III

Since Jenny would not marry and have babies—which of course was the first duty of woman—Susan put her to teaching those already arrived, and toiled up to the school-room each day to see how she did. On the day of the man-hunt she found brightness from a big log fire, the twins' yellow heads, a red tablecloth, russet-golden gleams in Jenny's hair as she sat before the glow with Harry in her lap and an adoring sister each side. Susan was outraged. Most certainly the only possible way to conduct lessons was sitting rigid at the table, with small cold fingers pushing a slate-pencil up and down compound addition or into the intricacies of dictation, or standing with hands behind your back to repeat your task. And no child could ever be learning while it looked as happy as Mary and Phœbe did. Susan's new status of grandmother to be edged her tongue: "What is all this? I thought the children were at lessons, Jenny."

"They are," Jenny laughed over Harry's black head. She was always laughing, though how she could have the face, with her page 307younger sister already almost a mother … "I'm telling them about the Pillars of Hercules" said Jenny.

"Pillows of Harkales? What next, I'd like to know?" Susan at a loss was always very superior.

"The Bed of Procrustes next," said Jenny. She knew it was wicked in her, for, after all, mothers are mothers even if only Susans. But if she had taught Brevis things, he also had taught her. "It's dishonest to pretend to yourself what you know isn't true," he said. And although Jenny retorted that no woman could live unless she occasionally believed what she knew to be untrue, one had to concede that Brevis was right. Mamma trying to be superior only made a fool of herself, and Madam's granddaughter knew it as truly as ever Madam did. Here Mary, who never had the wit to be silent, volunteered: "It isn't feather pillows, Mamma. It's stone pillars."

Susan pounced. Before Madam she was a worm and always would be. But where was the use of producing a nursery if you couldn't turn in it? Her broad dull face quickened and reddened. Her voice went up: "You are a very forward little miss, Mary, and I wonder at you. Go stand in the corner this instant, and what I'm to do with you, always being punished, I can't think. Yesterday you upset your poor papa, and now you're at it again. Phœbe never does, and she's a half-hour younger."

In the corner simple Mary bellowed. Yesterday had been terrible, what with Papa appearing in the sudden way he had and asking questions to which no one knew the answers. And indeed she had tried her best; and when Papa asked, "How is Tasmania governed?" she remembered what Mr. Beverley had said last week and answered, "Fairly well." And then Papa had ordered her into the corner, and here was Mamma doing the same. And although Sister Jenny always kissed and comforted afterwards, life was very ha-ard.

Here Mary's crying so overcame her that Susan got in before Jenny, and kissed and forgave. And so went off, leaving Jenny to gather up the shattered morale of the school-room and stay it with Mangnall's Questions (in black), Butler's Spelling (in dull red), The Child's Guide (in a light marble), and Dr. Lardner's Common Things in a colour to match, Jenny knew that she page 308was probably a very bad teacher because she found life so gay, even in school-rooms. But to-day it was not gay, with Brevis and Mab away after the bush-rangers; and only God knew what was to happen before night.

Downstairs Susan fretted; scolded Cook out in the great kitchen; scolded Golly for running her finger round the yellow crinkled cream on the dairy pans before she used the skimmer. She was thinking of Mark, of Charlotte. Finally she put on her bonnet and sent for the barouche. "Lottie may need me," she said to Madam, who, having roused the Captain's temper by refusing to let him follow the hunt, was glad to get rid of her. On arriving at Bredon Cottage she found that Charlotte, shaken out of her calm for once by thought of Mark out on the ranges among the bullets, had need of her indeed.

"Now, we'll have the doctor here in no time, Lottie, my love," said Susan, competently, and took off her bonnet.

It was so perfect a day that Jenny found it hard to bear. Hot and still, as though it held its breath in suspense. Toward evening she could bear it no longer.

"Get on your habits, girls, and we'll go to meet them," she said.

But Fanny preferred to finish her drawing. Fanny, with her pale gold hair and skin like an inner shell, rarely did anything vital. A maiden asleep, this pretty sentimental Fanny, waiting for love to waken her long slender limbs and blue languid eyes…. But she'll never get out of it half of what I do, thought Jenny, riding off with the sturdy twins; all three buttoned into the tight dark habits with skirts almost trailing the ground, all three nearly extinguished by the broad felt hats with their dark sweeping feathers.

The last evening glow bathed the world in gold, leaving the distant ranges blue feather heaps on a pink sky. Horses and cattle stood contented in the paddocks, their black shadows stretching far on the tawny grass. In the warm, close woods bronze-wing pigeons and doves were cooing, and a flock of shining grey summer birds rose from a native cherry tree that had rooted near a tall clump of blackwoods by a creek and melted into the woods like soft smoke…. The native cherry can't live alone, because page 309it lives on the roots of others, Jenny thought, watching the twins race their ponies on the grassy side of the road…. Am I a native cherry? I don't feel I could live without Brevis.

Was this, she wondered, love or partly the natural incompetence in which she had been so carefully trained as her younger sisters were trained now? Obey your elders. Do as you're told. Remember that we know best. It is not nice for young girls to ask such questions. How she knew those slogans by heart I Lottie, thinking herself so wise, had gone to Mark ignorant as a baby, merely exchanging one domination for another. Her cry now was always "I'll ask Mark," just as it had been "I'll ask Mamma." And Mamma had always asked Papa, who really knew no more than the rest of them, but was accepted as infallible because he was a man. Fanny would go to her husband—she would marry the first man she was allowed to—even less informed about life than Charlotte, because she was not naturally inquisitive. And Jenny would go to Brevis …?

Well, what she had learned she had learned for herself, with, she knew, much of it distorted and with many gaps between. But life with Brevis would put all this in perspective, round out the angularities, give solid ground to tread on…. And anyway, she thought, puckishly, I know that Lottie is going to have a baby, although they all think that I don't…. She contemplated with delight Susan's shocked amaze, Lottie's embarrassment when, on the day of its arrival, she would present it with a robe on which she had been working for months…. How indecent they will think me, she thought, trotting after the twins. Then she signed. "All this waste of womanhood and crippling of intellect because men like us young and tender! Dear Lord, I thank thee," she murmured, "for Brevis's open mind."

Out of the twilight rode a cluster of dark figures. On the grassy side a cow feeding tolled its monotonous bell. Jenny pulled up with a sudden stound at her heart. Nor could she look until Brevis came riding, talking cheerfully of his hunger. Mab followed. He also tried to be cheerful, but did not succeed well. His face had a blotched look, as though too many emotions were at war there.

"No New Zealand this year, dear maid. We'll have to write off page 310that somehow. But when I think that Snow would have died at Port Arthur but for me …"

"He would never have been there but for you, apparently," said Brevis. "Bury your mistakes, Mr. Comyn, as the doctors do. Man can't afford to be weak with his fellows or they'll get him down."

What a damnable creed!" said Mab, riding on with his head low. But Jenny rode with Brevis; and above them the wild black swans flew clanging by into the scarlet west, and behind in the dusk between the fragrant trees creaked a cart bearing the dead body of Snow and the suffering body of one of the young farmers who had been shot in the groin. Jenny, for once, had no pity for either of them. She had got her man back, alive, alive!

While she was brushing the twins' hair before dinner Susan came into the room, so brimming with excitement that Jenny knew in a moment. Poor dear Lottie!

"I have wonderful news for you, Jenny, Mary, Phœbe!" cried Susan. "Your sister Charlotte has a dear little baby. A girl. What do you think of that?"

"Oh, where did she get it from, Mamma?" cried Mary.

Susan's beatific, mysterious smile included her three daughters. "Why, the doctor brought it in his carpet-bag," she said, and hurried out.

Jenny went to her room and unfolded by candle-light the robe rich with delicate stitchery and fine lace. She thought: I wonder if Mamma could stand it if I gave it to her just now.