That evening when we"d started home, we stopped some time yarning with a chap we met at the gate; and I happened to look back, and saw Mary hanging out the rest of the things--she thought that we were out of sight. Then I understood why those things weren"t ready while we were round.
For the next day or two Mary didn"t take the slightest notice of me, and I kept out of her way. Jack said I"d disillusioned her--and hurt her dignity--which was a thousand times worse. He said I"d spoilt the thing altogether. He said that she"d got an idea that I was shy and poetic, and I"d only shown myself the usual sort of Bush-whacker.
I noticed her talking and chatting with other fellows once or twice, and it made me miserable. I got drunk two evenings running, and then, as it appeared afterwards, Mary consulted Jack, and at last she said to him, when we were together--
"Do you play draughts, Mr Barnes?"
"No," said Jack.
"Do you, Mr Wilson?" she asked, suddenly turning her big, bright eyes on me, and speaking to me for the first time since last washing-day.
"Yes," I said, "I do a little." Then there was a silence, and I had to say something else.
"Do you play draughts, Miss Brand?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "but I can"t get any one to play with me here of an evening, the men are generally playing cards or reading." Then she said, "It"s very dull these long winter evenings when you"ve got nothing to do. Young Mr Black used to play draughts, but he"s away."
I saw Jack winking at me urgently.
"I"ll play a game with you, if you like," I said, "but I ain"t much of a player."
"Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson! When shall you have an evening to spare?"
We fixed it for that same evening. We got chummy over the draughts. I had a suspicion even then that it was a put-up job to keep me away from the pub.
Perhaps she found a way of giving a hint to old Black without committing herself. Women have ways--or perhaps Jack did it. Anyway, next day the Boss came round and said to me--
"Look here, Joe, you"ve got no occasion to stay at the pub. Bring along your blankets and camp in one of the spare rooms of the old house. You can have your tucker here."
He was a good sort, was Black the squatter: a squatter of the old school, who"d shared the early hardships with his men, and couldn"t see why he should not shake hands and have a smoke and a yarn over old times with any of his old station hands that happened to come along. But he"d married an Englishwoman after the hardships were over, and she"d never got any Australian notions.
Next day I found one of the skillion rooms scrubbed out and a bed fixed up for me. I"m not sure to this day who did it, but I supposed that good-natured old Black had given one of the women a hint. After tea I had a yarn with Mary, sitting on a log of the wood-heap. I don"t remember exactly how we both came to be there, or who sat down first. There was about two feet between us. We got very chummy and confidential. She told me about her childhood and her father.
He"d been an old mate of Black"s, a younger son of a well-to-do English family (with blue blood in it, I believe), and sent out to Australia with a thousand pounds to make his way, as many younger sons are, with more or less. They think they"re hard done by; they blue their thousand pounds in Melbourne or Sydney, and they don"t make any more nowadays, for the Roarin" Days have been dead these thirty years. I wish I"d had a thousand pounds to start on!
Mary"s mother was the daughter of a German immigrant, who selected up there in the old days. She had a will of her own as far as I could understand, and bossed the home till the day of her death. Mary"s father made money, and lost it, and drank--and died. Mary remembered him sitting on the verandah one evening with his hand on her head, and singing a German song (the "Lorelei", I think it was) softly, as if to himself. Next day he stayed in bed, and the children were kept out of the room; and, when he died, the children were adopted round (there was a little money coming from England).
Mary told me all about her girlhood. She went first to live with a sort of cousin in town, in a house where they took in cards on a tray, and then she came to live with Mrs Black, who took a fancy to her at first.
I"d had no boyhood to speak of, so I gave her some of my ideas of what the world ought to be, and she seemed interested.
Next day there were sheets on my bed, and I felt pretty c.o.c.ky until I remembered that I"d told her I had no one to care for me; then I suspected pity again.
But next evening we remembered that both our fathers and mothers were dead, and discovered that we had no friends except Jack and old Black, and things went on very satisfactorily.
And next day there was a little table in my room with a crocheted cover and a looking-gla.s.s.
I noticed the other girls began to act mysterious and giggle when I was round, but Mary didn"t seem aware of it.
We got very chummy. Mary wasn"t comfortable at Haviland. Old Black was very fond of her and always took her part, but she wanted to be independent. She had a great idea of going to Sydney and getting into the hospital as a nurse. She had friends in Sydney, but she had no money. There was a little money coming to her when she was twenty-one--a few pounds--and she was going to try and get it before that time.
"Look here, Miss Brand," I said, after we"d watched the moon rise. "I"ll lend you the money. I"ve got plenty--more than I know what to do with."
But I saw I"d hurt her. She sat up very straight for a while, looking before her; then she said it was time to go in, and said "Good-night, Mr Wilson."
I reckoned I"d done it that time; but Mary told me afterwards that she was only hurt because it struck her that what she said about money might have been taken for a hint. She didn"t understand me yet, and I didn"t know human nature. I didn"t say anything to Jack--in fact about this time I left off telling him about things. He didn"t seem hurt; he worked hard and seemed happy.
I really meant what I said to Mary about the money. It was pure good nature. I"d be a happier man now, I think, and richer man perhaps, if I"d never grown any more selfish than I was that night on the wood-heap with Mary. I felt a great sympathy for her--but I got to love her. I went through all the ups and downs of it. One day I was having tea in the kitchen, and Mary and another girl, named Sarah, reached me a clean plate at the same time: I took Sarah"s plate because she was first, and Mary seemed very nasty about it, and that gave me great hopes. But all next evening she played draughts with a drover that she"d chummed up with. I pretended to be interested in Sarah"s talk, but it didn"t seem to work.
A few days later a Sydney Jackaroo visited the station. He had a good pea-rifle, and one afternoon he started to teach Mary to shoot at a target. They seemed to get very chummy. I had a nice time for three or four days, I can tell you. I was worse than a wall-eyed bullock with the pleuro. The other chaps had a shot out of the rifle. Mary called "Mr Wilson" to have a shot, and I made a worse fool of myself by sulking. If it hadn"t been a blooming Jackaroo I wouldn"t have minded so much.
Next evening the Jackaroo and one or two other chaps and the girls went out "possum-shooting. Mary went. I could have gone, but I didn"t. I mooched round all the evening like an orphan bandicoot on a burnt ridge, and then I went up to the pub and filled myself with beer, and d.a.m.ned the world, and came home and went to bed. I think that evening was the only time I ever wrote poetry down on a piece of paper. I got so miserable that I enjoyed it.
I felt better next morning, and reckoned I was cured. I ran against Mary accidentally and had to say something.
"How did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, Miss Brand?" I asked.
"Oh, very well, thank you, Mr Wilson," she said. Then she asked, "How did you enjoy yourself, Mr Wilson?"
I puzzled over that afterwards, but couldn"t make anything out of it.
Perhaps she only said it for the sake of saying something. But about this time my handkerchiefs and collars disappeared from the room and turned up washed and ironed and laid tidily on my table. I used to keep an eye out, but could never catch anybody near my room. I straightened up, and kept my room a bit tidy, and when my handkerchief got too dirty, and I was ashamed of letting it go to the wash, I"d slip down to the river after dark and wash it out, and dry it next day, and rub it up to look as if it hadn"t been washed, and leave it on my table. I felt so full of hope and joy that I worked twice as hard as Jack, till one morning he remarked casually--
"I see you"ve made a new mash, Joe. I saw the half-caste cook tidying up your room this morning and taking your collars and things to the wash-house."
I felt very much off colour all the rest of the day, and I had such a bad night of it that I made up my mind next morning to look the hopelessness square in the face and live the thing down.
It was the evening before Anniversary Day. Jack and I had put in a good day"s work to get the job finished, and Jack was having a smoke and a yarn with the chaps before he started home. We sat on an old log along by the fence at the back of the house. There was Jimmy Nowlett the bullock-driver, and long Dave Regan the drover, and big Jim Bullock the fencer, and one or two others. Mary and the station girls and one or two visitors were sitting under the old verandah. The Jackaroo was there too, so I felt happy. It was the girls who used to bring the chaps hanging round. They were getting up a dance party for Anniversary night.
Along in the evening another chap came riding up to the station: he was a big shearer, a dark, handsome fellow, who looked like a gipsy: it was reckoned that there was foreign blood in him. He went by the name of Romany. He was supposed to be shook after Mary too. He had the nastiest temper and the best violin in the district, and the chaps put up with him a lot because they wanted him to play at Bush dances. The moon had risen over Pine Ridge, but it was dusky where we were. We saw Romany loom up, riding in from the gate; he rode round the end of the coach-house and across towards where we were--I suppose he was going to tie up his horse at the fence; but about half-way across the gra.s.s he disappeared. It struck me that there was something peculiar about the way he got down, and I heard a sound like a horse stumbling.
"What the h.e.l.l"s Romany trying to do?" said Jimmy Nowlett. "He couldn"t have fell off his horse--or else he"s drunk."
A couple of chaps got up and went to see. Then there was that waiting, mysterious silence that comes when something happens in the dark and n.o.body knows what it is. I went over, and the thing dawned on me. I"d stretched a wire clothes-line across there during the day, and had forgotten all about it for the moment. Romany had no idea of the line, and, as he rode up, it caught him on a level with his elbows and sc.r.a.ped him off his horse. He was sitting on the gra.s.s, swearing in a surprised voice, and the horse looked surprised too. Romany wasn"t hurt, but the sudden shock had spoilt his temper. He wanted to know who"d put up that b.l.o.o.d.y line. He came over and sat on the log. The chaps smoked a while.
"What did you git down so sudden for, Romany?" asked Jim Bullock presently. "Did you hurt yerself on the pommel?"
"Why didn"t you ask the horse to go round?" asked Dave Regan.
"I"d only like to know who put up that bleeding wire!" growled Romany.
"Well," said Jimmy Nowlett, "if we"d put up a sign to beware of the line you couldn"t have seen it in the dark."
"Unless it was a transparency with a candle behind it," said Dave Regan.
"But why didn"t you get down on one end, Romany, instead of all along?
It wouldn"t have jolted yer so much."
All this with the Bush drawl, and between the puffs of their pipes.
But I didn"t take any interest in it. I was brooding over Mary and the Jackaroo.
"I"ve heard of men getting down over their horse"s head," said Dave presently, in a reflective sort of way--"in fact I"ve done it myself--but I never saw a man get off backwards over his horse"s rump."