Читать книгу The Squatter King - A Romance of Bush Life - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 12

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Sid was taken to the musterers' camp, and from there to the homestead, where he was placed in an apartment known as the Bookkeeper's Room, which, as no such personage was then kept on the squattage, was untenanted. For the first few days he was attended by Miss Kian Hook, a tall, gaunt old maid, with spectral eyes, who was formerly the family nurse; but since the family had grown up she had taken over the duties of housekeeper.

Mrs. Byrne was a fine-looking woman, but was described by her intimates as "not strong." She was more fond of pottering about the garden than of household duties. Her mornings were usually spent out of doors—for the good of her health. In the afternoon she settled herself in a comfortable nook, sometimes indoors, and sometimes in a shady arbor, for a quiet read until school hours were over, when she had the company of Miss Kora Danz, a prepossessing young woman of 30, who was governess and lady's companion. Then they talked, or walked, or played tennis; and in the evening the perennial gossip was varied with song and music, or helped with cards and other games.

Consequently Miss Kian Hook was practically manageress. She was a prim lady of middle age, with a peculiar expression—a combination of piety and stale vinegar, sunken black eyes, thin, hard-set lips, and a hooked nose that reminded one of a parrot's beak. She held her head high, and walked with jerky steps.

She did not conform in any way to Sid's idea of a nurse. She was harsh of manner, and her thoughtful inquiries concerning his health were too plainly prompted by self-interest.

"How are you now?" she asked as she entered the room the second morning.

"Much better, thank you," Sid replied.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Miss Hook, dispassionately.

She felt his pulse and his cheek. "No feverish symptoms, thank heaven! Poke out your tongue."

The tongue was protruded, and examined.

"Hm!" she added sourly. "It's to be hoped you'll soon be all right."

Two days later she pronounced the leg well enough for light exercise.

"You won't want me any more, so you can get back to your hut," she concluded.

Sid lost no time in making a move, and he was on his way to the hut when he met the captain.

"You're not doing any good limping about like that, Sid," said the latter. "Better rest a while yet."

Sid intimated, that he was merely returning to his old quarters.

"Aren't you comfortable where you are?" asked the captain.

"Yes," Sid answered, "much more comfortable than I was in the hut."

"Can stop there if you like."

"Always?" Sid questioned eagerly.

"Can stop there if you like," the captain repeated, walking away.

Sid returned to the room with a more sprightly step. The wounded limb had suddenly got a lot better. If the captain could have known the glow of happiness that permeated his whole being he would have been surprised—because his deductions would have been quite wrong.

Sid had been contented with the rough lodging at the hut until he joined the ranks of the stockmen. After that he felt that something had gone out of his life. He missed the afternoon rides with Myee. He rarely saw her, except at a distance, and the dull heartache that persisted day and night indicated that he wanted to see her every ten minutes, and write to her between times. She was never absent from his thoughts; and the thoughts inspired by her haunting image mostly drifted into heroics. In all manner of ways a romantic mind could devise he rescued her from all manner of imaginary dangers. No young lady in real life was ever invested with so much peril, and so numerously rescued by one person, as was Miss Norrit in the sentimental imagery of her admirer.

His new room opened into the spacious garden, where he could ramble about as he pleased, and where Myee spent much of her leisure hours. He rambled there now, ostensibly admiring the flowers, and studying the pigeons and doves as they fed about the broad walks and lawns. He pretended an interest in the work of the old gardener, who descanted at great length on his rheumatics; and finding Mrs. Bryne busily digging with a hand-fork, he gave her some unnecessary help, while discoursing an botany. Then he came upon Wilga Bryne reclining in a hammock, engrossed in a study of Greek roots, which opened a discussion on foreign languages.

Wilga was a dainty copy of her mother, quieter and less robust than Myee Narrit, with a delicate pink complexion set in a wonderful aureole of golden hair. While he talked languages with her his glance wandered to the house whenever a step sounded on the verandah. The fair student at last guessed the reason.

"Myee's kept in," she volunteered, looking slyly at him.

"What for?" asked Sid, trying to appear unconcerned, but blushing in spite of himself.

"She had two sums wrong. Are you good at sums?"

"Pretty fair."

"She'd be glad is somebody helped her." There was something like a challenge in the girl's laughing glance and quaintly puckered face.

"Where's Miss Danz?"

"In her room." Sid looked round. Mrs. Bryne had gone inside, and the only person about was Miss Kian Hook, who came to the door at short intervals, and between times peeped out of one or other of the windows. Taking advantage of her temporary absence from these outlooks, he slipped quietly away, choosing a devious path where the shrubs were thickest.

The schoolroom was in the end of a wing on the southern side, facing the bush. The end window was thrown up, and just near it Myee sat at her desk, poring over a multitude of figures.

"Got them right yet?"

She turned sharply with a startled look, then, seeing the grinning face framed in the window, jumped up with an impulsiveness that upset the chair.

"Oh, you wretch!" she exclaimed, striking him on the knuckles with her pen. "You frightened me."

"Too much study is making you nervous," said Sid. "Are the sums right yet?"

"No, they're not!" her mouth prettily pouted. "The dash things won't come right."

"Let me see them."

She placed the book on the window-sill, and they put their heads together under the sash. Playing schoolmaster was a pleasant diversion in an idle hour, especially when the pupil was a lovely girl whose warm breath, and the loose strands of whose hair brushing his cheek, made the blood bolt through his veins. He pointed out where she was wrong and what she should do, and watched her fingers as she did the figuring.

Under these circumstances the task was less irksome to one and a joy to the other that was all too short. In a few minutes it was accomplished, and "Dunce" was free to go out,

"Come out this way," Sid invited her, shoving the sash up higher.

"Through the window!" she demurred, with lifted brows.

"Why not? I'll help you."

Laughing, she placed the chair against the window, and stepped up on to it. With his arm tightly clasped around the lissom waist, he assisted her through, and lifted her to the ground. He did not do it smartly; he took quite a while about it; and after he had set her down he forgot to take his arm away until she reminded him that somebody might be looking.

They crossed the garden to a rustic seat near the netted fence. It was a short seat, that fitted between two trees, whose interlaced boughs formed a delightful awning. A newspaper lay on one end, and some burnt matches and cigar butts were strewn on the ground.

Myee picked the paper up before sitting down, and opened it out to read. Sid took it from her, and there followed an animated tussle for possession of it, which ended in the paper being torn to pieces.

"Now you've done it!" she exclaimed, ruefully regarding the damage. "You are nasty." Then she crumpled up the piece she held and threw it at him.

"It's an old number," said Sid. "And you read it a week ago. If you didn't, then you weren't interested. Anyhow, school's out."

"That's the only time I can read what I like," she returned.

"What do you read when you like?" asked Sid. "Mark Twain, Charles Dickens—and Australian stories and verse."

"Love stories?"

"Some; the sort that men like—something cheerful and realistic—in which the characters are healthy people who speak and act naturally; not the Lady Gwendoline and Glass-eyed Johnny tripe usually dished up for young ladies; that's full of maudlin' sentiment and pandering to gold lace and silk embroidery. I've got no time for that. I'd rather follow the fortunes of Bill and Jim of the bush. They're rough, and perhaps untutored, but they're men. They are heroes in their every day lives; but Johnny of the glass eye is never a hero, and nobody could make him one. Did you read the book I gave you?"

"Of course I did."

"Why of course?' "

"Because you gave it to me."

"Did that make it more interesting?"

"It made it more appreciated."

"But"—looking at him with wide, innocent eyes—"suppose I gave you some trashy thing that I couldn't read myself."

"If you did, it would be because you had nothing better."

"Would it?" laughing roguishly. "I'd like to see myself giving away what I prize and keeping the rubbish."

"Some day you'll give yourself away," said Sid, with a sigh.

"I often do that now," she declared.

Whether she couldn't or wouldn't understand him, he didn't know. He had a suspicion that a little imp of mischief whispered into the shell-pink ear, and laughed at him out of the luminous blue orbs, that sometimes met his so frankly and fearlessly, and at other times peeped demurely from under the arching brows. The more he studied them, and the dimpling cheeks that had the colour of the bloom on the peach trees, the more he was conscious of a swelling and thumping under his left ribs.

She sat very close to him, plaiting a silk handkerchief between her fingers. In the pause that followed he snatched it playfully from her, and when she made a grab at it he held it behind him. Another tussle ensued, in the course of which her head came under his chin, and made it necessary for him to reach across her shoulder and round her neck.

The arm tightened with the impulsive movements occasioned by their brisk hand play, so that she might have imagined herself in the embrace of an affectionate bear. He did not mind her pinching his hands and digging her thumb-nail into his fingers; in truth, such marked attentions made him happier. The touch of her soft hair sent strange little thrills running through him like electric waves. He could have prolonged the blissful agony for a week, but a malicious fate at that moment intervened.

"Miss Norrit!" cried a harsh voice behind them. Both started, and involuntarily edged hard up against the respective trees. Miss Kian Hook stood behind the seat, her hands spread on her thin waist, twirling her thumbs one around the other, and looking down on them severely.

"I am surprised!"

Myee went pink all over. Her pearly teeth closed on the tip of her lip, and she regarded her companion fixedly out of the corner of her eye. That abashed youth was gazing with absorbing interest at a pair of pet emus pecking about outside the netting.

"I am shocked!" Miss Hook added with more emphasis.

"Oh, dear!" said Myee, now turning towards her. "You're getting worse, nurse. Whatever is the matter?"

"Can you ask?" Miss Hook admonished, bobbing violently forward and craning her neck. "A young lady in your position—really, I couldn't 'ave believed it."

"Believed what?" asked Myee, recovering her composure. Miss Hook stiffened her neck and twirled her thumbs more rapidly, while she looked her reproval in her severest manner.

"Some people are very dense when they don't want to understand," she said unpleasantly.

"Some people get excited about nothing," Myee retorted.

"I'm not excited!" The head came down again, with an indignant side tilt. "But I hope I know my duty."

"I hope you do," said Myee, fervently. "I thought you'd forgotten it."

"I never do that," Miss Hook rapped out. "And I don't forget what's proper."

Once more she drew herself up stiffly, and, clutching her skirt, directed a scornful side look at the presumptuous stockman, then shuffled across to the path, where she stood irresolutely surveying them at long range.

"Prying old cat!" snapped Myee in an undertone.

"I hope I haven't got you into a raw," said Sid, anxiously, placing his hand on hers, which rested on the edge of the seat between them.

The saucy blue eyes of the girl twinkled. "She'll give me a grandmotherly lecture on the strictly correct deportment of young ladies of several centuries ago, that's all."

A sharp, vibrant cough came from the path. She got up quickly, and as she moved away she whispered aside to him: "You'd better keep sweet with Miss Hook."