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.