Читать книгу Anderson's Jo - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 5

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John Anderson was whistling as he turned his sheep out of the yard. They were a good lot: even better than he had thought when he bought them at the sales at Summers’ Flat. He had spent a cheerful day examining them; now, newly ear-marked and branded, they were scattering across the sweet, short grass, glad to be free of the dusty yard and the sense of harassed anxiety that always afflicts a sheep when approached by a man and a dog. Old Boss, having served faithfully throughout the day, came and rubbed himself against his master’s knee; Anderson stooped to caress the smooth black head, with a low-voiced “Good dog!” that brought a look of worship into the liquid brown eyes. They were solitary people, he and Boss; all the better friends for being solitary. He asked no better companion. As for Boss, to him all Heaven and Earth united their best in the person of his master.

A queer man, John Anderson, the district said. Not poor; every one knew that his land was his own, with not even the ghost of a mortgage to trouble his dreams. His house, small as it was, was well-built and substantial, with good out-buildings that were as regularly painted as was the house itself and the neat white picket-fence that surrounded the garden. All the place was well improved; the tea-tree scrub was cut, the boggy land drained and reproductive, the blackened stumps burned out. There were no broken places in the fences, no gates lacking hinges. Even the bracken had become discouraged by years of remorseless cutting and ploughing, and now made only half-hearted attempts to break out here and there. The garden that half concealed the house was trim, although it consisted chiefly of lawn and shrubbery; the little orchard held only good trees, kept well pruned and thoroughly sprayed. The neat rows of vegetables were, the district said, as good as a Chinaman’s. Altogether, a model farm. But its owner was a lonely man, seeking no friends and making none.

The district dubbed him “queer.” He had come, nobody knew whence, ten years ago; had bought the land, built his house, and settled down unobtrusively, with an old housekeeper as unsociable as her employer. Men who “dropped across” to visit him were received courteously, but never asked into the house. Invitations to visit other farms were not lacking, but John Anderson declined them all with a quiet politeness that did not encourage anyone to press him further. He rarely visited the distant township, except on sale-days, when he transacted his business as quickly as possible, never mingling with the cheery crowd of men who thronged the hotel after the business of buying and selling was over. The storekeepers respected him because he paid promptly and did not haggle; the bank manager paid him the deference due to one of the few men in the district whose account was in a thoroughly satisfactory state. It was said that he was a great reader; the post-office made no secret of the fact that his mail consisted mainly of books. No one disliked him, because it is not easy to dislike anyone who is invariably courteous. Nevertheless, there was a certain distrust connected with his name: the distrust that always attaches to anyone who is unusual. Yes, certainly John Anderson was “queer.” People spoke of him with ominous waggings of the head, as of one about whom some hidden mystery clings.

Not that there was any real mystery. It suited Anderson to keep his business to himself, but his history might have been shouted from the housetops without creating any stir. Old Mrs. Collins, his housekeeper, could have told it, but she cared as little as her master for gossip, and had no wish to make friends. It was merely the story of a lonely boy who had grown into a lonely man, asking little from Life until it had flung into his path a year of perfect happiness. That year had ended with the sudden death of the girl-wife whom he had adored—killed at his side by a drunken man whose motor had left the track and plunged across the footpath. It was all the work of a moment; but in that moment something in John Anderson died with his wife.

They had lived in Queensland, but he could not bear to remain where every moment brought memories that were as knives in a wound. So he sold out and came South, striving to put as great a distance as possible between him and his memories: a useless thing, seeing that he carried them with him. Old Mrs. Collins, who had been his wife’s nurse when a baby, begged that she might come too; and the old woman and the young man, bound together by their sorrow, took up life anew in the remotest corner of Victoria, and tried to stifle suffering by hard work. Because hard work and time are the only real cures for grief, the years brought to them a kind of contentment. There was something in achievement: in seeing a rough place turn slowly into a model farm, even though it was only for their own eyes. And if one worked so that weariness prevented lying awake at night—then the days did not matter so much.

John Anderson could scarcely have come to a better place for hiding himself. In that hill-country the farms are remote from each other, not because of distance, but because man cannot travel as a bird flies. Very few farms can boast a straight track from the road to the homestead. Good sites, flat enough for building, may be rare on a place of several hundred acres; and when a man has picked the best, and built his house thereon, having due regard to water-supply and shelter, he often finds that his track out to the road can be only a difficult one: a track that must edge along hill-sides, circle round tussocky and boggy land, or plunge into deep gullies. Sometimes the wives will not drive over these tracks—wives of a nervous nature—and are thus compelled to remain at home, unwilling prisoners, until time can be spared from the milking or the ploughing or the harvesting or the scrub-cutting, or half a hundred similar diversions, to drive them forth. But nervous wives are few in Gippsland. It is more usual to see the lady of the farm driving the old buggy along the dizzy tracks with the latest baby in her arms, the latest but one wedged firmly between her and a responsible ten-year-old, and the intermediate small fry overflowing every crevice of the buggy not occupied by parcels of every size, from seventy-pound bags of sugar to Tommy’s boots. They jog away into the hills, and the hills fold round them and seem to swallow them up.

Then, as time goes on, and the stubborn land is cleared, becoming yearly more and more productive, prosperity begins to smile upon the hard-working farmers, and Ford and Chevrolet cars take the place of the battered buggies; tough light cars that make little of the shelf-like roads along the hill-sides. That is a time of great glory for the farmer’s wife, who sits back in her corner thinking of the days when it took slow hours to drive the old horses over the road that the car eats up in half an hour: of getting home at night with a load of weary children, and with horses to unharness and feed before beginning the evening work. Certainly it may be admitted that by the time the farmer’s wife gets her car she has fairly earned it.

To John Anderson bad roads and remoteness were but part of his wall of defence. He did not need people: did not want them. When outside help was necessary for clearing, harvesting, or shearing, he hired men who “did for” themselves in a hut some distance from the homestead, so that they gave no extra work to his old housekeeper. They were a strange pair. As the years went by the habit of silence grew upon them, so that sometimes days would pass during which they scarcely exchanged a sentence. Once the old woman fell ill, and then Anderson tended her as gently as if he himself had been a woman; then, becoming anxious, made haste to the township, returning with a doctor and a trained nurse—an up-to-date young person who ruled the cottage with a rod of iron until the glad day when her patient was pronounced well enough to resume her duties. Mrs. Collins shrewdly suspected that the nurse would not have been sorry to stay longer—perhaps permanently: John was a personable fellow, tall and good-looking, and not yet forty. Many a girl looked his way more than once when he rode through the hilly streets of the township. But there was great relief in the little white house after she had gone, and they slipped back into their old paths of silence.

To-day John Anderson looked at his watch as the sheep settled into contented grazing, and allowed himself to think of the cup of tea that he knew would be awaiting him at the house. Tea would be pleasant, after the long hours spent in the acrid dust of the yards. If he sent Boss ahead, to warn Mrs. Collins, as Boss so well understood how to warn her, his cup would be ready as soon as he had “scrubbed up” at the basin on the bench by the pump. So he nodded to the dog, with a curt, “Get along to the house, Boss,” and followed slowly as the collie cantered off.

Half-way to the house the sound of hoofs fell on his ear, and he glanced round with a frown. Jim Harrap was riding up the track; and of all his neighbours John chiefly disliked the Harrap family—shiftless, lazy, dirty: people who would never make a decent farm if they stayed on it a hundred years. Harrap never came unless he wanted something: help with a sick cow or a bogged bullock: perhaps to borrow some farm implement that was fairly certain to be returned in worse condition than when he received it. “I wonder what the beggar’s after now,” mused John; and waited to greet his visitor.

“G’day, Mr. Anderson.” Harrap met his eyes for a moment and looked away again. It was plain that he was ill at ease. “I’m in luck to find you at home. Fact is, we’re in a bit of a hole at our place, and me an’ the missus were wondering if you could help us out.”

“What’s wrong?” Anderson’s voice was not sympathetic.

“We got a sick woman there. Got her from Melbourne last week, from some blessed agency that said she was a good strong servant—me missus is that done up with the work an’ the kids we had to have some help. Much help she’s been. She had no right ever to have come; it’s my belief she was sick before she left town. You know the kind—all they want is a few weeks’ change to the country.” He spat disgustedly.

“Well?”

“Well, she’s been real sick these five days, an’ the med’cine we give her don’t seem to hit the spot. An’ me missus is fair worn out looking after her, with all the other work as well. I’d take her in to the Flat, to the hospital; it’s the only place for her. But the old buggy-mare is dead lame, an’ I haven’t a thing I could drive. Seems a lot to ask you, Mr. Anderson, but we were wondering if you could possibly run her in in your Ford. I wouldn’t worry you, only we’re in such a hole over it, an’ the missus close on caving-in herself, she’s that tired.”

John Anderson’s expression was not inviting. He was tired, after his day’s work; even if he were not tired he had no desire to do the Harrap family a good turn, especially when it entailed a drive of over twenty miles on bad roads. Still—a sudden vision came to him of a sick woman left to the scanty mercies of Mrs. Harrap, whose views of suitable nourishment would probably be limited to cold corned-beef. It was not the sort of thing a man could refuse to do, no matter how distasteful it might be.

“I suppose I must take her,” he said, ungraciously. “But is she fit to travel? Can she sit up?”

“Oh, she’ll be fit, all right,” Harrap answered hastily. “Only we thought she’d better keep lying down an’ covered up warm. We could put an old mattress in the back of the truck, an’ then she’d go in quite easy. Well, it’s jolly good of you, Mr. Anderson; I thought you wouldn’t see us stuck.”

John Anderson checked an impulse to tell his visitor that he would see the Harrap family stuck quite cheerfully, whatever their difficulties might be—but that a sick stranger was another matter. Home-truths, however satisfying to utter, were, however, not always advisable; so he merely nodded, and turned back towards the shed where he housed his Ford. “I’ll get the truck out,” he remarked, “and be over at your place in half an hour. Have you got plenty of wraps for her?”

“Oh, yes, that’s all right,” Harrap replied. “The missus’ll fix her up. Well, thanks aw’fly, Mr. Anderson. I’ll hurry back an’ see that she’s all ready.”

“You’d better. I don’t want to be kept waiting.” Anderson did not vouchsafe his visitor another glance. He ran the truck out, saw that oil and petrol were not lacking, and drove to the gate of the little back-yard. Mrs. Collins, a plump little old woman, was standing on the veranda, watching him as he strode up the path. A basin of water, with soap and towel, were ready for him on the bench.

“Got some tea?” he asked, as he scrubbed his hands. “I have to go into the Flat, to take a sick woman to the hospital.”

“Mrs. Harrap?” There was the suspicion of a sniff in Mrs. Collins’s tone.

“No—some poor wretch of a servant-maid they’ve got there. Precious poor game, I should think, to be Mrs. Harrap’s servant, even if she were fit. I don’t wonder she decided to go sick. But it’s a confounded nuisance. I’ll milk the cow before I go.”

“You needn’t; I’ve just milked.”

“What did you want to do that for? You know I told you you weren’t to milk.”

“Oh, you’d had a long day, Mr. John; and Daisy’s so quiet that a baby could milk her. You’ll need a clean shirt.”

“I suppose so.” Anderson cast a glance at his grease-stained clothes. “I’ll change before I have my tea, and then I must get off as quickly as possible.”

Harrap was waiting for him as he drove up to the gate of the untidy yard half an hour later.

“I thought you might drive right in, if you backed,” he said. “I don’t fancy she can walk out, an’ it’ll be less of a lift for us.”

“Is she as bad as that? All right, keep the youngsters out of the way, and I’ll back.” He turned the truck and reversed across the yard, coming to a standstill by the corner of a lean-to building little more than a shed, against the wall of the cottage. Harrap dumped in a dirty mattress and a couple of dingy grey blankets, at which Anderson looked with disfavour, though he made no comment.

“She’ll travel comfortable enough on that,” the man said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand with her, Mr. Anderson. She’s in here.” He led the way into the lean-to, his companion following with a feeling of disgust that a sick woman should be in such a place.

Within, the shed was gloomy and airless. It boasted but one tiny window, over which hung a fragment of a torn curtain. Mrs. Harrap was there. She stood aside as the men came in, smiling nervously.

“Good day, Mr. Anderson. Come to help us out of our troubles?”

“Good day,” said Anderson, curtly. His glance went past her to the woman who lay on the straw palliasse from which the mattress in the car had evidently been stripped. Only her face could be seen, and one thin hand that plucked weakly at the blanket that covered her. But it was a face so ghastly that the man stopped short in dismay.

“Is she fit to go?” he questioned in a low tone.

“My word, yes,” said Mrs. Harrap. “Why, the drive’ll do her good!”

Anderson’s stern glance went past the woman to her husband.

“She ain’t fit to stay, an’ that’s all there is about it,” Harrap muttered. “Hospital’s the only place for her.”

It was so undoubtedly true that John Anderson had nothing to answer. It was no place for a sick woman—the wretched shed, the scant mercy of the rat-faced slattern in the doorway. He turned back to the still figure on the bed. Great dark eyes, sunk in the white face, questioned him dumbly.

“I’ll lift you very gently,” he told her. “I’m going to take you where you will be more comfortable.”

“What you going to do to my mother?”

John Anderson jumped. In the gloom of the shed he had not noticed another figure: a tiny thing with angry eyes under a tumble of black curls. She crouched by the bed in a dark corner, one hand under the blanket, holding fast to the woman’s arm.

“Just you hold your tongue, Josey,” said Mrs. Harrap sharply. “No one’s goin’ to hurt your mother. Get out of the gentleman’s way.”

“You shan’t touch my mother!”

Anderson looked helpless. He had no knowledge of children: certainly not of small black-eyed furies who defied him.

“Is it her child?” he asked. “You didn’t say there was a child, Harrap.”

“Oh, she’s hers, all right,” Harrap said. “Precious young handful, too.”

“But what are you going to do with her?”

“She can’t stay here,” Mrs. Harrap said, venomously. “I got me hands full enough without strange kids. The police’ll have to take her, Mr. Anderson—just you turn her over to them.”

“I’m not going to take a child too,” said the horror-stricken Anderson. “I bargained for a woman—not a youngster, Harrap. You’ll have to keep her until the mother is better.”

“You won’t take her mother away from Jo!”

The defiant voice ended in a wail. The woman on the bed stirred, and as Anderson looked at her, her eyes met his in a passionate appeal.

“Don’t—take—her—from—me.” The voice was little more than a whisper, but the eyes spoke. John Anderson felt a wave of shame surge through him. Death was near, and they were wrangling in its presence.

“Don’t worry,” he told her gently. “No one shall take her away from you.” He turned to the child.

“Now then—what’s your name—oh, Josey,” he said. “You and I are going to take Mother in a car to the doctor. He’ll make her better. You have got to help me to look after her.”

“You—you won’t hurt her?” The baby face worked.

“No. We’re going to take care of her. Just get out of the way and see how carefully we’ll carry her out.”

The small thing wriggled out of the corner; a girl of six, thin and wiry, with a dark gipsy face that sadly needed soap and water. She was clad in a skimpy red frock, torn in more than one place, her bare feet thrust into ragged sandals. It was a proud little face, under its dirt. John Anderson found himself looking at her with something like respect.

“Now, if you’re ready, Mrs. Wilson,” said Harrap.

Anderson put his arms gently under the woman’s body, and they lifted her out. She was pitifully thin: it was a very easy matter for the two strong men to put her on the mattress in the truck, while Mrs. Harrap tucked the blankets carefully round her, moved at the last moment to some impulse of compassion.

“There’s all their things.” She lifted a suit-case into the truck.

“Sure you packed everything?” Harrap said. “They’ll want all they’ve got.”

“Rather—I don’t want no bother sending things after them. Hop in, Josey. I suppose you’re goin’ to sit in front with Mr. Anderson.”

“No!” It was the weak voice from the truck, and Anderson was beside her in a stride. “Put her—put her with me.”

“Will she sit still?” he asked doubtfully.

“She will always sit still—with me. Put her where I can touch her.”

John Anderson picked up the little figure in the red frock and swung her gently into a corner by her mother.

“Just you hang on tightly,” he said. “Mother’s in your charge, because I can’t see what’s happening when I’m driving. So I rely on you not to wriggle about.”

“Jo won’t wiggle,” said the elf. “Jo will take care of my mother.”

“That’s all right.” He faced round upon the Harrap pair, speaking curtly.

“Has the mother any papers or letters?” he asked. “The police will want to know all about her.”

“I s’pose they’re in her bag; I packed all I could see about,” said Loo Harrap sulkily. “The bag’s in the suit-case.”

“You don’t know who she is?”

“How’d we know? She didn’t give us her hist’ry. She come to us from Rawson’s agency—they may know.” Mrs. Harrap dropped her shrill voice to a wheedling note. “Don’t you worry about the kid, Mr. Anderson. Ten to one the police’ll hand her over to the Salvation Army or some orphanage—”

“Take care!” Anderson said, sharply. “Do you want the poor soul to hear you?” He swung on his heel; there was nothing further to be gained by talking to the unsavoury pair. He reflected, as he drove slowly out of the gate, that even if the woman behind him were dying, it would be better to die in the clean air than in the evil hole from which he had helped to carry her.

“I wouldn’t leave old Boss there,” he said to himself. He eased the car over the holes in the track until they came to the gate of the paddock. As he got out to open it he cast a look at his passengers. Mrs. Wilson’s eyes were closed. Beside her, bolt upright and defiant, sat her daughter, one hand clutching the side of the truck, the other holding the blanket about her mother. She met John’s eyes squarely, without a smile.

“All right?” he asked, gently.

“S—sh. Jo’s watching her to sleep,” she said, a note of authority in the small voice. John Anderson grinned under his moustache, turning towards the gate. But his face was anxious enough as they took the track to the township.

“Poor little soul!” he muttered. “She’s going to be up against the world sooner than she thinks.”