Beyond the Black Stump

by Nevil Shute

  “I dunno how you young folks look at things,” the old woman muttered. “You surely couldn’t bear to have him round the place if he was Stan’s. Or if you could, what would your folks say? But he’s not Stan’s, Mollie. I’m quite sure he’s not. Cross my heart.”

  The coffee pot began to sing and the girl switched it off, and brought it to the table. She poured out the cups of coffee. “Don’t worry any more, Mom,” she said gently. “I suppose it might matter with some people, but not with me. We’re quite used to this at home. We live a long way out in the bush, you know, on Laragh Station, and things happen there that wouldn’t happen here. I’ve got a whole family of half-caste half-brothers and half-sisters living with us on the property, that we don’t talk about too much. Honestly, this doesn’t mean a thing to me.” She paused. “And it wouldn’t mean a thing to Dad and Ma, either. They’d just laugh.”

  Helen Laird stared at her incredulously. “What did you say, about half-caste brothers?”

  “I’ve got three of them,” the girl said, “and two sisters—yellow girls. There weren’t any white women in the district when Dad and Uncle Tom first went to Laragh after the First War, and they lived with the gins—the black women, you know. Of course, they gave that up when mother came along.” She sipped her coffee. “I suppose we’re really a lot worse than you are here,” she said. “But honestly, you needn’t worry about this any more, Mom. Just forget about it.”

  The other woman stared at her in perplexity. “But Stan wrote us about your brothers and sisters. He said one was an accountant down in Perth, and one getting to be a famous surgeon in England, and another a girl, doing Oriental languages, or somethin’.”

  Mollie laughed. “That’s quite true, Mom,” she said. “But I’ve got a lot of others we don’t talk about so much. I suppose there’s not much else to do up in the Lunatic, except breed children.”

  Helen Laird said, “But, Mollie—let me get this straight. You don’t really mean you’ve got coloured people in your family?”

  Aware for the first time of a pitfall opening before her, Mollie said, “Dad and Ma are white, of course, and I’m pure white. But I’ve got half-brothers and sisters living on the property, and they’re coloured.”

  “You mean, real coloured, like the coloured people here?”

  “That’s right.”

  There was a long pause. Then Helen Laird said quietly, “Stan never told us that.”

  “I think he might have done,” the girl said. “But does it make any difference?”

  Helen Laird passed her hand across her eyebrows wearily. “I dunno, dear. It’s all been so sudden, first the one and then the other. Guess a boy’s folks kind of like to know before he marries into a coloured family.”

  The girl kept her temper with an effort. “We don’t call ourselves a coloured family,” she said. “Not that I’d mind very much if we did. Perhaps you ought to have a talk with Stan, Helen. He’d be able to explain things better than I can, because he’d see them more the way you do.”

  “Maybe that’s right, dear,” said his mother heavily. “I guess I’ll have to have a talk with Stan.”

  The girl went up to her bedroom, depressed. Everything today was going wrong, in every kind of way. First Stanton, with his unconcern over Diana Fawsitt’s death which had so shocked her, and now his mother’s shocked reaction to the news of the Countess and her family. Having grown up with them from childhood, Mollie had accepted her half-brothers and sisters as a part of Laragh; infinitely kind and loving guardians in her childhood, people to whom she was deeply attached, and yet who were quite different to herself. Could she ever make the people of this town, the generous, affectionate people who were her hosts—could she ever make them understand about the Countess? And what about the Judge? If she lived here, would he hang permanently above her head like the Sword of Damocles? Or must she disown him, too?

  She got out the letter from David Cope for comfort, and read the well known words again. When she came to the end, the part where David had said that her father was going to find him a nice yellow girl or a good-looking gin, she wondered how that joke would appeal to Helen Laird.

  The atmosphere of the delightful little town of Hazel wrapped her round, pretty and civilised and stifling. For the first time since leaving home she was acutely homesick for her own country.

  Down at the works, Stanton Laird sat in his office, doodling and distrait, doing no work, unconscious of the trouble brewing in his home. He had been puzzled by Mollie’s ready acceptance of the fact that Tony might well be his son, and deeply wounded by her charge that he and Chuck had killed Diana Fawsitt in a drunken game. That had never been said to him before and it had never entered his mind; an accident was an accident, and that was all there was to it. Now that it had been said, it wounded him more deeply for the realisation that there might be truth in it; it was one way of looking at things, anyway, and a very unpleasant one. A guy’s girl ought not to make herself quite so unpleasant as that, even if she was a foreigner. There’d be quite a few allowances to be made in the future.

  He sat in idle unhappiness, and in the background of his mind were seared the words of the Book, revealed to him in the night:

  Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

  It was real difficult to know what was the best thing to do sometimes. You went on doing what you thought was right, and then you found that it was all wrong in the eyes of God.

  That afternoon Mollie sat down in the privacy of her bedroom to answer the letter from David Cope. She wanted to pour out her mind to somebody she knew, to free herself on paper from the restraints that were beginning to gall her. She started in to tell him all that had happened since she had left the Lunatic. She wrote on page after page, telling him about Sydney, telling him about Honolulu and the long flights she had made. She told him about the Laird family and their great kindness to her, she told him about the lovely country that was Oregon, and the delightful little town of Hazel. And then she said,

  It’s all so lovely here, and everybody’s been so kind, I really feel ashamed of feeling homesick. I mean, it’s just marvellous here. The country is so pretty, the people so nice, the shops so full of everything one wants, the roads so good, and the motor cars so lovely, just exactly like they are in the advertisements. It’s all the opposite to Laragh and the Lunatic, so that it’s crazy to be always thinking of home. I wish you’d write again sometime and tell me more of what they’re doing. I know I’m going to be terribly happy in this lovely place, but it’s going to take a little time to settle down. My love to the yellow girl, or is it girls?

  Yours,

  MOLLIE

  Downstairs, as she was writing this, Ruth Sheraton was visiting with Helen Laird and Claudia. She had found them upset, and in the atmosphere of free discussion that prevailed in Hazel it was not long before she had discovered why.

  “Say, Mom,” she said in amazement, “that can’t be right! Stan wouldn’t ever do a thing like that! I think she’s a real nice kid. I liked her quite a lot.”

  Aunt Claudia said, “Sure, she’s a sweet girl, Ruthie. It’s been just lovely having her to stay. But that doesn’t alter the fact she’s got coloured people for brothers and sisters.”

  “Half-brothers and half-sisters,” Helen Laird said. “That’s what she said.”

  “What does that mean, half-brothers?” Ruth asked. “How can you have half a brother, anyway?”

  “Same father or same mother, isn’t it?” Helen Laird enquired. “I’m so confused I don’t know what to do.”

  “Half or whole, it’s all the same to me,” said Aunt Claudia. “I knew a girl one time could pass as white, anyplace, even right down South. She got married to a real nice young man in Duluth, Minnesota, and first thing you know, they had a black baby. Real black it was, as black as any nigger.”

  Ruth Sheraton said, “Aw, be your age, Aunt Claudia. I’m sorry to speak like that, but things don’t happen
that way. I don’t say she didn’t have a black baby, but if she did she had it by a black man, ’n not her husband. I reckon it’s not right to talk that way about Mollie. Stan’s a good guy and I’d say this girl’s a good one, too. I guess we better show a little confidence in them, and quit talking about it.”

  Aunt Claudia sniffed. “I’d feel a whole lot better about doing that if she wasn’t a Catholic.”

  “What if she is a Catholic?” Ruth demanded. “I got some mighty good friends, Catholics, down in Texas.” She paused, thoughtful, for a moment. “I learned quite a lot, when Chuck got killed,” she said. “When you’re a long way from home and things like that happen, you’re liable to change your views a bit. About friends, Catholics, and all that.”

  When Mollie came downstairs she found them chatting amicably about the Shakespeare Festival that the Teachers College in Eugene were organising, and drinking coffee. Presently Ruth rose to go. “I got four hungry mouths to stuff some chow into,” she said. “I’d better go along.”

  “I got the fruit pies ready in the basket,” said Aunt Claudia. “Two peach and two blackberry and apple. I’ll just go get them.”

  “That’s lovely of you.”

  Mollie said, “I’ve got a letter to post. I’ll walk with you to the mailbox.”

  As they stepped out on to the sidewalk, Ruth Sheraton looked at her quizzically, and said, “Mind if I tell you somethin’, honey?”

  “Of course not.”

  The older woman said, “This is a small town. It’s a real nice place to live, except it’s small. I guess I never knew how small it was till I started travelling round airbases and like that with Chuck. I dunno that I want to live anyplace else. But when you live in a small town, you got to live and talk the way they do. You’ve been shooting off your mouth too much, about coloured people in your family. You don’t mind me telling you?”

  “Of course not.” The girl bit her lip, and walked on for a moment in silence. “I realised afterwards that I’d done the wrong thing in mentioning them,” she said. “It was silly of me. But Helen was so upset.”

  “What was she upset about?” asked Ruth.

  The girl walked on in silence, wondering miserably how she could get out of that one. Whatever she did today, she seemed to put her foot in it. “Nothing that mattered,” she said at last.

  “That’s a funny thing to get upset about,” Ruth said. She paused in thought, and then she said kindly, “You better come clean, honey. Was it anything to do with me?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t anything.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me. It kind of makes things easier if you know what gossip’s going around.”

  They walked in silence for a moment. “If you must know,” the girl said at last, “it was about Tony.”

  The other nodded. “I’ve been expecting that, of course. I guess that must have been quite a shock to you. What say we walk around the block a little way, ’n talk this out?”

  Ten

  THEY strolled together down the pleasant, shaded avenue beside the white-painted homes, each standing in mown lawns. Ruth said, “You met Tony this morning?”

  Mollie nodded. “He’s a nice kid, Mrs. Sheraton. I liked him. I really did.”

  “You might start calling me Ruth, honey. You notice anything about him?”

  The girl smiled. “Well, of course I did. Stan told me of the trouble you all got into. I don’t mind about him. Honestly I don’t.”

  “What did Stan tell you about Tony? I never knew what Stan thought about it, ’n not so much of what Chuck thought, either.”

  “Stan told me he was never sure if Tony was his son or Chuck’s,” he said. “They tossed up for it, or something, in the Piggy-Wiggy café.” She broke into a smile. “As if one couldn’t tell by looking at him!” She glanced at the older woman.

  Ruth nodded. “It’s got to be a lot more noticeable these last few years …” They strolled on for a few minutes in silence. “I guess we were real wicked in those days,” she went on presently. “Wicked and crazy. We thought that we were smart. Some kids are like that in High School. The war was on, too, and our folks too busy to look after us, maybe. And then we got to smoking those reefers … Those cigarettes! The things they make you do!”

  The girl said, “I don’t want you to think that I’m upset about it.” She stopped and looked Ruth squarely in the eyes. “I really do mean that. I come from a different sort of place to this, you know. More irregular, I suppose. This is the sort of thing that happens all the time at home. Or it used to. I don’t know that it would now, or not so much. I tried to make Helen understand, but I only made more trouble.”

  “Was that about coloured folks?”

  The girl nodded. “I don’t know if you can understand any better than she could.” She paused. “We live in the outback,” she said. “We live three hundred miles from the nearest town, and that’s only got two stores, two hotels, and an airstrip. We’re nine hundred miles from a paved road, and three hundred miles from a gas station. Our property is just under a million acres—that’s about fifteen hundred square miles. The priest comes to see us once a year. Things are different in that kind of place to what they would be here.”

  Ruth nodded slowly. “I’d say they might be. A property of ten thousand acres is a big place here.”

  “Ours is a hundred times as big as that.” The girl paused. “Everybody here talks about the Frontier, and says this is a Frontier town. You’re pretty proud of that. But you’ve forgotten what the Frontier’s like, honestly you have.” She glanced at Ruth. “When your first tough guys broke through the Rockies from the East and found this lovely place, they married Indian girls. You know it, and you’re rather proud of it. It’s part of the Frontier legend. Well, the Frontier’s moved on. Our country is the Frontier now. But when I told Helen this morning that I’d got a lot of half-caste brothers and sisters she nearly threw a fit.”

  “I’ll say she did. Have you explained it to her, honey—like you have to me? About the Indian girls, and that?”

  The girl shook her head, depressed. “I don’t think that they’d ever understand.”

  “Claudia wouldn’t. I think Helen might.”

  The girl said, “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What I was trying to explain is that I don’t mind about Tony—not a bit. Where I come from things are different. In the old days, not so long ago, very few white women could live in the outback. It was all too hard. The ones that could were really tough, strong women, like my mother. People like that get married when they can, but they’re not fussy. We get a good few illegitimacies, both white and black. I’m one myself, for that matter.”

  “You are?”

  The girl nodded defiantly. “Yes, I am. So what?”

  Ruth looked at her, laughing. “Does Helen Laird know that?”

  “Not unless Stan’s told her. He knows, of course.”

  “I bet she doesn’t. Say, have you got any cupboard hasn’t got a skeleton in it? Just one teeny-weeny one?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Mollie said. “I come from the Frontier.” They walked on a few steps in silence. “I do want you to understand,” she said. “If Tony is Stan’s son, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. It might be a terrible shock to an American girl, but it’s not to me.” She glanced at the other. “He is Stan’s son, isn’t he?”

  “I guess he is.”

  “Did you know all the time?”

  Ruth said, “I dunno. I suppose I did, but I kinda hoped he might be Chuck’s.” She walked on in silence, and then she said. “Stan’s a real nice guy, Mollie. He always was, or I’d never have gone with him, however tight I was, even when I was a silly kid like that. But Chuck—well, Chuck was different. Everything Chuck did was real good fun. He wanted to pilot airplanes and go places, ’n he did, and I went with him. We were always broke, we drank a lot of rye, had a lot of kids, and had a lot of fun together.” She paused. “Maybe it was getting us down just towards the end,” she
said. “Always being broke, ’n nothing in the future. Maybe in another ten years it wouldn’t have been so good. I dunno. Maybe I did wrong when I told everyone the baby would be Chuck’s. But I guess I’ll never be sorry that I did it.”

  “Of course you won’t,” the girl said. “Nobody’s any the worse for what you did.”

  They walked on slowly till they came round again to the mailbox; the girl dropped her letter into it. She turned and faced Ruth. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said. “I’ll think about it tonight. Would you like me to do the diapers again tomorrow?”

  “You thinking about Tony, honey?”

  She shook her head. “No. About the Frontier, and all the skeletons in my cupboards.”

  “I was only joking when I said that. Forget about it.”

  The girl stood in silence for a minute. “Your tough men and women who broke through the mountain chains and found this country. Do you think they all went back to the small towns they came from in the Eastern States and settled down to live there happily?”

  Ruth wrinkled her brows in perplexity. “Why, no—why should they? They had opportunity here, ’n everything. Guess they’d have died of boredom back in those small Eastern towns, after the Oregon Trail.”

  The girl nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Shall I come along in the morning for the diapers?”

  “Don’t make a thing of it. But if you’re doing nothing else, I’d certainly appreciate it, honey.”

  The girl turned back to the Laird home. “I’ll be round. Good-bye.”

  “’Bye now.” Ruth walked on towards her new cottage, somewhat puzzled. Stan certainly had got himself a strange kind of a girl out in Australia. Real nice she was, but mighty strange. You never knew what she was going to say next.