Chapter VIII Rain — And a Friend
But it was not to-morrow, nor for a good many to-morrows, as Tom had probably foreseen, that Garth was in a position to apply himself anew to the education of Jane. He passed a restless night, and morning found him feverish and heavy-eyed, his wrist stiff and painful. He had neither appetite nor energy, and did not resist his mother’s suggestion that he should stay in bed.
“You can’t expect anything else,” Tom said sagely. “He’s had a nasty shock, poor youngster, and we must remember he isn’t really strong yet, even if he has got a little colour in his cheeks.”
“Indeed, he has none this morning,” Aileen said.
“Don’t worry; he’ll get it back again.” Tom was far from feeling as cheerful as his words, but to reassure the tired girl across the breakfast-table seemed necessary. “Just make a baby of him for a few days, and let the other work rip. Don’t do any cooking except for the boy.”
“And let you starve on tinned things? I don’t want both of you ill,” responded his wife, laughing. “You give me splendid advice except where you’re concerned yourself: and there you are just no good at all. It’s a pity, because it shakes my respect in you!”
“You might remember with advantage that I’m the head of the house, and treat me with reverence,” he told her severely. “I’ll be forced to take steps to make you obey me!”
“I would laugh very much if you did,” said his wife, with conviction. “Run away and play in your garden; I’m going to make a pudding as soon as I have fixed up Garth’s room, and I really can’t be bothered with heads of houses!” She swept him a mock curtsey, and was gone.
When she emerged from Garth’s room half an hour later the dining-room was neat and tidy and breakfast cleared away, save for a loaf of bread ornamenting the writing-table—since the best of men is apt to overlook such unconsidered trifles in tidying after a meal. She laughed softly, and restored it to the bread-crock. In the kitchen Tom was just finishing washing dishes.
“Oh, you blessed person!” Aileen said gratefully. “But you shouldn’t, really, Tom!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” asked her husband. “You’re just jealous, because I wash up so much better than you!” A large fragment of ash from his pipe fell into his dish as he spoke, and clung lovingly to the saucepan he was cleansing.
“H’m!” said his wife. “Well, I don’t drop tobacco ashes in, at all events!”
“That’s more jealousy, because you can’t smoke,” said he loftily. “Every one who is well brought up knows that ashes are invaluable, for cleaning saucepans!” He polished vigorously. “There—look at your old porridge-pot!”—waving a wet and gleaming aluminium utensil at her, regardless of a shower of soapy drops.
“It’s lovely,” said his wife, accepting the saucepan and the shower with meekness. “And you’re a dear, though in the interests of your character I generally try to conceal the fact. What vegetables do you intend to present to your starving family to-day?”
Tom fell into the speech of the Chinese gardener who had supplied them in the city.
“Cabbagee, cauliflow’, gleen pea an’ dly pea, Flench bean, bload bean, spallowglass!” he chanted. “No, not asparagus; but I felt so like old Ah Chee I couldn’t stop! Just give your orders, ma’am. Whatever old Gordon didn’t do on this place, he certainly left us a good vegetable garden.”
“He did indeed,” Aileen said. “Now, having dangled all these before my eyes, tell me what ought to be used first.”
“Cauliflow’,” said Tom promptly. “They’re blooming like the rose, only more so.”
“I’m so glad—it doesn’t have to be shelled!” said his wife. “Peas or beans would have embarrassed me this morning. Where’s the cookery book? I never can remember whether it goes into boiling water or cold.”
“Does it matter, so long as you leave it there long enough?”
“I believe it matters exceedingly, though I don’t see why,” said she.
“Mere red tape,” said Tom scornfully. “Why not try both ways, and see which comes out best?”
“Think of your feelings on the day when it happened to be wrong,” said his wife absently, puckering her brows over her book.
Tom scalded his dish-cloth, wrung it out, and hung it on the rail he had erected for towels.
“There, that’s done,” he said. “Now I’d better go and catch a cauliflower, since my suggestions only meet with scorn. Want any potatoes?”
“Please,” said Aileen. She watched him cross the yard to the shed, and return with his spade, and presently heard him singing as he worked—a gay little snatch of comic opera that was somehow oddly out of place in the Bush.
“He seems happy enough,” she said to herself. “I wish I didn’t hate it so.”
She went out upon the veranda, and stared across the paddocks. The loveliness of the country always helped her—even when the realization was strong upon her that she hated her new life. Not for worlds would she have admitted it to either Tom or Garth; that would not have been playing the game—and to play the game had been instilled into her since her childhood as the one thing worth doing.
She did not always admit it to herself; then it was easier to be cheery for her two boys. She met each day with a laugh and tried to laugh until it ended. But sometimes it was hard. She missed the “House Beautiful,” with its dainty comfort and luxuries; the ease of the old days, the little pleasures and excitements, the stir and bustle of city life. The loveliness of the country lay like a weight upon her. Beyond the blue hills her mind saw Melbourne, with its broad streets and great buildings in their setting of gleaming river, and jewelled parks; the huge shops, the gay streets, the “Block,” with the familiar faces going up and down. There were all the friends who had helped to make life so merry; here was nothing but silence and green spaces—and work. How she hated the work! the dull repetition of each day’s tasks, the grime, the greasy dishes, the hot kitchen, the sight and smell and touch of raw meat! In the first days, while they fought the dirt of the house together, it had been easier, hard as the fight was for her unaccustomed strength. Now she was settling down to a dull routine of daily tasks, and her existence seemed bounded by pots and pans and dish-mops. It was all very small and paltry: but then, life nowadays was made up of small and paltry things, which somehow mounted to a big whole. Perhaps it was because she was tired that morning that it seemed rather too big for her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, I suppose I’ll get broken in, in time,” she said. “I hope it won’t take too long.”
Tom came round the corner suddenly, and chaffed her for idling; and she answered him laughingly, until a call came from Garth’s room, and, with a cheery, “Coming, sonnie!” she ran to him. Tom finished scorning his vegetables, and shouldered his spade once more.
“Well, it’s a queer sort of a life to come to—and not much of a one,” he muttered. “But thank goodness, Aileen’s as happy as a cricket, so it’s all right!”
There were days that followed when Aileen found it harder than ever to play at being happy.
The fine weather deserted them, and for nearly a week rain fell unceasingly. Mud came up to their very doors, so that to keep the house clean was no easy matter. The garden paths were muddy rivers, the flowers sodden with wet. Garth, a prisoner to the house, and with his bandaged arm in a sling, moped for lack of occupation, became as naughty as was possible to his sunny nature, and openly declared that the country was beastly, and he wanted to go home. Even Tom ceased to sing, and grew bored with long days in the house. The hills and the lake disappeared, blotted out behind a drifting veil of grey rain. The roof developed unsuspected leaks, which all Tom’s untaught efforts failed to locate; and, to catch the drips, tubs and basins sat on the floor in the passage—traps for the unwary in the dark. Tradesmen, never very regular callers, ceased coming altogether. Their bread ran short, and Aileen tried her hand at baking, producing loaves that were responsible, through indigestion, for much of the family’s low spirits. Tom tramped through the downpour to the township, and returned empty-handed and in disgust—it was the weekly half-holiday, and the baker’s shop was shut! So Aileen baked again—this time the soda-bread of Ireland, as taught by Julia; and was more successful. Meat ran out; they would have killed fowls, but no one knew how to prepare them. It was a dreary time. They ate strange dishes made with lentils, and wondered how vegetarians contrived to look cheerful.
The days crawled by slowly, to the ceaseless sound of the drip-drip-drip on the corrugated iron roof. The tanks ran over, and made rivers about the house—-they were as yet too new to the country to be grateful for any sign of a superabundance of water. All the firewood was wet and sodden, and refused to burn: and the chimneys smoked furiously. Aileen found, to her horror, that there were signs that already her temper was beginning to feel “frayed at the edges”; more than once she caught herself up just in time to prevent herself making a sharp answer to some remark of Tom’s. It made her afraid.
“If I’m like that within three weeks, what shall I be in three months?” she asked herself. “Aileen Macleod, you can’t be a pig! I’ll begin praying Mrs. Wiggs’ prayer every day—‘Lord, keep me from gettin’ sour.’ It wouldn’t do, with two boys to look after.”
A cry startled her, and a heavy splash, and the little mother dropped the food she was preparing and fled to the rescue. In the passage, now nearly dark, Garth’s boots protruded from the largest of the tubs. There was water everywhere: and Garth, half-choked, and hampered by his slung arm, was endeavouring to struggle out of the tub. To her relief, he was laughing.
“I’m an awful goat!” he said, dripping, but cheerful. “Didn’t it serve me jolly well right for being grumpy!”
“Did you hurt your arm?” asked his mother anxiously, helping him to his feet.
“Not a scrap—wasn’t it luck! But I’m soaked, Mother.” The small boy gave an irrepressible chuckle. “I say, I must have looked funny! Don’t you wish you’d seen me!”
Suddenly, to her astonishment and disgust, Aileen found that she was crying. The stupid little accident was the last straw to her endurance: her self-control slipped from her in the relief of finding Garth unhurt. She struggled in vain to command her voice, and took refuge in silence; but presently a stifled sob made Garth lift his head in amazement, and a tear fell on his upturned face.
“Mother—you’re not crying! Oh, Mother, darling, I was a pig—I’m so sorry!”
His arm was round her neck and his cheek pressed to her wet one. The clinging touch helped to calm her.
“I’m all right, sweetheart,” she told him. “Don’t worry—I was just a bit tired, that’s all. You mustn’t tell Daddy, or he’d be worried.”
“Sure you aren’t sick?” Garth asked, greatly alarmed. That mother should cry was sufficiently amazing to mean something very bad indeed.
“No, not a bit. I was only tired, and I was afraid you were hurt. I’m a silly old mother, that’s all.” She was helping him into dry clothes, handling his stiff arm very gently.
“I’ve been making you tired—cross beast I am!” said Garth penitently. “I won’t be horrid any more, Mother!” He hugged her again violently.
“Poor old man; you’ve had a horrid week,” she said. “Never mind; Daddy says he thinks it is going to clear up, and you may be able to get out to-morrow. Listen, Garth!” She raised her head as the sound of voices came through the thin boarding of the wall. “Daddy has a visitor. How exciting!”
“Who d’you think it is?” Garth asked eagerly. “Why, we haven’t had a sign of a visitor since we’ve been here!”
“It sounds like your friend’s voice,” said Aileen, wrestling with his buttons.
“That nice man what pulled my arm straight?” Garth said. “I’d like to see him. He did hurt, but he was jolly quick. I was getting sick of that old arm. He’s a—a very decent sort of chap, isn’t he, Mother?”
“Very decent, I think,” she said. “At least, I never was so glad of any one in my life. Let’s go and see him, sonnie.”
Tom rose as they entered the sitting-room.
“Here’s Mr. O’Connor, Aileen.”
“Thought it was about time I came to see how my patient was,” said the big man. “Hullo, old chap; your Dad says you’re nearly all right. Looks a bit washy yet, don’t he?”
“I’m quite well,” Garth said eagerly. “When can I take my arm out of this old sling?”
Nick O’Connor laughed.
“Seems to think I’m his doctor, don’t he? Well, I wouldn’t be in a hurry for a few days. You don’t want a weak wrist, do you? And when you do take it out, mind you wear a wrist-strap.” He turned back to Aileen. “And how d’you like Gippsland, Mrs. Macleod?”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. “I never saw such a lovely country.”
“Oh, it’s pretty enough. But there’s no fortunes to be made here; it’s hard scratchin’ for a living. I was just askin’ your husband what he was thinkin’ of doin’ with the place.”
“I’m hanged if I know,” said Tom. “My predecessor didn’t do much.”
“Queer chap, ol’ Gordon,” said their guest. “He wasn’t the sort of fellow you could talk to at all: lived by himself, and never spoke to no one. Him and that kid Horrors. I wish I’d known you were coming in; some of us would a’ done something to the house. Awful dirty, I suppose it was, Mrs. Macleod?”
“It was pretty bad,” she said. She caught his eye, and laughed.
“Pretty bad!” said Tom explosively. “Of all the pigsties——!”
“I bet it was a pigsty,” said O’Connor, chuckling. “I was on’y here once, about six months ago, lookin’ for a stray calf: but then I poked me nose into the kitchen, an’ mighty quick took it out again.”
“Well, they hadn’t washed it since,” Tom remarked.
“Not they. Well, it’s all very well to laugh, but it was jolly rough on you, Mrs. Macleod. My word, you’ve got the place nice now! And the garden’s a fair credit to you: it was the on’y part of the place where old Gordon did any work. As long as he could go fishin’, much he cared for anything else. What was you thinkin’ of doin’ with the land?”
Tom gave a short laugh.
“I’m blessed if I know,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know a thing about it. I’ve a little stock running on it, so I’ve just been pegging away at getting things ship-shape before I tackled farming in earnest. What would you advise me to do with it, Mr. O’Connor?”
The big man drew out his pipe.
“Mind me smokin’? Well, it all depends. If you’d bought the place it’d be different; then I’d start clearin’ it up a bit, if I was you. But you’ve on’y got it on a lease, an’ so that ain’t worth your while. Ol’ Gordon’d never appreciate it, if you did clear it for him. No; you might dairy in earnest—an’ a dawg’s life it is; or you might run sheep an’ a few calves. That’s easier, an’ it pays. Young stock does pretty well on these hills.”
“That would suit me better,” Tom said. “I’m too old to start dairying, not knowing anything about the game: and labour is too hard to get.
“That’s so,” agreed O’Connor. “An’ when you’ve got men to milk, ain’t you fair under their heel! They’re boss, an’ they make you know it. Why, I knew one man employin’ six milkers: Mr. Beresford, up Lindenow way. Mrs. Beresford was doin’ all the cookin’ for them, and she wasn’t a bit strong, either—a delicate lady, she was, an’ awful nice: an’ it was hot weather. They was beasts. If she sent ’em down a stew they’d put earth in it an’ send it back and tell her they wanted joints; and one day she made ’em a ginger pudding, an’ they chose to think it wasn’t good enough for them, so they plastered up the cracks in the walls of their hut with it, and sent up word she had to make something else. An’ she had to.”
“Had to! I’d have seen them shot first!” Tom exclaimed.
“So’d Mr. Beresford. But he couldn’t see sixty cows left unmilked. An’ those six beauties of his would have walked off like a shot an’ left his cows. They’ve done it on lots of places. Once you start dairyin’, you can be as proud as you like on your own account, but you’ve got to be jolly meek and humble on account of the cows.”
“Is Beresford still at it?”
“Not he. He sold all his cows, and went back to sheep; it was a pity, too, ’cause he’d good land an’ a lovely herd. But Mrs. Beresford was too delicate, an’ he wouldn’t have her worked to death. Anyhow, she did die, afterwards, poor thing!”
“Well!” said Tom expressively. “That puts dairying out of the question; one doesn’t want to risk experiences of that kind.”
“It’s all very well if you’re brought up to it,” said the visitor. “Then you get used to all sorts of things. But you ain’t.” He looked at them reflectively. “You’ve both of you got ‘city’ written all over you, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. That bein’ so, I couldn’t advise you to try cows.”
“Well, look here,” said Tom. “Say I go in for sheep and young stock, as you said—knowing nothing about them. Is there a reliable man—any settler living near—who would buy them for me—for a commission, of course—and advise me about selling, when they were fit to sell?”
“Bless you, I’d do that, without any ol’ commission,” said O’Connor cheerfully.
“I couldn’t have that. If I take up your time I must pay you.”
“Take up my time! Why, you’ve on’y got to come to sales with me—I’m always ‘goin’ to them—an’ let me give you a word of advice: an’ I can come over here now and then, to see how they were doin’. That ain’t nothing to be paid for. You’ll want to put in a bit of a crop for winter feed, an’ I’ll lend you my plough an’ horses an’ ’Possum—you can pay for them, if you like.”
“Who is ’Possum?”
“’Possum’s me right hand-man,” said Nick O’Connor, with a twinkle. “Very useful, too. I can ride over an’ help you get the crop in. You’ll want to put in potatoes, too, won’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Tom said.
“Oh, there’s money in spuds,” said the big man. “And in fruit: you ought to make a bit off your orchard. And the hotels will always buy vegetables—likewise the summer visitors.”
Aileen leant forward, a new light in her eyes.
“I can help in that,” she said. “And, Mr. O’Connor, I want to go in for fowls—lots of fowls: chickens and ducks and turkeys.”
“So you’d ought to. They take mighty little feeding: eat insecks and grasshoppers all the summer, an’ they do fine on peas in the winter!”
“D’ly pea,” said Tom, laughing at her.
“Yes, dry peas. We’ll make him put in some for you, Mrs. Macleod—just a little crop.”
“But how will I buy fowls? There are only a dozen or so here.”
“Oh, ’Possum’s the one to help you there,” said the visitor. “What ’Possum don’t know about fowls ain’t worth finding out. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Macleod, we’ll fix it up all right.”
“But we can’t take up your time and ’Possum’s without paying you,” Tom said. “I know how valuable a man’s time is.”
Mr. O’Connor exhibited symptoms of impatience.
“Now, look here,” he said. “You’re neighbours; an’ for five years we haven’t had not what you could call a neighbour on this place. Nobody’s very proud about here, but we do get full up of a man like ol’ Gordon, who thinks himself too good to speak to any poor Australian. You ain’t that sort, an’ we’re jolly glad to have you. If I needed advice about buyin’ things in the city, wouldn’t you give it to me?”
“Like a shot,” said Tom. “But——”
“Well, thank goodness, I don’t!” said Mr. O’Connor, pursuing his argument. “But I’ll come to you when I need a lot of shares, or a swaller-tail coat an’ hat, or anything fancy like that. Meanwhile, if you won’t let us advise you about things like calves and spuds, where’s the fairness come in? I’ve said I’ll let you pay me for the ploughin’, ’cause it’s cheaper for you to do it that way than to buy an outfit an’ start learnin’ to use it. But the rest is on’y bein’ neighbours. So s’pose we don’t say any more about it. Eh, son—would you like to learn to be a farmer?”
“Rather!” said Garth, with shining eyes. “Am I big enough?”
“Oh, you’re quite big enough for a start. I’ll tell ’Possum to keep an eye on you.” He rose, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “Well, they’ll be waiting tea for me: I must get along home.” He shook hands all round. “We’ll make good Gippslanders of you in no time,” he said. “Jolly nice drop o’ rain we’ve had this last week, isn’t it?—good thing for your ploughin’, Mr. Macleod. Well, so long!” He was gone.
“Didn’t I tell you he was a jolly decent sort of chap?” Garth said. “And he is, too!”