The Man Who Loved Nancie

THE MAN WHO LOVED NANCIE.

IGHT was blowing up along the levels. A black night; with the spit of rain in it, and a whirl of dust in the side-track. Beyond the clumps of prickly pear and gidya the desert met the dark; and over it, moaning, plucking at the sand, fretting among the dried bones in the hollow, raved a wind from the heart of North Queensland, with the blast of eternal heat in its mouth.

Darrick came down the side-track at a hand gallop, pulled rein by the wattle-and-daub hut half hid in the shrub, stripped the gear from his mare, and turned her into the enclosure. Then he put up the slip-rail and kicked the hut door open. In the wide chimney the two ends of a log glowed and spluttered, and a man stood before it, with his arms crossed on the chimney-shelf and the red light washing about his knees.

Darrick tossed saddle and bridle in a corner, and walked forward.

“That billy’s boiling over,” he said, and swung the man aside by the shoulder. “You go an’ cook your blessed supper outside, you blessed sundowner … Ranald! who the—what the devil”

The face that showed in the half light was a boy’s with the boyhood blanched suddenly out of it. The skin was drawn round the eyes and the well-cut mouth, and the temples looked hollow in the shadow. Amaze shook a quick oath from Darrick.

“Ranald,” he said, “what in the mischief have you been up to now?”

Ranald laughed, stepping back from the light. For his face told more than his tongue meant to do.

“Darrick, will you come away with me? Somewhere—anywhere. The Islands, perhaps. Will you come? I want some one who'll live hard an’ die hard … an’ go to the devil with me as a wind-up.”

Darrick kicked the fire and looked at the boy in the blaze of it.

“Where have you been?” he said.

“Oh … Brisbane, only. To see a doctor … two doctors … a herd of ’em. Darrick, we were speaking of the face-value of life the other night. What would you assess mine at?”

“A quid,” said Darrick. “And I’m a half-sov.”

“A copper,” said Ranald. “Not a quid. A copper. I’ve got one year of life left me. One! Darrick, Darrick, I’m a rung tree—a rung tree.” His voice rushed suddenly into the rough up-country speech. “I’ve got to jam all the life that other chaps can take ten or twenty years over into one! An’ by ! I'm going to do it, I’m going to get somewhere where I can hit! I tell you, if I’ve only got one year to taste life in, I’m goin’ to get my teeth into it—quick.”

His hands were shut up, his eyes burnt, and all his muscles were tense. For when the soul comes under fierce battle in its youth there is more broken than is bent. Darrick knew it. But he had seen so many men in wild strife against the inevitable.

“What is it?” he asked. “That last knock-out at football?”

“Yes. Ricked heart and thickening valves. They give me a year, Darrick. Did I tell you? One year. Only one!”

His voice fell to a sharp whisper; and the wind, chuckling in the door-hinge, caught it, tossing it out to the night, and to the roar of a sudden thunderstorm. Darrick stood very still. He was biting his lip until it bled, and two natures were at war in him. For between his life and Ranald’s was a girl-life, and Darrick loved that girl as Ranald never could. But the boy was-young—so young. Darrick had tasted the roving life from the Equator to the Snares and back again; but he had not known the frank healthy joy of it as Ranald Macdougal knew it.

“What does—Miss Nancie say?” asked Darrick; and his voice was low and very harsh with pain.

“Say! D’you think I could tell her? Great heavens! I can’t tell her! How can I? I can leave her—that’s all. But I can’t see her again.”

“You must! You were to be married in three months”

“Ah! Don’t!” Ranald cowered away from the other. Then his will took command. “I’ll have to suffer a lot, they tell me. Well, I’ll stand that—somehow. But I won't stay here. Here—where I'll be prayed over and fussed over, an’ held down in my bed to die! No! I’m going to get out—get away”

“You young coward!”

“Oh, of course! A saint dies in his bed, an’ a sinner dies in his boots, I suppose. Well, I choose the boots”

“My dear fellow, you’ve got the wrong end of that stick. The world is chock-full of men who choose the boots—I do, myself. But to live in this world it isn’t always necessary to damn your soul for the next.”

“I’ve cut all that kind of thing! Religion may be waterproof enough to make tennis-shoes of; but it’s no sort of use when you get into a swamp.”

His voice broke. He walked the seven steps to the end of the hut, and stood there, staring in the dark. Behind, the flames fluttered round the log, blackening it, as sin was beginning to burn and blacken a man’s soul. Through the wisdom of strenuous years paid down Darrick knew love when it came to him, and he knew that he held the girl who was to marry Ranald Macdougal dearer than his hope of eternity. But he looked at the slim, rigid boy-figure and the unbowed head, and the good in him spoke.

“Ranald, there are two kinds of pluck. You'll face the bodily pain all right. I know that. But—you must think of her. You must tell her, and let her choose. And if she chooses you—to the end”

No power would take him farther. Ranald wheeled in sudden fury.

“Oh, you can talk! It’s dead easy to give advice! If it hurt you at all, you might”

“Ranald, I am more sorry for you”

“Oh, rot! You're not, an’ I don’t want you to be, I'll not be pitied. I didn’t come for that. I want to get away. By the Lord: if I’m a rung tree I’m going to flop on something when I come down. Darrick, could you come with me to the Islands? Could you?”

“I could.” Darrick regarded the light in the young eyes, and the set of the mouth. “I could, but you’d not be fit to die after a year down there with that temper on you, Ranald.”

“Fit! Guess I’ll have to die whether I’m fit or not. You can sling that talk, Darrick. Are you coming?”

Despite his hot blood Ranald carried his youth cleanly, and his honour with pride. Darrick knew, and temptation shook him where he stood. In a very few months he could make of Ranald a thing such as his friends would not speak with any more. Then he would bring him back. And later, when Darrick should come alone to Nancie—before she had forgotten his skin burnt with a sudden flush of shame at his thought.

“No,” he said. “I won't take you. That life would break you in half a year, Ranald, It’s hot chillies and vinegar to any man; but to you, just now”

Ranald turned on his heel. “All right,” he said; “I can go alone. Good-night.”

Desire pulled Darrick both ways. Then the good that his love had put in him ruled. He moved, reaching the door first.

“I think not,” he said. “I think that you will go to her, and that you'll tell her all, and you'll ask her to keep you straight until the end. There is no pain that a true woman will not suffer for the man she loves—except the pain of being forgotten. If she wishes it you must give her this year, Ranald, so that she may have it to remember through all the other years,”

The boy moved his head restlessly. “I can’t, I can’t. I don’t even know how much I care now. Darrick, there’s no perspective left. There’s just one year slap up against my face, an’ a blank wall behind it. I just want to get away. I will get away. No one shall say I funked it; [ll pull out on my own—on my own”

“Then I will say you funked it,” said Darrick quietly.

“You! You, will you! Damn you, then, Darrick! An’ you'll tell her—I know what you'll tell her. You love her, an’ you want her to see me afraid and crying out—and I will be afraid if I stay here. An’ she'll know me for a coward, an’ hate me. An’ then you'll come in”

Darrick had the boy’s two arms in a steel grip, and the smouldering flame blazed suddenly in his heart.

“You'll take that back,” he said; “or I think I'll kill you for it, Ranald.”

“Go on, then! go on! Lord! what’s the odds”

Then the pain that had given its first warning two months back brought Ranald to his knees, with blue lips and a limp body that quivered with agony.

It was ten minutes before he spoke coherently from the sacks where Darrick had laid him.

“And you want me to stay with her—because she loves me?” he said.

Darrick did not answer. He turned, hiding his face on the arm crossed over the chimney-shelf. Outside, the wind howled, with a rise and fall like the thunder of reef-tortured waves, and once the thin cry of a dingo on the trail shrilled through the roar. Then Darrick spoke—slowly.

“I will go with you. And—you will get your people to tell her?”

Ranald’s laugh was weak from exhaustion. He crawled near the fire, stretching his hands to the blaze.

“How should they? I haven't told them. No one knows, an’ I don’t mean any one to know. I can’t stand pity, an’ Il won't. So we'll just go, Darrick”

“Ranald, would you have her think that you have deserted her?”

“Ah! No, no—not that!”

Darrick did not look. Pride of manhood was quickening the boy-soul. He waited; while the ashes whitened on the hearth and the wind sobbed on the chimney. Then:

“And so you will tell her,” he said quietly.

“Oh—Lord, I can’t! Didn’t I tell you before that I can’t? Perhaps if an outsider Darrick, you tell her! Say that I must go. Say that I can’t die in my bed. Say that”

Darrick rose unsteadily, and flung open the door. Rain had chilled the night; but the blood burnt in his throat and his eyes. Behind him Ranald was speaking again.

“She might ask me to stay. I believe she would. All women are selfish. An’ I can’t stay. But tell her that I shall always love her, of course. Only—I must go.”

Darrick turned then, and a spark of light showed in the sunken eyes.

“When I tell her I will tell her in my own way and in my own words. But I will tell her. Get into that bunk, Ranald. You haven't slept this week, by the look of you.”

“Darrick, I can trust you?”

“Yes.” But the eyes did not lift. “Here’s a blanket—and I'll double the sack for a pillow. Good-night.”

The boy with life to lose slept sound through the night. But the man with honour or love to lose sat by the dead fire until daylight laid her hands upon its greyness. And when he stood face to face with the girl hours later the marks of the strife showed in his voice and in his bowed shoulders.

It was evening-light that lay in the garden among the flowers and the orange-trees, and the faint scent of vanilla was blown from somewhere. Darrick was to hate that scent of vanilla while he lived. The girl had been dancing with some one on the broad verandah, and there was soft lace about her head and her quick-moving bosom. Her mouth laughed; but her eyes were very clear and tender, for Darrick had just spoken Ranald’s name.

“And he only sent a message?” she said. “Not a letter? Not even a note?”

“No,” said Darrick. His mouth was dry, and his pulses throbbed. “No, Will you have the message now, Miss Nancie?”

“Why, of course,” she cried. Then she flushed, looking aside. “I’m glad he sent it by you,” she said simply. “You are his best friend. He often tells me so.”

Darrick did not lift his eyes.

“Come down to the gate,” he said. “It is quieter there.” And as they turned the vanilla-scent blew stronger in their faces.

At the gate he took her hands, speaking steadily, with the touch of them to hold him to his purpose.

“You must be brave,” he said. “Very brave. Listen. If Ranald had done a wrong, a very great wrong, would you not think him a better man if he went away, right away out of your life, than if he—he came to you and made you suffer with his shame?”

She jerked her hands free and flung her head up. “You do not know what you are saying,” she said. “Ranald has done no wrong. You forget yourself, Mr. Darrick. I am going back to the house, and you need not come with me.”

“Wait.” Darrick had thought out his moves whilst Ranald slept. “Wait! There is more in this than you think. No woman ever really knows a man. And you did not answer me.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “Because I love Ranald I honour him. I would sooner see him dead than dishonoured, But you needn’t say such things to me, you know. Ranald couldn’t be dishonourable.”

“There is no man living who is not tempted to be so at times,” said Darrick, very low. “Listen. Ranald went to Brisbane this morning. He is going down to the Islands, and he told me that he would never come back. This is his message to you. ‘Tell her that I will never come back. Tell her that I will not see her again.’”

He was watching closely, and he knew that every word struck deep. But she was brave; brave and proud, as he had known her always. And the woman in her would not cry out.

“If that is true,” she said steadily—“if that is true, that he is ashamed to see me again, then you can tell him from me that I would sooner hear that he was dead. Oh … far, far sooner, if—he died … the Ranald I have known. …”

The light shone on Ranald’s ring where her hand gripped the gate. Darrick looked at it; and for a breath the track before him seemed too hard for him to tread.

Then, because he loved her, he gave her his all.

“Suppose,” he said gently, “suppose I told you that Ranald had gone, not because he had sinned and was ashamed, but because he loved you so dearly—so very dearly that he would not bring suffering on you? Nancie, listen! Some men die young, with life and love about them, If that death is for Ranald, and if he goes out to meet it instead of skulking in a corner—if he is always the Ranald you have known, too brave to let you see him suffer …”

“Oh, oh! Wait! Let me think”

Because Darrick’s own heart was wrenched open, he understood. But he never spoke of that hour by the gate. At long last he said, “I am going with him, Nancie. And if one man can help, he shall meet you with a clean heart hereafter, as—as he used to do.”

Her strength was almost spent, and Darrick’s muscles were twitching with the longing to take her in his arms and to hold her there.

“If he had come—only once!” she cried. “Oh!—shall I never see him any more, Ranald?”

“He thought it would hurt you less,” said Darrick, lying patiently. “He thought of you only. And you should be proud—proud that he has the strength to bear it alone.”

She gave a little sobbing laugh. “And has he not left me to bear it alone?” she cried,

Darrick knew that over-well. And the savage part of him desired payment for this from Ranald Macdougal. He lied again.

“A man is a coward who would get a woman to help him through pain. Ranald knows that. He will write. And when I come back I will tell you—tell you all.”

Two letters Darrick forced Ranald to write from the sin-swept little backwash, where he played in a Chinese gambling hell with the flotsam that drifts in and out of the beach-towns throughout the Pacific. The boy was drunk when the third mail-boat came in, and by the fifth Darrick went home.

He saw Nancie in the next week, and he did not tell her of his half-won fight for the fiery boy-soul, that had flung religion, and love, and honour aside; and if instead he told her rather more than he would have set his oath to, it is not known that there is punishment for such lies.

But when, two years later, he came to her again, he found the punishment himself.

“How could I marry you?” she asked. “When he died alone for my sake, do you not think that I can live alone for his?”

“He didn’t die alone,” said Darrick. “He had me.”

The suggestion was very plain. The colour ran to her hair. Then her eyes filled. “A woman has but one hero in her life,” she said. “Mine is dead. But—if you can be content with second place”

Darrick could. And if, through all the years, Nancie’s hero was named wrongly in her heart, it was only Darrick knew.

And he did not tell.