Government House, Perth,
_18th June_.
It is actually a whole fortnight since my last letter, but you can
hardly fancy how busy I have been. The big boxes arrived safely, and we
have had such an unpacking and settling! Hanging up pictures, changing
the furniture about in the ridiculous way one does in a new house, and
finding out all sorts of pretty walks and views in the garden. It is
really a charming house, and though it looks very large from outside,
it is not really too big, even for our modest establishment. The rooms
are of a beautiful shape and size, besides being very conveniently
arranged; and the verandahs or cloisters, as they are called, give
shade and privacy to the sitting-rooms, besides making a nice place to
walk in of a wet afternoon. The garden is extremely pretty, with its
sloping terraces down to the waters’ edge, of which the broad estuary
of the Swan River makes a fine expanse. The river here is as wide as a
lake, with low wooded shores opposite, and a ruined mill gleaming out
from among the trees. Of a calm still day, when every leaf and twig is
mirrored in the water, it is beautiful; but it often rises into quite
big waves with white crests.
What I most delight in out of doors is a good-sized paddock, green with
couch-grass which, they tell me, lasts all summer; nice stables and
poultry houses stand in the middle of it, and there is lots of room
for my cows and chickens and pigs. We must not expect many flowers in
the garden, for it is midwinter; but quantities of geraniums are in
blossom, and they seem to grow almost wild in this sandy soil, the
violets too are in profusion, that delicious sort called the “Blue
Czar.” The turf is very green, and I have already seen a great many
different sorts of trees from different climates and places all growing
happily together, such as oaks and oleanders, gum trees and olives,
bananas and willows. There are also several large fig trees, as well
as peach, apricot, apple, pear, and almond trees, and I am sure Louis
will have what he calls “a good time” in the summer among the fruit.
I cannot find any raspberry, gooseberry, or currant bushes, but large
beds of strawberries slope down nearly to the water’s edge; and I ought
certainly to tell you about the long arcades of vines which stretch in
every direction, quite bare at this time of year, except for a russet
leaf here and there. The varieties of grapes growing all over the
garden appear to be endless, trained on espaliers as well as over these
long arcades; and I can see from my window clumps of bamboo, and big
tufts of handsome pampas grass and of the New Zealand flax. It is all
extremely pretty, and we are delighted with our new home, I assure you.
There are nice walks too about Perth, if it ever comes to pass that I
have time to go out for a walk, but as yet I am much too tired by the
afternoon for anything except a cup of tea and a rest when it has grown
really too dark to settle things any more.
I need hardly say that the very first place to be arranged was Louis’s
little room next mine, and it looked as cosy and bright as possible
by the time the travellers drove up, on a lovely sunshiny morning,
about mid-day, three days after I last wrote. Happily the weather
remained gloriously fine until they were safely housed here, and you
may imagine how thankful I felt when I heard the wind and rain beating
on the roof the very first night after they had arrived, and thought
that my little boy was snug in bed in the next room. He and Catherine
declare they enjoyed themselves immensely, driving slowly through the
dense bush, only going 35 or 40 miles a day. They took nearly a week
about it, stopping to lunch at mid-day out in the bush or forest, under
the shade of the big trees, and lighting a fire to boil their potatoes
or their kettle. This was half the fun to Louis, who declares he is
now an expert bushman, and is always inviting me to come and “camp
out” in the bush. They were under the charge of a police constable who
drove, and who seems to have taken great care of them. Louis tells
me, with breathless delight, of seeing kangaroos darting across the
track, almost in front of the horses, and of flocks of screaming white
cockatoos overhead, and of having himself dislodged an opossum rat
from a hollow log, which he was turning over lest a snake should have
taken up its winter quarters there. They did not start until after
breakfast each day, and managed to get under shelter by the early dark
evenings. Only once were they out after five o’clock, and then it was
over a very bad bit of road, where the horses had to walk nearly all
the way, so deep were the water-filled holes. I really believe Louis
liked that belated bit the best of all the journey.
He was full of stories, as you may imagine, but the one you will like
to hear is about the puppy, who also enjoyed the overland journey
hugely. You must know Monsieur Puppy, unlike every other pug I ever
heard of, is a capital ratter, and flies at everything he suspects
of being a rat. One day they had stopped to lunch near a settler’s
cottage, and whilst they were eating their cold pressed-beef and
biscuit, a sow and a lot of baby pigs came grunting up to see what
they could get. The pigs were very, very small and quite black. Puppy
must have thought they were rats, for in an instant he had darted at
them, seized one unoffending little pig by the back of its neck, and
was shaking it violently. You can imagine the scene, can’t you? The
old mother’s grunting dismay, the shrieks of the captured pig, and
the squeals and rapid flight of the rest of the family. Nothing would
induce the puppy to let go; even when the sow ran at him he merely took
his victim farther off, and if he dropped the wretched little animal
for a moment, it was only to seize it again in a firmer grip and shake
it even more furiously. He could not understand what sort of rat he
had got hold of, which screamed so loudly, and I am sure the pig could
not think what strange wild beast had caught him. Louis and Catherine
declare they could not interfere for the little pig’s protection,
because they were laughing so much that they had no voice to call off
Monsieur Puppy, and it was only the appearance of an old woman with a
broom which persuaded puppy to let go. But he was very pleased with
himself for a long time afterwards, though he evidently suspected there
must have been a mistake somewhere.
We are having deluges of rain every day just now, and it is extremely
cold, but I am much too busy to think about the weather, and we never
can get enough rain here, so every one speaks of the wet weather as a
“splendid season.” There are such quantities of things to do and to
buy. For we seem to need everything all at once! Horses, cows, cocks
and hens and ducks; but everybody is very kind in advising, and helping
us to supply our needs. A thousand times a day Louis and I say, “Don’t
you wish Guy were here?”—to see something specially delightful—but I
can’t allow myself to go on thinking about that. Some day you will be
with us we hope, and we must only look steadily forward to that happy
time.
Louis has been reading the _Swiss Family Robinson_ on board ship, and
is very keen on carrying out their mode of life here. In fact he has
cut down so many young bamboos to build huts, lighted so many fires
in the garden, and generally done so much mischief that within three
days of his arrival I had to pack him off to school. Fortunately the
High School is a very good one, with a capital head master (curiously
enough, a great friend of your former “Head”), and it is not too far
off for the young pickle to walk up to school at nine o’clock every
morning. It is generally raining when he ought to be coming back in
the afternoon, and it is quite in vain that I send up an umbrella and
greatcoat for him. He considers it much more delightful and “grown
up” to start off in a pelting shower, dodge my messenger, and arrive
at home drenched and breathless. One day he returned on pony-back,
hatless, and holding tight on to the saddle fore and aft. He had begged
for a ride from one of his schoolfellows, and the pony had galloped
off as soon as Louis mounted. This was “scarcely wonderful,” as Alice
says in _Wonderland_, for he had made himself a spur of a long orange
thorn, and as he has never ridden in his life he had no more idea of
holding in the pony than a monkey would have had. However, he was by no
means daunted, and will no doubt try again very soon, in spite of my
precautions.
We have given, and been to, a great many balls and dinners and pleasant
parties of all sorts, but, although they were very nice and amusing
to ourselves, still I fear you would not care to be told about them,
nor would it interest you to hear about our excursions to Fremantle
and Guildford, or about the visits to Schools and Orphanages which we
have made; and I cannot yet tell you as much as you would like to know
about the various football clubs or cricket matches. You must wait till
summer for them, you know.