CHAPTER XXVIII.
"I LOVE YOU, ELSIE."
He kept her fast. It seemed an eternity in a moment. No explanations were given; none were needed. She knew that he loved her. He was recalled to himself by a sort of shuddering sob in her.
"Elsie, my darling," he said very quietly and gravely, and yet always with that thrill of repressed excitement, "you are not to be angry with me for what I have done. If we had sat together there one moment longer, I must have done this before them all; and that would have been worse for you, my poor child, for though I love you, Elsie, I cannot marry you, my dear. You must marry Frank Hallett, and he will make you happier than I ever could."
"I must marry Frank Hallett!" she repeated in a dull, nervous way. The pride and the anger had all gone out of her. It did not occur to her to upbraid him. It seemed to her that they were both bound in a fate for which neither was responsible.
"Elsie," he said, "I'm in a mad mood to-night. That dancing has set every nerve going. I can't restrain myself. Oh, darling, it's worth a great deal to have such a moment as this. I shall try to keep away from you after to-night. You'll not see me again now. I shall not be here to-morrow. Perhaps you will never see me again. I shall make arrangements for leaving this country as soon as may be. I take my fling to night."
"What are you going to do?" she said, still in that dull voice. "I don't understand. Make me understand."
"Make you understand!" he repeated, and laughed. "Yes, I'll make you understand. You know I promised you, the day before you are married. I shall not leave the country till then. Then I shall have the satisfaction of knowing, at least, that you will thank Heaven I had honour enough not to make you my wife."
Again they were silent for a few moments, and the hellish uproar went on, and seemed to them far away. And now somebody else was speaking on the other side of the wattle-clump. It was a voice Elsie recognized as that of Sam Shehan, the stockman. She knew his surly tones. She had been listening to him just before she had spoken against him to Trant. She only caught the concluding words, "All right. I'd better slope now. We shall be there with the horses."
"They're safe planted?" It was a voice she knew too—and yet she could not be sure—it was low, and the whisper was so gruff.
"Down by Holy Joe's waterhole, the old place. What about the Captain. It can't be that he funks this job?"
"Funks! No. It's damned sentiment."
They passed on. Elsie had drawn herself from Blake's arms. She had been recalled to the world. And yet her brain was bewildered. Was it Trant who had spoken? What had he meant? The phrase had struck her, "damned sentiment." Perhaps that was the connection of ideas which made her think of Trant. He had applied it to Blake.
She looked at Blake, and she saw that he, too, had pulled himself together and was standing watchful and alert, and with a set determined look upon his face. "What does it mean?" she asked. "That was your stockman. He is going to do something wrong—what is it?—is it cattle-stealing? And it sounded like Mr. Trant's voice. It couldn't have been Mr. Trant. It can't be anything you know of. Tell me." She caught his arm. And yet the idea was absurd. His laugh dispelled her vague fancy.
"Cattle stealing! Yes, most likely. If Sam Shehan is up to that devilry it must be stopped. Trant, why what are you thinking of? He went away half an hour ago, and now I think of it that couldn't have been Sam Shehan, for he had to have the horses ready, and they were all going together. No, Elsie, my dear, whatever Trant's sins may be, he is not accessory to cattle-stealing."
"Oh, I did not mean" she cried. And of course it hadn't been Sam Shehan, she said to herself. It was one of the loafers about the Dell. All Colonial voices had the same drawl. Lord Horace would encourage what are called in Australia "sun-downers" by his free handed hospitality, and it was such a bad plan. And everybody knew that the Upper Luya was infested with small settlers who "nuggetted" the calves of the large owners, and when occasion offered, stole their cattle. Had not Frank told her that the Hallett's were the principal sufferers? He had prosed on this subject only a few nights back, conscientiously endeavouring to convey to her his sources of income, and wherein the income was precarious. And how bored she had been! As if she cared whether the Hallett Brothers branded so many thousands and sold so many thousands more or less in the year.
With Blake's next words she threw away the whole matter, and he seemed to have thrown it away too.
"Elsie, my love," he said, "I want to tell you something to-night, this last night which will never come again, no, nor any other night like it. I want to tell you that you are the only woman in the world whom I have loved, and whom I have wished to marry, whom I would have married if things had been different. I have fought against you, but you have conquered, and I tell you so this night. But if you were to say to me, now this moment, 'Morres Blake, I will go with you wherever you please, and I will be your wife, not counting cost,' I would put you back—gently, gently, my darling—with anguish at my heart, and I would refuse your proffered love, and I would bid you give yourself to the man whose wife you have promised to be, and who is worthy of you."
She said not a word, but he felt her frame shaking with a suppressed sob, as he held her two hands which he had taken in his.
He went on. "The feeling you have for me is only a sort of glamour, and will pass. I was wrong ever to tell you that you would not be happy leading the safe decorous existence which Frank Hallett offers you. You will be happy, you must be happy. You will have children round you on whom no baleful heritage will be entailed. You will forget me—I shall seem to you, looking back, only like a dream of the night—for I shall not trouble your life after you are married. I shall only wait for that, and then I shall go away."
"Where?" she murmured.
"God knows. Back to Ireland, I think. And thenWell, never mind. I have promised to tell you before you are married what my life has been and is. And now, my love, good-bye, and God bless you for your sweetness to me this night. I won't kiss you again. I am not worthy to kiss you. That was a wild impulse. Now, I cannot. I am not fit to touch you. And yet" He raised her hands one after the other to his lips.
Some one called "Elsie, Elsie, where are you?"
"Good-night," he said. "Good-bye. Before you are awake to-morrow morning I shall be gone. I too have business to see to."
They came out from the wattle grove. The party from the Humpey had left the log. Lady Waveryng and the Jem Halletts were already half way down the ridge, but Lady Waveryng's voice floated back during a momentary lull of the Blacks' shouts. She was saying with her English laugh—
"It really was too suggestive, you know. The Assassouis are not in it."
Frank Hallett approached her. He knew in his heart, knew by the look on Elsie's face, that he was in the pitiful position of the supplanted lover. But he bore himself with a certain stolid dignity.
"I am very sorry to have left you," he said. "Ina wanted to speak to me. I was afraid you would find that dancing and everything rather too much for you. I am so glad Blake took you away."
"Well, I think after a certain stage a corroboree is not quite a scene for ladies," said Blake with commendable composure, "and so Lady Waveryng seems to fancy. That screeching has tried even my nerves," he added. "I have got the only ailment I ever suffer from—torturing neuralgia—and was thankful to escape for a few minutes with Miss Valliant from that Walpurgis Saturnalia. If you'll excuse me I think I shall go and turn in at once. I've got to join Trant to-morrow morning at the Gorge as early as may be. It isn't altogether the case of a butcher," he added, addressing Frank with an air of candour. "The man who is coming from over the border is something else besides being a butcher, and as a matter of fact, we are in treaty with him for the sale of the Gorge as a breeding paddock. Trant doesn't want it to get about yet, but of course, Hallett, I am safe with you; and, besides, it may come to nothing."
He turned off to one of the supernumerary huts which served as a bachelors' quarters, where he and Trant were lodged, and Elsie and Frank were alone.
"Elsie," Frank said quietly, but with a break in his voice that belied his composure, "you love that man still?"
"Oh, Frank," she cried, "be kind to me. Don't ask me anything to-night."
"Kind to you!" Frank repeated. "Have I ever been anything but kind to you? If it's to end, Elsie, let it end now."
"Do you want it to end?" she asked.
"Tell me that he wishes to marry you—and that you wish to marry him, and you are free from this moment."
"I can't tell you that. He doesn't want to marry me."
"And yet he hangs on about you—he looks at you as I saw him look to-night, he plays with you, he makes you untrue to yourself—and to me!"
"Don't say that—don't, don't. I don't understand him. I shall never understand him. There is some mystery—I don't know what. Perhaps he doesn't really love me—no, I am sure he cannot really love me"—poor Elsie cried out of her tortured soul. "Perhaps he is married already— there has been such a thing even out of books. One thing is certain, he does not want to marry me, and he is going away, Frank; he will trouble us no more."
"Trouble us! Then you wish our engagement to go on?"
"It must be as you like. I'm not worth loving. And yet, oh Frank, if you leave me I shall be desolate indeed."
"I shall never leave you unless you send me away. You know what I said to you, Elsie, when you agreed to become my wife. I said that it might be an engagement before the world till such time as you could make up your mind whether you loved me well enough to marry me, and I said that if you decided that could not be, I would never blame you. I meant that then—every word, and I mean it now, and I had no right to say what I did to you a moment ago about ending it at once. But a man may be tried beyond his true self, and that's, how it was to-night. I'm not a fellow who has nerves in a general way, but somehow my nerves seem on edge to-night. I shall not ask you another syllable about Blake. I will wait patiently."
"Oh, Frank, you are very generous!"
"Am I? You said that to me, I remember, that night—after the Government House ball. I thought then only of protecting you against the world, Elsie, and against what people might say, and the need passed. And now it seems to me there's even a greater need; but it's the need to protect you not against others so much as against yourself."
They had reached the Humpey. It was only ten o'clock. They had scarcely been an hour at the corroboree and so much had happened. The four troopers were drawn up in the back verandah, apparently waiting. They touched their caps to Elsie, and Hallett asked them when they were to start.
"Twelve o'clock sharp, sir. We turn in for an hour's sleep first. We shall be as fresh as larks, and at Goondi by breakfast time, and we're off again to-morrow, a Moonlight trail, I believe," the sergeant added mysteriously. "Government orders. That's why we are doing this job tonight."
Lord Waveryng came out with Captain Macpherson and Lord Horace. He had some sealed packets in his hand. Lord Horace beckoned to the sergeant, and they all went into the verandah room, known as "The Boss's office," where Lord Horace transacted the business of his property. "Where's Mr. Blake?" asked Captain Macpherson, putting out his head.
"He has a bad headache and has gone to bed," replied Hallett, "and he is starting the first thing in the morning back to Baròlin Gorge. Do you want to speak to him?"
"Oh, no. it doesn't matter. I won't disturb him now. He wishes me to go over and see him to-morrow at the Gorge. I had intended going to Goondi at once, but I believe there is some official matter about which Mr. Blake wishes to consult me."
Captain Macpherson's wiry little frame dilated with importance. He liked being consulted on an official matter by the Colonial Secretary. He went back to the office. Elsie walked away to the sitting-room where the other ladies were yawning and waiting till the troopers had been dismissed. After a little while the sergeant came out of the office, his big square frame looking the thicker because of the sealed packets which were securely fastened into his breast pockets, and his inner man made glad physically and spiritually by Lord Horace's valedictory "nobbler" and Lord Waveryng's bank note. The sergeant assured Lady Waveryng that she need have no fear as to the safety of the historic jewels, and seemed even prepared to emulate the Sancy feat in defence of her property. The troopers were also served with a "nobbler" apiece, and they were all sent to lie down on their blankets in the kitchen till it was time to start, Captain Macpherson taking the responsibility of awakening them.
Elsie went to bed, but not to sleep. Her room in the new house looked out towards the hut where Blake was lodged. She wondered if he were sleeping. She wondered if he was as miserable as she—no, that was impossible, or he could never have thrust her away so determinedly. She wondered what was the bar between them—she wondered, and her wonderings ended in sobs.
She heard the troopers ride away with the black boy who was to accompany them to Goondi and bring back the bankers' receipt for the diamonds in order to assure Lord Waveryng of their safe delivery. She heard the tramp of the horses' feet as the men rode towards the Crossing, lost at last in the more distinct sound of the Blacks' war cries.
Blake did not appear at breakfast, and nobody knew what time he had started for the Gorge. His horse had slept in the yard saddled by his half-castes, and it was supposed he had got it himself, and had ridden off before anyone was stirring. The corroboree had lasted late, and all the Dell hands, including the workmen employed on the new house, had been assisting thereat. The staid Mr. Prentiss enlivened his lord's dressing hour by accounts of the doings which would have proved that, as Lady Waveryng had said, the African Assassouis were not in it. Mr. Prentiss had an appreciation of local colour which delighted Lord Horace. Lady Waveryng declared that he also was contemplating a book of travels.
Lady Waveryng spent the morning in elaborating and copying her notes. The Jem Halletts started for Tunimba immediately after an early luncheon, arrangements having been made whereby the Waveryng party were to transport themselves to Tunimba in the following week. On this occasion the picnic to Baròlin Waterfall was to take place. Captain Macpherson went with them as far as the turning to the Gorge. There was an air of depression about the Dell. The Blacks even looked played out after the corroboree, but showed signs of animation in the shifting of their camp and the sharpening of their weapons, preparatory to the forthcoming battle. But, alas! the Iliad of Durundur and Baròlin was not to become history. Lord Horace and Lord Waveryng rushed in laughing, to announce that the two Tommies—Paris and Menelaus—had amicably settled their differences. Menelaus had retired in all the dignity of his chiefdom, consoled for the loss of Helen by a half-bottle of rum, half a ration of flour, tea and sugar, sundry odd fig-ends of tobacco—collected from Lady Waveryng's bounty—and finally a £1 cheque. Lord Horace having accomplished his corroboree, had stepped in to prevent the war. Bessy of the Bean-Tree was to be married that afternoon to Luya Tommy, according to all the rites of her tribe, and Luya Tommy had already given orders at the hut that Bessy's dinner was to be put on the same plate with his.
Lady Waveryng wanted to see the wedding. Here was "copy" not to be lost. She would ransack the store to find a present for the bride, and her wardrobe for a wedding dress. Miss Briggs remonstrated on the score of unsuitability, but to no avail. Bean-Tree Bessy was actually married in a crimson moire skirt, trimmed with black Chantilly lace, which had peeped modestly from under Lady Waveryng's dress in the Royal enclosure at Ascot, and had thus been, so to speak, in very touch with Imperialism personified, to say nothing of the fashion and aristocracy of England—so do extremes of the Empire meet. But Lady Waveryng was not present at the marriage ceremony. For just as they were going up to the camp, there was a confusion and a commotion outside, and Prentiss rushed round to the front verandah, having been the first to hear of the disaster, his face white as death, his knees trembling.
"The diamonds, oh, my lady, the diamonds! They've been stolen."
"Stolen!" cried Elsie Valliant, starting forward, as pale as Prentiss.
"Who has stolen them?" thundered Lord Waveryng.
"Moonlight," dramatically exclaimed Prentiss.