Books, counting boards, small blackboards, finger-painting outfits, moulding clay for young sculptors, a model farmyard, mechanical cars, and the ever-essential big gold bear.
"We must have a teddy," said Gerry.
"As a firm isolationist I should have thought you would have preferred a koala."
"I am not an isolationist," she defended, and he nodded, corrected.
"I recall now. It was not the English, it was an Englishman."
She went through the list, ignoring him.
"That is all, Mr. Manning," she said.
They lunched at a hotel, then went back to the car again.
Gerry consulted her watch and announced, "We should be home by dusk."
"No, later than that. I should say a few hours later." She looked at him in inquiry, and he explained, "We have one more port of call."
For a while his attention was taken up in weaving his way through the thick traffic. It was not the usual exit from the city, and Gerry looked out with interest.
The streets were narrower, so narrow that they were mere alley-ways. The houses that rimmed them rose steeply and without front plots from the asphalt. They were
poor and mean with ugly iron-railed balconies. Gerry said, almost to herself, "The less privileged part of Sydney."
Manning, hearing her, corrected harshly, "Why not call a spade a spade? This is less than less privileged, it is a slum."
It was a slum house at which he stopped. You could have stepped from the car into the hallway. As he opened the car door he told her briefly the reason for their visit. By the time he was clanging the well-polished old-fashioned knocker she understood.
"Like all its contemporary schools, Galdang has its bursars," he said. "I believe Villwood of the Fifth is one."
"Robert Keller is another," agreed Gerry. "We are pleased when a boy passes our scholarship examination."
"This boy," said Damien rapidly, "is too young to be tested. However, he has shown sufficient pre-prep promise to be accepted as a pupil. His background, as you will soon see, warrants it. I'll leave you to discover the rest."
As the knocker clanged and the sound of steps came nearer Gerry said, "Wouldn't pre-prep make him very young?"
"He is five and a half, but I see no reason why he should be deprived when we shall be accepting others of the same age group. For myself, I prefer to get them early—why, good afternoon, Mrs. Betts."
The woman who opened the door was small and tired. She had tired eyes, but they lit up when they saw the man.
"So you've come! I can hardly believe it. It'll break my heart to part from him, but think of the future for Tom."
She led them down a hall, dark, weather-stained, but as clean as human hands could make it. There was a fresh smell in the air—as fresh, in spite of the city, in spite of the drab suburb, as Galdang itself. It was the smell of soap, well applied on a hard brush, it was the smell of wholesome living.
The woman was wholesome—weary, overworked, worn, but essentially decent. The apron she rumpled in her nervousness was morning-fresh.
"Where is Thomas, Mrs. Betts?" asked Damien. "I'll fetch him."
When she was gone, Manning turned to Gerry.
"This woman is married, but not a widow. The husband
wanted none of this"—he waved his arm round the neat
room and particularly in the direction of a pile of freshly-laundered little clothes—"so he left."
"She—Mrs. Betts has carried on?" whispered Gerry, and Manning nodded.
"And made a splendid job of it, too. But the struggle is always uphill, and her health is not the best. The lad is bright and adaptable. I have had heartening reports from the Education Department. As we are starting a new class I believe we should have a new bursar in it. My choice is Thomas Betts."
There was no time for any more. The woman was returning. Gerry could hear her dragging feet and beside them smaller, lighter steps.
The child came in shyly but manfully. He was slight, but well fed by the gloss of him; he had dark soft hair and a mobile little mouth.
"Hullo, Tom," Gerry said.
Manning spoke clearly to Geraldine. It was, she knew at once, to give the woman and the boy time to adjust themselves.
"I have decided, if you are agreeable, Miss Prosset, to take Thomas back with us. That is, of course, if it is all right with Mrs. Betts?"
Geraldine looked questioningly towards the woman. Obviously, Mrs. Betts had prepared herself. "That would be kind of you," she said eagerly. "It would save the fares. Besides, I have the opportunity of a new job with more money. With Tom in good care I could go right ahead. And I'll need the money, won't I, Mr. Manning, what with that nice grey uniform the school likes its boys to wear—"
There was pride in the voice, and a certain satisfaction. Why not, thought Gerry, I'd feel the same myself.
"I'd love to have Tom travel back with us," she said warmly. "Can I help?"
"His things are all ready to put in his new bag," answered Mrs. Betts.
Together they packed in the clothes, together they fastened the catches. All the time Tom stood shyly but bravely, a blur in the dark soft eyes and something twitching in the soft little mouth.
Once Gerry turned to him. "What about you, Tom? Are you happy?"
A pause, a long pause, and then, "I will be, miss, but I'll miss me Mum."
Me Mum. . . . How often was Geraldine to hear those two words. How often was she to correct gently "My mother, Thomas," and be answered, "My mother, Miss Prosset," knowing that in a little boy's heart it was still "me Mum."
There were no tears. There was only one kiss between them. Mrs. Betts took the farewell quietly, and with one quick look at her he took the farewell the same as his mum.
Just as the car was drawing away Mrs. Betts pushed something on to Gerry. It was crumpled as though it had been stuffed away a long time, and it was a five-pound note.
"I can't take this," Gerry said urgently to Damien.
He looked at her in surprise and said, "You must. Certainly you must. That's the way of minis."
They had a meal again at the house with the rowan tree.
When they rimmed the coast again the waters were reflecting the fading colours of the sky. By Breffny Inlet the sea was wine-dark and by the time they had climbed to Galdang it was night and all the school lights were on, but because a little boy was asleep in her arms, Gerry put Tom straight to bed.
CHAPTER IX
THOMAS was instantly acclaimed by the juniors. Small themselves, they were overjoyed to find a specimen even smaller. "One would have thought," said Gerry to the Professor, "that he was a visitor from Mars."
"Squiz the young bloke," yelled Warren Phillips. "Only as big as Hop-o'-my-thumb."
"Knee high to a grasshopper," rejoiced Brett Fordham, who was distinctly short himself and sensitive about it. "Reckon he's the littlest codger in the world."
"He's no smaller than your small brothers or sisters, his
name is Thomas Betts and he's a forerunner of twenty-seven other pupils to start next term at the new pre-prep."
"Jings, an army of midgets."
"What'll they do with themselves all day, sit in their prams and suck dummies?"
"Is that what you did, Fergus, when you were five and a half?"
Fergus, red in the face, stopped commenting but kept staring. The rest of the juniors did likewise, but it was a kindly, elder-brotherly stare.
"I believe," said Gerry, who kept the Professor up-to-date with the latest doings, "my only concern will be that they'll spoil Thomas."
"Possibly they'll exploit him as well," warned her father. "How do you mean?"
"Don't know exactly. But keep your eye open for bigger boys 'using' the little new chum. We are not, after all, so far distant from the days of the fag."
Later that week it appeared to Geraldine that both she and her father were right in their conjectures. Tom was seen thrusting a handful of small change in his pocket, evidence
, seeing he had no money of his own, of other boys' generosity, yet very soon afterwards he was caught in the act of cleaning Warren Phillips's boots.
"Tom, where did you get that money? And what's that you're polishing?"
Thomas said without a falter, "From Warren Phillips, Miss Prosset, and they're Warren Phillips's boots."
"You mean—he pays you to clean them?"
"A lot of the boys do. Some can't afford it, and James Semple says I leave on too much mud"—James would, thought Gerry—"but I've got five and six now, and would that be enough for a box of chocolates?"
"Who for?" asked Geraldine.
Tom said, "Me Mum."
Me Mum . . . me Mum . . . wherever Thomas went his Mum went with him.
At the first day at lunch when Fergus Mathers said, "That's jolly good jelly," Thomas Betts said, "It's jolly good, but it's not as jolly good as the jelly made by me Mum."
"My mother, Thomas."
"My mother, Miss Prosset."
. . . What was the use, smiled Gerry's heart, when the soft dark eyes glowed, "Me Mum".
Astonishingly fair in his outlook for such a small boy, appreciative, quick to praise, he was still immovable when it came to mums. Mrs. Betts's influence must have been remarkable. Remembering the tears of the other new boys, Geraldine could only look and wonder when, after someone had asked Thomas if he felt homesick, he answered simply but directly, "No, she told me not to be homesick, me Mum."
Now she stood looking at Thomas's money and Warren's boots. "I don't think Mr. Manning would like you working."
"Why not? She works. Me Mum."
Much as she hated to turn to him Gerry sought out Damien. To her relief he did not comment on her approaching him for help, he simply gave his decision.
"He can keep the money and purchase the chocolates, but no more after this. The lazy juniors, particularly Phillips, will have to do their chores themselves. Explain the situation to Betts. Put emphasis on how Mrs. Betts wants him to be and do the same as the other boys. He'll listen to anything from his mother."
Gerry explained, and Tom nodded. They sent the chocolates with a piece of Gerry's notepaper attached wilth an army of crosses and a printed "FROM TOM".
Tom did not start lessons. He helped Miss Prosset get the room ready. He was a quick, apt little boy and he had graduated from the city's best equipped free kindergarten. He gave wise advice and Gerry followed it. It was during the following that she met Miss French.
Miss French, it appeared, had been Tom's teacher. She must have been a good teacher, of that Gerry was quite assured, but to Gerry she was a bore.
Miss French wouldn't have put that chart in that position, she'd have put it in this position. Gerry changed the positions—and yes, she saw it at once, Miss French, and Tom, were right.
Miss French did this. Miss French did that. One day when Damien Manning was over Gerry turned from hanging a picture and said rather irascibly, "Would Miss French hang it there?"
"No," said Thomas readily, "no, Miss Prosset." Then all at once his dark, soft eyes were full of an understanding you could not credit in the eyes of a little child, and he was saying in a soothing voice, "You mustn't mind 'cause you're not like Miss French, Miss Prosset, you're more like a mother, the same as me Mum."
Laughter bubbled in Gerry's throat and she turned spontaneously to Damien—but suddenly she found she was meeting no laughter there, but a curious deep warmth instead.
For several moments their glances locked. Somewhere in the long look there was a flicker of inquiry, an intense mutual understanding, a recognition, a first meeting where before they had never really met.
Standing on the chair with the picture in her hand, standing in the middle of the room with Thomas beside him and five hundred boys outside as well, there were all at once only the two of them, pinned there, waiting, and around them and all over the world, it seemed, there was nothing and nobody else.
. . . Saying something incoherent, Manning turned and left the schoolroom.
With difficulty Gerry got down from the chair.
She and Tom went for long walks along the cliff edge. Here, the rains ran away quickly and the gorse was dry and parched and the crab daisies opened wide appealing petals.
Sometimes they met Elliott Bethel. He had taken a deep fancy to the little boy—Manning, thought Gerry with scorn, would have said it was because Miss Prosset liked him—but it was nice to see Elliott carving toy ships out of driftwood for his new friend, Thomas Betts.
"I'd like to take Tom home with me in the hols, Miss Gerry. Do you think you could have a word with the Head?"
"It's a long way to Villamarine Island, Elliott. The air fares would be beyond Mrs. Betts."
Elliott said, surprised, "Why, Tom would be my guest."
He enchanted Tom by telling him that Villamarine was on the International Date Line. That meant it was yesterday and tomorrow at either end. Tom understood at once where Gerry was plainly puzzled. "If I turned six there I'd miss my birthday," he said.
Elliott's accounts of coral castles and coral caverns fascinated him, the gaily-striped fish, the brown piccaninnies, but for all the island magic there was a pull far stronger. "I'm sorry, I must go home to me Mum," Tom said.
It seemed impossible to Geraldine that a term had gone so quickly. There was only a week to the end of it, a fortnight's home vac—Elliott availing himself of as much as he could by flying—and then it would be the second quarter.
After that it would be classes every day for Gerry; an opportunity to earn those pay cheques that arrived with such embarrassing regularity. Whatever nervousness she felt, the call for independence vanquished it. She found herself looking forward to standing on her own two feet.
The other teachers were anticipating their holidays. Mr. Dawson was going bird-watching and Dennis Farwell, the new junior master, joining Neville Carter on a walking tour. "Somewhere right off the track," Neville said.
Discreet inquiry brought the information that Mr. Manning was staying on at Galdang. "Having house guests," Hilda reported. She added, "So Cora said."
Cora was the help at the master building. She was a chatterer, and though Geraldine did not encourage chatter she was sufficiently interested in the doings of the house on the top of the bluff to listen to what Hilda, the maid at their own house, repeated that Cora said.
Cora said the visitors were to be two ladies. One was a young one, and she was to have the ocean room—(where I was to hang my curtains with the water motifs, sighed Gerry)—and the other one, who was the young one's aunt, was to have the room to the west.
They arrived on the day the boys departed. All the boys, thought Gerry sadly, but Tom. He was waiting for his Mum to send word.
Walking along the cliff, the pair saw Manning bringing his guests up in the car from Breffny—saw them alight, a well-dressed matron, a tall, soignee girl with blonde hair.
They saw little of them after that, though Hilda reported that Cora said that she'd be glad when their stay was over. "The aunt is all right apart from always wanting her teacup hotted," said the Meadow House maid, "but Cynthia is for ever asking for her dresses to be pressed."
So that was her name. Cynthia. She looked like a
Cynthia, thought Gerry. Tall, slim, blonde and soignée, Cynthia in the elegant flesh.
They entertained a great deal at bridge and cocktail parties. "Cora says it's one round of work. All the Breffny bigwigs are asked, and it's a wonder to me, Miss Gerry, you haven't been invited."
It was a wonder to Geraldine. As Professor Prosset's daughter she always had been included in anything of import in the district. But perhaps, she thought stiffly, Manning considered an employee different from the rest.
The occupants of Galdang also indulged in motor tours. Tom and Geraldine had seen the car departing on several occasions, had seen the hampers and flasks being deposited in the boot, the aunt and Miss Cynthia's little fluffy dog in the back seat, Cynthia in the seat beside Manning.
"When I have a dog," said Tom with displeasure, "he won't be like that dog. He'll have a straight tail and he won't wear a bell."
Gerry looked down lovingly on the little boy. She knew he must be growing anxious. A week of the holidays gone, and still no word to come home from his Mum. He never complained, though, and even if she never sent for him he would say no word about it. It would be right because she had decreed it. She only did the right thing, his Mum.
The days went on; it was beautiful holiday weather. Put on a string, thought Geraldine, they would be like matched pearls.
When the maid reported, one blue, transparent, breathlessly lovely morning, that the girl Cynthia and Mr. Manning were going out in the boat, for the first time Gerry could have wept.
The sea lay sleek and shining under the long sun-rays that caressed it. The tiny island of Harvest Home a mile off Breffny Head seemed like some faerie land, a little withdrawn, a little unreal, displaying only a teasing portion of its beauty, holding the rest locked tantalizingly away.
Gerry stared at the island, suddenly fascinated. It looked like the enchanted animal in Beauty and the Beast, she thought, the rocks were its claws, good-natured claws, at the northern end.
"I'd like to go there," she said aloud, "oh, I'd like it." Then she looked down and saw Tom's dark, soft eyes gazing up into hers, and her heart bled.
All Tom wanted was to see his Mum. He wanted no faerie land, he only wanted his home alley. But he never talked about it, for that was Tom.
But you will see her, my darling, and all the islands in the world can wait, Gerry said.
Though she had determined not to go up to Galdang, she did so. She went at once.
There were rugs and hampers and oilskins and sou'-westers waiting on the front verandah. Evidently the boating party had not moved off.
Gerry pressed the bell, and Cora answered it.
"I don't know whether you can see Mr. Manning, Miss Geraldine," she demurred.
"It's urgent, Cora."
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