Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

“The time!” The question did indeed seem irrelevant. “I’m sure I don’t know, but I’ll go and have a look at the kitchen—”

  “Then you needn’t. I don’t really want to know. I was only wondering when John William would be back from Melbourne. But where’s your watch?”

  “Getting put to rights, my dear,” said old Teesdale faintly, with his eyes upon the carpet.

  “What, still?”

  “Yes; they’re keeping it a long time, aren’t they?”

  “They are so,” said Missy dryly. She watched the old man as he crossed the room twice, with his weak-kneed steps, his white hands joined behind him and his thin body bent forward. Then she went on reading his letter.

  It affected her curiously. At the third page she uttered a quick exclamation; at the fourth she lowered the letter with a quick gesture, and stood staring at David with an expression at which he could only guess, because the back of her head was against the glass.

  “This is too much,” cried Missy in a broken voice. “I can never let you send this.”

  “And why not, my dear?” laughed Mr. Teesdale, echoing, as he thought, her merriment; for it was to this he actually attributed the break in her voice.

  “Because there isn’t a word of truth in it; because I haven’t a warm heart nor a kind nature, and because I’m not frank in my dealings. Frank, indeed! If you knew what I really was, you wouldn’t say that in a hurry!”

  Mr. Teesdale could no longer suppose that the girl was in fun. Her bosom was heaving with excitement; he could see that, if he could not see her face. He said wearily:

  “There you go again, Missy! I can’t understand why you keep saying such silly things.”

  “I’m not what you think me. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I hear what you say, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “Then you must! You shall! I can’t bear to deceive you a moment longer — I simply can’t bear it when you speak and think of me like this. First of all, then, this letter’s no good at all!”

  In another instant that letter fluttered upon the floor in many pieces.

  “You must forgive me,” said Missy, “I couldn’t help it; it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on; and now I’m going to tell you why.”

  Old Teesdale, however, had never spoken, and this silenced the girl also, for the moment. But that moment meant a million. One more, and Missy would have confessed everything. She was worked up to it. She was in continual terror of an immediate exposure. Her better nature was touched and cauterised with shame for the sweet affection of which she had cheated this simple old man. She would tell him everything now and here, and the mercy that filled his heart would be extended to her because she had not waited to be unmasked by another. But she paused to measure him with her eye, or, perhaps, to take a last look at him looking kindly upon her. And in that pause the door opened, making Missy jump with fright; and when it was only Arabella who entered with the lighted kerosene lamp, Missy’s eyes sped back to the old man’s face in time to catch a sorrowful mute reproach that went straight to her palpitating heart. She stooped without a word to help him gather up the fragments of the torn letter.

  She had no further opportunity of speaking that night; and supper would have been a silent meal but for what happened as they all sat at table. All, that night, did not include John William, who was evidently spending Christmas Eve in Melbourne. There was some little talk about him. David remarked that a mail would be in with the Christmas letters, and Missy was asked whether she had not told John William to call at the post office. She had not. During her sojourn at the farm she had only once been to the post office herself; had never sent; and had been told repeatedly she was not half anxious enough about her Home letters. They told her so now. Missy generally said it was because she was so happy and at-home with them; but tonight she made no reply; and this was where they were when there came that knock at the window which made Missy spill her cocoa and otherwise display a strange state of mind.

  “Who is it?” she cried. “Who do you think it is?”

  “Maybe some neighbour,” said Mrs. T., “to wish us the compliments o’ t’ season.”

  “If not old Father Christmas himself!” laughed David to Missy, in the wish that she should forgive herself, as he had forgiven her, for tearing up his letter. But Missy could only stare at the window-blind, behind which the knock had been repeated, and she was trembling very visibly indeed. Then the front-door opened, and it was Missy, not one of the family, that rushed out into the passage to see who it was. The family heard her shouting for joy:

  “It’s John William. It’s only John William after all. Oh, you dear, dear old Jack!”

  Very quickly she was back in the room, and down on the horsehair sofa, breathing heavily. John William followed in his town clothes.

  “Yes, of course it’s me. Good evening, all. Who’ did you think it was, Missy?”

  “I thought it was visitors. What if it had been? Oh, I hate visitors, that’s all!”

  “Then I’m sorry to hear it,” remarked Mrs. Teesdale sourly, “for we have visitors coming to-morrow.”

  “I hate ‘em, too,” said John William wilfully.

  “Then I’ll thank you to keep your hates to yourselves,” cried Mrs. T. “It’s very rude of you both. Your mother wouldn’t have spoke so, Missy!”

  “Wouldn’t she!” laughed the girl. “I wonder if you know much about my mother? But after that I think I’ll be off to bed. I am rude, I know I am, but I never pretended to be anything else.”

  This was fired back at them from the door, and then Missy was gone without saying good-night.

  “She’s not like her mother,” said Mrs. T. angrily; “no, that she isn’t!”

  “But why in the name of fortune go and tell her so?” John William blurted out. “I never knew anything like you, mother; on Christmas Eve, too!”

  “I think,” said David gently, “that Missy is not quite herself. She has been very excitable all day, and I think it would have been better to have taken no notice of what she said. You should remember, my dear, that she is utterly unused to our climate, and that even to us these last few days have been very trying.”

  Arabella was the only one who had nothing at all to say, either for Missy or against her. But she went to Missy’s room a little later, and there she spoke out:

  “You thought it was — Stanborough! I saw you did.”

  “Then I did — for the moment. But it was very silly of me — I don’t know what could have put him into my head, when I’ve settled him so finely for good and all!”

  “God bless you, Missy! But — but do you think there is any fear of him coming back and walking right in like that?”

  “Not the least. Still, if he did — if he did, mark you — I’d tackle him again as soon as look at him. So never you fear, my girl, you leave him to me.”

  CHAPTER XI.

  A CHRISTMAS OFFERING.

  IN the Melbourne shops that Christmas Eve the younger Teesdale had been perpetrating untold acts of extravagance, for two of which a certain very bad character was entirely and solely responsible. Thus with next day’s Christmas dinner there was a bottle of champagne, and the healths of Mr and Mrs. Oliver, and of Miriam their daughter, were drunk successively, and with separate honours. Missy thereat seemed to suffer somewhat from her private feelings, as indeed she did suffer, but those feelings were not exactly what they were suspected to be at the time. She was wondering how much longer she could keep up this criminal pretence and act this infamous part. And as she wondered, a delirious recklessness overcame her, and emptying her glass she jumped to her feet to confess to them all then and there; but the astonished eye of Mrs. Teesdale went like cold steel to her heart, and she wished them long life and prosperity instead. She found herself seated once more with a hammering heart and sensations that drove her to stare hard at the old woman’s unsympathetic face, as her own one chance of remaining cool till the end of the meal. And yet
a worse moment was to follow hard upon the last.

  Missy had made straight for the nearest and the thickest shelter, which happened to underlie that dark jagged rim of river-timber at which old Teesdale was so fond of gazing. She had thrown herself face downward on a bank beside the sluggish brown stream; her fingers were interwoven under her face, her thumbs stuck deep into her ears. So she did not hear the footsteps until they were close beside her, when she sat up suddenly with a face of blank terror.

  It was only John William. “Who did you think it was?” said he, smiling as he sat down beside her.

  Missy was trembling dreadfully. “How was I to know?” she answered nervously. “It might have been a bushranger, mightn’t it?”

  “Well, hardly,” replied John William, as seriously as though the question had been put in the best of good faith. And it now became obvious that he also had something on his mind and nerves, for he shifted a little further away from Missy, and sat frowning at the dry brown grass, and picking at it with his fingers.

  “Anyhow, you startled me,” said Missy, as she arranged the carroty fringe that had been shamefully dishevelled a moment before. “I am very easily startled, you see.”

  “I am very sorry. I do apologise, I’m sure! And I’ll go away again this minute, Missy, if you like.” He got to his knees with the words, which were spoken in a more serious tone than ever.

  “Oh, no, don’t go away. I was only moping. I am glad you’ve come.”

  “Thank you, Missy.”

  “But now you have come, you’ve got to talk and cheer me up. See? There’s too many things to think about on a Christmas Day — when — when you’re so far away from everybody.”

  John William agreed and sympathised. “The fact is I had something to show you,” he added; “that’s why I came.”

  “Then show away,” said Missy, forcing a smile. “Something in a cardboard box, eh?”

  “Yes. — Will you open it and tell me how you like it?” — He handed her the box that he had taken out of his breast-pocket. Missy opened it and produced a very yellow bauble of sufficiently ornate design.

  “Well, I’m sure! A bangle!”

  “Yes; but what do you think of it?” asked John William anxiously. He had also blushed very brown.

  “Oh, of course I think it’s beautiful — beautiful!” exclaimed Missy, with unmistakable sincerity. “But who’s it for? That’s what I want to know,” she added, as she scanned him narrowly.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Well, let’s see. Yes — you’re blushing! It’s for your young woman, that’s evident.”

  John William edged nearer.

  “It’s for the young lady — the young lady I should like to be mine — only I’m so far below her,” he began in a murmur. Then he looked at her hard. “Missy, for God’s sake forgive me,” he cried out, “but it’s for you!”

  “Nonsense!”

  “But I mean it. I got it last night. Do, please, have it.”

  “No,” said Missy firmly. “Thank you ever so very awfully much; but you must take it back.” And she held it out to him with a still hand.

  “I can’t take it back — I won’t!” cried young Teesdale excitedly. “Consider it only as a Christmas box — surely your father’s godson may give you a little bit of a Christmas box? That’s me, Missy, and anything else I’ve gone and said you must forgive and forget too, for it was all a slip. I didn’t mean to say it, Missy, I didn’t indeed. I hope I know my position better than that. But this here little trumpery what-you-call-it, you must accept it as a Christmas present from us all. Yes, that’s what you must do; for I’m bothered if I take it back.”

  “You must,” repeated Missy very calmly. “I think you mean to break my heart between you with your kindness. Here’s the box and here’s the bangle.”

  John William looked once and for all into the resolute light eyes. Then first he took the box and put the lid on it, and stowed it away in his breastpocket; and after that he took that gold bangle, very gingerly, between finger and thumb, and spun it out into the centre of the brown river, where it made bigger, widening bangles, that took the best part of a minute to fail and die away. Then everything was stiller than before; and stillest of all were the man and the woman who stood facing each other on the bank, speckled with the steep sunlight that came down on them like rain through the leaves of the river-timber overhead.

  “That was bad,” said Missy at last. “Something else was worse. It’s not much good your trying to hedge matters with me; and for my part I’m going to speak straight and plain for once. If I thought that you’d gone and fallen in love with me — as sure as we’re standing here, Jack, I’d put myself where you’ve put that bangle.”

  Her hand pointed to the place. There was neither tremor in the one nor ripple upon the other.

  “But why?” Teesdale could only gasp.

  “Because I’m so far below you.”

  “Missy! Missy!” he was beginning passionately, but she checked him at once.

  “Let well alone, Jack. I’ve spoken God’s truth. I’m not going to say any more; only when you know all about me — as you may any day now — perhaps even to-day — don’t say that I told nothing but lies. That’s all. Now must I go back to the house, or will you?”

  He glanced towards the river with unconscious significance. She shook her head and smiled. He hung his, and went away.

  Once more Missy was alone among the river-timber; once more she flung herself down upon the short, dry grass, but this time upon her back, while her eyes and her ears were wide open.

  A cherry-pick er was frivolling in the branches immediately above her. From the moment it caught her eye, Missy seemed to take great interest in that cherry-picker’s proceedings. She had wasted innumerable cartridges on these small birds, but that was in her blood-thirsty days, now of ancient history, and there had never been any ill-feeling between Missy and the cherry-pickers even then. One solitary native cat was all the fair game that she had slaughtered in her time. She now took to wondering why it was that these animals were never to be seen upon a tree in day-time; and as she wondered, her eyes hunted all visible forks and boughs; and as she hunted, a flock of small parrots came whirring like a flight of arrows, and called upon Missy’s cherry-picker, and drove him from the branches overhead. But the parrots were a new interest, and well worth watching. They had red beaks and redder heads and tartan wings and emerald breasts. Missy had had shots at these also formerly; even now she shut her left eye and pretended that her right fore-finger was a gun, and felt certain of three fine fellows with one barrel had it really been a gun. Then at last she turned on her elbow towards the river, and opened her mouth to talk to herself. And after a long half-hour with nature this was all she had to say:

  “If I did put myself in there, what use would it be? That beast would get a hold of Arabella then. But it’d be nice never to know what they said when they found out everything. What’s more, I’d rather be in there, after this, than in any town. After this!”

  She gave that mob of chattering parrots a very affectionate glance; also the dark green leaves with the dark blue sky behind them; also the brown, still river, hidden away from the sun. She had come to love them all, and the river would be a very good place for her indeed.

  She muttered on: “Then to think of John William! Well, I never! It would be best for him too if I snuffed out, one way or another; and as for ‘ Bella, if that brute doesn’t turn up soon, he may not turn up at all. But he said he’d keep me waiting. He’s low enough down to do it, too.”

  She looked behind her shuddering, as she had looked behind her many and many a time during the last few days. Instantly her eyes fell upon that at which one has a right to shudder. Within six feet of Missy a brown snake had stiffened itself from the ground with darting tongue and eyes like holes in a head full of fire. And Missy began to smile and hold out her hands to it.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come on and do your worst! I wish yo
u would. That’d be a way out without no blame to anybody — and just now they might be sorry. Come on, or I’ll come to you. Ah, you wretch, you blooming coward, you!”

  She had got to her knees, and was actually making for the snake on all fours; but it darted back into its hole like a streak of live seaweed; and Missy then rose wearily to her feet, and stood looking around her once more, as though for the last time.

  “What am I to do?” she asked of river, trees, and sky. “What am I to do? I haven’t the pluck to finish myself, nor yet to make a clean breast. I haven’t any pluck at all. I might go back and do something that’d make the whole kit of ‘em glad to get rid o’ me. That’s what I call a gaudy idea, but it would mean clearing out in a hurry. And I don’t want to clear out — not yet. Not just yet! So I’ll slope back and see what’s happening and how things are panning out; and I’ll go on sitting tight as long as I’m let.”

  CHAPTER XII.

  “THE SONG OF MIRIAM.”

  ACCORDINGLY Missy reappeared in the verandah about tea-time, and in the verandah she was once more paralysed with the special terror that was hanging over her from hour to hour in these days. An unfamiliar black coat had its back to the parlour window; it was only when Missy discerned an equally unfamiliar red face at the other side of the table that she remembered that Christmas visitors had been expected in the afternoon, and reflected that these must be they. The invited guests were a brace of ministers connected with the chapel attended by the Teesdales, and the red face, which was also very fat, and roofed over with a thatch of very white hair, rose out of as black a coat as that other of which Missy had seen the back. So these were clearly the ministers. And they were already at tea.

  As soon as Missy entered the parlour she recognised the person sitting with his back to the window. He had lantern jaws hung with black whiskers, and a very long but not so very cleanshaven upper lip. His name was Appleton, he was the local minister, and Missy had not only been taken to hear him preach, but she had met him personally, and made an impression, judging by the length of time the ministers hand had rested upon her shoulder on that occasion. He greeted her now in a very complimentary manner, and with many seasonable wishes, which received the echo of an echo from the elder reverend visitor, whom Mrs. Teesdale made known to Missy as their old friend Mr. Crowdy.