Outlaw and Lawmaker/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
JENSEN'S GHOST.
"Well," she said. "Why?"
"Why!" he repeated. "Do you know any people at Teebar?"
"No," she answered—and blushed at one of her most painful recollections which the name evoked. "At least—not now."
"No, because the person you once knew, and who lived there, is dead. He was a man called Jensen. I knew him very well. He had a station close by the township."
"Yes," she said, in a stifled way.
"He took to drinking, as you know, and killed himself."
"I did not know. Killed himself?"
"As surely as any man who ever blew his brains out. He did not drink, did he, when you knew him?"
"No. Mr. Blake, I know what you mean, and it is cruel, it is wicked to blame me for that." She half rose in her agitation. "It wasn't my fault that he"
"That he loved you. No, that was certainly not your fault. There must be a great many men who love you. But I was sorry for poor Jensen. He looked a stupid fellow when I knew him, but he was clever enough to write very decent verse. And he looked rather a weak creature, but he was strong enough to be faithful to the one woman he ever loved."
"What did he tell you about me? Don't be afraid of hurting me."
"He told me all that had ever passed between you—his version of course, but it was so detailed that I think it must have been pretty near the truth. You encouraged him a good deal."
"Yes—I encouraged him."
"I think you were engaged to him for two days?"
"I—I said I would marry him—if I could like him well enough."
"And at the end of two days—you didn't give it a long trial—you told him that you had only engaged yourself for an experiment, to see what it felt like, and you threw him over."
"Yes, that is true. I couldn't care for him enough."
There was a silence. At last he said, "I saw a good deal of Jensen. I did what I could to reclaim him, but he said he had no faith in man nor woman, and no motive for living. From what I could gather, he used to he a healthy-minded man, fond of sport and of work, and not disposed to take a morbid view of life. You will understand that I was naturally anxious to meet the lady who had been able to effect such a change, but besides, all that he told me about you made me feel that you would be interesting."
Elsie seemed to be strangling emotion. She spoke in a hard voice, cut once or twice with a dry sob, and with her face turned from him.
"I know what you must think of me. You must think that I am fair game for anybody. You must think that I am as bad as a woman can be. I am certainly not going to excuse myself. I only want to say that I was very young, and that I had never felt deeply about anything, and had no idea that anyone else could feel in that way. I want to say, too, that I had been brought up to think that I must marry well"
"And Jensen was very well off. Yes, I know."
"It is horrible. It is humiliating. It is utterly undignified. When I think of it my cheeks burn, and I loathe myself. Do you know," her voice dropped though she spoke with passionate vehemence, "he is the only man—except my father—who has ever kissed me? I hate him for that."
Blake uttered an exclamation of mingled surprise and sympathy. He had never dreamed of this odd kind of virginal pride in Elsie. Her curious unconventionality, her impulsive speech, all that he had heard of her had prepared him for a different sort of woman.
Elsie went on still in that hurried vehement way. "I hated him the day he did that, and I told him so. I suppose he told you that. I felt that I never wanted to see him again—to be taken possession of—that wasn't what I meant. It is quite true that I had had a fancy that it might be amusing to be engaged. I have always had a curiosity about life, about different kinds of experience. I thought that I should have an entirely new set of feelings, and that this was to be the door to them. You can't imagine anything more childish, and stupid, and ignorant. I don't know why I am telling you all this. I hate myself for doing so."
"Don't do that," he said in a different manner from his former one. "I am very glad that you have told me."
"I have been trying to forget it all. I would never let myself think of it. I heard that he had died, but I did not know how. As I got to know other men, and saw for how little flirtation counted, and how soon they got over disappointments of that kind, I got to think less about it. And then I never felt deeply about anybody, and how could I know"
That anybody might come to feel deeply about you? And so you have gone on flirting with men, and liking them, perhaps, until they too have wanted to take possession of you, and then that fierce thing in you has roused up and has made you cruel. You have never yet met your match—quite."
The "quite" was an afterthought. He was thinking of Frank Hallett.
"I hope," he went on, "that you won't find your match after you are married. That would be the worst misfortune that could happen to you."
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Because all that you have told me makes me certain that you have the capacity for a feeling which when it comes will almost frighten you."
"Could one be frightened of love?" she said softly. "I have often wished that I could really love someone."
"Don't wish it—unless you are quite certain that the man you love is worthy of your love and capable of giving you back all that you give—don't wish it unless you are certain, too, that the man you love can marry you."
She shrank together a little. "I think we had better go in," she said. "The dance will begin presently."
He got up and gravely offered her his arm. "Miss Valliant, you are going back soon to Leichardt's Town. Will you allow me to call upon you and your mother?"
"Yes, certainly," she answered, and added, "We live on Emu Point."
They walked towards the house. Before they reached the verandah, Elsie stopped and faced him. "I am very sorry for what I said to you this evening," she said impulsively. "I hope you will forget it."
"I am afraid that I can't promise to do that," he answered.
"Then at least you will not remind me of it."
"Ah! that of course I can promise. As far as lies in my power I will try not to remind you of it."
"Thank you. I think that I will sit down here. If you see Mr. Frank Hallett will you tell him where I am?"
He left her. She had not long to wait. Frank Hallett was walking up and down with Lady Horace, and he had seen her come back with Blake. They both came to her.
"Elsie," Ina said, "what is the matter?"
"Nothing," said Elsie. "Why?"
"You look scared somehow."
"I think it must be because I have been seeing ghosts," said Elsie, tremulously.
"Ghosts!" repeated Lady Horace.
Elsie did not answer.
"It must have been the effect of the moonlight in the garden," said Hallett. "Those pyramids of rhynca-sporum do look rather like white ghosts."
Elsie burst into a laugh.
"How like you that speech was! You are really a very comforting person. You always find a natural and reasonable explanation for all one's vagaries, for all one's stupid superstitious fancies."
"I am glad," he said gravely, "that you find me a comforting person. But I don't think that is what you like best."
"What is it that I like best?"
"Something more romantic. I know that I am a very prosaic kind of fellow. But perhaps that wears best in the long run, and most stupid superstitious fancies do admit of a reasonable and natural explanation."
They began to dance. The waltz with him was not quite like the one with Blake. She was conscious of this, and she was angry with herself for being so. Why should a girl, when two men waltz equally well, feel a subtler intoxication in the contact and joint motion with the one than with the other? They had only taken a few turns when she stopped him.
"I don't want to dance. I'm tired."
They went out into the verandah again. He was concerned.
"Something is the matter with you."
"No. Yes—everything is the matter."
"Tell me, Elsie," he said.
"Frank, if I ever give you bad pain—if you are misled by your own fancies, and think me better, and truer, and more sincere than I am, and wake up to find that I am a vain, ambitious, mercenary girl, with no real thought for anyone but herself, don't say that I haven't warned you."
"You have warned me often enough, and I told you that I was quite contented to take the risk. I can't bear you to talk like that, and yet I'm glad too."
"Tell me why you are glad."
"Because if you weren't getting to care for me a little, you wouldn't be troubled at the thought of the suffering you might cause me."
"I am troubled—horribly troubled. And of course I care a little for you. I care a great deal, but it isn't the sort of caring I mean."
"The sort of caring you mean is a romantic dream—the glamour that never was on sea or land, but only in the imagination of romance writers. I don't mind entering the lists with your Prince, Elsie dear. I can wait. He won't come along. Princes like that don't ride through the gum-trees."
"Now," she said seriously, "it pleases me to hear you talk like that. It makes me feel that you are strong. I wish that you were strong enough to carry me off and put an end to my doubts for ever."
"Shall I try?"
"No, no. Give me my year. Frank, I do not want to care for you. I am grateful to you for loving me. You'll believe that."
Elsie slept badly that night. They had danced till long past midnight, and she had tried to drown her guilty recollection of poor Jensen. She had danced again with Blake, and they had talked in the verandah afterwards, not of personal topics. With a tact which she appreciated he avoided allusion to their previous conversation—but of travel, of men and women and books, of life on the Luya, and of the wider life beyond. And she had danced with Trant, and he had been very personal, and had expressed his admiration with a certain respectful bluntness which had amused her, and had done more than anything else to distract her thoughts from more painful subjects. She told herself that if he was a little rough he meant no harm; and that his roughness was of a more interesting kind than that of the Luya squatters in general. Elsie was not very fond of bushmen. She preferred the Bank-clerks and young Civil-servants of Leichardt's Town.
She had danced, too, more than once again with Hallett and she was doing her very best to persuade herself that the regard she felt for Frank Hallett was the nearest approach she should ever get to love. And then she had seen very plainly that Lady Garfit and her daughter were making up to the Halletts, and that Frank was clearly an object of desire in matrimonial circles. It was perfectly evident that Rose Garfit was in love with him. Rose was another type of Leichardt's Town. She was not soft and slender and complex, like Elsie, but was a great Junoesque creature, with calm blue eyes and quantities of flaxen hair, a downright sort of girl, absolutely good-natured, a splendid horsewoman, a good tennis-player, always bright and smiling and equable, and in every way a desirable wife for a well-to-do squatter. Elsie did not actually dislike Rose, who did not want to give herself airs, though she had always seemed to hold herself aloof in a calmly superior way from the lesser fry of Leichardt's Town. This was because of her father's position, and because she was always better dressed, and had carriages, and riding-horses, which she—poor Elsie—never had unless some obliging admirer gave her a mount. But Elsie hated Lady Garfit with a holy hatred, for Lady Garfit had snubbed her on more than one occasion, and had done all she could to keep Elsie out of the Government House set, promulgating the report that she was fast and bad style, and even that she rouged. Elsie would have done anything to annoy Lady Garfit, and it was very evident that Lady Garfit was extremely annoyed at Frank Hallett's devotion.
There were other ladies, too, before whom Elsie was not displeased to parade her conquests. She could see that Mrs. Allanby was furious because she had sat out with Mr. Blake, and because Frank Hallett had forgotten a dance for which he was engaged to her, while he in his turn was sitting out with Elsie. But Mrs. Allanby revenged herself by flirting with Lord Horace. And then there was Minna Pryde, of Leichardt's Town, who was more on Elsie's social level than Rose Garfit, who never lost an opportunity of, as she put it, "spiting" Elsie about her "beaux." Minna was dark, and pretty and vivacious, and was certainly not good style, and not at all in favour with the more fastidious of the Leichardt's Town matrons. Elsie was also rather pleased to vex Mrs. Jem, who patronized her, and who, she knew, would have preferred Hose Garfit for a sister-in-law. These uncharitable motives had been more or less preponderant all the evening, but in the stillness of her chamber they melted into a rain of tears. She did not dare to cry out aloud, lest she should wake Ina. The two sisters shared a tiny verandah room, Lord Horace having been sent, with almost all the other gentlemen, to the bachelors' quarters, where, judging from the sounds of revelry that floated on the night, he was doubtless enjoying himself.