Plain Living

CHAPTER XIII

The dinner was a success, the party to the opera having gone off without a drawback to the unbroken joyousness of the affair. The Misses Flemington came and performed such musical feats as were expected of them, and Miss Dacre admitted that she had not heard a voice unprofessional for years to equal May Flemington’s. She wondered, indeed, what she could have been thinking of to imagine that when she came to Australia all artistic luxuries were to be banished from her thoughts.

“The fact is,” she said, “we are frightfully narrow and prejudiced in England. We know a great deal about France, Germany and the Continent generally, because we are always running backwards and forwards. But of our own countrymen in Australia and New Zealand we know next to nothing. I was going to say as little as about Timbuctoo, but we do really know something about Africa, because the missionaries tell us, and we have returned evangelists from Borioboolah Gha, even from Fiji and New Zealand. But of Australia we know nothing.”

“When you go home again, Miss Dacre,” said Hubert, “you will be able to do battle for us, I see. We must make you Agent-General, or Ambassadress, if any such post is vacant. I am sure you will do us justice.”

“Indeed I shall, but I feel ashamed of the ludicrous notions which I brought out with me. No one would think of going down to Yorkshire and saying, ‘I suppose you have nothing newer in songs than “The days when we went gipsying,”’ or asking the Edinburgh people if they had ever seen a bicycle. But really men and women who have had ‘advantages,’ as they are called, do come out here (five weeks from England) and expect to see you living a sort of Fenimore Cooper life, cutting down trees, ‘trailing’ your enemies, and sleeping in wigwams or huts only once removed.”

“Perhaps a portion of this is natural enough,” said Hubert, “we are a long way from town.”

“No, it is not natural,” said Miss Dacre; “because have not so many of our friends come out for generations past? And then for us to think that their sons and daughters were to grow up as clods and belles sauvages!”

“It will all come right in time,” said Hubert. “It doesn’t hurt us, if it pleases them, always excepting people” – here he bowed – “whom we don’t want to have wrong impressions about us. Wait till you get fairly settled at Wantabalree, Miss Dacre, and you’ll lose a few more illusions.”

“Oh! but I don’t want to lose all of them,” replied the young lady. “Some of them are so nice, that I want to retain them in full freshness. I am going to keep pigs and poultry and send wonderful hams to England to show our people what we can do. I am going to be a great walker, and write letters about my impressions to the magazines. I am sure they will do good. Then I shall have a good collection of books, and grow quite learned, besides making myself acquainted with all the people round about, and doing good among the poor. I am certain there is a great field for an energetic person like myself.”

“True!” replied Hubert reflectively. “Australians are rarely energetic, and your programme is excellent. I fully agree with all your plans and ideas, but I am only afraid there may be difficulties in the way of carrying them out.”

“You really are most disappointing people – you colonists.” Here Hubert held up his finger warningly.

“Oh! I forgot. I am not to call you colonists, but to talk to you as if you were like everybody else – is not that so? Well – but you do disappoint me. There is an air of guarded toleration, or mild disapproval, which I observe among all of you when I begin to talk of carrying out reforms. You are very polite, I admit; but tell me now, why should I not? Surely one does not come all this way to do only what everyone else does!”

Josie laughed. Hubert looked sympathetic, but did not offer an explanation. Then Mrs. Grandison took up the running. “My dear, you are quite right in wishing to do everything in your power in the way of good; it is what every girl ought to strive after. It would keep them out of mischief, and so on. But where you English people – when you first come out, not afterwards – differ a little from us is that you are all going to set us benighted colonists right, and to improve us in a great many ways. You say, “I only want to do my duty – just as one would do in England,” but the idea is that you can improve things ever so much.”

“Well, perhaps there may be a feeling that a good deal appears to be left undone; but the intention is to do our duty in that state of life, &c.”

“Quite true,” assented Mrs. Grandison; “but remember what you said, that so many of the best people of the old country had come out here. May not they and their children have worked to some purpose, with results like the Miss Flemington’s music and singing?”

“Well, that does seem probable, but a great deal remains undone; you must admit that, surely?”

“I am afraid many of us are not up to the mark in our duties, but the same kind of persons would perhaps have done no better in an English county. But I could show you people who pass their lives in doing good – who hardly do anything else, in fact.”

“And for what is not done,” said Hubert, who had been regarding Mrs. Grandison’s defence of Australian institutions with a slightly surprised air, “there is commonly some reason, though not visible to a newly arrived young lady like yourself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stamford. But why did you not call me a ‘new chum’ while you were about it? I know you all look down on us.”

“We do not call ladies ‘new chums,’” said Hubert gravely, bowing slightly at the same time. “And I really must decline any more passages of arms about my native land. I hope you will like it, and us too on further acquaintance. I will hand you over to my sisters, who will argue the point with you at any length, and if you can inoculate each other with your different opinions, it will be mutually advantageous.” With which diplomatic recommendation Mr. Hubert Stamford looked at his watch and bowed himself out. “I mustn’t be late for this appointment with Barrington Hope,” he told himself. “It is important enough, and though I could sit and argue with that nice, fresh, enthusiastic Miss Dacre all day, yet ‘business is business.’”

From which latter proverb, it may be inferred that Mr. Stamford, junior, although by no means averse to the proper and gallant attendance upon ladies which every man of his age should hold to be a part of his knightly devoir, was yet in the main a practical youth, likely in the long run to win his spurs in the modern tourney of pastoral commerce.

After thinking over the points of the coming conference, he signalled to a hansom cabby, and was taken up by that modern benefactor of the late, the imprudent, and the unlucky, and whirled swiftly to the offices of the Austral Agency Company. Here Mr. Hope had arranged to meet a Mr. Delamere, who was anxious to acquire a pastoral property in the new country, Queensland, just opened and in every man’s mouth. This gentleman had but lately arrived from England. In a kind of way he was consigned to the company by one of the English directors, who happened to be his uncle.

Mr. Delamere, senior, had known the colonies in former years, and being fully aware that high hope and lofty purpose, even when combined with an available capital, do not altogether make up for total inexperience of all Australian pastoral matters, had besought the manager of the Melbourne branch of the Austral Agency Company to advise the cadet of his house.

“I am aware, my dear Thornton,” he wrote, “that in a general way it is thought better that a newly arrived young gentleman should work out his own destiny in Australia – that after repeated falls and losses he learns to run alone, and may be trusted henceforth to move more circumspectly than if he had been ‘shepherded’ from the first. But I dissent from this theory. The falls are often serious; after some losses there is nothing left. I prefer a partner, such a one as I had myself thirty years ago if possible. There ought to be a few well-bred youngsters knocking about who know everything that can be known about stations and stock but are held back for want of capital. Such a one could supply the experience, while Frank Delamere would find the capital. The old joke used to be that in two or three years the new arrival had acquired all the experience and the colonist all the cash. This reads smartly, but is false enough, like many bons mots both in the Old World and the New. Where was there ever a better man than my old overseer, Jock Maxwell, afterwards partner, and now deservedly pastoral magnate? He could work twice as hard as I ever did; he knew station life ab ovo. He was honest to a fault. He – but I always prose when I get on this topic. It is enough to say that I had sufficient sense to form this estimate of his character and act upon it, ‘whereby,’ as Captain Cuttle has it, I am now writing from Greyland Manor, near Glastonbury Thorn, instead of being a white slave in a counting house, or the half-pay pauper generally known as a retired military officer.

“Therefore – a convenient, if illogical expression – I charge you to procure a good steady ‘pardner’ for Frank, who will see that his ten thousand, perhaps more, if need be, is not wasted or pillaged before he cuts his wisdom teeth as a bushman. Draw at sight, when investments are made with your consent. – Yours ever sincerely,

“Robert Delamere.”

#/

This was the business on which the three men met on this day at the Austral Agency Company’s office. Before this momentous interview a certain amount of preliminary work had been done. Letters and ‘wires’ had circulated freely between Windāhgil, Sydney and Melbourne, from which city the newly-fledged intending purchaser had recently been summoned. Permission had been reluctantly granted by Mr. Stamford, who foresaw years of separation from the son and heir, who had never cost him an anxious moment as to his conduct. The affair was tearfully discussed by Mrs. Stamford and the girls, who thought life would no longer be worth living at Windāhgil when Hubert’s merry voice and unfailing good spirits were withdrawn.

“Why do people want to change and alter things – to go away and bring sorrow and misery and destruction – no, I mean desolation – on those they love?” demanded Linda. “And we are all so happy here! It seems cruel of Hubert to take it into his head to go to Queensland – all among blacks, and fever, and sunstroke, and everything.” Here she got to the end of her list of probable disasters, and though sensible that her climax was not effective, was fain to conclude, “Don’t you think it’s too bad, mother?”

“We shall feel dear Hubert’s absence deeply, bitterly, I grant,” said the fond mother; “but he is animated by the very natural desire of all high-spirited young men to improve the fortunes of the family, and to distinguish himself in a career which is open to all.”

“But the danger, mother!” said Laura, in a low voice; “you remember poor young Talbot, whom the blacks killed last month, and Mr. Haldane, who died of fever. Suppose – oh! suppose – ”

“Suppose the house fell down and killed, us all,” said Mr. Stamford, rather testily, for the purpose of hiding his own inward disquiet, which, though not expressed, was as deeply felt as that of his wife and daughters. “It’s no use talking in that way, as if a young man had never gone out into the world before. Boys go to sea and into the army every day of the year. People must make up their minds to it. It is a grand opportunity, Mr. Hope says, and may not occur again.”

“I shall hate Mr. Hope,” said Linda, “if he has induced Hubert to go into this speculation along with some one no one knows, into a country which half the people, it seems to me, never come back from. But I suppose those mercantile men don’t care.”

“You mustn’t be unjust, Linda,” interposed Laura. “Whatever Mr. Hope has done has been in Hubert’s interest, we may feel sure. He has always been most friendly to the family. And you must remember that Hubert has been lately always pining to go to Queensland, and talking about wasting his life here in this old settled district.”

“What’s the use of being miserable if you can’t be unjust to some one?” retorted Linda. “If you felt as deeply as I do, Laura, you wouldn’t talk in that cold-blooded way. I can see the whole thing. Mr. Hope and his company are anxious to establish a great station property out in Queensland, or Kimberley, or King George’s Sound, or wherever it is, and they have pitched upon poor Hubert as a likely victim for the sacrifice. That’s the whole thing! They’re regular Molochs, and Mr. Hope is the officiating High Priest – nothing else. I wonder how he’d look with a garland of oak leaves, like the Druid in Norma?” Here Linda’s feelings, brought to a climax by a smile which she detected on Laura’s countenance at her mélange of metaphors, became too much for her, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, she retreated to her bedroom.

All the high contracting parties having sent in unqualified assent, it but remained for Mr. Hope to introduce the young men to each other – the representatives of the Parent Land and that Greater Britain which has now in the South and West attained such vast proportions; also to reduce to writing the terms of an agreement by which the two men bound themselves to work together for their joint benefit as graziers, explorers, stock and station proprietors for the fixed term of five years.

Mr. Delamere was to place to the credit of the new firm of Delamere and Stamford the sum of ten thousand pounds, which would be amply sufficient for the purchase of stock, the taking up, or even securing at second-hand, the requisite areas of Crown lands in new or partially settled country.

Hubert Stamford, on the other hand, “did agree and contract to personally manage and conduct the details of the joint concern – to superintend the management of stock, the hiring of station hands, the purchase of stores, and whatever work, either of exploration, travel, or management, might be found necessary, for which he was, in consideration of such personal knowledge and experience of the management of stock and stations by him acquired, to be placed and held to be the possessor of one-third share of the said property and of the profits of said stock and stations.”

These provisions and declarations were embodied in an agreement, which was drawn up by the company’s solicitor and submitted by him to Mr. Worthington for inspection and approval.

That gentleman, as instructed, wrote to Mr. Stamford, senior, who, it would appear, made some subsequent communication to him, inasmuch as Mr Hope received a letter signed Worthington, Wardell and Co., which briefly but clearly stated that his friend and client, Mr. Stamford, of Windāhgil, approved generally of the terms of the agreement entered into by his son and Mr. Delamere, and that he was quite willing that he should enter into such an arrangement, and that Mr. Hope, of the Austral Agency Company, had his full confidence and trust. But that he desired his son to place a proportionate sum of ready money to the credit of the firm, and not to enter it wholly upon the outlay of another. And therefore that he had placed in Mr. Worthington’s hands securities to the value of five thousand pounds, which sum they were ready to pay over on Mr. Hope’s order to that effect.

Upon the receipt of this letter, Mr. Hope at once proposed that the share of the profits to which Mr. Hubert Stamford was entitled under the agreement should be altered to one half, inasmuch as his superior knowledge and experience would be in value to the interest of the other moiety of the ten thousand pounds to be advanced by Mr. Delamere, and would thus equalise matters. This was at once agreed to, on the part of Mr. Delamere and the Melbourne manager of the company acting in his interests, upon which the agreement was “signed, sealed, and delivered.”

Nothing now remained but for Hubert to pay a farewell visit to Windāhgil, for the purpose of settling up what personal business he might have, to take leave of the family, and then to journey into a far country after the fashion of the princes, prodigals, and younger sons of historic ages.

Place and time being appointed for the newly-joined partners to meet and take ship for their destination, Hubert Stamford commenced all requisite preparation for a start homewards.

He had no further heart for the pleasures of Sydney – the ordinary distractions of a young man palled upon him. He felt like a general whose army is about to march for the imminent battle – like a soldier picked for a forlorn hope, or an advanced guard. The meaner pleasures revolted him. Balls and picnics, theatres and concerts, were but the straws and débris of life’s ocean. The argosy which carried his fortunes was about to sail with canvas spread and streamers flying. Would she return gold-laden, or would the cold ocean engulf her as so many other fairer barks which, “youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm,” had sailed away through the ingens aequor, and returned nevermore? Was it to be so with him?

Might it be a proved success, a wider experience with the praise of all men, the joyful tears and triumph of those who loved him? Or that other thing? Who could tell? He could only resolve to do and to dare worthily, whatever might befall, for their dear sakes.

Miss Dacre, with her father and brother, had left town for Wantabalree, being anxious to be settled in their new abode. The Colonel, distrusting more deeply day by day the wisdom of his purchase, had become restless and uneasy; he wanted to see with his own eyes how things went on, and to justify himself, if possible, for the investment, at which more than one disinterested critic had shaken his head. Willoughby Dacre, an ardent inexperienced youngster, who thought Australian squatter life made up wholly of galloping about on horseback, and lying under shady trees eating tropical fruits, was also impatient to be in the thick of the half-Arab life he pictured to himself.

Rosalind Dacre, though the chief doubter and dissentient, was yet eager to see with her own eyes this land of promise, which was, according to Hubert, to fail so woefully in performance, and also to put in practice her own ideas of “the gentle life” as possible in Australia; at the same time to comfort her father and aid in the household management.

For all these reasons the Dacre family had departed; and Hubert, calling at their hotel, found to his surprise and slight dissatisfaction, that they had gone the day before, a note of the Colonel’s alone remaining en souvenir, in which he thanked him for his well-meant, valuable advice, and trusted they would meet in the neighbourhood of their respective stations.

For some unexplained reason Hubert read this trivial note several times, and then tearing it up in a reflective manner, walked slowly towards his own hostelry.

“When do you think of leaving, Hubert?” said Mr. Hope, as they were talking over districts and markets, land laws and tenures, railways and syndicates, all more or less bearing on the great pastoral central idea. “When shall you go home?”

“On Friday, I think. I am getting tired of town, and everything is fully arranged.”

“Everything is settled that needs settling, and nothing more can be done until you young men manage to get pretty far back, and make your first deal in new country. It’s a gloriously exciting, adventurous kind of life, this starting to take up new country. I often wish I’d taken to it myself in youth, instead of this branch of the business.”

“Living in town seems a pleasant life enough,” said Hubert. “You have all sorts of things that we people in the bush have to do without.”

“And we need them all,” said the elder man. “This office life is one eternal grind, month after month, year after year. But I don’t wish to complain. I suppose all men get ‘hypped’ sometimes.”

“I never do,” laughed Hubert; “the day’s never long enough for me; but I suppose I soon should if I lived all the year round in town. It’s being so much in the open air that saves one. But why don’t you clear out to Windāhgil for a change? Come home with me. The governor and my mother are always expecting you to send them word you’re coming.”

“I wish to heaven I could,” said the man of the city, looking enviously at Hubert’s cheery countenance and unworn features; “but I can’t find the time at present. However, I promise to turn up at Mooramah – isn’t that your railway town? – some time before Christmas. I shall count the days till I can, I assure you.”

“I shall be away then, I am sorry to say,” said Hubert. “I should like to have taken you all over the old place. There are one or two decent views, and rides and drives no end. However, the girls and the young brothers know them as well as I do; you must get them to do the honours. Oh! I forgot, too – you can drive them over to the Dacres’. But you mustn’t put it off too long. Still, they can’t be ruined within a year or eighteen months, anyhow.”

“And perhaps not then,” said Mr. Hope, with a smile. “Friends might intervene judiciously, you know. It won’t be Mr. Dealerson’s fault if they pull through, however.”

“No, hang him! However, there must be Dealersons in the world, I suppose. They act as a kind of foil to honest men, and serve as transparencies to show roguery in all its glory. Well, good-bye till then. We may meet before Delamere and I start for the ‘Never-Never’ country.”

When Hubert Stamford beheld his sisters and his younger brother, who had driven to Mooramah to meet him, he felt more like a stranger and pilgrim than he ever expected to feel in that familiar spot. He was there with them, but not of them, as it were. He was to stay a month or so at Windāhgil – only a month at the dear old place where he had lived ever since he could remember anything; he was to go over all the familiar scenes once more, and then – to leave it, certainly for years, perhaps for ever. After the first warm greeting the girls looked inquiringly at him; the tears came into Laura’s eyes. “Oh, how happy we are to see you, our own dear Hubert; but to think you are going away so soon nearly breaks my heart!” she said.

“He looks wonderfully well. Town life – not too much – always refines people,” said Linda, with an air of tender criticism; “but I think there’s a hard look about his eyes. I suppose it’s making up his mind to this grand new speculation.”

“You see exactly the same Hubert Stamford that went away, you little analysing duffer, but is it my fault that I have had to move with the rest of the world? Do you want me to stay at home and become a superior sort of ‘cockatoo,’ and are you and Laura – if it is to come to that – prepared to remain at Windāhgil for the rest of your lives?”

“I wish I could,” groaned Laura; “but as you say, we must move with the rest of the world. Still these separations are heart-breaking. You needn’t mind us overmuch, dear; but we are women, remember, and you must let us have our cry out. It does us good, and relieves the overcharged heart.”

“Very well, I consent. But you must manage it all to-day. To-morrow must be sunshine, and only blue sky appear till I depart. But there’s a whole month or more yet. Think of that! We can be ever so happy all that time. Now, to change the subject. Have you seen anything of the Dacres?”

“That means Miss Dacre, I suppose,” said Linda. “Oh, yes; we went to call almost directly we heard they were up. Said we thought they might want something. That was how we described our curiosity.”

“And what do you think of her?”

“She’s a dear, sweet creature, and Laura and I have agreed that if you don’t fall in love with her, your taste isn’t as good as we believed it to be.”

“She’s very nice,” said Hubert, with society nonchalance; “but I’ve got something else to do besides falling in love for the next three or four years. Besides, she mightn’t condescend to a humble colonist like me. But tell me, Laura, what was there about her that you were struck with chiefly?”

“Several things,” said Laura, reflectively. “She is a high-caste, cultured girl in every respect, though she is so fresh, and natural, and plain in all her ways, that people who are always looking out for the airs and graces of the Lady Clara Vere de Vere species might be disappointed in her.”

“All that I can understand and generally agree with,” said Hubert. “What next?”

“She is awfully energetic,” continued Laura. “Of course, there are plenty of girls in this country that are, but she never seems to have any notion of repose from the time she gets up, which is early, till bed-time. She reads and writes and does her housekeeping, and walks, and rides and drives, and what she calls visits the poor (oh, there is quite a good story about that, which I must tell you!), all with unvarying industry.”

“She is a newly imported broom,” said Hubert, “and naturally sweeps with effectiveness. It will slow down a little with time. But it’s a fault on the right side. Tell us the story, Laura dear.”