Over the Blue Mountains

by Mary Burchell

  “Darling, I’m not so insufferably smug, I hope, as to assume that I know what is good for your soul. But your family has been overwhelmed by unexpected disaster. I think in your place I should wish to share their first difficult months with them, rather than just get out. I’m sure when you think it over you will feel the same.”

  Juliet secretly thought Verity would have to do a great deal of thinking over before she arrived at that conclusion. But because her cousin had enough sense to make a virtue of necessity, she was smiling at Max now and murmuring, “I expect you’re right. But, anyway, go on. What were you going to suggest, apart from the idea that Andrew and I might work in Bathurst and the others bury themselves in some spot miles away from anywhere?”

  “Not quite as bad as that,” he assured her good-humoredly. “This place is on the edge of a small rural community and in a lovely part of the country. You can see clear away to the Blue Mountains from the front door. Not a bad place to spend the summer, at any rate. And you and Andrew could go home there for weekends.”

  “And Penelope keep house?” Verity looked doubtful.

  “No, no. Penelope would go to school in Bathurst, I imagine, and probably also come home at weekends.”

  “But, you aren’t seriously suggesting that mother would run such a place as you describe?”

  Max looked past her to where Juliet was sitting at her aunt’s desk, sorting out bills and receipts.

  “I understand that, for a time at any rate, Juliet would be willing to run the house.”

  “Juliet?” Verity looked without favor at her cousin. And then, as though she reluctantly saw certain advantages to the scheme, she added. “We-ll, it could be the solution for the time being, I suppose.”

  “It sounds a lovely place to me,” Juliet said, looking up. “And it would give everyone some time to look around and consider alternatives.”

  “And it would be right away from everyone who knows us.” Again Verity returned to the virtues of that.

  Max looked at her with a mixture of impatience and pity. “Dear child, you do complicate life with these little social snobberies,” he protested. “How can it matter—”

  “It’s not a question of social snobbery!” Verity spoke with sudden passion, and her genuine misery was so obvious that Juliet found it in her heart to feel sorry for her. “What do you expect me to do? I’m not trained for anything. The only thing I know much about is clothes. Do you expect me to serve in a shop, where girls I would hardly have known in the old days can come in and buy from me and patronize me?”

  “I’m sorry, darling.” Max put his arm around her. “I guess I spoke too easily of something I didn’t understand.” And I guess she made herself pretty mean to some of those girls in her time, and doesn’t expect much quarter now, thought Juliet shrewdly.

  But Verity was leaning her head against Max and smiling in the very attractive way she could when she liked.

  “I honestly don’t mind working hard.” She twisted a button thoughtfully on his coat. “Only—I’ll do it where I’m not known.”

  Rather to Juliet’s surprise, her uncle showed something of the same desire to get away from everyone and everything he knew.

  He was brought home from the nursing home about a week after Juliet’s arrival and, although he could walk feebly, leaning on someone’s arm, she was horrified to see how he had aged and his cheeks had fallen in.

  He was surprisingly and pathetically pleased to see her, but seemed to take her presence almost for granted. At any rate he made no inquiries after her own affairs. He just ran a thin, nervous hand over her arm and said, “You’re a good child to come. I’m glad you’re here. Though we shan’t be staying in Melbourne, of course.”

  “Where did you think of going, uncle?” asked Juliet, anxious to discover if he had any personal plans for the future.

  But he just shook his head impatiently and said, “Anywhere, anywhere—so long as we can get away somewhere where no one knows us.”

  Poor Aunt Katherine looked extremely doleful at this. She had by no means reached the point of wishing to bury herself alive, as she afterward put it to Juliet.

  “It’s all very well for him,” she said plaintively. “He’s a sick man and quite glad to have everything around him quiet. But I’m still reasonably young and lively. And not bad-looking,” she added, regarding her attractive reflection in the mirror.

  “You’re lovely,” Juliet assured her sincerely. “But I think it’s going to have to be a quiet summer for us all anyway. Could you bear to spend it in the country, auntie?” She had never used this form of address to her aunt before, but at this moment she felt dreadfully sorry for poor Aunt Katherine who had so few resources in herself and who just could not understand why this dreadful thing need have happened to her.

  Aunt Katherine glanced at Juliet suspiciously.

  “What part of the country?”

  Eagerly, and making the whole proposition sound as attractive as possible, Juliet explained about the house that Max would let them all have, and how Verity (she kept the question of Andrew for later) could work in Bathurst.

  “It’s very kind of Max, of course.” Aunt Katherine looked gloomy. “But, oh, I wish he’d suggested taking us all to his place outside Adelaide. It’s lovely there.”

  Juliet suggested as tactfully as possible that Max probably felt he could not marry the whole family, and that it would be expecting too much of him to suppose that he would provide for them all in his own home.

  “Well—I don’t know—” Aunt Katherine sucked her underlip discontentedly. “Anywhere, I suppose, is better than nowhere.” Even Aunt Katherine was becoming more realistic under the cruel pressure of events. “But I expect it’s all dreadfully primitive at this place you speak of.”

  “It didn’t sound so when Max described it. And it’s not more than about fifty miles from where his sister lives. And she’s a perfect darling, Aunt Katherine. You’ll love her.”

  “Well, I suppose fifty miles away means almost a next door neighbor in the outback.” Aunt Katherine looked even less enthusiastic. “Still, beggars can’t be choosers. And that’s more or less what we are now.”

  The only member of the family who showed active enthusiasm for the idea was Penelope, and she and Juliet discussed the whole thing at length.

  Penelope was the one with whom Juliet had found herself on terms at once. They talked the same language, laughed at the same jokes, were moved by the same events, and could much more easily have been sisters than cousins.

  Until Juliet’s coming, Penelope had been a rather solitary young creature, with little in common with her elder sister and nothing at all with her mother. She was devoted to her father, and his illness, far more than the financial disaster, weighed on her spirits heavily. But, once he was home and began to show even slow improvement, she was able to enjoy Juliet’s company and to take the utmost pleasure in showing her around the city.

  Spring came early that year, and by the first week in September the gardens and parks—and particularly the lovely Botanic Gardens—were a mass of spring flowers.

  “You couldn’t have seen Melbourne at a prettier time,” Penelope said, as they stood by the lake one cool, sunny afternoon, feeding pieces of bread to the black swans and looking out across the expanse of water to the dark green of the shrubberies and the sweet-smelling fern grottos beyond.

  “And I’ll never get over the joyous novelty of having two springs in one year,” Juliet added with a laugh. “I’m still trying to prepare my mind for the fact that it will be hot at Christmas.”

  “And how!” agreed Penelope feelingly. “How I’d love to see a snowy Christmas one day.”

  “Why, so you will,” Juliet declared with easy, irrepressible optimism. “I’ll work hard and make lots of money in the next few years, and when I go back home you shall come with me for a visit.”

  “Oh, Juliet, how wonderful! But don’t talk of going away yet.”

  Juliet laughed.


  “There’s no fear of my being able to for a long while,” she promised.

  “Unless you marry a very rich man,” said Penelope, who had evidently heard enough of this sort of thing from her mother and sister for it to color her conversation occasionally.

  “No sign of it at the moment,” Juliet replied easily.

  At other times they explored the streets and buildings of the city, and once she had worked out that the great shopping streets of Collins Street and Bourke Street ran parallel and were crossed at right angles by the almost equally busy Elizabeth and Swanston Streets, Juliet began to feel that she knew the general layout of the center of the city and could begin to find her way around.

  But fine though that part of the city was, she was fain to agree with Penelope that nothing could be more beautiful than the wide, tree-shaded expanse of the great boulevard known as St. Kilda Road, which ran almost from the coast into the heart of Melbourne.

  “Is it really as beautiful as some of the famous European streets?” Penelope asked, quivering with national pride.

  “I’m not an expert, Penelope, and my European travel is confined to a week once in Paris and a few days in Brussels,” Juliet confessed. “But I find it hard to believe that anything could be nobler or lovelier. There is something—something—” she searched for the word and then found it “—something absolutely royal about St. Kilida Road. I can just see the open carriages driving up here in the sunshine, and the flags flying and the people standing in the shade of these wonderful trees and cheering.”

  “Oh, Juliet, so can I when you describe it like that.” Penelope sucked in her breath admiringly.

  But happy though the two girls were in their explorations, and easy though it was to cast off their cares when they were out in the spring sunshine, the grim realities of the family position refused to be ignored for very long.

  Slowly the confused situation began to clear and the final picture that emerged was, if not strictly tragic, at least depressing enough for a family that had known not only comfort but luxury for most of their lives.

  By selling practically everything they possessed, it seemed that actual debt could be avoided, and Juliet was secretly glad to find that her uncle insisted on this being done with scrupulous honesty.

  Aunt Katherine pointed out plaintively that there were various ways of interpreting certain facets of the situation, and that if her husband would not be so overscrupulous they might save more from the wreck. But with one of his now rare displays of firmness, he said, “What I want to save from the wreck is our good name. Anything else can be built up again.”

  “Oh, father, don’t indulge in heroics!” Verity exclaimed impatiently. “You can’t warm your hands at a good name—or feed yourself on it, either.”

  “You can warm your heart at it,” Juliet exclaimed impulsively. “And you can feed your spirit on it, too.”

  And, although Verity muttered something about “nonsense,” Juliet saw her uncle’s thin, pale face brighten a little and he gave her an approving pat on the shoulder.

  “Well, while you’re all being so symbolic, what I would like to know is—where are we going to live, when this house and its contents are gone?” inquired Aunt Katherine rather crossly.

  “In the house that Max has so generously offered us, of course,” her husband replied. “I had a long talk with him about it this afternoon. I can’t help feeling that this offer of his has solved many of our immediate problems.”

  “If you call burying oneself alive a solution of any problem,” countered Aunt Katherine, fretfully employing her favorite description for any life other than the one she herself favored.

  Wisely, Juliet could not help thinking, her uncle ignored this contribution to the discussion. And within a few days all the family had accepted the fact that when they left Melbourne they would be going to make their new home in what Aunt Katherine now referred to as “the wilds of New South Wales.”

  Once the decision had been made, everyone seemed to feel that the sooner it was put into practice the better. Obviously there was no sense of recalling Andrew from boarding school at this point. It was decided that he should simply join them at Borralung, their new home, when the end of the term came, and meanwhile the rest of the family should accomplish the move as soon as possible before the really hot weather set in.

  Inevitably , a considerable amount of the actual work of the move fell to Juliet’s lot, but she was satisfied that it should be so. For her there was no nostalgic value attached to the things that had to be relinquished, nor was there the pain of several links and reluctant goodbyes in every stage of the departure.

  But for the others there was bound to be a good deal of this, and Juliet was only too glad to save them what she could of such unhappiness. Consequently, she found herself discussing and arranging many things with Max, and she was surprised afresh to find how much he knew of the practical difficulties of simple living in a fairly remote community.

  “You don’t look, somehow, as though you should know much about these things,” she told him once.

  Her speculative glance appeared to amuse and slightly surprise him.

  “Is that a nice way of saying that I look useless a soft of chap?” he inquired.

  “Oh, no!” Her shocked protest drew a grin from him. “I suppose—” she rubbed the bridge of her charming nose with a thoughtful forefinger “—I suppose what I meant was that you look too worldly and well-dressed to know all about drains and lighting and the usefulness of a sewing machine if you have to make your own curtains and so on.”

  “Give me credit for a little common sense,” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh, I do!” Her glance drifted over him again with more approval than she knew. And then her thoughts went off at a tangent, and when she spoke again it was not about him. “Max, I can’t help feeling that I ought to go on ahead, and try to get the place into some sort of order, so that it looks attractive and more like home when they see it for the first time. Aunt Katherine is tremendously susceptible to first impressions, you know. If she chooses to dislike the place on sight, we’re going to have a whole new set of problems.”

  “Hm—” He considered that. “I suppose you’re right. But you hardly know enough of the country and life here generally to be parked there on your own for a week or two.”

  “I might take Penelope,” she began doubtfully.

  But he shook his head.

  “Too young for the responsibility, good child though she is.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I tell you what we could do.” He looked considering, and as though some reflection pleased him. “I could take you and Verity—” Juliet’s heart sank “—to Bathurst, leave her there with friends of mine—” her heart regained its normal level “—while she explores the question of a job, and take you on to Borralung. And I would get Carol to join us there...”

  “Oh, how lovely! But could she possibly get away?” Juliet was enchanted at the prospect.

  “I think she would manage a short while with you, Juliet,” Max said, “and she would be more help to you than anyone else could be.”

  “Oh, and the most cheering and inspiring company I know,” Juliet cried. “I couldn’t imagine any introduction to the place that would endear it to me more.”

  “Well, we’ll see what can be done,” Max promised, but at this tribute to the sister who meant so much to him his eyes went brilliant and smiling in his tanned face, so that Juliet thought, Really, he’s very handsome when he looks like that. No wonder Verity was determined to have him.

  When the plan was put before the family it met with modified approval, Aunt Katherine finally accepting the fact that Juliet really could not be in two places at once and that, on the whole, it was better that she should prepare for their coming, rather than superintend their departure.

  Verity, though she disliked any scheme in which someone else might see more of Max for a while than she would herself, could not
blind herself to the obvious advantages to the proposal.

  “Where do you propose to make your headquarters?” she asked her fiancé.

  “I doubt if I’ll have any, my dear, in the strict sense of the word,” he retorted good-humoredly. “I shall probably be on the move between Bathurst, Borralung and Bakandi most of the time.”

  “With the longest stops in Bathurst,” she insisted.

  “With the longest stops in Bathurst,” he promised with a smile.

  And so it was settled, and Juliet—and Verity, too—prepared to take farewell of Melbourne.

  Goodbyes could not, of course, have for Juliet the same significance that they had for Verity, who had lived in the city most of her life. But she felt the most genuine regret when she looked on the stately Parliament House and splendid Public Library and even the lively bustle of Flinders Street Station—for the last time.

  “You’ll be coming back one day,” Max said cheerfully.

  But Juliet could not help thinking that her traveling days must be considered to be over, for the time at any rate. For the first time since she left London she was going to something that could be regarded as a permanent home, and already her mind and imagination reached out toward it.

  On the journey—which was once more accomplished largely by plane, as most long journeys seemed to be in Australia—Juliet took care to leave her cousin and Max as much as possible together. Not only did she most ardently wish to avoid anything that could provoke even a mild repetition of the trouble she had had once before with Verity, she also willingly conceded that this was a time when her cousin was entitled to seek consolation and courage from her fiancé above all.

  Juliet herself had plenty with which to occupy her thoughts. Enough had happened to her, she reflected with a slight grimace, in the six or eight weeks she had spent in this strange and fascinating new country.

  The fearful shock over Martin’s defection, which, painful though the mere memory of it was still, seemed now to belong to another stage of her existence. The rich and heartwarming discovery of Carol. Carol who had unhesitatingly replied to her brother’s appeal for help by a promise to be at Borralung as soon as they were there themselves.