But Lady Bridget did not know what had followed upon her husband's home-coming. She had not been in a condition to realize how all night through he had tended her, putting aside every other consideration, giving no heed to the affairs of the station, refusing to see the Police Inspector who had sent in an urgent message soon after his arrival.
Only when turning for a moment to the veranda and noticing the red glare in the sky, had he been startled out of his absorption in his wife's illness. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been on his horse in a twinkling and riding as for life to fight the worst foe a squatter has to face in times of drought. He knew that if the fire spread, it might mean his ruin. As it was, he rushed up to the Quarters to rouse Ninnis and send him with Moongarr Bill and all available hands to do what he could in arresting the flames. But he himself dared not leave Bridget till the fever was down, and the crisis past. That could not be till she had awakened from the deep sleep into which she had fallen.
With the sight of her in that sleep, however, the pull on his forces slackened, though he was still too strung-up to think of snatching even an hour's sleep for himself. He watched, alternately, the Bush fire and Bridget's face, thinking his own dour thoughts the while. Every now and then, he would creep on tip-toe to the veranda railings and gaze out upon the lurid smoke which it seemed to him was thickening over the horizon. When the sun was risen he washed and dressed and went up to the Bachelors' Quarters where Mrs Hensor was already about and gave him tea and food, which he badly needed. From her he learned a considerable amount of what had been going on at Moongarr. From the Police Inspector, a little later, he learned a good deal more.
Harris' manner was portentous; he asked for a private interview in the office, saying that he had stayed on purpose to see the Boss, because his tale was impossible to write. Then he told his own version of the capture and locking up of Wombo, taking blame on himself for having left the key of the hide-house in Maule's possession.
'But you see, Boss, he twitted me a bit about not having a warrant, and there's no doubt, wherever he's learned it, that the chap has got the whole constabulary lay-out at his finger ends—besides having the ear of the Governor and the Executive down in Leichardt's Town. He's got money too, no end of it. They were saying in Tunumburra that his wife left him a quarter of a million.'
'Go on—that's nothing to do with us,' put in McKeith gruffly.
'He's an old friend of her Ladyship's, I understand,' sniggered Harris.
'What the devil has that got to do with Wombo?' said McKeith furiously.
Harris drew in his feelers.
'I wouldn't swear that it had, Mr McKeith, and I wouldn't swear that it hadn't. All I know is, that Mr Maule had the key of the hide-house in his bedroom that night, and, being a close friend of her Ladyship's, he was no doubt aware that she didn't relish the notion of Wombo's being had up for theft and murder—I'm not saying who it was let out Wombo. It's a mystery I don't take upon myself to fathom—I'll leave that to you.'
'There's one easy solution of the mystery that doesn't seem to have occurred to you,' said McKeith. 'The gin Oola could easily have stolen the key—they're cunning as the devil—half-castes—and as treacherous—I know them—I've had my own good reasons for not letting one of them inside the fence of my head-station.'
'That may be—I can only say what I know, and you can form your own opinion.'
'Say what you know then—I'm waiting to hear. But be quick about it, man, I've no time to waste this morning.'
Harris began his tale—how he had watched at the window of his little room, till after midnight, his gun ready, his eyes glued on the padlocked door opposite; how overcome with drowsiness against which he had vainly struggled—'for a man that's been pretty near two days and nights in the saddle may be excused if his eyes begin blinking,' Harris put it. He had dropped dead asleep—he confessed it—at his post. Then, how on awakening suddenly, for no apparent reason, all seeming quiet around, he had got up as he was, half dressed and in his boots—had stepped across to the hide-house, had found the padlock intact and, hearing no sound, had concluded the black-boy was inside safe asleep. How then, with a relieved mind, he had been going back to his stretcher, when the noise of a goat bleating had set him on the look-out from his veranda. How, presently, looking at the veranda opposite, he had seen the door of Mr Maule's bedroom open, and a woman come out, how she had stood a few moments facing him, with the moonlight straight on her, so that there was no possibility of his making a mistake. Harris paused. McKeith glared at the man, who, had he been quick at psychological interpretations, would have read an awful apprehension underlying the ill-restrained fury in the other's face. The question came in hoarse jerks.
'What—Who—Who was it you saw—?'
'It was the Lady Bridget, Boss.... I—'
Before he could proceed, a strong arm struck out and McKeith's hand clutched at the Police Inspector's neck.
'You hound! You contemptible skunk! Take back that lie, or I'll throttle it in your throat.'
Harris was of powerful build also, and, moreover knew some tricks of defence and assault. He freed himself by a dexterous duck of his head, and a sharp shake of his body, and stepped backward so that the office table was between him and his antagonist.
His face was scarlet, his bull's eyes protruded from their full sockets. But he was wary, and not anxious to provoke the devil in McKeith.
'Wait a bit,' he said thickly. 'If you'll keep your hands off me, and let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm not telling you lies—though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to her Ladyship....
'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth showing between his tense lips.
'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence—well, so much the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector craftily.
McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing. His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to the quick, while Harris continued.
'Well—I did see—that lady,'—the volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver—she'd been out in the wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps—'
'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you couldn't have seen as far as the steps.'
'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that flower-bush'—Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed, and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of—I guessed he'd come round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp—She was shivering again—she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just picked her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I stepped across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of the front veranda....'
A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful.
'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then—in Mr Maule's room, I went back and looked in. I wanted to make sure, if I could, where the key of the hide-house might be. There was a candle left alight, and I saw the key right enough on the chest of drawers beside Maule's watch and chain. It never came into my mind then, that anybody could have used it. I noticed a bit of folded paper under the watch. That's it, Mr McKeith. There's the proof that I am not lying about what I saw.'
Harris had taken out of his breast pocket, a piece of newspaper in which was wrapped the leaf torn out of Maule's notebook, folded and addressed. He opened it out, and laid it on the office table in front of McKeith, keeping his own stubby finger on one corner of the sheet.
Still McKeith maintained his difficult self-restraint.
'So you stole—a private communication that had been left in another person's room, and was intended for his eyes alone?'
'Come now, Boss. You know well enough that a constabulary officer who's up against tricks to release a prisoner has got to keep his eyes peeled, and mustn't let any clue to mischief escape him. How was I to know that there wasn't some plot to cheat the law? How do I know that there wasn't? That's why I'm showing you the paper. I'm not a French scholar—I suppose that's French—and as I suppose you are, I'll ask you to translate what's written there.'
McKeith pushed aside the man's finger, and taking up the paper carried it to the window, where he stood with his back to Harris, spelling out Lady Bridget's hurriedly written sentences.
He seemed a long time in getting at the sense of what he read. As a matter of fact, he had only a limited acquaintance with any modern languages except his own. He had picked up some colloquial German, and once when laid up in hospital, had set himself to read Balzac's PERE GORIOT with the aid of a dictionary. Thus he had acquired a fairly extensive if somewhat archaic vocabulary. But Lady Bridget's veiled intimation of Wombo's escape couched in up-to-date and highly idiomatic French which would have been perfectly intelligible to Willoughby Maule, conveyed little to him beyond the fact of a secret understanding between his wife and a man whom he knew had once been her lover. That idea drove every other into the background of his thoughts. He did not care in the least how Wombo had escaped. It seemed clear to him that Oola had stolen the key after Harris had gone back to his room, while Maule and his wife were together—together in Lady Bridget's own chamber. The blood surged to his brain, and his temples throbbed as though they would burst. In the madness of his jealousy, the words of the paper, combined with Harris' revelations were damnatory confirmation of his wife's guilt. He felt now that he had foreseen what would happen, from the moment that he had surprised the look on Lady Bridget's face, when Maule had unexpectedly appeared before her. She had given herself away then. And, a little sooner, rather than a little later—as might have been the case had he not left them together—the inevitable had come to pass.
Yes, through the agony of that conviction now brought home to him, a dogged resolve formed itself in his mind—the determination not to betray himself or her. It beat upon him with insistent force. Though his goddess must be dethroned from her shrine in his heart, she should not be cast down for a vulgar brute like Harris to gloat over her shame....
'Well, Boss,' the Police Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to you out of that?'
McKeith turned, Harris thought he was going to leap upon him in a fit of blind fury, and started up from his seat by the office table. McKeith's eyes blazed, his taut sinews quivered; his face was now quite pallid, and the hand in which he held the piece of paper was clenched so tight that the veins stood out like thick cords, and the knuckles were perfectly bloodless.
But suddenly the pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped, and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant.
He moved into his usual office chair.
'Sit down again, won't you, Harris?' he said, and Harris resumed his former place.
'What were you asking?' McKeith continued. 'Satisfactory to me is it? Yes, perfectly satisfactory, thank you.... I'm only amused—as you see... to find that I was quite right in my suspicions.' And he laughed in what Harris thought a very odd way.
'Eh? I don't take your meaning.' Harris' manner was distinctly objectionable.
McKeith gave him a sharp look, and his teeth went over his under lip. Then, to the man's evident surprise, he laughed again, throwing his head back so that the muscles of his throat showed under his beard, working, as it were, automatically. It really seemed as if the man's mechanical merriment were no part of himself. He was, in fact, gaining time to propound an explanation which he did not believe in the least, but which happened to be almost the exact truth.
He answered with an air of ironic indifference.
'Well, you know, I wouldn't go in for the detective line, if I were you, Harris. You aren't subtle enough for it. You jump too quickly at conclusions which have nothing to do with the main point. In fact, you're a fool, Harris—a damned fool.'
Harris' puzzled expression turned to one of extreme indignation. 'Seems to me, Mr McKeith, that it's you who are—well, damned queer about this affair. I'm sure I don't know what you've got to laugh at. But if you've found out who let the black-boy out of the hide-house, I'd be glad to know, that's all.'
McKeith ceased from his mirthless laughing and his sarcastic bluff. He leaned forward, facing Harris with his hands on the paper which he had laid on the table before him. He picked up the other's last words.
'Yes, that IS all. It's the only part of this note which concerns you. Well, I can tell you that it was the half-caste woman, as I thought, who let Wombo out of the hide-house. She stole the key from Mr Maule's room when HE was asleep, and let Wombo out when YOU were asleep—a longer time perhaps than you imagined, Harris. The black-boy made for the scrub, and I suppose they were in too great a hurry to think of shutting the door. Oola sneaked back—they've got the cunning of whites and blacks put together, those half-castes—and no doubt she guessed there'd be a hue and cry directly the door was found open. So she locked it again—and brought the key to her ladyship.'
McKeith seemed to force the last words from between his teeth.
'Well, that's quite simple, isn't it?'
'Now, I shouldn't call it as simple as you make out, Boss. It appears mighty odd to me that the gin should have worried round after her ladyship when she might have sneaked back with the key to the place she took it from. And then there's all the rest—the putting the key back and fitting in times and all that.... Seems to me a bit too much of the Box and Cox trick—a sort of jig-saw puzzle, d'you see.'
Manifestly, Harris was endeavouring to square probabilities. McKeith still held himself in.
'I've given you the facts. You can figure out your details for yourself. I've my own business to attend to, and I must be off on it.'
He got up, and folding Lady Bridget's note, deliberately put it in his breast pocket. Harris stretched forth a restraining hand.
'Boss, I say—that's important—for my report, you know.'
McKeith's temper burst out.
'Damn your report. I'm a magistrate, and I've taken your report, and the blacks are in the scrub and you can go and find them for yourself if you choose. You have no warrant, remember. No, I'm not going to be bothered any more about that black-boy. What.... Not I—with a fire raging on my run, and not enough hands to put it out.'
'But her ladyship....' spluttered Harris.
'Listen here you....' McKeith's face and attitude were menacing. 'I came back to find her ladyship down with dengue as bad as could be. It was on her that night, and if she had to be carried to her room in a fit of shaking, what business is that of yours? Understand me, Harris. Don't you go mixing up my wife's name with this beastly black-boy affair, or you'll have to reckon with me—and I can tell you, you won't relish that reckoning.'
'There was no offence meant. I only wanted to do my duty,' protested the Police Inspector, cringing after the way of bullies.
'You'll find opportunity enough for doing that if you ride back to Breeza Downs and lend the Specials your valuable assistance in protecting the sheep-owners against the Unionists. And I might remind you, as I reminded that damned Organiser who's fired my run, that there's a hundred pounds reward still waiting for anybody who catches the men that robbed my drays and killed my horses.'
McKeith paused a moment before going out by the further door of the office which looked out on the plain.
'I'll leave you now to run up your horse and make your own arrangements. As soon as I can, I shall start to help in getting the bush fire under. You can arrest that Organiser if you are keen on arresting somebody. Send in when you're saddled up, and if I'm ready we'll ride to the turn-off track together.'
McKeith went back to his wife's room. She was still sleeping. Then it was that spasms of mortal agony began literally to rend the man. He left her side and seated himself on the bed in his dressing-room. He sat with his arms folded across his chest. His shoulders heaved. Deep dry sobs shook his huge frame. He would not let a groan escape from between his clenched teeth, but there was blood on his lower lip where he had bitten it in the effort to control himself. Presently, he heard a sound in the next room—a half moan—a name spoken. No, it would not be his name that she would utter first on her return to consciousness.
The man got up; stretched his long, lean frame, shuddering as if it had been on the rack. He drew two deep breaths, braced himself, wiped the blood from his lip, put on the stony mask which Bridget saw when she opened her eyes and found him looking down at her.
Next morning, Lady Bridget was better and her mind clearer. There had been no return of fever, and, though the physical weakness was great and her temperature—had she taken it—would have been found a good deal below normal, her fierce determination not to remain helpless any longer gave her strength to get up and dress. She was not able, however, to do anything but lie in a half-alive condition in the hammock at the end of the veranda. All night the fire had blazed, but more fitfully, and this morning the lurid glare had died down. Only a murky haze, faintly red here and there, spread over the north-eastern sky. Small, isolated smoke-clouds rose above the stretches of forest, and an irregular-shaped tract of charred grass at the edge of the plain showed how far the flames had encroached upon it before they had been got under. One might well conceive with what almost superhuman exertions the beaters had at length accomplished their task. A large number of cattle had been driven by the fire on to the pasture beyond the home paddock—a pasture that had so far been carefully nursed in view of possible later necessity.
Bridget was bushwoman enough to comprehend the crippling effect upon McKeith's resources of the calamity, had she allowed her mind to dwell upon that aspect of affairs. But her mind was incapable just now of dealing with practical issues. She felt utterly weak, utterly lonely. Although she was glad Maule had gone, she missed his sympathetic companionship to an extent that she could hardly have thought possible.
As the hammock swayed gently at the slight touch of her fingers on its rope edge, her imagination drifted dangerously and her senses yielded to the old drugging fascination. He seemed as close to her as had been his bodily shape a few days previously. She was conscious of the pull of his will upon the invisible cords by which he held her. If it were an unholy spell, it was, now, at least, in her desolation, a consoling one. He loved her; he wanted her. She knew that he was passionately eager to devote his life to her. He would wait expectantly until she wrote. With a few strokes of her pen she might end her irksome captivity in this wall-less prison of desert plain—this wilderness of gum and gidia.
As she lay there in the hammock, a child's clumpy boots pattered along the garden path and Tommy Hensor came up the steps with a big cabbage leaf gathered in his hand. He opened it out when he reached the veranda and displayed three Brazilian cherries, the first fruits of a plant growing in the Chinaman's garden.
'La-ship ... La-ship! I got these myself. I made Fo Wung give 'em me for you.'
At any other time the child's offering would have been received, at any rate, graciously. Now Tommy shrank away, startled by the look on Lady Bridget's face and the forbidding gesture with which she warned him off.
'Go away! ... Go away! ...' she cried. 'I don't want you.'
Tommy's common, freckled little face crumpled up and his blue eyes filled with tears. He dropped the cabbage leaf and the cherished Brazilian cherries and ran down the steps again, blubbering piteously.
Lady Bridget got up as soon as the child had clicked the garden gate behind him. She was ashamed of the spasm of revulsion that had seized her. She wanted to cast away from her the dreadful thought his appearance had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big, grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of hysterical laughter.
A little later Maggie came out from the bedroom with some letters in her hand.
'I've laid holt on your mail, Ladyship, turning out your room. I expect you forgot all about it.'
Yes, she had forgotten, absolutely; it seemed years since Harry the Blower had passed by and Willoughby Maule had departed. She languidly inspected the envelopes. Nothing among them of any importance—except one.
It was a blue telegraph-service envelope, and had been forwarded on by the postman from Crocodile Creek, the nearest telegraph station. In the last fifteen months they had brought the bush railway a good deal further up the river, and Crocodile Creek was the present terminus. Thus the road journey was now considerable shorter than when Colin McKeith had brought his bride home.
Lady Bridget read the several lines of the cabled message over two or three times before the real bearings of it became clear to her fever-weakened intelligence.
At last she grasped the startling fact that the cablegram was from her cousin, Lord Gaverick, and that it had been despatched from London about seven days previously. This was what it said.
'ELIZA GAVERICK DIED TWENTIETH LEAVES YOU CASTLE AND FIFTY THOUSAND DIFFICULTIES EXECUTORS YOUR PRESENCE URGENTLY DESIRED WIRE IF CAN COME, GAVERICK'
Lady Bridget let the blue form drop on her lap. She stared out over the brown plain and the herds of lean beasts all shadowy in the smoky mist over the horizon, then round, along the wilderness of gidia scrub, with its charred patches afar off, from which there still rose thin spirals of smoke.
Destiny had spoken. Here was the order of release. There was no gaoler to keep the prison doors locked any longer—except—except—No, if she wished to break her bonds, Colin would never gainsay her.
Late that night the men came back from fighting the fire which they had now practically put out. Even in the moonlight they looked deplorable objects, grimed, covered with dust and ashes, their skins and clothes scorched by the fierce heat.
They seemed drunk with fatigue, and could scarcely sit their horses. When they dismounted they could hardly stand.
Their feeble COO-EES at the sliprails brought out Ninnis, who had been sent home in the afternoon and had been taking some well-earned repose so as to be ready for the next shift—happily not required. He and the few hands left to look after the head-station and the tailing-mob held the men's horses when their riders literally tumbled off them. Ninnis made McKeith take a strong pull of whiskey and supported him along to the Old Humpey. For Colin had had strength to say that Lady Bridget must on no account be disturbed. Ninnis led him to the room lately occupied by Willoughby Maule, and was surprised at his employer's vehement refusal to remain in it.
'I'll not stop here.... No, I won't go to my dressing-room. In God's name, just let me stretch myself on the bunk in the Office and go to sleep.'
He threw himself on a bush-carpentered settle, with mattress and pillows covered in Turkey-red, which was used sometimes at mustering times when there was an overplus of visitors. There he lay like a log for close on twelve hours.
By and by, Lady Bridget, at once longing and reluctant, came softly in to see how he fared.
A storm of pity, anger, tenderness, repulsion—the whole range of feeling, it seemed, between love and hate—swept over her as she looked at the great gaunt form stretched there. Colin was still in riding clothes and booted and spurred. His moleskins were black with smoke and charcoal; his flannel shirt, open at the neck, showed red scratches and scorch-marks on the exposed chest and was torn over the arms, where were more excoriations of the flesh. And the ravaged face! How hard it was. How relentless, even in the utter abandonment of bodily exhaustion! The skin was caked with black dust and sweat. The darkened thatch of yellow hair was dank and wet. The fair beard, usually so trim, was singed in places, matted, and had bits of cinder and burnt leaves sticking to it.
A revolting spectacle, offending Lady Bridget's fine, physical sensibilities, but a MAN—THE Man. She could not understand that tornado of emotion which now made her being seem a very battle-ground, for all the primal passions. She turned away with a sense of nausea, and then turned to him again with a kind of passionate longing to take him in her arms—brutal as she thought him, and unworthy of the affection she had once felt for him—felt still alas!—and all the romance she had once woven about him.... She saw that a fly was hovering over the excoriated arm and drew the ragged sleeve over its bareness. Then she noticed the mosquito net reefed up on a hoop above the bunk, and managed to get the curtain down so that he should be protected from the assaults of insects. But as she touched him in doing this, he stirred and muttered wrathfully in his sleep, as though he were conscious of her tenderness and would have none of it; she fled away and came to him no more.
She had been racking her brain since receiving the cablegram as to what answer she should return to it.
After that pitiable sight of her husband, Bridget moved restlessly about the house, with intervals of lassitude in the hammock, for she still felt weak and ill. But quinine was keeping the fever down, and she resolved that her husband should not again be required to nurse her. She did not go into the Office any more, but busied herself in a defiant fashion upon little cares for his comfort when he awoke. He should see that she did not neglect her house-wifely duties—at least while she remained there to perform them. The qualification was significant of her mood.
Thus, she gave orders that the veranda of the Old Humpey should be kept free from disturbing footsteps, and saw that the bathroom was in order, and a change of clothing set ready for him when he should awake. Also that there should be a meal prepared.
He did not wake till the afternoon. She heard him go straight in to take his bath, and hastened to have the dining room table spread. But she saw him go out of the bathroom—all fresh and more like himself—and cross the yard on his way to the Bachelors' Quarters, making it clear to her that he wished to avoid the part of the house she occupied. Bridget went back to the front veranda in a cold fury, pierced by stabs of mental pain. She watched him from the end of the veranda go into the living room of the Quarters, and thought bitterly that he would ask Mrs Hensor for the food he required. No doubt too, he would obtain from Mrs Hensor, information as to how she herself had been getting on during his absence, and Mrs Hensor would give him a garbled report of her own dismissal from the sick room.... How dared he—oh! how DARED he treat her, Lady Bridget, his wife, with such cruel negligence, such marked insult!
It did not occur to her that he might wish to see Ninnis, who, when at the station, was usually about this time, in his office at the back of the Bachelors' Quarters.
After a time, she heard Colin's voice again in the yard, and his step on the Old Humpey veranda. He came now by the covered passage on to that of the New House, and advanced towards her.
He only came, she told herself, because it would have seemed too strange had he continued to ignore her existence.
And he was conscious of her resentment. By a curious affinity, his own spirit thrilled to the unquenchable spirit in her. Qualities in himself responded to like qualities in her. He admired her pride and pluck. Yet the two egoisms reared against each other, seemed to him—could he have put the thought into shape—like combatants with lances drawn ready to strike.
He believed that it was love which gave her strength—love, not for him, but for that other man whose influence he was now convinced had always been paramount, and who with renewed propinquity had resumed his domination.
Certain phrases in that letter he had read long ago on Joan Gildea's veranda, and which had been haunting him ever since Willoughby Maule's re-appearance, struck his heart with the searing effect of lightning. He felt, at the first sight of her there on the veranda, before she turned full to him, a passionate yearning to take her in his arms, and cover her poor little wasted face with kisses—to call her 'Mate'; to remind her of that wonderful marriage night under the stars. But when he saw the proud aloofness of her look, his longing changed to a dull fury, which he could only keep in check by rigorous steeling of his will against any softening impulse.
So his face was hard as a rock, his voice rasping in its restraint, when he came near and spoke to her. 'You have not had any more fever?'
'No.'
He put two or three questions to her about her health—whether she had taken the medicine he had left for her, and so on, to which she returned almost monosyllabic replies, sufficiently satisfactory in the information they gave him.
'That's all right then,' he said coldly. 'I thought it would be, though I didn't at all like leaving you in such a condition.'
'Really! But it doesn't seem as if you had felt any violent anxiety about me since you came back. I heard you go to the bathroom a long time ago, and I saw you going up to the Quarters.'
He did not appear to notice the latter implication.
'I had to sleep,' he said curtly. 'I was dead beat.'
'Yes, I saw that,' she answered.
'A-ah!' The deep intake of breath made a hissing sound, and he flushed a brick red. 'You came and looked at me?'
'I went into the Office.'
'I didn't want you to see me. You must have loathed the sight of me. I was a disgusting object.'
She said nothing.
If he had glanced at her he would have seen a piteous flicker of tenderness pass over her face—a sudden wet gleam in her eyes. And had he yielded then to his first impulse, things might have gone very differently between them. But he kept himself stiffened. He would not lift his eyes, when she gave him a furtive glance. The expression of his half averted face was positively sinister as he added with a sneering little laugh.
'One can't look as if one had come out of a bandbox after fighting a bush fire.'
She exclaimed, 'Oh! what does it matter?'
He utterly mistook the meaning of her exclamation.
'You are quite right,' he retorted. 'When it comes to the end of everything, what does ANYTHING matter!'
For several moments there was dead silence. She felt as if he had wilfully stabbed her. He on his side had again the confused sense of two antagonists, feinting with their weapons to gain time before the critical encounter.
'Well?' He swung himself savagely round upon her. 'That's true, isn't it? The end HAS come.... You're sick of the whole show—dead sick—of the Bush—of everything?—Aren't you? Answer me straight, Bridget.'
'Yes, I am,' she replied recklessly. 'I hate the Bush—I—I hate everything.'
'Everything! Well, that settles it!' he said slowly.
Again there was silence, and then he said:
'You know I wouldn't want to keep you—especially now,'—he did not add the words that were on his lips 'now that bad times are coming on me,'—and she read a different application in the 'now.' 'I—I'd be glad for you to quit. It's as you please—maybe the sooner the better. I'll make everything as easy as I can for you.'
'You are very—considerate....' The sarcasm broke in her throat.
She moved abruptly, and stood gazing out over the plain till the hysterical, choking sensation left her. Her back was to him. He could not see her face; nor could she see the dumb agony in his.
Presently she walked to a shelf-table on the veranda set against the wall; and from the litter of papers and work upon it, took up the cablegram she had lately received.
'I wanted to show you this,' she said stonily, and handed him the blue paper.
There was something significant in the way he steadied it upon the veranda railing, and stooped with his head down to pore over it.
The blow was at first almost staggering. It was as though the high gods had shot down a bolt from heaven, shattering his world, and leaving him alone in Chaos. They had taken him at his word—had registered on the instant his impious declaration. It WAS the end of everything. She was to quit.... He had said, the sooner the better.... Well—he wasn't going to let even the high gods get a rise out of him.
He laughed. By one of those strange links of association, which at moments of unexpected crisis bring back things impersonal, unconnected, the sound of his own laugh recalled the rattle of earth, upon the dry outside of a sheet of bark in which, during one of their boundary rides at Breeza Downs lately, they had wrapped for burial the body of a shepherd found dead in the bush. Both sounds seemed to him as of something dead—something outside humanity.
He handed her back the telegram, speaking still as if he were far-off—on the other side of a grave, but quite collectedly and as though in the long silence he had been weighing the question.
'It seems to me that this has come to you in the nick of time, to solve difficulties.'
'Yes,' she assented dully.
'You've got no choice but to go as your cousin says. There's money depending on it.'
'Money! ... Oh, money!' she cried wildly.
'Money is apt to stick on to lawyers' fingers when they're left to the handling of it .... This is a matter of business, and business can't be put on one side—especially, when there's as large a sum as fifty thousand pounds in the proposition. I guess from this that you're wanted.'
'Yes,' she said again. She was thinking to herself, 'That's his Scotch carefulness about money; he wouldn't consider anything in comparison with that.'
'You had better take the northern route,' he went on. 'There ought to be an E. and A. boat due at Leuraville pretty soon—I'll look it out. ... Perhaps you'd like to make the start to-morrow?'
'To-morrow—oh yes, to-morrow—just whenever suits you.'
'I couldn't take you down myself. There are things—serious matters I've got to see to on the station. And besides, you'll allow it's best for me not to go with you. Ninnis could drive you to Crocodile Creek, and put you into the train; and Halliwell will look after you at Leuraville, and see you on board the steamer.'
'Oh, I wonder that you can spare Ninnis,' she returned bitterly. 'I suppose you'd want Moongarr Bill still more on the run. But there's Joe Casey—I daresay somebody else can milk the cows, and get up wood and water. Or there's Cudgee—I don't mind who goes with me.... I can drive myself.'
'My God! do you imagine I'd put a black-boy—or anyone but my own trusted overseer in charge of you! What are you thinking of to talk like that?'
He took a few steps along the veranda, moving with uncertain gait; then stopped and leaned heavily against the wall. In a few seconds he had recovered himself, and came back to her, speaking quietly.
'I will think out things and arrange it all. You'll be perfectly safe with Ninnis, I think it would be better for you to sleep one night at old Duppo's place. There's fresh horses for the buggy there—I've got Alexander and Roxalana in the paddock now—they're the best....'
Oh, how could he bear that those horses, of the dream-drive, should take her away from him! He went on in the same matter-of-fact manner. 'I expect the answer to the cablegram will get as quickly as if Harry the Blower took it, if you send it from Crocodile Creek yourself. And there's your packing—there's not much time, but you won't want to take a lot of things. Anything you cared about could go afterwards.'
'Go afterwards—What do you mean? I want to take nothing—nothing except a few clothes.'
'Ah well—it doesn't matter—As you said—nothing matters now.... Well, I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old Humpey, looking back at her—'what you'll need for the passage—and afterwards—I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it with the Bank manager at Leuraville.'
A mocking demon rose in her.
'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.'
His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out.
'I don't think—you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a mortal hurt.
If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks. No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love.
There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis—first explaining to the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's voyage to England—a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind, particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also recognised practical reasons—against that natural concession to sentiment. On the whole, it rather pleased him to find his employer ignoring sentiment, and he fully appreciated the confidence reposed in himself.
The two men went over questions connected with the journey, overhauling the buggy so that springs, bars and bolts might be in order, seeing that the horses were in good condition, sending on Cudgee that very hour, with a second pair in relay for the long stage of the morrow, when over fifty miles must be covered. There would be another pair at old Duppo's, and, after a day and night of comparative rest, Alexander and Roxalana would be fresh for the last long stage of the journey. They calculated that under these provisions the railway terminus at Crocodile Creek, might be reached on the eve of the third day. And there were many instructions, and much careful arranging for Lady Bridget's comfort during the journey.
Then there were letters to write, business calculations, a further overdraft to be applied for to the Bank, pending the cattle sales.... Would there be saleable cattle enough to meet demands and expenses of sinking fresh artesian bores—now that the fire had destroyed all the best grass on the run?
McKeith found no consolation in the prospect of his wife's riches. That only added gall to his bitterness, new fuel to his stubborn pride, new strength to the wall between them.
He sat brooding in his office, when the business letters were written—to the Bank-manager; to Captain Halliwell, the Police-magistrate at Leuraville; to the Manager of the Eastern and Australian Steam Navigation Depot, Leuraville, enclosing a draft to pay the passage; to the Captain of the boat advertised for that trip, who happened to be an acquaintance of his—all recommending Lady Bridget to the different people's care—all anticipating and arranging against every possible drawback to her comfort on the voyage—all carefully stating the object of her trip to England—business connected with the death of a near relative. Then, after the ghastly pretence of dinner—during which appearances were kept up unnecessarily before Maggie and the Malay boy, by a forced discussion of matter-of-fact details—looking out the exact time of the putting in of the next E. and A. boat at Leuraville—all of which he had already done, and pointing out to Bridget that she could catch it, with a day to spare.
There was food for the journey too, to be thought of, and other things to talk about. As soon as the meal was ended, McKeith went back to the office, and Bridget saw or heard no more of him that night. He did not come even to his dressing-room. She concluded that he was 'camping' on the bunk in the office, and when her own packing was done, she lay in wakeful misery till dawn brought a troubled doze.
Her packing was no great business—clothes for the voyage, and a big furred cloak for warmth, when she should arrive in England in the depth of winter—that was all.
Everything else—her papers, knicknacks, personal belongings—she left just as they were. Colin might do as he liked about them. She felt reckless and quite hard.
Only one among those personal possessions moved her to despairing tears. It was a shrivelled section of bark chopped from a gum tree, warped almost into a tube.
She placed this carefully in the deepest drawer of her wardrobe. Would Colin ever find it there—and would he understand? All the time, through these preparations, strangely enough she did not think of any possible future in connection with Willoughby Maule. The events of the past few days seemed to have driven him outside her immediate horizon.
When she came out in the morning dressed for her journey, she found her husband in the veranda waiting to strap up and carry out her baggage. Scarcely a word passed between them; they did not even breakfast together. He said he had been up early, and had had his breakfast already, but he watched her trying to eat while he moved about collecting things for her journey, and he poured out the coffee, and begged her to drink it. While he was there, Chen Sing brought in the basket of food he must have ordered for the buggy, and there was Fo Wung too, the gardener, with fresh lettuce and water-cress, and a supply of cool, green cabbage leaves in which he had packed a few early flat-stone peaches, and some Brazilian cherries.
Lady Bridget thanked them with the ghost of her old sweetness, and they promised to have the garden 'velly good—TAI YAT number one' and to 'make plenty nice dishes,' for the Boss during her absence.
While they stood at the French window, McKeith filled flasks with wine and spirits, and packed quinine and different medicines he had prepared in case of her needing them. Then after shewing her the different bottles, he took the supply out to Ninnis to be put in the buggy.
Everything was ready now—the buggy packed, the hood unslung so that it could be put up and down in protection against sun or rain—this last alas! an improbable eventuality. Alexander and Roxalana were champing their bits. Ninnis in a new cabbage-tree hat and clean puggaree, wearing the light coat he only put on when in the society of ladies he wished to honour, was standing by the front wheels examining the lash of his driving-whip. McKeith had given him his last directions. There was nothing now to wait for. McKeith went slowly up the steps of the back veranda, and in at the French window of the sitting room, where Bridget had been watching, waiting. At his appearance, she went back into the room. She stood quite still, small, shadowy, the little bit of her face which showed between the folds of her motor veil, where it was tied down under her chin—very pale, and the eyes within their red, narrowed lids, dry and bright.
'Are you ready, Bridget?' he asked.
'Yes.'
He came close, and took a little bag she was holding out of her hands, carried it to the back veranda, and told one of the Chinamen to give it to Mr Ninnis—all, it seemed to her, to evade farewells. She called him back in a hard voice.
'Colin—I've left my keys,'—pointing to a sealed and addressed envelope on her own writing-table. 'There are a few things of value—some you have given me—in the drawers.'
'I will take care of them,' he answered hoarsely.
They stood fronting each other, and their eyes both smarting, agonised, stared at each other out of the pale drawn faces.
'Colin,' she said; and held out her hands. 'Aren't you going to say good-bye?'
He took her hands; his burning look met hers for an instant and dropped. There was always the poisonous wall which their soul's vision might not pierce—through which their yearning lips might not touch. For an instant too, the hardness of his face was broken by a spasm of emotion. The grip of his hands on hers was like that of a steel vice; she winced at the pain of it. He dropped her hands suddenly, and moved back a step.
'Good-bye—Bridget.'
'Is that all you have to say? All?'
He stuttered, helplessly. 'I—I—can't.... There's nothing to say.'
'Nothing! You let me go—like this—without one word of apology—of regret. I think that, at least, you owe me—courtesy.'
Her tone lashed him. He seemed to be struggling with his tongue-tied speech. When words came they rushed out in fierce jerks. 'I'll say this—though where's the good of talking.... What does it amount to anyway, when you're down on the bedrock, and there's nothing left but to give up the whole show and start fresh as best you can? I'll say this—I've never pretended to fine manners—I leave them—to others. I'm just a rough bushman, no better and no worse. Apology!—that's my apology—As for regret. My God! isn't it all one huge regret? No, I won't say that.... Because there are some things I CAN'T regret—for myself. For you, I do regret them. I was an insane ass ever to imagine that I and my way of living could ever fit in with a woman brought up like you. The incompatibilities were bound to come out—incompatibilities of temper, education, breeding—outlook on things—they were bound to separate us sooner or later, I'm glad that it's sooner, because that gives you a chance of getting back into your old conditions before you've grown different in yourself—dried up—soured—maybe lost your health, roughing it through bad times in the bush.... As it is, you'll get out all right—Never fear that I won't see you get out all right.'
'And you?' she put in.
'Me! I don't count—I don't care.... A man's not like a woman. I've always been a fighter. And I've never been DOWNED in my life. I'm not going to be DOWNED this time. I shall make good—some time—somehow. I'm not the sort of small potato that drops to the bottom of the bag in the big shake-up.'
She winced visibly. He read distaste in her slight gesture, in the expression of her eyes. It was true that the man's pugnacious egoism—a lower side of him asserting itself just then—had always jarred upon her finer taste. He recognised this subconsciously, and his self-esteem revolted at it.
'You needn't be afraid,' he exclaimed harshly. 'If I wanted to hold to my rights, and keep you here with me—what has happened would prevent me—I've got too much pride to hang on to the skirts of a rich wife. But you won't be harmed.... I don't know yet, but I believe there's a way by which you can win through straight and square—no smirch that you need mind—And if there is—whatever the way of it is, I'll do my best to bring you out all right.'
'You are generous.' Her eyes flashed but her voice was coldly bitter. 'May I ask what you propose to do?'
'There's no use....' he said heavily. 'I told you talking was no good—now. I've got my own ideas....'
'Then, if that's how you feel, the sooner I go the better pleased you will be,' she returned hysterically. 'Oh, I'm ready to go.'
He moved to the steps, not answering at once. Then he said:
'The buggy is waiting, will you come?'
He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all—the suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word passed between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality—began a sort of speech about the cause of her departure—condolence and congratulations stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short.
'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll want a bit of driving at the start.'
He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round her knees. In doing so, he bent his head—she thought he had dropped something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though they were touching her flesh.
She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look, just for a second. The horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back.
'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust me to look well after her ladyship.... Be back again as soon as I can.'
And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders.
It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, but the end had come—come with such hideous misconception—every word spoken—and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of the occasion—a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a cross-cut saw against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. Then the extraordinary involvements of circumstance. Each incident, big and little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. It seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting.