Some Persons Unknown

by E. W. Hornung

II

Miss Winfrey grew very fond of her schoolroom. There, as the young men told her, she was "her own boss," with a piano, though a poor one, all to herself; and a desk, the rather clumsy handiwork of the eldest boy, yet her very own, and full of her own things. She took an old maid's delight in orderly arrangement, and, for that matter, was not loath to own, with her most serious air, that she quite intended to be an old maid. But what she liked best about the schoolroom was its fundamental privacy. It formed a detached building, and had formerly been the station store. The old dining-room was the present store, which was entered by the "white verandah," so known in contradistinction to the deep, trellised shelter—which, however, Mrs. Pickering insisted on calling the "piazza"—belonging to a later building. The white verandah was narrow and bald by comparison. But the young men still burnt their evening incense upon it, while Millicent and the governess preferred it at all hours of the day. It was just opposite the schoolroom, for one thing; for another, Mrs. Pickering but seldom set foot on the white verandah, and the peevish lady was not a popular character in the homestead of which she was mistress.

She no longer approved of the new governess. Miss Winfrey's singular success with the children had been quite sufficient to alienate their mother's sympathies, or rather to revive her prejudices. Her feeling in the matter was not, perhaps, altogether inhuman. It is difficult to appreciate the expert manipulation of material upon which we ourselves have tried an ineffectual hand. It is odious to see another win through sheer discipline to a popularity which all one's own indulgence has failed to secure. These experiences were Mrs. Pickering's just deserts, but that did not lessen their sting. The lady became not unnaturally jealous of her children's friend, whose society they now obviously preferred to her own. With former governesses not a day had passed without one child or another coming to its mother with some whining tale. There were no such complaints now; but the mother missed them as she would have missed so many habitual caresses; for it made her feel that she was no longer everything to her children. It is easier to understand her feelings than to forgive their expression. She took to snubbing the governess in the pupils' presence. It is true that, as the young men said, Mrs. Pickering did not "get much change" out of little Miss Winfrey. The girl was well qualified to take care of herself. But she was more sensitive than she cared to show. Her whole soul shrank from the small contentions which were forced upon her; they hurt her equally whether she won or she lost. Still it was less horrid to win, and one little victory gave the governess distinct satisfaction.

Mrs. Pickering took it into her head that the children were worked too hard. So one afternoon she walked into the schoolroom and told them all that they might go—nearly an hour before the time. But not a child stirred.

"You may all run away," repeated their mother. "Do you hear me? Then why don't you move?"

The eldest boy shuffled awkwardly in his place. "Please, mother, it's poetry-hour, and we only have it once a week."

Mrs. Pickering, relying on the little ones, now called for a show of hands. But the very infants were against her; and she left the room with a bitter glance at the silent governess, who after a moment's consideration dismissed the class herself. Meantime the irate lady had gone straight to her husband.

"Miss Winfrey is becoming unendurable," she told him in the tone of personal reproach which had already made the unlucky squatter curse his choice of a governess. "The poor children are positively frightened to death of her! I went in to let them out of school; no one but an inhuman monster would keep them in on an afternoon like this; and actually, not one of them dared to move without Miss Winfrey's permission! Harry muttered something to the effect that they would rather finish the lesson, and the rest sat still, but you may be sure they knew it was either that or being punished afterwards. How I hate such severities! As for that woman herself, she sat like a mule without saying anything. Ah! I see she's thought better of it, and let them out herself; to show that her authority's superior to mine, I suppose! Really, that's the last straw!"

Pickering met his wife judiciously, but not by any means half-way. He knew what she meant; he was not himself entirely enamoured of Miss Winfrey. She had spoken to him about the boys seeing too much of the men out mustering on Saturdays, a point on which the father deemed himself the best judge. She had too many opinions of her own; but when all was said, she was an admirable governess. He dwelt upon the general improvement in the children under Miss Winfrey. He had the sense to ignore their very evident affection for that martinet. Another change might be a very good thing in a few months' time, but at present it would be a thousand pities. Christmas was coming on. It would be very easy to let Miss Winfrey see that her daily supervision was not required during the holidays. She could have the time to herself.

She did have the time to herself, and a very poor time it was. The parents gave out that they intended to see something of their young people while they had the chance. And to broaden the hint, as if that were necessary, they studiously refrained from inviting Miss Winfrey to join in the daily entertainment. Now it was a family visit to a neighbouring station, with four horses in the big trap; now a picnic in the scrub, now impromptu races on the township course. The governess spent the days in her own schoolroom, with little intervals on the white verandah. Millicent's rabbit inspector was at Greenbush, so Miss Winfrey saw nothing of Millicent either. All was now well between those two: on the day he went, she rode with him to the boundary fence, and then joined the picnic party in the Forest Paddock.

"Where's Miss Winfrey?" cried the girl, from her saddle, as she cantered up to the little group about the crackling fire.

The children looked unhappy.

"She's at home," said Harry.

Millicent asked why.

"Because it's holidays," answered Mrs. Pickering, looking up from the basket which she was unpacking. "Because we've come out to enjoy ourselves."

Millicent ran over the ring of little wistful faces, and a soft laugh curled her lips. She could hear her father gathering branches in the scrub, and talking to the only young man who had not gone away for his holidays. She wondered whether she should dismount at all; her heart went out to her friend all alone at the homestead; she, too, had neglected her these last few days.

"When did Miss Winfrey spoil a day's enjoyment?" the girl demanded. "She would have added to it."

"You may think so. I chose not to risk it."

"But surely you gave her a chance of coming?"

"Not I, indeed! The children see quite enough of their governess in school. Harry, darling, there's the water boiling at last."

But Millicent was boiling too. "That settles it," she exclaimed with a quick flush. "Good-bye, all of you!" And she was gone at a hand-gallop.

Little love was to lose between the girl and her step-mother. Millicent was rather glad than otherwise to turn her back upon a party which did not include the one daily companion who was now entirely congenial to her, while if anybody could fill at all the gaping blank left by her lover's departure, it was Miss Winfrey, who was always so sympathetic, so understanding. To that same sympathy the young girl felt that she owed her present abiding and increasing happiness, and again her heart went out to the counsellor who had known no such counsel in her own black hour of doubt and trepidation. Otherwise—and Milly sighed. She knew the whole story now. Her friend had spoken of it a second and a third time, and the speaking had seemed to do her good. It was five years ago. The young man had been a medical student then. And now his penitent false love could see him only as a thriving doctor—and a married man.

"I would give anything to find him," thought the girl who was happy, as she stooped to open the home-paddock gate. "I know—something tells me—that he is true!"

She cantered to the homestead, standing high and hot on its ridge of sand, with only a few dry pines sprouting out of the yard. The year was burning itself out in a succession of torrid days, of which this was the worst hitherto. The sky was prodigiously, ridiculously blue, with never a flake of cloud from rim to rim. The wind came from the north as from an open oven. And Millicent's dog was running under the very girths of her horse, whose noon-day shadow she could not see.

She watered both animals at the tank, and then rode on to the horse-yard; but, ere she reached it, was much struck by the sound of a sweet voice singing in the distance. It seemed a queer thing, but the young woman from England was standing the Riverina summer far better than those who had been born there. She could sit and sing on a day like this!

On her way on foot from the horse-yard to the schoolroom Millicent stood on her shadow to listen to the song. The governess sang very seldom; she liked better to play accompaniments for the young men, though she had a charming, trained voice of her own. Millicent had never heard her use it, as she was doing now, without a known soul within earshot save the Chinaman in the kitchen.

The heat of the sand struck through the young girl's boots. Yet still she stood, her head bent, and at last caught a few of the words:

"... in the lime-tree,
The wind is floating through:

And oh! the night, my darling, is sighing—
Sighing for you, for you."

A verse was finished. Millicent crept nearer. She had never heard such tender singing. Three or four simple bars and it began again:

"O think not I can forget you;
I could not though I would;

I see you in all around me,
The stream, the night, the wood;

The flowers that slumber so gently,
The stars above the blue.

Oh! heaven itself, my darling, is praying—
Praying for you, for you."

The voice sank very low, its pathos was infinite, yet the listener heard every word. There were no more. Millicent dried her eyes, and went tripping over her habit through the open schoolroom door. There sat the governess, with wrung face and grey eyes all intensity.

"My dear, it was divine!"

"You heard! I'm sorry."

"But why?"

"I never sing that song."

"Why, again?"

The fixed eyes fell. "It was—his favourite.... The music is better than the words, I think; don't you? But then the words are a translation."

Complete change of tone forbade further questioning. But once more the younger girl felt horribly discontented with her own really adequate affection for the honest rabbit inspector. It seemed such a little thing beside the passion of her friend.

Not long after this Millicent was reclining on a deck-chair under shelter of the white verandah. The heat was still intense, and she was nearly asleep. It was a Saturday afternoon, the children were abroad in the paddocks, but their governess was in her own schoolroom, for once as enervated as Millicent herself, who could just see the hem of her frock through the open door.

Millicent had closed her eyes. A spur clinked on the verandah, but she was too lazy to lift a lid. A voice said, "Is Mr. Pickering about, please, miss?" with a good accent, but in a curious hang-dog tone. She answered, "You'll find him in the store," without troubling to see which of the men it was. Then came sleep ... then her father, shaking her softly, and whispering in her ear.

"It's Cattle-station Bill," he said. "Wants another cheque—hasn't had one since the day Miss Winfrey came. Where is she, Milly? She seemed to think she'd like to try her hand at reforming our Bill, and now's her chance. He's only gone five months this time!"

"Miss Winfrey's in the schoolroom," replied Milly drowsily. "She won't thank you for disturbing her any more than I do."

Pickering stepped down into the sand and crossed over to the schoolroom, dragging a shadow like a felled pine. The man was meanwhile in the store, where presently his master rejoined him in fits of soft and secret laughter. And Millicent rubbed her eyes, because her nap had been ruined, and bent them upon the schoolroom door, in which the governess now stood reading a book.

The spurs clinked again on the verandah, the book dropped over the way, the governess disappeared from view; and Millicent glanced from the empty door to the wearer of the spurs. He was a handsome young fellow, with blue-black hair and moustache, and a certain indefinable distinction of which his rough clothes could not rid him. But his eyes were turned sullenly to earth, and as he snatched his horse's reins from the hook on the verandah-post with his right hand, his left crumpled up his cheque and rammed it into his pocket. And a wild suspicion flashed across Millicent at that moment, to be confirmed the next.

"Last night the nightingale woke me,"

sang the voice in the schoolroom;

"Last night, when all was still,
It sang in the golden moonlight,
From out the woodland hill."

Milly had not taken her eyes from the sullen handsome stockman standing almost at her feet. His left hand was still in his pocket; his right had the reins, but was still outstretched in front of him—as though petrified—while a white, scared face turned this way and that with the perspiration welling from every pore. Yet the smooth agony of the song went on without a tremor....

"And oh! the bird, my darling, was singing—
Singing of you, of you."

As the verse ended, the man shivered from head to foot, then flung himself into the saddle, and Millicent watched him ride headlong towards the home-paddock gate. She lost sight of him, however, long before he reached it, and then she knew that Miss Winfrey was still singing her song in a loud, clear voice. Could she be mistaken? It was a sufficiently wild idea. Could it be nothing but coincidence after all? Again she caught the words:

"I think of you in the daytime,
I dream of you by night,

I wake, and would you were here, love,
And tears are blinding my sight.

I hear a low breath in the lime-tree——"

The sweet air, the tender words, snapped short together. Millicent sprang from her deck-chair, heard a fall as she ran, and found the governess in a swoon upon the schoolroom floor.