The Way Home (12 page)

But what next? -- what in all the world next? To this question he could find no answer. Nor was he helped by staring at the sea, or the golden, lemon-shaped moon that now came up on its back from behind the dark mass of the cliffs. The purchase of a third practice was beyond him: if he went from here he went empty-handed. Possibly he might get for the house what he had given for it -- though he had discovered that it was both damp and in need of repair -- but this sum would not suffice to set him up anew. No, the outlook was darker than, a moment before, the night had been; no moon rose for him. And he lay long wakeful, grappling in a cold sweat with the many small practical details of the break -- details which it is so easy to overlook in the taking of sweeping decisions, yet which afterwards rise up like mountains -- and following the square of silver that flooded in through the uncurtained window, and slowly moved across the bed on its passage from wall to wall. With the glimmer of the material dawn, however -- red behind those cliffs that had delivered up the moon, great Jupiter hanging like a globe of silver above them -- there came to him, too, the dawning of a possible solution. But at the first hint of it he flung restlessly over on his side, unable to bear its weight. A bolder hand than his was needed, to sweep away the cobwebs of prejudice and nervous aversion in which he had spun himself. It took Mary to do it; and she did; though not till she had talked herself hoarse in an attempt to make him see reason, begging him to hold the field and show fight; till her head swam with listening to his monotonous: "What now? Where can I go?" Then, abruptly determined, she cut the knot by facing him and answering squarely: "Why, home again!" -- words which first made Mahony wince, then snort with contempt. But he had no other suggestion to offer -- or none but the fatuous one Mary had already smiled at, that, he having given up practice, they should retire to some tiny cottage, do without domestic help, see no company, and live on the slender sum that came to them from Australia. "I think we could be very happy and content, love, living so -- just you and I." If a soul can be said to laugh, then, in spite of her trouble, Mary's soul rocked with laughter at this fresh sample of Richard's fantasy. Oh, was there ever such an unpractical old dreamer? . . . such an inability to see things as they were. No doubt he pictured a show cottage, wreathed in roses and honeysuckle, where they would pass idyllic days. The slow death-in-life of such an existence, the reaction of his haughty pride against the social position -- or want of position -- that would be forced upon them, was hidden from him. Perhaps mercifully hidden . . . and Mary sighed.

But she did not falter . . . either at his first disdainful sniff, or, later on, when his eyes came stealing back to hers; came tamed, all the scorn gone out of them. "Only do not call it home," was his unspoken request. Short of a miracle that name would never, he believed, cross his lips again. No place could now be "home" to him as long as he lived. He was once more an outcast and a wanderer; must go back in humiliation to the land that had eaten up his prime, and there make the best of the years that were left him.

As time wore on, however, and their preparations for departure advanced; as, too, the prospect of a change of scene hoisted its pirate flag again, this sense of bitterness subsided; the acute ache turned to a dull pain that was almost a relief. And worked on by this, as by the joy which, for all her anxieties, Mary could not quite conceal, the relief also imperceptibly changed its character, and grew to be a warm spot in his heart.

And one evening, when the supper dishes had been pushed aside to make room for Mary's desk -- she was methodically noting the contents of a tin trunk -- Mahony in watching her and thinking how the frequent coughs and colds she had suffered from, since landing in England, had thinned her down, spoke his thought aloud. "Well, love, whatever happens, you at least will grow fat and well again, and be the healthy woman you always were."

"Now don't start to worry about me. I'm all right," said Mary. "It takes time to get used to a strange climate." She entered a few more items in her clean, pointed writing, then laid her pen down and put her chin on her hand. "The thing I like to think of, Richard, is how soon I shall be seeing them all again -- Ned and Jerry and Tilly, and the dear children. I can hardly believe it. I have missed them so."

"Poor little wife! And shall I tell you what I dwell most on? 'Pon my soul, Mary, it's of getting my teeth into a really sweet apple again -- instead of a specimen that's red on one side only. I believe England will stick in my mind, for the rest of my days, as the land where the fruit doesn't ripen."

"And yet costs so much to buy."

"And if I know you, my dear, it's the Abernethy biscuit and thin lemon-water you won't forget. Well, well, madam! you'll soon be able to pamper your guests once more to your heart's content."

"Perhaps. But I shall at least see who it is Jerry thinks of marrying."

"See? . . . yes. But don't hug the belief you'll be able to influence him in his choice."

"I may not want to. And then there's Johnny to try and find out about, poor boy, and to keep Zara from making a goose of herself. Oh! now that we're going home, I feel how dreadfully cut off from them all I have been here."

"And they'll every one hail you joyfully, my dear, rest assured of that! . . . be literally foaming with impatience to make use of you again. I should only like to know how they've got on without you." Mahony had risen from his chair and was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire. Having meditatively warmed his coat-tails for a moment he added: "There's another thing, Polly, I don't mind telling you I look forward to, and that is seeing a real sunrise and sunset again. On this side of the world . . . well, as often as not the sun seems just to slip in or out of a bank of clouds. There's none of that sense of a coming miracle . . . that uplifting effect of space . . . or splendour of colouring. Why, I've still in my memory evenings when half the field of the sky was one pink flush -- with a silver star twinkling through -- or a stretch of unreal green deepening into yellow -- or mauve . . . And the idea has come to me that it must have been from glories of this kind that the old Greek scribe drew his picture of the New Jerusalem.... Yes, I must say, things here -- colouring, landscape, horizon -- have all seemed very dull and cramped . . . like the souls of the people themselves."

Again he fell into thought. Then warmed by these confidences, went further. "Mary, love, let me confess it: I realise what a sad fool I've made of myself over this whole business. My ever leaving Ballarat was a fatal mistake. If I'd only had the sense to take your advice! I was run down -- at the end of my tether -- from years of overwork. A twelve-month out of harness would have set me right again: a voyage to this side; fresh surroundings and associations -- and no need to stint with the money either, for we should now have been going back to our old ample income. Instead of having to face another start on as good as nothing . . . eat humble pie before them all, too. For they will certainly grasp what has happened. -- No, I can see it now; I was too old for such a drastic break. One's habits stiffen with one's joints. You've noticed I've been hurt by people here implying I'm out-of-date, old-fashioned -- good enough for the colonies but not for the home-country -- but, upon my word, Mary, I don't know if there isn't some truth in it. I stopped too long in the one place, my dear; with the result that I ought to have stopped there altogether. -- Well, well! . . . there's only this about it: fiasco though it has proved, it has not hit me as hard as it might have done, considering the exaggerated expectations I came home with. Which in itself is enough to show me age is rendering me indifferent. Actually, my dear, I believe much of the sting is taken from what has happened by the sight of your satisfaction at returning. Never should I have brought you here -- never! I thought to find myself among a different set of people altogether. In memory, I confused good breeding with tact and kindliness. Whereas, now, if it comes to a choice between blue blood and inborn goodness of heart, then what I say is: give me nature's gentlefolk all the time. There's as little likeness between them as between this eternal clammy drizzle and some of those cloudless winter days we knew on the Flat."

"Richard! Don't forget how you hated the climate there. And how poorly the sun made you feel."

"Nor do I. And in spite of the mizzle, and damp, and want of sun, I've thriven in this country. But one can't live on climate alone. And when I let my mind dwell on the way I -- we -- have been treated here; the stodgy lack of goodwill . . . animosity even . . . the backbiting and gossip, I tell you this, love: there's but one person I shall regret when I leave; one only of whom I shall carry away a warm remembrance; and that's, as you know, your dear old mother. But can you guess why? Upon my word, I believe it's because there's something in her warm-heartedness and generosity, her overflowing hospitality, that reminds me of the people we lived among so long."

"Well! it's late . . . we must to bed," he went on, after a silence which Mary did not break, there seeming really nothing left for her to say. "I've no plans, my dear, nor have I at present the spirit to make any. It seems best at this moment to leave the future in the laps of the gods. I know this much though: I'm cured of castle-building for ever."

Mary nodded and acquiesced; or at least again said nothing; and she kept to this attitude in the weeks that followed, when, as was only natural, Richard's mind, far too active and uneasy to rest, began to play round the plans he might have made, had he not forsworn the habit. These included settling somewhere by the sea; either near Melbourne or at one of the watering-places on the Bay -- Dromana or Schnapper Point. Mary let him talk. She herself was persuaded that the only rational thing for him to do was to return to Ballarat. It was of no use his riding the high horse: feelings of pique and pride must yield to practical considerations. He was known from one end of Ballarat to the other; and the broken threads could there be picked up more swiftly and with greater ease than anywhere else. It would, of course, no longer be a case of Webster Street -- unless the doctor to whom he had sold the practice had failed, or proved otherwise unsatisfactory. But Richard would find room somewhere; even if it had to be on the Redan, or at Sebastopol, or out at Buninyong. And though he could now never hope to occupy the position he had wilfully abandoned -- oh, the unspeakable folly of man! -- never hope to give up general practice for that of consultant or specialist, yet with care something might still be saved from the wreck of the past. And nursing these schemes, Mary set her lips and frowned with determination. Never again in the years to come, should he be able to say he repented not having taken her advice. This time she would set her will through, cost what it might.

Coming up from below to catch a whiff of it, her passengers blinked dazzled eyes at the gaudy brilliancy of light and colouring. Here were no frail tints and misty trimmings; everything stood out hard, clear, emphatic. The water was a crude sapphire; the surf that frothed on the reefs white as milk. As for the sky, Mahony declared it made him think of a Reckitt's bluebag; while a single strip of pearly cloud to the east looked fixed, immovable -- solid as those clouds on which, in old paintings, cherubs perch or lean.

Outside the "Rip" the vessel hove to, to take up the pilot; and every neck was craned to watch his arrival; for with him would come letters and news -- the first to reach the travellers since their departure from England. Hungrily was the unsealing of the mail-bag awaited.

Mary's lap would hardly hold the envelopes that bore her name. They were carried to her by the grizzled old Captain himself, who dealt them out, one by one, cracking a joke to each. Mary laughed; but at the same time felt a touch of embarrassment. For her to receive so large a share of the good things -- under the very noses, too, of those unfortunates who got none -- seemed not in the best of taste. So, the tale told, she retired with her budget to the cabin; and Mahony, having seen her below, went back to read his own correspondence on deck.

But she had done no more than finish John's note of welcome and break the seal of Tilly's, when a foot came bounding through the saloon, off which the cabin opened, and there was Richard again -- Richard with rumpled hair, eyes alight, red of face, looking for all the world like a rowdy schoolboy. Seizing her by the hands he pulled her to her feet, and would have twirled her round. But Mary, her letters strewing the floor, protested -- stood firm.

"What is the matter?"

"Mary! Wife! Here's news for us! . . . here's news. A letter from ---- " and he flourished a sheet of paper at her. "I give you three guesses, love. But nonsense! -- you couldn't . . . not if you guessed till Doomsday. No more pinching and scraping for us, Mary! No more underpaid drudgery for me! My fortune's made. I am a rich man . . . at last!"

"Richard dear! What is it now?"

Mary spoke in the lightly damping tone which Mahony was wont to grumble she reserved for him alone. But to-day it passed unnoticed.

"Here you are, madam -- read for yourself!" and he pushed a crumpled letter into her hand. "It's those Australia Felixes we have to thank for it. What a glorious piece of luck, Mary, that I should have stuck to them and gone on paying their wretched calls, when every one else let them lapse in despair. John will be green with envy. And this is only the beginning, my dear. There's no telling what they'll do when they get the new plant in -- old Simmonds says so himself, and he's not given to superlatives as you know. -- Yes, it's good-bye to poverty!" -- and forgetting in his excitement where he was, Mahony flung round to pace the floor. Baulked by the narrow wall of the cabin, he had just to turn to the right-about. "It means I can now pick and choose, Mary -- put up my plate in Collins Street East -- hold my head as high as the best."