Brighten's sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard --hard enough to break his back I thought,and --after about half an hour it seemed --the end came:Jim's limbs relaxed,he slipped down into the tub,and the pupils of his eyes came down.They seemed dull and expressionless,like the eyes of a new baby,but he was back for the world again.
I dropped on the stool by the table.
`It's all right,'she said.`It's all over now.I wasn't going to let him die.'I was only thinking,`Well it's over now,but it will come on again.I wish it was over for good.I'm tired of it.'
She called to her sister,Mrs Brighten,a washed-out,helpless little fool of a woman,who'd been running in and out and whimpering all the time --`Here,Jessie!bring the new white blanket off my bed.And you,Brighten,take some of that wood off the fire,and stuff something in that hole there to stop the draught.'
Brighten --he was a nuggety little hairy man with no expression to be seen for whiskers --had been running in with sticks and back logs from the wood-heap.He took the wood out,stuffed up the crack,and went inside and brought out a black bottle --got a cup from the shelf,and put both down near my elbow.
Mrs Brighten started to get some supper or breakfast,or whatever it was,ready.She had a clean cloth,and set the table tidily.I noticed that all the tins were polished bright (old coffee-and mustard-tins and the like,that they used instead of sugar-basins and tea-caddies and salt-cellars),and the kitchen was kept as clean as possible.She was all right at little things.I knew a haggard,worked-out Bushwoman who put her whole soul --or all she'd got left --into polishing old tins till they dazzled your eyes.
I didn't feel inclined for corned beef and damper,and post-and-rail tea.
So I sat and squinted,when I thought she wasn't looking,at Brighten's sister-in-law.She was a big woman,her hands and feet were big,but well-shaped and all in proportion --they fitted her.
She was a handsome woman --about forty I should think.
She had a square chin,and a straight thin-lipped mouth --straight save for a hint of a turn down at the corners,which I fancied (and I have strange fancies)had been a sign of weakness in the days before she grew hard.There was no sign of weakness now.
She had hard grey eyes and blue-black hair.She hadn't spoken yet.
She didn't ask me how the boy took ill or I got there,or who or what I was --at least not until the next evening at tea-time.
She sat upright with Jim wrapped in the blanket and laid across her knees,with one hand under his neck and the other laid lightly on him,and she just rocked him gently.
She sat looking hard and straight before her,just as I've seen a tired needlewoman sit with her work in her lap,and look away back into the past.And Jim might have been the work in her lap,for all she seemed to think of him.Now and then she knitted her forehead and blinked.
Suddenly she glanced round and said --in a tone as if I was her husband and she didn't think much of me --`Why don't you eat something?'
`Beg pardon?'
`Eat something!'
I drank some tea,and sneaked another look at her.I was beginning to feel more natural,and wanted Jim again,now that the colour was coming back into his face,and he didn't look like an unnaturally stiff and staring corpse.I felt a lump rising,and wanted to thank her.
I sneaked another look at her.
She was staring straight before her,--I never saw a woman's face change so suddenly --I never saw a woman's eyes so haggard and hopeless.
Then her great chest heaved twice,I heard her draw a long shuddering breath,like a knocked-out horse,and two great tears dropped from her wide open eyes down her cheeks like rain-drops on a face of stone.And in the firelight they seemed tinged with blood.
I looked away quick,feeling full up myself.And presently (I hadn't seen her look round)she said --`Go to bed.'
`Beg pardon?'(Her face was the same as before the tears.)`Go to bed.There's a bed made for you inside on the sofa.'
`But --the team --I must --'
`What?'
`The team.I left it at the camp.I must look to it.'
`Oh!Well,Brighten will ride down and bring it up in the morning --or send the half-caste.Now you go to bed,and get a good rest.
The boy will be all right.I'll see to that.'
I went out --it was a relief to get out --and looked to the mare.
Brighten had got her some cornand chaff in a candle-box,but she couldn't eat yet.She just stood or hung resting one hind-leg and then the other,with her nose over the box --and she sobbed.
I put my arms round her neck and my face down on her ragged mane,and cried for the second time since I was a boy.
As I started to go in I heard Brighten's sister-in-law say,suddenly and sharply --`Take THAT away,Jessie.'
And presently I saw Mrs Brighten go into the house with the black bottle.
The moon had gone behind the range.I stood for a minute between the house and the kitchen and peeped in through the kitchen window.
She had moved away from the fire and sat near the table.
She bent over Jim and held him up close to her and rocked herself to and fro.
I went to bed and slept till the next afternoon.I woke just in time to hear the tail-end of a conversation between Jim and Brighten's sister-in-law.
He was asking her out to our place and she promising to come.
`And now,'says Jim,`I want to go home to "muffer"in "The Same Ol'Fling".'
`What?'
Jim repeated.
`Oh!"The Same Old Thing",--the waggon.'
The rest of the afternoon I poked round the gullies with old Brighten,looking at some `indications'(of the existence of gold)he had found.
It was no use trying to `pump'him concerning his sister-in-law;Brighten was an `old hand',and had learned in the old Bush-ranging and cattle-stealing days to know nothing about other people's business.
And,by the way,I noticed then that the more you talk and listen to a bad character,the more you lose your dislike for him.
