III

The large drawing-room at Clent was Madam's salon, where she sometimes sat in the long twilights, dreaming of Paris, of Brussels, of the wonderful days when she was young, and steeling herself as though to some inescapable menace, against the native sounds of her new land: dogs barking behind the murmuring page 57sheep, wild duck crying down the river, the beat of loose bark on the gum-tree boles, men's rough voices down at the huts.

There was a rosewood grand piano in the salon; a pool of light on the polished floor where her tall harp stood; screens worked in fading silks; a vista of dim pictures; thin curtains stirring at the windows open to the floor. Fugitive scents haunted it—sandalwood, potpourri, violets—and here Madam entertained like the great lady she was, keeping all domestic matters for her own private rooms.

On Christmas night the most vital and pressing matter was the trousers of old Mr. Merrick. "But is it not, then, possible to persuade him into evening ones, my Susan?" asked Madam, sitting very upright while Celeste arranged the fragile lace over her still black curls. "Assuredly he has sat many a saddle and many a fence in those brown ones before he grew too old."

"I have tried," apologized an always hot and perspiring Susan. "You see," she stammered nervously before that small high-bred regard, "Papa believes in the equality of man, and this is one of his ways of showing it."

"Strange that the equality of man should so express itself in inequality of costume," said Madam, tartly. "That will do, Celeste. I am not a nun, that you wrap me up this way."

She had never felt less like a nun or more like vulgarly spanking old Mr. Merrick on those brown trousers. With a toss of her head, a swish of her skirts, she descended the stairs prepared to send the maids flying if the dining-room table was anything short of perfection. But the great length of it lay shimmering in its beauty: old silver and crystal and Sheffield plate; low broad bowls of roses crimson and pink; clusters of slim yellow candles of the best sperm bringing shining reflections from the cedar-panelled walls.

"Dieu!" lamented Madam. "Had we but a company to suit!"

At the head of the stretch of shining damask she worked hard to keep the men's talk off politics and sheep and cattle, the women's away from convict servants and ailing children. None such banalities at her table on a Christmas night. And Oliver in his young-buck elegance caught her mood. They bandied quips page 58and puns between them. By sheer force of will they struck sparks here and there down the long table of docile wives, preoccupied men. Julia, all a green mist with white shoulders, laughed until Mab wanted to pour sacrificial wine on himself, cut himself with sharp knives at her altar. Berry's round black eyes grew rounder as he silently absorbed turkey, crisp brown sausages, new potatoes and peas. James Sorley's neat grey side-whiskers became quite disordered. Mr. Keyes woke up and made some incisive retorts. Old Mr. Merrick gave up his attempted reminiscences about his prize boar, and the Captain kept old Jerrold circulating with the wine.

Madam's eyes shone. Her party was a success, after all. She threw Oliver a bouquet for his last story. "Noll, I suffer shame for you. You have no heart. Only a gizzard."

"Gad, ma'am," agreed Oliver, in his latest town drawl, "I've had plenty of cause to thank Heaven, and you, for that same."

"Ha, ha!" roared the Captain, proud of this wife of his who made all the other women look nothing. "Shall I call the young puppy out, my dear? … Jerrold! Wine to your mistress."

By now James Sorley's eyes were scarcely those of the astute councillor. He murmured at Madam's ear: "To call out the whole world … to die in your defence. What joy!"

"Live in it, mon ami," said Madam, with a melting glance. "Live in it as you always have done."

"H'm," said the councillor, blinking. He would have gone less far in life if he had been able to see farther. Madam was dangerous but delicious. Lord, Lord! he thought. If I could but have my time over again!

Oliver, bored with dragging these dull people up with him, leaned back in his chair and leisurely cast a bomb: "I hear that Collins's Gang were seen near Oatlands last night. They shot a tavern-keeper in the leg. But they are out of practice. They'll improve."

One or two of the younger women screamed, sensible of what was expected of them. Louisa Sorley said, sipping sherbet: "Well, what else can you expect on roots and turnips and bandicoots back in the ranges? When they get at some of your sheep, gentlemen, I suppose we must prepare for trouble."

page 59

"But someone must prevent it," cried Henry Sorley's young wife, terrified for her babies. "The military … Captain Berry, what are the military for? And Police-constable Quane so brave and good-looking."

"Good looks won't keep off bush-rangers, ma'am," grunted old Merrick. And then Ellen delivered herself of an opinion for the first time in her life:

"There shouldn't be bush-rangers. There wouldn't be if you did not punish the convicts so. Oh, oh, oh!" wept Ellen, her big baby face screwing up. "Everyone is so cru-el."

"Jerrold! Wine to Miss Merrick…. My dear young lady, the cruelty is yours for depriving us of the smiles of your bright eyes." The Captain lifted a courtly glass and drank to Ellen, privately cursing the girl for a damned fool. A man who has had his best cattle driven by bush-rangers and twice defended his house against them might be allowed to differ with Ellen.

Madam could have scratched Oliver for designing to spoil her party. But bush-rangers were a subject on which everybody could talk—and did, over the blazing brandy fumes of the plumpudding; over the steaming mince pies, melting and golden; over the ruddy raspberry tarts, the tansy shortbreads, the queenpuddings frail with white of egg. There were strawberries in great silver dishes, and clotted cream in Doulton bowls, pale lakes of gooseberry-fool, yellow custard in fat cups of cut glass. Madeira and port took the place of sherry. The company grew mellow. Madam was happy again, and husbands looked at wives down the table-length and smiled. Danger might come with the morning, their eyes said, but we will take what the gods give to-night.

James Sorley was advancing by steady degrees to one of his more spectacular squabbles with the Captain, and dear Louisa made one of her usual efforts to be adroit: "He don't mean it all, Captain. Nowadays my poor Sorley has to be like Cæsar's wife—all things to all men."

"My dear," said the councillor, his sallow cheek reddening,"I think that quotation has gone farther than you intended."

"But not so far as the other lady went, apparently," remarked Oliver, and Berry, who had not spoken for three courses, burst into a loud guffaw.

page 60

The Captain hastily ordered wine all round, but Madam had not done with James: "Can there be doubt in any minds, even the minds with which you are now accustomed to deal, that everything always does go farther than was intended?"

"H'm," said James, again distrustful. "If my old friend here had your perspicacity, my dear lady …"

"But no. To be a friend is to be blind. To become used to anything … as your wife is used to you."

"I never become used to him," cried Louisa, proudly glowing under her red turban. "Tome he is a perpetual feast of nectared sweets where no crude servant reigns."

"'Surfeit', my dear. Not 'servant'," said the councillor, testily. Louisa always made a fool of herself, and she was grown so monstrous fat.

The cloth was drawn and the children came in with the dessert, a round dozen of frilled daughters and awkward sons in nankeen trousers. Proud parents passed them round, and the girls bloomed, the boys squirmed. Jenny, like an anxious little dog, had attached herself to Brevis Keyes. He was three years her elder, but his dark, delicate face with the strange eyes so roused her pity that she wanted to love him with both arms, while kicking vigorously at freckled Adam Sorley who had torn the lace from her best pantalets. But Brevis avoided Jenny and retired to eat apples and nuts with the other boys in corners, while the girls sat on gentlemen's knees and pretended to like the walnuts dipped in wine for them.

To Jenny this was an occasion, and already she had Madam's nose for an occasion. Like an epicure she sipped from Mab's glass. Like an epicure she laid her chubby arms on the table.

"I like wood," she announced, clearly. "It's hot when you want it hot, like sitting on a fence in the sun, and cold when you want it cold, like the table."

"And therefore unlike your sex, my love," drawled Oliver, who by now was frankly bored with his company. "They are never what you want; nor where you want 'em, neither."

"Never mind. Uncle Noll," said Jenny, always anxious to console, "P'raps you wouldn't want them then."

She turned white at the shout of laughter, but faced it page 61valiantly although Mab could feel her heart leaping wildly under his hand.

"Brave girl," he murmured, rubbing his chin on her curls and almost forgetting Julia for the time.

"Little lady, I swear you'll be a toast yet," big Mr. Beverley cried. "Will you come and give me a kiss?"

Jenny, used to playing round his feet with a small Sigurd and a smaller Maria, found his huge beard seen on a level the most terrifying thing yet. But she tried to remember her manners.

"D-do all ladies have to kiss you when you go to their houses, sir?" she inquired, trembling. But that roar of laughter sent her to earth with her head in Mab's shoulder…. I do love you, Uncle Mab, she thought as he held her tight. Oh, I do love you!

"Damme, you deserved that, Beverley," said the Captain, delighted.

"Miss Jenny knows the value of her favours already, as is but natural with such an example," James Sorley said.

He bowed to Madam as she rose, and she laughed over her shoulder, well pleased with Jenny. The men took up their pistols and went out to the veranda, covering the stately parade of bright silks and floating streamers along the flags to the door of the salon. This was a nightly custom, with bush-rangers always possible beyond the frail edge of light, and Madam enjoyed it. She had not followed an army through the Peninsular Wars for nothing.

Billowing, glorying, she led the way, and Mab kissed Jenny as he put her down. "Presently," he whispered, "there will be games."