Plain Living

Barrington Hope too, urged by his wife, who was fully of opinion that he worked too hard, also that a purely sedentary life was drawing fresh lines upon his brow, and prematurely ageing him – pressed firmly his claim for a lengthened vacation. To that end a relieving manager was appointed to take his place during his absence. When he found that Mr. Stamford’s liberality was about to take such a pleasing form, he was indeed surprised as well as gratified. That gentleman felt it necessary to make a slight explanation as to his private means, but he merely mentioned that he was now possessed of certain family funds not available at the time of their first acquaintance, and could therefore well afford the outlay.

As for Laura, it seemed as if the old days of nursery tales had come back. The fairy godmother had arisen and gifted her with the precise form of happiness previously as impossible as a slice of the moon. It had long been the wish of her heart to behold, to wander amid, those historic relics, those wondrous art creations, those hallowed spots with which her reading and her imaginative faculty had rendered her so familiar. It was her favourite dream for middle life. When years of self-denial and steady industry had wrought out the coveted independence, then the journey into the land of ancient fame, of wonder, mystery, and romance, was to be their reward. But to think of its being vouchsafed to them in their youth, before the stern counsel of middle age, with its slower heart-currents, had warned them that the years were slowly advancing, fated to carry with them the best treasures of life.

And oh, gracious destiny! in the full tide of youthful feeling, of the joyous exalting sense of happiness born of the unworn heart of youth, now to bestow on them these all-priceless luxuries! It was more than wonderful – it was magical. Who were they to have so much undeserved happiness showered upon them? Hubert and Rosalind would join them, perhaps to part in England for a while. But they would roam the Continent together, they could in company gaze upon the dead giantess Rome; the city by the sea, even Venice; resting under the shade of German pine forests, they could listen to weird legends beneath the shadow of the Hartz Mountains. Oh! joy, glory, peace unspeakable! What an astonishing change in their life-history! And to think that in less than a month – so it had been ordered – they would be saying farewell to the land of their birth!

It was felt by the Colonel and Willoughby to be an unfair stroke of destiny that Rosalind, the chief joy and glory of their life, should be spirited away to Europe. But her father also considered that, when in Queensland, she was virtually as far from his ken, while the pleasures and advantages procurable from the former locality bore no comparison with the latter. There was an unspoken wish also on the part of the elder relatives that the Australian contingent should enjoy the inestimable advantage of beholding with their own eyes the wonders of the other hemisphere, of forming an alliance by personal experience with the glory and the loveliness, the literature and art of the ancient world, to endure in memory’s treasure-house till life’s latest hour.

CHAPTER XVIII

Barrington Hope could hardly realise the fact, till he found himself actually on board of a mail steamer, that he would have no business cares for the next two years – a whole elysium of rest and recreation. For this respite from the “figure and fact” mill, Laura was deeply grateful, sensible as she had been for some months past that the calculating machine was working under occasional effort.

When the Hubert Stamfords and Hopes bestowed themselves on board the Lahore– the last triumph of the Peninsular and Oriental Company – one would have thought all Sydney was coming to say farewell – such was the congregation on the deck and in the magnificent saloon of that noble vessel. Of course the Colonel and Willoughby, Mr. and Mrs. Stamford, and all their Sydney friends turned out on purpose to “see them off” as the phrase is, according to British etiquette on such occasions. Other people – friends and relatives – had come to say farewell to their wives and daughters, sons and sweethearts. Thus many a saddened countenance and tearful eye were to be noted as the great steamer moved slowly astern, and then glided at half-speed down the harbour.

Of their safe and pleasant voyage – of fast friends, and congenial acquaintances made on board and parted from with regret – what need to speak? Of the entrance to fairyland which the first few months’ sojourn in the dear old island so closely resembles for home-returning Australians. Of the stores of information acquired. Of the intoxicating luxury of mere existence under such conditions. Of the transcending of all anticipation and belief.

Barrington Hope and Laura remained in Europe for the full term of their holiday – two years. But six months ere that period closed Hubert and his wife became impatient to return to their life-task in the south land, too satiated with mere sensuous enjoyment to remain longer.

“We are young and strong, thank God,” said Hubert; “it’s not as though we did not see our way to be back here again within a reasonable time. But my work lies in Australia, and I can’t settle to this kind of easy-going life just yet. When Windāhgil Downs is in thorough working order and fully stocked, we can treat ourselves to a run home every five years or so without feeling uneasy about the seasons or anything else. So we’ll just take our passage by the next boat and wake them up at Mooramah once more.”

“I’m ready, dearest,” said his wife. “With you, I think our work is only half-done, and the sooner we commence life in earnest the better. We’ve seen picture galleries enough to last us for the next few years, and I begin to pine for a sight of my dear old father, and Willoughby, poor boy! I wonder how they are getting on at Wantabalree?”

Once more the family circles were replenished, irradiated by the old love and tenderness in the persons of the wanderers – once more grateful hearts were full to overflowing, and humble thanks were offered up to the Supreme Power which had permitted their happy reunion, in spite of perils by land and sea – the thousand chances of danger and death which had irrevocably marred less fortunate households. All had gone well in their absence – Linda and her sailor love had been made mutually happy, and through the exercise of judicious local interest Captain Fitzurse, as he was now proudly styled by mankind and his adoring bride, had secured a colonial appointment involving naval duty, but not forbidding the occupation of one of those delightful marine residences of which Sydney boasts so many perfect specimens.

Donald Greenhaugh had amply justified the confidence bestowed on him. The stations were growing and flourishing to the fullest extent of sanguine expectation. Willoughby had developed into a stalwart bushman, properly bronzed and duly experienced in all pastoral lore. The seasons “out back” had been good. Nothing was wanting of all the conditions of permanent prosperity.

Of all the members of the two families so happily united and thankfully enjoying their unwonted success, universally admired and envied, Mr. Stamford alone seemed to be laden with care. At times abstracted and preoccupied, silent and grave amidst the family hilarity; at whist, striking out confusing lines of play, for which no precedent could be found. Such was his departure in general behaviour from the ordinary cheerful and equable habit that his wife and children commenced seriously to fear that the unwonted prosperity had turned his head, or that old anxieties had induced morbid action of the brain. The Colonel shook his head as he delicately alluded to the melancholy fact in a walk with Rosalind. It would grieve him to the heart. He didn’t think really he could stay on at Wantabalree; that a man who could lead from a weak suit and play the Queen of Hearts when the King was still in petto, must be suffering from incipient softening of the brain, was patent to him.

The fact was that Mr. Stamford had come to the conclusion that the time had arrived when it was necessary to make a clean breast of his secret. And he did not like the idea at all. When the matter was buried in his own breast and in that of Mr. Worthington, than whom his own iron safe was not more reticent of office secrets, it did not, like other hidden deeds, appear so frightful. But now, after all these years, to be compelled to tell his wife and children, who believed that they shared every thought of his heart, that he had carefully, wilfully, artfully concealed from them the knowledge of their true position! He could hardly stand up and face the idea. “What if his children should resent this want of all confidence? Would his wife think that all her love and trust deserved a different return?”

Mr. Stamford wiped his heated brow and thought the position unendurable. Still, the motive was a good one, a pure one, even practical. And how had it worked? The result might not have directly proceeded from the means employed; but still everything had followed for which he had hoped and prayed.

His children had not shrunk from any test of self-denial, of fortitude, of continuous industry rendered necessary by the apparent narrowness of their fortunes. True, they were at the same time actuated by filial reverence and family love, swayed by the tenets of that religious teaching which from their infancy had been unwaveringly inculcated. But could these influences have been sufficiently strong to counteract the strong currents of ease and pleasure, the soft zephyrs of flattery, the clinging weight of indolence, all urging towards the wreck-strewn shore of self-indulgence, when once the fatal knowledge should be acquired that all care for the morrow was superfluous?

Who shall say? Had not the fate of his friend’s family, the melancholy failure of even his modest aspirations for social distinction, been as a beacon light and a warning?

As it was, every noble feeling, every desire to spare no effort either of mind or body which could tend to raise the fortunes and to lighten the hearts of those so dear to him, had been stimulated and intensified in his son and heir by the sharp urgency and weight of the Alternative. His daughters had emulated their mother’s virtues and with uncomplaining patience had endured isolation, monotony, plain living, and sparing apparel. For this they had had their reward – doubtless. But would all these fragrant flowers of the soul have thriven and bloomed in the ungenial soil of luxury, and the indolence born of unwonted, uncounted wealth?

Whatever had been his sin of omission or commission, could he fairly be chargeable with apathy as to the welfare of his children?

For them, and in their interest, he had striven in every conscious hour from that of their birth until now. For them he had toiled and endured hardness – had hoped and prayed. For their welfare in this world and the next was his every waking thought engaged. Other than these had he no pleasures worthy of the name in the latter years of a life now approaching – slowly, but still approaching – the inevitable close. He had, it was true, chosen an unusual mode, but withal an intelligible course of action.

Looking at the question in all its points, and pushing the reasoning on either side to its conclusion, Mr. Stamford began to find his position more tenable than he had expected. After all, he had only done in life what most people did in death – reserved the distribution of his fortune until a later period, for the eventual benefit of his children.

Thus fortified, Mr. Stamford, having made up his mind, as the phrase runs, resolved to communicate the terrible secret fully and finally to his assembled family that very evening, being averse to spoiling another night’s rest with a burden of thought the weight of which had become so oppressive. It happened that the Colonel and Willoughby were at Windāhgil, so Mr. Stamford rightly judged that it would save all after trouble of explanation if he made his Budget speech when nearly all concerned were present.

Partly in deference to the Colonel’s habitudes and those of the European travellers, the fashion of a late dinner had been revived at Windāhgil. Everybody had been unusually cheerful. The never-failing fund of Continental or English experiences had been drawn upon over the “walnuts and the wine,” or rather, when grapes and peaches were receiving attention – Hubert had been laughingly threatening Rosalind with a dozen more years of Queensland life – when Mr. Stamford stood up and remarked that “the time had arrived when he felt it his duty to make a statement which had been, for reasons of his own, postponed – perhaps unnecessarily so. However, it deeply concerned the interests of all present, directly or indirectly, and as he said before, the time had come for him to explain, he might say disclose, the a – a – affair.”

Here Mr. Stamford, who was not a fluent speaker, became aware that though he had not furnished a particularly accurate termination to his last sentence, he had at all events sufficiently puzzled, not to say alarmed, his audience. He therefore filled his glass and sipped it slowly, while Mrs. Stamford looked wistfully at him. Laura gazed with fully opened eyes, in which might be observed a slight glimmer of dread; Hubert waited calmly for the next words, and Mr. Hope and the Colonel politely preserved a studied indifference. Rosalind took the cue from her husband, and betrayed no uneasiness by word or gesture.

“My dearest wife, my children, my friends,” the speaker proceeded, “what I have to tell you is rather of a pleasing than of an alarming nature. The only awkwardness of my position arises from uncertainty as to whether I ought to have said what I do now several years ago. I can truly assert that it is the only secret I ever kept from my dear wife, or even from my children since they arrived at years of discretion.”

Here everybody’s face expressed different degrees of amazement.

The orator continued. “The leading fact is that I am a much richer man than is generally supposed.” (“Hear, hear,” from the Colonel.) “In a year we all remember well, as you will see by the date of this letter, I was left £170,000 or thereabouts by a relative. You do not forget the dry year in which we were so nearly ruined? We recovered our position chiefly through the well-considered, safe, yet liberal action of my dear son-in-law, Barrington Hope. The gratitude I felt for the way in which he then acted, strictly consonant as it was with proper business principles, is still warm and fresh in my recollection.”

Here Laura’s eyes sparkled.

“Immediately after this comparative good fortune I received this letter, which told me of a bequest beyond all hope or expectation. It rendered me a rich, a very rich man, as fortunes go in Australia. Circumstances which then came under my observation caused me to doubt whether a sudden accession of wealth would act beneficially upon the as yet unformed characters of my darling children. Up to that period their dispositions, their principles, had been all the fondest parent could have wished. Why, then, run the risk of an alteration, necessarily for the worse? Would they so continue under a total change of conditions and prospects? I felt doubtful, judging from analogy. So deeply was the danger to them at such a critical period of their lives borne in upon me, that I took time to consider my course of action. Finally, after deep thought and earnest prayer, I resolved to withhold the important intelligence – to permit them to remain in ignorance of aught but a gradual relief from threatened ruin. In short, I elected to live our old life, gradually modified and developed, until, in course of time, their characters had acquired maturity, with that strength to resist all ordinary temptation which I hoped and trusted the coming years would bring. My secret was known to but one man, our trusted legal adviser and friend, Mr. Worthington. Meanwhile, I proposed judiciously to improve our mode of living, and to provide, by degrees, such indulgences as befitted our apparent position. You can judge whether I have kept the promise which I then made to myself, whether our cherished ideal of ‘plain living and high thinking’ has been reached.”

Here Mrs. Stamford approached her husband, and placed her hand in his, amid the silent astonishment which pervaded the company.

“I have only now to say that all things shaped themselves in every respect as I could have wished. I am the happiest and proudest father this day in Australia. I can trust my beloved children, in ripened manhood and womanhood, with the full knowledge of their altered position, and I ask their forgiveness, and that of my dearest wife, for the apparent want of confidence involved in this my first and last secret, as far as they are concerned.”

Here Mr. Stamford resumed his seat, and looked round vainly for any sign of dissent. Before other comment was possible, his wife turned towards him with a countenance expressive of the purest tenderness, the most loving and perfect confidence.

“My darling husband,” she said, “you lay too much stress upon the reserve necessary for your purpose. As the head of the family, you had a perfect right to give or withhold the information. Have you not always considered the best interests of us all? You might have taken me into your confidence, perhaps, but no child of ours would dream of questioning your action in this or any other matter. Could we have been happier with all the money in the world?”

“And so say all of us, my dear old governor,” said Hubert, walking round to his father’s chair and shaking his hand warmly, a proceeding which was quickly followed by Barrington Hope, Willoughby, and Colonel Dacre. “I should never have stuck to my collar or been half the fellow, if I had thought, years ago, that work or play was optional with us – would never have tackled the things that now I feel proud and happy to have carried through; never had such a little wife, most likely, either. In her name, in all our names, I thank you from my heart for what you did.”

Laura’s arms had been for some moments round her father’s neck; her feelings were too deep for words; her tears were those of relief and gratitude. The Colonel made an opportune diversion by expressing a hope that his esteemed friend’s whist would now undergo a beneficial change. His sudden deterioration of form had, he confessed, caused him, the Colonel, great uneasiness, even alarm. Now that the murder was out, and his breast unburdened of its dreadful secret, he felt confident they would return to their former most enjoyable social relations. As a friend, a father, and an antagonist in the king of games, he begged to be permitted to congratulate him most warmly and sincerely.

THE END