Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 30

I sent a request, per return, that he should call upon me during the afternoon, but he did not regard it. The next being Dawn's day for Sydney, I waited for this event to hatch some progress in the case, but upon her return she had no favours to share with me or merry tale to tell of being taken to afternoon tea by Ernest.

Eweword figured in this account, and so prominently as to suggest that her talk of the fun she had had with him was a little forced, so on the following morning I took it upon myself to call upon the backward knight in his own castle. Unmooring one of the boats, I rowed with great caution obliquely across the stream till, reaching the desired pier, I tethered my craft and ascended among an orange-grove laden with its golden fruit, and between the rattling canes of the vineyard dismantled by winter, till I reached the house where at present my young friend sojourned, and I was thankful that bleached as well as unfaded locks having their own peculiar privileges, I was able to make this call with propriety.

The young gentleman was in, and without delay appeared to the beautiful lady's self-directed and appointed amba.s.sadress.

"I suppose I may pay you a visit," I said with a smile as he seated me in the drawing-room which we had to ourselves. "As you didn't seem to care whether I were dead or alive I have come over to practically ill.u.s.trate that I'm still above ground. Why did you not come to see me?"

Ernest reddened and fidgeted, and said haltingly--

"You know if you had been ill I would have been the first to go to you, but I knew you were quite well, and I've been so busy," he finished lamely.

"Now, you know that I know that you have been idle--quite unendurably idle," I retorted, a remark he received in embarra.s.sed silence, which endured till I broke it with--

"Well, I suppose you are waiting for me to divulge the real object of my pilgrimage, and that is to know why you haven't kept your agreement about making that little mistake as easy as you could for Miss Dawn.

She's fretting herself pale about it."

Ernest stood up, his colour flaming into his tanned cheeks till they were as bright as his locks, while he made as though to speak once or twice, but hesitated, and at length exclaimed--

"This is not fair--you must, you have no reason to bother--you," and there he foundered. Ernest could neither lie, snub, nor evade. He was totally devoid of all the attributes of a smart politician.

"Have you not sufficient faith in my regard for you to trust my motive in thus apparently seeking to pry into your private life?" I asked.

"You know I think more of you than any one, and I'll tell you the whole thing," he replied, taking a seat beside me.

"You have made a mistake in a.s.suming that Miss Clay, or whatever her real name might be (his indifference was well a.s.sumed), did not fully mean her action, and I was a fool to believe you when I had more than sufficient proof to the contrary. Yesterday morning I happened to go to Sydney in the same train as she did, and as I happened--entirely by chance and quite unexpectedly--to meet her on the platform, I lifted my hat as usual to make it easy for her, and a nice fool I made of myself. She didn't merely pretend not to see me, but hurried by me in contempt and came back with that Eweword, who glared at me as though I were a tramp who had attempted to molest her. I am sure you could not expect me to go any farther than that, and I only did that because you call her a friend of yours. Perhaps Eweword doesn't do things that necessitate the throwing of dirty water on him. It was rather an uncalled-for thing to do to any one. Perhaps the old dame doesn't allow her boarders to have visitors, and that is the polite way they have of informing one to the contrary."

The sky looked rather murky. I said nothing, having nothing ready to say.

"Oh, by the way, I'm leaving here to-morrow for Adelaide, where I am to play in some inter-colonial football matches against the New Zealanders. Is there anything I could do for you over there?" he said, as though having dismissed the other unworthy trifle from his mind.

"Going to run away because a girl, half accidentally and half out of nervous irritation, threw a little water on you!"

There I had said what I really thought, and half expected the snub which, according to the rules of tact, I deserved for my divergence therefrom, but it did not come; he was a man of the field, and in this type of encounter had not a chance against one of my perceptions.

He laughed forcedly. "That would be something to turn tail for, wouldn't it?"

"But are you not doing so? If a beautiful girl did such a thing to me it would only make me the more set to woo her to graciousness," I said.

"Perhaps so, if she were some girl you specially considered, but in the case of a pa.s.sing stranger that I may never meet again, it would not be worth wasting time, especially as her action was so uncalled for and unwomanly."

"But you are sure to meet her again if you continue our friendship, as I hope to have her with me, and that is why I'm taking the trouble to thus interfere in what does not apparently concern either you or me very much. _I_ don't consider Dawn as a pa.s.sing stranger. I think her especially honest and especially beautiful, and it worries me to think she has thus erred. Her action was _unwomanly_, if you like, but peculiarly feminine, with the unavoidable hysterical femininity engendered in women by their subjected environment. Are you quite sure you consider Dawn merely a pa.s.sing stranger not worth consideration?"

I asked, looking him fair in the eyes; and the quick lowering of them and the tightening of his mouth satisfied me that he could not truthfully answer in the affirmative.

"It is a matter of what she considers me," he said.

"Oh, well," I said indifferently, now that I had gained my point, "it doesn't matter to me, but I'll be sorry to lose your company, and I thought you were taking an interest in Leslie's candidature, and we could have enjoyed it together."

"So I do."

"Well, come back as soon as you get these matches played, and we'll have some good times together again, and I'll keep the reprehensible Dawn out of the way; and anyhow, remember she didn't throw _cold_ water on you, and that's something."

"Very well, I'll be back in about three weeks' time to see how Les.

gets on. Polling-day hasn't been fixed yet. I'd like to see it through now I've started."

"Of course," said I, considering it a good move that he should disappear for a short time, and after this he rowed me on the Noonoon till Clay's dinner-bell sounded and I went up to eat.

That evening "Dora" Eweword came in to tea and remained afterwards.

He informed us that the red-headed chap who had been loafing around Kelman's had gone to Europe.

"Has he? Did he tell you?" interestedly inquired Andrew.

"He mentioned that he would leave for South Australia by the express this evening," I replied, but did not add that his going to Europe was a little stretched.

Dawn was quiet. Her merry impudence did not enliven the company that night, and after tea, when Eweword caught her alone for a few moments as I was leaving the room, he said--

"So you cleared the red-headed mug out after all. Andrew says it was alright. You won't listen to me, but you haven't chucked the wash-up water on me yet, that's one thing." His complacence was very p.r.o.nounced. To his surprise Dawn made no reply, but biting her lip to keep back her tears, walked out of the room, and in the dark of the pa.s.sage smote her dimpled palms together, exclaiming--

"Would to heaven I had thrown the water over this galoot instead of _him_," and the thermometer of "Dora's" self-satisfaction fell considerably when she did not appear again that evening.

That night, when the waning moon got far enough on her westward way to surmount the old house on the knoll beside the Noonoon and cast its shadow in the deep clear water, the silver beams strayed through a little window facing the great ranges, and found the features of a beautiful sleeper disfigured by weeping; but youth's rest was sound despite the tear-stains, and the old moon smiled at such ephemeral sorrow. The night wind coming down the gorges with the river sighed along the valley as the moon remembered all the faces which, though tearless under her nocturnal inspection, yet were pale from the inward sobs, only giving outward evidence in bleaching locks and shadowy eyes. Even within sound of the engines roaring down the spur, many of the little night-wrapped houses, hard set upon the plain, had inmates kept from sleep by deeper sorrows than Dawn had ever known.

The first fortnight of Ernest's absence, believed by his doubting young lady to be final, was a stirring time in Noonoon, and particularly full at Clay's. Jam-making was the star item on the latter's domestic bill. Baskets and baskets of golden oranges and paler lemons and shaddocks were converted into jam and marmalade, and ranged on the shelves of the already replete storehouse, in readiness to tempt the summer palate of the week-end boarders which should appear when the days stretched out again. We were occupied in this business to such an extent that the sight of oranges became a weariness, and Andrew averred that the very name of marmalade gave him the pip.

At night we enjoyed the diversion of the meetings, and talk and gossip of them made conversation for the days. The previously mentioned political addresses were but mild fanfares by comparison with the flamboyance of the gasconading now in progress, and in its reports of these bursts of oratory the 'Noonoon Advertiser' gave further evidence of its broad-minded liberality.

"Mrs Gas Ranter," it reported, "addressed a packed meeting in the Citizens' Hall last night, and proved herself the best public speaker who has been heard in Noonoon during the present campaign," &c. It recognised worth, and gamely gave the palm to the deserving, irrespective of party or s.e.x,--did not so much as insert the narrow quibble that she was the best for a woman.

Among other incidents, the lady canva.s.sers called at Clay's and received a piece of grandma's mind.

"Thanks; I don't want no one to tell me how to vote. I've rared two or three families and gave a hand with more, and have intelligence the same as others, and at my time of my life don't want no one to tell me my business. I reckon I could tell a good many others how to vote."

The pity of it was that it was immaterial how any electors cast their vote. Neither party had a sensible grip of affairs, and besides, love of country in a patriotic way is not a trait engendered in Australians. In politics, as in private life, all is selfishness. The city people thought only of building a greater Sydney, the residents of Noonoon and other little towns had mind for nothing but their own small centre,--all seeing no farther than their noses, or that what directly benefited their little want might not be good for the country at large, and that legislature must, to be successful, better the living conditions of the ma.s.ses, not merely of one cla.s.s or section.

Then city men, unacquainted with the practical working of the land, could not possibly handle the land question effectively, and, moreover, a man might understand how to manage the coastal district and remain at sea regarding the great areas west of the watershed.

Another big mistake lay in over representation of the city and the under representation of the man on the land. The producer should be the first care, and while he is woefully disregarded and ill-considered a country cannot thrive. The reason of this state of affairs was the division of electorates on a population basis. This meant that a city electorate covered a very small area, and that practically all its wants were attended by the munic.i.p.ality, so that the city member had leisure to ply the trade of merchant, doctor, or barrister within a few minutes of the house of parliament; whereas the country member, to become acquainted with the vast area he represented and the requirements of its inhabitants and attend parliamentary sittings, had no time left to be anything but a member of parliament, precariously depending upon re-election for a livelihood.

Dawn threw herself into the contest with great enthusiasm, and also industriously pursued her vocal studies, but for her was exceptionally subdued and inclined to be cross on the smallest provocation. She had become so engrossed in political meetings that "Dora" Eweword, who was continually at Clay's since the retreat of Ernest, one day remonstrated with her. She had made a political meeting the excuse for declining to go rowing with him, whereupon he remarked--

"Oh, leave 'em to the old maids, Dawn. You'll grow into a scarecrow that would frighten any man away if you hang on to politics much more."

"Well, if it would frighten _some_ men away, I'd go in for them twice as much," snapped the girl. "I suppose you admire the style of girls who are going around now saying, after some straightforward women have said what we all feel and got the vote, 'Oh, I don't care for the vote. Let men rule; they are the stronger vessel. Politics don't belong to women,' and so on. You'd think me a sweet little womanly dear if I croaked like that; but you keep your brightest eye on that sort of a squarker, and for all her noise about being content with her rights, you'll see that she takes more than her share of the good of the reforms that other women have worked for."

"Oh Lord!" good-temperedly giggled "Dora," for home truths that would be considered sheer spleen from a plain girl are taken as fine fun when uttered by a girl as physically attractive as Dawn.

During the second week of the footballer's absence, who should appear to lend a hand on the side of Leslie Walker but Mr p.o.r.nsch, _uncle_ of the late Miss Flipp. He arrived with the callousness worthy of a certain department of man's character, and addressed a meeting with as much pomp and self-confidence and talk of bettering the morals of the people, as though he had been an Ellice Hopkins. He had the further effrontery to visit Clay's and feign crocodile grief for the deplorable fate of his niece. He protested his shame and horror, together with a desire for revenge, so loudly that I resolved that he should not be disappointed, that the dead girl should be in a slight measure avenged, and he should not only know but feel it.

"I ain't got me voting paper. Me an' Carry will go up for 'em to-morrer," said grandma one evening from her arm-chair near the fireplace.