TRAVELS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Surely this was a great step Mrs. Conway had decided, almost by
herself, upon taking? To cut herself adrift from friends and relatives,
to leave this land of her birth, and her father’s and children’s
births, to cross those thousands and thousands of miles of sea and to
start life entirely afresh in some strange country, a solitary woman
with three little children depending upon her for their very bread.
Sometimes her heart grew faint at the thought of the immensity of her
responsibilities. Then to strengthen herself she would sum up the
reasons that urged her to take such a step.
Phyl’s increasing delicacy had made the doctor look very grave.
During the last illness of Mr. Conway and while death actually hovered
about the place he had seen the uselessness of suggesting any change
for the frail little girl. But now that all was over and the mother was
desolately free, he told her, gently enough, but with no hesitation,
that if she remained in England her eldest daughter could not live.
Every winter found the chest more and more weak and exposed to the
inclement weather. The slight colds that Dolly and Weenie caught and
flung off so easily were each of them in Phyl’s case a menacing danger.
Mrs. Conway contended, day after day, with the problem. If she were
rich she could fly off with her darling at the approach of winter to
Southern France or the warm slopes of Italy.
But how could a widow, almost destitute, contend against so fierce and
relentless a foe as the English climate?
When all business affairs had been wound up and all legalities finished
with, she found there remained to her nothing in the world but the
four hundred pounds left of Phyl’s and Dolly’s little fortune. She was
pondering on the possibility of eking out an existence on that in some
cheap French village, when the treacherous November wind caught the
child again, and made the doctor more and more convinced that the young
life would not flicker very much longer unless some radical change were
wrought.
“The only hope I can hold out to you, Mrs. Conway,” he said at last,
“is that you should take the little girl for a long sea voyage. And
keep her away for all time from these vile winters.”
Mrs. Conway explained her straitened means, and how four hundred was
the whole of her worldly wealth.
“Well, many would be glad of that amount,” he said thoughtfully; “of
course you will have to work for your children, but that”—he looked at
her quiet, resolute face and her mouth’s firm lines—“I know you are
prepared for. Has Australia ever suggested itself to you?”
Mrs. Conway gasped a little at the boldness of the idea, but the doctor
had so much to say in favour of the new land, the chances for work
there, the climate, the voyage that would give Phyl a new lease of
life, that when he went away she sat thinking, thinking for hours.
She did not ask many people’s advice; the friend and lawyer of the
family, her brother, and one or two other relatives and friends, came
to the quiet Warwickshire home and went into the matter gravely with
her; no one actually advised against it since poor Phyllida’s life
seemed at stake, but no one was very sanguine. Still there seemed no
other thing on earth to be done, and in one more week Mrs. Conway had
gathered up her courage and finally decided upon the step.
It took quite a long time that first night to make the children’s
queer little heads realize all that the wonderful statement meant.
Then Weenie was the only one who chattered; Phyl and Dolly, with eyes
lustrous with excitement, only gazed at each other silently while the
splendid thing revolved in their heads.
“Just like the Swiss Family Wobinson,” Dolly said at last in a low, odd
voice. “Oh, Phyl, don’t you hope we’ll be wecked?”
“Oh, thank you, Dolly, but I think we’ll ask to be excused luxuries
like that,” said Mrs. Conway. “I thought you objected so strongly a
week ago to starving to death—where would be the difference?”
“Oh!” Dolly said, “of course I didn’t mean I hoped we’d get dwowned.
Only just wecked on a dear little island where there were cocoa-nuts
and things.”
But Mrs. Conway asked to be spared even that small diversion.
“I only wish we could go over in a train,” she said ruefully, for she
had an unconquerable horror of the sea, though the small ones never
knew it.
Then she started up to go back to the letters and other work that
pressed so heavily.
“It is nearly nine,” she said, “all of you run to bed at once. But I
suppose you would never go to sleep without a little more talk. Phyl,
if I leave you my watch, will you make Weenie wrap up and get into my
bed at ten, and go to sleep yourselves—faithfully now?”
Phyl promised to send Weenie off.
“And I’ll shut my eyes hard,” she said, “but I shall never go to sleep
again, shall you, Dolly?”
“Never,” said Dolly with a deep breath.
Once in bed they reviewed the situation from every possible—and
impossible—standpoint. They had to picture the ship and the idea of
themselves, not the personages of romance they so often were, but their
ordinary every-day selves, sailing and sailing away over blue waters
to a land where the sun shone always. They had to consider what dolls,
books, and clothes they would take; they had to wonder what cousin this
and Alice and Nellie that would think. They had to giggle quietly at
the idea of going to sleep in bunk beds, one on top of the other, and
to shudder pleasurably at the thought of storms, and whales, and ships
on fire, water-spouts, and similar dangers that they doubted not lay in
wait for those who went down to the sea in ships.
They had to piece together their meagre information of that far-away
country of the sun, and make a tangible place of it. But so difficult
this proved, Dolly slipped on her blue felt slippers and bright red
dressing-gown and stole down the landing to the small book-room, where
were stored the atlases and the _Book of Travels in Foreign Countries_.
The only atlas she could find, however, in the hurry was an American
one her father had often laughed at, and had wondered in what way he
had come possessed of it. It began with a very large and complete map
of N. America; then followed one of S. America, then there came a
succession of twenty or thirty pages of the various States, even some
of the smallest, least important ones, with all the most insignificant
towns and villages carefully marked.
Somewhere near the end of the book the compiler seemed to recollect
there was a little continent called Europe, and he struck in a bald map
of it, with the British Islands lurking indistinctly to the west. Asia
and Africa too he seemed to include incidentally, but Australia had
been quite beneath his notice, and only occurred as an almost unmarked
island in the last map of all, Oceana.
The little girls were not much wiser after a study of this remarkable
work: so they plunged into _Travels in Foreign Countries_ in the
thirstiest way, quite heedless that the edition was one of the
early fifties, and had been prized by their father chiefly for
that fact. Strange things they learned from it; the natives were
chocolate-coloured and fought with boomerangs; bushrangers troubled the
country greatly; these were white outlaws, they found, who hid in the
bush and then made raids on the stations.
“You’d hardly think they’d be civilized enough there for railways,
would you?” Phyl remarked by the way. Gold mines it seemed were very
plentiful; the children paused to dilate on how pleasant a thing it
would be, when money was running short, to go outside the thatched
hut (they had agreed they would build this themselves, with perhaps a
little aid from some friendly native), and dig with a “tomahawk” for a
few minutes till a nugget or two was unearthed.
Sheep, too, seemed numerous—also snakes and strange-looking
birds called emus; an unearthly-looking thing with an unearthly
name—_Ornithorhynchus paradoxus_, or the duck-billed platypus; a
strange unfinished-looking beast with two long legs at the back, the
rudiments of two other legs at the front, and half-way down its great
length a pouch containing a wee edition of itself nibbling a bit of
grass—“kangaroo or wallaby” said the note underneath,—“a harmless
animal for all its looks; indeed, it is frequently kept by squatters’
children for a pet just as English children keep cats.”
“How would you like _that_ for a pet, instead of Old Pussy Long Tail,
Weenie?” said Phyl, displaying it.
But Weenie was so wofully tired and excited and unhinged that she burst
into frightened tears, and declared her intention of hiding in the
cellar instead of going on the ship.
The distraction brought Phyl back to England and remembrance again. She
put a hasty hand out for the watch, and her horrified eyes found the
hands at a quarter to eleven.
“It was only half-past nine when I looked last,” she gasped, “and it
was only about ten minutes ago.”
“P—waps the hour-hand has slipped down,” suggested Dolly anxiously.
Phyl leaned over the table and blew the light out hastily.
“For goodness’ sake let’s say our prayers at once,” she said. “What
_will_ mother say when we tell her? Weenie, kneel up here quickly, pet,
and then run off to your own bed.”
Weenie tumbled up wearily on the pillow.
“Bless me and everybody, God, and let me find my sreepence again;
that’s all, please, Phyl.”
Dolly saw her into the other room, tucked the clothes round her and
left her asleep before she could cross back again and begin her own
devotions. Strange prayers these small girls prayed.
They had a regular formula, in which “Our Father” came first and made
them feel reverence, yet also fear, for the all-powerful God. Then they
said the “Gentle Jesus” of their younger days, and loved with a warm,
living love that tender Shepherd who “in the Kingdom of His grace,
gives a little child a place.”
And then came prayers begging for blessings individually for a number
of relations and friends in an ascending order of affection.
As, for instance— “Bless Jane and Harriet (or Hay’at) and cook and
old John; bless dear cousins Edith and Mary and Maurice and dear
little Cousin Annie, and let poor Alice Partridge’s back get better
soon. Bless dear Aunt Margaret and dearest Aunt Ella, and—bless Aunt
Anne” (the honest young tongues could _not_ say dear to this severe,
unbending sister of Mr. Conway’s). “Bless darling, darling little
Weenie, and Dolly (or Phyl). Bless darling, darling, precious, sweet
little mother, and make her quite well and strong on earth and very
happy.” (They added the “on earth,” for they knew, alas! that, like
both the fathers they had lost, she might be “well and strong” and yet
not be on earth.) And such was their horror now of death and the pain
for the ones left behind, that they added, sometimes with trembling
lips, “And pray, dear Lord, don’t let any of us die by ourselves, but
let us all fall dead together.”
A petition or two then came of a purely private nature, for Christ was
a tender Father to them, and they put up their wants in perfect faith,
however trivial they were.
“Oh, please,” Dolly would pray, “if it is not wrong to ask, dear Jesus,
will you let me say my R’s quite stwaight like everybody says them.”
This was her keenest trouble.
“Let me,” was Phyl’s petition at one time, “have quite straight hair,
dear God, and a nose like Clara Cameron’s. And let us be good to mama,
and grow up very quickly, and be able to do plenty of work to help her.”
Such long prayers Phyl used to say; the two always knelt at the same
time by the side of their bed, and began together, but Dolly had always
finished first. She used to glance sideways at Phyl and wish she too
could think of so many things to say. And Phyl—surely it could not have
been just to show the superiority of her extra years—used to kneel
motionless with her pale face bent over her pale hands so long that
Dolly’s respect for her increased almost nightly. She used to try and
try herself to think of other things to add to keep her praying just as
long as her sister, but after many vain efforts gave it up, and added
instead at the very end of all her prayers—“And please, dear Jesus, let
me have said everything Phyl has said.”
To-night when prayers were finished, and they lay down with their arms
around each other as usual, they could not get to sleep, for their
broken promise pressed so heavily on their consciences they felt they
could not wait until morning to confess to their mother. So after a
time of silent tossing and sighs—they would not infringe further by any
speech—Phyl sat up.
“You’ll just have to go down and tell mama now, Dolly,” she said. “I’d
like to go myself, only I suppose it would worry her a lot if I got
another cold.”
So Dolly slipped out of bed and crept down-stairs, this time forgetful
of the warm dressing-gown and gay blue shoes.
“Mama,” she whispered, creeping like a white ghost across the room
where her mother sat surrounded with papers, “we forgot, we’re very
sowy, we’ve bwoken our pwomise.”
Mrs. Conway’s colour had flown at the soft footsteps and the sudden
voice. But the forgiveness was given very soon, for she remembered
being a child herself, and had not forgotten how mysteriously time used
then to fly away. She wrapped her daughter round in a big shawl. “Are
you sleepy, Dolly?” she said.
[Illustration: “Mama, we forgot,—we’re very sowy.”]
Dolly’s wide eyes and eager lips gave quick denial.
“I want one of my girlies to-night,” the poor mother said, and her lips
trembled so and her eyelashes were so wet, Dolly knew just how lonely
and grieving and anxious she was. So they sat on the sofa and had a
little talk, and a cuddle, and they kissed each other often, and said
low, tender things to each other just as lovers might have done, and
the ache in the mother’s heart passed away.
“Phyl will have gone to sleep without you,” Mrs. Conway said at last—“I
think you must go now, sweetheart; I will come too, myself, when I have
put these papers away.”
But Dolly petitioned to stay till that was done, and watched with
unweary eyes till the litter had all gone.
Then “Mama,” she said suddenly, and it was not relevant to anything
that had been said that evening, or indeed for days, but only to a want
that had pressed sorely at her heart for two months, “shall we have new
dresses to go to Australia in?”
Mrs. Conway smiled.
“I think it is highly probable they will be necessary,” she said; “I
saw Phyl’s elbow nearly through her house-frock this morning.”
“Oh, mama!”—and the child rushed and buried her face on her mother’s
arm again—“Oh, mama, need I take my grey one?”
The mother was much surprised. “That pretty little frock,” she said;
“it is the nicest you have, dear, and not half worn out, is it?”
“N—no,” said Dolly, but a painful red was in her cheeks.
“Oh, please, please, mama, don’t let me take it,—oh, couldn’t you give
it away now? I’ve had it for long enough, and long enough—oh, please,
mama.”
“But what is the matter with it that you dislike it so?” said
Mrs. Conway, puzzled.
Dolly’s voice was very low. “It isn’t black,” she said.
“But it has a black sash, and black trimmings,” said Mrs. Conway.
“Phyl’s is all black,” Dolly whispered.
“But what of that, my little girl?”
Dolly’s head pressed closer. “It seems as if I don’t care as much as
Phyl,” she whispered, and one tear fell right over her gold-brown
lashes and down her cheek.
Then the mother understood the frequent pain she had unknowingly caused
the child by a small economy she had practised when the mourning was
made.
Dolly had had a grey frock trimmed with blue, and at the time of
Mr. Conway’s death it was almost new. Phyl’s blue and crimson and brown
frocks had all been laid aside, and also Dolly’s other coloured ones.
But the grey one the mother had told the dressmaker to take the blue
from, and substitute black, and it would make a useful house-frock.
Years after when Dolly looked back to her childish days that trouble
was clearest remembered of all. But she had said nothing then, for the
mother had said it would “save a little.”
But to contemplate taking it to Australia with her broke down her
fortitude, and for the first time Mrs. Conway understood what a real
grief it had been.
“To-morrow we will send it to Mrs. Jones for her little girl,” she
said; “why didn’t you tell me before, darling?”
But Dolly only clung closer and spoke no word, and they went to bed
together.