In two years' time, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Ada Cambridge

CHAPTER III.

PEARS AND GREENGAGES.

The next day was Saturday, and mother began to be restlessly busy—for her. She and father had decided that nothing could very well happen to the wool on its voyage to London, and that, even if the prices did fall in the market before it got there, we could not now give up our enterprise; and so the March mail was fixed upon as the date of our departure, and that was not more than six weeks off.

“It will be well to get home before the summer there sets in,” said she. “Kitty should see England in springtime first. Ah, Kitty, you don’t know what is in store for you!” And she began to remind father of the Aprils and Mays of their early married life in Norfolk, and to talk of hawthorn hedges and delicate leafage of green woods, of cowslips and primroses, cuckoos and nightingales, and so on, until they both got quite sentimental about it.

As soon as breakfast was over father went into his office and drew out his advertisement for the Melbourne papers, wherein he described Narraporwidgee in the glowing terms it deserved. So-and-so had been instructed by Harry Chamberlayne, Esq., to sell by auction, at their rooms, Collins Street West, on the —th of February, 187—, at half-past two o’clock p.m., the Narraporwidgee station, situated so and so, and consisting of so many thousand acres of freehold, and so many thousand acres of Crown land, so many sheep, cattle, horses, etc.; and when he had done describing these matters, and all the river frontages that he had, and all the miles of fencing he had put up, and how the paddocks that these enclosed were “unsurpassed for grazing capabilities,” he called in mother to help him to set forth with sufficient pomp the details of the home station—its many rooms and outbuildings, its stores and men’s huts, its tanks and wells, its superior woolshed and screw press, its stables and coach-houses, its gardens and orchards, and so on; and it took up the best part of mother’s morning.

But when this document was disposed of, she set to work at her own preparations with a zeal and energy that astonished me, used as I was to her quiet ways. She rummaged out drawers and cupboards, turned over and sorted her household stores, made long lists of things she had and things she wanted, and chatted away to me as I helped her with a subdued vivacity that was very pleasant to see.

“I am not going to get you any new dresses, Kitty,” she said, when my wardrobe was under consideration. “You have plenty for the voyage—the simpler they are the better for that purpose. It does not matter about wearing them out quickly; as soon as we reach London you shall have a complete outfit.” It made all seem so near and so sudden.

Saturday evening was fair and clear, with nothing to hinder the moon from shining in all her glory. The sky had not a cloud, and was sprinkled with pale stars, the Southern Cross hanging just over the biggest of the big Portugal laurels that father was so proud of. Already, as he had prophesied, there was a sprinkling of young grass blades all over everywhere from last night’s rain, though the earth had been looking for weeks as if it had been skinned, so quickly does nature recover herself in this wonderful climate. There was a fresh scent of growth and moisture in the soft air, which was cool and sweet as the airs of paradise. Yet I did not go for a walk. I had a sniff from the verandah, while we enjoyed our after-dinner cup of tea, and that was all. Spring went off into the shrubberies to indulge in the pleasures of the chase by himself; mother sat down to begin her English letters, though the mail did not go out for at least ten days; and daddy lit his pipe, and put his hands into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and marched up and down the verandah in peaceful contemplation—conning his late literary effort, I suppose. I, in the most unromantic manner, made myself comfortable in the easiest armchair, surrounded myself with English papers and magazines, and diligently read tales and tragedies, real and fictitious, until it was time to go to bed.

This being Saturday, naturally the next day was Sunday; and that Sunday was one to be evermore marked in my calendar with the whitest of white stones. It was lovely in respect of weather, to begin with; not hot, and not grey or overcast; breezy and balmy, and peaceful and spring-like. Flowers were sprouting afresh; the distant hill-ranges had got a new tinge of colour on them from the fresh-springing verdure that was only a day old; the magpies chattered and gabbled about the garden more musically, I thought, than usual—as if they, too, had fallen upon a gala Sunday.

I opened my glass doors when I was half dressed, and stood on the threshold to brush my hair, the sweet air blowing through it as I did so. How often I have looked back to my little chamber at Narraporwidgee, when cooped up in English bedrooms, and thought of that friendly garden walking quite up to my door, the rose petals drifting in upon my table, the grapes hanging at my hand (that I used to gather and eat as I performed my toilet), the freshness of the morning all around me, and dear old Spring lightly trotting over the China matting, or lying in the doorway to watch all my performances. I hate “upstairs,” and always shall, if I live to be a hundred.

Never in my life did I make a Sunday toilet with so much care and deliberation. I was a good-looking girl enough, more especially as to figure and carriage, about which mother was much more particular than she was about my complexion, which, to be sure, had been well sunburnt; but I do myself only justice when I say I had never been vain of my appearance. I never was until now. But I am not sure that a little vanity did not come to life that Sunday morning when I stood so long at my looking-glass. I liked the look of my own face, which gazed at me with large, frank, thoughtful eyes; I liked the look of my own hair, soft, and shiny, and plentiful, and the colour of a pale chestnut, and the look of the large braids that showed their golden ridges just over the top of my head. I greatly admired my own costume, which I selected more because it was the one I liked best than because it was the best suited to a January morning. It was black silk, rich and plain, fitting me beautifully. A collar of Honiton lace and a soft ruffle adorned my throat, and wide lace was laid, cuff fashion, on the close sleeves, edged, too, with ruffles round my wrists. I give this particular description, because it was a part of the ceremonial of the great festival day of my life, and because it has been the type of costume that I have worn—to please somebody—ever since.

Mother looked at me approvingly when I came in to breakfast. The rich old lace had been hers, and she loved it; and she loved the style of that simple but costly gown. She was pleased whenever she saw what she considered signs of taste in her colonial girl, who in earlier days had been too fond of many colours.

“You needn’t hack that dress, dear,” she said, as she kissed me. “You can wear that quite well when you get home. Still, it is a cool morning and you look very nice; doesn’t she, daddy?”

“She always looks nice,” replied daddy, as he helped me to a chop; but that was more of a compliment than she bargained for.

Breakfast was a late meal on Sunday mornings, and as soon as breakfast was over it was time to get ready for church. Father went to order the horses, and to see them put in also, for like most Australian country gentlemen, he would have thought himself very remiss if he did not personally test his buckles and straps and the bolts of his buggy before starting with ladies over bush roads. Mother and I went to dress, which, with me, was a matter of hat and gloves, and then there was a grand gathering of the household. The waggonette was roomy, and took all the womankind on the station who wished to attend church—their respective churches, that is, for we had no female servant just now belonging to our own communion, except the laundress, who was laid up “very bad with the rheumatics”—all the fault of that “dreadful night” on Friday, the wicked old creature said—tempting Providence, I told her. Mother took her seat of honour by father’s side, and I, two house servants, and the overseer’s daughter, disposed ourselves behind, and I took care to sit by the door, where I could see the road behind us.

“All aboard?” shouted father impatiently. “Give ’em their heads, Joe.” Joe sprang back, and the horses, finding themselves free, wriggled for a second, gave two great bounds, and darted out of the yard and into the paddock as if they had wings to their heels.

When English people talk about good driving, with their perfectly broken-in horses, and their level, even roads, and all that elaboration of harness, I simply turn up my nose. Give a man a pair of bush horses like those two of ours, who that very Sunday had their collars on for the sixth or eighth time, and not a bit of a strap behind their slender girth-pads, and see how he would take them through trees and stumps, and ruts and holes, and creeks and gullies, and ten or fifteen gates. It was beautiful to see how father did it.

We lived nine miles away from the church, and we got there in less than an hour. The bell (which hung from a limb of a tall gum tree in the churchyard) was just beginning to ring, at the instance of a lank lad, who was also the superintendent of the Sunday-school; and the congregation was assembling at its leisure, after the manner of country congregations.

Mother went into the parsonage to see the clergyman’s young wife, who had just had her first baby; father drove into the little enclosure set apart for the safe keeping of buggies and horses during service time, took out his fiery pair and hung them up at the fence; and I sedately walked into church. The choir, to which I had the honour to belong, of course sat in the wrong place—close by the entrance door; and here I settled myself, as yet all alone in my glory, in the corner seat that belonged to me, to watch the people coming into church.

I had not watched long, and the little building was filling rapidly (the people being in the habit of hanging about outside to talk to one another till the last moment, and then all flocking in at once), when I heard the sound of light wheels and fast-trotting horses, and my heart began to beat in a hurry.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith came in first, the portly old man with his silver head, and the fine-featured, slender old lady, who was so like Mrs. Delany of a hundred years ago. She was quite unlike anybody I had ever seen. She never wore anything but old brocades and soft black satins, and scraps and lappets of old ivory-coloured lace, with a China crape shawl in summer and a thick black silk mantle or sable cape in winter. Beside the many-coloured fourth and fifth-rate fashionables who sat around her in church, she looked most queerly ancient and picturesque.

I used to wonder where she could have got her clothes from, until mother told me they were the carefully hoarded remnants of a mighty wardrobe that she had had when she was a belle of fashion at some foreign court. Mr. Smith was her second husband, whom she had married rather late in life, and, it was said, under very romantic circumstances. My Tom was their only son.

He came in five minutes after service had begun, for he had stayed behind to take out his horses, and he made his way at once to a vacant seat beside me, to my extreme content and embarrassment. He also was a member of the choir, and in our primitive congregation it did not matter how the voices were mixed up, provided enough of them were there. Anybody sat where anybody liked. We didn’t speak to one another, of course, as service was going on, and we didn’t want to speak. Two giggling young dressmakers’ apprentices sat behind us, whispering comments upon my dress and hat—very sharply on the look-out, I have no doubt, for any communication that might take place between us. He had forgotten his hymn-book, and had to look over mine; but, what with those girls behind us, and the lady who played the harmonium, as locum tenens for the clergyman’s wife, making a dreadful mess of it, I was enabled to sing loudly and steadily, and to comport myself generally with dignity and composure. But I must say I had a sensation of flurry within me that I was not by any means used to.

When the service was over, and we who had buggies were congregated around them, mother and father gave their regular Sunday invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which they regularly accepted, to lunch with us on their way home. Their way was the same as ours almost up to the garden gate, and then they had between six and seven miles (by the road) further to go. We always reached home at reasonable lunch time, and they could not; and each of the small households enjoyed the weekly intercourse with the other, so that it had become quite an institution. The invitation was offered and accepted just for polite form’s sake.

As we were getting into our respective buggies Tom suggested that I might as well go with them as sit alone behind (we had to pick up our servants as we went along). I looked at mother, who said, “Certainly, dear, if you wish,” and then climbed to the high box-seat by Tom’s side, quite careless how I wiped the wheels with my lustrous skirts, and we led the way out into the village street.

“I say, didn’t it pelt, Kitty, that night?” said Tom, presently, when I had exchanged some remarks with his parents, and we were sitting in silence, side by side. “It’s well you got in when you did.”

“Oh yes, Tom; and how I wished you had stayed with us! Did you not get awfully, dreadfully drenched?”

“Not a bit. That is, of course I got wet, but I’m not made of sugar. It takes more than that to affect me. I rather liked it. Will you have another walk to-night, Kitty? There will be no end of a moon after this fine day, and we needn’t go home till we like. Mother”—turning his face over his shoulder—“you can have a spell of gossip to-day, for there’ll be a lovely moon.”

“Oh, my dear, we mustn’t be late,” responded Mrs. Smith, earnestly. But Tom smiled at me, and showed no alarm at the threat. “Soon you won’t have Mrs. Chamberlayne to talk to,” said he; “you must remember that.”

When we reached home luncheon was ready, and we discussed it at great leisure, with much conversation, as was the rule on Sundays; for on that day it was dinner into the bargain. On this special occasion I would be afraid to say how long we were about it. I know it was nearly four o’clock before father rolled up his napkin and proposed an adjournment to the verandah for dessert. When we got out of the house, we cast about for freedom, Tom and I, and obtained it without any trouble.

“Kitty,” said father, “go into the orchard and see how those pears are getting on.”

“Pears, daddy!” replied I. “Why, of course they are as hard as nails, and will be for I don’t know how long.”

“Well, greengages, then—they’re ripe, aren’t they? Take a basket and see if you can find a dishful for tea. I always think”—turning to Mrs. Smith—“that fruit is never so nice as when freshly gathered off the tree and put on green leaves, as Kitty does it.”

“Come along, Kitty,” said Tom; “we’ll get a choice assortment of whatever’s going.”

Here poor mother, who foresaw that I might probably tear myself to rags, interfered to bid me go and change my dress first. This I did, with no loss of time; and then we two went away to the orchard, leaving our elders to sip their wine and gossip, and, I dare say, to become quite oblivious of our existence.

“I really think father wanted to get rid of us,” said I, as soon as we were out of earshot.

“I dare say he did, and very kind of him, I’m sure. I suppose they want to talk over all this going to England business. Are you still sorry you are going, Kitty?”

“For some things,” I replied.

“What things?”

I hesitated, and then said vaguely, “Lots of things.”

We reached the orchard, and sauntered silently to a remote shady corner, where, under a huge apple tree, stood a low rustic seat.

“Let’s sit down a bit, Kitty; it’s too soon after dinner for you to go rampaging about, making yourself hot. They don’t want the fruit till tea-time, and that won’t be for hours yet.”

“And I don’t believe the greengages are ripe any more than the pears,” I said; “we have not had one yet. There might be a few raspberries and some apricots left.”

“Well, we’ll see presently. It is so jolly sitting here all by ourselves. You don’t know how I have been longing to see you again, ever since Friday night, when you ran away from me without saying good-bye.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. It was my lucky star brought you down to the river on Friday night, Kitty.”

“You might have got rheumatic fever, and been a cripple all your days, or died,” I responded gravely. “People do sometimes, when they get such a drenching as you must have had.”

“Not when they are as strong and sound as I am, and if they have sense enough to take their wet clothes off at once and have a stiff glass of brandy and water. Indeed, I think it did me all the good in the world; I wanted a little cooling down.”

I had no comment to offer upon that speech, except a rising colour in my face that I would have given much to have had cooled down. So Tom went on. “Tell me some of the things that make you wish you were not going to England, Kitty.”

“Many things—nothing in particular, I suppose.”

“There are things you don’t want to leave?”

“Yes.”

“And people?”

“Yes.”

“Whom will you miss most? You are not intimate with many people, Kitty. You have very few friends indeed, for a girl of your age.”

“Yes, very few. I don’t think I like girls.”

He was silent a minute, looking at me, and then he said, “Are there many people you will miss more than me?”

“No,” I answered nervously; “how could there be, when there are only a few altogether? Don’t go on catechizing, Tom; talk of something. Tell me about England.”

“Any one?” he persisted, now looking very grave and eager, and leaning his arm on his knee to see more clearly into my face.

I had to tell the truth. I looked up at a green apple hanging before me, staring with misty eyes, as if I were having my photograph taken. I replied as steadily as I could, “Not any one that I know of.”

“One question more, Kitty, and you’ll bless my impudence for asking it, I dare say, but I won’t bother you any more. Are you sorry you are going, because of leaving me?”

I did not bless his impudence. I looked into his dear, handsome, eager face, and thought of all that leaving him would cost me, and how blank and empty England would be, if there were untold millions of men in it; and—I am ashamed to say it, though I could not help it any more than I could help being dumb to express my sentiments in any other way—I put my hands to my face and began to cry. I need not say what happened after that. In an instant hands and face were hidden in his breast, and his own strong hands were clasped closely over them. It was only what I might have expected.

“My love! My pretty Kitty! Bless you, my darling!” he exclaimed in a strong passion of emotion that went over me like a tidal wave; and he kissed the top of my head in a way that made my very toes tingle. “Why need we be separated, my own dear love? If you want me I will come—or I will wait and come—or I will keep you back. Somehow—some way—I will manage that we shall not lose one another. Do you want me, Kitty?”

“Do you want me?” I whispered, lifting my head a little, without drawing it away. “That is the question.”

“Haven’t I shown you that? Why, before I went away, when you were ever such a little thing, all the time I was at Oxford, every day since I came home—dreadfully ever since I came home—I have wanted you. You would have broken my heart on Friday night with that news you brought me, only somehow—you won’t mind my saying so now, Kitty?—somehow I had a feeling that it would all come right.”

“I oughtn’t to have let you feel so, Tom.”

“Yes; you couldn’t help it. And now it has come right I’m the happiest dog in the wide world. Aren’t you happy yourself, now?”

“I am, I am!” I replied heartily (for why should I have tried to hide it?); and I put up one timid and hand laid it on his shoulder. And then he clasped me close, and we took a long, long, long kiss, with scorching faces and loud-beating hearts. And we never thought anything more about pears and greengages until the tea-bell rang, and it was too late even to think of looking for them.