Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

“Yes.”

  “But I shan’t be many minutes.”

  And he was gone.

  At last!

  Moya flung herself upon the bed, and lay for a few seconds with closed eyes. Her forehead was wondrous white; the fine eyebrows and the long lashes seemed suddenly to have gone black; the girl was fainting under the triple strain of fear and shame and outraged love. Yes, she was in love, but she would never marry him. Never! It was the irony of her fate to love a man whom she would rather die than marry, after this! Yet she loved him none the less; that was the last humiliation of women whom she had scorned all her days for this very thing, only to become one of them in the end.

  But she at least would never marry the man she loved and yet despised. That would be the only difference, yet a fairly essential one. And now her strength was renewed with her resolve, so that she was up and doing within the few seconds aforesaid; her first act was to blow out the candle; her next, to open the door an inch and to take her stand at the opening.

  Nor was she much too soon. It was as though Rigden had been only waiting for her light to go out. Within a minute he appeared in the sandy space between the main building and the store. He was again wearing the yellow silk dust-coat of which enough has been heard; it was almost all that could be seen of him in the real darkness which had fallen with the setting of the moon.

  Moya heard his key in the heavy door opposite. Should she tell him of Theodore’s suspicions, or should she not? While she hesitated, he let himself in, took out the key, and once more locked the door behind him. Next moment a thread of light appeared upon the threshold; and, too late, Moya repented her indecision.

  Theodore would return, and then ——

  But for once he was singularly slow; minute followed minute, and there was neither sign nor sound of him.

  And presently the store door opened once more; the figure in the dust-coat emerged as it had entered; and vanished as it had appeared, in the direction of the horse-yard.

  Once more the door was shut; but, once more, that thread of incriminating light burnt like a red-hot wire beneath. And this time Moya could not see it burn: the red-hot wire had entered her soul. Theodore had been so long, he might be longer; risk it she must, and take the consequences. Two steps carried her across the verandah; lighter she had never taken in a ball-room, where her reputation was that of a feather. Once in the kindly sand, however, she ran desperately, madly, to the horse-yard. And she was just in time to hear the dying beat of a horse’s canter into infinity.

  Then she must inform the wretch himself, the runaway ruffian in the store! One sob came, and then this quick resolve.

  She gained the store, panting; and instinctively tried the door before knocking. To her amazement and alarm it was open. She stood confounded on the threshold, and a head bending over the desk, under the lamp, behind the counter, was suddenly transformed into a face. And it was not the runaway at all; it was Rigden himself!

  “I saw you come out!” she gasped, past recrimination, past anger, past memory itself in the semi-insensibility of over-whelming surprise. He looked at her very gravely across the desk.

  “No, that was the man who has wrecked my life,” he said. “I’ve got him through them at last, I do believe.”

  And his eyes flashed their unworthy triumph.

  “You could actually give him your horse!”

  “I wish I could. It would be missed in a minute. No, he’s only just to run the gauntlet on it, and I shall find it at the first gate. But what is it, Moya? You came for something?” and he was a miserable man once more.

  “I’m ashamed to say why I came — but I will!” cried Moya in a low voice. “I did not want you to be found out through my own brother. He suspected the man was in here — I don’t know why. He was going to watch the store all night, and I was watching it for him while he changed, and the light under the door — —”

  Rigden held up his hand.

  “Hush!” he said. “Here is your brother.”

  Theodore was more than decent; he was positively gorgeous in striped and tasselled silk. He stood in the doorway with expressive eyebrows and eloquent nostrils, looking from Moya to Rigden until his gaze settled upon the latter. It was almost an innocuous gaze by then.

  “So it was you in here,” he said. Rigden nodded. “Do you know who I was ass enough to think it was?” continued Theodore, using a word which Moya had never heard him apply to himself before, even in fun. “Has Moya told you?”

  “She has.”

  “I saw the light,” said Moya, in elliptical explanation. Theodore continued to address his host.

  “I oughtn’t to have interfered,” he said, with a humility which was already arousing Moya’s suspicions. “I should have minded my own business, Rigden, and I apologise. I’d got it into my head — I can’t tell you why. Will you forgive me? And have you any more whisky?”

  “I’ve nothing to forgive,” said Rigden, sincerely enough. “But a drink we’ll have; that’s an excellent idea!”

  But the counter was between them, and Theodore was the first to leave the store; but on the threshold he stopped, and just turned to Moya for an instant.

  “By the way, you didn’t see anybody else, I suppose?” said he.

  There was an instant’s pause. Then Moya committed her sin.

  “Of course I didn’t,” were the words.

  Theodore strolled over to the verandah. Moya waited behind as in devotion while Rigden locked that fatal door for the last time.

  “You see what you’ve brought me to!” she hissed. “But don’t think it’s because I care a bit what happens to you — once I’m gone. And I hate you for it — and I always shall!”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  And that was all.

  VII

  A CAVALIER

  Moya went to bed like one already in a dream. She smiled when she realised what she was doing; there would be no sleep for her that night. Yet she went through with the empty form, even to putting out the light to rest her aching eyes. And in five minutes her troubles ceased for as many hours; she had passed that pitch of excitement which is another name for insomnia; she had reached the stage of sheer exhaustion, and she reaped the recompense.

  Spurred feet treading gingerly nevertheless awoke her towards dawn. It was a bitter awakening. Further sleep was impossible, further rest intolerable; besides, something must be done at once. It was an ordeal to face, but sooner or later Theodore must be told, and then — good-bye! Obviously the sooner the better, since the thing was settled between the two whom it concerned; and Moya had the temperament which prefers to precipitate the absolutely inevitable; but temperament for once was not her lord. It was too hard!

  Character came to the rescue. It must be done. And Moya dressed by candle-light with a craven but a resolute heart.

  Meanwhile the cautious footsteps and the low voices died away; and the girl found a bare verandah, chill and silent as a vault in the twilight of early morning. A lamp was burning in the dining-room, but the chairs were pushed back, crusts left, and tea-cups half full. The teapot felt quite heavy; and Moya took a cup and a bite before going to see whether Theodore was awake. If not, she must wake him, for she could not wait. But his room was deserted; his very boots were gone; and the craven heart leapt, for all its resolution.

  Moya returned to the verandah in time to see the new chum, Ives, coming at a canter through the pines. She cut him off at the barracks, where, however, he flung himself from the saddle and almost into her arms.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Bethune! Forgotten something as usual, you see!”

  Hurry and worry were behind his smile. Yet Moya had the heart to detain him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ives. Where’s everybody?”

  “Gone mustering.”

  “Not my brother?”

  “No; he’s gone with the police.”

  “The police.”

  “You know, they’ve gone to follow up some tracks — —”

>   “Oh, yes, I know!” cried Moya.

  So Theodore was hand-in-glove with the enemy! Not that the police were the enemy at all; they were only his enemies; but the fact remained that Theodore was one of them. Very likely he had already made them a present of his suspicions; nothing likelier, or more fitting, than the exposure of her “lover” through her own brother’s agency. It will be seen that her bitterness against one was rapidly embittering Moya’s view of all and sundry. She was not original in that.

  “I forgot my water-bag,” the jackeroo remarked. “I shall have to gallop to catch them up.”

  But he was too polite to move.

  “Must you catch them up?” inquired Moya, in flattering dumps: but indeed it would be deadly at the station all day, and such a day, without a soul to speak to!

  “Well, they won’t wait for me, because they told me what to do,” said Ives on reflection.

  “And what have you to do?” asked Moya, smiling.

  “Go down the fence; it’s easiest, you know.”

  “But what are you all going to do? What does this mustering mean?”

  Ives determined in his own mind to blow the odds. He was not only a gentleman; he was a young man; and Miss Bethune should have all the information she wanted and he could give. Ives began to appreciate her attractions, and Rigden’s good fortune, for the first time as they deserved. It would be another place after the marriage. She was a ripper when you got her to yourself.

  Aloud he explained the mustering as though he had the morning to spare. It meant sweeping up all the sheep in a given paddock, either to count them out, or to shift them altogether if feed or water was failing where they were. A big job in any case, but especially so in Big Bushy, which was by far the largest paddock on Eureka; it was seven miles by seven.

  “And do you generally go mustering at a night’s notice?”

  “No, as a rule we know about it for days before; but last night the boss — I beg your pardon — —”

  “What for?” said Moya. “I like to hear him called that.”

  And she would have liked it, she hardly knew why. But he was not her boss, and never would be.

  “Thanks awfully. Well, then, the boss found a tank lower than he expected in Butcher-boy, that’s the killing-sheep paddock, and it’s next door to Big Bushy, which is stocked with our very best. If the tanks were low in Butcher-boy, they might be lower still in Big Bushy — —”

  “Why?” asked Moya, like a good Bethune.

  “Oh, I don’t know; only the boss seemed to think so; and of course it wouldn’t do to let our best sheep bog. So we’ve got to shift every hoof into Westwells, where there’s the best water on the run.”

  Moya said no more. This seemed genuine. Only she was suspicious now of every move of Rigden’s; she could not help it.

  “And why must you have a water-bag?” she asked, for asking’s sake.

  “Oh, we never go without one in this heat. The boss won’t let us. So of course I went and forgot mine. I’m no good in the bush, Miss Bethune!”

  “Not even at mustering?” asked sympathetic Moya.

  “Why, Miss Bethune, that’s the hardest thing of the lot, and it’s where I’m least use. It’s my sight,” said the young fellow ruefully; “I’m as blind as a mole. You ought to be able to see sheep at three miles, but I can’t swear to them at three hundred yards.”

  “That’s a drawback,” said Moya, looking thoughtfully at the lad.

  “It is,” sighed he. “Then I haven’t a dog, when I do see ‘em; altogether it’s no sinecure for me, though they do give me the fence; and — and I’m afraid I really ought to be making a start, Miss Bethune.”

  The outward eye of Moya was still fixed upon him, but what it really saw was herself upon that lonely verandah all day long — waiting for the next nice development — and waiting alone.

  “I have excellent eyes,” she observed at length.

  “To say the least!” cried her cavalier.

  “I meant for practical purposes,” rejoined Moya, with severity. “I’m sure that I could see sheep at three miles.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” said he enviously.

  “And I see you have a spare horse in the yard.”

  “Yes, in case of accidents.”

  “And I know you have a lady’s saddle.”

  “It was got for you.”

  Moya winced, but her desire was undiminished.

  “I mean to be the accident, Mr. Ives,” said she.

  “And come mustering?” he cried. “And be my — my — —”

  “The very eyes of you,” said Moya, nodding. “I shall be ready in three minutes!”

  And she left him staring, and bereft of breath, but flushed as much with pleasure as with the rosy glow of the Riverina sunrise which fell upon him even as she spoke; she was on the verandah before he recovered his self-possession.

  “Your horse’ll be ready in two!” he bawled, and rushed to make good his word. Moya had to remind him of the water-bag after all.

  First and last she had not delayed him so very long, and the red blob of a sun was but clear of the horizon when they obtained their first unimpeded view of it. This was when they looked back from the gate leading into Butcher-boy: the homestead pines still ran deep into the red, and an ink-pot would still have yielded their hue.

  In Butcher-boy, which was three miles across, there was nothing for them to do but to ride after their shadows and to talk as they rode, neck and neck, along the fluted yellow ribbon miscalled a road, between tufts of sea-green saltbush and faraway clumps of trees.

  “I wish I wasn’t such a duffer in the bush,” said Ives, resolved to make the most of the first lady he had met for months. “The rum thing is that I’m frightfully keen on the life.”

  “Are you really?” queried Moya, and she was interested on her own account, for what might have been.

  “Honestly,” said Ives, “though I begin to see it isn’t the life for me. The whole thing appeals to one, somehow; getting up in the middle of the night (though it was an awful bore), running up the horses (though I can’t even crack a stock-whip), and just now the station trees against the sunrise. It’s so open and fresh and free, and unlike everything else; it gets at me to the core; but, of course, they don’t give me my rations for that.”

  “Should you really like to spend all your days here?”

  “No; but I shouldn’t be surprised if I were to spend half my nights here for the term of my natural life! I shall come back to these paddocks in my dreams. I can’t tell why, but I feel it in my bones; it’s the light, the smell, the extraordinary sense of space, and all the little things as well. The dust and scuttle of the sheep when two or three are gathered together; it’s really beastly, but I shall smell it and hear it till I die.”

  Moya glanced sidelong at her companion, and all was enthusiasm behind the dusty spectacles. There was something in this new chum after all. Moya wondered what.

  “You’re not going to stick to it, then?”

  Ives laughed.

  “I’m afraid it won’t stick to me. I can’t see sheep, I’m no real good with horses, and I couldn’t even keep the station books; the owner said my education had been sadly neglected (one for Rugby, that was!) when he was up here the other day. It’s only through Mr. Rigden’s good-nature that I’m hanging on, and because — I — can’t — tear myself away.”

  “And what do you think of doing eventually?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I shall go home again, I suppose; I only came out for the voyage. After that, goodness knows; I was no real use at school either.”

  Insensibly the rocking-chair canter of the bush horses had lapsed into the equally easy amble which is well-nigh their one alternative; and the shadows were shortening, and the back of the neck and the ears were beginning to burn. The jackeroo was sweeping the horizon for pure inexplicable delight in its dirty greens and yellows; but had quite forgotten that he ought already to have been scouring it for sheep.
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  “And so the boss is good-natured, is he?” said Moya, she could not have told herself why; for she would not have admitted that it could afford her any further satisfaction to hear his praises.

  “Good-natured?” cried the jackeroo. “He’s all that and much more; there’s not a grander or a straighter chap in Riverina, and we all swear by him; but — well, he is the boss, and let’s you know it.”

  A masterful man; and Moya had wanted her master all these years! She asked no more questions, and they rode a space in silence, Ives glancing sidelong in his turn, and in his heart congratulating Rigden more and more.

  “By Jove,” he cried at last, “I think I shall have to get you to use your influence on my behalf!”

  “For what?” asked Moya, wincing again.

  “Another chance! They mustn’t give me the sack just yet — I must be here when you come. It’s the one thing we need — a lady. It’s the one thing he needs to make him as nearly perfect as it’s comfortable for other people for a man to be. And I simply must be here to see.”

  “Let’s canter,” said Moya. The blood came rushing to his face.

  “I apologise,” he cried. “It was horrid cheek of me, I know!”

  Moya’s reassuring smile was all kindly, and not all forced; indeed, the tears were very close to the surface, and she could not trust herself to say much.

  “Not cheek at all,” was what she did say, with vigour. “Only — you’ll change your mind.”

  With that her eyes glistened for an instant; and young Ives loved her himself. But neither of them was sorry when another gate grew large above the horses’ ears, with posts and wires dwindling into perspective on either side to mark the eastern frontier of Big Bushy.

  VIII

  THE KIND OF LIFE

  “Now what do we do, Mr. Ives?”

  He had shut the gate and joined her on a sandy eminence, whence Moya was seeking to prove the excellence of her eyesight at the very outset. But the paddock had not got its name for nothing; it was overrun with the sombre scrub, short and thick as lichen on a rock; and from the open spaces no sheep swam into Moya’s ken.