“It’s not only Jeff who is worrying you, Father,” she said softly. “It is that terrible woman who has upset the serenity of our lives. You’re nearly worried to death about her. Tell me—tell me all, and let me help.”
“Your knowing things wouldn’t help me,” he said gruffly, but, reaching out, took in his hands one of hers.
For a little while neither spoke. Then: “A thousand soldiers are better able to defend a fort than five hundred, Father. I know already just a little. I couldn’t help hearing the other evening you tell her repeatedly that you wouldn’t do something she wanted you to do. And you spoke so desperately.”
Jeff Stanton sat and silently stared straight at that part of the veranda netting beyond which sat Bony. His white brows almost met in a continuous line of shaggy hair. Yet his usually firm mouth drooped as though with senility. The girl slipped her coffee-cup on the table and covered his imprisoning hands with her free one.
“Father!” she said.
Stanton continued to stare with unseeing eyes.
“Dad!” she insisted.
Suddenly he raised his face and looked into her starry eyes, and, seeing the despair in his, she suddenly released her hands and, throwing her arms about his neck, pleaded:
“Let me share the trouble, dear. What does she want? What does she demand of us?”
And then from his lips came the words, low but distinct: “She—wants—me—to—marry—her!”
“To marry her? You? To marry her?”
Stanton nodded. “I was to have married her years and years ago,” he said. And Bony knew that sitting there was Joseph North, hero of the affair of the “Stolen Bride”. The old man sighed, for indeed he looked old and frail sitting there in the pink light. “I’ll tell you, Marion,” he said slowly, “but when I’ve finished remember—don’t forget to remember—that I am your father.”
Jeff Stanton prefaced his story with a short account of his life and circumstances in his early twenties. Then he went on to describe his courtship and his cruel jilting, and how he dressed with care and went out to the hotel horse-yards, where he saddled three of his horses, two with riding-saddles, one with a pack-saddle. He told how he led them to the store, and how he floored one man who asked him where he thought he was going in his best clothes.
With his pack-bags full and two old suits of dungarees rolled within four blankets, he described his thoughts whilst riding to his lost sweetheart’s home, and precisely what happened when he got there.
“She wouldn’t change her things, so I dragged her out of the house in her wedding rig,” he said slowly. “She wouldn’t mount the spare horse, and I told her that if she didn’t obey orders I wouldn’t waste a bullet on her, but I’d cut her throat. I would have done, too. I was mad, absolutely mad. I hated her, and yet I loved her. She was very pretty in her white dress, and her hair shone like gold beneath a gauzy kind of veil.
“She began to cry, but she must have seen her danger in my eyes, because she mounted the horse and we rode like lightning till it grew dark and we reached an empty hut and a well. The first thing I did after hobbling out the horses was to make her discard her wedding finery and put on one of the suits of dungarees. I burned the dress and her shoes as well, and gave her a pair of riding boots. She screamed and fought like a wild cat when I cut her hair short with a killing-knife. More than once I was tempted to slash her throat.
“I bent her to my will that night, and thrashed her in the morning because she refused to cook the breakfast whilst I was away bringing in the horses. She made no attempt to escape me, knowing I’d track her down. And after that she was more reasonable.
“For three days we rode westward, keeping well wide of station homesteads. The fourth day we rode north, and at noon reached a selector’s house occupied by an old school-pal of mine. He knew about the hold-up—a police party had ridden by the day before. I asked him to let me and my bride stay there in hiding, and he agreed. It was Fred who drove my three horses fifty miles towards home, where he left them to wander back by themselves. Dressed as she was, no one would think Rosie was a woman, for I had run the clippers over her head to make the haircut a bit more professional. She kept house and did the cooking, and was obedient, and I came to ask myself if she really hated me or loved me. She was a mystery altogether.
“One day, Fred and I came home from mustering sheep and found five horses tethered outside the garden gate. As we rode up a policeman came out, and I knew I was done. But, instead of arresting me, he greeted us affably, and said he hoped my pal wouldn’t mind him and his mates having a snack, because the lad had been insistent. In the kitchen we found Rosie feeding four more troopers. She had on her old felt hat, and there were smears of soot all down one side of her face. The girl had deliberately done what she could to further her disguise. She was a peculiar girl.
“After that she seemed to hate me less and love me more. You see, she always had loved me, but she was influenced against her will by her people into marrying Thomas. Still, for all that, I no longer loved her. I smarted too much beneath the lash of ridicule, and my stupid pride was seared and burned.
“A baby was born, and I was doctor and nurse, because I was afraid to send her to Wilcannia. The baby only lived a week, and that I believe brought about the climax. Had the child lived, I would have stuck to Rosie through thick and thin. It affected her in that she suddenly took to complaining about everything and everlastingly nagging. One can stand most things, bar a nagging woman. Fred got tired of it. Short of gagging her there was no stopping her. She sort of let herself go, only half-dressed, and some days wouldn’t even wash her hands. The baby dying must have done it. She swore I killed it. In the end I decided I had had enough. I thanked Fred for what he had done for me, and I had paid him by working for him almost twelve months for nothing. I took Rosie back to Louth, timing to get there about midnight, and outside the hotel I left her, having first knocked up the licensee.
“I never saw her again until the other day. The man Marks was her brother. She found out about me years ago, seeing my photo in an illustrated paper. The brother was something of a blackguard even to his mother, and during a weak or drunken moment Rose Thomas told him of her abduction and all about me.
“Strangely enough, she had no desire to force herself upon me or seek revenge. She prospered in Sydney, but the brother saw a way to blackmail me, and he did so for nine years. When he last left Sydney he intended to clear out of the country, and called on me to make a final and big demand for money. … Not hearing from him, his sister thought he had left Australia, and did not know until just recently that his assumed name was Marks.
“Now she is accusing me of having killed him. She said that for having killed him—of which, of course, she has no proof—she intends to force me to marry her and to disown you and your brother. If I refuse and have made no definite arrangements for the marriage by New Year’s Day, she intends to expose me as the abductor of the ‘Stolen Bride’.”
The even voice suddenly ceased. Marion continued to sit very still. When she spoke only her lips moved.
“Let her expose you, Dad, but marry her you shan’t!”
“I shall have to,” Stanton said wearily. “You see, before he died, my old friend, Fred, left a document, signed and witnessed, in which he describes helping me bury a dead baby. He did so apparently under duress himself, fearing exposure of his part. The woman’s brother told me that he had this paper. He showed me a copy of it, and it formed the basis of his power. Now Rose says that the copy was all he did have. She still has in her possession the original. If I don’t marry Rose Thomas I shall be cast down into the dust.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Spring-Cleaning
NEARLY EIGHT HUNDRED rabbit-skins, each stretched over a U-shaped length of stiff fencing wire with the two points thrust into the loose sandy ground, represented the last catch at White Well secured by Dot and Dash.
The partners, having breakfasted late, since th
at morning there was no skinning to be done, proceeded to pack this last catch in the wool-bale that finally would contain three thousand skins. The four corners of the open bale were secured to stout posts five feet high, and into the bale, already three parts full of skins, climbed Dash, being a heavier man than his partner. Dot now deftly gathered up a dozen skins on the wire bows, with one movement pulled away the wires, and with another handed to Dash the stiff, board-hard pelts. Dash then proceeded to build up a corner within the wool-bale, and to stand on the skins in that corner whilst he built up another. Thus with this human press the bale, when at last it was sewn up, presented a solid mass weighing nearly two and a half hundredweight.
Four other full bales lay near the truck, and, since the price of skins that summer was good, Dot and Dash expected to clear a hundred and fifty pounds on their last consignment for the year.
It wanted an hour to noon when the partners sat down to a pint of tea and cigarettes, having completed the fifth bale and having loaded the five bales on the truck.
“I guess I ain’t looking forward with eagerness to shaving,” the little man observed ruefully, pushing his fingers through a flaming beard. “Ole Samson musta felt the heat some afore that tart shaved ’is ’air and ’is whiskers. Me, I’m fearful of catching a chill. Couldn’t we—wot about leaving ’em on?”
Dash frowned with mocking gravity. “When in Rome we must ape the Romans. Out here in our ‘vast open spaces’, surrounded by our inspiring ‘natural resources’, we may please ourselves whether we cut our hair or not. At Windee we find ourselves among civilized human beings, who do not grow red-hot whiskers. In about ten minutes you may have the pleasure of cutting my hair very carefully, and my beard closely and without care.”
“Wot about me?”
“I will render you a like service. It will be the last time we shall so serve each other.”
“Wa’-do’-mean?”
“Precisely what I say. I do not anticipate that ever again I shall grow such whiskers as I now sport.”
“Are you gonna hire a vally?” gasped Dot, looking extremely hot, although he had discarded his undervest, the upper part of his powerful body being naked.
“Not in the immediate future. I am, however, earnestly hoping to get married.”
“Married!”
“Is the idea so preposterous?”
“Married!” Dot’s voice was a harsh screech. His expression was a combination of anguish and horror. “You ain’t serious, pardner?” he implored, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, Dot, I am.” The assumed grandiloquent manner fell from the Englishman. It was as though he discarded mask and cloak, and stood revealed in his true personality. Dot received yet a second shock. Dash went on. “In the old days a fellow by the name of Jacob worked for fourteen years for a girl named Rachel. The work he did during that time was identical with the work he had done all his life. Before I became your partner I was and lived as an English gentleman, an allowance made me by my father enabling me to live without having to work.
“Five years ago there came over my house a financial cloud, and in order that my father and my dear mother might continue to live in reasonable comfort, I surrendered to them four-fifths of my allowance, threw up my commission in the finest regiment on earth, and came to Windee as a jackeroo, as you know.
“At Windee I fell in love with a lady with whom you are acquainted. In spite of my poverty, I dared to tell her I loved her. Dot—she accepted me. My next step as a man of honour was to ask Old Jeff for his sanction. What do you think Old Jeff said?”
“Get to hell outer here!” Dot replied promptly.
“He was a little more ambiguous than that, but his meaning was the same,” Dash went on unsmilingly. “In his usual blunt fashion he told me he thought I was hunting his girl’s dollars. Since he was an old man I couldn’t hit him, and, besides, he was Marion’s father. I did tell him, though, that I was prepared for him to test me, and without hesitation he set the test.”
“Wot was it?” Dot asked with interest.
“That I would work with you for two full years.”
“Humph!” The little man lit a cigarette and smoked pensively. Whilst inhaling and exhaling the tobacco-smoke he regarded his partner as though he had met him for the first time, and during that regard it dawned on him that Jeff Stanton’s test was unduly severe. He knew how Dash hated the killing and skinning of kangaroos and the skinning of rabbits but nevertheless never shirked his share of the work. At that moment Dot realised what his own mode of living must have meant to one with his partner’s upbringing. Two years is quite long enough for a man to gain an intimate knowledge of another man’s habits, mental outlook, and ideals. Yet now was the first time it was borne in on him that Dash must have suffered mental degradation every time he handled carcasses, every time he ate and drank from tinware, every day he had to deny himself a bath, and all the time he had to associate with such as he.
“I ain’t surprised at your acceptin’ the test,” he told Dash, “but I am kinda surprised that you’ve won out. I’m mighty glad you’ve won out, anyway. You an’ me have got on well. No arguments, nothing. I’ll feel kinda at a loose end when I’m on me own. You see, a man sort of gets used to a bloke.”
“I know, Dot, how it is,” Dash said earnestly. “Our partnership has been successful, and it has smoothed away the rough edges of a rough life.”
“When’s the two years up?”
“To-night at midnight,” Dash replied. “Old Jeff knows that, and knows, too, that we are going to Windee to-day, and that to-morrow I shall, with his sanction, ask Marion to marry me.”
“Wot are you gonna do then?”
“I don’t know, really. I thought of buying a small place in the hills out of Adelaide, a fruit-farm probably. I have enough money for that.”
“Well, if your bank runs dry, don’t forget I am your milking-cow. I got a lot o’ money wot you’re welcome to. I got more’n you think.”
“Then you must possess a great deal,” Dash said, getting up with a smile, to add with sudden earnestness: “Nevertheless, old man, although we dissolve partnership, we do not and never will dissolve friendship. Where are the scissors, do you know?”
They spoke but little whilst each worked on the other. Dot evidently was somewhat depressed, for he shaved without his usual humorous complaints. The metamorphosis that was accomplished within half an hour was not a little surprising. From wild-looking bushrangers Dash became a well-groomed Army officer, and Dot’s round shining face bespoke a priest in disguise.
The coming severance with his partner weighed heavily on him, for he esteemed Dash, and held him in great affection. Nevertheless, there was something else which weighed on his mind, and after a while Dash became conscious of it. He said quietly:
“What has gone wrong, Dot?”
“Well, seeing as ’ow we’re going to bust up, I’d like to sort of confess me sins,” came the somewhat surprising answer. “We shall have to wind up the business part of it properly, and give each other a receipted bill. It seems kinda right that we should part, too, with receipted minds, if you get me. Do you?”
“Well, not quite.”
“I shall have to touch on a matter which we have made taboo,” Dot said in a strained voice.
“Oh!” The other’s voice was suddenly metallic.
“Yes. It’s gotta be done. I guess I was a fool, a poor avaricious boob. You’ll sort of jump on me when I tells you, and I’m thinking I’ll deserve it. You remember the money wot I was supposed to have burnt?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“Well, I didn’t burn it, that’s all.”
Dash, who was lacing up his expensive shoes, with great deliberateness rose to his feet and stood looking down at Dot with amazement, chagrin, and alarm all expressed in his clean-cut face.
“What did you do?” he inquired calmly.
“I hid it. I put the notes in a kerosene-tin box and buried ’em in the
fire ashes at our camp.” The little man’s blue eyes winked with the force of his self-condemnation. “Gawd! I just couldn’t burn good money. I just couldn’t destroy orl them thousands of dollars——” He broke off suddenly, to continue looking at Dash with appealing eyes. Then: “Wot er we gonna do, bo?”
“We are going to sneak along to that camp to-night, and I am going to watch you burn those notes one by one,” Dash said slowly.
“Orl right! I reckon I ain’t got no kick coming if you orders me to eat ’em.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Bony Lights a Fuse
CHRISTMAS EVE was a day of intense heat, the oppressive heat presaging an electrical disturbance. Until eleven o’clock the sky was clear of clouds. Then, in the manner peculiar to Central Australia, they began to appear. When Bony, working with Withers at the new sheep-yards, first saw the first cloud, it was less than the size of a man’s hand. Nature, the Great Enchantress, made and fashioned it from nothing: in the beginning a wisp of white smoke that grew and grew into an enormous white-capped solid-looking mass. Other clouds were born and magically expanded, and for quite a long while hung motionless in their distinct, solitary grandeur.
The workers watched them during work, wishing earnestly that one would move across the sun and shield them from its scorching rays. At times it looked as if their wish would be granted, when a cloud was seen moving towards the sun with stately slowness, but always to move round and past it. Not until four o’clock did the many clouds begin to find mutual attraction and drift into huge blue-black masses, within which the shimmer of lightning flickered and thunder rumbled.
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