Ultima Thule (9 page)

Such as the flour mill, thought Mary grimly. This dreadful mill! Would any but a man so complacently have planked them down next door to it? It entirely spoilt the garden, with its noise and dust. Then, the mill-hands who passed to and fro, or sat outside the fence, were a very rough lot; and five times a day you had to stop in what you were saying and wait for the shriek of the steam-whistle to subside. Except for the railway station, their house and the mill stood alone on this side of the Lagoon, and were quite five minutes' walk from the township. Richard hugged himself with his privacy, and it certainly was nicer to be away from shops and public-houses. But, for the practice, their seclusion was a real disadvantage. Rummel had lived in the main street; and his surgery had been as handy for people to drop into for, say, a cut finger or a black eye, as was now the chemist's shop. Then, the Lagoon itself . . . this view of which Richard had made so much! After the rains, when there was some water in it, it might be all right; but just now it was more than three parts dry, and most unsightly. You saw the bare cracked earth of its bottom, not to speak of the rubbish, the old tins and boots and broken china, that had been thrown into it when full. And the mosquitoes! She had been obliged to put netting round all their beds; and what it would be like in summer passed imagining.

From such reflections, in the weeks and months that followed, she had nothing but work to distract her. The society airily promised her by Richard failed to materialise. She received just three callers. And only one of these -- the Bank Manager's wife, a young thing, newly wed -- was worth considering. The stationmaster's. . . the stationmaster himself was an educated man, with whom even Richard enjoyed a chat; but he had married beneath him . . . a dressmaker, if report spoke true. Mrs. Cameron, wife of the Clerk of the Court, had lived so long in Barambogie that she had gone queer from it. Nor was it feasible to ask the old couple over of an evening, for cards or music; for by then old Cameron was so fuddled that he couldn't tell a knave from a king. The parson was also an odd fish, and a widower without family; the Presbyterian minister unmarried. The poor children had no playfellows, no companions. Oh, not for herself, but for those who were more to her than herself, Mary's heart, was often very hot and sore.

Nevertheless she put her shoulder to the wheel with all her old spirit; rising betimes to bath and dress the children, cutting out and making their clothes, superintending the washing and ironing, cooking the meals; and, when Eliza passed and a young untrained servant took her place, doing the lion's share towards keeping the house in the spotless state Richard loved and her own sense of nicety demanded. But the work told on her. And not alone because it was harder. In Hawthorn, she had laboured to some end; Richard had had to be re-established, connections formed, their own nice house tended. All of which had given her mind an upward lift. Here, where no future beckoned, it seemed just a matter of toiling for toil's sake. The consequence was, she tired much more readily; her legs ached, her feet throbbed, and the crow's-feet began to gather round her eyes. She was paying of course, she told herself, for those long years of luxury and idleness, in which Richard had been against her lifting a finger. And it was no easy thing to buckle to again, now that she was "getting on," "going downhill": Mary being come to within a twelve-month of her fortieth year.

"COUSIN EMMY, tell about little Jacky."

"Little Jacky what died."

"No, don't! Tell what the gumtrees talk."

Cuffy hated the tale of Baby Jacky's illness and death; for Cousin Emmy always cried when she told it. And to see a grown-up person cry wasn't proper.

The four of them were out for their morning walk, and sat resting on a fallen tree.

"Well, dears, poor little Jacky was so often ill that God thought he would be happier in heaven. His back teeth wouldn't come through; and he was so feverish and restless that I had to carry him about most of the night. The last time I walked him up and down he put his little arms round my neck and said: 'Ting, Memmy!' -- he couldn't say 'sing' or 'Emmy' properly, you know" -- a detail which entranced the Dumplings, who had endless difficulties with their own speech. "And those were the very last words he said. In the middle of the night he took convulsions ---- "

"What are c'nvulshuns, Cousin Emmy?" The question came simultaneously, none of the three being minded, often as they had heard the story, to let the narrator skip this, the raciest bit of it.

"Why, poor darling, he shivered and shook, and squinted and rolled his eyes, and went blue in the face, and his body got stiff, and he turned up his eyes till you could only see the whites. And then he died, and we dressed him in his best nightgown, and he lay there looking like a big wax doll -- with white flowers in his hands. And his little coffin was lined with white satin, and trimmed with the most beautiful lace. . . " And here sure enough, at mention of her nursling's last costly bed, Emmy began to cry. The three children, reddening, smiled funny little embarrassed smiles and averted their eyes; only occasionally taking a surreptitious peep to see what Cousin Emmy looked like when she did it.

With the heel of his boot Cuffy hammered the ground. He knew something else . . . about Cousin Emmy . . . something naughty. He'd heard Mamma and Papa talking; and it was about running away and Aunt Lizzie being most awfully furious. And then Cousin Emmy had come to stay with them. He was glad she had; he liked her. Her hair was yellow, like wattle; her mouth ever so red. And she told them stories. Mamma could only read stories. And never had time.

To-day, however, there would be no more. For round a bend of the bush track, by which they sat, came a figure which the children were growing used to see appearing on their walks. It was the Reverend Mr. Angus. He wore a long black coat that reached below his knees and a white tie. He had a red curly beard and pink cheeks. (Just like a lady, thought Cuffy.) At sight of the lovely girl in deep mourning, bathed in tears, these grew still pinker. Advancing at a jogtrot, their owner seated himself on the tree and took Emmy's hand in his.

The children were now supposed to "run away and play." The twins fell to building a little house, with pieces of bark and stones; but Cuffy determined to pick a beeyutiful nosegay, that Cousin Emmy would like ever so much, and say "How pretty!" to, and "How kind of you, Cuffy!" Mr. Angus had a face like a cow; and when he spoke he made hissing noises through his teeth. The first time he heard them, Cuffy hadn't been able to tear his eyes away, and had stood stockstill in front of the minister till Cousin Emmy got quite cross. And Mr. Angus said, in his opinion, little people should not only be seen and not heard, but not even seen.

All right then! Whistling his loudest Cuffy sauntered off. He would be good, and not go near any of the old, open shafts; quite specially not the one where the old dead donkey had tumbled in and floated. You weren't allowed to look down this hole, not even if somebody held your hand . . . like Mr. Angus did Cousin Emmy's. (Why was he? She couldn't fall off a log.) It had a nasty smell, too. Cousin Emmy said only to think of it made her sick. And Mamma said they were to hold their noses as they passed. Why was the donkey so nasty because it was dead? What did a dead donkey do?

But first he would pick the flowers. It wouldn't take long, there were such lots of them. Papa said we must thank the rains for the flowers; and it had rained every day for nearly a month. The Lagoon was quite full, and the tank, too; which made Mamma glad. -- And now Cuffy darted about, tearing up bits of running postman, and pulling snatches of the purple sarsaparilla that climbed the bushes and young trees, till he had a tight, close bunch in his hot little hand. As he picked, he sniffed the air, which smelt lovely ... like honey.... Cousin Emmy said it was the wattle coming out. To feel it better he shut his eyes, screwed them up to nothing, and kept them tight. And when he opened them again, everything looked new . . . as if he'd never seen it before . . . all the white trees, tall like poles, that went up and up to where, right at the top, among whiskery branches, were bits of blue that were the sky.

With the elastic of his big upturned sailor-hat between his teeth -- partly to keep it on; partly because he loved chewing things: elastic, or string, or the fingers of kid gloves -- Cuffy ran at top speed to the donkey-hole. But a couple of yards from the shaft his courage all but failed him. What was he going to see? And ooh! . . . it did smell. Laying his flowers on the ground, he went down on his hands and knees and crawled forward till he could just peep over. And then, why, what a sell! It wasn't a donkey at all -- just water -- and in it a great lump that stuck out like a 'normous boiled pudding. . . oh, and a million, no, two million and a half blowflies walking on it, and a smell like -- ooh, yes! just exactly like . . .

But before he could put a name to the odour, there was a great shouting and cooee-ing, and it was him they were calling. . . and calling. In his guilty fright Cuffy gave a jerk, and off went his hat with its pulped elastic -- went down, down, down, while the blowflies came up. He just managed to wriggle a little way back, but was still on all fours (squashing the flowers) when they found him, Mr. Angus panting and puffing with tears on his forehead, Cousin Emmy pressing her hand to her chest and saying, oh dear oh dear! Then Mr. Angus took him by the shoulder and shook him. Little boys who ran away in the bush always got lost, and never saw their Mammas and Papas again. They had nothing to eat and starved to death, and not till years afterwards were their skeletons found, Cuffy, who knew quite well where he was, and hadn't meant to run away, thought him very silly . . . and rude.

It was the loss of the hat that was the tragedy. This made ever so many things go wrong, and ended with Cousin Emmy having to go back to live with Aunt Lizzie again, and them getting a real paid governess to teach them.

Hatless, squeezed close up to Cousin Emmy to be under her parasol, Cuffy was hurried through the township. "Or people will think your Mamma is too poor to buy you a hat."

The children's hearts were heavy. It infected them with fear to see Cousin Emmy so afraid, and to hear her keep saying: "What will Aunt Mary say?"

Not only, it seemed, had the hat cost a lot of money -- to get another like it Mamma would have to send all the way to Melbourne. But it also leaked out that not a word was to have been said about Mr. Angus meeting them, and sitting on the log and talking.

"Why not? Is it naughty?"

"Of course not, Cuffy! How can you be so silly! But ---- " But . . . well, Aunt Mary would certainly be dreadfully cross with her for not looking after him better. How could he be so dishonourable, the first moment she wasn't watching, to go where he had been strictly forbidden to . . . such a dirty place! . . . and where he might have fallen head-foremost down the shaft and never been seen again.

Yes, it was a very crestfallen, guilt-laden little party that entered the house.

Mamma came out of the dining-room, a needle in one hand, a long thread of cotton in the other. And she saw at once what had happened, and said: "Where's your hat? -- Lost it? Your nice, new hat? How? Come in here to me." The twins began to sniff, and then everything was up.

Yes, Mamma was very cross . . . and sorry, too; for poor Papa was working his hardest to keep them nice, and then a careless little boy just went and threw money into the street. But ever so much crosser when she heard where the hat had gone: she scolded and scolded. And then she put the question Cuffy dreaded most: "Pray, what were you doing there . . . by yourself?" In vain he shuffled and prevaricated, and told about the nosegay. Mamma just fixed her eyes on him, and it was no good; Mr. Angus had to come out. And now it was Cousin Emmy's turn. She went scarlet, but she answered Mamma back quite a lot, and was angry, too; and only when Mamma said she wouldn't have believed it of her, it was the behaviour of a common nursegirl, and she would have to speak to her uncle about her -- at that Cousin Emmy burst out crying, and ran away and shut herself in her room.

Then Mamma went into the surgery to tell Papa. She shut the door, but you could hear their voices through it; and merely the sound of them, though he didn't know what they were saying, threw Cuffy into a flutter. Retreating to the furthest corner of the verandah, he sat with his elbows on his knees, the palms of his hands pressed against his ears.

And while Emmy, face downwards on her pillow, wept: "I don't care . . . let them fall down mines if they want to . . . he's very nice . . . Aunt Mary isn't fair!" Mary was saying: "I did think she could be trusted with the children -- considering the care she took of Jacky."

"Other people's children, my dear -- other people's children! He might have been her own."

Mary was horrified. "Whatever you do, don't say a thing like that before Cuffy! It would mean the most awkward questions. And surely we are not 'other people?' If Emmy can't look after her own little cousins . . . . The child might have been killed, while she sat there flirting and amusing herself."

"It's not likely to happen again."

"Oh, I don't know. When I tackled her with it, she got on the high horse at once, and said it wasn't a very great crime to have a little chat with somebody: life was so dull here, and so on."

"Well, I'm sure that's true enough."

"What a weak spot you have for the girl! But that's not all. It didn't take me long to discover she'd been trying to make the children deceive me. They were to have held their tongues about this Angus meeting them on their walks . . . . Cuffy went as near as he could to telling a fib over it. Now you must see I can't have that sort of thing going on . . . the children taught fibbing and deceiving!"

"No, that certainly wouldn't do."

"Then, imagine a girl of Emmy's birth and upbringing plotting to meet, on the sly, a man we don't invite to the house! She'll be the talk of the place. And what if she got herself into some entanglement or other while she's under our care? John's eldest daughter and an insignificant little dissenter, poor as a church mouse, and years older than she is! Think what Lizzie would say!"