THE WIDOW OF PIPER'S POINT
On the green shores of Sydney harbour, in a garden bounded by the beach, there sat long ago a wizened, elderly gentleman and a middle-aged, sweet-faced woman in widow's weeds. It was a glaring afternoon in early summer, but a bank of ferns protected the couple from the sun, the blue waters of Port Jackson frothed coolly upon the ribbon of golden sand at their feet, and the gentleman at all events was suitably attired. He wore a pair of nankeen trousers, fitting very close and strapped under the instep, with a surtout of the same material. A very tall, very narrow-brimmed hat rested on the ground between his chair and that of the lady; and his card, still lying in her lap, proclaimed a first visit on the part of Major Thomas Blacker, late of the Royal Artillery, but now relegated to Rose Bay, New South Wales.
Mrs. Astley was, in fact, a new and interesting arrival in the settlement, who, having found the cottage to the south-east of Point Piper untenanted when she landed, had taken it within a week of that time, as if to eschew her new world as she had fled the old. Her nearest neighbour was the major himself, who lived on the opposite shore of Rose Bay, a mile away by land and half that distance by water. He had not been five minutes in the widow's garden when he pointed across the bay with his cane, and called her attention to a sunlit window blazing among the trees.
"That's my place, madam," said the major in an impressive voice. "You can't see it properly for the scrub; but that's where you'll find me when you require my services. I'm afraid you'll have trouble with your convict servants; if you don't you'll be different from everybody else; when you do, you come to me."
The widow bowed and smiled, and asked her visitor whether it was long since he had been in England. It was seven years: there had been sad changes in the time. George the Fourth was gone, and poor dear Edmund Kean; the stalls would never look upon his like again. No, the theatre in Sydney was of the poorest description; madam must not dream of going there, at least not without the major's protection. Madam had entertained no such dream; she was merely making talk. A green-backed, paper-covered book lay on her lap with the major's card; she handed him the book, and asked him whether he had heard of it. He had not, nor of the author either. "Posthumous Papers," eh? Melancholy sound about it: was it worth reading?
"Worth reading?" said Mrs. Astley, with a pardonable smile. "Well, it is considered so in England; but I doubt whether anybody ever found any book so well worth reading as I have found this: it has made me forget a great sorrow when nothing else could—forget it by the hour together! It is still appearing in monthly parts. I am going to have the remaining numbers sent out to me, and I can lend you the early ones."
"Ah, very kind of you, I'm sure," remarked the major; but he was thinking of something else. "I can't imagine what can have brought you to such a God-forsaken spot as this!" he cried out.
"Because it is forsaken," murmured the widow.
"But alone!"
"I wish to be alone."