Miss Winfrey grew very fond of her schoolroom. There, as the young men
told her, she was "her own boss," with a piano, though a poor one, all
to herself; and a desk, the rather clumsy handiwork of the eldest boy,
yet her very own, and full of her own things. She took an old maid's
delight in orderly arrangement, and, for that matter, was not loath to
own, with her most serious air, that she quite intended to be an old
maid. But what she liked best about the schoolroom was its fundamental
privacy. It formed a detached building, and had formerly been the
station store. The old dining-room was the present store, which was
entered by the "white verandah," so known in contradistinction to the
deep, trellised shelter--which, however, Mrs. Pickering insisted on
calling the "piazza"--belonging to a later building. The white verandah
was narrow and bald by comparison. But the young men still burnt their
evening incense upon it, while Millicent and the governess preferred
it at all hours of the day. It was just opposite the schoolroom, for
one thing; for another, Mrs. Pickering but seldom set foot on the white
verandah, and the peevish lady was not a popular character in the
homestead of which she was mistress.
She no longer approved of the new governess. Miss Winfrey's singular
success with the children had been quite sufficient to alienate their
mother's sympathies, or rather to revive her prejudices. Her feeling
in the matter was not, perhaps, altogether inhuman. It is difficult to
appreciate the expert manipulation of material upon which we ourselves
have tried an ineffectual hand. It is odious to see another win through
sheer discipline to a popularity which all one's own indulgence has
failed to secure. These experiences were Mrs. Pickering's just deserts,
but that did not lessen their sting. The lady became not unnaturally
jealous of her children's friend, whose society they now obviously
preferred to her own. With former governesses not a day had passed
without one child or another coming to its mother with some whining
tale. There were no such complaints now; but the mother missed them as
she would have missed so many habitual caresses; for it made her feel
that she was no longer everything to her children. It is easier to
understand her feelings than to forgive their expression. She took to
snubbing the governess in the pupils' presence. It is true that, as the
young men said, Mrs. Pickering did not "get much change" out of little
Miss Winfrey. The girl was well qualified to take care of herself. But
she was more sensitive than she cared to show. Her whole soul shrank
from the small contentions which were forced upon her; they hurt her
equally whether she won or she lost. Still it was less horrid to win,
and one little victory gave the governess distinct satisfaction.
Mrs. Pickering took it into her head that the children were worked too
hard. So one afternoon she walked into the schoolroom and told them all
that they might go--nearly an hour before the time. But not a child
stirred.
"You may all run away," repeated their mother. "Do you hear me? Then
why don't you move?"
The eldest boy shuffled awkwardly in his place. "Please, mother, it's
poetry-hour, and we only have it once a week."
Mrs. Pickering, relying on the little ones, now called for a show of
hands. But the very infants were against her; and she left the room
with a bitter glance at the silent governess, who after a moment's
consideration dismissed the class herself. Meantime the irate lady had
gone straight to her husband.
"Miss Winfrey is becoming unendurable," she told him in the tone of
personal reproach which had already made the unlucky squatter curse his
choice of a governess. "The poor children are positively frightened
to death of her! I went in to let them out of school; no one but
an inhuman monster would keep them in on an afternoon like this;
and actually, not one of them dared to move without Miss Winfrey's
permission! Harry muttered something to the effect that they would
rather finish the lesson, and the rest sat still, but you may be sure
they knew it was either that or being punished afterwards. How I hate
such severities! As for that woman herself, she sat like a mule
without saying anything. Ah! I see she's thought better of it, and let
them out herself; to show that her authority's superior to mine, I
suppose! Really, that's the last straw!"
Pickering met his wife judiciously, but not by any means half-way. He
knew what she meant; he was not himself entirely enamoured of Miss
Winfrey. She had spoken to him about the boys seeing too much of the
men out mustering on Saturdays, a point on which the father deemed
himself the best judge. She had too many opinions of her own; but when
all was said, she was an admirable governess. He dwelt upon the general
improvement in the children under Miss Winfrey. He had the sense to
ignore their very evident affection for that martinet. Another change
might be a very good thing in a few months' time, but at present it
would be a thousand pities. Christmas was coming on. It would be
very easy to let Miss Winfrey see that her daily supervision was not
required during the holidays. She could have the time to herself.
She did have the time to herself, and a very poor time it was. The
parents gave out that they intended to see something of their young
people while they had the chance. And to broaden the hint, as if that
were necessary, they studiously refrained from inviting Miss Winfrey
to join in the daily entertainment. Now it was a family visit to a
neighbouring station, with four horses in the big trap; now a picnic in
the scrub, now impromptu races on the township course. The governess
spent the days in her own schoolroom, with little intervals on the
white verandah. Millicent's rabbit inspector was at Greenbush, so Miss
Winfrey saw nothing of Millicent either. All was now well between those
two: on the day he went, she rode with him to the boundary fence, and
then joined the picnic party in the Forest Paddock.
"Where's Miss Winfrey?" cried the girl, from her saddle, as she
cantered up to the little group about the crackling fire.
The children looked unhappy.
"She's at home," said Harry.
Millicent asked why.
"Because it's holidays," answered Mrs. Pickering, looking up from
the basket which she was unpacking. "Because we've come out to enjoy
ourselves."
Millicent ran over the ring of little wistful faces, and a soft laugh
curled her lips. She could hear her father gathering branches in the
scrub, and talking to the only young man who had not gone away for
his holidays. She wondered whether she should dismount at all; her
heart went out to her friend all alone at the homestead; she, too, had
neglected her these last few days.
"When did Miss Winfrey spoil a day's enjoyment?" the girl demanded.
"She would have added to it."
"You may think so. I chose not to risk it."
"But surely you gave her a chance of coming?"
"Not I, indeed! The children see quite enough of their governess in
school. Harry, darling, there's the water boiling at last."
But Millicent was boiling too. "That settles it," she exclaimed with a
quick flush. "Good-bye, all of you!" And she was gone at a hand-gallop.
Little love was to lose between the girl and her step-mother. Millicent
was rather glad than otherwise to turn her back upon a party which did
not include the one daily companion who was now entirely congenial to
her, while if anybody could fill at all the gaping blank left by her
lover's departure, it was Miss Winfrey, who was always so sympathetic,
so understanding. To that same sympathy the young girl felt that she
owed her present abiding and increasing happiness, and again her heart
went out to the counsellor who had known no such counsel in her own
black hour of doubt and trepidation. Otherwise--and Milly sighed. She
knew the whole story now. Her friend had spoken of it a second and a
third time, and the speaking had seemed to do her good. It was five
years ago. The young man had been a medical student then. And now his
penitent false love could see him only as a thriving doctor--and a
married man.
"I would give anything to find him," thought the girl who was happy, as
she stooped to open the home-paddock gate. "I know--something tells
me--that he is true!"
She cantered to the homestead, standing high and hot on its ridge of
sand, with only a few dry pines sprouting out of the yard. The year was
burning itself out in a succession of torrid days, of which this was
the worst hitherto. The sky was prodigiously, ridiculously blue, with
never a flake of cloud from rim to rim. The wind came from the north
as from an open oven. And Millicent's dog was running under the very
girths of her horse, whose noon-day shadow she could not see.
She watered both animals at the tank, and then rode on to the
horse-yard; but, ere she reached it, was much struck by the sound of a
sweet voice singing in the distance. It seemed a queer thing, but the
young woman from England was standing the Riverina summer far better
than those who had been born there. She could sit and sing on a day
like this!
On her way on foot from the horse-yard to the schoolroom Millicent
stood on her shadow to listen to the song. The governess sang very
seldom; she liked better to play accompaniments for the young men,
though she had a charming, trained voice of her own. Millicent had
never heard her use it, as she was doing now, without a known soul
within earshot save the Chinaman in the kitchen.
The heat of the sand struck through the young girl's boots. Yet still
she stood, her head bent, and at last caught a few of the words:
"... in the lime-tree,
The wind is floating through:
And oh! the night, my darling, is sighing--
Sighing for you, for you."
A verse was finished. Millicent crept nearer. She had never heard such
tender singing. Three or four simple bars and it began again:
"O think not I can forget you;
I could not though I would;
I see you in all around me,
The stream, the night, the wood;
The flowers that slumber so gently,
The stars above the blue.
Oh! heaven itself, my darling, is praying--
Praying for you, for you."
The voice sank very low, its pathos was infinite, yet the listener
heard every word. There were no more. Millicent dried her eyes, and
went tripping over her habit through the open schoolroom door. There
sat the governess, with wrung face and grey eyes all intensity.
"My dear, it was divine!"
"You heard! I'm sorry."
"But why?"
"I never sing that song."
"Why, again?"
The fixed eyes fell. "It was--his favourite.... The music is
better than the words, I think; don't you? But then the words are a
translation."
Complete change of tone forbade further questioning. But once more the
younger girl felt horribly discontented with her own really adequate
affection for the honest rabbit inspector. It seemed such a little
thing beside the passion of her friend.
Not long after this Millicent was reclining on a deck-chair under
shelter of the white verandah. The heat was still intense, and she was
nearly asleep. It was a Saturday afternoon, the children were abroad in
the paddocks, but their governess was in her own schoolroom, for once
as enervated as Millicent herself, who could just see the hem of her
frock through the open door.
Millicent had closed her eyes. A spur clinked on the verandah, but she
was too lazy to lift a lid. A voice said, "Is Mr. Pickering about,
please, miss?" with a good accent, but in a curious hang-dog tone. She
answered, "You'll find him in the store," without troubling to see
which of the men it was. Then came sleep ... then her father, shaking
her softly, and whispering in her ear.
"It's Cattle-station Bill," he said. "Wants another cheque--hasn't had
one since the day Miss Winfrey came. Where is she, Milly? She seemed to
think she'd like to try her hand at reforming our Bill, and now's her
chance. He's only gone five months this time!"
"Miss Winfrey's in the schoolroom," replied Milly drowsily. "She won't
thank you for disturbing her any more than I do."
Pickering stepped down into the sand and crossed over to the
schoolroom, dragging a shadow like a felled pine. The man was meanwhile
in the store, where presently his master rejoined him in fits of soft
and secret laughter. And Millicent rubbed her eyes, because her nap
had been ruined, and bent them upon the schoolroom door, in which the
governess now stood reading a book.
The spurs clinked again on the verandah, the book dropped over the
way, the governess disappeared from view; and Millicent glanced from
the empty door to the wearer of the spurs. He was a handsome young
fellow, with blue-black hair and moustache, and a certain indefinable
distinction of which his rough clothes could not rid him. But his
eyes were turned sullenly to earth, and as he snatched his horse's
reins from the hook on the verandah-post with his right hand, his
left crumpled up his cheque and rammed it into his pocket. And a wild
suspicion flashed across Millicent at that moment, to be confirmed the
next.
"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.