Wild, Wild Heart/Chapter 5

Ann had not expected to go to the Omoana races; for although Mrs. Ralston had invited Biddy and Jo to spend race day with Connie and Alice, and Ann was consequently off duty, she did not imagine that the governess would form one of the party setting out from Tirau to the racecourse. She was not quite sure whether she had to thank Vera, or Dick Holmes, for the day’s outing. Waring had stayed at Tirau the preceding night, but he certainly would not have bestirred himself openly on her account. Whatever interest he took in her was carefully concealed. Ann was a little in the dark as to the reason for this; but she shrewdly suspected that Mrs. Holmes, who expected the undivided allegiance of any man she favored with her friendship, would have resented attention being shown to the governess, and that Waring was clever enough to avoid any chance of arousing Vera’s displeasure. But Ann did not trouble herself to ask whom she had to thank for the invitation. She took what the gods were pleased to send her, and was thankful. She had never been to a race meeting in her life, and now, dressed in her prettiest summer frock, as she drove off from the homestead with Dick Holmes, she was as happy and excited, as any healthy, ​pretty young creature might be, at the prospect of a jolly day.

Vera had, as she put it, taken pity on Gerald’s loneliness, and was driving in his car with him.

“You ought to feel very grateful,” she had remarked lazily at breakfast. “If I didn’t come with you, you’d have to get out and open every gate—there are five of them—on the way to the course.”

“I don’t believe Miss Merrill would mind opening the gates, would you, Miss Merrill?” asked Waring casually.

“She’ll have to open them for Dick,” answered Vera. “There’d be quite a scandal in the neighborhood if I allowed her to drive alone with you. I think it’s less likely to occasion gossip if you take an old married woman in your car.”

And so it was settled, and Ann sat in the front seat beside Dick Holmes, bumping along the somewhat uneven road in the hot sunshine. She told him that she had never been to a race meeting in her life, and he did his best to explain the working of the totalisator to her.

“Omoana only has one meeting a year, so they get in a little bit of everything. The course is under water in the winter, and the going isn’t too hard for the steeplechase now, though it’s really the flat racing season.”

“It’s the steeplechase Rodney Marsh is riding in, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Biddy asked me to put a shilling on Nigger for her,” he said. “And Jo brought me fourpence out of her money-box. I told them they ought both to be well spanked.”

“And did you spank them?”

​He smiled, and for answer pulled out of his pocket a shilling and four coppers.

“I told them that they should have their first lesson in gambling. That I should take their money and they would never see it again.”

“But suppose Nigger wins?”

He laughed.

“There’s about as much likelihood of that as there is of my old car winning a speed trial.”

“But Rodney Marsh thinks he’s got a chance. He told me so the other day.”

“Poor old Rod. He loves that horse more than anything in the world, I think, and he’s so proud of him that he’d probably enter him for the Grand National if he could afford it.”

“But Nigger has won prizes, hasn’t he?”

“Only for jumping. He’s not a young horse. I don’t fancy he can gallop much—and anyhow with Rod’s weight up he doesn’t stand an earthly. This is a new idea of Rodney’s—racing him. He’s trained the horse himself, and imagines Nigger’s done some wonderfully fast gallops. But I think Rod’s stop watch is a bit erratic. Like its owner.”

“Is he erratic?”

“A bit wild. But there’s good solid stuff in the boy if he ever settles down.”

“Perhaps if he marries...”

“Oh, Rod would fight like the devil against marriage. And the only sort of girl who would stand a chance of managing him, would be the sort of girl he’s never likely to meet.”

“Mrs. Bentley’s a widow, isn’t she?”

“He’ll never marry her. That’s more unlikely than Nigger winning the steeplechase today.”

​A stream of traffic—cars, men on horseback, a few odd buggies, and Maoris from a nearby path on foot—were now approaching the gate leading into the big wire-fenced paddock in which lay the racecourse. A rough little stand, with totalisator shed, stewards’ room, and saddling paddock beside it, overlooked the judge’s box and winning-post; but in the center of the course, where all the cars and other vehicles were parked, rushes and briars grew, and coarse tussocky grass.

Holmes drew up amongst the other cars; and within a few minutes Waring and Vera joined them. The Staffords, Ralstons and many of those who attended the polo practice matches had already arrived, so that Ann and Vera were soon members of a large group, all extremely well-known to one another. It was quite like a family party of forty or fifty, and Ann was one of the few who was not addressed by her baptismal name. It was all very friendly and jolly, she thought. The sun shone, the larks sang over the green hills, pink flowering briars nodded in the warm wind, and the gay colors of the jockeys, the crude, vivid dresses of the Maori women, and the smarter attire and bright parasols of the sheep-farmers’ wives, made a moving kaleidoscope of color. The women were “making-up” tickets for the totalisator—only a few were bold enough to invest the full amount of one pound. For the most part they betted in five-shilling or half-crown shares. Ann had half a crown on the first race, and lost. But it made the race more exciting to have a monetary interest in it. After that they had lunch, every one bringing sandwiches, cake, fruit, and drinkables from the cars and pooling them. ​And at a little distance, over a camp fire, the inevitable billy boiled for tea.

“Enjoying it?” asked Vera, carelessly, when she helped herself to a sandwich from a basket Ann passed to her.

“Loving it! It was sweet of you to bring me,” answered Ann quite truthfully.

Vera smiled at her. She was in one of her best moods today—and looking her best, too—wearing a smart frock, and one of the chic little hats which Ann had made for her.

“Harry Kent appears to think it sweet of me also,” observed Vera. “Oh, here he is again,” she added under her breath. “He doesn’t leave you for long alone.”

“You coming to the dance tonight, Miss Merrill?” asked Kent at this moment.

“What dance?”

“We’re getting up a dance at the Omoana Hall tonight. You and Dick are coming, aren’t you, Mrs. Holmes?”

“I believe so,” answered Vera.

“And Miss Merrill?”

“Mrs. Pratt and Emily can sleep up at the house tonight,” put in Holmes. “No need for you to stay at home for that. What about you, Gerald?”

“I’ve got to get back to Kopu tonight.”

“Go back after the dance.”

“Yes, I could do that.”

No more was said about the dance, and Ann did not refer to it again. After this day’s holiday she hardly expected to be allowed to attend the dance as well. After all, she wasn’t a guest staying with the Holmes’s. She was merely the governess. Though Vera ​Holmes kept her busily employed in many different ways in the house, and she had very little time she could really call her own, she had up till now been included in almost every small festivity. She couldn’t expect to be taken everywhere. And it was enough for her to know that she was enjoying every minute of this bright day.

It was just before the horses were taken into the saddling paddock for the steeplechase, that she met Rodney Marsh. Kent had been called away by some man, and Ann stood for a few minutes alone near the totalisator.

“Going to have a ticket on Nigger?” he asked.

“They all say he hasn’t any chance.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” he inquired contemptuously. “I say he can win. I ought to know.”

Ann suddenly made up her mind. She pulled out two pound notes and stuffed them into his hand.

“Get me two tickets,” she said quickly.

He grinned at her.

“You’re a sport!” he remarked. “Nigger won’t let you down.”

“He did once,” she answered promptly.

Marsh laughed.

“Well, he won’t this time, anyhow.”

He dashed off to get the tickets. Ann heard the ring of the totalisator bell as he put the money on, and in a moment he was beside her again, and pushed the tickets into her hand.

“By the way, I’ve got something belonging to you at home. I meant to return it before now.”

“Something of mine?”

“That poet chap’s book. I borrowed it the other day—cheek, wasn’t it?”

​Ann laughed. She couldn’t be angry with him, and she was glad to know her little book of poems wasn’t lost.

“Why didn’t you ask me to lend it to you?” she asked.

“You’d have thought you’d converted me,” he answered, grinning.

“Did you read it?”

He nodded.

“And did you like it?”

“Some of it. I liked bits of that ‘Hound of Heaven’ thing—some of it sounded like a horse galloping. A sort of swinging sound in it. Of course he puts in a lot of long words that don’t mean much. Still, I guess you were right. I expect he’s a poet. I must be off.”

“Good luck,” said Ann. “Don’t forget I’ve got two tickets on your horse.”

“Well, you’ll get a straight run for your money, anyhow. I’ve just put twenty pounds on the tote myself.”

He moved swiftly away towards the saddling paddock, and a few minutes later he was cantering down the straight on Nigger.

Ann told no one she had backed Nigger. That was her little secret—hers and Rodney’s. Why was she glad to share this with him? And why glad that he had impertinently stolen her book? She didn’t know; but it seemed to establish some small bond of friendship between them. Of course he wouldn’t win! Everybody said he hadn’t a chance. Nevertheless, Ann felt no regret for the loss of her two pounds. She and Kent joined the others in the stand to watch the race. There were seven horses running, and some of them gave a little trouble at the starting-post.

​“They’re off!”

Nigger had got away well, and was lying third. The two first horses made the running, but Nigger was jumping faultlessly and going strongly—not gaining on the leaders, but keeping his place. All safely over the first three fences! But at the fourth, one horse fell, and another challenged Nigger and took third place. “He’s beaten!” thought Ann, for when they passed the stand the first time Marsh was last. But there wasn’t much gap between the horses, and at the sod wall another fell. Ann had her heart in her mouth at each mishap, but the jockeys rose again in a second, and apparently no damage was done to either horses or riders. At the back of the course Nigger moved up. He was third again—now he was second.

“By Jove! Nigger’s got a chance if he can stay the distance,” said Holmes.

Ann’s little figure was tense with excitement. Could he win? How wonderful if he could win! She hadn’t given a thought to the money she’d invested. She only longed for Rodney Marsh to prove himself right—to triumph. They were facing the last fence now, and the race resolved itself into a contest between Marsh and the leading jockey. Both over! But alas, the other horse gained at the jump. He flew his fences with scarcely an inch to spare. Nigger jumped bigger. Marsh’s opponent led by a length and a half as they entered the straight. But foot by foot Nigger came up—he had decreased the lead by a length—now he was drawing level, and now neck and neck they raced. Yells from the stand—Ann joining in the yelling! He was winning—Rodney was winning! He’d won!

​Ann sat down suddenly in a little huddled heap. Then all at once she remembered her tickets.

“I believe I’ve won something,” she remarked.

“Did you back Nigger?” asked Vera Holmes curiously.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He was the first horse I was ever on. Riding, I mean.”

“Good for you!” said Kent. “He’ll pay a thumping dividend—about sixteen pounds, I should think.”

Ann made a hurried calculation. Twenty times sixteen. Over three hundred pounds! The stakes were fifty. Rodney Marsh would be richer by nearly four hundred pounds! A little fortune, so it seemed to Ann.

“How much did you have on?” asked Vera.

“Twenty pounds,” said Ann.

“Twenty pounds!” shrieked Vera.

“No! No! I mean I suppose I’ll win that,” said Ann. “I had two tickets.”

To her surprise she knew that she was blushing, but that was the excitement.

“More like thirty pounds, if you’ve got two tickets,” said Kent.

“You little plunger!” said Vera.

Ann wanted to rush down to the paddcok to congratulate Rodney, but she couldn’t leave her own party to do that; and after all he wouldn’t miss her congratulations. He had his own friends—any number of them, crowding round him. Mrs. Bentley was down there, shaking him by both hands. Ann saw the handsome, laughing face turned towards the woman from Omoana.

​For no reason at all Ann suddenly hated Mrs. Bentley.

Ann went to the dance. Again, she was not quite sure whom she had to thank for this further festivity. A queer little suspicion—which she instantly dismissed as disloyal and absurd—had occurred to her. Did Mrs. Holmes raise no objection to the arrangement because Ann took Dick Holmes off her hands, and allowed her—Vera—to devote herself to Waring? Ridiculous! Waring and Mrs. Holmes were just old friends, and nothing more. Vera loved admiration from any man, and she looked upon Gerald as her own especial property. She teased him openly about his flirtations; told him frankly that mo woman with any sense would ever take him seriously; but admitted that his conversation amused her when he could manage to get away for a few minutes from the everlasting and enthralling subject of sheep.

Surely that wasn’t the manner of a woman carrying on any underhand flirtation? And Waring was Dick Holmes’s best friend.

Ann scolded herself for the fleeting moment of distrust.

In spite of the excitement of stuffing thirty-five dirty pound notes, and some odd silver, into her bag after Nigger’s sensational win, Ann had found the rest of the afternoon at the races a little flat, and she made up her mind that she would enjoy every moment of the dance.

She had not seen Marsh after the race. Driving with Holmes into Omoana after dinner, she learnt ​that the head-shepherd had won just over four hundred pounds.

“I’m afraid the young fool will be sitting up till all hours gambling at Omoana tonight. Mrs. Bentley plays a pretty stiff game of poker, I believe. Well, I hope he’ll have something—beyond a bad head—to remind him of his win in the morning.”

So that was where Rodney Marsh would be this evening! Gambling with Mrs. Bentley and a few choice spirits at the “pub,” while Ann herself was dancing at the Omoana Hall only a few yards or so away!

“Well, what does it matter to me?” she asked herself impatiently. “I know that such things happen. That’s his idea of life and happiness. We’re not all built alike.” But she was conscious of a small sharp stab of repret. He was so strong, so fearless, and so handsome. Surely too fine a man to waste his glowing youth in such a futile way. And though she enjoyed the dance, the thought of Rodney lay on her mind like a little shadow which might rise at any moment to dim her pleasure.

Vera again occupied a seat in Waring’s car on the drive in to Omoana—‘to open gates for him’—but as he was going on to Kopu after the dance, she would be returning home with her husband and Ann.

Apparently the dance was a community affair, the men having hired the hall and provided the pianist—a half-caste Maori woman who usually played for “the pictures”—and the women having brought the supper of sandwiches, cake and fruit.

Ann, like all the other girls and young married women, suffered from no, lack of partners. There were at least a dozen men too many. Though programs ​were not provided, Ann had only one dance unbooked when Waring came across the room to her.

“You’re a most elusive little devil,” he remarked in his casual drawl. “Why do you keep out of my way whenever I visit Tirau?”

“You apparently don’t notice my presence at mealtimes.”

“Annoyed?” he asked.

She laughed at him quite frankly.

“Not a bit. Only you can’t have it both ways, you know. You can’t ignore me in public and expect me to be overjoyed by your desire to waylay me in private.”

“I have my reasons.”

“I’ve no doubt you have.”

“I’ll tell you them one of these days.”

“They don’t interest me.”

“Quite sure you’re speaking the truth?”

She laughed again.

“If it pleases your vanity to believe I’m not...”

“It does. You’re going to dance with me?”

“Of course—why not? The tenth?”

“That’ll be about supper time. You’ll keep that for me?”

“Certainly. If I can remember it and you don’t forget.”

“Not much chance of my forgetting it.”

But again Ann knew, in spite of the smiling indifference of her manner, that she wasn’t altogether displeased by the knowledge that she was a good deal in his thoughts. During the intervals of the dances many couples left the hall, strolling outside in the warm moonlight. Ann had determined she would not do this with Waring. And yet, just as her dance with ​him came to an end, she changed her mind. A man passing her remarked laughingly to a friend: “A rough house down the road at Bentley’s.”

Was Rodney Marsh there? Suddenly Ann determined that she would stroll with Waring past the hotel, towards the sea.

She made no objection to his suggestion that they should go out. At the hotel the light from the open windows was streaming across the sandy road. A gramophone was going, and a rival dance was in progress. Maori men and women, hands from the dairy factory, and others were fox-trotting noisily on the veranda. But within a room to the right of the hall a few loungers stood locking down at the center table, where Mrs. Bentley, a woman friend, Jack Smith, Marsh and another man sat playing cards. There were little piles of notes upon the table and half-emptied glasses. The hanging lamp was above the players, and Ann saw clearly Rodney’s flushed face, his rumpled hair, and his strong brown forearms below the rolled-up shirt sleeves. Again she was conscious of some feeling she could not clearly define. There was regret in it, but there was resentment too. Why should she feel this? What did it matter to her how Rodney Marsh employed his leisure? She dismissed all thought of him—or imagined she did—and walked on with Waring towards the sandhills, her heart filled with an angry recklessness. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die!” That seemed to be the motto of men like Marsh! Well, she herself would try it for a change! And so, when they came to the shadow of an old willow tree growing beyond the hotel, and Waring took her in his arms, she did not resist. He held her close, kissing her ​passionately on mouth and eyes and throat. The warm wind stirred the leafy branches of the willow overhead. The moonlight lay white on the sandhills; above the dull, incessant roaring of the surf, sounded the music of the gramophone from Bentley’s—and with that thin stream of melody came back the memory of Rodney Marsh. Not Marsh as Ann had seen him tonight, but Marsh walking beside her in the spring sunshine as she sat perched up in his saddle, riding Nigger; Marsh chaffing her as she drove the sheep into the race at the yards; Marsh listening to her as she read “Daisy” on the hillside overlooking the sea. And suddenly Ann saw very clearly that disaster had come upon her. She didn’t want to share her life with honest Bob Greenaway, whom she would always trust and respect as a dear friend, but whose kiss had no power to stir her heart to a quicker beat; nor did she desire to take as a life partner Gerald Waring, whom she neither trusted nor respected, but whose kisses now had set her pulses racing furiously. There was another man—a man indifferent to her—and one with whom, in any case, marriage would be impossible. One married into one’s own class, not beneath it.

She disengaged herself from Waring’s close embrace and moved out of the shadow. Other strolling dancers might see them now, and Waring would not dare to kiss her again. She knew that she was shaken, but she had sense enough to assume a calmness she was far from feeling.

“I don’t think we’ll repeat that...that experiment,” she said.

Waring was standing close to her.

“Was that all it was to you?” he asked.

​For the first time Ann heard his voice husky and uneven.

“Of course,” she answered. “I oughtn’t to have allowed it, I know. But it seemed easier than an undignified scuffle.”

“It meant...nothing to you, then?”

“Quite as little as it meant to you.”

“By God, if it meant as much...” He broke off, and Ann moved a step or two towards the hotel. She would never risk being alone with him again, she decided. He walked beside her in silence, his face looking rather white and strained in the moonlight.

They were abreast of the hotel, when out of the doors, and across the veranda into the moonlight roadway, surged a crowd of shouting, gesticulating men and women. A fight was in progress. Again Ann knew amoment of bitter heart-sickness, for she saw that the two sparring and hitting furiously were Rodney Marsh and Hicky, the big half-caste. Was this the man she thought of more than all the others? This drunken, dishevelled shepherd? She stood quite still, unnoticed amongst the excited crowd. Waring was touching her arm.

“Come away,” he said, “this is no place for you.”

“Go back to the hall if you want to,” she said sharply, “and leave me.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

The fight went on. No one interfered with the two men. At last, with one terrific blow, Marsh felled his opponent. The crowd gathered round the fallen man, and Ann knew that she was separated from Waring, and standing close beside the victor.

She laid her hand on his arm.

“Rodney, will you go home... now?” she said.

​He looked down at her, dazed and bewildered. His breath was coming in great shuddering gasps.

“What are you... doing... here?”

“We’re at the hall. Promise me you won’t fight again—that you’ll go home. Promise me.” Her voice was urgent.

“All right,” he answered thickly. “If Hicky isn’t badly damaged I’ll go.”

The injured man had risen. He was dazed, but apparently uninjured. Waring again was at Ann’s side.

“Is he hurt?” she asked.

“No, only knocked out, But he’s taken all the punishment he wants for the moment—come away.”

Ann moved back to the hall beside him.

Later, driving back to Tirau, she heard Vera and Holmes in the front seat discussing the encounter.

“It’s lucky for Marsh that the constable didn’t take him in charge this evening,” said Vera.

“Shaw very wisely goes to bed early on race night,” replied Holmes drily.

“I suppose that idiotic youth has lost most of the money he won today.”

“About a hundred of it, I believe.”

“He’ll have lost it all before breakfast-time.”

“I don’t think so. He went home directiy after the fight.”

He’d kept his promise, then! Ann’s sore heart knew a little healing.