He went down the steps in front of her, but stopped at the bottom to help her, for her foot had stumbled on the edge of the veranda. His strong arm upheld her until she was on the gravel. The touch of his fingers on her arm, brought home the incredible horror of it all--the suddenness, the brutality. She pulled her veil hastily over her face to hide the gush of tears. She could not speak for the choking lump in her throat. He released her at once and strode on. Not another word pa.s.sed between them. Ninnis greeted her with gruff cordiality--began a sort of speech about the cause of her departure--condolence and congratulations stupidly mixed. McKeith impatiently cut him short.

'All right, Ninnis. Get up. And mind, the horses are fresh. They'll want a bit of driving at the start.'

He helped Bridget to her seat, tucked the brown linen coverlet round her knees. In doing so, he bent his head--she thought he had dropped something. Then through the thin linen of the covering, and her light summer garments, she felt the pressure of his burning lips as though they were touching her flesh.

She bent forward. Their eyes met in a wild look, just for a second. The horses plunged under Ninnis' hands on the reins. McKeith sprang back.

'Wo-oh! Gee on then!' Ninnis called out. 'Good-bye, Boss. You can trust me to look well after her ladyship.... Be back again as soon as I can.'

And if Colin spoke, the sound did not carry to his wife's ears. Her last impression of him as the buggy swayed and rattled down the hill was again the dogged droop of his great shoulders.

It was too late now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, but the end had come--come with such hideous misconception--every word spoken--and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of the occasion--a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel of a cross-cut saw against the hard, heavy grain of an iron-bark gum log. Then the extraordinary involvements of circ.u.mstance. Each incident, big and little, dovetailing and hastening the onward sweep of catastrophe. It seemed as though Fate had cunningly engineered the forces on every plane so that there should be no escape for her victims. Like almost all the tragedies of ordinary human life, this one had been too swift in its action to allow of suitable dialogue or setting.

CHAPTER 10

From Joan Gildea to Colin McKeith.

Written about a year later.

MY DEAR COLIN,

I find it impossible to recognise my old friend in the hard, businesslike communication you sent me from Leichardt's Town. I almost wish that you had allowed the lawyer you consulted to put the case before me instead; it would have seemed less unfitting, and I could have answered it better. But I quite appreciate your objection to taking the lawyer into your confidence as regards the personal matters you mention to me. It would be cruelly unjust--I think quite unpardonable in you to bring forward the name of Mr Willoughby Maule in connection with Bridget. Not that HE would mind that. I honestly believe that he would s.n.a.t.c.h gladly at any means for inducing Bridget to marry him. Whether she would do so, if you were to carry through this amazing scheme of yours, it's impossible for me to say. At present she certainly prefers to keep him at a distance. He has never been to Castle Gaverick. And except for a few visits on business to London that is where she has lived since she came over here.

Your letter followed me to Jamaica where I've been reporting on the usual lines for THE IMPERIALIST, but, of course I couldn't answer it until I had talked it over with Bridget and, as you desired, had obtained her views on the matter. It was a shock to her to realise that your reason for never writing to her and for refusing to let her write to you, was lest that might affect the legality of these proceedings, which I understand you have contemplated from the beginning of your quarrel. Bridget is too proud to show you how deeply she is wounded by your letter. All she has to say is, that if you really wish to take this action, she will not oppose it.

But Colin, do you really wish, it? I refuse to believe that you seriously contemplate divorcing your wife. You must know that you have not the accepted grounds for doing so. As for the law you quote which allows divorce in cases of two years' so-called desertion, I can only say that I consider it a blot on Leichardt's Land legislation. Divorce should be for one cause only--the cause to which Our Lord gave a qualified approval; and Bridget has never been unfaithful--in act or desire, to her husband. I would maintain this in spite of the most d.a.m.ning testimony, and you must in your heart believe it also. Besides, your testimony is ridiculously inadequate.

I am glad, however, that you have at last made your accusations in detail--in order, as you say--that I--and Bridget, incidentally, I suppose--should fully understand why you are adopting this att.i.tude towards her. I'm glad too, that you do not mean to make any use of the evidence against her and are prepared to take all the blame for the unhappy state of affairs between you! I write sarcastically. Why, it would be monstrous if you had any other intention! Oh, how I hate this pedantic roundabout way of writing! I feel inclined to tear up these sheets--I've torn up two already. Really, you've made it so difficult for me to treat you naturally. If I could talk to you, I'd make you understand in five minutes--but I can't--so there!

Naturally, I had heard of your bringing Mr Willoughby Maule to the station, and when I learned what followed, naturally also, I concluded that you had discovered his ident.i.ty with that of the man Bridget had once cared for. I blame myself horribly. But for my carelessness you would never have read that letter of Biddy's--she knows all about it now--and your insane jealousy would not have jumped to conclusions--at any rate so quickly. And perhaps if I had not bound you to secrecy you'd have had the matter out with her, which would probably have saved all this trouble. Anyhow, I can't imagine that you would have left her alone with him as you did--and with bad feeling between you--at the mercy of her own reckless impulses and that of Willoughby Maule's ardent love-making. She doesn't pretend that it wasn't ardent, or that he did not do his best to get her to run away with him--or that the old infatuation did not come back to a slight extent--Is it surprising after your conduct? No wonder she compared his devotion favourably, with yours. Colin, your leaving her in such conditions wasn't the act of a MAN, of a gentleman. I speak strongly, but I can't help it. I know your stubborn pride and obstinacy, but you were wrong, you have disappointed me--oh! how bitterly you have disappointed me!

Then there was that business about the blacks. What a fool you were--and how brutally self-opinionated! I don't wonder Bridget thought you an inhuman monster.

Now I have said my worst, and you must take it as it is meant and forgive me.

As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital--I used to think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen--but they don't seem to be, out on the Leura--I've got all the details from Biddy. A tragi-comic business--so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over it, if it weren't for its serious consequences. Of course, Biddy got up to turn out the goats which were b.u.t.ting with their horns under the floor of her bedroom. I've often got up myself in the old days at Bungroopim, when stray calves got into the garden, or the c.o.c.katoo disturbed our slumbers. Do you remember Polly? and how she would keep shouting out on a moonlight night 'The top of the mornin' to ye'--because we'd forgotten to put her blanket over the cage--I believe there were several occasions when you and I met in midnight dishabille and helped each other to restore tranquillity. If anyone was to blame for Biddy's adventure, it was your wood-and-water joey--or your Chinamen--or whoever's business it may have been to see that the goats were properly penned.

Naturally, Mr Maule, when he was disturbed too, came and did the turning out for Bridget and shepherded the creatures to the fold.

Then meanwhile, she saw the black-gin sneaking in at Mr Maule's back window to steal the key; and WOULD it have been philanthropic, impulsive Biddy, if she hadn't helped in the work of rescue, and sent the two sinners, with a 'Bless you, my children!' off into the scrub?

It was like Biddy too, to go and put the key back in Mr Maule's bedroom and to scribble that ridiculous note in French so that he shouldn't go blundering to the hide-house and hurry up the pursuit. I told Bridget how the Inspector had watched her go out of Mr Maule's room, and had grabbed the note afterwards, and shown it to you. She had forgotten altogether about that note--supposed that, of course, it had reached its proper destination. She couldn't remember either exactly what she had written--except that she wanted to word it so that if there should be any accident, n.o.body--except Mr Maule, for of course, they'd determined on the release before that--should understand to what it referred. So she didn't mention any name--she believes she dashed off some words he had quoted to her about Love triumphant, and securing happiness and freedom by flight. And then she put in something referring to a scene they'd had that day in which he had begged her to fly with him, and she had made him promise to leave next morning, pacifying him by a counter promise to write.

She told me about her fever and ague--you don't need proof of that after the state in which you found her--and how Mr Maule carried her to her room and left her there after a few minutes. She doesn't remember anything after that, until she came out of the fever and saw you--with the face and manner I can well imagine--standing by her bedside.

I am sure that Bridget began to 'find herself' then, and that the way in which she left Moongarr was one of those shocks which make a woman touch reality. It may be only for that once in her life, but she can never be the same again. You have put your brand on your wife, Colin--that is quite plain to me. She has changed inwardly more than outwardly.

But she is extremely reticent about her feelings towards you. That in itself is so unlike the old Bridget, and I have no right to put forward my own ideas and opinions--they may be quite wrong. Really, the news of Eliza Lady Gaverick's death, and of Bridget's change of fortune, coming just at that moment, is the sort of dramatic happening, which I--as a dabbler in fiction--maintain, is more common in real life than in novels. I am certain that if I had set out to build up the tangled third act of a problem play on those lines, I couldn't have done it better. All the same, I'm very sorry that this change of fortune didn't come off earlier or later, for I am well aware of how you will jib at it.

Well, I can tell you, on her own authority, that Bridget never wrote to Mr Maule as she had promised. She had no communication with him from the time he left the station until they met on the E. and A. boat. He joined her, as you know, at the next port above Leuraville. It was rather canny of him to go there--yet I don't see how, in the circ.u.mstances, he could have loafed round Leuraville without making talk--though I think it was a great pity he didn't. Of course he had his own means of communication with the township, and knew she was on board. No one was more surprised than she at his appearance on deck next morning. I don't think, however, that she saw much of him on the voyage. She said that she got a recurrence of the malarial fever off the northern coast and had to keep her cabin pretty well till they reached Colombo. Then she asked him to leave the steamer and take a P.

and O. boat that happened to be in harbour--and this he did do.

I am bound to say that Willoughby Maule must have improved greatly since the time when young Lady Gaverick decided he was a 'bounder.' I daresay marriage did him good. I believe that his wife was a very charming woman. Or, it may be that the possession of a quarter of a million works a radical change in people's characters. Or, again, it may be that he is more deeply devoted to Biddy than I, for one, ever suspected. There is no doubt that given the regrettable position, his behaviour in regard to her now is commendable.

But Bridget, doesn't love him--never has loved him. I state that fact on no authority whatsoever except my own intuition. Also I am honestly of opinion she has cared for you more than she has cared for any man.

You don't deserve it, and I may be wrong. But, nevertheless, it is my conviction. Make of it what you please. I have been, I candidly own it, surprised to see what discretion and good feeling she has shown through all this Gaverick will business. There has been a good deal of disagreeable friction in the matter. Lord Gaverick has not come off so well as he expected. He has got the house in Upper Brook Street, which suits young Lady Gaverick, and about fifteen hundred a year--considerably less than Bridget. The trouble is that Eliza Gaverick left a large legacy to her doctor--the latest one--and there was a talk about bringing forward the plea of undue influence. That, however, has fallen to the ground--mainly through Biddy's persuasion. I believe it is Bridget's intention to make over Castle Gaverick to her cousin, but this is not given out and of course she may change her mind.

And now, Colin, I think I have said everything I have to say. The main point to you is, no doubt, the answer to your question. As I said at the beginning of this letter, Bridget will not oppose any course you choose to take in order to secure your release from her--that is the exact way she worded it. But I cannot believe that, in face of all the rest I have told you, you will go on with this desertion--divorce business--at least without making yourself absolutely certain that you both desire to be free of each other. Remember, there has been no explanation between you and Biddy--no chance of touch between the true selves of both of you. Can you not come to England to see her? Or should she go out to you. I think it possible she might consent to do so, but have never broached the idea and cannot say. Yes, of course I understand that this might invalidate the legal position. But as only two years are necessary to prove the desertion--even if you should decide together that it is best to part--isn't it worth while to wait two years more in order to make quite sure? No doubt, you will say that I am shewing the proverbial ignorance of women in legal questions. But I can't help feeling that there must be some way in which it could be arranged. I do beseech you, Colin, not to act hastily.

You say that if this divorce took place, Bridget's reputation would not suffer, and that she could marry again without a stain upon her character as they say of wrongfully accused prisoners who are discharged. But again--is that the question?

I know nothing of your present circ.u.mstances--health, outlook on life--anything. Bridget once hinted to me that you might have your own reasons for desiring your freedom. She would give no grounds for the suspicion that there is any other woman in your life. I do not think anything would make me credit such a thing and I put that notion entirely out of court. I do not know--as your letter was dated from Leichardt's Town--whether you still live at Moongarr. It is possible you may have sold the place. I hear of severe droughts in parts of Leichardt's Land, but have no information about the Leura district. Now that Sir Luke Tallant has exchanged to Hong Kong, Bridget hasn't any touch with Leichardt's Land, and I have very few correspondents there.

Write to me--not a stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell me about yourself--your feelings, your conditions. We are old friends--friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours.

You can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything you may tell me, I will faithfully observe your wishes. But I can't bear that you, whom I should have thought so well of--have felt so much about--should be making a mess of your life, and that I should not put out a hand to prevent it.

Always your friend,

JOAN GILDEA.

CHAPTER 11

It was a long time before Mrs Gildea received an answer to her letter.

She had begun to despair of ever getting another line from Colin McKeith, when at last he wrote from Moongarr, six months later.

MY DEAR JOAN,

Your letter has made me think. I could not write before for reasons that you'll gather as you go along. I shall do as you ask and tell you everything as straightly and plainly as I can. I feel it is best that you should know exactly the sort of conditions I'm under and what a woman would have had to put up with if she had been with me--what she would have to put up with if she were going to be with me. Then you can judge whether or not I'm right in the decision I have come to as the result of my thinkings. You can tell my wife as much as you please--of the details, I mean. Perhaps, you had better soften them to her, for you know as well as I do--or better--that her impulsive, quixotic disposition might lead her into worse mistakes than it has done already. Of course, she'll have to know my decision. I am sure that if she allows her reason play, she will agree it is the only possible one.

I'm not going to talk about what happened before she went away, or about that evidence--or anything else in that immediate connection. I was mad, and I expect I believed a lot more than was true. I don't believe--I don't think I ever did really believe--what I suppose you would call 'the worst.' But that doesn't seem to me of such great matter. It's the spirit, not the letter that counts. The foundation must have been rotten, or there never would have been a question of believing one way or the other--because we should have UNDERSTOOD.

Explanations would not have been needed between true mates. Only we were not true mates--that's the whole point. There was too great a radical difference between us. It might have been a deal better if she HAD gone off with that man.

But to come now to the practical part of the situation. You know enough about Australian ups and downs to realise that a cattle or sheep owner out West, may be potentially wealthy one season and on the fair road to beggary the next. It will be different when times change and we take to sinking artesian bores on the same principle as when Joseph stored up grain in the fat years in Egypt against the lean ones that were coming.

That's what I meant to do and ought to have done at any cost. But--well I just didn't.

The thing is that if I could have looked ahead, perhaps even six months, I might not have thought it acting on the square to a woman to get her to marry me. If I could have looked a year ahead, I wouldn't have had any doubt on the subject.

But you see I justified it to myself. One thousand square miles of country--fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept running--and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it, seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point, when we talked about my marrying. The truth was that directly I saw Bridget, she carried me clean off my head--and that's the long and short of it.

Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the Legislative a.s.sembly and swaggering on my prospects. I'd left Ninnis to oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as long back as that.

I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me, 'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right. Well, I saw that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good gra.s.s on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live with.... That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, the sales I'd counted on turned out badly--cattle too poor for want of gra.s.s to stand the droving and the worst luck in the sale-yards I'd ever known.