“Suppose we drive over to Wantabalree?” suggested Linda. “Father always enjoys a chat with the Colonel, and that dear, good Rosalind is always so nice and sympathising about Hubert. I wonder if she cares for him the least little bit? But she’d die before she let anybody know, and Hubert was so disagreeable, he refused to give me the least hint. What do you think, mother?”
“I think nothing at all, my dear child. In all these matters, it is the wisest course neither to think nor to speak prematurely. But I daresay your father would drive us over, if we asked him, and we could stay a night there. As you say, a chat with the Colonel always does him good.”
CHAPTER XV
So at Windāhgil and Wantabalree the calm, uneventful bush life went on as usual. That life so peaceful, so wholesome for the spirit, so chiefly free from the sharp cares and anxieties of city existence—where the eye is refreshed daily with nature pictures, at once grand and consoling. The early morn, so fair and fresh, when the sun first glorifies the pale mists of dawn, changing all the Orient with magic suddenness to opaline hues and golden flame. The green gloom, the august solitude of the boundless forest, the glowing sunshine which pierces even its inmost recesses at midday; the wavering shadows, born of the inconstant breeze; the tender eve when a solemn hush falls alike on stream and valley, on mountain-side or wildwood glade, and all the ancient majesty of night awes the senses. For the Windāhgil family, the placid days came and went, lightened, as of old, by the regularity of customary home duties, by books and music, by walks along the rippling river, by rides and drives through the winding forest paths. Occasional expeditions to Wantabalree made salutary change for all. As the summer months wore on—as the days lengthened, and the mid-day heat became intense; as the fiercer sun rays commenced to wither the bush herbage of the river meadows, the many-hued wild flowers of heath and hill; as the watercourses, fed by spring showers, commenced to trickle faintly—there was a tendency to complain of the tyrant Summer, and yet to long for the Christmas-tide as a period of mirth and enjoyment—this year invested with a special charm.
For had not a telegram from some unknown, unknowable place, and costing quite a small fortune, arrived, which stated that Hubert, the bien aimé, would return at Christmas—actually return? “Like the prodigal,” as Linda said, “only that it was the reverse in everything except the coincidence of its being ‘from a far country.’”
“The coincidence being so very slight, Linda,” said her mother, “perhaps it would have been as well to refrain from Scriptural parallel altogether. Don’t you think so, Miss Dacre? I had given up expecting him after his last letter, in which he said there were insuperable difficulties in the way.”
“He has managed to surmount the insuperable apparently,” said Linda. “Hubert always was a wonderful boy for accomplishing things just at the last moment. I don’t think I ever knew him beaten by anything he made up his mind to do, though he used to leave things rather too long.”
“That is one of Hubert’s worst points—or rather, most pronounced weaknesses,” said Laura; “he won’t be wise in time except on what he thinks are occasions of importance. It seems a defect with people of energy and resource. For instance, I can’t imagine Hubert saying he will cross a river or accomplish a journey and failing to carry out his purpose, whatever happened. He is one of those people who seem made for difficulties.”
“But difficulties which come upon the unprepared are apt to be disastrous,” said Miss Dacre; “for my part, I am strongly in favour of taking every imaginable precaution before the time of need.”
“The principle is good, but it doesn’t apply to Hubert,” said Linda, still unconvinced. “Difficulties and impossibilities only stimulate his resources, which are innumerable. When another man would lie down and die, he would be quite in his element, ordering, inventing, combining, and finally pulling through triumphantly.”