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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter IX. 'A Little Learning.'

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Chapter IX. 'A Little Learning.'

The magistrate could not understand at all why he should be packed off to Melbourne at a day's notice as convoy to a young lady whom he had grown to look upon as a permanent fixture in his family. But his wife told him that he was not expected to understand everything; and said that as it was not often she asked a favour of him, or tried to have her own way in the house, she thought she was not unreasonable to expect him to give in to her this once. And he always did give in to her—though he did not know it, he had no more to say now, but helped to pack up his clean shirts and socks and other small essentials quietly, having a vague impression in his mind that he must be a fearful tyrant in his own house as a general thing. That it should be so rather surprised him, because at public meetings and ceremonies, where he had been called upon to preside on different occasions, reference had been made by admirers to his mercifulness and perfect amiability more than once. Still the idea that he was a tyrant at home, and domineered over his wife, remained with him.

When Mrs. Hugill had completed her husband's packing, she went off to superintend Philiberta's. But the girl had all that she meant to take neatly jammed into one small trunk.

'You don't mean to say that you are going to leave all this behind?' said Mrs. Hugill, looking round upon the heaps of articles rejected.

'Yes, I am. You can keep them for me until I come back, if you like. If not, you can make a bonfire of them. What is the use of lumbering one's self with luggage? When I travel all over the world, as I mean to some day, I shall go in one suit, wear it till it is shabby, and then throw it away and buy another. I will have no more worry then than the man whose entire luggage consisted of a paper collar and a tooth-brush, carried in his pocket. If there's one consequence of the Fall sadder than the rest, it is the awful necessity of clothes.'

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'If Adam and Eve had dwelt in a changeable climate like ours,' said Mrs. Hugill, 'I fancy they would have discovered the necessity of clothes even sooner than the necessity of falling.'

'Was it necessary that they should fall, and if so, why?' asked Philiberta, sitting on her box to make the lid shut close.

'Oh, if you want to argufy,' quoted Mrs. Hugill, laughing, 'I shall flee your presence at once. Especially if you put on that look of absurd seriousness which you always wear when you are about to attack Bible history. But that idea about luggage is a very wise one. The less you carry about with you the better, when you have wealth enough to buy anything you want anywhere.'

Next morning the coach bore off the magistrate and his charge, the latter looking back and waving her handkerchief to one whose own had enough to do to dry fast-flowing tears. That same evening Leslie came home, and before he had been in the house ten minutes his mother knew that Philiberta need not have gone away at all. The lad was cured. Certainly he flushed a little when he heard that she was gone, but the flush was one of mere surprise; there was nothing more in it.

'Why on earth has she gone?' he cried. 'Why did you let her go before I came back? I've got no end of curious things for her—I squashed the gem of the lot, though, sitting on the poor beggar in my coat pocket. But I've kept his wings to show the size he was. He was the finest gold beetle I ever saw, hut he'd got two bright red spots just above his nippers, and a row of the same down the middle of his back. My belief is that he was a cross between a goldie and a big ladybird. I got him and another queer fellow, all legs and wings, at the last kangaroo-hunt. By George, mother, you should have seen the fun that day! I'd have given the world for Berta to have been there. The way that old man fought was a caution. He picked the biggest stringy-bark he could find to prop against, and he just wired in with those hind claws of his till all was blue—or red, rather, for he drew blood from every dog we had. Poor Smuttie, Mudie's favourite kangaroo-slut, had her page 65side ripped up from the tail to the ear. We sewed her up, but I am afraid she's done for; poor plucky little beggar! I'd have given anything to see Berta in that hunt, for she can ride, you know. We killed, of course, and had the tail in soup next day. Talk about flavour! A little too rank for me, though. I've brought home the head and fore-paws, and I'll get old Dixon to cure them and fix them up so that you can have them nailed up in the hall, mother. Trophies of the prowess of your only hero, you know. Dad would never get such things; he couldn't hunt a mosquito with any sort of success. It's me you've got to look to as the mighty Nimrod of this family, ma'am. Ahem!'

'If audacity and intolerable conceit——' began Mrs. Hugill.

'Oh, and by-the-bye,' interrupted her hopeful offspring, 'I've got no end of ferns—nine new specimens for Berta. All pressed in blotting-paper, too—cost me hours of time and trouble. And all for nothing, because she won't care a straw for these fads after she has seen the wonders of the city. But school! At her age! That gets over me completely. What on earth does a woman want to go to school for? How's the colt, mother? And that new young short-horn—has she calved yet?'

Cured, evidently, quite cured. Mrs. Hugill smiled and sighed.

'Neither the right man nor the right woman,' she said to herself, looking after the lad as he went off, cheerfully whistling, to visit his pets. 'And Berta need not have gone after all. Well, I'm glad he does not suffer.'

Philiberta was a most exemplary correspondent Her letters were frequent, full of interest, and lengthy. At the end of three months this one came to Emuville:

'My dearest Friend,

'I know exactly what you will say when you have read this. You will say that I am headstrong, foolish, whimsical, and in need of a keeper. I have left school—that is to say, I am leaving it to-day, and I am going into lodgings where I will have private tutors to visit me. Men—not women—for page 66all the women and girls I have met since I left you have tended to chill and paralyze me, so that I can learn nothing from them. The fact is, dear Mrs. Hugill, I am both too old and too young for school. I know too much and yet too little. My bush life and my studies there have unfitted me for the society and rules and regulations of a seminary. The teachers seem to view me as a curiosity, the other pupils as a sort of wild creature to be either teased or pitied. All the time I have been here I assure you I have felt just as I imagine the poor tormented stared-at animals in the Acclimatization Grounds must feel. (We, the pupils here, are marched up there, two and two, like beasts going into the Ark, once a month, to do our little share of staring and tormenting.) And after three months of hard study, I seemed to have learned nothing, gained nothing, but a feeling of dazed stupidity which I am afraid would become chronic if I stayed here a year. All this is entirely my own fault undoubtedly, but I don't feel able to remedy it, and I don't want to waste my time, and I am certain I should do nothing else by remaining, and so I am off! Do not be anxious about me. I am quite used to town now, and have gained a good deal of practical knowledge of general everyday matters, so that I think I may safely be trusted to take care of myself. I will write again in a few days.

'With love to you all, I am,

'Berta Campbell.'

Correspondence went on again with unfailing regularity for about a year Then:

'My dearest Friend,

'I am completely tired of study. And the more I learn, the more does my own helpless lack of learning become apparent to me. And, after all, an existence spent over books would, I think, be very unsatisfactory in the end. The best and most useful knowledge must come from study of life and the world; don't you think so? I dare say you are already guessing what all this preliminary talk is intended to lead up page 67to. I am going to travel! I am going to see all the world, and as that will probably take some time, I had better lose none in making a start I have not made bad progress with my books this last year—at least, so my tutors assure me. I know French pretty well; German middling; Italian a little. If I keep up my study of these on my travels (as I intend), I shall be able to make myself fairly understood, I think, in the lands where those languages are spoken, I have advanced well in music, though that is among the ornamental rather than the useful accomplishments, unless one has to earn one's living by it, and, who knows? I might have to do that yet. If so, I shall do it by playing the violin, which I have learned so well and lovingly that I can almost excel Leslie at it Herr Simonsen says I am "a genius mit de fiddle." I leave Melbourne next Tuesday by steamer, for New Zealand first, America afterwards, then Europe, Asia, Africa, and any new continent that may come to light meantime. The thought of it elates me and makes me impatient to start. I want to see and hear and know all this big world. My letters, dearest friend, cannot be so constant after this, but that I will write whenever I can, and always carry your dear faces in my memory, is a certainty you need no assurance of.

'And so farewell, and best, best love to all of you, from

'Berta.'

Philiberta had a theory that sea-sickness was a thing entirely under a person's own control. 'A mere matter of will,' she said as the steamer glided over the glassy surface of Hobson's Bay, and she paced the deck with a glad sense of perfect freedom that was almost intoxicating. There is something very delightful in the sense of being absolute master or mistress of one's self and one's actions; something very exhilarating in the knowledge that one has an abundance of the wherewithal to follow one's bent in any direction. And Philiberta felt all this. Melbourne does not look its best when viewed from a southern point, as every one will admit; so our heroine turned her eyes from the hazy dusty town and looked seaward through the Heads, and page 68wondered how long men would be contented with the present slow means of transit from one country to another, and why balloons had hitherto proved a failure. But one of these days she would turn her attention to flying-machines, and the world should see if a woman could not invent—just here the steamer felt the first little billow of the Rip.

'Heavens! What is that?' exclaimed Philiberta, staggering, and feeling that something had gone wrong with the entire universe.

'Shall I help you to the cabin?' said the gallant little captain of the vessel. 'Take my arm.'

'But—but,' gasped Philiberta, 'what is the matter, please?'

'You're going to be sick, that's all,' said the captain. 'Take my arm. Hi! stewardess!'

The stewardess caught her as she tumbled recklessly down the steps of the companion-way, and put her to bed at once. And thus Philiberta realized the ignominious explosion of her fallacious theory about sea-sickness. Realized it badly, too; and spent the night in alternate prayers for shipwreck and something to drink.

She kept her berth all the way to the Bluff, and took to it again as soon as they stood out to sea after leaving that point. Her first destination was Dunedin, and very glad, but very weak and dizzy, she was when the stewardess helped her on deck early one Monday morning to see their approach through that loveliest of harbours Port Chalmers.

In a little while she was making her feeble way up the pier with the rest of the passengers to where the Dunedin train was waiting. The carriage step was high, and for the life of her she could not climb in, she was so weak. Then suddenly she felt herself hoisted in somewhat unceremoniously from behind.

'Thanks,' she said, dropping exhausted on the seat and looking round. It was the captain who had helped her.

'Been pretty bad?' said he cheerfully, as he seated himself beside her.

'Very bad indeed,' said Philiberta.

'Yes, it's awfully funny the way people go under to sea-sickness,' said the captain.

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Philiberta thought it was more than awfully funny, but she had not the energy to say anything.

'Weren't your friends down to meet you?' inquired the captain.

'No, I have no friends here,' said Philiberta.

'No? Where are you going then?'

'The stewardess gave me the name of one or two hotels. I am going to one of them.'

'To a situation?'

'No,' said Philiberta, looking surprised, 'I am going there to lodge.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the captain. 'It was a cheeky question, that of mine. Only when young ladies are travelling alone to places where they have no friends—but I'm sure I beg your pardon.'

'I'm sure there is no necessity,' said Philiberta. All the same she looked a little indignant.

'Don't you think you would be more comfortable in a private house than in an hotel?' inquired the captain presently. 'Until you get over the effects of your voyage?'

'I think there's not a doubt of it,' replied Philiberta, 'but I do not know of one.'

'But I do,' said the captain; 'our steward's wife keeps a very comfortable lodging house up on the South Belt. If you will allow me I'll send you and your luggage right there as soon as the train lands us.'

'Thank you,' said Philiberta, gratefully. 'I am sure that is very kind of you.'

'O no, I've got girls of my own, you see, so I always look out and do what I can for other girls, especially when they look sick, as you do just now.'

'I feel sick,' said Philiberta, almost crying, for no other reason than that she was physically exhausted, and, through that felt lonely and easily touched by a kind word, 'I feel very sick and miserable.'

'Just so,' said the captain. 'But by to-morrow you will be as spry as a grasshopper, and won't know when you have had page 70enough to eat Oh, sea-sickness is a splendid thing for the constitution, if you only knew it. But if you don't like it, get a piece of strong calico next time you are going to sea and bind it tight round your body, and you will hardly ever feel a qualm.'

'How strange! I wish you had told me that before the voyage. Why don't you tell all your passengers, Captain?'

'My dear, it would take me all my time. And besides it wouldn't pay. The owners would give me the sack at once. Just consider the saving in stores when people don't eat a bit all the way—like you, for instance.'

'Well, that is one way of looking at it,' said Philiberta laughing, 'but it seems a little hard.'

'Not at all; not at all. Besides it is a real pleasure to have some passengers sick. It keeps them out of the way. There was one fellow on this trip began giving me lessons in navigation before ever we had quitted Sandridge wharf, dash his buttons! Do you think I'd tell such as he about the calico? No. Life would be bereft of half its pleasure to me if I couldn't hear critters of that stamp grunting and holloaing for lemons and soda-water. Here we are, and the streets looking all mud as usual. Devil of a place this Dunedin for mud. Sit still till I call a cab. Don't bother about anything, I'll see you safe to Mrs. Jonio's.'

And so the kind-hearted little gentleman did, thereby winning Philiberta's everlasting good-will and gratitude.