When I stepped out of the train at Redfern Station in Sydney, I
carried all my worldly belongings in a much worn carpet-bag which had
been given me by Mr. Perkins. Its weight did not at all suggest to me
the need of obtaining a porter's services, and hardly would have done
so even if I had been accustomed to engaging assistance of the sort.
Stepping out with my bag into the bustle of the capital city I walked,
as one who knew his way, to where the noisy and malodorous old steam
tram-cars started, and made my way by tram to Circular Quay. (I had
had my directions in Dursley.) Here I boarded a ferry-boat, and at the
cost of one penny was carried across the shining waters of the harbour
to North Shore. Half an hour later I had mounted the hill, found Mill
Street and Bay View Villa, and actually become a boarder and a lodger
there, with a latch-key of my own.
The landlady having left the bedroom to which she had escorted me, my
carefully sustained nonchalance fell from me; I turned the key in the
door, and sat down on the edge of my bed with a long-drawn sigh. The
celerity, the extraordinary swiftness of the whole business left me
almost breathless.
'Yesterday,' I told myself, as one recounting a miracle, 'I was
planting out young tomatoes in Mr. Perkins's garden in Dursley. Only a
few minutes ago I was still in the train. And now--now I'm a lodger,
and this is my room, and--I'm a lodger!'
I did not seem able to get beyond that just then, though later on,
with a recollection of a certain passage in a favourite novel, I tried
the sound, in a whisper, of:
'Mr. Nicholas Freydon was now comfortably installed in rooms on the
shady side of--North Shore.' At the same time I ran over a few
variants upon such easy phrases as: 'My rooms at North Shore,' 'Snug
quarters,' 'My boarding-house,' 'My landlady,' and the like.
One must remember that I was less than two years distant from St.
Peter's and from Sister Agatha and her cane.
There were two beds in my room; one small and the other very small. I
was sitting on the very small one. The other belonged to Mr. William
Smith, whose real name might quite possibly have been something else.
For already, though I had not seen him, I had gathered that my room-mate
was an elderly man with a history, of which this much was
generally admitted: that he had seen much better days, and was a
married man separated from his wife.
'But a pleasanter, kinder-hearted, nicer-spoken gentleman you couldn't
wish to meet, that I will say,' Mrs. Hastings, the landlady, had told
me. 'Which,' she added, after a pause given to reflection, with eyes
downcast, 'if he was otherwise I should not've thought of letting a
share of his room to anybody with recommendations from me nephew in
Dursley--not likely. No, nor for that matter, of havin' him in my
house at all.'
My landlady was an aunt of that Mr. Jokram who had earned distinction
(apart from his membership of the School of Arts Committee) by being
the first to address me as 'Mister Freydon.' This good man had taken a
most friendly interest in my outsetting, and had written off at once
to his aunt to know if she could include me among her boarders. Mrs.
Hastings had explained that she was 'Full up as per usual, but if your
gentleman friend would care to share Mr. Smith's bedroom, him being as
quiet and respectable a gentleman as walks, it will be easy to put in
another bed.'
This was before any mention had been made of terms. These, we
subsequently learned, ranged from a minimum of 17s. 6d. per week,
including light and use of bath. Later, the nephew was able to obtain
special concessions for me, as the result of which I had the
opportunity of securing all the amenities of Mrs. Hastings's refined
home, including a share of Mr. Smith's room, and such plain washing as
did not call for the use of starch--all for the very moderate charge
of 16s. weekly.
Thus it was that, although a stranger and without friends in Sydney, I
was able to go direct into my new quarters, without any loss of time
or money; an important consideration even for a capitalist whose
fortune at this time amounted to something nearer thirty than twenty
pounds. (Mr. Perkins had given me an extra month's wages. Mrs. Perkins
had supplemented this by half a sovereign, six pairs of socks, three
linen shirts, and half a dozen collars; and Mrs. Gabbitas had given me
a brand new Bible and Prayer-book, with ornate bindings and perfectly
blinding type, and another of the silk handkerchiefs coloured like a
tropical sunset.)
'I shall not be in to tea this evening, Mrs. Hastings, I said, with
fine carelessness, as I left the house, after unpacking my belongings
and paying a visit to the bathroom, an apartment formed by taking in a
section of the back verandah. (The bath was of the same material as
the verandah roof--galvanised iron.) 'I've got some business in Sydney
that will keep me rather late.'
The good woman rather pierced my carefully assumed guise of
nonchalance by the smile with which she said: 'Oh, very well, Mr.
Freydon; I hope you'll not be kept too late--by business.'
'How in the world did she guess?' I thought as I walked down to the
ferry. It may be that the virus of city life had in some queer way
already entered my veins. Here was I, the parsimonious 'handy lad,'
who had been saving ninety per cent. of my wages and never indulging
myself in any way, actually contemplating the purchase of an evening
meal in Sydney, while becoming indebted for an evening meal I should
never eat in North Shore; to say nothing of making deceitful remarks
about being detained by business, when I had deliberately made up my
mind to postpone all business until the next day. Truly, I was making
an ominous start in the new life; or so my twitching conscience told
me, as I sat enjoying the harbour view from the deck of the ferry-boat
which took me to Circular Quay.
My notion of dissipation and extravagance would have proved amusing to
the bloods of that day, and merely incredible to those of the present
time. There was an unnecessary twopence for the ferry--admitting the
whole business to have been unnecessary. There was sixpence for a
meal, consisting of tea and a portentous allowance of scones with
butter. There was threepence for a packet of cigarettes ('colonial'
tobacco), the first I had ever smoked, and a purchase which had
actually been decided upon some days previously. Finally, there was
fourpence for a glass of colonial wine in a George Street wine-shop;
and this also, like the rest of the outing, had been practically
decided upon before I left Dursley. But with regard to the wine there
had been reservations. The cigarettes were certainly to be tried. The
wine was to be had if circumstances proved favourable, and such a
plunge seemed at the time desirable. It did; and so I may suppose the
outing was successful.
During my wanderings up and down the city streets, I examined
carefully the vestibules of various places of amusement--rather dingy
most of them were at that date--but had no serious thought of
penetrating further. The shops, the road traffic, and the people
intrigued me greatly, but especially the people, the unending streams
of lounging men, women, and children. Some, no doubt, were on business
bent; but the majority appeared to me to take their walking very
easily, and every one seemed to be chattering. My life since as a
child I left England had all been spent in sparsely populated rural
surroundings, and the noisy bustle of Sydney impressed me very much,
as I imagine the Strand would impress a Dartmoor lad, born and bred,
on his first visit to London.
It did not oppress me at all. On the contrary, I felt pleasantly
stimulated by it. Life here seemed very clearly and emphatically
articulate; it marched past me in the streets to a stirring strain.
There were no pauses, no silences, no waiting. And then, too, one felt
that things were happening all the time. The atmosphere was full of
stir and bustle. Showy horses and carriages went spanking past one;
cabs were pulled up with a jerk, and busily talking men clambered out
from them, carelessly handing silver to the driver, as though it were
a thing of no consequence, and passing from one's sight within doors,
waving cigars and talking, talking all the time. Obviously, big things
were toward; not one to-day and one to-morrow, but every hour in every
street. Fortunes were being made and lost; great enterprises planned
and launched; great crimes, too, I supposed; and crucial meetings and
partings.
Yes, this was the very tide of life, one felt; and with what pulsing,
irresistible strength it ebbed and flowed along the city highways!
Among all these thousands of passers-by no one guessed how closely and
with what inquisitive interest I was observing them. I suppose I must
have covered eight or ten miles of pavement before walking
self-consciously into that wine-shop, and sitting down beside a little
metal table. I know now that, with me, nervousness generally takes the
form of marked apparent nonchalance. Doubtless, this is due to
concentrated effort in my youth to produce this effect. I did not know
the name of a single Australian wine; but I remembered some
enthusiastic comment of my father's upon the 'admirable red wine of
the country,' so I ordered a glass of red wine, and, with an amused
stare, the youth in attendance served me.
Like many of the wines of the country it was fairly potent stuff, and
rather sweet than otherwise, probably an Australian port. I sipped it
with the air of one who generally devoted a good portion of his
evenings to such dalliance, and ate several of the thin biscuits which
lay in a plate on the table. Meanwhile, I observed closely the other
sippers. They were all in couples, and the snatches of their
conversation which I heard struck me as extraordinarily dramatic in
substance; most romantic, I thought, and very different from the
leisurely, languid gossip of those who draw patterns in the dust with
their clasp-knives, and converse chiefly about 'baldy-faced steers,'
'good feed,' 'heavy bits o' road,' and the like, with generous
intervals of say ten or twelve minutes between observations. These
folk in the wine-shop, on the contrary, tripped over one another in
their talk; their hands and shoulders and brows all played a part, as
well as their lips, and their glances were charged with penetrant
meaning.
As I made my way gradually down to Circular Quay and the ferry, some
one stepped out athwart my path from a shadowy doorway, and I had a
vision of straw-coloured hair, pale skin, scarlet lips, a woman's
figure.
'Going home, dear? What about coming with me? Come on, de-ear!'
Somehow I knew all about it. Not from talk, I am sure. Possibly from
reading; possibly by instinct. I felt as though the poor creature had
hit me across the face with a hot iron. I tried to answer her, but
could not. She barred my path, one hand on my arm. It was no use; I
could not get words out. Those waiting seconds were horrible. And then
I turned and fairly ran from her, a rather hoarse laugh pursuing me
among the shadows as I went.
It was horrible, and affected me for hours. But it did not spoil my
outing. No, I think on the whole it added to the general excitation. I
had a sense of having stepped right out into the deep waters of life,
of being in the current. The drama of life was touching me now; its
sombre and tragical side as well as the rest of it.
'This really is life,' I told myself as the ferry bore me among
twinkling lights across the harbour. 'This is the big world, and
Dursley hardly was.'
It stirred me deeply. The harbour itself; the dim, mysterious outlines
of ships, the dancing water, the sense of connection with the world
outside Australia, the very latch-key in my pocket, and the thought
that I would presently be going to bed at my lodgings, in a room
shared by an experienced and rather mysterious man, with a past; all
combined to produce in me a stirring alertness to the adventurous
interest of life.