They were nearing the long low row of huts now and she stopped and said to him quietly, ‘As you are well aware, Matthew, I am no child, so it would be better if you did not treat me as such. If there is danger I would like to know about it, so . . . so that I, too, may become prepared.’
His face slid into a slow smile now and he said, ‘Very well, Mrs Sopwith, when we have time to ourselves I shall put you into the picture; what is more, I shall teach you to shoot and to ride, and then’ – he chuckled – ‘you can be my bodyguard . . . ’
‘Well! . . . Hie!’
They both turned to see coming towards them a short-built man who appeared to be so thin his body seemed to be lost within the breeches and heavy coat he was wearing.
‘Hello there, Rod.’
Tilly again watched Matthew shaking hands as if he were greeting a long lost brother; then turning to her, he said, ‘This is Rod Tyler, one of the best horse-breakers in Texas.’
‘Go on with you! . . . How do you do, ma’am? . . . Welcome.’
‘Thank you.’ She was smiling at the man, who she guessed to be in his mid-thirties, but then again it was difficult to tell the ages of the people she had met in this strange wild land. He had a pleasant face, handsome in a way. His eyes were merry and they seemed to infect his voice and laugh.
They were walking towards the bunkhouse now and Matthew said, ‘I hear Mack’s gone out.’
‘Aye, the silly old fool. We nearly had an up-’n’-downer for it, but I let him have it as he knows that district better than me.’
‘Are you on your own then but for Doug?’
‘No; Pete Ford and Andy O’Brien have stopped along the way. You remember them?’
‘Oh, yes, I remember them, and they’ll remember me. Remember the nightmare?’
As Rod Tyler was going through the doorway he turned and threw his head back and let out a roar of a laugh as he thumped Matthew on the back, saying, ‘Do I remember your nightmare! we thought the horse maniacs had certainly come to say hello. Boy! did you cause a stir that night. God! I’ll say.’
Laughing, they entered the bunkhouse which Tilly saw was just that, a long room that held ten narrow cots, and running down the middle were two tables end to end with long forms underneath them. But at one end of the house a door led into what apparently was an extra room, a kitchen she surmised; at the other end a stove dominated the wall with a black pipe going up to the ceiling and through it.
‘Well, this is home from home, ma’am.’ Rod Tyler grinned widely as he waved his arm from one side to the other. ‘And there’s many worse I can tell you.’ And looking at Tilly, he said, ‘We’ll make you a hash one night, ma’am, after a hunt. You’ve never tasted anything like our hash, especially when Doug Scott’s got a hand in it.’
‘Where’s Doug, by the way?’
‘He’s gone off to the bottom corral with Pete and Andy. We brought in a couple of herds last week but it’s gettin’ a bit too dry . . . and too cold for them down there, they’d be better up here.’
The room was stuffy, there was a strong smell, a mixture of sweat and smoke and the odd odour that comes from hides and leather, and Tilly was glad when she got out into the air again. As they stood in the doorway of the bunkhouse Rod Tyler, looking at Matthew, said, ‘Good to see you back.’ Then turning his glance on Tilly, he added, ‘And with such a spankin’ lady . . . You ride, ma’am?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘I’m soon going to cure that failing.’ Matthew nodded at Rod Tyler, and he, nodding back, said, ‘Pick you one of the best out.’
Tilly, laughing now, put in, ‘You may, but it’ll be another job to get me on its back.’
‘We’ll do that, ma’am, never fear, ma’am. What do you say, eh, Matt?’
It was strange to hear Matthew being called Matt. She had said jokingly that she would call him Matt if he called her Matilda but she had found it didn’t come natural, so he was always Matthew to her; but only at odd times did she revert to Tilly to him.
They were now making their way to the far corner of the compound towards a small huddle of huts, four in all, and Matthew, stopping before the first hut, leant slightly forward as he called, ‘Hie there! You in there, Ma One?’
Almost immediately the rickety door was pulled open and the aperture was filled with the figure of a large old negro woman; her face one big smile, she said, ‘Ah! young boss come back. Welcome. Welcome, young boss.’
‘How are you, Ma One?’
‘As best the good Lord sends.’
‘Then you couldn’t be better.’
‘’S’right, young boss. ’S’right.’
‘This is my wife, Ma One.’
‘Yes, I see your wife. Tall, great lady. Ah yes! Ah yes! Fine great lady, ma’am.’
All Tilly could add to this stilted conversation was the equally and formally stilted words of, ‘How do you do?’ and to this the old negress answered, ‘Aw, do fine, ma’am, do fine.’
‘One, all right, Ma?’
‘One all right, boss, One all right.’
‘And Two, Three and Four?’
‘Two all right, boss, but Three ’n’ Four’ – she laughed now, her huge breasts wobbling as she said, ‘They’ll never be all right till they reach great age, young never all right. But Three, he better this past time for boss Tyler let him ride.’
‘Oh, good, good; I’m glad of that.’
‘You find Miss Luisa good, boss?’
‘Yes, Ma One, in fine fettle.’
‘I keep her well, in fine fettle, look after her well.’ The smile had slid from her face and she was nodding her head slowly; and Matthew nodded back at her, saying, ‘I know you do, Ma One, and she is very grateful.’
The old woman nodded her head even more slowly now and when Matthew said, ‘We are making the rounds, we’ll go and see the boys,’ the old woman laughed. ‘All in the stable make tallow,’ she said.
They smiled at each other now and without more ado Matthew turned Tilly about and led her along by the side of the wire fence towards a row of well-built wooden huts, and as they went she, looking straight ahead, said, ‘Why on earth do you call the negroes by numbers?’
‘Oh, Uncle apparently did this years ago when he bought them and it’s stuck.’
‘Bought them?’
‘Yes, bought them, they’re slaves.’
‘Slaves?’ She drew him to a stop, then pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck as she looked at him for a moment before saying, ‘Do you condone slavery, Matthew?’
He paused and his face had that straight look that spoke of mixed feelings, and what he said was, ‘No, I don’t condone slavery, dear. In England I would abhor it, but here I accept it as an economical fact; they were first imported as labour for the plantations.’
‘Imported?’ She stared steadily at him, and he repeated, ‘Yes, imported, like goods, but not as carefully handled as goods I must admit; yet in many cases they were a much more valuable cargo.’
‘It’s terrible.’
‘Well, you’re not alone in thinking like that, dear, but one thing I ask of you, don’t express your opinions with regard to the slaves or even the half-breeds such as Diego or Emilio in front of Uncle, for you’ll be on very swampy ground here and you’ll find yourself sinking under his arguments.’ He smiled, adding, ‘On the importation of slaves, on the keeping in their place of half-castes, and on the absolute extermination of all Indians, Uncle holds himself as an authority.’
She shivered slightly and again tucked her collar tight under her chin before saying, ‘You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I’m fond of him, but I’m not blind to his defects nor do I adhere to his opinions, nor keep his petty laws; but again, in spite of all this, I must say I am fond of him. And you’ll grow to be fond of him too when you get to know him.’
‘His daughter knows him and she’s not fond of him.’
His face darkened slightly and aga
in he turned her about and walked her forward, saying now, ‘Whatever is between them is a family matter. I’ve told you I’ll explain it to you later, at least my particular knowledge of it.’
They now entered the first block of the stables where three negroes were working. A tall spare-framed old negro with white hair was stirring an obnoxious-smelling liquid in an iron pot over a wood-burning stove. He straightened up immediately, as did the other two men, and they stood in a rough line as they smiled at Matthew.
Touching his forehead, the old man said, ‘Hello, young boss.’
Matthew answered his greeting with, ‘Hello, One,’ then he nodded at the other two, saying, ‘Hello there . . . How are things?’
‘Things good, boss, things good.’
Tilly stared at the ebony faces. Apart from the old man, the other two looked to be at least in their thirties. She learned later that they were not related to him.
As Tilly looked at them she was overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness: an old man and two men in their prime named by numbers and referred to as boys. In some ways the very numbers robbed them of their manhood. They were looking at her and nodding their heads and she had to force herself to smile at them. She was glad when a few minutes later they left the stable, but outside she saw the fourth negro. He was coming from the direction of the dog run. She told herself she’d never get used to calling the house a dog run, it was too akin to a dog kennel, but this negro did not make his way towards them, in fact Tilly thought he went out of his way to avoid them, and when she remarked on this Matthew said, ‘Yes, very likely you’re right; he’s a sour one is Four, and that’s been brought about by kindness, Luisa’s kindness. He’s her house-boy and she made the mistake of teaching him to read.’
‘You think then it’s a mistake for any human being to be able to read and understand words?’
‘Now! now! now! don’t get on your old high horse, Tilly Trotter.’ He was tweaking her nose now. ‘In this case, yes, because the others accept their lot, but the little knowledge he has gained has made him uneasy, groping. It has also prevented him from doing the one thing he wants to do, ride.’
‘Why?’
‘Well! . . . Oh dear me, it’s such a tangled story, it’s to do with Luisa. If she’d only be reasonable and go back and live in the house and act as a daughter should, Uncle would give her the earth, literally all this earth that he owns, and that’s a few hundred square miles of it, not to mention his other assets, two banks and a factory, et cetera, et cetera. Well, since she won’t act normally, he, being the man he is, takes it out on anyone she favours, so Four has a rough time of it. But strangely, the solution lies in the boy’s own hands, he could ask for a transfer to the stables or other work, then once he left Luisa and the dog run, Uncle would see that he had a ride now and again; but it seems a toss up between learning to read or riding.’
‘And loyalty to Luisa I should imagine.’
‘Yes, that must be so. Still, that’s the situation. I can’t alter it, I have tried, and I would advise you, my dear, not to attempt it. Yet’ – his head jerked – ‘after having said that I would say that if you could bring Luisa back into the house Uncle would deck you out in jewels, I’m sure of that.’
‘I’ve never had a taste for jewellery.’ Quickly changing the conversation now she added, ‘Those houses or huts outside the compound, who lives there?’
‘Oh, Diego and his wife Big Maria. They have one child, Ki. Emilio lives there also with his two children, a boy and girl. His wife died about three years ago. She, too, was called Maria; there was Big Maria and Little Maria.’
‘They look better houses than those inside the compound, quite big in fact for two families.’
‘There are really four houses over there and they built them themselves. Two of them are empty.’
‘Are we going over to see them?’
‘No, not now; we’d better go in to dinner. And, darling’ – he pulled her to a stop – ‘you won’t forget when answering Uncle’s questions, and he’ll be firing them at you, there’s no doubt about that, that you are a widow of an English gentleman named Trotter?’
She answered him quietly, saying, ‘I won’t forget, but would it be so terrible if he did find out the true facts?’
He looked down towards the hard dry earth and moved a loose pebble with the toe of his boot as he said, ‘I would rather he didn’t know.’ Then raising his eyes to her face, he added softly, ‘This is a new life we’re starting, you and I, and I don’t want anything to mar it, and nothing or no-one to come between us, and if anyone should try—’ His lips went into a twisted smile now and he pulled her arm tight into his waist as they went forward and he ended, ‘Remember what I did to Luke in the nursery all those years ago when he dared to say he was going to marry you?’ and she answered, ‘Yes, I remember. But does the no-one include your uncle?’
‘Uncle! Don’t be silly, dearest, Uncle would be the last person who’d attempt any such thing.’
‘But just say he did.’
‘Now, now, Matilda; stop it. The question will never arise. And I hate to hear you voicing such opinions before the dust is off your shoes. Really! what’s come over you?’
They stopped at the foot of the verandah face to face, a silence between them, until she said, ‘It could be called intuition.’
He was about to speak when there was a sudden high neighing of a horse, and the mass of horses in the corral began to move and stamp. At the same moment Alvero Portes appeared at the top of the steps, a gun in his hand, and he didn’t look down on them or speak but peered through narrowed lids away to the right to where a thin cloud of dust blurred the skyline. After staring at it for a full minute, he placed his gun by the side of the verandah post and came down the steps towards them smiling. But Tilly didn’t answer his smile, she looked at Matthew with her mouth slightly agape and a deep question in her eyes.
Three
The days passed into weeks and the weeks mounted to Christmas; and Christmas passed, a strange Christmas, made familiar only by the cold nights. Tilly was surprised at the intenseness of the cold after the heat of the day, it seemed a different cold from that which she had experienced in the North of England. The winters had been severe there and she always felt if you could stand those you could stand anything, but at times here when the wind was from the north, the cold was bone-chilling in the night.
Yet the days passed pleasantly enough and time did not hang heavy on her hands, except when Matthew was out riding with the men; and when their task was to round up a fresh batch of horses he could be away for three or four days at a time, then no matter how she occupied herself, the hours seemed to drag.
Willy took up most of her time. He was running all over the place now and it took a considerable amount of energy both on hers and Katie’s part to keep him in check, and to keep him from under the feet of . . . Uncle, because being able only to see out of one eye he blundered into things, and when he came up against a leg he was apt to cling on to it; and Uncle apparently wasn’t over-fond of children.
Uncle’s first love in life, Tilly thought, was horses. The second, and she hated to admit this to herself, seemed to be Matthew. It was beginning to irk her that Matthew could hardly enter the house before the old man would claim his attention.
She thought of Alvero Portes as a very old man, yet he could only be in his early sixties.
She was sorry to have to admit to herself that she couldn’t like the man, but she let this knowledge go no further than her own mind, for if she had expressed her feelings wholly on this matter to Matthew she knew that she would have both troubled and hurt him. She told herself often that if Uncle had been a different kind of man she would have loved every minute of her stay in this strange, wild, beautiful country.
One thing that was giving her delight was the fact that she could now ride a horse. She could actually keep on its back when it went into a gallop, and this seemed wonderful to her. Her prowess was due to the encouragem
ent of Matthew and the patience of Rod Tyler, and not a little to the admiration and slight envy she had for Luisa in her handling of a horse, for Luisa was as expert a rider as anyone on the ranch.
Luisa seemed a different being when she sat astride a horse; the years fell from her, the hard look left her face, and her eyes lost their habitual expression of aggressive weariness and became alight with excitement.
Then there was the shooting. At first, Matthew had had his work cut out to get her to take a gun into her hand. He did not give the reason why it was important she should learn to shoot, treating it more as a game or an added accomplishment for her. It was Luisa who opened her eyes to the necessity for being able to use a gun. Only yesterday Luisa had said to her, ‘Matthew treats you as some delicate town lady, someone to be protected from reality, and you’re not a town lady, are you? Underneath you’re as tough and as stubborn as they come, only he can’t see it.’
Tilly hadn’t known whether to laugh or to be slightly annoyed, but Luisa decided that she take up the former attitude and said, ‘Come on with you; you’re nearly twice as tall as me but we’re near alike under the skin, at least we will be when you get that doting husband of yours to understand that he’s brought you to live on the prairies. Mind, I’m not saying that it’s everyone that can be attracted to the prairies for I’ve known women to turn and run from the sight of land going on to nowhere; and not only women either, this is no place for men with weak stomachs. If we could get Mack talking sometime he’d open your eyes for you. Of course I can’t promise when that might be.’ She laughed one of her rare laughs. ‘He opens up about once every two years and then he’s got to be drunk.’
Tilly had discovered that if Luisa had an affection for anyone on the ranch it was for Mack McNeill. Mack, like all the men she had met, seemed of indeterminable age; he could be forty, forty-five or even fifty. He was tall, thin, bearded and walked with a slight limp.
Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 23
