As for the guests, they arrived between noon and sundown in some dozen buggies, which for lack of stable-room were arranged in a sort of laager near the tents. The Brownes of Quandong drove over four-in-hand; and there were several young men who rode with their dress-clothes in valises at the saddle-bow. Finally, some forty persons sat down to an early dinner in the back veranda, and thereafter retired to their rooms and tents to dress.
They reappeared upon a delightful scene. The southern day had ended with its usual abruptness; the rising moon had already cleared the pines. The main building wore a necklace of Chinese lanterns hung by Irralie between the veranda posts, and the symmetry of this was well relieved by the purely random lighting of the yard. The gross effect, however, would have been better, undoubtedly, without a moon; as it was, by ten o’clock the night was lighter than many a northern day.
About this hour two things happened. The new owner, then making himself most attentive to Mrs. Browne of Quandong (whose diamonds were worthy of Park Lane), felt a tug at his armless sleeve. He turned his head, and there was Irralie. The girl was dressed in white, trimmed (by her own hands) with rowan-berries; there were more berries in her hair; and earlier in the evening, at all events, health and youth and radiant high spirits had made her beautiful in many eyes. She was now, however, very visibly overheated, for she had been dancing everything with the utmost abandon; and she was also, in the judgment of Mrs. Browne of Quandong (who had spent a recent year in England), decidedly “bad form.”
“Well, Miss Villiers — —”
The new owner was cut short as he rose to give her his chair.
“Don’t Miss Villiers me! I’m far too hot to be reminded I’m all that — or to sit down, thanks all the same. I came to say the next two are ours.”
“Ours?”
“Yes; and you don’t need to look like that, or you’ll make Mrs. Browne more ashamed of me than she is already. Oh, I know you didn’t ask me — I can’t help that! I’m simply too hot to dance another step till I’ve had a good long rest in the cool. And, as I can’t possibly ask the able-bodied to give up their pleasure for me, I appeal to you. Come and get me something to drink, and bring Mrs. Browne as well!”
The face of the lady of Quandong was a study of the first order. It is true that the girl was unfashionably excited, and very likely her speech was all it appeared to Mrs. Browne, who, however, did not know how much of it had been made for her benefit. Nor could she doubt but that her late aristocratic companion was as deeply disgusted as herself; nor help pitying him as the young minx carried him off. And this was one thing that happened about ten of the clock.
The other was less public; indeed, the horse was not seen till much later, and such as saw the Skeleton among the pines took him probably for an on-looker from the hut. Yet none can have seen him very well, or his dress would have excited immediate remark. He wore riding-breeches beautifully cut, and gaiters of the newest. His eye was garnished with a single glass, and in his hand he carried an English hunting-crop. He found his way through the pines with vigilant, unfamiliar steps, and he surveyed the Chinese lanterns and the flitting faces from the shelter of a well-grown hop-bush. Some were dancing on the veranda itself. The stranger watched them with the halffrown and half-smile of a man who appeared to find the novelty of the sight its most striking feature.
Meantime, Irralie under the moon with the new owner was a very different person from Irralie in the ball - room with Mrs. Browne of Quandong. She was much quieter, and, it is possible, a little less like herself. That unspeakable mistake of hers still rankled in her bosom whenever she found herself in Fullarton’s company. She had tried to make amends to him since the accident; but she was not at all sure that she had succeeded; and gradually the wish had grown upon her to speak to him candidly about the whole matter. Rightly or wrongly, her soul was still burdened, and she wished to unburden it; a few words — the fewest possible — and she would breathe more freely in his presence. There are natures that must cry peccavi after every realized offence; and Irralie’s was one.
So at last she said, “Mr. Fullarton, I have something on my mind, and you know what it is as well as I do. I am ashamed of myself!” For it was characteristic of Irralie that, however long she might be in making up her mind to say or do a thing, the speech or the action itself was invariably crisp and to the point.
The other halted in his stride.
“Ashamed?” said he. “What in the world about?”
“You know,” said Irralie.
“I! Let me think.”
“Think back to yesterday.”
“Yes?”
“To yesterday afternoon.”
“Good. What then?”
“Oh, you don’t help me a bit!” cried the girl. “I made a fool of myself. I thought all sorts of idiotic things! I hadn’t even the decency to conceal my thoughts from you; you saw them — and behaved handsomely! Yes, you did; you might have given me away before them all; but not you! And I am grateful — more grateful and ashamed than I can ever say. I want to thank you and to apologize with the same stone.”
“This is very serious,” said Fullarton, smiling. “Of course, if you say it was as bad as all that, I must take your word for it. But — who on earth did you imagine I was?”
“Stingaree!”
“I thought so! It occurred to me when you showed me that grave in the pines.”
“Oh, I was an idiot. It makes me feel hot whenever I think of it; and yet I’m the better for telling you the worst. It was the old clothes and the revolver and all that. Can you possibly understand?”
“Easily,” said Fullarton, reassuringly. “There’s only one thing I can’t fathom.”
“What’s that?”
“Why on earth you didn’t promptly tell your people!”
There was a pause. They had entered the plantation, but at its southerly extremity; the stock-yards and out-buildings lying to the north. Very faintly in the distance, they could catch the high notes of the fiddler from Hay, with an occasional chord from the piano. But this was only while Irralie paused.
“I was too ashamed,” she said at length. “Besides, I didn’t believe it myself — I only couldn’t help thinking it.”
“You might have told them what you couldn’t help thinking; or at least let them know that I was armed.”
“I might, certainly.”
“Why didn’t you, Miss Villiers?”
They were now approaching the southerly edge of the homestead clearing. The illuminations shone in their eyes through the thinning trees. The music had ceased; it was not missed, however, in the pines; and thus the rather singular lack of open-air promenaders went also unremarked. Fullarton repeated his question.
“I can’t explain it,” replied Irralie. “You were one against many; that may have been it. And then, you never looked the villain!”
“Suppose I had!” he said, eagerly. “Suppose you had known me for Stingaree himself; what then?”
Irralie made no reply. They had struck the fence and found a horse there, tethered. The girl was puzzled.
“I wonder who has come?” said she.
“Don’t wonder! Answer my question — please, Miss Villiers!”
“Say it again.”
“If I had been the brute you thought me, would you — have stood by me even so?”
“No, indeed! I should think not. How can you ask?”
“I only wanted to know.”
They squeezed through the wires, and had the yard to themselves. And here Irralie was still further mystified. The ball-room windows stood open to the floor; nobody was dancing, and yet the room was full. The music had ceased, but the sound of a high, drawling voice floated out into the yard.
“Who’s that talking?” said Irralie. “It’s a voice I don’t know at all!”
She looked at her companion; and his expression was still puzzling her, when a sudden uproar burst upon them from the open windows. Men were tumbling pell - mell through them
, shouting like lunatics, and armed with native weapons snatched from the walls.
“Stingaree!” they roared. “There he is! Run, Miss Villiers; that’s Stingaree!”
Irralie never forgot the wild voices or the wilder scene. As one man they had dashed at her companion. He turned and ran for the tethered horse. The reins were whipped from the fence before he could mount; but he was first through the wires, when, instead of running on, he wheeled round to reason or remonstrate with his pursuers. Irralie saw his gestures without hearing a word; but when they cut him short with a roar and a dash, and struck at his head with their spears and boomerangs, she saw the hand become a fist, and the fist planted in the middle of the first shirt-front to breast the wires. Next moment they were scaled by all, and the many fell headlong upon the one.
Again and again he shook and hit and hacked them off; he fought like a wounded tiger; and now he tugged out his injured hand, and began fighting with that. It looked ghastly in the moonlight — big as a boxing-glove with lint and bandages, and white at first, but quickly reddening from within as it struck and struck and struck among the crumpled shirts and loose white ties. Every blow left a smear. But the end came suddenly; the gallant wretch was grasped from behind in deadly grips; a heavy, livid face writhed beside his own, and George Young bore him to the ground.
Irralie turned away her bead. The veranda was all red lanterns and white faces and torn trains. But among them was a new face, with drooping whiskers and a single eye-glass; and as Irralie looked a dapper Englishman, in gaiters, riding-breeches, and twinkling spurs, stepped down from the veranda, and strutted over to the fence with his hands in his pockets.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” she heard his high voice drawl. “No undue violence, gentlemen, I beg!”
And he headed the procession which marched through the yard a few moments later, and in the midst of which, with a face all blood, pallor, and cynical resignation, walked the man who for forty-eight hours had passed unchallenged as the owner of Arran Downs.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOUR AFTER
They clapped him in the iron-store. And when Irralie had seen the last of him in their hands, she started as one wakes from a dream, and fled before the return-wave of triumphant captors. For the next half-hour she was missing and yet not missed. Then she was wanted for a purpose, and Mrs. Villiers, trying her door, found it locked.
“Irralie! Irralie! Let me in!”
Heavy steps crossed the floor; the key grated; the leaden steps retreated. Mrs. Villiers turned the handle and entered the room. The girl had thrown herself back upon the bed.
“My dear child! What next? I wondered where you were. We are going to have supper.
“Supper! After that?”
“Why not? We are beginning to feel ourselves again — thanks to Mr. Fullarton — and if we can’t dance we must at all events eat. Nobody is going home. The Brownes talked of it, but Mr. Fullarton dissuaded them. He has such tact! I don’t know what we should have done without him. He has quite won my heart; and such a handsome fellow! Irralie, he says he hasn’t seen you yet; that was indeed what sent me to look for you. Come now, and be introduced before supper!”
“No!” cried the girl. “I have had Mr, Fullartons enough.”
“But you will come to supper?”
“Not if you will let me off; and I do so want to be left alone, mother! If the rest of you can forget such a thing, I cannot. I was with him at the time. You were all prepared for it; it took me by surprise.” Mrs. Villiers had not thought of that. She was a good, ordinary soul, whose affections were superior to her insight; but she did feel with Irralie now.
“My poor child! Yes, you were with him at the time. If only I had dreamt! But you were always with him,” added the mother in sudden alarm. “It cannot be possible — Irralie — that you ever liked him?”
“I did — most certainly,” said Irralie, stoutly. Her forehead was hot to the hand which smoothed her hair back tenderly.
“You cannot like him now!”
“Now? I hate him!” cried the girl. “I hate him! If you knew how he lied — to me! Nothing could be too bad for him, mother. Did they — —”
She checked herself.
“Yes, Irralie?”
“Oh, nothing. I was only wondering whether they did up his hand again.”
“Yes, at once. Mr. Fullarton saw to it himself.”
“And is he — behaving himself — in the iron-store?”
“He has never made a sound.”
“Nor owned up to anything, I suppose?”
“Yes! He has confessed everything — to Mr. Fullarton while they were binding up his hand. How he first heard of him, and worked the whole plan up — actually sending him a telegram in our name putting him off for a week! It was a lucky thing that Mr. Fullarton heard down the road that we were expecting him — heard also of the sticking-up of that public-house on Saturday — had his suspicions, and determined to come on. Had he not done so we should all have been robbed and most likely murdered in our beds! Think of it: a crape mask has been found in the pocket of the dreadful coat he came in, and a pistol in his room! It is easy to be wise after the event, but how we ever came to be taken in by such a ruffian passes my comprehension; and so it will yours when you see and speak to the real man. Such a charming fellow! A little supercilious, I heard someone say; but, mind you, I don’t think so. I thought it quite right of him to criticise the floor!” Irralie lay motionless with closed eyes and inattentive brain. Through the thin walls came the buzz of voices, excited still, but only pleasantly so; for was not the desperado safely secured without having done anything very desperate after all? And for everybody else was it not an adventure to boast of for the term of one’s natural life? This was the impression derived by Irralie, rightly or wrongly, from her mother’s manner and the voices through the walls. The little incident was over. It was nothing more. They could now sit down to supper — quite possibly with an added zest; but the girl again begged to be excused from joining them.
“Dear mother, yes, I know I am your daughter and the daughter of the house. But I can’t help it. You must let me off. It will be understood. I was with him at the time. You all were behind the scenes. Tell them that, and they will understand.”
“I see that it has shaken you,” said Mrs. Villiers, still smoothing the hair from the hot, troubled brow. “And no wonder, dear Irralie; yet what can you do in here? We shall be just outside the door.”
“I will slip round to the nursery, and from there to the school-room,” said Irralie, rising. “Then after you have gone, I shall come straight to bed. Mother, you are good to me! You understand! I was with him. What will people think? It makes me ache with shame. But you are good!”
She flung her arms about her mother’s neck, and kissed her fondly, but without a tear. Then she was gone. And Mrs. Villiers returned in trouble to the crowded room.
A sudden hush preceded her entry, with which, however, it had nothing to do; the Englishman had seated himself on the music-stool vacated by the hireling from Hay, and was running his ringed fingers over the keys. A corrugated forehead was the result, followed, however, a moment after, by a performance which, while it lasted, held the listeners spellbound. The style was that of a master; the only fault lay in the execution, which was imperfect but yet full of brilliance. Every ear was charmed, and all eyes fascinated by the magic mastery of the white keys by the small, sunburnt hands, scintillating with rings. Yet the whole affair lasted but a minute, and was rudely broken off in the middle of a bar.
“I really can’t stand it any longer,” drawled the musician, rising.
“Stand what?” asked Mr. Villiers, who thought somebody must have been talking, and was prepared to reprimand the offender.
“Your piano,” replied the other. “My dear sir, it’s painful!”
The manager, like many of his friends, was duly taken aback; but Mrs. Villiers (a woman who venerated rudeness in a man) instantly advanced from the t
hreshold to fill the breach.
“I quite agree with Mr. Fullarton,” said she. “It is a terrible instrument; but that was a very beautiful piece; may I ask what it was?”
“That? A little thing by a man called Chopin. A polonaise — if you’re any wiser.”
“Oh, indeed. How I wish we had a better piano!”
“Ah! I shall have my Erard sent out by the next mail.”
And the matter dropped; but another, which made a very similar impression, occurred at supper, on the production of champagne.
“Champagne up here!” cried the Englishman, for once surprised out of his drawl. “Good heavens!”
“We got it up specially from Hay,” explained the manager, reddening.
“Hay!”
And the new-comer steadily refused to drink even his own health in anything more perilous than very weak whiskey-and-water; and once more his hostess backed him up.
“Fool of a woman,” muttered an old overseer under his breath. “I’d like to give him five minutes with my stock-whip!”
“I agree,” whispered the young man next him (who had a red smudge on his collar). “The joker we landed would have had better manners! It makes you sorry. If the great Irralie were here there’d be some fun! I wonder where she is?”
The great Irralie was at that moment in the school-room, in the open doorway, looking out upon the pines.
The moon shone full in her eyes, but discovered neither tears nor the signs of tears, nor aught but indignation and bitter regret. She had suspected everything from the first. And because of her suspicions she had torn her soul — for a hardened villain; and because of her suspicions she had humbled herself to a notorious scoundrel, who had lied to her to the very end. That was what rankled most. He had not trusted her! Yet she did not think it was that at all.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 71