He was recovering from the shock of seeing me facing him with the pistol in my hand.
"Now... now," he said. "I only came in to see if you were all right. I thought I heard a noise... Someone prowling about."
"Perhaps it was your mistress coming to visit you."
"I thought it might be the bushrangers ..."
"Well, it isn't. Go away, and if you set foot in this room again while I'm here I shan't warn you. I shall shoot."
"Spitfire! Wildcat! You're a tigress, you are. I wouldn't hurt you. I like you. I could get very fond of you. I like women with a bit of spirit. If you'd only take the trouble to get to know me ... "
"I know all I need to know and the more I know the more I despise you."
"Give me a chance."
"Go away."
"You don't mean that, do you?"
He was trying to sidle round the bed.
"I do. One step nearer and I shall fire. I shan't miss. You yourself said I was a fair shot."
"That's murder, you know."
"I shall shoot you in the leg. And it will be in self-defence. I shall tell everyone that you came into my room intending to rape me. I shall tell them that you take your housekeeper to bed with your wife. You wouldn't be very welcome, even in this wild land, after I had told all I know about you."
Suddenly I knew that he was defeated. He looked at me with something like hatred.
He said: "All right, you bitch, you she-wolf. You think you are so precious, do you? Get out of my house. Get out now."
"I shall leave first thing in the morning."
"And where will you go? Sleep rough? That would hardly suit her ladyship."
"I shall go to the inn. I am leaving in the Sydney coach on Monday. If I can't get a room there, I will sleep anywhere ... in their parlour ... I shall not mind. All I want is to get away from this place."
"Go," he said, "and good riddance."
With that he went out of the room kicking the chair aside and banging the door after him. I sank onto the bed. My knees felt as though they were giving way, and now that I no longer had to steel myself to face him, my hands were trembling so much that I could not
hold the pistol. My teeth chattered. I thought if he were to come back what good would I be in the fight against him?
I lay still, all senses alert. I heard him go downstairs. I waited, listening for the time of his return, trying to control my trembling limbs. I must go tomorrow. I would ride out and ask if I could stay the night at the inn. Surely someone would give me shelter just for one night—and on Monday morning I would be off. The hideous nightmare would be over.
What was he doing. I could hear nothing.
An hour passed. My limbs had ceased to tremble. I kept the pistol in my hand.
Then I heard him. He was coming up the stairs. I put my eyes to the crack in the door. I could hear him muttering to himself and I could just make out his tall figure. He was reeling a little. He must be very drunk.
I watched him hesitate at the top of the stairs. Then he turned and went into the bedroom with the balcony.
It could only have been five minutes later, and I was still waiting tensely, when I heard the shot.
I knew where it came from and carrying my pistol in my hand I went along the passage and opened the door of their bedroom.
The door to the balcony was wide open. I saw Felicity. She was on the balcony, clinging to the broken wood.
"Felicity!" I cried. "What happened?"
She tried to speak but no words came. She shook her head and pointed to the balcony.
I saw that several more of the staves were broken away and the front of it had collapsed almost in its entirety. I went forward and looked down. Sprawled on the ground below was William Granville. Some distance from him was the gun.
He lay inert like a big puppet and there was something unnatural about his position.
My instinct told me that he was dead.
I did not ride on the coach that Monday. I stayed in the house with Felicity. I took her out of that room of many evil memories and made her lie on my bed. It was wide enough for the two of us and she was in no state to be left alone.
She was numb; she stared ahead of her and there was a glazed look in her eyes. I began to fear for her reason.
The days that followed now seem rather vague in my mind. There was much coming and going. The body of William Granville was taken away. He was shot through the head.
Officials rode out from Sydney and a great many questions were asked.
How had he fallen? they wanted to know.
He had leaned against the balcony and it had given way.
I felt calm. Felicity had not told me what had happened and I was afraid to ask her. I felt she would break into hysteria and I did not know what she would say if she did. I had a niggling fear in my mind that she had come to the end of her endurance and possibly had fired the fatal shot. I could well understand that. I had been ready to shoot him myself. There is a limit beyond which even the meekest person cannot be goaded.
What I wanted more than anything was to get away from this place. And I wanted to take Felicity with me. Whatever had happened was over. I wanted to soothe her, comfort her. I understood so clearly what she had suffered.
The theory was that the bushrangers had been prowling around. The Pickering story was discussed in great detail, and the bushrangers were in everyone's mind.
I said that the dead man had come to my room earlier that evening and had said he thought he had heard prowlers whom he suspected might be bushrangers.
That was true enough.
It was confirmed that he had been constantly watchful for bushrangers after the Pickering affair. Everybody was.
It was believed that he had heard strangers outside and had taken the gun and gone to the balcony. It was a fact that the balcony was in need of repair. One stave had been missing for months. It was easy to see how it happened. He had dashed out with his gun, forgetting the wood of the balcony was rotting; he had leaned against it and in falling had shot himself. Then the gun had been knocked out of his hand and so was found a few feet away from him.
It was another tragedy of the outback.
I believed that at home there would have been more enquiries into the matter. Here life was cheaper. People were pioneering, making a new country, and the risks that entailed were numerous. Death was not such a rare occurrence.
Mrs. Maken told how we had all been given guns after the bushranging outrage at the Pickerings'. Mr. Granville, she knew, was very anxious not to leave the women unprotected.
"The bushrangers have a lot to answer for," said one of the officials.
But I was not sure that they had to answer for William Granville's death.
I said I wanted to get away as soon as possible. Mrs. Granville was in a state of shock, from which I feared she would not recover until we left this house of tragedy.
But first there was the ordeal of the funeral to be faced.
There was a small cemetery just outside the township and his grave was close to that of Mrs. Pickering, who had died after her ordeal with the bushrangers.
We stood round it— Felicity. Mrs. Maken, myself and several of the men. A number of people came in from miles around to witness the burial. Much sympathy was shown to Felicity, and I watched her anxiously, wondering whether she was going to lose that calm and betray her real feelings.
It was quite unlike the funerals at home—no glorious trappings, no ceremonial black-clad undertakers, and elaborately caparisoned horses. We had tried to find as much black as we could but there was no way we could get new clothes.
"Poor soul," said one of the women spectators. "I'd like to murder those bushrangers. When they find them they'll be lynched, I can tell you. That poor Mrs. Pickering... what she suffered! And now Mr. Granville."