In the Roaring Fifties, Edward Dyson [novels to read in english .txt] 📗

maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great distress to her.

'I haven't seen you for a fortnight, Jim,' she said one evening, with a tinge of reproach that she was striving to repress.

'No,' he said shortly.

'And absence hasn't made you particularly fond.'

He was leaning on the counter, and took her hand between his own, but was silent.

'At least, you don't lie to me,' she continued.

Jim did not plume himself on that; he knew in his heart that if he had not lied it was because a thoroughly satisfactory fiction had not presented itself. He kissed her knuckles, which, in itself was a lie of inference. Aurora pulled her hand away, and robbed him of his one resource. He felt abashed and defenceless without it. He thrust his hands in his pockets, and turned his shoulders to her, gazing moodily on the floor, having a dawning sense of the differences that may suddenly afflict two hearts that have beat as one, realizing that the ardent affection of yesterday and yesterday's kisses count for nothing in the present estrangement. He could, not essay the role of friendship: it was as if they were strangers without a single affinity.

'The fact is, Aurora,' he said desperately, 'I'm a good deal changed. I've experienced a great shock lately, and it has pulled me up short.'

'And the woman?'

He turned upon her again with genuine surprise. 'The woman! The woman!' he cried. 'It has nothing to do with a woman. Upon my soul, no! Something has been revealed to me that has hit me hard. I don't get over it easily; it clings in my mind. If I could tell you, old girl, you'd sympathize; but I can't--the secret is not my own.' He spoke with emotion, and Aurora, watching him sharply, was touched. She put a hand on his arm.

'Not another word, Jimmy,' she said. 'I won't bother you. Sure,' she continued lightly, we weemin 're niver contint wid the throubles of the day. We're that curious we must be wonderin' how much more's comin'. We may boast iv bein' sensible an' sthrong, but we're alwiz pushin' our tentacles out to feel the sorrow iv to-morrow. I reckoned you'd be hatin' me in a week, ma bouchal.'

Done felt himself justified in kissing her there and then, but the kiss partook a good deal of the nature of a benediction.

This explanation did not serve to restore confidence; the constraint remained, and increased with time. Jim noted its effect on Aurora with some misgiving. His appearance in the tent was the signal for a display of boisterous animation on her part. If she had been depressed before, she suddenly became gay; if she had been animated, she became jubilant. She sang, and joked, and danced, and played, with an excess of jocosity that jarred him painfully. He gave her credit for uncommon intelligence, and undoubtedly she had been educated above the position in life she was content to occupy. Why should she resort to the shallow and obvious subterfuges of the most foolish and frivolous of her sex? He had no perception of the extent of her sufferings, and would not, in any case, have understood how independent are the workings of the head and the heart of a loving woman. On such occasions she flirted audaciously with the miners, and her blood burned in her veins because Done showed no disposition to be moved by it.

Tim Carrol imagined himself to be the specially favoured man, and was Aurora's most devoted slave, and the girl played upon his big, affectionate heart, with no object but to awaken in Done a sparkle of the recent fire. One night Aurora danced with him through a lively reel, and at its conclusion, in a spirit of mirthless mischief, put up her red mouth to be kissed. Not for all the powers of good and evil would Tim have foregone that delight. He kissed her, but this time Done offered no objection. Indeed, he gave no indication of having seen what was passing, although in reality he had been watching Aurora, impressed with the idea that she was drinking. Never since the first night he met her had she seemed to him to be under the influence of drink, and he admitted to himself that he might have been mistaken then, and was probably deceived now by the fervour of her character.

Done's indifference struck a chill to the girl's heart. She went back to her place silent, but feeling within her the stirring of a tempest. A quarter of an hour later she confronted Jim as he stood talking with Harry Peetree. For a moment she looked into his face, and all eyes were upon her. Then she struck him in the mouth with her right hand, and her eyes, cheeks, and whole being seemed to blaze into passion at the same moment.

'I have something belonging to you. Is it that you are waiting for?' She threw the small nugget in his face with her other hand.

The gold cut his temple, but he did not flinch; his eyes met hers without passion; his cultivated power of control helped him now. Taking out a handkerchief, he wiped the blood from his eye, and then, picking up the nugget, offered it to her.

'Aurora,' he said, 'you know in your heart that is a lie.'

His quietness made her action ridiculous, whatever his intention may have been, and the girl felt it with an access of frenzy; but at this point Tim Carrol felt himself called upon to intervene in his new character as knight-errant.

'D'ye mean to call the lady a liar?' he cried hotly.

Jim, who had a real liking for the cheerful young Irishman, evaded the awkward blow aimed at his head, and stood back, and Ben Kyley saved further trouble by seizing Tim and hustling him into a corner.

'I'm the on'y man what's permitted to punch the customers in this tent,' said Ben.

At the same time Mrs. Ben descended upon Aurora and bore her off with a mighty hug, much as if she were a rebellious infant.


XVII

IT was some time before Jim Done visited Mrs. Kyley's tent again. He bore Aurora no animosity, he had the kindliest feelings for her, but recognised that in frequenting the shanty he increased the difficulty of the situation and prolonged the task he had set himself. A letter had come to him from Lucy Woodrow--a bright, breezy letter, about Bush-life, about herself and the youngsters, and a good deal about him. Certainly a pleasant enough letter, but, considered as a literary production merely, not deserving of Jim's high appreciation of it. Alter receiving it Jim sat down in a reverent humour and decided, with the formality of a meeting carrying a resolution, that Lucy was the only woman in the world for him, the one possible woman. The resolution practically abolished all other women so far as he was concerned. He could never think of another with patience, and his longing for her was so great that it left him little mind for Ryder, and scarcely any for Aurora. He was eager to pay Boobyalla another visit, but Mike was deaf to all insinuations, and Jim consoled himself with pretty imaginative pictures in which Lucy was vividly represented sitting on the shady veranda at Macdougal's home stead, spotted with flakes of golden sunshine filtered through the tangle of vine and creeper. How sweet she was, how gentle, how tender, and yet brave of heart and keen-witted withal. She had understood him better than he had understood himself. That was very gratifying; it showed her deep interest in him, but he did not put it to himself in that bald way. Why hadn't he taken her up in his arms and kissed her when they parted in the garden? Every drop of his blood prompted him to it, and something told him she would not have resented it. He had been a fool. He should have told her then that he loved her. Of course, it had hardly occurred to him then that he really did love her, but he was a fool in any case for not seeing it and understanding it.

Burton and the Peetrees had resolved to try a new rush before Done called at the shanty again.

'I have come to say goodbye, Mrs. Ben,' he said to the big washerwoman, 'and to thank you for a thousand kindnesses.'

'Thank me for nothing!' cried Mrs. Kyley. 'Is it true you are off on the wallaby again?'

'We shall start for Simpson's Ranges in the morning.'

'It is so long since we've seen you that you won't mind if we don't break our hearts at parting.' She glanced towards Aurora, who had turned her back to them.

'That's the least I expect of you, Mrs. Ben.'

'Well, you're not a bad lad, though inconstant. Give me a kiss, and good luck go with you. Be a man,' she added in a whisper. 'Say a few kind words to the poor girl.' She nodded towards Aurora.

'I came wishing to.'

'You ruffian!' she said aloud; 'and you pretending you cared a copper dump about Mother Kyley. She pushed him towards Aurora, and rolled from the tent with one of her great gusts of laughter.

'I'm off, Joy!' said Done.

She turned and looked at him. She was in one of her quiet humours. If she had felt much grief, it had left little impression upon her. She was neatly dressed and looking very fresh and girlish to-day.

'I heard you were going,' she answered.

'Joy!' He put out an open hand. 'Let us part friends; I'm fond of you--I am, upon my soul!'

She caught his hand in both of hers and pressed it to her breast. 'I was wondering if you would come to see me before leaving.'

'Ah, that's better,' he said. 'I'd be pretty miserable if I went thinking I'd left you an enemy, because--because--' He had a heart full of gratitude and big, generous emotions towards her, and could not express himself. 'God bless you, Joy! he murmured, kissing her hair. 'Don't think me an utterly selfish kind of brute, dear.'

'I haven't one ill thought of you, Jimmy. Didn't I woo you with every trick I know, but with my whole heart, too, for all that? It's been a fair deal, old man.'

'I'll never cease to wish you happiness, and I'll always regret any trouble I may have caused you.'

'Regret nothing--nothing! You've been a big joy to me, and you bore my tantrums like a brick. I'm sorry I struck you, Jimmy.' She drew his head down and kissed the scar over his right eye.

'There was another blow here.' He touched his left cheek, and she kissed that too, but she was showing no sign of sentimentality. Her attitude was that of a good friend, and in this pose she was delightful, Jim thought.

'We are certain to meet again, Joy,' he said. 'If ever I could do anything for you, would you ask me?'

She looked into his eyes for a moment. 'Yes,' she answered, 'before anyone else in the world.'

'That's good. You're one of the best, Joy. We go to Simpson's Ranges, but may find our way down to Ballarat in the course of a few months if things don't pan out well.'

'When you hear