sixty years an' never been heard of stealing fruit out of people's
gardens, an' as for looks--'Han'some is who han'some does,'" said
grandma, which effected the collapse of Andrew. In the Clay household
there were ever current reminders of the truth of the old proverb,
warning people in glass-houses to abstain from stone-throwing.
Dawn did not appear before me that night until I opened my door and
called--
"Lady Fair, the kimono awaits thy perfumed presence!"
"I don't want to come to-night; I feel as scotty as a bear with a sore
head."
"But I want you--youth must ever give way to grey hairs."
With that she appeared, and throwing herself backward on my bed,
thrust her arms crossly above her head amid a tumble of soft bright
hair.
"Youth, health, beauty, and lovers not lacking, what excuse have you
for being out of tune? I want you to pilot me to tea at Grosvenor's
to-morrow evening. Miss Grosvenor has invited you, Ernest, and
myself."
"She just wants Ernest--she's terribly fond of the men."
"Well, did you ever see a normal girl who wasn't, and Mr Ernest is a
man worth being fond of--I dearly love him myself."
"Pooh! I don't see anything nice about him," said Dawn aggressively.
"But you'll come to tea, won't you?"
"No, I can't. I never go to Grosvenors. Grandma doesn't care for them.
She says he was only a pig buyer, and settled down there about the
time she came here, and now they try to ape the swells and put on
airs. They only come here to try to get on terms with some of the
swell men. I wouldn't take him over there to please her if I were
you."
"That's where you and I differ. I would just like to please them, and
I'm sure it will do Ernest good to be in the company of such a
pleasant and sensible girl as Ada Grosvenor."
"Yes, he'd want something to do him good, if I'm any judge."
Dawn's pretty mouth and chin were so querulous that I had to turn away
to smile.
"So you won't come to tea?"
"I can't; I'd like to please you," she said somewhat softening, "but
I've promised 'Dora' Eweword I'll go out rowing with him again
to-morrow. He says he has something to say to me."
"He's been going to say this something a long time."
"Yes, but I stave him off. I know what it is right enough, and I don't
want to hear it; but I suppose I had better please grandma."
"So you like him?"
"No, I detest him, and feel like smacking him on the mouth just where
his underlip sticks out farther than the top one, every time he
speaks; but what am I to do? I'd never be let go on the stage, and I
might as well marry him as any one."
"Why marry any one? At nineteen, or ninety for that matter, there is
no imperative hurry. To marry a man you dislike because you cannot
attain your ambition is surely very silly indeed. Would you not love
'Dora' if you could go on the stage?"
"I wouldn't be seen in a forty-acred paddock with him. I'd like some
man who had travelled, not an old Australian thing just living about
here. I'd like an Englishman who'd take me home to England."
"You mustn't disparage your countrymen while I'm listening, as you'll
find no better in any country or clime. Always remember they were
among the first to enfranchise their women, and thus raise them above
the status of chatteldom and merchandise."
"They only gave us the vote because they had to. Women have had to
crawl to them for it, and pretend it was a great privilege the sweet
darling almighties were allowing us, when all the time it has been our
right, and they were selfish cowards who deserve no thanks for
withholding it so long. And they gave it that grudgingly and are that
narked about it, it makes me sick."
"Of course, when the matter is stripped to bare facts, the truth of
your remarks is irrefutable, but we must gauge things comparatively,
and remember how many other nations won't even grudgingly free their
women. If you don't like Eweword I can't see any pressing necessity to
think of marriage at all."
"Oh, well, I'd have it done then and wouldn't be everlasting plagued
on the subject," she said with the unreasonableness of irritability.
"Would it not be better though to wait a little while in hopes of a
better choice?"
"But I suppose it will always be the same. Any man at all worth
consideration is sure to be married or at any rate is engaged."
Here was the clue to her irritation. It was that imaginary young lady
of Ernest Breslaw's. Had she been a man, ere this she would have
plunged into vigorous attempt to dislodge that or any other rival, no
matter how assured his position, but being a woman and compelled to
await "The idiot Chance her imperial Fate," the effect of such
suppression on so robust and strenuous a nature was this form of
hysteria.
"Well, what about a struggle for the desire of your heart? Undoubtedly
you have, if well trained, sufficient voice to be a great asset on the
stage, but it would take at the very least two years' hard work under
a good master before it would be in the least fit for public use."
"I'd be twenty-one then."
"You are just at a good age to stand vigorous training."
"But what's the use of talking," she said hopelessly, "you don't know
how mad grandma is against the stage. She says she'd rather see me in
my grave, and I feel I'd never prosper if I went against her."
"Very likely her point of view is founded on hard facts, but training
your voice isn't going on the stage, and in two years, if you are able
to sing decently, perhaps no one will be so anxious as your grandma
that you should be heard,--I've heard of such a case before;" and I
didn't add that two years was a long way ahead for an old woman of
seventy-six, and also for a girl to whom study was not quite a fetich,
and ample time for the or some knight to have come to the rescue.
These thoughts were not for publication, as they might have made me
appear a traitor to the prejudices of one party and the desire of the
other, whereas I was loyal to them both.
"It would be lovely if you could get on the soft side of grandma, but
I'm afraid it's impossible. Fancy being able to sing and please
people, and travel about in nice cities away from dusty, dreary, slow
old Noonoon," said the girl, the crossness melting from her pretty
face and giving place to radiance.
She toyed with some silk scarves of mine, and between whiles said--
"Isn't it funny some people think one thing good and others don't. No
one around here wants to be on the stage but me, or seems to
understand that actresses are made out of ordinary people like you and
me. 'Dora' doesn't know anything about the stage, but Mr Ernest does.
He doesn't think them terrible women, and says that his best woman
friend was an actress once. If you thought grandma could be brought
round at all I wouldn't go out with Dora to-morrow, I'd go with you to
get out of it. Mr Ernest seemed to be very pleased with Ada
Grosvenor; is she the same style as his young lady?"
This question wasn't asked because Dawn was transparent, but because I
had led her to believe I was dense.
"No, not at all," I replied.
"What is she like?"
"She's about five feet five, and has a plump, dimpling figure. Her
hair is bright brown, and her nose is an exquisitely cut little
straight one. (Here I observed Dawn casting surreptitious glances in
the mirror opposite.) Her eyes are bright blue with long dark lashes,
and she has a mouth too pretty to describe, fitted up with a set of
the loveliest natural teeth one could see in these days of the
dentist; it is so perfect that it seems unnatural and a sad pity that
it should sometimes be the outlet of censorious remarks about less
beautiful sisters, but its owner is very young and not surrounded by
the best of influences at present, and no doubt will have better sense
as she grows older."
"What's her name?"
"Now you want to know too much, but I never knew another girl with
such a beautiful one."
"She must be a beauty altogether," said Dawn rather satirically.
"She would be if she would only guard against being cross at times,
but you must not breathe this to a soul as I'm only going on
supposition. Young Ernest isn't engaged to her, but I've seen him with
her once or twice, and he looked so pleased that I suspected him of
kind regards, as no man could help admiring her."
"Is that all?" she said in a tone of relief; "he mightn't care for
her at all. Just walking about with her and looking happy isn't any
criterion. Men are always doing that with every girl."
"Dora didn't look happy with me to-night then--how do you account for
that?"
She accounted for it with a merry laugh, as curled in the silk kimono
she remained in possession of my nightly couch.
I was espousing this girl's cause because I could not bear to see her
honest, wholesome youth and beauty making fuel for disappointment and
bitterness as mine had done. There had been no one to help me attain
the desire--the innocent, just, and normal desire of my girlhood's
heart,--no one to lend a hand, till my heart had broken with slavery
and disappointment, and at less than thirty-five all that remained for
me was a little barren waiting for its feeble fluctuating pumping to
cease.
The girl presently fell asleep, so I covered her, kimono and all, and
extinguishing the light, lay down beside what had once been a tiny
baby, whose feeble life opening with the day had been nurtured on the
milk of old Ladybird, the spotted cow with a dew-lap and a crumpled
horn. She was now, I trusted, enjoying the reward of her earthly
labours in that best of heavens we love to picture for the dear
animals that have served us well, and but for whose presence the world
would be dreary indeed, while the sleep of her beautiful
foster-daughter had advanced to hold dreams of jewelled gowns,
thrilling solos, travel, and splendid young husbands who could do no
wrong, but she knew no room for thought of "Dora," who on the morrow
was to row her on the Noonoon. He might as well have relinquished the
chase, for his chances here had grown as faint as those of pretty Dora
Cowper--whose leg he classically stated he had pulled--had grown with
him.
Ah, well, there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or
indirect, visible or invisible.
I lay awake a long time contemplating the best way of approaching
Grandma Clay in regard to Dawn's singing lessons. One by one the
passenger trains streamed into Noonoon, halted a panting five minutes
at the station, then rumbled over the strange old iron-walled bridge,
slowed down again to the little siding of Kangaroo on the other side,
from whence up, up, the mountain-sides above the fertile valley,
leaving the peaceful agriculturists soundly asleep after their toil.
The heavy "goods" lumbered by unceasingly, the throbbing of their
great engines, their signalling, shunting, and tooting proving a
perennial delight to me, comforting me with the knowledge that I still
could feel a pulsation from the great population centres where my
fellows congregate.
It had lulled me to doziness, when I was aroused by the electric alarm
bell, the purpose of which was to warn folk when a train neared the
bridge. A very necessary device, as there was but one bridge for all
traffic, it being cut into two departments by three high iron walls
that shut out an exquisite view of the river, and confined and
intensified the rumble of trains in a manner well calculated to
inspire the least imaginative of horses with the fear that the powers
of evil had broken loose about them. The alarm-bell was humanly
contrary in the discharge of its duty, and rang long and loudly when
there was no train, and was not to be heard at all when they were
rushing by in numbers. On this occasion, there being no train to drown
its blatant voice, it so disturbed me that I was keenly alive to a
dialogue that was proceeding in Miss Flipp's room.
"You must go away, I tell you," said Mr Pornsch. "A nice thing it
would be if a man in _my_ position were implicated."
"I didn't think a man of _your_ class would be so cruel," sobbed the
girl.
In rejoinder the man admitted one of the truths by which our
civilisation is besmirched.
"There's only one class of men in dealing with women like you."
Then fell a silence, during which Dawn turned in her sleep, and I
placed her head more comfortably lest she should awake and hear what
was proceeding.
Not that it would in any way have sullied her, for her virtue, by
sound heredity and hardy training, was no hothouse plant, liable to
shrivel and die if not kept in a certain temperature, but was a sturdy
tree, like the tall white-trunked young gums of her native forests, on
which the winds of knowledge could blow and the rains of experience
fall without in any way mutilating or impairing its reliability and
beauty. It was for the sake of our poor sister wayfarer who was on a
terrible thoroughfare, amid robbers and murderers, but who did not
want her plight to be known, that I did not wish Dawn to awake.
FOURTEEN.
THE PASSING OF THE TRAINS.
Next morning, when Andrew and I had finished the separator, grandma
came over to inspect the work. She sniffed round the dishes and cans,
which barely passed muster, and then descended upon the table by
running her slender old forefinger along the eaves, with the result
that it came up soiled with the greasy slush that careless wiping had
left there.
"Look at that, you dirty good-for-nothink young shaver; if the
inspector came round we'd most likely lose our licence for it, an'
it's no fault of mine. If a great lump your age can't be depended on
for nothink, I don't know what the world is coming to. I have to be
responsible for everythink that goes on your back and into your
stummick, and yet you can't do a single thing. You think I'm
everlastin' joring, but I have to be. Some day, if ever you have a
house of your own, you'll know how hard it is."
"I'm goin' to take jolly fine care I never have no house of me own.
The game ain't worth the candle," responded Andrew; "I reckon them as
comes and lives in the place, like some of them summer-boarders, and
orders us about as if they was Lord Muck an' we wasn't anybody, has
the best of it."
"That ain't the point. I'm ashamed of that table. W'en I was young no
one ever had to speak to me about things once, before I knew. Once I
left drips round the end of my table, and me mother come along and
'Martha,' says she--"
"It's a wonder the wonderful Jim Clay didn't say it," muttered the
irreverent representative of the degenerate rising generation _sotto
voce_.
"'If that's the way you wash a table,' says she, 'no blind man would
choose you for his wife,' for that was the way they told if their
sweetheart was a good housekeeper, by feelin' along the table w'en
they was done washin' up."
"An' what did you say?" interestedly inquired Andrew.
"I didn't say nothink. In them days young people didn't be gabbing
back to their elders w'en they was spoke to, but held their mag an'
done their work proper," she crushingly replied.
"But I was thinkin'," said Andrew quite unabashed, "that you was a
terrible fool to be took in with that yarn. For who'd want to be
married by a blind man, an' I reckon that blind men oughtn't be let to
marry at all, and I think anyhow he ought to have been glad to get any
woman, without sneakin' around an' putting on airs about being
particular," he earnestly contended.
"But that ain't the point, anyhow," said she.
"Well, what did you tell it to me for, grandma?"
"Hold your tongue," said the old lady irately; "sometimes you might
argue with me, but there's reason in everythink, an' if you don't
have that table scrubbed and cleaned proper by the next time I come
round you'll hear about it."
With this she walked farther on towards the pig-sty and cow-bails, and
considering this a good opportunity for private conversation I went
with her, remarking in a casual manner--
"Your granddaughter has a very good voice."
"Yes; a good deal better than _some people_ that think they can sing
like Patti, and set theirselves up about it."
"Yes; but she badly needs training."
"She sings twice as well as some that has been trained and fussed
with."
"Probably; but she requires training to preserve the voice. She
produces it unnaturally, and in a few years the voice will be cracked
and spoilt."
"All the better, an' then she'll give up wanting to go on the stage
with it."
"Is there anything frightful in that?" I said gently. "A great many
mothers would give all they possessed to get their daughters on the
stage. It is an exploded idea to think the stage a bad place."
"A lot is always tellin' me that, an' I believed them till I went to
see for meself, and the facts was too much of a eye-opener for me.
I'll keep to me own opinions for the future. It will be three years
ago this month, Dawn prevailed upon me to go to a play there was a lot
of blow about, an' I was never so ashamed in me life. I didn't expect
much considerin' the way I was rared regardin' theayters, but it beat
all I ever see."
"What was it?"
"I don't know the name, but it was a character of a play. There was
women in it must have been forty by the figure of them, and they had
all their bosoms bare, and showed their knees in little short skirts.
They stood in rows and grinned--the hussies! They ought to have set
down an' hid theirselves for shame! I thought we must have made a
mistake and got into a fast show, but we read in the paper after that
among the audience was all the big bugs, an' they seemed to be
enjoyin' theirselves an' laughing as if it was a intellectual,
respectable entertainment. I wanted to get up an' leave, but Dawn
coaxed me an' I give in, an' thought the next might be better, but it
was worse. I give you my word for it, there was hussies there on that
stage, before respectable people's eyes, trying all they knew to make
men be bad. They was fast pure and simple, just the same as some Jim
Clay told me about once when he went to Sydney on his own. The way he
described their carryin's on was just like them actresses on the
stage, an' me a respectable married woman who's rared a family, havin'
paid to look at them! I was ashamed to hold me head up after it for a
long time. 'It's only actin', grandma,' says Dawn, but to think that
people would act things like that; no good modest woman would ever do
it, an' the Bible strictly warns us to abstain from the appearance of
evil. An' even that wasn't all; they come out an' kissed one
another--married women supposed to be kissing other men. What sort of
a example was that to be setting other men an' women? It was the
lowerin'est thing I ever see. I told Dawn she was not to breathe where
we had been, an' from that day to this I never would have a actor or a
actress in my house. I'd just as soon have a _real_ loud woman as one
who gets out on a stage where every one is lookin' at her and
pretends to be one. She'd have no shame to stand between her and the
bad. Oh no! there must be reason in everythink. I was prepared for a
terrible lot of fools and rot, but that I should be so lowered was a
eye-opener."
"I feel exactly the same in regard to the stage, Mrs Clay, but I like
concerts, when the singers just come out and sing--do you not?"
"That ain't so bad, I admit."
"You would not object to Dawn singing on a platform, would you?"
"No; doesn't she often sing on the platform in Noonoon? They're always
after her for some concert or another. It's a bad plan to sing too
much for them. They don't thank you for it. They'd only say we're
tired of him or her, and the one who'd be sour an' wouldn't sing often
would be considered great."
"Well, let her have lessons, so she could sing with greater ease at
these concerts."
"She can sing well enough for that. It would be throwing away money
for nothink."
"But if trained she could sometimes command a fee."
"I've got plenty to keep her without that," said the old lady,
bridling, "and it might give her stronger notions for the stage."
I was thankful that I had never published my calling.
"I had me own ideas of them before--walkin' about, and everythink they
do or say they're wonderin' what people is thinkin' of them, and if
they're observin' what great bein's they are. An' I've seen 'em
here--goin' in fer drink an' all bad practices, and w'en I remonstrate
with 'em, 'It's me temperament,' says they, an' led me to believe by
the airs of them that this temperament makes 'em superior to the likes
of ordinary human bein's like me an' you; an' this temperament that
makes 'em not fit to do honest common work, but is makin' 'em low
crawlers, is the thing that at the same time makes 'em superior. I
don't see meself how the two things can be reconciled. There must be
reason in everythink."
"If you want to turn your granddaughter from the stage, let her start
vocal training. You'll see that before twelve months she'll have
enough of it. It would keep her content for the present, and in the
meantime she might marry," I contended.
"If I could be sure she wouldn't come in contact with them actin' and
writin' fools; if she was to marry one of them it would be all up with
her. Do you know anythink about teachers?"
"Yes; I would be only too pleased to see to that part of it. Your
granddaughter is a great pleasure to me. She gives me some interest in
life which, having no relations and being unfit for permanent
occupation, I would otherwise lack."
"Well, I'm sure Dawn would interest anybody, and I think you're a good
companion for her. She seems to have took up with you, and you've
evidently been a person that's seen somethink, an' can tell her this,
that, an' the other, but as for that she don't want no tellin' to be
better than most. _Some people!_--" Grandma always worked herself up
to a pitch of congested choler when these unworthy individuals were
mentioned.
"I'll think about the singin' lessons if they ain't beyond reason.
She's been terrible good lately, and deserves somethink. Here's Larry
Witcom arrove, an' there's Carry gone out to him. I want to see him
meself; he's been a little too strong with his prices lately, but he's
the obliginest feller in many ways. I don't hear anythink about it not
bein' Carry's week in the kitchen w'en Larry comes. She's always ready
to give Dawn a hand then. But we was all young once; I can remember
w'en I worked a point, whether it was me turn or not, to get near Jim
Clay."
"Dawn, I think the battle for the singing lessons is half won," I said
to that individual when I met her privately a few minutes later.
"Really, it can't be true!" said the girl with an intonation of
delight, as she drew a tea-towel she had been washing through her
shapely hands and wrung it dry.
Uncle Jake then entered, and cut short further private discussion.
"There, Dawn!" he said, tossing a pair of trousers on the
kitchen-table, "the seat of them is out, an' I want to put 'em on to
do a little blacksmithin'--they're dirty."
"That's easy to be seen and known too, as some people's things are
always dirty," said she. "When do you want them?"
"At once."
"At once! You'd come in the middle of cooking some pastry and want a
woman to put patches on a dirty old pair of trousers, and then want to
know why the dinner wasn't up to tick; and besides, it's Carry's week
in the house."
For Dawn's sake I would have offered to do the patching, but feared
Uncle Jake might suspect me of matrimonial designs upon him, such
being the conceit of old men.
"I never go to Carry," he snapped, "an' it's a pity your mother
wasn't alive instead of you, she could put a patch on in five minutes
any time you asked her, but she never spent her time in roarin' and
bellerin' round after a vote;" and so saying Uncle Jake disappeared,
leaving his grandniece with her pretty pink cheeks deepened to
scarlet, and a spark in her blue eyes.
"The old dog! if he wasn't grandma's brother I'd hate him. It's always
these crawling old things who can do nothing themselves, and have to
be kept by a woman, who are always the worst at trying to make women's
position lower, and talk about them as inferior. He's always after a
woman to do this and to do that, and comparing her--I'd like to see
the woman, mother or father--who could put a patch on those pants in
five minutes."
"There's one way it could be done in the time," I said, calling to
mind a prank related by a gay little friend--"clap it on with
cobbler's wax."
Dawn's eyes danced, and the irritation receded from the corners of the
pretty mouth as, procuring a piece of cloth and a lump of cobbler's
wax, she did the deed in less than five minutes, and Uncle Jake
contentedly received his trousers, while I departed to put in some
more time with my friend Andrew, without telling her there might be a
sequel to patching trousers with cobbler's wax.