Materfamilias Part 14

As for Spencer Gale, he was most interesting in his descriptions of what he had seen and done during his recent European travels; it was quite an education to listen to him. I was particularly pleased that he was so ready to talk on this subject, because I hate to have the children grow up narrow-minded and provincial, ignorant of the world outside their colony. It has been the dream of my life to take them home and give them advantages, and I have never been able to realise it. I could not help thinking, as that young man discoursed of Paris and Venice and all the rest of it, what a delightful honeymoon his bride might have! And so she did, as it turned out, no great while afterwards.

Harry yawned and fidgeted, for sitting long in one position tired him; so Tom and Juke carried him to a cane lounge on the verandah before the rest of us had had dessert. I was annoyed with Phyllis for running out to get pillows, which were already there, and for not returning when she had made her brother comfortable. Emily had the grace to remain at table, and of course Lily stayed also. She is a most intelligent child, voracious for information of all sorts; and she plied our guest with so many questions, and amused him so much by her interest in his adventures, that she made him forget the strawberries on his plate and how time was going--forgetting herself that the poor servants were wanting to clear away so that they might get out for their Sunday walk.

At last he finished, and I led the way to the verandah, where I expected to find the others. But only Harry and his father were there, the boy looking rather f.a.gged and inclined to doze, and Tom--who has no manners--placidly sucking at his pipe.

"Why, where is Phyllis?" I inquired.

"Kitchen," said Harry promptly, opening his eyes.

"And the doctor?"

"Gone off to a patient."

"Then," said I, "come and let me show you my roses, Mr. Gale;" and I took his arm. I thought it a good opportunity to have a little quiet talk with him on my own account. Afterwards I remembered that my husband and son watched us rather anxiously as we sauntered off into the garden, but I did not notice it at the time. It never crossed my mind that they could deliberately conspire to deceive me.

I had had the garden tidied, and, in the first flush of the summer bloom, it looked really beautiful--although I say it. I would not have been ashamed to show it to the Queen herself. And our rustic cottage, that we had continually been adding to and improving ever since it came, a mere shanty, into our hands, was a study for a painter, with the yellow banksia in perfection, quite hiding the framework of the verandah. I halted my companion on the front lawn, at the prettiest point of view.

"A humble little place," I remarked; "but I think I may say for it, without undue vanity, that it looks like the home of gentlefolks."

He followed my gaze, and fixed his eyes upon the particular window which I informed him belonged to Phyllis's room.

"What's she doing?" he inquired bluntly. He could not conceal his impatience for her return.

I told him that, in the case of so variously useful a person, it was impossible to say. I had no doubt she was attending to housekeeping matters, which she never neglected for her own amus.e.m.e.nt. Then I threw out a feeler or two, to test him--to learn, if possible, something of his tastes and character; it was necessary, for her sake, to do so. And I was delighted to find that he shared my opinion of the colonial girl as a type, and agreed with me that the term "unprotected female" should in these days be altered to "unprotected male," seeing that it was the women who did all the courting, and the men who were exposed to masked batteries, as it were, at every turn.

"A fellow's never safe till he's married," said the poor boy, doubtless speaking from painful experience. "And not then."

"That depends," said I. "There are people--I know plenty--who, having married dolls like those we have been speaking of, find themselves far indeed from being safe; but choose a good, modest, clever, loving girl, who has been well brought up--one devoted to her home and unspoiled by a vulgar society--and it is quite another pair of shoes, as my husband would say. By the way, ask _him_ what he thinks of marriage for young men."

"I don't know that I want to ask anybody anything," he returned, a little irritably--for Phyllis was still invisible--"except to leave me alone to do as I like. I don't believe in having wives selected for me, Mrs. Braye; I'm always telling my mother and sisters that, and they won't pay the least attention. I think a fellow might be allowed to please himself, especially a fellow in my position."

"Certainly," I said, with all the emphasis I could command. "_Most_ certainly. That is my own view exactly. I have always said that, in respect of my own children, I would never force or thwart them in any way. I chose the one I loved, regardless of wealth or poverty, and they shall do the same. More than that," I added gaily, "I am going to be the most charming mother-in-law that ever was! I shall quite redeem the character. I will never attempt to interfere with my children's households--never be _de trop_--never--oh! Why, there she is!"

We were turning into a quiet path between tall shrubs--the fatal place where, as I was told, Harry had been entrapped--and I suddenly saw the gleam of a white dress in a little bower at the end of it. At the same moment I saw--so did Spencer Gale--a thing that petrified us both. I was struck speechless, but his emotion forced him to hysteric laughter.

"I'm afraid," said he, recovering himself, "that we are _de trop_ this time, at any rate."

"Not at all," I retorted, also rallying my self-command. "Not at all. We don't have anything of that sort in this family."

But the facts were too palpable; it was useless pretending to ignore them. Phyllis jumped out of the arbour, like an alarmed bird out of its nest, and came strolling towards us, affecting a nonchalant air, but with a face the colour of beetroot with confusion; and that unspeakable doctor, who had caused her so to forget herself, strutted at her side, twirling the tip of his moustache and endeavouring to appear as if he had not been kissing her, but looking all the time the very image of detected guilt.

It is not necessary to state that Spencer Gale left immediately, and never darkened our doors again. When, a little later, I had it out with Phyllis, she declared, with a toss of the head, that she wouldn't have taken him if there had been no other marriageable man living--that there was only one husband for her, whom she intended to have whether we liked it or not, even if she were forced to wait for him till she was an old woman. I have often regretted that I did not control myself better, but she, who had no excuse for violence, behaved like a perfect lunatic.

She went so far as to say she would never forgive me for the insults I had heaped upon one--meaning Edmund Juke--who had no equal in the universe, and who had saved her brother's life. Of course she did not mean it--and I did not mean it--and we forgave each other long ago; but I never hear the name of Spencer Gale without the memory of that interview coming back to me, like a bitter taste in the mouth.

He married about the same time as she did--a significant circ.u.mstance!

They say that he lost his boom money when the boom burst, and that he drinks rather badly, and makes domestic scandals of various kinds. If he does, it is no more than one might have expected, considering the provocation. It is all very well for my family to repeat these tales to his discredit, and then point to Edmund Juke in Collins Street gradually climbing to the top of his profession; they think this is sufficient to prove that they were always Solomons of wisdom, and I a fool of the first magnitude. It does not occur to them that if some things had been different, all things would have been different. The one man would never have fallen into low habits if he had had Phyllis for his wife, and the other would never have risen so high if he had not had her. That is how I look at it. And as for material prosperity, no one could have foreseen how things were going to turn out, and luck is like the rain that falls on the just and on the unjust--it comes to the people who don't deserve it quite as often as to those who do.

For my part, I pay no heed to malicious gossip. There are always envious persons ready and anxious to pull down those who are placed above them; if they cannot find a legitimate pretext, they invent one. I see for myself that he still lives in his beautiful Kew house, that his wife still leads the fashion at every important social function and drives the finest turn-out in Melbourne; that does not look as if they were so very poor. And if one _could_ forgive infidelities in a married man, it would be in the case of one tied to a painted creature who evidently cares for nothing but display and admiration--to have her photograph flaunted in the public streets, and herself surrounded by a crowd of so-called smart people, flattering her vanity for the sake of her husband's position. He may have a handsome establishment, but he cannot have a _home._ So who can wonder if he seeks comfort elsewhere, and flies to the bottle to drown his grief? It would have been very, very different if my beautiful Phyllis had been at the head of affairs.

However, if she is satisfied, it is not for me to say a word.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SILVER WEDDING.

Emily went to her school in Melbourne, and I had to get another governess for Lily. She was a horrid woman. I stood her for one quarter, and then packed her off; and we had to pay her for six months, because she threatened to sue us for breach of contract. The next that I procured was a clever person enough, and not wanting in good manners, but she ordered the servants about as if the house belonged to her, and of course they resented it. So did I. Emily's gentle un.o.btrusiveness had spoiled us for ways of that sort. Moreover, Miss Scott was terribly severe upon Lily; the child was always in tears over lessons that were too hard for her. I did not believe in overstraining a growing girl, and ventured to remonstrate now and then on her behalf; but Miss Scott was quite above taking advice from her elders and betters--as good as asked me to mind my own business, or, at any rate, to allow her to know hers.

So I thought it best to make a change.

And then I was deceived by false representations into engaging a widow lady, who had seen better days. She was recommended to me as an experienced teacher, having held situations in high families before her marriage; and I naturally supposed that one who had been a mother herself would be a safer guide for a young girl than one who had not.

But words cannot describe what a wretch that woman was. There is something about widows--I don't know what it is--something that seems almost improper--especially those that are by way of being young and pretty, like Mrs. Underwood, though she was all forty, if she was a day, in spite of her baby airs and graces and her b.u.t.ter-yellow hair. She had the audacity to try and flirt with Tom, under cover of her pathetic stories of her lost husband and children, and those better days that were a pure invention; and he was too idiotically stupid--that is, too innocent and simple-minded--to see what was so glaringly transparent to everybody else. He used to think her an ill-used woman and pity her, and think me hard and unfeeling because I didn't. Oh, never will I have a widow about my house again! She entirely destroyed our domestic peace.

Things came to such a pa.s.s, indeed, that Tom even threatened--seriously, and not in a joke--to get out his captain's certificate and return to sea, because his home, that had always been so happy, had become unbearable.

She went at last, and then I felt that I had had enough of governesses.

Determined that I would never undergo such misery again, and at the same time strongly objecting to boarding-schools for girls, there was nothing for it but to superintend Lily's general studies myself, and take her into town for special lessons. I did not like the job, and found her very tiresome and disheartening; she seemed to mope, all alone, and would not interest herself in anything. A girl in these days is never satisfied with her mother for a companion, and after a time, when the Jukes were settled in their Melbourne house, I was glad to let her go on long visits to her sister. There she found plenty to occupy and amuse her, while I sat solitary at home, working for them both.

For I had no children left when she was away. The difficulty of the governess was not the only trouble that resulted from Emily's desertion of me. Harry also forsook the nest. He said it was inconvenient to live so far from his office, though he had never thought of that while she was with us, and that it would be better for business reasons to have a lodging in town. I did not attempt to thwart him. And so, as soon as he was strong enough to return to regular work--so valued was he by the shipping firm which employed him that they had kept his situation open during his illness--he took himself and a new bicycle to a stuffy Melbourne suburb, where he would be in the way of meeting his beloved frequently at the houses of her friends.

I wanted to settle in Melbourne too, to be near them all. But our little place was our own--a valuable property, yet unsaleable in these bad times--and Tom said we could not afford it. Besides, I knew he would be miserable cooped up in streets, and lost without his pigs and vegetable garden.

Thus we felt ourselves stranded on the sh.o.r.e while our young ones put to sea--deserted in our old age--which, after all, is the common fate. Only we were not in our old age, either of us. I have not a grey hair in my head, even now, and have more than once been taken for Phyllis's elder sister. On the day that she was married, when I wore pale heliotrope relieved with white, I overheard old Captain Saunders--and a man of eighty ought to be a judge--say to Mr. Welshman, "She's a pretty girl, but her mother can beat her." And I should like to see the man of forty who is the equal of what my husband was at fifty-five--or is at his "present-day" age, which comes to little more. Tom is stout certainly, but only in a dignified and commanding fashion; he can out-do Harry in feats of strength, and his fine, bronzed face, with those keen blue eyes in it, has a power of manliness that kings might envy. For the matter of that, kings are not nearly so much of kings as he was accustomed to being on board his ships. I know the lady pa.s.sengers made themselves ridiculous by the way they scrambled for his notice and a seat beside him at the saloon table.

To people like Mrs. Underwood, though she was really my contemporary, I may seem very _pa.s.see_--no doubt I do--and a perfect granny to the children, who regard youth and beauty as solely the prerogatives of bread-and-b.u.t.ter misses in their teens; but--as Captain Saunders's remark indicated--I am not too old to charm where I want to charm. No, indeed; nor ever shall be--to one person, at all events. When Tom and I woke up on our silver wedding morning and kissed each other, did we not know what love meant as much and more than we had ever done, without needing Juke and Phyllis, and Harry and his Emily to teach us? I should think so, indeed! It seems to me that it _requires_ the fulness of many years, fatherhood and motherhood in all stages and phases, innumerable steps of painful experience climbed together, to bring us to the perfect comprehension of love--the best love--that love in the lore of which those children, who think themselves so knowing, are mere beginners, with the alphabet to learn.

And this, by the way--it has just this moment occurred to me--is the kernel of the woman question, which seems so vastly complicated. Why, it is as simple as it can possibly be. The whole thing is in a nutsh.e.l.l.

Those advocates and defenders of this and that, arguing so pa.s.sionately and inconclusively at such interminable length--how silly they are! You have one set of people raving for female suffrage and equal rights and liberties with tyrant man; you have another set of people storming at them for thus ignoring the intentions of Nature, the interests of the house and family. The intentions of Nature, indeed! The house and family! When millions of poor women are old maids who haven't chosen to be so!--who, of course, _could_ not choose to be so, unless physiologically defective in some way or another. Poor, poor things!

They don't want equal rights with man, but equal rights with the lower animals. As they don't know what they miss, they may be forgiven for the way they speak of it in their books and speeches; but if they had it--if all had it who by nature are ent.i.tled to it--there would be no more woman question. I am quite convinced of that. Nature's intentions would then really be fulfilled, and the other troubles of the case, all secondary and contingent, would vanish. Of course they would. Man is not a tyrant, bless him! The child is the only tyrant--the legitimate power that keeps woman in her place.

But, oh, how much that child does cost us! We give all freely, and would give a thousand times more if we had it to give, for it is the most precious of human privileges--the thing we really live for, though it is inconvenient to admit it; but we pay with heart's blood, from the beginning to the end. We pay so much and so constantly that it often seems to me that the poor childless ones, undeveloped and inexperienced, who cannot know the great joys of life, are also exempt from all sorrow that is worthy of the name.

Baby-rearing, absorbingly interesting though it be, is really a terrible business; and the fewer the babies the worse it is. You hardly know what it means to have a night's rest for dread of the ever-recurring epidemics that so fatally ravage the nurseries of this country. Day and night you have the shadow of the clinical thermometer, your sword of Damocles, hanging over you, and are afraid to breathe lest you should bring it down. Then, when this hair-whitening strain begins to slacken a little and you think you are going to have an easy time, the children that are now able to take care of themselves utterly refuse to do so.

Your girl goes wet-footed with a light heart, and you never see a telegraph messenger coming to the house without expecting to hear that your boy at school has broken his arm at football or his neck bird's-nesting. They follow their mischievous devices, and you can't help it; you can only cluck and fuss like a futile hen running round the pond in which her brood of ducklings is splashing. That's worse than baby-rearing, because you can at least do what you like with a baby.

And then, when you pride yourself on having successfully got through the long struggle, and you tell yourself that now they are going to be a help and a comfort to you at last, off they go to the first stranger who beckons to them, and think no more about you than of an old nurse who has served her purpose--probably turning round to point out the errors you have committed, and to show you how much better you would have done if you had taken their advice. And that is worst of all.

No trouble that I had had with mine, while they were with me, equalled the trouble of being without them, especially on the silver wedding morning, when I had, as it were, the field of my married life before me; when I felt that a golden harvest was my due, and beheld a ravaged garden with all its flowers plucked. It was my own fault that no letters of congratulation came by the first post; I had purposely refrained from reminding the children of the approaching anniversary, just to see if they would remember it, and they had been too full of their own concerns to give it a thought. Afterwards they scolded me for not telling them, and were very repentant. I had no present either--that is, not on the day. Tom had given me a silver _entree_ dish, and I had given him a silver-mounted claret-jug; but we had made our purchases a week too soon, and had been unable to keep the matter secret from each other. It was a wet morning, and I, being the first downstairs, was greeted with the smell of burnt porridge in the kitchen. I thought it too bad of Jane to let such a thing happen on such an occasion, and a hardship that rain should be running like tears down the breakfast-room window panes when I so particularly wanted to be cheered. It was April, the month of broken weather, and leaves were falling thickly on the beds and paths outside. I surveyed the dripping prospect, and noted how impossible it was to keep the weeds down, with the summer-warmed earth so moist; and I turned back into the room to see a late-lit fire fading on the hearth, and the children's empty chairs against the wall.

Well, I sat down behind the two lonely tea-cups and bowed my head on the table, on the point of tears--feeling that I too was a denuded autumn tree, an outworn woman who had had her day. And then, before I could get out my handkerchief, Tom came in.

He kicked two logs together, and the dying fire sprang to life; he opened a window, and the freshest and sweetest morning air poured in, sprinkled with a gentle shower and hinting at coming sunshine.

"What a lovely day we've got, eh, Polly? What a beautiful rain! This'll bring the gra.s.s on, and make the land splendid for ploughing, hey?

What's the matter, old girl? Missing the children? Oh, well, they're happy; we've nothing to fret about on their account--nor on our own either--and that's more than most people can say on their silver wedding morning. Porridge spoilt? Oh, that's no matter--we have something better than porridge. Here, Jane! Jane! Bring in the you know what, if you've got 'em ready."

Jane came in, smiling, with the new _entree_ dish in her hands. Tom watched it with gleeful eyes, and a.s.sisted to place it on the table. It was his little surprise for me--mushrooms, to which I am extravagantly partial--the first of the season. He had gone to Melbourne the day before to buy them, and it was her absorption in the task of cooking them delicately which had caused Jane to neglect the porridge--Tom's first course at every breakfast.