Arthur Upfield - Death of a Swagman

“Are you sure Miss Leylan’s sweetheart won’t want to sell windmills when he comes to Merino?” she pressed him.

“Yes, of course. A minister doesn’t sell windmills or anything else. Why?”

“I can’t tell you, Bony.”

“Oh! Why not?”

“ ’CosI promised young Mr Jason with my fingers crossed I wouldn’t.”

“Did you? Then, in that case, you mustn’t tell.”

“And you won’t make me?”

“Make you? Certainly not. If you promise anything you must keep to it. We must never break a promise.”

“And you’ll still take me to church tomorrow night?”

“I promise… with my fingers crossed… see. And if Miss Leylan’s sweetheart is there, I will certainly present him to you as the-er-second lady in Merino.”

“The second. Is my mother the first?”

“I heard Mr Watson say that Mrs Sutherland was the first lady in Merino.”

“O-oh! Mrs Sutherland’s making up to old Mr Jason,” stated Rose Marie. “I heard Mrs Felton tell Miss Smith so. May I tell Mother you will take me to churchso’s she can iron my very best dress?”

“Yes, you may do that. Then, sometime this afternoon, I’ll want you to go along to one of the stores and buy me a nice new shirt and a collar and tie. Do you think your mother would lend me an iron? I hope that young Mr Jason won’t be jealous of me.”

Rose Marie became firm.

“If he is he needn’t take me to church ever again. Can I go and tell him now that I am going with you?”

“Perhaps it might be as well,” replied Bony gravely.

He watched her leave the compound, watched her as she passed along the outside of the front paling fence. When she returned at the expiration of fifteen minutes, she came across the compound at a skip and a jump, to tell him brightly that young Mr Jason would not be jealous, and that now she must go and tell her mother about the ironing of the “very best” dress.

Bony was not expected to work on Saturday afternoon, and so, having written out his sartorial requirements, he gave Rose Marie money and dispatched her to do his shopping. Ten minutes after she had gonehe also left the compound and strolled down along the street.

There were but few people in the shops and on the street. A sleepy Major Mitchell, tethered to one of the pepper-trees by a length of fine chain, said sleepily, “Good day”, to him.

Arriving outside the parsonage, his blue eyes became restless and searching. He ignored the small gate giving access to a cinder path leading directly to the front of the house set well back from the street. He saw the Rev. Llewellyn James reclining on a cane chair on the house veranda. He was reading a book whilst lying full length in his chair. Bony proceeded a little farther and entered the parsonage by the driveway gate, which was open. At its far end was a garage, through the open doors of which he could see the minister’s dusty car.

As he walked up the driveway the garden was to his right. On his left was the large weatherboard church. Betweenhimself and the garden was a border of shrubs, starved and growing on ground needing cultivation. Beyond that, the garden cried for loving hands to tend it.

It was Bony’s intention, when nearing the house to take the path leading through the shrubbery border to the steps of the front veranda. Because he walked silently, Mr James did not hear him and was too engrossed in his book to see him. From this place Bony could observe the minister much better. He was lying with a cushion beneath his head, a large, leather-covered tome lying opened on his stomach, and in his hands a paper-covered book which he was reading.

The interested Bony was about to leave the drive when he heard the sound of an axe being used somewhere at the rear of the house, and upon impulse he continued towards the garage and so skirted the north wall of the house till finally he entered a rear yard. There he saw a woman chopping wood at the wood heap.

She was a little woman, slight of figure, dressed neatly in a dark blue linen house frock. Her back was towards him. The sunlight fell fiercely upon her light brown hair, which was drawn back tightly into a bun. It also was reflected by the blade of the axe, which rose and fell, rose and fell upon a log of hard red box. When Bony coughed she turned her head, her hands still clasping the handle.

“Good afternoon! Are you wanting to see Mr James?” she asked, her breath coming quickly.

“I have called to see him,” Bony replied, smiling at her.

“You will find him lying on the front veranda. Poor man, he is not very strong, you know.”

Soft grey eyes examined him. Once she had been fresh and pretty; now her complexion was ruined by the hot suns and the hotter kitchen stove. Perspiration dewed her forehead.

“That is unfortunate, and we should be glad that we are strong,” Bony said. The smile continued to light his eyes, and before she realized it his hat had dropped from his hand and he had taken the axe from her hands and wrenched it from the log. “I am considered the best axeman in my family,” he told her. “Charles, my eldest son, is much too cunning to take any interest in woodcutting, and James, my next boy, makes blind swipes and often splinters the handle. The word ‘swipes,’ by the way, is his, not mine. Now observe the champion axeman of the Robert Burns family.”

Bony was not a champion axeman, which she quickly saw, but he could cut wood for a stove, and he didn’t rest till he had six sections of the log lying at his feet. She was saying: “Oh, thatwill do. That will do very nicely, thank you. I wanted only a stick or two just now. The man is due to come this evening to chop for an hour.”

“He might not turn up, marm,” Bony told her. “Sometimes they don’t,” and he fell to work splitting the sections. Having done that, he knelt on one knee and began to pile the billets on the crook of an arm. When he rose, the pile was large and heavy.

“Where will you have the wood, marm?” he asked.

“Oh! I could take it to the kitchen. Thank you for having cut it.”

“Where is the kitchen? Suppose you show me. If I have to drop this load through sheer weariness…”

“Oh, over here. Thank you so much.”

She snatched up his felt hat and almost ran before him to the kitchen door, where she indicated a box to take the wood. She stood in the kitchen doorway looking at him whilst he dusted his hands and accepted from her his hat, her eyes large and a trifle misty, and on her face an expression of wistful appreciation. She said:

“When you have finished your interview with Mr James, perhaps you would like to come back here for a cup of tea?”

“I would appreciate it, marm. Never at any time do I refuse a cup of tea. Thank you.” And now, with the smile gone from his eyes, he bowed as no man ever had bowed to Lucy James.

Walking back down the driveway beside the house, he took the path to the front veranda steps, taking care to move soundlessly. Mr James was still interested in his paper-covered book, the title of which Bony could now see. Many other people, not necessarily ministers, were interested inA Flirt in Florence.

Purposely Bony kicked against the lowest step, and his head was bent when Mr James swiftly lowered his book and looked sharply at his visitor. When Bony looked up and began mounting the steps, Mr James had in his hands the leather-covered tome: The Life and Epistles of St Paul.

“Whatd’youwant?” asked the startled minister.

“I called, Padre, to see if you’ve done anything about seeing Mr Leylan for me,” Bony said mildly and, on reaching the top step, sat down on the veranda floor.

Mr James swung his legs off the chair and put down his big book. His light blue eyes were still uneasy, and anger gleamed from their depths.