Читать книгу A Daughter of the Bush - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 5

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I WAS still endeavouring to piece together the fragmentary impressions of my interview when Mrs. Soames appeared and a stranger whom I guessed for Mrs. Twomy because she wore a widow's bonnet. I was right. She was rather a pretty woman with a somewhat predaceous cast of face, but fat and figure-less. Her eyes were bold and full of sex appeal—but, alas! she had a double chin. I thought as I looked at her of a hawk's soul incarnate in the body of a pouter-pigeon. She enclosed the hand I offered her in two soft intensely female paws, and she patted it and sighed and simpered over me. I was a "pore dear" and she "felt for me." She understood my loneliness—wasn't she lonely? And she gave me a bottle of raspberry brandy she had made herself. Mrs. Soames opened it there and then and the good creature drank a good half-glassful to let me see it wasn't poisonous. So did Mrs. Twomy. The widow's sympathy was stifling. Unlike Mrs. Soames she had no mental individuality at all. There was not a relieving feature, not a contrast in her composition. She was fourteen stone of sex sentiment and crude feminine craving for masculine dominion. In ten minutes I was bored to death. In twenty I detested her. In half an hour I had to choose between boorishness and brain fever. She had by then consumed three more glasses of raspberry brandy and the stuff had given her the courage and impertinence to confess her conviction that it was not good for either man or woman to live alone. In sheer desperation I behaved like a savage.

"Ah!" said I. "It's a crying shame for a sweet, lovely creature like you to remain a widow."

"Dear man," she sighed.

"You owe it to yourself—and the race—to mend your state," I declared.

She uttered an amorous guffaw and cast down her bold eyes in an impudent pretence of modesty.

"But husbands don't grow on every bush," she muttered, then she ogled me. Mrs. Soames caught my eye. She was in a silent ecstasy of mirth.

"Have you got any money?" I brutally demanded.

"Fifty pounds in the bank and I own the house I live in," replied the widow eagerly, "not to speak of a piano, a cow—and three of the best Angora milkin' goats in these parts."

"And yet with all those possessions—and your beauty—I repeat, Mrs. Twomy, your beauty—you've been twelve months a widow."

"Every day of it," she groaned.

"You must be very hard to please," I suggested with deceitful gallantry.

She was silent, but her eyes spoke volumes.

"Very hard to please," I repeated inexorably.

"I've been waiting for Mr. Right," she whispered, and giggled like an elephantine school-girl.

It was the chance I had been waiting for. "Ah! but you shouldn't wait." I earnestly admonished her. "The poor fellow may not be able to come to you. You should be generous, Mrs. Twomy, and go to him."

"Where?" she demanded, plainly puzzled.

I shook my head. "I'm not a wizard, madam—but I should say in West Australia, or perhaps in South Africa. I hear that women are scarce in both those places and far outnumbered by the men. If I were you I wouldn't wait a day. I would convert all I owned into cash and start straight off on my travels to find Mr. Right and make the dear man happy—as I'm very sure you can."

The silence that followed was broken by the strangled laughter of Mrs. Soames. I had meanwhile been staring stolidly at the wall. I became conscious at length, however, that Mrs. Twomy had risen and was standing in the middle of the room. Involuntarily I turned and glanced at her. She was beet-red, her hands were clenched, and she was eyeing me like a wild animal.

"Very funny—aren't ye—Mister Joe Tolano?" she observed; "very funny!" Then she went away. Mrs. Soames stopped laughing instantly, and she, too, stood up to go. To my amazement she looked ruffled.

"You've got a nasty tongue in your head an' that's a fact," she observed. On general principles she was in arms to defend her sex. I understood and honoured her for it.

"No doubt I was a beast," I murmured humbly.

"Humph," she sniffed.

"It's my nerves, I suppose," I lamented. "I don't often behave so caddishly. But I'm all nerves to-day."

Mrs. Soames's queer little face broke into a smile. "Oh! bother!" she cried. "The woman deserved it. She's a man-hunter, that's what she is. Anything with whiskers 'd do fer her. She's only seed ye the once and she was on the brink of askin' ye to keep company. I make sure she would have, too, if I'd 'a gone out 'an left ye half a minnit."

"Still, I had no right to hurt her feelings."

"Oh, shut up!" said Mrs. Soames. "You ain't the first. She stuck up ter old Billy Simpson till the man's life was that miserable he had to pour dish-wash on her doorstep to fend her off 'n him. Nandlelong ain't done laughing at it yet."

"All the same—she is a woman."

"There's women and women," declared Mrs. Soames, as if that settled the matter.

But I would not let her off. "It's kind of you, Mrs. Soames; to try and cheer me up," I said lugubriously, "but it's past question I was in the wrong. Under no circumstance should a man behave unkindly to a woman!"

"Rot!" snapped the old lady. "A female that puts herself forward want's shoving back—an looks fer it. An' if yer arsts me you didn't shove Mrs. Twomy half hard enough! But—what! You're laughin'—ye are! Don't you dare tell me it's at me?"

Our eyes met. "Oh!" she cried. "I see. Ye've made me turn clean round—you rascal!"

For two seconds she was furiously angry, but her sense of humour prevailed and on the third she was laughing consumedly. "You scamp, you hypocritical scamp," she gasped, as soon as she was partially recovered. "I've a mind to shake ye, I have. I would, too; if it wasn't fer yer laig."

Miss Hofer entered at that moment. She seemed surprised at our evident good understanding.

"You appear to have been having a good time," she remarked. "Here are some of your books, Mr. Tolano—and one of mine that you may care to read."

I glanced at the extended volume. It was Balzac's "Eugénie Grandet."

"You have read it?" she asked, looking into my eyes.

I nodded. "But I should like to renew my acquaintance with it."

Mrs Soames hastily said good evening to us both, and hustled out. Plainly she despised literature.

"You had an object in bringing me this?" I asked, pointing to the girl's book.

"Yes. If Eugenie had been beautiful she might be my sister Margaret, and if Pére Grandet had been less successful in his enterprises he might stand for my father's portrait refined of its dullest dross."

"And——"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Tolano."

"This leads us—whither?"

She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "I know too little of you yet to be sure. I must wait until I know more."

"And in the meanwhile I am to be mystified?"

"Does that question mean that I have already aroused your interest?" She was watching me through half-closed lids, her head thrown back in a pose of feline but commanding grace.

"Really interested?" she added.

Something, I hardly knew what, provoked me. Perhaps it was a suggestion of coldly superior aloofness in her bearing. At any rate she made me feel as a transfixed caterpillar might on being examined by a heartless lepidopterist. Naturally I resented her attitude.

"You have a trick of stirring curiosity," I answered coolly.

She laughed and put up her hand to arrange a stray wisp of hair. "Curiosity," she murmured, "is the mainspring of progression." Then she abruptly changed the topic. "Mrs. Twomy has been here. How did she impress you?"

"So ill that I was rude to her; rude enough I hope to prohibit any reasonable chance of her return."

"Oh!"

"Yes, and she brought me that bottle of raspberry brandy too—the product of her own sweet manufacture. If I could reach it I would fling it out of the window."

"She must surely have bitterly offended you?"

"She insulted my ideal of your sex."

Miss Hofer's upper lip curled scornfully. "You are too muscular and vigorous a man to prate becomingly of ideals. What business have you with such absurdities? Your body was made for hard work—manual labour in the open air—and your brain and mouth to form and express downright common sense convictions."

"I'm obliged for your opinion," I retorted, much amused. "Of all things I value candour and you are——"

"I am a fool," she interrupted tartly. "Bandying words here while your soup is burning." She went off like a whirlwind.

Well it seemed fairly clear that I should not die of boredom while my leg was mending. Mrs. Soames I had taken a real fancy to. Miss Hofer had piqued and interested me beyond words; and Mrs. Garfield, although temporarily hors de combat, also possessed a striking personality. And I was the only man in Nandlelong. I felt I could depend on feminine curiosity, if on nothing else, for continuous companionship in the circumstances. All the same it was hard to lose my chance in the Yabba Gabba Rush, for I had given up a fairly good quartz claim on the Shoalhaven to try my luck in the New England, and I knew it would be impossible to get to work again for two months at least, by which time I should be inevitably deep in someone's debt. This thought I found so infernally depressing that by the time Miss Hofer returned with my supper I had no appetite to eat it.

She might have been a clairvoyante so unerringly did she go to the root cause at once of my chagrin.

"You've been worrying," she declared. "Is it about money? I see that it is."

"Yes," I replied. "I'm poorly heeled, Miss Hofer,—and there's no use blinking the fact that I'm here for keeps—perhaps for a whole quarter."

"You have your brother?" she suggested.

"And some rags of pride, as well."

"I am sure that Mrs. Garfield will trust you."

"I have no right to ask her."

"Try and eat your soup."

"I cannot."

"After all my trouble in making it?"

"I'm in the blues and can't even feel the least bit grateful—now. Take the stuff away, please, and don't bother any more about me. To-morrow—somehow or other Sorrel and I shall start for the Wakool Hospital."

"You are mad."

"Perhaps."

"And horribly ungrateful."

"I know it."

"And unkind."

I looked at her and saw that she was deeply hurt. Her lips were quivering and her eyes were simply burning. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm a beast."

"Then make amends—eat, and while you eat I'll tell you something."

I made shift to obey her. "You need not bother one scrap about your board here," she said. "I have guaranteed your account with Mrs. Garfield. I did it before she would help me to bring you down from the mountain."

"Miss Hofer," I gasped—confounded and indeed dismayed.

"Oh!" she said, speaking very quickly. "You've no call to feel round for your dignity and throw it in my face. I didn't do it for fun or because I'm a sweet, kind creature. I'm nothing of the sort. I want help worse than you do. The wry second before I saw you I'd been praying to the Blessed Virgin to send me help. That's why I climbed the mountain—to be nearer her, so that she could hear me. And she did hear me. She sent me, you——"

My mouth fell open, but not a word could I compel my tongue to utter.

"You are surprised—but it is all true—true as heaven!"

"Go on," I contrived to whisper.

"I must have money—heaps of money and ever so quickly," she said rapidly. "I know where it is to be got—but I cannot get it because I am a girl. I need a man I can trust to get it for me—and not cheat me of my share. That is to say—a gentleman. As soon as you spoke I knew you were a gentleman—the one I want—my man! The Virgin wouldn't mock a girl who prayed to her like I did. Oh! I know I cannot be mistaken."

I made an effort and gathered my scattered faculties together. "So you helped me—and guaranteed my account here with Mrs. Garfield—all on the assumption that I shall, when I have recovered, do the work for you—you want."

"That is it," she cried, her eyes blazing into mine. "It's a bargain, a sordid bargain. You have talked of your pride, but there's no excuse for it to be offended here. If I spend anything on you it's only an advanced payment on the work you'll have to do for me. I'll keep a rigid account of everything down to the last farthing."

"I see."

"You'll not refuse me—will you? Ah, but what a fool I am; you can't. You're not your own master. The Virgin sent you to me."

"What faith you have!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"I believe!" she said, raising hands and eyes ecstatically aloft. "Oh, Lord! help Thou mine unbelief!"

For a moment or two she seemed to have quite forgotten me. Her lips moved in silent prayer. I watched her in a state of bewildered fascination. She was in that pose and mood of mind the most beautiful creature I had ever looked upon.

But soon she remembered, and with a sudden bashful air of irritating modesty, she turned her face away. Her cheek was scarlet. One hand strayed towards mine across the coverlid. "You will help me?" she asked, in a musical slow whisper.

I caught the hand partly in order to prevent it wandering into my soup, and also because it was a good-looking, nice, white sort of a hand. It clasped my fingers closely and the contact made me unexpectedly aware that there might have happened a worse misfortune to me than the breaking of a limb—the not breaking of it, for instance.

But in order to give myself an opportunity of testing the matter thoroughly, I judged it expedient to temporise.

"I must think it over a bit," I said.

The hand squeezed mine imperiously. "No, no, be kind and generous at once," said its owner.

"In a sordid bargain—kind?"

Fool that I was. The hand dropped me like a hot potato, and Miss Hofer turned with a scornful gesture to examine me. She was curiously pale.

"You must excuse me. For a moment I forgot. It is, of course, a question of terms."

"Naturally," I answered, through my teeth.

"I offer you half—a full half share—of it all," she said, with a magnificent hand-wave.

"Is it all—a gold mine?" I enquired.

"Yes," she answered coldly.

"One that you have discovered?" I questioned, beginning in spite of myself to get excited.

"Yes."

"A good one?"

"Yes."

"Far from here?"

"Within ten miles of where you lie."

"Does nobody else know of it?"

"No living soul but you and I."

"But are you sure? What do you know of gold? It might be a new chum reef, mica or pyrites."

The girl looked at me with quiet contempt. "For two years I have lived here—on this gold field—among practical miners. I have watched them at work. I have seen all their processes. I have examined all their claims. Moreover, during the whole two years I have made a daily and nightly study of geology and mineralogy. I have read all the text-books and know them by heart. There is not a miner on the field who possesses one tittle of my scientific knowledge. Ask whom you please, and they will tell you that whenever a reef dips or disappears they come to me for advice as to where they shall look for its continuance."

"How could I guess?" I asked in all humility.

"But that is not all," she went on. "I have secretly applied my knowledge to local conditions, and I have proved the conclusions unanimously entertained by all the local miners and all the expert geologists who have visited this field to be largely based upon a fallacy. Listen, and I'll explain. Everybody believes that the alluvial gold found in the valleys and river flats has been deposited there through the course of ages by the denudation by water action of the reef-spun mountain tops of the range behind the town."

"Ah!" I cried.

"So it has been to some extent," went on Miss Hofer, "but only to an extent. The greater portion of the gold, however, comes from farther afield."

"You say you have proved this?"

"To the hilt."

"What led you to the discovery?"

"The fact that the best alluvial gold has always been found associated with tin and decomposed granite, and there is not an ounce of either tin or granite in the whole range, though quartz reefs abound. The country is all basaltic—diorite and shale."

"A tremendous argument!" I cried.

"The wonder is that it has never occurred to any of the experts," sneered the girl.

"Ah! bah! experts!" I jeered. "But I interrupt you—pray proceed."

"There is little more to tell," she said, with a shrug. "As you must have already guessed, I looked for granite, and after a long, weary search—I found it."

"Beyond the ranges?"

"That is my secret—until I am sure of you."

I nodded.

"Well?" she asked, fixing her intense grey eyes on me. "Have you made up your mind?"

"I have, matey," I answered whimsically; "we are partners from this moment. Here is my hand to seal the bargain."

She took it and gripped my fingers firmly. "Now eat your soup!" she commanded; "you must be looking well and strong to-morrow morning, for Dr. White is coming from Wakool to see you. I wired for him this afternoon."

"You—wired for him. Fifty miles! His fee will be as many guineas."

"He is my friend. He will wait. Now, no further disputing. Eat!"

I obeyed—my head in a perfect whirl the while. I did not taste a single mouthful, I was so excited and preoccupied. I only realised that I had eaten when she took from me the empty plate.

"Now you must go straight to sleep," she said. "But it is still daylight," I protested.

"I wouldn't care if it were midday. You must do as you are bidden."

"But you haven't even told me where the—the—our—mine is."

"What use—you wouldn't be a whit wiser if I explained. You are a stranger here. Be quick and get well and I shall lead you to the spot myself. Now for the last time—- sleep!"

I bent to her will and reposed my head upon the pillow. To my astonishment I found myself marvellously weary. I muttered "Good-night" and marked her smile at me, and I had just begun to wish she would always smile like that when the whole world faded with a sweet soft suddenness into a delicious darkness of complete repose.