CHAPTER XXXVII
FARM COVE
That was a long week at the bungalow; it was to culminate at St. Philip’s Church in Sydney on the Saturday morning. The license was bought; the bridegroom carried the ring in his pocket; everything was ready but a best man. And here another peculiarity stood out: there was no best man to be had. As in London so in New South Wales: this baronet’s son and heir, this man of blood and means and literary feats, was unbeloved in spite of all. Claire and her aunt had been absolutely the only guests at the bungalow in all Tom’s time there. Nor was it because Daintree had never made a friend in the settlement; it was because he had never kept one in any quarter of the globe.
Meanwhile the ladies came to Rose Bay no more. The happy man went to them instead, and would stop till midnight, to gallop home by starlight and pour out his happiness to Tom until the harbour turned from jet to polished steel; and twice the steel was silver, and once the silver was flaming gold before the poet would hold his peace. It was a long week, but the nights went quicker than the days. Daintree had never been a better companion than in those long, confidential, starlit talks. They were not exclusively on the one subject. Tom learnt at last how the murder had affected the party at Avenue Lodge, and one whole night and day he never closed an eye for thinking of two men in two new and startling lights. They were the living man Harding, and the dead man Blaydes; the first haunted Tom the longer; why had he insisted on dragging Daintree to the trial?
The days were lengthened by Peggy in the kitchen with her kind, uninjured looks, and the unfailing, friendly, amiable word that made him feel the meanest of men. The girl could be an angel when she had him, with all his coldness, to herself. He never suspected what she had been from the Sunday night to the Monday afternoon. And now they were both under notice to leave.
“If only you two would make up your minds to marry!” said Daintree to Tom. “I have you both on my mind; but I could provide for the two of you at one stroke as a married couple. It has long been my wish to start a model farm up country, and you and Peggy would certainly make model managers! Nor is my wife likely to retain all the prejudices of Miss Harding; in fact, I still entertain hopes of our all being stanch friends all our lives.” But Tom shook his head even more decidedly than he had shaken it while the little Rosamund was pricking her way across the chart.
On the Friday—the same breeze holding good all the week—Daintree decided to sail round to Sydney instead of driving. He had a solid cheque to cash for the wedding-trip, and the Point Piper Road was no route for a pocketful of money and a life at its very highest value. Tom asked if Nat Sullivan was still in Sydney, and was told that he had drunk himself prostrate at the Pulteney, whereupon Tom volunteered for the voyage, and so escaped Peggy for one afternoon. To make safety doubly safe, however, they ran into Farm Cove, and Tom and the dog were to wait in the Domain while Daintree went to the bank and called at the hotel.
It was then three o’clock, and Daintree was to be at least two hours gone; but he returned in less than one, bringing Claire with him for a sail. Tom’s surprise at seeing her was less than that of the girl at sight of him; the indignation was altogether on her side, and sufficiently perceptible, in spite of all Claire’s efforts to conceal an inappropriate displeasure. Daintree did not see it—but what they all three missed was the furtive figure which emerged from the trees as the boat put off.
Claire was given the tiller and told simply to obey orders, Daintree took the sheet, and Tom was put into the bows to be out of the way. The sail made a convenient screen; it also prevented Tom from knowing in the least what happened. As a matter of fact, they were just taking the wind—which was by this time fresher than ever—when Daintree’s attention was diverted by an apparition at the water’s edge. It was the man who had followed him through the Domain, and so rapt was the gaze with which Daintree beheld him that he forgot to let the sheet go at the critical instant. Smack came the wind against a sail like the side of a house. “Let go! Let go!” screamed Tom. It was too late. She was gunwale under, the sail lay a moment on the water, drinking it like blotting-paper. Then the saturated canvas sank, and the boat tossed keel upwards within fifty yards of the shore.
Claire sank clear of the wreck, and had the presence of mind to strike out before coming to the surface. And even as the sun lashed her wet eyes, strong hands slid under her arms, and she was being pushed face forward to the shore. The trees were waving in the sun; it was no distance; and Daintree’s dog was swimming happily on ahead. Suddenly, with a piercing yelp, the dog disappeared; at the same moment Daintree began splashing vigorously; and when the smooth sand came under Claire’s feet, but a few yards farther on, her knees were too weak to support her weight.
“The happiest moment of my life,” said a deep voice in her ear. “I have saved—”
She turned, and there was Daintree, up to his waist in water, with the drops raining from his face and whiskers, and shaded eyes sweeping the blue. The boat was coming in keel upwards with the tide. The dog and Tom had vanished off the face of the waters.
Daintree dashed in again, and met the wreck as her mast struck bottom. Tom was still struggling underneath her, caught fast in the cordage; his struggles ceased as he was wrenched free; when Daintree got him to land, his mouth and ears were in a froth, and Claire stood by like a woman turned to stone.
A small crowd collected slowly; it did not contain the man who had caused the mischief; the trees had swallowed him once more.
The crowd surrounded Tom and Daintree, who had stripped his servant to the waist, and was sawing the air with the drenched white arms and the helpless, sunburnt hands. Claire stood on the fringe of the crowd, without a clear thought in her head, but in her hand a packet that had fallen at her feet when Tom’s shirt and vest were torn off and hurled aside. The packet was sewn up in dripping oiled silk, as transparent as glass; through it she could read a name she but dimly realised to be her own; and the voices of those jostling her seemed a long way off.
“He’s dead—he’s done for,” said one.
“Give him time, you fool!”
“Fool yourself! His time’s up.”
“What’ll you bet?”
“A shilling.”
“Done with you.”
Daintree and a boatman were working on and on and on with the white arms that had dried already in the wind and sun. Neither said a word; the next minute must settle it one way or the other.
“Ah!” exclaimed the last speaker.
“What was it?” faltered Claire.
“His eyelids trembled.”
“It was the death-shiver.”
“They’re trembling still!”
“They aren’t!”
“They are; hand over that shilling.”
“He is alive!” said Daintree, looking up. “Has nobody run for brandy?”
Nobody had.
And it was wanted now for two people.
Claire Harding had swooned away.
Daintree had his hands full with the pair of them, but in a little they were both conscious, and able to drive away with him in a hired chaise. They drove to the hotel, forgetting the risk. On the way Tom stretched forth a feeble hand.
“How many more times are you going to save my life?” he asked.
“You saved mine too,” said Claire sadly.
“It is the happiest day of my own,” replied Daintree, without noticing her tone.—“Non cuivis homini—what other bridegroom would have had such luck?”
“Or pluck!” cried Tom.
“I trust I am not lacking in that quality either,” rejoined the other. “It was nervous work after the way my poor wee dog went. Did you see that, Claire? Poor thing, it was a shark!”
“Yes.” She shuddered.
“But if he will but splash a bit, your man of courage is all right. Do you mind if we drive round by the Herald office? They publish on Monday, but it’s just as well to be in time.”
So the conceit of him overlapped even his heroism. And Claire and Tom sat shivering in their wet clothes, while Daintree in his was several minutes inspiring and all but dictating the paragraph which duly appeared in the Sydney Herald. But during those minutes the pair in the chaise never exchanged a word; and afterwards—in the hotel—not one word.