Tenders had been called for, to clear the course for the annual race
meeting. A notice posted on the old, wild cherry tree in the road
opposite Newton's, brought men and boys from every rush on Fallen Star
to Ezra Smith's billiard-room on the night appointed; and Ezra,
constituted foreman by the meeting, detailed parties to clear and roll
the track.
A paddock at the back of the town, with several tall coolebahs at one
side, was known as the race-course. A table placed a little out from the
trees served for a judge's box; and because the station folk usually
drew up their buggies and picnicked there, the shade of the coolebahs
was called the grand-stand. Farther along a saddling-paddock had been
fenced off, and in it, on race-days, were collected a miscellaneous
muster of the show horses of the district--rough-haired nags, piebald
and skewbald; rusty, dusty, big-boned old racers with famous
reputations; wild-eyed, unbroken youngsters, green from the plains;
Warria chestnuts, graceful as greyhounds, with quivering, scarlet
nostrils; and the nuggety, deep-chested offspring of the Langi-Eumina
stallion Black Harry.
People came from far and near for the races, and for the ball which was
held the same evening in the big, iron-roofed shed opposite Newton's.
Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not
stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than
railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many
of them as were needed were run up for the occasion.
Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every
horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees,
and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange
horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria,
Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical
warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the
enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the
course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were
gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next
day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest
pitch.
Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to
go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and
children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of
an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes,
and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it
was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs.
Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still
maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however,
so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money.
Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to
the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and
Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see
all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she
said--people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns.
Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to
mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was
at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut.
Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway.
"Are you there, Martha?" she called.
"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!"
Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was
full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and
freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from
above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as
Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face.
"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on
an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was
at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down.
I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go
over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full
over there--with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a
crowd at the races, Sophie."
Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the
brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch
of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back
to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with
great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers,
broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other
hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw
its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring,
scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks'
houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for
Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies
into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned,
giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty,
healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready,
Sophie exclaimed to herself.
Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now,
and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did
not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said
Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie
knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could
dance like a two-year-old.
"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I
suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America."
"I'm not going," Sophie said,
"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed
wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball--the
first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course
you're going, Sophie!"
Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open
doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon
was nearly over.
"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say?
And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you
there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress
extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's
brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with
her...."
Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the naive and genial admiration of what
Martha had said.
"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron
flashing vigorously. "It just won't be--the ball--and everything looking
as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge.
Everybody'll be that disappointed----"
"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried.
"I don't think; I know."
A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes.
"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither."
"Potch?"
"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy--and going to
marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically,
Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking.
"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since
you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're
goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said:
'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she
goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.'
That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...."
Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was
amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to
think that Potch was not a good enough match for her.
"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're
all coming over from Warria--Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs.
Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and
most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...."
She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no
flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as
she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon
sky.
"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse
theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine
dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you,
Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think
they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ...
we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But
Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see
her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'"
As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had
years before. She could see the people in it--figures swaying down the
long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford--their
faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty,
herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her
father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the
rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt
indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to
think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and
now.
"I'd give anything for you to be there--looking your best," Martha
continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you
weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...."
"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me--as he used to be," Sophie murmured.
Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one
knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an
American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read
and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put
her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off
her kitchen.
"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the
paper.
She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph
on its page.
"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human
understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has
had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from
comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and
musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith
of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she
goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang.
Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and
have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no
better reason, it is said, than that she is _ecoeoeure_ of us and our
life--the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario
informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for
a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms.
And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like
one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little
Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more."
The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes.
"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak
when she had finished reading.
"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me
_ecoeoeure_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there,
Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd
never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for
me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't
even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just
a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without
meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go
away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing
any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to
come home.... And I came."
Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck.
"My lamb," she whispered.
Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare
arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously.
"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said.
"All right, dearie!"
Martha withdrew her arms and went back to the hearth. She lifted another
iron, held it to her face to judge its heat, and returned to the table.
She rubbed the iron on a piece of hessian on a box there, dusted it with
a soft rag, and went on with the ironing of her dress.
"I wish I was as young as you, Martha," Sophie said.
"Lord, lovey, you will be when you're my age," Martha replied, with a
swift, twinkling glance of her blue eyes. "But you're coming ... aren't
you? I won't have the heart to wear my pink stockings if you don't,
Sophie. Mrs. Newton gave them to me for a Christmas-box ... and I'm fair
dying to wear them."
Sophie smiled at the pair of bright pink stockings pinned on the line
beside a newly-starched petticoat.
"You will, won't you?"
Sophie shook her head.
"I don't think so, Martha."
Sophie went out of the doorway. She was going home, and stood again a
moment, looking through scattered trees to the waning afternoon sky. A
couple of birds dashed across her line of vision with shrill, low,
giggling cries.
She heard people talking in the distance. Several men rode up to
Newton's. She saw them swing from their horses, put the reins over the
pegs before the bar, and go into the hotel. Two or three children ran
down the street chattering eagerly, excitedly. Roy O'Mara went across to
the hall with some flags under his arm. From all the huts drifted
ejaculations, fragments of laughter and calling. Excitement about the
ball was in the air.
Sophie remembered how happy and excited she used to be about the Ridge
balls. She thought of it all vaguely at first, that lost girlish joy of
hers, the free, careless gaiety which had swept her along as she danced.
She remembered her father's fiddling, Mrs. Newton's playing; how the
music had had a magic in it which set everybody's feet flying and the
boys singing to tunes they knew. The men polished the floor so that you
could scarcely walk on it. One year they had spent hours working it up
so that you slipped along like greased lightning as you danced.
Sophie smiled at her reminiscences. The high tones of a man's voice,
eager and exultant, shouting to someone across the twilight; the twitter
of a girl's laughter--they were all in the air now as they had been
then. Her listlessness stirred; everybody was preparing for the ball,
and getting ready to go to it. Excitement and eager looking forward to a
good time were in the air. They were infectious. Sophie trembled to
them--they tempted her. Could she go to the ball, like everybody else?
Could she drift again in the stream of easy and genial intercourse with
all these people of the Ridge whom she loved and who loved her?
Martha came to the door. Her eyes strained on the brooding young face,
trying to read from the changing expressions which flitted across it
what Sophie was thinking.
"You're coming, aren't you, dearie?" she begged.
Sophie's eyes surprised the old woman, the brilliance of tears and light
in them, their childish playing of hope beyond hope and fear, amazed
her.
"Do you think I could, Martha?" she cried. "Do you think I could?"
"Course you could, darling," Martha said.
Sophie's arms went round her in an instant's quick pressure; then she
stood off from her.
"Won't it be lovely," she cried, "to dance and sing--and to be young
again, Martha?"