The Beach of Atonement Page 20

  “Thanks for the information,” the delighted Finlay said ; and then, added remembrance of Hester Long coming to him : “He worked for a while for a little woman who drives an old buggy. Got a farm near there.”

  “Yes. Mrs. Long, that will be.”

  Again thanking Mallory, George Finlay left Dongara, wondering vainly why Mrs. Long had lied and put him off. That little mystery most likely would be cleared up when he talked with Dudley; and, so blithe was he at the prospect of being near the end of the wearying search, that he whistled and sang when he passed the Dongara railway-station, and was still whistling when he reached the beach track at the Nineteen Mile peg. Immediately he turned off the main road he saw the wheel- and hoof- marks of Hester Long’s horse and buggy, and the tune of his whistle changed to one long significant note. Arrived at the summit of Big Hill, he involuntarily stopped the truck to take in deep breaths of the clean west wind, and examine the beauty of the beach with appreciative eyes.

  “Ah! Now if that ain’t Arnold’s camp down there; I’ll go hopping from here to hell,” he observed aloud, the old bush habit of talking to himself still strong in spite of the years of city life. “And me gallivantin’ around W.A. for six months. Now then, friend and boss, to give you a shock!” With the truck in low gear and brakes hard on, he dropped down Big Hill slowly to the smaller hills, and drove along the narrow, green-walled, twisting corridor until finally he drew up at Dudley’s camp. As soon as he saw Dudley’s truck, which had been his own, Finlay knew his search was over.

  For a while he surveyed the camp, with evident approval written on his brick-red face. It was spotlessly clean, not an empty tin or a piece of paper was there to be seen. Getting out of the truck, he peered into the tent, and, finding it empty, entered, to see some of his own blankets on the stretcher-bed, which also had been his. On the rough table he espied a foolscap-sized book with blue covers, and, lifting the top cover, read a few words only, written on the fly-leaf, before he closed it, sharply realizing that he was prying into personal affairs not his own.

  After seven months’ hunting for a man, Finlay might reasonably have walked from the camp to find the absent owner. Not so the experienced bushman. Having found the “home” of Arnold Dudley, it would be but a matter of hours at the longest before the owner came “home”. He examined the ashes in the fireplace, estimated correctly that Dudley had been gone from camp an hour or less, threw more wood on the red coals, and hung the billycan over the leaping flame. He was eating fried bacon and chipped potatoes inside the tent when Dudley burst in upon him.

  “Good day-ee, Arnold, old lad!” Finlay greeted with the real bushman’s calmness. “How’s things?”

  He was smiling broadly, with not so much as a flicker of an eyelid to betray the shock he suffered at Dudley’s appearance. That appearance he instantly attributed to remorse, and at once decided that Dudley must be brought to see that the killing of Tracy was of less importance than the killing of a cattle-maiming aboriginal.

  “Why! George Finlay! What are you doing here?” gasped Dudley, no less shocked to find Finlay there than Finlay was at his appearance.

  “Come along to do some fishing,” replied Finlay blandly. “Recognized me old truck and added two to two. Knoo you would be home sometime afore dark, and wired in getting a feed ready. Bacon and spuds waiting for you. Well, how are you bucking?”

  “Gad ! I’m glad to see you,” Arnold exclaimed, and then sank down on the stretcher, there to sit and stare at his friend with trembling lips and tears in his eyes.

  The sight of him, a wreck of his former self, gave Finlay a sensation akin to that he felt when his baby almost died. Hastily he arose, and, going out, brought in the warmed bacon and potatoes and tea, and set the food out beside his own on the table.

  “How’s the fishing here?”

  “I—I—oh! good, I think,” Dudley stuttered. “I—I can’t get over it. Just fancy you happening along like this ! I can hardly believe you are sitting there. When did you leave Perth?”

  “Come and eat some tucker,” growled Finlay, his face averted. “You talk worse’n Nora. See you bin getting a few rabbits. Skins went up an average of fourpence a pound last week’s sales. Gonner be a keen demand this year. Stocks in London pretty low. Minx and sable still fashionable.”

  “Have you seen——.”

  “Wonderful wot can be done with Australian rabbit fur,” Finlay cut in. “Come on, the grub’s getting cold. Friend of Nora’s called the other day wearing rabbit-skins wot she swore was Arctic fox. Haw, haw, haw! You could sell ’em anything, these days.”

  “Ellen——.”

  “ ’Ad a nargument with a squatter’s manager last Christmas Day,” Finlay went on, blithely, cutting off a thick slice of damper for Arnold. “I told him that Brer Rabbit was the greatest blessing that ever happened to Australia. See it? Not him. Rabbit skins and carcasses brought nine million pounds odd into Australia last year. That nine millions was earned and spent by Australians in Australia. The measly wool-clip is worth fifty or sixty millions every year, and most of that money is spent by the damned capitalists in every country in the world bar Australia. Come on, do eat up! I want to go fishing. Yes, sir ! The blasted sheep provide silver cheques for absentee squatters, but the good old rabbit provides employment to thousands of Australians in Australia. If I ’ad me way, I’d protect the rabbit for three years, and declare all sheep as vermin with a quid on their scalps.”

  “But tell me, George——”

  “Aw, shut up and eat! You interrupt me worse’n Nora,’’ Finlay complained. “ ’Ere’s me and you got a good living out of rabbits ; there’s thousands of other men getting a good living out of trapping ; there’s the auctioneers and their staffs, and the thousands of blokes and girls in the felt hat factories, all living on bunny. And there’s laws passed and millions of the people’s money spent to exterminate the rabbit, so’s a few squatters can live in luxury in Europe.”

  “I’m eating now,” Dudley said at last. .”Can’t you see that I’m about all in? Tell me of Ellen, do you. hear?”

  When George Finlay finally looked at his friend he saw Dudley’s eyes blazing with unnatural light, and an expression on the drawn face which indicated that further equivocation was impossible. He saw, too, that his deliberate effort to calm Dudley by extraneous discussion had been a failure.

  “Ellen’s all right, as far as I know,” he said slowly, at the same time lighting his pipe.

  “When did you leave Perth?” came the quick question.

  “Last week. Got sick of work, so thought to do some fishing for a change. Storekeeper at Dongara told me about this place.”

  “When last did you see my wife?”

  Dudley had forgotten his food. He sat sideways on the empty petrol-case, his hands clasped tightly, an infinitely pathetic look in his wide eyes.

  “Nine or ten days ago,” Finlay said, nonchalantly blowing tobacco smoke towards his host.

  “Well, tell me! Damn it! tell me of her,” commanded the now desperate Dudley. “Is she all right? What is she doing? Where is she living? Is—is she living with another man, George?”

  “Wot’s that?” inquired Finlay, removing the pipe from his mouth and glaring. “Ellen living with another man! Not much. Wot do you take her for? Think, because she came a thud over that Tracy swine, that she be living with Tom, Dick, or Harry?”

  “Well, no. I didn’t really think it,” replied Dudley, almost apologetically. Finlay was quick to note the subdued manner, an attitude so strange in the Arnold Dudley with whom he had “droved” cattle and trapped. It mystified him no less than Dudley’s appearance, and equally as much as the falsehoods told him by “that Long woman”.

  “You’re crook, Arnold, old lad,” he said contemplatively. “You’ve been worrying over Tracy. I think I told you afore that you wouldn’t make a real murderer’s shadow. Neither you wouldn’t. Forget it! You done Australia a great deal of good when you corpsed him, for he was far worse a s
nake than me and you first thought. Nora got it out of Ellen, got the whole dirty devil’s history of the affair. Listen!”

  Finlay related that history in language vivid with expletives and adorned by his own emphatic opinions.

  “You see now wot happened,” he said, in conclusion. “’E mesmerized Ellen, that’s wot ’e did. Ellen ain’t that unbending kind of tart like Nora. She’s weak and clinging and pretty. You began to think more of golf and cash than of canoodling with her, and her the sort of woman ’oo must be made love to or bust. Along comes Tracy once again and sees ’ow things are, and proceeds to bait his fishing-line while the fish are biting good. If only you ’ad just told me, and allowed me to slit his throat kind of slowly, everything would have turned out all right in the end.”

  “Is Ellen still in Perth?” The question was spoken softly, and on Dudley’s face was a look as that of a man suddenly set free by the Inquisition’s torturers.

  “Ya-as. Still living at Belmont. Lives alone with two servants. ’Ow do you like your bacon and spuds stone cold? Fat lot of good cooking a feed, ain’t it?”

  “Eat, man? I can’t eat. Ellen! I want to know about Ellen. Is she well?”

  “She’s goodo. Sort of worried a bit. Nora goes along sometimes and bucks ’er up, and takes ’er to the theatre or the pictures. I don’t mind Nora going, anyway. Them nights I get three bottles of beer as a bribe to stay at home and see that the baby does his ’ome lessons.”

  Dudley was silent then for a full minute. He sat motionless, just staring at Finlay with eyes that saw him not, for the pictures flashing through the outcast’s brain were those of memory and imagination. Finlay, too, remained silent, a great pity in his heart for both his friend and his friend’s wife, well hidden by his robust and jovial exterior. Then:

  “George, tell me, do you think Ellen still thinks about me?”

  “I expect so.”

  “But do you think so?” Dudley insisted.

  “Wa-al, yes, I do. You see, Ellen never did love Tracy. She says she didn’t, anyway. And Nora says she didn’t, and Nora is always cussedly right in everything. How she came to carry on with Tracy, not loving him, beats me. But why worry about that part of it? Ever since the day when it became infra dig. for a man to thrash his wife twice a week, men have worried about the tantrums of women.”

  “I am glad you think she still loves me,” Dudley whispered. “It will help me to carry my chains. If I hadn’t been such a fool as to murder Tracy, I could have gone to her and told her—told her I still loved her—in spite of everything.”

  A long silence ensued, suddenly broken by Dudley.

  “What are the police doing about me?” he asked. “I am expecting to see them any day.”

  “You’ll be disappointed,” replied Finlay easily. “When I left your car at Guildford I put ’em in a quandary. You were gone without trace. While the police were fishing for you in the river, looking for you on the railway; waiting for you at the ports, and broadcasting your picture and details of clobber everywhere, your real track got as cold as this feed you’re not eating. Even I, who had watched you bumping along the Dongara road, overshot the mark and went thousands of miles astray till Nora, who knows everything without learning it, put me right. The police had no Nora to put them right. They have given you up long ago as probably drowned in the Swan and carried out to sea. Some fresher mysteries are interesting them at present. A lot came out about Tracy, and it is agreed he deserved what he got.”

  Finlay stayed a week on the Beach of Atonement. Then he remembered he had forgotten to send Nora some necessary money and departed, ostensibly to repair the omission, promising to return for a longer stay at the end of a week.

  CHAPTER XXI

  HESTER’S DEFEAT

  GREAT events generally have small beginnings. On the other hand, the fates of ordinary people are affected more or less by great events. An established institution in Australia is the Arbitration Court, to which all industrial disputes are taken, and which also reviews existing awards when those awards are due for renewal. The Judges in this Court are appointed by the political party in power. At this precise time, had not the party in power directed the Arbitration Judge in making an award between the United Road Contractors’ Association and the Blue Metallers’ Union, the ending of this history undoubtedly would have been different.

  It happened that the fresh award was wholly against the Blue Metallers’ Union. The opinion of the members of that Union was that the acceptance of the award meant a lower standard of living; and, since the standard of living had been materially reduced during and after the War, the Blue Metallers’ Union declared a strike.

  There followed much recrimination. The number of blood-sucking capitalists and blood-letting Communists discovered in Australia became truly appalling. We are not concerned, however, with capital and labour, which at such times become figuratively two street urchins ya-hooing each other from opposite sides of the road. What does concern us is that one of the results of the Blue Metallers’ strike was a sympathetic strike of the workers on the Midland Railway of Western Australia.

  The day George Finlay left Arnold Dudley, promising to return within one week, witnessed this railway workers’ strike in full swing. The cessation of rail traffic along the north-west coast was not in itself an all-important factor in the fulfilment of Finlay’s promise, but became so when the ball-race in the off-side wheel of the truck heated and cracked, ten miles south of Mingenew.

  Now it is impossible to drive a car or truck with a faulty front-wheel ball-race. Finlay walked back to Mingenew and interviewed the proprietors of two garages. Neither establishment could supply him with the ball-race to fit his truck-wheel. And until the strike was over it would be impossible to obtain a ball-race from Perth.

  Finlay swore. The situation and the man were such as to produce bad language. Unfortunately, a constable overheard the bushman’s remarks on the industrial situation, and arrested him. Unwisely, Finlay resisted arrest and was awarded fourteen days’ detention in the local gaol.

  So that the indirect outcome of a political party’s direction to an Arbitration Court Judge was the gaoling of George Finlay for two weeks. The effect of that judgment was to be passed on from Finlay to Arnold Dudley and the three women who loved him.

  Towards evening on the day Finlay received sentence of fourteen days from an irascible magistrate, Hester Long emerged from her kitchen door carrying a pail of water, a butcher’s knife and steel, and a small-calibre revolver. It was Friday, and invariably on that day she killed a sheep.

  There was but one task to be done on her farm which a man could do and she could not. A bushman or a butcher can kill a sheep in one second by cutting the throat and breaking the neck of the animal in almost the one action. Hester Long recoiled from that method, quick and humane though it is.

  Adjoining the gallows were the sheep-yards, in a small section of which waited a “killer”. The sheep she dragged from the yard in a manner denoting practice, and, throwing it on the wooden floor beneath the gallows, she tied its back legs and one fore-leg together, and then shot it through the brain. Whereupon, the animal being dead, she cut its throat to bleed the carcass. Cutting the animal’s throat when alive and then breaking its neck was the operation she could never bring herself to perform.

  The skin was lying over a rail in the skin-house, and Hester Long was washing down the carcass hanging from the gallows when her boys arrived from “school” at Tom Mallory’s house in their small pony-cart; and with them, mounted on a spirited grey mare, was their teacher. Edith Mallory had come to spend the evening, having been urged thereto by Hester, who had written her a note. For over a week the elder woman had not seen her friend, and was beginning to wonder why Edith absented herself so unusually long. She waved to Edith, prior to slipping a calico hag up round the carcass and tying its mouth.

  Her boys, remarkably self-reliant for their years, unharnessed the piebald pony and led it to the water-trough prepara
tory to stabling it, whilst Edith slipped from her hack and as efficiently watered and fed it. The horses attended to, the youngsters raced into the house after their mother, and when Edith entered the kitchen she found Hester Long taking from the oven a joint of roast pork.

  “Where have you been this last week, Edith?” Hester inquired, with a bright smile. “You have deserted me, for sure. Sit down there beside the fire, and I’ll have the dinner ready in no time. Now, boys, into the wash-house quickly. I’ve made your favourite apple-pudding.”

  With joyful shouts the children rushed out to perform their evening ablutions.

  “I’ve been so busy,” Edith excused herself, laughing half-heartedly. “What with Tom worried to death by not being able to market some fats on account of the wretched strike, and having to visit poor Mrs. Brown, who doesn’t seem to get any better from her illness, I’ve laid my hands full.”

  “Yes, to be sure,” Hester agreed, yet thinking of the time Edith had spared to visit Arnold Dudley. “I don’t think,” she went on, “that Dr. Cars quite understands the case. Mr. Brown should get a specialist from Perth to see her.”

  “He was saying that he would next week if his wife did not improve. Shall I light the lamps? The days are getting short.”

  Five minutes later they sat down to dinner. Through the large window the sky was rapidly becoming invisible against the lamplight within. A wakeful magpie away in one of the paddocks warbled a few notes of evensong, answered sleepily by the butcher-bird roosting in state in the big fig-tree beyond the door.

  Watching her boys eat with keen appetites, joining in the juvenile conversation, she furtively studied the face of their teacher and her warm friend, and was made uneasy by what she saw. Edith talked a little too loudly, a little too fast. She laughed often, and at nothing. A hint of mental excitability tempered her usual calmness, and it was seldom that her frank blue eyes met those of Hester Long.

  In honour of the visitor the boys were excused the task of helping their mother to wash up the dinner-things. The table cleared, the red-shaded lamp placed exactly on its centre, Edith Mallory read to them from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the absorbed youngsters kneeling on their chairs, one on each side of her, their faces cupped in their hands, their eyes watching the girl’s lips, their ears never missing a word.