Rolf Boldrewood
Babes in the Bush
CHAPTER X
A PROVINCIAL CARNIVAL
The last week of March at length arrived, by which time the nights had grown perceptibly colder, and the morning air was by no means so mild as to render wraps unnecessary.
No rain had fallen for some weeks, though before that time there had been a succession of showers; so that, there being no dust, while the weather was simply perfect, the grass green, and the sky cloudless, a more untoward time might have been selected for recreation.
It was indeed the carnival of a community of uncompromising toilers, as were, in good sooth, the majority of the inhabitants of the town and district of Yass.
Not without misgiving did Wilfred consent to leave the homestead entirely to itself. Yet he told himself that, while the farm and dairy were in the hands of such capable persons as Dick Evans, old Tom, and Andrew, without some kind of social or physical earthquake, no damage could occur.
Dick, in spite of his love of excitement, did not care to attend this race meeting. Aware of his weakness, he was unwilling to enter on a fresh bout of dissipation before the effects of the last one had faded from recollection. ‘I looks to have a week about Michaelmas,’ said he, as gravely as if he had been planning a hunting or fishing excursion, ‘then I reckon to hold on till after harvest, or just afore Christmas comes in. Two sprees a year is about the right thing for a man that knows himself. I don’t hold with knockin’ about bars and shanties.’
Crede old Tom, the last Yass races had chiefly impressed themselves on his mind as a festivity wherein he spent ‘thirty-seven pounds ten in six days, and broke his collar-bone riding a hurdle race. Whether he was getting older he could not say, but he felt as if he did not care to go in just now. He was going to keep right till next Christmas, when, of course, any man worth calling a man would naturally go in for a big drink.’
For far other reasons, and in widely differing language, did Andrew Cargill protest his disinclination to join revelries which, based on the senseless sport of horse-racing, he felt to be indefensible, immoral, and worthy only of the heathen, who were so unsparingly extirpated by the children of Israel. ‘I haena words to express my scorn for thae fearless follies, and I thocht that the laird and the mistress wad ha’ had mair sense than to gang stravaigin’ ower the land like a wheen player-bodies to gie their coontenance to siccan snares o’ Beelzebub. It’s juist fearsome.’
Conflict of opinion in this case resulted in similarity of action, inasmuch as the two unregenerates, conscious that their hour was not yet come, conducted themselves with the immaculate propriety nowhere so apparent as in those Australian labourers who are confessedly saving themselves up for a ‘burst.’
Nothing could have been descried upon this lower earth more deeply impressive than the daily walk of these two ancient reprobates, as Andrew, in his heart, always designated them.
The sun never saw them in bed. Old Tom had his morning smoke while tracking the nightly wandering dairy cows long before that luminary concerned himself with the inhabitants of the district. As day was fairly established, the cows were in the yard, and the never-ending work of milking commenced. Andrew’s northern perseverance was closely taxed to keep pace in the daily duties of the farm with these two swearing, tearing old sinners.
All preliminaries having been concluded, which Mrs. Effingham declared fell but little short of those which preceded their emigration, the grand departure was made for their country town in what might justly be considered to be high state and magnificence.
First of all rode Rosamond and Beatrice on their favourite palfreys. Touching the stud question, Wilfred and Guy had gradually developed the love of horses, which is inseparable from Australian country life. The indifferent nags upon which the girls had taken their early riding lessons had, by purchase or exchange, been replaced by superior animals. Rosamond, whose nerve was singularly good, and whose ‘hands’ had reached a finish rarely accorded to the gentler sex, was the show horsewoman of the family, being entrusted with the education of anything doubtful before the younger girls were suffered to risk the mount. She rode a slight, aristocratic-looking dark bay, of a noble equine family, which, like themselves, had not long quitted the shores of Britain. Discharged from a training-stable upon the charge of unfitness to ‘stay,’ he had fallen into unprofessional hands, from which Wilfred had rescued him, giving in exchange a fat stock-horse and a trifle more ‘boot’ than he was ready to acknowledge. He had been right in thinking that in the delicate head, the light arched neck, the rarely oblique shoulder, the undeniable look of blood, he saw sufficient guarantee for a peerless light-weight hackney. This in despite of a general air of height rather than stability, which caused the severe critics of Benmohr and The She-oaks to speak of him as being unduly ‘on the leg.’
There are some metals which compensate in quality for lack of weight and substance; so among horses we find those which, indomitable of spirit and tireless of muscle, are capable of wearing out their more solidly-built compeers. To such a class belonged ‘dear Fergus,’ as Rosamond always called the matchless hackney with which Wilfred had presented her. Gay and high-couraged, temperate, easy, safe, fast, with a walk and canter utterly unapproachable, the former, indeed, assimilating to the unfair speed of a ‘pacer,’ while the latter was free, floating, graceful, and elastic as that of the wild deer, he was a steed to dream of, to love and cherish in life, to mourn over in death. Many an hour, in the gathering twilight, by the shores of the lake, had Rosamond revelled in, mounted upon this pink of perfection, when Wilfred jumped upon a fresh horse after his day’s work and called upon his sister to come for her evening ride. How anxiously, after the lingering, glaring afternoon, did Rosamond watch for the time which brought the chief luxury of the day, when she lightly reined the deer-like Fergus as he sped through the twilight shadows, over the greensward by the lake shore.
Beatrice had also her favourite, which, though of different style and fashion, was yet an undeniable celebrity. A small iron-grey mare, scarce above pony height, was Allspice, with a great flavour of the desert-born, from which she traced her descent, in the wide nostril, high croup, and lavish action. Guy picked her up at a cattle muster, where he was amazed at seeing the ease with which she carried a thirteen-stone stock-rider through the ceaseless galloping of a day’s ‘cutting-out.’ Asking permission to get on her back, he at once discovered her paces, and never rested till he had got her in exchange for a two-year-old colt of his own, which had attracted the attention of Frank Smasher, the stock-rider in question. Frank, returning with him to Warbrok, roped the colt, the same day putting the breaking tackle on him, and within a week was cutting out cattle, on the Sandy Camp, with no apparent inferiority to the oldest stock-horse there.
Whether Allspice had been broken in after this Mexican fashion is not known, but as she could walk nearly as fast as Fergus, trot fourteen miles an hour, and canter ‘round a cheese-plate,’ if you elected to perform that feat, we must consider that she was otherwise trained in youth, or inherited the talent which dispenses with education. The light hand and light weight to which she was now subjected apparently suited her taste. After a few trials she was voted by the family and all friendly critics to be only inferior to the inimitable Fergus.
Mr. Churbett had volunteered to come over the evening before and accompany the young ladies, as otherwise Guy would have been their only cavalier, Wilfred being absorbed in the grave responsibility of the dogcart and its valuable freight.
This sporting vehicle contained Mrs. Effingham and Annabel, together with an amount of luggage, easily calculable when the possibility of a few picnics, a couple of balls, and any number of impromptu dances are mentioned. Mr. Effingham also, and his sons, found it necessary upon this occasion to look up portions of their English outfit, which they had long ceased to regard as suited for familiar wear.
The light harness work of the family had been hitherto performed by a single horse, a sensible half-bred animal, and a fair trotter withal. On this occasion Wilfred had persuaded himself that a second horse was indispensable. After divers secret councils among the young men, it ended in Mr. Churbett’s Black Prince, the noted tandem leader of the district, being sent over. He was docile, as well as distinguished-looking, so all went well, in spite of Mrs. Effingham’s doubts, fears, and occasional entreaties, and Annabel’s plaintive cries when a nervous ‘sideling’ was passed, or a deeper creek than usual forded.
‘Oh, what a pretty place Rockley Lodge is – a nice, roomy bungalow; and how trim the garden looks!’
‘Apparently inhabited,’ said Annabel, ‘and rather affected by visitors, I should say. I can see horses fastened to the garden fence, a carriage at the door, and a dogcart coming round from the back, as well as two side-saddle horses. So this is Mr. Rockley’s place! He said it was just a little way from the town; and there – Mr. Churbett and Rosamond are turning in at the entrance gate.’
Duellist, having gone off in his training, thereafter not unwillingly retained for hackney purposes, evidently knew his way to the place, for he marched off at once, along the track which turned to the white gate. Followed by the tandem, with Beatrice and Guy bringing up the rear, the whole party drew up before the hall door.
Mr. Churbett, giving his horse to a hurried groom, who made his appearance from the offices, assisted Rosamond to dismount, by which time a youthful-looking personage, whom the Effinghams took to be Miss Christabel, but who turned out to be her mother, advanced with an air of unfeigned welcome, and greeted the visitors.
‘Mr. Churbett, introduce me at once. I am afraid you are all very tired. Come in this moment, my dear girls, and rest yourselves; we must have no talking or excitement until dinner-time. Mr. Effingham, I count upon you; Mr. Rockley charged me to tell you that he had asked Mr. Sternworth to meet you. Mr. Churbett, of course you are to come, and bring the two young gentlemen. Perhaps we might have a little dance, who knows? You can go now. Mr. Rockley had rooms and loose boxes kept for you at the Budgeree, or you wouldn’t have had a hole to put your head in; what do you think of that?’
Mr. Churbett, much affected by his narrow escape of arriving in Yass and finding every room and stall appropriated, with no more chance of a lodging than there is in Doncaster on the Leger day, moved on, leading Fergus, and murmuring something about Rockley being a minor Providence, and Mrs. Rockley all their mothers and aunts rolled into one. He recovered his spirits, however, as was his wont, and caracolled ahead on Duellist, leading the way into a large stable-yard, around which were open stalls and loose boxes, apparently calculated for the accommodation of a cavalry regiment.
‘This is the Budgeree Hotel, and a very fair caravanserai it is. Jim, look alive and take off the tandem leader. Joe, I want a box for Duellist. Bowcher, this is Captain Effingham of Warbrok, and these young gentlemen his sons; did Mr. Rockley order rooms for them and me?’
‘Mr. Rockley, sir. Yes, sir. He come down last week on purpose to see if I’d kep’ rooms for Mr. Argyll and Mr. Hamilton, as the place was that full, and like to be fuller; and then he asked if your rooms was took, and the Captin’s and two young gents’, and when I said they wasn’t, he went on terrible, as it was just like you, and ordered ’em all right off, besides four stalls and a box.’
‘Ah, well, it’s all right, Bowcher. Mr. Rockley knows my ways. I wonder you hadn’t sense enough to keep rooms for me and my friends, as I told you I was coming. Town very full?’
‘Never see anythink like it, sir. Horses coming from all directions, and gents from Hadelaide, I should say. Least-ways, from all the outside places. They’re that full at the Star, as they have had to put half the horses in the yard, and rig up stalls timpry like.’
‘Ha! that’s all very well; but don’t try that with Black Prince or these ladies’ horses, or they’ll kick one another sky high.’
While this conversation was proceeding, Mr. Effingham and his sons had been ushered upstairs, where, at the extreme end of a long corridor, the Captain was provided with a reasonable bedroom, enjoying a view of the town and surrounding country. Wilfred and Guy had to content themselves with a smaller double-bedded apartment, the waiter apologising, as everything, to the attics, was crammed full, and visitors hourly, like crowds at the theatre, turned away from the doors. Slight inconveniences are not dwelt upon in the ‘brave days when we were twenty-one.’ So they cast their modest wardrobes on the beds, and tried to realise the situation.
This was a marked divergence from the circumstances of their mode of life for the past year. It appeared that every room on both sides of the corridor was tenanted by at least one person of an emotional and vociferous nature.
Boots were carried to the staircase and hurled violently down, accompanied by objurgations. Friendly, even confidential, conversations were carried on by inmates of contiguous apartments. Inquiries were made and answered as to who were going to dine at Rockley’s or Bower’s; and one gentleman, who had come in late, publicly tossed up as to which place he should go uninvited, deciding by that ancient test in favour of a certain Mr. Bower, apparently of expansive hospitality.
In addition to the dinner-chart, much information was afforded to such of the general public as had ears, as to the state and prospects of the horses interested in the coming events. Senator had a cough; and there were rumours about the favourite for the Leger. St. Maur and the Gambiers had come in, and brought a steeplechaser, which Alec was to ride, which would make Bob Clarke’s Cid go down points in the betting. Mrs. Mortimer had arrived and those pretty girls from Bunnerong. The fair one would be the belle of the ball. ‘No!’ (in three places) was shouted out, ‘Christabel Rockley was worth a dozen of her,’ and so on. Mr. Effingham began to consider what his position would be if he should have to listen to a discussion upon the merits of his daughters. This complication happily did not arise, the tide of mirthful talk flowing into other congenial channels.
It must be confessed that if the company had been charged for the noise they made, the bill would have been considerable. But after all, the speakers were gentlemen, and their unfettered speech and joyous abandon only reminded Effingham of certain old barrack days, when the untrammelled spirit of youth soared exultingly free, unheeding of the shadow of debt or the prison bars of poverty.
In due time the splashing, the dressing, and the jesting were nearly brought to an end. Leaving Fred Churbett to follow with Guy, Mr. Effingham and his heir departed to Rockley House.
‘There is something exhilarating, after all, in dressing for dinner,’ said he. ‘After the day is done it is befitting to mingle with pleasant people and drink your wine in good society. It reminds one of old times. My blood is stirred, and my pulses move as they have not done since I left England. Change is the great physician, beyond all doubt.’
‘I did not think that I should have cared half as much about these races,’ said Wilfred. ‘I had doubts about coming at all, and really I don’t think I should have done so but for the girls and my mother. It is sure to do them good. But after all, Dick and Tom, not to speak of Andrew, are equal to more than the work they have to do at present, and I suppose one need not be always in sight of one’s men.’
Rockley Lodge was profusely lighted. From the murmur of voices and rustle of dresses there appeared to be a large number of persons collected in the drawing-room, redolent of welcome as it ever was.
As they entered the house a voice was heard, saying, in tones not particularly modulated, ‘Order in dinner; I won’t wait another moment for any man in Australia.’
Effingham recognised his late visitor in the speaker, who, arrayed in correct evening costume, immediately greeted him with much deference, mingled with that degree of welcome usually accorded to a distinguished, long-absent relative.
‘My dear Captain Effingham, I am proud to see you. So you’ve found your way to Yass at last. Hope to see you here often. St. Maur, let me make you known to Captain Effingham. I heard him mention having met your brother in India. Bob Clarke; where’s Bob Clarke? Oh, here he is. You’ll know one another better before the races are over. Christabel, come here; what are you going away for? Mr. Wilfred Effingham you know, Mr. Guy you never saw; capital partners you’ll find them, I daresay. Is the dinner coming in, or is it not? [this with a sudden change of voice]. Mr. Churbett not come? Wait for Fred Churbett, the most unpunctual man in New South Wales! I’ll see him – ’
Fortunately for Mr. Rockley’s ante-dinner eloquence the necessity for finishing this sentence was obviated by the appearance of the butler, who announced dinner, after which Mr. Rockley, saying, ‘Captain Effingham, will you take in Mrs. Rockley? I see your friend Sternworth has just made his way in with Fred Churbett; it’s well for them they weren’t ten minutes later,’ offered his arm to Mrs. Effingham, and led the way with much dignity.
The room was large, and the table, handsomely laid and decorated, looked as if it was in the habit of being furnished for a liberal guest list. There could not have been less than thirty people present, exclusive of the six members of Mr. Rockley’s own family. Their friends Hamilton and Argyll were there, as also Mr. St. Maur, a tall, aristocratic-looking personage from the far north; Mr. Clarke, a pleasant-faced, frank youngster, whom everybody called Bob; Mr. and Mrs. Robert Malahyde, and other prepossessing-looking strangers, male and female; and lastly, their old friend Harley Sternworth.
What warmth, friendliness, cordiality, pervaded the entertainment! All apparently felt and talked like near relations, between whom had never arisen a question of property or precedence.
Mrs. Rockley, her daughter, and nieces were lively and unaffected, and beyond all comparison considerately hospitable. Rosamond and her sisters, dressed, for the first time since their arrival, in accordance with the laws of fashion as then promulgated, looked, to the eyes of their fond parents and brothers, as though endowed with fresh beauty and a distinction of air hitherto unmarked.
The dinner was in all respects a success – well served, well cooked; and as Mr. Rockley was severe as to his taste in wines, that department fully satisfied a fastidious critic, as was Howard Effingham. Messrs. Churbett, Argyll, and Hamilton, as habitués, had numberless jokes and pleasantries in common with the young ladies, which served to elicit laughter and general merriment; while Hampden, St. Maur, the parson, and Mr. Rockley in turn diverged into political argument, in which their host was exceptionally strong.
When they entered the drawing-room, to which Fred Churbett, Bob Clarke, and others of the jeunesse dorée, who cared little for port or politics, had retreated in pursuance of a hint from Mrs. Rockley, they were surprised to find that spacious apartment wholly denuded of its carpet and partially of its furniture. There was but little time to express the feeling, as a young lady seated at the piano struck up a waltz of the most intoxicating character, and before Mr. Rockley had time to get fairly into another argument with the parson, the room was glorified with the rush of fluttering garments, and the joyous inspiration of youthful sentiment.
Everybody seemed to like dancing, and no more congenial home for the graces Terpsichorean than Rockley Lodge could possibly be found. The host, who was not a dancing man, smoked tranquilly in the verandah, much as if the entertainment were in a manner got up for his benefit, and had to be gone through with, while he from time to time debated the question of State endowments with Sternworth, or that of non-resident grants from the Crown with John Hampden, who was characteristically inflexible but nonaggressive.
What with their neighbours Argyll and Hamilton, Ardmillan, Forbes, and Neil Barrington, the ever-faithful Fred Churbett, and divers newly-formed acquaintances who had arrived during the evening, the Miss Effinghams found so many partners that they scarcely sat down at all. Mr. St. Maur, too, perhaps the handsomest man of the party, singled out Beatrice and devoted himself to her for the greater part of the evening. During the lulls, music was suggested by Mrs. Rockley, who was ever at hand to prevent the slightest contretemps during the evening. Rosamond and Beatrice were invited to play, and finally Annabel and Beatrice to sing.
Beatrice was one of the most finished performers upon the pianoforte that one could fall across, outside professional circles; many of them even might have envied her light, free, instinctively true touch, her perfect time, her astonishing execution. Her voice was a well-trained contralto. When she sang a world-famed duet with Annabel, and the liquid notes – clear, fresh, delicately pure as those of the mounting skylark – rose in Annabel’s wondrous soprano, every one was taken by storm, and a perfect chorus of admiration assured the singers that no such performance had been heard in the neighbourhood since a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
It must not be supposed that Wilfred Effingham permitted much time to elapse before he took measures which resulted in an improvement of his recent acquaintance with Miss Christabel Rockley. He had seen many girls of high claim to beauty in many differing regions of the old world. He had walked down Sackville Street, and sauntered through the great Plaza of Madrid, bought gloves in Limerick, and lace in the Strada Reale; but it instantly occurred to him that in all his varied experiences he had never set eyes upon so wondrously lovely a creature as Christabel Rockley. Her complexion, not merely delicate, was wild-rose tinted upon ivory; her large, deep-fringed eyes, dark, melting, wondering as they opened slowly, with the half-conscious surprise of a startled child, reminded him of nothing so much as of the captured gazelle of the desert; her delicate, oval face, perfect as a cameo; her wondrous sylph-like figure, which swayed and glided in the dance like a forest nymph in classic Arcady; her rosebud mouth, pearly teeth, her childish pout smiling o’er gems – pearls, if not diamonds; how should these angel-growth perfections have ripened in this obscure outpost of Britain’s possessions? He was startled as by a vision, amazed. He would have been hopelessly subjugated there and then had he not been at that time such a philosophical young person.
Lovely as was the girl, calculated as were her unstudied graces and matchless charms to enthral the senses and drag the very heart from out of any description of man less congenial than a snow-drift, Wilfred Effingham escaped for the present whole and unharmed.
At the same time he enjoyed thoroughly the gay tone and joyous feelings which characterised the whole society, and insensibly caught, in spite of his ever-present feeling of responsibility, the contagion of free and careless mirth.
Dance succeeded dance, the quick yet pleasantly graduated growth of friendly intimacy arose under the congenial conditions of gaiety unrestrained and mingled merriment, till, soon after midnight, the joyous groups broke up.
Mr. Rockley suddenly intimated that, as they would have a long day at the races next day, and the ladies would need all their rest after the journey some of them had made, to withstand the necessary fatigues, he thought it would be reasonable, yes, he would say he thought it would occur to any one who was not utterly demented and childishly incapable of forethought, that it was time to go to bed.
This deliverance decided the lingering revellers; adieus were made with much reference to ‘au revoir,’ one of those comprehensive phrases into which our Gallic friends contrive to collect several meanings and diverse sentiments.
At the Budgeree Hotel a desultory conversation was kept up for another hour between such choice spirits who stood in need of the ultimate refreshment of a glass of grog and a quiet pipe; but the wonders and experiences of the day had so taxed the energies of Mr. Effingham and his sons that the latter fell asleep before Fred Churbett had time to offer six to four on St. Andrew for the steeplechase, or Hamilton to qualify young Beanstalk’s rapturous declaration that Christabel Rockley looked like a real thorough-bred angel, and that there wasn’t a girl from here to Sydney fit to hold a candle to her.
