“I was nabbed,” he said in a colourless voice, “at a fight with fists for a purse of sovereigns, laid either side. Plenty of others were there. But they got away, and the police nabbed me for the school colours on my cap. My father was just back from Ceylon, and he stood by me. But the Head said for the sake of example and for the name of the school I’d better be chucked out. They were talking about the school in the newspapers. The Head said he was sorry to expel me.”
Mr. George blew his nose into a large yellow red-spotted handkerchief, and looked for a few moments into the distance.
“Seems to me you let yourself be made a bit of a cat’s paw of,” he said dubiously.
“I suppose it’s because I don’t care,” said Jack.
“But you ought to care. — Why don’t y’?”
There was no answer.
“You’ll have to care some day or other,” the old man continued.
“Do you know, sir, which hotel I shall go to?” asked Jack.
“You’ll go to no hotel. You’ll come home with me. — But mind y’. I’ve got my two young nieces, Ellis’ twins, couple of girls, Ellis’ daughters, where I’m going to send you. They’re at my house. And there’s my other niece, Mary, who I’m very fond of. She’s not an Ellis, she’s a Rath, and an orphan, lives with her Aunt Matilda, my sister. They don’t live with me. None of ‘em live with me. I live alone, except for a good, plain cook, since my wife died. — But I tell you, they’re visiting me. And I shall look to you to behave yourself, now: both here and at Wandoo, which is Ellis’ station. I’ll take you there in the morning. — But y’see now where I’m taking you: among a pack of innocent sheep that’s probably never seen a goat to say Boh! To — or Baa! if you like — makes no difference. We don’t raise goats in Western Australia, as I’m aware of. — But I’m telling you, if you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing — . No, you needn’t say anything. You probably don’t know what you are, anyhow. So come on. I’ll tell somebody to bring your bags — looks a rare jorum to me — and we’ll walk.”
II
They walked off the timber platform into the sand, and Jack had his first experience of “sand-groping.” The sand was thick and fine and soft, so he was glad to reach the oyster-shell path running up Wellington Street, in front of the shops. They passed along the street of brick cottages and two-storied houses, to Barrack Street, where Jack looked with some surprise on the pretentious buildings that stood up in the dusk: the handsome square red brick tower of the Town Hall, and on the sandy hill to the left, the fine white edifice of the Roman Catholic Church, which building was already older than Jack himself. Beyond the Town Hall was the Church of England. “See it!” said Mr. George. “That’s where your father and mother were married. Slap-dash, military wedding, more muslin and red jackets than would stock a shop.”
Mr. George spoke to everybody he met, ladies and gentlemen alike. The ladies seemed a bit old-fashioned, the gentlemen all wore nether garments at least four sizes too large for them. Jack was much piqued by this pioneering habit. And they all seemed very friendly and easy-going, like men in a pub at home.
“What did the Bedford Headmaster say he was sorry to lose you for? Smart at your books, were you?”
“I was good at Scripture and Shakespeare, but not at the other things. — I expect he was sorry to lose me from the football eleven. I was the cock there.”
Mr. George blew his nose loudly, gasped, prrrhed, and said:
“You’d better say rooster, my son, here in Australia — especially in polite society. We’re a trifle more particular than they are in England, I suppose. — Well, and what else have you got to crow about?”
If Jack had been the sulky sort, he would now have begun to get sulky. As it was, he was tired of being continually pulled up. But he fell back on his own peculiar callous indifference.
“I was captain of the first football eleven,” he said in his indifferent voice, “and not bad in front of the sticks. And I took the long distance running cup a year under age. I tell you because you ask me.”
Then Mr. George astonished Jack again by turning and planting himself in front of him like Balaam’s ass, in the middle of the path, standing with feet apart in his big elephant trousers, snorting behind a walrus moustache, glaring and extending a large and powerful hand. He shook hands vigorously, saying, “You’ll do, my son. You’ll do for me.”
Then he resumed his walk.
III
“Yes, sir, you’ll do for me,” resumed the old man. “For I can see you’re a gentleman.”
Jack was rather taken aback. He had come to Australia to be a man, a wild, bushy man among men. His father was a gentleman.
“I think I’d rather be a man than a gentleman,” he said.
Mr. George stood still, feet apart, as if he had been shot.
“What’s the difference?” he cried in a falsetto, sarcastic tone. “What’s the difference? Can’t be a man unless you are a gentleman. Take that from me. You might say I’m not a gentleman. Sense of the ridiculous runs away with me, for one thing. But, in order to be the best man I could, I’ve tried to be all the gentleman I could. No hanky-pankying about it. — You’re a gentleman born. — I’m not, not altogether. Don’t you go trying to upset what you are. But whether you’re a bush-whacker or a lumper you can be a gentleman. A gentleman’s a man who never laughs to wound, who’s honest with himself and his own judge in the sight of the Almighty. — That’s the Government House down there among the trees, river just beyond. — That’s my house, there, see. I’m going to hand you over to the girls, once we get there. So I shan’t see you again, not to talk to. I want to tell you then, that I put my confidence in you, and you’re going to play up like a gentleman. And I want you to know, as between gentlemen, not merely between an old man and a boy: but as between gentlemen, if you ever need any help, or a word of advice come to me. Come to me, and I’ll do my best.”
He once more shook hands, this time in a conclusive manner.
Jack had looked to left and right as they walked, half listening to the endless old man. He saw sandy blocks of land beside the road, and scattered, ugly buildings, most of them new. He made out the turrets and gables of the Government House, in the dusk among trees, and he imagined the wide clear river below those trees.
Turning down an unmade road, they approached a two-storied brick house with narrow verandahs, whose wooden supports rested nakedly on the sand below. There was no garden, fence, or anything: just an oyster-shell path across the sand, a pipe-clayed doorstep, a brass knocker, a narrow wooden verandah, a few flower-pots.
Mr. George opened the door and showed the boy into the narrow wooden hall. There was a delicious smell of cooking. Jack climbed the thin, flimsy stairs, and was shown into his bedroom. A four-poster bed with a crochet quilt and frilled pillows, a mahogany chest of drawers with swivel looking-glass, a washstand with china set complete. England all over again. — Even his bag was there, and his brushes were set out for him.
He had landed!
IV
As he made his toilet, he heard a certain fluttering outside his door. He waited for it to subside, and when all seemed still, opened to go downstairs. There stood two girls, giggling and blushing, waiting arm in arm to pounce on him.
“Oh, isn’t he beau!” exclaimed one of the girls, in a sort of aside. And the other broke into a high laugh.
Jack remained dumbfounded, reddening to the roots of his hair. But his dark-blue eyes lingered for a moment on the two girlish faces. They were evidently the twins. They had the same thin, soft, slightly-tanned, warm-looking faces, a little wild, and the same marked features. But the brows of one were level, and her fair hair, darkish fair, was all crisp, curly round her temples, and she looked up at you from under her level brows with queer yellow-grey eyes, shy, wild, and yet with a queer effrontery, like a wild-cat under a bush. The other had blue eyes and a bigger nose, and it was she who said, “Oh, isn’t he beau!”
The one with the y
ellow eyes stuck out her slim hand awkwardly, gazing at him and saying:
“I suppose you’re cousin Jack, Beau.”
He shook hands first with one, then with the other, and could not find a word to say. The one with the yellow eyes was evidently the leader of the two.
“Tea is ready,” she said, “if you’re coming down.”
She spoke this over her shoulder. There was the same colour in her tawny eyes as in her crisp tawny hair, but her brows were darker. She had a forehead, Jack decided, like the plaster-cast of Minerva. And she had the queerest way of looking at you under her brows, and over her shoulder. Funny pair of lambs, these.
The two girls went downstairs arm in arm, at a run. This is quite a feat, but evidently they were used to it.
Jack looked on life, social life inside a house, as something to be borne in silence. These two girls were certainly a desperate addition. He heard them burst into the parlour, the other one repeating:
“He’s coming. Here comes Beau.”
“I thought his name was Jack. Bow is it!” exclaimed a voice.
He entered the parlour with his elbows at his sides, his starched collar feeling very stiff. He was aware of the usual hideous room, rather barer than at home: plush cushions on a horse-hair sofa, and a green carpet: a large stout woman with reddish hair in a silk frock and gold chains, and Mr. George introducing her as Mrs. Watson, otherwise Aunt Matilda. She put diamond-ringed hands on Jack’s shoulders and looked into his face, which he thought a repellent procedure.
“So like your father, dear boy; how’s your dear mother?”
And in spite of his inward fury of resistance, she kissed him. For she was but a woman of forty-two.
“Quite well, thank you,” said Jack: though considering he had been at sea for six weeks, he knew as little about his mother’s health as did Aunt Matilda herself.
“Did y’ blow y’ candle out?” asked Mr. George.
“No he didn’t,” answered the tawny girl. “I’ll go and do it.”
And she flashed away upstairs like a panther.
“I suppose the twins introduced themselves,” said Mr. George.
“No they didn’t,” said the other one.
“Only christened you Bow. — You’ll be somebody or other’s beau before very long, I’ll warrant. — This is Grace, Grace Ellis, you know, where you’re going to live. And her sister who’s gone upstairs to blow your candle out, is Monica. — Can’t be too careful of fire in these dry places. — Most folks say they can’t tell ‘em apart, but I call it nonsense.”
“Ancien, beau, bon, cher, adjectives which precede,” said the one called Monica, jerking herself into the room, after blowing out the candle.
“There’s your father,” said Mr. George. And Aunt Matilda fluttered into the hall, while the twins betrayed no interest at all. The tawny one stared at Jack and kept slinking about like a lean young panther to get a different view of him. For all the world as if she was going to pounce on him, like a cat on a bird. He, permanently flushed, kept his self-possession in a boyish and rather handsome, if stiff, manner.
Mr. Ellis was stout, clean-shaven, red-faced, and shabby and baggy, and good-natured in appearance.
“This is the young gentleman — Mr. Grant — called in Westralia Bow, so named by Miss Monica Ellis.”
“By Miss Grace, if you please,” snapped Monica.
“Tea’s ready. Tea’s ready.”
They trooped into the dining room where a large table was spread. Aunt Matilda seated herself behind the tea-kettle, Mr. George sat at the other end, before the pile of plates and the carvers, and the others took their places where they would. Jack modestly sat on Aunt Matilda’s left hand, so the tawny Monica at once pounced on the chair opposite.
Entered the Good Plain Cook with a dish covered with a pewter cover, and followed by a small, dark, ugly, quiet girl carrying the vegetable dishes.
“That’s my niece Mary, Jack. Lives with Aunt Matilda here, who won’t spare her or I’d have her to live here with me. Now you know everybody. What’s for tea?”
He was dangerously clashing the knife on the steel. Then lifting the cover, he disclosed a young pig roasted in all its glory of gravy. Mary meanwhile had nodded her head at Jack and looked at him with her big, queer, very black eyes. You might have thought she had native blood. She sat down to serve the vegetables.
“Grace, there’s a fly in the milk,” said Aunt Matilda, who was already pouring large cups of tea. Grace seized the milk jug and jerked from the room.
“Do you take milk and sugar, as your dear father used to, John?” asked Aunt Matilda of the youth on her left.
“Call him Bow. Bow’s his name out here — John’s too stiff and Jack’s too common!” exclaimed Mr. George, elbows deep in carving.
“Bow’ll do for me,” put in Mrs. Ellis, who said little.
“Mary, is there any mustard?” said Aunt Matilda.
Jack rose vaguely to go and get it, but Aunt Matilda seized him by the arm and pushed him back.
“Sit still. She knows where it is.”
“Monica, come and carry the cups, there’s a good girl.”
“Now which end of the pig do you like, Jack?” asked Mr. George. “Matilda, will this do for you?” He held up a piece on the fork. Mary arrived with a ponderous gyrating cruet-stand, which she made place for in the middle of the table.
“What about bread?” said Aunt Matilda. “I’m sure John eats bread with his meat. Fetch some bread, Grace, for your cousin John.”
“Everybody did it,” thought Jack in despair, as he tried to eat amid the hustle. “No servants, nothing ever still. On the go all the time.”
“Girls going to the concert tonight?” asked Mr. George.
“If anybody will go with us,” replied Monica, with a tawny look at Jack.
“There’s Bow,” said Mr. George, “Bowll like to go.”
Under the she-lion peering of Monica, Jack was incapable of answer.
“Let the poor boy rest,” said Aunt Matilda. “Just landed after a six thousand mile voyage, and you rush him out next minute to a concert. Let him stop at home quietly with me, and have a quiet chat about the dear ones he’s left behind. — Aren’t you going to the concert with the girls, Jacob?”
This was addressed to Mr. Ellis, who took a gulp of tea and shook his head mutely.
“I’d rather go to the concert, I think,” said Jack under the queer yellow glower of Monica’s eyes, and the full black moons of Mary’s.
“Good for you, my boy,” said Mr. George. “Bow by name and Bow by nature. And well set up, with three strings to his Bow already.”
Monica once more peered tawnily, and Mary glanced a black, furtive glance. Aunt Matilda looked down on him and Grace, at his side, peered up.
For the first time since childhood, Jack found himself in a really female setting. Instinctively he avoided women: but particularly he avoided girls. With girls and women he felt exposed to some sort of danger — as if something were going to seize him by the neck, from behind, when he wasn’t looking. He relied on men for safety. But curiously enough, these two elderly men gave him no shelter whatever. They seemed to throw him a victim to these frightful “lambs.” In England, there was an esprit de corps among men. Man for man was a tower of strength against the females. Here in this place men deserted one another as soon as the women put in an appearance. They left the field entirely to the females.
In the first half-hour Jack realised he was thrown a victim to these tawny and black young cats. And there was nothing to do but bear up.
“Have you got an evening suit?” asked Grace, who was always the one to ponder things out.
“Yes — a sort of a one,” said Jack.
“Oh, good! Oh, put it on! Do put it on.”
“Leave the lad alone,” said Mr. George. “Let him go as he is.”
“No,” said Aunt Matilda. “He has his father’s handsome presence. Let him make the best of himself. I think I’ll go t
o the concert after all.”
After dinner there was a bustle. Monica flew up to light his candle for him, and stood there peering behind the flame when he came upstairs.
“You haven’t much time,” she said, as if she were going to spear him.
“All right,” he answered, in his hoarse young voice. And he stood in torment till she left his room.
He was just tying his tie when there came a flutter and a tapping. Aunt Matilda’s voice saying: “Nearly time. Are you almost ready?”
“Half a minute!” he crowed hoarsely, like an unhappy young cock.
But the door stealthily opened, and Aunt Matilda peeped in.
“Oh, tying his tie!” she said, satisfactorily, when she perceived that he was dressed as far as discretion demanded. And she entered in full blow. Behind her hovered Grace — then Monica — and in the doorway Mary. It seemed to Jack that Aunt Matilda was the most objectionable of the lot, Monica the brazenest, Grace the most ill-mannered, and Mary the most repulsive, with her dark face. He struggled in discomfort with his tie.
“Let Mary do it,” said Aunt Matilda.
“No, no!” he barked. “I can do it.”
“Come on, Mary. Come and tie John’s tie.”
Mary came quietly forward.
“Let me do it for you, Bow,” she said in her quiet, insinuating voice, looking at him with her inky eyes and standing in front of him till his knees felt weak and his throat strangled. He was purple in the face, struggling with his tie in the presence of the lambs.
“He’ll never get it done,” said Monica, from behind the yellow glare.
“Let me do it,” said Mary, and lifting her hands decisively she took the two ends of the tie from him.
He held his breath and lifted his eyes to the ceiling and felt as if the front of his body were being roasted. Mary, the devil-puss, seemed endless ages fastening the tie. Then she twitched it at his throat and it was done, just as he was on the point of suffocation.
“Are those your best braces?” said Grace. “They’re awfully pretty with rose-buds.” And she fingered the band.
“I suppose you put on evening dress for the last dinner on board,” said Aunt Matilda. “Nothing makes me cry like Auld Lang Syne, that last night, before you land next day. But it’s fifteen years since I went over to England.”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 386