Читать книгу Deadman's - Mary Gaunt - Страница 6

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'Oh, east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,

Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment-seat.'

'I CAN'T do it, I can't, and, what's more, I ain't agoin' to try.'

'Oh, dear, dear, Mrs. Ruthven, you really shouldn't say "ain't agoin' to." Whatever would Mr. Ruthven say?'

'I'm blest if I care what he says. I've had about enough of this;' and Nellie Ruthven threw down her pen, shut up her copybook, regardless of the fact that the very badly written copy would be all blots, and, pushing back her chair, threw up her hands above her head, and indulged in what she called 'a good old stretch.'

She had seemed a pretty girl once, when first Ruthven had met her out on the hillside in a ragged cotton dress with a sunburnt straw hat on the back of her dark untidy curls. Yes, she had been pretty with her dark eyes and bright red cheeks; her nose was certainly tip-tilted, but that lent piquancy to her expression, and if her mouth were large, the row of teeth she showed when she smiled was the best excuse for that. How was it that bright laughing face looked so very commonplace now? She had looked graceful in that ragged dirty gown, and behold, now that he had dressed his wife to the best of his ability, she only managed to look awkward and uncomfortable.

He had thought she would improve, but she had been here over three months, and, if anything, he thought she was worse than when she came. She was better dressed than Miss Parkin, he was sure of that; but, somehow, Miss Parkin looked to the manner born, and was at her ease and comfortable, and his wife could not acquire that ease. How was it?

The poor little baby had died when it was born, and he had brought her straight back to the camp at Deep Creek, had built a comfortable house for her, as houses went on the diggings in the fifties, and had engaged Miss Parkin to be her companion and teach her reading and writing, and, in fact, to make a lady of her. And he had to own to himself that Miss Parkin was making but a poor job of it.

Not that he had any fault to find with the teacher. She was a bright young girl, just the right sort, he told himself. Pretty in a fair, blue-eyed way, always laughing and happy; but she was a lady, there was no doubt of that, and the contrast between her and his wife seemed to grow more marked every day. Nellie was a daughter of the shanty, and a daughter of the shanty she would remain to her dying day. She seemed incapable of refinement; she jarred on him daily, and all day long he had an uncomfortable feeling that she jarred on her companion. Poor Nellie! he sighed when he thought of it all; it was such an unnatural, weary life for both of them. He wondered what Miss Parkin thought of it.

At the present moment Miss Parkin felt a little hopeless. It was so difficult to teach a grown-up woman to write, especially when she would not see that there was anything wrong. Nellie, who had had so little education in her life, would persist in regarding the scrawl she had at last accomplished as something wonderful, and the very best that could be desired, while her teacher felt it incumbent upon her to teach her the neat and flowing hand which was a source of pride to herself. And now she simply pushed back her copybook, and outraged all the rules of grammar, and behaved—well, as her small teacher had been carefully instructed no lady should behave.

It was January and a hot-wind day. The north wind, that howled and raged down the gully, shook the house in great gusts, and though all the windows and doors were shut, still the dust and heat would penetrate, and everything felt sticky and gritty to the touch. It certainly was not a day to toil over a copybook. But what could the teacher do? Her pupil was invariably getting off her lessons on some frivolous excuse or other, and she began to feel that she was in a measure cheating Mr. Ruthven. He expected his wife to learn something, and his wife was practically as ignorant as on the day, three months ago now, when she had first taken up her residence with the uncomfortable Ruthven household.

She looked at her pupil sorrowfully.

'Mrs. Ruthven,' she said gravely, 'don't you want to please your husband?'

'No, I don't.'

'But—but—all women should love their husbands and try to please them.'

'Oh, I dessay,' sullenly; 'but he don't ever try to please me. There ain't no fun in life at all. It's that dull.'

Both the girls were under twenty, two young girls clad alike in simple white dresses, with all the world before them. But one was happy, and the other, she who had attained the position she most desired, a position beyond her highest hopes, felt that it was all dust and ashes, and if she could have gone back she would have done so gladly.

'Dull!' echoed Miss Parkin in surprise; it never failed to surprise her, though Mrs. Ruthven made the same complaint twenty times a day. 'Dull! Why, what more could you want?'

'Oh, it's all very well for you. There's that young Nicholson hangin' about for you every night.'

'Mrs. Ruthven!'

But the colour deepened on the fair little face, and a faint smile brought out a very kissable little dimple on her rosy cheek.

'Oh, it's all very well to say "Mrs. Ruthven!" but I know what you're up to nights when I'm a-sittin' here an' he's askin' me, "How've you got on?" an' "How much spellin' have you done?" an' "Let's look at your copy." A fine copy he'll see to-night;' and she laughed scornfully.

'Oh, Mrs. Ruthven, you mustn't talk like that even to me. You have got such a good, kind husband. You wouldn't like him not to take an interest in you.'

'Bless you! that's not interest in me,' said Nellie, with a penetration that surprised her listener, 'not what you might call a real sort of an interest. He thinks it's proper to spend some time with his wife, an' so he comes along for an hour in the evenin'. Oh, I know. He's dreadful 'shamed of me. He don't even like that Nicholson comin' here, though, Lord knows, he comes to see you! An' he just asks me questions nights cos he can't think of nothin' else to say.'

'Oh, but, my dear, my dear'—Mary Parkin put a gentle hand on her pupil's shoulder—'it'll be all right if you only learn and improve. Then you'll be a companion to him. It will make such a difference.'

'It won't make no difference ever to me,' sighed poor Nellie. 'I'm mum when he comes along.'

'But, Nellie, you weren't always like that, you know.'

'Oh yes, always.'

'No, no, you never could have got married if——'

'Oh, when I met him out on the ranges nights, you mean. Oh, it was different then. I didn't care what I said. An' he used to laugh at me an' crack jokes, an' chuck me under the chin, an' say what pretty eyes I'd got. He was jolly. He ain't like that now. He won't ever be again. It was nice them nights on the hills, so nice an' warm with the moon a-shinin'. Oh dear, oh dear!'

And poor Nellie put her head down on the table and began to cry.

'Oh, don't do that—please don't do that!'

Mary Parkin felt it was such a hopeless case when her pupil talked in this strain.

'It's all very well to say "Don't do that,"' said Nellie Ruthven, raising her head defiantly. 'It's all his fault. Why'd he marry me? why did he—why did he?'

And she stamped her feet and flung out her arms over the table.

Her companion looked at her thoughtfully. She knew very well why he had married her. Nellie, in a burst of confidence, had told her that herself, but she felt that perhaps it was just as well not to remind her of that.

'He was fond of you,' she said lamely, and she knew quite well that she deceived not even herself, far less her listener.

'Fond of me!' she laughed bitterly. 'Get out! you know better than that. He couldn't bear the sight of me. That white-faced hussy up at Karouda, she made him do it. Oh, he thinks a sight of her! I wish she was dead, I do!'

'Oh, hush! hush! You mustn't say such things, you mustn't really. You don't know how dreadful it is. You know very well when first you came Mrs. Langdon came to see you, and was as nice as possible.'

'Oh, was she? Sittin' there lookin' at him reproachful like, sayin', "Look at the gal you've got, an' look at me."'

Miss Parkin burst out laughing.

'I was here all the while, and she never said anything of the sort.'

'Yes, she did, with her eyes. A nasty, sly cat I call her.'

At the bottom of her heart Mary Parkin was inclined to agree with Mrs. Ruthven; but it didn't suit her to say so, therefore she suddenly became diplomatic, and said thoughtfully:

'You are ever so much better-looking than her, you know. Fair people always look so poor beside dark ones. If you would only just try and learn a little, you would soon cut her out. Why, she must be quite old, six or seven and twenty at the very least,' said nineteen scornfully. 'Oh, if you would only take a little trouble, Mr. Ruthven would never think of her when you were by.'

But Mr. Ruthven's wife knew better. She shook her head decidedly.

'You know better 'n that. He hates the very sight of me. He wishes he was dead when he looks at me; an' me, I hate the very sight of his solemn face. I ain't agoin' to try no more;' and she snatched up her copybook and tore it into two pieces. 'There, see that! Mother said as I was a fool to bother, an' me a grown woman. I'll tell her to-night I've took her advice, an' if he don't like it——'

'But Mrs. Ruthven, Nellie—— You know that—that——'

'He won't have me seein' mother. Yes, I know. But I do see her—I've just got to see her some time. Who cares? He's away somewhere, an' as for you, you're a-carryin' on with that Nicholson.'

'Mrs. Ruthven, it is foolish, to say the least of it, to——'

'I'm going to bring her here this very night. It's my house as well as his, an' I'm goin' to bring mother to it. He can kick me out if he likes. It's dull enough, Lord knows! I'd a' run away long ago if I wasn't waitin' for——' She stopped abruptly, and then added sullenly, 'I ain't agoin' to do no more lessons. That's flat!'

And she rose to her feet and pushed away, as if for good and all, the lesson-books that lay strewn across the table.

'Oh, Nellie!' began poor little Miss Parkin in dismay, when she was interrupted by a brisk knocking at the door.

There was no hall; the front-door opened straight off the veranda into the sitting-room, and Mary Parkin looked doubtfully at the house's mistress.

'Open the door,' she said; and the little companion got up and admitted a tall fair man in a frogged coat and gold-laced cap, the undress uniform of a cavalry officer, and the dress worn by the Gold Commissioners of the Victorian Government.