The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  But gradually, very gradually this last convulsion spent itself: and, as at the approach of soft music from a distance, he was aware of the coming end. . . .of the peace advancing, at which all the labour of the night had been directed. Peace at last!. . . .for his raw nerves, his lacerated brain. And along with it a delicious drowsiness, which stole over him from his finger-tips, and up from his feet, relaxing knotted muscles, loosening his hands, which now lay limp and free. He sank into it, letting himself go. . . .as into a pond full of feathers. . . .which enveloped him, closed downily about him. . . .he, sinking deeper. . . .ever deeper . .

  Until, angry and menacing, shattering the heavenly inertia, a scream.—Who screamed? A child? What was it? Who was hurt?—Oh God! the shock of it, the ice-cold shock! He fell back on the pillow, his heart thudding like a tom-tom. Would he never grow used to it?. . . .this awful waking!. . . .and though he endured it day after day. For. . . .as always. . . .the sun was up, the hour six of a red-hot morning, and the mill-whistle flayed the silence. In all he had slept for not quite three-quarters of an hour.

  Thereafter he lay and stared into the dusty light as he had stared into the darkness. Needle-like pulses beat behind his lids; the muscles round eyes and mouth were a-twitch with fatigue. From the sight of food he turned with a sick man’s disrelish. Swallowing a cup of milkless tea, he crossed to the surgery and shut himself in. But on this particular day his habit of drowsing through the empty hours was rudely broken through. Towards midday he was disturbed by the door opening. It was Mrs. Beetling who, without so much as a knock, put her head in to say that the stationmaster had hurt his foot and wanted doctor to come and bandage it.

  The stationmaster?—He had been far away, on high cliffs that sloped to the sea, gathering “horsetails”. . . .and for still an instant his brain loitered over the Latin equivalent. Then he was on his feet, instinctively fingering the place where his collar should have been. But neither coat nor collar. . . .and: “My boots, my good woman, my boots!” The dickens! Was that he who was shouting? Tut, tut! He must pull himself together, not let these spying eyes note his fluster. But there was another reason for the deliberateness with which he sought the bedroom. His knees felt weak, and he could hardly see for the tears that would keep gathering. Over three weeks now—close on a month—since any one had sent for him. All were not dead against him then! Oh, a good fellow, this Pendrell!. . . .a good fellow!. . . .a man after his own heart, and a gentleman.—And throwing open drawers and cupboards, he made many an unnecessary movement, and movements that went wide of their mark.

  In putting arnica and lint in his bag he became aware that his hands were violently a-shake. This wouldn’t do. Impossible to appear before a patient in such a state. He clenched his fists and stiffened his arms; but the tremor was stronger than his will, and persisted. As a last resource he turned to the sideboard, poured some sherry into a tumbler, and gulped it down.

  Quitting the house by the back door, he went past the kitchen, the woodstack, the rubbish-heap, a pile of emptied kerosene-tins, the pigsties (with never a pig in them), the fowls sitting moping in the shrinking shade. His eyes ran water anew at the brassy glare; and phew!. . . .the heat. In his haste he had forgotten to put a handful of vine-leaves in the crown of his wideawake. The sun bore down on him with an almost physical weight: he might have had a loaded sack lying across neck and shoulders. And as soon as he let the hasp of the gate fall, he was in the dust of the road; and then his feet were weighted as well.

  But his thoughts galloped. Oh, that this summons might be the start of a new era for him!. . . .the awful stagnation of the past month prove to have been but a temporary lull, a black patch, such as any practice was liable to; the plot he had believed hatched against him prove to have existed only in his own imagination; and everything be as before. . . .he still able to make a living, pay his way.—“Mercy!. . . .dear God, a little mercy!”—But if that were so, then he, too, would need to do his share. Yes, he would make a point from now on of meeting the people here on their own level. He would ask after their doings. . . .their wives and children. . . .gossip with them of the weather and the vines. . . .hobnob—no, drink with them he could and would not! But he knew another way of getting at them. And that was through their pockets. Fees! Quite likely he had set his too high. He would now come down a peg. . . .halve his charges. They’d see then that it was to their advantage to call him in, rather than send elsewhere for a stranger. It might also be policy on his part—in the meantime at any rate—to treat trivial injuries and ailments free of charge. (Once the practice was set going again, he’d make them pay through the nose for all the worry and trouble they’d caused him.) If only he could get the name of being freehanded. . . .easygoing—could ingratiate himself. . . .become popular.

  So rapt was he that though, at the level crossing, his feet paused of themselves, he could not immediately think why he had stopped, and gazed absently round. Ha! the trains, of course. But there were no trains at this hour of day: the station was shut up, deserted. A pretty fool he would look was he seen standing there talking to himself. He must hurry in, too, out of the sun. The heat was beginning to induce giddiness; the crown of his head felt curiously contracted. But he had still some distance to go. He spurred himself on, more quickly than before; his feet keeping time with his wingy thoughts.

  Mary was hard put to it not to alarm the children. Every few minutes her anxiety got the better of her, and dropping her work she would post herself at a corner of the verandah, where she could see down the road. She had been on the watch ever since the postman handed in Richard’s letter that morning, for the telegram that was to follow. Her first impulse had been to start for home without delay; and, despite Tilly’s reasonings and persuasions, she had begun to sort out the children’s clothes. Then she wavered. It would be madness to go back before the heat broke. And, if the practice was as dead as Richard averred, there was no saying when the poor mites would get another change of air.

  Still. . . .Richard needed her. His letter ran: I am afraid what I have to tell you will be a great shock to you. I was up at the stationmaster’s just now and found myself unable to articulate. I could not say what I wanted. I lay down, and they brought me water. I said I thought it was a faint—that I had been out too long in the sun. I fear it is something worse. I am very, very uneasy about myself. I have been so distressed about the practice. I think that must have upset me. Intense mental depression. . . .and this awful heat—what with solitude and misfortunes I have been terribly put about. All the same I should not worry you, if it were not for my dread of being taken ill alone. I am most unwilling to bring you and the children back in the meantime. The heat baffles description. I should never spend another February here—it would be as much as my life is worth. Perhaps the best thing to do will be to wait and see how I am. I will telegraph you on Monday morning early. Take no steps till you hear.

  But to this a postscript had been added, in a hand it was hard to recognise as Richard’s: Oh, Mary wife, come home, come home!—before I go quite mad.

  Down by the water’s edge Cuffy played angrily. He didn’t know what he loved best: the seaweed, or the shells, or the little cave, or the big pool on the reef, or the little pool, or bathing and lying on the sand, or the smell of the ti-trees. And now—oh, why had Papa got to go and get ill, and spoil everything? He’d seen Mamma beginning to pack their things, and it had made him feel all hot inside. Why must just his clothes be packed? He might get ill, too. Perhaps he would, if he drank some sea. Aunt Tilly said it made you mad. (Like Shooh man.) All right then, he would get mad. . . .and they could see how they liked it! And so saying he scooped up a palmful of water and put it to his mouth. It ran away so fast that there was hardly any left; but it was enough: ugh! wasn’t it nasty? He spat it out again, making a ’normous noise so that everybody should hear. But they didn’t take a bit of notice. Then a better idea struck him. He’d give Mamma the very nicest
things he had: the two great big shells he had found all by himself, which he kept hidden in a cave so that Luce shouldn’t even touch them unless he said so. He’d give them to Mamma, and she’d like them so much that she’d never want to go home—oh well! not for a long, long time. Off he raced, shuffling his bare feet through the hot, dry, shifty sand.

  But it was no good: she didn’t care. Though he made her shut her eyes tight and promise not to look, while he opened her hand and squeezed the shells into it and shut it again, like you did with big surprises. She just said: “What’s this? Your pretty shells? My dear, what should I do with them? No, no!. . . .you keep them for yourself,”—and all the while she wasn’t really thinking what she said. And he couldn’t even tell her why, for now Aunt Tilly shouted that the telegram-boy was coming at last; and Mamma just pushed the shells back and ran out into the road, and tore open the telegram like anything, and smiled and waved it at Aunt Tilly, and they both laughed and talked and wiped their eyes. But then everything was all right again; for it was from Papa, and he had telegrammed: Am better, do not hurry home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In spite, however, of this reassurance Mary could not rest. And one fine morning not long after, the trunks were brought out again, and she and Tilly fell to packing in earnest.

  Cuffy’s resentment at being torn from the sea a whole fortnight too soon did not stand before the excitements of a journey: first in a coach and then in a train. Besides, Mamma had given him a little box to himself, to pack his shells in. Importantly he carried this, while she and Aunt Tilly ran about counting the other luggage. There was so much—portmanteaux and bundles, and baskets and bonnet-boxes, and beds and mattresses, and buckets and spades and the perambulator—that they were afraid there wouldn’t be room for it in the coach. But there was: they had it all to themselves. And direckly the door was shut the lunch-basket was opened; for one of the most ’squisite things about a journey was that you could eat as much as you liked and whenever you liked. Mamma was so nice, too, and didn’t scold when you and Luce rushed to look first out of one window and then the other. But Aunt Tilly said you trod on her feet and knocked against Baby, and you were a perfect nuisance; in all her born days she’d never known such fidgets. But Mamma said it was only high spirits, and you couldn’t be always carping at children, wait till Baby got big and she’d see! And Aunt Tilly said she’d take care he wasn’t brought up to be a nuisance to his elders. Cuffy was afraid they were going to get cross, so he sat down again, and only waggled his legs. He didn’t like Aunt Tilly much. He didn’t like fat people. Besides, when Baby squawked she thought it was lovely, and gave him everything he wanted to put in his mouth. They were in the train now, and wouldn’t it be fun to pinch his leg! But he couldn’t, ’cos he wasn’t sitting next him. But he stuck his boot out and pressed it as hard as ever he could against Baby’s foot, and Aunt Tilly didn’t see but Baby did, and opened his eyes and looked at him. . . .just horrid!

  Then came Melbourne and a fat old lady in a carriage and two horses, who called Mamma my dearie. She lived in a very big house with a nice old gentleman with a white beard, who took his hand and walked him round “to see the grounds” (just as if he was grown up). He was a very funny man, and said he owed (only he said it “h’owed”) everything to Papa, which made Cuffy wonder why, if so, he didn’t pay him back. For Papa was always saying he hadn’t enough money. But Mamma had told them they must be specially good here, and not pass remarks about anything. So he didn’t. One night they went to a Pantomime called Goody Two-Shoes—not Mamma, she was still too sorry about Lallie being dead—and once to hear music and singing in a theatre. The old Sir and Lady took them both times, and at the music Luce was a donkey and went to sleep, and had to be laid down on a coat on the floor. He didn’t! He sat on a chair in the front of a little room like a balcony, and listened and listened to a gipsy singing in a voice that went up and up, and made you feel first hot and then cold all over. Afterwards people made a great noise clapping their hands, and he did it, too, and made more noise than anybody. And the gipsy came by herself and bowed her head to every one, and then she looked at him, and smiled and blew him a kiss. He didn’t much care for that, because it made people laugh; and he didn’t know her. They all laughed again when they got home, till he went red and felt more like crying. He didn’t, though; he was too big to cry now; everybody said so. The funny thing was, lots of big people did cry here; there seemed always to be some one crying. Aunt Zara came to see them all dressed in black, with black cloths hanging from her bonnet and a prickly dress that scratched—like Papa’s chin when he hadn’t shaved. This was because she was a widder. She had a black streak on her handkerchief, too, to cry on, and felt most awfly sorry about writing to Mamma on paper that hadn’t a “morning border,” but what with one thing and another. . . .Cuffy hoped Mamma wouldn’t mind, and asked what a morning border was, but was only told to run away and play. He didn’t. He stopped at the window and pretended to catch flies, he wanted so much to hear. Aunt Zara said she lit’rally didn’t know where to turn, and Mamma looked sorry but said if you made beds you must lie on them. (That was rummy!) And Aunt Zara said she thought she had been punished enough. Mamma said as long as she had a roof over her head she wouldn’t see any one belonging to her come to want, and there were the children, of course, and she was at her wits’ end what to do about them, but of course she’d have to consult Richard first, and Aunt Zara knew what he was, and Aunt Zara said, only too well, but there was nothing she wouldn’t do, she’d even scrub floors and wash dishes.

  “Maria always scrubs our floors!”

  It just jumped out of him; he did so want her to know she wouldn’t have to. But then she said the thing about little pitchers and Mamma got cross as well, and told him to go out of the room at once, so he didn’t hear any more.

  Then Cousin Emmy came, and she cried too—like anything. He felt much sorrier for her than Aunt Zara. He had to sniffle himself. She was so nice and pretty, but when she cried her face got red and fat, and Mamma said if she went on like this she’d soon lose her good looks. But she said who’d she got to be good-looking for, only a pack of kids, which made him feel rather uncomfortable and he thought she needn’t have said that. But it was very int’resting. She told about somebody who spent all her time dressing in “averdipoy,” and was possessed by a devil (like the pigs in the Bible). He longed to ask what she meant, but this time was careful and didn’t let anything hop out of him, for he was going to hear just everything. Mamma seemed cross with Cousin Emmy, and said she was only a very young girl and must put up with things, and one day Mister Right would come along and it would be time enough, when that happened, to see what could be done. And Cousin Emmy got very fierce and said there’d never be any Mister Right for her, for a man was never allowed to show so much as his nose in the house. (Huh! that was funny. Why not his nose?) Mamma said she’d try and make her see reason, and Cousin Emmy said it’d be like talking to a stone statue, and it would always be herself first and the rest nowhere, and the plain truth was, she was simply crazy to get married again and there’d never be any peace till she had found a husband. And Mamma said, then she’d have to look out for some one with lots of money, your Papa’s will being what it was. And Cousin Emmy said she was so sick and tired of everything that sometimes she thought she’d go away and drown herself. And then she cried again, and Mamma said she was a very wicked girl, even to think of such a thing. He had to wink his own eyes hard when she said that, and went on getting sorrier. And when she was putting on her hat to say good-bye he ran and got his shells, and when he was allowed to go to the gate with her he showed her them, and asked if she’d like to have them “for keeps.” And Cousin Emmy thanked him most awfly but couldn’t think of robbing him of his beautiful shells. . . .oh well then; if he wanted it so much, she would, but only one, and he should keep the other and it would be like a philippine, and they wouldn’t tell anybody; it would just be their secr
et. Which it was.

  Next day they went to see Aunt Lizzie, where Cousin Emmy lived with “John’s cousins”. . . .no, he meant “John’s children.” They couldn’t see John, for he was dead. In the wagonette Mamma told him all about the ’squisite songs Aunt Lizzie used to sing him when he was quite a young child, and he hoped she would again; but when he asked her, when she had finished kissing, she clapped her hands and said law child, her singing days were over. It was Aunt Lizzie who was averdipoy—he knew now it meant fat, and not putting on something, for he had asked Mamma at dinner and Mamma had told him; but she had been cross, too, and said it was a nasty habit and he must get out of it, to listen to what his elders said, especially if you repeated it afterwards. He didn’t like Aunt Lizzie much. She had a great big mouth to sing with, and she opened it so wide when she talked you could have put a whole mandarin in at once; and she had rings on her fingers that cut you when she squeezed.

  And then Mamma and her wanted to talk secrets, and they were told to go and play with their cousins. Cousin Emmy took them. Two of them were nearly grown-up, with their hairs in plaits, and they didn’t take much notice of them but just said, what a funny little pair of kids to be sure, and whatever was their Mamma thinking of not to put them in “morning” for their sister. They all had great big staring black eyes and it made him sorry he had. Cousin Josey was as horrid as ever. She said she guessed he was going to be a dwarf and would have to be shown at an Easter Fair, and Luce looked a reg’lar cry-baby. Cousin Emmy told her not to be so nasty, and she said her tongue was her own. Cousin Josey was only ten, but ever so big, with long thin legs in white stockings and black garters which she kept pulling up; and when she took off her round comb and put it between her teeth, her hair came over her face till she looked like a gorilla. When she said that about the cry-baby he took hold of Luce’s hand to pertect her, and squeezed it hard so’s she shouldn’t cry. But then Cousin Josey came and pinched Luce’s nose off between her fingers and showed it to her, and she pinched so hard that Luce got all red and screwed up her eyes like she really was going to cry. Cousin Emmy said she was not to take any notice what such a rude girl did, and then Cousin Josey stuck out her tongue, and Cousin Emmy said she’d box her ears for her if she didn’t take care. And then Cousin Josey put her fingers to her nose and waggled them—which was most awfly wicked—and Cousin Emmy said no it was too much and tried to catch her, and she ran away and Cousin Emmy ran too, and they chased and chased like mad round the table, and the big girls said, go it Jo, don’t let her touch you, and first a chair fell over and then the tablecloth with the books on it and the inkstand, and it upset on the carpet and there was an awful noise and Aunt Lizzie and Mamma came running to see what was the matter. And Aunt Lizzie was furious and screamed and stamped her foot, and Cousin Josey had to come here, and then she boxed her ears on both sides fit to kill her. And Mamma said oh Lizzie don’t and something about drums, and Aunt Lizzie said she was all of a shake, so she hardly knew what she was doing, but this was just a specimen, Mary, of what she had to put up with, they fought like turkey-cocks, and Cousin Emmy wasn’t a bit of good at managing them but just as bad as any of them, and there was never a moment’s peace, and she wished she’d seen their father at Jericho before she’d had anything to do with him or his spoilt brats. And the other two winked at each other, but Cousin Emmy got wild and said she couldn’t wish it more than she did, and she wouldn’t stand there and hear her father ubbused, and Aunt Lizzie said for two pins and if she’d any more of her sauce she’d box her ears as well though she did think herself so grand. And Cousin Emmy said she dared her to touch her, and it was dreadful. He was ever so glad when Mamma said it was time to go home, and he put on his gloves in a hurry. And when they got home Mamma told the Lady about it and said it was a “tragedy” for everybody concerned. He didn’t like Cousin Emmy quite so well after this. And that night in bed he told Luce all about the shells and the philippine, and Luce said if he’d given it her she’d have given it him back and then he’d still have had two. And he was sorry he hadn’t.