IV
Jack, who was looking sick again, was sent away to the Greenlows’ next day. And he was glad to go, thankful to be out of it. He loathed death, he loathed death, and Wandoo had suddenly become full of death.
The first cool days of the year, golden and blue, were at hand. The Greenlow girls made much of him. He rode with them after sheep, inspecting fences, examining far-off wells. They were not bad girls at all. They taught him to play solitaire at evening, to hold worsted, even to spin. Real companionable girls, thankful to have a young man in the house, spoiling him completely. Pa was home after the first day, and acted as a sort of hairy chimpanzee chaperone, but looking over his spectacles and hissing through his teeth was his severest form of reproof. He didn’t set Jack to wash that Sunday, but even gave him tit-bits from the joint, so that our young hero almost knew what it was to have a prospective father-in-law.
Jack left Gum Tree Croft with regret. For he knew his life at Wandoo was over. Now Dad was dead, everything was going to break up. This was bitter to him, for it was the first place he had ever loved, ever wanted to stay in, for ever and ever. He loved the family. He couldn’t bear to go away from them.
“Never mind!” he said to himself. “I shall always have them in some way or other, all my life.”
Things seemed different when he got back. There wasn’t much real difference, except a bit of raking and clearing up had been done for the funeral. But Wandoo itself seemed to have died. For the meantime, the homestead was as if dead.
Grace and Monica looked unnatural in black frocks. They felt unnatural.
Jack was told that Mr. George was having a conclave in the parlour, and that he was to go in.
Tom, Mrs. Ellis, and Mr. George and Dr. Rackett were there, seated round the table, on which were some papers. Jack shook hands, and sat uneasily in an empty chair on Dr. Rackett’s side of the table. Mr. George was explaining things simply.
Mr. Ellis left no will. But the first marriage certificate had been found. Tom was to inherit Wandoo, but not till he came legally of age, in a year and a half’s time. Meanwhile Mrs. Ellis could continue on the place, and carry on as best she might, on behalf of herself and all the children. For a year and a half.
She heard in silence. After a year and a half she would be homeless: or at least dependent on Tom, who was not her son. She sat silent in her black dress.
Tom cleared his throat and stared at the table. Then he looked up at Jack, and, scarlet in the face, said:
“I’ve been thinking, Ma, I don’t want the place. You have it, for Len. I don’t want it. You have it, for Len an’ the kids. I’d rather go away. Best if that certificate hadn’t never been found, if you’re going to feel you’re turned out.”
He dropped his head in confusion. Mr. George held up his hand.
“No more of that heroic talk,” he said. “When Jacob Ellis stored up that marriage certificate at the bottom of that box, he showed what he meant. And you may feel as you say to-day, but two years hence you might repent it.”
Tom looked up angrily.
“I don’t believe Tom would ever regret it,” put in Mrs. Ellis. “But I couldn’t think of it. Len wouldn’t let me, even if I wanted to.”
“Of course not,” said Mr. George. “We’ve got to be sensible, and the law’s the law. You can’t alter it yet, my boy, even if you want to. You’re not of age yet.
“So you listen to me. My plan is for you and Jack to go out into the colony and get some experience. Sow your wild oats if you’ve any to sow, or else pick up a bit of good oat-seed. One or the other.
“My idea is for you and Jack to go up for a year to Lang’s Well station, out Roeburne way. Lang’ll give you your keep and a pound a week each, and your fare refunded if you stay a year.
“The ‘Rob Roy’ sails from Geraldton about a month from now; you can get passages on her. And I thought it would be just as well, Tom, if you and Jack rode up through that midland country. You’ve a hundred connections to; see, who’ll change y’r horses for y’. And you’ll see the country. And y’ll be men of travel. We want men of experience, men of a wide outlook. Somebody’s got to be the head-piece of this colony, when men like me and the rest of us are gone. It’ll be a three hundred mile ride, but ye’ve nigh on a month to do it.
“Now, what do you say, my boy? Your mother will stop on here with the children. I’ll see she gets a good man to run the place. And meanwhile she’ll be able to fix something up for herself. Oh, we shall settle all right. I’ll see your mother through all right. No fear of that. And no fear of any deterioration to the place. I’ll watch that. You bet I will.”
Tom twisted his fingers, white at the gills, and mumbled his thanks vaguely.
“Jack,” said Mr. George. “I know you’re game. And you will look after Tom.”
Dr. Rackett said he thought it a wise plan, and further, that if Mrs. Ellis would consent, he would like to bear the expenses of sending Lennie to school in England for the next three years.
Mrs. Ellis woke from her dream to say quickly:
“Although I thank you kindly, Dr. Rackett, I think you’ll understand if I say No.”
Her decision startled everybody.
“Prrh! Bah!” snorted Mr. George. “There’s one thing. I doubt if we could make Lennie go. But, with your permission, Alice, well ask him. Jack, find Lennie for us.”
“I’ll not say a word,” said Mrs. Ellis, nervously clutching the edge of the table. “I won’t influence him. But if he goes it’ll be the death of me. Poor old Lennie! Poor old Lennie!”
“Prrh! Bahl That’s nonsense! Nonsense!” said Mr. George angrily. “Give the boy his chance, leave your fool emotions out, d’ye hear, Alice Ellis.”
Mrs. Ellis sat like a martyr stubborn at the stake. Jack brought the mistrustful Len, who stood like a prisoner at the bar. Mr. George put the case as attractively as possible.
Len slowly shook his head, with a grimace of distaste.
“No, I don’t think!” he remarked. “Not fer mine, you bet! I stays alongside my pore ol’ Ma, here in Western Austrylia.”
Mr. George adjusted his eyeglasses severely.
“Your mother is neither poor nor old,” he said coldly.
“I never!” broke out Lennie.
“And this country, thank God, is called Australia, not Austrylia. When you open your mouth you give proof enough of your need for education. I should like to hear different language in your mouth, my son, and see different ideas working in your head.”
Lennie, rather pale and nervous, stared with wide eyes at him.
“You never—” he said. “You never ketch me talkin’ like Jack Grant, not if y’ skin me alive.” And he shifted from one foot to the other.
“I wouldn’t take the trouble to skin you, alive or dead. Your skin wouldn’t be worth it. But come. You’re an intelligent boy. You need education. You need it. Your nature needs it, child. Your mother ought to see that. Your nature needs you to be educated, well-educated. You’ll be wasted afterwards—you will. And you’ll repent it. Mark me, you’ll repent it, when you’re older, and your spirit, which should be trained and equipped, is as clumsy and half-baked as any other cornseed’s. You’ll be a fretful, uneasy, wasted man, you will. Your mother ought to see that. You’ll be a half-baked, quarter-educated bush-whacker, instead of a well-equipped man.”
Len looked wonderingly at his mother. But she still sat like an obstinate martyr at the stake, and gave him no sign.
“Don’t he educate me?” asked Len, pointing to Rackett.
“As much as you’ll let him,” said Mr. George. “But—”
Lennie’s face crumpled up with irritation.
“Oh, what for do you want me to be educated?” he cried testily. “I don’ want to be like Uncle Blogg. I don’ wantter be like Dr. Rackett even.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “‘N I don’ wantter be like Jack Grant neither. I don’ wantta. I don’ wantta, I tell y’ I don’ wantta.”
“Do you think they would want to be like you?” asked Mr. George.
Lennie looked from him to Rackett, and then to Jack.
“Jack’s not so very diff’rent,” he said slowly. And he shook his head. “But can’t y’ believe me,” he cried. “I don’ wantta go to England. I don’ wantta talk fine and be like them. Can’t ye see I don’t? I don’ wantta. What’s the good! What’s the mortal use of it, anyhow? Aren’t I right as I am?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I wants to work. I wants to milk an’ feed, and plough, and reap and lay out irrigation, like Dad. An’ I wants to look after Ma an’ the kids. An’ then I’ll get married and be on a place of me own with kids of me own, an’ die, like Dad, an’ be done for. That’s what I wants. It is.”
He looked desperately at his mother.
Mr. George slowly shook his head, staring at the keen, beautiful, but reluctant boy.
“I suppose that’s what we’ve come to,” said Rackett.
“Didn’t you learn me!” cried Lennie defiantly. And striking a little attitude, like a naive earnest actor, he repeated:
“‘Here rests, his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth of fortune and to fame unknown.
Fair science frowned not on his humble birth,
And melancholy marked him for her own.
“‘Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send.
He gave to misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from heaven, ’twas all he wished, a friend.”
“There,” he continued. “That’s me! An’ I’ve got a friend already.”
“You’re a little fool,” said Mr. George. “Much mark of melancholy there is on you! And do you think misery is going to thank you for your idiotic tear? As for your friend, he’s going away. And you’re a fool, putting up a headstone to yourself while you’re alive still. Damn you, you little fool, and be damned to you.”
Mr. George was really cross. He flounced his spectacles off his nose. Len was frightened. Then he said, rather waveringly, turning to his mother:
“We’re all right, Ma, ain’t we?”
Mrs. Ellis looked at him with her subtlest, tenderest smile. And in Lennie’s eyes burned a light of youthful indignation against these old men.