Back to Billabong Part 1

Back To Billabong.

by Mary Grant Bruce.

CHAPTER I

LANCASTER GATE, LONDON, W

"Do the beastly old map yourself, if you want it. I shan't, anyhow!"

"Wilfred!"

"Aw, Wil-fred!" The boy at the end of the schoolroom table, red-haired, snub-nosed and defiant, mimicked the protesting tone. "I've done it once, and I'm blessed if I do it again."

"No one would dream that it was ever meant for Africa." The young teacher glanced at the scrawled and blotted map before her. "It--it doesn't look like anything earthly. You must do it again, Wilfred."

"Don't you, Wilf." Wilfred's sister leaned back in her chair, tilting it on its hind legs.

"You have nothing to do with Wilfred's work, Avice. Go on with your French."

"Done it, thanks," said Avice. "And I suppose I can speak to my own brother if I like."

"No, you can't--in lesson time," said the teacher.

"Who's going to stop me?"

Cecilia Rainham controlled herself with an effort.

"Bring me your work," she said.

She went over the untidy French exercise with a quick eye. When she had finished it resembled a stormy sky--a groundwork of blue-black, blotted writing, lit by innumerable dashes of red. Cecilia put down her red pencil.

"It's hopeless, Avice. You haven't tried a bit. And you know it isn't hard--you did a far more difficult piece of translation without a mistake last Friday."

"Yes, but the pantomime was coming off on Sat.u.r.day," said Wilfred, with a grin. "Jolly little chance of tickets from Bob if she didn't!"

"You shut up!" said Avice.

"Be quiet, both of you," Cecilia ordered, a spot of red in each pale cheek. "Remember, there will be other Sat.u.r.days. Bob will do nothing for you if I can't give him a decent report of you." It was the threat she hated using, but without it she was helpless. And the red-haired pair before her knew to a fraction the extent of her helplessness.

For the moment the threat was effective. Avice went back to her seat, taking with her the excited-looking French exercise, while Wilfred sullenly recommenced a dispirited attack upon the African coastline.

Cecilia leaned back in her chair, and took up a half-knitted sock--to drop it hastily, as a long-drawn howl came from a low chair by the window.

"Whatever is the matter, Queenie?"

"I per-ricked my finger," sobbed the youngest Miss Rainham. She stood up, tears raining down her plump cheeks. No one, Cecilia thought, ever cried so easily, so copiously, and so frequently as Queenie. As she stood holding out a very grubby forefinger, on which appeared a minute spot of blood, great tears fell in splashes on the dark green linoleum, while others ran down her face to join them, and others trembled on her lower eyelids, propelled from some artesian fount within.

"Oh, dry up, Queenie!" said Wilfred irritably. "Anyone 'ud think you'd cut your silly finger off!"

"Well--it'th bleed-in'!" wailed Queenie. She dabbed the injured member with the pillow case she was hemming, adding a scarlet touch in pleasant contrast to its prevailing grime.

"Well--you're too big a girl to cry for a p.r.i.c.k," said Cecilia wearily.

"People who are nearly seven really don't cry except for something awfully bad."

"There--I'll tell the mater you said awfully!" Avice jeered. "Who bites our heads off for using slang, I'd like to know?"

"You wouldn't have much head left if I bit for every slang word you use," retorted her half-sister. "Do get on with your French, Avice--it's nearly half-past twelve, and you know Eliza will want to lay the table presently. Come here, Queenie." She took the pillow case, and unpicked a few st.i.tches, which clearly indicated that the needle had been taking giant strides. "Just hem that last inch or two again, and see if you can't make it look nice. I believe the needle only stuck into your finger because you were making it sew so badly. Have you got a handkerchief?--but, of course, you haven't." She polished the fat, tear-stained cheek with her own. "Now run and sit down again."

Queenie turned to go obediently enough--she was too young, and possibly too fat, to plan, as yet, the deliberate malice in which her brother and sister took their chief pleasure. Unfortunately, Wilfred arrived at the end of Africa at the wrong moment for her. He pushed the atlas away from him with a jerk that overturned the ink bottle, sending a stream of ink towards Avice--who, shoving her chair backwards to escape the deluge, cannoned into Queenie, and brought her headlong to the floor. Howls broke out anew, mingled with a crisp interchange of abuse between the elder pair, while Cecilia vainly sought to lessen the inky flood with a duster. Upon this pleasant scene the door opened sharply.

"A nice way you keep order at lessons," said Mrs. Mark Rainham acidly.

"And the ink all over the cloth. Well, all I can say is, you'll pay for a new one, Cecilia."

"I did not knock it over," said Cecilia, in a low tone.

"It's your business to look after the children, and see that they do not destroy things," said her stepmother.

"The children will not obey me."

"Pouf!" said Mrs. Rainham. "A mere question of management. High-spirited children want tact in dealing with them, that is all. You never trouble to exercise any tact whatever." Her eyes dwelt fondly on her high-spirited son, whose red head was bent attentively over Africa while he traced a mighty mountain range along the course of the Nile.

"Wilfred, have you nearly finished your work?"

"Nearly, Mater," said the industrious Wilfred, manufacturing mountains tirelessly. "Just got to stick in a few more things."

"Say 'put,' darling, not 'stick.' Cecilia, you might point out those little details--that is, if you took any interest in their English."

"Thethilia thaid 'awfully' jutht now," said Queenie, in a shrill pipe.

"I don't doubt it," said Mrs. Rainham, bitterly. "Of course, anyone brought up in Paris is too grand to trouble about English--but we think a good deal of these things in London." A little smile hovered on her thin lips, as Cecilia flushed, and Avice and her brother grinned broadly. The Mater could always make old Cecilia go as red as a beetroot, but it was fun to watch, especially when the sport beguiled the tedium of lessons.

A clatter of dishes on a tray heralded the approach of Eliza.

"It is time the table was clear," Mrs. Rainham said. "Wilfred, darling, I want you to post a letter. Put up your work and get your cap. Cecilia, you had better try to clean the cloth before lunch; it is ruined, of course, but do what you can with it. I will choose another the next time I am in London. And just make sure that the children's things are all in order for the dancing lesson this afternoon. Avice, did you put out your slippers to be cleaned?"

"Forgot all about it, Mater," said Avice cheerfully.

"Silly child--and it is Jackson's day off. Just brush them up for her, Cecilia. When the children have gone this afternoon, I want you to see to the drawing-room; some people are coming in to-night, and there are fresh flowers from Brown's to arrange."

Cecilia looked up, with a sudden flush of dismay. The children's dancing lesson gave her one free afternoon during the week.

"But--but I am going to meet Bob," she stammered.

"Oh, Bob will wait, no doubt; you need not keep him long, if you hasten yourself. Yes, Eliza, you can have the table." Mrs. Rainham left the room, with the children at her heels.

Cecilia whisked the lesson books hastily away; Eliza was waiting with a lowering brow, and Eliza was by no means a person to be offended. Maids were scarce enough in England in the months after the end of the war; and, even in easier times, there had been a dreary procession of arriving and departing servants in the Rainham household--the high-spirited characteristics of the children being apt to pall quickly upon anyone but their mother. In days when there happened to be no Eliza, it was Cecilia who naturally inherited the vacant place, adding the duties of house-maid to those of nurse, governess, companion and general factotum; all exacting posts, and all of them unpaid. As Mrs.

Rainham gracefully remarked, when a girl was not earning her own living, as so many were, but was enjoying the comfort of home, the least she could do was to make herself useful.

"Half a minute, Eliza." She smiled at the slatternly girl. "Sorry to keep you waiting; there's a river of ink gone astray here." She placed the soaked cloth on the waste-paper basket and polished the top of the table vigorously.