THE WELCOME AT WANDOO
"Things change," said Jack, as he and Tom drove along in the sulky, "and
they never go back to what they were before."
"Seems like they don't," said Tom uneasily.
"And men change," continued Jack. "I have changed, and I shall never go
back to what I was before."
"Oh dry up," said the nervous Tom. "You're just the blanky same."
Both boys felt a load on their spirits, now they were actually on the
road home. They hated the load too.
"We're going to make some change at Wandoo," said Tom. "I wish I could
leave Ma on the place. But Mr. George says she absolutely refuses to
stay, and he says I've not got to try an' force her. He sortta winked at
me, and told me I should want to be settlin' down myself. I wondered
what 'n hell he meant. Y'aven't let on nothing about that Honeysuckle
trip, have y'? I don't mean to insult you by askin', but it seemed
kinder funny like."
"No," said Jack. "I've not breathed Honeysuckle to a soul, and never
will. You get it off your mind--it's nothing."
"Well, then, I dunno what he meant. I told him I hadn't made a bean
anyhow. An' I asked him what 'n hell Ma was goin' ter live on. He seemed
a bit down in the mouth about 'er himself, old George did. Fair gave me
the bally hump. Wisht I was still up north, strike me lucky I do.
"We've been gone over two years, yet I feel I've never been away, an'
yet I feel the biggest stranger in the world, comin' back to what's
supposed to be me own house. I hate havin' ter come, because o' the
bloomin' circumstances. Why 'n hell couldn't Ma have had the place for
while she lived, an' me be comin' back to her and the kids? Then I
shouldn't feel sortta sick about it. But as it is--it fair gets me beat.
Lennie'll resent me, an' Katie an' Monica'll hate havin' ter get inter a
smaller house, an' the twins an' Harry an' the little ones don' matter
so much, but I do worry over pore ol' Ma."
There he was with a blank face, driving the pony homewards. He hadn't
worried over pore ol' Ma till this very minute, on the principle "out of
sight, out of mind." Now he was all strung up.
"Y' know, Jack," he said, "I kinder don' want Wandoo. I kinder don' want
to be like Dad, settlin' down with a heap o' responsibilities an' kids
an' all that. I kinder don' want it."
"What do you want?" said Jack.
"I'd rather knock about with you for me mate, Jack, I'd a sight rather
do that."
"You can't knock about forever," said Jack.
"I don' know whether you can or you can't. I only know I never knew my
own mother. I only know she never lived at Wandoo. _She_ never raised me
there. I bet she lugged me through the bush. An' when all comes to all,
I'd rather do the same. I don' want Dad's property. I don' want that
Ellis property. Seems ter me bad luck. What d' yer think?"
"I should think it depends on you," said Jack.
"I should think it does. Anyhow shall you stop with me, an' go shares in
the blinkin' thing?"
"I don't know," said Jack.
He was thinking that soon he would see Monica. He was wondering how she
would be. He was wondering if she was ready for him, or if she would
have a thousand obstacles around her. He was wondering if she would want
him to plead and play the humble and say he wasn't good enough for her.
Because he wouldn't do it. Not if he never saw her again. All that
flummery of love he would not subscribe to. He would not say he adored
her, because he didn't adore her. He was not the adoring sort. He would
not make up to her, and play the humble to her, because it insulted his
pride. He didn't feel like that, and he never would feel like that, not
towards any woman on earth. Even Mary, once he had declared himself,
would fetch up her social tricks and try to bring him to his knees. And
he was not going down on his knees, not for half a second, not to any
woman on earth, nor to any man either. Enough of this kneeling flummery.
He stood fast and erect on his two feet, that had travelled many wild
miles. And fast and erect he would continue to stand. Almost he wished
he could be clad in iron armour, inaccessible. Because the thought of
women bringing him down and making him humble himself, before they would
give themselves to him, this turned his soul black.
Monica! He didn't love her. He didn't feel the slightest bit of
sentimental weakening towards her. Rather when he thought of her his
muscles went stiffer and his soul haughtier. It was not he who must bow
the head. It was she.
Because he wanted her. With a deep, arrowy desire, and a long, lasting
dark desire, he wanted her. He wanted to take her apart from all the
world, and put her under his own roof.
But he didn't want to plead with her, or weep before her, or adore her,
or humbly kiss her feet. The very thought of it made his blood curdle
and go black. Something had happened to him in the Never-Never. Before
he went over the border he might have been tricked into a surrender to
this soft and hideous thing they called love. But now, he would have
love in his own way, haughtily, passionately, and darkly, with dark,
arrowy desire, and a strange, arrowly-submissive woman: either this, or
he would not have love at all.
He thought of Monica and sometimes the thought of her sent him black
with anger. And sometimes, as he thought of her wild, delicate,
reckless, lonely little profile, a hot tenderness swept over him, and he
felt he would envelop her with a fierce and sheltering tenderness, like
a scarlet mantle.
So long as she would not fight against him, and strike back at him. Jeer
at him, play with Easu in order to insult him. Not that, my God, not
that.
As for Mary, a certain hate of her burned in him. The queer heavy stupid
conceit with which she had gone off to dance with Boyd Blessington,
because he was an important social figure. Mary, wanting to live on a
farm, but at the same time absolutely falling before the social glamour
of a Blessington, and becoming conceited on the strength of it. Inside
herself, Mary thought she was very important, thought that all sorts of
eternal destinies depended on her choice and her actions. Even Jack, was
nothing more than an instrument of her divine importance.
He had sensed this clearly enough. And it was this that made Aunt
Matilda a bit spiteful against her, when she said that Mary was "heavy"
and wouldn't easily get a man.
But there was also the queer black look in Mary's eyes, that was outside
her conceit and her social importance. The queer, almost animal dark
glisten, that was full of fear and wonder, and vulnerability. Like the
look in the eyes of a caught wild animal. Or the look in the shining
black eyes of one of the aborigines, especially the black woman looking
askance in a sort of terror at a white man, as if a white man was a sort
of devil that might possess her.
Where had Mary got that queer aboriginal look, she the granddaughter of
an English earl?
"Y're real lively to-day, aintcher, Jack? Got a hundred quid for your
birthday, and my, some talk!"
"Comes to that," said Jack, rousing himself with difficulty. "We've come
fifteen or twenty miles without you opening your mouth either."
Tom laughed shortly and relapsed into silence.
"Well," he said, "let's wake up now, there's the outlying paddock." He
pointed with his whip.--"And there's the house through the dip in the
valley!" Then suddenly in a queer tone: "Say, matey, don't it look
lovely from here, with all that afternoon sun falling over it like snow
. . . You think I've never seen snow: but I have, in my dream."
Jack's heart contracted as he jumped down to open the first gate. For
him too, the strange fulness of the yellow afternoon light was always
unearthly, at Wandoo. But the day was still early, just after
dinner-time, for they had stayed the night half way.
"Looks in good trim, eh?" said Jack.
"So it does! All" replied Tom. "Mr. George says Ma done wonders. Made it
pay hand over fist. Y'remember that fellow, Pink-eye Percy, what come
from Queensland, and had studied agriculture an' was supposed to be a
bad egg an' all that? At that 'roo hunt, you remember? Well, he bought
land next to Wandoo, off-side from the Reds. An' Ma sortta broke wi' the
Reds over something, an' went in wi' him, an't' seems they was able to
do wonders. Anyway Old George says Ma's been able to buy a little place
near her own old home in Beverley, to go to.--But seems to me--"
"What?"
"Funny how little anyone tells you, Jack."
"How?"
"I felt I couldn't get to th' bottom of what old George was tellin' me.
I took no notice then. But it seems funny now. An' I say--"
"What?"
"You'd 'a thought Monica or Katie might ha' driven to the Cross Roads
for us, like we used to in Dad's days."
"Yes, I thought one of them would have been there."
The boys drove on, in tense silence, through the various gates. They
could see the house ahead.
"There's Timothy," said Tom.
The old black was holding open the yard gate. He seemed to have almost
forgotten Jack, but the emotion in his black, glistening eyes was
strange, as he stared with strange adoration at the young master. He
caught Tom's hand in his two wrinkled dark hands, as if clinging to life
itself.
The twins ran out, waved, and ran back. Katie appeared, looking bigger,
heavier, more awkward than ever. Tom patted Timothy's hands again, then
went across and kissed Katie, who blushed with shyness.
"Where's Ma, Katie?"
"In the parlour."
Tom broke away, leaving Katie blushing in front of Jack. Jack was
thinking how queer and empty the house seemed. And he felt an outsider
again. He stayed outside, sat down on the bench.
A boy much bigger than Harry, but with the same blue eyes and curly
hair, appeared chewing a haystalk, and squatted on a stone near by. Then
Og and Magog, a bit taller, but no thinner, came and edged on to the
seat. Then Ellie, a long-legged little girl, came running to his knees.
And then what had been Baby, but was now a fat, toddling little girl,
came racing out, fearless and inconsequential as the twins had been.
"Where's Len?" said Jack.
"He's in the paddock seein' to th' sheep," said Harry.
There was a queer tense silence. The children seemed to cling round Jack
for male protection.
"We're goin' to' live nearer in to th' township now," said Harry, "in a
little wee sortta house."
He stared with bold blue eyes, unwinking and yet not easy, straight into
Jack's eyes.
"Well Harry," said Jack, "You've grown quite a man."
"I hev so!" said Harry: "Quite the tyke! I ken kill birds for Ma to put
in th' pot I ken skin a kangaroo. I ken--"
But Jack didn't hear what else, because Tom was calling him from the
doorway. He went slowly across.
"Say, mate," said Tom in a low tone. "Stand by me. Things is not all
right." Aloud he said: "Ma wants t' see ye, Jack."
Jack followed through the back premises, down the three steps into the
parlour. It all seemed forlorn.
Ma sat with her face buried in her hands. Jack knitted his brows. Tom
put his hand on her shoulder.
"What is it, Ma? What is it? I wouldn't be anything but good to yer, Ma,
ye know that. Here's Jack Grant."
"Ye were always a good boy, Tom. I'm real glad t' see ye back. And
Jack," said Ma through her hands.
Tom looked at Jack in dismay. Then he stooped and kissed her hair.
"You look to me," he said. "We'll fix everything all right, for Lennie
'n everybody."
But Ma still kept her face between her hands.
"There's nothing t' worry about, Ma, sure there isn't," persisted the
distracted Tom. "I want y't' have everything you want, I do, you an'
Lennie an' the kids."
Mrs. Ellis took her hands from her face. She looked pale and worn. She
would not turn to the boys, but kept her face averted.
"I know you're as good a boy as ever lived," she faltered. Then she
glanced quickly at Tom and Jack, the tears began to run down her face,
and she threw her apron over her head.
"God's love!" gasped the bursting Tom, sinking on a chair.
They all waited in silence. Mrs. Ellis suddenly wiped her face on her
apron and turned with a wan smile to the boys.
"I've saved enough to buy a little place near Beverley, which is where I
belong," she said. "So me and the children are all right. And I've got
my eye, at least Lennie's got his on a good selection east of here,
between this and my little house, for Lennie. But we want cash for that,
I'm afraid. Only it's not that. That's not it."
"Lennie's young yet to take up land, Ma!" Tom plunged in. "Why won't he
stop here and go shares with me?"
"He wants to get married," said the mother wanly.
"Get married! Len! Why he's only seventeen!"
At this very natural exclamation, Ma threw her apron over her head, and
began to cry once more.
"He's been so good," she sobbed. "He's been so good! And his Ruth is old
enough and sensible enough for two. Better anything--" with more
sobbing--"than another scandal in the family."
Tom rubbed his head. Gosh! It was no joke being the head of a family!
"Well, Ma, if you wish it, what's the odds? But I'm afraid it'll have to
wait a bit. Jack'll tell you I haven't any cash. Not a stiver, Ma! Blown
out! It takes it outter yer up North. We never struck it rich."
Mrs. Ellis, under her apron, wept softly.
"Poor little Lennie! Poor little Lennie! He's been so good, Tom, working
day and night. And never spending a shilling. All his learning gone for
nought, Tom, and him a little slave, at his years, old and wise enough
to be his father, Tom. And he wants to get married. If we could start
him out fair! The new place has only four rooms and an out-kitchen, and
there's not enough to keep him, much less a lady wife. She's a lady
earning her bread teaching. He could go to Grace's. Alec Rice would have
him. But--"
She had taken her apron off her face, and was staring averted at the
door leading into Gran's old room.
The two boys listened mystified and a little annoyed. Why all this about
Lennie? Jack was wondering where Monica was. Why didn't she come? Why
wasn't she mentioned? And why was Ma so absolutely downcast, on the
afternoon of Tom's home-coming? It wasn't fair on Tom.
"Where is Monica?" asked Jack shyly at last.
But Mrs. Ellis only shook her head faintly and was mute, staring across
at Gran's door.
"Lennie married!" Tom was brooding. "Y'll have to put it out of y'r mind
for a bit, Ma. Why, it wouldn't hardly be decent."
"Let him marry if he's set on it--an' the girl's a good girl," said Mrs.
Ellis, her eyes swamping with tears again, and her voice breaking as she
rocked herself again.
"Yes, if we could afford it," Tom hastily put in. And he raised his
stunned eyes to Jack. Jack shrugged, and looked in the empty fireplace,
and thought of the little fires Gran used to have.
Money! Money! Money! The moment you entered within four walls it was the
word money, and your mouth full of ashes.
And then again something hardened in his soul. All his life he had been
slipping away from the bugbear of money. It was no good. You had to turn
round and get a grip on the miserable stuff. There was nothing else for
it. Though money nauseated him, he now accepted the fact that he must
have control over money, and not try just to slip by.
He began to repent of having judged Gran. That little old witch of a
Gran, he had hated the way she had seemed to hoard money and gloat in
the secret possession of it. But perhaps she knew, _somebody_ must
control it, somebody must keep a hand over it. Like a deadly weapon.
Money! Property! Gran fighting for them, to bequeath them to the man she
loved.
Perhaps she too had really hated money. She wouldn't make a will.
Neither would Dad. Their secret repugnance for money and possessions.
But you had to have property, else you were down and out. The men you
loved had to have property, or they were down and out. Like Lennie!
Poor old plucky Gran, fighting for her man. It was all a terrible muddle
anyhow. But he began to understand her motive.
Yes, if Len had got a girl into trouble and wanted to marry her, the
best he could do would be to have money and buy himself a little place.
Otherwise, heaven knows what would happen to him. With their profound
indifference to the old values, these Australians seemed either to
exaggerate the brutal importance of money, or they wanted to waste money
altogether, and themselves along with it. This was what Gran feared:
that her best male heirs would go and waste themselves, as Jacob had
begun to waste himself. The generous ones would just waste themselves,
because of their profound mistrust of the old values.
Better rescue Lennie for the little while it was still possible to
rescue him. Jack's mind turned to his own money. And then, looking at
that inner door, he seemed to see Gran's vehement figure, pointing
almost viciously with her black stick. She had tried so hard to drive
the wedge of her meaning into Jack's consciousness. And she had failed.
He had refused to take her meaning.
But now with a sigh that was almost a groan, he took up the money
burden. The "stocking" she had talked about, and which he had left in
the realms of unreality, was an actuality. That witch Gran, with her
uncanny, hateful second sight, had put by a stocking for Lennie, and
entrusted the secret of it to Jack. And he had refused the secret. He
hated those affairs.
Now he must assume the mysterious responsibility for this money. He got
up and went to the chimney, and peered into the black opening. Then he
began to feel carefully along the side of the chimney-stack inside,
where there was a ledge. His hand went deep in soot and charcoal and
grey ash.
He took off his coat and rolled up his sleeve.
"Gone off y'r bloomin' nut, Jack?" asked Tom, mystified.
"Gran told me she had put a stocking for Len in here," said Jack.
"Stocking be blowed!" said Tom testily. "We've heard that barm-stick
yarn before. Leave it alone, boy."
He was looking at Jack's bare, brown, sinewy arm. It reminded him of the
great North-West, and the heat, and the work, and the absolute
carelessness. This money and stocking business was like a mill-stone
round his neck. He felt he was gradually being drowned in soot, as Jack
continued to fumble up inside the chimney, and the soot poured down over
the naked arm.
"Oh, God's love, leave it alone, Jack!" he cried.
"Let him try," said Mrs. Ellis quietly. "If Gran told him. I wonder he
didn't speak before."
"I never really thought about it," said Jack.
"Don't think about it now!" shouted Tom.
Jack could feel nothing in the chimney. He looked contemplatively at the
fireplace. Something drew him to the place near Gran's arm-chair ... He
began feeling, while the other two watched him in a state of nervous
tension. Tom hated it.
"She pointed here with her stick," said Jack.
There was a piece of tin fastened over the side of the fireplace, and
black-leaded.
"Mind if we try behind this?" he asked.
"Leave it alone!" cried Tom.
But Jack pulled it out, and the ash and dirt and soot poured down over
the hearth. Behind the sheet of thin iron was the naked stone of the
chimney-piece. Various stones were loose: that was why Gran had had the
tin sheet put over.
He got out of the cavity behind the stones, where the loose mortar had
all crumbled, a little square dusty box that had apparently been an old
tea-caddy. It was very heavy for its size, and very dirty. He put it on
the table in front of Mrs. Ellis. Tom got up excitedly to look in. He
opened the lid. It was full to the brim of coins, gold coins and silver
coins and dust and dirt, and a sort of spider filament. He shook his
head over it.
"Isn't that old Gran to a T!" he exclaimed, and poured out the dust and
the money on the table.
Ma began eagerly to pick out the gold from the silver, saying:
"I remember when she made Dad put that iron plate up. She said insects
came out and worried her."
Ma only picked out the gold pieces, the sovereigns and half-sovereigns.
She left Tom to sort the silver crowns and half-crowns into little
piles. Jack watched in silence. There was a smell of soot and old
fire-dust, and everybody's hands were black.
Mrs. Ellis was putting the sovereigns in piles of ten. She had a queer
sort of satisfaction, but her gloom did not really lift. Jack stayed to
know how much it was. Mentally he counted the piles of gold she made:
the pale washy gold of Australia, most of it. She counted and counted
again.
"Two hundred and fourteen pounds!" she said in a low voice.
"And ten in silver," said Tom.
"Two hundred and twenty-four pounds," she said.
"It's not the world," said Tom, "but it's worth having. It's a start,
Ma. And you can't say that isn't Lennie's."
Jack went out and left them. He listened in all the rooms downstairs.
What he wanted to know about was Monica. He hated this family and family
money business, it smelled to him of death. Where was Monica? Probably,
to add to the disappointment, she was away, staying with Grace.
The house sounded silent. Upstairs all was silent. It felt as if nobody
was there.
He went out and across the yard to the stable. Lucy whinnied. Jack felt
she knew him. The nice, natural old thing: Tom would have to christen
her afresh. At least this Lucy wouldn't leave a stocking behind her when
she was dead. She was much too clean. Ah, so much nicer than that other
Lucy with her unpleasant perspiration, away in Honeysuckle.
Jack stood a long while with the sensitive old horse. Then he went round
the out-buildings, looking for Lennie. He drifted back to the house,
where Harry was chopping something with a small hatchet.
"Where's Monica, Harry?" he asked.
"She's not home," said Harry.
"Where's she gone?"
"Dunno."
And the resolute boy went on with his chopping.
Tom came out, calling. "I'm going over to have a word wi' th' Reds,
Jack. Cornin' with me?"
Tom didn't care for going anywhere alone, just now. Jack joined him.
"Where's Monica, Tom?" he asked.
"Ay, where is she?" said Tom, looking round as if he expected her to
appear from the thin air.
"She's not at home, anyhow," said Jack.
"She's gone off to Grace's, or to see somebody, I expect," said Tom, as
they walked across the yard. "And Len is out in the paddocks still. He
don't seem in no hurry to come an' meet us, neither. The little cuss!
Fancy that nipper wantin' to be spliced. Gosh, I'll bet he's old for his
age, the little old wallaby! An' that bloomin' teacher woman, Ruth, why
she's older'n me. She oughtta be ashamed of herself, kidnappin' that
nipper."
The two went side by side across the pasture, almost as if they were
free again. They came to a stile.
"Gosh!" said Tom. "They've blocked up this gate, 'n put a stile over,
see! Think o' that!"
They climbed the stile and continued their way.
"God's love, boy, didn't we land in it over our heads! Ever see Ma like
that? I never! Good for you, Jack, lad, findin' that tea-caddy. That's
how the Ellises are--ain't it the devil! 'Spect I take after my own
mother, f'r I'm not in the tea-caddyin' line. Ma's cheered up a bit.
She'll be able to start Lennie in a bit of a way, now, 'n the twins can
wait for a bit, thank goodness! My, but ain't families lively! Here I
come back to be boss of this bloomin' place, an' I feel as if I was
goin' to be shot. Say, boy, d'ye think I'm really spliced to that
water-snake in Honeysuckle? Because I s'll have to have somebody on this
outfit. Alone I will not face it. Say, matey, promise me you won't leave
me till I'm fixed up a bit. Give me your word you'll stand by me here
for a time, anyhow."
"I'll stay for a time," said Jack.
"Righto! an' then if I'm not copped by the Honeysuckle bird--'appen Mary
might have me, what d'you think? I shall have to have somebody. I simply
couldn't stand this place, all by my lonesome. What d'you think about
Mary? D'you think she'd like it, here?"
"Ask her," said Jack grimly.