On the green shores of Sydney harbour, in a garden bounded by
the beach, there sat long ago a wizened, elderly gentleman and a
middle-aged, sweet-faced woman in widow's weeds. It was a glaring
afternoon in early summer, but a bank of ferns protected the couple
from the sun, the blue waters of Port Jackson frothed coolly upon the
ribbon of golden sand at their feet, and the gentleman at all events
was suitably attired. He wore a pair of nankeen trousers, fitting
very close and strapped under the instep, with a surtout of the same
material. A very tall, very narrow-brimmed hat rested on the ground
between his chair and that of the lady; and his card, still lying in
her lap, proclaimed a first visit on the part of Major Thomas Blacker,
late of the Royal Artillery, but now relegated to Rose Bay, New South
Wales.
Mrs. Astley was, in fact, a new and interesting arrival in the
settlement, who, having found the cottage to the south-east of Point
Piper untenanted when she landed, had taken it within a week of that
time, as if to eschew her new world as she had fled the old. Her
nearest neighbour was the major himself, who lived on the opposite
shore of Rose Bay, a mile away by land and half that distance by
water. He had not been five minutes in the widow's garden when he
pointed across the bay with his cane, and called her attention to a
sunlit window blazing among the trees.
"That's my place, madam," said the major in an impressive voice. "You
can't see it properly for the scrub; but that's where you'll find me
when you require my services. I'm afraid you'll have trouble with your
convict servants; if you don't you'll be different from everybody else;
when you do, you come to me."
The widow bowed and smiled, and asked her visitor whether it was long
since he had been in England. It was seven years: there had been sad
changes in the time. George the Fourth was gone, and poor dear Edmund
Kean; the stalls would never look upon his like again. No, the theatre
in Sydney was of the poorest description; madam must not dream of
going there, at least not without the major's protection. Madam had
entertained no such dream; she was merely making talk. A green-backed,
paper-covered book lay on her lap with the major's card; she handed him
the book, and asked him whether he had heard of it. He had not, nor of
the author either. "Posthumous Papers," eh? Melancholy sound about it:
was it worth reading?
"Worth reading?" said Mrs. Astley, with a pardonable smile. "Well, it
is considered so in England; but I doubt whether anybody ever found
any book so well worth reading as I have found this: it has made me
forget a great sorrow when nothing else could--forget it by the hour
together! It is still appearing in monthly parts. I am going to have
the remaining numbers sent out to me, and I can lend you the early
ones."
"Ah, very kind of you, I'm sure," remarked the major; but he was
thinking of something else. "I can't imagine what can have brought you
to such a God-forsaken spot as this!" he cried out.
"Because it _is_ forsaken," murmured the widow.
"But alone!"
"I wish to be alone."
The major picked up his hat.
"Madam," said he, "I would not for the world prolong an unwelcome
intrusion; yet if you knew this settlement as I know it you would
understand the anxiety of an old stager like myself to render you all
the assistance, and I may say the protection, in my power. It may seem
officious to you now, but you will understand it, my dear madam, when
you've been out here as long as I have." And with that the major held
out his hand; but Mrs. Astley laid hers upon his arm.
"I understand it already," she replied, sweetly; "it is you who
misunderstand me. I do appreciate your kindness in coming to see me
like this; you will know it, too, the first difficulty I am in; for
I shall not hesitate to take you at your generous word. And I shall
always be glad to receive you, sir, when you will do me the honour of
calling. Only I have suffered deeply. I am here to avoid society, not
to seek it, and--but surely, Major Blacker, you can sympathise with me
there?"
"I can indeed," cried the honest major. "It was the death of my own
dear wife that drove _me_ to New South Wales."
The fact, however (and it was one), was scarcely stated with the pathos
it deserved; the gallant speaker being occupied, indeed, in noting the
few lines and the many beauties of the comely face so compassionately
raised to his.
"Then our case is the same, and we must be friends," said the widow
very gently, as she rose. And she accompanied her visitor to the gate,
keeping him waiting, however, on the way, while she found the early
numbers of her book.
"Read them," she said, "and you will come for more. Oh, how I envy you
having to begin at the very beginning, and not knowing one word of what
is to come! I shall hear you laughing across the bay! Oh, yes, I will
come and see your house one day; but I can come no further as I am, and
here is the gate."
"One moment, ma'am," said the major, glancing at a man who was at work
in the front garden, and lowering his voice. "A convict?"
"Yes."
"A gentleman convict, as they say, by the cut of him," muttered the
major; "and that's the very worst sort. Look you, madam, if that
fellow gives you the slightest trouble, you let me know."
"What could you do?"
"Get him fifty lashes!" replied the major vindictively. "I should have
mentioned that I happen to be a magistrate of the colony. You may bring
your man before me in my own house any day you like, and for the first
piece of impudence he shall have his fifty. I also happen to possess
some private influence with the Governor. I need hardly say that it
would be my privilege to use it in your interest, could you but show me
the way."
"You have influence with the Governor?" cried the widow, with an
animation which she had not hitherto displayed, and which vastly
enhanced her charms. "Then get my poor gardener, not fifty lashes, but
his ticket-of-leave!"
The other gazed upon her with kindling admiration, and a pleasant,
smiling tolerance.
"A philanthropist!" said he. "An enthusiast in philanthropy! Only wait,
my dear lady, until you've been out here a little longer. Why, I shall
have the fellow before me in a week!"
And taking off his hat as he spoke, the major jerked his bald head in
the direction of the convict gardener, and departed chuckling; but
turned more thoughtful on the way, and reached home walking slowly, his
yellow face ploughed with thought. Major Blacker was sixty years of
age, but he never considered himself an old man, and now of a sudden
he felt full ten years younger. He consulted his glass when he got in;
the climate had dried him up a little; but there were black hairs in
his whiskers yet, and a youthful glitter in his mirrored eyes which
he hoped had not been wanting in the late interview. Major Blacker
had lived; and now the desire was come to him to live a little more.
Turning from the mirror to his bedroom window he beheld the smoke of
the widow's cottage making a grey lane through the sunset; in between
and down below the fretted floor of the bay was rosy indeed from shore
to shore; overhead an incredible blue was fast changing to richest
purple. And to such accompaniments of the eye, and in blood as cold as
you please, the major's mind was made up.
Two days later--in a community which counted three men to the woman,
there was no time to be lost--in two days, therefore, Major Blacker
presented himself once more at the widow's cottage. He had devoured his
_Pickwick_ to the last line of the second number, and the book armed
him both with a topic of familiar conversation and an excuse for a
second visit so precipitate. He needed numbers three and four; but the
widow was from home; the assigned servant had taken her out in a boat.
The assigned servant! the gardener! in that harbour full of sharks! The
major strode through the cottage, was shown the boat rounding Shark
Island homeward bound, and elected to await the lady's landing in her
own garden. He must speak seriously to Mrs. Astley. It was bad enough
for an unprotected woman to live alone in that lonely place with a
convict man-servant and a maid who was doubtless a convict also. But to
trust herself upon the water with the male criminal and none beside! It
was worse than madness. The poor lady was in need of a friend to warn
her of her danger, and she should find that friend in Thomas Blacker.
The major stood twirling his moustaches by the water's edge until the
boat's keel slid into the sand. His eye was on the convict, a tall,
bearded, round-shouldered man, who hung his head (as well he might,
thought the major) before that ferocious orb. It was the visitor who
helped Mrs. Astley to alight on dry land, and there and then broke
out, without a word of apology for his presence in her garden. Did she
know what she was doing--trusting herself in that cockleshell with
a transported ruffian--a desperado who would murder her in a minute
if it seemed worth his while? Had no one told her the harbour was
full of sharks? But the land sharks in Sydney itself, the felons and
malefactors stalking at large there in the light of day, were as bad
and worse; yet she could trust herself willingly to one of these!
Mrs. Astley had changed colour at his words.
"Hush!" she cried at last. "He will hear you."
"He!" exclaimed the martinet. "What do I care what _he_ hears? Let him
listen and take heed."
"But _I_ care," insisted the lady in an imploring voice. "I take an
interest in the poor fellow. I am sorry for him. He has been telling me
all about his trouble."
"Trouble!" sneered the major. "That's what they all call it. What's his
name?"
"Whybrow."
"Not Whybrow the forger?"
"Yes."
"Then all I can say, my dear lady," cried the major in his most
pompous manner, "is that I sincerely hope you have brought no plate
or valuables to this accursed country; if you have I beg of you to
let me take them to my bank to-morrow. Whybrow might hesitate to cut
your throat--I doubt if he has the pluck for one thing--but he'll rob
you as sure as you stand there. I remember his case very well. A more
accomplished villain has never been transported. He'd rob a church, so
you may be quite sure he'll rob you; it's only a question of time and
opportunity."
Mrs. Astley turned on her heel, took a few quick steps towards the
house, turned again and rejoined her neighbour.
"Has he ever got into trouble out here?" she demanded. "Has he once
been up before you or any one of your brother magistrates? Is there
anything at all against him but the single offence for which he was
transported?"
"Not that I know of," admitted the other with a shrug; "but he's a
clever man, he would naturally behave pretty well."
"So well that you didn't even know he was in the settlement; yet you
are ready, for that one crime in the past, to credit him with any
villainy present or to come! Oh, can you wonder that men grow worse out
here, if that is all you expect of them? If you treat your convicts
like dogs, whip them like dogs, and never credit them with a single
remnant of their native manhood, how can you expect ever to make them
into the men they were? Yet what is this country for, if not to give
the wicked and the weak another chance, a fresh start? Oh, I have no
patience with your view, sir, that once a villain is always one; I
have heard it on all sides of me since I landed; but I tell you it is
abominable--hateful--inhuman--immoral!"
Major Blacker bowed his head. His eyes could not conceal their
admiration; the fire in hers was a revelation to him; he had sought a
woman and found a queen, and the falseness (to his mind) of her premiss
took not a whit from his delight.
"Madam," said he, pointing with his cane to the subject of this
argument, who had drawn up the boat and was carrying in the oars;
"madam, I am only sorry for one thing. I am only sorry I am not yonder
gardener, with you for my champion and defender! I withdraw every word
I have said. Assigned to you, I can well believe that the greatest
rogue in the settlement would soon become an honest man!"
"It depends so entirely on us," cried the widow, never heeding the
compliments in her enthusiasm. "Oh, I think we have so much to answer
for! In his last place he was treated horribly; it was up the country;
no, I must not mention names, only I know from Whybrow that the
chain-gang was rest and peace after what he had gone through at that
man's hands. It was from a chain-gang he came to me. He has been nearly
three years in the colony. He was transported for seven. Oh, don't you
think it would be possible to get him his ticket this summer?"
The major felt a warm hand upon his arm; the major saw eyes of liquid
blue, lit with enthusiasm, and gazing appealingly into his own. They
had reached the cottage, and were standing in a tiny morning-room
filled with flowers and heavy with their scent. The major felt younger
than ever.
"I could try," he said, "but I fear it wouldn't be much good. Four
years' servitude is the limit. I'm afraid we shouldn't have much
chance."
"Try!" said the widow. "It would be an act of humanity, and one for
which I should feel personally grateful all my life."
The major tried, and won the gratitude without achieving the result
desired. Perhaps he did not try quite so hard as he pretended, and
perhaps in time the widow detected in him a lukewarmness for the cause
upon which she had set her unreasonable heart; at all events the major
failed to make the quick advance he had counted upon in Mrs. Astley's
affections. At the end of the summer their friendship was still nothing
more, and the convict gardener still a convict gardener. As neighbours,
the pair would read together the _Pickwick_ numbers as they came and
play an occasional game of cribbage in the major's verandah; but as
sure as that veteran uttered a sentimental word touching his lonely
condition or hers (and the one involved the other), so surely would
the widow rise and beg him to escort her home. Nor did the view from
the Old Point Piper Road soften her at all with its sparkling moonlit
brilliance. Yet it was here, early in the following summer, that the
gallant old fellow, after an extra half-bottle with his dinner, at last
declared himself.
Mrs. Astley heard him with an expressionless face turned towards the
harbour; but ere he finished, the moonlight that strewed those waters
with shimmering gems had found two also in her eyes.
"I cannot," she cried. "I loved my husband--I love him still--I shall
never marry again!"
"But so did I love my sainted wife," protested the major; "yet I would
marry to-morrow. I consider it no disrespect to the dead; on the
contrary, it is the highest compliment we can pay them, as showing so
happy an experience of wedlock that we would fain repeat it. Not that I
have thought so always," he added hastily, to quell a look which made
him uncomfortable.
"I don't believe you think so now," replied the candid widow. "You not
only mean less than you say; you feel less; and must forgive me, for
you may not know it yourself, but a woman is never deceived. Think it
over and you will agree with me; but never, never let us speak of this
again. It hurts me to hurt you--and I like you so much as a friend!"
As for Thomas Blacker, the first plunge had completely sobered him, and
he bitterly repented that indiscretion of the table which had led him
into a declaration as premature as it had been also unpremeditated. As
a soldier, however, he took no kindlier to retreat for the mere fact of
deploring his advance; retreat, indeed, was out of the question: and
the major's further protestations were pitched in a key calculated to
acquit him of a charge which rankled, being true.
"Your answer I accept, and can bear," he retorted with dignity, "but
not your misjudgment of my feelings. That would be cruel--if you
were capable of cruelty. Permit me at least to say that it shows
an ignorance of my real nature which cuts me to the quick. I have
expressed myself but poorly if you can still doubt my readiness to
devote my life to you--ay, or to lay it down if need be for your sake!
There is nothing I would not do for you. The lightest service I should
esteem my privilege."
The widow laughed, but not unkindly; on the contrary, her hand slid
through the major's arm with her words, as if to sheath their edge.
"There was one thing you once promised to do for me," she said. "It is
not done yet!"
"I know what you mean," he groaned with an inward oath. "Your assigned
gardener!"
"Exactly."
"I tried my best."
"Could you not try again?"
"If I did," said the major hoarsely, "would it make any difference to
the answer you would give me if I said again what I have said to-night?
I tell you candidly I begin to feel jealous of that convict. I shall be
glad to see his back."
The woman gave a little nervous laugh, but no answer.
"Would it make any difference?" he repeated.
"I cannot bargain like that," sighed the widow, turning away.
"And you are right!" exclaimed the other, hotly flushing. "I unsay
that; I'm ashamed of it. But I'll get that ticket-of-leave this summer,
or I'll never look you in the face again!"
And this time Thomas Blacker went to work in earnest; but then a year
had passed since his former half-hearted attempt of foregone futility;
and the forlorn hope of that season was the easy goal of this. The
major, without doubt, stood well at Government House; he was secretly
engaged upon plans for the fortifications of the harbour, and had
the ear of his Excellency in magisterial matters as well. What he
had mentioned only tentatively and not altogether seriously the year
before, he now urged as a peculiarly deserving case. And in no more
than a day or two he had the pleasure of calling at the cottage, with a
paper for the widow to sign, and of meeting the gardener on the path as
he was coming away.
"I suppose you know what I have here, my man?" cried the major, tapping
a breast inflated with conscious benevolence.
"The mistress has mentioned it," replied the man, trembling in an
instant. "I am deeply grateful, sir, to you. I little thought to get it
yet."
"Nor have you, sir, nor have you," said the major briskly. "Your
ticket's no ticket till it's signed by the Governor and safe in your
hands. However," he added, with a touch of the self-importance he
enjoyed, "I have promised your mistress to use my influence in your
behalf, so by the end of the week you may very possibly hear from me
again."
And as if to finish the thing off with a flourish Thomas Blacker was
finally even better than his word, for, as far from the end of the
week as the Wednesday evening, he dined in Sydney and rode out by
moonlight and the Point Piper Road with Whybrow's ticket signed and
sealed in his pocket. Once more the major had dined well, but this
time not unwisely; yet his heart was troubled with a trouble which
had never entered his calculations hitherto. His brother was dead;
his brother's estates were now his own. The incoming mail had brought
the news, and with it a round of applause and congratulations from
connections and friends who for years had ignored his existence. The
major was in a private quandary of the spirit; he was quite unable to
make up his mind. Should he go home a married man, or should he see his
time-serving friends to the deuce and never go home at all? The tropic
moon and the heavenly harbour inclined him to the latter, certain
phrases in his home-letters to the former course; but what about his
wife? She was qualified to adorn any society in which the major had
ever moved, but--there were buts. The major was gallant enough to try
to ignore them, but there they were. At home he was not sure that he
should want to be married at all; here it was a different thing; and
here, no doubt, he would end his days after all. There were worse
places. These moonlight nights made the place a paradise of soft airs
and rustling leaves, and miles and miles of a jewelled carpet beneath
the white-starred ceiling of the Southern sky. Yes, it was a spot to
live and die in, and be thankful; and yes! he would marry the widow, if
the widow would marry him. And after the other night----
The major had reached the cottage gate. Here he dismounted, tethering
his horse within. There were voices and lights, both low, in the
cottage; the French windows were wide open to the night; and an
ignoble instinct, begotten of a swift suspicion that was more truly
an inspiration, caused the major to advance upon the grass. So he
crept nearer--nearer yet--within earshot. And the first words he heard
confirmed him in his deceit. By heaven! there should be trick for trick!
"Darling," said the widow's voice--the sweet voice that had beguiled
him--"it will be the end of the week to-morrow--well, then, next day;
and after that we will hide it no more. Let us brazen it out! I am
always ready; and you, you will have the right to take care of me as
you should: you will have your ticket-of-leave."
"Never!" muttered the major between his teeth, and he crushed up the
paper he held ready in his hand. He forgot his doubts upon the moonlit
road. The injured man was all the man now. He crept still nearer and
saw that for which he was now so fully prepared: the widow reposing in
the convict's arms.
"There's only one thing that troubles me," the man was saying (though
his twitching, restless face was an eternal sea of trouble and
remorse), "and that is your poor old major. He has turned up trumps"
("I'm damned if he has," muttered the major behind the leaves), "and it
does seem a shame. I fear the other night you must have led him on."
"I did," replied the woman, with a groan for which she received no
credit. "I did--I could not help it. It grieves me to think of it; I am
so ashamed; but, darling, it was for you!"
"Was it indeed?" cried the major, striding into the room with sounding
heels and jingling spurs; and he stood there twirling his moustache.
The woman was first upon her feet. The man's face sank into his hands.
"It was," she repeated boldly. "And oh, sir, even you will forgive me
when I tell you all!"
"Naturally," sneered the other--"if I stopped to listen. But
explanations I imagine would be somewhat superfluous after this. Here,
you may have it," he added, opening his hand and letting the crumpled
ticket drop with an air of ineffable contempt. "I won't condescend to
put it back in my pocket, as you deserve; take it--and marry the man,
for God's sake, at the nearest church!"
The woman laid a tender hand upon the bowed and bended head at which
Thomas Blacker glanced in righteous scorn.
"Marry him I cannot," said she. "We have been married these fifteen
years."