The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  Mary reached for a wrap and threw it over her shoulders. “John won’t be in bed. And I’ll make it all right about you; don’t be afraid.—No, no, I’ll just walk over. As for intruding. . . .I’ve always understood John better than any of you. Besides, I don’t see how people can care whether they do or not—at a time like this.”

  “Well, at least put on a pair of sound walking-boots and take a shawl. Of course I am. If you must go, I go with you.”

  Stepping out of the gate they plodded through the sand of the road that led past now a large garden, now a wild, open space covered with gorse and heath. Masses of firs stood out black and forbidding. In the distance could be heard the faint lapping of the sea.

  They walked in silence. Once only did Mary exclaim aloud, out of the many conflicting thoughts that were going round in her head: “Lizzie, of course, must know nothing. The last thing John will want is for her to be worried or upset.”

  And Mahony: “It will not be long now before she and every one else has to know.”

  “When I think. . . .how. . . .how proud she has been of it all—I mean John’s position. . . .and their entertainments. . . .and his future—how she has looked forward to the title coming. . . .Oh dear, oh dear! If only Jinny were beside him now. . . .or poor dear Emma.”

  On reaching the house they unlatched the gate with care, and crept like a pair of conspirators over the grass, to avoid the noise their steps would have made on the gravel. The venetian blinds were down, but bars of light filtered through them in Lizzie’s bedroom on the one side, and in John’s sanctum on the other. Mary tiptoed round the verandah, and tapped on her brother’s window-pane.

  “It is I, John. . . .Mary.”

  There was a moment’s pause, then the French window was noiselessly opened, and she disappeared inside the room.

  On the front verandah a rocking-chair had been left standing. Mahony sat down in it and waited. . . .and waited. Time passed; an hour. . . .two hours. . . .and still Mary did not return. Lizzie’s light had long ago gone out; not a sound came from the house; nor did any living thing move in garden or road. So absolute was the stillness that, more than once as he sat, he heard a petal drop from a camellia in the central bed. John had a fine show of these stiff, scentless flowers. They stood out, white and waxen, against the dark polish of their leaves.

  It was spring, and a night warm enough to release the scents of freesia and boronia; though as usual the pittosporums outdid all else. There was no moon; but the stars made up for that; the sky was powdered white with them—was one vast field of glittering silver. Leaning back in his chair Mahony lay looking up at them, and thinking the old, well-worn thoughts that besiege a mortal at sight of the Creator’s prodigality. Pigmy man’s insignificance in face of these millions of worlds; the preposterousness of the claim that his tiny existence can engage the personal notice of Him who has strewn the Milky Way; and yet the bitter reality of his small, mad miseries, the bottomless depths of his mental anguish: pain, as the profoundest of life’s truths, the link by which man is bound up with the Eternal. . . .pain that bites so much deeper than pleasure, outlasting pleasure’s froth and foam as granite outlasts thistledown.

  And now John’s link was being forged. . . .his turn had come to taste pain’s bitterness—John who, all his days, had looked haughtily down on weakness and decay, as touching others, not himself. The material things of this world had been his pride and his concern. His soul, that poor soul which Mary, once more the comforter, was standing by in its black hour, had gone needy and untended. Now he was being called on to leave everything he prized: marriage and happiness, wealth, a proud standing, ambition crowned. Never, in his forward march, had John looked deeper; though in his own way he had walked according to his lights: a man of enterprise and energy, upright in business, grappling with the hardships of a new country, a pathfinder for those who would come after.—Yet for all this, a strangely unsympathetic nature! It was not alone the absence of the spiritual in him. It was the cold, proud, narrow fashion in which he had lived enclosed in his earthy shell, keeping the door rigidly shut on intruders. No one had really known John—known what manner of man housed within. Perhaps he had acted thus out of fear; had been afraid of the strange fears that might be found in him. Afraid of his fellows discovering that he was hollow, a sham and a pretence, where they had imagined wonderful strength and lovely virtues.

  Well!. . . .be that as it might. The time was past for probing and conjecturing. John’s hour had struck; and the phantom which had thus far borne his name, striding confident and alert through the world of men, would soon be blotted out. However one looked at it, it was a melancholy business. The swiftness of the blow made one realise, anew, on the edge of what an abyss one walked. Life was like a procession that trooped along this perilous margin, brimful of hope and vigour, gay, superbly unthinking; and then of a sudden there was a gap in the ranks, and one of the train had vanished, had pitched head-foremost into the depths, to be seen no more—by mortal eyes at least. Such a disaster must surely say—to those who had pinned their hearts to this world, with no more than a conventional faith in one to come (which amounted to little or none)—must surely seem to say: take all you can get while there is still time! A little while and it may be too late. Even in himself, who had won through to the belief that life was a kind of semi-sleep, death the great awakening, it called up the old nervous fear of being snatched away before he was ready to go. One lived on. . . .he lived on. . . .inactive as a vegetable. . . .and at any moment the blow might fall, and his chance be gone for ever—of doing what he had meant to do, of seeing what he had meant to see. And now, sitting there under the multitudinous stars, Mahony let the smothered ache for movement, the acute longing for change of scene that was smouldering in him, come to full consciousness. Yes, there was no denying it: the old restlessness was strong on him again; he was tired of everything he knew—tired of putting on his clothes in the morning and taking them off at night; tired of nursery talk and the well-known noises about the house, and the faces he saw every day. Tired of his books, too, and of his own familiar company. He wanted fresh scenes and people; wanted to open his eyes on new surroundings; be on the move again—feel a deck under his feet, and the rigours of a good head wind—all this, while health and a semblance of youth were left him. Another few years and he would be past enjoying it. Now was the time to make the break. . . .cut his bonds. . . .front Mary’s grief and displeasure.

  Mary. At her name the inner stiffening, the resistance, with which his mind had approached her, yielded; and in its place came a warm uprush of feeling. Her behaviour this very night—how surely and fearlessly she had come to the stricken man’s aid, without a single hampering thought of self! There was nobody like Mary in a crisis: happy the mortal who, when his end came, had her great heart to lean on. That was worth all else. For of what use, in one’s last hour, would be the mental affinity, the ties of intellect he had lately so pitied himself for having missed? One would see these things then for the earth-trimmings they were. A child faced with the horrors of the dark does not ask for his fears to be shared, or to have their origin explained to him. He cries for warm, enfolding arms with which to keep his terrors at bay; or which, if met these must be, alone can help him through the ordeal. Man on his death-bed was little more than such a child; and it was for the mother-arms he craved, to which he clung in passing, until, again like a child, he had dropped to sleep. Hope, faith and love, these three. . . .yes, but needed was a love like Mary’s, compounded of utter selflessness, and patience, and infinite forbearance—a love, which it was impossible to sin against or overthrow. . . .which had more than a touch of the divine in it; was a dim image of that infinite tenderness God Himself might be assumed to bear towards the helpless beings He had created. Measured by it, all other human experience rang hollow.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mamma and Papa were going away; Master Cuffy woul
d need to be a very good boy and do everything he was told; so that Mamma would be pleased with him when she came back. Thus Nannan, while Eliza and she gave the three children their morning bath; and four blue and two black eyes were turned on her in curiosity and wonderment. Cuffy, extending his arm to have the raindrops rubbed off it, echoed her words: “Mamma and Papa goin’ away!” It sounded exciting.

  After breakfast he broke the news to Effalunt, who, though now in his old age, hairless, and a leg short, was still one of the best beloveds; for Cuffy had a faithful heart.

  Going away? What would it be like? Hi-spy-hi in the garden?. . . .or a pitchnick?. . . .or Mamma putting on a pretty dress wif beads round her neck?

  He played at it during the morning: he got under an opossum-rug and was a bear to the Dumplings, and go’ed away. Later on, he was allowed to crawl inside a leather trunk that stood in Mamma’s bedroom, and have the lid nearly shut over him.

  The carriage came round after lunch; the trunk was hoisted to the roof; Mamma and Papa had their bonnets on.

  There stood Nannan, a Dumpling’s hand in each of hers. The babies, though o-eyed, were serene; but Cuffy by now was not so sure. He had watched Mamma’s dresses being put into the trunk and Eliza sitting on it, to make it shut; and the thing that worried him was, how Mamma could get up in the morning if her clothes were locked inside the big box. He began to feel uncomfortable. And so, now the moment had come, he was busy being a horse, capering up and down the verandah, stamping, tossing his head.

  The Dumplings obediently put up their faces and offered their bud-mouths. Cuffy had to be called to order.

  Said Mary: “Why, darling, aren’t you coming to kiss Mamma and Papa good-bye? Or be a little sorry they’re going?”

  Sorry? Why? He hadn’t been naughty! Perfunctorily Cuffy did what was required of him, but his heart went on being a horse.

  It was not till night that the trouble broke. Then, as often as Nannan entered the nursery, he was sitting bolt upright and wide-eyed in his crib, his little face looking each time wanner and whiter as he piped: “Is Cuffy’s Mamma and Papa tum ’ome yet, Nannan?”

  “There you have it!” said Nurse to Eliza. “This is what happens when gentlemen get to interfering in things they don’t understand. If the doctor ’ud just ’ave let me say they were gone to a party, there’d ’ave been none of this. Master Cuffy knows well enough what a party is, and though it ’ad lasted for weeks it wouldn’t ’ave made any difference to him, bless ’is little heart! It’s the things they don’t understand that worries children. This fad now that they must ’ave nothing but the truth told ’em. Lord bless you! If we did that, there soon wouldn’t be any more children left. . . .nothing but little old men and women.”

  And to mark her disapproval of Mahony’s methods, Nannan kept the forbidden lamp alight, and sat by the cribside with Cuffy’s hand in hers till he fell asleep.

  Meanwhile Mary and Richard had taken the afternoon train to Ballarat. For the date set for Tilly’s marriage had come right in the middle of the trouble about John.

  Seated in a saloon carriage Mary undid her bonnet-strings and put her feet up on the cushions. Off at last! And opposite her sat Richard—a morose and unamiable Richard, it was true, who made it abundantly plain that he was being dragged to Ballarat against his will. Still, there he was, and that was the main thing. Up to the last minute she hadn’t felt sure of him.

  She had early determined that it was his duty to be present at Tilly’s wedding, and had spared no pains to win him over. Hadn’t it to a certain extent been his fault that Tilly’s plans had failed, the time she stayed with them before Cuffy was born? If he had not been so down on her, the plot she was hatching might then and there have come to a head. As it was, one thing after another had happened to delay the issue. Misunderstanding Tilly’s abrupt departure, Purdy had disappeared up-country again, on his commercial rounds. Then, still up-country somewhere, he had been in a frightful buggy-accident, pitching out head-foremost, and all but breaking his neck. For months nothing could be heard of him, he lying at death’s door with concussion and broken bones, in a little bush hospital. When Tilly did finally contrive to run him to earth, he was literally at his last farthing, and a sick and broken man. Tilly had behaved like her own splendid self: waiving any false pride, she had journeyed straight to see him; and at their very first meeting they had arrived at an understanding (Mary could make a shrewd guess how) and were now to be man and wife. An even more urgent reason why Richard should appear at the wedding was, it would greatly improve Purdy’s social standing, if it became known that Dr. Mahony had travelled all the way from Melbourne to be present. And Purdy, poor fellow, could well do with such a lift. Even she, Mary, who had known him in so many a tight fit, had felt shocked at his condition after his last adventure.

  Thus she reflected as she watched the landscape slip past: yellowish-grey flats, or stone-strewn paddocks tufted with clumps of brown grass, all of which she had seen too often before to pay much heed to them. Still she never wanted to read in a train. So unlike Richard, whose idea of a journey was to bury himself in a book from start to finish. At the present moment he was deep in a pamphlet entitled: “The Unity, Duality or Trinity of the Godhead?”—Tch, what questions he did vex his head with!. . . .he must always be trying to settle the universe. If only he would sometimes give his poor brains a rest.

  He was looking pale and washed out, too, not by any means his best. . . .for meeting all the old friends. But what could you expect if he would spend his life cooped up indoors?—never leaving the house except to attend long, hot seances; or sittings with Gracey. And these had rather fallen off of late. Mary didn’t know why, and he said nothing; but Lizzie as usual was prolific in hints. Poor old Richard! She did hope things would go smoothly for him during the next three days. She would feel relieved when they were over.

  But no sooner did they reach Ballarat than the trouble began. On the platform stood Tilly, wreathed in smiles, open-armed in welcome, but gone, alas, was the decent and becoming black to which, as “old Mrs. Ocock,” she had been faithful for so long. In its stead. . . .well, there was no mincing the fact: she looked fit for Punch! Her dress, of a loud, bottle-green satin, was in the very latest mode, worn entirely without crinoline, so that her full form was outlined in unspeakable fashion; her big capable hands were squeezed into lemon-coloured kid gloves, tight to bursting, and on her head perched a monstrous white hat, turned up at the side and richly feathered.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!”

  For Mary knew very well that neither the genuine sincerity of Tilly’s greeting, nor her multitudinous arrangements for their comfort, would suffice to blot from Richard’s mind the figure she cut this day.

  Climbing to the driver’s seat of an open buggy, all her feathers afloat, Tilly trotted a pair of cream ponies in great style up Sturt Street. Of course everybody in Ballarat knew her, so it didn’t matter for herself what she looked like. It was Richard who was to be pitied.

  The next thing to provoke him was the arbitrary way in which she disposed of his personal liberty. She had it all fixed and settled that, directly supper was over, he should go back to town, to “Moberley’s Hotel,” and there spend the evening with the bridegroom-elect.

  “She wants them to be seen in public together,” thought Mary as she helped Richard on with his overcoat and muffled him up in a comforter; for the air on this tableland struck cold, after Melbourne’s sea-level. “And for that, of course, there’s no better place than Moberley’s Coffee Room.”—Aloud she said reprovingly: “Ssh! She’ll hear you. You know, dear, you needn’t stop long.” But Richard, chilly and tired from the railway journey, looked as though he could cheerfully have consigned Tilly and her nuptials to Hades.

  “And now you and I can ’ave a real cosy evening, love, while the lords of creation smoke and jaw about early days,” said dear blind old Tilly. Or perhaps sh
e was not quite so blind as she seemed; and just wanted to be rid of Richard and the atmosphere of glacial politeness that went out from him. Anyhow off he set, with a very bad grace, and the two women retired to Tilly’s bedroom. Here a great log fire burned on the whitewashed hearth; and Tilly kept the poker in her hand with which to thump the logs, did the blaze threaten to fail. This dyed the dimity-hangings of the fourposter; made ruddy pools in the great mahogany wardrobe.

  Said Tilly: “Well, here we are again, Poll, you and me, like so often before. . . .and the day after to-morrow’s me wedding-day. ’Pon my word it’s hard to believe; and yet. . . .I don’t know, dearie, but somehow it seems no time since us three bits of girls used to sit over the fire and gas about all the grand things that was going to happen to us. That’s ages back, and yet, except that we’re grown a bit bulkier you and me, it might be only yesterday. I don’t feel a day older and that’s the truth; which is odd when you come to think of it. . . .with pa and ma and Jinn and poor old Pa all gone, these ever so many years! I say, do you remember, Poll, how Purd used to ride down from Melbourne? And how, when ’e’d gone, I’d count the days off on me fingers till ’e’d come again?”

  “I think you’re a very lucky woman, Tilly, to get your heart’s wish like this. I do hope it will bring you every happiness.”

  “I think it will, Poll. I’m not going into it with my eyes shut, or any of the flighty notions one has as a young girl—heaven on earth and bunkum of that sort. But now, listen to me, dearie, there’s things I want to say to you. First of all, Mary, I’ve fixed, once we’re spliced, for Tom and Johnny to come back to this house—which they never ought to ’ave left. I won’t say it ’asn’t taken a bit of managing. But my mind was quite made up. It’s gone to my heart, all these years, to see how badly those poor lads were cared for. Enough to make poor old Pa turn in ’is grave.”