The Shadow of the Lynx (13 page)

“I have these shares in the mine.”

“They don’t amount to much. They wouldn’t keep you for long.”

“I would rather not have any money which belonged to me supporting a gold mine.”

“The shares can be sold. They won’t realize very much. The mine is known to be a not very profitable concern.”

“Why continue with it?”

“Hope. We always hope.”

“And meanwhile people die while you continue to hope?”

“You are thinking of your father. That is a fate which many people have met in this country. These bush rangers are everywhere. We could all encounter them.”

“I am thinking of a poor man I saw the other day. He was suffering from a lung complaint.”

“Oh … phthisis.”

“You speak as though it were about as important as a headache.”

“It’s a mining hazard.”

“Like death from bush rangers

“Are you suggesting that I close the mine because a man is suffering from phthisis?”

“Yes.”

He laughed.

“You are a reformer, and like most reformers you understand little of what you hope to reform. If I closed my mine what would happen to all my workers? They would be starved to death in a week or so.”

“I want nothing to do with this mine.”

“Your shares shall be sold and the money banked for you. I warn you it will not be much more than a hundred pounds. And if we struck gold ..

”

I don’t want anything to do with gold mining. “

He sighed and looked at me over his port, his eyes glistening.

“You are not very wise. There is a saying at home:

“Your heart rules your head.” You think with your emotions. That can get you into difficult situations and is not much help at extricating you. “

“You would be different. You think with your head.”

“That’s what heads are for.”

“And hearts?”

“To control the circulation of the blood.”

I laughed and so did he.

“Is there anything else you wish to know?” he asked.

“Yes. What am I expected to do here?”

“Do? You will help Adelaide perhaps, as a younger sister would. This is your home now. You must treat it as such.”

I looked round the room seeing it for the first time. Books lined one wall, there was an open fireplace in which logs were burning; several pictures hung on the walls and it was exactly as one would expect an English library to be. On a highly polished oak table was a chess set.

The pieces were laid out as though someone were about to play, and an exclamation escaped me because I knew that set well. It was beautiful;

the pieces were made of white and brownish ivory, and there were brilliants in the crowns of the kings and queens; the squares on the board were of white and deep pink marble. I had played on it with my father.

“That is my father’s,” I accused.

“He left it here with me.”

“It would belong to me now.”

“He left it to me.”

I had stood up and went over to look at it closely. I held , the white ivory queen in my hand and was reminded so vividly of my father that I wanted to cry.

Lynx stood beside me.

“Your name is on it,” he said, pointing to one of the squares.

“We wrote our names on it when we won for the first time. That’s my grandfather. The chess set has been in the family for years.”

“Three generations,” he said.

“And the outsider.” He pointed ;

82 :

to his own name written boldly in one of the centre squares.

“So you beat my father.”

“Now and then. And you did, too.”

“He was a fine player. I believe that when I won he allowed me to.”

“When you play with me I shall not allow you to win. I play for myself and you will play for yourself.”

You are suggesting that we play chess together? “

Why not? I enjoy the game. “

“On my father’s board,” I went on.

“It has become mine. You forgot. And why not play on it? It is a joy to touch such beautiful pieces.”

“I always understood it would be mine.”

“Let me strike a bargain with you. On the day you beat me it shall be yours.”

“Should I be asked to play for what should be mine by right?”

“It is suggested that you play to regain it ” Very well. When do we play? “

“Why not now? Would you care to?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I will play now for my chess board and men.”

“There is no time like the present. And that is another saying from home.”

We sat down opposite each other. Clearly I could see the golden eyebrows, the white slender hands with the jade ring. Stirling’s hands were slightly spatulate and I found myself continually comparing the two men. He reminded me of Stirling, yet the son was like a pale reflection of the father. I hated to admit that I had thought such a thing because it was disloyal to Stirling. Stirling is kind, I thought. This man is cruel. I understand Stirling but who could ever be sure what was behind that glittering blue barrier. He had noticed that I was looking at his hands and held them out for me to see more clearly.

“You see the carving on this ring. It’s the head of a lynx. That is what I am called. This ring is my seal. It was given me years ago by my father-in-law.”

“It’s a very fine piece of jade.”

“And a fine carving. Suitable, don’t you think?”

I nodded and reached for the white king’s pawn.

I quickly realized that I was no match for him, but I played with such concentration that again and again I foiled his efforts to checkmate me. It was a defensive game for me and

it was three-quarters of an hour before he had cornered me-a climax, I sensed, he had expected to achieve in ten minutes.

“Checkmate,” he said quietly and firmly and I saw that there was no way out.

“But it was a good game, wasn’t it?” he went on.

“We must play again some time.”

“If you think me worthy,” I replied.

“I am sure you could find an opponent more in your class.”

“I like playing with you. And don’t forget you have to win that set.

Don’t forget, also, that I am not like your father. I shall give no concessions. When you win you will know that the victory was genuine I was very excited when I left him and I could not sleep for a long time that night; when I did I dreamed that all the pieces on the board came to life and the victorious king had the eyes of the Lynx.

It was October and spring was with us. The garden was beginning to look lovely. I discovered that Stirling had brought over several plants with him and we already had scarlet geraniums and purple lob elias growing on the lawn. I was wishing that I had some definite duties. I went in Adelaide’s wake helping where I could, but I felt I was very inadequate. I wanted some task which was my entire responsibility. Adelaide assured me that the help I gave in the house was invaluable, but I couldn’t help feeling that she said this out of kindness.

One day I was in the summerhouse where I had often sat while my ankle was strengthening, sitting for a moment ;

because my back ached after weeding, when Jessica seemed to appear from nowhere. What a disconcerting habit this I was when people moved so noiselessly and you were suddenly ;

aware of them standing there.

Why, Jessica! ” I cried, j ” I saw you coming from the library,” she said.

“You had ;

been with him a long time. ” ;

I felt annoyed to be so spied on.

“Does that matter?” I asked coldly.

“He’s taken to you and you’re nattered, aren’t you? He takes to people and then … he’s finished with them. He doesn’t think of anything, you know, but what use they are to him.”

Why do you hate him? ” I asked. |

84 I

io my surprise she’ll usnea scanei ana loaned as if she were going to burst into tears.

“Hate him? Yes, I do. No … I don’t know.

Everybody’s afraid of him. “

“I’m not,” I said uncertainly.

“Are you sure? He’s different from other people. You should have seen him when he first came to Rosella Creek.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s the property. It’s called Herrick’s now—after him-but at one time it was Rosella Creek. Uncle Harley ran it then and we had good times. It wasn’t so big in those days and there was always something to worry about. That time when the fires encircled us. We just escaped then by the skin of our teeth. Uncle Harley said. Then there was the blight and the floods and the land erosion. But we got through and Maybella would have married well. There was a man who used to come in from Melbourne. His father had a store there and he was comfortably off. He would have spoken for Maybella.”

I had a feeling that I was prying into something I was not meant to know, that Adelaide would have wished me to make some excuse to evade Jessica but the temptation was too strong for me. I wanted to know the strange story of Stirling’s father, thoughts of whom were beginning to dominate my life.

So I said: “Tell me about it.”

She smiled at me slyly.

“You want to know, don’t you? You’re interested in everything about him. That’s what happens to people. It happened to Maybella. She was in a kind of daze from the moment he came. I remember the day he came.”

She paused again and a soft dreamy expression came into her eyes. Her lips softened and she was smiling. I did not prompt her this time. I waited; and then she began to speak quietly but intensely as though she were unaware of me and was recalling the scene for her own pleasure.

“Uncle Harley went to Sydney for the ship that was coming in. He was going to choose a couple of men because we needed help on the station.

He said, “I’ll bring back two strong rogues. We’ll have to be careful of these convicts but we’ll get work out of them. What we need is two strong men.” He rode out with his saddle bags and provisions for the journey; he was going to pick up a couple of horses for the convicts and they’d be back in two weeks, he reckoned, that’s

if they weren’t held up by floods and weather. He was three weeks gone because there’d been rain and some of the creeks were flooded. MaybeUa and I were in the kitchen baking in readiness for his return. He came in and kissed first MaybeUa and then me. He said: “I’ve got two fellows, Maybell.” That was what he called her.

“One of them … well, you’ll see for yourself.” And we did. We were standing at the kitchen window when we first saw him. The size of him amazed us.

“What a big man,” said MaybeUa.

“Did he come off the ship, then?” Uncle Hariey nodded.

“Seven years. ^ Just think of that, my girl. Wrongly accused, he says.”

“Don’t they all,” said MaybeUa; and we laughed. But he was different. Those eyes of his burned right through you. You couldn’t treat him as a convict nor even as a servant. Uncle Hariey felt it, too. He sort of quailed before him. He hadn’t been there a week before he was talking to him like ;

an equal. Oh, he was clever. He could do twice the work of an ordinary man and he was soon telling Uncle Hariey how the place could be improved. It was odd, because Uncle Hariey, who had always thought he knew best about everything, used to listen to him. “

She paused and looked at me.

“You wouldn’t believe what a man could do in such a little time.”

“I could,” I told her.

“Three weeks after his arrival he was taking meals with us. There was something they had to discuss. Uncle Hariey would say. His manners were different from those of the other ;

men—different from Uncle Harley’s. When he sat at the;

table with us he made us feel awkward, as though he were the host and we the servants. He talked a lot to Uncle Hariey. “:

He’d take a piece of paper and make a sketch of this or that bit of the property. He’d tell Uncle how he could erect;

some sort of wool shed which would be raised from the ;

ground so that the wool could be kept dry. He said our wool;

press was out of date and that we should have another. Uncle Hariey used to listen to him fascinated and say: “Yes, Herrick,” in a sort of hushed reverence as though he were the master and Uncle the servant.

Shearing came and we had never been so successful. He made everyone come in and work at it—the gardeners, the servants, anyone with a pair of hands was set to work. By this time he had become a :

sort of overseer. They were all afraid of him. Uncle Hariey said:

“Nothing escapes you. You’ve got the eyes of a lynx.” ;

86 ‘.

t of white man’s god. They would work when he was there but when he was absent they would sit with their hands in their laps doing nothing. I remember how he made us laugh when he drew a picture of himself and it was so lifelike that you would think he was looking out of the paper.

He coloured the eyes—the same blue as his own and he pinned the picture up in the wool shed and said: “Even when I’m not here I’m watching you.” They were afraid then; they’d look at the picture and think it really was Lynx on the wall. That was the sort of man he was.

So it was small wonder . “

She stopped again and shook her head as though she wanted to linger over the memory. I waited eagerly for her to continue.

“Maybella was bewitched. The storekeeper’s son was nothing to her. Her eyes would light up when Lynx was around and she grew quite pretty.

She wasn’t really pretty . rather plain, in fact. I was prettier than she was—but I was only the master’s niece. She would inherit the property because there was no son. There’d be nothing for me. I’d been given a home; that was all.

“Don’t worry,” Maybella used to say.

“There’ll always be a home here for you, Jessie.” And she meant it.

She had a kind heart, Maybella had. “

“So she fell in love with him?”

“The place wasn’t the same. It had already started to improve. Uncle Harley thought the world of him.

“Hi, Lynx,” he used to say.

“Now this fellow Jim, or Tom—whoever it was—do you think we can trust him to take these bales to Melbourne?” It was always “we” So you see the way things were going. Maybella talked of nothing but him. She was mad about him. I don’t think there was anything she wouldn’t have done for him—and so it proved. When she was going to have the child she was afraid of telling her father. He was very religious and she thought he might turn her out. I knew there could only be one who was the father and I was horrified. I said, “A convict, Maybella!” And she held up her head and cried: “I don’t care. He was wrongly accused and I’m proud. I don’t care about anything but that I’m going to have his child.” She told her father so, and that was the most astonishing thing of all, because all he said was: “There’s only one thing to be done. There’ll have to be a wedding.” So less than a year since he had come over as a convict to