the brandy was risky for a fool of a woman that won't eat--p'r'aps it
was very near neat--p'r'aps there was more in it than that; anyway you
took it beautiful--lovely, you devil in petticoats!"
He raised her easily enough in his strong arms, carried her through the
gate into the next field, and dropped her upon a late heap of hay some
distance from the track.
"Playing at triangles," said Pound, "it must be two to one, or all
against all: one thing it sha'n't be--two to one, and Jem Pound the one!
There you lie until you're wanted, my dear. So long to you!"
And with that this wretch strolled off.
The gap in the hedge dividing the last of these few fields from the
road, and ending the path, occurred a few yards below the shooting-box.
Pound crept along the ditch between hedge and field until he judged he
was opposite the gate of the shooting-box. Then he stood up, parted the
hedge where it was thinnest, and peered through. The room to the right
of the porch was lit up within; though the blinds were drawn, the
windows were wide open. Pound could hear a low continuous murmur of
voices and other sounds, which informed him that the party were still
dining. He waited patiently. At last he heard a pushing back of chairs:
it must be over now, he thought; but no, the voices recommenced, pitched
in a slightly louder key. The windows on the left of the porch shone
out as brightly as their neighbours on the right of it. Light fingers
ran nimbly over the keys of a piano--only once--no tune came of it.
Pound, too, had fingers that could not long be idle: thick, knotty,
broad-nailed, supple-jointed; fingers that showed the working of the
mind. They were busy now. In a little while all the hedge within their
reach was stripped of its simple charms--its bluebells, its pink
foxgloves, its very few wild roses. Even the little leaves of the hedge
were plucked away by the handful; and on the grass, had it been lighter,
you might have discovered in the torn and mutilated shreds of leaf and
petal some index to the watcher's thoughts. At last there was a general
movement inside. Dark forms appeared on the steps. Two or three came
down the steps, and turned the corner of the house. One sauntered to the
gate and peered up and down the road. There was no mistaking this
figure.
Pound uttered in a low key a cry that is as common in the Australian
bush as it is uncommon elsewhere. He expected his man to start as though
shot, but he was disappointed. Ryan gave one sharp glance towards the
hedge, then passed through the gate, and on to the gap.
"Lord! how he takes it!" murmured Pound. "Did he expect me? Has he been
on the look-out night and day all this while?"
At the gap they met. Pound could restrain his exultation no longer.
"At last!"
"Yes," said the other, stepping quietly through the gap. He had given
the whole day to preparation for this interview; but he had expected it
to be an interview of three. Where was his wife? "Yes, and the fewer
words the better. How you got here I neither know nor care; tell me what
you want now that you are here."
"You know very well what I want."
"I may make a rough guess."
"I want money!"
"I thought so. It is a pity. You must go somewhere else for it: I have
none."
"What!" cried Pound, savagely, "is it all gone? All that you landed
with? Never! You have never got through all that!"
"'All that' is under a gum-tree somewhere in Queensland, unless some one
has found it lately. I told you so before, didn't I? How could I clear
out with the gold? How could I risk going back for it when once I got
away? All I brought with me was what never left my body: the notes and
some gold. It didn't come to much; the last of it went long since."
"Then how have you lived--what on?"
"My wits."
Jem Pound was in a towering passion.
"If I believed you," he hissed out, among his oaths, "I'd make a clean
breast of everything--every blessed job--though I swung for it! No; I'd
swing merrily, knowing they'd got you snug for the rest of your days,
for you'd be worse off than me, Ned Ryan! But I don't believe a word of
it; it's a lie--a lie--a lie!"
The utterance was that of a choking man. Miles wondered whether the man
had the spirit to carry out what he threatened; he seemed desperate, and
such confessions had been made before by desperate men. That the five
hundred ounces of gold had been abandoned by Sundown in his flight was
the simple truth. Yet if Pound realised this, he was capable of any
lengths of vengeance--even to putting his own neck in the noose, as he
said. Better, perhaps, leave him his delusion, and let him still think
that the gold had been brought over; better give a sop to Cerberus--even
though it were only a promise to-day and a few pounds to-morrow; for the
next day--well, the next day Cerberus might growl in vain. But a fair
round sum for Pound, if only it could be raised and handed over
immediately, would raise high hopes of "the share" he coveted; would
make him believe that the stronger man had given way at last; would
pacify him for the time being--which was all that was necessary. For in
two days Ned Ryan meant to fly from that place--in three, the shores of
England should fade from his sight for ever. Pound must be put off his
guard, like the rest; a fair round sum might do it--say fifty pounds.
Fifty pounds, then, must be raised that night.
"Jem Pound," said Sundown, in tones of capitulation, "there is no
getting over you! I throw up my hand, for the game's up. I thought I
could get the best of you, Jem, but, Lord! I didn't know my man, and
that's the fact. But listen to sense: you don't suppose I've got that
money here, do you? It's in London; you shall have five hundred of it in
hard cash, if you swear to stand by me, next week. I go up next week;
you go before me and wait. You refuse? Stay, then; hear me out: you
shall have fifty down, on this very spot, at this very hour, to-morrow
night!"
"Do you mean it?" asked Pound, suspiciously, his breath coming quick and
rapid with the excitement of the moment--his moment of victory.
"Every word of it."
"Fifty pounds--to-morrow night?"
"Every penny of it. Oh, there's no use in disguising it; you've got the
better of me, Jem, and I must stump up."
Pound looked at him doubtfully, wishing to believe, yet finding it
difficult.
"You gave us the slip before," he said; "how do we know you won't do it
again?"
"Watch me--watch me," he said.
"Ay, we must and we will!"
"You need not remind me of--of her!" cried Ryan, fiercely, all in a
moment.
"Ah, poor thing, poor thing!" said Pound.
"Why, has anything happened?"
"Poor soul!"
"Speak, man, for God's sake! Is she--is she--"
Ryan could not get out the word, trembling as he was with intense
excitement. Pound broke into a brutal laugh.
"No, Ned Ryan, she isn't dead, if that's what you want. I am sorry for
you. Now that you're going to behave handsome, I should have liked to
bring you good news. Yet, though she hangs on still, she's going down
the hill pretty quick--her own way. But she's waiting for us three
fields off; we'd better go to her before she comes to us. Come this
way."
Pound led the way to the hay-field. Miles followed him, filled with
foreboding. What had happened to Elizabeth? Was the woman ill? Was she
dying? Bad as he was--bad as she was--could he go coldly on his way and
let her die? He thought of her as he had seen her last, two months ago;
and then strangely enough, he figured her as he had first seen her,
many, many years ago. Poor thing! poor Liz!
"She is not here," said Pound, when he came to the gate that Elizabeth
Ryan had clung to. "Now I wonder--stay! what is that over there? Come,
let's look. It may be--by Heaven, it is your wife!"
He had pointed to a dark object among the mounds of hay. Now the two men
stood looking down on the insensible form of Elizabeth Ryan.
"No, not death," said Pound; "only brandy!"
The husband looked down upon his wretched wife without speaking or
moving. Oh, that it were death! His muscles were rigid--repugnance and
loathing froze him to the bone. How white her face was in the faint
moonshine! how white that hand under the white cheek! and the other hand
stretched helplessly out--good God! the wedding-ring he had placed
there, she dared to wear it still! Oh, that this were death!
And a minute ago he had thought of her--for some seconds together--not
unkindly!
At last Ryan spoke.
"I dare swear," he murmured, as though speaking to himself, "that she
has not got our certificate! A ring is no proof."
Pound knelt down and shook some sense into the woman's head.
"Eh? What is it? Where am I?"
He whispered hurriedly in her ear: "He is here--your husband. He says
something about your having no proof that you are his wife. Give me the
certificate!"
Without grasping the meaning of any but the last word, Elizabeth Ryan
mechanically drew forth from her bosom a folded square of paper. Pound
took it from her, and unfolded it with his back to Ryan. When he faced
about, Pound held the certificate in his left hand and a revolver in his
right.
Ryan paid no heed to the pistol, beyond recognising it as one of his
own--the fellow, in fact, to the one he at that moment carried in his
own pocket; Pound's last transaction, as a member of Sundown's gang,
having been to help himself to this and other trifles as keepsakes. The
production of the weapon Ryan treated, or affected to treat, with
contempt. The certificate took up his whole attention. Yet one glance,
even in the moonlight, was sufficient to show him that the certificate
was genuine.
"You may put them both away," was all he said. "But remember: to-morrow
night, same spot and hour. Or let us say here, at this gate: it is
farther from the house."
He turned to go, but suddenly recoiled, being face to face with his
wife, who had struggled to her feet. With a strange wild cry the woman
flung herself into his arms. Ryan caught her, held her one instant,
then dashed her heavily to the ground, and fled like a murderer from
the place.
The poor thing lay groaning, yet sobered.
"Ah, I remember," she moaned at last, gathering up her bruised and
aching limbs. "I was drugged--by you!"
The look of terrible hatred which she darted at Jem Pound was ineffable
but calm. He answered her with a stout denial:
"I gave you nothing but brandy, and that I gave you for the best. I
didn't mean it to knock you over, but I'm not sorry it did. Bad as it
was, it would have been worse if you had seen much more of him."
"Why? What did he say?"
"He said he wouldn't give us a farthing. No, not if you were starving.
He said you were less than nothing to him now. He said we might do our
worst, and the sooner hell swallowed both of us the better he'd like
it."
Mrs. Ryan gave a little cry of pain and anger. She staggered across the
dewy grass, and confronted Pound at arm's length. She was shaking and
shivering like a withered leaf.
"Jem Pound," said she, "I will tell you what I have known for many
weeks, but hidden from you. I will tell you where he has that money, or
some of it."
"Where?" cried Pound.
She tapped him lightly on the chest.
"There!" said Mrs. Ryan.
"How the devil do you know?"
"By woman's wit. On that night, when my hand rested there on his breast
for one moment, he pushed me from him. I remembered afterwards that he
started from my hand as though I touched a wound. I did the same thing
to-night, only on purpose, and you know how he took it: he flung me to
the ground this time. Mark my words, there is that which he values more
than anything else hung round his neck and resting there! Whatever it
is, take it, Jem Pound! Do you hear? You are bad enough for anything:
then take it--even if you have to take his life with it!"
Her voice was hoarse and horrible, yet so low that it could scarcely be
heard. Without waiting for an answer, she turned swiftly away and
disappeared in the darkness.
Jem Pound drew a long deep breath.
"This," said he, "is the best night's work I've done since I came back
to the Old Country. This morning I didn't dream of anything so good. Now
I see a better night's work not far ahead!"
He proceeded to carve a cake of black tobacco slowly and deliberately,
then filled his pipe. As he did this, leaning with his broad back
against the gate, a sound came to his ears across the silent sleeping
meadows--a strange sound to him--the sound, in fact, of a woman's song.
His pipe was by this time loaded, and the mouthpiece between his teeth.
Moreover, the match-box was in his left hand and a match in his right.
Yet Jem Pound actually did not strike that match until the strange sound
had died away!
I know not what spirit was abroad that night to invest a simple,
well-known drawing-room song with the sinews of Fate; yet not only in
the fields, but far up the road, where Colonel Bristo was wandering
alone in the faint light of the sickle moon, the low clear notes were
borne out on the wings of the evening. The Colonel faced about at the
first note, and walked back quite quickly. His solitary wanderings at
all times of the day were a great weakness of the old fellow, but his
daughter's singing was a greater; and she sang so seldom now. He walked
on the wet grass at the roadside rather than lose a note through the
noise of his own footsteps; and lo! when he came near the house, he
descried a tall figure standing motionless in the very middle of the
road.
Surely some spirit was abroad that night, that all the waking world drew
near and listened to that song of Alice's! It should have been a greater
song--noble poetry wedded to music such as the angels make in heaven and
have sometimes--in golden ages gone by--breathed into the souls of men,
who have found the secret too wondrous sweet and terrible to keep. To
touch the sensibilities of the different unknown listeners, it should
have been a mighty song indeed! But, you see, Alice herself knew nothing
of what was happening; she was aware of only one listener, who was
humbly standing by her side; and out of the pitiful fulness of her heart
she sang the sad and simple words that you have heard often enough, no
doubt:
Falling leaf and fading tree,
Lines of white in a sullen sea,
Shadows rising on you and me;
The swallows are making them ready to fly,
Wheeling out on a windy sky.
Good-bye, summer! good-bye, good-bye!
A thin film floated over the eyes of Colonel Bristo. The same thing had
occasionally happened before when his daughter sang. But lately she had
been singing so little, and the song was so sad, and the voice more
plaintive than it had ever been formerly.
As for Miles, the other listener in the road, he stood like one
entranced. Her singing had haunted his soul now many weeks; it was many
weeks since he had heard it last--save in his dreams; besides, the words
put the match to a desperate train of thought.
The last bars of the song, then, came as a shock to the audience of two
outside in the road, who had not realised that the song would ever stop:
"What are we waiting for, you and I?"
A pleading look, a stifled cry;
"Good-bye for ever! good-bye, good-bye!"
The last notes of all were low, and the singer's best. They were charged
with wild grief; they seemed to end in a half-sob of anguish. But the
voice had caught all the passion of the words, and something more
besides. For whom was this passion?
It all died away. The world outside was tamer than before; the sickle
moon dipped down to rest below the hill beyond the village, and those
lanes and meadows knew no such singing any more.
The tall listener in the road still gazed at the holland blind that
flapped against the sash of the open window. It was all the sound that
came from the room now. He was repeating the last words of the song, and
weighing them.
"No, no," he was thinking, "if I may not live for her, what else is
there to live for? God, let me die for her!"
A glowing red spot approached him through the darkness that had fallen
upon the land; it was the Colonel's cigarette. It brought him back to
the world as it was--his world, and a vile one.
"I was taking a little stroll," said Colonel Bristo. "Will you join me?
I think Alice will sing no more to-night."
Meanwhile, in the room, the singer had risen. She meant to quietly put
away the music, but it slipped from her fingers. She turned with wet
gentle eyes to one who was speaking to her, then fled at his words from
the room.
Yet Dick had only asked her: "Will you never, never forgive me?"
XXV
MELMERBRIDGE CHURCH
Dick was in the passage, brushing a week's dust from his hard felt hat;
he was going to church this Sunday morning; half the party were going.
From the gun-room came the sound of a pen gliding swiftly over foolscap,
and the perfume of Mr. Pinckney's pipe; from the open air a low
conversational murmur, kept up by Mrs. Parish and Mr. Miles on the
steps. Dick, though not unconscious of these sounds, was listening for
another--a certain footstep on the stairs. It came at last. Alice came
slowly down; Alice, prayer-book in hand, in the daintiest of white
dresses and the prettiest, simplest straw hat; Alice for whom Mrs.
Parish and Miles and Dick were all three waiting.
Her step was less light than it should have been. The slim little figure
positively drooped. Her eyes, too, seemed large and bright, and dark
beyond nature, though that may have been partly from the contrast with a
face so pale. The girl's altered looks had caused anxiety at Teddington,
but the change to Yorkshire had not visibly improved them. This morning,
after a night made even more restless than others by a sudden influx of
hopes and fears, this was painfully apparent.
The Colonel, coming in from outside at this moment, gazed earnestly at
his daughter. It was easily seen that he was already worried about
something; but the annoyance in his expression changed quickly to pain.
"You are not going to walk to Melmerbridge Church?" he said to her.
"Oh, yes, I am," she answered.
Her tone and look were saucy, in spite of her pallor; one of the old
smiles flickered for a moment upon her lips.
"My child," said her father, more in surprise than disapproval, "it is
eight miles there and back!"
"With a nice long rest in between," Alice reminded him. "I thought it
would do one good, the walk; otherwise, papa, I am not in the least
eager; so if you think----"
"Go, my dear, of course--go, by all means," put in Colonel Bristo
hastily; "unwonted energy like this must on no account be discouraged.
Yes, yes, you are quite right; it will do you all the good in the
world."
As he spoke, he caught sight of Miles in the strong light outside the
door. The worried look returned to the Colonel's eyes. Anxiety for his
daughter seemed to fade before a feeling that for the time was
uppermost. He watched his daughter cross over to the door, and Dick put
on his hat to follow her. Then the Colonel stepped forward and plucked
the young man by the arm.
"Dick, I want you to stop at home with me. I want to speak with you
particularly, about something very important indeed."
Dick experienced a slight shock of disappointment, succeeded by a sense
of foreboding. He fell back at once, and replaced his hat on the stand.
As for Alice, she felt a sudden inclination to draw back, herself. But
that was not to be thought of. Mrs. Parish and Mr. Miles were waiting
now at the gate. Alice went out and told them that Dick was, after all,
staying behind with the Colonel.
"Not coming?" cried Mrs. Parish. "Why, I had promised myself a long chat
with him!" which, as it happened, though Dick was no favourite of hers,
was strictly true. "Where is Mr. Pinckney?"
"Busy writing to catch the post."
"And Dr. Robson?"
"Cousin Philip has gone to read the lessons for the Gateby schoolmaster,
his new friend. Had we not better start?"
The three set out, walking slowly up the road, for Mrs. Parish was a
really old lady, and it was only the truly marvellous proportion of
sinew and bone in her composition, combined with a romantic and
well-nigh fanatical desire to serve the most charming of men, that
fortified her to attempt so formidable a walk.
"You men are blind," she had told her idol, among other things on the
steps. "Where a word would end all, you will not speak."
"You honestly think it would end it the right way?" Miles had asked her.
"I do not think, I know," the old woman had said for the fiftieth time.
She had undertaken to give him his opportunity that morning. With four
in the party, that would have been easy enough; with three, it became a
problem soluble only by great ingenuity.
For some distance beyond the shooting-box the road ascended gently, then
dipped deep down into a hollow, with a beck at the bottom of it, and a
bridge and a farmhouse on the other side. The hill beyond was really
steep, and from its crest the shooting-box--with red-roofed Gateby
beyond and to the left of it--could be seen for the last time. But when
they had toiled to the top of this second hill, Mrs. Parish with the
kindly assistance of the attentive Miles, it occurred to none of them to
look round, or they might have made out the Colonel and Dick still
standing on the steps, and the arm of the former raised and pointed
towards them.
"It is about that man there," the Colonel was saying, "that I want to
speak to you."
Dick could scarcely suppress an exclamation. He changed colour. His face
filled with apprehension. What was coming next? What was suspected? What
discovered? Until these words the Colonel had not spoken since the
church-goers left, and his manner was strange.
The Colonel, however, was scrutinising the young man.
"What rivals they are!" he was thinking. "The one starts at the mere
name of the other! The fact is, Dick," he said aloud, "Miles has dealt
with me rather queerly in some money matters, and--What on earth's the
matter?"
The strong young fellow at Colonel Bristo's side was trembling like a
child; his face was livid, his words low and hurried.
"I will tell you in a moment, sir. Pray go on, Colonel Bristo."
"Well, the fact is I want you to tell me if you know anything--of your
own knowledge, mind--of this station of Miles's in Queensland."
"Excuse me: I can only answer by another question. Has he been raising
money on his station?"
"Do you mean by borrowing from me?"
"Yes, that is what I do mean."
"Well, then, he has. At Teddington--I don't mind telling you, between
ourselves--I lent him a hundred pounds when a remittance he expected by
the mail did not come. After that I found out that he had an agent in
town all the while, and it then struck me as rather odd that he should
have borrowed of me, though even then I did not think much of it. You
see, the man did me the greatest service one man can render another, and
I was only too glad of the opportunity to do him a good turn of any
sort. I can assure you, Dick, at the time I would have made it a
thousand--on the spot--had he asked it. Besides, I have always liked
Miles, though a little less, I must confess, since he came up here. But
last night, as we were strolling about together outside, he suddenly
asked me for another hundred; and the story with which he supported his
request was rambling, if not absurd. He said that his partner evidently
believed him to be on his way out again, and therefore still omitted to
send him a remittance; that he was thus once more 'stuck up' for cash;
that he had quarrelled with his agent (whom I suggested as the most
satisfactory person to apply to), and withdrawn the agency. Well, I
have written out the cheque, and given it him this morning. His
gratitude was profuse, and seemed genuine. All I want you to tell me is
this: Do you know anything yourself of his station, his partner, or his
agent?"
Dick made his answer with a pale, set face, but in a tone free alike
from tremor or hesitancy:
"The man has no station, no agent, no partner!"
"What?" cried out the Colonel. "What are you saying? You must not make
statements of this sort unless you are sure beyond the shadow of a
doubt. I asked what you knew, not what you suspected."
"And I am telling you only what I know."
"That Miles is a common swindler?"
"That his name is not Miles, to begin with."
"Then do you mean to say," the Colonel almost shouted, "that you have
known all this, and let me be duped by the fellow before your eyes?"