The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  As the boat drew nearer the vessel that lay to, awaiting them, a new anxiety got the upper hand. Wrinkling his brows, he strained to see what was in store for him. Ha! he might have known it: another of those infernal rope ladders to be scaled. He trembled in advance. For you needed the agility of an ape to swing yourself from the tossing boat to the bottom rung of the ladder; the strength of a navvy to maintain your hold, once you were there, before starting on the precarious job of hoisting yourself, rung by rung, up the ship’s steep side. And to-day, with this wild sea running, it was worse than ever—was all the men could do to bring the boat close enough, yet not too close, alongside, for him to get a grip on the rope. The seat he stood on was slippery, his oilskins encumbered him: he made one attempt after another. Each time, before he had succeeded in jerking himself across, the gulf opened anew. Finally, in most undignified fashion, he was laid hold of, and pushed and shoved from behind; and thereafter came a perilous moment when he hung over the trough of sea, not knowing whether his muscles would answer to the strain, or whether he would drop back into the water. Desperately he clung to the swaying rope; what seemed an eternity passed before he could even straighten himself, let alone climb out of reach of the waves.—Deuce take it! you needed to be at least twenty years younger for acrobatics of this kind.

  Hanging over the side, the ship’s crew followed his doings with the engrossed and childish interest of men fresh from the high seas. As he came within reach, however, willing hands were thrust forth to help him. But he was shattered by his exertions, the deck was wet, and no sooner did he set foot on it than his legs shot from under him, and he fell heavily and awkwardly on his back. And this was too much for the onlookers, just suited their elephantine sense of humour, already tickled by his un-seamanlike performance on the ladder: one and all burst into a loud guffaw. Bruised and dazed he scrambled to his feet, and, hat and bag having been restored him, was piloted by a grinning seaman to the captain’s cabin.

  There had been no single case of sickness on the outward voyage: the visit was a mere formality; and the whole affair could have been settled inside five minutes—had he not been forced to ask the captain’s leave to rest a little, in order to recover before undertaking the descent: his hips ached and stung, his hand shook so that he had difficulty in affixing his signature. He thought the captain, a shrewd-eyed, eagle-nosed Highlander, whose conversation consisted of a series of dry: “Aye, aye’s!” looked very oddly at him on his curt refusal of the proffered bottle. “Thank you, I never touch stimulants.”

  As he hobbled home wet and chilled, his head aching from its contact with the deck, arm and shoulder rapidly stiffening: as he went, he had room in his mind for one thought only: I’ve taken on more than I can manage. I’m not fit for the job—or shan’t be. . . .much longer. And then?. . . .my God!. . . .and then?—But hush! Not a word to Mary.

  Entering the dining-room he pettishly snatched off the dish-cover. “What?. . . .hash again? I declare of late we seem to live on nothing else!”

  Mary sighed. “If I serve the meat cold, you grumble; if I make it up, you grumble, too. I can’t throw half a joint away. What am I to do?”

  He suppressed the venomous: “Eat it yourself!” that rose to his lips. “I’ve surely a right to expect something fresh and appetising when I get back after a hard morning’s work? You know I loathe twice-cooked meat!”

  “I thought you’d bring such an appetite home with you that you’d be equal to anything. Other times you do. But you don’t know your own mind from one day to the next.”

  “If that’s all you have to say, I won’t eat anything!”—And despite her expostulations and entreaties: “Richard! come back, dear, don’t be so silly,” he banged out of the room.

  Instantly Cuffy pushed his plate away. “I don’t like it either, Mamma.”

  Glad of a scapegoat, Mary rounded on the child with a: “Will you kindly hold your tongue, sir?” letting out not only her irritation with Richard, but also the exhaustion of a morning’s governessing: a task for which she was wholly unfitted by nature. “You’ll not leave the table till you’ve eaten every scrap on your plate.”

  And Cuffy, being really very hungry—he had only said like Papa to try and make Mamma think Papa wasn’t quite so bad—obeyed without a further word.

  Afterwards, he had to go to the butcher’s with a basket to buy a chop—a big one and not too fat, Papa didn’t eat fat—and then, when the whole house smelt good with frying, to go in and say to Papa that dinner was ready.

  But Papa was asleep and snoring; and he didn’t like to wake him. He fidgeted about and made a noise for a bit, and then went out and said so.

  But Mamma sent him back: the chop was cooked and had to be eaten. So he put his hand on Papa’s arm and shook it. But Papa knocked it off, and jumped up calling out: “What is it?. . . .what is it now?” And very angry: “Can’t you let me be?—Oh, it’s you, my dear?—What? Not I! Tell your mother I want nothing.”

  And then Mamma came marching in herself, and was furious. “And when I’ve sent out specially to get it! I never heard such nonsense. Going the whole day without food just to spite me!”

  She was quite close up to Papa when she talked this; and they were both dreadfully angry; and then. . . .then Cuffy distinkly saw Papa’s foot fly out and hit her. . . .on her knee. And she said: “Ooh!” and stooped down and put her hand to it, and looked at him, oh! so fierce. . . .but she didn’t say any more, not a word (and he knew it was because he was there), but turned on her back and walked out of the room. And he felt frightened, and went away, too; but not before he’d seen Papa put his face in his hands, just as if he was going to cry.

  They kept a goat now: it was chained up in the back yard to eat the grass and things, which would have smothered them if it hadn’t. Well, he went out to the goat—it was tied up and couldn’t run away—and kicked it. It maa-ed and tore round like mad: but he just didn’t care; he kicked again. Till Luce came out and saw him and made awful eyes, and said: “Oh, Cuffy! Oh, poor little Nanny! Oh, you bad, wicked boy! I’ll go wight in and tell Mamma what you’re doin’.”

  But Mamma could not be got at. She was in the bedroom with the door locked; and she wouldn’t come out, though you called and called, and rattled the handle. (But she wasn’t dead, ’cos you could hear them talkin’.)

  With his arms round her, his face on her shoulder, Richard besought her: “Mary, Mary, what is it? What’s the matter with me? Why am I like this?—oh, why?”

  “God knows! You seem not to have an atom of self-control left. When it comes to kicking me. . . .and in front of the children. . . .” Her heart full to bursting, Mary just stood and bore his weight, but neither raised her arms nor comforted him.

  “I know, I know. But it isn’t only temper—God knows it isn’t! It’s like a whirlpool. . . .a whirlwind. . . .that rises in me. Forgive me, forgive me! I didn’t mean it. I had a nasty fall on the deck this morning. I think that knocked the wits out of me.”

  “A fall? How? Were you hurt?” Mary asked quickly. At any hint of bodily injury, and was it but a bruise, she was all sympathy and protection.

  Meekly now, but with only the ghost of an appetite, Mahony sat down to the congealed chop, which he sliced and swallowed half-chewed, while Mary moved about the room, her lids red-rimmed and swollen. And the children, having snatched one look at her, crept away with sinking hearts. Oh, Mamma dear, dear, don’t. . . .don’t be unhappy!

  In telling of his fall and making it answerable for his subsequent behaviour, Mahony failed to mention one thing: the uneasiness his leg was causing him. Some perverse spirit compelled him to store this trouble up for his own tormenting—that night when he lay stiff as a corpse, so as not to deprive Mary of her well-earned rest. This numbness. . . .this fatal numbness. . . .He tried to view himself in the light of a patient: groped, experimented, investigated. What! cutaneous anaesthesia a
s well? For he now found he could maltreat the limb as he would; there was little or no answering sensation. Positively he believed he could have run a pin into it. Sick with apprehension he put his hand down to try yet once more, by running his finger-nails into and along the flesh—and was aghast to hear a shrill scream from Mary. “Richard! What are you doing? Oh, how you have hurt me!”

  He had drawn blood on her leg instead of on his own.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mary waited, as for the millennium, for the opening of the summer season. In the meantime Shortlands lay dead to the rest of the world: the little steamer neither brought nor took off passengers: the big ships all went by. But on every hand she heard it said: let the season once begin and there would be work for every one; the life of a year was crowded into three brief months. If only they could manage to hold out till then! For December was still two months off, and of private practice there was as good as none. The place was so healthy for one thing (oh, there must surely be something very wrong about a world in which you had to feel sorry if people weren’t ill!) and the poorer classes all belonged to the clubs, which Richard hadn’t got. His dreams of keeping a horse and riding round the district, of opening consulting-rooms on the other side, had, as she had known they would, ended in smoke: the twice he had crossed the Bay he had not even covered his fare. She wondered, sometimes, if such sickness as there was did not still find its way to Dr. Barker, retired though the old man professed to be. It was certainly owing to him that nightwork had become extinct here. Through him refusing to leave his bed, the inhabitants had simply got out of the way of being taken ill at night.

  And Richard did nothing to mend matters. On the contrary. At present, for instance, he was going about in such a simmer of indignation at what he called the trick that had been played on him—the misleading reports of the income to be made here—that he was apt to let it boil over on those who did approach him. Then, too, the dreadful habit he had fallen into, of talking to himself as he walked, put people off. (From something the servant-girl let drop, she could see that he was looked on as very odd.) But when she taxed him with it he flared up, and vowed he had never in his life been guilty of such a thing; which just shewed he didn’t know he was doing it. If he had, he would have been more careful; for he liked the place (hardly a day passed on which he did not sigh: “If I can only make a living here!”) in spite of its deadness. . . .and also of the cold, which found out his weak spots. And for once in their lives they were in agreement: she liked it, too. They were among people of their own class again by whom she had been received with open arms. Though, as she could see, this very friendliness might have its drawbacks. For Richard had been quite wrong (as usual): the members of this little clique did not let lodgings, most emphatically not; they drew, indeed, a sharp line between those who did and those who didn’t. Well! she would just have to see. . . .when the time came. If the practice did not look up.—But oh! how she hoped and prayed it would: she could hardly trust herself to think what might happen if it did not.

  One afternoon as they sat at tea—it was six o’clock on a blustery spring day—they heard the click of the gate, and looking out saw some one coming up the path: a short, stoutish man in a long-skirted greatcoat, who walked with a limp.

  Mary rubbed her eyes. “Why. . . .why, Richard!”

  “What is it?. . . .who is it?” cried Mahony, and made as if to fly: he was in one of those moods when the thought of facing a stranger filled him with alarm.

  “Why. . . .I. . . .”

  “He’s walking right in,” announced Cuffy.

  “An’ wavin’ his hand, Mamma.”

  Sure enough, the newcomer came up the verandah steps and unceremoniously tapped on the window-pane. “Hullo, good people all!. . . .how are you?” And then, of course, he with his hat off, shewing a head innocent of hair, there was no mistaking him.

  With one eye on Richard, who was still capable of trying to do a bolt, one on the contents of her larder-shelves, Mary exclaimed in surprise. “Well, of all the. . . .Purdy! Where have you sprung from? Is Tilly with you?”

  “Tilly? Mrs. P. Smith? God bless my soul, no! My dear, this wind ’ud give ’is Majesty the bellyache for a month; we’d hear tell of nothing else. Lord bless you, no! We never go out if it blows the least little tiddly-wink, or if there’s a cloud in the sky, or if old Sol’s rays are too strong for us. We’re a hothouse plant, we are. What do you say to that, you brawny young nippers, you?”

  It was the same old Purdy: words just bubbled out of him. And having taken off his coat and chucked the children under the chin—after first pretending not to know them because of their enormous size, and then to shake in his shoes at such a pair of giants—he drew in his chair and fell to, with appetite, on the toothsome remains of a rabbit-pie and the home-baked jam tarts that Mary somehow conjured up to set before him. “These sea-voyages are the very devil for makin’ one peckish. I’ve a thirst on me, too. . . .your largest cup, Polly, if you please, will just about suit my measure.”—As she listened to his endless flow, Mary suspected him of already having tried to quench this thirst on the way there.

  In eating, he told of the business that had brought him to Shortlands; and at greater length than was either necessary or desirable; for there was a lot in it about “doing” a person, in revenge for having been “done” by him, and the children of course drank it all in. Mary did her best to edge the conversation round, knowing how strongly Richard disapproved of their being initiated, before their time, into the coarse and sordid things of life. But what followed was even worse. For now Purdy started indulging in personalities. “I say, you two, isn’t this just like old times. . . .eh?” he said as he munched. “Just like old times. . . .except of course that we’re all a good bit thicker in the tummy and thinner on the thatch than we were, ha, ha!. . . .your humb. serv. in partic.! Also”—and he winked his right eye at the room at large—“excepting for the presence of the young couple I observe sitting oppersite, who were not on the tappis, or included in the programme, in those far-off-days—eh, Poll? Young people who insisted on putting in an appearance at a later date, unwanted young noosances that they were!” (At which Cuffy, flaming scarlet, looked anxiously at his mother for a denial: she had told him over and over again how enjoyed she and Papa had been to see him.) “Well, well! such little accidents will happen. But far from us was it to think of such. . . .all those many. . . .now how many years was it ago? Thirty—for a cert! Ah! no hidin’ your age from me, Mrs. Poll. . . .after the manner of ladies when they come to the sere and yellow leaf. I’ve got you nailed, me dear!”

  Colouring slightly (she thought talk of this kind in sorry taste before the children), Mary was just about to say she didn’t mind who knew how old she was, when Richard, who till now had sat like a death’s-head, brought his fist down on the table with a bang. “And I say, not a day over twenty-five!” He did make them jump.

  Purdy, so jovial was he, persisted in taking this to refer, not to the date, but to her age, and bantered harder than ever, accusing Richard of trying to put his wife’s clock back. And what with Richard arguing at the top of his voice to set him right, and Purdy waggishly refusing to see what was meant, it looked for a moment as if it might come to an open quarrel between them.

  “Richard!. . . .hush, dear!” frowned Mary, and surreptitiously shook her head. “What can it matter? Oh, don’t be so silly!” For he was agitatedly declaring that he would fetch out his old case-books and prove the year, black on white. She turned to Purdy: “You’ve told me nothing at all yet about Tilly and the boy.”

  But Purdy had plainly no wish to talk of wife or child, and refused to let himself be diverted from the course of reminiscence on which he had embarked. To oblige her, he dropped his mischievous baiting with a: “Well, well, then, so be it! I suppose I’m getting soft in the uppers,” but continued to draw on his memories of the old days, spinning yarns of things that
had happened to him, and things she was quite sure hadn’t, egged on by the saucer eyes of the children. “Remember this, Poll?. . . .remember that?” she vainly endeavouring to choke him off with a dry: “I’m afraid I don’t.” She sat on pins and needles. If only he wouldn’t work Richard up again. But it almost seemed as if this was his object; for he concluded his tale of the Stockade and his flight from Ballarat, with the words: “And so afeared for his own skin was our friend old Sawbones there, that he only ventured out of an evening, after dark; and so the wound got mucky and wouldn’t heal. And that’s the true story, you kids, of how I came to be the limping-Jesus I am and ever shall be, world without end, amen!”

  Of all the wicked falsehoods! (Or had he really gone about nursing this belief?) Such expressions, too!. . . .before the children. Thank goodness, Richard hadn’t seemed to hear: otherwise she would have expected him to fly out of his chair. A stolen glance shewed him sitting, head on chest, making patterns on the tablecloth with the point of his knife. And having failed thus to draw him, if Purdy didn’t now dish up, with several unsavoury additions, the old, old story of the foolish bet taken between the two of them as young men, that Richard wouldn’t have the pluck to steal a kiss from her at first meeting; and how, in the darkness of the summer-house, he had mistaken one girl for the other and embraced Jinny instead. “Putting his arms round her middle—plump as a partridge she was too, by gum!—and giving ’er a smack that could have been heard a mile off. Killing two birds with one stone I call it!. . . .gettin’ the feel of a second gal under his hands, free, gratis and for nothing.”