Books: Lady Bridget in the Never Never Land
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Rosa Praed (1851 1935) >> Lady Bridget in the Never Never Land
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And memory--so active these late days, brought suddenly back the
vision of him as he had approached her that evening at Government
House. What a great Viking he had looked!--in modern dress, of course,
but bearing mark of battle in a slight drag of the left leg, only
noticeable, she knew now, when he was shy and proud, and under, to him,
difficult social conditions. But what a MAN she had felt him to be
then, among the other men!
It seemed an outrage on her idealised image of him to hear him speaking
in that dry, caustic manner.
'Ah, that's different. The Gulf natives have a nasty way of barbing and
poisoning their spears. An ordinary spear-thrust is nothing to either
black or white. Wombo could have pulled the thing out, and in a few
hours the gin would have been all right again.'
'You think so--well in a few hours she was in a high fever. I took her
temperature this morning when I re-bandaged the wound.'
McKeith laughed shortly.
'It wouldn't be surprising, if you had given her grog and tobacco and
as much meat as she wanted. That what you did, eh?'
'Yes, it was. They were both starving.'
'Well, I wouldn't bank on your stock of medical knowledge, Biddy--not
if I was down with fever or otherwise incapacitated. But that's not the
point--which is that those blacks have been kept here against my
express orders.'
'They've been kept here by MY orders,' flamed Lady Bridget.
McKeith's jaw squared, and there showed in his eyes that ugly devil
which many a black and white man had seen, but never his wife before.
'Look here, milady--there can be only one boss on this station. And
now you'll excuse me if I act according to my own discretion.'
Without another word he walked up the veranda and down the few steps
connecting it with the Old Humpey. She heard him go into his office,
and presently the door of it slammed behind him. She knew that he was
going to the culprits in the hide-house, and wondered what punishment
he would mete unto them. Had he gone to the office for his gun? At this
moment, anything seemed possible to Lady Bridget's heated temper and
excited imagination.
She stood waiting, absorbed in her fears, so abstracted from her
ordinary outside surroundings that she was unaware of the approach of
two horsemen from the Gully Crossing. They did not stop at the garden
gate, but made for the usual station entrance at the back. One of them,
lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense
little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and
conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened
or was about to happen. And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear
of the home, justified the impression.
Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, which
again connected on either side the new house with the Old Humpey and
kitchen and store-wing--the hide-house standing slightly apart at the
end of the store building. The shrieks in male and female keys came
from the hide-house and mingled with McKeith's strident tones
fulminating in Blacks' lingo. The noise brought Mrs Hensor and Tommy
down from the Bachelors' Quarters, and the Chinese cook, the Malay boy
and Maggie the housemaid from the service department. The three
verandas and garden plot made a kind of amphitheatre; and now, into the
arena, came the actors in the little tragedy.
From the hide-house, McKeith dragged the prisoners, and through the
gateway in the palings which made the fourth side of the enclosure.
With one hand he clutched Wombo, with the other Oola, who in her
lace-trimmed petticoat and flowered kimono was truly a tragi-comic
spectacle.
McKeith carried his coiled stockwhip in the hand which held Wombo. It
was plain, judging from the state of Wombo's new shirt, that he had
given the black boy a thrashing; Oola was unscathed. Of course, Colin
could not lift his hand to a woman, though he was a brute and the woman
only a black-gin. Lady Bridget felt faintly glad at this.
She watched the scene, half fascinated, half disgusted, all her
attention concentrated on these three figures. She had but a dim
consciousness of two men riding round the store-wing and dismounting.
One of the two remained in the background screened by the trails of
native cucumber overhanging the veranda end. The other--a wiry,
powerful figure in uniform, with a rubicund face, black bristling
moustache and beard and prominent black eyes, reminding one of the eyes
of a bull--walked forward and spoke with an air of official assurance.
'Can I be of any use to you, Mr McKeith, in dealing with that nigger? A
bad character, as I've reason to know.'
'No, thank you, Harris. I can do my own dirty jobs,' said McKeith
shortly.
He had released the pair and now stood grimly surveying them. Oola was
crying and squealing; Wombo stood upright--a scowl of hate on his
face. His whole nature seemed changed. A flogging will rouse the
semi-civilised black's evil passions like nothing else. There was
something of savage dignity in the defiant way in which he faced his
former master.
'What for you been take-it stockwhip long-a me? BA'AL me bad black boy
long-a you, Boss. What for me no have 'em gin belonging to me? Massa
catch 'im bujeri White Mary like it gin belonging to him. What for no
all same black fellow?'
McKeith cut short the argument--sound logic it seemed to Lady Biddy--
by an imperious, silencing gesture, and a sudden unfurling of his
stockwhip, which made a hissing sound as it writhed along the ground
like a snake. The black boy sprang aside. McKeith pointed to the gidia
scrub and issued a terse command in the native language.
'YAN ' (go). 'BA'AL YOU WOOLLA ' (don't talk any more). 'YAN.'
Wombo turned appealingly to Lady Bridget.
'Lathychap!'
'YAN,' stormed McKeith again, and, as Lady Bridget made a movement of
sympathetic response towards the black fellow, he added sternly:
'You'll oblige me by not interfering in this business. The Blacks know
that what I say, I mean, and I'll have no more words with them.'
Bridget stood quite still, her attitude and expression all indignant
protest, but she said nothing. Her face was turned full towards the man
hidden by the creepers, who was watching her with intense interest, but
she was unconscious of his gaze.
Wombo retreated slowly. Oola, cowed, whimpering, behind him. Then, she
made an appeal to Lady Bridget, stretching out her unbandaged arm
imploringly.
'White Mary--you PIDNEY (understand). That fellow medsin man--husband
belonging to me. Him come close-up long-a srub--throw 'im spear,
NULLA-NULLA--plenty look out Wombo. BA'AL, Wombo got 'im spear--ba'al
got 'im NULLA-NULLA. Suppose black fellow catch 'im Wombo--my word!
that fellow MUMKULL (kill). Wombo--mumkull Oola--altogether BONG
(dead). YUCKE! YUCKE! Lathychap suppose Massa let Wombo sit down long-a
head-station--two day, three day--black fellow get tired--up stick--
no more look out. No catch 'im Wombo. Lathychap!' she pleaded, 'BUJERI
you PIALLA (intercede with) Boss.'
Lady Bridget came down the steps from the veranda and went up to
McKeith.
'Colin, what the gin says is true. Her tribe will kill them, and they
have no weapons and no means of protection. Will you, as a favour to
me, let them stay for a few days? At least, till her arm is healed and
the danger past?'
McKeith hesitated perceptibly, then the consciousness of weakening
resolve made him harden himself the more, made his speech rougher than
it might have been.
'No, I can't, Biddy. I never break my word. They've GOT to go.'
He turned fiercely on Wombo, who stood sullen and defiant again, and
from him to Oola, who crouched in the dust, sobbing pitifully and
rubbing her damaged arm.
'Plenty me sick, Boss--close up TUMBLEDOWN ' (die), she wailed.
'Stop that! YAN--do you hear? YAN--YAN--BURRI--BURRI--' (go
quickly).
The whip lashed out again. It stung Wombo's bare leg, and flicked
Oola's petticoat. The two ran screaming lustily towards the rocks and
scrubby country at the head of the gully.
Lady Bridget uttered a shuddering exclamation and made an impetuous
movement with arms partly outstretched as if to follow the pair. Then
her arms dropped and she stood stock still.
There was a dead silence. In all the relations of husband and wife,
never had there been a moment more crucial as affecting their ultimate
future. They looked at each other unflinchingly, neither speaking.
McKeith's lips were resolute, locked, his pugnacious jaw set like iron.
Here was the stubborn determination of a fighting man, never to admit
himself in the wrong. And his eyes seemed to have a steel curtain over
them--which, however, had Bridget's spiritual intuition been awake to
perceive it, softened for an instant, letting through a gleam of
passionate appeal.
But Bridget's soul was steel-cased also. He saw only contempt,
repulsion in her gaze. The larger issues narrowed to a conflict of two
egoisms. It seemed to both as though, in the space of that last quarter
of an hour, they had become mortal foes.
The police inspector broke in upon the tense silence. Here was another
egoism to be reckoned with--malevolently officious.
'They'll be hiding in the gully, Mr McKeith. No fear of them taking to
the outside bush with the tribe hanging round. I'll just round 'em up
and drive 'em into the scrub and strike the fear of the Law into them.
I'll do it now before I turn out my horse into the paddock.'
'No,' flamed Lady Bridget. 'You'll leave those unfortunate creatures
alone--or--if you molest them--whether it's by my husband's
permission or not--well--you'll find I'm a bad hater, Mr Harris.'
The police inspector flushed a deep red.
'Maybe I'm not such a bad hater either, my lady--but with my respects.
. . . '
'That will do, Harris,' interposed McKeith. 'I told you that I'd do my
own dirty jobs. There's no occasion for you to go against her
ladyship's wishes.'
Harris touched his helmet to Lady Bridget and, leering with veiled
enmity, replied:
'I'm never one to put myself up against the ladies, except where my
duty comes first--and that's not the case--yet. But as I was saying,
with my respects, my lady, Mr McKeith knows very well how to treat the
blacks. He knows that you've got to keep your word to them, whether
that means a plug of tobacco or a plug of cold iron.'
Lady Bridget drew back and looked at Harris for a second or two with an
expression of the most withering haughtiness. Then, without a word she
turned her back on him. The inspector infuriated, muttered in his
throat. McKeith interposed sharply:
'Bridget, Harris is going to stay the night.'
'Ah! at the Bachelors' Quarters,' Lady Bridget smiled with distant
calm. 'Of course, Mrs Hensor knows. I'm sorry I can't ask Mr Harris to
dinner at the house this evening.'
Now, by the social canons of the Bush, the police inspector, being
technically speaking of higher grade than the casual traveller, should
have been accepted as a 'parlour visitor.' He would thus have occupied
one of the bachelor spare rooms in the Old Humpey and would have joined
the Boss and his wife at dinner. Harris had never before stayed the
night at Moongarr, and he had confidently expected to be received with
honour. Thus he regarded Lady Bridget's speech as an insult.
'Oh, I'm not one to force my company where it is not wanted,' he
blustered. 'I'm quite content with a shake-down at the Quarters, though
if I'd known I might have gone by the short cut with the Specials--
it's rather late, however, to push on to Breeza Downs, where--though
perhaps I say it as shouldn't--I'm sure of a welcome from Mr and Mrs
Windeatt, being, so to speak--for law and order--the representative
of His Majesty in the Leura district.'
Lady Bridget smiled with detached amusement, as she turned again and
patted the head of an elderly kangaroo dog, which came up to her with
its tongue out and a look of wistful enquiry in its bleared eyes,
scenting plainly that something was amiss. 'Good dog, Veno,' she
murmured.
Harris bridled.
'I'll bid you good evening then, my lady,' he said stiffly. 'No doubt,
Mr McKeith, you'll spare me half an hour in the office by and by. Just
to concert our measures for the proper protection of the Pastoralists
and the safeguarding of the woolsheds this shearing season.'
'Yes, yes, or course,' McKeith answered mechanically. The spunk had
gone out of him, as Harris would have phrased it; and the Inspector,
looking at Lady Bridget, guessed the reason.
'And what now about the gentleman from Leichardt's Town, Mr McKeith?
Will I be taking him up with me to the Bachelor's Quarters? Or may be,'
Harris added unpleasantly, 'her ladyship won't object to having him in
the house.'
McKeith muttered angrily, 'Damn! I'd forgotten.'
It was not like him to lose himself during working hours in even a
momentary fit of abstraction--except, indeed, when he was riding
without immediate objective through the Bush. His eyes were still upon
his wife's slight figure as she moved slowly towards the veranda, with
the air of one who has no more concern with the business in hand. Her
graceful aloofness, which he knew to be merely a social trick, stung
him inexpressibly, the faint bow she had given Harris when he bade her
good evening had seemed to include himself. It galled him that he did
not seem fitted by nature or breeding to cope with this kind of
situation. The half consciousness of inferiority put him still more at
disadvantage with himself.
'Biddy, wait please,' he said dictatorially.
She paused at the steps, her hand on the railings, her eyes under their
lowered lids ignoring him.
He went closer and spoke rapidly in a harsh undertone.
'I didn't tell you--though I rode ahead on purpose--I met a man at
Tunumburra who said he knew you. He's out from England--been staying
at Government House, and brought a letter from Sir Luke Tallant. I hope
that at any rate you'll be civil to him.'
She flashed a quick glance at him, and her eyelids dropped again.
'But naturally. I'm not in the habit of being uncivil to--my friends.'
And just then--Mrs Hensor, who loved cheap fiction, said afterwards it
was all like a scene out of a book--there appeared in the space
between the two wings, a man who had strolled unobserved from one side,
out of the background of creepers, and who advanced with quickened step
to where the husband and wife stood.
CHAPTER 14
A striking individual. Tall--though not as tall or as massively built
as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline
grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation,
and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild
spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing
with ease and picturesqueness, a backwoods get-up. Clothes, extremely
well cut; riding breeches and boots; soft shirt and falling collar with
a silk tie of dull flame colour knotted at the sinewy throat, loose
coat, Panama hat. So much for the figure. The face ugly, but
distinguished, sallow-brown in colouring. Nose long, fine, with a
slight twist below the bridge; cheeks and chin clean-shaven, an
enormous dark moustache concealing the mouth. Hair black, slightly
grizzled, and when he lifted his hat forming a thick lightly frosted
crest above his forehead. Eyes black--peculiar eyes, sombre, restless,
but with a gaze, steady and piercing when concentrated on a particular
object, as, just now, it was concentrated on Lady Bridget.
The gaze seemed compelling. Lady Bridget suddenly lifting eyes that
were instantly wide open, became aware of the man's presence. The
effect of it upon her was so marked that McKeith, watching her face,
felt a shock of surprise. The change in her was noticed by the Police
Inspector, with malevolent curiosity. So also by Mrs Hensor, a little
further away.
The new-comer saluted her with a low bow, his hat in one hand, the
other extended.
'You haven't forgotten me, I hope, Lady Bridget, though I should think
that I am the very last person in the world you would have expected to
see in these parts.'
Lady Bridget had turned very white. She stared at him as if he had been
a ghost, and at first seemed unable to speak. But her confusion lasted
only a few seconds. Almost before he had finished his sentence she had
pulled herself together. Her hand was in his, and she spoke in her old
fluty voice and little grand manner, with the old slow, faintly
whimsical smile on her lips and in her eyes. It came over McKeith that
he had not of late been familiar with this aspect of her, and that she
was exhibiting to this man the same strange charm of her girlhood which
had been to him, in the full fervour of his devotion, so wonderful and
worshipful, but of which--he knew it now--the Bush had to a great
extent robbed her.
She laughed as she withdrew her hand from that of the newcomer. And
standing on the steps, her head almost on a level with his, met his
eyes with challenging directness.
'Really, Mr Maule, you shouldn't startle a nervous creature in that
uncanny way--appearing like the unmentionable Personage or the angel
if you prefer it, only with this difference, that we weren't speaking
of you. I hadn't the most distant notion that you were on this side of
the equator. If my husband had mentioned your name I should not have
been so taken by surprise.'
'Were you really so surprised? I thought I MUST have sent my shadow on
before me--because I've been thinking so tremendously of you these
last few days, and of the prospect of seeing you again. I daresay you
know,' he added, turning politely to McKeith--'that I had the pleasure
of meeting your wife when she was Lady Bridget O'Hara, one winter at
Rome, with her cousins, Lord and Lady Gaverick. And later, we saw
something of each other in London.'
'No, my husband doesn't know,' Bridget gave a reckless laugh, and her
eyes challenged those of McKeith before he could answer. 'You see,
Colin and I, when we married, came from opposite poles geographically,
morally and mentally. He did not understand or care about my old
environment any more than I understood--or cared about his. So we
agreed to bury our respective pasts in oblivion. Don't you think it was
a good plan?'
'Quite admirable. I admire your mutual courage in adopting it.'
'You think so! It has its drawbacks, though,' said McKeith dryly. 'I
must apologise for having left you to announce yourself. The fact is,
those Blacks put other things out of my head. They had to be taught
they couldn't disobey orders without being punished for it.'
'Poor wretches! Yes! I know the popular idea of asserting British
supremacy over coloured races, by the force of the whip. I have not
always seen it answer; but then my experience has been with natives
rather higher in the scale of evolution than the Australian
aboriginal.'
'You believe in the power of kindness--as I do,' exclaimed Lady
Bridget. 'My husband and I take different views on that subject. But we
need not discuss them now. Come and have some tea, and tell me about
the Tallants.'
Maule followed her to the door of the living room where she turned to
give some orders to Maggie, the maid-servant, and to the Chinese cook.
McKeith went off with Harris to see after the horses and have a talk
with Ninnis at the stockyards. Thus, Maule was left alone for a few
minutes to study and form his own opinion as to Lady Bridget's setting.
She was a woman who, whatever her surroundings, must always impress
them with her personality. This bush parlour was original in its
simplicity. Walls lined with unvarnished wood which was mellowing
already to a soft golden brown. Boards bare, but for a few rugs and
skins. A fine piece of tappa from the Solomons, of barbaric design in
black and orange, made the centre of an arrangement of South Sea Island
and aboriginal weapons. Divans heaped with cushions flanked the great
fireplace. Two writing-tables occupied spaces between French windows--
one the desk of a business-like roll-top escritoire; the other, the
flap of a Chippendale bureau, with a Chippendale arm-chair before it.
There were a few other pieces unmistakable English. In fact, Eliza
Countess of Gaverick, in addition to a handsome present of plate, had
sent her niece the furnishings of her old room at Castle Gaverick. A
few pictures and etchings hung on the other walls--among them several
wild seascapes--reminding one a little of Richard Doyle's exquisite
water colours--in which green billows and foamy wave-crests took the
shape of sea-fairies. Also some weird tree studies--mostly gum and
gidia, where gnarled limbs and bulbous protuberances turned into the
faces of gnomes and the forms of strange monsters. Maule had no doubt
that these were Lady Bridget's own. There was an upright grand piano--
the alleged cause of Steadbolt's conversion to Unionism, and all about
the place a litter of newspapers, books and work. The room was filled
with flowers--sheaves of wattle and of the pale sandal-wood blossoms,
as well as many sub-tropical blooms with which he was not familiar.
Blending with, yet dominating the mixture of perfumes, a peculiar scent
resembling incense, appealed to him; and this he did not a first trace
to a log of sandal-wood smouldering on the open hearth more for effect
than warmth, for the early spring evenings had scarcely a touch of
chill. The French windows stood open to the veranda, a room in itself
with its many squatters' chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, stretched
the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the lagoon
taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It seemed
an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady Bridget he
had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him had been
that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of Great
Britain, decadent perhaps, but 'in the swim.'
She cam now along the veranda from the Old Humpey with the light,
rather hurried tread he remembered, talking rapidly when she joined
him.
'I've been seeing about your room. I suppose you know enough now of the
Never-Never to understand that we are quite primitive in our habits.
You won't find a spring mattress--or water laid on--or any other
convenience of civilisation.'
'May I remind you that I've roughed it pretty well in the Andes.'
'Yes, but you have had so many luxuries since then that you will have
forgotten what roughing it feels like--just as I've forgotten now that
I was ever anything but a barbarian--I see you shave still.'
'Yes--why?'
'Only that I discovered just now the white ants had eaten all the
woodwork of the spare-room looking-glass. The thing crumbled in my hand
and fell on the floor and was broken. A bad omen for your visit, isn't
it?'
'I hope not. So you are superstitious as ever?'
'I haven't ceased to be a Celt--though I've become a barbarian. I'll
borrow the overseer's looking glass for you.'
'Pray don't. I've got one of sorts in my razor case. Is dinner regarded
in the Never-Never as a sacred ceremonial?'
'The men don't put on dress clothes, if that's what you mean. As for
the repast, for a long time, as a rule, the menu was salt junk and
pumpkin. We've improved on that a little since the Chinese cook and the
Chinese gardener came back from the goldfields--there was another rush
at Fig Tree Mount that fizzled out. To-night, you will have
kangaroo-tail soup, and kid EN CASSEROLE. If you make believe very hard
you might possible imagine it young venison. . . . Here, Kuppi!' The
Malay boy brought in the tea-tray and she signed to him to put it on
the table between the fire and the window.
'Tea,' she asked, 'or would you rather have whiskey and water? I can't
offer you soda water because, till the drays come, we have nothing to
run the seltzogene with. . . . Do you know that the Unionists cut our
dray horses' throats? We're lucky to have whiskey in the store. They
broke open the cases of spirits and stole a lot of things. . . .
Vicissitudes of savage life, you see!'
She rattled on, scarcely pausing. She was seated on a divan, the tea
before her--he in a squatter's chair with long arms, in which he sat
silent, leaning forward, his hands on the chair-arms, his eyes fixed
upon her. She avoided looking at him. Her small sun-browned hands
fidgeted among the cups. If anything remained of her anger and emotion,
she hid it under a ripple of absurd housewifely chatter, not waiting
for him to answer.
'Well, is it to be tea or whiskey?'
'Tea, please,' and then at last she stopped and looked at him and could
not turn her eyes away, or did not want to do so. His black orbs stared
with a disquieting fixity--a sort of inhuman power--from out of his
foreign-looking face. That stare was his chief weapon in the
subjugation of women--they called it magnetic, and no doubt it was so.
It increased the fascination of his ugly good looks.
The gaze of each one seemed to fuse in that of the other. Hers, at
first coldly curious, tentative, caught light, warmth, intensity from
the sombre fire of his. Suddenly he said:
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