Part 3

How to obtain one? He made inquiries about Wilgandra, but the class of people from whom he sought to take one were of the mind that prevails in many of the country towns and bush settlements. They would rather starve than serve--at all events where they were known. Now and again a self-respecting intelligent girl broke away from her life and went off with her trunk to find service in Sydney.

But, for the most part, the daughters of a house up to the number of seven, or even ten, stayed under the cramped roof-tree of their fathers, and led an unoccupied, sheepish existence, till marriage or death bore them off to other homes.

So in despair Cameron wrote off to a Sydney registry office, and asked the manageress to send him a lady. Just before he closed the letter the happy freedom of the last three months led him to add a postscript, 'I should like the lady you select to be of not too managing a disposition--gentle and pleasant.'

The registry office keeper rubbed her hands; here surely at last was a chance to dispose of Miss Browne--Miss Browne, who was ever on the books, who was sent off to a situation one week, and came back with red eyes and a hopeless expression the next, dismissed incontinently as incapable.

The registry office keeper turned up the town Wilgandra in her railway time-table.

Three hundred and seventy-three miles away! Surely at such a distance, especially as the employer was paying the expensive fare, Miss Browne might be regarded as settled for a space of three months!

Mr. Cameron had no complaint to make of his new lady-help on the score of being of a managing disposition. She was gentleness itself--that kind of deprecating gentleness that makes the world feel uncomfortable. She tried pitifully hard to be pleasant--pleasant and cheerful. She worked from earliest morning to late at night, and accomplished about as much as Hermie could in two hours. It took her nerveless fingers nearly a quarter of an hour to sew on a waistcoat button, and in little more than a quarter of an hour the button would have tumbled off again.

Lizzie seldom trusted her to cook anything; when she did so the poor lady invariably emerged from the kitchen with her hands burnt in several places, sparks in her eyes, the front width of her dress scorched, her hair singed, and her poor frail body so utterly exhausted, the family would insist upon her instant retirement to bed.

Nobody knew what the woman's life had been, where had gone the vigour, the energy, the graces that should still have been hers, for her years were barely thirty-five.

A crushing sorrow, disappointment on the heel of disappointment, loneliness, or perhaps only a grey life full of petty cares passed in a scorching, withering climate--one or all of these things had dried the sap out of her, and left of what might have been a gracious creature, radiating pleasure and comfort, only the rags and bones of womanhood.

The Camerons suffered her patiently for three long months; then the father gathered his courage up in both hands, closed his ears to the pity that clamoured at his heart, and told her gently enough that she must go.

She threw up her fluttering hands and sank on the sofa--in her eyes the piteous look of amaze and grief that your fireside dog would wear if you took a sudden knife to him. So kind had the family been, so patient, the poor creature had told herself exultingly that they were satisfied, even pleased with her, and had hugged the novel, delicious thought to sleep with her for the last two months.

She asked shakingly what she had done.

'Nothing, nothing at all,' Cameron reassured her eagerly; 'it is merely, merely I can see you are not strong enough for such a hard place as mine.'

'A hard place!' she cried, and looked at him dazed. 'Why, there are only five of you, and Lizzie to do all the rough work! I've been where there were ten, and done the washing and everything. I've been where there were nine, and had to chop the wood and draw the water myself. I've been mother's help and had to carry twin babies miles in the sun. I've been where the children pinched and scratched me. I've been at places where I rose at half-past four, and found my way to bed at eleven. And in none have I ever given notice myself. A hard place! Dear heart!'

'My dear Miss Browne,' Cameron said, and such was the fluent nature of the man that his eyes were filled, and he had no idea that he lied, 'it was solely for the sake of your health I spoke. You look so delicate. If you think the duties are not too heavy, why, I shall be most heartily obliged to you if you will stay with us indefinitely.'

Then he went away to seek his children, to tell them her story, and beg their tenderest patience.

*CHAPTER IV*

*The Painting of The Ship*

'Never a bird within my sad heart sings, But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings.'

Yet his coward pen never plucked courage to itself to write across seas of this family incubus.

The earlier letters had spoken variously of 'Miss Macintosh,' or 'the lady-help'; now there was never a name given, the references being merely to 'the lady-help.' Even the children scrupulously followed this up.

When the Marvellous One had gone off with her _entree_ dishes to her new home, the father had said, 'Children, we will not tell mother just yet that Miss Macintosh has left, it would only worry her. We will wait till we can write and say we have another one as good.'

So the tale of Hermie's housekeeping and the mislaid cheque never crossed the sea, and the mother in her far German boarding-house continued to comfort herself with the thought of Miss Macintosh's perfections.

When Miss Browne's shortcomings made themselves glaringly patent, the pens again shallied in telling the story.

'It is so close to Challis's concert, we mustn't worry them with our little troubles, children,' the father said.

So Bartie and Hermie continued to write guarded letters; and if the boy's hand at times ran on to tell how Miss Browne had put ugly patches on his clothes, or the girl's heart began to pour itself out on the thin paper and speak of the discomfort of the new reign, recollection would come flooding, the letters would be cast aside and new ones written, short, studied, and never saying more in reference to the vexed question than 'the lady-help had taken Floss out for a walk.'

'I hope Miss Macintosh sees you have your little pleasures,' the mother would write. 'You do not tell me about birthday parties or picnics. Don't forget mother loves to hear of it all.'

And Hermie would write back sadly:

'The lady-help is very busy just now, but when she has more time she is going to let us have a party.'

'I tremble each mail,' the mother wrote once, 'lest your letter should bring me news that Miss Macintosh is engaged and about to be married. It is strange such a woman has not been snapped up long before this.'

And Cameron answered:

'I do not think you need worry, my darling, about the lady-help marrying. She has given me to understand she has had a disappointment, and will never marry.'

But the very guarding of the letters, the reading of them over, to be sure nothing had been let slip, made them seem poor and lifeless to the anxiously devouring eyes the other side of the world.

She wrote at last:

'Sweetheart, from what you don't say, more than from what you do, I learn of your loneliness. You are so dull, my poor boy, and the days rise up and sink to rest all grey like one another. Yet a little more patience, and surely there will be plenty of money to make life all sunshine for you. But just for a little brightness, darling, reach down that box of paints we put away on the cupboard top, get out your brushes, and let them help the hours to fly. While the Conservatorium has been closed for vacation Challis and I have been four days in Rome. And she found me crying one morning in a picture gallery, in front of some great picture, a Raphael, or an Andrea del Sarto--some one, at all events, who painted with hands of fire. And yet it was not the subject of the picture that moved me, unless it was that the magic canvas wrought me to the mood that is yours so often. All I thought of was the cold harsh woman, the Martha with blind eyes, who, that first day in Wilgandra, took away by force and at the same time the paint-box and the glow from your life. My boy, my sweetheart, let me give it back. Ah, would that I could stand on the chair and reach it down from the cupboard and put it into your hands myself! But do it now, my darling, this moment. I know you will be careful and not risk your position by forgetfulness. And when you are loneliest, when you miss me most, let the brushes take my place.'

Cameron had been reading his letter at the tea-table.

'Children,' he said, and rose up, his face working, his eyes shining strangely, 'children, mother wants me to paint pictures again. I--she says I am to get the box down.'

The table had no comprehension of the greatness of the matter, but rose up at once, at seeing the father so moved. Roly brought his mug of sweetened milk along with him, Floss continued to bite at her crust of bread-and-jam, Miss Browne fluttered about, Hermie and Bart pressed at their father's elbow.

'Bring a chair, Bartie,' Cameron said, 'here at the cupboard in the hall.'

'Mine cubbub,' interjected Floss; 'me's hat in dere. Go 'way, daddie.'

'I'll climb up,' said eager Bart. 'What is it up there, dad?'

'Give me the chair--let me reach it down myself,' Cameron said, and stepped up and stretched his long arm to the top.

A dusty mustard-box! The children's eyes brightened with swift thoughts of treasure, then dulled when the lid was flung back and displayed nothing but a chaos of dirty oil-tubes and brushes.

But when they saw their father's glistening eyes, saw him fingering the same tubes with a tender, lingering touch, looking at the brushes' points, they did not tell him they were disappointed in the treasure. Instead, Bart led off with a cheer.

'Hurrah for daddie the artist!' he shouted.

'Hurrah!' cried Hermie.

''Rah!' shrilled Roly.

Floss claimed a kiss.

'Me dive daddie dat,' she said in her kindest way, 'out mine cubbub.'

And thus was the painting of the ship begun.

'Can you see what I mean, Bart?' Cameron said two months later, when the picture was almost finished, so desperately had he worked at it.

'You mean it for a ship, don't you?' Bart said. 'If I'd been you, though, dad, I'd have painted a steamship with two funnels. People don't think much of sailing-boats now.'

'Can you see what I mean, Hermie?' Cameron said, and wistfulness had crept into his eyes.

Hermie's blue-flower eyes were regarding the great canvas dubiously.

'Couldn't you have made the water blue, papa?' she said; 'the sea is blue, you know. P'raps, though, you hadn't enough blue paint. But I like it to be a sailing-boat; steamships aren't so clean.'

The man's heart clamoured for his wife, who had never been at a loss to find what he meant. For a moment it seemed intolerable to him that she was not there at his elbow, to share the exaltation of the moment with him.

'Run away, run away,' he said irritably to Hermie and Bart; 'you shake my elbow, you worry me; run away.'

Miss Browne made a hysterical noise in her throat.

'It is so sad,' she said; 'what is it you have done to it? It is only a ship and a man, and yet--do you know I can hardly keep the sobs back when I look at it.'

To her amaze her employer turned eagerly round, shook her hand again and again in warmest gratitude, and fell to painting once more with feverish haste.

The canvas showed a livid stretch of coast and ocean, and a spectre ship with a spectre captain at the helm.

The ship had an indescribably sad effect. You saw her straining through the strong, repellent waves, you heard her cordage creaking, you saw her battling stem struggling to push a way. She was a living thing, breaking her heart over the black hopelessness of her task. The captain's face burnt flame-white out from the canvas; his desperate eyes stared straight ahead; his long hand held the helm in a frightful grip. You knew he was aware he would never round his cape; you knew he would fight to do so through all eternity.

The Camerons celebrated the day of the finishing of the picture as a high holiday. The children had ten shillings tossed to them to spend as they liked. They bought a marvellous motley of edible things, and dragged their father and Miss Browne up the Jib to partake of them. It were sheer madness to suppose a whole half-crown's worth of Brazil nuts; to say nothing of chocolates, tarts and other extreme dainties, could be discussed within the cramped walls of a house in a street. The whole width of the heavens was needed, and a thousand gum-trees, and the smell of earth and grass.

Cameron walked about on the heights as if on air. He had not painted that canvas that stood, still wet, down below in the straggling town. He had entertained a spirit, something stronger, fiercer, more triumphantly capable than himself. He could have flung up his arms and run shouting up and down, shouting thanks to the winds, the trees, the sailing skies, that the spirit had taken its dwelling in him. Magnificent fancies came bursting upon him; now and again he held his head, so rich were the conceptions, so strong felt his hand to bring them into instant being.

An urgent craving for his wife took hold of him--he strode away from the children's shouts, away from Miss Browne, who sat wretched because she had forgotten the tin-opener, and the tea, and the sugar.

He found himself down near the creek, with the gums waving eighty feet above his head, gums with snow patches of blossoms on them, stern gums, smiling gums, red, silver, blue. And he called, 'Molly,' and the trees encouraged him.

And again, 'Molly,' 'Molly,' and there burst up to his lips from his heart all the words he had had to stifle away since the sailing of her ship. All that he would have poured out to her these last two years, all that had lain quiet and kept his being stagnant since that last agonised clinging of her arms.

'I thought I could bear it,' the man said to the trees, 'but I can't--it is too much! Are you listening to me, Molly? I must have you again to talk to. She has had you long enough--Challis has had her share of you; now I must have you again. These children take us from each other, Molly. We are very fond of them, but we should have more time to love each other without them, to love like we did twelve years ago. I want you, to tell you about the picture, Molly, Molly. Can you hear, darling, can you hear?'

And sometimes she seemed near to him, seemed a part of the air, the trees, the earth, and he raved to her and talked joyously.

And sometimes he lost her, the delicate spirit webs broken by the world's machinery, and he dropped his head on his arms and wept.

But when the thread snapped finally, and nothing could bring her to him again, he groped his way upwards, for now the loneliness, after the speaking, was a thing he dared not bear. The children welcomed him eagerly. They had wanted him so badly, they said, for dinner, and here he came only just in time for tea. Would he please open that tin of jam--there was no opener, but perhaps he could do it with a bit of broken bottle? And there were no matches; would he please use his and light the fire? The tea was forgotten, but hot milk and water would be nice, perhaps, but there was only a little milk remaining, and the sugar had been left behind. He fell to laughing, and was thereby restored to more normal mind. He lighted the fire, and water and milk circulated round the little party, and refreshed it. He attended to the wounded--Bart had gashed his hand attempting the opening of that tin of jam, Hermie had a tick in her arm, Roly had stirred up a nest of bull-dog ants, and had met with his due reward, Floss had eaten too many chocolates, and Miss Browne had been stuck in the mud, attempting to get water from a pot-hole; her large shabby shoes looked pathetically ridiculous.

So by the time he had helped all his lame dogs over their stiles, and got them ready for marching home, his mood was quite a happy one again. He went down the mountain-side, Floss in his arms, Bart and Hermie on either side, Miss Browne and Roly close at hand.

And with a flushed face and happy eyes and a fluent tongue he told them all manner of wonderful things; in very truth he could keep them to himself no longer. How the world was going to be very pleased indeed with his picture, and hang it in so famous a place that Challis would not be the only one making the name of Cameron celebrated. And how a whole mint of gold was going to be given to him for it--Hermie and Miss Browne would be able to order all they liked and more from the family grocer. And how he was going to send for mamma to come at once to stay with them again, so that they could all live happily to the end of their days.

Through the little town they wound with eyes shining at the thought.

Hermie's order-loving soul was soothed at the vision of domestic peace once more. Bart resolved to keep his best knickerbockers for the mother-fingers to mend.

'Can she make puddings?' said Roly, who despised the culinary skill of Miss Browne. And 'Mam-mam,' murmured little sleepy Floss, not because her mind held recollection of using the name, but because a baby next-door spoke it incessantly, and it seemed pleasant. Only Miss Browne looked wistful-eyed; a mother such as this seemed would never deem her capable enough; Christmas would see her back in Sydney, weariedly waiting occupation in the registry office.

They turned the key of the door--Lizzie had had holiday also. And on the threshold, pushed beneath the door by the post-boy, lay another long blue envelope with no stamp upon it, and only printed letters instead.

Cameron picked it up, quite without suspicion--his cheque for the quarter, he supposed.

But the reading told him he was dismissed the service for his carelessness and the culpable neglect of his duties during the past four months.

*CHAPTER V*

*Dunks' Selection*

'Well, it is earth with me; Silence resumes her reign, I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.'

'I shouldn't think it can be very much farther, dad,' said Bart.

'I believe we have passed it,' Hermie sighed; 'I am sure we have come much more than nine miles,' and she mopped her hot cheeks that the sun, burn as he would, had never freckled.

Cameron, the reins slack in his hand, looked doubtfully from side to side.

'It ought to be somewhere here,' he said; 'isn't that a fence at the top of the hill? Yes, I'm sure it is.' He touched the horse lightly with the switch that Floss held, and on they went again. They were in a borrowed broken-springed buggy, the five of them and Miss Browne, come out to see the home their father was buying--none of them, not even the father, had seen it yet.

For a couple of months after his dismissal Cameron had lingered on in the house in Wilgandra, too bewildered and helpless to know what to do.

It was not the first time a similar crisis had happened, but before his wife had always taken matters in hand, looked up situations for him in the papers, interviewed influential people, brushed his clothes and sent him out with little to do but present himself to his employer.

But now he was completely at sea.

He wrote a few letters to Sydney friends, vaguely asking if they knew of 'a billet.' But seven years' silence makes strangers of ones best friends; some were scattered, and dead letters were the only reply; others wrote to say Sydney had never been in such a state of hopeless depression, and strongly advised him not to come to add to the frightful army of the unemployed.

'Why not go on the land?' said one or two of them. 'A man like you with a growing family should do well there, and you would at least be your own master and free from "a month's notice."'

Cameron first asked the children what they thought of 'going on the land.'

When they heard this meant moving to a new place, and having sheep and growing all their own things, and each one helping, they were enchanted.

Cameron was too shy and reserved to have made many friends in the township, but he put on a clean cool coat and filled his pipe and wandered forth, with the vague idea of asking some one's advice on the matter. But there was a race-meeting in a neighbouring township, and the streets were almost deserted, the tradespeople and the land-and-estate agent being the only men at their posts. The latter, however, struck Cameron as the very man to ask. And Cameron struck the agent as the very man for whom he had been waiting. There was a selection, he said, a few miles away--eighty acres of fine land that its drunken owner, Dunks, had hardly stirred since he had taken it up. There was a five-roomed cottage on it, there were fifty head of sheep, poultry, a couple of horses, a cart, and all tools. Dunks, anxious to get to Sydney, was willing to let all go for two hundred and fifty pounds.

But Cameron went home hopeless, he could as easily raise two thousand pounds as two hundred and fifty.

Hermie met him with a registered letter from which a cheque for a hundred fluttered. Challis's professors, it seemed, had allowed her to give a few concerts in the midst of her course of lessons, and five hundred pounds had been the result.

'The child insists that I shall send a hundred,' ran the letter, 'for you all to buy presents with, and though I don't know what you can buy--but sheep--in Wilgandra, I send it. More I do not enclose, my dear one, for well do I know how shockingly you would lose and give it away. But all have some fun with this hundred, and now every penny that comes I shall jealously bank for the future and for the child's own use, as is but fair and right.'

Cameron and Bartie and Hermie went eagerly off to the agent's again. Cameron held up his cheque, and asked if it would do if they paid that amount down and the rest on terms. And the agent, after a little demur, was agreeable--had he not that morning been visited by Dunks, who said he would take as low as a hundred and fifty to be rid of the place?

Cameron almost handed the cheque over there and then, but then some of the prudence learned from his wife came to him, and he pocketed it instead, and said they would go and look at the place.

Thereupon, the following Saturday, the agent lent his buggy, gave directions for finding, and this was the journeying.

'Yes,' Cameron said, 'this must be it, but there doesn't seem to be a gate. I suppose we had better go through these sliprails. Get down and lift them out, Bart.'

The early summer, in her eagerness and passion for growth and beauty, had been tender even to Dunks' selection. The appearance of the place appalled none of the buggy-load.

Wattle in bloom made a glory of the uncleared spaces, the young gums were very green, the older ones wore masses of soft white upon their soberness.

Farther away there browsed brown sheep, but this was the season for lambs, and a dozen little soft snowballs of things had come close to the cottage and gambolled with the children. There was a bleating calf with a child's pink sash tied round its neck, fluff balls of chickens ran under the feet, downy ducklings were picking everywhere.

And all this young life was so beautiful a sight that the children were wild with rapture, and Cameron's dreamy beauty-loving soul told him here was the home for him.

The cottage shocked him somewhat, it was so very tumbledown, the roof was so low, the windows so broken.

He began to consider whether he had not better take up a selection for himself near at hand and run up his own cottage, these walls were hardly worth the pulling down.