But he had to gauge Mary's disposition. He saw how much she was a social thing: how much, even, she was Lord Haworth's granddaughter. And how little she was that other thing.
But it was a battle, a long, slow subtle battle. And he loved a fight, even a long, invisible one.
In the ballroom the A. D. C. pounced on him.
When he was free again, he looked round for Mary. It was the sixteenth dance, and she was being well nursed. When the dance was over, he went calmly and sat between her and Aunt Matilda on a red gilt sofa. Things were a little stiff. Even Mary was stiff.
He looked at her programme. The next dance was a polka, and she was not engaged.
"You are free for this dance?" he said.
"Yes, because of my foot," she said firmly. He could see she too was on Aunt Matilda's side, for the moment.
"I can dance a polka. Come and dance it with me," he said.
"And my foot?"
He didn't answer, merely looked her in the face. And she rose.
They neither of them ever forgot that absurd, jogging little dance.
"I must speak to you, Mary," he said.
"What about?"
"Would you really like to live on a farm?"
"I think I should."
The conversation was rather jerky and breathless.
"In two years I can have a farm," he said.
She was silent for some time. Then she looked into his eyes, with her queer, black, humble-seeming eyes. She was thinking of all the grandeur of being Mrs. Boyd Blessington. It attracted her a great deal. At the same time, something in her soul fell prostrate, when Jack looked straight into her. Something fell prostrate, and she couldn't help it. His eyes had a queer power in them.
"In two years I can have a farm—a good one," he said.
She only gazed into his eyes with her queer, black, fascinated gaze.
The dance was over. Aunt Matilda was tapping Jack's wrist with her fan and saying:
"Yes, Mr. Blessington, do be so good as to take Mary down to supper."
Supper was over. It was the twentieth dance. Jack had been introduced to a sporting girl in her late twenties. She treated him like a child, and talked quite amusingly. Tom called her a "barrack hack."
Mr. Blessington went by with Mary on his arm.
"Mary," said Jack, "do you know Miss Brackley?"
Mary stopped and was smilingly introduced. Miss Brackley at once pounced amusingly upon Mr. Blessington.
"I want to speak to you," Jack said once more to Mary. "Behind the curtain of the third window."
He glanced at the red, ponderous plush curtain he meant. Mary looked frightened into his eyes, then glanced too. Mr. Blessington, extricating himself, walked on with Mary.
Jack looked round for Tom. That young man was having a drink, at the supper extra. Jack left the Barrack Hack for a moment.
"Tom," he said. "Will you stand by me in anything I say or do?"
"I will," said the glistening, scarlet-faced Tom, who was away on the gay high seas of exaltation.
"Get up a rubber of whist for Aunt Matilda. I know she'd like one. Will you?"
"Before you c'n say Wiggins," replied Tom, laughing as he always did when he was tipsy.
"And I say, Tom, you care for Mary, don't you? Would you provide a home for her if she was wanting one?"
"I'd marry Mary if she'd 'ave me 'n I hadn't got a wife."
"Shut up!"
Tom broke into a laugh.
"Don't go back on me, Tom."
"Never, s'elp me bob."
"Get a move on then, and arrange that whist."
He sent him off with the Barrack Hack. And then he watched Mary. She still was walking with Mr. Blessington. They were not dancing. She knew Jack was watching her, and she was nervous. He watched her more closely.
And at the third window she fluttered, staggered a little, let go Mr. Blessington's arm, and turned round to gather up her skirt behind. She pretended she had torn a hem. She pretended she couldn't move without a pin. She asked to be steered into the alcove. She sent Mr. Blessington away into the ladies' dressing-room, for a pin.
And when he came back with it, she was gone.
Jack, outside in the night, was questioning her.
"Has Mr. Blessington proposed to you yet?"
"No."
"Don't let him. Would you really be happy on a farm,—even if it was rather hard work?"
He had to look down on her very steadfastly as he asked this. And she was slow in answering, and the tears came into her eyes before she murmured:
"Yes."
He was touched, and the same dominating dark desire came over him again. He held her fast in his arms, fast and silent. The desire was dark and powerful and permanent in him.
"Can you wait for me, even two years?" he asked.
"Yes," she murmured faintly.
His will was steady and black. He knew he could wait.
"In two years I shall have a farm for you to live on," he said. And he kissed her again, with the same dark, permanent passion.
Then he sent her off again.
He went and found Mr. George, in the card room. There was old Aunt Matilda, playing for her life, her diamonds twinkling but her fan laid aside.
"We're going to Wandoo to-morrow morning, Sir," said Jack.
"That's right, lad," said Mr. George.
"I say, Sir, won't you do Tom a kindness?" said Jack. "You're coming down yourself one day this week, aren't you?"
"Yes, I shall be down on Wednesday or Thursday."
"Bring Mary down with you. Make her Aunt Matilda let her come. Tom's awfully gone on her, and when he sees her with Boyd Blessington he straightway goes for a drink. I don't think she's suited for Mr. Blessington, do you, Sir? He's nearly old enough to be her father. And Tom's the best fellow in the world, and Mary's the one he cares for. If nothing puts him out and sends him wrong, there's not a better fellow in the world."
Mr. George blew nose, prrhed! and bahed! and was in a funk. He feared Aunt Matilda. He was very fond of Mary, might even have married her himself, but for the ridicule. He liked Tom Ellis. He didn't care for men like Blessington. And he was an emotional old Australian.
"That needs thinking about! That needs thought!" he said.
Not the next day, but the day following that, the boys drove away from Perth in a new sulky, with a horse bought from Jimmie Short. And Mr. George had promised to come on the coach the day after, with Mary.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WELCOME AT WANDOO
"Things change," said Jack, as he and Tom drove along in the sulky, "and they never go back to what they were before."
"Seems like they don't," said Tom uneasily.
"And men change," continued Jack. "I have changed, and I shall never go back to what I was before."
"Oh dry up," said the nervous Tom. "You're just the blanky same."
Both boys felt a load on their spirits, now they were actually on the road home. They hated the load too.
"We're going to make some change at Wandoo," said Tom. "I wish I could leave Ma on the place. But Mr. George says she absolutely refuses to stay, and he says I've not got to try an' force her. He sortta winked at me, and told me I should want to be settlin' down myself. I wondered what 'n hell he meant. Y'aven't let on nothing about that Honeysuckle trip, have y'? I don't mean to insult you by askin', but it seemed kinder funny like."
"No," said Jack. "I've not breathed Honeysuckle to a soul, and never will. You get it off your mind—it's nothing."
"Well, then, I dunno what he meant. I told him I hadn't made a bean anyhow. An' I asked him what 'n hell Ma was goin' ter live on. He seemed a bit down in the mouth about 'er himself, old George did. Fair gave me the bally hump. Wisht I was still up north, strike me lucky I do.
"We've been gone over two years, yet I feel I've never been away, an' yet I feel the biggest stranger in the world, comin' back to what's supposed to be me own house. I hate havin' ter come, because o' the bloomin' circumstances. Why 'n hell couldn't Ma have had the place for while she lived, an' me be comin' back to her and the kids? Then I shouldn't feel sortta sick about it. But as it is—it fair gets me beat. Lennie'll resent me, an' Katie an' Monica'll hate havin' ter get inter a smaller house, an' the twins an' Harry an' the little ones don' matter so much, but I do worry over pore ol' Ma."
There he was with a blank face, driving the pony homewards. He hadn't worried over pore ol' Ma till this very minute, on the principle "out of sight, out of mind." Now he was all strung up.
"Y' know, Jack," he said, "I kinder don' want Wandoo. I kinder don' want to be like Dad, settlin' down with a heap o' responsibilities an' kids an' all that. I kinder don' want it."
"What do you want?" said Jack.
"I'd rather knock about with you for me mate, Jack, I'd a sight rather do that."
"You can't knock about forever," said Jack.
"I don' know whether you can or you can't. I only know I never knew my own mother. I only know she never lived at Wandoo. She never raised me there. I bet she lugged me through the bush. An' when all comes to all, I'd rather do the same. I don' want Dad's property. I don' want that Ellis property. Seems ter me bad luck. What d' yer think?"
"I should think it depends on you," said Jack.
"I should think it does. Anyhow shall you stop with me, an' go shares in the blinkin' thing?"
"I don't know," said Jack.
He was thinking that soon he would see Monica. He was wondering how she would be. He was wondering if she was ready for him, or if she would have a thousand obstacles around her. He was wondering if she would want him to plead and play the humble and say he wasn't good enough for her. Because he wouldn't do it. Not if he never saw her again. All that flummery of love he would not subscribe to. He would not say he adored her, because he didn't adore her. He was not the adoring sort. He would not make up to her, and play the humble to her, because it insulted his pride. He didn't feel like that, and he never would feel like that, not towards any woman on earth. Even Mary, once he had declared himself, would fetch up her social tricks and try to bring him to his knees. And he was not going down on his knees, not for half a second, not to any woman on earth, nor to any man either. Enough of this kneeling flummery.
He stood fast and erect on his two feet, that had travelled many wild miles. And fast and erect he would continue to stand. Almost he wished he could be clad in iron armour, inaccessible. Because the thought of women bringing him down and making him humble himself, before they would give themselves to him, this turned his soul black.
Monica! He didn't love her. He didn't feel the slightest bit of sentimental weakening towards her. Rather when he thought of her his muscles went stiffer and his soul haughtier. It was not he who must bow the head. It was she.
Because he wanted her. With a deep, arrowy desire, and a long, lasting dark desire, he wanted her. He wanted to take her apart from all the world, and put her under his own roof.
But he didn't want to plead with her, or weep before her, or adore her, or humbly kiss her feet. The very thought of it made his blood curdle and go black. Something had happened to him in the Never-Never. Before he went over the border he might have been tricked into a surrender to this soft and hideous thing they called love. But now, he would have love in his own way, haughtily, passionately, and darkly, with dark, arrowy desire, and a strange, arrowly-submissive woman: either this, or he would not have love at all.
He thought of Monica and sometimes the thought of her sent him black with anger. And sometimes, as he thought of her wild, delicate, reckless, lonely little profile, a hot tenderness swept over him, and he felt he would envelop her with a fierce and sheltering tenderness, like a scarlet mantle.
So long as she would not fight against him, and strike back at him. Jeer at him, play with Easu in order to insult him. Not that, my God, not that.
As for Mary, a certain hate of her burned in him. The queer heavy stupid conceit with which she had gone off to dance with Boyd Blessington, because he was an important social figure. Mary, wanting to live on a farm, but at the same time absolutely falling before the social glamour of a Blessington, and becoming conceited on the strength of it. Inside herself, Mary thought she was very important, thought that all sorts of eternal destinies depended on her choice and her actions. Even Jack, was nothing more than an instrument of her divine importance.
He had sensed this clearly enough. And it was this that made Aunt Matilda a bit spiteful against her, when she said that Mary was "heavy" and wouldn't easily get a man.
But there was also the queer black look in Mary's eyes, that was outside her conceit and her social importance. The queer, almost animal dark glisten, that was full of fear and wonder, and vulnerability. Like the look in the eyes of a caught wild animal. Or the look in the shining black eyes of one of the aborigines, especially the black woman looking askance in a sort of terror at a white man, as if a white man was a sort of devil that might possess her.
Where had Mary got that queer aboriginal look, she the granddaughter of an English earl?
"Y're real lively to-day, aintcher, Jack? Got a hundred quid for your birthday, and my, some talk!"
"Comes to that," said Jack, rousing himself with difficulty. "We've come fifteen or twenty miles without you opening your mouth either."
Tom laughed shortly and relapsed into silence.
"Well," he said, "let's wake up now, there's the outlying paddock." He pointed with his whip.—"And there's the house through the dip in the valley!" Then suddenly in a queer tone: "Say, matey, don't it look lovely from here, with all that afternoon sun falling over it like snow . . . You think I've never seen snow: but I have, in my dream."
Jack's heart contracted as he jumped down to open the first gate. For him too, the strange fulness of the yellow afternoon light was always unearthly, at Wandoo. But the day was still early, just after dinner-time, for they had stayed the night half way.
"Looks in good trim, eh?" said Jack.
"So it does! All" replied Tom. "Mr. George says Ma done wonders. Made it pay hand over fist. Y'remember that fellow, Pink-eye Percy, what come from Queensland, and had studied agriculture an' was supposed to be a bad egg an' all that? At that 'roo hunt, you remember? Well, he bought land next to Wandoo, off-side from the Reds. An' Ma sortta broke wi' the Reds over something, an' went in wi' him, an't' seems they was able to do wonders. Anyway Old George says Ma's been able to buy a little place near her own old home in Beverley, to go to.—But seems to me—"
"What?"
"Funny how little anyone tells you, Jack."
"How?"
"I felt I couldn't get to th' bottom of what old George was tellin' me. I took no notice then. But it seems funny now. An' I say—"
"What?"
"You'd 'a thought Monica or Katie might ha' driven to the Cross Roads for us, like we used to in Dad's days."
"Yes, I thought one of them would have been there."
The boys drove on, in tense silence, through the various gates. They could see the house ahead.
"There's Timothy," said Tom.
The old black was holding open the yard gate. He seemed to have almost forgotten Jack, but the emotion in his black, glistening eyes was strange, as he stared with strange adoration at the young master. He caught Tom's hand in his two wrinkled dark hands, as if clinging to life itself.
The twins ran out, waved, and ran back. Katie appeared, looking bigger, heavier, more awkward than ever. Tom patted Timothy's hands again, then went across and kissed Katie, who blushed with shyness.
"Where's Ma, Katie?"
"In the parlour."
Tom broke away, leaving Katie blushing in front of Jack. Jack was thinking how queer and empty the house seemed. And he felt an outsider again. He stayed outside, sat down on the bench.
A boy much bigger than Harry, but with the same blue eyes and curly hair, appeared chewing a haystalk, and squatted on a stone near by. Then Og and Magog, a bit taller, but no thinner, came and edged on to the seat. Then Ellie, a long-legged little girl, came running to his knees. And then what had been Baby, but was now a fat, toddling little girl, came racing out, fearless and inconsequential as the twins had been.
"Where's Len?" said Jack.
"He's in the paddock seein' to th' sheep," said Harry.
There was a queer tense silence. The children seemed to cling round Jack for male protection.
"We're goin' to' live nearer in to th' township now," said Harry, "in a little wee sortta house."
He stared with bold blue eyes, unwinking and yet not easy, straight into Jack's eyes.
"Well Harry," said Jack, "You've grown quite a man."
"I hev so!" said Harry: "Quite the tyke! I ken kill birds for Ma to put in th' pot I ken skin a kangaroo. I ken—"
But Jack didn't hear what else, because Tom was calling him from the doorway. He went slowly across.
"Say, mate," said Tom in a low tone. "Stand by me. Things is not all right." Aloud he said: "Ma wants t' see ye, Jack."
Jack followed through the back premises, down the three steps into the parlour. It all seemed forlorn.
Ma sat with her face buried in her hands. Jack knitted his brows. Tom put his hand on her shoulder.
"What is it, Ma? What is it? I wouldn't be anything but good to yer, Ma, ye know that. Here's Jack Grant."
"Ye were always a good boy, Tom. I'm real glad t' see ye back. And Jack," said Ma through her hands.
Tom looked at Jack in dismay. Then he stooped and kissed her hair.
"You look to me," he said. "We'll fix everything all right, for Lennie 'n everybody."
But Ma still kept her face between her hands.
"There's nothing t' worry about, Ma, sure there isn't," persisted the distracted Tom. "I want y't' have everything you want, I do, you an' Lennie an' the kids."
Mrs. Ellis took her hands from her face. She looked pale and worn. She would not turn to the boys, but kept her face averted.
"I know you're as good a boy as ever lived," she faltered. Then she glanced quickly at Tom and Jack, the tears began to run down her face, and she threw her apron over her head.
"God's love!" gasped the bursting Tom, sinking on a chair.
They all waited in silence. Mrs. Ellis suddenly wiped her face on her apron and turned with a wan smile to the boys.
"I've saved enough to buy a little place near Beverley, which is where I belong," she said. "So me and the children are all right. And I've got my eye, at least Lennie's got his on a good selection east of here, between this and my little house, for Lennie. But we want cash for that, I'm afraid. Only it's not that. That's not it."
"Lennie's young yet to take up land, Ma!" Tom plunged in. "Why won't he stop here and go shares with me?"
"He wants to get married," said the mother wanly.
"Get married! Len! Why he's only seventeen!"
At this very natural exclamation, Ma threw her apron over her head, and began to cry once more.
"He's been so good," she sobbed. "He's been so good! And his Ruth is old enough and sensible enough for two. Better anything—" with more sobbing—"than another scandal in the family."
Tom rubbed his head. Gosh! It was no joke being the head of a family!
"Well, Ma, if you wish it, what's the odds? But I'm afraid it'll have to wait a bit. Jack'll tell you I haven't any cash. Not a stiver, Ma! Blown out! It takes it outter yer up North. We never struck it rich."
Mrs. Ellis, under her apron, wept softly.
"Poor little Lennie! Poor little Lennie! He's been so good, Tom, working day and night. And never spending a shilling. All his learning gone for nought, Tom, and him a little slave, at his years, old and wise enough to be his father, Tom. And he wants to get married. If we could start him out fair! The new place has only four rooms and an out-kitchen, and there's not enough to keep him, much less a lady wife. She's a lady earning her bread teaching. He could go to Grace's. Alec Rice would have him. But—"
She had taken her apron off her face, and was staring averted at the door leading into Gran's old room.
The two boys listened mystified and a little annoyed. Why all this about Lennie? Jack was wondering where Monica was. Why didn't she come? Why wasn't she mentioned? And why was Ma so absolutely downcast, on the afternoon of Tom's home-coming? It wasn't fair on Tom.
"Where is Monica?" asked Jack shyly at last.
But Mrs. Ellis only shook her head faintly and was mute, staring across at Gran's door.
"Lennie married!" Tom was brooding. "Y'll have to put it out of y'r mind for a bit, Ma. Why, it wouldn't hardly be decent."
"Let him marry if he's set on it—an' the girl's a good girl," said Mrs. Ellis, her eyes swamping with tears again, and her voice breaking as she rocked herself again.
"Yes, if we could afford it," Tom hastily put in. And he raised his stunned eyes to Jack. Jack shrugged, and looked in the empty fireplace, and thought of the little fires Gran used to have.
Money! Money! Money! The moment you entered within four walls it was the word money, and your mouth full of ashes.
And then again something hardened in his soul. All his life he had been slipping away from the bugbear of money. It was no good. You had to turn round and get a grip on the miserable stuff. There was nothing else for it. Though money nauseated him, he now accepted the fact that he must have control over money, and not try just to slip by.
He began to repent of having judged Gran. That little old witch of a Gran, he had hated the way she had seemed to hoard money and gloat in the secret possession of it. But perhaps she knew, somebody must control it, somebody must keep a hand over it. Like a deadly weapon. Money! Property! Gran fighting for them, to bequeath them to the man she loved.
Perhaps she too had really hated money. She wouldn't make a will. Neither would Dad. Their secret repugnance for money and possessions. But you had to have property, else you were down and out. The men you loved had to have property, or they were down and out. Like Lennie!
Poor old plucky Gran, fighting for her man. It was all a terrible muddle anyhow. But he began to understand her motive.
Yes, if Len had got a girl into trouble and wanted to marry her, the best he could do would be to have money and buy himself a little place. Otherwise, heaven knows what would happen to him. With their profound indifference to the old values, these Australians seemed either to exaggerate the brutal importance of money, or they wanted to waste money altogether, and themselves along with it. This was what Gran feared: that her best male heirs would go and waste themselves, as Jacob had begun to waste himself. The generous ones would just waste themselves, because of their profound mistrust of the old values.
Better rescue Lennie for the little while it was still possible to rescue him. Jack's mind turned to his own money. And then, looking at that inner door, he seemed to see Gran's vehement figure, pointing almost viciously with her black stick. She had tried so hard to drive the wedge of her meaning into Jack's consciousness. And she had failed. He had refused to take her meaning.
But now with a sigh that was almost a groan, he took up the money burden. The "stocking" she had talked about, and which he had left in the realms of unreality, was an actuality. That witch Gran, with her uncanny, hateful second sight, had put by a stocking for Lennie, and entrusted the secret of it to Jack. And he had refused the secret. He hated those affairs.
Now he must assume the mysterious responsibility for this money. He got up and went to the chimney, and peered into the black opening. Then he began to feel carefully along the side of the chimney-stack inside, where there was a ledge. His hand went deep in soot and charcoal and grey ash.
He took off his coat and rolled up his sleeve.
"Gone off y'r bloomin' nut, Jack?" asked Tom, mystified.
"Gran told me she had put a stocking for Len in here," said Jack.
"Stocking be blowed!" said Tom testily. "We've heard that barm-stick yarn before. Leave it alone, boy."
He was looking at Jack's bare, brown, sinewy arm. It reminded him of the great North-West, and the heat, and the work, and the absolute carelessness. This money and stocking business was like a mill-stone round his neck. He felt he was gradually being drowned in soot, as Jack continued to fumble up inside the chimney, and the soot poured down over the naked arm.
"Oh, God's love, leave it alone, Jack!" he cried.
"Let him try," said Mrs. Ellis quietly. "If Gran told him. I wonder he didn't speak before."
"I never really thought about it," said Jack.
"Don't think about it now!" shouted Tom.
Jack could feel nothing in the chimney. He looked contemplatively at the fireplace. Something drew him to the place near Gran's arm-chair ... He began feeling, while the other two watched him in a state of nervous tension. Tom hated it.
"She pointed here with her stick," said Jack.
There was a piece of tin fastened over the side of the fireplace, and black-leaded.
"Mind if we try behind this?" he asked.
"Leave it alone!" cried Tom.
But Jack pulled it out, and the ash and dirt and soot poured down over the hearth. Behind the sheet of thin iron was the naked stone of the chimney-piece. Various stones were loose: that was why Gran had had the tin sheet put over.
He got out of the cavity behind the stones, where the loose mortar had all crumbled, a little square dusty box that had apparently been an old tea-caddy. It was very heavy for its size, and very dirty. He put it on the table in front of Mrs. Ellis. Tom got up excitedly to look in. He opened the lid. It was full to the brim of coins, gold coins and silver coins and dust and dirt, and a sort of spider filament. He shook his head over it.
"Isn't that old Gran to a T!" he exclaimed, and poured out the dust and the money on the table.
Ma began eagerly to pick out the gold from the silver, saying:
"I remember when she made Dad put that iron plate up. She said insects came out and worried her."
Ma only picked out the gold pieces, the sovereigns and half-sovereigns. She left Tom to sort the silver crowns and half-crowns into little piles. Jack watched in silence. There was a smell of soot and old fire-dust, and everybody's hands were black.
Mrs. Ellis was putting the sovereigns in piles of ten. She had a queer sort of satisfaction, but her gloom did not really lift. Jack stayed to know how much it was. Mentally he counted the piles of gold she made: the pale washy gold of Australia, most of it. She counted and counted again.
"Two hundred and fourteen pounds!" she said in a low voice.
"And ten in silver," said Tom.
"Two hundred and twenty-four pounds," she said.
"It's not the world," said Tom, "but it's worth having. It's a start, Ma. And you can't say that isn't Lennie's."
Jack went out and left them. He listened in all the rooms downstairs. What he wanted to know about was Monica. He hated this family and family money business, it smelled to him of death. Where was Monica? Probably, to add to the disappointment, she was away, staying with Grace.
The house sounded silent. Upstairs all was silent. It felt as if nobody was there.
He went out and across the yard to the stable. Lucy whinnied. Jack felt she knew him. The nice, natural old thing: Tom would have to christen her afresh. At least this Lucy wouldn't leave a stocking behind her when she was dead. She was much too clean. Ah, so much nicer than that other Lucy with her unpleasant perspiration, away in Honeysuckle.
Jack stood a long while with the sensitive old horse. Then he went round the out-buildings, looking for Lennie. He drifted back to the house, where Harry was chopping something with a small hatchet.
"Where's Monica, Harry?" he asked.
"She's not home," said Harry.
"Where's she gone?"
"Dunno."
And the resolute boy went on with his chopping.
Tom came out, calling. "I'm going over to have a word wi' th' Reds, Jack. Cornin' with me?"
Tom didn't care for going anywhere alone, just now. Jack joined him.
"Where's Monica, Tom?" he asked.
"Ay, where is she?" said Tom, looking round as if he expected her to appear from the thin air.
"She's not at home, anyhow," said Jack.
"She's gone off to Grace's, or to see somebody, I expect," said Tom, as they walked across the yard. "And Len is out in the paddocks still. He don't seem in no hurry to come an' meet us, neither. The little cuss! Fancy that nipper wantin' to be spliced. Gosh, I'll bet he's old for his age, the little old wallaby! An' that bloomin' teacher woman, Ruth, why she's older'n me. She oughtta be ashamed of herself, kidnappin' that nipper."
The two went side by side across the pasture, almost as if they were free again. They came to a stile.
"Gosh!" said Tom. "They've blocked up this gate, 'n put a stile over, see! Think o' that!"
They climbed the stile and continued their way.
"God's love, boy, didn't we land in it over our heads! Ever see Ma like that? I never! Good for you, Jack, lad, findin' that tea-caddy. That's how the Ellises are—ain't it the devil! 'Spect I take after my own mother, f'r I'm not in the tea-caddyin' line. Ma's cheered up a bit. She'll be able to start Lennie in a bit of a way, now, 'n the twins can wait for a bit, thank goodness! My, but ain't families lively! Here I come back to be boss of this bloomin' place, an' I feel as if I was goin' to be shot. Say, boy, d'ye think I'm really spliced to that water-snake in Honeysuckle? Because I s'll have to have somebody on this outfit. Alone I will not face it. Say, matey, promise me you won't leave me till I'm fixed up a bit. Give me your word you'll stand by me here for a time, anyhow."
"I'll stay for a time," said Jack.
"Righto! an' then if I'm not copped by the Honeysuckle bird—'appen Mary might have me, what d'you think? I shall have to have somebody. I simply couldn't stand this place, all by my lonesome. What d'you think about Mary? D'you think she'd like it, here?"
"Ask her," said Jack grimly.
CHAPTER XX
THE LAST OF EASU
I
They knew that Easu was married, but they were hardly prepared for the dirty baby crawling on the verandah floor. Easu had seen them come through the gate, and was striding across to meet them, after bawling something in his bullying way to someone inside the house: presumably his wife.
Outwardly, he was not much altered. Yet there was an undefinable change for the worse. He was one of those men whom marriage seems to humiliate, and to make ugly. As if he despised himself for being married.
Easu ignored the baby as if it were not there, striding past into the house, leading the newcomers into the parlour. It was darkened in there, to keep out the flies; but he pulled up the blind: "t'see their blanky fisogs." And he called out to the missus to bring glasses.
The parlour was like most parlours. Enlarged photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, the Red parents, in large pine frames, on the wall. A handsome china clock under a glass case on the mantelpiece, with flanking vases to match, on fawn-and-red woollen crochet mats. An oval, rather curvy table in the middle of the room, with the family Bible, and the meat under a fly-proof wire cover. The parlour was the coolest place for the meat.
Easu shifted the red obnoxity, wire cover and all, to the top of a cupboard where some cups and saucers were displayed, and drew forth a demijohn of spirit from the back of the horse-hair sofa, in front of the window.
Mrs. Easu came in with the glasses. She was a thin, pale-faced young woman with big dark eyes and her hair in huge curling pins, and a hostile bearing. She took no notice of the visitors: only let her big what-do-you-want eye pass over them with distaste beneath her bald forehead. It was her fixed belief that whoever came to the house came to get something, if they could. And they were not going to get it out of her. She made an alliance with Easu so far. But her rather protruding teeth and her vindictive mouth showed that Easu would get as many bites as kisses.
She set the glasses from her hands on to the table, and looked down at Easu under her pale lashes.
"What else d'ye want?" she asked rudely.
"Nothing. If I want anything I'll holloa."
They seemed to be on terms of mutual rudeness. She had been quite an heiress: brought Easu a thousand pounds. But the way she said it—a tharsand parnds!—as if it was something absolutely you couldn't get beyond, made even Easu writhe. She was common, to put it commonly. She spoke in a common way, she thought in a common way, and she acted in a common way. But she had energy, and even a vulgar suffisance. She thought herself as good as anybody, and a bit better, on the strength of the tharsand parnds!
"'S not eddication as matters, it's munney!" she said blatantly to Lennie. "At your age y'ought t'ave somethink in th' bank."
He of course hated the sight of her after that. She had looked at him with a certain superciliousness and contempt in her conceited brown eyes, because he had no money and was supposed to be clever. He never forgave her.
But what did she care! She jerked up her sharp-toothed mouth, and sailed away. She wasn't going to be put down by any penniless snobs. The Ellises! Who were the Ellises? Yes, indeed! They thought themselves so superior. Could they draw a tharsand parnd? Pah!
She felt a particularly spiteful, almost vindictive, scorn of Jack. He was somebody, was he? Ha! What was he worth? That was the point. How much munney did he reckon he'd got? "If yer want me ter think anythink of yer, yer mun show me yer bank-book," she said.
Easu listened and grinned, and said nothing to all this. But she had a fiery temper of her own, and they went for one another like two devils. She wasn't going to be daunted, she wasn't. She had her virtues too. She had no method, but she was clean. The place was forever in a muddle, but she was always cleaning it, almost vindictively, as if the shine on the door-knob reflected some of the tharsand parnd. Even the baby was turned out and viciously cleaned once a day. But in the intervals it groped where it would. As for herself, she was a sight this morning, with her hair in huge iron waving-pins, and her forehead and her teeth both sticking out. She looked a sight to shudder at. But wait. Wait till she was dressed up and turning out in the buggy, in a coat and skirt of thick brown cord silk with orange and black braiding, and a hugely feathered hat, with huge floating ostrich feathers, an orange one and a brown one. And her teeth sticking out and a huge brooch of a lump of gold set with pearls and diamonds, and a great gold chain. And the baby, in a silk cape with pink ribbons, and a frilled silk bonnet of alternate pink and white ruches, mercilessly held against her chains and brooches! Wait!
Therefore when Jack glanced at her from a strange distance, she tossed her bald forehead with the curling-irons, and thought to herself: "You can look, Master Jack Nobody. And you can look again, next Sunday, when I've got my proper things on. Then you'll see who's got the munney!"
She seemed to think that her Sunday gorgeousness absolutely obliterated the grimness of her week of curling pins. "Six days shall thou labour in thy curling-irons." She lived in them. They kept her hair out of the way and saved her having to do it up all the time.
And it may be that Easu never really looked at her in her teeth and pins. That was not the real Sarah Ann. The real Sarah Ann swayed with ostrich feathers; brown silk, brown and orange feathers, reddish hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and a stiff, militant, vulgar bearing that wasn't going to let anybody put it over her. "They can't put me down, whoever they are!" she asserted. "I consider myself equal to the best, and perhaps a little better."
This Easu heard and saw with curious gratification. This was his Sarah Ann.
None the less, he was no fool. He saw the baffled, surprised look Jack turned upon this grisly young woman in curlers and teeth, as if he could not quite enter her in the class of human beings. And Easu was enough of an Ellis to know what that look meant. It was a silent "Good God!" And no man, when his wife enters the room, cares to hear another man's horrified ejaculation: "Good God!" at the sight of her.
Easu wanted his wife to be common. Nevertheless, with the anomalousness of human beings, it humiliated him and put acid in his blood.
"Have a jorum!" said Easu to Tom.
"I s'd think you're not goin' to set down drinkin' at this time of day," she said, in her loud, common, interfering voice.
"What's the time of the day to you?" asked Easu acidly, as he filled Tom's glass.
"We can't stop. Mall be expecting us back," said Tom.
Easu silently filled Jack's glass, and the wife went out, banging the door. Immediately she fell upon the baby and began to vituperate the little animal for its dirt. The men couldn't hear themselves speak.
But Easu lifted up his chin and poured the liquor down his throat. He had shaved his beard, and had only three days of yellowish stubble. He smacked his lips as he set down his glass, and looked at the two boys with a sarcastic, gloating look.
"Find a few changes, eh?" he observed.
"Just a few."
"How's the place look?"
"All right."
"Make a pile up North?"
"No."
Easu grinned slowly.
"Thought you didn't need to, eh?" he asked maliciously.
"Didn't worry myself," said Tom.
"Jack Grant come in for a fortune?" Easu asked, looking at Jack.
"No," said Jack coldly. There was something about Easu's vulgar, taunting eyes, which he couldn't stand.
"Oh, you 'aven't!" The pleased sneer was unbearable.
"How's Ma?" asked Easu.
"All right," said Tom, surprised.
"Don't see much of her now," said Easu.
"No, I saw the gate was blocked up," said Tom.
"Looks like she blocked the wrong gate up."
"How?"
"How? Well don't you think she'd better have blocked up the gate over to Pink-eye Percy's place?"—Easu was smiling with thin, gloating lips.
"Why?"
"Why? Don't y' know?"
"What?"
"Don't ye know about Monica?"
Jack's blood stood still for a moment, and death entered his soul again, to stay.
"No. What?"
"Didn't Old George say nothing to y' in Perth?"
"No!" said Tom, becoming sullen and dangerous.
"Well, that's funny now! And Aunt Alice said nothing?"
"No! What about?"
Easu was smiling gloatingly, in silence, as if he had something very good.
"Well that's funny now! Think of your getting right here, and not having heard a thing! I shouldn't have thought it possible."
Tom was going white under his tan.
"What's amiss, Red?" he said curtly.
"To think as you haven't heard! Why it was the talk of the place. Ross heard all about it in Perth. Didn't you come across him there? He's been in the Force quite a while now."
"No! What was it he heard about?"
"Why, about Monica."
"What about her?"
"D'y' mean to say you don't know?"
"I tell you I don't know."
"Well!" and Easu smiled with curious, poisonous satisfaction. "I don't know as I want to be the one to tell you."
There was a moment's dead silence. The sun was setting.
"What have you got to say?" asked Tom, his face set and blank, and his mouth taking on the lipless, Australian look.
"Funny thing nobody has told you. Why it happened six or seven months since."
This was received in dead silence.
"She went off with Percy when the baby was a month old."
Again there was nothing but dead silence.
"Mean she married Pink-eye Percy?" asked Tom, in a muffled tone.
"I dunno about marryin' him. They say he's got a wife or two already: legal and otherwise. All I know is they cleared out a month after the baby was born, and went down south."
Still dead silence from the other two. The room was full of golden light. Jack was looking at the fly-dirts and the lamp-black on the ceiling. He was sitting in a horse-hair arm-chair, and the broken springs were uncomfortable, and the horse-hair scratched his wrist. Otherwise he felt vacant, and in a deathly way, remote.
"You're minding what you're saying?" came Tom's empty voice.
"Minding what I'm saying!" echoed Easu rejoicingly. "I didn't want to tell you. It was you who asked me."
"Was the baby Percy's baby?" asked Jack.
"I should say so," Easu replied, stumbling. "I never asked her, myself. They were all thick with Percy at that time, and I was married with a family of my own. Why I've not been over to Wandoo for—for—for close on two years, I should think."
"That's what was wrong with Ma!" Tom was saying, in a dull voice, to himself.
"I wonder Old George or Mary didn't prepare ye," said Easu. "They both came down before the baby came. But seemingly Old George couldn't do nothing. Percy confessing he was married, and trying to say he wasn't to blame. However, he's run off with Monica all right. Ma had a letter from her from Albany, to say there was no need to worry, Percy was playin' the gentleman."
"She never cared for him," Jack cried.
"I dunno about that. Seems she's been mad about him all the time. Maybe she waited for you to come back. I dunno! I tell you, I've never been over to Wandoo for nigh on two years."
Jack could not bear any more. The golden light had gone out of the room, the sun was under the ridge—that ridge——
"Let's get, Tom!" said Jack rising to his feet.
They stumbled out of the house, and went home in silence, through the dusk. Again the world had caved in, and they were walking through the ruins.
Ma was upstairs when they got home, but Katie had got the tea on the table, and Lennie was in. He was a tall, thin, silent, sensitive youth.
"Hullo, you two wanderin' Jews!" he said.
"Hello, Len!"
"Come an' 'ave y' teas."
Lennie was like the head of the house. They ate their meal in silence.
II
Tom and Jack and Lennie still slept in the cubby, but Og and Magog had moved indoors. The three of them lay in the dark, without sleeping.
"Say, young Len," said Tom at length, "what was you after, letting Monica get mixed up with that Pink-eye Percy?"
"Me? What was I after? How could I be after 'er every minute. She snapped my 'ead off if I looked at 'er. What for did you an' Jack stop away all that time, an' never write a word to nobody? Blame me, all right! But you go 'avin' 'igh jinks in the Never-Never, and nobody says a word to you. You never did nothing wrong, did you? An' you kep' an eye on the fam'ly, didn't you? An' it's only me to blame. 'F course! 'Twould be! But what about yourselves?"
This outburst was received in silence. Then a queer, sullen snake reared its head haughtily in Jack's soul.
"I shouldn't have thought she'd have cared for Percy," said he.
"No more would nobody," replied Len. "You never know what women's up to. Give me a steady woman, Lord, I pray. Because for the last year Monica wasn't right in 'er mind, that's what I say. It wasn't Percy's fault. It was she made 'im. She made 'im as soft as grease about 'er. Percy's not bad, he's not. But women can make him as soft as grease. An' I knows what that means myself. Either there shouldn't be no men an' women, or they should be kept apart till they're pitched into the same pen, to breed."
Tom, with Honeysuckle Lucy on his conscience, said never a word.
"Is it true that Percy's got a wife already out east?" asked Jack.
"He say he has. But he wrote to find out if she was dead. At first he said he wasn't to blame. Then he said he was, but he couldn't marry her. An' Monica like a wild cat at us all. She would let nobody write an' tell you. She went over to Reds, but Easu had just got married, an' Sarah Ann threatened to lay her out. Then she turned on Percy. I tell you, she skeered me. The phosphorus came out of her eyes like a wildcat's. She's bewitched or something. Or else possessed of a devil. That's what I think she is. Though I needn't talk, for maybe I am myself. Oh, mates, leave me alone, I'm sick of it all. Lemme go to sleep."
"What did she go over to Easu's for?"
"God knows. She'd been nosing round with Easu, till Ma got mad and put a stop to it. But that's a good while since. A good while afore Easu married the lovely Sarah Ann, with her rows o' cartridges on her forehead. Oh Cripes, marriage! Leave m'alone, I tell you."
"Funny she should go to Easu's, if she was struck on Percy," said Jack.
"Don't make me think of it, sonny!" came Len's voice. "She went round like a cat who's goin' t' have kittens, an' nobody knew what was amiss with her. Oh Jehosaphat! Talk about bein' born in sin. I should think we are. But say, Jack! Do you suppose the Lord gets awful upset, whether Monica has a baby or not? I don't believe He does. An' I don't believe Jesus either turns a hair. I don't believe. He turns half a hair. Yet we get into all this stew. Tell you what, makes a chap sick of bein' a humain bein'. Wish I grew feathers, an' was an emu."
"Don't you bother," said Jack.
"Not me," said Len. "I don't bother! Anyhow I know all about the parsley bed, 'n I don't care, I'd rather know an' have done with it. 'S got to come some time. I'm a collar-horse, I am, like ol' Rackett said. All right, let me be one. Let me be one, an' pull me guts out. Might just as well do that, as be a sick outlaw like Rackett, or a softy like Percy. Leave m'alone! I've got the collar on, an' the load behind, an' I'll pull it out if I pulls me guts out. That's the past, present an' future of Lennie."
"Where is Rackett?"
"Hanged if I know. Don't matter where he is. He wanted to educate me an' make a gentleman of me. Else I'd be nothing but a cart-'oss, he said. Well, I am nothing but a cart-'oss. But if I enjoys pullin' me guts out, let me. I enjoys it all right."
Tom lay in silence in the dark, and felt scared. He hated having to face things. He hated taking a long view. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, was his profound conviction. He hated even to look round the next corner.
"Say, Jack," came Lennie's voice again. "You always turns up like a silver lining. I got your cheques all right. Fifty-seven pound. That's only a pair o' socks, that is, compared to Gran's store. I had to have a laugh over that stockin', you're the angel that stood in Jacob's doorway an' looked like a man, you are. I'd love it if you'd come an' live with me an' Ruthie."
But Jack was thinking his own thoughts. It had come over him that it was Easu who had betrayed Monica. The picture of her wandering across like a cat that is going to have kittens, to the Red's place, and facing that fearful, common Sarah Ann, and Easu grinning and looking on, made his spirit turn to steel. Pink-eye Percy was not the father of that baby. Percy was as soft as wax. Monica would never have fallen for him. She had simply made use of him. The baby was Easu's.
"Was the baby a girl or a boy?" he asked.
"A girl."
"Did it look like Percy?"
"Not it. It didn't have any of Percy's goo-goo brown eyes or anything. Ma said it was the spitten image of Harry when he was born."
III
Jack decided what he would do. In the morning he would take the new horse and set off south, to Albany. He would see Monica and ask her. Anyhow he would see her.
He was up at dawn, saddling his horse. He told Tom of his plan, and Tom merely remarked:
"It's up to you, mate."
Tom was relapsing at once into the stiff-faced, rather taciturn Australian he had been before. The settled life on the farm at once pulled him to earth, the various calamities had brought him down with a bump.
So Jack rode off almost unnoticed, with a blanket strapped behind his saddle, and a flat water-bottle, a pistol in his belt, and a hatchet and a little bag of food tied to the front saddle-strings. Something made him turn his horse past the place where he had fought Easu, and along the bush trail to the Reds' place.
The sun had come up hot out of a pink, dusty dawn. In an hour it would be blazing like a fiend out of the bare blue heavens. Meanwhile it was still cool, there was still a faint coolness on the parched dry earth, whose very grass was turning into yellowish dust. Jack jogged along slowly, at a slow morning jog-trot. He was glad to be in the saddle again.
As he came down the track, he saw the blue smoke rising out of the chimneys of Easu's house, and a dark movement away in one of the home paddocks. He got down for the gates, then rode on, over to the paddock fence, and sat there on his horse, watching Easu and Herbert and three blacks, sorting out some steers from a bunch of about thirty cattle. They were running the steers through a gate to a smaller enclosure.
There was a good deal of yelling and shouting and running and confusion, as the bunch of young cattle, a mixed little mob of all colours, blacks and black-and-white and red and red-and-white, tossed and swayed, the young cows breaking away and running nimbly on light feet, excited by the deep, powerful lowing of the stock bull, which had wandered up to the outer corner of the fence under a group of ragged gum-trees, and there stood bellowing at the excitement that was going on in the next paddock.
Jack kept an eye on the bull, as he sat on his uneasy horse outside the shut gate, watching. Near by, two more horses stood saddled and waiting. One of them was Easu's big black mare with the two white forefeet. The other was a thin roan, probably Herbert's horse.
Herbert was quite a man now: tall and thin and broad, with a rather small red face and dull fairish hair that stood up straight from his brow. He was the only one of the brothers left with Easu. He was patient and didn't pay any attention to that scorpion of a Sarah Ann. Sam and Ross had cleared out at the first sight of her.
It was Herbert who did most of the running. Easu, who stood with his feet apart, did most of the bossing—he was never happy unless he was bossing, and finding fault with somebody—and the blacks did most of the halloaing. Easu didn't move much. He seemed to have gone heavier, and where he stood, with his feet apart and his bare arm waving, he seemed stuck, as if he were inert. This was unlike him. He was always stiffish, but he used to be quick. Now he seemed slow and wooden in his movements, his body had gone inert, the life had gone out of it, and he could only shout and jeer. He used to have a certain flame of life, that made him handsome, even if you hated him. A certain conceit and daring, inside all his bullying. Now the flame had gone, the conceit and daring had sunk, he was only ugly and defeated, common, and a little humiliated. He was getting fat, and it didn't suit him at all.
He had glanced round, when Jack rode up, and it was evident that he hated the intrusion. Herbert had waved his arm. Herbert still felt a certain gratitude—and the blacks had all stopped for a moment to stare. But Easu shouted them on.
At last the sorting out was done, and the bars put up. The bull went bellowing along the far fence. Herbert came striding to the gate, his smallish red face shining, and Jack got down to greet him. The two shook hands, and Herbert said:
"Glad to see you back."
He was the first to say he was glad to see Jack back. Even Len had not said it. The two men stood exchanging awkward sentences beside the horse.
Easu too came through the gate. He looked grudgingly at Jack and at Jack's horse. Jack thought how ugly he was, now his face had gone fatter and his mouth with its thin, jeering line looked mean. The alert bird-look had gone, he was heavy, and consumed with grudging. His very healthiness looked heavy, a bit dead. His light blue eyes stared and pretended to smile, but the smile was a grudging sneer.
"Where'd you get y' 'oss?"
"From Jimmie Short, in Perth."
"Bit long in the barrel. Making a trip, are y'?"
And Easu looked with his pale-blue eyes straight and sneering into Jack's eyes, and smiled with his grudging, mean mouth. Jack noticed that Easu had begun to belly, inside his slack black trousers. He was no longer the spruce, straight fellow. Easu saw the glance, and was again humiliated. He himself hated his growing belly. He looked a second time, into Jack's eyes, furtively, before he said:
"Find out if it was right what I was tellin' y'?"
Jack was ready for the insult, and did not answer. He turned to Herbert asking about Joe Low, who had been a pal of Herbert's. Joe Low also was married, and had gone down Busselton way. Jack asked for his directions, saying perhaps he might be able to call on him.
"What, are y' goin' south?" put in Easu.
Jack looked at him. It was impossible not to see the slack look of defeat in Easu's face. Something had defeated him, leaving him all sneering and acid and heavy. Again Jack did not answer.
"What did you say?" Easu persisted, advancing a little insolently.
"What about?"
"I asked if y' was goin' south."
"That's my business, where I'm going."
"Of course it is," said Easu with a sneer and a grin. "You don't think anyone wants to get ahead of you, do you?" He stood with a faint, sneering smile on his face, malevolent with impotence. "You'll do Percy a lot o' hurt, I'll bet. I wouldn't like to be Percy, when you turn up." And he looked with a grin at Herbert. Herbert grinned faintly in echo.
"I should think, whatever Percy is, he wouldn't want to be you," said Jack, going white at the gills with anger, but speaking with calm superiority, because he knew that enraged Easu most.
"What's that?" cried Easu, the grin flying out of his face at once, and leaving it stiff and dangerous.
"I should think Percy wouldn't want to be you, let him be what he may in himself," said Jack, in the cold, clear, English voice which he knew infuriated Easu unbearably.
Easu searched Jack's face intently with his pale-blue eyes.
"How's that?" he asked curtly.
Jack stared at the red, heavy face with the smallish eyes, and thought to himself: "You pig! You intolerable white fat pig!" But aloud he said nothing.
Easu smiled a defeated grin, and strode away heavily to his horse. He unhitched, swung heavily into the saddle, and moved away, then at a little distance reined in to hear what Jack and Herbert were talking about. He couldn't go.
Herbert was giving Jack directions, how to find Joe Low down Busselton way. Then he sent various items of news to his old pal. But he asked Jack no questions, and was careful to avoid any kind of enquiry concerning Jack's business.
Easu sat on his black horse a little way off, listening. He had a rope and an axe tied to his saddle. Presumably he was going into the bush. Herbert was asking questions about the North-West, about the cattle stations and the new mines. He talked as if he would like to talk all day. And Jack answered freely, laughing easily and making a joke of everything. They spoke of Perth, and Jack told how Tom and he had been at the Governor's ball a few nights ago, and what a change it was from the North-West, and how Tom enjoyed himself. Herbert listened, impressed.
"Gosh! That's something to rag old Tom about!" he said.
"When you've done gassing there!" called Easu.
Jack turned and looked at him.
"You don't have to wait," he said easily, as if to a servant.
There was really something about Easu now that suggested a servant. He went suddenly yellow with anger.
"What's that?" he said, moving his horse a few paces forward.
And Jack, also white at the gills, but affecting the same ease, repeated distinctly and easily, as if to a man-servant:
"We're talking, you don't have to wait."
There was no answer to this insult. Easu remained stock motionless on his horse for a few moments. Was he going to have to swallow it?
Jack turned laughing to Herbert, saying:
"I've got several things to tell you about old Tom."
But he glanced up quickly. Easu was kicking his horse, and it was dancing before it would take a direction. Herbert gave a loud, inarticulate cry. Jack turned quickly to his own horse, to put his foot in the stirrup. Just as quickly he refrained, swung round, drew his pistol, and cocked it. Easu, once more a horseman, was kicking his restive horse forward, holding the small axe in his right hand, the reins in his left. His face was livid, and looked like the face of one returning from the dead. He came bearing down on Jack and Herbert, like Death returning from the dead, the axe held back at arm's length, ready for the swing, half urging, half holding his horse, so that it danced strangely nearer. Jack stood with the pistol ready, his back to his own horse, that was tossing its head nervously.
"Look out!" cried Herbert, suddenly jumping at the bit of Jack's horse, in terror, and making it start back, with a thudding of hoofs.
But Jack did not move. He stood with his pistol ready, his eyes on Easu. Easu's horse was snaffling and jerking, twisting, trying to get round, and Easu was forcing it slowly forward. He had on his death-face. He held the axe at arm's length, backward, and with his pale-blue, fixed death-eyes he watched Jack, who stood there on the ground. So he advanced, waiting for the moment to swing the axe, fixing part of his will on the curvetting horse, which he forced on.
Jack, in a sort of trance, fixed Easu's death-face in the middle of the forehead. But he was watching with every pore of his body.
Suddenly he saw him begin to heave in the stirrups, and on that instant he fired at the mystic place in Easu's forehead, under his old hat, at the same time springing back. And in that self-same instant he saw two things: part of Easu's forehead seemed to shift mystically open, and the axe, followed by Easu's whole body, crashed at him as he sprang back. He went down in the universal crash, and for a moment his consciousness was dark and eternal. Then he wriggled to his feet, and ran, as Herbert was running, to the black horse, which was dancing in an agony of terror, Easu's right foot having caught in the stirrup, the body rolling horribly on the ground.
He caught the horse, which was shying off from Herbert, and raised his right hand to take the bridle. To his further horror and astonishment, he saw his hand all blood, and his fore-finger gone. But he clutched the bridle of the horse with his maimed hand, then changed to his left hand, and stood looking in chagrin and horror at the bloody stump of his finger, which was just beginning, in a distant sort of way, to hurt.
"My God, he's dead!" came the high, hysterical yell from Herbert, on the other side of the horse, and Jack let go the bridle again, to look.
It was too obvious. The big, ugly, inert bulk of Easu lay crumpled on the ground, part of the forehead shot away. Jack looked twice, then looked away again. A black had caught his horse, and tied it to the fence. Another black was running up. A dog came panting excitedly up, sniffing and licking the blood. Herbert, beside himself, stood helpless, repeating: "He's dead! He's dead! My God, he's dead! He is."
Then he gave a yell, and swooped at the dog, as it began to lick the blood.
Jack, after once more looking round, walked away. He saw his pistol lying on the ground, so he picked it up and put it in his belt, although it was bloody, and had a cut where the axe had struck it. Then he walked across to his horse, and unhitched the bridle from the fence. But before he mounted, he took his handkerchief and tied it round his bleeding hand, which was beginning to hurt with a big aching hurt. He knew it, and yet he hardly heeded it. It was hardly noticeable.
He got into the saddle, and rode calmly away, going on his journey southward just the same. The world about him seemed faint and unimportant. Inside himself was the reality and the assurance. Easu was dead. It was a good thing.
He had one definite feeling. He felt as if there had been something damming life up, as a great clot of weeds will dam a stream and make the water spread marshily and dead over the surrounding land. He felt he had lifted this clod out of the stream, and the water was flowing on clear again.
He felt he had done a good thing. Somewhere inside himself he felt he had done a supremely good thing. Life could flow on to something beyond. Why question further?
He rode on, down the track. The sun was very hot, and his body was re-echoing with the pain from his hand. But he went on calmly, monotonously, his horse travelling in a sort of sleep, easy in its single-step. He didn't think where he was going, or why; he was just going.
CHAPTER XXI
LOST
At evening he was still riding. But his horse lagged, and would not be spurred forward. Darkness came with swift persistence. He was looking anxiously for water, a burning thirst had made him empty his bottle.
As if directed by God, he felt the horse rousing up and pressing eagerly forward. In a few minutes it stopped. Darkness had fallen. He found the horse nosing a timber-lined Government well.
He got down and awkwardly drew water, for the well was low. He drank and the horse drank. Then with some difficulty he unsaddled, tied the reins round a sapling and removed the bit. The horse snorted, nosed round, and began to crop in the dark. Jack sat on the ground and looked up at the stars. Then he drank more water, and ate a piece of bread and dry cheese.
Then he began to go to sleep. He saw Easu coming at him with the axe. Ugh, how good it was Easu was dead. Dead, to go in the earth to manure the soil. Hadn't Old George said it? The land wanted dead men dug into it, to manure it. Men like Easu, dead and turned to manure. And men like old Dad Ellis. Poor old Dad.
Jack thought of Monica, Monica with her little flower-face. All messed up by that nasty dog of an Easu. He should be twice dead. Jack felt she was a little repulsive too. To let herself be pawed over and made sticky by that heavy dog of an Easu! Jack felt he could never follow where Easu had been messing. Monica was no good now. She had taken on some of Easu's repulsiveness.
Aunt Matilda had said, "Another scandal in the family!" Well, the death of Easu should make a good scandal.
How lonely it was in the bush! How big and weapon-like the stars were. One great star very flashing.
"I have dipped my hand in blood!" he thought to himself. And looking at his own bloody, hurting hand, in the starlight, he didn't realise whether it was Easu's blood or his own.
"I have dipped my hand in blood! So be it. Let it be my testament."
And he lifted up his hand to the great flashing star, his wounded hand, saying aloud:
"Here! Here is my hand in blood! Take it then. There is blood between us forever."
The blood was between him and his mysterious Lord, forever. Like a sort of pledge, or baptism, or a sacrifice: a bond between them. He was speaking to his mysterious Lord.
"There is blood between us forever," he said to the star.
But the sound of his own hoarse, rather deep voice, reminded him of his surroundings. He looked round. He heard his horse, and called to it. It nickered in the loneliness, still cropping. He started up to see if it was all right, to stroke it and speak to it. The bush was very lonely.
"Hello, you!" he said to it. "In the midst of life we are in death. There's death in the spaces between the stars. But somehow it seems all right. I like it. I like to be lord of Death. Who do they call the lords of Death? I am a lord of Death."
He patted the horse's neck as he talked.
"I can't bear to think of Monica messy with Easu," he said. "But I suppose it's my destiny. I suppose it means I am a lord of death. I hope if I have any children they'll have that look in their eyes, like soldiers from the dark kingdom. I don't want children that aren't warriors. I don't want little love children for my children. When I beget children I want to sow dragon's teeth, and warriors will spring up. Easu hadn't one grain nor spark of a warrior in him. He was absolutely a groping civilian, a bully. That's why he wanted to spoil Monica. She is the wife for a fighting man. So he wanted to spoil her.... Funny, my father isn't a fighting man at all. He's an absolute civilian. So he became a general. And I'm not a civilian. I know the spaces of death between the stars, like spaces in an Egyptian temple. And at the end of life I see the big black door of death, and the infinite black labyrinth beyond. I like to think of going in, and being at home and one of the masters in the black halls of death, when I am dead. I hope I die fighting, and go into the black halls of death as a master: not as a scavenger servant, like Easu, or a sort of butler, like my father. I don't want to be a servant in the black house of death. I want to be a master."