Capricornia. Xavier Herbert

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СКАЧАТЬ Me no-more go back longa railer line lo-ng time. Me go foot-walk longa Lonely River country for lookim up Ol’ People.” He jerked his thick lips in the opposite direction to that in which he had come.

      “Then take the brat with you,” snapped Oscar, and walked off.

      Muttonhead turned out to be quite as bad as Ballest said. Oscar found that out some hours after dismissing him. He was superintending a job in the smithy when he heard a commotion in the kitchen and went to investigate and found Nawnim being belaboured by the lubra cook. The lubra turned an angry face when he entered the kitchen. Nawnim’s howls died in his gaping mouth.

      “What’s the matter?” demanded Oscar.

      “Him come sinikin longa brett,” cried the lubra, pointing to bread-tins that stood on the table ready for the oven. Nawnim tried to get behind her. She seized him, flung him back into exposure. He yelled.

      “Shut up!” shouted Oscar.

      There was dough on Nawnim’s face and hands, and on a leg of the table. Oscar stepped up and grabbed one of his skinny arms and demanded, “What name you no-more go away all-same me talk?” Nawnim blubbered and shrank away. “Which way Muttonhead?” demanded Oscar of the cook.

      “Him go longa Lonely River, Boss.”

      “Blast him!” cried Oscar. “Left me with the brat after all!” He looked at his captive, stared at him sourly for a while, then sighed and said, “Well I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, poor hungry little devil. God help you! Oh give him some tucker, Princess, and don’t hurt him. Get someone to wash him—he stinks.”

      Nawnim spent his first night at Red Ochre in the quarters of the native servants. It was not the servants’ choice, nor a particularly good one of their master’s, since the place was not so far away from the house as to leave the occupants unaware of what was going on there when the going-on was as loud as Nawnim’s. He wailed all night, set the dogs barking in the camp on the river and the dingoes howling in the bush and the pigs squealing in the sty and the horses snorting in the yards. The servants could pinch and punch and smother him into periods of silence, but could not still the external racket he had raised, which seemed to be worse when he was silent and to his ears quite devilish, so that before long he would be moved to start again. The red day dawned on a red-eyed household and on a half-caste brat who was covered with red wales and regarded with general malignity.

      Oscar gave him into the care of Constance Differ. All went well throughout the day, because he slept. When he woke at sundown he set up a worse wailing than ever, and tried to escape, so that Constance had to lock him in. He would neither sit nor lie, but stood in a corner with hands clasped behind, watching Constance and venting his incessant tearless grief. Constance was gentle and patient as no-one he had ever known but Anna. But she looked rather too much like Yeller Jewty. Differ tried his hand with him, first with food, then with dancing and singing and playing tricks, finally with a strap. At last Oscar rushed in and spanked by hand, and because the matter had become much worse, took Nawnim by the scruff of the neck and threw him at a blackfellow for removal to the camp. There was some peace in the homestead that night, but none on the river.

      Three days passed, during which the people of Red Ochre adapted themselves to broken sleep and kept away from the native camp. Oscar sent a message to the Siding to learn whether Jock had inquired after his uncoveted property, and learnt that he had not. He settled down to wait for word, hoping that Jock might not be drinking at Copper Creek and that he might not go on his way forgetting his responsibilities.

      On the afternoon of the fourth day Oscar was wakened from his siesta on the front veranda by sound of cat-like moaning in the yard below, and, rising to investigate, saw little Nawnim standing in the reddish shadow of a poinciana near the steps. Nawnim stopped moaning for about five seconds when Oscar’s head appeared, then resumed. Oscar stared in astonishment. It was obvious from the way in which the child was studying him that the moaning did not interfere with his ability to take an interest in things about him. In fact he was not so much weeping as expressing a vague sense of misery he had felt ever since parting with Fat Anna. He stood in his usual attitude of hands behind back and eyes glancing sideways. When Oscar came to the head of the steps the moaning rose a note higher; but the moaner did not move. Oscar saw Marigold peeping from the hall and told her to go inside, then went down the steps, muttering. Nawnim did not move till Oscar reached the ground, when he retired slowly, walking sideways, watching with one eye and gouging the other with a grubby fist.

      “Come here,” said Oscar.

      The moan rose by another note. Nawnim continued to retire. Oscar hurried. Nawnim yelled and ran. Oscar stopped. So did Nawnim, and dropped his voice to the moan.

      “Blast you!” cried Oscar. “Shut up!”

      Steady moan.

      “Shut up!” roared Oscar, and moved. Nawnim moved. Oscar snatched up a stick and rushed. Nawnim fled howling, to fall shrieking when Oscar caught him a sound whack on the seat of the spotted blue pants. Oscar pounced on him shouting, “Shut up—shut up—shut up!”

      Gritting his teeth with rage, Oscar picked him up and carried him down to the camp, prepared to ease his feelings on those he considered he could flog without stooping to cowardice, the delinquent natives. But they were not there. Nawnim had worn their patience to rags. They had taken their belongings and gone bush. He had been driven to the homestead by hunger and loneliness.

      As Oscar’s precepts would not allow him to copy the wisdom of the natives, he had to carry Nawnim back to the house. He dumped him under the scarlet tree where he had found him, and left him bawling, to go find Constance. Constance was away on the run with her father.

      Oscar came back fuming, to find to his surprise that Nawnim was as quiet as a mouse, standing in his usual attitude, staring at Marigold. When he saw Oscar he prepared for flight. Oscar was too wise to go near him. He crept back to his chair.

      “Can I play with the lil boy Daddy?” asked Marigold.

      “No—stay where you are.”

      “But I wanna play.”

      “Stay where you are.”

      “But Daddy—” she said, coming towards him.

      The instant she passed out of Nawnim’s sight was announced by a long-drawn moan. Realising at once what was the cause of the good behaviour, Oscar said quickly, “Go back to the edge and stay there.”

      “But can’t I play?”

      “No—go back—for heaven’s sake go back!”

      The moaning stopped. But Marigold did not stop entreating. “Why can’t I play wid him Daddy?” she begged. “He’s not a lil niggah.”

      “He is. Now be quiet. Throw him that doll—anything—everything if you like—but stay where he can see you. Let me have a moment’s peace for heaven’s sake. There’s been no peace in the place since that brat came near it.”

      There was peace that night and thenceforth. Nawnim went to sleep on a lounge on the back veranda within sound of the last sleepy words of Marigold. Next day he spent under the poinciana tree, playing with a doll and watching Marigold, seeing her not merely as a desirable playmate as she saw him, but, since she was so different from any creature he had seen and clad in garments that amazed him, rather as a human monstrosity like Anna’s Japs an’ Chows.

      After СКАЧАТЬ