Tom Gerrard

CHAPTER XV

“Poor, dear, old Tommy boy!” said Westonley to his wife, as they sat at their breakfast table some weeks after the mishap to Gerrard. The mail had just arrived at Marumbah, and brought a letter from his brother-in-law, and one from Fraser, His eyes glistened as he laid them down upon the table, and looked at his wife, who, he could see, was also visibly affected, whilst little Mary sobbed unrestrainedly.

“I wish this Mr Fraser had telegraphed to us, Edward. I would have left Marumbah the same day, and gone to poor Tom to nurse him.”

“Would you, old girl?” and the big man rose from his seat and kissed her, his thick, heavy beard spreading out over her shoulders.

“Indeed, I would. And now it is no use my going, is it?”

“Not a bit, Lizzie. You hear what Fraser says—‘He is getting on splendidly, and the left eye is saved.’ Let me read it all over again; shall I?”

“Do,” and her pale, clear-cut features flushed; “it makes me feel as if I were there and saw the whole dreadful sight. Don’t cry any more, Mary dear. Uncle Tom is getting better.”

“If Jim had been with him, it wouldn’t have happened,” said the child, suppressing her sobs, and wiping her streaming eyes; “Jim would have been sure to have seen the alligator coming before any one else, and done something. I am quite sure that even if he met a bunyip he would not be afraid; but would fight it.”

“I’m dead certain of it, Mary,” said Westonley, as he put his big hand upon the child’s head, and then taking up Fraser’s letter, he again read it aloud. It described in simple language Gerrard’s desperate struggle with the alligator, then went on about his courage and fortitude under agonising pain, for the wounds caused by alligators’ claws invariably set up an intense and poisonous inflammation, and take a long time to heal, and concluded by saying, “as long as life lasts, I shall never forget that only for his heroic conduct I should now be a childless man, and my daughter have died a death too fearful to contemplate.”

Gerrard’s letter was in his usual laconic style.

“Dear Ted,—I have bought a little station here called Kaburie—good cattle country with about 2500 head on it. In getting a mob across a creek I was mauled by an alligator’ and if it had not been for my friend Fraser—in whose house I am now staying for a week or so—shooting the beast, it would have had me. It is nothing serious, so don’t worry over me—some deep cuts on my face, that is all, and Mr Fraser and his daughter (a charming girl) are coddling me up. Jim is with me. I left him with your old friend Lacey at Port Denison, but the young beggar wouldn’t stay when he heard that I had had an accident. He is making great running with pretty Miss Fraser. Give my love to Lizzie and Mary, and tell the latter that I trust her bear is now thoroughly convalescent Jim will write to Mary by next mail. He went out early this morning fishing with Miss F–, and did not know that the mailman was calling to-day.—Yours ever, Tom.”

Mary’s face brightened at the prospect of a letter from her dearly-beloved Jim, and Mrs Westonley smiled. Ever since Gerrard’s visit to Marumbah Downs, her once icy and austere manner to the child had, bit by bit, relaxed, until at last she had thawed altogether, and had been amply repaid by such a warm response of affection that she now made a companion of the little one, and found herself a much happier woman now that the sweet sunlight of childish love had penetrated and melted her former frigid reserve. Westonley had noted the change with unalloyed delight, but, like a wise man, had pretended not to notice; but one day, soon after Gerrard’s letter had arrived, he could not suppress himself. He had been away on a business visit to his squatter neighbour Brooke, to whom he had sold his cattle station in Central Queensland at a very satisfactory figure, and as he rode up to the slip-rails of the home-paddock, he saw the one time “incubus” coming flying towards him, her sun-tanned face wreathed in smiles.

“Oh, Uncle Ted, Uncle Ted!” she panted, as she took down the slip-rails, and let Westonley pass through, “just fancy, Uncle Ted!”—and as she spoke, she lifted the slip-rails in place again and turned to him with a beaming face, out of breath, and so wildly excited that she could scarcely speak.

“What is the matter, young ‘un?” and the big man bent down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him.

“Oh, Uncle Ted, this is the very, very first time in my life that I was glad you were away!”

“How’s that?”

“Aunt Lizzie let me sleep with her last NIGHT.”

A great joy came into Westonley’s heart. “Did she? Really and truly?”

“Really and truly! And oh, Uncle Ted, it was lovely! We talked and talked and talked for such a long time, and she told me such a lot of things about the school she was at in England, and about the girls there—some were very nice, but there were some horrid ones. Oh, she told me heaps of things. It was lovely, and we had Bunny in the room, too”—here she paused to catch her breath—“he tried to get in through the mosquito curtains, and got all tangled up, and tore a most enormous hole in them, and Aunt Lizzie only laughed, and said it didn’t matter!”

“You must have had a bully time.”

“Splendid! And Aunt Lizzie and I are going to the beach together one day next week to get pippies, and she says she won’t mind if she gets sopping wet right up to her face.”

When they reached the house they found Mrs Westonley awaiting them on the verandah, and when her husband put his arms around her and kissed her repeatedly, she blushed like a young girl. And as the days went on he saw with delight that she had at last taken the child to her heart.

Breakfast was over, and Westonley in his study was talking to his head stockman when he saw Brooke riding up.

“Lizzie,” he called to his wife, “here is Brooke. I expect he will have some breakfast, so tell Mrs Patton.”

Brooke, a tall, powerfully-built man, and usually as boisterous as a school-boy in his manner, seemed very quiet as he dismounted, shook hands with Westonley and his wife, and patted Mary’s head.

“Just in time for breakfast, Mr Brooke.”

“No, thank you, Mrs Westonley. I had mine at five o’clock—I made an early start, as I wanted to get here as soon as possible, thinking that very likely Westonley might be going out on the run somewhere, and that I might miss him. I want to have a talk with you, old man.”

Mrs Westonley and Mary at once left the room, both wondering what was the matter with Brooke—he looked so worried and depressed.

“Westonley, old fellow,” he said, as he sat down, “give me a big brandy and soda. I’ve ridden hard all the way from my place.” Then he looked at the letters and newspapers still lying upon the breakfast table. The latter, he saw, were unopened. Drinking off the brandy and soda, he said:

“You haven’t opened your Argus yet, I see?”

“No, we had some bad news about Tom Gerrard—he’s been mauled by an alligator, and we haven’t bothered about newspapers this morning.”

“Not seriously hurt, I trust?” anxiously asked the squatter, who had a sincere regard for Gerrard.

“No, I am glad to say. I’ll show you his letter presently. But what is the matter, Brooke? You look worried.”

“I am—most infernally worried. Tell me, old man, what did you do with that cheque of mine for eight thousand?” (The cheque to which he alluded was the price of the station in Central Queensland which he had bought from Westonley a few weeks previously.)

“Paid it into my bank,” replied Westonley, instantly surmising that Brooke’s financial affairs had gone wrong.

“Dacre’s?”

“Yes.”

“Westonley, old chap, I have bad news for you. I got a telegram from Melbourne last night—Dacre’s Bank has smashed, and smashed badly—hopelessly, in fact.”

Westonley’s florid face paled.

“Smashed!”

“Utterly smashed. Will it hit you hard?”

“Break me! I had thirty thousand pounds on fixed deposit, a current account of about fifteen thousand—including the eight thousand you paid me, and every penny of my wife’s money, little Mary’s, and Jim’s were in Dacre’s,” and, man as he was, his voice trembled.

“It won’t break you—by heavens, it shall not break you, Westonley! I bought Comet Vale from you for my boys, but I’ll give it back to you for three—for five—years to help you to pull up.”

“Thanks, Brooke,” and the big man grasped his friend’s hand mechanically. “This has dazed me a bit. Come outside, and well talk it over.”

He rose unsteadily, placing his hand on the edge of the table, and then fell forward upon his face, and lay still—his big, generous heart had ceased to beat.

When Brooke rode away late that night on his way home thinking of his dead friend, he reproached himself for so often having spoken of Elizabeth Westonley as “a pretty automaton, with as much heart in her as a doll.” For her silent grief had showed him that she had loved her husband.

CHAPTER XVI

The news of Westonley’s sudden death was a great shock to Gerrard. The brief telegram from his half-sister had been forwarded to Port Denison, and Lacey had sent it on to him at Fraser’s Gully, by the mailman, together with a copy of the Clarion, containing the telegraphed account of the Dacre’s bank failure. Had Gerrard looked at the newspaper, he might perhaps have connected Westonley’s sudden end with the financial disaster, which had brought ruin to so many thousands of Australian homes, for he knew that his brother-in-law banked at Dacre’s. But Mrs Westonley had said nothing of the cause of her husband’s death—“Edward died suddenly yesterday. Am writing you fully to-night to Port Denison” was all that she had said.

“Dear old Ted!” he said as his eyes filled, and he saw before him the great, bearded face with the kindly, mirthful eyes, and heard the deep, gruff voice. “How can I tell Jim—the boy will be heartbroken.”

And Jim’s grief almost unmanned “Uncle Tom,” as the boy now called him. Putting the telegram in his pocket, he went down to the battery, where his protégé was being inducted into the mysteries of amalgamation by Fraser.

“Jim,” he said quietly, “come along the creek with me for a bit of a stroll.”

“Is your face paining you much this morning, Uncle Tom?” said the boy, as they left the battery, and walked towards the creek, “you look quite white.”

“No, sonny,” and he placed his hand affectionately on the boy’s shoulder, “my face isn’t paining me, but I have a thundering big pain in my heart, Jim—a pain which you must share with me. I have just had a telegram ‘from Marumbah—with very, very sad news.”

“Is it about Mary?” and the boy’s lips quivered; “is she sick, Uncle?” and then, with a gasp—“is she dead?”

“No, sonny, Mary is all right, but Mr Westonley is dead,” and then he told him all that he could tell.

An hour later, when they returned to the house, and Kate Fraser wondered why they looked so quiet and depressed, Gerrard told her of the news he had received.

“Poor Jim!” she said, as she put her arms round the boy, who was trying hard not to again break down.

Then Gerrard went on to say that he would now have to change his plans somewhat.

“I must get back to Port Denison tomorrow, Miss Fraser. I want to send some telegrams as well as letters. But as it will take my sister’s letter quite a fortnight to come from Marumbah, I shall put in most of the time at Kaburie, and, if I may, also inflict myself upon your father and yourself occasionally.”

“Do. We shall be so glad.”

Two days later he and Jim were back in Port Denison, and lunching with Lacey at the Queen’s Hotel. Then for the first time Gerrard heard of the Dacre bank failure.

“It must have been a fearful shock to poor Ted,” he said to Lacey; “and perhaps it was that that killed him, for, as you say, the bank suspended on Saturday, and he died early on the Monday following. I fear he must have been hit very badly by the smash, for he not only had a lot of money in it, but was a big shareholder in the concern as well.”

“That’s unfortunate, for yesterday’s news gives further revelations of the smash, which is the very worst that has occurred in the Colonies. Every one thought that Dacre’s bank was as solid as the rock of Gibraltar.”

This intelligence disturbed Gerrard greatly—so much so that after lunch he sent a telegram to Westonley’s Melbourne agents—who were also his own—and asked them if they could tell him how his sister would be affected by the collapse of Dacre’s. In a few hours he received an answer—“Deeply regret to say everything will be swept away.”

“Poor Lizzie!” he said to Lacey after dinner, as they sat on the verandah smoking; “this will be terrible news for her—if she does not already know of it. Thank God, I can help her to some extent,” and he meant to “help” her by giving her Kaburie, for which he had only a few days previously sent Mrs Tallis a draft upon his bankers for six thousand pounds.

“You were lucky not to have had anything in Dacre’s.”

“Very, for Westonley was always cracking it up to me. He urged me strongly only six months ago to buy a hundred shares—a pretty hole I should be in now if I had taken the poor fellow’s advice.”

“Yes, indeed. But no one ever dreamt of Dacre’s being anything but one of the soundest banks in the world It is a blackguardly affair—a cruel, shameless fraud—and I hope that the men who are responsible for it will each get seven years’ hard labour.”

“They deserve it I suppose that Westonley, with Marumbah Downs, and Comet Vale, and the funds he had in Dacre’s was worth a hundred thousand at least; and now my poor sister and little Mary Rayner will be absolutely penniless. Thank heaven, I did not take his advice, but stuck to the Capricornian Pastoralists’ Bank.”

The editor of the Clarion gasped and dropped his cigar. But he quickly recovered himself, and turning his face away from Gerrard, puffed out volumes of smoke most energetically, considering what he should do. He soon decided. “Better tell him the grim truth at once,” he thought.

“Gerrard!”

The change in his voice struck his companion—it was low, grave, and sympathetic.

“What is it, Lacey? Now, out with it. You have something unpleasant to tell me, and don’t like doing it. I’ll bet you drinks that I can guess what it is. I saw you start when I mentioned the Capricornian Pastoralists’ Bank. Has that ‘busted’ too?”

“Yes. It smashed yesterday as a result of the Dacre collapse. The news was in my rag this morning.”

“Was it? I didn’t look at the Clarion to-day. Is it a bad case?”

“Very bad; about a shilling in the pound is all that will come out of the wreck. Will you be hard hit?”

“Rather! Curls me up like a corkscrew. To pay Mrs Tallis her six thousand pounds I gave a mortgage on Ocho Rios for five thousand pounds as I only had about three or four thousand pounds in the Capricornian. I’m deuced lucky that it wasn’t more.”

He rose from his seat and paced angrily to and fro on the verandah for a moment or two, then he stopped suddenly, and a smile lit up his scarred face.

“What an ass I am, Lacey! The thing can’t be helped, but only a little while ago I had made up my mind to give Kaburie to my sister; and now I can’t pay for Kaburie, for my draft for six thousand pounds is worthless to Mrs Tallis, and all the labouring of mustering and branding has gone for nothing. Poor little woman! I am sorry for her! Isn’t it a beastly mess?”

“You think too much of others, Gerrard, and too little of yourself.”

“I don’t! I’m very fond of being good to myself, I can assure you. But a smack in the face like this is enough to make a saint swear like an Australian Member of Parliament. Now, I bought Kaburie with the idea of making it a breeding station—prize cattle and all that sort of thing—for Ocho Rios. Then when I received this telegram from my agents in Melbourne telling me that my sister would be left penniless, I made up my mind to write to her by the next mail south, and tell her that Kaburie was for her and my niece Mary. And another thing I wanted to do was to give a man I know a good lift.” (He meant Fraser.) “And now I’ll be as good as stony-broke for the next two years.”

“I wish I could help you,” began Lacey, earnestly.

“Thanks, old man. It is awfully good of you, but I shall pull through all right in the end, and with a good season or two should easily lift the mortgage on Ocho Rios. All I am scared of now is a drought, but if a drought does come, I can’t stop it, and therefore, it is no use my worrying about it.” He hoisted his feet upon the table, and touched the bell for the waitress. “Well, thank heavens, Lacey, I still have a thirst, and an iced brandy and soda is very soothing to the nerves. Milly, bring the ice again please, and if you see the boy tell him to come here.”

Jim soon appeared, still looking subdued and depressed.

“Sit down here, old son, and have a long drink of ginger ale with a lump of ice in it,” and he put his hand on the boy’s arm, and made him sit down between himself and Lacey. “Jim, my son, I’ve just had some beastly bad news. I’ve lost a lot of money, and you and I will have to work like niggers when we get to Ocho Rios. Savvy?”

“Yes, Uncle Tom. I will work very, very hard for you.”

“For us both, Jim, and for Mary and Aunt Lizzie; for we are all in the same boat I’ll tell you the whole yarn by and by; but for the present well talk about something else for a change.”

Lacey looked at him in silent admiration and wonder. “Nothing can disturb the equanimity of such a serene mind,” he thought, “and I like him for taking the youngster into his confidence like that.”

“I wonder what made Aulain leave so suddenly,” said Gerrard, as Milly appeared with the ice, and the ginger ale for Jim. “It was strange of him not to even leave a note for me.”

“Oh! when a man has fever he does very queer things. All he told me was that he was off to Brisbane to tender his resignation in person, and as that is against the regulations he hoped to be dismissed. He has been very strange lately. I think that matters have gone wrong in a certain quarter.”

Gerrard nodded. “I know. Well, I’m sorry if it is the case. She is a bonny little lady.”

Milly again appeared. “If you please, Mr Gerrard, Sergeant Macpherson would like to see you for a few minutes on important business.”

“All right, Milly! Ask him to come up. Jim, I hope you haven’t been up to any games while I was away.”

The local Sergeant of Police was shown up.

“Good evening, sir,” he said. “I have just had a wire from Cardwell from Inspector Sheridan, saying that news had come through by the mail boat from Somerset, that there has been a very bad bush fire up your way, and Ocho Rios station is destroyed.”

“Any lives lost?”

“No, sir, but the fire spread all over the run for fifty miles about, and your stockman thinks that there are hardly two hundred head of cattle left I am sorry to bring you such bad news, sir.”

“Oh! don’t apologise, Sergeant,” was the quiet reply, “I’m getting used to bad news. Milly, bring a chair for Mr Macpherson, and another big glass, and some more ice. Now sit down, Sergeant, and tell me all about it. Jim, get off that railing, or you’ll fall off into the street, and break your leg. My luck is dead against me. Light your pipe, Sergeant, and make yourself comfy.”

CHAPTER XVII

“The saying that misfortunes never come singly seems to be verified in your case, Mr Gerrard,” said Kate Fraser, as, a fortnight after he had received the news of Westonley’s death, he was relating his disastrous experiences to her and her father.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it? But there are lots of fellows who have had worse luck than me, and so I shouldn’t ‘make a song’ over mine. Now, do you know the story of Knowles’s life?”

“No, he has never told us.”

“Well, he told it to me yesterday” (Gerrard had been to Kaburie to tell the dapper little overseer that he could not pay for the station, and that he, Knowles, must re-take possession as manager for Mrs Tallis), “and I think the poor little chap only related it out of pure sympathy for me when I explained to him how I was fixed, and how sorry I was for him—as well as for myself—for I had doubled the salary he was receiving from Mrs Tallis.”

“He told me that,” said Kate, and her eyes sparkled with fun.

“Naturally, he would tell you” and Gerrard, with a faint quiver of one eyelid, gave Douglas Fraser a sly glance. “I am sure you must be the recipient of the confidences of all the country side, and would never ‘give any one away,’ as vulgar persons like myself would say; so please don’t ‘give me away’ to Knowles.” Then his voice changed. “Miss Fraser, that little man is both a hero and a martyr. He was in the Naval Brigade at Sebastopol, and was recommended for the V.C. for distinguished bravery in one of the futile attacks on the Redan. Did you know that?”