'After all,' she continued vivaciously, 'science has done such a lot
for us of late. Practically every one can keep bodily young and fit.
It only means taking a little trouble. And the rest, I think, is just
a question of will-power and mental hygiene. No, I have no patience
with people who grow old; unless, of course, they really are very old
in years. I think it argues either stupidity or a kind of
profligacy--mental, nervous, and emotional, I mean--and in either case
it is very unfair to those about them, for there is nothing so horribly
contagious.'
I have sometimes wondered if Mrs. Oldcastle had any deliberate purpose
in this conversation. Upon the whole, I think not. I remember
distinctly that the responsibility for introducing the subject was
mine. She might have been covertly instructing me for my own benefit,
but I doubt it, I doubt it. My faults of melancholy and unrestfulness
had not appeared, I think, in my intercourse with Mrs. Oldcastle, so
cheery and enlivening was her influence. No, I think these really were
her views, and that she aired them purely conversationally, and
without design or afterthought, however kindly. Her own youth she had
most admirably conserved, and in a manner which showed real force of
character and self-control; for, as I now know, she had had some
trying and wearing experiences, though her air and manner were those
of a woman young and high-spirited, who had never known a care. As a
fact she had known what it was, for three years, to fight against the
horrid advance of what was practically a disease, and a terrible one,
in her late husband, the chief cause of whose death was alcoholic
poisoning.
But, though I am almost sure that this particular conversation was in
no sense part of a design or meant to influence me in my relations
with her, yet it did, as a matter of fact, serve to put a period to my
musings, and bring me to a definite decision, which it may be had
considerable importance for both of us. Within forty-eight hours Mrs.
Oldcastle was to leave the _Oronta_, her destination being the South
Australian capital. That I had become none too sure of myself in her
company is proved by the fact that when I left her that evening, it
was with mention of a pretended headache and chill. I kept my cabin
next day, and before noon on the day following that we were due at
Port Adelaide. Mrs. Oldcastle expressed kindly sympathy in the matter
of my supposed indisposition, and that rather upset me. I could see
that my non-appearance during her last full day on board puzzled her,
and I was not prepared to part from her upon a pretence.
'Why, the fact is,' I said, 'I don't think I can accept your sympathy,
because I had no headache or chill. I was a little moody--somewhat
middle-aged, you know; and wanted to be alone, and think.'
'I see,' she said thoughtfully, and rather wonderingly.
'I don't very much think you do,' I told her, not very politely. 'And
I'm not sure that I can explain--even if it were wise to try. I think,
if you don't mind, I'll just say this much: that I greatly value your
friendship, and want to retain it, if I can. It seemed to me better to
have a headache yesterday, in case--in case I might have done anything
to risk losing your friendship.'
'Oh! Well, I do not think you are likely to lose it, for I--I am as
much interested as you can be in preserving it. I want you to write to
me. Will you? And I will write to you when you have found your
hermitage and can give me an address. I will give you my agent's
address in Adelaide, and my own address in London, where I shall
expect a call from you within two years. No, you wall not find it so
easy to lose touch with me, my friend; nor would you if--if you had
not had your headache yesterday.'
Upon that she left me to prepare for going ashore. I think we
understood each other very well then. After that we had no more than a
minute together for private talk. During that minute I do not think I
said anything except 'Good-bye!' But I very well remember some words
Mrs. Oldcastle said.
'You are not to forget me, if you please. Remember, I am not so dull
but what I can understand--some headaches. But they must not be
accompanied by "moody middle-age." Do please remember when the
hermitage palls that it may be left just as easily as it was found.
And then, apart from Mr. Heron and others, there will be a friend
waiting to see you in London, and--and wanting to see you.... That's
my agent, the man with the green-lined umbrella. Good-bye--friend!'
V
The _Oronta_ was a dull ship for me once she had passed Adelaide;
duller even than in the grey days between Tilbury and Naples. Adelaide
passed, an Australian-bound liner seems to have reached the end of her
outward passage, and yet it is not over. The remainder, for Melbourne,
Sydney, and Brisbane-bound folk, is apt to be a weariness, even as a
train journey is, with passengers coming and going and trunks and
boxes much in evidence.
I had lost my friend, though I had called this my method of retaining
her friendship; and rightly, I dare say. To be worthy of her a man
should have left in him ten times my vitality, I thought; he should be
one who looked forward rather than back; he should bring to their
joint wayfaring a far keener zest for life than my years in our modern
Grub Street had left me. How vapid was the talk of my remaining
fellow-passengers; how slow of understanding, and how preoccupied with
petty things they seemed! They discussed their luggage, and questions
regarding the proper amounts for stewards' tips. Had not some
traveller called Adelaide Australia's city of culture? It seemed a
pleasant town. The Mount Lofty country near by was beautiful, I
gathered. It might well have been better for me to have left the ship
there. My musings were in this sort; somewhat lacking, perhaps, in the
zest and cheerfulness which should pertain to a new departure in life.
I spent a few days in Sydney, chiefly given to walks through the city
and suburbs. There was a certain interest, I found, to be derived from
the noting of all the changes which a quarter of a century had wrought
in this antipodean Venice. Some of the alterations I noticed were
possibly no more than reflections of the changes time had wrought in
myself; for these--the modifications which lie between ambitious youth
and that sort of damaged middle-age which carries your dyspeptic
farther from his youth than ever his three score years and ten take
the hale man--had been radical and thorough with me. But, none the
less, Sydney's actual changes were sufficiently remarkable.
At the spot whereon I made my entry into society (as I thought), in
the studio of Mr. Rawlence, the artist, stood now an imposing red
building of many storeys, given over, I gathered, to doctors and
dentists. The artist, I thought, was probably gathered to his fathers
ere this, as my old fellow-lodger, Mr. Smith, most certainly must have
been. Mr. Foster, the editor of the _Chronicle_, had died some years
previously. The offices and premises of Messrs. J. Canning and Son, my
first employers in Sydney, were as though I had left them but
yesterday, unchanged in any single respect. But the head of the firm,
as I had known him, was no more; and his son, of whom I caught one
glimpse on the stairway, had grown elderly, grey, and quite
surprisingly stout.
There was some interest for me in prowling about the haunts of my
youth; but to be honest, I must admit there was no pleasure, even of
the mildly melancholy kind. However beautiful their surroundings, no
New World cities are in themselves beautiful or picturesque. That
which is new in them is--new, and well enough; and that which is not
new or newish is apt to be rather shabby than venerable. I apprehend
that Old World cities would be quite intolerably shabby and tumble-down
but for the fact that, when they were built, joint stock
companies were unknown, and men still took real pride in the
durability of their work. We have made wondrous progress, of course,
and are vastly cleverer than our forbears; but for the bulk of the
work of our hands, there is not very much to be said when its newness
has worn off.
I thought seriously for an hour or more of going to Dursley to visit
its Omniferacious Agent, and, more particularly, perhaps to see his
wife; possibly even to settle in the neighbourhood of that pretty
little town. Then I reckoned up the years, and decided against this
step. The Omnigerentual One would be an old man, if alive; and his
wife--I recalled her fragile figure and hopeless invalidism, and
thought I would sooner cherish my recollections of five-and-twenty
years than put them to the test of inquiry.
On the fourth or fifth day I drove with my bags to the handsome new
railway station which had taken the place of the rambling old Redfern
terminal I remembered, and took train for the north. I found I had no
wish, at present, to visit Werrina, Myall Creek, or Livorno Bay, and
my journey came to an end a full fifty miles south of St. Peter's
Orphanage. Here, within five miles of the substantial township of
Peterborough, I came, with great ease, upon the very sort of place I
had in mind: a tiny cottage of two rooms, with a good deep verandah
before, and a little lean-to kitchen, or, in the local phrase,
skillion, behind; two rough slab sheds, a few fruit trees past their
prime, an acre of paddock, and beyond that illimitable bush.
I bought the tiny place for a hundred and five pounds, influenced
thereto in part by the fact that the daughter of its owner, a small
'cockatoo' farmer's wife, lived no more than a quarter of a mile away;
and was willing, for a modest consideration, to come in each day and
'do' for me, to the extent of cooking one hot meal, washing dishes,
and tidying my little gunyah. Thus, simply and swiftly, I became a
landed proprietor, and was able to send to Sydney for my heavy
chattels, knowing that, for the first time in my life, I actually
possessed in my own right a roof to shelter them withal, though it
were only of galvanised iron. (The use of stringy bark for the roofing
of small dwellings seemed to have ceased since my last sojourn in
these parts, the practical value of iron for rain-water catchment
having thrust aside the cooler and more picturesque material.)
In the township of Peterborough I secured, for the time being, the
services of a decent, elderly man named Fetch--Isaiah Fetch--and
together we set to work to make a garden before my little house; to
fence it in against the attacks of bandicoots and wandering cattle,
and to effect one or two small repairs, additions and improvements to
the place. This manual work interested me, and, I dare say, bettered
my health, though I was ashamed to note the poor staying power I had
as compared with Isaiah Fetch, who, whilst fully ten years my senior,
was greatly my superior in toughness and endurance.