TRYING TO LIVE
It almost came to pass that in a month “Brownses” was empty again.
After a long talk with Dr. Wise and the clergyman Mrs. Conway
was aghast at the prospect before her. There were absolutely no
possibilities about the place. The miners’ children went to the
half-time public school, which also the tradesmen’s young ones
attended. Dr. Wise promised Clif and Teddie, the clergyman his two
grand-children, but six guineas a quarter would hardly keep a house
going.
“There is no help for it, I must go back to Sydney,” the widow said,
but a white look came over her face. She was in the Wises’ cottage, and
the doctor and his wife were discussing the situation with her.
“That scamp of an agent!” cried the doctor hotly. “You are saddled with
your house for a year, are you not?”
Mrs. Conway’s lips said yes, her voice she knew would fail her.
The doctor strode up and down the room, his blood boiling. It seemed a
blot on his country that a defenceless widow should hardly have landed
on its shores before she fell a prey to a scoundrel like that.
“I’d bring it before the Courts, if I could,” he said from time to time.
“Oh, he was careful to do nothing punishable,” said Mrs. Conway with a
little bitter smile. “I believe the population is just as he stated,
and there is certainly no other school. And there really are two acres
of land, and some of the fruit-trees have no disease, so I suppose he
thought he had sufficient grounds for saying ‘two acres of orchard in
full bearing.’”
“The scamp,” cried the doctor again.
“Cruel, cruel,” said Mrs. Wise. She leaned back in her rocking-chair,
tears suffusing her faded eyes. She was imagining herself pitted
against the world, like this slight, black-clad woman, and the petty
trials of her everyday life sank away into insignificance. Her glance
sprang to her big, wide-backed husband striding angrily about the room.
The loud tramp of his feet, the very tobacco odour that clung to him
sent a sudden feeling of warmth, thankfulness, and security to her
worried heart.
“Let us think what can be done, Alfred,” she said; “surely between us
some plan can be arranged.”
The three little maids lunched by themselves in the cottage off
bread-and-butter and apples, and Mrs. Conway stayed shaping their
lives most of the afternoon with this man and woman, who gave their
help and advice as readily and thoroughly as if the stranger had been a
kinswoman.
“Doing without things” Mrs. Conway agreed was to be made a fine art of.
There was as much fruit as they could eat, the doctor said; they must
grow vegetables (his own idle young scamps should do the digging); and
fowls, it seemed, were to be got together as easily as mosquitoes.
“Fruit, eggs, vegetables—we should not starve,” said Mrs. Conway
thoughtfully.
“Firewood is to be had for the gathering,” said the doctor; “good
exercise for the little girls—one of them looks a bit in need of it, I
notice.”
“Six guineas, and a little from the bank each quarter, would pay the
rent,” continued the widow.
“But what about boots, and clothes, and bread, and groceries, and
meat?” cried the doctor’s wife—these were things that made such deep
holes in her own housekeeping funds.
“Oh, we must learn to walk softly,” said Mrs. Conway—she even laughed,
for the road in front of her began to look less desperate. “Clothes we
have enough of for some time, and even if not—well, one’s elbows would
not grow blue with cold in this land of yours, even if they did make
holes through their covering. And meat, and groceries, and bread—well,
I must manage them some way.”
And the “some way” was not so very hard to find after all. When the
little school was actually opened, there came stray pupils for odd
lessons,—the mine-manager’s grown-up girls for music; the children of
two squatters riding in twice a week from over the hills and far away
for drawing and music; the baker’s daughter and the butcher’s niece
also to be taught the pianoforte.
Later on Mrs. Conway organized a cookery-class and a cutting-out
class for a very small fee; taught the miners’ untrained wives that
mutton-chops and tea, and tinned goods need not necessarily be on the
table six days out of seven; and that pinafores and frocks were better
cut out with patterns and precision, than chopped out in any fashion.
When Mrs. Conway looked back on the time at Sunnymeade, she felt this
last task had paid her better than any.
And the time slipped along.
Days grew into weeks, weeks widened into months, and months spread into
years—two of them—and still the little school went on, and the widow
and her small daughters just managed to live.
Mrs. Conway grew thin with the ceaseless work and anxiety; and two
wrinkles that came out on her forehead, during that time of stress,
made their home there for life.
The two breathless, terrible summers during which they stayed in
Sunnymeade tried her strength exceedingly, but strangely enough the
children were not greatly affected by them. Dolly’s red roses were not
quite so bright perhaps, nor her arms so plump as English winters had
found them, and Weenie’s activity on the hottest days kept her somewhat
thin, but Phyl improved wonderfully. The cough had flown, the old man
of the sea seemed utterly cast away, and a healthy brown had come
creeping over her little white cheeks.
The fare at the cottage ran perforce on strictly simple, inexpensive
lines—porridge, fruit, eggs, and bread forming the staple diet, but
that, though monotonous, hurt none of them.
And frocks were turned and twisted about, and tucks were let down, and
boots went to the cobbler’s for repairs till sole and upper refused to
have longer lease of life forced upon them.
Yet the cottage was the daintiest of places, for the mother would not
let the memory of an ugly home lie on their minds, when the little
girls grew older.
The sitting-room had unlined weatherboard walls, varnished however to
a warm brown seemliness. White matting was on the floor, white soft
curtains blew about the ever open window, round which, in early summer,
wisteria hung heavy with sweetness. There were only two chairs, but who
minded that when there was a comfortable sofa, made soft and inviting
with cushions of delicate flowered chintz, and chintz-covered box seats
for the small ones? And there were some of the old home pictures, and
books and photographs and little prettinesses, and the dearly bought
piano was there to while away long evening hours.
Mrs. Wise always sighed as she entered the pretty room.
[Illustration: Boots went to the cobbler’s for repairs.]
“But imagine white matting with five great boys about!” she used
to say. Nevertheless the first spring saw fresh muslin curtains
brightening her own rooms, and the doctor’s pleasure in them was so
great, that she was stimulated to other touches of beauty about her
home.
She even began to take thought for what she should wear—a thing she
had forgotten to do for years. Clif was the unconscious cause of this.
He was hanging over his mother’s chair one evening on the verandah,
talking happily to her for once about _Westward Ho!_ which he had just
finished; and for once she had not sought to improve the occasion by
deducing a moral from the story, although she had a vague and uneasy
consciousness, as the lad rattled on, that she ought to do so.
In the midst of the talk Mrs. Conway passed down the road, a fresh,
girlish-looking figure in white with a black band at her waist, and a
white chip hat, muslin-covered, against the sun. Phyl was hanging on
her arm, Dolly and Weenie in lavender washing frocks were running races
in front of her.
Clif’s eyes followed them, then came back to his mother in her
drab-coloured and unbeautiful clothes.
“Why don’t _you_ wear white dresses and things, mother?” he said
discontentedly.
And the colour ran up into Mrs. Wise’s cheeks. She had suddenly seen
herself with her son’s and husband’s eyes.
“I—I think I must, Clif,” she said tremulously.
And that very evening had seen her with some white lace drooped about
her neck, and a pink rose in her brooch, and her hair loosened and
quite prettily arranged about her forehead.