Part 13

“But Paul,” I said, with an attempt at a smile, “you know after all it’s very foolish of me to make such a fuss. They can’t make me marry a man I don’t want to. And I hate him, I hate him. You just don’t know how I hate him.”

“My darling,” he said, sitting down on a log and drawing me towards him, “how am I to help you? I can’t have my little sweetheart’s life worried out of her in this way. Hope, I had better go to your father and tell him all about it.”

“And that would end it all effectually,” I sobbed. “Mother would say I was too young to know my own mind. She would say once you were away I would forget you, and she would get Dick Stanton to—to—”

“Give me the sack,” said Paul bitterly. “Who knows; perhaps it might be best for you. I ‘m not bringing you much happiness, dear.”

“Yes, yes, yes; what should I do without you, Paul? I wish I had not told you! You know—you must know—you’re all the happiness I have in my life.”

“I ‘m sure,” he said, kissing me fondly, “you make all the brightness in mine. But what am I to do to help you?”

“Just nothing. As I said before, they must give me a say in the matter before they marry me right out.”

“My colonial oath! Here ‘s a nice deceitful piece of baggage! Upon my word, Miss Hope! So you ‘re the shy little girl who’s quite overcome if a fellow so much as looks at her!”

He was standing on the rise of the hill close above us, and how he had come there without our seeing I ‘m sure I don’t know, except that lovers always are caught sooner or later, and I suppose it was our fate. I ‘d rather almost anybody than Dick Stanton had caught us though; for he was a vindictive little wretch, I always felt, and whether he cared for me or not he would not like to find himself cut out by his own overseer. We two sprang apart guiltily, and I saw my lover’s face grow red and angry, but not as dark and threatening as the one above me.

“So Mr. Griffith,” said our unwelcome third party, “it’s you who ‘ve been poaching on my manor. What the devil do you mean by it, sir?”

Paul, I saw, was too angry to trust himself to speak, only he waved his hand to me as if he would have sent me home; but I was too frightened to go. I was not twenty remember, and it seemed to me the two men were on the brink of a violent quarrel, and vaguely I hoped my presence might restrain them. I was wrong, I know now; I ought to have gone, and perhaps—who can tell? But there—all the misery of our lives is just summed up in thinking whether we might not have acted differently. And so I took no notice of Paul, though I saw he wanted me gone, and I stayed. Then Dick Stanton, seeing Paul did not speak, for the moment lost all control of himself, and raged and stormed and used such language as I had never heard in my life before, and I was well accustomed to bad language; for my father, when he had pretty well got to the bottom of the brandy bottle, didn’t care much what he said, but he never spoke as Dick Stanton did; oh, never. He was a gentleman at least, my father. Paul stood it just for a minute; I think he was too dumb-founded to speak, and then he made one step forward and caught the other man by the neck—he was so tall and strong, my sweetheart—and shook him as if he had been a child. It was Dick Stanton’s turn to look surprised then, and at first he swore harder than ever; then all at once he looked up in Paul’s face and burst out laughing.

“What the devil are we quarrelling about, Griffith?” he said, and his voice sounded amiable, though I never would have trusted him.

Paul was still very angry, and only made some unintelligible reply, and Stanton went on with a smile which I thought rather forced.

“I say, Griffith, old chap, you needn’t cut up so blessed rough. It’s me who ought to cry out, I think. I go courting a girl; I’ve made that plain enough in all conscience. All the country round knows it, and her father and mother go dinning it into me that she ‘s awful fond of me, but she ‘s young and she ‘s shy—oh so shy!—and the first time I come across the ranges I find this—this—”

I really think he was too angry to think of a word to call me, for he skipped out my name altogether, and went on, “and there I find her cuddled up in your arms.”

“She has a right to choose,” said Paul, a little sullenly.

“And she has chosen. Just my blooming luck all over.”

“And seeing she has chosen,” said Paul, still angry, “suppose you leave me to see her safe home.”

“And what’ll papa say, Miss Hope? He’d rather have the rich squatter for a son-in-law than a poor roustabout, I ‘ll bet.”

“It’s no business of my father’s,” I said hotly, and then he laughed sneeringly.

“By Jove! Dan Forde ‘ll have something to say to that, or I ‘m very much mistaken. Just you wait till to-night,” and he turned away and ran up the hill to where, I suppose, he had left his horse. Some one must have told him to come and look for us, of course; he ‘d never have come to that lonely gully, and on foot, too, else; but to this day I don’t know who it was.

Paul comforted me all he knew; but still I went home very frightened, though I wouldn’t let him come with me. I did not quite believe Dick Stanton would be quite so mean as to carry out his threat and tell my father, and if he did not, I was glad, now that it was all over, that he should understand how unwelcome were his attentions to me.

That night he came round as usual, and as usual I was sent for to pour out their brandy for them, and to make myself pleasant to the guest. He did not say anything to make me feel uncomfortable, indeed he was almost kind and I had never liked him better, only I saw in his eyes he had not forgotten the meeting of the morning and did not mean that I should either. Presently they began to talk about the race meeting. We always had a race meeting at Yanyilla once a year, just about the beginning of November. I forget whether there was a cup in those days, but I know all the people about were quite as much excited about the Yanyilla meeting as you are now about the cup. The township was on our run, only three miles away, and took its name from the station, and the paddock we used as a race course was just within sight of the house. We always took great interest in the races, more especially those for the station horses, which were all supposed to be grass-fed, and therefore, when my father and his friend got on the subject of the entries, I felt quite safe and breathed quite freely for the first time that evening.

“I ‘ve entered Boatman for the Yanyilla Steeplechase,” said my father, “but I ‘m blest if I know who I ‘ll get to ride him. The beggar’s an awful powerful brute, and all the boys are afraid.”

“And grass-fed! Surely not. He can’t do much harm.”

“Oh, he ‘s a brute, I must confess,” said my father, “and no mistake; but he’s all there, and if I can get anybody to risk it, I ‘ll put the pot on him.”

“You think he’s good to win, then? Can he beat my Vixen?”

“Beat her! He ‘ll beat any horse this side of the Dividing Range, once he gets started with the right man on his back. But there’s just the difficulty.”

“Now, I ‘ll find you a man to ride. He thoroughly understands horses, I ‘ll say that for him, though I have no cause to love him. He ‘ll ride for you, but I don’t believe Boatman is as good as Vixen.”

“I ‘ll lay you anything you like he is, if only I get the right man up.”

“Done with you, then. You shall have the right man, that I promise. Mind, you said anything I liked. You won’t go back on your word?”

“Anything to within half my kingdom,” laughed my father, who was getting a good way down his bottle, or I ‘m sure he never would have agreed to what Dick Stanton asked.

“That’s settled, then, for I suppose you don’t count your daughter near half your kingdom,” said Stanton, and he looked at me as if he would have said, “See how I pay you out. Then if Vixen beats Boatman I marry your daughter out of hand; that’s the arrangement, isn’t it?”

To this day, in spite of after events, I don’t believe he was in earnest, for no man could seriously want to marry a girl who had just shown him as plainly as possible she was in love with another man. I think he just wanted to torment and frighten me by showing me his power, as part punishment for my behaviour of the morning. But I didn’t think so at the time. For the moment astonishment took my breath away, and then, when I found my voice, I vehemently protested.

“No! no!” I cried, “I will never marry you! Never! never! I hate you! If you only knew how I Hate you!”

And the two men only laughed at me. My father was more than half through his bottle, or he would never have shamed me so, but the other man was sober enough, he knew what he was doing, and I think was pleased to move me, for usually I would not look at him. I think sometimes now it was the sight of my helpless anger made him carry the joke so far.

“Well, well, you shall have her if you’re first past the post,” said my father, leaning back in his chair, and laughing heartily, “but I ‘m thinking there ‘ll be two Vixens over at Telowie then, and I know which I ‘d rather have the riding of.”

“Oh! trust me. Gently does it. Ride her with the snaffle, with just a touch of the spur now and then, just to show her you mean business,” and he looked me full in the face and laughed, as if he were taunting me with my helplessness.

If I shut my eyes I can see them now, for all it is so long ago. The long, low, poorly-furnished room, badly lighted by one colza oil lamp, the head of a dingo and two brushes crossed, over the mantelpiece, the only attempt at ornament, and the two men seated at the table, the decanter between them, gambling away my life and happiness. Maybe it was only in jest; I try to think so now, but the consequences were so fatal, there must have been just a spice of earnest in it even then, at least on Dick Stanton’s part. But not on my father’s. Even now I pray that my father was not in earnest.

The more I protested, the more determined they grew, till at last my mother came in to see what all the laughter was about, and promptly sent me to bed, and the last thing I heard as I made my escape through the door was Dick Stanton’s mocking voice calling, “Well, we needn’t fear but there’ll be plenty of entries for the Yanyilla Steeplechase, once the boys get to hear that Miss Hope Forde is to be the prize.”

My mother followed me to my room. I think she, too, was a little angry, but she wouldn’t allow it to me, she only scolded me for stopping in the parlour so long.

“You ought to know better at your age,” she said. “It was wrong and foolish of you to stop when you saw they were getting excited.” My mother always glossed a disagreeable truth over to herself in that way. She never said, “Your father has had too much to drink,” though he had at least once a week, but it was always, “Your father is excited,” or “over-tired.” My poor mother; I have learned to pity her for those deceptions that deceived nobody, since I have grown older and wiser. Still, that night she was hard on me. Perhaps because she felt I had been hardly dealt with, and she had nobody else to vent her anger on. That is the way with some people.

“Don’t be silly, now, and cry,” she said, for I had flung myself down on my little bed, and was vainly trying to suppress the sobs that would come, “It’s not the least good in the world to cry. You shouldn’t have stopped so long. It’s entirely your own fault. You have nobody to blame but yourself. There, there, for heaven’s sake, child, don’t cry like that, they ‘ll have forgotten all about it to-morrow morning, when their heads are clear. I don’t know what was the matter with Dick Stanton, I never saw him so excited.”

I could have told her, but I held my peace, and she went away, and I cried myself to sleep.

But the matter was not forgotten next day, for my father told us, as if it were a huge joke, that he had bet me against a hundred pounds that Boatman could win the grass-fed steeplechase.

“So you see,” he said, laughing at the recollection, “it cuts both ways. If I lose I get my daughter comfortably settled in life, and if I win I ‘m at least 100L. to the good.”

I looked at my mother appealingly, but she only shook her head. My father was not a man whose whims could be lightly crossed, and she would not let me even try. Ashamed! oh, child! I was never so ashamed in my life! I hung my head all day and was afraid even to look the servant maid in the face. I felt she must despise a girl whose own father held her so lightly, And Paul, there ‘s where the hardest part of all came. How was I to tell my lover what my father had done? And how was I not to tell him, for I knew that Dick Stanton was not the man to keep such a wager to himself; he would bruit it abroad, if it were only for the sake of angering his rival. I was ashamed, ashamed, ashamed. It seemed to me I could never hold up my head again, and oh, how was I to meet Paul! I thought of nothing else for the next two days, and I had not a chance of seeing him or telling him, for posts were not in those days. And so, though he was only ten miles away, I had to wait two whole days before I saw him again. Then we met in the gully under the shade of the tree ferns. I remember now how the sunlight, coming through their great fronds, made a pattern as of dainty lace work on my white dress, and I studied that pattern carefully, and tried to make out what it reminded me of, though I heard quite plainly a man crushing through the bracken. That is just like a woman though, she longs and longs, and when at last the longed-for hour has come, she is frightened at her own temerity, and half wishes herself back again. I was not often afraid to meet Paul, but I was to-day, and I never looked up till I felt his arm around me and his dear voice in my ear.

“Why, my little girl, my little girl, what is the matter with my little girl?”

Then I told him, with my face hidden on his broad shoulder, I told him, and he was very angry. I knew he would be, but I had not realized how angry, and I was fairly frightened.

“Oh, Paul!” I could only gasp, “Oh, Paul!”

He swore an oath when he saw that I was trembling, and recovered himself a little. Just occasionally, I think, a woman likes the man she loves to be thoroughly angry, and if he does swear then she accepts it as a relief to her own feelings as well as his. So I did not mind Paul swearing, seeing that he was not given to that sort of thing. I felt he was entirely in sympathy with me, and was glad of it.

“What a fool I have been,” he said, “what an utter fool. I might have known there was something up when Stanton came to me so confoundedly civil all at once. He made me a sort of apology for his rudeness to you the other day, congratulated me on my good luck in winning you, and then finally suggested that I should ingratiate myself with your father by offering to ride Boatman for him in the grass-fed steeplechase, and of course—”

“You said ‘No!’ Oh, Paul! you said ‘No!’”

“No! darling, of course I said ‘Yse.’ What else could I say? And I wanted to please your father. How could I know—that—that—what the fellow was up to.”

“But now, Paul, you won’t ride him, now you do know, will you, my dearest?” And because I was afraid he would, I put my arms coaxingly round his neck and tried to draw his face down to mine. It did not want much trying, he was always ready enough to kiss me, my dear love, but he shook his head when I tried to dissuade him from riding Boatman.

“After all, sweetheart,” he said, “I really think I’m the proper person to ride the grey. If you’re to be the prize, well it can’t make any more talk, my riding, and, of course, it will give me a sort of right to you.”

“But—but—you mustn’t ride Boatman, you mustn’t—you mustn’t—you mustn’t. He baulks, and he runs down his fences, and he pulls, and—and—oh, my darling! you mustn’t ride Boatman!”

“What a list of crimes,” he said, smiling at my vehemence. “Still, I have ridden a horse or two in my life, and I’m inclined to think I ‘m equal to this one. He can beat anything, your father tells me, this side of the Dividing Range. I had a trial this morning, and I ‘m inclined to think the old gentleman hasn’t put too high a value on him. Boatman’s an out-and-outer, once one gets on good terms with him. And there ‘s the difficulty no one can manage him.”

I knew then it was little good my speaking; dearly as he loved me, nay, for my sake even, he was determined to ride Boatman. And after all, looked at from his point of view, I think he was right.

Stanton’s Vixen was the only horse in the running, the only one in the least likely to win, and if I was to be the prize, as my father insisted, not once but twenty times, then, indeed, it was very necessary that our horse should be well ridden, and I knew, and he knew, nobody could do that so well as Paul. Then I don’t know what dark presentiments filled my mind, but something told me he should not ride in that race, something told me all was not fair and above board, and with all my strength, with all my powers of persuasion, I tried to stop him. I coaxed him, and he only stroked my hair fondly, told me I had nice dark eyes and pretty hair, and said if I made myself so sweet and dear, it only showed him all the more clearly I must be won by fair means or foul. Are you smiling, Hope? Ah, my dear, it is three-and-thirty years ago, and the remembrance of days like those is all I have. Then I stormed and raged, every unkind term I could think of I heaped on him, and that is like a woman too, I think—when all other means fail she tries anger.

Did he think, I asked, I was so slight a thing as to be bought and sold in that manner? Did he think that my father could give me away in that way, as if I were a horse or a bullock; and then, of course, just as I would have given anything to be dignified and grand, I spoiled it all, for my voice failed, and I burst into tears.