Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Good morning, Bony!” she greeted him gravely, her grey eyes seeming very big within the shadow cast by her hat. “Mother said that you might like to see my babies, Thomas and Edith.”

“That was very thoughtful of her and very nice of you, Rose Marie. How are you this morning? I wondered where you were, when at breakfast. Did you sleep in?”

“No. I had to take a hot breakfast over to Mrs Wallace,” replied the child in her precise phraseology. “Mrs Wallace has been very sick, and it’s Mother’s turn to send her meals over.”

“Indeed!” Bony murmured encouragingly.

“Yes. Mrs Wallace lives alone. Everyone likes Mrs Wallace, and when shefell sick heaps of people looked after her. She told me that she never knew there were so many angels in Merino.”

Bony slapped the last of the paint on his brush against the wood and turned to look at her before again dipping the brush into the pot.

“I am glad to hear about your errand,” he said. “You know, I thought that your absence at breakfast was due to that box of chocolates.”

“Oh no! I only ate four. Won’t you say good morning to my babies?”

“Of course. But which iswhom?”

The presentation having been made, and Bony having duly admired Thomas’s hair and Edith’s blue eyes, he proffered to Rose Marie a bright two-shilling piece, saying:

“By this time your money box should be getting quite heavy.”

“It is so,” agreed Rose Marie. “There’sseven silver coins now in my box, and what with all the pennies it will soon be full. Thank you, Bony. I’ll have a lot of money when I take it all out, won’t I?”

“Yes, you will. But there are still two more two-shilling pieces to go in yet. I hope there will be room.”

“Mother says you are spoiling me,” she told him, sitting Thomas more uprightly in the pram. “She caught me putting in the silver coin you gave me on Thursday. I had to tell her who give it me.”

“Gave it me.”

“Gave it me. She said that I ought never to spend them because they are all the wages you are getting. But I’ll never spend them just because…”

“Because what, Rose Marie?”

She smiled at him, a beautiful, shy smile, and said:

“Because you gave them to me, Bony.”

“Oh!”

He went on with his work and did not observe her rearranging the coverlet over Edith. Presently she said:

“What will you do when Father lets you out?”

“Do! Why, I hope to get a job somewhere near Merino. In fact, I am going to see Mr James this afternoon about one.”

He glanced swiftly at her, in time to see the child make a face, and then become busy with Thomas, informing that baby that he was a naughty boy and would be deprived of a chocolate if he persisted in trying to get out of the pram. Then she said a little hesitatingly:

“After Father lets you out and you get a job, will you come to Merino one Sunday and take me to church?”

Without consideration Bony assented.

“Remember you promised to-a long time ago-with your fingers crossed.”

“I did?” Bony exclaimed, turning round to look at her with well-feigned astonishment.

“You know you did. Don’t you remember?”

“Hum! I do seem to remember something about it.”

Bony turned again back to his work, and neither spoke for nearly a minute, when the little girl asked:

“If I ask Father to let you go tomorrow evening, will you take me?”

The thought flashed through Bony’s mind that this child was going to become an intelligent woman. She was actually conducting an attack. He raised his defences… like a man, thinking that he would successfully resist.

“I don’t know. You see, I am supposed to be in prison. Anyway, it would be a matter of you taking me… if your father did let me out.”

“I would like you to, if you would.” The attack was being pressed with resoluteness, and, already becoming faint, he asked:

“Do you want me to go especially, tomorrow?”

“Yes.”came the answer distinctly. “Tomorrow night. Mother won’t let me go at night. But she might… if you wanted to take me.”

“Why do you want especially to go tomorrow night?”

“Because Miss Leylan’s sweetheart is taking her. You see, he’s a bush evangelist.”

“Oh!” murmuredBony, now deflated.

“Yes. His name’s Frank. He goes everywhere in a big covered truck teaching from the Bible. Miss Leylan says he’s coming to Wattle Creek today. I’ve never seen him, but Miss Leylan says he’s very nice and brave and kind. He’s got an organ on the truck, and big ’lectriclights he puts on at night to preach by. He’s bringing his truck to Merino next week.”

On the flying carpet of memory, Bony was away on the roof of the Walls of China, looking up at the winsome face of a young woman on a horse. Then he was back again, here with Rose Marie, a silly little disappointment in his heart that this child did not after all want him to take her to church for his own sake.

Idly he asked:

“What is the bush evangelist’s other name?”

“Oh! All his names go Frank Lawton-Stanley.”

“Eh!” Bony jerked round to face Rose Marie, to repeat: “Frank Lawton-Stanley! Is that so? Well… well! Yes, I’ll take you to church tomorrow evening. I’ll take you even if I have to break jail. Happy?”

Rose Marie was smiling, and within the shadow cast by her hat her grey eyes were very bright.

“Thank you, Bony. I knew you would,” she said, to add shrewdly: “Do you know Miss Leylan’s Frank?”

“Promise not to tell.”

She promised… with her fingers crossed.

“Yes, I know the Rev. Lawton-Stanley,” he told her. “You’ll like him, Rose Marie. If you would like me to, I’ll present him to you after service.”

“Oh, Bony, will you? Is he old?”

“Not as old as I am. He’s got brown wavy hair and hazel eyes that look at you very kindly most times… You are going to like him.”

“Most times,” she echoed. “Not all times?”

He laughed outright. Then:

“Rose Marie, I’ll tell you a secret. I had a job once away out inQueensland, and the Rev. Lawton-Stanley came along and in the morning he asked me to put on the boxing gloves with him so he could get exercise. I put them on. You won’t know what they are like. He was a better boxer than me. He’s a proper man.”

“Is his father a minister too?”

“No. His father lives in Brisbane and makes hundreds and hundreds of windmills every year.”

“Does he?”

There was plain dismay in her voice, which caused him to look sharply at her, to see her staring hard at Edith.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing. Will Miss Leylan’s sweetheart want to sell his father’s windmills when he comes to Merino?”

The subject of windmills was quite obviously a disturbing one to Rose Marie, and Bony was further astonished by this precocious child putting her question while pretending to be happy again with Thomas. He told her that it was unlikely that the bush evangelist would want to sell his father’s windmills, adding:

“But what if he should?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied hastily.

“Don’t you want me for a friend any longer, Rose Marie?”

From beyond the pram she looked at him to dismay him with tears in her eyes. He knew then that he had lost the battle to her, that she had won all along the line, and with concern in his voice he said:

“Now, now, Rose Marie! This won’t do. Come and sit beside me whilst I make a cigarette.”

He almost threw the paintbrush into the pot and then sat down on the clean reddish sand with his back resting against an upright, and she sat down at his side.

“Tell me the trouble about the windmills,” he urged her softly. “You know, there can be no secrets between good friends like we are.”