The Tracks We Tread/Chapter 10
Chapter X
“She wants me to give it up,” said Maiden.
In a little back bedroom at Blake’s, Suse had been whispering to the other girl of Danny, and showing, half-shyly, the trousseau made with such anxious labour. She smoothed a white frill with rough fingers, speaking absently.
“Why, dear?”
“Well—she says—do you think the bonnet’s so awful unbecoming, Suse?”
Suse shut a little smile into the drawer with the white frill.
“Trust a mother ter find out jest where ter tackle a gel,” she murmured. Then she looked over at Maiden’s face closed in the curve of her hands as a flower is closed in its sheath.
“Didn’t nobuddy ever tell yer as more than the Lassie bonnet weren’t becoming ter yer, Maiden?”
“Only Steve Derral—an’ he don’t count.”
“Don’t he? Since when?”
“Since always,” said Maiden, untruthfully.
“I ain’t seen him this month past. He’s up musterin’ somewheres out back, Danny says.”
“Oh!”
“I ain’t seed him since he an’ Lou had that turn-up what near laid ’em both out. It was a awful fight, Danny said!” Suse came to Maiden’s side; her hands on her broad hips, her plain kindly face something envious. “Chaps say as they fought about you, Maiden,” she said.
Maiden’s head went up, and the scarlet flamed to her ear-tips.
“What give him the right to fight ’bout me, I’d like ter know!”
“Which is he?”
Maiden wheeled to the window, confused. Then the red ran to her forehead, and Suse behind her grunted in sudden disapproving. For Lou passed on his way to the ranges where the mustering had cut half the Mains boys from their kind for a full fortnight. He pulled under the window with a quick swerve.
“Good-bye for five days, Maiden,” he called; then swayed to the mare’s impatient bound, and tore up the street, leaving the swift flash of laughing eyes and bared fair head, and a sudden silence to the two in the room.
“I’d sooner hev Steve than Lou Birot,” said Suse, with meaning.
“You don’t want either, do you? You’ve got Danny.”
Suse bit her lip. Then she tried again.
“I’d sooner plough my furror wi’ Steve’s steady old team than wi’ the other.”
“I’m not wantin’ ter plough any furrows,” said Maiden, indifferently.
Suse looked on womanhood as she saw it in the hard patient, loving lives about her.
“Reckon as we’ve all got some furrors, dear. But you kin take yer chance whether yer’ll have a man as’ll plough it along the ground wi’ yer fur yer bread an’ meat, or one as’ll———”
“What?”
“One as’ll plough it there, Maiden.”
The rough finger just touched the smooth girl-forehead, and Maiden straightened, flushing.
“Danny can’t plough a furrow anywhere. I saw him turning down the hem of a paddock the other day, and he made an awful mess of it. He said so himself. Is that Randal goin’ down the street?”
“Yes. Come in an hour ago lookin’ like he’d bin shelterin’ from the wet under a wire-fence. Father says he’s bin shot out o’ Mains.”
“He’s got the bullet lef’ in somewheres,” said Maiden, in pity. “They do say as he cares fur Miss Effie, Suse.”
“I know. But he won’t find her up at the Lion—if that’s where he’s goin’.”
Randal was going to the Lion. He heard the high snarl of the jet before he breasted the hill, and he heard the clang of Ormond’s hammer. For Ormond was making ripples for the boxes. By his foot the steady snore of the hose drove the Pelton wheel, and the blast of the forge made heat-quivers in the air. He had all a strong man’s content in work dear to him, and he wrought the red iron with the undistressed power of one who has played no games with constitution or with conscience. The grate of a foot on the shingle caught his ear. Then he dropped the hammer and came forward, rubbing his forearm across his wet forehead.
Randal put aside the frank welcome curtly.
“I’ve come to ask you more than you’ll like to give. Miss Scannell is often up here, isn’t she? Do you know when she is coming again?”
Ormond stopped the hose, and the Pelton wheel dribbled to silence. He looked at Randal, remembering Father Denis’ words: “If ever Randal comes to you for help, give it. He will not be coming to many.”
“Miss Scannell and Kiliat are riding up here this afternoon,” he said.
“I want to see her—alone,” said Randal. “I want you to arrange for me to see her alone, to-day.”
Ormond pushed back his cap and his voice was suddenly stern.
“You must tell me more than that. Why the devil should I arrange anything of that sort?”
“Because—I will see her—somewhere and somehow. I will see her alone. Scannell has sacked me from Mains; but I’ll go back—by night if they kick me out by day—if you won’t give me the chance here. You had better give me the chance, Ormond, or—I may do more harm than I have done already.”
The steady grey eyes flashed on Randal’s face; then dropped. It is not right that one man should look on another man’s heart when desperate pain has stripped it naked. Ormond kicked out a broken bolt lying in the dried wash; kicked it again, and it dropped the fifty feet into the creek-bed where a dottrell was piping across the sand-pit to her frightened youngsters.
“Does Miss Scannell wish to see you?” he asked at length.
“I don’t know.”
“Then you want me to do this against Scannell’s express desire, and possibly against hers too?”
“Yes.”
“You are asking a great deal.”
“Yes.”
Ormond hesitated. He acknowledged the pride that cut all explanations; and, very certainly, pity hurt him for the man who could never speak with such as Effie Scannell before other men.
“Poor devil!” he said in his throat. Then he put his finger on the one pulse which he could trust to beat true in Randal.
“Can you shake on it? That’s all right, then. You won’t go back on that, Randal. I’ll manage it somehow.”
“Thanks,” said Randal only.
He turned and tramped over the little dip to the Packer’s claim. From the tussock top of it he could see the first wind in the bridle-track beyond the dredges. The Packer, wading up to his middle in wash, was gay as a boy with a holiday nearing.
“Murray’s away beyond the All Alone after Jule Harrison,” he said, climbing into the tip-head; “so I’m goin’ ter take ter-morrer an’ all the rest I kin get before he comes back. Onst in five months! Time was when I cud stan’ it ev’ry Sat’day. But it ain’t a gift wi’ me like it was wi’ Jos Greer. A good drunk every five months is all as I kin manage now—an’ that with Blake’s stuff, too. Phelan’s would burn the copper-bottom outer a dredge-biler in twict.”
He crawled in under the fall, and Randal sat in the manuka, breaking the white petals away from the brown hearts, and staring down into the next gully where Roddy Duncan and Fysh were having a washing-day. Every nerve in him listened for the far clack of hoofs that would mean Effie Scannell and Kiliat riding up the Lion.
“Fellers say why don’t I work more’n three days a week,” said the Packer, coming into daylight again with the water shining on his tattered oilskins. “I says what’s the sense o’ it when I can’t hev a drunk more’n onst in five months? What’d I want wi’ the money? What do any single man want wi’ money ’cept ter git drunk on it?”
Randal looked down on the lean old man bent double in the narrow race.
“By Jove,” he said, “I believe you’re right, Packer.”
Then he sprang up, and went back to Ormond hastily. For, far down on the level of the Creek, two horses swerved into the bridle-track as one.
It was a quarter-hour later when Effie Scannell came to Ormond’s little hut behind the power-house; pushing the door wide, and groping in the gloom for photographs that Ormond had left on the table. Randal spoke across it gently, that he might not frighten her; and the blood left his heart to see the light flash on her face.
“Guy—dearest! Oh, I haven’t seen you for so long! Guy—what———?”
Randal kept the table between them.
“I came here to beg your pardon. But I think I won’t. You would never understand that you couldn’t give it, Effie.”
“Why couldn’t I? Guy, you always call me a child; but—but perhaps I could understand, dear. What have you done, Guy?”
“Oh, a very little thing,” said Randal, roughly. “I have made you the common talk of the district, Effie. That is all. You—my little white flower! Do you know what men will say of me and of you, Effie, because we love each other?”
“No,” she said, with wide eyes.
“No. Of course not.” His voice broke. “But I know, dear. I came here with a bad name, Effie, and I never troubled to deny it. Well—there was some truth in it. But since I have known you—Effie, Effie, if you loved me as I love you, you could make of me what you liked. I’d take you away———”
She shrank from the passion of face and voice, and he saw it.
“Forgive me, dear. I’m sorry. But it is all ended now, Effie. Your father has sacked me. He knows.”
“Guy! Guy! You’re not going away?”
“I can’t,” said Randal, speaking with difficulty.
“Then it isn’t ended! It need never be ended. There are still the hills and the dear old lonely gullies for us. Guy———”
Randal did not come near. He was holding the bond given to Ormond.
“It is ended, I think. People speak of Kiliat, Effie. Will you tell me if there is any truth in what they say?”
Effie spread her little bare hands on Ormond’s old table-cloth with the tobacco-burns in it.
“When you see a ring there it will be time enough to ask me of Mr. Kiliat,” she said, with a quaint dignity. “Your letter made me very angry, Guy. I have never doubted you.”
Randal looked at her steadily—at the white fur round throat and wrists; at the delicate flushed face with the wide sweet eyes; at the dainty figure and hands. His skin burnt suddenly.
“The cases are hardly parallel,” he said, dryly.
“Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish I could understand you! You say you love me, and when we’re together you don’t seem to like it a little bit, you dear old silly boy! I never bother about the future a scrap, Guy. It mightn’t ever come, you know. And when we’re together it’s just the now, dear———”
“Effie—don’t———”
The thrown-back face was laughing between the out-held curved arms.
“Guy, dear Guy—it’s just the now that matters, isn’t it?”
And then Randal forgot the pledge that he had given to Ormond with his hand-grip.
It was dusk when Ormond came into the hut. Randal lay on the bunk with his face on his arms; but the tension of his body showed no rest. He rose as Ormond struck a light.
“Thanks,” he said, vaguely. “I’ve made myself pretty much at home, haven’t I? Good-night.”
Ormond’s hand was on the latch first.
“Where are you going?”
“Down to the township—to get drunk, I think. Phelan’s is the best place, if you’d like to know. Kerosene and painkiller. But it knocks the senses out of you quicker than anything else.”
“You’ll have tea with me first,” said Ormond, unmoving.
“No—let me go, Ormond.”
“I am not going to ask questions. But you are safer here than in Phelan’s bar to-night, Randal.”
“I have broken my word to you,” said Randal.
The steady grey eyes met his straightly. Then Ormond came over with his hand out.
“I had no business to ask it, I think. Will you shake again, Randal? And now we’ll have some tea.”