Читать книгу Son of Billabong - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 7

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THE policemen who carried the fainting woman out of the Court found her a difficult problem to deal with. For one thing, there was no accommodation in the back rooms for insensible people. They laid her upon a bench with a folded tunic under her head, but it did not seem a comfortable couch. They applied what first-aid they could, but she obstinately refused to come round. Perspiring and anxious, they stared at her, wondering what to do next.

“This means a doctor, I reckon,” said one. “We’d better look slippy, too, in case she dies on us—she looks queer enough. An’ we’ll have the sergeant here any minute to know why we aren’t back in Court.”

“Well, you go and ring up a doctor—I can’t go outside without me tunic,” said his mate. “And for goodness’ sake don’t be long—I don’t like the look of her.”

“O.K. Stand by in case she rolls off the bench. A bump on the floor wouldn’t help her much.”

She was still unconscious when the doctor arrived. They watched him as he bent over her.

“Do we have to stay, Doc?” one asked plaintively. “We’re on duty—an’ it’s a fair shame to miss the case that’s on.”

“You needn’t worry—the Court’s adjourned for lunch,” said the doctor. “I may want one of you.”

“Well, you’d better stay, Alf, ’cause she’s got your tunic,” decided the messenger. “I’ll go an’ get me dinner.” He left hurriedly. The shirt-sleeved one sighed.

“Nasty colour, ain’t she, Doc? Like a suet pudding. But she’s never let go of her bag. I expect she’s got the rent in it.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“Never set eyes on her before, but she’s been in Court all the morning.”

“And the air in Court as thick as usual, I suppose?”

“Thicker. Packed to the doors.”

“Well, you keep quiet while I listen to her heart, can’t you?” demanded the doctor irritably. The young constable raised his eyebrows as if protesting against the injustice of life and wondered when, and if, he was to have any dinner.

She stirred under the doctor’s hands and opened her eyes. “Joe,” she muttered.

“Joe’s all right. Lie still: you’ll be better in a moment.” He was busy with a bottle and a tiny glass. “Drink this. Slowly, now—I’ll hold your head.”

She drank, glad to let her head drop back again. Her eyes closed. The doctor watched her closely, a finger on her pulse.

“Can you tell us where your home is?”

The head moved feebly. “Sydney.”

“But where are you staying here?”

“Only ... only got in this morning. Car.”

“Bother the woman, she’s gone off again,” muttered the doctor. “Well, I can’t stay here much longer—I’m over-due at a case as it is. She’ll have to go to the hospital. Can you get an ambulance?”

“Too right I can,” said the constable thankfully, and fled. Two ambulance men returned with him presently.

“She tried to say something more about a Ford car,” the doctor told the policeman, “but I couldn’t make sense of it. Anyhow, if you find a stray car unclaimed it will probably be hers. I’ve looked in her bag: she’s got money, but no papers or address.”

“If she’s drivin’ herself she’ll have her licence. Ought to, anyway.”

“Probably left it in the pocket of the car for the first person to steal. Carry on, boys: I’ll ring the hospital doctor about her.”

The men lifted the still body gently and tramped out to the ambulance.

.......

Even when she woke to the blessed peace of a cool bed in a quiet room she was too tired to think. Easier to shut her eyes again and drift back into that borderland between sleeping and waking where neither dreams nor thoughts can come. Sometimes came the dim ghost of a thought—“If only I need never wake up!”—and with it she would slip down, down into the darkness. It held her closely, gently, as though a cloud enfolded her in peace.

But it could not last. Life began to flow again in her body, and with it her mind became capable of feeling once more. Of remembering. At first all she could think of was the car. Driving, driving hard, hour after hour, over roads where the old Ford bumped and rattled and groaned, until weariness made her unable to distinguish a pot-hole from a patch of shadow, and she knew she must stop or come to grief. Pulling off the road to the grass; huddling in the back of the car to fall asleep instantly; waking stiff and unrefreshed in the dawn and struggling back to the wheel again. She drove through those long days, over and over, as she lay with closed eyes; hearing voices now and then, but too weary to attend to them.

Then came clearer memories: the Court with its rows of packed benches, the hard faces, the woman who had sat beside her and talked. And all alone, the face of the man whom the crowd had come to see. A fierce, brutal face; she knew that well enough. But what did that matter, if you had known the face before it grew wicked—if it was still the only face in the world that mattered to you?

What had they done to him? She did not know how long she had been in bed, or how she had come there. She had no memory of falling: only of sitting on the bench in the Court, feeling a tide of blackness slowly creeping over her. Something must have happened to her then. For that, she cared nothing—but what had they done to the man in the dock?

There was a sound by her bed. She forced her eyes to open slowly. A nurse was there, bright and starched, with a determined air of cheerfulness.

“Waked up at last? Well, you’ve had a nice long sleep, and no mistake. Feeling better?”

She tried to nod. “Thirsty.”

“I’m sure I don’t wonder,” said the nurse. “Well, we’ll see to that. Hungry, too, I hope, presently.”

Another nurse came; they fussed about her bed, gave her hot, comforting drinks, and presently she fell asleep again, too tired to ask questions. A day went by like a dream: waking now and then, each time to fuller consciousness, with nurses coming and going. It was evening before she found herself free from that overmastering drowsiness.

“Not going to sleep any more?” said the nurse, taking away her cup. “Right. Now just a little washing-up, and then the doctor will be coming along to see you.”

“Am I in a hospital?”

“You certainly are. But that’s nothing to worry about. We hadn’t a bed vacant in the women’s wards, so we had to pop you into this little private room.”

“But I’m not ill. I’m never ill.”

“That’s the spirit,” said the nurse approvingly. “Carry on like that and you’ll be leaving us in no time.”

“But how did I come here?”

“Well, you were just brought, that’s all. You fainted, and somebody picked you up; and as nobody knew who you were, you were given to us. I think you were just dead tired. But there’s no need to bother your head about that; the doctor will have a talk to you.” She tucked her up briskly. “Now you’re all brushed-up and ready to receive visitors. He’ll be along presently.” She whisked away.

She had half an hour in which to think before the doctor came, a middle-aged man in a white coat. A kind face, she thought, studying it while he made his examination; I wouldn’t mind asking him questions. When he had finished he sat down by the bed.

“There’s not much the matter with you, but you’ll have to take care,” he said. “Your heart isn’t all it might be—perhaps you know that already.”

“Oh, I’ve known that for years. But it doesn’t trouble me if I take care.”

“You don’t seem to have done that very successfully lately,” said the doctor. “You were brought here in a state of collapse from extreme exhaustion. I don’t know what you had been doing, but certainly a woman in your state had no business to be sitting in a crowded building.” He looked keenly at her. “Was it necessary for you to be there?”

“Yes,” she said.

“When you were unconscious you talked a bit. No, don’t worry—” as he saw swift alarm flash into her eyes; “only enough to show that you were in trouble of some kind. You did not give away any secrets. But it is bad for you to bottle up trouble. If I can help you in any way, just tell me what’s on your mind.”

“What did they do to him, Doctor? The ... the man at the trial.”

“McGill? He got off more lightly than many people expected. Five years.”

“Five years!” she gasped. “Hard labour?”

He nodded. “You must have expected it, surely? There was no real defence.”

“I didn’t know ... all the details. I ... I hoped it wouldn’t be as bad.”

She lay silently fighting for self-control, clenching her teeth. The doctor put his hand on her wrist.

“Much better let yourself go. Cry if you want to: nobody will hear you. It would do you good.”

Instead she gave him a twisted smile. The doctor would have preferred tears.

“I haven’t cried this ten years. Not that I’ve not had reason enough; but somehow I just can’t manage it. Many’s the time I’ve wished I could.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s bad luck for you. Suppose you unburden yourself in another way and tell me your troubles.”

“I believe I’d like to,” she said. “Living alone like I do I never speak to a soul. There are times when I feel as if I’d go mad just for the want of it.”

“Worst thing possible for that heart of yours,” he told her. He lit a cigarette, leaning back in his chair. “Very unprofessional to smoke, but this is a private room. Now you can pretend I’m your father-confessor. Is McGill your husband?”

“Yes.”

“I thought as much. But Benton is the name on the driving-licence nurse found in your coat-pocket.”

“That’s his real name,” she said. “He started calling himself McGill when he went in for prize-fighting.” Suddenly she looked alarmed. “Will it matter that I’ve told you? The police——”

“Oh, we’ll leave the police to look after their own affairs,” said the doctor comfortably. “This is between you and me.”

“We got married fourteen years ago,” she said. “My friends told me I was a fool, but he wasn’t a bad man then: he truly wasn’t, Doctor. And I had nobody belonging to me, and I believed that even if he did drink a bit I could keep him from it after we were married. There’s lots of fools of girls think that.”

“Any number,” said the doctor.

“Well, I suppose ninety-nine out of a hundred pay for it, like I did. I didn’t keep my little dream for very long. Not that we weren’t happy enough for a bit. But he began to go out at night to the pubs after the baby came. He wasn’t a strong baby, and he cried a lot, and you know what some men are about a crying baby. Joe never wanted him, and I don’t think he ever liked him. And he drank more, and lost one job after another. But you must have heard heaps of stories like that,” she said wearily.

“Well, it’s your story, and I’m interested,” the doctor said, his voice kind. “So——”

“So things went from bad to worse—though mind you, Doctor, he always seemed to care for me, in a sort of way. But Bertie bothered him. I believe he felt ashamed of him—Joe’s so big, and he seemed to think it was all wrong for Bertie to be such a little bit of a thing, with arms and legs like sticks. But you never saw such a loving little thing as he was to me. Not to Joe—he was afraid of him, though Joe never put a finger on him. Oh, well, he died when he was just four.”

“Poor soul!” said the doctor gently.

“Joe was away when he died; he’d begun to go in for boxing. He’d have done well at it, too, if he could have kept off the drink. He won a lot of fights, and I had all the money I wanted. As if money mattered to me, and Bertie gone! He had luck with betting, as well. It was then that I got him to buy me the little bit of a farm I’ve got, because I just had to have something to keep me busy. He’d always give me money when he had it: I’ve plenty in the bank now, and he bought the car for me.”

“He did not live at the farm?”

“Oh, no. He was mostly in Sydney or Melbourne. Now and then he’d come; and sometimes in a hurry, unexpected-like, and I knew it had something to do with the police. He was in gaol several times. I’ve never known what it was to have an easy mind these ten years. Never knew what I’d hear. Nights were the worst—he’d turn up after dark when he was in trouble, and I’d be sick with fear in case anyone had seen him come.”

“But you don’t live quite alone on a farm, do you?”

“I’ve an old man-of-all-work, but he’d never say anything. He works well enough, but he’s not quite all there. Well, I hadn’t heard anything of Joe for over eight months. I gave up taking a newspaper; it was too much bother to drive in to a township for it, and ... well, I was always scared of what I might see. It was only by chance I came on one last week, and there was a piece in it about this trial. It didn’t say much: only just the outline. I suppose there was a lot about it in the papers when first it happened?”

“Yes—quite a lot. So you came here at once?”

“I had to drive night and day to get here in time. You see, I thought he might need money—and anyhow, I had to come. It was hard driving—a lot of bad roads, and I just snatched a bit of sleep in the car when I couldn’t keep awake any longer. I only got here an hour before the Court opened. Got into the front row, so that Joe would know I was here if he wanted anything. He saw me, right enough, but he just looked at me as he’d never met me in his life. That sort of hurt, you know, Doctor.”

“Well ... it may have been out of consideration for you. You could have done nothing. I hear he had a lawyer.”

“Yes: that was a relief to me. Joe’s got friends in Sydney: I expect they saw to it. And the lawyer was making a good fight for him just when I had to make a fool of myself and fall down.”

“Well, you’ve had a tough time, Mrs. Benton,” the doctor said. “But take it from me, your husband earned his sentence: and perhaps it will teach him a bit of sense. You may find him glad to go back to the farm when he comes out—give him work to do, if he comes. And what about yourself?”

“I feel a lot better for having talked. You were very good to me, Doctor—must have been dull enough for you. But I’ve lived with it all day and night, with only my own thoughts for company ... I tell you, I’ve often thought of ending it all in the creek.”

“I suspect you have too much pluck for that. And now you’re going back to the farm, with a few more thoughts for company. That won’t do. I wonder if you will take the advice I’m going to give you?”

“What’s that, Doctor?”

“Adopt a child, Mrs. Benton. No”—for she had flinched like a wounded animal—“don’t take it like that. Don’t think of yourself: think of some poor little orphan youngster in a city, to whom your farm would be heaven. Get a baby—you’d learn to love a baby you tended. Think how different your life would be then: no more loneliness, new interest every day.”

“Doctor, I couldn’t ever do it!”

“Well, I didn’t expect you to say you could, until you had time to think it over. But turn it over in your mind. You’ve no need to act in a hurry. Give it fair consideration from every standpoint.”

He stood up, smiling at her.

“About time you had something to eat, I think. You’ll be well enough to leave here in a couple of days, but you’ll have to promise me to take that journey home very slowly, and to have real sleep at night—no curling up in the car.”

“Yes, I’ll do that, Doctor,” she said gratefully. “You’ve been an awful help to me.”

“Well, I’ll see you to-morrow. Sleep well.” He paused. “And when you’re thinking over my advice, you might keep one thing in your mind—that though it’s a hard thing to be a mother without a baby, it’s sometimes very much harder to be a baby without a mother.”

.......

In the corridor a couple of nurses were chatting. They looked at him enquiringly.

“Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, Sister,” he said. “You’ll find her ready for a meal, I think. Oh, and Sister—you might give a hint to anyone who is looking after her to keep off the subject of that cattle-stealing trial. Not a healthy subject for that patient. Let ’em talk about babies to her—borrow one from the children’s ward and let her nurse it, if you can.”

“I’ll see to it, Doctor.”

“Thanks.” He went off quickly, glancing at his watch.

“And you wouldn’t think,” said the Sister, “that that man has been on the go since he operated on that accident case, before breakfast, and he’s got mountains of work to do yet. And he’s spent all this time with a stray case who’ll be gone in a few days! Well, some people are just about too good for this world.”

“But who’d be a doctor’s wife!” said her friend.