At Klondyke and Loose End they were great on celebrations. So very
little except work happened that birthdays wedding-days, and
anniversaries of all sorts wore greeted hilariously, and the various
members of the community took it in turn to hold them at their various
homesteads. A birthday happened to Mrs. Twist--her fortieth. She and
Mr. Twist were the oldest inhabitants of the district and the birthday
was a great occasion. Invitations were passed round from hand to mouth;
about twenty grownups and twice as many children turned up one Saturday
afternoon just before tea at the Homestead, which, decorated in branches
of wattle and boughs of eucalyptus, looked very festive. The gathering
had something of the nature of a surprise party in that most of the
guests brought something to eat or drink. But most of them, in delicate
compliment to the changed fortunes of Loose End, brought not necessities
but luxuries. Jerry's gramophone was still hoarsely valiant; three
Italians from Klondyke, manganese miners, brought mandolines; Jerry had
recently acquired a mouth-organ with bells.
Marcella was always rather depressed about celebrations. Always Louis
said, easily, that he would be safe; always he joined forces with the
hard-bitten, hard-toiling miners who each brought his bottle of whisky
and drank it without ill-effect. She could do nothing to help him: he
resented her anxiety more and more as time went on.
The Homestead had grown. At the south side a big storeroom had been
built: at one end of it flour-bags were stocked, both empty and full, to
serve as seats for the dancers when they were exhausted. The guests sat
long over tea, yarning, chaffing, gossiping and talking business; as it
grew dusk the men sat on the verandah, smoking reflectively, talking
little. In the living room the women all chattered at once. Louis had
been working during the day on the gorse clearing again; until it was
all burnt off it was a constant menace, for wind-blown seeds and
underground leaders seemed to spring up spitefully in the midst of
growing lucerne and wheat. Marcella's beloved garden had had a struggle
against it: so had Mrs. Twist's patch of vegetables, so they were all
making a gigantic effort to uproot the whole thing and get rid of it.
Across the clearing the fire crackled and blazed and died down to a
ruddy glow; in the storeroom Jerry's gramophone led off with "Oh Dry
those Tears," and the youngsters started to dance. A new record was put
on, because "Oh Dry those Tears" was not conducive; the sound of
rhythmically beating feet drew the others towards the ballroom, and
Marcella was left on the verandah listening to the barking of some
half-dozen dogs, brought by the guests and tied up behind the Homestead.
She knew that the massed force of cups and tumblers was not quite
sufficient and decided to wash them before they would be needed for
relays of coffee.
She was feeling very wretched; it was the end of the month; in two days
Louis, already nervy and restless, would get the month's money, either
by persuasion or force, and either vanish for a week or, coming home
every night from Klondyke, reduce her to a state of inarticulate
wretchedness. She was on the point of losing hope entirely. Sometimes it
seemed to her that he drank deliberately now that the first flush of
gratitude and love for her, the first zest of having a son, had worn
off. He lied until she was sickened of the sound of his stammering
voice--for never once did he lie without stammering. If he had not
struggled and been so pitiful she would have given up, then, and been
content to take three weeks' strained peace to one of blank horror. But
his despair when he came out of his hell goaded her to keep on hoping.
She was washing the cups out on the verandah. Those of enamelled tin
Andrew was trusted to carry indoors as she wiped them. She heard a horse
coming along in the distance and guessed that it was a delayed reveller
from Klondyke as she saw a tall man whom she did not recognize make for
the storm centre of things in the ballroom. Clouds of dust and flour
were eddying out of the door in a stream of light from the kerosene
lamp. He dismounted and stood in the haze for a moment. Then he looked
round in bewilderment and caught sight of her. The gramophone was
playing "Rock of Ages."
"Can you tell me what _is_ going on in there? Is it St. Vitus' Dance?"
Marcella looked at him and gave a little shout of laughter.
"No, it's Mrs. Twist's birthday. Didn't you know?"
"How could I? Never heard of her. I'm looking for Mrs. Farne. They lent
me this animal at Klondyke. It seems days ago. They said she knew the
way blindfold. They didn't think to tell me she didn't know it unless
she was blindfold."
Marcella laughed again, and knew who he was.
"If it hadn't been for those fires I should never have got here. But,
perhaps you can tell me where Mrs. Farne lives? They all seemed to know
her at Klondyke."
Marcella pointed towards the glowing gorse.
"That's where I live. I'm Marcella Farne," she said. "But why didn't you
say you were coming? Mr. Twist would have fetched you in his buggy. He
loves meeting people at Cook's Wall because he tries to convince them
that it's a real road he's driving them along. And it isn't, you know."
He sat down on the edge of the verandah, looking distastefully at the
mare, who shook her head impatiently. Marcella gave her water and let
her wander, when she had taken off her saddle and bridle.
"Suppose you hadn't been able to ride. I didn't think Professors had
time for that sort of thing."
"Neither did I till a few hours ago," he said, with a short laugh,
taking out a cigarette-case and offering it to her. She sat down rather
trustfully on a verandah rail Louis had carpentered. Andrew stared at
them both and made off silently towards the noise. "But how did you know
who I was?"
"I only know one other man in the world, you see, and he's an old doctor
in Scotland."
He was watching her as she spoke.
"I see," he said. "And you think you know me?"
"Yes. I know you like I know St. Paul and Siegfried and Parsifal--people
living in my mind all the time. I've talked to you for hours, you
know--hours and hours--"
"It was very good of you to ask me to come. But--embarrassing, you know!
I simply had to come, out of curiosity. To find someone reading one's
lectures right in the heart of the Bush!--"
"I thought you would come," she said, staring at him gravely, "when Dr.
Angus told me what you said about the socialization of knowledge. But I
can hardly believe it's you, even now. Yet somehow you look as if you
could think those last lectures of yours. Before I read those you seemed
tremendously clever and--and rousing. To speak biologically--"
"Oh, please!" he said, smiling. "They've been doing that in Sydney--out
of encyclopedias--!"
"I was going to say that your thoughts always fertilize my brain. But
you must be hungry, so I'll not tell you what I want to about the
lectures yet."
She slipped off the verandah rail and went indoors, leaving the
Professor rather amazed. He was not quite sure whether to think she was
a serious and dull young person, absolutely sincere and very much a
hero-worshipper, or one of the lionizing type he had met in the city. He
was deciding that she was too young for the latter role when she called
him inside the candle-lit room.
"I hope you drink tea. We drink quarts of it here."
He nodded reassuringly.
"There's some beer, too, but the shepherds and old Mike from Klondyke
will have to drink that. It was put into a kerosene tin that hadn't been
boiled and it smells terrible. But they won't notice."
"They'll probably be dead," he remarked.
"Mike drinks methylated spirit and the shepherds have a bottle of
squareface each on Sunday afternoons when Betty and Andrew and I look
after the sheep. Nothing hurts us. We're hard people out here."
"What made you write to me like that?" he asked, still puzzled. "I still
have no idea--"
"I wanted to see you, for one thing. But that's only a small thing. I
can't tell you now. I'm the cook to-day, you see, and they'll be wanting
their supper in a little while. I must go and find somewhere for you to
sleep, too. How long can you stay?"
"I'm not sure," he said guardedly. "I don't want to embarrass you,
however much you embarrass me."
"I'd like you to stay for months," she said simply. "I--we're very
lonely."
The gramophone groaning out the "Merry Widow" waltz seemed to contradict
her words, with its accompaniment of tramping feet, laughter and talk.
"This only happens on birthdays and things. Even then, it's lonely."
"I don't believe you're any more lonely than I," he said.
"I can understand that. I've felt it in your lectures. You're so much
wiser than most people."
"What rubbish!" he said with a laugh, wondering again if she were
sincere. "Much less, very much less wise than most people."
"If you tell me that I'll be wishing you'd not come. I'm counting
everything on your being wiser than other people--and shining--like your
lectures. But Louis once said that people usually _think_ much better
than they can do--"
"That was very penetrating of Louis," he said. Then--"I hope I don't
disappoint you. I do--most people. Women especially--"
"Do you? Why?" she said with her puzzled frown.
"I suppose it's because I'm what you called, in your letter, a student
of life. I like to understand things--and people. Particularly do I like
to understand women. But one finds it impossible to take them seriously,
as a rule."
"I don't know many women--" she began.
"And how many men did you say? Two?" he said, smiling. She shook her
head.
"I'm afraid I take everyone rather seriously."
"It's a mistake," he said. "I used to. But they disappoint one. When I
stopped taking people, women especially, seriously, and made love to
them, I found them quite adorable--"
"It seems silly."
"It's quite a delightful pastime."
They had gone out on the verandah again now, and she looked across at
the lake that glimmered red in the fire-glow.
"You didn't seem to think women a pastime in those lectures of yours
three years ago. You said then that they were man's heel of Achilles.
You seemed rather in a panic about them--"
He nodded his head and, meeting her intent eyes, decided that she had to
be taken seriously. He was just going to speak when she went on:
"But you've got past that now--the panic stage, the pastime stage, the
cynical stage--"
"I suppose you're thinking of those last Edinburgh lectures? They're
the furthest I have got yet. I believe they are a very clever piece of
work, a sort of high-water mark. But there are so many pulls to jerk us
back from the high-water mark, don't you think? And as Louis--wasn't
it?--said, we most of us think better than we do--"
They had reached the haze of the ballroom by this time. People sitting
on the flour-bags sent up white auras which mingled with the dust and
the smoke of strong pipes to make an effective screen. Kraill looked
astonished. Marcella smiled.
"They say Englishmen take their pleasures sadly," he whispered
confidentially. "I don't think they could say the same for Colonials."
"They work so hard, and they like to let off steam sometimes," she said.
"By the way, I must simply say you are a friend from England. If I say
you are someone very wise they'll either be rude to you or frightened of
you. And all the girls will want to dance with you if I say you're from
London. They're mad on dancing, and they'll take it for granted that you
are. They'll expect you to teach them all the new things."
He looked startled as he watched the swaying crowd. It certainly looked
dangerous, if it was not difficult. The gramophone was playing the
"March of the Gladiators"; the mandolines were tinkling anything and the
mouth-organ had given it up entirely, merely punctuating the first beat
of every bar with a thin concussion of the bell. Betty had sprinkled the
floor with a slippery preparation she got from the store, called
"ice-powder."
"Be careful when you cross the floor. It's worse than ice, to make it
easy for those who can't dance. You just cling to someone and slip if
you don't know any steps. Some of them say their slip is a waltz: others
call it a gavotte, and some say it's the tango. Old Mike's very definite
that it's a jig. The great thing is to make the slip coincide with a
groan from the gramophone. Just watch a minute, and you'll see that
there is quite a lot of method in it."
She looked round for Louis, who was in a corner with some of the miners.
By his flushed face, his high voice and hysterical laugh she guessed
that she must try to keep him from seeing Kraill that night. She never
could be quite sure what he would do or say.
Mrs. Twist was pathetically honoured that the "gentleman from England"
should have chosen her birthday for his visit, and Marcella left him
with her.
"It's a pity to be Martha to-night, Professor Kraill," she said in a low
voice. "I want to be Mary--"
She was gone before he could answer.
The noise had made Andrew cross and tired, and she put him to bed in the
hammock under the gum trees, and hitched up her own hammock in the
bedroom next to Louis's. She knew that he would be drunk to-night;
experience had given her a plan of action. She had to pretend to go to
bed with him and stay with him until he was asleep. Then she crept out
into the open air beside the boy.
She tried to transform the storeroom into the semblance of a bedroom,
but it did not occur to her to apologize for discrepancies; she would
not have done so had the king come to visit her: indeed, she considered
that he had, for Kraill had always taken his place in her imagination,
as she had told him, with heroes of romance.
When she got back to the Homestead everyone was ready for supper. They
had to get away early, for most of them had to walk the five miles to
Klondyke. The Professor seemed to be at home with the miners. His air of
intense interest that had so won Dr. Angus' heart had immediately
flattered and enslaved them all. Before they said good night he had
committed himself to visiting them all. Marcella won a good deal of
reflected glory by possessing him as friend.
"Are you tired of us?" she asked him after a while.
"I am very glad I won that toss!" he said.
"Which?"
"I tossed up whether to stay in Sydney or come here"--he stopped sharp,
for it seemed to him that she looked hurt. He decided that, with
Marcella, it would be better to be honest than pleasant.
"As a matter of fact, your letter completely puzzled me. I'm a modest
sort of person, you know. To be asked to help anyone seemed such a
wonderful thing to me that I scarcely believed it. If a man had written
the letter I should have believed it more. But as I told you, I can't
take women seriously--"
"Before you've finished with me you will," she said, and laughed.
She was just going to suggest to him that he was tired and should go to
bed: she was so anxious to get him out of the way before Louis came out
of his corner that she could scarcely talk coherently. But just at that
moment Louis came up to her. He took no notice of Kraill or Mrs. Twist,
who was quite used to him by this time. At the back of Louis's mind was
the obsession that in two days he would draw his pay; half of him was a
blazing hunger for whisky after three weeks' abstinence and hard work
and peace; the other half of him was fighting the desire desperately; he
wanted to win over one of these warring halves to the other; the fact
that he had been drinking all the evening had weakened the finer half;
his brain worked quickly. If he could find some grievance against
Marcella he would be able to excuse himself to himself for getting
drunk, for taking the money that he knew she needed. He wanted
peace--unity within. So he raved at her because the tag had come off his
shoelace, and it was her wifely duty to see that a new lace had been put
into the shoe that morning. From that he went on to the usual gibberish
of French, the usual accusation against men in the neighbourhood, the
usual _mélange_ of Chinese tortures and gruesome operations. From
Kraill's horrified face Marcella saw that he understood more than she
did. She had never been sufficiently morbid to ask anyone to translate
his words for her, even after more than three years of them.
She wondered weakly what would happen. Judging Kraill by her father and
Dr. Angus she knew that his ordinary code of convention could not let
him disregard Louis as the others did, as being merely a rather weak,
silly young man, who "went on the shikker" every month and made many
varieties of a fool of himself. Everyone gave him the mixture of
disgusted toleration and amusement given to a spoilt child who kicks his
nurse in the park, and pounds his toys to pieces. Marcella never talked
about him to anyone; she cut off ungraciously the attempts at
sympathetic pumping made by the women at Klondyke. They concluded that
she did not feel anything since she never cried out. But, looking at
Kraill's face for one fleeting instant Marcella knew that he understood
how sore and shamed she was.
"He's very ill, really," she said in a low voice. "But no one believes
it. They think he's just wicked. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow. I
expect you know without my telling you. But I didn't want you to see him
like this. I've fixed up a bed for you at home. Will you let Jerry show
you the way?"
He decided instantly that she knew her own business better than he did,
and that his desire, both natural and conventional, not to leave a woman
to see a drunken man to bed, was not going to help her.
"Shut your door up tight, please," she said. "He may not go to sleep for
a long time."
He nodded, looked at her to show her that he had begun to take her
seriously, and turned away with Jerry, rather astonished to find himself
dismissed so coolly from the scene. She turned to Louis, forgetting
Kraill. Jerry, who adored Marcella, became very voluble on the subject
of Louis; Kraill listened mechanically to all he was saying as they
crossed the paddock.
It was one of Louis's bad nights; he had been drinking both whisky and
squareface. A letter from his mother, saying how she was longing to see
her grandson, had roused him to great deeds. His fall after such
resolutions was always the more bitter; always it needed more than usual
justification; always Marcella was the scapegoat. She had forgotten
Kraill in the intensity of her misery until, worn out by his ravings,
Louis fell asleep. She knew, then, that he was safe for the rest of the
night and she crept out silently into the cool cleanness of the garden,
closing the door softly. Only his loud, stertorous breathing came to her
with mutterings and groans. The moon had risen and little mist-wreaths
walked in and out among the wonga-vines on the fence: Marcella's golden
flowers with which she had planted the clearing all round the
house--nasturtiums, sunflowers, marigolds and eczcoltzias--shone silvery
and ethereal. The smoke from the dying fires rose in thin white needles,
plumed at the top: out in the Bush a dingo barked shrilly and some small
beast yelped in pain. Andrew stirred and she tucked the clothes round
him, kissing his brown, round arm and fingers, wishing he were awake so
that he could be crushed in her arms and let her bury her aching head on
his wriggling little body for an instant--he was never still for longer.
She sat down on the edge of the verandah, her arm round the post; her
eyes were aching; she felt too tired and helpless to go on living and
yet the relief of having got Louis to sleep was really very great. She
was trying to decide to write to Dr. Angus, asking him to give her some
sort of sleeping draught she could give Louis when he had one of his bad
times; she had forgotten that, in a week's time, all the money would be
spent again and they would be happy for another period: but to-night's
misery, more and more each time, was beginning to shut out pictures of a
peaceful to-morrow, a vindication of faith.
A faint sound behind her made her start in horror, afraid lest he had
wakened. But it was Kraill who was standing quite still looking down at
her.
"Does this sort of thing happen very often?" he said with an air of
intimate interest that reassured her.
"I'd forgotten about you," she said jerkily. "I'm so sorry--if I'd known
you were coming I'd have arranged for you to stay at the Homestead
to-night."
"But does it?"
"He can't help it."
"It can't go on, you know," said Kraill, lighting a cigarette and
throwing it down impatiently.
"I know. That's why I wrote you that letter. He is so unhappy."
Kraill made an impatient gesture. Marcella stood up slowly.
"Are you tired? You must be," she said.
"No. I want to see this thing settled," he said. She felt very hopeful
to hear him speak so determinedly.
"It's queer that you think as I do about that, Professor Kraill," she
said with a faint smile. "People say other's troubles are not their
business. But I think that's a most wicked heresy. I always interfere if
I see people miserable. I can't bear to be blank and uninterested."
"Neither can I. I often get disliked for it, however," he said with a
quick, impatient sigh. "And they don't often accept one's interference."
"I shall," she said gently. "I shall do whatever you tell me if it will
make Louis well. I think that is really all I care about in the world.
Sometimes, even, I think I care more about Louis than Andrew. I've a
feeling that he's much more a little boy than Andrew is. You know, all
my life, since I saw my father very unhappy and ill, I've wanted to save
people--in great droves! And now I'm beginning to think I can't save one
man."
"And you think I can?"
"I'm quite sure of it. People are not wise like you are just for fun.
But will you come along the clearing with me a little way? I'm afraid
our voices will waken Louis, and then he won't get any sleep. That is,
if you're really not tired."
They went through the moon-silvered grass down to the lake. She sat
under the big eucalyptus which clapped its leathery hands softly.
"I was sitting here when I read your lectures--the last ones--and
decided to write to you. It is like--like Mount Sinai to me now. Will
you talk to me out of the thunders, Professor Kraill?"
He looked at her for a moment, recalling the rather heart-breaking
calmness and common-sense with which she had soothed Louis a while ago;
he remembered her cool, patient logic in the midst of the drunken man's
ravings--and he decided in a flash of insight that this rather
rhetorical way of talking to him was very real to her. She saw him with
the dream-endowed eyes of the Kelt and, embarrassing though it might be
to him, and unreal though it made him feel, he had to accept the fact
that, for her, he was clothed in a sort of shine. He saw, too, that she
could not do without some sort of shine in her life.
"Tell me all about it," he said. "You don't mind talking to a stranger
about these things?"
"You have never been a stranger to me, Professor Kraill. And I don't
believe there is such a thing as a stranger, really. I like to think of
the way the knights always went about ready to interfere with a good
stout sword when they saw anyone in trouble."
And so she talked to him, and as she talked his quick mind gained an
impression of her going about sordid ways and small woman tasks in
knightly armour. After awhile he said something unexpected. It made her
impatient for it showed that he was thinking of her. She was thinking
only of Louis.
"You know, you make the years slip away," he said. "I have dreamed that
women might go shoulder to shoulder with men, standing up straight and
strong."
"Yes, I know," she said softly. "I think many a time I've very
deliberately stood up straight when I wanted to lie down and cry my eyes
out, just because I got the idea of a woman knight from those lectures
of yours. And your talk about the softness of women rather goaded me. I
_wouldn't_ be soft."
"Soft! You're not soft," he interrupted.
"But think how expensive it is!" she said with a voice that shook a
little. "It took a lifetime of discipline and two weak men to make me
hard. I know now, very well, that Louis has been softened, weakened by
me. To save him I think I must crumple up."
She caught her breath sharply.
"And I don't see how I can," she added.
"One might pretend," he said slowly, looking reflectively at her face.
"I couldn't. I can't pretend anything. That's the worst of me. And it
seems so wrong to me that, to make one human being strong, another must
be weak. And it seems to me that the weak thing kills the strong in the
end. Like ivy, you know, choking out the life of an oak."
"I don't think he is likely to kill you."
"I very much wish he would, except that I dare not leave him. I have
weighed it all up very carefully, and I feel it would be better to die
than live this way. Sometimes I feel I shall get unclean--right inside.
I can't explain it. There are things in Louis I can't bear--little
meannesses, and selfishnesses. He locks things up--even here, where no
one ever comes. That's a horrible spirit of selfishness, isn't it?"
She told him calmly, uncomplainingly, impersonally as one talks to a
doctor, of his locking up his cigarettes, his tobacco, his writing
paper; of how he carried the only pencil about in his pocket and hid
away the papers from his mother, the books from Dr. Angus until he had
read them. One day last week they had been short of milk, and Marcella
had been anxious about the boy's food. The breakfast was on the table;
she had to run to her bedroom for a bib for Andrew. When she got back
Louis had already poured all the milk into his tea, saying that he had
done it by accident. Another time she had thrown away the boy's tablet
of soap by accident, and could not find it anywhere. Louis had his own
tablet, locked away; there was no other nearer than Klondyke except the
home-made stuff composed of mutton fat and lye, very cruel to tender
skin. And he had made a scene when she asked him for his soap for Andrew
and, when she, too, made a scene threw it away into the scrub where she
could not find it. Little things--little straws that showed the way of
the hurricane.
"You see," she said calmly. "It wouldn't do for me to die, and leave
Andrew to that sort of love, would it? I knew a little boy once who had
to look after his father," and she told him of Jimmy Peters on the ship.
"I think if it came to dying, the only thing would be to take Andrew
along too."
"Don't you think you're being rather conceited?" he said suddenly. "Has
it occurred to you that you're taking too much on yourself? You admit
that you're keeping your husband a parasite. Are you going to do the
same to your child? Are you the ultimate kindliness of the world? You
tell me of your own stern childhood. Has it hurt you? You must be
logical, you know!" he added, smiling at her.
"I think I want Andrew to be happy rather than heroic. Heroism is such a
cold fierce thing. I'm only just realizing what a coward I've been, and
how utterly unheroic my hope in Louis has been. But it's so natural,
isn't it? I didn't dare face the rest of life without the belief that
some day we should be happy. Every time he gets drunk I've told myself,
very decidedly, that this was the last time. And I know I've been lying
to myself because I daren't face the truth."
Kraill smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes.
"I suppose it never occurred to you that, without the drink to consider,
you would not be happy with him?" he said at last.
"Oh yes. We are quite happy in between," she said with a sigh.
"On the edge of things? Always with reservations?" he said quickly.
"Only on the edge of things," she said slowly. "How well you know!"
"I know all about it. I have never been past the edge of things myself.
But always I think I shall be some day. I suppose I am quite twice your
age, and still I am romantic, still I think there's a miracle waiting
for me round the corner of life."
"I used to think that until just a little while ago. I used to think
there would be a day when I should shine. Now I daren't think of it
because I know I never shall. After all, stars and suns and things must
be lonely, don't you think?"
"I don't know."
The moon sank, the dawn wind ruffled the grass and whispered in the tops
of the rustling trees, making soft, eerie sounds.
She stood up suddenly. Unconsciously she held out her hand to help him
up. Then she laughed bitterly, and twisted her hands in each other
behind her.
"I'm sorry. I forgot you didn't need helping up," she said. He looked at
her curiously.
"This is an appalling way to treat a guest," she said as they walked
slowly towards home. "To sit out with him in the middle of the night and
keep him awake. You make me selfish. I've never talked about Louis to
anyone before. You make me dependent, Professor Kraill."
"And that, you say, is what you need."
Louis was calling out thickly, wildly, as they came within distance. She
started and began to hurry. "I wouldn't go in there!" said Kraill
sharply.
"It doesn't worry me now. If I don't go in, he's too frightened to
sleep, and then he'll wake Andrew. And if he doesn't sleep he's very ill
next day. Sleep gets rid of the effects of whisky, you know. Oh just
listen to him! Why can't I do something? You will help me--you must!"
she cried, clutching at his hands for a minute. To his intense distress
he saw her eyes full of tears, and saw her cover them with her hands as
she ran into Louis's room. He stood on the verandah watching her shut
the door. Through the trellis window came sounds of a soft voice and a
wild one mingling.