ARCADIA.
“What shall we do now, Kitty?” said Tom, as we hastened through the
orchard, hand in hand, with our empty basket. “Shall I call your father
away after tea and speak to him? Or shall we keep the rest of this
one day for ourselves, and have a walk to the river in the moonlight?
Do you think it would be wrong to have a clandestine engagement, just
under their noses, until to-morrow?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied emphatically. “It would be much the
nicest.”
“Much--there’s no doubt about _that_. And, after all, nobody can tell
what may happen after to-day. Suppose he won’t give his consent, Kitty?”
“He’s too kind,” I said promptly. “And he can’t bear to see me
miserable.”
“Not even for your good?”
“No, not even for my good. Mother would make me miserable for my good,
though she would be a deal worse herself all the time; she has the will
and the courage, somehow. But poor dear daddy breaks down the moment he
sees me even getting ready to cry. I’m more afraid of mother than I am
of him. But oh, Tom, what is there to be afraid of? What could any one
see in you to object to?”
We were by this time in the back passage, and, doors being closed,
stopped to exchange another kiss; and then we sneaked into the
dining-room, one after the other, reversing the order of precedence in
consideration of my nerves.
“Hullo, Kitty,” said father, looking round the table, which was
garnished with a veal pie and some chicken salad, “where are the plums
gone to?”
“There are none ripe, daddy,” faltered I.
“And couldn’t you find any substitute? You might have picked a dish of
apricots, at any rate. It doesn’t seem natural to have tea on Sundays
without fruit of some sort.”
“I don’t think there are any apricots left,” I suggested, beginning to
be uncomfortably conscious that mother was regarding me gravely from
the corner of her eye.
“None left?” father almost shouted. “Why, didn’t you see Sandy, only
yesterday, carrying off a wheelbarrow load for the pigs?”
I hung my head, and mother came to the rescue. “The rain spoiled them,”
she put in quietly. I was certain, from the tone of her voice, that she
scented the truth, though, perhaps, afar off; and I quaked inwardly.
As soon as tea was over, I slipped out of the room and into my bedroom,
whence I emerged from my private door into the garden, and ran away
to the paddock. In about ten minutes I spied Tom poking about the
shrubbery, looking for me; and I called “Cooee!” once or twice, softly,
to bring him to my hiding-place.
“I wondered where in the world you were off to,” he said in some
surprise.
“I’ll tell you why I ran away,” I eagerly responded. “I felt certain
mother would ask me to sing, or to do something that would keep me
indoors; and I could not bear to lose this one evening of our own.”
“No, indeed; that _would_ have been hard lines, and no mistake! Ah,
well, we’ll soon settle with them, and get our liberty honestly, please
God.”
“We’re not dishonest, Tom, I hope.”
“No, my darling, no; but you know what I mean.”
I did know what he meant, of course. And I slipped my hand in his and
we set off across the moonlit grass, with Spring bounding wildly after
us. I dare say there were plenty more lovers in the world as happy as
we, but we did not think so.
We made our way to the very bend of the river where I met him on Friday
night, and sat down on the very identical stump. That is to say, I sat
down on it, and he sat as close to me as circumstances permitted, in
a very comfortable, if slightly ungraceful attitude. There were some
wild ducks dotting the moonlight in the deep pool above us--if it had
been a week-night they never would have swum about in that confidential
way; and a pair of ridiculous laughing jackasses sat over our heads and
jeered at us.
“Oh, Kitty, Kitty, how many nights like this shall we have, I wonder,
out of six weeks of nights! What a dreadful little time it is!”
“Hush now, Tom. Don’t let us talk of anything but what is nice and
pleasant. The other things can wait.”
“All right, we won’t. Kitty, when we are married, you must always wear
black gowns with white lace on them, like that one you had on this
morning.”
“Did you like it?”
“I should think so, rather. I never saw you in anything that suited you
so well.”
“And it happens to be the dress that _I_ like best. But oh, Tom, I
should cost a fortune if I wore that sort of thing always? You can’t
think how unlucky I am with my clothes, and how soon I make them
shabby. I have a knack of catching on all the nails and knobs and
things that stick out, somehow.”
“Well, we can have a change sometimes, of course; but that is what you
must wear whenever you want to be particularly swell.”
“I’m quite agreeable. Only you must make me a rather considerable
allowance, I must tell you.”
“No, I don’t believe in allowances. I shall give you a cheque-book of
your own, and you shall draw whatever you want, without being beholden
to anybody. There should be no bargaining between husband and wife.”
“If husbands did like that, Tom, I’m afraid the wives would get
dreadfully demoralized. Why, I can’t add up money at all--I don’t know
why, but I never could--and I should very likely ruin you without
knowing it.”
“How jolly it will be!” murmured Tom, meditatively.
“Being ruined?”
“No, being a husband, and having a wife. I suppose I shall come to
England for you and we shall be married there. Mind now, Kitty, lots of
men will want to make love to you when you get home and into society.
Don’t you let them, there’s a good girl.”
“It doesn’t matter what they do, I suppose, if _I_ don’t make love to
_them_.”
“Doesn’t it, though, by Jove! when I’m not there to send them about
their business! Do you know, I’m sorry you haven’t been out and got all
that over. I should like to feel you had chosen me out of the whole
world, as I have chosen you.”
“And pray haven’t I? We’ll wait, if you like, and not be engaged until
I have gone through two or three London seasons--if mother lets me have
London seasons, that is. I am quite ready.”
“No, you’re not, Kitty; and you know that is nonsense. But oh, how long
the time will be till I can come after you!”
“To keep me out of mischief--as you said the other night.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did--though not in so many words, perhaps. Now, don’t be a
suspicious, jealous, disagreeable boy. If you can’t trust me out of
sight, I’m not worth having. And I promise you _faithfully_, Tom--I’m
not afraid to take any ‘solemn davy’ you like--that a hundred thousand
million men won’t make any more difference in my love for you than if
they weren’t there.”
Tom wriggled a little closer, and laid his head upon my shoulder; and
Spring, for the first time catching sight of ducks, sent them with a
sudden splash whirring up through the moonlight over our heads. We
neither of us spoke for a little while, but held one another close, and
sealed that sacred compact with a long and solemn kiss. We suddenly
seemed to feel it a sort of sacrilege to talk. We looked up together at
the delicate sky and the pale stars, the tip of his auburn moustache
brushing my cheek the while, and watched the flight of the wild-fowl
until they were out of sight--one after another, all in line, like the
ducks in Landseer’s “Sanctuary,” their black necks stretched out, and
their active little pinions twinkling. It was a sweeter night than
Friday night had been. The river was not low and stagnant now, with dry
mud-banks, but rippling and brawling over its stones and snags, almost
to our feet, fed anew with a freshet coming down from the Booloomooroo
Ranges, where we had seen it raining in the afternoon. There were
faint tints of dying daylight tingeing the moonshine that lay around
us; and there were soft airs, fragrant with the scent of the refreshed
earth and the springing grass, just breathing into our faces like the
breath of life itself. No such airs ever blow in England, I think.
Even the gum trees, ugly as they were--so far as Nature’s works _can_
be ugly--were transfigured in this light, rustling their scraggy and
shadeless branches softly, and throwing patterns on my white gown.
I was the first to break the spell of happy silence in which we sat.
“Tom,” I said, “when will you come to England for me?”
“As soon as I can, my darling; you may be sure of that. I must talk to
my father about it, and hear what Mr. Chamberlayne says.”
“Can’t you persuade Mr. Smith to sell out, as father is doing, and
settle in England, too?”
“I don’t think there is any chance of that. You see, my mother is
not like yours; _she_ hates England, and wouldn’t go back there for
anything.”
“What an odd thing! And yet she never seems to have belonged to the
colony a bit.”
“No more she does. But something--some dreadful trouble, I
think--happened to her at home. I don’t know what it was; it was long
ago--when she was married before; or, at any rate, before she married
my father. I know the governor came out and invested everything they
both had in the colony, to please her. Moreover, she has chosen the
place where she wants to be buried--in that open space in the clump
of wattles at the bottom of the garden. She is going to have an iron
railing put round it; she drew the design herself. That looks as if she
had made up her mind never to go away again.”
“And she never told you what happened to make her exile herself in that
way?”
“Never: she has plenty to say about most things, as you know; but
if you once approach an allusion to her early life she is as mum as
anything--shuts up like a box. Do you remember that mysterious party in
Lady Georgiana Fullerton’s novel ‘Too Strange not to be True?’ I often
think she is like her.”
“But of course your father knows all about it.”
“Oh yes, of course he knows. But he never lets anything out any more
than she does. I have been a little inquisitive sometimes, and asked
him questions; but it always worried him awfully, poor old boy, so I
gave it up. But I’m quite sure that here they will both stay--as long
as she lives, at any rate.”
“Then what will you do, Tom?”--very sorrowfully. “You are their only
child, and it would break their hearts to part with you.”
“Yes, I must not leave them for long. I must just run home to get
married, and bring you back with me, Kitty. I hope it won’t be very
hard on you, dear. We’ll have a house in Melbourne for part of the
year, if you like; I won’t keep you always in the bush. And when the
poor old people are gone, then we’ll live in any part of the world you
like best. _I_ don’t care a pin for the colony except for their sakes.”
“And I don’t care a pin where I live,” I responded, “so long as we are
together.”
So we talked and talked, until it suddenly occurred to us that Mr. and
Mrs. Smith might be wanting to go home, and would have no idea where
their young coachman was gone to. Then we scrambled from our nest in
the green bank, called Spring, who had forgotten it was Sunday, from
his very secular engagements, and set off, hand in hand, through our
Champs Elysées--oh, so loth to be convinced that our happy day was so
nearly at an end!
When we reached home, we saw the Smith’s buggy with the hood up,
standing ready in the stable yard, and Joe at the horses’ heads. In
the drawing-room our elders, with the exception of Mrs. Smith, were
standing about; and she was sitting on a sofa, in her old poke bonnet
and her lovely old Indian shawl, with gloved hands folded before her,
looking as if she might have been waiting any number of hours.
“I hope I am not behind time,” began Tom (he would no more have put his
mother to inconvenience than he would the Queen, if he could help it).
“I thought you would want a good long talk with Mrs. Chamberlayne, as
there are so few Sundays left.”
_My_ mother, who had evidently been on the watch for my approach, laid
her hand upon my shoulder, and said gravely, “My dear, where have you
been? I greatly dislike your running about in this way so late at
night.”
“Don’t blame Kitty,” put in Tom, turning quickly to defend me; “it was
my fault, Mrs. Chamberlayne. The night was so lovely that I persuaded
her to come out for a walk.” And then I suppose he thought it was time
to “settle with them,” as he called it; for he drew father a little
aside, and asked him if he would be disengaged any time the following
day, as he wanted particularly to speak to him.
“Certainly, certainly, my dear boy,” replied father, in blissful
ignorance. “Any time after lunch that you like. You’d better come to
lunch, eh?”
“I’ll come at three o’clock, or thereabouts,” said Tom, “if that will
be convenient to you.”
And then they all went out to the buggy, father leading the way with
Mrs. Smith, and mother monopolizing _both_ the remaining men. I trailed
after them at a respectful distance, waiting for an opportunity to say
good night.
With the reins in one hand, Tom turned back and held out the other to
me, before mounting into his seat. “Good night, Kitty,” he said aloud;
and then, stooping his tall head, he whispered hurriedly, “Look out
for me when I leave the presence-chamber to-morrow.”
“No fear,” I replied promptly. And I was very thankful, as soon as I
had made use of that vulgar expression, that mother had not been near
enough to hear it. My feelings were too strong for me, and it slipped
out unawares.