THE GOVERNOR'S DANCE
Three gentlemen in evening dress passing along by the low brick wall
skirting the Government House. One of the gentlemen portly and correct,
two of the gentlemen young, with burnt brown faces that showed a little
less tan below the shaving line, and limbs too strong and too rough to
fit the evening clothes. Jack's suit was on the small side, though he'd
scarcely grown in height. But it showed a big piece of white shirt-cuff
at the wrists, and seemed to reveal the muscles of his shoulders unduly.
As for Tom's quite good and quite expensive suit from the pawn-shop, it
was a little large for him. If he hadn't been so bursting with life it
would have been sloppy. But the crude animal life came so forcibly
through the black cloth, that you had to overlook the anomaly of the
clothes. Both boys wore socks of fine scarlet wool, and the new
handkerchiefs of magenta silk inside their waistcoats. The scarlet,
magenta, and red-brown of their faces made a gallant pizzicato of colour
against the black and white. Anyhow they fancied themselves, and walked
conceitedly.
Jack's face was a little amusing. It had the kind of innocence and
half-smile you can see on the face of a young fox, which will snap holes
in your hand if you touch it. He was annoyed by his father's letter to
him for his twenty-first birthday. The general had retired, and hadn't
saved a sou. How could he, given his happy, thriftless lady. So it was a
case of "My dear boy, I'm thankful you are at last twenty-one, because
now you must look out for yourself. I have bled myself to send you this
cheque for a hundred pounds, but I know you think I ought to send you
something, so take it, but don't expect any more, for you won't get it
if you do."
This was not really the text of the General's letter, but this was how
Jack read it. As for his mother, she sent him six terrible neckties and
awful silver-backed brushes which he hated the sight of, much love, a
few tears, a bit of absurd fond counsel, and a general wind-up of tender
doting.
He was annoyed, because he had expected some sort of real assistance in
setting out like a gentleman on his life's career, now he had attained
his majority. But the hundred quid was a substantial sop.
Mr. George had done them proud at the Weld Club, and got them
invitations to the ball from the Private Secretary. Oh yes, he was proud
of them, handsome upstanding young fellows. So they were proud of
themselves. It was a fine, hot evening, and nearly everybody was walking
to the function, showing off their splendour. For few people' possessed
private carriages, and the town boasted very few cabs indeed.
Mr. George waited in the porch of the Government House for Aunt Matilda
and Mary. They had not long to wait before they saw the ladies in their
shawls, carrying each a little holland bag with scarlet initials,
containing their dancing slippers, slowly and self-consciously mounting
the steps.
The boys braced themselves to face the introduction to the
Representation. They were uneasy. Also they wanted to grin. In Jack's
mind a picture of Honeysuckle, that tin town in the heat, danced as on
heat-waves, as he made his bows and his murmurs. He wanted to whisper to
Tom: "Ain't we in Honeysuckle?" But it would have been too cruel.
Clutching their programmes as drowning men clutch straw, they passed on.
The primary ordeal was over.
"Oh Lord, I'm sweating already," said Tom with a red-faced grin. "I'm
off to get me bill-head crammed."
"Take me with you, for the Lord's sake," said Jack.
"Y're such an owl of a dancer. An' y' have to do it proper here. You go
to Mr. George."
"Don't desert me, you swine."
"Go-on! Want me to take you back to Auntie?--Go-on! I'm goin' to dance
an' sit out an' hold their little white hands."
Tom pulled a droll face, as he took his place in the line of
glove-buttoning youths who made a queue on the Governor's left hand,
where his daughter stood booking up duty dances. Jack, galvanised by the
advent of the A.D.C., ducked through the crowd to Aunt Matilda's side.
He was always angry that he couldn't dance. The fact was, he would never
learn. He could never bring himself to go hugging promiscuous girls
round the waist and twiddling through dances with them. Underneath all
his carelessness and his appearance of "mixing," there was a savage
physical reserve which prevented his mixing at all. He could not bear
the least physical intimacy. Something inside him recoiled and stood
savagely at a distance, even from the prettiest girl, the moment she
seemed to be "coming on." To take the dear young things in his arms was
repugnant to him, it offended a certain aloof pride and a subtle
arrogance in him. Even with Tom, intimate though they were, he always
kept a certain unpassable space around him, a definite _noli me tangere_
distance which gave the limit to all approach. It would have been
difficult to define this reserve. Jack seemed absolutely the most open
and accessible individual in the world, a perfect child. He seemed to
lay himself far too open to anybody's approach. But those who knew him
better, like Mrs. Ellis or his mother, knew the cold inward reserve, the
savage unwillingness to be touched, which was central in him, as in a
wolf-cub. There was something reserved, fierce and untouched at the very
centre of him. Something, at the centre of all his openness and his
seeming softness, that was cold, overbearing, and a little angry. This
was the old overweening English blood in him, which would never really
yield to promiscuity, or to vulgar intimacy. He seemed to mix in with
everybody at random. But as a matter of fact he had never finally mixed
in with anybody, not even with his own father and mother, not even with
Tom. And certainly not with any casual girl. Essentially, he kept
himself a stranger to everybody.
Aunt Matilda was in green satin with a tiara of diamonds. "The devil you
know is better than the devil you don't know," was Jack's inward comment
as he approached her.
Aloud he said:
"Would it be right if I asked you to let me have the pleasure of taking
you in to supper later, Marm?"
"Oh, you dear boy!" simpered Aunt Matilda. "So like y' dear father. But
you see I'm engaged on these occasions. We have to go in in order of
rank and precedence. But you can take Mary. She says she has hurt her
foot and can't dance much."
Mary took his arm, and they went out on to the terrace. There was clear
moonlight, and trees against a shadowy, grey-blue sky, and a dark
perfume of tropical flowers. Jack felt the beauty of it and it moved
him. He waited for his soul to melt. But his soul would never melt. It
was hard and clear as the moon itself.
"It is much better here," he said, looking at the sky.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" said Mary. "I wanted so much to sit quietly and
talk to you. It seems so long, and you looked so wild and different this
morning. I've been so frightened, reading so much about the natives
murdering people."
Mary was different too, but Jack didn't know wherein.
"I don't believe there's much more danger in one place than in another,"
he said, "so long as you keep yourself in hand. Shall we sit down and
have a real wongie?"
They found a seat under the overspreading tree, and sat listening to the
night-insects.
"You're not very glad to be back, are you?" asked Mary.
"Yes I am," he assented, without a great deal of vigour. "What has been
happening to you all this time, Mary?"
"The little things that are nothing," she said. "The only thing"--she
hesitated--"is that they want me to marry. And I lie awake at night
wondering about it."
"Marry who?" asked Jack, his mind running at once to Rackett.
They were sitting under a magnolia tree. Jack could make out the dark
shape of a great flower against the moon, among black leaves. And the
perfume was magnolia flowers.
"Do you want me to talk about it?" she said.
"I do."
Jack was glancing rather fiercely down the slope of the black-and-white
garden, that sloped its lawns to the river. Mary sat very still beside
him, in a cream lace dress.
"It's a Mr. Boyd Blessington. He is a widower with five children, but he
is an interesting man. He's got a black beard."
"Goodness!" said Jack. "Have you accepted him?"
"No. Not yet."
"Why do you think of marrying him? Do you like him?"
"For some things. He is a good man, and he wants me in a good way. He
has a beautiful library. And as he is a man of the world, there seems to
be a big world round him. Yes, he is quite somebody. And Aunt Matilda
says it is a wonderful opportunity for me. And I know it is."
Jack mused in silence.
"It may be," he said. "But I hardly fancy you kissing a widower of
fifty, with a black beard and five children. Lord!"
"He's only thirty-seven. And he's a man."
Jack thought about Monica. He wanted Monica. But he also couldn't bear
to let Mary go. This arrogance in him made him silent for some moments.
Then he turned to Mary, his head erect, and looked down sternly on her
small sinking figure in the pale lace dress.
"Do you want him?" he asked, in a subtle tone of authority and passion.
Mary was silent for some moments.
"No-o!" she faltered. "Not--not----"
Her hands lay inert in her lap. They were small, soft, dusky hands. The
flame went over him, over his will. By some curious destiny, she really
belonged to him. And Monica? He wanted Monica too. He wanted Monica
first. But Mary also was his. Hard and savage he accepted this fact.
He took her two hands and lifted them to his lips, and kissed them with
strange, blind passion. When the flame went over him, he was blind. Mary
gave a little cry, but did not withdraw her hands.
"I thought you cared for Rackett," he said suddenly, looking at her
closely. She shook her head, and he saw she was crying.
He put his arm round her and gathered her in her lace dress to his
breast. She was small, but strangely heavy. Not like that whip-wire of a
Monica. But he loved her heaviness too. The heaviness of a dark magnetic
stone. He wanted that too.
And in his mind he thought, "Why can't I have her too? She is naturally
mine."
His soul was hard and unbending. "She is naturally mine!" he said to
himself. And he kissed her softly, softly, kissed her face and her
tears. And all the while Mary knew about Monica. And he, his soul
fierce, would not yield in either direction. He wanted to marry her, and
he wanted to marry Monica. Something was in Mary that would never be
appeased unless he married her. And something in him would never be
appeased unless he married Monica. His young, clear instinct saw both
these facts. And the inward imperiousness of his nature rose to meet
it.--"Why can't I have both these women?" he asked himself. And his
soul, hard in its temper like a sword, answered him: "You can if you
will."
Yet he was wary enough to know he must go cautiously. Meanwhile,
determined that one day he would marry Monica and Mary both, he held the
girl soft and fast in his arms, kissing her, wanting her, but wanting
her with the slow knowledge that he must wait and travel a long way
before he could take her, yet take her he would. He wanted Monica first.
But he also wanted Mary. The soft, slow weight of her as she lay silent
and unmoving in his arms.
They could hear the music inside.
"I must go in for the next dance," she said in a muted tone. He kissed
her mouth and released her. Then he escorted her back to the ballroom.
She went across to Aunt Matilda, as the dance ended. And in her lace
dress, the small, heavy, dusky Mary was like a lode-stone passing among
flimsy people. She had a certain magnetic heaviness of her own, and a
certain stubborn, almost ugly kind of beauty which in its heavy
quietness, seemed like a darkish, perhaps bitter flower that rose from a
very deep root. You were sensible of a deep root going down into the
dark.
A tall, thin, rather hollow-chested man in a perfect evening suit and
with orders on his breast, was speaking to her. He too had a faint air
of proprietorship. He had a black beard and eyeglasses. But his face was
sensitive, and delicate in its desire. It was evident he loved her with
a real, though rather social, uneasy desirous love, as if he wanted all
her answer. He was really a nice man, a bit frail and sad. Jack could
see that. But he seemed to belong so entirely to the same world as the
General, Jack's father. He belonged to the social world, and saw nothing
really outside.
Mary too belonged almost entirely to the social world, her instinct was
strongly social. But there was a wild tang in her. And this Jack
depended on. Somewhere deep in himself he hated his father's social
world. He stood in the doorway and watched her dancing with Blessington.
And he knew that as Mrs. Blessington, with a thoughtful husband and a
good position in society, she would be well off. She would forfeit that
bit of a wild tang.
If Jack let her. And he wasn't going to let her. He was hard and cool
inside himself. He took his impetus from the wild sap that still flows
in most men's veins, though they mostly choose to act from the tame sap.
He hated his father's social sap. He wanted the wild nature in people,
the unfathomed nature, to break into leaf again. The real rebel, not the
mere reactionary.
He hated the element of convention and slight smugness which showed in
Mary's movements as she danced with the tall, thin reed of a man.
Anything can become a convention, even an unconventionality, even the
frenzied jazzing of the modern ballroom. And then the same element of
smugness, very repulsive, is evident, evident even in the most
scandalous jazzers. This is curious, that as soon as any movement
becomes accepted in the public consciousness, it becomes ugly and smug,
unless it be saved by a touch of the wild individuality.
And Mary dancing with Mr. Blessington was almost smug. Only the downcast
look on her face showed that she remembered Jack. Blessington himself
danced like a man neatly and efficiently performing his duty.
The dance ended. Aunt Matilda was fluttering her fan at him like a
ruffled cockatoo. There was a group: Mary, Blessington, Mr. George, Mr.
James Watson, Aunt Matilda's brother-in-law, and Aunt Matilda. Mr.
Blessington, with the quiet assurance of his class, managed to eclipse
Mr. George and Jim Watson entirely, though Jim Watson was a rich man.
Jack went over and was introduced. Blessington and he bowed at one
another. "Stay in your class, you monkey!" thought Jack with some of the
sensual arrogance he had brought with him from the North-West.
Mr. Blessington introduced him to a thin, nervous girl, his daughter.
She was evidently unhappy, and Jack was sorry for her. He took her out
for refreshments, and was kind to her. She made dark-grey startled round
eyes at him, and looked at him as if he were an incalculable animal that
might bite. And he, in manner, if not in actuality, laughed and caressed
the frail young thing to cajole some life into her.
Mary danced with Tom, and then with somebody else. Jack lounged about,
watching with a set face that still looked innocent and amiable, keeping
a corner of his eye on Mary, but chatting with various people. He
wouldn't make a fool of himself, trying to dance.
When Mary was free again--complaining of her foot--he said to her:
"Come outside a bit."
And obediently she came. They went and sat under the same magnolia tree.
"He's not a bad fellow, your Blessington," he said.
"He's not my Blessington," she replied, "Not yet anyhow. And he never
would be _really_ my Blessington."
"You never know. I suppose he's quite rich."
"Don't be horrid to me."
"Why not?--I wish I was rich. I'd do as I liked. But you'll never marry
him."
"Why shan't I?"
"You just won't."
"I shall if Aunt Matilda makes me. I'm absolutely dependent on her--and
do you think I don't feel it? I want to be free. I should be much freer
if I married Mr. Blessington. I'm tired of being as I am."
"What would you really like to do?"
She was silent for a time. Then she answered:
"I should like to live on a farm."
"Marry Tom," he said maliciously.
"Why are you so horrid?" she said, in hurt surprise.
He was silent for a time.
"Anyhow you won't marry Boyd Blessington."
"Why are you so sure? Aunt Matilda is going to England in April. And I
won't travel with her. Travel with her would be unspeakable. I want to
stay in Australia."
"Marry Tom," he said again, in malice.
"Why," she asked in amazement, "do you say that to me?" But he didn't
know himself.
"A farm--" he was beginning, when a figure sailed up in the moonlight.
It was Aunt Matilda. The two young people rose to their feet. Jack was
silent and rather angry. He wanted to curl his nose and say: "It isn't
done, Marm!" But he said nothing. Aunt Matilda did the talking.
"I thought it was your voices," she said coldly. "Why do you make
yourself conspicuous, Mary? Mr. Blessington is looking for you in all
the rooms."
Mary was led away. Jack followed. Aunt Matilda had no sooner seen Mary
led out by Mr. Blessington for the Lancers, than she came full sail upon
Jack, as he stood lounging in the doorway.
"Come for a little walk on the terrace, dear boy," she said.
"Can't I have the pleasure of piloting you through this set of lancers,
Marm?" he retorted.
She stood and smiled at him fixedly.
"I've heard of y'r dancing, dear boy," she said, "and your father was a
beautiful dancer. This Governor is very particular. He sent his A. D. C.
to stop Jimmie Short reversing, right at the beginning of the
evening."--She eyed him with a shrewd eye.
"Surely worse form to hurt a gentleman's feelings, than to reverse,
Marm!" retorted Jack.
"It wasn't bad form, it was bad temper. The Governor can't reverse
himself. Ha-ha-ha! Neither can I go through a set of Lancers with you.
So come and take me out a minute."
They went in silence down the terrace.
"Lovely evening! Not at all too hot," he said.
She burst into a sputter of laughter.
"Lor! m'dear. You are amusin'!" she said. "But you won't get out of it
like that, young man. What have y' t'say f' y'self, running off with
Mary like that _twice!_"
"You told me I could take her, Marm."
"I didn't ask you to keep her out and get her talked about, m'dear! I'm
not a fool, my dear boy, and I'm not going to let her lose the chance of
a life-time. You want her y'self for _one night!_" She slapped her fan
crossly. "_You_ leave well enough alone, we don't want another scandal
in the family. Mr. Blessington is a good man for Mary, a God-send. For
she's heavy, she's heavy, she's heavy for any man to take up with." Aunt
Matilda said this almost spitefully. "Mr. Blessington's the very man for
her, and a wonderful match. She's got her family. She's the
granddaughter of Lord Haworth. And he has position. Besides they're
suited for one another. It's the very finger of Heaven. Don't you dare
make another scandal in the family."
She stopped under a lamp, and was leaning forward peering at him. Her
large person exhaled a scent of artificial perfume. Jack hated perfume,
especially in the open air. And her face, with its powder and wrinkles,
in the mingled light of the lamp and the moon, made him think of a
lizard.
"D'you want Mary yourself," she snapped, like a great lizard. "It's out
of the question. You've got to make your way. She'd have to go on
waiting for years. And you'd compromise her."
"God forbid!" said Jack ironically.
"Then leave her alone," she said. "If you compromise her, _I'll_ do no
more for her, mind that."
"Just exactly what do you mean, compromise her?" he asked.
"Get her talked about--as you're trying to," she snapped.
He thought it over. He must anyhow appear to yield to circumstances.
"All right," he said. "I know what you mean."
"See you do," she retorted. "Now take me back to the ballroom."
They returned, in a silence that was safe, if not golden. He was
inwardly more set than ever. His appearance, however, was calm and
innocent. She was much more ruffled. She wondered if she had said too
much or too little, if he were merely stupid, or really dangerous.
He politely steered a way back to the reception room, placed her in a
chair and turned to disappear. One thing he could not stand, and that
was her proximity.
But as she sat down, she clutched his sleeve, cackling her unendurable
laugh.
"Sit down, then," she said. "We're friends now, aren't we?" And she
tapped his tanned cheek, that still had a bit of the peach-look, with
her feathery black fan.
"On the contrary, Marm," he said, bowing but not taking a seat.
"Lor', but you are an amusin' boy, m'dear!" she said, and she let go his
sleeve as she turned to survey the field.
In that instant he slipped away from her disagreeable presence.
He slipped behind a stout Judge from Melbourne, then past a plumed
woman, apparently of fashion, and was gone.
What he had to do was to reconnoitre his own position. He wanted Monica
first. That was his fixed determination. But he was not going to let go
of Mary either. Not in spite of battalions of Aunt Matildas, or correct
social individuals. It was a battle.
But he had to gauge Mary's disposition. He saw how much she was a social
thing: how much, even, she was Lord Haworth's granddaughter. And how
little she was that other thing.
But it was a battle, a long, slow subtle battle. And he loved a fight,
even a long, invisible one.
In the ballroom the A. D. C. pounced on him.
When he was free again, he looked round for Mary. It was the sixteenth
dance, and she was being well nursed. When the dance was over, he went
calmly and sat between her and Aunt Matilda on a red gilt sofa. Things
were a little stiff. Even Mary was stiff.
He looked at her programme. The next dance was a polka, and she was not
engaged.
"You are free for this dance?" he said.
"Yes, because of my foot," she said firmly. He could see she too was on
Aunt Matilda's side, for the moment.
"I can dance a polka. Come and dance it with me," he said.
"And my foot?"
He didn't answer, merely looked her in the face. And she rose.
They neither of them ever forgot that absurd, jogging little dance.
"I must speak to you, Mary," he said.
"What about?"
"Would you really like to live on a farm?"
"I think I should."
The conversation was rather jerky and breathless.
"In two years I can have a farm," he said.
She was silent for some time. Then she looked into his eyes, with her
queer, black, humble-seeming eyes. She was thinking of all the grandeur
of being Mrs. Boyd Blessington. It attracted her a great deal. At the
same time, something in her soul fell prostrate, when Jack looked
straight into her. Something fell prostrate, and she couldn't help it.
His eyes had a queer power in them.
"In two years I can have a farm--a good one," he said.
She only gazed into his eyes with her queer, black, fascinated gaze.
The dance was over. Aunt Matilda was tapping Jack's wrist with her fan
and saying:
"Yes, Mr. Blessington, do be so good as to take Mary down to supper."
Supper was over. It was the twentieth dance. Jack had been introduced to
a sporting girl in her late twenties. She treated him like a child, and
talked quite amusingly. Tom called her a "barrack hack."
Mr. Blessington went by with Mary on his arm.
"Mary," said Jack, "do you know Miss Brackley?"
Mary stopped and was smilingly introduced. Miss Brackley at once pounced
amusingly upon Mr. Blessington.
"I want to speak to you," Jack said once more to Mary. "Behind the
curtain of the third window."
He glanced at the red, ponderous plush curtain he meant. Mary looked
frightened into his eyes, then glanced too. Mr. Blessington, extricating
himself, walked on with Mary.
Jack looked round for Tom. That young man was having a drink, at the
supper extra. Jack left the Barrack Hack for a moment.
"Tom," he said. "Will you stand by me in anything I say or do?"
"I will," said the glistening, scarlet-faced Tom, who was away on the
gay high seas of exaltation.
"Get up a rubber of whist for Aunt Matilda. I know she'd like one. Will
you?"
"Before you c'n say Wiggins," replied Tom, laughing as he always did
when he was tipsy.
"And I say, Tom, you care for Mary, don't you? Would you provide a home
for her if she was wanting one?"
"I'd marry Mary if she'd 'ave me 'n I hadn't got a wife."
"Shut up!"
Tom broke into a laugh.
"Don't go back on me, Tom."
"Never, s'elp me bob."
"Get a move on then, and arrange that whist."
He sent him off with the Barrack Hack. And then he watched Mary. She
still was walking with Mr. Blessington. They were not dancing. She knew
Jack was watching her, and she was nervous. He watched her more closely.
And at the third window she fluttered, staggered a little, let go Mr.
Blessington's arm, and turned round to gather up her skirt behind. She
pretended she had torn a hem. She pretended she couldn't move without a
pin. She asked to be steered into the alcove. She sent Mr. Blessington
away into the ladies' dressing-room, for a pin.
And when he came back with it, she was gone.
Jack, outside in the night, was questioning her.
"Has Mr. Blessington proposed to you yet?"
"No."
"Don't let him. Would you really be happy on a farm,--even if it was
rather hard work?"
He had to look down on her very steadfastly as he asked this. And she
was slow in answering, and the tears came into her eyes before she
murmured:
"Yes."
He was touched, and the same dominating dark desire came over him again.
He held her fast in his arms, fast and silent. The desire was dark and
powerful and permanent in him.
"Can you wait for me, even two years?" he asked.
"Yes," she murmured faintly.
His will was steady and black. He knew he could wait.
"In two years I shall have a farm for you to live on," he said. And he
kissed her again, with the same dark, permanent passion.
Then he sent her off again.
He went and found Mr. George, in the card room. There was old Aunt
Matilda, playing for her life, her diamonds twinkling but her fan laid
aside.
"We're going to Wandoo to-morrow morning, Sir," said Jack.
"That's right, lad," said Mr. George.
"I say, Sir, won't you do Tom a kindness?" said Jack. "You're coming
down yourself one day this week, aren't you?"
"Yes, I shall be down on Wednesday or Thursday."
"Bring Mary down with you. Make her Aunt Matilda let her come. Tom's
awfully gone on her, and when he sees her with Boyd Blessington he
straightway goes for a drink. I don't think she's suited for Mr.
Blessington, do you, Sir? He's nearly old enough to be her father. And
Tom's the best fellow in the world, and Mary's the one he cares for. If
nothing puts him out and sends him wrong, there's not a better fellow in
the world."
Mr. George blew nose, prrhed! and bahed! and was in a funk. He feared
Aunt Matilda. He was very fond of Mary, might even have married her
himself, but for the ridicule. He liked Tom Ellis. He didn't care for
men like Blessington. And he was an emotional old Australian.
"That needs thinking about! That needs thought!" he said.
Not the next day, but the day following that, the boys drove away from
Perth in a new sulky, with a horse bought from Jimmie Short. And Mr.
George had promised to come on the coach the day after, with Mary.