Volume Four—Chapter Three.
Our Julia’s Lover.
“What have we done, wifie, that we should be consigned to such quarters as these?” said Captain Otway one day with a sigh. “I don’t think I’m too particular, but when I entered His Majesty’s service I did not know that I should be expected to play gaoler to the occupants of the Government Pandemonium.”
“It is a beautiful place,” said Mrs Otway laconically. “It was till we came and spoiled it. It is one great horror, ’pon my soul; and it is degrading our men to set them such duty as this.”
“Be patient. These troubles cure themselves.”
“But they take such a long time over it,” said the Captain. “It would be more bearable if Phil had not turned goose.”
“Poor Phil!” said Mrs Otway, with a sigh.
“Poor Phil? Pooh! you spoil the lad! I can’t get him out for a bit of shooting or hunting or fishing. Old Sir Gordon would often give us a cruise in his boat, but no: Phil must sit moonstruck here. The fellow’s spoiled! Can’t you knock all that on the head?”
“I perhaps could, but it must be a matter of time,” said Mrs Otway, going steadily on with her work, and mending certain articles of attire.
“But he must be cured. It is impossible.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs Otway, “so I tell him. I wish it were not.”
“My dear Mary—a convict’s daughter!”
“The poor girl was not consulted as to whose daughter she would like to be, Jack, and she is, without exception, the sweetest lassie I ever met.”
“Yes, she is nice,” said Otway. “Mother must have been nice too.”
“Is nice,” cried Mrs Otway, flushing. “I felt a little distant with her at first, but after what I have seen and know—by George, Jack, I do feel proud of our sex!”
“Humph!” ejaculated the Captain, with a smile at his wife’s bluff earnestness. “Yes, she’s a good woman; very ladylike, too. But that husband, that friend of his, Crellock! Poor creatures! it is ruining them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Otway dryly. “That’s one of the misfortunes of marriage; we poor women are dragged down to the level of our husbands.”
“And when these husbands come out to convict settlements as gaolers they have to come with them, put up with all kinds of society, give up all their refinements, and make and mend their own dresses, and—”
“Even do their own chores, as the Americans call it,” said Mrs Otway, looking up smiling. “It makes me look very miserable, doesn’t it, Jack?”
She stopped her work, went behind her husband’s chair, put her arms round his neck, and laid her cheek upon his head.
Neither spoke for a few minutes, but the Captain looked very contented and happy, and neither of them heard the step as Bayle came through the house, and out suddenly into the verandah.
“I beg your pardon!” he cried, drawing back.
“Ah, parson! Don’t go!” cried the Captain, as Mrs Otway started up, and, in spite of her ordinary aplomb, looked disturbed. “Bad habit of ours acquired since marriage. We don’t mind you.”
Mrs Otway held out her hand to their visitor.
“Why, it is nearly a fortnight since you have been to see us. We were just talking about your friends—the Hallams.”
“Have you been to see them lately?” said Bayle, eagerly.
“I was there yesterday. Quite well; but Mrs Hallam looks worried and ill. Julia is charming, only she too is not as I should like to see her.”
She watched Bayle keenly, and saw his countenance change as she spoke.
“I am very glad they are well,” he said.
“Yes, I know you are; but why don’t you go more often?”
He looked at her rather wistfully, and made no reply. “Look here, Mr Bayle,” she said, “I don’t think you mind my speaking plainly, now do you? Come, that’s frank.”
“I will be just as frank,” he replied, smiling. “I have always liked you because you do speak so plainly.”
“That’s kind of you to say so,” she replied. “Well, I will speak out. You see there are so few women in the colony.”
“Who are ladies,” said Bayle quietly.
“Look here,” said Otway, in a much ill-used tone, “am I expected to sit here and listen to my wife putting herself under the influence of the Church?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack!” said Mrs Otway sharply. “This is serious.”
“I’m dumb.”
“What I want to say, Mr Bayle, is this. Don’t you think you are making a mistake in staying away from your friends yonder?”
He sat without replying for some minutes.
“No,” he said slowly. “I did not give up my visits there till after I had weighed the matter very carefully.”
“But you seemed to come out with those two ladies as their guardian, and now, when they seem most to require your help and guidance, you leave them.”
“Have you heard anything? Is anything wrong?”
“I have heard nothing, but I have seen a great deal, because I persist in visiting, in spite of Mr Hallam’s objection to my presence.”
“I say, my dear, that man is always civil to you, I hope?” cried Otway sharply.
“My dear Jack, be quiet,” said Mrs Otway. “Of course he is. I visit there because I have good reasons for so doing.”
“Tell me,” said Bayle anxiously.
“I have seen a great deal,” continued Mrs Otway: “but it all comes to one point.” Bayle looked at her inquiringly. “That it is very dreadful for those two sweet, delicate women to have come out here to such a fate. The man is dreadful!”
“They will redeem him,” said Bayle huskily. “Poor wretch! he has had a terrible experience. This convict life is worse than capital punishment. We must be patient, Mrs Otway. The habits of a number of years are not got rid of in a few months. He will change.”
“Will he?” said Mrs Otway shortly.
“Yes; they will, as I said before, redeem him. The man has great natural love for his wife and child.”
“Do you think this?”
“Yes, yes!” he cried excitedly, as he got up and began to pace the verandah. “I stop away because my presence was like a standing reproach to him. The abstinence gives me intense pain, but my going tended to make them unhappy, and caused constraint, so I stop away.”
“And so you think that they will raise him to their standard, do you?” said Mrs Otway dryly.
“Yes, I do,” he cried fervently. “It is only a matter of time.”
“How can you be so self-deceiving?” she cried quickly. “He is dragging them down to his level.”
“Oh, hush!” cried Bayle passionately. Then mastering his emotion, he continued in his old, firm, quiet way: “No, no; you must not say that. He could not. It is impossible.”
“Yes. You are wrong there, Bel,” said the Captain. “Mrs Hallam is made of too good stuff.”
“I give in,” said Mrs Otway, nodding. “Yes, you two are right. He could not bring that sweet woman down to his level; but all this is very terrible. The man is giving himself up to a life of sensuality. Drinking and feasting with that companion of his. There is gambling going on too at night with friends of his own stamp. What a life this is for a refined lady and her child!”
Bayle spoke calmly, but he wiped the great drops of sweat from his brow.
“What can I do?” he said. “I am perfectly helpless.”
“I confess I don’t know,” said Mrs Otway, with a sigh. “Only you and Sir Gordon must be at hand to help them in any emergency.”
“Emergency! What do you mean?” anxiously.
“I don’t know what may occur. Who knows? Women are so weak,” sighed Mrs Otway; “once they place their faith in a man, they follow him to the end of the world.”
“That’s true, Bayle, old fellow—to convict stations, and become slaves,” said the Captain.
“Mr Bayle,” said Mrs Otway suddenly. “I am under a promise to my old friend, Lady Eaton, and I have done my best to oppose it all; but you have seen how deeply attached Phil Eaton has become to Miss Hallam?”
“Yes,” said Bayle slowly, and he was very pale now, “I have seen it.”
“He shall not marry her if I can prevent it, much as I love the girl, for it would be a terrible mésalliance; but he is desperately fond of her, and, as my husband here says, he has taken the bit in his teeth, and he will probably travel his own way.”
“Don’t you get fathering your coarse expressions on me,” growled the Captain; but no one heeded him.
“As I say, he shall not marry her if I can stop it; but suppose he should be determined, and could get the father’s consent, would you and Sir Gordon raise any opposition?”
“Lieutenant Eaton is an officer and a gentleman.”
“He is a true-hearted lad, Mr Bayle, and I love him dearly,” said Mrs Otway. “Only that he is fighting hard between love and duty he would have been carrying on the campaign by now; but you must allow Fort Robert Hallam is a terrible one to storm and garrison afterwards, for it has to be retained for life.”
“I understand your meaning,” said Bayle, speaking very slowly. “It is a terrible position for Mr Eaton to be in.”
“Should you oppose it?”
“I have no authority whatever,” said Bayle in the same low, dreamy tone. “If I had, I should never dream of opposing anything that was for Miss Hallam’s good.”
“And it would be, to get her away from such associations, Mr Bayle.”
“Lady Eaton! Lady Eaton!” said the Captain in warning.
“Hush, Jack! pray.”
“Yes,” said Bayle; “it would be for Miss Hallam’s benefit; but it would nearly break her mother’s heart.”
“She would have to make a sacrifice for the sake of the child.”
“Yes,” said Bayle softly. “Another sacrifice;” and then softly to himself, “how long? how long?”
He rose, and was gravely bidding his friends good-bye, when a sharp, quick step was heard, and Eaton came in, coloured like a girl on seeing Bayle, hesitated, and then held out his hand.
Bayle shook it warmly and left the verandah, Eaton walking with him to the gate.
“Jack,” said Mrs Otway softly, “it’s my belief that the parson loves Julia Hallam himself.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And will he marry her?”
“No. I’m about sure that she is desperately fond of our boy, and the parson is too true a man to stand in the way.”
“Nonsense!” said the Captain. “Such men are not made now.”
“But they were when Christie Bayle was born,” she said, nodding her head quickly. “Yes,” she said, after a pause, as they heard Eaton’s returning steps; “it’s a knot, Jack.”
“Humph!” he replied. “For time to untie.”