In a poor-looking room of a small wayside public-house, about twenty miles out of Adelaide, were seated one evening, shortly after Brandon's departure up the Murray, a man and a woman, neither of them young or handsome or respectable-looking. If they had been so once they had outgrown them all. The woman certainly had what is called the remains of a fine woman about her, but her face had so many marks of care, of evil passions, and of irregular living, that it was perhaps more repulsive than if it had been absolutely plain in features; her dress was slatternly and ill-fitting, her gray hair untidily gathered under a dingy black cap, with bright, though soiled yellow flowers stuck in it; her eyes, which had still some brightness, had a fierce, hungry expression; and the very hands, thin and long, and with overgrown nails, had less the appearance of honest work than of dishonest rapacity. The man was a rougher-looking person, more blackguardly, perhaps, in appearance, but not so dangerous. He had been at the nearest post-office, and brought a letter addressed to Mrs. Peck, which the woman tore open and read with impatient eagerness.
"This is from Mr. Talbot at last," said the man. "Long looked for—come at last. I hopes as how it is worth waiting for."
"Worth waiting for!" said she, stamping on the letter with her foot, and standing up, with such a look of frenzy that her companion moved a little out of the way. "Hang him, and his clients too!"
"Won't this man come down with the ready, Liz? Does he send to make inquiries? A cool hand—cooler than the old man. Won't out with the blunt till he knows what he's paying for."
"It's not about him at all," said Mrs. Peck. "Not a word has he ever said, good or bad—taken no notice of my letters, no more nor if I had not been such a mother to him. I should have had an answer to my second letter by this time, and I know it was directed all right; he must have got them both. I'll have it out of him, though. I'll have my revenge, as sure as I am a living woman."
"Don't go into such a scot, woman. Then, if it is not from young Cross Hall, what has that lawyer said to put you into such a tantrum?"
"Oh! just a request to keep on this side of the border, or he'll not warrant my getting a farthing out of Phillips. He offers three pound a quarter more if I don't show my face in Melbourne! Such a beggarly sum it is after all! To think that I should only have two children, and them turning out such ungrateful cubs to me!"
"Two children, Liz?" said the man with a sneer. "Well, if I was Phillips I'd like to keep you at a civil distance just at present, for you look as like to brain him as not."
"There's the both of them rolling in wealth. Frank got all Cross Hall's property, and all through me; and Betsy, with her London establishment and her carriage, no doubt, and her children dressed like duchesses, and herself, too—and look at me!"
"Well, just look at you, Liz. I fancy that the sight of you would do them no credit. You're well enough off with Phillips. I think this is a very handsome offer. Though we're both sick of Adelaide, we can stop here a bit longer—at least, till we can see our way clear to get out of it."
"Do you think I don't care for my liberty? and I hate the Adelaide side. It was all your doings coming across here at all, and a precious mull you've made of it. I fancy they must be thinking of coming back to Melbourne, from this notice to me to keep out of the way. And do you think I don't want to see my own daughter? Did not I put her in the way of all her good fortune? Did not I dress her the day she first saw Phillips, and did not she look like a angel?"
"And he was spoon enough to marry her, which was more than either you or me expected. As for the girl, she was glad enough to go away from you; you never cared so much for her."
"Did I not, when I saw she was growing up so handsome and a credit to me?"
"Yes, yes; we both wanted to make our own of her, and I think we did not do amiss, considering," said Peck. "We've had bad luck in Adelaide, but things may change—money goes farther here."
"Money never goes far with us," said Mrs. Peck, "and Melbourne is the place where we can get on best. If I had Frank's money, which I must and shall get out of him somehow, we could manage to rub along here, but without it we never could. The black-hearted scoundrel, not to send me a farthing—me who could——"
"You had better threaten him with what you can do in your next letter. I always thought that style of working the oracle would pay best; but perhaps the motherly affectionate dodge was the best to try first. Threaten him in your next."
"I don't think I'll condescend to threaten him; I don't care to save him from what he deserves for his shameful ingratitude to me. I could make better terms with Cross Hall's nieces than I could do with Frank. Surely they would give me more for my secret than he would do to keep me quiet. They were left beggars, I know, and the estate is worth a great deal to them."
"Hang it, Mrs. Peck, that is a glorious idea, but don't be too hurried in your movements. You don't care about your own share in the business being known?" said Peck.
"I care for nothing if I could only get my revenge on him, and if I could only get as much out of the Melville girls as would allow me to snap my fingers at Phillips. I would rather relish publishing my connection with him. I would like to bring down Betsy a peg."
"There's where you always make a mull of it, Liz. Your infernal temper always gets the better of you. Revenge and spite are very good things in their way, but I don't see that they pay. I think you would be very mad to give up so much a year for the pleasure of vexing Phillips and Betsy; and as for the Melville girls, how are you to get at them? There is not shot in the locker to take you to England, and letters are very risky things to write. You're sure to let out more than is safe, and if you let out too little the girls will see no advantage in it."
"I hate letters," said Mrs. Peck, moodily; "but I would like to get at the girls by word of mouth."
As this interesting pair were engaged in conversation, a traveller of a very different description alighted at the door of the inn, and requested lodgings for the night. He was well-dressed and respectable-looking; he was probably as old as either of them, but his face and air gave tokens of a quieter life and a calmer temper. His horse was knocked up, so that he could not go on to a larger and better-appointed inn than this, which was five miles nearer town; but when he saw the name over the door and the host and hostess, he was reconciled to the inferior accommodation. But he rather objected to the company that he found in the inn parlour, and did not seem pleased with the proposal that he should take supper with them.
"Oh, Mr. Dempster," said the host, "I fancy you have got nice since you were in England. These people are decent enough, I reckon, though rather down in their luck, like some others of us. I wish I had such a house to receive you in as that I built on the—Road. I had plenty rooms there; but you see it was not licensed, and I was ruined—at least brought down to this."
"Well, Frankland, I suppose I must submit," said Mr. Dempster, "as you say you have no other place for me; but I never would have thought these were particularly decent people."
Whether from spiritual influences or not, Mr. Dempster felt a great repugnance to this man and woman. The influence might have been partly spirituous, for there was a considerable fragrance of strong liquor about them both.
In spite of the unpromising appearance of the house, the hostess produced a very tempting-looking supper for hungry people. She sat down herself to make tea for the company, and was delighted to see Mr. Dempster, and to have a little talk with him about old colonists and old times. She was a very old colonist herself, and had known many ups and downs, generally in the same line of life.
Active, civil, and much-enduring, she was an admirable hostess, but her husband was rather idle and speculative, and had invested the savings of many years in the erection of a large hotel in a place where, in the opinion of the Bench of Magistrates, it was not wanted, and the licence was refused, so they had come down in the world in consequence, and had taken this small inn, where they could just make ends meet. Mrs. Frankland missed the old customers who used to call, and felt this visit from Mr. Dempster something like a revival of old days, and asked him as to the changes he saw in Adelaide; and as Mr. and Mrs. Peck were Melbourne people, who did not know anything about the old colonists, Mr. Dempster spoke to her with freedom.
"You have been visiting your married daughter, I suppose," said Mrs. Frankland.
"Yes, that is the first thing I had to do on my return."
"A fine family she is getting about her, I hear; but I have not seen her for awhile. This house is not good enough for her to stay a night in."
"Yes, she has a very fine family—another little fellow since I left Adelaide."
"You must feel it lonesome now," said the hostess.
"Yes: it is the way of the world, and one should not murmur at it; but yet a man must feel it very much when his only daughter, and one so much his companion as my girl was, chooses a home for herself, and surrounds herself with new ties and new cares."
"You should see and get some one to take care of you," said Mrs. Frankland, cheerily;—"a pleasant, kindly body—not too young. You must have met many such in England, who would have been glad of the chance."
"Yes, and who would have grumbled at the colony whenever she came out, and given me no peace till I took her home again. Now my business and my interests are all in South Australia. Besides, I like the young women best, and they would never look at an old fogie like me; so I must content myself with my memories of the past and my hopes for a future life. My home is not so lonely as you fancy it, Mrs. Frankland. Even here I feel the departed ones are near me. The veil that separates this world from the next is a very thin one; and if our intercourse with each other is less complete than in the days when we were together in the flesh, it is none the less real. I have become a spiritualist since I went to England."
"A what?" asked the hostess.
"You must have heard of table-turning, and all those strange manifestations?"
"La! Mr. Dempster, I never thought of YOU giving in to a pack of nonsense like that. I beg your pardon for my rudeness, but really you DO surprise me."
"What would you think of spirits who can read unseen letters—tell the names of persons whom none of the company knew—find out the secrets of every one in the room? You recollect Tom Bean, who was lost in the bush twelve years ago, and more; his spirit appeared to me in London, and gave me a message to his old mother, to say he was expecting her soon; and the old lady did not live three months after."
"Well, that is strange, but I would be very hard to convince. But yet, Mr. Dempster, that is no reason why you should not get a nice tidy body to make you comfortable. The spirits would not surely begrudge you that. And so you had a pleasant voyage, and went round by Melbourne so as to see all that was to be seen. Did any of the old colonists come out with you?"
"We had a large party altogether—Mr. and his family, who had just been home to finish their education."
"And you admired the young ladies, of course, but really they are too young for you. Have they grown up handsome?"
"Not particularly handsome, but very pleasant-looking; but if you talk of beauty, it was a Melbourne lady who bore off the palm on board ship. Unfortunately, she was married, and it would have been very improper to take a fancy to her, but Mrs. Phillips is superb."
"Mrs. Phillips of Wiriwilta?" said Mrs. Peck, eagerly.
"Yes, I fancy that is the name of the place; at least the children used to talk about it by that name. Mr. Phillips is a sheep-farmer on the Victoria side," said Mr. Dempster.
"And you say she is handsome?" said Mrs. Peck.
"Perfectly beautiful!—but uneducated, and somewhat capricious. I fancy her face must have captivated her husband, who is a very intelligent, agreeable man."
"I suppose they are rich now?" said Mrs. Peck.
"Oh! very well to do, I fancy. I visited them a good deal when I was in London."
"How many children have they?" asked Mrs. Peck. "I knew them long ago."
"They lost one with scarlet fever before they sailed. There were four on board ship; but there are five by this time, for Mrs. Phillips stayed in Melbourne for her confinement, and had a little boy within a week of landing."
"Is her husband with her?" asked Mrs. Peck, eagerly.
"Oh, no! I think Phillips went up to his stations; he had a number of things to see to. What do you know about them?" asked Mr. Dempster, rather surprised at Mrs. Peck's curiosity.
"I was once in their employment at Wiriwilta, and Mrs. Phillips was uncommonly good-looking then. There was not so much style in those days as I suppose there is now."
"Probably not; we have all had to work hard for what we have earned in these colonies and Phillips must have made his way like the rest of us. They had a very pretty little establishment in London."
"Kep' their carriage, no doubt," said Mrs. Peck, with a thinly-disguised sneer.
"No, they did not; but if it's any satisfaction to you to know it, Mrs. Phillips has had a tour on the Continent, and has had a lady's-maid."
"A lady's-maid," said Mrs. Peck; "well! well! and the children, I suppose, are being educated up to the nines?"
"They took both the governess and the lady's-maid with them to Melbourne," said Mr. Dempster. "They were sisters, and very superior young ladies. In fact, to my taste, Mrs. Frankland, the lady's-maid was more charming than the mistress; not so regularly handsome—but very lovely—while as to intelligence and refinement there was no comparison. If she had been a dozen of years older I might have been a little presumptuous."
"Was this Mrs. Phillips so very far behind as that her maid was so superior to her?" asked Mrs. Frankland.
"It happened that these sisters were the young ladies of whom, even in these distant parts, you may have heard something; who were brought up to inherit a large property in the south of Scotland, by a very eccentric uncle, who left everything he had to a son whom nobody had ever heard of before, and left the girls absolutely penniless."
"Was not their name Melville?" asked Mrs. Peck, eagerly and fiercely.
"Yes," replied Mr. Dempster, astonished to find his chatty communications to his old friend, Mrs. Frankland, taken up in this way by this unprepossessing-looking stranger. "Yes, their name was Melville, and I never in my life met with more amiable, more intelligent, or better-principled girls."
"I saw about it in the papers," said Mrs. Peck, endeavouring to subdue her delight and exultation at the idea of the girls she wished so much to come in contact with being so near her as Melbourne. "I took a great interest in it. I like these romances of real life. And so, Mrs. Phillips is up, and these girls are down, and glad to eat the bitter bread of service. It is very amusing. Was Mrs. Phillips much taken up with them on account of their misfortunes?"
"I do not know," said Mr. Dempster, drily. "If you have served Mrs. Phillips you will know that she is not the same at all times."
"Then there was a large party of them on board; a servant, no doubt, and these two Melville girls, and the children?" said Mrs. Peck.
"There was also a sister of Mr. Phillips's—rather a fine woman, too—come out on a visit."
"And a fine lady, too, I dare say," said Mrs. Peck. "Mr. Phillips holds his head pretty high. I warrant his sister and Mrs. Phillips would have some sparring. And the children are good-looking, I suppose? I saw none of them since the first was a baby. What are they like?"
"They are very pretty children, and getting on well with their studies. The eldest Miss Melville is the most thoroughly cultivated woman I ever saw."
"Oh, leave Cross Hall alone for that," said Mrs. Peck. "He was always crazy about education, and that sort of thing."
"Cross Hall!" said Mr. Dempster. "I suppose you will say next that you know Francis Hogarth, of Cross Hall, member of Parliament for the Swinton burghs?"
"Member of Parliament, too!" said Mrs. Peck, with the same subdued fierceness as when she first took Mr. Dempster up about the Melvilles. "Member of Parliament! Ungrateful dog!" she said, under her breath; but her expression of vindictiveness was not altogether lost on Mr. Dempster. "Oh yes! I know him; or at least I know all about him. Nobody did know anything of him till he came into the property, you know; but I really know more about him than most folks. There are some people that would give their ears to know what I do; but there is a saying in the north, where I was born, 'Least said is soonest mended;' at any rate, least said to them as it don't concern."
"If I had you at a seance", said Mr. Dempster, "I could get all your secrets out of you, whether you liked it or not. Yes, Mrs. Frankland, I really could."
"I don't think it can be right," said the timid hostess, who, though she was very fond of hearing the news, preferred to get them from living persons and not disembodied spirits. "Mrs. Peck, you are taking nothing."
"I got bad news just before tea, and that took away my appetite; but I have got over that now, so I'll trouble you for a mutton chop, Mr. Dempster, and Peck, just pass me the pickles, and be good enough to give me a hot cup of tea, Mrs. Frankland, for this one is as cold as a stone;" so Mrs. Peck felt inclined to make up for lost time, and made a very hearty supper. She wound up with two glasses of brandy-and-water hot, and she got Peck out of the way, for she wished to have a quiet talk with Mr. Dempster.
Mr. Dempster was not disposed to encourage her confidence; her strange inquiries about people he had been greatly interested in, recalled the seance which had so much startled Francis Hogarth, and he suspected that this must be the person who had written the letter the spirit had been questioned about, and, consequently, that she was Hogarth's mother; no mother, certainly, to be proud of! The spirit said that her son ought to have nothing whatever to do with her, and Mr. Dempster was disposed to obey all spiritual communications. Besides this, all his instincts were strong against any intercourse with a woman so disreputable-looking, with an expression of countenance alternately fierce and fawning.
Now the fawning manner was put on. Mrs. Peck had an object in view—she wanted money to take her to Melbourne, and to take her immediately, and this easy-going, benevolent-looking Adelaide gentleman seemed to be the most likely victim she could meet with.
She had long wished to see her daughter apart from her husband, and there never had been such a chance since she was married; and to get hold of one or both of the Melville girls at the same time was a conjunction of circumstances absolutely and marvellously favourable. Her last remittance from Mr. Phillips had been received a month before, and was spent as soon as it was got. Peck, with whose fortunes she had for many years connected herself, had not been lucky of late. He had come to Adelaide at race time, and had not got on well with his bets. He had done a little in gambling, but had got into a sort of row at a low public-house, and been taken up and fined for being drunk and disorderly, and dismissed with a caution; so he had gone up to the sheep-shearing, and then had worked a little at the hay-harvest, and again at the wheat-harvest. He could work pretty hard at such times, and make good wages; but he had no turn for steady, regular work, and neither had she. If she had been in Melbourne, she could have borrowed the ten or twelve pounds needed for her passage-money, and a decent-looking outfit from people who knew her there, and guessed that she had some hidden means, either from friends or foes; but in Adelaide she was unknown except from her connection with Peck, which did not inspire confidence.
This Adelaide gentleman had just come from London, and could know nothing about her, so she was determined to use her plausible tongue, and get the money out of him.
As Mr. Phillips said, she was possessed with the spirit of falsehood. She always had a disinclination to speak the truth, unless when it was very decidedly for her own interest to do so, or when she was enraged out of all prudence. So now, when she wanted to get an advance from Mr. Dempster, she forgot the agitation and the eagerness which she had shown about the Phillipses, the Melvilles, and the Hogarths, and opened up a quite new mine of anxieties and fears. Her secret, such as it was, should not be told to any one but the parties to whom it was valuable, and who would pay her handsomely for it, so she must now prevent this friend of the family from even guessing at what her schemes were.
As Mrs. Peck sipped her brandy-and-water, putting a constraint on herself in so doing—for her natural taste would have led her to swallow it in large gulps, but that would not have answered her purpose of impressing Mr. Dempster—she began to talk of the letter she had received from Melbourne, which had distressed her so much. Her daughter was ill and dying, and her son-in-law had written to her to beg that if she possibly could she would come across to see poor dear Mary before she was no more; but, poor fellow, he was always hard up—a decent well-meaning fellow he was—but he wanted push, and things had never gone rightly with him.
"They have never had the doctor out of the house since they have been married, and many births and many deaths keep a man always poor, Mr. Dempster, as well you must know; and it's many's the five-pound note as I've given to them out of my small means to help them through at a hard pinch, and he thinks, of course, as how I can just put my hand in my pocket and pay my passage in the first steamer as quick as he thinks for to ask me; and so I would, and would never have begrudged it, for my poor Mary's sake, but things has gone so contrary with me and Peck for this year back that I ain't got a penny to lay out. And there's the poor soul laying so bad, and thinking as I'm on the road, I dare say, and me can no more get to her without wings nor she can to get me."
"What is your son-in-law by trade?" asked Mr. Dempster.
"Why, he ain't got no trade to speak of, but he's warehouseman to Campbell and Co., in Melbourne, the merchants, you know," said Mrs. Peck.
"Then he must have a good situation and regular payment—he ought not to be so badly off," said Mr. Dempster.
"There's such expenses with a family in Melbourne, where there's much sickness especially. A very decent, good-tempered fellow he is, and don't spend his wages away from his home. Poor Mary! I well remember the day she was married, and how pretty she looked in her white gown, and how she says to me, 'Oh, my mother! I can't abear to leave you, even for James,' and now she is agoing to leave all of us. And when little Betsy was born, and I was a nursing of her, she looked up and says she, 'Oh, mother! I don't think as I'm long for this world;' but I roused her, and said she wasn't a-dying then, and my words was true, for she was not going then; but now to think my being so far from her and her so bad."
Then Mrs. Peck wiped her eyes energetically and sobbed a little. Mr. Dempster seemed to be soft-hearted and simple-minded. She thought she had made an impression, and she endeavoured to deepen it.
"I am a very old colonist. I have been in Australia this thirty year and more, travelling about from place to place. When you and Mrs. Frankland were talking about changes and ups and downs, I thought on a many as I have seen in the other colonies. There's them as I remember without a sixpence as is now rolling in gold. I don't know the Adelaide gentry so well, but I reckon they chop and change just like the others. It is very unlucky for me to be here just at this present time, for I know of a many in Sydney that I might have applied to for a little loan, and they'd have been glad to give me assistance; but, unfortunately, I am on the Adelaide side, where nobody knows me. There's the Hunters, of Sydney, that I was nurse in the family."
"And the Phillipses, of Wiriwilta, too, who I dare say, would be most happy to help you if you were straitened on the Melbourne side," said Mr. Dempster, drily. "Mr. Phillips is a more liberal man than Mr. Hunter."
"It is not Mr. Hunter I'd look to, but his wife; she has the generous spirit," said Mrs. Peck.
"The Hunters are at present in London—at least, Mr. Hunter and the family are. Mrs. Hunter died four years ago," said Mr. Dempster.
"That's a pity. Oh, dear, dear! I am sorry to hear that news. Poor, dear lady; but in the midst of life we are in death," said Mrs. Peck.
"No doubt we are," said Mr. Dempster. "No one knows that better than I do, for I am always living amongst the dead, and they occasionally help me to judge of people. I get a good deal of insight into character through their means; and my impression is, that there is not a word of truth in all you have just been telling me. You want to go to Melbourne, no doubt, but it is not to see a dying daughter. You have other plans in view which cannot be carried out here."
Mrs. Peck was somewhat taken aback by this blunt expression of opinion coming from a man apparently so suave and gentle.
"Indeed, sir," said she, "I never heard nobody doubt my word afore; but this comes of leaving the place where you are known. It is to see my daughter that I am most wishful to go to Melbourne. No doubt I might have other reasons, for I don't like Adelaide; but it's this letter and this bad news that has made me so set on going. But I was asking no favour of you. If I did want a loan of a trifle, I'd have paid back every farthing of it with good interest. But I think I had better draw on a friend of mine in Melbourne. I suppose that if I did that, I could get the draft cashed at any of the banks?"
"You could get it cashed anywhere, provided you showed your authority to draw, and convinced the person to whom you applied that your friend was good for the money. Under these conditions I should not mind advancing it for you myself."
"But you'd be rather hard to convince, I fancy," said Mrs. Peck. "After the unhandsome way you have doubted my true story, I would not like to apply to you. But any advance that any one would make to me would be as safe as the bank. I have an annuity, and have had it for many years."
"No," said Mr. Dempster, "you have no annuity; you got a sum of money instead."
Mrs. Peck started at this confident assertion, and coloured indignantly. "How can you speak so positive about things you can know nothing about? I have an annuity from another quarter."
"For valuable services, I suppose," said Mr. Dempster. "Well, if you can prove that you are still in receipt of an annuity, and if you can lodge an order to forestall it, I dare say you can get an advance from any Adelaide bill discounter; but I myself would rather not do business with a person who I feel is not to be relied on."
To put an end to the revelations, true or false, of this unpleasant old woman, Mr. Dempster asked to be shown to bed, as he was tired; and he found his room, though small, was as clean and comfortable as Mrs. Frankland had been used to give to him in her more prosperous days.
Mrs. Peck's first attempt had failed, though it had appeared very promising. She thought she would next try Frankland, who, though he was poor, might be victimized to the extent of ten pounds. She did not think she could affect him by dwelling much on the desire she felt to see her dying daughter, though for the sake of consistency it was mentioned as her motive to get to Melbourne just at this time; but she had several sums of money due to her in Melbourne, and she was afraid, from the letter she had just received, that she would lose them if she kept out of the way; there was nothing like being on the spot—nothing like prompt measures when one wants to get in money. Mr. Talbot's letter was sufficient warrant for her to raise money on Mr. Phillips's annuity, but not for the purpose of going to Melbourne, which she had unluckily betrayed. It was also rather disagreeable in its tone, and not likely to inspire confidence in any one who read it. So she had only her own representations to trust to, and she certainly gave a very minute, and at the same time glowing account of her debtors and her expectations from them; but what with one thing and another she had really never been so hard up in her life. Peck had not got all his wages for harvesting, and she had been so foolish as to lend a little money in Adelaide, which she feared she could not get back. Indeed, they had a score at the inn that had lain too long; but if she could only get her own she could pay all and be quite easy. She spoke of a rate of interest for a trifling advance that rather dazzled Frankland, and he was wondering if he could not manage to raise it, when his wife came into the room, and stopped their talk by saying it was bed-time. When she was told of Mrs. Peck's wishes and her offers, Mrs. Frankland peremptorily refused to listen to them, saying they had no money to advance to any one. Frankland had brought them down low enough in the world by being so free in lending and in spending. If she had not taken care of the business, and worked early and late, and looked after the money so far as she had it in her power, they would not have had a roof over their heads by this time. What with the licence that had just been paid, and the rent that must be paid before the end of the month, they would be cleared out, without advancing money to strangers that were in their debt already. As Mrs. Frankland was really the bread-winner, and at their present low water the purse-keeper also, Mrs. Peck saw it was of no use to press her offers on her husband in the face of such formidable opposition.
On the following day she started early in the mail conveyance for Adelaide, leaving Peck behind as a pledge for the settlement of the bill, and determined to raise ten or twelve pounds somehow.
With Mr. Talbot's letter in her hand she presented herself to a bill-discounter in Adelaide. He understood her position at once; that she was somehow connected with, but very obnoxious to a wealthy client of Mr. Talbot's, for Mr. Phillips's name was not mentioned in the letter; and also that, like most people of her class and habits, she had spent her money before she got it. Of course she said nothing of wanting to go to Melbourne, in which case, by the body of the letter, it would be almost certain that her annuity would cease, but the discounter wanted some security against such a contingency, and asked her if she meant to stay in South Australia, according to agreement. Mrs. Peck was willing to say anything, to swear anything, and to sign anything, for his satisfaction on this point, but her very fluency made him suspicious.
"I cannot advance this money," said he, "even on the deposit of your order to arrest what is coming to you, unless I have some collateral security, or some other name, in case of your going to Victoria."
Mrs. Peck could get no one to corroborate her statements but Peck, who could be of no service to her. She felt rather in a fix.
"What should take me to Melbourne?" said she, in accents of great surprise. "It is so much against my interest to go there, that I would never be such a fool as to quarrel with my bread and butter; but it so happens I am much in need of money just at the present. I am expecting money from Scotland every mail. Indeed, it was trusting to that as put me so back this quarter. I never doubted that I'd get a handsome sum from Scotland; I've got the rights to it, and if it don't come by next mail, I will prosecute. You are sure to get your money well paid, with good interest, if you do run just a little risk."
"That may be all very well," said the bill discounter; "but, in the meantime, can you not get any one to back you in this? I like good interest, but I cannot lend without better security."
"There's the best of security. Mr. Talbot's next payment is due in two months, and I make it over to you; and if that does not satisfy you, I would give you something more next pay day, as much as would cover your risk and your trouble, and your interest, handsome enough."
"Not at all handsome, if I chance to lose it all. One needs to keep one's weather eye open, in dealing with old hands like you, Mrs. Peck."
"Then you won't do this for me—such a trifling accommodation as it is?"
"Not without some one to back you," said the money-lender.
"I daresay I can easily find that, if you are so stiff," said Mrs. Peck, as she flounced off in great indignation, and with very little hope of succeeding in what was required.
Here was she in possession of a secret worth so much to her, and unable to turn it to account for want of a beggarly ten or twelve pounds. The bill discounter was too sharp for her; she must try a good-natured man next, one who would be willing to do her a kindness—but here again, Mr. Talbot's letter, her only authority to give any security, would injure her more than with the keen man of the world. There was a steamer to sail on the morrow for Melbourne, and no other for a week or ten days; every day was of the greatest consequence, for now that she had made up her mind not to make terms with Francis, but to do so with his cousins, she was eager to carry her resolution into practice, and she must get on board the Havilah, if possible.
She had lived some weeks in Adelaide in rather a poor way, and in rather a poor neighbourhood, when she and Peck had come first across. She had made acquaintance with a very few people, and had left Adelaide slightly in debt, but in her eagerness she was inclined to overlook those circumstances, and to hope that some one or other of her late neighbours might be prevailed on to be a guarantee to the money-lender merely as a matter of form, and he might be induced to accept of it; so she turned her steps in the direction of her old residence.
She looked into the shop where she had been accustomed to make her purchases of groceries, with an intention of paying the eleven shillings which she owed if things looked promising, and if it would be a good speculation.
"Well Mrs. Smith, and how are you?" said she to the woman who kept the establishment with the favourite old Adelaide sign of "General Store."
"Much as usual, Mrs. Peck. You went away rather in a hurry," said Mrs. Smith.
"Oh! Peck had to go off to the sheep-shearing, and I had the offer of a good nursing in the country, so I had to move at a minute's warning, you see. But how are you getting on here?"
"Much as usual, Mrs. Peck; but the news is, that my man came home last night, after being at them diggings for four years, and not writing me a word, good or bad, for three and more; and now he expects me to be as sweet as sugar to him after serving me so; and me had all his children to keep and do for, and got no help from him no more nor if he was dead; and now he says as how I give him the cold shoulder."
"Well, to be sure, and no wonder either! When a woman's been served so, she has the right to look a bit stiff," said Mrs. Peck, who had heard during her stay in Adelaide that Mrs. Smith had passed judgment by default, and was going to take to herself another mate, which was nothing more than the absent Smith deserved.
"Well, to be sure, that beats cock-fighting; and what does Harris say to all this?"
"Why, in course, he's off, and I'm in such a quandary," said Mrs. Smith.
"You wasn't married to Harris, out and out, was you?" said Mrs. Peck, who had a keen relish for such interesting news as this.
"No; there was two or three things as put it off; but the banns was gave in last Sunday, and I had got my gown for the wedding, and lovely it looks—and here's Smith as savage as if he had been writing to me every month and sending me money."
"I suppose he's come home as poor as a rat, like the rest of them?" said Mrs. Peck.
"No, no, I cannot just say that," said Mrs. Smith, relenting a little, "He says he never had no luck till the last six months, and now he has come back with three hundred pounds; and he's been behaving very genteel with it, I must say, and brought presents for me and for the children—there's a shawl for me as is quite a picter—so rich in the colours; but I can't say I feel quite pleased at the way he neglected me so long. And poor Harris, too; I can't just get him out of my head all at once."
"That's natural enough," said Mrs. Peck with a sympathizing sigh.
Here Mr. Smith came into the shop, and started at the sight of Mrs. Peck.
"Well! who'd have thought of seeing you here, Mrs.? I don't rightly recollect your name, but I know you as well as possible," said he.
"Mrs. Peck is my name," said she impressively. "I recollect you well on Bendigo."
"Many's the time I've seen you there," said Smith, in an embarrassed tone of voice. "I hope as how you have your health, Mrs. Peck. Susan, my dear, you'd better give Mrs. Peck some refreshments. Step in, Mrs. Peck, I'm just a day home, and I ain't come back too soon, neither, as it appears. Susan, my dear, get out the spirit bottle. Will you have brandy with hot water or cold, Mrs. Peck?"
"With cold this hot day. I've been half baked travelling in that mail omnibus twenty miles, and the wind blowing through it like a flaming furnace; and now your Adelaide dust is making me as grimy as I'm not fit to be seen," said Mrs. Peck, wiping her face with her handkerchief, and watching how Smith mixed her brandy and water. "There's nothing pleases me like meeting with an old friend."
"Nor me," said Smith, "if so be as she is friendly. Now, Susan, sit down and have a glass with us. Why, the woman looks handsomer nor the day I married her. I don't wonder at the risk I ran of being choused out of you; but it was rather too bad, too, was it not, Mrs. Peck? If my letters hadn't a miscarried you would never have thought of such a thing, Susan," said he, with an insinuating smile, handing his wife a mixture similar to that he presented to his old friend.
"If they had been written there would have been no fear of their miscarrying," said she rather sulkily.
"Here's Mrs. Peck—my good friend, Mrs. Peck—who will be a warrant how often I used to be a speaking of you, and a wondering what made me give up writing."
"That I will," said Mrs. Peck, who felt this little bit of romance was quite in her line. "Many's the time I've heard him speaking about you and the children."
"Take another drop of brandy, Mrs. Peck," said her newly-found friend.
"Thank you," said she; "it's better brandy than we used to get at Bendigo, but really I am in too much trouble just now to enjoy it, and I won't take no more nor the single glass. It's a bad world and a sad one, and I seem to have more than my share of trouble."
"Dear me! Mrs. Peck, I am sorry to hear that; and I am sure I wish I could do anything to help you," said Smith.
"I don't like imposing on people that I haven't no claims on, but I am in great need of twelve pounds just for a little while. I have an annuity, as I dare say you heard at Bendigo."
"Yes, I heerd on it," said Smith, who appeared indisposed to contradict or doubt anything that Mrs. Peck said.
"But we have been tried with the sickness and doctors' bills—Peck and me—and I am very backward with the world just at present. If anybody could lend me twelve pounds for two months, they'd get principal and interest handsome. You being an old friend turned up, and me knowing you so well at Bendigo, makes me bold enough to ask you for this little temporary assistance. I would deposit an order for the money with you if you will be so good as to advance it."
"Certainly, Mrs. Peck, I am not the one to be backward when a friend is in need, and I know it will be safe enough to be paid. Susan, it is perfectly safe. Mrs. Peck had money regular every quarter, to my knowledge; and if she wants the money now, it shall be paid down on the nail." And Smith told out the twelve pounds into Mrs. Peck's hands, and received an order for repayment on Mr. Talbot, which was not to be presented for two months.
Mrs. Peck was overjoyed at her unexpected good luck in meeting with this returned digger, whom she had known very well at Bendigo under another name, and where he passed himself off as the husband of another woman. She perceived that now he had found his wife in Adelaide, doing very well in business, he would rather that she heard nothing of his own little infidelities, particularly in the first days of meeting, and his probable loss of the money he advanced was not too high a price to pay to purchase silence.
Everything had turned out most propitiously for Mrs. Peck, so far. The information from Mr. Dempster showed that all her objects of interest were collected in one spot, and this recognition of Smith put into her hands the means to get to them while Mr. Phillips was absent. She was flushed with hope and confident expectation when she made her purchases of some articles of ready-made clothing, and took out her passage in Melbourne in the 'Havilah,' to prosecute her plans for revenge on Francis and advantages to herself.
As Mr Dempster had reported there had been a division in the family of the Phillipses shortly after they landed. Mrs. Phillips wished to remain in Melbourne for a month or two, as she did not feel able to stand the long land journey at this particular time. Neither her husband nor herself had much confidence in Dr. Grant's skill, and she could have better attendance in town. Mr. Phillips having ascertained that Mrs. Peck was in Adelaide, and having, through Mr. Talbot, sent a request that she should remain there, which her own interest was likely to make her attend to, had less objection to her staying in Melbourne than he ever had before; so he took a suite of furnished apartments for her and those of the family who remained in town.
Jane Melville went at once to Wiriwilta with the children, who all longed to be there, and who disliked Melbourne more than London. Miss Phillips had her choice to remain in town or to go up to the station, and she decided on the former alternative, for she began to fear the station would be very dull, and would contrast unfavourably with the voyage, which had been lively and pleasant. There were some of her fellow-passengers whom she was unwilling to lose sight of; and Mr. Brandon was not at Barragong, but in Adelaide, so, on the whole, she thought it would be preferable to stay. She gave as her ostensible reason for the choice, her wish to be with Mrs. Phillips during her brother's necessary absence. Mr. Phillips stayed with his wife till she presented him with a second son, and then, as she was doing very well, he left her in the care of his sister and Elsie.
He had been rather annoyed to find that Brandon had been amusing himself by taking a journey to Adelaide so soon after coming out to the colony again. Dr. Grant came down to meet Phillips, and represented that a great deal had gone amiss at Wiriwilta since he (Dr. Grant) had been supplanted in the charge of the stations; so that he thought it indispensable to go up with the least possible delay to look to all the flocks and the out-stations.
"It was the wildest thing in Brandon to start off in that way," said Grant, "with a poor lad of a nephew who did not know a wattle from a gum-tree when he came, and scarcely a sheep from a cow. I never would have done such a thing."
"But he has gone to buy some new sheep, I hear," said Phillips. "Have they been delivered at Wiriwilta?"
"No, not yet," said Grant; "and I think that was the most insane part of the business. I am sure our Victorian flock-masters have always kept ahead of the Adelaide lot; and to go to the Adelaide side for sheep would be the last speculation I should care to enter into for myself, not to speak of implicating you in such a thing. The long overland journey will pull them down so much that you are likely to lose a third of them on the road, and what you do save will be in wretched order. Brandon was fairly ruined by going home to England."
"Ruined!" said Harriett Phillips. "He said he was ruined, or something like it, before he left. Are his affairs really in such a bad state?"
"Oh, it's not exactly his affairs, but he got unsettled and would not work as he used to do. He overturned most of my arrangements at Wiriwilta; and I am sure Mr. Phillips will not find himself any the better for his alterations. He is so foolishly confiding. Now, I like to look sharply after my people, and then I see what work I get out of them."
"I think you are quite right, Dr. Grant. I have remarked the want of that prudence in both Mr. Brandon and my brother. They think it proceeds from benevolence, but I attribute it more to indolence and the dislike to give themselves any trouble they can avoid," said Harriett.
Dr. Grant was piqued at being deprived of Mr. Phillips's agency, for though he had protested against taking it, he had found it very lucrative; he was also piqued at Mrs. Phillips staying in town for her confinement, though he always declared that he detested practising, and only did it as an accommodation to his neighbours; but both things had added alike to his emolument and his importance, and he was extremely jealous of any slight being cast either on his business knowledge or his professional skill.
On this occasion he offered to stay in Melbourne for a week or so after Phillips left, merely as a friend, to see how Mrs. Phillips was going on, and to take up a full and satisfactory account to the station. Though he was not her medical attendant, he was as much in the house, and far more than he had ever been before. When the week was over, he appeared to be in no hurry to go away, but wrote to Phillips instead; and hung about the house, went errands for her or her sister-in-law, took Harriett out for walks and drives, brought all his Melbourne acquaintances to call on her, and to inquire for Mrs. Phillips and the baby, and was himself engaged for several hours of every day in conversation with Harriett.
He had come to Melbourne determined to fall in love with Miss Phillips, whose likeness he had seen and admired at Wiriwilta years ago, and whose face and figure, when seen in reality quite came up to his expectations, while her air and manners were exactly suited to his taste. He knew that she had a fortune—not large, certainly, but tempting to a man who was not exactly poor, but always more or less embarrassed. Her perfect self-possession, her good education, her musical talents, her excellent connections, her stylish way of dressing, her very egotism, were all charming to a man who wanted a wife who would do him credit.
His Scotch family was a good one; he was connected with many noble houses; he could tell long traditional stories of the feats of the Grants and the Gillespies, his father's and mother's ancestors; and it was wonderful how much the history of Scotland, and indeed that of the world generally, seemed to hang on the exploits of those ancient clans. Though Harriett was not a Scotchwoman (it was the only drawback to their perfect suitability), she appreciated these anecdotes wonderfully well. Dr. Grant laid himself out to please her in a much more marked manner than Brandon had ever done, and his success was much greater. He had a subdued feeling that his neighbour at Barragong was his rival, as he had seen so much of Harriett in England, so he lost no opportunity of mentioning anything that would tell against him.
Then he was of the same profession as her father and brother Vivian, and liked to hear her talk of them. Indeed, provided he got time and opportunity to speak about his own relations, connections, and friends—to give anecdotes of his schoolboy and college days, more interesting to his mother than to any one else heretofore—to describe how he had felt the colonial hardships at first, and how he had gradually made himself very comfortable at Ben More (which was the name he had given to his station, so much more suitable for a Scottish squatter than such native names as Brandon and Phillips had retained for theirs);—he would allow Harriett to give her school and society reminiscences too, to describe her home in Derbyshire—the furniture, the ornaments, the lawn, and the greenhouse—the county Stanleys, and the county balls. As they were generally TETE-A-TETE four or five hours a day, they had ample time for descanting on all these interesting topics. Any visitors who might drop in, or any visit that they might pay together only gave fresh food for further comparison of their own personal tastes and predilections. Miss Phillips's avowed contemptuous compassion for everything colonial did not at all offend Dr. Grant. He had never been thoroughly acclimatized himself, and he had vowed never to marry any of the second-rate colonial girls, who, as he thought, had no manner and no style. It was surprising how well these two new friends agreed about everything and everybody.
Dr. Grant, from his education and his habits, considered himself a reading man, and a very well informed one. Miss Phillips, too, had thought Brandon greatly her inferior in literary acquirements, as in all other things; but it was singular to observe how little these two people, who were so congenial to each other, and who enjoyed each other's company so much, and had so much of it, talked about the many books they must have read. As for religion, politics, or any other of the great concerns of life, they never seemed to rise even on the surface of conversation; and when a book happened to be mentioned, it was dismissed with a casual remark, such as "I read it," or "I did not read it," or "I liked it," or "I thought it stupid," and then they turned to things which more nearly interested them, and these were things in which they themselves or some one related to them made some figure. If any of Miss Phillips's, or any of Dr. Grant's relations had published a book, that would have been mentioned and extolled, but they had not. Vivian's scientific attainments, which Harriett had thought rather a bore at home, were however something to boast of here; and Dr. Grant had an uncle who had made some improvements in agriculture in the north of Scotland, of whom he was never tired of talking.
Miss Phillips had remained in Melbourne to be with her sister-in-law, but she was very little beside her. Besides Dr. Grant, there were fellow-passengers who visited at the house, and whose visits Miss Phillips was bound to return, and there were also public places to go to with them; for she wished to see all that was to be seen in Melbourne while she was there; and though she generally criticised all the Melbourne concerts, and theatres, and balls, and private parties very severely, she accepted every invitation and joined every party that was made up for the theatre.
Elsie and the nurse had the care of Mrs. Phillips and the baby, though Elsie would have preferred being at Wiriwilta, with Jane and the elder children, for she missed their cheerful society, but she could not be spared. Miss Phillips was in exceedingly good-humour at this time, and did not exact so much from Elsie as she had expected; but Mrs. Phillips missed her husband, and was rather petulant and capricious. She had been considerably kinder to Elsie since the death of her little girl. This first sorrow had done her good; but now, in her husband's absence, a good deal of the old spirit returned, particularly as she was much offended at the little attention which Harriett paid to her. Elsie was the real housekeeper, though Miss Phillips had the credit of it, and she was delighted to find how well she could manage. Her old experiences at Cross Hall had not been altogether thrown away; she had grown more thoughtful, and she felt she must depend on herself, for there was no Jane now to fall back upon.
Elsie was apprehensive that the coolness between the sisters-in-law would lead to an open rupture, for Mrs. Phillips had not been accustomed to be considered as nobody in her own house; but there appeared hope for peace in the fact that Dr. Grant must leave Melbourne; and then those long conversations must have an end, and at least three-fourths of the rides and gaieties which served as an excuse for her neglect. During the short absences from day to day which necessarily took place, and during the few angel's visits, 'short, and far between,' which were paid to her sister-in-law's sick room, Dr. Grant's sayings and doings, his compliments to herself, and his criticisms of other people, were the staple of Harriett's conversation to the invalid. If the absence of the one and the visits to the other were prolonged, it was just possible that Mrs. Phillips might be more fatigued; but she could not be so much ignored as she was at present.