Читать книгу Deadman's - Mary Gaunt - Страница 5

Table of Contents

'I can grapple with certain ill, and bid it strike, and shrink not.'

MEANWHILE Jocelyn Ruthven was drearily riding back to his camp at Deep Creek through the mist and rain and gathering darkness. It was only a rough track; the bracken and fern and thick scrub came down to it on each side, and the tall gum-trees towered overhead, shutting out the light of the winter's evening. The clayey soil was wet and slippery, and the ruts and hoof-marks were all full of muddy water. It was all downhill, too, steep in some places, and the chestnut mare picked her way carefully. He did not hurry her. He pulled his cap over his eyes, and drew his horseman's cloak closer round him, pulling the collar up to his ears. It was wet and uncomfortable, certainly, but what matter? there was worse before him down in the camp at Deep Creek.

He had come up this track so often, too often, these last three months. There had always been such a warm welcome for him, and now he would never come this way again. He was going to start a new life altogether. He was going to pay his pound of flesh for his folly, and there was no escaping. Ben Langdon thought there was no need for such a price, but Ben Langdon knew nothing about it. Emmie Langdon, she understood better. She took a deep interest in him—no one took more, no one—and she would not have told him he should do this thing unless she had felt there was no escape. She knew his high ideal of womanhood; she understood the sort of woman he would have chosen for his wife, had he been free to choose. She knew how far, how very far, this girl fell short of it, and yet she said he should marry her.

Then for a moment he rebelled against her decree. Supposing he refused to marry the girl, what then? He could never go back to Karouda again. But he could never go back in any case. How could he, once he was married to Nellie Phillips? Suppose he chucked up the service and started a new life in—New Zealand, say. He sat upright with a sigh of intense relief. How thankful he would be! He would let the past take care of itself and start afresh.

And then he sighed, for he remembered Emmie Langdon's words, and he knew he could not do it. He could not risk her disapproval. To know that she would think meanly of him! He would do the right thing, and there would be an end of life for him.

It was darker now, quite dark, and between the tree-trunks he could see the gleaming lights of the camp. It began to rain smartly, and the lights danced and gleamed and ran into one another as the water got into his eyes. He brushed his hand across them, and drew up his horse's head as they emerged into the clearing round the camp. There were blackened stumps and heaps of yellow earth everywhere, but the darkness and the falling rain mercifully hid the ugliness and the lights; the bright golden lights might have been fairy lamps against the gloom of the opposite hillside. The creek was running a banker, and the muddy waters surged up about his horse's knees at the ford, where less than a week ago they had scarce covered her hoofs. But a great deal had happened in one week. He had ridden out of that camp a careless, lighthearted man; he was coming back—well, well, he was ten long years older now. Six-and-twenty—no, he was fifty at the very least.

The track passed the open door of a slab hut, and the ruddy firelight fell in dancing lines on the wet earth. This was Mat Phillips' hut. He could hear Mat himself inside howling a hoarse song, drunk as usual. And he shuddered; this was his prospective father-in-law; from this home he was taking his wife.

He pulled up the mare smartly and dismounted. He would get the thing over and done with, and he stepped inside the doorway with his reins over his arm.

It was a dirty, untidy, uncomfortable room, and the bright fire was its only redeeming feature. A rough table stood in the centre, and on it were the remains of a meal, tin pannikins, tin plates, and no dishes at all; they had evidently eaten out of the frying-pan, which, half full of congealing fat, lay on the floor beside the table. He had eaten out of a frying-pan himself often enough—tin pannikins, tin plates, horn-handled knives, and two-pronged forks were no novelty to him; but that his future wife should have been brought up in a hole like this—— There was a bunk against the wall opposite the door, some blankets that had once been white trailed out of it on to the earthen floor, and on top of them lay a very unwashed, hairy specimen of the digger, his dirty red shirt open at the neck, his feet, cased in long, clayey butcher-boots, sprawling against the wall, and his arms supporting a very shock head, while, with wide-open mouth and unsteady utterance, he was shouting at the top of his voice something that was evidently intended for the 'Death of Nelson.'

'For England,' went on the thick voice, 'ex—es—espex——'

'Hold your tongue,' said Ruthven, his habit of authority asserting itself.

'Ho'sh you! Wash want? Asturbin' of shentleman—ownsh home.'

A woman—a slatternly, untidy woman, her gray hair twisted into a hard little knot on top of her head, her stockingless feet in a pair of down-at-heel carpet slippers, and her sleeves rolled up to far past her elbows—rose up from her seat beside the fire, and spoke to her lord and master.

'Arrah, thin, it's howlin' blind dhrunk yez are. Can't yez be seein' 'tis the Commissioner himsel'? Wouldn't yez think, now, he'd be chryin' shame to himsel' to cross the stip av the door at all, at all.'

Ruthven made a motion with his hand, but Bridget Phillips was not going to be silenced so easily.

'Sure an' wasn't she the swatest, purtiest colleen, an' yez come along wid yer decavin' ways an'—— Oh, wurra! wurra!'

'England,' said the man in the bunk solemnly, struggling up into a sitting position and supporting himself against the wall. 'Whash England got do with it? Whash matter, Biddy? Arsh shentleman sit down. Arsh have drinksh;' and he made an unsteady grab at a pannikin on the floor beside him.

'It's dhrunk yez are, ye baste!' said his wife, and then she began to wail at the top of her voice. 'Oh, wurra, ohone! 'Tis the sorrer an' shame av it has druv him to the dhrink, he that was the kindest an' best man——'

The 'kindest and best' man looked at her with preternatural solemnity; then, getting up unsteadily, he staggered towards the wife of his bosom, made a grab at her arm, missed it, and lurched over heavily, falling down with his knees in the frying-pan and his head and arms sprawling among the dirty remnants of the feast on the table. The tins made a tremendous clatter as he fell among them, and the chestnut mare started back in affright, but the aggrieved father made no effort to get up again. He began to cry to himself in a maudlin way, and his wife pointed to him.

'Ah, it's lookin' at yez wurrk yez are, thin. 'Tis the sorrer an' shame has done it. His only child, an' him to be turnin' her out av the house.'

'Will you hold your tongue?' asked Ruthven desperately.

'An' fwhat sud I hold me tongue for, an' me only gurrl ruined for love av the likes av yez.'

'Nonsense! What do you want me to do?'

Could he marry a girl from a home like this? could he? Could he possibly, even to keep Emmie Langdon's good opinion?

'Fwhat do I want yez to be doin'? Sure, isn't there only wan thing a jintleman cud be doin'?'

This woman, too. They expected him to marry her, then.

'I'll see that Nellie's well looked after,' he said. 'I'll give her plenty of money, and she shall not want for anything.'

The woman rose up like a fury, caught him by the arm, and shook her clenched fist in his face.

'Is it gould,' she cried, 'that'll give back to me gurrl her good name that yez stole from her, ye thief av the wurrld! Not a penny piece 'll she so much as touch wid the toe av her shoe!'

And Langdon had been so sure that money would square it.

Then another thought came to him.

'This isn't anything new,' he said. 'Why, I haven't even seen your daughter for the last three months. Why didn't you come to me long ago?'

Another outburst from Mrs. Phillips, and he put up his hand and caught the angry fist that was being shaken in his face.

'Look here, Mrs. Phillips: hold your tongue and behave like a sensible woman, or I'll clear out of the colony altogether, and leave you to manage as best you can. Upon my soul I will! Now, tell me, why didn't Nellie tell me of this before?'

'Ohone! ohone!' Mrs. Phillips waxed mournful now. 'The poor colleen! Sure, wouldn't she be hidin' her shame as long as she cud?'

Nellie had not struck him as that sort of girl. She had not been particularly reticent or ashamed up at Karouda. Well, Emmie Langdon had seen what manner of girl she was, and yet she had insisted he ought to marry her.

He sighed heavily and tapped the toe of his boot impatiently with his hunting-crop.

'For God's sake, sit down, woman, and stop that howling!' for Mrs. Phillips had sunk to her knees and was rocking herself backwards and forwards in the abandonment of her grief. 'Now listen to what I have got to say. Do you think Nellie would be happy if I married her?'

'Happy is it? Sure, an' isn't it herself's ruined for love av yez?'

He waved his hand impatiently. It gave him no pleasure to be told that Nellie Phillips loved him. He would do the right thing by her if marrying her were the right thing to do, but he could not pretend to love her, and he wished with all his heart she did not love him. She didn't, either. She would marry him, of course, because he was the Commissioner; but love, he thought bitterly to himself, she did not understand what love meant.

Well, if he did marry her, he was not going to have this disreputable father and mother making life harder for him than it need be, and he thought he might as well make a few conditions beforehand.

'Nellie would have to learn a great deal,' he went on, 'before she would be fit to take her place as my wife. Can she read and write?'

'Sure, isn't it the grand scholard she is intirely?' said the woman in a subdued voice, for it suddenly struck her that what she had only vaguely dared to scheme for was almost an accomplished fact: this man was actually thinking about marrying her daughter.

The man with his head among the tins murmured, 'Great scholard, my gurrl,' and snuffled, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

His wife flew at him, and shook him soundly till he fell over on the floor, and lay there on his back the very picture of maudlin resignation to the inevitable. A greasy tin plate had come down with him, and he clasped it to his breast with both his hands and gazed straight up at the roof, murmuring:

'I'm done for!—poor ole Mat's done for! Burysh 'im——'

'I'll bury yez, ye dhrunken scaramouch!' screamed his wife. 'Hould yer tongue while his honour's spakin'.'

Ruthven pointed to him.

'See, now, I couldn't have my wife associating with a thing like that. If Nellie marries me, she must clearly understand she can't come here any more.'

'Sure, 'twouldn't be fittin' for yer honour's lady,' said the woman humbly.

'I must have her cut off completely from all her past associates. Do you understand me, Mrs. Phillips?' He grew sterner as the inevitableness of the thing was forcing itself upon him. 'You must give her up to me entirely. She mustn't come here, and you mustn't even try and see her except when I give you permission. Do you hear?'

'Oh, wurra! yez wouldn't be partin' mother and child, an' she maybe wid a baby av her own at her brist.'

'Very well, then,' said Ruthven grimly. 'If that's what you want, you had better keep her here. Good-night;' and he drew back from the doorway.

'Ohone!' cried Mrs. Phillips, 'it's the cruel sorrer av a mither I'm sufferin' this night. Sure an' isn't it meself that knows that when Nellie has to be choosin' betwixt yer honour an' meself, 'tis the mither that bore her will go to the wall.'

'Very well,' said Ruthven with a sigh. 'Then you understand: you and she are not to see each other without my express permission. It's a harder thing to be a lady than perhaps Nellie knows. Tell her that. If she likes to draw back, I'll provide for her and her child well; but if she wants to marry me—well, I'll marry her. But then she must obey me in everything.'

''Tis herself that loves the ground yez treads on.'

'Tell her she'll have to learn to be a lady. I'll get someone to teach her.'

'Sure, the crathur has enough on her mind at presint,' said the mother suggestively.

'Well, well, by-and-by then. Now, mind you tell her, Mrs. Phillips, it won't be easy.'

'The crathur!' murmured Mrs. Phillips.

Ruthven stood silent a moment, gazing into the bright fire. There was no hope now, none whatever. He had taken the fatal plunge. A wind came sighing up the gully, and a burst of rain made his patient mare start, but he held the bridle a little tighter.

'Woa, then, good mare, we're nearly through. Now, Mrs. Phillips, this is Tuesday, isn't it? I'll come over next Monday with a parson and marry Nellie, and then I shall take her to Beechworth and leave her there till—till she's well again.'

'Sure, the gurrl does be wantin' boots an'——'

'Never mind. I'll see about that afterwards. You remember what I say.'

'The blissin' av the howly saints——'

'Remember you see nothing more of Nellie after next Monday. She belongs to me entirely.'

'The Blissed Virgin——'

'You'll see me at ten o'clock on Monday. See to it that Nellie's ready;' and Ruthven mounted his horse and rode away into the darkness.