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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
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BARTLETT had missed his way. He had been vaguely conscious of it for the last hour; now he was sure. Straight ahead the road stretched through the monotonous plains, the wide sweep of the sky edging down to the far horizon, but of the town of Warndoo, where the motor was to wait for him, there was no sign. He paused to take his bearings. Three miles on from the crossroads he had been told. That was definite enough, but on reaching the cross-roads he had been unable to decide winch road to take. As he hesitated an impulse had seized him to turn to the left.
That impulse had been wrong. He remembered now that as the car drove off the man had pointed to the right. It puzzled him how he could possibly have forgotten. It was not like him to forget, but all day a strange spirit of unrest seemed to have possessed him. It had been a ridiculous impulse, for instance, that had urged him to dismiss the motor with instructions to the driver to wait for him at Warndoo. Why had he done it? He did not know. He had urgent business at Warndoo, and had to return to Melbourne as quickly as possible, yet quite suddenly he had felt that he must get out and walk the rest of the way.
With a sense of joyous freedom he had watched the car drive off. It was good to be on the road again, even though it was only make-believe. He was rather out of condition, of course, but once on his feet it did not take him long to get into the steady stride of the good old days. He bore with perfect equanimity the knowledge that he was miles away from his destination, and that his business could not be attended to that night at any rate. Of course, he could retrace his steps, but this absurd impulse was urging him to go straight on, persuading him that he would miss something if be turned back. If he kept on he must come to a farmhouse where he could put up for the night and borrow a trap to take him across to Warndoo in the morning. Better to follow the impulse and see the adventure through. He would rather like to see where this road led to. Further on it seemed to take a turn, just where that curiously shaped hill broke the monotony of the plain.
It was five miles further on, and the sun was setting when Bartlett approached the bend of the road. Sombre and forbidding, the hill rose dark against the evening sky. Bartlett's eyes rested on it, reflectively at first, then with a sense of dawning excitement. He had never seen it before; all this country was strange to him; yet the queer shape of that hill was somehow vaguely familiar. In the half light of evening, which plays queer tricks with the eyesight, it looked like a sleeping lion, its great limbs hunched together and its head sunk forward on its breast. He knew it—somewhere he had seen it before.
He tried to dismiss the thought as ridiculous, but in his mind was the sure and certain knowledge that when he had rounded the curve of the hill he would see an old-fashioned farmhouse, surrounded by trees and a garden gay with flowers.
It was as he thought; only the gate swung broken on its hinges and the garden was overgrown with weeds. The place looked desolate and forlorn, as though in the struggle for existence the spirit of beauty had taken fright and fled. A few melancholy cows grazing in the paddock and a couple of horses appeared to be the extent of the farm stock. In another paddock grew a crop of some kind, but it was too dark for Bartlett to see what it was.
"Am I mad, or dreaming?" he muttered. "I'll swear I've never been here before, and yet somehow I know it."
He hesitated a moment before entering, conscious of almost an uncanny feeling. This recognition seemed to be the culmination of those queer impulses which had been urging him on, and he wondered what he was going to find inside.
As he stepped on to the verandah a board broke under his feet. The house seemed to be rotting away. Bartlett felt a sudden contraction at his throat. To him the place was infinitely pathetic, as though it was his own home settling into decay. A dog barked at the back, and footsteps hurried up to the hall. Someone fumbled at the lock and the door was thrown open.
"Jim!" It was a woman's voice; breathless, excited. "Jim! You've come at last."
"I—I beg your pardon," stammered Bartlett, taken aback.
The woman peered out at him. There was a moment's silence; he could see her white face and dark eyes and the restless twitching of her lips. Then she raised her hands in a gesture of despair.
"It's not Jim," she said dully.
"No," returned Bartlett apologetically. "The fact is I have missed my way, and I wondered if you could put me up for the night?"
"Come in." She stood aside for him to enter, and with a trembling hand lit the lamp. "I'll tell Anne," she said. "Anne will know."
She disappeared, and Bartlett could hear her calling outside, and then the clear, full notes of a girl's voice.
"What is it, mother? Someone wants us to put him up for the night? Very well, I will see him."
There was a clatter of cans as she spoke. "I've brought the milk in, mother, but don't you bother with it. I'll fix it up directly."
Bartlett smiled. So that was Anne! He had a fastidious ear, and there was a freshness and a vigour in the voice which pleased him. Evidently Anne looked after the place while the mother waited hopelessly for the return of Jim. But who was Jim? A husband or a son? No wonder the place was falling into decay. There were limitations to what one pair of girls' hands could do, and he guessed, looking at the bare room with its shabby furniture and thin, faded carpet, that the struggle was hard.
Then the door opened and Anne entered.
Bartlett had not known many women, and love was a word he fought rather shy of, but Instantly he know that this was the woman for him. She was young, barely twenty, he would have said, but yet she looked much older. Perhaps it was the flickering shadows playing on her face that gave her that expression of arrested life. Eager, living, yet at a standstill.
It was only for a moment that Bartlett got this impression, then she moved out of the shadows and her composed gaze met his. Conscious of his thoughts Bartlett flushed a little under her calm scrutiny. He felt she was weighing him in the balance, and if he faded in passing the bar of her judgment she would have no further use for him. Still, he returned her glance with one as straight as her own. He explained how he had missed his way and asked if they could put him up for the night.
The girl listened gravely, then evidently deciding he was to be trusted, smiled and held out her hand.
"Why, of course," she said, "you must stay here, and tomorrow my brother will drive you across to Warndoo. I hope that will suit you, Mr—" she glanced at the card Bartlett had given her, "Mr Bartlett."
"It's very good of you." Bartlett paused, then smiled rather diffidently. "Now there's only one other little thing."
"Yes?" queried the girl.
"Well, I don't know your name."
"Neither you do," she laughed. "It's Graham, Anne Graham, and this place—" she waved her hand—"this is known as Graham's farm throughout the district. My grandfather was one of the early pioneers here. He built this house and was so proud of it, but now I'm afraid"—she looked round rather wistfully —"it's not what it used to be."
"Graham." Bartlett repeated the name to himself, but it conveyed nothing to him, nor, now that he was inside the house, was he haunted by that strange feeling of recognition. He had never been here in his life, and he had never heard of the people. He was ready to put it down as a bad attack of nerves or imagination. All the same, he was glad of the chance that had brought him here. He had to go away in the morning, but he would return very soon. Now that he had found Anne he was not going to let her go.
He had a solitary meal, for Anne explained that they had already had theirs, and then while he was smoking in the sitting room she came in to him. She looked flushed, and a little anxious, he thought, and he wondered what was troubling her. She sat down opposite him and leaned forward, her hands clasped together on her lap.
"Mr Bartlett," she said abruptly, "there is something I want to ask you. You may be able to help me."
"Why, of course, Miss Graham." Bartlett knocked out his pipe and laid it on the table. "Anything at all, Miss Graham. I'd be only too glad." His eyes, diffident and intensely earnest, met hers. "I haven't known you very long, but I feel as though— well, as though I belonged here."
"Thank you." Anne smiled faintly. "About my mother," she went on. "When you came this evening she mistook you for my father. He disappeared ten years ago. We don't know where he went to or whether he's living or dead. Whenever there's a knock at the door mother thinks it must be him. Mr Bartlett, my mother has a strange feeling about you. She says that you know something of my father—that you can tell us what has become of him."
Anne laughed uncertainly. She was trying to carry it off lightly, but he could feel the tense anxiety under which she was labouring "It's ridiculous to suppose you know anything about him, but if you do—oh, Mr Bartlett, if you do, please tell me. Even if he's dead, we'd sooner know; otherwise we might live here for ever, waiting for him to return."
"Miss Graham," Bartlett knitted puzzled brows, "There's nothing I wouldn't do to help you if I could, but I'm afraid you've asked me the one impossible thing. So far as I know I've never met your father, but perhaps your mother could give me some clue. She may have some idea as to where I might have met him."
Anne sighed.
"I was afraid there wasn't much hope," she said, "but mother gets these strange feelings sometimes. Still, if she does ask you anything about it you will try to help her, won't you, even though you know it is hopeless?"
Bartlett nodded absently. He was wondering whether he would tell her the experience he had had. It made him look rather a fool perhaps, but there it was. It certainly had happened.
"It's rather strange," he said slowly, "that your mother should have had such a feeling about me. Coming here this evening I had the queerest impression. I was sure I had seen this place before, though to the best of my knowledge I've never at any time been in this district. Unless I saw it in a dream," he said, with an embarrassed laugh, "I can't imagine how it happened."
"Mr Bartlett." Anne sprang to her feet, her face flushed with excitement. "There may be something in mother's feeling after all. Perhaps somewhere you've met my father. You don't remember it, but it's there in your mind. Oh, try and think, won't you? Try and help us all you can."
"I'll try, but don't build too much on it. I'd hate to disappoint you. Perhaps your mother—"
"Hush!" interrupted the girl softly, "here she comes. Don't let her know we've been talking about it. It worries her.
"Well, mother darling?" she said cheerfully, as Mrs Graham entered the room, followed by a slim lad of fifteen with a pale face and rather a sulky mouth, "you and Mr Bartlett have met before, haven't you? This is my brother Jim," she added, laying an affectionate hand on the boy's shoulder and looking proudly at him. "We do lessons together every night. Unless I kept him up to it, Mr Bartlett, he'd never learn anything."
"Aw! what's the good," muttered the boy, flinging his books on to the table and stealing a sidelong glance at Bartlett as he did so. "I'll have to stick here all my life milkin' cows, so what's the use of learning anything?"
Bartlett looked at the boy and frowned. That feeling of vague recognition was awake in him again. Somehow the boy's face was familiar. It reminded him of someone. But whom? Jim? He had never known a Jim Graham, but something was struggling to light in his mind. If only he could remember! The faintest clue would help him. He was sure he had seen that boy's father somewhere.
"Mrs Graham," he said abruptly, "have you a photograph of your husband?"
Anne looked up quickly, and their eyes met.
"Do you remember?" she hardly dared ask the question. Instinctively he laid his hand over hers.
"I don't know," he muttered. "There's something, but I'm not sure—not yet."
Anne did not remove her hand, and together they watched while her mother looked among a pile of photographs she took from a drawer. At last she picked out one which she handed to Bartlett.
"That is my husband," she said quietly, "taken when he was a young man. You will see the likeness to my son. If you don't remember," her voice sank to a whisper, "I don't know what I shall do. I've counted so much on you."
"Mother, darling," said Anne, "don't expect too much. It's only a chance, you know, but Mr Bartlett will do the best he can."
They both watched him with passionate anxiety as he took the photograph and studied it. In the features of the young man there was almost a startling likeness to the boy. Where had he seen that face before? It was connected in his mind with something if he could only bring it out. How long ago? His thoughts were going back, and the mists were clearing away. In a moment he would have it! Let him think. He clenched his hand in the effort to remember. Ah, now he had it. It was on the opal fields, seven years ago, when he had been down and out, and Jim had given him a corner of his hut. Why, of course! It was Jim, old Jim, as he had called him; drunken; graceless Jim, with his charming manners and periodical fits of brooding. No wonder the house and the hill had been familiar to him.
In these last days, when Jim was dying—quite unromantically, as the result of a drunken brawl, and Bartlett had nursed him, he had raved deliriously of the hill where he had played as a boy, and his home at the bend of the road. Jim had been quite lyrical when he was delirious. Day after day he had raved on until Bartlett had a clear mental picture of Jim's old home. At the end there had been something Jim had wanted to say. He was conscious, and Bartlett remembered the agony in his eyes as he struggled to speak. Perhaps then he had wanted to tell Bartlett who he was and send a message to his wife. Bartlett laid the photograph face downwards on the table. He did not like to see Jim's eyes staring at him and to remember them as he had seen them that last time.
"Yes, Mrs Graham," he said quietly. "I knew your husband."
There was silence. Mrs Graham looked the question she could not speak, and Bartlett bowed his head.
"He is dead," he said gently. "Seven years ago or longer. I met him on the opal fields, and I was with him when he died. I think he was waiting to strike it lucky before he came home. At the end he wanted to give me a message, but he could not speak. I never knew his other name or anything about him."
"He wanted to send his love to you, mother," whispered the girl, "and ask your forgiveness."
"He always had that, Anne," said the mother. "Mr Bartlett, there is something else," she looked at him with an appeal in her eyes. "My husband—" she faltered a little and then went on. "He must have met many temptations, and he was always a little weak. How—how did he die?"
He knew what she meant. Did her husband die as he had lived; a graceless, drunken scamp. If ever a lie was justified it was now.
"Mrs Graham," he said steadily, "your husband died as you would have wished, a good man. If he had been spared to come back to you I think you would have been proud of him."
"Thank you." She drew a long breath. "Mr Bartlett, you have made me very happy. God must have sent you here today."
Bartlett felt rather uncomfortable, and stole a glance at Anne. He wondered what she was thinking, but her face was inscrutable. Somehow he got the idea that she did not quite believe him. Well, it could not be helped. He simply could not have told her mother the truth.
Presently Anne sent her brother off to bed and helped her mother from, the room.
"Wait for me, Mr Bartlett," she said, as she did so. "I'll be back in a moment. There's something I want to ask you."
"It's coming now," thought Bartlett ruefully. "I thought she did not believe me." He was standing at the window looking out into the darkness when Anne returned. There was rather a tender little smile on her lips, but she repressed it as she met his eyes.
"Mr Bartlett." she said quietly, "you know you did not tell us the whole truth."
Bartlett looked embarrassed. He could not tell her a deliberate lie, so he took refuge in silence.
"You see," she went on, "I remember my father. If he had changed he would have come home. He loved this place. He left it because he could not bear us to see him as he was— sometimes. You lied, Mr Bartlett, but"—her voice broke a little—"thank you a thousand times for it. My mother believed you, and that is all that matters."
"Oh, that's all right," muttered Bartlett, feeling extremely foolish. "Your father was decent to me once when I was down and out, and I had to do the best I could for him. And now," he smiled and squared his shoulders, "suppose we forget all about that? In return there is something you can do for me. I have to leave early in the morning—young Jim has promised to wake me at six—but next week I want to come back. You see," he added boyishly, "I want you to learn to really like me."
"But we do."
"Not enough. Oh, look here. Anne," he said impatiently, "let us be done with pretence. You know what I mean. May I come back next week to see—you?"
A soft colour flooded her cheeks and her eyes fell. She did not speak. He watched her, wondering what she was going to do. His whole life hung on this. Slowly she turned to the door. Surely she was not going to leave him without a word! As he despaired, she looked at him and smiled.
"Yes." she said softly, "come back next week."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.