II
“Look at Bow, he looks like an owl,” said Grace at breakfast.
“What d’y call ’im Bow for?” asked Len.
“Like a girl, with his eyes double size,” said Monica.
“You’d better go to sleep, Jack,” said Mrs. Ellis.
“Take a nap, lad,” said Mr. Ellis. “There’s nothin’ for y’ to do this morning.”
Jack was going stupefied again, as the sun grew warm. He didn’t hear half that was said. But the girls were very attentive to him. Mary was not there: she was sitting with Herbert. But Monica and Grace waited on him as if he had been their lord. It was a new experience for him: Monica jumping up and whipping away his cup with her slim hand, to bring it back filled, and Grace insisting on opening a special jar of jam for him. Drowsy as he was, their attention made his blood stir. It was so new to him.
Mary came in from the sitting room: they were still in the kitchen.
“Herbert is awake,” she said. “He wants to be untied. Bow, do you think he ought to?”
Jack rose in silence and went through to Gran’s room. Herbert lay quite still, but he was himself. Only shattered and wordless. He looked at Jack and murmured:
“Can’t y’ untie me?”
Jack went at once to unfasten the linen bands. The twins, Monica and Grace, stood watching from the doorway. Mary was at his side to help.
“Don’t let ’em come in,” said Herbert, looking into Jack’s face.
Jack nodded and went to the door.
“He wants to be left alone,” he said.
“Mustn’t we come, Bow?” said Monica, making queer yellow eyes at him.
“Best not,” he said. “Don’t let anybody come. He wants absolute quiet.”
“All right.” She looked at him with a heavy look of obedience, as if making an offering. They were not going to question his authority. She drew Grace away: both the girls humble. Jack slowly and unconsciously flushed. Then he went back to the bed.
“I want something,” murmured Herbert wanly. “Send that other away.”
“Go away, Mary. He wants a man to attend to him,” said Jack.
Mary looked a long, dark look at Jack. Then she, too, submitted.
“All right,” she said, turning darkly away.
And it came into his mind, with utter absurdity, that he ought to kiss her for this submission. And he hated the thought.
Herbert was a boy of nineteen, uncouth, and savagely shy. Jack had to do the menial offices for him.
The sick man went to sleep again almost immediately, and Jack returned to the kitchen. He heard voices from outside.
Ma and Grace were washing up at the slab. Dad was sitting under the photosphorum tree, with Effie on one knee, cutting up tobacco in the palm of his hand. Tom was leaning against the tree, the children sat about. Lennie skipped up and offered a seat on a stump.
“Sit yourself down, Bow,” he said, using the nickname. “I’d be a knot instead of a bow if I had to nurse Red Herbert.”
Monica came slinking up from the shade, and stood with her skirt touching Jack’s arm. Mary was carrying away the dishes.
“I’ve been telling Tom,” said Mr. Ellis, “that he can take the clearing gang over to his A’nt Greenlow’s for the shearing, an’ then get back an’ clear for all he’s worth, till Christmas. Y’might as well go along with him, Jack. We can get along all right here without y’, now th’ girls are back. Till Christmas, that is. We s’ll want y’ back for the harvest.”
There was a dead silence. Jack didn’t want to go.
“Then y’ can go back to the clearing, and burn off. I need that land reclaimed, over against the little chaps grows up and wants to be farmers. Besides”—and he looked round at Ma—“we’re a bit overstocked in’ the house just now, an’ we’ll be glad of the cubby for Herbert, if he’s on the mend.”
Dad resumed cutting up his tobacco in the palm of his hand.
“Jack can’t leave Herbert, Uncle,” said Mary quietly, “he won’t let anybody else do for him.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Ellis, looking up.
“Herbert won’t let me do for him,” said Mary. “He’ll only let Bow.”
Mr. Ellis dropped his head in silence.
“In that case,” he said slowly, “in that case, we must wait a bit.—Where’s that darned Rackett put himself? This is his job.”
There was still silence.
“Somebody had best go an’, look for him,” said Tom.
“Ay,” said Mr. Ellis.
There was more silence. Monica, standing close to Jack, seemed to be fiercely sheltering him from this eviction. And Mary, at a distance, was like Moses’ sister watching over events. It made Jack feel queer and thrilled, the girls all concentrating on him. It was as if it put power in his chest, and made a man of him.
Someone was riding up. It was Red Easu. He slung himself off his horse, and stalked slowly up.
“Herbert dead?” he asked humorously.
“Doing nicely,” said Dad, very brief.
“I’ll go an’ have a look at ’m,” said Easu, sitting on the step and pulling off his boots.
“Don’t wake him if he’s asleep. Don’t frighten him, whatever you do,” said Jack, anxious for his charge.
Easu looked at Jack with an insolent stare: a curious stare.
“Frighten him?” he said. “What with?”
“Jack’s been up with him all night,” put in Monica fiercely.
“He nearly died in the night,” said Jack.
There was dead silence. Easu stared, poised like some menacing bird. Then he went indoors in his stocking feet.
“Did he nearly die, Jack?” asked Tom.
Jack nodded. His soul was feeling bleached.
“If Dr. Rackett isn’t coming—see if you can trail him up, Tom. And Len, can you go on Lucy and fetch Dr. Mallett?”
“’Course I can,” said Len, jumping up.
“You go and get a nap in the cubby, son,” said Mr. Ellis.
They were now all in motion. Jack followed vaguely into the kitchen. Lennie was the centre of excitement for the moment.
“Well, Ma, I has no socks fitta wear. If y’ll fix me some, I’ll go.” For he was determined to go to York in decent raiment, as he said.
“Find me a decent shirt, Ma; decent! None o’ your creases down th’ front for me. ’N a starch collar, real starch.”
And so on. He was late. Lennie was always late.
“Ma, weer’s my tie—th’ blue one wif gold horseshoes? Grace—there’s an angel—me boots. Clean ’em up a bit, go on—Monica! Oh, Monica! there y’are! Fix this collar on for me, proper, do! Y’re a bloke at it, so y’are, an’ I’m no good.—Gitt outta th’ way, you nips—how k’n I get dressed with you buzzin’ round me feet!—Ma! Ma! come an’ brush me ’air with that dinkey nice-smellin’ stuff.—There, Ma, don’t your Lennie look a dream now?—Ooha, Ma, don’t kiss me, Ma, I ’ate it.”
“Lennie love, don’t drop your aitches.”
“I never, Ma. I said I ‘ate it. Y’ kissed me, did y’ or didn’t y’? Well, I ‘ate it.”
He was gone on Lucy, like a little demon. Jack, sitting stupid on a chair, felt part of his soul go with him.
“Come on, Bow!” said Monica, taking him by the arm, “Come and go to sleep. Mary will wake you if Herbert wants you.”
And she led him off to the door of the cubby, while he submitted and Easu stood in his stocking feet on the verandah watching.
“He saved Herbert’s life,” said Monica, looking up at Easu with a kind of defiance, when she came back.
“Who asked him,” said Easu.