Seen and Unseen

by E. Katherine Bates

When the message had come to an end, Miss Maynard gathered up the scattered sheets, and promising to copy them out for me, took her departure, and left me to muse—so far as a racking brain would allow—on the curious and interesting result of her visit. No cup of tea to thirsty wayfarer was ever surely so grandly rewarded!

My next adventure had a distant connection with these Australian experiences.

I had come out to join the friend (Miss Greenlow) who had been my companion in America, and who had thence sailed for Sydney when I returned for a year to England. She had been anxious for me to rejoin her in Australia, and from thence visit Japan and China; but my arrival having been delayed by literary matters, this lady had finally lost patience, and, without my knowledge, had gone on to New Zealand, and thence, as it turned out, to Samoa. When I heard of the New Zealand episode there was nothing for it but to follow her there, on a will-o'-the-wisp expedition, as it turned out, but, fortunately, I was unaware of this at the time. I say fortunately, because had I known that she had already left Australia for Samoa, I should certainly have returned to England, in despair of tracing her any further, and thereby one of my most interesting experiences would have been lost.

The illness in Melbourne, already referred to, detained me for over a fortnight, so it was necessary to transfer my New Zealand ticket from one boat to another. So the illness also must have been one of the factors that was involved in the adventure, as I have called it. For the delay led to my meeting—in a friend's house—Mr Arthur Kitchener (a younger brother of Lord Kitchener), who was introduced to me on the special ground that we were to be fellow-travellers to New Zealand a day or two later. As a matter of fact, Mr Kitchener was on his way from England to New Zealand, where he was superintending a sheep-run for his father in those days. He had come out by P. & O., and transhipped at Melbourne after two or three days' delay there.

Several other passengers from the Massilia were also going on to New Zealand, and naturally they felt like old friends after the five or six weeks already spent together. They thought I wanted to be alone, and I thought they wanted to be alone, and so I kept severely to the upper deck, feeling often lonely, and they all remained on the lower deck, wishing I would come down and talk to them sometimes. In spite of these misconceptions on either side, Mr Kitchener and I became sufficiently friendly for him to give me a very kind and hospitable invitation to spend the last few days of the year at his "station," about nine miles from Dunback, in the Dunedin district. I think I must have told him of my disappointment in missing my companion in Sydney, after travelling so many thousand miles to join her, and doubtless he felt some interest in this Stanley and Livingstone sort of chase, with two women taking the principal characters!

Anyway, the invitation was given and accepted, and he kindly promised to ask one or two people to meet me in his house.

All this came to pass some weeks later, on my return from the New Zealand lakes, and just before an expedition to the "Sounds," generally known as the "Sounds Trip."

This is a pleasure trip, organised for early January, which is, of course, midsummer there. It lasts for ten days, and gives one the opportunity of seeing to the best advantage these glorious inlets of the sea.

My week at the sheep station was to precede this, as I have explained; in fact, as the steamer sailed late in the afternoon, it was possible to go on board without stopping for the night at Dunedin, whence we were to sail. But at the last moment a slight contretemps took place. Owing to some delay the steamer would not be able to leave till Monday, instead of the Saturday morning as arranged, and our kind host insisted on extending his hospitality for the two extra days.

Now each day there had been some talk about having an impromptu séance, and each day I had successfully evaded the arrangement. I have a great dislike to sitting in casual circles with strangers, and it seemed to me that no good purpose would be served by doing so. It is impossible on these occasions to convince anyone else that you are not pushing or "muscle moving," or generally playing tricks, and it has always seemed to me that the time wasted over mutual recriminations on these points, or the silly jokes that appear inevitable, when two or three human beings at a table get together in a private house; might be much more profitably spent.