long, nor often, her body seemed never still, her tongue rarely at +rest. Sometimes her talk was brilliantly allusive; at others it was +frothy chatter. One day it really irritated him. She had been +fluttering about the sitting-room opening on to the terrace, which Lady +Tallant had made over to her guest. An English mail had come in. She +read him bits of a letter from Molly Gaverick and made explanatory, +satiric comments upon those impecunious, aristocratic relatives who +were on the fringe of the London smart set of which Bridget herself had +lately formed a yet more outside part. +</P> + +<P> +'Chris Gaverick has gone into the wine business, and they've taken a +tiny house in Davies Street, Berkeley Square, and the Eaton Place house +pays its rent ... You don't understand? ... No.... Molly and I talked +it out when they were married. Of course, it seemed madness, with their +means to take a house in Eaton Place. They ought to have had one in +Bayswater. But it has answered splendidly. You see, they put their +wedding presents into it and let it for the season, and managed to live +rent free and have the use of other people's motors and all the going +about they wanted without paying even for their food ... and no expense +of entertaining, outside a dinner or two at Hurlingham.... Cadging!... +In London Society everybody cadges except the millionaires—and they're +cadged upon... You see, as Molly said, you can't entertain in +Bayswater, or know the right people, and go about to the right houses, +which is the most important thing for a poor couple who want to keep +their heads up. Now the result is that Chris is able to bring in +quantities of clients and gets a commission on all the wine he +sells.... What's the matter, Colin? You look quite fierce.' +</P> + +<P> +'And that,' commented McKeith, 'is an English belted Earl!' +</P> + +<P> +'Irish—there's a difference. And are they belted—really? Isn't it a +figure of speech?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know, and I don't care.' +</P> + +<P> +'But wouldn't you care to hear Molly's account of their visit to the +Duke and Duchess of Brockenhurst to meet the King and Queen of +Hartenburg? Molly is very sorry I wasn't there. She says that it would +have made everything so much nicer for her and Chris, and that the King +might have ordered some wine from his firm.' +</P> + +<P> +She was teasing. He knew it, and it infuriated him. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, no doubt you're sorry too that you weren't there with the Duke and +Duchess, and the King and Queen, and your cousins, the Earl and +Countess,' he flung at her. +</P> + +<P> +'They'll be your cousins too—by marriage. And if you ever become a +very rich man and take me back to England, you'll have to "Chris and +Molly" them and to give him a big order for wine....' +</P> + +<P> +That mollified McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'And if I wasn't a rich man, and didn't give a big order, they wouldn't +care a twopenny damn for me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Molly mightn't—unless by chance you were taken up in high quarters +and made the fashion—like Cecil Rhodes and "Doctor Jim," or some new +edition of Buffalo Bill. Then she'd call you "one of nature's uncrowned +kings." But Chris Gaverick isn't a bad sort, if his wife would let him +be natural.... They hadn't got my cablegram about you, Colin, when this +was written,' she went on. 'I wish I could have told the Queen myself. +I'm sure she would have been sympathetic. And now I don't suppose I +shall ever meet her again.' +</P> + +<P> +He rejoined with clumsy sarcasm. +</P> + +<P> +'I see. The Queen of Hartenburg was an intimate friend of yours—the +sort of chum who'd have been likely to drop in any day for a yarn and a +cup of tea!' +</P> + +<P> +'She often did when she hunted with our hounds in Ireland, and it IS +true that the Queen of Hartenburg was quite an intimate friend of +mine—for two winters, anyhow. But I assure you, it hasn't made me +proud, and if the Queen of Hartenburg bores you, let us talk of +something else.' +</P> + +<P> +She gave another glance at the last sheet of Lady Gaverick's letter and +thrust it into a pigeon-hole of the writing-table, then came back to +the long settee on which he sat. All the time, his gaze had never left +her. She saw that he was disturbed. +</P> + +<P> +'What is the matter?' she asked again, and sat down, a little way from +him, on the settee. He turned sideways to her, bending forward, one +large hand twisting his fair beard. There was a hungry look in his +eyes, but his passing ill-humour had melted into a deep, adoring +tendeness. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy—my mate—will you answer me a question—truthfully?' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe I can say honestly, that truth is one of my strong points,' +she parried lightly. +</P> + +<P> +'I want you to be serious. I mean it seriously. I want you to tell me +what determined you on marrying a rough chap like me? That +letter—thinking of you among those grandees, you talking a language +that's worse than Greek to me, brings the wonder of it home. As I look +at you, the thing seems just incredible.' +</P> + +<P> +'I can't understand why it should seem so surprising.' +</P> + +<P> +'WHY! You know what I mean. It's not only that your birth and bringing +up are so superior to mine, and that you had a right to look for a +husband in a very different sort of position—I can see plainly that is +what Sir Luke thinks....' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't care—a twopenny d-a-m-n—as you said—for what Sir Luke +thinks. I've got my own ideas as to the kind of husband most likely to +suit me.' +</P> + +<P> +'There's the marvel of it. For you must have had dozens of men wanting +you. You are so beautiful.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Colin, I've told you what I feel about the English marriage +system. And, PAR PARENTHESE, I'm not beautiful. I don't come up in the +least to the artist's standard. My measurements are wrong. I'm too +small.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's rot. There's a fascination about you no man can resist—or +woman either. I see it in the people who come here.' +</P> + +<P> +'If I happen to have drawn them into what Rosamond used to call my +mysterious sphere of influence—which I seem to do without knowing it. +I'm not sure, though, that either Rosamond or Luke approve of my +drawing the Leichardt's Town people into my mysterious sphere of +influence.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think, if you ask me, that Lady Tallant is a bit of a cat, and Sir +Luke more than a bit of a prig.' +</P> + +<P> +'No. You mustn't say a word against them.' It was not in Bridget to be +disloyal. 'They've given me the time of my life.' +</P> + +<P> +'When you smile like that, you remind me of a photograph of a picture +I've seen—a woman, I don't remember her name.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mona Lisa—La Gioconda. I know—I've been told that before.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, that's it. Mona Lisa. People have written about her.' +</P> + +<P> +'Reams. Some day I'll read you what Pater says of her, unless you've +read him already—by your camp fire.' +</P> + +<P> +For he had talked to her, as he had talked to Joan Gildea, about his +readings and his dreamings under the stars in the Bush. +</P> + +<P> +'Eh! you shall teach me about these new writing chaps. I don't +understand your up-to-date theories. I've always gone in for plain +facts—standard reading—history—great thoughts of great minds—old +books brought out in people's editions. I'm up a tree—downright bushed +when you begin upon your queer ideas—all those new-fangled religions +and notions—Theosophy, spooks—about the earth being alive, and +thoughts making a sort of wireless telegraph system—I do believe in +that, though—to a certain extent. And your Brotherhood of Man! Bosh! +We're all like a lot of potatoes thrown into a sack and shaken about by +circumstance. And the big ones come to the top, and the little +ones—because they're little—sink to the bottom. I've always wanted to +be one of the big potatoes, and mean to be.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget laughed. She had a ringing laugh when she was amused. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! go on, Colin. I grant that you're a very big potato and I'm a very +little one.' +</P> + +<P> +'You know I didn't mean it that way. You're the biggest potato in the +whole bag as far as mind goes, and you make me feel the smallest. +You're so wonderful that the marvel of your being contented to marry me +is a bit staggering. And that brings me back to my question, which you +haven't answered.' +</P> + +<P> +'How have I brought myself to the incredible enterprise of marrying an +Australian bushman? Do you know?'—she became suddenly serious—'I have +asked myself that question once or twice, and I haven't been able to +answer it.' +</P> + +<P> +The light of adoration in his eyes faded a little. +</P> + +<P> +'I've been afraid of that,' he said slowly. I've been afraid that you +might be rushing into the business without reasoning it out—weighing +all the sides of it.' +</P> + +<P> +'If I were, it would only be the way of the O'Haras.' +</P> + +<P> +His blue eyes became more troubled. +</P> + +<P> +'I've been afraid of that,' he repeated. 'Bridget—suppose—my dear, +suppose it was to turn out a mistake.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I've made so many mistakes in my life and lived through them +that one more wouldn't matter,' she rejoined lightly. +</P> + +<P> +'This one would matter—because it would be irretrievable. Suppose that +you were to find that you couldn't put up with the Bush life—I've told +you that you are letting your imagination and your enthusiasm run a bit +away with you, and that there may be hardships you don't reckon on. For +though it all looks to me plain sailing now, and I hope it will only be +a year or two before I can put on a manager, and give you the home and +the climate that are more suited to you, one can't tell in Australia +that there may not be a drought or that a cattle boom may not turn to a +slump—do you see?' +</P> + +<P> +'I shan't mind in the least, Colin—that is, I shall mind immensely, +but if there comes a drought it will be quite exciting helping you to +drag out the poor, thirsty beasts, when they get bogged into the +waterholes as you were describing the other day.' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed. +</P> + +<P> +'YOU—helping to drag out bogged beasts! Why! they'd drag you in.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, there are other things. Riding! I could help you to break in +horses. All the O'Haras are good on horseback'—at which he laughed +immoderately and told her that when she had seen one, Zack Duppo, on a +buckjumper, she would not be keen to try that game. But it might amuse +her to help cut out a few tame bullocks on a drafting camp if she had a +good old station mount that knew its work. +</P> + +<P> +She shuddered. 'I love horses, but I should run away from the first +bullock that looked at me. I'm frightened of beasts, and, on second +thoughts, I should not want to pull out bogged ones. And I loathe +cooking—domestic work—in a house. It would be different out of doors. +You've promised to teach me the first time we camp out how to +make—what do you call them—johnny-cakes?' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah! The first time we camp out together. If you knew how I've dreamed +of that. Biddy, I've got plans in my mind for that—' He caught her two +hands in a fierce grasp, and as he looked at her, his eyes full of +love, he would—greatly daring—have held her close to his breast and +kissed the provocative lips, as yet almost virgin to his. But she made +a shrinking movement, and he, acutely sensitive, dropped her hands, and +the love that had flamed in his eyes gave place to the dour look she +did not know so well. +</P> + +<P> +'Why do you always keep me at a distance?' he said, and drew abruptly +away from her. +</P> + +<P> +'Dear man, you mustn't be importunate. It—it's constitutional with me. +I've always hated love-making at close quarters.' +</P> + +<P> +'Always! Does that mean that you've been in the habit of letting men +kiss you?' +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, you are rude—brutal.' +</P> + +<P> +'D'ye think so? It seems to me that I'm only as Nature made me. +Biddy—if you feel like that now—how will it be when you're my wife?' +</P> + +<P> +She flushed a little, but as her way was, evaded him. +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps I shall have grown more used to it all by that time.' +</P> + +<P> +'The time is not so long—only a fortnight from now. And when you hold +me off from the touch of your hand—the feel of your lips—well, it +makes me wonder....' +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little alarmed shiver. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't wonder, Colin. Don't worry.... And oh! before everything, don't +drive me—it isn't safe with an O'Hara woman. I can see that you don't +understand women—of a certain type.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! I grant you women haven't stood for a great deal in my life, and +the few I've known well have been of the humble, human sort. But I do +know this, Bridget'—his face softened—'I do know that a proud, +sensitive woman—which is what you are and what I love you for +being—is like a thoroughbred mare, out the first time in harness. You +must keep your hands tight on her and let her go her own pace. I can +tell you, too, the cart-horse kind that has to be driven with a whip +and a "gee-up" all the time wouldn't be the type for me.' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed gain, but shakily. There was an appeal in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, you've told me a lot about breaking in young horses, and how +patient one has to be with them. Be patient with me.... Now, I'll try +and answer your question—truthfully. I only know in a very confused +sort of way WHY I want to marry you.... I think you must understand +what a lonely sort of life I've led, really—and what a dreadful muddle +I've made of it—Well, I've told you how I hated everything. And though +I can laugh, and be interested, too, in Molly Gaverick's way of looking +at things, and in her determination not "to be out of the swim"—I was +just as determined myself, when I had the mood to be in it—and though +one side of me hankers after the push and the struggle and the +worldliness—yet the other side of me revolts against it, and longs to +be washed clean of all the sordid social grime. There! I've felt about +marrying you that it would be a new baptism into a bigger, fresher, +purer life—do you see?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—I see.' His tone was doubtful. 'You've tried it before—that idea +of bigger interests—a different kind of life—in other ways, Biddy, +haven't you?' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! in ever so many ways. Of course, that wasn't only in the sense of +love—hero worship, you know. It was the schemes, ideas, plans for +living in the higher part of one. Tolstoy, Prentice Mulford—that kind +of thing.... Colin, you blame me for not GIVING; yet, all my life, I've +been blamed for giving too freely.' +</P> + +<P> +'For giving too freely!' He repeated sharply. +</P> + +<P> +'You mustn't misunderstand me. I said it hadn't only to do with men +making love to me—my ideas about a different life. It was my general +attitude—expecting to meet something great and being disappointed.... +Of course, I've suffered—suffered horribly—in my heart—in my pride. +And I've often found that my attitude towards things brought me into +difficulties. The average person, if it's a man—supposes that because +one has such ideas one must be a kind of abandoned creature. And, if +it's a woman, that one has some mean, ulterior motive. I've always +seemed to be looking for largeness and finding only what was small. You +attracted me because you're like nature—big, simple, elemental.' +</P> + +<P> +'Now, what the deuce do you mean by elemental?' +</P> + +<P> +'Primal, unadulterated—closer to the heart of life and nature. It's a +sort of cosmic quality. You are large—your surroundings are large.' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed, only half comprehending, gauche in the expression of his +deep-hearted satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +'One thousand square miles, two thirds of it fair grazing country in +good seasons, and will be first-rate when I've worked out my artesian +bore system. Plenty of space there for a woman to swing her petticoats, +in—your riding skirt it'll have to be.' +</P> + +<P> +'There! You see!' she cried. 'COULD one be mean or small in such +conditions? It's glorious, the thought of riding over one thousand +square miles—and tapping Mother Earth for your water supply! It will +be just what I said—a new baptism—a washing in Jordan. But you will +be patient, Colin; promise me that you will be good to me, and not ask +too much—at first.' +</P> + +<P> +There came a note into her voice which intoxicated the man with hope +and joy. But he restrained himself. He would not frighten her again. +</P> + +<P> +'Good to you! Biddy—you know you're sacred to me—I'll do +everything—I'll be as patient as you could wish until you get so used +to me that everything comes naturally. You understand? So long as +you'll trust me and open your heart to me, I'm not afraid that you +won't love me, my dear, in the end.' +</P> + +<P> +'I WANT to love you, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +She moved a little closer to him and put her hand up, timidly, to his +shoulder. His breath came quickly, but he did not lose his +self-control. He knew that he must go gently with her. She drew her +hand down his coat sleeve and let it rest like a snowflake on his—a +contrast in its smallness and whiteness to the great brown hand +beneath. She looked at that, smiling whimsically, and he saw her smile, +and reddened. But he did not know that she found a pleasure in the +sight of his hand—scrupulously kept, the nails as well trimmed as a +bushman's nails can be, while showing the traces of manual labour. +</P> + +<P> +'How ridiculous they are together!' she said softly 'But I like your +hand, Colin. It's different from the other men's hands.' +</P> + +<P> +He was glad she said 'the other men's,' and not 'the other man's'. +Through all the gusts of passionate tenderness that went out to her, +there was always rankling the thought of 'that other man.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 3 +</H3> + +<P> +They had only one more talk, in the real sense, before their marriage, +and that was an unpremeditated but natural outrush of the vague +jealousy which slumbered at the core of McKeith's love. It was on the +last evening, and it made an ineffaceable impression upon him. +</P> + +<P> +They were standing, after dinner, close together by the balustrade of +the terrace. +</P> + +<P> +It was a clear night, with a young moon, and the stars set deep in blue +so dark that the sky gave an impression of solidity. The air was full +of scents and of a soft balminess, with the faint nip of an early May +in the Southern hemisphere. +</P> + +<P> +He had folded her light scarf round the child-like shoulders. The touch +of his big hand stirred her—it had not often done so in that peculiar +way. It roused something in her that she had thought dead or drugged to +sleep, and took her back for an emotional moment to a certain late +summer evening at Hurlingham, when she and Willoughby Maule had stood +in the garden together under the stars. There came to her an almost +fierce reaction against that moment. She felt a distinct emotion now, +but it was different—less tumultuous, and bringing her a soft sense of +enfoldment. +</P> + +<P> +She slipped her hand gently into McKeith's, and they remained thus for +nearly a minute without speaking. He was the first to break the silence. +</P> + +<P> +'Bridget,' he said impetuously, 'we're going to be husband and wife +to-morrow. It makes me tremble, darling—with happiness and hope, and +with fear, too. What have I done, a rough Bushy like me—to win a woman +like you? Well you know how I think about that. And I don't believe in +a man belittling himself to the woman he loves, though it's just +because he loves her so that he feels unworthy of her. And then it +comes over me again—badly sometimes—how little I really know of you, +and of your life, and of your feelings towards the other men you must +have had to do with—one other man in especial, may be, that you've +loved, or may have thought you loved. That's what I want to know about, +my dear.' +</P> + +<P> +Her face was turned from his as she answered: +</P> + +<P> +'What's the good of your knowing, Colin? Whatever there was is past.' +</P> + +<P> +'But IS it past. Over and over again, I've started to ask you and have +pulled back. Now it's got like a festering sore in my heart, and I'm +afraid it will go on festering unless I'm satisfied. There WAS somebody +in especial—a man you cared for and might have married if he had been +a finer sort of chap than he turned out to be?' +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him sharply. +</P> + +<P> +'How do you know? Has Rosamond Tallant been telling you?' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' he said, with complete candour. 'There wasn't a word of that sort +passed between us—and I wouldn't have heeded it if there had.' +</P> + +<P> +'Joan, then? No, I'm sure Joan Gildea wouldn't have talked behind my +back.' +</P> + +<P> +'You may bet your life on that. Joan hasn't said anything about +whatever love-affairs you may have had.' +</P> + +<P> +'Every girl has had love-affairs. I'm no exception to the rule. There's +been no real harm in them. Let them lie—buried in oblivion. They're +not worth resurrecting.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, but,'—he persisted—thinking all the while of that +letter—'Bridget, I must ask you this one thing. Is there any man in +the world you care for more than you care for me? I know,' he added +sadly, 'that you don't love in the way I love you—in the way I'd like +to be loved by you. I know that's too much to expect—yet.' +</P> + +<P> +The melancholy note in his speech touched her. +</P> + +<P> +'I told you that I do WANT to love you, Colin—only I can't help being +what I am,' she said softly. She looked up at him in the pale +brightness of the thin moon and myriad stars. He stood with the faint +illumination from the open windows of Government House upon his fine +head and his neat fair beard. It intensified the gleam in his earnest +blue eyes, while it softened his angularities and bush roughness, and +as she looked up at him, she could not help feeling what a splendid +fellow he was! What a MAN! So much finer than that other man to whom +she had nearly given herself! Ah, she had had an escape! Under all his +show of romantic adventure, his ardent protestations, his magnetic +charm, that other man had been utterly sophisticated, worldly, +self-interested. He had shown this in his money-grabbing, in his +disloyalty both to the woman he had professed to love, and to the woman +he had married for her fortune. Thinking of him in this way, Lady +Bridget felt that in time she might come to care a great deal more for +Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +He caught up her last words. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I know that you WANT to love me Biddy, and I hope with all my +heart and soul that you will—or else—' he broke off, his face +darkening. +</P> + +<P> +'Or else—what?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know. It would be hell. I can't think such a thing at this +moment. If it comes—well, I'll face it as I've had to face other ugly +things. Don't let us speak of the possibility!' +</P> + +<P> +She sensed some quality in him that she had not realised before. +</P> + +<P> +'You frighten me a little, Colin. It's as if I may any day come up +before something I wasn't prepared for; and yet—I rather like it.' +</P> + +<P> +He smiled at her. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm glad you like it, anyway. You seem to me such a child, Biddy, +though you are always telling me you are such an old soul. I can't for +the life of me make out what you mean by that.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! A soul that has come back and back, and has lived a great +many—perhaps naughty—lives.' +</P> + +<P> +'H'm! Yes! Well, one life is good enough for me, and as we can't prove +the other thing, what does it matter anyhow? I wouldn't want you in +another life if you were going to be quite a different person. I want +you as you are in this one. And so I reckon would any man who has ever +been in love with you. Let us go back now to what I was asking you. +Biddy, there WAS a man—one man that you did care for? You've admitted +as much.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—I suppose there was.' +</P> + +<P> +'And not so long before you came out here?' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose that's true too.' +</P> + +<P> +'Bridget!—do you know what's been festering in my mind—the thought +that you might be marrying me in a fit of pique—a sort of reaction. +Biddy—tell me honestly, my dear, if it's anything of that sort?' +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to be considering. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't quite know how to answer you, Colin—if I'm to be absolutely +honest. And I'd always rather tell you the truth.' +</P> + +<P> +'Thank God for that. Let there be truth between us—truth at any cost.' +</P> + +<P> +'You see,' she said slowly. 'My whole coming out here—everything I've +done lately, has been done in reaction against all I've done and felt +before.' +</P> + +<P> +'Would you have married that man—if everything had been on the square?' +</P> + +<P> +'What do you mean by "on the square"? I've done nothing to be properly +ashamed of!' +</P> + +<P> +'No—no—I was thinking only of him, Biddy, did you love that +man?—really love him?' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm not sure yet whether I'm capable of what you'd call loving really. +I had a violent attraction to him,'—he remembered the phrase—'I +confess I did feel it dreadfully when he married someone else. Now it +doesn't hurt me. And of course, he has gone out of my life altogether. +I'm glad he has, and I hope he will keep on the other side of the +world.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, let it stop at that.' He drew a breath of relief. 'I don't +believe you really cared for him. If you had, you couldn't take it as +you do. I'll never bother you again about that man. And, oh, my +dear—my dear—it doesn't seem to me possible that you shouldn't come +to love me, when I love you as I do—with my whole heart and soul—I +worship you, Biddy. And I'll not say again that I'm unworthy of you—a +man who loves a woman like that CAN'T be unworthy.' +</P> + +<P> +He took her in his arms and kissed her. And this time she did not +resist the caress. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +They were married with much flourish of trumpets and local +paraphernalia. Never before in the annals of Leichardt's Land had a +wedding taken place from Government House. This one was regarded as +quite an official event. The Executive Council—at that moment about to +undergo the pangs of dissolution—attended in a body. There were a +great many members of parliament present also. It became even a +question whether the official uniforms worn at Sir Luke's 'Swearing In' +should not lend eclat to the occasion. But Colin McKeith vetoed that +proposition. +</P> + +<P> +The bridal party drove straight from the Church to that same +extemporized wharf by the Botanical Gardens which had been put up for +the Governor's State Landing. It had been re-constructed and +redecorated for to-day's event. Thus the embarcation of the bride and +bridegroom, of the viceregal party and the wedding guests, in the +Government yacht, which was to take the new-made pair to the big +mail-boat in the Bay, was almost as imposing a ceremony as the +Governor's Entry into his new kingdom. The day was glorious—an early +Australian winter's day, when the camellia trees are in bud, and the +autumn bulbs shedding perfumes, and garlands of late roses, honeysuckle +and jasmine are still hanging on trellis and tree. +</P> + +<P> +As the bridal party came down the avenue of bunyas, and the band played +the Wedding Chorus from LOHENGRIN a feeling of dream-like incongruity +came over Bridget. She laughed hysterically. +</P> + +<P> +'What a pity Joan Gildea isn't here!' she said. 'Think of the "copy" +she might have made out of this!' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Tallant had conceived the original idea of having the wedding +breakfast on the deck of the Government yacht, while it steamed down +the forty miles between Leichardt's Town and the river bar, beyond +which, in those days, large vessels could not pass. There, the repast +was laid on tables decorated with white blossoms and maidenhair fern, +under an awning festooned with flowers and exotic creepers, and +supported apparently, by palm trees and tree ferns which had been taken +from the Government Gardens. +</P> + +<P> +The bride looked small, pale, and quaint in her white satin dress and +lace veil, now thrown back and partly confining the untidily curling +hair. Some of the reports described her as being like an old picture; +others as a vision from Fairyland. She came barely up to her husband's +shoulder as they stood together, and the adoring pride of his downward +gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic +thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation +bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his +buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a +short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration +proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, +and so did the Attorney-General, who was best man. Bridget's +bridesmaids had been selected from the daughters of the Executive with +as much attention to precedence as though she had been a royal +princess. All this had delighted the Leichardstonians, and when Sir +Luke read out the congratulatory cablegrams received that morning from +the Earl and Countess of Gaverick, Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, and one +or two other members of the British aristocracy, the enthusiasm was +great. +</P> + +<P> +The speeches were over; the wedding cake had been cut; the river-bar +and the liner were in sight, when Lady Bridget went below and changed +into sea-going blue serge. The mail-boat, beflagged in honor of the +occasion, dipped a salute. The Governor led the bride along the +gangway, introduced the captain of the mail-boat, and there were more +congratulatory speeches, and still more of official ceremony as the +bride passed by a line of inquisitive and admiring +passengers—fortunately there were not many—and down to the state-room +prepared for her. Then the curtain seemed to fall that divided her from +her past, and when the Governor stepped again on to the Leichardt's +Land yacht, and the last farewell had been waved, Lady Bridget felt +thankfully that she had become a private individual at last. Only just +Bridget, wife of Colin McKeith, Bushman, now starting upon her voyage +towards the Wild. +</P> + +<P> +She could not get away from the bewildering sense of unreality. It +dominated every other feeling. She did not even reflect that there was +no going back; that her fate was sealed, and that the Bush was +henceforth to be her prison or her paradise. +</P> + +<P> +All the way up the river, Rosemary Tallant congratulated herself upon +having done the best that was possible for poor Biddy the failure. It +was all entirely satisfactory. She wove a halo of romance round Colin +McKeith, and, after reading her laudation of him, and her description +of Bridget's send off, old Lady Gaverick and the impecunious Chris and +his wife declared to each other that Biddy had done as well for herself +as the family had any reason to expect. +</P> + +<P> +Eliza, Lady Gaverick, was highly pleased, though she would not for the +world have let her niece by marriage know it. Being Scotch herself she +approved of the Scotch bridegroom, and began now to think seriously of +the alteration she subsequently made in her will. +</P> + +<P> +It was a four days' passage to Leuraville the port at which the +McKeith's were to be dropped. Not being a good sailor Lady Bridget +retired to her berth when the steamer got into a choppy sea. +</P> + +<P> +Of course she had no maid. Colin unpacked the cabin trunk and dressing +bag and arranged things so far as he could understand his wife's dainty +toilet equipments, and his mistakes made them laugh and got them over +the first awkwardness of close quarter. +</P> + +<P> +Then he said: +</P> + +<P> +'Now I'm going to stow away my own traps. My cabin is just facing this +and you've only got to call out if you want anything. Eh, but my word! +Biddy, it's a fine thing to be marrying from Government House. The +Company has done us both proud.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 4 +</H3> + +<P> +They were landed at Leuraville on the evening of the fourth day. A +tender took them off with the mails—as it happened, they were the only +passengers for that small sea-township. Ordinary business folk going +north, preferred the smaller coasting steamers which put in at every +port. The postmaster, the portmaster, the police magistrate, and a few +local notables were waiting to receive them at the wharf. McKeith +greeted them all heartily and rather shyly introduced them to his +bride. The local men were shy also. They mostly addressed her as Mrs +McKeith. The police magistrate—Captain Halliwell, lean, dark, sallow, +with a rather weak mouth, but more carefully dressed than the others, +and with an English voice, called her Lady Bridget. He was a retired +officer of the ROYAL ENGINEERS. She had been told and now remembered +that men in the ROYAL ENGINEERS were popularly said either to be +religious or cranks. This man was a Christian Scientist which he +announced when apologising for not offering the hospitality of his +house, a new baby having arrived the day previously, ushered into the +world, he explained, by prayer and faith and without benefit of medical +skill. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget knew something about Christian Scientists. She plunged at once +into faith-healing ethics with the police-magistrate, while Colin saw +about getting the trunks off the tender. How odd it seemed to be +talking about London and Christian science in a place like this! +</P> + +<P> +Leuraville too seemed part of a dream. But her face soon lost its +bewildered look. She became interested in her surroundings, although +there was no suggestion here of savage freedom or romantic adventure. +</P> + +<P> +Leuraville showed low and hot and ugly. A red sun near its dropping, +drew up the miasmic vapours from the mangrove-fringed reaches +stretching on either side of the wharf. Some light crafts were moored +about. A schooner was loading up with cattle—wretched diseased beasts. +Bridget watched them with shuddering repulsion—being hoisted up and +slung aboard with ropes. The men at their task swore so abominably that +the police-magistrate stepped up to them and remonstrated on the plea +of a lady's presence. Bridget had never heard such swear-words. She was +used to the ordinary 'damn,' but these oaths were so horribly coarse. +Colin, who was asking local questions of the other men appeared to take +it all as a matter of course. The men stopped their work to stare at +Lady Bridget. They wore dirty corduroys hitched up with a strap over +flannel shirts that were open at the neck and left their brawny breasts +exposed. There were other loafers in flannel shirts, hitched up +trousers and greasy felt or cabbage-tree hats, and there were two or +three blacks of the demoralised type seen in coast townships. Now, one +of the bullocks got loose and rushed blindly down the wharf, and +Bridget shrieked and clung wildly to her husband's arm until it was +headed back again. +</P> + +<P> +Colin laughed at her terror. +</P> + +<P> +'It's all right, Biddy. But how's that for a Bushman's wife. You'll see +lots of cattle up at Moongarr.' +</P> + +<P> +Moongarr was the name off his station which was to be her future home. +</P> + +<P> +'I hate cows. Once I was charged by a wild cow and I've been afraid of +them ever since.' +</P> + +<P> +'That isn't a cow. It's Mickey Field's poley-tailed bullock being +shunted off to the Boiling-Down Works on Shark Island,' said a local +man. +</P> + +<P> +The police-magistrate found his opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +'You wouldn't be afraid, Lady Bridget, if you realised that cow as an +expression of the Divine mind.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget laughed. Her sense of the queerness of it all was almost +hysterical. She had the Irish wit to make the men grin at her prompt +answer, which when it became bruited up and down the Leura, earned her +the reputation of being sharp at repartee. +</P> + +<P> +'But do you think,' said she confidingly, 'that the cow would be after +realising ME as an expression of the Divine Mind?' +</P> + +<P> +'Eh, you needn't think you're going to knock spots off my wife, any of +you,' cried Colin delighted at the sally. And now he walked and talked +like a man on his own soil again, as more of the townsfolk came +about—extraordinary people, Bridget thought. Loose-limbed bush-riders, +really trim, some of them, in clean breeches and with a scarlet +handkerchief doing duty as a belt, unkempt old men, a Unionist Labour +organiser addressing a knot of station-hands out of work—even a +Chinaman—a Chinky, McKeith called him, who, it appeared kept a +nondescript store. That was in the days before the Commonwealth and the +battle cry of 'White Australia.' +</P> + +<P> +All of them showed the deepest interest in the small, pale, picturesque +woman walking by Colin's side. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed incredible to Biddy that she should be walking like that +beside the big Bushman, in this sort of town, and that he should be her +lawful protector. +</P> + +<P> +The street they walked up began from the wharf with two-storied +respectable buildings—the Bank, the Post-Office, the +police-magistrate's residence, some dwelling houses, within palings +enclosing gardens—clumps of bananas, pawpaw apple trees, a few flower +beds, bushes of flaunting red poinsettia, and so forth. There were +stores, public houses, meaner shanties straggling along a dusty road +that lost itself in vistas of lank gum trees. +</P> + +<P> +The Postmaster hoped that Mr McKeith's lady would not find the hotel +too rowdy. It was one of the two-storied buildings, and had a bar +giving onto the street, and a veranda round both upper and lower +storey. A number of Bushmen and loafers were drinking in the bar, and +others were on the edge of the veranda dangling their legs over it into +the street. All of them stopped their talk and their drink to stare at +Lady Bridget. The landlady—a big, florid Irish-woman in black silk, +with a gold chain round her neck came out onto the veranda and greeted +McKeith as an old friend, holding out her hand to Lady Bridget. She +took the husband and wife up to their rooms, a parlour opening on the +balcony, a bedroom over the bar and a little room at the back of it. +</P> + +<P> +'It's a rough sort of shop, Biddy,' said Colin, when the woman had +departed. 'But it will do for a shake-down for to-night. If the steamer +had come in earlier I'd have taken you straight up to Fig Tree Mount, +where the buggy will be waiting for us; and after that we'll begin our +camping out, and you'll be in the real Bush. But we've lost the train, +and must wait till daylight to-morrow. You'll be tired my dear—and you +must be feeling strange,' he added kindly. 'I'll go and have your traps +brought up and leave you to fix yourself. I want to see one or two +chaps and find out whether my drays are down as far as Fig Tree for +stores and what's going on up along the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget noticed that the change in McKeith seemed yet more accentuated. +His manner was more curt and decided—rougher than before. He appeared +to have taken on the tone of the Back-Blocks. Yet she admired him. She +did not dislike the roughness. +</P> + +<P> +But she felt a womanish aggrievement at his having left her to undo her +own things. And the rooms were horrible—the meagre appliances—the +course cotton sheets, the awful Reckitt's-blue colouring of the painted +walls. And then the dreadful noise of the men drinking below in the +bar! If this was the Bush! But Colin had said it was not the Bush. +</P> + +<P> +He left her again after dinner which was horrible likewise—burned up +steak, messy fried potatoes and cabbage, an uneatable rice pudding. He +did not seem to mind. The result of his enquiries had left him grim and +preoccupied. Yes, he had taken on the Bushman, and had more or less +dropped the lover. The practical Scotch side of him was uppermost, and +he appeared more disturbed over station affairs than at her want of +appetite. She resented this unreasonably. She had not wanted him to +play the lover in these surroundings, they would have been fatal to +romance, but she had not bargained for his glumness. He was angry at +the non-arrival of his draymen and the probability that they were +drinking at a grog-shanty on the road. He would certainly sack them, he +said if that were the case. And he had disquieting news from Moongarr. +Pleuro had broken out among the cattle. What was Pleuro? Lady Bridget +wondered, but she was not sufficiently interested in cattle to ask the +question. And the Unionist labour men were making themselves a +nuisance—going round the stations burning the grass of squatters who +employed non-Union stockmen and shearers—in one instance, threatening +to burn a woolshed. And there hadn't been any rain on the Leura for a +month past, and weather prophets were predicting a drought. +</P> + +<P> +It was dreadfully prosaic and boring. After he had gone out again to +transact further business, Lady Bridget went to bed and squirmed +between the cotton sheets, remembering ruefully the luxuries of +Government House. Never in all her life had she slept between cotton +sheets or washed herself in an enamelled tin basin. The noise in the +bar became intolerable. She could hear the swear-words quite +distinctly. They were disgusting. She tried to stop her ears .... Oh +what a dreadful life this was into which she had plunged so recklessly! +</P> + +<P> +Her thoughts went back to the old-world—to the luxurious veneer +covering the younger Gavericks' petty economies—stealing the notepaper +at country-houses for the sake of the address—cadging for motors and +dinners—'keeping in' with the people likely to be of use; pulling +strings in a manner which Bridget knew would have been too utterly +galling to Colin McKeith's self-respect. And she thought of her father +and his financial unscrupulousness! But none of these could have +conceived of life without certain appurtenances of that position to +which they and she had been born. The only one who was self-respecting +among the lot was old 'Eliza Countess' as they designated her. It +struck Bridget that Eliza Countess and Colin McKeith had points of +character in common—it was true they both came from Glasgow. She +thought of the parsimonious rectitude—which had of course included +linen sheets and fine porcelain and shining silver—of old Lady +Gaverick's establishment, of its stuffy conventionality—though that +had been soothing sometimes after a dose of Upper Bohemia; and Bridget +wept, feeling rather like a wilful child who had strayed out of the +nursery among a horde of savages. +</P> + +<P> +At last she could bear it no longer. They were singing now—a terrible +thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like +the cracking of whips—a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget +shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this +in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in +her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband would come and rescue her +from these beasts. Watching for him she could see through the +uncurtained French windows the starry brilliance of the night, and the +moon now in its middle quarter. And down below, the houses and shanties +along the opposite side of the street, the fantastic tufts of the +pawpaws, the long white road stretching away into the ragged blur of +gum-forest. +</P> + +<P> +Presently a firm step sounded on the veranda and came up the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +When Colin opened the door, he saw standing by the table, which had a +kerosene lamp on the red cloth, and, even at this time of the year, +winged insects buzzing around, and sticking to its greasy bowl—a small +white figure like an apparition from another world, in its wonderful +draperies of lace and filmy white, the little pale face framed in a +cloud of shining hair, and the strange eyes wide, scared, and with +tears glistening on the reddened lids. +</P> + +<P> +She cried out at him. +</P> + +<P> +'How could you have left me alone here with those horrible drunken men +down there making such a noise that I thought every minute they would +break in on me? And swearing! I've never dreamed of such dreadful +language; and I can't stand it—I won't stand it a moment longer.' +</P> + +<P> +'You shan't. It's abominable, I've been a thoughtless beast.' +</P> + +<P> +He swooped out through the open door, down the wooden stairs which +creaked under his wrathful steps. Bridget heard him call the landlady, +'Mrs Maloney! Come here!' in a voice of sharp command. Presently she +heard him speaking to the men in the bar, not abusively, indeed almost +good humoured tone, but imperatively. +</P> + +<P> +'Look here, mates.' The uproar stopped suddenly. 'You're decent blokes +I know, and you've all had mothers if you haven't had wives. Well, +there's a lady up there—she's my wife, and she's never heard +bullock-drivers swear before, and you've scared her a bit. Just you +stop it. Shut up and be off like good chaps.' +</P> + +<P> +Some dissentient voices arose; an attempt at drunken ribaldry, strident +hisses, 'Sh! Sh!' Cries of 'Shame.' 'Chuck it!' Then again, McKeith's +voice, this time like thunder. 'Stop that I say—one more word and out +you go, whether you like it or not.' +</P> + +<P> +On that, came the noise of a scuffle and the fall of a heavy body +across the veranda. And of McKeith, once more breathing satisfaction: +</P> + +<P> +'All right! I haven't killed him—only given him a lesson .... But just +you understand I'm not taking any of your bluff. You've GOT TO GO. If +you don't, it'll be a case of the lock-up for some of you. And if you +do—quietly mind, there'll be a shout all round for the lot of you +to-morrow. Drink my health and my wife's, d'ye see? Here Mrs Maloney, +chalk it down.' +</P> + +<P> +In five minutes he was back in the sitting room, looking rather +dishevelled, and with his coat awry. But there was silence below except +for the putting up of shutters, the sound of shuffling feet along the +road and snatches of the bullock drivers' chorus which gradually died +away in the night. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith went up to his wife who was still standing by the corner of the +table, and put his arm round the little trembling form. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! Biddy—my darling. I've been a brute. I'm not fit to take care of +you. I ought to have thought of all that. But one gets used to such +goings-on in the Bush, and they aren't bad chaps—the bullockys, and +you've got to discount their lurid language a bit. I don't know whether +it is that bullocks are more profane than most animals, but it's +certain sure that you can't get them to move without swearing at them.' +</P> + +<P> +Then, as she said, half crying, half laughing, 'I see. So this is my +baptism into the Bush! You should have taught me the vocabulary, Colin, +first.' +</P> + +<P> +'Don't be too hard on me. You won't have this kind of thing at +Moongarr. That's the worst of these cursed coast townships. I shouldn't +have left you alone, but if I hadn't, we couldn't have got off properly +to-morrow, and I'd set my heart on having things ship-shape for our +first camping out. Everything's fixed up now—I've been wiring like mad +up the line .... The buggy's at the Terminus all right, and I've got +the black-boys there, and the tent and all that. It's going to be an +experience you'll never forget. THAT'S to be your baptism into the +Bush, my dear .... If only there's water enough left in the Creek yet +.... But if there isn't we can dig for it. Oh, Biddy, think of it—a +night like this—moonlight and starlight—MY starlight—MY star, that I +used to look up at and wonder about, come down to earth. No, no, I +won't maunder, I won't be a romantic zany—not till to-morrow night—I +know the very spot for our camp ....' +</P> + +<P> +He began to describe it—a pocket by the river bed—pasturage for the +horses—then pulled himself short. No! He wanted it all to be a +surprise .... She was to have just the very thing she had often said to +him she would like best .... And now it was getting late and they must +be up in good time to-morrow. Would she go to bed and try to sleep.... +</P> + +<P> +He took her to the door of her room .... Was she as comfortable as she +could be here, anyhow? .... He knew it must seem cruelly rough to her; +but it wouldn't be his fault in the future if she didn't have things as +she liked them—so far as conditions would permit .... And after all, +there women who enjoyed a wild life with their husbands. There was Lady +Burton—and scores of other women—Biddy had asked him to have +patience—and he meant to be patient—he worshipped her too much not to +be patient. Well, she must be patient too with him, and with this queer +old Bush which she would get to feel as much at home in as he did +himself—in time. +</P> + +<P> +He left her at her bedroom door, kissing her hand with the native +chivalry that sat well upon him, and went back to his pipe and the +waking dreams of an ardent but self-restrained lover who had practical +as well as romantic considerations to weigh. Bridget went to sleep with +the smell of his tobacco—and yet did not seem to mind it in the +least—coming in whiffs through the door cracks and filling her +nostrils. She too dreamed—a vivid dream, but by some law of +contrariety, not of any idyllic camping ground in the Never-Never Land. +She dreamed that she was seeing the Carnival at Nice—a medley of +dancing waves, azure sky, palms, gold-laden orange trees and white +green-shuttered houses—flowers, CONFETTI, masks, grotesque pageantry, +the merry music of the South. And though he had never been with her at +Nice, Willoughby Maule came into her dream. They were doing impossible +things—dancing together in the Carnival crowd, flinging confetti, +bobbing and grimacing before the comic masks. Then the carnival scene +seemed to turn flat, and to become a painted picture on the drop +curtain of a stage, and she started up at the sound of knocks such as +one hears before the curtain rises in a French theatre. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 5 +</H3> + +<P> +Her husband was at her door calling her in the grey of dawn. He had +everything ready he said. She dressed fumblingly as if she were still +in her dream, and they walked to the station-shed whither the baggage +had already gone. The sun was only a little way above the horizon when +they took their places in the bush train that was to bear her on the +second stage of her journey into the Unknown. Such a wheezy, shaky +little train, and such funny, ugly country! Sandy flats sparsely grown, +mostly with gum trees, where there were no houses and gardens. Near the +township there were a good many of these wooden dwellings with +corrugated iron roofs—some of the more aged ones of slab—and with a +huge chimney at one end. They were set in fenced patches of millet and +Indian corn or gardens that wanted watering and with children perched +on the top rail of the fences who cheered the train as it passed. +Sometimes the train puffed between lines of grey slab fencing in which +were armies of white skeleton trees that had been 'rung' for +extermination, or with bleached stumps sticking up in a chaos of felled +trunks, while in some there had sprung up sickly iron-bark saplings. +</P> + +<P> +Now and then, they would stop at a deserted-looking station, round +which stood a few shanties, and the inevitable public house. Maybe it +had formerly been a sheepfold, abandoned when the scab had destroyed +the flocks; and there were enormous rusty iron boiling-pots to which a +fetid odour still clung, and where the dust that blew up, had the +grittiness and faint smell of sun-dried sheeps' droppings. +</P> + +<P> +At one of the more important stopping places, they had early lunch of +more fried steak, with sweet potatoes and heavy bread and butter and +peach jam. Most of the other passengers got out for lunch also. +</P> + +<P> +There was a fifth-rate theatrical company cracking jokes among +themselves, drinking brandy and soda at extortionate prices, and +staring hard at Lady Bridget. Colin pointed out to her a lucky digger +and his family—two daughters in blue serge trimmed with gold braid, +and a fat red-faced Mamma, very fine in a feathered hat, black brocade, +a diamond brooch, and with many rings and jangling bangles. There were +some battered, bearded bushmen who seemed to be friends of Colin's, +though he did not introduce them to his wife, and who talked on topical +subjects in a vernacular which Lady Bridget thought to herself she +would never be able to master. There was a professional horse-breaker +whom McKeith hailed as Zack Duppo, and to whom he had a good deal to +say also. There were some gangs of shearers or stockmen or what not, +who appeared to be the following of two or three rakish, aggressive +looking males upon whom the bushmen scowled. Union delegates, Strike +Organisers, McKeith explained. +</P> + +<P> +After that station, marks of civilisation diminished. The Noah's Ark +humpeys in their clearings became few and far between, and the long +lines of grey two-railed fences melted into gum forest. Now and then, +they saw herds of cattle and horses. Once, a company of kangaroos +sitting up with fore paws drooping and a baby marsupial poking its head +out of the pouch of one of the does. Then, taking fright in a second, +all leaped up, long back legs stretched, tails in air, and, in a few +ungainly bounds they were lost to sight among the gum trees. Early in +the afternoon the train reached the temporary Terminus, for the line +was being carried on by degrees through the Leura district. This was a +mining town called Fig Tree Mount—why, nobody could tell, for there +were no fig trees, and not a sign of a hill as far as the level +horizon—except for the heaps of refuse mullock that showed where +shafts had been sunk. A good many years ago, Bridget was told, there +had been a rush to the place, but the gold field turned out not so good +as had been expected, and it was only lately that the discovery of a +payable reef had brought the digging population back again. From one +direction came the whirr of machinery, and there was in the same +quarter a collection of white tents and roughly put up humpeys. +Otherwise, the township consisted of a long dusty street cutting the +sandy plain and, out of the two score or so of zinc-roofed buildings, +twenty were public houses. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had been very silent all day. To Colin's anxious enquiries +she answered that it was enough to take in so many new impressions +without talking about them. Through the crude blur of these impressions +her husband stood out definitely, a dominant influence. She seemed to +be only now beginning to feel his dominance. Yet all the time, she +could not get away from the sense of living in some fantastic dream—an +Edward Lear nonsense dream. The sight of the kangaroos in the Bush +brought a particular rhyme of her childhood to her mind. She half said, +half sang it to an improvised tune: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'Said the Duck to the Kangaroo,<BR> + "Good gracious! how you hop!<BR> + Over the fields and water too,<BR> + As if you never would stop!"'<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +She caught her husband looking at her in a fascinated, puzzled way, and +paused and gave him her funny little smile. +</P> + +<P> +'That's a very pretty song,' he said. 'But I can't make out what it +means. What is it about a duck or a kangaroo? They're nonsense words, +aren't they?' +</P> + +<P> +'Nonsense—oh yes, frightful nonsense. Only it struck me that there's +sometimes a lot of truth in nonsense. Listen now,' and she went on: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + '"My life is a bore in this nasty pond,<BR> + And I long to go out in the world beyond.<BR> + I wish I could hop like you!"<BR> + Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.'<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He still looked puzzled—but adoring. +</P> + +<P> +'You've got no sense of humour,' she said, 'Don't you see that you and +I are as incongruous as the duck and the kangaroo?' +</P> + +<P> +'That is so,' he answered gravely. 'But I'll be a kangaroo with +pleasure if it makes the Bush more attractive to you.' +</P> + +<P> +She fell suddenly silent again, and sat gloomy and staring at the +endless procession of gum trees as the train lumbered on through that +fantastic forest, which made her think of all kinds of ridiculous +things. And she was conscious all the time of his furtive watching from +the corner opposite, and of his readiness to spring forward at the +least indication of her wanting anything. It bewildered her—the +strangeness of being alone with, entirely dependent upon this big man +of the Bush, who had the right to look after her, and yet of whom she +knew so little. +</P> + +<P> +He did look after her with sedulous care. He had natty bush dodges for +minimising the discomfort of the hot, dusty train journey. He +manufactured a windsail outside the carriage window, which brought in a +little breeze during the airless heat of mid-day. He contrived to get +cool drinks and improvised for her head a cushion out of his rolled up +poncho, a silk handkerchief and a large cold cabbage leaf against which +she leaned her hot forehead. In all his actions she watched him with a +curious blend of feelings. There was a satisfaction in his largeness, +his commonsense, his breeziness. She liked hearing his quaint Bush +colloquialisms, when he leaned out of the window at the small stations +and exchanged greetings with whomsoever happened to be +there—officials, navvies, miners, even Chinamen—most of whom saluted +him with a 'Glad to see you back, sir!' ... or a 'Good-day, Boss. Good +luck to you,' as if they all knew the significance of this wedding +journey—which no doubt they all did. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget kept in the background and smiled enigmatically at it all. She +was interested in her husband both in the personal and abstract sense, +and was a little surprised at herself for being pleased when he paid +her any attention or sat down beside her. At moments, she even hankered +after the touch of his fingers, and had a perverse desire to break down +the restraint he was so manifestly putting upon himself. Once, when he +had been sitting very still in the further corner, thinking she was +asleep, she had looked at him suddenly, and had found his eyes fixed on +her in a gaze so concentrated, so full of intense longing, that she +felt as if he were trying to hypnotise her into loving him. She knew +that if he were, it must be unconscious hypnotism on his part. There +were no subtleties of that kind in Colin McKeith. No, it was the primal +element in him that appealed to her, dominated her. For she was +startled by a sudden realization of that dominant quality in him as +applied to herself. In their courtship it had been she who dominated +him. +</P> + +<P> +He reddened guiltily when he caught her eyes. His long upper lip went +down in obstinate resistance to impulse. But if he had kissed her then, +she would not have rebelled. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, what are you thinking of?' she said, and he answered in a tone, +husky with pent emotion. +</P> + +<P> +'I was thinking of our camp to-night—of how we should be alone +together in the starlight.... And of how I want to make you happy and +of how wonderful it all is—like some impossible dream.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes. I've been feeling too that it is like a dream,' she replied +gravely. +</P> + +<P> +'A bit of nightmare so far, I'm afraid, for you, Biddy,' he said +shaking himself free from sentiment. 'But this part of it will soon be +over.' +</P> + +<P> +He got up, pulled the blind down behind her, and readjusted the cabbage +leaf under her head. Just then, the train pulled up at a station where +there were selectors' holdings, and a German woman was lugging along a +crate of garden produce. He jumped out and bought another cabbage from +which he shredded a fresh cool leaf for her pillow. And at that they +laughed and he relapsed into normal commonplace. +</P> + +<P> +When she got out at Fig Tree Mount, he took her across the sandy street +to the nearest and largest of the public houses which had 'Station +Hotel' printed on it in big blue letters—a glaring, crude, zinc-roofed +box with a dirty veranda that seemed a receptacle for rubbish and a +lounge for kangaroo dogs, to say nothing of drunken men. The dogs took +no notice of the male loungers, but started a vigorous barking at the +sight of a lady. There was the usual bar at one end, the usual noise +going on inside, and the usual groups of bush loafers outside. Several +riding horses were hitched up to the palings at a right angle with the +Bar, and a bullock dray loaded with wool-bales—on the top of which a +whole family appeared to reside under a canvas tilt—was drawn up in +the road. The beasts were a repulsive sight, with whip-weals on their +panting sides, their great heads bowed under the yoke and their +slavering tongues protruding. Bridget looked at everything with a wide +detached gaze, as she followed her husband along the hotel veranda. +McKeith, motioning to his wife to proceed, stopped to peer at the faces +of two men lying in a drunken sleep on the boards. +</P> + +<P> +'Not my men, anyway,' he said, rejoining her. 'But that will keep.' The +place seemed deserted and in disorder. There were glimpses through the +open windows of unmade beds within, and, on the veranda, lay some red +blankets bundled together. Colin took his wife into a parlour, where +flies buzzed round the remains of a meal and some empty whisky bottles +and glasses. After considerable shouting and knocking at doors along +the passage, he succeeded in arousing the landlady, who came in, +buttoning her blouse. Her obviously dyed yellow hair was in a +dishevelled state, her eyes were heavy and her face sodden. She had +evidently been sleeping off the effects of drink. +</P> + +<P> +'Had a night of it, I suppose, Mrs Hurst?' observed McKeith glumly. +'This is a nice sort of place to show a lady into.' +</P> + +<P> +The woman burst out on the defensive, but McKeith silenced her. +</P> + +<P> +'That'll do. Clear away all that mess and let us have a clean cloth and +some tea. And I say, if you have got a decent room for my wife to wash +the dust off and take a bit of a rest in, I'll be obliged.' +</P> + +<P> +The landlady blinked her puffed eyelids, muttered an uncourteous +rejoinder and went off with some of the debris from the table. Bridget +laughed blankly. She looked so small and flower like, so absolutely +incongruous with her surroundings, that the humour of it all struck +McKeith tragically. +</P> + +<P> +'Good Lord! I wonder what your opinion is of this show! Here is the +beginning of what is called the Never-Never Country, my dear. Do you +want to go back again to Government House?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I don't,' and she touched him to the heart's core by putting her +little hand in his. +</P> + +<P> +'That's my Mate,' said he, his blue eyes glistening. 'But I'll tell you +what I think of your splendid pluck when we're quit of these beastly +townships, and have gone straight into Nature. Now, I've got to go and +see after the buggy and find my boys, and I shall have all my work cut +out to be ready in an hour. You just make the best of things, and if +the bedroom is impossible spread out my poncho and take a rest on that +sofa there, and don't be frightened if you hear any rowdiness going on.' +</P> + +<P> +The bedroom was impossible, and the sofa seemed equally so. Bridget +drank the coarse bush tea which the landlady brought in, and was glad +that the woman seemed too sulky to want to talk. Then she sat down at +the window and watched the life of the township—the diggers slouching +in for drinks, the riders from the bush who hung up their horses and +went into the bar, the teams of bullocks coming slowly down the road +and drawing up here or at some other of the nineteen public houses 'to +wet the wool,' in bush vernacular. She counted as many as twenty-four +bullocks in one of the teams, and watched with interest the family life +that went on in the narrow space between the wool bales and the canvas +roof above. There were women up there and little children. She saw +bedding spread and a baby's clothes fluttering out to dry, and tin +pannikins and chunks of salt beef slung to the ropes that bound the +wool bales together. Then, when the wool was wetted, or when some other +teams behind disputed the right of way in lurid terms which Lady +Bridget was now beginning to accept as inevitably concomitant with +bullocks, the first dray would proceed, all the cattle bells jingling +and making, in the distance, not unpleasant music. +</P> + +<P> +It was the horses that interested Lady Bridget most, for, like all the +O'Haras, she was a born horsewoman. Though she was moved almost to +tears by the spur scars on the lean sides of some of them—spirited +creatures in which she recognised the marks of breeding—and by the +unkempt condition of some that were just from grass, she decided within +herself that there could never be a lack of interest and excitement in +a land where such horseflesh abounded. +</P> + +<P> +Presently she had her first sight of the typical stockman got up in +'township rig.' Spotless moleskins, new Crimean shirt, regulation silk +handkerchief, red, of course, and brand new, tied in a sailor's knot at +the neck, leather belt with pouches of every shape and size slung from +it, tobacco pouch, watch pouch, knife pouch and what not. Cabbage tree +hat of intricate plait pushed back to the back of the head and held +firm by a thin strap coming down to the upper lip and caught in two +gaps on either side of the prominent front teeth—there are very few +stockmen who have kept all their front teeth. Stockwhip, out of +commission for the present, with an elaborately carved and beautifully +polished sandal-wood handle hanging down behind, a long snake-like lash +coiled in three loops over the left shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget knew most of the types of men who have to do with +horses—huntsmen, trainers, jockeys, riding masters and the rest, but +the Australian bush-rider is a product by itself. She liked this son of +the gum forest-tanned face, taut nerves, alert eyes piercing long +distances—a man, vital, shrewd, simple as a child, cunning as an +animal. And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky +muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks +a new sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed +mettlesome creature under him! Man and beast seemed truly a part of +each other. Lady Bridget O'Hara's soul warmed to that stockman and to +his steed. +</P> + +<P> +He was looking at the windows of the bar-parlour. As soon as he saw the +lady, the cabbage tree hat was raised in a flourish, the horse was +reined in, the man off his saddle and the bridle hitched to a post. +</P> + +<P> +Now the stockman stepped on to the veranda. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs McKeith—or is it Lady McKeith I should say—I haven't got the +hang of the name if you'll pardon me—Mr McKeith sent me on to say that +he'll be here with the buggy in a minute or two.... I'm Moongarr +Bill.... Glad to welcome you up the Leura, ma'am, though I expect +things seem a bit rough to you straight out from England and not +knowing the Bush.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget won Moongarr Bill's good favour instantly by the look in +her eyes and the smile with which she answered him. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm from Ireland, Moongarr Bill, and if we Irish know anything we know +a good horse, and that's a beauty you're riding.' +</P> + +<P> +'Out of a Pitsford mare by a Royallieu colt, and there's not a finer +breed in the Never-Never. My word! you've struck it there, ma'am, and +no mistake,' responded the stockman enthusiastically. 'I bought 'im out +of the yard at Breeza Downs—that's Windeatt's run about sixty miles +from Moongarr, and I will say that though it's a sheep-run they've beat +us in the breed of their 'osses.... Got 'im cheap because he'd bucked +young Windeatt off and nearly kicked his brains out, and there wasn't a +man along the Leura that he'd let stop on his back except me and Zack +Duppo—the horse-breaker who first put the tackling on 'im.' +</P> + +<P> +After the interchange of one or two remarks, Lady Bridget had no doubt +of being friends with Moongarr Bill, and Moongarr Bill decided that for +a dashed new-chum woman, Lady Bridget had a remarkable knowledge of +horseflesh. +</P> + +<P> +The quick CLOP-CLOP of a four horse team and a clatter of tin billys +and pannikins—as Lady Bridget presently discovered slung upon the back +rail of an American buggy—sounded up the street. +</P> + +<P> +'There's the Boss,' said Moongarr Bill. 'Look alive, with that +packhorse, Wombo.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget now perceived behind the stockman a black boy on a young +colt, leading a sturdy flea-bitten grey, laden with a pack bag on +either side. He jumped off as lightly as Moongarr Bill and hitched his +horses also to the veranda posts. Except that he was black as a coal, +save for the whites of his eyes and his gleaming teeth, he seemed a +grotesque understudy of the stockman—moleskins, not too clean and +rubbed and frayed in places, fastened up with a strap; faded Crimean +shirt exposing a wealed and tattooed breast; old felt hat—not a +cabbage tree—with a pipe stuck in its greasy band; an ancient red silk +handkerchief with ragged edges, where whip crackers had been torn off, +round his neck, and a short axe slipped among a few old pouches into +the strap at his waist. He jumped on to the veranda, clicked his teeth +in an admiring ejaculation as he gazed at Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'My word! BUJERI feller White Mary you! ... new feller Mithsis +belonging to Boss. My word!' Then as McKeith drew up his horses in +front of the hotel, Wombo and Moongarr Bill sprang to the heads of +wheelers and leaders. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Bridget that there was a change in her husband even since +he had left her. He looked more determined, more practical, wholly +absorbed in the unsentimental business of the moment. He had changed +into looser, more workmanlike rig—was belted, pouched, carried his +whip grandly, handled his reins with a royal air of command, as if he +were now thoroughly at home in his own dominions, had already asserted +his authority—which she found presently to be the case—and intended +the rest of the world to knock under to him. There flashed on Lady +Bridget an absurd idea of having been married by proxy—like the little +princesses of history—and of being now received into her lord's +country by the monarch in person. Her face was rippling all over with +laughter when he joined her in the veranda. +</P> + +<P> +'What! Another delicious black boy! He looks like a Christy Minstrel. I +thought you hated blacks, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +'So I do. You've got to have 'em though for stock boys, and I keep my +heel on the lot at Moongarr. Wombo and Cudgee aren't bad chaps so long +as they are kept clear of their tribe. How do you like the new buggy, +my lady? A dandy go-cart, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +He looked as pleased as a child with a new toy carriage. The buggy was +quite a smart bush turn-out—comfortable seats in front—a varnished +cover, now lying back; a well behind, filled with luggage; a narrow +back seat whence Cudgee—a smaller edition of Wombo—sprang down. +Cudgee, too, stared at Lady Bridget and clicked his teeth in +admiration, exclaiming: +</P> + +<P> +'Hullo! New feller Mithsis.' +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards, Lady Bridget remembered the greetings and wondered why the +black boys had said: 'New feller Mithsis!' Who had been the old feller +Mithsis? she asked herself. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith sternly quashed the black boys' ebullition and told them to +mind their own business. Bridget agreed that the buggy was first rate +and became enthusiastic over the horses, four fairly matched and +powerful roans. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! what beauties! I'd like to go and make friends with them.' +</P> + +<P> +He was delighted. 'Good 'uns, ain't they? But wait and make friends +when you're behind 'em. We've twenty-five miles to do before sundown. +Got your traps fixed up? That's right. Here, Bill, take her ladyship's +bag and stow it safely at the back of the buggy. Handle it +gingerly—it's full of silver and glass fallals—not what we're much +used to on the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +The stockman grinned and carried the dressing-bag—one of Sir Luke's +and Lady Tallant's wedding presents—as if it were dynamite. Colin +seemed anxious to impress his wife's dignity upon her new subjects. She +felt still more like a queen of comic opera. He helped her into her +dust cloak, paid the bill, cut short the landlady's sulky +apologies—she had done her hair and recovered herself a little. Then +he settled Lady Bridget into the buggy after the manner of a bush +courtier—her feet on a footstool, the rug over her knees, a cushion at +her back. His whole air seemed to say: +</P> + +<P> +'This is the Queen, and I, the King, expect that proper homage be paid +her.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 6 +</H3> + +<P> +The loafers at the bar all came out to see the start. The family on the +top of the bullock-dray peered forth from under the tilt. The barkeeper +shouted, 'Good luck to you and your lady, Mr McKeith.' The drunken +reprobates, awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too, +'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had +got out his answering, 'Thank ye—Good day, mates,' a shower of +opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented +bush rowdies—the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had +come up with them in the train from Leuraville. +</P> + +<P> +Three of these men lurched on to the bar veranda, and, so to speak, +took the stage. In front was a stumpily-built bullock driver with a +red, truculent face, a ragged carrotty beard and inflamed narrow-ridded +eyes. A little to the rear stood a lanky, muscular bushman in very +dirty moleskins, with a smooth loose-lipped face, no eyelashes, and a +scowling forehead, who was evidently the worse for drink; next to him, +a shorter man of the drover type, older, eagle-beaked and with +sinister, foxy eyes. This one hailed McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'Yah! Look at him and his spanking team! What price honest labour, you +blamed scab of a squatter? Just you wait a bit. It'll be our turn soon +to burn all you blanked capitalists off the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +The lanky bushman took up the jeering note. +</P> + +<P> +'Pretty flash turn-out, ain't it! My word, you think yourself a bloated +fine gentleman now you've married into the British hairystocracy, don't +you, Mister Colin McKeith? You can take it from us, boys, he's the +meanest cuss that ever downed a harmless nigger.... Ask him what the +twenty-five notches on his gun stand for?' +</P> + +<P> +'And I tell YOU what it is, Steve Baines. There'll be another notch on +my gun, and it won't be for a nigger, if you give me any more of your +insolence,' said McKeith coolly. 'Get out of the way, men. Let the +horses go, Cudgee. Ready, Biddy?' +</P> + +<P> +But Cudgee, out of malice or stupidity, did not let the roans go or +else someone else put a restraining hand on the reins. The man with the +ragged beard roared out. +</P> + +<P> +'Ho, you think you're going to ride over us!—you and your fine +ladyship! Wot do we care about the British hairystocracy. What we're +asking for is the rights of labour, and we mean to have 'em. Do you +want to know what he's done to us boys? Fired us out straight away cos +we was 'avin' a bit of a spell and a drink to keep the life in us after +we'd close up killed ourselves lifting that there ladyship's blanked +hundred-ton weight of pianner on to the dray....' +</P> + +<P> +Moongarr Bill's chivalrous instinct flamed to a counter attack. He had +just mounted, but swung down from his saddle and made a rush at the +speaker. McKeith's stern voice stopped him. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't be a fool, Bill. Let the brutes alone and push on with the pack. +This is not the time for a row. As for you, Jim Steadbolt—you know me, +and you know that if this was any other sort of occasion, you'd pay on +the nail for your infernal cheek.... Leave go of those reins. D'ye +hear'; for the man of the ragged beard was jerking the near leader's +bit and putting the mettlesome animal on its haunches. +</P> + +<P> +'Damn you! Let go.' +</P> + +<P> +He leaned forward to strike at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the +lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not +extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an +instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger on +his face. +</P> + +<P> +'No. Keep still, my dear. Don't be frightened.' +</P> + +<P> +'I frightened!' She gave a little laugh. Her form stiffened. The small +pale face poked forward between the folds of her motor veil, and all +the O'Hara spirit flashed as she spoke to the group of malcontents. +</P> + +<P> +'How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that +they didn't insult women.' +</P> + +<P> +There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of 'Shame, +Steadbolt, you! ... You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain't got no use +for you, Micky Phayle.... Can't you see a lady as is a lady?' sounded +from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the last +question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the +veranda, and made a feeble assault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the +reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget's +voice, made a last envenomed attack. +</P> + +<P> +'It ain't us GENUINE Australians that insults you.... Takes a mongrel +Scotchy for that.... Say, Ladyship, just you ask your husband what a +sort of an insult he's got ready for YOU up at his Bachelor's Quarters +at Moongarr.' +</P> + +<P> +The words had not left his mouth when McKeith's driving whip whizzed in +the air and raised blood on the speaker's cheek. Steadbolt dropped his +hold of the roan leader's bridle and fell back screaming imprecations. +At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward. +</P> + +<P> +'Sit tight, Biddy,' said her husband. 'Up you get, Cudgee,' he shouted. +The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy +swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the +road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses +and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and +whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock +heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated +Bush. +</P> + +<P> +For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and +wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them +from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent +while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too. +She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she +felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene +bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to +her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became +interested in watching Colin's handling of the team. She had often sat +behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively +she made some such remark, and he looked down at her, the hard face +breaking into a smile. +</P> + +<P> +'That's good.... Wait a bit, my dear, until they've steadied down +again.... Y'see they take a lot of driving, and I don't want to lay an +accident on top of that unholy shindy....' He spoke in jerks. The roans +were inclined to 'show nasty' as Moongarr Bill came abreast of them, +and Wombo's pack jingled behind. McKeith gave Moongarr Bill directions +about the camp in Bush lingo, which again turned Bridget's thoughts. +The black boy and the stockman spurred on as the roans slackened pace. +McKeith was able to relax the strain. +</P> + +<P> +'My word! we scooted pretty quick out of that piece of scenery,' he +said. 'I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful +bit of business. I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men +half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, +their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of +them—Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when +we got into broken country—thick with the Union delegates and sticking +for higher wages. I paid them off and filled their places on the spot +with two chaps off a wool-drive.... So I left the brutes vowing +vengeance, and I suppose they thought they'd lose no time in giving me +a taste of it.... Well, they're no loss.' He had been explaining things +in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious jog-trot along a +piece of uneven road. 'That fellow Steadbolt is a wrong 'un—not good +even at his own job of wood and water joey—which means, my dear, the +odd cart-driving on a place—and not to be trusted within ten miles of +a public house.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget asked suddenly: +</P> + +<P> +'I want to know, Colin—what did that man mean by saying you had an +insult ready for me at your Bachelor's Quarters? What insult?' +</P> + +<P> +It seemed as though blue fire leaped from McKeith's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +'Insult! Good God! Biddy you can't hold me responsible for the foul +insinuations of a beast like that. Insult YOU! my wife!' +</P> + +<P> +The passionate tenderness thrilling his voice, the honest wrath and +bewilderment in his face must have silenced any doubt, had doubt +existed in Lady Bridget's mind. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know, Colin. I don't even know what Bachelors' Quarters mean. +Have you an army of Bachelors at Moongarr, and what do they do when +they're at home?' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed. 'It's a shanty I put up for the new-chums when I've got +any—and for the gentlemen-sun-downers that come along, and visitors +that I don't want to be bothered with at the House. There's a woman up +there....' He stopped suddenly and his face grew grim again. 'That's +it, I suppose—I'm sorry I didn't sling the whip harder and cut the +fellow's cheek open. I would if I'd thought....!' +</P> + +<P> +He stopped again. +</P> + +<P> +'What woman? Have I a rival? This is becoming dramatic!' Lady Bridget's +voice was amusedly ironic, but she carried her head erect. 'Tell me +about the woman at the Bachelors' Quarters, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +'There's nothing to tell, except that's she's the widow of a man who +went up with me on my last Big Bight expedition, and was killed—partly +through his own, and partly through my, fault. That's why I've made a +point of looking after her, and I built my Bachelor's Quarters chiefly +to give her a job. I thought she was too young and too good looking to +be drawing grog for diggers at Fig Tree Mount—which was what she set +out doing.' +</P> + +<P> +'I see.... So she's young—and handsome.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, in a coarse sort of way.... No, I wouldn't say that; she's rather +refined for her upbringing. Anyway, Steadbolt as well as a lot of other +men fell in love with her—Steadbolt was pretty well off his head over +it. She wouldn't have him at any price—naturally—and I had to give +the fellow work outside the head-station to keep him away from her. +That was before I went south. Very likely he's been trying it on again, +and knew I should have to get rid of him as soon as I came back.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why doesn't the woman marry again?' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith shrugged. 'Too jolly comfortable perhaps—or perhaps the right +man hasn't turned up. Florrie Hensor is several cuts above a +malingering lout like Steadbolt. Well there, poor devil! Maybe, it's +not unnatural that I should feel a sneaking sympathy for an +unsuccessful lover. That abominable lie was a bit too strong +though—and before you! The man must have been downright mad from drink +and fury and bitterness. It—it's all funny—isn't it? One of the queer +sides of the Bush. Good old Bush! I am glad to be back in it again, +Biddy.' +</P> + +<P> +He lifted his head and seemed to draw in the strong odour of the gum +trees and the pure vitality of the weltering sun. His anger appeared to +have left only compunction behind it. And again he begged her to +forgive him for having subjected her to an experience so disagreeable. +They were on a stretch of clear road now, and the roans trotted +pleasantly along. Lady Bridget took up his words. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, it's all funny—that kind of thing—in this setting.... I never +supposed that I should be howled at by a revolutionary mob in the +Australian Bush.... A BAS LES ARISTOCRATS. It's quite exciting. I think +I should have enjoyed the Reign of Terror.' +</P> + +<P> +'Eh! You're only frightened of four-footed beasts. If you'd lived then, +you'd have gone up to the block with that smile on your lips, and the +proud turn of your little head—just as I used to dream of you...' +</P> + +<P> +'Of ME!' +</P> + +<P> +'You don't know—I'll tell you some day. I remember talking to Joan +Gildea once.... It's queer.... But never mind now. D'ye like this, +Biddy?' +</P> + +<P> +'I love it. I wish we could drive on through the forest all day and all +night—a dream drive. I think I might be able to place myself at the +end of it.' +</P> + +<P> +'To place yourself!' +</P> + +<P> +'I've never been able to find my true pivot inside. All my life I've +been howling in my soul and haven't known what I was howling for. I +thought to-day that you might teach me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is it only to-day that you have thought that?' he said wistfully. +'Well, anyway, I'm glad of it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Colin,' she said abruptly, 'wasn't it funking a little bit, don't you +think—running away?' +</P> + +<P> +'No—not with YOU beside me. You'll have other opportunities for seeing +whether I've got much of the funker in me. No doubt those brutes will +give trouble some time.' +</P> + +<P> +'What can they do?' +</P> + +<P> +'Fire my run—spoil my cattle sales—get hold of my stockmen....But I'm +not so badly off as my "sheep" neighbours at Breeza Downs. They've got +to have their shearing done.... Though I've had a lot of bother +to-day,' his face became gloomy, 'and I foresee more ahead.' +</P> + +<P> +She asked what other sort of trouble. +</P> + +<P> +'Why! there's been no rain at Moongarr since I left it five months ago. +And Pleuro means innoculation and short sales.... Ah well! ...' +</P> + +<P> +He flicked the wheelers gently. 'Shake it up, Alexander! Look alive, +Roxalana.... I named 'em when I was reading ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY, +my dear ... my dear!' He looked down at the little woman by his side +with deep tenderness in his blue eyes and a smile that banished the +shade from his face. 'Oh, my dear, there ain't going to be any bush +worries for us this blessed afternoon and evening. It's the poetry and +romance'—he pronounced it romance—'of the bush that's got hold of me +now. I'm just longing for us to strike the camping place—and +then—just you and me together—just man and woman—alone with Nature!' +</P> + +<P> +He put his hand on hers and she pressed it in return. The Woman in her +thrilled to the Man in him. +</P> + +<P> +Cudgee, on the hind seat with his back to them, broke the spell. +</P> + +<P> +'My word, Massa! You look out, Mithsis—big feller goanner sit down +along a tree.' And for the first time in her existence, Lady Bridget +beheld a monster iguana dragging its huge lizard tail and turning its +stately, brown crocodile head round at her from the safe vantage place +of a thick gum branch. +</P> + +<P> +After that, the way led off the main road, on by a less used track +through wilder country. Here Wombo, the black boy, was +waiting—Moongarr Bill having gone on with the pack horse to the +camping place—and helped to unharness the two leaders which he drove +before him ahead. The trees thickened, the buggy wheels caught on +stumps. Cudgee had to get down at intervals and, with his axe, lop and +clear fallen timber. Every mile the progress grew slower and the forest +more lonely. No sign now of a selector's clearing, or of any human +occupation.... But there was a pack of emus hustling and shaking their +big bunches of feathers like startled ballet girls. +</P> + +<P> +'I feel as if part of the Zoo had been let loose,' said Lady Bridget +when again there bounded along in the near distance a pair of kangaroos +with a little Joey kangaroo taking a lesson in locomotion behind its +parents. +</P> + +<P> +They were still in the gum forest, but now and then came a belt of +gidia scrub—mournful trees with stiff black trunks and grey green +foliage and a pale sort of wattle flower smelling like dead cattle when +rain is about, as McKeith explained. But there was no rain about now, +and, in truth, he would have welcomed the unpleasant odour. Perhaps it +was that which made the ground so stark and bare beneath these trees +where no grass will grow. The sun was lowering when they left the +gidia. Out in the gum forest again, the birds were chattering before +retiring to rest. All life is still in the bush at mid-day, but now +there were curious scutterings among the grass tussocks, and the whirr +of its insect population sounded all round. The country got +prettier—swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of +hills. They could see the green line of a water course. +</P> + +<P> +'Plenty water sit down along a creek?' McKeith asked the black boy. But +Cudgee shook his woolly head. +</P> + +<P> +'Ba'al* mine think it, Massa. No rain plenty long time.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*ba'al—the Aboriginal negative.] +</P> + +<P> +McKeith sighed. The dark shadow of coming drought is a fearsome spectre +on the Never-Never Land. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 7 +</H3> + +<P> +A COO-EE sounded long, clear, vibrant. Moongarr Bill and Wombo, who had +gone on ahead, were fixing camp. Lady Bridget's musical voice caught up +the note. She answered it with another COO-EE, to Cudgee's delight. +</P> + +<P> +'My word! Ba'al newchum, that feller white Mary,' said he. +</P> + +<P> +They had rounded a knoll abutting on the green line of ti-trees and +swamp oak. It was a barren hump; upon its crest, and alone in barbaric +majesty, stood a row of grass trees silhouetted against the sunset sky. +Weird sentinels of the bridal camp they seemed—tall, thick black +trunks like palm-stems, from each of which spread an enormous tuft of +gigantic grass blades green and upright in the middle, grey and jaggled +and drooping where they hung over at the bottom. Out of each green +heart sprang a great black spear many feet in height. +</P> + +<P> +The stony knoll dropped sheer like a wall. On the other side of it was +a space the size of an amphitheatre, a large part of it spread with +soft green grass, like a carpet, and the rest of the floor scattered +with low shrubs and big tussocks. Amongst them was a herb giving out a +fragrance, when the feet crushed it, like that of wild thyme. The whole +air seemed filled with a blend of aromatic perfumes. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a roofless room, open on one side where a break in the +ti-trees showed the sandy bed of the creek, which, at first, to Lady +Bridget's fancy, had the appearance of a broad shallow stream. On this +side, low rocks with ferns growing in their crannies, edged the stream. +On the opposite shore, one giant eucalyptus stood by itself and cast +its shadow across. Beyond, lay the gum-peopled immensity of the bush. +The stony walls of the knoll, curving inward and sheltering a thick +growth of ferns and scrubby vegetation, closed in the bridal chamber. +Creepers festooned the rocky ledges and crevices. Here and there, a +young sapling slanted forward to greet the morning sun when it should +rise behind the hummock. +</P> + +<P> +Moongarr Bill had undone the pack-bags and was building a fire between +two large stones. The flames leaped up, the dead twigs crackled. Long +years after, Lady Bridget could recall vividly the smell of the dry +burning gum leaves—her first experience of a bush campfire. +</P> + +<P> +Close to the fire, under the flank of the rocky knoll the tent was +pitched, a roll of blankets and oilskin thrown just within it. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, from the hummock above came the sound of Cudgee's axe. He +had felled the youngest of the grass-trees, and was now chopping off +its green tuft. Soon he appeared, carrying a huge bunch of the coarse +blades of foliage, which he brought to the tent. With an odd mixture of +emotions, Lady Bridget watched her husband take the grass tops from the +black boy and spread them carefully on the floor of the tent, heaping +up and smoothing the mass into a bed, upon which he laid the oilskin +and then one of the blankets—they were new white blankets, fresh from +the store. After that, he set the cushions from the buggy, covering +them with the rug, at the head of the couch, making a bolster, and, +over that, the one she had had at her back. +</P> + +<P> +'No down pillows or linen sheets allowed in a bush camp-out, my lady +Biddy,' he said with a laugh, a half timorous glance at his wife, but +her answering smile reassured him. +</P> + +<P> +'You'll never sleep on a sweeter bed,' he said, sniffing the resinous +fragrance of the grass-tree tops. He would not let her help him with +the upper blankets when she wished to lend a hand. +</P> + +<P> +'No, this camp is my own show. Go and look at the scenery until I've +got our wigwam in order.' +</P> + +<P> +And she submissively obeyed. +</P> + +<P> +Against the other side of the rock wall, the black boys had built a +second fire. The horses were hobbled and grazing along the green border +of the creek. The buggy propped up, was covered with a tarpaulin. The +pack-bags had disgorged their contents. A miscellaneous heap of camp +properties lay on the ground. And now, Cudgee's axe was at work again, +stripping a section of bark from a gum tree, for what purpose Lady +Bridget did not divine. +</P> + +<P> +She walked down to the creek and stood among the rocks at its edge. She +had expected a rippling stream, and, to her disappointment, saw only a +broad strip of dry sand, along which Moongarr Bill was mooching, a +spade in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +'What are we going to do for water?' she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +'Dig for it, my ladyship,' answered Moongarr Bill. 'That's one of the +upside-down things in 'Stralia. Here's two of them—mighty queer, come +to think of it—the rivers that run underground and the cherries that +grow with their stones outside.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget observed that she was already acquainted with that +oft-quoted botanical phenomenon. In her rides around Leichardt's Town +she had been shown and had tasted the disagreeable little orange berry +which has a hard green knob at the end of it and is, for some ironical +reason, called a cherry. She also told Moongarr Bill that in England +she had seen a dowser searching for hidden springs by means of a forked +hazel twig carried in front of him which pointed downwards where there +was water and asked why Australians didn't adopt a similar method. At +which Moongarr Bill laughed derisively, and said he did not hold with +any such hanky-panky. +</P> + +<P> +'Bad luck, Biddy,' McKeith said behind her. 'If there had been the +proper amount of rain in these last three or four months, we'd have had +the one thing that's wanting now to make this the ideal camp I've had +on the top of my fancy—a running creek of pure water. But never +mind—the water's there, though you can't see it.... That's got it, +Bill!' +</P> + +<P> +For already the sand was darkening and moisture was oozing in the hole +Moongarr Bill had been digging, and which he widened gradually into a +respectable pool of water. When it had settled down, all the billies +were filled and the horses driven to it, whinnying for a drink. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget watched the evening meal being prepared between the two +fires—only watched, for she was sternly forbidden to set hand to it. +</P> + +<P> +'No canned goods, nor cooked food,' McKeith said, were allowed at this +lay-out. Moongarr Bill was first-class at frying steak. He himself was +going to boil the quart-pot tea and would give Biddy a demonstration in +johnny-cakes, made bush fashion at their own camp fire. The sheet of +bark had been cut into sections—one sub-divided into small squares to +serve as plates. The inside looked clean as paint, and smelled of +Mother Nature's still-room. Colin mixed the flour and water upon the +larger sheet and worked up a stiff dough. He kneaded it, slapped it +between his broad palms, cut it and baked the cakes in the ashes; then, +butter being the only luxury permitted, he split them and buttered +them; and Lady Bridget found in due time that not even the lightest +Scotch scones taste better than bush johnny-cakes. +</P> + +<P> +Quart pot tea, likewise—made also in true bush fashion. First the +boiling of the billy—Colin's own particular billy, battered and +blackened from much usage—half the battle, he explained, in brewing +bush tea. Then, regulation handfuls of tea and brown store sugar thrown +in at the precise boiling moment. Now the stirring of the frothing +liquid with a fresh gum-twig. Then the blending and the cooling of +it—pouring the beverage from one quart pot into another, and finally +into the pannikins ready for the drinking. +</P> + +<P> +Proudly, round the rock-flank of the hummock, Moongarr Bill brought +fried steak and potatoes steaming in a clean tin dish and done to a +turn, then went to cook more for himself at his own camp. They ate off +the bark plates. Salt, sugar and mustard came out of small ration bags. +McKeith produced black-handled knives and forks—the last a concession. +And good to taste were the fizzling johnny-cakes and the strong, sweet, +milkless tea. +</P> + +<P> +Such was Lady Bridget's real marriage feast. +</P> + +<P> +They were hungry, yet they dallied over the repast. It was the most +delicious food she had ever tasted, Bridget said. They made little +jokes. He was entranced by her happiness. Joyously she compared this +banquet with others she had eaten in great houses and European +restaurants, which were the last word in luxury. Oh! how she loved the +dramatic contrast of it. Nature was supreme, glorious.... Oh no, no! +never could she hanker after that which she had left behind—for ever. +Because, if ever she were to go back again to the old life, she would +be an ugly dried-up old woman for whom the smart world would have no +further use.... +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly she became quiet, and busied herself in the tent, while +McKeith took out his pipe and smoked in ruminative bliss. When she came +back she had no more talk of contrasts or of her old life, no more +fantastic outbursts. Indeed, there seemed to have come over her a mood +of sweet sobriety, of blushing, womanly shyness. +</P> + +<P> +'Mayn't I be your squaw and help you to wash up?' she said, when he +collected the tin pots and pannikins and proceeded to get the camp +shipshape. No, she was not to stir a finger towards the dirty work. It +was HIS job to-night. Another camping-out time she might play the squaw +if she liked. She was not on in this act. +</P> + +<P> +He amused her greatly by his tidy bush methods. The billies were +refilled, the ration-bags laid ready for the morning. +</P> + +<P> +Now darkness had fallen. He put more logs on the fire, and the flames +blazed up. Then he made up a little pile of johnny-cakes that he had +not buttered, and covered it with the bark plates. 'We shall have to +make an early start, and there'll be no time to bake fresh ones—and no +more use for these things,' he said. The square of bark on which he had +mixed the dough was in his hands and he was about the fling it among +the bushes, but she stopped him. +</P> + +<P> +'No—don't throw it away.... I—I want it for a keepsake, Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +He stared at her in surprise. The red flames threw a strange glow on +her face, and made her eyes look very bright. +</P> + +<P> +'My dearest! A sheet of bark!' Then a great light broke on him. The +strip of bark dropped from his hands. His arms went out and enfolded +the small woman, lifting her almost from the ground as he crushed her +against his breast and kissed her lips with the first passionate +lover's kisses he had ever given her.... 'Oh, my dear—my sweetheart!' +He gave a big, tremulous laugh.... 'There was never any woman in the +world like you.... To think of your caring about just a sheet of bark!' +</P> + +<P> +'You made me my first johnny-cakes upon it.... And to-night is the +beginning of our married life—and oh, Colin, it is the first time I +have felt really married to you, and I want a bit of the bush to +remember it by.' +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her again.... The miracle was accomplished. He seemed to have +no words in which to say all that filled his heart. +</P> + +<P> +The night sounds of the bush stirred the vast silence. For the first +time, Lady Bridget heard the wail of the curlew—a long note, weirdly +melancholy. It startled her out of her husband's arms. There were +uncanny swishings of wings in the great gum tree on the other side of +the creek. And now the clanking of the horses' hobbles which had been +dilatory, intermittent, became sharply recurrent. A shout from Moongarr +Bill cut short the monotonous corroboree tune which the two black boys +had been singing at their camp some little distance away. +</P> + +<P> +'My word, I believe YARRAMAN* break him hobble!' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Yarraman—horse.] +</P> + +<P> +At which the boys scampered off through the grass, and presently came +the cracking of a stock whip among the trees. +</P> + +<P> +'It's all right, Moongarr Bill's after them,' said McKeith, as his +bride released herself from his arms. 'But if you don't mind darling. +I'd better just see if anything has started the beasts.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget watched him disappear round the knoll. The curlews went on +wailing, and as if in answer a night owl sent forth his portentous +HOOT—HOOT!... Apparently nothing was much amiss with the horses; they +had quieted down again. Lady Bridget picked up the strip of bark and +carried it in her arms into the tent, laughing to herself as she did so. +</P> + +<P> +'Only a sheet of bark! What a fool I am—But it's quite appropriate, +anyway.' +</P> + +<P> +She put it beside her dressing-bag, and then went out once more into +the night. Through the interlacing gum branches she saw a great coppery +disk, and the moon rose slowly to be a lamp in her bridal chamber. How +wonderful the stars were!... There was the Southern Cross with its +pointers, and the Pleiades. And that bright star above the tops of the +trees, which seemed to throw a distinct ray of light, must be Venus.... +The moon was high enough to cast shadows—black—distorted. The low +clumps of shrubs beyond the carpet of grass looked like strange couched +beasts.... +</P> + +<P> +As she stood by the rocks at the creek edge, she heard her husband +speaking to Moongarr Bill, who seemed to be walking down along the +sandy bed. +</P> + +<P> +'Horses all right, Bill?' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, ay—just a possum up a tree gev Julius Caesar a start.... Been +digging a decent bath-hole for the ladyship in the morning, boss. +There's plenty there.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wish it was as near the surface at Moongarr, Bill. We shall have our +work cut out making new bores, if the dry weather lasts.' +</P> + +<P> +'My word, it's no joke going down three thousand feet. Amazing queer +the amount of water running underground on this dried-up old earth.' +</P> + +<P> +'But we can always strike it, Bill; no matter how dried up the outside +looks, there's the living spring waiting to be tapped. And how's that +in human nature too, Bill. Same idea, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +Moongarr Bill emitted a harsh grunt. +</P> + +<P> +'My best girl chucked me a month back, boss, and as for your darned +sentiment and poetry, and sech-like—well, I ain't takin' any just at +present.' +</P> + +<P> +'Bad luck, Bill! Struck a dead-head that time, eh?... Well, good-night.' +</P> + +<P> +'Good-night, boss—and good luck to you. I reckon your spring ain't a +dead-head, anyway.... Say, Mr McKeith, me and the boys are shifting our +fire over to the other side of the creek.... Keep the 'osses from +hevin' any more of their blessed starts.... Handier for gettin' them up +in the morning.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[* Yarraman—Horse.] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 8 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget McKeith had been married about a year and a quarter. +Winter was now merging into spring. But it was not a bounteous spring. +That drear spectre of drought hung over the Never-Never Land. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget stood by the railing of the veranda at Moongarr, looking +out for two expected arrivals at the head-station—that of her husband, +who had been camping out after cattle—and of the mailman—colloquially, +Harry the Blower—who this week was to bring an English mail. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the last arrival seemed to her at the moment most important of +the two. The bush wife had long since begun to feel a sort of home +sickness for English news. Yet, had you asked her, she would have told +you that barbarism still had a greater hold than civilisation. +</P> + +<P> +There did not, however, appear to be much of the barbarian about Lady +Bridget. She still looked like an old picture in the high-waisted +tea-gown of limp yellow silk that she had put on early for dinner, and +she still trailed wisps of old lace round her slender shoulders. There +was the same touzle of curly hair, like yellow-brown spun glass or +filaments of burnished copper, which was shining now in the westering +sun. The finely-modelled brows and shadowy eyes were as beautiful as +when Colin McKeith had first beheld his goddess stepping on to +Australian earth. +</P> + +<P> +But for all that, a change had taken place in her—a different one from +the indefinable yet significant change which is felt in almost every +woman after marriage. There is usually in the young wife's face an +expression of fulfilment, of deepened experience—a certain settled, +satisfied look. And this was what was lacking in Lady Bridget's face. +The restless soul within seemed to be peering out through hungry eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She could see nothing human from the veranda except the blue-smocked +figure of Fo Wung, the Chinaman, at work in his vegetable garden by the +lagoon. There was one large water-hole and a succession of small ones, +connected by water-courses, now dry, and meandering from a gully, which +on the eastern side broke the hill against which Moongarr head-station +was built. The straggling gum forest, interspersed with patches of +sandal-wood and mulga, that backed the head-station, stopped short at +the gully, and beyond, stretched wolds of melancholy gidia scrub. +Looking up from the end of the veranda, Lady Bridget could see an +irregular line of grey-brown boulders, jagged and evidently of volcanic +origin, marking the line of gully. These gave a touch of romantic +wildness to the otherwise peaceful scene. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget's gaze went along a track skirting the gidia scrub, and +crossing the lower end of the gully near the lagoon, to the great plain +which spread in front of the head-station. Except for some green trees +by the lagoon, a few ragged belts of gum and sandal-wood or single +isolated trees dotted about, the plain was unwooded to the horizon. +There were also silhouetted upon the sky the grotesque-looking sails of +one or two windmill-pumps. In the foreground the plain was intersected +by lines of grey fencing, within which browsed straggling herds of lean +cattle, mostly along the curve of the lagoon. +</P> + +<P> +Neither plain nor lagoon formed altogether pleasing objects of +contemplation just now, for they spoke eloquently of the threatened +drought. When Lady Bridget had come up a bride, the plain had been +fairly green. The sandal-wood blossoms were out and wild flowers +plentiful. The lagoon was then flush with the grass, and its water, on +which white, pink and blue lilies floated, had reflected the vegetation +at its edge. Now the lagoon had shrunk and the water in the gully was +in places a mere trickle. Of course, the trees were there—ti-tree, +flooded gum, and so forth—but they looked brown and ragged. One +standing by itself, a giant white cedar, which in spring was a mass of +white and mauve bloom and in winter of scarlet berries, had a wide +strip of brown mud between it and the water that had formerly laved its +roots. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had thought that the rocky gully, the lagoon and the vast +plain made as pretty a landscape as she had ever seen, when she had +first looked upon it in the early morn after her homecoming. Now, as +she paced up and down the veranda—for she was in a restless mood—her +mind went back to that bridal homecoming. They had not arrived at the +head-station till after dusk, but it had been visible from the plain a +long way off, and she had examined it with ardent curiosity through her +field-glasses in the clear light of sunset. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen a collection of rough buildings backed by the forest, and +from different points of view, as they drew nearer, had made out that +the three principal ones formed three sides of a square. Two of +these—the side wings—were old and of primitive construction—slab +walls, bark roofs, and low verandas, overgrown with creepers. Colin +explained that these were the Old Humpey—as he called the original +dwelling house—and the kitchen and store building opposite. Lately, +the New House had been put up at right angles with the old buildings, +and fronting the plain. It had been begun before his trip south and +practically finished during his absence. Colin was very proud of the +New House. +</P> + +<P> +It was made of sawn wood and had a high-pitched roof of corrugated +zinc, turned to gold by the sunset rays upon it. There was a deep +veranda all round the New House, and it was much taller than the wings, +being raised on blood-wood piles, that had been tarred to keep off +white ants, and with a flight of wooden steps leading up to the veranda. +</P> + +<P> +The details of Moongarr head-station became familiar enough later to +its new mistress. Besides the dwelling houses were various huts and +outbuildings. The stock-yards lay on a piece of level ground behind at +the side of the gully, and between the yards and the House stood a +small slab and bark cottage—the Bachelors' Quarters. +</P> + +<P> +Even though glorified by the sunset, it had given Lady Bridget a little +shock to see how crude and—architecturally speaking—unlovely was her +new home. But her Celtic imagination was stirred by the weirdness of +the grey-green gum forest, and of the mournful gidia scrub, framing the +picture. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as dusk crept closer, and the great plain, along which the tired +horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange +sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the +wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old +mystery. +</P> + +<P> +She remembered how the lights of the head-station against the forest +blackness had looked like welcoming torches and how she had roused +herself out of her weariness at the last spurt of the equally weary +buggy horses. Then the jolt in the dark over the sliprails, the slow +strain of the wheels up the hill, the cracking of Moongarr Bill's +stock-whip, and the sound of long drawn COO-EES. Also of dogs barking, +of men running forward. Then how Colin had lifted her down and half +carried her into the parlour. She remembered her dazed glance round and +the rushing thought of how she could soften its ugliness. Yet it had +looked welcoming. A log fire blazing, the table spread, a Chinese cook +in baggy blue garments—pigtail flowing; a Malay boy; her bewildered +question—was there no woman in the establishment? Then Colin's +strident call from the veranda—'Mrs Hensor. Where's Mrs Hensor!' And +the appearance presently of Florrie Hensor—youngish, tall, a full +figure; black hair, frizzed and puffed, a showy face, red cheeks, +redder lips, rather sullen, flashing dark eyes—who had received Lady +Bridget almost as if she had been her equal, and of whom the bride had +at once made an enemy by her frigidly haughty response. From the first +moment, Lady Bridget had disliked Mrs Hensor. But she had felt a vague +attraction towards the little yellow-headed, blue-eyed boy clinging to +Mrs Hensor's skirts. As for any uneasiness on the score of Steadbolt's +insolent insinuations, she had absolutely dismissed that from her mind. +</P> + +<P> +Yes—that bridal homecoming—how strange it had seemed! How rough +everything was! How impossible the whole thing would have appeared to +her had any fortune-teller in Bond Street prophesied the end of her +marriage journey! +</P> + +<P> +And how, in the first moment of settling down, she had laughed with +Colin at the thought of what Chris and Molly Gaverick, and 'Eliza +Countess' would have said! But with what dauntless energy she had +worked in transforming her new abode and in making it reflect her own +personality. She had felt really grateful, she said, to the Union +delegates for having enticed away the builders before the inside +furnishings were complete. Soon they got hold of a bush carpenter, and +she was provided with occupation for a good many months. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had been very happy in those early days. Colin had seemed +so thoroughly in the picture—strong, chivalrous, adoring—like a +Viking worshipping his conquered bride. The romance of it all appealed +tremendously to the Celtic blood in Bridget. It was her nature, when +she gave, to give generously. She had become genuinely in love with her +bush husband during that wonderful honeymoon journey. +</P> + +<P> +Ah, that journey! What an experience! If she could have written it down +as a new adventure of 'The Lady of Quality,' how the great Gibbs would +have jumped at her 'copy!' Well, she had practically done so in her +letters to Joan Gildea—now back in her London flat. But the true +inwardness of the adventure was a thing never to be put into words. +</P> + +<P> +No sign yet of the men. Lady Bridget ceased her restless pacing and +swung herself slowly to and fro in a hammock at the end of the veranda. +As she swung she traversed over again in her imagination the stages of +that honeymoon journey. +</P> + +<P> +Two hundred and twenty-five miles of it, after the first camp out. Many +more nights under the stars. Then out of the gum forests they had gone +through the great western plains, covering ground fairly easily, for +McKeith had arranged to have fresh horses on the road, and they always +drove a spare pair ahead of the buggy. Occasionally they stopped at a +head-station. Once at night they pulled up at a bush house, and a +strange old man had put his head out of a window and shouted to them in +the darkness. 'If ye've come to see me, I'm drunk,' he had said, 'and +if you've come to drink, the rum-keg's empty, but ye'll find a pint pot +outside and a little water in the tank.' And then he had shut the +window again and refused further parley. +</P> + +<P> +They had camped, hungry, in the paddock—for provisions had run out, +and on that account, and because the horses had strayed in the night, +they had to go again to the house. The old man, sober and ashamed, +captivated likewise by Lady Bridget's beauty and charm, apologised +almost on his knees—he made Biddy think of Thackeray's picture of Sir +Pitt Crawley proposing to Becky Sharp. Old Mr Duppo, it was—the father +of Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, who had recently been breaking in +colts at Moongarr. +</P> + +<P> +They stayed till the horses were found. Mr Duppo had a housekeeper—now +if Mrs Hensor had been like that housekeeper there could have been no +cause for jealous scandal. An aged dame, long, bony—dressed in a short +green petticoat and tartan jacket, with a little checked shawl over her +head and pinned under a bearded chin. She poured tea out of a tin +teapot and leaned over her master's chair at meal times to carve the +salt beef. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget sketched the pair. The old man roared over the sketch, but +the housekeeper bore her a grudge for it, and afterwards had not a good +word for the 'Ladyship' who had slipped out of her proper sphere into +the Never-Never country. +</P> + +<P> +There were plenty of other small adventures which would have made the +hair of Lady Gaverick and her friends stand on end. A dream-drive +indeed, full of sort of 'Alice in Wonderland' episodes. Bush life Out +Back—a jumble of odd characters and situations. Fencers' camps, +cattle-drivers' camps, bullock-dray camps. There had been a baby born +unexpectedly under the tilt of a bullock-dray, on one occasion, the +night before McKeith's party appeared on the scene, and Lady Bridget +had a trunk down from the buggy, and there in the road tore up some of +her fine-laced smocks and petticoats to provide swaddling clothes for +the poor little scrap of mortality. And there were tramps 'humping +bluey' on the track likewise, and diggers carrying their picks. Bridget +liked seeing Colin hail-fellow-well-met with them all—sharing tucker +and quart-pot tea. She wished that her socialistic friends of the old +played-out civilisation could see this shrewd, practical humanitarian +of the Bush. +</P> + +<P> +They came very close to each other in those long days of the +dream-drive. He talked to her as he had never talked before, and as he +talked rarely afterwards. He drew aside curtains from recesses of his +real nature, the existence of which she had not suspected, and, in +truth, at a later time, doubted. Then, if in broad sunlight the shy, +rough exterior of the man would close suddenly over those secret +chambers, when evening came, it would seem as though the camp fire +illuminated them once more. +</P> + +<P> +After the first time or two, he allowed her to boss the camp 'lay-out.' +It was she who spread the blankets on Wombo's beds of grass tree tops +and dry herbage. Wombo and the 'big feller White Mary' (the adjective +used metaphorically as expressive of distinction) made great friends in +those days—out of which friendship sprang, alas! in due time, certain +tragic happenings. It was Lady Bridget who would set the billy boiling +and who, after one or two failures, succeeded in making excellent +johnny-cakes. She remembered her first performance in that line under +the eyes of a small group of admiring spectators—her husband 'just +waiting to see how the new-chum cook shaped,' and, as he said the +words, she, glancing up from the sheet of bark and the dough she was +kneading, caught a look in his face which was something she could never +in all her life forget. And Moongarr Bill with the horses' reins over +his arm, and the two black-boys agape, beady eyes twinkling, white +teeth glistening, emitting their queer guttural clicks of approbation, +and an occasional 'My word! Bujeri you, Lathy-chap,' the nearest they +could get to Moongarr Bill's accepted form of address. There was joy, +glory to Lady Bridget in this playing of the squaw and fending for her +man, ceasing to be the goddess and becoming the primal woman. +</P> + +<P> +And the sports, and songs, and stories by the camp fire! Moongarr +Bill's yarns, Colin's exploring tales, Wombo's and Cudgee's dances and +corroboree-tunes—strange, weird music that had a fascination for Lady +Bridget. She, too, would get up and sing CARMEN'S famous air, and the +Neapolitan peasant songs of her mother's youth. Never, for sure, had +the gaunt gum trees echoed back such strains as these. +</P> + +<P> +But time came when all the romance of barbarism seemed to have fizzled +out and only cruel realities remained—when work and worry turned +McKeith from the worshipping lover into the rough-tongued, irritable +bushman—when his 'hands' deserted him, his cattle died and things +generally went wrong, and when he showed himself something of the +hard-headed, parsimonious, ill-conditioned Scotch mongrel that +Steadbolt had called him. When, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten +that Lady Bridget O'Hara had graciously permitted him to worship her, +but had not bargained for being treated—well, as many another out-back +squatter—treats his help-mate. Then Bridget would tell herself +bitterly that it might have been better had she married a civilised +gentleman. There would sometimes be scenes and sometimes sulks, and +those times no doubt accounted for the hungry look in Lady Bridget's +eyes and the slight hardening of her mouth. +</P> + +<P> +She was loyal though, in spite of her many faults, and 'game' in her +own way—and when Colin came out of his dour moods, she was generally +ready to meet him half way. +</P> + +<P> +For, through all, the memory of the dream-drive honeymoon lingered. And +the bit of bark, sapless, brown, curled up by the heat into almost a +tube, and partially eaten by white ants—before the desecrating assault +had been discovered and the termites' nest destroyed with boiling +water—was still cherished as a sacred symbol. +</P> + +<P> +While she swung in the hammock the memory pictures came and went like a +cinematograph show—the dream-drive presently merging into an +electioneering trip through McKeith's constituency a few weeks after +her bridal homecoming. +</P> + +<P> +The 'Lady of Quality' might, had she been so minded, have also made +spicy capital out of the humours of that political contest—in which, +unhappily, the Labour Party had triumphed. Steadbolt had had his say on +the occasion, and there had been a free fight—Lady Bridget was not +present, and only heard darkly of the occurrence—when Steadbolt had +got the worst of it in an encounter with his late employer. +</P> + +<P> +But all that was but a small side-show, and not likely to affect in any +great measure Lady Bridget's life. Except that the loss of McKeith's +seat in the Legislative Assembly made it no longer necessary for him to +spend at least part of the winter session in Leichardt's Town. Nor +would Lady Bridget have the opportunity to resume her old intimacy at +Government House. In any case, however, she was not destined to see +more of her old friend in Australia. A few months previously, Lady +Tallant had developed symptoms of grave disease—it was said that the +Leichardt's Land climate did not agree with her, and she had gone back +to England, leaving Sir Luke to perform his duties without her help. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 9 +</H3> + +<P> +At last, Lady Bridget heard the unmistakable sound of cattle in the +distance—the low, multitudinous roar of lowing beasts and tramping +hoofs and the reverberating crack of stock-whips. It came from the +gidia scrub. She knew that they had been mustering +SCRUBBERS—otherwise, wild cattle from the broken country at the foot +of Moongarr Range. +</P> + +<P> +She left the hammock and went again to the veranda railing. Looking +along a side path from the Chinaman's garden she saw that Mrs Hensor +and her boy—the yellow-headed urchin of about six—were hastening +towards the Bachelors' Quarters. The woman carried a basket of +vegetables, the boy hugged a big pawpaw fruit which he held up proudly +as his mother responded in her free-and-easy, rather sulky fashion to +Lady Bridget's stiff nod. 'It's for the House,' cried the child. 'Fo +Wung said I was to bring it up.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget made a wry face—she did not like pawpaws. +</P> + +<P> +'Very well, Tommy, and if you're good you can have what's left +tomorrow.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's all right,' responded Tommy in bush formula. +</P> + +<P> +'Have you seen anything of your master—or the postman?' asked Lady +Bridget of Mrs Hensor. +</P> + +<P> +'I believe Mr McKeith is coming on ahead with Harry the Blower,' said +Mrs Hensor. 'Look sharp, Tommy, the cattle will be at the yard +directly, and I've got my dinner to cook for the whole lot of them, +seeing that some visitors aren't good enough for the house.' +</P> + +<P> +The woman pointed her last sentence by a malicious glance at the +mistress of Moongarr. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose that is what your master keeps you here for—to cook for the +visitors at the Quarters, Mrs Hensor,' said Lady Bridget, with incisive +sweetness. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Hensor flushed scarlet, but she checked an impudent reply. Pulling +Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed +humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay +between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it, +and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith +called her master. She always spoke of her late husband as having been +the Boss-mate on that—to him fatal—exploring expedition. Also, she +resented having all the bachelors 'dumped down'—as she phrased it—on +her, while the 'Ladyship's swell staff' was spared the trouble. At +present the Bachelors' Quarters was fairly full. Mr Ninnis, +store-keeper and overseer in the owner's absence, abode there +permanently, and just now, there were Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, +and a young man from Breeza Downs—a combined cattle and sheep station +about fifty miles distant—who had come to help in the mustering and to +collect any beasts strayed from the Breeza Downs' herd. +</P> + +<P> +The gully crossing lay below the boulders of rock at the head of the +lagoon. Presently, two horsemen appeared on the rise. One was McKeith; +the other Harry the Mailman—otherwise the Blower—a foxy, browny-red +little man on a raw-boned chestnut, carrying his mail-bags strapped in +front and at the side of his saddle. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget supposed they had met at the turn-off track just above the +crossing. McKeith was carrying a leather mail-bag, from which he +appeared to have extracted a bundle of letters, with one hand. He held +his bridle and coiled stock-whip in the other. He was listening to the +mailman, who seemed to be talking animatedly. As they neared the house, +he gave the usual COO-EE, that set all the dogs barking, and put the +Chinaman-cook and black-boys on the alert. +</P> + +<P> +The riders passed by the end of the veranda where Lady Bridget stood. +McKeith looked up at her. He seemed preoccupied and angry, and merely +nodded to his wife, but did not take off his hat as he had done in +earlier days—and, somehow, to-day she noticed the omission. +</P> + +<P> +'All right, eh, Biddy?' he called out casually. 'Here's your mail—I've +taken out mine,' and he pitched the leather bag, with the string cut +and the official red seal broken, on to the veranda at her feet. 'I +say—you might bring the whisky out to the back veranda. I daresay you +could do with a nip, eh, Harry?' +</P> + +<P> +'That I can, Mr McKeith. Riding along these plains is dry work. Good +day, Ladyship. I'm a bit behind time, but I lost an hour looking for a +hole to fill my water bag at—And then I could not drink out of it—for +a demed old pleuro bullock had got there first and died in it. My word, +Boss, you'll be in a fix if it don't rain before long.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith made an angry gesture. He spoke sharply to the horses. The two +men rode round the kitchen-wing and dismounted at the paling fence, +which made the fourth side of the little square. The back veranda of +the new house, with steps ascending to it, in the middle, the Old +Humpey, with its veranda, along one side, the kitchen and store +building along the other, and a rough slab and bark outhouse beyond it. +Native-cucumber vines and other creepers partially closed in the older +verandas. In the centre of the square was a small flower bed with a +flowering shrub in the middle. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget brought the whisky decanter from the dining room to the +back veranda, and McKeith mounted the steps, the mailman remaining +beside them. A canvas water-bag, oozing moisture, hung from the +rafters, and there were tumblers on a table beneath it. McKeith took +the decanter from his wife's hand, too preoccupied, it seemed, even to +notice the little satirical smile on her lips. She was thinking how +funny it seemed that she should be playing Hebe to Harry the Blower. +She soon realised, however, that serious things had happened. As +McKeith mixed a liberal allowance of whisky with water from the +water-bag and handed it to the mailman, he asked curtly: +</P> + +<P> +'This isn't one of your blowing yarns, Harry? You're positive about the +fact?' +</P> + +<P> +'Saw the thing with my own eyes, Boss. As fine a team as ever I'd wish +to own, lying with their throats cut, and the trees black with crows +all round. There was the dray-load all turned over, and two cases +prized open. I bet that the rum-kegs and spirits that couldn't be +carried off, are buried in some handy dry water-hole close by. I saw +two or three empty brandy bottles with the heads of 'em smashed to show +that the rascals had wet the wool before starting off.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith cursed in his throat. 'No sign of my men?' +</P> + +<P> +'Scooted clean out of the scenery—the whole lot. I reckon that's what +they shook hands on with the Union chaps, and that the natural +consequences of absorbing your grog will be another woolshed or two +burned down before long. Here's your health, Boss, and the Ladyship's.' +And the mailman gulped down his 'nobbler' and turned to remount the +lean chestnut, which was standing hitched to the palings, observing +cheerfully: +</P> + +<P> +'Well, so long, Sir. Go'day, Ma'am. This sort of argufying ain't going +to carry my mail-bags along the river.' +</P> + +<P> +'Go up to the Quarters and ask Mrs Hensor for a feed,' called McKeith. +'And look here, Harry, you can tell them at the Myall Creek out-station +as you go by, to have two good horses ready in the yard for me. I'm off +to Tunumburra to put the police on to those devils straight away.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right, Boss. You'll find it will take some tall calculatin' +though. Them Unionists are getting too strong for the police to tackle. +Windeatt up at Breeza Downs is in a mortal funk, and sending word +everywhere for a squad of Specials to protect his woolshed.' +</P> + +<P> +'It seems,' said Lady Biddy to her husband, when the mailman had gone, +'that there might be some use after all for Luke Tallant's Maxims.' +</P> + +<P> +'It seems that Jim Steadbolt has been taking his revenge,' he answered, +'and that I must be in the saddle in an hour's time. Mix me a drink, +Biddy, and order in some grub, while I go and have a bath.' +</P> + +<P> +He looked as if he needed one. The dust of the drafting camp was caked +upon his face and clothes. His was the appearance of a man who had been +riding hard after stock and sleeping, between his blankets only, under +the stars. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget mixed him his drink and went to see Chen Sing in the +kitchen. When she came back, Colin was in the front veranda. He had +tumbled the rest of the letters and papers out of the mail-bag, and was +hastily and eagerly scanning the last LEICHARDT'S TOWN CHRONICLE. +</P> + +<P> +'Any news, Colin?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know, I was looking to see if the Government were going to act +against the strikers—I see they are sending troops.' +</P> + +<P> +'And is Luke Tallant coming at the head of them, in official uniform, +to read the Riot Act?—if there is a Riot Act in Australia. I'd like to +see Luke maintaining the supremacy of the British Crown on the Leura.' +</P> + +<P> +He looked up at her in vague rebuke of her levity, and there was +suppressed tenderness in his eyes, notwithstanding his preoccupation +with his own troubles. +</P> + +<P> +'No, no. But there's something in the paper about Lady Tallant being +ill and having an operation. Poor chap! He wouldn't have been bothering +much about strikes in the Never-Never and the supremacy of the British +Crown, any more than I should in similar circumstances.... Well, there! +I must go and bogey*.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Bogey—in Black's language, 'bathe out of doors'] +</P> + +<P> +Sudden compunction overswept Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Colin! You would care... really... even though they had cut the +throats of your four best dray-horses?' But he had disappeared into a +little veranda room, against which a corrugated iron tank backed +conveniently, and in a minute she heard the splash of water. +</P> + +<P> +She picked up the paper and looked at the English Intelligence before +examining her own letters. It was quite true. There was a paragraph +stating that Lady Tallant's health had not improved since her arrival +in England, and hinting at the likelihood of an operation being +advisable. Bridget reflected, however, that Sir Luke would probably +have received a cablegram by this time, one way or other—which would +have put him out of suspense, and, presumably, there had been no later +bad news. +</P> + +<P> +A letter from Molly Gaverick confirmed that item of the English +Intelligence. Rosamond Tallant's condition was certainly far from +satisfactory. Molly, however, seemed much more taken up with a recent +illness of Eliza Countess of Gaverick than with that of Lady Tallant. +Being a tactless and absolutely frank young person, she had no scruple +in proclaiming her hope that 'old Eliza' would make Lord Gaverick her +heir. This was the more likely, wrote young Lady Gaverick, because the +old lady had lately quarrelled with her own relatives, and never now +asked any of her stuffy provincial cousins to share the dulness of +Castle Gaverick and of the house in Brook Street. If she did not leave +her money to Chris Gaverick, there was not, conceivably, anyone else to +whom she would leave it. +</P> + +<P> +'By the way,' Molly continued, as if it had been an afterthought 'Old +Eliza is immensely interested in you and your cow-boy +husband—ranch-owner is what, I suppose, I ought to call him. She asked +Mrs Gildea so many questions about you both that Joan read her your +account of your honeymoon journey through the Bush, and all the rest of +it. How you can endure such a life is incomprehensible to me—but Aunt +Eliza says it shows you've got some grit in you, and that evidently +your husband has cured you of a lot of ridiculous nonsense—I am +quoting her, so don't be offended, and you needn't show this to +Nature's gentleman, which is what Aunt Eliza calls him. I can't help +feeling though, that it's rather a pity you didn't wait a bit before +taking the Irrevocable Step. I don't know whether you ever heard about +Mrs Willougby Maule's death—eleven months after their marriage.' +</P> + +<P> +No, Bridget had not heard. Molly Gaverick was an uncertain +correspondent, and, no doubt, Joan Gildea and Rosamond Tallant, if they +had known of the event, had thought it wiser, in writing to her, to +suppress the news. For a moment, Lady Bridget sat meditating, and all +the blood seemed to rush from her brain to her heart—she could almost +hear her heart pounding. Then she went on again with Lady Gaverick's +letter. +</P> + +<P> +'It was a motor accident—nothing serious at the time, but the baby was +born prematurely, and she lingered a week or two, and then died. I must +do him the justice to say that he seemed to feel her death very much. +It looked as though, after all, the marriage had been quite a success. +Her money gave him a lift and they were going out a good deal in the +political set. She left her quarter of a million to him, ABSOLUTELY. I +heard that some remote Bagallys were going to contest the will, but +they found that they hadn't a leg to stand upon. I wish now that we +hadn't been so sniffy about W.M. As Chris observed with unconscious +cynicism, there's a good deal of difference between a penniless +adventurer and the possessor of quarter of a million. Unattached men +with money can be so useful. As soon as Rosamond Tallant gets +better—if she does—I'll make her ask him to meet us. I know he used +to be a great friend of Luke's....' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 10 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had read so far when the door of the bathroom opened and +McKeith came out, clean again in fresh riding gear, and with a valise +ready packed and strapped in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +The noise of the cattle became much louder, though the mob was not yet +in sight. +</P> + +<P> +'I wish I hadn't got to go off before the branding,' he said. 'These +Breeza Downs people always want to claim every cleanskin*. You might +tell Ninnis and Moongarr Bill, Biddy, to keep a sharp look-out. And now +let me have my grub—I'm sorry, dear, to have you hurry up your +dinner.' He strode along to the dining-room, too absorbed in his own +annoyances to notice his wife's face or to ask any questions about her +letters. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*cleanskin—unbranded calf] +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget gathered them up and followed him. The Malay boy waited at +table with the assistance of a servant girl from Leuraville, the only +female domestic—with the exception of Mrs Hensor—on the head-station. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith swallowed his soup and ate the savoury stew prepared by the +Chinese cook with the appetite of a man who had been all day in the +saddle. Lady Bridget, who was an extraordinarily rapid eater, as well +as a fastidious one, had finished long before he was half-way through. +She sat silent at first, while he growled over the outrage upon the +horses. Then suddenly visualising the poor beasts lying stiff in +congealed blood, and the mailman's exaggerated description of trees +black with crows, she flamed out in wrathful horror, and was as anxious +as her husband that the perpetrators of the crime should be brought to +justice. He seemed pleased, and a little surprised at the ebullition. +</P> + +<P> +'I thought you weren't taking it quite in, Biddy. I am glad you think +like me, though I expect yours is the humanitarian view and mine's the +practical one. This touches my pocket, you see. Well, anyway, you won't +be so keen now on defending the Unionists.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think they've got as much right to fight for their principles as we +have for ours, but I don't think they've the right to torture horses,' +she rejoined. Her sympathy with oppressed shearers and dispossessed +natives struck always a jarring note between them. His long upper lip +closed tightly on the lower one, and he hunched his great shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, that sort of argufying won't muster the cattle,' he observed +drily, plagiarising Harry the Blower. She changed the subject. +</P> + +<P> +'Did you have a good muster?' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, fair! Between three and four hundred head. The water is running +still up in the range. We should have done better if that skunk Wombo +hadn't bolted.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget leaned forward with interest. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! Then he HAS gone after the black-gin. Brave Wombo!' +</P> + +<P> +'I wouldn't care a cuss whether he went after the black-gin or not; +she's a half-caste, by the way, and all the worse for that. And he +might stop with her, if it wasn't that he knows the country, and can +spot the gullies where the cattle hide. I've no use for +sentiment—especially black sentiment—when it's a case of a forced +sale to keep me going. My heavens! there's only one thing, Biddy, that +could break me, and it's drought. I believe we're in for a long one, +and unless I can make sales quickly and get money to sink new bores on +the run, things will go hardly with me. Harry the Blower spoke naked +truth for once in his life.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! but there's sure to be rain soon. It looked so like it last +night,' she answered lightly. +</P> + +<P> +'LOOKED so like it! Yes, and ended in wind and dust. Sure sign of +drought! I must be off.... Here, give me the LEICHARDT LAND CHRONICLE, +and don't expect me till you see me.... And by the way, Biddy, I hear +there's a Unionist Organiser going the round of the stations and +pretending to parley with the masters. Don't you be philanthropic +enough to let him open his jaws—I've told Ninnis he's to be hounded +off before he has time to get off his saddle.' +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, you are unjust all round. You were very unjust to Wombo. Why +shouldn't the poor black-boy marry as well as you or anyone else?' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith gave a hard laugh. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm not preventing him from marrying. I only said I wasn't going to +have his gin on my station.' +</P> + +<P> +'You wouldn't listen when he told you that he didn't dare go back to +his tribe—because his gin's husband threatened to kill him.' +</P> + +<P> +'My sympathies are with the gin's husband. What business has Wombo to +steal another man's wife?' +</P> + +<P> +'The husband broke her head with a nulla-nulla, and she loves Wombo and +Wombo loves her. I consider that any woman, whether she's black or +white, who lives with her husband while she loves another man is +committing a sin,' said Lady Bridget hotly. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith stopped in the act of filling his tobacco pouch from a jar on +the mantelpiece and looked sharply at his wife. +</P> + +<P> +'You think that, Biddy. I remember long ago you said something of that +sort to me. It isn't my idea of morality or of justice. But I'm one +with you this far. If I'd ever reason to believe that you loved another +man and wanted to go off with him—you might go—I wouldn't put out a +hand to stop you. And then....' +</P> + +<P> +'And then?' She had grown very white. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I think I'd make another notch in my gun first—and it would be +a previous one—for myself that time.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, you wouldn't, Colin. Because you know I shouldn't be worth it—and +you are not the man to funk.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm not. But where YOU come in—Good Lord! Mate! What would there be +left for me to live for?' +</P> + +<P> +Her heart thrilled to the old term of endearment, to which in their +early honeymoon days she had attached a sentimental value. Of late it +had fallen into disuse, and when she had heard him on occasions greet +the foreman, may be of some stray party of drivers or surveyors with +the bush formula: 'Good day, mate!' she had felt with deep aggrievement +that she no longer desired the appellative. She had not yet realised +that while the word 'mate' in Australese, like the verb AIMER in +French, may be used as a mere colloquial term, it implies in the deeper +sense a sanctity of relation upon which hangs the whole code of Bush +chivalry. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Colin!' Her eyes glistened with tears. She felt ashamed of her +neurotic fancies and her resentment of his lacks in the matter of +conventional courtesies—of his outward hardness, his want of sympathy +with her ideals. +</P> + +<P> +He came to her, taking her two hands while keeping his pipe in one of +his own so that the whiff of the coarse 'Store-cut' tobacco made her +wrinkle her nose and stemmed the tide of emotion. But he did not seem +to notice this. +</P> + +<P> +'No, you're not going to put that theory into practice, Mate.... I'm +not afraid. So we'll leave it at that. And now what's this about the +black-boy to do with my being unjust to that Organiser? There's no +beastly sentiment in his case. He's out to make money, that's all.' +</P> + +<P> +'You won't hear what he's got to put forward on his side any more than +you would listen to poor Wombo.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I won't. I'm not taking any—either in gins or in organisers. Let +'em show their faces here, and they'll pretty soon become aware of the +fact.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget took away her hands and moved to the veranda. Outside, +McKeith's horse was waiting. He strapped on his valise, finished +ramming the tobacco into his pipe, then going behind his wife, bent +downward and hastily kissed her cheek. She did not turn her head. +</P> + +<P> +'Good-bye, Biddy. Don't you go worrying over the blacks or the +Unionists. And if you're dull and want a job there'll be a spice of +excitement in helping to tail that mob of scrubbers. I had to hire two +stray chaps, we're so short-handed.' He went down the steps to the +outer paling. Still she made no response, though now she turned and +watched him vault into the saddle. She also saw his face lighten at +sight of Mrs Hensor's boy with the great pawpaw apple. Tommy Hensor was +a favourite with the Boss. +</P> + +<P> +'Bless you, boy, it's as big as yourself. Take it back to the Quarters +and tell your mother to give you a slice, or perhaps her ladyship will +cut it for you.' +</P> + +<P> +He trotted off in the direction of the gully and of the roar of cattle. +Lady Bridget could see the heaving backs of the mob, and could hear the +shouts of the stockmen as they rounded the beasts to the crossing. +Tommy Hensor looked up pleadingly to her, holding out the pawpaw apple. +His yellow hair flamed to gold in the sunset, his blue eyes were as +bright almost as Colin's. Lady Bridget shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +'No, I don't want you this evening, Tommy. Take that back to your +mother.' +</P> + +<P> +She settled herself in the hammock and read Molly Gaverick's letter +over again. Then she read one from Joan Gildea. Joan was in the full +swing of London journalism again. She gave Bridget rather fuller news +of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, and dwelt at some length upon the old +lady's interest in Bridget's wild life and in Bridget's husband. +</P> + +<P> +'You may be sure,' wrote Joan, 'that I had nothing but good to say of +Colin, and oh! Biddy, dearest, how rejoiced I am to know that he is +making you so happy. I could read between the lines of all your amusing +descriptions and sketches of "the Dream-drive." I had my doubts and my +fears, as I never concealed from you, but I believe that you have found +the true, well-beloved at last.' +</P> + +<P> +There was a good deal, too, in the letter about Rosamond Tallant, who +was in cheerful spirits, it seemed, in spite of the impending +operation, and would not hear of Sir Luke's asking for leave to be with +her—and so on—and so on. Not a word about Willoughby Maule and his +bereavement—which, after all, could not be so very recent. Why had +Joan never mentioned it? Was she afraid of rousing regret and of +awakening painful memories. +</P> + +<P> +* Cleanskin—Unbranded calf. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 11 +</H3> + +<P> +McKeith's absence was longer than he had expected. Lady Bridget heard +from Harry the Blower on his return round with the down-going mails +that the little bush township of Tunumburra had become the scene of a +convocation of Pastoralists called to concert measures against the +threatened strike. The mailman reported that the district was now in a +state of great commotion, and the strikers, gathering silently in armed +force, prepared to defend their rights against a number of free +labourers whom the sheep-owners were importing from the South. The men +who had killed McKeith's horses were, according to the mailman, +entrenched in the Range, awaiting developments. It was thought that +nothing would happen on a large scale until the arrival of the free +labourers and the troops, which it was said the Government was sending. +Harry the Blower talked darkly of marauding bands, ambushed foes and +perilous encounters on his road, all of which waxed in number and +blood-thirstiness after the manner of Falstaff's men in buckram. But +nobody ever took Harry the Blower's yarns very seriously. +</P> + +<P> +It would have been natural for Lady Bridget to work herself up into a +state of humanitarian excitement—the O'Hara's had always espoused +unpopular causes—but since the arrival of the English mail a curious +dreaminess had come upon her. She spent idle hours in the hammock on +the veranda, and would only rouse herself spasmodically to some trivial +burst of energy—perhaps a boiling water skirmish against white ants, +or a sudden fit of gardening—planting seeds, training the wild +cucumber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and +flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and +garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the +staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young +passion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a +few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three +flat-stone peach trees and loquets—all looking thirsty for rain—that +was all. The Old Humpey, as it was called, had creepers overgrowing its +roof, a nesting-place for frogs, lizards, snakes—and Lady Bridget, +brave enough for doughty deeds, could never overcome her terror of +horned beasts and reptiles. McKeith's office, where he entered branding +tallies and posted the station log, was in the Old Humpey, and two or +three bachelor bedrooms opposite the wing with kitchen and store. But +Lady Bridget lived chiefly in the new house—less picturesque with its +zinc roofing and deficiency of green drapings, but, being built on sawn +lengths of saplings, more or less fortified against snakes. In front +there was a great vacant space between the ground and the floor of the +house—pleasant enough in summer, when a gentle draught could find its +way through the cracks between the boards, but cold in winter, though +the northern winters were not sharp enough or long enough for this to +be a serious discomfort. +</P> + +<P> +Nor, when Lady Bridget slept alone in the new house, did she mind much +the dogs and harmless animals that couched under the boards, they gave +her a sense of companionship. But there was a herd of goats—some of +them old and with big tough horns—which McKeith had started in his +bachelor days to provide milk when, as sometimes happened, the milch +cows failed; also to furnish savoury messes of kid's flesh—a pleasant +change from the eternal salt beef varied with wild duck. Occasionally +it happened, especially in mustering times, that nobody remembered to +pen the goats in their yard by the lagoon, and on these occasions they +would get under the house, and the noise of their horns knocking +against the floor of her bedroom would so effectively destroy Lady +Bridget's chances of sleep that she would rise in the night and drive +them into their fold. These were incidents which added variety to the +monotony of her life in the Bush. +</P> + +<P> +The head-station was very quiet one afternoon, most of the hands being +out with the tailing mob; and Lady Bridget, in a restless mood, went +for a roam through the bush. She walked past the Chinamen's garden and +Fo Wung, carrying up buckets of water to his young cabbages, stopped to +smile blandly and report on his produce. But she was in no mood for the +interchange of remarks in pidgin English. +</P> + +<P> +It was lonelier at the head of the lagoon. She could hear the trumpeter +geese tuning up in shrill cornet-like notes and the discordant shriek +of native-companions, as the long-legged grey birds stalked +consequentially at the water's edge. She disturbed a flock of parrots +in the white cedar tree, and a covey of duck rose with a whirring of +pinions and a mighty quacking, shaking the drips off their plumage so +that they glittered like diamonds in the sun. From the limbs of the +dead gum tree hung flying foxes, their bat-like wings extended limply, +and a gigantic crane stood in melancholy reflection upon one leg. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget crossed the gully and roamed the borders of the gidia +scrub. Here, in an occasional open patch, were wattles breaking into +yellow bloom, and sandalwood trees already in blossom, scenting the air +faintly and making bright splashes upon the grey and black background +of the mournful gidia. She filled her arms with flowers and wandered +on, long past the stockyards, into the fastnesses of the gully, where +lay dark pools almost empty now and where grey, volcanic looking rocks +seemed to make a rampart between the scrub and the head-station. +</P> + +<P> +She was sitting there, her back against a boulder, the forest behind +her, so motionless that inquisitive bower-birds and leather-heads came +quite close to her feet, her small pointed chin poked forward, her eyes +shadowy and mysterious as the still waterpools below. She was visioning +in space that man who had once undoubtedly cast a strong spell upon +her. The spell had been broken by his own infidelity—if it WERE +infidelity of the real man. For she could never believe that he had not +truly loved her. Broken, secondly, by the counteracting influence of +her husband. But now it seemed that the news of him in Lady Gaverick's +letter had started the old vibrations afresh. It was as if an iron wall +between them had suddenly been knocked down and he had gained access to +her inner self. For months she had scarcely thought of him. Last night +she had seen him in a dream, and he had spoken to her. He had said, 'Of +course, I loved you. I never loved anyone better, but I felt that you +were not of an accommodating disposition—that I could not give you +anything you really wanted, and that we should not be happy together.' +That was all of the dream she had brought back. But she KNEW that there +had been a great deal more. The impression had been so vivid that she +could not rid herself of the fancy that he was within actual reach of +her. It was impossible to imagine him fourteen thousand miles distant. +</P> + +<P> +She did not try now to fight against this haunting, but yielded herself +to the power of the dream. When she heard a footstep in the forest +behind her, she started and turned and stared into the dim aisles of +the gidia, as though she expected to see his ghost. +</P> + +<P> +'Mithsis—mithsis—me Wombo—plenty my been look out for you. Plenty +mine frightened to go along a head-station.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic +hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo +had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of +Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons; +his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt, +with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging +from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed. +</P> + +<P> +A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted +with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER +about Wombo. +</P> + +<P> +'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making +an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon +the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung +round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form. +</P> + +<P> +'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that +feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black +feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller +fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come +after—throw 'im spear—close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear, +Oola plenty cry.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Coolla—in Blacks language, meaning Angry.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Nulla-nulla—A black's weapon.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Yan—To go away.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Mumkull—To kill.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Ba'al—No—Not.] +</P> + +<P> +Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail. +</P> + +<P> +'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Yucke!—Alas!] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been +partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura +out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a +Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and +round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual +among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them +away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her +side. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo, +tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a +spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow. +He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their +flight—so he explained in his queer lingo—but Oola had cried so much +that he had not been able to draw out the rest of the shaft. +</P> + +<P> +'BUJERI* YOU, white Mary!' pleaded Oola in the native formula. 'You gib +it medsin.... You gib it one old fellow skirt.... BA'AL, Oola got 'im +clothes... BA'AL got 'im ration... plenty sick this feller....' And she +beat her breast with the arm that was unhurt. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Bujeri—Very good.] +</P> + +<P> +'Of course, I'll give you medicine—and food, and I'll look out +something for you to put on. Only for heaven's sake, stop crying,' said +Lady Bridget. 'Come along. You must have that spear pulled out and your +arm seen to. Come with me to the Humpey. Quick—MURRA* make haste.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Murra make haste—To run quickly.] +</P> + +<P> +But Wombo drew back, casting an affrighted glance down the gully +towards the crossing. +</P> + +<P> +'Ba'al me go long-a Humpey—I believe Boss PHO-PHO*, Oola,' he said. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Pho-pho—To shoot.] +</P> + +<P> +'Wombo, you are foolish. What for Boss shoot Oola?' +</P> + +<P> +'YOWI*—I believe when Boss say PHO-PHO, my word! that one PHO-PHO. +Plenty black feller frightened.' +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Yowi—Yes.] +</P> + +<P> +Bridget pushed the unhappy gin along the track. +</P> + +<P> +'You needn't be frightened. Boss has gone away.' +</P> + +<P> +'Boss no sit down long-a Humpey?' Wombo looked relieved, and while +Bridget reassured him, the three moved on towards the crossing. In +answer to Lady Bridget's questioning the black-boy told his story as +they went. She already knew of Wombo's passion for the young gin, who +was within the prohibited degree of relationship, therefore TABU to +him, and who, moreover, was already legitimately wedded to a warrior of +the tribe. She knew also that McKeith had forbidden the black-boy, +under pain of severe penalty, to seek the coveted bride. Of course, it +was all nonsense about his shooting the poor creature, though no doubt, +in ordinary circumstances, he would have sent them off the station. But +hard as he was—and Lady Bridget had learned that her husband could be +very hard, he would never be inhuman, and, naturally, Oola's wound must +be dressed. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget hurried them over the crossing and up the hill. The white +men were all out with the cattle. She needed assistance, and seeing Mrs +Hensor at the kitchen window of the Bachelors' Quarters, called to her. +</P> + +<P> +'Please come out at once, I want you.' +</P> + +<P> +The woman's face became sullen on the instant. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't come now. I'm in the middle of my baking.' +</P> + +<P> +'But don't you see? The thing is important. This poor gin has a spear +through her arm—it must be attended to immediately. Wombo is hurt too. +The wounds must be washed and dressed.... Look at the poor creatures.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Hensor contemptuously surveyed Wombo and his erring partner. +</P> + +<P> +'Serve them right. He's stolen her from her husband and the Blacks have +given them what for. They don't need any fussing over, these niggers. +They are used to being knocked about.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget's eyes blazed, but her tone was icy. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you understand that I've given you my orders to attend to a +wounded fellow-creature.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should +not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of +Mr McKeith's gun?' +</P> + +<P> +'You have my orders,' repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white +heat. +</P> + +<P> +'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that +if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off,' retorted +Mrs Hensor. +</P> + +<P> +'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this +disobedience!' said Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Hensor laughed insolently. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME,' and she +withdrew out of sight into the kitchen. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 12 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget made as dignified a retreat as was possible in the +circumstances. She could have slain Mrs Hensor at that moment. She took +the blacks to the veranda of the old Humpey and went to look in the +office for antiseptics, lint and bandages. Chen Sing, the Chinese cook, +came at her call, and rendered assistance with the bland phlegm of his +race. The spear had been pulled out of Oola's arm by the time Lady +Bridget came back with the dressings. In her spasms of East End +philanthropy she had learned the first principles of surgical aid. When +Oola's arm and Wombo's gashed head had been washed and bandaged, the +trouble was to know what to do with the pair. +</P> + +<P> +Now that they were comfortable and out of pain, fed and given tobacco +to smoke and a tot of rum apiece, they had time to remember +superstitious fears kept at bay while they had been running for their +life. Both were afraid to show themselves in the open. On one hand, +there was the terror of McKeith; on the other, of Oola's husband. Lady +Bridget gathered that Oola's husband was a medicine man, and that he +had 'pointed a bone at his faithless wife and her lover.' To 'point a +bone' at an enemy—the bone having first been smeared with human blood, +and subjected to magical incantations—is the worst spell that one +aboriginal can cast upon another. It means death or the direst +misfortune. All that the afflicted one can do is to fly—to hide +himself beyond the sorcerer's ken and the reach of pursuit. For this +reason, Wombo and Oola had fled back to Moongarr. No outside black +dared venture within range of McKeith's gun. Now Wombo and Oola +besought Bridget to hide them from the vengeful furies. There was that +slab and bark hut at the end of the kitchen and store wing. Nobody was +likely at present to want to go into it. The door had a padlock, and it +was used as a store-house for the hides of beasts that had been killed +for the sake of the skins when in the last stage of pleuro. The key was +always kept hung up in McKeith's office. +</P> + +<P> +Here Lady Bridget installed Wombo and Oola. She brought them cooked +meat, bread and a ration of tea and sugar, provided them with a pair of +blankets, and found for Wombo some old moleskins, a shirt, and a pair +of boots, while Oola almost forgot the medicine man's evil spell in her +puzzled delight over a lacey undergarment and a discarded kimono +dressing-grown, which had been part of Lady Bridget's trousseau. That +excitement over, the lonely mistress of Moongarr went back to her own +habitation. She ate her solitary dinner and paced the veranda till +darkness fell and the haunted loneliness became an almost unbearable +oppression. Vast plains, distant ranges, gidia scrub and the far +horizon melted into an illimitable shadow. The world seemed boundless +as the starry sky—and yet she was in prison! She had longed for the +freedom of the wild, and her life was more circumscribed than ever. A +phrase in an Australian poem, that had struck her when she had read it +not long ago came back upon her with poignant meaning. 'Eucalyptic +cloisterdom'—that was the phrase, and it was this to which she had +condemned herself. The gum trees enclosed for her one immense cell and +she had become utterly weary of her mental and her spiritual +incarceration. Oh! for the sting of love's strong emotion to break the +monotony. The most sordid sights and sounds of London streets, the most +inane babble of a fashionable crowd would be more stimulating to her +brain, sweeter in her ears than the arid expanse, the weird bush +noises—howl of dingoes, wail of curlews, lowing of cattle—that a year +ago had seemed so eerily fascinating. +</P> + +<P> +Even her marriage! The romance of it had faded, as it were, into the +dull drab of withered gum leaves. The charm of primal conditions had +been overpowered by their discomfort. Nature had never intended her for +the wife of a backwoodsman. At times she felt an almost unendurable +craving for the ordinary luxuries of civilisation. The bathing +appliances here—or rather, the lack of them—were often positive +torture to her. She hated the food—continual coarse beef varied by +stringy goats' flesh or game from the lagoon. She had come to loathe +wild duck—when the men had time to shoot it. She could never bring +herself to destroy harmless creatures, and was a rank coward over +firearms. Talk of the simple life! Why, it was only since they had got +Fo Wung that there had been any vegetables. And the climate—though the +short winter had been pleasant enough as a whole—was abominable. The +long summer heat, the flies and the mosquitoes! What had she not +suffered the first summer after her marriage! And now the hot weather +was coming again. That was not the root of the trouble, +however—Bridget was honest enough to confess it. The root lay in +herself—in her own instability of purpose, her mercurial temperament. +She had been born with that temperament. All the O'Haras loved +change—hungered after strong sensation. She was spoiling now for +emotional excitement. +</P> + +<P> +Well, the little human drama of the Blacks' camp had taken her out of +herself for an hour or two. It had been so funny to see Oola stroking +the lace frills of Lady Bridget's old petticoat and looking up at Wombo +with frank coquetry as she mimicked the 'White Mary's' gestures and +gait. Lady Bridget meant to stand by the savage lovers. She would not +allow Colin to treat them badly when he came back. +</P> + +<P> +Ninnis, the overseer, broke upon her restless meditations. He was a +rough specimen, originally raised in Texas, who, after knocking about +in his youth as a cow-boy in the two Americas, had come to Australia +about fifteen years previously, had 'free-selected' disastrously, and, +during the last five years, had been in McKeith's employ. He was +devoted to his master, but he looked upon McKeith's marriage as a +pernicious investment. His republican upbringing could not stomach the +'Ladyship,' and he persisted in calling Lady Bridget Mrs McKeith. He +considered her flighty and extravagant in her ideas, and was always +divided between unwilling fascination and grumpy disapproval. To-night +he was in the latter mood and this incensed Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'I've been writing up the log,' he began in a surly, aggressive tone, +'and I thought I'd better make a note of Wombo and that gin having come +to the head-station, in case of there being trouble with the Blacks.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why should there be trouble with the Blacks?' she asked, in manner +equally unconciliatory. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, ye know—though, I daresay, it wouldn't seem of much consequence +to you—Wombo's gone agen the laws of the tribe, and that's a serious +matter. If they know he's skulking here under protection, they'll be +spearing the cattle, and the Boss won't like that.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'll explain to Mr McKeith,' said Lady Bridget haughtily. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I reckon it's best not to keep them on the head-station against +the Boss's orders,' persisted Ninnis. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget set her little white teeth. 'Naturally, Mr McKeith's +orders don't apply to ME—as I had to tell Mrs Hensor.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs Hensor knows the Boss better than most people,' said Ninnis, at +which Lady Bridget flashed out. +</P> + +<P> +'We need not discuss that question, Mr Ninnis.' +</P> + +<P> +Ninnis' jaw stiffened underneath his shaggy goatee. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I guess you know your own business, Mrs McKeith, and it's up to +you to square things with the Boss.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget reared her small form and bent her head with great +stateliness. +</P> + +<P> +'But I'll just say, though,' went on Ninnis, 'that I hear Harris of the +police is coming along. And what Harris doesn't think he knows about +the heel of the law being kept on Blacks—and every other darned unit +in the creation scheme'—muttered Ninnis in parenthesis—'ain't entered +in the Almighty's Log-book.' +</P> + +<P> +Ninnis expectorated over the veranda railings—a habit of his that +jarred on Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, what about Harris?' +</P> + +<P> +'He's had his eye on Wombo and would be glad of an opportunity to best +him—on account of a little affair about a colt Wombo rode for him at +the last Tunumburra races—and lost the stakes—out of spite, Harris +declares.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I know about that—and I told Mr Harris what I thought about his +treatment of the Blacks. But he can't punish Wombo if I choose to have +him here. I don't think Mr McKeith would bring Harris to Moongarr—he +knows I can't bear him.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I reckon that's up to you to square with the Boss,' repeated +Ninnis surlily. 'I'm told Harris is on the look-out for desperate +characters going along the Leura—these unionist organisers—dropping +in at stations on pretence of getting rations and spying out the land, +and calling on the men to join them. There was a boundary rider from +Breeza Downs to-day—caught us up with the tailing mob and fetched back +their new chum and Zack Duppo, leaving us awful short-handed—so that +if Joe Casey doesn't fetch in the milkers so early to-morrow you'll +know it's because I've had to send him out herding. They're doing their +shearing early at Breeza Downs with shearers Windeatt has imported from +the south, and he wants police protection for them and himself.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget laughed. +</P> + +<P> +'Harris and his two constables will have enough to do if they are to +protect the district.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's just what Windeatt has been clamouring about. Now the +Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it +isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are +enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You +may be sure if there's fighting to be done—black or white—he'll be in +it.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget angered Ninnis by her apparent indifference, and he bade +her a cross good-night. Had it been anybody else she would have +encouraged him to stay and talk. As it was, she resumed her lonely +pacing, and did not go to her room till the whole station was abed. +</P> + +<P> +When at last she went to sleep she dreamed again vividly of Willoughby +Maule. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 13 +</H3> + +<P> +McKeith returned, without warning, the following afternoon. He was not +alone, but had spurred on in advance of the other two men he had +brought with him. Lady Bridget, reading in her hammock at the upper end +of the veranda, heard the sound of a horse approaching, and saw her +husband appear above the hill from the Gully Crossing. She got to her +feet, expecting that he would ride up to the veranda, calling +'Biddy—Biddy,' as he usually did after an absence. But instead, he +pulled up suddenly, turned his horse in the direction of the Bachelors' +Quarters, and passed from her line of vision. +</P> + +<P> +She supposed, naturally, that someone at the Quarters had attracted his +attention, then remembering that Ninnis and the white men were out with +the cattle, wondered, as the minutes went by, who and what detained him. +</P> + +<P> +Tommy Hensor, running up from the garden with his evening dole of +vegetables, enlightened her. +</P> + +<P> +'Boss come back, Ladyship. I can see him. He is up, talking to Mother.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget was too proud a woman to feel petty jealousy, nor would it +have occurred to her to be jealous of Mrs Hensor. Her sentiment of +dislike towards that person was of quite another order. But she was +just in the mood to resent neglect on the part of McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +She went to the veranda railing, whence she had a view of the +Bachelors' Quarters, and was able to see for herself that Tommy's +report had been correct. She called to the child: +</P> + +<P> +'Go at once, Tommy, and tell the master that I am waiting.' +</P> + +<P> +Tommy flew off immediately on his small, sturdy legs, and Lady Bridget +watched the scene at the Bachelors' Quarters. McKeith had dismounted, +and with one foot on the edge of the veranda, was facing Mrs Hensor, +who looked fresh and comely in a clean blouse and bright-coloured +skirt. The two seemed to have a good deal to say to each other, though +Lady Bridget heard only the voices, not the words. Her Irish temper +rose at the thought that Mrs Hensor might be giving him her version of +the Wombo episode. She felt glad that the black-boy and his gin were +comfortably sleeping off the effect of their wounds, and of the +plentiful meals supplied them in the hide-house, and thus were not in +evidence. When McKeith spoke, it was in a dictatorial, angry tone—that +of the incensed master. Clearly, however, Mrs Hensor was not the object +of his wrath. Lady Bridget saw little Tommy run excitedly up to deliver +her message, and almost cried out to him to keep away from the horses' +heels, to which he went perilously near. As things happened, the beast +lashed out at him, and Tommy had a very narrow escape of being badly +kicked. Lady Bridget heard Mrs Hensor shriek and saw her husband drag +the child to the veranda and examine him anxiously, Mrs Hensor bending +with him. Then McKeith lifted up Tommy and kissed and patted him almost +as if he had been the boy's father. It always gave Bridget a queer +little spasm of regret to see Colin's obvious affection for the little +fellow. He was fond of children, specially so of this one. Lady Bridget +knew, though he had never said so to her, that he was disappointed at +there being no apparent prospect of her having a child. +</P> + +<P> +And she—with her avidity for any new sort of sensation, although she +scoffed at the joy of maternity—felt secretly inclined sometimes to +gird at fate for having so far denied her this experience. She herself +liked Tommy in her contradictory, whimsical fashion; but now, the fuss +over, the boy—who clearly was not in the least hurt—made her very +cross, and she became positively furious at seeing McKeith delay yet +further to unstrap his valise and get out a toy he must have bought for +Tommy in Tunumburra. Then, his grievance aparently coming back on him, +he put the child abruptly aside, and leaving valise and horse at the +Bachelors' Quarters, walked with determined steps and frowning visage +down the track to the veranda. There, his wife was standing, very pale, +very erect, her eyes glittering ominously. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith was through the gate and up the flight of steps in three or +four strides. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to sense the antagonism in her, and demanded at once, without +waiting to give her any greeting. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, what's this I'm hearing about Wombo and that gin?' +</P> + +<P> +'I think you might have asked me before going to Mrs Hensor for +information,' she answered with equal curtness. +</P> + +<P> +He stared at her for a moment or two as if surprised; his face +reddened, and his eyes, too, glittered. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know what you mean. I had to speak to Mrs Hensor about beds +being wanted up there, and of course I asked her how things had been +going on.' +</P> + +<P> +'And did she tell you that she had been inhuman and insolent?' +</P> + +<P> +'Inhuman... Insolent!' +</P> + +<P> +'She spoke to me impudently. She defied my orders.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am given to understand that she was carrying out mine,' said McKeith +slowly. 'And if that's so, Mrs Hensor was in the right.' +</P> + +<P> +'You put that woman before ME—before your wife?' +</P> + +<P> +'There's not another woman in the universe I'd put before my wife. But +that's no reason for my giving in to her when she does what I know to +be folly.' +</P> + +<P> +'I see. You call an act of common humanity folly—doing what one could +to relieve the agony of a fellow creature. I am glad that I differ from +you—and from your servant. Mrs Hensor refused to help that poor gin +who had a spear through her arm and was shrieking with pain.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you don't know black-gins as well as I do. They'll pretend they're +dying in agony just to wheedle a drop of rum or a fig of tobacco out of +a white man; and they'll take it quite as a matter of course when one +of their men bashes their head in with a NULLA-NULLA.' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you'll allow that a spear wound may hurt a little,' said +Bridget. 'I believe that you yourself suffered from the effect of one +at least, you once told me so.' +</P> + +<P> +And memory—so active these late days, brought suddenly back the vision +of him as he had approached her that evening at Government House. What +a great Viking he had looked!—in modern dress, of course, but bearing +mark of battle in a slight drag of the left leg, only noticeable, she +knew now, when he was shy and proud, and under, to him, difficult +social conditions. But what a MAN she had felt him to be then, among +the other men! +</P> + +<P> +It seemed an outrage on her idealised image of him to hear him speaking +in that dry, caustic manner. +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, that's different. The Gulf natives have a nasty way of barbing and +poisoning their spears. An ordinary spear-thrust is nothing to either +black or white. Wombo could have pulled the thing out, and in a few +hours the gin would have been all right again.' +</P> + +<P> +'You think so—well in a few hours she was in a high fever. I took her +temperature this morning when I re-bandaged the wound.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith laughed shortly. +</P> + +<P> +'It wouldn't be surprising, if you had given her grog and tobacco and +as much meat as she wanted. That what you did, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, it was. They were both starving.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I wouldn't bank on your stock of medical knowledge, Biddy—not +if I was down with fever or otherwise incapacitated. But that's not the +point—which is that those blacks have been kept here against my +express orders.' +</P> + +<P> +'They've been kept here by MY orders,' flamed Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's jaw squared, and there showed in his eyes that ugly devil +which many a black and white man had seen, but never his wife before. +</P> + +<P> +'Look here, milady—there can be only one boss on this station. And now +you'll excuse me if I act according to my own discretion.' +</P> + +<P> +Without another word he walked up the veranda and down the few steps +connecting it with the Old Humpey. She heard him go into his office, +and presently the door of it slammed behind him. She knew that he was +going to the culprits in the hide-house, and wondered what punishment +he would mete unto them. Had he gone to the office for his gun? At this +moment, anything seemed possible to Lady Bridget's heated temper and +excited imagination. +</P> + +<P> +She stood waiting, absorbed in her fears, so abstracted from her +ordinary outside surroundings that she was unaware of the approach of +two horsemen from the Gully Crossing. They did not stop at the garden +gate, but made for the usual station entrance at the back. One of them, +lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense +little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and +conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened +or was about to happen. And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear +of the home, justified the impression. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, which +again connected on either side the new house with the Old Humpey and +kitchen and store-wing—the hide-house standing slightly apart at the +end of the store building. The shrieks in male and female keys came +from the hide-house and mingled with McKeith's strident tones +fulminating in Blacks' lingo. The noise brought Mrs Hensor and Tommy +down from the Bachelors' Quarters, and the Chinese cook, the Malay boy +and Maggie the housemaid from the service department. The three +verandas and garden plot made a kind of amphitheatre; and now, into the +arena, came the actors in the little tragedy. +</P> + +<P> +From the hide-house, McKeith dragged the prisoners, and through the +gateway in the palings which made the fourth side of the enclosure. +With one hand he clutched Wombo, with the other Oola, who in her +lace-trimmed petticoat and flowered kimono was truly a tragi-comic +spectacle. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith carried his coiled stockwhip in the hand which held Wombo. It +was plain, judging from the state of Wombo's new shirt, that he had +given the black boy a thrashing; Oola was unscathed. Of course, Colin +could not lift his hand to a woman, though he was a brute and the woman +only a black-gin. Lady Bridget felt faintly glad at this. +</P> + +<P> +She watched the scene, half fascinated, half disgusted, all her +attention concentrated on these three figures. She had but a dim +consciousness of two men riding round the store-wing and dismounting. +One of the two remained in the background screened by the trails of +native cucumber overhanging the veranda end. The other—a wiry, +powerful figure in uniform, with a rubicund face, black bristling +moustache and beard and prominent black eyes, reminding one of the eyes +of a bull—walked forward and spoke with an air of official assurance. +</P> + +<P> +'Can I be of any use to you, Mr McKeith, in dealing with that nigger? A +bad character, as I've reason to know.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, thank you, Harris. I can do my own dirty jobs,' said McKeith +shortly. +</P> + +<P> +He had released the pair and now stood grimly surveying them. Oola was +crying and squealing; Wombo stood upright—a scowl of hate on his face. +His whole nature seemed changed. A flogging will rouse the +semi-civilised black's evil passions like nothing else. There was +something of savage dignity in the defiant way in which he faced his +former master. +</P> + +<P> +'What for you been take-it stockwhip long-a me? BA'AL me bad black boy +long-a you, Boss. What for me no have 'em gin belonging to me? Massa +catch 'im bujeri White Mary like it gin belonging to him. What for no +all same black fellow?' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith cut short the argument—sound logic it seemed to Lady Biddy—by +an imperious, silencing gesture, and a sudden unfurling of his +stockwhip, which made a hissing sound as it writhed along the ground +like a snake. The black boy sprang aside. McKeith pointed to the gidia +scrub and issued a terse command in the native language. +</P> + +<P> +'YAN' (go). 'BA'AL YOU WOOLLA' (don't talk any more). 'YAN.' +</P> + +<P> +Wombo turned appealingly to Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'Lathychap!' +</P> + +<P> +'YAN,' stormed McKeith again, and, as Lady Bridget made a movement of +sympathetic response towards the black fellow, he added sternly: +'You'll oblige me by not interfering in this business. The Blacks know +that what I say, I mean, and I'll have no more words with them.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget stood quite still, her attitude and expression all indignant +protest, but she said nothing. Her face was turned full towards the man +hidden by the creepers, who was watching her with intense interest, but +she was unconscious of his gaze. +</P> + +<P> +Wombo retreated slowly. Oola, cowed, whimpering, behind him. Then, she +made an appeal to Lady Bridget, stretching out her unbandaged arm +imploringly. +</P> + +<P> +'White Mary—you PIDNEY (understand). That fellow medsin man—husband +belonging to me. Him come close-up long-a srub—throw 'im spear, +NULLA-NULLA—plenty look out Wombo. BA'AL, Wombo got 'im spear—ba'al +got 'im NULLA-NULLA. Suppose black fellow catch 'im Wombo—my word! +that fellow MUMKULL (kill). Wombo—mumkull Oola—altogether BONG +(dead). YUCKE! YUCKE! Lathychap suppose Massa let Wombo sit down long-a +head-station—two day, three day—black fellow get tired—up stick—no +more look out. No catch 'im Wombo. Lathychap!' she pleaded, 'BUJERI you +PIALLA (intercede with) Boss.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget came down the steps from the veranda and went up to +McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin, what the gin says is true. Her tribe will kill them, and they +have no weapons and no means of protection. Will you, as a favour to +me, let them stay for a few days? At least, till her arm is healed and +the danger past?' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith hesitated perceptibly, then the consciousness of weakening +resolve made him harden himself the more, made his speech rougher than +it might have been. +</P> + +<P> +'No, I can't, Biddy. I never break my word. They've GOT to go.' +</P> + +<P> +He turned fiercely on Wombo, who stood sullen and defiant again, and +from him to Oola, who crouched in the dust, sobbing pitifully and +rubbing her damaged arm. +</P> + +<P> +'Plenty me sick, Boss—close up TUMBLEDOWN' (die), she wailed. +</P> + +<P> +'Stop that! YAN—do you hear? YAN—YAN—BURRI—BURRI—' (go quickly). +</P> + +<P> +The whip lashed out again. It stung Wombo's bare leg, and flicked +Oola's petticoat. The two ran screaming lustily towards the rocks and +scrubby country at the head of the gully. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget uttered a shuddering exclamation and made an impetuous +movement with arms partly outstretched as if to follow the pair. Then +her arms dropped and she stood stock still. +</P> + +<P> +There was a dead silence. In all the relations of husband and wife, +never had there been a moment more crucial as affecting their ultimate +future. They looked at each other unflinchingly, neither speaking. +McKeith's lips were resolute, locked, his pugnacious jaw set like iron. +Here was the stubborn determination of a fighting man, never to admit +himself in the wrong. And his eyes seemed to have a steel curtain over +them—which, however, had Bridget's spiritual intuition been awake to +perceive it, softened for an instant, letting through a gleam of +passionate appeal. +</P> + +<P> +But Bridget's soul was steel-cased also. He saw only contempt, +repulsion in her gaze. The larger issues narrowed to a conflict of two +egoisms. It seemed to both as though, in the space of that last quarter +of an hour, they had become mortal foes. +</P> + +<P> +The police inspector broke in upon the tense silence. Here was another +egoism to be reckoned with—malevolently officious. +</P> + +<P> +'They'll be hiding in the gully, Mr McKeith. No fear of them taking to +the outside bush with the tribe hanging round. I'll just round 'em up +and drive 'em into the scrub and strike the fear of the Law into them. +I'll do it now before I turn out my horse into the paddock.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' flamed Lady Bridget. 'You'll leave those unfortunate creatures +alone—or—if you molest them—whether it's by my husband's permission +or not—well—you'll find I'm a bad hater, Mr Harris.' +</P> + +<P> +The police inspector flushed a deep red. +</P> + +<P> +'Maybe I'm not such a bad hater either, my lady—but with my +respects....' +</P> + +<P> +'That will do, Harris,' interposed McKeith. 'I told you that I'd do my +own dirty jobs. There's no occasion for you to go against her +ladyship's wishes.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris touched his helmet to Lady Bridget and, leering with veiled +enmity, replied: +</P> + +<P> +'I'm never one to put myself up against the ladies, except where my +duty comes first—and that's not the case—yet. But as I was saying, +with my respects, my lady, Mr McKeith knows very well how to treat the +blacks. He knows that you've got to keep your word to them, whether +that means a plug of tobacco or a plug of cold iron.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget drew back and looked at Harris for a second or two with an +expression of the most withering haughtiness. Then, without a word she +turned her back on him. The inspector infuriated, muttered in his +throat. McKeith interposed sharply: +</P> + +<P> +'Bridget, Harris is going to stay the night.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah! at the Bachelors' Quarters,' Lady Bridget smiled with distant +calm. 'Of course, Mrs Hensor knows. I'm sorry I can't ask Mr Harris to +dinner at the house this evening.' +</P> + +<P> +Now, by the social canons of the Bush, the police inspector, being +technically speaking of higher grade than the casual traveller, should +have been accepted as a 'parlour visitor.' He would thus have occupied +one of the bachelor spare rooms in the Old Humpey and would have joined +the Boss and his wife at dinner. Harris had never before stayed the +night at Moongarr, and he had confidently expected to be received with +honour. Thus he regarded Lady Bridget's speech as an insult. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I'm not one to force my company where it is not wanted,' he +blustered. 'I'm quite content with a shake-down at the Quarters, though +if I'd known I might have gone by the short cut with the Specials—it's +rather late, however, to push on to Breeza Downs, where—though perhaps +I say it as shouldn't—I'm sure of a welcome from Mr and Mrs Windeatt, +being, so to speak—for law and order—the representative of His +Majesty in the Leura district.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget smiled with detached amusement, as she turned again and +patted the head of an elderly kangaroo dog, which came up to her with +its tongue out and a look of wistful enquiry in its bleared eyes, +scenting plainly that something was amiss. 'Good dog, Veno,' she +murmured. +</P> + +<P> +Harris bridled. +</P> + +<P> +'I'll bid you good evening then, my lady,' he said stiffly. 'No doubt, +Mr McKeith, you'll spare me half an hour in the office by and by. Just +to concert our measures for the proper protection of the Pastoralists +and the safeguarding of the woolsheds this shearing season.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, yes, or course,' McKeith answered mechanically. The spunk had +gone out of him, as Harris would have phrased it; and the Inspector, +looking at Lady Bridget, guessed the reason. +</P> + +<P> +'And what now about the gentleman from Leichardt's Town, Mr McKeith? +Will I be taking him up with me to the Bachelor's Quarters? Or may be,' +Harris added unpleasantly, 'her ladyship won't object to having him in +the house.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith muttered angrily, 'Damn! I'd forgotten.' +</P> + +<P> +It was not like him to lose himself during working hours in even a +momentary fit of abstraction—except, indeed, when he was riding +without immediate objective through the Bush. His eyes were still upon +his wife's slight figure as she moved slowly towards the veranda, with +the air of one who has no more concern with the business in hand. Her +graceful aloofness, which he knew to be merely a social trick, stung +him inexpressibly, the faint bow she had given Harris when he bade her +good evening had seemed to include himself. It galled him that he did +not seem fitted by nature or breeding to cope with this kind of +situation. The half consciousness of inferiority put him still more at +disadvantage with himself. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, wait please,' he said dictatorially. +</P> + +<P> +She paused at the steps, her hand on the railings, her eyes under their +lowered lids ignoring him. +</P> + +<P> +He went closer and spoke rapidly in a harsh undertone. +</P> + +<P> +'I didn't tell you—though I rode ahead on purpose—I met a man at +Tunumburra who said he knew you. He's out from England—been staying at +Government House, and brought a letter from Sir Luke Tallant. I hope +that at any rate you'll be civil to him.' +</P> + +<P> +She flashed a quick glance at him, and her eyelids dropped again. +</P> + +<P> +'But naturally. I'm not in the habit of being uncivil to—my friends.' +</P> + +<P> +And just then—Mrs Hensor, who loved cheap fiction, said afterwards it +was all like a scene out of a book—there appeared in the space between +the two wings, a man who had strolled unobserved from one side, out of +the background of creepers, and who advanced with quickened step to +where the husband and wife stood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 14 +</H3> + +<P> +A striking individual. Tall—though not as tall or as massively built +as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline +grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation, +and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild +spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing +with ease and picturesqueness, a backwoods get-up. Clothes, extremely +well cut; riding breeches and boots; soft shirt and falling collar with +a silk tie of dull flame colour knotted at the sinewy throat, loose +coat, Panama hat. So much for the figure. The face ugly, but +distinguished, sallow-brown in colouring. Nose long, fine, with a +slight twist below the bridge; cheeks and chin clean-shaven, an +enormous dark moustache concealing the mouth. Hair black, slightly +grizzled, and when he lifted his hat forming a thick lightly frosted +crest above his forehead. Eyes black—peculiar eyes, sombre, restless, +but with a gaze, steady and piercing when concentrated on a particular +object, as, just now, it was concentrated on Lady Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +The gaze seemed compelling. Lady Bridget suddenly lifting eyes that +were instantly wide open, became aware of the man's presence. The +effect of it upon her was so marked that McKeith, watching her face, +felt a shock of surprise. The change in her was noticed by the Police +Inspector, with malevolent curiosity. So also by Mrs Hensor, a little +further away. +</P> + +<P> +The new-comer saluted her with a low bow, his hat in one hand, the +other extended. +</P> + +<P> +'You haven't forgotten me, I hope, Lady Bridget, though I should think +that I am the very last person in the world you would have expected to +see in these parts.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget had turned very white. She stared at him as if he had been +a ghost, and at first seemed unable to speak. But her confusion lasted +only a few seconds. Almost before he had finished his sentence she had +pulled herself together. Her hand was in his, and she spoke in her old +fluty voice and little grand manner, with the old slow, faintly +whimsical smile on her lips and in her eyes. It came over McKeith that +he had not of late been familiar with this aspect of her, and that she +was exhibiting to this man the same strange charm of her girlhood which +had been to him, in the full fervour of his devotion, so wonderful and +worshipful, but of which—he knew it now—the Bush had to a great +extent robbed her. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed as she withdrew her hand from that of the newcomer. And +standing on the steps, her head almost on a level with his, met his +eyes with challenging directness. +</P> + +<P> +'Really, Mr Maule, you shouldn't startle a nervous creature in that +uncanny way—appearing like the unmentionable Personage or the angel if +you prefer it, only with this difference, that we weren't speaking of +you. I hadn't the most distant notion that you were on this side of the +equator. If my husband had mentioned your name I should not have been +so taken by surprise.' +</P> + +<P> +'Were you really so surprised? I thought I MUST have sent my shadow on +before me—because I've been thinking so tremendously of you these last +few days, and of the prospect of seeing you again. I daresay you know,' +he added, turning politely to McKeith—'that I had the pleasure of +meeting your wife when she was Lady Bridget O'Hara, one winter at Rome, +with her cousins, Lord and Lady Gaverick. And later, we saw something +of each other in London.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, my husband doesn't know,' Bridget gave a reckless laugh, and her +eyes challenged those of McKeith before he could answer. 'You see, +Colin and I, when we married, came from opposite poles geographically, +morally and mentally. He did not understand or care about my old +environment any more than I understood—or cared about his. So we +agreed to bury our respective pasts in oblivion. Don't you think it was +a good plan?' +</P> + +<P> +'Quite admirable. I admire your mutual courage in adopting it.' +</P> + +<P> +'You think so! It has its drawbacks, though,' said McKeith dryly. 'I +must apologise for having left you to announce yourself. The fact is, +those Blacks put other things out of my head. They had to be taught +they couldn't disobey orders without being punished for it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Poor wretches! Yes! I know the popular idea of asserting British +supremacy over coloured races, by the force of the whip. I have not +always seen it answer; but then my experience has been with natives +rather higher in the scale of evolution than the Australian aboriginal.' +</P> + +<P> +'You believe in the power of kindness—as I do,' exclaimed Lady +Bridget. 'My husband and I take different views on that subject. But we +need not discuss them now. Come and have some tea, and tell me about +the Tallants.' +</P> + +<P> +Maule followed her to the door of the living room where she turned to +give some orders to Maggie, the maid-servant, and to the Chinese cook. +McKeith went off with Harris to see after the horses and have a talk +with Ninnis at the stockyards. Thus, Maule was left alone for a few +minutes to study and form his own opinion as to Lady Bridget's setting. +She was a woman who, whatever her surroundings, must always impress +them with her personality. This bush parlour was original in its +simplicity. Walls lined with unvarnished wood which was mellowing +already to a soft golden brown. Boards bare, but for a few rugs and +skins. A fine piece of tappa from the Solomons, of barbaric design in +black and orange, made the centre of an arrangement of South Sea Island +and aboriginal weapons. Divans heaped with cushions flanked the great +fireplace. Two writing-tables occupied spaces between French +windows—one the desk of a business-like roll-top escritoire; the +other, the flap of a Chippendale bureau, with a Chippendale arm-chair +before it. There were a few other pieces unmistakable English. In fact, +Eliza Countess of Gaverick, in addition to a handsome present of plate, +had sent her niece the furnishings of her old room at Castle Gaverick. +A few pictures and etchings hung on the other walls—among them several +wild seascapes—reminding one a little of Richard Doyle's exquisite +water colours—in which green billows and foamy wave-crests took the +shape of sea-fairies. Also some weird tree studies—mostly gum and +gidia, where gnarled limbs and bulbous protuberances turned into the +faces of gnomes and the forms of strange monsters. Maule had no doubt +that these were Lady Bridget's own. There was an upright grand +piano—the alleged cause of Steadbolt's conversion to Unionism, and all +about the place a litter of newspapers, books and work. The room was +filled with flowers—sheaves of wattle and of the pale sandal-wood +blossoms, as well as many sub-tropical blooms with which he was not +familiar. Blending with, yet dominating the mixture of perfumes, a +peculiar scent resembling incense, appealed to him; and this he did not +a first trace to a log of sandal-wood smouldering on the open hearth +more for effect than warmth, for the early spring evenings had scarcely +a touch of chill. The French windows stood open to the veranda, a room +in itself with its many squatters' chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, +stretched the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the +lagoon taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It +seemed an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady +Bridget he had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him +had been that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of +Great Britain, decadent perhaps, but 'in the swim.' +</P> + +<P> +She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light, +rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined him. +</P> + +<P> +'I've been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the +Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits. +You won't find a spring mattress—or water laid on—or any other +convenience of civilisation.' +</P> + +<P> +'May I remind you that I've roughed it pretty well in the Andes.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, but you have had so many luxuries since then that you will have +forgotten what roughing it feels like—just as I've forgotten now that +I was ever anything but a barbarian—I see you shave still.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—why?' +</P> + +<P> +'Only that I discovered just now the white ants had eaten all the +woodwork of the spare-room looking-glass. The thing crumbled in my hand +and fell on the floor and was broken. A bad omen for your visit, isn't +it?' +</P> + +<P> +'I hope not. So you are superstitious as ever?' +</P> + +<P> +'I haven't ceased to be a Celt—though I've become a barbarian. I'll +borrow the overseer's looking glass for you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Pray don't. I've got one of sorts in my razor case. Is dinner regarded +in the Never-Never as a sacred ceremonial?' +</P> + +<P> +'The men don't put on dress clothes, if that's what you mean. As for +the repast, for a long time, as a rule, the menu was salt junk and +pumpkin. We've improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the +Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields—there was another rush +at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have +kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN CASSEROLE. If you make believe very hard +you might possible imagine it young venison.... Here, Kuppi!' The Malay +boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on the +table between the fire and the window. +</P> + +<P> +'Tea,' she asked, 'or would you rather have whiskey and water? I can't +offer you soda water because, till the drays come, we have nothing to +run the seltzogene with.... Do you know that the Unionists cut our dray +horses' throats? We're lucky to have whiskey in the store. They broke +open the cases of spirits and stole a lot of things.... Vicissitudes of +savage life, you see!' +</P> + +<P> +She rattled on, scarcely pausing. She was seated on a divan, the tea +before her—he in a squatter's chair with long arms, in which he sat +silent, leaning forward, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes fixed +upon her. She avoided looking at him. Her small sun-browned hands +fidgeted among the cups. If anything remained of her anger and emotion, +she hid it under a ripple of absurd housewifely chatter, not waiting +for him to answer. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, is it to be tea or whiskey?' +</P> + +<P> +'Tea, please,' and then at last she stopped and looked at him and could +not turn her eyes away, or did not want to do so. His black orbs stared +with a disquieting fixity—a sort of inhuman power—from out of his +foreign-looking face. That stare was his chief weapon in the +subjugation of women—they called it magnetic, and no doubt it was so. +It increased the fascination of his ugly good looks. +</P> + +<P> +The gaze of each one seemed to fuse in that of the other. Hers, at +first coldly curious, tentative, caught light, warmth, intensity from +the sombre fire of his. Suddenly he said: +</P> + +<P> +'In God's name, Biddy, how did you come to marry that rough brute.' +</P> + +<P> +'IS he a rough brute! It's very rude of you to say so. But do you know, +just for a half minute to-day, I rather thought so myself. I don't +pretend to agree with Colin's methods of treating the Blacks, though +I'm told it's the only way to treat them—you know they did commit +terrible atrocities up here.... Still to flog a black man, a wild, +warlike, human creature, seems to me nearly as bad as shooting him. Do +you know—the first thing I ever heard about Colin was that he had a +great many notches on his gun, and that each one meant a wild +black-fellow that he had shot dead.' +</P> + +<P> +'And now he flogs tame ones,' Maule observed quietly. Her brilliant +eyes searched his face for a sign of malevolent sarcasm, but not a +muscle quivered. Her own eyes wavered under his steady look. She busied +herself among the tea things. +</P> + +<P> +'Sugar?' +</P> + +<P> +'Please.' +</P> + +<P> +But she paused, the tongs balanced in her delicate fingers. +</P> + +<P> +'It is frightfully thrilling—life in the Bush.' +</P> + +<P> +'What part of it? The shooting or the flogging?' +</P> + +<P> +She burst out: 'You know I hated that. You know I was furious about the +flogging. You know'—She pulled herself up. +</P> + +<P> +'I know nothing—except that you must have changed enormously in a very +short time to have been thrilled with anything but horror—by that sort +of thing.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I have changed. But it isn't time that changes one. Time never +counts with me. It's only feeling that counts. Oh, of course, I think +it all horrible—about the Blacks up North. They're not allowed on this +station—except one or two half civilised stock-boys—and this one fell +in love and carried off his gin, and brought her here against my +husband's orders.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes? And you had befriended them—I gathered that. But it doesn't +explain YOU.' +</P> + +<P> +She took up a piece of sugar with the tongs, holding it suspended as +she spoke, jerkily. +</P> + +<P> +'Why should I be explained? As for my finding life in the Bush +thrilling.... I was dead sick of falsities when I left England, I +wanted to be thrilled by something real.' +</P> + +<P> +'And you found that—in your husband?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes; I did. He IS real, at least. He is true to himself. So few men +have the strength of their goodness or the courage of their badness, +when it comes to a big test.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! I grant you. Yes; I know that's what you're thinking. I wasn't +true to myself in the big test.... But YOU were to blame for my having +been false to the higher ideal.' +</P> + +<P> +'I! Oh—what makes you—' But she thought better of the impetuous +questions that trembled on her lips, and went on in a different tone. +</P> + +<P> +'What does that matter! I'm not saying anything about high ideals. What +is high? .... What is low? .... You've just got to invoke truth and +freedom—as far as your conception of them goes.... And there's a +reason for Colin's hatred of the Blacks.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah! Is it permitted to ask the reason?' +</P> + +<P> +'His family were all massacred by the natives—father, mother, +sisters—all. Well, one admires a man steadfast in revenge—going +straight for what he wants—and getting it—doing it—in love or in +hate. Now I have answered your question.' +</P> + +<P> +The gesture of her head seemed a defiance. She dropped the sugar into +his tea, and he took the cup from her hands, and slowly drank it +without saying a word. +</P> + +<P> +It was she who broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +'You provoke me. You make me say things I don't want to say. You always +did.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah! Then marriage has not changed you so immensely, after all!' +</P> + +<P> +She bit her lip and rose abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +'Do you want any more tea? No. Then come to the veranda and tell me how +it is that Luke Tallant has allowed you to exchange Government House +for the Never-Never?' +</P> + +<P> +He had followed her through the French window. +</P> + +<P> +'I see you haven't heard the bad news.' +</P> + +<P> +'No—what? We only get a mail once a week.' +</P> + +<P> +'I thought McKeith would have broken the shock. He came on, he said, to +do so. Poor Lady Tallant.' +</P> + +<P> +'Rosamond! The operation?' +</P> + +<P> +'She died under the anaesthetic. Sir Luke got the news by cable the day +before I left Leichardt's Town. He wired at once for leave and has +started for England by this time.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh? poor Rosamond! Poor, poor Rosamond!' +</P> + +<P> +'Is she to be so greatly pitied! She has been saved much suffering!' +</P> + +<P> +Then as Bridget went on murmuring, 'Oh, poor Rosamond, she did love +life,' he added gently. 'Life can be very cruel.... I myself have had +cause for gratitude to Death, the great Simplifier. If my wife had +lived she must have been a hopeless invalid doomed to continual pain.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget gave him a swift look of reproach. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, do you expect me to congratulate you?' she exclaimed bitterly. +'Yes,' she went on, 'perhaps, to HER Death was merciful—but not to +Rosamond. And Luke did care for his wife. He will be broken-hearted.' +</P> + +<P> +She stood gazing out upon the plain, on which the mist was gathering. +From across the gully sounded the cattle being driven home. +</P> + +<P> +When she turned to him, her eyes were full of tears. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I'll go now.' She said simply. 'Colin will show you your room. +He's there—coming up from the lagoon.' +</P> + +<P> +She went through a French window lower down the veranda into her +bedroom, and Maule descended the steps into the garden and presently +joined his host. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 15 +</H3> + +<P> +A little later, McKeith having tubbed and changed his riding clothes, +came to his wife's room. He looked very large and clean and fair, and +the worst of his temper had worn off in a colloquy with Ninnis, and the +imparting and receiving of local news. But his eyes were still gloomy, +and his mouth sullenly determined. And he had remembered with remorse +that he should have softened to Bridget the sudden news of her friend's +death. The sight of her now—a small tragic figure with a white face +and burning eyes, in a black dress into which she had changed, deepened +his compunction. +</P> + +<P> +'I am very sorry, Biddy.' He tried to put his arm round her shoulder, +but she drew back. +</P> + +<P> +'What are you sorry for, Colin—that Rosamond Tallant is dead, and that +you forgot to tell me, and let me hear it from—Willoughby Maule?' She +paused perceptibly before pronouncing the christian name, 'Or that you +behaved like an inhuman monster to those wretched Blacks, and refused +me the only thing I have asked you for a good time past?' +</P> + +<P> +Her tone roused his rancour anew. +</P> + +<P> +'I think we'll drop the subject of the Blacks; there is no earthly use +in talking about them, I make it a rule never to threaten without +performing, and I'd punish them again, just the same—or more +severely—under similar circumstances.' +</P> + +<P> +'Very well. You will do as you please, and I shall do as I please, too.' +</P> + +<P> +'What do you mean?' +</P> + +<P> +'Just what I say. I agree with you that there's no use in discussing +things about which we hold such different opinions. Quite simply, I +can't forgive you for this afternoon's work.' +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy, you exaggerate things.' +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps. But I don't think so in this case. Let me go out, Colin. +Dinner must be ready by now.' +</P> + +<P> +'No. I've got something to ask you first. I want to know why you looked +so upset—as if you were going to faint—when that man came up to you +to-day?' +</P> + +<P> +'Naturally, I was startled. I had no idea he was in Australia.' +</P> + +<P> +'But why should that have affected you. One might have imagined he had +been your lover. Was he ever your lover, Biddy? I must know.' +</P> + +<P> +'And if he had been, do you think I should tell you,' she answered +coldly. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's face turned a dark red. His eyes literally blazed. +</P> + +<P> +'That's enough.' He said, 'I shall not ask you another question about +him. I am answered already.' +</P> + +<P> +He stood aside to let her pass out into the veranda, and she walked +along to the sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +Dinner went off, however, more agreeably than might have been expected. +Lady Bridget's manner was simple and to the guest charming. The black +dress, the touch of pensiveness was in keeping with the shadow of +tragedy. But she spoke in a natural way, and with tender regret of Lady +Tallant—questioning Maule as to when he had last seen her, and +learning from him how it had been at Rosamond's instigation that he had +cabled proposing himself as a companion in Sir Luke's loneliness. It +had been only a week after his arrival in Leichardt's Town that the +blow had fallen. +</P> + +<P> +'You know, Tallant and I always hit it off very well together,'he +observed explanatorily, addressing McKeith. 'It was at their house that +I used to meet Lady Bridget during the few months that I had the honour +of her acquaintance in England.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith looked at his guest in a resentful but half puzzled way. A +spasm of doubt shook him. Suppose he had been making a fool of +himself—insulting his wife by unreasoning suspicions? A vague contempt +in her courteous aloofness had stung him to the quick. And the other +man's easy self assurance, the light interchange of conversation +between them about things and people of which McKeith knew nothing—all +gave the Australian a sense of bafflement—the feeling that these two +were ruled by another social code, belonged to a different world, in +which he had no part. He had been sitting at the head of his table, +perfunctorily doing his duty as host, wounded in his +self-esteem—almost the tenderest part on him, morose and miserable. +Now he snatched at the idea that he had been mistaken, as if it were a +life-buoy thrown him in deep waters. He began to talk, to assert +himself, to prove himself cock of his own walk. And Maule suavely +encouraged him to lay down the law on things Australian, while Lady +Bridget withdrew into herself, baffling and enraging McKeith still more +hopelessly. He did not seem now to know his wife! A catastrophe had +happened. What? How? Why? .... Nothing was the same, or could be the +same again. +</P> + +<P> +It was a relief when dinner was over. The men pulled out their pipes in +the veranda. Lady Bridget, just within the sitting room window, smoked +a cigarette, her small form extended in a squatter's chair, listening +to, but taking scarcely any part in the conversation. The two outside +discussed local topics—McKeith's failure to trace the perpetrators of +the outrage on his horses. Maule's impressions of Tunumburra—where he +had met McKeith in the township hotel, and the two had apparently, in +the usual Bush fashion, got on intimate terms—the rumours of an armed +camp of Unionists, and the expected conflict between them and the sheep +owners and free shearers at Breeza Downs, whither the Government +specials were bound. Lady Bridget gleaned that Maule had placed himself +under McKeith's directions. +</P> + +<P> +'What are your immediate movements to be?' he asked his host. +'Remember, I am ready to fall in with any plans you may have for making +me useful.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith did not answer at once. He took his pipe from his mouth, and +knocked the ashes out of it against the arm of his chair, while he +seemed to be considering the question. Then, as if he had formed a +definite determination, he leaned forward and addressed his wife in a +forcedly matter-of-fact tone. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't suppose you know much about what has been going on, Biddy. The +same boat that brought up the specials brought a hundred or more free +labourers, and they're on their way up to the different sheep-stations +along the river—a lot of them for Breeza Downs, where Windeatt has +begun shearing. Windeatt is in a blue funk because a report that a +little army of Unionists, all mounted and armed, are camped that way +and threatening to burn down his wool-shed and sack his store. The +burned old Duppo's wool-shed last week.' +</P> + +<P> +'He's a skinflint, and I'm sure he deserved it,' put in Lady Bridget +indifferently. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith check a dry sarcasm. He became aware of Maule's eyes turning +from one to the other. +</P> + +<P> +'Well—' He got up and leaned his great frame against the lintel +between Maule and Lady Bridget. 'The Pastoralist Executive at +Tunumburra have asked us cattle-owners who—are more likely to be let +alone than the sheep-men, to help in garrisoning the sheep-stations; +and I've promised to ride over to Breeza Downs to-morrow and do my +share in protecting the place. Harris and I are going together.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridge seemed more interested in blowing smoke-rings than in her +husband's news. +</P> + +<P> +'I may have to be away several days,' continued McKeith. 'Then there's +the new bore we're sinking—the water is badly wanted—cattle are +dying—I can't run any risk of the bore-plant being wrecked. The men +who are working there must be sent off because we're short of +rations—thanks to those murderous brutes keeping back the drays—and +the muster has to be stopped for the same reason. I won't answer for +when I can be back.' ... As she made no answer, he asked sharply: 'Do +you understand, Biddy?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, of course. I have no doubt, Colin, that you'll find it all highly +stimulating. And perhaps you will be able to shoot somebody with a +clear conscience, which will be more stimulating still. Really Mr +Maule, you are lucky to have come in for a civil war—I heard that in +South America that was your particular interest. Do you carry civil +wars about with you? Only, there's nothing very romantic in fighting +for mere freedom of contract—it seems so obvious that people should be +free to make or decline a contract. I wonder which side you would take.' +</P> + +<P> +Her levity called forth an impatient ejaculation from McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm afraid in my wars it's generally been what your husband would +consider the wrong side,' said Maule with a laugh. 'I've usually fought +with the rebels.' +</P> + +<P> +'Then you'd better not go to Breeza Downs. You'd better stop and fight +for me,' exclaimed Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'That's just what I was about to propose your friend should do,' said +McKeith in hard deliberate tones. He looked straight at his +wife—shoulders and jaws squared, eyes like flashing steel under the +grim brows. The expression of his face gave Bridget a little sense of +shock. She raised herself abruptly, and her eyes flashed pride and +defiance too. +</P> + +<P> +'How very considerate of you, Colin—if Mr Maule LIKES to be disposed +of in that way. HE is to be allowed freedom of contract I presume, +though the shearers are not.' +</P> + +<P> +'You needn't be afraid that I shall strike, Lady Bridget,' laughed +Maule. 'It will suit my general principles to keep out of the +scrimmage. I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs of your +labour question, but I confess that, speaking broadly, my sympathies +are usually rather with Labour than with Capital.' +</P> + +<P> +'Capital!' echoed McKeith derisively. 'It's blithering irony to talk of +us Leura squatters as representing capital. We're all playing a sort of +battledore and shuttlecock game—tossed about between drought and +plenty—boom and slump. A kick in the beam and one end is up and the +other end down. There's Windeatt, who will be ruined if his wool-shed +is destroyed and his shearing spoiled. No rain, and the banks would +foreclose on most of us. Take myself. Two years ago the skies were all +smiling on my fortunes. This last year, it's as if the hosts of heaven +had a down on me.' +</P> + +<P> +'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,' murmured Lady +Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm Sisera, am I?' He gave her a fierce look and crossed to the +veranda-railing, where he began cutting tobacco into the palm of his +hand. 'Well, there is something in that. But the stars have never +licked me yet. Sisera was a coward, or they wouldn't have DOWNED him.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, but there was Jael to be reckoned with,' put in Maule softly. +</P> + +<P> +'Jael!' McKeith plugged his pipe energetically. 'The more fool Sisera +for not giving Jael a wide berth. He should have gone his way and kept +her out of his affairs.' +</P> + +<P> +A hard little laugh rang from the depths of the squatter's chair. Maule +got up and strolled into the sitting-room, where he seemed engrossed in +the pictures on the wall. Just then Cudgee, the black boy, hailed +McKeith from the foot of the steps. +</P> + +<P> +'That fellow pollis man want'ing Massa. He sit down long-a Old Humpey.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith looked into the parlour. 'My wife will entertain you, Maule. I +daresay you've got plenty to talk about. I'll see you later.' +</P> + +<P> +Presently they heard him outside speaking to the Police Inspector. +'Come into the office, Harris, and have a smoke and a glass of grog.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 16 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget and Willoughby Maule were alone again. She got up from the +long chair, and as she did so her cigarette case dropped from her lap. +He picked it up and it lay on his open palm, the diamonds and rubies of +her maiden initials glistening on the gold lid. They looked at each +other across it. +</P> + +<P> +'I gave you this,' he said, 'and you have kept it—used it?' +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to gloat over the bauble. +</P> + +<P> +Her fingers touched his hand as she took the case from him, and he gave +a little shiver of pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +'Let me have it; I want another cigarette.' She selected two and gave +him one of them. +</P> + +<P> +They moved to the divan near the fireplace, where some red embers +remained of the log of sandalwood. Its perfume lingered faintly in the +atmosphere. +</P> + +<P> +'That's good,' he said. 'It's like you; the only thing in the +god-forsaken desert that IS like you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you don't know me—now.' +</P> + +<P> +'Don't I! Well, your husband has given me the chance of knowing +you—better—and I warn you that I shall not scruple to avail myself of +the opportunity.' +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head dubiously. 'Give me a light.' +</P> + +<P> +He stooped and lit his own cigarette, then, bending, held its tip to +her. They both inhaled a few whiffs in silence. Presently, he said: +</P> + +<P> +'I find it difficult to understand McKeith.' +</P> + +<P> +'Don't try. You wouldn't succeed. I observe,' she added, 'that you must +have become rather friendly at Tunumburra?' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, yes. I can generally get on with open-air men. Besides, I wanted +him to like me. I wanted him to ask me here.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well—and what do you thing of it, now that you are here?' +</P> + +<P> +'Great heavens! What do you imagine that I should think of it! The +whole thing seems to me the most ghastly blunder—the most horrible +anomaly. You—in these surroundings! Married to a man so entirely +beneath you, and with whom you don't get on at all.' +</P> + +<P> +'You have no right to say that.' +</P> + +<P> +'The thing is obvious; though you tried to carry it off before dinner. +Your manner to each other; the lack of courtesy and consideration in +him; his leaving you....' +</P> + +<P> +'Stop,' she interrupted. 'There's one thing you MUST understand. I +don't mind what you say about yourself—I want to hear that—but I +can't allow you to criticise my husband.' +</P> + +<P> +'I beg your pardon. It isn't easy in the conditions to preserve the +social conventions. I will try to obey you. At any rate, you allow me +to be frank about myself.... It was sweet of you to keep this—more +than I could have dared hope for.' +</P> + +<P> +He fingered tenderly the cigarette case on her lap. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose I ought to have sent it back to you. But I didn't want to. +You see it was not like an engagement ring.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, worse luck.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why, worse luck?' +</P> + +<P> +'The ring would have been the outward and visible sign of an inward and +spiritual bond. If you had been really engaged to me—formally, +officially engaged, you couldn't have thrown me over so easily.' +</P> + +<P> +'I—throw you over! Is it quite fair to put it that way?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I admit that. Let us be honest with each other—this once.' +</P> + +<P> +'This once—very well—but not at this moment. I daresay there will be +time for a talk by and by.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wait your pleasure.' +</P> + +<P> +'There are some things I should like to understand,' she went on, +'—about you—about me, it doesn't matter which. And, after all, I only +want to know about you out of a sort of perverse curiosity.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's so like you. You always managed to infuse a bitter drop into +your sweetness. And you COULD be so adorably sweet... If only I could +ever have felt sure of you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Where would have been the use? We never could spend an hour together +without hurting or annoying each other. It's a very good thing for us +both that neither cared enough to make any real sacrifice for the +other.' +</P> + +<P> +'There you wrong me,' he exclaimed. 'I did care—I cared intensely. The +touch of your hand—the very sweep of your dress thrilled every nerve +in me. I never in all my life loved a woman as I loved you. That last +day when you walked out of my rooms....' +</P> + +<P> +'Where I never ought to have gone. Fancy the properly brought-up +English girl you used to hold up to me doing such a shocking thing as +to visit you alone in your chambers! ... Oh! Is that Colin back again?' +</P> + +<P> +For Maule had started visibly at the sound of quick steps mounting to +the veranda, and McKeith's towering figure appeared in the doorway, +looking at them. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget turned her head, her cigarette in her hand, and glanced up +at his face. What she saw in it might have made a less reckless or less +innocent woman feel uneasy. She was sure that he must have heard that +last speech of hers about visiting Maule in his chambers. Well, she +didn't care. Besides Colin hadn't the smallest right to resent any +action of hers before her marriage... She did not turn a hair. Maule +admired her composure. +</P> + +<P> +'BON SANG NE PEUT MENTIR,' he thought to himself, and wished they had +been talking in French. +</P> + +<P> +'You look as grim as the statue of the Commander,' said Lady Bridget. +'What is the matter?' +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget and I have been exchanging unconventional reminiscences,' +put it Maule with forced lightness. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith took no notice of either remark, but strode across the room to +the roll-top escritoire, where he usually wrote his letters when in his +wife's company. He extracted a bundle of papers from one of the pigeon +holes. +</P> + +<P> +'This is what I came for. Sorry to have interrupted your +reminiscences,' and he went out again, passing along the back veranda. +</P> + +<P> +Maule had got up and was standing at the fireplace. Lady Bridget rose +too. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm going to bed. We keep early hours in the Bush.' +</P> + +<P> +'What! Already!' he exclaimed in dismay. +</P> + +<P> +'I was up at six this morning. Well, I hope you won't be too +uncomfortable with the white ants in the Old Humpey—they are perfectly +harmless. Your room is next to the office, as I daresay you've +discovered. And you'll find Colin there I suppose, with your friend the +Police-Inspector.' +</P> + +<P> +'Don't call that man Harris my friend. We've had one or two scraps at +each other already. He was pleased to take it for granted that I'm what +he calls a "new chum," and didn't like my shewing him that I knew +rather better than he does what police administration should be in +out-of-the-way districts.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget nodded. 'Then we're both under ban of the Law. I DETEST +Harris.... Good-night.' And she flitted through the French window +without giving him her hand. +</P> + +<P> +The station seemed in a state of unquietude till late into the night. +The lowing of the tailing-mob in the yard was more prolonged than +usual. And the horses were whinnying and answering each other down by +the lagoon as though there were strangers about. Lady Bridget, lying +awake and watching through her uncurtained windows the descent of the +Southern Cross towards the horizon, and the westward travelling of a +moon just out of its first quarter, could hear the men's voices on the +veranda of the Old Humpey—that of Ninnis and the Police Inspector; +Maule seemed to have retired to his own room. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith was evidently busy upon preparations for his absence from the +station. He must have been cleaning guns and pistols. There were two or +three shots—which startled and kept her in a state of tension. At last +she heard the interchange of good-nights, and the withdrawal of Ninnis +and Harris to the Bachelor's Quarters. Finally, her husband came to his +dressing-room—not along the front veranda, as would have been usual, +but by the back one, through the bathroom. Even this deviation from +habit seemed significant of his mood—he would not pass her window. He +moved about for a time as if he were busy packing. Then came silence. +She imagined him on the edge of the camp bed, so seldom used, smoking +and ruminating. +</P> + +<P> +Whiffs from his pipe came through the cracks of the door between the +two rooms, and were an offence to her irritated nerves. She had grown +accustomed to his tobacco, but, as a rule, he did not smoke the last +thing at night. He had seemed to regard his wife's chamber as a +tabernacle, enshrining that which he held most sacred, and would never +enter it until he was cleansed from the grime and dust of the stockyard +and cattle camp, and had laid aside the associations of his working +day. That attitude had appealed to all that was idealistic in both +their natures, and had kept green the memory of their honeymoon. It +angered her that to-night, of all nights, he should disregard it. +</P> + +<P> +In personal details, she was intensely fastidious, and at some trouble +and cost had maintained in her intimate surroundings a daintiness +almost unknown out-back. Her room was large, and much of its +furnishings symptomatic of the woman of her class—the array of +monogrammed, tortoise-shell backed brushes and silver and gold topped +boxes and bottles, the embroidered coverlet of the bed, the flowered +chintz and soft pink wall paper, the laced cambric garments and +silk-frilled dressing gown hanging over a chair. When service lacked, +and there was no one to wash and iron her cambric and fine linen, she +contrived somehow that the supply should not fail, and brought upon +herself some ill-natured ridiculed in consequence. The wives of the +Leura squatters thought her 'stuck-up' and apart from their kind. If +they had known how much she wanted sometimes to throw herself into +their lives—as she had thrown herself into the lives of her East-End +socialistic friends! But the stations were few and far between, and the +neighbours—such as they were—left her alone. +</P> + +<P> +Letting her mind drift along side-tracks, she resented now there having +come no suggestion from the Breeza Downs women that she should +accompany her husband and share the benefits of police protection, +or—which appealed to her far more—the excitement of what might be +going on there. Of course, though, there was nothing for her to be +nervous about here—she wished there might have been. Any touch of +dramatic adventure would be welcome in the crude monotony of her life. +</P> + +<P> +But the adventure promised to be of a more personal kind. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, she jumped out of bed and softly slipped the bolt of the door +into her husband's dressing room. She did it on a wild impulse. She +felt that she could not bear him near her to-night. He should see that +she was not his chattel.... But, perhaps, he did not want to come.... +Well, so much the better. In any case, she wanted to show him that she +did not want him. She wondered if he would venture.... She wondered if +he did really care.... +</P> + +<P> +He appeared in no hurry to test her capacity for forgiveness.... Or it +might be that the minutes went slowly—laden as they were with +momentous thought. She lay in a tumult of agitation, her heart beating +painfully under the lawn of her nightgown. She had a sense of gasping +wonderment. She felt, as Colin had felt, that something tremendous had +happened—and with such bewildering suddenness—altering all the +conditions between them. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, through the pain and bewilderment, her whole being thrilled with +an excitement that was almost intoxicating—like the effect of an +insidious drug, or the fumes of heady wine. She knew it was the old +craving for sensation, the fatal O'Hara temperament awake and +clamouring. Try as she would—and she did try in a futile fashion—she +could not shut off the impression of Willoughby Maule—the sombre +ardour in his eyes, the note of suppressed passion in his voice. There +was no doubt that this unexpected meeting had restarted vibrations, and +that his influence was a force to be reckoned with still. +</P> + +<P> +If Colin had acted differently—if he had not behaved so brutally to +those poor blacks—if his manner to her had not been so hard and +overbearing. And then his leaving her alone like that with Willoughby +Maule! Of course, he was jealous. He had jumped at conclusions. What +right had he to do so? What could he know? He must suspect her of +horrible things. His questions had been insultingly dictatorial. Now, +he wanted to shew her that he flung her off. He would not put out a +finger to hold her to him. Had he not said something like that before +their marriage! ... It was abominable. +</P> + +<P> +The whiffs of tobacco smoke came no more. He was moving about again. +She heard him in the bathroom. After a minute or two he came to the +door and tried to open it. +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy,' he said. Then in a deep-toned eager whisper, 'Mate!' +</P> + +<P> +She sat up in bed; she had the impulse to go and open the door, but +some demon held her back. She lay down again on her pillow.... The bed +had creaked.... He must have known that she was awake.... He waited a +minute or two without speaking ... knocked very softly.... She was +silent.... Again she heard him moving about in his dressing-room, and, +after a little while, she heard him go out, passing along the back +veranda. He did not return. It was dawn before Bridget dropped into the +heavy morning slumber, which follows a night of weeping. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="book3"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 1 +</H3> + +<P> +When Lady Bridget awoke, it was then near the hour at which they +ordinarily breakfasted. Finding, when she had dressed, that all was +silent in the next room, she looked in. +</P> + +<P> +It was empty, the bed had not been slept in, but there were signs that +McKeith had got into his riding clothes and that he had packed a valise. +</P> + +<P> +Maule was waiting in the dining-room, and Maggie, the serving maid, +gave a message from McKeith that he had had his breakfast at the +Bachelors' Quarters with Mr Harris and that they were both going to +start for Breeza Downs immediately. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget made no pretence of breakfasting. She told Maule to forage for +himself, and, after swallowing a cup of coffee, made the excuse of +household business—to see if the Chinaman had put up his master's +lunch—if the water-bags were filled—what were to be the proceedings +of the day. She had a hope that McKeith might say something +conciliatory to her before he left. The remembrance of that disregarded +appeal—the word 'Mate' to which she had given no response, weighed, a +guilty load, upon her heart. +</P> + +<P> +But she was sore and angry—in no mood to make any advance or stoop to +self-justification. He was outside the store, where Ninnis was weighing +rations for Harris, and McKeith's and the Police Inspector's horses, +ready saddled, with valises strapped on, were hitched to the paling. +</P> + +<P> +Harris sulkily touched his helmet to Lady Bridget, but McKeith had his +back to her and seemed wholly absorbed in some directions he was giving. +</P> + +<P> +'You'll see to it, Ninnis, that six saddle-horses are kept ready to run +up, in case the Pastoralist Executive sends along any message that's +got to be carried down the river—there's that lot of colts Zack Duppo +broke in, they'll do. And you can get in Alexander and Roxalana from +the Bore pasture, in case the buggy should be wanted—and one or two of +the old hacks that are spelling out there. Of course, her ladyship's +horse mustn't be touched, and you'll see Mr Maule has a proper mount if +he wants it—the gentleman who'll be here for a bit—a friend of her +ladyship's from England—you understand. You'll keep on those new men +for the tailing mob, though I'm not sure they mightn't be Unionists in +disguise. Anyway, Moongarr Bill is a match for them.... And you'll just +mind—the lot of you—that it's my orders to stockwhip blacks off the +place, and that if any Unionist delegates show their faces through the +sliprails they're not allowed to stop five minutes inside the paddock +fence.' +</P> + +<P> +'Right you are, Boss,' responded Ninnis, and there was a change of +grouping, and McKeith strode out to the yard to look into some other +matter, all without sending a glance to his wife. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Moongarr Bill came up, chuckling mysteriously, 'Say, Boss, I +believe there's one of them dashed organising chaps coming down now +from the top sliprails.' And as he spoke, a man rode to the fence, +harmless enough looking, of the ordinary bush type. +</P> + +<P> +He was about to get off his horse in the assured manner of a bushman +claiming the usual hospitality, but McKeith—big and grimly +menacing—advanced and held up his hand. +</P> + +<P> +'No, wait a bit. Don't unsaddle. I'd like first to know your business.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm an Organiser,' said the man defiantly, 'and I'm not ashamed of my +job. Trades Unions are lawful combinations, and I've come to have a +talk with your men....' He ran on with professional volubility. 'My +object in going round your district is to bring about a peaceful +compromise between employers and employed—Do you see....?' +</P> + +<P> +'Stop,' thundered McKeith. 'I'd have you understand that there's an +organiser on this station already. I'M the Organiser here, and I'm not +taking stock in Trades Unions at present.' +</P> + +<P> +'But you'll let me have a talk with your men?—No harm in that.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, you don't,' said McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I can spell my horse an hour or two, can't I?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, you can't. You'll ride off my station straight away.' +</P> + +<P> +'I've been off tucker since yesterday,' said the man, who seemed a +poor-spirited creature. 'Anyhow, Boss, you'll give me something to eat.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I'll do that.' The laws of bush hospitality may not be violated. +Food must be given even to an enemy—provided he be white. McKeith +called to the Chinaman to bring out beef and bread. A lump of salt junk +and a hunk of bread were handed to the traveller. +</P> + +<P> +'Now you be off, and eat that outside my paddock,' said McKeith. 'See +those gum trees over there?—You can go and organise the gum trees.' +</P> + +<P> +The man scowled, and weakly threatened as he half turned his horse's +head. +</P> + +<P> +'Look here, Boss, you'll find yourself the worse for this.' +</P> + +<P> +'Shall I. In what way, can you tell me?' +</P> + +<P> +'You'll find that your grass is burned, I daresay.' +</P> + +<P> +'I'm obliged to you for the hint. I'll take precautions, and I'll begin +by shepherding you straight off my run,' said McKeith. 'Harris, if +you're ready now, come along here.' +</P> + +<P> +The Police Inspector stepped off the store veranda, where he had been +standing, a majestic and interested onlooker. The Organiser—after all, +a mere man of straw, crumpled under his baneful stare. +</P> + +<P> +'You can't give me in charge—you've got no warrant—I've done nothing +to be given in charge for.' +</P> + +<P> +'Some of your people have, though, and here's a bit of information for +any skunk among your cowardly lot,' said McKeith. 'I've offered one +hundred pounds reward for the scoundrels who cut my horses' throats and +robbed my drays on the road to Tunumburra. There's a chance for you, if +you're mean enough to turn informer.' +</P> + +<P> +'I know nothing about that,' said the Organiser. +</P> + +<P> +'Eh? Well, if my grass is burned, I shall know who did it, and so will +this Police Inspector. And I am a magistrate, and will have you +arrested. Get on your horse, Harris, we'll start at once, and ride +alongside this chap till he's over my boundaries.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris unhitched his horse and mounted, but not sooner than McKeith was +he in the saddle. Then McKeith looked at last towards the veranda where +Bridget stood, white, defiant, with Maule at the French window of the +dining-room just behind her. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith took off his hat, made her a sweeping bow, which might have +included his guest, turned his horse's head and rode in the direction +of the sliprails, Harris and the sulky Organiser slightly at his rear. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget never forgot that impression of him—the dogged slouch of his +broad shoulders—the grim set of his head, the square, unyielding look +of his figure, as he sat his horse with the easy poise of a bushman who +is one with the animal under him—in this case, a powerfully made, +nasty tempered roan, one of Colin's best saddle-horses—which seemed as +dogged tempered as its master. +</P> + +<P> +Maule showed tact in tacitly assuming the unexpected necessity for +McKeith's abrupt departure—also that he had already bidden good-bye to +his wife. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget made no comment upon her husband's scant courtesy to his +guest when she rejoined Maule after an hour or two spent in housewifely +business. They strolled about the garden, smoked cigarettes in the +veranda, she played and sang to him, and he brought out his cornet, +which he had carried in his valise, being something of a performer on +that instrument. +</P> + +<P> +A demon of reckless gaiety seemed to have entered into Lady Bridget. +Watching McKeith disappear behind the gum trees, she had said to +herself:—'I can be determined, too. I have as strong a will as he has. +He did not choose to say one regretful word. He was too stubborn to own +himself in the wrong. He left me in what—if he believed his suspicion +to be true—must be a dangerous position for a woman—only it shall not +be dangerous to ME. I know exactly how far I am going—exactly the +amount of excitement I shall get out of it all. Neither Willoughby nor +he deserve an iota of consideration. I shall amuse myself. So! No +more.... But he can't know that. He has never thought about ME. He has +thought of nothing but his own cross-grained pride and selfish egoism. +No man of ordinary breeding or SAVOIR-FAIRE would have gone off like +that!' +</P> + +<P> +She forgot in her condemnation of Colin to make allowance for the +primal nature of the man; for a certain kinship in him with the loftier +type of savage, whose woman must be his wholly, or else deliberately +relinquished to the successful rival, and into whose calculation the +subtleties of social jurisprudence would not naturally enter. +</P> + +<P> +Nor did she remember at the moment that Maule had been described by her +own relatives as a person of neither birth nor breeding—a +fortune-hunter—not by any means a modern Bayard. He at least was a man +of the world, she thought, and would appreciate the situation. He had +lost that touch of unaccustomedness—she hardly knew how to describe +it—which had often irritated her in their former relation. In their +talk that day he seemed much more at home than she was in the world she +had once belonged to. He spoke of 'personages' with the ease of +familiar acquaintance. Apparently, he had got into quite the right +set—a rather political set, she gathered. He told her that he had been +pressed to stand for a well-nursed Liberal Constituency, and implied +that but for the catastrophe of his wife's death he would now be seated +in Parliament, with a fair prospect in the future of place and +distinction. Of course, it was the money which had done it, she told +herself, though he had undoubted cleverness, she knew, and, as he +pointed out, his experience in a particular South American +republic—very much to the fore just now in European diplomacy—stood +to his advantage. His marriage had given him opportunity. He alluded +without bad taste to his dead wife's generosity. She had left him her +entire fortune unfettered. He was now a rich man. He explained that she +had had none but very distant relations and that, otherwise, charitable +institutions would have benefited. She had been a very good woman, he +said—a woman with whom nine hundred out of a thousand decent men would +have been perfectly happy. He let it be inferred that he was the +thousandth man. His eyes, not his lips told her the reason why. +</P> + +<P> +Their talk skimmed the surface of vital things—the new awakening in +England; the threatenings of a socialistic upheaval; his individual +aims and ideas—she recognised her own inspirations. He spoke of his +political ambitions. Suddenly she said: +</P> + +<P> +'I wonder why you made the break of coming out to Australia—why you +did not stay in England and follow on your career?' +</P> + +<P> +'There are bonds stronger than cart ropes which may drag a man by force +from the path he has marked out for himself. Surely you must +understand?' +</P> + +<P> +'Really, Mr Maule.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why will you be so formal!' he interrupted impetuously. 'It is absurd. +Women nowadays always call men they know well by a PETIT NOM.' +</P> + +<P> +'Do I know you well! I often think I never knew you at all.' +</P> + +<P> +'That is what Lady Tallant used to say to me, latterly, about you and +myself—that we never really knew each other.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, poor Rosamond! It makes me miserable to think of her. You became +friends, then—latterly?' +</P> + +<P> +'She was very nice to me when she came back from Leichardt's Land. And +besides, she was anxious for me to come out to Luke and help him a +bit.... She told me about your marriage. She knew I could settle to +nothing—of course, the world in general thought it was because of that +tragedy—my wife's death—and the child—you understand?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget nodded slowly. +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Tallant knew the truth—that I was tormented by one ceaseless +longing—after the impossible. I fancy she thought that if I could +realise the impossibility, I might get over the longing.... +But—Bridget, it's no use pretending—I did try to do my duty. I think +I succeeded, to a certain extent, in making my wife happy—but there +was always the same gnawing regret....' +</P> + +<P> +'You must put all that out of your head,' she interrupted curtly. +</P> + +<P> +'I cannot. A man doesn't love a woman like you, and, because she is +married to another man, put her out of his head—in two years or +ten—or Eternity, for that matter.' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed joylessly. 'Eternity!' she scoffed. +</P> + +<P> +They were in the veranda after luncheon, she swinging slowly in the +hammock, playing with a cigarette, he smoking likewise, scarcely +attempting to suppress the stormy feeling in his face and voice. For +her, the crude brown-grey landscape rose and fell with the motion of +the hammock, and jarred with the exotic memories he evoked. She had +been called back to the varied emotional interests of her girlhood, and +realised, in a rush, how deadly dull was life in the arid wastes of the +Never-Never. Nothing more exciting than to watch the great parched +plain, with the dry heat-haze upon it, getting browner every day, and +the shrinking lagoon and its ever widening border of mud. Nothing, when +she turned her eyes to right and left, but ragged gum trees and black +gidia forest. What a dead blank wilderness it was!' +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little gasp as if for breath. He seemed to read her thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +'Do you remember Rome—and the Campagna, that first day we went to +Albano?—And our walk through the woods down to Lake Nei?—It was then +I first knew that I loved you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Will—if you are going to stay here you mustn't talk like that. It's +not playing the game.' She spoke pleadingly. +</P> + +<P> +'Does your husband play the game?' Maule retorted. 'Is it playing the +game to leave you here alone with me, when he must know—or at least, +guess—how things have been between us?—Do you think I didn't notice +yesterday that he suspected me—suspected us both? I should have been a +blind mole not to see by his face and manner how he felt. Upon my soul, +he would have no defence—if....' +</P> + +<P> +She stopped him with a gesture. +</P> + +<P> +'I must ask you again not to discuss my relations with my husband; they +do not concern you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Do they not!' And as she rose abruptly from the hammock, 'I beg your +pardon,' he added humbly, 'I will do my best not to offend again.' +</P> + +<P> +He got up too and stood, his back against the veranda railings. +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget, you mustn't be angry with me. I suppose I am a little +off my balance, you must remember that this is—for me, a rather +staggering experience.' +</P> + +<P> +'Shall we go for a ride?' she asked suddenly. 'I don't suppose you have +much idea of what a wild western station is like.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I'm fairly well acquainted with life on big pastures,' he answered +lightly, taking her cue. 'You would be surprised, perhaps, at the list +of my qualifications as an "out-back squatter."—I'm a bit of a +rancher—had one in the Argentine—a bit of a doctor—a bit of a +policeman—I was in charge once of a constabulary force out in British +Guiana. That's where I got a rise off Harris—a bit of a law breaker, +too—in fact a bit of everything. Yes, I should enjoy a ride round here +with you immensely.' +</P> + +<P> +'Then do you mind looking for Mr Ninnis, the overseer, you know.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I know Ninnis. Had a yarn—as he'd say—with him last night while +your husband was talking to Harris. Ninnis doesn't get on well with +Harris—another point of sympathy. We're quite friends already. Ninnis +and I—he's been in South America, too.' +</P> + +<P> +'You'll find him somewhere about the Bachelors' Quarters, and I'll go +and put on my habit,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget appeared as Maule and Ninnis were finishing saddling the +horses. Ninnis had stayed near the head station, and was keeping a +sharp look-out for bush fires, he said. Otherwise, there appeared to be +no elements of disquiet. Lady Bridget noticed with surprise that Ninnis +seemed to defer to Maule, which was not his usual attitude towards +strangers. She attributed this to a community of experiences in South +America, and also to Maule's undoubted knack of managing men. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 2 +</H3> + +<P> +They rounded the lagoon and skirted the gidia scrub. Maule was on a +Moongarr horse, Bridget rode a fiery little chestnut. Maule had already +had opportunity to admire the famous O'Hara seat. They had hunted +together once or twice on the Campagna, that winter when they had met +in Rome. It was difficult to avoid retrospect, but Bridget seemed +determined to keep it within conventional limits. They found plenty, +however, to talk about in their immediate surroundings. Perhaps it was +the effort to throw off the load on her heart that made Bridget gaily +confiding. She drew humorous pictures of the comic shifts, the almost +tragic hardships of life on the Leura—how she had been left +servantless—until Ninnis had got up Maggie from the Lower Leura—when +the Chinamen decamped during the gold rush. She described the +chivalrous SUNDOWNER who had on one occasion helped her through a +week's washing; and Zack Duppo the horsebreaker, whose Christmas +pudding had been a culinary triumph, and the loyalty of faithful Wombo, +who had done violence to all his savage instincts in acting as +house-servant until the advent of the Malay boy Kuppi. She told of her +first experience of a summer out West. The frying of eggs in the sun on +a sheet of corrugated zinc, so intense was the heat. The terror of +snakes, centipedes, scorpions. The plagues of flies and white ants. +Then how, during the servantless period, in utter loneliness and +Colin's enforced absence at the furthest out-station she had had an +attack of dengue fever, and no woman within forty miles of her. +</P> + +<P> +'And your husband allowed this? But where was that barmaid-looking +person who seems to keep house here for stray gentlemen—and, who has +the yellow-headed and blue-eyed little boy?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget's lip curled. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs Hensor had accepted a temporary situation at an hotel in Fig Tree +Mount—the only time I've regretted her absence,' and the musical laugh +seemed to Maule to have acquired a note of exceeding bitterness. +'Perhaps you don't know,' she went on, 'that Mrs Hensor is a sort of +Helen of the Upper Leura—though unfortunately as yet no Paris has +carried her off—I wish there was one bold enough to do it. She had to +be asked to take a change of air because there was rivalry about her +between the buyer of a Meat Preserving Establishment and the chief +butcher at Tunumburra. Fair Helen scorned them both. Result: The two +buyers bought beasts elsewhere and, as you would understand, on a +cattle station, butchers may not be flouted. Though I daresay,' Lady +Bridget added with a shrug, 'if I could have had the butchers in the +house—I draw the line only at Harris—and had sung to them and played +up generally, I might have scored even off Mrs Hensor. But they +wouldn't come until after she had gone and there was no further danger +of a duel taking place outside the Bachelors' Quarters.' +</P> + +<P> +Maule took her cue again and laughed as if the matter were one to jest +about. But as he looked round, his face did not suggest merriment. Nor +for that matter did the landscape. They were riding at the edge of the +immense sandy plain, patched with brown jaggled grass and parched +brambles and prickly lignum vitae—nothing to break the barren monotony +but clumps of stunted brigalow and gidia, a wind-mill marking the site +of an empty well with the few hungry-looking cattle near it. +</P> + +<P> +Now they dipped into a scrub of dismal gidia. +</P> + +<P> +'This is the most depressing country I have ever ridden through,' he +said. +</P> + +<P> +'You don't know what a difference three inches of rain makes,' she +answered. 'Then the grass is green, the creeks are running, and at this +time the dead brambles are covered with white flowers. But it doesn't +rain. There's the tragedy.' +</P> + +<P> +'The tragedy is that you—you of all women should be wasting your youth +and beauty in this wilderness. How long is it going to last?' +</P> + +<P> +She shrugged again, and for an instant turned her face up towards the +sky. 'You must ask the heavens?' +</P> + +<P> +'Meaning, I presume, that like most of the Australian squatters, your +husband hasn't capital enough at his back to stand up against continued +drought?' +</P> + +<P> +'Precisely.' She looked at him, with her puzzling smile. +</P> + +<P> +'But you couldn't have understood his position when you married him?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I didn't—altogether. But I should really like to remind you that +I am not in the witness box.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think you owe me the truth!' he said, passionately. +</P> + +<P> +'What do you call the truth?' she asked, reining in her horse and +meeting his eyes straight. +</P> + +<P> +But she had to turn hers away before he answered, and he as well as +herself was conscious of the compelling effect his gaze had upon her. +</P> + +<P> +'I could have made you marry me if I had been strong enough to +persist,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +'Cannot any man do what he is strong enough to do—if he wishes it +enough to persist?' +</P> + +<P> +'I should have put it this way. If I had thought less of you and more +of myself. But after what you said that day, when you jeered so +contemptuously at the kind of environment in which, THEN, I should have +had to place my wife—what could I do—except withdraw? But you +suffered, Bridget,' he went on vehemently. 'Not so much as I did—but +still you suffered. You thought of me—I felt it, and you must have +felt too, how continually I thought of you. I used to try and make you +think of me—dream of me. And I succeeded. Isn't that true?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, it is true,' she answered in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +'Only lately, since I have been in the district, it has seemed to me +that the invisible wires have been set working afresh. Isn't that true +also?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, it is true,' she said again, as if forced to the acknowledgment. +</P> + +<P> +'Then, can there be any question of the bond between us? You see, it's +independent of time and space! for you WERE sorry—you DID care. That's +the truth you owe me. If after—after we parted in that dreadful way, I +had gone back, had thrown up everything, had said to you, "Come with me +ANYWHERE, let us be all in all to each other—on the slopes of the +Andes, on an island in the South Seas—you would have come?"' +</P> + +<P> +'I always told you,' she said with her puzzling smile, 'that the slopes +of the Andes appealed to me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Peru would have been more picturesque than this, anyway. Is that all I +can get out of you—that grudging admission? Well, never mind, I am +satisfied. You have owned up to enough. I won't tease you now for more +admissions.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have admitted too much,' she said gloomily. 'The curse of the +O'Hara's is upon me. Almost all of them have gambled with their lives, +and most of them have lost.' +</P> + +<P> +She gave her horse the rein as she spoke, and they cantered on over the +plain. After that, she resolutely forbade sentiment. +</P> + +<P> +Mr Ninnis was gratified by an invitation that evening to dine at the +Home, and came down in his best dark suit and his most genial mood. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget sang. She had not been singing much lately. Colin's gloom over +the evil prospects of squatting on the Leura re-acted upon her spirits. +And besides, the piano had been attacked by white ants, and the tuner +had not been so far up the river for a long time. It was inspiring to +learn that Maule added to his gifts that of getting a piano into tune. +Ninnis promised to rummage among the tools for a key that would serve. +</P> + +<P> +Ninnis had never admired Lady Bridget so much as he did this evening. +Certainly he thought her more flighty and incomprehensible than ever, +but he could not deny her fascination. It seemed quite natural to him +that she should be in high spirits at seeing an old friend from +England, who appeared to know all her people. Ninnis had taken +immensely to Maule. Beside Maule knew parts of the world where Ninnis +had been. It was curious to see the American-isms crop out. Ninnis +considered Maule a person of parts and of practical experience. He said +to himself that the Boss had done wisely in leaving Maule at the +head-station while they were short-handed. Maule showed great interest +in Bush matters—said he wanted to learn all he could about the +management of cattle—thought it not improbable that he might invest +money in Leichardt's Land. Ninnis agreed to show him round, and Maule +begged that he might be made useful—even offered to take a turn with +the tailing-mob, so that Moongarr Bill and the other stockmen might be +free to muster more cattle. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing was heard of the Blacks during the next day or two, but one +morning Ninnis discovered that an old gun, which the station hands and +the black-boys were allowed to use on Sundays for shooting game in the +lagoon, had disappeared in the night. Circumstantial evidence pointed +to Wombo as the thief. Cudgee owned to having seen him skulking among +the Gully rocks. A deserted gunya was found near a lonely, half-dry +waterhole in the scrub, and there were rumours of a tribe of wild +blacks having passed towards the outlying country in the Breeza Downs +direction. +</P> + +<P> +No news came, however, of either racial or labour warfare. McKeith sent +not a word of his doings, and Harry the Blower was not due yet on his +postal, fortnightly round. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith had been gone a week, and the time of his absence seemed like +that sinister lull which comes after the sudden shock of an earthquake +and the tornado that follows upon it. Then, one day, something happened. +</P> + +<P> +All the men except the Chinamen were out. Moongarr Bill, Ninnis, and +the stockmen on the run, while Maule—a book and a sandwich in his +pocket—had gone herding with Joey Case and one of the extra hands. +</P> + +<P> +A sense of mutual embarrassment had that day driven them apart. He had +been afraid of himself, and she too had felt afraid. During these seven +days she had rushed recklessly on as though impelled by a fatality, +never pausing to consider how near she might be to a precipice. +Whenever possible, she had ridden out with Maule and Ninnis, or with +Maule alone. She found relief from painful thoughts of Colin in the +excitement and emotion with which Maule's society provided her. She +went with him on several occasions behind the tailing-mob, though +ordinarily, she could not endure being at close quarters with cattle. +But it interested her to see Maule ride after and round up the wild +ones that escaped; to watch his splendid horsemanship which had the +flamboyant South-American touch—the suggestion of lariat and lasso and +ornate equipment, the picturesque element lacking in the Bush—all +harmonizing with his deep dark eyes and Southern type of good looks. +</P> + +<P> +To-day, she had preferred to remain at home alone. She had been pulled +up with a startled sense of shock. Last evening when they were walking +together on the veranda he had begun again to make love to her, and in +still more passionate earnest—had held her hands—had tried to kiss +her. She had found herself giving way to the old romantic +intoxication—then had wrenched herself from him only just before the +meeting of lips. +</P> + +<P> +At last, she had realized the strength of the glamour. She fought +against it; nevertheless, in imagination gave herself up to it, as the +opium-smoker or haschisch-eater gives himself up to the insidious +FANTASIA of his drug. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, Bridget thought it was like what she had read of the effects of +some unholy drug—some uncanny form of hypnotism. +</P> + +<P> +For she knew that she did not really love Maule—that her feeling for +him was unwholesome. +</P> + +<P> +There was poison in it acting upon her affection for and trust in her +husband. Maule made subtle insinuations to McKeith's detriment, +injected doubts that rankled. There were no definite charges, though he +would hint sometimes at gossip he had heard in Tunumburra. But he would +convey to her in half words, looks, and tones that he had reason to +believe Colin unworthy of her—that her husband had led the life of an +ordinary bushman, and had fully availed himself of such material +pleasures as might have come to his hand. The veiled questions he asked +about Mrs Hensor and her boy, brought back a startled remembrance of +the scene outside the Fig Tree Mount Hotel and Steadbolt's vague +accusation. She had almost forgotten it—had never seriously thought +about it. Yet now she knew the midge-bite had festered. +</P> + +<P> +Could it be that there was a chapter in Colin's life of which she knew +nothing? Was it not too much to believe that he had always been +faithful to his ideal of the camp fire? Ah! Maule would have jeered at +that—would have been totally incapable of understanding the romance of +that dream-drive—a dream in truth. But how beautiful, how sane, how +uplifting it seemed, compared with the feverish haschisch dream in +which she was now living. Restless under the obsession, she wandered up +the gully and, as she sat among the rocks, wrestled with her black +angel—and conquered. Clearly there was but one thing to do. She must +send Maule away at once before Colin came back. As for Colin, that +trouble must be faced separately. Maule must ride back to +Tunumburra—he knew the track. Or, should he wish to explore the +district further, Harry the Blower was due with the mail to-morrow, and +could guide him to any station on the post-man's route which might +appear to Maule desirable. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget knew that Maule would leave the tailing-mob before the other +men that afternoon, and would probably come to look for her here. So +having arrived at her decision and wishing to put off the inevitable +scene as long as possible, she set forth by another route for the +head-station. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 3 +</H3> + +<P> +But she had only gone a few steps, when out of the gidia scrub, came +Oola the half-caste, her comely face bruised, her eyes wild with grief +and terror, her head tied up in a blood-stained strip torn from Lady +Bridget's lacy undergarment, the gaily-flowered kimono hanging in dirty +shreds upon her brown bosom. +</P> + +<P> +'White Mary! Lathy-chap!' she cried. 'Plenty poor feller Oola. Plenty +quick me run. Me want 'em catch Lathy-chap before pollis-man come. That +feller pollis-man take Wombo long-a gaol. Mithsis'—the gin implored. +'BUJERI you!—Mithis tell pollis-man Wombo plenty good blackfellow. No +take Wombo long-a gaol.' +</P> + +<P> +'What has Wombo been doing?' asked Lady Bridget. 'Did he steal the gun?' +</P> + +<P> +'YOWI (yes). Wombo plenty frightened long-a ole husband belonging to +me.' And Oola dropped and knocked her head upon the ground, wailing the +ear-piercing death-wail of the Australian native women. +</P> + +<P> +'Oola, you must stop howling!' said Bridget, alive to the seriousness +of the situation. 'Has Wombo shot your husband with our gun?' +</P> + +<P> +'YOWI, Mithis. That feller husband altogether BONG' (dead). +</P> + +<P> +From Oola's broken revelations Bridget pieced the story. It appeared +that the tribe had followed in hot pursuit of the fugitives, and, +knowing his peril, Wombo had sneaked up to the head-station in the +darkness, possessed himself of an effectual weapon, and fled away with +the gun. The offended blacks had discovered the guilty pair on the +outskirts of Breeza Downs, and Oola's husband, with a company of +braves, had attacked their gunya. Then—to quote Oola—'that feller +husband throw spear at Wombo—hit Oola long-a COBRA (head) with NULLA +NULLA. Him close-up carry off Oola. My word! Wombo catch him PHO PHO. +Plenty quick husband belonging to me TUMBLE DOWN.' And Oola wailed anew. +</P> + +<P> +'Where's Wombo now?' Bridget asked. +</P> + +<P> +'Blackfeller YAN (run) along-a pollis-man. Pollis-man close-up black's +camp. That feller Harris catch 'im Wombo—fetch um long-a Tunumburra +gaol. Mine think it stop to-night Moongarr. Close-up station now.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget at once saw through the affair. Here was Harris taking a +legitimized revenge on Wombo, and doubtless also on herself. Clearly, +he had been patrolling the Breeza Downs boundaries in search of +Unionist incendiaries, and seizing Wombo instead, had acted promptly +without waiting for a warrant or consulting McKeith. Wombo would be +charged at the township with theft of the gun and murder of Oola's +husband. To a certainty he would be hanged if the matter ran its +ordinary course. That it should not do, Bridget declared within +herself—if she could by any possibility prevent it. +</P> + +<P> +The half-caste woman and the white lady went swiftly through the gidia +scrub towards the head-station. At the gully crossing, Maule, on his +way back from the tailing-mob, overtook them, and dismounting, walked +with Lady Bridget to the house. She forgot then all the scene of last +evening, told him the black's story, begged him to help her in the +rescue of Wombo. +</P> + +<P> +He reflected for a minute or two. +</P> + +<P> +'We're up against Harris,' he said, 'and Harris has a grudge against +all of us. But Harris feels some respect for my knowledge of +constabulary law, which, I take it, is pretty much the same in most +countries where there are white settlers and native races.' +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at him, letting him feel that she was relying on his +astuteness and his strength. He went on: +</P> + +<P> +'Ninnis is mustering with Moongarr Bill and the others, a good way off, +and they're camping out to-night.... That leaves only Joe Casey and the +other extra hand. Ninnis put me in authority here. Somebody has got to +take command, and it must be either you, Lady Bridget, or myself. +Perhaps I'm the best qualified of the two....' +</P> + +<P> +She laughed shakily in assent. +</P> + +<P> +'Anyway, I fancy that I know how to deal with this sort of affair +better than you do,' he said. 'Will you let me manage it my own way?' +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose I may assume that your husband left me in a position of some +responsibility. And if I seem to be taking too much on myself—or, on +the other hand, deferring too much to Harris, you'll trust me and not +interfere?' +</P> + +<P> +There was no time for discussion, had she wished to go against him. +Oola was shrieking and pointing frantically to the track down from the +upper slip rails, along which Harris and his prisoner were to be seen +riding. +</P> + +<P> +The Police Inspector, uniformed, burly, triumphant, exhaled the Majesty +of the Law as he rode slightly in advance leading the black-boy. Now, +as they pulled up at the fence, Wombo presented a sorry spectacle—a +spear wound in his left shoulder, a spear graze on his leg, his wrists +handcuffed and his feet tied to the stirrup-iron with cords so tight +that they cut into his tough, black flesh. +</P> + +<P> +Harris dismounted, tied Wombo's horse securely to the veranda post and +then made his statement which coincided with Bridget's idea of what had +happened. It was too late to push on to Tunumburra. He proposed to lock +up his prisoner at Moongarr for the night. Could he have the hide-house? +</P> + +<P> +Not long before, the Police Inspector had locked up a horse stealer, +whom he had in charge, in the hide-house for a few hours while he took +a meal. +</P> + +<P> +To Bridget it seemed an irony that Wombo should be imprisoned in the +very room he had so lately shared with his stolen gin. +</P> + +<P> +She was quivering with indignant pity at sight of the sores on the +black boy's legs made by the raw hide thongs, and Oola, who had crept +up the off side of the black-boy's horse, was wailing anew. Maule +checked with a look the angry protest on Lady Bridget's lip and +answered the Police Sergeant in her stead. +</P> + +<P> +'Why, certainly. I'm sure her Ladyship won't object. You'll let me see +to that for you, Lady Bridget,' and, as she bowed her head, he +addressed Harris again. 'Mr Ninnis and most of the others are camping +out to-night on the run, and I seem to be the only responsible man in +the place—of course you know that Mr McKeith asked me to stop and help +look after things for Lady Bridget if necessary.' Then he complimented +Harris genially upon his zeal. 'You've got your warrant, I suppose,' he +asked incidentally. +</P> + +<P> +The Police Sergeant looked a little uncomfortable. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, fact is, I wouldn't waste time going back to Breeza Downs +head-station for that. Mr McKeith's there and they had a bit of an +alarm. Those Unionist skunks tried to fire the shed one night, but no +particular damage was done, and they've dispersed. But Windeatt is in +such a fright of their making another attempt on his head-station that +he's pushing the imported shearers on with the shearing for all he's +worth, and keeps any man he can get hold of on guard night and day +round the house and sheds, while I and my lot have been doing a bit of +riding after Unionists.... Now, if you please, we'll have the key of +the hide-house,' concluded Harris. 'I'd like to get my prisoner stowed +away safe before I take an hour's spell myself. I'm pretty well knocked +up, I can tell you. No sleep at all last night watching that nigger who +was tied up to a gum tree, and I've been in the saddle all day.' +</P> + +<P> +Maule proffered the usual refreshment with a deprecatory reference to +Lady Bridget, who stood stonily apart. Then on pretext of getting the +key of the hide-house, he had a few words with her in the office. +</P> + +<P> +'I'm going to take care of this,' he said, as she gave him the key of +the padlock which secured the hide-house door, and he forthwith +fastened it to the ring of his watch-chain. 'Of course you want the +black-boy to escape?' +</P> + +<P> +'I shall let him out myself,' she answered. +</P> + +<P> +'That would only make McKeith more angry. I have a better plan, in +which you need not be implicated.' +</P> + +<P> +'I would rather do it myself,' she said. 'I'm not afraid. If it had +been possible, I would have cut those horrible thongs straight away and +let the poor wretch get into the bush. He'll be safe at the head of the +gully in the gidia scrub.' +</P> + +<P> +'I promise you that he shall be safe in the gidia scrub before sunrise +to-morrow. Trust me.' +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. 'But I can't take services from you, after....' she +began hastily and then stopped. +</P> + +<P> +'You call that a service! Yes—to humanity, if you like. Oh, I know. +After yesterday evening. NOW, you blame me for being true to myself.... +All that has got to be settled between us, Bridget—for good and all. I +thought it out as I rode behind the tailing-mob to-day. But for the +moment,' he fingered the key agitatedly, 'Bridget, you MUST let me do +this thing for you. Don't refuse me that small privilege, even if you +deny me all others.' +</P> + +<P> +She wavered—yielded. 'Very well. You can manage it better than I +could. So I will accept this last favour.' +</P> + +<P> +'The first, not the last. What have I done but cause you pain? ... If +you knew the torture I have been going through....' He checked himself. +She was staring at him, half frightened, half fascinated. +</P> + +<P> +'No, no. There must be an end.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes. There must be an end. Later on, we'll decide what the end is to +be.' +</P> + +<P> +He went out to the veranda carrying the key. Bridget did not follow +him. She had no power either to resent or to compel him. She sat +waiting. When, after about a quarter of an hour, he came back, she was +still in the office as he had left her, seated by the rough table on +which were the station log, the store book, and branding tallies. +</P> + +<P> +He came in triumphantly, exhibiting the key. +</P> + +<P> +'Harris wanted to take possession of this. It was lucky I had put it on +my chain. However, he's satisfied that Wombo is securely locked up and +an extra glass of grog and a hint that, as he hasn't provided himself +with a warrant there's no obligation on him to stand over his prisoner +with a loaded gun, eased his mind of responsibility. The man is in a +beast of a temper though, he evidently expected to be entertained down +here. I hope Mrs Hensor will give him a good dinner. He insists on +sleeping in the little room off the store veranda where he says he can +keep watch on the hide house. I suppose it's all right?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget nodded. 'I'll tell Maggie.' Maule asked for ointment with which +to dress the black-boy's wounds and abrasions, and she gave it and left +him. +</P> + +<P> +The afternoon was drawing in. Then came the sound of the herded beasts +being driven to the yard at sundown and, by-and-by, of Joe Casey's +stockwhip as he got up the milkers. The shorthandedness and disturbance +of Harris' arrival made everything late, and the goats which should +have been penned by now, were busy nibbling at the passion vines on the +garden fence. But all this made little impression on Bridget's +preoccupied brain. She had the thought of that coming interview with +Maule before her. Oola's continuous wailing was an affliction, and she +gave the half-caste a blanket and some food and told her to camp on the +further side of the hide house where, with eyes and ears glued by turns +against the largest chink between the slabs, she might see and speak to +the prisoner. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 4 +</H3> + +<P> +Maule's and Lady Bridget's TETE-TETE dinner was an embarrassed meal, +with Kuppi and Maggie hovering about the table. The man's eyes said +more than his lips, and the woman sat, strained and silent, or else +uttered forced commonplaces. +</P> + +<P> +They were alone at last on the veranda, with night and the vast +distances enfolding them. The air was close and hot, the sky banked +with storm clouds, and, occasionally, there were flashes of sheet +lightning and low growls of thunder. Before long the head-station was +very quiet. Harris had inspected the hide-house and, having assured +himself of the safety of his prisoner, had retired to the veranda room, +making a great parade of keeping his door open, his gun loaded, and his +clothes on, ready for any emergency. Joe Casey had gone to his hut, the +Chinaman and the Malay boy to theirs, and Maggie, the woman servant, to +her own tiny room wedged in between the new house and the kitchen wing. +</P> + +<P> +But it was all early. At that hour, Maule laughingly reminded Lady +Bridget, the dining world of London would scarcely have reached the +dessert stage. +</P> + +<P> +She would not waste time on banalities. +</P> + +<P> +'I've been waiting to tell you something. My mind is quite made up. I +can't go on like this any longer. You must go away to-morrow.' +</P> + +<P> +'To-morrow!' he echoed in dismay. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes. I've thought it out. You don't know the country, but the mailman +will be here to-morrow, and he can show you the road.' +</P> + +<P> +'You are very kind.... Why are you so anxious to get rid of me?' +</P> + +<P> +'Surely you understand. You made me a scene yesterday. You'd go on +making me scenes.' +</P> + +<P> +'And you?' +</P> + +<P> +She gave a hard little laugh. 'Oh! I—don't want to play any more.' +</P> + +<P> +'You call it play! To me it's deadly earnest. I let you go once. I do +not mean to let you go again.' +</P> + +<P> +'But you are talking wildly. Don't you see that it is impossible we can +be friends.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! that I grant you. We must be everything to each other—or nothing.' +</P> + +<P> +In spite of her cold peremptoriness he could see that she was deeply +agitated. That fact gave him courage. His voice dropped to the tender +persuasive note which had always affected her like a spell. +</P> + +<P> +'My dear—my very dearest.... We made a great mistake once. Let us +forget that. Death has opened the gate of freedom—for me, at +least—and I can only feel remorseful thankfulness. We have again a +chance of happiness. We will not throw it away a second time.' +</P> + +<P> +'You seem to forget that if you are free I am married.' +</P> + +<P> +'What a marriage? Call it a mad adventure.' +</P> + +<P> +'That may be,' she said bitterly. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I +did care very much for my husband.' She brought out the last words with +difficulty. +</P> + +<P> +'DID care. You put it in the past tense. You don't care for him any +longer. It would be astonishing if you did. One has only to see you +together.... Oh, Biddy, it was so like you to rush off to the other +side of the world, and ruin your life for the sake of some strange +impracticable idea! I can follow it all....' +</P> + +<P> +'You are mistaken,' she put in. +</P> + +<P> +'I think not. You married in a fit of revulsion against the conditions +in which you were living—the hollow shams of an effete +civilisation—that's the correct phrase, isn't it? And—well, perhaps +there was another reason for the revulsion.... And you thought you had +found the remedy for it all. Oh! I admit that he is very good looking, +and, of course, he worshipped you—until he had you secure, and then he +reverted to the ways of his kind. "Nature's gentlemen" usually do....' +</P> + +<P> +'Be silent, Will,' she exclaimed vehemently. 'You don't understand.' +</P> + +<P> +'My dear, your very anger tells me that I do understand. Why! naturally +your imagination was set on fire. The Bush was painted to you in its +most glowing colours. No doubt, as you said, it's a Garden of Eden in +good seasons. Wonderful vegetation, glorious liberty—no galling +conventions—vast spaces—romance—and the will o' the wisp wealth of +the Wild. Confess now ... are not my guesses correct?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes—partly.' She spoke with reluctance. 'But I remember that YOU used +to talk to me about the joys of the Wild,' she added with sharp irony. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, yes, I know it all. I've been there myself. And it's only when El +Dorado proves a delusion that one begins to hanker—I did before I met +you—for the advantages of civilised existence.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, you have secured those. Why not go and enjoy them as I'm asking +you to do.' +</P> + +<P> +'They have no value for me, unless I may share them with you. Bridget, +I can give you everything now that you once asked for.' +</P> + +<P> +'With your wife's money?' +</P> + +<P> +He drew back sharply. 'Ah! You CAN hit a man!' and there was silence +for a few minutes. Then he leaned closer to her, and his fingers +touched the gold cigarette case which lay on the arm of the squatter's +chair in which she was sitting. He went on in a changed manner. +</P> + +<P> +'Poor Evelyn left her fortune to me, knowing the truth. She was a +noble-souled woman. I was not worthy of her. But unworthy as I may have +been, Bridget, I deserved better of my wife than your husband deserves +of you. At least, I did not deceive her.' +</P> + +<P> +'What do you mean? Colin did not deceive me. That, at all events, is +not one of his faults towards me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Has he told you, then, why he keeps on his station that insolent woman +and her yellow-haired blue-eyed boy?' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget started visibly. He saw that his shaft had struck the mark. But +she answered calmly: +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know what you want to imply. I thought you knew that Mrs +Hensor's husband was killed on one of Colin's expeditions, and that he +looked after her and her boy on that account.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, yes, I've heard that story. But it seemed common gossip at +Tunumburra that there was another—less creditable—explanation.' +</P> + +<P> +She turned fiercely upon him. 'You have no right to make such an +abominable accusation.' +</P> + +<P> +'I only mention what I heard. I went about a good deal there in bar +saloons, and to men's gatherings. Naturally, I was interested in the +district where, by the way, McKeith does not appear to be over popular. +Of course, I attached no great importance to the gossip then. It only +made me wonder. Oddly enough, to-day when I was out with the tailing +mob, one of the men repeated it—I need not say that I stopped him. He +said he'd had it as a fact from a man who was a long time in your +husband's employ—a man called Steadbolt.' +</P> + +<P> +Again the scene in front of Fig Tree Mount Hotel flashed before Lady +Bridget, and Demon Doubt rose up clothed now in more material +substance. Her voice shook as she answered, though she tried to be +loyal: +</P> + +<P> +'Steadbolt was discharged from my husband's employment. He is another +of Mrs Hensor's rejected suitors. That speaks for itself.' +</P> + +<P> +'Strange that Mrs Hensor should reject so many suitors without apparent +reason,' said Maule. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget did not seem able to bear any more. Her head drooped upon her +hands, her shoulders heaved convulsively. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know what to do—I am alone. It's an insult to talk to me in +this way.' +</P> + +<P> +'I want to protect you from insult—I want to take you out of these +miserable conditions—and there's only one way to do that,' he pleaded. +</P> + +<P> +He took her hands in his and kissed them passionately. 'Oh, I love you. +There's nothing in the world I would not do to make you my wife. Why +should you hesitate? It breaks my heart to see you unappreciated, +neglected, living the sort of rough life that might suit a labourer's +daughter, but which is sacrilege for Lady Bridget O'Hara. A man had no +right to condemn a beautiful, refined woman like you to such a fate.... +Well there' as she murmured incoherently, 'I'll not say any more about +that since it hurts you. You see, I respect your wishes. I'll even go +away at once, if you command it, and leave you to form your own +judgment. I will stay in Leichardt's Town—in Sydney—anywhere—until +you have decided for yourself—as I know you must do—how impossible it +is for you to remain here. Then I will meet you wherever you please, +and we will go to Europe together—bury ourselves abroad—wait in any +part of the world you may choose, until the divorce proceedings are +over, and we are free to marry. You need not be afraid of scandal, the +thing can be kept out of the English papers. It's so far away that +nobody will remember you were married to an Australian. Besides, +anything of the sort is so easily got over nowadays. My darling, why do +you look at me with those tragic eyes? It is not like the old Biddy to +be a slave to Mrs Grundy.' +</P> + +<P> +She had been listening, sitting rigid in her chair, her hands still in +his, looking at him in a strange fixed manner, almost like a person in +the first stage of hypnotism. Now she snatched her hands away and gave +a sobbing cry. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I'm not the old Biddy. I never can be again.' +</P> + +<P> +'Dear love—believe me, when I promise you that you shall never have +cause for regret.' +</P> + +<P> +He would have taken her into his arms, but she drew herself back. +</P> + +<P> +'Will, you don't understand. And I don't understand myself, I can't see +things clearly. It's all been so sudden—Colin going +away—you—everything.... I want to be alone. I want to find myself.' +</P> + +<P> +He moved aside with a slight inclination of his head as if to let her +pass. 'I told you that I would do anything you wish.' +</P> + +<P> +'You mean that—really? Then I wish you to go away at once. You said +you would leave me to decide for myself. I take you at your word, and I +shall write to you, by-and-by. Promise me that you will go.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have no choice. Your will is law to me. But understand, dearest—I +am only waiting.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's good of you not to want to worry and argue.... Don't you +understand?—I couldn't bear you to be here when Colin comes back. You +must go to Tunumburra to-morrow.' +</P> + +<P> +'Go to Tunumburra to-morrow?' he repeated blankly. +</P> + +<P> +'It's on the way to Leuraville, and you can take the steamer from +there. I will write to you in Leichardt's Town. Oh, it's quite simple. +The mailman will be here early. You can leave a letter saying that you +are recalled.' +</P> + +<P> +'I understand.' Her definite planning gave him hope that she had +already made up her mind, and that she would join him in Leuraville or +Leichardt's Town. After all, that might be best. 'But I shall see you +again. The mailman is not here yet. I have still a few hours respite.' +</P> + +<P> +She made no answer at first. Then 'Good-night,' she said abruptly, and +flitted like a small white ghost along the dim veranda. +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget!' His voice stopped her. It shook a little, but the +manner was conventional, and she gained confidence from that and turned +irresolutely. +</P> + +<P> +'Lady Bridget. While we've been talking about ourselves, we've +forgotten that unfortunate black-boy. I only want to tell you, that you +may depend on your wishes being carried out. I shall go to my room and +watch my opportunity. Trust me, that's all—in everything.' +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you,' she answered simply. 'I do trust you.' +</P> + +<P> +She came back a few steps, and he met her in the middle of the veranda. +In one of her swift transitions of mood a humorous element in the +situation seemed to appeal to her, and she said with a laugh:—'It's +comical, isn't it? The two tragedies, black and white—we two +here—those two out there!' +</P> + +<P> +Just then the black curtain of cloud, that had been rising slowly and +obscuring the stars, was torn by a strong flash of chain lightning. It +threw up her face in startling clearness and he saw, in strange blend +with the conflicting emotions upon it, the wraith of her old whimsical +smile. +</P> + +<P> +He did not answer her laugh. In truth, the man's nature was stirred to +a more deep-reaching extent perhaps than ever in his life before. It +may have been the flash of lightning recalling a momentary flash of +illumination that had once shone upon his own soul. +</P> + +<P> +That had been when he was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, +and her last words revealed to him a magnanimity of devotion for which +he had been wholly unprepared. He had thought her merely amiable and +stupid—except in her love for him—and his sentiments towards her had +been a mixture of boredom, and the tolerant consideration due to the +bestower of substantial benefits. Nevertheless, she had awakened, +during a spasm of remorseful self-abasement, some nobler quality latent +in the man. +</P> + +<P> +And now—as that flash of lightning illuminated Bridget's face and made +him keenly sensitive to the charm of her personality—her wayward +fascination, her inconsistencies, her weakness, her temperamental +craving for dramatic contrast, her reckless toying with emotion—by a +curious law of paradox, there came back upon Willoughby Maule that +scene with his dying wife, and he had again the flashing perception of +something sacred, unexplainable, to which his own nature could not +reach. +</P> + +<P> +It sobered him. He had had the impulse to snatch her to his breast, to +seal the half-compact with a lover's kiss, so passionate that the +memory of it must for ever bind her to him. +</P> + +<P> +But the impulse was past. They stood perfectly silent, stiff, in the +interval—it seemed a very long one—between the lightning flash, and +the distant reverberation of thunder which followed it. +</P> + +<P> +Then he said mechanically, like one walking out of a dream? 'There's +going to be a storm. Are you frightened?' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' she answered. 'I'm never frightened of storms!' and added, +'besides, Colin would be so glad of rain.' +</P> + +<P> +Before he could reply, she had glided away again and he was alone. +</P> + +<P> +He thought it strange that she should be thinking of her husband and +his material interests just then. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 5 +</H3> + +<P> +It must have been a little while after midnight when Bridget was +awakened by more thunder and lightning and a confused tornado of sound. +She had been dreaming that Harris was throwing her from the gully +cliffs on to the boulders in its bed—only it seemed to her bewildered +senses that the boulders rose towards her instead of her descending to +meet them. Next she discovered that rain was pattering on the zinc +roof, and that the violent concussions she felt beneath her must be due +to the horns of goats knocking up against the boards of her bedroom. +Ah! she thought, the men had forgotten to pen the goats, and they were +sheltering from the rain in the open space under the floor of the +house. There could be no more sleep for her that night, unless they +were dislodged. +</P> + +<P> +She waited through the din until there came a lull in the storm, then +got up and put on her shoes and a waterproof coat over her nightdress. +It was not the first time by any means that, when sleeping alone, she +had been obliged to rise and drive away stray animals that had been +inadvertently allowed means of entrance. +</P> + +<P> +She went out to the back veranda, which was connected by steps with the +verandas of the other two wings. The moon was full and shed occasional +pale gleams through the scudding clouds. The close heat had given place +to a chill wind and the rain came down intermittently but in no +volume—it could not make much difference to the parched earth. There +was not a light visible anywhere. The goats were still making a noise +under the house. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget got a stick from a heap of sandal-wood boughs stacked +against the veranda, and passing to the front, where the piles +supporting the house were higher, proceeded to belabour an elderly +nanny, who, with her mate, was now nibbling twigs of the creepers. But +she was surprised to see only two or three goats, she had thought there +must be many more. The animals were refractory, and her beatings of no +avail. Now, suddenly, she was seized with a fit of nervous shivering +and realised that she felt physically ill. It was of no use for her to +try and drive off the goats. She sank down on the veranda steps of the +Old Humpey, and afterwards thought she must have fainted. +</P> + +<P> +The sound of Maule's approaching footsteps and his alarmed ejaculation +seemed to bring her to herself. He appeared to have come round the back +of the Old Humpey. He was horrified at the sight of her convulsive +shivering. +</P> + +<P> +'You mustn't stop here,' he exclaimed. 'I was afraid the goats would +disturb you, and I've been getting them out as quietly as I could. Most +of them are shut up in their fold.' +</P> + +<P> +She saw that he was almost fully dressed. With an effort she controlled +her terror, and asked: +</P> + +<P> +'You've not been asleep.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh! off and on. I've been keeping my eye on Harris' room,' he pointed +across the yard to the kitchen and store-building opposite—at the end +of which Harris had installed himself—to the squat outline of the slab +and back hide house. 'My ear, too,' he went on, 'for Harris' slumbers +are neither silent nor peaceful. When he's not snoring, he groans and +stirs, and the worst of it is that he's got his door wide open on to +the veranda and his bed right across the window that looks straight at +the door of the hide house. I thought I'd take advantage of the +thunder, but it was no good. He was awake and looking out. Now he has +lain down again, and as soon as I hear him snoring I shall try once +more.' +</P> + +<P> +A fresh fit of shivering seized Bridget. +</P> + +<P> +'This won't do,' he said, and went hurriedly into his own room which +opened a few doors down on to the veranda, and coming back with an +opossum rug on his arm and a glass of brandy and water in his hand, he +made her drink the spirits and wrapped the rug round her. Presently the +shivering ceased. +</P> + +<P> +A moon-gleam between two clouds closing on each other showed her his +eyes glowing with sombre passion. She saw that he was holding himself +under stern restraint. Though where they were, the veranda running +between the end of the Old Humpey and the new house, made a kind of +passage so that they were in shadow, there was a possibility of +watchful eyes discovering their whereabouts. +</P> + +<P> +'Will you go back to your room, and I'll get rid of these goats,' he +said, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way. 'I supose there isn't a +yard where I could put them, nearer than their own by the lagoon.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think so,' she answered dully, and without stirring from where +she crouched upon the steps. When he urged her anew to go back to bed, +she answered petulantly: +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, do let me be. I like the wind and the rain—they're soothing. And +I couldn't sleep now until I know that Wombo is safe in the scrub.' +</P> + +<P> +He made no further protest, but set to work shepherding the goats. She +watched him drive them out of the gate till his dark form and the +piebald shapes he was driving before him were lost in the night. She +knew that it would take some little time to pen them all securely in +their fold. But the night was young yet. +</P> + +<P> +From shivering, the fire of the brandy and the warmth of the fur rug +had turned her temperature to fever heat. She felt keenly excited; the +blood in her veins seemed boiling, and the occasional raindrops and +moist wind were pleasant on her face. She had gone to the end of the +veranda and stood there with long withes of the native cucumber vine +that grew over the Old Humpey swaying around her in the breeze. There +was not a light in the place. Even moon and stars were now veiled. Her +brain raced round desperate and futile schemes for eluding the +vigilance of the Police Inspector. She wished now that she had thought +of asking him to dinner and putting opium into his coffee—that was the +sort of thing they did in novels. She did not know that a less +developed brain than her own was working at this moment to the same +end, on an inspiration from the bush DEBIL-DEBIL, or such savage +divinity as watches over the loves of the Blacks. +</P> + +<P> +She saw what at first she had thought part of the shadow of a +neighbouring gum tree cast on the strip of grass that ran at the back +of the Old Humpey. But the lesser shadow moved, halted, and the greater +shadow was stationary and grew denser as the moon sailed again across a +clear patch of sky. +</P> + +<P> +Then Bridget realised that the moving shadow was the half-caste Oola, +shrouded in the dark blue blanket she had given her, and that the gin +had halted at the casement window of Maule's bedroom. Now, Oola, with +her hands on the sill, curved her lithe body, drew her bare feet to the +window ledge and dropped within. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget ran along the grass to the window, and from there watched Oola +move about the room and in the almost darkness fumble among the objects +on the dressing-table. Then Bridget could hear the little click of the +tongue and the guttural note of exultation a black tracker gives when +he comes upon a trail. Bridget drew aside against the wall, so that +Oola, again springing over the window sill, did not observe her. But +Bridget saw the watch and chain with the iron key attached to it which +the gin had stolen, and seized Oola's arm as the dark form crouched +upon the grass again. The gin uttered a smothered shriek. Bridget took +the watch from her hand, detached the key from the chain, and slipped +watch and chain into the pocket of her coat, while Oola, clutching Lady +Bridget's knees, pleaded chokily: +</P> + +<P> +'Mithsis—you gib me key—no make im noise. No tell pollis-man me let +out Wombo. My word! plenty quick he YAN long-a scrub. BA-AL pollis-man +catch Wombo. Mithsis—BUJERI White Mary! You gib it key to Oola.' +</P> + +<P> +The key was in Oola's hand. 'BA-AL me tell,' whispered Bridget. 'You go +quick.' +</P> + +<P> +She, too, bent her body and followed Oola, who sped like a hunted hare +round the comer of the Old Humpey. Now she wriggled in the shadow of +the yard railings. Now she crept stealthily past Harris' +window—and—oh! DEBIL—DEBIL be praised! the Police sergeant's +stertorous snoring was clearly audible. +</P> + +<P> +Blessed, likewise, be the retiring moon and the sweeping clouds! Lady +Bridget, every nerve a-quiver and the rushing blood throbbing in her +temples, also crept noiselessly beneath the window in the wake of Oola, +crawling like Oola, but more to the back of the hide-house into the +shelter of its drooping bark eaves. +</P> + +<P> +Bending cautiously round the slabs, she watched, as the gin, with a +swift wriggling motion like that of a snake, drew herself along the +sunken earth floor beneath the eaves and then, softly raising herself +to the level of the padlock, put in the key. There was a muffled +grating of iron under the gin's hand, as the padlock unclosed and the +hasp dropped, then a creak of the door on its hinges, while it opened +and shut behind the undulating shape in the aperture. Then a low +throaty ejaculation—the black's call of warning. And now with a +quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded +serpentine shapes round the hide-house—in and out among the grass +tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum +shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs upon the lesser +darkness, and now altogether invisible.... +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget knew that in five minutes, once they could be upright +again, the fugitives would have reached the gully, and after that the +gidia scrub. Then security from the terrors of a white man's gaol would +be almost assured to them. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget waited—waited, it seemed to her an eternity, in reality +it was barely over the five minutes she had mentally given the two +blacks for their escape. That five minutes had been full of alarms, and +she could feel her heart thumping, so tense was the strain. She had to +consider the possibility of Harris being awakened; also, of Maule's +return and an attempt on his part to free the hide-house prisoner. Also +there was the danger of the clouds breaking before she had done her +work. +</P> + +<P> +She heard a movement of the sleeper in his bed below the open window +opposite. Harris might have been aroused, and perhaps have stirred +without awakening.... But the snoring had ceased.... She did not think, +however, that he could be fully awake.... Presently the snoring +recommenced. +</P> + +<P> +She crept very slowly along the earthen floor, drawing her hands along +the slabs as she went. A splinter from one of them ran into her +finger—but that did not matter. Now she touched the door, which lay +back towards her, for the blacks had not waited to close it. She pushed +it very softly, holding her breath at the creak of the hinge and +listening intently for the recurrent snore which sounded through the +window only three paces from her. +</P> + +<P> +At last the thing was done—the padlock fastened, the key turned in the +lock, and now in her pocket. She dropped flat on the earth, her cloak +drawn lightly between her knees, and wriggled snake-like, as Oola had +done past Harris' windows, then pushed herself on hands and knees along +the ground, squeezing her body against the palings of the yard, till +she reached the Old Humpey on the opposite side. Once round that +corner, she got on to her feet, feeling sick and giddy but intensely +relieved. She leaned against the gum tree which had protected Oola, and +now realised that it had been raining in a driving gust and that she +was wet to the skin. +</P> + +<P> +The bleating of a kid, which had been left under the house and had +found its way into the yard, startled her anew. She thought that she +heard sounds in the wing near the hide-house—steps on the veranda. Was +Harris stirring? Had he discovered the flight of his prisoner? +</P> + +<P> +She waited again till all was quiet. By this time, there was a watery +radiance just overhead. She looked towards the lagoon, but there was no +sign of Maule. She felt the shivering begin again, though her head +seemed burning, and she could hardly think collectedly. Her chief idea +was to get back to bed. +</P> + +<P> +But she was able to reason to herself that Maule must somehow be +informed of the escape. She did not think he could have got back yet to +the spot where he had left her. Or he might come straight to his room +and miss the key and his watch. In any case, these must be restored to +the place from which Oola had taken them. +</P> + +<P> +She lifted herself to the window-sill as Oola had done, and in a moment +was inside the room. It had been an easy enough business, only that in +clutching the window frame, the jagged end of the splinter she had run +into her hand caught and tore her flesh. The room was of course empty. +</P> + +<P> +She lifted a candle—which, with matches, stood on the dressing +table—and put back the watch and chain, and the key now separate from +them. That fact would show Maule that it had been tampered with. But +she must find some more exact means of conveying what had happened. +Premature action on his part might give the alarm. Her brain worked in +flashes. She had vivid ideas, which in her fevered state she could not +hold properly. She must write to Maule. A notebook that he must have +taken from his pocket lay on the table also. She tore out a +leaf—paused—She must write so that only he would understand. An +accident might happen to the paper. +</P> + +<P> +There must be no definite statement to implicate him or herself. Some +words in French occurred to her. She wrote them down and continued the +note in that language. At the close she begged him to act so that there +should be no ground for suspicion—reminded him of his promise to go +away on the morrow—said she would write to him at the Post Office at +Leuraville. She did not sign the sheet, but folded it across—addressed +it to Maule and laid it under the watch on the table. +</P> + +<P> +A fresh spasm of shivering seized her. Suddenly she remembered the +opossum rug she had left. She opened the door leading from Maule's room +into the veranda, and went out. She stood bewilderedly, looking across +the faint-lit yard to the dim veranda of the kitchen wing opposite, as +she fought against the sick faintness that threatened to overcome her. +Then she walked along the veranda to the place where she had parted +from Maule. The rug was lying there, and she threw it round her, and +waited on the steps with chattering teeth and shaking limbs. +</P> + +<P> +In a minute or two, he joined her. She saw by the fitful moonbeams that +he was wet and muddy—truly in a worse plight than herself. She could +hardly speak for the rigor. Seeing her condition, he took her up in his +arms, and carried her along the veranda towards her own room. The clasp +of his arms, the warmth of his body, even through his wet clothing +helped her to steady herself. She continued to tell him of the great +achievement. +</P> + +<P> +'Wombo has escaped—I saw Oola taking the key out of your room. Harris +was asleep—snoring. She let Wombo out, and I locked the door of the +hide-house again afterwards, and put the key back in your room. It's +all right—nothing can be found out till the morning. They're safe in +the scrub by now.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I'm thankful for that at any rate,' he answered. 'But at this +moment I cannot think of anything or anyone but you. My dearest—I'm so +afraid of your being ill—what can I do?' +</P> + +<P> +'Nothing. I have sal volatile in my room—stuff to take for a cold. I +only want to get off my wet things and go to bed—I can sleep now. +Don't be frightened about me.' +</P> + +<P> +She staggered when he put her gently down inside her own door, but +recovered herself courageously, lighted her candles, laughed at her own +disordered appearance, bade him go at once and look after himself. +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her hand reluctantly. +</P> + +<P> +'Till to-morrow.' +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him alarmedly. 'Will! But you have promised me. You are +going away to-morrow.' +</P> + +<P> +He did not reply. His eyes were roving round the chamber, dimly lighted +by the two candles. He was observing the feminine details the +untidinesses so characteristic of her; the daintinesses, equally +characteristic—all in such odd contrast with inevitable bush +roughnesses. He noticed the silver and ivory on the dressing-table; the +large silver-framed photographs—an autographed one of the Queen of +Wartenburg—Molly Gaverick and Rosamond Tallant in Court veil and +feathers, Joan Gildea at her type-writer—the confusion of books, the +embroidered coverlet on the large bed, the bush-made couch at its foot +upholstered in rose-patterned chintz on which she had seated herself. +</P> + +<P> +'You have GOT to go,' she urged. 'WHATEVER happens, you are leaving +here with the mailman to-morrow.... Promise—on your word of +honour—that NOTHING shall hinder you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Of course, I shall keep my promise, though it breaks my heart to leave +you like this. But I know—I feel that the parting will not be for +long.... Yes....' as she slowly shook her head and a strange fateful +look shadowed the feverish brightness of her eyes. 'I COULDN'T leave +you if I didn't feel certain of that.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I'm tired out. I'm tired—dead tired—' Her face was ghastly, her +lips like burning coals. 'I can't argue any more. And now it's +good-night—good-bye.' +</P> + +<P> +'Not good-bye. At least there will be time to-morrow for that.' +</P> + +<P> +'You MUST go—Good-night.' +</P> + +<P> +He left her, but waited in the veranda, reassuring himself by the sound +of movements on the other side of the closed door. When all was silent, +and the candles extinguished, he went back to his own room. +</P> + +<P> +He saw on the dressing-table his watch and chain with the key detached +beside them—a confirmnation of the truth of what Lady Bridget had told +him. But she had forgotten to tell him of the note she had left also, +and, naturally, he did not look for it. Had he known and looked he +would have discovered that the note was gone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 6 +</H3> + +<P> +Lady Bridget always looked back upon the next few days as a confused +nightmare. She awoke in the grip of fever—that malarial kind which is +common in Australia—tried to get up as usual, but fell back upon her +bed, faint and dizzy. Her brows ached. She had alternations of burning +heat and icy coldness. There came active periods in the dull lethargy +which is often a phase of fever, and from which she only roused herself +at the spur of some urgent call on her faculties. One of these was +Willoughby Maule's anxious message of enquiry conveyed by Maggie, to +which she had the presence of mind to return the answer that she had +caught cold, and was staying in bed for the present, but would no doubt +be quite well shortly. Also that she was sorry not to bid him good-bye, +but begged that he would not think of postponing his departure. +</P> + +<P> +She heard as in a dream the sound of the mailman's arrival, and +presently, of the saddling of horses in the yard, and then the +CLOP-CLOP of their feet as they were ridden past her end of the house +to the Gully crossing. There were two horses. So Maule had left the +head-station with Harry the Blower, as she had bidden him do. She was +conscious of relief. +</P> + +<P> +She realised in bewildered fashion, that Maule was gone out of her life +at Moongarr, and connected the sound of his horses' departing feet with +the thud of Sir Luke Tallant's hall door, when he had left her at the +first interview which had led to their final quarrel. +</P> + +<P> +From that effort of memory she sank again into mental coma. Maggie took +it to be natural sleep, and laid the mailbag just brought by Harry the +Blower, on her mistress' bed to await her awakening. Much later in the +day, on the return of Mr Ninnis and the other men from their +cattle-muster, finding the bag still untouched, Maggie broke the seals +at her mistress' dazed order, and having sorted out Lady Bridget's +letters, carried away the bag for Ninnis to take his own mail. +</P> + +<P> +But Lady Bridget paid no heed to her letters, and thus it happened that +for the time being, she was quite unaware of an event which was of +great importance to her. +</P> + +<P> +She had been scarcely even distantly conscious of the hue and cry, and +general excitement at the head-station, when it was discovered that the +prisoner had escaped. Harris had his own suspicions—it might be said, +his certainties, but the man's crafty nature bade him keep his +accusations for an opportunity when he ran less risk of being worsted. +He meant to wait until McKeith's return. Meanwhile what he had not been +prepared for was Willoughby Maule's departure with the mailman before +he himself came back from an unsuccessful hunt after the fugitives. +That move had lain outside his calculations. He had gleaned enough from +Mrs Hensor, as well as from his own observation, to feel sure that +Maule and Lady Bridget were in love with each other, and he had never +supposed that they would part so abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +The head-station was very shorthanded in the absence of Ninnis and the +stockmen, and Harris had been obliged to go out by himself on the +man-hunt. He did not know the country at the head of the gully, where +he concluded that Wombo was hiding, and lost himself in the gidia +scrub. Thus, he was in a very disagreeable temper, when he at last +arrived at the Bachelors' Quarters. +</P> + +<P> +To Lady Bridget the day passed, and all the seemingly distant noises of +it, like a phantasmagoria of vision, sound, impressions—the echoes of +station activity; the Chinamen's pidgin English as they weeded the +front garden; Tommy Hensor's voice when he brought the cook a nestful +of eggs some vagrant hen had laid in the grass-tussocks, the men going +forth with the tailing-mob—and at intervals the scorching recollection +of that hinted scandal concerning Colin and Mrs Hensor of which Maule +had told her.... Horrible... unbelievable... and yet.... +</P> + +<P> +Then, after a long while, with lucid breaks in the dreamy stupor, she +heard the roar of Ninnis' incoming mob of wild cattle from the range. +She could even wonder whether he had been able to muster that herd of +five hundred or so for the sale-yards. She knew that her husband was +counting upon the sale of these beasts—probably at 6 pounds a head—to +enable him to fight the drought, by a speedy sinking of artesian bores. +She felt herself reasoning quite collectedly on this subject, until the +roar of beasts turned into the roar of the mighty Atlantic, breaking +against the cliffs below Castle Gaverick.... She saw the green +waves—real as the heaving backs of the cattle—alive, leaping.... And +she herself seemed tossed on their crest... she saw and felt the cool +embrace of the wave-fairies she had once tried to paint for Joan +Gildea's book.... Oh! she had never fully appreciated the strength of +that now inappeasable longing for the Celtic home, the Celtic +traditions which had been born in her. She had never known how much she +loved Castle Gaverick... how much she loathed the muggy heat, the flies +and the mosquitoes now brought by last night's rain, the fierce glare +beating upon the veranda, the sun-motes dancing on the boards.... +</P> + +<P> +The appearance late that evening of Mrs Hensor, who having heard the +mistress was ill, had come down partly from curiosity, partly from +genuine humanity to see what might be amiss, was the next thing that +roused Lady Bridget from her fever-lethargy. +</P> + +<P> +'Maggie told me you'd been out in the rain last night, and had caught +cold, and I thought Mr McKeith would wish me to ask if I could do +anything,' Mrs Hensor said. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget sat up in bed, for the moment her most haughty self. +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you; but there's no occasion for you to trouble, Mrs Hensor. I +would have sent for you if I had required your services.' +</P> + +<P> +'And I'm not aware that I was engaged to give them,' snorted Mrs +Hensor. 'It was out of consideration for Mr McKeith that I came. I've +got quite enough to do at the Quarters, and I'm really glad not to have +to trouble myself down here—what with Mr Ninnis wanting extra cooking, +and Mr Harris in such a rage over Wombo's getting away—I'm wondering +if you heard anything last night, of that, Lady Bridget? And Harris is +put out, too, over Mr Maule going off with Harry the Blower, while he +was hunting for the black-boy. However,' Mrs Hensor concluded, 'the +master will be here tomorrow to see into the rights of things.' +</P> + +<P> +'How do you know that the master will be here to-morrow?' asked Bridget +sharply. +</P> + +<P> +'Harry the Blower brought me a letter from Mr McKeith,' replied Mrs +Hensor with malign triumph. 'I suppose he thought you'd be too busy +doing things with Mr Maule to bother over the station affairs, and that +Mr Ninnis might be out on the run—and so he wrote to tell me what he +wanted done as he often used to before.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget closed her eyes, and leaned back against the pillows +trying hard to control the muscles of her face, and not to betray her +mortification. Moreover, she was certain that Mrs Hensor had stated the +exact truth. +</P> + +<P> +'I should prefer to be alone,' she said, feeling the woman's eyes upon +her. +</P> + +<P> +'Then I'll go, as you don't want me,' returned Mrs Hensor. 'But if I +was you, Lady Bridget, I'd take a dose of laudanum, and get myself into +a perspiration, for I believe it's a touch of dengue fever you've got +the matter with you.' +</P> + +<P> +A touch of dengue in tropical Australia may be serious or the +reverse—sharp and short and critical, or tedious and less dangerous. +Lady Bridget's case was the sharp, short kind demanding prompt +treatment. When McKeith came home the following day, he found her +delirious, and incapable of recognizing him. +</P> + +<P> +Worn out as was the strong man's frame—not only with wild jealousy and +tortured love, but with sleepless nights of patrol work, days in the +shearing-shed, sharp fighting with a second conflagration—fortunately +put out before much damage had been done—and a final dispersion of +Unionist forces, Colin never for one instant relaxed his watch by +Bridget's bedside. +</P> + +<P> +All night he tended her, fighting the fever as he had fought the fire +at Breeza Downs, plying her with continued fomentations, dosing her +with quinine, laudanum and the various medicines he had found +efficacious. For never was a better doctor for malarial fever than +Colin McKeith—he had had so much experience of it. When towards +morning she fell into a profuse sweating, and he had to change and +wring out the blankets in which he had wrapped her, he knew that the +fever danger was past. +</P> + +<P> +She awoke at mid-day from a deep, health-restoring sleep, so weak +however, that her bones felt like water and her face looked as white as +the pillow case. But her brain was clear. +</P> + +<P> +She saw that there was no one else in the room, which was still in +great disorder. The blankets, hot and heavy, were almost unbearable, +but she had not strength to fling them off. It felt frightfully warm +for the time of year and the air that came in through the open French +window seemed to be blowing from an oven. The sky, as she glimpsed it +from her bed between the veranda eaves and the railings, looked +curiously dark and had a lurid tinge. +</P> + +<P> +Lifting herself slightly, she became aware that Colin was in the +veranda with his back to her, looking out over the plain. The set of +his figure as he bent forward, with his hands on the railings and his +eyes apparently strained towards the horizon, reminded her of the +determined hunch of his square shoulders and the dogged droop of his +head when he had ridden away with Harris and the Organizer. +</P> + +<P> +She called faintly, 'Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +He turned round instantly and came to the bed. She stared up at him, +frightened at the look in his face.... Something dreadful must have +happened. She was too weak to go over coherently in her mind the +sequence of events and feelings. She only sensed a menacing spectre, +monstrous, terrifying. She could not realise her own share in the +catastrophe she felt was impending. She could not believe that Colin +could change so much in less than ten days. Everything had come about +with such incredible swiftness. His face looked haggard, ravaged. The +cheeks seemed to have fallen in. The features were rigid as if cut out +of metal. The whites of his eyes between the reddened lids were very +blood-shot and the eyes themselves seemed balls of blue fire. There was +not a shade of kindliness in them, only the gleam of a fixed purpose +which no entreaties would alter. +</P> + +<P> +She could imagine that he might have looked like that, when, as a boy +he had beheld the mutilated bodies of his father, mother, sisters, +stretched stark, after the blacks had done their hideous work. +</P> + +<P> +And it was true that he did feel now somewhat as that boy had felt, for +again to his tortured imagination that which he held dearest seemed to +be lying foully murdered before his eyes. She, his love, had been +ravished from him, and he could only regard her as dead to him for +evermore. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin,' she gasped. 'What is the matter?' +</P> + +<P> +The muscles of his face relaxed, it seemed automatically, as if there +were no soul behind. He laughed a dry ironic laugh. 'Never mind. You +mustn't speak.' +</P> + +<P> +He felt her pulse, examined her as a doctor might have done—all +without a word, and straightened the blankets and pillows. +</P> + +<P> +'You must have food,' he said, and went out. She heard him calling +Maggie. After a few minutes he came back with a tumbler of beaten egg +and milk, to which he had added brandy, and told her she must drink it. +</P> + +<P> +Her hand was too weak to hold the tumbler. He put one arm under the +pillow, raised her head and held the glass to her lips until she had +drunk every drop of the mixture. All this with no show of tenderness or +one unnecessary word. She needed the nourishment and stimulant, and +after them felt better. +</P> + +<P> +'I remember.... I must have been ill. What was the matter with me?' +</P> + +<P> +'Dengue,' he answered shortly. +</P> + +<P> +'I was out in the rain.... I got a chill I remember.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you were out in the rain!... I should have thought you could have +done what you wanted without that.' The bitterness of his tone was +gall-like. And again the ironic laugh. +</P> + +<P> +She winced and drew her head aside. He took away his arm instantly from +behind the pillow and straightened himself, looking down on her, still +with that dreadful light in his eyes. She could not bear it, and turned +her head away from him. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't look at me.... I'm going to get up.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I think you'll stay where you are.' His voice broke slightly but +hardened again. 'I won't talk to you. I won't let you speak a word +yet... that will come afterwards.' +</P> + +<P> +'But I don't understand.' +</P> + +<P> +'Better not now. I'll tell you this. You're through the fever. It won't +come back if you do as I tell you—You understand something about +dengue. You'll stop here till you're stronger. You've got to take the +brandy, eggs and milk till you feel sick of it. To-day you'll have +slops. I've told Maggie about preparing your food, if the fever comes +back—it won't if you keep quiet—but if it does—hot +bottles—blankets—laudanum—I've mixed the doses—until you get into a +sweat. Remember that. And you'll have someone in your room to-night.' +</P> + +<P> +'In my room—YOU? What do you mean?' +</P> + +<P> +'It won't be me—I'm going away.' +</P> + +<P> +'Going away—what is it?' +</P> + +<P> +She noticed that he turned and looked at the sky. +</P> + +<P> +'Why is it so dark—and the heat so stifling?' she asked. +</P> + +<P> +'These damned Unionists have fired the only good pasture left on +Moongarr. It's been burning since two o'clock this morning. I sent the +men out. Now I'm going myself—to save what I can.' +</P> + +<P> +He left the room abruptly. In a minute or two she heard him outside +calling 'Cudgee... Harris'—and then giving the order to saddle up. She +got out of bed and tottered to the window. She could see now the wide +range of the disaster. The lurid haze was spreading. The horizon +shrinking, and the air was hotter than ever. The fire seemed still a +long way off, but there was nothing to stop the flames if once they +reached the great plain. The course of the river, here at best a mere +string of shallow waterholes, was quite dry. The rain of the other +night had been too insignificant and local to do any good. The brown +mud-strip round the lagoon below, was not perceptibly diminished. She +knew that the narrow water channels flowing from their one working +artesian bore, must soon be licked up by the flames. And the Bore in +process of construction, was at a standstill for want of workmen. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget gazed out despairingly towards the shrinking horizon and upon +the parched plain with the rugged clumps of dun coloured gum trees +scattered upon it—the near ones looking like trees of painted tin, +sun-blistered. The swarms of flies, mosquitoes in the veranda offended +her. She disliked the cattle dogs mooching round with hanging jaws and +slavering tongues. The ferocious chuckle of a great grey +king-fisher—the bird which white people called the laughing +jackass—perched on the branch of a gum tree beside the fence, made her +shudder, because the bird's soulless cachinnation seemed an echo of +Colin's laugh. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! that was the bush, undivested of romance—hard, brutal, vindictive, +in spite of the mocking verdure of her honeymoon spring.... And Colin +was a part of the Bush. He resembled it. He too could be strong and +sweet and tender as the great blossoming white cedar down by the +lagoon, as rills of running water making the plain green—when his +desires were satisfied. And he could be brutal and vindictive likewise, +when anyone dared to thwart his will and defy his prejudices. +</P> + +<P> +She staggered about the room, feminine instinct prompting her to +freshen her appearance, to change her soiled, crumpled nightdress, to +throw a piece of lace over her dishevelled head, to pull up the linen +sheets which had been rolled clumsily to the foot of the bed, so that +the blankets could be wrapped round her. But she sank again presently, +exhausted, on her pillows. +</P> + +<P> +In a short time McKeith came back, booted and spurred, and stood as +before looking at her with forbidding sternness. +</P> + +<P> +'You'd better have stopped quiet. I've told Mrs Hensor to come down and +look after you. She knows what to do.' +</P> + +<P> +Bridget cried out passionately: 'I won't have that woman in my room. +How dare you tell her to come near me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Dare! That seems a queer way to put it. However, you can order her out +if you don't want her. There's Maggie—and I'm sending Ninnis back +to-night.' +</P> + +<P> +'When are you coming home?' +</P> + +<P> +'I can't say. I've got things to do—and to think about.' +</P> + +<P> +His words and his manner seemed to convey a sinister meaning. +</P> + +<P> +'I see—you are angry about the black-boy. If you want to know I will +tell you exactly what happened.' +</P> + +<P> +He laughed again and his laugh sounded to her insulting. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I know what has happened. You needn't tell me. I had some +conversation with Harris this morning. I know EVERYTHING; and now I've +got to settle in my own mind how things are to go on.' +</P> + +<P> +She went very white and repeated dully: 'How—things—are to go on?' +</P> + +<P> +'Between you and me. You don't imagine, do you, that they can go on the +same?' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' she retorted with spirit, 'certainly they can't go on the same.' +</P> + +<P> +Maggie had come along the veranda and was at the French window. +</P> + +<P> +'Mr Harris says he's ready, sir, and the horses....' +</P> + +<P> +'All right.' McKeith went out of the door, but turned and paused as if +he were going to speak to his wife. But he thought better of it and +walked rapidly away—perhaps because she avoided his look. +</P> + +<P> +She supposed that he was infuriated with her because of her part in +Wombo's escape, and she thought his anger unjust. No doubt, too, he +suspected Maule's connivance, and she knew that he was furiously +jealous of Maule. But surely he would understand that she must have +sent Maule away. What more can a wife do in the case of an +over-insistent lover? And how should a husband expect an explanation +when he had literally thrown her into her lover's arms, or at least had +left her defenceless against his solicitations! Had he treated her +differently after the Wombo episode in the beginning, she might have +told him the truth about her former relations with Willoughby Maule. +</P> + +<P> +As things had been, it was rather for Maule than for Colin that she +found excuse. +</P> + +<P> +She was bitterly hurt and offended against her husband. Oh, yes. He was +right. They could never again be the same to each other. If he had come +back penitent, pleading for forgiveness, overwhelmed with contrition at +her dismissal of Maule, she might then perhaps have explained +everything and they might have become reconciled. But now, his vile +temper, his insupportable manner, his dominant egoism made any attempt +of conciliation on her part impossible. She had a temper too—she told +herself, and her anger was righteous. And she also had an egoism that +wouldn't allow itself to be trampled on. She had rights—of birth, of +breeding, to say nothing of her rights of wifehood and womanhood for +which she must insist upon respect. If he would not bend to her, even +to show her ordinary consideration and courtesy, then she would not +lower her pride one iota before him. +</P> + +<P> +Thoughts of this kind went through her mind as she lay smarting under +the burning sense of outrage, until the reappearance of Mrs Hensor. +Then, the new effort she made in sending away the woman exhausted brain +and body and left her with scarcely the power to think—certainly not +to reason. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 7 +</H3> + +<P> +But Lady Bridget did not know what had followed upon her husband's +home-coming. She had not been in a condition to realize how all night +through he had tended her, putting aside every other consideration, +giving no heed to the affairs of the station, refusing to see the +Police Inspector who had sent in an urgent message soon after his +arrival. +</P> + +<P> +Only when turning for a moment to the veranda and noticing the red +glare in the sky, had he been startled out of his absorption in his +wife's illness. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been on his +horse in a twinkling and riding as for life to fight the worst foe a +squatter has to face in times of drought. He knew that if the fire +spread, it might mean his ruin. As it was, he rushed up to the Quarters +to rouse Ninnis and send him with Moongarr Bill and all available hands +to do what he could in arresting the flames. But he himself dared not +leave Bridget till the fever was down, and the crisis past. That could +not be till she had awakened from the deep sleep into which she had +fallen. +</P> + +<P> +With the sight of her in that sleep, however, the pull on his forces +slackened, though he was still too strung-up to think of snatching even +an hour's sleep for himself. He watched, alternately, the Bush fire and +Bridget's face, thinking his own dour thoughts the while. Every now and +then, he would creep on tip-toe to the veranda railings and gaze out +upon the lurid smoke which it seemed to him was thickening over the +horizon. When the sun was risen he washed and dressed and went up to +the Bachelors' Quarters where Mrs Hensor was already about and gave him +tea and food, which he badly needed. From her he learned a considerable +amount of what had been going on at Moongarr. From the Police +Inspector, a little later, he learned a good deal more. +</P> + +<P> +Harris' manner was portentous; he asked for a private interview in the +office, saying that he had stayed on purpose to see the Boss, because +his tale was impossible to write. Then he told his own version of the +capture and locking up of Wombo, taking blame on himself for having +left the key of the hide-house in Maule's possession. +</P> + +<P> +'But you see, Boss, he twitted me a bit about not having a warrant, and +there's no doubt, wherever he's learned it, that the chap has got the +whole constabulary lay-out at his finger ends—besides having the ear +of the Governor and the Executive down in Leichardt's Town. He's got +money too, no end of it. They were saying in Tunumburra that his wife +left him a quarter of a million.' +</P> + +<P> +'Go on—that's nothing to do with us,' put in McKeith gruffly. +</P> + +<P> +'He's an old friend of her Ladyship's, I understand,' sniggered Harris. +</P> + +<P> +'What the devil has that got to do with Wombo?' said McKeith furiously. +</P> + +<P> +Harris drew in his feelers. +</P> + +<P> +'I wouldn't swear that it had, Mr McKeith, and I wouldn't swear that it +hadn't. All I know is, that Mr Maule had the key of the hide-house in +his bedroom that night, and, being a close friend of her Ladyship's, he +was no doubt aware that she didn't relish the notion of Wombo's being +had up for theft and murder—I'm not saying who it was let out Wombo. +It's a mystery I don't take upon myself to fathom—I'll leave that to +you.' +</P> + +<P> +'There's one easy solution of the mystery that doesn't seem to have +occurred to you,' said McKeith. 'The gin Oola could easily have stolen +the key—they're cunning as the devil—half-castes—and as +treacherous—I know them—I've had my own good reasons for not letting +one of them inside the fence of my head-station.' +</P> + +<P> +'That may be—I can only say what I know, and you can form your own +opinion.' +</P> + +<P> +'Say what you know then—I'm waiting to hear. But be quick about it, +man, I've no time to waste this morning.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris began his tale—how he had watched at the window of his little +room, till after midnight, his gun ready, his eyes glued on the +padlocked door opposite; how overcome with drowsiness against which he +had vainly struggled—'for a man that's been pretty near two days and +nights in the saddle may be excused if his eyes begin blinking,' Harris +put it. He had dropped dead asleep—he confessed it—at his post. Then, +how on awakening suddenly, for no apparent reason, all seeming quiet +around, he had got up as he was, half dressed and in his boots—had +stepped across to the hide-house, had found the padlock intact and, +hearing no sound, had concluded the black-boy was inside safe asleep. +How then, with a relieved mind, he had been going back to his +stretcher, when the noise of a goat bleating had set him on the +look-out from his veranda. How, presently, looking at the veranda +opposite, he had seen the door of Mr Maule's bedroom open, and a woman +come out, how she had stood a few moments facing him, with the +moonlight straight on her, so that there was no possibility of his +making a mistake. Harris paused. McKeith glared at the man, who, had he +been quick at psychological interpretations, would have read an awful +apprehension underlying the ill-restrained fury in the other's face. +The question came in hoarse jerks. +</P> + +<P> +'What—Who—Who was it you saw—?' +</P> + +<P> +'It was the Lady Bridget, Boss.... I—' +</P> + +<P> +Before he could proceed, a strong arm struck out and McKeith's hand +clutched at the Police Inspector's neck. +</P> + +<P> +'You hound! You contemptible skunk! Take back that lie, or I'll +throttle it in your throat.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris was of powerful build also, and, moreover knew some tricks of +defence and assault. He freed himself by a dexterous duck of his head, +and a sharp shake of his body, and stepped backward so that the office +table was between him and his antagonist. +</P> + +<P> +His face was scarlet, his bull's eyes protruded from their full +sockets. But he was wary, and not anxious to provoke the devil in +McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +'Wait a bit,' he said thickly. 'If you'll keep your hands off me, and +let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm +not telling you lies—though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to +her Ladyship.... +</P> + +<P> +'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth +showing between his tense lips. +</P> + +<P> +'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I +can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be +reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence—well, so much +the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector craftily. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing. +His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to +the quick, while Harris continued. +</P> + +<P> +'Well—I did see—that lady,'—the volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes +stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out +of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was +right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver—she'd been out in the +wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit +joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps—' +</P> + +<P> +'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you +couldn't have seen as far as the steps.' +</P> + +<P> +'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the +lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that +flower-bush'—Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed, +and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try +yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the +front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of—I guessed he'd come +round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she +oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp—She was shivering +again—she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just +picked her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I +stepped across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of +the front veranda....' +</P> + +<P> +A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make +when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he +stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The +Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful. +</P> + +<P> +'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be +anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then—in Mr +Maule's room, I went back and looked in. I wanted to make sure, if I +could, where the key of the hide-house might be. There was a candle +left alight, and I saw the key right enough on the chest of drawers +beside Maule's watch and chain. It never came into my mind then, that +anybody could have used it. I noticed a bit of folded paper under the +watch. That's it, Mr McKeith. There's the proof that I am not lying +about what I saw.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris had taken out of his breast pocket, a piece of newspaper in +which was wrapped the leaf torn out of Maule's notebook, folded and +addressed. He opened it out, and laid it on the office table in front +of McKeith, keeping his own stubby finger on one corner of the sheet. +</P> + +<P> +Still McKeith maintained his difficult self-restraint. +</P> + +<P> +'So you stole—a private communication that had been left in another +person's room, and was intended for his eyes alone?' +</P> + +<P> +'Come now, Boss. You know well enough that a constabulary officer who's +up against tricks to release a prisoner has got to keep his eyes +peeled, and mustn't let any clue to mischief escape him. How was I to +know that there wasn't some plot to cheat the law? How do I know that +there wasn't? That's why I'm showing you the paper. I'm not a French +scholar—I suppose that's French—and as I suppose you are, I'll ask +you to translate what's written there.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith pushed aside the man's finger, and taking up the paper carried +it to the window, where he stood with his back to Harris, spelling out +Lady Bridget's hurriedly written sentences. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed a long time in getting at the sense of what he read. As a +matter of fact, he had only a limited acquaintance with any modern +languages except his own. He had picked up some colloquial German, and +once when laid up in hospital, had set himself to read Balzac's PERE +GORIOT with the aid of a dictionary. Thus he had acquired a fairly +extensive if somewhat archaic vocabulary. But Lady Bridget's veiled +intimation of Wombo's escape couched in up-to-date and highly idiomatic +French which would have been perfectly intelligible to Willoughby +Maule, conveyed little to him beyond the fact of a secret understanding +between his wife and a man whom he knew had once been her lover. That +idea drove every other into the background of his thoughts. He did not +care in the least how Wombo had escaped. It seemed clear to him that +Oola had stolen the key after Harris had gone back to his room, while +Maule and his wife were together—together in Lady Bridget's own +chamber. The blood surged to his brain, and his temples throbbed as +though they would burst. In the madness of his jealousy, the words of +the paper, combined with Harris' revelations were damnatory +confirmation of his wife's guilt. He felt now that he had foreseen what +would happen, from the moment that he had surprised the look on Lady +Bridget's face, when Maule had unexpectedly appeared before her. She +had given herself away then. And, a little sooner, rather than a little +later—as might have been the case had he not left them together—the +inevitable had come to pass. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, through the agony of that conviction now brought home to him, a +dogged resolve formed itself in his mind—the determination not to +betray himself or her. It beat upon him with insistent force. Though +his goddess must be dethroned from her shrine in his heart, she should +not be cast down for a vulgar brute like Harris to gloat over her +shame.... +</P> + +<P> +'Well, Boss,' the Police Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that +bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to +you out of that?' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith turned, Harris thought he was going to leap upon him in a fit +of blind fury, and started up from his seat by the office table. +McKeith's eyes blazed, his taut sinews quivered; his face was now quite +pallid, and the hand in which he held the piece of paper was clenched +so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords, and the knuckles +were perfectly bloodless. +</P> + +<P> +But suddenly the pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped, +and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant. +</P> + +<P> +He moved into his usual office chair. +</P> + +<P> +'Sit down again, won't you, Harris?' he said, and Harris resumed his +former place. +</P> + +<P> +'What were you asking?' McKeith continued. 'Satisfactory to me is it? +Yes, perfectly satisfactory, thank you.... I'm only amused—as you +see... to find that I was quite right in my suspicions.' And he laughed +in what Harris thought a very odd way. +</P> + +<P> +'Eh? I don't take your meaning.' Harris' manner was distinctly +objectionable. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith gave him a sharp look, and his teeth went over his under lip. +Then, to the man's evident surprise, he laughed again, throwing his +head back so that the muscles of his throat showed under his beard, +working, as it were, automatically. It really seemed as if the man's +mechanical merriment were no part of himself. He was, in fact, gaining +time to propound an explanation which he did not believe in the least, +but which happened to be almost the exact truth. +</P> + +<P> +He answered with an air of ironic indifference. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, you know, I wouldn't go in for the detective line, if I were +you, Harris. You aren't subtle enough for it. You jump too quickly at +conclusions which have nothing to do with the main point. In fact, +you're a fool, Harris—a damned fool.' +</P> + +<P> +Harris' puzzled expression turned to one of extreme indignation. 'Seems +to me, Mr McKeith, that it's you who are—well, damned queer about this +affair. I'm sure I don't know what you've got to laugh at. But if +you've found out who let the black-boy out of the hide-house, I'd be +glad to know, that's all.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He +leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had +laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's last words. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, that IS all. It's the only part of this note which concerns you. +Well, I can tell you that it was the half-caste woman, as I thought, +who let Wombo out of the hide-house. She stole the key from Mr Maule's +room when HE was asleep, and let Wombo out when YOU were asleep—a +longer time perhaps than you imagined, Harris. The black-boy made for +the scrub, and I suppose they were in too great a hurry to think of +shutting the door. Oola sneaked back—they've got the cunning of whites +and blacks put together, those half-castes—and no doubt she guessed +there'd be a hue and cry directly the door was found open. So she +locked it again—and brought the key to her ladyship.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith seemed to force the last words from between his teeth. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, that's quite simple, isn't it?' +</P> + +<P> +'Now, I shouldn't call it as simple as you make out, Boss. It appears +mighty odd to me that the gin should have worried round after her +ladyship when she might have sneaked back with the key to the place she +took it from. And then there's all the rest—the putting the key back +and fitting in times and all that.... Seems to me a bit too much of the +Box and Cox trick—a sort of jig-saw puzzle, d'you see.' +</P> + +<P> +Manifestly, Harris was endeavouring to square probabilities. McKeith +still held himself in. +</P> + +<P> +'I've given you the facts. You can figure out your details for +yourself. I've my own business to attend to, and I must be off on it.' +</P> + +<P> +He got up, and folding Lady Bridget's note, deliberately put it in his +breast pocket. Harris stretched forth a restraining hand. +</P> + +<P> +'Boss, I say—that's important—for my report, you know.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's temper burst out. +</P> + +<P> +'Damn your report. I'm a magistrate, and I've taken your report, and +the blacks are in the scrub and you can go and find them for yourself +if you choose. You have no warrant, remember. No, I'm not going to be +bothered any more about that black-boy. What.... Not I—with a fire +raging on my run, and not enough hands to put it out.' +</P> + +<P> +'But her ladyship....' spluttered Harris. +</P> + +<P> +'Listen here you....' McKeith's face and attitude were menacing. 'I +came back to find her ladyship down with dengue as bad as could be. It +was on her that night, and if she had to be carried to her room in a +fit of shaking, what business is that of yours? Understand me, Harris. +Don't you go mixing up my wife's name with this beastly black-boy +affair, or you'll have to reckon with me—and I can tell you, you won't +relish that reckoning.' +</P> + +<P> +'There was no offence meant. I only wanted to do my duty,' protested +the Police Inspector, cringing after the way of bullies. +</P> + +<P> +'You'll find opportunity enough for doing that if you ride back to +Breeza Downs and lend the Specials your valuable assistance in +protecting the sheep-owners against the Unionists. And I might remind +you, as I reminded that damned Organiser who's fired my run, that +there's a hundred pounds reward still waiting for anybody who catches +the men that robbed my drays and killed my horses.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith paused a moment before going out by the further door of the +office which looked out on the plain. +</P> + +<P> +'I'll leave you now to run up your horse and make your own +arrangements. As soon as I can, I shall start to help in getting the +bush fire under. You can arrest that Organiser if you are keen on +arresting somebody. Send in when you're saddled up, and if I'm ready +we'll ride to the turn-off track together.' +</P> + +<P> +McKeith went back to his wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it +was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He +left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He +sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep +dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from +between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where +he had bitten it in the effort to control himself. Presently, he heard +a sound in the next room—a half moan—a name spoken. No, it would not +be his name that she would utter first on her return to consciousness. +</P> + +<P> +The man got up; stretched his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had +been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the +blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she +opened her eyes and found him looking down at her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 8 +</H3> + +<P> +Next morning, Lady Bridget was better and her mind clearer. There had +been no return of fever, and, though the physical weakness was great +and her temperature—had she taken it—would have been found a good +deal below normal, her fierce determination not to remain helpless any +longer gave her strength to get up and dress. She was not able, +however, to do anything but lie in a half-alive condition in the +hammock at the end of the veranda. All night the fire had blazed, but +more fitfully, and this morning the lurid glare had died down. Only a +murky haze, faintly red here and there, spread over the north-eastern +sky. Small, isolated smoke-clouds rose above the stretches of forest, +and an irregular-shaped tract of charred grass at the edge of the plain +showed how far the flames had encroached upon it before they had been +got under. One might well conceive with what almost superhuman +exertions the beaters had at length accomplished their task. A large +number of cattle had been driven by the fire on to the pasture beyond +the home paddock—a pasture that had so far been carefully nursed in +view of possible later necessity. +</P> + +<P> +Bridget was bushwoman enough to comprehend the crippling effect upon +McKeith's resources of the calamity, had she allowed her mind to dwell +upon that aspect of affairs. But her mind was incapable just now of +dealing with practical issues. She felt utterly weak, utterly lonely. +Although she was glad Maule had gone, she missed his sympathetic +companionship to an extent that she could hardly have thought possible. +</P> + +<P> +As the hammock swayed gently at the slight touch of her fingers on its +rope edge, her imagination drifted dangerously and her senses yielded +to the old drugging fascination. He seemed as close to her as had been +his bodily shape a few days previously. She was conscious of the pull +of his will upon the invisible cords by which he held her. If it were +an unholy spell, it was, now, at least, in her desolation, a consoling +one. He loved her; he wanted her. She knew that he was passionately +eager to devote his life to her. He would wait expectantly until she +wrote. With a few strokes of her pen she might end her irksome +captivity in this wall-less prison of desert plain—this wilderness of +gum and gidia. +</P> + +<P> +As she lay there in the hammock, a child's clumpy boots pattered along +the garden path and Tommy Hensor came up the steps with a big cabbage +leaf gathered in his hand. He opened it out when he reached the veranda +and displayed three Brazilian cherries, the first fruits of a plant +growing in the Chinaman's garden. +</P> + +<P> +'La-ship ... La-ship! I got these myself. I made Fo Wung give 'em me +for you.' +</P> + +<P> +At any other time the child's offering would have been received, at any +rate, graciously. Now Tommy shrank away, startled by the look on Lady +Bridget's face and the forbidding gesture with which she warned him off. +</P> + +<P> +'Go away! ... Go away! ...' she cried. 'I don't want you.' +</P> + +<P> +Tommy's common, freckled little face crumpled up and his blue eyes +filled with tears. He dropped the cabbage leaf and the cherished +Brazilian cherries and ran down the steps again, blubbering piteously. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget got up as soon as the child had clicked the garden gate +behind him. She was ashamed of the spasm of revulsion that had seized +her. She wanted to cast away from her the dreadful thought his +appearance had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the +fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the +butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big, +grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in +derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of hysterical laughter. +</P> + +<P> +A little later Maggie came out from the bedroom with some letters in +her hand. +</P> + +<P> +'I've laid holt on your mail, Ladyship, turning out your room. I expect +you forgot all about it.' +</P> + +<P> +Yes, she had forgotten, absolutely; it seemed years since Harry the +Blower had passed by and Willoughby Maule had departed. She languidly +inspected the envelopes. Nothing among them of any importance—except +one. +</P> + +<P> +It was a blue telegraph-service envelope, and had been forwarded on by +the postman from Crocodile Creek, the nearest telegraph station. In the +last fifteen months they had brought the bush railway a good deal +further up the river, and Crocodile Creek was the present terminus. +Thus the road journey was now considerable shorter than when Colin +McKeith had brought his bride home. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget read the several lines of the cabled message over two or +three times before the real bearings of it became clear to her +fever-weakened intelligence. +</P> + +<P> +At last she grasped the startling fact that the cablegram was from her +cousin, Lord Gaverick, and that it had been despatched from London +about seven days previously. This was what it said. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'ELIZA GAVERICK DIED TWENTIETH LEAVES YOU CASTLE AND FIFTY THOUSAND +DIFFICULTIES EXECUTORS YOUR PRESENCE URGENTLY DESIRED WIRE IF CAN COME, +GAVERICK' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget let the blue form drop on her lap. She stared out over the +brown plain and the herds of lean beasts all shadowy in the smoky mist +over the horizon, then round, along the wilderness of gidia scrub, with +its charred patches afar off, from which there still rose thin spirals +of smoke. +</P> + +<P> +Destiny had spoken. Here was the order of release. There was no gaoler +to keep the prison doors locked any longer—except—except—No, if she +wished to break her bonds, Colin would never gainsay her. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +Late that night the men came back from fighting the fire which they had +now practically put out. Even in the moonlight they looked deplorable +objects, grimed, covered with dust and ashes, their skins and clothes +scorched by the fierce heat. +</P> + +<P> +They seemed drunk with fatigue, and could scarcely sit their horses. +When they dismounted they could hardly stand. +</P> + +<P> +Their feeble COO-EES at the sliprails brought out Ninnis, who had been +sent home in the afternoon and had been taking some well-earned repose +so as to be ready for the next shift—happily not required. He and the +few hands left to look after the head-station and the tailing-mob held +the men's horses when their riders literally tumbled off them. Ninnis +made McKeith take a strong pull of whiskey and supported him along to +the Old Humpey. For Colin had had strength to say that Lady Bridget +must on no account be disturbed. Ninnis led him to the room lately +occupied by Willoughby Maule, and was surprised at his employer's +vehement refusal to remain in it. +</P> + +<P> +'I'll not stop here.... No, I won't go to my dressing-room. In God's +name, just let me stretch myself on the bunk in the Office and go to +sleep.' +</P> + +<P> +He threw himself on a bush-carpentered settle, with mattress and +pillows covered in Turkey-red, which was used sometimes at mustering +times when there was an overplus of visitors. There he lay like a log +for close on twelve hours. +</P> + +<P> +By and by, Lady Bridget, at once longing and reluctant, came softly in +to see how he fared. +</P> + +<P> +A storm of pity, anger, tenderness, repulsion—the whole range of +feeling, it seemed, between love and hate—swept over her as she looked +at the great gaunt form stretched there. Colin was still in riding +clothes and booted and spurred. His moleskins were black with smoke and +charcoal; his flannel shirt, open at the neck, showed red scratches and +scorch-marks on the exposed chest and was torn over the arms, where +were more excoriations of the flesh. And the ravaged face! How hard it +was. How relentless, even in the utter abandonment of bodily +exhaustion! The skin was caked with black dust and sweat. The darkened +thatch of yellow hair was dank and wet. The fair beard, usually so +trim, was singed in places, matted, and had bits of cinder and burnt +leaves sticking to it. +</P> + +<P> +A revolting spectacle, offending Lady Bridget's fine, physical +sensibilities, but a MAN—THE Man. She could not understand that +tornado of emotion which now made her being seem a very battle-ground, +for all the primal passions. She turned away with a sense of nausea, +and then turned to him again with a kind of passionate longing to take +him in her arms—brutal as she thought him, and unworthy of the +affection she had once felt for him—felt still alas!—and all the +romance she had once woven about him.... She saw that a fly was +hovering over the excoriated arm and drew the ragged sleeve over its +bareness. Then she noticed the mosquito net reefed up on a hoop above +the bunk, and managed to get the curtain down so that he should be +protected from the assaults of insects. But as she touched him in doing +this, he stirred and muttered wrathfully in his sleep, as though he +were conscious of her tenderness and would have none of it; she fled +away and came to him no more. +</P> + +<P> +She had been racking her brain since receiving the cablegram as to what +answer she should return to it. +</P> + +<P> +After that pitiable sight of her husband, Bridget moved restlessly +about the house, with intervals of lassitude in the hammock, for she +still felt weak and ill. But quinine was keeping the fever down, and +she resolved that her husband should not again be required to nurse +her. She did not go into the Office any more, but busied herself in a +defiant fashion upon little cares for his comfort when he awoke. He +should see that she did not neglect her house-wifely duties—at least +while she remained there to perform them. The qualification was +significant of her mood. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, she gave orders that the veranda of the Old Humpey should be kept +free from disturbing footsteps, and saw that the bathroom was in order, +and a change of clothing set ready for him when he should awake. Also +that there should be a meal prepared. +</P> + +<P> +He did not wake till the afternoon. She heard him go straight in to +take his bath, and hastened to have the dining room table spread. But +she saw him go out of the bathroom—all fresh and more like +himself—and cross the yard on his way to the Bachelors' Quarters, +making it clear to her that he wished to avoid the part of the house +she occupied. Bridget went back to the front veranda in a cold fury, +pierced by stabs of mental pain. She watched him from the end of the +veranda go into the living room of the Quarters, and thought bitterly +that he would ask Mrs Hensor for the food he required. No doubt too, he +would obtain from Mrs Hensor, information as to how she herself had +been getting on during his absence, and Mrs Hensor would give him a +garbled report of her own dismissal from the sick room.... How dared +he—oh! how DARED he treat her, Lady Bridget, his wife, with such cruel +negligence, such marked insult! +</P> + +<P> +It did not occur to her that he might wish to see Ninnis, who, when at +the station, was usually about this time, in his office at the back of +the Bachelors' Quarters. +</P> + +<P> +After a time, she heard Colin's voice again in the yard, and his step +on the Old Humpey veranda. He came now by the covered passage on to +that of the New House, and advanced towards her. +</P> + +<P> +He only came, she told herself, because it would have seemed too +strange had he continued to ignore her existence. +</P> + +<P> +And he was conscious of her resentment. By a curious affinity, his own +spirit thrilled to the unquenchable spirit in her. Qualities in himself +responded to like qualities in her. He admired her pride and pluck. Yet +the two egoisms reared against each other, seemed to him—could he have +put the thought into shape—like combatants with lances drawn ready to +strike. +</P> + +<P> +He believed that it was love which gave her strength—love, not for +him, but for that other man whose influence he was now convinced had +always been paramount, and who with renewed propinquity had resumed his +domination. +</P> + +<P> +Certain phrases in that letter he had read long ago on Joan Gildea's +veranda, and which had been haunting him ever since Willoughby Maule's +re-appearance, struck his heart with the searing effect of lightning. +He felt, at the first sight of her there on the veranda, before she +turned full to him, a passionate yearning to take her in his arms, and +cover her poor little wasted face with kisses—to call her 'Mate'; to +remind her of that wonderful marriage night under the stars. But when +he saw the proud aloofness of her look, his longing changed to a dull +fury, which he could only keep in check by rigorous steeling of his +will against any softening impulse. +</P> + +<P> +So his face was hard as a rock, his voice rasping in its restraint, +when he came near and spoke to her. 'You have not had any more fever?' +</P> + +<P> +'No.' +</P> + +<P> +He put two or three questions to her about her health—whether she had +taken the medicine he had left for her, and so on, to which she +returned almost monosyllabic replies, sufficiently satisfactory in the +information they gave him. +</P> + +<P> +'That's all right then,' he said coldly. 'I thought it would be, though +I didn't at all like leaving you in such a condition.' +</P> + +<P> +'Really! But it doesn't seem as if you had felt any violent anxiety +about me since you came back. I heard you go to the bathroom a long +time ago, and I saw you going up to the Quarters.' +</P> + +<P> +He did not appear to notice the latter implication. +</P> + +<P> +'I had to sleep,' he said curtly. 'I was dead beat.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I saw that,' she answered. +</P> + +<P> +'A-ah!' The deep intake of breath made a hissing sound, and he flushed +a brick red. 'You came and looked at me?' +</P> + +<P> +'I went into the Office.' +</P> + +<P> +'I didn't want you to see me. You must have loathed the sight of me. I +was a disgusting object.' +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +If he had glanced at her he would have seen a piteous flicker of +tenderness pass over her face—a sudden wet gleam in her eyes. And had +he yielded then to his first impulse, things might have gone very +differently between them. But he kept himself stiffened. He would not +lift his eyes, when she gave him a furtive glance. The expression of +his half averted face was positively sinister as he added with a +sneering little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +'One can't look as if one had come out of a bandbox after fighting a +bush fire.' +</P> + +<P> +She exclaimed, 'Oh! what does it matter?' +</P> + +<P> +He utterly mistook the meaning of her exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +'You are quite right,' he retorted. 'When it comes to the end of +everything, what does ANYTHING matter!' +</P> + +<P> +For several moments there was dead silence. She felt as if he had +wilfully stabbed her. He on his side had again the confused sense of +two antagonists, feinting with their weapons to gain time before the +critical encounter. +</P> + +<P> +'Well?' He swung himself savagely round upon her. 'That's true, isn't +it? The end HAS come.... You're sick of the whole show—dead sick—of +the Bush—of everything?—Aren't you? Answer me straight, Bridget.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I am,' she replied recklessly. 'I hate the Bush—I—I hate +everything.' +</P> + +<P> +'Everything! Well, that settles it!' he said slowly. +</P> + +<P> +Again there was silence, and then he said: +</P> + +<P> +'You know I wouldn't want to keep you—especially now,'—he did not add +the words that were on his lips 'now that bad times are coming on +me,'—and she read a different application in the 'now.' 'I—I'd be +glad for you to quit. It's as you please—maybe the sooner the better. +I'll make everything as easy as I can for you.' +</P> + +<P> +'You are very—considerate....' The sarcasm broke in her throat. +</P> + +<P> +She moved abruptly, and stood gazing out over the plain till the +hysterical, choking sensation left her. Her back was to him. He could +not see her face; nor could she see the dumb agony in his. +</P> + +<P> +Presently she walked to a shelf-table on the veranda set against the +wall; and from the litter of papers and work upon it, took up the +cablegram she had lately received. +</P> + +<P> +'I wanted to show you this,' she said stonily, and handed him the blue +paper. +</P> + +<P> +There was something significant in the way he steadied it upon the +veranda railing, and stooped with his head down to pore over it. +</P> + +<P> +The blow was at first almost staggering. It was as though the high gods +had shot down a bolt from heaven, shattering his world, and leaving him +alone in Chaos. They had taken him at his word—had registered on the +instant his impious declaration. It WAS the end of everything. She was +to quit.... He had said, the sooner the better.... Well—he wasn't +going to let even the high gods get a rise out of him. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed. By one of those strange links of association, which at +moments of unexpected crisis bring back things impersonal, unconnected, +the sound of his own laugh recalled the rattle of earth, upon the dry +outside of a sheet of bark in which, during one of their boundary rides +at Breeza Downs lately, they had wrapped for burial the body of a +shepherd found dead in the bush. Both sounds seemed to him as of +something dead—something outside humanity. +</P> + +<P> +He handed her back the telegram, speaking still as if he were +far-off—on the other side of a grave, but quite collectedly and as +though in the long silence he had been weighing the question. +</P> + +<P> +'It seems to me that this has come to you in the nick of time, to solve +difficulties.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' she assented dully. +</P> + +<P> +'You've got no choice but to go as your cousin says. There's money +depending on it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Money! ... Oh, money!' she cried wildly. +</P> + +<P> +'Money is apt to stick on to lawyers' fingers when they're left to the +handling of it .... This is a matter of business, and business can't be +put on one side—especially, when there's as large a sum as fifty +thousand pounds in the proposition. I guess from this that you're +wanted.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' she said again. She was thinking to herself, 'That's his Scotch +carefulness about money; he wouldn't consider anything in comparison +with that.' +</P> + +<P> +'You had better take the northern route,' he went on. 'There ought to +be an E. and A. boat due at Leuraville pretty soon—I'll look it out. +... Perhaps you'd like to make the start to-morrow?' +</P> + +<P> +'To-morrow—oh yes, to-morrow—just whenever suits you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I couldn't take you down myself. There are things—serious matters +I've got to see to on the station. And besides, you'll allow it's best +for me not to go with you. Ninnis could drive you to Crocodile Creek, +and put you into the train; and Halliwell will look after you at +Leuraville, and see you on board the steamer.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I wonder that you can spare Ninnis,' she returned bitterly. 'I +suppose you'd want Moongarr Bill still more on the run. But there's Joe +Casey—I daresay somebody else can milk the cows, and get up wood and +water. Or there's Cudgee—I don't mind who goes with me.... I can drive +myself.' +</P> + +<P> +'My God! do you imagine I'd put a black-boy—or anyone but my own +trusted overseer in charge of you! What are you thinking of to talk +like that?' +</P> + +<P> +He took a few steps along the veranda, moving with uncertain gait; then +stopped and leaned heavily against the wall. In a few seconds he had +recovered himself, and came back to her, speaking quietly. +</P> + +<P> +'I will think out things and arrange it all. You'll be perfectly safe +with Ninnis, I think it would be better for you to sleep one night at +old Duppo's place. There's fresh horses for the buggy there—I've got +Alexander and Roxalana in the paddock now—they're the best....' +</P> + +<P> +Oh, how could he bear that those horses, of the dream-drive, should +take her away from him! He went on in the same matter-of-fact manner. +'I expect the answer to the cablegram will get as quickly as if Harry +the Blower took it, if you send it from Crocodile Creek yourself. And +there's your packing—there's not much time, but you won't want to take +a lot of things. Anything you cared about could go afterwards.' +</P> + +<P> +'Go afterwards—What do you mean? I want to take nothing—nothing +except a few clothes.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah well—it doesn't matter—As you said—nothing matters now.... Well, +I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's +money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old +Humpey, looking back at her—'what you'll need for the passage—and +afterwards—I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it +with the Bank manager at Leuraville.' +</P> + +<P> +A mocking demon rose in her. +</P> + +<P> +'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare +passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.' +</P> + +<P> +His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was +terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think—you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly +down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a +mortal hurt. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 9 +</H3> + +<P> +If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last +evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her +husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It +would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably +McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least +when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed +to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks. +No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and +spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to +approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more +forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was +living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly +serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love. +</P> + +<P> +There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife +both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed +scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis—first explaining to +the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's +voyage to England—a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind, +particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a +little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also +recognised practical reasons—against that natural concession to +sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer +ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in +himself. +</P> + +<P> +The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling +the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing +that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very +hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow, +when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at +old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander +and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey. +They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at +Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And +there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady +Bridget's comfort during the journey. +</P> + +<P> +Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further +overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle sales.... +Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and expenses of +sinking fresh artesian bores—now that the fire had destroyed all the +best grass on the run? +</P> + +<P> +McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That +only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new +strength to the wall between them. +</P> + +<P> +He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were +written—to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the +Police-magistrate at Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and +Australian Steam Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay +the passage; to the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who +happened to be an acquaintance of his—all recommending Lady Bridget to +the different people's care—all anticipating and arranging against +every possible drawback to her comfort on the voyage—all carefully +stating the object of her trip to England—business connected with the +death of a near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of +dinner—during which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before +Maggie and the Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact +details—looking out the exact time of the putting in of the next E. +and A. boat at Leuraville—all of which he had already done, and +pointing out to Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare. +</P> + +<P> +There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things +to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the +office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not +come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on +the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in +wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze. +</P> + +<P> +Her packing was no great business—clothes for the voyage, and a big +furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth +of winter—that was all. +</P> + +<P> +Everything else—her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings—she left +just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt +reckless and quite hard. +</P> + +<P> +Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing +tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree, +warped almost into a tube. +</P> + +<P> +She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would +Colin ever find it there—and would he understand? All the time, +through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any +possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the +past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon. +</P> + +<P> +When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her +husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage. +Scarcely a word passed between them; they did not even breakfast +together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast +already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about +collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and +begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the +basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo +Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a +supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early +flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they +promised to have the garden 'velly good—TAI YAT number one' and to +'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence. +</P> + +<P> +While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine +and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared +in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different +bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy. +</P> + +<P> +Everything was ready now—the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that it +could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain—this last +alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were champing +their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean puggaree, +wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of ladies he +wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining the lash +of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last directions. There +was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up the steps of the +back veranda, and in at the French window of the sitting room, where +Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his appearance, she went back +into the room. She stood quite still, small, shadowy, the little bit of +her face which showed between the folds of her motor veil, where it was +tied down under her chin—very pale, and the eyes within their red, +narrowed lids, dry and bright. +</P> + +<P> +'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes.' +</P> + +<P> +He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands, +carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it +to Mr Ninnis—all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called him +back in a hard voice. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin—I've left my keys,'—pointing to a sealed and addressed +envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of +value—some you have given me—in the drawers.' +</P> + +<P> +'I will take care of them,' he answered hoarsely. +</P> + +<P> +They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised, +stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say +good-bye?' +</P> + +<P> +He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and +dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision +might not pierce—through which their yearning lips might not touch. +For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of +emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice; +she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved +back a step. +</P> + +<P> +'Good-bye—Bridget.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is that all you have to say? All?' +</P> + +<P> +He stuttered, helplessly. 'I—I—can't.... There's nothing to say.' +</P> + +<P> +'Nothing! You let me go—like this—without one word of apology—of +regret. I think that, at least, you owe me—courtesy.' +</P> + +<P> +Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied +speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say +this—though where's the good of talking.... What does it amount to +anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but +to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say +this—I've never pretended to fine manners—I leave them—to others. +I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!—that's my +apology—As for regret. My God! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I +won't say that.... Because there are some things I CAN'T regret—for +myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane ass ever to imagine +that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman brought up +like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come +out—incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding—outlook on +things—they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that +it's sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your +old conditions before you've grown different in yourself—dried +up—soured—maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in +the bush.... As it is, you'll get out all right—Never fear that I +won't see you get out all right.' +</P> + +<P> +'And you?' she put in. +</P> + +<P> +'Me! I don't count—I don't care.... A man's not like a woman. I've +always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not +going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good—some time—somehow. +I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in +the big shake-up.' +</P> + +<P> +She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the +expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism—a +lower side of him asserting itself just then—had always jarred upon +her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem +revolted at it. +</P> + +<P> +'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to +my rights, and keep you here with me—what has happened would prevent +me—I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife. +But you won't be harmed.... I don't know yet, but I believe there's a +way by which you can win through straight and square—no smirch that +you need mind—And if there is—whatever the way of it is, I'll do my +best to bring you out all right.' +</P> + +<P> +'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter. +'May I ask what you propose to do?' +</P> + +<P> +'There's no use....' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no +good—now. I've got my own ideas....' +</P> + +<P> +'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you +will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.' +</P> + +<P> +He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said: +</P> + +<P> +'The buggy is waiting, will you come?' +</P> + +<P> +He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to +help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His +strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his +fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all—the +suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to +hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her +throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word passed +between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality—began a sort of +speech about the cause of her departure—condolence and congratulations +stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short. +</P> + +<P> +'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll +want a bit of driving at the start.' +</P> + +<P> +He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round +her knees. In doing so, he bent his head—she thought he had dropped +something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light +summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though +they were touching her flesh. +</P> + +<P> +She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look, just for a second. The +horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back. +</P> + +<P> +'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust +me to look well after her ladyship.... Be back again as soon as I can.' +</P> + +<P> +And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her +last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill +was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, +but the end had come—come with such hideous misconception—every word +spoken—and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of +the occasion—a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two +opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a cross-cut saw +against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. Then the +extraordinary involvements of circumstance. Each incident, big and +little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. It +seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every +plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost +all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift +in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 10 +</H3> + +<P> +From Joan Gildea to Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +Written about a year later. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +MY DEAR COLIN, +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I find it impossible to recognise my old friend in the hard, +businesslike communication you sent me from Leichardt's Town. I almost +wish that you had allowed the lawyer you consulted to put the case +before me instead; it would have seemed less unfitting, and I could +have answered it better. But I quite appreciate your objection to +taking the lawyer into your confidence as regards the personal matters +you mention to me. It would be cruelly unjust—I think quite +unpardonable in you to bring forward the name of Mr Willoughby Maule in +connection with Bridget. Not that HE would mind that. I honestly +believe that he would snatch gladly at any means for inducing Bridget +to marry him. Whether she would do so, if you were to carry through +this amazing scheme of yours, it's impossible for me to say. At present +she certainly prefers to keep him at a distance. He has never been to +Castle Gaverick. And except for a few visits on business to London that +is where she has lived since she came over here. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Your letter followed me to Jamaica where I've been reporting on the +usual lines for THE IMPERIALIST, but, of course I couldn't answer it +until I had talked it over with Bridget and, as you desired, had +obtained her views on the matter. It was a shock to her to realise that +your reason for never writing to her and for refusing to let her write +to you, was lest that might affect the legality of these proceedings, +which I understand you have contemplated from the beginning of your +quarrel. Bridget is too proud to show you how deeply she is wounded by +your letter. All she has to say is, that if you really wish to take +this action, she will not oppose it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But Colin, do you really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you +seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have +not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which +allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only +say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce +should be for one cause only—the cause to which Our Lord gave a +qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful—in act or +desire, to her husband. I would maintain this in spite of the most +damning testimony, and you must in your heart believe it also. Besides, +your testimony is ridiculously inadequate. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am glad, however, that you have at last made your accusations in +detail—in order, as you say—that I—and Bridget, incidentally, I +suppose—should fully understand why you are adopting this attitude +towards her. I'm glad too, that you do not mean to make any use of the +evidence against her and are prepared to take all the blame for the +unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it +would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this +pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these +sheets—I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult +for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you +understand in five minutes—but I can't—so there! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Naturally, I had heard of your bringing Mr Willoughby Maule to the +station, and when I learned what followed, naturally also, I concluded +that you had discovered his identity with that of the man Bridget had +once cared for. I blame myself horribly. But for my carelessness you +would never have read that letter of Biddy's—she knows all about it +now—and your insane jealousy would not have jumped to conclusions—at +any rate so quickly. And perhaps if I had not bound you to secrecy +you'd have had the matter out with her, which would probably have saved +all this trouble. Anyhow, I can't imagine that you would have left her +alone with him as you did—and with bad feeling between you—at the +mercy of her own reckless impulses and that of Willoughby Maule's +ardent love-making. She doesn't pretend that it wasn't ardent, or that +he did not do his best to get her to run away with him—or that the old +infatuation did not come back to a slight extent—Is it surprising +after your conduct? No wonder she compared his devotion favourably, +with yours. Colin, your leaving her in such conditions wasn't the act +of a MAN, of a gentleman. I speak strongly, but I can't help it. I know +your stubborn pride and obstinacy, but you were wrong, you have +disappointed me—oh! how bitterly you have disappointed me! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Then there was that business about the blacks. What a fool you +were—and how brutally self-opinionated! I don't wonder Bridget thought +you an inhuman monster. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Now I have said my worst, and you must take it as it is meant and +forgive me. +</P> + +<P> +As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your +Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital—I used to +think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen—but they don't seem +to be, out on the Leura—I've got all the details from Biddy. A +tragi-comic business—so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over +it, if it weren't for its serious consequences. Of course, Biddy got up +to turn out the goats which were butting with their horns under the +floor of her bedroom. I've often got up myself in the old days at +Bungroopim, when stray calves got into the garden, or the cockatoo +disturbed our slumbers. Do you remember Polly? and how she would keep +shouting out on a moonlight night 'The top of the mornin' to +ye'—because we'd forgotten to put her blanket over the cage—I believe +there were several occasions when you and I met in midnight dishabille +and helped each other to restore tranquillity. If anyone was to blame +for Biddy's adventure, it was your wood-and-water joey—or your +Chinamen—or whoever's business it may have been to see that the goats +were properly penned. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Naturally, Mr Maule, when he was disturbed too, came and did the +turning out for Bridget and shepherded the creatures to the fold. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Then meanwhile, she saw the black-gin sneaking in at Mr Maule's back +window to steal the key; and WOULD it have been philanthropic, +impulsive Biddy, if she hadn't helped in the work of rescue, and sent +the two sinners, with a 'Bless you, my children!' off into the scrub? +It was like Biddy too, to go and put the key back in Mr Maule's bedroom +and to scribble that ridiculous note in French so that he shouldn't go +blundering to the hide-house and hurry up the pursuit. I told Bridget +how the Inspector had watched her go out of Mr Maule's room, and had +grabbed the note afterwards, and shown it to you. She had forgotten +altogether about that note—supposed that, of course, it had reached +its proper destination. She couldn't remember either exactly what she +had written—except that she wanted to word it so that if there should +be any accident, nobody—except Mr Maule, for of course, they'd +determined on the release before that—should understand to what it +referred. So she didn't mention any name—she believes she dashed off +some words he had quoted to her about Love triumphant, and securing +happiness and freedom by flight. And then she put in something +referring to a scene they'd had that day in which he had begged her to +fly with him, and she had made him promise to leave next morning, +pacifying him by a counter promise to write. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +She told me about her fever and ague—you don't need proof of that +after the state in which you found her—and how Mr Maule carried her to +her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't remember +anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw you—with +the face and manner I can well imagine—standing by her bedside. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way +in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman +touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can +never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife, +Colin—that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than +outwardly. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in +itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward +my own ideas and opinions—they may be quite wrong. Really, the news of +Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, coming +just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I—as a +dabbler in fiction—maintain, is more common in real life than in +novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled +third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it +better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't +come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at +it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to +Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from +the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He +joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was +rather canny of him to go there—yet I don't see how, in the +circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making +talk—though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had +his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on +board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck +next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the +voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off +the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they +reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a P. +and O. boat that happened to be in harbour—and this he did do. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly +since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I +daresay marriage did him good. I believe that his wife was a very +charming woman. Or, it may be that the possession of a quarter of a +million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it +may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever +suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his +behaviour in regard to her now is commendable. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But Bridget, doesn't love him—never has loved him. I state that fact +on no authority whatsoever except my own intuition. Also I am honestly +of opinion she has cared for you more than she has cared for any man. +You don't deserve it, and I may be wrong. But, nevertheless, it is my +conviction. Make of it what you please. I have been, I candidly own it, +surprised to see what discretion and good feeling she has shown through +all this Gaverick will business. There has been a good deal of +disagreeable friction in the matter. Lord Gaverick has not come off so +well as he expected. He has got the house in Upper Brook Street, which +suits young Lady Gaverick, and about fifteen hundred a +year—considerably less than Bridget. The trouble is that Eliza +Gaverick left a large legacy to her doctor—the latest one—and there +was a talk about bringing forward the plea of undue influence. That, +however, has fallen to the ground—mainly through Biddy's persuasion. I +believe it is Bridget's intention to make over Castle Gaverick to her +cousin, but this is not given out and of course she may change her mind. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +And now, Colin, I think I have said everything I have to say. The main +point to you is, no doubt, the answer to your question. As I said at +the beginning of this letter, Bridget will not oppose any course you +choose to take in order to secure your release from her—that is the +exact way she worded it. But I cannot believe that, in face of all the +rest I have told you, you will go on with this desertion—divorce +business—at least without making yourself absolutely certain that you +both desire to be free of each other. Remember, there has been no +explanation between you and Biddy—no chance of touch between the true +selves of both of you. Can you not come to England to see her? Or +should she go out to you. I think it possible she might consent to do +so, but have never broached the idea and cannot say. Yes, of course I +understand that this might invalidate the legal position. But as only +two years are necessary to prove the desertion—even if you should +decide together that it is best to part—isn't it worth while to wait +two years more in order to make quite sure? No doubt, you will say that +I am shewing the proverbial ignorance of women in legal questions. But +I can't help feeling that there must be some way in which it could be +arranged. I do beseech you, Colin, not to act hastily. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +You say that if this divorce took place, Bridget's reputation would not +suffer, and that she could marry again without a stain upon her +character as they say of wrongfully accused prisoners who are +discharged. But again—is that the question? +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I know nothing of your present circumstances—health, outlook on +life—anything. Bridget once hinted to me that you might have your own +reasons for desiring your freedom. She would give no grounds for the +suspicion that there is any other woman in your life. I do not think +anything would make me credit such a thing and I put that notion +entirely out of court. I do not know—as your letter was dated from +Leichardt's Town—whether you still live at Moongarr. It is possible +you may have sold the place. I hear of severe droughts in parts of +Leichardt's Land, but have no information about the Leura district. Now +that Sir Luke Tallant has exchanged to Hong Kong, Bridget hasn't any +touch with Leichardt's Land, and I have very few correspondents there. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Write to me—not a stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell me +about yourself—your feelings, your conditions. We are old +friends—friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours. +You can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything +you may tell me, I will faithfully observe your wishes. But I can't +bear that you, whom I should have thought so well of—have felt so much +about—should be making a mess of your life, and that I should not put +out a hand to prevent it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Always your friend, +<BR> +JOAN GILDEA. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 11 +</H3> + +<P> +It was a long time before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter. +She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin +McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, six months later. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +MY DEAR JOAN, +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Your letter has made me think. I could not write before for reasons +that you'll gather as you go along. I shall do as you ask and tell you +everything as straightly and plainly as I can. I feel it is best that +you should know exactly the sort of conditions I'm under and what a +woman would have had to put up with if she had been with me—what she +would have to put up with if she were going to be with me. Then you can +judge whether or not I'm right in the decision I have come to as the +result of my thinkings. You can tell my wife as much as you please—of +the details, I mean. Perhaps, you had better soften them to her, for +you know as well as I do—or better—that her impulsive, quixotic +disposition might lead her into worse mistakes than it has done +already. Of course, she'll have to know my decision. I am sure that if +she allows her reason play, she will agree it is the only possible one. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm not going to talk about what happened before she went away, or +about that evidence—or anything else in that immediate connection. I +was mad, and I expect I believed a lot more than was true. I don't +believe—I don't think I ever did really believe—what I suppose you +would call 'the worst.' But that doesn't seem to me of such great +matter. It's the spirit, not the letter that counts. The foundation +must have been rotten, or there never would have been a question of +believing one way or the other—because we should have UNDERSTOOD. +Explanations would not have been needed between true mates. Only we +were not true mates—that's the whole point. There was too great a +radical difference between us. It might have been a deal better if she +HAD gone off with that man. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But to come now to the practical part of the situation. You know enough +about Australian ups and downs to realise that a cattle or sheep owner +out West, may be potentially wealthy one season and on the fair road to +beggary the next. It will be different when times change and we take to +sinking artesian bores on the same principle as when Joseph stored up +grain in the fat years in Egypt against the lean ones that were coming. +That's what I meant to do and ought to have done at any cost. But—well +I just didn't. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The thing is that if I could have looked ahead, perhaps even six +months, I might not have thought it acting on the square to a woman to +get her to marry me. If I could have looked a year ahead, I wouldn't +have had any doubt on the subject. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But you see I justified it to myself. One thousand square miles of +country—fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept +running—and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it, +seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll +remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point, +when we talked about my marrying. The truth was that directly I saw +Bridget, she carried me clean off my head—and that's the long and +short of it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the +Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to +oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old +hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as +long back as that. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank +in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me, +'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right. Well, I saw +that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor +summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my +horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass +on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I +have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live +with.... That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, the +sales I'd counted on turned out badly—cattle too poor for want of +grass to stand the droving and the worst luck in the sale-yards I'd +ever known. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +First thing I did was to reduce the staff and bar everything but bare +necessaries—I sent off the Chinamen and every spare hand. Ninnis and I +and the stockman—a first-rate chap, Moongarr Bill—worked the +run—just the three of us. You can guess how we managed it. A Malay boy +did cooky for the head-station. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +After Christmas I left Ninnis and Bill to look after the place. I had +to go to Leichardt's Town. I had been thinking things out about Biddy +all that time—you know I'm too much of the Scotchy to make hasty +determinations. Well, I had that Parliament Bill, allowing divorce +after two years desertion in my head, from the day Biddy left me. It +seemed the best way out—for her. I had heard about that fellow going +Home in the same boat with her, and never guessed but that it was a +concerted plan between them. That note Harris showed me made me think +it was so. I don't think this now—after what you told me. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +But what did rub itself into me then was that I ought to let her marry +him as soon as she decently could. I couldn't see the matter any other +way—I don't now. He has lots of money—though a man who would buy +happiness with another woman out of the money his wife had left +him—well, that's a matter of opinion. Besides, she has got the fortune +the old lady left her and can be independent of him if she chooses. +There's nothing to prevent her living any kind of life that pleases +her—except me, and I'm ready and willing to clear out of the show. One +thing I'm sorry for now, and that is having torn up the draft she sent +to pay me back her passage money, and putting the bits in an envelope +and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been +done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't +tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it +would have hurt her—I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is why +I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the part of a gentleman all +through this miserable business. But what could you expect? +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +For you see, my father worked his own way up, and my grandfather was a +crofter—and I haven't got the blood of Irish kings, on the other side, +behind me. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Now I'm being nasty, as you used to say in the old Bungroopim days when +I wouldn't play. YOU were my Ideal, in those days, Joan—before you +went and got married. I've been an unlucky devil all round. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well there! I had to try and arrange things for an overdraft with the +Bank in Leichardt's Town, but I went down chiefly to consult lawyers +about the divorce question, so that it should be done with as little +publicity and unpleasantness as possible. It appeared that it could be +done all right—as I wrote you. What would have been the good of my +havering in that letter over my own feelings and the bad times I had +struck? It never was my habit to whine over what couldn't be helped. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Luck was up against me down there too. I got pitched off a buckjumper +at a horse-dealers', Bungroopim way. I had been 'blowing,' Australian +fashion, that I could handle that colt if nobody else was able to. The +end of it was that the buckjumper got home, not me. I was laid up in +hospital for close on two months, with a broken leg and complications. +The complications were that old spear wound, which inflamed, and they +found that a splinter from the jagged tip had been left in. +Blood-poisoning was the next thing; and when I came out of that +hospital I was more like the used up bit of soap you'll see by the +COOLIBAH* outside a shepherd's hut on ration-bringing day, than +anything else I can think of. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Coolibah—a basin made from the scooped out excrescence of a tree.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +As soon as I could sit a horse again I went to work at Moongarr. I had +found things there at a pretty pass. Not a drop of rain had fallen up +to now on the station for nearly nine months. YOU know what that means +on the top of two dry seasons. As soon as I was fit, we rode over the +run inspecting—I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill. There's a lot of riding +over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection done +quickly. Day after day we travelled through desolation—grass withered +to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle staggering like +drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink. The trees were dying in the +wooded country; and in the plains the earth was crumbling and +shrinking, and great cracks like crevasses were gaping in the black +soil where there used to be beautiful green grass and flowers in spring. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left +was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and +dropped dead in it. They were short of water at the head-station, and +we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced +round and used for drinking—so long as it lasted. When we were +mustering the other side of the run, it came to our camping at a sandy +creek where we could dig in the sand and get just enough for horses and +men. The water of the Bore I'd made, was a bit brackish, but it kept +the grass alive round about and was all the cattle had to depend on. +You can think of the job it was shifting the beasts over there from +other parts of the run which was what we tried to do, so long as they +were fit for it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the +herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to +collect a hundred or so—sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek +Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on +them. That was all. I guess that—by this time, out of my eleven +thousand head with No. 666 brand on them I'd muster from four to five +hundred. The mistake I made was in not selling out for what I could get +at the beginning of the Drought. But it was the long time in +Leichardt's Town that had me there. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +It was bad luck all through from first to last. Mustering those beasts +for boiling down started that old spear wound afresh. Until it got well +again, there was nothing for it but to sit tight and wait. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Moongarr Bill left to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the +Bight—took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that he'd +strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last +expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been +bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've +missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've +seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will +o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to run after it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Old Ninnis was the next to leave, I made him take the offer of a job +that he had. When it came to drawing water five miles for the +head-station, and keeping it in an iron tank sunk in the ground, with a +manhole and padlocked cover for fear of its being got at, the fewer +there were of us the better. Now the station is being run by the Boss +and the Malay boy, who is a sharp little chap, and more use in the +circumstances than any white man. We've killed the calves we were +trying to PODDY*. And the dogs—except one cattle dog—Veno—Biddy +would remember her; how she used to lollop about the front veranda +outside her room. Now, what the deuce made me write that!—Well, the +dog goes with me in the cart when I fetch water, and takes her drink +with the horses at the hole. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +[*Poddy—to bring up by hand.] +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm getting used to the life—making jobs in the daytime to keep myself +from feeling the place a worse hell than it really is. There's always +the water to be fetched and the two horses and the dog to be taken for +their big drink. If you could see me hoarding the precious +stuff—washing my face in the morning in a soup plate, and what's left +kept for night for the dog. When I want a bath I ride ten miles to the +bore. Then there's saddlery to mend, and dry-cleaning the place and +pipes between whiles—more of them than is good for me. Stores are low, +but I've still got enough of tobacco. I daresay it's a mercy there's no +whiskey—nothing but a bottle or two of brandy in case of +snake-bites—or I might have taken to it. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Thank God I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see +so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink—but there's no saying +what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to +get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal +watching of the sky—looking out all the time for clouds that don't +come—or if they do, end in nothing. You know that brassy glare of the +sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred +times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can +look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and +white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked +inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for +those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a +laughing-jackass in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad +with his devilish chuckling. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up +against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the +veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no +woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent +away their women—stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the +Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's +Town. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up +north—how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing +out. As for the gold find—well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I +hear—or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three +weeks—I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings, +except what a pair of saddle bags will carry. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be +shipped off to her all right. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you +won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling +inside me that I shall win through yet. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good +many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief—I began writing this +about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower—that's the mailman—comes only +once a month now, and not on time at that. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks, +the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So +I'm a ruined man, any way. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will +be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending +her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in +words—but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for +me—and there will never be another. +</P> + +<P> +He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER 12 +</H3> + +<P> +Harry the Blower came up with his mails a day or two later. Among the +letters he brought, there were three at least of special importance to +Colin McKeith. +</P> + +<P> +One was from the late Attorney General of Leichardt's Land, in whose +following he had been while sitting in the Legislative Assembly, and +whom he had consulted in reference to the Divorce petition. This +gentleman informed Colin that proceedings were already begun in the +case of McKeith versus McKeith, and that notification of the pending +suit had been sent to Lady Bridget at Castle Gaverick, in the province +of Connaught, Ireland. +</P> + +<P> +The second letter was from the Manager of the Bank of Leichardt's Land, +regretfully conveying the decision of the Board that, failing immediate +repayment of the loan, the mortgage on Moongarr station must be +foreclosed and that in due course a representative of the Bank would +arrive to take over the property. +</P> + +<P> +The third letter was from Moongarr Bill, dated from the furthest Bush +township at the foot of the Great Bight, which had formed the base of +Colin's last exploring expedition. A mere outpost of civilisation it +was—that very one which he had described at the dinner party at +Government House where he had first met Lady Bridget O'Hara. +Apparently, in Moongarr Bill's estimation, its only reason for +existence lay in the fact that it had an office under the jurisdiction +of the Warden of Goldfields, for the proclamation of new goldfields, +and the obtaining of Miner's Rights. +</P> + +<P> +Moongarr Bill's epistolary style was bald in its directness. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Dear Sir— he began:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The biggest mistake we ever made in our lives was not following up the +streak of colour you spotted in that gully running down from Bardo +Range to Pelican River. If we had stopped, and done a bit of stripping +for alluvial, for certain, we should have found heavy, shotty gold, +with only a few feet of stripping. But I've done better than that—got +on the lead—dead on the gutter. To my belief, that gully is the top +dressing of a dried up underground watercourse. It's a pocket chock +full of gold. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +You see, it's like this: +</P> + +<P> +Here followed technical details given in local gold-digger's +phraseology which would only be intelligible to a backwoods prospector +or a Leichardt's Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details +carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it +once more. There was no doubt—making due allowance for Moongarr Bill's +exaggerative optimism—that the find was a genuine one. +</P> + +<P> +The writer resumed: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +'I've pegged off a twenty men's ground, this—being outside the area of +a proclaimed goldfield—our reward as joint discoverers. The ground +joins on to your old pegs; and the wonder to me is that nobody has ever +struck the place. However, that's not so queer as you might think, for +there has been very little talk of gold up here—in fact the P.M. does +Warden's work. Besides, the drought has kept squatters from pushing +out, and it's too far off for the casual prospector. Luckily, the +drought has driven the Blacks away too, further into the ranges; and I +haven't seen any Myalls this trip like the ones that went for us last +time. It's a pity Hensor pegged out then. He'd have come in for a slice +of luck now—we three being the only persons in the world—until I +lodged my information at the Warden's office this morning—who had ever +raised the colour in this district or had any suspicion of a show. I +reckon though that if the find turns out as I think, you'll be making +things up to little Tommy. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm to have my Miners' Right all properly filled up to-morrow, and +shall make tracks back to the gully at once, so as to leave no chance +of the claim being jumped. I've named it "McKeith's Find" so your name +won't be forgotten. I don't count on a big rush at first—all the +better for you—but I shall be surprised if we are not entitled at the +end of four months to our Government reward of 500 pounds, as there are +pretty sure to be two hundred miners at work by that time. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm writing to Ninnis—though I don't know if he has done his job +yet—telling him to lose no time in getting here; and you won't want +telling to do the same. I reckon that whether the drought has broken by +this time or not, it will pay you better to start for here than to wait +at the station until there are calves coming on to brand and muster. +Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if +you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of +experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he +wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I +couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about. +Knowing the lay of the country too, made it easier than it was before +for us. Cudgee has turned out a smarter boy than Wombo was. No fear of +Myalls with their infernal jagged spears being round without his +sniffing them. One of the horses died from eating poison-bush. Don't go +in for camping at a bend in Pelican Creek, between it and a brigalow +scrub, first day you sight Bardo Range going up the Creek, where +there's a pocket full of good grass one side of a broken slate +ridge—IT'S NO GOOD. But I wouldn't swop the other horses for any of +Windeatt's famous breed. There's some things it would be well for you +and Ninnis to bring, and a box of surveyor's compasses would come in +handy. +</P> + +<P> +Here followed half a page on practical matters, and then the letter +ended. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith pondered long over Moongarr Bill's letter, as he sat in the +veranda smoking and watching a little cloud on the horizon, and +wondering whether rain was coming at last.... If Moongarr Bill was +right, the gold-find would mean a fresh start for him in his baulked +career. At any rate, it behoved him to take advantage of the chance and +to go forth on the new adventure without unnecessary delay. But the +savour was gone for him from adventure—the salt out of life. The +stroke of luck—if it were one—had come too late. +</P> + +<P> +And now the Great Drought had broken at last. +</P> + +<P> +Next evening there came up a terrific thunderstorm, and a hurricane +such as had not visited the district for years. It broke in the +direction of the gidia scrub, and razed many trees. It passed over the +head-station and travelled at a furious rate along the plain. +Hailstones fell, as large as a pigeon's egg, and stripped off such +leafage as the drought had left. Thunder volleyed and lightning blazed. +Part of the roof of the Old Humpey was torn off. The hide-house was +practically blown away. The great white cedar by the lagoon was struck +by lightning, and lay, a chaos of dry branches and splintered limbs, +one side of the trunk standing up jagged and charred where it had been +riven in two. +</P> + +<P> +Upon the hurricane followed a steady deluge. For a night and a day, the +heavens were opened, and poured waterspouts as though the pent rain of +nine months were being discharged. The river 'came down' from the heads +and filled the gully with a roaring flood. The lagoon was again almost +level with its banks. The dry water-course on the plain sparkled in the +distance, like a mirage—only that it was no mirage. No one who has not +seen the extraordinary rapidity with which a dry river out West can be +changed into a flooded one, could credit the swiftness of the +transformation. +</P> + +<P> +Then the heavens closed once more. The sun shone out pitilessly bright, +and the surface earth looked, after a few hours, almost as dry as +before. But the life-giving fluid had penetrated deep into the soil; +the rivers and creeks were running; green grass was already springing +up for the beasts to feed upon. The land was saved. Alas too late to +save the ruined squatters. There were so few of their beasts left. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, the rain brought new life and energy to the humans. +Kuppi, the Malay boy fetched buckets of water from the replenished +lagoon, and scoured and scrubbed with great alacrity. He came timidly +to his master, and asked if he might not wash out with boiling water +the closed parlour and Lady Bridget's unused bedroom. He was afraid +that the white ants might have got into them. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith's face frightened Kuppi. So did the imprecation which his +innocent request evoked. He was bidden to go and keep himself in his +own quarters, and not show his face again that day at the New House. +</P> + +<P> +Since Lady Bridget's departure, McKeith had slept, eaten and worked in +the Old Humpey, his original dwelling. +</P> + +<P> +But Kuppi did not know that the white ants had not been given a chance +to work destruction upon 'the Ladyship's' properties. Regularly every +day, McKeith himself tended those sacred chambers. Bridget's rooms were +just as she had left them. +</P> + +<P> +He had done nothing yet towards dismantling that part of the New House +in which she had chiefly lived. He had put off the task day after day. +But since receiving Moongarr Bill's letter, and now that the drought +had broken, and the Man in Possession a prospect as certain as that +there would come another thunderstorm, he knew that he must begin his +preparations to quit Moongarr. +</P> + +<P> +To do this meant depriving himself of the miserable comfort he found +during wakeful nights and the first hour of dawn—the time he usually +chose for sweeping and cleaning his wife's rooms—of roaming, +ghost-like, through the New House where every object spoke to him of +her. In the day time, he shrank from mounting the steps which connected +the verandas, but in the evenings, he would often come and stroll along +the veranda, and sit in the squatter's chair she had liked, or in the +hammock where she had swung, and smoke his pipe and brood upon the +irrevocable past. And then he would suddenly rush off in frantic haste +to do some hard, physical work, feeling that he must go mad if he sat +still any longer. +</P> + +<P> +To-day however, after Kuppi had fled to the kitchen, he went into his +old dressing room and stood looking at the camp bed, and thought of the +day of Bridget's fever when Harris had given him her note to Maule, and +he had sat here huddled on the edge of the bed wrestling dumbly with +his agony. The association had been too painful, and in his daily +tendance he had somewhat neglected this room and had usually entered +the other by the French window from the veranda. Thus, he saw now that +a bloated tarantula had established itself in one corner, between wall +and ceiling, and an uncanny looking white lizard scuttered across the +boards, and disappeared under a piece of furniture, leaving its tail +behind. A phenomenon of natural history at which, he remembered now, +Bridget had often wondered. +</P> + +<P> +He opened the door of communication—where on that memorable night, he +had knocked and received no answer—and passed through it treading +softly as though he were visiting a death chamber. And indeed, to him, +it was truly a death chamber in which the bed, all covered over with a +white sheet, might have been a bier, and the pillows put lengthwise +down it, the shrouded form of one dearly loved and lost. He gazed +about, staring at the familiar pieces of furniture, out of wide red +eyes, smarting with unshed tears. In her looking glass, he seemed to +see the ghost-reflection of her small pale face with its old whimsical +charm. The shadowy eyes under the untidy mass of red-brown hair, in +which the curls and tendrils stood out as if endowed with a magnetic +life of their own; the sensitive lips; the little pointed chin; and, in +the eyes and on the lips, that gently mocking, alluring smile. +</P> + +<P> +There were a few poems that Colin had taught himself to say by heart, +and which he would recite to himself often when he was alone in the +Bush. THE ANCIENT MARINER was one, and there were some of Rudyard +Kipling's and he loved THE IDYLLS OF THE KING—in especial GUINIVERE. +Three lines of that poem leaped to his memory at this moment. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'THY SHADOW STILL WOULD GLIDE FROM ROOM TO ROOM<BR> + AND I SHOULD EVERMORE BE VEXT WITH THEE<BR> + IN HANGING ROBE AND VACANT ORNAMENT.'<BR> +</P> + +<BR> +<P> +He went to the wardrobe where her dresses hung as she had left them, +only that daily, he had shaken them, cared for them so that no hot +climate pest should injure them. And in so doing, he had been +overwhelmingly conscious of the peculiar, personal fragrance, her +garments had always exhaled—an experience in which rapture and anguish +blended. +</P> + +<P> +How he had loved her! ... God! how he had loved her! ... And yet, +latterly, how he had got to take his supreme possession of her as a +matter of course; had allowed the joy of it to be blunted by depression +and irritability over sordid station worries. He remembered with +piercing remorse how often he had neglected the trivial courtesies to +which he knew she attached importance. How he had been prone to sullen +fits of moodiness; had been rough, even brutal, as in that episode of +the Blacks.... Brutal to her—this dainty lady, his fairy princess! ... +And now he had lost her. She was gone back to her own world and to her +own kin. +</P> + +<P> +If only he had yielded to her then about the Blacks! If he had curbed +his anger, shown sympathy with the two wild children of Nature who were +better than himself, in this at least that they had known how to love +and cling to each other in spite of the blows of fate! He had +horse-whipped Wombo for loving Oola, and swift retribution had come +upon himself.... That he should have lost Bridget because of the loves +of Wombo and Oola! It was an irony—as if God were laughing at him. He +set his teeth and laughed—the mirthless laugh which had startled +Harris.... Well, whether it were automatic or planned retribution on +the part of the High Powers, the trouble could be evened up and done +with. 'I was a damned fool,' he said to himself; 'and I've been taught +my lesson too late for me to benefit by it. Except this way—I'm not +going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular piece of +hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe the slate +and come out on top of something else that isn't love. There's +possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's +ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long as SHE isn't +seriously hurt.' +</P> + +<P> +With that summing up of the matter, he seemed to gain stoic energy. Now +he went back to his dressing room, and pulled out to the veranda a +couple of worn portmanteaux. Into these he put a variety of personal +belongings. Among them, pictures from the walls, and old photographs in +frames that had been on the dressing table. It was significant that +none of these were portraits of his wife. The portmanteaux he dragged +along the veranda to the side of the steps leading down to the front +garden. Then, instead of returning to Lady Bridget's room, he attacked +an escritoire in the parlour in which he had kept family and private +papers, and which flanked her Chippendale bureau. He brought out +another collection—notebooks, papers, bundles of letters dating much +further back than his occupation of Moongarr—salvage from the wreck of +his old home. His mother's workbox; his father's SHAKESPEARE; the +family Bible—a piteous catalogue. He looked long at the book and the +photographs. These last were portraits of his father, his mother and +his sisters, who had all been massacred by the Blacks, when he was a +boy. He separated all such relics from the general lot, placing them, +and also two or three packets of papers upon a shelf-table in the +veranda—it was that table where Lady Bridget had laid the cablegram +from Lord Gaverick, which she had shown him the day before she had left +Moongarr. Now it seemed to him an altar of sacred memories. He brought +various other small things out of the parlour—things he had not the +heart to destroy—all belonging to his youth—and placed them there. As +he looked at them, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and a wave of +emotion passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant. +But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady +Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he +was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer +beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece of gum-tree bark, +shrivelled and curled up at the sides, so that the two edges almost +met. At first he put it on the heap that he had turned out of the +portmanteaux for destruction. His grim thought had been to top with +this strange memorial of his marriage-night, the funeral pyre he had +intended to build. But again the spasm of emotion contorted his +features. His shoulders shook, and a dry choking sound came from his +lips. He took up the piece of bark too, and laid it with the +daguerreotypes on the table. He seemed afraid to give himself time to +think, but went from room to room here and in the Old Humpey, dragging +one thing after another out on to the veranda. Some of the heavier +articles he had to hoist over the steps connecting the two verandas, +and then to drag them down the other steps into the front garden, where +they strewed the gravel round the centre bed. +</P> + +<P> +In spring and summer, when the Chinamen had been there to water and +Lady Bridget to superintend the planting and pruning, this bed had +always been gay with flowers, banking a tall shrub of scented verbena +the perfume of which she had been particularly fond of. Now there were +weeds—most of them withered—instead of flowers. The verbena bush had +long been dead, and the dry leaves and branches, beaten down by the +late storm, made a bed of kindling. +</P> + +<P> +Never was there garden so desolate—the young ornamental trees and +shrubs all dead; the creepers dead also; even the hardy passion vines +upon the fence, mere leafless, fruitless withes of withered stems. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith paused after lugging down two squatters' chairs—the first +house carpentering he had done for his wife after their arrival at the +head-station, and in which, he had resolved, no future owner of +Moongarr should ever sit. That was the thought fiercely possessing him. +Rough chairs and tables and such-like that had been there always, might +remain. But no sacrilegious hands should touch things made for her, or +with which she had been closely associated. They should be burned out +here in the deserted front garden, where not even Kuppi—the only other +occupant of the head-station—would witness his preparations. He +himself would lay and kindle the funeral pyre, and to-night, when there +would be only the stars to see him, he would light the first holocaust. +</P> + +<P> +He stood considering. Sweat dropped from his forehead. His gaunt frame +was trembling after his effort, which had been heavy, and he leaned +against one of the tarred piles supporting the veranda to rest. But +only for a few minutes. Then, his feverish activity recommenced. He +piled up the wooden furniture on the bed of withered verbena branches, +filled the interstices with dead leaves that he collected from the +garden, laid the smaller things—books, papers, pictures—where they +would assist the conflagration, and did not stop until the pyre had +reached to the level of the veranda railing. He reflected grimly that +there was a chance of sparks setting fire to the house itself, and +calculated the extent of the gravel between, deciding that if he was +there to watch there would be no danger. +</P> + +<P> +All the time, the old kangaroo dog, Veno had been nosing round him, +sniffing at the objects lying round, then looking up at him with +bleared, wistful eyes, and evidently unable to understand these strange +proceedings. Once or twice, he had roughly pushed the dog away, but, +when he had finished the work and seated himself from sheer fatigue on +the veranda steps, Veno came and squatted beside him, the dog's head +upon his knee. He filled his pipe and smoked ruminatively; the exertion +had had one good effect; it had dulled the fierceness of his pain. +</P> + +<P> +As he sat there—a faint breeze that had risen with the approach of +sunset, cooling his heated body—he thought again about Moongarr Bill's +letter. He looked at the great pyre in front, and caught the gleam of +the lagoon below through the bare branches of the trees the little +ripple on its surface, the freshening green at its marge. Then he gazed +out over the vast plain towards the horizon. From his low position on +the steps, the middle distance was hidden from him. Through the reddish +tinge cast by the lowering sun, he could discern, far off likewise, the +unmistakable signs of new-springing grass and the course of the river, +for so long non-existent. From the gully he heard the sound of rushing +water. It had been a roaring torrent just after the storm, and he knew +that a flood must have come down from the heads. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, the Drought had broken. The plain would soon be green again. +Flowers would spring up as they had done for Bridget's bridal +home-coming. If the rain had fallen a few months sooner the station +might have been saved. +</P> + +<P> +And even now, with the remnant of three or four hundred cattle, +provided there were no crippling debt, no spectre of the Man in +Possession, he might still hang on, and in time retrieve his losses, +lie low, sink artesian wells, make the station secure for the future. +</P> + +<P> +He had been so fond of the place. He had taken up the run with such +high hopes; had so slaved to increase his herd, to make improvements on +the head-station. He had looked upon this as the nucleus of his +fortune; the pivot on which his career as one of the Empire-builders +would revolve.... And now.... +</P> + +<P> +Well, some clever speculator no doubt would buy it at a low price +during the Slump, stock it with more cattle, work it up during a good +season or two, and, when cattle stations boomed once more, sell it at +an immense profit. That was what he himself would have done had he been +a speculator in similar conditions. Even still, he could do it with a +small amount of capital to supply a sop for the Bank.... Now that the +Drought had broken they would be more likely to let him go on.... He +thought of the 3,000 pounds Sir Luke Tallant had made him put into +settlement on his marriage. He had not wanted to do that at the time; +his Scotch caution had revolted against the tying up of his resources, +and his instinct was justified. If only he had command of that money +now! It was his own; his wife was rich; that was the one benefit he +could have taken from her.... But it was impossible to broach the +question. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the dog stirred uneasily, sniffed the air and leaped to the +gravel walk where it stood giving short, uncertain barks, as though +aware of something happening outside for which it could not account. +</P> + +<P> +McKeith lifted his head, bent in the absorption of his thought, and +looked about for the disturber of Veno's placidity. But Kuppi was +nowhere in sight, nor was there sign of other intruder. Where he sat, +the garden fence, overgrown with withered passion vines, bounded his +vision, and had anybody ridden or driven up the hill through the lower +sliprails, he would not have seen them, probably would not have heard +them. For there were no longer dogs, black boys, Chinamen or station +hands to voice intimation of a new arrival. All the old sounds of +evening activity were hushed. No mustering-mob being driven to the +stockyard; no running up of milkers or horses for the morrow; no goats +to be penned—they had been killed off long ago; no beasts grazing or +calling—no audible life at all except that of the birds, who, since +the rain, had found their notes again and were telling each other +vociferously that it was time to go to bed. Indeed, the silence and +solitariness of the once busy head-station had enticed many of the +shyer kinds of birds from the lagoon and the forest. Listening, as he +now was, intently, McKeith could hear the gurgling COO-ROO-ROO of the +swamp pheasant, which is always found near water—and likewise rare +sound—the silvery ring of the bell-bird rejoicing in the fresh-filled +lagoon. +</P> + +<P> +But Veno was still uneasy, and Colin got up on to the veranda. He stood +there, listening all the while, strained expectancy in his eyes as if +he too were vaguely conscious of something outside happening.... +</P> + +<P> +And now he did hear something that made him go white as with uncanny +dread. It was a footstep that he heard on the veranda of the Old +Humpey—very light, a soft tapping of high heels and the accompanying +swish of drapery—a ghostly rustle—'a ghostly footfall echoing.'... +For surely in this place it could have no human reality. +</P> + +<P> +It approached along the passage between the two buildings, halted for a +few seconds, and then mounted to the front veranda. +</P> + +<P> +The man was standing with his back to the Old Humpey. He would not +turn. A superstitious fear fell upon him and made his knees shake and +his tall, lean frame tremble.... He DARED not turn his head and look +lest he should see that which would tell him Bridget was dead. +</P> + +<P> +But the dead do not speak in syllables that an ordinary human ear can +hear. And Colin heard his own name spoken in accents piercingly clear +and sweet. +</P> + +<P> +'Colin.' +</P> + +<P> +To him, though, it was as a ghost-voice. He stood transfixed. And just +then the dog bounded past him. It had flown up the steps barking +loudly. That could be no immaterial form upon which the creature flung +itself, pawing, nosing, licking with the wildest demonstrations of joy. +</P> + +<P> +He heard the well-remembered tones: +</P> + +<P> +'Quiet Veno.... Good dog.... Lie down Veno—Lie down.' +</P> + +<P> +The dog seemed to understand that this was not a moment for +effusiveness. Without another sound, it crouched upon its haunches +gazing up at the new-comer. +</P> + +<P> +Then Colin turned. Bridget was standing not a yard from him. A slender +figure in a grey silk cloak, with bare head—she had flung back her +grey sun-bonnet and shrouding gauze veil.... He saw the face he +knew—the small, pale face; the shadowy eyes, wide and bright with an +ecstatic determination, yet in them a certain feminine timorousness; +the little pointed chin poked slightly forward; the red-brown hair—all +untidy curls and tendrils, each hair seeming to have a life and +magnetism of its own. It was just as he had so often pictured her in +dreams of sleep and waking. +</P> + +<P> +He gazed at her like one who beholds a vision from another world. And +then a great sob burst from him—the pitiful sob of a strong man who is +beaten, broken with emotion. The whole being of the man seemed to +collapse. He staggered forward, and such a change came over the gaunt, +hard face, that Bridget saw it through a rain of tears which fell down +her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Colin—Won't you speak to me?' +</P> + +<P> +'Biddy!' He went close to her and gripped her two wrists, holding her +before him while his hungry eyes seemed to be devouring her. +</P> + +<P> +'It's you—it's really you. You're not dead, are you?' +</P> + +<P> +'Dead! Oh no—no.... I've come home.' +</P> + +<P> +'Home!' He laughed. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh don't—don't,' she cried. 'Don't laugh like that.' +</P> + +<P> +'Home!' he repeated, grimly. 'Look round you. A nice sort of home. Eh?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't care. It's the only real home I've ever had.' +</P> + +<P> +'But look—look!' +</P> + +<P> +She followed his eyes to the great pyre in the garden, with the dead +leaves, and the pieces of furniture, the squatters' chairs, the little +tables he and she had covered together, the hammock that he had cut +down leaving the ropes dangling—many other things that she recognised +also. Then her gaze came back to the veranda. To the open portmanteaux; +the different objects still strewing the ground; and then to the +shelf-table against the wall near the hammock, and, there, to his most +cherished possessions. She knew at once his mother's work-box, the +shabby SHAKESPEARE—the portraits, and, on top of all, the piece of +gum-tree bark. +</P> + +<P> +She snatched her wrists from his grasp, darted to the shelf, seized the +shrivelled pice of bark, and pressed it against her bosom as though it +had been a living thing. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, you COULDN'T burn this! ... You were going to burn it with the +rest—but you COULDN'T—any more than you could have burned your +mother's things.... I thought of it all the way—I knew that if you +could burn this, too, there would be no hope for me any more. I PRAYED +that you might not burn it.' +</P> + +<P> +'But how—how did you know I was going to burn the things?' he +stammered bewilderedly. +</P> + +<P> +'I saw it all—I saw you—just like this, on the veranda—so thin and +hard and miserable—and so proud, yet—and stubborn—I saw it all—saw +the bonfire ready—And I saw this piece of bark—And then something +made you stop and you put it with your mother's things instead. You +remembered—Oh! Mate, you DID understand? You DID remember—that first +night by the camp fire—and we two—just we two'—she broke off sobbing. +</P> + +<P> +'You saw—you saw—' he kept saying. 'But how—how did you know? Tell +me, Mate.' +</P> + +<P> +'I saw it all in a dream—at Castle Gaverick. Three times I dreamed the +same dream; and I felt, inside me, that it was a prophetic warning. +We're like that, you know, we Irish Celts. And you—though you're a +Scotchman—you used to laugh at such things! But they're true; they're +true—I've had glints of second sight before. Joan Gildea understood. +When I told her, she believed it was a warning God had sent me, and she +said I must go to you—go at once lest it should be too late. She +wanted to come with me, but it would have been difficult for her to +leave her work, and I didn't want her—I wanted to come to you all on +my own.' +</P> + +<P> +'And then?—then?' he asked breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, then I left Castle Gaverick at once, and, in London, I took my +passage—there was an E. and A. boat just going to start. Of course I +knew the route. I got out of the steamer at Leuraville, and came +straight on by train—I didn't wait anywhere. I thought I'd get out at +Crocodile Creek and pay somebody to drive me up here. But you've got +the railway brought nearer, and when I got out at Kangaroo Flat there +was a most extraordinary thing—Then, I knew why the voice inside had +been urging me on so quickly.' +</P> + +<P> +'An extraordinary thing—? What was it?' he said in the same +breathless, broken way. +</P> + +<P> +'It was Mr Ninnis. He was there, standing on the platform just off his +droving trip—he was going to take the next train to Leuraville. If I +had stayed there as Captain Halliwell wanted me to, I should have +missed him. He'd got a letter from Moongarr Bill—Oh, I know all about +that. But it doesn't matter—it doesn't matter in the least. You can go +if you like and find the gold—I'll stop at Joan Gildea's cottage in +Leichardt's Town and wait for you—I don't care about ANYTHING if +you'll only let me be your Mate again. But Colin—' she rushed on, for +he could not speak, and the sight of a great man struggling with his +tears is one that a woman who loves him can scarcely bear to see. And +yet the sight made Bridget happy for all its pain—'Colin, when I first +saw Ninnis, do you know what I thought—? That you had sent him to meet +me. That you, too, had been warned in a dream?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I wish I had been—My God, I wish I had been.' +</P> + +<P> +'What would you have done, Colin?' +</P> + +<P> +'I'd have been there myself,' he said simply. 'It would have been me, +not Ninnis, that you saw at Kangaroo Flat Station.' +</P> + +<P> +She held out her arms. The roll of bark dropped on the boards of the +veranda. In a moment he was pressing her fiercely to his breast, and +his lips were on hers. +</P> + +<P> +And in that kiss, by the divine alchemy of true wedded love, all the +past pride and bitterness were transmuted into a great abiding Peace. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BRIDGET--NEVER-NEVER LAND *** + +***** This file should be named 4051-h.htm or 4051-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/4051/ + +Produced by Col Choat. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land + +Author: Rosa Praed + +Posting Date: June 29, 2009 [EBook #4051] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 21, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BRIDGET--NEVER-NEVER LAND *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER LAND. + + +by + +Rosa Praed (1851-1935) + + +(1915) + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA + +BOOK II FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA + +BOOK III FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS + + + + + +BOOK I + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + +Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called +the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a +primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on +the cliff--the Emu Point side--overlooking the broad Leichardt River. +The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran--Australian fashion--along the +front of the cottage, except for the two closed-in ends forming, one a +bathroom and the other a kind of store closet. Being raised a few feet +above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, and +this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must have +been planted at least thirty years. One of these, a stephanotis, showed +masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected would have +fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a +fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps. +The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with +her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a +thick-stemmed grape-vine, which made a dapple of shadow and sunshine +upon the boarded floor. Some bunches of late grapes--it was the very +beginning of March--hung upon the vine, and, at the other end of the +veranda, grew a passion creeper, its great purple fruit looking like +huge plums amidst its vivid green leaves. + +The roof of the veranda was low, with projecting eaves, below which a +bunch of yellowing bananas hung to ripen. In fact, the veranda and +garden beyond would have been paradise to a fruitarian. Against the +wall of the store-room, stood a large tin dish piled with melons, +pine-apples and miscellaneous garden produce, while, between the +veranda posts, could be seen a guava-tree, an elderly fig and a loquat +all in full bearing. The garden seemed a tangle of all manner of +vegetation--an oleander in bloom, a poinsettia, a yucca, lifting its +spike of waxen white blossoms, a narrow flower-border in which the +gardenias had become tall shrubs and the scented verbena shrubs almost +trees. As for the blend of perfume, it was dreamily intoxicating. Two +bamboos, guarding the side entrance gate, made a soft whispering that +heightened the dream-sense. The bottom of the garden looked an inchoate +mass of greenery topped by the upper boughs of tall straggling gum +trees, growing outside where the ground fell gradually to the river. + +From where Mrs Gildea sat, she had a view of almost the whole reach of +the river where it circles Emu Point. For, as is known to all who know +Leichardt's Town, the river winds in two great loops girdling two low +points, so that, in striking a bee-line across the whole town, business +and residential, one must cross the river three times. Mrs Gildea could +see the plan of the main street in the Middle Point and the roofs of +shops and offices. The busy wharves of the Leichardt's Land Steam +Navigation Company--familiarly, the L.L.S.N. Co.--lay opposite on her +right, while leftward, across the water, she could trace, as far as the +grape-vine would allow, the boundary of the Botanical Gardens and get a +sight of the white stone and grey slate end of the big Parliamentary +Buildings. + +The heat-haze over the town and the brilliant sun-sparkles on the river +suggested a cruel glare outside the shady veranda and over-grown old +garden. + +A pleasant study, if a bit distracting from its plenitude of +associations to Australian-born Joan Gildea, who, on her marriage, had +been transplanted into English soil, as care-free as a rose cut from +the parent stem, and who now, after nearly twenty years, had returned +to the scene of her youth--a widow, a working journalist and shorn of +most of her early illusions. + +Her typewriter stood on a bamboo table before her. A pile of Australian +Hansards for reference sat on a chair at convenient distance. A large +table with a green cloth, at her elbow, had at one end a tray with the +remains of her breakfast of tea, scones and fruit. The end nearest her +was littered with sheaves of manuscript, newspaper-cuttings, +photographs and sepia sketches--obviously for purposes of illustration: +gum-bottle, stylographs and the rest, with, also, several note-books +held open by bananas, recently plucked from the ripening bunch, to +serve as paper-weights. + +She had meant to be very busy that morning. There was her weekly letter +for THE IMPERIALIST to send off by to-morrow's mail, and, moreover, she +had to digest the reasons of the eminent journal for returning to her +an article that had not met with the editor's approval--the great +Gibbs: a potent newspaper-factor in the British policy of the day. + +It had been an immense honour when Mr Gibbs had chosen Joan Gildea from +amongst his staff for a roving commission to report upon the political, +financial, economic and social aspects of Australia, and upon Imperial +interests generally, as represented in various sideshows on her route. + +But it happened that she was now suffering from a change at the last +moment in that route--a substitution of the commplace P. & O. for the +more exciting Canadian Pacific, Mr Gibbs having suddenly decided that +Imperialism in Australia demanded his special correspondent's immediate +attention. + +For this story dates back to the time when Mr Joseph Chamberlain was in +office; when Imperialism, Free Trade and Yellow Labour were the catch +words of a party, and before the great Australian Commonwealth had +become an historical fact. + +THE IMPERIALIST's Special Correspondent looked worried. She was +wondering whether the English mail expected to-day would bring her +troublesome editorial instructions. She examined some of the +photographs and drawings with a dissatisfied air. A running +inarticulate commentary might have been put into words like this: + +'No good ... I can manage the letterpress all right once I get the hang +of things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a +gum-tree look as if it was growing .... And Gibbs hates having amateur +snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I +wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness +didn't Biddy join me! .... If she'd only had the decency to let me know +in time WHY she couldn't.... Money, I suppose--or a Man! .... Well, +I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary leg-up from me +again...' + +Mrs Gildea pulled the sheet she had been typing out of the machine, +inserted another, altered the notch to single spacing and rattled off +at top speed till the page was covered. The she appended her signature +and wrote this address: + + To the Lady Bridget O'Hara, + Care of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, + Upper Brook Street, London, W. + +on an envelope, into which she slipped her letter--a letter never to be +sent. + +A snap of the gate between the bamboos added a metallic note to the +tree's reedy whimperings, and the postman tramped along the short +garden path and up the veranda steps. + +'Morning, Mrs Gildea ... a heavy mail for you!' + +He planked down the usual editorial packet--two or three rolls of +proofs, a collection of newspapers, a bulky parcel of private +correspondence sent on by the porter of Mrs Gildea's London flat, some +local letters and, finally, two square envelopes, with the remark, as +he turned away on his round. 'My word! Mrs Gildea, those letters seem +to have done a bit of globe-trotting on their own, don't they!' + +For the envelopes were covered with directions, some in Japanese and +Chinese hieroglyphics, some in official red ink from various +postoffices, a few with the distinctive markings of British Legations +and Government Houses where the Special Correspondent should have +stayed, but did not--Only her own name showing through the +obliterations, and a final re-addressing by the Bank of Leichardt's +Land. + +Mrs Gildea recognised the impulsive, untidy but characteristic +handwriting of Lady Bridget O'Hara. + +'From Biddy at last!' she exclaimed, tore the flap of number one +letter, paused and laid it aside. 'Business first.' + +So she went carefully through the editorial communication. Mr Gibbs was +not quite so tiresome as she had feared he would be. After him, the +packet from her London flat was inspected and its contents laid aside +for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was +embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a +cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received at +Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her--first along the route +originally designed, afterwards, with zigzagging, retrogression and +much delay, along the one she had taken. That it had reached her at +all, said a good deal for Mrs Gildea's fame as a freely paragraphed +newspaper correspondent. + +The telegram was phrased thus: + +SORRY IMPOSSIBLE NO FUNDS OTHER REASONS WRITING BIDDY + +Mrs Gildea's illuminative 'H'm!' implied that her two inductions had +been correct. No funds--and other reasons--meaning--a MAN. She scented +instantly another of Biddy's tempestuous love-affairs. Had it been +merely a question of lack of money with inclination goading, she felt +pretty certain that Lady Bridget would have contrived to beg, borrow or +steal--on a hazardous promissory note, after the happy-go-lucky +financial morals of that section of society to which by birth she +belonged. Or, failing these means, that she would have threatened some +mad enterprise and so have frightened her aunt Eliza Countess of +Gaverick into writing a cheque for three figures. Of course, less would +have been of no account. + +Mrs Gildea opened the two envelopes and sorted the pages in order of +their dates. The first had the address of a house in South Belgravia, +where lived Sir Luke Tallant of the Colonial Office and Rosamond his +wife--distant connections of the Gavericks. + +Lady Bridget's letters were type-written, most carelessly, with the +mistakes corrected down the margin of the flimsy sheets in the manner +of author's proof--the whole appearance of them suggesting literary +'copy'. + +Likewise, the slapdash epistolary style of the MS., which had a certain +vividness of its own. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + +'Dearest Joan, + +You'll have got my wire. Vancouver was right, I suppose. I sent it from +Rome. Since then I have been at Montreux with Chris and Molly, and +since I came back to England with them, I've been in too chaotic a +state of mind to write letters. Really, Chris and Molly's atmosphere of +struggling to keep in the swim on next to nothing a year and of eking +out a precarious income by visits to second-rate country houses and +cadging on their London friends gets on my nerves to such an extent +that Luke and Rosamond's established "Colonial Office" sort of +respectability is quite refreshing by contrast. + +I should have loved the Australian trip. Your "Bush" sounds perfectly +captivating, and, of course, I could do the illustrations you want. +Besides, I'm stony-broke and, financially, the great god Gibbs appeals +to me. I'd take my passage straight off--one would raise the money +somehow--if it wasn't for--There! It's out. A MAN has come and upset +the apple-cart.' + +Mrs Gildea gave a funny little laugh. The letter answered her thought. + +'"Oh, of course!" I can hear you sneer. "Just another of Biddy's +emotional interests--bound to fizzle out before very long." But this is +a good deal more than an emotional interest, and I don't think it will +fizzle out so quickly. For one thing, THIS man is quite different from +all the other men I've ever been interested in. The first moment I saw +him, I had the queerest sort of ARRESTED sensation. He's told me since, +that he felt exactly the same about me. Kind of lived before--"WHEN I +WAS A KING IN BABYLON AND YOU WERE A CHRISTIAN SLAVE" idea. Though I'm +quite certain that if I ever was a slave it must have been a Pagan and +not a Christian one. Joan, the experience was thrilling, positively +electrifying--Glamour--personal magnetism.... You couldn't possibly +understand unless you knew HIM. Descriptions are so hopeless. I'll +leave him to your imagination. + +By the way, Molly annoyed me horribly the other day. "You know, dear," +she had the audacity to remark, "he's not of OUR class, and if you +married him, you'd have to give up US! For could you suppose," she went +on to say, "that Chris and Mama--to say nothing of Aunt Eliza--would +tolerate an adventurer who tells tall stories about buried treasure and +native rebellions and expects one to be amused!" + +OUR CLASS! Oh, how I detest the label! And that unspeakably dreadful +idea of social sheep and goats--and the unfathomable abyss between +Suburbia and Belgravia! Though I frankly own that to me Suburbia +represents the Absolutely Impossible. After all, one must go right into +the Wilderness to escape the conditions of that state of life to which +you happen to have been born. + +Well, that speech of Molly's came out of a fascinating account my +Soldier of Fortune gave us of how he stage-managed a revolution in +South America, and of an expedition he'd made in the Andes on the +strength of a local tradition about the Incas' hidden gold. I call him +my Soldier of Fortune--though he's not in any known Army list, because +it's what he called himself. Likewise a Champion of the Dispossessed. +He has an intense sympathy with the indigenous populations, and thinks +the British system of conquering and corrupting native races simply a +disgrace to civilisation. With all of which sentiments I entirely +agree. Luke has taken to him immensely, chiefly, I fancy, because he +was once private secretary to some Administrating Rajah in an +Eastern-Archipelago or Indian Island, and as Luke is hankering after a +colonial governorship, he wants to scrape up all the information he can +about such posts. + +I answered Molly that one may have a violent attraction to a man +without in the least wanting to marry him, and that relieved her mind a +little. + +As for HIM, the attraction on his part seems equally violent. We do the +most shockingly unconventional things together. He tells me that I +carry him off his feet--that I've revolutionised his ideas about the +"nice English Girl" (useless to protest that I'm not an English girl +but a hybrid Celt). He says that I've wiped off his slate the scheme of +life he'd been planning for his latter years. A comfortable existence +in England--his doctor advises him to settle down in a temperate +climate--an appointment on some City Board--rubber shares and that kind +of thing--you know it all--a red brick house in South Kensington and +perhaps a little place in the country. He did not fill in the +picture--but I did for him--with the charmingly domesticated wife--well +connected: the typical "nice English Girl," heiress of a comfortable +fortune to supplement his own, which he candidly admitted needs +supplementing. + +Of course he's not a mere vulgar fortune-hunter. He must be genuinely +in love with the nice English Girl. And that's where I upset HIS +apple-cart. + +In fact, we are both in an IMPASSE. I'm not eligible for his post and I +shouldn't want it if I were. To my mind marriage is only conceivable +with a barbarian or a millionaire. From the sordid atmosphere of +English conjugality upon an income of anything less than an assured +5,000 pounds a year, good Lord deliver me! And you know my reasons for +adding another clause to my litany. Good Lord deliver me also from +further experience of the exciting vicissitudes of a stock-jobbing +career! + +Then again, apart from personal prejudices, I am appalled, quite +simply, at the cold-blooded marriage traffic that I see going on in +London. Any crime committed in the name of Love is forgivable, but to +sell a girl--soul and body to the highest bidder is to my mind, the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Frankly, I'm petrified with +amazement at the way in which mothers hurl their daughters at the head +of any man who will make a good settlement. There's Molly's sister--she +chases the game till she has corralled it, and once inside her walls +the unfortunate prey hasn't swallowed his first cup of tea before she +has wedded him in imagination to one of her girls--"How do you like Mr +CHOSE?" "Like him? What is there to like? He's the same as all the rest +of the men, and they're as like as a box of ninepins..." + +"But what do you think of him...?" "But really there's nothing to +think" ... "But don't you think he'd do for Hester?" etcetera, etcetera. + +She has just married the one before Hester to what she calls the +perfect type of an English country gentleman--meaning that he owns an +historical castle in Scotland, a coal mine in Wales and a mansion in +Park Lane. Heavens! I'd rather follow the fortunes of a Nihilist and be +sent to Siberia, or drive wild cattle and fight wild blacks with one of +your Bush cowboys, than I'd marry the perfect type of an English +country gentleman! Give me something REAL--anything but the +semi-detached indifference of most of the couples one knows. No. MY man +must be strong enough to carry ME off my feet and to break down all the +conventions of "OUR CLASS." Then, I'd cheerfully tramp through the +forest beside him, if it came to that, or cook his dinner in front of +our wigwam. Now, if my Soldier of Fortune were to ask me to climb the +Andes with him in search of that buried treasure! But he won't: and--I +confess it, Joan--I'm in mortal terror of his insisting upon my +entering the sphere of stock-jobbing respectability instead, and of my +being weak enough to consent. But we haven't got anywhere near that yet. + +So far, I'm just--living--trying to make up my mind what it is that I +want most. Do you know, that since my violent attraction to him--or +whatever you like to call it--all sorts of odd bits of revelation have +come to me as to the things that really matter! + +For one thing, I'm pretty certain that the ultimate end of Being is +Beauty and that Love means Beauty and Beauty means Love. The immediate +result of this discovery is that I'm buying clothes with a reckless +disregard of the state of my banking account. + +I begin to understand and to sympathise with that pathetic striving +after beauty which one sees in the tawdry finery and exaggerated +hairdressing of a kitchenmaid--Rosamond Tallant has one who is +wonderful to behold as she mounts the area steps on her Sundays out. +Formerly I should have been horrified at that kitchenmaid. Now I have +quite a fellow-feeling with her piteous attempts to make herself +attractive to her young man, the grocer's boy or the under-footman I +suppose. Am I not at this very moment sitting with complexion cream +daubed on my face, in order that I may appear more attractive to MY +young man. I know now how Molly's maid--who is keeping company with +Luke's butler--feels when we all dine early for a theatre and Josephine +gets an evening out at the Earl's Court Exhibition with her gentleman. + +Sounds beastly vulgar, doesn't it? But that's just what I'm making +myself pretty for--dinner there this evening at the French Restaurant +with MY gentleman. It's quite proper: we are a party of four--the other +two I may add are not in Rosamond's or Molly's set. + +I've been interrupted--He has telephoned. The other pair have +disappointed us. Will I defy conventions and dine with HIM alone? + +Of course I will.' + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + +The particular sheet ended at this point. Mrs Gildea laid it down upon +the earlier ones and took another from the little pile which she had +spread in sequence for perusal. She smiled to herself in mournful +amusement. For she scarcely questioned the probability that her friend +would in due course become disillusioned of a very ordinary +individual--he certainly sounded a little like an adventurer--who for +some occult reason had been idealised by this great-souled, wayward and +utterly foolish creature. How many shattered idols had not Lady Bridget +picked up from beneath their over-turned pedestals and consigned to +Memory's dust-bin! On how many pyres had not that oft-widowed soul +committed suttee to be resurrected at the next freak of Destiny! And +yet with it all, there was something strangely elusive, curiously +virginal about Lady Bridget. + +She had been in love so often: nevertheless, she had never loved. Joan +Gildea perfectly realised the distinction. Biddy had been as much, and +more in love with ideas as with persons. Art, Literature, Higher +Thought, Nature, Philanthrophy, Mysticism--she spelled everything with +a capital letter--Platonic Passion--the last most dangerous and most +recurrent. As soon as one Emotional Interest burned out another rose +from the ashes. And, while they lasted, she never counted the cost of +these emotional interests. + +But then she was an O'Hara: and all the O'Haras that had been were +recklessly extravagant, squandering alike their feelings and their +money. There wasn't a member of the house of Gaverick decently well to +do, excepting indeed Eliza, Countess of Gaverick. She had been a +Glasgow heiress and only belonged to the aristocracy by right of +marriage with Bridget's uncle, the late Lord Gaverick, who on the death +of his brother, about the time Bridget was grown up, had succeeded to +the earldom, but not to the estate. + +Gaverick Castle in the province of Connaught, which with the +unproductive lands appertaining to it, had been in the possession of +O'Haras from time immemorial, was sold by Bridget's father to pay his +debts. His brother--the heiress' husband, who, unlike the traditional +spendthrift O'Haras had accumulated a small fortune in business, was +able by some lucky chance to buy back the Castle--partly with his +wife's money--soon after his accession to the barren honours of the +family. His widow inherited the place as well as the rest of her +husband's property, and could do as she pleased with the whole. Thus +the present holder of that ancient Irish title, young, charming and +poor, stemming from a collateral branch, lived mainly upon his friends +and upon the hope that Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, might at her death +leave him the ancestral home and the wherewithal to maintain it. + +As for Bridget's father, the last but one Earl of Gaverick, his career +may be summed up as a series of dramatic episodes, matrimonial, social +and financial. + +His first wife had divorced him. His second wife--the mother of Lady +Bridget--had deserted him for an operatic tenor and had died shortly +afterwards. She herself had been an Italian singer. + +Lord Gaverick did not marry again, and Mrs Gildea had gathered that the +less said about his social adventures the better. Financially, he had +subsisted precariously as a company promoter. There had come a final +smash: and one morning the Earl of Gaverick had been found dead in his +bed, an empty medicine bottle by his side. As he had been in the habit +of taking chloral the Coroner's jury agreed upon the theory of an +overdose. + +Yes, Mrs Gildea could quite understand that apart from general views on +the marriage question, Lady Bridget O'Hara might well shrink from +further connection with City finance. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + +A naughty little gust--herald of the sub-tropical afternoon breeze that +comes up the Leichardt River from the sea, blew about the typed sheets +on the table, and, among them, those of Lady Bridget's letter, as Mrs +Gildea laid them down. + +While she collected the various pages of manuscript that had been +displaced and was bundling them together, with a banana on each sheaf +to keep it safe, there came a second snap of the gate and a man's voice +hailed her. + +It was the voice of a man who sang baritone, and his accent was an odd +combination of the Bush drawl grafted on to the mellifluous Gaelic, +from which race he had originated. + +'Any admittance, Mrs Gildea, except on business, during working hours?' + +'Yes, it is working hours Colin, but you happen to be business because +you're just the person I'm wanting to speak to, so come along.' + +'Good for me, Joan,' and the man came along, clearing the rest of the +garden path and the veranda steps in three strides. + +He gripped Mrs Gildea's hand. + +'You're nice and cool up here, and you get every bit of wind that's +going along the river,' he said. 'It's a good thing you kept this +humpey, Joan--a little nest for the bird to fly home to, eh?' + +'Yes, I'm glad, though it seemed a silly piece of sentiment ... and, as +you say, I always FELT the old bird might want to fly home for a bit +some day. Well, YOU look cool enough, Colin.' + +'This is temperate zone for me after the Leura.... But it's a hot March +because we haven't had a proper rainy season, and I'll just stand here +and catch the breeze for a minute or two before I sit down.' + +He balanced himself on the veranda railing: took off his broad-brimmed +Panama hat and mopped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Mrs Gildea +surveyed him with interested admiration. + +A big man--large-limbed, bony--a typical Scotcher in that--with thin +flanks, a well-set up back and massive shoulders. His face was +browny-red all over except where the skin ran white under the hair and +there was a ruddier ring round the upper part of the throat. His nose +was thin between the eyes, broadening lower, high-bridged and with high +cut nostrils, showing the sensitive red when he was enraged--as not +infrequently happened. He had large honest blue eyes, intensely blue, +of the fiery description with a trick of dropping the lids when he was +in doubt or consideration. They were expressive eyes, as a rule keen +and hard, but they could soften unexpectedly under the influence of +emotion. At other times, according to the quality of the emotion, they +glowed literally like blue flames. He was considered queer-tempered, +rather sulky, and his face often took on a very unyielding expression. + +He had thick reddish-yellow eyebrows at the base of a slightly receding +forehead--wanting in benevolence, phrenologists would have said, and +with the bump of self-esteem considerably developed. His hair was +yellow, pure and simple--the color of spun silk, only coarser, and it +would have curled at the ends had he not worn it close-cropped. His +moustache and beard were rather deeper yellow, the beard short, +well-shaped--the cut of Colin McKeith's beard was almost his only +vanity--there was one other, the 'millionare strut' in town--and he had +the masculine habit of stroking and clasping his beard with his large +open-fingered hand--spatulate tips to his digits, the practical +hand--fairly well kept, though brown and hairy. + +There were lines in his face and a way of setting his features--that a +man gets when he has to front straight some cruel facts of human +existance--to calculate at a glance the chances of death from a black's +spear, a lost trail, an empty water-bag, the horns of a charging +bullock or even worse things than these. + +And such experiences had put a stamp on him, and distinguished him from +the ordinary ruck of men--these and his undeniable manliness, and good +looks. + +He smiled as he glanced amusedly from the littered wind-blown papers on +the table to his hostess' rather troubled face. + +'Well you seem to have a pretty fair show here of what you call +"copy,"' he said. + +Mrs Gildea met his look with one of frank pleasure. + +'That's what I want YOU for.' + +'What's the job?' he asked. 'You ought to know that literary "copy" is +not much in my line. Now if it had been yarding the fowls or cleaning +up the garden, I'd feel more at home as a lady's help.' + +'Colin, you take me back to Bungroopim--when it happened to be a slack +day for you on the run, and when the married couple had levanted and +I'd got an incompetent black-gin in the kitchen--or when the store +wanted tidying and you and I had a good old spree amongst the rubbish.' + +He laughed at a time-honoured joke. + +'Stick sugar-mats and weevilly four-bins; and a breeding paddock of +tarantulas and centipedes and white lizards to clear out. I WAS a bush +hobbledehoy in those days, Joan. It's close on twenty years ago.' + +Joan Gildea gave a little shudder. + +'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and +a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you.' + +'I don't know about that, Joan. I've had my spell of roughing +it--droving, mining, pioneering--humping bluey along the +track--stoney-broke: sold up by the bank and only just beginning now to +find out what Australia's worth.' + +'That's what I said--you are just beginning. Roughing it has made a +splendid man of you, Colin: and who would ever believe that you are +four years older than I am. Colin, you ought to get married.' + +'The Upper Leura is no place for the sort of wife I want,' he returned +shortly. + +'I don't see that. It isn't as if you were going to stop there always. +When you're rich enough you can put on a manager. You've got an +enormous piece of pretty good country, haven't you?' + +'One thousand square miles--and a lot more to be got for the +taking--mostly fair cattle pasture--now that we're going in for +Artesian bores. But it means capital, sinking wells three thousand feet +and more. It'll be three or four years at least before I can see a trip +to Europe--doing the thing in the way I mean to do it.' + +'Must you go to Europe for a wife? Aren't Australian girls good enough?' + +'I've always meant to try for the best. You taught me that, Joan, I +shall follow your example. You were an Australian girl.' + +Mrs Gildea's face saddened. 'Well,' was all she said. + +'You see,' he went on, and the eyes took their narrow concentrated look +and suddenly blazed out as he straightened himself against the veranda +post, 'I know something of what marriage in the back block means: and +I've studied women--don't laugh--I mean theoretically--from books. I've +read history--always managed a couple of volumes or so in my +swag--nights and nights, by the light of a fat lamp and a camp fire. +I've studied the women of great times--ancient and modern--they're +always the same--and I've remarked the type of woman that's got +grit--capacity for fine things--You understand all that as well as I +do, Joan. Look at the women of the French Revolution for one +instance--the aristocrats, you know--well, I've realised that it takes +blood and breeding and tradition behind to carry a woman to the block +with a sure step and a proud smile ...' Suddenly, he became aware of +Joan's gaze, half surprised, wholly interested.... He reddened and +pulled himself up gruffly. + +'Sentimental rot, d'ye call it?' + +'No, Colin, I believe in all that and so do you.' + +'Blood and breeding and tradition--all the grand stuff that's been +grown in them on the NOBLESSE OBLIGE principle--self-respect, courage, +dignity--the stuff that gives staying power as well as the fire for +making good spunk.... Not that I'd put a pure-blood racer to haul up +logs for an iron-bark fence: any more than I'd set out to plant an +English lady of that sort to rough it on the Leura.' + +'Well, why not? Do you want your wife to be like a canary in a cage?' + +'You know I don't hold with gilded cages and spoiling a woman who is +there to be your mate. But all the same, I shan't look out for MY wife +until I can afford to give her as good a show as she'd be likely to +have if the stopped at home. You see, a real woman must be a sportsman +in her way of taking life as much as a man, and I maintain as a general +proposition that it's the English lady--even one of your sneered-at +"Lady Clara Vere de Vere" lot who makes the best front against battle, +murder, and sudden death--if it has to come to that.... Just because,' +he went on, 'though she might have been brought up in a castle and +never have done a hand's turn that could be done for her, she's still +got in her veins the blood of fighting ancestors--men who were ready to +lay down their lives for God and King and country and their women's +honour--and of women too who'd maybe held the stronghold that had been +their husband's reward, and kept the flag flying, when to fail or +flinch meant death or worse.... Why, look at your Lady Nithisdales and +your Lady Russells and your Maria Theresas....' + +'And your Joan of Arc--who was a peasant girl--and your Charlotte +Corday....' + +'Oh, you beat me there.... And I wasn't intending to fire off a speech +anyway.... And anyway, Joan, its awful cheek to think I could ever get +the sort of wife I want, but if I can't, I won't have one at all.... +I'll have my money's worth. Romance--Ideals--something more LIFTING +than beef and mutton and cutting a bigger dash than your neighbour.... +See?' + +He broke off with a laugh, and the wonderfully vivid light that came +into his blue eyes made him look like an ardent youth. + +'And you a democrat!' jeered Mrs Gildea. 'You, a champion of the +people's rights; you, an Imperialist in the broadest sense of the term! +Oh, I really must put you into one of my articles as a certain type of +modern Australian. In fact, Colin, that's what I wanted to talk to you +about.' + +'All right, fire away. We'll drop the marriage question.' + +'To be resumed later.' A quizzical look passed over Mrs Gildea's mouth, +and then, 'Oh, what a pity!' she muttered to herself. + +'What's a pity?' + +'Never mind! The English mail's in--as you may see. I'll show you what +Mr Gibbs says. He didn't like my last letter. He says he wants bones +and sinews, not an artist's lay figure dressed in stage bushman's +clothes. There, Mr McKeith, among your other cogitations on the subject +of women, you may try to realise that the mission of a lady special +correspondent is not all'--she looked round for a metaphor--'Muscat +grapes and pineapple.' + +'Or cooked-up information from heads of departments; or got-up shows of +agricultural, mining and other industries. Or trips to the Bay to see +the model island prison in which our weary criminals rehabilitate their +enfeebled systems by cool sea-breezes and generous diet. Or ministerial +picnics to experimental cotton and sugar plantations the size of your +garden to prove that all tropical products can be raised to perfection +without mentioning the difficulty in a White Australia of finding the +labour to do it.' + +'Oh, don't rub it in, Colin. I'm only a special reporter, and even +special reporters can't know everything. Now, do just sit down and let +me ask you questions. And first of all, do you want a whiskey peg or a +cup of tea, or what?--I've had my late breakfast.' + +'I'll have a smoke, please. Been swearing off store baccy now I'm down +from the Bush. I'm trying hard to smoke cigarettes like one of your +English toffs.' + +He pulled out a copper cigarette case with some hieroglyphical letters +and numbers stamped on it, which he regarded with a humorous smile. + +'Only cost a shilling, but now I've my brand across, it looks fine. You +know that by the Brands Act you've got to have a number and two letters +on every head of stock--My brand's the Mark of the Beast 666 C.K. See?' + +He fixed his cigarette into a new amber mouthpiece, made a wry face, +and began to smoke. + +'I don't think much of your quality of cigarettes,' said Mrs Gildea. +'On the whole, I prefer your tobacco.' + +'All right. Give me my pipe any day--' And he pitched away the +cigarette and produced an ancient pipe, which he filled with tobacco +from an india-rubber pouch and lighted. 'Now, fire away.' + +'Not for a little bit yet. You must read my rejected article and my +official instructions, and then you'll have some grasp of the subjects +I want information upon. Here they are--Mr Gibbs first.' + +She handed him her editor's letters and pushed a small pile of +manuscript towards his elbow. + +'There. It will take you about a quarter of an hour to digest all that; +and meanwhile, if you don't mind the noise, I shall go on typing +something I've got to send off by to-morrow's mail.' + +She settled herself at the typewriter, her back partially turned to +him. The subject matter of what she was doing took all her attention. +She worked hard for about ten minutes, hearing sub-consciously the +rustle of papers under his hand and one or two faint ejaculations and a +queer little laugh he gave once or twice as he read. + +Presently he said: + +'I say, there's a mistake here. I've gone through your editor's +letters. He's sound; I think I can help you to get at what he wants. +But these other sheets have got mixed up with something else. I thought +at first it was a story you'd given me, and I went on reading and got +interested; and now I see it must have been written by some young woman +friend of yours'--if it's meant for a letter.' + +Mrs Gildea turned with a dismayed exclamation. + +'Good gracious! You don't mean to say that I've given you her letter?' + +'Is it really a letter? Do women type letters? It reads to me much more +like what the heroine of a novel would be supposed to say than an +ordinary everyday girl. If that's a flesh and blood woman I'd like to +know her.' + +Mrs Gildea took from him the three typed pages he had in his hand. They +were certainly part of Lady Bridget's letter--almost the whole of it, +for only the end and the beginning ones were missing. In her hurried +rearrangement of the wind-scattered sheets she had put these into the +wrong bundle. She ran her eye anxiously over the badly-typed slips, +which, with their marginal corrections and smart, allusive jargon of a +world entirely removed from Colin McKeith's experience, might easily +have misled him into the belief that he was reading literary 'copy.' Of +course he knew that Joan Gildea wrote novels as well as journalistic +stuff. + +He read her thoughts. + +'You needn't worry. There isn't the least clue to her identity--I +suppose that's what you're afraid of. Not a surname anywhere--I +couldn't have imagined a woman would write like that--give herself +away--as she does. But it's fine all the same. There'd be nothing small +about that woman, Joan. Do you know how it ended?' + +'I don't know yet. But I can guess.' + +'Eh?' He blew out rings of smoke with less than his usual deliberation. +'D'ye think she'll marry the chap?' + +'No--she never does.' + +'She's a flirt, then?' + +'Bid--' Mrs Gildrea swallowed the rest. 'SHE would scorn such a +commonplace suggestion. Do you remember that novel of Hardy's, THE +WELL-BELOVED? She's like the man there, who was always in love with the +same Ideal--under different forms--until he found that he'd made a +mistake, and then the game began all over again.' + +McKeith ruminated. 'SHE'S like that, is she? ... The fellow is what +you'd call a bounder?' he exclaimed suddenly. + +'So I imagine.' + +'But she's in love with him--she must be, or she wouldn't write like +that?' + +'You don't know her. She can't do anything by halves--while she's doing +it.' + +'By Jove, that's what I like. There's a woman who'd never hang on the +fence. And her ideas about love and all that: it's splendid.' + +He brooded again a few moments, while Mrs Gildea sorted her papers +afresh; then he exclaimed: + +'It strikes me, she's one of the sort I was talking about just now.' + +'Well, she WAS born in a castle.' + +'I guessed it.... You won't tell me her name?' + +'How could I--I ask you? After you'd read that!' + +'No. All right. You can trust me not to find out.' + +'Besides, she would never do for you.' + +He laughed quizzically. 'Well, I'm a barbarian, and it's possible I may +some day be a millionaire. But I'm not such a conceited cad as to +imagine a woman like that would ever fall in love with ME!' His voice +sank almost to a reverential tone. 'The only thing I do know is that if +I got the chance, I'd show her I was strong enough to carry her off to +my wigwam and she could do what she pleased afterwards. I'd be her +slave so long as she cared for me--and I'd never live with a woman who +didn't.' + +'My dear Colin, you're not likely to get the chance. Please forget that +you ever read that letter.' + +'No, I can't do that; but as she's in London and we're over here, it's +not much odds anyway. Well, have you found the right sheets? Give them +to me if you have and then we can come to business.' + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + +Colin McKeith had been gone some time and Mrs Gildea, primed with fresh +ideas, had finished her article on the lines he suggested, before she +again tackled Lady Bridget's love-affair. + +The second letter (there is no need to reproduce the page of daring +sentiment that closed the first) was dated from Castle Gaverick in +South Connemara, and plunged straight into the tragic culmination. + +'It's all over, Joan--was over soon after my last letter, but I've been +too wretched ever since to write. If you had been in England you might +have read in one of last week's "MORNING POST'S" that a marriage has +been arranged and will shortly take place between Mr Willoughby Maule, +formerly confidential adviser to His Highness the Rajah of +Kasalpore--and Evelyn Mary, only daughter of the late John Bagallay, +Esq, and the late Mrs Bagally of Bagallay Court, Birmingham. + +Rosamond tells me that Luke told her that Evelyn Mary has been throwing +herself at Will's head ever since they met last year on a P. & O. +steamer between Singapore and Colombo. She and her chaperon went on a +tour round the world, it seems, just before Evelyn Mary came of age. I +wonder they did not get engaged then, and can only conclude--as there +was no ME then to upset the apple-cart--that he did not know how rich +she was going to be. Anyway, I feel certain that it was Evelyn Mary who +was at the back of his plan for settling down as a respectable +stock-jobber. Molly Gaverick--who is a cat--said she knew for certain +Willoughby Maule came to England with the fixed intention of marrying +for birth and position or for money, and that he fancied, in me, he'd +found both--she says that he took his impressions of us from the +paragraphs in the Society papers and thought us much richer an bigger +than we are, and that now he knows better he thinks it safer to drop +birth and make sure of money. + +The Bagallays made theirs in nails. Last year Evelyn Mary came into a +fortune of a quarter of a million. I'm told that it's absolutely at her +own disposal. She was an only child. A quarter of a million would be an +immense temptation to a poor and ambitious man. + +And yet, Joan, I CAN'T believe that Will has been actuated by wholly +sordid motives. He may be an adventurer, but he is not a mean one. + +Rosamond Tallant thinks it much more likely that because I didn't +introduce him to Aunt Eliza, and Chris and Molly never asked him to +dinner, he got the idea that I considered him good enough to amuse +myself with, but not good enough for serious consideration as a +husband. And it's quite true that I always shirked that point when it +was touched upon. If I must be perfectly honest with myself, I think I +was afraid of his putting me at the cannon's mouth and telling me I +must decide then and there to take him or leave him. Should I ever have +had the strength to give him up? He's so frightfully dear to me, that I +can't think of him now without a shudder at the thought of his +belonging to another woman. I never really believed it would come to +that. He once or twice hinted that there WAS a girl--the "nice English +girl" that I had chaffed him about. I had an idea that it was his way +of putting pressure on me. + +The first time was the evening that I dined alone with him at the +Exhibition. Heavens! I grow hot this moment thinking that he may have +supposed I was in the HABIT of dining alone with men in French +restaurants at popular Exhibitions. I don't know why I did for this man +what I'd never done for any other, Partly, I fancy, because it never +dawned upon me that he could misunderstand me. Rosamond says I +idealised him too much, and that he's just the ordinary man and not the +tiniest bit of the Bayard I imagined him. I daresay she's right, and +that he may have laughed in his sleeve at my romantic rhapsodies. + +All the same, I never can convince myself that he is a mere +fortune-hunter. Perhaps the very fact that I didn't make the smallest +effort to wrest him from Mademoiselle Croesus when he tried to make me +jealous seemed proof to him that he was no more to me than a caprice. +So, when we made each other an atrocious scene and I told him to go off +to her, he simply took me at my word. + +The scene began with my telling him about my sort of engagement to +Aubrey Blaine--whom as you know, I was really nearer to marrying than I +have been to marrying anybody. And yet, as I tried to explain to Will, +I didn't WANT to marry Aubrey. Only the mischief with me is always that +I can't hold back with one hand and give with the other... Will wasn't +able to enter into my feelings about that affair in the very least or +to understand how, when it came to the point, I realised that I +COULDN'T sink to domesticity on seven hundred a year. Fancy taking a +house in Pimlico or West Kensington, or one of those horrible places +with a man to whom you have a violent attraction and consulting with +your adored as to whether you could run to three maids and a Tweeny! +The sordidness of it would be too disenchanting. + +When I said something like that to Will, he flared up and we hurled +nasty speeches at each other, and finally he walked off slamming the +door--I used to hear that slam in my dreams sometimes--or it may have +been Luke coming in late--the Tallants' hall door makes a particularly +Kismetish bang. That was our real parting, though it wasn't the last. +He wrote to me--a bitter sort of farewell. And I did a mad thing. I +went to see him in his rooms. But when I got there, his +manner--something he said which offended me--one can't explain the +unexplainable--started the scene all over again. It was as if a mocking +demon came up between us. That time it was I who left him. The next +thing I heard was that he and Mademoiselle Croesus were engaged. + +I wrote to him--I know it wasn't the proper sort of letter--I daresay +he saw through my pretended indifference. He sent me back my letters as +I had asked him to do--wrote me in quite the right strain--said he was +not worthy of me--that I'd shewn him I was far above him--that he might +not presume to think I could be happy with a man of his inadequate +means and position--that he could never forget me--and so on--but that +it was best as it is. + +And now I've got to get what consolation I can out of my own inner +conviction--that it IS best as it is, and that I ought to be thankful +for being still Bridget O'Hara, mistress of my own fate, and free yet +to sport about--sport!--oh, the irony of it--in what you call the +stormy sea of my emotions. + +I make over to you the copyright of my sufferings.' + +The letter broke off abruptly. It was resumed on another sheet six +weeks later at Gaverick Castle. + +'Rosamond Tallant has just sent me a writing case I left at their house +with these pages in it. I daren't read them over, but they'll give you +an idea of my state of mind during those last dreadful weeks in London. +My nerves are now in a little better condition. Since I came here, I've +set myself resolutely NOT to think of Will--that is, not more than I +can help; there are times when his ghost is extremely active. I'm +putting out brain-feelers, for I know that I should go to pieces +altogether if I didn't throw myself into some new interest. So that I'm +trying a system for the development of one's higher faculties that was +taught me by a queer old German professor I met at Caux last summer, +who was interested in the odd little second-sight experiences I've had +occasionally which I told him about. He made me do exercises in +deep-breathing and meditation--you shut yourself up, darken your room +and concentrate upon a subject--Beauty, Wisdom, Friendship, were some +of the subjects he gave me--and you can't think how thrillingly +absorbing it was. I worked frightfully hard at it for a bit, drinking +only distilled water and living on vegetables--you CAN do that in +Switzerland: you simply CAN'T in civilised society--And then came Rome +and the Willoughby Maule episode. + +Episode! Has it come to that! + +Ah Joan, I have a horrible suspicion that however much I may try to +persuade myself I'm concentrating upon some abstract theme, I've really +all the time been thinking of him. + +Yesterday I took Friendship for my study in concentration. You, dear +thing, came up, naturally, and your image actually kept Will away for a +clear five seconds. I thought what a help it would be to be with you, +and afterwards I made the suggestion of an Australian trip on literary +business to Aunt Eliza, but it was no good. She is deeply engaged just +now in driving batches of stuffy relatives in a stuffy brougham--luckily +there's no room for me in it--to still stuffier garden parties. And, +besides, I don't feel that I can take any desperate step of that kind +until the Irrevocable has been written in Destiny's Book. + +Will Maule is not married yet. + +Well, anyhow, the meditation on Friendship was comparatively +successful. Wisdom I found beyond me, and Beauty awakened painful +memories. To-day I mean to concentrate on wealth--one of my Professor's +theories is that if you concentrate regularly on a thing you are bound +in the long run to get what you set your mind upon, and I do find my +position of dependence upon Aunt Eliza too unspeakably galling. What a +monstrous injustice it seems that I--who if I had been born a boy, must +have been Earl of Gaverick, should be at the mercy of an ill-tempered, +miserly, old woman who may leave the home of my forefathers to a +crossing-sweeper if she pleases. I suppose it ought to go to Chris, but +one doesn't feel called upon to arraign Fate on behalf of a distant +cousin who by rights has no business to be Lord Gaverick at all. + +I'm concentrating on Art too. Every day I do some inspirational +painting by the sea shore. I've made some studies of Wave-fairies for +the Children's Story Book we planned to do together. It's quite +invigorating to sport about with them in imagination, in a grey-green +stormy sea, out of reach of human banalities. I can feel the cold spray +as I paint and the sense of power and rest in the elemental forces--an +almost Wagnerian feeling of great Cosmic Realities.' + +Again Mrs Gildea smiled to herself. How like Biddy O'Hara! + +She couldn't be so utterly heart-broken if she was able to practise +deep breathing and concentration--Wealth, Friendship, Art--a pretty +comprehensive repertoire--and to prate on Cosmic Realities and the +Wagnerian feeling! + +But presently the tragic note shrieked again. Bridget went on: + +'I am in a fever of suspense and misery wondering whether Will's +marriage will come off or if, at the last moment, it will be broken. He +has been obsessing me these last days. He too--I am certain of +it--dreads the Irrevocable, and regrets the rupture between us. I dream +of him continually--such restless, tantalising dreams. And yet my mood +is so contradictory. If the marriage WERE broken off and he stood +before me, free, and offered himself!-- + +Could I bring myself to face our future together with all its +depoeticising influences, its almost certainty of friction? No. +Something deep down inside me says--has always said--"It would be a +mistake; this is not the real thing: we are not suited to each other; +the attraction might even turn to repulsion." Imagine the agony of that! + +Life goes on here, all dribble, waste and fret--I cannot concentrate, I +cannot paint--the Wave-fairies won't play--Your Bush gobies appeal more +to my present humour. I feel a sort of nostalgia for the wild--though +my nostalgia is mental, and not from any former association. Do not be +surprised if some day you get a telegram saying that I am coming.' + +Another sheet. + +'Will was married yesterday. I have just read the account of the +ceremony--I can see it all--the usual semi-smart opulent wedding--palms +lining the aisle, Orange blossom galore. The bride "beautiful in cream +satin and old lace"--Evelyn Mary is simply a LUMP--Pages in white +velvet--The fussy overdressed Bagallay crowd of friends--I hear there +are no "in-laws," And the bridegroom's face--dark, cynical--I know the +sort of miserable smile and the queer glitter in his eyes.--"I +WILLOUGHBY TAKE THEE EVELYN MARY... FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE...TILL +DEATH US DO PART "... There! I'm a blathering idiot to mind...I ought +to be dancing with joy at my escape. Let us end the chapter. The +incident is closed, I'm going for a long tramp by the sea and shall +post this on my way. + +Your BIDDY.' + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + +Mrs Gildea was too busy in the next two or three weeks to trouble +herself unduly over Lady Bridget O'Hara's tragic love-affair. She had +to report on the small holders of property in Leichardt's Land and made +a trip for that purpose among the free-selectors in her own old +district. The TWENTY YEARS AFTER letter she wrote about this expedition +for THE IMPERIALIST was one of her best, and for that she was greatly +indebted to Colin McKeith's commentaries. + +Old associations with him had been vividly reawakened by this visit to +the home of her youth. She remembered, as if it had been yesterday, how +McKeith, a raw youth of eighteen with a horrible tragedy at the back of +his young life, had been picked up by her father and brought to +Bungroopim to learn the work of a cattle-station.... hitherto his +experience, such as it was, had been with sheep in the, then, unsettled +north. Joan was herself a girl in short frocks, three or four years +younger than Colin McKeith, and with no apparent prospect of ever +crossing the 'big fella Water,' as the Ubi Blacks called it, or of +joining the band of Bohemian scribblers in London. + +She remembered how quickly Colin had learned his work--remembered how +the shy self-contained lad, with always that grim memory of his boyhood +shaping a vengeful purpose in his mind and making him old for his +years, had developed the flair of the Bush in his hardy Scotch +constitution. She was compelled to own that he had developed, too, some +of the worst as well as the best of those Scotch qualities inherited +from his parents, expatriated though they had been, and from the +staunch clansmen behind them. He had the Scotch loyalty; likewise, the +Scotch tenacity of character which never forgot and very seldom +forgave; the Scotch obstinacy of purpose and opinion; the Scotch +acquisitiveness; a tendency too to 'nearness' in matters of small +expenditure which combined oddly with a generosity amounting almost to +recklessness in large enterprise. It was on the whole not a bad outfit +for a pioneer who meant to get on in his world. + +The beginnings were small, but indicative of the trend of his career. +He contrived, even when he was earning no salary but working only for +his 'tucker,' to get together a horse or two, a cow or two, a specially +good cattle-dog or two, which last he made the nucleus of a profitable +breed. The cows and bullocks he left at Bungroopim when the time came +for him to push out, reclaiming them after they had increased and +multiplied in those pleasant pastures like Jacob's herds in the fields +of Laban. + +Not that there was any seven years matrimonial question. There had been +no Leah. Or if Joan Gildea had ever played the part of Rachel in Colin +McKeith's sentimental dreams, those boyish dreams had left no serious +mark upon him. He had gone north to a newly-formed station and had +there out-bushed the bushman in his knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of +cattle and sheep and his amazing faculty for spotting country suitable +for either. Here no doubt his descent from generations of herdsmen had +stood him in good stead. + +He sold his knowledge to rich squatters in the settled districts who +employed him to take up new country for them and to manage the hundreds +of square miles and the thousands of stock from which they derived the +best part of their wealth. But he only managed for other men until he +had made enough money of his own to take up and stock new country for +himself. + +In a few years he had acquired a moderate-sized herd and established +himself with it on the almost unexplored reaches of the Upper Leura. +Life on that river never lacked dangerous adventure. McKeith's father +had owned a station on the Lower Leura--the bank took it in payment of +their mortgage after the catastrophe occurred. That station had been +the scene of one of the most horrible native outrages in the history of +Australia. The tragedy had set its mark on Colin McKeith. Left a +penniless boy after having worked his way to independent manhood he had +made it his purpose to pursue the wild black with relentless animosity. + +All along the Upper Leura to the fastnesses at the river's head where +his new station stood on the boundaries of civilisation he had gone, +mercilessly punishing native depredations. + +He had been put on trial by a humanitarian Government for so-called +manslaughter of natives, and had been acquitted under an administration +immediately succeeding it. Afterwards he had at the peril of his life, +made an exploring trip across the base of the northern peninsula of the +colony with the intention, as he phrased it, of 'shaking round a bit.' +He 'shook round' to some purpose, penetrated to the Big Bight, and got +on the tracks of a famous lost explorer. Colin McKeith solved the +mystery of that explorer's fate and had his revenge on the Government +which had impeached him by pocketing the reward which it had offered +any adventurous pioneer following on the lost explorer's steps. + +Later, McKeith was given a mission to explore and develop a certain +tract of fertile country between the heads of the Leura and the Big +Bight--the particular Premier instigating the mission being a +far-sighted politician who realised that a Japanese invasion of the +northern coast might eventually interfere very radically with the plan +for a White Australia. + +Colin McKeith threw into his own scheme of life a trip to Japan, by way +of India and China. He volunteered, too, for the Boer War, and did a +short term of service with the Australian Contingent in South Africa. + +He dreamed more and more of becoming an Empire-maker--a sort of +Australian Cecil Rhodes. But he was wise enough to realise that all +Empire-making cannot be on the Rhodesian scale. + +He realised that his personal fortune must first be secured. Without +money one can do nothing. Cecil Rhodes had had the natural wealth of +Rhodesia at his back. McKeith had set himself the task of opening up +the fine country out West, which he knew only needed a system of +irrigation by Artesian Bores to defy drought, the squatters curse. That +object once accomplished--he gave himself with luck and good seasons +five or six years--there would be nothing to stop his becoming a +patriot and a millionaire. + +But Colin went slowly and cannily--and that was why the Leichardt's +Land Government believed in him. He had the reputation of never +spending a penny on his private or public ambitions where a halfpenny +would serve his purpose, and he was known to be a man of deep counsels +and sparing of speech. Thus, no one knew exactly what was his business +down south at this time. Only the general remark was that Colin McKeith +had his head screwed on the right way and that some day he would come +out on top. + +But that there was deep down a spring of romance beneath that hard +Bushman's exterior, Joan Gildea, herself a romance writer, guessed +easily. And her intuition told her that a little thin bore had been +made in the direction of that vital spring of romance by his +inadvertent reading of Lady Bridget O'Hara's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + +Joan saw that McKeith was extremely anxious to know more about the +writer of that letter and the progress of that love-affair, though he +had given his word of honour that he would not try to find out her +identity. But he put subtle questions to Joan about her friends in +England and her acquaintance with the higher circles of society in +London. Once, he asked her straight out whether she had heard again +from her typewriting correspondent, and if the Soldier of Fortune had +proved himself a Bounder, as they had suspected? + +'Yes,' Joan answered unguardedly. 'I'm thankful to say that he is +married to his heiress.' + +The eager light which suddenly shone in McKeith's eyes startled Mrs +Gildea. + +'You don't mean to say that you're thinking of her like that?' she +exclaimed. 'It's no use, Colin.' + +'Probably not,' he answered composedly. 'Tell me, how does she take it?' + +'Deadly seriously. She's practising Deep-breathing and Concentration to +try and drive the man from her thoughts.' + +'What! Oh, you mean Theosophy and that kind of thing. I went to hear +Mrs Annie Besant lecture once, and I couldn't make head or tail of it.' + +'No. You wouldn't. But it was a German Professor who taught B---- No. I +will NOT tell you her name.' + +'Anyway, I know that it begins with a "B." And I know that she's got +one relation called Molly, and another called Chris, and a friend whose +name is Rosamond--likewise that Rosamond is the wife of Luke.... By +Jove!' He stopped short and looked at Mrs Gildea with sharp +enlightenment. + +They were in the veranda of her cottage, and he was seated on the steps +smoking, his long legs stretched out against one veranda post, his +broad back against another. 'Seen the paper this morning?' he asked. + +'No. If you pass the CHRONICLE Office, I wish you'd lodge a complaint +for me against the vagaries of their distribution department. Twice +lately I haven't had the paper till the afternoon.' + +He pulled it from his pocket, and, leaning across, handed it to her. + +'Read the English Telegrams,' he said. + +Joan stopped cleaning her typewriter and examined the column of latest +intelligence. + +'Good gracious! So they've appointed Sir Luke Tallant new Governor of +Leichardt's Land!' + +'Luke!--A coincidence you'll say. No good telling me that. SHE wrote +that "Luke" was hankering after a colonial governorship.' + +'Well, he's got it,' replied Mrs Gildea noncommittally. + +'And if you read the leading article you'll see that the CHRONICLE is +justly outraged at so important a post as that of Governor of +Leichardt's Land being given to an unknown man who has never served +outside the Colonial Office in London and who doesn't even belong to +the noble army of Peers.' + +'That's all nonsense. Luke Tallant's a friend of Chamberlain's, a +thorough Imperialist and a very good man for the post.' + +'You know him then?' + +'I know OF him.' + +'From HER?' + +'HER! Has it come to HER! Colin, if anyone had told me that you would +ever be fool enough to fall in love with a woman you've never seen, I +should have laughed outright. You don't even know what she's like.' + +'I can see her in my mind's eye, as I used to see the women I read +about by my camp fire. You'd never believe either what a queer +idealistic chap I can be when I'm mooning about the Bush. Don't you +know, Joan'--and his voice got suddenly grave and deep-toned--'you +ought to, for you were a bush girl and you've had men-kind out in the +Back Blocks--Don't you know that when a man has got to go on day after +day, week after week, year after year, fighting devils of loneliness +and worse--with nothing to look at except miles and miles of stark +staring gum trees and black, smelling GIDGEE* and dead-finish +scrub--and never the glimpse of a woman--not counting black gins--to +remind him he once had a mother and might have a wife. Well, can't you +see that his only chance of not growing into a rotten HATTER* is to +start picturing in his imagination all the beautiful things he's ever +seen or read about--the sort of lady-wife he hopes to have some day and +in making such a companion of her that she seems to him as real as the +stars and far more real than the gum trees. So as he'll keep saying to +her always in his thoughts: "I'll keep myself sound and wholesome for +your sake. I'll never forget that I'm a gentleman, so as YOU won't +shrink away from me in horror if ever I've the luck to come across YOU +down here on this Earth."' + +[*Gidgee--Colloquial pronunciation of gidia, an Australian tree.] + +[*Hatter--A white man who prefers the society of blacks.] + +He stopped, fitted another cigarette from the copper case into the +holder and, before beginning upon it, said without looking at Mrs +Gildea: + +'I wouldn't spout like that to anybody but you, Joan. My word! Though I +see by your writing that you've a fair notion of how this cursed, grim, +glorious old Bush can play the deuce with a chap--body and brain and +soul--if he doesn't wear the right kind of talisman to safeguard +himself.' + +'Yes--I understand. And your talisman, Colin? What was your picture of +the lady-wife? Describe your Ideal and I'll tell you if SHE is the +least bit like it.' + +McKeith smoked ruminatively for a few moments, his eyes narrowed. The +lines in his forehead and round his mouth showed plainly. He was gazing +out into space, far beyond the sun-flecked Leichardt River and the +Botanical Gardens, and the glaring city and the range of distant hills +on the horizon. + +'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'you can laugh at me if you like, but +I'll tell you how I see HER. She is tall--got a presence, so that if +SHE'S there, you'd know it and everybody else would know it, no matter +how many other women there might be in the place. Most big men take to +their opposites. Now, though I'm a big man I've never fancied a snippet +of a girl. Five foot seven of height is my measure of a woman, and a +good ten stone in the saddle--What are you laughing at, Joan? I'm out +there, I suppose?' + +Mrs Gildea controlled her muscles. + +'No, no, not in the least. In fact, your description fits the Ideal +Wife perfectly. Go on, Colin. Five foot seven and a good ten stone. How +is the rest of HER? Fair or dark--her hair now--and her eyes?' + +'Her hair--oh, it isn't fair--not yellow or noticeable in colour--like +those dyed beauties you see about. Her hair is dark, soft and cloudy +looking. And she's got a small head set like--like a lily on its +stem--and her hair is parted in the middle and coiled smoothly each +side and into a sort of Greek knot....' + +'In short, she's a cross between the Venus of Milo and the Madonna.' + +Mrs Gildea was smiling amusedly. + +'Perhaps.... Something of that sort. Dignity and sweetness, you +know--those are what I admire in a woman. But not too much of the +goddess or of the angel either. I shouldn't want always to have to load +up with a pedestal when we shifted camp, and the only shrine I'd keep +going for her would be in my heart. It's a Mate I'm wanting, as well as +an Ideal.... Now you're laughing again.' + +'No, I'm not. I agree with you entirely--and so would SHE.' + +'There! You needn't tell me. I shouldn't wonder if I'd got the second +sight where SHE'S concerned.' + +Again Mrs Gildea smiled enigmatically. + +'I shouldn't wonder, Colin. But you haven't finished your personal +description. What about the colour of her eyes?' + +'Now I don't believe I could say exactly the colour of her eyes any +more than of her hair. They're the kind, to me, that have no colour. +Soft and melting and sort of mysterious--Deep and clear and with a +light far down in them like starlight reflected in a still lagoon.... I +say, Joan, you remember the old Eight Mile Water-hole on Dingo +Flat--middle of the patch of flooded gum and she-oak--that the Blacks +used to say had no bottom to it? HER eyes seemed to me a bit like that +water-hole--No bottom to her possibilities.' + +'That's true enough,' assented Mrs Gildea. 'There's no bottom to HER +possibilities.' + +'I could tell it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about +things--but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, +and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I +read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything +for a man she really loved.' + +He had a way of lowering his voice when he spoke of love--as if he felt +it a sacred subject; and this in him surprised Joan. She was +discovering a new Colin McKeith. She answered softly. + +'Yes. I think she would--IF she really loved him.' + +'What I haven't been able to make out is whether she did care--does +care--for that chap. You see, that would make a difference.' + +'A difference! How? What do you mean?' + +'I mean that I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I +wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told +me--and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two +and two together--that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our +new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife +is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay with them out +here?' + +The idea had already presented itself to Mrs Gildea, but she tried not +to show that it had, or that there had ever been any question of the +sort in Bridget's mind. Colin had not read the opening sheet of her +letter. + +'I suppose more unlikely things than that have happened,' Joan said +neutrally. 'But really, Colin,' she went on with strenuous emphasis, 'I +can't understand this phase of you. You--a hard-headed Bushman, to be +dreaming romantic dreams and falling all of a sudden over head and ears +in love with--with a figment of your imagination--just because you +happen to have read by mistake some sentimental outpourings of a woman +you know nothing about and who would never forgive me if she knew I'd +let you see her letter.' + +'She won't know--You have my word of honour that I'll never give you +away over that letter--not under ANY circumstances, so you can set your +mind at rest on that score, Joan. And as to my falling in love with--a +figment of my own imagination'--he spat the words out savagely--'we'll +see how far your remark is justified when She does come out and I +recognise her--as I am convinced I shall do directly I set eyes on Her.' + +Mrs Gildea burst into rather hysterical laughter, which manifestly +offended Colin McKeith. + +'We'll drop the subject, please,' he said stiffly. 'And now, Mrs +Gildea, I'm quite at your service for any information you desire about +the Big Bight country and the probability of a Japanese invasion so +soon as our future Commonwealth comes to crucial loggerheads with the +Eastern Powers on the question of a strictly White Australia.' + +After that Colin pointedly abstained from allusion to the Ideal Wife +and to Joan Gildea's Typewriting-Correspondent, as he had called her. +He was very busy himself at this time in connection with a threatened +labour strike that was agitating sheep and cattle owners of the Leura +District. Likewise with a report he had been asked to furnish of a +projected telegraph line for the opening of his 'Big Bight Country'. +Colin McKeith appeared to be deep in the confidence of the Leichardt's +Land Executive Council and to have taken up his abode for the winter +session in the Seat of Government, though he seemed to regard his +recent election for a Northern constituency as an unimportant episode +in a career ultimately consecrated to the elucidation of far-reaching +Imperial problems. + +Joan Gildea found him excellent 'copy,' and the great Gibbs +cablegrammed, in code, approval of her lately-tapped source of +information. + +She almost forgot Bridget O'Hara in her absorption in colonial topics. +But three weeks before the expected arrival of the new Governor of +Leichardt's Land a cablegram was shot at her from Colombo which made +her feel that there was no use in setting oneself against Destiny. This +was the wire: + + EXPECT ME WITH TALLANTS BIDDY. + +She said nothing to Colin McKeith about the message--partly because his +movements were erratic and he was a good deal away from Leichardt's +town just then. Thus Mrs Gildea did not know whether or not he had read +the flowery description telegraphed by a Melbourne correspondent who +interviewed Sir Luke Tallant and his party at that city and wired an +ecstatic paragraph about the beautiful Lady Bridget O'Hara who was +accompanying her friend and distant relative, the Honourable Lady +Tallant. + +Anyway, McKeith made no references to the newspaper correspondent's +rhapsodies when he paid Mrs Gildea a short visit two or three days +before the landing of the new Governor. But his very reticence and +something in his expression made Joan suspect that he was puzzled and +excited, and would have been glad had she volunteered any information +about Lady Tallant's companion. Joan, however, kept perverse silence. +In truth, she felt considerably nervous over the prospect. What was +going to happen when Colin McKeith set eyes on Bridget? + +Joan Gildea was a simple woman though circumstances had made her a +shrewd one, and she had all the elementary feminine instincts. She +believed in love and in strange affinities and in hidden threads of +destiny--all of which ideas fitted beautifully on to Bridget O'Hara's +personality, but not at all on to that of Colin McKeith. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + +The first dinner-party given by Sir Luke and Lady Tallant at Government +House included Mrs Gildea and Colin McKeith. + +These two met in the vestibule as they emerged respectively from the +ladies' and gentlemen's cloak-room. Both held back to allow certain +Members of the Ministry to enter the drawing-room before them, which +gave opportunity for an interchange of greetings. + +'Well!' both said at once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was +uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning. +'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where +have you been all these three weeks?' + +'At Alexandra City, close on the desert, where they bored for water and +struck ready-made gas--the whole place now is lighted with it. If you +like, I'll give you material for a first-rate article upon an uncommon +phenomenon of Nature.' + +'Thank you. I shall be grateful. Colin'--hesitatingly, 'I did think +you'd have come and looked after an old friend at the big Show in the +Botanical Gardens when the Governor made his State Entry.' + +'State Entry! Good Lord! Sir Luke Tallant has got a bit too much red +tape and too many airs about him to suit the Leichardt'stonians.' + +'You WERE there, then?' + +'Started for Alexandra City that afternoon.' + +'But you saw--Colin did you see--the Tallants and--their party? + +His face changed: it looked positively angry, and his jaw under the +neatly trimmed, sandy beard, protruded determinedly. But at that moment +a footman came towards them, and Mrs Gildea was handed on to an +imposing butler and ushered through a wide palm-screened doorway into +the large inner hall which had a gallery round it and the big staircase +at one end. Joan saw that the room, formerly stiffly furnished and used +chiefly as a ballroom, had been transmogrified with comfortable lounge +chairs and sofas, beautiful embroideries, screens, a spinet and many +flowers and books into a delightful general sitting-room. It seemed +quite full--mostly of official Leichardt'stonians. Joan looked for the +new Governor and his wife, or at least for Lady Biddy, but none of them +had yet put in an appearance. A handsome, fair-moustachioed young +aide-de-camp, looking very smart in his evening uniform with white +lapels, was fluttering round, his dinner list in his hand, and +introducing people who already knew each other. He looked distinctly +worried, so did the private secretary--sallow-faced, of a clerkish +type, and obviously without social qualifications--who was also +wandering round and trying ineffectively to do the right thing. The +aide-de-camp rushed forward to shake hands with Joan, exclaiming in a +relieved undertone: + +'Oh, Mrs Gildea, do help me. I believe I've made an awful hash of it +all. People out here,' he murmured, 'ain't used to viceregal etiquette +as she is interpreted in Ceylon--that was my last post you know. They +seem to think his Excellency ought to have been standing at the door to +receive THEM, instead of their waiting to receive HIM.' + +Clearly, the aide-de-camp had failed to please, though he looked +spruced and his manners were beautiful. The Premier of Leichardt's +Land, a red-faced gentleman of blunt speech, was grumbling audibly to +the Attorney-General. Mrs Gildea caught snatches of discontent as she +passed from one to another. + +'Damned impertinence, I call it. A salaried official, no better than +any of us, giving himself royal airs.... May do in India... won't go +down in a free country like this.' + +The AIDE finished pairing his couples. + +'Mrs Gildea, you're to go in with the Warden of the University. Of +course you know Dr Plumtree? Literature and learning is an obvious +combination, but' (in a confidential aside) 'if you KNEW the job I've +had to find out the right order of precedence. Mr McKeith, the Governor +will be so glad to meet you. Will you take in Lady Bridget O'Hara? +She's not down yet. You see,' he explained again to Mrs Gildea, 'we're +strictly official to-night and Debrett's out of it.' + +'So am I,' put in Colin McKeith. 'I guess that Lady Bridget would be +better pleased if she wasn't handed over to a rough bushman.' + +'Now, there you ARE quite out of it,' laughed the aide-de-camp. 'Lady +Bridget asked specially to be sent in with you,' and at Mrs Gildea's +enquiring smile, he explained once more: 'Sir Luke was speaking about +Mr McKeith, said his name had been mentioned at a meeting of the +Executive yesterday. Oh! you're top hole, Mr McKeith, I assure you.' + +The AIDE broke off suddenly. + +There was a rustle of silk on the grand staircase--the slam of a door +above, the sound of a laugh and the patter of little high-heeled shoes +on the parquet floor of the gallery. The AIDE darted to the foot of the +staircase and all eyes turned upward. + +The new Governor and his wife came down in slow and stately fashion, +arm-in-arm, Sir Luke looking very impressive with the Ribbon and Order +of St Michael and St George. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven but +for a heavy dark moustache, and carried his dignities with perhaps a +little too conscious an air--'Representative of the Throne' seemed +written all over him and no greater contrast could be imagined than the +new Governor presented to his predecessor, an elderly, impoverished +marquis who had the brain of a diplomatist and the manners of a British +farmer, and who with his homely wife had been immensely popular in +Leichardt's Land. + +Nor a greater contrast than the new Governor's wife to the fat, kindly, +old marchioness. Lady Tallant was a London woman, of about forty-five. +She had been excessively pretty, but had rather lost her looks after a +bad illness, and her worst affliction was now a tendency to +scragginess, cleverly concealed where the chest was no longer visible. +Obviously artificial outside, at any rate Lady Tallant was, as Mrs +Gildea had reason to believe, a genuine sort underneath. She had a +thin, high-nosed face of the conventional English aristocratic type, a +good deal rouged to-night, but with natural shadows under the eyes and +below the arch of the brows which were toned to correspond with the +evidently dyed hair. Her dress, a Paris creation of pale satin and +glistening embroidery, was draped to hide her thinness, and her neck +and throat were almost covered with strings of pearls and clusters of +clear-set diamonds. Judging from the way in which the +Leichardt'stonians stared at her as she came down the stairs, it seemed +probable that none of them had ever before seen anyone quite like Lady +Tallant. + +Joan Gildea's eyes passed quickly from Sir Luke and Lady Tallant to a +third figure behind them, on the half-landing, but first she realised +in a flashing glance that Colin McKeith's gaze had been all the while +riveted upon that figure. Not in astonishment--a proof to Joan that he +had seen it before--but in a kind of unwilling fascination, most +upsetting to Mrs Gildea's sense of responsibility in the matter. + +The Visionary Woman of the camp-fire! And she had let Colin McKeith +believe that Bridget O'Hara was the embodiment of his Ideal--height +five foot seven at the least: weight ten stone or more: smooth-parted, +Greek-coiled hair: a cross between a goddess and a Madonna--that was +Colin's Ideal--Good Heavens! What did he now behold? A very little +woman. One of the snippets he despised. Not an ounce of the traditional +dignity about her. Lady Bridget gave the impression of an +old-fashioned, precocious child, dressed up in a picture frock of soft +shining white stuff, hanging on a straight slender form and gathered +into a girdle at the waist, with a wisp of old lace flung carelessly +over the slight shoulders. She stood for a moment or two on the half +landing, then, as the aide-de-camp murmured in the Governor's ear at +the foot of the stairs, she came close to the bannisters and looked +down amusedly at the party in the hall. Her face was a little poked +forward--a small oval face, pale except for the redness of a rather +thin-lipped mouth--the upper lip like a scarlet bow--and the brilliance +of the eyes, deep-set under finely-drawn brows and with thick lashes, +golden-brown, and curling up at the tips. Peculiar eyes: Mrs Gildea, +who knew them well, never could decide their exact colour. The nose was +a delicate aquiline, the chin pointed. An untidy mass of wavy chestnut +hair stuck out in uneven puffs and insubordinate curls, all round the +small head. At this moment Mrs Gildea remembered a suggestive charm +sent to Lady Bridget by her cousin, Chris Gaverick, one Christmas, of a +miniature gold curry-comb. + +It was a vivid brief impression, for the girl moved on immediately, but +Joan noticed that Colin McKeith had arrested Lady Bridget's wandering +gaze. That was not surprising, for his great height and the +distinctiveness of his appearance, made him more likely than anyone +else present to attract her attention. Then, as she caught sight of +Joan, the interested, startled look changed to one of bright +recognition, the red lips smiled, showing dimples at their sensitive +corners. + +'His Excellency and Lady Tallant,' said the aide-de-camp, and Bridget +seemed hardly able to keep herself in the background while Sir Luke and +his wife advanced to greet the assembled guests. This, Lady Tallant did +with quite enchanting courtesy, making an apt apology for having kept +them waiting, which almost mollified the irate Premier. Bridget came +with a swift gliding movement to the side of her friend, squeezed her +hand and held it, while she talked in a soft rapid monotone. + +'How cool you look. I've never been so hot in my life. And the +mosquitoes! Rosamond is in despair. She says she really can't afford to +lose more flesh. Do you see how she has had to make herself up to hide +the mosquito bites? Luckily, I've got a skin that insects don't find +palatable....' + +They had of course met since the Landing. Joan had paid her formal +visit, had lunched at Government House, and was now on intimate terms +with the new people. Also, Lady Bridget had found her way to the +cottage on Emu Point. + +She looked round at the different groups and gave a cynical little +shrug. + +'Why! it's like everything one had left behind! I might be at a party +to the Colonial Delegates in London for all the difference there is. +Where's your barbarism, Joan? ... I'm pining for a savage existence.... +That's an excessively good-looking man'--her eyebrows indicated Colin +McKeith--'I do hope he is the man I asked for to take me in to +dinner--I told Vereker Wells that I wanted a new sensation--that man +looks as if he might give it to me--No, don't tell me: there's +excitement in uncertainty.' + +She went on in eager monologue, giving no time for replies. + +'It seems we've put the official backs up. Vereker Wells was determined +to follow Indian vice-regal precedents--so ridiculous--as I told him: +and as for Luke, he's got it on the brain that his mission is to uphold +the dignity of the British Throne. Like a NOUVEAU RICHE--terribly +afraid of doing the wrong thing and showing every moment that he's new +to the great Panjandrum part.... Ah so!' ... an ejaculatory trick of +Bridget's. 'He IS my fate!' + +Captain Vereker Wells brought up Colin who was holding himself stiffly, +limping just a little, as he did when he was nervous, and looking very +big and strong and masterful--likewise extraordinarily well-groomed and +tailored. + +'Lady Bridget O'Hara, let me present Mr Colin McKeith.' + +Lady Biddy looked up at Colin and he looked down at her. + +'Do you think I can POSSIBLY reach your arm?' as he held his elbow +crooked to about the level of her shoulder. 'You know I asked to be +sent in with you--it was rather bold of me, wasn't it? But if I had +known how VERY tall you are!' + +Mr McKeith lowered his arm, stooping over her, and Mrs Gildea heard him +say in a voice that sounded different somehow from his ordinary deep +drawl: + +'I wonder why I was chosen for this honour?' + +And Bridget's reply: + +'I'd been told that you were an explorer--that you're a kind of Bush +Cecil Rhodes--I don't know Mr Cecil Rhodes, but I have an adoration for +him--I wanted to talk to a real Bushman--I always felt that I should +like Australian Bushmen from Joan Gildea's description of them.... And +you....' + +The rest was lost, as the groups converged and the long line of couples +went forward. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + +It was not an altogether successful party. The dinner had portentous +suggestiveness; the Leidchardt'stonians were at first rather difficult. +Sir Luke a little too conscious of his responsibilities towards the +British Throne: Lady Tallant so brilliant as to be bewildering. But +except as it concerns Lady Bridget and McKeith, the Tallant's first +dinner-party at Government House is not of special importance in this +story. Mrs Gildea, very well occupied with Dr Plumtree, only caught +diagonal glimpses of her two friends a little lower down on the +opposite side of the table, and, in occasional lulls of conversation, +the musical ring of Lady Bridget's rapid chatter. Colin did not seem to +be talking much, but every time Mrs Gildea glanced at him, he appeared +absorbed in contemplation of the small pointed face and the farouche, +golden-brown eyes turned up to him from under the top heavy mass of +chestnut hair. Lady Bridget, at any rate, had a great deal to say for +herself, and Mrs Gildea wondered what was going to come of it all. + +Conversation became more general as champagne flowed and the courses +proceeded. + +Sir Luke, discreetly on the prowl for information, attacked Antipodean +questions--the Blacks for instance. He had observed the small company +of natives theatrically got up in the war-paint of former times, which, +grouped round the dais on which he had been received at the State +Landing, had furnished an effective bit of local colour to the pageant. +Up to what degree of latitude might these semi-civilised, and he feared +demoralised beings, be taken as a survival of the indigenous population +of Leichardt's Land? Did wild and dangerous Blacks still exist up north +and in the interior of the Colony? + +'You'd better ask McKeith about that, your Excellency,' said the +Premier. 'He knows more about the Blacks up north than any of us.' + +The Governor enquired as to the amenability of the Australian native to +missionary methods of civilisation, and one of the other Ministers +broke in with a laugh. + +'Bible in one hand and baccy in the other! No, Sir, the Exeter Hall and +General Gordon principles aren't workable with our Blacks. Kindness +doesn't do. The early pioneers soon found that out.' + +Lady Bridget had stopped suddenly in her talk with Colin, and was +listening, her eyes glowering at her companion. + +'Why didn't kindness do?' she asked sharply. + +'Yes; Mr McKeith, tell us why the early pioneers abandoned the gentle +method,' said the Governor. + +McKeith's face changed: it became dark and a dangerous fire blazed in +his blue eyes. + +'Because they found that the Blacks repaid kindness with +ingratitude--treachery--foul murder--' He pulled himself up as though +afraid of losing command of himself if he pursued the subject: his +voice thrilled with some deep-seated feeling. Mrs Gildea, who +understood the personal application, broke in across the table with an +apposite remark about her own early experiences of the Blacks. Lady +Bridget impatiently addressed McKeith. + +'Go on. What do the Blacks do now to you people to make you treat them +unkindly?' + +'What do they do now--to us squatters you mean?' Colin had recovered +himself. 'Why they begin by spearing our cattle and then they take to +spearing ourselves.' + +'Did they ever spear you?' she asked. + +Colin smiled at her grimly. + +'Well, you wouldn't have noticed, of course, that I've got just a touch +of a limp--it's only if I'm not in my best form that it shows. I owe +that to a spear through my thigh one night that the Blacks rushed my +camp when I was asleep. And I'd given their gins rations that very +morning.' + +'And then?' Lady Bridget's voice was tense. + +'Oh then--after they'd murdered a white man or two, the rest of us +whites--there wasn't more than a handful of us at that time up on the +Leura--banded together and drove them off into the back country. We had +a dangerous job with those Blacks until King Mograbar was shot down.' + +'King Mograbar! How cruelly unjust. It was his country you were +STEALING.' She accentuated the last word with bitter scorn. + +'Well! If you come to that, I suppose Captain Cook was stealing when he +hoisted the British flag in Botany Bay,' said McKeith. + +'And if he hadn't, what about the glorious British record, and the +March of Civilisation?' put in Vereker Wells. + +Bridget shot a scathing glance at the aide-de-camp. + +'I don't admire your glorious British record, I think it's nothing but +a record of robbery, murder, and cruelty, beginning with Ireland and +ending with South Africa.' + +'Oh! my dear!--I warn you,' said Lady Tallant, bending from her end of +the table and addressing the Leichardt'stonians generally. 'Lady +Bridget is a little Englander, a pro-Boer, a champion of the poor +oppressed native. If she had been alive then she'd have wanted to hand +India back to the Indians after the Mutiny, and now when she has made +Cecil Rhodes Emperor of Rhodesia, she'll give over all the rest again +to the Dutch.' + +Bridget responded calmly to the indictment. + +'Yes, I would--if Cecil Rhodes were to decline the Emperorship of all +South Africa--which I should make his job.... But you'd better add on +that I'm a Socialist too, Rosamond, because I've become one, as you +know. I think the working man is in a shamefully unjust position, and +that the capitalists are no better than slave-drivers.' + +'Oh, not out here, my word!' exclaimed a Leichardt'stonian who happened +to be one of the old squattocracy. 'The landowners and the capitalists +are not slave-drivers, they are slave-driven. We've got to pay what the +Trades' Union organisers tell us--or else go without stockmen or +shearers. Fact is, our Labour War is only just beginning; and I can +tell you, Sir, that before a year is out the so-called bloated +capitalist and the sheep and cattle station owner will sing either +pretty big or very small.' + +'I don't think it will be very small--on MY station,' murmured McKeith. +'But it's quite true about the Labour War. They're organising, as they +call it, already all along the Leura.' + +The Governor asked to have the Labour situation explained from the +squatters' point of view; and for a few minutes McKeith forgot to look +at Lady Bridget. He was on his own ground and knew what he was talking +about. + +'It's this way,' he began. 'You see, though, I'm cattle--and I'm the +furthest squatter out my way. But there are a few sheep stations down +the river, and there isn't an unlimited supply of either cattle-hands +or shearers, so we've got to look sharp about hiring them. Now, last +year, we--of course I'm classing myself with the sheep-owners, for we +all stand together--hired our shearers for seventeen shillings and +sixpence a day. Then, up come the Union organisers, form a Union of the +men and say to them: "You've got to pay ten shillings down to the Union +and sign a contract that you won't shear under twenty shillings a day." +The Organiser pockets the ten shillings, and makes three pounds a week +and his expenses besides, so it pays HIM pretty well. Well then, the +shearers go to the squatters. "All right," say they, "we'll shear your +sheep, but it's going to be twenty shillings instead of seventeen and +six." The squatters grumble, but they've got to have their sheep shorn, +and they pay the twenty shillings. Next year, I'm told, the word is to +go round that it's to be twenty-two and sixpence. Well sir, we're to +see what's to happen then!' + +The Labour talk lacked local picturesqueness. Sir Luke preferred the +Blacks, and started the question of danger to white men in the +out-districts. How far had officialdom penetrated into the back blocks? +He understood that Mr McKeith had explored for the laying of a +telegraph-line to the Big Bight. Could Mr McKeith give him any +information about all that? + +McKeith explained again. He had stopped a week, he said, at the last +outpost of Leichardt's land civilisation. The telegraph master there +lived in a hut made of sheets of corrugated zinc, raised on piles +twenty feet high and fortified against the Blacks. The entrance to it +was masked, spear-proof and had two men always on guard--there were +four men at the post. McKeith told a gruesome story of an assault by +the natives, and of rifles at work through gun-holes in the zinc tower. + +Lady Bridget listened in silence. Now and then, she looked up at +McKeith, and, though her eyes gave forth ominous red-brown sparks, they +had in them something of the same unwilling fascination Joan Gildea had +noticed in the eyes of Colin McKeith. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + +In the drawing room, before the men came in, Bridget talked to Joan +Gildea. They hadn't yet had, as Biddy reminded her, a regular +outpouring. The outpouring it should be stated, was always mostly on +Bridget's side. + +'When did you start Socialism?' Mrs Gildea asked. 'That's something +new, isn't it?' + +Biddy gave one of her slow smiles in which lips, eyes, brows, what +could be seen of them under her towzle of hair--all seemed to light up +together. + +'Why, I've always been a Socialist--in theory, you know. I've ALWAYS +rebelled against the established order of things.' + +'But latterly,' said Joan, 'I haven't heard anything about your +doings--not since you wrote from Castle Gaverick after--after Mr +Willoughby Maule's marriage?' + +The light died out of Bridget's face. 'Ah, I'll tell you--Do you know, +Rosamond saw them--the Willoughby Maules before we all left. She met +them at Shoolbred's--buying furniture. Rosamond said SHE was dragging +after him looking--a bundle--and cross and ill; and that he seemed +intensely bored. Poor Will!' + +There was silence, Bridget's thoughts seemed far away. + +'But about the Socialism?' prompted Mrs Gildea. + +'Oh well, Aunt Eliza made up her mind suddenly to consult her new +doctor--Aunt Eliza's chief excitement is changing her doctors, and she +grows quite youthful in the process. They say that love and religion +are the chief emotional interests of unattached women. I should add on +doctors when a woman is growing old. Don't you think, Joan, that in +that case, all three come invariably to the same thing?' + +'Love, religion and doctors! As emotional interests, do they come to +the same thing for elderly women?' repeated Mrs Gildea, as if she were +propounding a syllogism. 'No, certainly not, when the elderly woman +happens to be a hard-working journalist.' + +'Oh, there you have the pull--I suggested the idea to Rosamond the +other day and she gave a true Rosamondian answer. "They don't come at +all to the same thing," she said, "because usually you have to pay your +doctor and SOMETIMES your lover pays you." Rather smart, wasn't it?' + +'Yes, but I think you'd better warn Lady Tallant that the +Leichardt'stonian ladies are a bit Puritanical in their ideas of +repartee.' + +'Oh, Rosamond is clever enough to have found that out already for +herself;' and the two glanced at Lady Tallant, who seemed to be playing +up quite satisfactorily to the female representatives of the +Ministerial circle. + +'I suppose you made friends with some Socialists when you were in +London?' went on Mrs Gildea. + +'My dear, I would have made friends with Beelzebub just them, if he +would have helped me to escape from myself.' + +Bridget sighed and paused. + +'But you ARE getting over it, Biddy--the disappointment about Mr Maule? +You ARE growing not to care?' + +'I don't want to grow not to care--though, of course, now I should +prefer to care about someone or something that isn't Willoughby Maule, +I feel inside me that my salvation lies in caring--in caring +intensely.... But you wouldn't understand, Joan. You weren't built that +way.' + +'No,' assented Mrs Gildea doubtfully. + +'But,' went on Biddy brightly, 'I think sometimes that if one could get +to the pitch of feeling nothing matters, it would be a way of reaching +the "letting go" stage which one MUST arrive at before one can even +BEGIN to live in the Eternal.' + +There seemed something a little comic in the notion of Bridget O'Hara +living in the Eternal, and yet Mrs Gildea realised that there really +was a certain stable quality underneath the flashing, ever changing +temperamental sheath, which might perhaps form a base for the Verities +to rest upon. + +'Beelzebub didn't teach you that,' she said. + +'No, quite the contrary. It all came out of my concentration studies +and the Higher Thought Centre where I met some most original +dears--Christian Scientists and Spiritualists--and then these +Socialists--not a bit on the lines of the old Fabians and Bernard +Shavians and the rest who used to believe only in Matter--specially +landed property matter--and in parcelling that out among themselves. My +friends are for parcelling out what they call the Divine Intelligence, +which they say will bring them everything they need for the good of +others and, incidentally, themselves. Of course none of them have a +penny. But they do contrive to get what they want for other people--it +was a soup kitchen this winter where they fed 11,000 starving poor. +Only, when they begin, they never have the smallest idea of HOW it's +going to be done.' + +Lady Bridget was so absorbed in her subject matter that she did not +notice the entrance of the men; but Mrs Gildea saw that Colin McKeith +was making straight towards them. He halted behind Bridget's chair. +Biddy went on in reply to a question from her friend. + +'You see, they argue this way, "We don't know," they say, "the HOW of +the simplest things in life, we don't know the HOW of our actual +existence--how we move or think--not even the HOW of the most ordinary +fact in science. We only know that there must be an Intelligence who +does know and who has forces at command and the power to set them in +motion."' + +'And how do we know that?' asked Colin McKeith. + +Bridget turned with a start and looked at him solemnly for a second or +two. + +'You paralyse me: you are too big. I can't speak to you when you are +standing up. Please sit down.' + +He went to fetch a chair. At the moment, Lady Tallant came up. + +'Biddy, will you sing. Do for Heaven's sake make a sensation. Help me +out! You know how!' + +Lady Bridget had a funny inscrutable little smile and a gleam in her +eyes which crinkled up when she was going to say or do something rather +naughty. + +'I'll do my best, Rosamond. But you don't think it would be a dangerous +experiment, do you?' + +Lady Tallant laughed, and told Captain Vereker Wells to take her to the +piano. + +'YOU know that Biddy does a lot of mischief when she sings,' said the +Governor's wife, sitting down in Lady Bridget's vacant place beside Mrs +Gildea. Colin McKeith, still on the outskirts with his chair, stood +leaning upon it, watching the performer. + +The piano was in such a position that Lady Bridget faced him. + +A vain man might have fancied that she was singing at him, and that the +by-play of her song--the sudden eye-brightenings, the little twists of +her mouth, the head gestures, were for his particular benefit. + +She was singing one of the Neapolitan folk-songs which one hears along +the shores of the Mediterranean beyond Marseilles--a love song. + +Most people know that particular love-song. Lady Bridget gave it with +all the tricks and all the verve and whimsical audacity of a born +Italian singer. Well, she was Italian--on one side at least, and had +inherited the tricks and a certain quality of voice, irresistibly +catching. And she looked captivating as she sang--the small pointed +face within its frame of reddish-brown hair, the strange eyes, the +expressive red lips, alive with coquetry. The men--even the old +politicians, listened and stared, quite fascinated. + +Some of the Leichardt's Town ladies--good, homely wives and mothers +who, in their early married days of struggle, had toiled and cooked and +sewed, with no time to imagine an aspect of the Eternal Feminine of +which they had never had any experience, were perhaps a little shocked, +perhaps a little regretful. One or two others, younger, with budding +aspirations, but provincial in their ideals, were filled with wonder +and vague envy. + +A few of them had made the usual trip 'Home,' landing at Naples and +journeying to London, via Monte Carlo and Paris, and these felt they +had missed something in that journey which Lady Bridget was now +revealing to them. Joan Gildea, whose profession it was to realise +vividly such modes of life as came within her purview, felt herself +once more in the blue lands girdling the Sea of Story--It all came back +upon her--moonlight nights in Naples; on the Chiaja; looking down from +her windows on sunny gardens on the Riviera, and the strolling +minstrels in front of the hotel.... + +As for Colin McKeith who had never been in the Blue Land and knew +little even of the British Isles except for London--chiefly around St +Paul's School, Hammersmith--and the Scotch Manse where he had +occasionally spent his holidays--even he was transported from the +Government House drawing-room. Where? .... Not to the realm of visions +such as he had seen in the smoke of his camp fire. Oh no. He had never +dreamed of this kind of enchantment. + +A fresh impulse seized the singer. She struck a few chords. A familiar +lilt sounded. Her face and manner changed. She burst into the famous +song of CARMEN. She WAS CARMEN. One could almost see the swaying form, +the seductive flirt of fan. There could be no doubt that had the voice +been more powerful, Lady Bridget might have done well on the operatic +stage. + +Yet it had a TIMBRE, a peculiar, devil-may-care passion which produced +a very thrilling effect upon her audience. She got up when she had +finished in a dead silence and was half-way across the room before the +applause burst out. There was a little rush of men towards her. + +'Beats Zelie de Lussan and runs Calve hard,' said the Premier who had +made more than one trip to England and considered himself an authority +in the matter. + +Bridget skimmed through the groups of admirers, stopping to murmur +something to Lady Tallant who had met her half way; then stopped with +hands before her like a meek schoolgirl, in front of Mrs Gildea and +Colin McKeith--he almost the only man who had made no movement towards +her. Bridget sank into her former seat. + +'The last time I sang that was at a Factory Girls' entertainment at +Poplar,' she said... 'You should have seen them, Joan: they stood up +and tried to sing in chorus and some of them came on to the platform +and danced.... Mr McKeith you look at me as if I had been doing +something desperately improper. Don't you like the music of CARMEN?' + +Colin was staring at her dazedly. + +'It seemed to me a kind of witchcraft,' he said.... 'I should think you +might go on the stage and make a fortune like Melba.' + +She laughed. 'Why my voice is a very poor thing. And besides, I could +never depend upon it.' + +'Everything just how you feel at the time, eh?' he said. 'You wouldn't +care what you did if you had a mind to do it.' + +'No,' she answered. 'I shouldn't care in the least what I did if I had +a mind to do it.' + +There was the faintest mimicry of his half Scotch, half Australian +accent in her voice--a little husky, with now and then unsuspected +modulations. She looked at him and the gleam in her eyes and her +strange smile made him stare at her in a sort of fascination. Joan knew +those tricks of hers and knew that they boded mischief. She got up at +the moment saying that people were going and that she must bid Lady +Tallant good-night. + +Then the Premier's wife came up shyly; she wanted to thank Lady Bridget +for her singing. It had been as good as the Opera--They sometimes had +good opera companies in Leichardt's Town, etcetera, etcetera. + +Lady Bridget made the prettiest curtsey, which bewildered the Premier's +wife and gave her food for speculation as to the manners and customs of +the British aristocracy. She had always understood you only curtsied to +Royalty. But she took it as a great compliment and never said anything +but kind words about Bridget ever after. + +Colin McKeith escorted Mrs Gildea to her cab and as they waited in the +vestibule, obtained from her a few more particulars of Lady Bridget +O'Hara's parentage and conditions. But he said not a word implying that +he had discovered her identity with the author of the typed letter. + +'I'll come along to-morrow morning if I can manage it, and tell you +about Alexandra City and the Gas-Bore,' he said carelessly as she shut +the fly door. Joan wondered whether he had caught Lady Biddy's parting +words in the drawing room. + +'If Rosamond doesn't insist on my doing some stuffy exploration with +her, I'll bring my sketches some time in the morning, Joan, and you can +see whether any of them would do for the great god Gibbs.' + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + +'And what are you going to do, Biddy? How long are you going to stay +with the Tallants?' + +'Until Rosamond gets tired of me--or I feel no further need of the +moral support of the British Throne,' answered Lady Bridget lightly. +'I'm not sure whether I shall be able to stand Luke's Jingo attitude in +regard to Labour and the Indigenous Population--all the Colonial +problems in capitals, observe. He does take his position so +strenuously; it's no good my reminding him that even the Queen is +obliged to respect a Constitutional government.' + +Bridget took a cigarette from a gold case with her initials in tiny +precious stones across it, and handed the case to Mrs Gildea who shook +her head. + +'Still too old-fashioned to smoke! I should have thought you'd have +been driven to it here to keep the mosquitoes at a distance.... + +'Do you like my case, Joan? Willoughby Maule gave it to me,' she asked. + +'You didn't return it then?' + +'Why should I have hurt his feelings? We weren't engaged.' A meditative +pause and then suddenly, 'Evelyn Mary doesn't smoke. Nice girls don't!' + +'Biddy, I shall be sorry for Evelyn Mary if the Maules are to live in +London and you go back there again--which I suppose you will do.' + +'You needn't suppose for certain that I shall go back.' She savoured +her cigarette slowly. 'I can't go on with that old life, the sort of +life one has to lead with Aunt Eliza and the Gavericks and their set. I +can't go on pushing and striving and rushing here and there in order to +be seen at the right houses and join the hunt after fleeing eligibles.' + +She gave a bitter little laugh, and then her tone changed to that +ripple of frivolity in which nevertheless Mrs Gildea discerned the +under-beat of tragedy. + +'Besides, even so, it's incongruous--impossible. I've come to the +conclusion that the only things which make London--as I've known +it--endurable are unlimited credit at a good dressmaker--Oh, and one of +the beautiful new motor-cars. You don't mind travelling from Dan to +Beersheba if you can do it in five minutes. But when you've got to +catch omnibuses or take the Tube, dressed in garden-party finery--well +it's all too disproportionate and tiresome.' + +Mrs Gildea laughed. 'You must remember that I am out of all your fine +social business--except when I go as a reporter or look on from the +upper boxes.' + +'It's abominable: it's stifling,' exclaimed Lady Biddy, 'it kills all +the best part of one. You know I've tried time after time to strike out +on my own individual self, but I've always been brought back again by +my hopeless, hopeless lack of practical knowledge of how to earn a +livelihood. The one gift I'd inherited wasn't good enough to be of any +use--If my mother had only left me the whole of her voice, I'd have +been an opera-singer. But I don't think I could have stood the +drudgery--and I should have hated the publicity of it all.... Joan, how +did you ever manage to make yourself independent?' + +'By drudging,' said Mrs Gildea dryly. 'Besides, I was born differently. +And I was brought up with practical people.' + +'Mr McKeith, for instance. He told me about his having been what he +called a "cattle new-chum" on your father's station.' + +'He wasn't exactly a "new-chum." His father had owned a sheep-station +up in the unsettled districts. There was a tragedy--the place was sold +up when Colin was a boy. He wanted to learn how we did things further +south--and besides, he was left without a penny--that's how he came to +be with us.' + +'Oh! ... anyway, he's practical. But it isn't that side of him that +appeals to me. He believes in Missions--in a sort of way.' + +Mrs Gildea laughed uneasily. 'So you have discovered the streak of +idealism in Colin. But'--she veered off hastily, 'I didn't want to talk +about Colin McKeith. What I want is to hear about your own state of +mind.' + +'My state of mind! That's chaotic. The fact is, I feel in a horrible +sort of transition state.... It's just as if one were trying to wind a +skein backwards--taking up one end and finding a confusion of knots; +then, taking up another and after forcing a few of the knots, giving +the thing up in despair. One knows the right end is there, but how to +find it through all that hopeless, woolly tangle!' + +'Still, you must have learned something about how to wind your skein +while you've been working through your various enterprises,' said Mrs +Gildea. She took up one of Bridget's sketches which were on the table +and looked at it thoughtfully. + +'This is quite charming, Biddy--if only it wasn't too fine for +reproduction. The block would cost more than the thing is worth.' + +Biddy made a MOUE. 'Oh, I know. Like me isn't it? Impracticable. But I +COULD do you some illustrations. I drew Rosamond entertaining the +Ministerial Circle last night and showed it to Vereker Wells while we +were waiting for breakfast. He nearly died with laughing. I couldn't +have dared to let Luke see it.' + +'That I can believe. And I should be murdered by the Leichardt'stonians +if I allowed it to be published. But if you'd come with me through the +Blue Mountains and caricature yourself exploring the Jenolan +Caves--like the "Lady of Quality" in the Dolomite Country I could do +something with that.' + +Mrs Gildea alluded to their first and only collaboration as author and +artist. + +'Yes, I might. We'll think about it. And if I did perhaps I could make +money enough to keep me out here for a year or two travelling about.' + +Joan Gildea looked up in a startled way from the drawing she had been +studying, and asked with some eagerness: + +'Biddy, do you really mean that you are thinking of stopping out here +for a year or two?' + +'I do. I want to shake myself free from the old clogs. I want to be +honest with myself and with--with the people who ARE honest with +themselves. I've always envied you, Joan. Your life is real at least. +You can put your finger on vital pulse beats. I should like to do as +you are doing, study and learn from a country that has no traditions, +but is making itself. I want to breathe Nature unadulterated--if I +could only reach the reality of her. Joan, I have the feeling that if +one could go right up to the Bush--far away from the Government House +atmosphere and Luke Tallant's red-tapism and the stupid imitation of +our English social shams--well, I think one might touch a more vital +set of heart-beats than the heart-beats of civilization.' + +'You are off civilization, Biddy?' + +'Yes I am, I've had a horrible time. I was quite reckless and spent far +too much on clothes and things--but that's not what matters--it's the +effect on one's inner self that matters. And now I'm going through the +pangs of revulsion, and just wondering where I can find anything that's +true and satisfying. I believe it may be a kind of birth into a new +life--coming out here you know and all the rest.' + +She stopped, her long golden brown eyes fixed Sphinx-like on Joan, who +returned the gaze, but did not answer in words. Biddy went on: 'YOUR +work is practical--not idealistic. I believe the truth of it all is +that the idealists haven't built up on a practical basis. There's too +much POSE. Joan, I do think it's only the pinch of starvation that +knocks down the ridiculous POSE of people.' + +'True enough. Your cranks don't get much beyond POSE.--They think they +do, but they don't.' + +'Even the ones who believe in themselves--and who are in their way +truly sincere. Joan, do you know, there were moments at the meetings I +went to of those people--Christian Scientists, and my Spiritual +Socialists, and all those philo-factory-girls and tramps, and +philo-beasts, and philo-blacks and the rest of it--Moments when a +ghastly wonder would come over me whether, if we were all stranded on a +desert island with a shortage of food and water, it wouldn't be a case +of fighting for bare existence and of Nature red of tooth and claw.' + +'True for you, Lady Bridget. I like the way that's put,' broke in a +voice from the other side of the veranda railing. + +Lady Bridget started and looked round, a sudden flush rushing upon the +ivory paleness of her face. If she had not had her back turned to the +garden; if she had not left the gate open behind her, and if the wind +in the bamboos had not then made a noisy rustling, she would have seen +the visitor or heard his steps on the gravel path. Or if she had not +been so absorbed in her subject and her cigarette she might have +noticed that Mrs Gildea had looked up quickly a minute before and given +a mute signal to the intruder not to interrupt the conversation +untowardly. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + +Lady Bridget recovered herself as Colin McKeith mounted the steps and +made the two ladies a rather self-conscious salute. + +'I suppose you know that's a quotation,' she said. + +'Weren't you a bit out?' he answered, and repeated the phrase. 'Excuse +my correcting you.' + +Bridget shrugged. + +'Thank you. But I always thought men of action weren't great readers. +How did you do your reading?' + +'Some day--if you care to hear--I'll tell you.' + +She looked at him interestedly. 'Yes, I should care to hear.' + +'Not now,' put in Mrs Gildea. 'You've come this morning to tell us +about the Gas-Bore at Alexandra City, and, as it's got to go into my +next letter, I shall take some notes. Do look for a comfortable chair, +Colin, and you may smoke if you want to.' + +'This is good enough,' and he settled himself after his own fashion at +Lady Bridget's feet with his back against the veranda post and his long +legs sprawling over the steps. + +Lady Bridget leaned out of the depths of her deep canvas chair and +offered him her cigarette case. + +He eyed it in amused criticism--the dull gold of the case, and the +initials in diamonds, sapphires and rubies set diagonally across it. + +'YOUR writing?' + +Again the faint pink rose in her paleness. + +'No, it's the writing of the person who gave it to me.' + +'Was it a man?' he asked bluntly. + +Bridget looked at him with slight haughtiness. + +'Really, Mr McKeith, I think you are--inquisitive.' + +'Yes, I am. And I've Bush manners--not up to your form. Please excuse +my impertinence.' + +'I don't mind Bush manners. They're--rather refreshing sometimes.... +But'--again extending and then half-withdrawing her offering hand. +'You'd despise my cigarettes?' + +He made an eager movement. + +'No I shouldn't. Choose me one, won't you--two--if I may have one to +keep.' + +'Why to keep?' She selected two of the dainty gold-tipped cigarettes, +and he received them almost as if they had been sacred symbols. One he +placed carefully, notwithstanding her laughing protest, in a +letter-case which he carried in an inner pocket. She tilted her face +forward for him to light the other cigarette at hers, and he did so, +always with that suggestion of reverence which sat so oddly upon him. +Mrs Gildea watching the pair was immensely struck by it. + +He smoked in silence for a few moments, his eyes still apparently +fascinated by the glittering initials on the case which now Bridget +attached to her chatelaine chain. She threw away the end of her +cigarette. + +'Well, so you've become the Governor's unconstitutional adviser?' she +said. 'Joan, do you know that Luke Tallant kept Mr McKeith talking and +smoking in the loggia just below my bedroom for hours last night after +every one had gone--I know, because I couldn't get to sleep.' + +McKeith had all compunction, 'I'm downright sorry for that, Lady +Bridget. I'd have gone away if I'd only guessed your room was up above.' + +'Oh, it didn't matter. I'd lots to think about--my own shortcomings and +Luke's responsibilities.' + +'He takes them--hard,' hazarded McKeith. + +'I hope you gave him good advice,' put in Mrs Gildea. + +McKeith's lips twisted into a humorous smile. + +'Well, I told Sir Luke that I didn't think he need bother himself just +yet awhile over that northern tour of inspection he's talking about.' + +'He wants to make a kind of royal progress, Joan, through the +Back-Blocks,' said Lady Biddy. + +'It'll mean a bit of stiff riding,' said McKeith, 'but I've offered to +show him round the Upper Leura anyway, and to find him a quiet hack.' + +'Rosamond flatly declines the Royal Progress,' said Bridget. 'I'm +coming instead of her.' + +'Can you ride?' he asked. + +'CAN I ride--Can any O'Hara ride! You needn't find ME a quiet hack.' + +'All right,' said McKeith. 'But I wouldn't make sure of that by putting +you on a buckjumper. It's a bargain then, Lady Bridget.' + +'A bargain--what?' + +'You promise to pay me a visit when the Governor makes his trip +north--when he carries out his notion of establishing military patrols +and a Maxim gun or two to put down Trades-Unionism and native outrages +in the Back-Blocks?' + +Lady Bridget looked at him thoughtfully. He had pulled out his tobacco +pouch and was filling a well-worn pipe. 'You won't mind my pipe, will +you--as you're a smoker yourself. Mrs Gildea likes it best--And so do +I.' + +Lady Bridget sniffed his raw tobacco and made a tiny moue. 'Well, if +you prefer that--No, of course I don't mind. I see,' she went on, 'that +you favour the Maxim gun idea, Mr McKeith. I understand that you're one +of the Oppressors; and you and I wouldn't agree on that point.' + +Mr McKeith returned her look, all the hardness in his face softening to +an expression of almost tender indulgence. + +'We'd see about that. I might convert you--but in the Back-Blocks.' + +'Or I might convert YOU.' + +He shook his head, and then laughed in a shy, boyish way. + +'There's no knowing what might happen--but in the Back-Blocks.' + +Lady Bridget leaned forward. 'Tell me about them--Tell me about your +life in the Bush and what makes you hate the Blacks.' + +'What makes me hate the Blacks?' he repeated slowly and the soft look +on his face changed now to one very dour and grim. + +'You do hate them, don't you? Mr McKeith, the Premier told me something +about you last night, which simply filled me with horror. If I believed +it--or unless I knew that what you did had been in honourable warfare, +I don't think I could bear to speak to you again. Now, I'm going to ask +you if it's true.' + +'If what is true? Lady Bridget, I'll tell you the truth if you ask me +for it, about anything I've done. But--I warn you--ugly things +happen--in the Back-Blocks.' + +'The Premier said that you were the terror of the natives. He told me +about a gun you have with a great many notches on the barrel of it, and +he said that each notch represented a black-fellow that you had killed.' + +'I never killed a black-fellow except in fair fight, or under lawful +provocation. Many a time one of them has sneaked a spear at me from +behind a gum tree; and I'd have been done for if I hadn't been keeping +a sharp look-out.' + +'But you were taking their land,' Lady Bridget exclaimed impetuously, +'you had come, an invader, into their territory. What right had you to +do that? You were the aggressor. And you can't judge them by the moral +laws of civilised humanity. They fought in the only way they +understood.' + +'Lady Bridget, there are moral laws, which all humanity--civilised or +savage understands. I'm not saying that no white man in the Bush has +ever violated these laws, I'm not saying that the Blacks hadn't +something on their side. I'm only saying that in my experience--it was +the black man and not the white man who was the aggressor. And when you +ask me what made me hate the Blacks--well--it isn't a pretty +story--but, if you like, I'll tell it to you some time.' + +'Tell me now,' she exclaimed, 'Oh, Joan ... Won't your notes keep?' + +Mrs Gildea had got up, a sheaf of pencils and a reporter's note book in +her hand. + +'Yes, for a few minutes. But I've just remembered something I've got to +refer to in one of Mr Gibbs' letters. Don't mind me; I'll be back +presently.' + +McKeith seemed to take no heed of her departure; his eyes were fixed on +Lady Bridget; there was in them a light of inward excitement. + +'Please go on,' she said, 'I want so much to hear.' + +He thought for a few moments, shook the ashes from his pipe and then +plunged into his story. + +'I've got to go back to when I was quite a youngster--taken from +school--I went to St Paul's in the Hammersmith Road--just before I was +seventeen. You see before that my father had scraped together his +little bit of money and we'd been living in West Kensington waiting +while he made out what we were all going to do. He wasn't any great +shakes, my father, in the way of birth, and fortune. I daresay, you +guessed that, Lady Bridget?' + +She tossed her head back impatiently. 'Oh what DOES that matter! Go on, +please.' + +'He'd been a farmer, Glasgow way'--McKeith still pronounced it +'Glesca,' 'and my mother was a minister's daughter, as good a woman and +as true a lady as ever breathed. But that's neither here nor there in +what turned out a bad business. Well, we all emigrated out here, and, +after a while, my old dad bought a station on the Lower Leura--taken in +he was, of course, over the deal, and not realising that it was +unsettled country in those days. So the whole family of us started up +from the coast to it.... He drove my mother and my two sisters just +grown up, and a woman servant--Marty--in a double buggy, and Jerry the +bullock driver and me in the dray with him and taught me to drive +bullocks. There were stock-boys, two of them riding along side. + +'It took us three and a half weeks, to reach the station, averaging +about thirty miles a day and camping out each night. + +'I'd like you to camp out in the Bush sometime, Lady Bridget, right +away from everything--it'ud be an experience that 'ud live with you all +your life--My word! It's like nothing else--lying straight under the +Southern Cross and watching its pointers, and, one by one, the stars +coming up above the gum trees--and the queer wild smell of the gums and +the loneliness of it all--not a sound until the birds begin at dawn but +the HOP-HOP of the Wallabies, and the funny noises of opossums, and the +crying of the curlews and native dogs--dingoes we call 'em.... Well, +there! I won't bother you with all that--though, truly, I tell you, +it's the nearest touch with the Infinite I'VE ever known.... Lord! I +remember the first night I camped right in the Bush--me rolled in my +blanket on one side of the fire, and Leura-Jim the black-boy on the +other. And the wonder of it all coming over me as I lay broad awake +thinking of the contrast between London and its teeming millions--and +the awful solitude of the Bush.... I wonder if your blood would have +run cold as mine did when the grass rustled under stealthy footsteps +and me thinking it was the blacks sneaking us--and the relief of +hearing three dismal howls and knowing it was dingoes and not blacks.' + +'I'd have loved it' murmured Bridget tensely. 'Go on, please.' + +'Well, I've got to come to the tragedy. It began this way through an +act of kindness on our journey up. We were going through the +bunya-bunya country not far from our station, when out of the Bush +there came a black gin with two half-caste girls, she ran up and +stopped the buggy and implored my mother's protection for her girls +because the Blacks wanted to kill and eat them.' + +'O ... oh!' Biddy made a shuddering exclamation. + +'Didn't I say the Blacks hadn't everything on their side--I ought to +explain though that in our district were large forests of a kind of +pine--there's one in this garden,' and he pointed to a pyramidal fir +tree with spreading branches of small pointed leaves spiked at the +ends, and with a cone of nuts about the size of a big man's head, +hanging from one of the branches. + +'That's the bunya-bunya, and the nuts are splendid roasted in the +ashes--if ever that one gets properly ripe--it has to be yellow, you +know--I'll ask Joan Gildea to let me roast it for you. Only it wouldn't +be the same thing at all as when it's done in a fire of gum logs, the +nuts covered with red ashes, and then peeled and washed down with +quartpot tea....' + +'Quartpot tea! What a lot you'll have to show me if--if I ever come to +your station in the Back-Blocks.' + +'Different from your London Life, eh? ... Your balls and dinners and +big shows and coaching meets in Hyde Park, and all the rest of the +flummery! Different, too, from your kid-glove fox-hunts over grass +fields and trimmed hedges and puddles of ditches--the sort of thing +you've been accustomed to, Lady Bridget, when you've gone out from your +castle for a sporting spree!' + +'A sporting spree!' She laughed with a child's merriment, and he joined +in the laugh, 'It's clear to me, Mr McKeith, that you've never hunted +in Ireland. And how did you know, by the way, that I'd lived in a +castle?' + +'I was led to believe that a good many of your kind owned historic +castles which your forefathers had won and defended with the sword,' he +answered, a little embarrassed. + +'That's true enough.... But if you could see Castle Gaverick! My old +Aunt is always talking of restoring it, but she never will, and if my +cousin Chris Gaverick ever does come into it, he'd rather spend his +money in doing something else.... But never mind that.... I want to +hear about the black gin and the half-caste girls, and if your mother +saved them from the cannibals ... and why the blacks wanted to eat +their own kind. Dog doesn't eat dog--at least, so they tell one.' + +'It's this way. Our blacks weren't regular cannibals, but in the bunya +season they'd all collect in the scrubs and feed on the nuts and +nothing else for months. Then after a bit they'd get meat-hungry, and +there not being many wild animals in Australia and only a few cattle in +those outlying districts, they'd satisfy their cravings by killing and +eating some of themselves--lubras--young girls--by preference, and, +naturally, half-castes, as having no particular tribal status, for +choice.' + +'Half-castes!' She repeated, a little puzzled. + +'These ones had Chinky blood in them--daughters of a Chinaman +fossicker.... We're not partial to the Chinese in Australia--only we +don't eat them, we expel them--methods just a bit dissimilar, but the +principle the same, you see.... Anyway, of course we took on the gin +and her girls, and for about a year didn't have any particular trouble +at the station with the blacks--though there was a shepherd speared in +one of the out-huts.... That was his fault, however, poor devil--the +old story--but it don't matter. The trouble came to a head with a black +boy, called Leura-Jimmy, that Jerry the bullock-driver brought up with +him and left at the station where he went down to the township for +store supplies--He took me with him--I told you I was learning +bullock-driving....' + +McKeith paused, and the dark look came upon his face. + +'And Leura-Jimmy?' put in Bridget. + +'Oh, he was a fine, big fellow--plausible, too, and could speak pidgin +English--he was never weaned from his tribe, and he was a treacherous +scoundrel at heart.... As a precautionary measure, my father forbade +the blacks to come up to the head-station. But Jimmy fell in love with +the eldest of the half-caste girls. She encouraged him at first, then +took up with one of the stock-boys.... + +'It was the bunya season again, and the girls' old tribe, under their +King Mograbar--a devil incarnate in a brute--I sent him to Hell +afterwards with my own hand and never did a better deed'--McKeith's +brown fists clenched and the fury in his eyes blazed so that he himself +looked almost devilish for a moment. His face remained very grim and +dour as he proceeded. + +'Jimmy had got to know through the half-caste girl about our ways and +doings, and he made a diabolic plot with King Mograbar to get the +blacks into the house.... Every living soul was murdered ...surprised +in their sleep ... My father ... my mother ... my sisters ... God! ... +I can't speak of it....' + +He got up abruptly, jerking his long legs, and went to the further end +of the veranda, where he stood with set features and brows like a red +bar, below which staring eyes were fixed vacantly upon the avenue of +bunya trees in the long walk of the Botanical Gardens across the river. +But they did not see those bunya trees. What they saw was a row of +mutilated bodies, lying stark along the veranda of that head-station on +the Leura. + +Bridget was leaning forward in her squatter's chair, her fingers +grasping the arms of it, her face very white and her eyes staring too, +as though they also beheld the scene of horror. + +Presently McKeith came back, pale too, but quite composed. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said stiffly. 'Perhaps I should not have told +you.' + +'It's--horrible. But I'm glad to know. Thank you for telling me.' + +He looked at her wistfully. There was silence for a moment or two. + +'And you ... you ... where were you?' she stammered. + +'Me! I was with the drays, you know. We got back about noon that +day.... If we'd been twelve hours sooner! Well, I suppose I should have +been murdered with the rest.... The blacks had gone off with their +loot.... We ... we buried our dead.... And then we ran up our best +horses and never drew rein for forty miles till we'd got to where a +band of the Native Police were camped.... And then ... we took what +vengeance we could.... It wasn't complete till a long time afterwards.' + +He was standing behind Bridget's chair, his eyes still gazing beyond +the river. He did not notice that she leaned back suddenly, and her +hands fell nervelessly to her lap. He felt a touch on his arm. It was +Mrs Gildea, who had come out to the veranda again. 'Colin,' she said, +'I want you to go and bring me my typewriter from the parlour. And then +you've got to dictate "copy," about the Alexandra City Gas-Bore. Please +go at once.' + +He obeyed. Mrs Gildea bent over Lady Bridget. + +'Biddy! ... You're not faint, are you?' + +Lady Bridget roused herself and looked up at her friend rather +wildly.... 'No.... What do you take me for? ... I said I wanted real +things, Joan ... And I've got them.' + +She laughed a little hysterically. + +'All right! But we shall give you a taste of real Australia that isn't +quite so gruesome. That some of the tragedy belongs to the pioneer +days.... I could tell you things myself that my father has told me. ... +But I won't.... Mind, Colin McKeith is no more of a hero than a dozen +bush boys I knew when I first knew him. Yes, put it there, Colin, +please.... And now, if Biddy doesn't mind, we'll proceed to business, +which is my IMPERIALIST Letter. I suppose you haven't brought back any +snapshots of Alexandra City and your wonderful Gas-Bore that Mr Gibbs +could get worked up for his paper?' + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + + +That was not the only time Lady Bridget and McKeith met on Mrs Gildea's +veranda. In fact, Biddy, reminiscent of wild sea-excursions along the +shore by Castle Gaverick, developed a passion for what she called tame +boating on the Leichardt River. She found a suitable skiff in the +boat-house--the Government House grounds sloped to the water's edge, +and would row herself up and down the river reaches. It was easy to +round the point, skirt the Botanical Gardens, and, crossing above the +ferry, land below Mrs Gildea's cottage, then climb up the bank and +enter by a lower gate to the garden. Thus she would often turn up +unexpectedly of mornings for a chat with her friend in the veranda +study. + +At this time, Colin McKeith contracted a similar habit. He showed a +still greater interest in Mrs Gildea's journalistic work and professed +a strong desire to enlighten British statesmen, through the medium of +Mr Gibbs' admirable paper, on certain Imperial questions affecting +Australia--the danger of a Japanese invasion in the northern +waters--the establishment of a naval base by Germany in New Guinea--the +Yellow Labour Problem and so forth. He would intersperse his political +dissertation with racy bits of description of life in the Bush, and +would give the points of view of pearl fishers, miners, loafers, +officials in out-of-the-way townships, Labour reformers, sheep and +cattle owners--all of which vastly amused Lady Bridget, and was +valuable 'copy,' typed unscrupulously by Mrs Gildea. In fact, she owed +to it much of the success which, later, attended her journalistic +venture. Mrs Gildea thought at first that the 'copy' would be more +easily obtainable in the intervals before and after Lady Bridget's +arrival, or on the days when she failed to come. But, finding that +Colin was distinctly at his best as a narrator with Biddy for an +audience, she artfully arranged to take her notes under those +conditions. This lasted two or three weeks, during which period Sir +Luke and Lady Tallant conscientiously improved their acquaintance with +the new sphere of their labours. They visited hospitals, inspected +public buildings, inaugurated social schemes, and, to the strains of +'God Save the Queen,' performed many other insignificant public +functions, from which, as often as not, their guest, Lady Bridget, +basely cried off. + +On one such occasion, Joan, arrayed in her best, had patriotically gone +forth on a steaming March day to support their Excellencies, fondly +expecting that, as arranged, Lady Bridget and Colin would meet her. But +Lady Tallant, looking distinctly cross, accompanied the Governor alone. +Bridget, it appeared, had come down, just as the carriage drove up, in +her morning frock and garden hat, saying that she had a bad headache +and meant to spend the afternoon in a hammock by the river bank. As for +Colin, there was no sign of him. + +But when Mrs Gildea got home very tired, and hot she was made extremely +angry by hearing the voices of Lady Bridget and McKeith in the veranda +where they were drinking tea and, it seemed, holding a confidential +conversation. Mrs Gildea's gorge rose higher. She had to stop a minute +to try and recover her temper. Here was Biddy disburdening herself to +Colin of her family troubles and short-comings, showing herself and +them in the worst light, singing small to a man with whom it was highly +desirable she should maintain her dignity. Instead of that, she was +deliberately pulling down the barrier of rank and social position which +should exist between Lady Bridget O'Hara and the Factor's son, the +Out-Back squatter--Colin McKeith. + +Biddy was saying: 'Oh, but you're as bad as that sort of person who +can't be made to realise that the oldest peerage in Ireland counts for +nothing in comparison with an oil-king's millions and being able to +entertain the right set.... And besides, really Mr McKeith, there's no +difference at all between us. You talk such a lot about YOUR +grandfather having been a Scotch peasant. Why! MY mother's father was +an Italian beggar--Ugh! haven't you seen them with their crutches and +things on the steps of the churches?--And my mother sang in the streets +of Naples until a kind musician heard her and had her trained to be a +opera singer.' + +'Your mother?' + +'My mother! That's where my CARMEN comes from--only that my voice, I'm +told, isn't to be compared with what hers was.... But that's not the +worst about my mother. Not that I blame her. I think that a woman has a +perfect right to leave her husband if she has ceased to care for him, +and that it's far more moral to live with a man you love and can't +marry, than with a husband you hate.' + +Mrs Gildea cut short Lady Bridget's exposition of her views on morality +before McKeith had time to answer. Her voice was sharp as she went up +the steps and arraigned the pair. + +'Really, Biddy, I do call this too bad of you. May I ask how you and Mr +McKeith come to be drinking tea together in my veranda?' + +'Sure, and it's by accident intoirely,' answered Biddy, with a +whimsical look and the touch of the brogue she sometimes put on when a +situation became embarrassing. + +'A prearranged accident!' + +'No it wasn't, Joan. As a matter-of-fact, we were the last persons +either of us expected to meet.' + +'Honour bright,' put in McKeith. 'I'd forgotten all about the Pineapple +Products Exhibition, and I just dropped in at Government House to pay +my respects after a pleasant dinner two nights ago--What you'd call a +visit of digestion.' + +'And since when, Colin, have you become an observer of social +obligations?' jeered Mrs Gildea. + +He grinned, 'Ah! you have me there. Anyway, I asked for Lady Bridget, +and found her down by the boat-shed.' + +'And we thought it would be cooler on the water, so he rowed me round +the point. It was the most natural thing in the world that we should +discover we were thirsty, and that we should come up the garden and ask +your old woman to give us some tea. Don't be a cat, Joan. You never +used to be grudging of your hospitality.' + +Mrs Gildea quickly recovered her usual genial demeanour. She poured +herself out a cup of tea, and remarked that it was refreshing after the +pine-apple syrups and other concoctions she had, as in duty bound, +sampled at the Show. Lady Bridget rattled along with questions about +the Function and the behaviour of the Government House party. Had Sir +Luke been too over-poweringly pompous? Was Lady Tallant really cross? +and had Vereker Wells made any more blunders? and so forth. But she did +not enlighten Mrs Gildea much about her doings with Colin McKeith, and +presently said she must go and make her peace with Rosamond. McKeith +accompanied her--naturally, since he had to row her back to the +Government House landing. There was something in the manner of the pair +that Mrs Gildea could not understand. Of course, Colin was in +love--that she knew already. But was Biddy merely playing with the big +primitive-souled bushman--or was it possible that she, too, could be in +love? + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + + +The next time Biddy came, Joan tackled matters boldly. + +'Biddy, I've had my marching orders. Mr Gibbs finds Leichardt's Land a +bit stale. I take train to Sydney next week and tour the Riverina, the +Blue Mountains and the country along the railway line to Melbourne. Are +you coming with me?' + +Bridget gave a deprecatory laugh. 'I don't know what Rosamond would +say.' + +'She'd recognise the necessities of the situation. Besides, you could +come back again.' + +'I haven't been here a month. And I don't find Leichardt's Land stale. +On the contrary, I find it extremely stimulating. No, I think the +Riverina and the Blue Mountains will keep, as far as I'm concerned.' + +'But I won't keep. Mr Gibb and the drawings for THE IMPERIALIST won't +keep. The question is whether you want to make some money or not?' + +'It's the one thing I've WANTED to do all my life, and have never yet +succeeded in doing except when we collaborated in "The Lady of Quality." + +'Here's your chance for a continuation series, "The Lady of Quality in +the Bush." How does that sound?' + +'Rather clumsy and long, don't you think? "Lady Bridget in the Bush" +would be more alliterative and catching. Only I should be giving myself +away.' + +'I think you're doing that already,' said Mrs. Gildea. + +'How do you mean, Joan? I don't see it.' + +'Yes, you do. Look here, Biddy. Colin McKeith isn't Mr Willoughby +Maule.' + +'He's a hundred times better man, Joan.' + +'That you needn't tell me; and I'm glad you recognise the fact. But +from the point of view of "The Lady of Quality," would he be a better +husband?' + +'You forget, my dear, that I'm not the genuine article. I'm nothing but +a pinchbeck imitation of the real "Lady of Quality." If HIS grandfather +was a peasant, remember that my maternal grandparents were peasants +too. I told him so yesterday.' + +'Has it come to that? You go fast, Biddy. But I warn you--Colin McKeith +isn't the man to be trifled with. He knows his own mind. The question +is whether you know yours.' + +Biddy nodded her head like a Chinese Mandarin. + +'Two months ago you were wildly in love--or, at least, from your +letters one might have judged so--with another man,' said Mrs Gildea. + +'No--no--don't call that love.' + +'Call it a violent attraction, then. I suspect the man could have made +you marry him if he had chosen. So far as I can understand, you +quarrelled because neither of you would face matrimony on what you +considered an inadequate income.' + +'Middle-class respectability--living in Pimlico or further Kensington,' +scoffed Biddy. 'Ordering sprats and plaice for dinner and pretending +they're soles and whitebait. Perambulators stuffing up the hall; paying +your own books and having your gown made at home! No, thank you. +'Possum skins and a black's gunya--that's Australese for a wigwam, +isn't it?--appeal to me infinitely more.' + +Mrs Gildea threw up her hands. + +'Biddy, you haven't the faintest notion how dull and uncomfortable--how +utterly unpoetic--how sordid the life of a struggling bushman can be.' + +'No! You know, Joan, I think that it might be perfectly fascinating--if +one really cared for the bushman.' + +'Really cared! Have you EVER really cared for any man? COULD you ever +really care?' + +'That's what I've been asking myself. It would have to be someone quite +different from all the other men I've liked--something altogether above +the ordinary man, to make me REALLY care.' + +'You said that Mr Willoughby Maule was different from any man you'd +ever met. Each man you've ever fancied yourself in love with has been +different from all the rest.' + +Lady Bridget laughed rather uneasily. + +'How tiresomely exact you are, Joan! Of course, they were different. +Everybody is different from everybody else. And I attract marked types. +Will was more marked and more attractive--as well as attracted--that's +all.' + +'His attraction doesn't seem to have been as strong as self-interest, +any way,' said Joan, with deliberate terseness. + +The girl's small, pale face flushed to deep crimson for a moment. + +'Joan, you are cruel! You know that was the sting! And it wouldn't have +stung so if I hadn't cared. Sometimes I feel the maddest desire to hurt +him--to pay him out. I never felt like that about any of the +others--the ones I really did ALMOST want to marry. And then--at other +times I'd give ANYTHING just to have him again as he used to be.' + +'I'm certain you weren't really in love with him,' exclaimed Mrs Gildea. + +Bridget seemed to be considering. 'Wasn't I?--I'm not so sure of that. +No--' she went on impetuously, 'I was not REALLY in love with him. He +had a magnetic influence over me as I told you. Perhaps I might get a +little under it again if he were to appear suddenly without his +wife--it turns me sick to think of a married man having a magnetic +influence over me.... Even if there was no wife--now. So, when you've +idealised a person and can't idealise him any more: C'EST FINI. There's +nothing but a ghost to come and make you uncomfortable sometimes--and +that CAN'T last.... Besides, I've been breathing the strong clear air +of your gum trees lately. It's a case of pull devil--pull bushman. Do +you see?' + +'I see, my dear, that you're idealising Colin McKeith, and let me tell +you that a bushman is very far removed from the super-man. Oh, Colin is +a fine enough specimen of a pioneer in a rough country. But his rough +life, his bush surroundings, and all the rest--why, he'd jar upon you +in a hundred ways if you were alone with him in them. Then--he's not of +your order--though I hate the phrase and I hate the kind of man. All +the same, Biddy, you may pretend to despise the men of your own class, +but I fancy that, after a spell of roughing it with Colin on the Upper +Leura, you'd hanker after something in them that Colin hasn't and never +will have.... And then,' Joan's swift imagination carried her on with a +rush, 'you don't know in the least the type of man he is. You'd have to +give in to him: he'd never give in to you. He's domineering, jealous, +vindictive and reserved. Before a month was out you'd quarrel, and +there would be no chance of your ever making it up again.' + +'I must say, Joan, that for a friend of his you're not an enthusiastic +advocate.' + +'It's because I'm so fond of Colin that I hate the thought of your +making him miserable. Anyway, however, you're bound to do that.' + +'I don't see why.' + +'If you flirt with him and then drop him, he'll suffer, though he'll be +too proud to show it. And as for the alternative, it's out of the +question. You must see that it would be sheer folly.' + +'I've committed a great many follies,' said Bridget wistfully. + +'But, so far, none that are quite irrevocable.' + +'Well, he hasn't asked me yet to commit this one.' + +'You're leading him on to it. Biddy, it is abominable of you to +encourage him as you do--coming here with him that day.... And you let +him take you riding....' + +'Yes, he knows now that I CAN ride.' + +'And he's at Government House nearly every day--I can't think what Lady +Tallant is about to ask him so often to dinner.' + +'She likes him because he takes Luke off her hands. You know we've +nick-named him the Unconstitutional Adviser.' + +'That's rubbish. You sing to him.' + +'What harm is there in my singing to Colin McKeith?' + +'As if you didn't know well enough that you're perfectly irresistible +when you look at a man while you're singing those Neapolitan things. +Biddy, it won't do. Give it up.' + +'I can't do that, Joan.' She spoke with a strange earnestness. 'Don't +you see that it's giving me a chance.' + +'Of forgetting Mr Willoughby Maule!' + +'Yes.... But it's more than that.' + +'More than that.... Do you mean ... can you mean that you could love +Colin McKeith--for himself?' + +'Love is a big word, Joan. I've never said to any man--"I love you."' +She spoke the words now as if she were uttering a sacred formula. Her +voice reminded Mrs Gildea of something--the same note in the voice of +Colin McKeith when he, too, had spoken of love. Yet what she had said +was true. Bridget had talked often enough of falling 'in love'--which +she had always been at pains to define as a mere transitory +condition--not by any means the 'real thing,' and she had freely +confessed to violent attractions and even adorations. But, as she had +sometimes solemnly stated, she had never 'loved.' + +'I can't explain,' she went on. 'I know you think me a heartless, +emotional flirt. Yes, I am. I admit it. But there's a locked door in +the inner chamber--a shrine that no one has desecrated. The Goddess is +there, waiting--waiting to reveal herself.' + +'And so--all the rest have been--experiments?' + +'No, The Quest of the Ideal through the Forest of Illusion. I've often +thought, Joan, there was a lot in the motive of that novel of Thomas +Hardy's THE WELL BELOVED. But I seem to be mixing up my metaphor, and +it's time I went back to Government House.' She got up and began +putting on her gloves. + +Mrs Gildea laughed hysterically. Somehow, she could not imagine Colin +McKeith producing the golden key and masterfully taking possession of +Lady Bridget's locked shrine. She could only think of him as tricked, +deceived and suffering hideously at the end. She stammered out her +fear, beseeching Biddy to be merciful, but Biddy's mood had changed, +and she only smiled her Sphinx smile. + +'I think he's quite able to look after himself,' she said. 'And if he +isn't, sure, he must take the consequences.' + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + + +Mrs Gildea could get nothing more out of Lady Bridget. She attacked +McKeith in a more tentative manner, but Colin was doggedly reticent. He +was taking the thing hardly. His way of facing a serious situation was +by setting his teeth and saying nothing. After these unsuccessful +attempts, Joan made opportunity, before leaving, for a private word on +the subject with Lady Tallant. But Rosamond Tallant treated the matter, +at first, very lightly. + +'Dear Mrs Gildea, you needn't worry, it's only Biddy's way. She must +have some excitement to keep her going. If it isn't one thing, it's +another. In London, I tried to interest her in Society, or Politics, +and the Opera--and now Luke is trying to interest her in Colonial +questions--but she always drifts back to--Men. She can't help it. And +the funny thing is, I don't believe that in her heart she is capable of +a serious attachment.' + +'I'm not so sure of that,' answered Mrs Gildea. + +'If so, she has had plenty of opportunities of proving it. But I wasn't +ever afraid even of Willoughby Maule. I was certain that would fizzle +out before real harm could come of it. And mercifully it did. He's +married a woman with a quarter of a million and the right to dispose of +it absolutely as she pleases. I heard that she signed a will on her +wedding day, leaving it all to him in the event of her death. Too great +a temptation, wasn't it? Though I do think if Biddy had chosen she +might have kept him in spite of Miss Bagalay and her money. As it is, +Colin McKeith, or else the novelty of it all out here--has driven him +out of her head. I felt sure of that when I asked her to come. You +needn't worry about her.' + +'It's not so much about Biddy that I'm worrying as about my old friend, +Colin McKeith,' said Mrs Gildea. 'It isn't fair that he should be made +a victim.' + +'Oh, well, it isn't altogether Biddy's fault that she attracts all +types of men.' And then Lady Tallant made exactly the same remark as +Lady Bridget. 'I think Mr McKeith is quite able to look after himself. +I don't pity him in the least. Didn't somebody say of Lady Something or +Other that to love her was a liberal education?' + +'Steele said it of Lady Elizabeth Hastings.' + +'I call it a liberal education for Colin McKeith to love Lady Bridget +O'Hara,' laughed Lady Tallant. + +Mrs Gildea changed her tactics and voiced her other fear--a more +insistent fear. + +'Has it ever occurred to you that Lady Bridget O'Hara might fall in +love with Colin McKeith?' + +'Why, my dear, she's wildly in love with him already,' rejoined Lady +Tallant, to Joan Gildea's surprise. + +'You've seen it?' + +'I'm not blind, and I know Biddy. But I've seen that she's taking this +affair differently from the others, and that's what makes me think it +has gone deeper. A very good thing for Biddy.' + +'You can't mean that it would be a good thing for Biddy to marry Colin +McKeith?' + +Lady Tallant's social manner was rather full of affectations. +Underneath it, however, lay commonsense and sympathy. She became +suddenly simple and direct. + +'Well, now, Mrs Gildea, let us look at the matter without prejudice. +You are fond of Biddy and so am I, but we know her drawbacks. +Naturally, it wouldn't be a good thing under ordinary conditions, but +is she likely to do much better?' + +'She has had plenty of chances.' + +'And thrown them all away. And though she looks so young, she is close +on thirty. Of course, with her looks and her fascination she ought to +have married well. I'm sure her friends have tried hard enough for her. +But what can you do with a girl who throws herself at the heads of +ineligibles, and when one trots out an unexceptionable PARTI and does +one's best to bring them together, goes off at a tangent and lets the +whole thing drop through. You know how it was with....' Lady Tallant +enumerted names. + +Mrs Gildea acquiesced mournfully. Lady Tallant continued: + +'The truth is, Biddy has tired out the patience of her relatives and +friends. Molly and Chris Gaverick got the hump over Willoughby +Maule--who would have done well enough if he had only had more money. +Old Eliza'--so Lady Tallant irreverently styled the Dowager Countess of +Gaverick--'told me herself that she was going to wash her hands of +Biddy. I shouldn't wonder if she didn't leave her a penny. And, after +all, it was her own fortune, and she has a horde of needy relatives. +She will consider that she has done her duty to the Gavericks if she +lets Chris have the Castle. When all's said and done, I don't see that +it would be such a bad thing for Biddy to marry a rich Australian +squatter.' + +'Colin McKeith is not rich.' + +'Oh, he will be. Sir Luke has been hearing all about him.' + +'He's not her equal. His father was just a land bailiff, and his +grandfather a crofter.' + +'Oh, what DOES that matter! In these days any of us would marry the +roughest of rough diamonds, provided he was decently well off. Biddy +has always been mad after adventure and an open-air life. She's an +original, and everything would be in keeping.' Lady Tallant went on +briskly. 'She would enjoy living among the blacks, provided they did +not murder her, and I suppose one could trust Mr McKeith for that.' + +'Oh, there's no danger from the blacks now,' put in Mrs Gildea. + +'And then she needn't be buried for ever in the Bush. Luke tells me +that Colin McKeith is certain to come to the fore in politics--I +daresay he will be Premier of Leichardt's Land before long. Biddy would +like bossing the show and airing her philanthropic crazes.' + +Mrs Gildea shook her head doubtfully. + +'Colin wouldn't agree with them. Besides, she would be expatriated.' + +'Oh no. The big men over here are always taking trips to England, being +feted and made much of in Downing Street--Imperialist Policy and that +sort of thing--I can see Biddy at it.' + +Mrs Gildea was silent. She scarcely knew Lady Tallant in this downright +mood. + +'There's no use blinking matters,' said that lady. 'At home, Biddy has +been a failure. That was why I persuaded her to come out with us. I +knew she wanted a fresh start badly.' + +It was quite true. Mrs Gildea remembered Bridget's confidences to +herself. She could not help feeling that Lady Tallant was right in the +main, and put forward no more objections. But she explained her own +plans and the necessity for her immediate departure from Leichardt's +Land--how she had hoped, too, to take Biddy with her and interest her +once more in literary and artistic work. + +'Biddy won't go, she told me so, and I don't mean to let her,' said +Lady Tallant decidedly. 'We're short-handed till the new Private +Secretary gets here, and she helps me with my notes and things +generally. And if it wasn't for Biddy's singing, our dinners would be +too deadly dull for words.' + +Joan gave up in despair. She suspected that Lady Tallant's affectionate +candour was not unadulterated with selfishness. Finally, Rosamond +promised that she would interest and amuse Lady Bridget to such an +extent as would deter her from rash love-making for want of counter +excitement. Then, Joan reflected, Colin was pre-eminently a prudent +business man, and, as he had told her some time before, would have to +go back to the Upper Leura before the strenuous work of the Session +came on. This was always supposing that the present Ministry kept in +without going to the country upon certain Labour measures unacceptable +to the large land-owners, in which case it was just possible McKeith +might be thrown out of his seat. + +Events lay in the lap of the gods. Mrs Gildea wound up matters at the +Cottage and took train south, where she was soon wholly occupied in +describing the wonder of the Jenolan Caves and the wild gorges and +primaeval gum forests in the Blue Mountains. She was really too busy in +the interests of the IMPERIALIST to worry over her friend's love +affairs. In fact, she gleaned most of her information as to the +Leichardt's Town Government House Party from the newspapers she +happened upon at bush hotels. For Lady Bridget was evidently in a +reactionary mood as regards letter-writing and Colin McKeith never put +pen to paper, if he could avoid doing so, except on business. + +It was at Mossvale that she read a florid paragraph in the Ladies' Page +of a Sydney Journal, telling of the engagement of 'that intrepid +Pioneer and future Empire-builder, Mr Colin McKeith, to the Lady +Bridget O'Hara, niece of the late, and cousin of the present, Earl of +Gaverick'. + +Next post brought her three brief and characteristic letters. She +opened Lady Tallant's first: + + +'Government House, + Leichardt's Town. + +'DEAR MRS GILDEA, + +I do hope this may catch you before the newspapers, which I find +announced the engagement rather prematurely last week. I am still of +opinion that Biddy might do much worse than marry Colin McKeith, +though, ENTRE NOUS, the settlements--or rather want of them--for Mr +McKeith tells us that he needs all his capital for making wells and +buying cattle, and he won't injure his prospects and Biddy's by tying +it up--does not at all please Sir Luke, who, before he would +countenance the marriage, insisted upon a cablegram being sent to the +Dowager Lady Gaverick. Her answer: "Not my business, must do as she +pleases," only confirms what I said to you, and I am afraid Biddy's +chances are worth nothing in that quarter. + +The wedding is to be early in May, from Government House, of course, +and I need scarcely say how much we all hope you will come back for it. + +Always sincerely, + +ROSAMOND TALLANT. + +P.S.--No doubt, Biddy is giving you full details.' + + +But Biddy did not indulge either in details or rhapsodies. She began: + + +'They say hanging and wiving go by destiny, and clearly my destiny is +to become the wife of Collin McKeith. I've always felt that the only +thing which could reconcile me to marriage would be marrying a MAN; and +at last I've found one. I want to tell you, Joan, that we've made an +agreement to ask each other no questions about respective Pasts. The +black-fellows he has slain--the one jarring note between us--are never +to be resuscitated. The men whose hearts I have broken and VICE VERSA +are dead and buried on the other side of the Equator, under a monument +of inviolable silence. Such are the terms of the marriage contract: and +you in especial must respect them. I need say no more, except this: +Have no fears for the happiness of + +Your BIDDY.' + + +From Colin in telegraphic conciseness: + +'Tremendously happy. She's absolutely my Ideal--in everything but size.' + + +All very satisfactory and conclusive. But--Mrs Gildea could not escape +from a vague misgiving. She was not afraid of the ghost of Mr +Willoughby Maule: indeed, she argued favourably from the baldness of +Bridget's letter in comparison with the reams of sentiment she had +written upon the previous occasion. Nor did she feel uneasy on the +score of any others of Lady Bridget's bygone passions. But had this +complex, fastidious, physically-refined creature the least +comprehension of what life on the Upper Leura might mean? And how about +an Ideal dethroned from her pedestal and plumped down amid the crude +realities of the nethermost Bush? + +Mrs Gildea did not get to the wedding. She was ordered to report on the +mines of Western Australia, and was on the other side of the continent +when the marriage took place. In fact, it seemed doubtful whether she +would again meet Lady Bridget before her mission as Special +Correspondent ended. But the McKeiths were to spend their honeymoon in +travelling to his station on the Upper Leura, a distance of some +hundreds of miles from the nearest port, and quite out of THE +IMPERIALIST programme. + +She read, however, circumstantial accounts of the wedding, and there +were portraits of the pair--in which Colin looked grumpy and Lady +Bridget whimsically amused--snap shots, too, of the wedding cortege, in +which Sir Luke Tallant, fathering the Bride, appeared a pompous figure +in full uniform; and Lady Tallant in splendid panoply, most stately and +gracious. A long account followed of the bride's family connections, in +which the biographer touched upon the accident of sex that had deprived +her of the hereditary honours; the ancient descent of the Gavericks, +with a picture of the old Irish castle where Lady Bridget had been +brought up--and so forth, and so forth. Mrs Gildea sighed as she read, +and pictured in her imagination the wild wastes of the Never-Never Land +and the rough head-station which was to be Lady Bridget's home. + + + + + +BOOK II + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + +It was the way of the O'Haras to do things first and to consider +afterwards whether it were well or ill that they should be done. Many a +ruined O'Hara might have fared differently in life's battle had he +thought before he acted. + +Lady Bridget was no exception to the rule of her family. She had +accepted Colin McKeith in a blind impulse of escape from the old +hedged-in existence of her order, of which she was quite tired and +where-in she had proved herself a failure. She had been attracted by +the idea that he represented, of wide spaces and primitive adventures. +She had always longed to travel in untrodden ways, and had loved +stories of romantic barbarism. And then, too, some queer glamour of the +man had got hold of her. She was intensely susceptible to personal +influence--his bigness, his simplicity, his strength and daring, and +the feeling that he was quite capable of mastering her, not only by +brute force--which always appeals to a certain type of woman--but by +power of will, by a tenacity of passion which she recognised even +through the shy reserve with which McKeith tried to cloak his +adoration. For she was goddess to him, as well as lady-love--and that +she realised plainly. A look from her would make him go white and his +large hands tremble; an unexpected grace from her would fill him with +reverent ecstasy. + +The thing happened one soft moonlit evening after dinner at Government +House, when she had strolled out alone to a secluded part of the +terrace, and he had followed her after the men left the dining-room. +She was in a mood of tempestuous raging against her ordained lot. +Letters had come from England that day which had irritated her and made +her wonder how she could endure any longer her galling state of +dependence. Eliza Countess of Gaverick had sent her a meagre cheque, +accompanied by a scathing rebuke of her extravagance. Some cutting +little sarcasms of Molly Gaverick's had likewise annoyed her, and she +fretted under the miserable sense of her inadequacy to the demands of a +world she despised and yet hankered after. Then Sir Luke had been +tiresomely pertinacious over some small dereliction on Bridget's part +from the canons of Government House etiquette, which he had requested +should not be repeated. Rosamond Tallant had been tiresome also and had +made her feel that even here she was no more than a dependent who must +conform to the wills of her official superiors. Joan Gildea might have +served as a safety-valve, but Joan was away in or near the Jenolan +Caves, and could not be got at unless Bridget chose to throw up other +things and go to her, which Bridget was not inclined to do. + +The whole thing was a tangle. If only it were possible to find a way +out that would not prove still more painfully complicated. + +At the moment the ting-tang of a steamer bell bound outward to the +northern coast, borne to her on the river-breeze, intensified her +desire for escape from conventional limitations. Oh! to find herself +under totally new conditions! The heavy fragrance of magnolia and +gardenia blossoms seemed freighted with exotic suggestion. The tropical +odours blended with the perfume of autumn roses, which made a trellis +over her head and overran the balustrades. The subtle mingling of +perfumes that float in the clear air of an Australian garden, when the +fierce heats of summer are gone, gave her a sense of almost +intoxication. + +In fact, Bridget was in the mood for any desperate leap into the +Unknown. Such was her unconscious thought as she crunched a spray of +verbena in her fingers and inhaled the scent which had always a faintly +heady effect upon her imagination. She was leaning on the stone kerb of +the balustrade, vague emotions stirring her, when she heard McKeith's +step on the gravel. Presently he stood beside her, his tall form, in +the well-cut evening suit which always became him best, towering head +and shoulders above her small stature. It was always a satisfaction to +Lady Bridget, fastidious in such masculine details, that he was +particular about his tailoring, and tonight he exhaled the scent of one +of Sir Luke Tallant's excellent cigars. There used to be a good deal of +chaff between them about one of his personal predilections which jarred +a little upon Bridget--his pipe and, particularly, the quality of his +tobacco. But he did not change it in spite of her chaff. She was +beginning to find a certain mule-like obstinacy about him in +unimportant details. + +'If you object to this, what WOULD you say to the store tobacco smoke +when I'm in the Bush?' he said. And then he had explained that, when +camping out with the stockmen on their expeditions after cattle, he +always smoked the same tobacco that he supplied to his hands. That was +according to HIS rule of social equality by the camp fire, he said.... +And where was all Lady Bridget's vaunted socialism if she jibbed at +such a simple illustration of the first principles of socialism? Of +course, Bridget had taken his banter in good part, and with a pretty +grimace had told him she would get out a consignment of the stuff her +Aunt Eliza gave at Christmas to the old men in their Irish village and +present him with it. + +He threw away the butt end of Sir Luke's cigar when he joined her. For +several moments he stood watching her--the picturesque little figure in +its dainty frock, the grace of the small head with its crop of untidy +hair, the pale pointed face--chin resting in the cup of one flower-like +hand, red lips--the upper one like Cupid's bow--slightly parted, +strange deep eyes gazing across the dark expanse of river to the +scattered lights on the high land opposite. Above, the Southern Cross, +set diagonally, in the dark clear sky gemmed with its myriad stars. + +There could be no doubt that Colin McKeith was in the grip of an +infatuation such as he had never known before in his life. It staggered +him. His breath caught in his throat and ended in an uncertain laugh. +He stuttered in sheer awkwardness. + +'I--I say ... you seem to be up in the clouds. You've been awfully down +in the mouth--all through dinner. Won't you tell me? Is anything the +matter?' + +Bridget turned and looked at him. Her eyes were softly glistening, her +lips trembled. He thought of her as of a child seeking sympathy in a +strange land, where nobody understood her and somebody had been unkind. +He was intensely stirred by her impulsive appeal. + +'Oh! I'm worried. I'm so alone in the world. Nobody wants me--here or +in England either. I was just wondering if I couldn't go off and join +Joan Gildea.... But she wouldn't want me either, perhaps.' + +He went closer, stooping over the balustrade. Magnetic threads seemed +to be drawing them to each other. He wanted to say, 'I want you,' but +dared not. He blurted forth instead? + +'What is it? I'd cut off my right hand if that would be of any use to +you. Good Lord! That does sound cheek! Only--you know--I'm big enough +to bully the whole of Leichardt's Land from the Governor down--and I'd +do it if you wanted me to. Just tell me what's worrying you?' + +'It's everything--the whole set of conditions from the day I was born +into them.' + +'Conditions are easy enough things to break, if you're determined to do +it. Look here--talk it out.... you can trust me.' + +Then she recklessly set the flood gates open--laughed with tears in the +laughter; drew a tragically amusing picture of her life--her anomalous +position, her dependence, her hatred of the pretences, the shifts, the +sordid bravado by means of which her impoverished Gaverick relatives +clung on to their social birthright, the toadying of the Dowager, the +worldly admonitions of Rosamond Tallant and her set--she used some of +the phrases he had himself read in that letter. Had he been in any +doubt as to its authorship that doubt must now be at rest. But he would +never tell her of that episode. For one thing, his promise to Joan +bound him. Like a stab came the remembrance of that man of whom Biddy +had written--the man towards whom she had confessed a violent +attraction--and who had behaved as a cad and a fortune-hunter would +naturally behave. That he could have weighed money in the balance with +THIS! She could not have cared for the fellow, or he MUST have thrown +over everything else for her. Was it possible that she had cared--that +she still cared? + +'Tell me,' he asked hoarsely. 'Is it that you are fretting after +somebody over there who--someone you can't marry? There must have been +a lot of men in your life. Perhaps there was one who--whom you--loved.' + +His voice dropped, as it had a way of doing when he touched the sacred +subject. + +'There have been a lot of men,' she admitted frankly. 'But there has +never been one true Man among them. I've never really in my heart +wanted to marry any of them, if that's what you mean--I don't like +marriage--OUR system of marriage--a bargain in the sale shop. So much +at such a price--birth, position, suitability, good looks--to be paid +for at the market value. Or else it's just because the man happens to +have taken a fancy to one, and while the fancy lasts doesn't think +whether or not it's a fair bargain--on either side. I've seen people +fall madly in love and marry like that. Then before very long the love +turns to hate and it's a case for the Divorce Court.' + +'Nothing of that is--love--not as I--and you--understand it.' + +She gave him one of her inscrutable looks and then turned again to the +stars. There was silence; Colin thought she must hear his heart +thumping, but she seemed lost in her dreams. He put out his big hand +and timidly, reverently, took hers, crushed verbena and all, as it lay +on the balustrade. It rested like a prisoned bird within his; he could +feel the nervous twitch of the little fingers. + +'There's another system of marriage--a better one, I think--where the +man doesn't ask for anything but the right to love until--until he has +compelled the woman's love in return.' + +'Compelled! I like that word. I could yield to my master. But he would +have to prove himself my master.' + +'Will you let me try?' McKeith said boldly. He grasped her hand tightly +as he spoke; she gave a little cry, for he had hurt her. He was all +compunction and gentleness in a moment. + +'Oh, you are strong!' she said. 'I almost think you could make me do +anything you chose.' + +'No--that isn't what I meant.' He seemed trying to steady himself. 'I'm +damned if I'd ever give up my free-will to anybody, and I wouldn't like +even the woman who was my mate to do it either. But love--that's a +different thing....' + +'Your mate!' she repeated. + +'You don't know the Bush idea of a real mate--shoulder to shoulder, +back to back--no getting behind one or the other--giving up your life +for your mate, if it came to a pinch.' + +'And that's your idea of--love?' + +'Something like it, only closer, dearer--a thing you couldn't talk +about even to your mate--unless your mate was your wife--a flower that +blooms once in your life, and that would never--if it were cut +off--come to bloom again. Look here,' he said fiercely, 'have you ever +felt for any one of the lot of men you spoke about just like that?' + +'N--no,' she answered slowly. + +'If you told me you had, I'd walk away now down those steps--' he +pointed to the flight of stone steps leading from the terrace to the +drive--'and you wouldn't see me any more.... But I'm not going to leave +you now, I mean to stick on for all I'm worth, so long as I see the +faintest chance of your giving me what I've set my heart on.' + +'Yes--well?' She stared at him in a fascinated manner. + +'Well--Bridget--I can't milady you. We're man and woman and nothing +else to-night....' + +She interrupted. 'I like you to say that. I feel now that WE, at least, +are real--not social shams.' + +'Bridget--you said you'd never found yet a Real Man to love you. Here's +one.' He patted his broad chest with his open palm. 'I'm a rough Bushy +and there's not a frill about me, but I'm bed-rock if you come to +Reality. I'm a lode you've never struck in your life before. There's +payable gold here, if you choose to work me.' + +She laughed nervously, considering him. + +'Mr McKeith, I'm sure that you're a perfect Mount Morgan, and you +certainly have a most original way of putting things. Do you happen to +own a gold mine, by the way?' + +He drew in his breath slowly, as if he were considering the check, then +he took her cue. + +'Oh, well! I have pegged out a good many claims in my time and never +got much more than my tucker out of any of them--though there was a +show I came on once up the Gulf way that I've always been a bit sorry I +didn't stop and look into. But rations were short and the Blacks +bad.... However, that's neither here nor there, now. Gold mine or not, +I'm positive that I shall be a rich man before many years have +passed--all the richer for a true mate to stand by me.' + +'Yes, of course,' she said hastily--'I wasn't thinking of that--whether +you were rich or not, I mean.' + +'I know you weren't. All the same, I suppose your grand relations would +consider me a presumptuous boor for daring to lift my eyes to you. And +yet, if I could make you love me, it wouldn't count for a blade of +grass that your father was born in a castle and mine in a crofter's +cabin.... Only--you know too--' he became timid and hesitant +again--'you know it isn't that I don't feel you as far above me, +almost, as those stars in the sky....' + +'Oh don't, don't, Mr McKeith. It isn't true, you know. I've told you +how I despise all that--all the life I've led.' + +'Yes, I know. There's not such a difference between us when we stand as +we are now, right on the bed rock. You're like me in having a strain of +working-folk's blood in you. It's Nature you're hankering after--God's +sweet air and the breath of the gum trees and freedom for your soul.' + +'Freedom for my soul! How strange that you should understand.' + +'I understand better than you might think. You want more than freedom +to make you content. You want a kind of bondage that is the truest +freedom--Love--a strong man's love, a strong man's worship. And that's +what I'd give you, Bridget. Are you angry with me for saying it?' + +'No.' She turned her face straight to him without any shadow of +embarrassment. 'Mr McKeith, I'm too honest to pretend that I didn't +half expect this. I felt you were beginning to care for me, and I was +wondering whether I ought to let you go on.' + +'Whether you ought to let me! As if you would be able to hinder it! +Why, you couldn't stop me loving you. You might as well try to dam up +the river Leichardt with this little hand I'm holding.' + +She would have withdrawal it, but could not. + +'No, no. It isn't strong enough--this tiny, trembling hand, which I +could break to bits in mine if I wanted to. And could you prevent me +from taking you in my arms--you wee great lady--and carrying you right +away--away, out into the Bush where I'm on my own ground and where not +one of your swell men folk would have a chance to find you.' + +'I don't think any one of them would want to.' she laughed again +tremulously. 'If it comes to that though, I fancy you'd have some +trouble in disposing of me against my will.' + +'Do you think I'd ever want you against your will! No. I'd sooner cut +the whole show, and let you scorn me at a distance as much as you +pleased.' + +'I--scorn you! ... I wouldn't scorn you.' + +'And even your scorn wouldn't kill my love,' he said, in that moved +voice that was so unlike his ordinary utterance--'because there's +nothing in the Universe, so far as I know it, that would be able to do +that. Why, it seems to me that my feeling for you is as much a part of +myself as the very blood in my heart. I knew you were the only woman in +the world for me the moment I saw you--so slim and small and strange, +the very contrary of what I'd always thought would be the kind of woman +I'd be in love with--that day when you came walking along that gangway +behind Lady Tallant. It was just a revelation, and then I bolted +straight off to Alexandra City.' + +'Which seems rather odd, doesn't it, in the circumstances?' + +'No, it's this way. I had to take a few days for getting over the +shock--for rubbing in the fact that what I wanted more than anything on +God's earth, now I'd seen it, was utterly beyond my reach.' + +'One might think I was an enchanted princess--a sort of Brunhilda +guarded by a fiery dragon.' + +'That's a good bit of how I looked on you--though I've never made much +out of Wagner--he isn't human enough for me.... And how could I have +dreamed then that you'd ever let me come as near you as I am this +evening!' + +'I must say, Mr McKeith, you haven't shown such extreme diffidence in +approaching me.' + +'Ah! Because you soon showed that Brunhilda's dragon was only +pasteboard and blue fire after all--one of the shams you despise. I'm +not afraid of him now.... Oh, it's wonderful.... It's beautiful....' + +He took her other hand and held the two covered over by his own as he +said with an odd solemnity: + +'Lady Bridget O'Hara will you come away with me to the Bush, leaving +everything else behind you?' + +She stood very slender and erect, her eyes shining in the moonlight out +of her small pale face and fixed upon him thoughtfully as if she were +weighing his proposition. After a few minutes, she answered +deliberately. + +'Yes, Mr Colin McKeith, I will go away with you into the Bush, leaving +everything else behind me--the old "Lady Bridget O'Hara" included.' + +He gave an indescribable ejaculation--joy, surprise, triumph--all were +in the utterance. Dropping her hands, he stooped to her and his arm +went round her. + +'Oh! Biddy ... darling.' + +She knew he wanted to kiss her, and that he scarcely dared so +greatly.... As his beard brushed her cheek, she shrank and moved a step +from him. He, too, shrank, hurt by her rebuff. + +'You mustn't be--ardent,' she said. 'You must give me time to get +accustomed to--the fate I've chosen. You know the dragon isn't +altogether a sham. He's got a few kicks in him--yet.' + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + +On other occasions also Lady Bridget made McKeith feel that she +preferred good fellowship to love-making. She was perfectly charming, +always excellent company, and she had a sense of humour which delighted +him, but she did not encourage effusiveness. She seemed to want to hear +about the Bush a great deal more than she wanted to hear about his +feelings towards herself, and appeared anxious to show him that she +meant to be a thorough-going 'mate.' The phrase had taken her fancy. + +There was not much opportunity however, for exchanging sentimental +confidences. Everything was rush and hurry during the few weeks between +the engagement and the marriage. It was plain that Lady Tallant wished +to get the wedding over before she and the Governor started upon a tour +of the important stations in the settled districts round Leichardt's +Town, officially contemplated. Bridget had a shrewd suspicion, which +she confided to Colin, that Lady Tallant was getting tired of her. +Perhaps Bridget did not keep herself sufficiently in the background to +please the lady of Government House. Her unpunctuality too often +annoyed Sir Luke. + +Another reason for not delaying the marriage was that the Leichardt's +Land government was expected to go out of office on a Labour Bill, and +that an appeal to the country would certainly follow its defeat. In +that case McKeith's re-election would have to be considered, and an +electioneering honeymoon in one of the out-back districts was an +inspiring prospect to Lady Bridget. Then the preparation of a Bush +trousseau needed thought and discussion. She had not much money, +either, to buy her trousseau with. Bridget would have none of Sir +Luke's suggestions of conciliatory letters and cablegrams to Eliza Lady +Gaverick on the subject of settlements. She said she did not intend to +cadge any longer upon her rich relative, and that she preferred to +marry without settlements. Sir Luke was not satisfied with McKeith's +views upon the financial question, and had some difficulty in getting +him to tie up even the insignificant sum of three thousand pounds in +settlement upon his wife. Colin pointed out that his capital was all +invested in cattle, and that though things would be all right as long +as there were good seasons, a bad one would cripple him, and he would +need money to recoup his losses and buy fresh stock. Bridget took his +view and Sir Luke frowned, but did what he considered his duty so far +as the paltry settlement went. At all events, it was a satisfaction to +Colin McKeith's shrewd Scotch mind that nobody insisted upon getting +the better of him in the matter. He knew that Bridget never gave it a +second thought. She was much more interested in the social and racial +problems of this new country of her adoption, and especially in the +blacks. What time she could spare from her trousseau she spent in +reading books about them, which some of her official friends got her +from the Parliamentary Library, and had already learned to think of +herself as a 'bujeri* White Mary,' whose mission it might be to compose +the racial feud between blackman and white. + +[*Bujeri--Black's term of commendation.] + +To Colin, knowing now the tragedy of his youth, she did not speak much +on this subject. The time went with startling rapidity. The two were +borne on the tide of Colin's wild elation and Bridget's more impersonal +enthusiasms. They were like travellers steaming through strange seas, +not knowing what they were going to find at the end of the voyage and +too excited to care. + +That was the way of Bridget O'Hara, but it was not the way of Colin +McKeith. + +Yet his closest intimates would scarcely have known him at this period. +He was as a man bewitched, with intervals only of his ordinary +commonsense. In these intervals the consciousness of glamour made him +vaguely uneasy. + +Had Joan Gildea been there she would have seen all this and would have +observed signs of over-strain in Bridget--something faintly +apprehensive yet obstinately determined. And Joan would have understood +that when an O'Hara woman gets the bit between her teeth, she will not +stop to look back or to consider whither she is galloping. Bridget kept +herself continually on the go. Latterly, even Colin was warned by her +nervous restlessness. When they were alone together, which was not +long, nor often, her body seemed never still, her tongue rarely at +rest. Sometimes her talk was brilliantly allusive; at others it was +frothy chatter. One day it really irritated him. She had been +fluttering about the sitting-room opening on to the terrace, which Lady +Tallant had made over to her guest. An English mail had come in. She +read him bits of a letter from Molly Gaverick and made explanatory, +satiric comments upon those impecunious, aristocratic relatives who +were on the fringe of the London smart set of which Bridget herself had +lately formed a yet more outside part. + +'Chris Gaverick has gone into the wine business, and they've taken a +tiny house in Davies Street, Berkeley Square, and the Eaton Place house +pays its rent ... You don't understand? ... No.... Molly and I talked +it out when they were married. Of course, it seemed madness, with their +means to take a house in Eaton Place. They ought to have had one in +Bayswater. But it has answered splendidly. You see, they put their +wedding presents into it and let it for the season, and managed to live +rent free and have the use of other people's motors and all the going +about they wanted without paying even for their food ... and no expense +of entertaining, outside a dinner or two at Hurlingham.... Cadging!... +In London Society everybody cadges except the millionaires--and they're +cadged upon... You see, as Molly said, you can't entertain in +Bayswater, or know the right people, and go about to the right houses, +which is the most important thing for a poor couple who want to keep +their heads up. Now the result is that Chris is able to bring in +quantities of clients and gets a commission on all the wine he +sells.... What's the matter, Colin? You look quite fierce.' + +'And that,' commented McKeith, 'is an English belted Earl!' + +'Irish--there's a difference. And are they belted--really? Isn't it a +figure of speech?' + +'I don't know, and I don't care.' + +'But wouldn't you care to hear Molly's account of their visit to the +Duke and Duchess of Brockenhurst to meet the King and Queen of +Hartenburg? Molly is very sorry I wasn't there. She says that it would +have made everything so much nicer for her and Chris, and that the King +might have ordered some wine from his firm.' + +She was teasing. He knew it, and it infuriated him. + +'Oh, no doubt you're sorry too that you weren't there with the Duke and +Duchess, and the King and Queen, and your cousins, the Earl and +Countess,' he flung at her. + +'They'll be your cousins too--by marriage. And if you ever become a +very rich man and take me back to England, you'll have to "Chris and +Molly" them and to give him a big order for wine....' + +That mollified McKeith. + +'And if I wasn't a rich man, and didn't give a big order, they wouldn't +care a twopenny damn for me.' + +'Molly mightn't--unless by chance you were taken up in high quarters +and made the fashion--like Cecil Rhodes and "Doctor Jim," or some new +edition of Buffalo Bill. Then she'd call you "one of nature's uncrowned +kings." But Chris Gaverick isn't a bad sort, if his wife would let him +be natural.... They hadn't got my cablegram about you, Colin, when this +was written,' she went on. 'I wish I could have told the Queen myself. +I'm sure she would have been sympathetic. And now I don't suppose I +shall ever meet her again.' + +He rejoined with clumsy sarcasm. + +'I see. The Queen of Hartenburg was an intimate friend of yours--the +sort of chum who'd have been likely to drop in any day for a yarn and a +cup of tea!' + +'She often did when she hunted with our hounds in Ireland, and it IS +true that the Queen of Hartenburg was quite an intimate friend of +mine--for two winters, anyhow. But I assure you, it hasn't made me +proud, and if the Queen of Hartenburg bores you, let us talk of +something else.' + +She gave another glance at the last sheet of Lady Gaverick's letter and +thrust it into a pigeon-hole of the writing-table, then came back to +the long settee on which he sat. All the time, his gaze had never left +her. She saw that he was disturbed. + +'What is the matter?' she asked again, and sat down, a little way from +him, on the settee. He turned sideways to her, bending forward, one +large hand twisting his fair beard. There was a hungry look in his +eyes, but his passing ill-humour had melted into a deep, adoring +tendeness. + +'Biddy--my mate--will you answer me a question--truthfully?' + +'I believe I can say honestly, that truth is one of my strong points,' +she parried lightly. + +'I want you to be serious. I mean it seriously. I want you to tell me +what determined you on marrying a rough chap like me? That +letter--thinking of you among those grandees, you talking a language +that's worse than Greek to me, brings the wonder of it home. As I look +at you, the thing seems just incredible.' + +'I can't understand why it should seem so surprising.' + +'WHY! You know what I mean. It's not only that your birth and bringing +up are so superior to mine, and that you had a right to look for a +husband in a very different sort of position--I can see plainly that is +what Sir Luke thinks....' + +'I don't care--a twopenny d-a-m-n--as you said--for what Sir Luke +thinks. I've got my own ideas as to the kind of husband most likely to +suit me.' + +'There's the marvel of it. For you must have had dozens of men wanting +you. You are so beautiful.' + +'Oh, Colin, I've told you what I feel about the English marriage +system. And, PAR PARENTHESE, I'm not beautiful. I don't come up in the +least to the artist's standard. My measurements are wrong. I'm too +small.' + +'That's rot. There's a fascination about you no man can resist--or +woman either. I see it in the people who come here.' + +'If I happen to have drawn them into what Rosamond used to call my +mysterious sphere of influence--which I seem to do without knowing it. +I'm not sure, though, that either Rosamond or Luke approve of my +drawing the Leichardt's Town people into my mysterious sphere of +influence.' + +'I think, if you ask me, that Lady Tallant is a bit of a cat, and Sir +Luke more than a bit of a prig.' + +'No. You mustn't say a word against them.' It was not in Bridget to be +disloyal. 'They've given me the time of my life.' + +'When you smile like that, you remind me of a photograph of a picture +I've seen--a woman, I don't remember her name.' + +'Mona Lisa--La Gioconda. I know--I've been told that before.' + +'Yes, that's it. Mona Lisa. People have written about her.' + +'Reams. Some day I'll read you what Pater says of her, unless you've +read him already--by your camp fire.' + +For he had talked to her, as he had talked to Joan Gildea, about his +readings and his dreamings under the stars in the Bush. + +'Eh! you shall teach me about these new writing chaps. I don't +understand your up-to-date theories. I've always gone in for plain +facts--standard reading--history--great thoughts of great minds--old +books brought out in people's editions. I'm up a tree--downright bushed +when you begin upon your queer ideas--all those new-fangled religions +and notions--Theosophy, spooks--about the earth being alive, and +thoughts making a sort of wireless telegraph system--I do believe in +that, though--to a certain extent. And your Brotherhood of Man! Bosh! +We're all like a lot of potatoes thrown into a sack and shaken about by +circumstance. And the big ones come to the top, and the little +ones--because they're little--sink to the bottom. I've always wanted to +be one of the big potatoes, and mean to be.' + +Bridget laughed. She had a ringing laugh when she was amused. + +'Oh! go on, Colin. I grant that you're a very big potato and I'm a very +little one.' + +'You know I didn't mean it that way. You're the biggest potato in the +whole bag as far as mind goes, and you make me feel the smallest. +You're so wonderful that the marvel of your being contented to marry me +is a bit staggering. And that brings me back to my question, which you +haven't answered.' + +'How have I brought myself to the incredible enterprise of marrying an +Australian bushman? Do you know?'--she became suddenly serious--'I have +asked myself that question once or twice, and I haven't been able to +answer it.' + +The light of adoration in his eyes faded a little. + +'I've been afraid of that,' he said slowly. I've been afraid that you +might be rushing into the business without reasoning it out--weighing +all the sides of it.' + +'If I were, it would only be the way of the O'Haras.' + +His blue eyes became more troubled. + +'I've been afraid of that,' he repeated. 'Bridget--suppose--my dear, +suppose it was to turn out a mistake.' + +'Well, I've made so many mistakes in my life and lived through them +that one more wouldn't matter,' she rejoined lightly. + +'This one would matter--because it would be irretrievable. Suppose that +you were to find that you couldn't put up with the Bush life--I've told +you that you are letting your imagination and your enthusiasm run a bit +away with you, and that there may be hardships you don't reckon on. For +though it all looks to me plain sailing now, and I hope it will only be +a year or two before I can put on a manager, and give you the home and +the climate that are more suited to you, one can't tell in Australia +that there may not be a drought or that a cattle boom may not turn to a +slump--do you see?' + +'I shan't mind in the least, Colin--that is, I shall mind immensely, +but if there comes a drought it will be quite exciting helping you to +drag out the poor, thirsty beasts, when they get bogged into the +waterholes as you were describing the other day.' + +He laughed. + +'YOU--helping to drag out bogged beasts! Why! they'd drag you in.' + +'Well, there are other things. Riding! I could help you to break in +horses. All the O'Haras are good on horseback'--at which he laughed +immoderately and told her that when she had seen one, Zack Duppo, on a +buckjumper, she would not be keen to try that game. But it might amuse +her to help cut out a few tame bullocks on a drafting camp if she had a +good old station mount that knew its work. + +She shuddered. 'I love horses, but I should run away from the first +bullock that looked at me. I'm frightened of beasts, and, on second +thoughts, I should not want to pull out bogged ones. And I loathe +cooking--domestic work--in a house. It would be different out of doors. +You've promised to teach me the first time we camp out how to +make--what do you call them--johnny-cakes?' + +'Ah! The first time we camp out together. If you knew how I've dreamed +of that. Biddy, I've got plans in my mind for that--' He caught her two +hands in a fierce grasp, and as he looked at her, his eyes full of +love, he would--greatly daring--have held her close to his breast and +kissed the provocative lips, as yet almost virgin to his. But she made +a shrinking movement, and he, acutely sensitive, dropped her hands, and +the love that had flamed in his eyes gave place to the dour look she +did not know so well. + +'Why do you always keep me at a distance?' he said, and drew abruptly +away from her. + +'Dear man, you mustn't be importunate. It--it's constitutional with me. +I've always hated love-making at close quarters.' + +'Always! Does that mean that you've been in the habit of letting men +kiss you?' + +'Colin, you are rude--brutal.' + +'D'ye think so? It seems to me that I'm only as Nature made me. +Biddy--if you feel like that now--how will it be when you're my wife?' + +She flushed a little, but as her way was, evaded him. + +'Perhaps I shall have grown more used to it all by that time.' + +'The time is not so long--only a fortnight from now. And when you hold +me off from the touch of your hand--the feel of your lips--well, it +makes me wonder....' + +She gave a little alarmed shiver. + +'Don't wonder, Colin. Don't worry.... And oh! before everything, don't +drive me--it isn't safe with an O'Hara woman. I can see that you don't +understand women--of a certain type.' + +'Oh! I grant you women haven't stood for a great deal in my life, and +the few I've known well have been of the humble, human sort. But I do +know this, Bridget'--his face softened--'I do know that a proud, +sensitive woman--which is what you are and what I love you for +being--is like a thoroughbred mare, out the first time in harness. You +must keep your hands tight on her and let her go her own pace. I can +tell you, too, the cart-horse kind that has to be driven with a whip +and a "gee-up" all the time wouldn't be the type for me.' + +She laughed gain, but shakily. There was an appeal in her voice. + +'Colin, you've told me a lot about breaking in young horses, and how +patient one has to be with them. Be patient with me.... Now, I'll try +and answer your question--truthfully. I only know in a very confused +sort of way WHY I want to marry you.... I think you must understand +what a lonely sort of life I've led, really--and what a dreadful muddle +I've made of it--Well, I've told you how I hated everything. And though +I can laugh, and be interested, too, in Molly Gaverick's way of looking +at things, and in her determination not "to be out of the swim"--I was +just as determined myself, when I had the mood to be in it--and though +one side of me hankers after the push and the struggle and the +worldliness--yet the other side of me revolts against it, and longs to +be washed clean of all the sordid social grime. There! I've felt about +marrying you that it would be a new baptism into a bigger, fresher, +purer life--do you see?' + +'Yes--I see.' His tone was doubtful. 'You've tried it before--that idea +of bigger interests--a different kind of life--in other ways, Biddy, +haven't you?' + +'Oh! in ever so many ways. Of course, that wasn't only in the sense of +love--hero worship, you know. It was the schemes, ideas, plans for +living in the higher part of one. Tolstoy, Prentice Mulford--that kind +of thing.... Colin, you blame me for not GIVING; yet, all my life, I've +been blamed for giving too freely.' + +'For giving too freely!' He repeated sharply. + +'You mustn't misunderstand me. I said it hadn't only to do with men +making love to me--my ideas about a different life. It was my general +attitude--expecting to meet something great and being disappointed.... +Of course, I've suffered--suffered horribly--in my heart--in my pride. +And I've often found that my attitude towards things brought me into +difficulties. The average person, if it's a man--supposes that because +one has such ideas one must be a kind of abandoned creature. And, if +it's a woman, that one has some mean, ulterior motive. I've always +seemed to be looking for largeness and finding only what was small. You +attracted me because you're like nature--big, simple, elemental.' + +'Now, what the deuce do you mean by elemental?' + +'Primal, unadulterated--closer to the heart of life and nature. It's a +sort of cosmic quality. You are large--your surroundings are large.' + +He laughed, only half comprehending, gauche in the expression of his +deep-hearted satisfaction. + +'One thousand square miles, two thirds of it fair grazing country in +good seasons, and will be first-rate when I've worked out my artesian +bore system. Plenty of space there for a woman to swing her petticoats, +in--your riding skirt it'll have to be.' + +'There! You see!' she cried. 'COULD one be mean or small in such +conditions? It's glorious, the thought of riding over one thousand +square miles--and tapping Mother Earth for your water supply! It will +be just what I said--a new baptism--a washing in Jordan. But you will +be patient, Colin; promise me that you will be good to me, and not ask +too much--at first.' + +There came a note into her voice which intoxicated the man with hope +and joy. But he restrained himself. He would not frighten her again. + +'Good to you! Biddy--you know you're sacred to me--I'll do +everything--I'll be as patient as you could wish until you get so used +to me that everything comes naturally. You understand? So long as +you'll trust me and open your heart to me, I'm not afraid that you +won't love me, my dear, in the end.' + +'I WANT to love you, Colin.' + +She moved a little closer to him and put her hand up, timidly, to his +shoulder. His breath came quickly, but he did not lose his +self-control. He knew that he must go gently with her. She drew her +hand down his coat sleeve and let it rest like a snowflake on his--a +contrast in its smallness and whiteness to the great brown hand +beneath. She looked at that, smiling whimsically, and he saw her smile, +and reddened. But he did not know that she found a pleasure in the +sight of his hand--scrupulously kept, the nails as well trimmed as a +bushman's nails can be, while showing the traces of manual labour. + +'How ridiculous they are together!' she said softly 'But I like your +hand, Colin. It's different from the other men's hands.' + +He was glad she said 'the other men's,' and not 'the other man's'. +Through all the gusts of passionate tenderness that went out to her, +there was always rankling the thought of 'that other man.' + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + +They had only one more talk, in the real sense, before their marriage, +and that was an unpremeditated but natural outrush of the vague +jealousy which slumbered at the core of McKeith's love. It was on the +last evening, and it made an ineffaceable impression upon him. + +They were standing, after dinner, close together by the balustrade of +the terrace. + +It was a clear night, with a young moon, and the stars set deep in blue +so dark that the sky gave an impression of solidity. The air was full +of scents and of a soft balminess, with the faint nip of an early May +in the Southern hemisphere. + +He had folded her light scarf round the child-like shoulders. The touch +of his big hand stirred her--it had not often done so in that peculiar +way. It roused something in her that she had thought dead or drugged to +sleep, and took her back for an emotional moment to a certain late +summer evening at Hurlingham, when she and Willoughby Maule had stood +in the garden together under the stars. There came to her an almost +fierce reaction against that moment. She felt a distinct emotion now, +but it was different--less tumultuous, and bringing her a soft sense of +enfoldment. + +She slipped her hand gently into McKeith's, and they remained thus for +nearly a minute without speaking. He was the first to break the silence. + +'Bridget,' he said impetuously, 'we're going to be husband and wife +to-morrow. It makes me tremble, darling--with happiness and hope, and +with fear, too. What have I done, a rough Bushy like me--to win a woman +like you? Well you know how I think about that. And I don't believe in +a man belittling himself to the woman he loves, though it's just +because he loves her so that he feels unworthy of her. And then it +comes over me again--badly sometimes--how little I really know of you, +and of your life, and of your feelings towards the other men you must +have had to do with--one other man in especial, may be, that you've +loved, or may have thought you loved. That's what I want to know about, +my dear.' + +Her face was turned from his as she answered: + +'What's the good of your knowing, Colin? Whatever there was is past.' + +'But IS it past. Over and over again, I've started to ask you and have +pulled back. Now it's got like a festering sore in my heart, and I'm +afraid it will go on festering unless I'm satisfied. There WAS somebody +in especial--a man you cared for and might have married if he had been +a finer sort of chap than he turned out to be?' + +She looked at him sharply. + +'How do you know? Has Rosamond Tallant been telling you?' + +'No,' he said, with complete candour. 'There wasn't a word of that sort +passed between us--and I wouldn't have heeded it if there had.' + +'Joan, then? No, I'm sure Joan Gildea wouldn't have talked behind my +back.' + +'You may bet your life on that. Joan hasn't said anything about +whatever love-affairs you may have had.' + +'Every girl has had love-affairs. I'm no exception to the rule. There's +been no real harm in them. Let them lie--buried in oblivion. They're +not worth resurrecting.' + +'No, but,'--he persisted--thinking all the while of that +letter--'Bridget, I must ask you this one thing. Is there any man in +the world you care for more than you care for me? I know,' he added +sadly, 'that you don't love in the way I love you--in the way I'd like +to be loved by you. I know that's too much to expect--yet.' + +The melancholy note in his speech touched her. + +'I told you that I do WANT to love you, Colin--only I can't help being +what I am,' she said softly. She looked up at him in the pale +brightness of the thin moon and myriad stars. He stood with the faint +illumination from the open windows of Government House upon his fine +head and his neat fair beard. It intensified the gleam in his earnest +blue eyes, while it softened his angularities and bush roughness, and +as she looked up at him, she could not help feeling what a splendid +fellow he was! What a MAN! So much finer than that other man to whom +she had nearly given herself! Ah, she had had an escape! Under all his +show of romantic adventure, his ardent protestations, his magnetic +charm, that other man had been utterly sophisticated, worldly, +self-interested. He had shown this in his money-grabbing, in his +disloyalty both to the woman he had professed to love, and to the woman +he had married for her fortune. Thinking of him in this way, Lady +Bridget felt that in time she might come to care a great deal more for +Colin McKeith. + +He caught up her last words. + +'Yes, I know that you WANT to love me Biddy, and I hope with all my +heart and soul that you will--or else--' he broke off, his face +darkening. + +'Or else--what?' + +'I don't know. It would be hell. I can't think such a thing at this +moment. If it comes--well, I'll face it as I've had to face other ugly +things. Don't let us speak of the possibility!' + +She sensed some quality in him that she had not realised before. + +'You frighten me a little, Colin. It's as if I may any day come up +before something I wasn't prepared for; and yet--I rather like it.' + +He smiled at her. + +'I'm glad you like it, anyway. You seem to me such a child, Biddy, +though you are always telling me you are such an old soul. I can't for +the life of me make out what you mean by that.' + +'Oh! A soul that has come back and back, and has lived a great +many--perhaps naughty--lives.' + +'H'm! Yes! Well, one life is good enough for me, and as we can't prove +the other thing, what does it matter anyhow? I wouldn't want you in +another life if you were going to be quite a different person. I want +you as you are in this one. And so I reckon would any man who has ever +been in love with you. Let us go back now to what I was asking you. +Biddy, there WAS a man--one man that you did care for? You've admitted +as much.' + +'Yes--I suppose there was.' + +'And not so long before you came out here?' + +'I suppose that's true too.' + +'Bridget!--do you know what's been festering in my mind--the thought +that you might be marrying me in a fit of pique--a sort of reaction. +Biddy--tell me honestly, my dear, if it's anything of that sort?' + +She seemed to be considering. + +'I don't quite know how to answer you, Colin--if I'm to be absolutely +honest. And I'd always rather tell you the truth.' + +'Thank God for that. Let there be truth between us--truth at any cost.' + +'You see,' she said slowly. 'My whole coming out here--everything I've +done lately, has been done in reaction against all I've done and felt +before.' + +'Would you have married that man--if everything had been on the square?' + +'What do you mean by "on the square"? I've done nothing to be properly +ashamed of!' + +'No--no--I was thinking only of him, Biddy, did you love that +man?--really love him?' + +'I'm not sure yet whether I'm capable of what you'd call loving really. +I had a violent attraction to him,'--he remembered the phrase--'I +confess I did feel it dreadfully when he married someone else. Now it +doesn't hurt me. And of course, he has gone out of my life altogether. +I'm glad he has, and I hope he will keep on the other side of the +world.' + +'Well, let it stop at that.' He drew a breath of relief. 'I don't +believe you really cared for him. If you had, you couldn't take it as +you do. I'll never bother you again about that man. And, oh, my +dear--my dear--it doesn't seem to me possible that you shouldn't come +to love me, when I love you as I do--with my whole heart and soul--I +worship you, Biddy. And I'll not say again that I'm unworthy of you--a +man who loves a woman like that CAN'T be unworthy.' + +He took her in his arms and kissed her. And this time she did not +resist the caress. + + + +They were married with much flourish of trumpets and local +paraphernalia. Never before in the annals of Leichardt's Land had a +wedding taken place from Government House. This one was regarded as +quite an official event. The Executive Council--at that moment about to +undergo the pangs of dissolution--attended in a body. There were a +great many members of parliament present also. It became even a +question whether the official uniforms worn at Sir Luke's 'Swearing In' +should not lend eclat to the occasion. But Colin McKeith vetoed that +proposition. + +The bridal party drove straight from the Church to that same +extemporized wharf by the Botanical Gardens which had been put up for +the Governor's State Landing. It had been re-constructed and +redecorated for to-day's event. Thus the embarcation of the bride and +bridegroom, of the viceregal party and the wedding guests, in the +Government yacht, which was to take the new-made pair to the big +mail-boat in the Bay, was almost as imposing a ceremony as the +Governor's Entry into his new kingdom. The day was glorious--an early +Australian winter's day, when the camellia trees are in bud, and the +autumn bulbs shedding perfumes, and garlands of late roses, honeysuckle +and jasmine are still hanging on trellis and tree. + +As the bridal party came down the avenue of bunyas, and the band played +the Wedding Chorus from LOHENGRIN a feeling of dream-like incongruity +came over Bridget. She laughed hysterically. + +'What a pity Joan Gildea isn't here!' she said. 'Think of the "copy" +she might have made out of this!' + +Lady Tallant had conceived the original idea of having the wedding +breakfast on the deck of the Government yacht, while it steamed down +the forty miles between Leichardt's Town and the river bar, beyond +which, in those days, large vessels could not pass. There, the repast +was laid on tables decorated with white blossoms and maidenhair fern, +under an awning festooned with flowers and exotic creepers, and +supported apparently, by palm trees and tree ferns which had been taken +from the Government Gardens. + +The bride looked small, pale, and quaint in her white satin dress and +lace veil, now thrown back and partly confining the untidily curling +hair. Some of the reports described her as being like an old picture; +others as a vision from Fairyland. She came barely up to her husband's +shoulder as they stood together, and the adoring pride of his downward +gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic +thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation +bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his +buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a +short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration +proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, +and so did the Attorney-General, who was best man. Bridget's +bridesmaids had been selected from the daughters of the Executive with +as much attention to precedence as though she had been a royal +princess. All this had delighted the Leichardstonians, and when Sir +Luke read out the congratulatory cablegrams received that morning from +the Earl and Countess of Gaverick, Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, and one +or two other members of the British aristocracy, the enthusiasm was +great. + +The speeches were over; the wedding cake had been cut; the river-bar +and the liner were in sight, when Lady Bridget went below and changed +into sea-going blue serge. The mail-boat, beflagged in honor of the +occasion, dipped a salute. The Governor led the bride along the +gangway, introduced the captain of the mail-boat, and there were more +congratulatory speeches, and still more of official ceremony as the +bride passed by a line of inquisitive and admiring +passengers--fortunately there were not many--and down to the state-room +prepared for her. Then the curtain seemed to fall that divided her from +her past, and when the Governor stepped again on to the Leichardt's +Land yacht, and the last farewell had been waved, Lady Bridget felt +thankfully that she had become a private individual at last. Only just +Bridget, wife of Colin McKeith, Bushman, now starting upon her voyage +towards the Wild. + +She could not get away from the bewildering sense of unreality. It +dominated every other feeling. She did not even reflect that there was +no going back; that her fate was sealed, and that the Bush was +henceforth to be her prison or her paradise. + +All the way up the river, Rosemary Tallant congratulated herself upon +having done the best that was possible for poor Biddy the failure. It +was all entirely satisfactory. She wove a halo of romance round Colin +McKeith, and, after reading her laudation of him, and her description +of Bridget's send off, old Lady Gaverick and the impecunious Chris and +his wife declared to each other that Biddy had done as well for herself +as the family had any reason to expect. + +Eliza, Lady Gaverick, was highly pleased, though she would not for the +world have let her niece by marriage know it. Being Scotch herself she +approved of the Scotch bridegroom, and began now to think seriously of +the alteration she subsequently made in her will. + +It was a four days' passage to Leuraville the port at which the +McKeith's were to be dropped. Not being a good sailor Lady Bridget +retired to her berth when the steamer got into a choppy sea. + +Of course she had no maid. Colin unpacked the cabin trunk and dressing +bag and arranged things so far as he could understand his wife's dainty +toilet equipments, and his mistakes made them laugh and got them over +the first awkwardness of close quarter. + +Then he said: + +'Now I'm going to stow away my own traps. My cabin is just facing this +and you've only got to call out if you want anything. Eh, but my word! +Biddy, it's a fine thing to be marrying from Government House. The +Company has done us both proud.' + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + +They were landed at Leuraville on the evening of the fourth day. A +tender took them off with the mails--as it happened, they were the only +passengers for that small sea-township. Ordinary business folk going +north, preferred the smaller coasting steamers which put in at every +port. The postmaster, the portmaster, the police magistrate, and a few +local notables were waiting to receive them at the wharf. McKeith +greeted them all heartily and rather shyly introduced them to his +bride. The local men were shy also. They mostly addressed her as Mrs +McKeith. The police magistrate--Captain Halliwell, lean, dark, sallow, +with a rather weak mouth, but more carefully dressed than the others, +and with an English voice, called her Lady Bridget. He was a retired +officer of the ROYAL ENGINEERS. She had been told and now remembered +that men in the ROYAL ENGINEERS were popularly said either to be +religious or cranks. This man was a Christian Scientist which he +announced when apologising for not offering the hospitality of his +house, a new baby having arrived the day previously, ushered into the +world, he explained, by prayer and faith and without benefit of medical +skill. + +Bridget knew something about Christian Scientists. She plunged at once +into faith-healing ethics with the police-magistrate, while Colin saw +about getting the trunks off the tender. How odd it seemed to be +talking about London and Christian science in a place like this! + +Leuraville too seemed part of a dream. But her face soon lost its +bewildered look. She became interested in her surroundings, although +there was no suggestion here of savage freedom or romantic adventure. + +Leuraville showed low and hot and ugly. A red sun near its dropping, +drew up the miasmic vapours from the mangrove-fringed reaches +stretching on either side of the wharf. Some light crafts were moored +about. A schooner was loading up with cattle--wretched diseased beasts. +Bridget watched them with shuddering repulsion--being hoisted up and +slung aboard with ropes. The men at their task swore so abominably that +the police-magistrate stepped up to them and remonstrated on the plea +of a lady's presence. Bridget had never heard such swear-words. She was +used to the ordinary 'damn,' but these oaths were so horribly coarse. +Colin, who was asking local questions of the other men appeared to take +it all as a matter of course. The men stopped their work to stare at +Lady Bridget. They wore dirty corduroys hitched up with a strap over +flannel shirts that were open at the neck and left their brawny breasts +exposed. There were other loafers in flannel shirts, hitched up +trousers and greasy felt or cabbage-tree hats, and there were two or +three blacks of the demoralised type seen in coast townships. Now, one +of the bullocks got loose and rushed blindly down the wharf, and +Bridget shrieked and clung wildly to her husband's arm until it was +headed back again. + +Colin laughed at her terror. + +'It's all right, Biddy. But how's that for a Bushman's wife. You'll see +lots of cattle up at Moongarr.' + +Moongarr was the name off his station which was to be her future home. + +'I hate cows. Once I was charged by a wild cow and I've been afraid of +them ever since.' + +'That isn't a cow. It's Mickey Field's poley-tailed bullock being +shunted off to the Boiling-Down Works on Shark Island,' said a local +man. + +The police-magistrate found his opportunity. + +'You wouldn't be afraid, Lady Bridget, if you realised that cow as an +expression of the Divine mind.' + +Bridget laughed. Her sense of the queerness of it all was almost +hysterical. She had the Irish wit to make the men grin at her prompt +answer, which when it became bruited up and down the Leura, earned her +the reputation of being sharp at repartee. + +'But do you think,' said she confidingly, 'that the cow would be after +realising ME as an expression of the Divine Mind?' + +'Eh, you needn't think you're going to knock spots off my wife, any of +you,' cried Colin delighted at the sally. And now he walked and talked +like a man on his own soil again, as more of the townsfolk came +about--extraordinary people, Bridget thought. Loose-limbed bush-riders, +really trim, some of them, in clean breeches and with a scarlet +handkerchief doing duty as a belt, unkempt old men, a Unionist Labour +organiser addressing a knot of station-hands out of work--even a +Chinaman--a Chinky, McKeith called him, who, it appeared kept a +nondescript store. That was in the days before the Commonwealth and the +battle cry of 'White Australia.' + +All of them showed the deepest interest in the small, pale, picturesque +woman walking by Colin's side. + +It seemed incredible to Biddy that she should be walking like that +beside the big Bushman, in this sort of town, and that he should be her +lawful protector. + +The street they walked up began from the wharf with two-storied +respectable buildings--the Bank, the Post-Office, the +police-magistrate's residence, some dwelling houses, within palings +enclosing gardens--clumps of bananas, pawpaw apple trees, a few flower +beds, bushes of flaunting red poinsettia, and so forth. There were +stores, public houses, meaner shanties straggling along a dusty road +that lost itself in vistas of lank gum trees. + +The Postmaster hoped that Mr McKeith's lady would not find the hotel +too rowdy. It was one of the two-storied buildings, and had a bar +giving onto the street, and a veranda round both upper and lower +storey. A number of Bushmen and loafers were drinking in the bar, and +others were on the edge of the veranda dangling their legs over it into +the street. All of them stopped their talk and their drink to stare at +Lady Bridget. The landlady--a big, florid Irish-woman in black silk, +with a gold chain round her neck came out onto the veranda and greeted +McKeith as an old friend, holding out her hand to Lady Bridget. She +took the husband and wife up to their rooms, a parlour opening on the +balcony, a bedroom over the bar and a little room at the back of it. + +'It's a rough sort of shop, Biddy,' said Colin, when the woman had +departed. 'But it will do for a shake-down for to-night. If the steamer +had come in earlier I'd have taken you straight up to Fig Tree Mount, +where the buggy will be waiting for us; and after that we'll begin our +camping out, and you'll be in the real Bush. But we've lost the train, +and must wait till daylight to-morrow. You'll be tired my dear--and you +must be feeling strange,' he added kindly. 'I'll go and have your traps +brought up and leave you to fix yourself. I want to see one or two +chaps and find out whether my drays are down as far as Fig Tree for +stores and what's going on up along the Leura.' + +Bridget noticed that the change in McKeith seemed yet more accentuated. +His manner was more curt and decided--rougher than before. He appeared +to have taken on the tone of the Back-Blocks. Yet she admired him. She +did not dislike the roughness. + +But she felt a womanish aggrievement at his having left her to undo her +own things. And the rooms were horrible--the meagre appliances--the +course cotton sheets, the awful Reckitt's-blue colouring of the painted +walls. And then the dreadful noise of the men drinking below in the +bar! If this was the Bush! But Colin had said it was not the Bush. + +He left her again after dinner which was horrible likewise--burned up +steak, messy fried potatoes and cabbage, an uneatable rice pudding. He +did not seem to mind. The result of his enquiries had left him grim and +preoccupied. Yes, he had taken on the Bushman, and had more or less +dropped the lover. The practical Scotch side of him was uppermost, and +he appeared more disturbed over station affairs than at her want of +appetite. She resented this unreasonably. She had not wanted him to +play the lover in these surroundings, they would have been fatal to +romance, but she had not bargained for his glumness. He was angry at +the non-arrival of his draymen and the probability that they were +drinking at a grog-shanty on the road. He would certainly sack them, he +said if that were the case. And he had disquieting news from Moongarr. +Pleuro had broken out among the cattle. What was Pleuro? Lady Bridget +wondered, but she was not sufficiently interested in cattle to ask the +question. And the Unionist labour men were making themselves a +nuisance--going round the stations burning the grass of squatters who +employed non-Union stockmen and shearers--in one instance, threatening +to burn a woolshed. And there hadn't been any rain on the Leura for a +month past, and weather prophets were predicting a drought. + +It was dreadfully prosaic and boring. After he had gone out again to +transact further business, Lady Bridget went to bed and squirmed +between the cotton sheets, remembering ruefully the luxuries of +Government House. Never in all her life had she slept between cotton +sheets or washed herself in an enamelled tin basin. The noise in the +bar became intolerable. She could hear the swear-words quite +distinctly. They were disgusting. She tried to stop her ears .... Oh +what a dreadful life this was into which she had plunged so recklessly! + +Her thoughts went back to the old-world--to the luxurious veneer +covering the younger Gavericks' petty economies--stealing the notepaper +at country-houses for the sake of the address--cadging for motors and +dinners--'keeping in' with the people likely to be of use; pulling +strings in a manner which Bridget knew would have been too utterly +galling to Colin McKeith's self-respect. And she thought of her father +and his financial unscrupulousness! But none of these could have +conceived of life without certain appurtenances of that position to +which they and she had been born. The only one who was self-respecting +among the lot was old 'Eliza Countess' as they designated her. It +struck Bridget that Eliza Countess and Colin McKeith had points of +character in common--it was true they both came from Glasgow. She +thought of the parsimonious rectitude--which had of course included +linen sheets and fine porcelain and shining silver--of old Lady +Gaverick's establishment, of its stuffy conventionality--though that +had been soothing sometimes after a dose of Upper Bohemia; and Bridget +wept, feeling rather like a wilful child who had strayed out of the +nursery among a horde of savages. + +At last she could bear it no longer. They were singing now--a terrible +thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like +the cracking of whips--a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget +shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this +in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in +her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband would come and rescue her +from these beasts. Watching for him she could see through the +uncurtained French windows the starry brilliance of the night, and the +moon now in its middle quarter. And down below, the houses and shanties +along the opposite side of the street, the fantastic tufts of the +pawpaws, the long white road stretching away into the ragged blur of +gum-forest. + +Presently a firm step sounded on the veranda and came up the stairs. + +When Colin opened the door, he saw standing by the table, which had a +kerosene lamp on the red cloth, and, even at this time of the year, +winged insects buzzing around, and sticking to its greasy bowl--a small +white figure like an apparition from another world, in its wonderful +draperies of lace and filmy white, the little pale face framed in a +cloud of shining hair, and the strange eyes wide, scared, and with +tears glistening on the reddened lids. + +She cried out at him. + +'How could you have left me alone here with those horrible drunken men +down there making such a noise that I thought every minute they would +break in on me? And swearing! I've never dreamed of such dreadful +language; and I can't stand it--I won't stand it a moment longer.' + +'You shan't. It's abominable, I've been a thoughtless beast.' + +He swooped out through the open door, down the wooden stairs which +creaked under his wrathful steps. Bridget heard him call the landlady, +'Mrs Maloney! Come here!' in a voice of sharp command. Presently she +heard him speaking to the men in the bar, not abusively, indeed almost +good humoured tone, but imperatively. + +'Look here, mates.' The uproar stopped suddenly. 'You're decent blokes +I know, and you've all had mothers if you haven't had wives. Well, +there's a lady up there--she's my wife, and she's never heard +bullock-drivers swear before, and you've scared her a bit. Just you +stop it. Shut up and be off like good chaps.' + +Some dissentient voices arose; an attempt at drunken ribaldry, strident +hisses, 'Sh! Sh!' Cries of 'Shame.' 'Chuck it!' Then again, McKeith's +voice, this time like thunder. 'Stop that I say--one more word and out +you go, whether you like it or not.' + +On that, came the noise of a scuffle and the fall of a heavy body +across the veranda. And of McKeith, once more breathing satisfaction: + +'All right! I haven't killed him--only given him a lesson .... But just +you understand I'm not taking any of your bluff. You've GOT TO GO. If +you don't, it'll be a case of the lock-up for some of you. And if you +do--quietly mind, there'll be a shout all round for the lot of you +to-morrow. Drink my health and my wife's, d'ye see? Here Mrs Maloney, +chalk it down.' + +In five minutes he was back in the sitting room, looking rather +dishevelled, and with his coat awry. But there was silence below except +for the putting up of shutters, the sound of shuffling feet along the +road and snatches of the bullock drivers' chorus which gradually died +away in the night. + +McKeith went up to his wife who was still standing by the corner of the +table, and put his arm round the little trembling form. + +'Oh! Biddy--my darling. I've been a brute. I'm not fit to take care of +you. I ought to have thought of all that. But one gets used to such +goings-on in the Bush, and they aren't bad chaps--the bullockys, and +you've got to discount their lurid language a bit. I don't know whether +it is that bullocks are more profane than most animals, but it's +certain sure that you can't get them to move without swearing at them.' + +Then, as she said, half crying, half laughing, 'I see. So this is my +baptism into the Bush! You should have taught me the vocabulary, Colin, +first.' + +'Don't be too hard on me. You won't have this kind of thing at +Moongarr. That's the worst of these cursed coast townships. I shouldn't +have left you alone, but if I hadn't, we couldn't have got off properly +to-morrow, and I'd set my heart on having things ship-shape for our +first camping out. Everything's fixed up now--I've been wiring like mad +up the line .... The buggy's at the Terminus all right, and I've got +the black-boys there, and the tent and all that. It's going to be an +experience you'll never forget. THAT'S to be your baptism into the +Bush, my dear .... If only there's water enough left in the Creek yet +.... But if there isn't we can dig for it. Oh, Biddy, think of it--a +night like this--moonlight and starlight--MY starlight--MY star, that I +used to look up at and wonder about, come down to earth. No, no, I +won't maunder, I won't be a romantic zany--not till to-morrow night--I +know the very spot for our camp ....' + +He began to describe it--a pocket by the river bed--pasturage for the +horses--then pulled himself short. No! He wanted it all to be a +surprise .... She was to have just the very thing she had often said to +him she would like best .... And now it was getting late and they must +be up in good time to-morrow. Would she go to bed and try to sleep.... + +He took her to the door of her room .... Was she as comfortable as she +could be here, anyhow? .... He knew it must seem cruelly rough to her; +but it wouldn't be his fault in the future if she didn't have things as +she liked them--so far as conditions would permit .... And after all, +there women who enjoyed a wild life with their husbands. There was Lady +Burton--and scores of other women--Biddy had asked him to have +patience--and he meant to be patient--he worshipped her too much not to +be patient. Well, she must be patient too with him, and with this queer +old Bush which she would get to feel as much at home in as he did +himself--in time. + +He left her at her bedroom door, kissing her hand with the native +chivalry that sat well upon him, and went back to his pipe and the +waking dreams of an ardent but self-restrained lover who had practical +as well as romantic considerations to weigh. Bridget went to sleep with +the smell of his tobacco--and yet did not seem to mind it in the +least--coming in whiffs through the door cracks and filling her +nostrils. She too dreamed--a vivid dream, but by some law of +contrariety, not of any idyllic camping ground in the Never-Never Land. +She dreamed that she was seeing the Carnival at Nice--a medley of +dancing waves, azure sky, palms, gold-laden orange trees and white +green-shuttered houses--flowers, CONFETTI, masks, grotesque pageantry, +the merry music of the South. And though he had never been with her at +Nice, Willoughby Maule came into her dream. They were doing impossible +things--dancing together in the Carnival crowd, flinging confetti, +bobbing and grimacing before the comic masks. Then the carnival scene +seemed to turn flat, and to become a painted picture on the drop +curtain of a stage, and she started up at the sound of knocks such as +one hears before the curtain rises in a French theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + +Her husband was at her door calling her in the grey of dawn. He had +everything ready he said. She dressed fumblingly as if she were still +in her dream, and they walked to the station-shed whither the baggage +had already gone. The sun was only a little way above the horizon when +they took their places in the bush train that was to bear her on the +second stage of her journey into the Unknown. Such a wheezy, shaky +little train, and such funny, ugly country! Sandy flats sparsely grown, +mostly with gum trees, where there were no houses and gardens. Near the +township there were a good many of these wooden dwellings with +corrugated iron roofs--some of the more aged ones of slab--and with a +huge chimney at one end. They were set in fenced patches of millet and +Indian corn or gardens that wanted watering and with children perched +on the top rail of the fences who cheered the train as it passed. +Sometimes the train puffed between lines of grey slab fencing in which +were armies of white skeleton trees that had been 'rung' for +extermination, or with bleached stumps sticking up in a chaos of felled +trunks, while in some there had sprung up sickly iron-bark saplings. + +Now and then, they would stop at a deserted-looking station, round +which stood a few shanties, and the inevitable public house. Maybe it +had formerly been a sheepfold, abandoned when the scab had destroyed +the flocks; and there were enormous rusty iron boiling-pots to which a +fetid odour still clung, and where the dust that blew up, had the +grittiness and faint smell of sun-dried sheeps' droppings. + +At one of the more important stopping places, they had early lunch of +more fried steak, with sweet potatoes and heavy bread and butter and +peach jam. Most of the other passengers got out for lunch also. + +There was a fifth-rate theatrical company cracking jokes among +themselves, drinking brandy and soda at extortionate prices, and +staring hard at Lady Bridget. Colin pointed out to her a lucky digger +and his family--two daughters in blue serge trimmed with gold braid, +and a fat red-faced Mamma, very fine in a feathered hat, black brocade, +a diamond brooch, and with many rings and jangling bangles. There were +some battered, bearded bushmen who seemed to be friends of Colin's, +though he did not introduce them to his wife, and who talked on topical +subjects in a vernacular which Lady Bridget thought to herself she +would never be able to master. There was a professional horse-breaker +whom McKeith hailed as Zack Duppo, and to whom he had a good deal to +say also. There were some gangs of shearers or stockmen or what not, +who appeared to be the following of two or three rakish, aggressive +looking males upon whom the bushmen scowled. Union delegates, Strike +Organisers, McKeith explained. + +After that station, marks of civilisation diminished. The Noah's Ark +humpeys in their clearings became few and far between, and the long +lines of grey two-railed fences melted into gum forest. Now and then, +they saw herds of cattle and horses. Once, a company of kangaroos +sitting up with fore paws drooping and a baby marsupial poking its head +out of the pouch of one of the does. Then, taking fright in a second, +all leaped up, long back legs stretched, tails in air, and, in a few +ungainly bounds they were lost to sight among the gum trees. Early in +the afternoon the train reached the temporary Terminus, for the line +was being carried on by degrees through the Leura district. This was a +mining town called Fig Tree Mount--why, nobody could tell, for there +were no fig trees, and not a sign of a hill as far as the level +horizon--except for the heaps of refuse mullock that showed where +shafts had been sunk. A good many years ago, Bridget was told, there +had been a rush to the place, but the gold field turned out not so good +as had been expected, and it was only lately that the discovery of a +payable reef had brought the digging population back again. From one +direction came the whirr of machinery, and there was in the same +quarter a collection of white tents and roughly put up humpeys. +Otherwise, the township consisted of a long dusty street cutting the +sandy plain and, out of the two score or so of zinc-roofed buildings, +twenty were public houses. + +Lady Bridget had been very silent all day. To Colin's anxious enquiries +she answered that it was enough to take in so many new impressions +without talking about them. Through the crude blur of these impressions +her husband stood out definitely, a dominant influence. She seemed to +be only now beginning to feel his dominance. Yet all the time, she +could not get away from the sense of living in some fantastic dream--an +Edward Lear nonsense dream. The sight of the kangaroos in the Bush +brought a particular rhyme of her childhood to her mind. She half said, +half sang it to an improvised tune: + + 'Said the Duck to the Kangaroo, + "Good gracious! how you hop! + Over the fields and water too, + As if you never would stop!"' + + +She caught her husband looking at her in a fascinated, puzzled way, and +paused and gave him her funny little smile. + +'That's a very pretty song,' he said. 'But I can't make out what it +means. What is it about a duck or a kangaroo? They're nonsense words, +aren't they?' + +'Nonsense--oh yes, frightful nonsense. Only it struck me that there's +sometimes a lot of truth in nonsense. Listen now,' and she went on: + + '"My life is a bore in this nasty pond, + And I long to go out in the world beyond. + I wish I could hop like you!" + Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.' + + +He still looked puzzled--but adoring. + +'You've got no sense of humour,' she said, 'Don't you see that you and +I are as incongruous as the duck and the kangaroo?' + +'That is so,' he answered gravely. 'But I'll be a kangaroo with +pleasure if it makes the Bush more attractive to you.' + +She fell suddenly silent again, and sat gloomy and staring at the +endless procession of gum trees as the train lumbered on through that +fantastic forest, which made her think of all kinds of ridiculous +things. And she was conscious all the time of his furtive watching from +the corner opposite, and of his readiness to spring forward at the +least indication of her wanting anything. It bewildered her--the +strangeness of being alone with, entirely dependent upon this big man +of the Bush, who had the right to look after her, and yet of whom she +knew so little. + +He did look after her with sedulous care. He had natty bush dodges for +minimising the discomfort of the hot, dusty train journey. He +manufactured a windsail outside the carriage window, which brought in a +little breeze during the airless heat of mid-day. He contrived to get +cool drinks and improvised for her head a cushion out of his rolled up +poncho, a silk handkerchief and a large cold cabbage leaf against which +she leaned her hot forehead. In all his actions she watched him with a +curious blend of feelings. There was a satisfaction in his largeness, +his commonsense, his breeziness. She liked hearing his quaint Bush +colloquialisms, when he leaned out of the window at the small stations +and exchanged greetings with whomsoever happened to be +there--officials, navvies, miners, even Chinamen--most of whom saluted +him with a 'Glad to see you back, sir!' ... or a 'Good-day, Boss. Good +luck to you,' as if they all knew the significance of this wedding +journey--which no doubt they all did. + +Bridget kept in the background and smiled enigmatically at it all. She +was interested in her husband both in the personal and abstract sense, +and was a little surprised at herself for being pleased when he paid +her any attention or sat down beside her. At moments, she even hankered +after the touch of his fingers, and had a perverse desire to break down +the restraint he was so manifestly putting upon himself. Once, when he +had been sitting very still in the further corner, thinking she was +asleep, she had looked at him suddenly, and had found his eyes fixed on +her in a gaze so concentrated, so full of intense longing, that she +felt as if he were trying to hypnotise her into loving him. She knew +that if he were, it must be unconscious hypnotism on his part. There +were no subtleties of that kind in Colin McKeith. No, it was the primal +element in him that appealed to her, dominated her. For she was +startled by a sudden realization of that dominant quality in him as +applied to herself. In their courtship it had been she who dominated +him. + +He reddened guiltily when he caught her eyes. His long upper lip went +down in obstinate resistance to impulse. But if he had kissed her then, +she would not have rebelled. + +'Colin, what are you thinking of?' she said, and he answered in a tone, +husky with pent emotion. + +'I was thinking of our camp to-night--of how we should be alone +together in the starlight.... And of how I want to make you happy and +of how wonderful it all is--like some impossible dream.' + +'Yes. I've been feeling too that it is like a dream,' she replied +gravely. + +'A bit of nightmare so far, I'm afraid, for you, Biddy,' he said +shaking himself free from sentiment. 'But this part of it will soon be +over.' + +He got up, pulled the blind down behind her, and readjusted the cabbage +leaf under her head. Just then, the train pulled up at a station where +there were selectors' holdings, and a German woman was lugging along a +crate of garden produce. He jumped out and bought another cabbage from +which he shredded a fresh cool leaf for her pillow. And at that they +laughed and he relapsed into normal commonplace. + +When she got out at Fig Tree Mount, he took her across the sandy street +to the nearest and largest of the public houses which had 'Station +Hotel' printed on it in big blue letters--a glaring, crude, zinc-roofed +box with a dirty veranda that seemed a receptacle for rubbish and a +lounge for kangaroo dogs, to say nothing of drunken men. The dogs took +no notice of the male loungers, but started a vigorous barking at the +sight of a lady. There was the usual bar at one end, the usual noise +going on inside, and the usual groups of bush loafers outside. Several +riding horses were hitched up to the palings at a right angle with the +Bar, and a bullock dray loaded with wool-bales--on the top of which a +whole family appeared to reside under a canvas tilt--was drawn up in +the road. The beasts were a repulsive sight, with whip-weals on their +panting sides, their great heads bowed under the yoke and their +slavering tongues protruding. Bridget looked at everything with a wide +detached gaze, as she followed her husband along the hotel veranda. +McKeith, motioning to his wife to proceed, stopped to peer at the faces +of two men lying in a drunken sleep on the boards. + +'Not my men, anyway,' he said, rejoining her. 'But that will keep.' The +place seemed deserted and in disorder. There were glimpses through the +open windows of unmade beds within, and, on the veranda, lay some red +blankets bundled together. Colin took his wife into a parlour, where +flies buzzed round the remains of a meal and some empty whisky bottles +and glasses. After considerable shouting and knocking at doors along +the passage, he succeeded in arousing the landlady, who came in, +buttoning her blouse. Her obviously dyed yellow hair was in a +dishevelled state, her eyes were heavy and her face sodden. She had +evidently been sleeping off the effects of drink. + +'Had a night of it, I suppose, Mrs Hurst?' observed McKeith glumly. +'This is a nice sort of place to show a lady into.' + +The woman burst out on the defensive, but McKeith silenced her. + +'That'll do. Clear away all that mess and let us have a clean cloth and +some tea. And I say, if you have got a decent room for my wife to wash +the dust off and take a bit of a rest in, I'll be obliged.' + +The landlady blinked her puffed eyelids, muttered an uncourteous +rejoinder and went off with some of the debris from the table. Bridget +laughed blankly. She looked so small and flower like, so absolutely +incongruous with her surroundings, that the humour of it all struck +McKeith tragically. + +'Good Lord! I wonder what your opinion is of this show! Here is the +beginning of what is called the Never-Never Country, my dear. Do you +want to go back again to Government House?' + +'No, I don't,' and she touched him to the heart's core by putting her +little hand in his. + +'That's my Mate,' said he, his blue eyes glistening. 'But I'll tell you +what I think of your splendid pluck when we're quit of these beastly +townships, and have gone straight into Nature. Now, I've got to go and +see after the buggy and find my boys, and I shall have all my work cut +out to be ready in an hour. You just make the best of things, and if +the bedroom is impossible spread out my poncho and take a rest on that +sofa there, and don't be frightened if you hear any rowdiness going on.' + +The bedroom was impossible, and the sofa seemed equally so. Bridget +drank the coarse bush tea which the landlady brought in, and was glad +that the woman seemed too sulky to want to talk. Then she sat down at +the window and watched the life of the township--the diggers slouching +in for drinks, the riders from the bush who hung up their horses and +went into the bar, the teams of bullocks coming slowly down the road +and drawing up here or at some other of the nineteen public houses 'to +wet the wool,' in bush vernacular. She counted as many as twenty-four +bullocks in one of the teams, and watched with interest the family life +that went on in the narrow space between the wool bales and the canvas +roof above. There were women up there and little children. She saw +bedding spread and a baby's clothes fluttering out to dry, and tin +pannikins and chunks of salt beef slung to the ropes that bound the +wool bales together. Then, when the wool was wetted, or when some other +teams behind disputed the right of way in lurid terms which Lady +Bridget was now beginning to accept as inevitably concomitant with +bullocks, the first dray would proceed, all the cattle bells jingling +and making, in the distance, not unpleasant music. + +It was the horses that interested Lady Bridget most, for, like all the +O'Haras, she was a born horsewoman. Though she was moved almost to +tears by the spur scars on the lean sides of some of them--spirited +creatures in which she recognised the marks of breeding--and by the +unkempt condition of some that were just from grass, she decided within +herself that there could never be a lack of interest and excitement in +a land where such horseflesh abounded. + +Presently she had her first sight of the typical stockman got up in +'township rig.' Spotless moleskins, new Crimean shirt, regulation silk +handkerchief, red, of course, and brand new, tied in a sailor's knot at +the neck, leather belt with pouches of every shape and size slung from +it, tobacco pouch, watch pouch, knife pouch and what not. Cabbage tree +hat of intricate plait pushed back to the back of the head and held +firm by a thin strap coming down to the upper lip and caught in two +gaps on either side of the prominent front teeth--there are very few +stockmen who have kept all their front teeth. Stockwhip, out of +commission for the present, with an elaborately carved and beautifully +polished sandal-wood handle hanging down behind, a long snake-like lash +coiled in three loops over the left shoulder. + +Lady Bridget knew most of the types of men who have to do with +horses--huntsmen, trainers, jockeys, riding masters and the rest, but +the Australian bush-rider is a product by itself. She liked this son of +the gum forest-tanned face, taut nerves, alert eyes piercing long +distances--a man, vital, shrewd, simple as a child, cunning as an +animal. And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky +muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks +a new sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed +mettlesome creature under him! Man and beast seemed truly a part of +each other. Lady Bridget O'Hara's soul warmed to that stockman and to +his steed. + +He was looking at the windows of the bar-parlour. As soon as he saw the +lady, the cabbage tree hat was raised in a flourish, the horse was +reined in, the man off his saddle and the bridle hitched to a post. + +Now the stockman stepped on to the veranda. + +'Mrs McKeith--or is it Lady McKeith I should say--I haven't got the +hang of the name if you'll pardon me--Mr McKeith sent me on to say that +he'll be here with the buggy in a minute or two.... I'm Moongarr +Bill.... Glad to welcome you up the Leura, ma'am, though I expect +things seem a bit rough to you straight out from England and not +knowing the Bush.' + +Lady Bridget won Moongarr Bill's good favour instantly by the look in +her eyes and the smile with which she answered him. + +'I'm from Ireland, Moongarr Bill, and if we Irish know anything we know +a good horse, and that's a beauty you're riding.' + +'Out of a Pitsford mare by a Royallieu colt, and there's not a finer +breed in the Never-Never. My word! you've struck it there, ma'am, and +no mistake,' responded the stockman enthusiastically. 'I bought 'im out +of the yard at Breeza Downs--that's Windeatt's run about sixty miles +from Moongarr, and I will say that though it's a sheep-run they've beat +us in the breed of their 'osses.... Got 'im cheap because he'd bucked +young Windeatt off and nearly kicked his brains out, and there wasn't a +man along the Leura that he'd let stop on his back except me and Zack +Duppo--the horse-breaker who first put the tackling on 'im.' + +After the interchange of one or two remarks, Lady Bridget had no doubt +of being friends with Moongarr Bill, and Moongarr Bill decided that for +a dashed new-chum woman, Lady Bridget had a remarkable knowledge of +horseflesh. + +The quick CLOP-CLOP of a four horse team and a clatter of tin billys +and pannikins--as Lady Bridget presently discovered slung upon the back +rail of an American buggy--sounded up the street. + +'There's the Boss,' said Moongarr Bill. 'Look alive, with that +packhorse, Wombo.' + +Lady Bridget now perceived behind the stockman a black boy on a young +colt, leading a sturdy flea-bitten grey, laden with a pack bag on +either side. He jumped off as lightly as Moongarr Bill and hitched his +horses also to the veranda posts. Except that he was black as a coal, +save for the whites of his eyes and his gleaming teeth, he seemed a +grotesque understudy of the stockman--moleskins, not too clean and +rubbed and frayed in places, fastened up with a strap; faded Crimean +shirt exposing a wealed and tattooed breast; old felt hat--not a +cabbage tree--with a pipe stuck in its greasy band; an ancient red silk +handkerchief with ragged edges, where whip crackers had been torn off, +round his neck, and a short axe slipped among a few old pouches into +the strap at his waist. He jumped on to the veranda, clicked his teeth +in an admiring ejaculation as he gazed at Lady Bridget. + +'My word! BUJERI feller White Mary you! ... new feller Mithsis +belonging to Boss. My word!' Then as McKeith drew up his horses in +front of the hotel, Wombo and Moongarr Bill sprang to the heads of +wheelers and leaders. + +It seemed to Bridget that there was a change in her husband even since +he had left her. He looked more determined, more practical, wholly +absorbed in the unsentimental business of the moment. He had changed +into looser, more workmanlike rig--was belted, pouched, carried his +whip grandly, handled his reins with a royal air of command, as if he +were now thoroughly at home in his own dominions, had already asserted +his authority--which she found presently to be the case--and intended +the rest of the world to knock under to him. There flashed on Lady +Bridget an absurd idea of having been married by proxy--like the little +princesses of history--and of being now received into her lord's +country by the monarch in person. Her face was rippling all over with +laughter when he joined her in the veranda. + +'What! Another delicious black boy! He looks like a Christy Minstrel. I +thought you hated blacks, Colin.' + +'So I do. You've got to have 'em though for stock boys, and I keep my +heel on the lot at Moongarr. Wombo and Cudgee aren't bad chaps so long +as they are kept clear of their tribe. How do you like the new buggy, +my lady? A dandy go-cart, eh?' + +He looked as pleased as a child with a new toy carriage. The buggy was +quite a smart bush turn-out--comfortable seats in front--a varnished +cover, now lying back; a well behind, filled with luggage; a narrow +back seat whence Cudgee--a smaller edition of Wombo--sprang down. +Cudgee, too, stared at Lady Bridget and clicked his teeth in +admiration, exclaiming: + +'Hullo! New feller Mithsis.' + +Afterwards, Lady Bridget remembered the greetings and wondered why the +black boys had said: 'New feller Mithsis!' Who had been the old feller +Mithsis? she asked herself. + +McKeith sternly quashed the black boys' ebullition and told them to +mind their own business. Bridget agreed that the buggy was first rate +and became enthusiastic over the horses, four fairly matched and +powerful roans. + +'Oh! what beauties! I'd like to go and make friends with them.' + +He was delighted. 'Good 'uns, ain't they? But wait and make friends +when you're behind 'em. We've twenty-five miles to do before sundown. +Got your traps fixed up? That's right. Here, Bill, take her ladyship's +bag and stow it safely at the back of the buggy. Handle it +gingerly--it's full of silver and glass fallals--not what we're much +used to on the Leura.' + +The stockman grinned and carried the dressing-bag--one of Sir Luke's +and Lady Tallant's wedding presents--as if it were dynamite. Colin +seemed anxious to impress his wife's dignity upon her new subjects. She +felt still more like a queen of comic opera. He helped her into her +dust cloak, paid the bill, cut short the landlady's sulky +apologies--she had done her hair and recovered herself a little. Then +he settled Lady Bridget into the buggy after the manner of a bush +courtier--her feet on a footstool, the rug over her knees, a cushion at +her back. His whole air seemed to say: + +'This is the Queen, and I, the King, expect that proper homage be paid +her.' + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + +The loafers at the bar all came out to see the start. The family on the +top of the bullock-dray peered forth from under the tilt. The barkeeper +shouted, 'Good luck to you and your lady, Mr McKeith.' The drunken +reprobates, awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too, +'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had +got out his answering, 'Thank ye--Good day, mates,' a shower of +opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented +bush rowdies--the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had +come up with them in the train from Leuraville. + +Three of these men lurched on to the bar veranda, and, so to speak, +took the stage. In front was a stumpily-built bullock driver with a +red, truculent face, a ragged carrotty beard and inflamed narrow-ridded +eyes. A little to the rear stood a lanky, muscular bushman in very +dirty moleskins, with a smooth loose-lipped face, no eyelashes, and a +scowling forehead, who was evidently the worse for drink; next to him, +a shorter man of the drover type, older, eagle-beaked and with +sinister, foxy eyes. This one hailed McKeith. + +'Yah! Look at him and his spanking team! What price honest labour, you +blamed scab of a squatter? Just you wait a bit. It'll be our turn soon +to burn all you blanked capitalists off the Leura.' + +The lanky bushman took up the jeering note. + +'Pretty flash turn-out, ain't it! My word, you think yourself a bloated +fine gentleman now you've married into the British hairystocracy, don't +you, Mister Colin McKeith? You can take it from us, boys, he's the +meanest cuss that ever downed a harmless nigger.... Ask him what the +twenty-five notches on his gun stand for?' + +'And I tell YOU what it is, Steve Baines. There'll be another notch on +my gun, and it won't be for a nigger, if you give me any more of your +insolence,' said McKeith coolly. 'Get out of the way, men. Let the +horses go, Cudgee. Ready, Biddy?' + +But Cudgee, out of malice or stupidity, did not let the roans go or +else someone else put a restraining hand on the reins. The man with the +ragged beard roared out. + +'Ho, you think you're going to ride over us!--you and your fine +ladyship! Wot do we care about the British hairystocracy. What we're +asking for is the rights of labour, and we mean to have 'em. Do you +want to know what he's done to us boys? Fired us out straight away cos +we was 'avin' a bit of a spell and a drink to keep the life in us after +we'd close up killed ourselves lifting that there ladyship's blanked +hundred-ton weight of pianner on to the dray....' + +Moongarr Bill's chivalrous instinct flamed to a counter attack. He had +just mounted, but swung down from his saddle and made a rush at the +speaker. McKeith's stern voice stopped him. + +'Don't be a fool, Bill. Let the brutes alone and push on with the pack. +This is not the time for a row. As for you, Jim Steadbolt--you know me, +and you know that if this was any other sort of occasion, you'd pay on +the nail for your infernal cheek.... Leave go of those reins. D'ye +hear'; for the man of the ragged beard was jerking the near leader's +bit and putting the mettlesome animal on its haunches. + +'Damn you! Let go.' + +He leaned forward to strike at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the +lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not +extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an +instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger on +his face. + +'No. Keep still, my dear. Don't be frightened.' + +'I frightened!' She gave a little laugh. Her form stiffened. The small +pale face poked forward between the folds of her motor veil, and all +the O'Hara spirit flashed as she spoke to the group of malcontents. + +'How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that +they didn't insult women.' + +There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of 'Shame, +Steadbolt, you! ... You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain't got no use +for you, Micky Phayle.... Can't you see a lady as is a lady?' sounded +from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the last +question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the +veranda, and made a feeble assault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the +reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget's +voice, made a last envenomed attack. + +'It ain't us GENUINE Australians that insults you.... Takes a mongrel +Scotchy for that.... Say, Ladyship, just you ask your husband what a +sort of an insult he's got ready for YOU up at his Bachelor's Quarters +at Moongarr.' + +The words had not left his mouth when McKeith's driving whip whizzed in +the air and raised blood on the speaker's cheek. Steadbolt dropped his +hold of the roan leader's bridle and fell back screaming imprecations. +At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward. + +'Sit tight, Biddy,' said her husband. 'Up you get, Cudgee,' he shouted. +The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy +swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the +road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses +and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and +whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock +heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated +Bush. + +For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and +wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them +from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent +while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too. +She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she +felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene +bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to +her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became +interested in watching Colin's handling of the team. She had often sat +behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively +she made some such remark, and he looked down at her, the hard face +breaking into a smile. + +'That's good.... Wait a bit, my dear, until they've steadied down +again.... Y'see they take a lot of driving, and I don't want to lay an +accident on top of that unholy shindy....' He spoke in jerks. The roans +were inclined to 'show nasty' as Moongarr Bill came abreast of them, +and Wombo's pack jingled behind. McKeith gave Moongarr Bill directions +about the camp in Bush lingo, which again turned Bridget's thoughts. +The black boy and the stockman spurred on as the roans slackened pace. +McKeith was able to relax the strain. + +'My word! we scooted pretty quick out of that piece of scenery,' he +said. 'I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful +bit of business. I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men +half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, +their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of +them--Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when +we got into broken country--thick with the Union delegates and sticking +for higher wages. I paid them off and filled their places on the spot +with two chaps off a wool-drive.... So I left the brutes vowing +vengeance, and I suppose they thought they'd lose no time in giving me +a taste of it.... Well, they're no loss.' He had been explaining things +in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious jog-trot along a +piece of uneven road. 'That fellow Steadbolt is a wrong 'un--not good +even at his own job of wood and water joey--which means, my dear, the +odd cart-driving on a place--and not to be trusted within ten miles of +a public house.' + +Lady Bridget asked suddenly: + +'I want to know, Colin--what did that man mean by saying you had an +insult ready for me at your Bachelor's Quarters? What insult?' + +It seemed as though blue fire leaped from McKeith's eyes. + +'Insult! Good God! Biddy you can't hold me responsible for the foul +insinuations of a beast like that. Insult YOU! my wife!' + +The passionate tenderness thrilling his voice, the honest wrath and +bewilderment in his face must have silenced any doubt, had doubt +existed in Lady Bridget's mind. + +'I don't know, Colin. I don't even know what Bachelors' Quarters mean. +Have you an army of Bachelors at Moongarr, and what do they do when +they're at home?' + +He laughed. 'It's a shanty I put up for the new-chums when I've got +any--and for the gentlemen-sun-downers that come along, and visitors +that I don't want to be bothered with at the House. There's a woman up +there....' He stopped suddenly and his face grew grim again. 'That's +it, I suppose--I'm sorry I didn't sling the whip harder and cut the +fellow's cheek open. I would if I'd thought....!' + +He stopped again. + +'What woman? Have I a rival? This is becoming dramatic!' Lady Bridget's +voice was amusedly ironic, but she carried her head erect. 'Tell me +about the woman at the Bachelors' Quarters, Colin.' + +'There's nothing to tell, except that's she's the widow of a man who +went up with me on my last Big Bight expedition, and was killed--partly +through his own, and partly through my, fault. That's why I've made a +point of looking after her, and I built my Bachelor's Quarters chiefly +to give her a job. I thought she was too young and too good looking to +be drawing grog for diggers at Fig Tree Mount--which was what she set +out doing.' + +'I see.... So she's young--and handsome.' + +'Oh, in a coarse sort of way.... No, I wouldn't say that; she's rather +refined for her upbringing. Anyway, Steadbolt as well as a lot of other +men fell in love with her--Steadbolt was pretty well off his head over +it. She wouldn't have him at any price--naturally--and I had to give +the fellow work outside the head-station to keep him away from her. +That was before I went south. Very likely he's been trying it on again, +and knew I should have to get rid of him as soon as I came back.' + +'Why doesn't the woman marry again?' + +McKeith shrugged. 'Too jolly comfortable perhaps--or perhaps the right +man hasn't turned up. Florrie Hensor is several cuts above a +malingering lout like Steadbolt. Well there, poor devil! Maybe, it's +not unnatural that I should feel a sneaking sympathy for an +unsuccessful lover. That abominable lie was a bit too strong +though--and before you! The man must have been downright mad from drink +and fury and bitterness. It--it's all funny--isn't it? One of the queer +sides of the Bush. Good old Bush! I am glad to be back in it again, +Biddy.' + +He lifted his head and seemed to draw in the strong odour of the gum +trees and the pure vitality of the weltering sun. His anger appeared to +have left only compunction behind it. And again he begged her to +forgive him for having subjected her to an experience so disagreeable. +They were on a stretch of clear road now, and the roans trotted +pleasantly along. Lady Bridget took up his words. + +'Yes, it's all funny--that kind of thing--in this setting.... I never +supposed that I should be howled at by a revolutionary mob in the +Australian Bush.... A BAS LES ARISTOCRATS. It's quite exciting. I think +I should have enjoyed the Reign of Terror.' + +'Eh! You're only frightened of four-footed beasts. If you'd lived then, +you'd have gone up to the block with that smile on your lips, and the +proud turn of your little head--just as I used to dream of you...' + +'Of ME!' + +'You don't know--I'll tell you some day. I remember talking to Joan +Gildea once.... It's queer.... But never mind now. D'ye like this, +Biddy?' + +'I love it. I wish we could drive on through the forest all day and all +night--a dream drive. I think I might be able to place myself at the +end of it.' + +'To place yourself!' + +'I've never been able to find my true pivot inside. All my life I've +been howling in my soul and haven't known what I was howling for. I +thought to-day that you might teach me.' + +'Is it only to-day that you have thought that?' he said wistfully. +'Well, anyway, I'm glad of it.' + +'Colin,' she said abruptly, 'wasn't it funking a little bit, don't you +think--running away?' + +'No--not with YOU beside me. You'll have other opportunities for seeing +whether I've got much of the funker in me. No doubt those brutes will +give trouble some time.' + +'What can they do?' + +'Fire my run--spoil my cattle sales--get hold of my stockmen....But I'm +not so badly off as my "sheep" neighbours at Breeza Downs. They've got +to have their shearing done.... Though I've had a lot of bother +to-day,' his face became gloomy, 'and I foresee more ahead.' + +She asked what other sort of trouble. + +'Why! there's been no rain at Moongarr since I left it five months ago. +And Pleuro means innoculation and short sales.... Ah well! ...' + +He flicked the wheelers gently. 'Shake it up, Alexander! Look alive, +Roxalana.... I named 'em when I was reading ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY, +my dear ... my dear!' He looked down at the little woman by his side +with deep tenderness in his blue eyes and a smile that banished the +shade from his face. 'Oh, my dear, there ain't going to be any bush +worries for us this blessed afternoon and evening. It's the poetry and +romance'--he pronounced it romance--'of the bush that's got hold of me +now. I'm just longing for us to strike the camping place--and +then--just you and me together--just man and woman--alone with Nature!' + +He put his hand on hers and she pressed it in return. The Woman in her +thrilled to the Man in him. + +Cudgee, on the hind seat with his back to them, broke the spell. + +'My word, Massa! You look out, Mithsis--big feller goanner sit down +along a tree.' And for the first time in her existence, Lady Bridget +beheld a monster iguana dragging its huge lizard tail and turning its +stately, brown crocodile head round at her from the safe vantage place +of a thick gum branch. + +After that, the way led off the main road, on by a less used track +through wilder country. Here Wombo, the black boy, was +waiting--Moongarr Bill having gone on with the pack horse to the +camping place--and helped to unharness the two leaders which he drove +before him ahead. The trees thickened, the buggy wheels caught on +stumps. Cudgee had to get down at intervals and, with his axe, lop and +clear fallen timber. Every mile the progress grew slower and the forest +more lonely. No sign now of a selector's clearing, or of any human +occupation.... But there was a pack of emus hustling and shaking their +big bunches of feathers like startled ballet girls. + +'I feel as if part of the Zoo had been let loose,' said Lady Bridget +when again there bounded along in the near distance a pair of kangaroos +with a little Joey kangaroo taking a lesson in locomotion behind its +parents. + +They were still in the gum forest, but now and then came a belt of +gidia scrub--mournful trees with stiff black trunks and grey green +foliage and a pale sort of wattle flower smelling like dead cattle when +rain is about, as McKeith explained. But there was no rain about now, +and, in truth, he would have welcomed the unpleasant odour. Perhaps it +was that which made the ground so stark and bare beneath these trees +where no grass will grow. The sun was lowering when they left the +gidia. Out in the gum forest again, the birds were chattering before +retiring to rest. All life is still in the bush at mid-day, but now +there were curious scutterings among the grass tussocks, and the whirr +of its insect population sounded all round. The country got +prettier--swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of +hills. They could see the green line of a water course. + +'Plenty water sit down along a creek?' McKeith asked the black boy. But +Cudgee shook his woolly head. + +'Ba'al* mine think it, Massa. No rain plenty long time.' + +[*ba'al--the Aboriginal negative.] + +McKeith sighed. The dark shadow of coming drought is a fearsome spectre +on the Never-Never Land. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + +A COO-EE sounded long, clear, vibrant. Moongarr Bill and Wombo, who had +gone on ahead, were fixing camp. Lady Bridget's musical voice caught up +the note. She answered it with another COO-EE, to Cudgee's delight. + +'My word! Ba'al newchum, that feller white Mary,' said he. + +They had rounded a knoll abutting on the green line of ti-trees and +swamp oak. It was a barren hump; upon its crest, and alone in barbaric +majesty, stood a row of grass trees silhouetted against the sunset sky. +Weird sentinels of the bridal camp they seemed--tall, thick black +trunks like palm-stems, from each of which spread an enormous tuft of +gigantic grass blades green and upright in the middle, grey and jaggled +and drooping where they hung over at the bottom. Out of each green +heart sprang a great black spear many feet in height. + +The stony knoll dropped sheer like a wall. On the other side of it was +a space the size of an amphitheatre, a large part of it spread with +soft green grass, like a carpet, and the rest of the floor scattered +with low shrubs and big tussocks. Amongst them was a herb giving out a +fragrance, when the feet crushed it, like that of wild thyme. The whole +air seemed filled with a blend of aromatic perfumes. + +Here was a roofless room, open on one side where a break in the +ti-trees showed the sandy bed of the creek, which, at first, to Lady +Bridget's fancy, had the appearance of a broad shallow stream. On this +side, low rocks with ferns growing in their crannies, edged the stream. +On the opposite shore, one giant eucalyptus stood by itself and cast +its shadow across. Beyond, lay the gum-peopled immensity of the bush. +The stony walls of the knoll, curving inward and sheltering a thick +growth of ferns and scrubby vegetation, closed in the bridal chamber. +Creepers festooned the rocky ledges and crevices. Here and there, a +young sapling slanted forward to greet the morning sun when it should +rise behind the hummock. + +Moongarr Bill had undone the pack-bags and was building a fire between +two large stones. The flames leaped up, the dead twigs crackled. Long +years after, Lady Bridget could recall vividly the smell of the dry +burning gum leaves--her first experience of a bush campfire. + +Close to the fire, under the flank of the rocky knoll the tent was +pitched, a roll of blankets and oilskin thrown just within it. + +Presently, from the hummock above came the sound of Cudgee's axe. He +had felled the youngest of the grass-trees, and was now chopping off +its green tuft. Soon he appeared, carrying a huge bunch of the coarse +blades of foliage, which he brought to the tent. With an odd mixture of +emotions, Lady Bridget watched her husband take the grass tops from the +black boy and spread them carefully on the floor of the tent, heaping +up and smoothing the mass into a bed, upon which he laid the oilskin +and then one of the blankets--they were new white blankets, fresh from +the store. After that, he set the cushions from the buggy, covering +them with the rug, at the head of the couch, making a bolster, and, +over that, the one she had had at her back. + +'No down pillows or linen sheets allowed in a bush camp-out, my lady +Biddy,' he said with a laugh, a half timorous glance at his wife, but +her answering smile reassured him. + +'You'll never sleep on a sweeter bed,' he said, sniffing the resinous +fragrance of the grass-tree tops. He would not let her help him with +the upper blankets when she wished to lend a hand. + +'No, this camp is my own show. Go and look at the scenery until I've +got our wigwam in order.' + +And she submissively obeyed. + +Against the other side of the rock wall, the black boys had built a +second fire. The horses were hobbled and grazing along the green border +of the creek. The buggy propped up, was covered with a tarpaulin. The +pack-bags had disgorged their contents. A miscellaneous heap of camp +properties lay on the ground. And now, Cudgee's axe was at work again, +stripping a section of bark from a gum tree, for what purpose Lady +Bridget did not divine. + +She walked down to the creek and stood among the rocks at its edge. She +had expected a rippling stream, and, to her disappointment, saw only a +broad strip of dry sand, along which Moongarr Bill was mooching, a +spade in his hand. + +'What are we going to do for water?' she exclaimed. + +'Dig for it, my ladyship,' answered Moongarr Bill. 'That's one of the +upside-down things in 'Stralia. Here's two of them--mighty queer, come +to think of it--the rivers that run underground and the cherries that +grow with their stones outside.' + +Lady Bridget observed that she was already acquainted with that +oft-quoted botanical phenomenon. In her rides around Leichardt's Town +she had been shown and had tasted the disagreeable little orange berry +which has a hard green knob at the end of it and is, for some ironical +reason, called a cherry. She also told Moongarr Bill that in England +she had seen a dowser searching for hidden springs by means of a forked +hazel twig carried in front of him which pointed downwards where there +was water and asked why Australians didn't adopt a similar method. At +which Moongarr Bill laughed derisively, and said he did not hold with +any such hanky-panky. + +'Bad luck, Biddy,' McKeith said behind her. 'If there had been the +proper amount of rain in these last three or four months, we'd have had +the one thing that's wanting now to make this the ideal camp I've had +on the top of my fancy--a running creek of pure water. But never +mind--the water's there, though you can't see it.... That's got it, +Bill!' + +For already the sand was darkening and moisture was oozing in the hole +Moongarr Bill had been digging, and which he widened gradually into a +respectable pool of water. When it had settled down, all the billies +were filled and the horses driven to it, whinnying for a drink. + +Lady Bridget watched the evening meal being prepared between the two +fires--only watched, for she was sternly forbidden to set hand to it. + +'No canned goods, nor cooked food,' McKeith said, were allowed at this +lay-out. Moongarr Bill was first-class at frying steak. He himself was +going to boil the quart-pot tea and would give Biddy a demonstration in +johnny-cakes, made bush fashion at their own camp fire. The sheet of +bark had been cut into sections--one sub-divided into small squares to +serve as plates. The inside looked clean as paint, and smelled of +Mother Nature's still-room. Colin mixed the flour and water upon the +larger sheet and worked up a stiff dough. He kneaded it, slapped it +between his broad palms, cut it and baked the cakes in the ashes; then, +butter being the only luxury permitted, he split them and buttered +them; and Lady Bridget found in due time that not even the lightest +Scotch scones taste better than bush johnny-cakes. + +Quart pot tea, likewise--made also in true bush fashion. First the +boiling of the billy--Colin's own particular billy, battered and +blackened from much usage--half the battle, he explained, in brewing +bush tea. Then, regulation handfuls of tea and brown store sugar thrown +in at the precise boiling moment. Now the stirring of the frothing +liquid with a fresh gum-twig. Then the blending and the cooling of +it--pouring the beverage from one quart pot into another, and finally +into the pannikins ready for the drinking. + +Proudly, round the rock-flank of the hummock, Moongarr Bill brought +fried steak and potatoes steaming in a clean tin dish and done to a +turn, then went to cook more for himself at his own camp. They ate off +the bark plates. Salt, sugar and mustard came out of small ration bags. +McKeith produced black-handled knives and forks--the last a concession. +And good to taste were the fizzling johnny-cakes and the strong, sweet, +milkless tea. + +Such was Lady Bridget's real marriage feast. + +They were hungry, yet they dallied over the repast. It was the most +delicious food she had ever tasted, Bridget said. They made little +jokes. He was entranced by her happiness. Joyously she compared this +banquet with others she had eaten in great houses and European +restaurants, which were the last word in luxury. Oh! how she loved the +dramatic contrast of it. Nature was supreme, glorious.... Oh no, no! +never could she hanker after that which she had left behind--for ever. +Because, if ever she were to go back again to the old life, she would +be an ugly dried-up old woman for whom the smart world would have no +further use.... + +Then suddenly she became quiet, and busied herself in the tent, while +McKeith took out his pipe and smoked in ruminative bliss. When she came +back she had no more talk of contrasts or of her old life, no more +fantastic outbursts. Indeed, there seemed to have come over her a mood +of sweet sobriety, of blushing, womanly shyness. + +'Mayn't I be your squaw and help you to wash up?' she said, when he +collected the tin pots and pannikins and proceeded to get the camp +shipshape. No, she was not to stir a finger towards the dirty work. It +was HIS job to-night. Another camping-out time she might play the squaw +if she liked. She was not on in this act. + +He amused her greatly by his tidy bush methods. The billies were +refilled, the ration-bags laid ready for the morning. + +Now darkness had fallen. He put more logs on the fire, and the flames +blazed up. Then he made up a little pile of johnny-cakes that he had +not buttered, and covered it with the bark plates. 'We shall have to +make an early start, and there'll be no time to bake fresh ones--and no +more use for these things,' he said. The square of bark on which he had +mixed the dough was in his hands and he was about the fling it among +the bushes, but she stopped him. + +'No--don't throw it away.... I--I want it for a keepsake, Colin.' + +He stared at her in surprise. The red flames threw a strange glow on +her face, and made her eyes look very bright. + +'My dearest! A sheet of bark!' Then a great light broke on him. The +strip of bark dropped from his hands. His arms went out and enfolded +the small woman, lifting her almost from the ground as he crushed her +against his breast and kissed her lips with the first passionate +lover's kisses he had ever given her.... 'Oh, my dear--my sweetheart!' +He gave a big, tremulous laugh.... 'There was never any woman in the +world like you.... To think of your caring about just a sheet of bark!' + +'You made me my first johnny-cakes upon it.... And to-night is the +beginning of our married life--and oh, Colin, it is the first time I +have felt really married to you, and I want a bit of the bush to +remember it by.' + +He kissed her again.... The miracle was accomplished. He seemed to have +no words in which to say all that filled his heart. + +The night sounds of the bush stirred the vast silence. For the first +time, Lady Bridget heard the wail of the curlew--a long note, weirdly +melancholy. It startled her out of her husband's arms. There were +uncanny swishings of wings in the great gum tree on the other side of +the creek. And now the clanking of the horses' hobbles which had been +dilatory, intermittent, became sharply recurrent. A shout from Moongarr +Bill cut short the monotonous corroboree tune which the two black boys +had been singing at their camp some little distance away. + +'My word, I believe YARRAMAN* break him hobble!' + +[*Yarraman--horse.] + +At which the boys scampered off through the grass, and presently came +the cracking of a stock whip among the trees. + +'It's all right, Moongarr Bill's after them,' said McKeith, as his +bride released herself from his arms. 'But if you don't mind darling. +I'd better just see if anything has started the beasts.' + +Lady Bridget watched him disappear round the knoll. The curlews went on +wailing, and as if in answer a night owl sent forth his portentous +HOOT--HOOT!... Apparently nothing was much amiss with the horses; they +had quieted down again. Lady Bridget picked up the strip of bark and +carried it in her arms into the tent, laughing to herself as she did so. + +'Only a sheet of bark! What a fool I am--But it's quite appropriate, +anyway.' + +She put it beside her dressing-bag, and then went out once more into +the night. Through the interlacing gum branches she saw a great coppery +disk, and the moon rose slowly to be a lamp in her bridal chamber. How +wonderful the stars were!... There was the Southern Cross with its +pointers, and the Pleiades. And that bright star above the tops of the +trees, which seemed to throw a distinct ray of light, must be Venus.... +The moon was high enough to cast shadows--black--distorted. The low +clumps of shrubs beyond the carpet of grass looked like strange couched +beasts.... + +As she stood by the rocks at the creek edge, she heard her husband +speaking to Moongarr Bill, who seemed to be walking down along the +sandy bed. + +'Horses all right, Bill?' + +'Oh, ay--just a possum up a tree gev Julius Caesar a start.... Been +digging a decent bath-hole for the ladyship in the morning, boss. +There's plenty there.' + +'I wish it was as near the surface at Moongarr, Bill. We shall have our +work cut out making new bores, if the dry weather lasts.' + +'My word, it's no joke going down three thousand feet. Amazing queer +the amount of water running underground on this dried-up old earth.' + +'But we can always strike it, Bill; no matter how dried up the outside +looks, there's the living spring waiting to be tapped. And how's that +in human nature too, Bill. Same idea, eh?' + +Moongarr Bill emitted a harsh grunt. + +'My best girl chucked me a month back, boss, and as for your darned +sentiment and poetry, and sech-like--well, I ain't takin' any just at +present.' + +'Bad luck, Bill! Struck a dead-head that time, eh?... Well, good-night.' + +'Good-night, boss--and good luck to you. I reckon your spring ain't a +dead-head, anyway.... Say, Mr McKeith, me and the boys are shifting our +fire over to the other side of the creek.... Keep the 'osses from +hevin' any more of their blessed starts.... Handier for gettin' them up +in the morning.' + +[*Yarraman--Horse.] + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + +Lady Bridget McKeith had been married about a year and a quarter. +Winter was now merging into spring. But it was not a bounteous spring. +That drear spectre of drought hung over the Never-Never Land. + +Lady Bridget stood by the railing of the veranda at Moongarr, looking +out for two expected arrivals at the head-station--that of her husband, +who had been camping out after cattle--and of the mailman--colloquially, +Harry the Blower--who this week was to bring an English mail. + +Perhaps the last arrival seemed to her at the moment most important of +the two. The bush wife had long since begun to feel a sort of home +sickness for English news. Yet, had you asked her, she would have told +you that barbarism still had a greater hold than civilisation. + +There did not, however, appear to be much of the barbarian about Lady +Bridget. She still looked like an old picture in the high-waisted +tea-gown of limp yellow silk that she had put on early for dinner, and +she still trailed wisps of old lace round her slender shoulders. There +was the same touzle of curly hair, like yellow-brown spun glass or +filaments of burnished copper, which was shining now in the westering +sun. The finely-modelled brows and shadowy eyes were as beautiful as +when Colin McKeith had first beheld his goddess stepping on to +Australian earth. + +But for all that, a change had taken place in her--a different one from +the indefinable yet significant change which is felt in almost every +woman after marriage. There is usually in the young wife's face an +expression of fulfilment, of deepened experience--a certain settled, +satisfied look. And this was what was lacking in Lady Bridget's face. +The restless soul within seemed to be peering out through hungry eyes. + +She could see nothing human from the veranda except the blue-smocked +figure of Fo Wung, the Chinaman, at work in his vegetable garden by the +lagoon. There was one large water-hole and a succession of small ones, +connected by water-courses, now dry, and meandering from a gully, which +on the eastern side broke the hill against which Moongarr head-station +was built. The straggling gum forest, interspersed with patches of +sandal-wood and mulga, that backed the head-station, stopped short at +the gully, and beyond, stretched wolds of melancholy gidia scrub. +Looking up from the end of the veranda, Lady Bridget could see an +irregular line of grey-brown boulders, jagged and evidently of volcanic +origin, marking the line of gully. These gave a touch of romantic +wildness to the otherwise peaceful scene. + +Lady Bridget's gaze went along a track skirting the gidia scrub, and +crossing the lower end of the gully near the lagoon, to the great plain +which spread in front of the head-station. Except for some green trees +by the lagoon, a few ragged belts of gum and sandal-wood or single +isolated trees dotted about, the plain was unwooded to the horizon. +There were also silhouetted upon the sky the grotesque-looking sails of +one or two windmill-pumps. In the foreground the plain was intersected +by lines of grey fencing, within which browsed straggling herds of lean +cattle, mostly along the curve of the lagoon. + +Neither plain nor lagoon formed altogether pleasing objects of +contemplation just now, for they spoke eloquently of the threatened +drought. When Lady Bridget had come up a bride, the plain had been +fairly green. The sandal-wood blossoms were out and wild flowers +plentiful. The lagoon was then flush with the grass, and its water, on +which white, pink and blue lilies floated, had reflected the vegetation +at its edge. Now the lagoon had shrunk and the water in the gully was +in places a mere trickle. Of course, the trees were there--ti-tree, +flooded gum, and so forth--but they looked brown and ragged. One +standing by itself, a giant white cedar, which in spring was a mass of +white and mauve bloom and in winter of scarlet berries, had a wide +strip of brown mud between it and the water that had formerly laved its +roots. + +Lady Bridget had thought that the rocky gully, the lagoon and the vast +plain made as pretty a landscape as she had ever seen, when she had +first looked upon it in the early morn after her homecoming. Now, as +she paced up and down the veranda--for she was in a restless mood--her +mind went back to that bridal homecoming. They had not arrived at the +head-station till after dusk, but it had been visible from the plain a +long way off, and she had examined it with ardent curiosity through her +field-glasses in the clear light of sunset. + +She had seen a collection of rough buildings backed by the forest, and +from different points of view, as they drew nearer, had made out that +the three principal ones formed three sides of a square. Two of +these--the side wings--were old and of primitive construction--slab +walls, bark roofs, and low verandas, overgrown with creepers. Colin +explained that these were the Old Humpey--as he called the original +dwelling house--and the kitchen and store building opposite. Lately, +the New House had been put up at right angles with the old buildings, +and fronting the plain. It had been begun before his trip south and +practically finished during his absence. Colin was very proud of the +New House. + +It was made of sawn wood and had a high-pitched roof of corrugated +zinc, turned to gold by the sunset rays upon it. There was a deep +veranda all round the New House, and it was much taller than the wings, +being raised on blood-wood piles, that had been tarred to keep off +white ants, and with a flight of wooden steps leading up to the veranda. + +The details of Moongarr head-station became familiar enough later to +its new mistress. Besides the dwelling houses were various huts and +outbuildings. The stock-yards lay on a piece of level ground behind at +the side of the gully, and between the yards and the House stood a +small slab and bark cottage--the Bachelors' Quarters. + +Even though glorified by the sunset, it had given Lady Bridget a little +shock to see how crude and--architecturally speaking--unlovely was her +new home. But her Celtic imagination was stirred by the weirdness of +the grey-green gum forest, and of the mournful gidia scrub, framing the +picture. + +Then, as dusk crept closer, and the great plain, along which the tired +horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange +sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the +wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old +mystery. + +She remembered how the lights of the head-station against the forest +blackness had looked like welcoming torches and how she had roused +herself out of her weariness at the last spurt of the equally weary +buggy horses. Then the jolt in the dark over the sliprails, the slow +strain of the wheels up the hill, the cracking of Moongarr Bill's +stock-whip, and the sound of long drawn COO-EES. Also of dogs barking, +of men running forward. Then how Colin had lifted her down and half +carried her into the parlour. She remembered her dazed glance round and +the rushing thought of how she could soften its ugliness. Yet it had +looked welcoming. A log fire blazing, the table spread, a Chinese cook +in baggy blue garments--pigtail flowing; a Malay boy; her bewildered +question--was there no woman in the establishment? Then Colin's +strident call from the veranda--'Mrs Hensor. Where's Mrs Hensor!' And +the appearance presently of Florrie Hensor--youngish, tall, a full +figure; black hair, frizzed and puffed, a showy face, red cheeks, +redder lips, rather sullen, flashing dark eyes--who had received Lady +Bridget almost as if she had been her equal, and of whom the bride had +at once made an enemy by her frigidly haughty response. From the first +moment, Lady Bridget had disliked Mrs Hensor. But she had felt a vague +attraction towards the little yellow-headed, blue-eyed boy clinging to +Mrs Hensor's skirts. As for any uneasiness on the score of Steadbolt's +insolent insinuations, she had absolutely dismissed that from her mind. + +Yes--that bridal homecoming--how strange it had seemed! How rough +everything was! How impossible the whole thing would have appeared to +her had any fortune-teller in Bond Street prophesied the end of her +marriage journey! + +And how, in the first moment of settling down, she had laughed with +Colin at the thought of what Chris and Molly Gaverick, and 'Eliza +Countess' would have said! But with what dauntless energy she had +worked in transforming her new abode and in making it reflect her own +personality. She had felt really grateful, she said, to the Union +delegates for having enticed away the builders before the inside +furnishings were complete. Soon they got hold of a bush carpenter, and +she was provided with occupation for a good many months. + +Lady Bridget had been very happy in those early days. Colin had seemed +so thoroughly in the picture--strong, chivalrous, adoring--like a +Viking worshipping his conquered bride. The romance of it all appealed +tremendously to the Celtic blood in Bridget. It was her nature, when +she gave, to give generously. She had become genuinely in love with her +bush husband during that wonderful honeymoon journey. + +Ah, that journey! What an experience! If she could have written it down +as a new adventure of 'The Lady of Quality,' how the great Gibbs would +have jumped at her 'copy!' Well, she had practically done so in her +letters to Joan Gildea--now back in her London flat. But the true +inwardness of the adventure was a thing never to be put into words. + +No sign yet of the men. Lady Bridget ceased her restless pacing and +swung herself slowly to and fro in a hammock at the end of the veranda. +As she swung she traversed over again in her imagination the stages of +that honeymoon journey. + +Two hundred and twenty-five miles of it, after the first camp out. Many +more nights under the stars. Then out of the gum forests they had gone +through the great western plains, covering ground fairly easily, for +McKeith had arranged to have fresh horses on the road, and they always +drove a spare pair ahead of the buggy. Occasionally they stopped at a +head-station. Once at night they pulled up at a bush house, and a +strange old man had put his head out of a window and shouted to them in +the darkness. 'If ye've come to see me, I'm drunk,' he had said, 'and +if you've come to drink, the rum-keg's empty, but ye'll find a pint pot +outside and a little water in the tank.' And then he had shut the +window again and refused further parley. + +They had camped, hungry, in the paddock--for provisions had run out, +and on that account, and because the horses had strayed in the night, +they had to go again to the house. The old man, sober and ashamed, +captivated likewise by Lady Bridget's beauty and charm, apologised +almost on his knees--he made Biddy think of Thackeray's picture of Sir +Pitt Crawley proposing to Becky Sharp. Old Mr Duppo, it was--the father +of Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, who had recently been breaking in +colts at Moongarr. + +They stayed till the horses were found. Mr Duppo had a housekeeper--now +if Mrs Hensor had been like that housekeeper there could have been no +cause for jealous scandal. An aged dame, long, bony--dressed in a short +green petticoat and tartan jacket, with a little checked shawl over her +head and pinned under a bearded chin. She poured tea out of a tin +teapot and leaned over her master's chair at meal times to carve the +salt beef. + +Lady Bridget sketched the pair. The old man roared over the sketch, but +the housekeeper bore her a grudge for it, and afterwards had not a good +word for the 'Ladyship' who had slipped out of her proper sphere into +the Never-Never country. + +There were plenty of other small adventures which would have made the +hair of Lady Gaverick and her friends stand on end. A dream-drive +indeed, full of sort of 'Alice in Wonderland' episodes. Bush life Out +Back--a jumble of odd characters and situations. Fencers' camps, +cattle-drivers' camps, bullock-dray camps. There had been a baby born +unexpectedly under the tilt of a bullock-dray, on one occasion, the +night before McKeith's party appeared on the scene, and Lady Bridget +had a trunk down from the buggy, and there in the road tore up some of +her fine-laced smocks and petticoats to provide swaddling clothes for +the poor little scrap of mortality. And there were tramps 'humping +bluey' on the track likewise, and diggers carrying their picks. Bridget +liked seeing Colin hail-fellow-well-met with them all--sharing tucker +and quart-pot tea. She wished that her socialistic friends of the old +played-out civilisation could see this shrewd, practical humanitarian +of the Bush. + +They came very close to each other in those long days of the +dream-drive. He talked to her as he had never talked before, and as he +talked rarely afterwards. He drew aside curtains from recesses of his +real nature, the existence of which she had not suspected, and, in +truth, at a later time, doubted. Then, if in broad sunlight the shy, +rough exterior of the man would close suddenly over those secret +chambers, when evening came, it would seem as though the camp fire +illuminated them once more. + +After the first time or two, he allowed her to boss the camp 'lay-out.' +It was she who spread the blankets on Wombo's beds of grass tree tops +and dry herbage. Wombo and the 'big feller White Mary' (the adjective +used metaphorically as expressive of distinction) made great friends in +those days--out of which friendship sprang, alas! in due time, certain +tragic happenings. It was Lady Bridget who would set the billy boiling +and who, after one or two failures, succeeded in making excellent +johnny-cakes. She remembered her first performance in that line under +the eyes of a small group of admiring spectators--her husband 'just +waiting to see how the new-chum cook shaped,' and, as he said the +words, she, glancing up from the sheet of bark and the dough she was +kneading, caught a look in his face which was something she could never +in all her life forget. And Moongarr Bill with the horses' reins over +his arm, and the two black-boys agape, beady eyes twinkling, white +teeth glistening, emitting their queer guttural clicks of approbation, +and an occasional 'My word! Bujeri you, Lathy-chap,' the nearest they +could get to Moongarr Bill's accepted form of address. There was joy, +glory to Lady Bridget in this playing of the squaw and fending for her +man, ceasing to be the goddess and becoming the primal woman. + +And the sports, and songs, and stories by the camp fire! Moongarr +Bill's yarns, Colin's exploring tales, Wombo's and Cudgee's dances and +corroboree-tunes--strange, weird music that had a fascination for Lady +Bridget. She, too, would get up and sing CARMEN'S famous air, and the +Neapolitan peasant songs of her mother's youth. Never, for sure, had +the gaunt gum trees echoed back such strains as these. + +But time came when all the romance of barbarism seemed to have fizzled +out and only cruel realities remained--when work and worry turned +McKeith from the worshipping lover into the rough-tongued, irritable +bushman--when his 'hands' deserted him, his cattle died and things +generally went wrong, and when he showed himself something of the +hard-headed, parsimonious, ill-conditioned Scotch mongrel that +Steadbolt had called him. When, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten +that Lady Bridget O'Hara had graciously permitted him to worship her, +but had not bargained for being treated--well, as many another out-back +squatter--treats his help-mate. Then Bridget would tell herself +bitterly that it might have been better had she married a civilised +gentleman. There would sometimes be scenes and sometimes sulks, and +those times no doubt accounted for the hungry look in Lady Bridget's +eyes and the slight hardening of her mouth. + +She was loyal though, in spite of her many faults, and 'game' in her +own way--and when Colin came out of his dour moods, she was generally +ready to meet him half way. + +For, through all, the memory of the dream-drive honeymoon lingered. And +the bit of bark, sapless, brown, curled up by the heat into almost a +tube, and partially eaten by white ants--before the desecrating assault +had been discovered and the termites' nest destroyed with boiling +water--was still cherished as a sacred symbol. + +While she swung in the hammock the memory pictures came and went like a +cinematograph show--the dream-drive presently merging into an +electioneering trip through McKeith's constituency a few weeks after +her bridal homecoming. + +The 'Lady of Quality' might, had she been so minded, have also made +spicy capital out of the humours of that political contest--in which, +unhappily, the Labour Party had triumphed. Steadbolt had had his say on +the occasion, and there had been a free fight--Lady Bridget was not +present, and only heard darkly of the occurrence--when Steadbolt had +got the worst of it in an encounter with his late employer. + +But all that was but a small side-show, and not likely to affect in any +great measure Lady Bridget's life. Except that the loss of McKeith's +seat in the Legislative Assembly made it no longer necessary for him to +spend at least part of the winter session in Leichardt's Town. Nor +would Lady Bridget have the opportunity to resume her old intimacy at +Government House. In any case, however, she was not destined to see +more of her old friend in Australia. A few months previously, Lady +Tallant had developed symptoms of grave disease--it was said that the +Leichardt's Land climate did not agree with her, and she had gone back +to England, leaving Sir Luke to perform his duties without her help. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + +At last, Lady Bridget heard the unmistakable sound of cattle in the +distance--the low, multitudinous roar of lowing beasts and tramping +hoofs and the reverberating crack of stock-whips. It came from the +gidia scrub. She knew that they had been mustering +SCRUBBERS--otherwise, wild cattle from the broken country at the foot +of Moongarr Range. + +She left the hammock and went again to the veranda railing. Looking +along a side path from the Chinaman's garden she saw that Mrs Hensor +and her boy--the yellow-headed urchin of about six--were hastening +towards the Bachelors' Quarters. The woman carried a basket of +vegetables, the boy hugged a big pawpaw fruit which he held up proudly +as his mother responded in her free-and-easy, rather sulky fashion to +Lady Bridget's stiff nod. 'It's for the House,' cried the child. 'Fo +Wung said I was to bring it up.' + +Lady Bridget made a wry face--she did not like pawpaws. + +'Very well, Tommy, and if you're good you can have what's left +tomorrow.' + +'That's all right,' responded Tommy in bush formula. + +'Have you seen anything of your master--or the postman?' asked Lady +Bridget of Mrs Hensor. + +'I believe Mr McKeith is coming on ahead with Harry the Blower,' said +Mrs Hensor. 'Look sharp, Tommy, the cattle will be at the yard +directly, and I've got my dinner to cook for the whole lot of them, +seeing that some visitors aren't good enough for the house.' + +The woman pointed her last sentence by a malicious glance at the +mistress of Moongarr. + +'I suppose that is what your master keeps you here for--to cook for the +visitors at the Quarters, Mrs Hensor,' said Lady Bridget, with incisive +sweetness. + +Mrs Hensor flushed scarlet, but she checked an impudent reply. Pulling +Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed +humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay +between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it, +and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith +called her master. She always spoke of her late husband as having been +the Boss-mate on that--to him fatal--exploring expedition. Also, she +resented having all the bachelors 'dumped down'--as she phrased it--on +her, while the 'Ladyship's swell staff' was spared the trouble. At +present the Bachelors' Quarters was fairly full. Mr Ninnis, +store-keeper and overseer in the owner's absence, abode there +permanently, and just now, there were Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, +and a young man from Breeza Downs--a combined cattle and sheep station +about fifty miles distant--who had come to help in the mustering and to +collect any beasts strayed from the Breeza Downs' herd. + +The gully crossing lay below the boulders of rock at the head of the +lagoon. Presently, two horsemen appeared on the rise. One was McKeith; +the other Harry the Mailman--otherwise the Blower--a foxy, browny-red +little man on a raw-boned chestnut, carrying his mail-bags strapped in +front and at the side of his saddle. + +Lady Bridget supposed they had met at the turn-off track just above the +crossing. McKeith was carrying a leather mail-bag, from which he +appeared to have extracted a bundle of letters, with one hand. He held +his bridle and coiled stock-whip in the other. He was listening to the +mailman, who seemed to be talking animatedly. As they neared the house, +he gave the usual COO-EE, that set all the dogs barking, and put the +Chinaman-cook and black-boys on the alert. + +The riders passed by the end of the veranda where Lady Bridget stood. +McKeith looked up at her. He seemed preoccupied and angry, and merely +nodded to his wife, but did not take off his hat as he had done in +earlier days--and, somehow, to-day she noticed the omission. + +'All right, eh, Biddy?' he called out casually. 'Here's your mail--I've +taken out mine,' and he pitched the leather bag, with the string cut +and the official red seal broken, on to the veranda at her feet. 'I +say--you might bring the whisky out to the back veranda. I daresay you +could do with a nip, eh, Harry?' + +'That I can, Mr McKeith. Riding along these plains is dry work. Good +day, Ladyship. I'm a bit behind time, but I lost an hour looking for a +hole to fill my water bag at--And then I could not drink out of it--for +a demed old pleuro bullock had got there first and died in it. My word, +Boss, you'll be in a fix if it don't rain before long.' + +McKeith made an angry gesture. He spoke sharply to the horses. The two +men rode round the kitchen-wing and dismounted at the paling fence, +which made the fourth side of the little square. The back veranda of +the new house, with steps ascending to it, in the middle, the Old +Humpey, with its veranda, along one side, the kitchen and store +building along the other, and a rough slab and bark outhouse beyond it. +Native-cucumber vines and other creepers partially closed in the older +verandas. In the centre of the square was a small flower bed with a +flowering shrub in the middle. + +Lady Bridget brought the whisky decanter from the dining room to the +back veranda, and McKeith mounted the steps, the mailman remaining +beside them. A canvas water-bag, oozing moisture, hung from the +rafters, and there were tumblers on a table beneath it. McKeith took +the decanter from his wife's hand, too preoccupied, it seemed, even to +notice the little satirical smile on her lips. She was thinking how +funny it seemed that she should be playing Hebe to Harry the Blower. +She soon realised, however, that serious things had happened. As +McKeith mixed a liberal allowance of whisky with water from the +water-bag and handed it to the mailman, he asked curtly: + +'This isn't one of your blowing yarns, Harry? You're positive about the +fact?' + +'Saw the thing with my own eyes, Boss. As fine a team as ever I'd wish +to own, lying with their throats cut, and the trees black with crows +all round. There was the dray-load all turned over, and two cases +prized open. I bet that the rum-kegs and spirits that couldn't be +carried off, are buried in some handy dry water-hole close by. I saw +two or three empty brandy bottles with the heads of 'em smashed to show +that the rascals had wet the wool before starting off.' + +McKeith cursed in his throat. 'No sign of my men?' + +'Scooted clean out of the scenery--the whole lot. I reckon that's what +they shook hands on with the Union chaps, and that the natural +consequences of absorbing your grog will be another woolshed or two +burned down before long. Here's your health, Boss, and the Ladyship's.' +And the mailman gulped down his 'nobbler' and turned to remount the +lean chestnut, which was standing hitched to the palings, observing +cheerfully: + +'Well, so long, Sir. Go'day, Ma'am. This sort of argufying ain't going +to carry my mail-bags along the river.' + +'Go up to the Quarters and ask Mrs Hensor for a feed,' called McKeith. +'And look here, Harry, you can tell them at the Myall Creek out-station +as you go by, to have two good horses ready in the yard for me. I'm off +to Tunumburra to put the police on to those devils straight away.' + +'All right, Boss. You'll find it will take some tall calculatin' +though. Them Unionists are getting too strong for the police to tackle. +Windeatt up at Breeza Downs is in a mortal funk, and sending word +everywhere for a squad of Specials to protect his woolshed.' + +'It seems,' said Lady Biddy to her husband, when the mailman had gone, +'that there might be some use after all for Luke Tallant's Maxims.' + +'It seems that Jim Steadbolt has been taking his revenge,' he answered, +'and that I must be in the saddle in an hour's time. Mix me a drink, +Biddy, and order in some grub, while I go and have a bath.' + +He looked as if he needed one. The dust of the drafting camp was caked +upon his face and clothes. His was the appearance of a man who had been +riding hard after stock and sleeping, between his blankets only, under +the stars. + +Lady Bridget mixed him his drink and went to see Chen Sing in the +kitchen. When she came back, Colin was in the front veranda. He had +tumbled the rest of the letters and papers out of the mail-bag, and was +hastily and eagerly scanning the last LEICHARDT'S TOWN CHRONICLE. + +'Any news, Colin?' + +'I don't know, I was looking to see if the Government were going to act +against the strikers--I see they are sending troops.' + +'And is Luke Tallant coming at the head of them, in official uniform, +to read the Riot Act?--if there is a Riot Act in Australia. I'd like to +see Luke maintaining the supremacy of the British Crown on the Leura.' + +He looked up at her in vague rebuke of her levity, and there was +suppressed tenderness in his eyes, notwithstanding his preoccupation +with his own troubles. + +'No, no. But there's something in the paper about Lady Tallant being +ill and having an operation. Poor chap! He wouldn't have been bothering +much about strikes in the Never-Never and the supremacy of the British +Crown, any more than I should in similar circumstances.... Well, there! +I must go and bogey*.' + +[*Bogey--in Black's language, 'bathe out of doors'] + +Sudden compunction overswept Bridget. + +'Oh, Colin! You would care... really... even though they had cut the +throats of your four best dray-horses?' But he had disappeared into a +little veranda room, against which a corrugated iron tank backed +conveniently, and in a minute she heard the splash of water. + +She picked up the paper and looked at the English Intelligence before +examining her own letters. It was quite true. There was a paragraph +stating that Lady Tallant's health had not improved since her arrival +in England, and hinting at the likelihood of an operation being +advisable. Bridget reflected, however, that Sir Luke would probably +have received a cablegram by this time, one way or other--which would +have put him out of suspense, and, presumably, there had been no later +bad news. + +A letter from Molly Gaverick confirmed that item of the English +Intelligence. Rosamond Tallant's condition was certainly far from +satisfactory. Molly, however, seemed much more taken up with a recent +illness of Eliza Countess of Gaverick than with that of Lady Tallant. +Being a tactless and absolutely frank young person, she had no scruple +in proclaiming her hope that 'old Eliza' would make Lord Gaverick her +heir. This was the more likely, wrote young Lady Gaverick, because the +old lady had lately quarrelled with her own relatives, and never now +asked any of her stuffy provincial cousins to share the dulness of +Castle Gaverick and of the house in Brook Street. If she did not leave +her money to Chris Gaverick, there was not, conceivably, anyone else to +whom she would leave it. + +'By the way,' Molly continued, as if it had been an afterthought 'Old +Eliza is immensely interested in you and your cow-boy +husband--ranch-owner is what, I suppose, I ought to call him. She asked +Mrs Gildea so many questions about you both that Joan read her your +account of your honeymoon journey through the Bush, and all the rest of +it. How you can endure such a life is incomprehensible to me--but Aunt +Eliza says it shows you've got some grit in you, and that evidently +your husband has cured you of a lot of ridiculous nonsense--I am +quoting her, so don't be offended, and you needn't show this to +Nature's gentleman, which is what Aunt Eliza calls him. I can't help +feeling though, that it's rather a pity you didn't wait a bit before +taking the Irrevocable Step. I don't know whether you ever heard about +Mrs Willougby Maule's death--eleven months after their marriage.' + +No, Bridget had not heard. Molly Gaverick was an uncertain +correspondent, and, no doubt, Joan Gildea and Rosamond Tallant, if they +had known of the event, had thought it wiser, in writing to her, to +suppress the news. For a moment, Lady Bridget sat meditating, and all +the blood seemed to rush from her brain to her heart--she could almost +hear her heart pounding. Then she went on again with Lady Gaverick's +letter. + +'It was a motor accident--nothing serious at the time, but the baby was +born prematurely, and she lingered a week or two, and then died. I must +do him the justice to say that he seemed to feel her death very much. +It looked as though, after all, the marriage had been quite a success. +Her money gave him a lift and they were going out a good deal in the +political set. She left her quarter of a million to him, ABSOLUTELY. I +heard that some remote Bagallys were going to contest the will, but +they found that they hadn't a leg to stand upon. I wish now that we +hadn't been so sniffy about W.M. As Chris observed with unconscious +cynicism, there's a good deal of difference between a penniless +adventurer and the possessor of quarter of a million. Unattached men +with money can be so useful. As soon as Rosamond Tallant gets +better--if she does--I'll make her ask him to meet us. I know he used +to be a great friend of Luke's....' + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + +Lady Bridget had read so far when the door of the bathroom opened and +McKeith came out, clean again in fresh riding gear, and with a valise +ready packed and strapped in his hand. + +The noise of the cattle became much louder, though the mob was not yet +in sight. + +'I wish I hadn't got to go off before the branding,' he said. 'These +Breeza Downs people always want to claim every cleanskin*. You might +tell Ninnis and Moongarr Bill, Biddy, to keep a sharp look-out. And now +let me have my grub--I'm sorry, dear, to have you hurry up your +dinner.' He strode along to the dining-room, too absorbed in his own +annoyances to notice his wife's face or to ask any questions about her +letters. + +[*cleanskin--unbranded calf] + +Lady Bridget gathered them up and followed him. The Malay boy waited at +table with the assistance of a servant girl from Leuraville, the only +female domestic--with the exception of Mrs Hensor--on the head-station. + +McKeith swallowed his soup and ate the savoury stew prepared by the +Chinese cook with the appetite of a man who had been all day in the +saddle. Lady Bridget, who was an extraordinarily rapid eater, as well +as a fastidious one, had finished long before he was half-way through. +She sat silent at first, while he growled over the outrage upon the +horses. Then suddenly visualising the poor beasts lying stiff in +congealed blood, and the mailman's exaggerated description of trees +black with crows, she flamed out in wrathful horror, and was as anxious +as her husband that the perpetrators of the crime should be brought to +justice. He seemed pleased, and a little surprised at the ebullition. + +'I thought you weren't taking it quite in, Biddy. I am glad you think +like me, though I expect yours is the humanitarian view and mine's the +practical one. This touches my pocket, you see. Well, anyway, you won't +be so keen now on defending the Unionists.' + +'I think they've got as much right to fight for their principles as we +have for ours, but I don't think they've the right to torture horses,' +she rejoined. Her sympathy with oppressed shearers and dispossessed +natives struck always a jarring note between them. His long upper lip +closed tightly on the lower one, and he hunched his great shoulders. + +'Well, that sort of argufying won't muster the cattle,' he observed +drily, plagiarising Harry the Blower. She changed the subject. + +'Did you have a good muster?' + +'Oh, fair! Between three and four hundred head. The water is running +still up in the range. We should have done better if that skunk Wombo +hadn't bolted.' + +Lady Bridget leaned forward with interest. + +'Oh! Then he HAS gone after the black-gin. Brave Wombo!' + +'I wouldn't care a cuss whether he went after the black-gin or not; +she's a half-caste, by the way, and all the worse for that. And he +might stop with her, if it wasn't that he knows the country, and can +spot the gullies where the cattle hide. I've no use for +sentiment--especially black sentiment--when it's a case of a forced +sale to keep me going. My heavens! there's only one thing, Biddy, that +could break me, and it's drought. I believe we're in for a long one, +and unless I can make sales quickly and get money to sink new bores on +the run, things will go hardly with me. Harry the Blower spoke naked +truth for once in his life.' + +'Oh! but there's sure to be rain soon. It looked so like it last +night,' she answered lightly. + +'LOOKED so like it! Yes, and ended in wind and dust. Sure sign of +drought! I must be off.... Here, give me the LEICHARDT LAND CHRONICLE, +and don't expect me till you see me.... And by the way, Biddy, I hear +there's a Unionist Organiser going the round of the stations and +pretending to parley with the masters. Don't you be philanthropic +enough to let him open his jaws--I've told Ninnis he's to be hounded +off before he has time to get off his saddle.' + +'Colin, you are unjust all round. You were very unjust to Wombo. Why +shouldn't the poor black-boy marry as well as you or anyone else?' + +McKeith gave a hard laugh. + +'I'm not preventing him from marrying. I only said I wasn't going to +have his gin on my station.' + +'You wouldn't listen when he told you that he didn't dare go back to +his tribe--because his gin's husband threatened to kill him.' + +'My sympathies are with the gin's husband. What business has Wombo to +steal another man's wife?' + +'The husband broke her head with a nulla-nulla, and she loves Wombo and +Wombo loves her. I consider that any woman, whether she's black or +white, who lives with her husband while she loves another man is +committing a sin,' said Lady Bridget hotly. + +McKeith stopped in the act of filling his tobacco pouch from a jar on +the mantelpiece and looked sharply at his wife. + +'You think that, Biddy. I remember long ago you said something of that +sort to me. It isn't my idea of morality or of justice. But I'm one +with you this far. If I'd ever reason to believe that you loved another +man and wanted to go off with him--you might go--I wouldn't put out a +hand to stop you. And then....' + +'And then?' She had grown very white. + +'Well, I think I'd make another notch in my gun first--and it would be +a previous one--for myself that time.' + +'No, you wouldn't, Colin. Because you know I shouldn't be worth it--and +you are not the man to funk.' + +'I'm not. But where YOU come in--Good Lord! Mate! What would there be +left for me to live for?' + +Her heart thrilled to the old term of endearment, to which in their +early honeymoon days she had attached a sentimental value. Of late it +had fallen into disuse, and when she had heard him on occasions greet +the foreman, may be of some stray party of drivers or surveyors with +the bush formula: 'Good day, mate!' she had felt with deep aggrievement +that she no longer desired the appellative. She had not yet realised +that while the word 'mate' in Australese, like the verb AIMER in +French, may be used as a mere colloquial term, it implies in the deeper +sense a sanctity of relation upon which hangs the whole code of Bush +chivalry. + +'Oh, Colin!' Her eyes glistened with tears. She felt ashamed of her +neurotic fancies and her resentment of his lacks in the matter of +conventional courtesies--of his outward hardness, his want of sympathy +with her ideals. + +He came to her, taking her two hands while keeping his pipe in one of +his own so that the whiff of the coarse 'Store-cut' tobacco made her +wrinkle her nose and stemmed the tide of emotion. But he did not seem +to notice this. + +'No, you're not going to put that theory into practice, Mate.... I'm +not afraid. So we'll leave it at that. And now what's this about the +black-boy to do with my being unjust to that Organiser? There's no +beastly sentiment in his case. He's out to make money, that's all.' + +'You won't hear what he's got to put forward on his side any more than +you would listen to poor Wombo.' + +'No, I won't. I'm not taking any--either in gins or in organisers. Let +'em show their faces here, and they'll pretty soon become aware of the +fact.' + +Lady Bridget took away her hands and moved to the veranda. Outside, +McKeith's horse was waiting. He strapped on his valise, finished +ramming the tobacco into his pipe, then going behind his wife, bent +downward and hastily kissed her cheek. She did not turn her head. + +'Good-bye, Biddy. Don't you go worrying over the blacks or the +Unionists. And if you're dull and want a job there'll be a spice of +excitement in helping to tail that mob of scrubbers. I had to hire two +stray chaps, we're so short-handed.' He went down the steps to the +outer paling. Still she made no response, though now she turned and +watched him vault into the saddle. She also saw his face lighten at +sight of Mrs Hensor's boy with the great pawpaw apple. Tommy Hensor was +a favourite with the Boss. + +'Bless you, boy, it's as big as yourself. Take it back to the Quarters +and tell your mother to give you a slice, or perhaps her ladyship will +cut it for you.' + +He trotted off in the direction of the gully and of the roar of cattle. +Lady Bridget could see the heaving backs of the mob, and could hear the +shouts of the stockmen as they rounded the beasts to the crossing. +Tommy Hensor looked up pleadingly to her, holding out the pawpaw apple. +His yellow hair flamed to gold in the sunset, his blue eyes were as +bright almost as Colin's. Lady Bridget shook her head. + +'No, I don't want you this evening, Tommy. Take that back to your +mother.' + +She settled herself in the hammock and read Molly Gaverick's letter +over again. Then she read one from Joan Gildea. Joan was in the full +swing of London journalism again. She gave Bridget rather fuller news +of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, and dwelt at some length upon the old +lady's interest in Bridget's wild life and in Bridget's husband. + +'You may be sure,' wrote Joan, 'that I had nothing but good to say of +Colin, and oh! Biddy, dearest, how rejoiced I am to know that he is +making you so happy. I could read between the lines of all your amusing +descriptions and sketches of "the Dream-drive." I had my doubts and my +fears, as I never concealed from you, but I believe that you have found +the true, well-beloved at last.' + +There was a good deal, too, in the letter about Rosamond Tallant, who +was in cheerful spirits, it seemed, in spite of the impending +operation, and would not hear of Sir Luke's asking for leave to be with +her--and so on--and so on. Not a word about Willoughby Maule and his +bereavement--which, after all, could not be so very recent. Why had +Joan never mentioned it? Was she afraid of rousing regret and of +awakening painful memories. + +* Cleanskin--Unbranded calf. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + +McKeith's absence was longer than he had expected. Lady Bridget heard +from Harry the Blower on his return round with the down-going mails +that the little bush township of Tunumburra had become the scene of a +convocation of Pastoralists called to concert measures against the +threatened strike. The mailman reported that the district was now in a +state of great commotion, and the strikers, gathering silently in armed +force, prepared to defend their rights against a number of free +labourers whom the sheep-owners were importing from the South. The men +who had killed McKeith's horses were, according to the mailman, +entrenched in the Range, awaiting developments. It was thought that +nothing would happen on a large scale until the arrival of the free +labourers and the troops, which it was said the Government was sending. +Harry the Blower talked darkly of marauding bands, ambushed foes and +perilous encounters on his road, all of which waxed in number and +blood-thirstiness after the manner of Falstaff's men in buckram. But +nobody ever took Harry the Blower's yarns very seriously. + +It would have been natural for Lady Bridget to work herself up into a +state of humanitarian excitement--the O'Hara's had always espoused +unpopular causes--but since the arrival of the English mail a curious +dreaminess had come upon her. She spent idle hours in the hammock on +the veranda, and would only rouse herself spasmodically to some trivial +burst of energy--perhaps a boiling water skirmish against white ants, +or a sudden fit of gardening--planting seeds, training the wild +cucumber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and +flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and +garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the +staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young +passion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a +few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three +flat-stone peach trees and loquets--all looking thirsty for rain--that +was all. The Old Humpey, as it was called, had creepers overgrowing its +roof, a nesting-place for frogs, lizards, snakes--and Lady Bridget, +brave enough for doughty deeds, could never overcome her terror of +horned beasts and reptiles. McKeith's office, where he entered branding +tallies and posted the station log, was in the Old Humpey, and two or +three bachelor bedrooms opposite the wing with kitchen and store. But +Lady Bridget lived chiefly in the new house--less picturesque with its +zinc roofing and deficiency of green drapings, but, being built on sawn +lengths of saplings, more or less fortified against snakes. In front +there was a great vacant space between the ground and the floor of the +house--pleasant enough in summer, when a gentle draught could find its +way through the cracks between the boards, but cold in winter, though +the northern winters were not sharp enough or long enough for this to +be a serious discomfort. + +Nor, when Lady Bridget slept alone in the new house, did she mind much +the dogs and harmless animals that couched under the boards, they gave +her a sense of companionship. But there was a herd of goats--some of +them old and with big tough horns--which McKeith had started in his +bachelor days to provide milk when, as sometimes happened, the milch +cows failed; also to furnish savoury messes of kid's flesh--a pleasant +change from the eternal salt beef varied with wild duck. Occasionally +it happened, especially in mustering times, that nobody remembered to +pen the goats in their yard by the lagoon, and on these occasions they +would get under the house, and the noise of their horns knocking +against the floor of her bedroom would so effectively destroy Lady +Bridget's chances of sleep that she would rise in the night and drive +them into their fold. These were incidents which added variety to the +monotony of her life in the Bush. + +The head-station was very quiet one afternoon, most of the hands being +out with the tailing mob; and Lady Bridget, in a restless mood, went +for a roam through the bush. She walked past the Chinamen's garden and +Fo Wung, carrying up buckets of water to his young cabbages, stopped to +smile blandly and report on his produce. But she was in no mood for the +interchange of remarks in pidgin English. + +It was lonelier at the head of the lagoon. She could hear the trumpeter +geese tuning up in shrill cornet-like notes and the discordant shriek +of native-companions, as the long-legged grey birds stalked +consequentially at the water's edge. She disturbed a flock of parrots +in the white cedar tree, and a covey of duck rose with a whirring of +pinions and a mighty quacking, shaking the drips off their plumage so +that they glittered like diamonds in the sun. From the limbs of the +dead gum tree hung flying foxes, their bat-like wings extended limply, +and a gigantic crane stood in melancholy reflection upon one leg. + +Lady Bridget crossed the gully and roamed the borders of the gidia +scrub. Here, in an occasional open patch, were wattles breaking into +yellow bloom, and sandalwood trees already in blossom, scenting the air +faintly and making bright splashes upon the grey and black background +of the mournful gidia. She filled her arms with flowers and wandered +on, long past the stockyards, into the fastnesses of the gully, where +lay dark pools almost empty now and where grey, volcanic looking rocks +seemed to make a rampart between the scrub and the head-station. + +She was sitting there, her back against a boulder, the forest behind +her, so motionless that inquisitive bower-birds and leather-heads came +quite close to her feet, her small pointed chin poked forward, her eyes +shadowy and mysterious as the still waterpools below. She was visioning +in space that man who had once undoubtedly cast a strong spell upon +her. The spell had been broken by his own infidelity--if it WERE +infidelity of the real man. For she could never believe that he had not +truly loved her. Broken, secondly, by the counteracting influence of +her husband. But now it seemed that the news of him in Lady Gaverick's +letter had started the old vibrations afresh. It was as if an iron wall +between them had suddenly been knocked down and he had gained access to +her inner self. For months she had scarcely thought of him. Last night +she had seen him in a dream, and he had spoken to her. He had said, 'Of +course, I loved you. I never loved anyone better, but I felt that you +were not of an accommodating disposition--that I could not give you +anything you really wanted, and that we should not be happy together.' +That was all of the dream she had brought back. But she KNEW that there +had been a great deal more. The impression had been so vivid that she +could not rid herself of the fancy that he was within actual reach of +her. It was impossible to imagine him fourteen thousand miles distant. + +She did not try now to fight against this haunting, but yielded herself +to the power of the dream. When she heard a footstep in the forest +behind her, she started and turned and stared into the dim aisles of +the gidia, as though she expected to see his ghost. + +'Mithsis--mithsis--me Wombo--plenty my been look out for you. Plenty +mine frightened to go along a head-station.' + +Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic +hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo +had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of +Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons; +his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt, +with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging +from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed. + +A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted +with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER +about Wombo. + +'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making +an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon +the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung +round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form. + +'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that +feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black +feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller +fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come +after--throw 'im spear--close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear, +Oola plenty cry.' + +[*Coolla--in Blacks language, meaning Angry.] + +[*Nulla-nulla--A black's weapon.] + +[*Yan--To go away.] + +[*Mumkull--To kill.] + +[*Ba'al--No--Not.] + +Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail. + +'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!' + +[*Yucke!--Alas!] + + +Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been +partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura +out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a +Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and +round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual +among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them +away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her +side. + +Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern. + +'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo, +tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a +spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow. +He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their +flight--so he explained in his queer lingo--but Oola had cried so much +that he had not been able to draw out the rest of the shaft. + +'BUJERI* YOU, white Mary!' pleaded Oola in the native formula. 'You gib +it medsin.... You gib it one old fellow skirt.... BA'AL, Oola got 'im +clothes... BA'AL got 'im ration... plenty sick this feller....' And she +beat her breast with the arm that was unhurt. + +[*Bujeri--Very good.] + +'Of course, I'll give you medicine--and food, and I'll look out +something for you to put on. Only for heaven's sake, stop crying,' said +Lady Bridget. 'Come along. You must have that spear pulled out and your +arm seen to. Come with me to the Humpey. Quick--MURRA* make haste.' + +[*Murra make haste--To run quickly.] + +But Wombo drew back, casting an affrighted glance down the gully +towards the crossing. + +'Ba'al me go long-a Humpey--I believe Boss PHO-PHO*, Oola,' he said. + +[*Pho-pho--To shoot.] + +'Wombo, you are foolish. What for Boss shoot Oola?' + +'YOWI*--I believe when Boss say PHO-PHO, my word! that one PHO-PHO. +Plenty black feller frightened.' + +[*Yowi--Yes.] + +Bridget pushed the unhappy gin along the track. + +'You needn't be frightened. Boss has gone away.' + +'Boss no sit down long-a Humpey?' Wombo looked relieved, and while +Bridget reassured him, the three moved on towards the crossing. In +answer to Lady Bridget's questioning the black-boy told his story as +they went. She already knew of Wombo's passion for the young gin, who +was within the prohibited degree of relationship, therefore TABU to +him, and who, moreover, was already legitimately wedded to a warrior of +the tribe. She knew also that McKeith had forbidden the black-boy, +under pain of severe penalty, to seek the coveted bride. Of course, it +was all nonsense about his shooting the poor creature, though no doubt, +in ordinary circumstances, he would have sent them off the station. But +hard as he was--and Lady Bridget had learned that her husband could be +very hard, he would never be inhuman, and, naturally, Oola's wound must +be dressed. + +Lady Bridget hurried them over the crossing and up the hill. The white +men were all out with the cattle. She needed assistance, and seeing Mrs +Hensor at the kitchen window of the Bachelors' Quarters, called to her. + +'Please come out at once, I want you.' + +The woman's face became sullen on the instant. + +'I can't come now. I'm in the middle of my baking.' + +'But don't you see? The thing is important. This poor gin has a spear +through her arm--it must be attended to immediately. Wombo is hurt too. +The wounds must be washed and dressed.... Look at the poor creatures.' + +Mrs Hensor contemptuously surveyed Wombo and his erring partner. + +'Serve them right. He's stolen her from her husband and the Blacks have +given them what for. They don't need any fussing over, these niggers. +They are used to being knocked about.' + +Lady Bridget's eyes blazed, but her tone was icy. + +'I suppose you understand that I've given you my orders to attend to a +wounded fellow-creature.' + +'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should +not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of +Mr McKeith's gun?' + +'You have my orders,' repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white +heat. + +'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that +if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off,' retorted +Mrs Hensor. + +'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this +disobedience!' said Lady Bridget. + +Mrs Hensor laughed insolently. + +'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME,' and she +withdrew out of sight into the kitchen. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + +Lady Bridget made as dignified a retreat as was possible in the +circumstances. She could have slain Mrs Hensor at that moment. She took +the blacks to the veranda of the old Humpey and went to look in the +office for antiseptics, lint and bandages. Chen Sing, the Chinese cook, +came at her call, and rendered assistance with the bland phlegm of his +race. The spear had been pulled out of Oola's arm by the time Lady +Bridget came back with the dressings. In her spasms of East End +philanthropy she had learned the first principles of surgical aid. When +Oola's arm and Wombo's gashed head had been washed and bandaged, the +trouble was to know what to do with the pair. + +Now that they were comfortable and out of pain, fed and given tobacco +to smoke and a tot of rum apiece, they had time to remember +superstitious fears kept at bay while they had been running for their +life. Both were afraid to show themselves in the open. On one hand, +there was the terror of McKeith; on the other, of Oola's husband. Lady +Bridget gathered that Oola's husband was a medicine man, and that he +had 'pointed a bone at his faithless wife and her lover.' To 'point a +bone' at an enemy--the bone having first been smeared with human blood, +and subjected to magical incantations--is the worst spell that one +aboriginal can cast upon another. It means death or the direst +misfortune. All that the afflicted one can do is to fly--to hide +himself beyond the sorcerer's ken and the reach of pursuit. For this +reason, Wombo and Oola had fled back to Moongarr. No outside black +dared venture within range of McKeith's gun. Now Wombo and Oola +besought Bridget to hide them from the vengeful furies. There was that +slab and bark hut at the end of the kitchen and store wing. Nobody was +likely at present to want to go into it. The door had a padlock, and it +was used as a store-house for the hides of beasts that had been killed +for the sake of the skins when in the last stage of pleuro. The key was +always kept hung up in McKeith's office. + +Here Lady Bridget installed Wombo and Oola. She brought them cooked +meat, bread and a ration of tea and sugar, provided them with a pair of +blankets, and found for Wombo some old moleskins, a shirt, and a pair +of boots, while Oola almost forgot the medicine man's evil spell in her +puzzled delight over a lacey undergarment and a discarded kimono +dressing-grown, which had been part of Lady Bridget's trousseau. That +excitement over, the lonely mistress of Moongarr went back to her own +habitation. She ate her solitary dinner and paced the veranda till +darkness fell and the haunted loneliness became an almost unbearable +oppression. Vast plains, distant ranges, gidia scrub and the far +horizon melted into an illimitable shadow. The world seemed boundless +as the starry sky--and yet she was in prison! She had longed for the +freedom of the wild, and her life was more circumscribed than ever. A +phrase in an Australian poem, that had struck her when she had read it +not long ago came back upon her with poignant meaning. 'Eucalyptic +cloisterdom'--that was the phrase, and it was this to which she had +condemned herself. The gum trees enclosed for her one immense cell and +she had become utterly weary of her mental and her spiritual +incarceration. Oh! for the sting of love's strong emotion to break the +monotony. The most sordid sights and sounds of London streets, the most +inane babble of a fashionable crowd would be more stimulating to her +brain, sweeter in her ears than the arid expanse, the weird bush +noises--howl of dingoes, wail of curlews, lowing of cattle--that a year +ago had seemed so eerily fascinating. + +Even her marriage! The romance of it had faded, as it were, into the +dull drab of withered gum leaves. The charm of primal conditions had +been overpowered by their discomfort. Nature had never intended her for +the wife of a backwoodsman. At times she felt an almost unendurable +craving for the ordinary luxuries of civilisation. The bathing +appliances here--or rather, the lack of them--were often positive +torture to her. She hated the food--continual coarse beef varied by +stringy goats' flesh or game from the lagoon. She had come to loathe +wild duck--when the men had time to shoot it. She could never bring +herself to destroy harmless creatures, and was a rank coward over +firearms. Talk of the simple life! Why, it was only since they had got +Fo Wung that there had been any vegetables. And the climate--though the +short winter had been pleasant enough as a whole--was abominable. The +long summer heat, the flies and the mosquitoes! What had she not +suffered the first summer after her marriage! And now the hot weather +was coming again. That was not the root of the trouble, +however--Bridget was honest enough to confess it. The root lay in +herself--in her own instability of purpose, her mercurial temperament. +She had been born with that temperament. All the O'Haras loved +change--hungered after strong sensation. She was spoiling now for +emotional excitement. + +Well, the little human drama of the Blacks' camp had taken her out of +herself for an hour or two. It had been so funny to see Oola stroking +the lace frills of Lady Bridget's old petticoat and looking up at Wombo +with frank coquetry as she mimicked the 'White Mary's' gestures and +gait. Lady Bridget meant to stand by the savage lovers. She would not +allow Colin to treat them badly when he came back. + +Ninnis, the overseer, broke upon her restless meditations. He was a +rough specimen, originally raised in Texas, who, after knocking about +in his youth as a cow-boy in the two Americas, had come to Australia +about fifteen years previously, had 'free-selected' disastrously, and, +during the last five years, had been in McKeith's employ. He was +devoted to his master, but he looked upon McKeith's marriage as a +pernicious investment. His republican upbringing could not stomach the +'Ladyship,' and he persisted in calling Lady Bridget Mrs McKeith. He +considered her flighty and extravagant in her ideas, and was always +divided between unwilling fascination and grumpy disapproval. To-night +he was in the latter mood and this incensed Lady Bridget. + +'I've been writing up the log,' he began in a surly, aggressive tone, +'and I thought I'd better make a note of Wombo and that gin having come +to the head-station, in case of there being trouble with the Blacks.' + +'Why should there be trouble with the Blacks?' she asked, in manner +equally unconciliatory. + +'Well, ye know--though, I daresay, it wouldn't seem of much consequence +to you--Wombo's gone agen the laws of the tribe, and that's a serious +matter. If they know he's skulking here under protection, they'll be +spearing the cattle, and the Boss won't like that.' + +'I'll explain to Mr McKeith,' said Lady Bridget haughtily. + +'Well, I reckon it's best not to keep them on the head-station against +the Boss's orders,' persisted Ninnis. + +Lady Bridget set her little white teeth. 'Naturally, Mr McKeith's +orders don't apply to ME--as I had to tell Mrs Hensor.' + +'Mrs Hensor knows the Boss better than most people,' said Ninnis, at +which Lady Bridget flashed out. + +'We need not discuss that question, Mr Ninnis.' + +Ninnis' jaw stiffened underneath his shaggy goatee. + +'Well, I guess you know your own business, Mrs McKeith, and it's up to +you to square things with the Boss.' + +Lady Bridget reared her small form and bent her head with great +stateliness. + +'But I'll just say, though,' went on Ninnis, 'that I hear Harris of the +police is coming along. And what Harris doesn't think he knows about +the heel of the law being kept on Blacks--and every other darned unit +in the creation scheme'--muttered Ninnis in parenthesis--'ain't entered +in the Almighty's Log-book.' + +Ninnis expectorated over the veranda railings--a habit of his that +jarred on Lady Bridget. + +'Well, what about Harris?' + +'He's had his eye on Wombo and would be glad of an opportunity to best +him--on account of a little affair about a colt Wombo rode for him at +the last Tunumburra races--and lost the stakes--out of spite, Harris +declares.' + +'Oh, I know about that--and I told Mr Harris what I thought about his +treatment of the Blacks. But he can't punish Wombo if I choose to have +him here. I don't think Mr McKeith would bring Harris to Moongarr--he +knows I can't bear him.' + +'Well, I reckon that's up to you to square with the Boss,' repeated +Ninnis surlily. 'I'm told Harris is on the look-out for desperate +characters going along the Leura--these unionist organisers--dropping +in at stations on pretence of getting rations and spying out the land, +and calling on the men to join them. There was a boundary rider from +Breeza Downs to-day--caught us up with the tailing mob and fetched back +their new chum and Zack Duppo, leaving us awful short-handed--so that +if Joe Casey doesn't fetch in the milkers so early to-morrow you'll +know it's because I've had to send him out herding. They're doing their +shearing early at Breeza Downs with shearers Windeatt has imported from +the south, and he wants police protection for them and himself.' + +Lady Bridget laughed. + +'Harris and his two constables will have enough to do if they are to +protect the district.' + +'That's just what Windeatt has been clamouring about. Now the +Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it +isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are +enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You +may be sure if there's fighting to be done--black or white--he'll be in +it.' + +Lady Bridget angered Ninnis by her apparent indifference, and he bade +her a cross good-night. Had it been anybody else she would have +encouraged him to stay and talk. As it was, she resumed her lonely +pacing, and did not go to her room till the whole station was abed. + +When at last she went to sleep she dreamed again vividly of Willoughby +Maule. + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + + +McKeith returned, without warning, the following afternoon. He was not +alone, but had spurred on in advance of the other two men he had +brought with him. Lady Bridget, reading in her hammock at the upper end +of the veranda, heard the sound of a horse approaching, and saw her +husband appear above the hill from the Gully Crossing. She got to her +feet, expecting that he would ride up to the veranda, calling +'Biddy--Biddy,' as he usually did after an absence. But instead, he +pulled up suddenly, turned his horse in the direction of the Bachelors' +Quarters, and passed from her line of vision. + +She supposed, naturally, that someone at the Quarters had attracted his +attention, then remembering that Ninnis and the white men were out with +the cattle, wondered, as the minutes went by, who and what detained him. + +Tommy Hensor, running up from the garden with his evening dole of +vegetables, enlightened her. + +'Boss come back, Ladyship. I can see him. He is up, talking to Mother.' + +Lady Bridget was too proud a woman to feel petty jealousy, nor would it +have occurred to her to be jealous of Mrs Hensor. Her sentiment of +dislike towards that person was of quite another order. But she was +just in the mood to resent neglect on the part of McKeith. + +She went to the veranda railing, whence she had a view of the +Bachelors' Quarters, and was able to see for herself that Tommy's +report had been correct. She called to the child: + +'Go at once, Tommy, and tell the master that I am waiting.' + +Tommy flew off immediately on his small, sturdy legs, and Lady Bridget +watched the scene at the Bachelors' Quarters. McKeith had dismounted, +and with one foot on the edge of the veranda, was facing Mrs Hensor, +who looked fresh and comely in a clean blouse and bright-coloured +skirt. The two seemed to have a good deal to say to each other, though +Lady Bridget heard only the voices, not the words. Her Irish temper +rose at the thought that Mrs Hensor might be giving him her version of +the Wombo episode. She felt glad that the black-boy and his gin were +comfortably sleeping off the effect of their wounds, and of the +plentiful meals supplied them in the hide-house, and thus were not in +evidence. When McKeith spoke, it was in a dictatorial, angry tone--that +of the incensed master. Clearly, however, Mrs Hensor was not the object +of his wrath. Lady Bridget saw little Tommy run excitedly up to deliver +her message, and almost cried out to him to keep away from the horses' +heels, to which he went perilously near. As things happened, the beast +lashed out at him, and Tommy had a very narrow escape of being badly +kicked. Lady Bridget heard Mrs Hensor shriek and saw her husband drag +the child to the veranda and examine him anxiously, Mrs Hensor bending +with him. Then McKeith lifted up Tommy and kissed and patted him almost +as if he had been the boy's father. It always gave Bridget a queer +little spasm of regret to see Colin's obvious affection for the little +fellow. He was fond of children, specially so of this one. Lady Bridget +knew, though he had never said so to her, that he was disappointed at +there being no apparent prospect of her having a child. + +And she--with her avidity for any new sort of sensation, although she +scoffed at the joy of maternity--felt secretly inclined sometimes to +gird at fate for having so far denied her this experience. She herself +liked Tommy in her contradictory, whimsical fashion; but now, the fuss +over, the boy--who clearly was not in the least hurt--made her very +cross, and she became positively furious at seeing McKeith delay yet +further to unstrap his valise and get out a toy he must have bought for +Tommy in Tunumburra. Then, his grievance aparently coming back on him, +he put the child abruptly aside, and leaving valise and horse at the +Bachelors' Quarters, walked with determined steps and frowning visage +down the track to the veranda. There, his wife was standing, very pale, +very erect, her eyes glittering ominously. + +McKeith was through the gate and up the flight of steps in three or +four strides. + +He seemed to sense the antagonism in her, and demanded at once, without +waiting to give her any greeting. + +'Biddy, what's this I'm hearing about Wombo and that gin?' + +'I think you might have asked me before going to Mrs Hensor for +information,' she answered with equal curtness. + +He stared at her for a moment or two as if surprised; his face +reddened, and his eyes, too, glittered. + +'I don't know what you mean. I had to speak to Mrs Hensor about beds +being wanted up there, and of course I asked her how things had been +going on.' + +'And did she tell you that she had been inhuman and insolent?' + +'Inhuman... Insolent!' + +'She spoke to me impudently. She defied my orders.' + +'I am given to understand that she was carrying out mine,' said McKeith +slowly. 'And if that's so, Mrs Hensor was in the right.' + +'You put that woman before ME--before your wife?' + +'There's not another woman in the universe I'd put before my wife. But +that's no reason for my giving in to her when she does what I know to +be folly.' + +'I see. You call an act of common humanity folly--doing what one could +to relieve the agony of a fellow creature. I am glad that I differ from +you--and from your servant. Mrs Hensor refused to help that poor gin +who had a spear through her arm and was shrieking with pain.' + +'Oh, you don't know black-gins as well as I do. They'll pretend they're +dying in agony just to wheedle a drop of rum or a fig of tobacco out of +a white man; and they'll take it quite as a matter of course when one +of their men bashes their head in with a NULLA-NULLA.' + +'I suppose you'll allow that a spear wound may hurt a little,' said +Bridget. 'I believe that you yourself suffered from the effect of one +at least, you once told me so.' + +And memory--so active these late days, brought suddenly back the vision +of him as he had approached her that evening at Government House. What +a great Viking he had looked!--in modern dress, of course, but bearing +mark of battle in a slight drag of the left leg, only noticeable, she +knew now, when he was shy and proud, and under, to him, difficult +social conditions. But what a MAN she had felt him to be then, among +the other men! + +It seemed an outrage on her idealised image of him to hear him speaking +in that dry, caustic manner. + +'Ah, that's different. The Gulf natives have a nasty way of barbing and +poisoning their spears. An ordinary spear-thrust is nothing to either +black or white. Wombo could have pulled the thing out, and in a few +hours the gin would have been all right again.' + +'You think so--well in a few hours she was in a high fever. I took her +temperature this morning when I re-bandaged the wound.' + +McKeith laughed shortly. + +'It wouldn't be surprising, if you had given her grog and tobacco and +as much meat as she wanted. That what you did, eh?' + +'Yes, it was. They were both starving.' + +'Well, I wouldn't bank on your stock of medical knowledge, Biddy--not +if I was down with fever or otherwise incapacitated. But that's not the +point--which is that those blacks have been kept here against my +express orders.' + +'They've been kept here by MY orders,' flamed Lady Bridget. + +McKeith's jaw squared, and there showed in his eyes that ugly devil +which many a black and white man had seen, but never his wife before. + +'Look here, milady--there can be only one boss on this station. And now +you'll excuse me if I act according to my own discretion.' + +Without another word he walked up the veranda and down the few steps +connecting it with the Old Humpey. She heard him go into his office, +and presently the door of it slammed behind him. She knew that he was +going to the culprits in the hide-house, and wondered what punishment +he would mete unto them. Had he gone to the office for his gun? At this +moment, anything seemed possible to Lady Bridget's heated temper and +excited imagination. + +She stood waiting, absorbed in her fears, so abstracted from her +ordinary outside surroundings that she was unaware of the approach of +two horsemen from the Gully Crossing. They did not stop at the garden +gate, but made for the usual station entrance at the back. One of them, +lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense +little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and +conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened +or was about to happen. And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear +of the home, justified the impression. + +Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, which +again connected on either side the new house with the Old Humpey and +kitchen and store-wing--the hide-house standing slightly apart at the +end of the store building. The shrieks in male and female keys came +from the hide-house and mingled with McKeith's strident tones +fulminating in Blacks' lingo. The noise brought Mrs Hensor and Tommy +down from the Bachelors' Quarters, and the Chinese cook, the Malay boy +and Maggie the housemaid from the service department. The three +verandas and garden plot made a kind of amphitheatre; and now, into the +arena, came the actors in the little tragedy. + +From the hide-house, McKeith dragged the prisoners, and through the +gateway in the palings which made the fourth side of the enclosure. +With one hand he clutched Wombo, with the other Oola, who in her +lace-trimmed petticoat and flowered kimono was truly a tragi-comic +spectacle. + +McKeith carried his coiled stockwhip in the hand which held Wombo. It +was plain, judging from the state of Wombo's new shirt, that he had +given the black boy a thrashing; Oola was unscathed. Of course, Colin +could not lift his hand to a woman, though he was a brute and the woman +only a black-gin. Lady Bridget felt faintly glad at this. + +She watched the scene, half fascinated, half disgusted, all her +attention concentrated on these three figures. She had but a dim +consciousness of two men riding round the store-wing and dismounting. +One of the two remained in the background screened by the trails of +native cucumber overhanging the veranda end. The other--a wiry, +powerful figure in uniform, with a rubicund face, black bristling +moustache and beard and prominent black eyes, reminding one of the eyes +of a bull--walked forward and spoke with an air of official assurance. + +'Can I be of any use to you, Mr McKeith, in dealing with that nigger? A +bad character, as I've reason to know.' + +'No, thank you, Harris. I can do my own dirty jobs,' said McKeith +shortly. + +He had released the pair and now stood grimly surveying them. Oola was +crying and squealing; Wombo stood upright--a scowl of hate on his face. +His whole nature seemed changed. A flogging will rouse the +semi-civilised black's evil passions like nothing else. There was +something of savage dignity in the defiant way in which he faced his +former master. + +'What for you been take-it stockwhip long-a me? BA'AL me bad black boy +long-a you, Boss. What for me no have 'em gin belonging to me? Massa +catch 'im bujeri White Mary like it gin belonging to him. What for no +all same black fellow?' + +McKeith cut short the argument--sound logic it seemed to Lady Biddy--by +an imperious, silencing gesture, and a sudden unfurling of his +stockwhip, which made a hissing sound as it writhed along the ground +like a snake. The black boy sprang aside. McKeith pointed to the gidia +scrub and issued a terse command in the native language. + +'YAN' (go). 'BA'AL YOU WOOLLA' (don't talk any more). 'YAN.' + +Wombo turned appealingly to Lady Bridget. + +'Lathychap!' + +'YAN,' stormed McKeith again, and, as Lady Bridget made a movement of +sympathetic response towards the black fellow, he added sternly: +'You'll oblige me by not interfering in this business. The Blacks know +that what I say, I mean, and I'll have no more words with them.' + +Bridget stood quite still, her attitude and expression all indignant +protest, but she said nothing. Her face was turned full towards the man +hidden by the creepers, who was watching her with intense interest, but +she was unconscious of his gaze. + +Wombo retreated slowly. Oola, cowed, whimpering, behind him. Then, she +made an appeal to Lady Bridget, stretching out her unbandaged arm +imploringly. + +'White Mary--you PIDNEY (understand). That fellow medsin man--husband +belonging to me. Him come close-up long-a srub--throw 'im spear, +NULLA-NULLA--plenty look out Wombo. BA'AL, Wombo got 'im spear--ba'al +got 'im NULLA-NULLA. Suppose black fellow catch 'im Wombo--my word! +that fellow MUMKULL (kill). Wombo--mumkull Oola--altogether BONG +(dead). YUCKE! YUCKE! Lathychap suppose Massa let Wombo sit down long-a +head-station--two day, three day--black fellow get tired--up stick--no +more look out. No catch 'im Wombo. Lathychap!' she pleaded, 'BUJERI you +PIALLA (intercede with) Boss.' + +Lady Bridget came down the steps from the veranda and went up to +McKeith. + +'Colin, what the gin says is true. Her tribe will kill them, and they +have no weapons and no means of protection. Will you, as a favour to +me, let them stay for a few days? At least, till her arm is healed and +the danger past?' + +McKeith hesitated perceptibly, then the consciousness of weakening +resolve made him harden himself the more, made his speech rougher than +it might have been. + +'No, I can't, Biddy. I never break my word. They've GOT to go.' + +He turned fiercely on Wombo, who stood sullen and defiant again, and +from him to Oola, who crouched in the dust, sobbing pitifully and +rubbing her damaged arm. + +'Plenty me sick, Boss--close up TUMBLEDOWN' (die), she wailed. + +'Stop that! YAN--do you hear? YAN--YAN--BURRI--BURRI--' (go quickly). + +The whip lashed out again. It stung Wombo's bare leg, and flicked +Oola's petticoat. The two ran screaming lustily towards the rocks and +scrubby country at the head of the gully. + +Lady Bridget uttered a shuddering exclamation and made an impetuous +movement with arms partly outstretched as if to follow the pair. Then +her arms dropped and she stood stock still. + +There was a dead silence. In all the relations of husband and wife, +never had there been a moment more crucial as affecting their ultimate +future. They looked at each other unflinchingly, neither speaking. +McKeith's lips were resolute, locked, his pugnacious jaw set like iron. +Here was the stubborn determination of a fighting man, never to admit +himself in the wrong. And his eyes seemed to have a steel curtain over +them--which, however, had Bridget's spiritual intuition been awake to +perceive it, softened for an instant, letting through a gleam of +passionate appeal. + +But Bridget's soul was steel-cased also. He saw only contempt, +repulsion in her gaze. The larger issues narrowed to a conflict of two +egoisms. It seemed to both as though, in the space of that last quarter +of an hour, they had become mortal foes. + +The police inspector broke in upon the tense silence. Here was another +egoism to be reckoned with--malevolently officious. + +'They'll be hiding in the gully, Mr McKeith. No fear of them taking to +the outside bush with the tribe hanging round. I'll just round 'em up +and drive 'em into the scrub and strike the fear of the Law into them. +I'll do it now before I turn out my horse into the paddock.' + +'No,' flamed Lady Bridget. 'You'll leave those unfortunate creatures +alone--or--if you molest them--whether it's by my husband's permission +or not--well--you'll find I'm a bad hater, Mr Harris.' + +The police inspector flushed a deep red. + +'Maybe I'm not such a bad hater either, my lady--but with my +respects....' + +'That will do, Harris,' interposed McKeith. 'I told you that I'd do my +own dirty jobs. There's no occasion for you to go against her +ladyship's wishes.' + +Harris touched his helmet to Lady Bridget and, leering with veiled +enmity, replied: + +'I'm never one to put myself up against the ladies, except where my +duty comes first--and that's not the case--yet. But as I was saying, +with my respects, my lady, Mr McKeith knows very well how to treat the +blacks. He knows that you've got to keep your word to them, whether +that means a plug of tobacco or a plug of cold iron.' + +Lady Bridget drew back and looked at Harris for a second or two with an +expression of the most withering haughtiness. Then, without a word she +turned her back on him. The inspector infuriated, muttered in his +throat. McKeith interposed sharply: + +'Bridget, Harris is going to stay the night.' + +'Ah! at the Bachelors' Quarters,' Lady Bridget smiled with distant +calm. 'Of course, Mrs Hensor knows. I'm sorry I can't ask Mr Harris to +dinner at the house this evening.' + +Now, by the social canons of the Bush, the police inspector, being +technically speaking of higher grade than the casual traveller, should +have been accepted as a 'parlour visitor.' He would thus have occupied +one of the bachelor spare rooms in the Old Humpey and would have joined +the Boss and his wife at dinner. Harris had never before stayed the +night at Moongarr, and he had confidently expected to be received with +honour. Thus he regarded Lady Bridget's speech as an insult. + +'Oh, I'm not one to force my company where it is not wanted,' he +blustered. 'I'm quite content with a shake-down at the Quarters, though +if I'd known I might have gone by the short cut with the Specials--it's +rather late, however, to push on to Breeza Downs, where--though perhaps +I say it as shouldn't--I'm sure of a welcome from Mr and Mrs Windeatt, +being, so to speak--for law and order--the representative of His +Majesty in the Leura district.' + +Lady Bridget smiled with detached amusement, as she turned again and +patted the head of an elderly kangaroo dog, which came up to her with +its tongue out and a look of wistful enquiry in its bleared eyes, +scenting plainly that something was amiss. 'Good dog, Veno,' she +murmured. + +Harris bridled. + +'I'll bid you good evening then, my lady,' he said stiffly. 'No doubt, +Mr McKeith, you'll spare me half an hour in the office by and by. Just +to concert our measures for the proper protection of the Pastoralists +and the safeguarding of the woolsheds this shearing season.' + +'Yes, yes, or course,' McKeith answered mechanically. The spunk had +gone out of him, as Harris would have phrased it; and the Inspector, +looking at Lady Bridget, guessed the reason. + +'And what now about the gentleman from Leichardt's Town, Mr McKeith? +Will I be taking him up with me to the Bachelor's Quarters? Or may be,' +Harris added unpleasantly, 'her ladyship won't object to having him in +the house.' + +McKeith muttered angrily, 'Damn! I'd forgotten.' + +It was not like him to lose himself during working hours in even a +momentary fit of abstraction--except, indeed, when he was riding +without immediate objective through the Bush. His eyes were still upon +his wife's slight figure as she moved slowly towards the veranda, with +the air of one who has no more concern with the business in hand. Her +graceful aloofness, which he knew to be merely a social trick, stung +him inexpressibly, the faint bow she had given Harris when he bade her +good evening had seemed to include himself. It galled him that he did +not seem fitted by nature or breeding to cope with this kind of +situation. The half consciousness of inferiority put him still more at +disadvantage with himself. + +'Biddy, wait please,' he said dictatorially. + +She paused at the steps, her hand on the railings, her eyes under their +lowered lids ignoring him. + +He went closer and spoke rapidly in a harsh undertone. + +'I didn't tell you--though I rode ahead on purpose--I met a man at +Tunumburra who said he knew you. He's out from England--been staying at +Government House, and brought a letter from Sir Luke Tallant. I hope +that at any rate you'll be civil to him.' + +She flashed a quick glance at him, and her eyelids dropped again. + +'But naturally. I'm not in the habit of being uncivil to--my friends.' + +And just then--Mrs Hensor, who loved cheap fiction, said afterwards it +was all like a scene out of a book--there appeared in the space between +the two wings, a man who had strolled unobserved from one side, out of +the background of creepers, and who advanced with quickened step to +where the husband and wife stood. + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + + +A striking individual. Tall--though not as tall or as massively built +as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline +grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation, +and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild +spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing +with ease and picturesqueness, a backwoods get-up. Clothes, extremely +well cut; riding breeches and boots; soft shirt and falling collar with +a silk tie of dull flame colour knotted at the sinewy throat, loose +coat, Panama hat. So much for the figure. The face ugly, but +distinguished, sallow-brown in colouring. Nose long, fine, with a +slight twist below the bridge; cheeks and chin clean-shaven, an +enormous dark moustache concealing the mouth. Hair black, slightly +grizzled, and when he lifted his hat forming a thick lightly frosted +crest above his forehead. Eyes black--peculiar eyes, sombre, restless, +but with a gaze, steady and piercing when concentrated on a particular +object, as, just now, it was concentrated on Lady Bridget. + +The gaze seemed compelling. Lady Bridget suddenly lifting eyes that +were instantly wide open, became aware of the man's presence. The +effect of it upon her was so marked that McKeith, watching her face, +felt a shock of surprise. The change in her was noticed by the Police +Inspector, with malevolent curiosity. So also by Mrs Hensor, a little +further away. + +The new-comer saluted her with a low bow, his hat in one hand, the +other extended. + +'You haven't forgotten me, I hope, Lady Bridget, though I should think +that I am the very last person in the world you would have expected to +see in these parts.' + +Lady Bridget had turned very white. She stared at him as if he had been +a ghost, and at first seemed unable to speak. But her confusion lasted +only a few seconds. Almost before he had finished his sentence she had +pulled herself together. Her hand was in his, and she spoke in her old +fluty voice and little grand manner, with the old slow, faintly +whimsical smile on her lips and in her eyes. It came over McKeith that +he had not of late been familiar with this aspect of her, and that she +was exhibiting to this man the same strange charm of her girlhood which +had been to him, in the full fervour of his devotion, so wonderful and +worshipful, but of which--he knew it now--the Bush had to a great +extent robbed her. + +She laughed as she withdrew her hand from that of the newcomer. And +standing on the steps, her head almost on a level with his, met his +eyes with challenging directness. + +'Really, Mr Maule, you shouldn't startle a nervous creature in that +uncanny way--appearing like the unmentionable Personage or the angel if +you prefer it, only with this difference, that we weren't speaking of +you. I hadn't the most distant notion that you were on this side of the +equator. If my husband had mentioned your name I should not have been +so taken by surprise.' + +'Were you really so surprised? I thought I MUST have sent my shadow on +before me--because I've been thinking so tremendously of you these last +few days, and of the prospect of seeing you again. I daresay you know,' +he added, turning politely to McKeith--'that I had the pleasure of +meeting your wife when she was Lady Bridget O'Hara, one winter at Rome, +with her cousins, Lord and Lady Gaverick. And later, we saw something +of each other in London.' + +'No, my husband doesn't know,' Bridget gave a reckless laugh, and her +eyes challenged those of McKeith before he could answer. 'You see, +Colin and I, when we married, came from opposite poles geographically, +morally and mentally. He did not understand or care about my old +environment any more than I understood--or cared about his. So we +agreed to bury our respective pasts in oblivion. Don't you think it was +a good plan?' + +'Quite admirable. I admire your mutual courage in adopting it.' + +'You think so! It has its drawbacks, though,' said McKeith dryly. 'I +must apologise for having left you to announce yourself. The fact is, +those Blacks put other things out of my head. They had to be taught +they couldn't disobey orders without being punished for it.' + +'Poor wretches! Yes! I know the popular idea of asserting British +supremacy over coloured races, by the force of the whip. I have not +always seen it answer; but then my experience has been with natives +rather higher in the scale of evolution than the Australian aboriginal.' + +'You believe in the power of kindness--as I do,' exclaimed Lady +Bridget. 'My husband and I take different views on that subject. But we +need not discuss them now. Come and have some tea, and tell me about +the Tallants.' + +Maule followed her to the door of the living room where she turned to +give some orders to Maggie, the maid-servant, and to the Chinese cook. +McKeith went off with Harris to see after the horses and have a talk +with Ninnis at the stockyards. Thus, Maule was left alone for a few +minutes to study and form his own opinion as to Lady Bridget's setting. +She was a woman who, whatever her surroundings, must always impress +them with her personality. This bush parlour was original in its +simplicity. Walls lined with unvarnished wood which was mellowing +already to a soft golden brown. Boards bare, but for a few rugs and +skins. A fine piece of tappa from the Solomons, of barbaric design in +black and orange, made the centre of an arrangement of South Sea Island +and aboriginal weapons. Divans heaped with cushions flanked the great +fireplace. Two writing-tables occupied spaces between French +windows--one the desk of a business-like roll-top escritoire; the +other, the flap of a Chippendale bureau, with a Chippendale arm-chair +before it. There were a few other pieces unmistakable English. In fact, +Eliza Countess of Gaverick, in addition to a handsome present of plate, +had sent her niece the furnishings of her old room at Castle Gaverick. +A few pictures and etchings hung on the other walls--among them several +wild seascapes--reminding one a little of Richard Doyle's exquisite +water colours--in which green billows and foamy wave-crests took the +shape of sea-fairies. Also some weird tree studies--mostly gum and +gidia, where gnarled limbs and bulbous protuberances turned into the +faces of gnomes and the forms of strange monsters. Maule had no doubt +that these were Lady Bridget's own. There was an upright grand +piano--the alleged cause of Steadbolt's conversion to Unionism, and all +about the place a litter of newspapers, books and work. The room was +filled with flowers--sheaves of wattle and of the pale sandal-wood +blossoms, as well as many sub-tropical blooms with which he was not +familiar. Blending with, yet dominating the mixture of perfumes, a +peculiar scent resembling incense, appealed to him; and this he did not +a first trace to a log of sandal-wood smouldering on the open hearth +more for effect than warmth, for the early spring evenings had scarcely +a touch of chill. The French windows stood open to the veranda, a room +in itself with its many squatters' chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, +stretched the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the +lagoon taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It +seemed an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady +Bridget he had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him +had been that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of +Great Britain, decadent perhaps, but 'in the swim.' + +She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light, +rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined him. + +'I've been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the +Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits. +You won't find a spring mattress--or water laid on--or any other +convenience of civilisation.' + +'May I remind you that I've roughed it pretty well in the Andes.' + +'Yes, but you have had so many luxuries since then that you will have +forgotten what roughing it feels like--just as I've forgotten now that +I was ever anything but a barbarian--I see you shave still.' + +'Yes--why?' + +'Only that I discovered just now the white ants had eaten all the +woodwork of the spare-room looking-glass. The thing crumbled in my hand +and fell on the floor and was broken. A bad omen for your visit, isn't +it?' + +'I hope not. So you are superstitious as ever?' + +'I haven't ceased to be a Celt--though I've become a barbarian. I'll +borrow the overseer's looking glass for you.' + +'Pray don't. I've got one of sorts in my razor case. Is dinner regarded +in the Never-Never as a sacred ceremonial?' + +'The men don't put on dress clothes, if that's what you mean. As for +the repast, for a long time, as a rule, the menu was salt junk and +pumpkin. We've improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the +Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields--there was another rush +at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have +kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN CASSEROLE. If you make believe very hard +you might possible imagine it young venison.... Here, Kuppi!' The Malay +boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on the +table between the fire and the window. + +'Tea,' she asked, 'or would you rather have whiskey and water? I can't +offer you soda water because, till the drays come, we have nothing to +run the seltzogene with.... Do you know that the Unionists cut our dray +horses' throats? We're lucky to have whiskey in the store. They broke +open the cases of spirits and stole a lot of things.... Vicissitudes of +savage life, you see!' + +She rattled on, scarcely pausing. She was seated on a divan, the tea +before her--he in a squatter's chair with long arms, in which he sat +silent, leaning forward, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes fixed +upon her. She avoided looking at him. Her small sun-browned hands +fidgeted among the cups. If anything remained of her anger and emotion, +she hid it under a ripple of absurd housewifely chatter, not waiting +for him to answer. + +'Well, is it to be tea or whiskey?' + +'Tea, please,' and then at last she stopped and looked at him and could +not turn her eyes away, or did not want to do so. His black orbs stared +with a disquieting fixity--a sort of inhuman power--from out of his +foreign-looking face. That stare was his chief weapon in the +subjugation of women--they called it magnetic, and no doubt it was so. +It increased the fascination of his ugly good looks. + +The gaze of each one seemed to fuse in that of the other. Hers, at +first coldly curious, tentative, caught light, warmth, intensity from +the sombre fire of his. Suddenly he said: + +'In God's name, Biddy, how did you come to marry that rough brute.' + +'IS he a rough brute! It's very rude of you to say so. But do you know, +just for a half minute to-day, I rather thought so myself. I don't +pretend to agree with Colin's methods of treating the Blacks, though +I'm told it's the only way to treat them--you know they did commit +terrible atrocities up here.... Still to flog a black man, a wild, +warlike, human creature, seems to me nearly as bad as shooting him. Do +you know--the first thing I ever heard about Colin was that he had a +great many notches on his gun, and that each one meant a wild +black-fellow that he had shot dead.' + +'And now he flogs tame ones,' Maule observed quietly. Her brilliant +eyes searched his face for a sign of malevolent sarcasm, but not a +muscle quivered. Her own eyes wavered under his steady look. She busied +herself among the tea things. + +'Sugar?' + +'Please.' + +But she paused, the tongs balanced in her delicate fingers. + +'It is frightfully thrilling--life in the Bush.' + +'What part of it? The shooting or the flogging?' + +She burst out: 'You know I hated that. You know I was furious about the +flogging. You know'--She pulled herself up. + +'I know nothing--except that you must have changed enormously in a very +short time to have been thrilled with anything but horror--by that sort +of thing.' + +'Yes, I have changed. But it isn't time that changes one. Time never +counts with me. It's only feeling that counts. Oh, of course, I think +it all horrible--about the Blacks up North. They're not allowed on this +station--except one or two half civilised stock-boys--and this one fell +in love and carried off his gin, and brought her here against my +husband's orders.' + +'Yes? And you had befriended them--I gathered that. But it doesn't +explain YOU.' + +She took up a piece of sugar with the tongs, holding it suspended as +she spoke, jerkily. + +'Why should I be explained? As for my finding life in the Bush +thrilling.... I was dead sick of falsities when I left England, I +wanted to be thrilled by something real.' + +'And you found that--in your husband?' + +'Yes; I did. He IS real, at least. He is true to himself. So few men +have the strength of their goodness or the courage of their badness, +when it comes to a big test.' + +'Oh! I grant you. Yes; I know that's what you're thinking. I wasn't +true to myself in the big test.... But YOU were to blame for my having +been false to the higher ideal.' + +'I! Oh--what makes you--' But she thought better of the impetuous +questions that trembled on her lips, and went on in a different tone. + +'What does that matter! I'm not saying anything about high ideals. What +is high? .... What is low? .... You've just got to invoke truth and +freedom--as far as your conception of them goes.... And there's a +reason for Colin's hatred of the Blacks.' + +'Ah! Is it permitted to ask the reason?' + +'His family were all massacred by the natives--father, mother, +sisters--all. Well, one admires a man steadfast in revenge--going +straight for what he wants--and getting it--doing it--in love or in +hate. Now I have answered your question.' + +The gesture of her head seemed a defiance. She dropped the sugar into +his tea, and he took the cup from her hands, and slowly drank it +without saying a word. + +It was she who broke the silence. + +'You provoke me. You make me say things I don't want to say. You always +did.' + +'Ah! Then marriage has not changed you so immensely, after all!' + +She bit her lip and rose abruptly. + +'Do you want any more tea? No. Then come to the veranda and tell me how +it is that Luke Tallant has allowed you to exchange Government House +for the Never-Never?' + +He had followed her through the French window. + +'I see you haven't heard the bad news.' + +'No--what? We only get a mail once a week.' + +'I thought McKeith would have broken the shock. He came on, he said, to +do so. Poor Lady Tallant.' + +'Rosamond! The operation?' + +'She died under the anaesthetic. Sir Luke got the news by cable the day +before I left Leichardt's Town. He wired at once for leave and has +started for England by this time.' + +'Oh? poor Rosamond! Poor, poor Rosamond!' + +'Is she to be so greatly pitied! She has been saved much suffering!' + +Then as Bridget went on murmuring, 'Oh, poor Rosamond, she did love +life,' he added gently. 'Life can be very cruel.... I myself have had +cause for gratitude to Death, the great Simplifier. If my wife had +lived she must have been a hopeless invalid doomed to continual pain.' + +Lady Bridget gave him a swift look of reproach. + +'Oh, do you expect me to congratulate you?' she exclaimed bitterly. +'Yes,' she went on, 'perhaps, to HER Death was merciful--but not to +Rosamond. And Luke did care for his wife. He will be broken-hearted.' + +She stood gazing out upon the plain, on which the mist was gathering. +From across the gully sounded the cattle being driven home. + +When she turned to him, her eyes were full of tears. + +'I think I'll go now.' She said simply. 'Colin will show you your room. +He's there--coming up from the lagoon.' + +She went through a French window lower down the veranda into her +bedroom, and Maule descended the steps into the garden and presently +joined his host. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + + +A little later, McKeith having tubbed and changed his riding clothes, +came to his wife's room. He looked very large and clean and fair, and +the worst of his temper had worn off in a colloquy with Ninnis, and the +imparting and receiving of local news. But his eyes were still gloomy, +and his mouth sullenly determined. And he had remembered with remorse +that he should have softened to Bridget the sudden news of her friend's +death. The sight of her now--a small tragic figure with a white face +and burning eyes, in a black dress into which she had changed, deepened +his compunction. + +'I am very sorry, Biddy.' He tried to put his arm round her shoulder, +but she drew back. + +'What are you sorry for, Colin--that Rosamond Tallant is dead, and that +you forgot to tell me, and let me hear it from--Willoughby Maule?' She +paused perceptibly before pronouncing the christian name, 'Or that you +behaved like an inhuman monster to those wretched Blacks, and refused +me the only thing I have asked you for a good time past?' + +Her tone roused his rancour anew. + +'I think we'll drop the subject of the Blacks; there is no earthly use +in talking about them, I make it a rule never to threaten without +performing, and I'd punish them again, just the same--or more +severely--under similar circumstances.' + +'Very well. You will do as you please, and I shall do as I please, too.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Just what I say. I agree with you that there's no use in discussing +things about which we hold such different opinions. Quite simply, I +can't forgive you for this afternoon's work.' + +'Biddy, you exaggerate things.' + +'Perhaps. But I don't think so in this case. Let me go out, Colin. +Dinner must be ready by now.' + +'No. I've got something to ask you first. I want to know why you looked +so upset--as if you were going to faint--when that man came up to you +to-day?' + +'Naturally, I was startled. I had no idea he was in Australia.' + +'But why should that have affected you. One might have imagined he had +been your lover. Was he ever your lover, Biddy? I must know.' + +'And if he had been, do you think I should tell you,' she answered +coldly. + +McKeith's face turned a dark red. His eyes literally blazed. + +'That's enough.' He said, 'I shall not ask you another question about +him. I am answered already.' + +He stood aside to let her pass out into the veranda, and she walked +along to the sitting-room. + +Dinner went off, however, more agreeably than might have been expected. +Lady Bridget's manner was simple and to the guest charming. The black +dress, the touch of pensiveness was in keeping with the shadow of +tragedy. But she spoke in a natural way, and with tender regret of Lady +Tallant--questioning Maule as to when he had last seen her, and +learning from him how it had been at Rosamond's instigation that he had +cabled proposing himself as a companion in Sir Luke's loneliness. It +had been only a week after his arrival in Leichardt's Town that the +blow had fallen. + +'You know, Tallant and I always hit it off very well together,'he +observed explanatorily, addressing McKeith. 'It was at their house that +I used to meet Lady Bridget during the few months that I had the honour +of her acquaintance in England.' + +McKeith looked at his guest in a resentful but half puzzled way. A +spasm of doubt shook him. Suppose he had been making a fool of +himself--insulting his wife by unreasoning suspicions? A vague contempt +in her courteous aloofness had stung him to the quick. And the other +man's easy self assurance, the light interchange of conversation +between them about things and people of which McKeith knew nothing--all +gave the Australian a sense of bafflement--the feeling that these two +were ruled by another social code, belonged to a different world, in +which he had no part. He had been sitting at the head of his table, +perfunctorily doing his duty as host, wounded in his +self-esteem--almost the tenderest part on him, morose and miserable. +Now he snatched at the idea that he had been mistaken, as if it were a +life-buoy thrown him in deep waters. He began to talk, to assert +himself, to prove himself cock of his own walk. And Maule suavely +encouraged him to lay down the law on things Australian, while Lady +Bridget withdrew into herself, baffling and enraging McKeith still more +hopelessly. He did not seem now to know his wife! A catastrophe had +happened. What? How? Why? .... Nothing was the same, or could be the +same again. + +It was a relief when dinner was over. The men pulled out their pipes in +the veranda. Lady Bridget, just within the sitting room window, smoked +a cigarette, her small form extended in a squatter's chair, listening +to, but taking scarcely any part in the conversation. The two outside +discussed local topics--McKeith's failure to trace the perpetrators of +the outrage on his horses. Maule's impressions of Tunumburra--where he +had met McKeith in the township hotel, and the two had apparently, in +the usual Bush fashion, got on intimate terms--the rumours of an armed +camp of Unionists, and the expected conflict between them and the sheep +owners and free shearers at Breeza Downs, whither the Government +specials were bound. Lady Bridget gleaned that Maule had placed himself +under McKeith's directions. + +'What are your immediate movements to be?' he asked his host. +'Remember, I am ready to fall in with any plans you may have for making +me useful.' + +McKeith did not answer at once. He took his pipe from his mouth, and +knocked the ashes out of it against the arm of his chair, while he +seemed to be considering the question. Then, as if he had formed a +definite determination, he leaned forward and addressed his wife in a +forcedly matter-of-fact tone. + +'I don't suppose you know much about what has been going on, Biddy. The +same boat that brought up the specials brought a hundred or more free +labourers, and they're on their way up to the different sheep-stations +along the river--a lot of them for Breeza Downs, where Windeatt has +begun shearing. Windeatt is in a blue funk because a report that a +little army of Unionists, all mounted and armed, are camped that way +and threatening to burn down his wool-shed and sack his store. The +burned old Duppo's wool-shed last week.' + +'He's a skinflint, and I'm sure he deserved it,' put in Lady Bridget +indifferently. + +McKeith check a dry sarcasm. He became aware of Maule's eyes turning +from one to the other. + +'Well--' He got up and leaned his great frame against the lintel +between Maule and Lady Bridget. 'The Pastoralist Executive at +Tunumburra have asked us cattle-owners who--are more likely to be let +alone than the sheep-men, to help in garrisoning the sheep-stations; +and I've promised to ride over to Breeza Downs to-morrow and do my +share in protecting the place. Harris and I are going together.' + +Lady Bridge seemed more interested in blowing smoke-rings than in her +husband's news. + +'I may have to be away several days,' continued McKeith. 'Then there's +the new bore we're sinking--the water is badly wanted--cattle are +dying--I can't run any risk of the bore-plant being wrecked. The men +who are working there must be sent off because we're short of +rations--thanks to those murderous brutes keeping back the drays--and +the muster has to be stopped for the same reason. I won't answer for +when I can be back.' ... As she made no answer, he asked sharply: 'Do +you understand, Biddy?' + +'Yes, of course. I have no doubt, Colin, that you'll find it all highly +stimulating. And perhaps you will be able to shoot somebody with a +clear conscience, which will be more stimulating still. Really Mr +Maule, you are lucky to have come in for a civil war--I heard that in +South America that was your particular interest. Do you carry civil +wars about with you? Only, there's nothing very romantic in fighting +for mere freedom of contract--it seems so obvious that people should be +free to make or decline a contract. I wonder which side you would take.' + +Her levity called forth an impatient ejaculation from McKeith. + +'I'm afraid in my wars it's generally been what your husband would +consider the wrong side,' said Maule with a laugh. 'I've usually fought +with the rebels.' + +'Then you'd better not go to Breeza Downs. You'd better stop and fight +for me,' exclaimed Bridget. + +'That's just what I was about to propose your friend should do,' said +McKeith in hard deliberate tones. He looked straight at his +wife--shoulders and jaws squared, eyes like flashing steel under the +grim brows. The expression of his face gave Bridget a little sense of +shock. She raised herself abruptly, and her eyes flashed pride and +defiance too. + +'How very considerate of you, Colin--if Mr Maule LIKES to be disposed +of in that way. HE is to be allowed freedom of contract I presume, +though the shearers are not.' + +'You needn't be afraid that I shall strike, Lady Bridget,' laughed +Maule. 'It will suit my general principles to keep out of the +scrimmage. I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs of your +labour question, but I confess that, speaking broadly, my sympathies +are usually rather with Labour than with Capital.' + +'Capital!' echoed McKeith derisively. 'It's blithering irony to talk of +us Leura squatters as representing capital. We're all playing a sort of +battledore and shuttlecock game--tossed about between drought and +plenty--boom and slump. A kick in the beam and one end is up and the +other end down. There's Windeatt, who will be ruined if his wool-shed +is destroyed and his shearing spoiled. No rain, and the banks would +foreclose on most of us. Take myself. Two years ago the skies were all +smiling on my fortunes. This last year, it's as if the hosts of heaven +had a down on me.' + +'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,' murmured Lady +Bridget. + +'I'm Sisera, am I?' He gave her a fierce look and crossed to the +veranda-railing, where he began cutting tobacco into the palm of his +hand. 'Well, there is something in that. But the stars have never +licked me yet. Sisera was a coward, or they wouldn't have DOWNED him.' + +'Ah, but there was Jael to be reckoned with,' put in Maule softly. + +'Jael!' McKeith plugged his pipe energetically. 'The more fool Sisera +for not giving Jael a wide berth. He should have gone his way and kept +her out of his affairs.' + +A hard little laugh rang from the depths of the squatter's chair. Maule +got up and strolled into the sitting-room, where he seemed engrossed in +the pictures on the wall. Just then Cudgee, the black boy, hailed +McKeith from the foot of the steps. + +'That fellow pollis man want'ing Massa. He sit down long-a Old Humpey.' + +'All right.' + +McKeith looked into the parlour. 'My wife will entertain you, Maule. I +daresay you've got plenty to talk about. I'll see you later.' + +Presently they heard him outside speaking to the Police Inspector. +'Come into the office, Harris, and have a smoke and a glass of grog.' + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + + +Lady Bridget and Willoughby Maule were alone again. She got up from the +long chair, and as she did so her cigarette case dropped from her lap. +He picked it up and it lay on his open palm, the diamonds and rubies of +her maiden initials glistening on the gold lid. They looked at each +other across it. + +'I gave you this,' he said, 'and you have kept it--used it?' + +He seemed to gloat over the bauble. + +Her fingers touched his hand as she took the case from him, and he gave +a little shiver of pleasure. + +'Let me have it; I want another cigarette.' She selected two and gave +him one of them. + +They moved to the divan near the fireplace, where some red embers +remained of the log of sandalwood. Its perfume lingered faintly in the +atmosphere. + +'That's good,' he said. 'It's like you; the only thing in the +god-forsaken desert that IS like you.' + +'Oh, you don't know me--now.' + +'Don't I! Well, your husband has given me the chance of knowing +you--better--and I warn you that I shall not scruple to avail myself of +the opportunity.' + +She shook her head dubiously. 'Give me a light.' + +He stooped and lit his own cigarette, then, bending, held its tip to +her. They both inhaled a few whiffs in silence. Presently, he said: + +'I find it difficult to understand McKeith.' + +'Don't try. You wouldn't succeed. I observe,' she added, 'that you must +have become rather friendly at Tunumburra?' + +'Oh, yes. I can generally get on with open-air men. Besides, I wanted +him to like me. I wanted him to ask me here.' + +'Well--and what do you thing of it, now that you are here?' + +'Great heavens! What do you imagine that I should think of it! The +whole thing seems to me the most ghastly blunder--the most horrible +anomaly. You--in these surroundings! Married to a man so entirely +beneath you, and with whom you don't get on at all.' + +'You have no right to say that.' + +'The thing is obvious; though you tried to carry it off before dinner. +Your manner to each other; the lack of courtesy and consideration in +him; his leaving you....' + +'Stop,' she interrupted. 'There's one thing you MUST understand. I +don't mind what you say about yourself--I want to hear that--but I +can't allow you to criticise my husband.' + +'I beg your pardon. It isn't easy in the conditions to preserve the +social conventions. I will try to obey you. At any rate, you allow me +to be frank about myself.... It was sweet of you to keep this--more +than I could have dared hope for.' + +He fingered tenderly the cigarette case on her lap. + +'I suppose I ought to have sent it back to you. But I didn't want to. +You see it was not like an engagement ring.' + +'No, worse luck.' + +'Why, worse luck?' + +'The ring would have been the outward and visible sign of an inward and +spiritual bond. If you had been really engaged to me--formally, +officially engaged, you couldn't have thrown me over so easily.' + +'I--throw you over! Is it quite fair to put it that way?' + +'No, I admit that. Let us be honest with each other--this once.' + +'This once--very well--but not at this moment. I daresay there will be +time for a talk by and by.' + +'I wait your pleasure.' + +'There are some things I should like to understand,' she went on, +'--about you--about me, it doesn't matter which. And, after all, I only +want to know about you out of a sort of perverse curiosity.' + +'That's so like you. You always managed to infuse a bitter drop into +your sweetness. And you COULD be so adorably sweet... If only I could +ever have felt sure of you.' + +'Where would have been the use? We never could spend an hour together +without hurting or annoying each other. It's a very good thing for us +both that neither cared enough to make any real sacrifice for the +other.' + +'There you wrong me,' he exclaimed. 'I did care--I cared intensely. The +touch of your hand--the very sweep of your dress thrilled every nerve +in me. I never in all my life loved a woman as I loved you. That last +day when you walked out of my rooms....' + +'Where I never ought to have gone. Fancy the properly brought-up +English girl you used to hold up to me doing such a shocking thing as +to visit you alone in your chambers! ... Oh! Is that Colin back again?' + +For Maule had started visibly at the sound of quick steps mounting to +the veranda, and McKeith's towering figure appeared in the doorway, +looking at them. + +Lady Bridget turned her head, her cigarette in her hand, and glanced up +at his face. What she saw in it might have made a less reckless or less +innocent woman feel uneasy. She was sure that he must have heard that +last speech of hers about visiting Maule in his chambers. Well, she +didn't care. Besides Colin hadn't the smallest right to resent any +action of hers before her marriage... She did not turn a hair. Maule +admired her composure. + +'BON SANG NE PEUT MENTIR,' he thought to himself, and wished they had +been talking in French. + +'You look as grim as the statue of the Commander,' said Lady Bridget. +'What is the matter?' + +'Lady Bridget and I have been exchanging unconventional reminiscences,' +put it Maule with forced lightness. + +McKeith took no notice of either remark, but strode across the room to +the roll-top escritoire, where he usually wrote his letters when in his +wife's company. He extracted a bundle of papers from one of the pigeon +holes. + +'This is what I came for. Sorry to have interrupted your +reminiscences,' and he went out again, passing along the back veranda. + +Maule had got up and was standing at the fireplace. Lady Bridget rose +too. + +'I'm going to bed. We keep early hours in the Bush.' + +'What! Already!' he exclaimed in dismay. + +'I was up at six this morning. Well, I hope you won't be too +uncomfortable with the white ants in the Old Humpey--they are perfectly +harmless. Your room is next to the office, as I daresay you've +discovered. And you'll find Colin there I suppose, with your friend the +Police-Inspector.' + +'Don't call that man Harris my friend. We've had one or two scraps at +each other already. He was pleased to take it for granted that I'm what +he calls a "new chum," and didn't like my shewing him that I knew +rather better than he does what police administration should be in +out-of-the-way districts.' + +Lady Bridget nodded. 'Then we're both under ban of the Law. I DETEST +Harris.... Good-night.' And she flitted through the French window +without giving him her hand. + +The station seemed in a state of unquietude till late into the night. +The lowing of the tailing-mob in the yard was more prolonged than +usual. And the horses were whinnying and answering each other down by +the lagoon as though there were strangers about. Lady Bridget, lying +awake and watching through her uncurtained windows the descent of the +Southern Cross towards the horizon, and the westward travelling of a +moon just out of its first quarter, could hear the men's voices on the +veranda of the Old Humpey--that of Ninnis and the Police Inspector; +Maule seemed to have retired to his own room. + +McKeith was evidently busy upon preparations for his absence from the +station. He must have been cleaning guns and pistols. There were two or +three shots--which startled and kept her in a state of tension. At last +she heard the interchange of good-nights, and the withdrawal of Ninnis +and Harris to the Bachelor's Quarters. Finally, her husband came to his +dressing-room--not along the front veranda, as would have been usual, +but by the back one, through the bathroom. Even this deviation from +habit seemed significant of his mood--he would not pass her window. He +moved about for a time as if he were busy packing. Then came silence. +She imagined him on the edge of the camp bed, so seldom used, smoking +and ruminating. + +Whiffs from his pipe came through the cracks of the door between the +two rooms, and were an offence to her irritated nerves. She had grown +accustomed to his tobacco, but, as a rule, he did not smoke the last +thing at night. He had seemed to regard his wife's chamber as a +tabernacle, enshrining that which he held most sacred, and would never +enter it until he was cleansed from the grime and dust of the stockyard +and cattle camp, and had laid aside the associations of his working +day. That attitude had appealed to all that was idealistic in both +their natures, and had kept green the memory of their honeymoon. It +angered her that to-night, of all nights, he should disregard it. + +In personal details, she was intensely fastidious, and at some trouble +and cost had maintained in her intimate surroundings a daintiness +almost unknown out-back. Her room was large, and much of its +furnishings symptomatic of the woman of her class--the array of +monogrammed, tortoise-shell backed brushes and silver and gold topped +boxes and bottles, the embroidered coverlet of the bed, the flowered +chintz and soft pink wall paper, the laced cambric garments and +silk-frilled dressing gown hanging over a chair. When service lacked, +and there was no one to wash and iron her cambric and fine linen, she +contrived somehow that the supply should not fail, and brought upon +herself some ill-natured ridiculed in consequence. The wives of the +Leura squatters thought her 'stuck-up' and apart from their kind. If +they had known how much she wanted sometimes to throw herself into +their lives--as she had thrown herself into the lives of her East-End +socialistic friends! But the stations were few and far between, and the +neighbours--such as they were--left her alone. + +Letting her mind drift along side-tracks, she resented now there having +come no suggestion from the Breeza Downs women that she should +accompany her husband and share the benefits of police protection, +or--which appealed to her far more--the excitement of what might be +going on there. Of course, though, there was nothing for her to be +nervous about here--she wished there might have been. Any touch of +dramatic adventure would be welcome in the crude monotony of her life. + +But the adventure promised to be of a more personal kind. + +Suddenly, she jumped out of bed and softly slipped the bolt of the door +into her husband's dressing room. She did it on a wild impulse. She +felt that she could not bear him near her to-night. He should see that +she was not his chattel.... But, perhaps, he did not want to come.... +Well, so much the better. In any case, she wanted to show him that she +did not want him. She wondered if he would venture.... She wondered if +he did really care.... + +He appeared in no hurry to test her capacity for forgiveness.... Or it +might be that the minutes went slowly--laden as they were with +momentous thought. She lay in a tumult of agitation, her heart beating +painfully under the lawn of her nightgown. She had a sense of gasping +wonderment. She felt, as Colin had felt, that something tremendous had +happened--and with such bewildering suddenness--altering all the +conditions between them. + +Yet, through the pain and bewilderment, her whole being thrilled with +an excitement that was almost intoxicating--like the effect of an +insidious drug, or the fumes of heady wine. She knew it was the old +craving for sensation, the fatal O'Hara temperament awake and +clamouring. Try as she would--and she did try in a futile fashion--she +could not shut off the impression of Willoughby Maule--the sombre +ardour in his eyes, the note of suppressed passion in his voice. There +was no doubt that this unexpected meeting had restarted vibrations, and +that his influence was a force to be reckoned with still. + +If Colin had acted differently--if he had not behaved so brutally to +those poor blacks--if his manner to her had not been so hard and +overbearing. And then his leaving her alone like that with Willoughby +Maule! Of course, he was jealous. He had jumped at conclusions. What +right had he to do so? What could he know? He must suspect her of +horrible things. His questions had been insultingly dictatorial. Now, +he wanted to shew her that he flung her off. He would not put out a +finger to hold her to him. Had he not said something like that before +their marriage! ... It was abominable. + +The whiffs of tobacco smoke came no more. He was moving about again. +She heard him in the bathroom. After a minute or two he came to the +door and tried to open it. + +'Biddy,' he said. Then in a deep-toned eager whisper, 'Mate!' + +She sat up in bed; she had the impulse to go and open the door, but +some demon held her back. She lay down again on her pillow.... The bed +had creaked.... He must have known that she was awake.... He waited a +minute or two without speaking ... knocked very softly.... She was +silent.... Again she heard him moving about in his dressing-room, and, +after a little while, she heard him go out, passing along the back +veranda. He did not return. It was dawn before Bridget dropped into the +heavy morning slumber, which follows a night of weeping. + + + + + +BOOK III + + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + +When Lady Bridget awoke, it was then near the hour at which they +ordinarily breakfasted. Finding, when she had dressed, that all was +silent in the next room, she looked in. + +It was empty, the bed had not been slept in, but there were signs that +McKeith had got into his riding clothes and that he had packed a valise. + +Maule was waiting in the dining-room, and Maggie, the serving maid, +gave a message from McKeith that he had had his breakfast at the +Bachelors' Quarters with Mr Harris and that they were both going to +start for Breeza Downs immediately. + +Bridget made no pretence of breakfasting. She told Maule to forage for +himself, and, after swallowing a cup of coffee, made the excuse of +household business--to see if the Chinaman had put up his master's +lunch--if the water-bags were filled--what were to be the proceedings +of the day. She had a hope that McKeith might say something +conciliatory to her before he left. The remembrance of that disregarded +appeal--the word 'Mate' to which she had given no response, weighed, a +guilty load, upon her heart. + +But she was sore and angry--in no mood to make any advance or stoop to +self-justification. He was outside the store, where Ninnis was weighing +rations for Harris, and McKeith's and the Police Inspector's horses, +ready saddled, with valises strapped on, were hitched to the paling. + +Harris sulkily touched his helmet to Lady Bridget, but McKeith had his +back to her and seemed wholly absorbed in some directions he was giving. + +'You'll see to it, Ninnis, that six saddle-horses are kept ready to run +up, in case the Pastoralist Executive sends along any message that's +got to be carried down the river--there's that lot of colts Zack Duppo +broke in, they'll do. And you can get in Alexander and Roxalana from +the Bore pasture, in case the buggy should be wanted--and one or two of +the old hacks that are spelling out there. Of course, her ladyship's +horse mustn't be touched, and you'll see Mr Maule has a proper mount if +he wants it--the gentleman who'll be here for a bit--a friend of her +ladyship's from England--you understand. You'll keep on those new men +for the tailing mob, though I'm not sure they mightn't be Unionists in +disguise. Anyway, Moongarr Bill is a match for them.... And you'll just +mind--the lot of you--that it's my orders to stockwhip blacks off the +place, and that if any Unionist delegates show their faces through the +sliprails they're not allowed to stop five minutes inside the paddock +fence.' + +'Right you are, Boss,' responded Ninnis, and there was a change of +grouping, and McKeith strode out to the yard to look into some other +matter, all without sending a glance to his wife. + +Presently Moongarr Bill came up, chuckling mysteriously, 'Say, Boss, I +believe there's one of them dashed organising chaps coming down now +from the top sliprails.' And as he spoke, a man rode to the fence, +harmless enough looking, of the ordinary bush type. + +He was about to get off his horse in the assured manner of a bushman +claiming the usual hospitality, but McKeith--big and grimly +menacing--advanced and held up his hand. + +'No, wait a bit. Don't unsaddle. I'd like first to know your business.' + +'I'm an Organiser,' said the man defiantly, 'and I'm not ashamed of my +job. Trades Unions are lawful combinations, and I've come to have a +talk with your men....' He ran on with professional volubility. 'My +object in going round your district is to bring about a peaceful +compromise between employers and employed--Do you see....?' + +'Stop,' thundered McKeith. 'I'd have you understand that there's an +organiser on this station already. I'M the Organiser here, and I'm not +taking stock in Trades Unions at present.' + +'But you'll let me have a talk with your men?--No harm in that.' + +'No, you don't,' said McKeith. + +'Well, I can spell my horse an hour or two, can't I?' + +'No, you can't. You'll ride off my station straight away.' + +'I've been off tucker since yesterday,' said the man, who seemed a +poor-spirited creature. 'Anyhow, Boss, you'll give me something to eat.' + +'Yes, I'll do that.' The laws of bush hospitality may not be violated. +Food must be given even to an enemy--provided he be white. McKeith +called to the Chinaman to bring out beef and bread. A lump of salt junk +and a hunk of bread were handed to the traveller. + +'Now you be off, and eat that outside my paddock,' said McKeith. 'See +those gum trees over there?--You can go and organise the gum trees.' + +The man scowled, and weakly threatened as he half turned his horse's +head. + +'Look here, Boss, you'll find yourself the worse for this.' + +'Shall I. In what way, can you tell me?' + +'You'll find that your grass is burned, I daresay.' + +'I'm obliged to you for the hint. I'll take precautions, and I'll begin +by shepherding you straight off my run,' said McKeith. 'Harris, if +you're ready now, come along here.' + +The Police Inspector stepped off the store veranda, where he had been +standing, a majestic and interested onlooker. The Organiser--after all, +a mere man of straw, crumpled under his baneful stare. + +'You can't give me in charge--you've got no warrant--I've done nothing +to be given in charge for.' + +'Some of your people have, though, and here's a bit of information for +any skunk among your cowardly lot,' said McKeith. 'I've offered one +hundred pounds reward for the scoundrels who cut my horses' throats and +robbed my drays on the road to Tunumburra. There's a chance for you, if +you're mean enough to turn informer.' + +'I know nothing about that,' said the Organiser. + +'Eh? Well, if my grass is burned, I shall know who did it, and so will +this Police Inspector. And I am a magistrate, and will have you +arrested. Get on your horse, Harris, we'll start at once, and ride +alongside this chap till he's over my boundaries.' + +Harris unhitched his horse and mounted, but not sooner than McKeith was +he in the saddle. Then McKeith looked at last towards the veranda where +Bridget stood, white, defiant, with Maule at the French window of the +dining-room just behind her. + +McKeith took off his hat, made her a sweeping bow, which might have +included his guest, turned his horse's head and rode in the direction +of the sliprails, Harris and the sulky Organiser slightly at his rear. + +Bridget never forgot that impression of him--the dogged slouch of his +broad shoulders--the grim set of his head, the square, unyielding look +of his figure, as he sat his horse with the easy poise of a bushman who +is one with the animal under him--in this case, a powerfully made, +nasty tempered roan, one of Colin's best saddle-horses--which seemed as +dogged tempered as its master. + +Maule showed tact in tacitly assuming the unexpected necessity for +McKeith's abrupt departure--also that he had already bidden good-bye to +his wife. + +Lady Bridget made no comment upon her husband's scant courtesy to his +guest when she rejoined Maule after an hour or two spent in housewifely +business. They strolled about the garden, smoked cigarettes in the +veranda, she played and sang to him, and he brought out his cornet, +which he had carried in his valise, being something of a performer on +that instrument. + +A demon of reckless gaiety seemed to have entered into Lady Bridget. +Watching McKeith disappear behind the gum trees, she had said to +herself:--'I can be determined, too. I have as strong a will as he has. +He did not choose to say one regretful word. He was too stubborn to own +himself in the wrong. He left me in what--if he believed his suspicion +to be true--must be a dangerous position for a woman--only it shall not +be dangerous to ME. I know exactly how far I am going--exactly the +amount of excitement I shall get out of it all. Neither Willoughby nor +he deserve an iota of consideration. I shall amuse myself. So! No +more.... But he can't know that. He has never thought about ME. He has +thought of nothing but his own cross-grained pride and selfish egoism. +No man of ordinary breeding or SAVOIR-FAIRE would have gone off like +that!' + +She forgot in her condemnation of Colin to make allowance for the +primal nature of the man; for a certain kinship in him with the loftier +type of savage, whose woman must be his wholly, or else deliberately +relinquished to the successful rival, and into whose calculation the +subtleties of social jurisprudence would not naturally enter. + +Nor did she remember at the moment that Maule had been described by her +own relatives as a person of neither birth nor breeding--a +fortune-hunter--not by any means a modern Bayard. He at least was a man +of the world, she thought, and would appreciate the situation. He had +lost that touch of unaccustomedness--she hardly knew how to describe +it--which had often irritated her in their former relation. In their +talk that day he seemed much more at home than she was in the world she +had once belonged to. He spoke of 'personages' with the ease of +familiar acquaintance. Apparently, he had got into quite the right +set--a rather political set, she gathered. He told her that he had been +pressed to stand for a well-nursed Liberal Constituency, and implied +that but for the catastrophe of his wife's death he would now be seated +in Parliament, with a fair prospect in the future of place and +distinction. Of course, it was the money which had done it, she told +herself, though he had undoubted cleverness, she knew, and, as he +pointed out, his experience in a particular South American +republic--very much to the fore just now in European diplomacy--stood +to his advantage. His marriage had given him opportunity. He alluded +without bad taste to his dead wife's generosity. She had left him her +entire fortune unfettered. He was now a rich man. He explained that she +had had none but very distant relations and that, otherwise, charitable +institutions would have benefited. She had been a very good woman, he +said--a woman with whom nine hundred out of a thousand decent men would +have been perfectly happy. He let it be inferred that he was the +thousandth man. His eyes, not his lips told her the reason why. + +Their talk skimmed the surface of vital things--the new awakening in +England; the threatenings of a socialistic upheaval; his individual +aims and ideas--she recognised her own inspirations. He spoke of his +political ambitions. Suddenly she said: + +'I wonder why you made the break of coming out to Australia--why you +did not stay in England and follow on your career?' + +'There are bonds stronger than cart ropes which may drag a man by force +from the path he has marked out for himself. Surely you must +understand?' + +'Really, Mr Maule.' + +'Why will you be so formal!' he interrupted impetuously. 'It is absurd. +Women nowadays always call men they know well by a PETIT NOM.' + +'Do I know you well! I often think I never knew you at all.' + +'That is what Lady Tallant used to say to me, latterly, about you and +myself--that we never really knew each other.' + +'Oh, poor Rosamond! It makes me miserable to think of her. You became +friends, then--latterly?' + +'She was very nice to me when she came back from Leichardt's Land. And +besides, she was anxious for me to come out to Luke and help him a +bit.... She told me about your marriage. She knew I could settle to +nothing--of course, the world in general thought it was because of that +tragedy--my wife's death--and the child--you understand?' + +Bridget nodded slowly. + +'Lady Tallant knew the truth--that I was tormented by one ceaseless +longing--after the impossible. I fancy she thought that if I could +realise the impossibility, I might get over the longing.... +But--Bridget, it's no use pretending--I did try to do my duty. I think +I succeeded, to a certain extent, in making my wife happy--but there +was always the same gnawing regret....' + +'You must put all that out of your head,' she interrupted curtly. + +'I cannot. A man doesn't love a woman like you, and, because she is +married to another man, put her out of his head--in two years or +ten--or Eternity, for that matter.' + +She laughed joylessly. 'Eternity!' she scoffed. + +They were in the veranda after luncheon, she swinging slowly in the +hammock, playing with a cigarette, he smoking likewise, scarcely +attempting to suppress the stormy feeling in his face and voice. For +her, the crude brown-grey landscape rose and fell with the motion of +the hammock, and jarred with the exotic memories he evoked. She had +been called back to the varied emotional interests of her girlhood, and +realised, in a rush, how deadly dull was life in the arid wastes of the +Never-Never. Nothing more exciting than to watch the great parched +plain, with the dry heat-haze upon it, getting browner every day, and +the shrinking lagoon and its ever widening border of mud. Nothing, when +she turned her eyes to right and left, but ragged gum trees and black +gidia forest. What a dead blank wilderness it was!' + +She gave a little gasp as if for breath. He seemed to read her thoughts. + +'Do you remember Rome--and the Campagna, that first day we went to +Albano?--And our walk through the woods down to Lake Nei?--It was then +I first knew that I loved you.' + +'Will--if you are going to stay here you mustn't talk like that. It's +not playing the game.' She spoke pleadingly. + +'Does your husband play the game?' Maule retorted. 'Is it playing the +game to leave you here alone with me, when he must know--or at least, +guess--how things have been between us?--Do you think I didn't notice +yesterday that he suspected me--suspected us both? I should have been a +blind mole not to see by his face and manner how he felt. Upon my soul, +he would have no defence--if....' + +She stopped him with a gesture. + +'I must ask you again not to discuss my relations with my husband; they +do not concern you.' + +'Do they not!' And as she rose abruptly from the hammock, 'I beg your +pardon,' he added humbly, 'I will do my best not to offend again.' + +He got up too and stood, his back against the veranda railings. + +'Lady Bridget, you mustn't be angry with me. I suppose I am a little +off my balance, you must remember that this is--for me, a rather +staggering experience.' + +'Shall we go for a ride?' she asked suddenly. 'I don't suppose you have +much idea of what a wild western station is like.' + +'Oh, I'm fairly well acquainted with life on big pastures,' he answered +lightly, taking her cue. 'You would be surprised, perhaps, at the list +of my qualifications as an "out-back squatter."--I'm a bit of a +rancher--had one in the Argentine--a bit of a doctor--a bit of a +policeman--I was in charge once of a constabulary force out in British +Guiana. That's where I got a rise off Harris--a bit of a law breaker, +too--in fact a bit of everything. Yes, I should enjoy a ride round here +with you immensely.' + +'Then do you mind looking for Mr Ninnis, the overseer, you know.' + +'Yes, I know Ninnis. Had a yarn--as he'd say--with him last night while +your husband was talking to Harris. Ninnis doesn't get on well with +Harris--another point of sympathy. We're quite friends already. Ninnis +and I--he's been in South America, too.' + +'You'll find him somewhere about the Bachelors' Quarters, and I'll go +and put on my habit,' she said. + +Lady Bridget appeared as Maule and Ninnis were finishing saddling the +horses. Ninnis had stayed near the head station, and was keeping a +sharp look-out for bush fires, he said. Otherwise, there appeared to be +no elements of disquiet. Lady Bridget noticed with surprise that Ninnis +seemed to defer to Maule, which was not his usual attitude towards +strangers. She attributed this to a community of experiences in South +America, and also to Maule's undoubted knack of managing men. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + +They rounded the lagoon and skirted the gidia scrub. Maule was on a +Moongarr horse, Bridget rode a fiery little chestnut. Maule had already +had opportunity to admire the famous O'Hara seat. They had hunted +together once or twice on the Campagna, that winter when they had met +in Rome. It was difficult to avoid retrospect, but Bridget seemed +determined to keep it within conventional limits. They found plenty, +however, to talk about in their immediate surroundings. Perhaps it was +the effort to throw off the load on her heart that made Bridget gaily +confiding. She drew humorous pictures of the comic shifts, the almost +tragic hardships of life on the Leura--how she had been left +servantless--until Ninnis had got up Maggie from the Lower Leura--when +the Chinamen decamped during the gold rush. She described the +chivalrous SUNDOWNER who had on one occasion helped her through a +week's washing; and Zack Duppo the horsebreaker, whose Christmas +pudding had been a culinary triumph, and the loyalty of faithful Wombo, +who had done violence to all his savage instincts in acting as +house-servant until the advent of the Malay boy Kuppi. She told of her +first experience of a summer out West. The frying of eggs in the sun on +a sheet of corrugated zinc, so intense was the heat. The terror of +snakes, centipedes, scorpions. The plagues of flies and white ants. +Then how, during the servantless period, in utter loneliness and +Colin's enforced absence at the furthest out-station she had had an +attack of dengue fever, and no woman within forty miles of her. + +'And your husband allowed this? But where was that barmaid-looking +person who seems to keep house here for stray gentlemen--and, who has +the yellow-headed and blue-eyed little boy?' + +Bridget's lip curled. + +'Mrs Hensor had accepted a temporary situation at an hotel in Fig Tree +Mount--the only time I've regretted her absence,' and the musical laugh +seemed to Maule to have acquired a note of exceeding bitterness. +'Perhaps you don't know,' she went on, 'that Mrs Hensor is a sort of +Helen of the Upper Leura--though unfortunately as yet no Paris has +carried her off--I wish there was one bold enough to do it. She had to +be asked to take a change of air because there was rivalry about her +between the buyer of a Meat Preserving Establishment and the chief +butcher at Tunumburra. Fair Helen scorned them both. Result: The two +buyers bought beasts elsewhere and, as you would understand, on a +cattle station, butchers may not be flouted. Though I daresay,' Lady +Bridget added with a shrug, 'if I could have had the butchers in the +house--I draw the line only at Harris--and had sung to them and played +up generally, I might have scored even off Mrs Hensor. But they +wouldn't come until after she had gone and there was no further danger +of a duel taking place outside the Bachelors' Quarters.' + +Maule took her cue again and laughed as if the matter were one to jest +about. But as he looked round, his face did not suggest merriment. Nor +for that matter did the landscape. They were riding at the edge of the +immense sandy plain, patched with brown jaggled grass and parched +brambles and prickly lignum vitae--nothing to break the barren monotony +but clumps of stunted brigalow and gidia, a wind-mill marking the site +of an empty well with the few hungry-looking cattle near it. + +Now they dipped into a scrub of dismal gidia. + +'This is the most depressing country I have ever ridden through,' he +said. + +'You don't know what a difference three inches of rain makes,' she +answered. 'Then the grass is green, the creeks are running, and at this +time the dead brambles are covered with white flowers. But it doesn't +rain. There's the tragedy.' + +'The tragedy is that you--you of all women should be wasting your youth +and beauty in this wilderness. How long is it going to last?' + +She shrugged again, and for an instant turned her face up towards the +sky. 'You must ask the heavens?' + +'Meaning, I presume, that like most of the Australian squatters, your +husband hasn't capital enough at his back to stand up against continued +drought?' + +'Precisely.' She looked at him, with her puzzling smile. + +'But you couldn't have understood his position when you married him?' + +'No, I didn't--altogether. But I should really like to remind you that +I am not in the witness box.' + +'I think you owe me the truth!' he said, passionately. + +'What do you call the truth?' she asked, reining in her horse and +meeting his eyes straight. + +But she had to turn hers away before he answered, and he as well as +herself was conscious of the compelling effect his gaze had upon her. + +'I could have made you marry me if I had been strong enough to +persist,' he said. + +'Cannot any man do what he is strong enough to do--if he wishes it +enough to persist?' + +'I should have put it this way. If I had thought less of you and more +of myself. But after what you said that day, when you jeered so +contemptuously at the kind of environment in which, THEN, I should have +had to place my wife--what could I do--except withdraw? But you +suffered, Bridget,' he went on vehemently. 'Not so much as I did--but +still you suffered. You thought of me--I felt it, and you must have +felt too, how continually I thought of you. I used to try and make you +think of me--dream of me. And I succeeded. Isn't that true?' + +'Yes, it is true,' she answered in a low voice. + +'Only lately, since I have been in the district, it has seemed to me +that the invisible wires have been set working afresh. Isn't that true +also?' + +'Yes, it is true,' she said again, as if forced to the acknowledgment. + +'Then, can there be any question of the bond between us? You see, it's +independent of time and space! for you WERE sorry--you DID care. That's +the truth you owe me. If after--after we parted in that dreadful way, I +had gone back, had thrown up everything, had said to you, "Come with me +ANYWHERE, let us be all in all to each other--on the slopes of the +Andes, on an island in the South Seas--you would have come?"' + +'I always told you,' she said with her puzzling smile, 'that the slopes +of the Andes appealed to me.' + +'Peru would have been more picturesque than this, anyway. Is that all I +can get out of you--that grudging admission? Well, never mind, I am +satisfied. You have owned up to enough. I won't tease you now for more +admissions.' + +'I have admitted too much,' she said gloomily. 'The curse of the +O'Hara's is upon me. Almost all of them have gambled with their lives, +and most of them have lost.' + +She gave her horse the rein as she spoke, and they cantered on over the +plain. After that, she resolutely forbade sentiment. + +Mr Ninnis was gratified by an invitation that evening to dine at the +Home, and came down in his best dark suit and his most genial mood. + +Bridget sang. She had not been singing much lately. Colin's gloom over +the evil prospects of squatting on the Leura re-acted upon her spirits. +And besides, the piano had been attacked by white ants, and the tuner +had not been so far up the river for a long time. It was inspiring to +learn that Maule added to his gifts that of getting a piano into tune. +Ninnis promised to rummage among the tools for a key that would serve. + +Ninnis had never admired Lady Bridget so much as he did this evening. +Certainly he thought her more flighty and incomprehensible than ever, +but he could not deny her fascination. It seemed quite natural to him +that she should be in high spirits at seeing an old friend from +England, who appeared to know all her people. Ninnis had taken +immensely to Maule. Beside Maule knew parts of the world where Ninnis +had been. It was curious to see the American-isms crop out. Ninnis +considered Maule a person of parts and of practical experience. He said +to himself that the Boss had done wisely in leaving Maule at the +head-station while they were short-handed. Maule showed great interest +in Bush matters--said he wanted to learn all he could about the +management of cattle--thought it not improbable that he might invest +money in Leichardt's Land. Ninnis agreed to show him round, and Maule +begged that he might be made useful--even offered to take a turn with +the tailing-mob, so that Moongarr Bill and the other stockmen might be +free to muster more cattle. + +Nothing was heard of the Blacks during the next day or two, but one +morning Ninnis discovered that an old gun, which the station hands and +the black-boys were allowed to use on Sundays for shooting game in the +lagoon, had disappeared in the night. Circumstantial evidence pointed +to Wombo as the thief. Cudgee owned to having seen him skulking among +the Gully rocks. A deserted gunya was found near a lonely, half-dry +waterhole in the scrub, and there were rumours of a tribe of wild +blacks having passed towards the outlying country in the Breeza Downs +direction. + +No news came, however, of either racial or labour warfare. McKeith sent +not a word of his doings, and Harry the Blower was not due yet on his +postal, fortnightly round. + +McKeith had been gone a week, and the time of his absence seemed like +that sinister lull which comes after the sudden shock of an earthquake +and the tornado that follows upon it. Then, one day, something happened. + +All the men except the Chinamen were out. Moongarr Bill, Ninnis, and +the stockmen on the run, while Maule--a book and a sandwich in his +pocket--had gone herding with Joey Case and one of the extra hands. + +A sense of mutual embarrassment had that day driven them apart. He had +been afraid of himself, and she too had felt afraid. During these seven +days she had rushed recklessly on as though impelled by a fatality, +never pausing to consider how near she might be to a precipice. +Whenever possible, she had ridden out with Maule and Ninnis, or with +Maule alone. She found relief from painful thoughts of Colin in the +excitement and emotion with which Maule's society provided her. She +went with him on several occasions behind the tailing-mob, though +ordinarily, she could not endure being at close quarters with cattle. +But it interested her to see Maule ride after and round up the wild +ones that escaped; to watch his splendid horsemanship which had the +flamboyant South-American touch--the suggestion of lariat and lasso and +ornate equipment, the picturesque element lacking in the Bush--all +harmonizing with his deep dark eyes and Southern type of good looks. + +To-day, she had preferred to remain at home alone. She had been pulled +up with a startled sense of shock. Last evening when they were walking +together on the veranda he had begun again to make love to her, and in +still more passionate earnest--had held her hands--had tried to kiss +her. She had found herself giving way to the old romantic +intoxication--then had wrenched herself from him only just before the +meeting of lips. + +At last, she had realized the strength of the glamour. She fought +against it; nevertheless, in imagination gave herself up to it, as the +opium-smoker or haschisch-eater gives himself up to the insidious +FANTASIA of his drug. + +Yes, Bridget thought it was like what she had read of the effects of +some unholy drug--some uncanny form of hypnotism. + +For she knew that she did not really love Maule--that her feeling for +him was unwholesome. + +There was poison in it acting upon her affection for and trust in her +husband. Maule made subtle insinuations to McKeith's detriment, +injected doubts that rankled. There were no definite charges, though he +would hint sometimes at gossip he had heard in Tunumburra. But he would +convey to her in half words, looks, and tones that he had reason to +believe Colin unworthy of her--that her husband had led the life of an +ordinary bushman, and had fully availed himself of such material +pleasures as might have come to his hand. The veiled questions he asked +about Mrs Hensor and her boy, brought back a startled remembrance of +the scene outside the Fig Tree Mount Hotel and Steadbolt's vague +accusation. She had almost forgotten it--had never seriously thought +about it. Yet now she knew the midge-bite had festered. + +Could it be that there was a chapter in Colin's life of which she knew +nothing? Was it not too much to believe that he had always been +faithful to his ideal of the camp fire? Ah! Maule would have jeered at +that--would have been totally incapable of understanding the romance of +that dream-drive--a dream in truth. But how beautiful, how sane, how +uplifting it seemed, compared with the feverish haschisch dream in +which she was now living. Restless under the obsession, she wandered up +the gully and, as she sat among the rocks, wrestled with her black +angel--and conquered. Clearly there was but one thing to do. She must +send Maule away at once before Colin came back. As for Colin, that +trouble must be faced separately. Maule must ride back to +Tunumburra--he knew the track. Or, should he wish to explore the +district further, Harry the Blower was due with the mail to-morrow, and +could guide him to any station on the post-man's route which might +appear to Maule desirable. + +Bridget knew that Maule would leave the tailing-mob before the other +men that afternoon, and would probably come to look for her here. So +having arrived at her decision and wishing to put off the inevitable +scene as long as possible, she set forth by another route for the +head-station. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + +But she had only gone a few steps, when out of the gidia scrub, came +Oola the half-caste, her comely face bruised, her eyes wild with grief +and terror, her head tied up in a blood-stained strip torn from Lady +Bridget's lacy undergarment, the gaily-flowered kimono hanging in dirty +shreds upon her brown bosom. + +'White Mary! Lathy-chap!' she cried. 'Plenty poor feller Oola. Plenty +quick me run. Me want 'em catch Lathy-chap before pollis-man come. That +feller pollis-man take Wombo long-a gaol. Mithsis'--the gin implored. +'BUJERI you!--Mithis tell pollis-man Wombo plenty good blackfellow. No +take Wombo long-a gaol.' + +'What has Wombo been doing?' asked Lady Bridget. 'Did he steal the gun?' + +'YOWI (yes). Wombo plenty frightened long-a ole husband belonging to +me.' And Oola dropped and knocked her head upon the ground, wailing the +ear-piercing death-wail of the Australian native women. + +'Oola, you must stop howling!' said Bridget, alive to the seriousness +of the situation. 'Has Wombo shot your husband with our gun?' + +'YOWI, Mithis. That feller husband altogether BONG' (dead). + +From Oola's broken revelations Bridget pieced the story. It appeared +that the tribe had followed in hot pursuit of the fugitives, and, +knowing his peril, Wombo had sneaked up to the head-station in the +darkness, possessed himself of an effectual weapon, and fled away with +the gun. The offended blacks had discovered the guilty pair on the +outskirts of Breeza Downs, and Oola's husband, with a company of +braves, had attacked their gunya. Then--to quote Oola--'that feller +husband throw spear at Wombo--hit Oola long-a COBRA (head) with NULLA +NULLA. Him close-up carry off Oola. My word! Wombo catch him PHO PHO. +Plenty quick husband belonging to me TUMBLE DOWN.' And Oola wailed anew. + +'Where's Wombo now?' Bridget asked. + +'Blackfeller YAN (run) along-a pollis-man. Pollis-man close-up black's +camp. That feller Harris catch 'im Wombo--fetch um long-a Tunumburra +gaol. Mine think it stop to-night Moongarr. Close-up station now.' + +Lady Bridget at once saw through the affair. Here was Harris taking a +legitimized revenge on Wombo, and doubtless also on herself. Clearly, +he had been patrolling the Breeza Downs boundaries in search of +Unionist incendiaries, and seizing Wombo instead, had acted promptly +without waiting for a warrant or consulting McKeith. Wombo would be +charged at the township with theft of the gun and murder of Oola's +husband. To a certainty he would be hanged if the matter ran its +ordinary course. That it should not do, Bridget declared within +herself--if she could by any possibility prevent it. + +The half-caste woman and the white lady went swiftly through the gidia +scrub towards the head-station. At the gully crossing, Maule, on his +way back from the tailing-mob, overtook them, and dismounting, walked +with Lady Bridget to the house. She forgot then all the scene of last +evening, told him the black's story, begged him to help her in the +rescue of Wombo. + +He reflected for a minute or two. + +'We're up against Harris,' he said, 'and Harris has a grudge against +all of us. But Harris feels some respect for my knowledge of +constabulary law, which, I take it, is pretty much the same in most +countries where there are white settlers and native races.' + +She looked up at him, letting him feel that she was relying on his +astuteness and his strength. He went on: + +'Ninnis is mustering with Moongarr Bill and the others, a good way off, +and they're camping out to-night.... That leaves only Joe Casey and the +other extra hand. Ninnis put me in authority here. Somebody has got to +take command, and it must be either you, Lady Bridget, or myself. +Perhaps I'm the best qualified of the two....' + +She laughed shakily in assent. + +'Anyway, I fancy that I know how to deal with this sort of affair +better than you do,' he said. 'Will you let me manage it my own way?' + +She nodded. + +'I suppose I may assume that your husband left me in a position of some +responsibility. And if I seem to be taking too much on myself--or, on +the other hand, deferring too much to Harris, you'll trust me and not +interfere?' + +There was no time for discussion, had she wished to go against him. +Oola was shrieking and pointing frantically to the track down from the +upper slip rails, along which Harris and his prisoner were to be seen +riding. + +The Police Inspector, uniformed, burly, triumphant, exhaled the Majesty +of the Law as he rode slightly in advance leading the black-boy. Now, +as they pulled up at the fence, Wombo presented a sorry spectacle--a +spear wound in his left shoulder, a spear graze on his leg, his wrists +handcuffed and his feet tied to the stirrup-iron with cords so tight +that they cut into his tough, black flesh. + +Harris dismounted, tied Wombo's horse securely to the veranda post and +then made his statement which coincided with Bridget's idea of what had +happened. It was too late to push on to Tunumburra. He proposed to lock +up his prisoner at Moongarr for the night. Could he have the hide-house? + +Not long before, the Police Inspector had locked up a horse stealer, +whom he had in charge, in the hide-house for a few hours while he took +a meal. + +To Bridget it seemed an irony that Wombo should be imprisoned in the +very room he had so lately shared with his stolen gin. + +She was quivering with indignant pity at sight of the sores on the +black boy's legs made by the raw hide thongs, and Oola, who had crept +up the off side of the black-boy's horse, was wailing anew. Maule +checked with a look the angry protest on Lady Bridget's lip and +answered the Police Sergeant in her stead. + +'Why, certainly. I'm sure her Ladyship won't object. You'll let me see +to that for you, Lady Bridget,' and, as she bowed her head, he +addressed Harris again. 'Mr Ninnis and most of the others are camping +out to-night on the run, and I seem to be the only responsible man in +the place--of course you know that Mr McKeith asked me to stop and help +look after things for Lady Bridget if necessary.' Then he complimented +Harris genially upon his zeal. 'You've got your warrant, I suppose,' he +asked incidentally. + +The Police Sergeant looked a little uncomfortable. + +'Well, fact is, I wouldn't waste time going back to Breeza Downs +head-station for that. Mr McKeith's there and they had a bit of an +alarm. Those Unionist skunks tried to fire the shed one night, but no +particular damage was done, and they've dispersed. But Windeatt is in +such a fright of their making another attempt on his head-station that +he's pushing the imported shearers on with the shearing for all he's +worth, and keeps any man he can get hold of on guard night and day +round the house and sheds, while I and my lot have been doing a bit of +riding after Unionists.... Now, if you please, we'll have the key of +the hide-house,' concluded Harris. 'I'd like to get my prisoner stowed +away safe before I take an hour's spell myself. I'm pretty well knocked +up, I can tell you. No sleep at all last night watching that nigger who +was tied up to a gum tree, and I've been in the saddle all day.' + +Maule proffered the usual refreshment with a deprecatory reference to +Lady Bridget, who stood stonily apart. Then on pretext of getting the +key of the hide-house, he had a few words with her in the office. + +'I'm going to take care of this,' he said, as she gave him the key of +the padlock which secured the hide-house door, and he forthwith +fastened it to the ring of his watch-chain. 'Of course you want the +black-boy to escape?' + +'I shall let him out myself,' she answered. + +'That would only make McKeith more angry. I have a better plan, in +which you need not be implicated.' + +'I would rather do it myself,' she said. 'I'm not afraid. If it had +been possible, I would have cut those horrible thongs straight away and +let the poor wretch get into the bush. He'll be safe at the head of the +gully in the gidia scrub.' + +'I promise you that he shall be safe in the gidia scrub before sunrise +to-morrow. Trust me.' + +She shook her head. 'But I can't take services from you, after....' she +began hastily and then stopped. + +'You call that a service! Yes--to humanity, if you like. Oh, I know. +After yesterday evening. NOW, you blame me for being true to myself.... +All that has got to be settled between us, Bridget--for good and all. I +thought it out as I rode behind the tailing-mob to-day. But for the +moment,' he fingered the key agitatedly, 'Bridget, you MUST let me do +this thing for you. Don't refuse me that small privilege, even if you +deny me all others.' + +She wavered--yielded. 'Very well. You can manage it better than I +could. So I will accept this last favour.' + +'The first, not the last. What have I done but cause you pain? ... If +you knew the torture I have been going through....' He checked himself. +She was staring at him, half frightened, half fascinated. + +'No, no. There must be an end.' + +'Yes. There must be an end. Later on, we'll decide what the end is to +be.' + +He went out to the veranda carrying the key. Bridget did not follow +him. She had no power either to resent or to compel him. She sat +waiting. When, after about a quarter of an hour, he came back, she was +still in the office as he had left her, seated by the rough table on +which were the station log, the store book, and branding tallies. + +He came in triumphantly, exhibiting the key. + +'Harris wanted to take possession of this. It was lucky I had put it on +my chain. However, he's satisfied that Wombo is securely locked up and +an extra glass of grog and a hint that, as he hasn't provided himself +with a warrant there's no obligation on him to stand over his prisoner +with a loaded gun, eased his mind of responsibility. The man is in a +beast of a temper though, he evidently expected to be entertained down +here. I hope Mrs Hensor will give him a good dinner. He insists on +sleeping in the little room off the store veranda where he says he can +keep watch on the hide house. I suppose it's all right?' + +Bridget nodded. 'I'll tell Maggie.' Maule asked for ointment with which +to dress the black-boy's wounds and abrasions, and she gave it and left +him. + +The afternoon was drawing in. Then came the sound of the herded beasts +being driven to the yard at sundown and, by-and-by, of Joe Casey's +stockwhip as he got up the milkers. The shorthandedness and disturbance +of Harris' arrival made everything late, and the goats which should +have been penned by now, were busy nibbling at the passion vines on the +garden fence. But all this made little impression on Bridget's +preoccupied brain. She had the thought of that coming interview with +Maule before her. Oola's continuous wailing was an affliction, and she +gave the half-caste a blanket and some food and told her to camp on the +further side of the hide house where, with eyes and ears glued by turns +against the largest chink between the slabs, she might see and speak to +the prisoner. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + +Maule's and Lady Bridget's TETE-TETE dinner was an embarrassed meal, +with Kuppi and Maggie hovering about the table. The man's eyes said +more than his lips, and the woman sat, strained and silent, or else +uttered forced commonplaces. + +They were alone at last on the veranda, with night and the vast +distances enfolding them. The air was close and hot, the sky banked +with storm clouds, and, occasionally, there were flashes of sheet +lightning and low growls of thunder. Before long the head-station was +very quiet. Harris had inspected the hide-house and, having assured +himself of the safety of his prisoner, had retired to the veranda room, +making a great parade of keeping his door open, his gun loaded, and his +clothes on, ready for any emergency. Joe Casey had gone to his hut, the +Chinaman and the Malay boy to theirs, and Maggie, the woman servant, to +her own tiny room wedged in between the new house and the kitchen wing. + +But it was all early. At that hour, Maule laughingly reminded Lady +Bridget, the dining world of London would scarcely have reached the +dessert stage. + +She would not waste time on banalities. + +'I've been waiting to tell you something. My mind is quite made up. I +can't go on like this any longer. You must go away to-morrow.' + +'To-morrow!' he echoed in dismay. + +'Yes. I've thought it out. You don't know the country, but the mailman +will be here to-morrow, and he can show you the road.' + +'You are very kind.... Why are you so anxious to get rid of me?' + +'Surely you understand. You made me a scene yesterday. You'd go on +making me scenes.' + +'And you?' + +She gave a hard little laugh. 'Oh! I--don't want to play any more.' + +'You call it play! To me it's deadly earnest. I let you go once. I do +not mean to let you go again.' + +'But you are talking wildly. Don't you see that it is impossible we can +be friends.' + +'Oh! that I grant you. We must be everything to each other--or nothing.' + +In spite of her cold peremptoriness he could see that she was deeply +agitated. That fact gave him courage. His voice dropped to the tender +persuasive note which had always affected her like a spell. + +'My dear--my very dearest.... We made a great mistake once. Let us +forget that. Death has opened the gate of freedom--for me, at +least--and I can only feel remorseful thankfulness. We have again a +chance of happiness. We will not throw it away a second time.' + +'You seem to forget that if you are free I am married.' + +'What a marriage? Call it a mad adventure.' + +'That may be,' she said bitterly. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I +did care very much for my husband.' She brought out the last words with +difficulty. + +'DID care. You put it in the past tense. You don't care for him any +longer. It would be astonishing if you did. One has only to see you +together.... Oh, Biddy, it was so like you to rush off to the other +side of the world, and ruin your life for the sake of some strange +impracticable idea! I can follow it all....' + +'You are mistaken,' she put in. + +'I think not. You married in a fit of revulsion against the conditions +in which you were living--the hollow shams of an effete +civilisation--that's the correct phrase, isn't it? And--well, perhaps +there was another reason for the revulsion.... And you thought you had +found the remedy for it all. Oh! I admit that he is very good looking, +and, of course, he worshipped you--until he had you secure, and then he +reverted to the ways of his kind. "Nature's gentlemen" usually do....' + +'Be silent, Will,' she exclaimed vehemently. 'You don't understand.' + +'My dear, your very anger tells me that I do understand. Why! naturally +your imagination was set on fire. The Bush was painted to you in its +most glowing colours. No doubt, as you said, it's a Garden of Eden in +good seasons. Wonderful vegetation, glorious liberty--no galling +conventions--vast spaces--romance--and the will o' the wisp wealth of +the Wild. Confess now ... are not my guesses correct?' + +'Yes--partly.' She spoke with reluctance. 'But I remember that YOU used +to talk to me about the joys of the Wild,' she added with sharp irony. + +'Oh, yes, I know it all. I've been there myself. And it's only when El +Dorado proves a delusion that one begins to hanker--I did before I met +you--for the advantages of civilised existence.' + +'Well, you have secured those. Why not go and enjoy them as I'm asking +you to do.' + +'They have no value for me, unless I may share them with you. Bridget, +I can give you everything now that you once asked for.' + +'With your wife's money?' + +He drew back sharply. 'Ah! You CAN hit a man!' and there was silence +for a few minutes. Then he leaned closer to her, and his fingers +touched the gold cigarette case which lay on the arm of the squatter's +chair in which she was sitting. He went on in a changed manner. + +'Poor Evelyn left her fortune to me, knowing the truth. She was a +noble-souled woman. I was not worthy of her. But unworthy as I may have +been, Bridget, I deserved better of my wife than your husband deserves +of you. At least, I did not deceive her.' + +'What do you mean? Colin did not deceive me. That, at all events, is +not one of his faults towards me.' + +'Has he told you, then, why he keeps on his station that insolent woman +and her yellow-haired blue-eyed boy?' + +Bridget started visibly. He saw that his shaft had struck the mark. But +she answered calmly: + +'I don't know what you want to imply. I thought you knew that Mrs +Hensor's husband was killed on one of Colin's expeditions, and that he +looked after her and her boy on that account.' + +'Oh, yes, I've heard that story. But it seemed common gossip at +Tunumburra that there was another--less creditable--explanation.' + +She turned fiercely upon him. 'You have no right to make such an +abominable accusation.' + +'I only mention what I heard. I went about a good deal there in bar +saloons, and to men's gatherings. Naturally, I was interested in the +district where, by the way, McKeith does not appear to be over popular. +Of course, I attached no great importance to the gossip then. It only +made me wonder. Oddly enough, to-day when I was out with the tailing +mob, one of the men repeated it--I need not say that I stopped him. He +said he'd had it as a fact from a man who was a long time in your +husband's employ--a man called Steadbolt.' + +Again the scene in front of Fig Tree Mount Hotel flashed before Lady +Bridget, and Demon Doubt rose up clothed now in more material +substance. Her voice shook as she answered, though she tried to be +loyal: + +'Steadbolt was discharged from my husband's employment. He is another +of Mrs Hensor's rejected suitors. That speaks for itself.' + +'Strange that Mrs Hensor should reject so many suitors without apparent +reason,' said Maule. + +Bridget did not seem able to bear any more. Her head drooped upon her +hands, her shoulders heaved convulsively. + +'I don't know what to do--I am alone. It's an insult to talk to me in +this way.' + +'I want to protect you from insult--I want to take you out of these +miserable conditions--and there's only one way to do that,' he pleaded. + +He took her hands in his and kissed them passionately. 'Oh, I love you. +There's nothing in the world I would not do to make you my wife. Why +should you hesitate? It breaks my heart to see you unappreciated, +neglected, living the sort of rough life that might suit a labourer's +daughter, but which is sacrilege for Lady Bridget O'Hara. A man had no +right to condemn a beautiful, refined woman like you to such a fate.... +Well there' as she murmured incoherently, 'I'll not say any more about +that since it hurts you. You see, I respect your wishes. I'll even go +away at once, if you command it, and leave you to form your own +judgment. I will stay in Leichardt's Town--in Sydney--anywhere--until +you have decided for yourself--as I know you must do--how impossible it +is for you to remain here. Then I will meet you wherever you please, +and we will go to Europe together--bury ourselves abroad--wait in any +part of the world you may choose, until the divorce proceedings are +over, and we are free to marry. You need not be afraid of scandal, the +thing can be kept out of the English papers. It's so far away that +nobody will remember you were married to an Australian. Besides, +anything of the sort is so easily got over nowadays. My darling, why do +you look at me with those tragic eyes? It is not like the old Biddy to +be a slave to Mrs Grundy.' + +She had been listening, sitting rigid in her chair, her hands still in +his, looking at him in a strange fixed manner, almost like a person in +the first stage of hypnotism. Now she snatched her hands away and gave +a sobbing cry. + +'Oh, I'm not the old Biddy. I never can be again.' + +'Dear love--believe me, when I promise you that you shall never have +cause for regret.' + +He would have taken her into his arms, but she drew herself back. + +'Will, you don't understand. And I don't understand myself, I can't see +things clearly. It's all been so sudden--Colin going +away--you--everything.... I want to be alone. I want to find myself.' + +He moved aside with a slight inclination of his head as if to let her +pass. 'I told you that I would do anything you wish.' + +'You mean that--really? Then I wish you to go away at once. You said +you would leave me to decide for myself. I take you at your word, and I +shall write to you, by-and-by. Promise me that you will go.' + +'I have no choice. Your will is law to me. But understand, dearest--I +am only waiting.' + +'It's good of you not to want to worry and argue.... Don't you +understand?--I couldn't bear you to be here when Colin comes back. You +must go to Tunumburra to-morrow.' + +'Go to Tunumburra to-morrow?' he repeated blankly. + +'It's on the way to Leuraville, and you can take the steamer from +there. I will write to you in Leichardt's Town. Oh, it's quite simple. +The mailman will be here early. You can leave a letter saying that you +are recalled.' + +'I understand.' Her definite planning gave him hope that she had +already made up her mind, and that she would join him in Leuraville or +Leichardt's Town. After all, that might be best. 'But I shall see you +again. The mailman is not here yet. I have still a few hours respite.' + +She made no answer at first. Then 'Good-night,' she said abruptly, and +flitted like a small white ghost along the dim veranda. + +'Lady Bridget!' His voice stopped her. It shook a little, but the +manner was conventional, and she gained confidence from that and turned +irresolutely. + +'Lady Bridget. While we've been talking about ourselves, we've +forgotten that unfortunate black-boy. I only want to tell you, that you +may depend on your wishes being carried out. I shall go to my room and +watch my opportunity. Trust me, that's all--in everything.' + +'Thank you,' she answered simply. 'I do trust you.' + +She came back a few steps, and he met her in the middle of the veranda. +In one of her swift transitions of mood a humorous element in the +situation seemed to appeal to her, and she said with a laugh:--'It's +comical, isn't it? The two tragedies, black and white--we two +here--those two out there!' + +Just then the black curtain of cloud, that had been rising slowly and +obscuring the stars, was torn by a strong flash of chain lightning. It +threw up her face in startling clearness and he saw, in strange blend +with the conflicting emotions upon it, the wraith of her old whimsical +smile. + +He did not answer her laugh. In truth, the man's nature was stirred to +a more deep-reaching extent perhaps than ever in his life before. It +may have been the flash of lightning recalling a momentary flash of +illumination that had once shone upon his own soul. + +That had been when he was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, +and her last words revealed to him a magnanimity of devotion for which +he had been wholly unprepared. He had thought her merely amiable and +stupid--except in her love for him--and his sentiments towards her had +been a mixture of boredom, and the tolerant consideration due to the +bestower of substantial benefits. Nevertheless, she had awakened, +during a spasm of remorseful self-abasement, some nobler quality latent +in the man. + +And now--as that flash of lightning illuminated Bridget's face and made +him keenly sensitive to the charm of her personality--her wayward +fascination, her inconsistencies, her weakness, her temperamental +craving for dramatic contrast, her reckless toying with emotion--by a +curious law of paradox, there came back upon Willoughby Maule that +scene with his dying wife, and he had again the flashing perception of +something sacred, unexplainable, to which his own nature could not +reach. + +It sobered him. He had had the impulse to snatch her to his breast, to +seal the half-compact with a lover's kiss, so passionate that the +memory of it must for ever bind her to him. + +But the impulse was past. They stood perfectly silent, stiff, in the +interval--it seemed a very long one--between the lightning flash, and +the distant reverberation of thunder which followed it. + +Then he said mechanically, like one walking out of a dream? 'There's +going to be a storm. Are you frightened?' + +'No,' she answered. 'I'm never frightened of storms!' and added, +'besides, Colin would be so glad of rain.' + +Before he could reply, she had glided away again and he was alone. + +He thought it strange that she should be thinking of her husband and +his material interests just then. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + +It must have been a little while after midnight when Bridget was +awakened by more thunder and lightning and a confused tornado of sound. +She had been dreaming that Harris was throwing her from the gully +cliffs on to the boulders in its bed--only it seemed to her bewildered +senses that the boulders rose towards her instead of her descending to +meet them. Next she discovered that rain was pattering on the zinc +roof, and that the violent concussions she felt beneath her must be due +to the horns of goats knocking up against the boards of her bedroom. +Ah! she thought, the men had forgotten to pen the goats, and they were +sheltering from the rain in the open space under the floor of the +house. There could be no more sleep for her that night, unless they +were dislodged. + +She waited through the din until there came a lull in the storm, then +got up and put on her shoes and a waterproof coat over her nightdress. +It was not the first time by any means that, when sleeping alone, she +had been obliged to rise and drive away stray animals that had been +inadvertently allowed means of entrance. + +She went out to the back veranda, which was connected by steps with the +verandas of the other two wings. The moon was full and shed occasional +pale gleams through the scudding clouds. The close heat had given place +to a chill wind and the rain came down intermittently but in no +volume--it could not make much difference to the parched earth. There +was not a light visible anywhere. The goats were still making a noise +under the house. + +Lady Bridget got a stick from a heap of sandal-wood boughs stacked +against the veranda, and passing to the front, where the piles +supporting the house were higher, proceeded to belabour an elderly +nanny, who, with her mate, was now nibbling twigs of the creepers. But +she was surprised to see only two or three goats, she had thought there +must be many more. The animals were refractory, and her beatings of no +avail. Now, suddenly, she was seized with a fit of nervous shivering +and realised that she felt physically ill. It was of no use for her to +try and drive off the goats. She sank down on the veranda steps of the +Old Humpey, and afterwards thought she must have fainted. + +The sound of Maule's approaching footsteps and his alarmed ejaculation +seemed to bring her to herself. He appeared to have come round the back +of the Old Humpey. He was horrified at the sight of her convulsive +shivering. + +'You mustn't stop here,' he exclaimed. 'I was afraid the goats would +disturb you, and I've been getting them out as quietly as I could. Most +of them are shut up in their fold.' + +She saw that he was almost fully dressed. With an effort she controlled +her terror, and asked: + +'You've not been asleep.' + +'Oh! off and on. I've been keeping my eye on Harris' room,' he pointed +across the yard to the kitchen and store-building opposite--at the end +of which Harris had installed himself--to the squat outline of the slab +and back hide house. 'My ear, too,' he went on, 'for Harris' slumbers +are neither silent nor peaceful. When he's not snoring, he groans and +stirs, and the worst of it is that he's got his door wide open on to +the veranda and his bed right across the window that looks straight at +the door of the hide house. I thought I'd take advantage of the +thunder, but it was no good. He was awake and looking out. Now he has +lain down again, and as soon as I hear him snoring I shall try once +more.' + +A fresh fit of shivering seized Bridget. + +'This won't do,' he said, and went hurriedly into his own room which +opened a few doors down on to the veranda, and coming back with an +opossum rug on his arm and a glass of brandy and water in his hand, he +made her drink the spirits and wrapped the rug round her. Presently the +shivering ceased. + +A moon-gleam between two clouds closing on each other showed her his +eyes glowing with sombre passion. She saw that he was holding himself +under stern restraint. Though where they were, the veranda running +between the end of the Old Humpey and the new house, made a kind of +passage so that they were in shadow, there was a possibility of +watchful eyes discovering their whereabouts. + +'Will you go back to your room, and I'll get rid of these goats,' he +said, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way. 'I supose there isn't a +yard where I could put them, nearer than their own by the lagoon.' + +'I don't think so,' she answered dully, and without stirring from where +she crouched upon the steps. When he urged her anew to go back to bed, +she answered petulantly: + +'Oh, do let me be. I like the wind and the rain--they're soothing. And +I couldn't sleep now until I know that Wombo is safe in the scrub.' + +He made no further protest, but set to work shepherding the goats. She +watched him drive them out of the gate till his dark form and the +piebald shapes he was driving before him were lost in the night. She +knew that it would take some little time to pen them all securely in +their fold. But the night was young yet. + +From shivering, the fire of the brandy and the warmth of the fur rug +had turned her temperature to fever heat. She felt keenly excited; the +blood in her veins seemed boiling, and the occasional raindrops and +moist wind were pleasant on her face. She had gone to the end of the +veranda and stood there with long withes of the native cucumber vine +that grew over the Old Humpey swaying around her in the breeze. There +was not a light in the place. Even moon and stars were now veiled. Her +brain raced round desperate and futile schemes for eluding the +vigilance of the Police Inspector. She wished now that she had thought +of asking him to dinner and putting opium into his coffee--that was the +sort of thing they did in novels. She did not know that a less +developed brain than her own was working at this moment to the same +end, on an inspiration from the bush DEBIL-DEBIL, or such savage +divinity as watches over the loves of the Blacks. + +She saw what at first she had thought part of the shadow of a +neighbouring gum tree cast on the strip of grass that ran at the back +of the Old Humpey. But the lesser shadow moved, halted, and the greater +shadow was stationary and grew denser as the moon sailed again across a +clear patch of sky. + +Then Bridget realised that the moving shadow was the half-caste Oola, +shrouded in the dark blue blanket she had given her, and that the gin +had halted at the casement window of Maule's bedroom. Now, Oola, with +her hands on the sill, curved her lithe body, drew her bare feet to the +window ledge and dropped within. + +Bridget ran along the grass to the window, and from there watched Oola +move about the room and in the almost darkness fumble among the objects +on the dressing-table. Then Bridget could hear the little click of the +tongue and the guttural note of exultation a black tracker gives when +he comes upon a trail. Bridget drew aside against the wall, so that +Oola, again springing over the window sill, did not observe her. But +Bridget saw the watch and chain with the iron key attached to it which +the gin had stolen, and seized Oola's arm as the dark form crouched +upon the grass again. The gin uttered a smothered shriek. Bridget took +the watch from her hand, detached the key from the chain, and slipped +watch and chain into the pocket of her coat, while Oola, clutching Lady +Bridget's knees, pleaded chokily: + +'Mithsis--you gib me key--no make im noise. No tell pollis-man me let +out Wombo. My word! plenty quick he YAN long-a scrub. BA-AL pollis-man +catch Wombo. Mithsis--BUJERI White Mary! You gib it key to Oola.' + +The key was in Oola's hand. 'BA-AL me tell,' whispered Bridget. 'You go +quick.' + +She, too, bent her body and followed Oola, who sped like a hunted hare +round the comer of the Old Humpey. Now she wriggled in the shadow of +the yard railings. Now she crept stealthily past Harris' +window--and--oh! DEBIL--DEBIL be praised! the Police sergeant's +stertorous snoring was clearly audible. + +Blessed, likewise, be the retiring moon and the sweeping clouds! Lady +Bridget, every nerve a-quiver and the rushing blood throbbing in her +temples, also crept noiselessly beneath the window in the wake of Oola, +crawling like Oola, but more to the back of the hide-house into the +shelter of its drooping bark eaves. + +Bending cautiously round the slabs, she watched, as the gin, with a +swift wriggling motion like that of a snake, drew herself along the +sunken earth floor beneath the eaves and then, softly raising herself +to the level of the padlock, put in the key. There was a muffled +grating of iron under the gin's hand, as the padlock unclosed and the +hasp dropped, then a creak of the door on its hinges, while it opened +and shut behind the undulating shape in the aperture. Then a low +throaty ejaculation--the black's call of warning. And now with a +quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded +serpentine shapes round the hide-house--in and out among the grass +tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum +shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs upon the lesser +darkness, and now altogether invisible.... + +Lady Bridget knew that in five minutes, once they could be upright +again, the fugitives would have reached the gully, and after that the +gidia scrub. Then security from the terrors of a white man's gaol would +be almost assured to them. + +Lady Bridget waited--waited, it seemed to her an eternity, in reality +it was barely over the five minutes she had mentally given the two +blacks for their escape. That five minutes had been full of alarms, and +she could feel her heart thumping, so tense was the strain. She had to +consider the possibility of Harris being awakened; also, of Maule's +return and an attempt on his part to free the hide-house prisoner. Also +there was the danger of the clouds breaking before she had done her +work. + +She heard a movement of the sleeper in his bed below the open window +opposite. Harris might have been aroused, and perhaps have stirred +without awakening.... But the snoring had ceased.... She did not think, +however, that he could be fully awake.... Presently the snoring +recommenced. + +She crept very slowly along the earthen floor, drawing her hands along +the slabs as she went. A splinter from one of them ran into her +finger--but that did not matter. Now she touched the door, which lay +back towards her, for the blacks had not waited to close it. She pushed +it very softly, holding her breath at the creak of the hinge and +listening intently for the recurrent snore which sounded through the +window only three paces from her. + +At last the thing was done--the padlock fastened, the key turned in the +lock, and now in her pocket. She dropped flat on the earth, her cloak +drawn lightly between her knees, and wriggled snake-like, as Oola had +done past Harris' windows, then pushed herself on hands and knees along +the ground, squeezing her body against the palings of the yard, till +she reached the Old Humpey on the opposite side. Once round that +corner, she got on to her feet, feeling sick and giddy but intensely +relieved. She leaned against the gum tree which had protected Oola, and +now realised that it had been raining in a driving gust and that she +was wet to the skin. + +The bleating of a kid, which had been left under the house and had +found its way into the yard, startled her anew. She thought that she +heard sounds in the wing near the hide-house--steps on the veranda. Was +Harris stirring? Had he discovered the flight of his prisoner? + +She waited again till all was quiet. By this time, there was a watery +radiance just overhead. She looked towards the lagoon, but there was no +sign of Maule. She felt the shivering begin again, though her head +seemed burning, and she could hardly think collectedly. Her chief idea +was to get back to bed. + +But she was able to reason to herself that Maule must somehow be +informed of the escape. She did not think he could have got back yet to +the spot where he had left her. Or he might come straight to his room +and miss the key and his watch. In any case, these must be restored to +the place from which Oola had taken them. + +She lifted herself to the window-sill as Oola had done, and in a moment +was inside the room. It had been an easy enough business, only that in +clutching the window frame, the jagged end of the splinter she had run +into her hand caught and tore her flesh. The room was of course empty. + +She lifted a candle--which, with matches, stood on the dressing +table--and put back the watch and chain, and the key now separate from +them. That fact would show Maule that it had been tampered with. But +she must find some more exact means of conveying what had happened. +Premature action on his part might give the alarm. Her brain worked in +flashes. She had vivid ideas, which in her fevered state she could not +hold properly. She must write to Maule. A notebook that he must have +taken from his pocket lay on the table also. She tore out a +leaf--paused--She must write so that only he would understand. An +accident might happen to the paper. + +There must be no definite statement to implicate him or herself. Some +words in French occurred to her. She wrote them down and continued the +note in that language. At the close she begged him to act so that there +should be no ground for suspicion--reminded him of his promise to go +away on the morrow--said she would write to him at the Post Office at +Leuraville. She did not sign the sheet, but folded it across--addressed +it to Maule and laid it under the watch on the table. + +A fresh spasm of shivering seized her. Suddenly she remembered the +opossum rug she had left. She opened the door leading from Maule's room +into the veranda, and went out. She stood bewilderedly, looking across +the faint-lit yard to the dim veranda of the kitchen wing opposite, as +she fought against the sick faintness that threatened to overcome her. +Then she walked along the veranda to the place where she had parted +from Maule. The rug was lying there, and she threw it round her, and +waited on the steps with chattering teeth and shaking limbs. + +In a minute or two, he joined her. She saw by the fitful moonbeams that +he was wet and muddy--truly in a worse plight than herself. She could +hardly speak for the rigor. Seeing her condition, he took her up in his +arms, and carried her along the veranda towards her own room. The clasp +of his arms, the warmth of his body, even through his wet clothing +helped her to steady herself. She continued to tell him of the great +achievement. + +'Wombo has escaped--I saw Oola taking the key out of your room. Harris +was asleep--snoring. She let Wombo out, and I locked the door of the +hide-house again afterwards, and put the key back in your room. It's +all right--nothing can be found out till the morning. They're safe in +the scrub by now.' + +'Well, I'm thankful for that at any rate,' he answered. 'But at this +moment I cannot think of anything or anyone but you. My dearest--I'm so +afraid of your being ill--what can I do?' + +'Nothing. I have sal volatile in my room--stuff to take for a cold. I +only want to get off my wet things and go to bed--I can sleep now. +Don't be frightened about me.' + +She staggered when he put her gently down inside her own door, but +recovered herself courageously, lighted her candles, laughed at her own +disordered appearance, bade him go at once and look after himself. + +He kissed her hand reluctantly. + +'Till to-morrow.' + +She looked at him alarmedly. 'Will! But you have promised me. You are +going away to-morrow.' + +He did not reply. His eyes were roving round the chamber, dimly lighted +by the two candles. He was observing the feminine details the +untidinesses so characteristic of her; the daintinesses, equally +characteristic--all in such odd contrast with inevitable bush +roughnesses. He noticed the silver and ivory on the dressing-table; the +large silver-framed photographs--an autographed one of the Queen of +Wartenburg--Molly Gaverick and Rosamond Tallant in Court veil and +feathers, Joan Gildea at her type-writer--the confusion of books, the +embroidered coverlet on the large bed, the bush-made couch at its foot +upholstered in rose-patterned chintz on which she had seated herself. + +'You have GOT to go,' she urged. 'WHATEVER happens, you are leaving +here with the mailman to-morrow.... Promise--on your word of +honour--that NOTHING shall hinder you.' + +'Of course, I shall keep my promise, though it breaks my heart to leave +you like this. But I know--I feel that the parting will not be for +long.... Yes....' as she slowly shook her head and a strange fateful +look shadowed the feverish brightness of her eyes. 'I COULDN'T leave +you if I didn't feel certain of that.' + +'Oh, I'm tired out. I'm tired--dead tired--' Her face was ghastly, her +lips like burning coals. 'I can't argue any more. And now it's +good-night--good-bye.' + +'Not good-bye. At least there will be time to-morrow for that.' + +'You MUST go--Good-night.' + +He left her, but waited in the veranda, reassuring himself by the sound +of movements on the other side of the closed door. When all was silent, +and the candles extinguished, he went back to his own room. + +He saw on the dressing-table his watch and chain with the key detached +beside them--a confirmnation of the truth of what Lady Bridget had told +him. But she had forgotten to tell him of the note she had left also, +and, naturally, he did not look for it. Had he known and looked he +would have discovered that the note was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + +Lady Bridget always looked back upon the next few days as a confused +nightmare. She awoke in the grip of fever--that malarial kind which is +common in Australia--tried to get up as usual, but fell back upon her +bed, faint and dizzy. Her brows ached. She had alternations of burning +heat and icy coldness. There came active periods in the dull lethargy +which is often a phase of fever, and from which she only roused herself +at the spur of some urgent call on her faculties. One of these was +Willoughby Maule's anxious message of enquiry conveyed by Maggie, to +which she had the presence of mind to return the answer that she had +caught cold, and was staying in bed for the present, but would no doubt +be quite well shortly. Also that she was sorry not to bid him good-bye, +but begged that he would not think of postponing his departure. + +She heard as in a dream the sound of the mailman's arrival, and +presently, of the saddling of horses in the yard, and then the +CLOP-CLOP of their feet as they were ridden past her end of the house +to the Gully crossing. There were two horses. So Maule had left the +head-station with Harry the Blower, as she had bidden him do. She was +conscious of relief. + +She realised in bewildered fashion, that Maule was gone out of her life +at Moongarr, and connected the sound of his horses' departing feet with +the thud of Sir Luke Tallant's hall door, when he had left her at the +first interview which had led to their final quarrel. + +From that effort of memory she sank again into mental coma. Maggie took +it to be natural sleep, and laid the mailbag just brought by Harry the +Blower, on her mistress' bed to await her awakening. Much later in the +day, on the return of Mr Ninnis and the other men from their +cattle-muster, finding the bag still untouched, Maggie broke the seals +at her mistress' dazed order, and having sorted out Lady Bridget's +letters, carried away the bag for Ninnis to take his own mail. + +But Lady Bridget paid no heed to her letters, and thus it happened that +for the time being, she was quite unaware of an event which was of +great importance to her. + +She had been scarcely even distantly conscious of the hue and cry, and +general excitement at the head-station, when it was discovered that the +prisoner had escaped. Harris had his own suspicions--it might be said, +his certainties, but the man's crafty nature bade him keep his +accusations for an opportunity when he ran less risk of being worsted. +He meant to wait until McKeith's return. Meanwhile what he had not been +prepared for was Willoughby Maule's departure with the mailman before +he himself came back from an unsuccessful hunt after the fugitives. +That move had lain outside his calculations. He had gleaned enough from +Mrs Hensor, as well as from his own observation, to feel sure that +Maule and Lady Bridget were in love with each other, and he had never +supposed that they would part so abruptly. + +The head-station was very shorthanded in the absence of Ninnis and the +stockmen, and Harris had been obliged to go out by himself on the +man-hunt. He did not know the country at the head of the gully, where +he concluded that Wombo was hiding, and lost himself in the gidia +scrub. Thus, he was in a very disagreeable temper, when he at last +arrived at the Bachelors' Quarters. + +To Lady Bridget the day passed, and all the seemingly distant noises of +it, like a phantasmagoria of vision, sound, impressions--the echoes of +station activity; the Chinamen's pidgin English as they weeded the +front garden; Tommy Hensor's voice when he brought the cook a nestful +of eggs some vagrant hen had laid in the grass-tussocks, the men going +forth with the tailing-mob--and at intervals the scorching recollection +of that hinted scandal concerning Colin and Mrs Hensor of which Maule +had told her.... Horrible... unbelievable... and yet.... + +Then, after a long while, with lucid breaks in the dreamy stupor, she +heard the roar of Ninnis' incoming mob of wild cattle from the range. +She could even wonder whether he had been able to muster that herd of +five hundred or so for the sale-yards. She knew that her husband was +counting upon the sale of these beasts--probably at 6 pounds a head--to +enable him to fight the drought, by a speedy sinking of artesian bores. +She felt herself reasoning quite collectedly on this subject, until the +roar of beasts turned into the roar of the mighty Atlantic, breaking +against the cliffs below Castle Gaverick.... She saw the green +waves--real as the heaving backs of the cattle--alive, leaping.... And +she herself seemed tossed on their crest... she saw and felt the cool +embrace of the wave-fairies she had once tried to paint for Joan +Gildea's book.... Oh! she had never fully appreciated the strength of +that now inappeasable longing for the Celtic home, the Celtic +traditions which had been born in her. She had never known how much she +loved Castle Gaverick... how much she loathed the muggy heat, the flies +and the mosquitoes now brought by last night's rain, the fierce glare +beating upon the veranda, the sun-motes dancing on the boards.... + +The appearance late that evening of Mrs Hensor, who having heard the +mistress was ill, had come down partly from curiosity, partly from +genuine humanity to see what might be amiss, was the next thing that +roused Lady Bridget from her fever-lethargy. + +'Maggie told me you'd been out in the rain last night, and had caught +cold, and I thought Mr McKeith would wish me to ask if I could do +anything,' Mrs Hensor said. + +Lady Bridget sat up in bed, for the moment her most haughty self. + +'Thank you; but there's no occasion for you to trouble, Mrs Hensor. I +would have sent for you if I had required your services.' + +'And I'm not aware that I was engaged to give them,' snorted Mrs +Hensor. 'It was out of consideration for Mr McKeith that I came. I've +got quite enough to do at the Quarters, and I'm really glad not to have +to trouble myself down here--what with Mr Ninnis wanting extra cooking, +and Mr Harris in such a rage over Wombo's getting away--I'm wondering +if you heard anything last night, of that, Lady Bridget? And Harris is +put out, too, over Mr Maule going off with Harry the Blower, while he +was hunting for the black-boy. However,' Mrs Hensor concluded, 'the +master will be here tomorrow to see into the rights of things.' + +'How do you know that the master will be here to-morrow?' asked Bridget +sharply. + +'Harry the Blower brought me a letter from Mr McKeith,' replied Mrs +Hensor with malign triumph. 'I suppose he thought you'd be too busy +doing things with Mr Maule to bother over the station affairs, and that +Mr Ninnis might be out on the run--and so he wrote to tell me what he +wanted done as he often used to before.' + +Lady Bridget closed her eyes, and leaned back against the pillows +trying hard to control the muscles of her face, and not to betray her +mortification. Moreover, she was certain that Mrs Hensor had stated the +exact truth. + +'I should prefer to be alone,' she said, feeling the woman's eyes upon +her. + +'Then I'll go, as you don't want me,' returned Mrs Hensor. 'But if I +was you, Lady Bridget, I'd take a dose of laudanum, and get myself into +a perspiration, for I believe it's a touch of dengue fever you've got +the matter with you.' + +A touch of dengue in tropical Australia may be serious or the +reverse--sharp and short and critical, or tedious and less dangerous. +Lady Bridget's case was the sharp, short kind demanding prompt +treatment. When McKeith came home the following day, he found her +delirious, and incapable of recognizing him. + +Worn out as was the strong man's frame--not only with wild jealousy and +tortured love, but with sleepless nights of patrol work, days in the +shearing-shed, sharp fighting with a second conflagration--fortunately +put out before much damage had been done--and a final dispersion of +Unionist forces, Colin never for one instant relaxed his watch by +Bridget's bedside. + +All night he tended her, fighting the fever as he had fought the fire +at Breeza Downs, plying her with continued fomentations, dosing her +with quinine, laudanum and the various medicines he had found +efficacious. For never was a better doctor for malarial fever than +Colin McKeith--he had had so much experience of it. When towards +morning she fell into a profuse sweating, and he had to change and +wring out the blankets in which he had wrapped her, he knew that the +fever danger was past. + +She awoke at mid-day from a deep, health-restoring sleep, so weak +however, that her bones felt like water and her face looked as white as +the pillow case. But her brain was clear. + +She saw that there was no one else in the room, which was still in +great disorder. The blankets, hot and heavy, were almost unbearable, +but she had not strength to fling them off. It felt frightfully warm +for the time of year and the air that came in through the open French +window seemed to be blowing from an oven. The sky, as she glimpsed it +from her bed between the veranda eaves and the railings, looked +curiously dark and had a lurid tinge. + +Lifting herself slightly, she became aware that Colin was in the +veranda with his back to her, looking out over the plain. The set of +his figure as he bent forward, with his hands on the railings and his +eyes apparently strained towards the horizon, reminded her of the +determined hunch of his square shoulders and the dogged droop of his +head when he had ridden away with Harris and the Organizer. + +She called faintly, 'Colin.' + +He turned round instantly and came to the bed. She stared up at him, +frightened at the look in his face.... Something dreadful must have +happened. She was too weak to go over coherently in her mind the +sequence of events and feelings. She only sensed a menacing spectre, +monstrous, terrifying. She could not realise her own share in the +catastrophe she felt was impending. She could not believe that Colin +could change so much in less than ten days. Everything had come about +with such incredible swiftness. His face looked haggard, ravaged. The +cheeks seemed to have fallen in. The features were rigid as if cut out +of metal. The whites of his eyes between the reddened lids were very +blood-shot and the eyes themselves seemed balls of blue fire. There was +not a shade of kindliness in them, only the gleam of a fixed purpose +which no entreaties would alter. + +She could imagine that he might have looked like that, when, as a boy +he had beheld the mutilated bodies of his father, mother, sisters, +stretched stark, after the blacks had done their hideous work. + +And it was true that he did feel now somewhat as that boy had felt, for +again to his tortured imagination that which he held dearest seemed to +be lying foully murdered before his eyes. She, his love, had been +ravished from him, and he could only regard her as dead to him for +evermore. + +'Colin,' she gasped. 'What is the matter?' + +The muscles of his face relaxed, it seemed automatically, as if there +were no soul behind. He laughed a dry ironic laugh. 'Never mind. You +mustn't speak.' + +He felt her pulse, examined her as a doctor might have done--all +without a word, and straightened the blankets and pillows. + +'You must have food,' he said, and went out. She heard him calling +Maggie. After a few minutes he came back with a tumbler of beaten egg +and milk, to which he had added brandy, and told her she must drink it. + +Her hand was too weak to hold the tumbler. He put one arm under the +pillow, raised her head and held the glass to her lips until she had +drunk every drop of the mixture. All this with no show of tenderness or +one unnecessary word. She needed the nourishment and stimulant, and +after them felt better. + +'I remember.... I must have been ill. What was the matter with me?' + +'Dengue,' he answered shortly. + +'I was out in the rain.... I got a chill I remember.' + +'Oh, you were out in the rain!... I should have thought you could have +done what you wanted without that.' The bitterness of his tone was +gall-like. And again the ironic laugh. + +She winced and drew her head aside. He took away his arm instantly from +behind the pillow and straightened himself, looking down on her, still +with that dreadful light in his eyes. She could not bear it, and turned +her head away from him. + +'Don't look at me.... I'm going to get up.' + +'No, I think you'll stay where you are.' His voice broke slightly but +hardened again. 'I won't talk to you. I won't let you speak a word +yet... that will come afterwards.' + +'But I don't understand.' + +'Better not now. I'll tell you this. You're through the fever. It won't +come back if you do as I tell you--You understand something about +dengue. You'll stop here till you're stronger. You've got to take the +brandy, eggs and milk till you feel sick of it. To-day you'll have +slops. I've told Maggie about preparing your food, if the fever comes +back--it won't if you keep quiet--but if it does--hot +bottles--blankets--laudanum--I've mixed the doses--until you get into a +sweat. Remember that. And you'll have someone in your room to-night.' + +'In my room--YOU? What do you mean?' + +'It won't be me--I'm going away.' + +'Going away--what is it?' + +She noticed that he turned and looked at the sky. + +'Why is it so dark--and the heat so stifling?' she asked. + +'These damned Unionists have fired the only good pasture left on +Moongarr. It's been burning since two o'clock this morning. I sent the +men out. Now I'm going myself--to save what I can.' + +He left the room abruptly. In a minute or two she heard him outside +calling 'Cudgee... Harris'--and then giving the order to saddle up. She +got out of bed and tottered to the window. She could see now the wide +range of the disaster. The lurid haze was spreading. The horizon +shrinking, and the air was hotter than ever. The fire seemed still a +long way off, but there was nothing to stop the flames if once they +reached the great plain. The course of the river, here at best a mere +string of shallow waterholes, was quite dry. The rain of the other +night had been too insignificant and local to do any good. The brown +mud-strip round the lagoon below, was not perceptibly diminished. She +knew that the narrow water channels flowing from their one working +artesian bore, must soon be licked up by the flames. And the Bore in +process of construction, was at a standstill for want of workmen. + +Bridget gazed out despairingly towards the shrinking horizon and upon +the parched plain with the rugged clumps of dun coloured gum trees +scattered upon it--the near ones looking like trees of painted tin, +sun-blistered. The swarms of flies, mosquitoes in the veranda offended +her. She disliked the cattle dogs mooching round with hanging jaws and +slavering tongues. The ferocious chuckle of a great grey +king-fisher--the bird which white people called the laughing +jackass--perched on the branch of a gum tree beside the fence, made her +shudder, because the bird's soulless cachinnation seemed an echo of +Colin's laugh. + +Ah! that was the bush, undivested of romance--hard, brutal, vindictive, +in spite of the mocking verdure of her honeymoon spring.... And Colin +was a part of the Bush. He resembled it. He too could be strong and +sweet and tender as the great blossoming white cedar down by the +lagoon, as rills of running water making the plain green--when his +desires were satisfied. And he could be brutal and vindictive likewise, +when anyone dared to thwart his will and defy his prejudices. + +She staggered about the room, feminine instinct prompting her to +freshen her appearance, to change her soiled, crumpled nightdress, to +throw a piece of lace over her dishevelled head, to pull up the linen +sheets which had been rolled clumsily to the foot of the bed, so that +the blankets could be wrapped round her. But she sank again presently, +exhausted, on her pillows. + +In a short time McKeith came back, booted and spurred, and stood as +before looking at her with forbidding sternness. + +'You'd better have stopped quiet. I've told Mrs Hensor to come down and +look after you. She knows what to do.' + +Bridget cried out passionately: 'I won't have that woman in my room. +How dare you tell her to come near me.' + +'Dare! That seems a queer way to put it. However, you can order her out +if you don't want her. There's Maggie--and I'm sending Ninnis back +to-night.' + +'When are you coming home?' + +'I can't say. I've got things to do--and to think about.' + +His words and his manner seemed to convey a sinister meaning. + +'I see--you are angry about the black-boy. If you want to know I will +tell you exactly what happened.' + +He laughed again and his laugh sounded to her insulting. + +'Oh, I know what has happened. You needn't tell me. I had some +conversation with Harris this morning. I know EVERYTHING; and now I've +got to settle in my own mind how things are to go on.' + +She went very white and repeated dully: 'How--things--are to go on?' + +'Between you and me. You don't imagine, do you, that they can go on the +same?' + +'No,' she retorted with spirit, 'certainly they can't go on the same.' + +Maggie had come along the veranda and was at the French window. + +'Mr Harris says he's ready, sir, and the horses....' + +'All right.' McKeith went out of the door, but turned and paused as if +he were going to speak to his wife. But he thought better of it and +walked rapidly away--perhaps because she avoided his look. + +She supposed that he was infuriated with her because of her part in +Wombo's escape, and she thought his anger unjust. No doubt, too, he +suspected Maule's connivance, and she knew that he was furiously +jealous of Maule. But surely he would understand that she must have +sent Maule away. What more can a wife do in the case of an +over-insistent lover? And how should a husband expect an explanation +when he had literally thrown her into her lover's arms, or at least had +left her defenceless against his solicitations! Had he treated her +differently after the Wombo episode in the beginning, she might have +told him the truth about her former relations with Willoughby Maule. + +As things had been, it was rather for Maule than for Colin that she +found excuse. + +She was bitterly hurt and offended against her husband. Oh, yes. He was +right. They could never again be the same to each other. If he had come +back penitent, pleading for forgiveness, overwhelmed with contrition at +her dismissal of Maule, she might then perhaps have explained +everything and they might have become reconciled. But now, his vile +temper, his insupportable manner, his dominant egoism made any attempt +of conciliation on her part impossible. She had a temper too--she told +herself, and her anger was righteous. And she also had an egoism that +wouldn't allow itself to be trampled on. She had rights--of birth, of +breeding, to say nothing of her rights of wifehood and womanhood for +which she must insist upon respect. If he would not bend to her, even +to show her ordinary consideration and courtesy, then she would not +lower her pride one iota before him. + +Thoughts of this kind went through her mind as she lay smarting under +the burning sense of outrage, until the reappearance of Mrs Hensor. +Then, the new effort she made in sending away the woman exhausted brain +and body and left her with scarcely the power to think--certainly not +to reason. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + +But Lady Bridget did not know what had followed upon her husband's +home-coming. She had not been in a condition to realize how all night +through he had tended her, putting aside every other consideration, +giving no heed to the affairs of the station, refusing to see the +Police Inspector who had sent in an urgent message soon after his +arrival. + +Only when turning for a moment to the veranda and noticing the red +glare in the sky, had he been startled out of his absorption in his +wife's illness. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been on his +horse in a twinkling and riding as for life to fight the worst foe a +squatter has to face in times of drought. He knew that if the fire +spread, it might mean his ruin. As it was, he rushed up to the Quarters +to rouse Ninnis and send him with Moongarr Bill and all available hands +to do what he could in arresting the flames. But he himself dared not +leave Bridget till the fever was down, and the crisis past. That could +not be till she had awakened from the deep sleep into which she had +fallen. + +With the sight of her in that sleep, however, the pull on his forces +slackened, though he was still too strung-up to think of snatching even +an hour's sleep for himself. He watched, alternately, the Bush fire and +Bridget's face, thinking his own dour thoughts the while. Every now and +then, he would creep on tip-toe to the veranda railings and gaze out +upon the lurid smoke which it seemed to him was thickening over the +horizon. When the sun was risen he washed and dressed and went up to +the Bachelors' Quarters where Mrs Hensor was already about and gave him +tea and food, which he badly needed. From her he learned a considerable +amount of what had been going on at Moongarr. From the Police +Inspector, a little later, he learned a good deal more. + +Harris' manner was portentous; he asked for a private interview in the +office, saying that he had stayed on purpose to see the Boss, because +his tale was impossible to write. Then he told his own version of the +capture and locking up of Wombo, taking blame on himself for having +left the key of the hide-house in Maule's possession. + +'But you see, Boss, he twitted me a bit about not having a warrant, and +there's no doubt, wherever he's learned it, that the chap has got the +whole constabulary lay-out at his finger ends--besides having the ear +of the Governor and the Executive down in Leichardt's Town. He's got +money too, no end of it. They were saying in Tunumburra that his wife +left him a quarter of a million.' + +'Go on--that's nothing to do with us,' put in McKeith gruffly. + +'He's an old friend of her Ladyship's, I understand,' sniggered Harris. + +'What the devil has that got to do with Wombo?' said McKeith furiously. + +Harris drew in his feelers. + +'I wouldn't swear that it had, Mr McKeith, and I wouldn't swear that it +hadn't. All I know is, that Mr Maule had the key of the hide-house in +his bedroom that night, and, being a close friend of her Ladyship's, he +was no doubt aware that she didn't relish the notion of Wombo's being +had up for theft and murder--I'm not saying who it was let out Wombo. +It's a mystery I don't take upon myself to fathom--I'll leave that to +you.' + +'There's one easy solution of the mystery that doesn't seem to have +occurred to you,' said McKeith. 'The gin Oola could easily have stolen +the key--they're cunning as the devil--half-castes--and as +treacherous--I know them--I've had my own good reasons for not letting +one of them inside the fence of my head-station.' + +'That may be--I can only say what I know, and you can form your own +opinion.' + +'Say what you know then--I'm waiting to hear. But be quick about it, +man, I've no time to waste this morning.' + +Harris began his tale--how he had watched at the window of his little +room, till after midnight, his gun ready, his eyes glued on the +padlocked door opposite; how overcome with drowsiness against which he +had vainly struggled--'for a man that's been pretty near two days and +nights in the saddle may be excused if his eyes begin blinking,' Harris +put it. He had dropped dead asleep--he confessed it--at his post. Then, +how on awakening suddenly, for no apparent reason, all seeming quiet +around, he had got up as he was, half dressed and in his boots--had +stepped across to the hide-house, had found the padlock intact and, +hearing no sound, had concluded the black-boy was inside safe asleep. +How then, with a relieved mind, he had been going back to his +stretcher, when the noise of a goat bleating had set him on the +look-out from his veranda. How, presently, looking at the veranda +opposite, he had seen the door of Mr Maule's bedroom open, and a woman +come out, how she had stood a few moments facing him, with the +moonlight straight on her, so that there was no possibility of his +making a mistake. Harris paused. McKeith glared at the man, who, had he +been quick at psychological interpretations, would have read an awful +apprehension underlying the ill-restrained fury in the other's face. +The question came in hoarse jerks. + +'What--Who--Who was it you saw--?' + +'It was the Lady Bridget, Boss.... I--' + +Before he could proceed, a strong arm struck out and McKeith's hand +clutched at the Police Inspector's neck. + +'You hound! You contemptible skunk! Take back that lie, or I'll +throttle it in your throat.' + +Harris was of powerful build also, and, moreover knew some tricks of +defence and assault. He freed himself by a dexterous duck of his head, +and a sharp shake of his body, and stepped backward so that the office +table was between him and his antagonist. + +His face was scarlet, his bull's eyes protruded from their full +sockets. But he was wary, and not anxious to provoke the devil in +McKeith. + +'Wait a bit,' he said thickly. 'If you'll keep your hands off me, and +let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm +not telling you lies--though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to +her Ladyship.... + +'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth +showing between his tense lips. + +'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I +can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be +reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence--well, so much +the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector craftily. + +McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing. +His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to +the quick, while Harris continued. + +'Well--I did see--that lady,'--the volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes +stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out +of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was +right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver--she'd been out in the +wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit +joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps--' + +'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you +couldn't have seen as far as the steps.' + +'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the +lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that +flower-bush'--Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed, +and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try +yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the +front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of--I guessed he'd come +round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she +oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp--She was shivering +again--she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just +picked her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I +stepped across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of +the front veranda....' + +A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make +when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he +stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The +Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful. + +'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be +anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then--in Mr +Maule's room, I went back and looked in. I wanted to make sure, if I +could, where the key of the hide-house might be. There was a candle +left alight, and I saw the key right enough on the chest of drawers +beside Maule's watch and chain. It never came into my mind then, that +anybody could have used it. I noticed a bit of folded paper under the +watch. That's it, Mr McKeith. There's the proof that I am not lying +about what I saw.' + +Harris had taken out of his breast pocket, a piece of newspaper in +which was wrapped the leaf torn out of Maule's notebook, folded and +addressed. He opened it out, and laid it on the office table in front +of McKeith, keeping his own stubby finger on one corner of the sheet. + +Still McKeith maintained his difficult self-restraint. + +'So you stole--a private communication that had been left in another +person's room, and was intended for his eyes alone?' + +'Come now, Boss. You know well enough that a constabulary officer who's +up against tricks to release a prisoner has got to keep his eyes +peeled, and mustn't let any clue to mischief escape him. How was I to +know that there wasn't some plot to cheat the law? How do I know that +there wasn't? That's why I'm showing you the paper. I'm not a French +scholar--I suppose that's French--and as I suppose you are, I'll ask +you to translate what's written there.' + +McKeith pushed aside the man's finger, and taking up the paper carried +it to the window, where he stood with his back to Harris, spelling out +Lady Bridget's hurriedly written sentences. + +He seemed a long time in getting at the sense of what he read. As a +matter of fact, he had only a limited acquaintance with any modern +languages except his own. He had picked up some colloquial German, and +once when laid up in hospital, had set himself to read Balzac's PERE +GORIOT with the aid of a dictionary. Thus he had acquired a fairly +extensive if somewhat archaic vocabulary. But Lady Bridget's veiled +intimation of Wombo's escape couched in up-to-date and highly idiomatic +French which would have been perfectly intelligible to Willoughby +Maule, conveyed little to him beyond the fact of a secret understanding +between his wife and a man whom he knew had once been her lover. That +idea drove every other into the background of his thoughts. He did not +care in the least how Wombo had escaped. It seemed clear to him that +Oola had stolen the key after Harris had gone back to his room, while +Maule and his wife were together--together in Lady Bridget's own +chamber. The blood surged to his brain, and his temples throbbed as +though they would burst. In the madness of his jealousy, the words of +the paper, combined with Harris' revelations were damnatory +confirmation of his wife's guilt. He felt now that he had foreseen what +would happen, from the moment that he had surprised the look on Lady +Bridget's face, when Maule had unexpectedly appeared before her. She +had given herself away then. And, a little sooner, rather than a little +later--as might have been the case had he not left them together--the +inevitable had come to pass. + +Yes, through the agony of that conviction now brought home to him, a +dogged resolve formed itself in his mind--the determination not to +betray himself or her. It beat upon him with insistent force. Though +his goddess must be dethroned from her shrine in his heart, she should +not be cast down for a vulgar brute like Harris to gloat over her +shame.... + +'Well, Boss,' the Police Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that +bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to +you out of that?' + +McKeith turned, Harris thought he was going to leap upon him in a fit +of blind fury, and started up from his seat by the office table. +McKeith's eyes blazed, his taut sinews quivered; his face was now quite +pallid, and the hand in which he held the piece of paper was clenched +so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords, and the knuckles +were perfectly bloodless. + +But suddenly the pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped, +and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant. + +He moved into his usual office chair. + +'Sit down again, won't you, Harris?' he said, and Harris resumed his +former place. + +'What were you asking?' McKeith continued. 'Satisfactory to me is it? +Yes, perfectly satisfactory, thank you.... I'm only amused--as you +see... to find that I was quite right in my suspicions.' And he laughed +in what Harris thought a very odd way. + +'Eh? I don't take your meaning.' Harris' manner was distinctly +objectionable. + +McKeith gave him a sharp look, and his teeth went over his under lip. +Then, to the man's evident surprise, he laughed again, throwing his +head back so that the muscles of his throat showed under his beard, +working, as it were, automatically. It really seemed as if the man's +mechanical merriment were no part of himself. He was, in fact, gaining +time to propound an explanation which he did not believe in the least, +but which happened to be almost the exact truth. + +He answered with an air of ironic indifference. + +'Well, you know, I wouldn't go in for the detective line, if I were +you, Harris. You aren't subtle enough for it. You jump too quickly at +conclusions which have nothing to do with the main point. In fact, +you're a fool, Harris--a damned fool.' + +Harris' puzzled expression turned to one of extreme indignation. 'Seems +to me, Mr McKeith, that it's you who are--well, damned queer about this +affair. I'm sure I don't know what you've got to laugh at. But if +you've found out who let the black-boy out of the hide-house, I'd be +glad to know, that's all.' + +McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He +leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had +laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's last words. + +'Yes, that IS all. It's the only part of this note which concerns you. +Well, I can tell you that it was the half-caste woman, as I thought, +who let Wombo out of the hide-house. She stole the key from Mr Maule's +room when HE was asleep, and let Wombo out when YOU were asleep--a +longer time perhaps than you imagined, Harris. The black-boy made for +the scrub, and I suppose they were in too great a hurry to think of +shutting the door. Oola sneaked back--they've got the cunning of whites +and blacks put together, those half-castes--and no doubt she guessed +there'd be a hue and cry directly the door was found open. So she +locked it again--and brought the key to her ladyship.' + +McKeith seemed to force the last words from between his teeth. + +'Well, that's quite simple, isn't it?' + +'Now, I shouldn't call it as simple as you make out, Boss. It appears +mighty odd to me that the gin should have worried round after her +ladyship when she might have sneaked back with the key to the place she +took it from. And then there's all the rest--the putting the key back +and fitting in times and all that.... Seems to me a bit too much of the +Box and Cox trick--a sort of jig-saw puzzle, d'you see.' + +Manifestly, Harris was endeavouring to square probabilities. McKeith +still held himself in. + +'I've given you the facts. You can figure out your details for +yourself. I've my own business to attend to, and I must be off on it.' + +He got up, and folding Lady Bridget's note, deliberately put it in his +breast pocket. Harris stretched forth a restraining hand. + +'Boss, I say--that's important--for my report, you know.' + +McKeith's temper burst out. + +'Damn your report. I'm a magistrate, and I've taken your report, and +the blacks are in the scrub and you can go and find them for yourself +if you choose. You have no warrant, remember. No, I'm not going to be +bothered any more about that black-boy. What.... Not I--with a fire +raging on my run, and not enough hands to put it out.' + +'But her ladyship....' spluttered Harris. + +'Listen here you....' McKeith's face and attitude were menacing. 'I +came back to find her ladyship down with dengue as bad as could be. It +was on her that night, and if she had to be carried to her room in a +fit of shaking, what business is that of yours? Understand me, Harris. +Don't you go mixing up my wife's name with this beastly black-boy +affair, or you'll have to reckon with me--and I can tell you, you won't +relish that reckoning.' + +'There was no offence meant. I only wanted to do my duty,' protested +the Police Inspector, cringing after the way of bullies. + +'You'll find opportunity enough for doing that if you ride back to +Breeza Downs and lend the Specials your valuable assistance in +protecting the sheep-owners against the Unionists. And I might remind +you, as I reminded that damned Organiser who's fired my run, that +there's a hundred pounds reward still waiting for anybody who catches +the men that robbed my drays and killed my horses.' + +McKeith paused a moment before going out by the further door of the +office which looked out on the plain. + +'I'll leave you now to run up your horse and make your own +arrangements. As soon as I can, I shall start to help in getting the +bush fire under. You can arrest that Organiser if you are keen on +arresting somebody. Send in when you're saddled up, and if I'm ready +we'll ride to the turn-off track together.' + +McKeith went back to his wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it +was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He +left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He +sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep +dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from +between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where +he had bitten it in the effort to control himself. Presently, he heard +a sound in the next room--a half moan--a name spoken. No, it would not +be his name that she would utter first on her return to consciousness. + +The man got up; stretched his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had +been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the +blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she +opened her eyes and found him looking down at her. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + +Next morning, Lady Bridget was better and her mind clearer. There had +been no return of fever, and, though the physical weakness was great +and her temperature--had she taken it--would have been found a good +deal below normal, her fierce determination not to remain helpless any +longer gave her strength to get up and dress. She was not able, +however, to do anything but lie in a half-alive condition in the +hammock at the end of the veranda. All night the fire had blazed, but +more fitfully, and this morning the lurid glare had died down. Only a +murky haze, faintly red here and there, spread over the north-eastern +sky. Small, isolated smoke-clouds rose above the stretches of forest, +and an irregular-shaped tract of charred grass at the edge of the plain +showed how far the flames had encroached upon it before they had been +got under. One might well conceive with what almost superhuman +exertions the beaters had at length accomplished their task. A large +number of cattle had been driven by the fire on to the pasture beyond +the home paddock--a pasture that had so far been carefully nursed in +view of possible later necessity. + +Bridget was bushwoman enough to comprehend the crippling effect upon +McKeith's resources of the calamity, had she allowed her mind to dwell +upon that aspect of affairs. But her mind was incapable just now of +dealing with practical issues. She felt utterly weak, utterly lonely. +Although she was glad Maule had gone, she missed his sympathetic +companionship to an extent that she could hardly have thought possible. + +As the hammock swayed gently at the slight touch of her fingers on its +rope edge, her imagination drifted dangerously and her senses yielded +to the old drugging fascination. He seemed as close to her as had been +his bodily shape a few days previously. She was conscious of the pull +of his will upon the invisible cords by which he held her. If it were +an unholy spell, it was, now, at least, in her desolation, a consoling +one. He loved her; he wanted her. She knew that he was passionately +eager to devote his life to her. He would wait expectantly until she +wrote. With a few strokes of her pen she might end her irksome +captivity in this wall-less prison of desert plain--this wilderness of +gum and gidia. + +As she lay there in the hammock, a child's clumpy boots pattered along +the garden path and Tommy Hensor came up the steps with a big cabbage +leaf gathered in his hand. He opened it out when he reached the veranda +and displayed three Brazilian cherries, the first fruits of a plant +growing in the Chinaman's garden. + +'La-ship ... La-ship! I got these myself. I made Fo Wung give 'em me +for you.' + +At any other time the child's offering would have been received, at any +rate, graciously. Now Tommy shrank away, startled by the look on Lady +Bridget's face and the forbidding gesture with which she warned him off. + +'Go away! ... Go away! ...' she cried. 'I don't want you.' + +Tommy's common, freckled little face crumpled up and his blue eyes +filled with tears. He dropped the cabbage leaf and the cherished +Brazilian cherries and ran down the steps again, blubbering piteously. + +Lady Bridget got up as soon as the child had clicked the garden gate +behind him. She was ashamed of the spasm of revulsion that had seized +her. She wanted to cast away from her the dreadful thought his +appearance had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the +fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the +butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big, +grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in +derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of hysterical laughter. + +A little later Maggie came out from the bedroom with some letters in +her hand. + +'I've laid holt on your mail, Ladyship, turning out your room. I expect +you forgot all about it.' + +Yes, she had forgotten, absolutely; it seemed years since Harry the +Blower had passed by and Willoughby Maule had departed. She languidly +inspected the envelopes. Nothing among them of any importance--except +one. + +It was a blue telegraph-service envelope, and had been forwarded on by +the postman from Crocodile Creek, the nearest telegraph station. In the +last fifteen months they had brought the bush railway a good deal +further up the river, and Crocodile Creek was the present terminus. +Thus the road journey was now considerable shorter than when Colin +McKeith had brought his bride home. + +Lady Bridget read the several lines of the cabled message over two or +three times before the real bearings of it became clear to her +fever-weakened intelligence. + +At last she grasped the startling fact that the cablegram was from her +cousin, Lord Gaverick, and that it had been despatched from London +about seven days previously. This was what it said. + +'ELIZA GAVERICK DIED TWENTIETH LEAVES YOU CASTLE AND FIFTY THOUSAND +DIFFICULTIES EXECUTORS YOUR PRESENCE URGENTLY DESIRED WIRE IF CAN COME, +GAVERICK' + +Lady Bridget let the blue form drop on her lap. She stared out over the +brown plain and the herds of lean beasts all shadowy in the smoky mist +over the horizon, then round, along the wilderness of gidia scrub, with +its charred patches afar off, from which there still rose thin spirals +of smoke. + +Destiny had spoken. Here was the order of release. There was no gaoler +to keep the prison doors locked any longer--except--except--No, if she +wished to break her bonds, Colin would never gainsay her. + + + +Late that night the men came back from fighting the fire which they had +now practically put out. Even in the moonlight they looked deplorable +objects, grimed, covered with dust and ashes, their skins and clothes +scorched by the fierce heat. + +They seemed drunk with fatigue, and could scarcely sit their horses. +When they dismounted they could hardly stand. + +Their feeble COO-EES at the sliprails brought out Ninnis, who had been +sent home in the afternoon and had been taking some well-earned repose +so as to be ready for the next shift--happily not required. He and the +few hands left to look after the head-station and the tailing-mob held +the men's horses when their riders literally tumbled off them. Ninnis +made McKeith take a strong pull of whiskey and supported him along to +the Old Humpey. For Colin had had strength to say that Lady Bridget +must on no account be disturbed. Ninnis led him to the room lately +occupied by Willoughby Maule, and was surprised at his employer's +vehement refusal to remain in it. + +'I'll not stop here.... No, I won't go to my dressing-room. In God's +name, just let me stretch myself on the bunk in the Office and go to +sleep.' + +He threw himself on a bush-carpentered settle, with mattress and +pillows covered in Turkey-red, which was used sometimes at mustering +times when there was an overplus of visitors. There he lay like a log +for close on twelve hours. + +By and by, Lady Bridget, at once longing and reluctant, came softly in +to see how he fared. + +A storm of pity, anger, tenderness, repulsion--the whole range of +feeling, it seemed, between love and hate--swept over her as she looked +at the great gaunt form stretched there. Colin was still in riding +clothes and booted and spurred. His moleskins were black with smoke and +charcoal; his flannel shirt, open at the neck, showed red scratches and +scorch-marks on the exposed chest and was torn over the arms, where +were more excoriations of the flesh. And the ravaged face! How hard it +was. How relentless, even in the utter abandonment of bodily +exhaustion! The skin was caked with black dust and sweat. The darkened +thatch of yellow hair was dank and wet. The fair beard, usually so +trim, was singed in places, matted, and had bits of cinder and burnt +leaves sticking to it. + +A revolting spectacle, offending Lady Bridget's fine, physical +sensibilities, but a MAN--THE Man. She could not understand that +tornado of emotion which now made her being seem a very battle-ground, +for all the primal passions. She turned away with a sense of nausea, +and then turned to him again with a kind of passionate longing to take +him in her arms--brutal as she thought him, and unworthy of the +affection she had once felt for him--felt still alas!--and all the +romance she had once woven about him.... She saw that a fly was +hovering over the excoriated arm and drew the ragged sleeve over its +bareness. Then she noticed the mosquito net reefed up on a hoop above +the bunk, and managed to get the curtain down so that he should be +protected from the assaults of insects. But as she touched him in doing +this, he stirred and muttered wrathfully in his sleep, as though he +were conscious of her tenderness and would have none of it; she fled +away and came to him no more. + +She had been racking her brain since receiving the cablegram as to what +answer she should return to it. + +After that pitiable sight of her husband, Bridget moved restlessly +about the house, with intervals of lassitude in the hammock, for she +still felt weak and ill. But quinine was keeping the fever down, and +she resolved that her husband should not again be required to nurse +her. She did not go into the Office any more, but busied herself in a +defiant fashion upon little cares for his comfort when he awoke. He +should see that she did not neglect her house-wifely duties--at least +while she remained there to perform them. The qualification was +significant of her mood. + +Thus, she gave orders that the veranda of the Old Humpey should be kept +free from disturbing footsteps, and saw that the bathroom was in order, +and a change of clothing set ready for him when he should awake. Also +that there should be a meal prepared. + +He did not wake till the afternoon. She heard him go straight in to +take his bath, and hastened to have the dining room table spread. But +she saw him go out of the bathroom--all fresh and more like +himself--and cross the yard on his way to the Bachelors' Quarters, +making it clear to her that he wished to avoid the part of the house +she occupied. Bridget went back to the front veranda in a cold fury, +pierced by stabs of mental pain. She watched him from the end of the +veranda go into the living room of the Quarters, and thought bitterly +that he would ask Mrs Hensor for the food he required. No doubt too, he +would obtain from Mrs Hensor, information as to how she herself had +been getting on during his absence, and Mrs Hensor would give him a +garbled report of her own dismissal from the sick room.... How dared +he--oh! how DARED he treat her, Lady Bridget, his wife, with such cruel +negligence, such marked insult! + +It did not occur to her that he might wish to see Ninnis, who, when at +the station, was usually about this time, in his office at the back of +the Bachelors' Quarters. + +After a time, she heard Colin's voice again in the yard, and his step +on the Old Humpey veranda. He came now by the covered passage on to +that of the New House, and advanced towards her. + +He only came, she told herself, because it would have seemed too +strange had he continued to ignore her existence. + +And he was conscious of her resentment. By a curious affinity, his own +spirit thrilled to the unquenchable spirit in her. Qualities in himself +responded to like qualities in her. He admired her pride and pluck. Yet +the two egoisms reared against each other, seemed to him--could he have +put the thought into shape--like combatants with lances drawn ready to +strike. + +He believed that it was love which gave her strength--love, not for +him, but for that other man whose influence he was now convinced had +always been paramount, and who with renewed propinquity had resumed his +domination. + +Certain phrases in that letter he had read long ago on Joan Gildea's +veranda, and which had been haunting him ever since Willoughby Maule's +re-appearance, struck his heart with the searing effect of lightning. +He felt, at the first sight of her there on the veranda, before she +turned full to him, a passionate yearning to take her in his arms, and +cover her poor little wasted face with kisses--to call her 'Mate'; to +remind her of that wonderful marriage night under the stars. But when +he saw the proud aloofness of her look, his longing changed to a dull +fury, which he could only keep in check by rigorous steeling of his +will against any softening impulse. + +So his face was hard as a rock, his voice rasping in its restraint, +when he came near and spoke to her. 'You have not had any more fever?' + +'No.' + +He put two or three questions to her about her health--whether she had +taken the medicine he had left for her, and so on, to which she +returned almost monosyllabic replies, sufficiently satisfactory in the +information they gave him. + +'That's all right then,' he said coldly. 'I thought it would be, though +I didn't at all like leaving you in such a condition.' + +'Really! But it doesn't seem as if you had felt any violent anxiety +about me since you came back. I heard you go to the bathroom a long +time ago, and I saw you going up to the Quarters.' + +He did not appear to notice the latter implication. + +'I had to sleep,' he said curtly. 'I was dead beat.' + +'Yes, I saw that,' she answered. + +'A-ah!' The deep intake of breath made a hissing sound, and he flushed +a brick red. 'You came and looked at me?' + +'I went into the Office.' + +'I didn't want you to see me. You must have loathed the sight of me. I +was a disgusting object.' + +She said nothing. + +If he had glanced at her he would have seen a piteous flicker of +tenderness pass over her face--a sudden wet gleam in her eyes. And had +he yielded then to his first impulse, things might have gone very +differently between them. But he kept himself stiffened. He would not +lift his eyes, when she gave him a furtive glance. The expression of +his half averted face was positively sinister as he added with a +sneering little laugh. + +'One can't look as if one had come out of a bandbox after fighting a +bush fire.' + +She exclaimed, 'Oh! what does it matter?' + +He utterly mistook the meaning of her exclamation. + +'You are quite right,' he retorted. 'When it comes to the end of +everything, what does ANYTHING matter!' + +For several moments there was dead silence. She felt as if he had +wilfully stabbed her. He on his side had again the confused sense of +two antagonists, feinting with their weapons to gain time before the +critical encounter. + +'Well?' He swung himself savagely round upon her. 'That's true, isn't +it? The end HAS come.... You're sick of the whole show--dead sick--of +the Bush--of everything?--Aren't you? Answer me straight, Bridget.' + +'Yes, I am,' she replied recklessly. 'I hate the Bush--I--I hate +everything.' + +'Everything! Well, that settles it!' he said slowly. + +Again there was silence, and then he said: + +'You know I wouldn't want to keep you--especially now,'--he did not add +the words that were on his lips 'now that bad times are coming on +me,'--and she read a different application in the 'now.' 'I--I'd be +glad for you to quit. It's as you please--maybe the sooner the better. +I'll make everything as easy as I can for you.' + +'You are very--considerate....' The sarcasm broke in her throat. + +She moved abruptly, and stood gazing out over the plain till the +hysterical, choking sensation left her. Her back was to him. He could +not see her face; nor could she see the dumb agony in his. + +Presently she walked to a shelf-table on the veranda set against the +wall; and from the litter of papers and work upon it, took up the +cablegram she had lately received. + +'I wanted to show you this,' she said stonily, and handed him the blue +paper. + +There was something significant in the way he steadied it upon the +veranda railing, and stooped with his head down to pore over it. + +The blow was at first almost staggering. It was as though the high gods +had shot down a bolt from heaven, shattering his world, and leaving him +alone in Chaos. They had taken him at his word--had registered on the +instant his impious declaration. It WAS the end of everything. She was +to quit.... He had said, the sooner the better.... Well--he wasn't +going to let even the high gods get a rise out of him. + +He laughed. By one of those strange links of association, which at +moments of unexpected crisis bring back things impersonal, unconnected, +the sound of his own laugh recalled the rattle of earth, upon the dry +outside of a sheet of bark in which, during one of their boundary rides +at Breeza Downs lately, they had wrapped for burial the body of a +shepherd found dead in the bush. Both sounds seemed to him as of +something dead--something outside humanity. + +He handed her back the telegram, speaking still as if he were +far-off--on the other side of a grave, but quite collectedly and as +though in the long silence he had been weighing the question. + +'It seems to me that this has come to you in the nick of time, to solve +difficulties.' + +'Yes,' she assented dully. + +'You've got no choice but to go as your cousin says. There's money +depending on it.' + +'Money! ... Oh, money!' she cried wildly. + +'Money is apt to stick on to lawyers' fingers when they're left to the +handling of it .... This is a matter of business, and business can't be +put on one side--especially, when there's as large a sum as fifty +thousand pounds in the proposition. I guess from this that you're +wanted.' + +'Yes,' she said again. She was thinking to herself, 'That's his Scotch +carefulness about money; he wouldn't consider anything in comparison +with that.' + +'You had better take the northern route,' he went on. 'There ought to +be an E. and A. boat due at Leuraville pretty soon--I'll look it out. +... Perhaps you'd like to make the start to-morrow?' + +'To-morrow--oh yes, to-morrow--just whenever suits you.' + +'I couldn't take you down myself. There are things--serious matters +I've got to see to on the station. And besides, you'll allow it's best +for me not to go with you. Ninnis could drive you to Crocodile Creek, +and put you into the train; and Halliwell will look after you at +Leuraville, and see you on board the steamer.' + +'Oh, I wonder that you can spare Ninnis,' she returned bitterly. 'I +suppose you'd want Moongarr Bill still more on the run. But there's Joe +Casey--I daresay somebody else can milk the cows, and get up wood and +water. Or there's Cudgee--I don't mind who goes with me.... I can drive +myself.' + +'My God! do you imagine I'd put a black-boy--or anyone but my own +trusted overseer in charge of you! What are you thinking of to talk +like that?' + +He took a few steps along the veranda, moving with uncertain gait; then +stopped and leaned heavily against the wall. In a few seconds he had +recovered himself, and came back to her, speaking quietly. + +'I will think out things and arrange it all. You'll be perfectly safe +with Ninnis, I think it would be better for you to sleep one night at +old Duppo's place. There's fresh horses for the buggy there--I've got +Alexander and Roxalana in the paddock now--they're the best....' + +Oh, how could he bear that those horses, of the dream-drive, should +take her away from him! He went on in the same matter-of-fact manner. +'I expect the answer to the cablegram will get as quickly as if Harry +the Blower took it, if you send it from Crocodile Creek yourself. And +there's your packing--there's not much time, but you won't want to take +a lot of things. Anything you cared about could go afterwards.' + +'Go afterwards--What do you mean? I want to take nothing--nothing +except a few clothes.' + +'Ah well--it doesn't matter--As you said--nothing matters now.... Well, +I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's +money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old +Humpey, looking back at her--'what you'll need for the passage--and +afterwards--I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it +with the Bank manager at Leuraville.' + +A mocking demon rose in her. + +'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare +passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.' + +His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was +terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out. + +'I don't think--you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly +down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a +mortal hurt. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + +If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last +evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her +husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It +would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably +McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least +when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed +to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks. +No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and +spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to +approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more +forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was +living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly +serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love. + +There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife +both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed +scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis--first explaining to +the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's +voyage to England--a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind, +particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a +little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also +recognised practical reasons--against that natural concession to +sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer +ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in +himself. + +The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling +the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing +that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very +hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow, +when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at +old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander +and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey. +They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at +Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And +there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady +Bridget's comfort during the journey. + +Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further +overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle sales.... +Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and expenses of +sinking fresh artesian bores--now that the fire had destroyed all the +best grass on the run? + +McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That +only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new +strength to the wall between them. + +He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were +written--to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the +Police-magistrate at Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and +Australian Steam Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay +the passage; to the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who +happened to be an acquaintance of his--all recommending Lady Bridget to +the different people's care--all anticipating and arranging against +every possible drawback to her comfort on the voyage--all carefully +stating the object of her trip to England--business connected with the +death of a near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of +dinner--during which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before +Maggie and the Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact +details--looking out the exact time of the putting in of the next E. +and A. boat at Leuraville--all of which he had already done, and +pointing out to Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare. + +There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things +to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the +office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not +come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on +the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in +wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze. + +Her packing was no great business--clothes for the voyage, and a big +furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth +of winter--that was all. + +Everything else--her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings--she left +just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt +reckless and quite hard. + +Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing +tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree, +warped almost into a tube. + +She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would +Colin ever find it there--and would he understand? All the time, +through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any +possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the +past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon. + +When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her +husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage. +Scarcely a word passed between them; they did not even breakfast +together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast +already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about +collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and +begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the +basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo +Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a +supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early +flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries. + +Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they +promised to have the garden 'velly good--TAI YAT number one' and to +'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence. + +While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine +and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared +in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different +bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy. + +Everything was ready now--the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that it +could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain--this last +alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were champing +their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean puggaree, +wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of ladies he +wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining the lash +of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last directions. There +was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up the steps of the +back veranda, and in at the French window of the sitting room, where +Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his appearance, she went back +into the room. She stood quite still, small, shadowy, the little bit of +her face which showed between the folds of her motor veil, where it was +tied down under her chin--very pale, and the eyes within their red, +narrowed lids, dry and bright. + +'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked. + +'Yes.' + +He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands, +carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it +to Mr Ninnis--all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called him +back in a hard voice. + +'Colin--I've left my keys,'--pointing to a sealed and addressed +envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of +value--some you have given me--in the drawers.' + +'I will take care of them,' he answered hoarsely. + +They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised, +stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces. + +'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say +good-bye?' + +He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and +dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision +might not pierce--through which their yearning lips might not touch. +For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of +emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice; +she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved +back a step. + +'Good-bye--Bridget.' + +'Is that all you have to say? All?' + +He stuttered, helplessly. 'I--I--can't.... There's nothing to say.' + +'Nothing! You let me go--like this--without one word of apology--of +regret. I think that, at least, you owe me--courtesy.' + +Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied +speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say +this--though where's the good of talking.... What does it amount to +anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but +to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say +this--I've never pretended to fine manners--I leave them--to others. +I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!--that's my +apology--As for regret. My God! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I +won't say that.... Because there are some things I CAN'T regret--for +myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane ass ever to imagine +that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman brought up +like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come +out--incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding--outlook on +things--they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that +it's sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your +old conditions before you've grown different in yourself--dried +up--soured--maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in +the bush.... As it is, you'll get out all right--Never fear that I +won't see you get out all right.' + +'And you?' she put in. + +'Me! I don't count--I don't care.... A man's not like a woman. I've +always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not +going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good--some time--somehow. +I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in +the big shake-up.' + +She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the +expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism--a +lower side of him asserting itself just then--had always jarred upon +her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem +revolted at it. + +'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to +my rights, and keep you here with me--what has happened would prevent +me--I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife. +But you won't be harmed.... I don't know yet, but I believe there's a +way by which you can win through straight and square--no smirch that +you need mind--And if there is--whatever the way of it is, I'll do my +best to bring you out all right.' + +'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter. +'May I ask what you propose to do?' + +'There's no use....' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no +good--now. I've got my own ideas....' + +'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you +will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.' + +He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said: + +'The buggy is waiting, will you come?' + +He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to +help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His +strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his +fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all--the +suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to +hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her +throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word passed +between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality--began a sort of +speech about the cause of her departure--condolence and congratulations +stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short. + +'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll +want a bit of driving at the start.' + +He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round +her knees. In doing so, he bent his head--she thought he had dropped +something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light +summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though +they were touching her flesh. + +She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look, just for a second. The +horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back. + +'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust +me to look well after her ladyship.... Be back again as soon as I can.' + +And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her +last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill +was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders. + +It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, +but the end had come--come with such hideous misconception--every word +spoken--and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of +the occasion--a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two +opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a cross-cut saw +against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. Then the +extraordinary involvements of circumstance. Each incident, big and +little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. It +seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every +plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost +all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift +in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + +From Joan Gildea to Colin McKeith. + +Written about a year later. + +MY DEAR COLIN, + +I find it impossible to recognise my old friend in the hard, +businesslike communication you sent me from Leichardt's Town. I almost +wish that you had allowed the lawyer you consulted to put the case +before me instead; it would have seemed less unfitting, and I could +have answered it better. But I quite appreciate your objection to +taking the lawyer into your confidence as regards the personal matters +you mention to me. It would be cruelly unjust--I think quite +unpardonable in you to bring forward the name of Mr Willoughby Maule in +connection with Bridget. Not that HE would mind that. I honestly +believe that he would snatch gladly at any means for inducing Bridget +to marry him. Whether she would do so, if you were to carry through +this amazing scheme of yours, it's impossible for me to say. At present +she certainly prefers to keep him at a distance. He has never been to +Castle Gaverick. And except for a few visits on business to London that +is where she has lived since she came over here. + +Your letter followed me to Jamaica where I've been reporting on the +usual lines for THE IMPERIALIST, but, of course I couldn't answer it +until I had talked it over with Bridget and, as you desired, had +obtained her views on the matter. It was a shock to her to realise that +your reason for never writing to her and for refusing to let her write +to you, was lest that might affect the legality of these proceedings, +which I understand you have contemplated from the beginning of your +quarrel. Bridget is too proud to show you how deeply she is wounded by +your letter. All she has to say is, that if you really wish to take +this action, she will not oppose it. + +But Colin, do you really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you +seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have +not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which +allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only +say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce +should be for one cause only--the cause to which Our Lord gave a +qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful--in act or +desire, to her husband. I would maintain this in spite of the most +damning testimony, and you must in your heart believe it also. Besides, +your testimony is ridiculously inadequate. + +I am glad, however, that you have at last made your accusations in +detail--in order, as you say--that I--and Bridget, incidentally, I +suppose--should fully understand why you are adopting this attitude +towards her. I'm glad too, that you do not mean to make any use of the +evidence against her and are prepared to take all the blame for the +unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it +would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this +pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these +sheets--I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult +for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you +understand in five minutes--but I can't--so there! + +Naturally, I had heard of your bringing Mr Willoughby Maule to the +station, and when I learned what followed, naturally also, I concluded +that you had discovered his identity with that of the man Bridget had +once cared for. I blame myself horribly. But for my carelessness you +would never have read that letter of Biddy's--she knows all about it +now--and your insane jealousy would not have jumped to conclusions--at +any rate so quickly. And perhaps if I had not bound you to secrecy +you'd have had the matter out with her, which would probably have saved +all this trouble. Anyhow, I can't imagine that you would have left her +alone with him as you did--and with bad feeling between you--at the +mercy of her own reckless impulses and that of Willoughby Maule's +ardent love-making. She doesn't pretend that it wasn't ardent, or that +he did not do his best to get her to run away with him--or that the old +infatuation did not come back to a slight extent--Is it surprising +after your conduct? No wonder she compared his devotion favourably, +with yours. Colin, your leaving her in such conditions wasn't the act +of a MAN, of a gentleman. I speak strongly, but I can't help it. I know +your stubborn pride and obstinacy, but you were wrong, you have +disappointed me--oh! how bitterly you have disappointed me! + +Then there was that business about the blacks. What a fool you +were--and how brutally self-opinionated! I don't wonder Bridget thought +you an inhuman monster. + +Now I have said my worst, and you must take it as it is meant and +forgive me. + +As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your +Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital--I used to +think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen--but they don't seem +to be, out on the Leura--I've got all the details from Biddy. A +tragi-comic business--so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over +it, if it weren't for its serious consequences. Of course, Biddy got up +to turn out the goats which were butting with their horns under the +floor of her bedroom. I've often got up myself in the old days at +Bungroopim, when stray calves got into the garden, or the cockatoo +disturbed our slumbers. Do you remember Polly? and how she would keep +shouting out on a moonlight night 'The top of the mornin' to +ye'--because we'd forgotten to put her blanket over the cage--I believe +there were several occasions when you and I met in midnight dishabille +and helped each other to restore tranquillity. If anyone was to blame +for Biddy's adventure, it was your wood-and-water joey--or your +Chinamen--or whoever's business it may have been to see that the goats +were properly penned. + +Naturally, Mr Maule, when he was disturbed too, came and did the +turning out for Bridget and shepherded the creatures to the fold. + +Then meanwhile, she saw the black-gin sneaking in at Mr Maule's back +window to steal the key; and WOULD it have been philanthropic, +impulsive Biddy, if she hadn't helped in the work of rescue, and sent +the two sinners, with a 'Bless you, my children!' off into the scrub? +It was like Biddy too, to go and put the key back in Mr Maule's bedroom +and to scribble that ridiculous note in French so that he shouldn't go +blundering to the hide-house and hurry up the pursuit. I told Bridget +how the Inspector had watched her go out of Mr Maule's room, and had +grabbed the note afterwards, and shown it to you. She had forgotten +altogether about that note--supposed that, of course, it had reached +its proper destination. She couldn't remember either exactly what she +had written--except that she wanted to word it so that if there should +be any accident, nobody--except Mr Maule, for of course, they'd +determined on the release before that--should understand to what it +referred. So she didn't mention any name--she believes she dashed off +some words he had quoted to her about Love triumphant, and securing +happiness and freedom by flight. And then she put in something +referring to a scene they'd had that day in which he had begged her to +fly with him, and she had made him promise to leave next morning, +pacifying him by a counter promise to write. + +She told me about her fever and ague--you don't need proof of that +after the state in which you found her--and how Mr Maule carried her to +her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't remember +anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw you--with +the face and manner I can well imagine--standing by her bedside. + +I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way +in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman +touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can +never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife, +Colin--that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than +outwardly. + +But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in +itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward +my own ideas and opinions--they may be quite wrong. Really, the news of +Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, coming +just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I--as a +dabbler in fiction--maintain, is more common in real life than in +novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled +third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it +better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't +come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at +it. + +Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to +Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from +the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He +joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was +rather canny of him to go there--yet I don't see how, in the +circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making +talk--though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had +his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on +board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck +next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the +voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off +the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they +reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a P. +and O. boat that happened to be in harbour--and this he did do. + +I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly +since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I +daresay marriage did him good. I believe that his wife was a very +charming woman. Or, it may be that the possession of a quarter of a +million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it +may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever +suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his +behaviour in regard to her now is commendable. + +But Bridget, doesn't love him--never has loved him. I state that fact +on no authority whatsoever except my own intuition. Also I am honestly +of opinion she has cared for you more than she has cared for any man. +You don't deserve it, and I may be wrong. But, nevertheless, it is my +conviction. Make of it what you please. I have been, I candidly own it, +surprised to see what discretion and good feeling she has shown through +all this Gaverick will business. There has been a good deal of +disagreeable friction in the matter. Lord Gaverick has not come off so +well as he expected. He has got the house in Upper Brook Street, which +suits young Lady Gaverick, and about fifteen hundred a +year--considerably less than Bridget. The trouble is that Eliza +Gaverick left a large legacy to her doctor--the latest one--and there +was a talk about bringing forward the plea of undue influence. That, +however, has fallen to the ground--mainly through Biddy's persuasion. I +believe it is Bridget's intention to make over Castle Gaverick to her +cousin, but this is not given out and of course she may change her mind. + +And now, Colin, I think I have said everything I have to say. The main +point to you is, no doubt, the answer to your question. As I said at +the beginning of this letter, Bridget will not oppose any course you +choose to take in order to secure your release from her--that is the +exact way she worded it. But I cannot believe that, in face of all the +rest I have told you, you will go on with this desertion--divorce +business--at least without making yourself absolutely certain that you +both desire to be free of each other. Remember, there has been no +explanation between you and Biddy--no chance of touch between the true +selves of both of you. Can you not come to England to see her? Or +should she go out to you. I think it possible she might consent to do +so, but have never broached the idea and cannot say. Yes, of course I +understand that this might invalidate the legal position. But as only +two years are necessary to prove the desertion--even if you should +decide together that it is best to part--isn't it worth while to wait +two years more in order to make quite sure? No doubt, you will say that +I am shewing the proverbial ignorance of women in legal questions. But +I can't help feeling that there must be some way in which it could be +arranged. I do beseech you, Colin, not to act hastily. + +You say that if this divorce took place, Bridget's reputation would not +suffer, and that she could marry again without a stain upon her +character as they say of wrongfully accused prisoners who are +discharged. But again--is that the question? + +I know nothing of your present circumstances--health, outlook on +life--anything. Bridget once hinted to me that you might have your own +reasons for desiring your freedom. She would give no grounds for the +suspicion that there is any other woman in your life. I do not think +anything would make me credit such a thing and I put that notion +entirely out of court. I do not know--as your letter was dated from +Leichardt's Town--whether you still live at Moongarr. It is possible +you may have sold the place. I hear of severe droughts in parts of +Leichardt's Land, but have no information about the Leura district. Now +that Sir Luke Tallant has exchanged to Hong Kong, Bridget hasn't any +touch with Leichardt's Land, and I have very few correspondents there. + +Write to me--not a stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell me +about yourself--your feelings, your conditions. We are old +friends--friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours. +You can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything +you may tell me, I will faithfully observe your wishes. But I can't +bear that you, whom I should have thought so well of--have felt so much +about--should be making a mess of your life, and that I should not put +out a hand to prevent it. + +Always your friend, + +JOAN GILDEA. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + +It was a long time before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter. +She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin +McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, six months later. + +MY DEAR JOAN, + +Your letter has made me think. I could not write before for reasons +that you'll gather as you go along. I shall do as you ask and tell you +everything as straightly and plainly as I can. I feel it is best that +you should know exactly the sort of conditions I'm under and what a +woman would have had to put up with if she had been with me--what she +would have to put up with if she were going to be with me. Then you can +judge whether or not I'm right in the decision I have come to as the +result of my thinkings. You can tell my wife as much as you please--of +the details, I mean. Perhaps, you had better soften them to her, for +you know as well as I do--or better--that her impulsive, quixotic +disposition might lead her into worse mistakes than it has done +already. Of course, she'll have to know my decision. I am sure that if +she allows her reason play, she will agree it is the only possible one. + +I'm not going to talk about what happened before she went away, or +about that evidence--or anything else in that immediate connection. I +was mad, and I expect I believed a lot more than was true. I don't +believe--I don't think I ever did really believe--what I suppose you +would call 'the worst.' But that doesn't seem to me of such great +matter. It's the spirit, not the letter that counts. The foundation +must have been rotten, or there never would have been a question of +believing one way or the other--because we should have UNDERSTOOD. +Explanations would not have been needed between true mates. Only we +were not true mates--that's the whole point. There was too great a +radical difference between us. It might have been a deal better if she +HAD gone off with that man. + +But to come now to the practical part of the situation. You know enough +about Australian ups and downs to realise that a cattle or sheep owner +out West, may be potentially wealthy one season and on the fair road to +beggary the next. It will be different when times change and we take to +sinking artesian bores on the same principle as when Joseph stored up +grain in the fat years in Egypt against the lean ones that were coming. +That's what I meant to do and ought to have done at any cost. But--well +I just didn't. + +The thing is that if I could have looked ahead, perhaps even six +months, I might not have thought it acting on the square to a woman to +get her to marry me. If I could have looked a year ahead, I wouldn't +have had any doubt on the subject. + +But you see I justified it to myself. One thousand square miles of +country--fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept +running--and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it, +seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll +remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point, +when we talked about my marrying. The truth was that directly I saw +Bridget, she carried me clean off my head--and that's the long and +short of it. + +Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the +Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to +oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old +hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as +long back as that. + +I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank +in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me, +'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right. Well, I saw +that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor +summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my +horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass +on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I +have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live +with.... That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, the +sales I'd counted on turned out badly--cattle too poor for want of +grass to stand the droving and the worst luck in the sale-yards I'd +ever known. + +First thing I did was to reduce the staff and bar everything but bare +necessaries--I sent off the Chinamen and every spare hand. Ninnis and I +and the stockman--a first-rate chap, Moongarr Bill--worked the +run--just the three of us. You can guess how we managed it. A Malay boy +did cooky for the head-station. + +After Christmas I left Ninnis and Bill to look after the place. I had +to go to Leichardt's Town. I had been thinking things out about Biddy +all that time--you know I'm too much of the Scotchy to make hasty +determinations. Well, I had that Parliament Bill, allowing divorce +after two years desertion in my head, from the day Biddy left me. It +seemed the best way out--for her. I had heard about that fellow going +Home in the same boat with her, and never guessed but that it was a +concerted plan between them. That note Harris showed me made me think +it was so. I don't think this now--after what you told me. + +But what did rub itself into me then was that I ought to let her marry +him as soon as she decently could. I couldn't see the matter any other +way--I don't now. He has lots of money--though a man who would buy +happiness with another woman out of the money his wife had left +him--well, that's a matter of opinion. Besides, she has got the fortune +the old lady left her and can be independent of him if she chooses. +There's nothing to prevent her living any kind of life that pleases +her--except me, and I'm ready and willing to clear out of the show. One +thing I'm sorry for now, and that is having torn up the draft she sent +to pay me back her passage money, and putting the bits in an envelope +and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been +done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't +tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it +would have hurt her--I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is why +I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the part of a gentleman all +through this miserable business. But what could you expect? + +For you see, my father worked his own way up, and my grandfather was a +crofter--and I haven't got the blood of Irish kings, on the other side, +behind me. + +Now I'm being nasty, as you used to say in the old Bungroopim days when +I wouldn't play. YOU were my Ideal, in those days, Joan--before you +went and got married. I've been an unlucky devil all round. + +Well there! I had to try and arrange things for an overdraft with the +Bank in Leichardt's Town, but I went down chiefly to consult lawyers +about the divorce question, so that it should be done with as little +publicity and unpleasantness as possible. It appeared that it could be +done all right--as I wrote you. What would have been the good of my +havering in that letter over my own feelings and the bad times I had +struck? It never was my habit to whine over what couldn't be helped. + +Luck was up against me down there too. I got pitched off a buckjumper +at a horse-dealers', Bungroopim way. I had been 'blowing,' Australian +fashion, that I could handle that colt if nobody else was able to. The +end of it was that the buckjumper got home, not me. I was laid up in +hospital for close on two months, with a broken leg and complications. +The complications were that old spear wound, which inflamed, and they +found that a splinter from the jagged tip had been left in. +Blood-poisoning was the next thing; and when I came out of that +hospital I was more like the used up bit of soap you'll see by the +COOLIBAH* outside a shepherd's hut on ration-bringing day, than +anything else I can think of. + +[*Coolibah--a basin made from the scooped out excrescence of a tree.] + +As soon as I could sit a horse again I went to work at Moongarr. I had +found things there at a pretty pass. Not a drop of rain had fallen up +to now on the station for nearly nine months. YOU know what that means +on the top of two dry seasons. As soon as I was fit, we rode over the +run inspecting--I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill. There's a lot of riding +over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection done +quickly. Day after day we travelled through desolation--grass withered +to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle staggering like +drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink. The trees were dying in the +wooded country; and in the plains the earth was crumbling and +shrinking, and great cracks like crevasses were gaping in the black +soil where there used to be beautiful green grass and flowers in spring. + +The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left +was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and +dropped dead in it. They were short of water at the head-station, and +we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced +round and used for drinking--so long as it lasted. When we were +mustering the other side of the run, it came to our camping at a sandy +creek where we could dig in the sand and get just enough for horses and +men. The water of the Bore I'd made, was a bit brackish, but it kept +the grass alive round about and was all the cattle had to depend on. +You can think of the job it was shifting the beasts over there from +other parts of the run which was what we tried to do, so long as they +were fit for it. + +We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the +herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to +collect a hundred or so--sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek +Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on +them. That was all. I guess that--by this time, out of my eleven +thousand head with No. 666 brand on them I'd muster from four to five +hundred. The mistake I made was in not selling out for what I could get +at the beginning of the Drought. But it was the long time in +Leichardt's Town that had me there. + +It was bad luck all through from first to last. Mustering those beasts +for boiling down started that old spear wound afresh. Until it got well +again, there was nothing for it but to sit tight and wait. + +Moongarr Bill left to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the +Bight--took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that he'd +strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last +expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been +bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've +missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've +seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will +o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to run after it. + +Old Ninnis was the next to leave, I made him take the offer of a job +that he had. When it came to drawing water five miles for the +head-station, and keeping it in an iron tank sunk in the ground, with a +manhole and padlocked cover for fear of its being got at, the fewer +there were of us the better. Now the station is being run by the Boss +and the Malay boy, who is a sharp little chap, and more use in the +circumstances than any white man. We've killed the calves we were +trying to PODDY*. And the dogs--except one cattle dog--Veno--Biddy +would remember her; how she used to lollop about the front veranda +outside her room. Now, what the deuce made me write that!--Well, the +dog goes with me in the cart when I fetch water, and takes her drink +with the horses at the hole. + +[*Poddy--to bring up by hand.] + +I'm getting used to the life--making jobs in the daytime to keep myself +from feeling the place a worse hell than it really is. There's always +the water to be fetched and the two horses and the dog to be taken for +their big drink. If you could see me hoarding the precious +stuff--washing my face in the morning in a soup plate, and what's left +kept for night for the dog. When I want a bath I ride ten miles to the +bore. Then there's saddlery to mend, and dry-cleaning the place and +pipes between whiles--more of them than is good for me. Stores are low, +but I've still got enough of tobacco. I daresay it's a mercy there's no +whiskey--nothing but a bottle or two of brandy in case of +snake-bites--or I might have taken to it. + +Thank God I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see +so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink--but there's no saying +what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to +get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal +watching of the sky--looking out all the time for clouds that don't +come--or if they do, end in nothing. You know that brassy glare of the +sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred +times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can +look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and +white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked +inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for +those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a +laughing-jackass in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad +with his devilish chuckling. + +Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up +against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the +veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no +woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent +away their women--stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the +Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's +Town. + +I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up +north--how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing +out. As for the gold find--well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I +hear--or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three +weeks--I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings, +except what a pair of saddle bags will carry. + +Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be +shipped off to her all right. + +When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you +won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling +inside me that I shall win through yet. + +Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good +many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief--I began writing this +about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower--that's the mailman--comes only +once a month now, and not on time at that. + +I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks, +the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So +I'm a ruined man, any way. + +Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will +be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending +her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in +words--but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for +me--and there will never be another. + +He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + +Harry the Blower came up with his mails a day or two later. Among the +letters he brought, there were three at least of special importance to +Colin McKeith. + +One was from the late Attorney General of Leichardt's Land, in whose +following he had been while sitting in the Legislative Assembly, and +whom he had consulted in reference to the Divorce petition. This +gentleman informed Colin that proceedings were already begun in the +case of McKeith versus McKeith, and that notification of the pending +suit had been sent to Lady Bridget at Castle Gaverick, in the province +of Connaught, Ireland. + +The second letter was from the Manager of the Bank of Leichardt's Land, +regretfully conveying the decision of the Board that, failing immediate +repayment of the loan, the mortgage on Moongarr station must be +foreclosed and that in due course a representative of the Bank would +arrive to take over the property. + +The third letter was from Moongarr Bill, dated from the furthest Bush +township at the foot of the Great Bight, which had formed the base of +Colin's last exploring expedition. A mere outpost of civilisation it +was--that very one which he had described at the dinner party at +Government House where he had first met Lady Bridget O'Hara. +Apparently, in Moongarr Bill's estimation, its only reason for +existence lay in the fact that it had an office under the jurisdiction +of the Warden of Goldfields, for the proclamation of new goldfields, +and the obtaining of Miner's Rights. + +Moongarr Bill's epistolary style was bald in its directness. + +Dear Sir-- he began:-- + +The biggest mistake we ever made in our lives was not following up the +streak of colour you spotted in that gully running down from Bardo +Range to Pelican River. If we had stopped, and done a bit of stripping +for alluvial, for certain, we should have found heavy, shotty gold, +with only a few feet of stripping. But I've done better than that--got +on the lead--dead on the gutter. To my belief, that gully is the top +dressing of a dried up underground watercourse. It's a pocket chock +full of gold. + +You see, it's like this: + +Here followed technical details given in local gold-digger's +phraseology which would only be intelligible to a backwoods prospector +or a Leichardt's Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details +carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it +once more. There was no doubt--making due allowance for Moongarr Bill's +exaggerative optimism--that the find was a genuine one. + +The writer resumed: + +'I've pegged off a twenty men's ground, this--being outside the area of +a proclaimed goldfield--our reward as joint discoverers. The ground +joins on to your old pegs; and the wonder to me is that nobody has ever +struck the place. However, that's not so queer as you might think, for +there has been very little talk of gold up here--in fact the P.M. does +Warden's work. Besides, the drought has kept squatters from pushing +out, and it's too far off for the casual prospector. Luckily, the +drought has driven the Blacks away too, further into the ranges; and I +haven't seen any Myalls this trip like the ones that went for us last +time. It's a pity Hensor pegged out then. He'd have come in for a slice +of luck now--we three being the only persons in the world--until I +lodged my information at the Warden's office this morning--who had ever +raised the colour in this district or had any suspicion of a show. I +reckon though that if the find turns out as I think, you'll be making +things up to little Tommy. + +I'm to have my Miners' Right all properly filled up to-morrow, and +shall make tracks back to the gully at once, so as to leave no chance +of the claim being jumped. I've named it "McKeith's Find" so your name +won't be forgotten. I don't count on a big rush at first--all the +better for you--but I shall be surprised if we are not entitled at the +end of four months to our Government reward of 500 pounds, as there are +pretty sure to be two hundred miners at work by that time. + +I'm writing to Ninnis--though I don't know if he has done his job +yet--telling him to lose no time in getting here; and you won't want +telling to do the same. I reckon that whether the drought has broken by +this time or not, it will pay you better to start for here than to wait +at the station until there are calves coming on to brand and muster. +Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if +you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of +experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he +wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura. + +It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I +couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about. +Knowing the lay of the country too, made it easier than it was before +for us. Cudgee has turned out a smarter boy than Wombo was. No fear of +Myalls with their infernal jagged spears being round without his +sniffing them. One of the horses died from eating poison-bush. Don't go +in for camping at a bend in Pelican Creek, between it and a brigalow +scrub, first day you sight Bardo Range going up the Creek, where +there's a pocket full of good grass one side of a broken slate +ridge--IT'S NO GOOD. But I wouldn't swop the other horses for any of +Windeatt's famous breed. There's some things it would be well for you +and Ninnis to bring, and a box of surveyor's compasses would come in +handy. + +Here followed half a page on practical matters, and then the letter +ended. + +McKeith pondered long over Moongarr Bill's letter, as he sat in the +veranda smoking and watching a little cloud on the horizon, and +wondering whether rain was coming at last.... If Moongarr Bill was +right, the gold-find would mean a fresh start for him in his baulked +career. At any rate, it behoved him to take advantage of the chance and +to go forth on the new adventure without unnecessary delay. But the +savour was gone for him from adventure--the salt out of life. The +stroke of luck--if it were one--had come too late. + +And now the Great Drought had broken at last. + +Next evening there came up a terrific thunderstorm, and a hurricane +such as had not visited the district for years. It broke in the +direction of the gidia scrub, and razed many trees. It passed over the +head-station and travelled at a furious rate along the plain. +Hailstones fell, as large as a pigeon's egg, and stripped off such +leafage as the drought had left. Thunder volleyed and lightning blazed. +Part of the roof of the Old Humpey was torn off. The hide-house was +practically blown away. The great white cedar by the lagoon was struck +by lightning, and lay, a chaos of dry branches and splintered limbs, +one side of the trunk standing up jagged and charred where it had been +riven in two. + +Upon the hurricane followed a steady deluge. For a night and a day, the +heavens were opened, and poured waterspouts as though the pent rain of +nine months were being discharged. The river 'came down' from the heads +and filled the gully with a roaring flood. The lagoon was again almost +level with its banks. The dry water-course on the plain sparkled in the +distance, like a mirage--only that it was no mirage. No one who has not +seen the extraordinary rapidity with which a dry river out West can be +changed into a flooded one, could credit the swiftness of the +transformation. + +Then the heavens closed once more. The sun shone out pitilessly bright, +and the surface earth looked, after a few hours, almost as dry as +before. But the life-giving fluid had penetrated deep into the soil; +the rivers and creeks were running; green grass was already springing +up for the beasts to feed upon. The land was saved. Alas too late to +save the ruined squatters. There were so few of their beasts left. + +Nevertheless, the rain brought new life and energy to the humans. +Kuppi, the Malay boy fetched buckets of water from the replenished +lagoon, and scoured and scrubbed with great alacrity. He came timidly +to his master, and asked if he might not wash out with boiling water +the closed parlour and Lady Bridget's unused bedroom. He was afraid +that the white ants might have got into them. + +McKeith's face frightened Kuppi. So did the imprecation which his +innocent request evoked. He was bidden to go and keep himself in his +own quarters, and not show his face again that day at the New House. + +Since Lady Bridget's departure, McKeith had slept, eaten and worked in +the Old Humpey, his original dwelling. + +But Kuppi did not know that the white ants had not been given a chance +to work destruction upon 'the Ladyship's' properties. Regularly every +day, McKeith himself tended those sacred chambers. Bridget's rooms were +just as she had left them. + +He had done nothing yet towards dismantling that part of the New House +in which she had chiefly lived. He had put off the task day after day. +But since receiving Moongarr Bill's letter, and now that the drought +had broken, and the Man in Possession a prospect as certain as that +there would come another thunderstorm, he knew that he must begin his +preparations to quit Moongarr. + +To do this meant depriving himself of the miserable comfort he found +during wakeful nights and the first hour of dawn--the time he usually +chose for sweeping and cleaning his wife's rooms--of roaming, +ghost-like, through the New House where every object spoke to him of +her. In the day time, he shrank from mounting the steps which connected +the verandas, but in the evenings, he would often come and stroll along +the veranda, and sit in the squatter's chair she had liked, or in the +hammock where she had swung, and smoke his pipe and brood upon the +irrevocable past. And then he would suddenly rush off in frantic haste +to do some hard, physical work, feeling that he must go mad if he sat +still any longer. + +To-day however, after Kuppi had fled to the kitchen, he went into his +old dressing room and stood looking at the camp bed, and thought of the +day of Bridget's fever when Harris had given him her note to Maule, and +he had sat here huddled on the edge of the bed wrestling dumbly with +his agony. The association had been too painful, and in his daily +tendance he had somewhat neglected this room and had usually entered +the other by the French window from the veranda. Thus, he saw now that +a bloated tarantula had established itself in one corner, between wall +and ceiling, and an uncanny looking white lizard scuttered across the +boards, and disappeared under a piece of furniture, leaving its tail +behind. A phenomenon of natural history at which, he remembered now, +Bridget had often wondered. + +He opened the door of communication--where on that memorable night, he +had knocked and received no answer--and passed through it treading +softly as though he were visiting a death chamber. And indeed, to him, +it was truly a death chamber in which the bed, all covered over with a +white sheet, might have been a bier, and the pillows put lengthwise +down it, the shrouded form of one dearly loved and lost. He gazed +about, staring at the familiar pieces of furniture, out of wide red +eyes, smarting with unshed tears. In her looking glass, he seemed to +see the ghost-reflection of her small pale face with its old whimsical +charm. The shadowy eyes under the untidy mass of red-brown hair, in +which the curls and tendrils stood out as if endowed with a magnetic +life of their own; the sensitive lips; the little pointed chin; and, in +the eyes and on the lips, that gently mocking, alluring smile. + +There were a few poems that Colin had taught himself to say by heart, +and which he would recite to himself often when he was alone in the +Bush. THE ANCIENT MARINER was one, and there were some of Rudyard +Kipling's and he loved THE IDYLLS OF THE KING--in especial GUINIVERE. +Three lines of that poem leaped to his memory at this moment. + + 'THY SHADOW STILL WOULD GLIDE FROM ROOM TO ROOM + AND I SHOULD EVERMORE BE VEXT WITH THEE + IN HANGING ROBE AND VACANT ORNAMENT.' + + +He went to the wardrobe where her dresses hung as she had left them, +only that daily, he had shaken them, cared for them so that no hot +climate pest should injure them. And in so doing, he had been +overwhelmingly conscious of the peculiar, personal fragrance, her +garments had always exhaled--an experience in which rapture and anguish +blended. + +How he had loved her! ... God! how he had loved her! ... And yet, +latterly, how he had got to take his supreme possession of her as a +matter of course; had allowed the joy of it to be blunted by depression +and irritability over sordid station worries. He remembered with +piercing remorse how often he had neglected the trivial courtesies to +which he knew she attached importance. How he had been prone to sullen +fits of moodiness; had been rough, even brutal, as in that episode of +the Blacks.... Brutal to her--this dainty lady, his fairy princess! ... +And now he had lost her. She was gone back to her own world and to her +own kin. + +If only he had yielded to her then about the Blacks! If he had curbed +his anger, shown sympathy with the two wild children of Nature who were +better than himself, in this at least that they had known how to love +and cling to each other in spite of the blows of fate! He had +horse-whipped Wombo for loving Oola, and swift retribution had come +upon himself.... That he should have lost Bridget because of the loves +of Wombo and Oola! It was an irony--as if God were laughing at him. He +set his teeth and laughed--the mirthless laugh which had startled +Harris.... Well, whether it were automatic or planned retribution on +the part of the High Powers, the trouble could be evened up and done +with. 'I was a damned fool,' he said to himself; 'and I've been taught +my lesson too late for me to benefit by it. Except this way--I'm not +going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular piece of +hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe the slate +and come out on top of something else that isn't love. There's +possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's +ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long as SHE isn't +seriously hurt.' + +With that summing up of the matter, he seemed to gain stoic energy. Now +he went back to his dressing room, and pulled out to the veranda a +couple of worn portmanteaux. Into these he put a variety of personal +belongings. Among them, pictures from the walls, and old photographs in +frames that had been on the dressing table. It was significant that +none of these were portraits of his wife. The portmanteaux he dragged +along the veranda to the side of the steps leading down to the front +garden. Then, instead of returning to Lady Bridget's room, he attacked +an escritoire in the parlour in which he had kept family and private +papers, and which flanked her Chippendale bureau. He brought out +another collection--notebooks, papers, bundles of letters dating much +further back than his occupation of Moongarr--salvage from the wreck of +his old home. His mother's workbox; his father's SHAKESPEARE; the +family Bible--a piteous catalogue. He looked long at the book and the +photographs. These last were portraits of his father, his mother and +his sisters, who had all been massacred by the Blacks, when he was a +boy. He separated all such relics from the general lot, placing them, +and also two or three packets of papers upon a shelf-table in the +veranda--it was that table where Lady Bridget had laid the cablegram +from Lord Gaverick, which she had shown him the day before she had left +Moongarr. Now it seemed to him an altar of sacred memories. He brought +various other small things out of the parlour--things he had not the +heart to destroy--all belonging to his youth--and placed them there. As +he looked at them, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and a wave of +emotion passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant. +But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady +Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he +was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer +beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece of gum-tree bark, +shrivelled and curled up at the sides, so that the two edges almost +met. At first he put it on the heap that he had turned out of the +portmanteaux for destruction. His grim thought had been to top with +this strange memorial of his marriage-night, the funeral pyre he had +intended to build. But again the spasm of emotion contorted his +features. His shoulders shook, and a dry choking sound came from his +lips. He took up the piece of bark too, and laid it with the +daguerreotypes on the table. He seemed afraid to give himself time to +think, but went from room to room here and in the Old Humpey, dragging +one thing after another out on to the veranda. Some of the heavier +articles he had to hoist over the steps connecting the two verandas, +and then to drag them down the other steps into the front garden, where +they strewed the gravel round the centre bed. + +In spring and summer, when the Chinamen had been there to water and +Lady Bridget to superintend the planting and pruning, this bed had +always been gay with flowers, banking a tall shrub of scented verbena +the perfume of which she had been particularly fond of. Now there were +weeds--most of them withered--instead of flowers. The verbena bush had +long been dead, and the dry leaves and branches, beaten down by the +late storm, made a bed of kindling. + +Never was there garden so desolate--the young ornamental trees and +shrubs all dead; the creepers dead also; even the hardy passion vines +upon the fence, mere leafless, fruitless withes of withered stems. + +McKeith paused after lugging down two squatters' chairs--the first +house carpentering he had done for his wife after their arrival at the +head-station, and in which, he had resolved, no future owner of +Moongarr should ever sit. That was the thought fiercely possessing him. +Rough chairs and tables and such-like that had been there always, might +remain. But no sacrilegious hands should touch things made for her, or +with which she had been closely associated. They should be burned out +here in the deserted front garden, where not even Kuppi--the only other +occupant of the head-station--would witness his preparations. He +himself would lay and kindle the funeral pyre, and to-night, when there +would be only the stars to see him, he would light the first holocaust. + +He stood considering. Sweat dropped from his forehead. His gaunt frame +was trembling after his effort, which had been heavy, and he leaned +against one of the tarred piles supporting the veranda to rest. But +only for a few minutes. Then, his feverish activity recommenced. He +piled up the wooden furniture on the bed of withered verbena branches, +filled the interstices with dead leaves that he collected from the +garden, laid the smaller things--books, papers, pictures--where they +would assist the conflagration, and did not stop until the pyre had +reached to the level of the veranda railing. He reflected grimly that +there was a chance of sparks setting fire to the house itself, and +calculated the extent of the gravel between, deciding that if he was +there to watch there would be no danger. + +All the time, the old kangaroo dog, Veno had been nosing round him, +sniffing at the objects lying round, then looking up at him with +bleared, wistful eyes, and evidently unable to understand these strange +proceedings. Once or twice, he had roughly pushed the dog away, but, +when he had finished the work and seated himself from sheer fatigue on +the veranda steps, Veno came and squatted beside him, the dog's head +upon his knee. He filled his pipe and smoked ruminatively; the exertion +had had one good effect; it had dulled the fierceness of his pain. + +As he sat there--a faint breeze that had risen with the approach of +sunset, cooling his heated body--he thought again about Moongarr Bill's +letter. He looked at the great pyre in front, and caught the gleam of +the lagoon below through the bare branches of the trees the little +ripple on its surface, the freshening green at its marge. Then he gazed +out over the vast plain towards the horizon. From his low position on +the steps, the middle distance was hidden from him. Through the reddish +tinge cast by the lowering sun, he could discern, far off likewise, the +unmistakable signs of new-springing grass and the course of the river, +for so long non-existent. From the gully he heard the sound of rushing +water. It had been a roaring torrent just after the storm, and he knew +that a flood must have come down from the heads. + +Yes, the Drought had broken. The plain would soon be green again. +Flowers would spring up as they had done for Bridget's bridal +home-coming. If the rain had fallen a few months sooner the station +might have been saved. + +And even now, with the remnant of three or four hundred cattle, +provided there were no crippling debt, no spectre of the Man in +Possession, he might still hang on, and in time retrieve his losses, +lie low, sink artesian wells, make the station secure for the future. + +He had been so fond of the place. He had taken up the run with such +high hopes; had so slaved to increase his herd, to make improvements on +the head-station. He had looked upon this as the nucleus of his +fortune; the pivot on which his career as one of the Empire-builders +would revolve.... And now.... + +Well, some clever speculator no doubt would buy it at a low price +during the Slump, stock it with more cattle, work it up during a good +season or two, and, when cattle stations boomed once more, sell it at +an immense profit. That was what he himself would have done had he been +a speculator in similar conditions. Even still, he could do it with a +small amount of capital to supply a sop for the Bank.... Now that the +Drought had broken they would be more likely to let him go on.... He +thought of the 3,000 pounds Sir Luke Tallant had made him put into +settlement on his marriage. He had not wanted to do that at the time; +his Scotch caution had revolted against the tying up of his resources, +and his instinct was justified. If only he had command of that money +now! It was his own; his wife was rich; that was the one benefit he +could have taken from her.... But it was impossible to broach the +question. + +Suddenly the dog stirred uneasily, sniffed the air and leaped to the +gravel walk where it stood giving short, uncertain barks, as though +aware of something happening outside for which it could not account. + +McKeith lifted his head, bent in the absorption of his thought, and +looked about for the disturber of Veno's placidity. But Kuppi was +nowhere in sight, nor was there sign of other intruder. Where he sat, +the garden fence, overgrown with withered passion vines, bounded his +vision, and had anybody ridden or driven up the hill through the lower +sliprails, he would not have seen them, probably would not have heard +them. For there were no longer dogs, black boys, Chinamen or station +hands to voice intimation of a new arrival. All the old sounds of +evening activity were hushed. No mustering-mob being driven to the +stockyard; no running up of milkers or horses for the morrow; no goats +to be penned--they had been killed off long ago; no beasts grazing or +calling--no audible life at all except that of the birds, who, since +the rain, had found their notes again and were telling each other +vociferously that it was time to go to bed. Indeed, the silence and +solitariness of the once busy head-station had enticed many of the +shyer kinds of birds from the lagoon and the forest. Listening, as he +now was, intently, McKeith could hear the gurgling COO-ROO-ROO of the +swamp pheasant, which is always found near water--and likewise rare +sound--the silvery ring of the bell-bird rejoicing in the fresh-filled +lagoon. + +But Veno was still uneasy, and Colin got up on to the veranda. He stood +there, listening all the while, strained expectancy in his eyes as if +he too were vaguely conscious of something outside happening.... + +And now he did hear something that made him go white as with uncanny +dread. It was a footstep that he heard on the veranda of the Old +Humpey--very light, a soft tapping of high heels and the accompanying +swish of drapery--a ghostly rustle--'a ghostly footfall echoing.'... +For surely in this place it could have no human reality. + +It approached along the passage between the two buildings, halted for a +few seconds, and then mounted to the front veranda. + +The man was standing with his back to the Old Humpey. He would not +turn. A superstitious fear fell upon him and made his knees shake and +his tall, lean frame tremble.... He DARED not turn his head and look +lest he should see that which would tell him Bridget was dead. + +But the dead do not speak in syllables that an ordinary human ear can +hear. And Colin heard his own name spoken in accents piercingly clear +and sweet. + +'Colin.' + +To him, though, it was as a ghost-voice. He stood transfixed. And just +then the dog bounded past him. It had flown up the steps barking +loudly. That could be no immaterial form upon which the creature flung +itself, pawing, nosing, licking with the wildest demonstrations of joy. + +He heard the well-remembered tones: + +'Quiet Veno.... Good dog.... Lie down Veno--Lie down.' + +The dog seemed to understand that this was not a moment for +effusiveness. Without another sound, it crouched upon its haunches +gazing up at the new-comer. + +Then Colin turned. Bridget was standing not a yard from him. A slender +figure in a grey silk cloak, with bare head--she had flung back her +grey sun-bonnet and shrouding gauze veil.... He saw the face he +knew--the small, pale face; the shadowy eyes, wide and bright with an +ecstatic determination, yet in them a certain feminine timorousness; +the little pointed chin poked slightly forward; the red-brown hair--all +untidy curls and tendrils, each hair seeming to have a life and +magnetism of its own. It was just as he had so often pictured her in +dreams of sleep and waking. + +He gazed at her like one who beholds a vision from another world. And +then a great sob burst from him--the pitiful sob of a strong man who is +beaten, broken with emotion. The whole being of the man seemed to +collapse. He staggered forward, and such a change came over the gaunt, +hard face, that Bridget saw it through a rain of tears which fell down +her cheeks. + +'Oh, Colin--Won't you speak to me?' + +'Biddy!' He went close to her and gripped her two wrists, holding her +before him while his hungry eyes seemed to be devouring her. + +'It's you--it's really you. You're not dead, are you?' + +'Dead! Oh no--no.... I've come home.' + +'Home!' He laughed. + +'Oh don't--don't,' she cried. 'Don't laugh like that.' + +'Home!' he repeated, grimly. 'Look round you. A nice sort of home. Eh?' + +'I don't care. It's the only real home I've ever had.' + +'But look--look!' + +She followed his eyes to the great pyre in the garden, with the dead +leaves, and the pieces of furniture, the squatters' chairs, the little +tables he and she had covered together, the hammock that he had cut +down leaving the ropes dangling--many other things that she recognised +also. Then her gaze came back to the veranda. To the open portmanteaux; +the different objects still strewing the ground; and then to the +shelf-table against the wall near the hammock, and, there, to his most +cherished possessions. She knew at once his mother's work-box, the +shabby SHAKESPEARE--the portraits, and, on top of all, the piece of +gum-tree bark. + +She snatched her wrists from his grasp, darted to the shelf, seized the +shrivelled pice of bark, and pressed it against her bosom as though it +had been a living thing. + +'Oh, you COULDN'T burn this! ... You were going to burn it with the +rest--but you COULDN'T--any more than you could have burned your +mother's things.... I thought of it all the way--I knew that if you +could burn this, too, there would be no hope for me any more. I PRAYED +that you might not burn it.' + +'But how--how did you know I was going to burn the things?' he +stammered bewilderedly. + +'I saw it all--I saw you--just like this, on the veranda--so thin and +hard and miserable--and so proud, yet--and stubborn--I saw it all--saw +the bonfire ready--And I saw this piece of bark--And then something +made you stop and you put it with your mother's things instead. You +remembered--Oh! Mate, you DID understand? You DID remember--that first +night by the camp fire--and we two--just we two'--she broke off sobbing. + +'You saw--you saw--' he kept saying. 'But how--how did you know? Tell +me, Mate.' + +'I saw it all in a dream--at Castle Gaverick. Three times I dreamed the +same dream; and I felt, inside me, that it was a prophetic warning. +We're like that, you know, we Irish Celts. And you--though you're a +Scotchman--you used to laugh at such things! But they're true; they're +true--I've had glints of second sight before. Joan Gildea understood. +When I told her, she believed it was a warning God had sent me, and she +said I must go to you--go at once lest it should be too late. She +wanted to come with me, but it would have been difficult for her to +leave her work, and I didn't want her--I wanted to come to you all on +my own.' + +'And then?--then?' he asked breathlessly. + +'Oh, then I left Castle Gaverick at once, and, in London, I took my +passage--there was an E. and A. boat just going to start. Of course I +knew the route. I got out of the steamer at Leuraville, and came +straight on by train--I didn't wait anywhere. I thought I'd get out at +Crocodile Creek and pay somebody to drive me up here. But you've got +the railway brought nearer, and when I got out at Kangaroo Flat there +was a most extraordinary thing--Then, I knew why the voice inside had +been urging me on so quickly.' + +'An extraordinary thing--? What was it?' he said in the same +breathless, broken way. + +'It was Mr Ninnis. He was there, standing on the platform just off his +droving trip--he was going to take the next train to Leuraville. If I +had stayed there as Captain Halliwell wanted me to, I should have +missed him. He'd got a letter from Moongarr Bill--Oh, I know all about +that. But it doesn't matter--it doesn't matter in the least. You can go +if you like and find the gold--I'll stop at Joan Gildea's cottage in +Leichardt's Town and wait for you--I don't care about ANYTHING if +you'll only let me be your Mate again. But Colin--' she rushed on, for +he could not speak, and the sight of a great man struggling with his +tears is one that a woman who loves him can scarcely bear to see. And +yet the sight made Bridget happy for all its pain--'Colin, when I first +saw Ninnis, do you know what I thought--? That you had sent him to meet +me. That you, too, had been warned in a dream?' + +'No, I wish I had been--My God, I wish I had been.' + +'What would you have done, Colin?' + +'I'd have been there myself,' he said simply. 'It would have been me, +not Ninnis, that you saw at Kangaroo Flat Station.' + +She held out her arms. The roll of bark dropped on the boards of the +veranda. In a moment he was pressing her fiercely to his breast, and +his lips were on hers. + +And in that kiss, by the divine alchemy of true wedded love, all the +past pride and bitterness were transmuted into a great abiding Peace. + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY BRIDGET--NEVER-NEVER LAND *** + +***** This file should be named 4051.txt or 4051.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/4051/ + +Produced by Col Choat. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + +This etext was produced by Col Choat colchoat@yahoo.com.au + +This etext was first created as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the +Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of: Carmen Baxter, +Brenda Lambey, Elizabeth Morton, Jessie Hudgins, Mary Crosson, Mary Nuzzo, +Nick Rezmerski, Patricia Heil, Patsy Edmonds, Steve Callis, +Tami Hutchinson, Velvet Van Bueren, and Mary Mark Ockerbloom. +http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/writers.html + + + + + +Rosa Praed (1851-1935) +LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER LAND.(1915) + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA +BOOK II FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA +BOOK III FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS + + + + + +BOOK I + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF MRS GILDEA + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + + +Mrs Gildea had settled early to her morning's work in what she called +the veranda-study of her cottage in Leichardt's Town. It was a +primitive cottage of the old style, standing in a garden and built on +the cliff--the Emu Point side--overlooking the broad Leichardt River. +The veranda, quite twelve feet wide, ran--Australian fashion--along +the front of the cottage, except for the two closed-in ends forming, +one a bathroom and the other a kind of store closet. Being raised a few +feet above the ground, the veranda was enclosed by a wooden railing, +and this and the supporting posts were twined with creepers that must +have been planted at least thirty years. One of these, a stephanotis, +showed masses of white bloom, which Joan Gildea casually reflected +would have fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with +a fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps. +The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with +her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a +thick-stemmed grape-vine, which made a dapple of shadow and sunshine +upon the boarded floor. Some bunches of late grapes--it was the very +beginning of March--hung upon the vine, and, at the other end of the +veranda, grew a passion creeper, its great purple fruit looking like +huge plums amidst its vivid green leaves. + +The roof of the veranda was low, with projecting eaves, below which a +bunch of yellowing bananas hung to ripen. In fact, the veranda and +garden beyond would have been paradise to a fruitarian. Against the +wall of the store-room, stood a large tin dish piled with melons, +pine-apples and miscellaneous garden produce, while, between the +veranda posts, could be seen a guava-tree, an elderly fig and a loquat +all in full bearing. The garden seemed a tangle of all manner of +vegetation--an oleander in bloom, a poinsettia, a yucca, lifting its +spike of waxen white blossoms, a narrow flower-border in which the +gardenias had become tall shrubs and the scented verbena shrubs almost +trees. As for the blend of perfume, it was dreamily intoxicating. Two +bamboos, guarding the side entrance gate, made a soft whispering that +heightened the dream-sense. The bottom of the garden looked an inchoate +mass of greenery topped by the upper boughs of tall straggling gum +trees, growing outside where the ground fell gradually to the river. + +From where Mrs Gildea sat, she had a view of almost the whole reach of +the river where it circles Emu Point. For, as is known to all who know +Leichardt's Town, the river winds in two great loops girdling two low +points, so that, in striking a bee-line across the whole town, business +and residential, one must cross the river three times. Mrs Gildea could +see the plan of the main street in the Middle Point and the roofs of +shops and offices. The busy wharves of the Leichardt's Land Steam +Navigation Company--familiarly, the L.L.S.N. Co.--lay opposite on her +right, while leftward, across the water, she could trace, as far as the +grape-vine would allow, the boundary of the Botanical Gardens and get a +sight of the white stone and grey slate end of the big Parliamentary +Buildings. + +The heat-haze over the town and the brilliant sun-sparkles on the river +suggested a cruel glare outside the shady veranda and over-grown old +garden. + +A pleasant study, if a bit distracting from its plenitude of +associations to Australian-born Joan Gildea, who, on her marriage, had +been transplanted into English soil, as care-free as a rose cut from +the parent stem, and who now, after nearly twenty years, had returned +to the scene of her youth--a widow, a working journalist and shorn of +most of her early illusions. + +Her typewriter stood on a bamboo table before her. A pile of Australian +Hansards for reference sat on a chair at convenient distance. A large +table with a green cloth, at her elbow, had at one end a tray with the +remains of her breakfast of tea, scones and fruit. The end nearest her +was littered with sheaves of manuscript, newspaper-cuttings, +photographs and sepia sketches--obviously for purposes of +illustration: gum-bottle, stylographs and the rest, with, also, several +note-books held open by bananas, recently plucked from the ripening +bunch, to serve as paper-weights. + +She had meant to be very busy that morning. There was her weekly letter +for THE IMPERIALIST to send off by to-morrow's mail, and, moreover, she +had to digest the reasons of the eminent journal for returning to her +an article that had not met with the editor's approval--the great +Gibbs: a potent newspaper-factor in the British policy of the day. + +It had been an immense honour when Mr Gibbs had chosen Joan Gildea from +amongst his staff for a roving commission to report upon the political, +financial, economic and social aspects of Australia, and upon Imperial +interests generally, as represented in various sideshows on her route. + +But it happened that she was now suffering from a change at the last +moment in that route--a substitution of the commplace P. & O. for the +more exciting Canadian Pacific, Mr Gibbs having suddenly decided that +Imperialism in Australia demanded his special correspondent's immediate +attention. + +For this story dates back to the time when Mr Joseph Chamberlain was in +office; when Imperialism, Free Trade and Yellow Labour were the catch +words of a party, and before the great Australian Commonwealth had +become an historical fact. + +THE IMPERIALIST's Special Correspondent looked worried. She was +wondering whether the English mail expected to-day would bring her +troublesome editorial instructions. She examined some of the +photographs and drawings with a dissatisfied air. A running +inarticulate commentary might have been put into words like this: + +'No good . . . I can manage the letterpress all right once I get the +hang of things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a +gum-tree look as if it was growing . . . . And Gibbs hates having +amateur snapshots to work up . . . . Hopeless to try for a local +artist. . . . I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea. . . . . Why +to goodness didn't Biddy join me! . . . . If she'd only had the decency to +let me know in time WHY she couldn't. . . . Money, I suppose--or a +Man! . . . . Well, I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary +leg-up from me again . . .' + +Mrs Gildea pulled the sheet she had been typing out of the machine, +inserted another, altered the notch to single spacing and rattled off +at top speed till the page was covered. The she appended her signature +and wrote this address: + +To the Lady Bridget O'Hara, + +Care of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, + +Upper Brook Street, London, W. + +on an envelope, into which she slipped her letter--a letter never to +be sent. + +A snap of the gate between the bamboos added a metallic note to the +tree's reedy whimperings, and the postman tramped along the short +garden path and up the veranda steps. + +'Morning, Mrs Gildea . . . a heavy mail for you!' + +He planked down the usual editorial packet--two or three rolls of +proofs, a collection of newspapers, a bulky parcel of private +correspondence sent on by the porter of Mrs Gildea's London flat, some +local letters and, finally, two square envelopes, with the remark, as +he turned away on his round. 'My word! Mrs Gildea, those letters seem +to have done a bit of globe-trotting on their own, don't they!' + +For the envelopes were covered with directions, some in Japanese and +Chinese hieroglyphics, some in official red ink from various +postoffices, a few with the distinctive markings of British Legations +and Government Houses where the Special Correspondent should have +stayed, but did not--Only her own name showing through the +obliterations, and a final re-addressing by the Bank of Leichardt's +Land. + +Mrs Gildea recognised the impulsive, untidy but characteristic +handwriting of Lady Bridget O'Hara. + +'From Biddy at last!' she exclaimed, tore the flap of number one +letter, paused and laid it aside. 'Business first.' + +So she went carefully through the editorial communication. Mr Gibbs was +not quite so tiresome as she had feared he would be. After him, the +packet from her London flat was inspected and its contents laid aside +for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was +embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a +cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received at +Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her--first along the route +originally designed, afterwards, with zigzagging, retrogression and +much delay, along the one she had taken. That it had reached her at +all, said a good deal for Mrs Gildea's fame as a freely paragraphed +newspaper correspondent. + +The telegram was phrased thus: + +SORRY IMPOSSIBLE NO FUNDS OTHER REASONS WRITING BIDDY + +Mrs Gildea's illuminative 'H'm!' implied that her two inductions had +been correct. No funds--and other reasons--meaning--a MAN. She +scented instantly another of Biddy's tempestuous love-affairs. Had it +been merely a question of lack of money with inclination goading, she +felt pretty certain that Lady Bridget would have contrived to beg, +borrow or steal--on a hazardous promissory note, after the +happy-go-lucky financial morals of that section of society to which by +birth she belonged. Or, failing these means, that she would have +threatened some mad enterprise and so have frightened her aunt Eliza +Countess of Gaverick into writing a cheque for three figures. Of +course, less would have been of no account. + +Mrs Gildea opened the two envelopes and sorted the pages in order of +their dates. The first had the address of a house in South Belgravia, +where lived Sir Luke Tallant of the Colonial Office and Rosamond his +wife--distant connections of the Gavericks. + +Lady Bridget's letters were type-written, most carelessly, with the +mistakes corrected down the margin of the flimsy sheets in the manner +of author's proof--the whole appearance of them suggesting literary +'copy'. + +Likewise, the slapdash epistolary style of the MS., which had a certain +vividness of its own. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + + +'Dearest Joan, + +You'll have got my wire. Vancouver was right, I suppose. I sent it from +Rome. Since then I have been at Montreux with Chris and Molly, and +since I came back to England with them, I've been in too chaotic a +state of mind to write letters. Really, Chris and Molly's atmosphere of +struggling to keep in the swim on next to nothing a year and of eking +out a precarious income by visits to second-rate country houses and +cadging on their London friends gets on my nerves to such an extent +that Luke and Rosamond's established "Colonial Office" sort of +respectability is quite refreshing by contrast. + +I should have loved the Australian trip. Your "Bush" sounds perfectly +captivating, and, of course, I could do the illustrations you want. +Besides, I'm stony-broke and, financially, the great god Gibbs appeals +to me. I'd take my passage straight off--one would raise the money +somehow--if it wasn't for--There! It's out. A MAN has come and upset +the apple-cart.' + +Mrs Gildea gave a funny little laugh. The letter answered her thought. + +'"Oh, of course!" I can hear you sneer. "Just another of Biddy's +emotional interests--bound to fizzle out before very long." But this +is a good deal more than an emotional interest, and I don't think it +will fizzle out so quickly. For one thing, THIS man is quite different +from all the other men I've ever been interested in. The first moment I +saw him, I had the queerest sort of ARRESTED sensation. He's told me +since, that he felt exactly the same about me. Kind of lived before-- +"WHEN I WAS A KING IN BABYLON AND YOU WERE A CHRISTIAN SLAVE" idea. +Though I'm quite certain that if I ever was a slave it must have been a +Pagan and not a Christian one. Joan, the experience was thrilling, +positively electrifying--Glamour--personal magnetism. . . . You +couldn't possibly understand unless you knew HIM. Descriptions are so +hopeless. I'll leave him to your imagination. + +By the way, Molly annoyed me horribly the other day. "You know, dear," +she had the audacity to remark, "he's not of OUR class, and if you +married him, you'd have to give up US! For could you suppose," she went +on to say, "that Chris and Mama--to say nothing of Aunt Eliza--would +tolerate an adventurer who tells tall stories about buried treasure and +native rebellions and expects one to be amused!" + +OUR CLASS! Oh, how I detest the label! And that unspeakably dreadful +idea of social sheep and goats--and the unfathomable abyss between +Suburbia and Belgravia! Though I frankly own that to me Suburbia +represents the Absolutely Impossible. After all, one must go right into +the Wilderness to escape the conditions of that state of life to which +you happen to have been born. + +Well, that speech of Molly's came out of a fascinating account my +Soldier of Fortune gave us of how he stage-managed a revolution in +South America, and of an expedition he'd made in the Andes on the +strength of a local tradition about the Incas' hidden gold. I call him +my Soldier of Fortune--though he's not in any known Army list, because +it's what he called himself. Likewise a Champion of the Dispossessed. +He has an intense sympathy with the indigenous populations, and thinks +the British system of conquering and corrupting native races simply a +disgrace to civilisation. With all of which sentiments I entirely +agree. Luke has taken to him immensely, chiefly, I fancy, because he +was once private secretary to some Administrating Rajah in an +Eastern-Archipelago or Indian Island, and as Luke is hankering after a +colonial governorship, he wants to scrape up all the information he can +about such posts. + +I answered Molly that one may have a violent attraction to a man +without in the least wanting to marry him, and that relieved her mind a +little. + +As for HIM, the attraction on his part seems equally violent. We do the +most shockingly unconventional things together. He tells me that I +carry him off his feet--that I've revolutionised his ideas about the +"nice English Girl" (useless to protest that I'm not an English girl +but a hybrid Celt). He says that I've wiped off his slate the scheme of +life he'd been planning for his latter years. A comfortable existence +in England--his doctor advises him to settle down in a temperate +climate--an appointment on some City Board--rubber shares and that +kind of thing--you know it all--a red brick house in South Kensington +and perhaps a little place in the country. He did not fill in the +picture--but I did for him--with the charmingly domesticated wife-- +well connected: the typical "nice English Girl," heiress of a +comfortable fortune to supplement his own, which he candidly admitted +needs supplementing. + +Of course he's not a mere vulgar fortune-hunter. He must be genuinely +in love with the nice English Girl. And that's where I upset HIS +apple-cart. + +In fact, we are both in an IMPASSE. I'm not eligible for his post and I +shouldn't want it if I were. To my mind marriage is only conceivable +with a barbarian or a millionaire. From the sordid atmosphere of +English conjugality upon an income of anything less than an assured +5,000 pounds a year, good Lord deliver me! And you know my reasons for +adding another clause to my litany. Good Lord deliver me also from further +experience of the exciting vicissitudes of a stock-jobbing career! + +Then again, apart from personal prejudices, I am appalled, quite +simply, at the cold-blooded marriage traffic that I see going on in +London. Any crime committed in the name of Love is forgivable, but to +sell a girl--soul and body to the highest bidder is to my mind, the +unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Frankly, I'm petrified with +amazement at the way in which mothers hurl their daughters at the head +of any man who will make a good settlement. There's Molly's sister-- +she chases the game till she has corralled it, and once inside her +walls the unfortunate prey hasn't swallowed his first cup of tea before +she has wedded him in imagination to one of her girls--"How do you +like Mr CHOSE?" "Like him? What is there to like? He's the same as all +the rest of the men, and they're as like as a box of ninepins. . ." + +"But what do you think of him. . .?" "But really there's nothing to +think" . . . "But don't you think he'd do for Hester?" etcetera, +etcetera. + +She has just married the one before Hester to what she calls the +perfect type of an English country gentleman--meaning that he owns an +historical castle in Scotland, a coal mine in Wales and a mansion in +Park Lane. Heavens! I'd rather follow the fortunes of a Nihilist and be +sent to Siberia, or drive wild cattle and fight wild blacks with one of +your Bush cowboys, than I'd marry the perfect type of an English +country gentleman! Give me something REAL--anything but the +semi-detached indifference of most of the couples one knows. No. MY man +must be strong enough to carry ME off my feet and to break down all the +conventions of "OUR CLASS." Then, I'd cheerfully tramp through the +forest beside him, if it came to that, or cook his dinner in front of +our wigwam. Now, if my Soldier of Fortune were to ask me to climb the +Andes with him in search of that buried treasure! But he won't: and--I +confess it, Joan--I'm in mortal terror of his insisting upon my +entering the sphere of stock-jobbing respectability instead, and of my +being weak enough to consent. But we haven't got anywhere near that +yet. + +So far, I'm just--living--trying to make up my mind what it is that I +want most. Do you know, that since my violent attraction to him--or +whatever you like to call it--all sorts of odd bits of revelation have +come to me as to the things that really matter! + +For one thing, I'm pretty certain that the ultimate end of Being is +Beauty and that Love means Beauty and Beauty means Love. The immediate +result of this discovery is that I'm buying clothes with a reckless +disregard of the state of my banking account. + +I begin to understand and to sympathise with that pathetic striving +after beauty which one sees in the tawdry finery and exaggerated +hairdressing of a kitchenmaid--Rosamond Tallant has one who is +wonderful to behold as she mounts the area steps on her Sundays out. +Formerly I should have been horrified at that kitchenmaid. Now I have +quite a fellow-feeling with her piteous attempts to make herself +attractive to her young man, the grocer's boy or the under-footman I +suppose. Am I not at this very moment sitting with complexion cream +daubed on my face, in order that I may appear more attractive to MY +young man. I know now how Molly's maid--who is keeping company with +Luke's butler--feels when we all dine early for a theatre and +Josephine gets an evening out at the Earl's Court Exhibition with her +gentleman. + +Sounds beastly vulgar, doesn't it? But that's just what I'm making +myself pretty for--dinner there this evening at the French Restaurant +with MY gentleman. It's quite proper: we are a party of four--the +other two I may add are not in Rosamond's or Molly's set. + +I've been interrupted--He has telephoned. The other pair have +disappointed us. Will I defy conventions and dine with HIM alone? + +Of course I will.' + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + + +The particular sheet ended at this point. Mrs Gildea laid it down upon +the earlier ones and took another from the little pile which she had +spread in sequence for perusal. She smiled to herself in mournful +amusement. For she scarcely questioned the probability that her friend +would in due course become disillusioned of a very ordinary +individual--he certainly sounded a little like an adventurer--who for +some occult reason had been idealised by this great-souled, wayward and +utterly foolish creature. How many shattered idols had not Lady Bridget +picked up from beneath their over-turned pedestals and consigned to +Memory's dust-bin! On how many pyres had not that oft-widowed soul +committed suttee to be resurrected at the next freak of Destiny! And +yet with it all, there was something strangely elusive, curiously +virginal about Lady Bridget. + +She had been in love so often: nevertheless, she had never loved. Joan +Gildea perfectly realised the distinction. Biddy had been as much, and +more in love with ideas as with persons. Art, Literature, Higher +Thought, Nature, Philanthrophy, Mysticism--she spelled everything with +a capital letter--Platonic Passion--the last most dangerous and most +recurrent. As soon as one Emotional Interest burned out another rose +from the ashes. And, while they lasted, she never counted the cost of +these emotional interests. + +But then she was an O'Hara: and all the O'Haras that had been were +recklessly extravagant, squandering alike their feelings and their +money. There wasn't a member of the house of Gaverick decently well to +do, excepting indeed Eliza, Countess of Gaverick. She had been a +Glasgow heiress and only belonged to the aristocracy by right of +marriage with Bridget's uncle, the late Lord Gaverick, who on the death +of his brother, about the time Bridget was grown up, had succeeded to +the earldom, but not to the estate. + +Gaverick Castle in the province of Connaught, which with the +unproductive lands appertaining to it, had been in the possession of +O'Haras from time immemorial, was sold by Bridget's father to pay his +debts. His brother--the heiress' husband, who, unlike the traditional +spendthrift O'Haras had accumulated a small fortune in business, was +able by some lucky chance to buy back the Castle--partly with his +wife's money--soon after his accession to the barren honours of the +family. His widow inherited the place as well as the rest of her +husband's property, and could do as she pleased with the whole. Thus +the present holder of that ancient Irish title, young, charming and +poor, stemming from a collateral branch, lived mainly upon his friends +and upon the hope that Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, might at her death +leave him the ancestral home and the wherewithal to maintain it. + +As for Bridget's father, the last but one Earl of Gaverick, his career +may be summed up as a series of dramatic episodes, matrimonial, social +and financial. + +His first wife had divorced him. His second wife--the mother of Lady +Bridget--had deserted him for an operatic tenor and had died shortly +afterwards. She herself had been an Italian singer. + +Lord Gaverick did not marry again, and Mrs Gildea had gathered that the +less said about his social adventures the better. Financially, he had +subsisted precariously as a company promoter. There had come a final +smash: and one morning the Earl of Gaverick had been found dead in his +bed, an empty medicine bottle by his side. As he had been in the habit +of taking chloral the Coroner's jury agreed upon the theory of an +overdose. + +Yes, Mrs Gildea could quite understand that apart from general views on +the marriage question, Lady Bridget O'Hara might well shrink from +further connection with City finance. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + + +A naughty little gust--herald of the sub-tropical afternoon breeze +that comes up the Leichardt River from the sea, blew about the typed +sheets on the table, and, among them, those of Lady Bridget's letter, +as Mrs Gildea laid them down. + +While she collected the various pages of manuscript that had been +displaced and was bundling them together, with a banana on each sheaf +to keep it safe, there came a second snap of the gate and a man's voice +hailed her. + +It was the voice of a man who sang baritone, and his accent was an odd +combination of the Bush drawl grafted on to the mellifluous Gaelic, +from which race he had originated. + +'Any admittance, Mrs Gildea, except on business, during working hours?' + +'Yes, it is working hours Colin, but you happen to be business because +you're just the person I'm wanting to speak to, so come along.' + +'Good for me, Joan,' and the man came along, clearing the rest of the +garden path and the veranda steps in three strides. + +He gripped Mrs Gildea's hand. + +'You're nice and cool up here, and you get every bit of wind that's +going along the river,' he said. 'It's a good thing you kept this +humpey, Joan--a little nest for the bird to fly home to, eh?' + +'Yes, I'm glad, though it seemed a silly piece of sentiment . . . and, +as you say, I always FELT the old bird might want to fly home for a bit +some day. Well, YOU look cool enough, Colin.' + +'This is temperate zone for me after the Leura. . . . But it's a hot +March because we haven't had a proper rainy season, and I'll just stand +here and catch the breeze for a minute or two before I sit down.' + +He balanced himself on the veranda railing: took off his broad-brimmed +Panama hat and mopped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Mrs Gildea +surveyed him with interested admiration. + +A big man--large-limbed, bony--a typical Scotcher in that--with thin +flanks, a well-set up back and massive shoulders. His face was +browny-red all over except where the skin ran white under the hair and +there was a ruddier ring round the upper part of the throat. His nose +was thin between the eyes, broadening lower, high-bridged and with high +cut nostrils, showing the sensitive red when he was enraged--as not +infrequently happened. He had large honest blue eyes, intensely blue, +of the fiery description with a trick of dropping the lids when he was +in doubt or consideration. They were expressive eyes, as a rule keen +and hard, but they could soften unexpectedly under the influence of +emotion. At other times, according to the quality of the emotion, they +glowed literally like blue flames. He was considered queer-tempered, +rather sulky, and his face often took on a very unyielding expression. + +He had thick reddish-yellow eyebrows at the base of a slightly receding +forehead--wanting in benevolence, phrenologists would have said, and +with the bump of self-esteem considerably developed. His hair was +yellow, pure and simple--the color of spun silk, only coarser, and it +would have curled at the ends had he not worn it close-cropped. His +moustache and beard were rather deeper yellow, the beard short, +well-shaped--the cut of Colin McKeith's beard was almost his only +vanity--there was one other, the 'millionare strut' in town--and he +had the masculine habit of stroking and clasping his beard with his +large open-fingered hand--spatulate tips to his digits, the practical +hand--fairly well kept, though brown and hairy. + +There were lines in his face and a way of setting his features--that a +man gets when he has to front straight some cruel facts of human +existance--to calculate at a glance the chances of death from a +black's spear, a lost trail, an empty water-bag, the horns of a +charging bullock or even worse things than these. + +And such experiences had put a stamp on him, and distinguished him from +the ordinary ruck of men--these and his undeniable manliness, and good +looks. + +He smiled as he glanced amusedly from the littered wind-blown papers on +the table to his hostess' rather troubled face. + +'Well you seem to have a pretty fair show here of what you call +"copy,"' he said. + +Mrs Gildea met his look with one of frank pleasure. + +'That's what I want YOU for.' + +'What's the job?' he asked. 'You ought to know that literary "copy" is +not much in my line. Now if it had been yarding the fowls or cleaning +up the garden, I'd feel more at home as a lady's help.' + +'Colin, you take me back to Bungroopim--when it happened to be a slack +day for you on the run, and when the married couple had levanted and +I'd got an incompetent black-gin in the kitchen--or when the store +wanted tidying and you and I had a good old spree amongst the rubbish.' + +He laughed at a time-honoured joke. + +'Stick sugar-mats and weevilly four-bins; and a breeding paddock of +tarantulas and centipedes and white lizards to clear out. I WAS a bush +hobbledehoy in those days, Joan. It's close on twenty years ago.' + +Joan Gildea gave a little shudder. + +'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and +a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you.' + +'I don't know about that, Joan. I've had my spell of roughing it-- +droving, mining, pioneering--humping bluey along the track-- +stoney-broke: sold up by the bank and only just beginning now to find +out what Australia's worth.' + +'That's what I said--you are just beginning. Roughing it has made a +splendid man of you, Colin: and who would ever believe that you are +four years older than I am. Colin, you ought to get married.' + +'The Upper Leura is no place for the sort of wife I want,' he returned +shortly. + +'I don't see that. It isn't as if you were going to stop there always. +When you're rich enough you can put on a manager. You've got an +enormous piece of pretty good country, haven't you?' + +'One thousand square miles--and a lot more to be got for the taking-- +mostly fair cattle pasture--now that we're going in for Artesian +bores. But it means capital, sinking wells three thousand feet and +more. It'll be three or four years at least before I can see a trip to +Europe--doing the thing in the way I mean to do it.' + +'Must you go to Europe for a wife? Aren't Australian girls good +enough?' + +'I've always meant to try for the best. You taught me that, Joan, I +shall follow your example. You were an Australian girl.' + +Mrs Gildea's face saddened. 'Well,' was all she said. + +'You see,' he went on, and the eyes took their narrow concentrated look +and suddenly blazed out as he straightened himself against the veranda +post, 'I know something of what marriage in the back block means: and +I've studied women--don't laugh--I mean theoretically--from books. +I've read history--always managed a couple of volumes or so in my +swag--nights and nights, by the light of a fat lamp and a camp fire. I've +studied the women of great times--ancient and modern--they're always +the same--and I've remarked the type of woman that's got grit-- +capacity for fine things--You understand all that as well as I do, +Joan. Look at the women of the French Revolution for one instance--the +aristocrats, you know--well, I've realised that it takes blood and +breeding and tradition behind to carry a woman to the block with a sure +step and a proud smile . . .' Suddenly, he became aware of Joan's gaze, +half surprised, wholly interested. . . . He reddened and pulled himself +up gruffly. + +'Sentimental rot, d'ye call it?' + +'No, Colin, I believe in all that and so do you.' + +'Blood and breeding and tradition--all the grand stuff that's been +grown in them on the NOBLESSE OBLIGE principle--self-respect, courage, +dignity--the stuff that gives staying power as well as the fire for +making good spunk. . . . Not that I'd put a pure-blood racer to haul up +logs for an iron-bark fence: any more than I'd set out to plant an +English lady of that sort to rough it on the Leura.' + +'Well, why not? Do you want your wife to be like a canary in a cage?' + +'You know I don't hold with gilded cages and spoiling a woman who is +there to be your mate. But all the same, I shan't look out for MY wife +until I can afford to give her as good a show as she'd be likely to +have if the stopped at home. You see, a real woman must be a sportsman +in her way of taking life as much as a man, and I maintain as a general +proposition that it's the English lady--even one of your sneered-at +"Lady Clara Vere de Vere" lot who makes the best front against battle, +murder, and sudden death--if it has to come to that. . . . Just +because,' he went on, 'though she might have been brought up in a +castle and never have done a hand's turn that could be done for her, +she's still got in her veins the blood of fighting ancestors--men who +were ready to lay down their lives for God and King and country and +their women's honour--and of women too who'd maybe held the stronghold +that had been their husband's reward, and kept the flag flying, when to +fail or flinch meant death or worse. . . . Why, look at your Lady +Nithisdales and your Lady Russells and your Maria Theresas. . . .' + +'And your Joan of Arc--who was a peasant girl--and your Charlotte +Corday. . . .' + +'Oh, you beat me there. . . . And I wasn't intending to fire off a +speech anyway. . . . And anyway, Joan, its awful cheek to think I could +ever get the sort of wife I want, but if I can't, I won't have one at +all. . . . I'll have my money's worth. Romance--Ideals--something +more LIFTING than beef and mutton and cutting a bigger dash than your +neighbour. . . . See?' + +He broke off with a laugh, and the wonderfully vivid light that came +into his blue eyes made him look like an ardent youth. + +'And you a democrat!' jeered Mrs Gildea. 'You, a champion of the +people's rights; you, an Imperialist in the broadest sense of the term! +Oh, I really must put you into one of my articles as a certain type of +modern Australian. In fact, Colin, that's what I wanted to talk to you +about.' + +'All right, fire away. We'll drop the marriage question.' + +'To be resumed later.' A quizzical look passed over Mrs Gildea's mouth, +and then, 'Oh, what a pity!' she muttered to herself. + +'What's a pity?' + +'Never mind! The English mail's in--as you may see. I'll show you what +Mr Gibbs says. He didn't like my last letter. He says he wants bones +and sinews, not an artist's lay figure dressed in stage bushman's +clothes. There, Mr McKeith, among your other cogitations on the subject +of women, you may try to realise that the mission of a lady special +correspondent is not all'--she looked round for a metaphor--'Muscat +grapes and pineapple.' + +'Or cooked-up information from heads of departments; or got-up shows of +agricultural, mining and other industries. Or trips to the Bay to see +the model island prison in which our weary criminals rehabilitate their +enfeebled systems by cool sea-breezes and generous diet. Or ministerial +picnics to experimental cotton and sugar plantations the size of your +garden to prove that all tropical products can be raised to perfection +without mentioning the difficulty in a White Australia of finding the +labour to do it.' + +'Oh, don't rub it in, Colin. I'm only a special reporter, and even +special reporters can't know everything. Now, do just sit down and let +me ask you questions. And first of all, do you want a whiskey peg or a +cup of tea, or what?--I've had my late breakfast.' + +'I'll have a smoke, please. Been swearing off store baccy now I'm down +from the Bush. I'm trying hard to smoke cigarettes like one of your +English toffs.' + +He pulled out a copper cigarette case with some hieroglyphical letters +and numbers stamped on it, which he regarded with a humorous smile. + +'Only cost a shilling, but now I've my brand across, it looks fine. You +know that by the Brands Act you've got to have a number and two letters +on every head of stock--My brand's the Mark of the Beast 666 C.K. +See?' + +He fixed his cigarette into a new amber mouthpiece, made a wry face, +and began to smoke. + +'I don't think much of your quality of cigarettes,' said Mrs Gildea. +'On the whole, I prefer your tobacco.' + +'All right. Give me my pipe any day--' And he pitched away the +cigarette and produced an ancient pipe, which he filled with tobacco +from an india-rubber pouch and lighted. 'Now, fire away.' + +'Not for a little bit yet. You must read my rejected article and my +official instructions, and then you'll have some grasp of the subjects +I want information upon. Here they are--Mr Gibbs first.' + +She handed him her editor's letters and pushed a small pile of +manuscript towards his elbow. + +'There. It will take you about a quarter of an hour to digest all that; +and meanwhile, if you don't mind the noise, I shall go on typing +something I've got to send off by to-morrow's mail.' + +She settled herself at the typewriter, her back partially turned to +him. The subject matter of what she was doing took all her attention. +She worked hard for about ten minutes, hearing sub-consciously the +rustle of papers under his hand and one or two faint ejaculations and a +queer little laugh he gave once or twice as he read. + +Presently he said: + +'I say, there's a mistake here. I've gone through your editor's +letters. He's sound; I think I can help you to get at what he wants. +But these other sheets have got mixed up with something else. I thought +at first it was a story you'd given me, and I went on reading and got +interested; and now I see it must have been written by some young woman +friend of yours'--if it's meant for a letter.' + +Mrs Gildea turned with a dismayed exclamation. + +'Good gracious! You don't mean to say that I've given you her letter?' + +'Is it really a letter? Do women type letters? It reads to me much more +like what the heroine of a novel would be supposed to say than an +ordinary everyday girl. If that's a flesh and blood woman I'd like to +know her.' + +Mrs Gildea took from him the three typed pages he had in his hand. They +were certainly part of Lady Bridget's letter--almost the whole of it, +for only the end and the beginning ones were missing. In her hurried +rearrangement of the wind-scattered sheets she had put these into the +wrong bundle. She ran her eye anxiously over the badly-typed slips, +which, with their marginal corrections and smart, allusive jargon of a +world entirely removed from Colin McKeith's experience, might easily +have misled him into the belief that he was reading literary 'copy.' Of +course he knew that Joan Gildea wrote novels as well as journalistic +stuff. + +He read her thoughts. + +'You needn't worry. There isn't the least clue to her identity--I +suppose that's what you're afraid of. Not a surname anywhere--I +couldn't have imagined a woman would write like that--give herself +away--as she does. But it's fine all the same. There'd be nothing +small about that woman, Joan. Do you know how it ended?' + +'I don't know yet. But I can guess.' + +'Eh?' He blew out rings of smoke with less than his usual deliberation. +'D'ye think she'll marry the chap?' + +'No--she never does.' + +'She's a flirt, then?' + +'Bid--' Mrs Gildrea swallowed the rest. 'SHE would scorn such a +commonplace suggestion. Do you remember that novel of Hardy's, THE +WELL-BELOVED? She's like the man there, who was always in love with the +same Ideal--under different forms--until he found that he'd made a +mistake, and then the game began all over again.' + +McKeith ruminated. 'SHE'S like that, is she? . . . The fellow is what +you'd call a bounder?' he exclaimed suddenly. + +'So I imagine.' + +'But she's in love with him--she must be, or she wouldn't write like +that?' + +'You don't know her. She can't do anything by halves--while she's +doing it.' + +'By Jove, that's what I like. There's a woman who'd never hang on the +fence. And her ideas about love and all that: it's splendid.' + +He brooded again a few moments, while Mrs Gildea sorted her papers +afresh; then he exclaimed: + +'It strikes me, she's one of the sort I was talking about just now.' + +'Well, she WAS born in a castle.' + +'I guessed it. . . . You won't tell me her name?' + +'How could I--I ask you? After you'd read that!' + +'No. All right. You can trust me not to find out.' + +'Besides, she would never do for you.' + +He laughed quizzically. 'Well, I'm a barbarian, and it's possible I may +some day be a millionaire. But I'm not such a conceited cad as to +imagine a woman like that would ever fall in love with ME! ' His voice +sank almost to a reverential tone. 'The only thing I do know is that if +I got the chance, I'd show her I was strong enough to carry her off to +my wigwam and she could do what she pleased afterwards. I'd be her +slave so long as she cared for me--and I'd never live with a woman who +didn't.' + +'My dear Colin, you're not likely to get the chance. Please forget that +you ever read that letter.' + +'No, I can't do that; but as she's in London and we're over here, it's +not much odds anyway. Well, have you found the right sheets? Give them +to me if you have and then we can come to business.' + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + + +Colin McKeith had been gone some time and Mrs Gildea, primed with fresh +ideas, had finished her article on the lines he suggested, before she +again tackled Lady Bridget's love-affair. + +The second letter (there is no need to reproduce the page of daring +sentiment that closed the first) was dated from Castle Gaverick in +South Connemara, and plunged straight into the tragic culmination. + +'It's all over, Joan--was over soon after my last letter, but I've +been too wretched ever since to write. If you had been in England you +might have read in one of last week's "MORNING POST'S" that a marriage +has been arranged and will shortly take place between Mr Willoughby +Maule, formerly confidential adviser to His Highness the Rajah of +Kasalpore--and Evelyn Mary, only daughter of the late John Bagallay, +Esq, and the late Mrs Bagally of Bagallay Court, Birmingham. + +Rosamond tells me that Luke told her that Evelyn Mary has been throwing +herself at Will's head ever since they met last year on a P. & O. +steamer between Singapore and Colombo. She and her chaperon went on a +tour round the world, it seems, just before Evelyn Mary came of age. I +wonder they did not get engaged then, and can only conclude--as there +was no ME then to upset the apple-cart--that he did not know how rich +she was going to be. Anyway, I feel certain that it was Evelyn Mary who +was at the back of his plan for settling down as a respectable +stock-jobber. Molly Gaverick--who is a cat--said she knew for certain +Willoughby Maule came to England with the fixed intention of marrying +for birth and position or for money, and that he fancied, in me, he'd +found both--she says that he took his impressions of us from the +paragraphs in the Society papers and thought us much richer an bigger +than we are, and that now he knows better he thinks it safer to drop +birth and make sure of money. + +The Bagallays made theirs in nails. Last year Evelyn Mary came into a +fortune of a quarter of a million. I'm told that it's absolutely at her +own disposal. She was an only child. A quarter of a million would be an +immense temptation to a poor and ambitious man. + +And yet, Joan, I CAN'T believe that Will has been actuated by wholly +sordid motives. He may be an adventurer, but he is not a mean one. + +Rosamond Tallant thinks it much more likely that because I didn't +introduce him to Aunt Eliza, and Chris and Molly never asked him to +dinner, he got the idea that I considered him good enough to amuse +myself with, but not good enough for serious consideration as a +husband. And it's quite true that I always shirked that point when it +was touched upon. If I must be perfectly honest with myself, I think I +was afraid of his putting me at the cannon's mouth and telling me I +must decide then and there to take him or leave him. Should I ever have +had the strength to give him up? He's so frightfully dear to me, that I +can't think of him now without a shudder at the thought of his +belonging to another woman. I never really believed it would come to +that. He once or twice hinted that there WAS a girl--the "nice English +girl" that I had chaffed him about. I had an idea that it was his way +of putting pressure on me. + +The first time was the evening that I dined alone with him at the +Exhibition., Heavens! I grow hot this moment thinking that he may have +supposed I was in the HABIT of dining alone with men in French +restaurants at popular Exhibitions. I don't know why I did for this man +what I'd never done for any other, Partly, I fancy, because it never +dawned upon me that he could misunderstand me. Rosamond says I +idealised him too much, and that he's just the ordinary man and not the +tiniest bit of the Bayard I imagined him. I daresay she's right, and +that he may have laughed in his sleeve at my romantic rhapsodies. + +All the same, I never can convince myself that he is a mere +fortune-hunter. Perhaps the very fact that I didn't make the smallest +effort to wrest him from Mademoiselle Croesus when he tried to make me +jealous seemed proof to him that he was no more to me than a caprice. +So, when we made each other an atrocious scene and I told him to go off +to her, he simply took me at my word. + +The scene began with my telling him about my sort of engagement to +Aubrey Blaine--whom as you know, I was really nearer to marrying than +I have been to marrying anybody. And yet, as I tried to explain to +Will, I didn't WANT to marry Aubrey. Only the mischief with me is +always that I can't hold back with one hand and give with the +other. . . Will wasn't able to enter into my feelings about that affair in +the very least or to understand how, when it came to the point, I realised +that I COULDN'T sink to domesticity on seven hundred a year. Fancy +taking a house in Pimlico or West Kensington, or one of those horrible +places with a man to whom you have a violent attraction and consulting +with your adored as to whether you could run to three maids and a +Tweeny! The sordidness of it would be too disenchanting. + +When I said something like that to Will, he flared up and we hurled +nasty speeches at each other, and finally he walked off slamming the +door--I used to hear that slam in my dreams sometimes--or it may have +been Luke coming in late--the Tallants' hall door makes a particularly +Kismetish bang. That was our real parting, though it wasn't the last. +He wrote to me--a bitter sort of farewell. And I did a mad thing. I +went to see him in his rooms. But when I got there, his manner-- +something he said which offended me--one can't explain the +unexplainable--started the scene all over again. It was as if a +mocking demon came up between us. That time it was I who left him. The +next thing I heard was that he and Mademoiselle Croesus were engaged. + +I wrote to him--I know it wasn't the proper sort of letter--I daresay +he saw through my pretended indifference. He sent me back my letters as +I had asked him to do--wrote me in quite the right strain--said he +was not worthy of me--that I'd shewn him I was far above him--that he +might not presume to think I could be happy with a man of his +inadequate means and position--that he could never forget me--and so +on--but that it was best as it is. + +And now I've got to get what consolation I can out of my own inner +conviction--that it IS best as it is, and that I ought to be thankful +for being still Bridget O'Hara, mistress of my own fate, and free yet +to sport about--sport!--oh, the irony of it--in what you call the +stormy sea of my emotions. + +I make over to you the copyright of my sufferings.' + +The letter broke off abruptly. It was resumed on another sheet six +weeks later at Gaverick Castle. + +'Rosamond Tallant has just sent me a writing case I left at their house +with these pages in it. I daren't read them over, but they'll give you +an idea of my state of mind during those last dreadful weeks in London. +My nerves are now in a little better condition. Since I came here, I've +set myself resolutely NOT to think of Will--that is, not more than I +can help; there are times when his ghost is extremely active. I'm +putting out brain-feelers, for I know that I should go to pieces +altogether if I didn't throw myself into some new interest. So that I'm +trying a system for the development of one's higher faculties that was +taught me by a queer old German professor I met at Caux last summer, +who was interested in the odd little second-sight experiences I've had +occasionally which I told him about. He made me do exercises in +deep-breathing and meditation--you shut yourself up, darken your room +and concentrate upon a subject--Beauty, Wisdom, Friendship, were some +of the subjects he gave me--and you can't think how thrillingly +absorbing it was. I worked frightfully hard at it for a bit, drinking +only distilled water and living on vegetables--you CAN do that in +Switzerland: you simply CAN'T in civilised society--And then came Rome +and the Willoughby Maule episode. + +Episode! Has it come to that! + +Ah Joan, I have a horrible suspicion that however much I may try to +persuade myself I'm concentrating upon some abstract theme, I've really +all the time been thinking of him. + +Yesterday I took Friendship for my study in concentration. You, dear +thing, came up, naturally, and your image actually kept Will away for a +clear five seconds. I thought what a help it would be to be with you, +and afterwards I made the suggestion of an Australian trip on literary +business to Aunt Eliza, but it was no good. She is deeply engaged just +now in driving batches of stuffy relatives in a stuffy brougham-- +luckily there's no room for me in it--to still stuffier garden +parties. And, besides, I don't feel that I can take any desperate step +of that kind until the Irrevocable has been written in Destiny's Book. + +Will Maule is not married yet. + +Well, anyhow, the meditation on Friendship was comparatively +successful. Wisdom I found beyond me, and Beauty awakened painful +memories. To-day I mean to concentrate on wealth--one of my +Professor's theories is that if you concentrate regularly on a thing +you are bound in the long run to get what you set your mind upon, and I +do find my position of dependence upon Aunt Eliza too unspeakably +galling. What a monstrous injustice it seems that I--who if I had been +born a boy, must have been Earl of Gaverick, should be at the mercy of +an ill-tempered, miserly, old woman who may leave the home of my +forefathers to a crossing-sweeper if she pleases. I suppose it ought to +go to Chris, but one doesn't feel called upon to arraign Fate on behalf +of a distant cousin who by rights has no business to be Lord Gaverick +at all. + +I'm concentrating on Art too. Every day I do some inspirational +painting by the sea shore. I've made some studies of Wave-fairies for +the Children's Story Book we planned to do together. It's quite +invigorating to sport about with them in imagination, in a grey-green +stormy sea, out of reach of human banalities. I can feel the cold spray +as I paint and the sense of power and rest in the elemental forces--an +almost Wagnerian feeling of great Cosmic Realities.' + +Again Mrs Gildea smiled to herself. How like Biddy O'Hara! + +She couldn't be so utterly heart-broken if she was able to practise +deep breathing and concentration--Wealth, Friendship, Art--a pretty +comprehensive repertoire--and to prate on Cosmic Realities and the +Wagnerian feeling! + +But presently the tragic note shrieked again. Bridget went on: + +'I am in a fever of suspense and misery wondering whether Will's +marriage will come off or if, at the last moment, it will be broken. He +has been obsessing me these last days. He too--I am certain of it-- +dreads the Irrevocable, and regrets the rupture between us. I dream of +him continually--such restless, tantalising dreams. And yet my mood is +so contradictory. If the marriage WERE broken off and he stood before +me, free, and offered himself!-- + +Could I bring myself to face our future together with all its +depoeticising influences, its almost certainty of friction? No. +Something deep down inside me says--has always said--"It would be a +mistake; this is not the real thing: we are not suited to each other; +the attraction might even turn to repulsion." Imagine the agony of +that! + +Life goes on here, all dribble, waste and fret--I cannot concentrate, +I cannot paint--the Wave-fairies won't play--Your Bush gobies appeal +more to my present humour. I feel a sort of nostalgia for the wild-- +though my nostalgia is mental, and not from any former association. Do +not be surprised if some day you get a telegram saying that I am +coming.' + +Another sheet. + +'Will was married yesterday. I have just read the account of the +ceremony--I can see it all--the usual semi-smart opulent wedding--palms +lining the aisle, Orange blossom galore. The bride "beautiful in +cream satin and old lace"--Evelyn Mary is simply a LUMP--Pages in +white velvet--The fussy overdressed Bagallay crowd of friends--I hear +there are no "in-laws," And the bridegroom's face--dark, cynical--I +know the sort of miserable smile and the queer glitter in his eyes.-- +"I WILLOUGHBY TAKE THEE EVELYN MARY. . . FOR BETTER AND FOR +WORSE. . .TILL DEATH US DO PART ". . . There! I'm a blathering idiot to +mind. . .I ought to be dancing with joy at my escape. Let us end the +chapter. The incident is closed, I'm going for a long tramp by the sea and +shall post this on my way. + +Your BIDDY.' + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + + +Mrs Gildea was too busy in the next two or three weeks to trouble +herself unduly over Lady Bridget O'Hara's tragic love-affair. She had +to report on the small holders of property in Leichardt's Land and made +a trip for that purpose among the free-selectors in her own old +district. The TWENTY YEARS AFTER letter she wrote about this expedition +for THE IMPERIALIST was one of her best, and for that she was greatly +indebted to Colin McKeith's commentaries. + +Old associations with him had been vividly reawakened by this visit to +the home of her youth. She remembered, as if it had been yesterday, how +McKeith, a raw youth of eighteen with a horrible tragedy at the back of +his young life, had been picked up by her father and brought to +Bungroopim to learn the work of a cattle-station. . . . hitherto his +experience, such as it was, had been with sheep in the, then, unsettled +north. Joan was herself a girl in short frocks, three or four years +younger than Colin McKeith, and with no apparent prospect of ever +crossing the 'big fella Water,' as the Ubi Blacks called it, or of +joining the band of Bohemian scribblers in London. + +She remembered how quickly Colin had learned his work--remembered how +the shy self-contained lad, with always that grim memory of his boyhood +shaping a vengeful purpose in his mind and making him old for his +years, had developed the flair of the Bush in his hardy Scotch +constitution. She was compelled to own that he had developed, too, some +of the worst as well as the best of those Scotch qualities inherited +from his parents, expatriated though they had been, and from the +staunch clansmen behind them. He had the Scotch loyalty; likewise, the +Scotch tenacity of character which never forgot and very seldom +forgave; the Scotch obstinacy of purpose and opinion; the Scotch +acquisitiveness; a tendency too to 'nearness' in matters of small +expenditure which combined oddly with a generosity amounting almost to +recklessness in large enterprise. It was on the whole not a bad outfit +for a pioneer who meant to get on in his world. + +The beginnings were small, but indicative of the trend of his career. +He contrived, even when he was earning no salary but working only for +his 'tucker,' to get together a horse or two, a cow or two, a specially +good cattle-dog or two, which last he made the nucleus of a profitable +breed. The cows and bullocks he left at Bungroopim when the time came +for him to push out, reclaiming them after they had increased and +multiplied in those pleasant pastures like Jacob's herds in the fields +of Laban. + +Not that there was any seven years matrimonial question. There had been +no Leah. Or if Joan Gildea had ever played the part of Rachel in Colin +McKeith's sentimental dreams, those boyish dreams had left no serious +mark upon him. He had gone north to a newly-formed station and had +there out-bushed the bushman in his knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of +cattle and sheep and his amazing faculty for spotting country suitable +for either. Here no doubt his descent from generations of herdsmen had +stood him in good stead. + +He sold his knowledge to rich squatters in the settled districts who +employed him to take up new country for them and to manage the hundreds +of square miles and the thousands of stock from which they derived the +best part of their wealth. But he only managed for other men until he +had made enough money of his own to take up and stock new country for +himself. + +In a few years he had acquired a moderate-sized herd and established +himself with it on the almost unexplored reaches of the Upper Leura. +Life on that river never lacked dangerous adventure. McKeith's father +had owned a station on the Lower Leura--the bank took it in payment of +their mortgage after the catastrophe occurred. That station had been +the scene of one of the most horrible native outrages in the history of +Australia. The tragedy had set its mark on Colin McKeith. Left a +penniless boy after having worked his way to independent manhood he had +made it his purpose to pursue the wild black with relentless animosity. + +All along the Upper Leura to the fastnesses at the river's head where +his new station stood on the boundaries of civilisation he had gone, +mercilessly punishing native depredations. + +He had been put on trial by a humanitarian Government for so-called +manslaughter of natives, and had been acquitted under an administration +immediately succeeding it. Afterwards he had at the peril of his life, +made an exploring trip across the base of the northern peninsula of the +colony with the intention, as he phrased it, of 'shaking round a bit.' +He 'shook round' to some purpose, penetrated to the Big Bight, and got +on the tracks of a famous lost explorer. Colin McKeith solved the +mystery of that explorer's fate and had his revenge on the Government +which had impeached him by pocketing the reward which it had offered +any adventurous pioneer following on the lost explorer's steps. + +Later, McKeith was given a mission to explore and develop a certain +tract of fertile country between the heads of the Leura and the Big +Bight--the particular Premier instigating the mission being a +far-sighted politician who realised that a Japanese invasion of the +northern coast might eventually interfere very radically with the plan +for a White Australia. + +Colin McKeith threw into his own scheme of life a trip to Japan, by way +of India and China. He volunteered, too, for the Boer War, and did a +short term of service with the Australian Contingent in South Africa. + +He dreamed more and more of becoming an Empire-maker--a sort of +Australian Cecil Rhodes. But he was wise enough to realise that all +Empire-making cannot be on the Rhodesian scale. + +He realised that his personal fortune must first be secured. Without +money one can do nothing. Cecil Rhodes had had the natural wealth of +Rhodesia at his back. McKeith had set himself the task of opening up +the fine country out West, which he knew only needed a system of +irrigation by Artesian Bores to defy drought, the squatters curse. That +object once accomplished--he gave himself with luck and good seasons +five or six years--there would be nothing to stop his becoming a +patriot and a millionaire. + +But Colin went slowly and cannily--and that was why the Leichardt's +Land Government believed in him. He had the reputation of never +spending a penny on his private or public ambitions where a halfpenny +would serve his purpose, and he was known to be a man of deep counsels +and sparing of speech. Thus, no one knew exactly what was his business +down south at this time. Only the general remark was that Colin McKeith +had his head screwed on the right way and that some day he would come +out on top. + +But that there was deep down a spring of romance beneath that hard +Bushman's exterior, Joan Gildea, herself a romance writer, guessed +easily. And her intuition told her that a little thin bore had been +made in the direction of that vital spring of romance by his +inadvertent reading of Lady Bridget O'Hara's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + + +Joan saw that McKeith was extremely anxious to know more about the +writer of that letter and the progress of that love-affair, though he +had given his word of honour that he would not try to find out her +identity. But he put subtle questions to Joan about her friends in +England and her acquaintance with the higher circles of society in +London. Once, he asked her straight out whether she had heard again +from her typewriting correspondent, and if the Soldier of Fortune had +proved himself a Bounder, as they had suspected? + +'Yes,' Joan answered unguardedly. 'I'm thankful to say that he is +married to his heiress.' + +The eager light which suddenly shone in McKeith's eyes startled Mrs +Gildea. + +'You don't mean to say that you're thinking of her like that?' she +exclaimed. 'It's no use, Colin.' + +'Probably not,' he answered composedly. 'Tell me, how does she take +it?' + +'Deadly seriously. She's practising Deep-breathing and Concentration to +try and drive the man from her thoughts.' + +'What! Oh, you mean Theosophy and that kind of thing. I went to hear +Mrs Annie Besant lecture once, and I couldn't make head or tail of it.' + +'No. You wouldn't. But it was a German Professor who taught B---- No. I +will NOT tell you her name.' + +'Anyway, I know that it begins with a "B." And I know that she's got +one relation called Molly, and another called Chris, and a friend whose +name is Rosamond--likewise that Rosamond is the wife of Luke. . . . By +Jove!' He stopped short and looked at Mrs Gildea with sharp +enlightenment. + +They were in the veranda of her cottage, and he was seated on the steps +smoking, his long legs stretched out against one veranda post, his +broad back against another. 'Seen the paper this morning?' he asked. + +'No. If you pass the CHRONICLE Office, I wish you'd lodge a complaint +for me against the vagaries of their distribution department. Twice +lately I haven't had the paper till the afternoon.' + +He pulled it from his pocket, and, leaning across, handed it to her. + +'Read the English Telegrams,' he said. + +Joan stopped cleaning her typewriter and examined the column of latest +intelligence. + +'Good gracious! So they've appointed Sir Luke Tallant new Governor of +Leichardt's Land!' + +'Luke!--A coincidence you'll say. No good telling me that. SHE wrote +that "Luke" was hankering after a colonial governorship.' + +'Well, he's got it,' replied Mrs Gildea noncommittally. + +'And if you read the leading article you'll see that the CHRONICLE is +justly outraged at so important a post as that of Governor of +Leichardt's Land being given to an unknown man who has never served +outside the Colonial Office in London and who doesn't even belong to +the noble army of Peers.' + +'That's all nonsense. Luke Tallant's a friend of Chamberlain's, a +thorough Imperialist and a very good man for the post.' + +'You know him then?' + +'I know OF him.' + +'From HER?' + +'HER! Has it come to HER! Colin, if anyone had told me that you would +ever be fool enough to fall in love with a woman you've never seen, I +should have laughed outright. You don't even know what she's like.' + +'I can see her in my mind's eye, as I used to see the women I read +about by my camp fire. You'd never believe either what a queer +idealistic chap I can be when I'm mooning about the Bush. Don't you +know, Joan'--and his voice got suddenly grave and deep-toned--'you +ought to, for you were a bush girl and you've had men-kind out in the +Back Blocks--Don't you know that when a man has got to go on day after +day, week after week, year after year, fighting devils of loneliness +and worse--with nothing to look at except miles and miles of stark +staring gum trees and black, smelling GIDGEE* and dead-finish scrub-- +and never the glimpse of a woman--not counting black gins--to remind +him he once had a mother and might have a wife. Well, can't you see +that his only chance of not growing into a rotten HATTER* is to start +picturing in his imagination all the beautiful things he's ever seen or +read about--the sort of lady-wife he hopes to have some day and in +making such a companion of her that she seems to him as real as the +stars and far more real than the gum trees. So as he'll keep saying to +her always in his thoughts: "I'll keep myself sound and wholesome for +your sake. I'll never forget that I'm a gentleman, so as YOU won't +shrink away from me in horror if ever I've the luck to come across YOU +down here on this Earth."' +[*Gidgee--Colloquial pronunciation of gidia, an Australain tree.] +[*Hatter--A white man who prefers the society of blacks.] + +He stopped, fitted another cigarette from the copper case into the +holder and, before beginning upon it, said without looking at Mrs +Gildea: + +'I wouldn't spout like that to anybody but you, Joan. My word! Though I +see by your writing that you've a fair notion of how this cursed, grim, +glorious old Bush can play the deuce with a chap--body and brain and +soul--if he doesn't wear the right kind of talisman to safeguard +himself.' + +'Yes--I understand. And your talisman, Colin? What was your picture of +the lady-wife? Describe your Ideal and I'll tell you if SHE is the +least bit like it.' + +McKeith smoked ruminatively for a few moments, his eyes narrowed. The +lines in his forehead and round his mouth showed plainly. He was gazing +out into space, far beyond the sun-flecked Leichardt River and the +Botanical Gardens, and the glaring city and the range of distant hills +on the horizon. + +'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'you can laugh at me if you like, but +I'll tell you how I see HER. She is tall--got a presence, so that if +SHE'S there, you'd know it and everybody else would know it, no matter +how many other women there might be in the place. Most big men take to +their opposites. Now, though I'm a big man I've never fancied a snippet +of a girl. Five foot seven of height is my measure of a woman, and a +good ten stone in the saddle--What are you laughing at, Joan? I'm out +there, I suppose?' + +Mrs Gildea controlled her muscles. + +'No, no, not in the least. In fact, your description fits the Ideal +Wife perfectly. Go on, Colin. Five foot seven and a good ten stone. How +is the rest of HER? Fair or dark--her hair now--and her eyes?' + +'Her hair--oh, it isn't fair--not yellow or noticeable in colour-- +like those dyed beauties you see about. Her hair is dark, soft and +cloudy looking. And she's got a small head set like--like a lily on +its stem--and her hair is parted in the middle and coiled smoothly +each side and into a sort of Greek knot. . . . ' + +'In short, she's a cross between the Venus of Milo and the Madonna.' + +Mrs Gildea was smiling amusedly. + +'Perhaps. . . . Something of that sort. Dignity and sweetness, you +know--those are what I admire in a woman. But not too much of the goddess +or of the angel either. I shouldn't want always to have to load up with +a pedestal when we shifted camp, and the only shrine I'd keep going for +her would be in my heart. It's a Mate I'm wanting, as well as an +Ideal. . . . Now you're laughing again.' + +'No, I'm not. I agree with you entirely--and so would SHE.' + +'There! You needn't tell me. I shouldn't wonder if I'd got the second +sight where SHE'S concerned.' + +Again Mrs Gildea smiled enigmatically. + +'I shouldn't wonder, Colin. But you haven't finished your personal +description. What about the colour of her eyes?' + +'Now I don't believe I could say exactly the colour of her eyes any +more than of her hair. They're the kind, to me, that have no colour. +Soft and melting and sort of mysterious--Deep and clear and with a +light far down in them like starlight reflected in a still +lagoon. . . . I say, Joan, you remember the old Eight Mile Water-hole on +Dingo Flat--middle of the patch of flooded gum and she-oak--that the +Blacks used to say had no bottom to it? HER eyes seemed to me a bit like +that water-hole--No bottom to her possibilities.' + +'That's true enough,' assented Mrs Gildea. 'There's no bottom to HER +possibilities.' + +'I could tell it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about +things--but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, +and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I +read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything +for a man she really loved.' + +He had a way of lowering his voice when he spoke of love--as if he +felt it a sacred subject; and this in him surprised Joan. She was +discovering a new Colin McKeith. She answered softly. + +'Yes. I think she would--IF she really loved him.' + +'What I haven't been able to make out is whether she did care--does +care--for that chap. You see, that would make a difference.' + +'A difference! How? What do you mean?' + +'I mean that I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I +wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told me-- +and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two and +two together--that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our +new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife +is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay with them out +here?' + +The idea had already presented itself to Mrs Gildea, but she tried not +to show that it had, or that there had ever been any question of the +sort in Bridget's mind. Colin had not read the opening sheet of her +letter. + +'I suppose more unlikely things than that have happened,' Joan said +neutrally. 'But really, Colin,' she went on with strenuous emphasis, 'I +can't understand this phase of you. You--a hard-headed Bushman, to be +dreaming romantic dreams and falling all of a sudden over head and ears +in love with--with a figment of your imagination--just because you +happen to have read by mistake some sentimental outpourings of a woman +you know nothing about and who would never forgive me if she knew I'd +let you see her letter.' + +'She won't know--You have my word of honour that I'll never give you +away over that letter--not under ANY circumstances, so you can set +your mind at rest on that score, Joan. And as to my falling in love +with--a figment of my own imagination'--he spat the words out +savagely--'we'll see how far your remark is justified when She does +come out and I recognise her--as I am convinced I shall do directly I +set eyes on Her.' + +Mrs Gildea burst into rather hysterical laughter, which manifestly +offended Colin McKeith. + +'We'll drop the subject, please,' he said stiffly. 'And now, Mrs +Gildea, I'm quite at your service for any information you desire about +the Big Bight country and the probability of a Japanese invasion so +soon as our future Commonwealth comes to crucial loggerheads with the +Eastern Powers on the question of a strictly White Australia.' + +After that Colin pointedly abstained from allusion to the Ideal Wife +and to Joan Gildea's Typewriting-Correspondent, as he had called her. +He was very busy himself at this time in connection with a threatened +labour strike that was agitating sheep and cattle owners of the Leura +District. Likewise with a report he had been asked to furnish of a +projected telegraph line for the opening of his 'Big Bight Country'. +Colin McKeith appeared to be deep in the confidence of the Leichardt's +Land Executive Council and to have taken up his abode for the winter +session in the Seat of Government, though he seemed to regard his +recent election for a Northern constituency as an unimportant episode +in a career ultimately consecrated to the elucidation of far-reaching +Imperial problems. + +Joan Gildea found him excellent 'copy,' and the great Gibbs +cablegrammed, in code, approval of her lately-tapped source of +information. + +She almost forgot Bridget O'Hara in her absorption in colonial topics. +But three weeks before the expected arrival of the new Governor of +Leichardt's Land a cablegram was shot at her from Colombo which made +her feel that there was no use in setting oneself against Destiny. This +was the wire: + +EXPECT ME WITH TALLANTS BIDDY. + +She said nothing to Colin McKeith about the message--partly because +his movements were erratic and he was a good deal away from Leichardt's +town just then. Thus Mrs Gildea did not know whether or not he had read +the flowery description telegraphed by a Melbourne correspondent who +interviewed Sir Luke Tallant and his party at that city and wired an +ecstatic paragraph about the beautiful Lady Bridget O'Hara who was +accompanying her friend and distant relative, the Honourable Lady +Tallant. + +Anyway, McKeith made no references to the newspaper correspondent's +rhapsodies when he paid Mrs Gildea a short visit two or three days +before the landing of the new Governor. But his very reticence and +something in his expression made Joan suspect that he was puzzled and +excited, and would have been glad had she volunteered any information +about Lady Tallant's companion. Joan, however, kept perverse silence. +In truth, she felt considerably nervous over the prospect. What was +going to happen when Colin McKeith set eyes on Bridget? + +Joan Gildea was a simple woman though circumstances had made her a +shrewd one, and she had all the elementary feminine instincts. She +believed in love and in strange affinities and in hidden threads of +destiny--all of which ideas fitted beautifully on to Bridget O'Hara's +personality, but not at all on to that of Colin McKeith. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + + +The first dinner-party given by Sir Luke and Lady Tallant at Government +House included Mrs Gildea and Colin McKeith. + +These two met in the vestibule as they emerged respectively from the +ladies' and gentlemen's cloak-room. Both held back to allow certain +Members of the Ministry to enter the drawing-room before them, which +gave opportunity for an interchange of greetings. + +'Well!' both said at once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was +uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning. +'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where +have you been all these three weeks?' + +'At Alexandra City, close on the desert, where they bored for water and +struck ready-made gas--the whole place now is lighted with it. If you +like, I'll give you material for a first-rate article upon an uncommon +phenomenon of Nature.' + +'Thank you. I shall be grateful. Colin'--hesitatingly, 'I did think +you'd have come and looked after an old friend at the big Show in the +Botanical Gardens when the Governor made his State Entry.' + +'State Entry! Good Lord! Sir Luke Tallant has got a bit too much red +tape and too many airs about him to suit the Leichardt'stonians.' + +'You WERE there, then?' + +'Started for Alexandra City that afternoon.' + +'But you saw--Colin did you see--the Tallants and--their party? + +His face changed: it looked positively angry, and his jaw under the +neatly trimmed, sandy beard, protruded determinedly. But at that moment +a footman came towards them, and Mrs Gildea was handed on to an +imposing butler and ushered through a wide palm-screened doorway into +the large inner hall which had a gallery round it and the big staircase +at one end. Joan saw that the room, formerly stiffly furnished and used +chiefly as a ballroom, had been transmogrified with comfortable lounge +chairs and sofas, beautiful embroideries, screens, a spinet and many +flowers and books into a delightful general sitting-room. It seemed +quite full--mostly of official Leichardt'stonians. Joan looked for the +new Governor and his wife, or at least for Lady Biddy, but none of them +had yet put in an appearance. A handsome, fair-moustachioed young +aide-de-camp, looking very smart in his evening uniform with white +lapels, was fluttering round, his dinner list in his hand, and +introducing people who already knew each other. He looked distinctly +worried, so did the private secretary--sallow-faced, of a clerkish +type, and obviously without social qualifications--who was also +wandering round and trying ineffectively to do the right thing. The +aide-de-camp rushed forward to shake hands with Joan, exclaiming in a +relieved undertone: + +'Oh, Mrs Gildea, do help me. I believe I've made an awful hash of it +all. People out here,' he murmured, 'ain't used to viceregal etiquette +as she is interpreted in Ceylon--that was my last post you know. They +seem to think his Excellency ought to have been standing at the door to +receive THEM, instead of their waiting to receive HIM.' + +Clearly, the aide-de-camp had failed to please, though he looked +spruced and his manners were beautiful. The Premier of Leichardt's +Land, a red-faced gentleman of blunt speech, was grumbling audibly to +the Attorney-General. Mrs Gildea caught snatches of discontent as she +passed from one to another. + +'Damned impertinence, I call it. A salaried official, no better than +any of us, giving himself royal airs. . . . May do in India. . . won't +go down in a free country like this.' + +The AIDE finished pairing his couples. + +'Mrs Gildea, you're to go in with the Warden of the University. Of +course you know Dr Plumtree? Literature and learning is an obvious +combination, but' (in a confidential aside) 'if you KNEW the job I've +had to find out the right order of precedence. Mr McKeith, the Governor +will be so glad to meet you. Will you take in Lady Bridget O'Hara? +She's not down yet. You see,' he explained again to Mrs Gildea, 'we're +strictly official to-night and Debrett's out of it.' + +'So am I,' put in Colin McKeith. 'I guess that Lady Bridget would be +better pleased if she wasn't handed over to a rough bushman.' + +'Now, there you ARE quite out of it,' laughed the aide-de-camp. 'Lady +Bridget asked specially to be sent in with you,' and at Mrs Gildea's +enquiring smile, he explained once more: 'Sir Luke was speaking about +Mr McKeith, said his name had been mentioned at a meeting of the +Executive yesterday. Oh! you're top hole, Mr McKeith, I assure you.' + +The AIDE broke off suddenly. + +There was a rustle of silk on the grand staircase--the slam of a door +above, the sound of a laugh and the patter of little high-heeled shoes +on the parquet floor of the gallery. The AIDE darted to the foot of the +staircase and all eyes turned upward. + +The new Governor and his wife came down in slow and stately fashion, +arm-in-arm, Sir Luke looking very impressive with the Ribbon and Order +of St Michael and St George. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven but +for a heavy dark moustache, and carried his dignities with perhaps a +little too conscious an air--'Representative of the Throne' seemed +written all over him and no greater contrast could be imagined than the +new Governor presented to his predecessor, an elderly, impoverished +marquis who had the brain of a diplomatist and the manners of a British +farmer, and who with his homely wife had been immensely popular in +Leichardt's Land. + +Nor a greater contrast than the new Governor's wife to the fat, kindly, +old marchioness. Lady Tallant was a London woman, of about forty-five. +She had been excessively pretty, but had rather lost her looks after a +bad illness, and her worst affliction was now a tendency to +scragginess, cleverly concealed where the chest was no longer visible. +Obviously artificial outside, at any rate Lady Tallant was, as Mrs +Gildea had reason to believe, a genuine sort underneath. She had a +thin, high-nosed face of the conventional English aristocratic type, a +good deal rouged to-night, but with natural shadows under the eyes and +below the arch of the brows which were toned to correspond with the +evidently dyed hair. Her dress, a Paris creation of pale satin and +glistening embroidery, was draped to hide her thinness, and her neck +and throat were almost covered with strings of pearls and clusters of +clear-set diamonds. Judging from the way in which the +Leichardt'stonians stared at her as she came down the stairs, it seemed +probable that none of them had ever before seen anyone quite like Lady +Tallant. + +Joan Gildea's eyes passed quickly from Sir Luke and Lady Tallant to a +third figure behind them, on the half-landing, but first she realised +in a flashing glance that Colin McKeith's gaze had been all the while +riveted upon that figure. Not in astonishment--a proof to Joan that he +had seen it before--but in a kind of unwilling fascination, most +upsetting to Mrs Gildea's sense of responsibility in the matter. + +The Visionary Woman of the camp-fire! And she had let Colin McKeith +believe that Bridget O'Hara was the embodiment of his Ideal--height +five foot seven at the least: weight ten stone or more: smooth-parted, +Greek-coiled hair: a cross between a goddess and a Madonna--that was +Colin's Ideal--Good Heavens! What did he now behold? A very little +woman. One of the snippets he despised. Not an ounce of the traditional +dignity about her. Lady Bridget gave the impression of an +old-fashioned, precocious child, dressed up in a picture frock of soft +shining white stuff, hanging on a straight slender form and gathered +into a girdle at the waist, with a wisp of old lace flung carelessly +over the slight shoulders. She stood for a moment or two on the half +landing, then, as the aide-de-camp murmured in the Governor's ear at +the foot of the stairs, she came close to the bannisters and looked +down amusedly at the party in the hall. Her face was a little poked +forward--a small oval face, pale except for the redness of a rather +thin-lipped mouth--the upper lip like a scarlet bow--and the +brilliance of the eyes, deep-set under finely-drawn brows and with +thick lashes, golden-brown, and curling up at the tips. Peculiar eyes: +Mrs Gildea, who knew them well, never could decide their exact colour. +The nose was a delicate aquiline, the chin pointed. An untidy mass of +wavy chestnut hair stuck out in uneven puffs and insubordinate curls, +all round the small head. At this moment Mrs Gildea remembered a +suggestive charm sent to Lady Bridget by her cousin, Chris Gaverick, +one Christmas, of a miniature gold curry-comb. + +It was a vivid brief impression, for the girl moved on immediately, but +Joan noticed that Colin McKeith had arrested Lady Bridget's wandering +gaze. That was not surprising, for his great height and the +distinctiveness of his appearance, made him more likely than anyone +else present to attract her attention. Then, as she caught sight of +Joan, the interested, startled look changed to one of bright +recognition, the red lips smiled, showing dimples at their sensitive +corners. + +'His Excellency and Lady Tallant,' said the aide-de-camp, and Bridget +seemed hardly able to keep herself in the background while Sir Luke and +his wife advanced to greet the assembled guests. This, Lady Tallant did +with quite enchanting courtesy, making an apt apology for having kept +them waiting, which almost mollified the irate Premier. Bridget came +with a swift gliding movement to the side of her friend, squeezed her +hand and held it, while she talked in a soft rapid monotone. + +'How cool you look. I've never been so hot in my life. And the +mosquitoes! Rosamond is in despair. She says she really can't afford to +lose more flesh. Do you see how she has had to make herself up to hide +the mosquito bites? Luckily, I've got a skin that insects don't find +palatable. . . .' + +They had of course met since the Landing. Joan had paid her formal +visit, had lunched at Government House, and was now on intimate terms +with the new people. Also, Lady Bridget had found her way to the +cottage on Emu Point. + +She looked round at the different groups and gave a cynical little +shrug. + +'Why! it's like everything one had left behind! I might be at a party +to the Colonial Delegates in London for all the difference there is. +Where's your barbarism, Joan? . . . I'm pining for a savage +existence. . . . That's an excessively good-looking man'--her eyebrows +indicated Colin McKeith--'I do hope he is the man I asked for to take me +in to dinner--I told Vereker Wells that I wanted a new sensation--that man +looks as if he might give it to me--No, don't tell me: there's +excitement in uncertainty.' + +She went on in eager monologue, giving no time for replies. + +'It seems we've put the official backs up. Vereker Wells was determined +to follow Indian vice-regal precedents--so ridiculous--as I told him: +and as for Luke, he's got it on the brain that his mission is to uphold +the dignity of the British Throne. Like a NOUVEAU RICHE--terribly +afraid of doing the wrong thing and showing every moment that he's new +to the great Panjandrum part. . . . Ah so!' . . . an ejaculatory trick +of Bridget's. 'He IS my fate!' + +Captain Vereker Wells brought up Colin who was holding himself stiffly, +limping just a little, as he did when he was nervous, and looking very +big and strong and masterful--likewise extraordinarily well-groomed +and tailored. + +'Lady Bridget O'Hara, let me present Mr Colin McKeith.' + +Lady Biddy looked up at Colin and he looked down at her. + +'Do you think I can POSSIBLY reach your arm?' as he held his elbow +crooked to about the level of her shoulder. 'You know I asked to be +sent in with you--it was rather bold of me, wasn't it? But if I had +known how VERY tall you are!' + +Mr McKeith lowered his arm, stooping over her, and Mrs Gildea heard him +say in a voice that sounded different somehow from his ordinary deep +drawl: + +'I wonder why I was chosen for this honour?' + +And Bridget's reply: + +'I'd been told that you were an explorer--that you're a kind of Bush +Cecil Rhodes--I don't know Mr Cecil Rhodes, but I have an adoration +for him--I wanted to talk to a real Bushman--I always felt that I +should like Australian Bushmen from Joan Gildea's description of +them. . . . And you. . . .' + +The rest was lost, as the groups converged and the long line of couples +went forward. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + + +It was not an altogether successful party. The dinner had portentous +suggestiveness; the Leidchardt'stonians were at first rather difficult. +Sir Luke a little too conscious of his responsibilities towards the +British Throne: Lady Tallant so brilliant as to be bewildering. But +except as it concerns Lady Bridget and McKeith, the Tallant's first +dinner-party at Government House is not of special importance in this +story. Mrs Gildea, very well occupied with Dr Plumtree, only caught +diagonal glimpses of her two friends a little lower down on the +opposite side of the table, and, in occasional lulls of conversation, +the musical ring of Lady Bridget's rapid chatter. Colin did not seem to +be talking much, but every time Mrs Gildea glanced at him, he appeared +absorbed in contemplation of the small pointed face and the farouche, +golden-brown eyes turned up to him from under the top heavy mass of +chestnut hair. Lady Bridget, at any rate, had a great deal to say for +herself, and Mrs Gildea wondered what was going to come of it all. + +Conversation became more general as champagne flowed and the courses +proceeded. + +Sir Luke, discreetly on the prowl for information, attacked Antipodean +questions--the Blacks for instance. He had observed the small company +of natives theatrically got up in the war-paint of former times, which, +grouped round the dais on which he had been received at the State +Landing, had furnished an effective bit of local colour to the pageant. +Up to what degree of latitude might these semi-civilised, and he feared +demoralised beings, be taken as a survival of the indigenous population +of Leichardt's Land? Did wild and dangerous Blacks still exist up north +and in the interior of the Colony? + +'You'd better ask McKeith about that, your Excellency,' said the +Premier. 'He knows more about the Blacks up north than any of us.' + +The Governor enquired as to the amenability of the Australian native to +missionary methods of civilisation, and one of the other Ministers +broke in with a laugh. + +'Bible in one hand and baccy in the other! No, Sir, the Exeter Hall and +General Gordon principles aren't workable with our Blacks. Kindness +doesn't do. The early pioneers soon found that out.' + +Lady Bridget had stopped suddenly in her talk with Colin, and was +listening, her eyes glowering at her companion. + +'Why didn't kindness do?' she asked sharply. + +'Yes; Mr McKeith, tell us why the early pioneers abandoned the gentle +method,' said the Governor. + +McKeith's face changed: it became dark and a dangerous fire blazed in +his blue eyes. + +'Because they found that the Blacks repaid kindness with ingratitude-- +treachery--foul murder--' He pulled himself up as though afraid of +losing command of himself if he pursued the subject: his voice thrilled +with some deep-seated feeling. Mrs Gildea, who understood the personal +application, broke in across the table with an apposite remark about +her own early experiences of the Blacks. Lady Bridget impatiently +addressed McKeith. + +'Go on. What do the Blacks do now to you people to make you treat them +unkindly?' + +'What do they do now--to us squatters you mean?' Colin had recovered +himself. 'Why they begin by spearing our cattle and then they take to +spearing ourselves.' + +'Did they ever spear you?' she asked. + +Colin smiled at her grimly. + +'Well, you wouldn't have noticed, of course, that I've got just a touch +of a limp--it's only if I'm not in my best form that it shows. I owe +that to a spear through my thigh one night that the Blacks rushed my +camp when I was asleep. And I'd given their gins rations that very +morning.' + +'And then?' Lady Bridget's voice was tense. + +'Oh then--after they'd murdered a white man or two, the rest of us +whites--there wasn't more than a handful of us at that time up on the +Leura--banded together and drove them off into the back country. We +had a dangerous job with those Blacks until King Mograbar was shot +down.' + +'King Mograbar! How cruelly unjust. It was his country you were +STEALING.' She accentuated the last word with bitter scorn. + +'Well! If you come to that, I suppose Captain Cook was stealing when he +hoisted the British flag in Botany Bay,' said McKeith. + +'And if he hadn't, what about the glorious British record, and the +March of Civilisation?' put in Vereker Wells. + +Bridget shot a scathing glance at the aide-de-camp. + +'I don't admire your glorious British record, I think it's nothing but +a record of robbery, murder, and cruelty, beginning with Ireland and +ending with South Africa.' + +'Oh! my dear!--I warn you,' said Lady Tallant, bending from her end of +the table and addressing the Leichardt'stonians generally. 'Lady +Bridget is a little Englander, a pro-Boer, a champion of the poor +oppressed native. If she had been alive then she'd have wanted to hand +India back to the Indians after the Mutiny, and now when she has made +Cecil Rhodes Emperor of Rhodesia, she'll give over all the rest again +to the Dutch.' + +Bridget responded calmly to the indictment. + +'Yes, I would--if Cecil Rhodes were to decline the Emperorship of all +South Africa--which I should make his job. . . . But you'd better add +on that I'm a Socialist too, Rosamond, because I've become one, as you +know. I think the working man is in a shamefully unjust position, and +that the capitalists are no better than slave-drivers.' + +'Oh, not out here, my word!' exclaimed a Leichardt'stonian who happened +to be one of the old squattocracy. 'The landowners and the capitalists +are not slave-drivers, they are slave-driven. We've got to pay what the +Trades' Union organisers tell us--or else go without stockmen or +shearers. Fact is, our Labour War is only just beginning; and I can +tell you, Sir, that before a year is out the so-called bloated +capitalist and the sheep and cattle station owner will sing either +pretty big or very small.' + +'I don't think it will be very small--on MY station,' murmured +McKeith. 'But it's quite true about the Labour War. They're organising, +as they call it, already all along the Leura.' + +The Governor asked to have the Labour situation explained from the +squatters' point of view; and for a few minutes McKeith forgot to look +at Lady Bridget. He was on his own ground and knew what he was talking +about. + +'It's this way,' he began. 'You see, though, I'm cattle--and I'm the +furthest squatter out my way. But there are a few sheep stations down +the river, and there isn't an unlimited supply of either cattle-hands +or shearers, so we've got to look sharp about hiring them. Now, last +year, we--of course I'm classing myself with the sheep-owners, for we +all stand together--hired our shearers for seventeen shillings and +sixpence a day. Then, up come the Union organisers, form a Union of the +men and say to them: "You've got to pay ten shillings down to the Union +and sign a contract that you won't shear under twenty shillings a day." +The Organiser pockets the ten shillings, and makes three pounds a week +and his expenses besides, so it pays HIM pretty well. Well then, the +shearers go to the squatters. "All right," say they, "we'll shear your +sheep, but it's going to be twenty shillings instead of seventeen and +six." The squatters grumble, but they've got to have their sheep shorn, +and they pay the twenty shillings. Next year, I'm told, the word is to +go round that it's to be twenty-two and sixpence. Well sir, we're to +see what's to happen then!' + +The Labour talk lacked local picturesqueness. Sir Luke preferred the +Blacks, and started the question of danger to white men in the +out-districts. How far had officialdom penetrated into the back blocks? +He understood that Mr McKeith had explored for the laying of a +telegraph-line to the Big Bight. Could Mr McKeith give him any +information about all that? + +McKeith explained again. He had stopped a week, he said, at the last +outpost of Leichardt's land civilisation. The telegraph master there +lived in a hut made of sheets of corrugated zinc, raised on piles +twenty feet high and fortified against the Blacks. The entrance to it +was masked, spear-proof and had two men always on guard--there were +four men at the post. McKeith told a gruesome story of an assault by +the natives, and of rifles at work through gun-holes in the zinc tower. + +Lady Bridget listened in silence. Now and then, she looked up at +McKeith, and, though her eyes gave forth ominous red-brown sparks, they +had in them something of the same unwilling fascination Joan Gildea had +noticed in the eyes of Colin McKeith. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + + +In the drawing room, before the men came in, Bridget talked to Joan +Gildea. They hadn't yet had, as Biddy reminded her, a regular +outpouring. The outpouring it should be stated, was always mostly on +Bridget's side. + +'When did you start Socialism?' Mrs Gildea asked. 'That's something +new, isn't it?' + +Biddy gave one of her slow smiles in which lips, eyes, brows, what +could be seen of them under her towzle of hair--all seemed to light up +together. + +'Why, I've always been a Socialist--in theory, you know. I've ALWAYS +rebelled against the established order of things.' + +'But latterly,' said Joan, 'I haven't heard anything about your +doings--not since you wrote from Castle Gaverick after--after +Mr Willoughby Maule's marriage?' + +The light died out of Bridget's face. 'Ah, I'll tell you--Do you know, +Rosamond saw them--the Willoughby Maules before we all left. She met +them at Shoolbred's--buying furniture. Rosamond said SHE was dragging +after him looking--a bundle--and cross and ill; and that he seemed +intensely bored. Poor Will!' + +There was silence, Bridget's thoughts seemed far away. + +'But about the Socialism?' prompted Mrs Gildea. + +'Oh well, Aunt Eliza made up her mind suddenly to consult her new +doctor--Aunt Eliza's chief excitement is changing her doctors, and she +grows quite youthful in the process. They say that love and religion +are the chief emotional interests of unattached women. I should add on +doctors when a woman is growing old. Don't you think, Joan, that in +that case, all three come invariably to the same thing?' + +'Love, religion and doctors! As emotional interests, do they come to +the same thing for elderly women?' repeated Mrs Gildea, as if she were +propounding a syllogism. 'No, certainly not, when the elderly woman +happens to be a hard-working journalist.' + +'Oh, there you have the pull--I suggested the idea to Rosamond the +other day and she gave a true Rosamondian answer. "They don't come at +all to the same thing," she said, "because usually you have to pay your +doctor and SOMETIMES your lover pays you." Rather smart, wasn't it?' + +'Yes, but I think you'd better warn Lady Tallant that the +Leichardt'stonian ladies are a bit Puritanical in their ideas of +repartee.' + +'Oh, Rosamond is clever enough to have found that out already for +herself;' and the two glanced at Lady Tallant, who seemed to be playing +up quite satisfactorily to the female representatives of the +Ministerial circle. + +'I suppose you made friends with some Socialists when you were in +London?' went on Mrs Gildea. + +'My dear, I would have made friends with Beelzebub just them, if he +would have helped me to escape from myself.' + +Bridget sighed and paused. + +'But you ARE getting over it, Biddy--the disappointment about Mr +Maule? You ARE growing not to care?' + +'I don't want to grow not to care--though, of course, now I should +prefer to care about someone or something that isn't Willoughby Maule, +I feel inside me that my salvation lies in caring--in caring +intensely. . . . But you wouldn't understand, Joan. You weren't built +that way.' + +'No,' assented Mrs Gildea doubtfully. + +'But,' went on Biddy brightly, 'I think sometimes that if one could get +to the pitch of feeling nothing matters, it would be a way of reaching +the "letting go" stage which one MUST arrive at before one can even +BEGIN to live in the Eternal.' + +There seemed something a little comic in the notion of Bridget O'Hara +living in the Eternal, and yet Mrs Gildea realised that there really +was a certain stable quality underneath the flashing, ever changing +temperamental sheath, which might perhaps form a base for the Verities +to rest upon. + +'Beelzebub didn't teach you that,' she said. + +'No, quite the contrary. It all came out of my concentration studies +and the Higher Thought Centre where I met some most original +dears--Christian Scientists and Spiritualists--and then these +Socialists--not a bit on the lines of the old Fabians and Bernard Shavians +and the rest who used to believe only in Matter--specially landed property +matter--and in parcelling that out among themselves. My friends are +for parcelling out what they call the Divine Intelligence, which they +say will bring them everything they need for the good of others and, +incidentally, themselves. Of course none of them have a penny. But they +do contrive to get what they want for other people--it was a soup +kitchen this winter where they fed 11,000 starving poor. Only, when +they begin, they never have the smallest idea of HOW it's going to be +done.' + +Lady Bridget was so absorbed in her subject matter that she did not +notice the entrance of the men; but Mrs Gildea saw that Colin McKeith +was making straight towards them. He halted behind Bridget's chair. +Biddy went on in reply to a question from her friend. + +'You see, they argue this way, "We don't know," they say, "the HOW of +the simplest things in life, we don't know the HOW of our actual +existence--how we move or think--not even the HOW of the most +ordinary fact in science. We only know that there must be an +Intelligence who does know and who has forces at command and the power +to set them in motion." ' + +'And how do we know that?' asked Colin McKeith. + +Bridget turned with a start and looked at him solemnly for a second or +two. + +'You paralyse me: you are too big. I can't speak to you when you are +standing up. Please sit down.' + +He went to fetch a chair. At the moment, Lady Tallant came up. + +'Biddy, will you sing. Do for Heaven's sake make a sensation. Help me +out! You know how!' + +Lady Bridget had a funny inscrutable little smile and a gleam in her +eyes which crinkled up when she was going to say or do something rather +naughty. + +'I'll do my best, Rosamond. But you don't think it would be a dangerous +experiment, do you?' + +Lady Tallant laughed, and told Captain Vereker Wells to take her to the +piano. + +'YOU know that Biddy does a lot of mischief when she sings,' said the +Governor's wife, sitting down in Lady Bridget's vacant place beside Mrs +Gildea. Colin McKeith, still on the outskirts with his chair, stood +leaning upon it, watching the performer. + +The piano was in such a position that Lady Bridget faced him. + +A vain man might have fancied that she was singing at him, and that the +by-play of her song--the sudden eye-brightenings, the little twists of +her mouth, the head gestures, were for his particular benefit. + +She was singing one of the Neapolitan folk-songs which one hears along +the shores of the Mediterranean beyond Marseilles--a love song. + +Most people know that particular love-song. Lady Bridget gave it with +all the tricks and all the verve and whimsical audacity of a born +Italian singer. Well, she was Italian--on one side at least, and had +inherited the tricks and a certain quality of voice, irresistibly +catching. And she looked captivating as she sang--the small pointed +face within its frame of reddish-brown hair, the strange eyes, the +expressive red lips, alive with coquetry. The men--even the old +politicians, listened and stared, quite fascinated. + +Some of the Leichardt's Town ladies--good, homely wives and mothers +who, in their early married days of struggle, had toiled and cooked and +sewed, with no time to imagine an aspect of the Eternal Feminine of +which they had never had any experience, were perhaps a little shocked, +perhaps a little regretful. One or two others, younger, with budding +aspirations, but provincial in their ideals, were filled with wonder +and vague envy. + +A few of them had made the usual trip 'Home,' landing at Naples and +journeying to London, via Monte Carlo and Paris, and these felt they +had missed something in that journey which Lady Bridget was now +revealing to them. Joan Gildea, whose profession it was to realise +vividly such modes of life as came within her purview, felt herself +once more in the blue lands girdling the Sea of Story--It all came +back upon her--moonlight nights in Naples; on the Chiaja; looking down +from her windows on sunny gardens on the Riviera, and the strolling +minstrels in front of the hotel. . . . + +As for Colin McKeith who had never been in the Blue Land and knew +little even of the British Isles except for London--chiefly around St +Paul's School, Hammersmith--and the Scotch Manse where he had +occasionally spent his holidays--even he was transported from the +Government House drawing-room. Where? . . . . Not to the realm of +visions such as he had seen in the smoke of his camp fire. Oh no. He +had never dreamed of this kind of enchantment. + +A fresh impulse seized the singer. She struck a few chords. A familiar +lilt sounded. Her face and manner changed. She burst into the famous +song of CARMEN. She WAS CARMEN. One could almost see the swaying form, +the seductive flirt of fan. There could be no doubt that had the voice +been more powerful, Lady Bridget might have done well on the operatic +stage. + +Yet it had a TIMBRE, a peculiar, devil-may-care passion which produced +a very thrilling effect upon her audience. She got up when she had +finished in a dead silence and was half-way across the room before the +applause burst out. There was a little rush of men towards her. + +'Beats Zelie de Lussan and runs Calve hard,' said the Premier who had +made more than one trip to England and considered himself an authority +in the matter. + +Bridget skimmed through the groups of admirers, stopping to murmur +something to Lady Tallant who had met her half way; then stopped with +hands before her like a meek schoolgirl, in front of Mrs Gildea and +Colin McKeith--he almost the only man who had made no movement towards +her. Bridget sank into her former seat. + +'The last time I sang that was at a Factory Girls' entertainment at +Poplar,' she said. . . 'You should have seen them, Joan: they stood up +and tried to sing in chorus and some of them came on to the platform +and danced. . . . Mr McKeith you look at me as if I had been doing +something desperately improper. Don't you like the music of CARMEN?' + +Colin was staring at her dazedly. + +'It seemed to me a kind of witchcraft,' he said. . . . 'I should think +you might go on the stage and make a fortune like Melba.' + +She laughed. 'Why my voice is a very poor thing. And besides, I could +never depend upon it.' + +'Everything just how you feel at the time, eh?' he said. 'You wouldn't +care what you did if you had a mind to do it.' + +'No,' she answered. 'I shouldn't care in the least what I did if I had +a mind to do it.' + +There was the faintest mimicry of his half Scotch, half Australian +accent in her voice--a little husky, with now and then unsuspected +modulations. She looked at him and the gleam in her eyes and her +strange smile made him stare at her in a sort of fascination. Joan knew +those tricks of hers and knew that they boded mischief. She got up at +the moment saying that people were going and that she must bid Lady +Tallant good-night. + +Then the Premier's wife came up shyly; she wanted to thank Lady Bridget +for her singing. It had been as good as the Opera--They sometimes had +good opera companies in Leichardt's Town, etcetera, etcetera. + +Lady Bridget made the prettiest curtsey, which bewildered the Premier's +wife and gave her food for speculation as to the manners and customs of +the British aristocracy. She had always understood you only curtsied to +Royalty. But she took it as a great compliment and never said anything +but kind words about Bridget ever after. + +Colin McKeith escorted Mrs Gildea to her cab and as they waited in the +vestibule, obtained from her a few more particulars of Lady Bridget +O'Hara's parentage and conditions. But he said not a word implying that +he had discovered her identity with the author of the typed letter. + +'I'll come along to-morrow morning if I can manage it, and tell you +about Alexandra City and the Gas-Bore,' he said carelessly as she shut +the fly door. Joan wondered whether he had caught Lady Biddy's parting +words in the drawing room. + +'If Rosamond doesn't insist on my doing some stuffy exploration with +her, I'll bring my sketches some time in the morning, Joan, and you can +see whether any of them would do for the great god Gibbs.' + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + + +'And what are you going to do, Biddy? How long are you going to stay +with the Tallants?' + +'Until Rosamond gets tired of me--or I feel no further need of the +moral support of the British Throne,' answered Lady Bridget lightly. +'I'm not sure whether I shall be able to stand Luke's Jingo attitude in +regard to Labour and the Indigenous Population--all the Colonial +problems in capitals, observe. He does take his position so +strenuously; it's no good my reminding him that even the Queen is +obliged to respect a Constitutional government.' + +Bridget took a cigarette from a gold case with her initials in tiny +precious stones across it, and handed the case to Mrs Gildea who shook +her head. + +'Still too old-fashioned to smoke! I should have thought you'd have +been driven to it here to keep the mosquitoes at a distance. . . . + +'Do you like my case, Joan? Willoughby Maule gave it to me,' she asked. + +'You didn't return it then?' + +'Why should I have hurt his feelings? We weren't engaged.' A meditative +pause and then suddenly, 'Evelyn Mary doesn't smoke. Nice girls don't!' + +'Biddy, I shall be sorry for Evelyn Mary if the Maules are to live in +London and you go back there again--which I suppose you will do.' + +'You needn't suppose for certain that I shall go back.' She savoured +her cigarette slowly. 'I can't go on with that old life, the sort of +life one has to lead with Aunt Eliza and the Gavericks and their set. I +can't go on pushing and striving and rushing here and there in order to +be seen at the right houses and join the hunt after fleeing eligibles.' + +She gave a bitter little laugh, and then her tone changed to that +ripple of frivolity in which nevertheless Mrs Gildea discerned the +under-beat of tragedy. + +'Besides, even so, it's incongruous--impossible. I've come to the +conclusion that the only things which make London--as I've known it-- +endurable are unlimited credit at a good dressmaker--Oh, and one of +the beautiful new motor-cars. You don't mind travelling from Dan to +Beersheba if you can do it in five minutes. But when you've got to +catch omnibuses or take the Tube, dressed in garden-party finery--well +it's all too disproportionate and tiresome.' + +Mrs Gildea laughed. 'You must remember that I am out of all your fine +social business--except when I go as a reporter or look on from the +upper boxes.' + +'It's abominable: it's stifling,' exclaimed Lady Biddy, 'it kills all +the best part of one. You know I've tried time after time to strike out +on my own individual self, but I've always been brought back again by +my hopeless, hopeless lack of practical knowledge of how to earn a +livelihood. The one gift I'd inherited wasn't good enough to be of any +use--If my mother had only left me the whole of her voice, I'd have +been an opera-singer. But I don't think I could have stood the drudgery +--and I should have hated the publicity of it all. . . . Joan, how did +you ever manage to make yourself independent?' + +'By drudging,' said Mrs Gildea dryly. 'Besides, I was born differently. +And I was brought up with practical people.' + +'Mr McKeith, for instance. He told me about his having been what he +called a "cattle new-chum" on your father's station.' + +'He wasn't exactly a "new-chum." His father had owned a sheep-station +up in the unsettled districts. There was a tragedy--the place was sold +up when Colin was a boy. He wanted to learn how we did things further +south--and besides, he was left without a penny--that's how he came +to be with us.' + +'Oh! . . . anyway, he's practical. But it isn't that side of him that +appeals to me. He believes in Missions--in a sort of way.' + +Mrs Gildea laughed uneasily. 'So you have discovered the streak of +idealism in Colin. But'--she veered off hastily, 'I didn't want to +talk about Colin McKeith. What I want is to hear about your own state +of mind.' + +'My state of mind! That's chaotic. The fact is, I feel in a horrible +sort of transition state. . . . It's just as if one were trying to wind +a skein backwards--taking up one end and finding a confusion of knots; +then, taking up another and after forcing a few of the knots, giving +the thing up in despair. One knows the right end is there, but how to +find it through all that hopeless, woolly tangle!' + +'Still, you must have learned something about how to wind your skein +while you've been working through your various enterprises,' said Mrs +Gildea. She took up one of Bridget's sketches which were on the table +and looked at it thoughtfully. + +'This is quite charming, Biddy--if only it wasn't too fine for +reproduction. The block would cost more than the thing is worth.' + +Biddy made a MOUE. 'Oh, I know. Like me isn't it? Impracticable. But I +COULD do you some illustrations. I drew Rosamond entertaining the +Ministerial Circle last night and showed it to Vereker Wells while we +were waiting for breakfast. He nearly died with laughing. I couldn't +have dared to let Luke see it.' + +'That I can believe. And I should be murdered by the Leichardt'stonians +if I allowed it to be published. But if you'd come with me through the +Blue Mountains and caricature yourself exploring the Jenolan Caves-- +like the "Lady of Quality" in the Dolomite Country I could do something +with that.' + +Mrs Gildea alluded to their first and only collaboration as author and +artist. + +'Yes, I might. We'll think about it. And if I did perhaps I could make +money enough to keep me out here for a year or two travelling about.' + +Joan Gildea looked up in a startled way from the drawing she had been +studying, and asked with some eagerness: + +'Biddy, do you really mean that you are thinking of stopping out here +for a year or two?' + +'I do. I want to shake myself free from the old clogs. I want to be +honest with myself and with--with the people who ARE honest with +themselves. I've always envied you, Joan. Your life is real at least. +You can put your finger on vital pulse beats. I should like to do as +you are doing, study and learn from a country that has no traditions, +but is making itself. I want to breathe Nature unadulterated--if I +could only reach the reality of her. Joan, I have the feeling that if +one could go right up to the Bush--far away from the Government House +atmosphere and Luke Tallant's red-tapism and the stupid imitation of +our English social shams--well, I think one might touch a more vital +set of heart-beats than the heart-beats of civilization.' + +'You are off civilization, Biddy?' + +'Yes I am, I've had a horrible time. I was quite reckless and spent far +too much on clothes and things--but that's not what matters--it's the +effect on one's inner self that matters. And now I'm going through the +pangs of revulsion, and just wondering where I can find anything that's +true and satisfying. I believe it may be a kind of birth into a new +life--coming out here you know and all the rest.' + +She stopped, her long golden brown eyes fixed Sphinx-like on Joan, who +returned the gaze, but did not answer in words. Biddy went on: 'YOUR +work is practical--not idealistic. I believe the truth of it all is +that the idealists haven't built up on a practical basis. There's too +much POSE. Joan, I do think it's only the pinch of starvation that +knocks down the ridiculous POSE of people.' + +'True enough. Your cranks don't get much beyond POSE.--They think they +do, but they don't.' + +'Even the ones who believe in themselves--and who are in their way +truly sincere. Joan, do you know, there were moments at the meetings I +went to of those people--Christian Scientists, and my Spiritual +Socialists, and all those philo-factory-girls and tramps, and +philo-beasts, and philo-blacks and the rest of it--Moments when a +ghastly wonder would come over me whether, if we were all stranded on a +desert island with a shortage of food and water, it wouldn't be a case +of fighting for bare existence and of Nature red of tooth and claw.' + +'True for you, Lady Bridget. I like the way that's put,' broke in a +voice from the other side of the veranda railing. + +Lady Bridget started and looked round, a sudden flush rushing upon the +ivory paleness of her face. If she had not had her back turned to the +garden; if she had not left the gate open behind her, and if the wind +in the bamboos had not then made a noisy rustling, she would have seen +the visitor or heard his steps on the gravel path. Or if she had not +been so absorbed in her subject and her cigarette she might have +noticed that Mrs Gildea had looked up quickly a minute before and given +a mute signal to the intruder not to interrupt the conversation +untowardly. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + + +Lady Bridget recovered herself as Colin McKeith mounted the steps and +made the two ladies a rather self-conscious salute. + +'I suppose you know that's a quotation,' she said. + +'Weren't you a bit out?' he answered, and repeated the phrase. 'Excuse +my correcting you.' + +Bridget shrugged. + +'Thank you. But I always thought men of action weren't great readers. +How did you do your reading?' + +'Some day--if you care to hear--I'll tell you.' + +She looked at him interestedly. 'Yes, I should care to hear.' + +'Not now,' put in Mrs Gildea. 'You've come this morning to tell us +about the Gas-Bore at Alexandra City, and, as it's got to go into my +next letter, I shall take some notes. Do look for a comfortable chair, +Colin, and you may smoke if you want to.' + +'This is good enough,' and he settled himself after his own fashion at +Lady Bridget's feet with his back against the veranda post and his long +legs sprawling over the steps. + +Lady Bridget leaned out of the depths of her deep canvas chair and +offered him her cigarette case. + +He eyed it in amused criticism--the dull gold of the case, and the +initials in diamonds, sapphires and rubies set diagonally across it. + +'YOUR writing?' + +Again the faint pink rose in her paleness. + +'No, it's the writing of the person who gave it to me.' + +'Was it a man?' he asked bluntly. + +Bridget looked at him with slight haughtiness. + +'Really, Mr McKeith, I think you are--inquisitive.' + +'Yes, I am. And I've Bush manners--not up to your form. Please excuse +my impertinence.' + +'I don't mind Bush manners. They're--rather refreshing sometimes. . . . +But'--again extending and then half-withdrawing her offering hand. +'You'd despise my cigarettes?' + +He made an eager movement. + +'No I shouldn't. Choose me one, won't you--two--if I may have one to +keep.' + +'Why to keep?' She selected two of the dainty gold-tipped cigarettes, +and he received them almost as if they had been sacred symbols. One he +placed carefully, notwithstanding her laughing protest, in a +letter-case which he carried in an inner pocket. She tilted her face +forward for him to light the other cigarette at hers, and he did so, +always with that suggestion of reverence which sat so oddly upon him. +Mrs Gildea watching the pair was immensely struck by it. + +He smoked in silence for a few moments, his eyes still apparently +fascinated by the glittering initials on the case which now Bridget +attached to her chatelaine chain. She threw away the end of her +cigarette. + +'Well, so you've become the Governor's unconstitutional adviser?' she +said. 'Joan, do you know that Luke Tallant kept Mr McKeith talking and +smoking in the loggia just below my bedroom for hours last night after +every one had gone--I know, because I couldn't get to sleep.' + +McKeith had all compunction, 'I'm downright sorry for that, Lady +Bridget. I'd have gone away if I'd only guessed your room was up +above.' + +'Oh, it didn't matter. I'd lots to think about--my own shortcomings +and Luke's responsibilities.' + +'He takes them--hard,' hazarded McKeith. + +'I hope you gave him good advice,' put in Mrs Gildea. + +McKeith's lips twisted into a humorous smile. + +'Well, I told Sir Luke that I didn't think he need bother himself just +yet awhile over that northern tour of inspection he's talking about.' + +'He wants to make a kind of royal progress, Joan, through the +Back-Blocks,' said Lady Biddy. + +'It'll mean a bit of stiff riding,' said McKeith, 'but I've offered to +show him round the Upper Leura anyway, and to find him a quiet hack.' + +'Rosamond flatly declines the Royal Progress,' said Bridget. 'I'm +coming instead of her.' + +'Can you ride?' he asked. + +'CAN I ride--Can any O'Hara ride! You needn't find ME a quiet hack.' + +'All right,' said McKeith. 'But I wouldn't make sure of that by putting +you on a buckjumper. It's a bargain then, Lady Bridget.' + +'A bargain--what?' + +'You promise to pay me a visit when the Governor makes his trip north-- +when he carries out his notion of establishing military patrols and a +Maxim gun or two to put down Trades-Unionism and native outrages in the +Back-Blocks?' + +Lady Bridget looked at him thoughtfully. He had pulled out his tobacco +pouch and was filling a well-worn pipe. 'You won't mind my pipe, will +you--as you're a smoker yourself. Mrs Gildea likes it best--And so do +I.' + +Lady Bridget sniffed his raw tobacco and made a tiny moue. 'Well, if +you prefer that--No, of course I don't mind. I see,' she went on, +'that you favour the Maxim gun idea, Mr McKeith. I understand that +you're one of the Oppressors; and you and I wouldn't agree on that +point.' + +Mr McKeith returned her look, all the hardness in his face softening to +an expression of almost tender indulgence. + +'We'd see about that. I might convert you--but in the Back-Blocks.' + +'Or I might convert YOU.' + +He shook his head, and then laughed in a shy, boyish way. + +'There's no knowing what might happen--but in the Back-Blocks.' + +Lady Bridget leaned forward. 'Tell me about them--Tell me about your +life in the Bush and what makes you hate the Blacks.' + +'What makes me hate the Blacks?' he repeated slowly and the soft look +on his face changed now to one very dour and grim. + +'You do hate them, don't you? Mr McKeith, the Premier told me something +about you last night, which simply filled me with horror. If I believed +it--or unless I knew that what you did had been in honourable warfare, +I don't think I could bear to speak to you again. Now, I'm going to ask +you if it's true.' + +'If what is true? Lady Bridget, I'll tell you the truth if you ask me +for it, about anything I've done. But--I warn you--ugly things happen +--in the Back-Blocks.' + +'The Premier said that you were the terror of the natives. He told me +about a gun you have with a great many notches on the barrel of it, and +he said that each notch represented a black-fellow that you had +killed.' + +'I never killed a black-fellow except in fair fight, or under lawful +provocation. Many a time one of them has sneaked a spear at me from +behind a gum tree; and I'd have been done for if I hadn't been keeping +a sharp look-out.' + +'But you were taking their land,' Lady Bridget exclaimed impetuously, +'you had come, an invader, into their territory. What right had you to +do that? You were the aggressor. And you can't judge them by the moral +laws of civilised humanity. They fought in the only way they +understood.' + +'Lady Bridget, there are moral laws, which all humanity--civilised or +savage understands. I'm not saying that no white man in the Bush has +ever violated these laws, I'm not saying that the Blacks hadn't +something on their side. I'm only saying that in my experience--it was +the black man and not the white man who was the aggressor. And when you +ask me what made me hate the Blacks--well--it isn't a pretty story-- +but, if you like, I'll tell it to you some time.' + +'Tell me now,' she exclaimed, 'Oh, Joan . . . Won't your notes keep?' + +Mrs Gildea had got up, a sheaf of pencils and a reporter's note book in +her hand. + +'Yes, for a few minutes. But I've just remembered something I've got to +refer to in one of Mr Gibbs' letters. Don't mind me; I'll be back +presently.' + +McKeith seemed to take no heed of her departure; his eyes were fixed on +Lady Bridget; there was in them a light of inward excitement. + +'Please go on,' she said, 'I want so much to hear.' + +He thought for a few moments, shook the ashes from his pipe and then +plunged into his story. + +'I've got to go back to when I was quite a youngster--taken from +school--I went to St Paul's in the Hammersmith Road--just before I +was seventeen. You see before that my father had scraped together his +little bit of money and we'd been living in West Kensington waiting +while he made out what we were all going to do. He wasn't any great +shakes, my father, in the way of birth, and fortune. I daresay, you +guessed that, Lady Bridget?' + +She tossed her head back impatiently. 'Oh what DOES that matter! Go on, +please.' + +'He'd been a farmer, Glasgow way'--McKeith still pronounced it +'Glesca,' 'and my mother was a minister's daughter, as good a woman and +as true a lady as ever breathed. But that's neither here nor there in +what turned out a bad business. Well, we all emigrated out here, and, +after a while, my old dad bought a station on the Lower Leura--taken +in he was, of course, over the deal, and not realising that it was +unsettled country in those days. So the whole family of us started up +from the coast to it. . . . He drove my mother and my two sisters just +grown up, and a woman servant--Marty--in a double buggy, and Jerry +the bullock driver and me in the dray with him and taught me to drive +bullocks. There were stock-boys, two of them riding along side. + +'It took us three and a half weeks, to reach the station, averaging +about thirty miles a day and camping out each night. + +'I'd like you to camp out in the Bush sometime, Lady Bridget, right +away from everything--it'ud be an experience that 'ud live with you +all your life--My word! It's like nothing else--lying straight under +the Southern Cross and watching its pointers, and, one by one, the +stars coming up above the gum trees--and the queer wild smell of the +gums and the loneliness of it all--not a sound until the birds begin +at dawn but the HOP-HOP of the Wallabies, and the funny noises of +opossums, and the crying of the curlews and native dogs--dingoes we +call 'em. . . . Well, there! I won't bother you with all that--though, +truly, I tell you, it's the nearest touch with the Infinite I'VE ever +known. . . . Lord! I remember the first night I camped right in the +Bush--me rolled in my blanket on one side of the fire, and Leura-Jim +the black-boy on the other. And the wonder of it all coming over me as +I lay broad awake thinking of the contrast between London and its +teeming millions--and the awful solitude of the Bush. . . . I wonder +if your blood would have run cold as mine did when the grass rustled +under stealthy footsteps and me thinking it was the blacks sneaking us +--and the relief of hearing three dismal howls and knowing it was +dingoes and not blacks.' + +'I'd have loved it' murmured Bridget tensely. 'Go on, please.' + +'Well, I've got to come to the tragedy. It began this way through an +act of kindness on our journey up. We were going through the +bunya-bunya country not far from our station, when out of the Bush +there came a black gin with two half-caste girls, she ran up and +stopped the buggy and implored my mother's protection for her girls +because the Blacks wanted to kill and eat them.' + +'O . . . oh!' Biddy made a shuddering exclamation. + +'Didn't I say the Blacks hadn't everything on their side--I ought to +explain though that in our district were large forests of a kind of +pine--there's one in this garden,' and he pointed to a pyramidal fir +tree with spreading branches of small pointed leaves spiked at the +ends, and with a cone of nuts about the size of a big man's head, +hanging from one of the branches. + +'That's the bunya-bunya, and the nuts are splendid roasted in the +ashes--if ever that one gets properly ripe--it has to be yellow, you +know--I'll ask Joan Gildea to let me roast it for you. Only it wouldn't be +the same thing at all as when it's done in a fire of gum logs, the nuts +covered with red ashes, and then peeled and washed down with quartpot +tea. . . .' + +'Quartpot tea! What a lot you'll have to show me if--if I ever come to +your station in the Back-Blocks.' + +'Different from your London Life, eh? . . . Your balls and dinners and +big shows and coaching meets in Hyde Park, and all the rest of the +flummery! Different, too, from your kid-glove fox-hunts over grass +fields and trimmed hedges and puddles of ditches--the sort of thing +you've been accustomed to, Lady Bridget, when you've gone out from your +castle for a sporting spree!' + +'A sporting spree!' She laughed with a child's merriment, and he joined +in the laugh, 'It's clear to me, Mr McKeith, that you've never hunted +in Ireland. And how did you know, by the way, that I'd lived in a +castle?' + +'I was led to believe that a good many of your kind owned historic +castles which your forefathers had won and defended with the sword,' he +answered, a little embarrassed. + +'That's true enough. . . . But if you could see Castle Gaverick! My old +Aunt is always talking of restoring it, but she never will, and if my +cousin Chris Gaverick ever does come into it, he'd rather spend his +money in doing something else. . . . But never mind that. . . . I want +to hear about the black gin and the half-caste girls, and if your +mother saved them from the cannibals . . . and why the blacks wanted to +eat their own kind. Dog doesn't eat dog--at least, so they tell one.' + +'It's this way. Our blacks weren't regular cannibals, but in the bunya +season they'd all collect in the scrubs and feed on the nuts and +nothing else for months. Then after a bit they'd get meat-hungry, and +there not being many wild animals in Australia and only a few cattle in +those outlying districts, they'd satisfy their cravings by killing and +eating some of themselves--lubras--young girls--by preference, and, +naturally, half-castes, as having no particular tribal status, for +choice.' + +'Half-castes!' She repeated, a little puzzled. + +'These ones had Chinky blood in them--daughters of a Chinaman +fossicker. . . . We're not partial to the Chinese in Australia--only +we don't eat them, we expel them--methods just a bit dissimilar, but +the principle the same, you see. . . . Anyway, of course we took on the +gin and her girls, and for about a year didn't have any particular +trouble at the station with the blacks--though there was a shepherd +speared in one of the out-huts. . . . That was his fault, however, poor +devil--the old story--but it don't matter. The trouble came to a head +with a black boy, called Leura-Jimmy, that Jerry the bullock-driver +brought up with him and left at the station where he went down to the +township for store supplies--He took me with him--I told you I was +learning bullock-driving. . . .' + +McKeith paused, and the dark look came upon his face. + +'And Leura-Jimmy?' put in Bridget. + +'Oh, he was a fine, big fellow--plausible, too, and could speak pidgin +English--he was never weaned from his tribe, and he was a treacherous +scoundrel at heart. . . . As a precautionary measure, my father forbade +the blacks to come up to the head-station. But Jimmy fell in love with +the eldest of the half-caste girls. She encouraged him at first, then +took up with one of the stock-boys. . . . + +'It was the bunya season again, and the girls' old tribe, under their +King Mograbar--a devil incarnate in a brute--I sent him to Hell +afterwards with my own hand and never did a better deed'--McKeith's +brown fists clenched and the fury in his eyes blazed so that he himself +looked almost devilish for a moment. His face remained very grim and +dour as he proceeded. + +'Jimmy had got to know through the half-caste girl about our ways and +doings, and he made a diabolic plot with King Mograbar to get the +blacks into the house. . . . Every living soul was murdered . . .surprised +in their sleep . . . My father . . . my mother . . . my +sisters . . . God! . . . I can't speak of it. . . .' + +He got up abruptly, jerking his long legs, and went to the further end +of the veranda, where he stood with set features and brows like a red +bar, below which staring eyes were fixed vacantly upon the avenue of +bunya trees in the long walk of the Botanical Gardens across the river. +But they did not see those bunya trees. What they saw was a row of +mutilated bodies, lying stark along the veranda of that head-station on +the Leura. + +Bridget was leaning forward in her squatter's chair, her fingers +grasping the arms of it, her face very white and her eyes staring too, +as though they also beheld the scene of horror. + +Presently McKeith came back, pale too, but quite composed. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said stiffly. 'Perhaps I should not have told +you.' + +'It's--horrible. But I'm glad to know. Thank you for telling me.' + +He looked at her wistfully. There was silence for a moment or two. + +'And you . . . you . . . where were you?' she stammered. + +'Me! I was with the drays, you know. We got back about noon that +day. . . . If we'd been twelve hours sooner! Well, I suppose I should +have been murdered with the rest. . . . The blacks had gone off with their +loot. . . . We . . . we buried our dead. . . . And then we ran up our +best horses and never drew rein for forty miles till we'd got to where +a band of the Native Police were camped. . . . And then . . . we took +what vengeance we could. . . . It wasn't complete till a long time +afterwards.' + +He was standing behind Bridget's chair, his eyes still gazing beyond +the river. He did not notice that she leaned back suddenly, and her +hands fell nervelessly to her lap. He felt a touch on his arm. It was +Mrs Gildea, who had come out to the veranda again. 'Colin,' she said, +'I want you to go and bring me my typewriter from the parlour. And then +you've got to dictate "copy," about the Alexandra City Gas-Bore. Please +go at once.' + +He obeyed. Mrs Gildea bent over Lady Bridget. + +'Biddy! . . . You're not faint, are you?' + +Lady Bridget roused herself and looked up at her friend rather +wildly. . . . 'No. . . . What do you take me for? . . . I said I wanted +real things, Joan . . . And I've got them.' + +She laughed a little hysterically. + +'All right! But we shall give you a taste of real Australia that isn't +quite so gruesome. That some of the tragedy belongs to the pioneer +days. . . . I could tell you things myself that my father has told me. +. . . But I won't. . . . Mind, Colin McKeith is no more of a hero than +a dozen bush boys I knew when I first knew him. Yes, put it there, +Colin, please. . . . And now, if Biddy doesn't mind, we'll proceed to +business, which is my IMPERIALIST Letter. I suppose you haven't brought +back any snapshots of Alexandra City and your wonderful Gas-Bore that +Mr Gibbs could get worked up for his paper?' + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + + + +That was not the only time Lady Bridget and McKeith met on Mrs Gildea's +veranda. In fact, Biddy, reminiscent of wild sea-excursions along the +shore by Castle Gaverick, developed a passion for what she called tame +boating on the Leichardt River. She found a suitable skiff in the +boat-house--the Government House grounds sloped to the water's edge, +and would row herself up and down the river reaches. It was easy to +round the point, skirt the Botanical Gardens, and, crossing above the +ferry, land below Mrs Gildea's cottage, then climb up the bank and +enter by a lower gate to the garden. Thus she would often turn up +unexpectedly of mornings for a chat with her friend in the veranda +study. + +At this time, Colin McKeith contracted a similar habit. He showed a +still greater interest in Mrs Gildea's journalistic work and professed +a strong desire to enlighten British statesmen, through the medium of +Mr Gibbs' admirable paper, on certain Imperial questions affecting +Australia--the danger of a Japanese invasion in the northern waters-- +the establishment of a naval base by Germany in New Guinea--the Yellow +Labour Problem and so forth. He would intersperse his political +dissertation with racy bits of description of life in the Bush, and +would give the points of view of pearl fishers, miners, loafers, +officials in out-of-the-way townships, Labour reformers, sheep and +cattle owners--all of which vastly amused Lady Bridget, and was +valuable 'copy,' typed unscrupulously by Mrs Gildea. In fact, she owed +to it much of the success which, later, attended her journalistic +venture. Mrs Gildea thought at first that the 'copy' would be more +easily obtainable in the intervals before and after Lady Bridget's +arrival, or on the days when she failed to come. But, finding that +Colin was distinctly at his best as a narrator with Biddy for an +audience, she artfully arranged to take her notes under those +conditions. This lasted two or three weeks, during which period Sir +Luke and Lady Tallant conscientiously improved their acquaintance with +the new sphere of their labours. They visited hospitals, inspected +public buildings, inaugurated social schemes, and, to the strains of +'God Save the Queen,' performed many other insignificant public +functions, from which, as often as not, their guest, Lady Bridget, +basely cried off. + +On one such occasion, Joan, arrayed in her best, had patriotically gone +forth on a steaming March day to support their Excellencies, fondly +expecting that, as arranged, Lady Bridget and Colin would meet her. But +Lady Tallant, looking distinctly cross, accompanied the Governor alone. +Bridget, it appeared, had come down, just as the carriage drove up, in +her morning frock and garden hat, saying that she had a bad headache +and meant to spend the afternoon in a hammock by the river bank. As for +Colin, there was no sign of him. + +But when Mrs Gildea got home very tired, and hot she was made extremely +angry by hearing the voices of Lady Bridget and McKeith in the veranda +where they were drinking tea and, it seemed, holding a confidential +conversation. Mrs Gildea's gorge rose higher. She had to stop a minute +to try and recover her temper. Here was Biddy disburdening herself to +Colin of her family troubles and short-comings, showing herself and +them in the worst light, singing small to a man with whom it was highly +desirable she should maintain her dignity. Instead of that, she was +deliberately pulling down the barrier of rank and social position which +should exist between Lady Bridget O'Hara and the Factor's son, the +Out-Back squatter--Colin McKeith. + +Biddy was saying: 'Oh, but you're as bad as that sort of person who +can't be made to realise that the oldest peerage in Ireland counts for +nothing in comparison with an oil-king's millions and being able to +entertain the right set. . . . And besides, really Mr McKeith, there's +no difference at all between us. You talk such a lot about YOUR +grandfather having been a Scotch peasant. Why! MY mother's father was +an Italian beggar--Ugh! haven't you seen them with their crutches and +things on the steps of the churches?--And my mother sang in the +streets of Naples until a kind musician heard her and had her trained +to be a opera singer.' + +'Your mother?' + +'My mother! That's where my CARMEN comes from--only that my voice, I'm +told, isn't to be compared with what hers was. . . . But that's not the +worst about my mother. Not that I blame her. I think that a woman has a +perfect right to leave her husband if she has ceased to care for him, +and that it's far more moral to live with a man you love and can't +marry, than with a husband you hate.' + +Mrs Gildea cut short Lady Bridget's exposition of her views on morality +before McKeith had time to answer. Her voice was sharp as she went up +the steps and arraigned the pair. + +'Really, Biddy, I do call this too bad of you. May I ask how you and Mr +McKeith come to be drinking tea together in my veranda?' + +'Sure, and it's by accident intoirely,' answered Biddy, with a +whimsical look and the touch of the brogue she sometimes put on when a +situation became embarrassing. + +'A prearranged accident!' + +'No it wasn't, Joan. As a matter-of-fact, we were the last persons +either of us expected to meet.' + +'Honour bright,' put in McKeith. 'I'd forgotten all about the Pineapple +Products Exhibition, and I just dropped in at Government House to pay +my respects after a pleasant dinner two nights ago--What you'd call a +visit of digestion.' + +'And since when, Colin, have you become an observer of social +obligations?' jeered Mrs Gildea. + +He grinned, 'Ah! you have me there. Anyway, I asked for Lady Bridget, +and found her down by the boat-shed.' + +'And we thought it would be cooler on the water, so he rowed me round +the point. It was the most natural thing in the world that we should +discover we were thirsty, and that we should come up the garden and ask +your old woman to give us some tea. Don't be a cat, Joan. You never +used to be grudging of your hospitality.' + +Mrs Gildea quickly recovered her usual genial demeanour. She poured +herself out a cup of tea, and remarked that it was refreshing after the +pine-apple syrups and other concoctions she had, as in duty bound, +sampled at the Show. Lady Bridget rattled along with questions about +the Function and the behaviour of the Government House party. Had Sir +Luke been too over-poweringly pompous? Was Lady Tallant really cross? +and had Vereker Wells made any more blunders? and so forth. But she did +not enlighten Mrs Gildea much about her doings with Colin McKeith, and +presently said she must go and make her peace with Rosamond. McKeith +accompanied her--naturally, since he had to row her back to the +Government House landing. There was something in the manner of the pair +that Mrs Gildea could not understand. Of course, Colin was in love-- +that she knew already. But was Biddy merely playing with the big +primitive-souled bushman--or was it possible that she, too, could be +in love? + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + + + +The next time Biddy came, Joan tackled matters boldly. + +'Biddy, I've had my marching orders. Mr Gibbs finds Leichardt's Land a +bit stale. I take train to Sydney next week and tour the Riverina, the +Blue Mountains and the country along the railway line to Melbourne. Are +you coming with me?' + +Bridget gave a deprecatory laugh. ' I don't know what Rosamond would +say.' + +'She'd recognise the necessities of the situation. Besides, you could +come back again.' + +'I haven't been here a month. And I don't find Leichardt's Land stale. +On the contrary, I find it extremely stimulating. No, I think the +Riverina and the Blue Mountains will keep, as far as I'm concerned.' + +'But I won't keep. Mr Gibb and the drawings for THE IMPERIALIST won't +keep. The question is whether you want to make some money or not?' + +'It's the one thing I've WANTED to do all my life, and have never yet +succeeded in doing except when we collaborated in "The Lady of +Quality." + +'Here's your chance for a continuation series, "The Lady of Quality in +the Bush." How does that sound?' + +'Rather clumsy and long, don't you think? "Lady Bridget in the Bush" +would be more alliterative and catching. Only I should be giving myself +away.' + +'I think you're doing that already,' said Mrs. Gildea. + +'How do you mean, Joan? I don't see it.' + +'Yes, you do. Look here, Biddy. Colin McKeith isn't Mr Willoughby Maule.' + +'He's a hundred times better man, Joan.' + +'That you needn't tell me; and I'm glad you recognise the fact. But +from the point of view of "The Lady of Quality," would he be a better +husband?' + +'You forget, my dear, that I'm not the genuine article. I'm nothing but +a pinchbeck imitation of the real "Lady of Quality." If HIS grandfather +was a peasant, remember that my maternal grandparents were peasants +too. I told him so yesterday.' + +'Has it come to that? You go fast, Biddy. But I warn you--Colin +McKeith isn't the man to be trifled with. He knows his own mind. The +question is whether you know yours.' + +Biddy nodded her head like a Chinese Mandarin. + +'Two months ago you were wildly in love--or, at least, from your +letters one might have judged so--with another man,' said Mrs Gildea. + +'No--no--don't call that love.' + +'Call it a violent attraction, then. I suspect the man could have made +you marry him if he had chosen. So far as I can understand, you +quarrelled because neither of you would face matrimony on what you +considered an inadequate income.' + +'Middle-class respectability--living in Pimlico or further +Kensington,' scoffed Biddy. 'Ordering sprats and plaice for dinner and +pretending they're soles and whitebait. Perambulators stuffing up the +hall; paying your own books and having your gown made at home! No, +thank you. 'Possum skins and a black's gunya--that's Autralese for a +wigwam, isn't it?--appeal to me infinitely more.' + +Mrs Gildea threw up her hands. + +'Biddy, you haven't the faintest notion how dull and uncomfortable-- +how utterly unpoetic--how sordid the life of a struggling bushman can +be.' + +'No! You know, Joan, I think that it might be perfectly fascinating-- +if one really cared for the bushman.' + +'Really cared! Have you EVER really cared for any man? COULD you ever +really care?' + +'That's what I've been asking myself. It would have to be someone quite +different from all the other men I've liked--something altogether +above the ordinary man, to make me REALLY care.' + +'You said that Mr Willoughby Maule was different from any man you'd +ever met. Each man you've ever fancied youself in love with has been +different from all the rest.' + +Lady Bridget laughed rather uneasily. + +'How tiresomely exact you are, Joan! Of course, they were different. +Everybody is different from everybody else. And I attract marked types. +Will was more marked and more attractive--as well as attracted-- +that's all.' + +'His attraction doesn't seem to have been as strong as self-interest, +any way,' said Joan, with deliberate terseness. + +The girl's small, pale face flushed to deep crimson for a moment. + +'Joan, you are cruel! You know that was the sting! And it wouldn't have +stung so if I hadn't cared. Sometimes I feel the maddest desire to hurt +him--to pay him out. I never felt like that about any of the others-- +the ones I really did ALMOST want to marry. And then--at other times +I'd give ANYTHING just to have him again as he used to be.' + +'I'm certain you weren't really in love with him,' exclaimed Mrs +Gildea. + +Bridget seemed to be considering. 'Wasn't I?--I'm not so sure of that. +No--' she went on impetuously, 'I was not REALLY in love with him. He +had a magnetic influence over me as I told you. Perhaps I might get a +little under it again if he were to appear suddenly without his wife-- +it turns me sick to think of a married man having a magnetic influence +over me. . . . Even if there was no wife--now. So, when you've +idealised a person and can't idealise him any more: C'EST FINI. There's +nothing but a ghost to come and make you uncomfortable sometimes--and +that CAN'T last. . . . Besides, I've been breathing the strong clear +air of your gum trees lately. It's a case of pull devil--pull bushman. +Do you see?' + +'I see, my dear, that you're idealising Colin McKeith, and let me tell +you that a bushman is very far removed from the super-man. Oh, Colin is +a fine enough specimen of a pioneer in a rough country. But his rough +life, his bush surroundings, and all the rest--why, he'd jar upon you +in a hundred ways if you were alone with him in them. Then--he's not +of your order--though I hate the phrase and I hate the kind of man. +All the same, Biddy, you may pretend to despise the men of your own +class, but I fancy that, after a spell of roughing it with Colin on the +Upper Leura, you'd hanker after something in them that Colin hasn't and +never will have. . . . And then,' Joan's swift imagination carried her +on with a rush, 'you don't know in the least the type of man he is. +You'd have to give in to him: he'd never give in to you. He's +domineering, jealous, vindictive and reserved. Before a month was out +you'd quarrel, and there would be no chance of your ever making it up +again.' + +'I must say, Joan, that for a friend of his you're not an enthusiastic +advocate.' + +'It's because I'm so fond of Colin that I hate the thought of your +making him miserable. Anyway, however, you're bound to do that.' + +'I don't see why.' + +'If you flirt with him and then drop him, he'll suffer, though he'll be +too proud to show it. And as for the alternative, it's out of the +question. You must see that it would be sheer folly.' + +'I've committed a great many follies,' said Bridget wistfully. + +'But, so far, none that are quite irrevocable.' + +'Well, he hasn't asked me yet to commit this one.' + +'You're leading him on to it. Biddy, it is abominable of you to +encourage him as you do--coming here with him that day. . . . And you +let him take you riding. . . .' + +'Yes, he knows now that I CAN ride.' + +'And he's at Government House nearly every day--I can't think what +Lady Tallant is about to ask him so often to dinner.' + +'She likes him because he takes Luke off her hands. You know we've +nick-named him the Unconstitutional Adviser.' + +'That's rubbish. You sing to him.' + +'What harm is there in my singing to Colin McKeith?' + +'As if you didn't know well enough that you're perfectly irresistible +when you look at a man while you're singing those Neapolitan things. +Biddy, it won't do. Give it up.' + +'I can't do that, Joan.' She spoke with a strange earnestness. 'Don't +you see that it's giving me a chance.' + +'Of forgetting Mr Willoughby Maule!' + +'Yes. . . . But it's more than that.' + +'More than that. . . . Do you mean . . . can you mean that you could +love Colin McKeith--for himself?' + +'Love is a big word, Joan. I've never said to any man--"I love you."' +She spoke the words now as if she were uttering a sacred formula. Her +voice reminded Mrs Gildea of something--the same note in the voice of +Colin McKeith when he, too, had spoken of love. Yet what she had said +was true. Bridget had talked often enough of falling 'in love'--which +she had always been at pains to define as a mere transitory condition-- +not by any means the 'real thing,' and she had freely confessed to +violent attractions and even adorations. But, as she had sometimes +solemnly stated, she had never 'loved.' + +'I can't explain,' she went on. 'I know you think me a heartless, +emotional flirt. Yes, I am. I admit it. But there's a locked door in +the inner chamber--a shrine that no one has desecrated. The Goddess is +there, waiting--waiting to reveal herself.' + +'And so--all the rest have been--experiments?' + +'No, The Quest of the Ideal through the Forest of Illusion. I've often +thought, Joan, there was a lot in the motive of that novel of Thomas +Hardy's THE WELL BELOVED. But I seem to be mixing up my metaphor, and +it's time I went back to Government House.' She got up and began +putting on her gloves. + +Mrs Gildea laughed hysterically. Somehow, she could not imagine Colin +McKeith producing the golden key and masterfully taking possession of +Lady Bridget's locked shrine. She could only think of him as tricked, +deceived and suffering hideously at the end. She stammered out her +fear, beseeching Biddy to be merciful, but Biddy's mood had changed, +and she only smiled her Sphinx smile. + +'I think he's quite able to look after himself,' she said. 'And if he +isn't, sure, he must take the consequences.' + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + + + +Mrs Gildea could get nothing more out of Lady Bridget. She attacked +McKeith in a more tentative manner, but Colin was doggedly reticent. He +was taking the thing hardly. His way of facing a serious situation was +by setting his teeth and saying nothing. After these unsuccessful +attempts, Joan made opportunity, before leaving, for a private word on +the subject with Lady Tallant. But Rosamond Tallant treated the matter, +at first, very lightly. + +'Dear Mrs Gildea, you needn't worry, it's only Biddy's way. She must +have some excitement to keep her going. If it isn't one thing, it's +another. In London, I tried to interest her in Society, or Politics, +and the Opera--and now Luke is trying to interest her in Colonial +questions--but she always drifts back to--Men. She can't help it. And +the funny thing is, I don't believe that in her heart she is capable of +a serious attachment.' + +'I'm not so sure of that,' answered Mrs Gildea. + +'If so, she has had plenty of opportunities of proving it. But I wasn't +ever afraid even of Willoughby Maule. I was certain that would fizzle +out before real harm could come of it. And mercifully it did. He's +married a woman with a quarter of a million and the right to dispose of +it absolutely as she pleases. I heard that she signed a will on her +wedding day, leaving it all to him in the event of her death. Too great +a temptation, wasn't it? Though I do think if Biddy had chosen she +might have kept him in spite of Miss Bagalay and her money. As it is, +Colin McKeith, or else the novelty of it all out here--has driven him +out of her head. I felt sure of that when I asked her to come. You +needn't worry about her.' + +'It's not so much about Biddy that I'm worrying as about my old friend, +Colin McKeith,' said Mrs Gildea. 'It isn't fair that he should be made +a victim.' + +'Oh, well, it isn't altogether Biddy's fault that she attracts all +types of men.' And then Lady Tallant made exactly the same remark as +Lady Bridget. 'I think Mr McKeith is quite able to look after himself. +I don't pity him in the least. Didn't somebody say of Lady Something or +Other that to love her was a liberal education?' + +'Steele said it of Lady Elizabeth Hastings.' + +'I call it a liberal education for Colin McKeith to love Lady Bridget +O'Hara,' laughed Lady Tallant. + +Mrs Gildea changed her tactics and voiced her other fear--a more +insistent fear. + +'Has it ever occurred to you that Lady Bridget O'Hara might fall in +love with Colin McKeith?' + +'Why, my dear, she's wildly in love with him already,' rejoined Lady +Tallant, to Joan Gildea's surprise. + +'You've seen it?' + +'I'm not blind, and I know Biddy. But I've seen that she's taking this +affair differently from the others, and that's what makes me think it +has gone deeper. A very good thing for Biddy.' + +'You can't mean that it would be a good thing for Biddy to marry Colin +McKeith?' + +Lady Tallant's social manner was rather full of affectations. +Underneath it, however, lay commonsense and sympathy. She became +suddenly simple and direct. + +'Well, now, Mrs Gildea, let us look at the matter without prejudice. +You are fond of Biddy and so am I, but we know her drawbacks. +Naturally, it wouldn't be a good thing under ordinary conditions, but +is she likely to do much better?' + +'She has had plenty of chances.' + +'And thrown them all away. And though she looks so young, she is close +on thirty. Of course, with her looks and her fascination she ought to +have married well. I'm sure her friends have tried hard enough for her. +But what can you do with a girl who throws herself at the heads of +ineligibles, and when one trots out an unexceptionable PARTI and does +one's best to bring them together, goes off at a tangent and lets the +whole thing drop through. You know how it was with. . . .' Lady Tallant +enumerted names. + +Mrs Gildea acquiesced mournfully. Lady Tallant continued: + +'The truth is, Biddy has tired out the patience of her relatives and +friends. Molly and Chris Gaverick got the hump over Willoughby Maule-- +who would have done well enough if he had only had more money. Old +Eliza'--so Lady Tallant irreverently styled the Dowager Countess of +Gaverick--'told me herself that she was going to wash her hands of +Biddy. I shouldn't wonder if she didn't leave her a penny. And, after +all, it was her own fortune, and she has a horde of needy relatives. +She will consider that she has done her duty to the Gavericks if she +lets Chris have the Castle. When all's said and done, I don't see that +it would be such a bad thing for Biddy to marry a rich Australian +squatter.' + +'Colin McKeith is not rich.' + +'Oh, he will be. Sir Luke has been hearing all about him.' + +'He's not her equal. His father was just a land bailiff, and his +grandfather a crofter.' + +'Oh, what DOES that matter! In these days any of us would marry the +roughest of rough diamonds, provided he was decently well off. Biddy +has always been mad after adventure and an open-air life. She's an +original, and everything would be in keeping.' Lady Tallant went on +briskly. 'She would enjoy living among the blacks, provided they did +not murder her, and I suppose one could trust Mr McKeith for that.' + +'Oh, there's no danger from the blacks now,' put in Mrs Gildea. + +'And then she needn't be buried for ever in the Bush. Luke tells me +that Colin McKeith is certain to come to the fore in politics--I +daresay he will be Premier of Leichardt's Land before long. Biddy would +like bossing the show and airing her philanthropic crazes.' + +Mrs Gildea shook her head doubtfully. + +'Colin wouldn't agree with them. Besides, she would be expatriated.' + +'Oh no. The big men over here are always taking trips to England, being +feted and made much of in Downing Street--Imperialist Policy and that +sort of thing--I can see Biddy at it.' + +Mrs Gildea was silent. She scarcely knew Lady Tallant in this downright +mood. + +'There's no use blinking matters,' said that lady. 'At home, Biddy has +been a failure. That was why I persuaded her to come out with us. I +knew she wanted a fresh start badly.' + +It was quite true. Mrs Gildea remembered Bridget's confidences to +herself. She could not help feeling that Lady Tallant was right in the +main, and put forward no more objections. But she explained her own +plans and the necessity for her immediate departure from Leichardt's +Land--how she had hoped, too, to take Biddy with her and interest her +once more in literary and artistic work. + +'Biddy won't go, she told me so, and I don't mean to let her,' said +Lady Tallant decidedly. 'We're short-handed till the new Private +Secretary gets here, and she helps me with my notes and things +generally. And if it wasn't for Biddy's singing, our dinners would be +too deadly dull for words.' + +Joan gave up in despair. She suspected that Lady Tallant's affectionate +candour was not unadulterated with selfishness. Finally, Rosamond +promised that she would interest and amuse Lady Bridget to such an +extent as would deter her from rash love-making for want of counter +excitement. Then, Joan reflected, Colin was pre-eminently a prudent +business man, and, as he had told her some time before, would have to +go back to the Upper Leura before the strenuous work of the Session +came on. This was always supposing that the present Ministry kept in +without going to the country upon certain Labour measures unacceptable +to the large land-owners, in which case it was just possible McKeith +might be thrown out of his seat. + +Events lay in the lap of the gods. Mrs Gildea wound up matters at the +Cottage and took train south, where she was soon wholly occupied in +describing the wonder of the Jenolan Caves and the wild gorges and +primaeval gum forests in the Blue Mountains. She was really too busy in +the interests of the IMPERIALIST to worry over her friend's love +affairs. In fact, she gleaned most of her information as to the +Leichardt's Town Government House Party from the newspapers she +happened upon at bush hotels. For Lady Bridget was evidently in a +reactionary mood as regards letter-writing and Colin McKeith never put +pen to paper, if he could avoid doing so, except on business. + +It was at Mossvale that she read a florid paragraph in the Ladies' Page +of a Sydney Journal, telling of the engagement of 'that intrepid +Pioneer and future Empire-builder, Mr Colin McKeith, to the Lady +Bridget O'Hara, niece of the late, and cousin of the present, Earl of +Gaverick'. + +Next post brought her three brief and characteristic letters. She +opened Lady Tallant's first: + +'Government House, + +Leichardt's Town. + +'DEAR MRS GILDEA, + +I do hope this may catch you before the newspapers, which I find +announced the engagement rather prematurely last week. I am still of +opinion that Biddy might do much worse than marry Colin McKeith, +though, ENTRE NOUS, the settlements--or rather want of them--for Mr +McKeith tells us that he needs all his capital for making wells and +buying cattle, and he won't injure his prospects and Biddy's by tying +it up--does not at all please Sir Luke, who, before he would +countenance the marriage, insisted upon a cablegram being sent to the +Dowager Lady Gaverick. Her answer: "Not my business, must do as she +pleases," only confirms what I said to you, and I am afraid Biddy's +chances are worth nothing in that quarter. + +The wedding is to be early in May, from Government House, of course, +and I need scarcely say how much we all hope you will come back for it. + +Always sincerely, + +ROSAMOND TALLANT. + +P.S.--No doubt, Biddy is giving you full details.' + +But Biddy did not indulge either in details or rhapsodies. She began: + +'They say hanging and wiving go by destiny, and clearly my destiny is +to become the wife of Collin McKeith. I've always felt that the only +thing which could reconcile me to marriage would be marrying a MAN; and +at last I've found one. I want to tell you, Joan, that we've made an +agreement to ask each other no questions about respective Pasts. The +black-fellows he has slain--the one jarring note between us--are +never to be resuscitated. The men whose hearts I have broken and VICE +VERSA are dead and buried on the other side of the Equator, under a +monument of inviolable silence. Such are the terms of the marriage +contract: and you in especial must respect them. I need say no more, +except this: Have no fears for the happiness of + +Your BIDDY.' + +From Colin in telegraphic conciseness: + +'Tremendously happy. She's absolutely my Ideal--in everything but +size.' + +All very satisfactory and conclusive. But--Mrs Gildea could not escape +from a vague misgiving. She was not afraid of the ghost of Mr +Willoughby Maule: indeed, she argued favourably from the baldness of +Bridget's letter in comparison with the reams of sentiment she had +written upon the previous occasion. Nor did she feel uneasy on the +score of any others of Lady Bridget's bygone passions. But had this +complex, fastidious, physically-refined creature the least +comprehension of what life on the Upper Leura might mean? And how about +an Ideal dethroned from her pedestal and plumped down amid the crude +realities of the nethermost Bush? + +Mrs Gildea did not get to the wedding. She was ordered to report on the +mines of Western Australia, and was on the other side of the continent +when the marriage took place. In fact, it seemed doubtful whether she +would again meet Lady Bridget before her mission as Special +Correspondent ended. But the McKeiths were to spend their honeymoon in +travelling to his station on the Upper Leura, a distance of some +hundreds of miles from the nearest port, and quite out of THE +IMPERIALIST programme. + +She read, however, circumstantial accounts of the wedding, and there +were portraits of the pair--in which Colin looked grumpy and Lady +Bridget whimsically amused--snap shots, too, of the wedding cortege, +in which Sir Luke Tallant, fathering the Bride, appeared a pompous +figure in full uniform; and Lady Tallant in splendid panoply, most +stately and gracious. A long account followed of the bride's family +connections, in which the biographer touched upon the accident of sex +that had deprived her of the hereditary honours; the ancient descent of +the Gavericks, with a picture of the old Irish castle where Lady +Bridget had been brought up--and so forth, and so forth. Mrs Gildea +sighed as she read, and pictured in her imagination the wild wastes of +the Never-Never Land and the rough head-station which was to be Lady +Bridget's home. + + + + + +BOOK II + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF LADY BRIDGET O'HARA + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + +It was the way of the O'Haras to do things first and to consider +afterwards whether it were well or ill that they should be done. Many a +ruined O'Hara might have fared differently in life's battle had he +thought before he acted. + +Lady Bridget was no exception to the rule of her family. She had +accepted Colin McKeith in a blind impulse of escape from the old +hedged-in existence of her order, of which she was quite tired and +where-in she had proved herself a failure. She had been attracted by +the idea that he represented, of wide spaces and primitive adventures. +She had always longed to travel in untrodden ways, and had loved +stories of romantic barbarism. And then, too, some queer glamour of the +man had got hold of her. She was intensely susceptible to personal +influence--his bigness, his simplicity, his strength and daring, and +the feeling that he was quite capable of mastering her, not only by +brute force--which always appeals to a certain type of woman--but by +power of will, by a tenacity of passion which she recognised even +through the shy reserve with which McKeith tried to cloak his +adoration. For she was goddess to him, as well as lady-love--and that +she realised plainly. A look from her would make him go white and his +large hands tremble; an unexpected grace from her would fill him with +reverent ecstasy. + +The thing happened one soft moonlit evening after dinner at Government +House, when she had strolled out alone to a secluded part of the +terrace, and he had followed her after the men left the dining-room. +She was in a mood of tempestuous raging against her ordained lot. +Letters had come from England that day which had irritated her and made +her wonder how she could endure any longer her galling state of +dependence. Eliza Countess of Gaverick had sent her a meagre cheque, +accompanied by a scathing rebuke of her extravagance. Some cutting +little sarcasms of Molly Gaverick's had likewise annoyed her, and she +fretted under the miserable sense of her inadequacy to the demands of a +world she despised and yet hankered after. Then Sir Luke had been +tiresomely pertinacious over some small dereliction on Bridget's part +from the canons of Government House etiquette, which he had requested +should not be repeated. Rosamond Tallant had been tiresome also and had +made her feel that even here she was no more than a dependent who must +conform to the wills of her official superiors. Joan Gildea might have +served as a safety-valve, but Joan was away in or near the Jenolan +Caves, and could not be got at unless Bridget chose to throw up other +things and go to her, which Bridget was not inclined to do. + +The whole thing was a tangle. If only it were possible to find a way +out that would not prove still more painfully complicated. + +At the moment the ting-tang of a steamer bell bound outward to the +northern coast, borne to her on the river-breeze, intensified her +desire for escape from conventional limitations. Oh! to find herself +under totally new conditions! The heavy fragrance of magnolia and +gardenia blossoms seemed freighted with exotic suggestion. The tropical +odours blended with the perfume of autumn roses, which made a trellis +over her head and overran the balustrades. The subtle mingling of +perfumes that float in the clear air of an Australian garden, when the +fierce heats of summer are gone, gave her a sense of almost +intoxication. + +In fact, Bridget was in the mood for any desperate leap into the +Unknown. Such was her unconscious thought as she crunched a spray of +verbena in her fingers and inhaled the scent which had always a faintly +heady effect upon her imagination. She was leaning on the stone kerb of +the balustrade, vague emotions stirring her, when she heard McKeith's +step on the gravel. Presently he stood beside her, his tall form, in +the well-cut evening suit which always became him best, towering head +and shoulders above her small stature. It was always a satisfaction to +Lady Bridget, fastidious in such masculine details, that he was +particular about his tailoring, and tonight he exhaled the scent of one +of Sir Luke Tallant's excellent cigars. There used to be a good deal of +chaff between them about one of his personal predilections which jarred +a little upon Bridget--his pipe and, particularly, the quality of his +tobacco. But he did not change it in spite of her chaff. She was +beginning to find a certain mule-like obstinacy about him in +unimportant details. + +'If you object to this, what WOULD you say to the store tobacco smoke +when I'm in the Bush?' he said. And then he had explained that, when +camping out with the stockmen on their expeditions after cattle, he +always smoked the same tobacco that he supplied to his hands. That was +according to HIS rule of social equality by the camp fire, he +said. . . . And where was all Lady Bridget's vaunted socialism if she +jibbed at such a simple illustration of the first principles of socialism? +Of course, Bridget had taken his banter in good part, and with a pretty +grimace had told him she would get out a consignment of the stuff her +Aunt Eliza gave at Christmas to the old men in their Irish village and +present him with it. + +He threw away the butt end of Sir Luke's cigar when he joined her. For +several moments he stood watching her--the picturesque little figure +in its dainty frock, the grace of the small head with its crop of +untidy hair, the pale pointed face--chin resting in the cup of one +flower-like hand, red lips--the upper one like Cupid's bow--slightly +parted, strange deep eyes gazing across the dark expanse of river to +the scattered lights on the high land opposite. Above, the Southern +Cross, set diagonally, in the dark clear sky gemmed with its myriad +stars. + +There could be no doubt that Colin McKeith was in the grip of an +infatuation such as he had never known before in his life. It staggered +him. His breath caught in his throat and ended in an uncertain laugh. +He stuttered in sheer awkwardness. + +'I--I say . . . you seem to be up in the clouds. You've been awfully +down in the mouth--all through dinner. Won't you tell me? Is anything +the matter?' + +Bridget turned and looked at him. Her eyes were softly glistening, her +lips trembled. He thought of her as of a child seeking sympathy in a +strange land, where nobody understood her and somebody had been unkind. +He was intensely stirred by her impulsive appeal. + +'Oh! I'm worried. I'm so alone in the world. Nobody wants me--here or +in England either. I was just wondering if I couldn't go off and join +Joan Gildea. . . . But she wouldn't want me either, perhaps.' + +He went closer, stooping over the balustrade. Magnetic threads seemed +to be drawing them to each other. He wanted to say, 'I want you,' but +dared not. He blurted forth instead? + +'What is it? I'd cut off my right hand if that would be of any use to +you. Good Lord! That does sound cheek! Only--you know--I'm big enough +to bully the whole of Leichardt's Land from the Governor down--and I'd +do it if you wanted me to. Just tell me what's worrying you?' + +'It's everything--the whole set of conditions from the day I was born +into them.' + +'Conditions are easy enough things to break, if you're determined to do +it. Look here--talk it out. . . . you can trust me.' + +Then she recklessly set the flood gates open--laughed with tears in +the laughter; drew a tragically amusing picture of her life--her +anomalous position, her dependence, her hatred of the pretences, the +shifts, the sordid bravado by means of which her impoverished Gaverick +relatives clung on to their social birthright, the toadying of the +Dowager, the worldly admonitions of Rosamond Tallant and her set--she +used some of the phrases he had himself read in that letter. Had he +been in any doubt as to its authorship that doubt must now be at rest. +But he would never tell her of that episode. For one thing, his promise +to Joan bound him. Like a stab came the remembrance of that man of whom +Biddy had written--the man towards whom she had confessed a violent +attraction--and who had behaved as a cad and a fortune-hunter would +naturally behave. That he could have weighed money in the balance with +THIS! She could not have cared for the fellow, or he MUST have thrown +over everything else for her. Was it possible that she had cared--that +she still cared? + +'Tell me,' he asked hoarsely. 'Is it that you are fretting after +somebody over there who--someone you can't marry? There must have been +a lot of men in your life. Perhaps there was one who--whom you-- +loved.' + +His voice dropped, as it had a way of doing when he touched the sacred +subject. + +'There have been a lot of men,' she admitted frankly. 'But there has +never been one true Man among them. I've never really in my heart +wanted to marry any of them, if that's what you mean--I don't like +marriage--OUR system of marriage--a bargain in the sale shop. So much +at such a price--birth, position, suitability, good looks--to be paid +for at the market value. Or else it's just because the man happens to +have taken a fancy to one, and while the fancy lasts doesn't think +whether or not it's a fair bargain--on either side. I've seen people +fall madly in love and marry like that. Then before very long the love +turns to hate and it's a case for the Divorce Court.' + +'Nothing of that is--love--not as I--and you--understand it.' + +She gave him one of her inscrutable looks and then turned again to the +stars. There was silence; Colin thought she must hear his heart +thumping, but she seemed lost in her dreams. He put out his big hand +and timidly, reverently, took hers, crushed verbena and all, as it lay +on the balustrade. It rested like a prisoned bird within his; he could +feel the nervous twitch of the little fingers. + +'There's another system of marriage--a better one, I think--where the +man doesn't ask for anything but the right to love until--until he has +compelled the woman's love in return.' + +'Compelled! I like that word. I could yield to my master. But he would +have to prove himself my master.' + +'Will you let me try?' McKeith said boldly. He grasped her hand tightly +as he spoke; she gave a little cry, for he had hurt her. He was all +compunction and gentleness in a moment. + +'Oh, you are strong!' she said. 'I almost think you could make me do +anything you chose.' + +'No--that isn't what I meant.' He seemed trying to steady himself. +'I'm damned if I'd ever give up my free-will to anybody, and I wouldn't +like even the woman who was my mate to do it either. But love--that's +a different thing. . . . ' + +'Your mate!' she repeated. + +'You don't know the Bush idea of a real mate--shoulder to shoulder, +back to back--no getting behind one or the other--giving up your life +for your mate, if it came to a pinch.' + +'And that's your idea of--love?' + +'Something like it, only closer, dearer--a thing you couldn't talk +about even to your mate--unless your mate was your wife--a flower +that blooms once in your life, and that would never--if it were cut +off--come to bloom again. Look here,' he said fiercely, 'have you ever +felt for any one of the lot of men you spoke about just like that?' + +'N--no,' she answered slowly. + +'If you told me you had, I'd walk away now down those steps--' he +pointed to the flight of stone steps leading from the terrace to the +drive--'and you wouldn't see me any more. . . . But I'm not going to +leave you now, I mean to stick on for all I'm worth, so long as I see +the faintest chance of your giving me what I've set my heart on.' + +'Yes--well?' She stared at him in a fascinated manner. + +'Well--Bridget--I can't milady you. We're man and woman and nothing +else to-night. . . . ' + +She interrupted. 'I like you to say that. I feel now that WE, at least, +are real--not social shams.' + +'Bridget--you said you'd never found yet a Real Man to love you. +Here's one.' He patted his broad chest with his open palm. 'I'm a rough +Bushy and there's not a frill about me, but I'm bed-rock if you come to +Reality. I'm a lode you've never struck in your life before. There's +payable gold here, if you choose to work me,' + +She laughed nervously, considering him. + +'Mr McKeith, I'm sure that you're a perfect Mount Morgan, and you +certainly have a most original way of putting things. Do you happen to +own a gold mine, by the way?' + +He drew in his breath slowly, as if he were considering the check, then +he took her cue. + +'Oh, well! I have pegged out a good many claims in my time and never +got much more than my tucker out of any of them--though there was a +show I came on once up the Gulf way that I've always been a bit sorry I +didn't stop and look into. But rations were short and the Blacks +bad. . . . However, that's neither here nor there, now. Gold mine or not, +I'm positive that I shall be a rich man before many years have passed--all +the richer for a true mate to stand by me.' + +'Yes, of course,' she said hastily--'I wasn't thinking of that-- +whether you were rich or not, I mean.' + +'I know you weren't. All the same, I suppose your grand relations would +consider me a presumptuous boor for daring to lift my eyes to you. And +yet, if I could make you love me, it wouldn't count for a blade of +grass that your father was born in a castle and mine in a crofter's +cabin. . . . Only--you know too--' he became timid and hesitant again +--'you know it isn't that I don't feel you as far above me, almost, as +those stars in the sky. . . . ' + +'Oh don't, don't, Mr McKeith. It isn't true, you know. I've told you +how I despise all that--all the life I've led.' + +'Yes, I know. There's not such a difference between us when we stand as +we are now, right on the bed rock. You're like me in having a strain of +working-folk's blood in you. It's Nature you're hankering after--God's +sweet air and the breath of the gum trees and freedom for your soul.' + +'Freedom for my soul! How strange that you should understand.' + +'I understand better than you might think. You want more than freedom +to make you content. You want a kind of bondage that is the truest +freedom--Love--a strong man's love, a strong man's worship. And +that's what I'd give you, Bridget. Are you angry with me for saying +it?' + +'No.' She turned her face straight to him without any shadow of +embarrassment. 'Mr McKeith, I'm too honest to pretend that I didn't +half expect this. I felt you were beginning to care for me, and I was +wondering whether I ought to let you go on.' + +'Whether you ought to let me! As if you would be able to hinder it! +Why, you couldn't stop me loving you. You might as well try to dam up +the river Leichardt with this little hand I'm holding.' + +She would have withdrawal it, but could not. + +'No, no. It isn't strong enough--this tiny, trembling hand, which I +could break to bits in mine if I wanted to. And could you prevent me +from taking you in my arms--you wee great lady--and carrying you +right away--away, out into the Bush where I'm on my own ground and +where not one of your swell men folk would have a chance to find you.' + +'I don't think any one of them would want to.' she laughed again +tremulously. 'If it comes to that though, I fancy you'd have some +trouble in disposing of me against my will.' + +'Do you think I'd ever want you against your will! No. I'd sooner cut +the whole show, and let you scorn me at a distance as much as you +pleased.' + +'I--scorn you! . . . I wouldn't scorn you.' + +'And even your scorn wouldn't kill my love,' he said, in that moved +voice that was so unlike his ordinary utterance--'because there's +nothing in the Universe, so far as I know it, that would be able to do +that. Why, it seems to me that my feeling for you is as much a part of +myself as the very blood in my heart. I knew you were the only woman in +the world for me the moment I saw you--so slim and small and strange, +the very contrary of what I'd always thought would be the kind of woman +I'd be in love with--that day when you came walking along that gangway +behind Lady Tallant. It was just a revelation, and then I bolted +straight off to Alexandra City.' + +'Which seems rather odd, doesn't it, in the circumstances?' + +'No, it's this way. I had to take a few days for getting over the shock +--for rubbing in the fact that what I wanted more than anything on +God's earth, now I'd seen it, was utterly beyond my reach.' + +'One might think I was an enchanted princess--a sort of Brunhilda +guarded by a fiery dragon.' + +'That's a good bit of how I looked on you--though I've never made much +out of Wagner--he isn't human enough for me. . . . And how could I +have dreamed then that you'd ever let me come as near you as I am this +evening!' + +'I must say, Mr McKeith, you haven't shown such extreme diffidence in +approaching me.' + +'Ah! Because you soon showed that Brunhilda's dragon was only +pasteboard and blue fire after all--one of the shams you despise. I'm +not afraid of him now. . . . Oh, it's wonderful. . . . It's +beautiful. . . . ' + +He took her other hand and held the two covered over by his own as he +said with an odd solemnity: + +'Lady Bridget O'Hara will you come away with me to the Bush, leaving +everything else behind you?' + +She stood very slender and erect, her eyes shining in the moonlight out +of her small pale face and fixed upon him thoughtfully as if she were +weighing his proposition. After a few minutes, she answered +deliberately. + +'Yes, Mr Colin McKeith, I will go away with you into the Bush, leaving +everything else behind me--the old "Lady Bridget O'Hara" included.' + +He gave an indescribable ejaculation--joy, surprise, triumph--all +were in the utterance. Dropping her hands, he stooped to her and his +arm went round her. + +'Oh! Biddy . . . darling.' + +She knew he wanted to kiss her, and that he scarcely dared so +greatly. . . . As his beard brushed her cheek, she shrank and moved a step +from him. He, too, shrank, hurt by her rebuff. + +'You mustn't be--ardent,' she said. 'You must give me time to get +accustomed to--the fate I've chosen. You know the dragon isn't +altogether a sham. He's got a few kicks in him--yet.' + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + + +On other occasions also Lady Bridget made McKeith feel that she +preferred good fellowship to love-making. She was perfectly charming, +always excellent company, and she had a sense of humour which delighted +him, but she did not encourage effusiveness. She seemed to want to hear +about the Bush a great deal more than she wanted to hear about his +feelings towards herself, and appeared anxious to show him that she +meant to be a thorough-going 'mate.' The phrase had taken her fancy. + +There was not much opportunity however, for exchanging sentimental +confidences. Everything was rush and hurry during the few weeks between +the engagement and the marriage. It was plain that Lady Tallant wished +to get the wedding over before she and the Governor started upon a tour +of the important stations in the settled districts round Leichardt's +Town, officially contemplated. Bridget had a shrewd suspicion, which +she confided to Colin, that Lady Tallant was getting tired of her. +Perhaps Bridget did not keep herself sufficiently in the background to +please the lady of Government House. Her unpunctuality too often +annoyed Sir Luke. + +Another reason for not delaying the marriage was that the Leichardt's +Land government was expected to go out of office on a Labour Bill, and +that an appeal to the country would certainly follow its defeat. In +that case McKeith's re-election would have to be considered, and an +electioneering honeymoon in one of the out-back districts was an +inspiring prospect to Lady Bridget. Then the preparation of a Bush +trousseau needed thought and discussion. She had not much money, +either, to buy her trousseau with. Bridget would have none of Sir +Luke's suggestions of conciliatory letters and cablegrams to Eliza Lady +Gaverick on the subject of settlements. She said she did not intend to +cadge any longer upon her rich relative, and that she preferred to +marry without settlements. Sir Luke was not satisfied with McKeith's +views upon the financial question, and had some difficulty in getting +him to tie up even the insignificant sum of three thousand pounds in +settlement upon his wife. Colin pointed out that his capital was all +invested in cattle, and that though things would be all right as long +as there were good seasons, a bad one would cripple him, and he would +need money to recoup his losses and buy fresh stock. Bridget took his +view and Sir Luke frowned, but did what he considered his duty so far +as the paltry settlement went. At all events, it was a satisfaction to +Colin McKeith's shrewd Scotch mind that nobody insisted upon getting +the better of him in the matter. He knew that Bridget never gave it a +second thought. She was much more interested in the social and racial +problems of this new country of her adoption, and especially in the +blacks. What time she could spare from her trousseau she spent in +reading books about them, which some of her official friends got her +from the Parliamentary Library, and had already learned to think of +herself as a 'bujeri* White Mary,' whose mission it might be to +compose the racial feud between blackman and white. +[*Bujeri--Black's term of commendation.] + +To Colin, knowing now the tragedy of his youth, she did not speak much +on this subject. The time went with startling rapidity. The two were +borne on the tide of Colin's wild elation and Bridget's more impersonal +enthusiasms. They were like travellers steaming through strange seas, +not knowing what they were going to find at the end of the voyage and +too excited to care. + +That was the way of Bridget O'Hara, but it was not the way of Colin +McKeith. + +Yet his closest intimates would scarcely have known him at this period. +He was as a man bewitched, with intervals only of his ordinary +commonsense. In these intervals the consciousness of glamour made him +vaguely uneasy. + +Had Joan Gildea been there she would have seen all this and would have +observed signs of over-strain in Bridget--something faintly +apprehensive yet obstinately determined. And Joan would have understood +that when an O'Hara woman gets the bit between her teeth, she will not +stop to look back or to consider whither she is galloping. Bridget kept +herself continually on the go. Latterly, even Colin was warned by her +nervous restlessness. When they were alone together, which was not +long, nor often, her body seemed never still, her tongue rarely at +rest. Sometimes her talk was brilliantly allusive; at others it was +frothy chatter. One day it really irritated him. She had been +fluttering about the sitting-room opening on to the terrace, which Lady +Tallant had made over to her guest. An English mail had come in. She +read him bits of a letter from Molly Gaverick and made explanatory, +satiric comments upon those impecunious, aristocratic relatives who +were on the fringe of the London smart set of which Bridget herself had +lately formed a yet more outside part. + +'Chris Gaverick has gone into the wine business, and they've taken a +tiny house in Davies Street, Berkeley Square, and the Eaton Place house +pays its rent . . . You don't understand? . . . No. . . . Molly and I +talked it out when they were married. Of course, it seemed madness, +with their means to take a house in Eaton Place. They ought to have had +one in Bayswater. But it has answered splendidly. You see, they put +their wedding presents into it and let it for the season, and managed +to live rent free and have the use of other people's motors and all the +going about they wanted without paying even for their food . . . and no +expense of entertaining, outside a dinner or two at Hurlingham. . . . +Cadging!. . . In London Society everybody cadges except the +millionaires--and they're cadged upon. . . You see, as Molly said, you +can't entertain in Bayswater, or know the right people, and go about to +the right houses, which is the most important thing for a poor couple +who want to keep their heads up. Now the result is that Chris is able +to bring in quantities of clients and gets a commission on all the wine +he sells. . . . What's the matter, Colin? You look quite fierce.' + +'And that,' commented McKeith, 'is an English belted Earl!' + +'Irish--there's a difference. And are they belted--really? Isn't it a +figure of speech?' + +'I don't know, and I don't care.' + +'But wouldn't you care to hear Molly's account of their visit to the +Duke and Duchess of Brockenhurst to meet the King and Queen of +Hartenburg? Molly is very sorry I wasn't there. She says that it would +have made everything so much nicer for her and Chris, and that the King +might have ordered some wine from his firm.' + +She was teasing. He knew it, and it infuriated him. + +'Oh, no doubt you're sorry too that you weren't there with the Duke and +Duchess, and the King and Queen, and your cousins, the Earl and +Countess,' he flung at her. + +'They'll be your cousins too--by marriage. And if you ever become a +very rich man and take me back to England, you'll have to "Chris and +Molly" them and to give him a big order for wine. . . . ' + +That mollified McKeith. + +'And if I wasn't a rich man, and didn't give a big order, they wouldn't +care a twopenny damn for me.' + +'Molly mightn't--unless by chance you were taken up in high quarters +and made the fashion--like Cecil Rhodes and "Doctor Jim," or some new +edition of Buffalo Bill. Then she'd call you "one of nature's uncrowned +kings." But Chris Gaverick isn't a bad sort, if his wife would let him +be natural. . . . They hadn't got my cablegram about you, Colin, when +this was written,' she went on. 'I wish I could have told the Queen +myself. I'm sure she would have been sympathetic. And now I don't +suppose I shall ever meet her again.' + +He rejoined with clumsy sarcasm. + +'I see. The Queen of Hartenburg was an intimate friend of yours--the +sort of chum who'd have been likely to drop in any day for a yarn and a +cup of tea!' + +'She often did when she hunted with our hounds in Ireland, and it IS +true that the Queen of Hartenburg was quite an intimate friend of mine +--for two winters, anyhow. But I assure you, it hasn't made me proud, +and if the Queen of Hartenburg bores you, let us talk of something +else.' + +She gave another glance at the last sheet of Lady Gaverick's letter and +thrust it into a pigeon-hole of the writing-table, then came back to +the long settee on which he sat. All the time, his gaze had never left +her. She saw that he was disturbed. + +'What is the matter?' she asked again, and sat down, a little way from +him, on the settee. He turned sideways to her, bending forward, one +large hand twisting his fair beard. There was a hungry look in his +eyes, but his passing ill-humour had melted into a deep, adoring +tendeness. + +'Biddy--my mate--will you answer me a question--truthfully?' + +'I believe I can say honestly, that truth is one of my strong points,' +she parried lightly. + +'I want you to be serious. I mean it seriously. I want you to tell me +what determined you on marrying a rough chap like me? That letter-- +thinking of you among those grandees, you talking a language that's +worse than Greek to me, brings the wonder of it home. As I look at you, +the thing seems just incredible.' + +'I can't understand why it should seem so surprising.' + +'WHY! You know what I mean. It's not only that your birth and bringing +up are so superior to mine, and that you had a right to look for a +husband in a very different sort of position--I can see plainly that +is what Sir Luke thinks. . . . ' + +'I don't care--a twopenny d-a-m-n--as you said--for what Sir Luke +thinks. I've got my own ideas as to the kind of husband most likely to +suit me.' + +'There's the marvel of it. For you must have had dozens of men wanting +you. You are so beautiful.' + +'Oh, Colin, I've told you what I feel about the English marriage +system. And, PAR PARENTHESE, I'm not beautiful. I don't come up in the +least to the artist's standard. My measurements are wrong. I'm too +small.' + +'That's rot. There's a fascination about you no man can resist--or +woman either. I see it in the people who come here.' + +'If I happen to have drawn them into what Rosamond used to call my +mysterious sphere of influence--which I seem to do without knowing it. +I'm not sure, though, that either Rosamond or Luke approve of my +drawing the Leichardt's Town people into my mysterious sphere of +influence.' + +'I think, if you ask me, that Lady Tallant is a bit of a cat, and Sir +Luke more than a bit of a prig.' + +'No. You mustn't say a word against them.' It was not in Bridget to be +disloyal. 'They've given me the time of my life.' + +'When you smile like that, you remind me of a photograph of a picture +I've seen--a woman, I don't remember her name.' + +'Mona Lisa--La Gioconda. I know--I've been told that before.' + +'Yes, that's it. Mona Lisa. People have written about her.' + +'Reams. Some day I'll read you what Pater says of her, unless you've +read him already--by your camp fire.' + +For he had talked to her, as he had talked to Joan Gildea, about his +readings and his dreamings under the stars in the Bush. + +'Eh! you shall teach me about these new writing chaps. I don't +understand your up-to-date theories. I've always gone in for plain +facts--standard reading--history--great thoughts of great minds-- +old books brought out in people's editions. I'm up a tree--downright +bushed when you begin upon your queer ideas--all those new-fangled +religions and notions--Theosophy, spooks--about the earth being +alive, and thoughts making a sort of wireless telegraph system--I do +believe in that, though--to a certain extent. And your Brotherhood of +Man! Bosh! We're all like a lot of potatoes thrown into a sack and +shaken about by circumstance. And the big ones come to the top, and the +little ones--because they're little--sink to the bottom. I've always +wanted to be one of the big potatoes, and mean to be.' + +Bridget laughed. She had a ringing laugh when she was amused. + +'Oh! go on, Colin. I grant that you're a very big potato and I'm a very +little one.' + +'You know I didn't mean it that way. You're the biggest potato in the +whole bag as far as mind goes, and you make me feel the smallest. +You're so wonderful that the marvel of your being contented to marry me +is a bit staggering. And that brings me back to my question, which you +haven't answered.' + +'How have I brought myself to the incredible enterprise of marrying an +Australian bushman? Do you know?'--she became suddenly serious--'I +have asked myself that question once or twice, and I haven't been able +to answer it.' + +The light of adoration in his eyes faded a little. + +'I've been afraid of that,' he said slowly. I've been afraid that you +might be rushing into the business without reasoning it out--weighing +all the sides of it.' + +'If I were, it would only be the way of the O'Haras.' + +His blue eyes became more troubled. + +'I've been afraid of that,' he repeated. 'Bridget--suppose--my dear, +suppose it was to turn out a mistake.' + +'Well, I've made so many mistakes in my life and lived through them +that one more wouldn't matter,' she rejoined lightly. + +'This one would matter--because it would be irretrievable. Suppose +that you were to find that you couldn't put up with the Bush life-- +I've told you that you are letting your imagination and your enthusiasm +run a bit away with you, and that there may be hardships you don't +reckon on. For though it all looks to me plain sailing now, and I hope +it will only be a year or two before I can put on a manager, and give +you the home and the climate that are more suited to you, one can't +tell in Australia that there may not be a drought or that a cattle boom +may not turn to a slump--do you see?' + +'I shan't mind in the least, Colin--that is, I shall mind immensely, +but if there comes a drought it will be quite exciting helping you to +drag out the poor, thirsty beasts, when they get bogged into the +waterholes as you were describing the other day.' + +He laughed. + +'YOU--helping to drag out bogged beasts! Why! they'd drag you in.' + +'Well, there are other things. Riding! I could help you to break in +horses. All the O'Haras are good on horseback'--at which he laughed +immoderately and told her that when she had seen one, Zack Duppo, on a +buckjumper, she would not be keen to try that game. But it might amuse +her to help cut out a few tame bullocks on a drafting camp if she had a +good old station mount that knew its work. + +She shuddered. 'I love horses, but I should run away from the first +bullock that looked at me. I'm frightened of beasts, and, on second +thoughts, I should not want to pull out bogged ones. And I loathe +cooking--domestic work--in a house. It would be different out of +doors. You've promised to teach me the first time we camp out how to +make--what do you call them--johnny-cakes?' + +'Ah! The first time we camp out together. If you knew how I've dreamed +of that. Biddy, I've got plans in my mind for that--' He caught her two +hands in a fierce grasp, and as he looked at her, his eyes full of +love, he would--greatly daring--have held her close to his breast and +kissed the provocative lips, as yet almost virgin to his. But she made +a shrinking movement, and he, acutely sensitive, dropped her hands, and +the love that had flamed in his eyes gave place to the dour look she +did not know so well. + +'Why do you always keep me at a distance?' he said, and drew abruptly +away from her. + +'Dear man, you mustn't be importunate. It--it's constitutional with +me. I've always hated love-making at close quarters.' + +'Always! Does that mean that you've been in the habit of letting men +kiss you?' + +'Colin, you are rude--brutal.' + +'D'ye think so? It seems to me that I'm only as Nature made me. Biddy-- +if you feel like that now--how will it be when you're my wife?' + +She flushed a little, but as her way was, evaded him. + +'Perhaps I shall have grown more used to it all by that time.' + +'The time is not so long--only a fortnight from now. And when you hold +me off from the touch of your hand--the feel of your lips--well, it +makes me wonder. . . . ' + +She gave a little alarmed shiver. + +'Don't wonder, Colin. Don't worry. . . . And oh! before everything, +don't drive me--it isn't safe with an O'Hara woman. I can see that you +don't understand women--of a certain type.' + +'Oh! I grant you women haven't stood for a great deal in my life, and +the few I've known well have been of the humble, human sort. But I do +know this, Bridget'--his face softened--'I do know that a proud, +sensitive woman--which is what you are and what I love you for being-- +is like a thoroughbred mare, out the first time in harness. You must +keep your hands tight on her and let her go her own pace. I can tell +you, too, the cart-horse kind that has to be driven with a whip and a +"gee-up" all the time wouldn't be the type for me.' + +She laughed gain, but shakily. There was an appeal in her voice. + +'Colin, you've told me a lot about breaking in young horses, and how +patient one has to be with them. Be patient with me. . . . Now, I'll +try and answer your question--truthfully. I only know in a very +confused sort of way WHY I want to marry you. . . . I think you must +understand what a lonely sort of life I've led, really--and what a +dreadful muddle I've made of it--Well, I've told you how I hated +everything. And though I can laugh, and be interested, too, in Molly +Gaverick's way of looking at things, and in her determination not "to +be out of the swim"--I was just as determined myself, when I had the +mood to be in it--and though one side of me hankers after the push and +the struggle and the worldliness--yet the other side of me revolts +against it, and longs to be washed clean of all the sordid social +grime. There! I've felt about marrying you that it would be a new +baptism into a bigger, fresher, purer life--do you see?' + +'Yes--I see.' His tone was doubtful. 'You've tried it before--that +idea of bigger interests--a different kind of life--in other ways, +Biddy, haven't you?' + +'Oh! in ever so many ways. Of course, that wasn't only in the sense of +love--hero worship, you know. It was the schemes, ideas, plans for +living in the higher part of one. Tolstoy, Prentice Mulford--that kind +of thing. . . . Colin, you blame me for not GIVING; yet, all my life, +I've been blamed for giving too freely.' + +'For giving too freely!' He repeated sharply. + +'You mustn't misunderstand me. I said it hadn't only to do with men +making love to me--my ideas about a different life. It was my general +attitude--expecting to meet something great and being disappointed. . . . +Of course, I've suffered--suffered horribly--in my heart--in my +pride. And I've often found that my attitude towards things brought me +into difficulties. The average person, if it's a man--supposes that +because one has such ideas one must be a kind of abandoned creature. +And, if it's a woman, that one has some mean, ulterior motive. I've +always seemed to be looking for largeness and finding only what was +small. You attracted me because you're like nature--big, simple, +elemental.' + +'Now, what the deuce do you mean by elemental?' + +'Primal, unadulterated--closer to the heart of life and nature. It's a +sort of cosmic quality. You are large--your surroundings are large.' + +He laughed, only half comprehending, gauche in the expression of his +deep-hearted satisfaction. + +'One thousand square miles, two thirds of it fair grazing country in +good seasons, and will be first-rate when I've worked out my artesian +bore system. Plenty of space there for a woman to swing her petticoats, +in--your riding skirt it'll have to be.' + +'There! You see!' she cried. 'COULD one be mean or small in such +conditions? It's glorious, the thought of riding over one thousand +square miles--and tapping Mother Earth for your water supply! It will +be just what I said--a new baptism--a washing in Jordan. But you will +be patient, Colin; promise me that you will be good to me, and not ask +too much--at first.' + +There came a note into her voice which intoxicated the man with hope +and joy. But he restrained himself. He would not frighten her again. + +'Good to you! Biddy--you know you're sacred to me--I'll do everything +--I'll be as patient as you could wish until you get so used to me that +everything comes naturally. You understand? So long as you'll trust me +and open your heart to me, I'm not afraid that you won't love me, my +dear, in the end.' + +'I WANT to love you, Colin.' + +She moved a little closer to him and put her hand up, timidly, to his +shoulder. His breath came quickly, but he did not lose his +self-control. He knew that he must go gently with her. She drew her +hand down his coat sleeve and let it rest like a snowflake on his--a +contrast in its smallness and whiteness to the great brown hand +beneath. She looked at that, smiling whimsically, and he saw her smile, +and reddened. But he did not know that she found a pleasure in the +sight of his hand--scrupulously kept, the nails as well trimmed as a +bushman's nails can be, while showing the traces of manual labour. + +'How ridiculous they are together!' she said softly 'But I like your +hand, Colin. It's different from the other men's hands.' + +He was glad she said 'the other men's,' and not 'the other man's'. +Through all the gusts of passionate tenderness that went out to her, +there was always rankling the thought of 'that other man.' + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + + +They had only one more talk, in the real sense, before their marriage, +and that was an unpremeditated but natural outrush of the vague +jealousy which slumbered at the core of McKeith's love. It was on the +last evening, and it made an ineffaceable impression upon him. + +They were standing, after dinner, close together by the balustrade of +the terrace. + +It was a clear night, with a young moon, and the stars set deep in blue +so dark that the sky gave an impression of solidity. The air was full +of scents and of a soft balminess, with the faint nip of an early May +in the Southern hemisphere. + +He had folded her light scarf round the child-like shoulders. The touch +of his big hand stirred her--it had not often done so in that peculiar +way. It roused something in her that she had thought dead or drugged to +sleep, and took her back for an emotional moment to a certain late +summer evening at Hurlingham, when she and Willoughby Maule had stood +in the garden together under the stars. There came to her an almost +fierce reaction against that moment. She felt a distinct emotion now, +but it was different--less tumultuous, and bringing her a soft sense +of enfoldment. + +She slipped her hand gently into McKeith's, and they remained thus for +nearly a minute without speaking. He was the first to break the +silence. + +'Bridget,' he said impetuously, 'we're going to be husband and wife +to-morrow. It makes me tremble, darling--with happiness and hope, and +with fear, too. What have I done, a rough Bushy like me--to win a +woman like you? Well you know how I think about that. And I don't +believe in a man belittling himself to the woman he loves, though it's +just because he loves her so that he feels unworthy of her. And then it +comes over me again--badly sometimes--how little I really know of +you, and of your life, and of your feelings towards the other men you +must have had to do with--one other man in especial, may be, that +you've loved, or may have thought you loved. That's what I want to know +about, my dear.' + +Her face was turned from his as she answered: + +'What's the good of your knowing, Colin? Whatever there was is past.' + +'But IS it past. Over and over again, I've started to ask you and have +pulled back. Now it's got like a festering sore in my heart, and I'm +afraid it will go on festering unless I'm satisfied. There WAS somebody +in especial--a man you cared for and might have married if he had been +a finer sort of chap than he turned out to be?' + +She looked at him sharply. + +'How do you know? Has Rosamond Tallant been telling you?' + +'No,' he said, with complete candour. 'There wasn't a word of that sort +passed between us--and I wouldn't have heeded it if there had.' + +'Joan, then? No, I'm sure Joan Gildea wouldn't have talked behind my +back.' + +'You may bet your life on that. Joan hasn't said anything about +whatever love-affairs you may have had.' + +'Every girl has had love-affairs. I'm no exception to the rule. There's +been no real harm in them. Let them lie--buried in oblivion. They're +not worth resurrecting.' + +'No, but,'--he persisted--thinking all the while of that letter-- +'Bridget, I must ask you this one thing. Is there any man in the world +you care for more than you care for me? I know,' he added sadly, 'that +you don't love in the way I love you--in the way I'd like to be loved +by you. I know that's too much to expect--yet.' + +The melancholy note in his speech touched her. + +'I told you that I do WANT to love you, Colin--only I can't help being +what I am,' she said softly. She looked up at him in the pale +brightness of the thin moon and myriad stars. He stood with the faint +illumination from the open windows of Government House upon his fine +head and his neat fair beard. It intensified the gleam in his earnest +blue eyes, while it softened his angularities and bush roughness, and +as she looked up at him, she could not help feeling what a splendid +fellow he was! What a MAN! So much finer than that other man to whom +she had nearly given herself! Ah, she had had an escape! Under all his +show of romantic adventure, his ardent protestations, his magnetic +charm, that other man had been utterly sophisticated, worldly, +self-interested. He had shown this in his money-grabbing, in his +disloyalty both to the woman he had professed to love, and to the woman +he had married for her fortune. Thinking of him in this way, Lady +Bridget felt that in time she might come to care a great deal more for +Colin McKeith, + +He caught up her last words. + +'Yes, I know that you WANT to love me Biddy, and I hope with all my +heart and soul that you will--or else--' he broke off, his face +darkening. + +'Or else--what?' + +'I don't know. It would be hell. I can't think such a thing at this +moment. If it comes--well, I'll face it as I've had to face other ugly +things. Don't let us speak of the possibility!' + +She sensed some quality in him that she had not realised before. + +'You frighten me a little, Colin. It's as if I may any day come up +before something I wasn't prepared for; and yet--I rather like it.' + +He smiled at her. + +'I'm glad you like it, anyway. You seem to me such a child, Biddy, +though you are always telling me you are such an old soul. I can't for +the life of me make out what you mean by that.' + +'Oh! A soul that has come back and back, and has lived a great many-- +perhaps naughty--lives.' + +'H'm! Yes! Well, one life is good enough for me, and as we can't prove +the other thing, what does it matter anyhow? I wouldn't want you in +another life if you were going to be quite a different person. I want +you as you are in this one. And so I reckon would any man who has ever +been in love with you. Let us go back now to what I was asking you. +Biddy, there WAS a man--one man that you did care for? You've admitted +as much.' + +'Yes--I suppose there was.' + +'And not so long before you came out here?' + +'I suppose that's true too.' + +'Bridget!--do you know what's been festering in my mind--the thought +that you might be marrying me in a fit of pique--a sort of reaction. +Biddy--tell me honestly, my dear, if it's anything of that sort?' + +She seemed to be considering. + +'I don't quite know how to answer you, Colin--if I'm to be absolutely +honest. And I'd always rather tell you the truth.' + +'Thank God for that. Let there be truth between us--truth at any +cost.' + +'You see,' she said slowly. 'My whole coming out here--everything I've +done lately, has been done in reaction against all I've done and felt +before.' + +'Would you have married that man--if everything had been on the +square?' + +'What do you mean by "on the square"? I've done nothing to be properly +ashamed of!' + +'No--no--I was thinking only of him, Biddy, did you love that man?-- +really love him?' + +'I'm not sure yet whether I'm capable of what you'd call loving really. +I had a violent attraction to him,'--he remembered the phrase--'I +confess I did feel it dreadfully when he married someone else. Now it +doesn't hurt me. And of course, he has gone out of my life altogether. +I'm glad he has, and I hope he will keep on the other side of the +world.' + +'Well, let it stop at that.' He drew a breath of relief. 'I don't +believe you really cared for him. If you had, you couldn't take it as +you do. I'll never bother you again about that man. And, oh, my dear-- +my dear--it doesn't seem to me possible that you shouldn't come to +love me, when I love you as I do--with my whole heart and soul--I +worship you, Biddy. And I'll not say again that I'm unworthy of you--a +man who loves a woman like that CAN'T be unworthy.' + +He took her in his arms and kissed her. And this time she did not +resist the caress. + + + +They were married with much flourish of trumpets and local +paraphernalia. Never before in the annals of Leichardt's Land had a +wedding taken place from Government House. This one was regarded as +quite an official event. The Executive Council--at that moment about +to undergo the pangs of dissolution--attended in a body. There were a +great many members of parliament present also. It became even a +question whether the official uniforms worn at Sir Luke's 'Swearing In' +should not lend eclat to the occasion. But Colin McKeith vetoed that +proposition. + +The bridal party drove straight from the Church to that same +extemporized wharf by the Botanical Gardens which had been put up for +the Governor's State Landing. It had been re-constructed and +redecorated for to-day's event. Thus the embarcation of the bride and +bridegroom, of the viceregal party and the wedding guests, in the +Government yacht, which was to take the new-made pair to the big +mail-boat in the Bay, was almost as imposing a ceremony as the +Governor's Entry into his new kingdom. The day was glorious--an early +Australian winter's day, when the camellia trees are in bud, and the +autumn bulbs shedding perfumes, and garlands of late roses, honeysuckle +and jasmine are still hanging on trellis and tree. + +As the bridal party came down the avenue of bunyas, and the band played +the Wedding Chorus from LOHENGRIN a feeling of dream-like incongruity +came over Bridget. She laughed hysterically. + +'What a pity Joan Gildea isn't here!' she said. 'Think of the "copy" +she might have made out of this!' + +Lady Tallant had conceived the original idea of having the wedding +breakfast on the deck of the Government yacht, while it steamed down +the forty miles between Leichardt's Town and the river bar, beyond +which, in those days, large vessels could not pass. There, the repast +was laid on tables decorated with white blossoms and maidenhair fern, +under an awning festooned with flowers and exotic creepers, and +supported apparently, by palm trees and tree ferns which had been taken +from the Government Gardens. + +The bride looked small, pale, and quaint in her white satin dress and +lace veil, now thrown back and partly confining the untidily curling +hair. Some of the reports described her as being like an old picture; +others as a vision from Fairyland. She came barely up to her husband's +shoulder as they stood together, and the adoring pride of his downward +gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic +thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation +bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his +buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a +short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration +proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, +and so did the Attorney-General, who was best man. Bridget's +bridesmaids had been selected from the daughters of the Executive with +as much attention to precedence as though she had been a royal +princess. All this had delighted the Leichardstonians, and when Sir +Luke read out the congratulatory cablegrams received that morning from +the Earl and Countess of Gaverick, Eliza, Countess of Gaverick, and one +or two other members of the British aristocracy, the enthusiasm was +great. + +The speeches were over; the wedding cake had been cut; the river-bar +and the liner were in sight, when Lady Bridget went below and changed +into sea-going blue serge. The mail-boat, beflagged in honor of the +occasion, dipped a salute. The Governor led the bride along the +gangway, introduced the captain of the mail-boat, and there were more +congratulatory speeches, and still more of official ceremony as the +bride passed by a line of inquisitive and admiring passengers-- +fortunately there were not many--and down to the state-room prepared +for her. Then the curtain seemed to fall that divided her from her +past, and when the Governor stepped again on to the Leichardt's Land +yacht, and the last farewell had been waved, Lady Bridget felt +thankfully that she had become a private individual at last. Only just +Bridget, wife of Colin McKeith, Bushman, now starting upon her voyage +towards the Wild. + +She could not get away from the bewildering sense of unreality. It +dominated every other feeling. She did not even reflect that there was +no going back; that her fate was sealed, and that the Bush was +henceforth to be her prison or her paradise. + +All the way up the river, Rosemary Tallant congratulated herself upon +having done the best that was possible for poor Biddy the failure. It +was all entirely satisfactory. She wove a halo of romance round Colin +McKeith, and, after reading her laudation of him, and her description +of Bridget's send off, old Lady Gaverick and the impecunious Chris and +his wife declared to each other that Biddy had done as well for herself +as the family had any reason to expect. + +Eliza, Lady Gaverick, was highly pleased, though she would not for the +world have let her niece by marriage know it. Being Scotch herself she +approved of the Scotch bridegroom, and began now to think seriously of +the alteration she subsequently made in her will. + +It was a four days' passage to Leuraville the port at which the +McKeith's were to be dropped. Not being a good sailor Lady Bridget +retired to her berth when the steamer got into a choppy sea. + +Of course she had no maid. Colin unpacked the cabin trunk and dressing +bag and arranged things so far as he could understand his wife's dainty +toilet equipments, and his mistakes made them laugh and got them over +the first awkwardness of close quarter. + +Then he said: + +'Now I'm going to stow away my own traps. My cabin is just facing this +and you've only got to call out if you want anything. Eh, but my word! +Biddy, it's a fine thing to be marrying from Government House. The +Company has done us both proud.' + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + + +They were landed at Leuraville on the evening of the fourth day. A +tender took them off with the mails--as it happened, they were the +only passengers for that small sea-township. Ordinary business folk +going north, preferred the smaller coasting steamers which put in at +every port. The postmaster, the portmaster, the police magistrate, and +a few local notables were waiting to receive them at the wharf. McKeith +greeted them all heartily and rather shyly introduced them to his +bride. The local men were shy also. They mostly addressed her as Mrs +McKeith. The police magistrate--Captain Halliwell, lean, dark, sallow, +with a rather weak mouth, but more carefully dressed than the others, +and with an English voice, called her Lady Bridget. He was a retired +officer of the ROYAL ENGINEERS. She had been told and now remembered +that men in the ROYAL ENGINEERS were popularly said either to be +religious or cranks. This man was a Christian Scientist which he +announced when apologising for not offering the hospitality of his +house, a new baby having arrived the day previously, ushered into the +world, he explained, by prayer and faith and without benefit of medical +skill. + +Bridget knew something about Christian Scientists. She plunged at once +into faith-healing ethics with the police-magistrate, while Colin saw +about getting the trunks off the tender. How odd it seemed to be +talking about London and Christian science in a place like this! + +Leuraville too seemed part of a dream. But her face soon lost its +bewildered look. She became interested in her surroundings, although +there was no suggestion here of savage freedom or romantic adventure. + +Leuraville showed low and hot and ugly. A red sun near its dropping, +drew up the miasmic vapours from the mangrove-fringed reaches +stretching on either side of the wharf. Some light crafts were moored +about. A schooner was loading up with cattle--wretched diseased +beasts. Bridget watched them with shuddering repulsion--being hoisted +up and slung aboard with ropes. The men at their task swore so +abominably that the police-magistrate stepped up to them and +remonstrated on the plea of a lady's presence. Bridget had never heard +such swear-words. She was used to the ordinary 'damn,' but these oaths +were so horribly coarse. Colin, who was asking local questions of the +other men appeared to take it all as a matter of course. The men +stopped their work to stare at Lady Bridget. They wore dirty corduroys +hitched up with a strap over flannel shirts that were open at the neck +and left their brawny breasts exposed. There were other loafers in +flannel shirts, hitched up trousers and greasy felt or cabbage-tree +hats, and there were two or three blacks of the demoralised type seen +in coast townships. Now, one of the bullocks got loose and rushed +blindly down the wharf, and Bridget shrieked and clung wildly to her +husband's arm until it was headed back again. + +Colin laughed at her terror. + +'It's all right, Biddy. But how's that for a Bushman's wife. You'll see +lots of cattle up at Moongarr.' + +Moongarr was the name off his station which was to be her future home. + +'I hate cows. Once I was charged by a wild cow and I've been afraid of +them ever since.' + +'That isn't a cow. It's Mickey Field's poley-tailed bullock being +shunted off to the Boiling-Down Works on Shark Island,' said a local +man. + +The police-magistrate found his opportunity. + +'You wouldn't be afraid, Lady Bridget, if you realised that cow as an +expression of the Divine mind.' + +Bridget laughed. Her sense of the queerness of it all was almost +hysterical. She had the Irish wit to make the men grin at her prompt +answer, which when it became bruited up and down the Leura, earned her +the reputation of being sharp at repartee. + +'But do you think,' said she confidingly, 'that the cow would be after +realising ME as an expression of the Divine Mind?' + +'Eh, you needn't think you're going to knock spots off my wife, any of +you,' cried Colin delighted at the sally. And now he walked and talked +like a man on his own soil again, as more of the townsfolk came about-- +extraordinary people, Bridget thought. Loose-limbed bush-riders, really +trim, some of them, in clean breeches and with a scarlet handkerchief +doing duty as a belt, unkempt old men, a Unionist Labour organiser +addressing a knot of station-hands out of work--even a Chinaman--a +Chinky, McKeith called him, who, it appeared kept a nondescript store. +That was in the days before the Commonwealth and the battle cry of +'White Australia.' + +All of them showed the deepest interest in the small, pale, picturesque +woman walking by Colin's side. + +It seemed incredible to Biddy that she should be walking like that +beside the big Bushman, in this sort of town, and that he should be her +lawful protector. + +The street they walked up began from the wharf with two-storied +respectable buildings--the Bank, the Post-Office, the +police-magistrate's residence, some dwelling houses, within palings +enclosing gardens--clumps of bananas, pawpaw apple trees, a few flower +beds, bushes of flaunting red poinsettia, and so forth. There were +stores, public houses, meaner shanties straggling along a dusty road +that lost itself in vistas of lank gum trees. + +The Postmaster hoped that Mr McKeith's lady would not find the hotel +too rowdy. It was one of the two-storied buildings, and had a bar +giving onto the street, and a veranda round both upper and lower +storey. A number of Bushmen and loafers were drinking in the bar, and +others were on the edge of the veranda dangling their legs over it into +the street. All of them stopped their talk and their drink to stare at +Lady Bridget. The landlady--a big, florid Irish-woman in black silk, +with a gold chain round her neck came out onto the veranda and greeted +McKeith as an old friend, holding out her hand to Lady Bridget. She +took the husband and wife up to their rooms, a parlour opening on the +balcony, a bedroom over the bar and a little room at the back of it. + +'It's a rough sort of shop, Biddy,' said Colin, when the woman had +departed. 'But it will do for a shake-down for to-night. If the steamer +had come in earlier I'd have taken you straight up to Fig Tree Mount, +where the buggy will be waiting for us; and after that we'll begin our +camping out, and you'll be in the real Bush. But we've lost the train, +and must wait till daylight to-morrow. You'll be tired my dear--and +you must be feeling strange,' he added kindly. 'I'll go and have your +traps brought up and leave you to fix yourself. I want to see one or +two chaps and find out whether my drays are down as far as Fig Tree for +stores and what's going on up along the Leura.' + +Bridget noticed that the change in McKeith seemed yet more accentuated. +His manner was more curt and decided--rougher than before. He appeared +to have taken on the tone of the Back-Blocks. Yet she admired him. She +did not dislike the roughness. + +But she felt a womanish aggrievement at his having left her to undo her +own things. And the rooms were horrible--the meagre appliances--the +course cotton sheets, the awful Reckitt's-blue colouring of the painted +walls. And then the dreadful noise of the men drinking below in the +bar! If this was the Bush! But Colin had said it was not the Bush. + +He left her again after dinner which was horrible likewise--burned up +steak, messy fried potatoes and cabbage, an uneatable rice pudding. He +did not seem to mind. The result of his enquiries had left him grim and +preoccupied. Yes, he had taken on the Bushman, and had more or less +dropped the lover. The practical Scotch side of him was uppermost, and +he appeared more disturbed over station affairs than at her want of +appetite. She resented this unreasonably. She had not wanted him to +play the lover in these surroundings, they would have been fatal to +romance, but she had not bargained for his glumness. He was angry at +the non-arrival of his draymen and the probability that they were +drinking at a grog-shanty on the road. He would certainly sack them, he +said if that were the case. And he had disquieting news from Moongarr. +Pleuro had broken out among the cattle. What was Pleuro? Lady Bridget +wondered, but she was not sufficiently interested in cattle to ask the +question. And the Unionist labour men were making themselves a nuisance +--going round the stations burning the grass of squatters who employed +non-Union stockmen and shearers--in one instance, threatening to burn +a woolshed. And there hadn't been any rain on the Leura for a month +past, and weather prophets were predicting a drought. + +It was dreadfully prosaic and boring. After he had gone out again to +transact further business, Lady Bridget went to bed and squirmed +between the cotton sheets, remembering ruefully the luxuries of +Government House. Never in all her life had she slept between cotton +sheets or washed herself in an enamelled tin basin. The noise in the +bar became intolerable. She could hear the swear-words quite +distinctly. They were disgusting. She tried to stop her ears . . . . Oh +what a dreadful life this was into which she had plunged so recklessly! + +Her thoughts went back to the old-world--to the luxurious veneer +covering the younger Gavericks' petty economies--stealing the +notepaper at country-houses for the sake of the address--cadging for +motors and dinners--'keeping in' with the people likely to be of use; +pulling strings in a manner which Bridget knew would have been too +utterly galling to Colin McKeith's self-respect. And she thought of her +father and his financial unscrupulousness! But none of these could have +conceived of life without certain appurtenances of that position to +which they and she had been born. The only one who was self-respecting +among the lot was old 'Eliza Countess' as they designated her. It +struck Bridget that Eliza Countess and Colin McKeith had points of +character in common--it was true they both came from Glasgow. She +thought of the parsimonious rectitude--which had of course included +linen sheets and fine porcelain and shining silver--of old Lady +Gaverick's establishment, of its stuffy conventionality--though that +had been soothing sometimes after a dose of Upper Bohemia; and Bridget +wept, feeling rather like a wilful child who had strayed out of the +nursery among a horde of savages. + +At last she could bear it no longer. They were singing now--a terrible +thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like +the cracking of whips--a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget +shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this +in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in +her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband would come and rescue her +from these beasts. Watching for him she could see through the +uncurtained French windows the starry brilliance of the night, and the +moon now in its middle quarter. And down below, the houses and shanties +along the opposite side of the street, the fantastic tufts of the +pawpaws, the long white road stretching away into the ragged blur of +gum-forest. + +Presently a firm step sounded on the veranda and came up the stairs. + +When Colin opened the door, he saw standing by the table, which had a +kerosene lamp on the red cloth, and, even at this time of the year, +winged insects buzzing around, and sticking to its greasy bowl--a +small white figure like an apparition from another world, in its +wonderful draperies of lace and filmy white, the little pale face +framed in a cloud of shining hair, and the strange eyes wide, scared, +and with tears glistening on the reddened lids. + +She cried out at him. + +'How could you have left me alone here with those horrible drunken men +down there making such a noise that I thought every minute they would +break in on me? And swearing! I've never dreamed of such dreadful +language; and I can't stand it--I won't stand it a moment longer.' + +'You shan't. It's abominable, I've been a thoughtless beast.' + +He swooped out through the open door, down the wooden stairs which +creaked under his wrathful steps. Bridget heard him call the landlady, +'Mrs Maloney! Come here!' in a voice of sharp command. Presently she +heard him speaking to the men in the bar, not abusively, indeed almost +good humoured tone, but imperatively. + +'Look here, mates.' The uproar stopped suddenly. 'You're decent blokes +I know, and you've all had mothers if you haven't had wives. Well, +there's a lady up there--she's my wife, and she's never heard +bullock-drivers swear before, and you've scared her a bit. Just you +stop it. Shut up and be off like good chaps.' + +Some dissentient voices arose; an attempt at drunken ribaldry, strident +hisses, 'Sh! Sh!' Cries of 'Shame.' 'Chuck it!' Then again, McKeith's +voice, this time like thunder. 'Stop that I say--one more word and out +you go, whether you like it or not.' + +On that, came the noise of a scuffle and the fall of a heavy body +across the veranda. And of McKeith, once more breathing satisfaction: + +'All right! I haven't killed him--only given him a lesson . . . . But +just you understand I'm not taking any of your bluff. You've GOT TO GO. +If you don't, it'll be a case of the lock-up for some of you. And if +you do--quietly mind, there'll be a shout all round for the lot of you +to-morrow. Drink my health and my wife's, d'ye see? Here Mrs Maloney, +chalk it down.' + +In five minutes he was back in the sitting room, looking rather +dishevelled, and with his coat awry. But there was silence below except +for the putting up of shutters, the sound of shuffling feet along the +road and snatches of the bullock drivers' chorus which gradually died +away in the night. + +McKeith went up to his wife who was still standing by the corner of the +table, and put his arm round the little trembling form. + +'Oh! Biddy--my darling. I've been a brute. I'm not fit to take care of +you. I ought to have thought of all that. But one gets used to such +goings-on in the Bush, and they aren't bad chaps--the bullockys, and +you've got to discount their lurid language a bit. I don't know whether +it is that bullocks are more profane than most animals, but it's +certain sure that you can't get them to move without swearing at them.' + +Then, as she said, half crying, half laughing, 'I see. So this is my +baptism into the Bush! You should have taught me the vocabulary, Colin, +first.' + +'Don't be too hard on me. You won't have this kind of thing at +Moongarr. That's the worst of these cursed coast townships. I shouldn't +have left you alone, but if I hadn't, we couldn't have got off properly +to-morrow, and I'd set my heart on having things ship-shape for our +first camping out. Everything's fixed up now--I've been wiring like +mad up the line . . . . The buggy's at the Terminus all right, and I've +got the black-boys there, and the tent and all that. It's going to be +an experience you'll never forget. THAT'S to be your baptism into the +Bush, my dear . . . . If only there's water enough left in the Creek +yet . . . . But if there isn't we can dig for it. Oh, Biddy, think of +it--a night like this--moonlight and starlight--MY starlight--MY +star, that I used to look up at and wonder about, come down to earth. +No, no, I won't maunder, I won't be a romantic zany--not till +to-morrow night--I know the very spot for our camp . . . .' + +He began to describe it--a pocket by the river bed--pasturage for the +horses--then pulled himself short. No! He wanted it all to be a +surprise . . . . She was to have just the very thing she had often said +to him she would like best . . . . And now it was getting late and they +must be up in good time to-morrow. Would she go to bed and try to sleep +. . . . + +He took her to the door of her room . . . . Was she as comfortable as +she could be here, anyhow? . . . . He knew it must seem cruelly rough +to her; but it wouldn't be his fault in the future if she didn't have +things as she liked them--so far as conditions would permit . . . . +And after all, there women who enjoyed a wild life with their husbands. +There was Lady Burton--and scores of other women--Biddy had asked him +to have patience--and he meant to be patient--he worshipped her too +much not to be patient. Well, she must be patient too with him, and +with this queer old Bush which she would get to feel as much at home in +as he did himself--in time. + +He left her at her bedroom door, kissing her hand with the native +chivalry that sat well upon him, and went back to his pipe and the +waking dreams of an ardent but self-restrained lover who had practical +as well as romantic considerations to weigh. Bridget went to sleep with +the smell of his tobacco--and yet did not seem to mind it in the least +--coming in whiffs through the door cracks and filling her nostrils. +She too dreamed--a vivid dream, but by some law of contrariety, not of +any idyllic camping ground in the Never-Never Land. She dreamed that +she was seeing the Carnival at Nice--a medley of dancing waves, azure +sky, palms, gold-laden orange trees and white green-shuttered houses-- +flowers, CONFETTI, masks, grotesque pageantry, the merry music of the +South. And though he had never been with her at Nice, Willoughby Maule +came into her dream. They were doing impossible things--dancing +together in the Carnival crowd, flinging confetti, bobbing and +grimacing before the comic masks. Then the carnival scene seemed to +turn flat, and to become a painted picture on the drop curtain of a +stage, and she started up at the sound of knocks such as one hears +before the curtain rises in a French theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + + +Her husband was at her door calling her in the grey of dawn. He had +everything ready he said. She dressed fumblingly as if she were still +in her dream, and they walked to the station-shed whither the baggage +had already gone. The sun was only a little way above the horizon when +they took their places in the bush train that was to bear her on the +second stage of her journey into the Unknown. Such a wheezy, shaky +little train, and such funny, ugly country! Sandy flats sparsely grown, +mostly with gum trees, where there were no houses and gardens. Near the +township there were a good many of these wooden dwellings with +corrugated iron roofs--some of the more aged ones of slab--and with a +huge chimney at one end. They were set in fenced patches of millet and +Indian corn or gardens that wanted watering and with children perched +on the top rail of the fences who cheered the train as it passed. +Sometimes the train puffed between lines of grey slab fencing in which +were armies of white skeleton trees that had been 'rung' for +extermination, or with bleached stumps sticking up in a chaos of felled +trunks, while in some there had sprung up sickly iron-bark saplings. + +Now and then, they would stop at a deserted-looking station, round +which stood a few shanties, and the inevitable public house. Maybe it +had formerly been a sheepfold, abandoned when the scab had destroyed +the flocks; and there were enormous rusty iron boiling-pots to which a +fetid odour still clung, and where the dust that blew up, had the +grittiness and faint smell of sun-dried sheeps' droppings. + +At one of the more important stopping places, they had early lunch of +more fried steak, with sweet potatoes and heavy bread and butter and +peach jam. Most of the other passengers got out for lunch also. + +There was a fifth-rate theatrical company cracking jokes among +themselves, drinking brandy and soda at extortionate prices, and +staring hard at Lady Bridget. Colin pointed out to her a lucky digger +and his family--two daughters in blue serge trimmed with gold braid, +and a fat red-faced Mamma, very fine in a feathered hat, black brocade, +a diamond brooch, and with many rings and jangling bangles. There were +some battered, bearded bushmen who seemed to be friends of Colin's, +though he did not introduce them to his wife, and who talked on topical +subjects in a vernacular which Lady Bridget thought to herself she +would never be able to master. There was a professional horse-breaker +whom McKeith hailed as Zack Duppo, and to whom he had a good deal to +say also. There were some gangs of shearers or stockmen or what not, +who appeared to be the following of two or three rakish, aggressive +looking males upon whom the bushmen scowled. Union delegates, Strike +Organisers, McKeith explained. + +After that station, marks of civilisation diminished. The Noah's Ark +humpeys in their clearings became few and far between, and the long +lines of grey two-railed fences melted into gum forest. Now and then, +they saw herds of cattle and horses. Once, a company of kangaroos +sitting up with fore paws drooping and a baby marsupial poking its head +out of the pouch of one of the does. Then, taking fright in a second, +all leaped up, long back legs stretched, tails in air, and, in a few +ungainly bounds they were lost to sight among the gum trees. Early in +the afternoon the train reached the temporary Terminus, for the line +was being carried on by degrees through the Leura district. This was a +mining town called Fig Tree Mount--why, nobody could tell, for there +were no fig trees, and not a sign of a hill as far as the level horizon +--except for the heaps of refuse mullock that showed where shafts had +been sunk. A good many years ago, Bridget was told, there had been a +rush to the place, but the gold field turned out not so good as had +been expected, and it was only lately that the discovery of a payable +reef had brought the digging population back again. From one direction +came the whirr of machinery, and there was in the same quarter a +collection of white tents and roughly put up humpeys. Otherwise, the +township consisted of a long dusty street cutting the sandy plain and, +out of the two score or so of zinc-roofed buildings, twenty were public +houses. + +Lady Bridget had been very silent all day. To Colin's anxious enquiries +she answered that it was enough to take in so many new impressions +without talking about them. Through the crude blur of these impressions +her husband stood out definitely, a dominant influence. She seemed to +be only now beginning to feel his dominance. Yet all the time, she +could not get away from the sense of living in some fantastic dream-- +an Edward Lear nonsense dream. The sight of the kangaroos in the Bush +brought a particular rhyme of her childhood to her mind. She half said, +half sang it to an improvised tune: + + +'Said the Duck to the Kangaroo, +"Good gracious! how you hop! +Over the fields and water too, +As if you never would stop!" ' + + +She caught her husband looking at her in a fascinated, puzzled way, and +paused and gave him her funny little smile. + +'That's a very pretty song,' he said. 'But I can't make out what it +means. What is it about a duck or a kangaroo? They're nonsense words, +aren't they?' + +'Nonsense--oh yes, frightful nonsense. Only it struck me that there's +sometimes a lot of truth in nonsense. Listen now,' and she went on: + + +'"My life is a bore in this nasty pond, +And I long to go out in the world beyond. +I wish I could hop like you!" +Said the Duck to the Kangaroo.' + + +He still looked puzzled--but adoring. + +'You've got no sense of humour,' she said, 'Don't you see that you and +I are as incongruous as the duck and the kangaroo?' + +'That is so,' he answered gravely. 'But I'll be a kangaroo with +pleasure if it makes the Bush more attractive to you.' + +She fell suddenly silent again, and sat gloomy and staring at the +endless procession of gum trees as the train lumbered on through that +fantastic forest, which made her think of all kinds of ridiculous +things. And she was conscious all the time of his furtive watching from +the corner opposite, and of his readiness to spring forward at the +least indication of her wanting anything. It bewildered her--the +strangeness of being alone with, entirely dependent upon this big man +of the Bush, who had the right to look after her, and yet of whom she +knew so little. + +He did look after her with sedulous care. He had natty bush dodges for +minimising the discomfort of the hot, dusty train journey. He +manufactured a windsail outside the carriage window, which brought in a +little breeze during the airless heat of mid-day. He contrived to get +cool drinks and improvised for her head a cushion out of his rolled up +poncho, a silk handkerchief and a large cold cabbage leaf against which +she leaned her hot forehead. In all his actions she watched him with a +curious blend of feelings. There was a satisfaction in his largeness, +his commonsense, his breeziness. She liked hearing his quaint Bush +colloquialisms, when he leaned out of the window at the small stations +and exchanged greetings with whomsoever happened to be there-- +officials, navvies, miners, even Chinamen--most of whom saluted him +with a 'Glad to see you back, sir!' . . . or a 'Good-day, Boss. Good +luck to you,' as if they all knew the significance of this wedding +journey--which no doubt they all did. + +Bridget kept in the background and smiled enigmatically at it all. She +was interested in her husband both in the personal and abstract sense, +and was a little surprised at herself for being pleased when he paid +her any attention or sat down beside her. At moments, she even hankered +after the touch of his fingers, and had a perverse desire to break down +the restraint he was so manifestly putting upon himself. Once, when he +had been sitting very still in the further corner, thinking she was +asleep, she had looked at him suddenly, and had found his eyes fixed on +her in a gaze so concentrated, so full of intense longing, that she +felt as if he were trying to hypnotise her into loving him. She knew +that if he were, it must be unconscious hypnotism on his part. There +were no subtleties of that kind in Colin McKeith. No, it was the primal +element in him that appealed to her, dominated her. For she was +startled by a sudden realization of that dominant quality in him as +applied to herself. In their courtship it had been she who dominated +him. + +He reddened guiltily when he caught her eyes. His long upper lip went +down in obstinate resistance to impulse. But if he had kissed her then, +she would not have rebelled. + +'Colin, what are you thinking of?' she said, and he answered in a tone, +husky with pent emotion. + +'I was thinking of our camp to-night--of how we should be alone +together in the starlight. . . . And of how I want to make you happy +and of how wonderful it all is--like some impossible dream.' + +'Yes. I've been feeling too that it is like a dream,' she replied +gravely. + +'A bit of nightmare so far, I'm afraid, for you, Biddy,' he said +shaking himself free from sentiment. 'But this part of it will soon be +over.' + +He got up, pulled the blind down behind her, and readjusted the cabbage +leaf under her head. Just then, the train pulled up at a station where +there were selectors' holdings, and a German woman was lugging along a +crate of garden produce. He jumped out and bought another cabbage from +which he shredded a fresh cool leaf for her pillow. And at that they +laughed and he relapsed into normal commonplace. + +When she got out at Fig Tree Mount, he took her across the sandy street +to the nearest and largest of the public houses which had 'Station +Hotel' printed on it in big blue letters--a glaring, crude, +zinc-roofed box with a dirty veranda that seemed a receptacle for +rubbish and a lounge for kangaroo dogs, to say nothing of drunken men. +The dogs took no notice of the male loungers, but started a vigorous +barking at the sight of a lady. There was the usual bar at one end, the +usual noise going on inside, and the usual groups of bush loafers +outside. Several riding horses were hitched up to the palings at a +right angle with the Bar, and a bullock dray loaded with wool-bales-- +on the top of which a whole family appeared to reside under a canvas +tilt--was drawn up in the road. The beasts were a repulsive sight, +with whip-weals on their panting sides, their great heads bowed under +the yoke and their slavering tongues protruding. Bridget looked at +everything with a wide detached gaze, as she followed her husband along +the hotel veranda. McKeith, motioning to his wife to proceed, stopped +to peer at the faces of two men lying in a drunken sleep on the boards. + +'Not my men, anyway,' he said, rejoining her. 'But that will keep.' The +place seemed deserted and in disorder. There were glimpses through the +open windows of unmade beds within, and, on the veranda, lay some red +blankets bundled together. Colin took his wife into a parlour, where +flies buzzed round the remains of a meal and some empty whisky bottles +and glasses. After considerable shouting and knocking at doors along +the passage, he succeeded in arousing the landlady, who came in, +buttoning her blouse. Her obviously dyed yellow hair was in a +dishevelled state, her eyes were heavy and her face sodden. She had +evidently been sleeping off the effects of drink. + +'Had a night of it, I suppose, Mrs Hurst?' observed McKeith glumly. +'This is a nice sort of place to show a lady into.' + +The woman burst out on the defensive, but McKeith silenced her. + +'That'll do. Clear away all that mess and let us have a clean cloth and +some tea. And I say, if you have got a decent room for my wife to wash +the dust off and take a bit of a rest in, I'll be obliged.' + +The landlady blinked her puffed eyelids, muttered an uncourteous +rejoinder and went off with some of the debris from the table. Bridget +laughed blankly. She looked so small and flower like, so absolutely +incongruous with her surroundings, that the humour of it all struck +McKeith tragically. + +'Good Lord! I wonder what your opinion is of this show! Here is the +beginning of what is called the Never-Never Country, my dear. Do you +want to go back again to Government House?' + +'No, I don't,' and she touched him to the heart's core by putting her +little hand in his. + +'That's my Mate,' said he, his blue eyes glistening. 'But I'll tell you +what I think of your splendid pluck when we're quit of these beastly +townships, and have gone straight into Nature. Now, I've got to go and +see after the buggy and find my boys, and I shall have all my work cut +out to be ready in an hour. You just make the best of things, and if +the bedroom is impossible spread out my poncho and take a rest on that +sofa there, and don't be frightened if you hear any rowdiness going +on.' + +The bedroom was impossible, and the sofa seemed equally so. Bridget +drank the coarse bush tea which the landlady brought in, and was glad +that the woman seemed too sulky to want to talk. Then she sat down at +the window and watched the life of the township--the diggers slouching +in for drinks, the riders from the bush who hung up their horses and +went into the bar, the teams of bullocks coming slowly down the road +and drawing up here or at some other of the nineteen public houses 'to +wet the wool,' in bush vernacular. She counted as many as twenty-four +bullocks in one of the teams, and watched with interest the family life +that went on in the narrow space between the wool bales and the canvas +roof above. There were women up there and little children. She saw +bedding spread and a baby's clothes fluttering out to dry, and tin +pannikins and chunks of salt beef slung to the ropes that bound the +wool bales together. Then, when the wool was wetted, or when some other +teams behind disputed the right of way in lurid terms which Lady +Bridget was now beginning to accept as inevitably concomitant with +bullocks, the first dray would proceed, all the cattle bells jingling +and making, in the distance, not unpleasant music. + +It was the horses that interested Lady Bridget most, for, like all the +O'Haras, she was a born horsewoman. Though she was moved almost to +tears by the spur scars on the lean sides of some of them--spirited +creatures in which she recognised the marks of breeding--and by the +unkempt condition of some that were just from grass, she decided within +herself that there could never be a lack of interest and excitement in +a land where such horseflesh abounded. + +Presently she had her first sight of the typical stockman got up in +'township rig.' Spotless moleskins, new Crimean shirt, regulation silk +handkerchief, red, of course, and brand new, tied in a sailor's knot at +the neck, leather belt with pouches of every shape and size slung from +it, tobacco pouch, watch pouch, knife pouch and what not. Cabbage tree +hat of intricate plait pushed back to the back of the head and held +firm by a thin strap coming down to the upper lip and caught in two +gaps on either side of the prominent front teeth--there are very few +stockmen who have kept all their front teeth. Stockwhip, out of +commission for the present, with an elaborately carved and beautifully +polished sandal-wood handle hanging down behind, a long snake-like lash +coiled in three loops over the left shoulder. + +Lady Bridget knew most of the types of men who have to do with horses-- +huntsmen, trainers, jockeys, riding masters and the rest, but the +Australian bush-rider is a product by itself. She liked this son of the +gum forest-tanned face, taut nerves, alert eyes piercing long distances +--a man, vital, shrewd, simple as a child, cunning as an animal. And +the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky muscular +frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks a new +sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed +mettlesome creature under him! Man and beast seemed truly a part of +each other. Lady Bridget O'Hara's soul warmed to that stockman and to +his steed. + +He was looking at the windows of the bar-parlour. As soon as he saw the +lady, the cabbage tree hat was raised in a flourish, the horse was +reined in, the man off his saddle and the bridle hitched to a post. + +Now the stockman stepped on to the veranda. + +'Mrs McKeith--or is it Lady McKeith I should say--I haven't got the +hang of the name if you'll pardon me--Mr McKeith sent me on to say +that he'll be here with the buggy in a minute or two. . . . I'm +Moongarr Bill. . . . Glad to welcome you up the Leura, ma'am, though I +expect things seem a bit rough to you straight out from England and not +knowing the Bush.' + +Lady Bridget won Moongarr Bill's good favour instantly by the look in +her eyes and the smile with which she answered him. + +'I'm from Ireland, Moongarr Bill, and if we Irish know anything we know +a good horse, and that's a beauty you're riding.' + +'Out of a Pitsford mare by a Royallieu colt, and there's not a finer +breed in the Never-Never. My word! you've struck it there, ma'am, and +no mistake,' responded the stockman enthusiastically. 'I bought 'im out +of the yard at Breeza Downs--that's Windeatt's run about sixty miles +from Moongarr, and I will say that though it's a sheep-run they've beat +us in the breed of their 'osses. . . . Got 'im cheap because he'd +bucked young Windeatt off and nearly kicked his brains out, and there +wasn't a man along the Leura that he'd let stop on his back except me +and Zack Duppo--the horse-breaker who first put the tackling on 'im.' + +After the interchange of one or two remarks, Lady Bridget had no doubt +of being friends with Moongarr Bill, and Moongarr Bill decided that for +a dashed new-chum woman, Lady Bridget had a remarkable knowledge of +horseflesh. + +The quick CLOP-CLOP of a four horse team and a clatter of tin billys +and pannikins--as Lady Bridget presently discovered slung upon the +back rail of an American buggy--sounded up the street. + +'There's the Boss,' said Moongarr Bill. 'Look alive, with that +packhorse, Wombo.' + +Lady Bridget now perceived behind the stockman a black boy on a young +colt, leading a sturdy flea-bitten grey, laden with a pack bag on +either side. He jumped off as lightly as Moongarr Bill and hitched his +horses also to the veranda posts. Except that he was black as a coal, +save for the whites of his eyes and his gleaming teeth, he seemed a +grotesque understudy of the stockman--moleskins, not too clean and +rubbed and frayed in places, fastened up with a strap; faded Crimean +shirt exposing a wealed and tattooed breast; old felt hat--not a +cabbage tree--with a pipe stuck in its greasy band; an ancient red +silk handkerchief with ragged edges, where whip crackers had been torn +off, round his neck, and a short axe slipped among a few old pouches +into the strap at his waist. He jumped on to the veranda, clicked his +teeth in an admiring ejaculation as he gazed at Lady Bridget. + +'My word! BUJERI feller White Mary you! . . . new feller Mithsis +belonging to Boss. My word!' Then as McKeith drew up his horses in +front of the hotel, Wombo and Moongarr Bill sprang to the heads of +wheelers and leaders. + +It seemed to Bridget that there was a change in her husband even since +he had left her. He looked more determined, more practical, wholly +absorbed in the unsentimental business of the moment. He had changed +into looser, more workmanlike rig--was belted, pouched, carried his +whip grandly, handled his reins with a royal air of command, as if he +were now thoroughly at home in his own dominions, had already asserted +his authority--which she found presently to be the case--and intended +the rest of the world to knock under to him. There flashed on Lady +Bridget an absurd idea of having been married by proxy--like the +little princesses of history--and of being now received into her +lord's country by the monarch in person. Her face was rippling all over +with laughter when he joined her in the veranda. + +'What! Another delicious black boy! He looks like a Christy Minstrel. I +thought you hated blacks, Colin.' + +'So I do. You've got to have 'em though for stock boys, and I keep my +heel on the lot at Moongarr. Wombo and Cudgee aren't bad chaps so long +as they are kept clear of their tribe. How do you like the new buggy, +my lady? A dandy go-cart, eh?' + +He looked as pleased as a child with a new toy carriage. The buggy was +quite a smart bush turn-out--comfortable seats in front--a varnished +cover, now lying back; a well behind, filled with luggage; a narrow +back seat whence Cudgee--a smaller edition of Wombo--sprang down. +Cudgee, too, stared at Lady Bridget and clicked his teeth in +admiration, exclaiming: + +'Hullo! New feller Mithsis.' + +Afterwards, Lady Bridget remembered the greetings and wondered why the +black boys had said: 'New feller Mithsis!' Who had been the old feller +Mithsis? she asked herself. + +McKeith sternly quashed the black boys' ebullition and told them to +mind their own business. Bridget agreed that the buggy was first rate +and became enthusiastic over the horses, four fairly matched and +powerful roans. + +'Oh! what beauties! I'd like to go and make friends with them.' + +He was delighted. 'Good 'uns, ain't they? But wait and make friends +when you're behind 'em. We've twenty-five miles to do before sundown. +Got your traps fixed up? That's right. Here, Bill, take her ladyship's +bag and stow it safely at the back of the buggy. Handle it gingerly-- +it's full of silver and glass fallals--not what we're much used to on +the Leura.' + +The stockman grinned and carried the dressing-bag--one of Sir Luke's +and Lady Tallant's wedding presents--as if it were dynamite. Colin +seemed anxious to impress his wife's dignity upon her new subjects. She +felt still more like a queen of comic opera. He helped her into her +dust cloak, paid the bill, cut short the landlady's sulky apologies-- +she had done her hair and recovered herself a little. Then he settled +Lady Bridget into the buggy after the manner of a bush courtier--her +feet on a footstool, the rug over her knees, a cushion at her back. His +whole air seemed to say: + +'This is the Queen, and I, the King, expect that proper homage be paid +her.' + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + + +The loafers at the bar all came out to see the start. The family on the +top of the bullock-dray peered forth from under the tilt. The barkeeper +shouted, 'Good luck to you and your lady, Mr McKeith.' The drunken +reprobates, awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too, +'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had +got out his answering, 'Thank ye--Good day, mates,' a shower of +opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented +bush rowdies--the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had +come up with them in the train from Leuraville. + +Three of these men lurched on to the bar veranda, and, so to speak, +took the stage. In front was a stumpily-built bullock driver with a +red, truculent face, a ragged carrotty beard and inflamed narrow-ridded +eyes. A little to the rear stood a lanky, muscular bushman in very +dirty moleskins, with a smooth loose-lipped face, no eyelashes, and a +scowling forehead, who was evidently the worse for drink; next to him, +a shorter man of the drover type, older, eagle-beaked and with +sinister, foxy eyes. This one hailed McKeith. + +'Yah! Look at him and his spanking team! What price honest labour, you +blamed scab of a squatter? Just you wait a bit. It'll be our turn soon +to burn all you blanked capitalists off the Leura.' + +The lanky bushman took up the jeering note. + +'Pretty flash turn-out, ain't it! My word, you think yourself a bloated +fine gentleman now you've married into the British hairystocracy, don't +you, Mister Colin McKeith? You can take it from us, boys, he's the +meanest cuss that ever downed a harmless nigger. . . . Ask him what the +twenty-five notches on his gun stand for?' + +'And I tell YOU what it is, Steve Baines. There'll be another notch on +my gun, and it won't be for a nigger, if you give me any more of your +insolence,' said McKeith coolly. 'Get out of the way, men. Let the +horses go, Cudgee. Ready, Biddy?' + +But Cudgee, out of malice or stupidity, did not let the roans go or +else someone else put a restraining hand on the reins. The man with the +ragged beard roared out. + +'Ho, you think you're going to ride over us!--you and your fine +ladyship! Wot do we care about the British hairystocracy. What we're +asking for is the rights of labour, and we mean to have 'em. Do you +want to know what he's done to us boys? Fired us out straight away cos +we was 'avin' a bit of a spell and a drink to keep the life in us after +we'd close up killed ourselves lifting that there ladyship's blanked +hundred-ton weight of pianner on to the dray. . . .' + +Moongarr Bill's chivalrous instinct flamed to a counter attack. He had +just mounted, but swung down from his saddle and made a rush at the +speaker. McKeith's stern voice stopped him. + +'Don't be a fool, Bill. Let the brutes alone and push on with the pack. +This is not the time for a row. As for you, Jim Steadbolt--you know +me, and you know that if this was any other sort of occasion, you'd pay +on the nail for your infernal cheek. . . . Leave go of those reins. +D'ye hear'; for the man of the ragged beard was jerking the near +leader's bit and putting the mettlesome animal on its haunches. + +'Damn you! Let go.' + +He leaned forward to strike at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the +lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not +extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an +instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger on +his face. + +'No. Keep still, my dear. Don't be frightened.' + +'I frightened!' She gave a little laugh. Her form stiffened. The small +pale face poked forward between the folds of her motor veil, and all +the O'Hara spirit flashed as she spoke to the group of malcontents. + +'How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that +they didn't insult women.' + +There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of 'Shame, +Steadbolt, you! . . . You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain't got no use +for you, Micky Phayle. . . . Can't you see a lady as is a lady?' +sounded from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the +last question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the +veranda, and made a feeble assault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the +reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget's +voice, made a last envenomed attack. + +'It ain't us GENUINE Australians that insults you. . . . Takes a +mongrel Scotchy for that. . . . Say, Ladyship, just you ask your +husband what a sort of an insult he's got ready for YOU up at his +Bachelor's Quarters at Moongarr.' + +The words had not left his mouth when McKeith's driving whip whizzed in +the air and raised blood on the speaker's cheek. Steadbolt dropped his +hold of the roan leader's bridle and fell back screaming imprecations. +At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward. + +'Sit tight, Biddy,' said her husband. 'Up you get, Cudgee,' he shouted. +The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy +swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the +road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses +and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and +whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock +heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated +Bush. + +For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and +wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them +from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent +while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too. +She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she +felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene +bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to +her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became +interested in watching Colin's handling of the team. She had often sat +behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively +she made some such remark, and he looked down at her, the hard face +breaking into a smile. + +'That's good. . . . Wait a bit, my dear, until they've steadied down +again. . . . Y'see they take a lot of driving, and I don't want to lay +an accident on top of that unholy shindy. . . .' He spoke in jerks. The +roans were inclined to 'show nasty' as Moongarr Bill came abreast of +them, and Wombo's pack jingled behind. McKeith gave Moongarr Bill +directions about the camp in Bush lingo, which again turned Bridget's +thoughts. The black boy and the stockman spurred on as the roans +slackened pace. McKeith was able to relax the strain. + +'My word! we scooted pretty quick out of that piece of scenery,' he +said. 'I felt downright mad at your being let in for such a disgraceful +bit of business. I hadn't time to tell you that I'd sacked those men +half an hour before. Found them in the lowest of the grog shanties, +their horses not looked after, dray only half loaded, and the three of +them--Gumsucker Steve was to have come and taken off our leaders when +we got into broken country--thick with the Union delegates and +sticking for higher wages. I paid them off and filled their places on +the spot with two chaps off a wool-drive. . . . So I left the brutes +vowing vengeance, and I suppose they thought they'd lose no time in +giving me a taste of it. . . . Well, they're no loss.' He had been +explaining things in jerks while he brought the team to an harmonious +jog-trot along a piece of uneven road. 'That fellow Steadbolt is a +wrong 'un--not good even at his own job of wood and water joey--which +means, my dear, the odd cart-driving on a place--and not to be trusted +within ten miles of a public house.' + +Lady Bridget asked suddenly: + +'I want to know, Colin--what did that man mean by saying you had an +insult ready for me at your Bachelor's Quarters? What insult?' + +It seemed as though blue fire leaped from McKeith's eyes. + +'Insult! Good God! Biddy you can't hold me responsible for the foul +insinuations of a beast like that. Insult YOU! my wife!' + +The passionate tenderness thrilling his voice, the honest wrath and +bewilderment in his face must have silenced any doubt, had doubt +existed in Lady Bridget's mind. + +'I don't know, Colin. I don't even know what Bachelors' Quarters mean. +Have you an army of Bachelors at Moongarr, and what do they do when +they're at home?' + +He laughed. 'It's a shanty I put up for the new-chums when I've got any +--and for the gentlemen-sun-downers that come along, and visitors that +I don't want to be bothered with at the House. There's a woman up +there. . . .' He stopped suddenly and his face grew grim again. 'That's +it, I suppose--I'm sorry I didn't sling the whip harder and cut the +fellow's cheek open. I would if I'd thought. . . . !' + +He stopped again. + +'What woman? Have I a rival? This is becoming dramatic!' Lady Bridget's +voice was amusedly ironic, but she carried her head erect. 'Tell me +about the woman at the Bachelors' Quarters, Colin.' + +'There's nothing to tell, except that's she's the widow of a man who +went up with me on my last Big Bight expedition, and was killed-- +partly through his own, and partly through my, fault. That's why I've +made a point of looking after her, and I built my Bachelor's Quarters +chiefly to give her a job. I thought she was too young and too good +looking to be drawing grog for diggers at Fig Tree Mount--which was +what she set out doing.' + +'I see. . . . So she's young--and handsome.' + +'Oh, in a coarse sort of way. . . . No, I wouldn't say that; she's +rather refined for her upbringing. Anyway, Steadbolt as well as a lot +of other men fell in love with her--Steadbolt was pretty well off his +head over it. She wouldn't have him at any price--naturally--and I +had to give the fellow work outside the head-station to keep him away +from her. That was before I went south. Very likely he's been trying it +on again, and knew I should have to get rid of him as soon as I came +back.' + +'Why doesn't the woman marry again?' + +McKeith shrugged. 'Too jolly comfortable perhaps--or perhaps the right +man hasn't turned up. Florrie Hensor is several cuts above a +malingering lout like Steadbolt. Well there, poor devil! Maybe, it's +not unnatural that I should feel a sneaking sympathy for an +unsuccessful lover. That abominable lie was a bit too strong though-- +and before you! The man must have been downright mad from drink and +fury and bitterness. It--it's all funny--isn't it? One of the queer +sides of the Bush. Good old Bush! I am glad to be back in it again, +Biddy.' + +He lifted his head and seemed to draw in the strong odour of the gum +trees and the pure vitality of the weltering sun. His anger appeared to +have left only compunction behind it. And again he begged her to +forgive him for having subjected her to an experience so disagreeable. +They were on a stretch of clear road now, and the roans trotted +pleasantly along. Lady Bridget took up his words. + +'Yes, it's all funny--that kind of thing--in this setting. . . . I +never supposed that I should be howled at by a revolutionary mob in the +Australian Bush. . . . A BAS LES ARISTOCRATS. It's quite exciting. I +think I should have enjoyed the Reign of Terror.' + +'Eh! You're only frightened of four-footed beasts. If you'd lived then, +you'd have gone up to the block with that smile on your lips, and the +proud turn of your little head--just as I used to dream of you. . .' + +'Of ME! ' + +'You don't know--I'll tell you some day. I remember talking to Joan +Gildea once. . . . It's queer. . . . But never mind now. D'ye like +this, Biddy?' + +'I love it. I wish we could drive on through the forest all day and all +night--a dream drive. I think I might be able to place myself at the +end of it.' + +'To place yourself!' + +'I've never been able to find my true pivot inside. All my life I've +been howling in my soul and haven't known what I was howling for. I +thought to-day that you might teach me.' + +'Is it only to-day that you have thought that?' he said wistfully. +'Well, anyway, I'm glad of it.' + +'Colin,' she said abruptly, 'wasn't it funking a little bit, don't you +think--running away?' + +'No--not with YOU beside me. You'll have other opportunities for +seeing whether I've got much of the funker in me. No doubt those brutes +will give trouble some time.' + +'What can they do?' + +'Fire my run--spoil my cattle sales--get hold of my stockmen. . . .But +I'm not so badly off as my "sheep" neighbours at Breeza Downs. +They've got to have their shearing done. . . . Though I've had a lot of +bother to-day,' his face became gloomy, 'and I foresee more ahead.' + +She asked what other sort of trouble. + +'Why! there's been no rain at Moongarr since I left it five months ago. +And Pleuro means innoculation and short sales. . . . Ah well! . . . ' + +He flicked the wheelers gently. 'Shake it up, Alexander! Look alive, +Roxalana. . . . I named 'em when I was reading ROLLIN'S ANCIENT +HISTORY, my dear . . . my dear!' He looked down at the little woman by +his side with deep tenderness in his blue eyes and a smile that +banished the shade from his face. 'Oh, my dear, there ain't going to be +any bush worries for us this blessed afternoon and evening. It's the +poetry and romance'--he pronounced it romance--'of the bush that's +got hold of me now. I'm just longing for us to strike the camping place +--and then--just you and me together--just man and woman--alone with +Nature!' + +He put his hand on hers and she pressed it in return. The Woman in her +thrilled to the Man in him. + +Cudgee, on the hind seat with his back to them, broke the spell. + +'My word, Massa! You look out, Mithsis--big feller goanner sit down +along a tree.' And for the first time in her existence, Lady Bridget +beheld a monster iguana dragging its huge lizard tail and turning its +stately, brown crocodile head round at her from the safe vantage place +of a thick gum branch. + +After that, the way led off the main road, on by a less used track +through wilder country. Here Wombo, the black boy, was waiting-- +Moongarr Bill having gone on with the pack horse to the camping place-- +and helped to unharness the two leaders which he drove before him +ahead. The trees thickened, the buggy wheels caught on stumps. Cudgee +had to get down at intervals and, with his axe, lop and clear fallen +timber. Every mile the progress grew slower and the forest more lonely. +No sign now of a selector's clearing, or of any human occupation. . . . +But there was a pack of emus hustling and shaking their big bunches of +feathers like startled ballet girls. + +'I feel as if part of the Zoo had been let loose,' said Lady Bridget +when again there bounded along in the near distance a pair of kangaroos +with a little Joey kangaroo taking a lesson in locomotion behind its +parents. + +They were still in the gum forest, but now and then came a belt of +gidia scrub--mournful trees with stiff black trunks and grey green +foliage and a pale sort of wattle flower smelling like dead cattle when +rain is about, as McKeith explained. But there was no rain about now, +and, in truth, he would have welcomed the unpleasant odour. Perhaps it +was that which made the ground so stark and bare beneath these trees +where no grass will grow. The sun was lowering when they left the +gidia. Out in the gum forest again, the birds were chattering before +retiring to rest. All life is still in the bush at mid-day, but now +there were curious scutterings among the grass tussocks, and the whirr +of its insect population sounded all round. The country got prettier-- +swelling pastures and stony pinches and a distant outline of hills. +They could see the green line of a water course. + +'Plenty water sit down along a creek?' McKeith asked the black boy. But +Cudgee shook his woolly head. + +'Ba'al* mine think it, Massa. No rain plenty long time.' +[*ba'al--the Aboriginal negative.] + +McKeith sighed. The dark shadow of coming drought is a fearsome spectre +on the Never-Never Land. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + + +A COO-EE sounded long, clear, vibrant. Moongarr Bill and Wombo, who had +gone on ahead, were fixing camp. Lady Bridget's musical voice caught up +the note. She answered it with another COO-EE, to Cudgee's delight. + +'My word! Ba'al newchum, that feller white Mary,' said he. + +They had rounded a knoll abutting on the green line of ti-trees and +swamp oak. It was a barren hump; upon its crest, and alone in barbaric +majesty, stood a row of grass trees silhouetted against the sunset sky. +Weird sentinels of the bridal camp they seemed--tall, thick black +trunks like palm-stems, from each of which spread an enormous tuft of +gigantic grass blades green and upright in the middle, grey and jaggled +and drooping where they hung over at the bottom. Out of each green +heart sprang a great black spear many feet in height. + +The stony knoll dropped sheer like a wall. On the other side of it was +a space the size of an amphitheatre, a large part of it spread with +soft green grass, like a carpet, and the rest of the floor scattered +with low shrubs and big tussocks. Amongst them was a herb giving out a +fragrance, when the feet crushed it, like that of wild thyme. The whole +air seemed filled with a blend of aromatic perfumes. + +Here was a roofless room, open on one side where a break in the +ti-trees showed the sandy bed of the creek, which, at first, to Lady +Bridget's fancy, had the appearance of a broad shallow stream. On this +side, low rocks with ferns growing in their crannies, edged the stream. +On the opposite shore, one giant eucalyptus stood by itself and cast +its shadow across. Beyond, lay the gum-peopled immensity of the bush. +The stony walls of the knoll, curving inward and sheltering a thick +growth of ferns and scrubby vegetation, closed in the bridal chamber. +Creepers festooned the rocky ledges and crevices. Here and there, a +young sapling slanted forward to greet the morning sun when it should +rise behind the hummock. + +Moongarr Bill had undone the pack-bags and was building a fire between +two large stones. The flames leaped up, the dead twigs crackled. Long +years after, Lady Bridget could recall vividly the smell of the dry +burning gum leaves--her first experience of a bush campfire. + +Close to the fire, under the flank of the rocky knoll the tent was +pitched, a roll of blankets and oilskin thrown just within it. + +Presently, from the hummock above came the sound of Cudgee's axe. He +had felled the youngest of the grass-trees, and was now chopping off +its green tuft. Soon he appeared, carrying a huge bunch of the coarse +blades of foliage, which he brought to the tent. With an odd mixture of +emotions, Lady Bridget watched her husband take the grass tops from the +black boy and spread them carefully on the floor of the tent, heaping +up and smoothing the mass into a bed, upon which he laid the oilskin +and then one of the blankets--they were new white blankets, fresh from +the store. After that, he set the cushions from the buggy, covering +them with the rug, at the head of the couch, making a bolster, and, +over that, the one she had had at her back. + +'No down pillows or linen sheets allowed in a bush camp-out, my lady +Biddy,' he said with a laugh, a half timorous glance at his wife, but +her answering smile reassured him. + +'You'll never sleep on a sweeter bed,' he said, sniffing the resinous +fragrance of the grass-tree tops. He would not let her help him with +the upper blankets when she wished to lend a hand. + +'No, this camp is my own show. Go and look at the scenery until I've +got our wigwam in order.' + +And she submissively obeyed. + +Against the other side of the rock wall, the black boys had built a +second fire. The horses were hobbled and grazing along the green border +of the creek. The buggy propped up, was covered with a tarpaulin. The +pack-bags had disgorged their contents. A miscellaneous heap of camp +properties lay on the ground. And now, Cudgee's axe was at work again, +stripping a section of bark from a gum tree, for what purpose Lady +Bridget did not divine. + +She walked down to the creek and stood among the rocks at its edge. She +had expected a rippling stream, and, to her disappointment, saw only a +broad strip of dry sand, along which Moongarr Bill was mooching, a +spade in his hand. + +'What are we going to do for water?' she exclaimed. + +'Dig for it, my ladyship,' answered Moongarr Bill. 'That's one of the +upside-down things in 'Stralia. Here's two of them--mighty queer, come +to think of it--the rivers that run underground and the cherries that +grow with their stones outside.' + +Lady Bridget observed that she was already acquainted with that +oft-quoted botanical phenomenon. In her rides around Leichardt's Town +she had been shown and had tasted the disagreeable little orange berry +which has a hard green knob at the end of it and is, for some ironical +reason, called a cherry. She also told Moongarr Bill that in England +she had seen a dowser searching for hidden springs by means of a forked +hazel twig carried in front of him which pointed downwards where there +was water and asked why Australians didn't adopt a similar method. At +which Moongarr Bill laughed derisively, and said he did not hold with +any such hanky-panky. + +'Bad luck, Biddy,' McKeith said behind her. 'If there had been the +proper amount of rain in these last three or four months, we'd have had +the one thing that's wanting now to make this the ideal camp I've had +on the top of my fancy--a running creek of pure water. But never mind +--the water's there, though you can't see it. . . . That's got it, +Bill!' + +For already the sand was darkening and moisture was oozing in the hole +Moongarr Bill had been digging, and which he widened gradually into a +respectable pool of water. When it had settled down, all the billies +were filled and the horses driven to it, whinnying for a drink. + +Lady Bridget watched the evening meal being prepared between the two +fires--only watched, for she was sternly forbidden to set hand to it. + +'No canned goods, nor cooked food,' McKeith said, were allowed at this +lay-out. Moongarr Bill was first-class at frying steak. He himself was +going to boil the quart-pot tea and would give Biddy a demonstration in +johnny-cakes, made bush fashion at their own camp fire. The sheet of +bark had been cut into sections--one sub-divided into small squares to +serve as plates. The inside looked clean as paint, and smelled of +Mother Nature's still-room. Colin mixed the flour and water upon the +larger sheet and worked up a stiff dough. He kneaded it, slapped it +between his broad palms, cut it and baked the cakes in the ashes; then, +butter being the only luxury permitted, he split them and buttered +them; and Lady Bridget found in due time that not even the lightest +Scotch scones taste better than bush johnny-cakes. + +Quart pot tea, likewise--made also in true bush fashion. First the +boiling of the billy--Colin's own particular billy, battered and +blackened from much usage--half the battle, he explained, in brewing +bush tea. Then, regulation handfuls of tea and brown store sugar thrown +in at the precise boiling moment. Now the stirring of the frothing +liquid with a fresh gum-twig. Then the blending and the cooling of it-- +pouring the beverage from one quart pot into another, and finally into +the pannikins ready for the drinking. + +Proudly, round the rock-flank of the hummock, Moongarr Bill brought +fried steak and potatoes steaming in a clean tin dish and done to a +turn, then went to cook more for himself at his own camp. They ate off +the bark plates. Salt, sugar and mustard came out of small ration bags. +McKeith produced black-handled knives and forks--the last a +concession. And good to taste were the fizzling johnny-cakes and the +strong, sweet, milkless tea. + +Such was Lady Bridget's real marriage feast. + +They were hungry, yet they dallied over the repast. It was the most +delicious food she had ever tasted, Bridget said. They made little +jokes. He was entranced by her happiness. Joyously she compared this +banquet with others she had eaten in great houses and European +restaurants, which were the last word in luxury. Oh! how she loved the +dramatic contrast of it. Nature was supreme, glorious. . . . Oh no, no! +never could she hanker after that which she had left behind--for ever. +Because, if ever she were to go back again to the old life, she would +be an ugly dried-up old woman for whom the smart world would have no +further use. . . . + +Then suddenly she became quiet, and busied herself in the tent, while +McKeith took out his pipe and smoked in ruminative bliss. When she came +back she had no more talk of contrasts or of her old life, no more +fantastic outbursts. Indeed, there seemed to have come over her a mood +of sweet sobriety, of blushing, womanly shyness. + +'Mayn't I be your squaw and help you to wash up?' she said, when he +collected the tin pots and pannikins and proceeded to get the camp +shipshape. No, she was not to stir a finger towards the dirty work. It +was HIS job to-night. Another camping-out time she might play the squaw +if she liked. She was not on in this act. + +He amused her greatly by his tidy bush methods. The billies were +refilled, the ration-bags laid ready for the morning. + +Now darkness had fallen. He put more logs on the fire, and the flames +blazed up. Then he made up a little pile of johnny-cakes that he had +not buttered, and covered it with the bark plates. 'We shall have to +make an early start, and there'll be no time to bake fresh ones--and +no more use for these things,' he said. The square of bark on which he +had mixed the dough was in his hands and he was about the fling it +among the bushes, but she stopped him. + +'No--don't throw it away. . . . I--I want it for a keepsake, Colin.' + +He stared at her in surprise. The red flames threw a strange glow on +her face, and made her eyes look very bright. + +'My dearest! A sheet of bark!' Then a great light broke on him. The +strip of bark dropped from his hands. His arms went out and enfolded +the small woman, lifting her almost from the ground as he crushed her +against his breast and kissed her lips with the first passionate +lover's kisses he had ever given her. . . . 'Oh, my dear--my +sweetheart!' He gave a big, tremulous laugh. . . . 'There was never any +woman in the world like you. . . . To think of your caring about just a +sheet of bark!' + +'You made me my first johnny-cakes upon it. . . . And to-night is the +beginning of our married life--and oh, Colin, it is the first time I +have felt really married to you, and I want a bit of the bush to +remember it by.' + +He kissed her again. . . . The miracle was accomplished. He seemed to +have no words in which to say all that filled his heart. + +The night sounds of the bush stirred the vast silence. For the first +time, Lady Bridget heard the wail of the curlew--a long note, weirdly +melancholy. It startled her out of her husband's arms. There were +uncanny swishings of wings in the great gum tree on the other side of +the creek. And now the clanking of the horses' hobbles which had been +dilatory, intermittent, became sharply recurrent. A shout from Moongarr +Bill cut short the monotonous corroboree tune which the two black boys +had been singing at their camp some little distance away. + +'My word, I believe YARRAMAN* break him hobble!' +[*Yarraman--horse.] + +At which the boys scampered off through the grass, and presently came +the cracking of a stock whip among the trees. + +'It's all right, Moongarr Bill's after them,' said McKeith, as his +bride released herself from his arms. 'But if you don't mind darling. +I'd better just see if anything has started the beasts.' + +Lady Bridget watched him disappear round the knoll. The curlews went on +wailing, and as if in answer a night owl sent forth his portentous HOOT +--HOOT!. . . Apparently nothing was much amiss with the horses; they +had quieted down again. Lady Bridget picked up the strip of bark and +carried it in her arms into the tent, laughing to herself as she did +so. + +'Only a sheet of bark! What a fool I am--But it's quite appropriate, +anyway.' + +She put it beside her dressing-bag, and then went out once more into +the night. Through the interlacing gum branches she saw a great coppery +disk, and the moon rose slowly to be a lamp in her bridal chamber. How +wonderful the stars were!. . . There was the Southern Cross with its +pointers, and the Pleiades. And that bright star above the tops of the +trees, which seemed to throw a distinct ray of light, must be +Venus. . . . The moon was high enough to cast shadows--black--distorted. +The low clumps of shrubs beyond the carpet of grass looked like strange +couched beasts. . . . + +As she stood by the rocks at the creek edge, she heard her husband +speaking to Moongarr Bill, who seemed to be walking down along the +sandy bed. + +'Horses all right, Bill?' + +'Oh, ay--just a possum up a tree gev Julius Caesar a start. . . . Been +digging a decent bath-hole for the ladyship in the morning, boss. +There's plenty there.' + +'I wish it was as near the surface at Moongarr, Bill. We shall have our +work cut out making new bores, if the dry weather lasts.' + +'My word, it's no joke going down three thousand feet. Amazing queer +the amount of water running underground on this dried-up old earth.' + +'But we can always strike it, Bill; no matter how dried up the outside +looks, there's the living spring waiting to be tapped. And how's that +in human nature too, Bill. Same idea, eh?' + +Moongarr Bill emitted a harsh grunt. + +'My best girl chucked me a month back, boss, and as for your darned +sentiment and poetry, and sech-like--well, I ain't takin' any just at +present.' + +'Bad luck, Bill! Struck a dead-head that time, eh?. . . Well, +good-night.' + +'Good-night, boss--and good luck to you. I reckon your spring ain't a +dead-head, anyway. . . . Say, Mr McKeith, me and the boys are shifting +our fire over to the other side of the creek. . . . Keep the 'osses +from hevin' any more of their blessed starts. . . . Handier for gettin' +them up in the morning.' + + +* Yarraman--Horse. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + + +Lady Bridget McKeith had been married about a year and a quarter. +Winter was now merging into spring. But it was not a bounteous spring. +That drear spectre of drought hung over the Never-Never Land. + +Lady Bridget stood by the railing of the veranda at Moongarr, looking +out for two expected arrivals at the head-station--that of her +husband, who had been camping out after cattle--and of the mailman-- +colloquially, Harry the Blower--who this week was to bring an English +mail. + +Perhaps the last arrival seemed to her at the moment most important of +the two. The bush wife had long since begun to feel a sort of home +sickness for English news. Yet, had you asked her, she would have told +you that barbarism still had a greater hold than civilisation. + +There did not, however, appear to be much of the barbarian about Lady +Bridget. She still looked like an old picture in the high-waisted +tea-gown of limp yellow silk that she had put on early for dinner, and +she still trailed wisps of old lace round her slender shoulders. There +was the same touzle of curly hair, like yellow-brown spun glass or +filaments of burnished copper, which was shining now in the westering +sun. The finely-modelled brows and shadowy eyes were as beautiful as +when Colin McKeith had first beheld his goddess stepping on to +Australian earth. + +But for all that, a change had taken place in her--a different one +from the indefinable yet significant change which is felt in almost +every woman after marriage. There is usually in the young wife's face +an expression of fulfilment, of deepened experience--a certain +settled, satisfied look. And this was what was lacking in Lady +Bridget's face. The restless soul within seemed to be peering out +through hungry eyes. + +She could see nothing human from the veranda except the blue-smocked +figure of Fo Wung, the Chinaman, at work in his vegetable garden by the +lagoon. There was one large water-hole and a succession of small ones, +connected by water-courses, now dry, and meandering from a gully, which +on the eastern side broke the hill against which Moongarr head-station +was built. The straggling gum forest, interspersed with patches of +sandal-wood and mulga, that backed the head-station, stopped short at +the gully, and beyond, stretched wolds of melancholy gidia scrub. +Looking up from the end of the veranda, Lady Bridget could see an +irregular line of grey-brown boulders, jagged and evidently of volcanic +origin, marking the line of gully. These gave a touch of romantic +wildness to the otherwise peaceful scene. + +Lady Bridget's gaze went along a track skirting the gidia scrub, and +crossing the lower end of the gully near the lagoon, to the great plain +which spread in front of the head-station. Except for some green trees +by the lagoon, a few ragged belts of gum and sandal-wood or single +isolated trees dotted about, the plain was unwooded to the horizon. +There were also silhouetted upon the sky the grotesque-looking sails of +one or two windmill-pumps. In the foreground the plain was intersected +by lines of grey fencing, within which browsed straggling herds of lean +cattle, mostly along the curve of the lagoon. + +Neither plain nor lagoon formed altogether pleasing objects of +contemplation just now, for they spoke eloquently of the threatened +drought. When Lady Bridget had come up a bride, the plain had been +fairly green. The sandal-wood blossoms were out and wild flowers +plentiful. The lagoon was then flush with the grass, and its water, on +which white, pink and blue lilies floated, had reflected the vegetation +at its edge. Now the lagoon had shrunk and the water in the gully was +in places a mere trickle. Of course, the trees were there--ti-tree, +flooded gum, and so forth--but they looked brown and ragged. One +standing by itself, a giant white cedar, which in spring was a mass of +white and mauve bloom and in winter of scarlet berries, had a wide +strip of brown mud between it and the water that had formerly laved its +roots. + +Lady Bridget had thought that the rocky gully, the lagoon and the vast +plain made as pretty a landscape as she had ever seen, when she had +first looked upon it in the early morn after her homecoming. Now, as +she paced up and down the veranda--for she was in a restless mood-- +her mind went back to that bridal homecoming. They had not arrived at +the head-station till after dusk, but it had been visible from the +plain a long way off, and she had examined it with ardent curiosity +through her field-glasses in the clear light of sunset. + +She had seen a collection of rough buildings backed by the forest, and +from different points of view, as they drew nearer, had made out that +the three principal ones formed three sides of a square. Two of these-- +the side wings--were old and of primitive construction--slab walls, +bark roofs, and low verandas, overgrown with creepers. Colin explained +that these were the Old Humpey--as he called the original dwelling +house--and the kitchen and store building opposite. Lately, the New +House had been put up at right angles with the old buildings, and +fronting the plain. It had been begun before his trip south and +practically finished during his absence. Colin was very proud of the +New House. + +It was made of sawn wood and had a high-pitched roof of corrugated +zinc, turned to gold by the sunset rays upon it. There was a deep +veranda all round the New House, and it was much taller than the wings, +being raised on blood-wood piles, that had been tarred to keep off +white ants, and with a flight of wooden steps leading up to the +veranda. + +The details of Moongarr head-station became familiar enough later to +its new mistress. Besides the dwelling houses were various huts and +outbuildings. The stock-yards lay on a piece of level ground behind at +the side of the gully, and between the yards and the House stood a +small slab and bark cottage--the Bachelors' Quarters. + +Even though glorified by the sunset, it had given Lady Bridget a little +shock to see how crude and--architecturally speaking--unlovely was +her new home. But her Celtic imagination was stirred by the weirdness +of the grey-green gum forest, and of the mournful gidia scrub, framing +the picture. + +Then, as dusk crept closer, and the great plain, along which the tired +horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange +sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the +wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old +mystery. + +She remembered how the lights of the head-station against the forest +blackness had looked like welcoming torches and how she had roused +herself out of her weariness at the last spurt of the equally weary +buggy horses. Then the jolt in the dark over the sliprails, the slow +strain of the wheels up the hill, the cracking of Moongarr Bill's +stock-whip, and the sound of long drawn COO-EES. Also of dogs barking, +of men running forward. Then how Colin had lifted her down and half +carried her into the parlour. She remembered her dazed glance round and +the rushing thought of how she could soften its ugliness. Yet it had +looked welcoming. A log fire blazing, the table spread, a Chinese cook +in baggy blue garments--pigtail flowing; a Malay boy; her bewildered +question--was there no woman in the establishment? Then Colin's +strident call from the veranda--'Mrs Hensor. Where's Mrs Hensor!' And +the appearance presently of Florrie Hensor--youngish, tall, a full +figure; black hair, frizzed and puffed, a showy face, red cheeks, +redder lips, rather sullen, flashing dark eyes--who had received Lady +Bridget almost as if she had been her equal, and of whom the bride had +at once made an enemy by her frigidly haughty response. From the first +moment, Lady Bridget had disliked Mrs Hensor. But she had felt a vague +attraction towards the little yellow-headed, blue-eyed boy clinging to +Mrs Hensor's skirts. As for any uneasiness on the score of Steadbolt's +insolent insinuations, she had absolutely dismissed that from her mind. + +Yes--that bridal homecoming--how strange it had seemed! How rough +everything was! How impossible the whole thing would have appeared to +her had any fortune-teller in Bond Street prophesied the end of her +marriage journey! + +And how, in the first moment of settling down, she had laughed with +Colin at the thought of what Chris and Molly Gaverick, and 'Eliza +Countess' would have said! But with what dauntless energy she had +worked in transforming her new abode and in making it reflect her own +personality. She had felt really grateful, she said, to the Union +delegates for having enticed away the builders before the inside +furnishings were complete. Soon they got hold of a bush carpenter, and +she was provided with occupation for a good many months. + +Lady Bridget had been very happy in those early days. Colin had seemed +so thoroughly in the picture--strong, chivalrous, adoring--like a +Viking worshipping his conquered bride. The romance of it all appealed +tremendously to the Celtic blood in Bridget. It was her nature, when +she gave, to give generously. She had become genuinely in love with her +bush husband during that wonderful honeymoon journey. + +Ah, that journey! What an experience! If she could have written it down +as a new adventure of 'The Lady of Quality,' how the great Gibbs would +have jumped at her 'copy!' Well, she had practically done so in her +letters to Joan Gildea--now back in her London flat. But the true +inwardness of the adventure was a thing never to be put into words. + +No sign yet of the men. Lady Bridget ceased her restless pacing and +swung herself slowly to and fro in a hammock at the end of the veranda. +As she swung she traversed over again in her imagination the stages of +that honeymoon journey. + +Two hundred and twenty-five miles of it, after the first camp out. Many +more nights under the stars. Then out of the gum forests they had gone +through the great western plains, covering ground fairly easily, for +McKeith had arranged to have fresh horses on the road, and they always +drove a spare pair ahead of the buggy. Occasionally they stopped at a +head-station. Once at night they pulled up at a bush house, and a +strange old man had put his head out of a window and shouted to them in +the darkness. 'If ye've come to see me, I'm drunk,' he had said, 'and +if you've come to drink, the rum-keg's empty, but ye'll find a pint pot +outside and a little water in the tank.' And then he had shut the +window again and refused further parley. + +They had camped, hungry, in the paddock--for provisions had run out, +and on that account, and because the horses had strayed in the night, +they had to go again to the house. The old man, sober and ashamed, +captivated likewise by Lady Bridget's beauty and charm, apologised +almost on his knees--he made Biddy think of Thackeray's picture of Sir +Pitt Crawley proposing to Becky Sharp. Old Mr Duppo, it was--the +father of Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, who had recently been breaking +in colts at Moongarr. + +They stayed till the horses were found. Mr Duppo had a housekeeper-- +now if Mrs Hensor had been like that housekeeper there could have been +no cause for jealous scandal. An aged dame, long, bony--dressed in a +short green petticoat and tartan jacket, with a little checked shawl +over her head and pinned under a bearded chin. She poured tea out of a +tin teapot and leaned over her master's chair at meal times to carve +the salt beef. + +Lady Bridget sketched the pair. The old man roared over the sketch, but +the housekeeper bore her a grudge for it, and afterwards had not a good +word for the 'Ladyship' who had slipped out of her proper sphere into +the Never-Never country. + +There were plenty of other small adventures which would have made the +hair of Lady Gaverick and her friends stand on end. A dream-drive +indeed, full of sort of 'Alice in Wonderland' episodes. Bush life Out +Back--a jumble of odd characters and situations. Fencers' camps, +cattle-drivers' camps, bullock-dray camps. There had been a baby born +unexpectedly under the tilt of a bullock-dray, on one occasion, the +night before McKeith's party appeared on the scene, and Lady Bridget +had a trunk down from the buggy, and there in the road tore up some of +her fine-laced smocks and petticoats to provide swaddling clothes for +the poor little scrap of mortality. And there were tramps 'humping +bluey' on the track likewise, and diggers carrying their picks. Bridget +liked seeing Colin hail-fellow-well-met with them all--sharing tucker +and quart-pot tea. She wished that her socialistic friends of the old +played-out civilisation could see this shrewd, practical humanitarian +of the Bush. + +They came very close to each other in those long days of the +dream-drive. He talked to her as he had never talked before, and as he +talked rarely afterwards. He drew aside curtains from recesses of his +real nature, the existence of which she had not suspected, and, in +truth, at a later time, doubted. Then, if in broad sunlight the shy, +rough exterior of the man would close suddenly over those secret +chambers, when evening came, it would seem as though the camp fire +illuminated them once more. + +After the first time or two, he allowed her to boss the camp 'lay-out.' +It was she who spread the blankets on Wombo's beds of grass tree tops +and dry herbage. Wombo and the 'big feller White Mary' (the adjective +used metaphorically as expressive of distinction) made great friends in +those days--out of which friendship sprang, alas! in due time, certain +tragic happenings. It was Lady Bridget who would set the billy boiling +and who, after one or two failures, succeeded in making excellent +johnny-cakes. She remembered her first performance in that line under +the eyes of a small group of admiring spectators--her husband 'just +waiting to see how the new-chum cook shaped,' and, as he said the +words, she, glancing up from the sheet of bark and the dough she was +kneading, caught a look in his face which was something she could never +in all her life forget. And Moongarr Bill with the horses' reins over +his arm, and the two black-boys agape, beady eyes twinkling, white +teeth glistening, emitting their queer guttural clicks of approbation, +and an occasional 'My word! Bujeri you, Lathy-chap,' the nearest they +could get to Moongarr Bill's accepted form of address. There was joy, +glory to Lady Bridget in this playing of the squaw and fending for her +man, ceasing to be the goddess and becoming the primal woman. + +And the sports, and songs, and stories by the camp fire! Moongarr +Bill's yarns, Colin's exploring tales, Wombo's and Cudgee's dances and +corroboree-tunes--strange, weird music that had a fascination for Lady +Bridget. She, too, would get up and sing CARMEN'S famous air, and the +Neapolitan peasant songs of her mother's youth. Never, for sure, had +the gaunt gum trees echoed back such strains as these. + +But time came when all the romance of barbarism seemed to have fizzled +out and only cruel realities remained--when work and worry turned +McKeith from the worshipping lover into the rough-tongued, irritable +bushman--when his 'hands' deserted him, his cattle died and things +generally went wrong, and when he showed himself something of the +hard-headed, parsimonious, ill-conditioned Scotch mongrel that +Steadbolt had called him. When, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten +that Lady Bridget O'Hara had graciously permitted him to worship her, +but had not bargained for being treated--well, as many another +out-back squatter--treats his help-mate. Then Bridget would tell +herself bitterly that it might have been better had she married a +civilised gentleman. There would sometimes be scenes and sometimes +sulks, and those times no doubt accounted for the hungry look in Lady +Bridget's eyes and the slight hardening of her mouth. + +She was loyal though, in spite of her many faults, and 'game' in her +own way--and when Colin came out of his dour moods, she was generally +ready to meet him half way. + +For, through all, the memory of the dream-drive honeymoon lingered. And +the bit of bark, sapless, brown, curled up by the heat into almost a +tube, and partially eaten by white ants--before the desecrating +assault had been discovered and the termites' nest destroyed with +boiling water--was still cherished as a sacred symbol. + +While she swung in the hammock the memory pictures came and went like a +cinematograph show--the dream-drive presently merging into an +electioneering trip through McKeith's constituency a few weeks after +her bridal homecoming. + +The 'Lady of Quality' might, had she been so minded, have also made +spicy capital out of the humours of that political contest--in which, +unhappily, the Labour Party had triumphed. Steadbolt had had his say on +the occasion, and there had been a free fight--Lady Bridget was not +present, and only heard darkly of the occurrence--when Steadbolt had +got the worst of it in an encounter with his late employer. + +But all that was but a small side-show, and not likely to affect in any +great measure Lady Bridget's life. Except that the loss of McKeith's +seat in the Legislative Assembly made it no longer necessary for him to +spend at least part of the winter session in Leichardt's Town. Nor +would Lady Bridget have the opportunity to resume her old intimacy at +Government House. In any case, however, she was not destined to see +more of her old friend in Australia. A few months previously, Lady +Tallant had developed symptoms of grave disease--it was said that the +Leichardt's Land climate did not agree with her, and she had gone back +to England, leaving Sir Luke to perform his duties without her help. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + + +At last, Lady Bridget heard the unmistakable sound of cattle in the +distance--the low, multitudinous roar of lowing beasts and tramping +hoofs and the reverberating crack of stock-whips. It came from the +gidia scrub. She knew that they had been mustering SCRUBBERS-- +otherwise, wild cattle from the broken country at the foot of Moongarr +Range. + +She left the hammock and went again to the veranda railing. Looking +along a side path from the Chinaman's garden she saw that Mrs Hensor +and her boy--the yellow-headed urchin of about six--were hastening +towards the Bachelors' Quarters. The woman carried a basket of +vegetables, the boy hugged a big pawpaw fruit which he held up proudly +as his mother responded in her free-and-easy, rather sulky fashion to +Lady Bridget's stiff nod. 'It's for the House,' cried the child. 'Fo +Wung said I was to bring it up.' + +Lady Bridget made a wry face--she did not like pawpaws. + +'Very well, Tommy, and if you're good you can have what's left +tomorrow.' + +'That's all right,' responded Tommy in bush formula. + +'Have you seen anything of your master--or the postman?' asked Lady +Bridget of Mrs Hensor. + +'I believe Mr McKeith is coming on ahead with Harry the Blower,' said +Mrs Hensor. 'Look sharp, Tommy, the cattle will be at the yard +directly, and I've got my dinner to cook for the whole lot of them, +seeing that some visitors aren't good enough for the house.' + +The woman pointed her last sentence by a malicious glance at the +mistress of Moongarr. + +'I suppose that is what your master keeps you here for--to cook for +the visitors at the Quarters, Mrs Hensor,' said Lady Bridget, with +incisive sweetness. + +Mrs Hensor flushed scarlet, but she checked an impudent reply. Pulling +Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed +humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay +between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it, +and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith +called her master. She always spoke of her late husband as having been +the Boss-mate on that--to him fatal--exploring expedition. Also, she +resented having all the bachelors 'dumped down'--as she phrased it-- +on her, while the 'Ladyship's swell staff' was spared the trouble. At +present the Bachelors' Quarters was fairly full. Mr Ninnis, +store-keeper and overseer in the owner's absence, abode there +permanently, and just now, there were Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker, +and a young man from Breeza Downs--a combined cattle and sheep station +about fifty miles distant--who had come to help in the mustering and +to collect any beasts strayed from the Breeza Downs' herd. + +The gully crossing lay below the boulders of rock at the head of the +lagoon. Presently, two horsemen appeared on the rise. One was McKeith; +the other Harry the Mailman--otherwise the Blower--a foxy, browny-red +little man on a raw-boned chestnut, carrying his mail-bags strapped in +front and at the side of his saddle. + +Lady Bridget supposed they had met at the turn-off track just above the +crossing. McKeith was carrying a leather mail-bag, from which he +appeared to have extracted a bundle of letters, with one hand. He held +his bridle and coiled stock-whip in the other. He was listening to the +mailman, who seemed to be talking animatedly. As they neared the house, +he gave the usual COO-EE, that set all the dogs barking, and put the +Chinaman-cook and black-boys on the alert. + +The riders passed by the end of the veranda where Lady Bridget stood. +McKeith looked up at her. He seemed preoccupied and angry, and merely +nodded to his wife, but did not take off his hat as he had done in +earlier days--and, somehow, to-day she noticed the omission. + +'All right, eh, Biddy?' he called out casually. 'Here's your mail-- +I've taken out mine,' and he pitched the leather bag, with the string +cut and the official red seal broken, on to the veranda at her feet. 'I +say--you might bring the whisky out to the back veranda. I daresay you +could do with a nip, eh, Harry?' + +'That I can, Mr McKeith. Riding along these plains is dry work. Good +day, Ladyship. I'm a bit behind time, but I lost an hour looking for a +hole to fill my water bag at--And then I could not drink out of it-- +for a demed old pleuro bullock had got there first and died in it. My +word, Boss, you'll be in a fix if it don't rain before long.' + +McKeith made an angry gesture. He spoke sharply to the horses. The two +men rode round the kitchen-wing and dismounted at the paling fence, +which made the fourth side of the little square. The back veranda of +the new house, with steps ascending to it, in the middle, the Old +Humpey, with its veranda, along one side, the kitchen and store +building along the other, and a rough slab and bark outhouse beyond it. +Native-cucumber vines and other creepers partially closed in the older +verandas. In the centre of the square was a small flower bed with a +flowering shrub in the middle. + +Lady Bridget brought the whisky decanter from the dining room to the +back veranda, and McKeith mounted the steps, the mailman remaining +beside them. A canvas water-bag, oozing moisture, hung from the +rafters, and there were tumblers on a table beneath it. McKeith took +the decanter from his wife's hand, too preoccupied, it seemed, even to +notice the little satirical smile on her lips. She was thinking how +funny it seemed that she should be playing Hebe to Harry the Blower. +She soon realised, however, that serious things had happened. As +McKeith mixed a liberal allowance of whisky with water from the +water-bag and handed it to the mailman, he asked curtly: + +'This isn't one of your blowing yarns, Harry? You're positive about the +fact?' + +'Saw the thing with my own eyes, Boss. As fine a team as ever I'd wish +to own, lying with their throats cut, and the trees black with crows +all round. There was the dray-load all turned over, and two cases +prized open. I bet that the rum-kegs and spirits that couldn't be +carried off, are buried in some handy dry water-hole close by. I saw +two or three empty brandy bottles with the heads of 'em smashed to show +that the rascals had wet the wool before starting off.' + +McKeith cursed in his throat. 'No sign of my men?' + +'Scooted clean out of the scenery--the whole lot. I reckon that's what +they shook hands on with the Union chaps, and that the natural +consequences of absorbing your grog will be another woolshed or two +burned down before long. Here's your health, Boss, and the Ladyship's.' +And the mailman gulped down his 'nobbler' and turned to remount the +lean chestnut, which was standing hitched to the palings, observing +cheerfully: + +'Well, so long, Sir. Go'day, Ma'am. This sort of argufying ain't going +to carry my mail-bags along the river.' + +'Go up to the Quarters and ask Mrs Hensor for a feed,' called McKeith. +'And look here, Harry, you can tell them at the Myall Creek out-station +as you go by, to have two good horses ready in the yard for me. I'm off +to Tunumburra to put the police on to those devils straight away.' + +'All right, Boss. You'll find it will take some tall calculatin' +though. Them Unionists are getting too strong for the police to tackle. +Windeatt up at Breeza Downs is in a mortal funk, and sending word +everywhere for a squad of Specials to protect his woolshed.' + +'It seems,' said Lady Biddy to her husband, when the mailman had gone, +'that there might be some use after all for Luke Tallant's Maxims.' + +'It seems that Jim Steadbolt has been taking his revenge,' he answered, +'and that I must be in the saddle in an hour's time. Mix me a drink, +Biddy, and order in some grub, while I go and have a bath.' + +He looked as if he needed one. The dust of the drafting camp was caked +upon his face and clothes. His was the appearance of a man who had been +riding hard after stock and sleeping, between his blankets only, under +the stars. + +Lady Bridget mixed him his drink and went to see Chen Sing in the +kitchen. When she came back, Colin was in the front veranda. He had +tumbled the rest of the letters and papers out of the mail-bag, and was +hastily and eagerly scanning the last LEICHARDT'S TOWN CHRONICLE. + +'Any news, Colin?' + +'I don't know, I was looking to see if the Government were going to act +against the strikers--I see they are sending troops.' + +'And is Luke Tallant coming at the head of them, in official uniform, +to read the Riot Act?--if there is a Riot Act in Australia. I'd like +to see Luke maintaining the supremacy of the British Crown on the +Leura.' + +He looked up at her in vague rebuke of her levity, and there was +suppressed tenderness in his eyes, notwithstanding his preoccupation +with his own troubles. + +'No, no. But there's something in the paper about Lady Tallant being +ill and having an operation. Poor chap! He wouldn't have been bothering +much about strikes in the Never-Never and the supremacy of the British +Crown, any more than I should in similar circumstances. . . . Well, +there! I must go and bogey*.' +[*Bogey--in Black's language, 'bathe out of doors'] + +Sudden compunction overswept Bridget. + +'Oh, Colin! You would care. . . really. . . even though they had cut +the throats of your four best dray-horses?' But he had disappeared into +a little veranda room, against which a corrugated iron tank backed +conveniently, and in a minute she heard the splash of water. + +She picked up the paper and looked at the English Intelligence before +examining her own letters. It was quite true. There was a paragraph +stating that Lady Tallant's health had not improved since her arrival +in England, and hinting at the likelihood of an operation being +advisable. Bridget reflected, however, that Sir Luke would probably +have received a cablegram by this time, one way or other--which would +have put him out of suspense, and, presumably, there had been no later +bad news. + +A letter from Molly Gaverick confirmed that item of the English +Intelligence. Rosamond Tallant's condition was certainly far from +satisfactory. Molly, however, seemed much more taken up with a recent +illness of Eliza Countess of Gaverick than with that of Lady Tallant. +Being a tactless and absolutely frank young person, she had no scruple +in proclaiming her hope that 'old Eliza' would make Lord Gaverick her +heir. This was the more likely, wrote young Lady Gaverick, because the +old lady had lately quarrelled with her own relatives, and never now +asked any of her stuffy provincial cousins to share the dulness of +Castle Gaverick and of the house in Brook Street. If she did not leave +her money to Chris Gaverick, there was not, conceivably, anyone else to +whom she would leave it. + +'By the way,' Molly continued, as if it had been an afterthought 'Old +Eliza is immensely interested in you and your cow-boy husband-- +ranch-owner is what, I suppose, I ought to call him. She asked Mrs +Gildea so many questions about you both that Joan read her your account +of your honeymoon journey through the Bush, and all the rest of it. How +you can endure such a life is incomprehensible to me--but Aunt Eliza +says it shows you've got some grit in you, and that evidently your +husband has cured you of a lot of ridiculous nonsense--I am quoting +her, so don't be offended, and you needn't show this to Nature's +gentleman, which is what Aunt Eliza calls him. I can't help feeling +though, that it's rather a pity you didn't wait a bit before taking the +Irrevocable Step. I don't know whether you ever heard about Mrs +Willougby Maule's death--eleven months after their marriage.' + +No, Bridget had not heard. Molly Gaverick was an uncertain +correspondent, and, no doubt, Joan Gildea and Rosamond Tallant, if they +had known of the event, had thought it wiser, in writing to her, to +suppress the news. For a moment, Lady Bridget sat meditating, and all +the blood seemed to rush from her brain to her heart--she could almost +hear her heart pounding. Then she went on again with Lady Gaverick's +letter. + +'It was a motor accident--nothing serious at the time, but the baby +was born prematurely, and she lingered a week or two, and then died. I +must do him the justice to say that he seemed to feel her death very +much. It looked as though, after all, the marriage had been quite a +success. Her money gave him a lift and they were going out a good deal +in the political set. She left her quarter of a million to him, +ABSOLUTELY. I heard that some remote Bagallys were going to contest the +will, but they found that they hadn't a leg to stand upon. I wish now +that we hadn't been so sniffy about W.M. As Chris observed with +unconscious cynicism, there's a good deal of difference between a +penniless adventurer and the possessor of quarter of a million. +Unattached men with money can be so useful. As soon as Rosamond Tallant +gets better--if she does--I'll make her ask him to meet us. I know he +used to be a great friend of Luke's. . . . ' + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + + +Lady Bridget had read so far when the door of the bathroom opened and +McKeith came out, clean again in fresh riding gear, and with a valise +ready packed and strapped in his hand. + +The noise of the cattle became much louder, though the mob was not yet +in sight. + +'I wish I hadn't got to go off before the branding,' he said. 'These +Breeza Downs people always want to claim every cleanskin*. You might +tell Ninnis and Moongarr Bill, Biddy, to keep a sharp look-out. And now +let me have my grub--I'm sorry, dear, to have you hurry up your +dinner.' He strode along to the dining-room, too absorbed in his own +annoyances to notice his wife's face or to ask any questions about her +letters. +[*cleanskin--unbranded calf] + +Lady Bridget gathered them up and followed him. The Malay boy waited at +table with the assistance of a servant girl from Leuraville, the only +female domestic--with the exception of Mrs Hensor--on the +head-station. + +McKeith swallowed his soup and ate the savoury stew prepared by the +Chinese cook with the appetite of a man who had been all day in the +saddle. Lady Bridget, who was an extraordinarily rapid eater, as well +as a fastidious one, had finished long before he was half-way through. +She sat silent at first, while he growled over the outrage upon the +horses. Then suddenly visualising the poor beasts lying stiff in +congealed blood, and the mailman's exaggerated description of trees +black with crows, she flamed out in wrathful horror, and was as anxious +as her husband that the perpetrators of the crime should be brought to +justice. He seemed pleased, and a little surprised at the ebullition. + +'I thought you weren't taking it quite in, Biddy. I am glad you think +like me, though I expect yours is the humanitarian view and mine's the +practical one. This touches my pocket, you see. Well, anyway, you won't +be so keen now on defending the Unionists.' + +'I think they've got as much right to fight for their principles as we +have for ours, but I don't think they've the right to torture horses,' +she rejoined. Her sympathy with oppressed shearers and dispossessed +natives struck always a jarring note between them. His long upper lip +closed tightly on the lower one, and he hunched his great shoulders. + +'Well, that sort of argufying won't muster the cattle,' he observed +drily, plagiarising Harry the Blower. She changed the subject. + +'Did you have a good muster?' + +'Oh, fair! Between three and four hundred head. The water is running +still up in the range. We should have done better if that skunk Wombo +hadn't bolted.' + +Lady Bridget leaned forward with interest. + +'Oh! Then he HAS gone after the black-gin. Brave Wombo!' + +'I wouldn't care a cuss whether he went after the black-gin or not; +she's a half-caste, by the way, and all the worse for that. And he +might stop with her, if it wasn't that he knows the country, and can +spot the gullies where the cattle hide. I've no use for sentiment-- +especially black sentiment--when it's a case of a forced sale to keep +me going. My heavens! there's only one thing, Biddy, that could break +me, and it's drought. I believe we're in for a long one, and unless I +can make sales quickly and get money to sink new bores on the run, +things will go hardly with me. Harry the Blower spoke naked truth for +once in his life.' + +'Oh! but there's sure to be rain soon. It looked so like it last +night,' she answered lightly. + +'LOOKED so like it! Yes, and ended in wind and dust. Sure sign of +drought! I must be off. . . . Here, give me the LEICHARDT LAND +CHRONICLE, and don't expect me till you see me. . . . And by the way, +Biddy, I hear there's a Unionist Organiser going the round of the +stations and pretending to parley with the masters. Don't you be +philanthropic enough to let him open his jaws--I've told Ninnis he's +to be hounded off before he has time to get off his saddle.' + +'Colin, you are unjust all round. You were very unjust to Wombo. Why +shouldn't the poor black-boy marry as well as you or anyone else?' + +McKeith gave a hard laugh. + +'I'm not preventing him from marrying. I only said I wasn't going to +have his gin on my station.' + +'You wouldn't listen when he told you that he didn't dare go back to +his tribe--because his gin's husband threatened to kill him.' + +'My sympathies are with the gin's husband. What business has Wombo to +steal another man's wife?' + +'The husband broke her head with a nulla-nulla, and she loves Wombo and +Wombo loves her. I consider that any woman, whether she's black or +white, who lives with her husband while she loves another man is +committing a sin,' said Lady Bridget hotly. + +McKeith stopped in the act of filling his tobacco pouch from a jar on +the mantelpiece and looked sharply at his wife. + +'You think that, Biddy. I remember long ago you said something of that +sort to me. It isn't my idea of morality or of justice. But I'm one +with you this far. If I'd ever reason to believe that you loved another +man and wanted to go off with him--you might go--I wouldn't put out a +hand to stop you. And then. . . . ' + +'And then?' She had grown very white. + +'Well, I think I'd make another notch in my gun first--and it would be +a previous one--for myself that time.' + +'No, you wouldn't, Colin. Because you know I shouldn't be worth it-- +and you are not the man to funk.' + +'I'm not. But where YOU come in--Good Lord! Mate! What would there be +left for me to live for?' + +Her heart thrilled to the old term of endearment, to which in their +early honeymoon days she had attached a sentimental value. Of late it +had fallen into disuse, and when she had heard him on occasions greet +the foreman, may be of some stray party of drivers or surveyors with +the bush formula: 'Good day, mate!' she had felt with deep aggrievement +that she no longer desired the appellative. She had not yet realised +that while the word 'mate' in Australese, like the verb AIMER in +French, may be used as a mere colloquial term, it implies in the deeper +sense a sanctity of relation upon which hangs the whole code of Bush +chivalry. + +'Oh, Colin!' Her eyes glistened with tears. She felt ashamed of her +neurotic fancies and her resentment of his lacks in the matter of +conventional courtesies--of his outward hardness, his want of sympathy +with her ideals. + +He came to her, taking her two hands while keeping his pipe in one of +his own so that the whiff of the coarse 'Store-cut' tobacco made her +wrinkle her nose and stemmed the tide of emotion. But he did not seem +to notice this. + +'No, you're not going to put that theory into practice, Mate. . . . I'm +not afraid. So we'll leave it at that. And now what's this about the +black-boy to do with my being unjust to that Organiser? There's no +beastly sentiment in his case. He's out to make money, that's all.' + +'You won't hear what he's got to put forward on his side any more than +you would listen to poor Wombo.' + +'No, I won't. I'm not taking any--either in gins or in organisers. Let +'em show their faces here, and they'll pretty soon become aware of the +fact.' + +Lady Bridget took away her hands and moved to the veranda. Outside, +McKeith's horse was waiting. He strapped on his valise, finished +ramming the tobacco into his pipe, then going behind his wife, bent +downward and hastily kissed her cheek. She did not turn her head. + +'Good-bye, Biddy. Don't you go worrying over the blacks or the +Unionists. And if you're dull and want a job there'll be a spice of +excitement in helping to tail that mob of scrubbers. I had to hire two +stray chaps, we're so short-handed.' He went down the steps to the +outer paling. Still she made no response, though now she turned and +watched him vault into the saddle. She also saw his face lighten at +sight of Mrs Hensor's boy with the great pawpaw apple. Tommy Hensor was +a favourite with the Boss. + +'Bless you, boy, it's as big as yourself. Take it back to the Quarters +and tell your mother to give you a slice, or perhaps her ladyship will +cut it for you.' + +He trotted off in the direction of the gully and of the roar of cattle. +Lady Bridget could see the heaving backs of the mob, and could hear the +shouts of the stockmen as they rounded the beasts to the crossing. +Tommy Hensor looked up pleadingly to her, holding out the pawpaw apple. +His yellow hair flamed to gold in the sunset, his blue eyes were as +bright almost as Colin's. Lady Bridget shook her head. + +'No, I don't want you this evening, Tommy. Take that back to your +mother.' + +She settled herself in the hammock and read Molly Gaverick's letter +over again. Then she read one from Joan Gildea. Joan was in the full +swing of London journalism again. She gave Bridget rather fuller news +of Eliza Countess of Gaverick, and dwelt at some length upon the old +lady's interest in Bridget's wild life and in Bridget's husband. + +'You may be sure,' wrote Joan, 'that I had nothing but good to say of +Colin, and oh! Biddy, dearest, how rejoiced I am to know that he is +making you so happy. I could read between the lines of all your amusing +descriptions and sketches of "the Dream-drive." I had my doubts and my +fears, as I never concealed from you, but I believe that you have found +the true, well-beloved at last.' + +There was a good deal, too, in the letter about Rosamond Tallant, who +was in cheerful spirits, it seemed, in spite of the impending +operation, and would not hear of Sir Luke's asking for leave to be with +her--and so on--and so on. Not a word about Willoughby Maule and his +bereavement--which, after all, could not be so very recent. Why had +Joan never mentioned it? Was she afraid of rousing regret and of +awakening painful memories. + +* Cleanskin--Unbranded calf. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + + +McKeith's absence was longer than he had expected. Lady Bridget heard +from Harry the Blower on his return round with the down-going mails +that the little bush township of Tunumburra had become the scene of a +convocation of Pastoralists called to concert measures against the +threatened strike. The mailman reported that the district was now in a +state of great commotion, and the strikers, gathering silently in armed +force, prepared to defend their rights against a number of free +labourers whom the sheep-owners were importing from the South. The men +who had killed McKeith's horses were, according to the mailman, +entrenched in the Range, awaiting developments. It was thought that +nothing would happen on a large scale until the arrival of the free +labourers and the troops, which it was said the Government was sending. +Harry the Blower talked darkly of marauding bands, ambushed foes and +perilous encounters on his road, all of which waxed in number and +blood-thirstiness after the manner of Falstaff's men in buckram. But +nobody ever took Harry the Blower's yarns very seriously. + +It would have been natural for Lady Bridget to work herself up into a +state of humanitarian excitement--the O'Hara's had always espoused +unpopular causes--but since the arrival of the English mail a curious +dreaminess had come upon her. She spent idle hours in the hammock on +the veranda, and would only rouse herself spasmodically to some trivial +burst of energy--perhaps a boiling water skirmish against white ants, +or a sudden fit of gardening--planting seeds, training the wild +cucumber vines upon the veranda posts, or watering the shrubs and +flowers within the rough paling fence that enclosed the house and +garden. A new-made garden, for ornament rather than for use, for the +staple produce was grown in the Chinaman's garden by the lagoon. Young +passion-fruit vines barely concealing the fences' nakedness, a mango, a +few small orange trees now in flower. A Brazilian cherry, two or three +flat-stone peach trees and loquets--all looking thirsty for rain-- +that was all. The Old Humpey, as it was called, had creepers +overgrowing its roof, a nesting-place for frogs, lizards, snakes--and +Lady Bridget, brave enough for doughty deeds, could never overcome her +terror of horned beasts and reptiles. McKeith's office, where he +entered branding tallies and posted the station log, was in the Old +Humpey, and two or three bachelor bedrooms opposite the wing with +kitchen and store. But Lady Bridget lived chiefly in the new house-- +less picturesque with its zinc roofing and deficiency of green +drapings, but, being built on sawn lengths of saplings, more or less +fortified against snakes. In front there was a great vacant space +between the ground and the floor of the house--pleasant enough in +summer, when a gentle draught could find its way through the cracks +between the boards, but cold in winter, though the northern winters +were not sharp enough or long enough for this to be a serious +discomfort. + +Nor, when Lady Bridget slept alone in the new house, did she mind much +the dogs and harmless animals that couched under the boards, they gave +her a sense of companionship. But there was a herd of goats--some of +them old and with big tough horns--which McKeith had started in his +bachelor days to provide milk when, as sometimes happened, the milch +cows failed; also to furnish savoury messes of kid's flesh--a pleasant +change from the eternal salt beef varied with wild duck. Occasionally +it happened, especially in mustering times, that nobody remembered to +pen the goats in their yard by the lagoon, and on these occasions they +would get under the house, and the noise of their horns knocking +against the floor of her bedroom would so effectively destroy Lady +Bridget's chances of sleep that she would rise in the night and drive +them into their fold. These were incidents which added variety to the +monotony of her life in the Bush. + +The head-station was very quiet one afternoon, most of the hands being +out with the tailing mob; and Lady Bridget, in a restless mood, went +for a roam through the bush. She walked past the Chinamen's garden and +Fo Wung, carrying up buckets of water to his young cabbages, stopped to +smile blandly and report on his produce. But she was in no mood for the +interchange of remarks in pidgin English. + +It was lonelier at the head of the lagoon. She could hear the trumpeter +geese tuning up in shrill cornet-like notes and the discordant shriek +of native-companions, as the long-legged grey birds stalked +consequentially at the water's edge. She disturbed a flock of parrots +in the white cedar tree, and a covey of duck rose with a whirring of +pinions and a mighty quacking, shaking the drips off their plumage so +that they glittered like diamonds in the sun. From the limbs of the +dead gum tree hung flying foxes, their bat-like wings extended limply, +and a gigantic crane stood in melancholy reflection upon one leg. + +Lady Bridget crossed the gully and roamed the borders of the gidia +scrub. Here, in an occasional open patch, were wattles breaking into +yellow bloom, and sandalwood trees already in blossom, scenting the air +faintly and making bright splashes upon the grey and black background +of the mournful gidia. She filled her arms with flowers and wandered +on, long past the stockyards, into the fastnesses of the gully, where +lay dark pools almost empty now and where grey, volcanic looking rocks +seemed to make a rampart between the scrub and the head-station. + +She was sitting there, her back against a boulder, the forest behind +her, so motionless that inquisitive bower-birds and leather-heads came +quite close to her feet, her small pointed chin poked forward, her eyes +shadowy and mysterious as the still waterpools below. She was visioning +in space that man who had once undoubtedly cast a strong spell upon +her. The spell had been broken by his own infidelity--if it WERE +infidelity of the real man. For she could never believe that he had not +truly loved her. Broken, secondly, by the counteracting influence of +her husband. But now it seemed that the news of him in Lady Gaverick's +letter had started the old vibrations afresh. It was as if an iron wall +between them had suddenly been knocked down and he had gained access to +her inner self. For months she had scarcely thought of him. Last night +she had seen him in a dream, and he had spoken to her. He had said, 'Of +course, I loved you. I never loved anyone better, but I felt that you +were not of an accommodating disposition--that I could not give you +anything you really wanted, and that we should not be happy together.' +That was all of the dream she had brought back. But she KNEW that there +had been a great deal more. The impression had been so vivid that she +could not rid herself of the fancy that he was within actual reach of +her. It was impossible to imagine him fourteen thousand miles distant. + +She did not try now to fight against this haunting, but yielded herself +to the power of the dream. When she heard a footstep in the forest +behind her, she started and turned and stared into the dim aisles of +the gidia, as though she expected to see his ghost. + +'Mithsis--mithsis--me Wombo--plenty my been look out for you. Plenty +mine frightened to go along a head-station.' + +Lady Bridget laughed hysterically. What a contrast between the romantic +hero of her dreams and the figure of the black-boy before her. Wombo +had been in the wars. Very little was left of the trim understudy of +Moongarr Bill. He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons; +his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt, +with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging +from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed. + +A gash from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted +with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER +about Wombo. + +'Mine bring it gin belonging to me,' he announced with dignity, making +an introductory gesture towards what appeared almost an excresence upon +the black trunk of a gidia tree except for an old red blanket slung +round one shoulder, which only half covered a woman's dusky form. + +'That Oola. Mine want 'im marry Oola. Black teller belonging to that +feller plenty COOLLA*. My been sneak camp. Me catch 'em Oola. Black +feller look out, throw 'im tomahawk, NULLA-NULLA*. My word! big feller +fight. Me YAN plenty quick. Oola YAN* plenty quick. Black feller come +after--throw 'im spear--close up MUMKULL*. BA'AL* can pull out spear, +Oola plenty cry.' +[*Coolla--in Blacks language, meaning Angry.] +[*Nulla-nulla--A black's weapon.] +[*Yan--To go away.] +[*Mumkull--To kill.] +[*Ba'al--No--Not.] + +Oola joined in with the black's plaintive wail. + +'YUCKE*! Poor fellow, Oola!' +[*Yucke!--Alas!] + + +Wombo pulled her forward. A comely half-caste who, as a child, had been +partially civilised by a stockman's wife on one of the Leura +out-stations, but who had, later, gone back to her tribe and married a +Myall, as the wild blacks are called. She was very young, soft and +round of outline, with hair straighter and more glossy than is usual +among her kind, and large black eyes now raining tears. She wiped them +away with a sooty hand, pink in the palm. Her left arm hung limp by her +side. + +Lady Bridget jumped to her feet, all concern. + +'Oh, you poor thing! You poor, poor thing,' she cried. For Wombo, +tweaking aside the concealing blanket, showed the smooth shaft of a +spear transfixed in the quivering flesh of Oola's arm, above the elbow. +He had broken off the long end of the spear to expedite their flight-- +so he explained in his queer lingo--but Oola had cried so much that he +had not been able to draw out the rest of the shaft. + +'BUJERI* YOU, white Mary!' pleaded Oola in the native formula. 'You gib +it medsin. . . . You gib it one old fellow skirt. . . . BA'AL, Oola got +'im clothes. . . BA'AL got 'im ration. . . plenty sick this +feller. . . .' And she beat her breast with the arm that was unhurt. +[*Bujeri--Very good.] + +'Of course, I'll give you medicine--and food, and I'll look out +something for you to put on. Only for heaven's sake, stop crying,' said +Lady Bridget. 'Come along. You must have that spear pulled out and your +arm seen to. Come with me to the Humpey. Quick--MURRA* make haste.' +[*Murra make haste--To run quickly.] + +But Wombo drew back, casting an affrighted glance down the gully +towards the crossing. + +'Ba'al me go long-a Humpey--I believe Boss PHO-PHO*, Oola,' he said. +[*Pho-pho--To shoot.] + +'Wombo, you are foolish. What for Boss shoot Oola?' + +'YOWI*--I believe when Boss say PHO-PHO, my word! that one PHO-PHO. +Plenty black feller frightened.' +[*Yowi--Yes.] + +Bridget pushed the unhappy gin along the track. + +'You needn't be frightened. Boss has gone away.' + +'Boss no sit down long-a Humpey?' Wombo looked relieved, and while +Bridget reassured him, the three moved on towards the crossing. In +answer to Lady Bridget's questioning the black-boy told his story as +they went. She already knew of Wombo's passion for the young gin, who +was within the prohibited degree of relationship, therefore TABU to +him, and who, moreover, was already legitimately wedded to a warrior of +the tribe. She knew also that McKeith had forbidden the black-boy, +under pain of severe penalty, to seek the coveted bride. Of course, it +was all nonsense about his shooting the poor creature, though no doubt, +in ordinary circumstances, he would have sent them off the station. But +hard as he was--and Lady Bridget had learned that her husband could be +very hard, he would never be inhuman, and, naturally, Oola's wound must +be dressed. + +Lady Bridget hurried them over the crossing and up the hill. The white +men were all out with the cattle. She needed assistance, and seeing Mrs +Hensor at the kitchen window of the Bachelors' Quarters, called to her. + +'Please come out at once, I want you.' + +The woman's face became sullen on the instant. + +'I can't come now. I'm in the middle of my baking.' + +'But don't you see? The thing is important. This poor gin has a spear +through her arm--it must be attended to immediately. Wombo is hurt +too. The wounds must be washed and dressed. . . . Look at the poor +creatures.' + +Mrs Hensor contemptuously surveyed Wombo and his erring partner. + +'Serve them right. He's stolen her from her husband and the Blacks have +given them what for. They don't need any fussing over, these niggers. +They are used to being knocked about.' + +Lady Bridget's eyes blazed, but her tone was icy. + +'I suppose you understand that I've given you my orders to attend to a +wounded fellow-creature.' + +'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should +not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of +Mr McKeith's gun?' + +'You have my orders,' repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white +heat. + +'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that +if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off,' retorted +Mrs Hensor. + +'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this +disobedience!' said Lady Bridget. + +Mrs Hensor laughed insolently. + +'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME,' and she +withdrew out of sight into the kitchen. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + + +Lady Bridget made as dignified a retreat as was possible in the +circumstances. She could have slain Mrs Hensor at that moment. She took +the blacks to the veranda of the old Humpey and went to look in the +office for antiseptics, lint and bandages. Chen Sing, the Chinese cook, +came at her call, and rendered assistance with the bland phlegm of his +race. The spear had been pulled out of Oola's arm by the time Lady +Bridget came back with the dressings. In her spasms of East End +philanthropy she had learned the first principles of surgical aid. When +Oola's arm and Wombo's gashed head had been washed and bandaged, the +trouble was to know what to do with the pair. + +Now that they were comfortable and out of pain, fed and given tobacco +to smoke and a tot of rum apiece, they had time to remember +superstitious fears kept at bay while they had been running for their +life. Both were afraid to show themselves in the open. On one hand, +there was the terror of McKeith; on the other, of Oola's husband. Lady +Bridget gathered that Oola's husband was a medicine man, and that he +had 'pointed a bone at his faithless wife and her lover.' To 'point a +bone' at an enemy--the bone having first been smeared with human +blood, and subjected to magical incantations--is the worst spell that +one aboriginal can cast upon another. It means death or the direst +misfortune. All that the afflicted one can do is to fly--to hide +himself beyond the sorcerer's ken and the reach of pursuit. For this +reason, Wombo and Oola had fled back to Moongarr. No outside black +dared venture within range of McKeith's gun. Now Wombo and Oola +besought Bridget to hide them from the vengeful furies. There was that +slab and bark hut at the end of the kitchen and store wing. Nobody was +likely at present to want to go into it. The door had a padlock, and it +was used as a store-house for the hides of beasts that had been killed +for the sake of the skins when in the last stage of pleuro. The key was +always kept hung up in McKeith's office. + +Here Lady Bridget installed Wombo and Oola. She brought them cooked +meat, bread and a ration of tea and sugar, provided them with a pair of +blankets, and found for Wombo some old moleskins, a shirt, and a pair +of boots, while Oola almost forgot the medicine man's evil spell in her +puzzled delight over a lacey undergarment and a discarded kimono +dressing-grown, which had been part of Lady Bridget's trousseau. That +excitement over, the lonely mistress of Moongarr went back to her own +habitation. She ate her solitary dinner and paced the veranda till +darkness fell and the haunted loneliness became an almost unbearable +oppression. Vast plains, distant ranges, gidia scrub and the far +horizon melted into an illimitable shadow. The world seemed boundless +as the starry sky--and yet she was in prison! She had longed for the +freedom of the wild, and her life was more circumscribed than ever. A +phrase in an Australian poem, that had struck her when she had read it +not long ago came back upon her with poignant meaning. 'Eucalyptic +cloisterdom'--that was the phrase, and it was this to which she had +condemned herself. The gum trees enclosed for her one immense cell and +she had become utterly weary of her mental and her spiritual +incarceration. Oh! for the sting of love's strong emotion to break the +monotony. The most sordid sights and sounds of London streets, the most +inane babble of a fashionable crowd would be more stimulating to her +brain, sweeter in her ears than the arid expanse, the weird bush noises +--howl of dingoes, wail of curlews, lowing of cattle--that a year ago +had seemed so eerily fascinating. + +Even her marriage! The romance of it had faded, as it were, into the +dull drab of withered gum leaves. The charm of primal conditions had +been overpowered by their discomfort. Nature had never intended her for +the wife of a backwoodsman. At times she felt an almost unendurable +craving for the ordinary luxuries of civilisation. The bathing +appliances here--or rather, the lack of them--were often positive +torture to her. She hated the food--continual coarse beef varied by +stringy goats' flesh or game from the lagoon. She had come to loathe +wild duck--when the men had time to shoot it. She could never bring +herself to destroy harmless creatures, and was a rank coward over +firearms. Talk of the simple life! Why, it was only since they had got +Fo Wung that there had been any vegetables. And the climate--though +the short winter had been pleasant enough as a whole--was abominable. +The long summer heat, the flies and the mosquitoes! What had she not +suffered the first summer after her marriage! And now the hot weather +was coming again. That was not the root of the trouble, however-- +Bridget was honest enough to confess it. The root lay in herself--in +her own instability of purpose, her mercurial temperament. She had been +born with that temperament. All the O'Haras loved change--hungered +after strong sensation. She was spoiling now for emotional excitement. + +Well, the little human drama of the Blacks' camp had taken her out of +herself for an hour or two. It had been so funny to see Oola stroking +the lace frills of Lady Bridget's old petticoat and looking up at Wombo +with frank coquetry as she mimicked the 'White Mary's' gestures and +gait. Lady Bridget meant to stand by the savage lovers. She would not +allow Colin to treat them badly when he came back. + +Ninnis, the overseer, broke upon her restless meditations. He was a +rough specimen, originally raised in Texas, who, after knocking about +in his youth as a cow-boy in the two Americas, had come to Australia +about fifteen years previously, had 'free-selected' disastrously, and, +during the last five years, had been in McKeith's employ. He was +devoted to his master, but he looked upon McKeith's marriage as a +pernicious investment. His republican upbringing could not stomach the +'Ladyship,' and he persisted in calling Lady Bridget Mrs McKeith. He +considered her flighty and extravagant in her ideas, and was always +divided between unwilling fascination and grumpy disapproval. To-night +he was in the latter mood and this incensed Lady Bridget. + +'I've been writing up the log,' he began in a surly, aggressive tone, +'and I thought I'd better make a note of Wombo and that gin having come +to the head-station, in case of there being trouble with the Blacks.' + +'Why should there be trouble with the Blacks?' she asked, in manner +equally unconciliatory. + +'Well, ye know--though, I daresay, it wouldn't seem of much +consequence to you--Wombo's gone agen the laws of the tribe, and +that's a serious matter. If they know he's skulking here under +protection, they'll be spearing the cattle, and the Boss won't like +that.' + +'I'll explain to Mr McKeith,' said Lady Bridget haughtily. + +'Well, I reckon it's best not to keep them on the head-station against +the Boss's orders,' persisted Ninnis. + +Lady Bridget set her little white teeth. 'Naturally, Mr McKeith's +orders don't apply to ME--as I had to tell Mrs Hensor.' + +'Mrs Hensor knows the Boss better than most people,' said Ninnis, at +which Lady Bridget flashed out. + +'We need not discuss that question, Mr Ninnis.' + +Ninnis' jaw stiffened underneath his shaggy goatee. + +'Well, I guess you know your own business, Mrs McKeith, and it's up to +you to square things with the Boss.' + +Lady Bridget reared her small form and bent her head with great +stateliness. + +'But I'll just say, though,' went on Ninnis, 'that I hear Harris of the +police is coming along. And what Harris doesn't think he knows about +the heel of the law being kept on Blacks--and every other darned unit +in the creation scheme'--muttered Ninnis in parenthesis--'ain't +entered in the Almighty's Log-book.' + +Ninnis expectorated over the veranda railings--a habit of his that +jarred on Lady Bridget. + +'Well, what about Harris?' + +'He's had his eye on Wombo and would be glad of an opportunity to best +him--on account of a little affair about a colt Wombo rode for him at +the last Tunumburra races--and lost the stakes--out of spite, Harris +declares.' + +'Oh, I know about that--and I told Mr Harris what I thought about his +treatment of the Blacks. But he can't punish Wombo if I choose to have +him here. I don't think Mr McKeith would bring Harris to Moongarr--he +knows I can't bear him.' + +'Well, I reckon that's up to you to square with the Boss,' repeated +Ninnis surlily. 'I'm told Harris is on the look-out for desperate +characters going along the Leura--these unionist organisers--dropping +in at stations on pretence of getting rations and spying out the land, +and calling on the men to join them. There was a boundary rider from +Breeza Downs to-day--caught us up with the tailing mob and fetched +back their new chum and Zack Duppo, leaving us awful short-handed--so +that if Joe Casey doesn't fetch in the milkers so early to-morrow +you'll know it's because I've had to send him out herding. They're +doing their shearing early at Breeza Downs with shearers Windeatt has +imported from the south, and he wants police protection for them and +himself.' + +Lady Bridget laughed. + +'Harris and his two constables will have enough to do if they are to +protect the district.' + +'That's just what Windeatt has been clamouring about. Now the +Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it +isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are +enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You +may be sure if there's fighting to be done--black or white--he'll be +in it.' + +Lady Bridget angered Ninnis by her apparent indifference, and he bade +her a cross good-night. Had it been anybody else she would have +encouraged him to stay and talk. As it was, she resumed her lonely +pacing, and did not go to her room till the whole station was abed. + +When at last she went to sleep she dreamed again vividly of Willoughby +Maule. + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + + + +McKeith returned, without warning, the following afternoon. He was not +alone, but had spurred on in advance of the other two men he had +brought with him. Lady Bridget, reading in her hammock at the upper end +of the veranda, heard the sound of a horse approaching, and saw her +husband appear above the hill from the Gully Crossing. She got to her +feet, expecting that he would ride up to the veranda, calling 'Biddy-- +Biddy,' as he usually did after an absence. But instead, he pulled up +suddenly, turned his horse in the direction of the Bachelors' Quarters, +and passed from her line of vision. + +She supposed, naturally, that someone at the Quarters had attracted his +attention, then remembering that Ninnis and the white men were out with +the cattle, wondered, as the minutes went by, who and what detained +him. + +Tommy Hensor, running up from the garden with his evening dole of +vegetables, enlightened her. + +'Boss come back, Ladyship. I can see him. He is up, talking to Mother.' + +Lady Bridget was too proud a woman to feel petty jealousy, nor would it +have occurred to her to be jealous of Mrs Hensor. Her sentiment of +dislike towards that person was of quite another order. But she was +just in the mood to resent neglect on the part of McKeith. + +She went to the veranda railing, whence she had a view of the +Bachelors' Quarters, and was able to see for herself that Tommy's +report had been correct. She called to the child: + +'Go at once, Tommy, and tell the master that I am waiting.' + +Tommy flew off immediately on his small, sturdy legs, and Lady Bridget +watched the scene at the Bachelors' Quarters. McKeith had dismounted, +and with one foot on the edge of the veranda, was facing Mrs Hensor, +who looked fresh and comely in a clean blouse and bright-coloured +skirt. The two seemed to have a good deal to say to each other, though +Lady Bridget heard only the voices, not the words. Her Irish temper +rose at the thought that Mrs Hensor might be giving him her version of +the Wombo episode. She felt glad that the black-boy and his gin were +comfortably sleeping off the effect of their wounds, and of the +plentiful meals supplied them in the hide-house, and thus were not in +evidence. When McKeith spoke, it was in a dictatorial, angry tone-- +that of the incensed master. Clearly, however, Mrs Hensor was not the +object of his wrath. Lady Bridget saw little Tommy run excitedly up to +deliver her message, and almost cried out to him to keep away from the +horses' heels, to which he went perilously near. As things happened, +the beast lashed out at him, and Tommy had a very narrow escape of +being badly kicked. Lady Bridget heard Mrs Hensor shriek and saw her +husband drag the child to the veranda and examine him anxiously, Mrs +Hensor bending with him. Then McKeith lifted up Tommy and kissed and +patted him almost as if he had been the boy's father. It always gave +Bridget a queer little spasm of regret to see Colin's obvious affection +for the little fellow. He was fond of children, specially so of this +one. Lady Bridget knew, though he had never said so to her, that he was +disappointed at there being no apparent prospect of her having a child. + +And she--with her avidity for any new sort of sensation, although she +scoffed at the joy of maternity--felt secretly inclined sometimes to +gird at fate for having so far denied her this experience. She herself +liked Tommy in her contradictory, whimsical fashion; but now, the fuss +over, the boy--who clearly was not in the least hurt--made her very +cross, and she became positively furious at seeing McKeith delay yet +further to unstrap his valise and get out a toy he must have bought for +Tommy in Tunumburra. Then, his grievance aparently coming back on him, +he put the child abruptly aside, and leaving valise and horse at the +Bachelors' Quarters, walked with determined steps and frowning visage +down the track to the veranda. There, his wife was standing, very pale, +very erect, her eyes glittering ominously. + +McKeith was through the gate and up the flight of steps in three or +four strides. + +He seemed to sense the antagonism in her, and demanded at once, without +waiting to give her any greeting. + +'Biddy, what's this I'm hearing about Wombo and that gin?' + +'I think you might have asked me before going to Mrs Hensor for +information,' she answered with equal curtness. + +He stared at her for a moment or two as if surprised; his face +reddened, and his eyes, too, glittered. + +'I don't know what you mean. I had to speak to Mrs Hensor about beds +being wanted up there, and of course I asked her how things had been +going on.' + +'And did she tell you that she had been inhuman and insolent?' + +'Inhuman. . . Insolent!' + +'She spoke to me impudently. She defied my orders.' + +'I am given to understand that she was carrying out mine,' said McKeith +slowly. 'And if that's so, Mrs Hensor was in the right.' + +'You put that woman before ME--before your wife?' + +'There's not another woman in the universe I'd put before my wife. But +that's no reason for my giving in to her when she does what I know to +be folly.' + +'I see. You call an act of common humanity folly--doing what one could +to relieve the agony of a fellow creature. I am glad that I differ from +you--and from your servant. Mrs Hensor refused to help that poor gin +who had a spear through her arm and was shrieking with pain.' + +'Oh, you don't know black-gins as well as I do. They'll pretend they're +dying in agony just to wheedle a drop of rum or a fig of tobacco out of +a white man; and they'll take it quite as a matter of course when one +of their men bashes their head in with a NULLA-NULLA.' + +'I suppose you'll allow that a spear wound may hurt a little,' said +Bridget. 'I believe that you yourself suffered from the effect of one +at least, you once told me so.' + +And memory--so active these late days, brought suddenly back the +vision of him as he had approached her that evening at Government +House. What a great Viking he had looked!--in modern dress, of course, +but bearing mark of battle in a slight drag of the left leg, only +noticeable, she knew now, when he was shy and proud, and under, to him, +difficult social conditions. But what a MAN she had felt him to be +then, among the other men! + +It seemed an outrage on her idealised image of him to hear him speaking +in that dry, caustic manner. + +'Ah, that's different. The Gulf natives have a nasty way of barbing and +poisoning their spears. An ordinary spear-thrust is nothing to either +black or white. Wombo could have pulled the thing out, and in a few +hours the gin would have been all right again.' + +'You think so--well in a few hours she was in a high fever. I took her +temperature this morning when I re-bandaged the wound.' + +McKeith laughed shortly. + +'It wouldn't be surprising, if you had given her grog and tobacco and +as much meat as she wanted. That what you did, eh?' + +'Yes, it was. They were both starving.' + +'Well, I wouldn't bank on your stock of medical knowledge, Biddy--not +if I was down with fever or otherwise incapacitated. But that's not the +point--which is that those blacks have been kept here against my +express orders.' + +'They've been kept here by MY orders,' flamed Lady Bridget. + +McKeith's jaw squared, and there showed in his eyes that ugly devil +which many a black and white man had seen, but never his wife before. + +'Look here, milady--there can be only one boss on this station. And +now you'll excuse me if I act according to my own discretion.' + +Without another word he walked up the veranda and down the few steps +connecting it with the Old Humpey. She heard him go into his office, +and presently the door of it slammed behind him. She knew that he was +going to the culprits in the hide-house, and wondered what punishment +he would mete unto them. Had he gone to the office for his gun? At this +moment, anything seemed possible to Lady Bridget's heated temper and +excited imagination. + +She stood waiting, absorbed in her fears, so abstracted from her +ordinary outside surroundings that she was unaware of the approach of +two horsemen from the Gully Crossing. They did not stop at the garden +gate, but made for the usual station entrance at the back. One of them, +lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense +little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and +conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened +or was about to happen. And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear +of the home, justified the impression. + +Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, which +again connected on either side the new house with the Old Humpey and +kitchen and store-wing--the hide-house standing slightly apart at the +end of the store building. The shrieks in male and female keys came +from the hide-house and mingled with McKeith's strident tones +fulminating in Blacks' lingo. The noise brought Mrs Hensor and Tommy +down from the Bachelors' Quarters, and the Chinese cook, the Malay boy +and Maggie the housemaid from the service department. The three +verandas and garden plot made a kind of amphitheatre; and now, into the +arena, came the actors in the little tragedy. + +From the hide-house, McKeith dragged the prisoners, and through the +gateway in the palings which made the fourth side of the enclosure. +With one hand he clutched Wombo, with the other Oola, who in her +lace-trimmed petticoat and flowered kimono was truly a tragi-comic +spectacle. + +McKeith carried his coiled stockwhip in the hand which held Wombo. It +was plain, judging from the state of Wombo's new shirt, that he had +given the black boy a thrashing; Oola was unscathed. Of course, Colin +could not lift his hand to a woman, though he was a brute and the woman +only a black-gin. Lady Bridget felt faintly glad at this. + +She watched the scene, half fascinated, half disgusted, all her +attention concentrated on these three figures. She had but a dim +consciousness of two men riding round the store-wing and dismounting. +One of the two remained in the background screened by the trails of +native cucumber overhanging the veranda end. The other--a wiry, +powerful figure in uniform, with a rubicund face, black bristling +moustache and beard and prominent black eyes, reminding one of the eyes +of a bull--walked forward and spoke with an air of official assurance. + +'Can I be of any use to you, Mr McKeith, in dealing with that nigger? A +bad character, as I've reason to know.' + +'No, thank you, Harris. I can do my own dirty jobs,' said McKeith +shortly. + +He had released the pair and now stood grimly surveying them. Oola was +crying and squealing; Wombo stood upright--a scowl of hate on his +face. His whole nature seemed changed. A flogging will rouse the +semi-civilised black's evil passions like nothing else. There was +something of savage dignity in the defiant way in which he faced his +former master. + +'What for you been take-it stockwhip long-a me? BA'AL me bad black boy +long-a you, Boss. What for me no have 'em gin belonging to me? Massa +catch 'im bujeri White Mary like it gin belonging to him. What for no +all same black fellow?' + +McKeith cut short the argument--sound logic it seemed to Lady Biddy-- +by an imperious, silencing gesture, and a sudden unfurling of his +stockwhip, which made a hissing sound as it writhed along the ground +like a snake. The black boy sprang aside. McKeith pointed to the gidia +scrub and issued a terse command in the native language. + +'YAN ' (go). 'BA'AL YOU WOOLLA ' (don't talk any more). 'YAN.' + +Wombo turned appealingly to Lady Bridget. + +'Lathychap!' + +'YAN,' stormed McKeith again, and, as Lady Bridget made a movement of +sympathetic response towards the black fellow, he added sternly: +'You'll oblige me by not interfering in this business. The Blacks know +that what I say, I mean, and I'll have no more words with them.' + +Bridget stood quite still, her attitude and expression all indignant +protest, but she said nothing. Her face was turned full towards the man +hidden by the creepers, who was watching her with intense interest, but +she was unconscious of his gaze. + +Wombo retreated slowly. Oola, cowed, whimpering, behind him. Then, she +made an appeal to Lady Bridget, stretching out her unbandaged arm +imploringly. + +'White Mary--you PIDNEY (understand). That fellow medsin man--husband +belonging to me. Him come close-up long-a srub--throw 'im spear, +NULLA-NULLA--plenty look out Wombo. BA'AL, Wombo got 'im spear--ba'al +got 'im NULLA-NULLA. Suppose black fellow catch 'im Wombo--my word! +that fellow MUMKULL (kill). Wombo--mumkull Oola--altogether BONG +(dead). YUCKE! YUCKE! Lathychap suppose Massa let Wombo sit down long-a +head-station--two day, three day--black fellow get tired--up stick-- +no more look out. No catch 'im Wombo. Lathychap!' she pleaded, 'BUJERI +you PIALLA (intercede with) Boss.' + +Lady Bridget came down the steps from the veranda and went up to +McKeith. + +'Colin, what the gin says is true. Her tribe will kill them, and they +have no weapons and no means of protection. Will you, as a favour to +me, let them stay for a few days? At least, till her arm is healed and +the danger past?' + +McKeith hesitated perceptibly, then the consciousness of weakening +resolve made him harden himself the more, made his speech rougher than +it might have been. + +'No, I can't, Biddy. I never break my word. They've GOT to go.' + +He turned fiercely on Wombo, who stood sullen and defiant again, and +from him to Oola, who crouched in the dust, sobbing pitifully and +rubbing her damaged arm. + +'Plenty me sick, Boss--close up TUMBLEDOWN ' (die), she wailed. + +'Stop that! YAN--do you hear? YAN--YAN--BURRI--BURRI--' (go +quickly). + +The whip lashed out again. It stung Wombo's bare leg, and flicked +Oola's petticoat. The two ran screaming lustily towards the rocks and +scrubby country at the head of the gully. + +Lady Bridget uttered a shuddering exclamation and made an impetuous +movement with arms partly outstretched as if to follow the pair. Then +her arms dropped and she stood stock still. + +There was a dead silence. In all the relations of husband and wife, +never had there been a moment more crucial as affecting their ultimate +future. They looked at each other unflinchingly, neither speaking. +McKeith's lips were resolute, locked, his pugnacious jaw set like iron. +Here was the stubborn determination of a fighting man, never to admit +himself in the wrong. And his eyes seemed to have a steel curtain over +them--which, however, had Bridget's spiritual intuition been awake to +perceive it, softened for an instant, letting through a gleam of +passionate appeal. + +But Bridget's soul was steel-cased also. He saw only contempt, +repulsion in her gaze. The larger issues narrowed to a conflict of two +egoisms. It seemed to both as though, in the space of that last quarter +of an hour, they had become mortal foes. + +The police inspector broke in upon the tense silence. Here was another +egoism to be reckoned with--malevolently officious. + +'They'll be hiding in the gully, Mr McKeith. No fear of them taking to +the outside bush with the tribe hanging round. I'll just round 'em up +and drive 'em into the scrub and strike the fear of the Law into them. +I'll do it now before I turn out my horse into the paddock.' + +'No,' flamed Lady Bridget. 'You'll leave those unfortunate creatures +alone--or--if you molest them--whether it's by my husband's +permission or not--well--you'll find I'm a bad hater, Mr Harris.' + +The police inspector flushed a deep red. + +'Maybe I'm not such a bad hater either, my lady--but with my respects. +. . . ' + +'That will do, Harris,' interposed McKeith. 'I told you that I'd do my +own dirty jobs. There's no occasion for you to go against her +ladyship's wishes.' + +Harris touched his helmet to Lady Bridget and, leering with veiled +enmity, replied: + +'I'm never one to put myself up against the ladies, except where my +duty comes first--and that's not the case--yet. But as I was saying, +with my respects, my lady, Mr McKeith knows very well how to treat the +blacks. He knows that you've got to keep your word to them, whether +that means a plug of tobacco or a plug of cold iron.' + +Lady Bridget drew back and looked at Harris for a second or two with an +expression of the most withering haughtiness. Then, without a word she +turned her back on him. The inspector infuriated, muttered in his +throat. McKeith interposed sharply: + +'Bridget, Harris is going to stay the night.' + +'Ah! at the Bachelors' Quarters,' Lady Bridget smiled with distant +calm. 'Of course, Mrs Hensor knows. I'm sorry I can't ask Mr Harris to +dinner at the house this evening.' + +Now, by the social canons of the Bush, the police inspector, being +technically speaking of higher grade than the casual traveller, should +have been accepted as a 'parlour visitor.' He would thus have occupied +one of the bachelor spare rooms in the Old Humpey and would have joined +the Boss and his wife at dinner. Harris had never before stayed the +night at Moongarr, and he had confidently expected to be received with +honour. Thus he regarded Lady Bridget's speech as an insult. + +'Oh, I'm not one to force my company where it is not wanted,' he +blustered. 'I'm quite content with a shake-down at the Quarters, though +if I'd known I might have gone by the short cut with the Specials-- +it's rather late, however, to push on to Breeza Downs, where--though +perhaps I say it as shouldn't--I'm sure of a welcome from Mr and Mrs +Windeatt, being, so to speak--for law and order--the representative +of His Majesty in the Leura district.' + +Lady Bridget smiled with detached amusement, as she turned again and +patted the head of an elderly kangaroo dog, which came up to her with +its tongue out and a look of wistful enquiry in its bleared eyes, +scenting plainly that something was amiss. 'Good dog, Veno,' she +murmured. + +Harris bridled. + +'I'll bid you good evening then, my lady,' he said stiffly. 'No doubt, +Mr McKeith, you'll spare me half an hour in the office by and by. Just +to concert our measures for the proper protection of the Pastoralists +and the safeguarding of the woolsheds this shearing season.' + +'Yes, yes, or course,' McKeith answered mechanically. The spunk had +gone out of him, as Harris would have phrased it; and the Inspector, +looking at Lady Bridget, guessed the reason. + +'And what now about the gentleman from Leichardt's Town, Mr McKeith? +Will I be taking him up with me to the Bachelor's Quarters? Or may be,' +Harris added unpleasantly, 'her ladyship won't object to having him in +the house.' + +McKeith muttered angrily, 'Damn! I'd forgotten.' + +It was not like him to lose himself during working hours in even a +momentary fit of abstraction--except, indeed, when he was riding +without immediate objective through the Bush. His eyes were still upon +his wife's slight figure as she moved slowly towards the veranda, with +the air of one who has no more concern with the business in hand. Her +graceful aloofness, which he knew to be merely a social trick, stung +him inexpressibly, the faint bow she had given Harris when he bade her +good evening had seemed to include himself. It galled him that he did +not seem fitted by nature or breeding to cope with this kind of +situation. The half consciousness of inferiority put him still more at +disadvantage with himself. + +'Biddy, wait please,' he said dictatorially. + +She paused at the steps, her hand on the railings, her eyes under their +lowered lids ignoring him. + +He went closer and spoke rapidly in a harsh undertone. + +'I didn't tell you--though I rode ahead on purpose--I met a man at +Tunumburra who said he knew you. He's out from England--been staying +at Government House, and brought a letter from Sir Luke Tallant. I hope +that at any rate you'll be civil to him.' + +She flashed a quick glance at him, and her eyelids dropped again. + +'But naturally. I'm not in the habit of being uncivil to--my friends.' + +And just then--Mrs Hensor, who loved cheap fiction, said afterwards it +was all like a scene out of a book--there appeared in the space +between the two wings, a man who had strolled unobserved from one side, +out of the background of creepers, and who advanced with quickened step +to where the husband and wife stood. + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + + + +A striking individual. Tall--though not as tall or as massively built +as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline +grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation, +and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild +spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing +with ease and picturesqueness, a backwoods get-up. Clothes, extremely +well cut; riding breeches and boots; soft shirt and falling collar with +a silk tie of dull flame colour knotted at the sinewy throat, loose +coat, Panama hat. So much for the figure. The face ugly, but +distinguished, sallow-brown in colouring. Nose long, fine, with a +slight twist below the bridge; cheeks and chin clean-shaven, an +enormous dark moustache concealing the mouth. Hair black, slightly +grizzled, and when he lifted his hat forming a thick lightly frosted +crest above his forehead. Eyes black--peculiar eyes, sombre, restless, +but with a gaze, steady and piercing when concentrated on a particular +object, as, just now, it was concentrated on Lady Bridget. + +The gaze seemed compelling. Lady Bridget suddenly lifting eyes that +were instantly wide open, became aware of the man's presence. The +effect of it upon her was so marked that McKeith, watching her face, +felt a shock of surprise. The change in her was noticed by the Police +Inspector, with malevolent curiosity. So also by Mrs Hensor, a little +further away. + +The new-comer saluted her with a low bow, his hat in one hand, the +other extended. + +'You haven't forgotten me, I hope, Lady Bridget, though I should think +that I am the very last person in the world you would have expected to +see in these parts.' + +Lady Bridget had turned very white. She stared at him as if he had been +a ghost, and at first seemed unable to speak. But her confusion lasted +only a few seconds. Almost before he had finished his sentence she had +pulled herself together. Her hand was in his, and she spoke in her old +fluty voice and little grand manner, with the old slow, faintly +whimsical smile on her lips and in her eyes. It came over McKeith that +he had not of late been familiar with this aspect of her, and that she +was exhibiting to this man the same strange charm of her girlhood which +had been to him, in the full fervour of his devotion, so wonderful and +worshipful, but of which--he knew it now--the Bush had to a great +extent robbed her. + +She laughed as she withdrew her hand from that of the newcomer. And +standing on the steps, her head almost on a level with his, met his +eyes with challenging directness. + +'Really, Mr Maule, you shouldn't startle a nervous creature in that +uncanny way--appearing like the unmentionable Personage or the angel +if you prefer it, only with this difference, that we weren't speaking +of you. I hadn't the most distant notion that you were on this side of +the equator. If my husband had mentioned your name I should not have +been so taken by surprise.' + +'Were you really so surprised? I thought I MUST have sent my shadow on +before me--because I've been thinking so tremendously of you these +last few days, and of the prospect of seeing you again. I daresay you +know,' he added, turning politely to McKeith--'that I had the pleasure +of meeting your wife when she was Lady Bridget O'Hara, one winter at +Rome, with her cousins, Lord and Lady Gaverick. And later, we saw +something of each other in London.' + +'No, my husband doesn't know,' Bridget gave a reckless laugh, and her +eyes challenged those of McKeith before he could answer. 'You see, +Colin and I, when we married, came from opposite poles geographically, +morally and mentally. He did not understand or care about my old +environment any more than I understood--or cared about his. So we +agreed to bury our respective pasts in oblivion. Don't you think it was +a good plan?' + +'Quite admirable. I admire your mutual courage in adopting it.' + +'You think so! It has its drawbacks, though,' said McKeith dryly. 'I +must apologise for having left you to announce yourself. The fact is, +those Blacks put other things out of my head. They had to be taught +they couldn't disobey orders without being punished for it.' + +'Poor wretches! Yes! I know the popular idea of asserting British +supremacy over coloured races, by the force of the whip. I have not +always seen it answer; but then my experience has been with natives +rather higher in the scale of evolution than the Australian +aboriginal.' + +'You believe in the power of kindness--as I do,' exclaimed Lady +Bridget. 'My husband and I take different views on that subject. But we +need not discuss them now. Come and have some tea, and tell me about +the Tallants.' + +Maule followed her to the door of the living room where she turned to +give some orders to Maggie, the maid-servant, and to the Chinese cook. +McKeith went off with Harris to see after the horses and have a talk +with Ninnis at the stockyards. Thus, Maule was left alone for a few +minutes to study and form his own opinion as to Lady Bridget's setting. +She was a woman who, whatever her surroundings, must always impress +them with her personality. This bush parlour was original in its +simplicity. Walls lined with unvarnished wood which was mellowing +already to a soft golden brown. Boards bare, but for a few rugs and +skins. A fine piece of tappa from the Solomons, of barbaric design in +black and orange, made the centre of an arrangement of South Sea Island +and aboriginal weapons. Divans heaped with cushions flanked the great +fireplace. Two writing-tables occupied spaces between French windows-- +one the desk of a business-like roll-top escritoire; the other, the +flap of a Chippendale bureau, with a Chippendale arm-chair before it. +There were a few other pieces unmistakable English. In fact, Eliza +Countess of Gaverick, in addition to a handsome present of plate, had +sent her niece the furnishings of her old room at Castle Gaverick. A +few pictures and etchings hung on the other walls--among them several +wild seascapes--reminding one a little of Richard Doyle's exquisite +water colours--in which green billows and foamy wave-crests took the +shape of sea-fairies. Also some weird tree studies--mostly gum and +gidia, where gnarled limbs and bulbous protuberances turned into the +faces of gnomes and the forms of strange monsters. Maule had no doubt +that these were Lady Bridget's own. There was an upright grand piano-- +the alleged cause of Steadbolt's conversion to Unionism, and all about +the place a litter of newspapers, books and work. The room was filled +with flowers--sheaves of wattle and of the pale sandal-wood blossoms, +as well as many sub-tropical blooms with which he was not familiar. +Blending with, yet dominating the mixture of perfumes, a peculiar scent +resembling incense, appealed to him; and this he did not a first trace +to a log of sandal-wood smouldering on the open hearth more for effect +than warmth, for the early spring evenings had scarcely a touch of +chill. The French windows stood open to the veranda, a room in itself +with its many squatters' chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, stretched +the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the lagoon +taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It seemed +an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady Bridget he +had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him had been +that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of Great +Britain, decadent perhaps, but 'in the swim.' + +She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light, +rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined +him. + +'I've been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the +Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits. +You won't find a spring mattress--or water laid on--or any other +convenience of civilisation.' + +'May I remind you that I've roughed it pretty well in the Andes.' + +'Yes, but you have had so many luxuries since then that you will have +forgotten what roughing it feels like--just as I've forgotten now that +I was ever anything but a barbarian--I see you shave still.' + +'Yes--why?' + +'Only that I discovered just now the white ants had eaten all the +woodwork of the spare-room looking-glass. The thing crumbled in my hand +and fell on the floor and was broken. A bad omen for your visit, isn't +it?' + +'I hope not. So you are superstitious as ever?' + +'I haven't ceased to be a Celt--though I've become a barbarian. I'll +borrow the overseer's looking glass for you.' + +'Pray don't. I've got one of sorts in my razor case. Is dinner regarded +in the Never-Never as a sacred ceremonial?' + +'The men don't put on dress clothes, if that's what you mean. As for +the repast, for a long time, as a rule, the menu was salt junk and +pumpkin. We've improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the +Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields--there was another rush +at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have +kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN CASSEROLE. If you make believe very hard +you might possible imagine it young venison. . . . Here, Kuppi!' The +Malay boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on +the table between the fire and the window. + +'Tea,' she asked, 'or would you rather have whiskey and water? I can't +offer you soda water because, till the drays come, we have nothing to +run the seltzogene with. . . . Do you know that the Unionists cut our +dray horses' throats? We're lucky to have whiskey in the store. They +broke open the cases of spirits and stole a lot of things. . . . +Vicissitudes of savage life, you see!' + +She rattled on, scarcely pausing. She was seated on a divan, the tea +before her--he in a squatter's chair with long arms, in which he sat +silent, leaning forward, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes fixed +upon her. She avoided looking at him. Her small sun-browned hands +fidgeted among the cups. If anything remained of her anger and emotion, +she hid it under a ripple of absurd housewifely chatter, not waiting +for him to answer. + +'Well, is it to be tea or whiskey?' + +'Tea, please,' and then at last she stopped and looked at him and could +not turn her eyes away, or did not want to do so. His black orbs stared +with a disquieting fixity--a sort of inhuman power--from out of his +foreign-looking face. That stare was his chief weapon in the +subjugation of women--they called it magnetic, and no doubt it was so. +It increased the fascination of his ugly good looks. + +The gaze of each one seemed to fuse in that of the other. Hers, at +first coldly curious, tentative, caught light, warmth, intensity from +the sombre fire of his. Suddenly he said: + +'In God's name, Biddy, how did you come to marry that rough brute.' + +'IS he a rough brute! It's very rude of you to say so. But do you know, +just for a half minute to-day, I rather thought so myself. I don't +pretend to agree with Colin's methods of treating the Blacks, though +I'm told it's the only way to treat them--you know they did commit +terrible atrocities up here. . . . Still to flog a black man, a wild, +warlike, human creature, seems to me nearly as bad as shooting him. Do +you know--the first thing I ever heard about Colin was that he had a +great many notches on his gun, and that each one meant a wild +black-fellow that he had shot dead.' + +'And now he flogs tame ones,' Maule observed quietly. Her brilliant +eyes searched his face for a sign of malevolent sarcasm, but not a +muscle quivered. Her own eyes wavered under his steady look. She busied +herself among the tea things. + +'Sugar?' + +'Please.' + +But she paused, the tongs balanced in her delicate fingers. + +'It is frightfully thrilling--life in the Bush.' + +'What part of it? The shooting or the flogging?' + +She burst out: 'You know I hated that. You know I was furious about the +flogging. You know'--She pulled herself up. + +'I know nothing--except that you must have changed enormously in a +very short time to have been thrilled with anything but horror--by +that sort of thing.' + +'Yes, I have changed. But it isn't time that changes one. Time never +counts with me. It's only feeling that counts. Oh, of course, I think +it all horrible--about the Blacks up North. They're not allowed on +this station--except one or two half civilised stock-boys--and this +one fell in love and carried off his gin, and brought her here against +my husband's orders.' + +'Yes? And you had befriended them--I gathered that. But it doesn't +explain YOU. ' + +She took up a piece of sugar with the tongs, holding it suspended as +she spoke, jerkily. + +'Why should I be explained? As for my finding life in the Bush +thrilling. . . . I was dead sick of falsities when I left England, I +wanted to be thrilled by something real.' + +'And you found that--in your husband?' + +'Yes; I did. He IS real, at least. He is true to himself. So few men +have the strength of their goodness or the courage of their badness, +when it comes to a big test.' + +'Oh! I grant you. Yes; I know that's what you're thinking. I wasn't +true to myself in the big test. . . . But YOU were to blame for my +having been false to the higher ideal.' + +'I! Oh--what makes you--' But she thought better of the impetuous +questions that trembled on her lips, and went on in a different tone. + +'What does that matter! I'm not saying anything about high ideals. What +is high? . . . . What is low? . . . . You've just got to invoke truth +and freedom--as far as your conception of them goes. . . . And there's +a reason for Colin's hatred of the Blacks.' + +'Ah! Is it permitted to ask the reason?' + +'His family were all massacred by the natives--father, mother, sisters +--all. Well, one admires a man steadfast in revenge--going straight +for what he wants--and getting it--doing it--in love or in hate. Now +I have answered your question.' + +The gesture of her head seemed a defiance. She dropped the sugar into +his tea, and he took the cup from her hands, and slowly drank it +without saying a word. + +It was she who broke the silence. + +'You provoke me. You make me say things I don't want to say. You always +did.' + +'Ah! Then marriage has not changed you so immensely, after all!' + +She bit her lip and rose abruptly. + +'Do you want any more tea? No. Then come to the veranda and tell me how +it is that Luke Tallant has allowed you to exchange Government House +for the Never-Never?' + +He had followed her through the French window. + +'I see you haven't heard the bad news.' + +'No--what? We only get a mail once a week.' + +'I thought McKeith would have broken the shock. He came on, he said, to +do so. Poor Lady Tallant.' + +'Rosamond! The operation?' + +'She died under the anaesthetic. Sir Luke got the news by cable the day +before I left Leichardt's Town. He wired at once for leave and has +started for England by this time.' + +'Oh? poor Rosamond! Poor, poor Rosamond!' + +'Is she to be so greatly pitied! She has been saved much suffering!' + +Then as Bridget went on murmuring, 'Oh, poor Rosamond, she did love +life,' he added gently. 'Life can be very cruel. . . . I myself have +had cause for gratitude to Death, the great Simplifier. If my wife had +lived she must have been a hopeless invalid doomed to continual pain.' + +Lady Bridget gave him a swift look of reproach. + +'Oh, do you expect me to congratulate you?' she exclaimed bitterly. +'Yes,' she went on, 'perhaps, to HER Death was merciful--but not to +Rosamond. And Luke did care for his wife. He will be broken-hearted.' + +She stood gazing out upon the plain, on which the mist was gathering. +From across the gully sounded the cattle being driven home. + +When she turned to him, her eyes were full of tears. + +'I think I'll go now.' She said simply. 'Colin will show you your room. +He's there--coming up from the lagoon.' + +She went through a French window lower down the veranda into her +bedroom, and Maule descended the steps into the garden and presently +joined his host. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + + + +A little later, McKeith having tubbed and changed his riding clothes, +came to his wife's room. He looked very large and clean and fair, and +the worst of his temper had worn off in a colloquy with Ninnis, and the +imparting and receiving of local news. But his eyes were still gloomy, +and his mouth sullenly determined. And he had remembered with remorse +that he should have softened to Bridget the sudden news of her friend's +death. The sight of her now--a small tragic figure with a white face +and burning eyes, in a black dress into which she had changed, deepened +his compunction. + +'I am very sorry, Biddy.' He tried to put his arm round her shoulder, +but she drew back. + +'What are you sorry for, Colin--that Rosamond Tallant is dead, and +that you forgot to tell me, and let me hear it from--Willoughby +Maule?' She paused perceptibly before pronouncing the christian name, +'Or that you behaved like an inhuman monster to those wretched Blacks, +and refused me the only thing I have asked you for a good time past?' + +Her tone roused his rancour anew. + +'I think we'll drop the subject of the Blacks; there is no earthly use +in talking about them, I make it a rule never to threaten without +performing, and I'd punish them again, just the same--or more severely +--under similar circumstances.' + +'Very well. You will do as you please, and I shall do as I please, +too.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Just what I say. I agree with you that there's no use in discussing +things about which we hold such different opinions. Quite simply, I +can't forgive you for this afternoon's work.' + +'Biddy, you exaggerate things.' + +'Perhaps. But I don't think so in this case. Let me go out, Colin. +Dinner must be ready by now.' + +'No. I've got something to ask you first. I want to know why you looked +so upset--as if you were going to faint--when that man came up to you +to-day?' + +'Naturally, I was startled. I had no idea he was in Australia.' + +'But why should that have affected you. One might have imagined he had +been your lover. Was he ever your lover, Biddy? I must know.' + +'And if he had been, do you think I should tell you,' she answered +coldly. + +McKeith's face turned a dark red. His eyes literally blazed. + +'That's enough.' He said, 'I shall not ask you another question about +him. I am answered already.' + +He stood aside to let her pass out into the veranda, and she walked +along to the sitting-room. + +Dinner went off, however, more agreeably than might have been expected. +Lady Bridget's manner was simple and to the guest charming. The black +dress, the touch of pensiveness was in keeping with the shadow of +tragedy. But she spoke in a natural way, and with tender regret of Lady +Tallant--questioning Maule as to when he had last seen her, and +learning from him how it had been at Rosamond's instigation that he had +cabled proposing himself as a companion in Sir Luke's loneliness. It +had been only a week after his arrival in Leichardt's Town that the +blow had fallen. + +'You know, Tallant and I always hit it off very well together,'he +observed explanatorily, addressing McKeith. 'It was at their house that +I used to meet Lady Bridget during the few months that I had the honour +of her acquaintance in England.' + +McKeith looked at his guest in a resentful but half puzzled way. A +spasm of doubt shook him. Suppose he had been making a fool of himself +--insulting his wife by unreasoning suspicions? A vague contempt in her +courteous aloofness had stung him to the quick. And the other man's +easy self assurance, the light interchange of conversation between them +about things and people of which McKeith knew nothing--all gave the +Australian a sense of bafflement--the feeling that these two were +ruled by another social code, belonged to a different world, in which +he had no part. He had been sitting at the head of his table, +perfunctorily doing his duty as host, wounded in his self-esteem-- +almost the tenderest part on him, morose and miserable. Now he snatched +at the idea that he had been mistaken, as if it were a life-buoy thrown +him in deep waters. He began to talk, to assert himself, to prove +himself cock of his own walk. And Maule suavely encouraged him to lay +down the law on things Australian, while Lady Bridget withdrew into +herself, baffling and enraging McKeith still more hopelessly. He did +not seem now to know his wife! A catastrophe had happened. What? How? +Why? . . . . Nothing was the same, or could be the same again. + +It was a relief when dinner was over. The men pulled out their pipes in +the veranda. Lady Bridget, just within the sitting room window, smoked +a cigarette, her small form extended in a squatter's chair, listening +to, but taking scarcely any part in the conversation. The two outside +discussed local topics--McKeith's failure to trace the perpetrators of +the outrage on his horses. Maule's impressions of Tunumburra--where he +had met McKeith in the township hotel, and the two had apparently, in +the usual Bush fashion, got on intimate terms--the rumours of an armed +camp of Unionists, and the expected conflict between them and the sheep +owners and free shearers at Breeza Downs, whither the Government +specials were bound. Lady Bridget gleaned that Maule had placed himself +under McKeith's directions. + +'What are your immediate movements to be?' he asked his host. +'Remember, I am ready to fall in with any plans you may have for making +me useful.' + +McKeith did not answer at once. He took his pipe from his mouth, and +knocked the ashes out of it against the arm of his chair, while he +seemed to be considering the question. Then, as if he had formed a +definite determination, he leaned forward and addressed his wife in a +forcedly matter-of-fact tone. + +'I don't suppose you know much about what has been going on, Biddy. The +same boat that brought up the specials brought a hundred or more free +labourers, and they're on their way up to the different sheep-stations +along the river--a lot of them for Breeza Downs, where Windeatt has +begun shearing. Windeatt is in a blue funk because a report that a +little army of Unionists, all mounted and armed, are camped that way +and threatening to burn down his wool-shed and sack his store. The +burned old Duppo's wool-shed last week.' + +'He's a skinflint, and I'm sure he deserved it,' put in Lady Bridget +indifferently. + +McKeith check a dry sarcasm. He became aware of Maule's eyes turning +from one to the other. + +'Well--' He got up and leaned his great frame against the lintel +between Maule and Lady Bridget. 'The Pastoralist Executive at +Tunumburra have asked us cattle-owners who--are more likely to be let +alone than the sheep-men, to help in garrisoning the sheep-stations; +and I've promised to ride over to Breeza Downs to-morrow and do my +share in protecting the place. Harris and I are going together.' + +Lady Bridge seemed more interested in blowing smoke-rings than in her +husband's news. + +'I may have to be away several days,' continued McKeith. 'Then there's +the new bore we're sinking--the water is badly wanted--cattle are +dying--I can't run any risk of the bore-plant being wrecked. The men +who are working there must be sent off because we're short of rations-- +thanks to those murderous brutes keeping back the drays--and the +muster has to be stopped for the same reason. I won't answer for when I +can be back.' . . . As she made no answer, he asked sharply: 'Do you +understand, Biddy?' + +'Yes, of course. I have no doubt, Colin, that you'll find it all highly +stimulating. And perhaps you will be able to shoot somebody with a +clear conscience, which will be more stimulating still. Really Mr +Maule, you are lucky to have come in for a civil war--I heard that in +South America that was your particular interest. Do you carry civil +wars about with you? Only, there's nothing very romantic in fighting +for mere freedom of contract--it seems so obvious that people should +be free to make or decline a contract. I wonder which side you would +take.' + +Her levity called forth an impatient ejaculation from McKeith. + +'I'm afraid in my wars it's generally been what your husband would +consider the wrong side,' said Maule with a laugh. 'I've usually fought +with the rebels.' + +'Then you'd better not go to Breeza Downs. You'd better stop and fight +for me,' exclaimed Bridget. + +'That's just what I was about to propose your friend should do,' said +McKeith in hard deliberate tones. He looked straight at his wife-- +shoulders and jaws squared, eyes like flashing steel under the grim +brows. The expression of his face gave Bridget a little sense of shock. +She raised herself abruptly, and her eyes flashed pride and defiance +too. + +'How very considerate of you, Colin--if Mr Maule LIKES to be disposed +of in that way. HE is to be allowed freedom of contract I presume, +though the shearers are not.' + +'You needn't be afraid that I shall strike, Lady Bridget,' laughed +Maule. 'It will suit my general principles to keep out of the +scrimmage. I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs of your +labour question, but I confess that, speaking broadly, my sympathies +are usually rather with Labour than with Capital.' + +'Capital!' echoed McKeith derisively. 'It's blithering irony to talk of +us Leura squatters as representing capital. We're all playing a sort of +battledore and shuttlecock game--tossed about between drought and +plenty--boom and slump. A kick in the beam and one end is up and the +other end down. There's Windeatt, who will be ruined if his wool-shed +is destroyed and his shearing spoiled. No rain, and the banks would +foreclose on most of us. Take myself. Two years ago the skies were all +smiling on my fortunes. This last year, it's as if the hosts of heaven +had a down on me.' + +'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,' murmured Lady +Bridget. + +'I'm Sisera, am I?' He gave her a fierce look and crossed to the +veranda-railing, where he began cutting tobacco into the palm of his +hand. 'Well, there is something in that. But the stars have never +licked me yet. Sisera was a coward, or they wouldn't have DOWNED him.' + +'Ah, but there was Jael to be reckoned with,' put in Maule softly. + +'Jael!' McKeith plugged his pipe energetically. 'The more fool Sisera +for not giving Jael a wide berth. He should have gone his way and kept +her out of his affairs.' + +A hard little laugh rang from the depths of the squatter's chair. Maule +got up and strolled into the sitting-room, where he seemed engrossed in +the pictures on the wall. Just then Cudgee, the black boy, hailed +McKeith from the foot of the steps. + +'That fellow pollis man want'ing Massa. He sit down long-a Old Humpey.' + +'All right.' + +McKeith looked into the parlour. 'My wife will entertain you, Maule. I +daresay you've got plenty to talk about. I'll see you later.' + +Presently they heard him outside speaking to the Police Inspector. +'Come into the office, Harris, and have a smoke and a glass of grog.' + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + + + +Lady Bridget and Willoughby Maule were alone again. She got up from the +long chair, and as she did so her cigarette case dropped from her lap. +He picked it up and it lay on his open palm, the diamonds and rubies of +her maiden initials glistening on the gold lid. They looked at each +other across it. + +'I gave you this,' he said, 'and you have kept it--used it?' + +He seemed to gloat over the bauble. + +Her fingers touched his hand as she took the case from him, and he gave +a little shiver of pleasure. + +'Let me have it; I want another cigarette.' She selected two and gave +him one of them. + +They moved to the divan near the fireplace, where some red embers +remained of the log of sandalwood. Its perfume lingered faintly in the +atmosphere. + +'That's good,' he said. 'It's like you; the only thing in the +god-forsaken desert that IS like you.' + +'Oh, you don't know me--now.' + +'Don't I! Well, your husband has given me the chance of knowing you-- +better--and I warn you that I shall not scruple to avail myself of the +opportunity.' + +She shook her head dubiously. 'Give me a light.' + +He stooped and lit his own cigarette, then, bending, held its tip to +her. They both inhaled a few whiffs in silence. Presently, he said: + +'I find it difficult to understand McKeith.' + +'Don't try. You wouldn't succeed. I observe,' she added, 'that you must +have become rather friendly at Tunumburra?' + +'Oh, yes. I can generally get on with open-air men. Besides, I wanted +him to like me. I wanted him to ask me here.' + +'Well--and what do you thing of it, now that you are here?' + +'Great heavens! What do you imagine that I should think of it! The +whole thing seems to me the most ghastly blunder--the most horrible +anomaly. You--in these surroundings! Married to a man so entirely +beneath you, and with whom you don't get on at all.' + +'You have no right to say that.' + +'The thing is obvious; though you tried to carry it off before dinner. +Your manner to each other; the lack of courtesy and consideration in +him; his leaving you. . . .' + +'Stop,' she interrupted. 'There's one thing you MUST understand. I +don't mind what you say about yourself--I want to hear that--but I +can't allow you to criticise my husband.' + +'I beg your pardon. It isn't easy in the conditions to preserve the +social conventions. I will try to obey you. At any rate, you allow me +to be frank about myself. . . . It was sweet of you to keep this--more +than I could have dared hope for.' + +He fingered tenderly the cigarette case on her lap. + +'I suppose I ought to have sent it back to you. But I didn't want to. +You see it was not like an engagement ring.' + +'No, worse luck.' + +'Why, worse luck?' + +'The ring would have been the outward and visible sign of an inward and +spiritual bond. If you had been really engaged to me--formally, +officially engaged, you couldn't have thrown me over so easily.' + +'I--throw you over! Is it quite fair to put it that way?' + +'No, I admit that. Let us be honest with each other--this once.' + +'This once--very well--but not at this moment. I daresay there will +be time for a talk by and by.' + +'I wait your pleasure.' + +'There are some things I should like to understand,' she went on, +'--about you--about me, it doesn't matter which. And, after all, I only +want to know about you out of a sort of perverse curiosity.' + +'That's so like you. You always managed to infuse a bitter drop into +your sweetness. And you COULD be so adorably sweet. . . If only I could +ever have felt sure of you.' + +'Where would have been the use? We never could spend an hour together +without hurting or annoying each other. It's a very good thing for us +both that neither cared enough to make any real sacrifice for the +other.' + +'There you wrong me,' he exclaimed. 'I did care--I cared intensely. +The touch of your hand--the very sweep of your dress thrilled every +nerve in me. I never in all my life loved a woman as I loved you. That +last day when you walked out of my rooms. . . .' + +'Where I never ought to have gone. Fancy the properly brought-up +English girl you used to hold up to me doing such a shocking thing as +to visit you alone in your chambers! . . . Oh! Is that Colin back +again?' + +For Maule had started visibly at the sound of quick steps mounting to +the veranda, and McKeith's towering figure appeared in the doorway, +looking at them. + +Lady Bridget turned her head, her cigarette in her hand, and glanced up +at his face. What she saw in it might have made a less reckless or less +innocent woman feel uneasy. She was sure that he must have heard that +last speech of hers about visiting Maule in his chambers. Well, she +didn't care. Besides Colin hadn't the smallest right to resent any +action of hers before her marriage. . . She did not turn a hair. Maule +admired her composure. + +'BON SANG NE PEUT MENTIR,' he thought to himself, and wished they had +been talking in French. + +'You look as grim as the statue of the Commander,' said Lady Bridget. +'What is the matter?' + +'Lady Bridget and I have been exchanging unconventional reminiscences,' +put it Maule with forced lightness. + +McKeith took no notice of either remark, but strode across the room to +the roll-top escritoire, where he usually wrote his letters when in his +wife's company. He extracted a bundle of papers from one of the pigeon +holes. + +'This is what I came for. Sorry to have interrupted your +reminiscences,' and he went out again, passing along the back veranda. + +Maule had got up and was standing at the fireplace. Lady Bridget rose +too. + +'I'm going to bed. We keep early hours in the Bush.' + +'What! Already!' he exclaimed in dismay. + +'I was up at six this morning. Well, I hope you won't be too +uncomfortable with the white ants in the Old Humpey--they are +perfectly harmless. Your room is next to the office, as I daresay +you've discovered. And you'll find Colin there I suppose, with your +friend the Police-Inspector.' + +'Don't call that man Harris my friend. We've had one or two scraps at +each other already. He was pleased to take it for granted that I'm what +he calls a "new chum," and didn't like my shewing him that I knew +rather better than he does what police administration should be in +out-of-the-way districts.' + +Lady Bridget nodded. 'Then we're both under ban of the Law. I DETEST +Harris. . . . Good-night.' And she flitted through the French window +without giving him her hand. + +The station seemed in a state of unquietude till late into the night. +The lowing of the tailing-mob in the yard was more prolonged than +usual. And the horses were whinnying and answering each other down by +the lagoon as though there were strangers about. Lady Bridget, lying +awake and watching through her uncurtained windows the descent of the +Southern Cross towards the horizon, and the westward travelling of a +moon just out of its first quarter, could hear the men's voices on the +veranda of the Old Humpey--that of Ninnis and the Police Inspector; +Maule seemed to have retired to his own room. + +McKeith was evidently busy upon preparations for his absence from the +station. He must have been cleaning guns and pistols. There were two or +three shots--which startled and kept her in a state of tension. At +last she heard the interchange of good-nights, and the withdrawal of +Ninnis and Harris to the Bachelor's Quarters. Finally, her husband came +to his dressing-room--not along the front veranda, as would have been +usual, but by the back one, through the bathroom. Even this deviation +from habit seemed significant of his mood--he would not pass her +window. He moved about for a time as if he were busy packing. Then came +silence. She imagined him on the edge of the camp bed, so seldom used, +smoking and ruminating. + +Whiffs from his pipe came through the cracks of the door between the +two rooms, and were an offence to her irritated nerves. She had grown +accustomed to his tobacco, but, as a rule, he did not smoke the last +thing at night. He had seemed to regard his wife's chamber as a +tabernacle, enshrining that which he held most sacred, and would never +enter it until he was cleansed from the grime and dust of the stockyard +and cattle camp, and had laid aside the associations of his working +day. That attitude had appealed to all that was idealistic in both +their natures, and had kept green the memory of their honeymoon. It +angered her that to-night, of all nights, he should disregard it. + +In personal details, she was intensely fastidious, and at some trouble +and cost had maintained in her intimate surroundings a daintiness +almost unknown out-back. Her room was large, and much of its +furnishings symptomatic of the woman of her class--the array of +monogrammed, tortoise-shell backed brushes and silver and gold topped +boxes and bottles, the embroidered coverlet of the bed, the flowered +chintz and soft pink wall paper, the laced cambric garments and +silk-frilled dressing gown hanging over a chair. When service lacked, +and there was no one to wash and iron her cambric and fine linen, she +contrived somehow that the supply should not fail, and brought upon +herself some ill-natured ridiculed in consequence. The wives of the +Leura squatters thought her 'stuck-up' and apart from their kind. If +they had known how much she wanted sometimes to throw herself into +their lives--as she had thrown herself into the lives of her East-End +socialistic friends! But the stations were few and far between, and the +neighbours--such as they were--left her alone. + +Letting her mind drift along side-tracks, she resented now there having +come no suggestion from the Breeza Downs women that she should +accompany her husband and share the benefits of police protection, or-- +which appealed to her far more--the excitement of what might be going +on there. Of course, though, there was nothing for her to be nervous +about here--she wished there might have been. Any touch of dramatic +adventure would be welcome in the crude monotony of her life. + +But the adventure promised to be of a more personal kind. + +Suddenly, she jumped out of bed and softly slipped the bolt of the door +into her husband's dressing room. She did it on a wild impulse. She +felt that she could not bear him near her to-night. He should see that +she was not his chattel. . . . But, perhaps, he did not want to +come. . . . Well, so much the better. In any case, she wanted to show him +that she did not want him. She wondered if he would venture. . . . She +wondered if he did really care. . . . + +He appeared in no hurry to test her capacity for forgiveness. . . . Or +it might be that the minutes went slowly--laden as they were with +momentous thought. She lay in a tumult of agitation, her heart beating +painfully under the lawn of her nightgown. She had a sense of gasping +wonderment. She felt, as Colin had felt, that something tremendous had +happened--and with such bewildering suddenness--altering all the +conditions between them. + +Yet, through the pain and bewilderment, her whole being thrilled with +an excitement that was almost intoxicating--like the effect of an +insidious drug, or the fumes of heady wine. She knew it was the old +craving for sensation, the fatal O'Hara temperament awake and +clamouring. Try as she would--and she did try in a futile fashion-- +she could not shut off the impression of Willoughby Maule--the sombre +ardour in his eyes, the note of suppressed passion in his voice. There +was no doubt that this unexpected meeting had restarted vibrations, and +that his influence was a force to be reckoned with still. + +If Colin had acted differently--if he had not behaved so brutally to +those poor blacks--if his manner to her had not been so hard and +overbearing. And then his leaving her alone like that with Willoughby +Maule! Of course, he was jealous. He had jumped at conclusions. What +right had he to do so? What could he know? He must suspect her of +horrible things. His questions had been insultingly dictatorial. Now, +he wanted to shew her that he flung her off. He would not put out a +finger to hold her to him. Had he not said something like that before +their marriage! . . . It was abominable. + +The whiffs of tobacco smoke came no more. He was moving about again. +She heard him in the bathroom. After a minute or two he came to the +door and tried to open it. + +'Biddy,' he said. Then in a deep-toned eager whisper, 'Mate!' + +She sat up in bed; she had the impulse to go and open the door, but +some demon held her back. She lay down again on her pillow. . . . The +bed had creaked. . . . He must have known that she was awake. . . . He +waited a minute or two without speaking . . . knocked very softly. . . . +She was silent. . . . Again she heard him moving about in his +dressing-room, and, after a little while, she heard him go out, passing +along the back veranda. He did not return. It was dawn before Bridget +dropped into the heavy morning slumber, which follows a night of +weeping. + + + + + +BOOK III + + +FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF COLIN MCKEITH AND OTHERS + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + + + +When Lady Bridget awoke, it was then near the hour at which they +ordinarily breakfasted. Finding, when she had dressed, that all was +silent in the next room, she looked in. + +It was empty, the bed had not been slept in, but there were signs that +McKeith had got into his riding clothes and that he had packed a +valise. + +Maule was waiting in the dining-room, and Maggie, the serving maid, +gave a message from McKeith that he had had his breakfast at the +Bachelors' Quarters with Mr Harris and that they were both going to +start for Breeza Downs immediately. + +Bridget made no pretence of breakfasting. She told Maule to forage for +himself, and, after swallowing a cup of coffee, made the excuse of +household business--to see if the Chinaman had put up his master's +lunch--if the water-bags were filled--what were to be the proceedings +of the day. She had a hope that McKeith might say something +conciliatory to her before he left. The remembrance of that disregarded +appeal--the word 'Mate' to which she had given no response, weighed, a +guilty load, upon her heart. + +But she was sore and angry--in no mood to make any advance or stoop to +self-justification. He was outside the store, where Ninnis was weighing +rations for Harris, and McKeith's and the Police Inspector's horses, +ready saddled, with valises strapped on, were hitched to the paling. + +Harris sulkily touched his helmet to Lady Bridget, but McKeith had his +back to her and seemed wholly absorbed in some directions he was +giving. + +'You'll see to it, Ninnis, that six saddle-horses are kept ready to run +up, in case the Pastoralist Executive sends along any message that's +got to be carried down the river--there's that lot of colts Zack Duppo +broke in, they'll do. And you can get in Alexander and Roxalana from +the Bore pasture, in case the buggy should be wanted--and one or two +of the old hacks that are spelling out there. Of course, her ladyship's +horse mustn't be touched, and you'll see Mr Maule has a proper mount if +he wants it--the gentleman who'll be here for a bit--a friend of her +ladyship's from England--you understand. You'll keep on those new men +for the tailing mob, though I'm not sure they mightn't be Unionists in +disguise. Anyway, Moongarr Bill is a match for them. . . . And you'll +just mind--the lot of you--that it's my orders to stockwhip blacks +off the place, and that if any Unionist delegates show their faces +through the sliprails they're not allowed to stop five minutes inside +the paddock fence.' + +'Right you are, Boss,' responded Ninnis, and there was a change of +grouping, and McKeith strode out to the yard to look into some other +matter, all without sending a glance to his wife. + +Presently Moongarr Bill came up, chuckling mysteriously, 'Say, Boss, I +believe there's one of them dashed organising chaps coming down now +from the top sliprails.' And as he spoke, a man rode to the fence, +harmless enough looking, of the ordinary bush type. + +He was about to get off his horse in the assured manner of a bushman +claiming the usual hospitality, but McKeith--big and grimly menacing-- +advanced and held up his hand. + +'No, wait a bit. Don't unsaddle. I'd like first to know your business.' + +'I'm an Organiser,' said the man defiantly, 'and I'm not ashamed of my +job. Trades Unions are lawful combinations, and I've come to have a +talk with your men. . . .' He ran on with professional volubility. 'My +object in going round your district is to bring about a peaceful +compromise between employers and employed--Do you see. . . .?' + +'Stop,' thundered McKeith. 'I'd have you understand that there's an +organiser on this station already. I'M the Organiser here, and I'm not +taking stock in Trades Unions at present.' + +'But you'll let me have a talk with your men?--No harm in that.' + +'No, you don't,' said McKeith. + +'Well, I can spell my horse an hour or two, can't I?' + +'No, you can't. You'll ride off my station straight away.' + +'I've been off tucker since yesterday,' said the man, who seemed a +poor-spirited creature. 'Anyhow, Boss, you'll give me something to +eat.' + +'Yes, I'll do that.' The laws of bush hospitality may not be violated. +Food must be given even to an enemy--provided he be white. McKeith +called to the Chinaman to bring out beef and bread. A lump of salt junk +and a hunk of bread were handed to the traveller. + +'Now you be off, and eat that outside my paddock,' said McKeith. 'See +those gum trees over there?--You can go and organise the gum trees.' + +The man scowled, and weakly threatened as he half turned his horse's +head. + +'Look here, Boss, you'll find yourself the worse for this.' + +'Shall I. In what way, can you tell me?' + +'You'll find that your grass is burned, I daresay.' + +'I'm obliged to you for the hint. I'll take precautions, and I'll begin +by shepherding you straight off my run,' said McKeith. 'Harris, if +you're ready now, come along here.' + +The Police Inspector stepped off the store veranda, where he had been +standing, a majestic and interested onlooker. The Organiser--after +all, a mere man of straw, crumpled under his baneful stare. + +'You can't give me in charge--you've got no warrant--I've done +nothing to be given in charge for.' + +'Some of your people have, though, and here's a bit of information for +any skunk among your cowardly lot,' said McKeith. 'I've offered one +hundred pounds reward for the scoundrels who cut my horses' throats and +robbed my drays on the road to Tunumburra. There's a chance for you, if +you're mean enough to turn informer.' + +'I know nothing about that,' said the Organiser. + +'Eh? Well, if my grass is burned, I shall know who did it, and so will +this Police Inspector. And I am a magistrate, and will have you +arrested. Get on your horse, Harris, we'll start at once, and ride +alongside this chap till he's over my boundaries.' + +Harris unhitched his horse and mounted, but not sooner than McKeith was +he in the saddle. Then McKeith looked at last towards the veranda where +Bridget stood, white, defiant, with Maule at the French window of the +dining-room just behind her. + +McKeith took off his hat, made her a sweeping bow, which might have +included his guest, turned his horse's head and rode in the direction +of the sliprails, Harris and the sulky Organiser slightly at his rear. + +Bridget never forgot that impression of him--the dogged slouch of his +broad shoulders--the grim set of his head, the square, unyielding look +of his figure, as he sat his horse with the easy poise of a bushman who +is one with the animal under him--in this case, a powerfully made, +nasty tempered roan, one of Colin's best saddle-horses--which seemed +as dogged tempered as its master. + +Maule showed tact in tacitly assuming the unexpected necessity for +McKeith's abrupt departure--also that he had already bidden good-bye +to his wife. + +Lady Bridget made no comment upon her husband's scant courtesy to his +guest when she rejoined Maule after an hour or two spent in housewifely +business. They strolled about the garden, smoked cigarettes in the +veranda, she played and sang to him, and he brought out his cornet, +which he had carried in his valise, being something of a performer on +that instrument. + +A demon of reckless gaiety seemed to have entered into Lady Bridget. +Watching McKeith disappear behind the gum trees, she had said to +herself:--'I can be determined, too. I have as strong a will as he +has. He did not choose to say one regretful word. He was too stubborn +to own himself in the wrong. He left me in what--if he believed his +suspicion to be true--must be a dangerous position for a woman--only +it shall not be dangerous to ME. I know exactly how far I am going-- +exactly the amount of excitement I shall get out of it all. Neither +Willoughby nor he deserve an iota of consideration. I shall amuse +myself. So! No more . . . . But he can't know that. He has never +thought about ME. He has thought of nothing but his own cross-grained +pride and selfish egoism. No man of ordinary breeding or SAVOIR-FAIRE +would have gone off like that!' + +She forgot in her condemnation of Colin to make allowance for the +primal nature of the man; for a certain kinship in him with the loftier +type of savage, whose woman must be his wholly, or else deliberately +relinquished to the successful rival, and into whose calculation the +subtleties of social jurisprudence would not naturally enter. + +Nor did she remember at the moment that Maule had been described by her +own relatives as a person of neither birth nor breeding--a +fortune-hunter--not by any means a modern Bayard. He at least was a +man of the world, she thought, and would appreciate the situation. He +had lost that touch of unaccustomedness--she hardly knew how to +describe it--which had often irritated her in their former relation. +In their talk that day he seemed much more at home than she was in the +world she had once belonged to. He spoke of 'personages' with the ease +of familiar acquaintance. Apparently, he had got into quite the right +set--a rather political set, she gathered. He told her that he had +been pressed to stand for a well-nursed Liberal Constituency, and +implied that but for the catastrophe of his wife's death he would now +be seated in Parliament, with a fair prospect in the future of place +and distinction. Of course, it was the money which had done it, she +told herself, though he had undoubted cleverness, she knew, and, as he +pointed out, his experience in a particular South American republic-- +very much to the fore just now in European diplomacy--stood to his +advantage. His marriage had given him opportunity. He alluded without +bad taste to his dead wife's generosity. She had left him her entire +fortune unfettered. He was now a rich man. He explained that she had +had none but very distant relations and that, otherwise, charitable +institutions would have benefited. She had been a very good woman, he +said--a woman with whom nine hundred out of a thousand decent men +would have been perfectly happy. He let it be inferred that he was the +thousandth man. His eyes, not his lips told her the reason why. + +Their talk skimmed the surface of vital things--the new awakening in +England; the threatenings of a socialistic upheaval; his individual +aims and ideas--she recognised her own inspirations. He spoke of his +political ambitions. Suddenly she said: + +'I wonder why you made the break of coming out to Australia--why you +did not stay in England and follow on your career?' + +'There are bonds stronger than cart ropes which may drag a man by force +from the path he has marked out for himself. Surely you must +understand?' + +'Really, Mr Maule.' + +'Why will you be so formal!' he interrupted impetuously. 'It is absurd. +Women nowadays always call men they know well by a PETIT NOM.' + +'Do I know you well! I often think I never knew you at all.' + +'That is what Lady Tallant used to say to me, latterly, about you and +myself--that we never really knew each other.' + +'Oh, poor Rosamond! It makes me miserable to think of her. You became +friends, then--latterly?' + +'She was very nice to me when she came back from Leichardt's Land. And +besides, she was anxious for me to come out to Luke and help him a bit. +. . . She told me about your marriage. She knew I could settle to +nothing--of course, the world in general thought it was because of +that tragedy--my wife's death--and the child--you understand?' + +Bridget nodded slowly. + +'Lady Tallant knew the truth--that I was tormented by one ceaseless +longing--after the impossible. I fancy she thought that if I could +realise the impossibility, I might get over the longing. . . . But-- +Bridget, it's no use pretending--I did try to do my duty. I think I +succeeded, to a certain extent, in making my wife happy--but there was +always the same gnawing regret. . . .' + +'You must put all that out of your head,' she interrupted curtly. + +'I cannot. A man doesn't love a woman like you, and, because she is +married to another man, put her out of his head--in two years or ten-- +or Eternity, for that matter.' + +She laughed joylessly. 'Eternity!' she scoffed. + +They were in the veranda after luncheon, she swinging slowly in the +hammock, playing with a cigarette, he smoking likewise, scarcely +attempting to suppress the stormy feeling in his face and voice. For +her, the crude brown-grey landscape rose and fell with the motion of +the hammock, and jarred with the exotic memories he evoked. She had +been called back to the varied emotional interests of her girlhood, and +realised, in a rush, how deadly dull was life in the arid wastes of the +Never-Never. Nothing more exciting than to watch the great parched +plain, with the dry heat-haze upon it, getting browner every day, and +the shrinking lagoon and its ever widening border of mud. Nothing, when +she turned her eyes to right and left, but ragged gum trees and black +gidia forest. What a dead blank wilderness it was!' + +She gave a little gasp as if for breath. He seemed to read her +thoughts. + +'Do you remember Rome--and the Campagna, that first day we went to +Albano?--And our walk through the woods down to Lake Nei?--It was +then I first knew that I loved you.' + +'Will--if you are going to stay here you mustn't talk like that. It's +not playing the game.' She spoke pleadingly. + +'Does your husband play the game?' Maule retorted. 'Is it playing the +game to leave you here alone with me, when he must know--or at least, +guess--how things have been between us?--Do you think I didn't notice +yesterday that he suspected me--suspected us both? I should have been +a blind mole not to see by his face and manner how he felt. Upon my +soul, he would have no defence--if. . . .' + +She stopped him with a gesture. + +'I must ask you again not to discuss my relations with my husband; they +do not concern you.' + +'Do they not!' And as she rose abruptly from the hammock, 'I beg your +pardon,' he added humbly, 'I will do my best not to offend again.' + +He got up too and stood, his back against the veranda railings. + +'Lady Bridget, you mustn't be angry with me. I suppose I am a little +off my balance, you must remember that this is--for me, a rather +staggering experience.' + +'Shall we go for a ride?' she asked suddenly. 'I don't suppose you have +much idea of what a wild western station is like.' + +'Oh, I'm fairly well acquainted with life on big pastures,' he answered +lightly, taking her cue. 'You would be surprised, perhaps, at the list +of my qualifications as an "out-back squatter."--I'm a bit of a +rancher--had one in the Argentine--a bit of a doctor--a bit of a +policeman--I was in charge once of a constabulary force out in British +Guiana. That's where I got a rise off Harris--a bit of a law breaker, +too--in fact a bit of everything. Yes, I should enjoy a ride round +here with you immensely.' + +'Then do you mind looking for Mr Ninnis, the overseer, you know.' + +'Yes, I know Ninnis. Had a yarn--as he'd say--with him last night +while your husband was talking to Harris. Ninnis doesn't get on well +with Harris--another point of sympathy. We're quite friends already. +Ninnis and I--he's been in South America, too.' + +'You'll find him somewhere about the Bachelors' Quarters, and I'll go +and put on my habit,' she said. + +Lady Bridget appeared as Maule and Ninnis were finishing saddling the +horses. Ninnis had stayed near the head station, and was keeping a +sharp look-out for bush fires, he said. Otherwise, there appeared to be +no elements of disquiet. Lady Bridget noticed with surprise that Ninnis +seemed to defer to Maule, which was not his usual attitude towards +strangers. She attributed this to a community of experiences in South +America, and also to Maule's undoubted knack of managing men. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + + + +They rounded the lagoon and skirted the gidia scrub. Maule was on a +Moongarr horse, Bridget rode a fiery little chestnut. Maule had already +had opportunity to admire the famous O'Hara seat. They had hunted +together once or twice on the Campagna, that winter when they had met +in Rome. It was difficult to avoid retrospect, but Bridget seemed +determined to keep it within conventional limits. They found plenty, +however, to talk about in their immediate surroundings. Perhaps it was +the effort to throw off the load on her heart that made Bridget gaily +confiding. She drew humorous pictures of the comic shifts, the almost +tragic hardships of life on the Leura--how she had been left +servantless--until Ninnis had got up Maggie from the Lower Leura-- +when the Chinamen decamped during the gold rush. She described the +chivalrous SUNDOWNER who had on one occasion helped her through a +week's washing; and Zack Duppo the horsebreaker, whose Christmas +pudding had been a culinary triumph, and the loyalty of faithful Wombo, +who had done violence to all his savage instincts in acting as +house-servant until the advent of the Malay boy Kuppi. She told of her +first experience of a summer out West. The frying of eggs in the sun on +a sheet of corrugated zinc, so intense was the heat. The terror of +snakes, centipedes, scorpions. The plagues of flies and white ants. +Then how, during the servantless period, in utter loneliness and +Colin's enforced absence at the furthest out-station she had had an +attack of dengue fever, and no woman within forty miles of her. + +'And your husband allowed this? But where was that barmaid-looking +person who seems to keep house here for stray gentlemen--and, who has +the yellow-headed and blue-eyed little boy?' + +Bridget's lip curled. + +'Mrs Hensor had accepted a temporary situation at an hotel in Fig Tree +Mount--the only time I've regretted her absence,' and the musical +laugh seemed to Maule to have acquired a note of exceeding bitterness. +'Perhaps you don't know,' she went on, 'that Mrs Hensor is a sort of +Helen of the Upper Leura--though unfortunately as yet no Paris has +carried her off--I wish there was one bold enough to do it. She had to +be asked to take a change of air because there was rivalry about her +between the buyer of a Meat Preserving Establishment and the chief +butcher at Tunumburra. Fair Helen scorned them both. Result: The two +buyers bought beasts elsewhere and, as you would understand, on a +cattle station, butchers may not be flouted. Though I daresay,' Lady +Bridget added with a shrug, 'if I could have had the butchers in the +house--I draw the line only at Harris--and had sung to them and +played up generally, I might have scored even off Mrs Hensor. But they +wouldn't come until after she had gone and there was no further danger +of a duel taking place outside the Bachelors' Quarters.' + +Maule took her cue again and laughed as if the matter were one to jest +about. But as he looked round, his face did not suggest merriment. Nor +for that matter did the landscape. They were riding at the edge of the +immense sandy plain, patched with brown jaggled grass and parched +brambles and prickly lignum vitae--nothing to break the barren +monotony but clumps of stunted brigalow and gidia, a wind-mill marking +the site of an empty well with the few hungry-looking cattle near it. + +Now they dipped into a scrub of dismal gidia. + +'This is the most depressing country I have ever ridden through,' he +said. + +'You don't know what a difference three inches of rain makes,' she +answered. 'Then the grass is green, the creeks are running, and at this +time the dead brambles are covered with white flowers. But it doesn't +rain. There's the tragedy.' + +'The tragedy is that you--you of all women should be wasting your +youth and beauty in this wilderness. How long is it going to last?' + +She shrugged again, and for an instant turned her face up towards the +sky. 'You must ask the heavens?' + +'Meaning, I presume, that like most of the Australian squatters, your +husband hasn't capital enough at his back to stand up against continued +drought?' + +'Precisely.' She looked at him, with her puzzling smile. + +'But you couldn't have understood his position when you married him?' + +'No, I didn't--altogether. But I should really like to remind you that +I am not in the witness box.' + +'I think you owe me the truth!' he said, passionately. + +'What do you call the truth?' she asked, reining in her horse and +meeting his eyes straight. + +But she had to turn hers away before he answered, and he as well as +herself was conscious of the compelling effect his gaze had upon her. + +'I could have made you marry me if I had been strong enough to +persist,' he said. + +'Cannot any man do what he is strong enough to do--if he wishes it +enough to persist?' + +'I should have put it this way. If I had thought less of you and more +of myself. But after what you said that day, when you jeered so +contemptuously at the kind of environment in which, THEN, I should have +had to place my wife--what could I do--except withdraw? But you +suffered, Bridget,' he went on vehemently. 'Not so much as I did--but +still you suffered. You thought of me--I felt it, and you must have +felt too, how continually I thought of you. I used to try and make you +think of me--dream of me. And I succeeded. Isn't that true?' + +'Yes, it is true,' she answered in a low voice. + +'Only lately, since I have been in the district, it has seemed to me +that the invisible wires have been set working afresh. Isn't that true +also?' + +'Yes, it is true,' she said again, as if forced to the acknowledgment. + +'Then, can there be any question of the bond between us? You see, it's +independent of time and space! for you WERE sorry--you DID care. +That's the truth you owe me. If after--after we parted in that +dreadful way, I had gone back, had thrown up everything, had said to +you, "Come with me ANYWHERE, let us be all in all to each other--on +the slopes of the Andes, on an island in the South Seas--you would +have come?" ' + +'I always told you,' she said with her puzzling smile, 'that the slopes +of the Andes appealed to me.' + +'Peru would have been more picturesque than this, anyway. Is that all I +can get out of you--that grudging admission? Well, never mind, I am +satisfied. You have owned up to enough. I won't tease you now for more +admissions.' + +'I have admitted too much,' she said gloomily. 'The curse of the +O'Hara's is upon me. Almost all of them have gambled with their lives, +and most of them have lost.' + +She gave her horse the rein as she spoke, and they cantered on over the +plain. After that, she resolutely forbade sentiment. + +Mr Ninnis was gratified by an invitation that evening to dine at the +Home, and came down in his best dark suit and his most genial mood. + +Bridget sang. She had not been singing much lately. Colin's gloom over +the evil prospects of squatting on the Leura re-acted upon her spirits. +And besides, the piano had been attacked by white ants, and the tuner +had not been so far up the river for a long time. It was inspiring to +learn that Maule added to his gifts that of getting a piano into tune. +Ninnis promised to rummage among the tools for a key that would serve. + +Ninnis had never admired Lady Bridget so much as he did this evening. +Certainly he thought her more flighty and incomprehensible than ever, +but he could not deny her fascination. It seemed quite natural to him +that she should be in high spirits at seeing an old friend from +England, who appeared to know all her people. Ninnis had taken +immensely to Maule. Beside Maule knew parts of the world where Ninnis +had been. It was curious to see the American-isms crop out. Ninnis +considered Maule a person of parts and of practical experience. He said +to himself that the Boss had done wisely in leaving Maule at the +head-station while they were short-handed. Maule showed great interest +in Bush matters--said he wanted to learn all he could about the +management of cattle--thought it not improbable that he might invest +money in Leichardt's Land. Ninnis agreed to show him round, and Maule +begged that he might be made useful--even offered to take a turn with +the tailing-mob, so that Moongarr Bill and the other stockmen might be +free to muster more cattle. + +Nothing was heard of the Blacks during the next day or two, but one +morning Ninnis discovered that an old gun, which the station hands and +the black-boys were allowed to use on Sundays for shooting game in the +lagoon, had disappeared in the night. Circumstantial evidence pointed +to Wombo as the thief. Cudgee owned to having seen him skulking among +the Gully rocks. A deserted gunya was found near a lonely, half-dry +waterhole in the scrub, and there were rumours of a tribe of wild +blacks having passed towards the outlying country in the Breeza Downs +direction. + +No news came, however, of either racial or labour warfare. McKeith sent +not a word of his doings, and Harry the Blower was not due yet on his +postal, fortnightly round. + +McKeith had been gone a week, and the time of his absence seemed like +that sinister lull which comes after the sudden shock of an earthquake +and the tornado that follows upon it. Then, one day, something +happened. + +All the men except the Chinamen were out. Moongarr Bill, Ninnis, and +the stockmen on the run, while Maule--a book and a sandwich in his +pocket--had gone herding with Joey Case and one of the extra hands. + +A sense of mutual embarrassment had that day driven them apart. He had +been afraid of himself, and she too had felt afraid. During these seven +days she had rushed recklessly on as though impelled by a fatality, +never pausing to consider how near she might be to a precipice. +Whenever possible, she had ridden out with Maule and Ninnis, or with +Maule alone. She found relief from painful thoughts of Colin in the +excitement and emotion with which Maule's society provided her. She +went with him on several occasions behind the tailing-mob, though +ordinarily, she could not endure being at close quarters with cattle. +But it interested her to see Maule ride after and round up the wild +ones that escaped; to watch his splendid horsemanship which had the +flamboyant South-American touch--the suggestion of lariat and lasso +and ornate equipment, the picturesque element lacking in the Bush--all +harmonizing with his deep dark eyes and Southern type of good looks. + +To-day, she had preferred to remain at home alone. She had been pulled +up with a startled sense of shock. Last evening when they were walking +together on the veranda he had begun again to make love to her, and in +still more passionate earnest--had held her hands--had tried to kiss +her. She had found herself giving way to the old romantic intoxication +--then had wrenched herself from him only just before the meeting of +lips. + +At last, she had realized the strength of the glamour. She fought +against it; nevertheless, in imagination gave herself up to it, as the +opium-smoker or haschisch-eater gives himself up to the insidious +FANTASIA of his drug. + +Yes, Bridget thought it was like what she had read of the effects of +some unholy drug--some uncanny form of hypnotism. + +For she knew that she did not really love Maule--that her feeling for +him was unwholesome. + +There was poison in it acting upon her affection for and trust in her +husband. Maule made subtle insinuations to McKeith's detriment, +injected doubts that rankled. There were no definite charges, though he +would hint sometimes at gossip he had heard in Tunumburra. But he would +convey to her in half words, looks, and tones that he had reason to +believe Colin unworthy of her--that her husband had led the life of an +ordinary bushman, and had fully availed himself of such material +pleasures as might have come to his hand. The veiled questions he asked +about Mrs Hensor and her boy, brought back a startled remembrance of +the scene outside the Fig Tree Mount Hotel and Steadbolt's vague +accusation. She had almost forgotten it--had never seriously thought +about it. Yet now she knew the midge-bite had festered. + +Could it be that there was a chapter in Colin's life of which she knew +nothing? Was it not too much to believe that he had always been +faithful to his ideal of the camp fire? Ah! Maule would have jeered at +that--would have been totally incapable of understanding the romance +of that dream-drive--a dream in truth. But how beautiful, how sane, +how uplifting it seemed, compared with the feverish haschisch dream in +which she was now living. Restless under the obsession, she wandered up +the gully and, as she sat among the rocks, wrestled with her black +angel--and conquered. Clearly there was but one thing to do. She must +send Maule away at once before Colin came back. As for Colin, that +trouble must be faced separately. Maule must ride back to Tunumburra-- +he knew the track. Or, should he wish to explore the district further, +Harry the Blower was due with the mail to-morrow, and could guide him +to any station on the post-man's route which might appear to Maule +desirable. + +Bridget knew that Maule would leave the tailing-mob before the other +men that afternoon, and would probably come to look for her here. So +having arrived at her decision and wishing to put off the inevitable +scene as long as possible, she set forth by another route for the +head-station. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + + + +But she had only gone a few steps, when out of the gidia scrub, came +Oola the half-caste, her comely face bruised, her eyes wild with grief +and terror, her head tied up in a blood-stained strip torn from Lady +Bridget's lacy undergarment, the gaily-flowered kimono hanging in dirty +shreds upon her brown bosom. + +'White Mary! Lathy-chap!' she cried. 'Plenty poor feller Oola. Plenty +quick me run. Me want 'em catch Lathy-chap before pollis-man come. That +feller pollis-man take Wombo long-a gaol. Mithsis'--the gin implored. +'BUJERI you!--Mithis tell pollis-man Wombo plenty good blackfellow. No +take Wombo long-a gaol.' + +'What has Wombo been doing?' asked Lady Bridget. 'Did he steal the +gun?' + +'YOWI (yes). Wombo plenty frightened long-a ole husband belonging to +me.' And Oola dropped and knocked her head upon the ground, wailing the +ear-piercing death-wail of the Australian native women. + +'Oola, you must stop howling!' said Bridget, alive to the seriousness +of the situation. 'Has Wombo shot your husband with our gun?' + +'YOWI, Mithis. That feller husband altogether BONG ' (dead). + +From Oola's broken revelations Bridget pieced the story. It appeared +that the tribe had followed in hot pursuit of the fugitives, and, +knowing his peril, Wombo had sneaked up to the head-station in the +darkness, possessed himself of an effectual weapon, and fled away with +the gun. The offended blacks had discovered the guilty pair on the +outskirts of Breeza Downs, and Oola's husband, with a company of +braves, had attacked their gunya. Then--to quote Oola--'that feller +husband throw spear at Wombo--hit Oola long-a COBRA (head) with NULLA +NULLA. Him close-up carry off Oola. My word! Wombo catch him PHO PHO. +Plenty quick husband belonging to me TUMBLE DOWN.' And Oola wailed +anew. + +'Where's Wombo now?' Bridget asked. + +'Blackfeller YAN (run) along-a pollis-man. Pollis-man close-up black's +camp. That feller Harris catch 'im Wombo--fetch um long-a Tunumburra +gaol. Mine think it stop to-night Moongarr. Close-up station now.' + +Lady Bridget at once saw through the affair. Here was Harris taking a +legitimized revenge on Wombo, and doubtless also on herself. Clearly, +he had been patrolling the Breeza Downs boundaries in search of +Unionist incendiaries, and seizing Wombo instead, had acted promptly +without waiting for a warrant or consulting McKeith. Wombo would be +charged at the township with theft of the gun and murder of Oola's +husband. To a certainty he would be hanged if the matter ran its +ordinary course. That it should not do, Bridget declared within herself +--if she could by any possibility prevent it. + +The half-caste woman and the white lady went swiftly through the gidia +scrub towards the head-station. At the gully crossing, Maule, on his +way back from the tailing-mob, overtook them, and dismounting, walked +with Lady Bridget to the house. She forgot then all the scene of last +evening, told him the black's story, begged him to help her in the +rescue of Wombo. + +He reflected for a minute or two. + +'We're up against Harris,' he said, 'and Harris has a grudge against +all of us. But Harris feels some respect for my knowledge of +constabulary law, which, I take it, is pretty much the same in most +countries where there are white settlers and native races.' + +She looked up at him, letting him feel that she was relying on his +astuteness and his strength. He went on: + +'Ninnis is mustering with Moongarr Bill and the others, a good way off, +and they're camping out to-night. . . . That leaves only Joe Casey and +the other extra hand. Ninnis put me in authority here. Somebody has got +to take command, and it must be either you, Lady Bridget, or myself. +Perhaps I'm the best qualified of the two. . . .' + +She laughed shakily in assent. + +'Anyway, I fancy that I know how to deal with this sort of affair +better than you do,' he said. 'Will you let me manage it my own way?' + +She nodded. + +'I suppose I may assume that your husband left me in a position of some +responsibility. And if I seem to be taking too much on myself--or, on +the other hand, deferring too much to Harris, you'll trust me and not +interfere?' + +There was no time for discussion, had she wished to go against him. +Oola was shrieking and pointing frantically to the track down from the +upper slip rails, along which Harris and his prisoner were to be seen +riding. + +The Police Inspector, uniformed, burly, triumphant, exhaled the Majesty +of the Law as he rode slightly in advance leading the black-boy. Now, +as they pulled up at the fence, Wombo presented a sorry spectacle--a +spear wound in his left shoulder, a spear graze on his leg, his wrists +handcuffed and his feet tied to the stirrup-iron with cords so tight +that they cut into his tough, black flesh. + +Harris dismounted, tied Wombo's horse securely to the veranda post and +then made his statement which coincided with Bridget's idea of what had +happened. It was too late to push on to Tunumburra. He proposed to lock +up his prisoner at Moongarr for the night. Could he have the +hide-house? + +Not long before, the Police Inspector had locked up a horse stealer, +whom he had in charge, in the hide-house for a few hours while he took +a meal. + +To Bridget it seemed an irony that Wombo should be imprisoned in the +very room he had so lately shared with his stolen gin. + +She was quivering with indignant pity at sight of the sores on the +black boy's legs made by the raw hide thongs, and Oola, who had crept +up the off side of the black-boy's horse, was wailing anew. Maule +checked with a look the angry protest on Lady Bridget's lip and +answered the Police Sergeant in her stead. + +'Why, certainly. I'm sure her Ladyship won't object. You'll let me see +to that for you, Lady Bridget,' and, as she bowed her head, he +addressed Harris again. 'Mr Ninnis and most of the others are camping +out to-night on the run, and I seem to be the only responsible man in +the place--of course you know that Mr McKeith asked me to stop and +help look after things for Lady Bridget if necessary.' Then he +complimented Harris genially upon his zeal. 'You've got your warrant, I +suppose,' he asked incidentally. + +The Police Sergeant looked a little uncomfortable. + +'Well, fact is, I wouldn't waste time going back to Breeza Downs +head-station for that. Mr McKeith's there and they had a bit of an +alarm. Those Unionist skunks tried to fire the shed one night, but no +particular damage was done, and they've dispersed. But Windeatt is in +such a fright of their making another attempt on his head-station that +he's pushing the imported shearers on with the shearing for all he's +worth, and keeps any man he can get hold of on guard night and day +round the house and sheds, while I and my lot have been doing a bit of +riding after Unionists. . . . Now, if you please, we'll have the key of +the hide-house,' concluded Harris. 'I'd like to get my prisoner stowed +away safe before I take an hour's spell myself. I'm pretty well knocked +up, I can tell you. No sleep at all last night watching that nigger who +was tied up to a gum tree, and I've been in the saddle all day.' + +Maule proffered the usual refreshment with a deprecatory reference to +Lady Bridget, who stood stonily apart. Then on pretext of getting the +key of the hide-house, he had a few words with her in the office. + +'I'm going to take care of this,' he said, as she gave him the key of +the padlock which secured the hide-house door, and he forthwith +fastened it to the ring of his watch-chain. 'Of course you want the +black-boy to escape?' + +'I shall let him out myself,' she answered. + +'That would only make McKeith more angry. I have a better plan, in +which you need not be implicated.' + +'I would rather do it myself,' she said. 'I'm not afraid. If it had +been possible, I would have cut those horrible thongs straight away and +let the poor wretch get into the bush. He'll be safe at the head of the +gully in the gidia scrub.' + +'I promise you that he shall be safe in the gidia scrub before sunrise +to-morrow. Trust me.' + +She shook her head. 'But I can't take services from you, after. . . .' +she began hastily and then stopped. + +'You call that a service! Yes--to humanity, if you like. Oh, I know. +After yesterday evening. NOW, you blame me for being true to myself. . . . +All that has got to be settled between us, Bridget--for good and +all. I thought it out as I rode behind the tailing-mob to-day. But for +the moment,' he fingered the key agitatedly, 'Bridget, you MUST let me +do this thing for you. Don't refuse me that small privilege, even if +you deny me all others.' + +She wavered--yielded. 'Very well. You can manage it better than I +could. So I will accept this last favour.' + +'The first, not the last. What have I done but cause you pain? . . . If +you knew the torture I have been going through. . . .' He checked +himself. She was staring at him, half frightened, half fascinated. + +'No, no. There must be an end.' + +'Yes. There must be an end. Later on, we'll decide what the end is to +be.' + +He went out to the veranda carrying the key. Bridget did not follow +him. She had no power either to resent or to compel him. She sat +waiting. When, after about a quarter of an hour, he came back, she was +still in the office as he had left her, seated by the rough table on +which were the station log, the store book, and branding tallies. + +He came in triumphantly, exhibiting the key. + +'Harris wanted to take possession of this. It was lucky I had put it on +my chain. However, he's satisfied that Wombo is securely locked up and +an extra glass of grog and a hint that, as he hasn't provided himself +with a warrant there's no obligation on him to stand over his prisoner +with a loaded gun, eased his mind of responsibility. The man is in a +beast of a temper though, he evidently expected to be entertained down +here. I hope Mrs Hensor will give him a good dinner. He insists on +sleeping in the little room off the store veranda where he says he can +keep watch on the hide house. I suppose it's all right?' + +Bridget nodded. 'I'll tell Maggie.' Maule asked for ointment with which +to dress the black-boy's wounds and abrasions, and she gave it and left +him. + +The afternoon was drawing in. Then came the sound of the herded beasts +being driven to the yard at sundown and, by-and-by, of Joe Casey's +stockwhip as he got up the milkers. The shorthandedness and disturbance +of Harris' arrival made everything late, and the goats which should +have been penned by now, were busy nibbling at the passion vines on the +garden fence. But all this made little impression on Bridget's +preoccupied brain. She had the thought of that coming interview with +Maule before her. Oola's continuous wailing was an affliction, and she +gave the half-caste a blanket and some food and told her to camp on the +further side of the hide house where, with eyes and ears glued by turns +against the largest chink between the slabs, she might see and speak to +the prisoner. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + + + +Maule's and Lady Bridget's TETETETE dinner was an embarrassed meal, +with Kuppi and Maggie hovering about the table. The man's eyes said +more than his lips, and the woman sat, strained and silent, or else +uttered forced commonplaces. + +They were alone at last on the veranda, with night and the vast +distances enfolding them. The air was close and hot, the sky banked +with storm clouds, and, occasionally, there were flashes of sheet +lightning and low growls of thunder. Before long the head-station was +very quiet. Harris had inspected the hide-house and, having assured +himself of the safety of his prisoner, had retired to the veranda room, +making a great parade of keeping his door open, his gun loaded, and his +clothes on, ready for any emergency. Joe Casey had gone to his hut, the +Chinaman and the Malay boy to theirs, and Maggie, the woman servant, to +her own tiny room wedged in between the new house and the kitchen wing. + +But it was all early. At that hour, Maule laughingly reminded Lady +Bridget, the dining world of London would scarcely have reached the +dessert stage. + +She would not waste time on banalities. + +'I've been waiting to tell you something. My mind is quite made up. I +can't go on like this any longer. You must go away to-morrow.' + +'To-morrow!' he echoed in dismay. + +'Yes. I've thought it out. You don't know the country, but the mailman +will be here to-morrow, and he can show you the road.' + +'You are very kind. . . . Why are you so anxious to get rid of me?' + +'Surely you understand. You made me a scene yesterday. You'd go on +making me scenes.' + +'And you?' + +She gave a hard little laugh. 'Oh! I--don't want to play any more.' + +'You call it play! To me it's deadly earnest. I let you go once. I do +not mean to let you go again.' + +'But you are talking wildly. Don't you see that it is impossible we can +be friends.' + +'Oh! that I grant you. We must be everything to each other--or +nothing.' + +In spite of her cold peremptoriness he could see that she was deeply +agitated. That fact gave him courage. His voice dropped to the tender +persuasive note which had always affected her like a spell. + +'My dear--my very dearest. . . . We made a great mistake once. Let us +forget that. Death has opened the gate of freedom--for me, at least-- +and I can only feel remorseful thankfulness. We have again a chance of +happiness. We will not throw it away a second time.' + +'You seem to forget that if you are free I am married.' + +'What a marriage? Call it a mad adventure.' + +'That may be,' she said bitterly. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I +did care very much for my husband.' She brought out the last words with +difficulty. + +'DID care. You put it in the past tense. You don't care for him any +longer. It would be astonishing if you did. One has only to see you +together. . . . Oh, Biddy, it was so like you to rush off to the other +side of the world, and ruin your life for the sake of some strange +impracticable idea! I can follow it all. . . .' + +'You are mistaken,' she put in. + +'I think not. You married in a fit of revulsion against the conditions +in which you were living--the hollow shams of an effete civilisation-- +that's the correct phrase, isn't it? And--well, perhaps there was +another reason for the revulsion. . . . And you thought you had found +the remedy for it all. Oh! I admit that he is very good looking, and, +of course, he worshipped you--until he had you secure, and then he +reverted to the ways of his kind. "Nature's gentlemen" usually +do. . . .' + +'Be silent, Will,' she exclaimed vehemently. 'You don't understand.' + +'My dear, your very anger tells me that I do understand. Why! naturally +your imagination was set on fire. The Bush was painted to you in its +most glowing colours. No doubt, as you said, it's a Garden of Eden in +good seasons. Wonderful vegetation, glorious liberty--no galling +conventions--vast spaces--romance--and the will o' the wisp wealth +of the Wild. Confess now . . . are not my guesses correct?' + +'Yes--partly.' She spoke with reluctance. 'But I remember that YOU +used to talk to me about the joys of the Wild,' she added with sharp +irony. + +'Oh, yes, I know it all. I've been there myself. And it's only when El +Dorado proves a delusion that one begins to hanker--I did before I met +you--for the advantages of civilised existence.' + +'Well, you have secured those. Why not go and enjoy them as I'm asking +you to do.' + +'They have no value for me, unless I may share them with you. Bridget, +I can give you everything now that you once asked for.' + +'With your wife's money?' + +He drew back sharply. 'Ah! You CAN hit a man!' and there was silence +for a few minutes. Then he leaned closer to her, and his fingers +touched the gold cigarette case which lay on the arm of the squatter's +chair in which she was sitting. He went on in a changed manner. + +'Poor Evelyn left her fortune to me, knowing the truth. She was a +noble-souled woman. I was not worthy of her. But unworthy as I may have +been, Bridget, I deserved better of my wife than your husband deserves +of you. At least, I did not deceive her.' + +'What do you mean? Colin did not deceive me. That, at all events, is +not one of his faults towards me.' + +'Has he told you, then, why he keeps on his station that insolent woman +and her yellow-haired blue-eyed boy?' + +Bridget started visibly. He saw that his shaft had struck the mark. But +she answered calmly: + +'I don't know what you want to imply. I thought you knew that Mrs +Hensor's husband was killed on one of Colin's expeditions, and that he +looked after her and her boy on that account.' + +'Oh, yes, I've heard that story. But it seemed common gossip at +Tunumburra that there was another--less creditable--explanation.' + +She turned fiercely upon him. 'You have no right to make such an +abominable accusation.' + +'I only mention what I heard. I went about a good deal there in bar +saloons, and to men's gatherings. Naturally, I was interested in the +district where, by the way, McKeith does not appear to be over popular. +Of course, I attached no great importance to the gossip then. It only +made me wonder. Oddly enough, to-day when I was out with the tailing +mob, one of the men repeated it--I need not say that I stopped him. He +said he'd had it as a fact from a man who was a long time in your +husband's employ--a man called Steadbolt.' + +Again the scene in front of Fig Tree Mount Hotel flashed before Lady +Bridget, and Demon Doubt rose up clothed now in more material +substance. Her voice shook as she answered, though she tried to be +loyal: + +'Steadbolt was discharged from my husband's employment. He is another +of Mrs Hensor's rejected suitors. That speaks for itself.' + +'Strange that Mrs Hensor should reject so many suitors without apparent +reason,' said Maule. + +Bridget did not seem able to bear any more. Her head drooped upon her +hands, her shoulders heaved convulsively. + +'I don't know what to do--I am alone. It's an insult to talk to me in +this way.' + +'I want to protect you from insult--I want to take you out of these +miserable conditions--and there's only one way to do that,' he +pleaded. + +He took her hands in his and kissed them passionately. 'Oh, I love you. +There's nothing in the world I would not do to make you my wife. Why +should you hesitate? It breaks my heart to see you unappreciated, +neglected, living the sort of rough life that might suit a labourer's +daughter, but which is sacrilege for Lady Bridget O'Hara. A man had no +right to condemn a beautiful, refined woman like you to such a +fate. . . . Well there' as she murmured incoherently, 'I'll not say any +more about that since it hurts you. You see, I respect your wishes. I'll +even go away at once, if you command it, and leave you to form your own +judgment. I will stay in Leichardt's Town--in Sydney--anywhere-- +until you have decided for yourself--as I know you must do--how +impossible it is for you to remain here. Then I will meet you wherever +you please, and we will go to Europe together--bury ourselves abroad-- +wait in any part of the world you may choose, until the divorce +proceedings are over, and we are free to marry. You need not be afraid +of scandal, the thing can be kept out of the English papers. It's so +far away that nobody will remember you were married to an Australian. +Besides, anything of the sort is so easily got over nowadays. My +darling, why do you look at me with those tragic eyes? It is not like +the old Biddy to be a slave to Mrs Grundy.' + +She had been listening, sitting rigid in her chair, her hands still in +his, looking at him in a strange fixed manner, almost like a person in +the first stage of hypnotism. Now she snatched her hands away and gave +a sobbing cry. + +'Oh, I'm not the old Biddy. I never can be again.' + +'Dear love--believe me, when I promise you that you shall never have +cause for regret.' + +He would have taken her into his arms, but she drew herself back. + +'Will, you don't understand. And I don't understand myself, I can't see +things clearly. It's all been so sudden--Colin going away--you-- +everything. . . . I want to be alone. I want to find myself.' + +He moved aside with a slight inclination of his head as if to let her +pass. 'I told you that I would do anything you wish.' + +'You mean that--really? Then I wish you to go away at once. You said +you would leave me to decide for myself. I take you at your word, and I +shall write to you, by-and-by. Promise me that you will go.' + +'I have no choice. Your will is law to me. But understand, dearest--I +am only waiting.' + +'It's good of you not to want to worry and argue. . . . Don't you +understand?--I couldn't bear you to be here when Colin comes back. You +must go to Tunumburra to-morrow.' + +'Go to Tunumburra to-morrow?' he repeated blankly. + +'It's on the way to Leuraville, and you can take the steamer from +there. I will write to you in Leichardt's Town. Oh, it's quite simple. +The mailman will be here early. You can leave a letter saying that you +are recalled.' + +'I understand.' Her definite planning gave him hope that she had +already made up her mind, and that she would join him in Leuraville or +Leichardt's Town. After all, that might be best. 'But I shall see you +again. The mailman is not here yet. I have still a few hours respite.' + +She made no answer at first. Then 'Good-night,' she said abruptly, and +flitted like a small white ghost along the dim veranda. + +'Lady Bridget!' His voice stopped her. It shook a little, but the +manner was conventional, and she gained confidence from that and turned +irresolutely. + +'Lady Bridget. While we've been talking about ourselves, we've +forgotten that unfortunate black-boy. I only want to tell you, that you +may depend on your wishes being carried out. I shall go to my room and +watch my opportunity. Trust me, that's all--in everything.' + +'Thank you,' she answered simply. 'I do trust you.' + +She came back a few steps, and he met her in the middle of the veranda. +In one of her swift transitions of mood a humorous element in the +situation seemed to appeal to her, and she said with a laugh:--'It's +comical, isn't it? The two tragedies, black and white--we two here-- +those two out there!' + +Just then the black curtain of cloud, that had been rising slowly and +obscuring the stars, was torn by a strong flash of chain lightning. It +threw up her face in startling clearness and he saw, in strange blend +with the conflicting emotions upon it, the wraith of her old whimsical +smile. + +He did not answer her laugh. In truth, the man's nature was stirred to +a more deep-reaching extent perhaps than ever in his life before. It +may have been the flash of lightning recalling a momentary flash of +illumination that had once shone upon his own soul. + +That had been when he was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, +and her last words revealed to him a magnanimity of devotion for which +he had been wholly unprepared. He had thought her merely amiable and +stupid--except in her love for him--and his sentiments towards her +had been a mixture of boredom, and the tolerant consideration due to +the bestower of substantial benefits. Nevertheless, she had awakened, +during a spasm of remorseful self-abasement, some nobler quality latent +in the man. + +And now--as that flash of lightning illuminated Bridget's face and +made him keenly sensitive to the charm of her personality--her wayward +fascination, her inconsistencies, her weakness, her temperamental +craving for dramatic contrast, her reckless toying with emotion--by a +curious law of paradox, there came back upon Willoughby Maule that +scene with his dying wife, and he had again the flashing perception of +something sacred, unexplainable, to which his own nature could not +reach. + +It sobered him. He had had the impulse to snatch her to his breast, to +seal the half-compact with a lover's kiss, so passionate that the +memory of it must for ever bind her to him. + +But the impulse was past. They stood perfectly silent, stiff, in the +interval--it seemed a very long one--between the lightning flash, and +the distant reverberation of thunder which followed it. + +Then he said mechanically, like one walking out of a dream? 'There's +going to be a storm. Are you frightened?' + +'No,' she answered. 'I'm never frightened of storms!' and added, +'besides, Colin would be so glad of rain.' + +Before he could reply, she had glided away again and he was alone. + +He thought it strange that she should be thinking of her husband and +his material interests just then. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + + + +It must have been a little while after midnight when Bridget was +awakened by more thunder and lightning and a confused tornado of sound. +She had been dreaming that Harris was throwing her from the gully +cliffs on to the boulders in its bed--only it seemed to her bewildered +senses that the boulders rose towards her instead of her descending to +meet them. Next she discovered that rain was pattering on the zinc +roof, and that the violent concussions she felt beneath her must be due +to the horns of goats knocking up against the boards of her bedroom. +Ah! she thought, the men had forgotten to pen the goats, and they were +sheltering from the rain in the open space under the floor of the +house. There could be no more sleep for her that night, unless they +were dislodged. + +She waited through the din until there came a lull in the storm, then +got up and put on her shoes and a waterproof coat over her nightdress. +It was not the first time by any means that, when sleeping alone, she +had been obliged to rise and drive away stray animals that had been +inadvertently allowed means of entrance. + +She went out to the back veranda, which was connected by steps with the +verandas of the other two wings. The moon was full and shed occasional +pale gleams through the scudding clouds. The close heat had given place +to a chill wind and the rain came down intermittently but in no volume +--it could not make much difference to the parched earth. There was not +a light visible anywhere. The goats were still making a noise under the +house. + +Lady Bridget got a stick from a heap of sandal-wood boughs stacked +against the veranda, and passing to the front, where the piles +supporting the house were higher, proceeded to belabour an elderly +nanny, who, with her mate, was now nibbling twigs of the creepers. But +she was surprised to see only two or three goats, she had thought there +must be many more. The animals were refractory, and her beatings of no +avail. Now, suddenly, she was seized with a fit of nervous shivering +and realised that she felt physically ill. It was of no use for her to +try and drive off the goats. She sank down on the veranda steps of the +Old Humpey, and afterwards thought she must have fainted. + +The sound of Maule's approaching footsteps and his alarmed ejaculation +seemed to bring her to herself. He appeared to have come round the back +of the Old Humpey. He was horrified at the sight of her convulsive +shivering. + +'You mustn't stop here,' he exclaimed. 'I was afraid the goats would +disturb you, and I've been getting them out as quietly as I could. Most +of them are shut up in their fold.' + +She saw that he was almost fully dressed. With an effort she controlled +her terror, and asked: + +'You've not been asleep.' + +'Oh! off and on. I've been keeping my eye on Harris' room,' he pointed +across the yard to the kitchen and store-building opposite--at the end +of which Harris had installed himself--to the squat outline of the +slab and back hide house. 'My ear, too,' he went on, 'for Harris' +slumbers are neither silent nor peaceful. When he's not snoring, he +groans and stirs, and the worst of it is that he's got his door wide +open on to the veranda and his bed right across the window that looks +straight at the door of the hide house. I thought I'd take advantage of +the thunder, but it was no good. He was awake and looking out. Now he +has lain down again, and as soon as I hear him snoring I shall try once +more.' + +A fresh fit of shivering seized Bridget. + +'This won't do,' he said, and went hurriedly into his own room which +opened a few doors down on to the veranda, and coming back with an +opossum rug on his arm and a glass of brandy and water in his hand, he +made her drink the spirits and wrapped the rug round her. Presently the +shivering ceased. + +A moon-gleam between two clouds closing on each other showed her his +eyes glowing with sombre passion. She saw that he was holding himself +under stern restraint. Though where they were, the veranda running +between the end of the Old Humpey and the new house, made a kind of +passage so that they were in shadow, there was a possibility of +watchful eyes discovering their whereabouts. + +'Will you go back to your room, and I'll get rid of these goats,' he +said, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way. 'I supose there isn't a +yard where I could put them, nearer than their own by the lagoon.' + +'I don't think so,' she answered dully, and without stirring from where +she crouched upon the steps. When he urged her anew to go back to bed, +she answered petulantly: + +'Oh, do let me be. I like the wind and the rain--they're soothing. And +I couldn't sleep now until I know that Wombo is safe in the scrub.' + +He made no further protest, but set to work shepherding the goats. She +watched him drive them out of the gate till his dark form and the +piebald shapes he was driving before him were lost in the night. She +knew that it would take some little time to pen them all securely in +their fold. But the night was young yet. + +From shivering, the fire of the brandy and the warmth of the fur rug +had turned her temperature to fever heat. She felt keenly excited; the +blood in her veins seemed boiling, and the occasional raindrops and +moist wind were pleasant on her face. She had gone to the end of the +veranda and stood there with long withes of the native cucumber vine +that grew over the Old Humpey swaying around her in the breeze. There +was not a light in the place. Even moon and stars were now veiled. Her +brain raced round desperate and futile schemes for eluding the +vigilance of the Police Inspector. She wished now that she had thought +of asking him to dinner and putting opium into his coffee--that was +the sort of thing they did in novels. She did not know that a less +developed brain than her own was working at this moment to the same +end, on an inspiration from the bush DEBIL-DEBIL, or such savage +divinity as watches over the loves of the Blacks. + +She saw what at first she had thought part of the shadow of a +neighbouring gum tree cast on the strip of grass that ran at the back +of the Old Humpey. But the lesser shadow moved, halted, and the greater +shadow was stationary and grew denser as the moon sailed again across a +clear patch of sky. + +Then Bridget realised that the moving shadow was the half-caste Oola, +shrouded in the dark blue blanket she had given her, and that the gin +had halted at the casement window of Maule's bedroom. Now, Oola, with +her hands on the sill, curved her lithe body, drew her bare feet to the +window ledge and dropped within. + +Bridget ran along the grass to the window, and from there watched Oola +move about the room and in the almost darkness fumble among the objects +on the dressing-table. Then Bridget could hear the little click of the +tongue and the guttural note of exultation a black tracker gives when +he comes upon a trail. Bridget drew aside against the wall, so that +Oola, again springing over the window sill, did not observe her. But +Bridget saw the watch and chain with the iron key attached to it which +the gin had stolen, and seized Oola's arm as the dark form crouched +upon the grass again. The gin uttered a smothered shriek. Bridget took +the watch from her hand, detached the key from the chain, and slipped +watch and chain into the pocket of her coat, while Oola, clutching Lady +Bridget's knees, pleaded chokily: + +'Mithsis--you gib me key--no make im noise. No tell pollis-man me let +out Wombo. My word! plenty quick he YAN long-a scrub. BA-AL pollis-man +catch Wombo. Mithsis--BUJERI White Mary! You gib it key to Oola.' + +The key was in Oola's hand. 'BA-AL me tell,' whispered Bridget. 'you go +quick.' + +She, too, bent her body and followed Oola, who sped like a hunted hare +round the comer of the Old Humpey. Now she wriggled in the shadow of +the yard railings. Now she crept stealthily past Harris' window--and-- +oh! DEBIL--DEBIL be praised! the Police sergeant's stertorous snoring +was clearly audible. + +Blessed, likewise, be the retiring moon and the sweeping clouds! Lady +Bridget, every nerve a-quiver and the rushing blood throbbing in her +temples, also crept noiselessly beneath the window in the wake of Oola, +crawling like Oola, but more to the back of the hide-house into the +shelter of its drooping bark eaves. + +Bending cautiously round the slabs, she watched, as the gin, with a +swift wriggling motion like that of a snake, drew herself along the +sunken earth floor beneath the eaves and then, softly raising herself +to the level of the padlock, put in the key. There was a muffled +grating of iron under the gin's hand, as the padlock unclosed and the +hasp dropped, then a creak of the door on its hinges, while it opened +and shut behind the undulating shape in the aperture. Then a low +throaty ejaculation--the black's call of warning. And now with a +quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded +serpentine shapes round the hide-house--in and out among the grass +tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum +shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs upon the lesser +darkness, and now altogether invisible. . . . + +Lady Bridget knew that in five minutes, once they could be upright +again, the fugitives would have reached the gully, and after that the +gidia scrub. Then security from the terrors of a white man's gaol would +be almost assured to them. + +Lady Bridget waited--waited, it seemed to her an eternity, in reality +it was barely over the five minutes she had mentally given the two +blacks for their escape. That five minutes had been full of alarms, and +she could feel her heart thumping, so tense was the strain. She had to +consider the possibility of Harris being awakened; also, of Maule's +return and an attempt on his part to free the hide-house prisoner. Also +there was the danger of the clouds breaking before she had done her +work. + +She heard a movement of the sleeper in his bed below the open window +opposite. Harris might have been aroused, and perhaps have stirred +without awakening. . . . But the snoring had ceased. . . . She did not +think, however, that he could be fully awake. . . . Presently the +snoring recommenced. + +She crept very slowly along the earthen floor, drawing her hands along +the slabs as she went. A splinter from one of them ran into her finger +--but that did not matter. Now she touched the door, which lay back +towards her, for the blacks had not waited to close it. She pushed it +very softly, holding her breath at the creak of the hinge and listening +intently for the recurrent snore which sounded through the window only +three paces from her. + +At last the thing was done--the padlock fastened, the key turned in +the lock, and now in her pocket. She dropped flat on the earth, her +cloak drawn lightly between her knees, and wriggled snake-like, as Oola +had done past Harris' windows, then pushed herself on hands and knees +along the ground, squeezing her body against the palings of the yard, +till she reached the Old Humpey on the opposite side. Once round that +corner, she got on to her feet, feeling sick and giddy but intensely +relieved. She leaned against the gum tree which had protected Oola, and +now realised that it had been raining in a driving gust and that she +was wet to the skin. + +The bleating of a kid, which had been left under the house and had +found its way into the yard, startled her anew. She thought that she +heard sounds in the wing near the hide-house--steps on the veranda. +Was Harris stirring? Had he discovered the flight of his prisoner? + +She waited again till all was quiet. By this time, there was a watery +radiance just overhead. She looked towards the lagoon, but there was no +sign of Maule. She felt the shivering begin again, though her head +seemed burning, and she could hardly think collectedly. Her chief idea +was to get back to bed. + +But she was able to reason to herself that Maule must somehow be +informed of the escape. She did not think he could have got back yet to +the spot where he had left her. Or he might come straight to his room +and miss the key and his watch. In any case, these must be restored to +the place from which Oola had taken them. + +She lifted herself to the window-sill as Oola had done, and in a moment +was inside the room. It had been an easy enough business, only that in +clutching the window frame, the jagged end of the splinter she had run +into her hand caught and tore her flesh. The room was of course empty. + +She lifted a candle--which, with matches, stood on the dressing table +--and put back the watch and chain, and the key now separate from them. +That fact would show Maule that it had been tampered with. But she must +find some more exact means of conveying what had happened. Premature +action on his part might give the alarm. Her brain worked in flashes. +She had vivid ideas, which in her fevered state she could not hold +properly. She must write to Maule. A notebook that he must have taken +from his pocket lay on the table also. She tore out a leaf--paused-- +She must write so that only he would understand. An accident might +happen to the paper. + +There must be no definite statement to implicate him or herself. Some +words in French occurred to her. She wrote them down and continued the +note in that language. At the close she begged him to act so that there +should be no ground for suspicion--reminded him of his promise to go +away on the morrow--said she would write to him at the Post Office at +Leuraville. She did not sign the sheet, but folded it across-- +addressed it to Maule and laid it under the watch on the table. + +A fresh spasm of shivering seized her. Suddenly she remembered the +opossum rug she had left. She opened the door leading from Maule's room +into the veranda, and went out. She stood bewilderedly, looking across +the faint-lit yard to the dim veranda of the kitchen wing opposite, as +she fought against the sick faintness that threatened to overcome her. +Then she walked along the veranda to the place where she had parted +from Maule. The rug was lying there, and she threw it round her, and +waited on the steps with chattering teeth and shaking limbs. + +In a minute or two, he joined her. She saw by the fitful moonbeams that +he was wet and muddy--truly in a worse plight than herself. She could +hardly speak for the rigor. Seeing her condition, he took her up in his +arms, and carried her along the veranda towards her own room. The clasp +of his arms, the warmth of his body, even through his wet clothing +helped her to steady herself. She continued to tell him of the great +achievement. + +'Wombo has escaped--I saw Oola taking the key out of your room. Harris +was asleep--snoring. She let Wombo out, and I locked the door of the +hide-house again afterwards, and put the key back in your room. It's +all right--nothing can be found out till the morning. They're safe in +the scrub by now.' + +'Well, I'm thankful for that at any rate,' he answered. 'But at this +moment I cannot think of anything or anyone but you. My dearest--I'm +so afraid of your being ill--what can I do?' + +'Nothing. I have sal volatile in my room--stuff to take for a cold. I +only want to get off my wet things and go to bed--I can sleep now. +Don't be frightened about me.' + +She staggered when he put her gently down inside her own door, but +recovered herself courageously, lighted her candles, laughed at her own +disordered appearance, bade him go at once and look after himself. + +He kissed her hand reluctantly. + +'Till to-morrow.' + +She looked at him alarmedly. 'Will! But you have promised me. You are +going away to-morrow.' + +He did not reply. His eyes were roving round the chamber, dimly lighted +by the two candles. He was observing the feminine details the +untidinesses so characteristic of her; the daintinesses, equally +characteristic--all in such odd contrast with inevitable bush +roughnesses. He noticed the silver and ivory on the dressing-table; the +large silver-framed photographs--an autographed one of the Queen of +Wartenburg--Molly Gaverick and Rosamond Tallant in Court veil and +feathers, Joan Gildea at her type-writer--the confusion of books, the +embroidered coverlet on the large bed, the bush-made couch at its foot +upholstered in rose-patterned chintz on which she had seated herself. + +'You have GOT to go,' she urged. 'WHATEVER happens, you are leaving +here with the mailman to-morrow. . . . Promise--on your word of honour +--that NOTHING shall hinder you.' + +'Of course, I shall keep my promise, though it breaks my heart to leave +you like this. But I know--I feel that the parting will not be for +long. . . . Yes. . . .' as she slowly shook her head and a strange +fateful look shadowed the feverish brightness of her eyes. 'I COULDN'T +leave you if I didn't feel certain of that.' + +'Oh, I'm tired out. I'm tired--dead tired--' Her face was ghastly, +her lips like burning coals. 'I can't argue any more. And now it's +good-night--good-bye.' + +'Not good-bye. At least there will be time to-morrow for that.' + +'You MUST go--Good-night.' + +He left her, but waited in the veranda, reassuring himself by the sound +of movements on the other side of the closed door. When all was silent, +and the candles extinguished, he went back to his own room. + +He saw on the dressing-table his watch and chain with the key detached +beside them--a confirmnation of the truth of what Lady Bridget had +told him. But she had forgotten to tell him of the note she had left +also, and, naturally, he did not look for it. Had he known and looked +he would have discovered that the note was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + + + +Lady Bridget always looked back upon the next few days as a confused +nightmare. She awoke in the grip of fever--that malarial kind which is +common in Australia--tried to get up as usual, but fell back upon her +bed, faint and dizzy. Her brows ached. She had alternations of burning +heat and icy coldness. There came active periods in the dull lethargy +which is often a phase of fever, and from which she only roused herself +at the spur of some urgent call on her faculties. One of these was +Willoughby Maule's anxious message of enquiry conveyed by Maggie, to +which she had the presence of mind to return the answer that she had +caught cold, and was staying in bed for the present, but would no doubt +be quite well shortly. Also that she was sorry not to bid him good-bye, +but begged that he would not think of postponing his departure. + +She heard as in a dream the sound of the mailman's arrival, and +presently, of the saddling of horses in the yard, and then the +CLOP-CLOP of their feet as they were ridden past her end of the house +to the Gully crossing. There were two horses. So Maule had left the +head-station with Harry the Blower, as she had bidden him do. She was +conscious of relief. + +She realised in bewildered fashion, that Maule was gone out of her life +at Moongarr, and connected the sound of his horses' departing feet with +the thud of Sir Luke Tallant's hall door, when he had left her at the +first interview which had led to their final quarrel. + +From that effort of memory she sank again into mental coma. Maggie took +it to be natural sleep, and laid the mailbag just brought by Harry the +Blower, on her mistress' bed to await her awakening. Much later in the +day, on the return of Mr Ninnis and the other men from their +cattle-muster, finding the bag still untouched, Maggie broke the seals +at her mistress' dazed order, and having sorted out Lady Bridget's +letters, carried away the bag for Ninnis to take his own mail. + +But Lady Bridget paid no heed to her letters, and thus it happened that +for the time being, she was quite unaware of an event which was of +great importance to her. + +She had been scarcely even distantly conscious of the hue and cry, and +general excitement at the head-station, when it was discovered that the +prisoner had escaped. Harris had his own suspicions--it might be said, +his certainties, but the man's crafty nature bade him keep his +accusations for an opportunity when he ran less risk of being worsted. +He meant to wait until McKeith's return. Meanwhile what he had not been +prepared for was Willoughby Maule's departure with the mailman before +he himself came back from an unsuccessful hunt after the fugitives. +That move had lain outside his calculations. He had gleaned enough from +Mrs Hensor, as well as from his own observation, to feel sure that +Maule and Lady Bridget were in love with each other, and he had never +supposed that they would part so abruptly. + +The head-station was very shorthanded in the absence of Ninnis and the +stockmen, and Harris had been obliged to go out by himself on the +man-hunt. He did not know the country at the head of the gully, where +he concluded that Wombo was hiding, and lost himself in the gidia +scrub. Thus, he was in a very disagreeable temper, when he at last +arrived at the Bachelors' Quarters. + +To Lady Bridget the day passed, and all the seemingly distant noises of +it, like a phantasmagoria of vision, sound, impressions--the echoes of +station activity; the Chinamen's pidgin English as they weeded the +front garden; Tommy Hensor's voice when he brought the cook a nestful +of eggs some vagrant hen had laid in the grass-tussocks, the men going +forth with the tailing-mob--and at intervals the scorching +recollection of that hinted scandal concerning Colin and Mrs Hensor of +which Maule had told her. . . . Horrible. . . unbelievable. . . and +yet. . . . + +Then, after a long while, with lucid breaks in the dreamy stupor, she +heard the roar of Ninnis' incoming mob of wild cattle from the range. +She could even wonder whether he had been able to muster that herd of +five hundred or so for the sale-yards. She knew that her husband was +counting upon the sale of these beasts--probably at 6 pounds a head--to +enable him to fight the drought, by a speedy sinking of artesian bores. +She felt herself reasoning quite collectedly on this subject, until the +roar of beasts turned into the roar of the mighty Atlantic, breaking +against the cliffs below Castle Gaverick. . . . She saw the green waves +--real as the heaving backs of the cattle--alive, leaping. . . . And +she herself seemed tossed on their crest. . . she saw and felt the cool +embrace of the wave-fairies she had once tried to paint for Joan +Gildea's book. . . . Oh! she had never fully appreciated the strength +of that now inappeasable longing for the Celtic home, the Celtic +traditions which had been born in her. She had never known how much she +loved Castle Gaverick. . . how much she loathed the muggy heat, the +flies and the mosquitoes now brought by last night's rain, the fierce +glare beating upon the veranda, the sun-motes dancing on the +boards. . . . + +The appearance late that evening of Mrs Hensor, who having heard the +mistress was ill, had come down partly from curiosity, partly from +genuine humanity to see what might be amiss, was the next thing that +roused Lady Bridget from her fever-lethargy. + +'Maggie told me you'd been out in the rain last night, and had caught +cold, and I thought Mr McKeith would wish me to ask if I could do +anything,' Mrs Hensor said. + +Lady Bridget sat up in bed, for the moment her most haughty self. + +'Thank you; but there's no occasion for you to trouble, Mrs Hensor. I +would have sent for you if I had required your services.' + +'And I'm not aware that I was engaged to give them,' snorted Mrs +Hensor. 'It was out of consideration for Mr McKeith that I came. I've +got quite enough to do at the Quarters, and I'm really glad not to have +to trouble myself down here--what with Mr Ninnis wanting extra +cooking, and Mr Harris in such a rage over Wombo's getting away--I'm +wondering if you heard anything last night, of that, Lady Bridget? And +Harris is put out, too, over Mr Maule going off with Harry the Blower, +while he was hunting for the black-boy. However,' Mrs Hensor concluded, +'the master will be here tomorrow to see into the rights of things.' + +'How do you know that the master will be here to-morrow?' asked Bridget +sharply. + +'Harry the Blower brought me a letter from Mr McKeith,' replied Mrs +Hensor with malign triumph. 'I suppose he thought you'd be too busy +doing things with Mr Maule to bother over the station affairs, and that +Mr Ninnis might be out on the run--and so he wrote to tell me what he +wanted done as he often used to before.' + +Lady Bridget closed her eyes, and leaned back against the pillows +trying hard to control the muscles of her face, and not to betray her +mortification. Moreover, she was certain that Mrs Hensor had stated the +exact truth. + +'I should prefer to be alone,' she said, feeling the woman's eyes upon +her. + +'Then I'll go, as you don't want me,' returned Mrs Hensor. 'But if I +was you, Lady Bridget, I'd take a dose of laudanum, and get myself into +a perspiration, for I believe it's a touch of dengue fever you've got +the matter with you.' + +A touch of dengue in tropical Australia may be serious or the reverse-- +sharp and short and critical, or tedious and less dangerous. Lady +Bridget's case was the sharp, short kind demanding prompt treatment. +When McKeith came home the following day, he found her delirious, and +incapable of recognizing him. + +Worn out as was the strong man's frame--not only with wild jealousy +and tortured love, but with sleepless nights of patrol work, days in +the shearing-shed, sharp fighting with a second conflagration-- +fortunately put out before much damage had been done--and a final +dispersion of Unionist forces, Colin never for one instant relaxed his +watch by Bridget's bedside. + +All night he tended her, fighting the fever as he had fought the fire +at Breeza Downs, plying her with continued fomentations, dosing her +with quinine, laudanum and the various medicines he had found +efficacious. For never was a better doctor for malarial fever than +Colin McKeith--he had had so much experience of it. When towards +morning she fell into a profuse sweating, and he had to change and +wring out the blankets in which he had wrapped her, he knew that the +fever danger was past. + +She awoke at mid-day from a deep, health-restoring sleep, so weak +however, that her bones felt like water and her face looked as white as +the pillow case. But her brain was clear. + +She saw that there was no one else in the room, which was still in +great disorder. The blankets, hot and heavy, were almost unbearable, +but she had not strength to fling them off. It felt frightfully warm +for the time of year and the air that came in through the open French +window seemed to be blowing from an oven. The sky, as she glimpsed it +from her bed between the veranda eaves and the railings, looked +curiously dark and had a lurid tinge. + +Lifting herself slightly, she became aware that Colin was in the +veranda with his back to her, looking out over the plain. The set of +his figure as he bent forward, with his hands on the railings and his +eyes apparently strained towards the horizon, reminded her of the +determined hunch of his square shoulders and the dogged droop of his +head when he had ridden away with Harris and the Organizer. + +She called faintly, 'Colin.' + +He turned round instantly and came to the bed. She stared up at him, +frightened at the look in his face. . . . Something dreadful must have +happened. She was too weak to go over coherently in her mind the +sequence of events and feelings. She only sensed a menacing spectre, +monstrous, terrifying. She could not realise her own share in the +catastrophe she felt was impending. She could not believe that Colin +could change so much in less than ten days. Everything had come about +with such incredible swiftness. His face looked haggard, ravaged. The +cheeks seemed to have fallen in. The features were rigid as if cut out +of metal. The whites of his eyes between the reddened lids were very +blood-shot and the eyes themselves seemed balls of blue fire. There was +not a shade of kindliness in them, only the gleam of a fixed purpose +which no entreaties would alter. + +She could imagine that he might have looked like that, when, as a boy +he had beheld the mutilated bodies of his father, mother, sisters, +stretched stark, after the blacks had done their hideous work. + +And it was true that he did feel now somewhat as that boy had felt, for +again to his tortured imagination that which he held dearest seemed to +be lying foully murdered before his eyes. She, his love, had been +ravished from him, and he could only regard her as dead to him for +evermore. + +'Colin,' she gasped. 'What is the matter?' + +The muscles of his face relaxed, it seemed automatically, as if there +were no soul behind. He laughed a dry ironic laugh. 'Never mind. You +mustn't speak.' + +He felt her pulse, examined her as a doctor might have done--all +without a word, and straightened the blankets and pillows. + +'You must have food,' he said, and went out. She heard him calling +Maggie. After a few minutes he came back with a tumbler of beaten egg +and milk, to which he had added brandy, and told her she must drink it. + +Her hand was too weak to hold the tumbler. He put one arm under the +pillow, raised her head and held the glass to her lips until she had +drunk every drop of the mixture. All this with no show of tenderness or +one unnecessary word. She needed the nourishment and stimulant, and +after them felt better. + +'I remember. . . . I must have been ill. What was the matter with me?' + +'Dengue,' he answered shortly. + +'I was out in the rain. . . . I got a chill I remember.' + +'Oh, you were out in the rain!. . . I should have thought you could +have done what you wanted without that.' The bitterness of his tone was +gall-like. And again the ironic laugh. + +She winced and drew her head aside. He took away his arm instantly from +behind the pillow and straightened himself, looking down on her, still +with that dreadful light in his eyes. She could not bear it, and turned +her head away from him. + +'Don't look at me. . . . I'm going to get up.' + +'No, I think you'll stay where you are.' His voice broke slightly but +hardened again. 'I won't talk to you. I won't let you speak a word +yet. . . that will come afterwards.' + +'But I don't understand.' + +'Better not now. I'll tell you this. You're through the fever. It won't +come back if you do as I tell you--You understand something about +dengue. You'll stop here till you're stronger. You've got to take the +brandy, eggs and milk till you feel sick of it. To-day you'll have +slops. I've told Maggie about preparing your food, if the fever comes +back--it won't if you keep quiet--but if it does--hot bottles-- +blankets--laudanum--I've mixed the doses--until you get into a +sweat. Remember that. And you'll have someone in your room to-night.' + +'In my room--YOU? What do you mean?' + +'It won't be me--I'm going away.' + +'Going away--what is it?' + +She noticed that he turned and looked at the sky. + +'Why is it so dark--and the heat so stifling?' she asked. + +'These damned Unionists have fired the only good pasture left on +Moongarr. It's been burning since two o'clock this morning. I sent the +men out. Now I'm going myself--to save what I can.' + +He left the room abruptly. In a minute or two she heard him outside +calling 'Cudgee. . . Harris'--and then giving the order to saddle up. +She got out of bed and tottered to the window. She could see now the +wide range of the disaster. The lurid haze was spreading. The horizon +shrinking, and the air was hotter than ever. The fire seemed still a +long way off, but there was nothing to stop the flames if once they +reached the great plain. The course of the river, here at best a mere +string of shallow waterholes, was quite dry. The rain of the other +night had been too insignificant and local to do any good. The brown +mud-strip round the lagoon below, was not perceptibly diminished. She +knew that the narrow water channels flowing from their one working +artesian bore, must soon be licked up by the flames. And the Bore in +process of construction, was at a standstill for want of workmen. + +Bridget gazed out despairingly towards the shrinking horizon and upon +the parched plain with the rugged clumps of dun coloured gum trees +scattered upon it--the near ones looking like trees of painted tin, +sun-blistered. The swarms of flies, mosquitoes in the veranda offended +her. She disliked the cattle dogs mooching round with hanging jaws and +slavering tongues. The ferocious chuckle of a great grey king-fisher-- +the bird which white people called the laughing jackass--perched on +the branch of a gum tree beside the fence, made her shudder, because +the bird's soulless cachinnation seemed an echo of Colin's laugh. + +Ah! that was the bush, undivested of romance--hard, brutal, +vindictive, in spite of the mocking verdure of her honeymoon +spring. . . . And Colin was a part of the Bush. He resembled it. He too +could be strong and sweet and tender as the great blossoming white cedar +down by the lagoon, as rills of running water making the plain green--when +his desires were satisfied. And he could be brutal and vindictive +likewise, when anyone dared to thwart his will and defy his prejudices. + +She staggered about the room, feminine instinct prompting her to +freshen her appearance, to change her soiled, crumpled nightdress, to +throw a piece of lace over her dishevelled head, to pull up the linen +sheets which had been rolled clumsily to the foot of the bed, so that +the blankets could be wrapped round her. But she sank again presently, +exhausted, on her pillows. + +In a short time McKeith came back, booted and spurred, and stood as +before looking at her with forbidding sternness. + +'You'd better have stopped quiet. I've told Mrs Hensor to come down and +look after you. She knows what to do.' + +Bridget cried out passionately: 'I won't have that woman in my room. +How dare you tell her to come near me.' + +'Dare! That seems a queer way to put it. However, you can order her out +if you don't want her. There's Maggie--and I'm sending Ninnis back +to-night.' + +'When are you coming home?' + +'I can't say. I've got things to do--and to think about.' + +His words and his manner seemed to convey a sinister meaning. + +'I see--you are angry about the black-boy. If you want to know I will +tell you exactly what happened.' + +He laughed again and his laugh sounded to her insulting. + +'Oh, I know what has happened. You needn't tell me. I had some +conversation with Harris this morning. I know EVERYTHING; and now I've +got to settle in my own mind how things are to go on.' + +She went very white and repeated dully: 'How--things--are to go on?' + +'Between you and me. You don't imagine, do you, that they can go on the +same?' + +'No,' she retorted with spirit, 'certainly they can't go on the same.' + +Maggie had come along the veranda and was at the French window. + +'Mr Harris says he's ready, sir, and the horses. . . .' + +'All right.' McKeith went out of the door, but turned and paused as if +he were going to speak to his wife. But he thought better of it and +walked rapidly away--perhaps because she avoided his look. + +She supposed that he was infuriated with her because of her part in +Wombo's escape, and she thought his anger unjust. No doubt, too, he +suspected Maule's connivance, and she knew that he was furiously +jealous of Maule. But surely he would understand that she must have +sent Maule away. What more can a wife do in the case of an +over-insistent lover? And how should a husband expect an explanation +when he had literally thrown her into her lover's arms, or at least had +left her defenceless against his solicitations! Had he treated her +differently after the Wombo episode in the beginning, she might have +told him the truth about her former relations with Willoughby Maule. + +As things had been, it was rather for Maule than for Colin that she +found excuse. + +She was bitterly hurt and offended against her husband. Oh, yes. He was +right. They could never again be the same to each other. If he had come +back penitent, pleading for forgiveness, overwhelmed with contrition at +her dismissal of Maule, she might then perhaps have explained +everything and they might have become reconciled. But now, his vile +temper, his insupportable manner, his dominant egoism made any attempt +of conciliation on her part impossible. She had a temper too--she told +herself, and her anger was righteous. And she also had an egoism that +wouldn't allow itself to be trampled on. She had rights--of birth, of +breeding, to say nothing of her rights of wifehood and womanhood for +which she must insist upon respect. If he would not bend to her, even +to show her ordinary consideration and courtesy, then she would not +lower her pride one iota before him. + +Thoughts of this kind went through her mind as she lay smarting under +the burning sense of outrage, until the reappearance of Mrs Hensor. +Then, the new effort she made in sending away the woman exhausted brain +and body and left her with scarcely the power to think--certainly not +to reason. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + + + +But Lady Bridget did not know what had followed upon her husband's +home-coming. She had not been in a condition to realize how all night +through he had tended her, putting aside every other consideration, +giving no heed to the affairs of the station, refusing to see the +Police Inspector who had sent in an urgent message soon after his +arrival. + +Only when turning for a moment to the veranda and noticing the red +glare in the sky, had he been startled out of his absorption in his +wife's illness. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been on his +horse in a twinkling and riding as for life to fight the worst foe a +squatter has to face in times of drought. He knew that if the fire +spread, it might mean his ruin. As it was, he rushed up to the Quarters +to rouse Ninnis and send him with Moongarr Bill and all available hands +to do what he could in arresting the flames. But he himself dared not +leave Bridget till the fever was down, and the crisis past. That could +not be till she had awakened from the deep sleep into which she had +fallen. + +With the sight of her in that sleep, however, the pull on his forces +slackened, though he was still too strung-up to think of snatching even +an hour's sleep for himself. He watched, alternately, the Bush fire and +Bridget's face, thinking his own dour thoughts the while. Every now and +then, he would creep on tip-toe to the veranda railings and gaze out +upon the lurid smoke which it seemed to him was thickening over the +horizon. When the sun was risen he washed and dressed and went up to +the Bachelors' Quarters where Mrs Hensor was already about and gave him +tea and food, which he badly needed. From her he learned a considerable +amount of what had been going on at Moongarr. From the Police +Inspector, a little later, he learned a good deal more. + +Harris' manner was portentous; he asked for a private interview in the +office, saying that he had stayed on purpose to see the Boss, because +his tale was impossible to write. Then he told his own version of the +capture and locking up of Wombo, taking blame on himself for having +left the key of the hide-house in Maule's possession. + +'But you see, Boss, he twitted me a bit about not having a warrant, and +there's no doubt, wherever he's learned it, that the chap has got the +whole constabulary lay-out at his finger ends--besides having the ear +of the Governor and the Executive down in Leichardt's Town. He's got +money too, no end of it. They were saying in Tunumburra that his wife +left him a quarter of a million.' + +'Go on--that's nothing to do with us,' put in McKeith gruffly. + +'He's an old friend of her Ladyship's, I understand,' sniggered Harris. + +'What the devil has that got to do with Wombo?' said McKeith furiously. + +Harris drew in his feelers. + +'I wouldn't swear that it had, Mr McKeith, and I wouldn't swear that it +hadn't. All I know is, that Mr Maule had the key of the hide-house in +his bedroom that night, and, being a close friend of her Ladyship's, he +was no doubt aware that she didn't relish the notion of Wombo's being +had up for theft and murder--I'm not saying who it was let out Wombo. +It's a mystery I don't take upon myself to fathom--I'll leave that to +you.' + +'There's one easy solution of the mystery that doesn't seem to have +occurred to you,' said McKeith. 'The gin Oola could easily have stolen +the key--they're cunning as the devil--half-castes--and as +treacherous--I know them--I've had my own good reasons for not +letting one of them inside the fence of my head-station.' + +'That may be--I can only say what I know, and you can form your own +opinion.' + +'Say what you know then--I'm waiting to hear. But be quick about it, +man, I've no time to waste this morning.' + +Harris began his tale--how he had watched at the window of his little +room, till after midnight, his gun ready, his eyes glued on the +padlocked door opposite; how overcome with drowsiness against which he +had vainly struggled--'for a man that's been pretty near two days and +nights in the saddle may be excused if his eyes begin blinking,' Harris +put it. He had dropped dead asleep--he confessed it--at his post. +Then, how on awakening suddenly, for no apparent reason, all seeming +quiet around, he had got up as he was, half dressed and in his boots-- +had stepped across to the hide-house, had found the padlock intact and, +hearing no sound, had concluded the black-boy was inside safe asleep. +How then, with a relieved mind, he had been going back to his +stretcher, when the noise of a goat bleating had set him on the +look-out from his veranda. How, presently, looking at the veranda +opposite, he had seen the door of Mr Maule's bedroom open, and a woman +come out, how she had stood a few moments facing him, with the +moonlight straight on her, so that there was no possibility of his +making a mistake. Harris paused. McKeith glared at the man, who, had he +been quick at psychological interpretations, would have read an awful +apprehension underlying the ill-restrained fury in the other's face. +The question came in hoarse jerks. + +'What--Who--Who was it you saw--?' + +'It was the Lady Bridget, Boss. . . . I--' + +Before he could proceed, a strong arm struck out and McKeith's hand +clutched at the Police Inspector's neck. + +'You hound! You contemptible skunk! Take back that lie, or I'll +throttle it in your throat.' + +Harris was of powerful build also, and, moreover knew some tricks of +defence and assault. He freed himself by a dexterous duck of his head, +and a sharp shake of his body, and stepped backward so that the office +table was between him and his antagonist. + +His face was scarlet, his bull's eyes protruded from their full +sockets. But he was wary, and not anxious to provoke the devil in +McKeith. + +'Wait a bit,' he said thickly. 'if you'll keep your hands off me, and +let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm +not telling you lies--though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to +her Ladyship. . . . + +'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth +showing between his tense lips. + +'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I +can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be +reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence--well, so much +the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector +craftily. + +McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing. +His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to +the quick, while Harris continued. + +'Well--I did see--that lady,'--the volcanic gleam from McKeith's +eyes stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come +out of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was +right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver--she'd been out in the +wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit +joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps-- +' + +'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you +couldn't have seen as far as the steps.' + +'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the +lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that +flower-bush'--Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed, +and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try +yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the +front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of--I guessed he'd +come round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she +oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp--She was shivering again +--she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just picked +her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I stepped +across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of the +front veranda. . . .' + +A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make +when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he +stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The +Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful. + +'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be +anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then--in Mr +Maule's room, I went back and looked in. I wanted to make sure, if I +could, where the key of the hide-house might be. There was a candle +left alight, and I saw the key right enough on the chest of drawers +beside Maule's watch and chain. It never came into my mind then, that +anybody could have used it. I noticed a bit of folded paper under the +watch. That's it, Mr McKeith. There's the proof that I am not lying +about what I saw.' + +Harris had taken out of his breast pocket, a piece of newspaper in +which was wrapped the leaf torn out of Maule's notebook, folded and +addressed. He opened it out, and laid it on the office table in front +of McKeith, keeping his own stubby finger on one corner of the sheet. + +Still McKeith maintained his difficult self-restraint. + +'So you stole--a private communication that had been left in another +person's room, and was intended for his eyes alone?' + +'Come now, Boss. You know well enough that a constabulary officer who's +up against tricks to release a prisoner has got to keep his eyes +peeled, and mustn't let any clue to mischief escape him. How was I to +know that there wasn't some plot to cheat the law? How do I know that +there wasn't? That's why I'm showing you the paper. I'm not a French +scholar--I suppose that's French--and as I suppose you are, I'll ask +you to translate what's written there.' + +McKeith pushed aside the man's finger, and taking up the paper carried +it to the window, where he stood with his back to Harris, spelling out +Lady Bridget's hurriedly written sentences. + +He seemed a long time in getting at the sense of what he read. As a +matter of fact, he had only a limited acquaintance with any modern +languages except his own. He had picked up some colloquial German, and +once when laid up in hospital, had set himself to read Balzac's PERE +GORIOT with the aid of a dictionary. Thus he had acquired a fairly +extensive if somewhat archaic vocabulary. But Lady Bridget's veiled +intimation of Wombo's escape couched in up-to-date and highly idiomatic +French which would have been perfectly intelligible to Willoughby +Maule, conveyed little to him beyond the fact of a secret understanding +between his wife and a man whom he knew had once been her lover. That +idea drove every other into the background of his thoughts. He did not +care in the least how Wombo had escaped. It seemed clear to him that +Oola had stolen the key after Harris had gone back to his room, while +Maule and his wife were together--together in Lady Bridget's own +chamber. The blood surged to his brain, and his temples throbbed as +though they would burst. In the madness of his jealousy, the words of +the paper, combined with Harris' revelations were damnatory +confirmation of his wife's guilt. He felt now that he had foreseen what +would happen, from the moment that he had surprised the look on Lady +Bridget's face, when Maule had unexpectedly appeared before her. She +had given herself away then. And, a little sooner, rather than a little +later--as might have been the case had he not left them together--the +inevitable had come to pass. + +Yes, through the agony of that conviction now brought home to him, a +dogged resolve formed itself in his mind--the determination not to +betray himself or her. It beat upon him with insistent force. Though +his goddess must be dethroned from her shrine in his heart, she should +not be cast down for a vulgar brute like Harris to gloat over her +shame. . . . + +'Well, Boss,' the Police Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that +bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to +you out of that?' + +McKeith turned, Harris thought he was going to leap upon him in a fit +of blind fury, and started up from his seat by the office table. +McKeith's eyes blazed, his taut sinews quivered; his face was now quite +pallid, and the hand in which he held the piece of paper was clenched +so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords, and the knuckles +were perfectly bloodless. + +But suddenly the pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped, +and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant. + +He moved into his usual office chair. + +'Sit down again, won't you, Harris?' he said, and Harris resumed his +former place. + +'What were you asking?' McKeith continued. 'Satisfactory to me is it? +Yes, perfectly satisfactory, thank you. . . . I'm only amused--as you +see. . . to find that I was quite right in my suspicions.' And he +laughed in what Harris thought a very odd way. + +'Eh? I don't take your meaning.' Harris' manner was distinctly +objectionable. + +McKeith gave him a sharp look, and his teeth went over his under lip. +Then, to the man's evident surprise, he laughed again, throwing his +head back so that the muscles of his throat showed under his beard, +working, as it were, automatically. It really seemed as if the man's +mechanical merriment were no part of himself. He was, in fact, gaining +time to propound an explanation which he did not believe in the least, +but which happened to be almost the exact truth. + +He answered with an air of ironic indifference. + +'Well, you know, I wouldn't go in for the detective line, if I were +you, Harris. You aren't subtle enough for it. You jump too quickly at +conclusions which have nothing to do with the main point. In fact, +you're a fool, Harris--a damned fool.' + +Harris' puzzled expression turned to one of extreme indignation. 'Seems +to me, Mr McKeith, that it's you who are--well, damned queer about +this affair. I'm sure I don't know what you've got to laugh at. But if +you've found out who let the black-boy out of the hide-house, I'd be +glad to know, that's all.' + +McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He +leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had +laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's last words. + +'Yes, that IS all. It's the only part of this note which concerns you. +Well, I can tell you that it was the half-caste woman, as I thought, +who let Wombo out of the hide-house. She stole the key from Mr Maule's +room when HE was asleep, and let Wombo out when YOU were asleep--a +longer time perhaps than you imagined, Harris. The black-boy made for +the scrub, and I suppose they were in too great a hurry to think of +shutting the door. Oola sneaked back--they've got the cunning of +whites and blacks put together, those half-castes--and no doubt she +guessed there'd be a hue and cry directly the door was found open. So +she locked it again--and brought the key to her ladyship.' + +McKeith seemed to force the last words from between his teeth. + +'Well, that's quite simple, isn't it?' + +'Now, I shouldn't call it as simple as you make out, Boss. It appears +mighty odd to me that the gin should have worried round after her +ladyship when she might have sneaked back with the key to the place she +took it from. And then there's all the rest--the putting the key back +and fitting in times and all that. . . . Seems to me a bit too much of +the Box and Cox trick--a sort of jig-saw puzzle, d'you see.' + +Manifestly, Harris was endeavouring to square probabilities. McKeith +still held himself in. + +'I've given you the facts. You can figure out your details for +yourself. I've my own business to attend to, and I must be off on it.' + +He got up, and folding Lady Bridget's note, deliberately put it in his +breast pocket. Harris stretched forth a restraining hand. + +'Boss, I say--that's important--for my report, you know.' + +McKeith's temper burst out. + +'Damn your report. I'm a magistrate, and I've taken your report, and +the blacks are in the scrub and you can go and find them for yourself +if you choose. You have no warrant, remember. No, I'm not going to be +bothered any more about that black-boy. What. . . . Not I--with a fire +raging on my run, and not enough hands to put it out.' + +'But her ladyship. . . .' spluttered Harris. + +'Listen here you. . . .' McKeith's face and attitude were menacing. 'I +came back to find her ladyship down with dengue as bad as could be. It +was on her that night, and if she had to be carried to her room in a +fit of shaking, what business is that of yours? Understand me, Harris. +Don't you go mixing up my wife's name with this beastly black-boy +affair, or you'll have to reckon with me--and I can tell you, you +won't relish that reckoning.' + +'There was no offence meant. I only wanted to do my duty,' protested +the Police Inspector, cringing after the way of bullies. + +'You'll find opportunity enough for doing that if you ride back to +Breeza Downs and lend the Specials your valuable assistance in +protecting the sheep-owners against the Unionists. And I might remind +you, as I reminded that damned Organiser who's fired my run, that +there's a hundred pounds reward still waiting for anybody who catches +the men that robbed my drays and killed my horses.' + +McKeith paused a moment before going out by the further door of the +office which looked out on the plain. + +'I'll leave you now to run up your horse and make your own +arrangements. As soon as I can, I shall start to help in getting the +bush fire under. You can arrest that Organiser if you are keen on +arresting somebody. Send in when you're saddled up, and if I'm ready +we'll ride to the turn-off track together.' + +McKeith went back to his wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it +was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He +left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He +sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep +dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from +between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where +he had bitten it in the effort to control himself. Presently, he heard +a sound in the next room--a half moan--a name spoken. No, it would +not be his name that she would utter first on her return to +consciousness. + +The man got up; stretched his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had +been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the +blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she +opened her eyes and found him looking down at her. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + + + +Next morning, Lady Bridget was better and her mind clearer. There had +been no return of fever, and, though the physical weakness was great +and her temperature--had she taken it--would have been found a good +deal below normal, her fierce determination not to remain helpless any +longer gave her strength to get up and dress. She was not able, +however, to do anything but lie in a half-alive condition in the +hammock at the end of the veranda. All night the fire had blazed, but +more fitfully, and this morning the lurid glare had died down. Only a +murky haze, faintly red here and there, spread over the north-eastern +sky. Small, isolated smoke-clouds rose above the stretches of forest, +and an irregular-shaped tract of charred grass at the edge of the plain +showed how far the flames had encroached upon it before they had been +got under. One might well conceive with what almost superhuman +exertions the beaters had at length accomplished their task. A large +number of cattle had been driven by the fire on to the pasture beyond +the home paddock--a pasture that had so far been carefully nursed in +view of possible later necessity. + +Bridget was bushwoman enough to comprehend the crippling effect upon +McKeith's resources of the calamity, had she allowed her mind to dwell +upon that aspect of affairs. But her mind was incapable just now of +dealing with practical issues. She felt utterly weak, utterly lonely. +Although she was glad Maule had gone, she missed his sympathetic +companionship to an extent that she could hardly have thought possible. + +As the hammock swayed gently at the slight touch of her fingers on its +rope edge, her imagination drifted dangerously and her senses yielded +to the old drugging fascination. He seemed as close to her as had been +his bodily shape a few days previously. She was conscious of the pull +of his will upon the invisible cords by which he held her. If it were +an unholy spell, it was, now, at least, in her desolation, a consoling +one. He loved her; he wanted her. She knew that he was passionately +eager to devote his life to her. He would wait expectantly until she +wrote. With a few strokes of her pen she might end her irksome +captivity in this wall-less prison of desert plain--this wilderness of +gum and gidia. + +As she lay there in the hammock, a child's clumpy boots pattered along +the garden path and Tommy Hensor came up the steps with a big cabbage +leaf gathered in his hand. He opened it out when he reached the veranda +and displayed three Brazilian cherries, the first fruits of a plant +growing in the Chinaman's garden. + +'La-ship . . . La-ship! I got these myself. I made Fo Wung give 'em me +for you.' + +At any other time the child's offering would have been received, at any +rate, graciously. Now Tommy shrank away, startled by the look on Lady +Bridget's face and the forbidding gesture with which she warned him +off. + +'Go away! . . . Go away! . . .' she cried. 'I don't want you.' + +Tommy's common, freckled little face crumpled up and his blue eyes +filled with tears. He dropped the cabbage leaf and the cherished +Brazilian cherries and ran down the steps again, blubbering piteously. + +Lady Bridget got up as soon as the child had clicked the garden gate +behind him. She was ashamed of the spasm of revulsion that had seized +her. She wanted to cast away from her the dreadful thought his +appearance had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the +fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the +butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big, +grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in +derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of hysterical laughter. + +A little later Maggie came out from the bedroom with some letters in +her hand. + +'I've laid holt on your mail, Ladyship, turning out your room. I expect +you forgot all about it.' + +Yes, she had forgotten, absolutely; it seemed years since Harry the +Blower had passed by and Willoughby Maule had departed. She languidly +inspected the envelopes. Nothing among them of any importance--except +one. + +It was a blue telegraph-service envelope, and had been forwarded on by +the postman from Crocodile Creek, the nearest telegraph station. In the +last fifteen months they had brought the bush railway a good deal +further up the river, and Crocodile Creek was the present terminus. +Thus the road journey was now considerable shorter than when Colin +McKeith had brought his bride home. + +Lady Bridget read the several lines of the cabled message over two or +three times before the real bearings of it became clear to her +fever-weakened intelligence. + +At last she grasped the startling fact that the cablegram was from her +cousin, Lord Gaverick, and that it had been despatched from London +about seven days previously. This was what it said. + +'ELIZA GAVERICK DIED TWENTIETH LEAVES YOU CASTLE AND FIFTY THOUSAND +DIFFICULTIES EXECUTORS YOUR PRESENCE URGENTLY DESIRED WIRE IF CAN COME, +GAVERICK ' + +Lady Bridget let the blue form drop on her lap. She stared out over the +brown plain and the herds of lean beasts all shadowy in the smoky mist +over the horizon, then round, along the wilderness of gidia scrub, with +its charred patches afar off, from which there still rose thin spirals +of smoke. + +Destiny had spoken. Here was the order of release. There was no gaoler +to keep the prison doors locked any longer--except--except--No, if +she wished to break her bonds, Colin would never gainsay her. + + + +Late that night the men came back from fighting the fire which they had +now practically put out. Even in the moonlight they looked deplorable +objects, grimed, covered with dust and ashes, their skins and clothes +scorched by the fierce heat. + +They seemed drunk with fatigue, and could scarcely sit their horses. +When they dismounted they could hardly stand. + +Their feeble COO-EES at the sliprails brought out Ninnis, who had been +sent home in the afternoon and had been taking some well-earned repose +so as to be ready for the next shift--happily not required. He and the +few hands left to look after the head-station and the tailing-mob held +the men's horses when their riders literally tumbled off them. Ninnis +made McKeith take a strong pull of whiskey and supported him along to +the Old Humpey. For Colin had had strength to say that Lady Bridget +must on no account be disturbed. Ninnis led him to the room lately +occupied by Willoughby Maule, and was surprised at his employer's +vehement refusal to remain in it. + +'I'll not stop here. . . . No, I won't go to my dressing-room. In God's +name, just let me stretch myself on the bunk in the Office and go to +sleep.' + +He threw himself on a bush-carpentered settle, with mattress and +pillows covered in Turkey-red, which was used sometimes at mustering +times when there was an overplus of visitors. There he lay like a log +for close on twelve hours. + +By and by, Lady Bridget, at once longing and reluctant, came softly in +to see how he fared. + +A storm of pity, anger, tenderness, repulsion--the whole range of +feeling, it seemed, between love and hate--swept over her as she +looked at the great gaunt form stretched there. Colin was still in +riding clothes and booted and spurred. His moleskins were black with +smoke and charcoal; his flannel shirt, open at the neck, showed red +scratches and scorch-marks on the exposed chest and was torn over the +arms, where were more excoriations of the flesh. And the ravaged face! +How hard it was. How relentless, even in the utter abandonment of +bodily exhaustion! The skin was caked with black dust and sweat. The +darkened thatch of yellow hair was dank and wet. The fair beard, +usually so trim, was singed in places, matted, and had bits of cinder +and burnt leaves sticking to it. + +A revolting spectacle, offending Lady Bridget's fine, physical +sensibilities, but a MAN--THE Man. She could not understand that +tornado of emotion which now made her being seem a very battle-ground, +for all the primal passions. She turned away with a sense of nausea, +and then turned to him again with a kind of passionate longing to take +him in her arms--brutal as she thought him, and unworthy of the +affection she had once felt for him--felt still alas!--and all the +romance she had once woven about him. . . . She saw that a fly was +hovering over the excoriated arm and drew the ragged sleeve over its +bareness. Then she noticed the mosquito net reefed up on a hoop above +the bunk, and managed to get the curtain down so that he should be +protected from the assaults of insects. But as she touched him in doing +this, he stirred and muttered wrathfully in his sleep, as though he +were conscious of her tenderness and would have none of it; she fled +away and came to him no more. + +She had been racking her brain since receiving the cablegram as to what +answer she should return to it. + +After that pitiable sight of her husband, Bridget moved restlessly +about the house, with intervals of lassitude in the hammock, for she +still felt weak and ill. But quinine was keeping the fever down, and +she resolved that her husband should not again be required to nurse +her. She did not go into the Office any more, but busied herself in a +defiant fashion upon little cares for his comfort when he awoke. He +should see that she did not neglect her house-wifely duties--at least +while she remained there to perform them. The qualification was +significant of her mood. + +Thus, she gave orders that the veranda of the Old Humpey should be kept +free from disturbing footsteps, and saw that the bathroom was in order, +and a change of clothing set ready for him when he should awake. Also +that there should be a meal prepared. + +He did not wake till the afternoon. She heard him go straight in to +take his bath, and hastened to have the dining room table spread. But +she saw him go out of the bathroom--all fresh and more like himself-- +and cross the yard on his way to the Bachelors' Quarters, making it +clear to her that he wished to avoid the part of the house she +occupied. Bridget went back to the front veranda in a cold fury, +pierced by stabs of mental pain. She watched him from the end of the +veranda go into the living room of the Quarters, and thought bitterly +that he would ask Mrs Hensor for the food he required. No doubt too, he +would obtain from Mrs Hensor, information as to how she herself had +been getting on during his absence, and Mrs Hensor would give him a +garbled report of her own dismissal from the sick room. . . . How dared +he--oh! how DARED he treat her, Lady Bridget, his wife, with such +cruel negligence, such marked insult! + +It did not occur to her that he might wish to see Ninnis, who, when at +the station, was usually about this time, in his office at the back of +the Bachelors' Quarters. + +After a time, she heard Colin's voice again in the yard, and his step +on the Old Humpey veranda. He came now by the covered passage on to +that of the New House, and advanced towards her. + +He only came, she told herself, because it would have seemed too +strange had he continued to ignore her existence. + +And he was conscious of her resentment. By a curious affinity, his own +spirit thrilled to the unquenchable spirit in her. Qualities in himself +responded to like qualities in her. He admired her pride and pluck. Yet +the two egoisms reared against each other, seemed to him--could he +have put the thought into shape--like combatants with lances drawn +ready to strike. + +He believed that it was love which gave her strength--love, not for +him, but for that other man whose influence he was now convinced had +always been paramount, and who with renewed propinquity had resumed his +domination. + +Certain phrases in that letter he had read long ago on Joan Gildea's +veranda, and which had been haunting him ever since Willoughby Maule's +re-appearance, struck his heart with the searing effect of lightning. +He felt, at the first sight of her there on the veranda, before she +turned full to him, a passionate yearning to take her in his arms, and +cover her poor little wasted face with kisses--to call her 'Mate'; to +remind her of that wonderful marriage night under the stars. But when +he saw the proud aloofness of her look, his longing changed to a dull +fury, which he could only keep in check by rigorous steeling of his +will against any softening impulse. + +So his face was hard as a rock, his voice rasping in its restraint, +when he came near and spoke to her. 'You have not had any more fever?' + +'No.' + +He put two or three questions to her about her health--whether she had +taken the medicine he had left for her, and so on, to which she +returned almost monosyllabic replies, sufficiently satisfactory in the +information they gave him. + +'That's all right then,' he said coldly. 'I thought it would be, though +I didn't at all like leaving you in such a condition.' + +'Really! But it doesn't seem as if you had felt any violent anxiety +about me since you came back. I heard you go to the bathroom a long +time ago, and I saw you going up to the Quarters.' + +He did not appear to notice the latter implication. + +'I had to sleep,' he said curtly. 'I was dead beat.' + +'Yes, I saw that,' she answered. + +'A-ah!' The deep intake of breath made a hissing sound, and he flushed +a brick red. 'You came and looked at me?' + +'I went into the Office.' + +'I didn't want you to see me. You must have loathed the sight of me. I +was a disgusting object.' + +She said nothing. + +If he had glanced at her he would have seen a piteous flicker of +tenderness pass over her face--a sudden wet gleam in her eyes. And had +he yielded then to his first impulse, things might have gone very +differently between them. But he kept himself stiffened. He would not +lift his eyes, when she gave him a furtive glance. The expression of +his half averted face was positively sinister as he added with a +sneering little laugh. + +'One can't look as if one had come out of a bandbox after fighting a +bush fire.' + +She exclaimed, 'Oh! what does it matter?' + +He utterly mistook the meaning of her exclamation. + +'You are quite right,' he retorted. 'When it comes to the end of +everything, what does ANYTHING matter!' + +For several moments there was dead silence. She felt as if he had +wilfully stabbed her. He on his side had again the confused sense of +two antagonists, feinting with their weapons to gain time before the +critical encounter. + +'Well?' He swung himself savagely round upon her. 'That's true, isn't +it? The end HAS come. . . . You're sick of the whole show--dead sick-- +of the Bush--of everything?--Aren't you? Answer me straight, +Bridget.' + +'Yes, I am,' she replied recklessly. 'I hate the Bush--I--I hate +everything.' + +'Everything! Well, that settles it!' he said slowly. + +Again there was silence, and then he said: + +'You know I wouldn't want to keep you--especially now,'--he did not +add the words that were on his lips 'now that bad times are coming on +me,'--and she read a different application in the 'now.' 'I--I'd be +glad for you to quit. It's as you please--maybe the sooner the better. +I'll make everything as easy as I can for you.' + +'You are very--considerate. . . .' The sarcasm broke in her throat. + +She moved abruptly, and stood gazing out over the plain till the +hysterical, choking sensation left her. Her back was to him. He could +not see her face; nor could she see the dumb agony in his. + +Presently she walked to a shelf-table on the veranda set against the +wall; and from the litter of papers and work upon it, took up the +cablegram she had lately received. + +'I wanted to show you this,' she said stonily, and handed him the blue +paper. + +There was something significant in the way he steadied it upon the +veranda railing, and stooped with his head down to pore over it. + +The blow was at first almost staggering. It was as though the high gods +had shot down a bolt from heaven, shattering his world, and leaving him +alone in Chaos. They had taken him at his word--had registered on the +instant his impious declaration. It WAS the end of everything. She was +to quit. . . . He had said, the, sooner the better. . . . Well--he +wasn't going to let even the high gods get a rise out of him. + +He laughed. By one of those strange links of association, which at +moments of unexpected crisis bring back things impersonal, unconnected, +the sound of his own laugh recalled the rattle of earth, upon the dry +outside of a sheet of bark in which, during one of their boundary rides +at Breeza Downs lately, they had wrapped for burial the body of a +shepherd found dead in the bush. Both sounds seemed to him as of +something dead--something outside humanity. + +He handed her back the telegram, speaking still as if he were far-off-- +on the other side of a grave, but quite collectedly and as though in +the long silence he had been weighing the question. + +'It seems to me that this has come to you in the nick of time, to solve +difficulties.' + +'Yes,' she assented dully. + +'You've got no choice but to go as your cousin says. There's money +depending on it.' + +'Money! . . . Oh, money!' she cried wildly. + +'Money is apt to stick on to lawyers' fingers when they're left to the +handling of it . . . . This is a matter of business, and business can't +be put on one side--especially, when there's as large a sum as fifty +thousand pounds in the proposition. I guess from this that you're +wanted.' + +'Yes,' she said again. She was thinking to herself, 'That's his Scotch +carefulness about money; he wouldn't consider anything in comparison +with that.' + +'You had better take the northern route,' he went on. 'There ought to +be an E. and A. boat due at Leuraville pretty soon--I'll look it out. +. . . Perhaps you'd like to make the start to-morrow?' + +'To-morrow--oh yes, to-morrow--just whenever suits you.' + +'I couldn't take you down myself. There are things--serious matters +I've got to see to on the station. And besides, you'll allow it's best +for me not to go with you. Ninnis could drive you to Crocodile Creek, +and put you into the train; and Halliwell will look after you at +Leuraville, and see you on board the steamer.' + +'Oh, I wonder that you can spare Ninnis,' she returned bitterly. 'I +suppose you'd want Moongarr Bill still more on the run. But there's Joe +Casey--I daresay somebody else can milk the cows, and get up wood and +water. Or there's Cudgee--I don't mind who goes with me. . . . I can +drive myself.' + +'My God! do you imagine I'd put a black-boy--or anyone but my own +trusted overseer in charge of you! What are you thinking of to talk +like that?' + +He took a few steps along the veranda, moving with uncertain gait; then +stopped and leaned heavily against the wall. In a few seconds he had +recovered himself, and came back to her, speaking quietly. + +'I will think out things and arrange it all. You'll be perfectly safe +with Ninnis, I think it would be better for you to sleep one night at +old Duppo's place. There's fresh horses for the buggy there--I've got +Alexander and Roxalana in the paddock now--they're the best. . . .' + +Oh, how could he bear that those horses, of the dream-drive, should +take her away from him! He went on in the same matter-of-fact manner. +'I expect the answer to the cablegram will get as quickly as if Harry +the Blower took it, if you send it from Crocodile Creek yourself. And +there's your packing--there's not much time, but you won't want to +take a lot of things. Anything you cared about could go afterwards.' + +'Go afterwards--What do you mean? I want to take nothing--nothing +except a few clothes.' + +'Ah well--it doesn't matter--As you said--nothing matters now. . . . +Well, I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow. . . . Then +there's money. . . .' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down +to the Old Humpey, looking back at her--'what you'll need for the +passage--and afterwards--I know what you'll be thinking; but I can +arrange for it with the Bank manager at Leuraville.' + +A mocking demon rose in her. + +'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare +passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.' + +His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was +terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out. + +'I don't think--you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly +down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a +mortal hurt. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + + + +If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last +evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her +husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It +would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably +McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least +when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed +to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks. +No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and +spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to +approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more +forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was +living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly +serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love. + +There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife +both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed +scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis--first explaining to +the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's +voyage to England--a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical +mind, particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him +a little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also +recognised practical reasons--against that natural concession to +sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer +ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in +himself. + +The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling +the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing +that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very +hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow, +when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at +old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander +and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey. +They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at +Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And +there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady +Bridget's comfort during the journey. + +Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further +overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle +sales. . . . Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and +expenses of sinking fresh artesian bores--now that the fire had destroyed +all the best grass on the run? + +McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That +only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new +strength to the wall between them. + +He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were written-- +to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the Police-magistrate at +Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and Australian Steam +Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay the passage; to +the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who happened to be an +acquaintance of his--all recommending Lady Bridget to the different +people's care--all anticipating and arranging against every possible +drawback to her comfort on the voyage--all carefully stating the +object of her trip to England--business connected with the death of a +near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of dinner--during +which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before Maggie and the +Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact details--looking +out the exact time of the putting in of the next E. and A. boat at +Leuraville--all of which he had already done, and pointing out to +Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare. + +There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things +to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the +office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not +come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on +the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in +wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze. + +Her packing was no great business--clothes for the voyage, and a big +furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth +of winter--that was all. + +Everything else--her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings--she +left just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt +reckless and quite hard. + +Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing +tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree, +warped almost into a tube. + +She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would +Colin ever find it there--and would he understand? All the time, +through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any +possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the +past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon. + +When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her +husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage. +Scarcely a word passed between them; they did not even breakfast +together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast +already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about +collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and +begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the +basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo +Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a +supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early +flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries. + +Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they +promised to have the garden 'velly good--TAI YAT number one' and to +'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence. + +While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine +and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared +in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different +bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy. + +Everything was ready now--the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that +it could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain--this +last alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were +champing their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean +puggaree, wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of +ladies he wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining +the lash of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last +directions. There was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up +the steps of the back veranda, and in at the French window of the +sitting room, where Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his +appearance, she went back into the room. She stood quite still, small, +shadowy, the little bit of her face which showed between the folds of +her motor veil, where it was tied down under her chin--very pale, and +the eyes within their red, narrowed lids, dry and bright. + +'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked. + +'Yes.' + +He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands, +carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it +to Mr Ninnis--all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called +him back in a hard voice. + +'Colin--I've left my keys,'--pointing to a sealed and addressed +envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of value-- +some you have given me--in the drawers.' + +'I will take care of them,' he answered hoarsely. + +They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised, +stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces. + +'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say +good-bye?' + +He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and +dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision +might not pierce--through which their yearning lips might not touch. +For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of +emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice; +she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved +back a step. + +'Good-bye--Bridget.' + +'Is that all you have to say? All?' + +He stuttered, helplessly. 'I--I--can't. . . . There's nothing to +say.' + +'Nothing! You let me go--like this--without one word of apology--of +regret. I think that, at least, you owe me--courtesy.' + +Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied +speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say this +--though where's the good of talking. . . . What does it amount to +anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but +to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say +this--I've never pretended to fine manners--I leave them--to others. +I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!--that's my +apology--As for regret. My God! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I +won't say that. . . . Because there are some things I CAN'T regret-- +for myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane ass ever to +imagine that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman +brought up like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come out-- +incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding--outlook on things-- +they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that it's +sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your old +conditions before you've grown different in yourself--dried up-- +soured--maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in the +bush. . . . As it is, you'll get out all right--Never fear that I +won't see you get out all right.' + +'And you?' she put in. + +'Me! I don't count--I don't care. . . . A man's not like a woman. I've +always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not +going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good--some time--somehow. +I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in +the big shake-up.' + +She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the +expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism-- +a lower side of him asserting itself just then--had always jarred upon +her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem +revolted at it. + +'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to +my rights, and keep you here with me--what has happened would prevent +me--I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife. +But you won't be harmed. . . . I don't know yet, but I believe there's +a way by which you can win through straight and square--no smirch that +you need mind--And if there is--whatever the way of it is, I'll do my +best to bring you out all right.' + +'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter. +'May I ask what you propose to do?' + +'There's no use. . . .' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no +good--now. I've got my own ideas. . . .' + +'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you +will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.' + +He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said: + +'The buggy is waiting, will you come?' + +He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to +help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His +strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his +fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all--the +suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to +hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her +throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word passed +between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality--began a sort +of speech about the cause of her departure--condolence and +congratulations stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short. + +'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll +want a bit of driving at the start.' + +He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round +her knees. In doing so, he bent his head--she thought he had dropped +something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light +summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though +they were touching her flesh. + +She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look. just for a second. The +horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back. + +'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust +me to look well after her ladyship. . . . Be back again as soon as I +can.' + +And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her +last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill +was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders. + +It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, +but the end had come--come with such hideous misconception--every +word spoken--and there had been so few in comparison with the +immensity of the occasion--a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle +of two opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a +cross-cut saw against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. +Then the extraordinary involvements of circumstance. Each incident, big +and little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. +It seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every +plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost +all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift +in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + + + +From Joan Gildea to Colin McKeith. + +Written about a year later. + +MY DEAR COLIN, + +I find it impossible to recognise my old friend in the hard, +businesslike communication you sent me from Leichardt's Town. I almost +wish that you had allowed the lawyer you consulted to put the case +before me instead; it would have seemed less unfitting, and I could +have answered it better. But I quite appreciate your objection to +taking the lawyer into your confidence as regards the personal matters +you mention to me. It would be cruelly unjust--I think quite +unpardonable in you to bring forward the name of Mr Willoughby Maule in +connection with Bridget. Not that HE would mind that. I honestly +believe that he would snatch gladly at any means for inducing Bridget +to marry him. Whether she would do so, if you were to carry through +this amazing scheme of yours, it's impossible for me to say. At present +she certainly prefers to keep him at a distance. He has never been to +Castle Gaverick. And except for a few visits on business to London that +is where she has lived since she came over here. + +Your letter followed me to Jamaica where I've been reporting on the +usual lines for THE IMPERIALIST, but, of course I couldn't answer it +until I had talked it over with Bridget and, as you desired, had +obtained her views on the matter. It was a shock to her to realise that +your reason for never writing to her and for refusing to let her write +to you, was lest that might affect the legality of these proceedings, +which I understand you have contemplated from the beginning of your +quarrel. Bridget is too proud to show you how deeply she is wounded by +your letter. All she has to say is, that if you really wish to take +this action, she will not oppose it. + +But Colin, do you really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you +seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have +not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which +allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only +say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce +should be for one cause only--the cause to which Our Lord gave a +qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful--in act or +desire, to her husband. I would maintain this in spite of the most +damning testimony, and you must in your heart believe it also. Besides, +your testimony is ridiculously inadequate. + +I am glad, however, that you have at last made your accusations in +detail--in order, as you say--that I--and Bridget, incidentally, I +suppose--should fully understand why you are adopting this attitude +towards her. I'm glad too, that you do not mean to make any use of the +evidence against her and are prepared to take all the blame for the +unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it +would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this +pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these +sheets--I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult +for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you +understand in five minutes--but I can't--so there! + +Naturally, I had heard of your bringing Mr Willoughby Maule to the +station, and when I learned what followed, naturally also, I concluded +that you had discovered his identity with that of the man Bridget had +once cared for. I blame myself horribly. But for my carelessness you +would never have read that letter of Biddy's--she knows all about it +now--and your insane jealousy would not have jumped to conclusions-- +at any rate so quickly. And perhaps if I had not bound you to secrecy +you'd have had the matter out with her, which would probably have saved +all this trouble. Anyhow, I can't imagine that you would have left her +alone with him as you did--and with bad feeling between you--at the +mercy of her own reckless impulses and that of Willoughby Maule's +ardent love-making. She doesn't pretend that it wasn't ardent, or that +he did not do his best to get her to run away with him--or that the +old infatuation did not come back to a slight extent--Is it surprising +after your conduct? No wonder she compared his devotion favourably, +with yours. Colin, your leaving her in such conditions wasn't the act +of a MAN, of a gentleman. I speak strongly, but I can't help it. I know +your stubborn pride and obstinacy, but you were wrong, you have +disappointed me--oh! how bitterly you have disappointed me! + +Then there was that business about the blacks. What a fool you were-- +and how brutally self-opinionated! I don't wonder Bridget thought you +an inhuman monster. + +Now I have said my worst, and you must take it as it is meant and +forgive me. + +As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your +Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital--I used to +think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen--but they don't seem +to be, out on the Leura--I've got all the details from Biddy. A +tragi-comic business--so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over +it, if it weren't for its serious consequences. Of course, Biddy got up +to turn out the goats which were butting with their horns under the +floor of her bedroom. I've often got up myself in the old days at +Bungroopim, when stray calves got into the garden, or the cockatoo +disturbed our slumbers. Do you remember Polly? and how she would keep +shouting out on a moonlight night 'The top of the mornin' to ye'-- +because we'd forgotten to put her blanket over the cage--I believe +there were several occasions when you and I met in midnight dishabille +and helped each other to restore tranquillity. If anyone was to blame +for Biddy's adventure, it was your wood-and-water joey--or your +Chinamen--or whoever's business it may have been to see that the goats +were properly penned. + +Naturally, Mr Maule, when he was disturbed too, came and did the +turning out for Bridget and shepherded the creatures to the fold. + +Then meanwhile, she saw the black-gin sneaking in at Mr Maule's back +window to steal the key; and WOULD it have been philanthropic, +impulsive Biddy, if she hadn't helped in the work of rescue, and sent +the two sinners, with a 'Bless you, my children!' off into the scrub? +It was like Biddy too, to go and put the key back in Mr Maule's bedroom +and to scribble that ridiculous note in French so that he shouldn't go +blundering to the hide-house and hurry up the pursuit. I told Bridget +how the Inspector had watched her go out of Mr Maule's room, and had +grabbed the note afterwards, and shown it to you. She had forgotten +altogether about that note--supposed that, of course, it had reached +its proper destination. She couldn't remember either exactly what she +had written--except that she wanted to word it so that if there should +be any accident, nobody--except Mr Maule, for of course, they'd +determined on the release before that--should understand to what it +referred. So she didn't mention any name--she believes she dashed off +some words he had quoted to her about Love triumphant, and securing +happiness and freedom by flight. And then she put in something +referring to a scene they'd had that day in which he had begged her to +fly with him, and she had made him promise to leave next morning, +pacifying him by a counter promise to write. + +She told me about her fever and ague--you don't need proof of that +after the state in which you found her--and how Mr Maule carried her +to her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't +remember anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw +you--with the face and manner I can well imagine--standing by her +bedside. + +I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way +in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman +touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can +never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife, Colin-- +that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than +outwardly. + +But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in +itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward +my own ideas and opinions--they may be quite wrong. Really, the news +of Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, +coming just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I +--as a dabbler in fiction--maintain, is more common in real life than +in novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled +third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it +better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't +come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at +it. + +Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to +Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from +the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He +joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was +rather canny of him to go there--yet I don't see how, in the +circumstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making +talk--though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had +his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on +board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck +next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the +voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off +the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they +reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a +P. and O. boat that happened to be in harbour--and this he did do. + +I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly +since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I +daresay marriage did him good. I believe that his wife was a very +charming woman. Or, it may be that the possession of a quarter of a +million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it +may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever +suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his +behaviour in regard to her now is commendable. + +But Bridget, doesn't love him--never has loved him. I state that fact +on no authority whatsoever except my own intuition. Also I am honestly +of opinion she has cared for you more than she has cared for any man. +You don't deserve it, and I may be wrong. But, nevertheless, it is my +conviction. Make of it what you please. I have been, I candidly own it, +surprised to see what discretion and good feeling she has shown through +all this Gaverick will business. There has been a good deal of +disagreeable friction in the matter. Lord Gaverick has not come off so +well as he expected. He has got the house in Upper Brook Street, which +suits young Lady Gaverick, and about fifteen hundred a year-- +considerably less than Bridget. The trouble is that Eliza Gaverick left +a large legacy to her doctor--the latest one--and there was a talk +about bringing forward the plea of undue influence. That, however, has +fallen to the ground--mainly through Biddy's persuasion. I believe it +is Bridget's intention to make over Castle Gaverick to her cousin, but +this is not given out and of course she may change her mind. + +And now, Colin, I think I have said everything I have to say. The main +point to you is, no doubt, the answer to your question. As I said at +the beginning of this letter, Bridget will not oppose any course you +choose to take in order to secure your release from her--that is the +exact way she worded it. But I cannot believe that, in face of all the +rest I have told you, you will go on with this desertion--divorce +business--at least without making yourself absolutely certain that you +both desire to be free of each other. Remember, there has been no +explanation between you and Biddy--no chance of touch between the true +selves of both of you. Can you not come to England to see her? Or +should she go out to you. I think it possible she might consent to do +so, but have never broached the idea and cannot say. Yes, of course I +understand that this might invalidate the legal position. But as only +two years are necessary to prove the desertion--even if you should +decide together that it is best to part--isn't it worth while to wait +two years more in order to make quite sure? No doubt, you will say that +I am shewing the proverbial ignorance of women in legal questions. But +I can't help feeling that there must be some way in which it could be +arranged. I do beseech you, Colin, not to act hastily. + +You say that if this divorce took place, Bridget's reputation would not +suffer, and that she could marry again without a stain upon her +character as they say of wrongfully accused prisoners who are +discharged. But again--is that the question? + +I know nothing of your present circumstances--health, outlook on life +--anything. Bridget once hinted to me that you might have your own +reasons for desiring your freedom. She would give no grounds for the +suspicion that there is any other woman in your life. I do not think +anything would make me credit such a thing and I put that notion +entirely out of court. I do not know--as your letter was dated from +Leichardt's Town--whether you still live at Moongarr. It is possible +you may have sold the place. I hear of severe droughts in parts of +Leichardt's Land, but have no information about the Leura district. Now +that Sir Luke Tallant has exchanged to Hong Kong, Bridget hasn't any +touch with Leichardt's Land, and I have very few correspondents there. + +Write to me--not a stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell +me about yourself--your feelings, your conditions. We are old friends +--friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours. You +can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything you +may tell me, I will faithfully observe your wishes. But I can't bear +that you, whom I should have thought so well of--have felt so much +about--should be making a mess of your life, and that I should not put +out a hand to prevent it. + +Always your friend, + +JOAN GILDEA. + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + + + +It was a long time before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter. +She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin +McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, six months later. + +MY DEAR JOAN, + +Your letter has made me think. I could not write before for reasons +that you'll gather as you go along. I shall do as you ask and tell you +everything as straightly and plainly as I can. I feel it is best that +you should know exactly the sort of conditions I'm under and what a +woman would have had to put up with if she had been with me--what she +would have to put up with if she were going to be with me. Then you can +judge whether or not I'm right in the decision I have come to as the +result of my thinkings. You can tell my wife as much as you please--of +the details, I mean. Perhaps, you had better soften them to her, for +you know as well as I do--or better--that her impulsive, quixotic +disposition might lead her into worse mistakes than it has done +already. Of course, she'll have to know my decision. I am sure that if +she allows her reason play, she will agree it is the only possible one. + +I'm not going to talk about what happened before she went away, or +about that evidence--or anything else in that immediate connection. I +was mad, and I expect I believed a lot more than was true. I don't +believe--I don't think I ever did really believe--what I suppose you +would call 'the worst.' But that doesn't seem to me of such great +matter. It's the spirit, not the letter that counts. The foundation +must have been rotten, or there never would have been a question of +believing one way or the other--because we should have UNDERSTOOD. +Explanations would not have been needed between true mates. Only we +were not true mates--that's the whole point. There was too great a +radical difference between us. It might have been a deal better if she +HAD gone off with that man. + +But to come now to the practical part of the situation. You know enough +about Australian ups and downs to realise that a cattle or sheep owner +out West, may be potentially wealthy one season and on the fair road to +beggary the next. It will be different when times change and we take to +sinking artesian bores on the same principle as when Joseph stored up +grain in the fat years in Egypt against the lean ones that were coming. +That's what I meant to do and ought to have done at any cost. But-- +well I just didn't. + +The thing is that if I could have looked ahead, perhaps even six +months, I might not have thought it acting on the square to a woman to +get her to marry me. If I could have looked a year ahead, I wouldn't +have had any doubt on the subject. + +But you see I justified it to myself. One thousand square miles of +country--fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept +running--and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it, +seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll +remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point, +when we talked about my marrying. The truth was that directly I saw +Bridget, she carried me clean off my head--and that's the long and +short of it. + +Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the +Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to +oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old +hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as +long back as that. + +I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank +in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me, +'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right. Well, I saw +that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor +summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my +horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass +on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I +have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live +with. . . . That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, +the sales I'd counted on turned out badly--cattle too poor for want of +grass to stand the droving and the worst luck in the sale-yards I'd +ever known. + +First thing I did was to reduce the staff and bar everything but bare +necessaries--I sent off the Chinamen and every spare hand. Ninnis and +I and the stockman--a first-rate chap, Moongarr Bill--worked the run +--just the three of us. You can guess how we managed it. A Malay boy +did cooky for the head-station. + +After Christmas I left Ninnis and Bill to look after the place. I had +to go to Leichardt's Town. I had been thinking things out about Biddy +all that time--you know I'm too much of the Scotchy to make hasty +determinations. Well, I had that Parliament Bill, allowing divorce +after two years desertion in my head, from the day Biddy left me. It +seemed the best way out--for her. I had heard about that fellow going +Home in the same boat with her, and never guessed but that it was a +concerted plan between them. That note Harris showed me made me think +it was so. I don't think this now--after what you told me. + +But what did rub itself into me then was that I ought to let her marry +him as soon as she decently could. I couldn't see the matter any other +way--I don't now. He has lots of money--though a man who would buy +happiness with another woman out of the money his wife had left him-- +well, that's a matter of opinion. Besides, she has got the fortune the +old lady left her and can be independent of him if she chooses. There's +nothing to prevent her living any kind of life that pleases her-- +except me, and I'm ready and willing to clear out of the show. One +thing I'm sorry for now, and that is having torn up the draft she sent +to pay me back her passage money, and putting the bits in an envelope +and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been +done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't +tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it +would have hurt her--I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is +why I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the part of a gentleman +all through this miserable business. But what could you expect? + +For you see, my father worked his own way up, and my grandfather was a +crofter--and I haven't got the blood of Irish kings, on the other +side, behind me. + +Now I'm being nasty, as you used to say in the old Bungroopim days when +I wouldn't play. YOU were my Ideal, in those days, Joan--before you +went and got married. I've been an unlucky devil all round. + +Well there! I had to try and arrange things for an overdraft with the +Bank in Leichardt's Town, but I went down chiefly to consult lawyers +about the divorce question, so that it should be done with as little +publicity and unpleasantness as possible. It appeared that it could be +done all right--as I wrote you. What would have been the good of my +havering in that letter over my own feelings and the bad times I had +struck? It never was my habit to whine over what couldn't be helped. + +Luck was up against me down there too. I got pitched off a buckjumper +at a horse-dealers', Bungroopim way. I had been 'blowing,' Australian +fashion, that I could handle that colt if nobody else was able to. The +end of it was that the buckjumper got home, not me. I was laid up in +hospital for close on two months, with a broken leg and complications. +The complications were that old spear wound, which inflamed, and they +found that a splinter from the jagged tip had been left in. +Blood-poisoning was the next thing; and when I came out of that +hospital I was more like the used up bit of soap you'll see by the +COOLIBAH* outside a shepherd's hut on ration-bringing day, than +anything else I can think of. +[*Coolibah--a basin made from the scooped out excrescence of a tree.] + +As soon as I could sit a horse again I went to work at Moongarr. I had +found things there at a pretty pass. Not a drop of rain had fallen up +to now on the station for nearly nine months. YOU know what that means +on the top of two dry seasons. As soon as I was fit, we rode over the +run inspecting--I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill. There's a lot of +riding over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection +done quickly. Day after day we travelled through desolation--grass +withered to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle +staggering like drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink. The trees +were dying in the wooded country; and in the plains the earth was +crumbling and shrinking, and great cracks like crevasses were gaping in +the black soil where there used to be beautiful green grass and flowers +in spring. + +The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left +was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and +dropped dead in it. They were short of water at the head-station, and +we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced +round and used for drinking--so long as it lasted. When we were +mustering the other side of the run, it came to our camping at a sandy +creek where we could dig in the sand and get just enough for horses and +men. The water of the Bore I'd made, was a bit brackish, but it kept +the grass alive round about and was all the cattle had to depend on. +You can think of the job it was shifting the beasts over there from +other parts of the run which was what we tried to do, so long as they +were fit for it. + +We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the +herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to +collect a hundred or so--sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek +Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on +them. That was all. I guess that--by this time, out of my eleven +thousand head with No. 666 brand on them I'd muster from four to five +hundred. The mistake I made was in not selling out for what I could get +at the beginning of the Drought. But it was the long time in +Leichardt's Town that had me there. + +It was bad luck all through from first to last. Mustering those beasts +for boiling down started that old spear wound afresh. Until it got well +again, there was nothing for it but to sit tight and wait. + +Moongarr Bill left to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the +Bight--took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that +he'd strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last +expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been +bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've +missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've +seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will +o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to run after it. + +Old Ninnis was the next to leave, I made him take the offer of a job +that he had. When it came to drawing water five miles for the +head-station, and keeping it in an iron tank sunk in the ground, with a +manhole and padlocked cover for fear of its being got at, the fewer +there were of us the better. Now the station is being run by the Boss +and the Malay boy, who is a sharp little chap, and more use in the +circumstances than any white man. We've killed the calves we were +trying to PODDY*. And the dogs--except one cattle dog--Veno--Biddy +would remember her; how she used to lollop about the front veranda +outside her room. Now, what the deuce made me write that!--Well, the +dog goes with me in the cart when I fetch water, and takes her drink +with the horses at the hole. +[*Poddy--to bring up by hand.] + +I'm getting used to the life--making jobs in the daytime to keep +myself from feeling the place a worse hell than it really is. There's +always the water to be fetched and the two horses and the dog to be +taken for their big drink. If you could see me hoarding the precious +stuff--washing my face in the morning in a soup plate, and what's left +kept for night for the dog. When I want a bath I ride ten miles to the +bore. Then there's saddlery to mend, and dry-cleaning the place and +pipes between whiles--more of them than is good for me. Stores are +low, but I've still got enough of tobacco. I daresay it's a mercy +there's no whiskey--nothing but a bottle or two of brandy in case of +snake-bites--or I might have taken to it. + +Thank God I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see +so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink--but there's no saying +what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to +get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal +watching of the sky--looking out all the time for clouds that don't +come--or if they do, end in nothing. You know that brassy glare of the +sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred +times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can +look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and +white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked +inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for +those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a +laughing-jackass in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad +with his devilish chuckling. + +Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up +against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the +veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no +woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent +away their women--stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the +Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's +Town. + +I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up +north--how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing +out. As for the gold find--well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I +hear--or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three weeks +--I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings, except +what a pair of saddle bags will carry. + +Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be +shipped off to her all right. + +When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you +won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling +inside me that I shall win through yet. + +Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good +many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief--I began writing this +about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower--that's the mailman--comes +only once a month now, and not on time at that. + +I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks, +the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So +I'm a ruined man, any way. + +Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will +be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending +her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in words-- +but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for me-- +and there will never be another. + +He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + + + +Harry the Blower came up with his mails a day or two later. Among the +letters he brought, there were three at least of special importance to +Colin McKeith. + +One was from the late Attorney General of Leichardt's Land, in whose +following he had been while sitting in the Legislative Assembly, and +whom he had consulted in reference to the Divorce petition. This +gentleman informed Colin that proceedings were already begun in the +case of McKeith versus McKeith, and that notification of the pending +suit had been sent to Lady Bridget at Castle Gaverick, in the province +of Connaught, Ireland. + +The second letter was from the Manager of the Bank of Leichardt's Land, +regretfully conveying the decision of the Board that, failing immediate +repayment of the loan, the mortgage on Moongarr station must be +foreclosed and that in due course a representative of the Bank would +arrive to take over the property. + +The third letter was from Moongarr Bill, dated from the furthest Bush +township at the foot of the Great Bight, which had formed the base of +Colin's last exploring expedition. A mere outpost of civilisation it +was--that very one which he had described at the dinner party at +Government House where he had first met Lady Bridget O'Hara. +Apparently, in Moongarr Bill's estimation, its only reason for +existence lay in the fact that it had an office under the jurisdiction +of the Warden of Goldfields, for the proclamation of new goldfields, +and the obtaining of Miner's Rights. + +Moongarr Bill's epistolary style was bald in its directness. + +Dear Sir-- he began:-- + +The biggest mistake we ever made in our lives was not following up the +streak of colour you spotted in that gully running down from Bardo +Range to Pelican River. If we had stopped, and done a bit of stripping +for alluvial, for certain, we should have found heavy, shotty gold, +with only a few feet of stripping. But I've done better than that--got +on the lead--dead on the gutter. To my belief, that gully is the top +dressing of a dried up underground watercourse. It's a pocket chock +full of gold. + +You see, it's like this: + +Here followed technical details given in local gold-digger's +phraseology which would only be intelligible to a backwoods prospector +or a Leichardt's Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details +carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it +once more. There was no doubt--making due allowance for Moongarr +Bill's exaggerative optimism--that the find was a genuine one. + +The writer resumed: + +'I've pegged off a twenty men's ground, this--being outside the area +of a proclaimed goldfield--our reward as joint discoverers. The ground +joins on to your old pegs; and the wonder to me is that nobody has ever +struck the place. However, that's not so queer as you might think, for +there has been very little talk of gold up here--in fact the P.M. does +Warden's work. Besides, the drought has kept squatters from pushing +out, and it's too far off for the casual prospector. Luckily, the +drought has driven the Blacks away too, further into the ranges; and I +haven't seen any Myalls this trip like the ones that went for us last +time. It's a pity Hensor pegged out then. He'd have come in for a slice +of luck now--we three being the only persons in the world--until I +lodged my information at the Warden's office this morning--who had +ever raised the colour in this district or had any suspicion of a show. +I reckon though that if the find turns out as I think, you'll be making +things up to little Tommy. + +I'm to have my Miners' Right all properly filled up to-morrow, and +shall make tracks back to the gully at once, so as to leave no chance +of the claim being jumped. I've named it "McKeith's Find" so your name +won't be forgotten. I don't count on a big rush at first--all the +better for you--but I shall be surprised if we are not entitled at the +end of four months to our Government reward of 500 pounds, as there are +pretty sure to be two hundred miners at work by that time. + +I'm writing to Ninnis--though I don't know if he has done his job yet +--telling him to lose no time in getting here; and you won't want +telling to do the same. I reckon that whether the drought has broken by +this time or not, it will pay you better to start for here than to wait +at the station until there are calves coming on to brand and muster. +Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if +you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of +experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he +wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura. + +It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I +couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about. +Knowing the lay of the country too, made it easier than it was before +for us. Cudgee has turned out a smarter boy than Wombo was. No fear of +Myalls with their infernal jagged spears being round without his +sniffing them. One of the horses died from eating poison-bush. Don't go +in for camping at a bend in Pelican Creek, between it and a brigalow +scrub, first day you sight Bardo Range going up the Creek, where +there's a pocket full of good grass one side of a broken slate ridge-- +IT'S NO GOOD. But I wouldn't swop the other horses for any of +Windeatt's famous breed. There's some things it would be well for you +and Ninnis to bring, and a box of surveyor's compasses would come in +handy. + +Here followed half a page on practical matters, and then the letter +ended. + +McKeith pondered long over Moongarr Bill's letter, as he sat in the +veranda smoking and watching a little cloud on the horizon, and +wondering whether rain was coming at last. . . . If Moongarr Bill was +right, the gold-find would mean a fresh start for him in his baulked +career. At any rate, it behoved him to take advantage of the chance and +to go forth on the new adventure without unnecessary delay. But the +savour was gone for him from adventure--the salt out of life. The +stroke of luck--if it were one--had come too late. + +And now the Great Drought had broken at last. + +Next evening there came up a terrific thunderstorm, and a hurricane +such as had not visited the district for years. It broke in the +direction of the gidia scrub, and razed many trees. It passed over the +head-station and travelled at a furious rate along the plain. +Hailstones fell, as large as a pigeon's egg, and stripped off such +leafage as the drought had left. Thunder volleyed and lightning blazed. +Part of the roof of the Old Humpey was torn off. The hide-house was +practically blown away. The great white cedar by the lagoon was struck +by lightning, and lay, a chaos of dry branches and splintered limbs, +one side of the trunk standing up jagged and charred where it had been +riven in two. + +Upon the hurricane followed a steady deluge. For a night and a day, the +heavens were opened, and poured waterspouts as though the pent rain of +nine months were being discharged. The river 'came down' from the heads +and filled the gully with a roaring flood. The lagoon was again almost +level with its banks. The dry water-course on the plain sparkled in the +distance, like a mirage--only that it was no mirage. No one who has +not seen the extraordinary rapidity with which a dry river out West can +be changed into a flooded one, could credit the swiftness of the +transformation. + +Then the heavens closed once more. The sun shone out pitilessly bright, +and the surface earth looked, after a few hours, almost as dry as +before. But the life-giving fluid had penetrated deep into the soil; +the rivers and creeks were running; green grass was already springing +up for the beasts to feed upon. The land was saved. Alas too late to +save the ruined squatters. There were so few of their beasts left. + +Nevertheless, the rain brought new life and energy to the humans. +Kuppi, the Malay boy fetched buckets of water from the replenished +lagoon, and scoured and scrubbed with great alacrity. He came timidly +to his master, and asked if he might not wash out with boiling water +the closed parlour and Lady Bridget's unused bedroom. He was afraid +that the white ants might have got into them. + +McKeith's face frightened Kuppi. So did the imprecation which his +innocent request evoked. He was bidden to go and keep himself in his +own quarters, and not show his face again that day at the New House. + +Since Lady Bridget's departure, McKeith had slept, eaten and worked in +the Old Humpey, his original dwelling. + +But Kuppi did not know that the white ants had not been given a chance +to work destruction upon 'the Ladyship's' properties. Regularly every +day, McKeith himself tended those sacred chambers. Bridget's rooms were +just as she had left them. + +He had done nothing yet towards dismantling that part of the New House +in which she had chiefly lived. He had put off the task day after day. +But since receiving Moongarr Bill's letter, and now that the drought +had broken, and the Man in Possession a prospect as certain as that +there would come another thunderstorm, he knew that he must begin his +preparations to quit Moongarr. + +To do this meant depriving himself of the miserable comfort he found +during wakeful nights and the first hour of dawn--the time he usually +chose for sweeping and cleaning his wife's rooms--of roaming, +ghost-like, through the New House where every object spoke to him of +her. In the day time, he shrank from mounting the steps which connected +the verandas, but in the evenings, he would often come and stroll along +the veranda, and sit in the squatter's chair she had liked, or in the +hammock where she had swung, and smoke his pipe and brood upon the +irrevocable past. And then he would suddenly rush off in frantic haste +to do some hard, physical work, feeling that he must go mad if he sat +still any longer. + +To-day however, after Kuppi had fled to the kitchen, he went into his +old dressing room and stood looking at the camp bed, and thought of the +day of Bridget's fever when Harris had given him her note to Maule, and +he had sat here huddled on the edge of the bed wrestling dumbly with +his agony. The association had been too painful, and in his daily +tendance he had somewhat neglected this room and had usually entered +the other by the French window from the veranda. Thus, he saw now that +a bloated tarantula had established itself in one corner, between wall +and ceiling, and an uncanny looking white lizard scuttered across the +boards, and disappeared under a piece of furniture, leaving its tail +behind. A phenomenon of natural history at which, he remembered now, +Bridget had often wondered. + +He opened the door of communication--where on that memorable night, he +had knocked and received no answer--and passed through it treading +softly as though he were visiting a death chamber. And indeed, to him, +it was truly a death chamber in which the bed, all covered over with a +white sheet, might have been a bier, and the pillows put lengthwise +down it, the shrouded form of one dearly loved and lost. He gazed +about, staring at the familiar pieces of furniture, out of wide red +eyes, smarting with unshed tears. In her looking glass, he seemed to +see the ghost-reflection of her small pale face with its old whimsical +charm. The shadowy eyes under the untidy mass of red-brown hair, in +which the curls and tendrils stood out as if endowed with a magnetic +life of their own; the sensitive lips; the little pointed chin; and, in +the eyes and on the lips, that gently mocking, alluring smile. + +There were a few poems that Colin had taught himself to say by heart, +and which he would recite to himself often when he was alone in the +Bush. THE ANCIENT MARINER was one, and there were some of Rudyard +Kipling's and he loved THE IDYLLS OF THE KING--in especial GUINIVERE. +Three lines of that poem leaped to his memory at this moment. + +'THY SHADOW STILL WOULD GLIDE FROM ROOM TO ROOM + +AND I SHOULD EVERMORE BE VEXT WITH THEE + +IN HANGING ROBE AND VACANT ORNAMENT.' + +He went to the wardrobe where her dresses hung as she had left them, +only that daily, he had shaken them, cared for them so that no hot +climate pest should injure them. And in so doing, he had been +overwhelmingly conscious of the peculiar, personal fragrance, her +garments had always exhaled--an experience in which rapture and +anguish blended. + +How he had loved her! . .. God! how he had loved her! . . . And yet, +latterly, how he had got to take his supreme possession of her as a +matter of course; had allowed the joy of it to be blunted by depression +and irritability over sordid station worries. He remembered with +piercing remorse how often he had neglected the trivial courtesies to +which he knew she attached importance. How he had been prone to sullen +fits of moodiness; had been rough, even brutal, as in that episode of +the Blacks. . . . Brutal to her--this dainty lady, his fairy princess! +. . . And now he had lost her. She was gone back to her own world and +to her own kin. + +If only he had yielded to her then about the Blacks! If he had curbed +his anger, shown sympathy with the two wild children of Nature who were +better than himself, in this at least that they had known how to love +and cling to each other in spite of the blows of fate! He had +horse-whipped Wombo for loving Oola, and swift retribution had come +upon himself. . . . That he should have lost Bridget because of the +loves of Wombo and Oola! It was an irony--as if God were laughing at +him. He set his teeth and laughed--the mirthless laugh which had +startled Harris. . . . Well, whether it were automatic or planned +retribution on the part of the High Powers, the trouble could be evened +up and done with. 'I was a damned fool,' he said to himself; 'and I've +been taught my lesson too late for me to benefit by it. Except this way +--I'm not going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular +piece of hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe +the slate and come out on top of something else that isn't love. +There's possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's +ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long as SHE isn't +seriously hurt.' + +With that summing up of the matter, he seemed to gain stoic energy. Now +he went back to his dressing room, and pulled out to the veranda a +couple of worn portmanteaux. Into these he put a variety of personal +belongings. Among them, pictures from the walls, and old photographs in +frames that had been on the dressing table. It was significant that +none of these were portraits of his wife. The portmanteaux he dragged +along the veranda to the side of the steps leading down to the front +garden. Then, instead of returning to Lady Bridget's room, he attacked +an escritoire in the parlour in which he had kept family and private +papers, and which flanked her Chippendale bureau. He brought out +another collection--notebooks, papers, bundles of letters dating much +further back than his occupation of Moongarr--salvage from the wreck +of his old home. His mother's workbox; his father's SHAKESPEARE; the +family Bible--a piteous catalogue. He looked long at the book and the +photographs. These last were portraits of his father, his mother and +his sisters, who had all been massacred by the Blacks, when he was a +boy. He separated all such relics from the general lot, placing them, +and also two or three packets of papers upon a shelf-table in the +veranda--it was that table where Lady Bridget had laid the cablegram +from Lord Gaverick, which she had shown him the day before she had left +Moongarr. Now it seemed to him an altar of sacred memories. He brought +various other small things out of the parlour--things he had not the +heart to destroy--all belonging to his youth--and placed them there. +As he looked at them, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and a wave +of emotion passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant. +But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady +Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he +was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer +beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece of gum-tree bark, +shrivelled and curled up at the sides, so that the two edges almost +met. At first he put it on the heap that he had turned out of the +portmanteaux for destruction. His grim thought had been to top with +this strange memorial of his marriage-night, the funeral pyre he had +intended to build. But again the spasm of emotion contorted his +features. His shoulders shook, and a dry choking sound came from his +lips. He took up the piece of bark too, and laid it with the +daguerreotypes on the table. He seemed afraid to give himself time to +think, but went from room to room here and in the Old Humpey, dragging +one thing after another out on to the veranda. Some of the heavier +articles he had to hoist over the steps connecting the two verandas, +and then to drag them down the other steps into the front garden, where +they strewed the gravel round the centre bed. + +In spring and summer, when the Chinamen had been there to water and +Lady Bridget to superintend the planting and pruning, this bed had +always been gay with flowers, banking a tall shrub of scented verbena +the perfume of which she had been particularly fond of. Now there were +weeds--most of them withered--instead of flowers. The verbena bush +had long been dead, and the dry leaves and branches, beaten down by the +late storm, made a bed of kindling. + +Never was there garden so desolate--the young ornamental trees and +shrubs all dead; the creepers dead also; even the hardy passion vines +upon the fence, mere leafless, fruitless withes of withered stems. + +McKeith paused after lugging down two squatters' chairs--the first +house carpentering he had done for his wife after their arrival at the +head-station, and in which, he had resolved, no future owner of +Moongarr should ever sit. That was the thought fiercely possessing him. +Rough chairs and tables and such-like that had been there always, might +remain. But no sacrilegious hands should touch things made for her, or +with which she had been closely associated. They should be burned out +here in the deserted front garden, where not even Kuppi--the only +other occupant of the head-station--would witness his preparations. He +himself would lay and kindle the funeral pyre, and to-night, when there +would be only the stars to see him, he would light the first holocaust. + +He stood considering. Sweat dropped from his forehead. His gaunt frame +was trembling after his effort, which had been heavy, and he leaned +against one of the tarred piles supporting the veranda to rest. But +only for a few minutes. Then, his feverish activity recommenced. He +piled up the wooden furniture on the bed of withered verbena branches, +filled the interstices with dead leaves that he collected from the +garden, laid the smaller things--books, papers, pictures--where they +would assist the conflagration, and did not stop until the pyre had +reached to the level of the veranda railing. He reflected grimly that +there was a chance of sparks setting fire to the house itself, and +calculated the extent of the gravel between, deciding that if he was +there to watch there would be no danger. + +All the time, the old kangaroo dog, Veno had been nosing round him, +sniffing at the objects lying round, then looking up at him with +bleared, wistful eyes, and evidently unable to understand these strange +proceedings. Once or twice, he had roughly pushed the dog away, but, +when he had finished the work and seated himself from sheer fatigue on +the veranda steps, Veno came and squatted beside him, the dog's head +upon his knee. He filled his pipe and smoked ruminatively; the exertion +had had one good effect; it had dulled the fierceness of his pain. + +As he sat there--a faint breeze that had risen with the approach of +sunset, cooling his heated body--he thought again about Moongarr +Bill's letter. He looked at the great pyre in front, and caught the +gleam of the lagoon below through the bare branches of the trees the +little ripple on its surface, the freshening green at its marge. Then +he gazed out over the vast plain towards the horizon. From his low +position on the steps, the middle distance was hidden from him. Through +the reddish tinge cast by the lowering sun, he could discern, far off +likewise, the unmistakable signs of new-springing grass and the course +of the river, for so long non-existent. From the gully he heard the +sound of rushing water. It had been a roaring torrent just after the +storm, and he knew that a flood must have come down from the heads. + +Yes, the Drought had broken. The plain would soon be green again. +Flowers would spring up as they had done for Bridget's bridal +home-coming. If the rain had fallen a few months sooner the station +might have been saved. + +And even now, with the remnant of three or four hundred cattle, +provided there were no crippling debt, no spectre of the Man in +Possession, he might still hang on, and in time retrieve his losses, +lie low, sink artesian wells, make the station secure for the future. + +He had been so fond of the place. He had taken up the run with such +high hopes; had so slaved to increase his herd, to make improvements on +the head-station. He had looked upon this as the nucleus of his +fortune; the pivot on which his career as one of the Empire-builders +would revolve. . . . And now. . . . + +Well, some clever speculator no doubt would buy it at a low price +during the Slump, stock it with more cattle, work it up during a good +season or two, and, when cattle stations boomed once more, sell it at +an immense profit. That was what he himself would have done had he been +a speculator in similar conditions. Even still, he could do it with a +small amount of capital to supply a sop for the Bank. . . . Now that +the Drought had broken they would be more likely to let him go +on. . . . He thought of the 3,000 pounds Sir Luke Tallant had made him put +into settlement on his marriage. He had not wanted to do that at the time; +his Scotch caution had revolted against the tying up of his resources, +and his instinct was justified. If only he had command of that money +now! It was his own; his wife was rich; that was the one benefit he +could have taken from her. . . . But it was impossible to broach the +question. + +Suddenly the dog stirred uneasily, sniffed the air and leaped to the +gravel walk where it stood giving short, uncertain barks, as though +aware of something happening outside for which it could not account. + +McKeith lifted his head, bent in the absorption of his thought, and +looked about for the disturber of Veno's placidity. But Kuppi was +nowhere in sight, nor was there sign of other intruder. Where he sat, +the garden fence, overgrown with withered passion vines, bounded his +vision, and had anybody ridden or driven up the hill through the lower +sliprails, he would not have seen them, probably would not have heard +them. For there were no longer dogs, black boys, Chinamen or station +hands to voice intimation of a new arrival. All the old sounds of +evening activity were hushed. No mustering-mob being driven to the +stockyard; no running up of milkers or horses for the morrow; no goats +to be penned--they had been killed off long ago; no beasts grazing or +calling--no audible life at all except that of the birds, who, since +the rain, had found their notes again and were telling each other +vociferously that it was time to go to bed. Indeed, the silence and +solitariness of the once busy head-station had enticed many of the +shyer kinds of birds from the lagoon and the forest. Listening, as he +now was, intently, McKeith could hear the gurgling COO-ROO-ROO of the +swamp pheasant, which is always found near water--and likewise rare +sound--the silvery ring of the bell-bird rejoicing in the fresh-filled +lagoon. + +But Veno was still uneasy, and Colin got up on to the veranda. He stood +there, listening all the while, strained expectancy in his eyes as if +he too were vaguely conscious of something outside happening. . . . + +And now he did hear something that made him go white as with uncanny +dread. It was a footstep that he heard on the veranda of the Old Humpey +--very light, a soft tapping of high heels and the accompanying swish +of drapery--a ghostly rustle--'a ghostly footfall echoing.'. . . For +surely in this place it could have no human reality. + +It approached along the passage between the two buildings, halted for a +few seconds, and then mounted to the front veranda. + +The man was standing with his back to the Old Humpey. He would not +turn. A superstitious fear fell upon him and made his knees shake and +his tall, lean frame tremble. . . . He DARED not turn his head and look +lest he should see that which would tell him Bridget was dead. + +But the dead do not speak in syllables that an ordinary human ear can +hear. And Colin heard his own name spoken in accents piercingly clear +and sweet. + +'Colin.' + +To him, though, it was as a ghost-voice. He stood transfixed. And just +then the dog bounded past him. It had flown up the steps barking +loudly. That could be no immaterial form upon which the creature flung +itself, pawing, nosing, licking with the wildest demonstrations of joy. + +He heard the well-remembered tones: + +'Quiet Veno. . . . Good dog. . . . Lie down Veno--Lie down.' + +The dog seemed to understand that this was not a moment for +effusiveness. Without another sound, it crouched upon its haunches +gazing up at the new-comer. + +Then Colin turned. Bridget was standing not a yard from him. A slender +figure in a grey silk cloak, with bare head--she had flung back her +grey sun-bonnet and shrouding gauze veil. . . . He saw the face he knew +--the small, pale face; the shadowy eyes, wide and bright with an +ecstatic determination, yet in them a certain feminine timorousness; +the little pointed chin poked slightly forward; the red-brown hair-- +all untidy curls and tendrils, each hair seeming to have a life and +magnetism of its own. It was just as he had so often pictured her in +dreams of sleep and waking. + +He gazed at her like one who beholds a vision from another world. And +then a great sob burst from him--the pitiful sob of a strong man who +is beaten, broken with emotion. The whole being of the man seemed to +collapse. He staggered forward, and such a change came over the gaunt, +hard face, that Bridget saw it through a rain of tears which fell down +her cheeks. + +'Oh, Colin--Won't you speak to me?' + +'Biddy!' He went close to her and gripped her two wrists, holding her +before him while his hungry eyes seemed to be devouring her. + +'It's you--it's really you. You're not dead, are you?' + +'Dead! Oh no--no. . . . I've come home.' + +'Home!' He laughed. + +'Oh don't--don't,' she cried. 'Don't laugh like that.' + +'Home!' he repeated, grimly. 'Look round you. A nice sort of home. Eh?' + +'I don't care. It's the only real home I've ever had.' + +'But look--look!' + +She followed his eyes to the great pyre in the garden, with the dead +leaves, and the pieces of furniture, the squatters' chairs, the little +tables he and she had covered together, the hammock that he had cut +down leaving the ropes dangling--many other things that she recognised +also. Then her gaze came back to the veranda. To the open portmanteaux; +the different objects still strewing the ground; and then to the +shelf-table against the wall near the hammock, and, there, to his most +cherished possessions. She knew at once his mother's work-box, the +shabby SHAKESPEARE--the portraits, and, on top of all, the piece of +gum-tree bark. + +She snatched her wrists from his grasp, darted to the shelf, seized the +shrivelled pice of bark, and pressed it against her bosom as though it +had been a living thing. + +'Oh, you COULDN'T burn this! . . . You were going to burn it with the +rest--but you COULDN'T--any more than you could have burned your +mother's things. . . . I thought of it all the way--I knew that if you +could burn this, too, there would be no hope for me any more. I PRAYED +that you might not burn it.' + +'But how--how did you know I was going to burn the things?' he +stammered bewilderedly. + +'I saw it all--I saw you--just like this, on the veranda--so thin +and hard and miserable--and so proud, yet--and stubborn--I saw it +all--saw the bonfire ready--And I saw this piece of bark--And then +something made you stop and you put it with your mother's things +instead. You remembered--Oh! Mate, you DID understand? You DID +remember--that first night by the camp fire--and we two--just we +two'--she broke off sobbing. + +'You saw--you saw--' he kept saying. 'But how--how did you know? Tell +me, Mate.' + +'I saw it all in a dream--at Castle Gaverick. Three times I dreamed +the same dream; and I felt, inside me, that it was a prophetic warning. +We're like that, you know, we Irish Celts. And you--though you're a +Scotchman--you used to laugh at such things! But they're true; they're +true--I've had glints of second sight before. Joan Gildea understood. +When I told her, she believed it was a warning God had sent me, and she +said I must go to you--go at once lest it should be too late. She +wanted to come with me, but it would have been difficult for her to +leave her work, and I didn't want her--I wanted to come to you all on +my own.' + +'And then?--then?' he asked breathlessly. + +'Oh, then I left Castle Gaverick at once, and, in London, I took my +passage--there was an E. and A. boat just going to start. Of course I +knew the route. I got out of the steamer at Leuraville, and came +straight on by train--I didn't wait anywhere. I thought I'd get out at +Crocodile Creek and pay somebody to drive me up here. But you've got +the railway brought nearer, and when I got out at Kangaroo Flat there +was a most extraordinary thing--Then, I knew why the voice inside had +been urging me on so quickly.' + +'An extraordinary thing--? What was it?' he said in the same +breathless, broken way. + +'It was Mr Ninnis. He was there, standing on the platform just off his +droving trip--he was going to take the next train to Leuraville. If I +had stayed there as Captain Halliwell wanted me to, I should have +missed him. He'd got a letter from Moongarr Bill--Oh, I know all about +that. But it doesn't matter--it doesn't matter in the least. You can +go if you like and find the gold--I'll stop at Joan Gildea's cottage +in Leichardt's Town and wait for you--I don't care about ANYTHING if +you'll only let me be your Mate again. But Colin--' she rushed on, for +he could not speak, and the sight of a great man struggling with his +tears is one that a woman who loves him can scarcely bear to see. And +yet the sight made Bridget happy for all its pain--'Colin, when I +first saw Ninnis, do you know what I thought--? That you had sent him +to meet me. That you, too, had been warned in a dream?' + +'No, I wish I had been--My God, I wish I had been.' + +'What would you have done, Colin?' + +'I'd have been there myself,' he said simply. 'It would have been me, +not Ninnis, that you saw at Kangaroo Flat Station.' + +She held out her arms. The roll of bark dropped on the boards of the +veranda. In a moment he was pressing her fiercely to his breast, and +his lips were on hers. + +And in that kiss, by the divine alchemy of true wedded love, all the +past pride and bitterness were transmuted into a great abiding Peace. + + + +End Project Gutenberg's Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land, by Rosa Praed + diff --git a/old/lbnnl10.zip b/old/lbnnl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eedf40d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lbnnl10.zip |