Gavan Blake, attorney and solicitor,
sat in his office at Tarrong, opening his morning’s
letters. The office was in a small weatherboard
cottage in the “main street” of Tarrong
(at any rate it might fairly claim to be the main
street, as it was the only street that had any houses
in it). The front room, where he sat, was fitted
up with a table and a set of pigeon-holes full of
dusty papers, a leather couch, a small fire-proof
safe, and a book-case containing about equal proportions
of law-books and novels. A few maps of Tarrong
township and neighbouring stations hung on the walls.
The wooden partition of the house only ran up to the
rafters, and over it could plainly be heard his housekeeper
scrubbing his bedroom. Across the little passage
was his sitting-room, furnished in the style of most
bachelors’ rooms, an important item of furniture
being a cupboard where whisky was always to be found.
At the back of the main cottage were servants’
quarters and kitchen. Behind the house, on a
spare allotment, were two or three loose-boxes for
racehorses, a saddle-room and a groom’s room.
This was the whole establishment. A woman came
in every day to do up his rooms from the hotel, where
he had his meals. It was an inexpensive mode of
life, but one that conduced to the drinking of a good
many whiskies-and-sodas at the hotel with clients
and casual callers, and to a good deal of card-playing
and late hours. The racehorses, too, like most
racehorses, ate up more money than they earned.
So that Mr. Gavan Blake, though a clever man, with
a good practice, always seemed to find himself hard
up.
It was so on this particular morning.
Every letter that he opened seemed to have some reference
to money. One, from the local storekeeper, was
a pretentious account embracing all sorts of items ammunition,
stationery, saddlery and station supplies (the latter
being on account of a small station that Blake had
taken over for a bad debt, which seemed likely to
turn out an equally bad asset). Station supplies,
even for bad stations, run into a lot of money, and
the store account was approaching a hundred pounds.
Then there was a letter from a horse-trainer in Sydney
to whom he had sent a racehorse, and though this animal
had done such brilliant gallops that the trainer had
three times telegraphed him that a race was a certainty once
he went so far as to say that the horse could stop
to throw a somersault and still win the race on
each occasion it had always come in among the ruck;
and every time forty or fifty pounds of Blake’s
money had been lost in betting. For Blake was
a confirmed gambler, a heavy card-player and backer
of horses, and he had the contempt for other people’s
skill and opinions which seems an inevitable ingredient
in the character of brilliant men of a certain type.
He was a man of splendid presence,
with strong features and clear blue-grey eyes the
type of face that is seen on the Bench and among the
Queen’s Counsel in the English Courts. He
was quick-witted, eloquent, and logical of mind.
Among the Doyles and Donohoes he was little short
of a king. Wild, uneducated, and suspicious, they
believed in him implicitly. They swore exactly
the things that he told them to swear, spoke or were
silent according as he ordered, and trusted him with
secrets which they would not entrust to their own brothers.
In that district he wielded a power greater than the
law.
On this particular day, after opening the trainers letter
asking for cheque to pay training expenses (L50), and one from a client, saying
I got your note, and will pay you when I get the wool money, he came upon a
letter that startled him. It was written in an old-fashioned, ladys hand,
angular and spidery. It ran
Kuryong Station, Monday.
Dear Mr. Blake,
Miss Grant tells me that she owes
her life to your bravery in saving her from the coach
accident. It would give me great pleasure if you
would come and stay here next Saturday, as I suppose
you will be passing down this way to the Court at
Ballarook. With best wishes,
Yours truly,
Annette Gordon.
Blake put the letter down and walked
about his office for a while in thought. “Invited
to the old station?” he mused. “I
must go, of course, Too good a chance to miss.”
“Might have written herself!”
he muttered, as he turned the letter over to see if
by chance Miss Grant had written a line anywhere; then,
laying it on one side, he took up carelessly a square
business-like envelope, addressed to him in a scrawly,
illiterate fist. The letter that he took out
of it was a strange jewel to repose in so rude a casket.
It also was from Kuryong from Ellen Harriott, who had taken the precaution of
addressing it in a feigned hand so that the postmaster and postmistress at
Kileys Crossing, who handled all station letters, would not know that she was
corresponding with Blake. The letter was a great contrast to Mrs.
Gordons. It was a girls love letter, a gushing, impulsive thing, full of
vows and endearments; but the only part of it with which we are concerned ran in
this way:
And so the heiress has arrived at
last and you saved her life! When
you swam with her, didn’t you feel that you had
the weight of a hundred thousand sovereigns on your
back? For oh, Gavan dear, she is nice, but she
is very stolid! And so you saved her what
luck for you! But you always have luck, don’t
you? And don’t you think that my love is
the best bit of luck you have ever had! Everyone
says you are making a fortune hurry up
and make it, for I am so anxious to get away out of
this place, and we can have our trip round the world
together.
And now I am waiting for next Saturday.
Fancy having you in the house all day long and in
the evening! We must slip away somewhere for just
a little while, so that we can have each other all
to ourselves. Hugh is still worrying about some
sheep that he thinks are stolen. He is always
worrying about something or other, and now that she
has come I suppose he will be worse than ever.
Now goodnight, dearest...
Blake read the letter, and threw it
down carelessly on the table; then, leaning back in
his chair, cut up a pipeful of tobacco. He thought
over his position with Ellen Harriott. There was
a secret understanding between them, a sort of informal
affair born of moonlight rides and country dances.
He had never actually asked her to marry him, but he
had kissed her as he had kissed scores of others,
and the girl had at once taken it for granted that
they were to be engaged. It had not seemed such
a bad thing for him at the time. He was fond of
her in a ballroom-and-moonlight-ride kind of way,
but there it stopped. Still, it was not a bad
match for him. The girl was a lady, with friends
all over the district. He was rather near the
border-line of respectability, and to marry her would
have procured him a position that he had little chance
of reaching otherwise. He had let things drift
on, and the girl, with her fanciful ideas, was, of
course, only too ready to fall in with the suggestion
of secrecy; it seemed such a precious secret to her.
So now he was engaged while still up to his neck in
debt; but worse remained behind. In his business
he had sums of money for investments and for settlements
of cases passing through his hands; and from time
to time he had, when hard pushed, used his clients’
money to pay his own debts. Beginning with small
sums, he had muddled along, meaning to make all straight
out of the first big case he had; and each time he
had a big case the money seemed to be all spent before
he earned it. He was not exactly bankrupt, for
he was owed a great deal of money, enough perhaps
to put him straight if he could get it in; but the
mountain folk expected long credit and large reductions,
and it was pretty certain that he would never get
even half of what he was owed. Therefore, he
went about his business with a sort of sword of Damocles
hanging over his head and now the heiress
had come, and he had saved her life!
His musings were cut short by a tap
at the door; a long, gawky youth, with a budding moustache,
entered and slouched over to a chair. He was
young Isaacstein, son of the Tarrong storekeeper, a
would-be sportsman, would-be gambler, would-be lady-killer,
would-be everything, who only succeeded in making
himself a cheap bar-room loafer; but he was quite
satisfied that he was the right thing.
“What’s doing, Gav?” he said.
“Who’s the letter from?”
“Oh, business business” said
Gavan Blake.
“What’s doing with you?”
“Doing! By Gad, I’m
broke. The old man won’t give me a copper.
What about Saturday? Are you going to the Court
at Ballarook?”
“Yes. I’ve got a
couple of cases there. And I’ve just got
a letter from Mrs. Gordon, asking me to stay the night
at Kuryong.”
“Ho! My oath! Stop
at Kuryong, eh? That’s cause you saved the
heiress? Well, go in and win. You won’t
know us when you marry the owner of Kuryong.
What’s she like, Gav? Pretty girl, ain’t
she? Has she any sense?”
“Much as you have,” growled Blake.
“Oh, don’t get nasty.
Only I thought you were a bit shook on the governess
there what about that darnce at the Show
ball, eh? I say, you couldn’t lend us a
tenner till Saturday?”
“No, I could not ”
And this was the literal truth, for Gavan Blake had
run himself right out of money, and was living on credit not
an enviable position at any time, and one doubly insupportable
to a man of his temperament. And again his thoughts
went back to the girl he had saved, and he pondered
how different things might have been might,
perhaps, still be.