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

broken by the end of his only son, whom he found he had cared for now that he was dead; the stockmen, boundary-riders, servants, fencers, shearers from Darrawingee sheds who, a few weeks before had been on the Warria board, and men from other stations near enough to have heard of Arthur Henty’s death. None of the Henty women were there; but women of the Ridge, who were accustomed to pay last respects as their menfolk did, were with their husbands as usual. They would have thought it unnatural and unkind not to follow Arthur Henty to his resting-place; not to go as friends would to say goodbye to a friend who is making a long journey. And there was more than the ordinary reason for being present at Arthur Henty’s funeral. He was leaving them under a cloud, circumstances which might be interpreted unkindly, and it was necessary to be present to express sympathy with him and sorrow at his going. That was the way they regarded it.

Martha had driven with Sam Nancarrow, as she always did to functions of the sort. No one remembered having seen Martha take a thing so to heart as she did Arthur Henty’s death. She was utterly shaken by it, and could not restrain her tears. They coursed down her cheeks all the time she was in that quiet place on the plains; her great, motherly bosom rose and fell with the tide of her grief. She tried to subdue it, but every now and then the sound of her crying could be heard, and in the end Sam took her, sobbing uncontrollably, back to his buggy.

People knew she had seen further into the cause of Arthur Henty’s death than they had, and they understood that was why she Was so upset. Besides, Martha had always confessed to a soft corner for Arthur Henty: she had been with his mother when he was born, had nursed him during a hot summer and through several slight illnesses since then. And Arthur had been fond of her too. He had always called her Mother M’Cready as the Ridge folk did. Old Mr. Henty had driven over to see Martha the night before, to hear all she knew of what had happened, and Ridge folk had gathered something of the story from her broken exclamations and the reproaches with which she covered herself.

She cried out over and over again that she could not have believed Arthur would shoot himself⁠—that he was the sort of man to do such a thing⁠—and blamed herself for not having foreseen what had occurred. She had never seen him like he was that night⁠—so strong, so much a man, so full of life and love for Sophie. He had begged Sophie to go with him as though his life depended on it⁠—and it had.

If she had been a woman, and Sophie, and had loved him, Martha said, she would have had to go with him. She could never have withstood his pleading.⁠ ⁠… But Sophie had been good to him; she had been gentle⁠—only she wouldn’t go. Neither Sophie nor she believed, of course, he would do as he said⁠—but he had.

Martha could not forgive herself that she had done nothing to soothe or pacify Arthur; that she had said nothing, given him neither kindly word nor gesture. But she had been so upset, so carried away. She had not known what to do or say. She abused and blackguarded herself; but she had sensed enough of the utter loneliness and darkness of Henty’s mind to realise that most likely she could have done nothing against it. He would have brushed her aside had she attempted to influence him; he would not have heard what, she said. She would have been as helpless as any other human consideration against the blinding, irresistibly engulfing forces of despair which had impelled him to put himself out of pain as he had put many a suffering animal. It was an act of self-defence, as Mother M’Cready saw it, Arthur Henty’s end, and that was all there was to it.

As Sophie and Potch approached the cemetery, people exclaimed together in wonderment, awe⁠—almost fear.

James Henty, when he saw them, turned away from the men he was talking to and walked to his buggy; Tom Henderson, his son-in-law, followed him. Although he would have been the last to forgive Sophie if she had done as Arthur wished, even to save his life, old Henty had to have a whipping-post, and he eased his own sense of responsibility for what had blighted his son’s life, by blaming Sophie for it. He assured himself, his family and friends, that she, and she alone, was responsible for Arthur’s death. She had played with Arthur; she had always played with him, old Henty said. She had driven him to distraction with her wiles⁠—and this was the end of it all.

Sophie rode into the cemetery: she rode to where the broken earth was; but she did not dismount. The horse came to a standstill beside it, and she sat on him, her eyes closed. Potch stood bareheaded and bowed beside her. He put the flowers he had picked up as Sophie let them fall, on the grave. Sophie thrust the long, purple trails she was carrying into the saddlebag where Arthur had put the flowers she gave him that first day their eyes met and drank the love potion of each others’ being.

People were already on the road, horses and buggies, dark, ant-like trains on the flowering plains, moving slowly in the direction of Warria and of Fallen Star, when Sophie and Potch turned away from the cemetery.

The shadow of what had happened was heavy over everybody as they drove home. Arthur Henty had been well enough liked, and he had had much more to do with Fallen Star than most of the station people. He had gone about so much with his men they had almost ceased to think of him as not