Brian Penton

by Inheritors (v1. 0) (lit)

  They were at the gate of Flanagan's house. Peppiott held on to James's hand and bent over it to dribble a few more drops of oil on to its palm.

  “James, old fellow, let a disinterested well-wisher advise. Beware of this specious affability of Flanagan's. All he is after is your father's money.”

  “I'm much obliged, sir. Thank you, sir,” James stammered, tugging at his hand. It slipped out of Peppiott's fingers as though it were now too greasy to hold, and James stumbled backwards off the step of the runabout. Angrily he wiped his hand on his trousers as he hurried through the gates. Was the whole world in league with his father to thwart and torment him? Well, Flanagan wasn't anyhow—that much he extracted from Peppiott's speech. Flanagan was his father's enemy, Peppiott said. Encouraged a little he went briskly up the drive. As he stepped on to the veranda the French lights opened, letting out a clamour of voices and laughter and glasses tinkling, and Flanagan, a paunchy, bouncing man, emerged. “I see ye come up the garden,” he said. “My, it's a treat to set eyes on ye again.”

  James looked at him anxiously, but before he could speak Flanagan whisked him off the veranda into the room where a number of other paunchy men were standing about a table of drinks.

  “Gentlemen,” Flanagan said, pushing him forward, “meet a young fellah ye're going to hear a lot more about one of these days, Mister Jimmy Cabell. Old Cabell's son.”

  They welcomed James with lusty handshakes, backslaps, and words of congratulation for he knew not what. A few names he recognized—Fleck, a member of the Cabinet, Grose, a banker, Carney, a rich squatter, and one of the Dennis brothers, who were said to own half the land on which Brisbane was built. Again he was irritated. They were TOO friendly. “Cabell's son, eh?” they said, and he scowled and mumbled. The power of his father's ego seemed to extend even here, crossing and dwarfing his. He was relieved when they took themselves off and left him alone with Flanagan.

  Flanagan pulled a chair into the open doorway and pressed him into it. “I know it isn't me ye've come to see,” he said, patting James's cheek affectionately, “but ye can spare an old friend a minute, now can't ye?”

  “As a matter of fact. . .” James began and stopped. Thinking of what Peppiott had said he looked at Flanagan doubtfully, trying to estimate what lay behind the soft, beguiling brogue and pink fat. But whatever it was beside sheer kindliness James's inexperienced eye could not discover. Obesity had long erased everything except an expression of complacent affability from Flanagan's face. The fat was like a vast bed of quicksands into which he was rapidly sinking. It had engulfed all but the tip of his nose, a glint of his eyes, a signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. He panted desperately and clutched the arm of the chair as though making a last frantic effort to save himself from being swallowed up once and for all. Here was no sign of the greed and cunning Peppiott had warned him against. His father was greedy and cunning—you could see that at a glance: he looked like a weather-beaten, hungry hawk. But these blue eyes expressed only a pathetic eagerness to be friendly. James thought so anyway. “I did come to see you,” he said, rubbing his hands nervously on his knees. “You see—I. . .”

  “Out with it,” Flanagan said. “I'm your friend. Ye know that, Jimmy. It's a rumpus with your da, eh?”

  “Yes, that's it.”

  “I thought as much. He's a quick-tempered man, too. Who knows if I don't. But what's he at ye about?”

  “It's about—everything. First he wants me to be a mining engineer and I don't want to. I don't like mines. I'd rather do what you suggested.”

  “Ye told him that?” Flanagan paused in lighting a cigar and watched James over the match.

  “I tried to. But he wouldn't listen. He said I'd got to study. Oh, it's no use arguing. I just packed up and came here.”

  “Huh.” Flanagan jerked the match through the door and grunted noncommittally again. “Huh.”

  The sound curdled James's blood. “You told me you'd help me, Sir Michael—put me in the way of studying law and getting into politics. You will, won't you?”

  Flanagan put out a webbed hand and patted James's knee. “Sure, sure, Jimmy. Who would I help if it's not one that's not much short of being me own son.” He laughed, spreading about James a prosperous scent of whisky and cigar smoke. Then the laugh ceased abruptly, like a stage laugh, killing the half-born smile of relief on James's lips. “But now let us get at the rights of the business. Ye've cleared out, ye say? Have ye done it on your own bat or did he kick you out?”

  “Oh, no, I just came straight here to see you because I knew you'd. . .”

  “Of course.” Flanagan wriggled forward on his chair and made a strenuous effort to force himself to the surface of his fat. A faint smile emerged and sank again immediately. “But ye'll understand, Jimmy, I didn't have no idea your da was all that set on making an engineer out of ye, and I wouldn't like to be coming in between a young man and his da. Now. . .” He waved James's protests aside, “Listen to me—an old man with no axe to grind. It's no use going against that fellah. Ye'll get the worse of it. If it's an engineer he wants ye to be, an engineer ye'd better be or by the Holy he'll cut ye off without a shilling.”

  “But I don't want a shilling from him,” James said. “That's why I've come to you. I'm willing to work hard. I'll study and become a lawyer some day and then—perhaps—I'm young yet—but in a few years' time—oh, you know I'd like to marry Jennis, sir.”

  “Sure, I know it—and mighty proud of it too. She's head over heels, she is, ye lucky young scamp.” He kicked playfully at James, but became serious and confidential again at once. “Still and all, Jimmy, I been thinking about that law business and politics. It's a dirty game. What's more, it would eat up a wad of your time studying, whereas what's the prospects in the mine business? A couple more years in Sydney and ye're well enough off to marry and yer own boss.”

  “My own boss!”

  “Come now,” Flanagan said shyly, “we aren't going to live much longer, us old'uns. Your da's had a hard life of it. Come the day ye'll be a big man up there—and down here too—and that right soon. It's worth waiting.”

  In his exasperation James pounded the arm of the chair. “But can't you understand, Sir Michael? It's not the mine. It's everything. He wants it all. He treats me like a paid hand. He only wants to use me for his own purposes. And he won't let me marry Jennis. And—and he'll never die.” “Did he tell ye that—about Jennis?”

  James nodded.

  Flanagan let go the arms of the chair and flopped backwards, as though abandoning himself at last to the treacherous swamp of pink, perspiring flesh. It closed slowly over his mouth and eyes. He sighed. James watched him, hopefully at first, and as the seconds lengthened into minutes with increasing irritation. It seemed incredible that such massive inertia could persist against the cry of his urgent needs. He shuffled his feet.

  Flanagan opened one eye at last. “Oh, he'll get over that,” he said. “I'll be seeing him. I've got propositions that'll interest him more than keeping up a bit of a quarrel. Just ye take a pull on your patience.”

  “It's not a matter of patience,” James said. “He'll never listen to reason. If I have to give into him about this I'll have to give into him about Jennis too. He'll just make a packhorse out of me.”

  Flanagan shook his head. “Now, Jimmy, my boy, it's not right to be talking about your da that way. He's tough, I grant ye, but he's your da.” The tone of his voice, the words so much like Peppiott's, struck James's heart cold. “They're all against me—they're all frightened of him,” he thought.

  Flanagan considered him. “I see just what ye're thinking now, Jimmy—what a friend I turned out to be, eh? I've never been thinking better of your interests if you want to know. Ye can't turn your back on money—least of all in these parts. It'll buy ye anything mortal. And while I'm on that,” he pulled himself gasping to the edge of his chair again and leant forward, “be careful of that Peppiott gang. They're a twofaced lot. Pretending to be yo
ur friends and thinking of nothing but how they can use ye to go crawling to your old man.” He nodded shrewdly. “Peppiott done some things perhaps your father never heard of. Ye'll be wise to give 'em a wide berth.”

  “I suppose they're after my father's money,” James said bitterly. Flanagan slapped his knee. “Got it in one.”

  “Not in one,” James said. “It took me a long time to find out how important my father's money made me.” He jumped up, his lips quivering at the corners, and took his hat from the table.

  Flanagan's knowing blue eye took in everything. He rose slowly and put his arm round James's shoulder. “We won't say nothing more about it for the time being, my boy. But ye'll understand and thank me some day. Now ye just run along and say how-d'ye-do to Jennis. I bet she's been sitting on pins and needles up there waiting for us to stop talking this nonsense we call business.”

  Chapter Two: Shows Them

  Jennis was in the drawing-room upstairs.

  Lolling back on the sofa in a sensuous liquefaction of bones she gazed down at the garden and fanned herself. Her blue eyes were lost in a daydream which held them wide and wondering, parted her full lips, and stirred her body with sad little sighs. Sometimes she almost stopped breathing for a few seconds and the pupils of her eyes would dilate and the tip of her red tongue come out between her lips. Suddenly a mighty, shuddering breath swelled her heavy breasts through swathes of petticoat and starched piqué, and she glanced round discontentedly at the halffinished water-colour on the easel before her, the half-finished crochetwork on the head of the sofa, the book open on her lap, and the clock eating its way through the day with such aggravating unhurry. She pouted then and sank back into the cushions, soon to be absorbed again in visions that moved to and fro in the cool shadow of the bamboos. The scent of the frangipanni, the pulsing waves of heat, like an excited breath on her cheek, the brown arms of the gardener, and the glittering thrust of his scythe in the grass wove through these dim fancies, which relaxed her body and thrilled it with a pleasant sense of expectation.

  The sound of a step on the stairs made her start guiltily. She looked around and saw James coming down the passage, brushed the creases out of her dress, patted the heavy pile of her blonde hair, and through the corner of her eyes, while apparently gazing at her hands folded in her lap, watched him enter.

  “Jennis!” He hurried across the room and took her hand and kissed it. “I thought I'd never get to you.”

  “Jimmy!” She uttered a little, high cry which, coming from such a strong bosom, gave James the delicious feeling that she was quite overcome with passion at the sight of him. The stiffness liquefied out of her bones again and her lips came damply apart and her hand seemed to melt between his. He clung to it, amazed by the softness of its flesh, which lay heavily in his palm, firing, confusing, and slightly terrifying him with its complete acquiescence. Before he could check himself he was filling it with kisses, bending it over his mouth, and hungrily breathing its faint odour of her body.

  Sunk in the cushions she watched him with eyes expressionless, almost stupid, as though his mouth had drawn all her life into her hand. Occasionally she uttered another of her faint, expiring cries which sounded like “Don't,” or “Oh,” but did not try to take her hand away. “Jennis, I love you terribly,” James said. “I won't give you up. I want to marry you. And you want to marry me, too, don't you? Jennis! Don't you?”

  He had to call her twice before he saw a glint of consciousness return to her eyes, which wandered vaguely over his face as she licked her lips and whispered, “Yes, of course.”

  Now that he saw her again, her white neck, the thick, silky loops of hair, the swell of her breast, heard her voice, so gentle and shy, felt in the unresisting tenderness of her hand the assurance that all this loveliness wanted to be his, the worries of the last few weeks dissolved in a flash. That he had ever for a single moment thought of allowing his father to bully him out of marrying Jennis seemed unbelievable. Would he cut his throat if his father said so? And to lose Jennis would be worse than cutting his throat.

  Yes, he decided, in a burst of courage and optimism, Harriet was right. He must make a life for himself, and since nobody seemed ready to help him he must go out in the bush and carve a place of his own.

  “But would you leave here—all this. . .?” He glanced round the room, overfurnished with carpets and tapestries and gloomy pictures in gilt frames and hundreds of dusty odds and ends in mammoth cabinets. “Would you be able to live in the bush with me? On a station?” He watched her anxiously as she roused from the delicious hypnosis of having her hand fondled and crushed between his hard fingers.

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “But the bush! No theatres. No dances. Nothing. Perhaps for years.”

  “I like being in the bush. We always go to Penine Downs in winter. It's nice.”

  “That's not the bush. It's no different from being here. You've got servants and everything, just the same as here.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But what if there weren't any servants?”

  She was puzzled, but gave up trying to understand, and wriggled her hand in his to remind him that it was waiting to be kissed.

  He turned the palm up and looked at it. The thought that it was like a white, soft body lying there waiting for him to take it made his cheeks burn. “It's so soft,” he said. “Could it learn to cook and scrub and. . .”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Oh, you don't understand. I might have to start at the bottom like my father did.”

  “But Grandpa says that you'll have a lot of money. He says your papa will be one of the richest men in Australia.”

  “Yes, but. . .” James was stumped for words to explain the incredible fact that his father did not want him to marry her. “Look, Jennis, suppose I had a row with my father and he wouldn't give me any money—would you run away and marry me and live out in the west?”

  The look in his face alarmed her. She stiffened her back and withdrew her hand. “Run away? Oh!”

  “I'd soon make money for you,” James said quickly. “I'd soon be rich. You'd have everything—servants and all. I'd be a thousand times richer than him.”

  His eagerness, burning in his eyes, sent pleasant little shivers through her. She looked at him admiringly. “Oh, would you?”

  “You bet I would. I'd do anything for you. I'd go through anything.”

  “Oh!” She gave him her hand again and abandoned herself to the pleasure of his mouth nuzzling her sensitive palm.

  “You wouldn't give me up? No matter what happened?”

  For her it was almost impossible to imagine that anything could happen except the dull, repetitive march of days swirling harmlessly past the serene tower in which she dreamed vaguely and excitingly of a young man filling her hand with kisses. “No, of course not.”

  “And you'd marry me—even if everybody tried to stop you?”

  “Of course.” But why did he waste so much time talking?

  A carriage crunched up the drive and they heard a minute later her mother's agitated step climbing the stairs. He planted a last kiss in her palm before they moved apart, just in time. Mrs Bowen burst in on them, red in the face, out of breath, and plainly very angry.

  “So you ARE here?” she said to James, who jumped to his feet and bowed awkwardly.

  “I just dropped in. Sir Michael said I might.”

  “Sir Michael!” She snorted and looked around. “Where's that fool Griswell?” she demanded. “Jennis!”

  Jennis stirred and looked around too. “Oh, Griswell. I don't know. Perhaps she went shopping.”

  “You sent her.”

  “No, Mother.”

  “You did. Don't deny it. You sent her out so you could sit here and compromise yourself with this young man—you deceitful little hussy you. In front of EVERYBODY. Making a public scandal of yourself. The talk of the town—that's what you are.”

  She slammed the door and rushed be
tween them—a plump little middle-aged woman with blinking, myopic, blue eyes, Flanagan's button nose, a kind, fat face, a collection of innumerable trinkets, chains, cameos, and brooches flashing and tinkling to the rise and fall of her enormous bosom, and the distracted air of one who thinks she is being left behind in the rush of events and generally ends by being well ahead of them. She lived in a perpetual itchy awareness of cabals and whisperings, plots, counter-plots, factions, and social mines, which excited her to such frenzied plotting on her own account that she usually managed to create the scandal she suspected and feared. Her grand delusion was her shrewdness and discretion, for she was really as indiscreet and innocent as a child.

  True, there was plotting and whispering enough to appal the stoutest and purest heart in the little hierarchy of wealthy squatters and citizens who had become the leaders of society since the early days. The virtues of yesterday, when the wild, empty country had yielded itself only to the strong, were the skeletons in the cupboards of to-day. Out of the wealth which the tough and sometimes dishonest pioneers had got together the social graces were beginning to blossom. It was just one of life's little ironies that those who had the best means to cut a figure had also, very often, the least presentable of historical backgrounds to strut against, which made them no less anxious to strut.

  With the past so painfully recent, with the gaunt pioneers, more than ever appalling in their old age, still haunting the scene, the skirmishes of social life in a little community were bitter. Money plus a clean history, with a titled second cousin somewhere in England, was unassailable. But some had money and convict ancestors, and others had money and no convict ancestors but were drunkards, or had broods of half-caste children on the escutcheon, or were reputed cattle-duffers, or had been indicted for selling sly grog on their runs, or had illiterate or low-born fathers or mothers at the roots of the family tree. All such drawbacks were eagerly canvassed and thrashed out and magnified over bars and tea-tables, as they would be for another generation till time and intermarriage had effaced the harsh outlines of the landtakers' ambiguous lives, of which only the effect would survive in stringent libel laws, a submerged sense of shame and inferiority, and an anxious abasement to all forms of gentility that would amount almost to a national disease. James, who lived in constant dread of disclosures about his father, felt his legs go weak when Mrs Bowen began to use such words as “scandal,” and “the talk of the town,” which were the currency of his nightmares. He took a few steps towards the door and said, “I'd better be going. I only dropped in for a minute.”