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

a name for herself as a singer, she would come home to the Ridge to see them. “Don’t be angry, Michael dear,” the letter ended, “with your lovingest Sophie.”

Potch looked at Michael; he wondered whether the thought in his own mind had reached Michael’s. But Michael was too dazed and overwhelmed to think at all.

“There’s one thing, Potch,” he said; “if she’s gone to America, we could write to Mr. Armitage and ask him to keep an eye on her. And,” he added, “if she’s gone to America⁠ ⁠… it’s just likely she may be on the same boat as Mr. Armitage, and he’d look after her.”

Potch watched his face. The thought in his mind had not occurred to Michael, then, he surmised.

“He’d see she came to no harm.”

“Yes,” Potch said.

But he had seen John Armitage talking to Sophie on the Ridge over near Snowshoes’ hut the afternoon after the dance at Warria. He knew Mr. Armitage had driven Sophie home after the dance, too. Paul had been too drunk to stand, much less drive. Potch had knocked off early in the mine to go across to the Three Mile that afternoon. Then it had surprised Potch to see Sophie sitting and talking to Mr. Armitage as though they were very good friends; but, beyond a vague, jealous alarm, he had not attached any importance to it until he knew Sophie had gone down to Sydney by the same train as Mr. Armitage. She had said she was going to America, too, and he was going there. Potch had lived all his days on the Ridge; he knew nothing of the world outside, and its ways, except what he had learnt from books. But an instinct where Sophie was concerned had warned him of a link between her going away and John Armitage. That meeting of theirs came to have an extraordinary significance in his mind. He had thought out the chances of Sophie’s having gone with Mr. Armitage as far as he could. But Michael had not associated her going with him, it was clear. It had never occurred to him that Mr. Armitage could have anything to do with Sophie’s going away. It had not occurred to the rest of the Ridge folk either.

Paul was distracted. He made as great an outcry about Sophie’s going as he had about losing his stones. No one had thought he was as fond of her as he appeared to be. He wept and wailed continuously about her having gone away and left him. He went about begging for money in order to be able to go to America after Sophie; but no one would lend to him.

“You wait till Sophie’s made a name for herself, Paul,” everybody said, “then she’ll send for you.”

“Yes,” he assented eagerly. “But I don’t want to spend all that time here on the Ridge: I want to see something of life and the world again.”

Paul got a touch of the sun during the ferment of those weeks, and then, for two or three days, Michael and Potch had their work cut out nursing him through the delirium of sunstroke.

A week or so later the coach brought unexpected passengers⁠—Jun Johnson and the bright-eyed girl who had gone down on the coach with him⁠—and Jun introduced her to the boys at Newton’s as his bride. He had been down in Sydney on his honeymoon, he said, that was all.

When Michael went into the bar at Newton’s the same evening, he found Jun there, explaining as much to the boys.

“I know what you chaps think,” he was saying when Michael entered. “You think I put up the checkmate on old Rum-Enough, Charley played. Well, you’re wrong. I didn’t know no more about it than you did; and the proof is⁠—here I am. If I’d ’a’ done it, d’y’r think I’d have come back? If I’d had any share in the business, d’y’r think I’d be showin’ me face round here for a bit? Not much.⁠ ⁠…”

Silence hung between him and the men. Jun talked through it, warming to his task with the eloquence of virtue, liking his audience and the stage he had got all to himself, as an outraged and righteously indignant man.

“I know you chaps⁠—I know how you feel about things; and quite right, too! A man that’d go back on a mate like that⁠—why, he’s not fit to wipe your boots on. He ain’t fit to be called a man; he ain’t fit to be let run with the rest.”

He continued impressively; “I didn’t know no more about that business than any man-jack of you⁠—no more did Mrs. Jun.⁠ ⁠… Bygones is bygones⁠—that’s my motto. But I tell you⁠—and that’s the strength of it⁠—I didn’t know no more about those stones of Rummy’s than any man here. D’y’ believe me?”

It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth.

“We’re all good triers here, Jun,” George said, “but we’re not as green as we’re painted.”

Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said:

“Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain’t always been what you might call the clean potato⁠ ⁠… but I ain’t always been married, either. Well, I’m married now⁠—married to the best little girl ever I struck.⁠ ⁠…”

The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did not please Jun was evident.

“Well, seein’ I’ve taken on family responsibilities,” he went on⁠—“Was you smiling, Watty?”

“Me? Oh, no, Jun,” the offender replied, meekly; “it was only the stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn’t think so, but I always look as if I was smilin’ when I’ve got the stummick-ache.”

George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, taking Watty’s explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued solemnly, playing