Mary Grant Bruce

“ The words died on my lips as I looked: looked at the tall, spare form, the straight shoulders, the close-cropped iron-grey hair: looked most of all at the white, haggard face. It was the face of my employer as I had learned to know it during my four weeks in her house. But—it was not Mrs. McNab!
The moments dragged by as we stood, giving back stare for stare: I, bewildered, terrified, unable to move, the other grim and watchful. I caught my breath in a gasp at last, and a threat came to me like the lash of a whip.
“You will be wise if you make no noise!” ”

“ McNab, and in silence we shot across the moonlit water.
Having recovered from its fit of bad temper, the engine decided to behave beautifully. Its even throb was music in my ears. It was a still and perfect night, a night of moonbeams and starshine and peace, in which the load of anxiety and evil that we carried seemed to have no part. Beyond the headland, when we turned westward, the sea rose in long, gentle swells on which we rocked lazily as the launch sped onwards. Every tiny island was a dim place of mysterious beauty. ”

“ My eyes were aching, and I switched off the light and leaned out of the window. Every one seemed to have gone to bed: the house was very still, and the scent of a great bush of bouvardia under my window came up to me in a wave. I stayed there dreaming, until I began to feel cold, and found myself yawning.
Just as I turned to undress and go to bed a faint sound below caught my ear. I held my breath to listen. Clearly there was some one below: the muffled, stealthy steps were unmistakable. The memory of the Wootong burglar flashed upon me. Was the thief about to try his luck at The Towers? ”

“ I was in anything but a gentle frame of mind while I hurriedly changed my evening frock for something more serviceable and donned a pair of tennis-shoes. Bed seemed to me a very pleasant place as I switched off my light and stole quietly down the kitchen stairs, hearing the gramophone grinding out a fox-trot in the drawing-room. I could only hope that I would find the truants soon; and that, when found, they would allow themselves to be gathered in peaceably. But I knew already that it was no easy matter to turn Judy and Jack from any set purpose.
I am a good deal of a coward in the dark ”

“ Their night adventure had left them wild with excitement; they rioted like mad things until I decided that exercise was the only possible treatment, packed up a billy and sandwiches, and took them out for a long day in the bush, leaving Mrs. McNab to the care of Julia, who liked nothing better than to have some one ill enough to be fussed over. Miles from home we came upon Dr. Firth, walking slowly through the scrub with his big Airedale at his heels. He looked gloomy enough before he saw us, but his face lit up when Judy and Jack hailed him joyfully. ”

“ Bence had already taken the lunch. He met me near the edge of the hummocks: a tall young fellow, with a quiet manner, and a dark, good-looking face.
“Everything is stacked at the end of the jetty, miss,” he said. “I see Mr. Harry comin’ across in the launch: he’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s a great day for a picnic.”
“Thank you, Bence: yes, it is a perfect day,” I answered. And, indeed, it was perfection; not too hot, yet hot enough to make bathing glorious; a blue sea, flecked here and there with a little white cap, and air so clear that the islands were golden against the blue. ”

“ McNab could carry very little. Laden like camels, we crept down the kitchen stairs, across the crunching gravel of the yard, and over the paddock, stowing our burdens in the launch that lay beside the little jetty. Backwards and forwards we went, almost running on the return journeys to the house: the dread of detection suddenly heavy upon us, so that every clump of tea-tree seemed to contain the lurking shadow of a watching man. ”

“ Why on earth do you want to come round poking your noses in?”
“We never get a show,” said Judy mournfully. “We’re just hunted down like mad dogs! I should think persons of twelve and thirteen can be trusted to do a few little things alone, occasionally, anyhow!”
She twisted round, and suddenly screamed. A long tongue of flame, a licking, fiery tongue, ran up her thin frock, and in an instant it was blazing fiercely. I dropped Jack and sprang to catch her, flinging her down; Mrs. McNab, quicker than I, was beating at the burning silk. ”

“ Judy’s lip quivered, and suddenly she broke into hard, choked sobbing. It isn’t a pleasant thing to see the complete surrender of a person who ordinarily shows no feeling whatever: I put my arm round her, not far removed from tears myself, and was not surprised when Jack buried his face in the pillow and howled too.
“Oh, you poor kids!” I uttered, entirely forgetting that I was a governess. ”

“ That was the last effort of the squall: it lifted and blew away over the sea, and the moon came out and sailed majestically through the flying clouds, revealing the fact that we were quite unpleasantly near the islands which Judy would have hated to hit. Nothing troubled us now; we sang a song of triumph in whispers as we danced over the big seas and rounded the headland of Porpoise Bay. There is great solace in a whispered chant of triumph if circumstances prevent a full-throated chorus. ”

“ Isn’t it, Jack?”
“Cross-our-hearts,” said Jack solemnly. “Shall we swear a Hearty Oath?”
“Your word is good enough for me,” I answered. “But it has to be a very solemn word, because this is a big secret, and it isn’t even mine.”
“We’ll never tell,” Judy said. “Jack and I never tell anything, you know. Father understands that. Oh, Miss Earle, go on, or I’ll bust!”
“You two have got to help me to-night,” I said. “You have the biggest job that has ever come into your lives. And then you have to keep quiet about it for ever and ever.”
“And ever!” said Judy. “Quick, Miss Earle!” ”

“ Already old Ferrari, her Italian music-master, talked to us of triumphs ahead—triumphs in a wider field than Australia. And she sat on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, and talked of selling her Bechstein! No wonder we gasped.
“Talk sense!” growled Colin, when his breath came back.
“It is sense,” Madge retorted. “It’s worth ever so much money: a cheaper piano would do me just as well to practise on. Even if I gave up music altogether it would be worth it to give Doris a rest. She can’t go on as she is—you can see that for yourself, Colin Earle!” ”

“ Porpoise Bay, which appeared to be the special property of the McNabs, was a smooth stretch of blue water, shut in by curving headlands: wide enough for boating and sailing, but scarcely ever rough. The shore sloped gently down from low hummocks near the house, making bathing both safe and perfect. A stoutly-built jetty ran out into the water, ending in a diving-board; and there were a dressing-shed, subdivided into half a dozen cubicles, and a boat-house with room for a powerful motor-launch and a twenty-foot yacht, besides several rowing-boats. ”

“ After dinner was over—it was a gruesome meal, at which Colin was laboriously funny all the time—I was graciously allowed to sit in the kitchenette while they washed up, and we held a council of war.
All the talking in the world could not alter the main fact. There were no funds to pay for country holidays. Our friends—they were not so many as in the old days—were all in Melbourne: our only relations were distant ones, distant in every sense of the word, for they lived in Queensland, and might as well have been in Timbuctoo, Madge sourly remarked, for all the practical use they were. ”

“ I protested to Harry McNab, who was one of the chief offenders, but my remarks had not the slightest weight with him.
“Oh, rubbish!” he said. “Why on earth shouldn’t you dance? No one expects you to work all day and all night, too—and you dance better than nearly any girl here! Don’t tell me you don’t like it!”
“Of course I like it,” I said, with some irritation. “But I’m not here to dance, Mr. McNab, and you know that very well. Ask your sister, if you have any doubt on the matter.”
“Oh—Beryl!” he said with a shrug. “Who cares what she thinks? She’s not your boss, Miss Earle.” ”

“ As for me, I could have purred as contentedly as did the engine. It was good to be without that evil presence in the launch; better still to think that The Towers that night would be free from its blight. I liked to think how welcome would be the solitude of her eyrie in the tower to the tired woman beside me. Whatever the future might hold for Mrs. McNab and her brother, I firmly believed that we had done a good job in transferring him to Shepherd’s Island, where his unpleasant temper would be restricted to gannets and gulls. ”

“ I saw Dicky Atherton and Harry, and a big young man in a gorgeous sweater, whose colours had offended my eye at lunch—I welcomed it now, remembering how big and strong he was. He carried a long pole: a young tree-trunk, lopped for some purpose, and washed over from the mainland: even laden as he was, he ran with the athlete’s long, easy strides. Panting, I reached the cleft again, brushing through the group of scared children.
The water was waist-deep round Jack now, and as I came in sight of his face a wave washed into the cleft, sending a hurrying rush of water to his shoulders. ”

“ Between our two forces, Dr. Firth stalked majestically, his chest thrown out, his hands clenched over his pockets—looking rather like Papa in The Swiss Family Robinson. Sandy was the only one of the party on whom life sat lightly. He hunted rabbits with a joyous freedom that I envied greatly.
We parted where the track branched off towards The Towers. Judy and Jack were profoundly uneasy at letting Dr. Firth continue his journey alone, preferring to risk the loss of their dinner rather than let him go home unguarded. ”

“ A man’s room first, with a little iron bedstead, big chairs, a heavy writing-table and book-cases, and plenty of space. Next, a dainty room, all furnished in pink, where roses sprawled in clusters on the deep cream ground of an exquisite French wall-paper. From it opened a bare, panelled room, the sole furniture of which was a grand piano and three chairs.
“Why, that’s the twin to your Bechstein, Madge!” I said.
Madge astonished me by suddenly turning scarlet.
“Is it?” she said awkwardly.
“Don’t stay to argue over pianos,” Dr. Firth said. “There’s another room to see.” ”

“ Dr. Firth said, laughing. “You two might keep your ears well open, in your joyous wanderings—they say that magic still lingers where there are children. An old fogy like myself would have no chance of hearing my lost property bleat.”
“Is there a reward?” demanded the practical Jack.
“There is—I’ve offered £500, already, for the conviction of the thief. If you get the jewels without the robber the reward will be less, so you might as well make a thorough job of it.”
“I could do with £500,” said Jack solemnly. “I awfully want a yacht all of my own!” ”

“ I watched her mount the stairs slowly, and then went off with my message for the culprits, whom I found sitting together on Jack’s bed, steeped in woe. They received my news with relief, though it did not dispel their gloom.
“Jolly decent of Mother,” Judy said: “Beryl and Harry would have been beasts—’specially Beryl. Not that we don’t deserve it; but I can’t stick Beryl’s way of telling us we’re worms. Even if you feel wormy you don’t want it rubbed in. And every one else would have despised us.” She looked at me keenly. “Did you ask Mother not to tell, Miss Earle?” ”

“ As I lay face downwards above him a dull boom and a splash sounded behind me, and a swirl of green water flowed into the cleft.
“Tide’s coming in,” said Jack between his teeth. “That’s the third wave, and each has been a bit higher. It comes up from somewhere underneath me. Could you hurry a bit, Miss Earle?”
“Judy,” I said quickly, “run for some of the men—your brother and Mr. Atherton, if you can see them, but any of the men will do. You others scatter and look for any long pieces of timber you can find. Stay with him, Vera—I’m going to the boats for rope.” ”

“ And indeed, she looked almost like a girl, her cheeks flushed, and a light of happiness in her eyes. “Julia can do anything for me—she is very kind. I should be really glad if you would spend all day in bed.”
One does not do such things if one is a governess-head-companion with buffering thrown in as a side-line. But I did sleep like a log until the dressing-gong boomed, and Judy and Jack pounded on my door begging me to go down for a swim. It gave one a thrill to run across the paddock as we had run the night before: to see the launch rocking lazily by the pier. Bence was busy in her. ”

“ Dicky Atherton and Harry McNab plied me with unlimited offers of food. Even Beryl was quite human; she brought me my tea herself, and actually ran for an extra cushion. It was all very disconcerting, but when I got used to it, it was lovely to be outside again. Judy and Jack had planted a huge Union Jack at the head of my couch. They sat down, one on either side of me, and declined to yield their positions to anyone. “You may think you own her,” Judy said to Colin, her nose in the air. “But we’re the Band!” ”

“ The Wootong police—not that they’re especially intelligent—are quite certain on the point: they have been keeping the telegraph-wires busy with messages to Melbourne. I wish they’d show more anxiety to hunt the neighbourhood. How easy it would be for a man to hide his plunder somewhere in the bush and remain quietly here until the hue and cry died away! In the cities the detectives have a fair working knowledge of likely criminals. But a man could stay in the country, perhaps as a farm-labourer, without suspicion ever being drawn to him.”
Judy and Jack had been listening open-mouthed. ”

“ When a burden of misery is suddenly lifted glad is such a poor little word! My dear—my dear—what am I to say to you?”
“Why, nothing at all,” I said, greatly relieved. “It was the very easiest little job, thanks to Judy and Jack. I had scarcely to do anything: they ran the launch, and I was a mere passenger. They were hugely delighted at the adventure.”
“But will they say nothing?”
“They will not say a word, even to you. I have told them it is not a matter to be discussed; that the man on the Island was a friend we were helping, and that he wanted to get to Southport last night. ”

“ Curious people, the Yanks: you wouldn’t think that the nation that can produce a real good yarn like ‘The Six-Gun Tenderfoot’ would open its heart to ‘Julia Smale.’ I’m quite sure Harry and Beryl—that’s her daughter—don’t read her works. Certainly, I’ll say for her she doesn’t seem to expect anyone to. She locks herself up alone to write, and nobody dares to disturb her, but she doesn’t talk much about the work. Not like a Johnny I knew who wrote a book; he used to wander down Collins Street with it in his hand, and asked every soul he knew if they’d read it. ”

“ The little I had seen of Beryl McNab did not make me feel inclined to turn to her for instructions. But Mrs. McNab’s next words were comforting.
“Just at present I am doing only light work,” she said. “A few hours each day: more, perhaps, during the night. With so many in the house I can scarcely seclude myself altogether. But I do not want to be continually troubled with household matters. I shall, of course, interview the cook each morning, to arrange the daily menu. Otherwise, Miss Earle, I shall be glad if you will endeavour to act as my buffer.” ”

“ The figures, my dear Miss Earle, of accidents to American children who celebrate their Fourth of July with firework displays, are harrowing in the extreme. Death and disfigurement are common—terribly common.”
“They do things on such a grand scale in America,” I ventured, trotting beside her. “I don’t think Judy would let Jack run any risk.”
“One never knows,” returned Judy’s mother, gloomily. “Not with Judith. Even if she protected Jack, she would not hesitate to run any risk herself. And fireworks are so very unexpected. ”