Gripped By Drought Read online

  Looking backward from the security of Feng’s house, her arrival at Atlas seemed like coming home from a stormy voyage. The conditions of Feng’s household suited her independent spirit, which at several periods, never for long, bore with the oversight of a mistress. Here in Feng’s establishment there was no “high-falutin’, la-de-da, hoity-toity city woman” to order her about. Here she was mistress herself. Here, most wonderfully, she could mother a lonely young man, feed him, mend for him, guard him from discomfort, keep his house spotless. From the storms of life she found herself in the haven of peaceful anchorage. Feng she grew to love as she would have loved the baby born beside the track–as she would have loved either of her husbands had they been gentle.

  All this Feng Ching-wei knew or shrewdly guessed, and because of it was the more astonished by the information imparted to him one morning by his cook-housekeeper-needlewoman-guardian. When she had set before him the tray containing the morning tea, she said, in unusually broad Irish:

  “Misther Feng, ’tis a worrd wid ye I’d loike.”

  “Very well, Mary,” assented Feng, smiling into her round red face, in which the shining eyes and the shining button of a nose formed the points of a triangle. Rising courteously, he offered her a chair, which she accepted with hesitation. He observed her eyes to be dim with tears.

  “Oi–oh, Misther Feng! Some’ow ’tis sorrowful I am to tell ye. But–but––”

  Mary burst into tears. Feng waited in wonderment.

  “Oi’ve served ye now nearly eighteen monse, Misther Feng,” Mary sobbed. “All that toime ye’ve behaved like a gintleman, and now–and now––”

  “You do not intend leaving me, do you, Mary?” Feng exclaimed in quick alarm.

  “Oi don’ be knowin’, indade Oi don’t. For shure I don’ be wanting to, but that feller’s been pesterin’ the loife out of me, an’ now he says Oi’m to go ter Menindee ter-morrer by the coach. Oi don’ wanner go–yet Oi do wanner go.”

  “Please explain, Mary, why you want to go and do not want to go to Menindee,” questioned Feng, now racked by the nightmare of living without the ministrations of Mary O’Doyle.

  With great effort she dried her eyes by the application of a red forearm. When again she spoke her voice was steady and her accent less Irish. Volubly she burst forth:

  “’Tis that blackguard ava Todd Gray, the poor little runt. He’s been a-courtin’ avme these last six weeks, and then–him being in Menindee on a spree, as you know–he sent worrd to the sergint of police to marry us next Tuesday. That was close on three weeks gone. The banns ’ave bin posted outside the police-station, an’ I’ve bin arguing with meself if I’d go or not. Now he’s sint me worrd to catch the mail-car termorrer. Oh, Misther Feng! You must be a-letting me go, or he’ll spind arl his money on the accursed dhrink, and come home like poor old Sir John.”

  “But––” Feng gasped, so intense was his astonishment, so terrible his fear of losing her. To be sure, Todd Gray often had been seen talking to Mary O’Doyle at her kitchen door, but courtship and marriage had never occurred to him. He began to make objections.

  “But is Todd Gray going to make a home for you, Mary? Has he got a home ready for you?”

  To which Mary countered with trembling indignation:

  “Make a ’ome for me! Not ’im! I wouldn’t go in it if ’e ’ad. Till you be a-kicking av me out av this ’ouse, a hundred Todd Grays wouldn’t be a-dragging of us asunder.”

  Observing Mary’s bulk, Feng felt tempted to smile, but temptation fled before the seriousness of this affair, which yet was not quite clear. He said:

  “Then it is his intention, and yours too, to return to Atlas when married?”

  “Shure,” she said simply.

  “As a married couple you intend carrying on your present occupations?” Feng pressed, with rising hope.

  “You agreein’, Misther Feng.” Mary grew scarlet. “Todd could cart his dunnage from his room, and come and camp in my room here. It–it’s big enough for two.”

  Feng’s gaze dropped. For a little while he was silent. Then:

  “Supposing I could not agree to that, Mary?”

  “Then it’s a widder I’ll be stoppin’. If ut’s me choice, I choose me presint job, for I’m rememberin’ ’ow it was you who picked me out av the Gutter av Australia.”

  “But I have no objection, Mary,” Feng said, suddenly smiling at her. “If you want Todd for your husband, you shall have him. Besides your present room you shall have the one next it for a living-room or a sitting-room, whichever you prefer. There is no finer quality than loyalty. It was my intention to leave for Broken Hill next Tuesday in the station car, but we will leave to-morrow evening for Menindee, and I will stay over Tuesday and attend your wedding.

  If you like, Mary, I will give away the bride. Would that please you?”

  For the second time Mary O’Doyle burst into tears.

  2

  The township of Menindee on the Darling River, about 180 miles from that river’s junction with the Murray, marks one of the oldest settlements in the west of the State. It was there when Burke and Wills passed through on their last ill-omened journey. And that was not so long ago, for an old resident there to-day describes their passage, and how common members of the party dared not dismount and rest their tired horses till the leader chose to command them to do so. With that kind of leader success was impossible.

  Like many bush towns, Menindee to-day is but the ghost of its former self. In these years of drought it supported three hotels, a convent, a hall, several general stores, a police-station, and a school, besides some thirty dwellings constructed mainly of odd lengths of corrugated iron and many hessian bags. It is built on a belt of reddish sand which rolls toward the river from the wilderness round Lake Menindee, which is sometimes filled through a creek by the river when in flood.

  To Menindee on the Monday afternoon drove Feng Ching-wei in the big station car, with Mary O’Doyle sitting beside him. In the Australian cities, or in any other country, what Feng had determined to do would have meant ostracism from his class. It did horrify Ethel Mayne, but she knew nothing of it till after it was over.

  Arrived at Menindee, they discovered that Todd Gray was staying at the Menindee Hotel, and, consequently, Feng secured rooms for Mary and himself at the Albemarle Hotel across the sand-dune that constituted the main street.

  The following morning, when Feng Ching-wei entered the dining-room, he found Mary O’Doyle already at breakfast, and he nonplussed a squatter, two jackeroos, and a director of a chain of stores when he smilingly declined their invitation to join them, and slipped into a chair facing the bride, who sat alone at a separate table.

  Mary O’Doyle wore a black dress trimmed with grey velvet. Her hair now was ruffled in a style most unlike her usual “bun” affair, but which despite the greyness vanquished many years. Afterwards Feng discovered that on her heavy feet were elastic-sided riding-boots. But Mary’s face was shining with suppressed excitement, her small blue eyes emitting a marvellous light.

  “Well, Mary, are you quite prepared to face this important day?” he asked, before attacking lamb’s fry and bacon.

  “For shure, Misther Feng,” she replied, smiling broadly. “Y’see, it’ll be me thirrd weddin’. I know just wot to do to stop the confetti getting entangled in me ’air. But will ye be doing av me a favour?”

  “Why, certainly.”

  “Then, whin I go along to the store to buy me one or two things, will you dig up that blackguard av a Todd Gray, an’ sober him up for the ceremony?”

  “But surely he will not be intoxicated this day of all days?” expostulated Feng.

  “Don’t ye be believin’ av it, Misther Feng. Weddin’ days are a grand excuse for boozin’ an’ all. Don’t I know it! Todd an’ his cobbers will be starting out early, each seeing the other wan keeps sober. An’ it’ll be: ‘All right. Only one now.’ An’ they’ll say it that many times that they’ll get as drunk as me uncle at a wake.
Lor’ bless you! He got that drunk he daren’t lie down for fear he’d drown.”

  “Humph! Might be as well for me to go along and shepherd Todd,” Feng conceded, a trifle grimly. “We are due at the sergeant’s office at one o’clock. When you have completed your shopping, return here. The wedding breakfast is timed to start immediately we return to the hotel from the police-station.”

  “The weddin’ breakfast! An’ who’ll be giving that?”

  “I shall, of course, Mary. The giver of the bride always provides a breakfast.”

  “You will! Oh!” For three seconds of time Mary gazed at him before her lips began to tremble. At last she said: “I–I never ’ad no weddin’ breakfast afore.”

  And thus Feng Ching-wei came to understand that Mary O’Doyle never had become used to accepting kindness, and that, perhaps for the first time in her life, she was feeling the feminine comfort of leaning on one of the supposedly stronger sex. Her obvious and childlike gratitude delighted him. He felt both pleased and thankful that at great expense he had, over the telephone, induced a friend to bring that morning from Broken Hill a present for the bride and the largest wedding-cake procurable.

  Breakfast finished, he parted from Mary O’Doyle, and, after completing arrangements with the landlady for the wedding breakfast, sought and found the bridegroom-elect drinking to his future happiness with Ten Pot Dick and several cronies in the bar of the Menindee Hotel. At his call Todd Gray came out to the veranda, where he was firmly invited to be seated on the long bench. Said Feng sternly:

  “I am told, Todd, that you intend to marry Mary O’Doyle this morning. Is that correct?”

  “You bet, Mr. Feng,” Todd replied, grinning sheepishly.

  “Excellent, Todd! Let us discuss details. Mary told me that the arrangements for the ceremony have been made.. Pardon my inquisitiveness, but I am to give away the bride. I suppose you were very drunk last night?”

  Again that sheepish grin. Todd Gray’s usually fierce grey eyes were flecked with red, but he was newly shaved and appeared clean and natty in a new suit.

  “Well, old Ten Pot Dick and me did have a few,” was his admission.

  “That I do not doubt. Still, as last night was your last as a benedict, over-indulgence was excusable. But to-day you owe it to Mary to keep perfectly sober.” Todd found himself being regarded by blue-black eyes boring inward to the secret recesses of his being. He began to fidget–which was not remarkable. Feng’s voice had grown steely in tone. “I want you to understand, Todd, that I take a great interest in your wife-to-be. I will not have you do anything to spoil the day for her. I am very serious about this. You will not take another drop till you are about to start for the sergeant’s office, if then. Let Ten Pot Dick do as he likes. Who is to be your best man?”

  “Old Ten Pot Dick, Mr. Feng.”

  Feng noted the flash of shame come and go in the other’s eyes. He was aware that in the long ago Gray was well-circumstanced.

  Constant association with men of a lower educational level had slurred his speech, but never had vanquished a love for good books.

  “I’ll play the game,” Todd said, and Feng knew that he would.

  The rest of that morning Feng spent in the lounge of his hotel. He saw Mary come in and pass along to her room. His friend from Broken Hill arrived in a dust-covered, powerful car, when an enormous wedding cake was placed in the care of the landlady. At half-past twelve Ann Shelley drove up in her single-seater.

  “Feng, you are a dear to ’phone me about this,” she exclaimed when he greeted her in the hall. “But you did not give me much time, did you?”

  Holding both her hands in his, smiling blandly into her expressive face, his pulses raced at the touch of her. If only he had the right to take her in his arms! If only it were his wedding day, and this lovely, fresh and pure woman was to be his bride! But thoughts forbidden! Master of himself, he pushed them down into oblivion with the punt-pole of pain.

  “I did not know myself till Sunday morning, and did not think to invite you until this morning,” he told her, now smiling in his inscrutable fashion. “Mary is in her room. It is number six. Some day I will recite her history, when you will, I know, agree with me that she is entitled to any little happiness we can secure for her.” He glanced at his watch. “It is now twenty minutes to one. Will you go to her and talk to her nicely, and then bring her here for a glass of wine before we step over to the sergeant’s office?”

  Surprised, he watched her eyes blanketed in mist. Her voice was low when she said:

  “Of course, old boy! Your wife will be a lucky woman.”

  His wife! Turning, he watched her walking swiftly along the passage to Mary’s room. His wife! If only–if–oh, hell–hell–hell!

  Ten minutes, fifteen minutes slipped by whilst he lounged by the main entrance. He saw Todd Gray, wearing a bright-green trilby hat, accompanied by the wild-whiskered Ten Pot Dick, arrayed in new brown moleskin trousers and a coat of violent brown and black check, walk from the Menindee Hotel and trudge over the sand waste to the police-station.

  For be it understood that Menindee’ is a police-controlled town, and that the senior police officer is the registrar for births, marriages, and deaths.

  Ann Shelley called him softly at last, and, turning, he found her beside Mary O’Doyle, Mary wearing now a fashionable hat and smart brown shoes.

  “All ready, Mary?”

  “Yes, Mr. Feng.”

  “Good! We will have a glass of wine before we go.”

  Mary O’Doyle tried to speak again, but failed. For a moment she clung to Ann Shelley as she might have clung to the mother she never had known.

  3

  The invasion of his office by the bridal party gave Sergeant Brown quite a shock. Even though dressed in uniform, Sergeant Brown appeared more like a colonel in the Indian Army than the policeman he was. Matching his appearance were his duties, which were far more those of an administrator than an ordinary policeman.

  The uniting of Todd Gray, whom he had known for many years, with Mrs. Mary Johnston, which was Mary’s last married name, was an affair of no interest to him. The social position of the bridal couple was much lower than his own, and he was prepared to rush the ceremony through as quickly as possible. The appearance of Ann Shelley and Feng Ching-wei in company with a woman, obviously a bride, raised the importance of this affair many degrees, and his official austerity promptly melted.

  He shook hands with the bride and the bride’s escort. He actually smiled at the bridegroom and at Ten Pot Dick, whom the night before he had felt tempted to lock up and charge with the usual d. and d. formula. His front door and windows wanted painting, anyway. He placed the couple side by side before his desk, behind which he stood stiffly erect, and read portions of the marriage service. It went through with only one hitch, and that occurred when the sergeant put the question:

  “Will you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?”

  “Me! My bloomin’ oath!” Todd Gray responded.

  “Say ‘yes’,’ commanded Sergeant Brown, with quick sternness.

  “Yes,” said the groom with less fervour.

  When they had signed the register, when the sergeant had presented Mary with the marriage certificate, Feng suggested that he would be a welcome guest at the breakfast. Realizing now the interest that Ann Shelley and Feng-Ching-wei were taking in Mary Gray, he at once accepted, and, with Todd Gray on his one hand and Feng on the other, and with Ten Pot Dick, all hot and flustered, bringing up the rear, they followed the bride and Ann Shelley across the sand to the road and thence to the Albemarle Hotel. Several men on the veranda of the Menindee Hotel cheered; but, being in company with the elite, Todd Gray refrained from any sign of acknowledgment. Ten Pot Dick, however, believing it to be his duty as the groom’s best man, opened his mouth for a responsive roar, caught himself in time, shut his mouth, and in silence wildly waved both his arms.

  Within the spare dining-room of the Albemarle Hotel everyone w
as surprised at the sumptuous breakfast provided by Feng. Mary O’Doyle–I shall continue to call her by her maiden name, because she always insisted on it–tightened her grip on Ann Shelley’s arm, and drew in her breath sharply. Todd Gray’s under-jaw dropped, whilst sotto voce Ten Pot Dick said: “Cripes!”

  His face, aflame as that of a Dutch cheese, became suffused with the inner light of keen expectation, of fierce desire, quickly to be gratified. Abnormal distance of face surface separated each dirty grey whisker, whilst the twin red bottom lids of his eyes sagged away from the bridge of his nose. His washed-out, colourless eyes grew round at sight of the beer and wine bottles on a side-table. To the wedding-cake, however, he was blind.

  The company became seated. Feng occupied the head of the table. The bride sat on his right with the groom next her. On his left sat Ann Shelley, with the Broken Hill friend beyond her, and beyond him the sergeant. Ten Pot Dick sat on Todd’s right. The feast proceeded with mounting gaiety, and at last the maid brought in a huge carving knife, which was handed to Mary, who cut the cake with the delight of a child. Feng rose to speak.

  “Friends, before we drink the health of the bridal couple, I wish to make them a small gift in token of my esteem. When you smoke one of these pipes, Todd, remember your oath to love and cherish your wife Mary, which oath you have made to-day.” Laying before the groom a handsome case of pipes, he began to remove the wrapping from a small box, eventually revealing an expensive gold watch attached to a long gold chain. Slipping the chain over her head, he added in his soft tones: “Mary, may you have all the happiness you deserve! Now, please, drink to the bride and the groom.”

  They drank in silence. Then the sergeant, like a true sportsman, struck up:

  “For they are jolly good fellows!”

  The chorus came to an end. Mary O’Doyle was weeping without sound. Big tears trickled slowly down her weather-beaten cheeks. With difficulty she said: