Wild, Wild Heart/Chapter 8

Waring left early in the morning. He endeavored to see Ann, but she eluded him. She also avoided Mrs. Holmes, and spent her day with Emily furiously attacking the housework. By dint of much hard physical labor she was able to still the turmoil of her thoughts, and so get through the dreadful day.

She had found the answer to all her questions, but heart-sick and wretched, endeavored to shut out from memory the knowledge she had gained. Life had seemed cruel after her interview with Rodney. Now it appeared to be evil also. She was conscious of a great pity for Dick Holmes, and for the little girls, but she knew that nothing now—even apart from the question of meeting Rodney again—would induce her to stay at Tirau.

During the evening she told Vera Holmes of her decision to leave.

“Where are you going?” asked Vera sharply.

In her tone Ann read a thought of Waring and his visit to Australia.

“To Wairiri,” she answered. “I believe there’s an opening there for a hat shop. I’ve decided to start one.”

She could not bring herself to discuss her plans ​with Mrs. Holmes. But in truth the latter seemed to display very little interest in them, now that she was assured as to Ann’s intentions, Her eyes were darkly ringed, but vague, as though oblivious of outward things, and seeing only some vision of despair.

“You’ll stay here until the end of the week?”

“Of course I will if you wish me to.”

“I shall have to go into Wairiri myself tomorrow—I’ll make arrangements for Biddy and Jo to go to Mrs. Marley’s school there. She often has children in the holidays, so they could go at once. I don’t feel well enough to manage them myself at present.”

Mrs. Pratt was better, but her temperature was still above normal, and she was not yet able to leave her room. Consequently, Ann cooked the breakfast again next morning, and fell upon the housework with the same fierce concentration. It was at least a blessing to be able to tire one’s self out physically in this way. She was alone with Emily, for Mrs. Holmes had been motored into Omoana by Pratt, after an early breakfast, in order to catch the service car to Wairiri. When Pratt returned he came up to the house with a note. Emily took it from him at the back door, and brought it in to Ann. It was addressed to Holmes, and it was in Vera’s big, bold handwriting.

Ann supposed that it was a message letting Dick Holmes know what time Vera wished to be met in the evening. The service car from Wairiri usually reached Omoana between four and five. But Holmes was away at the back of the run, and Ann put the note on the table in the smoking-room, to await his return.

He did not get back to lunch, and it was only when she was giving the little girls their tea that she heard his step on the veranda. He moved into the smoking-​room, and after a few minutes Ann went in to draw his attention to the note. But he had already opened it. He was standing with it in his hand.

“Shall I have dinner ready at the usual time?” asked Ann. “Or will Mrs. Holmes be home later?”

“She’s not coming back tonight,” returned Holmes. He said no more, and Ann returned to the dining-room. But when dinner was ready, she went again to call him. He was sitting at his writing-desk, and closed a drawer quickly as she entered.

“Will you come in to dinner, Mr. Holmes?”

“I don’t want any,” he answered, without turning to her. “Have yours, will you?”

“Don’t you feel well? You’re not getting Mrs. Pratt’s ’flu, are you?”

“No, I don’t think so. How is she?”

“Better tonight. She hasn’t really been very ill. She’s getting up tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Can’t I get you anything?”

“No thanks. I’ll take some aspirin and go to bed.”

But he didn’t go to bed. He had not moved from the smoking-room when Ann, worn out after her sleepless night and hard day’s work, was herself thinking of retiring. The little girls had long ago dropped off. The whole house was quiet. What ought she to do? Something in that note had disturbed Dick Holmes profoundly. What was it? Ann didn’t dare to think. But she resolved that she would go again to the smoking-room and see what was happening. Dick Holmes was still sitting where she had left him two hours previously, but the drawer of his desk was open, and something—a small shining object—lay at his ​right hand. He pulled a paper over it, but not before Ann had seen what it was.

“I can’t go to bed if I know you’re still sitting here,” said Ann, trying to speak lightly. “Do go to your room now, Mr. Holmes, please.”

“All right.”

He rose, and to Ann’s relief pushed the hidden object into the drawer, and turned the key upon it.

“I’m going to bring you some hot whisky and lemon. I don’t want another ’flu patient on my hands.”

“I’m all right,” he turned and faced her, attempting a smile. His face was ghastly.

“You don’t look all right. Go straight to your room. I’ll turn out the lamp here.”

“For a small woman, you’re exceedingly autocratic.”

“Small women always are.”

She had moved to the desk, and without his noticing her movement, she quietly removed the keys. She felt easier now that she had them concealed in her hand.

“Please, Mr. Holmes, go to bed—at once.”

He smiled again.

“Waste of time arguing with a woman. She’s bound to get her own way in the end.” He lighted two candles standing on a side table. “I’m quite capable of putting out the light, you know.”

“I’ll do it.”

She extinguished the lamp, and each holding a lighted candle they moved out into the hall.

The kettle on the stove was still boiling. Ann mixed the whisky and lemon, and brought it to his ​door. He was in his pajamas when he took the glass from her.

But Ann herself did not get into bed until the window of his bedroom was in darkness. All safe for tonight at any rate!

The drawer in which that shining object lay was safely locked, and the keys were under Ann’s pillow.

But at about three o’clock she woke with a start. A light was shining across the veranda from Dick Holmes’s room. Ann could see it through her open french window. She jumped out of bed, and seized her wrapper. On the blind of the bay window there was a shadow—the shadow of a man holding something in his hand!

What a fool she’d been! Locks could be forced.

She flew along the passage, and without waiting to knock at his door she entered.

He turned and faced her, still holding the revolver in his hand.

“No, Mr. Holmes,” she said quietly, “you’re not going to do that.”

He was too amazed to resist, as she walked over and took the revolver from him. He stared at her for a moment, and then sank into a chair beside the bed with his two hands covering his face. Ann put the revolver down on the dressing-table, and came and knelt beside him.

“What is it?” she said. “Tell me.”

“I’m ruined,” he said in a husky whisper. “And Vera’s... gone.”

But as she asked the question she felt that she al​ready knew the answer, Waring was leaving for Australia!

“On to Hawkeston from Wairiri—today. I don’t know what she means to do afterwards. But she’ll never come back. She said so in her letter. She wants her freedom. Only divorce... or death will give her that.”

“Does she know you’re ruined?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think so. The bank’s foreclosing. I only heard it after the tournament. I thought I could worry through somehow in spite of the bad luck at shearing. But I couldn’t raise money anywhere. She has a little of her own.”

“Surely if she knew... she couldn’t leave you....”

“What good can she do? And do you think I want to bring her back by whining out a hard-luck story when I know she’d rather give up Biddy and Jo than live with me again?”

“But Mr. Waring...”

“I can’t drag Gerald into it. He’s a good pal, and he’s well off. He’d probably do what he could to finance me, but he isn’t made of money, and I’m not going to be a burden to my friends.”

Ann sat back and looked at him, and suddenly she realized that the truth, as she knew it, was hidden from him. He did not connect Vera’s flight with Waring. Well, he was spared something at least, and Ann was resolved that as long as possible she would shield him from all knowledge of that secret.

“What good would you have done by using... that?”

She pointed across to the dressing-table.

“It would be an end. I can’t go on. Vera’s been ​everything to me. I can’t stop loving her just because she’s... left me.”

“What about Biddy and Jo?”

His face worked convulsively for a moment.

“The insurance company would provide for them—far better than I can now. My policy would hold even if I...”

His hands went up to his face again. His shoulders moved and Ann knew that he was sobbing—the difficult, hard sobs of a man. In a second her arms were round him. In the face of deep human suffering, sex is non-existent. He was a child, and Ann a mother. She was conscious of nothing but an overwhelming, yearning pity—an urgent desire to comfort, and to heal. And this she did. She had no clear memory of the words she spoke—the arguments she used. But at last she had his promise. He would never attempt to find that way out again.

She went back to her room in the dawn, knowing that at least she had accomplished something. She had saved their father for Biddy and Jo.

It was after seven when she was awakened by a knock. Mrs. Pratt entered.

“You’re all right then, Mrs. Pratt?” said Ann cheerfully. “Able to be up again?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Mrs. Pratt, her good-natured face set primly. She shut the door behind her, and advanced into the room. “I should be glad if you would get up, as I’ve sent Emily back to the cottage, and as soon as I been paid my wages, I should like to go.”

“Go!” echoed Ann, bewildered. “Whatever for? Don’t you feel well enough to———”

“It isn’t any question of my ’ealth,” said Mrs. Pratt ​emphatically. “It’s the goings-on ’ere I won’t put up with. No, not if I was ever so poor I wouldn’t. Respectable houses I’ve always been in, and so I shall continue. But let me tell you it’ll be my duty to let the mistress ’ear of what ’as ’appened, and what I know for my own certain knowledge.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Mrs. Pratt?” asked Ann, bewildered.

“Young ladies going into gentlemen’s bedrooms without so much as a knock, and with next to nothing on, in the dead of night, and staying there for two good solid hours, as I timed it by the clock, is more than I’ve been accustomed to in any house I’ve been in service in, and at my time of life and with a young innocent daughter, it’s what I can’t stand, and what’s more I won’t.”

“Mr. Holmes was ill...”

“Then he’s recovered very quickly,” returned Mrs. Pratt dryly, “seeing that he’s already up and been in the smoking-room this hour past writing letters.”

“Have you spoken to him about... about this?” asked Ann.

“I have not. I could not bring myself to mention so indelicate a matter to any but one of my own sect, however lacking in right feeling she may be. And to think the moment the poor dear mistress’s back is turned this should...”

“Mrs. Pratt,” said Ann, earnestly, “I beg you to believe that I’m speaking the truth. Mr. Holmes was...in great trouble. I had no idea of anything except to help him.”

“Just now I understood he was supposed to be ill.”

“You are mistaken in what you think.”

​“That’s as may be. I leave as soon as my wages is paid.”

It was useless to argue with the woman. She would never be convinced. And why should she not imagine what she did? What other construction would any one who did not know the true circumstances put upon the case? What did Ann herself believe of Vera?

“Very well, Mrs. Pratt, if I can’t say anything to make you absolutely certain that I am speaking the truth, you’d better go.”

Mrs. Pratt withdrew, and Ann rose, and dressed.

But the woman was still sitting in the kitchen when Ann went out to see about the breakfast.

“I thought you had gone,” she said.

Mrs. Pratt’s usually kindly face looked grim.

“I don’t stir from here until I’ve had my wages,” she returned.

“Haven’t you asked Mr. Holmes for them?”

“I have, and received the reply that he’d see about it. I’m waiting for him to see, but I’ll have the law on him if they ain’t paid prompt.”

Ann went along the hall to the smoking-room. Holmes turned as she entered, and gave her a rather touching smile.

“You’ve been no end of a brick to me,” he said.

“Let’s forget about last night,” she answered. “Mrs. Pratt doesn’t seem to think she can manage here any more. She wants to go.”

“Very well, I suppose she must.”

“But she’s waiting for her wages.”

He looked down at the writing paper in front of him in silence for a moment, and then said slowly:

“I haven’t any ready money.”

“Couldn’t you give her a check?”

​“The bank would dishonor it.”

“All right, don’t worry. I’ll get rid of her somehow.”

She went swiftly back to her own room, and got out the roll of dirty notes which she had won at the races, and which she had luckily neglected to pay into the Savings Bank. With the money in her hand she returned to the kitchen. Pratt had already removed the two small baskets which Mrs. Pratt and Emily had brought up for their sojourn at the homestead, and now, having been paid, Mrs. Pratt herself departed.

Ann gave the children their breakfast, and sent them out to play; then took something for herself and Holmes on a tray to the smoking-room.

“I really don’t want anything to eat,” he protested.

“Well, I shan’t take anything if you don’t. Be sensible, Mr. Holmes. Didn’t Napoleon or some one say battles couldn’t be fought on empty stomachs? Life altogether seems more or less a battle, so if we’re not to be defeated we'd better eat.”

She managed to coax him to take an egg and some toast and to drink a cup of coffee.

“Now, will you be quite frank with me, and tell me the position?” she asked.

Apparently the bank would take over everything. He and the children would be practically penniless. But if he could settle the children somewhere for a month or two, he could probably get a job as manager of a sheep-station, or even as a shepherd—he would take anything—in the district.

“Isn’t there a school for little girls in Wairiri—kept by a Mrs. Marley, or some one?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t pay the fees.”

“Well, I can for the first three months.”

​His elbow was on the desk. He rested his head on his hand so that his face was almost hidden.

“How can I allow that?” he asked huskily. “I believe I owe you your salary too. Oh, my God!”

“Mr. Holmes, for heaven’s sake don’t make molehills into mountains. Let’s be practical. The great thing at the moment is to settle the children comfortably so that you won’t be worried while you’re arranging matters. Probably things will turn out better than you think. I have some money in the bank, more than I need. I’m going to start a little hat shop in Wairiri, and I know I’m going to make a very good thing out of it. It’s my one talent—millinery.”

“You have another.”

“What is it?”

“Kindness,” he answered quietly. “You’re... you’re...”

“Never mind what I am,” she said hastily. “That’s settled then. Now, could you take me and the children into Wairiri in the car to-day? I’ll be responsible for them at the school.”

“But the term doesn’t start till February.”

“Mrs. Marley takes children in the holidays. I... I was told so.” She instinctively avoided mentioning Vera’s name. “Until the end of the next term you won’t have to worry a scrap about Biddy and Jo. I’ll keep an eye on them at school. That gives you five months, and if you just concentrate on your own affairs, I’m sure you’ll find before long that things will be brighter.

With his hands still shading his eyes, he tried in broken words to thank her, but she would not listen to him. She went instead to pack the children’s clothes.

Down at the garage, Ann was stowing small suitcases into the car. The children were playing quite happily in the sunshine on the tennis lawn, and Holmes had gone over to the cottage to interview the men before his departure. But Rodney Marsh was not with the other station hands. That morning, for the first time since his accident, he had saddled his horse and ridden out over the paddocks at the back of the homestead. He reached the stockyard slip-rails as Ann passed into the garage. She did not see him, but he had caught sight of her as he rode down the hillside. He dismounted to lower the slip-rails and for a moment he stood irresolute. Then as though making up his mind suddenly, he hitched his bridle to one of the posts, and limped into the garage. Ann started as she saw the sudden apparition, but she did not speak.

Marsh’s formidable jaw was set; his brows drawn down in a fierce scowl.

“Going into Wairiri?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Who’s taking you?”

“Mr. Holmes.”

“Oh, by God, that’s too much!”

The concentrated fury of his voice brought Ann round to face him.

“I don’t understand what you are shouting at me like that for,” she said coldly.

“You know well enough,” said Marsh, coming closer to her. “Isn’t what happened last night enough—without this?”

She eyed him steadily.

​“Mrs. Pratt, I suppose, has already been spreading her ridiculous story. I didn’t know you gossiped with her.”

“Pratt said...”

“You’ve had it second-hand then, have you? I’ve no doubt it lost nothing in the telling.”

“Is it true?”

“That I was with Mr. Holmes for two hours last night—yes.”

He gave some sound of inarticulate rage. Ann paid no attention to it. She went on putting the suit-cases and bundles in the car, but she was shaking so much that she could scarcely lift them. He came close to her and took her arm.

“Why don’t you explain...” he said thickly.

“I see no reason to explain anything to you. Think what you please. Let go my arm.”

He let her go, and after a moment, holding by the car to steady herself, she faced him again.

“You’ve called Mr. Holmes a ‘white man’—you know he is. And you know in your heart that if I was with him it was for no...no base purpose. You are jealous of me, that’s all.”

He said nothing, and controlling her voice a little more she went on:

“You told me a day or two ago that you loved me. I see now that in your own way you do. But you love yourself better. You won’t sacrifice what you’re pleased to call your freedom. Well, I don’t want to be loved like that—not just... just desired. I want to be respected, and trusted, and...” Suddenly her voice broke. “Go away,” she said passionately. “I don’t want to see you any more. I wish I’d never met you.”

​“All right,” he said. “I’ll leave Tirau. I’ll go droving.”

“I don’t care what you do!” She was fumbling with the cases now—seeing nothing, for she was blinded by tears.

“Good-by, then,” said Marsh.

He waited for a moment, but her back was turned to him and she did not speak. He limped out of the garage, mounted his horse, and rode away.