CHAPTER IV.
ARCADIA.
“What shall we do now, Kitty?” said Tom, as we hastened through the orchard, hand in hand, with our empty basket. “Shall I call your father away after tea and speak to him? Or shall we keep the rest of this one day for ourselves, and have a walk to the river in the moonlight? Do you think it would be wrong to have a clandestine engagement, just under their noses, until to-morrow?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied emphatically. “It would be much the nicest.”
“Much—there’s no doubt about that. And, after all, nobody can tell what may happen after to-day. Suppose he won’t give his consent, Kitty?”
“He’s too kind,” I said promptly. “And he can’t bear to see me miserable.”
“Not even for your good?”
“No, not even for my good. Mother would make me miserable for my good, though she would be a deal worse herself all the time; she has the will and the courage, somehow. But poor dear daddy breaks down the moment he sees me even getting ready to cry. I’m more afraid of mother than I am of him. But oh, Tom, what is there to be afraid of? What could any one see in you to object to?”
We were by this time in the back passage, and, doors being closed, stopped to exchange another kiss; and then we sneaked into the dining-room, one after the other, reversing the order of precedence in consideration of my nerves.
“Hullo, Kitty,” said father, looking round the table, which was garnished with a veal pie and some chicken salad, “where are the plums gone to?”
“There are none ripe, daddy,” faltered I.
“And couldn’t you find any substitute? You might have picked a dish of apricots, at any rate. It doesn’t seem natural to have tea on Sundays without fruit of some sort.”
“I don’t think there are any apricots left,” I suggested, beginning to be uncomfortably conscious that mother was regarding me gravely from the corner of her eye.
“None left?” father almost shouted. “Why, didn’t you see Sandy, only yesterday, carrying off a wheelbarrow load for the pigs?”
I hung my head, and mother came to the rescue. “The rain spoiled them,” she put in quietly. I was certain, from the tone of her voice, that she scented the truth, though, perhaps, afar off; and I quaked inwardly.
As soon as tea was over, I slipped out of the room and into my bedroom, whence I emerged from my private door into the garden, and ran away to the paddock. In about ten minutes I spied Tom poking about the shrubbery, looking for me; and I called “Cooee!” once or twice, softly, to bring him to my hiding-place.
“I wondered where in the world you were off to,” he said in some surprise.
“I’ll tell you why I ran away,” I eagerly responded. “I felt certain mother would ask me to sing, or to do something that would keep me indoors; and I could not bear to lose this one evening of our own.”
“No, indeed; that would have been hard lines, and no mistake! Ah, well, we’ll soon settle with them, and get our liberty honestly, please God.”
“We’re not dishonest, Tom, I hope.”
“No, my darling, no; but you know what I mean.”
I did know what he meant, of course. And I slipped my hand in his and we set off across the moonlit grass, with Spring bounding wildly after us. I dare say there were plenty more lovers in the world as happy as we, but we did not think so.
We made our way to the very bend of the river where I met him on Friday night, and sat down on the very identical stump. That is to say, I sat down on it, and he sat as close to me as circumstances permitted, in a very comfortable, if slightly ungraceful attitude. There were some wild ducks dotting the moonlight in the deep pool above us—if it had been a week-night they never would have swum about in that confidential way; and a pair of ridiculous laughing jackasses sat over our heads and jeered at us.
“Oh, Kitty, Kitty, how many nights like this shall we have, I wonder, out of six weeks of nights! What a dreadful little time it is!”
“Hush now, Tom. Don’t let us talk of anything but what is nice and pleasant. The other things can wait.”
“All right, we won’t. Kitty, when we are married, you must always wear black gowns with white lace on them, like that one you had on this morning.”
“Did you like it?”
“I should think so, rather. I never saw you in anything that suited you so well.”
“And it happens to be the dress that I like best. But oh, Tom, I should cost a fortune if I wore that sort of thing always? You can’t think how unlucky I am with my clothes, and how soon I make them shabby. I have a knack of catching on all the nails and knobs and things that stick out, somehow.”
“Well, we can have a change sometimes, of course; but that is what you must wear whenever you want to be particularly swell.”
“I’m quite agreeable. Only you must make me a rather considerable allowance, I must tell you.”
“No, I don’t believe in allowances. I shall give you a cheque-book of your own, and you shall draw whatever you want, without being beholden to anybody. There should be no bargaining between husband and wife.”
“If husbands did like that, Tom, I’m afraid the wives would get dreadfully demoralized. Why, I can’t add up money at all—I don’t know why, but I never could—and I should very likely ruin you without knowing it.”
“How jolly it will be!” murmured Tom, meditatively.
“Being ruined?”
“No, being a husband, and having a wife. I suppose I shall come to England for you and we shall be married there. Mind now, Kitty, lots of men will want to make love to you when you get home and into society. Don’t you let them, there’s a good girl.”
“It doesn’t matter what they do, I suppose, if I don’t make love to them.”
“Doesn’t it, though, by Jove! when I’m not there to send them about their business! Do you know, I’m sorry you haven’t been out and got all that over. I should like to feel you had chosen me out of the whole world, as I have chosen you.”
“And pray haven’t I? We’ll wait, if you like, and not be engaged until I have gone through two or three London seasons—if mother lets me have London seasons, that is. I am quite ready.”
“No, you’re not, Kitty; and you know that is nonsense. But oh, how long the time will be till I can come after you!”
“To keep me out of mischief—as you said the other night.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did—though not in so many words, perhaps. Now, don’t be a suspicious, jealous, disagreeable boy. If you can’t trust me out of sight, I’m not worth having. And I promise you faithfully, Tom—I’m not afraid to take any ‘solemn davy’ you like—that a hundred thousand million men won’t make any more difference in my love for you than if they weren’t there.”
Tom wriggled a little closer, and laid his head upon my shoulder; and Spring, for the first time catching sight of ducks, sent them with a sudden splash whirring up through the moonlight over our heads. We neither of us spoke for a little while, but held one another close, and sealed that sacred compact with a long and solemn kiss. We suddenly seemed to feel it a sort of sacrilege to talk. We looked up together at the delicate sky and the pale stars, the tip of his auburn moustache brushing my cheek the while, and watched the flight of the wild-fowl until they were out of sight—one after another, all in line, like the ducks in Landseer’s “Sanctuary,” their black necks stretched out, and their active little pinions twinkling. It was a sweeter night than Friday night had been. The river was not low and stagnant now, with dry mud-banks, but rippling and brawling over its stones and snags, almost to our feet, fed anew with a freshet coming down from the Booloomooroo Ranges, where we had seen it raining in the afternoon. There were faint tints of dying daylight tingeing the moonshine that lay around us; and there were soft airs, fragrant with the scent of the refreshed earth and the springing grass, just breathing into our faces like the breath of life itself. No such airs ever blow in England, I think. Even the gum trees, ugly as they were—so far as Nature’s works can be ugly—were transfigured in this light, rustling their scraggy and shadeless branches softly, and throwing patterns on my white gown.
I was the first to break the spell of happy silence in which we sat. “Tom,” I said, “when will you come to England for me?”
“As soon as I can, my darling; you may be sure of that. I must talk to my father about it, and hear what Mr. Chamberlayne says.”
“Can’t you persuade Mr. Smith to sell out, as father is doing, and settle in England, too?”
“I don’t think there is any chance of that. You see, my mother is not like yours; she hates England, and wouldn’t go back there for anything.”
“What an odd thing! And yet she never seems to have belonged to the colony a bit.”
“No more she does. But something—some dreadful trouble, I think—happened to her at home. I don’t know what it was; it was long ago—when she was married before; or, at any rate, before she married my father. I know the governor came out and invested everything they both had in the colony, to please her. Moreover, she has chosen the place where she wants to be buried—in that open space in the clump of wattles at the bottom of the garden. She is going to have an iron railing put round it; she drew the design herself. That looks as if she had made up her mind never to go away again.”
“And she never told you what happened to make her exile herself in that way?”
“Never: she has plenty to say about most things, as you know; but if you once approach an allusion to her early life she is as mum as anything—shuts up like a box. Do you remember that mysterious party in Lady Georgiana Fullerton’s novel ‘Too Strange not to be True?’ I often think she is like her.”
“But of course your father knows all about it.”
“Oh yes, of course he knows. But he never lets anything out any more than she does. I have been a little inquisitive sometimes, and asked him questions; but it always worried him awfully, poor old boy, so I gave it up. But I’m quite sure that here they will both stay—as long as she lives, at any rate.”
“Then what will you do, Tom?”—very sorrowfully. “You are their only child, and it would break their hearts to part with you.”
“Yes, I must not leave them for long. I must just run home to get married, and bring you back with me, Kitty. I hope it won’t be very hard on you, dear. We’ll have a house in Melbourne for part of the year, if you like; I won’t keep you always in the bush. And when the poor old people are gone, then we’ll live in any part of the world you like best. I don’t care a pin for the colony except for their sakes.”
“And I don’t care a pin where I live,” I responded, “so long as we are together.”
So we talked and talked, until it suddenly occurred to us that Mr. and Mrs. Smith might be wanting to go home, and would have no idea where their young coachman was gone to. Then we scrambled from our nest in the green bank, called Spring, who had forgotten it was Sunday, from his very secular engagements, and set off, hand in hand, through our Champs Elysées—oh, so loth to be convinced that our happy day was so nearly at an end!
When we reached home, we saw the Smith’s buggy with the hood up, standing ready in the stable yard, and Joe at the horses’ heads. In the drawing-room our elders, with the exception of Mrs. Smith, were standing about; and she was sitting on a sofa, in her old poke bonnet and her lovely old Indian shawl, with gloved hands folded before her, looking as if she might have been waiting any number of hours.
“I hope I am not behind time,” began Tom (he would no more have put his mother to inconvenience than he would the Queen, if he could help it). “I thought you would want a good long talk with Mrs. Chamberlayne, as there are so few Sundays left.”
My mother, who had evidently been on the watch for my approach, laid her hand upon my shoulder, and said gravely, “My dear, where have you been? I greatly dislike your running about in this way so late at night.”
“Don’t blame Kitty,” put in Tom, turning quickly to defend me; “it was my fault, Mrs. Chamberlayne. The night was so lovely that I persuaded her to come out for a walk.” And then I suppose he thought it was time to “settle with them,” as he called it; for he drew father a little aside, and asked him if he would be disengaged any time the following day, as he wanted particularly to speak to him.
“Certainly, certainly, my dear boy,” replied father, in blissful ignorance. “Any time after lunch that you like. You’d better come to lunch, eh?”
“I’ll come at three o’clock, or thereabouts,” said Tom, “if that will be convenient to you.”
And then they all went out to the buggy, father leading the way with Mrs. Smith, and mother monopolizing both the remaining men. I trailed after them at a respectful distance, waiting for an opportunity to say good night.
With the reins in one hand, Tom turned back and held out the other to me, before mounting into his seat. “Good night, Kitty,” he said aloud; and then, stooping his tall head, he whispered hurriedly, “Look out for me when I leave the presence-chamber to-morrow.”
“No fear,” I replied promptly. And I was very thankful, as soon as I had made use of that vulgar expression, that mother had not been near enough to hear it. My feelings were too strong for me, and it slipped out unawares.