page 444

V

Once at least in a long and profitable season shearers and shepherds serenaded The House and received the thanks of the Boss—with a full barrel of beer as well. It was a great and dignified rite, not vouchsafed at every station. The very air round the huts trembled to-night with excitement, and men naturally particular and men who had never been known to wash-up before now stripped and scrubbed under the tap of the big tank. And but for straying dogs eating all the soap, only heaven knew when they'd have done, thought Bethune, who had chosen to manage his own toilet in secret.

Standing presently with this rough crew he would see Prue sitting in a white gown among the ladies and gentlemen, among the little tables with their whisky-glasses, the starry jasmine-flowers … and would that teach her anything? Would she see what she was doing, or would her generous impatient heart be ready to leap the barriers then? Which do I want it to be, he wondered, watching the rouseabouts sleek their hair with foul-smelling dripping begged from the cook, watching a macaroni of a shearer busy with a pink cambric tie on his new black shirt. All these hard-working fellows, seeing a shearing through, taking their big cheques and going on to the next shed were better men than himself, who dared not take his cheque—dared not drink the beer to-night … but would!

Round him in the warm dusk was a murmuring of voices, of tunes softly sought for and repeated, of accordions getting whisperingly to work, while now and then the melody that is in every Maori throat rolled grandly out in a phrase and died away. A broken underflow of harmonies and discords going anxiously with the tramping feet in the moonlight past the young gorse-hedges golden with their bloom; past the blocks of sheds and stables and outhouses, past the gardens where the warm night page 445 was loaded with fragrance of flowers and grasses, where the pervading odour of sheep was embedded in all the other odours, like scent in ambergris.

Knowing the value of this ceremony, Robertson led with his bagpipes, while behind him the low uneasy searching for tunes went on. On the lawn he ceased and with shufflings and coughings the men spread out in a half-circle, while the leader of the shearers stepped forward, delivering the formula in a low gabble.

“Lady Calthorpe, ma'am. Me and the men thought we'd like to come and give you a little moosic, ma'am.”

“Very good of you, Chote,” said Darien clearly out of her big chair. “We're all ready.”

Prue had never heard a shearer's serenade before, and at Durdans she would have had to listen indoors behind drawn curtains. But here she unbelievably was in a long Island chair on Bendemeer veranda; with Darien and Tiffany and Clara and Sophia, with Jerry and Brant Hutton and several other men. And there were three lamps set in the open window behind. Darien receiving a serenade was not hiding her red head under a bushel. It glowed as she sat in state below the lamps, with all her diamonds on to do honour to her men.

Tiffany saw Prue's face as she leaned forward into the light for a moment. A strangely vital, disembodied Prue, as though her young soul were going off somewhere with just that pointed chin, those scarlet lips, those long and smouldering eyes. Then she sat back suddenly, and Tiffany thought, “She's seen Bethune,” and saw him herself, standing a little apart with his shabby clothes, his easy gentleman air….

Between the curtains of the roses the audience looked out, tolerantly smiling on flower-beds grown darker and sweeter, on the awkward bulks of the shuffling men. Accordions made a false start; then another. Now the harsh husky voices, the rich power of the Maoris were page 446 launched like an avalanche on the immemorial song of the shearing-sheds:

Oh, the ship she bore the name of the Golden Vanitee,
And they said she would be robbed by some Spanish rover free
As she sailed along the Lowlands … Lowlands….
As she sailed along the Lowlands, low….

In mournful monotony song followed song, with the accordions filling up the gaps, and presently Tiffany noticed that the gap beside her was no longer filled by Prue, Nor was Bethune out there in the flicker of moon-light. She slipped away hastily behind the chairs. Ignorant as Prue was she knew better than this. But Tiffany too had known better, and that hadn't stopped her when love called. Once she too had come by way of the preparing loves—sunrises, a windy sky of light, a flower, or some other immortal art of nature's wooing, and so with opening heart to meet the wooing of a man.

The orchard beyond the macrocapa fence was the likeliest place, thought Tiffany, hurrying along the path with heart in her throat. Slender shadows of young trees everywhere now … and there, where apple- and cherry-trees studded the night with frail stars, a thicker shadow stood among the long grass. At her step it parted, and Prue was gone, silent as a ghost. But Bethune stood still to meet Tiffany. Was he hoping she'd think it was a kitchen-maid he had been embracing here? She said, coldly:

“You can come to the house for your cheque after breakfast to-morrow, Bethune.”

“Thank you, Mrs Hutton.” His voice was colourless, but she had heard his gasp and pity suddenly overcame her.

“Oh, I'm sorry. But you must have known…. Why have you done this to her?”

“Why am I a man, you meant to say, didn't you?”

He made a half-laugh, a half-sneer of it, shuffling away without more words through the orchard towards the page 447 men's huts. Going back to the Salvation Army and the gaol, and boots with broken uppers, and a soul with broken pride. Tiffany went slowly up to the veranda, where Prue was in her place, lying far back with hands gripped on the sides of her chair. Establishing an alibi, the poor brave child. Oh, why are our lessons so hard to learn, thought Tiffany pityfully. The serenaders, growing breathless and thirsty for beer, sang like a dirge:

Hark, I hear the bugle call-ing.
Good-bye, Dolly Gray….