The Pioneers
Page 37
CHAPTER XXXVII
Deirdre and the black boy drove their straggling herd into the stockyardin the narrow bush clearing, walled by trees, an hour or two beforedawn.
The stock-yards which Conal had put up at the end of Narrow Valley wereinvisible to any but those who knew the winding track that led over thebrow of the hill and through the heavy timber on the spur, to the oldhut at the foot of it. Teddy was pulling the rails of the outer-yardinto place and Deirdre was going towards the hut. Socks at her heels,his bridle over her arm, when a horseman rode out of the opening intothe valley, by which they had come.
She recognised the red horse, but did not know that it was Davey ridingtill he was almost level, and dropped to his feet. He swayed against thehorse's side, clutching his reins.
"It's a shame ... no one to bring the brutes but you," he said weakly."I came--soon as I knew."
Deirdre put her arm out to him. They walked slowly towards the hut.Davey became weaker. She drew the horses by their reins behind them,keeping her eyes on him. The ground rocked under his feet.
"We're just there--another minute and it'll be all right," she said, andcalled Teddy.
He had seen Davey Cameron's red horse coming into the clearing, and ranup to her, chattering with fright at the sight of Davey's limp figure.
"Put the horses up in the shed--leave the saddles on," she said quickly."You go back, tell boss--cows all right--Davey very sick man, here."
Although an hour earlier nothing would have induced the boy to brave thedarkness alone, it was not many moments before he was up on his weedy,half-wild nag and streaking away towards the cover of the trees and thethreadlike track which wound uphill along the spur.
Deirdre opened the door of the hut. Davey took a step or two into it andfell forward. She set the brushwood on the hearth alight, and threw somebroken branches over it to make a blaze. There was no stir in Davey whenshe knelt beside him, and a pool of blood lay on the floor where he hadfallen.
She ran out of doors for water. In the semi-darkness of the hut it wasdifficult to find anything to put water in, but there was a pannikinnear the water barrel and she filled that and tore pieces of calico fromher petticoat to bathe his wound.
Groping along the shelves near the fireplace she found the end of athick rush and tallow candle. She did not light it at first because thefire had sprung up and was lighting the room, showing its meagreequipment, the branding irons and a saddle flung down in a corner, abunk against the wall with a couple of sheepskins over it, a table withtwo or three pannikins and a black bottle on it. There was a drain ofsome spirit in the bottle. She poured it carefully into a pannikin andheld it to Davey's lips.
His immobility frightened her. She lit the candle and held it close tohis face. Under the leaping yellow flames it had the mask-like stillnessand pallor of death.
"Davey! Davey!" she screamed with terror, creeping up beside his heavy,still body.
"Oh, you mustn't die, Davey--you mustn't!" Even as she sobbed shethought he was dead.
She put the spirit on his lips again.
"Oh, I've done all that I can--all that I know to do. Won't you look atme, Davey? My heart's breaking. You've not gone, Davey? You wouldn'tleave me. It's me, Deirdre, your sweetheart, that's with you! Won't youlook at me?... Won't you open your eyes? I can't bear it--if you don'tspeak to me."
"Davey!" She caught him by the shoulder, shaking him roughly. "I won'tlet you go! I won't let you die!" she cried.
He fell back from her hands.
She threw herself across him sobbing brokenly. Pressing her face closeto his, she leant over him, murmuring and trying to revive him with abreathless agony of grief and tenderness.
"Oh, come back to me! Oh, you will not die. You will not die and leaveme," she moaned. "Deirdre, that loves you. Your sweetheart, Davey!"
The cry died away.
In her frenzy she had not heard the door open. Spent with anguish shelaid her head against Davey's still one. She felt rather than saw thatsomeone was there in the hut behind her. She turned. Conal was standingin the doorway.
She stared at him. He might have been an aparition, so strange helooked, there in the doorway, with the glimmering night behind him.There was something stricken, aghast, about him. He gazed at her as ifthe tragic woe of her face were a revelation to him.
"He's dead--and it's you that have killed him, Conal," she said, atlength.
"You--love--him, Deirdre?" Conal asked.
So slow and dreary their voices were that they seemed to be talking intheir sleep.
"Yes," she said, "and it's my heart that's dead with him."
"I didn't know you felt like that--about him, Deirdre," Conal said, ahumble, awkward air about him.
That it was Davey lay there dead did not seem to trouble him. It was ofDeirdre he was thinking in a mazed, dazed way, and the thing she hadsaid to him.
"You've done what no woman could forgive you, Conal." A vibratingpassion had come to her voice. "I never want to see you again as long asI live."
Conal stared at her a moment; then he swung heavily out of the hut intothe yard. He had the gait of a drunken man. She heard him stumble oversomething in the yard, strike his head against a post. Then the sound ofhis horse's hoof-beats in the clearing died away.
Deirdre looked down at the still figure beside her. In spite of what shehad said she could not believe that Davey was dead--that all that young,strong body would not move again, that Davey's eyes would not open andlook at her with the eager, questioning glance she had known. Somethingof the horror of his stillness had passed; she moistened his lips withthe spirit. Putting her arms round him she gathered him up against her,put his head on her bosom and leaned over him, crooning softly, asthough he were asleep. She beguiled herself by saying that he was onlyasleep and would waken presently.
"What a long time it is," she murmured. "Do you remember, Davey dear,the night before father and I went away, and I ran over the paddock tothe corner of the road to see you? I was angry you had gone away withoutwanting to see me, yourself.... You kissed me and I kissed you, and Ipromised to come back and be your sweetheart and we'd be married someday.... And the birds laughed. And the red-runners were out by the road.There was a beautiful sunset, and it got dark soon. You said it was meyou loved and not Jessie. Then I went away ... and it has never been thesame since. But it will be ... when you are well and I can tell you howmuch I want you to love me again--"
She laughed softly.
"Do you remember how we used to go home in the cart from schooltogether, and how we used to trot Lass up the hillsides to make her poorold sides go like bellows, and you showed me how to blow birds' eggs,and Jess said I wasn't a little lady to blow birds' eggs."
Her voice ran on with a brooklike tenderness.
"If you'd come back, we could have all those times again, Davey," shewhispered, looking down into his face beneath hers.
Just when there was the faintest shimmer of dawn in the dim windows, afluttering breath caught her face. She put the spirit to his lips again.So, chafing his hands and calling him, with tearful and eager littlecries, she led him as a mother leads a child just learning to walk, fromthe valley of the shadows.
Davey opened his eyes. They dwelt on her with a deep, serene gaze. Shesmiled and went on crooning to him, half singing, half sighing thatbeguiling little melody of tenderness and entreaty. Warmth came back tohim. His breath fell regularly and sweetly. Deirdre took the sheepskinsout of the bunk and put them under him on the floor.
He slept. A faint smile on his mouth, his hand sought hers, the fingerscurled round it. She sat watching him, a mist of awe and joy andthankfulness gathering in her eyes, because it seemed to her that amiracle had been accomplished that night in Narrow Valley hut.