The Crooked Stick; Or, Pollie's Probation

Both had been 'taken up,' or legally occupied, the same year. The homesteads were at no great distance from each other, so placed with the view to being mutually handy in case of a sudden call to arms when the blacks were 'bad.' More than once on either side the 'fiery cross' had been sent forth, when every available horse and man, gun and pistol, of the summoned station had been furnished.

Old Mr. Atherstone, a Border Englishman, had died soon after Brian Devereux, leaving his son Harold, then a grave boy of twelve, precociously wise and practical as to the management of stock, and a great favourite with Pollie, then a tiny fairy of three years old, who used to throw up her hands and shout for joy when Harold's pony came galloping up to the garden gate. He had watched the child grow into a tall slip of a girl, with masses of bright hair, never very neatly braided. He had seen the unformed girl ripen into a beautiful maiden, an enchanting mixture to his eye of much of the old daring, wilful nature mingled with a sweet womanly consciousness inexpressibly attractive. He could hardly recollect the time when he had not been in love with Pollie Devereux. And now, in these latter years, he told himself that there was but one woman in the world for him – nor could it ever be otherwise.

Men varied much in their dispositions. He knew that by observation and experience. There was Bob Liverstone, whose heart (as he himself repeatedly averred) was broken beyond recovery, his prospects of happiness eternally ruined, his life blasted, because of the beautiful Miss Wharton, with her pale face, raven hair, and haunting eyes, who wouldn't have him. He broke his heart over again shamelessly within six months, after unsuccessful devotion to a blonde with eyes like blue china; and finally married a lady who bore not the least resemblance in mind, body, or estate to either of her predecessors being plump, and merely pretty, but exceptionally well dowered.

These and similar divagations of the ardent male adult Harold had seen – seen with alarm and surprise primarily, then with amused assent. For himself he could as little conceive such oscillations in his own tastes and affections as he could fancy himself emulating the somersaults of an acrobat or the witticisms of a clown. No! thrice no! For a man of his deep, dreamy, passionate, perhaps originally melancholy, nature there was but one sequel possible after the deliberate choice of youth had been ratified by the calm reason of manhood. If fate denied him this happiness, all too perfect for this world – the unearthly, unutterable bliss which her love would confer – there should be no counterfeit presentment, no mocking travesty of the heart's lost illusions. He had rightly judged that as yet the girl's feeling for him was that of a pure and deep friendship, but of friendship only. The love of a sister, unselfish, sinless, seraphic, not the fiercer passion akin to hate, despair, revenge in its inverted forces, bearing along with it the choicest fruits that mortal hands can cull, yet joined in unholy joy, in perverted triumph to the groans of the eternally lost, to the endless torment, the dread despair of the prison vaults beneath.

Thus Harold Atherstone watched and waited – awaited the perhaps fortunate turn of events, the effect of the moral suasion which he knew Mrs. Devereux gently exercised. And she had told him that he was the one man to whom in fullest trust and confidence she could bequeath her darling, were she compelled to leave her.

'But you must wait, Harold,' she said. 'My child's nature is one neither to be controlled nor easily satisfied. I can trace her father's tameless soul in her. Poor Pollie! it's a thousand pities that she was not born a boy, as she says herself. How much easier life would have been for her – and for me!' Here Mrs. Devereux sighed.

'All very well, my dear Mrs. Devereux, but in the meantime nature chose to mould her in the form of a beautiful woman, so sweet and lovely in my eyes that I have never seen her equal, and indeed hardly imagined such a creation. She will pass through the unsettled time of girlhood in another year or two, and after that take pity upon her faithful slave and worshipper, who has adored her all his life and who will die in the same faith.'

'That is the worst feature in your case, my poor Harold,' said Mrs. Devereux; 'I am as fond of you as if you were my own son, and she loves you like a brother. You have seen too much of each other. Women's fancies are caught by the unknown, the unfamiliar: we are all alike. I wish I could help you, or bend her to my wish like another girl, for I know how happy she would be. But she cannot be guided in the disposition of her affections.'

'And I should not wish it,' said the young man, as his face grew hard. 'No, though I should die of the loss of her.'

The contract time of the Wannonbah mail was indulgent. The driver had no particular reason to reach that somewhat prosaic and monotoned village before the stated hour. When Wanderer slackened speed a mile on the hither side of the Corindah gate, it was with some surprise that Pollie descried a strange four-in-hand converging from another point. Wanderer pricked up his ears, while his rider looked eagerly across the plain with the intense, far-searching gaze of a dweller in the desert, as if she had power to read, even at that distance, each sign and symbol of the equipage.

'Can't be a coach, surely,' she soliloquised. 'One mail is more than enough for all our wants in the letter and passenger way. Cobb and Co. grumble at feeding their teams now, poor things! Who in the world is likely to drive four horses in a season like this? No one but a lunatic, I should think. Such well-bred ones too! I can see the leaders tossing their heads – a grey and a bay. I can't make out the wheelers for the dust. No! Yes! Now I know who it is. Oh, what fun! I beg his pardon. Of course it's Jack Charteris. He said he was going to town. Poor Jack! I wish I was going with him. But that won't do. I should like to go and meet him, only then he would make sure I was interested in him. What a misfortune it is to be a girl! Now I must go in and dress for the evening, and receive him properly, which means unnaturally and artificially. Come along, Wanderer!'

When Mr. Jack Charteris swept artistically and accurately through the entrance gate and drew up before the stable range with a fixed expectation that some one might see and admire him, he was disappointed to observe no one but Mr. Gateward and a black boy. To them it was left to perform the rôle of spectators, audience, and sympathisers generally.

'Why, Gateward, old man, what's the meaning of this?' said the charioteer, signing to his own black urchin to jump down. 'Are you and Tarpot all the men left alive on Corindah? Sad effects of a dry season and overstocking, eh? No rouse-abouts, no boundary riders, no new chums, no nobody? Family gone away too? I'm not going to ruin you in the forage line either. Brought my own feed – plenty of corn and chaff inside the drag. Don't intend to eat my friends out of house and home this beastly season.'

By this time Mr. Gateward and the black boys had applied themselves with a will to the unharnessing of the team, so that the new-comer, who had uttered the preceding remarks, exclamations, and inquiries in a loud, cheerful, confident manner, threw down his reins and descended from his seat without more ado.

Here he stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the taking out of his horses, a well-bred, well-matched, and well-conditioned team, never intermitting a flow of badinage and small-talk which seemed to proceed from him without effort and forethought.

'Now then, Jerry, you put 'em that one harness along a peg, two feller leader close up, then two feller poler. Tie 'em up long a post, that one yarraman, bimeby get 'um cool, baal gibit water, else that one die. You put 'em feed along a manger all ready. Mine come out bimeby.'

'I'll see after 'em, Mr. Charteris, don't you bother yourself,' said the overseer good-naturedly. 'Tarpot, you take 'em saddle-box belong a mahmee inside barracks. He'll show you, sir, – you know where the bathroom is. There's water there, though we are pretty short.'

'Deuced glad to hear it. The dust's inside my skin like the wool bales last summer. Must be half an inch of it somewhere. I've been living in it all day. Frightful season! I'm just going down to file my schedule – fact – unless my banker takes a good-natured fit. Can't stand it much longer. Ladies well? Mrs. Devereux and Miss Pollie? Not got fever, or cholera, or consumption this God-forsaken summer?'

The grave bushman smiled. 'I doubt we shall all have to go up King Street when you give in, Mr. Charteris! You can work it somehow or other, whoever goes under. Besides, rain ain't far off; can't be now. The ladies are all right, and a little cheering up won't hurt 'em. Miss Pollie was out for a gallop just before you came up.'

'Then it was her I saw,' said the young man petulantly. 'Knocked smoke out of the team to catch her up, and missed her after all.'

Mr. Jack Charteris, of Monda, was a young squatter who lived about a hundred miles to the west of Corindah, where he had a large and valuable station, a good deal diminished as to profits by the present untoward season. He was of a sanguine, intrepid, rather speculative disposition, having investments in new country as well. People said he had too many irons in the fire, and would probably be ruined unless times changed. But more observant critics asserted that under careless speech and manner Jack Charteris masked a cool head and calculating brain; that he was not more likely to go wrong than his neighbours – in fact, less so, being of uncommon energy and quite inexhaustible resource. With any decent odds he was a safe horse to back to land a big stake.

For the rest he was a good-looking, athletic, cheery young fellow, in general favour and acceptation with ladies, having a great fund of good spirits and an unfailing supply of conversation, that most of his feminine acquaintances found agreeable. He was not easily daunted, and added the qualities of perseverance and a fixed belief in his persuasive powers to the list of his good qualities.

The past masters in the science of conquest aver that the chief secret of fascination lies in the power to amuse the too often vacant and distraite feminine mind. Women suffer, it is asserted, more from dulness and ennui than from all other sources, injuries and disabilities put together. Consider, then, at what an enormous advantage he commences the siege who is able to surprise, to interest, to entertain the emotional, laughter-loving garrison, so often in the doldrums, so indifferently able to fill up the lingering hours. It is not the 'rare smile' which lights up the features of the dark and melancholy hero of the Byronic novelists which is so irresistible. Much more dangerous is the jolly, nonsensical, low-comedy person, in whose jokes the superior, the gifted rival can see no wit, indeed but little fun. Thackeray is true to life when he makes Miss Fotheringay unbend to Foker's harmless mirth, rewarding him with a make-believe box on the ear, while Pen, the sombre and dramatic, stands sulkily aloof.

This being an axiomatic truth, Mr. Charteris should have had, to use his own idiom, a considerable 'pull' in commending himself to the good graces of Miss Devereux, being one of those people to whom women always listened, and never without being more or less amused. But though he would hardly have sighed in vain at the feet of any of the demoiselles of the day, rural or metropolitan, he found this particular princess upon whom he had perversely set his heart, unapproachable within a certain clearly defined limit.

Not that she did not like him, respect, admire, even in certain ways to the extent of fighting his battles when absent, praising up his good qualities, delicately advising him for his good, laughing heartily at his good stories and running fire of jests and audacious compliments. That made it so hard to bear. The very fearlessness and perfect candour of her nature forbade him to hope that any softer feeling lay underneath the frankly expressed liking, and a natural dignity which never quitted her restrained him from urging his suit more decisively.

CHAPTER III

When Mr. Charteris had concluded his ablutions, and sauntered into the verandah after a careful toilette, he there encountered Miss Devereux, who, having arrayed herself in a light Indian muslin dress, gracefully reclined upon one of the Cingalese couches. His lonely life of late may have had something to do with it, but his ordinary well-maintained equilibrium nearly failed him before the resistless force of her charms.

Her eyes involuntarily brightened as she partly raised herself from the couch and held out her hand with unaffected welcome. He took in at one rapturous glance her slender yet wondrously moulded form, her delicate hand, her rounded arm seen through the diaphanous fabric, her massed and shining hair, her eloquent face.

'Oh, Lord!' he inwardly ejaculated, as he afterwards confessed. 'I used to wonder at fellows shooting themselves about a girl, and all that, and laugh at the idea. But I don't now. When I saw Pollie Devereux that evening I could have done the maddest thing in the world for the ghost of a chance of winning her. And to win, and wear, and lose her again, as happens to a man here and there. Good heavens' why, it would make a fellow – make – me – run amuck like a Malay, and kill a town full of people before I was half satisfied.'

But Mr. Charteris controlled those too impetuous feelings, and forced himself to remark, as he clasped her cool, soft hand despairingly while she expressed her frank pleasure at seeing him, 'Always delighted to come to Corindah, Miss Devereux, you know that. Didn't I see you near the gate as I drove up? Thought you might have come to meet me.'

'Well, so I would,' the young lady answered, with an air of provoking candour, 'only I had been out to see the coach and find out if they'd brought our package from England – presents that came by last mail, – I was so hot and dusty, and thought it was time to go and dress.'

'And I wanted to see how Wanderer looked, too,' quoth he reproachfully; 'you know I always think he could win the steeplechase at Bourke if you'd let me ride him and wear your colours.'

'I couldn't think of that for two reasons,' replied the girl with decision. 'First of all Wanderer might get hurt. Didn't you see that poor Welcome, at Wannonbah races, broke his leg and had to be shot? I should die, or go into a decline, if anything happened to Wanderer. And then there's another reason.'

'What's that?' inquired Mr. Charteris, with less than his usual intrepidity.

'Why – a —you might get hurt, Mr. Charteris, you see, and I can't afford to lose an old friend that way.'

'Oh, is that all?' retorted Master Jack, recovering his audacity; 'well, you could have me shot like Wanderer if I broke my back or anything. 'Pon my soul! it would come to just the same thing if you ordered me out to execution before the race.'

'Now, Mr. Charteris!' said Pollie, in a steady, warning voice, 'you are disobeying orders, you know. I shall hand you over to mother, who has just come to say tea is ready. Mother, he is talking most childish nonsense about shooting himself.'

'But I never talk anything else, do I Mrs. Devereux?' said the young gentleman, running up to the kindly matron with a look of sincere affection. 'Your mother's known me all my life, Miss Devereux, and she won't believe any harm of me. Will you, my dear madam?'

'I never hear of you doing any foolish thing, my dear Jack,' said Mrs. Devereux maternally; 'and as long as that is the case I shall not be very angry at anything you can say. We all know you mean no harm. Don't we, Pollie? And now take me into tea, and you may amuse us as much as ever you like. I'm rather low myself on account of the season.'

'No use thinking about it,' quoth Charteris, dashing gallantly into the position assigned to him. 'That's why I'm going to Sydney to have a regular carnival, also to be in time to get the wires to work directly the drought breaks up. I can't make it rain, now can I? And I've a regular tough, steady overseer, a sort of first cousin to your Joe Gateward, with twice as much sense and work in him as I have. I mean to take it easy at the Club till he wires me: "Drought over. Six inches rain." Left the telegram all ready written and pinned up over his desk. He's nothing to do but fill in the number of inches and sign it, and I shall know what to do. That shows faith, doesn't it?'

'But isn't it rather mad to go to Sydney with a four-in-hand and spend money, when you might be ruined, and all of us?' said Pollie.

'You are too prudent but don't look ahead – like most women, my dear young lady,' replied Jack, in the tone of experienced wisdom. 'Nothing like having a logical mind, which, I flatter myself, I possess. I always think the situation out, as thus: – If we are all going to be ruined – the odds are against it, but still it's on the cards – why not have a real first-class time of enjoyment before the grand smash? The trifling expenditure of a good spree won't make any appreciable difference in the universal bankruptcy. You grant me that, don't you? – Yes, thanks, I will take some more wild turkey. Strange that one should have any appetite this weather, isn't it?'

'Not if one rides or drives all day and half the night, as you do, Mr. Charteris,' said Pollie. 'Even talking makes you thirsty, doesn't it? But go on with the logic.'

'Did you ever see me scowl, Miss Pollie? Beware of my ferocious mood. Now we're agreed about this, that five hundred pounds, more or less, makes no difference if you're going to be ruined and lose fifty thousand.'

'I suppose not,' reluctantly assented Mrs. Devereux. 'Still it's money wasted.'

'Money wasted!' exclaimed Mr. Charteris. 'I'm surprised at you, Mrs. Devereux. Think of the delights of yachting in the harbour, of the ocean breeze after this vapour from the pit of – of – Avernus. Knew I should find it in time. Then the evening parties, the dinners at the Club, the races, the lawn-tennis, the cricket matches! The English eleven are to be there. Why, I haven't been down for six whole months. Don't you think rational amusement worth all the money you can pay for it? Would you think a couple of years' ramble on the Continent too dearly bought if we were all able to afford to go together?'

The girl's eyes began to glow at this. 'Oh mother!' she said, 'surely we shall be able to go some day. Do you think this horrid drought will stop the possibility of it altogether? If I was sure of that I believe I should drown myself – no, I couldn't do that; but I would burn myself in a bush fire. That's a proper Australian notion of suicide. Water's too scarce and expensive. Think of the consequences if I spoiled a tank. I should like to see Mr. Gateward's face.'

And here the wilful damsel, having at first smiled at the alarmed expression of her mother's countenance, abandoned herself to childish merriment at the ludicrous idea of a drowned maiden in a bad season intensifying the bitterness in the minds of economical pastoralists with the reflection that a flock of sheep would probably be deprived thereby of that high-priced luxury in a dry country – a sufficiency of water.

Mr. Charteris laughed heartily for a few minutes, and then, with sudden solemnity, turned upon the young lady. 'You never will be serious, you know. Why can't you take pattern by me? Let us pursue our argument. Pleasure being worth its price, let us pay it cheerfully. I was reading about the Three Hundred, those Greek fellows you know, dressing their hair before Thermopylæ; it gave me the idea, I think. Mine's too short' – here he rubbed his glossy brown pate, canonically cropped. 'But the principle's the same, Miss Pollie, eh?'

'What principle?' echoed Pollie, 'or want of it, do you mean?'

'The principle of dying game, Miss Devereux,' returned Charteris, with a steady eye and heroic pose. 'Surely you can respect that? It all resolves itself into this. I'm going to put down my ace. If the cards go wrong I have played a dashing game. If the season turns up trumps I'll make the odd trick. You'll see who has the cream of the store sheep-market when the drought breaks!'

'I admire bold play, and you have my best wishes, Mr. Charteris. You've explained everything so clearly. Don't you think if you read history a little more it might lead you to still more brilliant combinations?'

'If you'd only encourage me a little,' answered the young man, with a touch of unusual humility.

'Isn't that Jack Charteris?' said a man's voice in the passage. 'I'll swear I heard him talking about his ace. May I come in, or is there a family council or anything?'

'Come in, Harold, and don't be a goose,' said Mrs. Devereux; 'you are not going to stand on ceremony here at this or any other time.'

'I've had a longish ride,' said the voice, 'nothing to eat, half a sunstroke, I believe, and my journey for my pains. I'm late for tea besides, though I rode hard – takes one so long to dress. If I was any one else I believe I should be cross. I think you'd better all leave me, and I'll join you in the verandah when I've fed and found my temper.'

'Nothing of the sort, mother; you take out Mr. Charteris and give him good advice, while I see after Mr. Atherstone, and recommend him to begin with the wild turkey while I get him some Bukkulla. What's the reason you've not been near us lately, sir?'

The new-comer was a very tall man, though he did not at first sight give you the idea of being much above the middle size, but Mr. Charteris, who was by no means short, looked so when they stood together. Then you saw that he was much above the ordinary stature of mankind. His frame was broad and muscular, and there was an air of latent power about his bearing such as gave the impression of perfect confidence, of physical or mental equality to whatever emergency might befall.

Mr. Charteris lingered, and seemed to question the soundness of the arrangement which divided him from the enchantress and reduced him to the placid enjoyment of Mrs. Devereux's always sensible but not exciting conversation.

'Look here, Jack, I can't have you here while I'm dining, you know,' persisted Mr. Atherstone, with a calm decision. 'You've such an energetic, highly organised nature, you know, that calm people like me can't sustain your electric currents. I perceive by the appearance of that turkey that I'm about to dine in comfort. Pollie has gone to bring in a bottle of Bukkulla. "Put it to yourself carefully," as Mr. Jaggers says, that I have had no lunch. She will be quite as much as I can bear during such a delicate period. So out you go. Order him off, Mrs. Devereux, if you've any pity for me.'

'Well, you are the coolest ruffian, I must say,' quoth Mr. Charteris, as Pollie reappeared bearing a dusty bottle of the cool and fragrant Bukkulla. 'Mrs. Devereux, you spoil him. It's very weak of you. You'll have people talking.'

'We don't mind what people say, do we, Harold?' said the widow, as she watched him carefully draw the cork of the bottle, while Pollie sat near and placed a large hock glass before him. 'Leave them alone for half an hour. I'm sure, poor fellow, he's awfully tired and hungry. I know where he's been; it was on an errand of mine; Mr. Gateward couldn't go. Surely you can put up with my company for a little while.'

'Poor Harold!' grumbled Jack, 'he is to be pitied indeed! Mrs. Devereux, you know I always say there's no one talks so charmingly as you do, and I always say what I mean. Now isn't there something I can do for you in Sydney?'

The symposium thus ostentatiously heralded did not take quite so long as might have been expected, and Pollie, making her appearance in the drawing-room apparently before its termination, went to the piano at Mr. Charteris's instigation, and sang two or three of his favourite songs in a fashion which brought any lingering remnants of his passion once more to the surface. Mr. Atherstone was also good enough to express his approval from the dining-room, the door of which was open, and to request that she would reserve her importation from the metropolis until he came in. This exhortation was followed by his personal apparition, when the latest composition of Stephen Adams was selected by him and duly executed.