“The Lambs …”

“Ah, you hated me then, didn’t you?”

“I thought you were very hard and on Christmas Day too!”

“My dear, sentimental Nora, the day has nothing to do with it.”

“So Stirling said.”

“You have thrashed the matter out with him?”

“I have discussed it with him.”

“And attacked me furiously.”

“Yes, but he defended you.”

He smiled. Then he said, “Nora, life is hard, you know, and it is no use being soft in a hard world. You are too sentimental, too emotional. You will be hurt one day.”

“Are you sentimental? Are you emotional? No! But you have been hurt so hurt that you have never forgotten it.”

He raised those bushy eyebrows and regarded me. Then he held out his hands so that his long shirt cuffs were pulled back and I saw the scars on his wrists.

“Manacles,” he said.

“Fetters and chains. The marks are still there.”

“They have no meaning now. You are no longer fettered. You are in command. You rule the lives of all those around you.”

“But the scars remain.”

“In your heart as well as on your wrists.”

He was silent for a moment and his eyes narrowed as he went on, “You are right, Nora. What happened to me is something which will never be forgotten. Only when a certain action has been taken can the score be settled.”

His eyes blazed and I knew that he was thinking of revenge.

“How long ago did it happen?” I asked.

“It is thirty-five years since I came out nerc … in chains.”

“And you still talk of settling the score!”

“I shall go on thinking of it until the settlement is made.”

“It is a long time to harbour resentment.”

“For such an injury?”

“Times have changed since those days. People are perhaps less cruel.

Could it be the times which were to blame? “

“I do not see it that way. But for one man I should never have been obliged to endure those months of degradation and humiliation.”

“But you are here now. You have everything a man could wish for. You are a king in your world. You have a son and daughter, and most people go in fear and trembling of you. Isn’t that what you want?”

He looked at me and smiled slowly.

“You are a bold girl, Nora. You don’t care in the least that you offend me with your criticism.”

Then like you hate criticism, I know. All the more reason why some should not be afraid to give it. “

“And you have chosen yourself for that role?”

“I am determined to show you that I am not afraid of you.”

“Suppose I asked you to leave my house?”

“Then I should pack my bag and depart.”

Where to? “

“I am not without some qualifications. Remember I taught at Danesworth House. I could be a teacher or governess in some family.”

“A sad life for a proud woman.”

“Better than being where she is not wanted.”

His blue eyes were fixed steadily on me.

“And do you think you are not wanted here?”

“I am not sure.”

“The truth, please.”

“I think you have made a promise to my father and that you are a man who likes to keep his promise if …”

“Pray go on.”

“If keeping it does not inconvenience you too much.”

“Well, Nora, let me tell you that having you in this house does not inconvenience me one little bit. If there was any sign of this I should cease to think of your existence. You have been truthful with me, so I will be truthful with you.

I will say that I did not altogether dislike the addition to my family. I wanted sons, but daughters are very well, and can be useful.”

“Then I am of use?”

“I am not displeased with my family. Come, let us have a game. You still have to win the set, you know.”

We played. I was aware of his growing interest in me. And was elated by it.

Stirling was right. One could not live under his roof and not be affected by him.

The hot summer weather was with us. I would work in the kitchen or in the garden in the mornings and in the afternoons try to find a shady spot under a wattle tree and lie and read, although the flies—and I had never seen so many before-were a pest. It was more comfortable to sit in Adelaide’s cool sitting-room and sew with her or read aloud to her as she sewed, which she very much enjoyed. She liked Jane Austen and the Brontes; she was as passionately interested in the English scene as her father was. Sometimes Jessica would creep in and sit and listen while I read. I must confess that I always felt a little uneasy at such times. She would sit very quietly, her hands folded in her lap, and I had the impression that she wanted to be alone with me so that she could talk to me about those days when Lynx had first come to Australia and settled into the place which was then called Rosella Creek.

So passed that summer and when the weather showed signs of becoming a little cooler Adelaide suggested that we take another trip to Melbourne. There were several things she wanted; it was easy to get them brought to the house because one of her father’s businesses supplied goods to the small shops and traders on the gold fields but as Adelaide said, it was a luxury to choose for oneself from a large selection. We could put up at The Lynx and this time, as I was accustomed to the country and was now a very creditable horsewoman, we might ride and I could try camping out, which was often more convenient than waiting on the Cobb coaches. Stirling could accompany us and there should be another man of the party. Someone would certainly have business in Melbourne and wish to join us.

During the summer evenings I had played chess with Lynx several times, he invariably displayed a rattier sardonic amusement because he knew how desperately I wanted to beat him. It had become rather an obsession with me and it was typical of our relationship. I had always wanted to show him that I was not in awe of him; perhaps the fact that I continually stressed this showed that I was.

But those evenings in the library with the rose-quartz lamp beside us throwing its rosy glow over the chessmen had become part of my life. I found a certain content in sitting there, watching those long artistic hands with the green jade signet ring. I would grow tense with excitement when I could see him checkmated in a few moves, but he was always ready with some devastating counter movement which turned my attack into defence. I would look up and find those magnetic eyes on me, full of mocking laughter, brilliant with pleasure because he always enjoyed showing me that however I tried to outwit him, he would always win in the end.

“Not this time, Nora,” he would say.

“What a pity. They are such unusual pieces. Look at this castle. So delicately formed. And when you win, you will still play with me, won’t you? [ should not like the games to cease just because the set has changed hands.”

I began to learn more and more of him; in fact there were times when he seemed to lift that invincible barrier which he had erected round himself. When it was there he was the Lynx, proud, invulnerable, all powerful. But it could be lifted and in some way I had found a means of doing it. It had begun when he had shown me the fetters on his wrists; and then there was the time when he showed me his pictures.

I was a little early going to the library for our game because my watch was ten minutes fast. I knocked but there was no answer so I went in. He was not there, but a curtain on one side of the room had been drawn back to show a door, and this stood ajar. I had not known that there was a door there.

I stood for a while in the room. I had never seen it when he was not there and it was surprising how his absence changed it. It was now an ordinary room—pleasantly furnished, it was true, with its thick rugs and heavy velvet curtains, strong oak chairs and the books lining the wall. A library which one would find in any English country house! On the oak table stood the chess set in readiness for our game.

I crossed the room and looked through the open door. He was there but he did not see me immediately. On a table before him were several canvases and I remembered then what Jessica had told me about the picture of himself which he had set up to make the aborigines afraid of him.

He glanced up and saw me.

“Why, Nora,” he said, ‘is it time? “

“I am a little early. My watch is fast.”

He hesitated—something I had rarely seen him do before. Then he said:

“Come in.”

So I went in. On an easel stood a canvas and on a chair lay a paint-spattered jacket.

“This is my sanctum,” he told me.

“Have I intruded?”

“On the contrary, you are here on my invitation.”

“You are a painter.”

“Is that a question?”

“No. I know it.”

“Are you surprised? You did not expect me to have such talents?

Perhaps you consider I have no talent. Judge for yourself. “

He linked his arm through mine; it was the first time there had been any demonstration of affection.

“These pictures on the walls are my work,” he said.

“Then you are an artist.”

“You are not a connoisseur—that much is evident.”

“But these pictures …”

“Lack form, technique, or whatever you like to call it. They are not really very good.”

I had paused before a portrait of a woman. I thought I had seen the face before.

“Well, you like that?”

“Yes. It’s soft and gentle and the expression is … good.”

“What were you going to say before good?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps that she looked helpless, clinging, entirely feminine.”

He nodded and drew me to the next picture.

“Self-portrait.”

There he was. It was a good likeness and I guessed he was an easy subject. The mane of fair hair, the beard, the pride in the expression, and the animal quality—all these would be easy to capture in a facile way. Some of the arrogant power of the man was missing, but that was inevitable.

Then he took me to the table and showed me the canvases there. I saw it. The house. The real Whiteladies. The one Stirling and I had seen when we climbed the oak trees.

I gave an exclamation.

“That’s it,” I said.

“You went there with Stirling,” he replied.

“He told me how your scarf blew over the wall and you both went in..”

‘I suppose he tells you everything. “

“Whoever tells everything? But I know a great deal of what is in Stirling’s mind. After all, he is my son.”

“And you love him as you never loved anyone else.”

“That’s not entirely true. I am capable of affection. I don’t give it freely, but that may mean that when I do I have the more to give.”

“How could you paint that house when you have never seen it?”

“Who said I have never seen it? I have lived in that house, Nora. I know it well.”

“You lived there! It was yours! So that is why you have built one to look exactly like it.”

“What conclusions you jump to. I lived there, it is true; but I did not say that it was mine. I worked there for a year in the humble position of drawing-master to the young lady of the house. “

“And Stirling happened to discover it …”

“You are wrong again. Stirling went there because he knew the house was there. I told him to go.”

“So that was why I had to meet him in Canterbury. Miss Emily Grainger said it was a lit tie odd.”

“It was at my request that he went there.”

“You wanted to know if it had changed since you were last there.

Houses don’t change much. It’s the people living in them . “

“Ah, there you have it. I wanted him to see not so much the house but the people living in it.”

“Because you knew them long ago. He did not say so. He didn’t even tell them his name. I don’t think they asked. It was all a little odd and unconventional.”

“He would not have told them his name. That might have been unwise.”

“There was some quarrel with this family?”

He laughed bitterly, harshly. Then he said.

“I was hardly in a position to quarrel with them. I was, as I said, the young lady’s drawing-master. They were rich then. I don’t think they are so happily placed now. Times change. The old man was a gambler … and not a clever one. I believe he lost a great deal of money after my departure. “

“A fact which appears to give you some satisfaction, I gather.”