Outlaw and Lawmaker/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV.
"THE COLONIAL SECRETARY ON THE LUYA."
Luya Dell was in a state of excitement. Workmen were busy at the new house, and curious looking "lean-to's" had been extemporized under the white gum trees at the back of the homestead. Lord Horace was in his element. He was determined to impress his sister and her husband with a true idea of Australian picturesqueness. He had been for some time beating up the blacks for a corroboree. He would have beaten the kangaroo coverts if that had been necessary. He had beaten up the youths of the neighbourhood, distinguished by their "local colour," which was Lord Horace's way of characterizing Australianisms. He was organizing a wild-horse hunt, and would have cheerfully consented to being "bailed up" by Moonlight and his gang as an exemplification of his theory of Bush romance. His one regret was that neither "Em Waveryng" nor his brother-in-law had any notion of the artistic values as applied to a pioneering life.
The Waveryngs had put in a trip to some great sheep-station, between the Leichardt's Town season and the visit to the Dell, and this interval and the assistance of Lord Waveryng's provisionary cheque, had enabled Lord Horace to prepare for festivities. Lord Waveryng had since drawn another cheque, and Lord Horace had rushed into the Tunimba drawing-room one day, radiant with glee, to announce that the Dell was now out of the hands of the bank, and that the creek was dammed, water laid on, and the tiled bath-room of the new house near completion.
Mrs. Jem Hallett raised her eyebrows slightly. She was a good woman of business.
"Waveryng has gone into partnership with me," said Lord Horace. "We are going to breed stud cattle."
"You had better breed kangaroos and sell their hides for saddles," said Jem Hallett, with his fat laugh.
Lord Horace was offended.
"I don't know why Waveryng and I shouldn't do as well with our stud cattle as Blake and Trant at Baròlin Gorge have done with their stud horses."
"By the way," said Mrs. Jem Hallett, "have you heard anything about Mr. Blake? I have written to ask him to come and stay. Frank and Elsie are bent on the picnic to Baròlin Waterfall, and he made me promise to let him know when it was coming off."
"Blake has taken ministerial leave, and has disappeared," said Jem Hallett. "I heard somebody say that he was hipped at Elsie's engagement."
Jem Hallett's "chaff" was truly Australian in its directness. Elsie, who was paying her first visit to Tunimba as Frank Hallett's affianced wife, coloured; and Frank looked annoyed.
"He is inspecting the northern police department," he said quietly, "and he will be down in Leichardt's Town directly."
"He had better inspect the southern police department," said a squatter of the neighbourhood, who was staying at Tunimba. "It's a disgrace to the colony that they haven't caught Moonlight."
"Oh, Moonlight has been keeping quiet since that Wallaroo business," said Jem. "Perhaps he has left the district." And then Lord Horace declared his ardent desire to have the Dell bailed up during the Waveryngs' visit. "Em says she is going to write a book of her doings and impressions in the Antipodes," he said; "and I'd give anything for her to have a real live bushranger adventure."
"It might be managed, perhaps," said Blake himself, who entered that very moment, accompanied by his partner, Dominic Trant.
There was a general confusion, and a volley of exclamations. Blake shook hands with Mrs. Jem, and apologized for having taken her unawares. He was on his way to Baròlin. He intended, he said, to take advantage of her invitation later. He then went straight to Elsie, who gave him her hand without speaking. She had turned a little paler, and before he had been in the room five minutes she made an excuse to leave it, and strolled out into the garden with Frank.
Blake watched them uneasily through the French windows which opened on to the verandah. So did Trant. Mrs. Jem, who was an observant person, noticed that Blake looked pale and worn. Trant, she thought, had more than ever the desperado air. Jem Hallett clumsily chaffed the Colonial Secretary on the failure of the police to bring Moonlight to justice.
"There's a chance for him," said Lord Horace, "if he only knew it. My sister, Lady Waveryng, has done the maddest thing, all through some stupid mistake of her maid, and Waveryng's man—so much for being dependent on old servants!"
"What have they done?" asked Mrs. Hallett.
"Don't give notice to the bushrangers," said Lord Horace. "They have brought her diamonds with her to the Dell; part of them are the historic Waveryng diamonds. Of course they ought to have been sent to the Bank, and Waveryng insists on their being taken over to Goondi, and Captain Macpherson has promised him a police escort."
"Why can't they be kept at the Dell?" asked Mrs. Jem.
"I suggested to Waveryng that we should lock 'em up in the flour-bin in the store. It struck me as the safest place. No one would ever dream of looking for family diamonds at the bottom of a flour-bin, would they now? He doesn't think our padlocks are safe though—tried one yesterday—we don't lock up much as a rule, at the Dell, and he prefers the Goondi Bank."
"And what do you suppose the Waveryng diamonds would be worth, roughly speaking, now?" asked Trant.
"A good many thousands," replied Lord Horace. "I wish I had the value of 'em, that's all. Have you any objection to the police escort being employed on private business, Blake? You needn't be afraid of Hallett asking a question about it in the House. He is the only member of the Opposition here just now."
"I have no objection," said Blake dreamily. "Good gracious!" and he pulled himself together. "Why should I object? Of course the safety of Lady Waveryng's diamonds is a matter of concern to the State."
"Why, Mr. Blake," said pretty Mrs. Allanby, from the depths of a squatter's chair in the verandah, where she had been ensconced listening to all that was going on. "That's against your principles, as a Radical, isn't it? I've heard you say that there ought to be no heirlooms, and no tying up of capital in family jewels. We have none of us got any family jewels, and so you needn't be afraid of hurting our feelings by saying so. Now, Lord Horace, please don't hurt my hand. I have got some rings, and I wear them on my right hand, remember."
This was Mrs. Allanby's way of covering a devotion that was serious to her as well as to Lord Horace.
Mrs. Allanby had a way of rippling on, not waiting for an answer, emphasizing her remarks by upliftings of her large dark eyes in a fashion that was effective. Lord Horace, at the sound of her voice, had darted across through the French window.
"I didn't know you were out here. I came over to see you," he murmured. "What have you done with your sister and brother-in-law? "she asked.
"They are looking round among the cedar-cutters. Waveryng wanted to inspect the local industries. I thought Ina could manage that business. They only came up yesterday, and it was my only chance of coming over and seeing when you would all come along to the Dell."
"You must settle that with Mrs. Hallett," said Mrs. Allanby. She got up, uncoiling herself, as it were, with a certain serpentine grace. Mrs. Allanby was of the type of woman, slender, lithe, secretive, self-contained, and fascinating, which has something of the snake in it. She was always gentle and low voiced and plaintive; her movements were soft, her eyes were dangerous, she had a sleek small head and irregular features, and a complexion sallow by day, but which at night, and when she was inwardly excited—outwardly she never seemed excited—became brilliant. She and her husband did not get on together. He was a brute, and had not a penny. It was her brother in New Zealand, she said, who found her an allowance for her personal requirements. She stayed about a good deal, and was always beautifully dressed. But then she was like Elsie in this respect, that she had the knack of putting on her clothes, the gift also of millinery. Ill-natured people said of her that she was a terrible flirt, and intensely designing, and that she was looking out for someone to run away with, and so give Mr. Allanby a chance of divorcing her, and herself and him a chance of a new beginning. It was certain, however, that her conduct was irreproachable, or Mrs. Jem Hallett would never have had her at Tunimba. She made herself very useful to Mrs. Jem, played well, recited dramatically, and was a most agreeable companion and an adroit flatterer.
She and Lord Horace strolled up and down under the vine trellis which was now beautiful in its spring green. They talked low. Lord Horace had more than ever the air of a sun-bronzed Apollo in bushman's garb. He was without doubt very handsome, and had that English air which to so many Australian women is so irresistible. Mrs. Allanby was not so clever as Elsie, and did not require intellect or even sterling worth in her admirers. She made Lord Horace tell her of the Waveryngs, and particularly of his twin sister. Em would stand by him through thick and thin, he declared; only Em had taken a tremendous fancy to Ina.
"Poor Ina!" softly murmured Mrs. Allanby.
It was about tea-time. Mrs. Jem always had tea English fashion, with delicious scones and short-bread and daintinesses generally. Lord Horace delivered himself of his messages. Ina wanted Elsie to go over at once; of course Frank might come too. Ina was consumed also, it appeared, with a desire for Mrs. Allanby's company, and of course—a half after-thought—for that of Mrs. Jem and her husband, only that Jem had got to be such a luxurious beggar, and Mrs. Jem mightn't like to camp in the new house; he knew Mrs. Allanby didn't mind, because she had told him so. Lord Horace proceeded to explain that they had given up the greater part of the Humpey proper to Lord and Lady Waveryng; though, bless you, "Em" didn't mind roughing it—she wanted to go and milk the cows that morning—but Waveryng was rheumatic and afraid of new walls. But there was the new tiled bathroom which must surely atone for all deficiencies. Even at Tunimba they couldn't boast a tiled bathroom.
Mrs. Jem thought it would be delightful to ride over for the day. Of course if Mrs. Allanby liked to stay there was nothing to prevent her, but she (Mrs. Jem) was rather tied by the babies; and Jem had his mustering, and it would be a much better plan, as there was so much more accommodation at Tunimba, if she might arrange with Ina and Lady Waveryng to spend a few days there and have the picnic to Baròlin on that occasion. And then Mr. Blake was appealed to. Was Pompo superstitious, and how near could they get to the Fall, and did he think there was any truth in the theory Captain Macpherson had started, that Moonlight had a hiding-place in Mount Luya? and did Mr. Blake know that Captain Macpherson had sworn to unearth the bushranger in his lair, and that he counted on the assistance of the Baròlin half-castes for that purpose?
"The Baròlin half-castes were at Captain Macpherson's service," Blake said gravely, but he did not think that Moonlight's lair—if he had one—was in that direction; and as for the Baròlin Falls, he certainly did not think they would prove worth the trouble of a march through a bunya scrub and the chance of being swallowed up in a quicksand. He was sure that Mrs. Hallett and Miss Valliant, to say nothing of Lady Waveryng, would decide that a gorge a little beyond Point-row, of which he knew, was quite sufficiently picturesque to camp out in.
"It was only the camping out that mattered," bleated Mrs. Allanby. "To camp out in the very heart of the mountains and among the Blacks' old Bora grounds sounded so delightfully romantic."
Then Lord Horace told them of the corroboree he was working, and it was decided that the Hallett party should stay at the Dell for this event.
Blake seemed to avoid Elsie during this short Tunimba sojourn. He and Trant were going to ride over to Baròlin after dinner, and. Lord Horace was persuaded into the moonlight ride also—their ways lying together for a certain distance. Trant, however, took every opportunity of getting to Miss Valliant's side, and devoured her all the time with his bold gaze in a manner that annoyed Hallett extremely.
"I think the fellow must have been drinking," he said afterwards to his brother. "He reminded me of that new chum who went on the burst, and those black eyes of his have a queer reckless way of staring at one."
But Trant had not been drinking; he was only intoxicated with love.
"Miss Valliant, when are you going to be married?" he said abruptly.
"I don't know," answered Elsie, composedly. She was not afraid of Trant; indeed, if it must be owned, there was a kind of excitement in the sight of his passion, which took her mind away from the flatness of a wooing that had esteem only as a responding quality. "Not for some time yet," she added.
"Well, remember," he said, "I mean to have my chance. I've not had my chance yet."
"Your chance of what?" she asked.
"Of making you care for me; of doing something that will oblige you to admire me."
"I can't imagine an opportunity for your being heroic," said Elsie, "but I shall be delighted to admire you if you give me an occasion for doing so."
"We shall see," said Trant, darkly.
Blake asked the same question, but in a very different tone.
"Will you tell me something?" he said humbly. "I should like to know, if I may, when you are to become Mrs. Frank Hallett?"
"Why do you wish to know?" she asked, falteringly.
"Why? Oh, for several foolish reasons. One is that I should rather like to see the last of Elsie Valliant, and when she is dead and buried and done for, it will be time for me to 'up stick and yan,' as the blacks say. I am thinking of shifting my hurdles. Don't I get Australian in my way of putting things?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Only that I am tired of Australia and of Australian life. I have the demon of restlessness on me again. I am not sure that I shall not go back to Ireland, and to quote Lord Waveryng, 'face the music.'"
"But why Lord Waveryng?"
"Something he told me set me thinking. The Coola curse is on me; the curse which dooms one Blake in a generation. I am the doomed Blake of this generation. And just lately the feeling has haunted me. I have the most curious sense of coming calamity; though I don't know that it is curious," he added thoughtfully.
"Oh, Mr. Blake, I can't bear to hear you talk so recklessly. And there's no reason for it. It is some strange fancy that you have in your mind. Why should you be doomed?—you who have been so successful, who have everything in the world to make you happy?"
"Have I? Everything in the world to make me happy! There is one thing wanting for that, Miss Valliant, and it was offered me by fate on a certain moonlight night, not very long since, and I took it in my arms, and I let it go again"
"What do you mean?" she asked again, growing very pale.
"Nothing that there is any use in saying. I must not see too much of you, or I may be doing something for which I should be sorry. A man can be brave and cool enough, and hard enough in a crisis, you know, Miss Valliant. It is when the crisis is over that he gets unnerved." He gave an odd laugh, that seemed to her intensely sad. "This is wild talk for a sober, staid Colonial Secretary of Leichardt's Land. What would Mr. Torbolton say if he could hear me? But I have got the Celtic temperament, and I can't help my queer forebodings and superstitions and mad impulses, and generally melodramatic way of looking at things, and you know I said to you once a man must follow his star"
"I don't want to interrupt you," put in Lord Horace. "But if you are going to ride over with me this evening, Elsie, we ought to be seeing about the horses. What sized swag shall you have?"
"I am not coming to-night," said Elsie, rousing herself as if from a dream. "Frank will bring me over to-morrow."
"Oh, Elsie, dear," cried Mrs. Allanby, reproachfully. "And I had set my heart on that moonlight ride! Think how beautiful Mount Luya would look from the gorges! It would be so romantic."
"Has not a moonlight ride through the gorges any attraction for you?" said Blake, in a low voice.
"Yes," she answered, in as low a voice as his.
"Then why don't you come?"
She did not answer.
"Are you afraid of me?"
"No," she answered.
"You will have your future husband to take care of you," he said bitterly. "I promise not to annoy you with wild talk."
"It does not annoy me, it only makes me"
"What—contemptuous of my weakness?"
"No, no—Mr. Blake, you remember, we agreed to let the past be past. We agreed to be friends. Will you let me be your friend, your sister, and tell me, as you would tell your sister, what it is that is troubling you?"
"I will tell you some time," he said; "but not now, and not as I would tell my sister. I will tell you"
He paused. His eyes fixed themselves on her with doubt and tenderness, in a way that thrilled Elsie.
"When will you tell me?" she asked.
"The day before you are married," he answered.
Mrs. Allanby came purring towards her.
"Do go with them to-night."
"Very well," said Elsie, abruptly. "I have changed my mind, Horace. We will go."
They set out after an early dinner. Was there ever such a September night?—fragrant with aromatic gum and the white-cedar flowers, full of strange sweet noises and mysterious rustlings, and plaintive calls of curlew and swamp pheasant; and as they rode by the creek, the uncanny swishing of the wings of startled wild duck. The mountains stood forth clear against the sky. Lord Horace had exaggerated when he spoke of a moonlight ride, and Mrs. Allanby called him to account for inaccuracy. It was only a horned moon yet, but it was brilliant, and the stars were bright and the station horses knew the track well. But it was only when they crossed the little plains in the river-bends that there was any opportunity for tête-à-tête. For the greater part of the way the road was too narrow to allow of two riding abreast. Trant enlivened the night with his songs. He, too, seemed in a wild mood, but it did not direct itself especially towards Elsie.
Frank Hallett kept close to his fiancée. He had asked her if she would like him to ride with her. There were times when he almost maddened Elsie by his submission to her moods, and by his resigned acceptance of the fact that she loved Blake.
"Forget it, forget it," she had said wildly that very evening. "Yes, ride with me—don't leave me for an instant."
And so he remained near her bridle rein, and had Blake wished it he could not have talked to her. He fell behind with Trant, and for some little time the two carried on a low-toned conversation, in which there were dissentient notes born occasionally to Elsie, who was nearest in advance. Once in a sudden bend of the track, where the trees grew thick, her habit hooked itself to a jagged branch, thus detaining her for a moment or two, and she caught what they were saying. Trant was speaking angrily.
"Look here, I'm not going to let this chance go because of any damned sentimentality on your part. The thing is as simple as A. B.C., and I intend to carry it through."
"We will discuss the matter later," said Blake, haughtily.
"No, we've got to be on the spot, and you'd better settle to-night about going over to-morrow."
Blake's horse almost cannoned against Elsie's as he came round the bend, and she lifted a frightened face from the disentangling of her skirt.
"Miss Valliant, can I help you?"
He had dismounted instantly.
"It is only my habit caught; oh, thank you, Frank." Frank had turned hastily, not having perceived the accident. "It's all right, I'm clear now."
She rejoined her lover. A moment ago her breast had been stirred with a strange revolt. She had moodily watched his square determined bush man's back as he jogged along in front of her, and had compared it with Blake's easy, graceful, rather rakish bearing. Why was Frank so stolid, so good, so commonplace? There were moments in which she felt that Trant, in even his secondrateness, was the more interesting of the two. Now she had a sudden reaction. The words she had heard had given her a sense of doubt, repulsion, and insecurity. What was the secret in the life of Blake, which made him speak so strangely—which made him different from all the other men she knew? Perhaps it was not a romantic, an heroic secret, a fateful mystery for which he was not responsible, but the secret of unworthy deeds—of a past of which he was ashamed—a past with which Trant was linked—nay, a present, for had not Trant's words implied some sort of immediate action? What did it mean? What could it mean? Elsie shuddered as though something unclean had touched her. There was peace and safety with Frank. She rode close to him, but she said nothing. All the time her mind was tossed with wonder and suspicion and dread. By-and-by they came to the fork of the Luya, and the two roads branched in different directions—that to Baròlin going as it seemed into the mountains—into the heart of Mount Luya, while the way to the Dell led round the mountain and now over comparatively easy ground.
They all reined in their horses, and said good-night.
"Mind, I shall expect you some time to-morrow," said Lord Horace. "How long are you spared from your ministerial duties, Blake?"
"Oh, I'm fairly free," he answered, "that's the beauty of being a responsible member of the Cabinet."
"And old Stukeley has gone to his summer retreat on the Ubi, so that you won't be overdone with meetings of the Executive, and Torbolton and Grierson of the 'Lands' are deep in the budget and the new Land Bill. The Colonial Secretary ought to have a pretty easy time—only Moonlight on your conscience!" said Lord Horace.
"Yes, only Moonlight on my conscience," and both Blake and Trant laughed, again Elsie fancied in that odd way they both sometimes had.
"Well, Macpherson, of the Police, is to turn up at the Dell some time, and you had much better meet him there and consult. It's handier to Goondi than the Gorge. And mind, Lady Waveryng is countin' on that escort for her diamonds. Whatever happens, the Waveryng diamonds have got to be looked after."
"Oh, yes," cried Trant. "Whatever happens, the Waveryng diamonds have got to be looked after. You'll see us over at the Dell, Horace. Good-night."
Lord Horace did not relish being called Horace pure and simple by Dominic Trant. "Confound the fellow's cheek!" he said to Mrs. Allanby, but his sense of humour got the better of his irritation. "He makes me think of that chap at the Bean-tree, Frank, when we were canvassing, and I was trying on the aristocratic dodge. 'Lord! He a lord! Lords don't live in bark huts. I ain't agoin' to call him lord. He's just as much a lord as I am.'
"And the chap was quite right," said Lord Horace, "and he made me feel ashamed of myself. Handles should be dropped in a free country, especially when they're only handles by courtesy."