Lady Bridget had turned very white. She stared at him as if he had been a ghost, and at first seemed unable to speak. But her confusion lasted only a few seconds. Almost before he had finished his sentence she had pulled herself together. Her hand was in his, and she spoke in her old fluty voice and little grand manner, with the old slow, faintly whimsical smile on her lips and in her eyes. It came over McKeith that he had not of late been familiar with this aspect of her, and that she was exhibiting to this man the same strange charm of her girlhood which had been to him, in the full fervour of his devotion, so wonderful and worshipful, but of which--he knew it now--the Bush had to a great extent robbed her.
She laughed as she withdrew her hand from that of the newcomer. And standing on the steps, her head almost on a level with his, met his eyes with challenging directness.
"Really, Mr Maule, you shouldn"t startle a nervous creature in that uncanny way--appearing like the unmentionable Personage or the angel if you prefer it, only with this difference, that we weren"t speaking of you. I hadn"t the most distant notion that you were on this side of the equator. If my husband had mentioned your name I should not have been so taken by surprise."
"Were you really so surprised? I thought I MUST have sent my shadow on before me--because I"ve been thinking so tremendously of you these last few days, and of the prospect of seeing you again. I daresay you know,"
he added, turning politely to McKeith--"that I had the pleasure of meeting your wife when she was Lady Bridget O"Hara, one winter at Rome, with her cousins, Lord and Lady Gaverick. And later, we saw something of each other in London."
"No, my husband doesn"t know," Bridget gave a reckless laugh, and her eyes challenged those of McKeith before he could answer. "You see, Colin and I, when we married, came from opposite poles geographically, morally and mentally. He did not understand or care about my old environment any more than I understood--or cared about his. So we agreed to bury our respective pasts in oblivion. Don"t you think it was a good plan?"
"Quite admirable. I admire your mutual courage in adopting it."
"You think so! It has its drawbacks, though," said McKeith dryly. "I must apologise for having left you to announce yourself. The fact is, those Blacks put other things out of my head. They had to be taught they couldn"t disobey orders without being punished for it."
"Poor wretches! Yes! I know the popular idea of a.s.serting British supremacy over coloured races, by the force of the whip. I have not always seen it answer; but then my experience has been with natives rather higher in the scale of evolution than the Australian aboriginal."
"You believe in the power of kindness--as I do," exclaimed Lady Bridget. "My husband and I take different views on that subject. But we need not discuss them now. Come and have some tea, and tell me about the Tallants."
Maule followed her to the door of the living room where she turned to give some orders to Maggie, the maid-servant, and to the Chinese cook.
McKeith went off with Harris to see after the horses and have a talk with Ninnis at the stockyards. Thus, Maule was left alone for a few minutes to study and form his own opinion as to Lady Bridget"s setting.
She was a woman who, whatever her surroundings, must always impress them with her personality. This bush parlour was original in its simplicity. Walls lined with unvarnished wood which was mellowing already to a soft golden brown. Boards bare, but for a few rugs and skins. A fine piece of tappa from the Solomons, of barbaric design in black and orange, made the centre of an arrangement of South Sea Island and aboriginal weapons. Divans heaped with cushions flanked the great fireplace. Two writing-tables occupied s.p.a.ces between French windows--one the desk of a business-like roll-top escritoire; the other, the flap of a Chippendale bureau, with a Chippendale arm-chair before it. There were a few other pieces unmistakable English. In fact, Eliza Countess of Gaverick, in addition to a handsome present of plate, had sent her niece the furnishings of her old room at Castle Gaverick.
A few pictures and etchings hung on the other walls--among them several wild seascapes--reminding one a little of Richard Doyle"s exquisite water colours--in which green billows and foamy wave-crests took the shape of sea-fairies. Also some weird tree studies--mostly gum and gidia, where gnarled limbs and bulbous protuberances turned into the faces of gnomes and the forms of strange monsters. Maule had no doubt that these were Lady Bridget"s own. There was an upright grand piano--the alleged cause of Steadbolt"s conversion to Unionism, and all about the place a litter of newspapers, books and work. The room was filled with flowers--sheaves of wattle and of the pale sandal-wood blossoms, as well as many sub-tropical blooms with which he was not familiar. Blending with, yet dominating the mixture of perfumes, a peculiar scent resembling incense, appealed to him; and this he did not a first trace to a log of sandal-wood smouldering on the open hearth more for effect than warmth, for the early spring evenings had scarcely a touch of chill. The French windows stood open to the veranda, a room in itself with its many squatters" chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, stretched the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the lagoon taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It seemed an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady Bridget he had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him had been that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of Great Britain, decadent perhaps, but "in the swim."
She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light, rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined him.
"I"ve been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits.
You won"t find a spring mattress--or water laid on--or any other convenience of civilisation."
"May I remind you that I"ve roughed it pretty well in the Andes."
"Yes, but you have had so many luxuries since then that you will have forgotten what roughing it feels like--just as I"ve forgotten now that I was ever anything but a barbarian--I see you shave still."
"Yes--why?"
"Only that I discovered just now the white ants had eaten all the woodwork of the spare-room looking-gla.s.s. The thing crumbled in my hand and fell on the floor and was broken. A bad omen for your visit, isn"t it?"
"I hope not. So you are superst.i.tious as ever?"
"I haven"t ceased to be a Celt--though I"ve become a barbarian. I"ll borrow the overseer"s looking gla.s.s for you."
"Pray don"t. I"ve got one of sorts in my razor case. Is dinner regarded in the Never-Never as a sacred ceremonial?"
"The men don"t put on dress clothes, if that"s what you mean. As for the repast, for a long time, as a rule, the menu was salt junk and pumpkin. We"ve improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields--there was another rush at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN Ca.s.sEROLE. If you make believe very hard you might possible imagine it young venison.... Here, Kuppi!" The Malay boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on the table between the fire and the window.
"Tea," she asked, "or would you rather have whiskey and water? I can"t offer you soda water because, till the drays come, we have nothing to run the seltzogene with.... Do you know that the Unionists cut our dray horses" throats? We"re lucky to have whiskey in the store. They broke open the cases of spirits and stole a lot of things.... Vicissitudes of savage life, you see!"
She rattled on, scarcely pausing. She was seated on a divan, the tea before her--he in a squatter"s chair with long arms, in which he sat silent, leaning forward, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes fixed upon her. She avoided looking at him. Her small sun-browned hands fidgeted among the cups. If anything remained of her anger and emotion, she hid it under a ripple of absurd housewifely chatter, not waiting for him to answer.
"Well, is it to be tea or whiskey?"
"Tea, please," and then at last she stopped and looked at him and could not turn her eyes away, or did not want to do so. His black orbs stared with a disquieting fixity--a sort of inhuman power--from out of his foreign-looking face. That stare was his chief weapon in the subjugation of women--they called it magnetic, and no doubt it was so.
It increased the fascination of his ugly good looks.
The gaze of each one seemed to fuse in that of the other. Hers, at first coldly curious, tentative, caught light, warmth, intensity from the sombre fire of his. Suddenly he said:
"In G.o.d"s name, Biddy, how did you come to marry that rough brute."
"IS he a rough brute! It"s very rude of you to say so. But do you know, just for a half minute to-day, I rather thought so myself. I don"t pretend to agree with Colin"s methods of treating the Blacks, though I"m told it"s the only way to treat them--you know they did commit terrible atrocities up here.... Still to flog a black man, a wild, warlike, human creature, seems to me nearly as bad as shooting him. Do you know--the first thing I ever heard about Colin was that he had a great many notches on his gun, and that each one meant a wild black-fellow that he had shot dead."
"And now he flogs tame ones," Maule observed quietly. Her brilliant eyes searched his face for a sign of malevolent sarcasm, but not a muscle quivered. Her own eyes wavered under his steady look. She busied herself among the tea things.
"Sugar?"
"Please."
But she paused, the tongs balanced in her delicate fingers.
"It is frightfully thrilling--life in the Bush."
"What part of it? The shooting or the flogging?"
She burst out: "You know I hated that. You know I was furious about the flogging. You know"--She pulled herself up.
"I know nothing--except that you must have changed enormously in a very short time to have been thrilled with anything but horror--by that sort of thing."
"Yes, I have changed. But it isn"t time that changes one. Time never counts with me. It"s only feeling that counts. Oh, of course, I think it all horrible--about the Blacks up North. They"re not allowed on this station--except one or two half civilised stock-boys--and this one fell in love and carried off his gin, and brought her here against my husband"s orders."
"Yes? And you had befriended them--I gathered that. But it doesn"t explain YOU."
She took up a piece of sugar with the tongs, holding it suspended as she spoke, jerkily.
"Why should I be explained? As for my finding life in the Bush thrilling.... I was dead sick of falsities when I left England, I wanted to be thrilled by something real."
"And you found that--in your husband?"
"Yes; I did. He IS real, at least. He is true to himself. So few men have the strength of their goodness or the courage of their badness, when it comes to a big test."
"Oh! I grant you. Yes; I know that"s what you"re thinking. I wasn"t true to myself in the big test.... But YOU were to blame for my having been false to the higher ideal."
"I! Oh--what makes you--" But she thought better of the impetuous questions that trembled on her lips, and went on in a different tone.
"What does that matter! I"m not saying anything about high ideals. What is high? .... What is low? .... You"ve just got to invoke truth and freedom--as far as your conception of them goes.... And there"s a reason for Colin"s hatred of the Blacks."
"Ah! Is it permitted to ask the reason?"
"His family were all ma.s.sacred by the natives--father, mother, sisters--all. Well, one admires a man steadfast in revenge--going straight for what he wants--and getting it--doing it--in love or in hate. Now I have answered your question."
The gesture of her head seemed a defiance. She dropped the sugar into his tea, and he took the cup from her hands, and slowly drank it without saying a word.