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Chapter IX.

‘The life where hope and memory are as one;
Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged,
Save by the simplest toil of human hands
Or season's difference.’

Miss Desmond had been a guest at the farmhouse for several weeks. The family, however, had not known her, even by name, for any length of time. When her stepbrother, Mr. Wishart, had come to New Zealand several years previously he had brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Langridge, who, as an experienced colonist, had been requested to assist him in selecting land, and also to enlighten him concerning the best way of making it profitable. The farmer did his best for the inexperienced gentleman, and when his pupil prospered, was not a little proud to think that he had contributed to his success.

How this could be, however, is not very clear. The gentleman farmer never made a penny by farming after Langridge's plan; but he enriched himself by land speculations and by a lucky investment in twelve shares of that most celebrated mine of the Thames goldfield—the Caledonian. This was his page 115 first and last venture in the share market, and it brought him a fortune.

The erstwhile farm-pupil ruined himself in Mr. Langridge's estimation by buying an estate which had nothing but romantic beauty of scenery to recommend it, and was, besides, out of the way, and only approachable by roads notorious for their depth of mire. But he pleaded that in the future he did not intend to farm, and that what he desired now was beauty, not utility. Roads would be made in course of time. There was some hope that they would be made speedily, since one high in authority, while making a political tour through the district, had been grieviously overthrown in an ancient quagmire. Undoubtedly this gentleman had suffered for the public good. That he should almost have broken his neck upon one of the worst of bush roads had caused a thrill of horror in Ministerial circles, and the Government had begun to think seriously of repairing this dangerous road, a result which all the periodical wailings of distressed settlers had failed to obtain. If the promises of the Minister of Public Works could be depended on, a railway was to be constructed to the district, and then—so Mr. Wishart argued—it would be seen that he had secured a charming retreat at the very gates of the city,—for what was fifteen miles by rail?—and yet affording all the restful quiet and seclusion of a country house.

However, the roads were not yet made, neither page 116 was the house built. Mr. Wishart was inspecting plans, and like a wise man counting the cost before beginning to build. His step-sister had arrived in New Zealand before a home was ready for her. Mr. Wishart had a strong aversion to doing anything in a hurry. Miss Desmond visited at different houses while he leisurely proceeded with his preparations.

Maud Desmond was only his step-sister, and therefore bore a different name. Though as strongly attached to each other as ever brother and sister were, there was not in reality the slightest relationship between them; there were even many things that might have divided them. She was rich; he had inherited very little from his father, who had died shortly after his marriage with Mrs. Desmond. That lady had been a rich widow, but her relatives had strongly disapproved of her second marriage, and their jealous influence had taken care that no penny of the Desmond wealth should fall into the hands of the Wisharts. Her mother's death, and afterwards her uncle's, left Maud well provided for—the heiress of monies as strictly tied up as money can well be. Mr. Wishart had a sister of his own, but she was older than himself, and had married young, He remembered her as a severe young lady, addicted to lecturing him, to procuring him various punishments when he thought none were needed, and to speaking of him disparagingly as a ‘noisy little bother.’

When he was a boy of seventeen, Mrs. Desmond, who had then only recently lost her husband, came to page 117 live very near his father's house. Those who were thus made neighbours soon became friends. Mr. Wishart liked and admired his future stepmother, as most boys are pleased and flattered by the notice of a clever handsome woman some years older than themselves. And he was fond of her little daughter, then only about seven or eight years old. He did not disdain to be her big playfellow; on the contrary, he found the company of this young lady so fascinating that he could never quite make up his mind which he preferred—to play with Maud or to talk with her mother.

The little girl worshipped him as a wonderful genius. Could he not build doll's houses as beautiful as fairy palaces? had he not made fireworks that were devastating in their awful effects?—this was promptly interdicted on account of the ruin it wrought in the nursery; was not every fairy tale, ghost story, or legend worth listening to enshrined in his wonderful memory? He had indeed lain awake at night inventing these stories that he might tell them to her the next day. He had been fertile in inventions and mechanical toys of all kinds—a little water-wheel turned by a small stream in the garden; a chariot of the true Roman pattern, drawn by a long-suffering kitten, and holding two dolls; a miniature castle, with wall and moat and drawbridge, strictly mediæval in design. Many an afternoon had been happily wasted in these amusements.

Then, after a time, Maud was sent to school, and page 118 he left home for New Zealand. She wrote to him very often. He could tell by her letters, better than by the flight of time, how she was growing out of her childhood and gaining knowledge. But, somehow, he liked the first letters, written by the child in large round hand, with quaint spelling and an occasional blot, better than the finished elegance of the young lady's correspondence.

It was while he was in New Zealand that the marriage took place which made him the stepbrother of his former friend and playmate. Within three years after this marriage he had lost his father and she her mother. Death had been so busy amongst her kindred that she was left without a near relative. So it happened that his first thought, after finding himself well-established in his adopted country, was to offer a home to his stepsister, who, though rich enough, was alone in the world. His elder sister, Mrs. Meade, who was now a widow, was coming to live with him, and why should not Maud accompany her? He wrote to invite her, and she was so willing to come that she arrived in the colony two months earlier than was expected, and in advance of Mrs. Meade. So there was some excuse for Mr. Wishart's unreadiness.

Since her arrival she had been passed about from house to house in a manner that astonished her. She wondered if colonists made so much of every stranger. Such thoughtful kindness, such frank hospitality as she met with everywhere, even from page 119 those of a class beneath her own, charmed her. She was pleased with everything, principally because it was new, and was well disposed to fall in love with her new country at first sight.

Mrs. Langridge had felt it her duty to invite Miss Desmond, and once installed as a guest in the hospitable farmhouse it was a difficult matter to leave it. She was pressed to stay there until her brother's house was finished, but she was already tiring of a visitor's life. Nevertheless it was a round of pleasure parties. The long rides and drives, the picnics, the dances in the evening, either at home or at some neighbour's house, left little chance for dulness. The daughters of the house were true colonial girls, tall and strong, who took even their pleasure in a vigorous manner. They could dance a whole night or ride a whole day without looking or feeling miserable the next morning. As for Stephen, though he despised colonial ways and things, and particularly disliked the excessive use of muscle in which his sisters delighted, he was now, to their surprise, always ready to join in any of their excursions, provided it did not take place at an uncomfortably early hour.

These merry-makings were often discussed by the farm-servants. The maids in the house told the men in the yard little tit-bits of gossip, which formed interesting subjects of conversation during the dinnerhour.

‘There'll be a wedding next, sure enough,’ said page 120 a fiery-haired young man, who had been so often nicknamed the Beacon that his real appellation was almost forgotten.

‘Why, are you thinking of getting married?’ asked one of his comrades, who was waggishly inclined.

‘Noa,’ hastily denied the Beacon, in his confusion reverting to the broad dialect he had cast off with shame some years before.

‘Well, who then?’ said Simpkins, scooping out the cavernous recesses of a peach pie which was furnished with a crust of some solidity.

‘I should think you might see, if you'd any eyes,’ said the Beacon, with an air of superior wisdom. ‘Mr. Stephen seems mighty anxious to please Miss Desmond, and it's likely she will be pleased with him.’

‘She's a bonny leddy, and nae doubt weel provided for,’ observed Duncan solemnly.

‘And he's not bad-looking, if it weren't for his hair being so light-coloured and towsy,’ said the Beacon.

‘Hout, man! that's better than being the colour of vermilion,’ said Duncan.

‘It doesn't matter much after all what a man's hair is like,’ said the Beacon, bestowing contemptuous glances on the laughing ones around him. ‘But in my mind he's not fit to black Miss Desmond's shoes! She's a born lady, and every one knows what his father was.’

‘And what was he?’ asked Randall, to the surprise page 121 of all suddenly joining in the conversation, to which he had been listening with a lowering brow.

‘Why, just one of us. I guess I'm as good as him any day,’ said Simpkins, who cherished advanced ideas on the subject of Liberty and Equality.

‘No, thou'rt not, my lad,’ said an old man who sat next to him. ‘He's made hisself into a gentleman, and thou'It niver be nowt but a labourer.’

‘Well, my father was as good as his'n, anyway,’ persisted Simpkins. ‘He's perked up, becos he's money. If I was rich I'd have just as much right to marry Miss Desmond as his son.’

‘I think you need not mention that lady's name quite so often,’ said Randall, with a quick glance at the last speaker. ‘At least, don't mention it again in that manner in my hearing.’

‘Yes; mind your manners,’ said the Beacon, who had a wholesome respect for his superiors. ‘Ladies ain't to be talked about like that.’

Randall turned away and left the group, but not quickly enough to miss hearing Simpkins's reflection on himself: ‘He's a proud ‘un, he is.’

He walked slowly down the long stubble-field. The bleached straw glared painfully in the intense light of a noonday sun. Everything was parched, and hot, and dusty, with the long drought. Even the sameness of the unshaded brilliancy of the blue sky had begun to be irritating to the eyes—day after day unchanged and unclouded, save by sultry heat-vapours. One wondered whence these arose, page 122 the earth seemed too baked and dry to yield them. Yet towards evening they would mass themselves in heavy banks of purple clouds, and each night the sun sank beneath them, glowing like a red-hot ball. Then they spread themselves over the face of the sky, shutting in the earth through the hours of a hot and suffocating night. But morning brought the sun again, with burning heat, and the same unchanged deep blue sky.

At the farther end of the field Randall came to a hand-gate in the fence which divided the rough wheat stubble from smooth grassy sward, inviting to the eye, though no longer green. A winding path, trodden bare and dusty amidst the grass, led to the house. Two persons were presently seen following this path. One was Miss Desmond, in a white muslin dress and a straw hat large enough to prevent the sun from ever getting a sight of the fair face beneath. The other was Stephen Langridge, whose pink complexion had suffered much in these dog-days, and whose light hair, unfortunately, had a tendency to bleach still lighter. Nevertheless, as the farm servant had condescendingly remarked, Stephen was by no means ill-looking. He was not a little proud of his light blue eyes, which were of the very largest pattern, and which Palmer had impolitely spoken of as being only fit for a baby.

‘I wanted to show you this place, Miss Desmond,’ said Stephen. ‘You said you would like to take a sketch. There is a pretty little picture for you.’

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‘I do not care to sketch,’ said Miss Desmond coldly.

Stephen seemed surprised at this answer. ‘I thought you said yesterday that you liked nothing better.’

‘Oh, please don't quote what I said yesterday,’ answered the lady, who, we must remember, had been a spoilt child. ‘It is so tiresome to find that one's foolish speeches haven't been forgotten.

‘I don't think it was a foolish speech,’ said Stephen. ‘And you do sketch. Suppose I run up to the house and bring your drawing case?’

‘Thank you. Please don't. To speak truly, I am not in the humour for sketching. I am a poor artist at the best of times.’

They stood still for a few minutes. Two little flycatchers were fluttering and chirping above them in the acacia boughs.

‘What pretty little birds those are, Mr. Langridge.

They seem very common. Do you ever find their nests?’

‘Sometimes. Would you like to have one? There ought to be plenty of old nests about. I think it's too late to find one with eggs in, though they often build twice in the season.’

‘I should like a nest. They are very small and neatly made, are they not, and the eggs are pure white? I have a great many birds' nests and eggs which a schoolboy friend collected for me in England. And, long ago, I've gone birds'-nesting page 124 myself—a cruel thing to do, I daresay you'll think.’

‘Cruel? I don't see the cruelty in it,’ said Stephen, who would have said the same whatever enormity she had accused herself of. ‘I call it kindness: saving the poor little mites the trouble and anxiety of providing for a hungry brood. There ought to be plenty of nests amongst the trees by the creck.’ And mentally he resolved to find one the very next day.

The strength of this resolution enabled him to rise half an hour earlier than usual the next morning. He was ready—even with the dew on the grass, a thing he hated to encounter—to walk down to the creek and search amongst the trees and brushwood on its banks for the coveted nest. But some one had been before him: there was already a dainty little nest, so round and trim, and closely lined with horsehair, lying on the hall table. Stephen's forehead was marked with several corrugations at the sight, and he exclaimed angrily, ‘Oh, that fellow again!’

‘Hallo, Steve!’ cried his father, in his usual loud and hilarious style. ‘What's matter? Cheer up, my boy!’—an invitation which invariably had a depressing effect upon his son. ‘Did Miss Desmond ask for a nest?’

‘She said she would like one,’ said Stephen, sulkily, ‘and she's got one, it seems.’

‘Well, why didn't you get it yourself?’

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‘I hadn't a chance. How was I to know some one else would rise with the sun to find it?’

‘I wish I was a young lady,’ said the farmer. ‘I'm afraid very few fellows would rise with the sun to do anything for me. Who found the nest?’

‘Susan says it was brought to the door by that dark-looking man who gives himself airs, and whom the men call the “gentleman”!’

“Oh, Randall is his name. How did he know she wanted one?’

‘I suppose he heard her say so. He was lounging about somewhere near at the time. I thought he stared at Miss Desmond very rudely. I wouldn't keep him if I were you.’

‘Pooh, Steve, don't be silly! What's the man to you? It won't hurt Miss Desmond to be looked at, I suppose.’

Miss Desmond sent her thanks to the finder of the nest. Stephen racked his brains to think of something else that would please her. It was in vain. In the first days of their friendship she had been frank and pleasant with him, as he noticed she was yet with everyone else. But with regard to himself all that had changed. He was convinced that he had transgressed in some way, but was unable to discover the precise nature of his offence, though he made the most searching inquisition into his conduct, torturing himself by turning over and over in his mind such scraps of his conversation page 126 as be could remember, and sorrowing over each ill-chosen expression.

If he could have brought himself to acknowledge that this lady had a single fault it would have been that she was hard to please. If he admired anything it seemed instantly to have lost its charm for her; if he hastened to agree with her when she expressed a decided opinion, she was apt to contradict herself in a most tantalising manner, and retract what she had said, as if she were determined to oppose him. She would persist in misunderstanding him, and her matter-of-fact answers to his rash assertions made him seem ridiculous. When he was most serious he had often an uneasy suspicion that she was laughing at him. All this would have been insupportable from anyone else. He would soon have ceased to subject himself to such an annoyance simply by avoiding such a person altogether. But there are those who can say and do many things not allowable to their less prepossessing fellow-creatures. This one might have offended him every day, and the next would have found him willing to be offended again. Anything rather than utter indifference. Latterly, however, Stephen had had this worse alternative in view, and had begun to look forward with dread to a time when Miss Desmond would no longer be conscious of his existence. It appeared to be coming to that.

‘You don't seem to prosper in your suit, Steve,’ said his father, who was constantly teasing him. page 127 This remark had the effect of causing Stephen to desert the verandah, where as usual he and his father were smoking away the twilight hour.

‘Steve's on a low key to-night,’ continued Langridge to Mrs. Langridge, who, having no objection to tobacco smoke—having indeed during her twentyfive years of wedded life become almost fond of it—was sitting beside her husband swaying gently to and fro in a rocking-chair and plying her bright knitting needles.

‘Steve is a silly boy,’ she answered. ‘I wonder he should think of Miss Desmond for a minute; she doesn't fancy him, that's certain.’

‘Nonsense! She's pleasant enough with him; likes to tease him a little perhaps.’

‘She is too much of a lady not to behave nicely to all alike, but if Stephen had any eyes he might see that he wearies her. She's handsome—there's no denying that—and accomplished; but he'd far better marry some clever colonial girl who'd have no reason to look down on his family, and who would be likely to understand housekeeping as well as fiddling with fancy work, and painting little table-tops and door panels, and so on.’

‘I don't think Steve will care a pin whether she understands housekeeping or not. Besides, I thought she did. Didn't she go to some grand English school of cookery?’

‘Yes, too grand to be of much use. The girls were cooking the other day, and nothing would suit page 128 her but she must make a cake—and such a cake! You should have seen it when it came out of the oven—as sad as sad could be, and all the currants sunk to the bottom.’

‘Well?’ said the farmer, not much affected by the solemn import of these facts.

‘I should like to give Steve a slice of that cake,’ said Mrs. Langridge. ‘I don't suppose she can make pastry fit to be seen, not to speak of the eating of it. And then she's been used to such high ways—always had her own maid to wait on her. Oh, no, she'll never look at our Steve.’

‘Why not? Haven't I made a gentleman of him? He's had enough spent on him to make him one. I've given him everything he wanted so far, and he shall marry her if he wants to; at least it won't be my fault if he doesn't. What need has she to know housekeeping when she can hire five women to keep house for her if she likes? She can't know less about work of any kind than Stephen does: they're well suited in that respect.’

‘You'll see what I say is true,’ said Mrs. Langridge decisively. ‘She'll never trouble her head about Steve, and he's a simpleton not to see it.’