CHAPTER XV
A STRAW AGAINST THE TIDE
Jenny was having an idyllic time at Wandooyamba. Mrs. Oxenham was not the woman to do things by halves, and, having undertaken to restore the girl to health, she set about the task with her native wisdom and capability. New milk in the morning; broth at eleven o'clock; drives behind Harry's wild teams, which never made her afraid; rides on a quiet pony with him and little Hal; rambles in the wooded hills about the house – the lone bush that she loved, but had never had her fill of; these things, in conjunction with a kindness from all around her that never allowed her to feel like an outsider, promptly brought a glow to the magnolia-petal whiteness of the little face, and a clear light to the eyes that had been so dull and tired.
She was so perfectly well-mannered and well-bred, and she looked so pretty in her neat gowns – particularly when she wore the black silk that had been cut low and frilled with lace for the evening, showing her delicately-curved and fine-skinned throat – that neither host nor hostess felt any incongruity in her position as their social equal and the equal of their friends. If they remembered the tea-room, they remembered also the father who had been an Eton boy; but soon they forgot all about her antecedents and belongings, and esteemed her wholly on her own merits. They wished they could have kept her altogether, as housekeeper, or companion, or governess to the children (two sturdy boys, who loved her with all the sincerity of their discriminating little hearts), because she was so gentle, and so useful, and never in anybody's way.
She was never in anybody's way, and yet she was always at hand if there was anything to be done that nobody else was ready to do. Until she had left the house no one realised the amount of unostentatious service that she represented. She made toys for the boys; she made sailor suits for them (though nobody had wanted her to do that); she arranged the flowers; she sewed and cut the weekly papers; she marked handkerchiefs; she made the tea; she took the children for walks, and kept them good by telling stories to them – a great relief to the house when school-time was over and the governess had gone away.
"She's just my right hand," Mary said to her husband one day; "and I don't know what I shall do without her when the time comes to send her home. It's like having a younger sister to stay with one."
"It is," said Mr. Oxenham, who had just found his favourite driving gloves, of which several fingers and thumbs had opened, mended so neatly that they were as good as ever.
Nevertheless, neither of them had any idea of making an actual younger sister of Jenny Liddon, and when Tony's letter arrived there was consternation over its contents.
"Now, isn't that just too bad?" Mary cried, as she dashed it on the table, and stamped her foot with vexation (Jenny being in the school-room with the boys). "When I wanted him to come, he wouldn't; and now I don't want him he starts off, without giving me any warning, in this way! Oh, it really is too provoking of him! To-morrow – that's this very night, less than twelve hours from now – he will be here, Harry. And that girl in the house!"
"It's awkward," said Harry, picking up the letter and perusing it for himself. "A fetching little thing like her, and a handsome, fast fellow like him, both under the same roof – "
"Oh, it must not be," Mrs. Oxenham declared impetuously. "It must be prevented at all costs. I have a duty to Jenny as well as to my brother. I only hope and trust he doesn't know she is here – I asked them not to mention it, and you see he says nothing about her; but, whether or no, I am not going to let either of them make fools of themselves, if I can help it."
"You can't very well tell him not to come, my dear."
"I know I can't. Besides, that would only make him the more determined."
"Nor yet pack Miss Liddon home, after asking her to stay over Christmas – like a schoolgirl expelled for misconduct."
"I know that too. I must scheme and plot to deceive them, like the bad women in novels; only they do it to harm people, while I shall do it for their good. Go away, Harry, and let me think."
He went away, and was uncomfortable till lunch time, when she met him with a calm face and a telegram in her hand, which she asked him to despatch to the township for her.
"I have put him off till to-morrow," she said. "You can tell him the horses were lame, or something."
Mr. Oxenham, who had scores of buggy horses, all jumping out of their skins with the exhilaration of their spring coats and renewed constitutions, said she must think of something that Tony would be more likely to believe than that. And she said, "Oh, leave it to me!" And he replied that he would do so with the very greatest pleasure.
The luncheon bell rang, and Jenny came into the pleasant dining-room, with the children clinging to her. She put them in high chairs on either side of her place at the table, and tied on their bibs, and cut up their roast mutton and potato, like the little mother that her lover dreamed of.
"Why do you bother about those brats, Miss Liddon, while the nurse spends all her time flirting over the back fence?" their father said, in a gay but compunctious tone. And he helped her to mayonnaise, and to her special wine, and to cool soda-water, and to salt, and to anything he could lay his hands on; for he feared they were going to treat her badly, and he wanted to put in all the good treatment that he could beforehand.
His wife regarded the girl with infinite kindness, but no compunction whatever – for she was a woman, and not a man.
"Jenny, dear," she said, "do you think you would enjoy a little drive this afternoon? I don't think it is too hot."
"I should, greatly," Jenny replied, the ready glow in her face. "But I enjoy everything – whether out of doors or in – whatever you like best."
"Me, too," clamoured little Hal. "Let me go too, mother! Then I can tell Miss Liddon some more about Uncle Tony's ship that he's gone to Tasmania in."
With the explosion of this unexpected bomb the colour flew over Jenny's face, and, because she knew she was blushing, it deepened to the hue of a peony. Anthony had not been named in the family circle since her arrival, except to and by this terrible infant; even Sarah had been afraid to interfere with the march of events by any allusion to him in her letters. So that Jenny believed him to be still upon the sea, and that nobody knew how she thought about him.
Mrs. Oxenham flashed one lightning glance at her guest, and leisurely helped her little son to gravy. "It isn't Uncle Tony's ship, as it happens; it is Mr. Daunt's," she said. "And what do you know about ships, you monkey?"
She looked at her husband, and he knew she looked at him, though he was eating industriously, with his eyes upon his plate.
"I sha'n't be able to take you this afternoon, Mary," he mumbled, with his mouth full, visibly shrinking. "I shall be busy."
"We shall not want you, dear," she calmly answered him. "Dickson can drive us. I am going to the township to do a little shopping for Christmas. And, Jenny, we will call on your aunt at the bank; it will be a good opportunity."
Jenny's aunt, her mother's sister, chanced to live in the town which was the Oxenhams' post-town and their railway terminus. Neither aunt, uncle, nor cousins had communicated with the Liddons since the tea-room was instituted, and had intended never again to do so; but when they discovered that the arch-offender against the pride of the Rogersons was a guest at Wandooyamba, the great house of the district, which had never conferred such a distinction upon them, their attitude towards this kinswoman changed completely. They rushed to call upon her, and to clasp her in their arms, and to beg that she would go and see them while she was so near. Their call had not yet been returned, and the invitation had been disregarded, because Mrs. Oxenham had looked a little coldly upon the connection, and Jenny had preferred her friend to her relations; but now Mary considered that the time had come to attend to them. "We will go and see your aunt and cousins," she said cheerfully. "They must wonder what has become of you."
And Jenny thought it was so good of her to trouble about people she didn't care for, for the sake of a guest who was of no account, and thanked her gratefully.
They set out immediately after luncheon. They had six miles to go, mostly up-hill, and the light breeze was behind them, carrying the dust of hot December into their necks and ears. Mrs. Oxenham beguiled the way with prattle about Mr. Daunt's yachting party and the beautiful Lady Louisa who held her brother in bonds; and Jenny looked annoyingly pale and tired when they arrived.
"We will go to the bank first," said the elder lady, "in the hope that Mrs. Rogerson will give us a good cup of tea."
And the coachman was ordered thither.
The maid who answered his ring at the private door announced that Mrs. Rogerson was in, and ushered the visitors upstairs into a stifling drawing-room – only used for the reception of callers and an occasional evening party. Here they sat for full ten minutes, fanning themselves with their handkerchiefs, and looking round upon the art muslin draperies, and be-ribboned tambourines, and Liberty-silk-swathed plates and photographs, waiting for their hostess to appear. Mrs. Oxenham made no remarks upon what she saw, nor upon the rustlings and whisperings that she heard, because these people were Jenny's relatives; and Jenny took no notice of anything.
Her aunt came in, damp and flushed with heat and haste and the weight of a silk dress covered with beads. She was a great contrast to Mrs. Liddon, as she was well aware; much more stylish in every way – much more on a level with this distinguished squatter's wife, whom she gushed over effusively.
"And you, too, Jenny!" – kissing the girl, who offered her cheek and not her lips to the salute. "I really thought you had gone home without coming to see us."
This was just what Jenny would have done, if left to her own devices, having no desire for intimacy with Aunt Emma or her family after the way they had treated her about the tea-room; and she made no reply.
Mrs. Oxenham answered for her, however. "I should not have allowed that, you may be sure. Aunts and cousins" – disregarding Jenny's protesting eyes – "are more to one than strangers."
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Rogerson. "And I want to hear about my poor sister – poor thing! When we were girls together, and papa and mamma giving us every luxury that money could buy, I little thought what she was to come to, Mrs. Oxenham. And we believed she had made a good marriage too. Your father, Jenny, was an Eton boy."
"I know," said blushing Jenny, who often wished devoutly that her father had gone to a state school.
"Mr. Liddon was a gentleman," said Mary, "and his daughter takes after him. I'm sure I don't know what Mr. Oxenham and I will do without her when she leaves us. It is like having one of our own."
Mrs. Rogerson gushed afresh – over her niece this time; and two smart girl-cousins came in and gushed with her. They sat on either side of Jenny and held her hands, until one of them (Joey's adored one) got up to make the tea.
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Rogerson. "She was always a favourite with us; we always knew she was a lady born, in spite of her absurd notions about tea-rooms and so forth – which, I must confess, did make us a little angry with her. You would have felt it yourself, Mrs. Oxenham, now wouldn't you? But, after all, blood is blood, isn't it? You can't alter that. Our own grandfather was nephew to a baronet – Sir Timothy Smith. You may have heard of him?"
Mrs. Oxenham said she did not remember to have done so – that perhaps he was before her time – and graciously took another cup of tea, which she declared was delicious.
"And now, when are you coming to us, Jenny?" Cousin Alice inquired. "Couldn't you come and spend the day to-morrow? And couldn't you come, Mrs. Oxenham? Our tennis club is having a tournament, and we are giving a tea on the ground – under nice shady trees, you know. It would be such an honour if you would come and look on at us."
"I'm afraid I couldn't," said Mary, with a pretence of thinking it over. "But Jenny, if she likes, I could send her in."
"Oh, yes! And couldn't she spend a few days with us when she was here? We have seen nothing of her. We could drive her back to Wandooyamba."
This was what Mrs. Oxenham had fished for, had roasted herself in the sun for, and she roused herself to deal with the timely opportunity. She looked at Jenny, and Jenny looked back at her with eyes that said "No" so unmistakably as to suggest the thought that perhaps she knew of Anthony's coming to the mind of the suspicious woman. This made her resolute.
"What do you say, dear?" she inquired genially; and in a moment Jenny understood that her friend wished her to accept the invitation, and was wondering in a startled way whether she had outstayed her welcome at Wandooyamba. "Don't consider us – we must not be selfish – and you will come back to us, of course. Dickson could drive you over when he goes for the letters, and that would give you the afternoon to see the tournament."
There was nothing to say but "thank you" all round, and Jenny said it with good taste, determined to bring her holiday to an end as soon as possible – not to return to Wandooyamba after leaving it, but to spend Christmas with her own too-long deserted family. Mary had an inkling of what was going on in the girl's mind, but said to herself that it couldn't be helped. Anthony must be saved at all hazards.
CHAPTER XVI
A STAR IN TWILIGHT
Mrs. Oxenham was immensely kind to Jenny when the pair were again upon the road.
"They seemed to want you so much, darling, and I thought your mother would wish you to show them some attention," she said. "But goodness knows what Harry and I will do without you! We shall be quite lost, and the children too, till you come back again."
"You are too good to me," murmured Jenny, half inclined to cry. "I think I am getting quite spoiled."
"Oh, no! You are not one of the spoilable sort," said Mary tenderly.
Jenny had but one portmanteau with her, and into this she packed all her belongings before starting off next day. Mr. Oxenham put it and her into the buggy with his own hands, and, because he was not directly responsible for her departure, bewailed it loudly.
"I call it too bad of you – downright mean, I call it – to run away from us like this, Miss Liddon," he said to her again and again, to the unconcealed irritation of his wife.
"You go on, Harry, as if she were leaving us for ever. We haven't seen the last of her yet – not by a long way, have we, dear?"
The parting guest was sped with warmest kisses and handclasps, and bidden vaguely to come back again soon. But as she stood up to wave her handkerchief to the children from the middle of the home paddock, looking back upon the great, rambling house, where she had had such a good time, she said to herself that she should go back no more. If matters had turned out differently she would have called her conviction of that moment a presentiment.
Aunt Emma and Cousins Clementine and Alice received her cordially, and at once began to pelt her with questions concerning the Oxenham household, and as to what she knew of the Churchills in town. Uncle John, the bank manager, lunching with his family, asked about Joey, and the state of the restaurant business, and other practical matters. In the afternoon she helped to carry cakes and cream jugs to the tennis-ground, and was there introduced to the rank and fashion of the town, not as "My cousin, who keeps the tea-room in Little Collins Street," but as "My cousin, who is staying with Mrs. Oxenham at Wandooyamba," and she sat under a tree and watched the players, and talked when she was obliged to talk, and, when she wasn't, thought her own thoughts, which were chiefly concerned in devising some way of getting home immediately.
The tennis-tea was followed by tea at the bank, composed of the remains of the former, with cold meat and eggs; and by-and-by the moon got up, and it was proposed that the young people should have a walk to enjoy the pleasant night. A bank-clerk and a bachelor lawyer, who had "dropped in," attached themselves to Clem and Alice, and Mrs. Rogerson and her niece soberly chaperoned the party, and talked family affairs together.
The night train from Melbourne came in at ten o'clock, and the little township loved to catch it in the act. All townships which have a train do. It is a never-failing joy to them. And, finding themselves in the neighbourhood of the station at about 9.35, the Rogerson girls exclaimed with one voice, "Let's stay and see the train come in."
The motion was carried unanimously, and for half an hour they loitered up and down the platform, looking into the vagueness of the moonlit night, and talking and laughing rather loudly; all but Jenny, who, though she was so much less genteel than these relations, did not think it good manners to make a noise. And so it came to pass that she presently saw a buggy dash into the station-yard, and recognised it as the one that had brought her in in the morning.
"That's to meet somebody," said Clem to Alice, with intense curiosity. "Jenny, who's expected at Wandooyamba to-night?"
"Nobody, that I know of," said Jenny. "They are always sending for parcels and things."
The train signalled from a distance, hummed through the still night, and clattered up to the platform, watched intently by all the eyes available. It was not the great express, but a local off-shoot from it, and the passengers it disgorged at this point were not very numerous. The first to tumble out was a big man with a red beard.
"Oh! Oh! OH! It's Mrs. Oxenham's brother! It's Mr. Anthony Churchill! He hasn't been here for ages – they said he was in England. Oh, isn't he handsome? Oh, I wonder if he will come to the town at all? Oh, Jenny, just see what you have missed!"
Jenny drew back into the dim crowd, on which he cast no glance as he strode to the buggy, calling to a porter to bring his things. She said nothing, but she thought – it was a thought that stung like fire – "Now I know why I have been sent away from Wandooyamba."
Anthony's journey had been a pleasant one – especially the latter part of it, when the coolness of a dewy night had replaced the glare of day; smoking quietly, and meditating upon his prospects, he would not have changed places with a king. Since he had definitely made up his mind to marry Jenny, and since his father had admitted the wisdom of that proceeding, and consented to it, all seemed plain and clear before him; for he had no fear of Mary, who was the first to know her worth, and already treated her as a sister, and no fear at all that the girl herself would for a moment dream of refusing him. He was too deeply experienced in the signs and tokens of the supreme sentiment not to recognise it when he saw it, and he had seen it very plainly once or twice through the modest disguises that she flattered herself had screened it from him.
All the way up he had been thinking of her, imagining their meeting at Wandooyamba, and all that he would do on the morrow, which was Sunday, and a most beautiful day for love-making. He planned the time and circumstances of his marriage, and how the other Liddons should be disposed of while he was showing the world to his bride, and where he and she would live, and what sort of home they would have when they settled down after their travels. Being Saturday night, which passengers by the express who want to go all the way to Sydney don't choose for starting on that journey, if they can help it, he had room to put up his legs and make a rug pillow for his head; in which condition of bodily ease, his mind, so to speak, went out to play, and amused itself delightfully. Jenny would not have known herself had she seen how she was pictured in the fancies of his dreaming brain.
Needless to say, he never dreamed of seeing her on the platform when he arrived, and did not do so. At each of the country stations there was a lounging crowd to see the train come in, people to whom it was the chief entertainment in life, and who were a great nuisance occasionally to the hungry and thirsty traveller with but a few minutes in which to get his meal; but these had nothing to do with Jenny or with him, and were ignored as far as possible. He distinctly heard the "Oh's" of Clementine and Alice, and the sound of his name, and nothing was less likely to suggest the presence of his little sweetheart, with her shy refinement. He knew that a man would have been sent to meet the train, and looked for him and him only. In two minutes his rug and luggage were in the buggy, and the light vehicle spinning out of the town.
The groom was a youth who was not supposed to know anything about the inside of his master's house, and Anthony heard no news that interested him – except that Mr. Oxenham did not intend to drive Emily again with ladies and children behind her; which was a great relief to him. He lit his pipe afresh, and leaned back in his corner with arms folded, and thought of what was coming, in a mood of mind that he had imagined himself to have outgrown years and years ago. The night was very sweet and still, with its delicate mixture of moonlight and shadow; a night to make the most world-hardened man feel sentimental. And the spell of the lonely bush is very strong upon those who are native to it, when they have been away for a long time.
"There will be a moon again to-morrow night," he thought. "And all these leagues of solitude to lose ourselves in! It shall be settled to-morrow night, and then we will both stay for Christmas, while I teach her to get used to it. Oh, this is better than the Richmond lodgings, or the St. Kilda pier!"
Through the trees he saw a dark bank, crowned with a cluster of low roofs, uplifted from the valley pastures to the palely shining sky. He looked at it with kindling eyes, and thought of the little figure moving about the many rooms, in the atmosphere of cultured people – its native air – and how considerate and sagacious his sister Mary was. A light like a star stole out upon the hill, and another, and another. He hoped devoutly that Mary had not sent her charge to bed.
"What time do you make it, Pat?"
"About eleven, sir; not more."
Oh, that wasn't bed-time! And she was not ill now. Perhaps, however, she would make an excuse to retire, lest she should be in the way at the family meeting; it would be just like her. Perhaps she would go to bed to avoid him, out of pure shyness. The doubt worried him, for he had set his heart on seeing her that night – just to satisfy himself that she was really alive and well, and had not been forgetting to care for him during his long absence from her.