“I confess I could see nothing myself when the tracker first got off; but half a glance was enough for him; and on he went like a blood-hound, with his black muzzle close to the ground, the rest of us keeping a bit behind and well on one side. Presently there’s a foot-print I can see for myself, then more that I simply couldn’t, then another plain one; and this time Billy — they’re all called Billy — simply jumped with joy. At least I thought it was with joy, till I saw him pointing from his own marks to the others, and shaking his black head. Both prints were about the same depth.
“‘Him stamp,’ says Billy. ‘What for him stamp?’
“But we pushed on and came to some soft ground where any white fool could have run down the tracks; and presently they brought us to a fence, which we crossed by strapping down the wires and leading our horses over, but not where Rigden had led his. Well, we lost the tracks eventually where Rigden said he’d lost them, at what they’re pleased to call a ‘tank’ in these parts; the black fellow went round and round the waterhole, but devil another footmark could he find. So then we went back on the tracks we had found. And presently there’s a big yabber-yabber on the part of William, who waddles about on the sides of his feet to show his bosses what he means, and turns in his toes like a clown.
“Well, I asked the sergeant what it was all about; but he wouldn’t tell me. And it was then that this fellow Spicer began to play the fool: he had smelt the rat himself, I suppose. He made a still greater ass of himself at the fence, where the blackfellow messed about a long time over Rigden’s marks when we got back there. After that we all came marching home, or rather riding hell-to-leather. And the fun became fast and furious; so to speak, of course; for I needn’t tell you it was no fun for me, Moya.”
“Quite sure? Well, never mind; go on.”
“There was no end of a row. Harkness and Myrmidons entered the barracks, and Spicer ordered them out. They insisted on searching Rigden’s room. Spicer swore they shouldn’t, and appealed to me. What could I do, a mere visitor? I remonstrated, advised them to wait, and so forth; further resistance would have been arrant folly; yet that madman Spicer was for holding the fort with the station ordnance!”
“Go on,” said Moya again: she had opened her lips to say something else, but the obvious soundness of Theodore’s position came home to her in time.
“Well, the long and short of it is that the sergeant came to me on the verandah with the very pair of boots with which the tracks had been made; a heel was off one of them; they were too small for Rigden, yet they were found hidden away in his room. The astounding thing is that the blessed blackfellow had spotted that the tracks were not made by the man to whom the boots belonged. He had turned in his toes and walked on the outside of his feet; it wasn’t so with the trail they followed up to these pines yesterday; and diamond had cut diamond about as neatly as you could wish to see it done. It was smart of Rigden to run alongside his horse and make it look as though he were riding alongside the trail; but it wouldn’t do for the wily savage, and I’m afraid the result will be devilish unpleasant.”
There was no fear, however, in the clean-cut and clean-shaven face, nor did Theodore’s tone suggest any possible unpleasantness to him or his. Moya could have told him so in a manner worthy of himself, but again she showed some self-restraint, and was content to thank him briefly for putting her in possession of all the facts.
“Ah!” said Theodore, “I only wish I could do that! You talked a little while ago about my suspecting the truth; well, I give you my word that I haven’t even yet the ghost of an idea what the real truth can be.”
“You mean as to motive?”
“Exactly. Why on earth should he risk his all to save the skin of a runaway convict? What can that convict be to him, Moya? Or is the sole explanation mere misplaced, chuckle-headed chivalry?”
“What should you say?” asked Moya quietly.
“I’ll tell you frankly,” said Theodore at once; “as things were I should have hesitated, but as things are there’s no reason why I shouldn’t say what I think. It’s evidently some relation; a man only does that sort of thing for his flesh and blood. Now do you happen to remember, when this — I mean to say that — engagement was more or less in the air, that some of us rather wanted to know who his father was? Not that — —”
“I know,” Moya interrupted; “I’m not likely to forget it. So that’s what you think, is it?”
“I do; by Jove I do! Wouldn’t you say yourself — —”
“No, I wouldn’t; and no more need you. What are your ideas, by the way, if this is not the ghost of one? I congratulate you upon it from that point of view, if from no other!”
Theodore stuck a fresh cigarette between his lips, and struck the match with considerable vigour. It is not pleasant to be blown from one’s own petard, or even scathed in one’s own peculiar tone of offence.
“I simply wanted to spare your feelings, my dear girl,” was the rejoinder, the last three words being thrown in for the special irritation of Moya. “Not that I see how it can matter now.”
The special irritant ceased to gall.
“Now!” echoed Moya. “What do you mean by now?”
“Why, the whole thing’s off, of course.”
“What whole thing?”
“Your late engagement.”
“Oh, is it! Thanks for the news; it’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Then it won’t be the last. You’re not going to marry a convict’s son, or a convict either; and this fellow promises to be both.”
“I shall marry exactly whom I like,” said Moya, trembling.
“Don’t flatter yourself! You may say so out of bravado, but you’re the last person to make a public spectacle of yourself; especially when — well, you know, to put it brutally, this is pretty well bound to ruin him, whatever else it does or does not. Besides, you don’t like him any more; you’ve stopped even thinking you do. Do you suppose I’ve got no eyes?”
“Theodore,” said Moya in a low voice, “if I were your wife I’d murder you!”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t; and meanwhile don’t talk greater rot than you can help, Moya. Believe me it isn’t either the time or the place. We must get out of the place, by the way, the first thing to-morrow. I see you’re still wearing his ring. The sooner you take that off and give it to me to return to him the better.”
“It will come to that,” said Moya’s heart; “but not through Theodore; no, thank you!”
“It shall never come to it at all!” replied her heart of hearts.
And her lips echoed the “Never!” as she marched to the door. Theodore had his foot against it in time.
“Now listen to me! No, you’re not going till you listen to reason and me! You may call me a brute till you’re black in the face. I don’t mind being one for your own good. This thing’s coming to an end; in fact it’s come; it ought never to have begun, but I tell you it’s over. The family were always agreed about it, and I’m practically the head of the family; at all events I’m acting head up here, and I tell you this thing’s over whether you like it or not. But you like it. What’s the good of pretending you don’t? But whether you do or you don’t you shall never marry the fellow! And now you know it you may go if you like. Only do for God’s sake be ready in the morning, like the sane person you always used to be.”
Moya did not move an inch towards the opened door. Her tears were dry; fires leapt in their stead.
“Is that all?”
“Unless you wish me to say more.”
“What a fool you are, Theodore!”
“I’m afraid I distrust expert evidence.”
“With all your wits you don’t know the first thing about women!”
“You mean that you require driving like Paddy’s pig? Oh, no, you don’t, Moya; go and sleep upon it.”
“Sleep!”
It was one burst of all she felt, but only one.
“I’m afraid you won’t,” said Theodore, with
more humanity. “Still it’s better to lose a night thinking things over, calmly and surely, as you’re very capable of doing, than to go another day with that ring upon your finger.”
Moya stared at him with eyes in which the fires were quenched, but not by tears. She looked dazed.
“Do put your mind to it — your own sane mind!” her brother pleaded, with more of wisdom than he had shown with her yet. “And — I don’t want to be hard — I never meant to be hard about this again — but God help you now to the only proper and sensible decision!”
So was he beginning to send his juries about their vital business; and, after all, Moya went to hers with as much docility as the twelve good men and true.
Theodore was right about one thing. She must put her mind to it once and for ever.
XII
AN ESCAPADE
She put her mind to it with characteristic thoroughness and honesty. Let there be no mistake about Moya Bethune. She had faults of temper, and faults of temperament, and as many miscellaneous faults as she was quick to find in others; but this did not retard her from seeing them in herself. She was a little spoilt; it is the almost inevitable defect of the popular qualities. She had a good conceit of herself, and a naughty tongue; she could not have belonged to that branch of the Bethunes and quite escaped either. On the other hand, she was not without their cardinal merits. There was, indeed, a brutal honesty in the breed; in Moya it became a singular sincerity, not always pleasing to her friends, but counterbalanced by the brightness and charm of her personality. She was incapable of deceiving another; infinitely rarer, she was equally incapable of deceiving herself; and could consider most things from more standpoints than are accessible to most women, always provided that she kept that cornerstone of all sane judgment, her temper. She had lost it with Rigden and lost it with Theodore, and was in a pretty bad temper with herself to boot; but that is a minor matter; it does not drive the blood to the brain; it need not obscure every point of view but one. And there were but two worthy of Moya’s consideration.
There was her own point of view, and there was Rigden’s. Moya took first innings; she was the woman, after all.
She began with the beginning of this visit — this visit that the almanac pretended was but fifty hours old after all these days and nights: Well, to believe it, and go back to the first night: they had been happy enough then, still happier next day, happiest of all in the afternoon. Moya could see the shadows and feel the heat, and hear Rigden wondering whether she would ever care for the place, and her own light-hearted replies; but there she checked herself, and passed over the memorable end of that now memorable conversation, and took the next phase in due order.
Of course she had been angry; anybody of any spirit, similarly placed, would have resented being deserted by the hour together for the first wayfarer. And the lie made it worse; and the refusal to explain matters made the lie incalculably worse. He had put her in an abominable position, professing to love her all the time. How could she believe in such love? Love and trust were inseparable in her mind. Yet he had not trusted her for a moment; even when she stooped to tell a lie herself, to save him, even then he could not take her into his confidence. It was the least he could have done after that; it was the very least that she had earned.
Most of the next day — to-day! — even Moya shirked. Why had it laid such a hold upon her — the bush — the bush life — the whole thing? Was it the mere infection of a real enthusiasm? Or was it but the meretricious glamour of the foregone, and would the fascination have been as great if all had still been well? Moya abandoned these points; they formed a side issue after all. Her mind jumped to the final explanation — still ringing in her ears. It was immeasurably worse than all the rest, in essence, in significance, in result. The result mattered least; there was little weakness in Moya; she would have snapped her fingers at the world for the man she loved. But how could she forgive his first deceit, his want of trust in her to the end? And how could she think for another moment of marrying a man whom she could not possibly forgive?
She did not think of it. She relinquished her own point of view, and tried with all her honesty to put herself in his place instead.
It was not very difficult. The poverty-stricken childhood (so different from her own!) with its terrible secret, its ever-hidden disgrace; small wonder if it had become second nature to him to hide it! Then there was the mother. Moya had always loved him for the tone of his lightest reference to his mother. She thought now of the irreparable loss of that mother’s death, and felt how she herself had sworn in her heart to repair it. She thought of their meeting, his sunburnt face, the new atmosphere he brought with him, their immediate engagement: the beginning had come almost as quickly as the end! Then Moya darkened. She remembered how her people had tried to treat him, and how simply and sturdily he had borne himself among them. Whereas, if he had told them all ... but he might have told her!
Yet she wondered. The father was as good as dead, was literally dead to the world; partly for his sake, perhaps, the secret had been kept so jealously all these years by mother and son. Moya still thought that an exception should have been made in her case. But, on mature reflection, she was no longer absolutely and finally convinced of this. And the mere shadow of a doubt upon the point was her first comfort in all these hours.
Such was the inner aspect; the outward and visible was grave enough. It was one thing to be true to a prisoner and a prisoner’s son, but another thing to remain engaged to him. Moya was no hand at secrets. And now she hated them. So her mind was made up on one point. If she forgave him, then no power should make her give him up, and she would wear his ring before all her world, though it were the ring of a prisoner in Pentridge Stockade. But she knew what that would mean, and a brief spell of too vivid foresight, which followed, cannot be said to have improved Rigden’s chances of forgiveness.
There was one thing, however, which Moya had unaccountably forgotten. This was the sudden inspiration which had come to her an hour ago, among the station pines. She was reminded of it and of other things by the arrival of Mrs. Duncan with a tray; she had even forgotten that her last meal had been made in the middle of the afternoon, at the rabbiter’s camp. Mrs. Duncan had discovered this by questioning young Ives, and the tea and eggs were the result of a consultation with Mr. Bethune.
“And after that,” smiled Moya, “you will leave me for the night, won’t you? I feel as if I should never want to get up again!”
“I’m sure you do, my dear,” the good woman cried.
“I shall lock my door,” said Moya. “Don’t let anybody come to me in the morning; beg my brother not to come.”
“Indeed I’ll see he doesn’t.”
And Mrs. Duncan departed as one who had been told little but who guessed much, with a shake of her head, and a nod to follow in case there was nothing to shake it over; for she was entirely baffled.
Moya locked the door on her.
“To think I should have forgotten! My one hope — my one!”
And she ate every morsel on the tray; then undressed and went properly to bed, for the sake of the rest. But to sleep she was afraid, lest she might sleep too long. And between midnight and dawn, she was not only up once more, but abroad by herself in the darkest hour.
Her door she left locked behind her; the key she pushed underneath; and she stepped across the verandah with her riding habit gathered up in one hand, and both shoes clutched in the other.
“It is dreadful! I am as bad as he is. But I can’t help it. There’s nobody else to do it for me — unless I tell them first. And at least I can keep his secret!”
The various buildings lay vague and opaque in the darkness: not a spark of light in any one of them. And the moon had set; the stars alone lit Moya to the horse-yard.
Luckily she was not unused to horses. She not only had her own hack at home, but made a pet of it and kept her eye upon the groom. A single match, blown out in an instant, showed Moya the saddle and bridle
which she had already used, with a water-bag hanging hard by, in the hut adjoining the yard. The bag she filled from the tank outside. The rest was an even simpler matter; a rocking-horse could not have stood quieter than the bony beast which Ives had left behind with the night-horse.
It proved a strong and stolid mount, with a hard, unyielding, but methodical canter, and only one bad habit: it shaved trees and gateposts a little too closely for a rider unaccustomed to the bush. Moya was near disaster at the start; thereafter she allowed for the blemish, and crossed Butcher-boy without mishap.
It was now the darkest quarter of the darkest hour; and Moya was quite thankful that she had no longer a track to follow or to lose. For in Big Bushy she turned sharply to the left, as in the morning with young Ives, and once more followed the fence; but this time she hugged it, and was not happy unless she could switch the wires to make certain they were there.
It was lighter when she reached the first corner: absolute blackness had turned to a dark yet transparent grey; it was as though the ink had been watered; but in a little it was ink no more. Moya turned in her saddle, and a broadening flail of bloodshot blue was sweeping the stars one by one out of the eastern sky.
Also Moya felt the wind of her own travelling bite shrewdly through her summer blouse; and she put a stop to the blundering, plodding canter about half-way down the east-and-west fence whose eastern angle contained the disused whim and hut.
It was no longer necessary to switch the wires; even the line of trees in Blind Man’s Block had taken shape behind them; and that sinister streak soon stood for the last black finger-mark of the night.
Further down the fence a covey of crows got up suddenly with foul outry; and Moya, remembering the merino which had fallen by the way, steeled her body once more to the bony one’s uneasy canter.
The beast now revealed itself a dapple-grey; and at last between its unkempt ears, and against the slaty sky to westward, Moya described the timbers of the whim.
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 177
