The Crooked Stick Or Pollies's Probation Part 19

CHAPTER XII

When Bertram Devereux, who had waited patiently for the chatelaine's appearance, received the intimation that she would not appear again that night, that Miss Pollie being indisposed, he was requested to order in dinner, he was considerably astonished. He addressed himself mechanically to his solitary meal, but after an absent, desultory fashion and with less than his ordinary appet.i.te. He failed to understand or account for the sudden seizure. She had walked with him to the outer gate in the morning, had patted his horse's neck, apparently as well and handsome as ever she was in her life. Why then this astonishing change for the worse? The whole thing was vexatious and disappointing in the last degree. He would go over to the barracks, smoke his cigar, and read his letters. A chat with old Gateward would be better than a solitary evening in the drawing-room.

Carrying over his mails, the young man lit a cigar and wended his way to the barrack-room. Mr. Gateward was out; the storekeeper was in the store writing up his accounts; so he threw his letters upon the large dining-room table and commenced to sort them with a strong sense of ill-treatment.

The first that attracted his notice was like the one which he had described as a cousin's to his unsuspecting _fiancee_. He opened it hastily; his brow clouded and his face grew dark as he commenced to devour rather than read the contents. 'Confound the woman!' he said with a fierce oath, before he had read half a dozen lines; 'she was born to be my ruin, I believe, and by--! she has managed it this time.'

This was her letter.

WYNTON HALL, _9th August 188-_.

BERTRAM DEVEREUX--When you learn that I have written by this mail to Miss Devereux explaining all, and that she has received my letter, your wrath will be bitter against me. _N'importe._ I know you as well, aye, better than you know yourself. The wound to your vanity will be sore, your spirit will chafe, nay, agonise for a time, but your ultimate good will result directly from this _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_.

Now look me in the face, mentally, and say, what is this thing that you have been proposing to do? To marry an innocent, unsophisticated girl, partly for her beauty, partly for her money; to desert and betray me, who have loved you long, truly, wildly well; and to pretend to yourself that you were going to be happy--yes, happy! ha! ha!

No, Bertram Devereux, it is not in you. You have deceived yourself as well as her. You would have cheated me, but the attempt has failed. You _know_ in your heart, or rather in your inmost consciousness, that you are incapable of love, pure, unsullied, constant--such as the poets sing of; such as this young girl, doubtless, has brought to you. In the maelstrom of London life, under the spell of old a.s.sociations, you would have fallen as you have fallen before, and dragged others with you. In that hour I am the only one who has power over you. Is it not so? And my hand withdrawn from the helm, your bark and its inmates would have gone down into depths unfathomable.

Angel or demon, I, and I alone, am qualified to act as your guardian. Elude my power, and you are lost, irrevocably and eternally.

I see from the papers that old Walter Devereux is dead, and has left you an income, which, though not large, ought to suffice for your reasonable needs. So take my advice once more; _soyez bon enfant_; quit the wild country of your banishment; make your adieux with the best grace you may to these Arcadian relatives; and return to a society where you have been missed--strange to say--and to a civilised life amid people that understand you. Among those who are ready to welcome the returned wanderer will most likely be your true friend as of yore,

SYBIL DE WYNTON.

He went patiently through his letters after reading this one, with a countenance which gave but little clue to the nature of the communications. One business-appearing epistle in round, legal handwriting he put aside and re-read. He then lighted a fresh cigar, and for nearly an hour remained in deep meditation before he sought his room. There he employed a portion of the night in arranging his effects, so as to be ready for that departure on the morrow upon which he had determined.

Mrs. Devereux did not appear at the breakfast table, but as he walked to and fro along the lagoon path, smoking the matutinal cigar, he saw her come into the garden. He threw down his cigar, and at once went to meet her.

She stopped a few paces ere she came to him, and looking at him with a sad, reproachful gaze, said, 'Oh, Bertram, what is this you have done to us? Did we deserve this at your hands?'

'My dearest Aunt Mary,' he said, advancing and taking her hand with a show of natural feeling which she could not resent, 'I cannot justify myself wholly, but it is due to me that I should be permitted to explain. All is over, I know, between your daughter and myself; still I do not wish her to think worse of me than is needful. When I won her love I pledged my word to her in good faith and sincerity to do all that a man might to promote her happiness. Whether I should have kept that resolution G.o.d knows, but I should have given my whole being to the task.

'By a fatal mischance she has been made acquainted with a dark chapter in my life. I do not excuse it, but it is such as many men who show fairly before the world keep locked away in secret cabinets. No doubt I deceived Pollie in denying the existence of former pa.s.sages of so compromising a nature; but I thought myself justified in keeping the whole thing from her pure mind. I think so still. And now,' he said, with a return to his old charm of manner, 'I fear that nothing remains but to thank you fervently for the kindness with which you have always treated me, in sickness and in health. I owe my life to your tender nursing. Corindah will be amongst my purest, happiest memories to my life's end.'

By this time they had reached the house. Entering the old dining-room, Bertram threw himself into a chair, and Mrs. Devereux took her seat near him.

'No words can describe, Bertram,' said Mrs. Devereux, with softened air, 'how grieved I feel that we should part in this manner. I have always looked upon you as a near relative; latterly I have regarded you as a son. It is unspeakably sad to me to think that all is over--that henceforth we must be as complete strangers, as if we had never met.'

'And how little I thought yesterday that this would be my last day at Corindah!' he said half musingly. 'And yet it is best so. As if in mockery of my position, I have just been left an income by an old grand-uncle which will enable me to return to England and more or less take my former place in society.'

'I am sincerely glad for your sake,' she said warmly, 'and I know Pollie will be so also. We could not have borne that you should leave Corindah to go we knew not where. Now we shall have no fear on that score.'

'I should like to see her once before we part for ever, if you would consent,' he said pleadingly--'if it were but to hear her say that she forgives me.'

'No, Bertram!' said the matron firmly, if sorrowfully. 'Such a meeting would answer no good end. You have had forgiveness. She will never harbour a bitter thought, believe me. She has overcome her first natural feeling of resentment, such as any woman would feel who had been deceived by the man she loved. But she will grieve over the circ.u.mstances which led to your estrangement; she will pity and forgive one so near her heart as you have been.'

'If I may not see her, will you let her read a farewell letter which I will leave with you? Surely it is not necessary to debar me from the humblest felon's privilege--that of defence before condemnation.'

'She shall have your letter. I have no intention of being in the least degree harsh, Bertram, but it is by her own wish that I decline an interview. Our paths will henceforth lie separate. We shall pray for your welfare. You have a powerful will. Oh, may G.o.d guide you to use it aright! Your welfare will always concern us; but in this world we shall meet no more. And now farewell! May G.o.d bless and keep you, and forgive you even as you are forgiven by me and my poor child!'

He wrung the kindly, high-souled matron's hand in silence. An unwonted glistening in his dark eyes showed the depth to which his feelings were stirred, and if there ever was a moment in which Bertram Devereux truly repented of the sins of the past and vowed amendment of life in the future, that was the hour and the minute.

It was shortly after this interview that he held a colloquy with Mr.

Gateward, and rode over to Wannonbah, with a black boy behind him, who duly led back Guardsman. He had apparently arranged for the transmission of his luggage, inasmuch as the portmanteaux, three in number, were taken on by the coach when that indispensable vehicle arrived in due course. Next morning it was announced by Mr. Gateward to the storekeeper and other employees of the station generally that Mr. Devereux had been left a fortune, which he had to go 'home' to claim, owing to law matters and other details not comprehensible by ordinary intelligence.

'He'll be back afore next shearing,' quoth one of the boundary riders.

'Leastways I know I should if I was in his place.'

'He'll be back,' replied Mr. Gateward oracularly, with an expression of countenance at once severe and impenetrable, 'when he _does_ come back.

If he shouldn't turn up at all, I don't know as it's any business of ours. There's as good men left behind, and would be if there were a dozen like him off by the next mail-steamer.'

Those who are of opinion that provincial gossip, along with all other British traditionary inst.i.tutions, is not faithfully reproduced in British colonies, underrate the vivacious ardour of bush society when presented with a brand-new topic. No sooner was it definitely announced that Mr. Devereux had been seen on his way to the metropolis, _en route_ to England, with all his portmanteaux--the same with which he had arrived--than a perfect flood of conjecture and a.s.sertion arose.

'He had come into a t.i.tle and a fortune. Of course he was not going to marry in the colonies now, so he broke off his engagement at once.'

'It was Pollie's temper--nothing else--that did it; everybody knew how ungovernable that was. He couldn't stand it any longer, though Mrs.

Devereux went down on her knees to him.'

'He wanted Mrs. D. to settle twenty thousand on Polly on her wedding-day, which she refused to do. He declared off at once.'

'Pollie flirted so with that Mr. Atherstone; no man could stand it. He found them walking by moonlight or something, and gave her notice at once.' 'Mr. Atherstone was in Queensland.' 'Oh, was he? Then it was some one else. It came to the same thing.'

Finally the torrent of popular criticism subsided, to settle down into a trickling rill of authentic information. It ran to the effect that Bertram Devereux had been bequeathed money by a relative, and had for some reason or other left suddenly for England.

It was neither the next day nor the next week after Bertram's departure that Pollie reappeared in her accustomed place, to lead her old life at Corindah. A weary time of illness supervened, and when the girl crept down to the drawing-room sofa to be shawled, and nursed, and petted for being graciously pleased to be better, she was but the shadow of her former self. As marked a mental change had apparently taken place, for she was mild and patient, piteously subdued in tone and bearing. How different from the wilful spoilt beauty who had turned so many heads, and who paid so little heed to good advice!

'You will have a better daughter in the time to come, mother,' she said, as she clasped the matron's neck with arms that were sadly shrunken from their former lovely roundness. 'I have had time to think over my past folly, to know who are my truest friends;' and then both wept and embraced each other, as is the way of women--the mother thankful to Heaven for the recovery of her child, the child softened by suffering and chastened by the near approach of the Death Angel.

Harold Atherstone had been far away in Northern Queensland during this eventful time. He had apparently needed stronger excitement than the everyday life of a prosperous, long-settled station; so he had elected to report upon an immense tract of country west of the 'Red Barcoo,'

which, taken up by a pioneer squatter some years back, had pa.s.sed into the hands of a syndicate, of which he was a shareholder.

So, from one cause or another, it fell out that Corindah seemed to be more solitary, not to say monotoned, than it had ever been before. The visitors who came were of the occasional, transitory sort; all their old friends seemed to have mysteriously vanished. The Rev. Cyril Courtenay was the only one of their _habitues_ who did not fail them. He made his monthly visitation, when, indeed, Mrs. Devereux was more than usually glad to see him.

He was sympathetic in his manner, as divining that something unusual had affected his friends. With tact, as well as sincerity, he drew forth an admission of grief. This done, he essayed to lead their thoughts to the Healer of all mortal sorrow, the Bearer of burdens, the Consoler in time of trouble. He dwelt upon the unsatisfactory nature of all earthly pleasures, the disappointment inseparably connected with mere worldly aspirations, the only sure hope of forgiveness of sins, the need of repentance, the certainty of peace.

As at the time of pain and anguish, of fear and danger, the physician attains a status which in the heedless hours of health is withheld, so, in the hour of the mind's sickness, the physician of souls is welcomed and revered. Urged to lengthen his stay, the Rev. Cyril gladly consented to remain over the ensuing Sunday. His ministrations, he thought, had never been so appreciated before at Corindah. And when he quitted the locality his heart beat high with the consciousness that he had aided the consolation of the dearest friends and best supporters of the Church _in sicco_, while a yet more daring thought caused his colourless cheek to burn and his pulses to throb with unwonted speed.

The summer days grew longer and longer. The fever heat of the season waxed more and more intense. The still air grew tremulous with the quivering, ardent sun-rays. Yet no suggestion was made by Pollie to go to the sea-side or to call the ocean breezes to aid her recovered health. Her mother would have rushed off directly the great event of the year was over, but the girl would not hear of it.

'No, mother dear,' she said, 'I have sinned and suffered. I have been wilful and headstrong. Let me remain and mortify the flesh for a season.

You do not mind the heat, I know, and I am strong enough now to bear it in the dear old place where I was born. We may have many a year to live here together yet, and I may as well commence to accustom myself to it.'

So the two women laid their account to remain patiently at home till the following summer, and Pollie set resolutely to work to utilise all her resources, natural and acquired. She commenced to be more methodical in the appointment of her time. She rose early and took exercise in the fresh morning air, before the sun had gained power--the truest hygienic rule in the torrid zone. She read and did needlework at appointed hours, and resolutely set herself to perfect her knowledge of French and German. She 'kept up' her music, vocal and instrumental, though it was long ere her voice recovered from a certain tremulous tendency, far different from the rich, full tones soaring upwards like the skylark to perilous alt.i.tudes unharmed. She rode regularly, or drove her mother out in the light American carriages which no station is now without. She visited the wives and children of the employees, showing a more considerate and intelligent interest in their welfare than had been before observable.