‘Here it is, you wicked magician. Antonia will never have another secret from her dear old father. What agonies I suffered for my hard-heartedness! And oh, what have I escaped!’
Here was the letter, with a mere stamp thereon, which contained such a fortune in happiness as should have entitled the Government to a round sum on the principle of legacy duty:
Rainbar, 4th April 18—.
My dear Antonia—This letter will probably reach Sydney some days, or weeks even, before a young lady, for whom I entreat your friendship and kind offices. [H—m.] When I say that she is Augusta Neuchamp, my cousin, and my only relation in Australia, I feel certain that I need not further recommend her to you and the best of fathers and friends. [H—m.]
You will acknowledge her to be a refined and intelligent woman, that goes sans phrase, I should hope, and no truer heart, with more thoroughly conscientious acceptance of duty, ever dwelt in one of her sex. [H—m.]
But, writing to you with the confidence of old and tender friendship, I may as well state, delicately but decidedly, that Augusta and I have been utterly unsympathetic from our childhood, and must so remain to the end of the chapter. [Oh dear! surely I can’t have read aright.]
Even at Rainbar, to which rude retreat she posted with her usual impetuosity, without giving me the opportunity of forbidding her, we had our old difficulty about preserving the peace (conversationally), and once or twice I thought we should have come to blows, as in our childish days. [Thank Heaven! Oh, oh!]
You know I am not given to dealing hardly with your sex, whatever may be their demerits, and of course I am not going to abuse my cousin in a strange land; but I am again trusting to your perfect comprehension of my real meaning, when I say that, companionably, Augusta appears to me to be the only woman in the world I cannot get on with. [Blessed girl, dear, charming Augusta—I love you already!]
Of course, as soon as she left Rainbar (we were on very short commons of politeness by that time) I resolved to write and ask you to take her in at Morahmee, and show her Sydney and our monde, in the existence of which she disbelieves. You must be prepared for her abusing everything and everybody. But I know no one who can more gently and effectually refute her prejudices than yourself, my dear Antonia. You even subjugated Jermyn Croker, I remember. By the bye, have him out to meet Augusta. She admires his file-firing style of attack. Perhaps they may neutralise each other’s ‘arms of precision.’ [Do anything for her—ask the Duke to meet her, if she would like!]
I feel that I am writing a most indefensibly long letter. But I am very lonely, and rather melancholy, with ruin taking the place of rain—only one letter of difference—and advancing daily. Were it not so, I would, as the Irishman said, bring this letter myself. Oh, for an hour again in the Morahmee verandah, with your father smoking, the stars, the sea, the soft tones of the music, of a voice always musical in my ear! Ah me! it will not bear thinking of. It is midnight now, yet I can see a cloud of dust rising, as my men bring an outlying lot of cattle to the yard. [‘Poor fellow! poor, poor Ernest!’ sighed the voice referred to.]
I know you will be kind and forbearing with Augusta. She will not remain long in Australia. I think you will appreciate the unquestionably strong points in her character. Of these she has many—too many, in fact. Apparently it is time to close this scrawl—the paper says so. ‘Pray for me, Gabrielle,’ your song says, and always trust me as your sincere friend,
Ernest Neuchamp.
[Bless him, poor dear!‘]
‘So we are to have the honour of entertaining Ernest’s cousin, and not his future wife, it seems?’ said Mr. Frankston, also cheered up.
‘Never had the slightest thought of it, poor fellow,’ said Antonia, radiant with appreciation of the antipathetic Augusta. ‘How I could have been such a goose as to believe that wicked Hardy Baldacre, I can’t think. And, papa dear, I might have found myself pledged to marry him, doomed to endless misery, in my folly and madness. I shall never condemn other foolish girls again, whatever they may do.’
‘All’s well that ends well, darling,’ said the old man, with a grateful ring in his voice; ‘Paul Frankston and his own pet daughter are one in heart again. We don’t know what may happen when the rain comes.’
How joyous the world seemed after the explanation which Mr. Neuchamp’s letter indirectly afforded! Life was not a mistake after all. There was still interest in new books, pleasure in new music. A halo of dim wondrous glory was ever present during her nightly contemplation of sea and sky, in the lovely, all-cloudless autumn nights. The moan of the restless surge-voices had again the friendly tone she had heard in them from childhood. The sea was again splendid with possible heroes and argosies; it was again the realm of danger, discovery, enchantment—not a storm-haunted, boding terror, with buried treasures and drowned seamen, with treacherous, fateful wastes into which the barque, freighted with Antonia Frankston’s hopes, had been wafted forth to return no more.
It was during this enviably serene state of her mind that a note from the innocent cause of the first tragic scene which had invaded the idyl of Antonia Frankston’s life appeared on the breakfast-table at Morahmee.
Middleham, 20th April.
Dear Miss Frankston—My cousin Ernest, with whom I believe you are acquainted, made me promise to inform you of my proposed arrival in Sydney, on the conclusion of my visit to Mr. and Mrs. Middleton. That gentleman has kindly promised to accompany me to Sydney, which we shall reach (D.V.) by the five o’clock train on Friday next. I purpose taking up my abode at Petty’s Hotel.—Permit me to remain, dear Miss Frankston, yours very truly,
Augusta Neuchamp.