The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  But she did not falter. . . .either at his first disdainful sniff, or, later on, when his eyes came stealing back to hers; came tamed, all the scorn gone out of them. “Only do not call it home,” was his unspoken request. Short of a miracle that name would never, he believed, cross his lips again. No place could now be “home” to him as long as he lived. He was once more an outcast and a wanderer; must go back in humiliation to the land that had eaten up his prime, and there make the best of the years that were left him.

  As time wore on, however, and their preparations for departure advanced; as, too, the prospect of a change of scene hoisted its pirate flag again, this sense of bitterness subsided; the acute ache turned to a dull pain that was almost a relief. And worked on by this, as by the joy which, for all her anxieties, Mary could not quite conceal, the relief also imperceptibly changed its character, and grew to be a warm spot in his heart.

  And one evening, when the supper dishes had been pushed aside to make room for Mary’s desk—she was methodically noting the contents of a tin trunk—Mahony in watching her and thinking how the frequent coughs and colds she had suffered from, since landing in England, had thinned her down, spoke his thought aloud. “Well, love, whatever happens, you at least will grow fat and well again, and be the healthy woman you always were.”

  “Now don’t start to worry about me. I’m all right,” said Mary. “It takes time to get used to a strange climate.” She entered a few more items in her clean, pointed writing, then laid her pen down and put her chin on her hand. “The thing I like to think of, Richard, is how soon I shall be seeing them all again—Ned and Jerry and Tilly, and the dear children. I can hardly believe it. I have missed them so.”

  “Poor little wife! And shall I tell you what I dwell most on? ’Pon my soul, Mary, it’s of getting my teeth into a really sweet apple again—instead of a specimen that’s red on one side only. I believe England will stick in my mind, for the rest of my days, as the land where the fruit doesn’t ripen.”

  “And yet costs so much to buy.”

  “And if I know you, my dear, it’s the Abernethy biscuit and thin lemon-water you won’t forget. Well, well, madam! you’ll soon be able to pamper your guests once more to your heart’s content.”

  “Perhaps. But I shall at least see who it is Jerry thinks of marrying.”

  “See?. . . .yes. But don’t hug the belief you’ll be able to influence him in his choice.”

  “I may not want to. And then there’s Johnny to try and find out about, poor boy, and to keep Zara from making a goose of herself. Oh! now that we’re going home, I feel how dreadfully cut off from them all I have been here.”

  “And they’ll every one hail you joyfully, my dear, rest assured of that!. . . .be literally foaming with impatience to make use of you again. I should only like to know how they’ve got on without you.” Mahony had risen from his chair and was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire. Having meditatively warmed his coat-tails for a moment he added: “There’s another thing, Polly, I don’t mind telling you I look forward to, and that seeing a real sunrise and sunset again. On this side of the world. . . .well, as often as not the sun seems just to slip in or out of a bank of clouds. There’s none of that sense of a coming miracle. . . .that uplifting effect of space. . . .or splendour of colouring. Why, I’ve still in my memory evenings when half the field of the sky was one pink flush—with a silver star twinkling through—or a stretch of unreal green deepening into yellow—or mauve. . . .And the idea has come to me that it must have been from glories of this kind that the old Greek scribe drew his picture of the New Jerusalem. . . .Yes, I must say, things here—colouring, landscape, horizon—have all seemed very dull and cramped. . . .like the souls of the people themselves.”

  Again he fell into thought. Then warmed by these confidences, went further. “Mary, love, let me confess it: I realise what a sad fool I’ve made of myself over this whole business. My ever leaving Ballarat was a fatal mistake. If I’d only had the sense to take your advice! I was run down—at the end of my tether—from years of overwork. A twelve-month out of harness would have set me right again: a voyage to this side; fresh surroundings and associations—and no need to stint with the money either, for we should now have been going back to our old ample income. Instead of having to face another start on as good as nothing. . . .eat humble pie before them all, too. For they will certainly grasp what has happened.—No, I can see it now; I was too old for such a drastic break. One’s habits stiffen with one’s joints. You’ve noticed I’ve been hurt by people here implying I’m out-of-date, old-fashioned—good enough for the colonies but not for the home-country—but, upon my word, Mary, I don’t know if there isn’t some truth in it. I stopped too long in the one place, my dear; with the result that I ought to have stopped there altogether.—Well, well!. . . .there’s only this about it: fiasco though it has proved, it has not hit me as hard as it might have done, considering the exaggerated expectations I came home with. Which in itself is enough to show me age is rendering me indifferent. Actually, my dear, I believe much of the sting is taken from what has happened by the sight of your satisfaction at returning. Never should I have brought you here—never! I thought to find myself among a different set of people altogether. In memory, I confused good breeding with tact and kindliness. Whereas, now, if it comes to a choice between blue blood and inborn goodness of heart, then what I say is: give me nature’s gentlefolk all the time. There’s as little likeness between them as between this eternal clammy drizzle and some of those cloudless winter days we knew on the Flat.”

  “Richard! Don’t forget how you hated the climate there. And how poorly the sun made you feel.”

  “Nor do I. And in spite of the mizzle, and damp, and want of sun, I’ve thriven in this country. But one can’t live on climate alone. And when I let my mind dwell on the way I—we—have been treated here; the stodgy lack of goodwill. . . .animosity even. . . .the backbiting and gossip, I tell you this, love: there’s but one person I shall regret when I leave; one only of whom I shall carry away a warm remembrance; and that’s, as you know, your dear old mother. But can you guess why? Upon my word, I believe it’s because there’s something in her warm-heartedness and generosity, her overflowing hospitality, that reminds me of the people we lived among so long.

  “Well! it’s late. . . .we must to bed,” he went on, after a silence which Mary did not break, there seeming really nothing left for her to say: “I’ve no plans, my dear, nor have I at present the spirit to make any. It seems best at this moment to leave the future in the laps of the gods. I know this much though: I’m cured of castle-building for ever.”

  Mary nodded and acquiesced; or at least again said nothing; and she kept to this attitude in the weeks that followed, when, as was only natural, Richard’s mind, far too active and uneasy to rest, began to play round the plans he might have made, had he not forsworn the habit. These included settling somewhere by the sea; either near Melbourne or at one of the watering-places on the Bay—Dromana or Schnapper Point. Mary let him talk. She herself was persuaded that the only rational thing for him to do was to return to Ballarat. It was of no use his riding the high horse: feelings of pique and pride must yield to practical considerations. He was known from one end of Ballarat to the other; and the broken threads could there be picked up more swiftly and with greater ease than anywhere else. It would, of course, no longer be a case of Webster Street—unless the doctor to whom he had sold the practice had failed, or proved otherwise unsatisfactory. But Richard would find room somewhere; even if it had to be on the Redan, or at Sebastopol, or out at Buninyong. And though he could now never hope to occupy the position he had wilfully abandoned—oh, the unspeakable folly of man!—never hope to give up general practice for that of consultant or specialist, yet with care something might still be saved from the wreck of the past. And nursing these schemes, Mary set her lips and frowned with determination. Nev
er again in the years to come, should he be able to say he repented not having taken her advice. This time she would set her will through, cost what it might.

  PART II

  CHAPTER ONE

  The good ship Florabella, eighty-four days out from Liverpool, made the Australian coast early one spring morning; and therewith the faint, new, spicy smell of land wafted across the water.

  Coming up from below to catch a whiff of it, her passengers blinked dazzled eyes at the gaudy brilliancy of light and colouring. Here were no frail tints and misty trimmings; everything stood out hard, clear, emphatic. The water was a crude sapphire; the surf that frothed on the reefs white as milk. As for the sky, Mahony declared it made him think of a Reckitt’s bluebag; while a single strip of pearly cloud to the east looked fixed, immovable—solid as those clouds on which, in old paintings, cherubs perch or lean.

  Outside the “Rip” the vessel hove to, to take up the pilot; and every neck was craned to watch his arrival; for with him would come letters and news—the first to reach the travellers since their departure from England. Hungrily was the unsealing of the mail-bag awaited.

  Mary’s lap would hardly hold the envelopes that bore her name. They were carried to her by the grizzled old Captain himself, who dealt them out, one by one, cracking a joke to each. Mary laughed; but at the same time felt a touch of embarrassment. For her to receive so large a share of the good things—under the very noses, too, of those unfortunates who got none—seemed not in the best of taste. So, the tale told, she retired with her budget to the cabin; and Mahony, having seen her below, went back to read his own correspondence on deck.

  But she had done no more than finish John’s note of welcome and break the seal of Tilly’s, when a foot came bounding through the saloon, off which the cabin opened, and there was Richard again—Richard with rumpled hair, eyes alight, red of face, looking for all the world like a rowdy schoolboy. Seizing her by the hands he pulled her to her feet, and would have twirled her round. But Mary, her letters strewing the floor, protested—stood firm.

  “What is the matter?”

  “Mary! Wife! Here’s news for us!. . . .here’s news. A letter from——” and he flourished a sheet of paper at her. “I give you three guesses, love. But nonsense!—you couldn’t. . . .not if you guessed till Doomsday. No more pinching and scraping for us, Mary! No more underpaid drudgery for me! My fortune’s made. I am a rich man. . . .at last!”

  “Richard dear! What is it now?”

  Mary spoke in the lightly damping tone which Mahony was wont to grumble she reserved for him alone. But to-day it passed unnoticed.

  “Here you are, madam—read for yourself!” and he pushed a crumpled letter into her hand. “It’s those Australia Felixes we have to thank for it. What a glorious piece of luck, Mary, that I should have stuck to them and gone on paying their wretched calls, when every one else let them lapse in despair. John will be green with envy. And this is only the beginning, my dear. There’s no telling what they’ll do when they get the new plant in—old Simmonds says so himself, and he’s not given to superlatives as you know.—Yes, it’s good-bye to poverty!”—and forgetting in his excitement where he was, Mahony flung round to pace the floor. Baulked by the narrow wall of the cabin, he had just to turn to the right-about. “It means I can now pick and choose, Mary—put up my plate in Collins Street East—hold my head as high as the best.”

  “Oh, dear, how glad I am!. . . .for your sake.” The tears sprang to Mary’s eyes; she had openly to wipe them away. “But it’s so sudden. I can hardly believe it. Are you sure it’s really true?” And now she stroked the page smooth, to read for herself.

  “You for my sake. . . .I for yours! What haven’t you had to put up with, my poor love, through being tied to a rolling old stone like me? But now, I promise you, everything will be different. There’s nothing you shall not have, my Mary—nothing will be too good for you. You shall ride in your own carriage—keep half a dozen servants. And when once you are free of worries and troubles you’ll grow fat and rosy again, and all these little lines on your forehead will disappear.”

  “And perhaps you won’t dislike the colony so much. . . .and the people. . . .if you can feel independent of them,” said Mary hopefully. Could he have promised her from this day forth a tranquil and contented mind, it would have been the best gift of any.

  When he had danced out—danced was the word that occurred to her to describe the new spring in his step, which seemed intolerant of the floor—had gone to consult the steward about the purchase of a special brand of champagne, which that worthy was understood to hold in store for an occasion such as this: when Mary sat down to collect her wits, she indulged in a private reflection which neither then nor later did she share with Richard. It ran: “Oh, how thankful I am we didn’t get the letter till we were safely away from that. . . .from England. Or he might have taken it into his head to stop there.”

  Mahony felt the need of being alone, and sought out a quiet spot to windward where he was likely to be undisturbed. But news of the turn of his fortunes had run like wildfire through the ship, started by the steward, to whom in the first flush he had garrulously communicated it. And now came one after another of his fellow-passengers to wring his hand and wish him joy. It was well meant; he could not but answer in kind. But then they, too, had changed. From mere nondescripts and undesirables they were metamorphosed into kindly, hearty folk, generous enough, it seemed, to feel almost as elated at a fellow-mortal’s good luck as if it were their own. His hedge of spines went down: he turned frank, affable, easy of approach; though any remaining stand-offishness was like to have been forgiven him, who at a stroke had become one of the wealthiest men on board.

  He could see these simple souls thought he took his windfall very coolly. Well!. . . .in a way he did. Just for the moment he had been carried off his feet—as indeed who could fail to be, when by a single lucky chance, one spin of fate’s wheel, all that had become his which half a lifetime’s toil had failed to give him? Yet ingrained in him was so lively a relish, so poignant a need for money and the ease of mind money would bring, that the stilling of the want had something almost natural about it—resembled the payment of an overdue debt. Yes, affluence would fit him like a second skin. The beggardom of early days, the push and scramble for an income of later life—these had been the travesty.

  Next came a sense of relief—relief unspeakable. Alone by now in his windy corner, he could afford to let his eyes grow moist; and the finger he passed round inside his collar trembled. From what a nightmare of black care, a horde of petty anxieties, did the miracle of this day not set him free! To take but a single instance: the prospect of having to explain away his undignified return to the colony had cost him many a night’s sleep. Now he was the master of circumstance, not its playball. And into the delights of this sensation he plunged as into a magic water; laved in it, swam, went under; and emerged a new man. The crust of indifference, the insidious tiredness, the ennui that comes of knowing the end of a thing before you have well begun it, and knowing it not worth while: all such marks of advancing age fell away. Youthfully he squared his shoulders; he was ready to live again, and with zest. And under the influence of this revival there stirred in him, for the first time, a more gracious feeling for the land towards which he was heading. What he had undergone there in his day, none but himself knew; but, if his sufferings had been great, great, too, was the atonement now made him. Indeed the bigness of the reward had in it something of the country’s own immensity—its far-flung horizons.

  “And perhaps, after all. . . .who knows, who knows!. . . . I myself. . . .the worm that was in me. . . .that ceaseless hankering for—why, happiness, of course. . . .the goal of man’s every venture. . . .the belief in one’s right to it. . . .the fixed idea that it must be waiting for one somewhere. . . .remains but to go in search of it. So, it is not conceivable. . . .thus made wiser. . .
.all fear for the future stilled, too—how fear lames and deadens!—independent, now. . . .beholden to nobody”—such were some of the loose tags of thought that drifted through his brain.

  Till one or other touched a secret spring, and straightway he was launched again on those dreams and schemes with which he believed his last unhappy experience had for ever put him out of conceit. Oh, the house he would build!. . . .the grounds he would lay out. . . .the books he would buy. . . .and buy. . . .till he had a substantial library of his own. All the rare and pretty things that should be Mary’s. The gifts they would make her dear old mother. The competency that should rescue his own people from their obscure indigence. The deserving strugglers to whom he would lend a hand. Even individuals he disliked or was fretted by—Zara, Ned, Ned’s encumbrances—sipped from his overflow. Indeed he actually caught himself thinking of people—poor devils, mostly—who had done him a bad turn, and of how he could now requite them.