in one of those profound meditations in which every faculty of her mind
became absorbed in a tyrannous, compulsory looking-on at her own special
span of the past as part of an unfathomable enigma. She was presently
roused by Laurette's shrill voice.
So Ted had not even stayed to lunch? Oh, she made no complaint. She
knew too well thai at certain times in a man's life sisters, in common
with all the rest of the world, must take a back seat--look on like
people in the pit of a theatre, who see as through a glass darkly, and
see little.
Laurette's eyes fell on the pearls, and she uttered a little cry of
delight.
'What a splendid jewel! Why, this looks like business, Stella! It's
better to be born lucky than rich, after all.'
Laurette surveyed herself in the mirror of the over-mantel, and held the
brooch under her chin admiringly. Then she fastened it in the lisse
ruffling of Stella's dress. But Stella quickly unfastened it, put it
into the case, and closed it with what Laurette mentally called 'a
vicious snap.'
'It does not belong to me,' she said coldly, in answer to Laurette's
look of amazed inquiry. 'It is meant for the young woman who has been
born more lucky than rich,' she added, with a mischievous smile.
*CHAPTER XX.*
The Hon. Talbot Tareling was at this time absent at Banjoleena, a new
gold-mine which had recently excited much attention. No form of work
had ever attracted Mr. Tareling unless it was of a light, irregular
nature, with a strong element of gambling. Hence, dabbling in mining
shares was the one Australian industry he found tolerable. He made
erratic excursions to mines from time to time, ostensibly for the
purpose of getting the straight tip. This, as a rule, proved very
disastrous; but lately Fortune had smiled on him. He long held shares
in a mine which neither development nor sensational rumours could
galvanize into popularity. By-and-by, however, there was an assay which
yielded an enchanting result. Instantly a boom set in in favour of the
Celestial Hill Mine. Its dingy branch office in a dingy back street in
Melbourne was besieged by eager applicants for shares. Middle-aged
women in rusty black; unsuccessful business men, who had long eschewed
mining ventures, but had got tired of seeing idle, brainless clerks
turning ten-pound notes into fifties; spinsters who had saved one or two
hundred pounds by toilsome years of penurious saving; clergymen with
families far in excess of their incomes; artisans who were weary of the
faded simplicity of investments at seven and six per cent.--in a word,
that numerous class with whom the longing to widen or enrich life takes
the form of narrowing it--who are always preparing to live, but never
begin--were especially to the fore in buying Celestial Hills.
It was so safe. It was no bogus concern. It had been worked for a long
time, and now they had 'struck oil.' And here was the average: four and
a half ounces to the ton; and everyone knew that half an ounce paid.
Then scraps of paper would be produced, and rapid memoranda made, and
eager faces flushed with excitement at the splendid percentage. It was
while the results were at their best on paper that Mr. Tareling sold out
nearly all the shares he held. A week afterwards they were not worth a
withered fig.
Then ugly rumours began to circulate. When people are aching with the
loss of money, slander seems to be a balm to the wounded spirit. The
mine had been salted; a false balance-sheet had been drawn up; a
clandestine lump of gold had been dropped into the smelting-pot. How
was it, too, that the _intimes_ of the directors had sold out rump and
stump? Mr. Tareling was one of these; but, like Pilate, he washed his
hands in public. He still had all the shares that he originally held;
the fact being that the bulk had been bought with his wife's money and
in her name. He was supported in his innocence by Ozias, the son of
Lazarus, popularly surnamed Judas. This man wrote to the press bearing
testimony to the childlike faith which the Hon. Talbot Tareling still
put in the Celestial Hill gold-mine. On which some people arched their
eyebrows, and prophesied that if this scion of an ancient family had
recourse to many more testimonials of this kind, his business career in
Melbourne would soon be blocked. Naturally all this duplicity rendered
Mr. Tareling still more wary. He upheld the practice of finding out
whether a mine really existed before investing in it. Such a plan, as
some of the brokers remarked, would upset any system of mining that had
yet been in vogue.
Laurette, in the meantime, found the present in many respects the most
beatific season she had ever passed in Melbourne. Her growing intimacy
with the viceregal family more than realized her most ardent
expectations. She was fast rising to that social eminence in which her
dresses, opinions, and parties would form topics of eager interest among
women who a short time previously had barely acknowledged her as an
equal. If it were not for increasing money difficulties, her enjoyment
would have been almost without alloy. But Ted's presence gave her a
feeling of security. She vaguely felt that in some way she would turn
it to account.
She went with him to the theatre on the evening that followed his
arrival, and Stella anticipated the pleasure of a long _tete-a-tete_
with Cuthbert, who arrived that afternoon from Tasmania. Alas! it was
not an unmixed happiness. What her soul feared had come to pass.
After the first greetings and inquiries were over, Stella fixed her eyes
on her brother's face in an inquiring way.
'Cuthbert, you look very radiant. Has anything happened? But no--you
came to me the first evening. I am still---- Oh, heavens! you are
colouring up to the roots of your hair!'
'But, Stella dear, you misrepresent yourself. You know that you would
be the first to congratulate me--to be glad with my gladness.'
'Now you are breaking it to me gently--Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Jews!
Yes, I can bear it all. Is it the Rev. S. Carter's daughter?'
'You are a little witch! You pretended to tremble about these daughters
before I ever thought anything about Dora, except what a charming girl
she is.'
'As if that were not the Alpha and Omega of the infatuation that
precedes marriage.'
'You little heretic! Oh, there is not much of a story, except that we
are both perfectly happy. Dora went with her mother to Launceston a
week before I did. We met frequently. The day before we left we went
mountaineering with a few others. It was all settled before we
returned. Mrs. Carter charged me with her kind love, and wishes you to
come and spend a day, or as long as Mrs. Tareling will spare you. Can
you come to-morrow? Well, the day after. Dora and I will call before
twelve, so that you may see a little of her before you meet the whole
family.'
Stella fell in with this arrangement with rather a disconsolate little
look.
'And so you are "perfectly happy"? But don't smile too often, Cuth, or
you will spoil the serious lines in your face I like so much. Let me
look at you sideways. So that's the way one looks when one is first
engaged. Ted is stouter than you are; I am afraid the joy of being
accepted would quite ruin his profile.'
'You will love Dora, Stella. You cannot imagine what a darling she
is--already quite fond of you. I have often shown her your letters, and
she is quite charmed with them, except----'
'Ah, I was waiting for the cloven hoof "except."'
'Well, dear, she is very devout, and has the beautiful untroubled faith
of childhood. She is vexed to think that you should be so uncertain,
so----'
'So infidel--that's the ecclesiastical word.'
A look of pain came into the brother's face, and then, of course, Stella
repented.
'I am horribly jealous, I know that,' she said. 'Lay a charm over me,
Cuthbert; sprinkle me with holy water; beat a brass pan to drive the
evil spirits away--but don't be cross with me.'
'Cross with you, Stella? Have I ever been that? Have I not loved you
fondly ever since you were a dear, funny little baby, who would not let
people lead you when you were a year old, but preferred all the bumps
you got to being held by the hand?'
'Yes, my ownest boy, you have always been to me like a guardian angel.
Oh, far better. Yes, let me be unorthodox while Dora isn't here. After
all, a guardian angel keeps at a discreet distance, but you----'
To the girl's own astonishment she burst into tears. Her brother, it
must be confessed, was rather pleased. He always a little dreaded the
vein of hardness--of _diablerie_--of which the 'Satan letter' was so
signal an example, that would at times become apparent in Stella. It
clung to his mind at times like a superstition that, in a mood of angry
defiance, or disgust, or impatience of the sweet inevitable humdrum of
life, she might take some course which would lead to bitter misery, or,
at the least, cloud and hamper the better possibilities of her nature.
She was human through and through, but a mocking, ironical tone came to
her over-readily. She wept very rarely, and when tears did come they
became her wonderfully, and made her for a time adorably gentle. But it
seemed this was not one of these occasions.
'Can you believe, my dear Stella, that my love for you will ever be less
because of other ties? It seems to me rather that this new sweet love
makes all other affection deeper and fuller.'
'Yes, dear, I know,' said Stella, smiling through her tears. 'It makes
you feel like our Torrens after the winter rains.'
'No, I won't accept that comparison. You must think of a prettier one.
Do I not know how the Torrens gets in the drought of summer? Do you
believe that the leanness of dry December will ever overtake my love for
you?'
'I know you will never be anything but what is dear and good. Still, it
is quite evident to me that I must either get converted or married; and
I fear of the two the latter is the more practicable. You see, dear,'
she said in answer to a half-reproving smile, 'it is not to be endured
that I should write or say anything which would vex Dora. So you and I
can no longer be intimate friends. Oh, I know the atmosphere in which
an _average_ clergyman's daughter is brought up. There is a standard
for everything--there are so many clauses of a creed, so many articles
to be believed. Then all the evil and misery and astounding chaos of
life is made out to be a jumble between God and the devil and man's
free-will. Sometimes it is one, sometimes the other--but the reputed
Creator of all must never be blamed. And in the face of everything
there must be an amazing kind of optimism--a thing that leads a
precarious kind of existence by brigandage on the understanding, by
injecting minute doses of morphia into the pores of reason. Judge how
many letters of mine could be anything but a snare and a grief to one
who has been saturated with that way of thinking.'
'My dear, you must not talk like that,' he said, taking her slim, fair
hands between his brown, vigorous ones. 'If I did not know you so well
I should be afraid you and Dora would not get on. But you rail against
most people theoretically, and end by charming all--as you certainly
will charm this dear new sister who is to be.'
'You speak as though a sister were a kind of rare exotic to me,
Cuthbert. Don't forget that I already have six. Yes, certainly I must
always count myself, and this, with Hector and Claude's wives, makes up
the unromantic half-dozen--then Dora seven. Did you know that the
sacredness of the number seven was fast rooted in the pre-Semitic
civilization of Babylon?'
'I know that you are sometimes the most whimsical monkey under the sun,
and that to this day I don't always know when you are in fun or in
earnest.'
'I am in earnest now, Cuth. I wish you every joy and blessing. Yes;
now I have got over the first shock. To-morrow I shall be glad that you
are happier; the day after that I shall begin to love Dora. God bless
you, Cuthbert!'
She kissed her brother on the forehead, on each cheek, and on the
lips--an old form of embrace which she had instituted in token of
reconciliation after their rare quarrels in the old childish days.
'I wonder,' said her brother, after a pause, 'when I shall have to
congratulate you under the same happy circumstances?'
'Now, if you like, dear, leaving out the happy,' she said solemnly.
'Is Ritchie in town?'
'Yes; he came to-day, and to-morrow morning I go a-riding with him on
the trimmest little colt in the world.'
This ride took the form of going to Brighton and a delightful gallop by
the seaside, during which the colour leapt into Stella's cheeks with
charming vividness, while her eyes seemed to imprison rays from the
glancing sparkles of light on the softly-moving waves. Ted could
scarcely take his eyes off her face. He longed to say a hundred things,
but seeing that she was disinclined to talk, he also kept silent.
It was almost pathetic to notice how implicitly he responded to her
moods as far as lay in his power. He did not understand her veiled
irony, her bookish allusions, her sudden sparkling merriment at those
'trifles light as air' which touch the keen edges of a mind fully alive
to the incongruities of life. But he understood when she wished to be
silent or talk, when she wanted to hear about his horses, and when the
wonderful bay colt, who promised to surpass all previous records, became
intolerable to her.
Before turning homeward they paused at a little headland. The waves,
crested with foam, broke against this in rollicking tumbled masses.
There was a breeze fresh enough to ruffle the sea surface, so that the
waves stretching out to the vast horizon curled here and there into
foam, and broke on the shore with a long-drawn shuddering cadence, which
was momentarily lost, and yet rose again, making itself distinct from
the deeper symphony of the multitudinous waters far off. There were
voices in the sea that morning which made Stella's heart beat as if she
were listening to passionate music. Singly and near at hand the waves
lisped and prattled; but altogether and far off, what solemn and
terrible strength, what possibilities of sudden irretrievable shipwreck!
Did they symbolize the Mount Tabors and Gehennas that darkly lurk within
the human soul--its inappeasable longing for happiness--its certainty of
storms and sorrows?
'A few moments here are worth a month of stupid Melbourne drawing-rooms,
incessantly mimicking other mimicries,' said Stella, taking off her hat,
so that the ozone-laden breeze might sweep away the tags and knots of
tiresome thoughts that would thrust themselves between her and the
sunshine.
'How long are you going to stay with Laurette?'
'Oh, I hardly know. You see, I must be several weeks at Lullaboolagana,
and I want to get back to Adelaide before the spring is over.'
'I hope to be in Adelaide, too, before the spring is over. Shall I come
first to Fairacre?'
'Oh yes! I am sure mother and all will be very glad to see you.'
'Won't you?'
'Yes--certainly; but as a friend, mind.'
'Do you know I was quite cut up when I heard there was some talk last
year of your leaving the old place.'
'Were you really, Ted? Why?'
'Well, you know, I spent many a happy holiday there. Cuth and I don't
chum much now, somehow, but we were very good friends at St. Peter's,
though he was always miles ahead of me.... Do you remember the day we
walked up to the weir, and you crouched for half an hour behind a rock
watching two mountain ducks or some other comical little brutes that
paddled about in the water? ... Do you remember showing me the head of a
bull-dog ant through a microscope? By Jove! I can't imagine how they
make a few glasses tell such thundering lies! ... I believe I remember
the first time I saw you--when you were four. Then you came with your
mother to stay for a week when you were eight years old. You climbed up
to the top of a she-oak tree with me, and told me you liked me ever so
much better than Laurette.'
'Now then, Ted!'
'Honour bright you did! You were the jolliest little trump of a girl I
ever saw. You played leapfrog with me, and tore the lace of your
pinafore. You didn't want anyone to see it, so I got a needle and
thread and helped you to sew it. I ran the needle into my finger to the
bone. I remember it well, because I went to St. Peter's the next
Monday, and my thumb was swollen. I wrote so badly they put me into
pothooks and hangers. We used to have Latin every day, and spelling
once a week. I never took to Latin, and I hated spelling, and even if I
liked it, five lines of dictation once in seven days wouldn't make a
literary character of a chap. I'm rather weak in spelling to this day,
as I dare say you notice when I propose to you from time to time. I
always get my book-keeper to write my business letters.'
'Yes. I suppose that's easier than to learn to spell?'
'Oh, much! You see, it's in this with me like everything else. Once I
make up my mind to a thing I can't alter it. And it seems I generally
make up my mind wrong in the spelling line. But I say, Stella, do you
remember that birthday I got a little sparrow without many feathers on
it in your Moreton fig-tree? Oh, I can see you do. I asked you to give
me a kiss for it, but you wouldn't. When will you?'
'Have you bribed many girls since then to kiss you, Ted?'
A dull red mounted into Ritchie's face.
'That isn't the question--stick to the point in hand, Stella, and tell
me.'
'Well, perhaps never. Indeed, most likely never.'
'I don't believe that. Count it on your left hand as we used to do with
the cherry-stones. Begin with the thumb, saying, "Shall I ever give Ted
a kiss?--yes--no": go on.'
'Shall--I--ever--give--Ted--a--kiss? Yes--no--yes--no!'
'No, no, no; that's not fair, Stella. You must stop with the little
finger, and the dear little finger says yes. I shall get a diamond hoop
for that little finger. Now, then, ask it when this is to come off: say
spring--summer--autumn--winter. Spring, hurrah! exactly when I thought.'
'This is a charming horse of yours, Ted.'
'Yes, I've had him trained on purpose for you. I thought he was about
the style of horse you would like.'
'Now I think of it, you always get into this sort of carnival when we
come out riding. I don't think I shall come with you again.'
'Don't say that, Stella. You must come for rides in the morning as long
as you are in town; and when I go back to Strathhaye I shall almost
believe you are coming. When shall I see you there, Stella?'
'Ted, you are far from amusing when you keep on harping on the same
string in this way. It is about time we turned back. We are going to
lunch with some of Laurette's prize hens to-day. It would be rather
nice to play the truant.'
'Lord! Stella, don't tempt me in that way, or I shall really carry you
off. Yes--no--yes. Don't you hear it in the horses' hoofs?
Spring--summer--autumn--winter. Spring: it's as plain as a pike staff.
You never look half so jolly anywhere else as you do on horseback. We
shall spend our honeymoon on horseback--part of it, at least. Oh, I
can't help it, Stella! You get into my head when we come out riding.
Say a sonnet to me, and it will take my spirits down. "Where is the
ship to which yon land must go?"'
Of course Stella laughed at this unconscious travesty, and the absurd
memories it revived; and Ritchie, seeing her laugh, was wise enough to
say nothing more that would recall the dreadful threat that she would
not ride out with him again. Before they parted she had promised him
three dances at a ball to which they were going that night.
*CHAPTER XXI.*
'You and Ted must have had a very pleasant ride,' said Laurette, a
little maliciously, as they drove to the Anstey-Hobbs mansion.
'Yes, the sea and the air were delightful,' answered Stella calmly.
'If you keep that charming colour, Mrs. A.-H. will fall in love with you
on the spot. Since reading some book or other she is quite enthusiastic
about healthy, well-developed girls--especially if they combine what she
calls a rare organization with dabbling in the fine arts. You don't
model in clay, or paint, or sing, do you?'
'No; I'm like the cat with one trick; my one accomplishment is reading.'
'Still, I fancy you'll take with my Melbourne friends. Why do you
laugh?'
'You made me think I must be cow-lymph or a new shade of ribbon. What
do people have to do when they take?'
'Oh, sit in a corner and try to be as good as little Jack Horner. Do
you know, Stella, it strikes me that you are more spoilt than ever. I
suppose it comes from your being the youngest, as Tom says.'
'It is awfully good of you to make excuses for me,' said Stella, with a
heightened colour.
Mr. Anstey-Hobbs was popularly credited with being a millionaire.
Certainly the surroundings and appointments of his town house gave
colour to the belief, not to mention the number of idle servants who
hung about the place. 'Just like an English nobleman's house,' as a
governor from one of the adjacent colonies had said--a saying which some
of Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' friends treasured up and repeated to select
circles of their friends' friends, basking in the reflected glory of a
viceregal compliment respecting an abode in which they were so much at
home. As for Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs herself, she never repeated anything
that savoured of vain-glory. Indeed, one would imagine at times that
wealth was quite a mortification to her. She would take precautions to
have scores upon scores of callers on her reception-days, and then take
a bosom friend aside, who entirely believed in her and had an
incontinent tongue, and say, 'Ah, my dear, how are we to cultivate our
minds as we should, when we are swallowed up in social maelstroms like
this?' And so, when she donned a specially magnificent visiting
dress--one of Worth's highest flights--indicating yet chastening the
possession of wealth, she would sit in a remote corner of her carriage,
with a melancholy air, as if she were bowed down with the thought that
all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And then, in talking to her
friends at such times, the words 'our terrible climate' and the 'severe
limitations of colonial life' were often on her lips.
'It is sordid wealth without culture or the traditions of refinement
that stifles our artists and poets,' she would murmur, as if shoals of
such gifted beings were annually offered up on the altar of Mammon--the
fact being that Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs had a talent for assimilating ideas
from the books and magazines she read in such numbers monthly, but had
not an equal felicity in their application. The thought that wealth was
detrimental to mental expansion was one which had from various sources
become dear to her--so much so, that about this time Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs
had made a determined effort to put down, as far as possible, the
overwhelming power of money in Melbourne society. She had struggled to
establish a salon--a weekly gathering to be open only to people of
culture and esprit. Those who had neither, asserted that the line must
certainly be drawn at Mr. Anstey-Hobbs, but habitues of the salon said
it was drawn at those who were neither amusing nor had made any
contribution to art or literature. But then a liberal interpretation
had been put upon the latter term, for among the gifted beings at the
first reunion was a wealthy young squatter, a neighbour of Ritchie's,
who was by no means amusing, and had never been suspected of wandering
on the slopes of Parnassus. On inquiry, however, it turned out that a
year previously he had written a letter to the Melbourne _Argus_ on
'Fluke in the Liver of Sheep.'
The luncheon-party at which Stella made her debut in Melbourne society,
as Laurette grandiloquently phrased it, was made up of ten women in all,
supplemented by two young men, who stole furtive glances at each other,
and at first spoke chiefly in monosyllables. According to the hostess,
one was a poet, the other a painter. Stella sat at Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs'
right hand, the painter at her left. Some funny talk went on about
allegory.
'Well, Mr. Vincent, I still think that your first idea of representing
Australia as a wood-nymph, with an opossum-skin thrown carelessly over
her shoulders, was exquisite,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs.