PINS AND NEEDLES
Slanting mellow sunbeams fell pleasantly upon the animated face of the
Bride, as she stepped lightly across the gangway from the steam-launch
to the lawn; and, for one moment, her tall supple figure stood out
strikingly against the silver river and the pale eastern sky. In that
moment a sudden dimness came over Lady Bligh's soft eyes, and with
outstretched arms she hurried forward to press her daughter to her
heart. It was a natural motherly impulse, but, even if Lady Bligh had
stopped to think, she would have made sure of being met half-way. She
was not, however, and the mortification of the moment was none the
less intense because it was invisible. The Bride refused to be
embraced. She was so tall that it would have been impossible for Lady
Bligh to kiss her against her will, but it never came to that; the
unbending carriage and man-like outstretched hand spoke plainly and at
once--and were understood. But Lady Bligh coloured somewhat, and it
was an unfortunate beginning, for every one noticed it; and the Judge,
who was hurrying towards them across the lawn at the time, there and
then added a hundred per cent of ceremony to his own greeting, and
received his daughter-in-law as he would have received any other
stranger.
'I am very happy to see you,' he said, when Alfred had introduced
them--the Judge waited for that. 'Welcome, indeed; and I hope you have
received agreeable impressions of our River Thames.'
'Oh, rather!' said Gladys, smiling unabashed upon the old gentleman.
'We've no rivers like it in Australia. I've just been saying so.'
Granville, who had been watching for a change in his mother's
expression when she should first hear the Bride speak, was not
disappointed. Lady Bligh winced perceptibly. Judges, however, may be
relied upon to keep their countenances, if anybody may; it is their
business; Sir James was noted for it, and he merely said dryly, 'I
suppose not,' and that was all.
And then they all walked up the lawn together to where tea awaited
them in the veranda. The Bride's dark eyes grew round at sight of the
gleaming silver teapot and dainty Dresden china; she took her seat in
silence in a low wicker chair, while the others talked around her; but
presently she was heard exclaiming:--
'No, thanks, no milk, and I'll sweeten it myself, please.'
'But it's cream,' said Lady Bligh, good-naturedly, pausing with the
cream-jug in the air.
'The same thing,' returned Gladys. 'We never took any on the station,
so I like it better without; and it can't be too strong, if you
please. We didn't take milk,' she turned to explain to Sir James,
'because, in a general way, our only cow was a tin one, and we
preferred no milk at all. We ran sheep, you see, not cattle.'
'A tin cow!' said Sir James.
'She means they only had condensed milk,' said Alfred, roaring with
laughter.
'But our cow is _not_ tin,' said Lady Bligh, smiling, as she still
poised the cream-jug; 'will you not change your mind?'
'No, thanks,' said the Bride stoutly.
It was another rather awkward moment, for it did seem as though Gladys
was disagreeably independent. And Alfred, of all people, made the
moment more awkward still, and, indeed, more uncomfortable than any
that had preceded it.
'Gladdie,' he exclaimed in his airiest manner, 'you're a savage! A
regular savage, as I've told you over and over again!'
No one said anything. Gladys smiled, and Alfred chuckled over his
pleasantry. But it was a pleasantry that contained a most unpleasant
truth. The others felt this, and it made them silent. It was a relief
to all--with the possible exception of the happy pair, neither of whom
appeared to be over-burdened with self-consciousness--when Lady Bligh
carried off Gladys, and delivered her in her own room into the safe
keeping of Miss Bunn, her appointed maid.
This girl, Bunn, presently appeared in the servants' hall, sat down in
an interesting way, and began to twirl her thumbs with great
ostentation. Being questioned, in fulfilment of her artless design,
she said that she was not wanted upstairs. Being further questioned,
she rattled off a string of the funny things Mrs '_H_alfred' had said
to her along with a feeble imitation of Mrs '_H_alfred's' very funny
way of saying them. This is not a matter of importance; but it was the
making of Bunn below stairs; so long as Mrs Alfred remained in the
house, her maid's popularity as a kitchen entertainer was assured.
The Bride wished to be alone; at all events she desired no personal
attendance. What should she want with a maid? A lady's-maid was a
'fixing' she did not understand, and did not wish to understand; she
had said so plainly, and that she didn't see where Miss Bunn 'came
in'; and then Miss Bunn had gone out, in convulsions. And now the
Bride was alone at last, and stood pensively gazing out of her open
window at the wonderful green trees and the glittering river, at the
deep cool shadows and the pale evening sky; and delight was in her
bold black eyes; yet a certain sense of something not quite as it
ought to be--a sensation at present vague and undefined--made her
graver than common. And so she stood until the door was burst suddenly
open, and a long arm curled swiftly round her waist, and Alfred kissed
her.
'My darling! tell me quickly----'
'Stop!' said Gladys. 'I'll bet I guess what it is you want me to tell
you! Shall I?'
'Yes, if you can, for I certainly do want you to tell me something.'
'Then it's what I think of your people!'
'How you like them,' Alfred amended. 'Yes, that was it. Well, then?'
'Well, then--I like your mother. She has eyes like yours, Alfred,
large and still and kind, and she is big and motherly.'
'Then, oh, my darling, why on earth didn't you kiss her?'
'Kiss her? Not _me_! Why should I?'
'She meant to kiss you; I saw she did.'
'Don't you believe it! Even if she had, it would have been only for
your sake. You wait a little bit; wait till she knows me, and if she
wants to kiss me then--let her!'
Alfred was pained by his young wife's tone; he had never before heard
her speak so strangely, and her eyes were wistful. He did not quite
understand her, but he did not try to, then; he varied the subject.
'How about Gran?'
'Oh, that Gran!' cried Gladys. 'I can't suffer him at all.'
'Can't suffer Gran! What on earth do you mean, Gladys?'
'I mean that he was just a little beast in the boat! You think he was
as glad to see you as you were him, because you judge by yourself; but
not a bit of it; I know better. It was all put on with him, and a
small "all" too. Then you asked him to tell me about the places we
passed, and he only laughed at me. Ah, you may laugh at people without
moving a muscle, but people may see it all the same; and I did, all
along; and just before we got here I very near told him so. If I had,
I'd have given him one, you stake your life!'
'I'm glad you didn't,' said Alfred devoutly, but in great trouble.
'_I_ never heard him say anything to rankle like that; I thought he
was very jolly, if you ask me. And really, Gladdie, old Gran's as good
a fellow as ever lived; besides which, he has all the brains of the
family.'
'Perhaps,' said Gladys, softening, 'my old man has got a double share
of something better than brains!'
'Nonsense, darling! But at least the Judge was pleasant; what did you
think of the Judge?'
'I funked him.'
'Good gracious! Why?'
'He's so dreadfully dignified; and he looks you through and
through--not nastily, like Gran does, but as if you were something
funny in a glass case.'
'What stuff and nonsense, Gladdie! You're making me miserable. Look
here: talk to the Judge: draw him out a bit. That's all he wants, and
he likes it.'
'What am I to call him--"Judge"?'
'No: not that: never that. For the present, "Sir James," I think.'
'And what am I to talk about?'
'Oh, anything--Australia. Interest him about the Bush. Try, dearest,
at dinner--to please me.'
'Very well,' said Gladys; 'I'll have a shot.'
And she had one, though it was not quite the kind of shot Alfred would
have recommended--at any rate, not for a first shot. For, on thinking
it over, it seemed to Gladys that, with relation to the Bush, nothing
could interest a Judge so much as the manner of administering the law
there, which she knew something about. Nor was the subject unpromising
or unsafe: it was only her way of leading up to it that was open to
criticism.
'I suppose, Sir James,' she began, 'you have lots of trying to do?'
'Trying?' said the Judge, looking up from his soup; for the Bride had
determined not to be behindhand in keeping her promise, and had opened
the attack thus early.
'As if he were a tailor!' thought Granville. 'Trials, sir,' he
suggested suavely. He was sitting next Gladys, who was on the Judge's
right.
'Ah, trials!' said the Judge with a faint--a very faint--smile. 'Oh,
yes--a great number.'
A sudden thought struck Gladys. She became the interested instead of
the interesting party. She forgot the Bush, and stared at her
father-in-law in sudden awe.
'Are there many murder trials among them, Sir James?'
By the deliberate manner with which he went on with his soup, the
Judge apparently did not hear the question. But Lady Bligh and Alfred
heard it, and were horrified; while Granville looked grave, and
listened for more with all his ears. He had not to wait long. Gladys
feared she had expressed herself badly, and quickly tried again.
'What I mean is--Sir James--do you often have to go and put on the
black cap, and sentence poor unfortunate people to be hung? Because
that can't be very nice, Sir James--is it?'
A faint flush mounted into the Judge's pale cheeks. 'It is not of
frequent occurrence,' he said stiffly.
Granville, sitting next her, might easily have stopped his
sister-in-law by a word or a sign before this; but Alfred was
practically hidden from her by the lamp, and though he tried very hard
to kick her under the table, he only succeeded in kicking footstools
and table-legs; and Lady Bligh was speechless.
The Bride, however, merely thought that Alfred had exaggerated the
ease with which his father was to be drawn out. But she had not given
in yet. That would have been contrary to her nature.
'What a good thing!' she said. 'It would be so--so horrid, if it
happened _very_ often, to wake up and say to yourself, "That poor
fellow's got to swing in a minute or two; and it's me that's done it!"
It would be a terror if that was to happen every week or so; and I'm
glad for your sake, Sir James----'
She broke off suddenly; why, it is difficult to say, for no one had
spoken; but perhaps that was the very reason. At all events, she
remembered her experience of Bush law, and got to her point, now,
quickly enough.
'I was once at a trial myself, Sir James, in the Bush,' she said (and
there was certainly a general sense of relief). 'My own father was
boss--or Judge, if you like--that trip. There were only four people
there; the sergeant, who was jailer and witness as well, father, the
prisoner, and me; I looked on.'
'Is your father a member of the Colonial Bar?' inquired Sir James,
mildly.
'Lord, no, Sir James! He's only a magistrate. Why, he'd only got to
remand the poor chap down to Cootamundra; yet he had to consult
gracious knows how many law-books (the sergeant had them ready) to do
it properly!'
They all laughed; but there was a good deal that ought not to have
been laughed at. A moment before, when her subject was about as
unfortunate as it could have been, she had chosen her mere words with
a certain amount of care and good taste; but now that she was on her
native heath, and blameless in matter, her manner had become
dreadful--her expressions were shocking--her twang worse than ever.
The one subject that she was at home in excited her to an unseemly
degree. No sooner, then, had the laugh subsided than Lady Bligh seized
upon the conversation, hurled it well over the head of the Bride, and
kept it there, high and dry, until the end of dessert; then she sailed
away to the drawing-room with the unconscious offender.
It was time to end this unconsciousness.
'My dear,' said Lady Bligh, 'will you let me give you a little
lecture?'
'Certainly,' said Gladys, opening her eyes rather wide, but won at
once by the old lady's manner.
'Then, my dear, you should never interrogate people about their
professional duties, least of all a judge. Sir James does not like it;
and even I never dream of doing it.'
'Goodness gracious!' cried the Bride. 'Have I been and put my foot in
it, then?'
'You have said nothing that really matters,' Lady Bligh replied
hastily; and she determined to keep till another time some
observations that were upon her mind on the heads of 'slang' and
'twang;' for the poor girl was blushing deeply, and seemed, at last,
thoroughly uncomfortable; which was not what Lady Bligh wanted at all.
'Only, I must tell you,' Lady Bligh continued, 'it _was_ an
unfortunate choice to hit upon the death-sentence for a subject of
conversation. All judges are sensitive about it; Sir James is
particularly so. But there! there is nothing for you to look grieved
about, my dear. No one will think anything more of such a trifle; and,
of course, out in Australia everything must be quite different.'
Gladys bridled up at once; she would have no allowances made for
herself at the expense of her country. It is a point on which
Australians are uncommonly sensitive, small blame to them.
'Don't you believe it!' she cried vigorously. 'You mustn't go blaming
Australia, Lady Bligh; it's no fault of Australia's. It's _my_
fault--_my_ ignorance--_me_ that's to blame! Oh, please to remember:
whenever I do or say anything wrong, you've not to excuse me because
I'm an Australian! Australia's got nothing to do with it; it's me
that doesn't know what's what, and has got to learn!'
Her splendid eyes were full of trouble, but not of tears. With a
quick, unconscious, supplicating gesture she turned and fled from the
room.
A few minutes later, when Lady Bligh followed her, she said, very
briefly and independently, that she was fatigued, and would come down
no more. And so her first evening in England passed over.