Gripped By Drought Page 27

  “I am not arguing about my mistakes or my fate,” Mayne burst out. “But I am so damned tired of incessantly hearing about the beauties of England, and being pestered to sell Atlas.”

  “Sell Atlas!” exclaimed Feng, knowing now that Ethel, without his help, had proceeded with her intention of persuading her husband to sell. Mayne sighed wearily, raised his brows, and repeated the now significant phrase.

  “Yes, sell Atlas. Sell Atlas!–sell Atlas!–sell Atlas! I’ll rot before I sell my inheritance and deprive Little Frankie of his.” Rising to his feet, he added: “I can do little here. Andrews is carrying on all right with the shed sheep. I’m off to give MacDougall a hand. We’re criminally short-handed.”

  “But you’ve only been here a couple of hours,” Feng protested. “Come, man! Give yourself a chance.”

  At the door Mayne paused, looking back.

  “All right,” he agreed. “I’Il have twelve solid hours’ sleep–at Mulga Flat. Au revoir! ”

  Feng, pushing back into his chair with pursed lips and eyes gleaming through mere slits, heard Mayne’s car roar into life before rushing away with a diminishing hum.

  For a considerable time he did not work on his books, but sat and smoked cigarette after cigarette. It appeared to him that at long last Frank Mayne recognized the foolishness of his dream of happiness. Now it would be but a matter of time before he saw the stupidity of bringing to Atlas an untried Englishwoman when he could have won a woman whose land-sense was equal to his own, whose sympathies were the same as his own, and, most important of all, would have returned his love in brimming measure.

  To this quiet, studious, unambitious, gentle-natured Oriental, born in an Occidental community, whose philosophy and ideas of personal honour were those of his father by inheritance, it seemed that what should have been in the first place would be in the last with the inevitability of fate. Long since had he known that his love for Ann Shelley, dating back to early adolescence, was, and would ever remain, a dream. Only if governed by unreasoning passion would she take him to husband, for she was as her father, as Old Man Mayne, as every wool-grower who was imbued with the ethics of breeding. She would regard marriage with him, if the thought ever occurred, as a sin against the science of eugenics of which she was a graduate.

  With the eternal sunlight flooding his office, reminding of the drought, he felt that, as the drought was pursuing its way to its destination of ruin, so would the affairs of Mayne and his wife and Ann Shelley go forward to their destiny. Nothing would ultimately prevent that; and, accepting this, realizing all he owed to Old Man Mayne, to Frank, his friend, and to Ann Shelley, also his friend, Feng Ching-wei determined to do all in his power to hasten forward that destiny.

  He had seen Mayne’s wife in Cameron’s arms that day in the cane-grass house in the homestead garden. He had watched them during those occasions Cameron had visited Atlas, and he knew that Ethel loved the man who had “loved” many women. He knew, too, the reason prompting her frantic haste to escape Atlas and flee to New Zealand, as he knew the reason of those successive house-parties, which were to fence her against the fire of her passion.

  But now that protective fence was gone. Cameron would have known its purpose, for he was a shrewd man. As he had desired women before, so he desired Mayne’s wife. As before he had cast aside the playthings of an hour, so eventually would he cast aside Ethel Mayne.

  “Sell Atlas!” She would sell Atlas. She would drag Frank away from his inheritance, leave some stranger in ownership of land that his friend and he regarded so justly as great. To her was debited part of the present financial state of Atlas. To her was debited part of his friend’s worry, and to her was debited most of his friend’s unhappiness.

  Feng Ching-wei hated the woman. Her ingrained snobbery was an offence. He remembered the insult to Mrs. Morton and to old Barlow, the hurt loyal old Aunty Joe and several aboriginals, who had worked for Atlas since they were boys, had received when they were ordered off the run because Mrs. Mayne objected to their colour. Feng recalled the several domestics who had left, angered to fury by the cold superciliousness of their mistress. Nothing in Australia was good enough for her. In her sight the Australians were uncouth Colonials, born to serve, to follow, and to be patronized by the English governing class to which she belonged. Proud, haughty, disdainful, he would yet bring her to the dust, wielding the weapon she herself had forged, the weapon of her shameful passion for a he-man who had stepped from the pages of an ultra-modern sex novel.

  He would free Atlas from a blight greater than the drought.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE POISON BELT

  I

  OFTEN during the early spring days, which were calm and pleasantly warm, Eva took Little Frankie for outings, either up-river to pay Old John a visit, or down-river to the Seat of Atlas. At least once every week they visited the lonely old man, taking with them fresh bread and seasonable fruit, and returning always with a gift of a fine river cod or a brace of those black ducks that are almost as large as Indian Runners and decidedly more “meaty”. Sometimes, if the wind blew hard, Eva pushed Little Frankie as far as the fallen gum tree in the clearing amid the lantana belt.

  This day that they visited Old John, Eva appeared very winsome and fresh in a blouse of white poplin, and a fashionably short skirt of navy serge. Her imitation silk stockings, to wear which was sacrilege on a wool-producing property, were new and her shoes were smart. No hat concealed her light-brown uncut hair, and her hazel eyes sparkled with life.

  Little Frankie in his fawn-coloured coat and brown felt hat, riding in a light push-cart, was a picture of childish health and joy in adventuring forth to meet that kind old gentleman who lived with Bells-bub and the tame birds.

  It will be remembered that the lantana belt covered a roughly triangular-shaped area based on the western sand-hill country, its apex, more than a quarter of a mile wide, lying along the river. It was semi-floodland, lying lower than the level of the surrounding flats, and covered with the lantana peculiar to floodlands. The cane-like, useless bushes sprouted from the ground like giant wheat-sheaves, among which wandering horses and cattle and sheep had created a maze of paths, over which a stranger might wander till overtaken by death. The road to Menindee cut this belt half a mile back from the river, there being constructed of earth banked above a causeway of logs, for after heavy rain the Poison Belt was impassable by any vehicle and boggy enough to trap a fox.

  The man-made path along the river-edge was hard and easily to be followed. For no particular reason Old Man Mayne had named the lantana the Poison Belt, and in it the traveller seemed to be in a dim, sunless world, although the lantana bushes were widely spaced and seldom grew above ten feet in height. The countless openings, the short, twisting aisles, at this time of the year deep in shadow, hinted at ogres and dark mysteries, and Eva was always glad to reach that wide clearing in the centre of the belt where lay the trunk of a long-dead gum tree, on which she sat for a few moments looking down at the small fish jumping from the surface of a river-hole. The clearing she called the Rest House.

  When they drew near Old John’s dwelling Beelzebub, the fox-terrier, raced madly to meet them, and to scamper round the push-cart with much barking.

  “Bells-bub! Bells-bub! Ooo–Bells-bub!” shrieked the child.

  “Down, sir! To heel, you scoundrel!” Old John boomed, coming a little way to meet them too, in his baggy grey flannel trousers and a voluminous-skirted shooting coat flapping in the wind. “Welcome, Master Frankie! Good day to you, Miss Eva! Come along in–come along in, and tell me all the news.” And, turning, he led the way till they reached the garden-gate. There he assisted the eager child to alight, and gallantly bowed to Eva to precede him along the short garden path, he following with the child tugging at one gnarled old hand, and crying:

  “Where’s birdies–my birdies? Ooo, Bells-bub!”

  Arrived at the bush-roofed, creeper-walled veranda, Old John offered Eva a chair, himself sitting o
n a petrol-case near the table, and drawing Little Frankie to his lap. Whereupon the child eagerly reached for the sugar-tin, removed the lid, pushed it back to the centre of the table, and became immovable and silent, two wide blue eyes intently gazing at a pair of minah birds half hidden by the creeper leaves.

  Would they come down to the sugar or not?

  “Don’t talk!” whispered Old John thrillingly.

  The suspense was becoming unbearable, when one bird, quickly followed by the other, swooped to the table, strutted sedately to the sugar-tin, and as sedately began to pick out the grains. So absorbed was the boy that he did not observe the tame galah parrot climbing up Old John’s back, assisted by beak and claws, finally to reach the broad shoulder and rub its beak against a tempting ear.

  “You ole devil! You ole devil!” it said affectionately.

  Eva could not but laugh. Little Frankie’s interest was immediately transferred to the galah, his blue eyes wider than ever. And there sat Old John, with his bushy white brows and long, drooping Viking moustache, gazing down at the rapt, upturned, vivid little face with an expression in his own that made Eva wonder.

  The cat appeared, to receive the child’s loving caress and a saucer of powdered milk. Afterwards Old John made tea in a billy-can and produced a tin containing sugar-coated biscuits. And then, an hour later, having gravely accepted two loaves of fresh bread and a small basket of vegetables, and having bestowed a gift of a fine nine-pound river cod in the bottom of the push-cart, the host walked with them as far as the Poison Belt before wishing them bon voyage, and reminding them to remember him to the Maynes, and to Feng Ching-wei.

  Those friendly little visits were red-letter days to Old John. They helped him to live through the long periods separating the quarter-days when, after having had dinner at the homestead, he would depart for Menindee, where he had business.

  2

  It did appear, this last Sunday in August, as though the Gods mocked at Feng Ching-wei’s determination to break the woman he hated with the weapon of her passion for the man for whom he felt nothing but contempt.

  The shearing, with the additional work thrown on him, had interrupted the painting of a gum tree branch on which were perched a kookaburra with a writhing snake in its beak, and a galah with ruffled feathers and erected crest impudently defying the snake it feared. For his Nature subjects Feng relied a great deal on photography, and for the picture he was painting had found among his prints an excellent closeup of a laughing jackass, but no suitable picture of a galah.

  The shearing this year had lasted hardly a month, but Feng considered that he was entitled to half a day this Sunday to visit Old John and photograph Old John’s pet galah, which would assume anger at sight of a teasing twig. With his reflex camera Feng left the Atlas homestead about three o’clock, and followed the river path always taken by Eva and others who had business with Old John.

  A strong south wind swept along the bed of the dry river, tearing through scintillating gum-leaves of the grand old trees with a sound of sea-waves crashing over rocks. Through the wide-spaced western box trees, when now and then he could see the horizon, he noted how the sky above it was tinged with red, and from experience knew that over all that sand desert swept one of those unpleasantly cold dust-storms that later would recur often and last for days. All the bird life in the western half of the State appeared to be concentrated along the river, where water lay deep at every bend.

  The sky was cloudless. Along the river the air was free from dust, and the birds provided interest. Soft-footed as all his race, Feng followed the well-used path down into the Poison Belt. Here the force of the wind was less, but the sound of it not diminished. Here in the shelter of the lantana it was pleasantly warm in the soft sunlight.

  He came on Alldyce Cameron and Eva sitting on the fallen tree in the little clearing the girl had named the Rest House. They were close together. Cameron’s right arm was about the girl’s shoulder, his left lay across her bosom. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her face was tilted upward, eyes closed, to receive his kisses. Undiscovered, Feng Ching-wei slipped back behind a lantana bush.

  His dream of confounding Ethel Mayne with evidence of her infidelity was wiped from his mind, for Feng could not conceive a man so base as to plan the ruin of two women at the same time. His was not the mind to fathom, and consequently understand, the astonishing action of Alldyce Cameron who, in his pursuit of Woman, had long since adopted the seafarer’s slogan of “Any port in a storm”, or that very old maxim that runs: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, or even the old aboriginal saying: “Drink to-day, for to-morrow you may thirst.”

  The place Ethel Mayne had occupied in Feng’s mind was taken by Tom Mace, and Mace belonged to that category of men who on the surface are highly strung and reserved, yet are capable of dynamic action under stress. Precisely what purpose pictures of this love scene would serve, Feng then had no thought. Nauseated by Cameron’s behaviour, he waited his opportunity. The wind sang across the tops of the lantana clumps, effectively drowning the “click” of the camera shutter when he made four exposures. Satisfied, he then withdrew from his inelegant position, and, making a wide detour, continued on his way, mystified and not a little disappointed.

  He wondered how long this affair had been going on between Cameron and this fresh English girl whom every one liked. Knowing the kind of man Cameron was, he foresaw the inevitable result–unless he stepped in. Legally, neither Mayne nor he held any jurisdiction over the girl, but Mayne did have certain responsibilities towards an immigration society that had assisted Eva to Australia, and had placed her with Mayne on his application. Of this aspect Feng thought less than he did of the reaction of the situation on Tom Mace, and decided to wait and watch a little.

  Old John’s fox-terrier came running to meet him with joyful barks. He was patted, and then he ran back to the small garden-gate, where he stopped, still barking, as though anxious to escort the visitor to the door of the shack. There was no sign of Old John when Feng reached the gate. On his entering the garden the cat met him with tail erect. Beneath the roof of the semi-enclosed bush veranda the minah birds peered at him, and the galah he had come to photograph waddled in its absurd gait across the doorstep. On the floor lay a torn leg of mutton; in a shallow tin was almost a gallon of powdered milk; whilst on the table at least three pounds’ weight of sugar was poured in a scattered mass.

  “Where are you, John?” Feng called.

  “’Allo! you ole devil!” said the galah. Met by silence, Feng entered the shack, then darkened by the far trap-door window being closed. At first he failed to distinguish objects; but, when he reached the trap-door window and was about to open it, he saw old John lying peacefully on his bed.

  Wake up, John! I’ve called for a yarn, and to photograph the galah,” he said cheerfully, and, bending forward, looked closely at the old man. And then Feng felt a coldness at his back, for Old John was not lying in a peaceful attitude. Quickly Feng raised the trapdoor window, fastened it up, and returned to the bed, there to stand shocked into immobility, gazing down on the calm, majestic, dead face of Sir John Blain.

  It was Sir John Blain who lay there, not Old John the hermit. The kindly figure of Old John had for ever vanished. Feng straightened the limbs, folded the hands across the breast, closed the eyes. Sir John Blain lay as several of his forebears lay in the church near Blain Chase, stone effigies of knights above their own sarcophagi.

  The dead man was dressed in his slightly old-fashioned morning clothes, the clothes he invariably wore when on his business trips to Menindee. On the table, as though in readiness to be worn, were the well-brushed top-hat, the fawn-coloured kid gloves, and with them the ebony walking-stick. One stiffened hand held the picture of his beloved son, killed in battle.

  As in life, the severe countenance was newly or recently shaven, because the hair had continued to grow since death. Sir John must have died suddenly, for his clothes appeared almost as though placed
on the body after he had died.

  The first shock having passed, Feng Ching-wei looked about the scrupulously tidied hut, and so found the letter on the table addressed co-jointly to Frank Mayne and himself. Standing, he read:

  My dear boys,

  As in the years passed I called you my dear boys, I fear I do so now for the last time. Since rising this morning I have been suffering acutely from a heart-attack, and now at nine o’clock to-night the pain has become worse and I have a premonition that I shall not live to see the coming day. My life is spent. For forty years it has been a broken life, yet on Atlas, thanks first to Old Man Mayne and finally to you young men, I have found peace and experienced many happy moments.

  Believing that now the time of passing is near, I face the Beyond confident that I am to meet my dear son. I have dressed myself carefully in the clothes belonging to my real social station. It is not an act of snobbery, but rather of pride, a wish to die as a gentleman and not as a broken-down bush hermit.

  Before dark I put out for my pets sufficient food to last for several days, in case no one should call. I desire that Beelzebub be given to Little Frankie. Perhaps Mary O’Doyle might consent to look after the faithful cat. The galah, I think, will be acceptable to Feng. The minah birds will be able to look after themselves, though they will miss the sugar.

  Within a deed box in the chest are the documents relating to my estate. I have left the bulk of my personal estate, unfortunately amounting to only a few hundreds, to Thomas Mace, who has rendered me many acts of kindness, and whom I have found possessed of sterling courage, and imbued with the energy and the spirit which have made this blessed Empire.

  Farewell to you both! May the drought quickly end, and prosperous years attend you!

  John Blain, Bt.

  Slowly Feng replaced the letter in the envelope. The cat was rubbing itself against his legs. The galah was trying to climb the smooth table-leg without success. The dog was standing on his hind legs beside the bed, endeavouring to awaken his master with a frantic paw. Reverently Feng covered the body with a sheet.