Plain Living

Laura and Linda laughed outright at this.

“Why, mother,” said Linda, we couldn’t do that without breaking our words, being ungrateful, and doing everything that you have brought us up not to do; could we, Laura? I promised faithfully to go to this dance on board the Eurydice; she’s anchored in Neutral Bay, and Mr. Fitzurse said he’d send a boat specially for us. It would be disgraceful to throw him over.”

“And who gave you leave to promise and vow, Miss Linda, in the absence of your parents, may I ask?” said Mr. Stamford. “You don’t seem to understand that, unless we are consulted, all your undertakings are vain.”

“Oh! but I knew you would approve,” said Linda; “besides Mr. Fitzurse was so respectful and nice – perfectly timid, in fact – that I thought it would be unladylike to refuse. And we have never seen a man-of-war – a ship I mean. What a lot we shall have to tell Hubert, shall we not, mother?”

“If you tell him everything you’ll have a great historiette, or confession, whatever you call it, to make,” said Laura, “if one may judge by the amount of chattering I saw going on.

“Some people may not chatter, but do a great deal of serious – h’m – friendship-making in the same time,” retorted Linda. “But I don’t mind, I’m so happy. Everything’s delightful. I had no idea the world was such a nice place.”

Although matters could not be expected to keep up to the degree of high pressure indicated, an unusual and highly satisfactory amount of recreation was transacted during the remainder of the reprieve allowed by fate and Mr. Stamford.

The dance on board the Eurydice came off, when Linda enjoyed the supreme and exquisite felicity of being taken off from the pier in a barge with twelve rowers and the Eurydice flag flying; the crew being dominated by an implacable midshipman of the sternest demeanour. They were received with all due formality and ceremony at the gangway, and being thereafter marshalled about by Lieutenant Fitzurse, before envious comrades, Linda’s joy was complete. The dance, as most naval entertainments are, was wonderfully organised, and truly successful. Epauletted heroes were plentiful, and even the Commodore himself graciously explained the rudiments of nautical science to Laura and her mother. The happy day ended with a romantic return sail, with a favouring breeze, under a silver moon, over the mystical, motionless deep.

It was fairyland once more possible in this world below. The happy girls could hardly realise that they were the same people who had been, but one little year ago, mourning the unkind season, sadly contending with the wrath of Heaven and the wrongs of earth.

The matinée musicale, honoured by Vice-regal patronage, was also transacted with all the society population of Sydney in full array and punctual attendance. Here Mr. Donald M’Intosh, a distinguished amateur, held pre-eminent sway. His “marked attentions” to Laura caused her to be the observed of all observers, a circumstance which, however, did not interfere with her frankly expressed enjoyment of the musical luxuries.

“Why, Laura!” said her cousin, “if you go on in this way you and Linda will have all the Sydney girls mobbing you, or petitioning for your rustication without delay. You have fascinated the sailors, and not contented with that, you seem only to have to hold up your hand to have that difficult, delightful Mr. M’Intosh, the least susceptible man in Sydney, at your feet. Then there is Mr. Hope, neglecting his business and driving four-in-hand, as I hear to this picnic, all for your sake! What is your charm, may I ask?”

“I don’t quite understand you, Josie,” she answered (which, perhaps, was pardonably insincere); “we are enjoying ourselves very much, and everybody is extremely kind.”

“I should think so, indeed,” replied Miss Josie, scornfully.

As for the great picnic, everybody was there. The day was lovely, the sea calm, the sky of the glowing azure which the south land only boasts, the road perfect. The rival four-in-hand drags, including Mr. Hope’s chestnuts, combined to produce a perfectly faithful presentment of the ideal life which Linda had previously concluded to be limited to society novels, and the, perhaps, mythical personages depicted therein.

There was even a Royal Duke among the guests, though when he was pointed out to her, Laura committed the error of mistaking for him a well-known officer of police in attendance, whose aristocratic figure and distinguished bearing at once decided her in her quest for royalty. However, the slight mistake was soon rectified, and the day burned itself into her maiden consciousness as one of those seasons of enjoyment which rarely fulfil anticipation, but if so, continue to illumine the halls of memory until life’s latest hour.

“This is our farewell to the sea for a while,” thought Laura. “I can’t help feeling melancholy. What a lovely haze spreads over the ocean in the distance! How strange to think that it is nearly a hundred years since Cook sailed into these silent headlands. What a new world he was preparing! It was more than a discovery. Almost a creation. Oh, day of days! Oh, whispering breeze! Oh, soft blue sky! Can the earth hold anything more lovely?”

The “pleasures and palaces” having come to an end, the fatal Monday made its unwelcome appearance.

As the Stamfords’ day of departure was known, there was an unwonted influx of afternoon visitors at their rooms, besides a dropping fire of cards, notes, and messages, expressive of different shades of regret.

“Oh, dear! I had no idea Sydney was such a nice place,” exclaimed Linda, as the twilight hour approached, and the stream of friends and acquaintances ceased to flow. “I could not have believed there were so many delightful people in the world. Why will writers say so many unpleasant things about society? It seems full of polite, graceful, affectionate persons. As for the malignant and wicked people that all the books rave about, where are they? We have not seen them, certainly, or even heard of them, have we, Laura?”

“I believe not – yes – no,” answered Laura, absently. “But who said anybody was wicked?”

“Nobody, of course,” explained Linda. “I only meant that in every book you read there are pages and pages devoted to descriptions of ingeniously wicked people, who seem as common in every city as bookmakers at a racecourse, whereas I said we never see any of them, or hear either.”

“See whom?” inquired Laura, who was looking out thoughtfully over the harbour. “Do you mean any one who called this afternoon?”

“What nonsense you are talking, Laura! I really believe you must be thinking of something, or rather somebody, else. I wonder whom it can be? Certainly you have received a good deal of attention – ‘marked attention,’ as Mrs. Grandison always says. How cross Josie looked when she said it! First of all Mr. Barrington Hope, then Mr. M’Intosh, then Mr. – who was that nice man from New Zealand?”

“Really Linda, you are altogether too ridiculous. Am I to be called to account about every one of my partners? If so, you had better get my ball programmes – I have kept them all – and ask everybody’s intentions right down the lists.”

“I don’t mean partners, Laura; I had plenty of them, I am thankful to say; but people didn’t come every other day to the house – besides waylaying one everywhere, and making a fuss over father and poor dear mother. They drew the line at that.”

“I feel more and more convinced, Linda, that you have not quite finished packing,” remarked Laura calmly. “The tea-bell will ring directly, and we shall have no more time then. Do think a little. I saw your cerise silk in our room, I feel sure, just now.”

“Oh, my lovely cerise silk! To think I should have forgotten it!” said Linda, quite diverted from her line of cross-questioning. “But where will it go? I haven’t the faintest notion. My trunk is full – more than full – and pressed down. It wouldn’t hold another handkerchief.”

“Be a good girl, and promise to talk sensibly, and I may spare you a place in mine,” said Laura, smiling at her victory. “I am just going to fold and put away my last dress.”

“You are always so kind, Laura. I did not mean to tease you, but I really do feel anxious about Mr. M’Intosh. Suppose he was only amusing himself with you all the time!”

“Then you will be able to console yourself with the idea that you have seen at least one wicked person,” said Laura, with great good humour; “and so your knowledge of the great world will be expanded. But I will venture to contradict the charge, as far as he is concerned. But remember on what terms I provide a place for your forlorn dress. Besides I want to write one or two good-bye notes.”

Although Laura was outwardly calm and self-possessed, she was not wholly unmoved by certain considerations which Linda’s badinage had suggested.

Unless her perception played her false upon a subject on which women, even when inexperienced, commonly judge correctly, both Mr. Barrington Hope and Mr. M’Intosh were seriously interested in her good opinion of them. The latter gentleman had indeed been so persistent and pressing, that she had been compelled with great gentleness, yet with firmness, to discourage his advances. This step she took with a certain reluctance – more perhaps, because she had not finally resolved as to her state of feeling than because she in any way disliked him.

Dislike him? No – who could, indeed, dislike Donald M’Intosh? Was he not handsome, accomplished, manly, possessed, moreover, of all the subtle graces of manner that almost invariably attach themselves to a man, be he good, bad, or indifferent as to morals or brains, who has “seen the world,” as the phrase runs – who has met his fellow-creatures all his life under the highly-favoured circumstances of an assured position and ample means?

He certainly had been most assiduous, most respectful, most flatteringly empresse in his manner, bestowing that unconcealed admiration which gratifies the vanity of womanhood, at the same time that it is apt to arouse the ire of the virgins, both wise and foolish, who are less prominently noticed.

Then his “position,” as it is called. He possessed that social distinction, that untitled rank, which is perhaps as clearly defined, as freely yielded, or firmly refused, in a colony as in England. He was a great country gentleman – such a man as in Britain a hundred years ago would have periodically gone up to London in his family carriage attended by outriders and driven by postillions. Here in the colonies he was known as a man of good family, who had inherited large estates, besides pastoral possessions of even greater value, lands in city and suburbs, houses in fashionable squares all derived from well-considered investments in those early days when every hundred pounds in cash – sometimes even a tenth of that proverbial sum – so invested bore fruit fiftyfold or a thousandfold, as the case might be.

Then there was his magnificent place, Glenduart, of which everybody had heard. Such a drawing-room, such suites of apartments! Gardens and stables, conservatories and fountains, picture-gallery and statuary – what not! Had he not entertained the Governor and Lady Delmore there? Everybody said it was like a nobleman’s house in England, or, at any rate, one of those beautiful old country seats which are the glory of the parent land. His horses, too, his carriages – what a four-in-hand team had he driven at the picnic they had all gone to!

And all this at her feet! Was there a girl in Sydney – as far as any one could judge – that would not – she could not say “jump at,” even in her thoughts – but willingly accept him?

What a chorus of congratulations or detractions, both equally gratifying, would not the announcement of her engagement arouse!

Thus far the world, the natural, impulsive feeling of the human heart, unchecked by the calm voice of reason, the warnings of the inner soul.

On the other hand, was he so fitted in character and mentally fashioned as to accord with the tone of her mind, with the principles in which from childhood she had been reared? Did they agree in opinion on subjects which were to her vitally important? Were their tastes mainly in accord? and if differing, was his disposition such as would lead her to suppose that he would modify his predilections to suit her wishes?

She could not say. She did not know. Her ignorance of his character was complete. All that she could possibly assure herself that she knew concerning Donald M’Intosh was what the world said of him, and no more – that he was brave, generous, courteous, and rich. So much she admitted. But her experience had been merely of the outer husk of his nature. The varnish with which the natural man is concealed from his fellows was flawless and brilliant. All might be in accordance with the fair-seeming, attractive exterior. On the other hand, much might be hidden beneath, the revelation of which would constitute the difference to Laura Stamford between joy and peace, hope and happiness upon earth, or misery complete and unending, hopeless despair.

It was a terrible risk to run, an uncertainty altogether too momentous to encounter at present. Dismissing the subject of Mr. M’Intosh’s interests and prospects, there was – and she blushed even when naming his name in her own heart – there was Barrington Hope. He had little to offer in any way comparable to the other in what most people would consider the essentials of matrimonial success. A hard-worked man compelled to tax his every mental faculty to the uttermost, in order to meet the demands of his occupation. From one point of view, no doubt, his position was high; no man of his age had, perhaps, the same rank and consideration in finance. But the magnificence of “seigneury” was not his – never probably would be. In spite of his birth, which was equal to that of any magnate of the land, no girl of the period, no matron who knew the world, would think for a moment of comparing the social status of the two men.

But in his favour there were arguments of weight. She knew him to be a man of refined tastes, of literary culture, of high moral principle, of fastidious delicacy of tone and taste. It may be that Laura Stamford only thought she knew these things, that she committed the feminine mistake of taking for granted that the hero of her girlish romance was perfection. It may be confessed here that Barrington Hope was the first man who had had power to stir those mysterious passion-currents which sleep so calmly in the heart of youth, puissant as they are when fully aroused to hurry the possessor to destruction or despair. But she was, for her age, a calm observer, having, moreover, a full measure of the sex’s intuitive discernment. In all their light or serious conversation, she had marked in the mind of Barrington Hope the signs of high and lofty purpose, of a chivalrous nature, an inborn generosity only controlled by the voice of conscience and the dictates of an enforced prudence.

And did he love her as in her heart she told herself she deserved to be loved?

Of that all-important fact she could not yet assure herself. But, patient ever, and modestly doubtful of all things which concerned her personal influence, Laura decided that she could well afford to await the direction of circumstances. Her home duties were still paramount in her steadfast mind. She had no immediate wish that they should be cast aside for objects purely personal. There was yet much to do at Windāhgil. Linda was scarcely capable of assuming the responsibilities of housekeeping, and should she make default, she knew upon whose shoulders the burden would fall. The younger brothers and Hubert, who had hardly been separated from her thoughts for an hour since childhood – all the love and gentle tendence due to them were not to be uprooted and flung away to wither like weeds out of the garden path. No! The time might come when she, Laura Stamford, like other girls, would go forth from her father’s house, bidding farewell to the loved ones of her youth – of her life – part of her very soul, as they were; but there was no necessity for haste. She must take time for careful choice – for sober counsel. She had never been wont to do anything of importance hastily. She would not furnish so bad a precedent now.

So in spite of Linda’s desponding protestations that they never would be actually, completely, and finally packed up, the fated evening came which witnessed a devoted cab, overladen with such an array of luggage as caused Mr. Stamford to exclaim and the hall-porter to smile.

On the preceding Sunday every one had gone dutifully to church, but in the afternoon Linda’s devotional feelings must have been somewhat intermixed with ideas of a nautical nature, judging from audible scraps of conversation, as carried on by Lieutenant Fitzurse, R.N., and his comrades, who had thought it only decent and fitting, as they observed, to make their adieux to Miss Linda Stamford before she went back to Western Australia or Riverina, or whatever far-away place “in the bush,” they had heard she was bound for.

Mr. Hope did not arrive on that afternoon, although Mr. M’Intosh did, but, having something to say to Mr. Stamford, presumably on business, he came in time to accompany them to the railway station, and to receive a warm invitation from that gentleman to visit them at Windāhgil directly he could get leave of absence.

CHAPTER XI

Linda began to look out of the window at least two miles from the Mooramah railway station. A few seconds before the train stopped, she discovered Hubert on the platform.

Waving his hand to her, he was at the window in a moment, receiving, indeed, personal tokens of welcome long before the guard could open the door and collect the tickets.

“Oh! I am so glad to see you again, dearest, dearest Hubert,” exclaimed Linda. “You have no idea how nice and large Mooramah looks. I am sure I shall never stir away from dear old Windāhgil for a year. I don’t feel proud at all, do you, Laura? I am sure we are both immensely improved, though. Don’t you think so, Hubert?”

“You must wait till you are at home again, and I can turn you round and examine you both carefully,” said Hubert; “there are too many people here at present. I think mother looks splendid, and the governor gets younger every time he sees Sydney. I shall have to go soon, or our ages will be reversed.”

“Poor, dear old Hubert!” said Laura, looking at her brother’s sun-burnt face, and spare, muscular figure; “I’m sure you’ve been working yourself to death while we were away, with nobody to stop you. Never mind, we’ll soon make a difference – if we don’t talk you to death the first week.”

“I can hear all you’ve got to say,” said Hubert; “but just now let us get the luggage counted and ready for Jerry to put in the spring cart; then we’ll rattle home in the buggy. Don’t the old horses look well?”

“Splendid!” said Linda. “They have beautiful coats too, which I did not expect. They’re not quite so aristocratic in demeanour as Mr. Grandison’s carriage horses, but they can trot about double as fast, I daresay.”

“They look very different to what they did this time last year,” said Hubert, running his eye over the middle-sized, well-bred, wiry pair. “Do you remember poor old Whalebone tumbling down – Whipcord was nearly as bad – as we were driving to church, from sheer weakness?”

“Oh! yes,” said Linda; “we had to tie up the pole of the buggy with our pocket-handkerchiefs; poor old dear! He looks as if he could pull one’s arms off now.”

Once fairly off behind the fourteen-mile-an-hour buggy horses, spinning along the smooth bush road – the best wheel track in the world in good weather and in a dry country, that is, its normal state – the spirits of the party rose several degrees. Mr. Stamford and his wife were calmly happy at the idea of returning to their quiet home life, having had enough of the excitement of city and suburb for a while. The girls were continually exclaiming, as each new turn of the road brought them within sight of well-remembered spots and familiar points of the landscape, while Hubert, much too happy to talk, kept looking at his relatives, one by one, with an air of intense, overflowing affection.

“It’s worth all the loneliness to have you back again,” he said, patting his mother’s cheek; “but it was horribly dismal for a time. I felt as if I could have left the run in charge of the boundary-riders, only for shame, and run down to Sydney myself. Fortunately, Laura wrote so regularly that I seemed to know what you were doing and saving, as well as almost everything you thought.”

“I wrote too, I’m sure,” said Linda, with an injured air.

“Well, you were more spasmodic. Though I was very glad to get your letters too. I acquired a deal of information about the ‘Queen’s Navee,’ in which department I was weak. However, I suppose it’s as well to know everything.”

“I’m sure you are most ungrateful,” pouted Linda, “If you only knew how hard it is to write!”

“Oh, ho! quoting from Lord Sandwich’s lines: —

‘To all you ladies now on landWe men at sea indite,But first I’d have you understandHow hard it is to write.’”

“You are too clever altogether, Hubert,” said Linda, with rather a conscious laugh. “You must have been taking lessons in mind-reading, or some such stuff, in our absence. But oh! there are some of the Windāhgil sheep. How well they look! I’d almost forgotten there were such dear creatures in the world.”

“If it were not for them and their fleeces there would not be any trips to Sydney, or bachelors’ balls, or picnics,” said Mr. Stamford; “so keep up a proper respect for the merino interest, and all belonging to it.”

“They never looked better than they do now,” said Hubert; “the season has been a trifle dry since you left, but I think they are all the better for it. And did not the wool bring a capital price?” he continued. “I see you sold it all in Sydney – two and a penny, and two and threepence for the hogget bales. The wash-pen was paid for over and over again. However, I have a plan in my head for getting it up better still next year.”

“That’s right, my boy,” said his father; “stick well to your business and it will stick to you – a homely proverb, but full of wisdom. How does the garden look?”

“Not so bad. I had it made pretty decent for mother to look at. I kept all the new plants watered – they’ve grown splendidly, and I managed, with a little help, to get up a ‘bush house’ in case mother brought up any new ferns, or Coleus novelties.”

“The very thing I am wishing for, my dear boy,” said his mother. “I was just wondering how I could manage; I did get a few pot plants and ferns.”

“A few!” said Mr. Stamford, making believe to frown. “You showed a correct estimate of your mother’s probable weakness, however, Hubert. I don’t know that you could have spent your leisure time more profitably.”

“Home, sweet home!” sang Linda, as they drove up to the well-known white gate. “How lovely the garden looks, and everything about the dear old place is flourishing; even the turkeys have grown up since we left. I feel as if I could go round and kiss everything – the very posts of the verandah. That is the advantage of going away. I really think it is one’s duty to do so; it makes you value your home so when you come back.”

“I shall have no curiosity about the great world for a year at least,” said Laura. “It will take us nearly that time to read all the new books; and to properly enjoy the garden, I am going to have a fernery of my own. I bought the Fern World out of my own money, and somebody – I forget who it was – promised to send me some rare New Zealand and South Sea Island ferns. After all, the pleasures of country life are the best, I really do believe; they are so calm and peaceful and yet satisfying.”

That first meal, lunch or dinner, as it might happen to be, in the old familiar room, was an unmixed delight to all. The two servants, having just returned, had exerted themselves to prepare a somewhat recherché repast for the family, to whom they were attached, and whose return they hailed with honest expressions of welcome. The cookery and arrangements generally met with special commendation, while in the intervals of talking, laughing, and sudden exclamations of delight, Linda repeated her conviction that she had never enjoyed eating and drinking so much since she left Windāhgil.

Immediately after this necessary performance, Hubert and Mr. Stamford betook themselves to one of the outlying portions of the run, where the son was anxious for his father to behold the success of a new dam lately constructed. This piece of engineering had “thrown back” the water of a creek nearly two miles, thus affording permanent sustenance for a large flock of sheep.