CHAPTER VIII.
SOME ENGLISH RELATIONS.
I did not see much more of my unknown friend after this little check upon our intercourse. He neither sought nor avoided me, and I did a little avoid him—the result of which was an occasional “Good morning” only. I think he must have left us at Suez, for I missed him in the train afterwards, and he was not of our party when we set sail again. To tell the truth, by the time our voyage was over I had almost forgotten his existence.
We called our voyage over at Brindisi; it was over so far that we were given up to our own devices, and no longer bound to consult those times and tides that wait for no man. There was no occasion for us, as daddy said, to get to London in a couple of days; and we certainly did not hurry ourselves. We went to Venice, and Florence, and Naples, and Milan, and Rome, and all the famous continental show-places that tourists always go to—Australian tourists, at any rate. I was in such a hurry to see them (for Tom had described them all to me) that I was allowed to overrule mother’s sensible suggestion that we should get home first, and come back as sightseers afterwards.
I was as fresh and vigorous as possible, and so was daddy; and, if mother felt fagged with her travels, and needed a resting-place for the sole of her tired foot, she was the last one to own to it. And she got some pleasure from the knowledge that it was not the season for tourists proper, and that we could not therefore identify ourselves with those objectionable persons—as we all certainly gained a great advantage in having quiet ways to travel in, and the skies of spring above us. We “planted” the bulk of our luggage in various railway centres, and we went a round of sight-seeing that occupied us for several weeks, taking in (besides the places I have named) the highways of Alpine Switzerland, and old-world Norman cities that struck me dumb with their beauty. I appeared in the traditional colonial character—not surprised at anything; for I was simply so overpowered by the wonder of all these astounding novelties that I could not express myself. I gazed, and listened, and sighed, and sometimes rubbed furtive tears out of the corners of my eyes; but such a spell of silence fell upon my nimble tongue as it had never known, perhaps, since it learned the English language. Mother, I need scarcely add, was highly gratified by this unaccustomed well-bred reticence on my part, which she had hardly expected. I am quite sure she accounted for it to herself on her favourite theory of the instinct of gentle blood.
At Paris we took up our abode for a week, not so much to see the lions of the city, though we made a point of missing none of the bigger sort, as to indulge in an extensive course of shopping for pretty clothes for me. It had been arranged that, on our arrival in London, we were to make our head-quarters for a while at aunt Alice’s house in South Kensington, and, from the time that that was settled, mother had shown herself extremely anxious that I should be provided with what she called a suitable outfit. Father also spoke about it, and bade her not consider expense in making her purchases, for that he “should like the child to be as well dressed as other people.” I taxed them with thinking that I was a beauty, and wanting to show me off to my English relations; and when they declared that I was a conceited monkey, and that they never thought anything of the kind, it was transparently evident to me that they did not adhere to the truth quite so strictly as usual.
Mother, who was a born economist, and never, I am sure, wasted a shilling in her life, set to work in those Paris shops as if she were a Baroness Rothschild at least. She began, in the most systematic manner, with lovely underclothing, and handkerchiefs, and collars, and cuffs, and worked up, through shoes and boots, dressing-gowns and stockings, gloves, and ties, and sash ribbons, and laces—all those manifold little costly things that I had hitherto been but sparingly supplied with—to the more important features of a bran-new wardrobe; and, then, what she laid out upon dresses, bonnets, jackets, and things of that sort, I should be afraid to say. She had been born with that rare attribute, taste, and no number of years in the bush had had any power to impair it; and though the clothes she bought me had not a costly appearance, and were all more or less simple in style, they were so fine and delicate and distinguished-looking, that they were fit for a princess. Poor dear Bronzewing must have sold well, I told father, when all our purchases were made, including, of course, some war paint for mother, which was of no account to her compared with my equipment; but he only smiled, and patted my head, and showed himself well pleased with our extravagance.
“So he did, Kitty; so he did,” he replied, gaily. “And the wool has sold well, too. So spend what you like; I can afford it, my dear.”
We crossed the Channel at last, in rough weather, and arrived at Charing Cross on a cool evening of early summer, where we found uncle Goodeve’s carriage waiting for us, with aunt Alice sitting in it. My uncle, who met us on the platform, stout and smiling, with his hat in his hand, and his polished bald head rosy with excitement, gave us as warm a welcome as returned prodigals could desire—a little too warm, I fancied, for mother’s liking, under such very public circumstances. He was a merchant of London city, who was not ashamed of the trade that had made him wealthy. If anything, he was inclined to be rather ostentatious about that fourpenny-bit which he laid out in Covent Garden refuse when he was seven years old, and which was the foundation of his fortunes. He delighted to sit at a table groaning with solid plate and dainty dishes, and to declare that he had dined daily off a mutton chop and a pint of half-and-half for nearly twenty years, or—what was better—that “time was when he was thankful to make a meal of potato-parings.” He never failed to tell you, if you referred to him on certain every-day social and domestic questions, that he was a “plain man,” who had never had any time to attend to fal-lals. A plain man he was certainly, in more senses than one, but hearty and hospitable, and the very soul of all kindness. I “took to” uncle Goodeve from the first moment that I knew him, when he grasped my hand in both his own, and beamed on me with eyes which, if not quite a match for one another, and rather put in the shade by the breadth and substance of his cheeks, were most truly benevolent and fatherly. And he and I maintained, from first to last, an unwavering friendship for one another.
Aunt Alice was another matter. When the luggage, on two or three cabs, and uncle Goodeve and father in charge of it, had left us, and I found myself in the family brougham with the care of all such small matters as shawls and dressing-bags, sitting with my back to the horses, and my face to my mother and aunt, I could survey the latter with great advantage, and did not take long to make up my mind that I should not get on with her as well as I should with her husband. She had the advantage of him in being decidedly handsome in her own over-blown style. There was a strong likeness to father, but it was spoiled by an air of conscious importance that he could not have worn if he had been made king of England. She was enormously stout, and looked a great deal stouter in a sealskin jacket, bordered with sable; her face was full and florid, with at least three chins to it; and her bonnet, which was much higher and gayer than those we had seen in Paris, and perched far back on some braids at the crown of her head, did nothing to soften its too obtrusive outlines. She was so stout, so rosy, so magnificent in her dress, that she gave one the idea of being prosperous to repletion.
I ought to have admired her very much, for she was exceedingly kind and cordial, and it was pretty to see her ways to mother, who had been made much of in the Chamberlayne family in former days. She held her hand and coaxed it, and she gazed into her face, expressing again and again her wonder and pleasure to see her so little changed by all she had gone through.
“I suppose I look older, like the rest of us,” said mother, “but I have had no reason to be changed otherwise. I’m sure I can’t look careworn.”
“Yes,” said aunt Alice; “of course you look older, as who wouldn’t in seventeen years! But you are so like what you used to be—I don’t mean in not looking careworn; indeed, I can’t describe what I mean exactly. You don’t seem to have lost your old ways; and your style”—glancing at mother’s travelling dress—“is exactly what it always was, half Worth and half Quaker.”
Then she turned to make a careful survey of my personal appearance, and declared herself still more astonished that I was so unlike what she had expected me to be, after being brought up in the bush all my life. At which mother gazed out of the carriage window in placid dignity, to imply that it was an irrelevant remark, not requiring comment.
“Did you expect to see me black, aunt, and dressed in opossum skins?” I inquired.
“My dear, of course not. But I must say you look—well, very different from what I expected. A stranger would not guess that she had not been in London all her life, Mary,” she added in an encouraging tone, to mother.
“If I had been in London all my life,” said I, “I expect I should have been dead tired to-night, instead of feeling as fresh as if I had just got out of bed. Oh, mother, I hope there are some open spaces somewhere, where I can have a run sometimes, and a breath of fresh air!”
“There spoke the wild girl of the woods,” cried aunt Alice, laughing merrily. But mother did not smile, as she was expected to do, at that little joke, and I was sorry I had spoken.
We arrived home—to a stately house in a great square, where all the houses were much alike—and were ushered by a liveried man-servant into a sort of back drawing-room (which aunt Alice called her boudoir, though I never would). It was a lofty room, with pale distempered walls, and a dado of the very latest fashion, as I was told, and some of the newest designs in artistic furniture and ornaments. The carpet, however, asserted itself with painful distinctness; and over a lovely tiled chimney-piece was reared the most enormous pier-glass, in the most overpowering gilt frame that, I should think, was ever designed as a memorial of a barbaric age. I afterwards discovered that a mammoth pier-glass was a striking feature of each of the lower rooms; and by-and-bye I also discovered that this article of furniture had a sort of symbolic significance to uncle Goodeve, and was thus prominent in his establishment by his express desire. In his early days of struggle and privation it had stood to him as a sort of sign of wealth and plenty, and of all that was refined and elegant in domestic art. And now he obstinately refused to deny himself the pleasure of possessing it, in the largest sizes and the most elaborate gilt frames, though he was quite willing that aunt Alice and the girls should indulge their taste in “fal-lals” without any further restriction.
My two cousins rose up from two low chairs when I entered the room, and received me with effusive affection. They were rather small, rather bony, rather sallow, inheriting none of that fulness of flesh and colour of which their parents had enough and to spare; and they were neither plain, like their father, nor handsome, like their mother, nor anything particular, in fact. I did not call them even tolerably good-looking, though Bella, the youngest, certainly had nice features and very fine eyes. They wore their hair cut in fringes on their foreheads, and pretty well tossed about over the rest of their heads; and their dresses were tied back so extremely tight (a fashion that was then in its early extravagance) that it was with difficulty they managed to shuffle along, for it could not be called walking.
However, they were very kind and attentive, and my heart warmed to them. They took off my hat, and loosened my jacket, and drew the softest low chair to the fireside for me to sit in; and they commiserated me for having made that “dreadful trip” across that “awful Channel,” and for all the rest of my late fatigues, in a manner that I much enjoyed, though conscious that my face proclaimed the prosaic fact that I felt rather invigorated than otherwise by what I had undergone. A youthful page in brass buttons brought in a silver tray of little teacups, with their elongated saucers garnished with wafers of bread and butter; and we sipped and nibbled as we exchanged our little questions and replies, until it occurred to them that I might like to go to my room, whither they both accompanied me, and where I found a fire, and some fresh flowers, and little welcomes of that kind, which I warmly appreciated. Mother’s chamber was close by, and she had retired into it for the night, for she was really knocked up. I found her in her dressing-gown, in an armchair by the fire, and a maid making preparations for tea at a table beside her; and she looked happy to have found a resting-place after all her travels. Bertha and Bella seemed to think it very odd that I did not want to retire also, but were much pleased when I declared that I would prefer to join them at dinner.
“Then you must make haste and dress,” said Bertha, “for we are very late to-night, and the bell will ring in a quarter of an hour.”
“And we will send our maid to help you,” said Bella, with which the two girls hastened off, while I went down on my knees, and tried to tug open a big wicker trunk, out of which I was determined to drag one of my prettiest new French evening dresses, so as to look as unlike an aboriginal Australian in opossum skins as possible when I appeared amongst the family in the drawing-room. I was a little ruffled by aunt Alice’s remarks on my appearance, and I told mother so.
“Never mind, dear,” was mother’s placid reply. “She is a good, kind creature, but she has been amongst city people a good many years, and perhaps that is not quite the best school for manners.”
Oh, if aunt Alice had heard her!
A smart young maid appeared in a few minutes, and began to toss my things over cheerfully; gradually becoming more respectful in her handling of them as she became aware of their style and quality. By the time she had laid out and examined the dress I had chosen to wear, she was almost reverential. And when she saw it on me, fitting so exquisitely, and falling away behind with that indescribable grace that no folds will take at the hands of ordinary dressmakers, she quite went into raptures. As I surveyed myself in the long glass, the thought occurred to me, I am ashamed to say, that even a perfect French dress would not have looked as well upon her young ladies as it did upon me. “How I wish dear Tom could see me!” I sighed to myself pensively.
I went downstairs in a majestic manner, conscious of being nice to look at, which—scoff as people may—is a pleasant feeling, and not one to be ashamed of. My dress was black, very cloudy and fluffy, with wide, rich, apple-green ribbons looped into it here and there. Never, when I could help it, would I put an ornament into my golden-chesnut braids (for Tom did not like them meddled with); but round my throat lay the chain of silver balls and diamond stars, and on my bosom shone the emerald cross like a royal order. I joined the family on the stairs, and went down to dinner on uncle Goodeve’s arm. I heard cousin Bertha say to father behind me, “How very nice-looking Kitty is, uncle Chamberlayne.”
“Oh, she’ll do,” responded daddy in an offhand tone, but, as I knew, swelling with pride like a dear old turkey-cock. “She’s not so bad, for a colonial.”
“But she doesn’t look the least colonial, uncle; that is what surprises us so much. Mamma says she cannot understand it. We thought she’d be—well, a little shy and awkward—a little uncomfortable in society—that sort of thing.”
“She’d be her mother’s daughter, wherever she came from,” said father rather shortly, and I felt myself redden at the little minx’s unconscious impertinence.
At dinner I was aware that I was an object of great curiosity and interest, and summoned all my arts to appear calmly unconscious of it. The eyes of one or another were always fixed on my jewels, which must have made a wondrous show in such a breadth of gaslight; and other eyes were sure to be watching furtively every movement I made—to see, I suppose, whether I put my knife into my mouth or used my finger-glass to drink out of. The conversation turned almost entirely upon Australian topics, and my respected relations proved themselves as sublimely and preposterously ignorant of our modern colonial social life as all other stay-at-home Britons that I have met. I was not a bit surprised. I remembered a famous joke in Punch—a sketch of an Australian cousin arriving in a Belgravian drawing-room at the time of afternoon tea, and, being asked to take a cup, replying that he “didn’t mind,” if Bella would give him a handful of tea and a billy that he might boil it in the customary manner on the drawing-room coals (I wonder he didn’t want to go out into the gardens of the square, and cut down a tree to make his fire with). When I reflected that Punch was a journal of public opinion, enjoying an immemorial repute and prestige as a faithful mirror of contemporary manners, I could not wonder that uncle and aunt Goodeve and my cousins were so astonished to see me behaving myself like a civilised being. And what was damper like? asked Bella, as she took a dainty spoonful of ice pudding. And would I tell her how it was made? And how did gold look when it came out of those funny cradles? And was it really good satin and silk and velvet that the rich diggers gave their wives when they married those drabs of emigrant girls, and drank champagne out of buckets at their weddings? And were we not dreadfully afraid to live amongst those wild savages who went about at night spearing the cattle? And was it not very fortunate that uncle Chamberlayne had had a sheep station, since it was never known that they speared sheep?
I had not much patience to go into details about these things; I left it to father, who—though he was old enough to have known better—crammed them with shocking falsehoods, which had the effect of confirming their theories, and of making their hair stand more on end than it did before. The only information I vouchsafed was that I really and truly had seen a live ornithorhyncus, and that, when shot and taken from the river, the smell of its nasty, soft thick body was so unspeakably disgusting that it spoiled my appetite even to think of it.
When I crept into mother’s room, to see how she was and to say good-night—feeling very sleepy at last, for it was one o’clock—I confided to her my first impressions of my cousins.
“They are as kind as kind can be; but oh, mother, they are very silly!” I said despondingly.
“You must not say that until you have had time to know them,” she replied.
“I used to feel at home that I didn’t care for girls,” I went on, “but to-night I feel so more than ever. To see Bertha finicking about the tea cups with those slices of lemon, and talking about the Duchess of Edinburgh and the fashions as if it were a matter of the very last importance, it was so absurd! And she never read a Saturday Review article in her life—she, living in London!”
“There is a great deal else to read in London, Kitty.”
“Oh yes,” I retorted, turning up my nose, “The Queen, and Myra’s Journal, and Belgravia, I suppose. Well, I hope the men will be an improvement on the girls. They mostly are, fortunately.”
“Don’t express that opinion in public, Kitty, I beg of you.”
“No, mother, of course not; I’m going to be the pink of propriety now.”
“I hope so, darling. Good-night. God bless you.”