A Bride from the Bush (16 page)

‘Lor', Mr Granville, what if I have?'

‘Well, nothing; only there is something about it in this newspaper—about Australia, I mean; not about you—that's to come. You shall have the newspaper, Bunn; here it is. I thought you'd like it, that's all.'

Bunn took the paper, all smiles and blushes.

‘Oh, thank you, Mr Granville. And—and I beg your pardon, sir.'

‘Don't name it, my good girl. But, look here, Bunn; stay one moment, if you don't mind.' (She could scarcely help staying, he gave her no chance of passing; besides, he had put her under an obligation.) ‘Tell me now, Bunn—didn't Mrs Alfred know something about him? And didn't Mrs Alfred talk to you a good deal about Australia?'

‘That she did, sir. But she didn't know my young man, Mr Granville. She only got his address from me just as she was going away, sir.'

‘Ah! she wanted his address before she went away, did she?'

‘Yes, sir. She said she would name him in writing to her father, or in speaking to Mr Barrington, or that, any way, it'd be nice to have it, against ever she went out there again, sir.'

‘Oh, she gave three reasons all in one, eh? And did she say she'd like to go out again, Bunn?'

‘She always said that, sir, between ourselves—“between you and I, Bella,” it used to be. But, time I gave her the address, she went on as if she would like to go, and meant a-going, the very next day.'

‘Yet she didn't like leaving this, even for a week—eh, Bunn?'

‘Lor', no, sir! She spoke as if she was never coming back no more. And she kissed me, Mr Granville—she did, indeed, sir; though I never named that in the servants' hall. She said there might be a accident, or somethink, and me never see her no more; but that, if ever she went back to Australia, she'd remember my young man, and get him a good billet. Them were her very words. But, oh, Mr Granville!—oh, sir!—'

‘There, there. Don't turn on the waterworks, Bunn. I thought Mrs Alfred had been cut up about something; but I wasn't sure—that's why I asked you, Bunn; though I think, perhaps, you needn't name this conversation either in the servants' hall, or tell any one else what you have told me. Yes, you may go past now. But—stop a minute, Bunn—here's something else that you needn't name in the servants' hall.'

The something else was a half-sovereign.

‘It was worth it, too,' said Granville, when the girl was gone; ‘she has given me something to go upon. These half-educated and impulsive people always do let out more to their maids than to any one else.'

He went back to Alfred.

‘There was something I forgot to ask you. How much money do you suppose Gladys had about her when she went away?'

‘I have no idea,' said Alfred.

‘Do you know how much money you have given her since you have been over—roughly?'

‘No; I don't know at all.'

‘Think, man. Fifty pounds?'

‘I should say so. I gave her a note or so whenever it struck me she might want it. She never would ask.'

‘Do you think she spent much?'

‘I really can't tell you, Gran; perhaps not a great deal, considering everything; for, when I was with her, I never would let her shell out. I never knew of her spending much; but she had it by her, in case she wanted it; and that was all I cared about.'

And that was all Granville cared about. He ceased his questioning; but he was less ready to leave Alfred alone than he had been before. He had found him sitting in the dark by the open window, and staring blankly into the night. Granville had insisted on lighting the gas: only to see how the room was filled with Gladys's things. In every corner of it some woman's trifle breathed of her. Granville felt instinctively that much of this room, in the present suspense, might turn a better brain than Alfred's, in Alfred's position.

‘Look here,' said Granville, at last: ‘I have been thinking. Listen, Alfred.'

‘Well?' said Alfred absently, still gazing out of window.

‘I have got a theory,' went on Granville—‘no matter what; only it has nothing to say to death or drowning. It is a hopeful theory. I intend to practise it at once: in a day or two it ought to lead me to absolute certainty of one thing, one way or the other. No matter what that one thing is; I have told you what it is not. Now, I shall have to follow out my idea in town; and if I find the truth at all, I shall most likely come across it suddenly, round a corner as it were. So I have been thinking that you may as well be in town too, to be near at hand in case I am successful. If you still have a club, you might hang about there, and talk to men, and read the papers; if not—Why do you shake your head?'

‘I am not going to town any more,' said Alfred, in low, decided tones. ‘If you are right, and she is not dead, she may come back—she may come back! Then I shall be here to meet her—and—and—But you understand me, Gran?'

‘Not very well,' said Granville, dryly, and with a shrug of his shoulders that was meant to shift from them all responsibility for Alfred's possible insanity. ‘In your case I should prefer to be in town rather than here. However, a man judges for himself. There is one thing, however; if you stay here all day—'

‘What's that?'

‘The question whether you should tell the Judge and the mater.'

‘No,' said Alfred, resolutely; ‘I shall not tell them—not, that is, until the worst is known for certain. They think she is at the Barringtons'. I shall say I have heard from her. I would tell a million lies to save them the tortures of uncertainty that I am suffering, and shall suffer, till—till we know the worst. Oh, Granville!—for God's sake, find it out quickly!'

‘I'll do my best—I've already told you I would,' said Granville almost savagely; and he left the room.

Granville's best, in matters that required a clear head and some little imagination, was always excellent. In the present instance his normal energies were pushed to abnormal lengths by the uncomfortable feeling that he himself had been not unconcerned in bringing about that state of unhappiness which alone could have driven his sister-in-law to her last rash, mysterious step; by a feverish desire to atone, if the smallest atonement were possible; and by other considerations, which, for once, were unconnected with the first person singular. Nevertheless, on the Wednesday—the day following the foregoing conversation—he found out nothing at all; and nothing at all on the Thursday. Then Alfred made up his mind that nothing but the very worst could now come to light, and that that was only a question of time; and he fell into an apathy, by day, that Granville's most vigorous encouragement, in the evening, could do nothing to correct. Thus, when the news did come, when the terrible suspense was suddenly snapped, Alfred was,
perhaps, as ill-prepared for a shock (though he had expected one for days) as it was possible for a man to be.

It was on the Friday night. Lady Bligh and Sir James were deep in their game of bezique. Alfred sat apart from them, without a hope left in his heart, and marvellously altered in the face. His pallor was terrible, but perhaps natural; but already his cheekbones, which were high, seemed strangely prominent; and the misery in his large still eyes cried out as it sometimes does from the eyes of dumb animals in pain. He was conscious of his altered looks, perhaps; for he sedulously avoided looking his parents in the face. They did not know yet. It added to his own anguish to think of the anguish that must come to them too, sooner or later—sooner now—very soon indeed.

The door opened. Granville entered, with a brisk, startling step, and a face lit up—though it was Granville's face—with news.

Alfred saw him—saw his face—and rose unsteadily to his feet.

‘Speak! Say you have found her! No—I see it in your face—she is there. Let me come to her!'

As Alfred stepped forward, Granville recoiled, and the light left his face.

Alfred turned to his parents. The Judge had risen, and glanced in mute amazement from one son to the other: both were pale, but their looks told nothing. Lady Bligh sat back in her chair, her smooth face wrinkled with bewilderment and vague terror.

‘It is Gladys come back,' said Alfred, in tremulous explanation; ‘it is only that Gladys has come back, mother!'

Even then he chuckled in his sleeve to think that they had never known, and never need know, anything of this, the worst of his wife's many and wild escapades.

But Granville recoiled still farther, and his face became gray.

‘I have not seen her,' he said, solemnly. ‘She is not here.'

‘Not seen her? Not here?' Alfred was quickly sobered. ‘But you know where she is? I see it in your face. She is within reach—eh? Come, take me to her!'

‘She is not even within reach,' Granville answered, squeezing out the words by a strenuous effort. ‘I cannot take you to her. Gladys sailed for Australia last Monday morning!'

Alfred sunk heavily into a chair. No one spoke. No one was capable of speech. Before any one had time to think, Alfred was on his feet again, tottering towards the door.

‘I must follow!' he whispered, in hoarse, broken tones. ‘I will follow her to-night! Stand aside, Gran; thanks; and God bless you! Good-bye! I shall know where to find her out there. I have no time to stop!'

Granville stood aside in obedience; but for one instant only: the next—he sprang forward to catch in his arms the falling form of Alfred.

Picture the Great Sahara. The popular impression will do: it has the merit of simplicity: glaring desert, dark-blue sky, vertical sun, and there you are. Omit the mirage and the thirsty man; but, instead, mix sombre colours and work up the African desert into a fairly desirable piece of Australian sheep-country.

This, too, is a simple matter. You have only to cover the desert with pale-green saliferous bushes, no higher than a man's knee; quite a scanty covering will do, so that in the thickest places plenty of sand may still be seen; and there should be barren patches to represent the low sand-hills and the smooth clay-pans. Then have a line of low-sized dark-green scrub at the horizon; but bite in one gleaming, steely speck upon this sombre rim.

Conceive this modification of the desert, and you have a fair notion of the tract of country—six miles by five—which was known on Bindarra Station as the ‘Yelkin Paddock,' the largest paddock in the ‘C Block.'

Multiply this area by six; divide and subdivide the product by wire fences, such as those that enclose the Yelkin Paddock; water by means of excavations and wells and whims; stock with the pure merino and devastate with the accursed rabbit; and (without troubling about the homestead, which is some miles north of the Yelkin) you will have as good an idea of the Bindarra ‘run,' as a whole, as of its sixth part, the paddock under notice.

The conspicuous mark upon the distant belt of dingy low-sized forest—the object that glitters in the strong sunlight, so that it can be seen across miles and miles of plain—is merely the galvanised-iron roof of a log-hut, the hut that has been the lodging of the boundary-rider of the Yelkin Paddock ever since the Yelkin Paddock was fenced.

A boundary-rider is not a ‘boss' in the Bush, but he is an important personage, in his way. He sees that the sheep in his paddock ‘draw' to the water, that there is water for them to draw to, and that the fences and gates are in order. He is paid fairly, and has a fine, free, solitary life. But no boundary-rider had ever stopped long at the Yelkin hut. The solitude was too intense. After a trial of a few weeks—sometimes days—the man invariably rolled up his blankets, walked in to the homestead, said that there was moderation in all things, even in solitude, and demanded his cheque. The longest recorded term of office in the Yelkin Paddock was six months; but that boundary-rider had his reasons: he was wanted by the police. When, after being captured in the hut, this man was tried and hanged for a peculiarly cold-blooded murder, the Yelkin post became even harder to fill than it had been before.

During the Australian summer following that other summer which witnessed the events of the previous chapters, this post was not only filled for many months by the same boundary-rider, but it was better filled than it had ever been before. Moreover, the boundary-rider was thoroughly satisfied, and even anxious to remain. The complete solitude had been far less appreciated by the gentleman with the rope round his neck; for him it had terrors. The present boundary-rider knew no terrors. The solitude was more than acceptable; the Crusoe-like existence was entirely congenial; the level breezy plains, the monotonous procession of brilliant, blazing days, and the life of the saddle and the hut, were little less than delightful, to the new boundary-rider in the Yelkin. They were the few pleasures left in a spoilt life.

There could have been no better cabin for ‘a life awry' (not even in the Bush, the living sepulchre of so many such) than the Yelkin hut. But it was not the place to forget in. There are, however, strong natures that can never forget, and still live on. There are still stronger natures that do not seek to forget, yet retain some of the joy of living side by side with the full sorrow of remembrance. The boundary-rider's was one of these.

The boundary-rider saw but few faces from the home-station; none from anywhere else. But, one glowing, hot-wind day, early in January, a mounted traveller entered the Yelkin Paddock by the gate in the south fence. He was following the main track to the homestead, and this track crossed a corner of the Yelkin Paddock, the corner most remote from the hut. He did not seem a stranger, for he glanced but carelessly at the diverging yet conterminous wheel-marks which are the puzzling feature of all Bush roads. He was a pallid, gaunt, black-bearded man: so gaunt and so pallid, indeed, that no one would have taken him at the first glance, or at the second either, for Alfred Bligh.