It may have stood two feet high, but obviously the size would depend on circumstances, the same as with our own. In shape it resembled the tall bottles, with their horizontal fluting, in which the ready-made salad-dressing of commerce is, or used to be, purveyed, being a shell formed of graduated rings of cake (much like the wooden rings for stretching drawn-thread-work), laid one upon another from bottom to top. They were as perfectly round and evenly graduated as if the paste had been wound round a cone like cotton on a reel, but that is not how it was done, because each ring was complete in itself and came off whole when the cake was "broken," although previously it had adhered to the rings next to it strongly enough to make the finished erection safe to move and carry. This means, of course, that the stuff is not brittle, but neither is it tough; it bites like a particularly nice macaroon. When the bride had pulled off the two or three top rings, which were broken into pieces of convenient size before being handed round, the hollow within revealed itself filled up with sweetmeats; and here again the purse or fancy would determine the kind and quality of sweetmeats used. A cake of any size, filled with the best "lollies," as we Australians call them, must be at least as costly as the corresponding English cake, although it may not look so. As it goes down, ring by ring, the miscellaneous internal goodies are distributed to keep the surface even, which certainly makes it the more interesting of the two to partake of; and it can assuredly boast the more cunning cookery. I love a new experience, of whatever sort or kind, and I consider the Norwegian wedding-cake an item of value to my store.
Altogether, I had a good time that afternoon—as usual. Family guests allowed me not a moment to remember that I was a stranger, and I was thrown for a while with a lady—introduced to me with special intention as one who knew Australia—with whom I felt at once like an old friend, although she had known Australia only as a tourist, not as an old-timer like myself. We talked Australia and nothing else, but not quite as another lady, who knew Australia as I knew it, had discussed the subject with me at a Norfolk garden-party. We did not largely comment upon the funniness of these stay-at-home English people, the unconsciousness of the poor dears of how way back behind the times they were, and their extraordinarily mistaken notions about us and what we were accustomed to.
The fog had settled down for the remainder of the day, never having lifted since day broke. It took the bride and bridegroom and their carriage, swallowing them up before our eyes as we clustered about the porch to bid them godspeed. Soon afterwards we drove away ourselves. The hedgerow ivy and the foamy traveller's joy and the pink valerian were still to be seen on the roadside banks, so close to us as we pounded down the hills. The carriage windows were down, and the white veil floated about us. I watched the gradual wilting of the already discouraged feathers on the hat in front of me, until at last they hung down lank and shiny, little beads of moisture fringing their tips. I had tucked my own feather boa within my wraps, to save it, but when, reaching home, I drew it off in the hall, it was like drawing a wet sponge along my neck and cheek.
"Take them all to the drying-closet," said M. to her maid. And there our wedding garments spent the night, coming forth dry and fuzzy in the morning.
In Australia the drying-closet is not amongst our domestic appliances, although its principles are applied to laundries. We do not need it. But it is the "long-felt want" of every British home. Unfortunately it is the privilege of the well-to-do. Since I am not likely to be able to afford one, I intend not to wear feather boas when I go to live in England.
[CHAPTER XV]
IN THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND
Twenty years ago—or was it nearer twenty-five?—a dear girl came to live with me as governess-out-of-school to my young children and general aide-de-camp to myself. It was in the time, which spread over so many years, when I was not strong enough for all the domestic duties that properly belonged to me. I got her through an advertisement—the only time I was ever beholden to such a source for such an acquisition. "A young English lady" was the attractive description of her—the very thing, to my mind, for my bush-bred infants.
I called on her at the Governesses' Home in Melbourne, and engaged her on the spot. She had come to Australia for her health, but if she told me so I did not grasp the fact; she looked as well and as good as I felt she would be comfortable to get on with. Also she had come from a good English house and a well-to-do and well-placed family, and was choosing to earn her living rather than be an expense to her father, from no compulsion but that of her own independent spirit; and this too was a fact I did not grasp. She never allowed me to perceive it. Had she been penniless, with only her casual employer to depend on, she could not have served me more devotedly. She worked far harder than I should have allowed her to do had I divined the secret weaknesses in her sturdy-looking little frame, always with bright face and cheerful voice and unslackening energy and interest. She seemed to have no thought for herself at all. And yet she professed, and still vehemently professes, that the time she spent with us was the time of her life.