Newton's was filled to the brim with visitors, and there were not stables enough for the horses. But Ridge stables are never more than railed yards about the size of a room, with bark thatches, and as many of them as were needed were run up for the occasion.
Horses and horsemen were heroes of the occasion The merits of every horse that was going to run were argued; histories, points, pedigrees, and performances discussed. Stories were told of the doings of strange horses brought from distant selections, the out-stations of Warria, Langi-Eumina, or Darrawingee; yarns swopped of almost mythical warrigals, and warrigal hunting, the breaking of buck-jumpers, the enterprises and exploits of famous horsemen. Ridge meetings, since the course had been made and the function had become a yearly fixture, were gone over; and the chances of every horse and rider entered for the next day debated, until anticipation and interest attained their highest pitch.
Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to go. Race-day was the Ridge gala day; the day upon which men, women, and children gave themselves up to the whole-hearted, joyous excitement of an outing. The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event. But nobody, it was rumoured, looked forward to, or enjoyed the races more than Mrs.
Watty Frost, although she had begun by disapproving of them, and still maintained she did not "hold with betting." She put up with it, however, so long as the Sydney men did not get away with Ridge money.
Potch was disappointed, and so was Michael, that Sophie would not go to the races, which were held during the year of her return. They went, and Rouminof trotted off by himself, quite early. Sophie did not want to see all the strangers who would be in Fallen Star for race-day, she said--people from the river selections, the stations, and country towns.
Late in the afternoon, as she was going to see Ella Bryant, to offer to mind the baby while Ella and Bully went to the ball, she saw Martha was at home, a drift of smoke coming from the chimney of her hut.
Sophie went to the back door of the hut and stood in the doorway.
"Are you there, Martha?" she called.
"That you, Sophie?" Martha queried. "Come in!"
Sophie went into the kitchen. Martha had a big fire, and her room was full of its hot glare. She was ironing at a table against the wall, and freshly laundered, white clothes were hanging to a line stretched from above the window to a nail on the inner wall. She looked up happily as Sophie appeared, sweat streaming from her fat, jolly face.
"I was just thinking of you, dearie," she exclaimed, putting the iron on an upturned tin, and straightening out the flounces of the dress she was at work on. "Lovely day it's been for the races, hasn't it? Sit down.
I'll be done d'reckly, and am going to make a cup of tea before I go over to help Mrs. Newton a bit with dinner. My, she's got her hands full over there--with all the crowd up!... Don't think I ever did see such a crowd at the races, Sophie."
Martha's iron flashed and swung backwards and forth. Sophie watched the brawny forearm which wielded the iron. Hard and as brown as the branch of a tree it was, from above the elbow where her sleeve was rolled back to the wrist; the hand fastened over the iron, red and dappled with great golden-brown freckles; the nails of its short, thick fingers, broken, dirt lying in thick, black wedges beneath them. As her other hand moved over the dress, preparing the way for the iron, Sophie saw its work-worn palm, the lines on it driven deep with scouring, scrubbing, and years of washing clothes, and cleaning other folks'
houses. She thought of the work those hands of Martha's had done for Fallen Star; how Martha had looked after sick people, brought babies into the world, nursed the mothers, mended, washed, sewed, and darned, giving her help wherever it was needed. Always good-natured, hearty, healthy, and wholesome, what a wonderful woman she was, Mother M'Cready, Sophie exclaimed to herself.
Martha was as excited as any girl on the Ridge, ironing her dress now, and getting ready for the ball. Sophie wondered how old she was. She did not look any older than when she first remembered her; but people said Martha must be sixty if she was a day. And she loved a dance, Sophie knew. She could dance, too, Mother M'Cready. The boys said she could dance like a two-year-old.
"What are you going to wear to the ball, Sophie?" Martha asked. "I suppose you've got some real nice dresses you brought from America."
"I'm not going," Sophie said,
"Not going?" Martha's iron came down with a bang, her blue eyes flashed wide with astonishment. "The idea! Not goin' to the Ridge ball--the first since you came home? I never heard of such a thing.... 'Course you're going, Sophie!"
Sophie's glance left Martha's big, busy figure. It went through the open doorway. The sunshine was garish on the plains, although the afternoon was nearly over.
"Why aren't you goin'?" Martha pursued. "Why? What'll your father say?
And Michael? And Potch? We'd all been looking forward to seein' you there like you used to be, Sophie. And ... here was me doin' up my dress extra special, thinkin' Sophie'll be that grand in the dresses she's brought from America ... we'll all have to smarten a bit to keep up with her...."
Tears swam in Sophie's eyes at the nave and genial admiration of what Martha had said.
"It'll spoil the ball if you're not there," Martha insisted, her iron flashing vigorously. "It just won't be--the ball--and everything looking as if it were goin' to be the biggest ball ever was on the Ridge.
Everybody'll be that disappointed----"
"Do you think they will, Martha?" Sophie queried.
"I don't think; I know."
A little smile, sceptical yet wistful, hovered in Sophie's eyes.
"And it don't seem fair to Potch neither."
"Potch?"
"Yes ... you hidin' yourself away as if you weren't happy--and going to marry the best lad in the country." The iron came down emphatically, Martha working it as vigorously and intently as she was thinking.
"There's some says Potch isn't a match for you now, Sophie. Not since you went away and got manners and all.... They can't tell why you're goin' to marry Potch. But as I said to Mrs. Watty the other day, I said: 'Sophie isn't like that. She isn't like that at all. It's the man she goes for, and Potch is good enough for a princess to take up with.'
That's what I said; and I don't mind who knows it...."
Sophie had got up and gone to the door while Martha was talking. She was amused at the idea of Mrs. Watty having forgiven her sufficiently to think that Potch was not a good enough match for her.
"Besides ... I did want you to go, Sophie," Martha continued. "They're all coming over from Warria--Mr. and Mrs. Henty and the girls, and Mrs.
Arthur. They've got a party staying with them, up from Sydney ... and most of them have put up at Newton's for the night...."
She glanced at Sophie to see how she was taking this news. But no flicker of concern changed the thoughtful mask of Sophie's features as she leaned in the doorway looking out to the blue fall of the afternoon sky.
"They're coming over to see how the natives of these parts amuse theirselves," Martha declared scornfully. "They'll have on all the fine dresses and things they buy down in Sydney ... and I was lookin' to you, Sophie, to keep up our end. I've been thinkin' to meself, 'They think they're the salt of the earth, don't they? Think they're that smart ...
we dress so funny ... and dance so funny, over at Fallen Star. But Sophie'll show them; Sophie'll take the shine out of them when they see her in one of the dresses she's brought from America.'"
As Martha talked, Sophie could see the ball-room at Warria as she had years before. She could see the people in it--figures swaying down the long veranda, the Henty girls, Mrs. Henty, Phyllis Chelmsford--their faces, the dresses they had worn; Arthur, John Armitage, James Henty, herself, as she had sat behind the piano, or turned the pages of her father's music. She could hear the music he and Mrs. Henty played; the rhythm of a waltz swayed her. A twinge of the old wrath, hurt indignation, and disappointment, vibrated through her.... She smiled to think of it, and of all the long time which lay between that night and now.
"I'd give anything for you to be there--looking your best," Martha continued. "I can't bear that lot to think you've come home because you weren't a success, as they say over there, or because...."
"Mr. Armitage wasn't as fond of me--as he used to be," Sophie murmured.
Martha caught the mocking of a gleam in her eyes as she spoke. No one knew why Sophie had come home; but Mrs. Newton had given Martha an American newspaper with a paragraph in it about Sophie. Martha had read and re-read it, and given it to several other people to read. She put her iron on the hearth and disappeared into the bedroom which opened off her kitchen.
"This is all I know about it, Sophie," she said, returning with the paper.
She handed the paper to Sophie, and Sophie glanced at a marked paragraph on its page.
"Of a truth, dark are the ways of women, and mysterious beyond human understanding," she read. "Probably no young artist for a long time has had as meteoric a career on Broadway as Sophie Rouminof. Leaping from comparative obscurity, she has scintillated before us in revue and musical comedy for the last three or four years, and now, at the zenith of her success, when popularity is hers to do what she likes with, she goes back to her native element, the obscurity from which she sprang.
Some first-rate artists have got religion, philanthropy, or love, and have renounced the footlights for them; but Sophie is doing so for no better reason, it is said, than that she is _ec?ure_ of us and our life--the life of any and all great cities. A well-known impresario informs us that a week or two ago he asked her to name her own terms for a new contract; but she would have nothing to do with one on any terms.
And now she has slipped back into the darkness of space and time, like one of her own magnificent opals, and the bill and boards of the little Opera House will know her name and fascinating personality no more."
The faint smile deepened in Sophie's eyes.
"It's true, isn't it, Sophie?" Martha asked, as Sophie did not speak when she had finished reading.
"I suppose it is," Sophie said. "But your paper doesn't say what made me _ec?ure_--sick to the heart, that is--of the life over there, Martha. And that's the main thing.... It got me down so, I thought I'd never sing again. But there's one thing I'd like you to tell people for me, Martha: Mr. Armitage was always goodness itself to me. He didn't even ask me to go away with him. He did make love to me, and I was just a silly little girl. I didn't know then men go on like that without meaning much.... I wanted to be a singer, and I made up my mind to go away when he did.... Afterwards I lost my voice. My heart wouldn't sing any more. I wanted to come home.... That's all I knew.... I wanted to come home.... And I came."
Martha went to her. Her arms went round Sophie's neck.
"My lamb," she whispered.
Sophie rested against her for a moment. Then she kissed one of the bare arms she had watched working the iron so vigorously.
"We'd best not think of it, Mother M'Cready," she said.
"All right, dearie!"