Irralie's Bushranger/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOUR AFTER
They clapped him in the iron-store. And when Irralie had seen the last of him in their hands, she started as one wakes from a dream, and fled before the return-wave of triumphant captors. For the next half-hour she was missing and yet not missed. Then she was wanted for a purpose, and Mrs. Villiers, trying her door, found it locked.
"Irralie! Irralie! Let me in!"
Heavy steps crossed the floor; the key grated; the leaden steps retreated. Mrs. Villiers turned the handle and entered the room. The girl had thrown herself back upon the bed.
"My dear child! What next? I wondered where you were. We are going to have supper."
"Supper! After that?"
"Why not? We are beginning to feel ourselves again—thanks to Mr. Fullarton—and if we can't dance we must at all events eat. Nobody is going home. The Brownes talked of it, but Mr. Fullarton dissuaded them. He has such tact! I don't know what we should have done without him. He has quite won my heart; and such a handsome fellow! Irralie, he says he hasn't seen you yet; that was indeed what sent me to look for you. Come now, and be introduced before supper!"
"No!" cried the girl. "I have had Mr. Fullartons enough."
"But you will come to supper?"
"Not if you will let me off; and I do so want to be left alone, mother! If the rest of you can forget such a thing, I cannot. I was with him at the time. You were all prepared for it; it took me by surprise."
Mrs. Villiers had not thought of that. She was a good, ordinary soul, whose affections were superior to her insight; but she did feel with Irralie now.
"My poor child! Yes, you were with him at the time. If only I had dreamt! But you were always with him!" added the mother in sudden alarm. "It cannot be possible—Irralie—that you ever liked him?"
"I did—most certainly," said Irralie, stoutly. Her forehead was hot to the hand which smoothed her hair back tenderly.
"You cannot like him now!"
"Now? I hate him!" cried the girl. "I hate him! If you knew how he lied—to me! Nothing could be too bad for him, mother. Did they"
She checked herself.
"Yes, Irralie?"
"Oh, nothing. I was only wondering whether they did up his hand again."
"Yes, at once. Mr. FuUarton saw to it himself."
"And is he—behaving himself—in the iron-store?"
"He has never made a sound."
"Nor owned up to anything, I suppose?"
"Yes! He has confessed everything—to Mr. Fullarton while they were binding up his hand. How he first heard of him, and worked the whole plan up—actually sending him a telegram in our name putting him off for a week! It was a lucky thing that Mr. Fullarton heard down the road that we were expecting him—heard also of the sticking-up of that public-house on Saturday—had his suspicions, and determined to come on. Had he not done so we should all have been robbed and most likely murdered in our beds! Think of it: a crape mask has been found in the pocket of the dreadful coat he came in, and a pistol in his room! It is easy to be wise after the event, but how we ever came to be taken in by such a ruffian passes my comprehension; and so it will yours when you see and speak to the real man. Such a charming fellow! A little supercilious, I heard someone say; but, mind you, I don't think so. I thought it quite right of him to criticise the floor!"
Irralie lay motionless with closed eyes and inattentive brain. Through the thin walls came the buzz of voices, excited still, but only pleasantly so; for was not the desperado safely secured without having done anything very desperate after all? And for everybody else was it not an adventure to boast of for the term of one's natural life? This was the impression derived by Irralie, rightly or wrongly, from her mother's manner and the voices through the walls. The little incident was over. It was nothing more. They could now sit down to supper—quite possibly with an added zest; but the girl again begged to be excused from joining them.
"Dear mother, yes, I know I am your daughter and the daughter of the house. But I can't help it. You must let me off. It will be understood. I was with him at the time. You all were behind the scenes. Tell them that, and they will understand."
"I see that it has shaken you," said Mrs. Villiers, still smoothing the hair from the hot, troubled brow. "And no wonder, dear Irralie; yet what can you do in here? We shall be just outside the door."
"I will slip round to the nursery, and from there to the school-room," said Irralie, rising. "Then after you have gone, I shall come straight to bed. Mother, you are good to me! You understand! I was with him. What will people think? It makes me ache with shame. But you are good!"
She flung her arms about her mother's neck, and kissed her fondly, but without a tear. Then she was gone. And Mrs. Villiers returned in trouble to the crowded room.
A sudden hush preceded her entry, with which, however, it had nothing to do; the Englishman had seated himself on the music-stool vacated by the hireling from Hay, and was running his ringed fingers over the keys. A corrugated forehead was the result, followed, however, a moment after, by a performance which, while it lasted, held the listeners spellbound. The style was that of a master; the only fault lay in the execution, which was imperfect but yet full of brilliance. Every ear was charmed, and all eyes fascinated by the magic mastery of the white keys by the small, sunburnt hands, scintillating with rings. Yet the whole affair lasted but a minute, and was rudely broken off in the middle of a bar.
"I really can't stand it any longer," drawled the musician, rising.
"Stand what?" asked Mr. Villiers, who thought somebody must have been talking, and was prepared to reprimand the offender.
"Your piano," replied the other. "My dear sir, it's painful!"
The manager, like many of his friends, was duly taken aback; but Mrs. Villiers (a woman who venerated rudeness in a man) instantly advanced from the threshold to fill the breach.
"I quite agree with Mr. Fullarton," said she. "It is a terrible instrument; but that was a very beautiful piece; may I ask what it was?"
"That? A little thing by a man called Chopin. A polonaise—if you're any wiser."
"Oh, indeed. How I wish we had a better piano!"
"Ah! I shall have my Erard sent out by the next mail."
And the matter dropped; but another, which made a very similar impression, occurred at supper, on the production of champagne.
"Champagne up here!" cried the Englishman, for once surprised out of his drawl. "Good heavens!"
"We got it up specially from Hay," explained the manager, reddening.
"Hay!"
And the new-comer steadily refused to drink even his own health in anything more perilous than very weak whiskey-and-water; and once more his hostess backed him up.
"Fool of a woman," muttered an old overseer under his breath. "I'd like to give him five minutes with my stock-whip!"
"I agree," whispered the young man next him (who had a red smudge on his collar). "The joker we landed would have had better manners! It makes you sorry. If the great Irralie were here there'd be some fun! I wonder where she is?"
The great Irralie was at that moment in the school-room, in the open doorway, looking out upon the pines.
The moon shone full in her eyes, but discovered neither tears nor the signs of tears, nor aught but indignation and bitter regret. She had suspected everything from the first. And because of her suspicions she had torn her soul—for a hardened villain; and because of her suspicions she had humbled herself to a notorious scoundrel, who had lied to her to the very end. That was what rankled most. He had not trusted her!
Yet she did not think it was that at all. There were two doors to the school-room. The one at which Irralie stood, led without porch or passage into the open air, and from it she could see no other building. But an inner door opened into a tiny lobby, which let one in or out through a shallow veranda abutting the yard. From this veranda one had all the homestead buildings under one's eye: the kitchen opposite, the long main building to the left, and to the right the blacksmith's forge and the iron-store. The two last were twin structures entirely composed of sheets of corrugated iron either nailed to uprights or clamped together with bolts and nuts. The store was the nearer to the school-room block, and in front of it, with a pipe in his mouth and a repeating-rifle under his arm, stood George Young on guard in the moonlight.
Irralie watched him from the shallow veranda, for which she presently forsook her school-room door. The veranda was in deep shadow, and she stood unobserved within ten paces of Young. His head was bent and his shoulders rounded. He looked a man dejected rather than alert, and the girl wondered whether he was thinking of the previous night, and of her hard words to him then. To think of them herself meant instantaneous action on the part of Irralie. She had not to think twice, but stepped forward there and then, with her right arm held out in front of her.
"Shake hands—if you will," she said. "I don't deserve it. But try!"
It was done without a word, and the pipe was put away.
"I am honestly sorry for every word I said," continued Irralie, warmly. "I thought you foolishly and wickedly suspicious, but now we see who was the wicked fool! Heaven knows I had my own doubts in the beginning. But I let him see it; he set to work to remove them, and succeeded—you may know how. It was a clever trick, though; I will say that." And Irralie sighed.
"You mean about the tennis-racket?"
"Yes. You said it was simple?"
"It was the simplest dodge of all, Irralie! Fullarton stopped in Melbourne to play in a tournament. It was in all the papers. He was bound to have a racket with him, and that trunk was the only one long enough."
Irralie said nothing; it was as though, in the face of even his self-confessed guilt, she had yet retained a sneaking regard for the one positive point made by the villain in his own favor. She looked at the prison-door. It was corrugated iron like the walls and roof, and heavily padlocked on the outside. They were standing a few yards from it, and talking in undertones. A change of subject was obtained by a request for George Young's opinion of "the real man."
Given with alacrity, this was golden indeed; in fact, in her mother and the overseer Irralie had encountered the only two persons with whom the ill-mannered Englishman had made himself a favorite, though all admired him. And even the enthusiasm of George Young was tempered with one or two admissions.
"He is a masterful man, and a fine general, but certainly a cool hand. For instance, about the men's hut. Haven't you heard? There's not a man up there that has any idea what's happened. We gave them a supper, you know, and they were at it when this thing occurred. Mr. Fullarton had orders given which have resulted in their not getting wind of it yet."
"Orders!" said Irralie, with her black eyebrows arched. "Yes, that was cool. And what was the object?"
"To avoid any display of sympathy with Stingaree. There's something in it, too. We have some rough customers up at the hut just now; and it's not at all an uncommon thing to find an ordinary pound-a-week hand ready on principle to back a bushranger for all he's worth. At least, it wasn't in the Kelly country; and I hear Stingaree is just as much of a hero in their eyes as ever Ned Kelly was."
"Has anybody gone for the police?"
"No; we said we'd leave it till morning, since he's absolutely safe where he is. The fact is, however, that we don't want people to sit up for it and make a scene. They're all going to turn in after supper, with the exception of a very few of us, who will keep watch and watch about."
"By order of the new owner again?" asked Irralie, with the least possible sneer.
"Well, at his suggestion."
"He seems to have taken command of the place!"
"In a way he has; but it's a way I don't object to myself. You want a strong man to say what should and should not be done in a case like this. There would certainly have been a panic and a general clearance if it hadn't been for Mr. Fullarton. You should have heard Mrs. Browne going on about her diamonds! So all the ladies are going to hand over their valuables to be put in the safe, and one of us will keep the key. And you mustn't think ill of Fullarton, Irralie. I own he's a cool hand, and bosses us all about perhaps a bit too much; but your father himself said he was thankful he had turned up in time to relieve him of the greatest responsibility that has ever come his way."
"That may be so," began Irralie, as if she were about to say a good deal more. But she thought of the night before, and of her great mistake; and she held her peace.
"Aren't you going to supper at all?" asked Young, suddenly.
"No. I couldn't! I've been too much mixed up in this, and I came out for a little air instead. I think I must just put my nose inside the pines."
"Don't go far, Irralie!"
"Very well, George. So long!"
She left him, passing through the narrow cut between the forge and the iron-store: partly because that was her bee-line for the beloved pines, and partly she knew not why. There was a small window high up at the back of the store. A human head would hardly have passed through; but when Irralie glanced up at the aperture her heart leapt to her throat. A white shirt-sleeve hung out in the moonlight, and a hand was struggling to unscrew one of the nuts with which the sheets of iron were bolted together.
"Here—George!" cried Irralie, without a thought.
He came running up; but, ere he reached her, the shirt-sleeve had been whipped in, and something else had happened too. The girl was sorry she had called him.
"He'll escape!" she cried. "I will tell you how."
She lowered her voice and pointed to the aperture. It was open. Could he not escape by that.
"Never!" he whispered. "Your young brothers couldn't."
"No? Yes, I see you're right. I must be nervous: I won't tackle the pines after all."
She followed him back through the cut, and as she did so a voice, low and bitter, came through the iron walls.
"Thank you. Miss Villiers!" it said. "I call that kind!"