The _Albatross_ was in.
Just before midday, carts and carry-alls had clattered along the road to
the Port. Deirdre, riding down from the hills at dawn, had seen the
schooner on the dim shining screen of sea and sky. There was no wind,
and like a great white bird she hovered outside the bar, waiting for the
wind and tide to carry her into the quiet waters of the inlet.
It was not until midday that a breeze sprang up, sending white, curled
breakers high over the bar, and the _Albatross_ on the crest of them
came sailing into the harbour. She rode, furling her sails, to the
log-wood wharf on its further side. A crowd had gathered to meet her,
and it was early afternoon before the vehicles began to rattle back
along the road to the hills and Wirreeford. Deirdre stood at the window
of McNab's parlour, behind the curtains that had been hung up in her
honour, watching them.
She saw none of the curious looks and gestures that went her way, the
pitiful glances that covered her. For the news of the Port that morning
beat any the boat had brought. Those who saw the dim white face of the
girl at the window, and her shadowy eyes, knew that she was Thad McNab's
wife. They knew that McNab had driven Deirdre Farrel into the Port
before any of them were astir and that a clergyman had married them in
the church there.
"Why did she do it? What could have made her," they asked each other.
"It wasn't for love of his beautiful face, be sure," snarled Salt
Watson.
"It's hard on the Schoolmaster. He'll not know of it yet," somebody else
said.
Deirdre neither heard nor saw them. She was watching for Davey and Dan
to pass. She had seen Mrs. Ross and Jessie go by to the Port in
Cameron's double-seated buggy. She thought they would ride together to
the hills in that, Davey and her father.
If they knew, they would stop at the Black Bull; if no one had told them
they would go on, she had decided. They would wonder why she was not on
the wharf when the boat got in, to meet them. But McNab would not have
that. He would not lose sight of her. Besides she did not want to meet
the eyes of the men and women who would be there, and hear what they had
to say.
She was cut off from the world as she stood at the window of McNab's
house. Her mind was too utterly weary to reason further. As she watched
and waited a sense of bleak desolation closed in on her. Her eyes ached
for sight of the Schoolmaster's form against the clear sky, although she
knew she would hardly see it above the buggy and among other people.
She asked herself what he would do when he found that she was not
waiting for him at Steve's--what he would think when he found the letter
that was lying for him there.
Steve would have to read it for him. It would break his heart, the
letter that she had wept and prayed over; but it was better that his
heart should break than that he should go to the Island again. And
Steve, poor old Steve, would die in peace some day and be put to rest
where they had put Conal. A magistrate--assisted in a fashion by
M'Laughlin and a jury--had duly investigated and found that his tragic
death was an impenetrable mystery. An "open verdict," they called the
finding.
Conal's resting place was on a sunny hillside under a blossoming white
gum in which the bees hummed drowsily in the spring time and through
which the green parrots flashed all the year. It was good to think that
Steve would draw his last breath in freedom, and then sleep there under
the blue sky. But for her, there would be no freedom, no open spaces.
Life had become a prison from which there was only one gate--Death; and
that she would not be able to open because she was a hostage for other
lives. Dan's, and Steve's--perhaps Davey's.
Cameron's buggy rounded a turn in the road.
Mrs. Ross and Jessie were in it, and there was a man's figure beside
theirs--only one though.
The horse, moving at her slow, steady jog-trot, drew nearer.
Deirdre saw clearly the man who was driving. It was Davey. The
Schoolmaster was not with him.
A panic seized her. She flew out to the road, the horse stopped
automatically.
"Where's father?" she cried.
Davey stared at her. He scarcely knew her--this wild, white-faced
creature with burning eyes and colourless lips.
"Hasn't he come?" she asked.
"No," he said slowly.
He got down from the buggy. His heart ached at the sight of her. He
hardly knew how to speak. He moved to take her hands.
She shrank from him.
"Why didn't he come?"
"Because ... Oh, Deirdre, it breaks my heart to tell you," he broke out.
"Don't look at me like that. I did all I could, but it was no good. Some
cursed brute gave information--"
"Oh," she whispered. "It was that then!"
And after a moment:
"They took him again--for being at large before the expiration of ...
sentence!"
"Yes."
His eyes were all tenderness and pity for her.
"When, Davey?"
"Just before we were leaving, four days ago. Don't look like that,
Deirdre! I won't leave a stone unturned to get him back. And I promised
him that we--"
She laughed, a strange, cracking little laugh.
"Deirdre!"
He was perplexed and hurt.
"Don't come near me!"
She turned away from him and ran into the house under the swinging sign
of the black bull with red-rimmed eyes.
Davey attempted to follow her. He saw McNab in the doorway.
"What the hell's she doing there?" he muttered.
Mrs. Ross and Jessie eyed each other anxiously. They did not speak for a
minute. Then the elder woman said nervously, uncertainly:
"P'raps ... p'raps she came down with Steve to meet the Schoolmaster.
But we'd better be going on, Davey. Don't risk any trouble with Thad
McNab to-day. Your mother's waiting eagerly for you. You're her only
thought now. All she has got."
Davey climbed into the buggy again. His face was sombre. He had not got
over the shock of his father's death and Deirdre's manner wounded and
bewildered him. He thought that she was distraught with agony and
disappointment on the Schoolmaster's account. He had imagined how
tenderly he would tell her what had happened, and comfort her. Now to
find her at the Black Bull, not at Steve's, where he had thought she
would be, and Mrs. Ross and Jessie beside him, when he wanted to fold
her in his arms and assure her that he would never rest until Dan was
with them again! He swore at every jolt and jar on the road to relieve
his impatience.
It was Mrs. Ross who said to Mary Cameron, taking her aside when mother
and son had met, and Davey was turning Bess into the paddock again:
"It's true what we heard about Deirdre Farrel going to marry McNab. She
was married to him this morning. You'd better break the news to Davey.
He doesn't know yet. I dursn't tell him for fear he'd go to McNab. I
wanted to bring him safe to you. Jessie and I'll go home now. No doubt
you'll like to have the house to yourself, but if you want anything, or
there's anything we can do for you--"
"We're always glad to do anything for you, Mrs. Cameron, dear," Jessie
said softly.
"It's a queer, heartless girl Deirdre is, to play fast and loose with
the love of a fine fellow like Davey," Mrs. Ross said, when Jess was
outside setting their bundles and baskets into the cart.
"Oh, she wouldn't do that--Deirdre," Mrs. Cameron replied. "It's
something dreadful that's driven her to it."
"Yes--I suppose it is," Mrs. Ross sighed. "Poor child. Perhaps I'm
spiteful about it, Mary. But maybe now that she is out of the way, Davey
may think of my Jessie again."
Davey' s mother smiled sadly.
"I'd be sorry for any woman he married but Deirdre, for she has the
whole of him--heart and soul," she said.
"Oh well, it's a pity!" Mrs. Ross kissed her good-bye. "Jess had better
make up her mind to have Buddy Morrison, then, and that's what I've been
telling her this long time. He's a good lad, very fond of her, and been
wanting to marry her for the last five years."
When Jess and her mother had gone, driving off in their high, jolting
buggy, Davey and Mrs. Cameron went indoors together.
He had aged considerable since she last saw him. It was a stern, strange
face to her, this her boy's. There were sorrow, self-repression, a
bitter realisation of life and what it means in heartache and
disappointment, in his expression; something of power and assurance too.
She was wondering how she could tell him, covering him with tender,
pitiful glances, and praying that he would not leave her, that no hurt
might come to him, when he asked suddenly:
"Have you seen anything of Deirdre, mother?"
He had been moving restlessly about the room, lifting things from their
place on the mantelpiece and putting them back again.
She called him to her and, putting her hands on his head, told him what
Mrs. Ross had said.
Davey's face hardened and whitened slowly. He put her hands away from
him and wheeled unsteadily from the room. She heard him go across the
yard, and saw him stumbling up the narrow track to the trees on the far
side of the hill.