The Black Opal - Katharine Susannah Prichard (open ebook .TXT) 📗

with him, perhaps; but he did not notice it, and she was carelessly and childishly content to have found the meaning of why she and Arthur liked meeting and talking together. People only felt as she and Arthur felt about each other if they were going to marry and live “happy ever after,” she supposed.

When Michael was aware of what was being said, and of the foundation there was for gossip, he was considerably disturbed. He went to talk to Maggie Grant about it. She, he thought, would know more of what was in the wind than he did, and be better able to gauge what the consequences were likely to be to Sophie.

“I’ve been bothered about it myself, Michael,” she said. “But neither you nor me can live Sophie’s life for her.⁠ ⁠… I don’t see we can do anything. His crowd’ll do all the interfering, if I know anything about them.”

“I suppose so,” Michael agreed.

“And, as far as I can see, it won’t do any good our butting in,” Mrs. Grant continued. “You know Sophie’s got a will of her own⁠ ⁠… and she’s always had a good deal her own way. I’ve talked round the thing to her⁠ ⁠… and I think she understands.”

“You’ve always been real good to her, Maggie,” Michael said gratefully.

“As to that”⁠—the lines of Maggie Grant’s broad, plain face rucked to the strength of her feeling⁠—“I’ve done what I could. But then, I’m fond of her⁠—fond of her as you are, Michael. That’s saying a lot. And you know what I thought of her mother. But it’s no use us thinking we can buy Sophie’s experience for her. She’s got to live⁠ ⁠… and she’s got to suffer.”

Busy with her opal-cutting, and happy with her thoughts, Sophie had no idea of the misgiving Michael and Maggie Grant had on her account, or that anyone was disturbed and unhappy because of her happiness. She sang as she worked. The whirr of her wheel, the chirr of sandstone and potch as they sheared away, made a small, busy noise, like the drone of an insect, in her house all day; and every day some of the men brought her stones to face and fix up. She had acquired such a reputation for making the most of stones committed to her care that men came from the Three Mile and from the Punti with opals for her to rough-out and polish.

Bully Bryant and Roy O’Mara were often at Rouminof’s in the evening, and they heard about it when they looked in at Newton’s later on, now and then.

“You must be striking it pretty good down at the Punti, Bull,” Watty Frost ventured genially one night. “See you takin’ stones for Sophie to fix up pretty near every evenin’.”

“There’s some as sees too much,” Bully remarked significantly.

“What you say, you say y’rself, Bull.” Watty pulled thoughtfully on his pipe, but his little blue eyes squinted over his fat, red-grained cheeks, not in the least abashed.

“I do,” Bull affirmed. “And them as sees too much⁠ ⁠… won’t see much⁠ ⁠… when I’m through with ’em.”

“Mmm,” Watty brooded. “That’s a good thing to know, isn’t it?”

He and the rest of the men continued to “sling off,” as they said, at Bully and Roy O’Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless.

The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new field.

Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man to manage Rummy, the men said.

Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with him for keeping out of the way.

“Shouldn’t wonder if they wouldn’t rather have his room than his company,” Watty ventured, “and they just go shares with him so as things’ll be all right for Sophie.”

“That’s right!” Pony-Fence agreed.

The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man’s work, going about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a youth at anybody’s beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older than he was really, and took being Michael’s mate very seriously.

Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty’s shelter; but George and Watty were loth to lose Michael’s word from their councils. They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael had invited him to go across to George and Watty’s shelter with him, and after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael’s shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found Potch’s eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave interest.

Some people were staying at Warria during the winter,