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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XLVI. After Long Years

Chapter XLVI. After Long Years.

'What a very vagabond I feel!' said Philiberta, creeping wearily and desolately to her berth. 'Homeless, friendless, restless, poverty-stricken; without end or aim in existence. Unsexed, too: trying to live the life of a man while there is all too much of the woman in me to bear well the burden and the buffeting. Heaven help me! I would fain be at rest. Life seems ever a wearier thing as one goes on with it.'

Here a small, dismal face was thrust out from the bunk above, and a small, dismal voice said: 'Do you mind my groaning, please, sir?'

'My child, I did not know you were there. Were you groaning?'

'No, sir, but I should like to, if you wouldn't mind. Groaning does relieve me an awful lot.'

'Poor child, groan away, then.'

The little fellow was very seasick, and Philiberta found page 297occupation and some self-forgetfulness in attending to his small wants. He was a lad of ten years or thereabout, fatherless and motherless, travelling alone to strange relatives in Victoria. So a fellow-feeling of loneliness begat a friendship between the two; earnest, but brief, since it perforce terminated on Sandridge Pier.

Before Philiberta was an hour in Melbourne she ran against some one who recognised her as Philip Tempest; she had long given up the fear of being ever recognised as anyone else.

'Philip Tempest, as I live! Of all the fellows—— By Jove! give us your hand, my boy, do!'

'How are you, Mr. Fairweather?'

'Oh, don't mister me. I couldn't be gladder to see you if you were my own brother. Two years we spent together, Tempest, in an existence nearly as bad as Robinson Crusoe's. Call me Harry—and come and have a drink.'

'Thanks; but I——'

'Oh, you must. It isn't ten yards from here to Renzies', where I'm putting up. We can talk better sitting down, and by Jove! what a heap of things I've got to say to you! Come on.'

So in five minutes they were discussing champagne and their own experiences in the squatter's sitting-room at Renzies'.

'Yes, I've cleared out at last,' said the squatter, 'and pretty handsomely, too, thank goodness. The last wool clip was splendid; beat anything I'd ever seen before. I believe that clip got me the offer for the place. The station wasn't in the market, you know. I was intending to hold on another year, and when the offer came my first impulse was to refuse. Another clip would have made me five thousand richer at least. But all of a sudden your words came back to me about fellows sticking on a run year after year, to add a little more and a little more to their wealth, until they were beyond enjoying it. You remember saying that?'

'Why, no, I do not.'

'But you did say it all the same, and I didn't forget it. It came into my mind at the time I thought of refusing that offer. "And besides," said I to myself, "if a bad year follows that good page 298one, as is so often the case in this climate, and the lambing should turn out badly and a drought set in, I shall be as far behind as ever, and not find it so easy to clear out;" so the thing cut both ways, you see. So I just travelled down to town at once, determined not to give myself a chance of changing my mind, and closed the bargain straight off. And here I've been knocking about ever since the New Year.'

'But I thought you always meant to go straight to England after selling out.'

'Why, so I did. Look here, Tempest, men are the queerest things to understand of all animals. I'm well on in my thirties now, and hanged if I know myself yet. When I was up at Mudgeeburra I used to think nothing could keep me in the country a week after making my pile. Now I have been mooning round five months, and I'm blest if I don't feel loath to go away after all. I've actually got a sort of affection for the place, and often catch myself wishing I was back at old Mudgee, doing the same old round of work. It's awfully weak of me, I know. This year has been every bit as good for squatters as the last so far, and will be right through, I think, and that, again, makes me half sorry I sold, although I feel that there's a sort of meanness about that, because I ought to be glad of a good season for the new fellow at Mudgee; and yet if it were a bad one, I should be better pleased at being out than I am now. But what a beggar I am to talk! Turn the tables, please. Tell me about yourself. Where have you been, and what doing with yourself all this while?'

'I have been in New Zealand,' said Philiberta.

'What doing there?'—'Vagabondizing.'

'H'm. And did you like it?'

'Well, not enthusiastically, perhaps. Yet there were some good features in it—variety, freedom, a fine, bracing climate, magnificent scenery, and a perfectly kaleidoscopic experience of human nature.'

'Ah! it hasn't agreed with you specially, though, judging by your appearance.'

'Oh, I have been laid up with rheumatic fever.'

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'What a beggar you are for getting laid up! The first time we met you were just getting over an attack of something or other. And what is your present little game?'—'I have none.'

'Not doing anything?'

'No. It is scarce two hours yet since I landed from N.Z.'

'Oh! what an odd thing that I should have run against you just then! How lucky, too, for I know a man who wants you.'

'Wants me!'

'Yes. I said to him only yesterday, "If we could only drop on Tempest, Paget, he's the very man for you." And, by Jove! there's Paget now.'

Edgar's step in the passage! Edgar's voice speaking to Fairweather! For a moment Philiberta turned blind, and knew not where she stood; and the sound in her ears was like the rushing, roaring gale of the shipwreck years ago. In the impulse of flight she moved quickly from wall to wall of the room just as an animal, suddenly trapped, flies from side to side of its prison. Then Edgar Paget was there, before her, and she stood, panting and quivering, face to face with him. After all these years! And he looked at her, spoke to her, took her hand, and—knew her no more than if she had been the most utter stranger. Presently they were all three sitting together round the table, Paget and Fairweather 'talking sheep' with all the earnest interest of men whose lives are, or have been, wrapped up in those mild quadrupeds; Philiberta listening and looking. He looked a little older—a little graver —this man whom she loved; otherwise he was not altered. He looked prosperous; he spoke cheerfully; how strange it all was! Into Philiberta's mind came a quaint old story that she had read and been fascinated by when a mere child. The story of a monk who one day, charmed and allured by the song of a bird, followed the songster from bush to bush, from tree to tree, until night took him by surprise and compelled him to retrace his steps. And when he had come again to the monastery, after much weary wandering in darkness, behold, they were all strangers there—not one familiar face or voice greeted him. A new generation had arisen that knew him not, page 300but they told him a legend of a monk of his name who had wandered away mysteriously a hundred years before and never come back. And then the tired monk said never another word, but laid him down and covered his face and died. Said Philiberta, 'Something like the monk's feeling must be this feeling of mine.'

'Well, Tempest has turned up in the very nick of time,' said Fairweather in his loud, cheery voice. 'He's in poor condition, because he's been knocking himself up with rheumatism and similar luxuries. But he'll soon plump up at Yoanderruk, just as he did at old Mudgee. You'd better make terms with him at once, Paget.'

'Yes, if Tempest is agreeable,' said Paget.

'What is it?' questioned Philiberta, her voice sounding strangely in her own ears.

'Paget wants some one to look after things for him up at Yoanderruk. Not heavy work, is it, old man?'

'No,' replied Paget, 'not heavy. Plenty of riding, though, and overseeing.'

'Just Tempest's line,' cried Fairweather.

And then came about the strangest experience in that wholly strange life; and almost without words from her an agreement was concluded binding her to a similar position on Edgar Paget's station to that she had held at Fairweather's. Words were not easy to her just then; her throat was husky, her tongue parched, her brain confused with a tendency to count the loud, painful throbbings of her heart. Fairweather said he had never seen Tempest look so queer; and then Philiberta made effort to excuse herself and get out into the street.

Two days later she was travelling to Yoanderruk with Paget and Fairweather, the latter having accepted an invitation to 'run up and see the place.'

One thing was settled in Philiberta's mind by this time: that Edgar Paget was everything to her. She wondered how she had lived so long without him. She did not want that he should know her, or even think of her; she only needed to be within sight of his face and sound of his voice. His page 301presence deadened all that anguish of restless longing that had hunted and haunted her since the hour in which she had fled from him. She was dead to him; she could never again live for him; but he was not dead to her, and nothing could matter while she was suffered to be near him.

Yoanderruk was two days' distance from Melbourne: one long day by rail, and another long day by horse or buggy across country. The station was located between the rivers Campaspe and Loddon. A creek ran by the homestead, emptying itself into a small lagoon, upon whose reedy banks quail, snipe, teal, and plover camped numerously. The run was extensive and of the usual type of good pasture land—undulating grassy plains with occasional belts of timber. A patch of scrub in one direction afforded a home for a few dingoes and food for profanity and complaint to Yoanderruk's gentle shepherds. The homestead and its immediate surroundings were far in advance of most stations in point of beauty and convenience. Beside the patch of native bush that adorned the settlement there was a plantation of pines on the western, and another of the beautiful mountain ash on the eastern side, that embellished the place exceedingly, especially when the ash-trees were in their pomp and splendour of scarlet bloom. On the banks of the creek grew wattle and ti-tree abundantly, with ferns and bush flowers of great variety to help the general effect. All about the house was a large flower-garden, full of loveliness and sweet odours. The house itself was large and all on one floor. It had been altered and added to from time to time until its proper bearings were somewhat difficult to take at first. There were three frontages, that is, three sides, each of which might be called the front, being alike in the matter of bay-windows and French doors, and equally fortunate as regards view and aspect. A broad, partly trellised, and flower-grown veranda ran all round. The western side of the house was the domestic servants' quarters. About two hundred yards away stood a group of slab-huts, occupied by the station hands; near to these was the stable; about a quarter of a mile distant from the stable stood the woolshed, a fine building, with all modern page 302conveniences and improvements—for Paget was a man of enterprise and a lover of progress.

The distant summit of Mount Hope had said a final goodnight to the sun, and darkness was falling with Australian suddenness, when our travellers were gladdened with the vision of glimmering lamps and the uproar of watchful dogs and the sound of men's welcoming voices. There was a scent of supper from the huts; past that, a fragrance of mignonette, geraniums, and honeysuckle from the homestead garden. Three women ran out from the kitchen, half a dozen men from the stables and huts. One thing was clear at a glance: Edgar Paget's underlings were better pleased to see him come home than go thence. There could be no question of their true attachment to him.

'Is everything well, Janet?'—'Quite well, Mr. Paget.'

It was an elderly woman who spoke; a superior servant evidently. The other two who emerged from the kitchen were mere girls.

'Where is Mrs. Paget, Janet?'

'In the drawing-room, sir. Miss Wilks is with her.'

'Bother that woman!' ejaculated Paget. 'When did she come?'—'She rode over yesterday, sir.'

'Here—Tom, take the horses. And mind you see to the mare first; she is more delicate than that saucy rascal Grey Cocky. Down with you, Fairweather. Shall I give you a hand, Tempest? This way.'

I suppose every one forms some kind of mental portrait of people known only by report. And what a startling surprise the original often is in comparison with the mental picture! Philiberta, when she had thought about Edgar Paget's wife— which was singularly seldom—had imagined a sensual, selfindulgent, self-willed woman; beautiful, perhaps, but with that rather repelling beauty suggested by the statue, La Bacchante, in the gallery in the Melbourne Library. The woman she saw when she entered Edgar Paget's house was a fragile, delicatelooking being, with a pale beautiful face, almost girlish in its soft outlines, and refined with the stamp of suffering. A woman bearing about her some subtle attractiveness beyond even her page 303beauty. The vision of her came to Philiberta as a [gap — reason: invisiable] as one feels at the sudden overthrow of some pet, conforting theory. It was a new revelation—this knowledge that she was not glad to see in Edgar Paget's wife a fairer and better woman than she had pictured.

'Well, Florence, dear.'

'Well, Edgar. I am glad to see you back.'

They kissed—just as a brother and sister might kiss; and then Paget introduced Fairweather and Tempest. Mrs. Paget's eyes, large, and dark, and mournful, wandered quickly from her husband's face to those of his friends, yet did not rest anywhere for more than a second of time. There was a furtive timidity in their expression, a strange nervousness in all her aspect. She sighed and fidgeted, and fell to twirling the rings on her slender fingers rapidly.

All this while Paget watched her intently, and Philiberta saw the expression of his face change and darken.

'I thought Miss Wilks was with you, Florence?'

'So she was, dear. She has just gone to my room for my shawl. She is coming now.'

Miss Wilks, an elderly maiden, in youthful raiment, tripped in at the moment with effusive greetings. Miss Wilks was mad. Not quite mad enough to justify confinement in Yarra Bend, but nevertheless very mad. Her chief mania was theology; but she was subject to incidental phases of insanity—side-crazes, so to speak, which came and went according to circumstances and immediate influences. Her proper abode was Tarragut, her brother's station, and Yoanderruk's nearest neighbour; but she spent her time in visiting the settlers in all that district impartially, and was looked upon by them as a sort of visitation for their sins, and tolerated as a penance. She was fond of the company of young men, and had twice deliberately proposed to marry a young squatter and leave him all the money, but in each instance the young squatter had most distinctly declined the pleasure. In the matter of theology she was rabid; in general principle and regard for truth she was extremely lax. Taking her altogether, she was rather a curiosity.

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'Where's the boy, Florence?' asked Edgar Paget, a harsh tone in his voice, a look of angry trouble in his face.

'Gone to bed, Edgar.'

'At my instance, Mr. Paget,' added Miss Wilks, in shrill, strident accents. 'Early slumber for children is a principle I never miss an opportunity of impressing upon parents, with all the poor eloquence in my power. I taught your child a new prayer to-night, and he went to bed happy and contented. Shall I repeat the prayer for you?'

'No, thanks,' said Paget, turning his back upon her somewhat uncivilly. 'Fairweather, Tempest, I'll show you your rooms now. You will like a brush-up before dinner.'

Presently Philiberta in her room heard his voice in an adjoining one: 'Janet, you have deceived me.'

'How, sir?'—'Where are the keys?'

'Here. They have never left me night or day since you went to town.'

'Then something has been conveyed to her from outside.'

'Impossible, Mr. Paget; I have—'

'No use talking,' he cried, in impatient distress, 'She is not as I left her. I saw it as soon as I entered. That trick of her fingers, that nervous shifting of her eyes. I could not be mistaken. Oh, it is too bad! After a whole year of peace that had turned my life to hope again!'

Philiberta made sundry sounds to indicate her near proximity, and Janet, hearing, said, 'Had you not better come into my room to talk, sir? There is someone listening.'

'It does not matter. It is only my new help. He is going to live here, and if another outbreak is inevitable, he will soon know all about it, so it matters little what he hears now. Janet, that woman Wilks has done this.'

There was a sound as of a single clap of hands, as if Janet had brought her palms suddenly together in the excitement of a new idea.

'Aye, aye. Ten to one that's it!' she said. 'Fool—blind fool that I have been! Yet I never dreamt of that, Mr. Paget. I was glad to see her come, thinking anything was page 305better for the mistress than solitude. She was growing weary of me and the boy. She always considers me as a sort of gaoler, you know. And there was no one for her while you were away.'

'I ought not to have gone,' said Paget, sadly. 'Yet a man might as well die at once as be buried alive up here for ever.'

'Indeed, indeed, it was needful you should go for your health's sake. If it is as you say in there, the fault is mine, sir, for not watching her better. But perhaps you are mistaken, Mr. Paget; perhaps you are wrong.'

'We shall soon see,' said he, 'and if it is as I fear, I'll fling that Wilks woman into the creek, as sure as the devil sent her here. Give me the light, Janet; I want to look at the boy. And do your best with the dinner. I would not have brought Mr. Fairweather if I had dreamed of this; but now he is here he must enjoy himself, if possible.'