Sisters

CHAPTER VI.

He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's caretaker—the lady of whom he stood in such undignified dread. The sight of her handwriting paled his brown face and set his stout heart fluttering. What did she want of him? He kept the letter unopened for some time, because he was afraid to know, although convinced beforehand that he did know—that, of course, it was the visit he should have paid before coming up country. When at last he drew the sheet from its envelope, as if it had come from an infected house, and had not been fumigated, and cast a hurried glance over the contents, he found that the unexpected had happened once more—the wildly unexpected.

She was going to be married. He was a "general merchant" in prosperous business, and there was nothing to wait for—except Mr Carey's instructions as to what was to be done with the dear little boy. She would feel acutely the parting from him, after he had been from his birth like a child of her own, but Mr Carey would understand that she could not now continue her labour of love on his behalf—that she had others to consider. But she knew of a most excellent substitute—a dear friend of her own, who had long taken the deepest interest in darling Harry, and with whom she was sure he would be as safe and happy as with herself. She had expected to see Mr Carey when he arrived, to arrange matters; she hoped he would come as soon as possible.

In the bewilderment of his mingled elation and anxieties, the young father did not know what to do for the moment, while recognising the urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the right ear.

It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove him to Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. She was the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was not—she could not be—a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place, he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a fool of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the edge of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings—for, as the reader will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty.

He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr Pennycuick had carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature which for weeks had not allowed a man upon his back, and had had no exercise beyond his voluntary scamperings about the paddock from which he had been brought, dancing with excitement and indignation. All the stablemen had been required to get his bridle and saddle on; he now wheeled round and round in the large space left for him, while Claud Dalzell, in his London riding clothes, and with his air of a reigning prince, warily turned with him. Guthrie Carey, in the waiting pony-carriage, had but one interest in the performance—his hopeful anticipation of a fatal, or at least a ridiculous, result.

But there was no fear of that, and evidently Deb knew it. Sitting her own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She gloried in the ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her knight. Many a time did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she deemed effeminate; this was one of the moments which showed the man as she desired him. Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert nails, the shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; so was the wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no one was looking—although every eye believed itself fixed upon him—his left foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like lightning he had sprung up and round, without touching the horse until fairly down in the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best chance of getting the rider off, which is at the moment before he is quite on. No other chance was offered to the baffled one, although he kicked like a demon for nearly ten minutes.

"I wish," Guthrie Carey ground through his strong teeth, "that the cranky beast would break his neck." It was not the beast's neck he meant.

But Deb called: "Bravo! Well done, indeed!" and when the battle was over called the victor to her with her lovely face of pride and joy. Right willingly he went, and they sailed away together like the wind, and were lost to view. Yes, this was Dalzell's hour. She knew nothing of the brave deeds of sailor-men—common and constant as eating and drinking, and performed to no audience and for no reward.

Alice Urquhart and Rose Pennycuick, also on horseback, followed the flying pair; then a buggy containing Jim and schoolgirl Francie (her governess gone home for holidays today), and a load of ironwork for a blacksmith on the route; last of all, Mary and the sailor, for all the world like the old father and mother of the party. Mr Pennycuick excused himself from excursions nowadays, and so did Miss Keene, the elderly and quite uninfluential duenna of the house, when one was needed (she "did the flowers" and knitted singlets for everybody).

The Shetlands pattered along at a great rate, but did not come up with the riders until they were nearly at Bundaboo. And all the way—a long way—Guthrie Carey had to make efforts not to bore his hostess. They talked about the clear air and the dun-coloured land—the richest sheep-country in the colony, but now without a blade of green upon it—and made comments upon three bullock drays piled with wool bales, and two camping sundowners, and one Chinaman hawker's cart, which they encountered on the way. And that was about all.

The home-coming was a different affair.

Tea had been served in Mr Thornycroft's cool drawing-room, hats and gloves had been collected, orders sent to the stables; and the young sailor, panting to emulate the prowess of his rival, and thereby compel Miss Deborah to respect him, was asking one and another what were the arrangements for the return journey.

"I," said Rose, who hugged a puppy in her arms—a puppy long possessed, but only now old enough to leave its mother—"I am going in the buggy with Jim."

"Wouldn't you rather go in the pony-carriage?" inquired Carey anxiously. "You could make a better lap on the lower seat. I could ride your horse home for you if they'll lend me a saddle; yours could be put in the buggy—"

Even as he spoke, Deb came round the corner from somewhere, with swift steps and a brilliant complexion, Dalzell hurrying after her.

"Mr Carey," she called, while the sailor was still yards away from her, "Molly and I are going to change skirts. I am tired with my ride this morning, and am going to drive home. Will you trust your neck to me?"

Would he not, indeed? He was but a pawn in the game, but what did that matter? Eighteen miles absolutely alone with her! And possibly half of them in the dark! No saddle horse in the world could have tempted him now. He could hardly speak his gratitude and joy.

"Delighted, Miss Deborah!—delighted!—delighted!"

But Dalzell, black as thunder, swung aside, muttering in his teeth.

"Oh, oh!" Francie's loud whisper followed. "DID you hear what he said? He said 'damn'. That's because—"

"You cut along," Jim's drawl broke in, "and get ready if you want to ride."

Mr Thornycroft tucked Deb into the pony-carriage with the solicitude of a mother fixing up a young baby going out with its nurse. He insisted that she should wear a shawl over her linen jacket, and brought forth an armful of softest WOOL, Indian wove.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, fondling it, for she loved fine fabrics.

"Never mind," said he. "Put it on."

"I am suspicious of these shawls and fallals that Bundaboo seems full of. Who is the hidden lady?"

He only smiled at her.

"Ah, godpapa, you spoil me!"

She drew the wrap about her, and he assisted to adjust it, with gentle skill. Then he turned abruptly to Carey, as to a groom.

"See that she doesn't throw that off. It will be chilly presently. No, she'd better drive—she knows the road. But take care of her. Good-night."

"Isn't he an old dear?" said Deb to Carey, as they drove off. "He has been a second father to me ever since I was a child."

She did not hurry the ponies, being anxious not to appear to be tearing after her offended swain.

"The evening is the pleasantest time to be out, this weather," she said, lolling back in her seat. "And I'm sure I don't want to look at dinner after such a lunch as I have eaten. I don't know how you feel."

"I feel the same," he assured her, with truth.

So, for her own purposes, she made their drive half as long again as it need have been. And was so friendly, so free, so intimate!—leading that poor innocent to the belief that his great rival was already virtually out of his way. He was an unsophisticated sailor-lad, who, with that rival's help, had reached a certain stage and crisis—another one—of his man's life; and—let us be honest in our diagnosis—the bubbles of Mr Thornycroft's fine champagne still ran in his blood and brightened his brain, lifting him above the prosaic ground-level where a craven timidity would have smothered him. Not touching the balance of his wits, be it understood; just heartening him—no more.

Twice and thrice she branched off from the road to show him something that could well have waited for another day. She was imprudent enough to introduce him to so sentimental a spot as the family cemetery—established at a time when there were only Dalzells and Pennycuicks to feed it. "Their shepherds were killed by the blacks," said Deb, as she pushed the ponies up to the wall, and he rose in the carriage to look over the top, "and they buried them here, marking the place with a pile of stones. There were other deaths, and they enclosed the piece of land. Then a brother of Mr Dalzell's, and a girl; and Mr Dalzell himself wished to be put here, beside his brother. Not his wife, she wouldn't; she lies in the Melbourne cemetery. Then some of our babies, then mother. She was the last. I don't suppose there will be any more now. The State will insist on taking charge of us."

Real English churchyard elms crowded about the wall and blightingly overshadowed the lonely group of graves. English ivy, instead of neatly clothing the wall, as it had been meant to do, straggled wildly over the part of the enclosure which had once been a garden around them. Out of it, like sea-stripped wrecks, dead sticks of rose-bushes poked up, and ragged things that had gone to seed. The turf was parched away, like the grass of the surrounding paddocks; the mounds were cracked; the head-stones—several of them ornate and costly—stained with the drip from the trees and birds, and some distinctly out of the perpendicular.

"It ought not to look like this," Deb apologised for it. "It ought to have been seen to. We used to come often, and bring water from the dam. But one forgets as time goes on; one doesn't think—or care. Poor dead people! How out of it they are! And we shall be the same some day—neglected and abandoned, just like this."

"DON'T!" muttered Guthrie Carey, shivering. The ghost of his sweet Lily seemed to reproach him with Deb's voice. But the ghost-woman fifteen months old had no chance with the glowing live woman born into his life but yesterday; and no blame to him either, and no wrong to the dead, if one can look at the thing dispassionately and with an unbiased mind.

"Let us go and see the dam," Deb cheered him, as she turned the ponies' heads. "You haven't seen our big dam, have you? Everybody that comes to Redford must see that, or father will want to know the reason why. 'Pennycuick's Folly' some people call it, because he spent so much money on it; but father is not one to spoil the ship for a pen'orth of paint. He likes to do things thoroughly. So do I."

And soon they halted on the embankment of a mile-wide sheet of water, shining like a mirror in a setting of soft-bosomed hills, their dun day colour changed to a heavenly rose-purple under the poetic evening sky.

"Why, it is a lake," said Guthrie Carey. "You could hold regattas on it." "We do, now and then, with our little boats. We have three over there"—pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore. "And swimming matches. We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come down on hot nights and be mermaids. Once we moored ourselves out in the middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the boat, under the stars."

"How charming!"

"It was holiday time, and our parents were away. We took cushions and things, and it was great fun; but Keziah reported us, and we were never allowed to do it again."

They sat in the pony-carriage on the dam embankment, gazing silently. A flock of wildfowl had been scared away by their approach, and now not a wing, not an eye was near. At a great distance curlews wailed, only to make the stillness and solitude more exquisite, more profound. The purple of the hills grew deeper and softer, the lake a mere pulseless shimmer through the twilight haze. And then, last touch of magic, the moon swam up—the same moon that had transfigured Five Creeks garden and Alice Urquhart last night.

He poured out his soul to Deborah Pennycuick.

First, it was only the story of the baby—the story he had told Alice, with some omissions and additions. He took advantage of the opportunity to ask Deb's invaluable advice.

Deb, well aware of the influence of a summer night and certain accessories, tried her best to be practical. She asked straight questions about the baby.

"Where have you got him? Where does this friend live who has been recommended to you?"

"In Sandridge—all at Sandridge—"

"That dirty, low part! That's no place to rear a boy in. Bring him into the bush, to clean air, if you want to make a man of him. I know a dear, nice woman—she is our overseer's wife—who has no children, and is dying to get hold of one somehow or other. We might make some arrangement with her, I am sure; and, if so, the little fellow would be in clover. We'd all look after him, of course, while you were at sea—"

"Oh! oh! oh!" The young father's heart simply exhaled itself in gratitude too vast for words. Ah! there was no hanging back now! Not the baby only, but the dog-chain, was laid at Deborah's feet.

"You go and fetch him tomorrow," said she, "and I'll talk to Mrs Kelsey while you are away. Then I'll meet you at the station on your return, to help you with him, and tell you what Mrs Kelsey says—though I have no doubt of what it will be. But we'll keep him at Redford for a bit, till he gets used to everybody; and you must stay with him all you can until your ship sails...."

His eyes were full of tears. He laid his hand on her shawl again. He leaned to her. It was no use—the moon and his feelings were too much for him. They were talking of the baby, and the word "love" had not been, and was not going to be, mentioned; but there the thing was, unmistakable to her keen intelligence, looming like a frontier custom-house on the road ahead.

She grasped his big, trembling hand, and with it held him back, meeting his adoring gaze with steady eyes and mouth.

"My dear boy, don't—don't! Don't spoil this nice evening—"

It was all that was necessary. And still so kind, so gentle with him! No scorn, no offended dignity, no displeasure even. She, who could punish insolence with anybody, was never hard upon the humble admirer—only too soft, in fact, with all her basic firmness, and incapable of the hard-hearted coquetry that so commonly makes beauty vile. "Face of waxen angel, with paw of desert beast"—that was not Deborah Pennycuick.

A sob broke from him.

"I am a damned fool!" he muttered savagely, and by a violent effort collected himself. "I beg your pardon."

"That's all right," she said, turning the ponies from the embankment and whipping them to a gallop.