Towards the end of the first year on the selection our little girl came. I’d sent Mary to Gulgong for four months that time, and when she came back with the baby Mrs Spicer used to come up pretty often. She came up several times when Mary was ill, to lend a hand. She wouldn’t sit down and condole with Mary, or waste her time asking questions, or talking about the time when she was ill herself. She’d take off her hat—a shapeless little lump of black straw she wore for visiting—give her hair a quick brush back with the palms of her hands, roll up her sleeves, and set to work to ‘tidy up’. She seemed to take most pleasure in sorting out our children’s clothes, and dressing them. Perhaps she used to dress her own like that in the days when Spicer was a different man from what he was now. She seemed interested in the fashion-plates of some women’s journals we had, and used to study them with an interest that puzzled me, for she was not likely to go in for fashion. She never talked of her early girlhood; but Mary, from some things she noticed, was inclined to think that Mrs Spicer had been fairly well brought up. For instance, Dr Balanfantie, from Cudgeegong, came out to see Wall’s wife, and drove up the creek to our place on his way back to see how Mary and the baby were getting on. Mary got out some crockery and some table-napkins that she had packed away for occasions like this; and she said that the way Mrs Spicer handled the things, and helped set the table (though she did it in a mechanical sort of way), convinced her that she had been used to table-napkins at one time in her life.
Sometimes, after a long pause in the conversation, Mrs Spicer would say suddenly—
‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll come up next week, Mrs Wilson.’
‘Why, Mrs Spicer?’
‘Because the visits doesn’t do me any good. I git the dismals afterwards.’
‘Why, Mrs Spicer? What on earth do you mean?’
‘Oh,-I-don’t-know-what-I’m-talkin’-about. You mustn’t take any notice of me.’ And she’d put on her hat, kiss the children—and Mary too, sometimes, as if she mistook her for a child—and go.
Mary thought her a little mad at times. But I seemed to understand.
Once, when Mrs Spicer was sick, Mary went down to her, and down again next day. As she was coming away the second time, Mrs Spicer said—
‘I wish you wouldn’t come down any more till I’m on me feet, Mrs Wilson. The children can do for me.’