The ignoble sorrows of this period—which I hate to think of—seemed to culminate on the morning of the day that I am going to tell of—at the end of which they were so joyfully dispelled.
Bobby had cried incessantly through the night, so that I had only slept in snatches, just enough to make me feel more heavy and yawny than if I had not slept at all. I dragged myself dispiritedly out of bed, dying for the cup of tea which did not appear till an hour after its time, and was then brought to me rank and cold from standing, with no milk in it.
"I forgot to put the can out last night," was Maria's cheerful explanation, "and I waited in hopes that the milkman would come back, but he didn't. And, please'm, what shall I do about the children's breakfast?"
"You mean to say you never left a drop over from yesterday, in case of accidents?" I demanded, tears rushing into my eyes. "Oh, Ma-ria!"
It sounds a poor thing to cry about, but I appeal to mothers to say if I was a fool. Bobby was a bottle baby, and we had all our milk from one cow on his account; and he was ill, and the dairy at least a mile away. Rarely had I trusted Maria to remember to put the can out for the morning supply, delivered before she was up; I used to hang it on the nail myself. But last night, having my hands so full, I had contented myself with telling her twice over not to forget it. With this result! At any moment the poor child might awake and cry for food, and a spoonful of stale dregs was all I had for him.
There and then, with clenched teeth and a lump in my throat, and boots on my feet that had mere rags of soles to them, I set off with the milk-can to that distant dairy. It was a thick morning, and presently rained in torrents. When I arrived, drenched to the skin, I was told that all the milk was with the cart, and I had to wait half an hour until the proprietress could be persuaded to give me a little. She was unsympathetic and disobliging—I suppose because I had not paid her husband for three months. On my return home Bobby, in Maria's arms, was shrieking himself into another fit of convulsions; and the other children, catching their deaths of cold in their nightgowns, were paddling about on flagstones and oilcloth, fighting and squalling, and trying to light the dining-room fire. They imagined they were helping, but had spilled coals all over the carpet and used the crumb-brush to spread the black dust afterwards; and the wonder is that they didn't burn the house down.
It was not quite just perhaps—poor little things, theyweretrying their best—but the first thing I did was to box the ears of both of them and send them back to bed. I don't think I ever saw them, as babies, take so small a punishment so greatly to heart. They snuffled and sulked for hours—wouldn't even show an interest in the apricot jam and boiled rice that I gave them for their breakfast and imagined would be a treat to them—and were more vexatious and tiresome than words can say.
"I wish father was home," Harry kept muttering, in that moody way of his; it is the thing he always said when he wanted to be particularly aggravating. "Phyllis, I wish father was here, don't you?"
"Oh," I cried, "you don't wish it more than I do! If father were here, he'd pretty soon make you behave yourselves.Hewouldn't let you drive your mother distracted when she's already got so much to worry her, with poor little brother sick and all." Tears were in my eyes, as they must have seen, but the heartless little brats were not in the least affected.
And father's absence was an extra anxiety, for he was hours and hours behind his time. The papers reported fogs along the coast, and I thought of shipwrecks as the day wore on, and began to feel that it would be quite consistent with the drift of things if I were to get news presently that the Bendigo had gone down. I knew how he dreaded fogs, which made a good navigator as helpless as a bad one, and wondered if it implied an instinctive presentiment that a fog was to be his ruin! I remembered his telling me that if ever he was so unfortunate as to lose his ship, he should cast himself away along with her; and the appalling idea filled me not with anguish only, but with a sort of indignation against him.
"And he with a young family depending on him!" I cried in my heart—as if he had already done it—"and a wife who would die if he went from her!"
I was in that state of mind and health that when, early in the afternoon, I heard him come stumbling in, my solicitude for him suddenly passed, and only the bitter sense of grievance remained. The grocer had been calling in person, insolent about his account, which indeed had been growing to awful dimensions; and I was fairly sick of the whole thing. It was not my poor old fellow's fault, for he gave me his money as fast as he got it, but somehow I felt as if it was. And when he dumped down on the sofa beside me to look at Bobby, I began at once—without even kissing him—to pour out all my woes.
I was reckless with misery and headache, and did not care what I said. I told him things I had been scrupulously keeping from him for months—things which I imagined would harrow him frightfully, much to my sorrow when it would be too late. And he—evenhe—seemed callous! He mumbled a soothing word or two, and fell silent. I asked him for advice and sympathy, and he never answered me.
Looking at him, I saw that his eyes were shut, his head dropped, his great frame reeling as he sat, trying to prop himself with his broad hands on his broad, outspread knees.
"Tom," I cried in despair, "you're not listening to a word I'm saying!"
He jerked himself up.
"I beg your pardon, Polly. The fact is, I'm dead-beat, my dear. It has been foggy, you know, and I haven't dared to turn in these two nights."
It seemed as ifeverythingwas determined to go wrong. I could see that his eyelids were swollen and gummy, and that he was half stupefied with fatigue.
"What a shame it is!" I passionately complained. "What wretches those owners are—sitting at home in their armchairs, wallowing in luxury, while they make you slave like this—and give you next to nothing for it!"
"It's no fault of theirs," said he. "They can't help the weather. And when I've had a few hours' sleep I shall be as right as ninepence. Then we'll talk things over, pet, and I'll see what can be done."
I rose, with my sick child in my arms, and he stumbled after me into our bedroom. For the first time it was not ready for him. I had been so distracted with my numerous worries that I had forgotten to make the bed and put away the litter left from all our morning toilets; the place was a perfect pigsty for him to go into. And he coming so tired from the sea—looking to his home for what little comfort his hard life afforded him! When I saw the state of things, I burst into tears. With an extremely grubby handkerchief he wiped them away, and kissed me and comforted me.
"What the deuce does it matter?" quoth he. "Why, bless your heart, I could sleep on the top of a gatepost. Just toss the things on anyhow—here, don't you bother—I'll do it."
He was contented with anything, but I felt shamed and heart-broken to have failed him in a matter of this kind—the more so because hewasso unselfish and unexacting, so unlike ordinary husbands who think wives are made for no other purpose than to keep them always comfortable. In ten minutes he was snoring deeply, and I was trying not to drop tears into the little stew I was cooking for his tea.
"At least he shall have a nice tea," I determined, "though goodness knows how I am going to pay for it."
Poor baby was easier, and asleep in his cradle; the two others had gone to play with a neighbour's children. So the house was at peace for a time, and that was a relief. It was also an opportunity for thinking—for all one's cares to obtrude themselves upon the mind—and the smallest molehills looked mountains under the shadow of my physical weariness.
Having arranged the tea-table and made up the fire, I sat down for a moment, with idle hands in my lap; and I was just coming to the sad conclusion that life wasn't worth living—wicked woman that I was!—when I heard the evening postman. Expecting nothing, except miserable little bills with "account rendered" on them, I trailed dejectedly to the street door. Opening it, a long-leaved book was thrust under my nose, and I was requested to sign for a registered letter.
"Ah-h-h!" I breathed deeply, while flying for a pen. "It is that ever-blessed Aunt Kate—I know it is! She seems to divine the exact moment by instinct."
I scribbled my name, received the letter, saw my father's handwriting, and turned into the house, much sobered. For father, who was a bad correspondent—like me—had intimated more than once that he was finding it as much as he could do to make ends meet, with his rapidly increasing family.
I sat down by the fire, opened the much-sealed envelope, and looked for the more or less precious enclosure. I expected a present of five pounds or so, and I found a draft for a hundred. The colour poured into my face, strength and vigour into my body, joy and gladness into my soul, as I held the document to the light and stared at it, to make sure my eyes had not deceived me. Oh, what a pathetic thing it is that the goodness of life should so depend upon a little money! Even while I thought that hundred pounds was all, I was intoxicated with the prospect before me—bills paid, children able to have change of air, Tom and I relieved from a thousand heartaches and anxieties which, though they could not sour him, yet spoiled the comfort of our home because they sapped my strength and temper.
I ran to wake him and tell him how all was changed in the twinkling of an eye; but when I saw him so heavily asleep, my duty as a sailor's wife restrained me. Nothing short of the house burning over his head would have justified me in disturbing him. I went back to my rocking-chair to read my father's letter.
Well, here was another shock—two or three shocks, each sharper than the last. My beloved aunt was dead. She had had an uncertain heart for several years, and it had failed her suddenly, as is the way of such. She went to church on a Sunday night, returned in good spirits and apparently good health, ate a hearty supper, retired to her room as usual, and was found dead in her bed next morning when her maid took in her tea. This sad news sufficed me for some minutes. Seen through a curtain of thick tears, the words ran into each other, and I could not read further. Dear, dear Aunt Kate! She was an odd, quick-tempered old lady, cantankerous at times; but how warm-hearted, how just and generous, how good to me, even when I did not care to please her! When one is a wife, and especially when one is a mother, all other relationships lose their binding power; but still I could not help crying for a little while over the loss of Aunt Kate. And I can honestly say that I did not think of her money until after I had wiped my eyes and resumed reading. When I turned over a leaf and saw the word, I remembered the importance of her will to all her relatives. I said to myself, "After all, the hundred pounds does come from her. It is her legacy to me." And I was sordid enough to feel a pang of disappointment because—being her last bequest—it was so small.
"We buried her yesterday," wrote father, "and the will was read after the funeral, and has proved a great and painful surprise to us. She has left the bulk of her money to a man I never even heard of, an engineer in India. Uncle John says his father was an admirer of hers when she was a girl, but she never mentioned the name—Keating—to me, and I can't understand the thing at all. She was always eccentric, and some of us think we might contest the will with a fair chance of success. However, my lawyer advises to the contrary, and my wife also; so I, for one, shall let it go.
"She has not altogether forgotten her own family. There are a number of small legacies, including £2,000 for myself, which will come in very usefully just now, though not a tithe of what I expected. I have also some plate and furniture. You, my dear girl, are the best off of us all. Besides jewellery and odds and ends, she has left you the interest of £10,000 (in Government securities) for life, your children after you. This will give you an income of £300 a year—small, but absolutely safe—and relieve my mind of many anxieties on your behalf." He went on to tell me about powers of attorney and other legal matters that I did not understand and thought unworthy of notice at such a moment. He also explained that lawyers were a dilatory race, and that he was advancing £100 to tide me over the interval that must elapse before affairs were settled.
Again I went into my room and looked at Tom. Howcouldhe sleep in a house so charged with wild excitement! I regret to say it was that, and not grief, which made my heart throb so that I wonder he did not feel the bedstead shaking, and the very floor and walls. I ached with suppressed exclamations; I tingled with an intolerable restlessness, as if bitten by a thousand fleas. And still he lay like a log, drawing his breath deeply and slowly, with soft, comfortable grunts; and still, in an agony of self-control, I refrained from touching him. Baby woke up, moist and smiling. His tooth was through; he seemed to know that it was his business to get well at once. It is not only misfortunes that never come singly; good luck is a thing that seldom rains but it pours. Harry and Phyllis came home, took their tea peaceably, and went to bed like lambs. I sent Maria, with half a sovereign, to a savoury cook-shop where they sold fowls and hams and all sorts of nice things ready for table, and she brought back a supper fit for a prince.
"It is all right, Maria," I assured her, in my short-breathed, vibrating voice, seeing her wonder at my extravagance. "I am rich now. I can afford the captain something better than a twice-cooked stew. Spend it all, Maria, on the best things you can get. And you shall have your wages to-morrow, and a present of a new frock."
When all was ready—the glazed chicken, the juicy slices of pink ham, the wedge of rich Stilton, the bottle of English ale—I returned again to my unconscious spouse. It was ten o'clock, and he had been sleeping with all his might for seven hours. Surely that was enough! Especially as he still had the whole night before him. I stroked his hair—I kissed his forehead—I kissed his shut eyes. He can resist everything but that; when I kiss his eyes he is obliged to stir and murmur and want kisses for his lips. He stirred now, and turned up his dear old face.
"Pol——"
"Yes, darling, it's me. Are you awake?"
He sighed luxuriously.
"Tommy,areyou awake?"
"Wha's th' time?"
"It'sawfullylate. Come, you won't sleep to-night if you don't get up now."
"Oh, sha'n't I? I could sleep for a week if I had the chance. Ah-hi-ow!" He yawned like a drowsy lion. "I'd sooner have twenty gales than one fog, Polly."
"I know you would. But never mind about gales and fogs and trivial things of that kind. I've something far, far more important to talk to you about—something that will make your very hair stand on end with astonishment. Only I want to be quite sure first that you are awake enough to take it in."
He called his faculties together in a moment as if I had been the look-out man reporting breakers, and was all alive and alert to deal summarily with the situation, whatever it might be. And I rushed upon my story, showed him the letter and the draft, and poured out a jumbled catalogue of all the things we could now do that wanted doing—beginning with a leaking kettle and ending with his professional appointment, which I had decided must be resigned forthwith.
"And we will live together always and always, like other husbands and wives, only that we shall be a thousand times happier," I concluded, as I led him in to his supper, hanging on his arm.
"No more fogs and gales, to wear you out and perhaps drown you in the end, but your bed every night, and your armchair by the fire, your home and family, and me—me——"
"Little woman! But you mustn't forget, pet, that I'm not thirty-eight till next birthday. A man can't give up work and sink into armchairs at that age."
"Of course he can't. We can find some nice post ashore. There are plenty of things, if you look for them."
"Not for sailor men, who know nothing but their trade."
"Oh, heaps—any amount of heaps! And you can take your time, of course. No need to hurry for a year or two. You want a long holiday. You have never had one yet. AndIwantyou. What's the use of money, if we can't enjoy it together? We have not had so much as one whole month to ourselves since we were married."
"Well, a sailor's wife must accept the conditions, you know."
"Yes, when necessary. But it is not necessary now that we are people of independent means."
"Three hundred a year isn't three thousand. And we've got to educate the kids, and put by for them."
"No need to put by for them when they are to have my money after I am dead."
"For myself, then. You wouldn't like to die and leave me to sell matches in the streets?"
"Oh, Tom, don't talk about dying—now that it's so sweet to be alive!"
"My dear, you began it. I vote we don't talk any more at all, but eat our supper and go to bed. Here, sit down by me, and let us gorge. I have had nothing since morning, and this table excites me to frenzy."
We cut off the breast of the chicken for the children and a leg for Maria, and demolished the rest. We drank the beer between us, out of one tumbler; we devoured half of a crusty loaf, and cheese sufficient for a dozen nightmares; and I never felt so well in my life as I did after it. Tom said the same.
But sleep was far away—even from him. We had to arrange our programme for the morning—the fetching of Nurse Barber to take care of baby, the business at the bank, the settlings of pressing accounts, the beginnings of our innumerable shoppings; and whenever a silence fell that I knew I should not break, something forced me to turn over in bed with a violent fling and make loud ejaculations.
"Oh, dear, kind, sweet Aunt Kate! To think that I am so pleased at having her money that I cannot cry because she is dead! Oh, Tom, Tom! To think that we never need owe a penny again—never, never, as long as we live!"
This was merely the effect of shock. We sobered down next day. And it was wonderful how soon we grew accustomed to having an independent income, and to feeling that it would not go half as far as it should. Long and long had we spent the hundred pounds before the first instalment of the annuity was paid over; we thought it was never coming, and when it came it melted like snow in sunshine. One has no idea what it costs to furnish even a small house comfortably until one begins to do it, and a few doctor's bills play havoc with all one's calculations. And my husband could not stay at home with me—rather, he would not. I am sure there were dozens of situations that he might have had for the asking—a man so universally beloved and respected—but he would not ask. He was fit for the sea, he said, but would be a useless lubber ashore—a fish out of water, a stranded hulk, and things of that sort. The fact was hepreferredthe sea—in which he differed from most sailors—and hated streets and clubs and landsmen's pursuits. He said he should choke if he were shut up in them, and I said, with tears, that he cared more for the sea than he did for his wife and children. Of course he declared it was not so, and his feelings were hurt; but he admitted the strong affection. I was his mate as he described it, his nearest and dearest—I and the children; but the sea was his comrade, to whom he had grown accustomed—his foster mother, who had nursed him so long that she had made him feel like a part of her. A foster mother is not much of a rival to a wife so loved as I am, but, oh, how jealous of her I was!
However, I don't believe that his affection for the sea had anything to do with it. I doubt very much whether that affection was as genuine as it appeared. My conviction is that he was in terror of the possible indignity of having to live upon my money. Such utter nonsense!—when wife and husband are absolutely one, as we were.
I had my heart's desire at last—with the usual calamitous result. Of course it came when I least expected it, and in the paltriest kind of way—merely because a workman, whom I had engaged to put a new stove into the children's play-room, chose to leave his job unfinished until over Sunday, instead of clearing it off on Saturday morning, as he easily might have done. There was no school on Saturday, and it was a wet, cold day, when even the boys had to be kept indoors; so there was nothing for it but to turn them and Phyllis into the dining-room—my nice dining-room, which had lately had a new carpet—while I took the drawing-room for myself and Lily, to keep her out of harm's way. She was not very well—nor was I; and I confess that I was in a cross mood. I had all my four children with me then, safe under my wing, and did not know how well off I was!
During the morning they were fairly good, preparing their lessons most of the time; but after dinner they were at a loss for amusement, tired of the house, restless and mischievous—very wearing to a mother whose nerves were out of tune. Even Lily became fractious. I gave her a doll and some picture-books and my work-basket to play with, but she fiddled with them, and fidgeted, and would not settle to anything. She kept listening to the noises from the dining-room—the boys paid no heed to my repeated calls to them to be quiet—and uttering monotonous whinings to be allowed to go there.
"Mother, do let me go and play with the others."
"No, Lily; little girls must not romp about with rough boys."
"Phyllis is a little girl, and she's romping with them."
"Phyllis hasn't a bad cold, as you have."
"My cold is quite better now, mother."
"No, it isn't. It is only a little better. And we mustn't let it get worse again by running into draughts."
"There are no draughts in the dining-room, mother. It's all shut up. I can put the flannel round my neck, mother."
Oh, I could have smacked her! But of course I didn't, poor little ailing mite—barely three years old; besides, my attention was constantly distracted by the boys, who, when not rushing into and out of the hall, yelling and slamming doors as if they wanted to bring the house down, were scuffling and thumping within the dining-room in a way to make me tremble for my good furniture. I went to them once or twice to read the riot act, and each time they left off what they were doing the moment they heard me, sat mumchance while I scolded them, almost laughing in my face, and went on worse than ever directly my back was turned. Boys will be boys, Tom used to tell me, in his easy-going way, but I don't believe in letting boys defy their mother with impunity. And when presently I heard the yapping of a dog in addition to their own shouts and cries, I was at the end of my patience with them, determined to assert myself effectually once for all.
Rushing into the dining-room, before they had time to hear me coming, this is what I saw. The window open—cakes of mud all over the new carpet—Bobby's dog, streaming with rain, on the nice tablecloth, barking at Phyllis's cat planted on a silk sofa cushion, which she was tearing and ravelling in her frantic claws—the children standing round, Phyllis holding her cat, Bobby his dog, and Harry inciting the impotent animals to fly at one another, all three consumed with laughter, as if it were the greatest fun in the world.
The first thing I did was to dash at Waif, knocking him out of Bobby's hands and off the table—and I shall never forgive myself for that as long as I live. It was a shabby mongrel terrier which Bobby had picked up in the street one day on his way from school, and been allowed to cure of starvation and a lame leg and keep for his own particular pet; and the mutual devotion of the pair was a joke of the family. Waif was now fat and strong, though as ugly as before, but when he scrambled up from the fall I had given him he limped a little on the leg that had been broken; and Bobby snatched him into his arms again, and turned upon me with blazing eyes—Bobby, who had never given me impudence in the whole course of his life.
"Hit me, mother," said he, "if you like, but don't hit him—for nothing at all."
"You call that nothing?" I cried, and pointed to the pretty terra-cotta cloth—one mass of smears and muddy footmarks. Ah, my precious boy! What would a thousand terra-cotta tablecloths matter now?
He seemed quite surprised to discover that a dog brought in from the rain and a garden that was a perfect swamp could be wet and dirty, and stared open-mouthed at the damage done. I marched him to the window and made him drop Waif out, tossed the scratching kitten after him, shut down the sash and locked it, and then turned to Harry. For Harry was the eldest, the ringleader, the one who ought to have known better and who set the example for the rest.
"You do this on purpose to vex me," I cried vehemently, "and because you know I am ill to-day, and that father is away!" I did not quite mean that, but one cannot help saying rather more than one means in such moments of acute exasperation.
"Do what?" returned Harry, looking as surprised as Bobby had done. "I'm not doing anything. And you never told us you were ill."
"I have a raging headache," I said—and so I had as the result of the long day's worry. "And I have been telling you the whole afternoon to be quiet, and the more I tell you, the more you disobey me. Look at that beautiful new carpet—ruined for ever! Look at that lovely cushion—simply scratched to pieces! And a great, big boy like you, who ought to be a comfort to his mother——"
But there is no need to repeat all I said to him; indeed, I cannot remember it; but my blood was up, and I know I scolded him severely. And he answered me back, as he alone of all the children dared to do, which of course made things worse; for if there is one thing I cannot stand it is impertinence. He was just telling me that, if I chose to regard him as a ruffian and a cad, he could not help it, when we heard a distant door open—the way a door opens to the hand of the master of the house.
"There!" I exclaimed passionately. "There's your father! We'll see whathesays to the way you treat me when his back is turned."
Tom came in, with that bright look he always wears when he sees us after an absence. How could I have had the heart to extinguish it, and to make his children quake at sight of his dear face, instead of flying to welcome him, as was the rule on his return! But a mother's authoritymustbe upheld. I said so to Tom, and he said I was perfectly right, and that it was his business to see it done. He bade me explain what was the matter, and I did so, softening things a little—more and more as I went on—since, after all, it was nothing so very dreadful. Perhaps I had been a little hasty and hard; I thought so when I saw how Tom was taking it. He had that inexorable look of the commander confronted with mutiny—as if really I were accusing the poor boys of murder at the least. And when I saw how they stood before him—Bob downcast and tearful, and Harry with his head up, teeth and hands clenched, too proud to quail—oh, I would have given anything to save them! But it was too late.
"I am sure they didn't mean it," I protested, laying my hand on Harry's shoulder, which felt as rigid as iron under it. "We can overlook it this time, father, dear."
"The one thing I will never overlook," he replied, "is misconduct towards you when I leave you unprotected. If they don't know the first rudiments of manliness—at their age—I must try to teach them."
"Butthatis not the way to teach them!" I cried—almost shrieked—as he signed to them to pass out of the room before him. "Oh, Tom, don't! don't! It is all my fault!"
Harry turned and looked at me with an ice-cold smile, as if his face were galvanised, and said calmly, "It is all right, mother. It isquiteright." And then the three of them left me, Tom himself sternly keeping me back when I tried to follow; and presently, with my head buried in the torn pillow and my hands over my ears, I heard an agonised wail from poor little Bob. Not from Harry, of course; he would be cut to pieces before he would deign to cry out. Oh, whatbrutesmen are! I hated Tom—though he was Tom—with a hatred that was perfectly murderous while it lasted.
We had our tea together alone—a thing that had never happened before, on his first evening, since we had had a child old enough to sit up at table. I had sent the little girls to bed—Phyllis for punishment, Lily for her throat, and because I felt I could not stand her chatter—and he had sent the boys. There were the usual first-night delicacies—sweetbreads, wild ducks, honey in the combs—and for once they were uneaten and unnoticed. All my preparations for his home-coming were thrown away. He was glum and silent, evidently as upset as I was, with no appetite for anything. As for me, I felt as if a crumb of bread would choke me. And I would not speak to him—I could not—with that shriek of Bobby's in my ears.
"I suppose," he said, in a heavy voice—"I suppose I'd better resign my billet and come home, Polly. They're getting pretty old now for you to struggle with them single-handed. It's not fair to you, my dear."
I treated this remark as if I had not heard it, and he soon rose from his seat and left the room. He went into his little smoking den, shut the door behind him, and locked it.
When I thought him safely out of the way I stole off to see and comfort my poor boys. They shared the same room, their beds standing side by side, with a chair between them. When I crept in they were talking in a low voice together; as soon as they heard me they fell silent and pretended to be asleep. A smell of moist dog and an otherwise unaccountable protuberance implied the presence of a third culprit—and a flat contravention of one of the strict rules of the house—but I took no notice, although terrified lest Bobby's shirt and sheets should be dampened, and sickened by the thought of the fleas that would infest him. Oh, how thankful I am now that I took no notice, and did not snatch his bit of comfort from his arms!
I sat down on the chair and leaned over Harry, smoothed his hair from his brow, and kissed him. I might as well have kissed the bed-post. He is a peculiar boy—a little hard-natured and perverse—and he can never bear anybody to pity him. I was not surprised that he repulsed me, though I felt dreadfully hurt. My beloved Bobby—my angel, whom I never rightly appreciated until I had lost him—he was quite different. He kissed me back again, and whimpered when I talked to him, and told me he had never meant to be as naughty as father thought. Bless him! I knew he never did. I told him so. But even then he was just a little reserved with me, as if he could not quite forgive me for what I had brought upon him—which was bitter enough at the time, but an agony to think of afterwards, as it is to this day. So I went away to my room and cried in the dark, utterly miserable. And I thought to myself, "If this is how they feel towards me, how will they regard their father, who has treated them so brutally? Why, they will never have an atom of affection for him again!"
But when I went back to them, hoping for a warmer welcome, and anxious about their poor empty stomachs, there was Tom, sitting on the chair between their beds, chatting to them, and they to him, as if nothing had occurred—aye, although Waif had been deposed and banished. Another chair had been dragged up, and a tray stood on it—a tray piled with food, duck and sweetbread, cold beef and tongue, all mixed together—which he was serving out in lavish helpings, with plenty of bread-and-butter. Harry, leaning on his elbow, rested his head on his father's arm; Bob, crouched at his knees on the floor, looked up at him with his dear merry eyes, that bore no malice—not even a reproach. They did not see me at the door, where I stood a minute to watch them, suffocated by the sense of being shut out.
I did not think it was quite right of Tom. But I did not say so. When he called to me to come in and be apologised to—the boys did it handsomely, but still rather perfunctorily, I fancied—I was glad to let bygones be bygones, and to feel we were a united family once more.
And I thought the incident ended there. Nothing more was said about it while Tom remained at home, and he went away as usual, giving me—even me—not the faintest indication of what was in his mind. So that I was completely dumfoundered when, on his next return, he said, in a tremulous tone of voice and with quite a tragic air generally:
"Well, Polly, I've done it."
"What?" I cried, guessing his meaning in an instant, for I remembered his remark at tea that night when we were all so unhappy. "Youdon'tmean to say you have thrown up your command—thrown away everything—justnow, when we want so badly to increase our income and not to lessen it—without a word of warning?"
"No warning?" quoth he. "Why, haven't you been at me every day for the last dozen years to do it? And quite right too. It's bad for boys to grow up without a father to look after them, and their welfare is of more importance than anything else."
"You say that, and at the same time take away all chance of their having a decent education and a fair start in the world! How am I to keep them at the Grammar School, and have a governess for the girls, and support the house and all, on my poor three hundred a year?"
I should not have said it, and could have cut my tongue out before the words were half uttered, but somehow the first news of the shock that we were to lose half our income, on which we already found it no easy matter to make ends meet, was overwhelming. And we were so accustomed to speak freely whatever was in our minds that I never anticipated he would take a chance remark so ill. I suppose his interview with the owners had agitated him; as I heard afterwards, the whole office had expressed regrets at his leaving the service, and said all kinds of nice and flattering things about him; otherwise I am sure he would not have given way as he did. He just turned from me, put his arms on the mantelpiece, and, dropping his head down, gave a sob under his breath. My own good husband! That ever I should have been the cause—however innocently—of bringing a tear to his dear eyes, a moment's pang to his faithful heart!
Of course he forgave me at once—he always does; and in a few minutes we were talking things over in peace and comfort, while I sat on his knee—for the children were in school, happily.
"As for income, Polly, you don't suppose I am going to live on you?" he said—and a very unkind thing it was to say, as I told him. "You don't imagine I intend to sit at home and twiddle my thumbs, while you take the whole burden on your little shoulders—do you?"
"I don't see why you shouldn't," I replied. "At any rate for a long while to come. I'm sure if any one ever earned the right to a thorough rest, you have. And, oh, Tom, no burden can be a burden with you here to help me!"
"Thanks, old girl. That's good hearing."
"As if you wanted to be told that! And by and by, when you have had a nice long spell, there are sure to be posts offered to you about the ports——"
"No, Polly; don't delude yourself with that idea. There are no posts for a sailor who leaves sea—that is, one or two, perhaps, and a hundred fellows wanting them. I should be no good at office work, among the smart hands, and the life would kill me. No, I've a better notion than that—it's been in my mind a long time, and I've been talking it over with experts, men who thoroughly understand the matter——"
"And not with me!" I interposed reproachfully.
"Well, I didn't see the use of disturbing your mind until one could do something. But now the time has come." He was quite bright and excited. "Look here, Polly—listen, dear, till I have explained fully—my idea is to take a little farm place on the outskirts of Melbourne——"
"A farm!" I broke in. "Areyouone of those who think that farming comes by instinct and doesn't have to be learned like other trades?"
"I don't mean that kind of farm, but just a few acres of good land—more on the edge of the country than in it, you understand—near enough for the boys to get to the Grammar School by train or on ponies—and breed pigs——"
"Oh, pigs!" I echoed, sniffing.
"Well, if you objected to pigs, there's poultry. With a few incubators we could rear fowls enough to supply all Melbourne. Or bees. There's a great trade to be done in honey if you know how to set about it. Bees feed themselves, and flowers cost nothing—I particularly want us to live among plenty of flowers—and I could make the boxes myself. But pigs are the thing, Polly. I've gone into the question thoroughly, and there's no doubt about it. You see, we should be able to keep cows—think how splendid to give the children fresh milk from our own dairy, as much as they can drink!—and we could send the rest to a factory and get the buttermilk back for the pigs. And vegetables—of course we'd have a big garden—and they'd eat all the surplus that would otherwise go to waste, and the fallen fruit, and the refuse from the kitchen; so that really the cost of feed would be next to nothing. The pork would be first-class on such a diet, given the right breed to begin with, and what Melbourne markets couldn't absorb we might ship frozen to England."
And so on.
Well, it was a fascinating picture, and his enthusiasm was contagious. I, too, thought it would be lovely to live amongst cows and flowers, and at the same time be making a fortune out of our Arcadian surroundings. So I went in for the little farm, and all the three classes of profitable stock—pigs, fowls, bees—in short, everything. What would have happened to us if Tom had not made a few unexpected thousands by the purest accident, I don't know. He did a little deal in mining shares, under the direction of a strangely disinterested friend who was expert at that business, and so saved us all from ruin. I may add that it was his sole exploit of the kind. I would not let him gamble any more—beyond putting an annual pound or two in Tattersall's Sweeps—because, although he thought he had been very smart, he was as ignorant as a confiding infant of the ways of money dealers, and never could have experienced such another stroke of luck. He was easily persuaded to let well alone, as always to defer to and see the reasonableness of any wish of mine.
It was before we had fairly plunged into our messes and muddles—in the very beginning, when thecouleur de rosewas over all—when the dilapidations of our country cottage were all repaired, and everything in the most beautiful order—when the fields were rich with spring grass and the scent of wattle-blossom, and the sleek cows had calved, and the hens were clucking about with thriving families of chicks—when the bee boxes were still a-making, and the two first pigs only in their smart new sty—when the children, released from the schoolroom, were scampering everywhere with their father, who was more of a child than any of them, and growing fat and rosy on the sweet air and the pure milk—when we were telling one another all day that we never were so happy and so well off—it was then that the calamity of our lives befell us.
A small creek touched the borders of the two paddocks that we called our farm, and, like all creeks, was fringed with wild vegetation, bushes and trees that interposed a romantic screen between its little bed and the world of prosaic agriculture. It so happened that the children—like many thousands of native Australians, far older than they—had never seen the bush. When they had wanted change of air Tom had taken them to sea; and as he had never had holidays himself, and I had never cared to go away from home without him, we were nearly in the same case. That strip of scrub was true bush, as far as it went, and we were delighted in it.
We were too busy just then to go thither in daytime, and would not allow the children to ramble there alone, for fear of snakes—although it was much too early and too cool for them; besides which, there were none—but we would take the fascinating walk about sundown in a family party, and sometimes have our tea there, returning after dark with strange treasures of leaf and insect, clear pebbles that we made sure were topazes in the rough, and stones with mica specks in them that we thought were gold. And once we went there in moonlight—the full moon of our first October—when it was mild and balmy, and we could easily imagine ourselves in forests primeval untrodden by a human foot except our own! How well I remember it—as if it were yesterday!—the enormous look of the trees in that beautiful, deceptive light, and how we stood in an ecstatic group under one of them to look up at an oppossum sitting in the fork of a dead branch.
Many people think that oppossums, like snakes and laughing jackasses, are common objects of the country in all its parts; but that is not the case nowadays with any of the three, and none of our family had beheld the dear little furry animal, except dead in a museum or torpid in the Zoölogical Gardens, while it had been one of the great ambitions of our lives to do so. And here he was, alive, alert, and unmistakable, his ears sticking up and his bushy tail hanging down, sitting against the moon, as I had seen roosting pheasants in the woods at home, looking down at us with the intense interest that an oppossum is able to take in things at that hour. The excitement was tremendous. The boys literally danced round and round the tree, and Waif was beside himself; he made frantic leaps upward, turning somersaults in the rebound, wildly tore at the bark of the tree and the earth at its roots, and filled the quiet night with his impassioned yaps and squeaks. He also, to the best of our belief, had never seen an oppossum before; yet he was as keen as a foxhound after a fox to get at and destroy it.
The little animal did not seem to mind. It sat still and gazed at us, as is the way of an oppossum, even when you have no camp-fire or lantern to mesmerise and paralyse it; we could almost fancy that we saw its fixed eyes, large and liquid, in the light of the moon. And suddenly Bobby ejaculated, from the depths of his heart, "Oh—oh—ifonlyI'd got my gun!"
We took no notice—never heeded the warning given us—but only laughed to hear the little chap talking of his gun as if he were an old sportsman. It was a small single barrel, presented to him on his going to the country by his godfather, Captain Briggs (much to my dismay at the time, and the natural chagrin of the elder brother, who should have been the first to possess one), and Tom had given the child but two lessons in the use of it—shooting bottles from the top of the paddock fence.
Being without a gun, the boys flung aloft such missiles as came to hand, and, when a stick of wood touched the branch it sat on, the 'possum ran along it to a place where it was lost in leaves. Then we bethought ourselves of the late hour, called off Waif, and went home to bed—to bed, and to sleep as tranquil and unforeboding as the sleep of other nights.
The next day was exceptionally full of business. Recreation was not thought of. It was nine o'clock when we left off work—Tom and I.
Lily was long in bed, but the other children had no proper hour for retiring at this unsettled time. I went to the sitting-room to look for them, and found only Phyllis there. The lamp was not lit, nor the blinds drawn. I noticed that the moon was up, and by its light saw her crouched at one of the windows, pressing her face against the glass. I asked her what she was doing there, and she did not hear me; on my repeating the question, she sprang up with such a start of fright that I at once divined mischief somewhere.
"Where is Harry?" I cried sharply. Somehow it was always Harry, my handsome first-born, that I expected things to happen to.
Phyllis stammered and shuffled, and then said that Harry had gone to look for Bobby.
"And where is Bobby?"
She seemed still more reluctant to reply, but suddenly exclaimed, with an air of joyful relief, "Oh, there he is! There he is! There's Waif—he can't be far off!"
She followed me to the verandah, whither I went to meet and reproach my poor little fellow for having strayed without leave, and there was no boy visible—only the dear, ugly, faithful dog for whose sake all dogs are beloved and sacred for ever and ever. Waif ran to my feet, pawed them and my skirts, squirmed and jumped, yelped and whined, all the time looking up at me with eyes that were full of desire and supplication—trying to tell me something that at first I could not understand. I took a few steps into the garden, and he scampered down a pathway to the gate; seeing I did not follow so far, he ran back, seized a bit of my frock in his teeth, and tried to drag me with him.
"What does he want?" I called to Tom, as he sauntered towards me, pipe in mouth. "Tom, Tom,whatdoes it mean?"
"Where's Bob?" was his instant question.
"Harry has gone after him—Harry is with him—Harry will bring him home," piped Phyllis, trembling like a leaf. Then she burst into tears. "Oh, mother—oh, father—I heard the gun such a long, long time ago!"
The gun! Who would have dreamed ofthat?—locked up in a wardrobe, as we supposed, and forbidden to be so much as looked at except under parental supervision. At the word our hearts jumped, and seemed to stop beating.
"He wanted to shoot the oppossum and cure the skin for a present to you on your birthday, mother. And he wanted it to be a secret—for a surprise to you."
Waif whined and ran, and we ran after him—Tom in silence, I wailing under my breath, already in despair and heart broken. I can see the devoted creature now, pattering steadily over the moonlit paddocks towards the creek and the trees, stopping every now and then to make sure that we were coming; and see him tracking through the scrub with his nose to the ground, and hear his little uneasy whimper when for a moment he could not perceive us.
Once we stopped at the sound of a distant whistle, and I shrieked with joy.
"No," said Tom gently. "That's Harry calling him."
And we came to the place where we had seen the oppossum the night before. The moonbeams trickled through the branches from which it had looked down upon our happy, united family, and just where we had stood together there was a dark something on the ground. Waif ran up to it and licked it——
I can't write any more.
It was years, literally, before I got over it. Indeed, I have never got over it—never shall, while I have any power to remember things. Death—we all know, more or less, what it means to the living whom it has robbed. To lose a child—the mothers know, at any rate! It is no use talking about it. Besides, there are no words to talk with that can possibly explain.
I often hear the remark that my husband has the most patient temper in the world, and I realise its truth when I think of that dreadful time—how I must have wearied and discouraged him, and how he never once reproached me for it, even by a glum look. He knew I could not help it. For one thing, I was ill—physically ill, with the doctor coming to see me. He ordered me tonics, stimulants, a complete change of scene, and so on, but no doctor's prescriptions were any good for my complaint. Winding a watch with a broken mainspring won't make it go. Tonics gave me headaches—tonics accompanied by constant tears and sleeplessness—and, hideous as the house was, with an empty place staring at me from every point to which I could turn my eyes, I knew it would be worse elsewhere. I clung to my own bed, my own privacy, my home where I could do as I liked and shut out the foolish would-be sympathisers and their futile condolences; and I could not bear to leave the other children. Once you have lost a child, you never again feel any confidence that the rest are safe; you seem toknowthey are going to die if they but catch a cold or scratch a finger, and that they will have no chance at all if you let them out of your sight. Besides, there were things to see to—the poultry, for instance, which was under my charge—if only I could have seen to them! I tried, but sorrow made me stupid; and when the incubator was found stone-cold, and again overheated, and on one occasion burnt to ashes with dozens of poor chicks inside, and when dozens more were drowned in a storm for want of timely shelter—all fine, thriving birds, when, you couldn't get a decent turkey in Melbourne for under a pound—I suppose it was my fault. But Tom always said, "Never mind—don't you worry yourself, Polly," and his first thought was to get me a glass of wine. He was like an old nurse in the way he cosseted and coddled me. When I was more ill than usual, he thought nothing of sitting up all night by my bedside, and making little messes for me in the kitchen with his own hands. He never even said, as I have heard men say at the first starting of tears—not after they have been flowing, like mine, for weeks and weeks—"Why don't you make an effort to control yourself? You know perfectly well that crying only makes you worse and does nobody any good"—as if a poor mother cried from choice and perversity and the pleasure of doing it, when her heart was broken! He knew my heart was broken. He understood. No one else understood. They all thought I could control myself if I liked. Some of them said so, and told one another, I am sure, though I did not hear them, that it was the calm and composed ones who felt the most. That is the theory of books and cold-hearted people; I don't believe in it for a moment. Whenever I see a woman bearing up, as they call it, without showing ravages in some way or other, I know what supports her—not more courage, but a harder nature than mine. A man is different. Tom mourned for our little son with all his heart, though he did not show it; and he did not show it because he is so unselfish. He thought of me before himself, and would not add a straw to my burden. Never was a tenderer husband in this world! I believe those women thought him foolish and weak-minded to indulge me as he did, but that was envy, naturally; they did not know, poor things, what it was to have such a staff to lean on.
However, one day, when I was showing him how thin I had grown, taking up handfuls of "slack" in a bodice that had been once tight for me, he began to look—not impatient or aggrieved, but determined—as he used to look on board ship when the law was in his own hands.
"Polly," he said, "this has gone on long enough. I'm not going to stand by and see you die by inches before my eyes. Something must be done. I shall take you to sea."
"To sea!" I exclaimed. "We can't leave the children. We can't leave the farm. We can't afford——"
"I don't care," he broke in. "I'm not going to lose you, if I can help it, for anybody or anything. You're just ready to fall into a rapid decline, or to catch some fatal epidemic or other, and I can't have it, Polly; it must be put a stop to before it is too late. The sea's the thing. The sea's what you want. Come to that, it's what I want myself; I've got quite flabby from being away from it so long. It would brace us up, both of us, and nothing else will. You pack a few clothes, pet, and I'll go into Melbourne and look up a nice boat. Don't you bother your head about the farm or the children or anything—I'll see that they're left all safe."
He was so firm about it that I had to give in. The sea, of course, was not like any other change of air and change of scene—it did seem to promise refreshment and renovation, peace even greater than that of my home, where I still suffered from the mistaken kindness of neighbours coming to expostulate with and to cheer me. Besides, when Tom said he had got flabby for want of it, I noticed that he was not looking well. There could be no doubt about the proposed trip being beneficial to him—I must have urged him to take it for his own health's sake—and I could not be left without him. So I mustered a little energy to begin preparations while he went to town; for though I had begged for time to think the matter over, he would not hear of delay. I never knew him so resolute, even with a crew.
At night he brought back a brighter face than had been seen in our house for many a long day. I was sitting up for him, and even I had stirrings in my heavy heart of a reviving interest in life. All day I had been thinking of our old voyage in the Racer—remembering the beautiful parts of it, forgetting all the rest.
"Well, Polly," said he; "did you wonder what was keeping me so late? The old man"—he meant the head of his old firm—"insisted on my dining with him, and I couldn't well refuse. Talked about everything as frank and free as if I'd been his brother—all the business of the old shop—and said they'd give a hundred pounds to have me back again. By Jove, if it wasn't for you and the children—no, no, I don't mean that; we're happiest as we are—or will be when you are well and heartened up a bit. What do you think, Polly? I'm to take the old Bendigo her next trip. Watson hasn't had a spell for years, and there's a new baby at his place; I saw Watson first—he put me up to it—but the old man was ready to do anything I liked to ask him. 'Certainly,' says he; 'by all means, and whenever you choose. And bring the missus, of course—only too proud to have her company on any ship she fancies.' You know he always thought a deal of you, Polly; I declare he was quite affectionate in his inquiries after you—never thought he could be so kind and jolly. I could have got free passages for both of us easy enough, but it's pleasanter to work for them; and I don't think, somehow, that I could feel at home in the old Bendigo anywhere but on the bridge."
"And I should not like to see you anywhere else," I said; "not if we paid full fares twice over. And how nice not to have to pay, when the farm is keeping us so short! How nice an arrangement altogether! I can be upstairs with you—the old man would wish me to do whatever I liked—and have more liberty than would be possible if another was in command, and so can you. It's a charming plan! And the Bendigo, too—our own old Bendigo! Oh, Tom, do you rememberthat night!"
It was some years since he had left the boat on board of which he had been introduced to his eldest son; but whenever we recalled the time that he was captain of her our first thoughts pictured the moonlit bridge and the baby; at any rate mine did. And in my terribly deepened sense of the significance of motherhood nothing could have suited me better than to go back to the dear place where my mother-life began, for it did not properly begin until Tom shared it with me. I would sooner have chosen the Bendigo to have a trip in—if I had the choice—than the finest yacht or liner going.
So we went to bed almost happy. And two days later, having been quite brisk in the interval, safeguarding our home and children as completely as it could be done, we walked down the familiar wharf, amongst the bales and cases, to where the steamer lay, feeling exhilarated by the thought of our coming holiday, as if old times were back again. It was on the verge of winter now and an exquisite afternoon. Even the filthy Yarra looked silky and shimmering in the mild sunlight, tinted rose and mauve by the city smoke; and the vile smells were kept down by the clean sharpness of the air, so that I did not notice them. We were to sail at five, but went on board early so that Tom could gather the reins into his hand and have all shipshape before passengers arrived.
How pleasant it was to see the way they welcomed him! Mr. Jones was first officer now (and had babies of his own), and some of the old faces were amongst the crew. The head steward was the same, and the head engineer, and the black cook who made pastry so well; and they all smiled from ear to ear at the sight of their old master, making it quite evident to me that they had found poor Watson, as they would have found any one else, an indifferent substitute for him. Above all, there was the "old man," as he was irreverently styled—the important chief owner—in person, down on purpose to receive me, with a bouquet for me in his hand. Dear, kind old man! He was something like Captain Saunders in his extreme admiration and respect for "pretty Mrs. Braye," as I was told they called me, and nothing could have been friendlier than his few words of sympathy for my trouble and his real anxiety to make me comfortable on board. One might have imagined I was an owner myself by the fuss they all made over me. It always gratified me—on Tom's account—that I was never put on a level with the other captains' wives.
I had the deck cabin again, and we went there for afternoon tea. The steward brought cakes and tarts and all sorts of unusual things, to do honour to the special occasion; and I put my flowers in water, wearing a few of them, and it was all very nice and cheerful. I felt better already, although we had not stirred from the wharf, and although a New Zealand boat close by us was turning in the stream, stirring up the dead cats and things with her propeller, and making a stench so powerful that it was like pepper to the nose.
Then, as five o'clock drew near, the "old man" went to look after business about the ship, and Tom to put on his uniform. How splendid he looked in it! Almost the only regret I had for his leaving the sea was that he could no longer wear the clothes which so well became him. Talk about the fascination of a red coat! I never could see anything in it. But a sailor in his peaked cap and brass buttons is the finest figure in the world.
I was just going to meet him and tell him how nice he looked, when one of the lady passengers who had been coming on board, and whom I had been manoeuvring to avoid, cut across my bows, so to speak, and rushed at him like a whirlwind. I really thought the woman was going to throw her arms round his neck.
"Oh, Captain Braye!" she exclaimed loudly, "how too, too charming to see you here again. Have you come back to the Bendigo for good? Oh, how I hope you have! Do you know, I was going to Sydney by the mail, and was actually on my way to the P.&O. office, when somebody told me you were taking Captain Watson's place. I said at once, 'Then no mail steamers for me, thank you. No other captain for me if I can get Captain Braye.' And so here I am. I managed to get packed up in a day and a half."
I could see that Tom looked quite confused. We had both hoped so much that the people would all be strangers who would leave us alone, and he guessed the annoyance I should feel at the threatened curtailment of our independence by this forward person. But there was no need for him to inveigle her out of earshot, and there stand and talk to her for ever so long, as if there were secrets between them not for me to overhear. I know what she wanted—I heard her ask for it—whether she could have the deck cabin as before! A very few seconds should have sufficed to answerthatquestion. She was a stylish person in her way, and her clothes were good, and the servants paid court to her; I asked one of them who she was, and he said the "lady" of a merchant of some standing in Melbourne—just the class of passenger we were most anxious to be without. When their confabulation was at an end Tom brought her to the bench where I was sitting and introduced her to me.
"My wife, Mrs. Harris—Mrs. Harris, dear—who has sailed with me before."
"Often," said Mrs. Harris, extending a bejewelled hand. "We are very old friends, the captain and I."
"Indeed?" I said, bowing. He had never mentioned her name to me. But, as he explained when I told him so, he couldn't be expected to remember the names of the thousands of strangers he carried in the course of the year. I reminded him that she considered herself not a stranger, but a friend; and he said, with a laugh, "Oh, they all do that."
I confess I did not take to Mrs. Harris. I should not have liked any one coming in our way as she did, when we wanted to be free and peaceful, but she was particularly repugnant to me. She gushed too much; she talked too familiarly of Tom—to me also, not discriminating between one captain's wife and another; and she accosted the servants and officers as they passed quite as if the ship belonged to her. However, I stood it as long as she chose to sit there, making herself pleasant, as she doubtless supposed. As soon as it occurred to her to go and look at her cabin I seized my hood and cloak, and went to seek sanctuary on the bridge with Tom. It was nearly six o'clock, and he was just casting off.
"Oh, Polly," he said, turning to me with a slightly worried air, "you wouldn't mind staying on deck till we get down the river a bit, would you, pet? It don't look professional, you know, for ladies to show up here. And Mrs. Harris might——"
I interrupted him in what he was going to say, because anything to do with Mrs. Harris had nothing whatever to do with the case.
"Passengers," said I, "are one thing—the captain's wife is another—quiteanother—and especially when the old man has asked me, as a sort of favour to himself, to make myself at home, as he calls it. Is he on the wharf, by the way? I should like to wave a hand to him. It would please him awfully. Thank Heaven, we are not subject to Mrs. Harris, nor to anybody else, on board this, ship. That's the beauty of it."
"I feel in a sense subject to Watson," said Tom, "and he's a punctilious sort of chap. I don't care to seem to make too free with his command—for it's his, not mine. And there are heaps of people about besides the old man. You really would oblige me very much, Polly——"
"Oh, of course, dear!"
I saw his point of view, and at once effaced myself. I went into the little bridge house, just behind the wheel—he was satisfied with that—where I could see him close to me through the bow window, and speak to him when I chose. He lit the candle lamp at the head of the bunk, so that I could lie there and read; but I did not want to read. I preferred to stand by the window, which held all there was of table—the top of drawers and lockers—on which I spread my arms, propping my face in hollowed palms, and to look out upon the river with the sunset upon it, and the fading daylight, and the starry lights ashore. To call that city-skirting stream romantic is to provoke the derision of those who know it best, but itwasromantic that night—to me. Anything can be romantic under certain circumstances, in certain states of atmosphere and mind.
We were alone together. The dinner-bell rang downstairs, but Tom never left the bridge till he was out of the river, and I did not need to ask him to let me share his meal. The steward brought us up a tray, and we stood in the warm little cabin—the table was not made to sit at—and ate roast chicken and apple pie, like travellers at a railway buffet, Tom stepping out and back between hasty mouthfuls to see that all was right. He was intensely business-like, and as happy as a boy at his old work. We both had the young feeling that comes to holiday-makers who don't have a holiday very often. I could not help it.
Then—when we steamed out between the river lights into the bay—how we sniffed the first breath of the salt sea! And what memories it brought to us!—to me, at least, who had been so long away from it. The passengers were at dinner still, and it was falling dark, and there were no spectators save the man at the wheel, who was nothing but a voice, an echo of the quiet word of command, most pleasant to hear; I was free to roam the bridge from end to end, hanging to my husband's supporting arm—to bathe myself in air that was literally new life to both of us. Cold and clean and briny to the lips—oh, what is there to equal it in the way of medicine for soul and body? What sort of insensate creatures can they be who do not love the sea?
Hobson's Bay was ruffled with a south wind—belted round with twinkling lights that grew thicker and brighter every moment, a gleaming ring of stars set in the otherwise invisible shores, in a dusk as soft as velvet. Somewhere amongst them, doubtless, was the lighted window that had once been mine, where I used to stand half a dozen lamps and candles in a bunch, to show Tom that I was watching for him when he used to pass out after nightfall. Our eyes turned in that direction simultaneously.
"When we are old folks, Polly," said he, with an arm round my shoulder, "when the kids are all grown up and out in the world, and you and I settle down alone again, as we did at the beginning, I should like us to have a little place somewhere where we could see blue water and the ships going by."
"Yes," I said at once, feeling exactly as he did—that though the farm and our country home were well enough under present circumstances, they would not be our choice when we had only ourselves to think of—that the sea was the sea, in short, and had reclaimed our allegiance—"yes, that is what we will do. We will end our married life where we began it—with this beautiful sound in our ears!"
We had turned the breakwater at Williamstown, and were meeting the wind and tide of the outer bay, which was a little ocean this fresh night. The sharp bows of the Bendigo, and her threshing screw astern, made that noise of racing waves and running foam which was thrilling me like music and champagne together, so that I had no words to describe the sensation. My hair was blown hard back from my forehead and out of the control of hairpins; my face felt as if smacked by an open hand, and I had to screw up my eyes and pinch my lips together to stand the blow; I felt the keen blast pierce to my skin through all the invalid wrappings that I was swathed in—and it was lovely! Tom thought I should catch cold, but I knew better, though I was glad to be tied into his 'possum rug, with an oilskin overall to take the flying spray; and I insisted on staying out with him till nearly midnight—till we had passed the furious Rip and were battling with the real swell of the real ocean, which tossed the steamer like a cork without making me seasick. It was squally and galey and dark as a wolf's mouth—neither moon nor stars—only the lighthouse lights which were all we needed, and the white streaks in the black sea which were the long rollers coming to meet us. And I felt as safe as—there is nothing that can give a notion of how safe I felt. My husband took care of me as he used to do on the Racer, only fifty thousand times more carefully, because he was my husband. Ah, how sweet it was! With all our sorrows, how happy we were! And might have remained so if we had not been interfered with.
But that wretched woman spoiled it all. I had forgotten her altogether during the evening, when dinner and darkness and the rough weather kept her from us; I forgot her in the night, which I spent in my deck cabin so as to leave Tom his bunk on the bridge for such snatches of sleep as he had a mind for; the deck as well as the cabin was my own—his and mine, for he still came down at intervals to look at me through the open door and assure himself that I was all right—and the common herd were under it. But when I emerged in the morning, just as the breakfast-bell was ringing, the first thing I saw was Mrs. Harris coming down the stairs which had "no admittance" plainly affixed to them, and Tom in attendance on her as if she were the Queen. She descended backwards, feeling each step with her glittering pointed shoe, slower than any tortoise, and he guided her with one hand and held her skirts down with the other, out of the wind. It was a windy morning, but sunshiny and beautiful, and I had intended to enjoy my first meal in the air and in privacy with my husband, as I had done the last.
I suppose I looked my surprise, for they both seemed to colour up when they perceived me standing and watching them. In one breath they bade me a loud good morning, and made unnecessary announcements about the weather.
"You have been on the bridge?" I questioned, with my eyes fixed on the brass plate which proclaimed the bridge sacred.
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Harris gaily. "It's the nicest place I know to be on, especially at this time of day. Many an early visit have I paid the captain up there, haven't I, Captain?"
I lifted eyebrows at Tom, but he would not look.
"Got an appetite for breakfast, Polly?" he shouted, taking my arm. "Come along, and let's see if you don't do your doctor credit."
"I am not going to the saloon," I returned quietly, disengaging myself; "I am going to have my breakfast on the bridge with you."
"But I'm not going to breakfast there. I'm off duty, and we may as well be comfortable when we can."
Then he congratulated us both on being such good sailors as to be able to go to breakfast the first morning, and, not to make a fuss, I let him take me down into the saloon, and seat me at the public table by his side,vis-à-viswith Mrs. Harris. He spoke to other passengers, shaking hands with some, and introducing me to one or two. A rather nice man talked to me throughout the meal, while Mrs. Harris monopolised Tom entirely.
This was not what I had come to sea for, and so, as soon as I had finished, I slipped away, ran up to the bridge, got out a little chair, and prepared for a quiet morning with my husband, where no one had the right to disturb us. In fact, I was fully resolved to defend that bridge, if need were, against unauthorized intruders. Mrs. Harris might have done what she liked with it and him in those old times that she was for ever flinging in my face. She would not do it now.
Scarcely had I opened my workbag and threaded my needle when up she came as bold as brass, with a yellow-back under her arm. It was too much. I felt that, if I were to make any stand at all, it must be now or never, or I should be altogether trodden under foot. So I looked at her with an air of calm inquiry, and said, "Oh! Mrs. Harris—do you want anything?"
"No, thanks," she replied in an off-hand tone. "The steward is bringing up my chair."
"Bringing itup?—here?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"Only that—perhaps you don't know—nobody is allowed on the bridge. The notice is stuck up against the stairs."
"Then why are you here?" she retorted, bristling.
"I am the captain's wife."
"I presume the captain's wife is as much a passenger as the rest of us," she argued, with an offensive laugh. "I presume the captain can do what he likes with his own bridge, at any rate. Ifhegives one the freedom of the city, one certainly has it, beyond question; and I have always been accustomed to sit here when travelling with him. Thank you, steward—in this corner, please."
She took possession of her chair.
"If one person has the freedom of the city," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, "all should have it. He has no business to make distinctions where all are equal."
"All are not equal," she cried, reddening. And I remembered that she was a considerable person in her own eyes. But I said firmly, "Pardon me. All who pay the same fares are on the same footing—or should be. And there is not room here for everybody."
"The captain," said she, "can entertain his friends as he chooses, and I am one of his oldest friends, besides being related to his owners. And as for his having no business to do this or that—oh, my dear Mrs. Braye, do allow the poor man to know his own business best—I assure you he knows it perfectly, nobody better—and let him be master, at any rate, on his ship, whatever he may be in his home."