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Updated: May 17, 2025
He seemed to sense the antagonism in her, and demanded at once, without waiting to give her any greeting. 'Biddy, what's this I'm hearing about Wombo and that gin? 'I think you might have asked me before going to Mrs Hensor for information, she answered with equal curtness. He stared at her for a moment or two as if surprised; his face reddened, and his eyes, too, glittered.
Pulling Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it, and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith called her master.
'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of Mr McKeith's gun? 'You have my orders, repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white heat. 'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off, retorted Mrs Hensor.
Where's Mrs Hensor! And the appearance presently of Florrie Hensor youngish, tall, a full figure; black hair, frizzed and puffed, a showy face, red cheeks, redder lips, rather sullen, flashing dark eyes who had received Lady Bridget almost as if she had been her equal, and of whom the bride had at once made an enemy by her frigidly haughty response.
Tommy flew off immediately on his small, sturdy legs, and Lady Bridget watched the scene at the Bachelors' Quarters. McKeith had dismounted, and with one foot on the edge of the veranda, was facing Mrs Hensor, who looked fresh and comely in a clean blouse and bright-coloured skirt. The two seemed to have a good deal to say to each other, though Lady Bridget heard only the voices, not the words.
But where was that barmaid-looking person who seems to keep house here for stray gentlemen and, who has the yellow-headed and blue-eyed little boy? Bridget's lip curled. 'Mrs Hensor had accepted a temporary situation at an hotel in Fig Tree Mount the only time I've regretted her absence, and the musical laugh seemed to Maule to have acquired a note of exceeding bitterness.
The Malay boy waited at table with the assistance of a servant girl from Leuraville, the only female domestic with the exception of Mrs Hensor on the head-station. McKeith swallowed his soup and ate the savoury stew prepared by the Chinese cook with the appetite of a man who had been all day in the saddle.
Yet it had looked welcoming. A log fire blazing, the table spread, a Chinese cook in baggy blue garments pigtail flowing; a Malay boy; her bewildered question was there no woman in the establishment? Then Colin's strident call from the veranda 'Mrs Hensor.
The veiled questions he asked about Mrs Hensor and her boy, brought back a startled remembrance of the scene outside the Fig Tree Mount Hotel and Steadbolt's vague accusation. She had almost forgotten it had never seriously thought about it. Yet now she knew the midge-bite had festered. Could it be that there was a chapter in Colin's life of which she knew nothing?
'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this disobedience! said Lady Bridget. Mrs Hensor laughed insolently. 'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME, and she withdrew out of sight into the kitchen. Lady Bridget made as dignified a retreat as was possible in the circumstances. She could have slain Mrs Hensor at that moment.
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