The untoward season had not been without its effect upon the thousand
and one gardens that paint, in each vivid delicate hue, with flower
tracery and plant glory, the rocky steeps and fairy nooks which
engirdle Sydney. The undulating lawns were dimmer, the plant masses
less profuse, the showery blooms less dazzling, the trailers less
gorgeous, than in other years. Yet were not the shores of the fair,
wondrous haven, beloved by Ocean for many a long-past æon of lonely
joy, before the bold scion of a sea-roving race invaded its giant
portals, without some tokens of his favour. In the long, throbbing,
burning days, when the sun beat blistering upon the heated roof, the
white pavement, the dusty streets, he summoned from beyond the misty
blue horizon the rushing wind-sisters fresh from the ice-galleries,
the snow-peaks, the frozen colonnades of that lone land where sits
enthroned in dazzling splendour, during days that die not or nights
that never end, the sorceress of the Southern Pole. From their wings,
frost-jewelled, dripped gentlest showers, refreshing the shore, though
they passed not the great mountain range which so long guarded the
hidden treasure-lands of the central waste. Hot and parched, compared
with former seasons, the autumn seemed endless, yet were the gardens
and shrubberies of Morahmee so comparatively verdant and fresh, from
their proximity to the sea, that Ernest would have hailed it as an Eden
of greenest glory, in comparison with the ‘sun-scorched desert brown
and bare’ which Rainbar had long resembled.
Among the inhabitants of Sydney who made daily moan against the slow
severity of the hopeless season (and who had in some cases good cause,
in diminished incomes and receding trade, for such murmurings), Paul
Frankston, to his great surprise, found his daughter to be enrolled.
This occurrence, involving as he thought a radical change of
disposition, if not of character, much alarmed the worthy merchant.
Calm and resolute, if occasionally variant of mood, Antonia Frankston
had hitherto been one of the least querulous of mortals. Sufficiently
cultured to comprehend that the stupendous laws of the universe were
not controlled by the fancied woe or weal of feeble man, she had never
sympathised with the unmeaning deprecation of climatic occurrences.
‘The wind and the weather are in God’s hands,’ she had once answered
to some shallow complainer. ‘What are we that we should dare to blame
or praise? Besides, I am a sailor’s daughter, and at sea they take the
weather as it comes.’
In other matters, which could be set right by personal supervision or
self-denial, she held it to be most unworthy weakness to make bitter
outcry or vain lamentation. ‘If the evil can be repaired, why not
at once commence the task? If hopeless, then bear it with firmness.
Provide against its recurrence, if you like; but, in any case, what
possible good can talking or, more correctly, whining do? That is the
reason why men so often despise women, so often suffer from them. Look
at _them_ when anything goes wrong,—how hard they work, how little
they talk! Perhaps they smoke the more. But even that has the virtue
of silence, and therefore of wisdom. Talk is a very good thing in the
right place, but when things go wrong, it is _not_ in its right place.’
In former days of autumn, when the rains came not, when the
flowers drooped, when bad news came from Paul Frankston’s pastoral
constituents, and that worthy financier was troubled in mind, or smoked
more than his proper allowance of cigars over the consideration of the
state of trade, it was Antonia who invariably cheered and consoled him.
She pointed out the triumphs of the past; she steadfastly counselled
trust in the future; she soothed the night with her songs; she cheered
the day with unfailing ministration to his comfort and habitudes.
Now, curiously, the old man thought his darling was different from what
he had ever recollected. She suffered repinings to escape her as to the
weary rainless season. She did not deny or controvert his occasional
grumbling assertions, after a hot day in the city, that the whole
country was going to the bad. She was, wonder of wonders, occasionally
irritable with the servants, and impatient of their shortcomings. She
kept her books unchanged and apparently unread for a time unprecedented
in Mr. Shaddock’s experience.
Mr. Frankston could not by any means comprehend this deflection of
his daughter’s equable mental constitution. After much consideration
he came to the conclusion that she wanted change of air—that the
depressing hot season was telling upon her health for the first time in
his recollection; and he cast about for an eligible chance to send her
to some friends in Tasmania, where the keener air, the somewhat more
bracing island climate, might restore her to the animation which he
feared she was losing day by day.
He thought also, amid his loving plans and plottings for his daughter’s
welfare, that possibly she needed the stimulus of additional society.
They had been living quietly at Morahmee of late, and the season of
comparative gaiety, which in Sydney generally dates from the birthnight
of the Empress of Anglo-Saxondom, had not as yet arrived.
‘We want a little rousing up,’ thought poor Paul; ‘we have had no
little dinners lately, no one in the evenings. I have been thinking
over this confounded season and these bothering bills till I have
forgotten my own darling, but for whose sake the whole country might be
swallowed up in Mauna Loa, for all old Paul cares. I shouldn’t say that
either; but it seems hard that anything should ail the poor darling
that care might have prevented. If her mother had lived—ah!’ and here
Paul fell a-thinking, until the wheels of the dogcart grated against
the pavement near the office door.
Thus it so chanced that, towards the end of the week, occurred one of
the little dinners for which Morahmee was famous, with a ‘whip’ of
certain musical celebrities of the neighbourhood, and as many ordinary
guests as made a successful compromise between all ‘music,’ which
sometimes hath not ‘charms’ for the masculine breast, and a regulation
evening party, which would have been an anachronism.
Among the guests for whom Paul, in his anxiety for a healthful
distraction for Antonia, had swept the clubs and the hotels, were Mr.
Hardy Baldacre and Jermyn Croker. Squatters were scarce in Sydney
beyond previous experience. They were all at home on their stations
attending to their stock, except those who were in town attending to
their bills. These last were chiefly indisposed to society. They dined
at their clubs or hotels after half a day’s waiting in the manager’s
ante-chamber, and felt more inclined for the repose of the smoking-room
than for the excitement of the society.
Mr. Hardy Baldacre had managed to come to town, however, without such
anxieties of a pecuniary nature as interfered with his amusements. Of
these he partook of as full measure of every kind and description as
he could procure cheaply. He had early developed a taste for pleasure,
controlled only by considerations of caution and economy. Those who
knew him well disliked him thoroughly, and with cause. Those who met
him occasionally, as did Mr. Neuchamp and Paul Frankston, saw in him a
well-dressed, good-looking man, with an affectation of good-humour and
liberality by no means without attraction. Paul _had_ heard assertions
made to his disadvantage, but not having bestowed much thought upon the
matter, had not gone the length of excluding him from his invitation
list; on this occasion he had been rather glad to fill up his table.
Mr. Jermyn Croker, as usual, had constituted himself an exception to
ordinary humanity by remaining at his club during the terrible season
which sent the most ardent lovers of the metropolis to their distant
duties. In explanation he stated that either the whole country would
be ruined or it would not. He frankly admitted that he inclined to the
first belief. If the former state of matters prevailed, what was the
use of living in the desert till the last camel died and the last well
was choked? No human effort could avert the final simoom, which was
evidently on its way to engulf pastoral Australia. Now, here at the
club (though the wines were beastly, as usual, and the committee ought
to be sacked) there would be a little claret and ice available to the
last. He should remain and perish, where, at least, a club waiter could
see to your interment.
Such was Mr. Jermyn Croker’s faith, openly professed in club and
counting-house. But those who knew him averred that he took good
care to have one of the best overseers in the country at his head
station, whose management he kept up to the mark by weekly letters of
so consistently depreciatory a nature that nobody expected _he_ would
survive the season, whatever the issue to others. ‘Died of a bad season
and Jermyn Croker’ had, indeed, been an epitaph written in advance and
forwarded to him by a provincial humorist.
Hartley Selmore had also been found available. He, indeed, could not
very well remain away from financial headquarters. So many of his
unpaid orders and acceptances, with the ominous superscription ‘Refer
to drawer,’ found their way to bank and office by every mail from the
interior, that a residence in the metropolis was vitally necessary. In
good sooth, his unflagging energy and great powers of resource, under
the presence of constant emergency, were equal to the demand made upon
them. With the aid of every device of discount and hypothecation known
to the children of finance, he managed to keep afloat. His day’s work,
neither light nor easy of grasp, once over, the philosophical Hartley
enjoyed his dinner, his cigar, his whist or billiards, as genuinely as
if he had not a debt in the world, and was always ready for a _petit
dîner_ if he distrusted not the wine.
This dinner was, as usual, perfect in its way. The cooking at Morahmee
was proverbial; the wines were too good for even Jermyn Croker to
grumble at—had he done so he would have imperilled his reputation
as connoisseur, of which he was careful; the conversation of the
guests, at first guarded and unsympathetic, rose into liveliness
with the conclusion of the first course, and, simultaneously with
the circulation of Paul’s unrivalled well-iced vintage, became more
adventurous and brilliant.
‘Where is our young friend Neuchamp?’ inquired Hartley Selmore. ‘I
haven’t seen him for an age.’
‘Gone to the bad long ago, hasn’t he?’ replied Croker, with an air of
pleasing certainty.
‘Heard he had bought a terribly overrated place on the Darling,’ said
Selmore. ‘Very sharp practice of Parklands. Too bad of him—too bad,
wasn’t it, now?’
‘Was it as good a bargain as Gammon Downs, Mr. Selmore?’ inquired
Antonia, with a faint resemblance to former archness that lit up her
melancholy features. ‘I am afraid there is not much to choose between
you hardened pioneers when there is a newly-landed purchaser signalled.’
‘Really, Miss Frankston, really!’ replied Selmore, with a fine
imitation of the chivalrous and disinterested; ‘you do some of us
injustice. In all this dreadful season, I assure you, the creeks
at Gammon Downs are running like English brooks, and the grass is
green—absolutely green!’
‘Why, what colour should it be, Mr. Selmore—blue or magenta? But you
know that I am an Australian, and therefore must have learned in the
many conversations which have passed in my hearing about station
matters that “green grass country” is generally spoken disrespectfully
of, and “permanent water” is not everything. But we will not continue
the rather worn subject.‘
‘I fancy Neuchamp can’t be doing so badly,’ cut in Hardy Baldacre, with
his customary assurance, ‘for I hear he is going to be married.’
‘Married!’ echoed Antonia, as she felt the tide of life arrested in
her veins for one moment, and, with the next, course wildly back to
her beating heart. ‘Married, Mr. Baldacre, and why not? But papa often
hears from him, don’t you, pappy, and he never mentioned it.’
‘Mentioned it! I should think not,’ growled Paul, with a leonine
accent, as scenting danger. ‘I heard from him, let me see, a month or
two back. I don’t believe a word of it. Who to?’
‘Well, _I saw the young lady_,’ persisted Baldacre, wholly unabashed,
while he noted Antonia’s pale and unmoved features. ‘I went up in the
coach with her, half way to Rainbar. She’s a cousin of his own; same
name. Just out from England, and ever so rich.’
‘How the deuce should she go alone up to Rainbar?’ said Paul, full
of doubt and dread. ‘Surely _we_ should have heard of her, when she
landed.’
‘She told me that she made up her mind suddenly to come out to him—did
not let him know, and only stayed a week in Sydney, at Petty’s.’
‘Most romantic!’ said Antonia, driving the unseen dagger more deeply
into her heart, after the fashion of her sex, but smiling and forcing
a piteous and unreal gaiety; ‘and was she fair to look upon—a blonde
or brunette? Mr. Baldacre, you were evidently in her confidence; you
cannot escape a description.’
‘She was very good-looking indeed,’ said the ruthless Hardy, who had
been struck with Augusta’s fresh complexion and insular manner. ‘She
wore a gold eyeglass, which looked odd; but she was very clever, and
all that kind of thing, as any one could see.’
‘Even Mr. Baldacre,’ said Antonia, with a sarcastic acknowledgment.
‘You must have had a delightful journey. You will tell me any other
particulars that occur to you in the drawing-room. I feel quite
interested.’
Here the faint signal passed which proclaims the withdrawal of the lady
_convives_ and the temporary separation of the sexes. What mysterious
rites are celebrated above by the assembled maids and matrons, freed
awhile from the disturbing influence of the male element? Does a wholly
unaffected, perhaps unamused expression possess those lovely features,
erst so full of every virtue showing forth in every look? Do they
exchange confidences? Do they _trust_ each other? Do they doff their
uniforms, and appear unarmed, save with truth, innocence, simplicity?
_Quien sabe?_
It may not have been apparent to the lady guests, to whose comfort and
enlivenment Antonia was so assiduous, so delicately, yet so unfailingly
attentive in her _rôle_ of hostess, that Miss Frankston’s heart was
beating, her head aching, her temples throbbing, her pulse quickened,
to a degree which rendered the severest mental effort necessary to
avoid collapse. They heeded not the faint smile, the piteous quivering
lip, the sad eyes, while words of mirth, of compliment, of entreaty,
flowed rapidly forth, as she played her part in the game we call
society. But when the small pageant was over and the last carriage
rolled away she threw her arms round old Paul’s neck, and resting her
head upon that breast which had cherished her, with all a woman’s love,
and but little short of a woman’s tenderness, since her baby days of
broken doll and lost toy, she lay in his clasp and sobbed as if her
heart—poor overburdened, loving, despairing heart—was in verity, then
and there, about to break.
‘My darling, my darling! my own precious pet, Antonia!’ said the old
man, kissing her forehead, and wiping the tears from her eyes, as he
had done many a time and oft in the days of her childish grief. ‘I know
your sorrow and its cause; but do not be too hasty. We do not know if
this loose report be true. It is most unlikely and improbable to me;
though, if it be true, Paul Frankston is not the man to suffer this
wrong to lie a day without—without claiming his right. But do not take
it for proved truth till further tidings come.’
‘It _is_ true—it is true,’ moaned Antonia. ‘I had a foreboding. I have
been so wretched of late—so unlike your daughter, my dearest father.
How could Hardy Baldacre have invented such a story? Why did he not
give his—his betrothed—our address, if he had no—no—reason to do
otherwise?’ sobbed poor Antonia.
‘I can’t say—I don’t know—hang her and her eyeglass—and the day I
first saw him enter this house! But, no, I cannot hate the boy, whose
pleasant face so often made a second youth for me. I hate taking things
for granted; I must have proof before I—and then—Go to bed, my darling,
go to bed; I will tell you what I think in the morning.’
It was well for Miss Frankston, perhaps, that the intense pain towards
which her headache had gradually culminated rendered her for a while
unable to frame any mental processes. As she threw herself upon the
couch she was conscious of a crushing feeling of utter darkness and
blank despair, which simulated a swoon.
She awoke to a state of mind to her previously unknown. In her breast
conflicting emotions passionately contended. Chief among them was the
bitter disappointment, the indignant sense of slight and betrayal,
endured by every woman who, conscious that each inmost sacred feeling
of her heart has been given to the hero of her choice, has been
deliberately forsaken for another.
True, no word of love, no promise, no seeking of favour on one side, no
half denial, half granting of precious gifts, had passed between them.
In one sense, the world would have held him harmless, while friends
and companions of her own sex, prone always to decry and distrust all
feminine victims, would most certainly hint at mistaken feelings,
delusive hopes, on her part—would be ready to welcome and to tempt the
successful purloiner of a sister’s heart, the unpunished wrecker of a
sister’s happiness.
But was there no tacit agreement, no unwritten bond, no fixed and
changeless contract, slowly but imperceptibly traced in characters
faint and pale, then clearer, fuller, deepening daily to indelible
imprint on her heart—upon his, surely upon his? Were the outpourings of
the hitherto sacred thoughts, feelings, emotions, from the innermost
receptacles of an unworn, untempted nature, to be reckoned as the idle,
meaningless badinage of society? Were the friendly counsels, the deep,
unaffected interest, the frank brotherly intercourse, all to pass for
nothing—to be translated into the careless courtesy affected by every
formal visitor?
And yet, again, did not such things happen every day? Her own
experience was not so limited but that she had known more than one pale
maiden, weary of life, sick unto death for a season, unable as a fever
patient to simulate ordinary cheerfulness because of the acted, if not
spoken, falsehood of man. Had she pitied these too confiding victims,
these hopeless, uncomplaining invalids, maimed in the battle of life,
hiding the mortal wound from human gaze, bearing up with trembling
steps the burden of premature age and sorrow?
Had not her pity savoured of contempt—her kindness of toleration?
and now, lo! it was her own case. But could it be _herself_—Antonia
Frankston, who from childhood had felt no want that wealth and
opportunity could supply? who had never known a slight or felt an
injury since childhood’s hour? to whom all sorrow and sufferings
incidental to what books and fanciful persons called ‘love’ were as
practically unknown as snow blindness to an inhabitant of the Sahara?
Was she a wronged, insulted, deserted woman like those others? It was
inconceivable! it was phantasmal! it was impossible! She would sleep,
and with the dawn the ghastly fear would be fled. Perhaps this dull
pain in her throbbing temples, this darksome mysterious heart-agony,
would leave her. Who knows?
It is wonderful how much is taken for granted every day in this world,
more especially in the interest of evil devices.
Mr. Hardy Baldacre would have been sorely puzzled by a
cross-examination, but no one had presence of mind to put it to the
proof. He was rapid in conceiving his plans, wonderfully accurate and
thoughtful in carrying them through. His endowments were exceptional
in their way. Bold, even to audacity, he never hesitated; cunning and
unscrupulous, he pursued his schemes, whether for money-making or
for personal aggrandisement of the lower sort, with a swift and sure
directness worthy of more exalted aim. Undaunted by failure, he was
careless of partial loss of reputation. He was known by the superficial
crowd as a successful operator whenever there was a bargain to be had
in stock or station property. He was shunned and disliked by those
better informed and more scrupulous in their acknowledgment of friends,
as a gambler, a niggard, and a crafty profligate.
Such was the man who had succeeded, by a lying device, in working
present evil—it may be, incalculable future misery—to two persons
who had never injured him. In this deliberate fabrication he had two
ends in view. He secretly envied and disliked Ernest Neuchamp for
qualities and attainments which he could never hope to rival. He was
one of a class of Australians who cherish an ignorant prejudice against
Englishmen, regarding them as conceited and prone to be contemptuous
of the provincial magnate. With characteristic cunning he had kept
this feeling to himself, always treating Mr. Neuchamp with apparent
friendliness. But he was none the less determined to deal him an
effectual blow when an opportunity should offer. The time had come,
and he had struck a felon blow, which had pierced deeply the pure,
passionate heart of Antonia Frankston.
He had for some time past honoured that young lady with his very
questionable approbation. He admired her personally after his fashion;
but he thoroughly appreciated and heartily desired to possess himself
of what constituted in his eyes her crowning charm and attribute—the
large fortune which Paul Frankston’s heiress must, in spite of all
changes of season and fluctuation of securities, inevitably inherit.
Not unskilled in the ways of women, with whom his undeniable good
looks and his prestige of wealth gave him a certain popularity, he
thought he saw his way during her period of anger and mortification
to a dash at the lady and the money, which needed but promptness and
resolution to ensure a strong chance of success.
He saw by her change of countenance, by her forced gaiety, by her every
look and tone, that the barbed arrow had sped far and been surely
lodged.
‘Neuchamp, like a fool as he was, had evidently not written lately. The
cousin (and a deuced fine girl, too, with pots of money of her own)
had been staying up at Rainbar—a queer thing to do. Old Middleton,
when bringing her to his place, had told every one that she was his
friend Neuchamp’s cousin. It would be some time before Frankston or his
daughter would find out the untruth of the report. In the meantime he
would butter up the old man, humbug him with regret for his occasional
“wildness,” promise all kinds of amendment and square behaviour for
the future; then go straight to the girl, who, of course, could know
nothing of his life and time, and say, “Here am I, Hardy Baldacre, with
a half share in Baredown, Gogeldra, and No-good-damper (hang it; I must
change that)—anyway, three of the best cattle properties of the south;
here am I, not the worst-looking fellow going, at your service. Take
me, and we’re off to Melbourne or Tasmania for a wedding-trip, and that
stuck-up beggar Neuchamp may marry his cousin, and go up King Street
the next week for all we care.” I shan’t say the last bit. But it will
occur to her. Women always think of everything, though they don’t say
it. That might fetch her. Anyhow, the odds are right. I’m on!’
This exceedingly practical soliloquy having been transacted at his
hotel during the performance of his toilette, Mr. Baldacre partook
of the matutinal soda-and-brandy generally necessary for the perfect
restoration of his nerves, and breakfasted, with a settled resolution
to call at Morahmee that afternoon.
This intention he carried out. He found Antonia apparently not
unwilling to receive him upon a more intimate conversational footing
than he ever recollected having been accorded to him. She was in that
state of anxiety, unhappiness, and nervous irritability which makes the
patient only too willing to fly to the relief afforded by a certainty
even of evil. The climber upon Alpine heights, with shuddering
death-cry, ever and anon casts himself into the awful chasm on the
verge of which his limbs trembled and his overwrought brain reeled.
The overtaxed sufferer under the pangs of mortal disease chooses death
rather than the continuance of the pitiless torment. So the agonised
heart, poised on the dread pinnacle of doubt, flees to the Lethean
peace of despair.
Having not unskilfully brought the conversation round to the subject
of Miss Neuchamp, Mr. Baldacre touched, with more or less humour, on
certain unguarded remarks of that inexperienced but decided traveller.
He enlarged, as if accidentally, upon her good looks and apparent
cleverness, giving her the benefit of a tremendous reputation for
learning of the abstrusest kind, and generally exaggerating all
the circumstances which might render probable the admiration of an
ultra-refined aristocrat.
Much of this delicate finesse, as Mr. Baldacre considered it to be,
was transparent and despicable in the eyes of his listener. But,
difficult as it may be to account for, otherwise than by ignoring
all known rules and maxims for the comprehension of that mysterious
mechanism, the feminine heart, there was, nevertheless, something not
wholly disagreeable in the outspoken admiration of the bold-eyed, eager
admirer who now pressed his suit.
With one of the sudden, tempestuously capricious changes of mind,
common to the calmest as to the most impulsive individual of the
irresponsible sex, a vague, morbid desire for finality at all hazards
arose in her brain. She had listened and loved, and waited and dreamed,
and dedicated her leisure, her mental power, her _life_, to the path
of habit and culture which would render her every thought and speech
and act more harmonious with his ideal. She had thought but of him. He
had his plans, his projects, a man’s career, his return to England—a
thousand things to distract him—all these might delay the declaration
of his love. But she had never thought of _this_! She had never in
wildest flight of conjecture conjured up a _fiancée_, a cousin loved
from earliest child-betrothals, to whom he doubtless had written
pages of minute description of all their well-intended kindness and
provincial oddities at Morahmee.
And was she to sigh and droop, and pale and wither, beneath the
unexplained, unshared burden of betrayed love? Had she not seen the
colour fade from the fair cheek, leaving a cold ashen-gray tint where
once was bright-hued joy, eager mirth, and laughter? Had she not
seen the light die out of the pleading, wistful eyes, once so deeply
glowing, so tender bright, the step fall heavy, the voice lose its
ring, the _woman_ quit the haunted dwelling where a dead heart lay
buried and a still, gray-hued, hard-toned tenant sat therein, for
evermore resignedly indifferent to all things beneath the sky? Was this
her near inexorable fate?
No! a thousand times, no! Had she not in her veins the bold blood of
Paul Frankston, the fearless sea-rover, who had more than once awed a
desperate crew by the promptness of his weapon and the terror of his
name? And was she to sink into social insignificance, and tacitly sue
for the pity of _him_ and others, because she had mistaken his feelings
and he had with masculine cruelty omitted to consider hers?
No! again, no! The rebellious blood rushed to her brow, as she vowed
to forget, to despise, to trample under foot, the memory, false as a
broken idol, to which she had been so long, so blindly faithful. And
as all men save one—for even in that hour of her wrath and misery
she could not find it in her heart to include her father among the
reprobate or despicable of his sex—were alike unworthy of a maiden’s
trust, a maiden’s prayers, why not confide herself and her blighted
heart to the custody of this one, who, at least, was frank and
unhesitating in proffering his love and demanding her own?
Mr Hardy Baldacre had not thought it expedient to delay bringing
matters to a climax, fearing that highly inconvenient truth, with
respect to the fair Augusta, might arrive at any moment. With
well-acted bluntness of sincerity he had adjured Miss Frankston to
forgive his sudden, his unpremeditated avowal of affection.
‘He was a rough bushman,’ he confessed, ‘not in the habit of hiding
his feelings. On such a subject as this he could not bear the agony
of anxiety or delay. He must know his fate, even if the doom of
banishment, of just anger at his imprudence, went forth against him.
He expected nothing else. But if, before condemning him to go back to
his far-off home (little she knew of its peculiar characteristics)
a lonely, despairing man, she would only give consideration to his
claims, rashly but respectfully urged, she might deign to accept a
manly heart, the devotion of a life that henceforth, in good or had
fortune, was hers, and hers only.’
Mr. Hardy Baldacre had an imposing, stalwart figure, by no means
unfashionably attired, and Nature, while unsolicitous about his moral
endowments, had gifted him with a handsome face. If not in the bloom
of youth, he had not passed by a day the matured vigour of early
manhood. As he bent his dark eyes upon Antonia and poured forth his not
entirely original address, but which, heard in the tones of a pleading
flesh-and-blood lover, sounded a deal better than it reads, Antonia
felt a species of mesmeric attraction to the fatal and irrevocable
‘yes,’ which should open a new phase of life to her and obliterate the
maddening, hopeless, endless past. _For one moment_, for one only, the
fate of Antonia Frankston wavered on the dread eternal balance. She
fluttered, birdlike, under the fascination of his serpentine gaze. Her
words of regret and courteous dismissal refused to find utterance. At
length she said, ‘I must have time to consider your flattering but
quite unexpected offer. You will, I am sure, not press for an immediate
answer. I will see you again. Meanwhile let me tell you that I value
your good opinion, and shall always recall with pleasure your very kind
intention of to-day.’
But, with that still hour of evening meditation in which Antonia
was wont to indulge before retiring, came calmer, humbler, more
tranquillising thoughts. As she sat at her chamber window, looking out
over the wide waters of the bay, in which a crescent moon caused the
endless bright expanse of tremulous silver, the frowning headlands,
the garden slopes, to be all clearly, delicately visible,—as she heard
the rhythmical, solemn cadence of the deep-toned eternal surge,—she
recalled the moon-lighted eves, the soul-to-soul communing, of ‘that
lost time.’
A strong reactionary feeling occupied her heart. It seemed as if, like
the rushing of the tide, the stormy sway of the ocean she loved so
well, her heart had surged in rising tempest and with passion’s flow,
to ebb with yet fuller retrogression. Surely such were the words of
this murmuring sea-song on the white midnight strand, which calmed, as
with a magic anodyne, her restless, rebellious mood.
‘I have been wayward and wicked,’ she half sighed to herself, ‘false to
my better self, to the teaching of a life, unmindful of my duty to my
father, who loves me better than life, of my duty to One above, who has
shielded and cherished me, all undeserving as I am, up to this hour. I
will repent of my sin. I will abase myself, and by prayer and penitence
seek strength where alone it can be found.’
It was long ere Antonia Frankston sought her couch; but she slept for
the first time that night, since a serpent trail had passed over the
Eden flowers of her trusting love, with an untroubled slumber and a
resolved purpose.
Pale, but changed in voice and mien, was she when she joined her father
at breakfast.
‘I see my little girl’s own face again,’ said Paul, as he embraced
her, with tenderest solicitude in every line of his weather-beaten
countenance. ‘I thought I had lost her. She must not be hasty; she was
never so before. All may come right in the end.’
‘I have been a very naughty girl,’ said she, with a quiet sob,
‘ungrateful, too, and wicked. I have come to my senses again. It must
have been the dreadful drought, I think, which is going to be the ruin
of us all, body and mind. Fancy losing one’s daughter, as well as one’s
money, because of a dry season!’
This small pleasantry did not excite Paul’s risible muscles much, but
he was more pleased with it than with a volume of epigrams. It showed
that experienced mariner, accustomed to slightest indications of wind
and wave, that a change of weather had set in. His soul rejoiced as he
took his daughter in his arms and exclaimed, ‘My darling, my darling,
your mother is with the angels, but she watches over you still. Think
of her when your old father is too far off or too dull to advise you.
If she had lived——’ But here there were tears in the old man’s eyes,
and the rugged features worked in such wise as to fashion a mask upon
which no living man had ever gazed. There was a long confession. Once
more every thought of Antonia Frankston’s heart lay unfolded before her
parent.
That morning, before driving, as usual, to the counting-house, Mr
Frankston sought the Royal Hotel, and, upon business of importance,
obtained an interview with Mr. Hardy Baldacre ere that ‘talented but
unscrupulous’ aspirant had completed his breakfast.
So decided was the assurance imparted by his visitor that, with
all possible appreciation of the honour conferred, Miss Frankston
felt herself compelled to decline his very flattering offer, that
Mr. Baldacre knew instinctively that any further investment of the
Morahmee fortress was vain, if not dangerous. He condoled with his
early visitor about the state of the season, congratulating himself
audibly that his runs were understocked, and that he had no bills to
meet like some people; and finally accompanied Mr. Frankston to the
door, with a friendly leave-taking, to be succeeded by a bitter oath as
he lighted a cigar and paced the well-known balcony.
‘She has told her father. I saw the old boy was down to every move I
had made. Knowing old shot, too, in spite of his politeness and humbug.
I’d have hacked myself, too, at a short price, if I had had only
another week’s innings. They may have heard something, or that fool
Neuchamp is coming down and leaving everything to go to the devil. I
had a good show, too. I thought I held trumps. Never mind, there are
lots of women everywhere. One more or less don’t make much difference.
Of course, it was the “tin” that fetched me, but I don’t see that
I need care so much about that. I think that I shall make tracks
to-morrow.‘
On the morning following that of Mr. Baldacre’s unlucky piece of
information Paul Frankston lost no time in applying to headquarters
for information. He, ‘with spirit proud and prompt to ire,’ would, a
quarter of a century before, probably have smote first and inquired
after. ‘But age had tamed the Douglas blood,’ and even if its current
still coursed hotly on occasion, the experience of later manhood called
loudly for plain proof and full evidence before he adopted the strange
tale which had been told at his board.
Suspending all thought of what he might chance if _any man_ were proved
to have trifled with his darling’s heart, he simply wrote as follows:
SYDNEY, _10th April 18—_.
DEAR ERNEST—We have heard a report down here—brought to our table, in
fact, by Hardy Baldacre, a man you know a little—that you are engaged
and about to be married shortly to a young lady, a cousin of your own,
just arrived from England. Also that Miss Neuchamp left Sydney for
Rainbar, after a week’s stay, and was seen by him on the way there in
a coach.
For reasons which can be hereafter explained, I wish you to send me
a specific admission or denial of this statement. I will write you
again upon receipt of your reply to this letter. I am, always yours
sincerely,
PAUL FRANKSTON.
E. NEUCHAMP, Esq.
On the following evening, after sending this, the most laconic
epistle which had ever passed between them, Paul no sooner beheld his
daughter’s face than he saw shining in her eyes the light of recovered
trust, of renewed hope, of restored belief in happiness.
‘She must have received a letter,’ mused the sagacious parent. ‘Where
is it, my darling?’ said he aloud.
‘Where is what?’ she replied, with a sweet air of embarrassment, pride,
and mystery commingled.
‘Of course you have had a letter, or heard some news. I took the chance
of the little bird’s whisper coming by post. I think I am right.’
‘Here it is, you wicked magician. Antonia will never have another
secret from her dear old father. What agonies I suffered for my
hard-heartedness! And oh, what have I escaped!’
Here was the letter, with a mere stamp thereon, which contained such a
fortune in happiness as should have entitled the Government to a round
sum on the principle of legacy duty:
RAINBAR, _4th April 18—_.
MY DEAR ANTONIA—This letter will probably reach Sydney some days, or
weeks even, before a young lady, for whom I entreat your friendship
and kind offices. [H—m.] When I say that she is Augusta Neuchamp, my
cousin, and my only relation in Australia, I feel certain that I need
not further recommend her to you and the best of fathers and friends.
[H—m.]
You will acknowledge her to be a refined and intelligent woman, that
goes _sans phrase_, I should hope, and no truer heart, with more
thoroughly conscientious acceptance of duty, ever dwelt in one of her
sex. [H—m.]
But, writing to you with the confidence of old and tender friendship,
I may as well state, delicately but decidedly, that Augusta and I have
been utterly unsympathetic from our childhood, and must so remain to
the end of the chapter. [Oh dear! surely I can’t have read aright.]
Even at Rainbar, to which rude retreat she posted with her usual
impetuosity, without giving me the opportunity of forbidding her, we
had our old difficulty about preserving the peace (conversationally),
and once or twice I thought we should have come to blows, as in our
childish days. [Thank Heaven! Oh, oh!]
You know I am not given to dealing hardly with your sex, whatever may
be their demerits, and of course I am not going to abuse my cousin in
a strange land; but I am again trusting to your perfect comprehension
of my real meaning, when I say that, companionably, Augusta appears to
me to be the _only woman_ in the world I cannot get on with. [Blessed
girl, dear, charming Augusta—I love you already!]
Of course, as soon as she left Rainbar (we were on very short commons
of politeness by that time) I resolved to write and ask you to take
her in at Morahmee, and show her Sydney and our _monde_, in the
existence of which she disbelieves. You must be prepared for her
abusing everything and everybody. But I know no one who can more
gently and effectually refute her prejudices than yourself, my dear
Antonia. You even subjugated Jermyn Croker, I remember. By the bye,
have him out to meet Augusta. She admires his file-firing style of
attack. Perhaps they may neutralise each other’s ‘arms of precision.’
[Do anything for her—ask the Duke to meet her, if she would like!]
I feel that I am writing a most indefensibly long letter. But I am
very lonely, and rather melancholy, with ruin taking the place of
rain—only one letter of difference—and advancing daily. Were it not
so, I would, as the Irishman said, bring this letter myself. Oh, for
an hour again in the Morahmee verandah, with your father smoking, the
stars, the sea, the soft tones of the music, of a voice always musical
in my ear! Ah me! it will not bear thinking of. It is midnight now,
yet I can see a cloud of dust rising, as my men bring an outlying lot
of cattle to the yard. [‘Poor fellow! poor, poor Ernest!’ sighed the
voice referred to.]
I know you will be kind and _forbearing_ with Augusta. She will
not remain long in Australia. I think you will appreciate the
unquestionably strong points in her character. Of these she has
many—too many, in fact. Apparently it is time to close this scrawl—the
paper says so. ‘Pray for me, Gabrielle,’ your song says, and always
trust me as your sincere friend,
ERNEST NEUCHAMP.
[Bless him, poor dear!‘]
‘So we are to have the honour of entertaining Ernest’s cousin, and not
his future wife, it seems?’ said Mr. Frankston, also cheered up.
‘Never had the slightest thought of it, poor fellow,’ said Antonia,
radiant with appreciation of the antipathetic Augusta. ‘How I could
have been such a goose as to believe that wicked Hardy Baldacre, I
can’t think. And, papa dear, I _might_ have found myself pledged to
marry him, doomed to endless misery, in my folly and madness. I shall
never condemn other foolish girls again, whatever they may do.’
‘All’s well that ends well, darling,’ said the old man, with a grateful
ring in his voice; ‘Paul Frankston and his own pet daughter are one in
heart again. We don’t know what may happen when the rain comes.’
How joyous the world seemed after the explanation which Mr. Neuchamp’s
letter indirectly afforded! Life was not a mistake after all. There
was still interest in new books, pleasure in new music. A halo of dim
wondrous glory was ever present during her nightly contemplation of
sea and sky, in the lovely, all-cloudless autumn nights. The moan of
the restless surge-voices had again the friendly tone she had heard
in them from childhood. The sea was again splendid with possible
heroes and argosies; it was again the realm of danger, discovery,
enchantment—not a storm-haunted, boding terror, with buried treasures
and drowned seamen, with treacherous, fateful wastes into which the
barque, freighted with Antonia Frankston’s hopes, had been wafted forth
to return no more.
It was during this enviably serene state of her mind that a note from
the innocent cause of the first tragic scene which had invaded the idyl
of Antonia Frankston’s life appeared on the breakfast-table at Morahmee.
MIDDLEHAM, _20th April_.
DEAR MISS FRANKSTON—My cousin Ernest, with whom I believe you are
acquainted, made me promise to inform you of my proposed arrival in
Sydney, on the conclusion of my visit to Mr. and Mrs. Middleton.
That gentleman has kindly promised to accompany me to Sydney, which
we shall reach (_D.V._) by the five o’clock train on Friday next. I
purpose taking up my abode at Petty’s Hotel.—Permit me to remain, dear
Miss Frankston, yours very truly,
AUGUSTA NEUCHAMP.
Of course nothing would content Antonia short of meeting at the station
and carrying off to Morahmee, bag and baggage, this inestimable cousin,
who had behaved so honourably, so perfectly.
Any other woman, with the mildest average of good looks, shut up in
such a raft of a place as Rainbar metaphorically was, would have
carried off Ernest, or any man of his age, easily and triumphantly. All
the pleasant freedom of a cousin, all the provocation of a possible,
unforbidden bride, the magic of old memories, the bond of perfect
social equality as to rank and habitudes,—what stupendous advantages!
And yet she was so happily and delightfully constituted by nature that,
in spite of dangerous proximity and all other advantages, she was, it
was plain from his letter, the very last woman in the world whom he
could have thought of marrying. O most excellent Augusta!
Paul, of course, after a show of deep consideration, came to the
conclusion that Antonia’s plan was the kindest, wisest, ‘onliest’
thing, under the circumstances. ‘Take her home straight from the train.
Bother Petty’s—what’s the use of her moping there, and spending her
money? I don’t think another girl for you to have a few talks with, and
drives, and shopping, and Botanical Gardens, and Dorcas work together,
could do you any harm, pet. So have her home quietly to-night. We must
have a little dinner for her.’
Accordingly, when the punctual train arrived bearing Miss Neuchamp and
her fortunes, she was astonished to hear Mr. Middleton exclaim, ‘Why,
there is Miss Frankston come to meet us! How do you do, Antonia, my
dear? Allow me to make known Miss Neuchamp; probably you are already
acquainted with one another by description.’
Miss Neuchamp’s expectations can only be a matter of conjecture,
but she was unaffectedly surprised at the apparition of this
distinguished-looking girl, perfectly dressed and appointed, who stood
on the platform, flanked by a liveried servant of London solidity of
form and severe respectability of manner.
‘Very, _very_ happy to welcome you to Sydney, Miss Neuchamp,’ said
Antonia. ‘Papa and I were so disappointed that we did not know of
your address before you left for the bush. He won’t hear of your going
anywhere but to our house for the present. And, Mr. Middleton, I am
pledged to bring you, as papa says we young ladies will be wrapped up
in each other and leave him in solitude. I can command you, I know.
Pray say you’ll come, Miss Neuchamp.’
‘If I may add my persuasion,’ said Mr. Middleton, ‘I could tell Miss
Neuchamp that she could not act more discreetly for the present. I
shall be delighted to wash all the dust out of my throat with some of
your father’s claret, Antonia. I’m your humble admirer, you know, when
I’m away from home.’
‘I shall be very happy to accept your hospitality, so kindly offered,
for the present,’ said Augusta, overpowered by briskness of attack and
defection of allies.
The grave servant immediately addressed himself to the luggage and,
handing the strange lady’s nearest and dearest light weights into
the carriage, remained behind to deposit one of Mr. Middleton’s
portmanteaus at the club, and to convey the remaining impedimenta to
Morahmee per cab. As Miss Neuchamp ensconced herself in the yielding,
ample cushions of the Morahmee carriage beside Antonia, and was
borne along at a rapid pace, the mere rattling of the wheels upon
the macadamised road was grateful and refreshing to her soul, as a
reminiscence of the unquestioned proper and utterly befitting, from
which she had hitherto considered herself to be hopelessly sundered by
the whole breadth of ocean.