The Way Home (13 page)

"Oh, dear, how glad I am! . . . for your sake." The tears sprang to Mary's eyes; she had openly to wipe them away. "But it's so sudden. I can hardly believe it. Are you sure it's really true?" And now she stroked the page smooth, to read for herself.

"You for my sake . . . I for yours! What haven't you had to put up with, my poor love, through being tied to a rolling old stone like me? But now, I promise you, everything will be different. There's nothing you shall not have, my Mary -- nothing will be too good for you. You shall ride in your own carriage -- keep half a dozen servants. And when once you are free of worries and troubles you'll grow fat and rosy again, and all these little lines on your forehead will disappear."

"And perhaps you won't dislike the colony so much . . . and the people . . . if you can feel independent of them," said Mary hopefully. Could he have promised her from this day forth a tranquil and contented mind, it would have been the best gift of any.

When he had danced out -- danced was the word that occurred to her to describe the new spring in his step, which seemed intolerant of the floor -- had gone to consult the steward about the purchase of a special brand of champagne, which that worthy was understood to hold in store for an occasion such as this: when Mary sat down to collect her wits, she indulged in a private reflection which neither then nor later did she share with Richard. It ran: "Oh, how thankful I am we didn't get the letter till we were safely away from that . . . from England. Or he might have taken it into his head to stop there."

Mahony felt the need of being alone, and sought out a quiet spot to windward where he was likely to be undisturbed. But news of the turn of his fortunes had run like wildfire through the ship, started by the steward, to whom in the first flush he had garrulously communicated it. And now came one after another of his fellow-passengers to wring his hand and wish him joy. It was well meant; he could not but answer in kind. But then they, too, had changed. From mere nondescripts and undesirables they were metamorphosed into kindly, hearty folk, generous enough, it seemed, to feel almost as elated at a fellow-mortal's good luck as if it were their own. His hedge of spines went down: he turned frank, affable, easy of approach; though any remaining standoffishness was like to have been forgiven him, who at a stroke had become one of the wealthiest men on board.

He could see these simple souls thought he took his windfall very coolly. Well! . . . in a way he did. Just for the moment he had been carried off his feet -- as indeed who could fail to be, when by a single lucky chance, one spin of fate's wheel, all that had become his which half a lifetime's toil had failed to give him? Yet ingrained in him was so lively a relish, so poignant a need for money and the ease of mind money would bring, that the stilling of the want had something almost natural about it -- resembled the payment of an overdue debt. Yes, affluence would fit him like a second skin. The beggardom of early days, the push and scramble for an income of later life -- these had been the travesty.

Next came a sense of relief -- relief unspeakable. Alone by now in his windy corner, he could afford to let his eyes grow moist; and the finger he passed round inside his collar trembled. From what a nightmare of black care, a horde of petty anxieties, did the miracle of this day not set him free! To take but a single instance: the prospect of having to explain away his undignified return to the colony had cost him many a night's sleep. Now he was the master of circumstance, not its playball. And into the delights of this sensation he plunged as into a magic water; laved in it, swam, went under; and emerged a new man. The crust of indifference, the insidious tiredness, the ennui that comes of knowing the end of a thing before you have well begun it, and knowing it not worth while: all such marks of advancing age fell away. Youthfully he squared his shoulders; he was ready to live again, and with zest. And under the influence of this revival there stirred in him, for the first time, a more gracious feeling for the land towards which he was heading. What he had undergone there in his day, none but himself knew; but, if his sufferings had been great, great, too, was the atonement now made him. Indeed the bigness of the reward had in it something of the country's own immensity -- its far-flung horizons.

"And perhaps, after all . . . who knows, who knows! . . . I myself . . . the worm that was in me . . . that ceaseless hankering for -- why, happiness, of course . . . the goal of man's every venture . . . the belief in one's right to it . . . the fixed idea that it must be waiting for one somewhere . . . remains but to go in search of it. So, it is not conceivable. . . thus made wiser. . . all fear for the future stilled, too -- how fear lames and deadens! -- independent, now . . . beholden to nobody" -- such were some of the loose tags of thought that drifted through his brain.

Till one or other touched a secret spring, and straightway he was launched again on those dreams and schemes with which he believed his last unhappy experience had for ever put him out of conceit. Oh, the house he would build! . . . the grounds he would lay out . . . the books he would buy . . . and buy . . . till he had a substantial library of his own. All the rare and pretty things that should be Mary's. The gifts they would make her dear old mother. The competency that should rescue his own people from their obscure indigence. The deserving strugglers to whom he would lend a hand. Even individuals he disliked or was fretted by -- Zara, Ned, Ned's encumbrances -- sipped from his overflow. Indeed he actually caught himself thinking of people -- poor devils, mostly -- who had done him a bad turn, and of how he could now requite them.

Over these imaginings the hours flew by -- hours not divided off each from the next, but fusing to form one single golden day: of a kind that does not come twice in a lifetime. Meanwhile the vessel was well advanced up the great Bay, and familiar landmarks began to rise into view. He had sometimes wondered, on the voyage out, what his feelings would be, when he saw these familiar places again and knew that the pincer of the "Heads" had snapped behind him. Now, he contemplated them with a vacant eye; did not take up the thread of a personal relationship. Or once only: at sight of a bare old clump of hills behind Geelong. Then he impulsively went below to fetch Mary -- Mary was packing the cabin furniture, sewing up mattresses in the floor-carpeting, the mirror in the blankets -- and she, good-naturedly rising from her knees, for to-day she had not the heart to refuse him anything, tied on her bonnet and accompanied him on deck. There, standing arm-in-arm, they thought and spoke of a certain unforgettable evening, now years deep in the past.

"What greenhorns we were then, love, to be sure! So mercifully ignorant of all the ups and downs in store for us." -- But his tone was light, even merry; for to-day the ups had it.

"Yet you seemed to me very old and wise, Richard. I suppose it came of you wearing that horrid beard."

"And what a little sprite you were! -- so shy and elusive. There was no catching you . . . or getting a word in edgeways -- thanks to that poor old chattering Mother B and her two bumpkins."

"Whom you couldn't tell apart . . . how that did make me laugh!" said Mary To add with a sigh: "Poor Jinny! Little did we think she would have to go so much sooner than the rest."

"My dear, a good half of that party is dust by now."

But no melancholy tinged the reflection. In his present mood, Mahony accepted life, and the doom life implied, with cheerfullest composure.

* * * * *

Hardly a letter received by Mary that morning but had besought them to regard the writer's house as their own: they had only to make their choice. "Yes, and give umbrage to all the rest. Nonsense, Mary! We'll just slip off quietly to a hotel. We don't need to consider the expense now, and shall be much freer and more comfortable than if we tied ourselves down to stay with people."

But Mahony's plan miscarried.

What a home-coming that was! No sooner had the ship cast anchor than rowing-boats began to push off from the pier; while one that had been lying on its oars made for them with all speed. Mary, standing hatted and shawled for landing, looked, looked again, rubbed her eyes and exclaimed: "Why, I do declare if it isn't Tilly! Oh, Richard, what a difference the weeds make!" And sure enough a few minutes later Tilly's head came bobbing up over the side, and the two women lay in each other's arms half laughing, half crying, drawing back, first one, then the other, the better to fix her friend. Certainly Tilly had never shown to more advantage. In old days her hats had been flagrant, her silks over-sumptuous, her jewellery too loud. Now, the neat widow's bonnet with its white frill and black hangings formed a becoming frame for her yellow-brown hair, tanned skin and strong white teeth; the chains, lockets and brooches of twenty-two-carat Ballarat gold had given way to decorous jet; the soft black stuff of the dress moulded and threw up every good point in the rich, full-bosomed figure. Silently Mary noted and rejoiced. But Tilly, one glance snatched, blurted out: "Well, I must say England 'asn't done much for you, my dear! In all my days, Mary, never did I see you look so peaked and pasty. Seasickness? Not it! It's that horrible climate you've 'ad to put up with. I declare your very letters -- with their rain, rain, and fog, fog -- used to gimme the blue devils. Well! you've come back 'ere to the finest climate in the world. We'll 'ave you up to the mark again in a brace o' shakes."

Further she did not get, for here now was John arriving -- a somewhat greyer and leaner John than they had left, but advancing upon one, thought Mahony, with the same old air of: I am here; all is well. Having cordially embraced his sister, John wrung his brother-in- law's hand: "It would be false to pretend surprise, my dear Mahony, at your decision to return to us." On his heels came none other than Jerry and his wife: a fair, fragile slip of a girl this -- Australian-born and showing it, in a skin pale as a white flower. Mary put her arms round the child -- she was scarcely more -- and kissed her warmly; while in one breath the little wife, who was all a-flutter and a-tremble, confided to her how very, very much afraid she had felt of this meeting, knowing Mary to be dear "Harry's" favourite sister; and how she hoped dear Mary, please, wouldn't mind her calling him Harry, but she had once had a dog named Jerry, a white dog with a black patch over one eye; and it seemed so droll, didn't it? to call your husband by the same name as a dog, especially such a funny-looking dog; although if dear Mary wished it very, very much . . . all this gabbled off like a lesson got by heart. Mary promptly reassured her: it was her good right to call her husband by whatever name she chose, so long as he did not mind; and that -- with a loving glance at Jerry -- she would guarantee he didn't. Then she turned to her brother. The same steady old sober-sides; but now grown quite the man: broad of shoulder, richly whiskered, and, as could be seen at a glance, the most devoted of husbands. Did his young wife speak to some one, he tried to overhear what she was saying; watched the effect of her words on the other; smiled in advance at her little jokes, to incite the listener to smile, too -- for all the world after the fashion of a fond mother playing off her child. And when, sprite-like, the girl ran to the other side of the ship, he took the opportunity before following her to squeeze his sister's hand and murmur: "What do you say to my little Fanny, Mary? Isn't she perfect?"

"Dear, dear Jerry! If she's only half as good as she's pretty. . . and I can see she is," said Mary returning the squeeze.

Meanwhile quite a crowd had collected on the wharf, to which the party was rowed in a boat so laden that, at moments, the ladies instinctively held their breaths to lighten the load, and the little bride shrank into the crook of her husband's arm. Here stood Zara fluttering a morsel of cambric: she had feared an attack of mal de mer, she whispered, did she embark on so choppy a sea. ("We could hardly, I think, love, expect Zara to consider us worth the half-guinea the boatmen were charging!" was Mahony's postprandial comment.) Here were Agnes Ocock and Amelia Grindle with sundry of their children, and the old Devines, and Trotty, advanced to a hair-net, and John's three youngest in charge of their schoolmistress; besides many a lesser friend and acquaintance who had made light of the journey to the port. Hand after hand was thrust forth with: "I trust I see you in prime health, ma'am?" "Dear, dearest Mary! How we have missed you!" or: "Thought you'd never hold it out over there, sir." "Delighted, doctor, I'm sure, to welcome you back to our little potato-patch!" And those who could not get near enough for more, along with a sprinkling of curious strangers, enjoyed just forming the fringe of the crowd. It was a pleasant break in the monotony of colonial life to catch a glimpse of arrivals from overseas; to note the latest fashion in hair and dress; to hear news and pick up gossip.

Mary had just stooped to the youngest of the children, marvelling at its growth, when her ear caught an oddly familiar sound, an uneven, thumping footfall, and turning quickly, whom in all the world should she see but Purdy, out of breath and red in the face, but otherwise looking just the same as of old, or at least "not very different" -- a phrase with which Mary had already covered a marked change in more than one present: John's singular spareness of rib, Zara's greying front, Agnes's florid cheeks, the wizened-apple aspect of Amelia Grindle. In Purdy's case it cloaked a shining-through of the cranium, did he bare his head; more than a hint of coming stoutness; a cheap and flashy style of dress. First, though, she shot a lightning glance at Richard: how would he take this sudden apparition? The look reassured her: he was to-day uplifted above all ordinary prejudice. There was just an instant's hesitation, and then he himself stepped forward, both hands outheld, one to grasp Purdy's right, the other to clap on his shoulder; while his: "Dickybird, my boy! How are you? . . how are you?" came simultaneously with Purdy's: "Dick, old man, I heard your tub was in. I thought I'd just trot along and give you a pawshake." -- And thus the old bond was cemented anew.