Wild, Wild Heart/Chapter 6

For the next fortnight, Ann saw neither Rodney Marsh nor Gerald Waring, except in the presence of others. She had determined that she would do her best never to speak to either of them alone again. She devoted herself to the little girls; did all the odd jobs she could find to de for Mrs. Holmes; and in her spare moments—which were very few—tried to read solid improving literature. Romantic fiction and poems concerning love she resolutely barred. She was determined to occupy her mind with thoughts which had very little connection with sentiment. But alas, she was young, and ardent, and all nature, all the glamor of the warm bright days, and the freshness and novelty of this new life, seemed to tempt her to dream of some indefinite but blissful future. What was the sense of indulging in these dreams, she asked herself disgustedly.

She would not dignify by the name of love the feeling she knew now that she entertained for Rodney Marsh. She told herself that it was a stupid infatuation, born of his good looks, and his attractive personality. The attachment of a sentimental schoolgirl for a romantic-looking music master!

As for the disturbing influence of Gerald Waring, ​she recognized it honestly for what it was—something entirely physical, springing from sex interest, without affection or regard. That certainly wasn’t love, though she shrewdly suspected it was what hurried many young couples into wedlock, often with the most disastrous results. No, she wasn’t likely to marry Gerald Waring, even if he lost his head completely enough to want her to do so.

But if Rodney Marsh were to ask her to be his wife? She turned away from this question when it presented itself to her. Sometimes she saw herself settled in the homestead of a little farm, an ideally happy wife. That was one picture. Was it a true one? Wasn’t there one more real and by no means so pleasant? A girl accustomed to a certain standard of living—of culture—married to a half-educated working man; entertaining his friends—the blacksmith and the plowboy, and the riff-raff from the “pub”?

Why see these pictures at all? Rodney had no more thought of her as a wife than he had of Emily Pratt, the little housemaid. Less, perhaps; for all she knew he might have found Emily quite attractive. Was Rodney right? Were women’s thoughts almost exclusively occupied with love and marriage? Certainly not! Ann, with a sudden fierceness, attacked the hats she was trimming for the little girls, stabbing them with pins.

The Coast team for the polo tournament, held at Wairiri in Christmas week, had now been chosen: Holmes, Waring, Marsh, and Kent, with Ralston as emergency man.

Rodney, accompanied by two grooms, was to make ​a start for Wairiri with the ponies on Christmas Eve; while Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and Waring, planned to leave Tirau on Boxing Day. They would all be away until after the New Year, and during their absence the Pratt family were to sleep up at the house, so that Ann and the children should not be quite alone.

A short time before Christmas some cattle from the back of the run were mustered, in order to brand and mark the calves. The greater part of the branding had been done after the shearing. These cows were a small wild mob from the bush country.

Holmes and the men on the place had been kept hard at work sowing rape, picking fat lambs for the Freezing Works, shearing the others, and weaning; now, until the second week in January, when dipping and culling began, there would be a lull in the station work.

The barking of dogs, the cracking of stock-whips, the galloping thud of the horses’ hoofs, as the men drafted the bellowing cattle in the paddocks down near the yards, fascinated Ann. This was more exciting to watch than polo, and it called for equally good—if not better—horsemanship.

Rodney was not riding Nigger. Since this animal had proved himself a steeplechase winner, Marsh used another hack for station work. Holmes chaffed the young shepherd about it. Asked him if he were contemplating giving up his job, and taking to racing. Rodney smiled good-humoredly, but kept his intentions to himself.

Today the horse he rode was not as clever, nor as experienced as Nigger at cutting out cattle, so that Marsh was having harder work than usual.

Ann, busy in the school-room setting copies and ​little sums, had promised the children they should go down to join their father at the woolshed for a few minutes before lunch. She did not add that she herself was just as anxious to view the proceedings at close quarters as they were. Was it the prospect of a chance word with Rodney Marsh that drew her towards the yards? She wouldn’t answer that question.

But running down the hillside in the sunshine with the little girls, Mrs. Holmes’s voice from the veranda called to her. Ann halted, and Biddy and Jo went on. Mrs. Holmes wanted her for some reason to come back to the house.

“I don’t like leaving the children,” she shouted in reply.

“They’re all right,” called Mrs. Holmes.

But they were not all right.

Deciding to take a short cut to the woolshed, they had already climbed through the wire fence into the paddock from which the cattle had been driven into the yards.

Ann shrieked to them to come back, for she saw what they apparently did not, that the bellowing cows were now returning; but they either did not, or would not, hear.

Disregarding Vera’s calls, Ann fled down the hill in pursuit of her charges. She scrambled through the wire fence and raced after them. Heavens! The mob were now pouring out from the yards into the open, and charging in a blind rush, straight down towards the children.

Suddenly Biddy and Jo, realizing their danger, turned and tore back to the fence as fast as their short little legs could carry them. But what chance would they have of evading destruction? None! Unless the ​advancing flood of red and white horned beasts could be stemmed or diverted. Ann, standing facing the oncoming rush, snatched off her broad-brimmed hat and stood waving it frantically, and shrieking at the top of her voice. Canute as successfully commanded the tides!

The herd came thundering on. But just as she had given up all hope, she was aware of a chorus of barking dogs, and the sound of galloping hoofs. Marsh, racing down on the inside of the fence, headed off the mob, who in a few seconds were stampeding out towards the open paddock, leaving Ann and the little girls safe and unharmed. Rodney Marsh, however, was not so fortunate. Swinging round sharply to avoid a charging beast, his horse came crashing to the ground. He was in no danger now from the cattle, for they had passed on, but when his horse rose, Ann saw that he still remained lying where he had fallen. She rushed across to the spot where he lay, but before she reached him he was sitting up, and Dick Holmes was galloping towards them.

“Hurt, Rod?” he called.

Marsh, looking rather white, tried to get on to his feet, and then sank back again.

“The old knee gone again, I think,” he announced laconically.

Holmes and Ann were standing beside him.

“Don’t move then,” said Holmes.

“If I’d been riding Nigger, this wouldn’t have happened.” Marsh’s voice expressed disgust. “It’s good-bye to the polo tournament for me now.”

“Perhaps it isn’t as bad as you think.”

“Bad enough. The knee’s gone all right.”

“Keep still then. We’ll carry you in. Miss Merrill, ​will you run up to the house and telephone to Omoana for Doctor Spencer?”

Ann sped away towards the house. She knew that if Holmes had not arrived when he did, she would have put her arms around Rodney, or made some other equally ridiculous gesture of consolation. She had been prevented from making a fool of herself; but, as it was, she hadn’t uttered one word of thanks to Rodney Marsh for thus saving her a second time from sudden death.

The head-shepherd was right.

When the polo team departed for Wairiri, he was left lying in the cottage, with his knee in splints. The injury proved to be severe synovitis, and Dr. Spencer refused to allow the patient to move out of bed for the first ten days at least. Ann sent messages to the young man by Dick Holmes, but did not attempt to see him. He suffered from no lack of visitors however. Jack Smith motored over from Omoana to see him, and there were many other callers. But on Boxing Day he was to be alone. A race meeting further up the coast claimed the attention of most of the residents of Omoana; and before Dick Holmes departed with Vera and Waring for Wairiri, he asked Ann to visit the solitary invalid.

“I’m sure he’d like to see you,” he said. “And it’s rotten bad luck for him, knowing we’ve all gone off to the tournament. He’s very keen on polo. Try and cheer him up a bit.”

Ann was free, for the little girls had gone over to play with Alice and Connie Ralston, and about three ​o’clock she decided she would walk across the paddock to the cottage.

Rodney’s bed was drawn close to the open window of one of the front rooms, looking out on to the veranda, and through the curtain of creepers he saw Ann as she came up from the gate, across the neglected, overgrown garden.

“Hospital visiting?” he asked, as she hesitated on the doorstep.

“Yes,” she answered, smiling at him. “May I come in?”

“Of course. You’ve been a long time making up your mind to call and inquire after my health.”

“I did inquire.”

“I don’t count messages. I like personal inquiries.”

“You’ve had so many visitors, I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

She entered the little passage, and turned in at the open door.

“I want to see everybody,” he returned. “What’s the good of being on the sick-list if you don’t get a little attention?”

“You’ve had too much, that’s quite evident. You’re thoroughly spoilt.”

“Not nearly spoilt enough,” he returned. “Can you find a chair somewhere?”

She knew that missing the tournament had been a very great disappointment to him, and that this period of enforced rest must be galling to any one of such an active temperament. He was not whining over it however. With a warm little glow at her heart she realized that she had not been mistaken in her estimate of him. He had the best sort of courage. He wouldn’t admit defeat.

​“You know, I’ve never thanked you for saving my life the other day.”

“I didn’t do anything. Just turned those darned cows—that’s all.”

“Well, if you hadn’t, where should I have been?”

He shrugged his big shoulders, propped up against the pillows.

“Can’t tell you that. But there’s one thing I will tell you.” He tumed and looked at her steadily. “You’re a damned good plucked ’un. You were doing your best to save the kids.”

She blushed, and felt angry with herself for blushing.

“One does things like that without thinking. They’re not brave really.”

“If a man or a woman isn’t plucky, they do step to think,” he remarked shrewdly. “I’ve often seen ’em thinking.”

She laughed.

“I’m horribly afraid of lots of things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Oh, frogs, and cows, and geese, and mice, and spiders. And in the dark I’m often scared. One night I met Mrs. Holmes walking in her sleep. I was terrified!”

“Walking in her sleep!”

He merely repeated her phrase, and yet the sound had something in it, which gave her a sensation of discomfort. What underlay his tone? Contempt? It wasn’t definite enough for that, and yet it seemed to wake in her a vague impalpable suspicion forgotten now for weeks. There was a question she had never asked. What was it? Ah, now she had it. Why did Mrs. Holmes say that night, “It’s just after two, isn’t ​it?” How, if she were really sleeping, did she guess the time? Ann didn’t like that question—didn’t want to think Mrs. Holmes was acting. What motive would she have for such a foolish deception? And she wasn’t acting when she wept and shivered. Her tears were teal enough. Ann pushed aside all thought of Mrs. Holmes. At any rate she had no intention of discussing her employer with any one.

“Can you keep a secret?” asked Marsh suddenly.

Ann turned in quick alarm.

“I don’t like secrets,” she answered. “Especially if they concern other people.”

“This only concerns me.”

Ann drew a breath of relief.

“Yes, I could keep that,” she answered.

“Me and Nigger,” he went on.

“Tell me.” Ann’s eyes were bright with interest. “I never thanked you for winning that money for me.”

He grinned.

“What did you do with it?”

“I’ve got it at home. It ought to be in the Savings Bank. How much did you lose of yours?”

“Only about a quarter of it. The rest’s safe—for the present.” He was still smiling at her, “But I’m doing it in on Nigger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Swear you won’t give me away? I haven’t told any one yet.”

“Not even Mrs. Bentley?” said Ann.

The words seemed to have spoken themselves without her volition. How gauche, how outrageous of her to have made that remark!

​“I’ve never talked to her like I talk to you,” replied Marsh shortly.

Ann was silent. She began to think that by her unfortunate observation she had lost the precious secret, and she was tremendously anxious to hear it. Something to do with racing it must be. Ann had been thrilled by the steeplechase. Any further racing news was of great importance.

“Nigger’s to race in Wairiri in the autumn. A trainer I know is going in with me, and we’re entering him for the Grand National,” said Marsh impressively. “And what’s more he’s going to win it.”

The Grand National! That was the great race Dick Holmes had mentioned, when laughing at Nigger’s chances at Omoana. Well, if Rodney thought his horse could win, he’d probably do so. Rodney had been right at Omoana. He’d prove himself right again. Ann had perfect faith in him.

“Everybody’ll call me no end of a fool,” said Rodney. “They’ll talk about his age—say he’ll crack up in training. But I know what the horse can do. They said he won the steeplechase by a fluke, and because he had nothing good against him. I know better. He was winning all the way. I could have won by fifteen lengths if I’d wanted to.”

Ann accepted all this. To her it wasn’t boasting. It was a plain statement of fact. Rodney knew about such things. She felt enormously flattered that he should trust her with this secret.

“I shall put ten pounds on him,” she announced.

Rodney laughed.

“You’re a real good sport. I knew you were when you backed him at Omoana.”

They talked on for some time quite contentedly.

​Marsh proceeded to tell her Nigger’s history as far as he knew it; of how the horse had erpmally become his property.

“I don’t know where he was bred, but a drover named Healey—a rotten brute with horses—owned him five years ago. I bought him because I felt sorry for the poor beast. He was sound enough, but he’d been ridden with a back that was in a hell of a mess, and he was just a bag of bones. Healey was very fond of knocking him over the head, so I knocked Healey over the head one day to show him what it felt like. We had a ding-dong go, but afterwards he sold me the horse. I doctored him up a bit, and then turned him out for a spell, and he came on wonderfully. The finest bargain I ever made. I wouldn’t part with him now for anything any one could give me—he’s the best friend I’ve got.”

Ann promised to come again next day, and to bring him some books to read.

“No more poets,” he warned her. “I’m not strong enough for poets. And no sloppy love yarns. Something exciting.”

“All right,” said Ann.

Holmes had already lent the invalid a few books. Ann knew she might safely commandeer some more from the smoking-room.

In the distance she saw the little girls riding home across the paddocks, and so she rose to go. Dan was moving about in the kitchen at the rear of the cottage, cooking an evening meal.

On her way back to the homestead Ann told herself that she had been quite mistaken in imagining her feeling for Rodney Marsh was in any degree a serious attachment. She liked him—liked him tremendously. ​Ridiculous to have allowed herself to imagine there was any sentiment mixed up in this feeling of comradeship. Already she was looking forward very happily to visiting the cottage on the following day.

Almost every day during the week that followed, unless prevented by her duties at the homestead, Ann found some opportunity of seeing Rodney Marsh. Sometimes she only looked m for a few minutes, but on most occasions she stayed for the best part of an hour. She had taken him a varied selection of books, and found him by no means so ignorant as she had at first believed him to be. He was not a “bookish” person, but he was fond of reading, and often surprised her by his preferences. “The Nigger of the Narcissus” he read three times, and announced that it was a fine book written by a fine man. At the end of the week Ann no longer argued with herself as to her feeling for the young shepherd. If he wanted her to be his wife she knew that she would marry him.

Holmes had often told her that Marsh would find no difficulty in obtaining the managership of some station; and to her mental vision the picture of the little homestead in the country became more vivid.

But did Marsh really care for her? He valued her friendship, she felt sure, and he made it plain that he recognized she was—as he would put it—“a cut above” his associates at Omoana. Yet in this he was not disloyal to his own acquaintances. They were good enough for him—not for her. He did not discuss Mrs. Bentley beyond remarking that she was “a good sort,” but that as she’d struck up a great friendship with ​Hicky, the Omoana “pub” would not see him—Marsh—very much in the future. That at least was pleasant news to Ann. It was quite apparent that Mrs. Bentley no longer possessed a proprietary interest in the young shepherd, for Rodney’s tone was certainly not that of a disappointed lover.

On the last afternoon before the party from Tirau returned, Ann sat in the little front room talking to the invalid, His knee was out of the splints now, and he had been up for an hour or two that morning.

“You’ll come tomorrow?” he asked.

“If I’m not too busy, I may be. Mrs. Pratt is on the sick-list now. She’s in bed today with a cold and a slight temperature. I see myself getting the breakfast tomorrow.”

“Can you cook?”

“Not very brilliantly. But I can manage toast and bacon and eggs, and a plain dinner. I’m making Mrs. Pratt some jelly and chicken broth—I’ll save some for you, then you’ll be able to judge if I’m a good cook or not.”

“You can do everything.”

She laughed.

“I’ve had to try to do a good many. My father was a doctor in a hard-up suburb. But you told me I should never make a sheep-farmer.”

“That’s a man’s work.”

“Pooh! Lots of girls are working on the land in England.”

They wrangled good-humoredly over this for a time, and then she rose to depart.

“I hate your going,” he said abruptly in a low voice. Ann, standing close beside his bed, was silent.

Suddenly he took her hand, and turning his face ​on the pillow held her open palm under his cheek. His lips moved:

“I love you.”

The husky whisper had in it almost a note of pain. It was as though the words had been forced from him against his will. There was the sound of a step in the passage. Ann moved away from the bedside, as Dan, the Maori cow-boy and cook, stood in the doorway.

“I’ll try to come tomorrow,” said Ann, struggling to make her voice even and unconcerned.

There was a muffled: “Thank you,” from the pillow.

Ann nodded to Dan as she passed him in the doorway, and the next moment she was gone.