The Wonder-Child: An Australian Story

by Ethel Sybil Turner

  *CHAPTER II*

  *The Wonder-Child*

  'Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with His dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue, Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings.'

  Up to the last eight years Mr. Cameron's friends and relatives hadalways had their hands full with finding positions for him that wouldenable him to support his wife and family.

  Once or twice he was in receipt of five hundred a year, but much morefrequently he would be in a bank or an insurance company, starting witha modest salary of a hundred and twenty.

  Every one liked him cordially--they could not help it. But every onewas unfeignedly glad when one of the relatives made a great effort, and,by dint of interviewing Members of Parliament and getting a littleinfluence to bear here and a little there, worked him into the CivilService, the appointment being that of Crown Land Agent at Wilgandra,the salary two hundred and forty pounds, less ten pounds for theSuperannuation Fund.

  Wilgandra was so far away--three hundred and seventy-three miles back,back, away in the heart of the country--the very farthest town to whichthe Government sent its Land Agents. Surely the bad penny could neverturn up again to vex their peace!

  Even Mrs. Cameron's anxious soul was set at rest.

  The climate was intolerable in the summer, there was little or nosociety, the only house they could have was not over comfortable. Butthe work seemed smooth and easy, and after so many ups and downs thequiet security of the small hot township seemed delicious to her.

  It was not that Mr. Cameron drank or gambled, or possessed indeed anyhighly coloured sin. He was simply one of the impracticables, thedreamers, that the century has no room for.

  He had written verses that the weekly papers had accepted; indeed, a fewdaintily delicate things had found their way into the best Englishmagazines.

  He had painted pictures--a score of them, perhaps; the art societies hadaccepted three of them, refused nine, and never been even offered theremainder; no one had ever bought one of them.

  He had composed some melodies that a musical light passing throughSydney professed to be captivated with, had promised to have publishedin London, and had forgotten entirely.

  When they were unpacking their much-ravelled chattels the first night inWilgandra, James Cameron came to his great paint-box that the latefamily vicissitudes had prevented him touching for so long.

  'Ah,' he said, and a light of great pleasure came into his grey eyes ashe lifted it from the packing-case and rubbed the dust off it with hisgood cuff--'mine old familiar friend. Why, Molly darling, I shan't knowmyself with a brush in my hand again. With all the spare time therewill be here, I ought to do some good work at last.'

  Then his wife laid down the stack of little torn pinafores and patchedjackets and frocks she was lifting from another box, and crossed theroom and knelt down by her husband's side, just where he was kneelingbeside the rough packing-case that had held his treasure.

  'Dear one,' she said, 'dear one, Jim, Jim,'--one hand went round hisneck, her head, with its warm brown hair that the grey was threadingyears too soon, pressed against his shoulder, her face, old, young, sad,smiling, looked into his, her brave brown eyes held tears.

  'Why, little woman,' he said, 'what is it--what is troubling you?Smiling time has come again, Molly, the worries are all left behind withSydney.'

  'Jim,' she said, and her hand tightened on the paint-box he held, 'Jim,do you know we have five children, five of them, five?'

  'Well, girlie,' he said, and got up and sat down on the edge of the boxand drew her beside him, 'haven't we an income of two hundred and thirtypounds for them, a princely sum, when we are in a place where there isnothing to tempt us to buy? And we hardly left any debts behind us thistime.'

  'But, dearest, dearest,' she urged, 'if you get hold of this, we shallnot have it a year; you will get up in cloudland and forget to furnishyour returns or some such thing, and then you will be dismissed again.'

  'Ah, Molly,' he said, his face falling, 'always the gloomy side.Couldn't you have given me a night of happiness?'

  A stinging tear fell from the woman's eyes.

  'I couldn't, I couldn't,' she said; 'the danger made my heart grow sickagain. See, for I must be brutal, the time has come for it. _I_ loveyour ways, your dreams; no canvas you have touched, no song, no versesbut I have loved. But what have they done for us, what _have_ theydone?'

  The man's eyes, startled, followed her tragic finger that swept acircle. Outside he saw the sun-baked, weary little town that must seetheir days and years, inside the cramped room full of boxes that weredisgorging a pitiful array of shabby clothes and broken furniture; justat hand his wife, the woman he had taken to him, fresh and beautiful, tocrown his tenderest dream and turned into this thin, careworn,anxious-eyed creature.

  His face whitened. 'It is worse than drink!' he said.

  She acquiesced sadly.

  'Nothing else would make me take it from you,' she said, her wet eyesfalling again to the paint-box; 'and if it were you and I only againstthe world, you should have it all your days. But five children to getready for the world! Jim, my heart fails me!'

  He was trembling too. It was the first time he had felt a sense ofgenuine responsibility for his tribe since the time Hermie was put intohis arms, a babe three hours old. Then he had rushed away to insure hislife for five hundred pounds. He forgot, of course, to keep up thepolicy after the second month. Now his heart felt the weight of thewhole five, Hermie, Bartie and Challis, Roly and little Floss.

  He gave his wife a passionate kiss.

  'You are right,' he said, 'take it; I give it all up for ever, and beginfrom now to be a man.'

  Time went past, and the criss-cross lines on the mother's brow werefading, and the anxious outlook of the eyes seemed gone. She called up ahome around her where before had only been a house; the children weretaught; she even, by dint of hard economy, made it possible to send toSydney for the piano they had left as security for a debt.

  The friends in Sydney, two years gone by, began indeed to congratulatethemselves that Wilgandra had swallowed up for all time that troublesomeyet well-liked fellow Cameron, and his terrible family.

  Then the name began to crop up in the country news of the daily papers.Another wonder-child for Australia had been discovered, it seemed--acertain Challis Cameron, a mite of eight years who was creating muchexcitement in the township of Wilgandra.

  Presently from the larger towns near the paragraphs also were sent. Aconcert had been given in aid of the Church Fund, and a pleasingprogramme had been submitted. Among the contributors was a tiny child,Challis Cameron, whose wonderful playing fairly astonished the bigaudience.

  Before Mr. and Mrs. Cameron had quite waked up to the situation, anenthusiastic committee had been formed, a subscription list started andfilled, and a sum of sixty pounds thrust into their astonished hands,for the child to be taken to Sydney for lessons.

  Nowhere on the earth's surface is there a a land where the people are soeager to recognise musical talent, so generous to help it, as inAustralia.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cameron looked at each other when they were left alone, alittle dismay mingled with their natural pride. And from each otherthey looked to the paddock beside their house where all the childrenwere playing. This especial child was unconcernedly filling up herdoll's tea-cups with a particularly delightful kind of red mud, and thenturning out the little shapes and calling Bartie to come and look at her'jellies.'

  Talent they had always known she had, but hardly thought it was anythingmuch above that of any child very fond of music. As a baby she hadcried at discords; at three years old she used to stand at the end ofthe piano and make quite pretty little tunes with one hand in thetreble, while Bartie thumped sticky discords in the bass. At four sheused to stand beside Hermie, whom her mother was teaching regularly, andin five minutes understood what it t
ook her sister an hour to learnimperfectly. At four, too, her head hidden in the sofa-cushion, shecould call out the names of not only single notes but chords also, asHermie struck them. So her mother undertook her tuition too, and in twoyears these paragraphs were appearing in the papers.

  But to go away with her and stay in Sydney while masters there heard herand taught her! What was to become of the other four, and the husbandwho needed his wife so much?

  'I am afraid we must send her to a boarding-school there,' she faltered.'How can I leave the home?'

  But later the child came and stood at her knee; a tall, thin, littlechild she was, with fair fine hair that fell curlless down her back, andin her eyes that touch of grey that makes hazel eyes wonderful.

  The face was delicately cut, the skin clear and pale; only when the pinkran into it was she pretty.

  'I made another song, mamma,' she whispered.

  The dying light of the long still day was in the room, very far away insome one's fig-trees the locusts hummed, a sprinkle of sweet rain hadfallen, the first for months, and the delicate scent of it came throughthe window.

  'What is it, darling?' whispered the mother.

  The child's eyes grew larger, she swayed her tiny body to and fro.

  'Oh, the roses, the roses and the shivery grass! Oh, the sea! Oh, thelittle waves running on the sand! Oh, the wind, blowing the littleroses till they die! Oh, the pink roses crying, crying! Oh, the sea!Oh, the waves of the crying sea!'

  The mother's arm went round the little body, down into the depths ofthose eyes she looked, those eyes with their serious brown and greylights mingling, and for one clear moment there looked back at her thestrange little child-soul that dwelt there.

  Out at the door there was a clamour, Roly demanding bread-and-jam. Fromthe paddock came a sudden gust of quarrelling, the next-door children,with Hermie, shrill-voiced, arbitrating. Probably down in the streetBartie was fighting any or all of the boys who passed.

  'Dear heart!' ran the woman's thoughts. 'My days are too crowded to tendthis little soul. Better that she too asked bread-and-jam of me.'

  'Play it for me, mother,' said the child, and plucked at her hand. 'Ican't; I have tried and tried, and the sea won't cry, only the roses.'

  'Nonsense, nonsense!' said the troubled mother; 'run and play tillbedtime. Play chasings with Roly and Floss, or be Bartie's horse. Haveyou forgotten the reins I made him?'

  The child seemed to shrink into her shell instantly.

  'I will get the reins,' she said nervously, obediently.

  Into the midnight they talked, the father and mother; and all they couldsay was, this was no child to hand over to a boarding school orstrangers.

  Wilgandra and the towns around grew clamorous. They grudged everymoment that the child was not being taught, and having contributed solidcoin of the realm for her education, they were vexed at theshilly-shallying in using it.

  So to Sydney the mother went, half fearfully, Challis and a modest trunkbeside her in a second-class carriage.

  'We shall be back in a month at most,' she called out for the twentiethtime reassuringly to her family seeing the train off.

  But Sydney seemed in league with Wilgandra. Without a doubt, it said,the most wonderful child performer ever heard. It wiped its eyes at herconcerts, when the manager had to get thick music-books to make her seathigh enough; it stood up and raved with excitement, when she stepped offthe stool at the end of her performances and rushed off the stage, tobury her excited little face on her mother's breast.

  Without a doubt, it said, with its peculiar distrust for the things ofits own, here was no child to be confined to Sydney teachers; itinsisted she must have the best to be had in the world, and thrust itshands recklessly into its pockets.

  Mrs. Cameron at the end of six months went back to Wilgandra, theanxious outlook in her eyes again, and five hundred pounds in herpocket, the result of concerts and subscriptions given for the purposeof sending the child to Germany.

  And now what to do?

  The small house at Wilgandra seemed going along very steadily; Mr.Cameron had not once failed to furnish the reports due from him to theGovernment. The lady-help selected by the mother had the house and thechildren and the father in a state of immaculate order. She was amagnificently capable, managing woman; every one, Mr. Cameronespecially, stood much in awe of her, and unquestioningly obeyed hersmallest mandate; even Roly, unbidden, performed magnificent ablutionsbefore he presented himself for a meal, and Hermie was often to be seensurreptitiously trying to mend her own pinafores in the paddock.

  Mrs. Cameron could not but confess her place was not crying out for herto the extent she had imagined; indeed, the wonderful lady-help, MissMacintosh, seemed to have brought the home into a far better state oforder and discipline than even she, the mother, had been able to do.Little Floss was a healthy and most independent babe of two; Roly, threeyears old, was a sturdy mannikin who stared at her stolidly when, herheart full of tears, she stooped over him and asked, did he want her togo away again?

  'Mamma mustn't go away in a big ship, must she, sweetheart? You can'tdo without her again, can you?' she said.

  But Roly was a sea-serpent swimming on the dining-room floor, and theinterruption irritated him.

  'Yes,' he assented, with swift cheerfulness, 'mamma go in big ship.Good-bye, good-bye!'--and he waved an impatient hand to get rid of her.

  Hermie and Bartie had just started to a good private school near athand, and the teaching--all honour to the mistress!--was of so skilfuland delightful a nature that the two could hardly summon patience towait for breakfast ere they set out for the happy place. So Challis'sclaims tugged hard.

  'But you--what of you, my husband?' she said. 'You cannot spare me; itis absurd for you to even think of it!'

  But he was excited and greatly moved at the thought of his child'sgenius. Deep down, in his heart was the knowledge that had he himselfbeen given a chance he could have made a name for himself in this world.But there was always uncongenial work for him, always something else tobe done, 'never the time and the place and the loved one all together.'

  'Let us give her her chance,' he said. 'It is early morning with her.Don't let ours be the hands to block her, so that when evening comes shecan only stand wistful.'

  So they sailed away, the mother and the wonder-child; behind them theplain little home, before, the Palaces of Music.