The Gallant (28 page)

William Stuart Long

companions as well, perhaps! Michael could not have landed far away. …

Johnny passed another almost sleepless night, his conscience plaguing him. Should he perhaps have stayed on shore, where the

Hastings

was beached, he asked himself, and gone in search of Michael, instead of returning to Hobart? Was that what Kitty would have expected of him, however slim the chance of catching up with the fugitive? But …

no, alone and unarmed, without any knowledge of the country, it would have been madness to attempt it. He would simply have been risking his life in vain, quite apart from arousing grave suspicions as to his motives, had he demanded to be set ashore. And even had he managed, by some miracle, to find him, Michael would in all probability not have trusted him. To Michael he was a stranger and would have seemed a potential enemy, to be avoided at all costs.

But how to explain all this to Kitty? How, God help him, could he tell her the awful, well-nigh unbelievable story? Rack his brains though he might, Johnny was no nearer to a solution when the Opossum

nosed her way alongside the Elizabeth Street pier and set him ashore in Hobait. From the dockside, it was a mere stone’s throw to the Customs House Hotel, and he covered the short distance on leaden feet. To his glum inquiry, the porter replied that Mr. Cadogan was out but her ladyship was in their suite.

“And in a rare good humor she is,

sir,” the man added. “They both lunched with His Excellency at Government House, and they must have received good news, for her ladyship’s been singing ever since she came back.” He grinned, clearly the recipient of Cadogan generosity. “I’m to show you right up, Mr. Broome, on her ladyship’s orders. She saw your steamer come in, sir, and she told me she wanted to see you at once.”

Johnny hesitated for a long moment outside the door of the sitting room, bracing himself, but the porter flung open the door and announced him, and, unable to delay any longer, he went in.

Kitty, looking radiant with happiness, jumped up and flung herself impulsively into his arms.

“Oh, Johnny-dear, dear Johnny, I am so glad you’re back at last!” She was half laughing, half crying, her soft, fragrant cheek laid on his. “The most wonderful news-the governor told us that Michael has been pardoned!

He’s received a royal pardon, Johnny, which means he’ll be freed at once! Our appeal to the English High Court was successful … isn’t it truly the answer to prayer? Pat has gone to see Dr. Hampton to try to arrange for Michael’s release to take place

expeditiously. He could be here-here with us, Johnny-within the next few days! Can you believe it? And he’ll be able to go home. He-was Johnny’s silence, his failure to respond to her joy, seemed suddenly to alarm her. Kitty drew back from his embrace, a hand to her throat.

“Johnny, what is wrong? Why aren’t you pleased for us? Surely you-oh, Johnny, for God’s sake, what

is

it?”

There were no words, Johnny knew, save a blunt, unvarnished statement of the truth. For all it must shatter her bright and short-lived dream, he could not soften the blow, could not allow her to go on hoping.

He reached for her gently and held her close.

“Dearest Kitty,” he managed huskily, “I have to tell you-Michael made his escape from Port Arthur several days ago. He comhe’s on the mainland, to the best of my knowledge. On the run, Kitty. I wish-oh, God,

how I

wish that I could give you any news but this! But you have to know… . Kitty, the pardon has come too late.”

There was no sound in the sunlit room save Kitty’s bitter, heartbroken sobbing. But then she raised her face to his, and Johnny saw the brave determination in her lovely, tear-filled eyes.

“We must find him, Johnny-wherever he is, we must find him! You’ll help us, won’t you?”

What could he say, when she looked at him like this?

How could he, how could any man refuse such an appeal?

“Of course I will, Kitty,” he promised.

“Sweetest, dearest Kitty, I love you! I-was She seemed not to have heard him or taken in his declaration, and as Johnny’s lips sought for hers, she eluded them, instead brushing his cheek lightly and again drawing away from him.

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“I must go to Patrick,” she said urgently.

“There’s no time to be lost. Take me to Dr.

Hampton’s, will you please?”

Already she was donning her bonnet, one of the pretty, frivolous, flower-decked bonnets he had come to associate with her. Johnny controlled himself and, his face expressionless, wrapped a shawl about her and offered her his arm.

They went out into the street together.

Crouching in the shelter of a clump of bramble bushes, fifty yards from the farm buildings, Michael watched and waited, like an animal of the wild, fearing to approach the house until he could be certain it was empty of its human inhabitants.

There did not appear to be anyone left in the pleasant, white-painted building, as far as he could judge. Ten minutes earlier two women had come out, bearing a laden basket and two heavy earthenware jugs between them, to make their way to a field, some distance beyond the fenced sheep paddock, where the wheat harvest was being gathered in.

Michael had counted three men working there with sickles. The two women followed behind the reapers, gathering up and binding the sheaves, which they formed into small pyramid-shaped stacks with the ease and skill of long practice.

All toiled without pause, seldom glancing up from what they were doing, but the women were singing—their voices carried to him faintly on the breeze. It was a happy, carefree sound, and as he listened, Michael found himself-envying the settler and his family, whose lives were so much less complicated than his own. He hated the thought of robbing them, but he knew that if he were not to be caught, he must rid himself of his convict garb and, having done so, put as great a distance as he could between himself and the rocky shore on which he had landed the previous day.

It would, of course, not be long before a military search party

was sent out-the

Hastings

had probably been reported overdue by now-but …

He frowned, shading his eyes with his hand as he again looked about him. Haines and his two companions constituted the most immediate danger, particularly if they had beached the steamer in the inlet of which old Captain Tarr had told them, for that could not be very far away from where he now was.

He wondered, fleetingly, about the crew. No doubt the poor devils had been left locked up on board, to discourage pursuit; but without a weapon, he dared not make an attempt to release them, lest they turn on him. But perhaps the farmhouse might yield a hunting rifle or a bird gun, as well as the clothing he hoped to find there, and . .

. He turned his gaze once more on the distant wheat field. The house

must

be empty-the settler and his family were safely out of earshot and busy with their harvesting, which was a stroke of unexpected luck that he would turn to his advantage.

Michael got to his feet and, crouching low, made for the rear of the house at a run. The back door was unlocked and opened at a touch. He went inside, reminded of his hunger as the aroma of fresh-baked bread greeted him from what was evidently the kitchen. A wood-burning oven and hob took up most of the space on the outer wall, and a well-scrubbed table, with benches drawn up to it, stood in the center of the room. On the table was the remnant of a loaf of bread, plus a flagon of milk, and, to his joy, the better part of a leg of mutton, from which only a few slices had been cut.

Unable to resist the temptation, Michael pulled out one of the benches and, seating himself, fell on the food hungrily, the milk tasting like nectar as he poured it down his parched throat.

“You are hungry?”

The voice, soft and feminine, came from behind him and he leapt up, wary and startled, to see a girl of about fifteen or sixteen framed in the open doorway. She was very pretty, her small, childish face wreathed in a smile, and as she came toward him, Michael saw that she was severely crippled, one of her legs seemingly twisted beneath the striped gingham dress. She moved awkwardly andwitha pronounced limp—the reason, he decided, why she was not out in the harvest field with the rest of

her family-and he relaxed, realizing that he had nothing to fear from so small and helpless a being.

“I-I do beg your pardon,” he began, and then, conscious of the absurdity of such an apology, he broke off and, anxious above all to reassure her, added quickly, “You have nothing to fear from me, I give you my word.”

“I asked if you were hungry,” the girl repeated. She continued to smile at him, and despite his unkempt appearance and the prison garb that marked him an absconder, she showed no sign of being afraid of him, Michael realized, with astonishment. He answered her question truthfully.

“Yes, I’m hungry. It is a long time since I have eaten.”

“Then please sit down, sir,” the

crippled girl invited, “and I will prepare a meal for you. My father, Mr. Amos Meldrum, always gives hospitality to passing travelers. We are isolated here, you see,” she added engagingly, “so we do not see many travelers. Would you care for a glass of cider? It is home brewed.”

Still trying to recover from his initial astonishment, Michael Thanked her. Deftly she cut slices from the loaf and placed them, with an appetizing-looking hunk of cheese and some slices of meat, on a plate in front of him. The cider was poured from an earthenware jug, which she fetched from the pantry, and as she gave him the brimming glass, she said, eyeing him with the first hint of curiosity she had displayed, “My name is Prudence Meldrum. What is yours, if I may ask?”

“Michael-Michael Wexford.”

“I suppose that you have escaped from one of the convict stations?” Prudence Meldrum suggested. Neither fear nor condemnation sounded in her voice; her suggestion was logical, rather than critical.

“From the Port Arthur Penitentiary, Miss Meldrum,” Michael answered truthfully, and this time his answer clearly surprised her, for her dark eyes widened and she stifled an exclamation of what might have been puzzlement or even doubt of his veracity.

“But I thought it was impossible to escape from Port Arthur! My father always said it was.” She hesitated, reddening, and

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then swiftly apologized. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Mr. Wexford. But my father-that is …”

“Does Mr. Meldrum know the penitentiary?”

Michael asked. He drained the glass of cider, which was remarkably good, and without waiting for him to request it, Prudence Meldrum refilled it for him.

“Oh, yes,” she asserted. “Poor Dad was a prisoner there himself, three years ago. He wasn’t there long-only a few months, and then they gave him his ticket-of-leave and finally a full pardon. Because he was convicted on what they said was perjured evidence, you see. And he was given this land as compensation.”

Like his own conviction, Michael thought wryly-only the perjurer, in his case, had never retracted his evidence … and probably, damn his soul, he never would!

“How did you escape?” the girl asked. Seeing that he had finished the meat and cheese, she took his plate, replacing it with a bowl of apple pie, sprinkled with curds. “I hope this will be to your taste, Mr. Wexford. I made it myself, from our own apples.”

“It is delicious,” Michael told her. He finished the pie and released a sigh of satisfaction.

“I haven’t tasted pastry like yours since-oh, heavens, since I was a boy in Ireland! You must be a very expert cook.”

“It is all I can do,” Prudence answered regretfully. “Because of this-was She touched her crippled leg, but without any vestige of self-pity. “I cannot work on the land, you see. So I help my mama with the cooking, so that she may tend the lambs and milk the cows and help with the harvest, as she is doing now. She and my family-they all work the land.” She shrugged her slim, bowed shoulders, dismissing the subject of her infirmity, and repeated her earlier question. “Mr. Wexford, how did

you make your escape? Did you brave those terrible dogs that guard the Eaglehawk Neck?”

It was an oddly unreal conversation, Michael thought, but this girl, with her smiling frankness and her ready trust, was unlike anyone he had ever met before, and he found himself wondering whether, perhaps, she was a trifle simple. Certainly she was naive, and-He was conscious of a sudden fear. Sup pose Haines and Big Toby Train and the ratlike Josh Simmons had chanced on this isolated place, instead of himself … how would they have reacted to Prudence Meldrum’s warm and kindly hospitality? The mere thought caused him to shudder as, with cold bitterness, he visualized their response. And they might well be in the area, all three of them.

“It’s a long story, Miss Meldrum,” he said, evading her question concerning his escape from the Tasman Peninsula. “I’ll tell your father about it when he comes in. I wasn’t alone, you understand, and-the men I escaped-with are evil, dangerous rogues. If they were to come here, it would be unwise to let them in. Perhaps you should bar the door.” There was an ancient flintlock musket hanging on the wall, and Michael glanced at it, frowning. He would probably frighten her if he attempted to take possession of it, but at least it was there, should the necessity arise-although he could see no evidence of powder and shot in its vicinity.

Prudence smilingly shook her head to his suggestion that she bar the door.

“It’s never barred, Mr. Wexford. My father likes to think that his door is open to passing travelers, as I told you. He would be displeased if I were to go against his wishes.”

“Then maybe,” Michael urged, “you should go to the wheat field and tell him to be on his guard.”

“I cannot walk so far,” Prudence said apologetically. “Or at least it would take me a very long time. But you could go and find him, if you are worried.” She studied him, her smooth brow puckered, as if for the first time noticing his convict dress and his unshaven cheeks. “You might alarm him, if you go to him as you are. I will bring you a razor and hot water and find you other clothes, shall I?” She hesitated, drawing in her breath sharply. “Are these men, the men you escaped with-are they really bad men who would do us harm?”