Читать книгу The Black Opal - Katharine Susannah Prichard - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Watty and George were well satisfied with their night's work when they went out of the bar into the street. Michael was with them. He said nothing, but they took it for granted he was as pleased as they were at what had been done and the way in which it had been done. Michael was always chary of words, and all night they had noticed that what they called his "considering cap" had been well drawn over his brows. He stood smoking beside them and listening abstractedly to what they were saying.

"Well, that's fixed him," Watty remarked, glancing back into the room they had just left.

Jun was leaning over the bar talking to Newton, the light from the lamp above, on his red, handsome face, and cutting the bulk of his head and shoulders from the gloom of the room and the rest of the men about him. Peter Newton was serving drinks, and Jun laughing and joking boisterously as he handed them on to the men.

"He's a clever devil!" George exclaimed.

"Yes," Michael said.

"Shouldn't wonder if he didn't clear out by the coach to-morrow," George said.

"Nor me," Watty grunted.

"Well, he won't be taking Paul with him."

"Not to-morrow."

"No."

"But Rummy's going down to town soon as he can get, he says."

"Yes."

"Say, Michael, why don't you try scarin' him about losing his stones like Bill Olsen did?"

"I have."

"What does he say?"

"Says," Michael smiled, "the sharks won't get any of his money or opal."

Watty snuffed contemptuously by way of exclamation.

"Well, I'll be getting along," Michael added, and talked away in the direction of his hut.

George and Watty watched his spare figure sway down the road between the rows of huts which formed the Fallen Star township. It was a misty moonlight night, and the huts stood dark against the sheening screen of sky, with here and there a glow of light through open doorways, or small, square window panes.

"It's on Michael's mind, Rum-Enough's going and taking Sophie with him," George, said.

"I don't wonder," Watty replied. "He'll come a cropper, sure as eggs.... And what's to become of her? Michael 'd go to town with them if he had a bean—but he hasn't. He's stony, I know."

Even to his mate he did not say why he knew, and George did not ask, understanding Watty's silence. It was not very long since George himself had given Michael a couple of pounds; but he had a very good idea Michael had little to do with the use of that money. He guessed that he would have less to do with whatever he got from Watty.

"Charley's going over to Warria to-morrow, isn't he?" he asked.

Watty grunted. "About time he did something. Michael's been grafting for him for a couple of years ... and he'd have gone to the station himself—only he didn't want to go away till he knew what Paul was going to do. Been trying pretty hard to persuade him to leave Sophie—till he's fixed up down town—but you wouldn't believe how obstinate the idiot is. Thinks he can make a singer of her in no time ... then she'll keep her old dad till kingdom come."

Michael's figure was lost to sight between the trees which encroached on the track beyond the town. Jun was singing in the hotel. His great rollicking voice came to George and Watty with shouts of laughter. George, looking back through the open door, saw Rouminof had joined the crowd round the bar.

He was drinking as George's glance fell on him.

"Think he's all right?" Watty asked.

George did not reply.

"You don't suppose Jun 'd try to take the stones off of him, do you, George?" Watty inquired again. "You don't think——?"

"I don't suppose he'd dare, seein' we've ... let him know how we feel."

George spoke slowly, as if he were not quite sure of what he was saying.

"He knows his hide'd suffer if he tried."

"That's right."

Archie Cross came from the bar and joined them.

"He's trying to make up to the boys—he likes people to think he's Christmas, Jun," he said, "and he just wants 'em to forget that anything's been said—detrimental to his character like."

George was inclined to agree with Archie. They went to the form against the wall of the hotel and sat there smoking for a while; then all three got up to go home.

"You don't think we ought to see Rummy home?" Watty inquired hesitatingly.

He was ashamed to suggest that Rouminof, drunk, and with four or five hundred pounds' worth of opal in his pockets, was not as safe as if his pockets were empty. But Jun had brought a curious unrest into the community. Watty, or Archie, or George, themselves would have walked about with the same stuff in their pockets without ever thinking anybody might try to put a finger on it.

None of the three looked at each other as they thought over the proposition. Then Archie spoke:

"I told Ted," he murmured apologetically, "to keep an eye on Rummy, as he's coming home. If there's rats about, you never can tell what may happen. We ain't discovered yet who put it over on Rummy and Jun on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral. So I just worded Ted to keep an eye on the old fool. He comes our track most of the way ... And if he's tight, he might start sheddin' his stones out along the road—you never can tell."

George Woods laughed. The big, genial soul of the man looked out of his eyes.

"That's true," he said heartily.

Archie and he smiled into each other's eyes. They understood very well what lay behind Archie's words; They could not bring themselves to admit there was any danger to the sacred principle of Ridge life, that a mate stands by a mate, in letting Rouminof wander home by himself. He might be in danger if there were rats about; they would admit that. But rats, the men who sneaked into other men's mines when they were on good stuff, and took out their opal during the night, were never Ridge men. They were new-comers, outsiders, strangers on the rushes, who had not learnt or assimilated Ridge ideas.

After a few minutes George turned away. "Well, good-night, Archie," he said.

Watty moved after him.

"'Night!" Archie replied.

George and Watty went along the road together, and Archie walked off in the direction Michael had taken.

But Michael had not gone home. When the trees screened him from sight, he had struck out across the Ridge, then, turning back on his tracks behind the town, had made towards the Warria road. He walked, thinking hard, without noticing where he was going, his mind full of Paul, of Sophie, and of his promise.

Now that Paul had his opal, it was clear he would be able to do as he wished—leave the Ridge and take Sophie with him. For the time being at least he was out of Jun Johnson's hands—but Michael was sure he would not stay out of them if he went to Sydney. How to prevent his going—how, rather, to prevent Sophie going with him—-that was Michael's problem. He did not know what he was going to do.

He had asked Sophie not to go with her father. He had told her what her mother had said, and tried to explain to her why her mother had not wanted her to go away from the Ridge, or to become a public singer. But Sophie was as excited about her future as her father was. It was natural she should be, Michael assured himself. She was young, and had heard wonderful stories of Sydney and the world beyond the Ridge. Sydney was like the town in a fairy tale to her.

It was not to be expected, Michael confessed to himself, that Sophie would choose to stay on Fallen Star Ridge. If she could only be prevailed upon to put off her departure until she was older and better able to take care of herself, he would be satisfied. If the worst came to the worst, and she went to Sydney with her father soon, Michael had decided to go with them. Peter Newton would give him a couple of pounds for his books, he believed, and he would find something to do down in Sydney. His roots were in the Ridge. Michael did not know how he was going to live away from the mines; but anything seemed better than that Sophie should be committed to what her mother had called "the treacherous whirlpool" of life in a great city, with no one but her father to look after her.

And her mother had said:

"Don't let him take her away, Michael."

Michael believed that Marya Rouminof intended Sophie to choose for herself whether she would stay on the Ridge or not, when she was old enough. But now she was little more than a child, sixteen, nearly seventeen, young for her years in some ways and old in others. Michael knew her mother had wanted Sophie to grow up on the Ridge and to realise that all the potentialities of real and deep happiness were there.

"They say there's got to be a scapegoat in every family, Michael," she had said once. "Someone has to pay for the happiness of the others. If all that led to my coming here will mean happiness for Sophie, it will not have been in vain."

"That's where you're wrong," Michael had told her.

"Looking for justice—poetic justice, isn't it, they call it?—in the working out of things. There isn't any of this poetic justice except by accident. The natural laws just go rolling on—laying us out under them. All we can do is set our lives as far as possible in accordance with them and stand by the consequences as well as we know how."

"Of course, you're right," she had sighed, "but——"

It was for that "but" Michael was fighting now. He knew what lay beyond it—a yearning for her child to fare a little better in the battle of life than she had. Striding almost unconsciously over the loose, shingly ground, Michael was not aware what direction his steps were taking until he saw glimmering white shapes above the grass and herbage of the plains, and realised that he had walked to the gates of the cemetery.

With an uncomfortable sense of broken faith, he turned away from the gate, unable to go in and sit under the tree there, to smoke and think, as he sometimes did. He had used every argument with Paul to prevent his taking Sophie away, he knew; but for the first time since Michael and he had been acquainted with each other, Paul had shown a steady will. He made up his mind he was "going to shake the dust of the Ridge off his feet," he said. And that was the end of it. Michael almost wished the men had let Jun clear out with his stones. That would have settled the business. But, his instinct of an opal-miner asserting itself, he was unable to wish Paul the loss of his luck, and Jun what he would have to be to deprive Paul of it. He walked on chewing the cud of bitter and troubled reflections.

"Don't let him take her away!" a voice seemed to cry suddenly after him.

Michael stopped; he snatched the hat from his head.

"No!" he said, "he shan't take her away!"

Startled by the sound of his own voice, the intensity of thinking which had wrung it from him, dazed by the sudden strength of resolution which had come over him, he stood, his face turned to the sky. The stars rained their soft light over him. As he looked up to them, his soul went from him by force of will. How long he stood like that, he did not know; but when his eyes found the earth again he looked about him wonderingly. After a little while he put on his hat and turned away. All the pain and trouble were taken from his thinking; he was strangely soothed and comforted. He went back along the road to the town, and, skirting the trees and the houses on the far side, came again to the track below Newton's.

Lights were still shining in the hotel although it was well after midnight. Michael could hear voices in the clear air. A man was singing one of Jun's choruses as he went down the road towards the Punti Rush. Michael kept on his way. He was still wondering what he could do to prevent Paul taking Sophie away; but he was no longer worried about it—his brain was calm and clear; his step lighter than it had been for a long time.

He heard the voices laughing and calling to each other as he walked on.

"Old Ted!" he commented to himself, recognising Ted Cross's voice. "He's blithered!"

When he came to a fork in the tracks where one went off in the direction of his, Charley's, and Rouminof's huts, and the other towards the Crosses', Michael saw Ted Cross lumbering along in the direction of his own hut.

"Must 've been saying good-night to Charley and Paul," he thought. A little farther along the path he saw Charley and Paul, unsteady shadows ahead of him in the moonlight, and Charley had his arm under Paul's, helping him home.

"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he loved.

He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, Charley's even and clear.

"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening.

Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's hand—something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box wrapped in newspaper, it might have been—and Michael saw Charley drop it into the pocket of his coat.

Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep there on the roadside; but Charley led him on.

"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there now."

Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened.

The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track.

Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared.

When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The wall creaked as Michael leaned against it.

"Who's there?" Charley cried sharply.

He threw a blanket over the box on the bed and started to the door.

Michael moved round the corner of the house. He heard Potch call sleepily:

"That you?"

Charley growled;

"Oh, go to sleep, can't you? Aren't you asleep yet?"

Potch murmured, and there was silence again.

Michael heard Charley go to the door, look out along the road, and turn back into the hut. Then Michael moved along the wall to the window.

Charley was taking down some clothes hanging from nails along the inner wall. He changed from the clothes he had on into them, picked up his hat, lying where he had thrown it on the floor beside the bed when he came in, rolled it up, straightened the brim and dinged the crown to his liking. Then he picked up the packet of opal, put it in his coat pocket, and went into the other room. Michael followed to the window which gave on it. He saw Charley glance at the sofa as though he were contemplating a stretch, but, thinking better of it, he settled into an easy, bag-bottomed old chair by the table, pulled a newspaper to him, and began to read by the guttering light of his candle.

Michael guessed why Charley had dressed, and why he had chosen to sit and read rather than go to sleep. It was nearly morning, the first chill of dawn in the air. The coach left at seven o'clock, and Charley meant to catch the coach. He had no intention of going to Warria. Michael began to get a bird's-eye view of the situation. He wondered whether Charley had ever intended going to Warria. He realised Charley would go off with the five pound note he had made him, Michael, get from Watty Frost, as well as with Paul's opals. He began, to see clearly what that would mean, too—Charley's getting away with Paul's opals. Paul would not be able to take Sophie away....

In the branches of a shrub nearby, a white-tail was crying plaintively: "Sweet pretty creature! Sweet pretty creature!" Michael remembered how it had cried like that on the day of Mrs. Rouminof s funeral.

Whether to go into the hut, tell Charley he knew what he had done, and demand the return of the opals, or let him get away with them, Michael had not decided, when Charley's hand went to his pocket, and, as it closed over the package of opals, a smile of infantile satisfaction flitted across his face. That smile, criminal in its treachery, enraged Michael more than the deed itself. The candle Charley had been reading by guttered out. He stumbled about the room looking for another. After a while, as if he could not find one, he went back to his chair and settled into it. The room fell into darkness, lit only by the dim pane of the window by which Michael was standing.

Michael's mind seethed with resentment and anger. The thing he had prayed for, that his brain had ached over, had been arranged. Rouminof would not be able to take Sophie away. But Michael was too good a Ridge man not to detest Charley's breach of the good faith of the Ridge. Charley had been accepted by men of the Ridge as one of themselves—at least, Michael believed he had.

George, Watty, the Crosses, and most of the other men would have confessed to reservations where Charley Heathfield was concerned. But as long as he had lived as a mate among them, they had been mates to him. Michael did not want Rouminof to have his stones if having them meant taking Sophie away, but he did not want him to lose them. He could not allow Charley to get away with them, with that smile of infantile satisfaction. If the men knew what he had done there would be little of that smile left on his face when they had finished with him. Their methods of dealing with rats were short and severe. And although he deserved all he got from them, Michael was not able to decide to hand Charley over to the justice of the men of the Ridge.

As he hesitated, wondering what to do, the sound of heavy, regular breathing came to him, and, looking through the window, he saw that Charley had done the last thing he intended to do—he had fallen asleep in his chair.

In a vivid, circling flash, Michael's inspiration came to him. He went across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin—a few pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years—that was all. Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he blew out his candle and went out of doors again.

He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley's hut. When he reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was sleeping.

He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he had done what he did. He knew only a sick fear possessed him that Charley would wake and find him, Michael, barefooted, like a thief in his house. But he was not a thief, he assured himself. It was not thieving to take from a thief.