young man who wasn't worth his salt,' as a loafer who was hardly fit
to 'jackaroo' on a station, as a 'lazy lubber' who would 'go to the
dogs if it weren't for his father,' George never betrayed that he
felt humiliated by so much as the twitching of an eyelid.
Persistently stroking the ends of his moustache with an air of
profound abstraction, he made it apparent, as soon as Mr. Piper
stopped to take breath, that he was suppressing an inclination to
yawn.
'I dare say it's all very true, governor,' was all he said in reply.
'It's very nice and complimentary, I'm sure, and I ought to be very
much obliged to you. But, _à propos_ of your compliments, may I ask
if it was only to treat me to them in full that you brought me up
those confounded tower steps this morning? Because, in that case, I
wouldn't have minded waiting, you know. It's hardly fair upon a man,
is it, to put him to the treadmill before he's well awake in the
morning?'
'If you were like other young men,' retorted Mr. Piper, 'you'd be up
and down them steps twenty times a day' (George shuddered); 'but oh
no! my gentleman can crawl on to the lawn and carry on with a----'
'Stop there!' cried George, in a tone that made his father silent
through sheer astonishment (George had never been known to raise his
voice before). 'Do you know the relation in which Laura stands to
me?'
He looked Mr. Piper full in the face as he said it, and seeing the
ghastly change that came over the face as he looked, he felt that he
had been over-hasty. For the glass through which Mr. Piper had made
a feint of looking dropped from his quivering fingers and his lips
worked in a distorted fashion over his discoloured teeth; the blood
rushing away from his florid cheeks left them streaked with thready,
sanguineous veins, mottling the ash-coloured patches; and rushed
back again with a force that seemed to swell the veins round his
temples to bursting....
'What's the matter, father?' said George at last, not with any of
Louey's vehement alarm, but eyeing him rather gravely and curiously.
'Do you object to my looking upon Laura in the light of
a--_sister_?'
'Eh?' said Mr. Piper. His power of articulation was slowly
returning, but his breath as yet was only equal to the monosyllable.
'Of a sister,' repeated George slowly, 'and a friend.'
'Your _sister_!' said Mr. Piper, as soon as he could speak
distinctly. 'That's as you choose to take it. She's none o' mine,
thank God! But you take and make her more than your sister, and see
how soon you'll come to repent it. It's down in my will. I've sworn
it. Dead or alive, I won't have the jade in my family! If you've got
a fancy for her, you may take her, but never come anigh Piper's Hill
again!'
'You mistake the position of affairs,' said George calmly. 'Laura
wouldn't have me if I wanted!'
'Ho, ho!' Mr. Piper's laugh was more insulting than mirthful.
'That's why she comes and hugs you on the lawn of a morning, is it?'
The interview ended with an intimation that Mr. Piper will not have
Laura as a daughter-in-law 'at any price,' and that if George choose to
marry her it must be as a pauper, and unrelieved of his heavy burden of
turf debts. Piper's stormy, almost speechless anger, like his craving
for sympathy and approval, are alike often exceedingly pathetic. His
personality, though less delicately drawn than that of his niece, Sara
Cavendish, is a striking figure throughout the book. A good delineation
of an old man is sufficiently rare in fiction to make that of Uncle
Piper notable. Tasma has not equalled this performance in any of her
other works. Josiah Carp, the Melbourne merchant in _In Her Earliest
Youth_, and Sir Matthew Bogg, another of the same class, in the short
story _Monsieur Caloche_, are shown only in a satirical and repulsive
light, which necessarily makes them appear somewhat unreal.
As a vivid study, combined with excellent comedy, the portrait of Sara
Cavendish would not have been unworthy of Thackeray. The selfishness
concealed by her demure exterior and great beauty, and the absurdly
excessive estimate of her virtues made by the Reverend Francis Lydiat,
are a warning to all susceptible young men. Lydiat was a passenger by
the ship which carried Sara and her parents to Australia. When he gave
his weekly sermons during the voyage, Miss Cavendish was always present,
and looked at him with her large eyes to such purpose that they 'seemed
to be absorbing his meaning into the soul of their possessor.'
But there was nothing ethereal in Sara's thoughts. 'She had a fancy for
imagining becoming dresses. She would build up a delightful wardrobe in
the air, entering into as many details of her airy outfit as though it
could be instantly materialised. And she liked to imagine a becoming
background for her own beautiful person, in which a husband with the
essentials of good birth and unlimited money, and the desirable
qualifications of an air of distinction and great devotion to her,
filled a reasonable space.' Lydiat had often seen her lost in daydreams
such as it would have seemed to him almost a sacrilege to disturb,
'though it is probable that the only notion he would have been guilty of
upsetting had reference to the shape of an imaginary velvet train.'
The insight and completeness with which Sara's character is depicted in
the course of the story make it impossible that the reader should
entirely dislike her as a mere sample of the calculating coquette. She
is one of that large class of women, with a limited capacity for
affection, whose natures expand only in an atmosphere of luxury. 'Don't
be shocked,' she says to her sister in reference to the unsuccessful
suit of her clerical lover; 'I never intended to be a poor man's wife.'
As a contrast to the cold personality of the beautiful Sara, the author
gives a charming picture of the elder sister's affection and
thoughtfulness for others.
Margaret Cavendish and Eila Frost, in _Not Counting the Cost_, are good
women of a perfectly possible and natural kind, and it is surprising to
think that the same hand which drew them also found patience to draw the
unhappy, metaphysical heroines of _In Her Earliest Youth_ and _The
Knight of the White Feather_. Tasma is seldom so pleasing as when
describing the characters of children, of whom several figure
prominently in her novels. There is a delightful picture of romping
childhood at the opening of _Not Counting the Cost_. The scene is a farm
in the shadow of Mount Wellington, near Hobart, the city where the
author spent many of her own early years. 'Chubby,' the eight-year-old
uncle of the heroine of _In Her Earliest Youth_, and Louey Piper are
lovable creations, though, it must be said, more quaint than natural.
One remembers the expansive dignity of the former on his first meeting
with Pauline's lover, George Drafton. 'How do you do, little man?' says
the latter condescendingly. 'How do you do, sir?' replies the little man
stiffly, raising his garden hat. 'You are an acquaintance of Paul--of
Miss Vyner's, I believe. I have the honour to be her maternal uncle.' No
wonder George bursts into a loud guffaw, notwithstanding the tragic
intensity of his love protestations of five minutes before!
Louey Piper's relations with her father are idyllic. She is more
necessary to him than Eppie to Silas Marner; she is a continual
negotiator of peace in his divided house, and 'in this she could not
have displayed more courtier-like sagacity had she been an old-world
changeling with centuries of experience respecting rich fathers of
uncertain testamentary inclinations.' In her limited knowledge of things
outside Piper's Hill, 'street-crossings and railway-platforms presented
themselves to her in the light of shocking and mysterious man-traps....
The wistful, yearning look that gave her eyes so touching an expression
in the setting of her small freckled face never gave place to such a
fulness of satisfaction as when her father, her brother, and her sister
were all, as it were, under her eye, and safe to remain indoors for the
night.'
The general praise won by _Uncle Piper_ for its author as a delineator
of character appears to have decided her to give increased attention to
her ability in this direction. The immediate result was scarcely a happy
one. The analytical bias disclosed in the first story was largely
extended in the second, with the usual accompaniment of a decrease in
action and humour. Pauline Vyner, the central figure of _In Her
Earliest Youth_, a sensitive and speculative girl, marries without love
a man who has saved the life of a child to whom she is much attached. In
tastes and intellectual bent the pair are almost without anything in
common. The story--an unusually long three-volume one--is mainly a
minute study of Pauline's disillusionment during the early period of her
wifehood: how she escaped the temptations placed in her way by a man who
had formerly attracted her; and how, with the birth of her first child,
she experienced the dawn of affection for its father.
The story is excessively expanded for the small amount of dramatic
movement it contains. Only three characters are prominently described,
and these too seldom through the medium of dialogue. The central motive,
moreover, is lacking in strength. It is difficult to appreciate the
tragic pathos of so common a matrimonial error as Pauline's, especially
as George, though uncongenial in his tastes, and not exempt from the
ordinary weaknesses of men, is entirely devoted to her, and would
readily have improved under her influence, had she chosen to exert any.
Tasma's more recent work is better both in spirit and literary
construction. Very sympathetic and entertaining is the narrative, in
_Not Counting the Cost_, of the adventures of the Clare family in their
quixotic travels in search of the cousin who is to restore them a
long-lost heritage. In this story and _The Penance of Portia James_ the
author gives some interesting scenes of Paris life. But to get the best
samples of her humour, one must return to her first novel. The burlesque
of Piper's pompous, genteel brother-in-law is delicious. Mr. Cavendish
affects to be revolted by the necessity of being indebted to the
_ci-devant_ butcher, while secretly luxuriating in his munificence.
Finally, as a means of discharging some of his obligations, he conceives
the project of hunting up a pedigree for his plebeian relative, after
the manner of the enterprising person who opened a 'heraldry office' in
Sydney about fifty years ago, and announced his readiness to provide
clients with reliable information of their ancestors, together with
suitable coats of arms.
True, Piper is not a name of much promise, but there _had_ been a
Count Piper somewhere or other some centuries ago, and the very
rarity of the name proved that every Piper must come from one common
stock. Fired by this generous idea, Mr. Cavendish gave himself up to
its pursuit with enthusiasm. He would spend whole hours in the
Melbourne Library poring over books of heraldry. Every chronological
or biographical document bearing upon the age in which Count Piper
was supposed to have lived was made the subject of long and minute
examination. When the monthly mail day came round there would sure
to be a budget of letters in Mr. Cavendish's handwriting, addressed
to the different colleges and societies at home and abroad, who were
to help in extracting all Pipers of any importance from the oblivion
in which they had hitherto been suffered to remain.
Mr. Piper is at length informed of the progress of the inquiries, but
shows a provoking obtuseness and indifference concerning them.
'I am--hem!--I am pursuing a task of the utmost consequence to your
family interests,' Mr. Cavendish had told him one day. 'In fact, my
dear sir, I am engaged in a work of no less moment than that of
reconstructing your family tree.'
'My what-do-you-call-it tree?' exclaimed Mr. Piper, with a hazy
idea that Mr. Cavendish had been trying some unwarrantable
experiments upon his lemon and orange bushes. 'Don't you take and
put any rubbish in the garden. I've got a new lot of guano, and I
don't want it meddled with.'
'Guano!' echoed Mr. Cavendish, with a tone of the most withering
compassion. 'I'm afraid you don't quite apprehend my meaning. I am
not alluding to coarse material facts at all. I am speaking of a
genealogical tree--a ge-ne-a-lo-gi-cal tree, you understand? I am
trying to rescue your ancestors from the dust of oblivion. I am....'
'You'd better leave 'em alone,' interrupted Mr. Piper, with the
sulky accent of one whose suspicions have not been altogether
allayed. '_They_ won't do you any good--no more than they've done
for me. You've got some of your own, I expect; that's enough for any
man, I should think.'
Mr. Cavendish shrugged his shoulders and held his peace. If the
matter had not become a hobby by this time, he would have abandoned
it then and there. As it was, he contented himself by deploring the
sad effects of low association upon the undoubted descendant of a
count, and pondering upon the possibility of introducing a hog in
armour instead of a stag at gaze into the coat-of-arms that he
foresaw would be the result of his researches.
Equally comical is the spectacle of Mrs. Cavendish, on the eve of the
first meeting of the two men, humbly wondering how she could soften the
heart of her discontented lord towards the low-born brother--'how lead
him to pardon, as it were, his benefactor for having dared to benefit
him,' and the subsequent reflection of Cavendish that not only was
wealth an acknowledged power, 'even though pork-sausages should have
been its alleged first cause,' but that, after all, 'politic members of
the great ruling houses in the old world had been known to make
concessions to trade,' and he 'was prepared to make concessions too!'
Accordingly, he resolved that the meeting with his relative should bear
the semblance of cordiality.
'This is a real pleasure, my dear sir,' he said, with ten white
fingers--the fingers of thoroughbred hands--closing round Mr.
Piper's plebeian knuckles. No onlooker could have supposed for an
instant that he had come, with the whole of his family, in an
entirely destitute condition, to live upon his wife's brother.
Besides, we know that among well-bred people, to receive a favour is
virtually to oblige a man. You only accept cordialities from people
you esteem....
'You're welcome, sir,' said Mr. Piper.
Then there was a pause, during which Mrs. Cavendish wiped her eyes,
and Mr. Piper said very heartily, 'You're welcome, the lot of you.'
Cavendish is the only character that the author has treated in a
consistently farcical vein. Eila Frost's canting old father-in-law in
_Not Counting the Cost_ is made ridiculous in his harangue on the duties
of the young wife to her insane husband; but, with this exception,
little is said of him in the story. It would seem that Tasma regards
broadly humorous exaggeration to be scarcely compatible with her
somewhat grave style, for in all the later stories her satire, if not
less pungent, is of a quieter kind.
Next to their humour and skilful presentation of character, the most
noteworthy feature of these novels is their lucid and polished language.
The style is, perhaps, scarcely easy enough for fiction. Its qualities
and culture are those that equip the essayist or critic rather than the
novelist. Indeed, judged by some of her early work in the reviews, and
by the little philosophic exordiums with which she opens so many of her
chapters, Tasma would have made a brilliant essayist. To a large class
of thoughtful readers it will always seem that what her novels lack in
dramatic interest is fully compensated for by their more than usually
faithful sketches of both men and women, and by their intimate and
sympathetic view of our common life.
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
_G., C. & CO._
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| Transcriber's note: |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation (book-form/book form, gold-fields/ |
| goldfields, horse-racing/horseracing, race-horses/racehorses) |
| has been retained. |
| |
| Minor typographical corrections are documented in the source |
| code of the html version of this e-book. Instructions for |
| viewing those corrections will be found in the transcriber's |
| note at the end of the html file. |
| |
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