THE GARDEN OF NELEA HAYES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GARDEN OF NELEA HAYES.

(By Sydney Partridge.)

garden of. Nella Hayes was so little like any other garden that most people would not have known that it was a garden at all. It was a considerable {instance from the house, and consisted of a small natural plateau that rose up suddenly out of the plain so steeply that it was impossible for stock to trespass on it, and it was only by taking advantage of a natural tendency towards a few steps in one p.ace that Nella had hewn a path up for herself. Thick scrub surrounded the plateau. Very few were acquainted with its existence, and none ever troubled to invade its precincts except Nella. Itocks and scrub trees were plentiful on its uneven crest, but the latter had been thinned out by the girl, who ring-barked the larger ones and cut down the smaller, eventually burning them to ashes, which helped to fertilise the ground for the plants she introduced to it. All the wild scrub, flowers, and shrubs remained, the white and purple lilac, pink and mauve heaths, brown and orange spiders growing between the rocks, which shaded pink violets, yellow everlastings in the. damp patches. Dandelions were here made welcome, and slender-stemmed little bluebells and tiny white, daises.

-In clusters she had planted hardy bulbs, wallflowers, and scarlet anemones, and verbena, marigolds, and geraniums she had encouraged to take, root all over the plateau, here a one, and there a one, and yet so wild and wandering was the place, so vast for efforts made in a' scanty leisure, that an averagely unobservant person might have gone through and not noticed a garden flower in it.

Even Nella forgot some of them, and when mooning through her domain would suddenly experience a thrill of ecstatic pleasure at sight of some budding or blooming plant she had lost knowledge of. She herself was one of those blossoms any man might have prided himself on plucking. But Nella was not for any man. She had lived so long in the world of makebelieve that reality had come to seem trivial and vulgar in comparison. And this was some man’s fault, and some man’s misfortune.

What could such a nature in such a life have whereon to feed but makebelieve? For. briefly, her life was brutal. and might easily have, been brutalising. She had been taken —a child of ten, inheritating all her dead mother’s sen. sitive sympathies and artistic instincts —from a luxurious home in Sydney (too luxurious for the income maintaining it) to a slab hut on an uncleared, unworlced selection. Here her father earned his freedom by his isolation and the clemency of a wealthy uncle whose cash he had bespoken too freely during his managership of this relative’s business. And from this seclusion had Nella never emerged, turning young housekeeper and slave to the man grown morose and hard from his ruin. Nella stopped suddenly, her eyes dilating with astonishment and a momentarv fear. There, plainly impressed on the damp ground before her, was the imprint of a man’s foot. The trail of tlie serpent in her paradise. Robinson Crusoe’s chagrin could not have been greater on the historic occasion, when ho discovered “the hand of man leaving its footprint in the sands of time” in his hitherto undisputed dominion.

in all the years during which she had I'cigned sole monarch of all she surveyed on the plateau, no one had ever, either by accident or intent, crossed its surface. . It was valueless for pasturing purposes, too small to encourage the labor of regeneration, sandy, <rqcky, and full of stringy bark. Who was this man ? , What was he ? Why had lie come here? Be*.disturbed .mind rapidly revolved these questions. A passing swagger, a kangaroo-hunter, had at length, found curiosity or energy enough to scramble up the steep sides might, perhaps, have discovered her .rude steps—and done a bit of exploration. If so, lie- would find nothing to detain him. She examined the ground all about the footprint, but could see only one other slight impression on a firmer surface. She carefully obliterated tfche treacherous sign and went on to loosen, with an old butcher’s knife, the soil about a blue plumbago, to prune a wayward rose, and finallv to sit high up on a tall rock, the sun filtering through the leaves of a solitary ironbark on to hair of burnished gold, while she dreamt again the old. old dreams or life and love transcending all that was mortal. .... , ' And she slipped down soon contentedly to pluck a few flowers and to go home to a bark-roofed humpy:'to prepare a single supper for the* two an-., mates, to pen up some calves, to teed the pigs nnd fowls. The meal was almost minus conversation. The man, revolving biting mem. ories in his brain, ate stolidly, not even wasting words "on asking far Ins dip to be refilled, but passing it m silence' again. The few remarks his daughter made nassed uncommented, and when he was'satisfied, he rose abruptly to reseat himself in the chimney-seat with paper and pipe. - He was not intentionally brutal to the girl—he had only an immense selfishness, which thought nothing o immolating lior before the Moloch, ot Ins dead days. His failure to ride straight’*’ had never given lnm pai«> but the result—his banishment—like the worm that dieth not created a Tankling resentment. He felt, not what a knave lie had been, but only what a fool.’ ; , . Nella accepted, without protest, what the fates had. inexplicable brought her, living her two lives,' the seen and the unseen, with the resignation of a child. She did not resent her father s attitude, because she thought it was a content of fatherhood, her limited experience expressing nothing more or better of the state. It was nearly a week before she went to the plateau again, rain and extraduties keeping her away. The ground was fairly soft, and might easily nave betrayed the intruder again had he visited her garden, but she had forgotten all about him, and went on her wav so absorbed in a delightful hunt for violets that she did not in any way suspect the presence of a man, who, with violent and silent expedition, hurled himself from a sitting Pasture on his heels by a rock, behind the boulder until she had passed by. She never took her dogs here for fear they might slay her pet kangaroo-rat, or scare the ’possum she had tamed, or trample her flowers. “The Dryad again,’ murmured the man, 'as his scare died down. bay, 1 luck’s out. Hope she doesn’t mean to waste much of my time to-day 1

He made a bee-line across Bella’s garden, and scrambled, with dangerous rocylessiiess, down the preciptons wall to" the . nlain. Like one accustomed to the performance he walked straight to a very tall red-gum, up which ho climbed almost to the summit, whence he surveyed the country until Nella’s form could be seen swinging through the trees towards her home. “She looks fine, too,” he said, regretfully, as he slid rapidly to the ground. “At least her idea of a garden is darned original, though the originality would end there, 1 guess.” The game of hide-and-seek —unconsciously on the girl’s part—went on, and Bella’s haunt and habits, even some of her personality, became the stranger’s possession. But the pitcher got broken at last. Ho was sitting on his heels again ; there v r as a small heavy hammer beside his knee on the grouud, his hat was pushed to the very back of his head, and he was examining with intense attention a mass of splintered stony fragments on his open palm, from which the sun struck shining white rays. He wag coatless, and wore a broad blue neckcloth under a rolling collar, and n wide leather belt.

“What are you doing here?” / There was no mistaking the tone of indignation sharpening the words —indignation which expelled every other emotion—and lie looked up into the large light-brown eyes of Nella Hayes. “Gee!” he said under his breath. “Done for a 5-cent dinner this time!” Then he rose to his feet slowly, brushing the stuff from one palm with the other, and sweeping his hat from his long, curly, dark-brown hair. Nella noticed the hair at once. . It was inches longer than an Australian would dare to wear it, and her perplexed thoughts flew to the origin of organ-grinders, ll.is eyes were a curious light grey, and very piercing; the brows somewhat bushy. He wore a long, drooping moustache, his face was thin, th c nose hawk-like, and well cut, and the mouth claimed a very sweet smile. He smiled now.

‘‘Sorry/’ lie said, “but you’ve clinched ine this time, sure.” Xclla caught the drift of this any way, and she said at once: “Was that your footprint?” “I can’t get away from it,” lie owned, regretfully, “but I wish to the nation it lvas some other fellow’s.” “Well,” said JMella, with decision, “I think it’s just like your cheek.” “Cliee'k?” he murmured with his long hand upon it. “Sure now 1 reckon it wag more likely my foot.” Nella stared, then slowly she began to smile. The stranger found himself comparing it -with the gentle opening of a rose to the sun. Finally she ga\e an odd little chuckle. “It is certainly very large,” she &aid looking down at his foot. Then she got grave again. “But you’ve no business here, you know,” she went on, “this is private property!” “Well, . well!” he exclaimed. *T thought I had business here, and 1 figured this was a kind of a. garden of Eden, rvhere any poor sinner might be welcome.”

_ “But sinners were turned out of the Harden of. Eden,” said Nella. “Oh, say, now, that’s too bad, hut you won’t let history repeat itself, will yen?” he cried with whimsical alarm. “Well,” said Nella, twisting and untwisting the string of her old sunken net in perplexity, “you see, this is my garden.” “Is that so? Well, I won’t plant rue. in it, if you let me stay.” “What do you want to stay for, any way ?” He picked up his hammer. T’rn a geologist,” lie said, fingering it. “I want to examine all the rocks on this ranch. I have a—a theory about ;the formation of the various strata of this little show garden of yours. I want to figure it all out.” “Oh. and. write a. book about- it?”

“Perhaps.” “Oh, really—you’re a scientist then, like Darwin, and Huxley, and all those,” cried Nella, delightedly. “Ob, fancy 1” “Sure. But you keep it from Darwin and Huxley; they might kick. ’ “They’re dead,” said Nella sadly. “Never mind, I’m alive —and kicking.” . .Sh c looked at him very seriously before her rose-like smile came again. “But who are you?” she asked curiously. "My father’s name was Doyle, ami they christened m c Nathaniel Daniel—--1 was too little to defend myself,” he answered sorrowfully. “Nathaniel Daniel Doyle—-it is rather awful,” said Nella sympathetically. “But they could call you Nat or Dan, and those are not bad little names.” “Too good for me —specially if you used them.” “Dh, I couldn’t call you anything but Mr. Doyle,” said Nella, quickly,' reddening a little. “I don’t remember’ seeing your name on any books, unless —you can’t be Conan Doyle, can you?” “I can’t —unfortunately for Oonan.”* “Are you a. professor, then?” “Well, I just am. a professor,- I guess-;; Only,” lie heaved a sigh, “the title’s 1 not to say academic;” She looked puzzled, and pushed her toe through a heap of smashed quartz, and then said: “Well, what do you want to do about this —about my garden?”

“Just whatever you like,” lie replied gravely. “Don’t tnink I want to force myself into your private grounds against your wishes. I have, come till now because I did' not think I wast interfering with you, and 1 knew I was not interfering with your flowers, but now we have met, it is for you to say whether I can come again, or whether we part now—for ever.” with a little smile, he added, “You see I’m from Missouri, and you’ll have to show me.” The keen, grey eyes had been on hers throughout this speech, and it may have been something magnetic in their influence which filled that word l “for ever” with a forlorn discomfort to the girl’s ideas. “Oh, no;” she said, hastily. “I don’t want you not to come. It would be a selfish thing to stop you from collecting material for your book, but—but I want to feel that I have my garden to myself, you understand? Its just—the—only—thing I have.’” She looked at him with unconscious wistfulness.

He nodded. “You’ll forget that Nathaniel Daniel exists, Miss —” “I’m Nella Hayes,” she said. “Goodbye.” i •When her figure had vanished amid the scrub, Doyle sat on his heels, not working, nor smiling even, just absently letting a handful of sand run through his fingers from one palm to the other. “Well, well, Nat Doyle,” he said at last; “I guess you’re the whole peach anyway.” One day Nella marched straight .up to where the. American was examining a fresh stratum, as she might have said, and threw herself down on an old treeroot, near him. “It’s no good at all,” she said, despairingly. .

“What isn’t?” lie asked, suspending work, and speaking as if he’d known her from cfadleliood. “Trying to forget that you exist. I don’t ever —for one minute, except, per. haps when I’m hunting a calf out of th e barley.” “Say, but that calf must be a blessing.” “It’s like. this. I know you’re here — somewhere—and I keep wondering where, and I might just as well see you and talk to you. It would be. more interesting, anyhow.” “The calf’d be tossed right out of it then, I guess.” “I’d like you to tell me some things I’ve been wondering about. Would you think me rude, to ask questions?” “Why, no, my thinking would have no. say in the matter. Sneak right on, little kid.”

“I’m not a kid—l’m twenty-three. How old are you, Mr. Doyle?” “Young, you mean. I can best thirty yet, but only just.” “I suppose- that means you’re about twenty-nine,” said Nella, thoughtfully. “Do all Americans speak like you, Mr. Doyle?” He laughed. . “The Four Hundred do, I reckon.” With imperceptible tact, lie turned the tables on his questioner, and Nella, in the hitherto inexperienced delight of owning such a, droll and sympathetica listener, saw nothing of it, or that it was she who was supplying family history and daily life details.

And Doyle complimented himself as ho walked home to his bark humpy on •the outskirts of an adjoining station, that night. “Maybe you’ll be able to make it up to her good and plenty yet, Nat, my boy,” he said. “That crazy old father will have to turn down, I guess. To think of his Cussed selfishness to that poor kid—and lie don’t even touch thc hem of it. Wonder what lie’s doing time for on this ant-hill, anyway?” It became commonplace with Nella after that to spend as much as possible of her spare time making history for herself and Nat Doyle. She took t-o him all her little woes, her simple pleasures and hopes, her quaint visions—displayed to him the very lining of her white soul. She had no other companions, for the rest- of her restricted acquaintances were all absolute bush demi-savages. In return he told her as little as he chose of his own life, his home in Springfield, his mother, whose life and letters kept alive in him whatever ideals of manhood he still retained, his travels. Constantly he communed with himself and his mental uneasiness grew. The positive -purity of this life suddenly thrown athwart his own stirred other ideals he had weened were dead, and how to explain his real position to the girl staggered his ingenuity. One midnight suddenly he woke up, and saw - a way Main before him, and gave up the contest. He watched all the next day, but she did not come till late in the afternoon. She went straight to the tiny glade lined with scrub so dense that she had to push her wa- between the intermingling bushes to get through This was their special meeting-place, and the American was there now, seated on the log which held two so comfortably, his head on his hands. “What’s the- matter. Nat?”- she asked sharply, pausing. It was no longer “Mr. Doyle.” “Hello, little kid! I’ve been waiting for you. What’s the matter with you ?” The keen, light-grev eyes read her pale checks and blurred eyes. “He’s been—been drinking again,” she said, fighting down her tears. “He” in their conversation always signified her father. “I s’pose lie’ll ‘see things’ again before long. O, I do wish men wouldn’t drink.” “Well, voir-can’t turn this world into a paradise just yet-,” said Doyle, wishing lie could have a private quarter of an hour with “him.”

“Ixiok here,” he added, abruptly, n going away, Nell.” “Going away':" When r” “To-morrow.” “Oh, .Nat!” She stood staring into his eves. “Why?” “Sit down, little girl.” “No. 0, I thought you weren’t goin.«r for a long while yet. You said so.”

“I know. But circumstances have altered. Would you care, Nell?” “Care? Are you going for ever?” “I don’t know. It depends. Would you care if you never saw me again?” “Never!” Some primal instinct helped to quell the rising passion of emotion that would have betrayed her. “Whv wouldn’t you ever come back, Nat?” she asked in a breathless fashion turning her shoulder to him and facing the last rays of the sun. “I’m a brute,” he said, with ,a hallgroan. “Nella, would you care?” There was a silence while a- tiny djamond-sparrow fluttered in the bushes beside them, and a brown lizaTd went scattering up a tree-trunk behind Doyle. Nella gave a quick cry. “Nat, don’t go away yet. I haven’t—any—friends but—you.” “I’m not good enough to be your friend. I’m a waster.”

“0, it’s not true. - -Wouldn’t you ever come back?” “Would you. \v,ant. me to?” “I don’t want you to go away.” “Well, say. let me go for a little while —I could face you better then.” “What’s the matter? Don’t look at me like that, Nat.” Her self-control was going—stupid hereditary restrictions were/ dragging out before the current of the only emotion that mattered.

“Don’t go away—don’t go away. I never had a friend before—l didn’t car 0 then, because I didn’t know—but now —O, it would be unbearable.” “Nella!” Doyle was staring at the new thing h G had created as she stood strenuously locking and unlocking her fingers. She spoke quickly, impatiently, torrontially, as he had 1 never heard her speak before. What he had been teaching her so long seemed suddenly to coalesce and form a huge experience which taught her there might be a greater tragedy than to live a child’s life on a- benighted selection with a God-forgotten father. She- turned to face him with eyes that blazed.

“Yes, yes,” she insisted,- ’“you havo given mo so many things I never had before—friendship, companionship, life itself—and, now, you are talking of going away to-morrow. And nothing to say why—and you ask if I’d care! Well what do you thinlf I am ? Why did you not tell me. before?” She stood looiling down on him, and he felt that a ton of contempt almost had come into her voice. But it was true. Granted that it was he who erected the palace in which she had dwelt of late, still he- had given it to her for possession, and he had-no right now to make this brutal breach in it.

He could find no palliation for his offence, for he knew more surely tnan

she the extent of it. Ho stood up suddenly before her, and swore a Yankee oath. “I can’t lie to you lcid; any more,” lie said. “I’m no geologist—nor a professor —nor am I thinking of wntirrg a book. I’m a common lossicker that stole into your garden to look for gold.” “Oh!” said Nell a, with wide-shocked eyes. “Sure! I was up this way a year ago, and I thought that there was gold-bear-ing country round here. I couldn’t stop to examine it at that time, but I came again. , I had been here several times before you got on my trail.” He paused with a queer little smile. “Why didn’t j'ou speak to us—to my father and me —about it? Didn’t you want us to know?” she asked quietly. “Didn’t I say I was a waster? If you’d have 'known, where’d I been with my claim?” “But you’re telling me now.”

“I’m telling you everything now. That was then. I didn’t want you to know my real game, and I bluffed you when you asked oucstions. But I didn’t tljink even then, Nella, that my success would be yours, too—l did think if I struck payable gold, that you’d have your share.” “What? Out of my own garden?” cried Nella.

“Sure. S’posing I’d gone to your father' and offered! a fair deal for this bit o’ worthless ground? What then?” “He’d have taken it,” said'the girl, bitterly. “Yes, though I’d have begged for it on my knees.” Doyle nodded. “Well. I’ve been all over this p! iteau over and over again. I Enow eveiy inch of it as well as you. J. finished my work long ago.” “Why have- you stayed then?” “Don’t you know?” She would not meet liis piercing eyes, and was silent.

“Do you know that your garden is a golden garden—is practically a hill of gold? A reef runs right across from there to there”—lie indicated the direction with an arm-sweep. “Oh, but there is gold everywhere. We are standing on millions.” “Nat!” She took a step towards hi™, and checked herself. “What?” Her face had gone suddenly white, and her eyes .appealing.

“That wasnt why you were going, was it?. Without telling me?” “Why child, no! But there, I deserve that thought, I guess. I’ll tell you why I was going—so.” He. went close to her, and' looked into her eyes. “I learnt you, Nella, in the time I’ve been here-rplearnt you through; and through—and I saw you were the- whitest little kid God ever made, and I—wanted —you.” He leaned over and took the wrist in a light clasp. “But I was afraid to toll you the truth about myself—afraid you’d turn mo down for a- mean skunk. So I calculated to go away and have a kinder spring cleaning of myself—just sort myself out and fix myself up again good and clean—for you.” Nella’s head was drooping. She was nervously rubbing a- forefinger up and down the- back of the hand that held her wrist. “And then I meant to come hack and ask yon, little kid, for what I wanted. Maybe some day I’d have told you about the gold, and rou could act n.s vou liked. But I didn’t want to—to soil your thoughts of me.” There was a. silence then. “Say. can’t you give a. fellow iust a look? Am I too bad, Nella?”

“Bad!” Nella jerked lier head up, r'id two I'ig tears rolled, down her cheek. “Oh, Nat. I think your a—a” —casting about in her mind for a, wort-hv epithet, and catching np one of fiis “o honhoshtcr I”—“Sydney Mad.’