Kitabı oku: «Some Persons Unknown», sayfa 11

 
"Last night the nightingale woke me,"
 

sang the voice in the schoolroom;

 
"Last night, when all was still,
It sang in the golden moonlight,
From out the woodland hill."
 

Milly had not taken her eyes from the sullen handsome stockman standing almost at her feet. His left hand was still in his pocket; his right had the reins, but was still outstretched in front of him – as though petrified – while a white, scared face turned this way and that with the perspiration welling from every pore. Yet the smooth agony of the song went on without a tremor…

"And oh! the bird, my darling, was singing —

Singing of you, of you."

As the verse ended, the man shivered from head to foot, then flung himself into the saddle, and Millicent watched him ride headlong towards the home-paddock gate. She lost sight of him, however, long before he reached it, and then she knew that Miss Winfrey was still singing her song in a loud, clear voice. Could she be mistaken? It was a sufficiently wild idea. Could it be nothing but coincidence after all? Again she caught the words:

 
"I think of you in the daytime,
I dream of you by night,
I wake, and would you were here, love,
And tears are blinding my sight.
I hear a low breath in the lime-tree – "
 

The sweet air, the tender words, snapped short together. Millicent sprang from her deck-chair, heard a fall as she ran, and found the governess in a swoon upon the schoolroom floor.

III

"What did he do?"

They were the first faint words that fell from the bloodless lips, and Millicent was much too thankful to think twice of their meaning. Besides, she had things to ask the governess. How was she now? Was her head too low? Had she hurt herself as she fell?

"What did he do?" repeated the faint voice a little less faintly.

"Dear, I will tell you in a minute – "

"Tell me now. What did he do? Did he – remember?"

Millicent did her best to describe the effect of the song upon the man. She omitted nothing.

The governess gave a great sigh. "Thank God!" she said. "There was no time to think. It was all on the spur of the moment. But I knew that you were there, that you'd see. And you saw all that; it was all there for you to see!" She closed her eyes, and her lips moved in further thanksgiving.

"Dear, I saw – his soul," said Milly timidly; "it is not dead. I saw more – I saw his love!"

The fair head shook.

"No; that must be dead."

"Then why should it move him so? Why should he mind? What could the song be to him, if you were nothing? Dear, you are everything – still!"

The fair head shook again, and more decidedly.

"It's impossible. But I may do something. I have brought him to this, and I'll bring him back from it, with God's help!"

And as she stood up suddenly, to her last inch, Milicent again beheld the white, keen face touched for an instant with all the radiant exaltation of the Angelic Hosts.

"I might have known it," continued Miss Winfrey, in a calmer, more contemplative tone. "I knew him; I might have guessed the rest. Such troubles come and go with the ordinary young man, but Wilfrid was never that. His name is Wilfrid Ferrers, Milly – your Cattle-station Bill! As I have told you, his father was a country clergyman; and clergymen's sons are always the worst. Willie had been rather wild before I knew him; he used to tell me all about it, for he was the most open-hearted boy in all the world, and could keep nothing to himself. If he could, he wouldn't; for sail under his true colours he must, he used to say, even if they were the black flag. But they weren't. His wildness was one-half high spirits, and the other half good-nature. But it showed the man. He had once – I almost smile when I remember how he was once before the magistrates for some reckless boyish folly at the hospital! He would stick at nothing; but he used to say that I could do what I liked with him, make what I would of him. And what have I made?" cried the unhappy girl, in a relapse as sudden as her resolve. "A broken heart – a broken life!" She sank down at one of the desks, threw her arms upon the slope, and wept passionately. And yet again she was up, rapping the desk with her knuckles as she would in school, and staring masterfully at Millicent, out of her streaming eyes.

"What am I saying? What I have done, I can undo; what I have ruined, I can redeem. This is no coincidence, Milly; never tell me that! It is God's plan. He in His mercy means me to repair my wrong. He has given me this chance… I am going to my own room, Milly. I want you to leave me alone, dear. I want to thank Him on my knees. And then – and then – I may be shown how to act!"

The livelong afternoon she spent alone with her emergency. The homestead was very quiet. The young men were still away. The first sounds that penetrated to Miss Winfrey's room were the merry voices of the returning children. But by this time the governess had made up her mind. She now arose, and going forth in her right mind, found Millicent hovering near the door. The girls linked arms, and sauntered in the home-paddock till dinner-time.

"Here are his tracks," cried Millicent, halting in excitement. "His galloping tracks!"

The governess had not the bush girl's eye for a trail. To her, one hoof-mark was like another, and they honeycombed the rude soft road in millions. But she followed Milly's finger with thoughtful eyes, and presently she put a question.

"How far is it to the cattle station?"

"Fourteen miles."

"Five to the township, and – "

"Nine beyond. You turn to the left, and take the bridle-path to the right. Then you come to a gate. Then you cross a five-mile paddock; and it's half-way across the next one, close to the left-hand fence."

"Thank you. I shall go and see him."

"When he gets back?"

"Gets back! Where from?"

"The township," said Milly reluctantly.

"Did he look to you as though he were going there?"

"I – I certainly thought so; but I daresay I was wrong. I'm sure I was!" cried Milly.

"I wish I were sure," said Miss Winfrey with a sigh. "Yes, dear," she added, "I shall wait until he gets back."

A voice said close behind them that the dinner was getting cold. The voice was Mrs. Pickering's. In the sand they had heard no step; both girls changed colour, and in Mrs. Pickering's eye there was a curious light. But she had never been more civil to Miss Winfrey than at dinner that night; and after dinner she clamoured for a song. This was almost unprecedented. And the song she wanted was the song which she had heard in the distance that afternoon. But the governess made her excuses, and went early to her own room.

An hour later there was a tentative, light knock at Miss Winfrey's door – and no answer. Mrs. Pickering knocked again and louder. She carried a lighted candle; her hand trembled, and the hot grease spattered the floor. There was still no answer, so the lady tried the door. It was unlocked. She walked in. "I thought so!" muttered Mrs. Pickering, in a triumphant tone. She passed her candle over the untouched bed; she poked it into the empty corner; and it was some minutes before she could bring herself to quit the deserted room that filled her with so shrewd a sense of personal satisfaction.

That satisfaction was only too well founded. It was then just eleven, and at that very minute the indomitable Miss Winfrey was tramping into view of the township lights. They were few enough at such an hour. The Stockman's Rest, however, was both alight and alive, and midnight oil was burning in the post-office over the way. Miss Winfrey hesitated, bent her steps towards the post-office, hesitated again, and finally marched straight across to the hotel. The verandah was empty. She did not set foot on it. She could see into the bar… She did not think he was there… If only she could be sure!

In the end a groundless panic overcame her, and to the post-office she fled pell-mell. There, however, she recovered herself sufficiently to recall the pretext with which she had come prepared, and to drop a sham missive in the box before knocking.

It was the post-mistress herself who unlocked the door, who stood on the threshold with a lamp held high, her kind face wrinkled with surprise and concern.

"Why – bless the lot of us! – it's never Miss Winfrey?"

"It is," said the governess, with a wan smile and a hand on her heart. "Will you let me sit down, and – not ask what brings me?"

Miss Crisp pushed her pale visitor into a chair.

"Perhaps I know," said she slyly. "That letterbox makes a noise!"

"Oh, to be so deceitful!" moaned Miss Winfrey, red with shame.

"Tut!" said her ready dupe; "I only call it venturesome. I know I shouldn't like to have all my letters seen when they make up the station mail-bag, though I don't know the thing that would bring me all this way on foot at this time of night. However, that's your business, my dear, and you shall have a cup of tea before I let you go again."

The two had often foregathered since the day of Miss Winfrey's arrival, and the fact made her feel meaner than ever now. Yet she could not bring herself to tell the post-mistress everything, and it was either that or the small deceit which she was practising. Consciously or unconsciously Miss Crisp must help her. They took the same strong view of the dreadful system of knocking down cheques; the governess proceeded to turn this to account. She referred to their first meeting, and as casually as possible to Cattle-station Bill, saying the poor man had been in for another cheque that afternoon.

"Indeed?" said Miss Crisp, seating herself till the kettle should boil. "He didn't get one, did he?"

"He did. That's just it. What makes you think he did not?"

"He never stopped on his way back."

"Not – opposite?"

"No."

The girl's heart danced.

"Are you positive?"

"Quite. He's back at his hut, for I saw him go – galloping like a mad thing!"

"What time was that?"

"Between four and five."

The governess was too clever to drop the subject suddenly. She said she had made sure the poor man's cheque had gone the same way as the last, and so obtained a second assurance that as yet, at all events, it had not. Miss Crisp of the post-office saw most of what went on in the township; the rest was sure to reach her ears. So Miss Winfrey acted her part to the last, and took leave of her little old friend with a guilty and a penitent heart. But go on she must; it was too late to turn back, too late to think.

She made an elaborate détour, and struck the main road once more considerably to the left of the township. That amounted to the same thing as turning to the left through the township street. She now stood still to rehearse the remainder of Milly's directions, which she had by heart. She was to take the bridle-path to the right, which would bring her to a gate; she was then to cross a five-mile paddock; and – that was enough for the present.

The bridle-path was easily found. It brought her to the gate without let or panic. But by this time the girl had walked many miles and her feet were very sore. So she perched herself upon the gate, and watched an attenuated moon float clear of the inhospitable sandhills, and sail like a silver gondola on a sombre sea. But as the ache left her feet, it crept into her heart with all the paralysing wonder as to what she should say and do when at last she found her poor love. And immediately she jumped down and continued her tramp; for she was obliged to do what she was doing; only it was easier to walk, than to look, ahead.

The thin moon was much higher when its wan rays shone once more upon the wires of a fence running right and left into the purple walls of the night. There were no trees now. The vague immensity of the plains was terrifying to the imaginative girl, who had felt for some time as if she were walking by a miracle upon a lonely sea: a miracle that might end any moment: a sea that supported her on sufferance capriciously. But with the fence and the gate came saner thought, and a clear sight of the true occasion for fear and trembling. She was now within two or three miles of the hut. What was she to do when she got there? She did not know, she would not think. She would get there first, and leave the rest to that fate which had urged her so far.

She went through this gate without resting; she was no longer conscious of bodily pains. She followed up the fence on the left, according to Milly's directions, walking at the top of her speed for half an hour. Then all at once she trembled and stood still: there was the hut. It was as though it had risen out of the ground, so sudden was the sight of it, standing against the fence, one end towards her, scarce a hundred yards from where she was. She got no farther just then; the courage of her act forsook her at the last. She had no more strength of heart or limb, and she sank to the ground with a single sob. The slip of a moon was sickening in a sallow sky when the girl stood up next.

The dawn put new life in her will. She would wait till sunrise before she made a sound. Meanwhile, if the hut door was open, she would perhaps peep in. The door was open; there was a faint light within; she could see it through the interstices of the logs as she approached; it fell also in a sickly, flickering beam upon the sand without. And after a little, she did peep in: to see a "slush-lamp" burning on the table, and, in the wretched light of it, the figure of a man, with his bare arms and hidden face upon the table too. He seemed asleep; he might have been dead.

"Wilfrid!"

He was alive. The white face flashed upon her. The wild eyes started and stared. Then slowly, stiffly, unsteadily, he rose, he towered.

"So it was you I heard – singing that song!"

"Yes, Wilfrid."

"It is unbelievable. I've dreamt it often enough, but – yes, it's you! So you've found me out!"

"By the merest accident. I had no idea of it until to-day."

She was terrified at his eyes; they hungered, and were yet instinct with scorn. He stuck his spurred foot upon the box which had been his seat, and leaned forward, looking at her, his brown arms folded across his knee.

"And now?" he said.

She took one step, and laid her warm hands upon his arms, and looked up at him with flaming face, with quivering lips, with streaming eyes. "And now," she whispered, "I am ready to undo the past – "

"Indeed!"

"To make amends – to keep my broken word!"

He looked at her a moment longer, and his look was very soft. He had heard her singing, but neither the song nor the voice had done more than remind him of her. And yet the mere reminder had carried him through the township with a live cheque in his pocket – had kept him sitting up all night with his false love's image once more unveiled in his heart. Here by a miracle was his love herself; she loved him now – now that she had made him unworthy of her love! Little wonder that he looked softly at her for a moment more; and the next, still less wonder that he flung those hot hands from him, and kicked the box from under his foot, and recoiled with a mocking laugh from the love that had come too late.

"Keep what you like," he cried out with a brutal bitterness; "only keep your pity to yourself! You should require it. I don't."

And the girl was still staring at him, in a dumb agony, an exquisite torture, when the smack of a riding-whip resounded on the corrugated roof, and the eyes of both flew to the door.

IV

A horse's mane and withers, rubbed by the rider's beard as he stooped to peer into the hut, deepened the grey dusk within and made the lamp burn brighter. Then came the squatter's voice, in tremulous, forced tones, as of a man who can ill trust himself to speak.

"And so, Miss Winfrey, you are here!"

The governess came close to the threshold and faced her employer squarely, though without a word. Then her song had awakened a memory, but nothing more! So ran her thoughts.

"Your explanation, Miss Winfrey?"

"We knew each other years ago." And she waved with her hand towards the man who would not stand beside her in her shame.

"May I ask when you found that out?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Ah, when he came in for his cheque. I may tell you that I saw something of it from the store; and my wife happened to overhear some more when she went to fetch you and my daughter in to dinner."

"That was very clever of Mrs. Pickering."

"It was an accident; she couldn't help hearing."

"I daresay!" cried the governess, taking fire at the first spark. "But I shall tell her what I think of such accidents when I see her again!"

There was no immediate answer. And the girl took a cold alarm; for a soft meaning laugh came through the door; and either behind her, or in her imagination, there was an echo which cut her to the quick.

"May I ask," said Mr. Pickering, "when you expect to see my wife again?"

"Never!" said the girl, as though she had known that all along; but she had not thought of it before, and the thing stunned her even as she spoke.

"Never," repeated the squatter, with immense solemnity. "You've treated her very badly, Miss Winfrey; she feels it very much. You might at least have consulted her before going to such a length as this. A length which has nothing to do with me, mark you; but I must say it is one of the most scandalous things I ever heard of in all my life. I'm sorry to speak so strongly. I'm sorry to lose you for the children; but you must see that you're no longer quite the sort of person we want for them. You will find your boxes on the coach which leaves the township this evening, and your cheque – "

"Stop!" said a hoarse voice fiercely. At the same moment Miss Winfrey was forced to one side, and Wilfrid Ferrers filled her place: she had never admired him so much as now, with his doubled fists, and his rough dress, and the cold dawn shining on his haggard face. "You've said quite enough," he continued; "now it's my turn, Mr. Pickering. Miss Winfrey hasn't been at the hut ten minutes. She came because we were old friends, to try to make me the man I was when she knew me before. Unfortunately it's a bit too late; but she wasn't to know that, and she's done no wrong. Now apologise – or settle it with me!" and he laid hold of the bridle.

"You may let go those reins," replied Pickering. "I'm not frightened of you, though you have the better of me by twenty years. But I think you're on the right side in a more important respect than that; and if I've done Miss Winfrey an injustice, I hope I'm man enough to apologise in my own way." He slid from his horse, and walked into the hut with his wide-awake in one hand, and the other outstretched. "I beg your pardon," he said.

"I don't blame you," she replied.

He kept her hand kindly.

"Perhaps we shall meet again, Miss Winfrey. I hope so. I don't know how it stands between you two, but I can give a guess. You're a good girl; and we've always known what Bill was underneath. Good luck to you both! I shall send another man out here to-night."

The girl stood still and heard him ride away. The soft words stung worse than the harsh, she scarcely knew why. She was bewildered and aching in heart and body and brain. On some point she should have enlightened Mr. Pickering, but she had let it pass, and now what was it?

Ferrers had accompanied the squatter outside; had seen him start; and now he was standing in front of her with eyes that seemed to speak to her out of the past.

"Two men have insulted you this morning," he was saying. "One has apologised; it is the other's turn now. Forgive me – Lena!"

It was his old voice. The tears rushed to her eyes, and she stepped out blindly for the door. "I have nothing to forgive!" she cried. "Let me go. Only let me go!"

"Go where?"

"To the township – anywhere! I should have told Mr. Pickering. Call him back! – Ah, he's so far away already! What am I to do? What am I to do?"

Ferrers pushed the wooden box into the doorway where she stood leaning heavily against the jamb. "Sit down on that," said he, "while I brew you some tea. You're tired to death. Time enough to think of things after."

The girl sat down, and for a while she cried gently to herself. Her physical fatigue was enormous, rendering her perfectly helpless for the time being, with a helplessness which she resented more bitterly than the incomparable mental torments of the situation. These she deserved. If only she could get away, and turn this bitter page before it drove her mad! If only she could creep away, and close her eyes for hours or for ever! Surely this was the refinement of her punishment, that the flesh, which had stood her in too good stead hitherto, should fail her utterly in her supreme need!

The red sun burst out of the plains, as it were under her very eyes – blinding them. Miss Winfrey would not look round. She heard matches struck, sticks crackling, and later, the "billy" bubbling on the fire. She knew when the "slush-lamp" was extinguished; her sense of smell informed her of the fact. She heard a chop frizzling at the fire, the cutting of the damper on the table; but not until Ferrers touched her on the shoulder, telling her that breakfast was ready, would she turn her head or speak a word. The touch made her quiver to the core. He apologised, explaining that he had spoken thrice. Then they sat down; and the girl ate ravenously; but Ferrers did little but make conversation, speaking now of the Pickerings, and now of some common friends in London; the people, in fact, who had brought these two together.

"They knew I had come out here; didn't they tell you?"

"I never went near them again."

This answer set Ferrers thinking; and, after refilling the girl's pannikin and cutting more damper, he took a saddle from a long peg. He must catch his horse, he said; he would come back and see how she was getting on.

He did not come back for nearly an hour: the horse was a young one, and the horse-paddock, which was some little distance beyond the hut, was absurdly large. He returned ultimately at a gallop, springing off, with a new eagerness in his face, at the door of the hut. It was empty. He searched the hut, but the girl was gone. Then he remounted, and rode headlong down the fence; and something that he saw soon enough made his spurs draw blood. She was lying in the full glare of the morning sun, sound asleep. He had difficulty in awakening her, and greater difficulty in dissuading her from lying down again where she was.

"Have you spent half a summer up here without learning to respect the back-block sun? You mustn't think of going to sleep in it again. It's as much as your life is worth."

"Which is very little," murmured Miss Winfrey, letting some sand slip through her fingers, as if symbolically.

"Look here!" said Ferrers. "I shall be out all day, seeing to the sheep and riding the boundaries. There's a room at the back of my hut which the boss and those young fellows use whenever they stay there. They keep some blankets in it, but I have the key. The coach doesn't go till eight o'clock to-night. Why not lie down there till five or six?"

"I'm not a fool in everything," said the girl at length. "I'll do that."

"Then jump on my horse."

"That I can't do!"

"I'll give you a hand."

"I should fall off!"

"Not at a walk. Besides, I'll lead him. Recollect you've nine miles before you this evening."

She gave in. The room proved comfortable. She fell asleep to the sound of the horse's canter, lost in a few strides in the sand, but continuous in her brain. And this time she slept for many hours.

It was a heavy, dreamless sleep, from which she at last awoke refreshed, but entirely nonplussed as to her whereabouts. The room was very small and hot. It was also remarkably silent, but for the occasional crackling of the galvanised roof; and rather dark, but for the holes which riddled that roof like stars, letting in so many sunbeams as thin as canes. Miss Winfrey held her watch in one of them, but it had stopped for want of winding. Then she opened the door, and the blazing sun was no higher in the west than it had been in the east when last she saw it.

On a narrow bench outside her door stood a tin basin, with a bit of soap in it, cut fresh from the bar; a coarse but clean towel; and a bucket of water underneath. The girl crept back into the room, and knelt in prayer before using these things. In the forenoon none of them had been there.

Going round presently to the front of the hut, the first thing she saw was the stockrider's boots, with the spurs on them, standing just outside the door; within there was a merry glare, and Wilfrid Ferrers cooking more chops in his stocking soles before a splendid fire.

"Well!" she exclaimed in the doorway, for she could not help it.

"Awake at last!" he cried, turning a face ruddy from the fire. "You've had your eight hours. It's nearly five o'clock."

"Then I must start instantly."

"Time enough when we've had something to eat."

The first person plural disconcerted her. Was he coming too? Mr. Pickering had taken it for granted that they would go together; he was sending another man to look after the out-station; but then Mr. Pickering was labouring under a delusion; he did not understand. Wilfrid was very kind, considering that his love for her was dead and buried in the dead past. The gentleman was not dead in him, at all events. How cleverly he managed those hissing chops! He looked younger in the firelight, years younger than in the cold grey dawn. But no wonder his love of her was dead and gone.

"Now we're ready," he cried at last. "Quick, while they're hot, Lena!" His tone had changed entirely since the early morning; it was brisker now, but markedly civil and considerate. He proceeded to apologise for making use of her Christian name; it had slipped out, he said, without his thinking.

At this fresh evidence of his indifference, the girl forced a smile, and declared it did not matter.

"Surely we can still be friends," said she.

"Yes, friends in adversity!" he laughed. "Don't you feel as if we'd been wrecked together on a desert island? I do. But what do you think of the chops?"

"Very good for a desert island."

She was trying to adopt his tone; it was actually gay; and herein his degeneracy was more apparent to her than in anything that had gone before. He could not put himself in her place; the cruel dilemma that she was in, for his sake, seemed nothing to him; his solitary dog's life had deprived him of the power of feeling for another. And yet the thought of those boots outside in the sand contradicted this reflection; for he had put them on soon after her reappearance, thus showing her on whose account they had been taken off. Moreover, his next remark was entirely sympathetic.

"It's very rough on you," he said. "What do you mean to do?"

"I suppose I must go back to Melbourne."

"And then?"

"Get another place – if I can."

He said no more; but he waited upon her with heightened assiduity during the remainder of their simple meal; and when they set out together – he with all his worldly goods in a roll of blankets across his shoulders – she made another effort to strike his own note of kindly interest and impersonal sympathy. "And you," she said as they walked; "what will you do?"

"Get a job at the next station; there'll be no difficulty about that."

"I'm thankful to hear it."

"But I am in a difficulty about you."

He paused so long that her heart fluttered, and she knew not what was coming. They passed the place where her resolution had given way in the dark hour before the dawn; she recognised that other spot, where, later, he had found her asleep in the sun; but the first fence was in sight before he spoke.

"I can't stand the idea of your putting in another appearance in the township," he exclaimed at last, thrilling her with the words, which expressed perhaps the greatest of her own immediate dreads. "It won't do at all. Things will have got about. You must avoid the township at all costs."

"How can I?"

"By striking the road much lower down. It will mean bearing to the right, and no more beaten tracks after we get through this gate. But the distance will be the same and I know the way."

"But my trunks – "

"The boss said he would have them put on the coach. They'll probably be aboard whether you are or no. If they aren't, I'll have them sent after you."

"I shall be taking you out of your way," objected the girl.

"Never mind. Will you trust me?"

"Most gratefully."

She had need to be grateful. Yes, he was very kind; he was breaking her heart with his kindness, that heart which she had read backward five years ago, but aright ever since. It was all his. Either the sentiment which was one of her inherent qualities, or the generosity which was another, or both, had built up a passion for the man she had jilted, far stronger than any feeling she could have entertained for him in the early days of their love. She had yearned to make atonement, and having prayed, for years, only to meet him again, to that end, she had regarded her prayer now as answered. But answered how cruelly! Quite an age ago, he must have ceased to care; what was worse, he had no longer any strong feelings about her, one way or the other. Oh, that was the worst of all! Better his first hot scorn, his momentary brutality: she had made him feel then: he felt nothing now. And here they were trudging side by side, as silent as the grave that held their withered love.

They came to the road but a few minutes before the coach was due. Ferrers carried no watch; but he had timed their journey accurately by the sun. It was now not a handbreadth above the dun horizon; the wind had changed, and was blowing fresh from the south; and it was grateful to sit in the elongated shadows of two blue-bushes which commanded a fair view of the road. They had been on the tramp upwards of two hours; during the second hour they had never spoken but once, when he handed her his water-bag; and now he handed it again.

"Thank you," she said, passing it back after her draught. "You have been very kind!"

"Ah, Lena!" he cried, without a moment's warning, "had you been a kinder girl, or I a stronger man, we should have been happy enough first or last! Now it's too late. I have sunk too low. I'd rather sink lower still than trade upon your pity."