“My dear, allow me to introduce Mr. Redgrave—Mrs. Stangrove, Miss Stangrove.”
A lady advanced upon the first mention of names and shook hands with the visitor, in a kindly, unaffected manner. She was young, but a certain worn look told of the early trials of matronhood. Her face bore silent witness to the toils of housekeeping, with indifferent servants or none at all; to want of average female society; to a little loneliness, and a great deal of monotony. Such, with few exceptions, is the life of an Australian lady, whose husband lives in the far interior, in the real bush. Her companion, who contented herself with a searching look and a formal bow, was “in virgin prime and May of womanhood”—and a most fair prime and sweet May it was. Her features were regular, her mouth delicate and refined, with a certain firmness about the chin, and the mutine expression about the upper lip, which savoured of declaration of war upon just pretext. She had that air and expression which at once suggest the idea of interest in unravelling the character. Jack shook hands with himself when he thought of how he had persevered after the traitorous idea had entered his head that after all it was no use going, Mr. Stangrove wouldn’t be glad to see him, or care a rush about the matter.
The evening meal was now announced, which circumstance afforded Jack considerable satisfaction. He had ridden rather more than fifty miles, and, whereas his horses had not done so badly in the long grass of the “bend,” our traveller’s lunch had been limited to a pipe of “Pacific Mixture.” All the same, while the preparations for tea were proceeding he took a careful and accurate survey of his younger feminine neighbour.
Maud Stangrove was somewhat out of the ordinary run of girls in appearance, as she certainly was in character. Her features were regular, with a complexion clear and delicate to a degree unusual in a southern land. Her mouth, perhaps, denoted a shade more firmness than the ideal princess is supposed to require. But it was redeemed by the frank, though not invariable, smile which, disclosing a set of extremely white and regular teeth, gave an expression of softness and humour which was singularly winning. The eyes were darkest hazel, faintly toned with gray. They were remarkable as a feature; and those on whom they had shone—in love or war—rarely forgot their gaze; they were clear and shining; but this is to say little; such are the every-day charms of that beauty which is in woman but another name for youth. Maud’s eyes had the peculiar quality of developing fresh aspects and hidden mysteries of expression as they fell on you—calm, clear, starlike, but fathomless, glowing ever, and with hidden, smouldering fire. She was dressed plainly, but in such taste as betokened reference to a milliner remote from the locality. Rather, but very slightly, above middle height in her figure, there was an absence of angularity which gave promise of eventual roundness of contour—perhaps even too pronounced. But now, in the flower-time of early womanhood, she moved with the unstudied ease of those forest creatures in whom one notices a world of latent force.
Such was the apparition which burst upon the senses of Mr. Redgrave.
“Average neighbours!” said he to himself. “Who ever expected this—a vision of no end of fear and interest? This is a girl fit for any one to make love to or to quarrel with, as the case might be. I think the latter recreation would be the easier. And yet I don’t know.”
“I don’t think you have ever been so far ‘down the river,’ as the people call it, before?” said Mrs. Stangrove.
“I’m afraid I have not been a very good neighbour,” said Jack, beginning to feel contrite at the de haut en bas treatment of the general population of the Warroo, in accordance with which he had devoted himself to unrelieved work at Gondaree, and looked upon social intercourse as completely out of the question. “But the fact is, that I have been very hard at work up to this time. Now the fences are up I hope to have a little leisure.”
Here Jack paused, as if he had borne up, like another Atlas, the weight of the Gondaree world upon those shapely shoulders of his.
Miss Stangrove looked at him with an expression which did not imply total conviction.