Читать книгу The Other Man - Mary Gaunt - Страница 6

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"Girls, girls—Ruth, Dolly—where are you?"

Mr. Grant's voice was a good strong one when she chose to raise it, which she did pretty often, and it rang through the house in strident tones that made the two girls pause in their unpacking.

"Snakes alive!" she cried, flinging open the door, "What a mess! You'll never get straight, will you? And what a lot of clothes! Whatever do you want with so many dresses?"

"Well," said Dolly demurely, "we wear them as a rule."

"Do you? Oh, well, they'll last a good bit here. We don't bother about much extra dressing. You'll soon find we've too much to do for that. But I say, would you girls like to come for a little picnic? The father and Willie have gone out mustering, and I thought if you liked we might take their luncheons to them."

Dolly looked out of the window doubtfully. A furious wind was howling round the house, tearing at the windows, shrieking down the chimneys, bending the tall slender gum saplings in the plantation by the lake nearly double. It was certainly not an inviting day for a picnic, and she would have liked to decline the invitation, but Ruth answered for them both.

"Thank you, aunt; we'd like to go very much. When'll you start?"

"Now," said Mrs Grant. "Put on your things and come and help me put up the luncheon."

Ruth would have liked to reverse that order, but she did as she was bid, and they joined their aunt in the dining-room, where she was standing over a fore-quarter of veal, the fellow to the one they had had last night. Dolly made a wry face at her sister, and was caught in the act by little golden-haired Vera, who was also looking on.

She said nothing for the moment, but drew a chair up to the sideboard and, peering through the heterodox collection of goods collected there, surveyed her own fair little reflection in the glass, apparently with much satisfaction.

"How do you do, Vewabella?" she said, nodding her head. "Hasn't seen you for a long time. Is you quite well?"

Verabella in the glass nodded back in friendly fashion to Vera on the chair, and answered,

"Quite well, thank you."

"Cousin Dolly doesn't like veal," went on Vera confidentially, and Dolly shivered, wondering what would come next, when Mrs. Grant, suddenly turning round, caught sight of the child whom she had not apparently noticed before.

"Vera, Vera," she said, "how often am I to tell you not to be so silly? Come down this minute."

But the little girl ventured to stay where she was a moment longer.

"Is your mother cwoss, Vewabella?" she asked, and receiving a confirmatory nod in the glass, added, "cos mine is, vewy," and she pursed up her lips as if to convey that it was a desperate situation.

"Ruth," said Mrs Grant sharply, "lift that child down."

Ruth put a gentle arm round the little one.

"Come, dear," she said. "Mother doesn't like you to do that. Come."

For a moment Vera stiffened her back and resisted, then relenting, suddenly buried her face in the girl's soft sealskin.

"O-o-o-h," she said. "Hasn't you got a nice pussy. Is you goin' to wear your pussy?"

"Yes, indeed, my dears," said Mrs. Grant, "those sealskins are much too good for a place like this. Now look at me."

Whether she considered her appearance called for admiration Ruth could not say. Her rough ulster was coated with mud up to the waist, the inevitable woollen shawl adorned her shoulders, and on her head was perched a battered black silk bonnet, adorned by way of ornament with a wisp of rusty black ostrich feathers, out of which the curl had long since departed.

"Your ulster—it is a little muddy," hesitated Ruth, "shall I brush it for you?"

"Lor no, my dear. If I brushed it whenever it got muddy I might always be at it. I just keep it for days like this. It'll do very well as it is. Who's to see? Now then, girls, are you ready? Vera, do you want to come? Run along, then, and get your things on. I'm not going to take any plates or knives or forks. They're only a nuisance. One knife'll do to cut the bread and meat. I suppose you two won't mind drinking out of the same cup, will you?"

Ruth laughed, and the two girls helped their aunt to carry out the various parcels to the buggy which stood at the front door. It was the same buggy they had arrived in the night before, with just the extra coating of mud dried on, not an aristocratic or distinguished-looking conveyance, but, said Mrs. Grant, "quite good enough for the plains."

Not that it was all flat country either, for the house stood on a gentle swell which sloped down to the shores of the lake, the waters of which could be seen gleaming grey between the trunks of the bluegums which John Grant had planted nearly sixteen years before to form a shelter for the stock. It was along the margin of the lake their way lay, a lake about a mile long and half as broad, its surface now ruffled into tiny white breakers by the fierce north wind, but still reflecting faithfully the dull dead grey sky overhead. And beyond the lake was the bare level treeless plain, and the girls felt that a more unpromising time or place for a picnic could hardly have been chosen. But they did not say so; indeed, all attempts at conversation were soon given up, for the wind blew the words into empty space, and Ruth, who sat behind with Vera, drew her sealskin cap down over her eyes and her jacket up to her ears and was soon buried in her own thoughts, wondering mournfully how she could possibly live the life that lay before her. By and by a tug from the little girl at her side and a wild shout from her aunt made her aware that they had almost arrived at their destination, some lonely sheep-yards about nine miles from the house. Soon came borne on the wind the mournful bleat, bleat of the frightened sheep, the shouts of the men, the barking of the dogs, and, worse than all, the peculiar aroma which always accompanies that useful animal the sheep, and which was now multiplied a thousandfold. They drove right up to the yards, and Mrs. Grant, jumping out, called on the girls to help her unhitch the horses, and that done proceeded to haul out from under the seat a bundle of wood, which she had brought out for the purpose of lighting a fire. It was no easy matter in the teeth of such a gale, but by dint of all three of them standing together and forming a breakwind they at last got it started and the billy in a fair way to boil, and were at liberty to turn their attention to the sheep and the folks they had come to see.

There were three men at work in the yards, Mr. Grant, his son Willie, and a tall young fellow whom he called Marsden. The sheep the girls thought uninteresting. They were foolish, frightened creatures, huddling together in helpless fashion in the dirty yards, their woolly coats wet and evil-smelling after last night's rain.

"How horrid they smell, uncle," said Dolly, leaning over the fence, "and how frightened they are. What on earth are you doing to the poor things?"

"Just mustering and drafting, my girl. Cutting their hair and paring their nails and tidying them up a bit. Now, Marsden, Marsden—that one there by the fence. Haul her up."

Dolly looked puzzled, and the man he had called Marsden, dexterously catching a sheep and dragging it up to where they stood, took upon himself to explain.

"You see," he said, and both girls started, for rough, not to say dirty, as he looked, the voice was that of a gentleman, "their horns sometimes grow into their eye's and their hoofs grow too long, so we have to catch them and cut them. That's what your uncle means."

"Poor things," said Dolly again, looking down into the frank unshaven face turned towards her own; "it frightens them so and makes them so dirty."

"Dirty," he laughed, and blushed through the sunburn on his cheeks, glancing down at himself somewhat ruefully; "dirty—that's a complaint we all suffer from. The yards are knee deep in mud as it is, and the sheep churn it up and spatter everything."

He made a dash and caught an old wether, dragging him over in spite of resistance to show Dolly how perilously near to the poor animal's eye the great curly horn was growing. He had just opened his knife, and was preparing to cut off the tip, when Vera, who had been surveying her own small face with much satisfaction in a wind-blown pool of water, joined them, and clambering over the fence regardless of her clothes immediately precipitated herself on to Marsden.

"Oh, Woger, Woger, my Woger," she cried. "I hasn't seen 'oo for ever so long."

Her unexpected onslaught was disastrous. The old wether in sudden fright freed his bond with one despairing effort that sent the knife intended for his relief deep into Marsden's hand, and bounding away to seek refuge in the middle of the flock, he knocked the little girl flat on her back in the filthy mud of the sheep-yard. Marsden picked her up and set her on the fence.

"My dear little girl," he said in remonstrance.

"Oh—oh—oh," sobbed Vera, paying no attention to Mrs. Grant's voluble reproaches, "Oh—oh—oh—he's hurted hissell—I see—see the bluggy——"

Indeed the blood was falling in great red drops from the fingers of his left hand. He took out his handkerchief and began winding it round the cut.

"Let me," said Dolly, impetuously, "Oh do let me. I'll bind it up for you properly."

"What's that," asked Mr. Grant, "a cut? Well, look out you don't get poisoned, that's all."

She unwound the handkerchief and proceeded to wash the stranger's wound very gently in the pool of water which had been Vera's looking-glass.

It was an ugly gash right across the palm of the hand, and Mrs. Grant came and inspected it dubiously.

"My! Marsden," she said, "you'll have to go to the doctor and get that sewn up. What a naughty child that Vera is! It's all her doing."

"Oh, don't blame her please," he entreated, "it was the merest accident."

"The merest accident—yes; but if it gets poisoned," she went on lugubriously—"I've seen men lose an arm for a less thing."

"Now, Mr. Marsden, you're our patient," said Dolly, who, sorry as she was for the accident, thoroughly enjoyed the situation, "and you must obey us. Patients always do what their nurses bid them. Now, Ruth, hold that, like a good girl, I attended an ambulance class once, Mr. Marsden, so I assure you you may trust me."

"I am sure of that," he said fervently, more fervently perhaps than the occasion warranted, but when two pretty girls play the Good Samaritan to a good-looking young man a little extra fervour is perhaps excusable.

"There," said Dolly, "there, that's done. Now you certainly can't do any more work to-day. You'd better go home."

Roger Marsden rose to his feet.

"Indeed," he said, looking from one to the other—Mrs. Grant had retired to a little distance, and was engaged in wiping down the repentant Vera with a wisp of grass—"You are too kind to me. How am I to thank you?"

"Take care of your hand and get well," recommended Dolly. "Can't you come up to the house to-night and let us put proper bandages on. You certainly ought to have proper bandages put on, and you can't put them on yourself."

"No," he assented, "that's true enough, but don't you know it is as the law of the Medes and Persians on this station; no man is allowed to come near the house except to evening prayers. All communications are carried on by means of Tom Sing, the Chinaman."

"Come to prayers, then," recommended Dolly, "and we'll see about the rest. But goodness me, what are those laws for? I counted seven maid-servants at prayers last night, and two of them are awfully pretty. I should have thought the men would find it rather jolly."

"Well, so they do," began Marsden gravely, and then broke off with a laugh in which the two girls joined, and which made them laugh there and then. "So they do," he went on, "but you see Mrs. Grant, or the boss either for that matter, doesn't approve of—of—of——"

"Carryings on," finished Dolly; "and don't they carry on, then?"

"Well, yes, I'm afraid they do; you see, there's the plantation and the hillside; and—and—the girls can always come out if the men can't go in."

"Of course," said Dolly, as if she had done it a hundred times herself. "And now you come up to prayers and we'll look after you. I don't suppose we'll have to sneak out into the plantations to tie up your hand, will we?"

"Well, I don't know," he said, getting bolder. "If I come into prayers they might deal leniently with me. They call this the 'Hallelujah Station,' you know."

"Oh, do they," said Dolly, "then——"

"Marsden, Marsden," called Mr. Grant.

"To-night then," said Dolly, holding out her hand impetuously, and he shook hands with both of them and turned away.

It was but a trifling incident, but somehow it comforted the two girls. The tall fair young fellow with the kind blue eyes and sunburnt face seemed every bit as out of place among his surroundings as they themselves were.

"Thank goodness," said Dolly, "I really am sorry for that man, but somehow I feel better, don't you, Ruth?"

"Well, yes," said Ruth, who was not so impulsive as her sister, "but there's lunch to be got through yet."

"There's a good deal to be got through, I see with sorrow," said Dolly, "but I begin to think we shall manage it."

"Now, Dolly, what a girl you are! Just because a decent-looking young man speaks civilly to you—you——"

"My dear," said Dolly, slipping her arm through her sister's, and giving it a friendly little squeeze, "that young man was a perfect godsend. Words cannot express——-There, there's the old lady calling us. I suppose we must go and assist at this sumptuous repast. I'll give you my views later on."

It certainly was the funniest picnic they had ever assisted at. The wind was still blowing fiercely across the shelterless plain, and, to form some slight breakwind, Mrs. Grant flung a rug across the wire fence, and held it in its place by heavy stones. To leeward of this they sat and ate their humble meal, which was served in the most primitive of fashions. Mrs. Grant, as the possessor of the only knife, placed the fore-quarter of veal on a newspaper in front of her, and proceeded to dispense "chunks" all round. She cut up her own share with the carving knife. Willie and his father cut theirs into small blocks with their pocket-knives, and Vera went on the good old principle that teeth and fingers were made before forks, while Ruth and Dolly looked at their portions in some dismay. It had not occurred to them, even when they saw the primitive arrangements for the picnic, that they would be expected to take a bone in their fingers and gnaw off the meat.

At last, when a good portion of the veal and all the bread and butter had disappeared, old Grant picked the last crumbs off his waistcoat and solemnly returned thanks.

"And now I suppose, uncle," said Ruth, "you'll have your smoke. However will you light your pipe in such a wind?"

"Smoke? Smoke?" Old Grant scratched his head. "This is a temperance station, Ruth, I don't smoke myself, nor do I allow anyone else on the place to do so. It is simply an abominably disgusting habit. It is——"

"Father," put in Mrs. Grant—she had evidently heard all this before, and was perhaps a little tired of it—"what are you going to do now Marsden's laid up."

"It is a trial," said her husband resignedly—Ruth thought her father would have said it was a "d——d nuisance," and though she had not been given to admiring her father, she really felt that on this occasion his expression was preferable. "It is a trial. We can't do any more here, but it is the Lord's will, and it's not for me to complain. Willie, saddle up those horses, and we'll go home."

"And we'll go too, girls," said their aunt.

"Well, they are queer people," said Dolly when they found themselves once more safe in the privacy of their own room. "Ar'n't they queer, Ruth? I wonder what that young Marsden thinks about it. He's a gentleman, don't you think so?"

"Yes," said Ruth, "his manners are good, but—but what's he doing here?"

"Earning an honest living, I imagine," said Dolly. "Now, Ruth, don't you abuse the young man, for I've taken a fancy to him. He's a perfect godsend, as I told you before, and I intend to cultivate the acquaintance."

"Well, we'll see to-night if he comes into prayers," said her more cautious sister.

"Meanwhile we may as well draw the family out upon him at tea," suggested Dolly.