It was in this interval that Stingaree recalled the season with a thrill; for it was Christmas week, and without a doubt the house would be empty till the New Year. Here was one port for the storm that must follow his escape. And a very pleasant port he found it on entering, after due precautionary delay.
Clearly the abode of young married people, the bungalow was fitted and furnished with a taste which appealed almost painfully to Stingaree; the drawing-room was draped in sheets, but the walls carried a few good engravings, some of which he remembered with a stab. It was the dressing-room, however, that he wanted, and the dressing-room made him rub his hands. The dainty establishment had no more luxurious corner, what with the fitted bath, circular shaving-glass, packed trouser-press, a row of boots on trees, and a fine old wardrobe full of hanging coats. Stingaree began by selecting his suit; and it may have been his vanity, or a strange longing to look for once what he once had been, but he could not resist the young man’s excellent evening clothes.
“This fellow comes from Home,” said he. “And they are spending their Christmas pretty far back, or he would have taken these with him.”
He had wallowed in the highly enamelled bath, and was looking for a towel when he saw his head in the shaving-glass; he was dry enough before he could think of anything else. There was a dilemma, obvious yet unforeseen. That shaven head! Purple and fine linen could not disguise the convict’s crop; a wig was the only hope; but to wear a wig one must first try it on — and let the perruquier call the police. The knot was Gordian. And yet, desperately as Stingaree sought unravelment, he was at the same time subconsciously as deep in a study of a face so unfamiliar that at first he had scarcely known it for his own. It was far leaner than of old; it was no longer richly tanned; and the mouth called louder than ever for a mustache. The hair, what there was of it, seemed iron-gray. It had certainly receded at the temples. What a pity, while it was about it ——
Stingaree clapped his hands; his hunt for the razor was feverish, tremulous. Such a young man must have many razors; he had, he had — here they were. Oh, young man blessed among young men!
It was quite dark when a gentleman in evening clothes, light overcoat, and opera hat, sallied forth into the quiet road. Quiet as it was, however, a whistle blew as he trod the pavement, and his hour or two of liberty seemed at an end. His long term in prison had mixed Stingaree’s ideas of the old country and the new; he had forgotten that it is the postmen who blow the whistles in Australia. Yet this postman stopped him on the spot.
“Beg your pardon, sir, but if it’s quite convenient may I ask you for the Christmas-box you was kind enough to promise me?”
“I think you are mistaking me for someone else,” said Stingaree.
“Why, so I am, sir! I thought you came out of Mr. Brinton’s house.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” said the convict. “If I only had change you should have some of it, in spite of your mistake; but, unfortunately, I have none.”
He had, however, a handsome pair of opera-glasses, which he converted into change (on the gratuitous plea that he had forgotten his purse) at the first pawnbroker’s on the confines of the city. The pawnbroker talked Greek to him at once.
“It’s a pity you won’t be able to see ‘er, sir, as well as ‘ear ‘er,” said he.
“Perhaps they have them on hire in the theatre,” replied Stingaree at a venture. The pawnbroker’s face instantly advised him that his observation was wide of the obscure mark.
“The theatre! You won’t ‘ear ‘er at any theatre in Sydney, nor yet in the Southern ‘Emisphere. Town ‘Alls is the only lay for ‘Ilda Bouverie out ‘ere!”
At first the name conveyed nothing to Stingaree. Yet it was not wholly unfamiliar.
“Of course,” said he. “The Town Hall I meant.”
The pawnbroker leered as he put down a sovereign and a shilling.
“What a season she’s ‘aving, sir!”
“Ah! What a season!”
And Stingaree wagged his opera-hatted head.
“‘Undreds of pounds’ worth of flowers flung on to every platform, and not a dry eye in the place!”
“I know,” said the feeling Stingaree.
“It’s wonderful to think of this ‘ere Colony prodoocin’ the world’s best primer donner!”
“It is, indeed.”
“When you think of ‘er start.”
“That’s true.”
The pawnbroker leant across his counter and leered more than ever in his customer’s face.
“They say she ain’t no better than she ought to be!”
“Really?”
“It’s right, too; but what can you expect of a primer donner whose fortune was made by a blood-thirsty bushranger like that there Stingaree?”
“You little scurrilous wretch!” cried the bushranger, and flung out of the shop that second.
It was a miracle. He remembered everything now. Then he had done the world a service as well as the woman! He gave thanks for the guinea in his pocket, and asked his way to the Town Hall. And as he marched down the middle of the lighted streets the first flock of newsboys came flying in his face.
“Escape of Stingaree! Escape of Stingaree! Cowardly Outrage on Famous Author! Escape of Stingaree!!”
The damp pink papers were in the hands of the overflow crowd outside the hall; his own name was already in every mouth, continually coupled with that of the world-renowned Hilda Bouverie. It did not deter the convict from elbowing his way through the mass that gloated over his deed exactly as they would have gloated over his destruction on the gallows. “I have my ticket; I have been detained,” he told the police; and at the last line of defence he whispered, “A guinea for standing-room!” And the guinea got it.
It was the interval between parts one and two. He thought of that other interval, when he had made such a different entry at the same juncture; the other concert-room would have gone some fifty times into this. All at once fell a hush, and then a rising thunder of applause, and some one requested Stingaree to remove his hat; he did so, and a cold creeping of the shaven flesh reminded him of his general position and of this particular peril. But no one took any notice of him or of his head. And it was not Hilda Bouverie this time; it was a pianiste in violent magenta and elaborate lace, whose performance also was loud and embroidered. Followed a beautiful young barytone whom Miss Bouverie had brought from London in her pocket for the tour. He sang three little songs very charmingly indeed; but there was no encore. The gods were burning for their own; perfunctory plaudits died to a dramatic pause.
And then, and then, amid deafening salvos a dazzling vision appeared upon the platform, came forward with the carriage of a conscious queen, stood bowing and beaming in the gloss and glitter of fabric and of gem that were yet less radiant than herself. Stingaree stood inanimate between stamping feet and clapping hands. No; he would never have connected this magnificent woman with the simple bush girl in the unpretentious frocks that he recalled as clearly as her former self. He had looked for less finery, less physical development, less, indeed, of the grand operatic tout-ensemble. But acting ended with her smile, and much of the old innocent simplicity came back as the lips parted in song. And her song had not been spoilt by riches and adulation; her song had not sacrificed sweetness to artifice; there was even more than the old magic in her song.
“Is this a dream? Then waking would be pain! Oh! do not wake me; Let me dream again.”
It was no new number even then; even Stingaree had often heard it, and heard great singers go the least degree flat upon the first “dream.” He listened critically. Hilda Bouverie was not one of the delinquents. Her intonation was as perfect as that of the great violinists, her high notes had the rarefied quality of the E string finely touched. It was a flawless, if a purely popular, performance; and the musical heart of one listener in that crowded room was too full for mere applause. But he waited with patient curiosity for the encore, waited while courtesy after courtesy was given in
vain. She had to yield; she yielded with a winning grace. And the first bars of the new song set one full heart beating, so that the earlier words were lost upon his brain.
“She ran before me in the meads; And down this world-worn track She leads me on; but while she leads She never gazes back.
“And yet her voice is in my dreams, To witch me more and more; That wooing voice! Ah me, it seems Less near me than of yore.
“Lightly I sped when hope was high, And youth beguiled the chase; I follow — follow still; but I Shall never see her Face.”
So the song ended; and in the ultimate quiet the need of speech came over Stingaree.
“‘The Unrealized Ideal,’” he informed a neighbor.
“Rather!” rejoined the man, treating the stale news as a mere remark. “We never let her off without that.”
“I suppose not,” said Stingaree.
“It’s the song the bushranger forced her to sing at the back-block concert, and it made her fortune! Good old Stingaree! By the way, I heard somebody behind me say he had escaped. That can’t be true?”
“The newsboys were yelling it as I came along late.”
“Well,” said Stingaree’s neighbor, “if he has escaped, and I for one don’t hope he hasn’t, this is where he ought to be. Just the sort of thing he’d do, too. Good old sportsman, Stingaree!”
It was an embarrassing compliment, eye to eye and foot to foot, wedged in a crowd. The bushranger did not fish for any more; neither did he wait to hear Hilda Bouverie sing again, though this cost him much. But he had one more word with his neighbor before he went.
“You don’t happen to know where she’s staying, I suppose? I’ve met her once or twice, and I might call.”
The other smiled as on some suicidal moth.
“There’s only one place good enough for a star like her in Sydney.”
“And that is?”
“Government House.”
II
His Excellency of the moment was a young nobleman of sporting proclivities and your true sportsman’s breadth of mind. He was immensely popular with all sects and sections but the aggressively puritanical and the narrowly austere. He graced the theatre with his constant presence, the Turf with his own horses. His entertainment was lavish, and in quality far above the gubernatorial average. Late life and soul of exalted circle, he was hide-bound by few of the conventional trammels that distinguished the older type of peer to which the Colonies had been accustomed. It was the obvious course for such a Governor and his kindred lady to insist upon making the great Miss Bouverie their guest for the period of her professional sojourn in the capital; and a semi-Bohemian supper at the Government House was but a characteristic finale to her first great concert.
The prima donna sat on the Governor’s right, and at the proper point his Excellency sang her praises in a charmingly informal speech, which delighted and amused the press men, actors and actresses whom he had collected for the occasion. Only the guest of honor looked a little weary and condescending; she had a sufficient experience of such entertainments in London, where the actors were all London actors, the authors and journalists men whose names one knew. Mere peers were no great treat either; in a word, Hilda Bouverie was not a little spoilt. She had lost the girl’s glad outlook on the world, which some women keep until old age. There were stories about her which would have accounted for a deeper deterioration. Yet she was the Governor’s guest, and her behavior not unworthy of the honor. On him at least she smiled, and her real smile, less expansive than the platform counterfeit, had still its genuine sweetness, its winning flashes; and, at its worst, it was more sad than bitter.
To-night the woman was an exhausted artist — unnerved, unstrung, unfitted for the world, yet only showing it in a languid appreciation which her host and hostess were the first to understand. Indeed, it was the great lady who carried her off, bowing with her platform bow, and smiling that smile, before the banquet was at an end.
A charming suite of rooms had been placed at the disposal of the prima donna; the boudoir was like a hot-house with the floral offerings of the evening, already tastefully arranged by madame’s own Swiss maid. But the weary lady walked straight through to her bedroom, and sank with a sigh into the arm-chair before the glass.
“Who brought this?” she asked, peevishly picking a twisted note from amid the golden furniture of her toilet-table.
“I never saw it until this minute, madame!” the Swiss maid answered, in dismay. “It was not there ten minutes ago, I am sure, madame!”
“Where have you been since?”
“Down to the servants’ hall, for one minute, madame.”
Miss Bouverie read the note, and was an animated being in three seconds. She looked in the glass, the flush became her, and even as she looked all horror died in her dark-blue eyes. Instead there came a glitter that warned the maid.
“I am tired of you, Lea,” cried madame. “You let people bring notes into my room, and you say you were only out of it a minute. Be good enough to leave me for the night. I can look after myself, for once!”
The maid protested, wept, but was expelled, and a key turned between them; then Hilda Bouverie read her note again: —
“Escaped this afternoon. Came to your concert. Hiding in boudoir. Give me five minutes, or raise alarm, which you please. — Stingaree.”
So ran his words in pencil on her own paper, and they were true; she had heard at supper of the escape. Once more she looked in the glass. And to her own eyes in these minutes she looked years younger — there was a new sensation left in life!
A touch to her hair, a glance in the pier-glass, and all for a notorious convict broken prison! So into the boudoir with her grandest air; but again she locked the door behind her, and, sweeping round, beheld a bald man bowing to her in immaculate evening clothes.
“Are you the writer of a note found on my dressing-table?” she demanded, every syllable off the ice.
“I am.”
“Then who are you, besides being an impudent forger?”
“You name the one crime I never committed,” said he. “I am Stingaree.”
And they gazed into each other’s eyes; but not yet were hers to be believed.
“He only escaped this afternoon!”
“I am he.”
“With a bald head?”
“Thanks to a razor.”
“And in those clothes?”
“I found them where I found the razor. Look; they don’t fit me as well as they might.”
And he drew nearer, flinging out an abbreviated sleeve; but she looked all the harder in his face.
“Yes. I begin to remember your face; but it has changed.”
“It has gazed on prison walls for many years.”
“I heard . . . I was grieved . . . but it was bound to come.”
“It may come again. I care very little, after this!”
And his dark eyes shone, his deep voice vibrated; then he glanced over a shrugged shoulder toward the outer door, and Hilda darted as if to turn that key too, but there was none to turn.
“It ought to happen at once,” she said, “and through me.”
“But it will not.”
His assurance annoyed her; she preferred his homage.
“I know what you mean,” she cried. “You did me a service years ago. I am not to forget it!”
“It is not I who have kept it before your mind.”
“Perhaps not; but that’s why you come to me to-night.”
Stingaree looked upon the spirited, spoilt beauty in her satin and diamonds and pearls; villain as he was, he held himself at her mercy, but he was not going to kneel to her for that. He saw a woman who had heard the truth from very few men, a nature grown in mastery as his own had inevitably shrunk: it was worth being at large to pit the old Adam still remaining to him against the old Eve in this petted darling of the world. But false protestations were no counters in his game.
“Miss Bouverie,” said Stingaree, “you
may well suppose that I have borne you in mind all these years. As a matter of honest fact, when I first heard your name this evening, I was slow to connect it with any human being. You look angry. I intend no insult. If you have not forgotten the life I was leading before, you would very readily understand that I have never heard your name from those days to this. That is my misfortune, if also my own fault. It should suffice that, when I did remember, I came at my peril to hear you sing, and that before I dreamt of coming an inch further. But I heard them say, both in the hall and outside, that you owed your start to me; now one thinks of it, it must have been a rather striking advertisement; and I reflected that not another soul in Sydney can possibly owe me anything at all. So I came straight to you, without thinking twice about it. Criminal as I have been, and am, my one thought was and is that I deserve some little consideration at your hands.”
“You mean money?”
“I have not a penny. It would make all the difference to me. And I give you my word, if that is any satisfaction to you, I would be an honest man from this time forth!”
“You actually ask me to assist a criminal and escaped convict — me, Hilda Bouverie, at my own absolute risk!”
“I took a risk for you nine years ago, Miss Bouverie; it was all I did take,” said Stingaree, “at the concert that made your name.”
“And you rub it in,” she told him. “You rub it in!”
“I am running for my life!” he exclaimed, in answer. “It wouldn’t have been necessary — that would have been enough for the Miss Bouverie I knew then. But you are different; you are another being, you are a woman of the world; your heart, your heart is dead and gone!”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 480
