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Pioneers, The

<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> At school next morning Jessie Ross ran up to Davey, her fair plaits flying. "I'm to go home with you after school, Davey Cameron," she cried eagerly. "My mother wants your mother to give her the recipe for making cough-mixture out of gum leaves." "All right," said Davey. It was a very dismal morning in the school-room. The Schoolmaster's face was dark with displeasure, and it was a very sullen, drooping Deirdre who took her seat beside Davey. "After school I'm going to drive over to see your mother, Davey," Mr. Farrel said. "I must ask her pardon for what happened last night. I am grieved and ashamed beyond measure that Deirdre—" His look of reproach went into Deirdre's heart. With a wailing cry she burst into tears again. Davey, after his first glance at her, kept his eyes on his book; he tried not to see her, or hear her sobbing beside him. His heart was hot against Mr. Farrel. For, after all, it was because she loved the Schoolmaster so much and could not bear to be separated from him that Deirdre was crying like this, he told himself. It was hard that Mr. Farrel should be angry with her as well as everybody else when she had made everybody angry with her on his account. But the sight of Deirdre's grief was more than the Schoolmaster could bear either. He lifted her out of her seat and carried her off to the far end of the room. He sat there with her on his knee talking to her for awhile. Once Davey glanced in their direction; but he looked away quickly. He had seen tears on the Schoolmaster's lean, swarthy cheeks and Deirdre's face lifted to his with a penitent radiance, and tear-wet eyes, shining. The joy of being folded into his love again had banished the desolation and bleak misery from her face. When school was out, Jess clambered into the spring-cart Davey had come to school in that day, and perched herself on the high seat. The Schoolmaster and Deirdre followed them along the road a little later. Lass went without any flicking with a switch, or mirthful goading of hard young heels that afternoon. Davey brooded over the tragedy of Deirdre's having to become domesticated, and of her love for her father that made it unendurable for her to be away from him even for a night. Since he had forgiven her and they had come to an understanding, she had eyes for nobody else. Her eyes had followed him all the afternoon, still swimming with tears, an adoring light in them. Davey's young male instinct was piqued. He had had no existence for her; yet he had always been her play-mate, and felt for her more than anybody else—even the Schoolmaster, he was sure. Jess jolted up and down contentedly on the seat beside him. The ends of her little fair pig-tails flipped his arm. She chatted gaily. "I like you better than any of the other boys at school, Davey," she said with innocent candour. "I think you're the nicest boy, and I'll marry you when I grow up. Mother says you kissed me once when I was quite a little girl. And boys only kiss girls who are their sweethearts, don't they, Davey?" "No. I don't know," Davey muttered. Jessie Ross was a fair, tidy-looking little girl, with home-made stockings and black boots on her dangling feet. Her round little face never freckled, nor got sunburnt, though she only wore a hat or bonnet in the summer time. Her skin was prettily coloured and her grey-blue eyes smiled up at him easily. It pleased Davey to think that she thought he was "the nicest boy." He smiled sheepishly. It was good to think that somebody liked him. He looked round to see how far behind the Schoolmaster and Deirdre were. They were not very far. He saw Deirdre leaning happily against her father, although in her hand—Davey's eyes lighted—was the red bundle. He clucked and whistled to Lass. "Gee-up! Gee-up, old Lazybones!" he called cheerily. Jess chirruped after him: "Gee-up! Gee-up, old Lazybones!" "You don't like Deirdre better than me, do you, Davey?" she asked. "No," said Davey in his newly-won good humour and sore at Deirdre's indifference to his attempts to attract her attention all day. "The Schoolmaster means she's to stay with us anyway," he thought. Jess sighed. "Then if you like me, you can kiss me again, Davey," she said. "Eh?" Davey looked scared. "Well, then, I'll kiss you," Jess said gaily and forth with did. Davey felt himself grow hot and red. Jess laughed delightedly. "Oh you look so funny, Davey!" she cried. "Mick doesn't look like that when I kiss him." Jess was only a kid, Davey told himself, and because she had brothers and kissed them, thought she could kiss other boys. Yet her gay little peck at his cheek had not displeased him. He wondered whether Deirdre and the Schoolmaster had seen it. Davey got out of the cart to swing open the long gate. He left it open for the Schoolmaster. Mrs. Cameron came into the yard. Jess jumped out of the cart and ran to her. "Mother says, Mrs. Cameron dear," she cried, "would you please give her the recipe for making cough-mixture with gum leaves. And she sends her love and hopes you are well—as she is—and our black cow has a calf, and I found thirteen eggs in a nest in the creek paddock, and Mick killed a snake, five-foot long, under the verandah on Sunday." Mrs. Cameron smiled and kissed her. Jess snuggled affectionately against her. "The Schoolmaster's bringing Deirdre," Davey said. Mrs. Cameron's eyes flew along the track to the other cart that was coming slowly up the hillside. Davey took charge of the Schoolmaster's horse. Mrs. Cameron and he and the children went indoors. "I've come to apologise, Mrs. Cameron, for Deirdre's rudeness last night," the Schoolmaster said gravely. "It was very good of you to say that you would teach her what I so much want her to know. I hope that you will forgive her and—" His voice trembled. "Deirdre, you've got something to say to Mrs. Cameron yourself, haven't you?" "I'm sorry!" Deirdre cried, with a dry, breathless gasp. Her face had whitened; the misery had come into her eyes again. They went appealingly to the Schoolmaster and back to Mrs. Cameron's face. "Will you—forgive me and teach me to cook and sew and be a good housewife," she sobbed, as if she were repeating a lesson. "Poor child!" Mrs. Cameron's compassionate gaze turned from Deirdre to the Schoolmaster. "Do you really think you ought to?" she asked. "So help me God, ma'am," he said, struggling with his emotion. "This is the only chance I've got of making a decent woman of her—your influence—if you will use it. I don't want her to be a hoyden always. She must be gentled and tamed, and if you will be as good as to help me—" He stopped abruptly. "You will forgive me. Good-day," he said, and went out of the room. Deirdre made a quick, passionate gesture after him. She did not call him, but a sob broke as she stood staring after him. She ran into the garden to watch the cart with him in it go down the hillside and slip out of sight among the trees; then she threw herself on the grass and sobbed broken-heartedly. Davey moved to go out to her. "Leave her alone," his mother said gently, "it's best to let her get over it by herself, Davey." Jess flew backwards and forwards helping to set the table. She delighted in making herself useful. "Oh, Mrs. Cameron, what a funny salt-cellar," she cried. "We've got two blue ones and a big new lamp mother got at the Port!" Mrs. Cameron looked from the tear-stained, grief-torn face of the Schoolmaster's little daughter to the plump, rosy-cheeked, happily-smiling child of her nearest and most prosperous neighbour, and sighed. When the tea was made, she and the children sat round the table for their meal. Donald Cameron was away and not expected home for a day or two. Deirdre tried to eat when she was told to, but her lips quivered. She choked over the mouthfuls of food she swallowed. Mrs. Cameron put her arms round her; but Deirdre stiffened against their gentle pressure. She would not be comforted. Davey stared at her miserably. Only Jess chattered on artlessly, taking no notice of her, eating all her bread and butter, and drinking her milk and water, saying her grace and asking to be excused from the table when she had finished her meal—as though she were demonstrating generally how a nice, well-mannered child ought to behave. She had the other bed in the room in which Deirdre had been put to sleep the night before. Mrs. Cameron kissed them both good-night. Jess responded eagerly to her caress. She threw her arms round Mrs. Cameron's neck and rubbed her soft little face against hers, purring affectionately. "I do love you, Mrs. Cameron, dear," she whispered. "Good-night." Deirdre submitted to the good-night kiss; she did not respond to it. Of Davey she took no notice when she went to the little room she and Jess were to sleep in. Jess held up her face for him to kiss as Mrs. Cameron had done, but he turned away brusquely, as if he did not see it, and she ran off crying gaily: "Good-night, Davey Jones, And sweet sleep rest your bones." Jess undressed methodically. As she took off each garment she folded it and laid it neatly on the chair beside her bed. When she had on her little night-gown of unbleached calico, she brushed her hair and plaited it again so that it hung in two braids on either side of her face. Then she knelt down by her bedside, folded her hands together, and prayed aloud. She got into bed and looked at Deirdre across the patchwork quilt, conscious of having performed her whole duty for the day. "Aren't you sorry you're such a bad, naughty, wicked, little girl?" she asked. Deirdre's sobs were her only answer. "God doesn't love you, and I don't, and Mrs. Cameron and Davey don't love you either. Nobody loves bad, wicked, naughty little girls," Jess said solemnly. She put her head on the pillow and was sleeping, sweetly, peacefully, in a few minutes. Deirdre crept to the open window. She gazed out of it at the dark heave of the forest that cut her off from the being she loved and the hut in the clearing behind the school. The blue night sky that spread over her was spread over the hut in the clearing and the school too, she knew. They were not many miles away, the hut, the clearing, and the school. From gazing steadily before her and realising that fact, she glanced from the window to the ground. It was such a little distance. Davey, going to bed in a loft in the barn saw her standing at the window, and watched her, a troubled pain at her suffering gripping his heart. When she dropped from the window into the garden he was beside her in an instant. He caught her sobbing breath as he touched her. "You're not going home, Deirdre?" he asked. "Yes!" she panted, her eyes wide and dark with anguish. "I can't bear it, Davey. I can't breathe." "He'll be angry," Davey said. "Yes." She cried and sobbed quietly for a moment. "But I'd rather he'd be angry than send me away from him." "It'll be morning soon. If you walked you wouldn't be home any earlier than if you waited for us to go to school," Davey said, with rare subtlety. "The Schoolmaster won't be angry if you wait till then, Deirdre, and—" A brilliant inspiration came to him. "I'll bring Lass in an hour earlier and we can start then." "True, Davey?" Her eyes questioned him tragically. "True as death!" he said, and struck his breast three times. She turned to go back to the bedroom. "I'm sorry—that sorry, Deirdre," he cried, fumbling for words, and unable to express his sympathy. She did not turn or look back at him as she clambered in the window; but her face in the morning showed that she understood his championship. She turned to him eagerly when she saw him at breakfast, a subdued gratitude in her eyes. Davey thought that she had at last recognised in him a friend to whom she could turn when everybody's hand was against her. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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