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.