Part 5

I must read it now. The affair is sordid. An indulgent husband, deceived by a silly wife, not for love’s sake, for the co-respondents are many, but through sheer idleness and vanity, the desire to be considered “smart,” to wear extravagant toilets utterly beyond her husband’s means. Allan Russell’s name appears among the admirers of the frail beauty.

Mrs. Clarke enters and I pass her the paper, in silence.

Her face grows grave.

“Poor Allan! What a wasted life!”

“You pity him! It seems to me he has just what he deserves.”

“Alas, Jeanne, we all get what we deserve--which fact doesn’t make it a whit easier to bear.”

I cannot refrain from pursuing the subject.

“You know Mr. Russell well, then?”

“Yes; and a more open and generous nature was never spoilt by a bad, heartless woman.”

“Allan was the son of my mother’s best friend,” Mrs. Clarke continues. “Our stations were not far from each other, and we grew up like brother and sister. I believe,” she adds, smiling, “that our parents wouldn’t have objected to see a more tender affection between us. But Allan was at least a year my junior, and I always looked on him as a mere boy. He confided to me the great passion which his mother’s companion had inspired in him. This woman, ten years Allan’s senior, who had a past as we discovered later on, used all her skill and experience to infatuate the young man, alternately repelling and encouraging his advances, until she had him wholly in her power. She played with his feelings as a virtuoso does with a violin. A secret marriage was arranged.”

“That is easy here, isn’t it? A visit to the Registrar and the affair is settled,” I interpolated.

“Sometimes to one’s cost--certainly to my poor friend’s. Allan’s parents refused to receive his wife, so, possessing ample means--a fact of which the lady had carefully assured herself--he took her to London. Then began a life which to Allan soon became martyrdom. Vicious and utterly heartless, she dragged her husband with her into the mire, deceiving him for the sake of lovers as depraved as herself. The inevitable separation happened at the end of a few years, which had warped Allan’s nature and turned him into a bitter and disillusioned man, believing neither in woman’s virtue nor man’s honour.”

“Could he not have divorced her?”

“Allan was too proud then to let his name be dragged before the Court. In a moment’s compassion--there is still a strain of chivalry in Allan, despite his cynicism--he promised not to divorce her if she would consent never to follow him. He made ample settlements on her which suffice for her numerous gratifications--the wretched being has added drunkenness to her other vices--but she has sense enough to abide by the contract, and passes her time in England or on the Continent, that is when she isn’t in an inebriate ‘retreat’.”

“So that is why Mr. Russell came back to Australia?”

“Yes, but fettered. Tired of the loneliness of the bush, and hopeless of happiness, he threw himself into speculations with all the ardour of his temperament. His ventures succeeded, and now he is one of the richest men in the colonies, the leader of the ‘smart set.’ Poor Allan! Two things might save him. A duty to accomplish, or a noble love which would rescue him from this life of idleness and pleasure.”

Shall I tell Kate of the impression he has made upon me? His resemblance to the Rajah of my dreams? With her peculiar beliefs, she might be able to give me an explanation.... No! I dare not! She would jeer at my susceptibility, perhaps ... and then he is married, and to that creature! I can quite understand now why he left without trying to see me a second time.

* * * * *

A letter from Hector brings the ever-dreaded news. He has fallen a victim to the terrible scourge. It is only a question of time. He states it quite simply. He is almost happy. He feels closer to the unhappy beings around him. He can say to them, as Father Damien did: “We lepers.”

Oh, my poor Hector! To what suffering are you not doomed.

I am writing, entreating to be allowed to join him, to share his work, to tend him as a sister, as a wife if he wills it.

XIV

The Jenolan Caves

Oh! quelle étrange nuit sous l’univers sonore

* * * * *

Un trou s’offre lugubre. Il y plonge et, rampant Dans un vide où l’effroi du tombeau se répand Il voit sous lui de l’ombre et de l’horreur. Il entre Il est dans je ne sais quel intérieur d’antre.

* * * * *

Les enchevêtrements de racines vivaces, Les fuites d’eau mouillant de livides crevasses, Il franchit tout; des reins, des coudes, des talons, Il pousse devant lui l’abîme et dit: “Allons!”

VICTOR HUGO.

Jack and Lulu run boisterously into my room, shouting:

“We’re going to the Caves. We’re going to the Caves! Mother says so!”

Jenolan is the wonderland of the Blue Mountains. Its vast caves equal, if they do not excel, the most famous ones of the world.

Mrs. Clarke has organised an excursion there of several days’ length. “It will be good for Lulu,” says she, “and distract her attention from her mysterious little visitant, who, you will see, won’t follow her. These influences adhere as much to places as to people.”

I know my kind friend is actuated also by the desire to divert my thoughts from myself and relieve my anxiety until Hector’s reply can reach me.

I am only too delighted to have the chance of visiting these Caves, of which I have heard so much. Formed long ages ago, in a limestone belt, by the action of water, which, percolating gradually through the soft stone, at length crashed down the barriers, and, boiling and seething, carved out immense caverns, fantastic grottoes and recesses, they are now adorned with glistening stalagmites and stalactites, transforming them into an Aladdin’s Palace.

Our guide, “Jerry,” is what they call here a “Character.” He considers himself the territorial Lord of everything pertaining to the Caves. Certainly he has discovered the greater part of them, and he does the honours to tourists from all parts of the world.

Deaf as a post, he abuses his position by uttering whatever comes into his head in highly coloured language of which I cannot hope to receive the full savour. One can’t very well snub him. Yelling into a trumpet would scarcely convey an impression of offended dignity.

In justice, I ought to say that his gruffness is only superficial. He would risk his life to spare his tourist visitors a scratch.

Following his usual custom, Jerry gives each of us a sobriquet.

“Life is too short,” says he, “to learn the names of the people I shall likely enough never see again.”

So Mrs. Clarke is “Mother,” I am “Brown Eyes,” nurse is “Sulky” (her looks evidently have not pleased him), Lulu is “Little Fairy,” and Jack “The Imp.”

A good judge of character is Jerry.

We are conducted into the largest of the Caves, which descends more than a thousand feet, and is reached by a series of subterraneous passages and vast halls. The Imperial Cave, the Cathedral, the Exhibition Room, all lit by electricity, are full of the most enchanting marvels, statues, pillars, marble columns, frozen cataracts, glistening pendants from the vaulted roof, walls encrusted with gleaming jewels reflecting all the colours of the prism. One might imagine oneself in the palace of the Genii, where rubies, topazes and diamonds rival each other in lambent fire. In one gallery, stalagmites, shot with the chatoyant hues of an agate, fall in a frieze, some six feet in thickness.

Other formations when struck give forth the deep harmonious roll of an organ fitted for a race of Titans.

Jerry’s great pleasure is to seat us with a stern injunction not to move, and then suddenly switch off the electric light.

The horror succeeding our vision of fairyland is inexpressible. The darkness is corporeal, palpable. One actually feels the vast material solidity separating us from the blue sky. The terror is heightened by the resonance of the air. The slightest sounds are magnified. Jerry throws some stones into the abysmal depths near us. A long, long time after, we hear their impact with the stream which threads its tortuous course below.

The children cling to us affrightedly, but our magician switches on the current, and once more we are in the palace of the fairies.

A little incident marks the beginning of our excursion. At the entrance of a cave our guide shows us the imprint of a snake on the wet sand in the hollow of a rock. “You needn’t be afraid. They only come out at night after the bats, which swarm here in myriads.”

The dimly lit gallery, where we sit down to rest after the fatigue of reaching the upper cave, is closed by an iron gate. Jack, leaning against it, utters a cry: “A snake! a snake!”

We all run, Jerry leading. Coiled round the iron points of the railing is a huge serpent.

“A carpet snake, be jabers, I’d like to take him alive. Light your candles!” orders our guide imperiously (it is advisable to carry candles in case of any mishap). We form a luminous circle; there are about fifteen of us, for some other tourists are being “personally conducted.” Jerry loves to dominate a crowd.

The snake lies inert, simulating sleep.

“He has eaten too many bats and forgotten the danger of his whereabouts, or else he has climbed up there to get them on the wing.” Jerry, while speaking, has made a running knot in a piece of rope which he fixes to the end of a stick.

Approaching cautiously, he endeavours to throw it over the snake’s head. But his majesty, now alive to his danger, draws back each time. The play (scarcely play to me or the reptile) lasts a long time. At each sinuous movement we retreat warily. But Jerry is relentless.

“The lights, the lights!” he exclaims, and, willy-nilly, we reform the magic circle. Finally a less swift movement of the victim results in the cord being drawn taut. He hisses, slowly uncoils, and is dragged off in triumph.

“A windfall for me,” remarks our guide; “they’ll give me ten bob for him at the Zoo.”

It is a young carpet snake, five feet long, beautifully marked on top and silvery underneath.

There is something artlessly artful about Jerry.

Among our number is a young man with a retreating facial angle and a weak chin. Jerry, in the coolest manner possible, calmly hands him the snake-wound stick to carry. He takes it gingerly, with inward trepidation, but afraid to show the white feather too openly.

Jerry strides on in front with an unconcerned air, belied by a suspicious glint in the corner of his eye.

The timid young man, with his living “caduceus,” is left to bring up the rear, a position to which he is speedily relegated by the shrinking of his companions when he approaches too closely. Apparently no thought of resisting Jerry’s masterful action occurs to him.

* * * * *

In the evening the heat is stifling. We have carried our chairs to the verandah to enjoy the slight breeze wafted from the mountains. The children, tired out with the day’s pleasures, are lying on cushions at our feet. The sky is covered with threatening clouds. Suddenly, one by one appear little twinkling lights. They are fire-flies, flitting from tree to tree, honouring our visit by a fairy illumination.

The following days bring new excitements, new marvels, subterranean rivers, ascensions on rope ladders, and spiral staircases, which lead from cave to cave.

“We shan’t see them all,” says Jerry, “for 30 miles or so they penetrate the interior of the mountains, forming endless circuits and detours. Even I don’t know them all (words fail to give adequate expression to that pronoun), and I have been on the job forty years or so.”

Jerry alternates his guide book English with a slangy colloquialism.

No, nor are we likely to see the “hairy man,” the monster whom he has chased so many times, and whose footprints he has marked in almost inaccessible places.

Is there really a mystery here, I wonder, or is it some freak of Jerry’s vivid imagination?

He swears by all the gods that there is such a monster. Others have seen him, fired at, and wounded him, too, which in no wise impeded the remarkable agility with which he used to appear and disappear.

To finish, Jerry takes me to the top of the mountain. A rocky arch, crowned with gum trees, dominating the valley at our feet, where the towering Eucalypts, over hundreds of feet high, look no bigger than small shrubs.

Their tops touch each other, interlace and form a carpet of sombre velvet. Strangling trails of foliage hang from the rocks; tree ferns wave their graceful fronds in the hollows, and orchids, with quaint faces, nod in the crevices, slenderly detached against the abysmal background of green and russet.

My eyes, unaccustomed to dizzy heights, become dazzled, my brain reels, I feel faint, giddy.... I gladly leave these altitudes to the Australian eagles, which, disturbed in their eyries, fly off, uttering discordant shrieks as they wheel in the splendour of the unshadowed blue.

XV

Alone

Support with patience thy lot, be it what it may, and never repine at it.

(“The Golden Verses of Pythagoras.”)

“No, I cannot accept your sacrifice,” writes Hector. “I cannot allow you to join me. You, here at Molokai! You, among the lepers! Think of your youth, your beauty, which would become the prey of this unclean evil.... Love only could sanction so great a renunciation. Do not be hurt, dear Jeanne, my little sister, if I say that you mistake pity for love. You do not love me; you have never loved me.... I am glad of it now, dear. Your life will not be broken. I thank God for that every day, and pray Him to send you the man who will make you happy, the man whom you will really love.... In touch with so much suffering, I have found the Real. Many illusions are swept away, many veils torn aside. I recognise now, dear, that those dogmas which separated us are merely forms clothing the Eternal Verities, roads leading to the Great Light. Working with these men and women, priests and Catholic nuns, disciples of Damien, American missionaries, doctors toiling for the love of Science in the cause of humanity, all meeting here from far-off lands, divided in creed, yet united by Charity, I have felt how illusionary our differences really are. We are all children of God, walking in the darkness towards the same goal, the same Divine end.... Do not weep for me. Live your life; it is so full of promise.... For me, I am happy in the task I have undertaken. What matter my sufferings, which afflict you so much? They will only endure for a little while. What is that compared with Eternity? One day, my little sister, we shall be uplifted beyond the travail of human passions, reunited in the bosom of the God of Infinite Goodness.”

* * * * *

Hector is right. I feel I should never be able to give him my whole heart, devote to his work the life which in a moment’s exaltation I have offered him. I could never bear it. The bare thought makes me shudder with horror.

* * * * *

Something has happened which diverts my thoughts from Hector and myself.

Mrs. Clarke and the children are going to England.

The succession business is dragging slowly along and Mr. Clarke is tired of being alone. Kate wants me to remain at the farm or go with her. I cannot accept either proposition. What good would there be in remaining here? On the other hand, why put her to the additional expense of taking me? She can hardly afford it, I know.

I will accompany her as far as Melbourne, where she embarks. There, in that large and wealthy city, surely I shall find something to do until her return in six months, a year at the most.

* * * * *

We arrive in Melbourne just in time to catch the White Star liner in which Mrs. Clarke has booked her passage.

The hurried train journey, the bustle of embarcation, and the farewells to my dear friend and her children, who carry away a good part of my heart, prevent me from dwelling too much on myself.

Only when the steamer turns, and a stretch of blue water broadens between us do I begin to feel my desolation.

Utterly alone in a strange city, without a friend, and destitute of resources except the small sum of money Mrs. Clarke has pressed upon me as payment for lessons! Bah! I am young. Something is sure to happen. My first disappointment comes when I find the boarding house recommended by Kate quite full. It is race week, Melbourne’s great carnival, and every hotel and lodging house is overflowing. I try another, only to receive the same reply, “Not a room to let.” At last, after several hours of fruitless research, dropping with fatigue, and conscious of an insane feeling that I shall have to spend the night at some street corner, seated on my valise, I come upon a very third or fourth rate boarding house. The charges, however, are by no means commensurate, and seem very large for my modest purse. To a timid protest the landlady points to the door, and I hasten to pay a fortnight in advance. Her hard, hatchet-like features relax a little at sight of a few sovereigns in my purse. Helas! they constitute my whole fortune. She precedes me to a tiny room at the back of the house.

And now to find pupils before my means are exhausted.

The moment is not opportune, it seems.

“The year is too far gone to make new arrangements.” “Call again, or wait and leave your address, and I will write,” is the invariable reply to my inquiries.

It is easy to say “Wait,” but I cannot wait very long.

Somebody advises me to advertise. It is an additional expense, and I am not much enamoured of the practice. I remember one day at Gwylata my uncle showing me an advertisement for a tutor for two boys up country.

The requirements were: “English, Algebra, Latin, Elementary French, and Music. A young man able to _milk cows_ preferred.”

Perhaps I might be asked to groom the horse or do the cooking.

But the cutting was from an old newspaper. Times have changed since then.

So next morning a notice appears in _The Argus_ to the effect that a young Parisienne is ready to impart instruction on reasonable terms.

After waiting anxiously a few days I receive two answers.

The first, written on paper highly perfumed with musk, doesn’t seem too encouraging. The second is from a Mrs. Forrest, who lives at St. Kilda, and will see me between five and six.

The first would certainly suit me better as far as distance is concerned, for the address is East Melbourne. I could easily walk to and fro and so save car fares. I decide to apply.

Arriving at the street mentioned, I ask a policeman to show me the house. He does so, giving me a rather peculiar look. He seems on the point of speaking further, but checks himself, muttering:

“It’s her business.”

Yes, it is my business, and badly am I equipped to meet it.

The door is opened by a small boy in buttons. He favours me with an insolent stare, then precedes me up a neglected looking staircase. In the corridor a door opens and two young girls thrust out their heads inquisitively.

The boy points at me, grinning, “Another!”

The room into which I am shown is in disorder. The furniture is showy, the colours glaring. The air is redolent with a mixed odour of heavy perfumes, tobacco and spirits, and nearly chokes me.

I feel instinctively that this is no place for me, and I turn to go, when the door opens, and a tall, stout woman bearing the remains of past beauty, enters and begs me to be seated.

She speaks volubly. She is charmed to meet me. She wants someone to give French lessons to herself and her two nieces (the two young girls of the corridor, I presume). She questions me closely. Learning that I am alone in Melbourne, she smiles and becomes quite friendly. Too much so, it seems to me. Her affable “My dears” are positively nauseating.

She wants me to come and live with her. They lead a very gay life, go frequently to the theatre, and have many “gentlemen friends.”

The more pressing she becomes, the more I shrink and hesitate.

“_Jeanne fait sa tortue_” my poor uncle used to say when I retreated into my shell at the advances of anyone antipathetic.

The oily, persuasive voice grows insistent. The question of payment is waved airily aside.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’ll come to some satisfactory arrangement after you’ve been here for a while.” She purposes sending immediately for my luggage. I decline to allow her, saying that I should like a little time to reflect before coming to a decision. I am beginning to feel ensnared. Everything is repugnant to me--the coarse luxury, the disorder, the smooth craftiness and much too ingratiating manners of this woman, the atmosphere of the house itself....

I do not breathe freely until I regain the street, followed by the protestations and regrets of the lady.

The policeman is still at hand. He accosts me.

“Are you going to return to that house, Miss?”

“No, certainly not.”

“That’s all right, then, Miss. It isn’t the place for a girl like you. The old woman ain’t up to much. I don’t trust her, so I stayed about to see if she’d keep you by force.”

I thank my new-found friend, the Protector of innocence whose presence has saved me, perhaps from a dreadful fate, and I return to the boarding house, trembling at the thought of the peril into which my inexperience has led me.

Before seeking the second address, I take the precaution to make some inquiries about Mrs. Forrest.

I am told that she is the wife of a retired shopkeeper, who has made a lucky coup on the Stock Exchange.

She gives herself important airs, and strives to have her name constantly at the head of fashionable bazaars, charity concerts, and balls.

She loves to feel herself in the public eye.

That matters little to me. Her household is honourable, that is sufficient. The outward aspect of the house is reassuring. A well-appointed footman shows me into a small room where his mistress is writing a letter.

She does not trouble to receive me, but continues her work.

After some minutes she deigns to turn.

“You are the young person who put an advertisement in the paper?” she queries, loftily, without asking me to sit down.

I feel myself redden. “Ah, my poor Jeanne, it will take you some time to get accustomed to the bread of dependence.”

Repressing my annoyance, I draw forward an easy chair, sit down, and reply with calm politeness.

Mrs. Forrest looks at me in astonishment. However, possessing a fair share of astuteness, she takes in the situation and for the rest of the time assumes better manners. I am to come every day to teach her two little girls, and talk French with her. The salary she offers is sufficient to pay for my board and lodging and tram fares. Later on I hope to find employment for the afternoons.

The months will pass quickly. My dear Kate and the children will soon be back.

XVI

The Boarding House

“His years were young, but his experience old.”

SHAKESPEARE.

What a strange world in miniature a boarding house presents!

A world where dissimilar beings lacking the ties of friendship, education and intellect are united by circumstances in the trammels of a common existence. How utterly antipathetic is such a life to our French nature, to the intense reserve hidden under our frank and cordial manners which guard sacredly and invulnerably the “Famille Française,” modern novels and plays to the contrary. If we have not the actual word “home” in our vocabulary--a favourite gibe of our foreign friends--we have a more intimate term still, “le Foyer,” the hearth, which suggests the primitive cult, the fire worship of our ancestors--_the foyer_, which no one outside the family might touch.

Maybe that is the cause of our secret irritation and impatience when an acquaintance takes it upon himself to poke our fire. To us it seems presumption, an abuse of hospitality, to say nothing of the ingrained belief that no one but ourselves can make it blaze.

But this is a digression.

Let us return to the boarding house, our poor third-rate boarding house, with its inmates in respectfully appropriate keeping.

First, there are the permanent boarders, among whom I have no specially delirious desire to be counted. A commercial traveller in a softgoods firm, who affects “genteel” manners. (What a horrid expression, genteel!) In other respects, a decent enough young man whose attentions don’t annoy me too much. Already he has reposed certain sweet confidences in my ear, so that I shall not indulge in any false hopes as to his intentions, I presume.

He has been engaged for eight years!--eight years!--to a shop assistant, and they wait patiently and persistently until they have put by enough money to purchase a country store.

Every Saturday afternoon off they start for a township on a tour of inspection. Saturday succeeds Saturday; the years come and go in this life of long-deferred hopes.

Then there is, alas! a school mistress, no longer in the first bloom of her youth. Shall I ever, in the years to come, grow like her? Every morning she trudges to her little school. For years her life has been passed in teaching the rudiments of arithmetic and grammar. Apparently she possesses neither relatives nor intimate friends. All her energies, apart from her teaching, are directed towards religion and divers reforms. She belongs to several Guilds--the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Women’s League, the Social Purity and Temperance Leagues, etc., etc. Withal she is a kind-hearted, good woman, despite her many perfections of character, and does not utterly wither me when I decline to accompany her to “Meeting” on Sunday. All her spare time is taken up with committee work for the regeneration of feminine humanity. She doesn’t concern herself with the _strong sex_. That may sink into the perdition it so richly merits. She has, of course, no time for a simple unit like me.