which young souls, touched with the sacred fire of genius, and therefore
admitted to the salon, addressed the hostess--'that may be; but are our
public educated up to the point of reading this allegory? I lay it down
as one of the canons of art that a picture must tell its own tale. Now,
the tale that would be conveyed by the figure in its first inception
would be that it was not Australia, but a young black woman.'
'But suppose you introduce a kangaroo on one side and an emu on the
other?'
'There would be two objections. The introduction of these typical
animals would strengthen the aboriginal theory with one class, and
afford an element of mockery to another.'
'Of mockery? surely not! Abandoned as our so-called newspaper critics
may be--and, alas! we have no higher standard for leading the masses to
sweetness and light--they would never dare to sully with their
profligate satire so pure and original a conception!'
'You have hit the very point. That is exactly what they would do,
madame. The figure of a young female inadequately clad, with a
bewildered-looking kangaroo on one side and a nerveless emu on the
other, suggests nothing so much as an exhibition trophy of colonial wine
and olives. You know the _banal_ and _borne_ tone of newspaper
judgment.'
'Ah, you have so much penetration, such marvellous insight into the
envious writhings of inferior natures!' murmured Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs,
gazing at her 'painter' with pensive admiration. 'Indeed, I doubt
whether the very strength of your analytical judgment does not stand in
your way as a great creative artist.'
Mr. Vincent blushed with pleasure, but still maintained a gloomy frown,
as became an artist who had to bear the burden of genius in a world
beset with inappreciative masses and unilluminated critics.
'And what form, then, have you decided on finally?' said Mrs.
Anstey-Hobbs after a pause. She had always a lady on the premises who
took the more prosaic duties of a hostess, and so left her full scope in
her efforts for developing the less material forces of colonial society.
'Well, a figure more after the classical school, with silken drapery,
gauzy and flowing. You wished to say something?'
'Does it not strike you that it would be better--always, of course, with
an eye to the untrained masses; and as I wish to make a gift of this
allegorical figure to our picture-gallery, we must think of them--would
it not be better to array the--the young woman in a product of colonial
growth, or, rather, manufacture?'
'There you display the subtlety of the born critic as distinguished from
those who exist merely because they get so much per column for squirting
muddy water. But unfortunately our manufactures are still too
crude--too entirely limited to the more fustian uses of life. Tweed and
flannel could hardly be used to drape a lithe young female whose contour
must show through.'
'But we grow cotton in Queensland and the northern territory.'
'Yes, and we can also grow silk; at least, silkworms and mulberries
thrive with us.'
'I am vanquished, Mr. Vincent. I have not another word to say. The
silken drapery is perfectly legitimate.'
'But still, as silk is not yet one of our established industries, we
must enhance its effect by something characteristically colonial,' said
Mr. Vincent, with the dispassionate fairness of a mind too broad to be
puffed up with a sense of its own critical acumen.
'Quite true--quite true. The salt-bush is very typical. How would it do
to have salt-bush for the background, with a couple of sheep nibbling at
it? They might be rather lean, to typify that this bush has often kept
our flocks from starving.'
'If I were painting for such as you are, madame, my task would be an
easy one--my labour of love, I should say; for on the day on which I
cannot feel it is such, I never touch a brush. But to the ignorant on
the one hand, and the malicious on the other--and in the colonies these
are the two great classes for whom artists work--I say to these the
sheep would be a stumbling-block. The one would think, and the other
would say, without thinking, that the young woman was a shepherdess--"a
reminiscence of the worst rococo period of unreal landscapes!" That's
what the critic with a little wit and no conscience would say. No--my
own idea, after long, and I may say painful thought, is to paint the
figure with a garland of colonial flowers, holding a basket of colonial
fruit, with a colonial bird on her shoulder pecking at it.'
'Oh, charming--charming! Really too exquisite, Mr. Vincent! _Do_ tell
me what flowers and what bird. The fruit--would you have grapes and
oranges and peaches, and so on, or one kind?'
'I do not know about grapes. The colonial wine is really so very----
Well, I fear I am fastidious with wine.' It may be mentioned, _en
parenthese_, that Mr. Vincent usually smoked a strong cigar over his
wine, and smacked his lips ecstatically when he gulped British champagne
made of unripe gooseberries.
'Yes, and then one likes to encourage teetotal principles among the
masses,' answered Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs. 'Perhaps we had better discard the
grapes? And the flowers?'
'Well, I don't know the names of any colonial flowers; but I must
ruralize a little in the Botanical Gardens. I suppose they have native
ones there?'
'No doubt--no doubt! Oh, how very charming and natural it will all
be--quite a bush idyll! Now about the bird--you see I am all
impatience!'
'Well, I thought, a native companion----'
Here, to save herself from absolute disgrace, Stella dropped her napkin,
so as to have an excuse for stooping and hiding her face for a moment.
The movement drew Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs' attention to her right-hand
neighbour. It may be imagined that Stella had listened with both ears to
all that had passed. Her eyes were literally dancing with suppressed
merriment, her cheeks glowing like a well-sunned peach. She was flanked
on her left by an elderly woman, who was rather deaf, and who ate her
way stolidly through every dish on the _menu_, so that the girl's
attention had been undistracted.
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs put up her pince-nez and looked at her admiringly.
The lady had very good eyesight, without any defect of over long or
short sight; but an English countess, who had visited Melbourne and
stayed some days at Toorak House, had always put up her pince-nez when
she wished to look attentively at anything, being so short-sighted that
objects at a little distance were all blurred and indistinct to her
unaided eyes. So, with the curious humility of a parvenu, Mrs.
Anstey-Hobbs had ever since zealously imitated one afflicted with
impaired vision.
'My dear young lady, I fear you are not eating,' she said.
On which Stella answered with wreathed smiles that she had been so very
much interested in the conversation on painting, etc. Indeed, her face
was so radiant with what her hostess mentally called naive delight, that
she instantly took a liking to the girl.
'You are, perhaps, colonial-born?'
'I am an Australian,' answered Stella, who had to keep on smiling in
what she felt was an imbecile way. The image of the allegorical figure
of Australia, with a native companion perched on her shoulder, was
really too killing.
'You make a distinction, then, between colonial and Australian?'
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs was the daughter of an English country attorney, and
having in her provincial youth been familiarized with the term
'colonial' as somehow expressive of a state of things far below the
status of the great British under-middle classes, she still clung to the
term in her days of grandeur, fondly deeming that it somehow marked her
as one whose bringing-up was more aristocratic than could fall to the
lot of those who were born and bred in Australia.
'Surely,' answered Stella, 'when there is so much difference.'
'Now do tell me how. You see, I came to the colonies only when I
married. I believe I was the first of our family to leave England.'
There was a vague flourishing emphasis on 'our family,' as though it
represented great territorial magnates.
'Well, a colony--does it not suggest a handful of men ploughing scraps
of land in an insignificant little state or island, or, at any rate, the
first scattered handful of pioneers who have an uncertain footing in an
alien land? Australia is not a colony; it is a continent, a great
country where generations have already lived and died--the birthplace of
thousands upon thousands who love it more dearly than any other spot in
the whole world.' The light of patriotic love and pride shone in the
girl's eyes, and her voice was musical with deep feeling.
'Really, you know, I am very glad to have this explained to me,' said
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, with the indefinite awkwardness of one who has
unawares awakened a chord in an unknown instrument.
'I grant you, though,' Stella went on in a lighter tone, half piqued at
herself for betraying any emotion, 'that we cannot dispense with the
word "colonial."' She was deeply tempted to add, 'as long as we have
people who hang idly about Australian cities, painting foolish pictures
for money that should be better spent.'
'Well, you heard what my friend Mr. Vincent said. Tell me, do you think
a native companion----'
There was no help for it. Stella had to laugh.
'Dear Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, a native companion is much larger than the
domestic goose, and is mounted on legs over two feet high, with a neck
almost as long as its legs.'
'Ah, I fear it would not do, then, to perch on the shoulder of an
allegorical figure of Australia,' said Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs, dropping her
pince-nez, and turning to the artist, who was staring at Stella
sombrely, as if he suspected her of inventing the dimensions of the
unfortunate fowl.
'Now tell me, Miss Courtland, are there any pretty bush-flowers that
would do for a garland--any that may be considered nationally
Australian, like the lily for France and the rose for England?'
continued this enthusiastic art-patron.
'Oh yes; it is an embarrassment of choice. To go no further than the
exquisite blossom of our tan wattles, the white scrub immortelles, the
epacris, and the lovely myrtle-blossoms of the eucalyptus, cream and
pink. Have you ever seen the curve of a low hillside in the depths of
our woods all one mass of epacris--white, and pale-pink, and scarlet?'
Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs murmured an apologetic negative, with an involuntary
glance at the gorgeous orchids that adorned her table. It struck her,
perhaps, as being a little out of place to speak with so much enthusiasm
of things that grew in masses in the bush to one who could command such
rare exotics.
'The tan wattle is of rather a crude and violent tint,' said Mr. Vincent
in a tone of authority.
'I can imagine that it would very easily become so on canvas,' answered
Stella with a sweet smile, which quite confirmed Mrs. Anstey-Hobbs in
her first estimate of the young lady as being 'delightfully naive, you
know.' It is to be feared she would have changed her opinion if she had
overheard Stella that night describe to Ted the accessories of an
allegorical Australia, that had been evolved in her hearing by a
'colonial' painter and his patroness.
*CHAPTER XXII.*
Stella was still sitting over a late breakfast with Laurette when her
brother called with his _fiancee_, having driven Dora from her father's
house in the family pony-chaise. He watched the first greetings between
the girls with keen pleasure. Dora was very pretty; fair and mignonne,
with pale-gold hair in crisp wavelets, a pure English complexion, and
large blue eyes that had something of the expression of a child's who
has suddenly been told a pleasant piece of news.
'Oh! you are a sweet little darling. No wonder Cuthbert has thrown me
over for you,' said Stella, looking at her critically.
'But Cuthbert has not thrown you over, dear Stella; he has given you one
more sister to love.'
'Do they teach each other what to say already?' thought Stella. They
babbled away pleasantly for some little time, going over those
reminiscences and simple personalities in which old ladies and
newly-engaged lovers so readily indulge. Presently Laurette joined them,
and the talk became more general. The plan was that Stella should spend
the day and stay the night at the Carters'. Cuthbert was preparing to
go, having parochial work, when Ted rode up to Monico Lodge, followed by
a groom leading Shah, for Stella to ride.
The discovery seemed to have something of the nature of a sensation to
Dora when, after she and Ted were introduced, he said: 'Why, Stella, I
thought I would find you ready. Shah is in fine form for you to-day.'
'You have appointed to go out riding?' Cuthbert said a little coldly to
his sister.
'You see I had no idea that you children would be so good and kind as to
come so early. I am sorry, Ted, but I am afraid I cannot ride this
morning.'
Ted's brow darkened visibly. 'But that's nonsense, Stella,' he said
impatiently. 'If you haven't finished your jabber, I can wait.'
Cuthbert's face became more and more impassive. Dora looked from
Cuthbert to Stella in a mystified way, and then Laurette came to the
rescue, proposing that she should drive back with Dora. She wanted to
see dear Mrs. Carter so much. They could take Stella's dress-basket and
maid, and then Ted would take Stella direct to the parsonage.
'That's the very ticket,' said Ted. 'Go on, Stella; see if you can't
get ready in five minutes,' and he pulled his watch out, and Stella,
without further ado, hastened to obey.
Incredible as it was to Cuthbert, this rather illiterate and overbearing
young man seemed destined to triumph in his suit. His heart sank
strangely at the thought. He left for town before Stella reappeared,
and when they met again at the parsonage in the evening, he knew by the
wistful droop of his sister's mouth that she had somehow felt bored to
death. Bored in this exquisitely refined Christian home, and yet
tolerant of Ritchie as a lover!
Poor Stella! She had indeed passed through some evil hours that day.
In the first place, the seaside and Shah, the blue serenity of the day,
the great, measureless crescendo of the waves, and Ted's touching
goodness in entirely keeping off forbidden ground, had beguiled her into
prolonging her ride beyond what she intended. The moment she entered
the house, she became aware that lunch had been kept back on her
account. There are some households in which unpunctuality is made into
one of the seven deadly sins, and it seemed this was one of them. There
were three daughters older than Dora, and it transpired that the day was
pigeon-holed for all, with set duties for each hour, so that when thirty
minutes were lost in waiting for a guest who was inexcusably late, the
rest of the day threatened to resolve itself into a scramble to make up
for lost time and wasted opportunities. The Rev. S. Carter and the two
eldest daughters had to excuse themselves and hurry away before the meal
was over, in order to catch a certain train to one of the suburbs, where
a sale of gifts in aid of a church school had to be opened. Directly
after their departure, a friend called by appointment to accompany the
third daughter on a periodical visit to an orphanage. And thus silence
prevailed for a little, which Stella endeavoured to break by saying: 'I
feel most awfully guilty, you know; but the sea was too divine. And the
sky--have you noticed, Dora, how widely vaulted it is to-day?'
'Oh yes; very pretty!' answered Dora, with a faint smile, and Stella
resolved, for the hundredth time since she left home, that she would not
try to drag the things that captivated her so insanely into
conversation. It was like offering people coin for which they had no
change.
'Cuthbert did not mention you were engaged,' said Mrs. Carter, when they
had settled themselves in the drawing-room, each with some form of
needlework.
'Oh, but I am not!' answered Stella. And then mother and daughter
exchanged a quick look, and Dora, colouring very prettily, said:
'I thought, dear, by--by Mr. Ritchie calling you Stella, and your going
out riding----'
It certainly behoved Stella to explain the long-dated friendship, or at
any rate acquaintanceship, which had established both customs. But she
was little in the habit of apologizing for herself, and, partly through
indifference, partly out of perversity, she allowed the subject to drop.
Not so Mrs. Carter, however, who found a roundabout way of approaching
the subject again. Mrs. Tareling was Mr. Ritchie's sister then. What a
very brilliant marriage she had made. Stella opened her eyes wide in
surprise. Of course, the younger son of a British peer was considered
so in the colonies, Mrs. Carter presumed. 'No doubt you knew her before
she married?' Ah, yes; they knew each other since they were children.
And Mr. Ritchie, the young man, was one of those who had so many sheep
and cattle and things. Stella believed he had over fifteen thousand a
year. On hearing this, Mrs. Carter sat more upright, and regarded
Stella with new and respectful interest. And then the lady slid into a
long and tedious account of her own family. It was rather involved, or
else Stella's attention wandered, for at the close she was not certain
whether it was Mrs. Carter herself or her mother or her grandmother who
had been governess to an English princess of the Royal family. It was
clear, however, that they belonged to a good family; that they had been
much reduced; that those who had married had espoused rising clergymen.
One sister was married to a bishop. 'Poor woman!' thought Stella. Mrs.
Carter seemed to pause as if for some expression of awe or admiration.
When she found this was not forthcoming, she went on to explain how wide
was the gulf fixed between a colonial and an English bishop. The
Carters were only temporarily in Melbourne, and proposed to return to
England at no distant date. There was money in Mr. Carter's family: one
of his nieces was married to the first cousin of a great duke. Stella
lost herself in calculating what share of lustre this connection with
the British aristocracy shed on her brother. When she emerged from this
depth, Mrs. Carter was dilating on the pang it would cost them to part
with dear Dora. But Cuthbert was all they could have wished: they had
every confidence in him, etc. It seemed to Stella that the good lady was
applying the phrases of a governess's testimonial to her brother. Yes,
decidedly it must have been Mrs. Carter herself who had held brevet rank
as a governess. She placed so tiresome and so didactic an emphasis on
the less alluring aspects of life, coupled with an implication of having
been, since early childhood, engaged in laying the moral groundwork of
society. Then, in the midst of this gentle, consequential,
self-complacent purring, she suddenly asked Stella whether young ladies
in the colonies--those who had been born in them, and had never lived
elsewhere--took more after the American stamp than the English?
The question somewhat revived Stella's drooping spirits. It opened the
door for a frankly mischievous sketch of her own existence at Fairacre.
The sick-visiting, the calls, the church-going, the walks with the
children, the rides with her brother, etc., but not the remotest
allusion to what she knew had been chiefly in Mrs. Carter's mind: not a
whisper of Platonic friendship or suitors. One might imagine, from
Stella's easy rapid sketch, that a 'colonial'-born girl was like the
angels in heaven, and never even remotely glanced at the question of
marrying.
By-and-by there were visitors and afternoon tea-parties, but both of a
very mild, not to say tepid, character. Dull people do not understand
the grateful fillip that the beverage, when quite fresh and fragrant,
gives to the spirits and imagination. Nor did matters improve much when
the rest of the family returned. When they were all together, the
atmosphere was pervaded with snatches of ruined lives--parlour extracts
from the careers of reprobates of both sexes. Something had always
happened which was too 'shocking' to be gone into. Either a mangle or a
daughter seemed to have disappeared clandestinely from most of the poor
houses they had recently visited.
Stella listened in vain for some touch of fun or genuine
pathos--something that these poor people had said which would throw an
illuminating ray on what they really thought or endured. But no; if
anything was repeated that had been said by the fatherless, or the
widow, or the backslider, it had a chilling echo to her of conventional
make-believe--of the kind of pulpit-slang the needy catch up so readily,
with alms given on condition that they repent. Or it was still more
like what one of the middle classes might have said after being led
astray and made decorously repentant by the pangs of hunger.
There are multitudes who all their lives visit the poor without ever
catching a true lineament of their minds. Such people are often suffused
with an hysterical kind of earnestness which makes them utterly
impervious to any true apprehension of what is going on in the minds of
others. Or they are swaddled in a complacent egoism which makes them
quite invulnerable to any true appreciation of the bearings of life.
They are capable only of one standpoint, and this one is all distorted
and awry.
'You do not look very much entertained, Stella,' said her brother when
he found an opportunity, shortly before he left, of speaking to her
alone.
'No? It must be the ravages of a troubled conscience you notice. Shah
was too dear this morning. I kept the whole household waiting for me,
and then--you must notice that the eldest Miss Carter sings methodically
out of tune? Or don't people mind such trifles when they are in love?'
Cuthbert flushed hotly. He was indeed very much 'in love,' and this,
coupled with the conviction that his sister had decided to accept
Ritchie's devotion, made him impatient--for a moment angry even. Like
other angry people, he took up the first weapon that came to hand.
'Perhaps the charms of Ritchie's society make you impatient of ordinary
intercourse,' he said almost sternly.
Stella looked at him with startled, dilating eyes. It was almost the
first time in her life that Cuthbert had spoken and looked at her
unkindly. She felt it like a stab, but she strove to conceal all
appearance of being hurt.
'I dare say,' she answered, smiling. 'You see, we Australians
understand one another. We have a wicked love of enjoyment, of horses,
and sunshine, and the seashore. Did you hear that Ted has a new bay
colt, which has twice covered a mile in an incredibly short time?'
'No; I have never been much interested in the performances of horses, as
you know.'
'Well, it has an amusing side. Ted is always pursued by a trainer, or a
jockey, or a man in a funny necktie, who is dying to buy the little
brown filly out of Lady Glendora, by Victor, you know.'
'I never believed till now that you would end by accepting him. Stella,
it seems to me little short of an infatuation.'
'But do you know, my dear, that there are women who marry even bishops?'
Was it perversity, or the outcome of some nascent feeling of a deeper
nature than even she herself was aware of, which led the young woman to
answer her brother's remonstrances with so much reserve that a sudden
change in her real attitude towards Ted would not have seemed
inconsistent? Perhaps there was something of both motives.
Nevertheless, the chief one which made these long morning rides so
precious to her was a passionate love of being in the open air, of
riding, of getting away from people who were, more or less,
tiresome--she herself, at times, most of all. On horseback, more
completely than anywhere else, she threw every haunting shape of
troubled thought to the winds. Life then became a glorious ecstasy--a
glad, bounding motion in which simply to be was enough, without any
foolish looking before and after.