THE THIRD HOME
On the 1st of January 1872 G. ceased to be a curate. On the 4th--and
with thankfulness, I must confess--we left W---- for our own first
parish.
It comes back to me, as if it were yesterday, the departure from Como.
One of the numerous kind friends who seemed sorry to part with us lent
us a roomy buggy, into which we packed many things besides
ourselves--the small treasures of the house that we did not like to
entrust to the waggons sent on before us with our modest stock of
furniture. The last offerings of fruit and flowers being stowed on the
top of these, the last good-byes said, we set off at a quiet pace, and
took the whole day to the journey. It was all Bush track amongst the
hills, and the weather, for midsummer, was kind. Twice we made a camp
in a shady spot, sprawled on the grass while the horse grazed and the
billy boiled, and ate our picnic meal luxuriously; and for miles we
walked beside and around the buggy, fern hunting and curiosity
gathering on behalf of the sister-in-law, whose main interest in
Australia was centred in these things. It was our intention to make a
holiday of the occasion, and we carried the intention out. But, oh,
how tired we were when at last we sighted our destination! That is
the moment that I remember best, when we crawled down that break-neck
"gap" which was the gateway to our valley, and saw across it on the
other side, sitting on a soft slope, with a great blue mountain behind
it, the little stone church and parsonage-house which were our bourne.
In pity for our worn-out horse, we three elders were afoot, hobbling
stiffly and uttering involuntary moans of exhaustion; only the dear
baby, from whom we had not had a cry, lay fast asleep in the bottom of
the buggy, in no way upset by his adventures.
The picture is before me now, bathed in the last lights of the summer
day. It is one of the most beautiful that Australia can show. A
newly-arrived bishop, being in the same spot as we were, and also for
the first time, said he could not understand how we, having been
privileged to live in such a place, had voluntarily left it! for we
had left it then, because, as we reminded him, man needs more than
scenery to satisfy him in this world. The little township nests in its
fertile valley, and from the top of the gap you look down upon it and
see no prosaic details, only that it is in itself a detail, completing
the charm of the natural scene, the scheme of colour of which the
lovely mountain blue is the dominant note--that blue which flames
celestial pink in parts when the sun goes down. An awful trap to the
amateur Jehu was that gap in those days; we realise it now far better
than we did then. A metalled road, cut out of the hillsides and
fenced, now winds through it, but it still calls for a good driver and
a strong brake. We used to blunder down it, as down a wrecked
staircase, in the darkest nights, and think nothing of it; no,
although we were shown the spot where a coach, whose horses missed
their footing, was hurled down the ravine to utter smithereens with
all hands. The fact was that in those days and in that part of the
country we had to do these foolhardy things all the time, or we should
never have got about at all. When confronted with a tight place--a
gully almost as steep as a house wall, or a river which was
continually changing its soon-washed-out crossing-place, without
putting up a guide post--we just "started in" and chanced it. It was
the custom of the country, and the custom which made its drivers what
they are, skilful and fearless beyond any in the world, unless we
except the Americans, who built the vehicles that we used, the only
sort capable of such use as we put them to. I do not remember that we
worried in the least over the dangers to life and limb that we saw
quite plainly before us; we were too well used to them. Now, when we
recall our exploits, we tell each other that nothing would induce us
to repeat them.
Descending the Gap for the first time G. led the Bush-horse, which was
an old stager if we were not, calmly taking things as they came; and
the Bush harness, on which life so often depends, was equal to its
responsibilities (the owner was to be trusted to see to that). So we
arrived safely at the door of what looked like the principal inn--the
place and we were as yet strangers to each other--and there we camped
for the night. Beds were our crying need. Everything else had to wait
until sleep had recruited us. We were fairly dead beat.
But next morning we were all alive and vigorous again, in a fever of
impatience to get home--completely home. The vans with our furniture
had not arrived; the parsonage was shut and empty; we had designedly
kept ourselves and our movements unannounced, so there was no one to
show us the way about. Still, we lost not a moment after breakfast in
getting the buggy re-packed, getting the keys of the house and church,
and driving thither--through the tiny town, over the bridge spanning
the willowy creek, and up the hilly road--firmly resolved to sit down
by our own hearthstone forthwith, for good and all. But we always did
that. In all our movings and re-furnishings, the first proceeding was
to go in ourselves; a shakedown and something to eat, and we set to
work from the centre and not from the outside. It is far the best way.
And if there is one thing I love more than another it is the whole
process of shifting camp--odd as I am sure it must appear: I grudge to
miss a bit of it.
What a morning we had! Although the vans had not come, there was
plenty to do in examining the premises, planning out rooms, and
utilising the contents of the buggy, now put up, with the horse, in
our own good brick stables. We were charmed with our house, which was
nearly new and very complete in its appointments. Its walls of dressed
granite made it very sound and cool; it was papered and painted as
well as it could be, and the garden and young orchard were laid out
with the same care to have all of the best; while its situation was
almost unmatchable. The outlook from the French windows and the
verandah outside them down the valley of the town to the Gap beyond,
and backwards to the blue range behind, was one of ever-changing but
constant beauty; none of our eight Australian homes had a lovelier
setting. The brilliance and purity of the mountain air enhanced the
complexion of it all, as well as the healthful capacity of the seeing
eye. Down that grassy slope to the front gate big bushes of spiraea
billowed in the spring; their overlapping wreaths were enormous; their
masses of white gleamed right across the valley, visible from the Gap
road. Everything one planted seemed to flourish there, and
particularly the vineyards on some of the hillsides. Fine wines went
out from that little town, to win medals and honourable mentions at
the industrial exhibitions of the world. The manufacturer combined the
professions of vigneron and doctor--in our time the only doctor for
many miles around. He was a German gentleman who had left his country
to escape some difficulty connected with military service, and was
debarred from returning thither by the knowledge that he would thereby
land himself in a fortress. Not that he had any hankerings for the
Fatherland; he might have been born where we found him, so attached
was he to his little town and the interests he had gathered about him;
he lived there for over forty years, I believe, and is buried there,
in the hill cemetery above our old home. Cut off as he seemed to be
from the intellectual world, he yet kept touch with it; with all the
work of his practice and his wine-making, he found time for scientific
studies, not reading only, but writing for magazines and newspapers;
and his active mind was absolutely free and fearless. Of course he
never came to church--his English wife did--but that made no
difference in the relations between us. No one was more welcome to the
house than he, and his company was the salt that gave savour to the
social life of the out-of-the-way little place. In his old age he
became an ardent spiritualist, much to my surprise and puzzlement, and
he died in that faith. His death was described to me by the doctor who
attended him, a mutual friend. The good old man was seized with
something which his medical knowledge told him must prove fatal within
a given number of hours. He made no fuss or bother about it, and
allowed no one else to do so, but chatted cheerfully with his
colleague until speech failed him, with no more emotion than if he was
preparing to go to bed and to sleep as usual.
His vineyards--doubled and quadrupled as time went on--were carved out
of virgin Bush, and that Bush was a paradise for wild flowers and
ferns. From creek gullies close by I used to gather armfuls of
maiden-hair for church decoration, some fronds of which, measured on
the dining-room table, spanned the whole width from side to side. One
Christmas Eve I made the church a bower of it; every window was veiled
in the green lace. Unfortunately, it was withered by morning--the
usual condition of church decorations, on the actual day of festival,
in this country.
The church, which we also rummaged over without loss of time, was of a
piece with the house. Here we found the same careful arrangements and
completeness of equipment, the lack of which in other colonial
churches had so much surprised us, coming to them with our English
eyes and notions; the stamp of the mind and quality of the first
incumbent was plain in every direction (he was an Oxford man,
expatriated for his health). A year or two ago I was there again; it
and the house had faded and been neglected, and I was struck by the
unexpected smallness of them both; but even then they were a pleasant
contrast to those at W----, as they were in '72. And regarding the
beauty of their situation, I found that memory had played no tricks
with the records.
In the middle of our rummagings we realised that we were starving.
That air was the hungriest we had ever breathed, and we had no food
with us except the baby's. G. was despatched on a foraging expedition
to the town, and presently returned with bread, butter, cheese, beer,
meat, and a frying pan, together with smaller trifles, all in his own
arms and pockets--for he never minds what he carries or where he
carries it--the sister-in-law and I having prepared a fire in his
absence. Shortly afterwards we enjoyed the meal which stands out amid
the records of the past as _the_ meal of my life--my only excuse for
mentioning it. Soon the parish woke up to the fact of our presence in
its midst, and invitations and offers of assistance poured in upon us;
but I am always pleased to think that we got that wonderful scratch
lunch first. It is a delicious memory.
The vans came, and we settled ourselves. I find an entry in my journal
for February 10th (1873), "G. and I making a dining-table." And, three
days later, "G. and I making a sideboard." We must have done these
things, or they would not be set down, but how we did them, and with
what result, I have no recollection, although the two sofas, also made
for this house, are as plain to the mind's eye as they ever were. We
could buy furniture at the shops--"stores" we called them--of our
little town; bullock drays, that took weeks to do the journey from
Melbourne, kept us regularly supplied with all necessary goods; so
that the explanation of our various dabblings in the art of cabinet
making will at once occur to the reader. We had expended the capital
of L50 with which we started housekeeping, and, if I remember rightly,
the parson's stipend did not exceed L250 per annum. In a parish of the
dimensions of this one, horses (as distinct from a horse) were
indispensable, and they had to be fed and shod. A buggy (second hand)
and a piano (on time payment) were here added to the establishment;
likewise a second baby and a nurse-girl. To make ends meet, and at the
same time to have things as one wished--nay, as one was determined--to
have them, considerable ingenuity and invention were required. I
flatter myself that we did well, considering our youth, and that we
were new to the conditions in which we found ourselves; but still we
had to learn experience in many directions at an unexpected cost in
cash. It is extraordinary how quickly money melts in Australia,
compared with what it does at home. The reason is not that living is
dearer, but that the ways of this country are so lavish and
free-handed.
It was about this year (1873) that I began to write for the
_Australasian_--trifling little papers, at long intervals--not because
I found any fascination in such work to dispute the claims of the
house and family, but to add something to the family resources when
they threatened to give out. I had no time for more, until one day the
editor of the _Australasian_ wrote to inquire what had become of me
and my contributions, when it occurred to me that it might be worth
while to make time.
The Sunday school was at the further end of the township--it was the
common school on week-days--and I used to rush thither morning and
afternoon on Sundays, and return breathless to attend to my baby and
play the (American) organ in church. I trained the choir, visited
every parishioner within reach, did all that hard work unfairly
demanded of the parson's wife under these democratic systems of church
government; besides the multifarious work at home--making and mending,
cooking and nursing, and, as it appears, building sideboards and
dining-tables. Moreover, the Free and Compulsory Education Act had
come into force (January 1873), and as the State had to be satisfied
that our little nursemaid, who was within school age, was being
educated according to law, I charged myself with this job also, rather
than lose her services for the greater part of the day. And I may add
that the baby in arms was rarely trusted to this functionary, except
for airings in the garden under my eye. All other attentions that it
required I gave myself. So there was enough occupation for one
not-over-robust woman, without the addition of literary work.
Touching upon this matter, I am reminded of a conversation that I had
with Bishop Perry soon after our arrival. It was not the hardships of
the clergy that troubled him, he said, but the killing strain upon
their wives--literally killing, for he quoted figures to show the
disproportionately high rate of sickness and untimely death amongst
them. I rather think I have heard Bishop Moorhouse express himself to
the same effect. Certainly my own long and intimate acquaintance with
the subject leaves me in no doubt as to which of the clerical pair is
in the shafts and which in the lead. It is not the parson who, to use
the phrase so often in his mouth, bears the burden and heat of the
day, but the uncomplaining drudge who backs him at all points, and
too often makes him selfish and idle by her readiness to do his work
as well as her own. Under colonial and "disestablished" conditions, he
is not largely representative of the class from which our home clergy
are drawn; as a general rule he comes from that which, while as good
as another in many ways, and perhaps better in some, is not bred to
the chivalrous view of women and wives--regards them, that is to say,
as intended for no other purpose than to wait upon men and husbands.
The customs of the profession accord so well with this idea that it is
not surprising to find a pious man killing his wife by inches without
having the slightest notion that he is doing so.
Amongst my colleagues of those days was a lady of exceptional culture
and refinement. Her husband, a Bush clergyman like my own, was poor,
of course, and they averaged a baby a year until the baker's dozen was
reached, if not passed. The way she "kept" this family was such that I
never saw a dirty child or a soiled table-cloth or a slatternly touch
of any sort in her house. She taught the children as they grew old
enough; I know that she did scrubbing and washing with her own hands.
In addition, she did "the parish work."
One day, when she was run down and worn out, her husband told her that
the organist, from some cause, was not forthcoming, and there was no
time to procure a substitute. "So, my dear, you will have to play for
us." He knew that she could do it, for she had often done it before;
it was the merest trifle of a task, compared with those she hourly
struggled with; but it was the one straw too many that breaks the
over-loaded back. She looked at him in silence for a moment, flung out
her arms wildly, and, exclaiming "I can do no more!" went mad upon
the spot. She had to be put into an asylum, and the parish and the
husband and the growing young ones had to do the best they could
without her. The husband, I may say, was--apart from being the
inadvertent accomplice of the parish in her destruction--one of the
very best of husbands and of men.
Only the other day I attended a gathering of the friends of a lady to
whose loved memory it was desired to raise some public monument. She,
lately dead, had been our bishop's wife, and so the meeting was
appropriately presided over by dignitaries of the Church. They stood
up, one after another, to air their views. "I propose," said a worthy
canon, with the most matter-of-fact air in the world, "that every
clergyman's wife be a collector for the fund"--of course. I heard a
sigh and a _sotto-voce_ ejaculation behind me--"the poor clergymen's
wives!"--and the incident exactly shows how their male belongings
treat them.
I, however, have not been a victim. Before I was willing myself to
lighten the double strain, I was compelled to do so, and the
parish--as well as all succeeding parishes--had to put up with it. But
very early in the day I evolved opinions of my own as to the right of
parishes to exact tributes of service from private individuals in no
way bound to give them. And I came to a conclusion, which I have never
since seen reason to alter, that the less a clergyman's wife meddles
with her husband's business (except between themselves) the better,
not only for her but for all parties. After I could plead the claims
of a profession of my own, my position in the scheme of things was
finally and comfortably defined. Parishes, like clerical husbands,
when they tyrannise, do it unconsciously, from want of thought, and
not from want of heart. At any rate, my parish, for the time being,
never, so far as I can see, bears me any malice for my desertion of
the female-curate's post, but quite the contrary. For whereas we
should be sure to chafe each other if forced into an unnatural and
uncongenial relationship, we are now the best of neighbours and
mutually-respecting friends.
Having been a fervid young churchwoman at home, where I
district-visited in the most exemplary manner, with tracts and
soup-tickets and all the rest of it, for my own pleasure, parish work,
when it became my business, was not at all irksome as such. And there
was one part of it which was a source of great enjoyment during the
three years that we lived in Y----.
It was the training of the choir. At first, with much nervousness and
diffidence, I taught hymns and chants for an hour a week, and played
them at the Sunday services in the midst of my little band, which had
never conceived of higher flights. But ambition was generated in us as
we warmed to our work. Recruits arrived from far and near, some of
whom could read music, and we spread ourselves in an occasional
anthem. There have been, and are, many thousands of choirs as pleased
with themselves as we were, but never was there one more harmonious,
in every sense of the word. To the best of my recollection we never
had a tiff, and such was the attraction of our meetings that no
weather--rain, storm, mud, darkness--could keep away the men (some of
them quite elderly), who had to tramp miles through the Bush, after a
hard day's work, to attend them. Especially in the winter.
For when winter came, and the church was cold, I had the practices in
the house, with piano accompaniment. The bright log fire--firewood is
the one thing we have always been extravagant in, on principle--and
the much-pillowed amateur sofa, and the chairs collected from the
general stock and grouped invitingly, made the homely drawing-room a
good, thawing sort of place for the storm-buffeted to come to and to
sing in. Most carefully were wet wraps and umbrellas left outside, and
boots rubbed and scrubbed on door-mats; and never did an evening-party
show itself better bred. For that is what the choir practice came
to--a "musical evening" once a week. We fell into the habit of
clearing off the chants and hymns rather hastily, and devoting the
bulk of our ever-extending time to experiments in the higher forms of
part-singing. We were not experts, any of us, but we made up in
enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge, and ended by so distinguishing
ourselves that the fame of our performances has not died out in the
district yet. For although on pleasure bent, we kept an eye to
business, and selected music with the secondary view of getting
anthems out of it eventually. Our great achievement was Mozart's
Twelfth Mass. It took us a long time, but we fumbled through it from
beginning to end. And then we astonished the congregation with
"Glorious is Thy Name," and "Praise the Lord, for He is Gracious," and
other classic gems, as we got them perfectly.
It was my first attempt at choir-leading and--which I am sure is a
very good thing for my reputation--the last. Thenceforth the parson
wielded the baton. The choir that now is, which could sing the Twelfth
Mass straight off as easily as look at it, if it had never seen the
thing before, would feel insulted at any comparison between their work
and ours; but often, when I am listening to the evening anthem, the
notes of those old voices, so fervid and sincere, float back upon the
tide of memory from those old days, with a heart-melting power that
these finished performances will never possess, for me.
A year or two ago G. was escorting me to my seat in the cathedral
through a crowd pressing into the building to some special function--I
forget what--and he was accosted by a fine-looking grey-bearded
gentleman, with a lady on his arm. "You don't know who that is," said
G., turning to me. I looked, and knew--one of those men who used to
walk so far o' nights to attend choir practice, after working at his
mine all day--seven-or eight-and-twenty years before. We clasped hands
with some emotion and looked at each other, and the question that
sprang to our eyes was, "Do you remember the Twelfth Mass?" It was as
plain as print to both of us. Then we were swept apart before I could
learn where he was living, or anything about him, except that the lady
on his arm was his daughter.
I hope many more have survived and prospered, and that they will read
these words so as to know how I remember them.