A CONSULTATION AT KILEY’S.
Within twenty-four hours after Peggy got back to her old home, it was
known all over the mountains that she meant business, and would make a
claim on William Grant’s estate. Rumour, of course, supplied all the
needful details. It was said, and even sworn to, that Peggy had her
marriage lines put by in a big iron box, ready to be produced at the
proper time. Other authorities knew for a fact that she had no proofs,
but that the family at Kuryong were going to give her any sum from a
thousand pounds to a million, to cancel her claim and save exposure.
As a matter of fact, none of those who talked knew anything whatever.
Peggy confided in no one but Red Mick, and that worthy had had enough
legal experience of a rough and ready sort to know that things must be
kept quiet till the proper time. But by way of getting ready for action
Red Mick and his sister one fine morning rode up to Gavan Blake’s
office to consult him as to what they should do.
Blake was not at all surprised to see them. He, of course, had heard
all the rumours that were afloat, and knew that if Peggy brought
forward any claim he would be asked to act for her professionally. He
had not quite decided whether he would act or not. In his hard
commonsense mind he saw next to no possibility of Peggy having a _bonâ
fide_ case. He did not suppose for a moment that William Grant would
have run his neck into a bigamy noose; and it would put the young
lawyer in a very awkward position with Mary Grant if, after saving her
life and posing as her friend, he carried on a blackmailing suit
against her. At the same time, he felt that it could do no harm to
either side to investigate Peggy’s case; there might be awkward things
that he could help to suppress. So with expectancy and not a little
amusement he saw his clients ride up and tie their horses to the fence
outside his office, and watched Peggy straighten her ruffled plumage
before entering.
They came in at the door with a seriousness worthy of the occasion.
Peggy heaved a subdued sigh and settled in a chair. Red Mick opened the
conversation.
“Mornin’ to you, Gavan,” he said.
By virtue of his relationship Mick was privileged to call his brilliant
nephew by his Christian name. To the rest of the clans Gavan was Mr.
Blake.
“Good-morning, Mick. Good-morning, Peggy. Have you had any rain?”
In the bush no one would think of introducing discussion without a
remark about the weather.
“Jist a few drops,” said Red Mick gloomily. “Do us no good at all.
Things is looking terrible bad, so they are. But we want to see ye—”
and here he dropped his voice, rose, and cautiously closed the
door—“Peggy here, Mrs. Grant, d’ye see,”—Mick got the name out without
an effort—“she wants to see ye about making a claim on the estate. ’Tis
time she done somethin’. All these years left to shift for herself—”
Here Blake broke in on him. He meant to probe Peggy’s case thoroughly,
and knew that it would be no easy matter to get at the truth while she
had Red Mick alongside to prompt her. He had not dealt with the
mountain folk for nothing, and handled his clients in a way that would
astonish a more conservative practitioner.
“Mick,” he said, “You go over to Isaacstein’s store and wait till I
send for you.”
“I want Mick to be wid me,” began Peggy.
Blake blazed up. He knew that he must keep his ascendancy over these
wild people by force of determination.
“You heard what I said,” he thundered, turning fiercely on Peggy. “You
want this and you want that! It’s not what you want, it’s what _I_
want! You do what you’re told. If you don’t—I won’t help you. Mick, you
go over to the store, and wait till I send for you.” And Mick shambled
off.
Peggy, still inclined to be defiant, settled herself in her chair. She
had battled in North Queensland so long that she neither feared nor
respected anybody; but her native shrewdness told her she had all to
gain and nothing to lose by doing what her lawyer advised.
“Now, Peggy,” he said, “do you want to make a claim against William
Grant’s estate?”
“Yis.”
“On the ground that you’re his widow?”
“Yis. I’ll tell yer—”
“No, you won’t tell me anything. I’ll tell _you_. If you are to have
any hope of succeeding in this case, you must furnish me with the name
of the priest or parson who married you, the place where you were
married, and the date. It must be a real priest or parson, a real
place, and a real date. It’s no use coming along with a story of a
marriage by a parson and you’ve forgotten his name, at a place you
can’t remember where it was, and a date that’s slipped your memory. You
must have a story to tell, and it must hold water. Now, can you tell
such a story? Have you got any proofs at all?”
Peggy shifted about uneasily.
“Can I see Mick?” she said.
“No, you can not. You must out with it here and now. Listen to me,
Peggy,” he went on, sinking his voice suddenly and looking hard at her.
“I’ve got to know all about this. It’s no use keeping anything back.
Were you ever married to William Grant?”
Peggy dropped her voice too.
“Yis. I was married twenty-five years ago at a place called Pike’s pub,
out in the Never-never country.”
“Who read the service, parson or priest?”
“Neither. A mish’nary. Mish’nary to the blacks.”
“Is he alive?”
“No, he died out there. He was sick then, wid the Queensland fever.”
“What was his name?”
“Mr. Nettleship.”
“Was the marriage ever registered?”
“Sorra one of me knows. He giv us each a bit of paper—our marriage
lines. ’Twas written in pencil. He had no ink in the place, and he had
no books wid him. He tore the sheet of paper and give us each half, wid
the writing on it; his horses got stole and he had to camp there. He
stayed round wid Pike and the blacks till he died.”
“And where is the certificate? Have you lost it?”
“I sint mine down to Mick to keep for me—jist a bit of paper written in
pencil it was—and it got lost some ways; but I have a copy of it I med
at the time.”
“Where is the copy now?”
“At Mick’s place.”
“You must tell Mick to bring it in. Now where is this place, Pike’s?”
“Out this side of the opal-fields. It’s wild and rough now, but what it
was then—well ’twas more like a black’s camp nor a white man’s place at
all.”
Blake thought the story had gone far enough. He did not believe a word
of it. “Look here, Peggy,” he said, “You have given the place, the
date, the name of the parson, and everything. Now you know that if you
are telling a lie it will be easily found out. They will soon find out
if there was such a missionary, and if he was up there at the time, and
if Mr. Grant was up there; and if you are caught out in a lie it may go
hard with you. Have you any witnesses?”
“Martin Doyle was there, Black Martin’s son.”
“What! Martin Doyle that’s out at the nine-mile?”
“Yis. He was up driving the buggy and horses for Grant. He can swear to
the wedding.
“He can.”
“Yis.”
Blake sat back in his chair and looked at her. “Do you mean to tell
me,” he said, “that you can show me a certificate and a witness to your
marriage with William Grant?”
Peggy looked doggedly down at the floor and said, in the tones of one
who is repeating the burial service or some other solemn function, “I
can prove the marriage.”
Blake was puzzled. He had known the mountain folk all his life, and
knew that for uneducated people—or perhaps because they were uneducated
people—they were surprisingly clever liars. But he never dreamt that
any of them could hoodwink him; so he put Peggy once more through the
whole story,—made her describe all her actions on the day of the
wedding, where she stood, where the witness stood, what the parson
said, what her husband said. He went through the whole thing, and could
see no flaw in it. He knew that Peggy would not scruple to lie to him;
but, with the contempt of a clever man, he felt satisfied that he could
soon upset any concocted story. This story seemed to hold water, and
the more he cross-examined her the more sure he was that there was
something genuine about it; at the same time, he was sure that it was
not all genuine. Then a thought occurred to him.
“Would you settle this case if they offered you something?” he said.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” said Peggy, rising. “’Tis for you to say
what I ought to do. ’Tis not for the like of me, that is no scholar.”
“Leave it to me,” said Blake. “I’ll do what is best for you. Send
Martin Doyle in to see me, Martin that was the witness. And about this
copy of the certificate, tell Mick to bring it in here. Now you go
home, and don’t you say to one living soul one word of what has passed
in here. Tell them you are going on with the case, but don’t say any
more, or you may land yourself in gaol. Do you hear me?”
And the cowed and flustered Peggy hurried away to join her brother, who
was far too wise to ask questions.
“Least said soonest mended,” he said, when told that Blake required
silence.
After his clients had gone, Gavan Blake sat for half an hour almost
dazed. If Peggy’s story was true, then Mary Grant was an outcast
instead of a great heiress. And while he had become genuinely fond of
her (which he never was of Ellen Harriott), he had no idea of asking
her to share his debts with him. He puzzled over the affair for a long
time, and at last his clear brain saw a way out of all difficulties. He
would go over to the old station, put the whole case before Mary Grant,
and induce her for peace’ sake to give Peggy money to withdraw her
claim. Out of this money he himself would keep enough to pay all his
pressing debts. He would be that much to the good whatever happened,
and afterwards would have an added claim on Mary Grant’s sympathies for
having relieved her of a vast lawsuit in which her fortune, and even
her very name, were involved.
This plan seemed to him the best for all parties—for himself
especially, which was the most important thing. If he could get a large
sum to settle the case, he could make Peggy give him a big share for
his trouble, and then at last be free from the haunting fear of
exposure and ruin. He felt sure that he was doing quite right in
advising Mary Grant to pay.
Again and again he ran over Peggy’s case in his mind, and could see no
flaw in it. In the old days haphazard marriages were rather the rule
than the exception, and such things as registers were never heard of in
far-out parts. His trained mind, going through the various questions
that a cross-examiner would ask, and supplying the requisite answers,
decided that, though it might seem a trifle improbable, there was
nothing contradictory about Peggy’s story. A jury would sympathise with
her, and the decisions of the Courts all leaned towards presuming
marriage where certain circumstances existed. By settling the case he
would do Mary Grant a real kindness. And afterwards—well, she would
probably be as grateful as when he had saved her life. He saw himself
the hero of the hour: ever prompt to decide, he saddled a horse, and at
once rode off to Kuryong to put the matter before her.