One hot morning some few days later, Polly, with Trotty at her side, stood on the doorstep shading her eyes with her hand. She was on the look-out for her "vegetable man," who drove in daily from the Springs with his greenstuff. He was late as usual: if Richard would only let her deal with the cheaper, more punctual Ah Sing, who was at this moment coming up the track. But Devine was a reformed character: after, as a digger, having squandered a fortune in a week, he had given up the drink and, backed by a hard-working, sober wife, was now trying to earn a living at market-gardening. So he had to be encouraged.
The Chinaman jog-trotted towards them, his baskets a-sway, his mouth stretched to a friendly grin. "You no want cabbagee to-day? Me got velly good cabbagee," he said persuasively and lowered his pole.
"No thank you, John, not to-day. Me wait for white man."
"Me bling pleasant for lilly missee," said the Chow; and unknotting a dirty nosecloth, he drew from it an ancient lump of candied ginger. "Lilly missee eatee him ... oh, yum, yum! Velly good. My word!"
But Chinamen to Trotty were fearsome bogies, corresponding to the swart-faced, white-eyed chimney-sweeps of the English nursery. She hid behind her aunt, holding fast to the latter's skirts, and only stealing an occasional peep from one saucer-like blue eye.
"Thank you, John. Me takee chowchow for lilly missee," said Polly, who had experience in disposing of such savoury morsels.
"You no buy cabbagee to-day?" repeated Ah Sing, with the catlike persistence of his race. And as Polly, with equal firmness and good-humour, again shook her head, he shouldered his pole and departed at a half-run, crooning as he went.
Meanwhile at the bottom of the road another figure had come into view. It was not Devine in his spring-cart; it was some one on horseback, was a lady, in a holland habit. The horse, a piebald, advanced at a sober pace, and—"Why, good gracious! I believe she's coming here."
At the first of the three houses the rider had dismounted, and knocked at the door with the butt of her whip. After a word with the woman who opened, she threw her riding-skirt over one arm, put the other through the bridle, and was now making straight for them.
As she drew near she smiled, showing a row of white teeth. "Does Dr. Mahony live here?"
Misfortune of misfortunes!—Richard was out.
But almost instantly Polly grasped that this would tell in his favour. "He won't be long, I know."
"I wonder," said the lady, "if he would come out to my house when he gets back? I am Mrs Glendinning—of Dandaloo."
Polly flushed, with sheer satisfaction: Dandaloo was one of the largest stations in the neighbourhood of Ballarat. "Oh, I'm certain he will," she answered quickly.
"I am so glad you think so," said Mrs. Glendinning. "A mutual friend, Mr. Henry Ocock, tells me how clever he is."
Polly's brain leapt at the connection; on the occasion of Richard's last visit the lawyer had again repeated the promise to put a patient in his way. Ocock was one of those people, said Richard, who only remembered your existence when he saw you.—Oh, what a blessing in disguise had been that troublesome old land sale!
The lady had stooped to Trotty, whom she was trying to coax from her lurking-place. "What a darling! How I envy you!"
"Have you no children?" Polly asked shyly, when Trotty's relationship had been explained.
"Yes, a boy. But I should have liked a little girl of my own. Boys are so difficult," and she sighed.
The horse nuzzling for sugar roused Polly to a sense of her remissness. "Won't you come in and rest a little, after your ride?" she asked; and without hesitation Mrs. Glendinning said she would like to, very much indeed; and tying the hone to the fence, she followed Polly into the house.
The latter felt proud this morning of its apple-pie order. She drew up the best armchair, placed a footstool before it and herself carried in a tray with refreshments. Mrs. Glendinning had taken Trotty on her lap, and given the child her long gold chains to play with. Polly thought her the most charming creature in the world. She had a slender waist, and an abundant light brown chignon, and cheeks of a beautiful pink, in which two fascinating dimples came and went. The feather from her riding-hat lay on her neck. Her eyes were the colour of forget-me-nots, her mouth was red as any rose. She had, too, so sweet and natural a manner that Polly was soon chatting frankly about herself and her life, Mrs. Glendinning listening with her face pressed to the spun-glass of Trotty's hair.
When she rose, she clasped both Polly's hands in hers. "You dear little woman... may I kiss you? I am ever so much older than you."
"I am eighteen," said Polly.
"And I on the shady side of twenty-eight!"
They laughed and kissed. "I shall ask your husband to bring you out to see me. And take no refusal. AU REVOIR!" and riding off, she turned in the saddle and waved her hand.
For all her pleasurable excitement Polly did not let the grass grow under her feet. There being still no sign of Richard—he had gone to Soldiers' Hill to extract a rusty nail from a child's foot—Ellen was sent to summon him home; and when the girl returned with word that he was on the way, Polly dispatched her to the livery-barn, to order the horse to be got ready.
Richard took the news coolly. "Did she say what the matter was?"
No, she hadn't; and Polly had not liked to ask her; it could surely be nothing very serious, or she would have mentioned it.
"H'm. Then it's probably as I thought. Glendinning's failing is well known. Only the other day, I heard that more than one medical man had declined to have anything further to do with the case. It's a long way out, and fees are not always forthcoming. HE doesn't ask for a doctor, and, womanlike, she forgets to pay the bills. I suppose they think they'll try a greenhorn this time."
Pressed by Polly, who was curious to learn everything about her new friend, he answered: "I should be sorry to tell you, my dear, how many bottles of brandy it is Glendinning's boast he can empty in a week."
"Drink? Oh, Richard, how terrible! And that pretty, pretty woman!" cried Polly, and drove her thoughts backwards: she had seen no hint of tragedy in her caller's lovely face. However, she did not wait to ponder, but asked, a little anxiously: "But you'll go, dear, won't you?"
"Go? Of course I shall! Beggars can't be choosers." "Besides, you know, you MIGHT be able to do something where other people have failed."
Mahony rode out across the Flat. For a couple of miles his route was one with the Melbourne Road, on which plied the usual motley traffic. Then, branching off at right angles, it dived into the bush—in this case a scantly wooded, uneven plain, burnt tobacco-brown and hard as iron.
Here went no one but himself. He and the mare were the sole living creatures in what, for its stillness, might have been a painted landscape. Not a breath of air stirred the weeping grey-green foliage of the gums; nor was there any bird-life to rustle the leaves, or peck, or chirrup. Did he draw rein, the silence was so intense that he could almost hear it.
On striking the outlying boundary of Dandaloo, he dismounted to slip a rail. After that he was in and out of the saddle, his way leading through numerous gateless paddocks before it brought him up to the homestead.
This, a low white wooden building, overspread by a broad verandah—from a distance it looked like an elongated mushroom—stood on a hill. At the end, the road had run alongside a well-stocked fruit and flower-garden; but the hillside itself, except for a gravelled walk in front of the house, was uncultivated—was given over to dead thistles and brown weeds.
Fastening his bridle to a post, Mahony unstrapped his bag of necessaries and stepped on to the verandah. A row of French windows stood open; but flexible green sun-blinds hid the rooms from view. The front door was a French window, too, differing from the rest only in its size. There was neither bell nor knocker. While he was rapping with the knuckles on the panel, one of the blinds was pushed aside and Mrs. Glendinning came out.
She was still in hat and riding-habit; had herself, she said, reached home but half an hour ago. Summoning a station-hand to attend to the horse, she raised a blind and ushered Mahony into the dining-room, where she had been sitting at lunch, alone at the head of a large table. A Chinaman brought fresh plates, and Mahony was invited to draw up his chair. He had an appetite after his ride; the room was cool and dark; there were no flies.
Throughout the meal, the lady kept up a running fire of talk—the graceful chitchat that sits so well on pretty lips. She spoke of the coming Races; of the last Government House Ball; of the untimely death of Governor Hotham. To Mahony she instinctively turned a different side out, from that which had captured Polly. With all her well-bred ease, there was a womanly deference in her manner, a readiness to be swayed, to stand corrected. The riding-dress set off her figure; and her delicate features were perfectly chiselled. ("Though she'll be florid before she's forty.")
Some juicy nectarines finished, she pushed back her chair. "And now, doctor, will you come and see your patient?"
Mahony followed her down a broad, bare passage. A number of rooms opened off it, but instead of entering one of these she led him out to a back verandah. Here, before a small door, she listened with bent head, then turned the handle and went in.
The room was so dark that Mahony could see nothing. Gradually he made out a figure lying on a stretcher-bed. A watcher sat at the bedside. The atmosphere was more than close, smelt rank and sour. His first request was for light and air.
It was the wreck of a fine man that lay there, strapped over the chest, bound hand and foot to the framework of the bed. The forehead, on which the hair had receded to a few mean grey wisps, was high and domed, the features were straight with plenty of bone in them, the shoulders broad, the arms long. The skin of the face had gone a mahogany brown from exposure, and a score of deep wrinkles ran out fan-wise from the corners of the closed lids. Mahony untied the dirty towels that formed the bandages—they had cut ridges in the limbs they confined—and took one of the heavy wrists in his hand.
"How long has he lain like this?" he asked, as he returned the arm to its place.
"How long is it, Saunderson?" asked Mrs. Glendinning. She had sat down on a chair at the foot of the bed; her skirts overflowed the floor.
The watcher guessed it would be since about the same time yesterday.
"Was he unusually violent on this occasion?—for I presume such attacks are not uncommon with him," continued Mahony, who had meanwhile made a superficial examination of the sick man.
"I am sorry to say they are only too common, doctor," replied the lady.—"Was he worse than usual this time, Saunderson?" she turned again to the man; at which fresh proof of her want of knowledge Mahony mentally raised his eyebrows.
"To say trewth, I never see'd the boss so bad before," answered Saunderson solemnly, grating the palms of the big red hands that hung down between his knees. "And I've helped him through the jumps more'n once. It's my opinion it would ha' been a narrow squeak for him this time, if me and a mate hadn't nipped in and got these bracelets on him. There he was, ravin' and sweatin' and cursin' his head off, grey as death. Hell-gate, he called it, said he was devil's-porter at hell-gate, and kept hollerin' for napkins and his firesticks. Poor ol' boss! It WAS hell for him and no mistake!"
By dint of questioning Mahony elicited the fact that Glendinning had been unseated by a young horse, three days previously. At the time, no heed was paid to the trifling accident. Later on, however, complaining of feeling cold and unwell, he went to bed, and after lying wakeful for some hours was seized by the horrors of delirium.
Requesting the lady to leave them, Mahony made a more detailed examination. His suspicions were confirmed: there was internal trouble of old standing, rendered acute by the fall. Aided by Saunderson, he worked with restoratives for the best part of an hour. In the end he had the satisfaction of seeing the coma pass over into a natural repose.
"Well, he's through this time, but I won't answer for the next," he said, and looked about him for a basin in which to wash his hands. "Can't you manage to keep the drink from him?—or at least to limit him?"
"Nay, the Almighty Himself couldn't do that," gave back Saunderson, bringing forward soap and a tin dish.
"How does it come that he lies in a place like this?" asked Mahony, as he dried his hands on a corner of the least dirty towel, and glanced curiously round. The room—in size it did not greatly exceed that of a ship's-cabin—was in a state of squalid disorder. Besides a deal table and a couple of chairs, its main contents were rows and piles of old paper-covered magazines, the thick brown dust on which showed that they had not been moved for months—or even years. The whitewashed walls were smoke-tanned and dotted with millions of fly-specks; the dried corpses of squashed spiders formed large black patches; all four corners of the ceiling were festooned with cobwebs.
Saunderson shrugged his shoulders. "This was his den when he first was manager here, in old Morrison's time, and he's stuck to it ever since. He shuts himself up in here, and won't have a female cross the threshold—nor yet Madam G. herself."
Having given final instructions, Mahony went out to rejoin the lady.
"I will not conceal from you that your husband is in a very precarious condition."
"Do you mean, doctor, he won't live long?" She had evidently been lying down: one side of her face was flushed and marked. Crying, too, or he was much mistaken: her lids were red-rimmed, her shapely features swollen.
"Ah, you ask too much of me; I am only a woman; I have no influence over him," she said sadly, and shook her head.
"What is his age?"
"He is forty-seven."
Mahony had put him down for at least ten years older, and said so. But the lady was not listening: she fidgeted with her lace-edged handkerchief, looked uneasy, seemed to be in debate with herself. Finally she said aloud: "Yes, I will." And to him: "Doctor, would you come with me a moment?"
This time she conducted him to a well-appointed bedchamber, off which gave a smaller room, containing a little four-poster draped in dimity. With a vague gesture in the direction of the bed, she sank on a chair beside the door.
Drawing the curtains Mahony discovered a fair-haired boy of some eight or nine years old. He lay with his head far back, his mouth wide open—apparently fast asleep.
But the doctor's eye was quick to see that it was no natural sleep. "Good God! who is responsible for this?"
Mrs. Glendinning held her handkerchief to her face. "I have never told any one before," she wept. "The shame of it, doctor ... is more than I can bear."
"Who is the blackguard? Come, answer me, if you please!"
"Oh, doctor, don't scold me... I am so unhappy." The pretty face puckered and creased; the full bosom heaved. "He is all I have. And such a bright, clever little fellow! You will cure him for me, won't you?"
"How often has it happened?"
"I don't know ... about five or six times, I think ... perhaps more. There's a place not far from here where he can get it ... an old hut-cook my husband dismissed once, in a fit of temper—he has oh such a temper! Eddy saddles his pony and rides out there, if he's not watched; and then ... then, they bring him back ... like this."
"But who supplies him with money?"
"Money? Oh, but doctor, he can't be kept without pocket-money! He has always had as much as he wanted.—No, it is all my husband's doing,"—and now she broke out in one of those shameless confessions, from which the medical adviser is never safe. "He hates me; he is only happy if he can hurt me and humiliate me. I don't care what becomes of him. The sooner he dies the better!"
"Compose yourself, my dear lady. Later you may regret such hasty words.—And what has this to do with the child? Come, speak out. It will be a relief to you to tell me."
"You are so kind, doctor," she sobbed, and drank, with hysterical gurglings, the glass of water Mahony poured out for her. "Yes, I will tell you everything. It began years ago—when Eddy was only a tot in jumpers. It used to amuse my husband to see him toss off a glass of wine like a grown-up person; and it WAS comical, when he sipped it, and smacked his lips. But then he grew to like it, and to ask for it, and be cross when he was refused. And then... then he learnt how to get it for himself. And when his father saw I was upset about it, he egged him on—gave it to him on the sly.—Oh, he is a bad man, doctor, a BAD, cruel man! He says such wicked things, too. He doesn't believe in God, or that it is wrong to take one's own life, and he says he never wanted children. He jeers at me because I am fond of Eddy, and because I go to church when I can, and says ... oh, I know I am not clever, but I am not quite such a fool as he makes me out to be. He speaks to me as if I were the dirt under his feet. He can't bear the sight of me. I have heard him curse the day he first saw me. And so he's only too glad to be able to come between my boy and me ... in any way he can."
Mahony led the weeping woman back to the dining-room. There he sat long, patiently listening and advising; sat, till Mrs. Glendinning had dried her eyes and was her charming self once more.
The gist of what he said was, the boy must be removed from home at once, and placed in strict, yet kind hands.
Here, however, he ran up against a weak maternal obstinacy. "Oh, but I couldn't part from Eddy. He is all I have.... And so devoted to his mammy."
As Mahony insisted, she looked the picture of helplessness. "But I should have no idea how to set about it. And my husband would put every possible obstacle in the way."
"With your permission I will arrange the matter myself."
"Oh, how kind you are!" cried Mrs. Glendinning again. "But mind, doctor, it must be somewhere where Eddy will lack none of the comforts he is accustomed to, and where his poor mammy can see him whenever she wishes. Otherwise he will fret himself ill."
Mahony promised to do his best to satisfy her, and declining, very curtly, the wine she pressed on him, went out to mount his horse which had been brought round.
Following him on to the verandah, Mrs. Glendinning became once more the pretty woman frankly concerned for her appearance. "I don't know how I look, I'm sure," she said apologetically, and raised both hands to her hair. "Now I will go and rest for an hour. There is to be opossuming and a moonlight picnic to-night at Warraluen." Catching Mahony's eye fixed on her with a meaning emphasis, she changed colour. "I cannot sit at home and think, doctor. I MUST distract myself; or I should go mad."
When he was in the saddle she showed him her dimples again, and her small, even teeth. "I want you to bring your wife to see me next time you come," she sad, patting the horse's neck. "I took a great fancy to her—a sweet little woman!"
But Mahony, jogging downhill, said to himself he would think twice before introducing Polly there. His young wife's sunny, girlish outlook should not, with his consent, be clouded by a knowledge of the sordid things this material prosperity hid from view. A whited sepulchre seemed to him now the richly appointed house, the well-stocked gardens, the acres on acres of good pasture-land: a fair outside when, within, all was foul. He called to mind what he knew by hearsay of the owner. Glendinning was one of the pioneer squatters of the district, had held the run for close on fifteen years. Nowadays, when the land round was entirely taken up, and a place like Ballarat stood within stone's-throw, it was hard to imagine the awful solitude to which the early settlers had been condemned. Then, with his next neighbour miles and miles away, Melbourne, the nearest town, a couple of days' ride through trackless bush, a man was a veritable prisoner in this desert of paddocks, with not a soul to speak to but rough station-hands, and nothing to occupy his mind but the damage done by summer droughts and winter floods. No support or comradeship in the wife either—this poor pretty foolish little woman: "With the brains of a pigeon!" Glendinning had the name of being intelligent: was it, under these circumstances, matter for wonder that he should seek to drown doubts, memories, inevitable regrets; should be led on to the bitter discovery that forgetfulness alone rendered life endurable? Yes, there was something sinister in the dead stillness of the melancholy bush; in the harsh, merciless sunlight of the late afternoon.
A couple of miles out his horse cast a shoe, and it was evening before he reached home. Polly was watching for him on the doorstep, in a twitter lest some accident had happened or he had had a brush with bushrangers.
"It never rains but it pours, dear!" was her greeting: he had been twice sent for to the Flat, to attend a woman in labour.—And with barely time to wash the worst of the ride's dust off him, he had to pick up his bag and hurry away.
"A very striking-looking man! With perfect manners—and beautiful hands."
Her head bent over her sewing, Polly repeated these words to herself with a happy little smile. They had been told her, in confidence, by Mrs. Glendinning, and had been said by this lady's best friend, Mrs. Urquhart of Yarangobilly: on the occasion of Richard's second call at Dandaloo, he had been requested to ride to the neighbouring station to visit Mrs. Urquhart, who was in delicate health. And of course Polly had passed the flattering opinion on; for, though she was rather a good hand at keeping a secret—Richard declared he had never known a better—yet that secret did not exist—or up till now had not existed—which she could imagine herself keeping from him.
For the past few weeks these two ladies had vied with each other in singing Richard's praises, and in making much of Polly: the second time Mrs. Glendinning called she came in her buggy, and carried off Polly, and Trotty, too, to Yarangobilly, where there was a nestful of little ones for the child to play with. Another day a whole brakeful of lively people drove up to the door in the early morning, and insisted on Polly accompanying them, just as she was, to the Racecourse on the road to Creswick's Creek. And everybody was so kind to her that Polly heartily enjoyed herself, in spite of her plain print dress. She won a pair of gloves and a piece of music in a philippine with Mr Urquhart, a jolly, carroty-haired man, beside whom she sat on the box-seat coming home; and she was lucky enough to have half-a-crown on one of the winners. An impromptu dance was got up that evening by the merry party, in a hall in the township; and Polly had the honour of a turn with Mr. Henry Ocock, who was most affable. Richard also looked in for an hour towards the end, and valsed her and Mrs. Glendinning round.
Polly had quite lost her heart to her new friend. At the outset Richard had rather frowned on the intimacy—but then he was a person given to taking unaccountable antipathies. In this case, however, he had to yield; for not only did a deep personal liking spring up between the two women, but a wave of pity swept over Polly, blinding her to more subtle considerations. Before Mrs. Glendinning had been many times at the house, she had poured out all her troubles to Polly, impelled thereto by Polly's quick sympathy and warm young eyes. Richard had purposely given his wife few details of his visits to Dandaloo; but Mrs. Glendinning knew no such scruples, and cried her eyes out on Polly's shoulder.
What a dreadful man the husband must be! "For she really is the dearest little woman, Richard. And means so well with every one—I've never heard her say a sharp or unkind word.—Well, not very clever, perhaps. But everybody can't be clever, can they? And she's good—which is better. The only thing she seems a teeny-weeny bit foolish about is her boy. I'm afraid she'll never consent to part with him."—Polly said this to prepare her husband, who was in correspondence on the subject with Archdeacon Long and with John in Melbourne. Richard was putting himself to a great deal of trouble, and would naturally be vexed if nothing came of it.
Polly paid her first visit to Dandaloo with considerable trepidation. For Mrs. Urquhart, who herself was happily married—although, it was true, her merry, red-haired husband had the reputation of being a LITTLE too fond of the ladies, and though he certainly did not make such a paying concern of Yarangobilly as Mr. Glendinning of Dandaloo—Mrs. Urquhart had whispered to Polly as they sat chatting on the verandah: "Such a DREADFUL man, my dear! ... a perfect brute! Poor little Agnes. It is wonderful how she keeps her spirits up."
Polly, however, was in honour bound to admit that to her the owner of Dandaloo had appeared anything but the monster report made him out to be. He was perfectly sober the day she was there, and did not touch wine at luncheon; and afterwards he had been most kind, taking her with him on a quiet little broad-backed mare to an outlying part of the station, and giving her several hints how to improve her seat. He was certainly very haggard-looking, and deeply wrinkled, and at table his hand shook so that the water in his glass ran over. But all this only made Polly feel sorry for him, and long to help him.
"My dear, you ARE favoured! I never knew James make such an offer before," whispered Mrs. Glendinning, as she pinned her ample riding-skirt round her friend's slim hips.
The one thing about him that disturbed Polly was his manner towards his wife: he was savagely ironic with her, and trampled hobnailed on her timid opinions. But then Agnes didn't know how to treat him, Polly soon saw that: she was nervous and fluttery—evasive, too; and once during lunch even told a deliberate fib. Slight as was her acquaintance with him, Polly felt sure this want of courage must displease him; for there was something very simple and direct about his own way of speaking.
"My dear, why don't you stand up to him?" asked little Polly.
"Dearest, I dare not. If you knew him as I do, Polly.... He TERRIFIES me.—Oh, what a lucky little woman you are ... to have a husband like yours."
Polly had recalled these words that very morning as she stood to watch Richard ride away: never did he forget to kiss her good-bye, or to turn and wave to her at the foot of the road. Each time she admired afresh the figure he cut on horseback: he was so tall and slender, and sat so straight in his saddle. Now, too, he had yielded to her persuasions and shaved off his beard; and his moustache and side-whiskers were like his hair, of an extreme, silky blond. Ever since the day of their first meeting at Beamish's Family Hotel, Polly had thought her husband the handsomest man in the world. And the best, as well. He had his peculiarities, of course; but so had every husband; and it was part of a wife's duty to study them, to adapt herself to them, or to endeavour to tone them down. And now came these older, wiser ladies and confirmed her high opinion of him. Polly beamed with happiness at this juncture, and registered a silent vow always to be the best of wives.
Not like—but here she tripped and coloured, on the threshold of her thought. She had recently been the recipient of a very distressing confidence; one, too, which she was not at liberty to share, even with Richard. For, after the relief of a thorough-paced confession, Mrs. Glendinning had implored her not to breathe a word to him—"I could never look him in the face again, love!" Besides, the affair was of such a painful nature that Polly felt little desire to draw Richard into it; it was bad enough that she herself should know. The thing was this: once when Polly had stayed overnight at Dandaloo Agnes Glendinning in a sudden fit of misery had owned to her that she cared for another person more than for her own husband, and that her feelings were returned.
Shocked beyond measure, Polly tried to close her friend's lips. "I don't think you should mention any names, Agnes," she cried. "Afterwards, my dear, you might regret it."
But Mrs. Glendinning was hungry for the luxury of speech—not even to Louisa Urquhart had she broken silence, she wept; and that, for the sake of Louisa's children—and she persisted in laying her heart bare. And here certain vague suspicions that had crossed Polly's mind on the night of the impromptu ball—they were gone again, in an instant, quick as thistledown on the breeze—these suddenly returned, life-size and weighty; and the name that was spoken came as no surprise to her. Yes, it was Mr. Henry Ocock to whom poor Agnes was attached. There had been a mutual avowal of affection, sobbed the latter; they met as often as circumstances permitted. Polly was thunder-struck: knowing Agnes as she did, she herself could not believe any harm of her; but she shuddered at the thought of what other people—Richard, for instance—would say, did they get wind of it. She implored her friend to caution. She ought never, never to see Mr. Ocock. Why did she not go away to Melbourne for a time? And why had he come to Ballarat?
"To be near me, dearest, to help me if I should need him.—Oh, you can't think what a comfort it is, Polly, to feel that he IS here—so good, and strong, and clever!—Yes, I know what you mean ... but this is quite, quite different. Henry does not expect me to be clever, too—does not want me to be. He prefers me as I am. He dislikes clever women ... would never marry one. And we SHALL marry, darling, some day—when ..."
Henry Ocock! Polly tried to focus everything she knew of him, all her fleeting impressions, in one picture—and failed. He had made himself very agreeable, the single time she had met him; but.... There was Richard's opinion of him: Richard did not like him or trust him; he thought him unscrupulous in business, cold and self-seeking. Poor, poor little Agnes! That such a misfortune should befall just her! Stranger still that she, Polly, should be mixed up in it.
She had, of course, always known from books that such things did happen; but then they seemed quite different, and very far away. Her thoughts at this crisis were undeniably woolly; but the gist of them was, that life and books had nothing in common. For in stories the woman who forgot herself was always a bad woman; whereas not the harshest critic could call poor Agnes bad. Indeed, Polly felt that even if some one proved to her that her friend had actually done wrong, she would not on that account be able to stop caring for her, or feeling sorry for her. It was all very uncomfortable and confusing.
While these thoughts came and went, she half sat, half knelt, a pair of scissors in her hand. She was busy cutting out a dress, and no table being big enough for the purpose, had stretched the material on the parlour floor. This would be the first new dress she had had since her marriage; and it was high time, considering all the visiting and going about that fell to her lot just now. Sara had sent the pattern up from Melbourne, and John, hearing what was in the wind, had most kindly and generously made her a present of the silk. Polly hoped she would not bungle it in the cutting; but skirts were growing wider and wider, and John had not reckoned with quite the newest fashion.
Steps in the passage made her note subconsciously that Ned had arrived—Jerry had been in the house for the past three weeks, with a sprained wrist. And at this moment her younger brother himself entered the room, Trotty throned on his shoulder.
Picking his steps round the sea of stuff, Jerry sat down and lowered Trotty to his knee. "Ned's grizzling for tea."
Polly did not reply; she was laying an odd-shaped piece of paper now this way, now that.
For a while Jerry played with the child. Then he burst out: "I say, Poll!" And since Polly paid no heed to his apostrophe:
"Richard says I can get back to work to-morrow."
"That's a good thing," answered his sister with an air of abstraction: she had solved her puzzle to within half a yard.
Jerry cast a boyishly imploring glance at her back, and rubbed his chin with his hand. "Poll, old girl—I say, wouldn't you put in a word for me with Richard? I'm hanged if I want to go back to the claim. I'm sick to death of digging."
At this Polly did raise her head, to regard him with grave eyes. "What! tired of work already, Jerry? I don't know what Richard will say to that, I'm sure. You had better speak to him yourself."
Again Jerry rubbed his chin. "That's just it—what's so beastly hard. I know he'll say I ought to stick to it."
"So do I."
"Well, I'd rather groom the horse than that."
"But think how pleased you were at first!"
Jerry ruefully admitted it. "One expects to dig out gold like spuds; while the real thing's enough to give you the blight. As for stopping a wages-man all my life, I won't do it. I might just as well go home and work in a Lancashire pit."
"But Ned—"
"Oh, Ned! Ned walks about with his head in the clouds. He's always blowing of what he's GOING to do, and gets his steam off that way. I'm different."
But Jerry's words fell on deaf ears. A noise in the next room was engaging Polly's whole attention. She heard a burr of suppressed laughter, a scuffle and what sounded like a sharp slap. Jumping up she went to the door, and was just in time to see Ellen whisk out of the dining-room.
Ned sat in an armchair, with his feet on the chimney-piece. "I had the girl bring in a log, Poll," he said; and looked back and up at his sister with his cheery smile. Standing behind him, Polly laid her hand on his hair. "I'll go and see after the tea." Ned was so unconcerned that she hesitated to put a question.
In the kitchen she had no such tender scruples; nor was she imposed on by the exaggerated energy with which Ellen bustled about. "What was that noise I heard in the dining-room just now?" she demanded.
"Noise? I dunno," gave back the girl crossly without facing her.
"Nonsense, Ellen! Do you think I didn't hear?"
"Oh, get along with you! It was only one of Ned's jokes." And going on her knees, Ellen set to scrubbing the brick floor with a hiss and a scratch that rendered speech impossible. Polly took up the laden tea-tray and carried it into the dining-room. Richard had come home, and the four drew chairs to the table.
Mahony had a book with him; he propped it open against the butter-cooler, and snatched sentences as he ate. It fell to Ned to keep the ball rolling. Polly was distraite to the point of going wrong in her sugars; Jerry uneasy at the prospect of coming in conflict with his brother-in-law, whom he thought the world of.
Ned was as full of talk as an egg of meat. The theme he dwelt longest on was the new glory that lay in store for the Ballarat diggings. At present these were under a cloud. The alluvial was giving out, and the costs and difficulties of boring through the rock seemed insuperable. One might hear the opinion freely expressed that Ballarat's day as premier goldfield was done. Ned set up this belief merely for the pleasure of demolishing it. He had it at first hand that great companies were being formed to carry on operations. These would reckon their areas in acres instead of feet, would sink to a depth of a quarter of a mile or more, raise washdirt in hundreds of tons per day. One such company, indeed, had already sprung into existence, out on Golden Point; and now was the time to nip in. If he, Ned, had the brass, or knew anybody who'd lend it to him, he'd buy up all the shares he could get. Those who followed his lead would make their fortunes. "I say, Richard, it'ud be something for you."
His words evoked no response. Sorry though I shall be, thought Polly, dear Ned had better not come to the house so often in future. I wonder if I need tell Richard why. Jerry was on pins and needles, and even put Trotty ungently from him: Richard would be so disgusted by Ned's blatherskite that he would have no patience left to listen to him.
Mahony kept his nose to his book. As a matter of principle. He made a rule of believing, on an average, about the half of what Ned said. To appear to pay attention to him would spur him on to more flagrant over-statements.
"D'ye hear, Richard? Now's your chance," repeated Ned, not to be done. "A very different thing this, I can tell you, from running round dosing people for the collywobbles. I know men who are raising the splosh any way they can to get in."
"I dare say. There's never been any lack of gamblers on Ballarat," said Mahony dryly, and passed his cup to be refilled.
Pig-headed fool! was Ned's mental retort, as he sliced a chunk of rabbit-pie. "Well, I bet you'll feel sore some day you didn't take my advice," he said aloud.
"We shall see, my lad, we shall see!" replied Mahony. "In the meantime, let me inform you, I can make good use of every penny I have. So if you've come here thinking you can wheedle something out of me, you're mistaken." He could seldom resist tearing the veil from Ned's gross hints and impostures.
"Oh no, Richard dear!" interpolated Polly, in her role of keeper-of-the-peace.
Ned answered huffily: "'Pon my word, I never met such a fellow as you, for thinking the worst of people."
The thrust went home. Mahony clapped his book to. "You lay yourself open to it, sir! If I'm wrong, I beg your pardon. But for goodness' sake, Ned, put all these trashy ideas of making a fortune out of your mind. Digging is played out, I tell you. Decent people turned their backs on it long ago."
"That's what I think, too," threw in Jerry.
Mahony bit his lip. "Come, come, now, what do you know about it?"
Jerry flushed and floundered, till Polly came to his aid. "He's been wanting to speak to you, Richard. He hates the work as much as you did."
"Well, he has a tongue of his own.—Speak for yourself, my boy!"
Thus encouraged, Jerry made his appeal; and fearing lest Richard should throw him, half-heard, into the same category as Ned, he worded it very tersely. Mahony, who had never given much heed to Jerry—no one did—was pleased by his straightforward air. Still, he did not know what could be done for him, and said so.
Here Polly had an inspiration. "But I think I do. I remember Mr. Ocock saying to me the other day he must take another boy into the business, it was growing so—the fourth, this will make. I don't know if he's suited yet, but even if he is, he may have heard of something else.— Only you know, Jerry, you mustn't mind WHAT it is. After tea I'll put on my bonnet and go down to the Flat with you. And Ned shall come, too," she added, with a consoling glance at her elder brother: Ned had extended his huff to his second slice of pie, which lay untouched on his plate.
"Somebody has always got something up her sleeve," said Mahony affectionately, when Polly came to him in walking costume. "None the less, wife, I shouldn't be surprised if those brothers of yours gave us some trouble, before we're done with them."
In the weeks and months that followed, as he rode from one end of Ballarat to the other—from Yuille's Swamp in the west, as far east as the ranges and gullies of Little Bendigo—it gradually became plain to Mahony that Ned's frothy tales had some body in them after all. The character of the diggings was changing before his very eyes. Nowadays, except on an outlying muddy flat or in the hands of the retrograde Chinese, tubs, cradles, and windlasses were rarely to be met with. Engine-sheds and boiler-houses began to dot the ground; here and there a tall chimney belched smoke, beside a lofty poppet-head or an aerial trolley-line. The richest gutters were found to take their rise below the basaltic deposits; the difficulties and risks of rock-mining had now to be faced, and the capitalist, so long held at bay, at length made free of the field. Large sums of money were being subscribed; and, where these proved insufficient, the banks stepped into the breach with subsidies on mortgages. The population, in whose veins the gold-fever still burned, plunged by wholesale into the new hazard; and under the wooden verandahs of Bridge Street a motley crew of jobbers and brokers came into existence, who would demonstrate to you, a la Ned, how you might reap a fortune from a claim without putting in an hour's work on it—without even knowing where it was.
A temptation, indeed! ... but one that did not affect him. Mahony let the reins droop on his horse's neck, and the animal picked its way among the impedimenta of the bush road. It concerned only those who had money to spare. Months, too, must go by before, from even the most promising of these co-operative affairs, any return was to be expected. As for him, there still came days when he had not a five-pound note to his name. It had been a delusion to suppose that, in accepting John's offer, he was leaving money-troubles behind him. Despite Polly's thrift, their improved style of life cost more than he had reckoned; the patients, slow to come, were slower still to discharge their debts. Moreover, he had not guessed how heavily the quarterly payments of interest would weigh on him. With as good as no margin, with the fate of every shilling decided beforehand, the saving up of thirty odd pounds four times a year was a veritable achievement. He was always in a quake lest he should not be able to get it together. No one suspected what near shaves he had—not even Polly. The last time hardly bore thinking about. At the eleventh hour he had unexpectedly found himself several pounds short. He did not close an eye all night, and got up in the morning as though for his own execution. Then, fortune favoured him. A well-to-do butcher, his hearty: "What'll yours be?" at the nearest public-house waved aside, had settled his bill off-hand. Mahony could still feel the sudden lift of the black fog-cloud that had enveloped him—the sense of bodily exhaustion that had succeeded to the intolerable mental strain.
For the coming quarter-day he was better prepared—if, that was, nothing out of the way happened. Of late he had been haunted by the fear of illness. The long hours in the saddle did not suit him. He ought to have a buggy, and a second horse. But there could be no question of it in the meantime, or of a great deal else besides. He wanted to buy Polly a piano, for instance; all her friends had pianos; and she played and sang very prettily. She needed more dresses and bonnets, too, than he was able to allow her, as well as a change to the seaside in the summer heat. The first spare money he had should go towards one or the other. He loved to give Polly pleasure; never was such a contented little soul as she. And well for him that it was so. To have had a complaining, even an impatient wife at his side, just now, would have been unbearable. But Polly did not know what impatience meant; her sunny temper, her fixed resolve to make the best of everything was not to be shaken.
Well, comforts galore should be hers some day, he hoped. The practice was shaping satisfactorily. His attendance at Dandaloo had proved a key to many doors: folk of the Glendinnings' and Urquharts' standing could make a reputation or mar it as they chose. It had got abroad, he knew, that at whatever hour of the day or night he was sent for, he could be relied on to be sober; and that unfortunately was not always the case with some of his colleagues. In addition his fellow-practitioners showed signs of waking up to his existence. He had been called in lately to a couple of consultations; and the doyen of the profession on Ballarat, old Munce himself, had praised his handling of a difficult case of version.
The distances to be covered—that was what made the work stiff. And he could not afford to neglect a single summons, no matter where it led him. Still, he would not have grumbled, had only the money not been so hard to get in. But the fifty thousand odd souls on Ballarat formed, even yet, anything but a stable population: a patient you attended one day might be gone the next, and gone where no bill could reach him. Or he had been sold off at public auction; or his wooden shanty had gone up in a flare—hardly a night passed without a fire somewhere. In these and like accidents the unfortunate doctor might whistle for his fee. It seldom happened nowadays that he was paid in cash. Money was growing as scarce here as anywhere else. Sometimes, it was true, he might have pocketed his fee on the spot, had he cared to ask for it. But the presenting of his palm professionally was a gesture that was denied him. And this stand-offishness drove from people's minds the thought that he might be in actual need of money. Afterwards he sat at home and racked his brains how to pay butcher and grocer. Others of the fraternity were by no means so nice. He knew of some who would not stir a yard unless their fee was planked down before them—old stagers these, who at one time had been badly bitten and were now grown cynically distrustful. Or tired. And indeed who could blame a man for hesitating of a pitch-dark night in the winter rains, or on a blazing summer day, whether or no he should set out on a twenty-mile ride for which he might never see the ghost of a remuneration?
Reflecting thus, Mahony caught at a couple of hard, spicy, grey-green leaves, to chew as he went: the gums, on which the old bark hung in ribbons, were in flower by now, and bore feathery yellow blossoms side by side with nutty capsules. His horse had been ambling forward unpressed. Now it laid its ears flat, and a minute later its master's slower senses caught the clop-clop of a second set of hoofs, the noise of wheels. Mahony had reached a place where two roads joined, and saw a covered buggy approaching. He drew rein and waited.
The occupant of the vehicle had wound the reins round the empty lamp-bracket, and left it to the sagacity of his horse to keep the familiar track, while he dozed, head on breast, in the corner. The animal halted of itself on coming up with its fellow, and Archdeacon Long opened his eyes.
"Ah, good-day to you, doctor!—Yes, as you see, enjoying a little nap. I was out early."
He got down from the buggy and, with bent knees and his hands in his pockets, stretched the creased cloth of his trousers, where this had cut into his flesh. He was a big, brawny, handsome man, with a massive nose, a cloven chin, and the most companionable smile in the world. As he stood, he touched here a strap, there a buckle on the harness of his chestnut—a well-known trotter, with which he often made a match—and affectionately clapped the neck of Mahony's bay. He could not keep his hands off a horse. By choice he was his own stableman, and in earlier life had been a dare-devil rider. Now, increasing weight led him to prefer buggy to saddle; but his recklessness had not diminished. With the reins in his left hand, he would run his light, two-wheeled trap up any wooded, boulder-strewn hill and down the other side, just as in his harum-scarum days he had set it at felled trees, and, if rumour spoke true, wire-fences.
Mahony admired the splendid vitality of the man, as well as the indestructible optimism that bore him triumphantly through all the hardships of a colonial ministry. No sick bed was too remote for Long, no sinner sunk too low to be helped to his feet. The leprous Chinaman doomed to an unending isolation, the drunken Paddy, the degraded white woman—each came in for a share of his benevolence. He spent the greater part of his life visiting the outcasts and outposts, beating up the unbaptised, the unconfirmed, the unwed. But his church did not suffer. He had always some fresh scheme for this on hand: either he was getting up a tea-meeting to raise money for an organ; or a series of penny-readings towards funds for a chancel; or he was training with his choir for a sacred concert. There was a boyish streak in him, too. He would enter into the joys of the annual Sunday-school picnic with a zest equal to the children's own, leading the way, in shirt-sleeves, at leap-frog and obstacle-race. In doctrine he struck a happy mean between low-church practices and ritualism, preaching short, spirited sermons to which even languid Christians could listen without tedium; and on a week-day evening he would take a hand at a rubber of whist or ecarte—and not for love—or play a sound game of chess. A man, too, who, refusing to be bound by the letter of the Thirty-nine Articles, extended his charity even to persons of the Popish faith. In short, he was one of the few to whom Mahony could speak of his own haphazard efforts at criticising the Pentateuch.
The Archdeacon was wont to respond with his genial smile: "Ah, it's all very well for you, doctor!—you're a free lance. I am constrained by my cloth.—And frankly, for the rest of us, that kind of thing's too—well, too disturbing. Especially when we have nothing better to put in its place."
Doctor and parson—the latter, considerably over six feet, made Mahony, who was tall enough, look short and doubly slender—walked side by side for nearly a mile, flitting from topic to topic: the rivalry that prevailed between Ballarats East and West; the seditious uprising in India, where both had relatives; the recent rains, the prospects for grazing. The last theme brought them round to Dandaloo and its unhappy owner. The Archdeacon expressed the outsider's surprise at the strength of Glendinning's constitution, and the lively popular sympathy that was felt for his wife.
"One's heart aches for the poor little lady, struggling to bear up as though nothing were the matter. Between ourselves, doctor"—and Mr. Long took off his straw hat to let the air play round his head—"between ourselves, it's a thousand pities he doesn't just pop off the hooks in one of his bouts. Or that some of you medical gentlemen don't use your knowledge to help things on."
He let out his great hearty laugh as he spoke, and his companion's involuntary stiffening went unnoticed. But on Mahony voicing his attitude with: "And his immortal soul, sir? Isn't it the church's duty to hope for a miracle? ... just as it is ours to keep the vital spark going," he made haste to take the edge off his words. "Now, now, doctor, only my fun! Our duty is, I trust, plain to us both."
It was even easier to soothe than to ruffle Mahony. "Remember me very kindly to Mrs. Long, will you?" he said as the Archdeacon prepared to climb into his buggy. "But tell her, too, I owe her a grudge just now. My wife's so lost in flannel and brown holland that I can't get a word out of her."
"And mine doesn't know where she'd be, with this bazaar, if it weren't for Mrs. Mahony." Long was husband to a dot of a woman who, having borne him half a dozen children of his own feature and build, now worked as parish clerk and district visitor rolled in one; driving about in sunbonnet and gardening-gloves behind a pair of cream ponies—tiny, sharp-featured, resolute; with little of her husband's large tolerance, but an energy that outdid his own, and made her an object of both fear and respect. "And that reminds me: over at the cross-roads by Spring Hill, I met your young brother-in-law. And he told me, if I ran across you to ask you to hurry home. Your wife has some surprise or other in store for you. No, nothing unpleasant! Rather the reverse, I believe. But I wasn't to say more. Well, good-day, doctor, good-day to you!"
Mahony smiled, nodded and went on his way. Polly's surprises were usually simple and transparent things: some one would have made them a present of a sucking-pig or a bush-turkey, and Polly, knowing his relish for a savoury morsel, did not wish it to be overdone: she had sent similar chance calls out after him before now.
When, having seen his horse rubbed down, he reached home, he found her on the doorstep watching for him. She was flushed, and her eyes had those peculiar high-lights in them which led him jokingly to exhort her to caution: "Lest the sparks should set the house on fire!"
"Well, what is it, Pussy?" he inquired as he laid his bag down and hung up his wide-awake. "What's my little surprise-monger got up her sleeve to-day? Good Lord, Polly, I'm tired!"
Polly was smiling roguishly. "Aren't you going into the surgery, Richard?" she asked, seeing him heading for the dining-room.
"Aha! So that's it," said he, and obediently turned the handle. Polly had on occasion taken advantage of his absence to introduce some new comfort or decoration in his room.
The blind had been let down. He was still blinking in the half-dark when a figure sprang out from behind the door, barging heavily against him, and a loud voice shouted: "Boh, you old beef-brains! Boh to a goose!"
Displeased at such horseplay, Mahony stepped sharply back—his first thought was of Ned having unexpectedly returned from Mount Ararat. Then recognising the voice, he exclaimed incredulously: "YOU, Dickybird? You!"
"Dick, old man.... I say, Dick! Yes, it's me right enough, and not my ghost. The old bad egg come back to roost!"
The blind was raised; and the friends, who had last met in the dingy bush hut on the night of the Stockade, stood face to face. And now ensued a babel of greeting, a quick fire of question and answer, the two voices going in and out and round each other, singly and together, like the voices in a duet. Tears rose to Polly's eyes as she listened; it made her heart glow to see Richard so glad. But when, forgetting her presence, Purdy cried: "And I must confess, Dick.... I took a kiss from Mrs. Polly. Gad, old man, how she's come on!" Polly hastily retired to the kitchen.
At table the same high spirits prevailed: it did not often happen that Richard was brought out of his shell like this, thought Polly gratefully, and heaped her visitor's plate to the brim. His first hunger stilled, Purdy fell to giving a slapdash account of his experiences. He kept to no orderly sequence, but threw them out just as they occurred to him: a rub with bushrangers in the Black Forest, his adventures as a long-distance drover in the Mildura, the trials of a week he had spent in a boiling-down establishment on the Murray: "Where the stink wa so foul, you two, that I vomited like a dog every day!" Under the force of this Odyssey husband and wife gradually dropped into silence, which they broke only by single words of astonishment and sympathy; while the child Trotty spooned in her pudding without seeing it, her round, solemn eyes fixed unblinkingly on this new uncle, who was like a wonderful story-book come alive.
In Mahony's feelings for Purdy at this moment, there was none of the old intolerant superiority. He had been dependent for so long on a mere surface acquaintance with his fellows, that he now felt to the full how precious the tie was that bound him to Purdy. Here came one for whom he was not alone the reserved, struggling practitioner, the rather moody man advancing to middle-age; but also the Dick of his boyhood and early youth.
He had often imagined the satisfaction it would be to confide his troubles to Purdy. Compared, however, with the hardships the latter had undergone, these seemed of small importance; and dinner passed without any allusion to his own affairs. And now the chances of his speaking out were slight; he could have been entirely frank only under the first stimulus of meeting.
Even when they rose from the table Purdy continued to hold the stage. For he had turned up with hardly a shirt to his back, and had to be rigged out afresh from Mahony's wardrobe. It was decided that he should remain their guest in the meantime; also that Mahony should call on his behalf on the Commissioner of Police, and put in a good word for him. For Purdy had come back with the idea of seeking a job in the Ballarat Mounted Force.
When Mahony could no longer put off starting on his afternoon round, Purdy went with him to the livery-barn, limping briskly at his side. On the way, he exclaimed aloud at the marvellous changes that had taken place since he was last in the township. There were half a dozen gas-lamps in Sturt Street by this time, the gas being distilled from a mixture of oil and gum-leaves.
"One wouldn't credit it if one didn't see it with one's own peepers!" he cried, repeatedly bringing up short before the plate-glass windows of the shops, the many handsome, verandahed hotels, the granite front of Christ Church. "And from what I hear, Dick, now companies have jumped the claims and are deep-sinking in earnest, fortunes'll be made like one o'clock."
But on getting home again, he sat down in front of Polly and said, with a businesslike air: "And now tell me all about old Dick! You know, Poll, he's such an odd fish; if he himself doesn't offer to uncork, somehow one can't just pump him. And I want to know everything that concerns him—from A to Z."
Polly could not hold out against this affectionate curiosity. Entrenching her needle in its stuff, she put her work away and complied. And soon to her own satisfaction. For the first time in her married life she was led to discuss her husband's ways and actions with another; and, to her amazement, she found that it was easier to talk to Purdy about Richard than to Richard himself. Purdy and she saw things in the same light; no rigmarole of explanation was necessary. Now with Richard, it was not so. In conversation with him, one constantly felt that he was not speaking out, or, to put it more plainly, that he was going on meanwhile with his own, very different thoughts. And behind what he did say, there was sure to lurk some imaginary scruple, some rather far-fetched delicacy of feeling which it was hard to get at, and harder still to understand.