“I am doing nothing of the sort.”
“Then pray what do you call Shakespeare” — pausing in front of her with his hand in his pocket— “poetry or prose?”
“Prose, of course.”
“Because it doesn’t rhyme?”
“Exactly.”
“And why do you suppose it’s chopped up into lines?”
“Oh, I don’t know — to moisten it perhaps.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“To make it less dry.”
“Ah! Then it doesn’t occur to you that there might be some law which decreed the end of a line after a certain number of beats, or notes — exactly like the end of a bar of music, in fact?”
“Certainly not,” said Naomi. There was a touch of indignation in this denial. He shrugged his shoulders and then turned them upon the girl, and stood glowering out upon the yard. Behind his back Naomi went into fits of silent laughter, which luckily she had overcome before he wheeled round suddenly with a face full of eager determination. His heart now appeared set upon convincing her that verse might be blank. And for half an hour he stood beating his left hand in the air, and declaiming, in feet, certain orations of Hamlet, until Mrs. Potter, the cook-laundress, came out of the kitchen to protect her young mistress if necessary. It was not necessary. The broken-armed gentleman was standing over her, shaking his fist and talking at the top of his voice; but Miss Pryse was all smiles and apparent contentment; and, indeed, she behaved much better for awhile, and did her best to understand. But presently she began to complain of the “quotations” (for he was operating on the famous soliloquy), and to profane the whole subject. And the question of blank verse was discussed between them no more.
She could be so good, too, when she liked, so appreciative, so sympathetic, so understanding. But she never liked very long. He had a tendency to run to love-poems, and after listening to five or six with every sign of approval and delight, Naomi would suddenly become flippant at the sixth or seventh. On one occasion, when she had turned him on by her own act aforethought, and been given a taste of several past-masters of the lyric, from Waller to Locker, and including a poem of Browning’s which she allowed herself to be made to understand, she inquired of Engelhardt whether he had ever read anything by “a man called Swinton.”
“Swinburne,” suggested Engelhardt.
“Are you sure?” said Naomi, jealously. “I believe it’s Swinton. I’m prepared to bet you that it is!”
“Where have you come across his name?” the piano-tuner said, smiling as he shook his head.
“In the preface to Gordon’s poems.”
Engelhardt groaned.
“It mentions Swinton — what are you laughing at? All right! I’ll get the book and settle it!”
She came back laughing herself.
“Well?” said Engelhardt.
“You know too much! Not that I should accept anything that preface says as conclusive. It has the cheek to say that Gordon was under his influence. You give me something of his, and we’ll soon see.”
“Something of Swinburne’s?”
“Oh, you needn’t put on side because you happen to be right according to a preface. I’ll write and ask The Australasian! Yes, of course I mean something of his.”
Engelhardt reflected. “There’s a poem called ‘A Leave-taking,’” said he, tentatively, at length.
“Then trot it out,” said Naomi; and she set herself to listen with so unsympathetic an expression on her pretty face, that he was obliged to look the other way before he could begin. The contrary was usually the case. However, he managed to get under way:
“Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,
And over all old things and all things dear.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her.
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.
“Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is there?
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show
She would not know.
“Let us go home and hence; she will not weep — —”
“Stop a moment,” said Naomi, “I’m in a difficulty. I can’t go on listening until I know something.”
“Until you know what?” said Engelhardt, who did not like being interrupted.
“Who it’s all about — who she is!” cried Naomi, inquisitively.
“Who — she — is,” repeated the piano-tuner, talking aloud to himself.
“Yes, exactly; who is she?”
“As if it mattered!” Engelhardt went on in the same aside. “However, who do you say she is?”
“I? She may be his grandmother for all I know. I’m asking you.”
“I know you are. I was prepared for you to ask me anything else.”
“Were you? Then why is she such an obstinate old party, anyway? She won’t hear and she won’t know. What will she do? Now it seems that you can’t even make her cry! ‘She will not weep’ was where you’d got to. As you seem unable to answer my questions, you’d better go on till she does.”
“I’m so likely to go on,” said Engelhardt, getting up.
Naomi relented a little.
“Forgive me, Mr. Engelhardt; I’ve been behaving horribly. I’m sorry I spoke at all, only I did so want to know who she was.”
“I don’t know myself.”
“I was sure you didn’t!”
“What’s more, I don’t care. What has it got to do with the merits of the poem?”
“I won’t presume to say. I only know that it makes all the difference to my interest in the poem.”
“But why?”
“Because I want to know what she was like.”
“But surely to goodness,” cried Engelhardt, “you can imagine her, can’t you? You’re meant to fill her in to your own fancy. You pays your money and you takes your choice.”
“I get precious little for my money,” remarked Naomi, pertinently, “if I have to do the filling in for myself!”
Engelhardt had been striding to and fro. Now he stopped pityingly in front of the chair in which this sweet Philistine was sitting unashamed.
“Do you mean to say that you like to have every little thing told you in black and white?”
“Of course I do. The more the better.”
“And absolutely nothing left to your own imagination?”
“Certainly not. The idea!”
He turned away from her with a shrug of his shoulders, and quickened his stride up and down the veranda. He was visibly annoyed. She watched him with eyes full of glee.
“I do love to make you lose your wool!” she informed him in a minute or two, with a sudden attack of candor. “I like you best when you give me up and wash your hands of me!”
This cleared his brow instantaneously, and brought him back to her chair with a smile.
“Why so, Miss Pryse?”
“Must I tell you?”
“Please.”
“Then it’s because you forget yourself, and me, too, when I rile you; and you’re delightful whenever you do that, Mr. Engelhardt.”
Naomi regretted her words next moment; but it was too late to unsay them. He went on smiling, it is true, but his smile was no longer naïve and unconsidered; no more were his recitations during the next few hours. His audience did her worst to provoke him out of himself, but she could not manage it. Then she tried the other extreme, and became more enthusiastic than himself over this and that, but he would not be with her; he had retired into the lair of his own self-consciousness, and there was no tempting him out any more. When he did come out of himself, it was neither by his own will nor her ma
nagement, and the moment was a startling one for them both.
It was late in the afternoon of that same Wednesday. They were sitting, as usual, in the veranda which overlooked not the station-yard but the boundless plains, and they were sitting in silence and wide apart. They had not quarrelled; but Engelhardt had made up his mind to decamp. He had reasoned the whole thing out in a spirit of mere common-sense; yet he was reasoning with himself still, as he sat in the quiet veranda; he thought it probable that he should go on with his reasoning — with the same piece of reasoning — until his dying hour. He looked worried. He was certainly worrying Naomi, and annoying her considerably. She had given up trying to take him out of himself, but she knew that he liked to hear himself saying poetry, and she felt perfectly ready to listen if it would do him any good. Of course she was not herself anxious to hear him. It was entirely for his sake that she put down the book she was reading, and broached the subject at last.
“Have you quite exhausted the poetry that you know by heart, Mr. Engelhardt?”
“Quite, I’m afraid, Miss Pryse; and I’m sure you must be thankful to hear it.”
“Now you’re fishing,” said Naomi, with a smile (not one of her sweetest); “we’ve quarrelled about all your precious poets, it’s true, but that’s why I want you to trot out another. I’m dying for another quarrel, don’t you see? Out with somebody fresh, and let me have shies at him!”
“But I don’t know them all off by heart — I’m not a walking Golden Treasury, you know.”
“Think!” commanded Naomi. When she did this there was no disobeying her. He had found out that already.
“Have you ever heard of Rossetti — Dante Gabriel?”
“Kill whose cat?” cried Naomi.
He repeated the poet’s name in full. She shook her head. She was smiling now, and kindly, for she had got her way.
“There is one little thing of his — but a beauty — that I once learnt,” Engelhardt said, doubtfully. “Mind, I’m not sure that I can remember it, and I won’t spoil it if I can’t; no more must you spoil it, if I can.”
“Is there some sacred association, then?”
He laughed. “No, indeed! There’s more of a sacrilegious association, for I once swore that the first song I composed should be a setting for these words.”
“Remember, you’ve got to dedicate it to me! What’s the name of the thing?”
“‘Three Shadows.’”
“Let’s have them, then.”
“Very well. But I love it! You must promise not to laugh.”
“Begin,” she said, sternly, and he began:
“I looked and saw your eyes
In the shadow of your hair,
As the traveller sees the stream
In the shadow of the wood;
And I said, ‘My faint heart sighs
Ah me! to linger there,
To drink deep and to dream
In that sweet solitude.’”
“Go on,” said Naomi, with approval. “I hope you don’t see all that; but please go on.”
He had got thus far with his face raised steadfastly to hers, for he had left his chair and seated himself on the edge of the veranda, at her feet, before beginning. He went on without wincing or lowering his eyes:
“I looked and saw your heart
In the shadow of your eyes,
As a seeker sees the gold
In the shadow of the stream;
And I said, ‘Ah me! what art
Should win the immortal prize,
Whose want must make life cold
And heaven a hollow dream?’”
“Surely not as bad as all that?” said Naomi, laughing. He had never recited anything so feelingly, so slowly, with such a look in his eyes. There was occasion to laugh, obviously.
“Am I to go on,” said Engelhardt, in desperate earnest, “or am I not?”
“Go on, of course! I am most anxious to know what else you saw.”
But the temptation to lower the eyes was now hers; his look was so hard to face, his voice was grown so soft.
“I looked and saw your love
In the shadow of your heart,
As a diver sees the pearl
In the shadow of the sea;
And I murmured, not above
My breath, but all apart — —”
Here he stopped. Her eyes were shining. He could not see this, because his own were dim.
“Go on,” she said, nodding violently, “do go on!”
“That’s all I remember.”
“Nonsense! What did you murmur?”
“I forget.”
“You do no such thing.”
“I’ve said all I mean to say.”
“But not all I mean you to. I will have the lot.”
And, after all, his were the eyes to fall; but in a moment they had leapt up again to her face with a sudden reckless flash.
“There are only two more lines,” he said; “you had much better not know them.”
“I must,” said she. “What are they?”
“Ah! you can love, true girl,
And is your love for me?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Naomi, at last.
“I thought not.”
“Nor for anybody else — nor for anybody else!”
She was leaning over him, and one of her hands had fallen upon his neck — so kindly — so naturally — like a mother’s upon her child.
“Then you are not in love with anybody else!” he cried, joyously. “You are not engaged!”
“Yes,” she answered, sadly. “I am engaged.”
Then Naomi learnt how it feels to quench the fire in joyous eyes, and to wrinkle a hopeful young face with the lines of anguish and despair. She could not bear it. She took the head of untidy hair between her two soft hands, and pressed it down upon the open book on her knees until the haunting eyes looked into hers no more. And as a mother soothes her child, so she stroked him, and patted him, and murmured over him, until he could speak to her calmly.
“Who is he?” whispered Engelhardt, drawing away from her at last, and gazing up into her face with a firm lip. “What is he? Where is he? I want to know everything!”
“Then look over your shoulder, and you will see him for yourself.”
A horseman had indeed ridden round the corner of the house, noiselessly in the heavy sand. Monty Gilroy sat frowning at them both from his saddle.
CHAPTER IX NO HOPE FOR HIM
“I’m afraid I have interrupted a very interesting conversation?” said Gilroy, showing his teeth through his beard.
Naomi smiled coolly.
“What if I say that you have, Monty?”
“Then I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped,” replied the manager, jumping off his horse, and hanging the bridle over a hook on one of the veranda-posts.
“Ah, I thought as much,” said Naomi, dryly. She held out her hand, however, as she spoke.
But Gilroy had stopped before setting foot in the veranda. He stood glaring at Engelhardt, who was not looking at him, but at the fading sky-line away beyond the sand and scrub, and with a dazed expression upon his pale, eager face. The piano-tuner had not risen; he had merely turned round where he sat, at the sound of Gilroy’s voice.
Now, however, he seemed neither to see nor to heed the manager, though the latter was towering over him, white with mortification.
“Now then, Mr. Piano-tuner, jump up and clear; I’ve ridden over to see Miss Pryse on urgent business — —”
“Leaving your manners behind you, evidently,” observed that young lady, “or I think you would hardly be ordering my visitors out of my veranda and my presence!”
“Then will you speak to the fellow?” said Gilroy, sulkily. “He seems deaf, and I haven’t ridden in for my own amusement. I tell you it’s an important matter, Naomi.”
“Mr. Engelhardt!” said Naomi, gently. He turned at once. “Mr. Gilroy,” she went on to explain, “has come from the shed to see me about s
omething or other. Will you leave us for a little while?”
“Certainly, Miss Pryse.” He rose in sudden confusion. “I — I beg your pardon. I was thinking of something else.”
It was only Naomi’s pardon that he begged. He had not looked twice at Gilroy; but as he rounded the corner of the building, he glanced sharply over his shoulder. He could not help it. He felt instinctively that a glimpse of their lovers’ greeting would do something toward his cure. All that he saw, however, was Naomi with her back to the wall, and her hands laid firmly upon the wicker chair-back where her head had rested a moment before. Across this barrier Gilroy had opened so vehement a fire upon her that Engelhardt thought twice about leaving them alone together. As he hesitated, however, the girl shot him a glance which commanded him to be gone, while it as plainly intimated her perfect ability to take care of herself.
Once out of her sight, the piano-tuner turned a resolute back upon the homestead, determining to get right away from it for the time being — to get away and to think. He did not, however, plunge into the plantation of pines, in which Naomi and he had often wandered during these last few days, that seemed a happy lifetime to him now that he felt they were over. He took the broad, sandy way which led past the stables to the men’s hut on the left, and to the stock-yards on the right. Behind the yards the sun was setting, the platform for the pithing of bullocks, and the windlass for raising their carcasses, standing out sharp and black against the flaming sky; and still farther to the right, where there were sheep-yards also, a small yellow cloud rose against the pink like a pillar of sand. Engelhardt knew little enough of station life, but he saw that somebody was yarding-up a mob of sheep for the night. He went on to have a look at the job, which was over, however, before he reached the spot. Three horses were trotting off in the direction of the horse-paddock, while, coming away from the yard, carrying their saddles and bridles, were two of the station hands and the overseer, Tom Chester.
“Hulloa, Engelhardt, still here?” said the latter, cheerily, as they met. “How goes the arm?”
“First-rate, thanks. I’m off to-morrow.”
“Yes? Come on back to the homestead, and help me shave and brush up. I’ve been mustering seventeen miles from the shed. We’ve run the mob into these yards for the night, and I’m roosting in the barracks.”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 42