Books: Madame Midas
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Fergus Hume >> Madame Midas
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People talked, of course, but Madame did not mind. She had tried
married life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in
human nature had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the
belle of Melbourne as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared,
and the stern, clever, cynical woman who managed the Pactolus claim
was a new being called 'Madame Midas'.
CHAPTER II
SLIVERS
Everyone has heard of the oldest inhabitant--that wonderful piece of
antiquity, with white hair, garrulous tongue, and cast-iron memory,-
-who was born with the present century--very often before it--and
remembers George III, the Battle of Waterloo, and the invention of
the steam-engine. But in Australia, the oldest inhabitant is
localized, and rechristened an early settler. He remembers Melbourne
before Melbourne was; he distinctly recollects sailing up the Yarra
Yarra with Batman, and talks wildly about the then crystalline
purity of its waters--an assertion which we of to-day feel is open
to considerable doubt. His wealth is unbounded, his memory
marvellous, and his acquaintances of a somewhat mixed character,
comprising as they do a series of persons ranging from a member of
Parliament down to a larrikin.
Ballarat, no doubt, possesses many of these precious pieces of
antiquity hidden in obscure corners, but one especially was known,
not only in the Golden City, but throughout Victoria. His name was
Slivers--plain Slivers, as he said himself--and, from a physical
point of view, he certainly spoke the truth. What his Christian name
was no one ever knew; he called himself Slivers, and so did everyone
else, without even an Esquire or a Mister to it--neither a head nor
a tail to add dignity to the name.
Slivers was as well known in Sturt Street and at 'The Corner' as the
town clock, and his tongue very much resembled that timepiece,
inasmuch as it was always going. He was a very early settler; in
fact, so remarkably early that it was currently reported the first
white men who came to Ballarat found Slivers had already taken up
his abode there, and lived in friendly relations with the local
blacks. He had achieved this amicable relationship by the trifling
loss of a leg, an arm, and an eye, all of which portions of his body
were taken off the right side, and consequently gave him rather a
lop-sided appearance. But what was left of Slivers possessed an
abundant vitality, and it seemed probable he would go on living in
the same damaged condition for the next twenty years.
The Ballarat folk were fond of pointing him out as a specimen of the
healthy climate, but this was rather a flight of fancy, as Slivers
was one of those exasperating individuals who, if they lived in a
swamp or a desert, would still continue to feel their digestions
good and their lungs strong.
Slivers was reputed rich, and Arabian-Night-like stories were told
of his boundless wealth, but no one ever knew the exact amount of
money he had, and as Slivers never volunteered any information on
the subject, no one ever did know. He was a small, wizen-looking
little man, who usually wore a suit of clothes a size too large for
him, wherein scandal-mongers averred his body rattled like a dried
pea in a pod. His hair was white, and fringed the lower portion of
his yellow little scalp in a most deceptive fashion. With his hat on
Slivers looked sixty; take it off and his bald head immediately
added ten years to his existence. His one eye was bright and sharp,
of a greyish colour, and the loss of the other was replaced by a
greasy black patch, which gave him a sinister appearance. He was
cleaned shaved, and had no teeth, but notwithstanding this want, his
lips gripped the stem of his long pipe in a wonderfully tenacious
and obstinate manner. He carried on the business of a mining agent,
and knowing all about the country and the intricacies of the mines,
he was one of the cleverest speculators in Ballarat.
The office of Slivers was in Sturt Street, in a dirty, tumble-down
cottage wedged between two handsome modern buildings. It was a
remnant of old Ballarat which had survived the rage for new houses
and highly ornamented terraces. Slivers had been offered money for
that ricketty little shanty, but he declined to sell it, averring
that as a snail grew to fit his house his house had grown to fit
him.
So there it stood--a dingy shingle roof overgrown with moss--a
quaint little porch and two numerously paned windows on each side.
On top of the porch a sign-board--done by Slivers in the early days,
and looking like it--bore the legend 'Slivers, mining agent.' The
door did not shut--something was wrong with it, so it always stood
ajar in a hospitable sort of manner. Entering this, a stranger would
find himself in a dark low-roofed passage, with a door at the end
leading to the kitchen, another on the right leading to the bedroom,
and a third on the left leading to the office, where most of
Slivers' indoor life was spent. He used to stop here nearly all day
doing business, with the small table before him covered with scrip,
and the mantelpiece behind him covered with specimens of quartz, all
labelled with the name of the place whence they came. The inkstand
was dirty, the ink thick and the pens rusty; yet, in spite of all
these disadvantages, Slivers managed to do well and make money. He
used to recommend men to different mines round about, and whenever a
manager wanted men, or new hands wanted work, they took themselves
off to Slivers, and were sure to be satisfied there. Consequently,
his office was nearly always full; either of people on business or
casual acquaintances dropping in to have a drink--Slivers was
generous in the whisky line--or to pump the old man about some new
mine, a thing which no one ever managed to do. When the office was
empty, Slivers would go on sorting the scrip on his table, drinking
his whisky, or talking to Billy. Now Billy was about as well known
in Ballarat as Slivers, and was equally as old and garrulous in his
own way. He was one of those large white yellow-crested cockatoos
who, in their captivity, pass their time like galley-slaves, chained
by one leg. Billy, however, never submitted to the indignity of a
chain--he mostly sat on Slivers' table or on his shoulder,
scratching his poll with his black claw, or chattering to Slivers in
a communicative manner. People said Billy was Slivers' evil spirit,
and as a matter of fact, there was something uncanny in the wisdom
of the bird. He could converse fluently on all occasions, and needed
no drawing out, inasmuch as he was always ready to exhibit his
powers of conversation. He was not a pious bird--belonging to
Slivers, he could hardly be expected to be--and his language was
redolent of Billingsgate. So Billy being so clever was quite a
character in his way, and, seated on Slivers' shoulder with his
black bead of an eye watching his master writing with the rusty pen,
they looked a most unholy pair.
The warm sunlight poured through the dingy windows of the office,
and filled the dark room with a sort of sombre glory. The atmosphere
of Slivers' office was thick and dusty, and the sun made long beams
of light through the heavy air. Slivers had pushed all the scrip and
loose papers away, and was writing a letter in the little clearing
caused by their removal. On the old-fashioned inkstand was a paper
full of grains of gold, and on this the sunlight rested, making it
glitter in the obscurity of the room. Billy, seated on Slivers'
shoulder, was astonished at this, and, inspired by a spirit of
adventure, he climbed down and waddled clumsily across the table to
the inkstand, where he seized a small nugget in his beak and made
off with it. Slivers looked up from his writing suddenly: so, being
detected, Billy stopped and looked at him, still carrying the nugget
in his beak.
'Drop it,' said Slivers severely, in his rasping little voice. Billy
pretended not to understand, and after eyeing Slivers for a moment
or two resumed his journey. Slivers stretched out his hand for the
ruler, whereupon Billy, becoming alive to his danger, dropped the
nugget, and flew down off the table with a discordant shriek.
'Devil! devil! devil!' screamed this amiable bird, flopping up and
down on the floor. 'You're a liar! You're a liar! Pickles.'
Having delivered himself of this bad language, Billy waddled to his
master's chair, and climbing up by the aid of his claws and beak,
soon established himself in his old position. Slivers, however, was
not attending to him, as he was leaning back in his chair drumming
in an absent sort of way with his lean fingers on the table. His
cork arm hung down limply, and his one eye was fixed on a letter
lying in front of him. This was a communication from the manager of
the Pactolus Mine requesting Slivers to get him more hands, and
Slivers' thoughts had wandered away from the letter to the person
who wrote it, and from thence to Madame Midas.
'She's a clever woman,' observed Slivers, at length, in a musing
sort of tone, 'and she's got a good thing on in that claim if she
only strikes the Lead.'
'Devil,' said Billy once more, in a harsh voice.
'Exactly,' answered Slivers, 'the Devil's Lead. Oh, Lord! what a
fool I was not to have collared that ground before she did; but that
infernal McIntosh never would tell me where the place was. Never
mind, I'll be even with him yet; curse him.'
His expression of face was not pleasant as he said this, and he
grasped the letter in front of him in a violent way, as if he were
wishing his long fingers were round the writer's throat. Tapping
with his wooden leg on the floor, he was about to recommence his
musings, when he heard a step in the passage, and the door of his
office being pushed violently open, a man entered without further
ceremony, and flung himself down on a chair near the window.
'Fire!' said Billy, on seeing this abrupt entry; 'how's your
mother!--Ballarat and Bendigo--Bendigo and Ballarat.'
The newcomer was a man short and powerfully built, dressed in a
shabby-genteel sort of way, with a massive head covered with black
hair, heavy side whiskers and moustache, and a clean shaved chin,
which had that blue appearance common to very dark men who shave.
His mouth--that is, as much as could be seen of it under the
drooping moustache--was weak and undecided, and his dark eyes so
shifty and restless that they seemed unable to meet a steady gaze,
but always looked at some inanimate object that would not stare them
out of countenance.
'Well, Mr Randolph Villiers,' croaked Slivers, after contemplating
his visitor for a few moments, 'how's business?'
'Infernally bad,' retorted Mr Villiers, pulling out a cigar and
lighting it. 'I've lost twenty pounds on those Moscow shares.'
'More fool you,' replied Slivers, courteously, swinging round in his
chair so as to face Villiers. 'I could have told you the mine was no
good; but you will go on your own bad judgment.'
'It's like getting blood out of a stone to get tips from you,'
growled Villiers, with a sulky air. 'Come now, old boy,' in a
cajoling manner, 'tell us something good--I'm nearly stone broke,
and I must live.'
'I'm hanged if I see the necessity,' malignantly returned Slivers,
unconsciously quoting Voltaire; 'but if you do want to get into a
good thing--'
'Yes! yes!' said the other, eagerly bending forward.
'Get an interest in the Pactolus,' and the agreeable old gentleman
leaned back and laughed loudly in a raucous manner at his visitor's
discomfited look.
'You ass,' hissed Mr Villiers, between his closed teeth; 'you know
as well as I do that my infernal wife won't look at me.'
'Ho, ho!' laughed the cockatoo, raising his yellow crest in an angry
manner; 'devil take her--rather!'
'I wish he would!' muttered Villiers, fervently; then with an uneasy
glance at Billy, who sat on the old man's shoulder complacently
ruffling his feathers, he went on: 'I wish you'd screw that bird's
neck, Slivers; he's too clever by half.'
Slivers paid no attention to this, but, taking Billy off his
shoulder, placed him on the floor, then turned to his visitor and
looked at him fixedly with his bright eye in such a penetrating
manner that Villiers felt it go through him like a gimlet.
'I hate your wife,' said Slivers, after a pause.
'Why the deuce should you?' retorted Villiers, sulkily. 'You ain't
married to her.'
'I wish I was,' replied Slivers with a chuckle. 'A fine woman, my
good sir! Why, if I was married to her I wouldn't sneak away
whenever I saw her. I'd go up to the Pactolus claim and there I'd
stay.'
'It's easy enough talking,' retorted Villiers crossly, 'but you
don't know what a fiend she is! Why do you hate her?'
'Because I do,' retorted Slivers. 'I hate her; I hate McIntosh; the
whole biling of them; they've got the Pactolus claim, and if they
find the Devil's Lead they'll be millionaires.'
'Well,' said the other, quite unmoved, 'all Ballarat knows that
much.'
'But I might have had it!' shrieked Slivers, getting up in an
excited manner, and stumping up and down the office. 'I knew Curtis,
McIntosh and the rest were making their pile, but I couldn't find
out where; and now they're all dead but McIntosh, and the prize has
slipped through my fingers, devil take them!'
'Devil take them,' echoed the cockatoo, who had climbed up again on
the table, and was looking complacently at his master.
'Why don't you ruin your wife, you fool?' said Slivers, turning
vindictively on Villiers. 'You ain't going to let her have all the
money while you are starving, are you?'
'How the deuce am I to do that?' asked Villiers, sulkily, relighting
his cigar.
'Get the whip hand of her,' snarled Slivers, viciously; 'find out if
she's in love, and threaten to divorce her if she doesn't go
halves.'
'There's no chance of her having any lovers,' retorted Villiers;
'she's a piece of ice.'
'Ice melts,' replied Slivers, quickly. 'Wait till "Mr Right" comes
along, and then she'll begin to regret being married to you, and
then--'
'Well?'
'You'll have the game in your own hands,' hissed the wicked old man,
rubbing his hands. 'Oh!' he cried, spinning round on his wooden leg,
'it's a lovely idea. Wait till we meet "Mr Right", just wait,' and
he dropped into his chair quite overcome by the state of excitement
he had worked himself into.
'If you've quite done with those gymnastics, my friend,' said a soft
voice near the door, 'perhaps I may enter.'
Both the inmates of the office looked up at this, and saw that two
men were standing at the half-open door--one an extremely handsome
young man of about thirty, dressed in a neat suit of blue serge, and
wearing a large white wide-awake hat, with a bird's-eye handkerchief
twisted round it. His companion was short and heavily built, dressed
somewhat the same, but with his black hat pulled down over his eyes.
'Come in,' growled Slivers, angrily, when he saw his visitors. 'What
the devil do you want?'
'Work,' said the young man, advancing to the table. 'We are new
arrivals in the country, and were told to come to you to get work.'
'I don't keep a factory,' snarled Slivers, leaning forward.
'I don't think I would come to you if you did,' retorted the
stranger, coolly. 'You would not be a pleasant master either to look
at or to speak to.'
Villiers laughed at this, and Slivers stared dumbfounded at being
spoken to in such a manner.
'Devil,' broke in Billy, rapidly. 'You're a liar--devil.'
'Those, I presume, are your master's sentiments towards me,' said
the young man, bowing gravely to the bird. 'But as soon as he
recovers the use of his tongue, I trust he will tell us if we can
get work or not.'
Slivers was just going to snap out a refusal, when he caught sight
of McIntosh's letter on the table, and this recalled to his mind the
conversation he had with Mr Villiers. Here was a young man handsome
enough to make any woman fall in love with him, and who, moreover,
had a clever tongue in his head. All Slivers' animosity revived
against Madame Midas as he thought of the Devil's Lead, and he
determined to use this young man as a tool to ruin her in the eyes
of the world. With these thoughts in his mind, he drew a sheet of
paper towards him, and dipping the rusty pen in the thick ink,
prepared to question his visitors as to what they could do, with a
view to sending them out to the Pactolus claim.
'Names?' he asked, grasping his pen firmly in his left hand.
'Mine,' said the stranger, bowing, 'is Gaston Vandeloup, my friend's
Pierre Lemaire--both French.'
Slivers scrawled this down in the series of black scratches, which
did duty with him for writing.
'Where do you come from?' was his next question.
'The story,' said M. Vandeloup, with suavity, 'is too long to repeat
at present; but we came to-day from Melbourne.'
'What kind of work can you do?' asked Slivers, sharply.
'Anything that turns up,' retorted the Frenchman.
'I was addressing your companion, sir; not you,' snarled Slivers,
turning viciously on him.
'I have to answer for both,' replied the young man, coolly, slipping
one hand into his pocket and leaning up against the door in a
negligent attitude, 'my friend is dumb.'
'Poor devil!' said Slivers, harshly.
'But,' went on Vandeloup, sweetly, 'his legs, arms, and eyes are all
there.'
Slivers glared at this fresh piece of impertinence, but said
nothing. He wrote a letter to McIntosh, recommending him to take on
the two men, and handed it to Vandeloup, who received it with a bow.
'The price of your services, Monsieur?' he asked.
'Five bob,' growled Slivers, holding out his one hand.
Vandeloup pulled out two half-crowns and put them in the thin, claw-
like fingers, which instantly closed on them.
'It's a mining place you're going to,' said Slivers, pocketing the
money; 'the Pactolus claim. There's a pretty woman there. Have a
drink?'
Vandeloup declined, but his companion, with a grunt, pushed past
him, and filling a tumbler with the whisky, drank it off. Slivers
looked ruefully at the bottle, and then hastily put it away, in case
Vandeloup should change his mind and have some.
Vandeloup put on his hat and went to the door, out of which Pierre
had already preceded him.
'I trust, gentlemen,' he said, with a graceful bow, 'we shall meet
again, and can then discuss the beauty of this lady to whom Mr
Slivers alludes. I have no doubt he is a judge of beauty in others,
though he is so incomplete himself.'
He went out of the door, and then Slivers sprang up and rushed to
Villiers.
'Do you know who that is?' he asked, in an excited manner, pulling
his companion to the window.
Villiers looked through the dusty panes, and saw the young Frenchman
walking away, as handsome and gallant a man as he had ever seen,
followed by the slouching figure of his friend.
'Vandeloup,' he said, turning to Slivers, who was trembling with
excitement.
'No, you fool,' retorted the other, triumphantly. That is "Mr
Right".'
CHAPTER III
MADAME MIDAS AT HOME
Madame Midas was standing on the verandah of her cottage, staring
far away into the distance, where she could see the tall chimney and
huge mound of white earth which marked the whereabouts of the
Pactolus claim. She was a tall voluptuous-looking woman of what is
called a Junoesque type--decidedly plump, with firm white hands and
well-formed feet. Her face was of a whitish tint, more like marble
than flesh, and appeared as if modelled from the antique--with the
straight Greek nose, high and smooth forehead, and full red mouth,
with firmly-closed lips. She had dark and piercing eyes, with heavy
arched eyebrows above them, and her hair, of a bluish-black hue, was
drawn smoothly over the forehead, and coiled in thick wreaths at the
top of her small, finely-formed head. Altogether a striking-looking
woman, but with an absence of animation about her face, which had a
calm, serene expression, effectually hiding any thoughts that might
be passing in her mind, and which resembled nothing so much in its
inscrutable look as the motionless calm which the old Egyptians gave
to their sphinxes. She was dressed for coolness in a loose white
dress, tied round her waist with a crimson scarf of Indian silk; and
her beautifully modelled arms, bare to the elbow, and unadorned by
any trinkets, were folded idly in front of her as she looked out at
the landscape, which was mellowed and full of warmth under the
bright yellow glare of the setting sun.
The cottage--for it was nothing else--stood on a slight rise
immediately in front of a dark wood of tall gum-trees, and there was
a long row of them on the right, forming a shelter against the
winds, as if the wood had thrown a protecting arm around the
cottage, and wanted to draw it closer to its warm bosom. The country
was of an undulating character, divided into fields by long rows of
gorse hedges, all golden with blossoms, which gave out a faint,
peach-like odour. Some of these meadows were yellow with corn--some
a dull red with sorrel, others left in their natural condition of
bright green grass--while here and there stood up, white and ghost-
like, the stumps of old trees, the last remnants of the forests,
which were slowly retreating before the axe of the settler. These
fields, which had rather a harlequin aspect with their varied
colours, all melted together in the far distance into an
indescribable neutral tint, and ended in the dark haze of the bush,
which grew over all the undulating hills. On the horizon, however,
at intervals, a keen eye could see some tall tree standing boldly
up, outlined clearly against the pale yellow of the sky. There was a
white dusty road or rather a track between two rough fences, with a
wide space of green grass on each side, and here and there could be
seen the cattle wandering idly homeward, lingering every now and
then to pull at a particularly tempting tuft of bush grass growing
in the moist ditches which ran along each side of the highway.
Scattered over this pastoral-looking country were huge mounds of
white earth, looking like heaps of carded wool, and at the end of
each of these invariably stood a tall, ugly skeleton of wood. These
marked the positions of the mines--the towers contained the winding
gear, while the white earth was the clay called mulloch, brought
from several hundred feet below the surface. Near these mounds were
rough-looking sheds with tall red chimneys, which made a pleasant
spot of colour against the white of the clay. On one of these
mounds, rather isolated from the others, and standing by itself in
the midst of a wide green paddock, Mrs Villiers' eyes were fixed,
and she soon saw the dark figure of a man coming slowly down the
white mound, along the green field and advancing slowly up the hill.
When she saw him coming, without turning her head or raising her
voice, she called out to someone inside,
'Archie is coming, Selina--you had better hurry up the tea, for he
will be hungry after such a long day.'
The person inside made no answer save by an extra clatter of some
domestic utensils, and Madame apparently did not expect a reply, for
without saying anything else she walked slowly down the garden path,
and leaned lightly over the gate, waiting for the newcomer, who was
indeed none other than Archibald McIntosh, the manager of the
Pactolus.
He was a man of about medium height, rather thin than otherwise,
with a long, narrow-looking head and boldly cut features--clean
shaved save for a frill of white hair which grew on his throat up
the sides of his head to his ears, and which gave him rather a
peculiar appearance, as if he had his jaw bandaged up. His eyes were
grey and shrewd-looking, his lips were firmly compressed--in fact,
the whole appearance of his face was obstinate--the face of a man
who would stick to his opinions whatever anyone else might say to
the contrary. He was in a rough miner's dress, all splashed with
clay, and as he came up to the gate Madame could see he was holding
something in his hand.
'D'ye no ken what yon may be?' he said, a smile relaxing his grim
features as he held up a rather large nugget; ''tis the third yin
this week!'
Madame Midas took the nugget from him and balanced it carefully in
her hand, with a thoughtful look in her face, as if she was making a
mental calculation.
'About twenty to twenty-five ounces, I should say,' she observed in
her soft low voice; 'the last we had was fifteen, and the one before
twenty--looks promising for the gutter, doesn't it?'
'Well, I'll no say but what it micht mean a deal mair,' replied
McIntosh, with characteristic Scotch caution, as he followed Madame
into the house; 'it's no a verra bad sign, onyhow; I winna say but
what we micht be near the Devil's Lead.'
'And if we are?' said Madame, turning with a smile.
'Weel, mem, ye'll have mair siller nor ye'll ken what to dae wi',
an' 'tis to be hoped ye'll no be making a fool of yersel.'
Madame laughed--she was used to McIntosh's plain speaking, and it in
no wise offended her. In fact, she preferred it very much more than
being flattered, as people's blame is always genuine, their praise
rarely so. At all events she was not displeased, and looked after
him with a smile in her dark eyes as he disappeared into the back
kitchen to make himself decent for tea. Madame herself sat down in
an arm-chair in the bow window, and watched Selina preparing the
meal.
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