When Mr. Charteris had concluded his ablutions, and sauntered into the
verandah after a careful toilette, he there encountered Miss Devereux,
who, having arrayed herself in a light Indian muslin dress, gracefully
reclined upon one of the Cingalese couches. His lonely life of late may
have had something to do with it, but his ordinary well-maintained
equilibrium nearly failed him before the resistless force of her charms.
Her eyes involuntarily brightened as she partly raised herself from the
couch and held out her hand with unaffected welcome. He took in at one
rapturous glance her slender yet wondrously moulded form, her delicate
hand, her rounded arm seen through the diaphanous fabric, her massed and
shining hair, her eloquent face.
'Oh, Lord!' he inwardly ejaculated, as he afterwards confessed. 'I used
to wonder at fellows shooting themselves about a girl, and all that, and
laugh at the idea. But I don't now. When I saw Pollie Devereux that
evening I could have done the maddest thing in the world for the ghost
of a chance of winning her. And to win, and wear, and lose her again, as
happens to a man here and there. Good heavens' why, it would make a
fellow--make--me--run amuck like a Malay, and kill a town full of people
before I was half satisfied.'
But Mr. Charteris controlled those too impetuous feelings, and forced
himself to remark, as he clasped her cool, soft hand despairingly while
she expressed her frank pleasure at seeing him, 'Always delighted to
come to Corindah, Miss Devereux, you know that. Didn't I see you near
the gate as I drove up? Thought you might have come to meet me.'
'Well, so I would,' the young lady answered, with an air of provoking
candour, 'only I had been out to see the coach and find out if they'd
brought our package from England--presents that came by last mail,--I
was so hot and dusty, and thought it was time to go and dress.'
'And I wanted to see how Wanderer looked, too,' quoth he reproachfully;
'you know I always think he could win the steeplechase at Bourke if
you'd let me ride him and wear your colours.'
'I couldn't think of that for two reasons,' replied the girl with
decision. 'First of all Wanderer might get hurt. Didn't you see that
poor Welcome, at Wannonbah races, broke his leg and had to be shot? I
should die, or go into a decline, if anything happened to Wanderer. And
then there's another reason.'
'What's that?' inquired Mr. Charteris, with less than his usual
intrepidity.
'Why--a--_you_ might get hurt, Mr. Charteris, you see, and I can't
afford to lose an old friend that way.'
'Oh, is that all?' retorted Master Jack, recovering his audacity; 'well,
you could have me shot like Wanderer if I broke my back or anything.
'Pon my soul! it would come to just the same thing if you ordered me out
to execution before the race.'
'Now, Mr. Charteris!' said Pollie, in a steady, warning voice, 'you are
disobeying orders, you know. I shall hand you over to mother, who has
just come to say tea is ready. Mother, he is talking most childish
nonsense about shooting himself.'
'But I never talk anything else, do I Mrs. Devereux?' said the young
gentleman, running up to the kindly matron with a look of sincere
affection. 'Your mother's known me all my life, Miss Devereux, and she
won't believe any harm of me. Will you, my dear madam?'
'I never hear of you _doing_ any foolish thing, my dear Jack,' said Mrs.
Devereux maternally; 'and as long as that is the case I shall not be
very angry at anything you can say. We all know you mean no harm. Don't
we, Pollie? And now take me into tea, and you may amuse us as much as
ever you like. I'm rather low myself on account of the season.'
'No use thinking about it,' quoth Charteris, dashing gallantly into the
position assigned to him. 'That's why I'm going to Sydney to have a
regular carnival, also to be in time to get the wires to work directly
the drought breaks up. I can't make it rain, now can I? And I've a
regular tough, steady overseer, a sort of first cousin to your Joe
Gateward, with twice as much sense and work in him as I have. I mean to
take it easy at the Club till he wires me: "Drought over. Six inches
rain." Left the telegram all ready written and pinned up over his desk.
He's nothing to do but fill in the number of inches and sign it, and I
shall know what to do. That shows faith, doesn't it?'
'But isn't it rather mad to go to Sydney with a four-in-hand and spend
money, when you might be ruined, and all of us?' said Pollie.
'You are too prudent but don't look ahead--like most women, my dear
young lady,' replied Jack, in the tone of experienced wisdom. 'Nothing
like having a logical mind, which, I flatter myself, I possess. I always
think the situation out, as thus:--If we are all going to be ruined--the
odds are against it, but still it's on the cards--why not have a real
first-class time of enjoyment before the grand smash? The trifling
expenditure of a good spree won't make any appreciable difference in the
universal bankruptcy. You grant me that, don't you?--Yes, thanks, I will
take some more wild turkey. Strange that one should have any appetite
this weather, isn't it?'
'Not if one rides or drives all day and half the night, as you do, Mr.
Charteris,' said Pollie. 'Even talking makes you thirsty, doesn't it?
But go on with the logic.'
'Did you ever see me scowl, Miss Pollie? Beware of my ferocious mood.
Now we're agreed about this, that five hundred pounds, more or less,
makes no difference if you're going to be ruined and lose fifty
thousand.'
'I suppose not,' reluctantly assented Mrs. Devereux. 'Still it's money
wasted.'
'Money wasted!' exclaimed Mr. Charteris. 'I'm surprised at you, Mrs.
Devereux. Think of the delights of yachting in the harbour, of the ocean
breeze after this vapour from the pit of--of--Avernus. Knew I should
find it in time. Then the evening parties, the dinners at the Club, the
races, the lawn-tennis, the cricket matches! The English eleven are to
be there. Why, I haven't been down for six whole months. Don't you think
rational amusement worth all the money you can pay for it? Would you
think a couple of years' ramble on the Continent too dearly bought if we
were all able to afford to go together?'
The girl's eyes began to glow at this. 'Oh mother!' she said, 'surely we
shall be able to go some day. Do you think this horrid drought will stop
the possibility of it altogether? If I was sure of that I believe I
should drown myself--no, I couldn't do that; but I would burn myself in
a bush fire. That's a proper Australian notion of suicide. Water's too
scarce and expensive. Think of the consequences if I spoiled a tank. I
should like to see Mr. Gateward's face.'
And here the wilful damsel, having at first smiled at the alarmed
expression of her mother's countenance, abandoned herself to childish
merriment at the ludicrous idea of a drowned maiden in a bad season
intensifying the bitterness in the minds of economical pastoralists with
the reflection that a flock of sheep would probably be deprived thereby
of that high-priced luxury in a dry country--a sufficiency of water.
Mr. Charteris laughed heartily for a few minutes, and then, with sudden
solemnity, turned upon the young lady. 'You never will be serious, you
know. Why can't you take pattern by me? Let us pursue our argument.
Pleasure being worth its price, let us pay it cheerfully. I was reading
about the Three Hundred, those Greek fellows you know, dressing their
hair before Thermopylae; it gave me the idea, I think. Mine's too
short'--here he rubbed his glossy brown pate, canonically cropped. 'But
the principle's the same, Miss Pollie, eh?'
'What principle?' echoed Pollie, 'or want of it, do you mean?'
'The principle of dying game, Miss Devereux,' returned Charteris, with a
steady eye and heroic pose. 'Surely you can respect that? It all
resolves itself into this. I'm going to put down my ace. If the cards go
wrong I have played a dashing game. If the season turns up trumps I'll
make the odd trick. You'll see who has the cream of the store
sheep-market when the drought breaks!'
'I admire bold play, and you have my best wishes, Mr. Charteris. You've
explained everything so clearly. Don't you think if you read history a
little more it might lead you to still more brilliant combinations?'
'If you'd only encourage me a little,' answered the young man, with a
touch of unusual humility.
'Isn't that Jack Charteris?' said a man's voice in the passage. 'I'll
swear I heard him talking about his ace. May I come in, or is there a
family council or anything?'
'Come in, Harold, and don't be a goose,' said Mrs. Devereux; 'you are
not going to stand on ceremony here at this or any other time.'
'I've had a longish ride,' said the voice, 'nothing to eat, half a
sunstroke, I believe, and my journey for my pains. I'm late for tea
besides, though I rode hard--takes one so long to dress. If I was any
one else I believe I should be cross. I think you'd better all leave me,
and I'll join you in the verandah when I've fed and found my temper.'
'Nothing of the sort, mother; you take out Mr. Charteris and give him
good advice, while I see after Mr. Atherstone, and recommend him to
begin with the wild turkey while I get him some Bukkulla. What's the
reason you've not been near us lately, sir?'
The new-comer was a very tall man, though he did not at first sight give
you the idea of being much above the middle size, but Mr. Charteris, who
was by no means short, looked so when they stood together. Then you saw
that he was much above the ordinary stature of mankind. His frame was
broad and muscular, and there was an air of latent power about his
bearing such as gave the impression of perfect confidence, of physical
or mental equality to whatever emergency might befall.
Mr. Charteris lingered, and seemed to question the soundness of the
arrangement which divided him from the enchantress and reduced him to
the placid enjoyment of Mrs. Devereux's always sensible but not exciting
conversation.
'Look here, Jack, I can't have you here while I'm dining, you know,'
persisted Mr. Atherstone, with a calm decision. 'You've such an
energetic, highly organised nature, you know, that calm people like me
can't sustain your electric currents. I perceive by the appearance of
that turkey that I'm about to dine in comfort. Pollie has gone to bring
in a bottle of Bukkulla. "Put it to yourself carefully," as Mr. Jaggers
says, that I have had no lunch. She will be quite as much as I can bear
during such a delicate period. So out you go. Order him off, Mrs.
Devereux, if you've any pity for me.'
'Well, you are the coolest ruffian, I must say,' quoth Mr. Charteris, as
Pollie reappeared bearing a dusty bottle of the cool and fragrant
Bukkulla. 'Mrs. Devereux, you spoil him. It's very weak of you. You'll
have people talking.'
'We don't mind what people say, do we, Harold?' said the widow, as she
watched him carefully draw the cork of the bottle, while Pollie sat near
and placed a large hock glass before him. 'Leave them alone for half an
hour. I'm sure, poor fellow, he's awfully tired and hungry. I know where
he's been; it was on an errand of mine; Mr. Gateward couldn't go. Surely
you can put up with my company for a little while.'
'Poor Harold!' grumbled Jack, 'he is to be pitied indeed! Mrs. Devereux,
you know I always say there's no one talks so charmingly as you do, and
I always say what I mean. Now isn't there something I can do for you in
Sydney?'
The symposium thus ostentatiously heralded did not take quite so long as
might have been expected, and Pollie, making her appearance in the
drawing-room apparently before its termination, went to the piano at Mr.
Charteris's instigation, and sang two or three of his favourite songs in
a fashion which brought any lingering remnants of his passion once more
to the surface. Mr. Atherstone was also good enough to express his
approval from the dining-room, the door of which was open, and to
request that she would reserve her importation from the metropolis until
he came in. This exhortation was followed by his personal apparition,
when the latest composition of Stephen Adams was selected by him and
duly executed.
Among the natural endowments lavished upon this young creature was such
a voice as few women possess, few others adequately develop or worthily
employ. Rich, flexible, with unusual compass, depth, and power, it
combined strangely mingled tones, which carried with them smiles or
tears, hate, defiance, love and despair, the child's glee, the woman's
passion; all were enwrapped in this wondrous organ, prompt to appear
when the magician touched her spirit with his wand. Harold once said
that in her ordinary mood all the glories of vocal power seemed
imprisoned in her soul, like the tunes that were frozen in the magic
horn.
Men were used to sit with heads bent low, lest the faintest note might
escape their highly wrought senses. Grizzled war-worn veterans had wept
unrestrainedly as she sang the simple ballads that recalled their youth.
Women even were deeply affected, and could not find one word of
delicatest depreciation that would sound otherwise than sacrilegious.
This was one of her good nights, her amiable, well-behaved nights,
Harold said. So the men sat and smoked in the verandah, with Mrs.
Devereux near them; all in silence or low, murmuring converse, while the
stars burnt brightly in the blue eternity of the summer night--the
season itself in its unchanging brightness an emblem of the endless
procession of creation--while the girl's melodious voice, now low and
soft, now wildly appealing, tender or strong, rose and fell, or swelled
and died away--'like an angel's harp,' said Harold to her mother, as she
arose and came towards them; 'and it is specially fortunate for us
here,' he continued, 'as the season is turning us all into something
like the other thing.'
'Hush, Harold, my boy; have faith in God's providence!' replied Mrs.
Devereux, placing her hand on his. 'We have been sorely tried at times,
but that hope and faith have never failed me.'
'What a lovely, glorious, heavenly night!' said the girl, stepping out
on the broad walk which wound amid the odorous orange-trees, still kept
in leaf and flower by profuse watering. 'What a shame that one should
have to go to bed! I feel too excited to sleep. That is why you
fortunate men smoke, I suppose? It calms the excitable nervous system,
if you ever suffer in that way.'
'Ask Jack,' said Mr. Atherstone; 'he is more delicately organised. I
suppose I like smoking, because I do it a good deal. It is a
contemplative, reflective practice, possessing at the same time a
sedative effect. It prevents intemperate cerebration. It arrests the
wheels of thought, which are otherwise apt to go round and round when
there's nothing for them to do--mills with no corn to grind.'
'I never heard so many good reasons before for what many people call a
bad habit,' said Pollie. 'However, I must say, considering the hard work
you poor fellows have to do at times, I think a man enjoying his pipe
after his day's work a dignified and ennobling spectacle.'
'Quite my idea, Miss Pollie,' said Jack. 'I really thought my brain was
giving way once in a dry season. If I hadn't smoked, should have had to
fall back upon drinking. Dreadful to think of, isn't it? A mixture of
Latakia and Virginia I got from a fellow down from India on leave saved
my life.'
'I think we are all sufficiently soothed and edified now to go to bed,'
said Mrs. Devereux, with mild, suggestive authority. 'Dear me! nearly
twelve o'clock too. The days are so long now that it is ever so late
before dinner is finished and the evening fairly begun.'
* * * * *
The parcel from England to which reference had been made on the occasion
of Pollie's excursion to Mogil Mogil clump had arrived safely, and its
contents been duly admired, when a letter received by the next
mail-steamer contained such exceptional tidings that all other incidents
became tame and uninteresting.
This English letter proved to be from Captain Devereux's elder brother,
with whom, since the former's death, Mrs. Devereux had kept up a formal
but regular correspondence. The members of her husband's family had
proved sympathetic in her hour of sorrow. They had possibly been touched
by the passionate grief of a relative whose letters after a while
commenced to exhibit so much sound sense and proper feeling. From that
time the elders of the house of Devereux never omitted befitting
attention and friendly recognition of the far-off, unknown kinswoman.
And now, it seems, they had despatched Mr. Bertram Devereux, late
lieutenant in Her Majesty's 6th Dragoon Guards, who, from force of
circumstances, reckless extravagance and imprudence no doubt, but from
no improper conduct, had been compelled to quit that crack corps and the
brilliant society he adorned. He had a small capital, however, several
thousand pounds fortunately, the bequest of an aunt. Having decided upon
a colonial career, he was anxious to gain the requisite experience on
the estate of his cousin, Mrs. Brian Devereux. If she had no objection,
would she lay them all under a deep obligation by receiving the young
man into her family, and by acting a mother's part to one who was forced
to quit home and native land, perhaps for ever?'
This last enclosure was from Lady Anne Devereux, a lady in her own
right, who, much to the distaste of her friends and family, had been
fascinated by the handsome Colonel Dominick Daly Devereux, one of the
military celebrities of the day. In the main the tone of the letter was
proud and cold; but there were a few expressions which so plainly showed
the mother's bruised heart, that Mrs. Devereux could not resist the
appeal.
'I fear he will be a troublesome inmate in one sense or another,' she
reflected. 'He is hardly young enough to take kindly to station life.
Then again, how will my darling girl be affected by his companionship?
But I can enter into a mother's feelings. I cannot refuse hospitality to
my dear husband's nephew. We must make the best of it. He will not be
worse, I suppose, than other newly arrived young men. They are an awful
bother during the first year. After that they become like other people.
I hope Mr. Gateward will take to him.'
And now the stated time had been over-passed. The _Indus_ (P. and O.
Service) had arrived; a telegram had been received; and Mr. Bertram
Devereux was hourly expected by the mail-coach. This fateful vehicle did
actually arrive rather late on the evening specified, it is true, but
without having, according to Pollie's prophecies and reiterated
assertions, either broken down, upset, or lost its way owing to the new
driver taking a back track which led into the wilderness and ended at a
lately finished tank, far from the habitations of civilised man.
As the coach swung round the corner of the stock-yard and drew up
underneath a wide-branched white acacia which shaded a large proportion
of an inner enclosure, the driver received a _douceur_ which confirmed
him in the opinion which he had previously entertained of his passenger
being 'a perfect gentleman.' He therefore busied himself actively in
unloading his portmanteau and other effects, deposited the station
mail-bag, and without further loss of time took the well-trodden road to
the township. As the eyes of his late fare rested mechanically upon the
fast-departing coach, he saw little but a cloud of dust outlining every
turn of the road, amid which gleamed the five great lamps, which finally
diminished apparently into star-fragments, as they traversed the
unending plain which stretched northward and northward ever.
A young man, whose Crimean shirt and absence of necktie denoted to the
traveller the presumed abandon of bush life, advanced from the door of a
species of shop for general merchandise, as it seemed to the stranger,
and dragging in the mail-bag, saluted him courteously. 'Mr. Devereux, I
think? Please to come in.'
Meekly following his interlocutor through the 'shop,' as he termed it,
he found himself in a smaller and more comfortable room. Looking around
at the somewhat 'cabin'd, cribb'd, and confin'd' section, he answered,
'My name is Devereux. I have come to remain. May I ask which of these
rooms is to be allotted to me?'
The storekeeper smiled. 'You didn't think this was the house, sir? This
is the overseer's place, the barracks, as we call it in the bush. If you
come after me I'll show you the way. Your luggage will be brought to you
if you will leave it here.'
The new-comer had not, in truth, troubled himself to consider what
Australian dwellings might resemble. He expected nothing. He had made up
his mind to the worst. Therefore he would not have been in the least
surprised if his aunt or cousin had issued from one of the small
apartments which opened out from the larger room; had directed him to
occupy another; had then and there placed a kettle on the smouldering
wood fire for the purpose of providing him with refreshment after his
journey.
He therefore mechanically followed his guide through a passage and along
a verandah until they reached a white gate in a garden paling, when the
young man in the light raiment quitted him with this farewell precept--
'The front entrance is between those two large rose-bushes, and the
first room to the right of the hall. Mrs. Devereux or Miss Pollie sure
to be there.'
Proceeding along the path as he had been directed, Bertram Devereux
commenced to experience a slight degree of surprise, even curiosity. He
was evidently in an aesthetic region, short as had been the distance from
the sternest commonplace. The borders had been carefully kept. Flowers
were blooming profusely. Oranges and limes shed a subtle and powerful
odour around. The stars gleamed on a sheet of water which had evidently
helped to create this oasis in the desert. The whispering leaves of the
banana brought back memories of tropic glories of foliage. Turning
between two vast cloth-of-gold standards, the blooms of which met and
clustered about his head, he ascended a flight of steps and found
himself in a broad verandah furnished with cane lounges and hammocks.
The hanging lamp, which illumined a wide and lofty hall, showed ferns of
various size and foliage, the delicate colouring of which struck
gratefully upon his aching and dust-enfeebled eyes. A book, a few
gathered flowers, lay upon a small table with some half-executed
ornamental needlework. All told of recent feminine presence and
occupation.
As he lingered in observation of these novelties, a lady passed into the
hall from a side-door and advanced with a look of kindly welcome.
'You are Bertram Devereux, I know, and oh! though your hair and eyes are
dark'--here she looked wistfully in his face--'I can see the family
likeness to my darling husband. You are the only one of his relations I
have seen. You may think how welcome you are at Corindah. But it is a
lonely life. I am afraid you will miss the society you have been
accustomed to. My husband could never have endured it but that he hoped
to make a fortune.'
'And so do I, Aunt Mary,' said the young man, with a quiet smile. 'Had I
not expected great things I should never have come so far from
civilisation. But I should not talk so,' he added, looking round. 'You
seem to have everything one has been used to, conservatories and all.'
'We have always tried to live in reasonable comfort,' replied Mrs.
Devereux. 'As to the fortune, it is sometimes a long time in coming. And
a dry year like this delays it still more. Now, having told you how glad
we are to see you, you will be anxious to be shown your bedroom. In half
an hour the bell will ring for tea. We do not dine late, but I can
promise you something substantial after your journey.'
After a bath and a leisurely change of toilette in the very well
appointed bedroom where he was installed--the flowers upon the dressing
and writing tables betokening the expected guest--the pilgrim commenced
to take a more tolerant view of Australian prospects than up to this
period he had deemed possible.
'Quiet, yet dignified and refined woman, my new aunt,' he soliloquised.
'Very far from the bustling farmer's wife I had expected. Handsome in
her youth--very--must have been. My erratic cousin was by no means such
a fool as we all thought him. And her fair daughter, too--how about her?
A beauty and an heiress, they all say. I never bargained for that. Seems
as if there were women wherever one goes--wherever I go, at least. Just
my luck.'
Mr. Devereux had scarcely enunciated this disheartening truism, with a
mildly resigned, not to say desponding expression of countenance, when
the bell of which he had been warned rang out a peal. Placing a rosebud
of Gloire de Dijon in his button-hole, he sought the drawing-room, of
which he found himself the sole occupant.
He had observed that it was handsomely furnished, in a style not
noticeably different from the fashion of the day, being not wholly
devoid of china, having a few rare plaques and Moorish brass-ware--there
was even a dado, also a magnificent grand piano by Erard--when two young
people came through one of the French windows which 'gave' into the
verandah.
'I shall never agree with you, Harold,' the girl was saying to her
companion; 'not even if we lived here for the next twenty years--and I
shall drown or otherwise make away with myself in that case.'
'There are worse places than Corindah,' replied a young man who followed
her in. 'You may live to be convinced of the fact.'
'I should hate any place,' retorted the girl, in playful defiance, 'if I
had to live there all my life. I quite envy my cousin Mr. Devereux, who
has only just come. Everything will be so nice and new to him. Cousin
Bertram,' she said, advancing and holding out her hand, 'I am charmed to
welcome you. Mother and I have been talking of no one else for the last
week. Let me introduce Mr. Harold Atherstone, a near neighbour and a
great friend of ours. He will be able to give you advice and information
beyond all price.'
The two men bowed gravely, as is the manner of freshly acquainted
Britons, and looked steadily, if not searchingly, into each other's
eyes. The new-comer spoke first.
'I can't tell you how pleased I am with everything--and everybody,' he
said, after a slight pause; 'so different from what I had expected. I
feel as if I had found a home and relations instead of leaving them for
ever. Most happy to meet Mr. Atherstone, and hope to profit by his
experience and other people's.'
For the few seconds that passed while the new friend and the old one
confronted one another the young lady regarded them keenly. Nor was her
mind idle. 'As far as appearance goes,' she thought, 'Harold has
certainly the best of it. Tall, well-proportioned, with nice brown hair
and beard, and those honest grey eyes--what most girls would call a
splendid fellow, and so he is. Why am I not fonder of him? Bertram is
certainly distinguished looking, but he is only middle-sized and almost
plain--dark hair and eyes, rather good these last. I feel disappointed;
I don't know why. He smiles nicely--that is, he _could_ if he took the
trouble. We must wait, I suppose, till his character develops. I hate
waiting. I see mother coming. We had better go in to tea.'
This last observation was the only one audible. The other results of
lightning-like apprehension had only been flashed by electric agencies
from eye and heart to brain--there registered, doubtless, for future
verification or erasure, as circumstances might determine. Mrs. Devereux
had entered. Pollie offered her arm to her cousin, whom she piloted to
the dining-room, leaving Mr. Atherstone to follow with her mother.
If the young _emigre_ had been previously astonished at the tone of the
household arrangements, he was even more surprised as he surveyed the
well-lighted room and marked with much inward satisfaction the
well-served repast, the complete and elegant table appointments. The tea
equipage at the head of the table, over which Mrs. Devereux presided,
determined the character of the repast; but the general effect was that
of a sufficiently good dinner, with adjuncts of light wine and the pale
ale of Britain, which neither of the young men declined. Both ladies
were becomingly dressed in evening costume--Mrs. Devereux plainly and
unobtrusively, while her daughter had donned for the occasion a
sea-green mermaiden triumph of millinery, which subtly suited the
delicate tints of her complexion, as also the silken masses of her
abundant hair.
In the trial of first introductions, unless the key-note be swiftly
struck and more than one of the talkers be enthusiastic, the
conversation is apt to languish, being chiefly tentative and
fragmentary. Now Pollie was eagerly enthusiastic, but her burning
impatience on a score of subjects awoke no responsive note in the
incurious, undemonstrative kinsman. He was apparently ready to receive
information about the customs of a country and people to him so novel,
but did not press for it.
He studiously avoided committing himself to opinions, and made but few
assertions. On the other hand, Harold Atherstone declined to pose as a
didactic or locally well-informed personage, contenting himself with
remarking that those intending pastoralists who possessed common sense
acquired information for themselves; to the other division advice was
useless and experience vain. This cynical summing up of the Great
Australian Question merely caused the stranger to raise his eyebrows,
and Pollie to pout and declare that Mr. Atherstone was very disobliging
and quite unlike himself that evening.
Upon this it appeared to Mrs. Devereux to interpose an apologetic
observation concerning the state of the country, including the roads,
live-stock, and pasturage; to which their guest made answer that he had
always believed Australia to be a dry and parched region, and had
supposed this to be a normal state of matters.
'Oh! we're not quite so bad always as you see us now,' exclaimed Pollie,
suppressing a laugh. 'Are we, Harold? You would hardly believe that
these dusty plains are covered with grass as high as a horse's head in a
good season, would you now?'
Mr. Devereux did _not_ believe it. But he inclined his head politely and
said that it must present a very pleasing appearance.
'Yes, indeed,' continued the girl. 'In the old days the shepherds were
provided with horses, because the grass was so tall that the sheep used
to get lost. Men on foot could not see them in it.'
The listener began to feel convinced that the facts related were
approaching the border of strange travel and adventure so
circumstantially described by one Lemuel Gulliver, but he manfully
withheld utterance of the heresy, merely remarking that they would think
that very strange in England.
'I'm afraid you're cautious,' quoth his fair teacher, trying to frown.
'If there's anything I despise, it's caution. It's your duty as a newly
arrived person to be wildly astonished at anything, to make quantities
of mistakes, and so gradually to learn the noble and aristocratic
profession of a squatter. If you're going to be unnaturally rational, I
shall have no pleasure in teaching you.'
'If _you_ will undertake the task,' replied the neophyte, with a sudden
gleam in his dark eyes which for an instant lighted up the somewhat
sombre countenance, 'I will promise to commit all the errors you may
think necessary.'
'As to that, we'll see,' answered the damsel, with a fine affectation of
carelessness. 'I make no promises. We shall have plenty of time--Oh,
dear! what quantities of it we do waste here--to find out all one
another's bad qualities. Shall we not, Harold?'
'I have never made any discoveries of the sort, Miss Devereux,' said the
young man; 'I can't answer, of course, for the result of your
explorations.'
'I couldn't find anything bad in you,' said the girl eagerly, 'if I
tried for a century. That's the worst of it. You always put me in the
wrong. Doesn't he, mother? There's no satisfaction in quarrelling with
him.'
'Why should you quarrel if it comes to that?' queried the matron, with a
wistful glance at her child. 'You only differ in opinion occasionally, I
observe.'
'Why, because quarrelling is one of the necessities--I should almost say
luxuries--of existence,' retorted the young lady. 'What would life be
without it? Think of the pleasure of making it up. I should die if I
didn't quarrel with somebody now and then.'
'Or talk nonsense occasionally, as your cousin has doubtless by this
time observed,' answered her mother. 'I think we may adjourn to the
drawing-room.'
The drawing-room in this case meant the verandah, in which luxurious
retreat the little party soon ensconced themselves.
'Really,' remarked Devereux, as he lit a cigar and abandoned himself to
the inner depths of a Cingalese chair, 'if there was a little motion, I
could fancy we were in the Red Sea. Same sky, same stars, same mild
temperature, and tobacco. This is very different from the stern
realities of colonial life I had pictured to myself.'
'We don't give ourselves out as industrial martyrs,' remarked Atherstone
placidly, 'but you will probably find out that bush life is not all beer
and skittles.'
'Hope not,' replied Devereux. 'That would be too good to last,
obviously. Still I can gather that you have extenuating circumstances. I
certainly never expected to spend my first evening like this.'
Atherstone made no answer, but apparently permitted his pipe reverie to
prevail. The other man reclined as if somewhat fatigued, and smoked his
cigar, listening indolently to the running conversational comment which
his cousin kept up, sometimes with him, sometimes with Atherstone, whose
answers were chiefly monosyllabic. The girl's fresh voice falling
pleasantly upon his ear, with the lulling effect of rhythmic melody or
murmuring stream, Mr. Bertram Devereux was led to the conclusion, by his
novel and interesting experience, that an evening might be spent
pleasantly, even luxuriously, at this incredible 'distance from town,'
as he himself would have expressed it.
With this conviction, however, and the termination of his cigar came a
distinctly soporific proclivity, so that, pleading fatigue and declining
further refreshment, the new-comer was fain to betake himself to bed, in
which blessed refuge from care and pain, labour and sorrow, he shortly
ceased to revolve the very comprehensive subject of colonial experience.