‘Where are we going?’
The little girls’ voices were imperious, if frail.
Several boys left off torturing one another and ran in the wake of the girls, demanding a dénouement.
‘We are going to build a temple,’ Belle called.
Blood will veil blushes. Besides, she was very young herself.
‘Anyone would think that Belle was twelve,’ complained Una Pringle, who arranged the flowers most mornings for her mother.
‘What temple?’ some screamed.
Boys were pressing.
‘Of a goddess.’
‘What goddess?’
Sand flew.
‘We shall have to decide,’ Belle called over her shoulder.
A great train of worshippers was now ploughing the sand, making it spurt up, and sigh. Some of the boys tossed their caps in the air as they ran, and allowed them to plump gaily upon the golden mattress of the beach.
‘Belle has gone mad,’ said Willie Pringle, with dubious approval.
Matters had been taken out of his hands. This was usually the case. Trailing after Belle’s votaries, he stopped to touch periwinkles and taste the shining scales of salt, and although he had not yet learnt to resign himself to his nature and his lot, his senses did atone in very considerable measure for his temporary discontent.
At least, the men talking upon the rocks were no longer paramount. This was clear. Something had been cut, Una and Laura both knew, whether the German did or not; in any event, the latter was himself a man.
Men are certainly necessary, but are they not also, perhaps, tedious? Una Pringle debated.
Una and Laura began to extricate themselves.
‘Woburn McAllister, the one who has been telling about the worms, is the owner of a property that many people consider the most valuable in New South Wales,’ Una remembered, and cheered up. ‘He must, by all accounts, be exceedingly rich.’
‘Oh,’ said Laura.
Sometimes her chin would take refuge in her neck; it could not sink low enough, or so it felt.
‘In addition to his property, Woburn Park, he has an interest in a place in New England. His parents, poor boy,’ continued Una, as she had been taught, ‘both died while he was a baby, so that his expectations were exchanged for a considerable fortune right at the beginning. And there are still several uncles, either childless or bachelors. With all of whom, Woburn is on excellent terms.’
Laura listened to Voss’s feet following her shame in soft, sighing sand. Una did look round once, but only saw that German, who was of no consequence.
‘And such a fine fellow. Quite unspoilt,’ said Una, who had listened a lot. ‘Of excellent disposition.’
‘I cannot bear so much excellence,’ Laura begged.
‘Why, Laura, how funny you are,’ said Una.
But she did blush a little, before remembering that Laura was peculiar. There is nothing more odious than reserve, and Una knew very little of her friend. But for the fact that they were both girls, they would have been in every way dissimilar. Una realized that she always had disliked Laura, and would, she did not doubt, persist in that dislike, although there was every reason to believe they would remain friends.
‘You take it upon yourself to despise what is praiseworthy in order to appear different,’ protested the nettled Una. ‘I have noticed this before in people who are clever.’
‘Oh dear, you have humbled me,’ Laura Trevelyan answered simply.
‘But Miss Pringle is right to admire such an excellent marriage party as Mr McAllister,’ contributed Voss, drawing level.
Shock caused the two girls to drop their personal difference.
‘I was not thinking of him as exactly that,’ Una declared.
Although, in fact, she had been. Lies were not lies, however, if told in the defence of honour.
‘Still,’ she added, ‘one cannot help but wonder who will get him.’
‘Quite right,’ agreed Voss. ‘Mr McAllister is obviously one of the corner-stones.’
He was kicking the sand as he walked, so that it flew in spurts of blue-whiteness before becoming wind.
‘I have passed through that property,’ he said. ‘I have seen his house. It will resist time indefinitely, as well as many of the insect pests.’
Una had begun to glow.
‘Have you been inside?’ she asked. ‘Have you seen the furniture? It is said to be magnificent.’
Laura could not determine the exact reason for her own sadness. She was consumed by the intense longing of the waves. The forms of burnt rock and scraggy pine were sharpening unbearably. Her shoulders felt narrow.
‘I would not want,’ she began.
The disappearing sand that spurted up from Voss’s feet did fascinate.
‘What?’ Una asked severely.
‘I would not want marriage with stone.’
Una’s laugh was thin.
Though what she did want, Laura did not know, only that she did. She was pursued by a most lamentable, because so unreasonable, discontent.
‘You would prefer sand?’ Voss asked.
He stooped and picked up a handful, which he threw, so that it glittered, and some of it stung their faces.
Voss, too, was laughing.
‘Almost,’ said Laura, bitterly now.
She was the third to laugh, and it seemed with such freedom that she was no longer attached to anyone.
‘You will regret it,’ laughed Voss, ‘when it has all blown.’
Una Pringle began to feel that the conversation was eluding her, so that she was quite glad when the solid form of her mother appeared on the edge of the scrub, ostensibly calling for added assistance with cups and things.
This left Voss and Laura to follow vaguely. It was not exactly clear what they should do, only that they were suddenly faced with a great gap to fill, of space, and time. Peculiarly enough, neither of them was appalled by the prospect, as both might have been earlier that afternoon. Words, silences, and sea air had worked upon them subtly, until they had undergone a change.
Walking with their heads agreeably bowed beneath the sunlight, they listened to each other’s presence, and became aware that they were possibly more alike than any other two people at the Pringles’ picnic.
‘Happy is the assured Miss Pringle,’ Voss was then saying, ‘in her material future, in her stone house.’
‘I am not unhappy,’ Laura Trevelyan replied, ‘at least, never for long, although it is far from clear what my future is to be.’
‘Your future is what you will make it. Future,’ said Voss, ‘is will.’
‘Oh, I have the will,’ said Laura quickly. ‘But I have not yet grasped in what way I am to use it.’
‘This is something which perhaps comes later to a woman,’ said Voss.
Of course, he could be quite insufferable, she saw, but she could put up with it. The light was gilding them.
‘Possibly,’ she said.
Actually, Laura Trevelyan believed distinction between the sexes to be less than was usually made, but as she had remained in complete isolation of ideas, she had never dared speak her thoughts.
It was so calm now that they had rounded a buttress of rock. The trees were leaning out towards them with slender needles of dead green. Both the man and the woman were lulled into living inwardly, without shame, or need for protection.
‘This expedition, Mr Voss,’ said Laura Trevelyan suddenly, ‘this expedition of yours is pure will.’
She turned upon him an expression of such limpid earnestness that, in any other circumstances, he would have been surprised.
‘Not entirely,’ he said. ‘I will be under restraint by several human beings, to say nothing of the animals and practical impedimenta my patrons consider necessary.’
‘It would be better,’ he added abruptly, ‘that I should go barefoot, and alone. I know. But it is useless to try to convey to others the extent of that knowledge.’
He was grinning in a way which
made his face most irregular, leaner. His lips were thin and cracked before the season of thirst had set in, and there was a tooth missing at one side. Altogether, he was unconvincing.
‘You are not going to allow your will to destroy you,’ she said rather than asked.
Now she was very strong. For a moment he was grateful, though he would not have thanked. He sensed how she would have taken his head, and laid it against her breast, and held it with firm hands. But he had never allowed himself the luxury of other people’s strength, preferring the illusion of his own.
‘Your interest is touching, Miss Trevelyan,’ he laughed. ‘I shall appreciate it in many desert places.’
He was trying to bring her down.
But she had crossed her fingers against the Devil.
‘I do not believe in your gratitude,’ she said wryly; ‘just as I do not believe that I fully understand you. But I will.’
As they continued to walk beneath the black branches of the trees, the man and woman were of equal stature, it seemed, and on approaching the spot at which the most solemn rites of the picnic were in the course of being celebrated, in the little clearing, with its smell of boiling water and burnt sticks, its jolly faces and acceptable opinions, the expression of the two late arrivals suggested that they shared some guilty secret of personality. Only, nobody noticed.
The men, who had climbed up from the rocks by a less circuitous way, were herding together. Pressed by Mrs Pringle herself, a governess, and two children’s nurses, everybody was busy eating. Little boys were holding chops over the coals on sticks specially sharpened by the coachmen, so that an incense of green bark mingled with the odour of sacrificial fat. Girls blew on hot tea, and dreamily watched circles widen. Ladies, suffering the occasion on carpet stools that had been brought out and set amongst the tussocks, were nibbling at thin sandwiches and controlling their shawls.
Now it could have been noticed that the German fellow was still standing at the side of Laura Trevelyan, no longer for protection, rather, one would have said, in possession. He was lording it, and it was by no means disagreeable to the girl, who accepted food without, however, looking up.
Only once she did look down, upon his wrist, where the cuff cut into it, pressing the little dark hairs.
‘As I was saying, a slight domestic upheaval,’ confided Mrs Bonner, made more mysterious by the passes of her recalcitrant shawl. ‘More than slight, perhaps. Time will decide. Rose Portion has given us cause for anxiety.’
‘Oh, dear,’ groaned Mrs Pringle, as if she were suffering internally.
And waited.
Mrs Bonner caught the shawl.
‘I am in honour bound, Mrs Pringle, not to go into details.’
But she would, of course.
Both ladies nursed this prospect deliciously on their unreliable stools.
Then Laura Trevelyan saw Rose standing in her brown dress, her knuckles pressed tight together. The harelip was fearful.
‘No, thank you, Mr Voss,’ Laura said. ‘Not another crumb.’
And with that decision, she moved, so that she was standing somewhere else, protected by smeary children.
‘Look, Laura,’ said Jessie Pringle, ‘how I have polished the bone of my chop.’
‘She is a dog,’ said Ernest.
Then there were blows.
Laura was glad of the opportunity to act, and was at once separating, admonishing, soothing, with the tact and firmness expected of her. She was saying:
‘Now, Jessie, there is no need to cry. Look. Wash your fingers in this tin of warm water, and dry them on your handkerchief. There. Everybody knew you to be a sensible girl.’
But Rose Portion was bringing hot water in the little brass can, which she wrapped in a towel, as if it had been precious, and left in the basin of the washing-stand. Rose Portion took the brush and brushed Laura’s hair, holding it in one long switch, brushing it out and down, in long sweeps. Sometimes the back of the brush thumped on Rose’s big breasts, as she brushed monotonously on.
Laura Trevelyan looked. It was impossible not to see the German where he was standing in the grey scrub, his dry lips the moister for butter, fuller in that light. The light was tangling with his coarse beard.
Ah, miss, said Jack Slipper, you have come out for a breather, well, the breeze has got up, can you hear it in the leaves? Whatever the source of the friction of the bamboos, it usually sounded cooler in their thicket. But in summer there were also the murmurous voices of insects, and often of men and women, which would create a breathlessness in that corner of the garden. Full moonlight failed to illuminate its secrets. There was a hot, black smell of rotting. The silver flags, breaking, and flying on high, almost escaping from their lacquered masts, were brought back continually by the mysterious ganglion of dark roots.
‘Come now, Laura,’ said Mrs Pringle, ‘many hands make light work. There are all these things to collect. We shall be late, as it is, for the children’s baths,’ she added, consulting a small watch in blue enamel suspended from her person by a little chain.
Laura Trevelyan had held back, dreaming, in her moss-green jacket. She was rather pale. Little points of perspiration glittered on her forehead, at the roots of her hair. In less oblivious company, her shame might have become exposed. As it was, she received Mrs Pringle’s suggestion with relief. She began to help Miss Abbey, the governess, to gather forks into bundles, scrape plates, wrap remainders. In this way she was able to avoid actual sight of the German, even if her mind’s eye dwelt on the masculine shape of his lips, and his wiry wrist with the little hairs. By moving still faster, she could perhaps destroy these impressions. So she did, in a fury of competence. He was terribly repulsive to her.
And the journey home was even more oppressive than the journey out, for Uncle had been added to those already in the enclosed carriage. He was all jokes, now that he need not be ashamed of Voss. He loved the German when he could openly admire the purpose for which the latter had been bought. He would tap his protégé on the knee, both to emphasize ownership, and to assist language.
But Voss grunted, and looked sideways out of the window. They were all tired of one another, all except Mr Bonner, one of those fleshy men who never for a moment suffer the loss of a dimension.
When they reached that place where the road turned into Potts Point, Voss at once edged forward, and said:
‘I will alight here, if you please.’
‘No, no, Voss,’ Mr Bonner protested, with that congestion of enthusiasm which suggests a throttling. ‘Stay with us till we reach the house. Then Jim will drive you to your lodgings.’
Regrettably, his kind offer sounded something like a command.
‘It is unnecessary,’ said Voss, wrestling with the wretched carriage door.
The sash was against him. He was tearing his nails.
Mrs Bonner began to make some sound that vaguely signified distress.
‘If you halt the carriage, I will descend here,’ repeated Voss, from the region of his knotted throat.
He was desperate to escape from that carriage.
Then Mr Bonner, by shouting, perhaps even by oaths, did attract the attention of Jim Prentice on the box, and as the vehicle stopped, himself leaned forward to touch with a finger the door that delayed the German’s freedom.
The trapped crow stalked out. Although rusty and crumpled, he had triumphed, and the last blaze of evening light will help enlarge most objects to heroic proportions. The man would be ludicrous, Laura saw, if it were not for his arrogance; this just saves him, terrible though it is. His eyes were glittering with it in the mineral light of evening.
‘I thank you for the pleasant Ausflug,’ he began, but struck his hands together in frustration; ‘for the pleasant day, Mrs Bonner,’ he added.
He had not quite escaped. Round him, words continued to writhe.
Aunt Emmy was, of course, charmed, and formed her mouth into several appropriate shapes.
Uncle, who was under the impression that
foreigners understood only what was shouted at them, proceeded to mutter his views on a certain individual.
‘I will communicate with you, Mr Bonner,’ said Voss, looking in all other directions, ‘on any matter of importance. The time is now so short for me to impose upon your goodness.’
He was smiling slightly.
‘If I have been a burden.’
Everybody was astounded but Voss, who seemed to be enjoying himself. He was drinking down the evening air, as if no one could appreciate what he had suffered. Even his nostrils despised.
‘I thank you again,’ he said, completing some pattern of formality significant only to himself.
And did bow.
To himself, Laura saw.
All this queerness was naturally discussed as the carriage crunched onward, and the German, walking into the sunset, was burnt up. In the carriage three people were talking. Three held innocent opinions. The fourth was silent.
Laura did not speak, because she was ashamed. It was as if she had become personally involved. So the sensitive witness of some unfortunate incident will take the guilt upon himself, and feel the need to expiate it. So the young woman was stirring miserably in her stuffy corner, and would have choked, she felt, if they had not arrived, driving in sudden relief under the hollow-sounding portico. It was necessary, she knew, to humiliate herself in some way for the German’s arrogance. She could feel her nails biting her own pride.
Then Rose Portion, who had been waiting for them in the dusk, came out and opened the carriage door, and let down the little step for the masters’ feet.
4
FEW people of attainments take easily to a plan of self-improvement. Some discover very early their perfection cannot endure the insult. Others find their intellectual pleasure lies in the theory, not the practice. Only a few stubborn ones will blunder on, painfully, out of the luxuriant world of their pretensions into the desert of mortification and reward.
To this third category belonged Laura Trevelyan. She had been kept very carefully, put away like some object of which the precious nature is taken for granted. She had a clear skin, distinction, if unreliable beauty. Her clothes were soothing, rather moody, exactly suited to her person. No one in that household could write a more appropriate note on occasions of mourning, or others calling for tact, in that version of the Italian hand which courts the elegant while eschewing the showy. She was the literate member of the family, even frighteningly so, it seemed to the others, and more by instinct than from concentrated study. Not that the merchant had denied his girls the number of governesses requisite to their social position, and the French Mademoiselle, and the music master, it need not be added. The niece’s knowledge of the French tongue, modest, though sufficient, was terribly impressive to some, and on evenings when her aunt entertained, she would be persuaded to perform, with admirably light touch, one of the piano pieces of Mendelssohn or Field.
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