Laura Stamford, like other girls, would have preferred to stay at
the ball for another hour—to have danced another waltz with Mr.
Donald M’Intosh, who indeed made himself most agreeable. But her
natural tendencies lay in the direction of sympathetic consideration
for others. When, therefore, she remarked the tired look on her
mother’s face, and, moreover, instantly remembered that they were to
be conveyed homeward in the Grandisons’ carriage, she at once
declared her willingness to depart, telling her despairing partner
that “she must really go; Mrs. Grandison and her mother were waiting
for her.”
“If I persuade Mrs. Grandison to wait for the next waltz, may I say
I have your permission?” eagerly inquired Mr. M’Intosh.
“No! indeed, no!” said Laura, looking at Mrs. Stamford’s resigned
yet weary countenance, the lines on which she could read so well.
“No, thank you! I must say good bye, I really must not consent to
stay on any terms whatever. Please to take me to my mother.”
Mr. M’Intosh bowed low, and made his most impressive adieu. After
which he betook himself to the supper-room, and declined dancing for
the short time for which he remained among the revellers.
Latish, but not unreasonably near to lunchtime, the Stamford family
showed up to breakfast after the ball.
Every one was tolerably fresh. The slight pallor, the darkened lines
under the eyes of Laura and Linda, only communicated an added charm
to their youthful countenances.
Mrs. Stamford looked hardly restored, but after the first cup of tea
rallied, and enjoyed a _réchauffé_ of the great night’s
entertainment.
“Whatever happens, _Ich habe gelebt und geliebt_,” said Linda, who
had a turn for German literature. “I did not believe such happiness
was to be found on earth! And to think that I am only nineteen, too!
I shall die early, or else it will consume me.”
“You certainly seemed to be having a very pleasant time of it, with
your naval friends,” assented Laura. “People’s views of the area of
existence must be enlarging. But it certainly was the most
transcendent ball. I feel almost humiliated at having enjoyed it so
much.”
“I begin to think we must not have many dances of that sort,” said
Mrs. Stamford. “I’m afraid they are too exciting. You girls will
find Windāhgil dull and prosaic after this.”
“Not at all,” said Laura, taking her mother’s hand affectionately.
“We shall have souvenirs that will last us a year, that is all. Next
to coming to town the going back to dear, peaceful, happy old
Windāhgil is the greatest pleasure I can imagine in life.”
“Won’t it be delightful,” said Linda, “talking over all our
experiences? Then reading up the lovely books we’re taking home. I
always wonder how any one can call “the bush” dull. It will be a
perfect elysium of rest after all this fierce excitement.”
“And when are we to go home?” inquired Mr. Stamford tentatively; “at
the end of the week?”
“Oh! no, no! out of the question,” called out both the girls.
“Mr. Fitzurse said,” pleaded Linda, “that they were going to have a
_déjeuner_ and a dance on board the _Eurydice_ on Monday, and if I
didn’t go the ship would turn over and sink, like the _Austral_.”
“Mr. M’Intosh mentioned something about a _matinée musicale_ which
was to be at Government House on Tuesday,“ said Laura, at which
Mademoiselle Claironnet was to give her celebrated recitals out of
_Lohengrin_. It would be a pity to miss that. He felt sure we would
have tickets sent us.”
“There’s to be a tennis party at the Whartons’,” said Linda, “on
Wednesday. They have an asphalte court, and the winners of the last
tournament are to be there, besides Miss Constance Grey, who is the
champion Melbourne player. I want to see if I have any of my old
form left.”
“Mr. Hope is going to drive four-in-hand to the picnic at Botany
Heads on Thursday,” said Laura, carelessly; “he said he could easily
take us all, and I was to have the box seat. It would be almost a
pity not to go, don’t you think?”
“Exactly so,” said Mr. Stamford; “and we’re all to dine at
Chatsworth on Friday, so it looks as if the week was pretty well
discounted in advance. Well, Saturday for recovery, on Sunday we’ll
all go to the Cathedral, on Monday—mind, Monday week—we start for
home, if all the picnics, parties, and pleasure-promises of Sydney
were to be left unfurnished and unfulfilled.”
“I am sure, girls, you should think your father the best of living
parents,” said Mrs. Stamford. “I don’t know how we can be grateful
enough to him. I wanted a day’s shopping before our departure, and
this will give us time to finish up comfortably. I was dreadfully
afraid that we should have to leave town this week.”
Laura and Linda laughed outright at this.
“Why, mother,” said Linda, we couldn’t do that without breaking our
words, being ungrateful, and doing everything that you have brought
us up not to do; could we, Laura? I promised faithfully to go to
this dance on board the _Eurydice_; she’s anchored in Neutral Bay,
and Mr. Fitzurse said he’d send a boat specially for us. It would be
disgraceful to throw him over.”
“And who gave you leave to promise and vow, Miss Linda, in the
absence of your parents, may I ask?” said Mr. Stamford. “You don’t
seem to understand that, unless we are consulted, all your
undertakings are vain.”
“Oh! but I knew you would approve,” said Linda; “besides Mr.
Fitzurse was so respectful and nice—perfectly timid, in fact—that I
thought it would be unladylike to refuse. And we have never seen a
man-of-war—a ship I mean. What a lot we shall have to tell Hubert,
shall we not, mother?”
“If you tell him everything you’ll have a great historiette, or
confession, whatever you call it, to make,” said Laura, “if one may
judge by the amount of chattering I saw going on.
“Some people may not chatter, but do a great deal of
serious—h’m—friendship-making in the same time,” retorted Linda.
“But I don’t mind, I’m so happy. Everything’s delightful. I had no
idea the world was such a nice place.”
Although matters could not be expected to keep up to the degree of
high pressure indicated, an unusual and highly satisfactory amount
of recreation was transacted during the remainder of the reprieve
allowed by fate and Mr. Stamford.
The dance on board the _Eurydice_ came off, when Linda enjoyed the
supreme and exquisite felicity of being taken off from the pier in a
barge with twelve rowers and the _Eurydice_ flag flying; the crew
being dominated by an implacable midshipman of the sternest
demeanour. They were received with all due formality and ceremony at
the gangway, and being thereafter marshalled about by Lieutenant
Fitzurse, before envious comrades, Linda’s joy was complete. The
dance, as most naval entertainments are, was wonderfully organised,
and truly successful. Epauletted heroes were plentiful, and even the
Commodore himself graciously explained the rudiments of nautical
science to Laura and her mother. The happy day ended with a romantic
return sail, with a favouring breeze, under a silver moon, over the
mystical, motionless deep.
It was fairyland once more possible in this world below. The happy
girls could hardly realise that they were the same people who had
been, but one little year ago, mourning the unkind season, sadly
contending with the wrath of Heaven and the wrongs of earth.
The _matinée musicale_, honoured by Vice-regal patronage, was also
transacted with all the society population of Sydney in full array
and punctual attendance. Here Mr. Donald M’Intosh, a distinguished
amateur, held pre-eminent sway. His “marked attentions” to Laura
caused her to be the observed of all observers, a circumstance
which, however, did not interfere with her frankly expressed
enjoyment of the musical luxuries.
“Why, Laura!” said her cousin, “if you go on in this way you and
Linda will have all the Sydney girls mobbing you, or petitioning for
your rustication without delay. You have fascinated the sailors, and
not contented with that, you seem only to have to hold up your hand
to have that difficult, delightful Mr. M’Intosh, the least
susceptible man in Sydney, at your feet. Then there is Mr. Hope,
neglecting his business and driving four-in-hand, as I hear to this
picnic, all for your sake! What is your charm, may I ask?”
“I don’t quite understand you, Josie,” she answered (which, perhaps,
was pardonably insincere); “we are enjoying ourselves very much, and
everybody is extremely kind.”
“I should think so, indeed,” replied Miss Josie, scornfully.
As for the great picnic, everybody was there. The day was lovely,
the sea calm, the sky of the glowing azure which the south land only
boasts, the road perfect. The rival four-in-hand drags, including
Mr. Hope’s chestnuts, combined to produce a perfectly faithful
presentment of the ideal life which Linda had previously concluded
to be limited to society novels, and the, perhaps, mythical
personages depicted therein.
There was even a Royal Duke among the guests, though when he was
pointed out to her, Laura committed the error of mistaking for him a
well-known officer of police in attendance, whose aristocratic
figure and distinguished bearing at once decided her in her quest
for royalty. However, the slight mistake was soon rectified, and the
day burned itself into her maiden consciousness as one of those
seasons of enjoyment which rarely fulfil anticipation, but if so,
continue to illumine the halls of memory until life’s latest hour.
“This is our farewell to the sea for a while,” thought Laura. “I
can’t help feeling melancholy. What a lovely haze spreads over the
ocean in the distance! How strange to think that it is nearly a
hundred years since Cook sailed into these silent headlands. What a
new world he was preparing! It was more than a discovery. Almost a
creation. Oh, day of days! Oh, whispering breeze! Oh, soft blue sky!
Can the earth hold anything more lovely?”
The “pleasures and palaces” having come to an end, the fatal Monday
made its unwelcome appearance.
As the Stamfords’ day of departure was known, there was an unwonted
influx of afternoon visitors at their rooms, besides a dropping fire
of cards, notes, and messages, expressive of different shades of
regret.
“Oh, dear! I had no idea Sydney was such a nice place,” exclaimed
Linda, as the twilight hour approached, and the stream of friends
and acquaintances ceased to flow. “I could not have believed there
were so many delightful people in the world. Why will writers say so
many unpleasant things about society? It seems full of polite,
graceful, affectionate persons. As for the malignant and wicked
people that all the books rave about, where are they? We have not
seen them, certainly, or even heard of them, have we, Laura?”
“I believe not—yes—no,” answered Laura, absently. “But who said
anybody was wicked?”
“Nobody, of course,” explained Linda. “I only meant that in every
book you read there are pages and pages devoted to descriptions of
ingeniously wicked people, who seem as common in every city as
bookmakers at a racecourse, whereas I said we never see any of them,
or hear either.”
“See whom?” inquired Laura, who was looking out thoughtfully over
the harbour. “Do you mean any one who called this afternoon?”
“What nonsense you are talking, Laura! I really believe you must be
thinking of something, or rather somebody, else. I wonder whom it
can be? Certainly you have received a good deal of attention—‘marked
attention,’ as Mrs. Grandison always says. How cross Josie looked
when she said it! First of all Mr. Barrington Hope, then Mr.
M’Intosh, then Mr.—who was that nice man from New Zealand?”
“Really Linda, you are altogether too ridiculous. Am I to be called
to account about every one of my partners? If so, you had better get
my ball programmes—I have kept them all—and ask everybody’s
intentions right down the lists.”
“I don’t mean partners, Laura; I had plenty of them, I am thankful
to say; but people didn’t come every other day to the house—besides
waylaying one everywhere, and making a fuss over father and poor
dear mother. They drew the line at that.”
“I feel more and more convinced, Linda, that you have not quite
finished packing,” remarked Laura calmly. “The tea-bell will ring
directly, and we shall have no more time then. Do think a little. I
saw your cerise silk in our room, I feel sure, just now.”
“Oh, my lovely cerise silk! To think I should have forgotten it!”
said Linda, quite diverted from her line of cross-questioning. “But
where will it go? I haven’t the faintest notion. My trunk is
full—more than full—and pressed down. It wouldn’t hold another
handkerchief.”
“Be a good girl, and promise to talk sensibly, and I may spare you a
place in mine,” said Laura, smiling at her victory. “I am just going
to fold and put away my last dress.”
“You are always so kind, Laura. I did not mean to tease you, but I
really do feel anxious about Mr. M’Intosh. Suppose he was only
amusing himself with you all the time!”
“Then you will be able to console yourself with the idea that you
have seen at least one wicked person,” said Laura, with great good
humour; “and so your knowledge of the great world will be expanded.
But I will venture to contradict the charge, as far as he is
concerned. But remember on what terms I provide a place for your
forlorn dress. Besides I want to write one or two good-bye notes.”
* * * * *
Although Laura was outwardly calm and self-possessed, she was not
wholly unmoved by certain considerations which Linda’s badinage had
suggested.
Unless her perception played her false upon a subject on which
women, even when inexperienced, commonly judge correctly, both Mr.
Barrington Hope and Mr. M’Intosh were seriously interested in her
good opinion of them. The latter gentleman had indeed been so
persistent and pressing, that she had been compelled with great
gentleness, yet with firmness, to discourage his advances. This step
she took with a certain reluctance—more perhaps, because she had not
finally resolved as to her state of feeling than because she in any
way disliked him.
Dislike him? No—who could, indeed, dislike Donald M’Intosh? Was he
not handsome, accomplished, manly, possessed, moreover, of all the
subtle graces of manner that almost invariably attach themselves to
a man, be he good, bad, or indifferent as to morals or brains, who
has “seen the world,” as the phrase runs—who has met his
fellow-creatures all his life under the highly-favoured
circumstances of an assured position and ample means?
He certainly had been most assiduous, most respectful, most
flatteringly _empresse_ in his manner, bestowing that unconcealed
admiration which gratifies the vanity of womanhood, at the same time
that it is apt to arouse the ire of the virgins, both wise and
foolish, who are less prominently noticed.
Then his “position,” as it is called. He possessed that social
distinction, that untitled rank, which is perhaps as clearly
defined, as freely yielded, or firmly refused, in a colony as in
England. He was a great country gentleman—such a man as in Britain a
hundred years ago would have periodically gone up to London in his
family carriage attended by outriders and driven by postillions.
Here in the colonies he was known as a man of good family, who had
inherited large estates, besides pastoral possessions of even
greater value, lands in city and suburbs, houses in fashionable
squares all derived from well-considered investments in those early
days when every hundred pounds in cash—sometimes even a tenth of
that proverbial sum—so invested bore fruit fiftyfold or a
thousandfold, as the case might be.
Then there was his magnificent place, Glenduart, of which everybody
had heard. Such a drawing-room, such suites of apartments! Gardens
and stables, conservatories and fountains, picture-gallery and
statuary—what not! Had he not entertained the Governor and Lady
Delmore there? Everybody said it was like a nobleman’s house in
England, or, at any rate, one of those beautiful old country seats
which are the glory of the parent land. His horses, too, his
carriages—what a four-in-hand team had he driven at the picnic they
had all gone to!
And all this at her feet! Was there a girl in Sydney—as far as any
one could judge—that would not—she could not say “jump at,” even in
her thoughts—but willingly accept him?
What a chorus of congratulations or detractions, both equally
gratifying, would not the announcement of her engagement arouse!
Thus far the world, the natural, impulsive feeling of the human
heart, unchecked by the calm voice of reason, the warnings of the
inner soul.
On the other hand, was he so fitted in character and mentally
fashioned as to accord with the tone of her mind, with the
principles in which from childhood she had been reared? Did they
agree in opinion on subjects which were to her vitally important?
Were their tastes mainly in accord? and if differing, was his
disposition such as would lead her to suppose that he would modify
his predilections to suit her wishes?
She could not say. She did not know. Her ignorance of his character
was complete. All that she could possibly assure herself that she
knew concerning Donald M’Intosh was what the world said of him, and
no more—that he was brave, generous, courteous, and rich. So much
she admitted. But her experience had been merely of the outer husk
of his nature. The varnish with which the natural man is concealed
from his fellows was flawless and brilliant. All might be in
accordance with the fair-seeming, attractive exterior. On the other
hand, much might be hidden beneath, the revelation of which would
constitute the difference to Laura Stamford between joy and peace,
hope and happiness upon earth, or misery complete and unending,
hopeless despair.
It was a terrible risk to run, an uncertainty altogether too
momentous to encounter at present. Dismissing the subject of Mr.
M’Intosh’s interests and prospects, there was—and she blushed even
when naming his name in her own heart—there was Barrington Hope. He
had little to offer in any way comparable to the other in what most
people would consider the essentials of matrimonial success. A
hard-worked man compelled to tax his every mental faculty to the
uttermost, in order to meet the demands of his occupation. From one
point of view, no doubt, his position was high; no man of his age
had, perhaps, the same rank and consideration in finance. But the
magnificence of “seigneury” was not his—never probably would be. In
spite of his birth, which was equal to that of any magnate of the
land, no girl of the period, no matron who knew the world, would
think for a moment of comparing the social status of the two men.
But in his favour there were arguments of weight. She knew him to be
a man of refined tastes, of literary culture, of high moral
principle, of fastidious delicacy of tone and taste. It may be that
Laura Stamford only thought she knew these things, that she
committed the feminine mistake of taking for granted that the hero
of her girlish romance was perfection. It may be confessed here that
Barrington Hope was the first man who had had power to stir those
mysterious passion-currents which sleep so calmly in the heart of
youth, puissant as they are when fully aroused to hurry the
possessor to destruction or despair. But she was, for her age, a
calm observer, having, moreover, a full measure of the sex’s
intuitive discernment. In all their light or serious conversation,
she had marked in the mind of Barrington Hope the signs of high and
lofty purpose, of a chivalrous nature, an inborn generosity only
controlled by the voice of conscience and the dictates of an
enforced prudence.
And did he love her as in her heart she told herself she deserved to
be loved?
Of that all-important fact she could not yet assure herself. But,
patient ever, and modestly doubtful of all things which concerned
her personal influence, Laura decided that she could well afford to
await the direction of circumstances. Her home duties were still
paramount in her steadfast mind. She had no immediate wish that they
should be cast aside for objects purely personal. There was yet much
to do at Windāhgil. Linda was scarcely capable of assuming the
responsibilities of housekeeping, and should she make default, she
knew upon whose shoulders the burden would fall. The younger
brothers and Hubert, who had hardly been separated from her thoughts
for an hour since childhood—all the love and gentle tendence due to
them were not to be uprooted and flung away to wither like weeds out
of the garden path. No! The time might come when she, Laura
Stamford, like other girls, would go forth from her father’s house,
bidding farewell to the loved ones of her youth—of her life—part of
her very soul, as they were; but there was no necessity for haste.
She must take time for careful choice—for sober counsel. She had
never been wont to do anything of importance hastily. She would not
furnish so bad a precedent now.
So in spite of Linda’s desponding protestations that they never
would be actually, completely, and finally packed up, the fated
evening came which witnessed a devoted cab, overladen with such an
array of luggage as caused Mr. Stamford to exclaim and the
hall-porter to smile.
On the preceding Sunday every one had gone dutifully to church, but
in the afternoon Linda’s devotional feelings must have been somewhat
intermixed with ideas of a nautical nature, judging from audible
scraps of conversation, as carried on by Lieutenant Fitzurse, R.N.,
and his comrades, who had thought it only decent and fitting, as
they observed, to make their adieux to Miss Linda Stamford before
she went back to Western Australia or Riverina, or whatever far-away
place “in the bush,” they had heard she was bound for.
Mr. Hope did not arrive on that afternoon, although Mr. M’Intosh
did, but, having something to say to Mr. Stamford, presumably on
business, he came in time to accompany them to the railway station,
and to receive a warm invitation from that gentleman to visit them
at Windāhgil directly he could get leave of absence.