Michael had lit the lamp in Rouminof's kitchen; innumerable tiny-winged
insects, moths, mosquitoes, midges, and golden-winged flying ants hung
in a cloud about it. Martha M'Cready, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and George
Woods were there talking to Paul and Michael when Sophie went into the
kitchen.
"Here she is," Paul said.
Martha rose from her place on the sofa and trundled cross to her.
"Dearie!" she cried, as George and Pony-Fence called:
"H'llo, Sophie!"
And Sophie said: "Hullo, George! Hullo, Pony-Fence!"
Martha's embrace cut short what else she may have had to say. Sophie
warmed to her as she had when she was a child. Martha had been so plump
and soft to rub against, and a sensation of sheer animal comfort and
rejoicing ran through Sophie as she felt herself against Martha again.
The slight briny smell of her skin was sweet to her with associations of
so many old loving and impulsive hugs, so much loving kindness.
"Oh, Mother M'Cready," she cried, a more joyous note in her voice than
Michael had yet heard, "it is nice to see you again!"
"Lord, lovey," Martha replied, disengaging her arms, "and they'd got me
that scared of you--saying what a toff you were. I thought you'd be
tellin' me my place if I tried this sort of thing. But when I saw you a
minute ago, I clean forgot all about it. I saw you were just my own
little Sophie back again ... and I couldn't 've helped throwing me arms
round you--not for the life of me."
She was winking and blinking her little blue eyes to keep the tears in
them, and Sophie laughed the tears back from her eyes too.
"There she is!" a great, hearty voice exclaimed in the doorway.
And Bully Bryant, carrying the baby, with Ella beside him, came into the
room.
"Bully!" Sophie cried, as she went towards them, "And Ella!"
Ella threw out her arms and clung to Sophie.
"She's been that excited, Sophie," Bully said, "I couldn't hardly get
her to wait till this evening to come along."
"Oh, Bully!" Ella protested shyly.
"And the baby?" Sophie cried, taking his son from Bull. "Just fancy you
and Ella being married, Bully, and having a baby, and me not knowing a
word about it!"
The baby roared lustily, and Bully took him from Sophie as Watty Frost,
the Crosses, and Roy O'Mara came through the door.
"Hullo, Watty, Archie, Tom, Roy!" Sophie exclaimed with a little gasp of
pleasure and excitement, shaking hands with each one of them as they
came to her.
She had not expected people to come to see her like this, and was
surprised by the genial warmth and real affection of the greetings they
had given her. Everybody was laughing and talking, the little room was
full to brimming when Bill Grant appeared in the doorway, and beside him
the tall, gaunt figure of the woman Sophie loved more than any other
woman on the Ridge--Maggie Grant, looking not a day older, and wearing a
blue print dress with a pin-spot washed almost out of it, as she had
done as long as Sophie could remember.
Sophie went to the long, straight glance of her eyes as to a call.
Maggie kissed her. She did not speak; but her beautiful, deep-set eyes
spoke for her. Sophie shook hands with Bill Grant.
"Glad to see you back again, Sophie," he said simply.
"Thank you, Bill," she replied.
Then Potch came in; and behind him, slowly, from out of the night,
Snow-Shoes. The Grants had moved from the door to give him passage; but
he stood outside a moment, his tall, white figure and old sugar-loaf hat
outlined against the blue-dark wall of the night sky, as though he did
not know whether he would go into the room or not.
Then he crossed the threshold, took off his hat, and stood in a stiff,
gallant attitude until Sophie saw him. He had a fistful of yellow
flowers in one hand. Everybody knew Sophie had been fond of punti. But
there were only a few bushes scattered about the Ridge, and they had
done flowering a month ago, so Snow-Shoes' bouquet was something of a
triumph. He must have walked miles, to the swamp, perhaps, to find it,
those who saw him knew.
"Oh, Mr. Riley!" Sophie cried, as she went to shake hands with him.
"They still call me Snow-Shoes, Sophie," the old man said.
The men laughed, and Sophie joined them. She knew, as they all did, that
although anyone of them was called by the name the Ridge gave him, no
one ever addressed Snow-Shoes as anything but Mr. Riley.
He held the flowers out to her.
"Punti!" she exclaimed delightedly, holding the yellow blossoms to her
nose. "Isn't it lovely? ... No flower in the world's got such a
perfume!"
Michael had explained to the guests that Sophie was not to be asked to
sing, and that nothing was to be said about her singing. Something had
gone wrong with her voice, he told two or three of the men.
He thought he had put the fear of God into Paul, and had managed to make
him understand that it distressed Sophie to talk about her singing, and
he must not bother her with questions about it. But in a lull of the
talk Paul's voice was raised querulously:
"What I can't make out, Sophie," he said, "is why you can't sing? What's
happened to your voice? Have you been singing too much? Or have you
caught cold? I always told you you'd have to be careful, or your voice'd
go like your mother's did. If you'd listened to me, now, or I'd been
with you...."
Bully Bryant, catching Michael's eye, burst across Paul's drivelling
with a hearty guffaw.
"Well," he said, "Sophie's already had a sample of the fine lungs of
this family, and I don't mind givin' her another, and then Ella and
me'll have to be takin' Buffalo Bill home to bed. Now then, old son,
just let 'em see what we can do." He raised his voice to singing pitch:
"For-er she's a jolly good fellow, for-er-"
All the men and women in the hut joined in Bully's roar, singing in a
way which meant much more than the words--singing from their hearts,
every man and woman of them.
Then Bully put his baby under his arm as though it were a bundle of
washing, Ella protesting anxiously, and the pair of them said good-night
to Sophie. Snow-Shoes went out before them; and Martha said she would
walk down to the town with Bully and Ella. Bill Grant and Maggie said
good-night.
"Sophie looks as if she'd sleep without rocking to-night," Maggie Grant
said by way of indicating that everybody ought to go home soon and let
Sophie get to bed early.
"I will," Sophie replied.
Pony-Fence and the Crosses were getting towards the door, Watty and
George followed them.
"It's about time you was back, that's what I say, Sophie," George Woods
said, gripping her hand as he passed. "There's been no luck on this
field since you went away."
Sophie smiled into his kindly brown eyes.
"That's right," Watty backed up his mate heartily.
"But," Sophie said, "they tell me Potch has had all the luck."
"So he has," George Woods agreed.
"It's a great stone, isn't it, Sophie?" Watty said.
"I haven't seen it yet," Sophie said. "Michael said he'd get Potch to
show it to me to-night."
"Not seen it?" George gasped. "Not seen the big opal! Say, boys"--he
turned to Pony-Fence, and the Crosses--"I reck'n we'll have to stay for
this. Sophie hasn't seen Potch's opal yet. Bring her along, Potch. Bring
her along, and let's all have another squint at her. You can't get too
much of a good thing."
"Right," Potch replied.
He went out of the hut to bring the opal from his own room.
"Reck'n it's the finest stone ever found on this field," Watty said,
"and the biggest. How much did you say Potch had turned down for it,
Michael?"
"Four hundred," Michael said.
"What are you hangin' on to her for, Michael?" Pony-Fence asked.
Michael shook his head, that faint smile of his flickering.
"Potch's had an idea he didn't want to part with her," he said. "But I
daresay he'll be letting her go soon."
He did not say "now." But the men understood that. They guessed that
Potch had been waiting for this moment; that he wanted to show Sophie
the stone before selling it.
Potch came into the room again, his head back, an indefinable triumph
and elation in his eyes as they sought Sophie's. He had a mustard tin,
skinned of its gaudy paper covering, in his hand. A religious awe and
emotion stirred the men as, standing beside Sophie, he put the tin on
the table. They crowded about the table, muscles tightening in sun-red,
weather-tanned faces, some of them as dark as the bronze of an old
penny, the light in their eyes brightening, sharpening--a thirsting,
eager expression in every face. Potch screwed off the lid of the tin,
lifted the stone in its wrappings, and unrolled the dingy flannel which
he had put round it. Then he took the opal from its bed of cotton wool.
Sophie leaned forward, her eyes shining, her breath coming quickly. The
emotion in the room made itself felt through her.
"Put out the lamp, Michael, and let's have a candle," George said.
Michael turned out the lamp, struck a match and set it to the candle in
a bottle on the dresser behind him. He put the candle on the table.
Potch held the great opal to the light, he moved it slowly behind the
flame of the candle.
"Oh!"
Sophie's cry of quivering ecstasy thrilled her hearers. She was one of
them; she had been brought up among them. They had known she would feel
opal as they did. But that cry of hers heightened their enthusiasm.
The breaths of suppressed excitement and admiration, and their muttered
exclamations went up:
"Now, she's showin'!"
"God, look at her now!"
Sophie followed every movement of the opal in Potch's hand. It was a
world in itself, with its thousand thousand suns and stars, shimmering
and changing before her eyes as they melted mysteriously in the jetty
pool of the stone.
"Oh!" she breathed again, amazed, dazed, and rapturous.
Potch came closer to her. They stood together, adoring the orb of
miraculous and mysterious beauty.
"Here," Potch said, "you hold her, Sophie."
Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with child-like awe and
emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on
them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of
glass.... Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a
moment; her eyes went to Potch's face, aghast. The blood seemed to have
left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes
wide....
After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying:
"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"
She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael
lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming,
Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were
caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor
near her. Sophie's eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered
stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst--out across the earthen
floor.
Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them
up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of
those stars--red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst.
She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to
think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and
that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only
for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal
specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her
hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was
saying.
When she began to understand what Potch was saying, Sophie was sitting
on the sofa under the window, and Potch was kneeling beside her. At
first she heard him talking as if he were a long way away. She tried to
listen; tried to understand what he was saying.
"It's all right, Sophie," Potch kept saying, his voice breaking.
Sight of her suffering overwhelmed him; and he trembled as he knelt
beside her. Sophie heard him crying distantly:
"It's all right! It's all right, Sophie!"
She shuddered. Her eyes went to him, consciousness in their blank gaze.
Potch, realising that, murmured incoherently:
"Don't think of it any more.... It was yours, Sophie. It was for you I
was keeping it.... Michael knew that, too. He knew that was why I didn't
want to sell.... It was your opal ... to do what you liked with, really.
That was what I meant when I put it in your hand. But don't let us think
of it any more. I don't want to think of it any more."
"Oh!" Sophie cried, in a bitter wailing; "it's true, I believe ...
somebody said once that I'm as unlucky as opal--that I bring people bad
luck like opal...."
"You know what we say on the Ridge?" Potch said; "The only bad luck you
get through opal is when you can't get enough of it--so the only bad
luck you're likely to bring to people is when they can't get enough of
you."
"Potch!"
Sophie's hands went to him in a flutter of breaking grief. The
forgiveness she could not ask, the gratitude for his gentleness, which
she could not express any other way, were in the gesture and
exclamation.
On her hands, through his hot, clasped hands, the whole of Potch's being
throbbed.
"Don't think of it any more," he begged.
"But it was your luck--your wonderful opal--and ... I broke it, Potch. I
spoilt your luck."
"No," Potch said, borne away from himself on the flood of his desire to
assuage her distress. "You make everything beautiful for me, Sophie.
Since you came back I haven't thought of the stone: I'd forgotten it....
This hasn't been the same place. I'm so filled up with happiness because
you're here that I can't think of anything else."
Sophie looked into his face, her eyes swimming. She saw the deep passion
of love in Potch's eyes; but she turned away from the light it poured
over her, her face overcast again, bitterness and grief in it. She hung
so for a moment; then her hands went over her face and she was crying
abstractedly, wearily.
There was something in her aloofness in that moment which chilled Potch.
His instincts, sensitive as the antennae of an insect, wavered over her,
trying to discover the cause of it. Conscious of a mood which excluded
him, he withdrew his hand from her. Sophie groped for it. Then the sense
of sex and of barriers swept from him, by the passion of his desire to
comfort and console her. Potch put his arm round her and drew Sophie to
him, murmuring With an utter tenderness, "Sophie! Sophie!"
Later she said:
"I can't tell you ... what happened ... out there, Potch. Not yet ...
not now.... Perhaps some day I will. It hurt so much that it took all
the singing out of me. My heart wouldn't move ... so my voice died. I
thought if I came home, you and Michael wouldn't mind ... my being like
I am. But you've all been so good to me, Potch ... and it's so restful
here, I was beginning to think that life might go on from where I left
it; that it might be just a quiet living together and loving, like it
was before...."
"It can, Sophie!" Potch said, his eyes on her face, wistful and eager to
read her thought.
"But look what I've done," she said.
Potch lifted her hand to his lips, a resurge of the virile male in him
moving his restraint.
"I've told you," he said, "what you've done. You've put joy into all our
hearts--just to see you again. Michael's told you that, too, and George
and the rest of them."
"Yes, but, Potch ..." Sophie paused, and he saw the shadow of dark
thoughts in her eyes again. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not like
any of you think."
Potch's grip on her hand tightened.
"You're you--and you're here. That's enough for us!" he said.
Sophie sighed. "I never dreamt everybody would be so good. You and
Michael I knew would--but the others ... I thought they'd remember ...
and disapprove of me, Potch.... Mrs. Watty"--a smile showed faintly in
her eyes--"I thought she'd see to that."
"I daresay she's done her best" Potch said, with a memory of Watty's
valiant bearing and angry, bright eyes when he came into the hut. "Watty
was vexed ... she wouldn't come with him to-night."
"Was he?"
Potch nodded. "What you didn't reck'n on," he said, "was that all of us
here ... we--we love you, Sophie, and we're glad you're back again."
Her eyes met him in a straight, clear glance.
"You and Michael," she said, "I knew you loved me, Potch...."
"You know how it's always been with me," Potch said, grateful that he
might talk of his love, although he had been afraid to since she had
cried, fearing thought of it stirred that unknown source of distress.
"But I won't get in your way here, Sophie, because of that. I won't
bother you ... I want just to stand by--and help you all I know how."
"I love you, too, Potch," Sophie said; "but there are so many ways of
loving. I love you because you love me; because your love is the one
sure thing in the world for me.... I've thought of it when I've been
hurt and lonely.... I came back because it was here ... and you were
here."
Potch's eyes were illumined; his face blazed as though a fire had been
engendered in the depths of his body. He remained so a moment, curbed
and overcome with emotion. The shadow deepened in Sophie's eyes as she
looked at him; her face was grave and still.
"I do love you, Potch," she said again; "not as I loved someone else,
once. That was different. But you're so good to me ... and I'm so
tired."