Читать книгу Deadman's - Mary Gaunt - Страница 9

Table of Contents

'It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.'

IT was a bright moonlight night as Commissioner Thomas Nicholson came from his own quarters on the Government Camp to Ruthven's house on the hillside. The wind had died down, and the still, warm air just faintly fanned his cheek, while the whole mining camp lay softened in the bright white light. He could hear the murmur of voices; he could see the bright fires outside the huts and tents; the yellow mounds of earth and the stumps of the burnt trees were there before him, but they had lost their unsightliness; the warm summer night softened all things, and even the voices of the diggers coming up from the shanty, where they were holding a bull dance, were softened into something almost musical. Such a perfect night, and was this to be the end of his pleasant evenings? Commissioner Nicholson had got to the stage where an evening without Mary Parkin seemed to him stale and unprofitable. There was no charm in a walk where she was not the goal. He could not even whistle to himself as he strode along the narrow pathway made by the wheelbarrows of the diggers, so perturbed was he. And then the white picket-fence round Ruthven's house came into view, and he saw the trees that had been left standing to redeem the place from utter ugliness. It was dark under those trees. Would Mary Parkin be there? True, every night that he had come up for the last six weeks he had found her there, but to-night it was just possible she might be getting ready for her departure to-morrow. The very thought made his blood run cold. He had fancied she cared for him, but he had no certain knowledge. It was very natural she should spend her evening with him when there was nothing else to do. Mrs. Ruthven was no companion for her, but that was no reason why he should take it for granted she would marry him off-hand. A pretty little girl like her, why, she might have suitors by the dozen did she but hold up her hand, and because he was the chief man on this tuppenny-ha'penny little gold-field, he needn't suppose that the outside world valued him quite so highly. He was an autocrat here, but he would be nothing at all down in Melbourne—he knew that well enough; and by the time he reached the wicket-gate, he had reduced himself to such a humble frame of mind, to such depths of hopelessness, that he walked as silently as possible through the dust, and opened the gate as if he were afraid the least sound would betray his feelings to the listening camp below. He shut it again just as softly, and, the dust still muffling his footsteps, walked softly under the trees with but very faint hopes of seeing the woman he had come to meet.

Should he go up to the house if she were not in her usual place? Or should he take it as a sign that she thought little of him, and go back? He stood still a moment. She was not looking out for him. No, how could he expect it? Ah, well, he ought to have known. What was that white thing against the trunk of the farthest blackwood? Surely it was a woman's dress? His heart beat so high he had to step more softly than ever to prevent its being heard, and then his ear caught the sound of a muffled sob.

He made one step forward, and the next minute a little white, trembling figure was in his arms.

'Miss Parkin—Mary—darling—what's the matter?'

Mary tried half-heartedly, because she thought she ought, to free herself from his arms; but there was something in the way she did it that told him she was happy there, and he only held her in a closer embrace.

'Don't, my little darling—don't you like to stay with me? Tell me what you are crying for.'

'I have to go away to-morrow,' whispered Mary, telling the truth in her surprise.

'No, no! we can't be parted. You won't leave me; you'll stay with me always;' and a bearded face came so close to Mary's she was perforce obliged to hide hers against his shoulder.

But it was a blissful moment for both of them. Oh, the warm moonlight night! the aromatic scent of the forest up above on the ranges! the delicate network that the moonbeams made as they cast the shadow of the leaves on to the girl's white dress! For all of us mortals there are, thank God! moments when our cup is full to the brim with bliss, when not the most exacting but has his fill of joy, and to these two such a supreme moment had come. So still, so quiet, so blissful, what more could they ask of Fate? And Mary nestled against her lover's breast, and he held her close, as if never again could he let her go. A belated cicada started to skirl in the tree above their heads, and Mary drew a long breath.

'Oh;' she sighed, 'I was afraid you weren't coming, and then I'd never have seen you again.'

'And I was afraid,' he whispered, 'you would be too busy to come out and see me.'

She laughed a little wondering laugh. How could a man be so blind?

'But you never whistled coming up the hill. I always know you by your whistle; and I listened and listened, and I thought you weren't coming.'

'I was too anxious to whistle. And you never guessed!'

They laughed a little happy laugh. It was all right now. Suddenly Mary Parkin started up with a qualm of regret for her selfishness.

'Oh dear! I was forgetting. How wicked I am! A dreadful thing has happened. It's all dreadful.'

'What is it?' asked Nicholson, with the calmness with which a man generally hears of another's woe. Mary was here, and belonged to him. What else could harm him?

'That unfortunate girl, Mrs. Ruthven—she's run away.'

'Gone down to see her mother, I suppose you mean. The best thing Ruthven can do is to leave her in Melbourne, and get her educated a bit.'

'No; I mean she's run away really. Mr. Ruthven doesn't seem to realize it. He thinks she'll come back to-morrow, but I know better. She's run away for good and all.'

'Poor Ruthven!' said Nicholson. 'Perhaps it's the best thing that can happen to him. But it is bad, all the same. How do you know she has run away?'

Mary Parkin freed her hands, and produced from her pocket a crumpled piece of paper, a sheet torn from a copybook. Nicholson by the bright moonlight could read the headline, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'

'There!' she said. 'Read that. It is light enough out of the shadow. No, please, you mustn't'—for he wanted still to keep his arm round her, though they had stepped out from under the tree—'somebody might see.'

It was a very brief communication, addressed to Mary, and written in a childish scrawl; but it set forth in no measured terms the writer's decision not to go to Melbourne, not to bother about learning any more; she was going to 'chuck' her husband, she said. He would be jolly glad to be rid of her, and she was off with someone who would take care of her, and who wasn't a cold fish neither. She, Mary Parkin, could tell Jos—yes, she actually called him Jos—it wasn't a bit of good looking for her. She'd gone away with someone who would know how to keep her.

'There!' sighed Mary, looking up into her lover's face; 'what do you think of that?'

'She's gone to her mother. She's afraid of going to school in town.'

'No, she hasn't. I went down to the Phillipses' as soon as I found that. I couldn't find Mr. Ruthven, so I didn't know what else to do.'

'Well?'

'Well, Mrs. Phillips was sitting on a stool with her apron over her head, rocking herself to and fro, howling "wurroo" at intervals. There wasn't anybody else there.'

'And what did she say?'

'I could hardly get anything out of her at first. She just abused everybody all round, me included—specially me and Mr. Ruthven,' sighed Mary. 'And then she began muttering something about Fraser being a murtherin' villain, and it would be as much as her life was worth to say a single word.'

'Whew!' whistled Nicholson. 'What did Ruthven say when you told him?'

'I haven't told him,' said Mary, blushing and faltering. 'I only said I'd been down to the Phillipses', and she wasn't there. He still believes she'll come back, and isn't bothering much.'

'You showed him the letter?'

'Yes, I showed him the letter.'

'Oh, well, really I don't know that things can be worse than they have been. You can't go to town to-morrow, that's one blessing.'

'But I can't stay here,' said Mary with a sob.

'By Jove, Mary, I never thought of that! We'd better get married right away. Have you got any relations to be shocked?'

'Nobody. Since Aunt Marion died I've been quite alone.'

'Poor lonely little girl, it's time you had somebody to take care of you! We'll go up to Beechworth and get married right away.'

And the cicada shrilled loudly and triumphantly, and the round white moon, high in the heavens, looked down kindly on the lovers, as she has looked on many and many a pair of lovers since those first two in the Garden long ages ago; and if a mo-poke croaked solemnly on the hill beyond, it was not as an omen of ill to the bride who was won, but in pity for the ruined lives and the wife that was lost.