CHAPTER IV.
ELSIE'S LOVER.
They were sitting down to dinner when the barking of the dogs announced an arrival. Presently the woman in the kitchen came in with a slip of paper, on which was written, "Dominic Trant, of Baròlin."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Lord Horace, "he has taken me at my word. Saw him at the Bean-tree to-day, and asked him to look us up, if he was passing. He said he was going straight on to-night."
Elsie looked excited. "Dominic Trant! Dominic—what an odd name!"
Lord Horace brought his guest in. Mr. Trant was rather a good-looking man of from thirty to thirty-five. Elsie decided first that he was distinctly Irish, secondly that he was not quite a gentleman. If he had been a gentleman he might have sat for one of Velasquez's pictures, but there was a certain commonness about him which destroyed the effect of his otherwise artistic appearance. He had an accent too, and Elsie detested a brogue. But he had fine black eyes, and a well-featured sallow face. His manner was rather elaborate. He called Lady Horace "Your Ladyship," but after the first time or two dropped into familiarity, and was almost free and easy. He scarcely took his eyes off Elsie.
He explained his arrival. He had stopped late at the Bean-tree, later than he had intended. The fact was he had waited for a telegram from his partner Blake, who was thinking of coming up to Baròlin.
"Your partner doesn't pay many visits to Baròlin," said Frank Hallett.
"Well, no," replied Mr. Trant. "Blake was rather taken in over Baròlin, that's the truth. He was disgusted, and turned the whole shop over to me. It's a fiddling little place is Baròlin, and dull as ditch-water."
"I expect it will be livelier now that the police are turning out on the Upper Luya to hunt for Moonlight," said Lord Horace.
"Oh, Moonlight!" said Mr. Trant with a laugh. "Do ye think they'll catch him?"
"They won't, unless the squatters lend a hand," said Hallett; "and it's a queer thing, but the squatters don't seem so down on Moonlight as you'd suppose. He hasn't bailed up any of them yet."
"They'll not catch him," said Mr. Trant. "Anyhow I'll lend 'em a hand at it."
Elsie looked at him with an expression of dislike. Trant, whose eyes met hers, noticed it, and coloured. "You don't want him to he caught, Miss? " he said.
"No," said Elsie decidedly. "He is a picturesque figure. We haven't much that is picturesque in the bush."
"Surely!" said Lady Horace, "we can be picturesque without bushrangers."
The talk went on about Moonlight. Lord Horace got excited. "A man hunt." That was what he wanted. Big game! You needed sportsmen to take the thing up properly. The police were duffers. And now that there was going to be an election no one would bother about Moonlight. Frank Hallett would be responsible if any of the Luya stations were bailed up.
Mr. Trant looked interested. He turned the conversation on to the election, and they discussed the probability of the Irish vote carrying it in favour of the Radical member. He asked a good many questions as to the strength of the Irish vote, the predominance of Radicalism among the Groondi diggers, and the political leanings of the Luya selectors. Hallett fancied that the man meant to draw him, and showed Mr. Trant that he did not intend to be drawn.
Elsie also scenting Trant's motive, though she could not account for it—surely he could not be thinking of opposing Hallett—plunged into the talk. She had hitherto been very silent.
"Do you ever go to Leichardt's Town, Mr. Trant? to the balls, I mean?"
Trant looked at her admiringly from under his heavy brows. "I leave that kind of thing to my partner, Miss Valliant. He is more of a ladies' man than I am. Perhaps," he added, "I've never had any great inducement till now to stay in Leichardt's Town."
"I have never met Mr. Blake," said Elsie ignoring the implied compliment.
"Blake goes across the border when he wants a spree," answered Mr. Trant. "He runs down to Sydney, and he is rather a card there, I can tell you. I shouldn't wonder though if he were in Leichardt's Town a good deal this winter."
"It is going to be a very gay winter, isn't it?" put in Lady Horace. "The Prince is really coming, and there will be the new Governor, and we shall have a lot of balls. Elsie and I are going to have a good time—just like the old times, before I married."
She got up as she spoke, and went into the parlour. The night was warm, as March nights are, and there floated in the fragrance of the stephanotis, which twined one of the verandah posts. Elsie sauntered into the verandah. Lady Horace was going to follow her, but when she saw that Hallett had come out of the dining-room, evidently with that intention, leaving Lord Horace and Mr. Trant, she drew back and let Hallett pass her.
Elsie had gathered a spray of the stephanotis, and was stroking her lip with one of the waxen flowers.
"How do you like Mr. Trant?" asked Hallett, abruptly.
"I don't like him at all," she answered. "I hate a man who calls me 'Miss,' and looks at me in that fashion."
"I am sorry that Edith asked him to Tunimba."
"Why did she do that?"
"She said we had been unneighbourly, and that she had heard Mr. Blake was a very charming man, and that for his sake we were bound to be civil to his partner. You know Edith rather likes to play the part of great lady of the district."
"She does it very nicely. She is so amiable and proper, and well-dressed, and well-read, and all the rest. She always says the right thing when she is in society. Do you know, I think Mrs. Jem Hallett is rather wasted as the wife of a Luya squatter."
"I see you don't like Edith. But never mind. You will come over, won't you, and leave the jam to take care of itself for another week?"
"I will come on one condition."
"What is that?"
"That you take me to Baròlin Waterfall."
"I am afraid that you will find it a rougher expedition than you bargain for. It will mean a night's camping out."
"So much the better. I have never camped out in my life. Promise."
"I promise, if not now, at some future time."
"Why not now?"
"The river is up, you know, and then it's very difficult to get a black boy who will go near the Falls, But I will do my best. Do you think there is anything in the world I wouldn't try to do if you asked me?"
Elsie's eyes were like stars as she turned them upon him.
It was a way of hers to answer a question with her eyes. But presently she said thoughtfully, "I don't know."
"What is it that you don't know?" he asked: "Don't you know that I would do anything in the world for you?"
"Without any reward?" she said coquettishly.
"There would always be the hope of a reward—the hope"
"Ah!" she exclaimed, cutting him short. "You are not disinterested. No one is. There is always the hope of a reward. I am tired of it all."
She moved away from the verandah post as she spoke, and tossed the sprig of stephanotis from her. It fell on the edge of the steps, and he stooped and picked it up. She sat down on a squatter's chair at the end of the verandah furthest from the drawing-room. The other men had come out of the dining-room. Mr. Trant was talking to Lady Horace. Lord Horace came to the door and called out "Elsie."
"Well?"
"Come along in. Let us do Sharp's chorus. Trant says he has got a voice."
"Trant! I wish Horace wouldn't let him be so familiar," murmured Elsie sotto voce, "Please ask Mr. Trant to try a solo. I can't sing choruses so soon after dinner."
"Oh, don't go in," pleaded Hallett.
"It's too hot inside," Elsie went on, speaking to her brother-in-law. "Let us stop here and be comfortable."
"Well, you are"—Lord Horace began to protest, but was called off by his wife.
"What are you tired of?" asked Hallett, abruptly, as he seated himself on the edge of the verandah, almost at Elsie's feet.
"Oh, I don't know. Tired of people—people who—who do everything from personal motives, tired of stupid speeches, and compliments, and all that."
"Tired of being made love to," he said bitterly —"that's what you mean—of being made love to by men you don't care for."
"Well," said Elsie quietly stroking her dress, "a good many men do make love to me, you know, and I can't say that they are profoundly interesting as a body."
"And there are no exceptions—not even one?" he exclaimed. "Does no one interest you?"
Elsie looked up swiftly, and went on stroking her dress again. "I should like to be made love to by some man who didn't care in the least what I thought of him—a man who would go on his own way straight as a die—not turning as you all do, to right or left, at a woman's beck—a man with a purpose and a destiny—I don't think I should mind whether it was a good purpose or a bad one—a magnificent destiny or a terrible one—only it must not be small or mean! Oh, a man who would follow his star at all costs. That is the man I should like to know."
"Go on," said Hallett. "Tell me more of what you would like in the man who made love to you."
"He must never pay me a compliment," said Elsie. "He must not want to do what I wish. He must make me do what he wishes. He must be my master."
"Oh," exclaimed Hallett, impatiently, "that is a Jane Eyre-ish idea. No man who truly loves a woman can be her master. To love is to be a slave."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I love you, and because I am your slave. Elsie, how long is it to go on? I can't stand much more."
"It shall end to-night if you wish it," she answered.
"But how? But how?" he cried.
"In this way." She bent a little towards him and spoke very distinctly.
"I shall say to you, 'Mr. Hallett, I am very grateful to you for caring for me, and I am honoured by your affection!' That is how the nice girls talk in novels."
"Bah!" He gave his shoulders an impatient shake.
Elsie went on, "I am not worthy of your affection. I am a spoilt, heartless young woman, who has never loved anybody in her life—except Mammie and Ina—after a fashion. I don't think it is in me to love any man—unless he was the kind of man I have described—the kind of man who isn't at all likely to come my way. I am very selfish and very frivolous and very mercenary and very ambitious"
"No," he said doggedly; "I am not going to believe that."
"It is true though, all the same. The only thing that I care about is excitement. I should die of dullness in the Bush. I am nearly dead of dullness now. If I were a man I should fight battles; I should intrigue; I should do reckless things. As I am a woman, all I can do to amuse myself is to make men fall in love with me, and so gratify my sense of power, till" She paused.
"Go on—till when?"
"Till they want what I don't want to give—till they want to come close to me—and paw me—and all the rest."
"Elsie, you are horrid."
"Yes, I know that I am," she replied composedly. "But you know that you are all alike. You all want to paw me. Then I hate you. And what is worse, I hate myself."
"At any rate, you are frank enough."
"It is almost my only virtue, and as you say I make the most of it."
"Go on with the rest that you were going to say to me."
"I would say, 'And so, Mr. Hallett, being this sort of person, and being so wholly despicable and so utterly unworthy of you, who are so highly estimable—and respecting you so truly'"
"Oh, Elsie, don't laugh at me!"
"I'm not laughing at you. I mean every word. You can't imagine how truly I respect you. 'And so'—that's how I would wind up—'I'm not worth dangling after any longer, and you had better find some other girl who will be less frank, perhaps, but who will, at any rate, give you something better worth having than what I can give you.'"
"Will you tell me first exactly what that is?"
"Honest friendship, and a dash of—how shall I call it?—affection."
"That's something gained, anyhow," he exclaimed. "I'm not a bit discouraged; I feel that I have made headway. You said that you were quite frank with me three months ago, and you told me then that there was no affection."
"I didn't know you so well three months ago. I hadn't had an opportunity of learning how estimable you are. Since then I have seen ever so much of you. I have seen you at home. I have heard your praises sung by everybody. You have done all sorts of nice things for me. I should be unnaturally ungrateful—a monster, if I hadn't some affection for you. But affection expresses everything. There's nothing more. There never will be anything more, and there ought to be a great deal more."
"Well, I am contented."
"You are very easily satisfied. My ideal lover, my prince among men, would never be contented with—affection. He would want all that there was, more, and if I hadn't got it to give him, he would make me a polite bow and go and look for it elsewhere."
"That would be because he didn't love you as much as I do. If he loved you he would be satisfied to wait, on the chance of getting the rest."
"And if he never could get the rest?"
"He would be quite satisfied as long as no one else got it."
"Ah—but if the prince came?"
"Then he would accept his fate. That's the risk. You know I told you three months ago that I would run the risk. It was part of our compact."
"Oh, our compact! I had forgotten that we had a compact—a real serious compact. Did we fix any limit for it?"
"You told me," said Hallett, "that I might go on caring for you—being your friend—your lover on probation"
"No, no," she cried; "that means too much. You were to ask for nothing."
"I have never asked for any thing—I have never even kissed your hand. I will never do so till you yourself tell me that I may." Hallett's voice trembled with emotion. "I will worship you as one might worship a star. And you can do nothing to prevent that. In this sense you can't help my being your lover."
"In that sense—no. You are very chivalrous. Now that is what I like. I admire you when you are like that. But at the same time I am going to say something horrid."
"Oh, say it."
"I think, do you know, that I despise you a little for—for—caring so much. That is like a woman, isn't it?"
"Yes; it's like a woman—at least so the cynics who write novels tell us."
"Well, about our compact? I am sure it had a limit—tell me."
"You were to give me a definite answer whenever I asked for one."
"And you asked me for one just now—and I gave it. You said you could not stand things any longer. So the compact is ended."
"No. You said I might end it if I pleased; and I don't choose to end it after what you said"
"What? About affection?"
"Yes. I'll never end it while you say that you care for me the least bit."
"Affection isn't caring. It's what one feels for one's pet horse, or one's dog—or one's friend."
"Well," said he stolidly, "it's enough for me. Since it is that or nothing. I am your friend—till you tell me I am something more."
"But it is ended. I have no more responsibility. I have told you to go. You know you ought to marry. You are going into Parliament. You will be a Minister. You'll have to have a house and to give parties. Political people ought to be married. They shouldn't go dangling after girls"
"Not after girls—after a girl."
"Well, they shouldn't dangle after a girl. It's undignified—especially after such a girl as I am—no money, no connections—except Horace. I suppose, being a lord, though an impoverished one, counts for something—a girl who only keeps a Kanaka boy in the kitchen, and has to make the jam and clean her own boots—oh yes, I assure you, Ina and I have often cleaned our own boots. It's well it's cheap, as Horace says."
They both laughed. Just then someone struck a few chords on the piano. It was Lord Horace. And presently someone began to sing. This was not Lord Horace, who had a nice little baritone, but not a voice like this. And Lord Horace's French—though he only aired it occasionally in quotations, was shaky; while even Elsie, who had only had a dozen lessons from a French Sister in the convent at Leichardt's Town, could tell that Mr. Dominic Trant had lived in France.
Thanks to the Sister, she could understand every word.
"Ninon, Ninon, que fais tu de la vie?"
It seemed an appeal to herself. How could such a person sing like that? She asked herself the question as she got up from her chair and went into the parlour. Mr. Dominic Trant looked at her while he sang. His eyes had something mesmeric in them. Irish eyes occasionally have. The man was certainly good-looking, and he did give one a sense of power. The effect that he had, however, was not quite pleasant. It was the power of a certain sort of passion—not of the highest kind. The power also of unflinching purpose—also not of the highest kind. This seemed to show itself when the man was singing. He began to interest her. He had only struck her before as being rather ill-bred.
"Where did you learn to sing French?" she asked, when he had finished.
She had gone to the piano.
"I learned French among French people," said Trant. "I thought you would like that song. It was sent out to me the other day. Do you understand it? Do you speak French?"
"No," said she perversely. "How do you expect an Australian girl to speak French? So you have travelled a great deal, Mr. Trant?"
"I wish you'd let me translate it to you," he said, not answering her question. "But I am quite sure that you understand it. I could tell that you did by your face."
"Sing something else," she replied—"something English, please."
This time he sang a rollicking drinking song. Lord Horace was delighted. "You must come over," he said. "We must practice some glees, and we'll let you have 'em at Tunimba next week, Hallett."
Frank had to come forward to explain that his sister-in-law had written or was about to write to Mr. Trant, to invite him to join the party.
"I think it is not unlikely that my partner Blake will be at Baròlin then," said Mr. Trant. "I had a telegram from him, as I told you at the Bean-tree to-day.
"Tell me about Mr. Blake," said Elsie, subsiding into a chair, and motioning Trant to her side in a way that irritated Hallett. She had put on her coquettish air, which meant that she scented a victim. "Why doesn't he ever come to the Luya?"
"He does come sometimes," answered Trant.
"But nobody has ever seen him. I feel a curiosity about Mr. Blake."
"What do you want to know about Blake?"
"Is he young?"
"No, not exactly. I suppose he is close upon forty."
"Is he married?"
"No." Mr. Trant laughed. "He is fair game—and difficult game."
Elsie drew herself up a little. She was quite sure now that Trant was very ill-bred.
"What do you mean? Does he not like ladies? You said he was a ladies' man."
"Oh yes, he likes ladies. He is not a marrying man though, Blake. He doesn't care about anything except"
"Except"
"Except adventure, amusement, making money."
"But people say that Baròlin isn't exactly a money-making place."
"Oh! They say that, do they? Well, perhaps they are right. But then Blake makes money in other ways. He has got means. He is a luckier sort of devil than I am—obliged to stick at Baròlin all the year round."
"I say," put in Lord Horace, "is your partner any relation to the Blakes of Castle Coola? Because you know my people know the Coola people. I've been fishin' close there."
"I don't know," said Mr. Trant. "I should think it isn't unlikely. Blake doesn't like being questioned about his people—says he cut the whole lot when he came out here."
"Got into a row, perhaps," said Lord Horace. "That would be a Blake all over. They're a wild Irish lot—got a dash of Fenianism in the blood. There was a Blake who got drowned. He tumbled off a cliff or something. Waveryng knew him. He was a chap in a crack regiment, too. Well, it came out afterwards that he had been preaching to the chaps in the regiment, inciting to mutiny—like the Boyle O'Reilly business, you know."
"Yes, I know," said Trant, stolidly.
"They said there would have been a court martial if the fellow hadn't died; so it's lucky, perhaps, for him that he was drowned."
"Well, as he was drowned, he can't have anything to do with Blake of Baròlin," said Trant, with a laugh.