The Way Home (9 page)

Dropping John's, Mary picked on one of the envelopes in her lap, slit it open and began to fly the lines. "Mm . . . a tirade against John, of course . . . how those two do bicker! They seem to get worse as they grow older. Now where can it be? Mm . . . No one can put up with him any longer . . . has had to close his house, thus proving ---- "

"Hullo, my dear, here's news!" cried Mahony and slapped his thigh. He had waited patiently for John's Jeremiad to end. In Zara's pursuit of matrimony he took no interest whatever. "Well, upon my word! . . . who would have dreamt of this? Those Australia Felixes . . . you remember, Mary, I bought them rather as a pig in a poke; and they've done nothing but make calls ever since. Now here they are declaring a three-pound dividend. My highest expectations did not exceed thirty shillings and even that would have been handsome. Think what it will be when they get in ten more stamps. Fifty pounds a month, for certain! My dear! we shall end by being moneyed people after all."

"Indeed I hope so," said Mary; and resumed her search for Zara's plum. "It looks as if she's not going to mention it. This is all about her pupils. They dote on her as usual, and she drives out every day in the carriage. Zara is certainly lucky in her employers. -- Oh, here it is -- tucked away in a postscript. Other and fairer prospects beckon, my dear Mary, than those of eternally improving the minds of other people's children. At present I can say no more. But your cleverness will no doubt enable you to divine what I leave unsaid. And that's all. Now I suppose I must wait another three months to hear who it is and how it happened. Oh dear, how out of everything we do seem here!"

"They've got the money for the chancel at last," threw in Mahony. "I must write and congratulate Long. Splendid work! They've had the laying ceremony, too, and hope twelve months hence that the Bishop will be up consecrating. The last Fancy Bazaar did the job. Here's a message to you. Mrs. Long's warm love, and she missed your help sadly at the refreshment-stall. -- What? Well, I'm hanged! Old Higgins in my place as Trustee. Ha, ha! Listen to this. And now an item, doctor, after your own heart. We recently had with us a disciple and follower of Spurgeon -- one of the faithful who seceded with the great man from the Evangelical Alliance. He preached a first time in the Baptist Chapel, but this proved too small to hold a quarter of those who wished to hear him. And so the second time, on a Sunday evening, he appeared on the platform of the new Alfred Hall. This was packed to the doors. The consequence was I preached to empty benches. Well! believing that the Word of God remains the Word of God, no matter under what guise it is presented, I cut my discourse short, doffed my cassock and went home to bed. The worthy fellow called on me next day; wished to exchange Bibles -- his, I am told, deeply under-scored -- but I did not feel justified in going so far as that."

"Oh, Polly's lost her baby, poor thing!" cried Mary, whom the doings of Spurgeon's follower interested but mildly. "I do feel sorry for her. Not but what she takes it very sensibly. And if you think . . . six children and that teeny-weeny house. Still, it's rather sad. She says: Of course nobody misses it or cared anything about it but me. But it was rather a nice little kid Mary, and well formed. I had it at the breast for a day, and felt its little fingers, and it had blue eyes. Now fancy that! -- and the rest of them so dark. Polly would think it belonged all the more to her, because of it. She says Ned's keeping a little steadier -- that will be good news for Mother. He's clerk in a coal merchant's office now, and brings home his wages pretty regularly. Poor old Ned!" and Mary sighed.

But a message in Mr. Chinnery's made her smile. Tell Mrs. Mahony how much she is missed in society here. Those pleasant evenings we used to spend at your house, doctor, and her famous suppers are still talked of, and will long be remembered. "There, my dear! that's a feather in your cap, and should console you for recent happenings."

With this Mahony's budget was exhausted, and he rose to go to the surgery, where he proposed to make a few calculations in connection with his little windfall. But Mary held him back for yet a moment.

"I declare marrying's in the air. Now here's Jerry gone and got engaged. Who to? He writes: The prettiest girl in all the world and the best as well. Let us only hope that's true. Dear old Jerry! He deserves a good wife, if ever anyone did. But, oh dear me! she's only sixteen -- barely a year older than Trotty. That's too young."

"Is it indeed? I know somebody who was once of a different opinion."

"But I was old for my age. Dear Jerry! He's so sensible in other things. If only he has not let his feelings run away with him here!"

"Poor old Mary wife! If only you were there to look after them all, eh? Better as it is, love. You'd have the burden of Atlas on your shoulders again."

"What atlas?" asked Mary absently, having passed to her next correspondent.

But the letter she spent longest over was the one she kept till the last -- till Richard had retired to his room. For only to Tilly did she write nowadays with anything approaching frankness; and in this reply, oddly written, indifferently spelt, there might be private references to things she had said, besides the plain truth about all and any it touched on. Afterwards Richard would get, in her own words, all he needed to hear.

Beamish House,

Lake Wendouree,

Ballarat.

My darling Mary, -- Yours of 19th was a rare old treat. Job brought it when I wasn't at home -- I'd driven out to have a look at the mare Zoe, who's in foal and at grass in a paddock of Willy Urquhart's. Didn't I pounce on it when I found it. I read it through twice without stopping, my dear. And didn't know whether to be glad or sorry when I'd done. You write cheery enough, Mary, but it doesn't seem to me you can be really happy in a place like you say Leicester is -- all damp and dreary, and no garden or space, and so little company. I'm glad it isn't me -- that's all. Australy for ever, for this chicken. Your description of the rainy season makes me get cold shivers down my spine. Give me the sun, thank you, and horses and a garden, and everything just as jolly as can be. Fine feathers and blue blood aren't in my line anyhow.

Now for my budget. I'm still the gay old widder I was when you heard last, and haven't felt tempted to change my state. To tell the truth, Mary, though I gad about as usual and don't sit at home and pull a long face, I still miss dear old Pa. It was so homey to hear him say: "Now then, what's my girl been up to to-day?" whenever I came in, and the joy of my life to help him set his will against Monseer H.'s. Well, he can't say he's forgotten. I've put him up the grandest monument in all the new cemetery. Pa in a sort of nightshirt, Mary, with wings attached, flying off, and a female figure all bowed up and Weeping on the ground. This is all right for me, but sometimes I think Pa would rather have been took just sitting on a log and smoking his pipe. But Henry and the man as done it wouldn't hear of such a thing, said it wouldn't be ideel.

The chief news of this establishment is that Tom and Johnny has moved out. I was for keeping them on -- we're none of us chickens any more -- but Henry pecked and nagged at me about propriety, till I gave in for sheer peace sake. They're boarded out, poor boys, and Tom comes over every morning to see after the fowls. One of these days I shall have to put my foot down and squash Henry -- I see that. For it was the same with the weeds. Pa used to say: "Wear no weepers for me, Tilda!" -- meaning veils and hangers and all that -- "you've nothing to grieve for, old girl." And I to comfort him: "Right you are, old Jo! If my memory lasts so long, that is, for you'll beat Methuselah yet!" But when Henry heard of it, he all but stood on his head -- my dear, he has Agnes going round with a flounce of crêpe a yard wide on her skirts. And indeed, Mary, I don't think I could have faced walking up the aisle of a Sunday without a black bonnet and all complete; though between ourselves it makes me feel a proper crow. Don't tell, but when I drive out into the bush I stuff a shady old hat in a basket under the seat, and as soon as I get far enough, I off with the bonnet and on with the hat. The weepers do draw the flies so. Aye, and flies of another colour too, Mary, if you'll believe me. But they come to the wrong shop here; none of your long-nosed fortune-snufflers for me. And that reminds me -- what do you think Henry's latest is? Says I ought to have some one to live with me -- that it isn't commy faut for an attractive young widder-woman to live all alone! Ha ha! Do you see any green in this child's eye? I think I can be trusted, don't you, Mary, to look after myself. But I enjoy keeping Mossieu Henry on the quake. What he's afraid of is that all I got from poor old Pa won't fall to his and Agnes's kids when I hop the twig. Talking of Agnes, I don't see Miladi once in a blue moon nowadays. I hear she's "not at all well." It's my private belief something's wrong there, Mary. They've changed doctors three times, tell your husband, since he left. Louise Urquhart's presented her husband with the eleventh. How she keeps it up so regular beats me. But there's ructions in that family at present. Willy's been unusual gay. This time it was a governess, a real young spark they had up to Yarangobilly to teach the kids. She got bundled out double-quick at the end, and Willy's looked meek as a sucking-lamb ever since. I drop in to see Ned's Polly now and again -- you've heard I suppose she lost her last. And a good thing too. She's got more than she can manage as it is. I heard from her, young Jerry's the newest candidate for the holy estate. They do say the bride elect still plays with dolls. Lor, Mary! what will these infants be up to next? Another piece of news is that that obstinate old brute in Melbourne has gone and put all poor Finn's blessed little nippers to boarding-school. That does hit me hard, Mary. But I get even with him in another way, my dear. I've won over the old vinaigrette here -- she needed new globes, etc. for her schoolhouse -- and we have a kind of agreement, all unbeknownst to the Honourable, that the kid Trotty can come home with me of a Saturday afternoon instead of spending the day on the backboard. She's a nice little kid, full of life, though young enough for her age, and I try to give her a good time. But what she likes best is to make butter, so I pin an apron on her and turn her into the dairy with Martha, among the milk-pans and churns. But let me tell you this, my dear. The Honourable John needn't indulge any fool ideas about economising in housekeepers when her schooling's over -- as old Prunes and Prisms tells me. Some one a great deal younger and handsomer than him will whip her off. She's much too pretty for the single life.

I think that's all my news. We had great church festifications lately and look forward to more when the chancel's built. I say, the doctor had some "Australia Felixes," hadn't he? I hear they've struck the reef. But this is a fearful long scrawl, and yet not half so comfortable as even a quarter of an hour's good yarn would be. When shall we have that again, Mary darling? I don't lose hopes for someday. And as you know I've sworn never to cross the water, it must mean the other way about. Yes, I still believe I shall see you back again: and when you do come, you'll find you are not forgotten by your devoted old crony -- Tilly.

I.vii.

THE end of September brought day after day of soft, steamy mists, which saturated everything with moisture, and by night fell as a fine rain that turned low-lying parts of the garden to a bog. Did you mount to the roads on the high level you were in the clouds themselves; they trailed past you like smoke. There was no horizon seaward. At a little distance from the shore the grey water became one with a bank of vapour; the yellow cliffs vanished; suns neither rose nor set.

It was exasperating weather. These eternal sea fogs, which never a puff of wind came to chase away, seemed literally to bury you alive. They brought out the sweat on the flagged floors and passages of the old, old house; a crop of mould sprang up in the corners of the dining-room; the bread mildewed in the bin. Did the back door stand open, frogs took advantage of it to hop in and secrete themselves; slugs squeezed through cracks and left their silvery trail over the carpets. Mary began to fear the house would prove but sorry winter quarters; and she had ample leisure to indulge such reflections, the bad weather confining her almost wholly within doors. Here was no kind friend with buggy or shandrydan to rout her out and take her driving; and ladies did not walk in Buddlecombe: the hilly roads were too steep, the flat roads too muddy. So, once more, she sat and sewed, faced by the prospect of a long, dull, lonely winter. Calls and invitations had rather dropped off, of late. . . as was not unnatural . . . and she would have been for seeing nothing peculiar in it, had she not connected it in some obscure way with Richard and the practice. This had also declined; was failing, it was plain, to live up to its early promise.

She was unaware that no sooner had the "Court" reopened for the winter than the tale -- in a garbled version -- of the innovations attempted by the "new doctor's wife" had been carried to the ears of its mistress. And Mrs. Archibald Treherne pinched a pair of very thin lips and further arched already supercilious eyebrows. That was all; but it was enough. And, in consequence, from the choicest entertainments of the autumn the Mahonys found themselves conspicuously omitted.

Their only personal connection with the big house was due to an unhappy contretemps of the kind that was given to rankling for ever after in Mahony's mind.

On learning of the family's arrival, both he and Mary privately thought an exchange of courtesies would follow. Hence when one day a footman was found to have handed in cards during Mary's absence -- his mistress keeping her seat in her carriage at the foot of the hill -- the visit did not take them by surprise. Within the week Mary drove out in a hired vehicle to return it.

A bare half-hour later she was home again, looking flushed and disturbed.

"Richard! . . . a most awkward thing has happened. Those cards were not meant for us at all. It was the footman's mistake. He ought to have left them at the next house down the road -- that little thatched cottage at the corner. They were for a Mrs. Pigott, who's staying there."