Potch had gone to the mine on the morning when Michael went into Paul's
hut, intending to rouse him out and make him go down to the claim and
start work again. It was nearly five years since he had got the
sun-stroke which had given him an excuse for loafing, and Michael and
Potch had come to the conclusion that even if it were only to keep him
out of mischief, Paul had to be put to work again.
Since old Armitage's visit he had been restless and dissatisfied. He was
getting old, and had less energy, even by fits and starts, than he used
to have, they realised, but otherwise he was much the same as he had
been before Sophie went away. For months after Armitage's visit he spent
the greater part of his time on the form in the shade of Newton's
veranda, or in the bar, smoking and yarning to anybody who would yarn
with him about Sophie. His imagination gilded and wove freakish fancies
over what Mr. Armitage had said of her, while he wailed about Sophie's
neglect of him--how she had gone away and left him, her old father, to
do the best he could for himself. His reproaches led him to rambling
reminiscences of his life before he came to the Ridge, and of Sophie's
mother. He brought out his violin, tuned it, and practised Sometimes,
talking of how he would play for Sophie in New York.
He was rarely sober, and Michael and Potch were afraid of the effect of
so much drinking on his never very steady brain.
For months they had been trying to induce him to go down to the claim
and start work again; but Paul would not.
"What's the good," he had said, "Sophie'll be sending for me soon, and
I'll be going to live with her in New York, and she won't want people to
be saying her father is an old miner."
Michael had too deep a sense of what he owed to Paul to allow him ever
to want. He had provided for him ever since Sophie had left the Ridge;
he was satisfied to go on providing for him; but he was anxious to steer
Paul back to more or less regular ways of living.
This morning Michael had made up his mind to tempt him to begin work
again by telling him of a splash of colour Potch had come on in the mine
the day before. Michael did not think Paul could resist the lure of that
news.
Potch had brought Paul home from Newton's the night before, Michael
knew; but Paul was not in the kitchen or in his own room when Michael
went into the hut.
As he was going out he noticed that the curtain of bagging over the door
of the room which had been Sophie's was thrown back. Michael went
towards it.
"Paul!" he called.
No answer coming, he went into the room. Its long quiet and tranquillity
had been disturbed. Michael had not seen the curtain over the doorway
thrown back in that way since Sophie had gone. The room had always been
like a grave in the house with that piece of bagging across it; but
there was none of the musty, dusty, grave-like smell of an empty room
about it when Michael crossed the threshold. The window was open; the
frail odour of a living presence in the air. On the box cupboard by the
window a few stalks of punti, withered and dry, stood in a tin. Michael
remembered having seen them there when they were fresh, a year ago.
He was realising Potch had put them there, and wondering why he had left
the dead stalks in the tin until they were as dry as brown paper, when
his eyes fell on a hat with a long veil, and a dark cloak on the bed. He
gazed at them, his brain shocked into momentary stillness by the
suggestion they conveyed.
Sophie exclaimed behind him.
When he turned, Michael saw her standing in the doorway, leaning against
one side of it. Her face was very pale and tired-looking; her eyes gazed
into his, dark and strange. He thought she had been ill.
"I've come home, Michael," she said.
Michael could not speak. He stood staring at her. The dumb pain in her
eyes inundated him, as though he were a sensitive medium for the
realisation of pain. It surged through him, mingling with the flood of
his own rejoicing, gratitude, and relief that Sophie had come back to
the Ridge again.
They stood looking at each other, their eyes telling in that moment what
words could not. Then Michael spoke, sensing her need of some
commonplace, homely sentiment and expression of affection.
"It's a sight for sore eyes--the sight of you, Sophie," he said.
"Michael!"
Her arms went out to him with the quick gesture he knew. Michael moved
to her and caught her in his arms. No moment in all his life had been
like this when he held Sophie in his arms as though she were his own
child. His whole being swayed to her in an infinite compassion and
tenderness. She lay against him, her body quivering. Then she cried,
brokenly, with spent passion, almost without strength to cry at all.
"There, there!" Michael muttered. "There, there!"
He held her, patting and trying to comfort and soothe her, muttering
tenderly, and with difficulty because of his trouble for her. The tears
she had seen in his eyes when he said she was a sight for sore eyes came
from him and fell on her. His hand went over her hair, clumsily,
reverently.
"There, there!" he muttered again and again.
Weak with exhaustion, when her crying was over, Sophie moved away from
him. She pushed back the hair which had fallen over her forehead; her
eyes had a faint smile as she looked at him.
"I am a silly, aren't I, Michael?" she said.
Michael's mouth took its wry twist.
"Are you, Sophie?" he said. "Well ... I don't think there's anyone else
on the Ridge'd dare say so."
"I've dreamt of that smile of yours, Michael," Sophie said. She swayed a
little as she looked at him; her eyes closed.
Michael put his arm round her and led her to the bed. He made her lie
down and drew the coverlet over her.
"You lay down while I make you a cup of tea, Sophie," he said.
Sophie was lying so still, her face was so quiet and drained of colour
when he returned with tea in a pannikin and a piece of thick bread and
butter on the only china plate in the hut, that Michael thought she had
fainted. But the lashes swept up, and her eyes smiled into his grave,
anxious face as he gazed at her.
"I'm all right, Michael," she said, "only a bit crocky and dead tired."
She sat up, and Michael sat on the bed beside her while she drank the
tea and ate the bread and butter.
"Tea in a pannikin is much nicer than any other tea in the world,"
Sophie said. "Don't you think so, Michael? I've often wondered whether
it's the tea, or the taste of the tin pannikin, or the people who have
tea in pannikins, that makes it so nice."
After a while she said:
"I came up on the coach this morning ... didn't get in till about
half-past six.... And I came straight up from Sydney the day before.
That's all night on the train ... and I didn't get a sleeper. Just sat
and stared out of the window at the country. Oh! I can't tell you how
badly I've wanted to come home, Michael. In the end I felt I'd die if I
didn't come--so I came."
Then she asked about Potch and her father.
Michael told her about the ratting, and how Paul had had sun-stroke, but
that he was all right again now; and how Potch and he were thinking of
putting him on to work again. Then he said that he must get along down
to the claims, as Potch would be wondering what had become of him; and
Paul might be down there, having heard of the colours they had got the
night before.
"I'll send him up to you, if he's there," Michael said. "But you'd
better just lie still now, and try to get a little of the shut-eye
you've been missing these last two or three days."
"Months, Michael," Sophie said, that dark, strange look coming into her
eyes again.
They did not speak for a moment. Then she lay back on the bed.
"But I'll sleep all right here," she said. "I feel as if I'd sleep for
years and years.... It's the smell of the paper daisies and the
sandal-wood smoke, I suppose. The air's got such a nice taste,
Michael.... It smells like peace, I think."
"Well," Michael said, "you eat as much of it as you fancy. I don't mind
if Paul doesn't find you till he comes back to tea.... It'd do you more
good to have a sleep now, and then you'll be feelin' a bit fitter."
"I think I could go to sleep now, Michael," Sophie murmured.
Michael stood watching her for a moment as she seemed to go to sleep,
thinking that the dry, northern air, with its drowsy fragrance, was
already beginning to draw the ache from her body and brain. He went to
the curtain of the doorway, dropped it, and turned out into the blank
sunshine of the day again.
He fit his pipe and smoked abstractedly as he walked down the track to
the mine. He had already made up his mind that it would be better for
Sophie to sleep for a while, and that he was not going to get anyone to
look for Paul and send him to her.
She had said nothing of the reason for her return, and Michael knew
there must be a reason. He could not reconcile the Sophie Dawe Armitage
had described as taking her life in America with such joyous zest, and
the elegant young woman on the show-page of the illustrated magazine,
with the weary and broken-looking girl he had been talking to. Whatever
it was that had changed her outlook, had been like an earthquake,
devastating all before it, Michael imagined. It had left her with no
more than the instinct to go to those who loved and would shelter her.
Potch was at work on a slab of shin-cracker when Michael went down into
the mine. He straightened and looked up as Michael came to a standstill
near him. His face was dripping, and his little white cap, stained with
red earth, was wet with sweat. He had been slogging to get through the
belt of hard, white stone near the new colours before Michael appeared.
"Get him?" he asked.
Michael had almost forgotten Paul.
"No," he said, switching his thoughts from Sophie.
"What's up?" Potch asked quickly, perceiving something unusual in
Michael's expression.
Michael wanted to tell him--this was a big thing for Potch, he knew--and
yet he could not bring his news to expression. It caught him by the
throat. He would have to wait until he could say the thing decently, he
told himself. He knew what joy it would give Potch.
"Nothing," he said, before he realised what he had said.
But he promised himself that in a few minutes he would tell Potch. He
would break the news to him. Michael felt as though he were the guardian
of some sacred treasure which he was afraid to give a glimpse of for
fear of dazzling the beholder.
The concern went from Potch's face as quickly and vividly as it had
come. He knew that Michael had reserves from him, and he was afraid of
having trespassed on them by asking for information which Michael did
not volunteer. He had been betrayed into the query by the stirred and
happy look on Michael's face. Only rarely had he seen Michael look like
that. Potch's thought flashed to Sophie--Michael must have some good
news of her, he guessed, and knew Michael would pass it on to him in his
own time.
He turned to his work again, and Michael took up his pick. Potch's
steady slinging at the shin-cracker began again. Michael reproached
himself as the minutes went by for what he was keeping from Potch.
He knew what his news would mean to Potch. He knew the solid flesh of
the man would grow radiant. Michael had seen that subtle glow transfuse
him when they talked of Sophie. He pulled himself together and
determined to speak.
Dropping his pick to take a spell, Michael pulled his pipe from the belt
round his trousers, relighted the ashes in its bowl, and sat on the
floor of the mine. Potch also stopped work. He leaned his pick against
the rock beside him, and threw back his shoulders.
"Where was he?" he asked.
"Who--Paul?"
Potch nodded, sweeping the drips from his head and neck.
"Yes."
Michael decided he would tell him now.
"Don't know," he said. "He wasn't about when I came away."
Potch wrung his cap, shook it out, and fitted it on his head again.
"He was showin' all right at Newton's last night," he said. "I'd a bit
of a business getting him home."
"Go on," Michael replied absent-mindedly. "Potch ..." he he added, and
stopped to listen.
There was a muffled rumbling and sound of someone calling in the
distance. It came from Roy O'Mara's drive, on the other side of the
mine.
"Hullo!" Michael called.
"That you, Michael?" Roy replied. "I'm comin' through."
His head appeared through the drive which he had tunnelled to meet
Potch's and Michael's drive on the eastern side of the mine. He crawled
out, shook himself, took out his pipe, and squatted on the floor beside
Michael.
"Where's Rummy?" Roy asked.
Michael shook his head.
"You didn't get him down, after all--the boys were taking bets about it
last night."
"We'll get him yet," Potch said. "The colour'll work like one thing."
Michael stared ahead of him, smoking as though his thoughts absorbed
him.
"He was pretty full at Newton's last night," Roy said, "and
talkin'--talkin' about Sophie singing in America, and the great lady she
is now. And how she was goin' to send for him, and he'd be leavin' us
soon, and how sorry we'd all be then."
"Should've thought you'd about wore out that joke," Michael remarked,
dryly.
Roy's easy, good-natured voice faltered.
"Oh, well," he said, "he likes to show off a bit, and it don't hurt us,
Michael."
"That's right," Michael returned; "but Potch was out half the night
bringing him home. You chaps might remember Paul's our proposition when
you're having a bit of fun out of him."
Potch turned back to his work.
"Right, Michael," Roy said. And then, after a moment, having decided
that both Michael's and Potch's demeanours were too calm for them to
have heard what he had, as if savouring the effect of his news, he
added:
"But perhaps we won't have many more chances-seein' Rummy 'll be going
to America before long, perhaps----"
Michael, looking at Roy through his tobacco smoke, realised that he knew
about Sophie's having come home. His glance travelled to Potch, who was
slogging at the cement stone again.
"Saw old Ventry on me way down to the mine," Roy said, "and he said he'd
a passenger on the coach last night.... Who do you think it was?"
Michael dared not look at Potch.
"He said," Roy murmured slowly, "it was Sophie."
They knew that Potch's pick had stopped. Michael had seen a tremor
traverse the length of his bared back; but Potch did not turn. He stood
with his face away from them, immobile. His body dripped with sweat and
seemed to be oiled by the garish light of the candle which outlined his
head, gilded his splendid arms and torso against the red earth of the
mine, and threw long shadows into the darkness, shrouding the workings
behind him. Then his pick smashed into the cement stone with a force
which sent sharp, white chips flying in every direction.
When Roy crawled away through the tunnel to his own quarters, Potch
swung round from the face he was working on, his eyes blazing.
"Is it true?" he gasped.
"Yes," Michael said.
After a moment he added: "I found her in the hut this morning just
before I came away. I been tryin' all these blasted hours to tell you,
Potch ... but every time I tried, it got me by the neck, and I had to
wait until I found me voice."