Chapter III: Part II: XII (1)

Storm
Signals

Nous nous imaginons, Pauvres fous que nous sommes,
Que personne avant nous n’a connu la Douleur.

ALFRED DE MUSSET.

How shall I recount the long months of gloom and sadness following Hector’s departure for Molokai?

After reading the letter which ended everything between us, I ran to my guardian imploring him to let me return to France.

“The Directrice of the Lycee where I was educated was my mother’s friend. I know she will receive and aid me to obtain a position in the administration of which she is the head.”

But my uncle was unwilling for me to go.

Mrs. Deslandes, whom I sought afterwards, drew me into her arms.

“It would be useless, little Jeanne. Hector will never return,” she said, with her sweet, melancholy smile. “It was only my selfish affection that kept him here preventing entire devotion to his calling. Yes, it is better so,” she added, with that pious resignation which enables her to support all blows unmurmuringly. “God calls him; I will not dispute possession.”

How beautiful is this Christian Faith animating mother and son! How profound, despite the narrowness of its principles! How comforting and sustaining in the dark hours of tribulation!

* * * * *

My uncle has touched the right chord to make me remain at Gwylata.

“Jeannette, your presence here may be really helpful. Bad times threaten, my poor little girl. Almost all my speculations have turned out badly.... The bank holds a mortgage on the station and is pressing me.... Perhaps we shall need you, if we have to economise and discharge some of the servants.

“The cook goes first,” he resumed, smilingly. “Why, we shall have a French ‘chef,’ who will prepare for us some dainty little dishes,” his unquenchable cheerfulness reasserting itself at once.

“Don’t be frightened. I am only joking. We shall not be so poor as all that. I am counting on the Golden Egg mine to put things right. If dividends are forthcoming we shall soon be richer than before.... Oh, yes! there still remain some ‘beaux jours’ for us, Jeannette.”

And my poor uncle, comforted already by his optimistic hopes in the great mine, begins to build airy castles.

* * * * *

Life on the station has resumed its monotonous course, broken only by Hector’s letters from his far-off island in the South Seas, that leper station, with which Father Damien’s name is so indissolubly connected.

He writes of his work among the miserable pariahs, of the devoted band of helpers--Catholics, priests and sisters, ministers, and American doctors, all united in the great work of Charity.

* * * * *

Daisy’s visits prove a great distraction. She alone has the power to draw me out of my melancholy. She is so bright and fresh, brimful of health and happiness. Her marriage is to take place shortly, sooner than was anticipated. By what she calls “good luck,” the bank was broken into by burglars. Dick, hearing a suspicious noise, fired several shots from the revolver he always kept near him--“without hitting anyone,” as Daisy naïvely remarked, very glad not to have a “spook” between her lover and herself. The neighbours, awakened by the shots and the noise of the struggle, secured one of the assailants.

Dick escaped with only a scratch on the temple, where a bullet grazed the skin. Daisy is quite proud of the wound, and prouder still of the congratulations showered on the hero of the hour for his courage and presence of mind. As a tangible recognition of his services he is to be promoted.

“Perhaps he’ll be manager, instead of clerk. The salary will be doubled,” says the girl, with an important air.

I tease her for being so mercenary. She opens her clear blue eyes, the hue of wet periwinkles, and answers in a tone which reduces me to silence.

“If Dick is promoted, we can be married sooner.”

Meg also does her best to divert my thoughts. She has asked me to look after Bahloo in the mornings, as she is obliged to be in closer attendance on her mistress. In spite of her fine, unflagging courage, her son’s absence and the danger he incurs from the dread disease around him have seriously affected my poor aunt’s health. So I undertake Bahloo’s education. I find the funny “petit noir” has quick intelligence, and an excellent memory, especially for figures. He is astonishingly quick at mental arithmetic. I am told that it is only a flash of intellectual activity, that towards the age of 10 or 12, the faculties of the aboriginal begin to diminish and finally atrophy, rendering it impossible to go far with the mental training that begins so promisingly. The more man rises in the scale of human development, the more necessary becomes time for his nascent intelligence to evolve. A little chick or a duckling is so much more lively than a babe.

My little native charge amuses and interests me with his chatter. He knows so many legends of his tribe--that of the laughing jack, the dingo, and the Pleiades, that mysterious constellation which plays so great a part in the mythology of primitive races.

* * * * *

The expected catastrophe has arrived, more sudden and overwhelming than anyone could have foreseen.

Two letters were brought to Mr. Deslandes one day just as we had finished lunch. The first, from the bank, brought the frown I know so well on his face; the second bore the heading of the unfortunate mine. After perusing the latter, my uncle uttered a groan, staggered, and fell heavily to the ground.

Our efforts to restore consciousness were unavailing. The doctor, summoned from Strathalbyn, arrived only to find life extinct.

The blow was too sudden. My dear aunt sank under the shock, and we had the sad consolation of laying in the same tomb these two beings so united in life.

* * * * *

I shall not dwell on this mournful period--the only things which sustain me in my grief are the sympathy and affection of those around me.

Mr. Brown and Dick have spared me the ordeal of the necessary formalities. A cable from Hector, who could not have arrived in time, had he been able to start at once, has given me full powers.

Daisy and her mother have been tenderness itself. The grief of all who work on the station, some grown old in the service of their beloved master and mistress, has affected me deeply, and been a great consolation in my distress.

* * * * *

The station is sold. The price covers the mortgage and the debts contracted during the last years of my uncle’s life, when all his credit was used to pay up the calls of the miserable mine. A small sum remains, sufficient to assure the future of some of the old servants, of Meg and her husband, on whom Mrs. Deslandes had intended to settle a small annuity.

Mr. Saunders, the lawyer engaged in liquidating the estate, thinks it madness on my part to give up this money, but the obligation is as sacred to me as a debt. How can I permit these poor souls to go to the Destitute Asylum while I enjoy the money promised to them?

Hector has devoted his small patrimony to the work to which he has consecrated his life. In his last letter he speaks of his experiments about to be tried in the laboratory which he has had fitted up in order to seek a remedy to the frightful disease. I will not trouble him with these worldly cares, from which he seems to be gradually detaching himself.

Many proffers of assistance reach me. Daisy, married during those wearying months occupied in the settling of my uncle’s affairs, has entreated me to make my home with her. A room is always ready for me in the pretty cottage at Wellington.

* * * * *

I have been staying with Daisy’s parents. They insisted on my leaving the great empty house. But I do not want to tax their hospitality. Their own future is precarious. Perhaps the new owner of Gwylata may not retain the old manager? If so, it may be difficult to find another position at his age.

Other friends of my uncle have written, offering an asylum and material help. People are warm-hearted and generous in Australia, where life is easy. But I am young and strong, and I shall find some means of gaining a livelihood in this new land to which I am becoming daily more attached.

Mr. Saunders, the lawyer, who still retains his interest in me, in spite of what he calls my foolishness, has just brought me a letter from his niece, Mrs. Clarke, whom I met at Strathalbyn, during the Hunt Club meet. It was she, I remember, who defended Mr. Russell so warmly.

She offers me a position as governess to her small children, if the journey to New South Wales does not frighten me.

“The house is very modest,” says Mr. Saunders; “the place is really only a large farm. My niece is not rich, but you know her, and she will make you happy. Your business methods are about on a par, so you should suit each other admirably!”

* * * * *

I have bidden a tender “adieu” to all my Gwylata friends, including little Bahloo, who weeps bitterly. Dick and Daisy are to escort me as far as Murray Bridge, where I take the Melbourne Express.

Once again we three glide along the smooth waters of the great river. My thoughts return to the first time I saw the noble waterway of Australia, the day I fled from Gwylata to escape Allan Russell’s visit.

How far off it all seems! What trouble have I not been through since then!!!

* * * * *

Away with sad thoughts! A new life is beginning, unknown, but full of possibilities.

XIII

At
Anchor

The alternative of light and darkness must continue as long as we live
in this world of illusion.
--“On the Threshold.”

Gum trees!!! For two days and nights I have been flying past their serried ranks, as the train rushes on through Victoria and New South Wales. I begin to sympathise with the little Globe-Trotter whom my uncle could never persuade to go for a walk or, indeed, any sort of excursion.

“Go out! What for? Just to look at your old gum trees. Thanks! One gum is rather interesting; it has even a certain distinction and individuality, but thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, and nothing else but your everlasting gum trees!”

Can it be really true, as I have been assured, that the eucalypti, like the pines, are reservoirs of the vital force of the sun which they radiate in torrents of rose-coloured atoms, pouring strength and vitality into the atmosphere surrounding them. How precious they would be were the idea accepted!

What a sanatorium Australia would become for the poor anaemic humanity of the old world! What an inexhaustible storehouse of health and energy!

* * * * *

Mrs. Clarke, who meets me at Oberon, is indeed a charming woman. Simple and unaffected, she treats me at once as a friend. She is happy in her homely life on the big farm, which she manages in her husband’s absence. Mr. Clarke had been obliged to go to England to settle a question of succession.

The children are darlings: Lucille, an angel of six; Jack, a little demon of five, dowered with an inexhaustible energy and mischievousness which keep us breathless until he is safely tucked up in his cot at night. The mother is bringing them up in true Australian fashion, which certainly has the merit of allowing individuality to develop unhampered.

Just now they are very interested in the Bible stories their nursemaid tells them every morning, and in their enthusiasm they dramatize them, which leads occasionally to unexpected catastrophes.

The other day at lunch time Lucille was missing.

After an hour’s fruitless search, Jack confessed that she was in the old dry well.

“In the well?” we exclaimed, horrified.

“Ye-e-e-s; we was playin’ Joseph and his brudders. I was de _only_ brudder,” added the young rascal, regretfully. “I made her go down de well and den I pulled up de rope, so she tuddn’t det out.”

Leaving nurse to exhaust her vocabulary on the youthful reprobate, we hurried to the well, not very deep, happily.

To Kate’s call a small voice came up:

“Is you the ’Gyptian merchants?”

One of the farm hands descended, and picked up the child enveloped in an Indian curtain of many colours.

Mrs. Clarke put her histrionic offspring to bed without further ado, Lucille to get warm, for she was shivering with cold, and Master Jack to punish him.

He looked so angelic in his long white nightgown that one could never suspect the diabolical ideas which enter his little brain.

With hands meekly folded and innocent eyes raised heavenward, he lisped: “Pease take care of father, mamma, Lulu, and Jeanne--but not nurse,” he added, with a resentful glance at the maid.

* * * * *

For some days Lucille has been playing a rather mysterious game. While Jack is having his afternoon sleep, she sits down in a certain corner of the room to play with her dolls.

Entering unperceived a day or two ago, I heard her put questions and give answers, as though she were talking to a companion. She made gestures, nodded and seemed very interested in her conversation.

Catching sight of me, she made a sign to arrest my advance. Then, running towards me, said:

“Betty is very shy. She won’t say a word when anyone is here.”

“Betty?” I replied, inquiringly, lending myself to the game.

“Yes, my little friend. She comes every day to play with me when Jack is asleep. She does not like Jack; he is too rough,” she explains, shaking her little head. “Betty loves you, pretty well, but she always hides when anybody comes into the room. That’s her hiding place,” pointing to a crack in the panelling, which had given a little with the heat.

The child evidently has too much imagination. I must speak to her mother about it.

To-day I find Lucille in tears when I enter the day nursery to give her a French lesson. Nurse is angry, and is scolding her severely.

“It’s wicked of you, Miss Lucille, to tell stories like that.”

“It isn’t a story,” protests the child; “Betty was there just now, and you made her go when you began to scold me.”

“Look, Miss Jeanne,” continues the maid, turning towards me, “this naughty little girl declares that there was another child in the room with her. Isn’t it wicked of her to tell such stories. God will punish her.”

Lucille’s body stiffens. She says nothing more, but rebellious sobs shake her small frame.

I try to pacify nurse, and when she has gone away, muttering that I spoil the child, I take Lulu on my knees. She nestles lovingly into my arms and whispers:

“You _do_ believe me, don’t you? Betty _was_ there, and ... why, there she is again,” holding her little arms, her face brightens, her large eyes shine with excitement.

She is not lying; she really does see some one.

I try to explain that grown-ups cannot always see what children see.

“You must not blame nurse, darling; tell me what your little playmate says.”

Then follows a strange converse wherein Lucille acts as interpreter to a little child invisible to all except herself....

When the children have been put to bed, I tell Mrs. Clarke what has passed. She seems less surprised than I had expected.

“Yes, I have noticed that Lulu is not quite as other children. Her soul is too evolved for its frail tenement. At times it breaks the veil between the astral and spiritual worlds. Lucille then finds herself in communion with the beings who live and move on the plane which interpenetrates ours.”

My blank look of amazement betrays my utter ignorance of Kate’s meaning. She proceeds to tell me of the psychical studies which in the last decade have pulled down the barriers between the material and the invisible world. She quotes the words of Sir Oliver Lodge: “We are beginning to hear now and again, the strokes of the pick-axes of our comrades on the other side.” She hands me some Theosophical reviews and articles on Psychical Research.

I exclaim: “What, you! a sensible woman, believe in theosophy, that mixture of old superstitions and new-fangled notions, as my uncle used to term it.”

“It is because I _am_ a sensible woman,” Kate replies, “that I am a theosophist. If you had studied this science as much as I have, you would speak of it with more consideration.”

For the next hour, she talks on until the strange words, Re-incarnation, Karma, astral bodies, and Devachan begin to dance in my poor brain like a juggler’s balls.... My eyes close, I lose the thread....

“Please excuse me, dear; I forget everything once I am on this topic. It is getting late, and you are dead tired.” Kissing me, she adds:

“To-morrow, we will consider what to do with Lucille. Perhaps together we may evolve some means of minimising the influence of the phenomena which over-excites her brain. When she reaches the age of seven, the door now half-open to the invisible world will probably close outright. Meanwhile, take this little book, written by Will Canton, ‘The Invisible Playmate,’ wherein you will find an analogous case.”

In my room, Kate’s words return to me. Can it be true? Does another world, invisible to our grosser perceptions interpenetrate this?

The idea fascinates and scares me at the same time.

But no, no, I will not dwell on these religious questions. They have cost me too dear in the past. Neither will I read the books.

After a troubled night, wherein astral bodies, elementals and various sorts of “spooks” indulge in terrific combats, I am brought abruptly back to realities.

In the weekly paper, “The Australasian,” which I open after breakfast, is an account of a sensational divorce suit. A name catches my eye, and makes my heart beat almost, it would seem, before my brain could register the impression.

What is this strange sub-consciousness which acts on the human organism, often in spite of ourselves, making the blood recede and the knees tremble at the sight of a name, the memory of a glance?

I must read it now. The affair is sordid. An indulgent husband, deceived by a silly wife, not for love’s sake, for the co-respondents are many, but through sheer idleness and vanity, the desire to be considered “smart,” to wear extravagant toilets utterly beyond her husband’s means. Allan Russell’s name appears among the admirers of the frail beauty.

Mrs. Clarke enters and I pass her the paper, in silence.

Her face grows grave.

“Poor Allan! What a wasted life!”

“You pity him! It seems to me he has just what he deserves.”

“Alas, Jeanne, we all get what we deserve--which fact doesn’t make it a whit easier to bear.”

I cannot refrain from pursuing the subject.

“You know Mr. Russell well, then?”

“Yes; and a more open and generous nature was never spoilt by a bad, heartless woman.”

“Allan was the son of my mother’s best friend,” Mrs. Clarke continues. “Our stations were not far from each other, and we grew up like brother and sister. I believe,” she adds, smiling, “that our parents wouldn’t have objected to see a more tender affection between us. But Allan was at least a year my junior, and I always looked on him as a mere boy. He confided to me the great passion which his mother’s companion had inspired in him. This woman, ten years Allan’s senior, who had a past as we discovered later on, used all her skill and experience to infatuate the young man, alternately repelling and encouraging his advances, until she had him wholly in her power. She played with his feelings as a virtuoso does with a violin. A secret marriage was arranged.”

“That is easy here, isn’t it? A visit to the Registrar and the affair is settled,” I interpolated.

“Sometimes to one’s cost--certainly to my poor friend’s. Allan’s parents refused to receive his wife, so, possessing ample means--a fact of which the lady had carefully assured herself--he took her to London. Then began a life which to Allan soon became martyrdom. Vicious and utterly heartless, she dragged her husband with her into the mire, deceiving him for the sake of lovers as depraved as herself. The inevitable separation happened at the end of a few years, which had warped Allan’s nature and turned him into a bitter and disillusioned man, believing neither in woman’s virtue nor man’s honour.”

“Could he not have divorced her?”

“Allan was too proud then to let his name be dragged before the Court. In a moment’s compassion--there is still a strain of chivalry in Allan, despite his cynicism--he promised not to divorce her if she would consent never to follow him. He made ample settlements on her which suffice for her numerous gratifications--the wretched being has added drunkenness to her other vices--but she has sense enough to abide by the contract, and passes her time in England or on the Continent, that is when she isn’t in an inebriate ‘retreat’.”

“So that is why Mr. Russell came back to Australia?”

“Yes, but fettered. Tired of the loneliness of the bush, and hopeless of happiness, he threw himself into speculations with all the ardour of his temperament. His ventures succeeded, and now he is one of the richest men in the colonies, the leader of the ‘smart set.’ Poor Allan! Two things might save him. A duty to accomplish, or a noble love which would rescue him from this life of idleness and pleasure.”

Shall I tell Kate of the impression he has made upon me? His resemblance to the Rajah of my dreams? With her peculiar beliefs, she might be able to give me an explanation.... No! I dare not! She would jeer at my susceptibility, perhaps ... and then he is married, and to that creature! I can quite understand now why he left without trying to see me a second time.

* * * * *

A letter from Hector brings the ever-dreaded news. He has fallen a victim to the terrible scourge. It is only a question of time. He states it quite simply. He is almost happy. He feels closer to the unhappy beings around him. He can say to them, as Father Damien did: “We lepers.”

Oh, my poor Hector! To what suffering are you not doomed.

I am writing, entreating to be allowed to join him, to share his work, to tend him as a sister, as a wife if he wills it.

XIV

The
Jenolan
Caves

Oh! quelle étrange nuit sous l’univers sonore

* * * * *

Un trou s’offre lugubre. Il y plonge et, rampant
Dans un vide où l’effroi du tombeau se répand
Il voit sous lui de l’ombre et de l’horreur. Il entre
Il est dans je ne sais quel intérieur d’antre.

* * * * *

Les enchevêtrements de racines vivaces,
Les fuites d’eau mouillant de livides crevasses,
Il franchit tout; des reins, des coudes, des talons,
Il pousse devant lui l’abîme et dit: “Allons!”

VICTOR HUGO.

Jack and Lulu run boisterously into my room, shouting:

“We’re going to the Caves. We’re going to the Caves! Mother says so!”

Jenolan is the wonderland of the Blue Mountains. Its vast caves equal, if they do not excel, the most famous ones of the world.

Mrs. Clarke has organised an excursion there of several days’ length. “It will be good for Lulu,” says she, “and distract her attention from her mysterious little visitant, who, you will see, won’t follow her. These influences adhere as much to places as to people.”

I know my kind friend is actuated also by the desire to divert my thoughts from myself and relieve my anxiety until Hector’s reply can reach me.

I am only too delighted to have the chance of visiting these Caves, of which I have heard so much. Formed long ages ago, in a limestone belt, by the action of water, which, percolating gradually through the soft stone, at length crashed down the barriers, and, boiling and seething, carved out immense caverns, fantastic grottoes and recesses, they are now adorned with glistening stalagmites and stalactites, transforming them into an Aladdin’s Palace.

Our guide, “Jerry,” is what they call here a “Character.” He considers himself the territorial Lord of everything pertaining to the Caves. Certainly he has discovered the greater part of them, and he does the honours to tourists from all parts of the world.

Deaf as a post, he abuses his position by uttering whatever comes into his head in highly coloured language of which I cannot hope to receive the full savour. One can’t very well snub him. Yelling into a trumpet would scarcely convey an impression of offended dignity.

In justice, I ought to say that his gruffness is only superficial. He would risk his life to spare his tourist visitors a scratch.

Following his usual custom, Jerry gives each of us a sobriquet.

“Life is too short,” says he, “to learn the names of the people I shall likely enough never see again.”

So Mrs. Clarke is “Mother,” I am “Brown Eyes,” nurse is “Sulky” (her looks evidently have not pleased him), Lulu is “Little Fairy,” and Jack “The Imp.”

A good judge of character is Jerry.

We are conducted into the largest of the Caves, which descends more than a thousand feet, and is reached by a series of subterraneous passages and vast halls. The Imperial Cave, the Cathedral, the Exhibition Room, all lit by electricity, are full of the most enchanting marvels, statues, pillars, marble columns, frozen cataracts, glistening pendants from the vaulted roof, walls encrusted with gleaming jewels reflecting all the colours of the prism. One might imagine oneself in the palace of the Genii, where rubies, topazes and diamonds rival each other in lambent fire. In one gallery, stalagmites, shot with the chatoyant hues of an agate, fall in a frieze, some six feet in thickness.

Other formations when struck give forth the deep harmonious roll of an organ fitted for a race of Titans.

Jerry’s great pleasure is to seat us with a stern injunction not to move, and then suddenly switch off the electric light.

The horror succeeding our vision of fairyland is inexpressible. The darkness is corporeal, palpable. One actually feels the vast material solidity separating us from the blue sky. The terror is heightened by the resonance of the air. The slightest sounds are magnified. Jerry throws some stones into the abysmal depths near us. A long, long time after, we hear their impact with the stream which threads its tortuous course below.

The children cling to us affrightedly, but our magician switches on the current, and once more we are in the palace of the fairies.

A little incident marks the beginning of our excursion. At the entrance of a cave our guide shows us the imprint of a snake on the wet sand in the hollow of a rock. “You needn’t be afraid. They only come out at night after the bats, which swarm here in myriads.”

The dimly lit gallery, where we sit down to rest after the fatigue of reaching the upper cave, is closed by an iron gate. Jack, leaning against it, utters a cry: “A snake! a snake!”

We all run, Jerry leading. Coiled round the iron points of the railing is a huge serpent.

“A carpet snake, be jabers, I’d like to take him alive. Light your candles!” orders our guide imperiously (it is advisable to carry candles in case of any mishap). We form a luminous circle; there are about fifteen of us, for some other tourists are being “personally conducted.” Jerry loves to dominate a crowd.

The snake lies inert, simulating sleep.

“He has eaten too many bats and forgotten the danger of his whereabouts, or else he has climbed up there to get them on the wing.” Jerry, while speaking, has made a running knot in a piece of rope which he fixes to the end of a stick.

Approaching cautiously, he endeavours to throw it over the snake’s head. But his majesty, now alive to his danger, draws back each time. The play (scarcely play to me or the reptile) lasts a long time. At each sinuous movement we retreat warily. But Jerry is relentless.

“The lights, the lights!” he exclaims, and, willy-nilly, we reform the magic circle. Finally a less swift movement of the victim results in the cord being drawn taut. He hisses, slowly uncoils, and is dragged off in triumph.

“A windfall for me,” remarks our guide; “they’ll give me ten bob for him at the Zoo.”

It is a young carpet snake, five feet long, beautifully marked on top and silvery underneath.

There is something artlessly artful about Jerry.

Among our number is a young man with a retreating facial angle and a weak chin. Jerry, in the coolest manner possible, calmly hands him the snake-wound stick to carry. He takes it gingerly, with inward trepidation, but afraid to show the white feather too openly.

Jerry strides on in front with an unconcerned air, belied by a suspicious glint in the corner of his eye.

The timid young man, with his living “caduceus,” is left to bring up the rear, a position to which he is speedily relegated by the shrinking of his companions when he approaches too closely. Apparently no thought of resisting Jerry’s masterful action occurs to him.

* * * * *

In the evening the heat is stifling. We have carried our chairs to the verandah to enjoy the slight breeze wafted from the mountains. The children, tired out with the day’s pleasures, are lying on cushions at our feet. The sky is covered with threatening clouds. Suddenly, one by one appear little twinkling lights. They are fire-flies, flitting from tree to tree, honouring our visit by a fairy illumination.

The following days bring new excitements, new marvels, subterranean rivers, ascensions on rope ladders, and spiral staircases, which lead from cave to cave.

“We shan’t see them all,” says Jerry, “for 30 miles or so they penetrate the interior of the mountains, forming endless circuits and detours. Even I don’t know them all (words fail to give adequate expression to that pronoun), and I have been on the job forty years or so.”

Jerry alternates his guide book English with a slangy colloquialism.

No, nor are we likely to see the “hairy man,” the monster whom he has chased so many times, and whose footprints he has marked in almost inaccessible places.

Is there really a mystery here, I wonder, or is it some freak of Jerry’s vivid imagination?

He swears by all the gods that there is such a monster. Others have seen him, fired at, and wounded him, too, which in no wise impeded the remarkable agility with which he used to appear and disappear.

To finish, Jerry takes me to the top of the mountain. A rocky arch, crowned with gum trees, dominating the valley at our feet, where the towering Eucalypts, over hundreds of feet high, look no bigger than small shrubs.

Their tops touch each other, interlace and form a carpet of sombre velvet. Strangling trails of foliage hang from the rocks; tree ferns wave their graceful fronds in the hollows, and orchids, with quaint faces, nod in the crevices, slenderly detached against the abysmal background of green and russet.

My eyes, unaccustomed to dizzy heights, become dazzled, my brain reels, I feel faint, giddy.... I gladly leave these altitudes to the Australian eagles, which, disturbed in their eyries, fly off, uttering discordant shrieks as they wheel in the splendour of the unshadowed blue.

XV

Alone

Support with patience thy lot, be it what it may, and never repine at
it.

(“The Golden Verses of Pythagoras.”)

“No, I cannot accept your sacrifice,” writes Hector. “I cannot allow you to join me. You, here at Molokai! You, among the lepers! Think of your youth, your beauty, which would become the prey of this unclean evil.... Love only could sanction so great a renunciation. Do not be hurt, dear Jeanne, my little sister, if I say that you mistake pity for love. You do not love me; you have never loved me.... I am glad of it now, dear. Your life will not be broken. I thank God for that every day, and pray Him to send you the man who will make you happy, the man whom you will really love.... In touch with so much suffering, I have found the Real. Many illusions are swept away, many veils torn aside. I recognise now, dear, that those dogmas which separated us are merely forms clothing the Eternal Verities, roads leading to the Great Light. Working with these men and women, priests and Catholic nuns, disciples of Damien, American missionaries, doctors toiling for the love of Science in the cause of humanity, all meeting here from far-off lands, divided in creed, yet united by Charity, I have felt how illusionary our differences really are. We are all children of God, walking in the darkness towards the same goal, the same Divine end.... Do not weep for me. Live your life; it is so full of promise.... For me, I am happy in the task I have undertaken. What matter my sufferings, which afflict you so much? They will only endure for a little while. What is that compared with Eternity? One day, my little sister, we shall be uplifted beyond the travail of human passions, reunited in the bosom of the God of Infinite Goodness.”

* * * * *

Hector is right. I feel I should never be able to give him my whole heart, devote to his work the life which in a moment’s exaltation I have offered him. I could never bear it. The bare thought makes me shudder with horror.

* * * * *

Something has happened which diverts my thoughts from Hector and myself.

Mrs. Clarke and the children are going to England.

The succession business is dragging slowly along and Mr. Clarke is tired of being alone. Kate wants me to remain at the farm or go with her. I cannot accept either proposition. What good would there be in remaining here? On the other hand, why put her to the additional expense of taking me? She can hardly afford it, I know.

I will accompany her as far as Melbourne, where she embarks. There, in that large and wealthy city, surely I shall find something to do until her return in six months, a year at the most.

* * * * *

We arrive in Melbourne just in time to catch the White Star liner in which Mrs. Clarke has booked her passage.

The hurried train journey, the bustle of embarcation, and the farewells to my dear friend and her children, who carry away a good part of my heart, prevent me from dwelling too much on myself.

Only when the steamer turns, and a stretch of blue water broadens between us do I begin to feel my desolation.

Utterly alone in a strange city, without a friend, and destitute of resources except the small sum of money Mrs. Clarke has pressed upon me as payment for lessons! Bah! I am young. Something is sure to happen. My first disappointment comes when I find the boarding house recommended by Kate quite full. It is race week, Melbourne’s great carnival, and every hotel and lodging house is overflowing. I try another, only to receive the same reply, “Not a room to let.” At last, after several hours of fruitless research, dropping with fatigue, and conscious of an insane feeling that I shall have to spend the night at some street corner, seated on my valise, I come upon a very third or fourth rate boarding house. The charges, however, are by no means commensurate, and seem very large for my modest purse. To a timid protest the landlady points to the door, and I hasten to pay a fortnight in advance. Her hard, hatchet-like features relax a little at sight of a few sovereigns in my purse. Helas! they constitute my whole fortune. She precedes me to a tiny room at the back of the house.

And now to find pupils before my means are exhausted.

The moment is not opportune, it seems.

“The year is too far gone to make new arrangements.” “Call again, or wait and leave your address, and I will write,” is the invariable reply to my inquiries.

It is easy to say “Wait,” but I cannot wait very long.

Somebody advises me to advertise. It is an additional expense, and I am not much enamoured of the practice. I remember one day at Gwylata my uncle showing me an advertisement for a tutor for two boys up country.

The requirements were: “English, Algebra, Latin, Elementary French, and Music. A young man able to _milk cows_ preferred.”

Perhaps I might be asked to groom the horse or do the cooking.

But the cutting was from an old newspaper. Times have changed since then.

So next morning a notice appears in _The Argus_ to the effect that a young Parisienne is ready to impart instruction on reasonable terms.

After waiting anxiously a few days I receive two answers.

The first, written on paper highly perfumed with musk, doesn’t seem too encouraging. The second is from a Mrs. Forrest, who lives at St. Kilda, and will see me between five and six.

The first would certainly suit me better as far as distance is concerned, for the address is East Melbourne. I could easily walk to and fro and so save car fares. I decide to apply.

Arriving at the street mentioned, I ask a policeman to show me the house. He does so, giving me a rather peculiar look. He seems on the point of speaking further, but checks himself, muttering:

“It’s her business.”

Yes, it is my business, and badly am I equipped to meet it.

The door is opened by a small boy in buttons. He favours me with an insolent stare, then precedes me up a neglected looking staircase. In the corridor a door opens and two young girls thrust out their heads inquisitively.

The boy points at me, grinning, “Another!”

The room into which I am shown is in disorder. The furniture is showy, the colours glaring. The air is redolent with a mixed odour of heavy perfumes, tobacco and spirits, and nearly chokes me.

I feel instinctively that this is no place for me, and I turn to go, when the door opens, and a tall, stout woman bearing the remains of past beauty, enters and begs me to be seated.

She speaks volubly. She is charmed to meet me. She wants someone to give French lessons to herself and her two nieces (the two young girls of the corridor, I presume). She questions me closely. Learning that I am alone in Melbourne, she smiles and becomes quite friendly. Too much so, it seems to me. Her affable “My dears” are positively nauseating.

She wants me to come and live with her. They lead a very gay life, go frequently to the theatre, and have many “gentlemen friends.”

The more pressing she becomes, the more I shrink and hesitate.

“_Jeanne fait sa tortue_” my poor uncle used to say when I retreated into my shell at the advances of anyone antipathetic.

The oily, persuasive voice grows insistent. The question of payment is waved airily aside.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’ll come to some satisfactory arrangement after you’ve been here for a while.” She purposes sending immediately for my luggage. I decline to allow her, saying that I should like a little time to reflect before coming to a decision. I am beginning to feel ensnared. Everything is repugnant to me--the coarse luxury, the disorder, the smooth craftiness and much too ingratiating manners of this woman, the atmosphere of the house itself....

I do not breathe freely until I regain the street, followed by the protestations and regrets of the lady.

The policeman is still at hand. He accosts me.

“Are you going to return to that house, Miss?”

“No, certainly not.”

“That’s all right, then, Miss. It isn’t the place for a girl like you. The old woman ain’t up to much. I don’t trust her, so I stayed about to see if she’d keep you by force.”

I thank my new-found friend, the Protector of innocence whose presence has saved me, perhaps from a dreadful fate, and I return to the boarding house, trembling at the thought of the peril into which my inexperience has led me.

Before seeking the second address, I take the precaution to make some inquiries about Mrs. Forrest.

I am told that she is the wife of a retired shopkeeper, who has made a lucky coup on the Stock Exchange.

She gives herself important airs, and strives to have her name constantly at the head of fashionable bazaars, charity concerts, and balls.

She loves to feel herself in the public eye.

That matters little to me. Her household is honourable, that is sufficient. The outward aspect of the house is reassuring. A well-appointed footman shows me into a small room where his mistress is writing a letter.

She does not trouble to receive me, but continues her work.

After some minutes she deigns to turn.

“You are the young person who put an advertisement in the paper?” she queries, loftily, without asking me to sit down.

I feel myself redden. “Ah, my poor Jeanne, it will take you some time to get accustomed to the bread of dependence.”

Repressing my annoyance, I draw forward an easy chair, sit down, and reply with calm politeness.

Mrs. Forrest looks at me in astonishment. However, possessing a fair share of astuteness, she takes in the situation and for the rest of the time assumes better manners. I am to come every day to teach her two little girls, and talk French with her. The salary she offers is sufficient to pay for my board and lodging and tram fares. Later on I hope to find employment for the afternoons.

The months will pass quickly. My dear Kate and the children will soon be back.

XVI

The
Boarding
House

“His years were young, but his experience old.”

SHAKESPEARE.

What a strange world in miniature a boarding house presents!

A world where dissimilar beings lacking the ties of friendship, education and intellect are united by circumstances in the trammels of a common existence. How utterly antipathetic is such a life to our French nature, to the intense reserve hidden under our frank and cordial manners which guard sacredly and invulnerably the “Famille Française,” modern novels and plays to the contrary. If we have not the actual word “home” in our vocabulary--a favourite gibe of our foreign friends--we have a more intimate term still, “le Foyer,” the hearth, which suggests the primitive cult, the fire worship of our ancestors--_the foyer_, which no one outside the family might touch.

Maybe that is the cause of our secret irritation and impatience when an acquaintance takes it upon himself to poke our fire. To us it seems presumption, an abuse of hospitality, to say nothing of the ingrained belief that no one but ourselves can make it blaze.

But this is a digression.

Let us return to the boarding house, our poor third-rate boarding house, with its inmates in respectfully appropriate keeping.

First, there are the permanent boarders, among whom I have no specially delirious desire to be counted. A commercial traveller in a softgoods firm, who affects “genteel” manners. (What a horrid expression, genteel!) In other respects, a decent enough young man whose attentions don’t annoy me too much. Already he has reposed certain sweet confidences in my ear, so that I shall not indulge in any false hopes as to his intentions, I presume.

He has been engaged for eight years!--eight years!--to a shop assistant, and they wait patiently and persistently until they have put by enough money to purchase a country store.

Every Saturday afternoon off they start for a township on a tour of inspection. Saturday succeeds Saturday; the years come and go in this life of long-deferred hopes.

Then there is, alas! a school mistress, no longer in the first bloom of her youth. Shall I ever, in the years to come, grow like her? Every morning she trudges to her little school. For years her life has been passed in teaching the rudiments of arithmetic and grammar. Apparently she possesses neither relatives nor intimate friends. All her energies, apart from her teaching, are directed towards religion and divers reforms. She belongs to several Guilds--the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Women’s League, the Social Purity and Temperance Leagues, etc., etc. Withal she is a kind-hearted, good woman, despite her many perfections of character, and does not utterly wither me when I decline to accompany her to “Meeting” on Sunday. All her spare time is taken up with committee work for the regeneration of feminine humanity. She doesn’t concern herself with the _strong sex_. That may sink into the perdition it so richly merits. She has, of course, no time for a simple unit like me.

Another inmate is an old German employé in a lighting establishment, whether gas or electricity I know not. He appears at meals only on Sundays.

There are casual visitors, too, racing people mostly, but we scarcely see anything of them. The house is full, to the supreme exultation of Mrs. Johnson, the sour-visaged virago whose stony glare fixes us if we dare take more than our wee modicum of butter or sugar.

The sole ambition of her life is to get money. For what? Good heavens! Not for her dress, which is austere beyond description. Not for the benefit of her poor little son, whose life is a daily martyrdom. To save and pinch and scrape, she does all the work of the house herself, with the assistance of a little girl of fourteen, who waits at table. Her son cleans the boots and runs errands.

Rising before daybreak, she does the dining-room and the parlor, a horrid, stuffy room decorated with a horsehair suite, a round table surmounted by a monstrosity having the temerity to style itself wax flowers, glaring, shiny surfaced “chromos” on the walls, and a yellowish carpet on the floor. But the crowning horror is reached in the woollen and cotton crochet antimacassars--a name as horrible as the articles themselves.

Billy Johnson is a small boy of twelve or thirteen. Ugly!--oh, so ugly--one is irresistibly reminded of the Simian theory. A veritable monkey, with elongated face, piercing, crafty eyes set close together, large ears, a flat nose and facial muscles never still for a moment. For the rest, a mischievous, inquisitive, ’cute young rascal, who knows everybody and everything. As soon as a newcomer is installed, the “little monkey,” an apt nickname bestowed by the boarders, does not rest until he has ferreted out all there is to know. Up to the present I have succeeded in baffling him. But he is not at all discouraged. My only fear is that he may rummage my trunks and read my letters. Well, let him! there is no mystery in my simple life, though I should not like it bared to the gaze of the indifferent.

Billy, it seems, has taken a great liking to me, firstly because of the pity in my eyes when his mother ill-treats him, and secondly because I am French.

Not, indeed, that he loves the French. To him all foreigners are inferior beings whom it behoves a little Australian to despise, but because being French I must share his detestation of all “_Deutschers_.” The German boarder is his “_bête noire_,” the only being in the world who inspires him with terror. The German Invasion is the bugbear which causes him sleepless nights.

What tricks he plays on the inoffensive old man, who cannot be other than a “Prussian spy!” He confides his dire suspicions to my ears and the means whereby his plots may be circumvented.

My evenings are dull, so I am giving him lessons in French. He is very elated at his progress.

This morning everything is quiet in the house, the inmates are presumably at Church. Mrs. Johnson is in the kitchen preparing the Sunday dinner, the only meal at which we are allowed to satisfy our hunger.

I open my trunks to get some books and photographs to make my room look less forlorn. The casket containing the necklace is among my treasures. I have never worn it since the night of my betrothal. It recalls too many painful and passionate memories. I love their pure milky beauty even while I fear the strange influence of the pearls. As I touch them caressingly, the door half-opens and Bill’s touzled head frames itself in the aperture. There is no sanctuary from Bill, no spot sacred from his inquisitiveness. Catching sight of my open trunk, he enters, regardless of my remonstrances, pulling such a droll grimace that I have not the heart to put him outside.

“Oh, what boshter pearls, my word! They look like the real thing!”

“They _are_ real pearls,” I reply, thoughtlessly, without reflecting on the anomaly of such a necklace being in the possession of one of his mother’s boarders.

“My word! Real pearls, eh!” exclaims Bill, putting unimaginable expression into his favourite exclamation, varying intonations of which depict faithfully the state of his mind.

“Yes, it’s the real thing, and no mistake.”

The “Little Monkey” is fancying himself a connoisseur in pearls as in everything else.

“Hide it well, miss; if mum sees it she’d twist your neck to get hold of it.”

“Oh, Bill! How can you speak like that of your mother?”

“It’s the truth, Miss,” nodding his head sapiently. “’Taint her fault, poor mum; she loves money like some loves drink. She’d risk her life (he says ‘loife’) for the money she’d get for them pearls. As for yours, she wouldn’t think twice about it.” Bill is right. I have surprised glints of almost criminal covetousness in her eyes when a boarder has worn a bit of jewellery.

However, on principle, I continue to scold Bill, who looks cautiously around, opens the door, winks in a knowing fashion, and placing his finger on his lips, murmurs dramatically,

“Hist! Hide the treasure! Silence and secrecy!”

The idea is worth acting upon. It would be safer to wear the necklace under my dress than leave it in my trunk.

* * * * *

I have had a troubled night, dream chasing dream through my restless brain, leaving only a chaotic jumble of impressions. Am I to ascribe it to the thoughts of yesterday, or to the influence of the pearls around my neck?

Allan Russell seemed to dominate them all, sometimes as he appeared the night of the ball, sometimes as the Rajah of India, and yet again assuming a personality of times more remote. Only one of these visions detached itself clearly. Two men, rough and ferocious in aspect, were fighting savagely. In the heat of the struggle the red hair tied on the top of their heads was tossed back mane-like on their shoulders. They hurled imprecations at each other in a sort of wild chant. I heard the clashing of their short swords. I seemed to contemplate the scene with a dull, apathetic gaze. Finally one was killed. The victor, advancing, cut the thongs which bound me and bore me off in his brawny arms.

The blue eyes plunged into mine were those of Allan Russell, the colouring was changed, that is all. The features were those of a Gael instead of the Rajah or the Australian squatter, but the same soul animated all three, the violent and passionate soul of the man who in my dreams pursues me with a love which one life could not quench.

* * * * *

I have just received a letter from old Meg, full of particulars about my Gwylata friends. Daisy’s father is retained as manager, the new proprietor wishing to profit by his experience.

Meg and Mac have left the station.

“I could not stand,” writes Meg, “seeing a silly little thing like her (it is thus she sums up the wife of the new squatter) flaunting about in my dear mistress’s home. We are living at Wellington. Mac has bought a boat with part of the money you gave us, and Bahloo has become a fine fisherman.”

Atavism, I suppose; all the Blacks love the water; not to the extent, though, of desiring to wash in it. Bahloo used to say, with a certain amount of reason, that it is only dirty people who want to wash; the others, being clean, need not.

Meg, however, was quite deaf to the ingenious line of reasoning, and the little man, despite his tearful protests, was scrubbed daily from head to foot.

“I’m not going to give anyone the chance of calling you ‘a dirty little nigger,’” Meg used to say. It was the only bone of contention between them.