I SHALL FEEL MUCH OBLIGED TO YOUR HUSBAND IF HE WILL MEANWHILE EXERT HIS INFLUENCE ON MY BEHALF. HE IS NO DOUBT ACQUAINTED PROFESSIONALLY WITH MANY OF THE LEADING SQUATTERS ROUND BALLARAT, WHOM HE CAN INDUCE TO SUPPORT MY CANDIDATURE.
"Umph!" said Mahony grumpily, and went on scooping out his egg. "We're good enough to tout for him."
"Ssh!" warned Polly, with a glance at Trotty. "Think what it means to him, Richard, and to us, too. It will do your practice ever so much good if he gets in—to be the brother-in-law of the member! We must help all we can, dear."
She was going driving to Yarangobilly that day with Archdeacon Long to see a new arrival Richard had recently brought into the world; and now she laid plans to kill two birds with one stone, entering into the scheme with a gusto that astonished Mahony. "Upon my word, wife, I believe you're glad to have something to do."
"Will my own papa gimme a dolly? ... like Uncle Papa?" here piped Trotty.
"Perhaps. But you will have to be a VERY good girl, and not talk with your mouth full or dirty your pinnies. Oh, here's a postscript!" Polly had returned to the sheet, and was gloating over it. "John writes:
"ESPECIALLY MUST HE ENDEAVOUR TO WIN LAWYER OCOCK OVER TO MY SIDE. I LAY GREAT WEIGHT ON O.'S SUPPORT.
"Oh, Richard, now ISN'T that unfortunate? I do hope it won't make any difference to John's chances."
Polly's dismay had good grounds. A marked coolness had sprung up between her husband and the lawyer; and on no account, she knew, would Richard consent to approach Mr. Henry. Some very hot remarks made by the latter had been passed on to her by Mrs. Glendinning. She had not dared to tell Richard the worst.
The coolness dated from an afternoon when Tilly Beamish had burst into the house in a state of rampant excitement. "Oh, Polly! oh, I say! my dear, whatever do you think? That old cove—old O.—'as actually had the cheek to make me a proposal."
"Tilly!" gasped Polly, and flushed to the roots of her hair. "Oh, my dear, I AM pleased!" For Polly's conscience was still somewhat tender about the aid she had lent Purdy in his evasions. The two women kissed, and Tilly cried a little. "It's certainly her first offer," thought Mrs. Polly. Aloud, she asked hesitatingly: "And do you ... shall you ... I mean, are you going to accept him, Tilly?"
But this was just where Tilly could not make up her mind: should she take him, or should she not? For two whole days she sat about debating the question; and Polly listened to her with all the sympathy and interest so momentous a step deserved.
"If you feel you could really learn to care for him, dear. Of course it WOULD be nice for you to have a house of your own. And how happy it would make poor mother to see you settled!"
Tilly tore the last veil from her feelings, uttered gross confidences. Polly knew well enough where her real inclination lay. "I've hoped against hope, Poll, that a CERTAIN PERSON would come to the scratch at last." Yes, it was true enough, he had nothing to offer her; but she wasn't the sort to have stuck at that. "I'd have worked my hands to the bone for 'im, Poll, if 'e'd ONLY said the word." The one drawback to marriage with "you know 'oo" would have been his infirmity. "Some'ow, Polly, I can't picture myself dragging a husband with a gammy leg at my heels." From this, Tilly's mind glanced back to the suitor who had honourably declared himself. Of course "old O." hadn't a great deal of the gentleman about him; and their ages were unsuitable. "'E owns to fifty-eight, and as you know, Poll, I'm only just turned twenty-five," at which Polly drooped her head a little lower over the handkerchief she was hemming, to avoid meeting her friend's eye. Poor dear Tilly! she would never see thirty again; and she need hardly have troubled, thought Polly, to be insincere with her. But in the same breath she took back the reproach. A woman herself, she understood something of the fear, and shame, and heartburning that had gone to the making of the lie. Perhaps, too, it was a gentle hint from Tilly what age she now wished to be considered. And so Polly agreed, and said tenderly: yes, certainly, the difference was very marked. Meanwhile Tilly flowed on. These were the two chief objections. On the other hand, the old boy was ludicrously smitten; and she thought one might trust her, Tilly B., to soon knock him into shape. It would also, no doubt, be possible to squeeze a few pounds out of him towards assisting "pa and ma" in their present struggle. Again, as a married woman she would have a chance of helping Jinny to find a husband: "Though Jinn's gone off so, Polly, I bet you'd hardly know her if you met 'er in the street." To end all, a bird in hand, etc.; and besides, what prospects had she, if she remained a spinster?
So, when she was asked, Tilly accepted without further humming and hawing an invitation to drive out in the smart dog-cart Mr. Ocock had hired for the purpose; and Polly saw her off with many a small private sign of encouragement. All went well. A couple of hours later Tilly came flying in, caught Polly up in a bear's hug, and danced her round the room. "My dear, wish me joy!—Oh, lor, Polly, I DO feel 'appy!" She was wearing a large half-hoop of diamonds on her ring-finger: nothing would do "old O." but that they should drive there and then to the finest jeweller's in Sturt Street, where she had the pick of a trayful. And now Mr. Ocock, all a-smirk with sheepish pride, was fetched in to receive congratulations, and Polly produced refreshments; and healths were drunk. Afterwards the happy couple dallied in the passage and loitered on the doorstep, till evening was far advanced.
It was Polly who, in clearing away, was struck dumb by the thought: "But now whatever is to become of Miss Amelia?"
She wondered if this consideration troubled the old man. Trouble there was, of some sort: he called at the house three days running for a word with Richard. He wore a brand-new pair of shepherd's-plaid trousers, a choker that his work-stained hands had soiled in tying, a black coat, a massive gold watch-chain. On the third visit he was lucky enough to catch Mahony, and the door of the surgery closed behind them.
Here Mr. Ocock sat on the extreme edge of a chair; alternately crushed his wide-awake flat between his palms and expanded it again, as though he were playing a concertina; and coughed out a wordy preamble. He assured Mahony, to begin with, how highly he esteemed him. It was because of this, because he knew doctor was as straight as a pound of candles, that he was going to ask his advice on an awkward matter—devilish awkward!—one nobody had any idea of either—except Henry. And Henry had kicked up such a deuce of a row at his wanting to marry again, that he was damned if he'd have anything more to do with him. Besides, the doctor knew what lawyers were—the whole breed of 'em! Sharp as needles—especially Henry—but with a sort of squint in their upper storey that made 'em see every mortal thing from the point of view of law. And that was no good to him. What he needed was a plain and honest, a ... he hesitated for a word and repeated, "a Honest opinion;" for he only wanted to do the right thing, what was straight and above board. And at last out it came: did "doc." think it would be acting on the square, and not taking a low-down advantage of a female, if he omitted to mention to "the future Mrs. O" that, up till six months back, he had been obliged to ... well, he'd spit it out short and say, obliged to report himself to the authorities at fixed intervals? Women were such shy cattle, so damned odd! You never knew how they'd take a thing like this. One might raise Cain over it, another only laugh, another send him packing. He didn't want to let a fine young woman like Matilda slip if he could help it, by dad he didn't! But he felt he must either win her by fair dealing or not at all. And having got the load off his chest, the old colonist swallowed hard, and ran the back of his hand over his forehead.
He had kept his eyes glued to the table-leg in speaking, and so saw neither his hearer's involuntary start at the damaging disclosure, nor the nervous tightening of the hand that lay along the arm of the chair. Mahony sat silent, balancing a paper-knife, and fighting down a feeling of extraordinary discomfort—his very finger-tips curled under the strain. It was of little use to remind himself that, ever since he had known him, Ocock had led a decent, God-fearing life, respected both in his business relations and by his brethren of the chapel. Nor could he spare more than a glance in passing for those odd traits in the old man's character which were now explained: his itch for public approval; his unvarying harshness towards the pair of incorrigibles who weighed him down. At this moment he discounted even the integrity that had prompted the confession. His attitude of mind was one of: why the deuce couldn't the old fool have held his tongue?
Oh, these unbidden, injudicious confidences! How they complicated life! And as a doctor he was pestered with only too many; he was continually being forced to see behind the scenes. Now, outsiders, too, must needs choose him for the storehouse of their privacies. Himself he never made a confidence; but it seemed as though just this buttoned-upness on his part loosened people's tongues. Blind to the flags of warning he hoisted in looks and bearing, they innocently proceeded, as Ocock had done, to throw up insurmountable barriers. He could hear a new tone in his own voice when he replied, and was relieved to know the old man dull of perception. For now Ocock had finished speaking, and sat perspiring with anxiety to learn his fate. Mahony pulled himself together; he could, in good faith, tender the advice to let the dead past bury its dead. Whatever the original fault had been—no, no, please! ... and he raised an arresting hand—it was, he felt sure, long since fully atoned. And Mr. Ocock had said a true word: women were strange creatures. The revelation of his secret might shipwreck his late-found happiness. It also, of course, might not—and personally Mahony did not believe it would; for Ocock's buisness throve like the green bay-tree, and Miss Tilly had been promised a fine two-storeyed house, with bow-windows and a garden, and a carriage-drive up to the door. Again, the admission might be accepted in peace just now, and later on used as a weapon against him. In his, Mahony's, eyes, by far the wisest course would be, to let the grass grow over the whole affair.
And here he rose, abruptly terminating the interview. "You and I, too, sir, if you please, will forget what has passed between us this morning, and never come back on it. How is Tom getting on in the drapery business? Does he like his billet?"
But none the less as he ushered his visitor out, he felt that there was a certain finality about the action. It was—as far as his private feelings were concerned—the old man's moral exit from the scene.
On the doorstep Ocock hoped that nothing that had been said would reach "your dear little lady." "To 'Enry, too, doc., if you'll be so good, mum's the word! 'Enry 'ud never forgive me, nay, or you eether, if it got to 'is 'ears I'd bin an' let the cat outer the bag. An' 'e's got a bit of a down on you as it is, for it 'avin' bin your place I met the future Mrs. O. at."
"My good man!" broke from Mahony—and in this address, which would previously never have crossed his lips, all his sensations of the past hour were summed up. "Has your son Henry the"—he checked himself; "does he suppose I—I or my wife—had anything to do with it?"
He turned back to the surgery hot with annoyance. This, too! Not enough that he must be put out of countenance by indiscreet babbling; he must also get drawn into family squabbles, even be held responsible for them: he who, brooking no interference in his own life, demanded only that those about him should be as intolerant as he.
It all came from Polly's indiscriminate hospitality. His house was never his own. And now they had the prospect of John and his electoral campaign before them. And John's chances of success, and John's stump oratory, and the backstair-work other people were expected to do for him would form the main theme of conversation for many a day to come.
Mrs. Glendinning confirmed old Ocock's words.
She came to talk over the engagement with Polly, and sitting in the parlour cried a little, and was sorry. But then "poor little Agnes" cried so easily nowadays. Richard said her nerves had been shattered by the terrible affair just before Christmas, when Mr. Glendinning had tried first to kill her, and then to cut his own throat.
Agnes said: "But I told Henry quite plainly, darling, that I would not cease my visits to you on that account. It is both wrong and foolish to think you or Dr. Mahony had anything to do with it—and after the doctor was so kind, too, so VERY kind, about getting poor Mr. Glendinning into the asylum. And so you see, dear, Henry and I have had quite a disagreement"; and Agnes cried again at the remembrance. "Of course, I can sympathise with his point of view.... Henry is so ambitious. All the same, dearest, it's not quite so bad—is it?—as he makes out. Matilda is certainly not very COMME IL FAUT—you'll forgive my saying so, love, won't you? But I think she will suit Henry's father in every way. No, the truth is, the old gentleman has made a great deal of money, and we naturally expected it to fall to Henry at his death; no one anticipated his marrying again. Not that Henry really needs the money; he is getting on so well; and I have.... I shall have plenty, too, by and by. But you know, love, what men are."
"Dearest Agnes! ... don't fret about it. Mr. Henry thinks too much of you, I'm sure, to be vexed with you for long. And when he looks at it calmly, he'll see how unfair it is to make us responsible. I'm like you, dear; I can't consider it a misfortune. Tilly is not a lady; but she's a dear, warm-hearted girl and will make the old man a good wife. I only hope though, Agnes, Mr. Henry won't say anything to Richard. Richard is so touchy about things of that sort."
The two women kissed, Polly with feelings of the tenderest affection: the fact that, on behalf of their friendship, Agnes had pitted her will against Mr. Henry's, endeared her to Polly as nothing else could have done.
But when, vigilant as a mother-hen, she sought to prepare her husband for a possible unpleasantness, she found him already informed; and her well-meant words were like a match laid to his suppressed indignation.
"In all my born days I never heard such impudence!"
He turned embarrassingly cool to Tilly. And Tilly, innocent of offence and quite unskilled in deciphering subtleties, put this sudden change of front down to jealousy, because she was going to live in a grander house than he did. For the same reason he had begun to turn up his nose at "Old O.," or she was very much mistaken; and in vain did Polly strive to convince her that she was in error. "I don't know anyone Richard has a higher opinion of!"
But it was a very uncomfortable state of things; and when a message arrived over the electric telegraph announcing the dangerous illness of Mrs. Beamish, distressed though she was by the news, Polly could not help heaving a tiny sigh of relief. For Tilly was summoned back to Melbourne with all speed, if she wished to see her mother alive.
They mingled their tears, Polly on her knees at the packing, Tilly weeping whole-heartedly among the pillows of the bed.
"If it 'ad only been pa now, I shouldn't have felt it half so much," and she blew her nose for the hundredth time. "Pa was always such a rum old stick. But poor ma ... when I THINK how she's toiled and moiled 'er whole life long, to keep things going. She's 'ad all the pains and none of the pleasures; and now, just when I was hoping to be able to give 'er a helping hand, THIS must happen."
The one bright spot in Tilly's grief was that the journey would be made in a private conveyance. Mr. Ocock had bought a smart gig and was driving her down himself; driving past the foundations of the new house, along the seventy odd miles of road, right up to the door of the mean lodging in a Collingwood back street, where the old Beamishes had hidden their heads. "If only she's able to look out of the window and see me dash up in my own turn-out!" said Tilly.
Polly fitted out a substantial luncheon-basket, and was keenest sympathy to the last. But Mahony was a poor dissembler; and his sudden thaw, as he assisted in the farewell preparations, could, Polly feared, have been read aright by a child.
Tilly hugged Polly to her, and gave her kiss after kiss. "I shall NEVER forget 'ow kind you've been, Poll, and all you've done for me. I've had my disappointments 'ere, as you know; but p'raps after all it'll turn out to be for the best. One o' the good sides to it anyhow is that you and me'll be next-door neighbours, so to say, for the rest of our lives. And I'll hope to see something of you, my dear, every blessed day. But you'll not often catch me coming to this house, I can tell you that! For, if you won't mind me saying so, Poll, I think you've got one of the queerest sticks for a husband that ever walked this earth. Blows hot one day and cold the next, for all the world like the wind in spring. And without caring twopence whose corns 'e treads on."—Which, thought Polly, was but a sorry return on Tilly's part for Richard's hospitality. After all, it was his house she had been a guest in.
Such were the wheels within wheels. And thus it came about that, when the question rose of paving the way for John Turnham's candidature, Mahony drew the line at approaching Henry Ocock.
John drove from Melbourne in a drag and four, accompanied by numerous friends and well-wishers. A mile or so out of Ballarat, he was met by a body of supporters headed by a brass band, and escorted in triumph to the George Hotel. Here, the horses having been led away, John at once took the field by mounting the box-seat of the coach and addressing the crowd of idlers that had gathered round to watch the arrival. He got an excellent hearing—so Jerry reported, who was an eye and ear-witness of the scene—and was afterwards borne shoulder-high into the hotel.
With Jerry at his heels, Mahony called at the hotel that evening. He found John entertaining a large impromptu party. The table of the public dining-room was disorderly with the remains of a liberal meal; napkins lay crushed and flung down among plates piled high with empty nutshells; the cloth was wine-stained, and bestrewn with ashes and breadcrumbs, the air heady with the fumes of tobacco. Those of the guests who still lingered at the table had pushed their chairs back or askew, and sat, some a-straddle, some even with their feet on the cloth. John was confabbing with half a dozen black-coats in a corner. Each held a wineglass in his hand from which he sipped, while John, legs apart, did all the talking, every now and then putting out his forefinger to prod one of his hearers on the middle button of the waistcoat. It was some time before he discovered the presence of his relatives; and Mahony had leisure to admire the fashion in which, this corner-talk over, John dispersed himself among the company; drinking with this one and that; glibly answering questions; patting a glum-faced brewer on the back; and simultaneously checking over, with an oily-haired agent, his committee-meetings for the following days. His customary arrogance and pompousness of manner were laid aside. For the nonce, he was a simple man among men.
Then espying them, he hurried over, and rubbing his hands with pleasure said warmly: "My dear Mahony, this is indeed kind! Jerry, my lad, how do, how do? Still growing, I see! We'll make a fine fellow of you yet.— Well, doctor! ... we've every reason, I think, to feel satisfied with the lie of the land."
But here he was snatched from them by an urgent request for a pronouncement—"A quite informal word, sir, if you'll be so good,"—on the vexed question of vote by ballot. And this being a pet theme of John's, and a principle he was ready to defend through thick and thin, he willingly complied.
Mahony had no further talk with him. The speech over—it was a concise and spirited utterance, and, if you were prepared to admit the efficacy of the ballot, convincing enough—Mahony quietly withdrew. He had to see a patient at eleven. Polly, too, would probably be lying awake for news of her brother.
As he threw back his braces and wound up his watch, he felt it incumbent on him to warn her not to pitch her hopes too high. "You mustn't expect, my dear, that your brother's arrival will mean much to us. He is now a public man, and will have little time for small people like ourselves. I'm bound to admit, Polly, I was very favourably impressed by the few words I heard him say," he added.
"Oh, Richard, I'm SO glad!" and Polly, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss.
As Mahony predicted, John's private feelings went down before the superior interests of his campaign. Three days passed before he found time to pay his sister a visit; and Polly, who had postponed a washing, baked her richest cakes and pastries, and clad Trotty in her Sunday best each day of the three: Polly was putting a good face on the matter, and consoling herself with Jerry's descriptions of John's triumphs. How she wished she could hear some of the speechifying! But Richard would never consent; and electioneering did certainly seem, from what Jerry said, a very rough-and-ready business—nothing for ladies. Hence her delight knew no bounds when John drove up unexpectedly late one afternoon, between a hard day's personal canvassing and another of the innumerable dinners he had to eat his way through. Tossing the reins to the gentleman who sat next him, he jumped out of the wagonette—it was hung with placards of "Vote for Turnham!"—and gave a loud rat-a-tat at the door.
Forgetting in her excitement that this was Ellen's job, Polly opened to him herself, and drew him in. "John! How pleased I am to see you!"
"My dear girl, how are you? God bless me, how you've altered! I should never have known you." He held her at arm's length, to consider her.
"But you haven't changed in the least, John. Except to grow younger.— Richard, here's John at last!—and Trotty, John ... here's Trotty!— Take your thumb out of your mouth, naughty girl!—She's been watching for you all day, John, with her nose to the window." And Polly pushed forward the scarlet, shrinking child.
John's heartiness suffered a distinct check as his eyes lit on Trotty, who stood stiff as a bit of Dresden china in her bunchy starched petticoats. "Come here, Emma, and let me look at you." Taking the fat little chin between thumb and first finger, he turned the child's face up and kept it so, till the red button of a mouth trembled, and the great blue eyes all but ran over. "H'm! Yes ... a notable resemblance to her mother. Ah, time passes, Polly my dear—time passes!" He sighed. —"I hope you mind your aunt, Emma, and are properly grateful to her?"
Abruptly quitting his hold, he swept the parlour with a glance. "A very snug little place you have here, upon my word!"
While Polly, with Trotty pattering after, bustled to the larder, Mahony congratulated his brother-in-law on the more favourable attitude towards his election policy which was becoming evident in the local press. John's persuasive tongue was clearly having its effect, and the hostility he had met with at the outset of his candidature was yielding to more friendly feelings on all sides. John was frankly gratified by the change, and did not hesitate to say so. When the wine arrived they drank to his success, and Polly's delicacies met with their due share of praise. Then, having wiped his mouth on a large silk handkerchief, John disclosed the business object of his call. He wanted specific information about the more influential of their friends and acquaintances; and here he drew a list of names from his pocket-book. Mahony, his chin propped on the flaxen head of the child, whom he nursed, soon fell out of the running for Polly proved far the cleverer at grasping the nature of the information John sought, and at retailing it. And John complimented her on her shrewdness, ticked off names, took notes on what she told him; and when he was not writing sat tapping his thick, carnation-red underlip, and nodding assent. It was arranged that Polly should drive out with him next day to Yarangobilly, by way of Dandaloo; while for the evening after they plotted a card-party, at which John might come to grips with Archdeacon Long. John expected to find the reverend gentleman a hard nut to crack, their views on the subject of a state aid to religion being diametrically opposed. Polly thought a substantial donation to the chancel-fund might smooth things over, while for John to display a personal interest in Mrs. Long's charities would help still more. Then there were the Ococks. The old man could be counted on, she believed; but John might have some difficulty with Mr. Henry—and here she initiated her brother into the domestic differences which had split up the Ocock family, and prevented Richard from approaching the lawyer. John, who was in his most democratic mood, was humorous at the expense of Henry, and declared the latter should rather wish his father joy of coming to such a fine, bouncing young wife in his old age. The best way of getting at Mr. Henry, Polly considered, would be for Mrs Glendinning to give a luncheon or a bushing-party, with the lawyer among the guests: "Then you and I, John, could drive out and join them—either by chance or invitation, as you think best." Polly was heart and soul in the affair.
But business over, she put several straight questions about the boy, little Johnny—Polly still blamed herself for having meekly submitted to the child's removal from her charge—and was not to be fobbed off with evasions. The unfavourable verdict she managed to worm out of John: "Incorrigible, my dear Polly—utterly incorrigible! His masters report him idle, disobedient, a bad influence on the other scholars," she met staunchly with: "Perhaps it has something to do with the school. Why not try another? Johnny had his good qualities; in many ways was quite a lovable child."
For the first time Mahony saw his wife and her eldest brother together and he could not but be struck by Polly's attitude. Greatly as she admired and reverenced John, there was not a particle of obsequiousness in her manner, nor any truckling to his point of view; and she plainly felt nothing of the peculiar sense of discomfort that invariably attacked him, in John's presence. Either she was not conscious of her brother's grossly patronising air, or, aware of it, did not resent it, John having always been so much her superior in age and position. Or was it indeed the truth that John did not try to patronise Polly? That his overbearing nature recognised in hers a certain springy resistance, which was not to be crushed? In other words, that, in a Turnham, Turnham blood met its match.
John re-took his seat in the front of the wagonette, Trotty was lifted up to see the rosettes and streamers adorning the horses, the gentlemen waved their hats, and off they went again at a fine pace, and with a whip-cracking that brought the neighbours to their windows.
Polly had pink cheeks with it all, and even sought to excuse the meagre interest John had shown in his daughter. "Trotty was only a baby in arms when he saw her last. Besides, I think she reminded him too much of her dear mother. For I'm sure, though he doesn't let it be seen, John still feels his loss."
"I wonder!" said Mahony slowly and with a strong downward inflection, as he turned indoors.
On the eve of the polling Polly had the honour of accompanying her brother to a performance at the Theatre Royal. A ticket came for Richard, too; but, as usual, he was at the last moment called out. So Purdy took her on his arm and escorted her—not exactly comfortably; for, said Polly, no one who had not tried it, knew how hard it was to walk arm-in-arm with a lame person, especially if you did not want to hurt his feelings—Purdy took her to the theatre, helped her to unmuffle and to change her boots, and bore her company till her brother arrived. They had seats in the centre of the front row of the dress circle; all eyes were turned on them as they entered; and Polly's appearance was the subject of audible and embarrassing comment.
In every interval John was up and away, to shake a hand here, pass the time of day there; and watching him with affectionate pride, Polly wondered how Richard could ever have termed him "high-handed and difficult." John had the knack, it seemed to her, of getting on with people of every class, and of always finding the right word to say. But as the evening advanced his seat remained empty even while the curtain was up, and she was glad when, between the fourth and fifth acts, her husband at last appeared.
On his way to her Mahony ran into his brother-in-law, and John buttonholed him to discuss with him the prospects of the morrow. As they talked, their eyes rested on Polly's glossy black chignon; on the nape of her white neck; on the beautiful, rounded young shoulders which, in obedience to the fashion, stood right out of her blue silk bodice. Mahony shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He could not imagine Polly enjoying her exposed position, and disapproved strongly of John having left her. But for all answer to the hint he threw out John said slowly, and with a somewhat unctuous relish: "My sister has turned into a remarkably handsome woman!"—words which sent the lightning-thought through Mahony that, had Polly remained the insignificant little slip of a thing of earlier days, she would not have been asked to fill the prominent place she did this evening.
John sent his adieux and excuses to Polly. He had done what was expected of him, in showing himself at a public entertainment, and a vast mass of correspondence lay unsorted on his desk. So Mahony moved forward alone.
"Oh, Richard, there you are! Oh dear, what you've missed! I never thought there could be such acting." And Polly turned her great dark eyes on her husband; they were moist from the noble sentiments of THE TRUE BRITON.
The day of the election broke, a gusty spring day cut up by stinging hail-showers, which beat like fusillades on the galvanised iron roofs. Between the showers, the sun shone in a gentian-blue sky, against which the little wooden houses showed up crassly white. Ballarat made holiday. Early as Mahony left home, he met a long line of conveyances heading townwards—spring carts, dogcarts, double and single buggies, in some of which, built to seat two only, five or six persons were huddled. These and similar vehicles drew up in rows outside the public-houses, where the lean, long-legged colonial horses stood jerking at their tethers; and they were still there, still jerking, when he passed again toward evening. On a huge poster the "Unicorn" offered to lunch free all those "thinking men" who registered their vote for "the one and only true democrat, the miners' friend and tyrants' foe, John Turnham."
In the hope of avoiding a crush Mahony drove straight to the polling-booth. But already all the loafers and roughs in the place seemed to be congregated round the entrance, after the polite custom of the country to chivy, or boo, or huzza those who went in. In waiting his turn, he had to listen to comments on his dress and person, to put up with vulgar allusions to blue pills and black draughts.
Just as he was getting back into his buggy John rode up, flanked by a bodyguard of friends; John was galloping from booth to booth, to verify progress and put the thumbscrew on wobblers. He beamed—as well he might. He was certain to be one of the two members elected, and quite likely to top the poll by a respectable majority.
For once Mahony did not grumble at his outlying patients; was only too thankful to turn his back on the town. It was pandemonium. Bands of music, one shriller and more discordant than the next, marched up and down the main streets—from the fifes and drums of the Fire Brigade, to the kerosene-tins and penny-whistles of mere determined noise-makers. Straggling processions, with banners that bore the distorted features of one or other of the candidates, made driving difficult; and, to add to the confusion, the schoolchildren were let loose, to overrun the place and fly advertisement balloons round every corner.—And so it went on till far into the night, the dark hours being varied by torchlight processions, fireworks, free fights and orgies of drunkenness.
The results of the polling were promised for two o'clock the following day.
When, something after this hour Mahony reached home, he found Polly and the gentle, ox-eyed Jinny Beamish, who was the present occupant of the spare room, pacing up and down before the house. According to Jerry news might be expected now at any minute. And when he had lunched and changed his coat, Mahony, bitten by the general excitement, made his way down to the junction of Sturt Street and the Flat.
A great crowd blocked the approaches to the hustings. Here were the four candidates, who, in attending the issue, strove to look decently unconcerned. John had struck a quasi-Napoleonic attitude: his right elbow propped in the cup of his left hand, he held his drooped chin between thumb and forefinger, leaving it to his glancing black eyes to reveal how entirely alive he was to the gravity of the moment. Standing on the fringe of the crowd, Mahony listened to the piebald jokes and rude wit with which the people beguiled the interim; and tried to endure with equanimity the jostling, the profane language and offensive odours, by which he was assailed. Half an hour elapsed before the returning officer climbed the ladder at the back of the platform, and came forward to announce the result of the voting: Mr. John Millibank Turnham topped the poll with a majority of four hundred and fifty-two. The crowd, which at sight of the clerk had abruptly ceased its fooling, drowned his further statements in a roar of mingled cheers and boos. The cheers had it; hats were tossed into the air, and loud cries for a speech arose. John's advance to grip the railing led to a fresh outburst, in which the weakening opposition was quashed by the singing of: "When Johnny comes marching home!" and "Cheer, boys, cheer, For home and mother country!"—an incongruity of sentiment that made Mahony smile. And John, having repeatedly bowed his thanks from side to side, joined in and sang with the rest.
The opening of his speech was inaudible to Mahony. Just behind him stood one of his brother-in-law's most arrant opponents, a butcher by trade, and directly John began to hold forth this man produced a cornet-a-piston and started to blow it. In vain did Mahony expostulate: he seemed to have got into a very wasps'-nest of hostility; for the player's friends took up the cudgels and baited him in a language he would have been sorry to imitate, the butcher blaring away unmoved, with the fierce solemnity of face the cornet demands. Mahony lost his temper; his tormentors retaliated; and for a moment it looked as though there would be trouble. Then a number of John's supporters, enraged by the bellowing of the instrument, bore down and forcibly removed the musician and his clique, Mahony along with them.
Having indignantly explained, and shaken coat and collar to rights, he returned to his place on the edge of the crowd. The speaker's deep voice had gone steadily on during the disturbance. Indeed John might have been born to the hustings. Interruptions did not put him out; he was brilliant at repartee; and all the stock gestures of the public speaker came at his call: the pounding of the bowl of one hand with the closed fist of the other; the dramatic wave of the arm with which he plumbed the depths or invited defiance; the jaunty standing-at-ease, arms akimbo; the earnest bend from the waist when he took his hearers into his confidence. At this moment he was gripping the rail of the platform as though he intended to vault it, and asserting: "Our first cry, then, is for men to people the country; our next, for independence, to work out our own salvation. Yes, my friends, the glorious future of this young and prosperous colony, which was once and most auspiciously known as Australia Felix—blest, thrice-blest Australia!—rests with ourselves alone. We who inhabit here can best judge of her requirements, and we refuse to see her hampered in her progress by the shackles of an ancient tradition. What suits our hoary mother-country—God bless and keep her and keep us loyal to her!—is but dry husks for us. England knows nothing of our most pressing needs. I ask you to consider how, previous to 1855, that pretty pair of mandarins, Lord John Russell and Earl Grey, boggled and botched the crucial question of unlocking the lands even yet, gentlemen, the result of their muddling lies heavy on us. And the Land Question, though first in importance, is but one, as you know, of many"—and here John, playing on the tips of five wide-stretched fingers, counted them off. He wound up with a flaming plea for the creation and protection of purely national industries. "For what, I would ask you, is the true meaning of democracy in a country such as ours? What is, for us, the democratic principle? The answer, my friends, is conservatism; yes, I repeat it—conservatism!" ... and thus to a final peroration.
In the braying and hurrahing that followed—the din was heightened by some worthy mounting a barrel to move that "this yere Johnny Turnham" was not a fit person to represent "the constitooency," by the barrel being dragged from under him, and the speaker rolled in the mud; while this went on Mahony stood silent, and he was still standing meditatively pulling his whiskers when a sudden call for a doctor reached his ear. He pushed his way to the front.
How the accident happened no one knew. John had descended from the platform to a verandah, where countless hands were stretched out to shake his. A pile of shutters was leaning against the wall, and in some unexplained fashion these had fallen, striking John a blow that knocked him down. When Mahony got to him he was on his feet again, wiping a drop of blood from his left temple. He looked pale, but pooh-poohed injury or the idea of interfering with his audience's design; and Mahony saw him shouldered and borne off.
That evening there was a lengthy banquet, in which all the notables of the place took part. Mahony's seat was some way off John's; he had to lean forward, did he wish to see his brother-in-law.
Towards eleven o'clock, just as he was wondering if he could slip out unobserved, a hand was laid on his arm. John stood behind him, white to the lips. "Can I have a word with you upstairs?"
Here he confessed to a knife-like pain in his left side; the brunt of the blow, it seemed, had met him slantways between rib and hip. A cursory examination made Mahony look grave.
"You must come back with me, John, and let me see to you properly."
Having expressed the chief guest's regrets to the company, he ordered a horse and trap, and helping John into it drove him home. And that night John lay in their bed, letting out the groans he had suppressed during the evening; while Polly snatched forty winks beside Jinny Beamish, and Mahony got what sleep he could on the parlour sofa.
There for some weeks John was a prisoner, with a fractured rib encased in strips of plaster. "In your element again, old girl!" Mahony chaffed his wife, when he met her bearing invalid trays.
"Oh, it doesn't all fall on me, Richard. Jinny's a great help—sitting with John and keeping him company."
Mahony could see it for himself. Oftenest when he entered the room it was Jinny's black-robed figure—she was in mourning for her parents; for Mrs. Beamish had sunk under the twofold strain of failure and disgrace, and the day after her death it had been necessary to cut old Beamish down from a nail—oftenest it was Jinny he found sitting behind a curtain of the tester-bed, watching while John slept, ready to read to him or to listen to his talk when he awoke. This service set Polly free to devote herself to the extra cooking; and John was content. "A most modest and unassuming young woman," ran his verdict on Jinny.
Polly reported it to her husband in high glee. "Who could ever have believed two sisters would turn out so differently? Tilly to get so ... so ... well, you know what I mean ... and Jinny to improve as she has done. Have you noticed, Richard, she hardly ever—really quite seldom now—drops an h? It must all have been due to Tilly serving in that low bar."
By the time John was so far recovered as to exchange bed for sofa, it had come to be exclusively Jinny who carried in to him the dainties Polly prepared—the wife as usual was content to do the dirty work! John declared Miss Jinny had the foot of a fay; also that his meals tasted best at her hands. Jinny even succeeded in making Trotty fond of her; and the love of the fat, shy child was not readily won. Entering the parlour one evening Mahony surprised quite a family scene: John, stretched on the sofa, was stringing cats'-cradles, Jinny sat beside him with Trotty on her knee.
On the whole, though, the child did not warm to her father.
"Aunty, kin dat man take me away f'om you?"
"That man? Why, Trotty darling, he's your father!" said Polly, shocked.
"Kin 'e take me away f'om you and Uncle Papa?"
"He could if he wanted to. But I'm sure he doesn't," answered her aunt, deftly turning a well-rolled sheet of pastry.
And righting her dolly, which she had been dragging upside down, Trotty let slip her fears with the sovereign ease of childhood.
From the kitchen Polly could hear the boom of John's deep bass: it made nothing of the lath-and-plaster walls. Of course, shut up as he was, he had to talk to somebody, poor fellow; and Richard was too busy to spare him more than half an hour of an evening. Jinny was a good listener. Through the crack of the door, Polly could see her sitting humbly drinking in John's words, and even looking rather pretty, in her fair, full womanliness.
"Oh, Polly!" she burst out one day, after being held thus spellbound. "Oh, my dear, what a splendid man your brother is! I feel sometimes I could sink through the floor with shame at my ignorance, when 'e talks to me so."
But as time went on Mahony noticed that his wife grew decidedly thoughtful; and if John continued to sing Jinny's praises, he heard nothing more of it. He had an acute suspicion what troubled Polly; but did not try to force her confidence.
Then one afternoon, on his getting home, she came into the surgery looking very perturbed, and could hardly find words to break a certain piece of news to him. It appeared that not an hour previously, Jinny, flushed and tearful, had lain on her neck, confessing her feelings for John and hinting at the belief that they were returned.
"Well, I think you might have been prepared for something of this sort, Polly," he said with a shrug, when he had heard her out. "Convalescence is notoriously dangerous for fanning the affections."
"Oh, but I never DREAMT of such a thing, Richard! Jinny is a dear good girl and all that, but she is NOT John's equal. And that he can even THINK of putting her in poor Emma's place!—What shall I say to him?"
"Say nothing at all. Your brother John is not the man to put up with interference."
"He longs so for a real home again, Polly darling," said Jinny, wiping her eyes. "And HOW 'appy it will make me to fulfil 'is wish! Don't let me feel unwelcome and an intruder, dear. I know I'm not nearly good enough for 'im, and 'e could 'ave had the choice of ever such handsome women. But 'e 'as promised to be patient with me, and to teach me everything I ought to know."
Polly's dismay at the turn of events yielded to a womanly sympathy with her friend. "It's just like poor little Agnes and Mr. Henry over again," was her private thought. For she could not picture John stooping to guide and instruct.
But she had been touched on a tender spot—that of ambitious pride for those related to her—and she made what Mahony called "a real Turnham attempt" to stand up to John. Against her husband's express advice.
"For if your brother chooses to contract a mesalliance of this kind, it's nobody's business but his own. Upon my word though, Polly, if you don't take care, this house will get a bad name over the matches that are made in it. You had better have your spare room boarded up, my dear."
Mahony was feeling particularly rasped by John's hoity-toity behaviour in this connection. Having been nursed back to health, John went about with his chin in the air, and hardly condescended to allude to his engagement—let alone talk it over with his relatives. So Mahony retired into himself—after all, the world of John's mind was so dissimilar to his own that he did not even care to know what went on in it. "The fellow has been caught on the hop by a buxom form and a languishing eye," was how he dismissed the matter in thought.
"I raise my wife to my own station, Mary. And you will greatly oblige me by showing Jane every possible attention," was the only satisfaction Polly could get from John, made in his driest tone.
Before the engagement was a week old Tilly reappeared—she was to be married from their house on the hither side of Christmas. At first she was too full of herself and her own affairs to let either Polly or Jinny get a word in. Just to think of it! That old cabbage-grower, Devine, had gone and bought the block of land next the one Mr. O. was building on. She'd lay a bet he would put up a house the dead spit of theirs. Did ever anyone hear such cheek?
At the news that was broken to her, the first time she paused for breath, she let herself heavily down on a chair.
"Well, I'm blowed!" was all she could ejaculate. "Blowed!... that's what I am."
But afterwards, when Jinny had left the room, she gave free play to a very real envy and regret. "In all my life I never did! Jinn to be Mrs. John! ... and, as like as not, the Honourable Mrs. John before she's done. Oh, Polly, my dear, why EVER didn't I wait!"
On being presented to John, however, she became more reconciled to her lot. "'E's got a temper, your brother has, or I'm very much mistaken. It won't be all beer and skittles for 'er ladyship. For Jinn hasn't a scrap of spunk in 'er, Polly. She got so mopey the last year or two, there was no doing anything with 'er. Now it was just the other way round with me. No matter how black things looked, I always kept my pecker up. Poor ma used to say I grew more like her, every day."
And at a still later date: "No, Polly, my dear, I wouldn't change places with the future Mrs. T. after all, thank you—not for Joseph! I SAY! she'll need to mind her p's and q's." For Tilly had listened to John explaining to Jinny what he expected of her, what she might and might not do; and had watched Jinny sitting meekly by and saying yes to everything.
There was nothing in the way of the marriage; indeed, did it not take place immediately, Jinny would have to look about her for a situation of some kind; and, said John, that was nothing for HIS wife. His house stood empty; he was very much in love; and pressed for the naming of the day. So it was decided that Polly should accompany Jinny to lodgings in Melbourne, help her choose her trousseau and engage servants. Afterwards there would be a quiet wedding—by reason of Jinny's mourning—at which Richard, if he could possibly contrive to leave his patients, would give the bride away. Polly was to remain in John's house while the happy couple were on honeymoon, to look after the servants. This arrangement would also make the break less hard for the child. Trotty was still blissfully unconscious of what had befallen her. She had learnt to say "new mamma" parrot-wise, without understanding what the words meant. And meanwhile, the fact that she was to go with her aunt for a long, exciting coach-ride filled her childish cup with happiness. As Polly packed the little clothes, she thought of the night, six years before, when the fat, sleeping babe had been laid in her arms.
"Of course it's only natural John should want his family round him again. But I SHALL miss the dear little soul," she said to her husband who stood watching her.
"What you need is a little one of your own, wife."
"Ah, don't I wish I had!" said Polly, and drew a sigh. "That would make up for everything. Still if it can't be, it can't."
A few days before the set time John received an urgent summons to Melbourne, and went on ahead, leaving Mahony suspecting him of a dodge to avoid travelling EN FAMILLE. In order that his bride-elect should not be put to inconvenience, John hired four seats for the three of them; but: "He might just as well have saved his money," thought Polly, when she saw the coach. Despite their protests they were packed like herrings in a barrel—had hardly enough room to use their hands. Altogether it was a trying journey. Jinny, worked on by excitement and fatigue, took a fit of hysterics; Trotty, frightened by the many rough strangers, cried and had to be nursed; and the whole burden of the undertaking lay on Polly's shoulders. She had felt rather timid about it, before starting; but was obliged to confess she got on better than she expected. A kind old man sitting opposite, for instance—a splitter he said he was—actually undid Jinny's bonnet-strings, and fetched water for her at the first stoppage.
Polly had not been in Melbourne since the year after her marriage, and was looking forward intensely to the visit. She went laden with commissions; her lady-friends gave her a list as long as her arm. Richard, too, had entrusted her to get him second-hand editions of various medical works, as well as a new stethoscope. Thirdly, she had promised old Mr. Ocock to go to William's Town to meet Miss Amelia, who even now was tossing somewhere on the Indian Ocean, and to escort the poor young lady up to Ballarat.
Having seen them start, Mahony went home to drink his coffee and read his paper in a quiet that was new to him. John's departure had already eased the strain. Then Tilly had been boarded out at the Methodist minister's. Now, with the exit of Polly and her charges, a great peace descended on the little house. The rooms lay white and still in the sun, and though all doors stood open, there was not a sound to be heard but the buzzing of the blowflies round the sweets of the flytraps. He was free to look as glum as he chose of a morning if he had neuralgia; or to be silent when worried over a troublesome case. No longer would Miss Tilly's bulky presence and loud-voiced reiterations of her prospects grate his nerves; or John's full-blooded absorption in himself, and poor foolish Jinny's quavering doubts whether she would ever be able to live up to so magnificent a husband, offend his sense of decorum.
Another reason he was glad to see the last of them was that, in the long run, he had rebelled at the barefaced way they made use of Polly, and took advantage of her good nature. She had not only cooked for them and waited on them; he had even caught her stitching garments for the helpless Jinny. This was too much: such extreme obligingness on his wife's part seemed to detract from her personal dignity. He could never though have got Polly to see it. Undignified to do a kindness? What a funny, selfish idea! The fact was, there was a certain streak in Polly's nature that made her more akin to all these good people than to him—him with his unsociable leanings towards a hermit's cell; his genuine need of an occasional hour's privacy and silence, in which to think a few thoughts through to the end.
On coming in from his rounds he turned out an old linen jacket that belonged to his bachelor days, and raked up some books he had not opened for an almost equally long time. He also steered clear of friends and acquaintances, went nowhere, saw no one but his patients. And Ellen, to whose cookery Polly had left him with many misgivings, took things easy. "He's so busy reading, he never knows what he puts in his mouth. I believe he'd eat his boot-soles, if I fried 'em up neat wid a bit of parsley," she reported over the back fence on Doctor's odd ways.
During the winter months the practice had as usual fallen off. By now it was generally beginning to look up again; but this year, for some reason, the slackness persisted. He saw how lean his purse was, whenever he had to take a banknote from it to enclose to Polly; there was literally nothing doing, no money coming in. Then, he would restlessly lay his book aside, and drawing a slip of paper to him set to reckoning and dividing. Not for the first time he found himself in the doctor's awkward quandary: how to be decently and humanly glad of a rise in the health-rate.
He had often regretted having held to the half-hundred shares he had bought at Henry Ocock's suggestion; had often spent in fancy the sum they would have brought in, had he sold when they touched their highest figure. Such a chance would hardly come his way again. After the one fictitious flare-up, "Porepunkahs" had fallen heavily—the first main prospect-drive, at a depth of three hundred and fifty feet, had failed to strike the gutter—and nowadays they were not even quoted. Thus had ended his single attempt to take a hand in the great game.
One morning he sat at breakfast, and thought over his weekly epistle to Polly. In general, this chronicled items of merely personal interest. The house had not yet been burnt down—her constant fear, when absent; another doctor had got the Asylum; he himself stood a chance of being elected to the Committee of the District Hospital. To-day, however, there was more to tell. The English mail had come in, and the table was strewn with foreign envelopes and journals. Besides the usual letters from relatives, one in a queer, illiterate hand had reached him, the address scrawled in purple ink on the cheapest note-paper. Opening it with some curiosity, Mahony found that it was from his former assistant, Long Jim.
The old man wrote in a dismal strain. Everything had gone against him. His wife had died, he was out of work and penniless, and racked with rheumatism—oh, it was "a crewl climat"! Did he stop in England, only "the house" remained to him; he'd end in a pauper's grave. But he believed if he could get back to a scrap of warmth and the sun, he'd be good for some years yet. Now he'd always known Dr. Mahony for the kindest, most liberal of gentlemen; the happiest days of his life had been spent under him, on the Flat; and if he'd only give him a lift now, there was nothing he wouldn't do to show his gratitude. Doctor knew a bit about him, too. Here, he couldn't seem to get on with folk at all. They looked crooked at him, and just because he'd once been spunky enough to try his luck overseas. Mahony pshawed and smiled; then wondered what Polly would say to this letter. She it was who had been responsible for packing the old man off.
Unfolding the STAR, he ran his eye over its columns. He had garnered the chief local news and was skimming the mining intelligence, when he suddenly stopped short with an exclamation of surprise; and his grip on the paper tightened. There it stood, black on white. "Porepunkahs" had jumped to three pounds per share! What the dickens did that mean? He turned back to the front sheet, to find if any clue to the claim's renewed activity had escaped him; but sought in vain. So bolting the rest of his breakfast, he hurried down to the town, to see if, on the spot, he could pick up information with regard to the mysterious rise.
The next few days kept him in a twitter of excitement. "Porepunkahs" went on advancing—not by leaps and bounds as before, but slowly and steadily—and threw off a dividend. He got into bed at night with a hot head, from wondering whether he ought to hold on or sell out; and inside a week he was off to consult the one person who was in a position to advise him. Henry Ocock's greeting resembled an embrace—"It evidently means a fortune for him"—and all trifling personal differences were forgotten in the wider common bond. The lawyer virtually ordered Mahony to "sit in", till he gave the word. By this time "Porepunkahs" had passed their previous limit, and even paid a bonus: it was now an open secret that a drive undertaken in an opposite direction to the first had proved successful; the lead was scored and seamed with gold. Ocock spoke of the stone, specimens of which he had held in his hand—declared he had never seen its equal.
But when the shares stood at fifty-three pounds each, Mahony could restrain himself no longer; and, in spite of Ocock's belief that another ten days would see a COUP, he parted with forty-five of the half hundred he held. Leaving the odd money with the lawyer for re-investment, he walked out of the office the possessor of two thousand pounds.
It was only a very ordinary late spring day; the season brought its like by the score: a pale azure sky, against which the distant hills looked purple; above these a narrow belt of cloud, touched, in its curves, to the same hue. But to Mahony it seemed as if such a perfect day had never dawned since he first set foot in Australia. His back was eased of its burden; and, like Christian on having passed the wall known as Salvation, he could have wept tears of joy. After all these years of pinching and sparing he was out of poverty's grip. The suddenness of the thing was what staggered him. He might have drudged till his hair was grey; it was unlikely he would ever, at one stroke, have come into possession of a sum like this.—And that whole day he went about feeling a little more than human, and seeing people, places, things, through a kind of beatific mist. Now, thank God, he could stand on his own legs again; could relieve John of his bond, pay off the mortgage on the house, insure his life before it was too late. And, everything done, he would still have over a thousand pounds to his credit. A thousand pounds! No longer need he thankfully accept any and every call; or reckon sourly that, if the leakage on the roof was to be mended, he must go without a new surtout. Best of all, he could now begin in earnest to save.
First, though, he allowed himself two very special pleasures. He sent Polly a message on the electric telegraph to say that he would come down himself to fetch her home. In secret he planned a little trip to Schnapper Point. At the time of John's wedding he had been unable to get free; this would be the first holiday he and Polly had ever had together.
The second thing he did was: to indulge the love of giving that was innate in him; and of giving in a somewhat lordly way. He enjoyed the broad grin that illumined Ellen's face at his unlooked-for generosity; Jerry's red stammered thanks for the gift of the cob the boy had long coveted. It did him good to put two ten-pound notes in an envelope and inscribe Ned's name on it; he had never yet been able to do anything for these poor lads. He also, without waiting to consult Polly—fearing, indeed, that she might advise against it—sent off the money to Long Jim for the outward voyage, and a few pounds over. For there were superstitious depths in him; and, at this turn in his fortunes, it would surely be of ill omen to refuse the first appeal for help that reached him.
Polly was so much a part of himself that he thought of her last of all. But then it was with moist eyes. She, who had never complained, should of a surety not come short! And he dropped asleep that night to the happy refrain: "Now she shall have her piano, God bless her! ... the best that money can buy."