But people who came to Mary with criticism of Richard got no mercy. "You're far too touchy, Jim. YOU know, if any one does, how rushed and busy the doctor is, and you ought to be the first to make allowance for him—after all he's done for you. You wouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for him. And then to expect him to notice and praise you for every little job you do!"
But Jim was stubborn. 'E didn't want to deny anything. But 'e'd rather go. An' this day a week if it suited her.
"It's really dreadful how uppish the lower classes get as soon as they have a little money in their pocket," she said to herself, as she walked the shadeless, sandy road. But this thought was like a shadow cast by her husband's mind on hers, and was ousted by the more indigenous: "But after all who can blame him, poor old fellow, for wanting to take life easy if he has the chance." She even added: "He might have gone off, as most of them do, without a word."
Then her mind reverted to what he had said of Richard, and she pondered the antagonism that had shown through his words. It was not the first time she had run up against this spirit, but, as usual, she was at a loss to explain it. Why should people of Old Jim's class dislike Richard as they did?—find him so hard to get on with? He was invariably considerate of them, and treated them very generously with regard to money. And yet ... for some reason or other they felt injured by him; and thought and spoke of him with a kind of churlish resentment. She was not clever enough to find the key to the riddle—it was no such simple explanation as that he felt himself too good for them. That was not the case: he was proud, certainly, but she had never known any one who—under, it was true, a rather sarcastic manner—was more broadly tolerant of his fellow-men. And she wound up her soliloquy with the lame admission: "Yes, in spite of all his kindness, I suppose he IS queer ... decidedly queer," and then she heaved a sigh. What a pity it was! When you knew him to be, at heart, such a dear, good, well-meaning man.
A short walk brought her to the four-roomed cottage where Ned lived with wife and children. Or had lived, till lately. He had been missing from his home now for over a week. On the last occasion of his being in Melbourne with the carrying-van, he had decamped, leaving the boy who was with him to make the return journey alone. Since then, nothing could be heard of him; and his billet in the Agency had been snapped up.
"Or so they say!" said his wife, with an angry sniff. "I don't believe a word of it, Mary. Since the railway's come, biz has gone to the dogs; and they're only too glad to get the chance of sacking another man."
Polly looked untidier than ever; she wore a slatternly wrapper, and her hair was thrust unbrushed into its net. But she suffered, no doubt, in her own way; she was red-eyed, and very hasty-handed with her nestful of babes. Sitting in the cheerless parlour, Ned's dark-eyed eldest on her knee, Mary strove to soothe and encourage. But: it has never been much of a home for the poor boy was her private opinion; and she pressed her cheek affectionately against the little black curly head that was a replica of Ned's own.
"What's goin' to become of us all, the Lord only knows," said Polly, after having had the good cry the sympathetic presence of her sister-in-law justified. "I'm not a brown cent troubled about Ned—only boiling with 'im. 'E's off on the booze, sure enough—and 'e'll turn up again, safe and sound, like loose fish always do. Wait till I catch 'im though! He'll get it hot."
"We never ought to have come here," she went on drying her eyes. "Drat the place and all that's in it, that's what I say! He did better'n this in Castlemaine; and I'd pa behind me there. But once Richard had sent 'im that twenty quid, he'd no rest till he got away. And I thought, when he was so set on it, may be it'd have a good effect on 'im, to be near you both. But that was just another shoot into the brown. You've been A1, Mary; you've done your level best. But Richard's never treated Ned fair. I don't want to take Ned's part; he's nothing in the world but a pretty-faced noodle. But Richard's treated 'im as if he was the dirt under 'is feet. And Ned's felt it. Oh, I know whose doing it was, we were never asked up to the house when you'd company. It wasn't YOURS, my dear! But we can't all have hyphens to our names, and go driving round with kid gloves on our hands and our noses in the air."
Mary felt quite depressed by this fresh attack on her husband. Reminding herself, however, that Polly was excited and over-wrought, she did not speak out the defence that leapt to her tongue. She said staunchly: "As you put it, Polly, it does seem as if we haven't acted rightly towards Ned. But it wasn't Richard's doing alone. I've been just as much to blame as he has."