A Humble Enterprise Part 18

"Yours sincerely,

"JENNY LIDDON."

Anthony at Wandooyamba was restless and surly. Mary had always been his ally in everything, and these devoted ones are the people we have no compunction about punis.h.i.+ng severely when they do happen inadvertently to offend us. He would not forgive her for sending Jenny away.

"Can you lend me a horse, Harry?" was the first thing he said on coming down to breakfast--before he had even noticed the children, whom he had not seen for so long.

"A dozen, my dear fellow, if you want them," said Harry.

"Thank you. I only want one."

Mary leaned over the table and whispered to him, "Wait a little. She is coming back to-day."

"Have you sent for her?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows.

She nodded.

He shook his head. "She will know what she was turned out for, and she won't come back."

"She will--she will," said Mary, who devoutly hoped it. "Wait till d.i.c.kson returns, at any rate."

d.i.c.kson had a wife and family in the towns.h.i.+p, and when he found that he had not to drive the young lady to Wandooyamba, he concluded that he need not hurry home, but might take his ease in his own house, as he was accustomed to do on the day of rest; so he pocketed Jenny's letter until the evening. When he then delivered it--at past six o'clock--he was very much surprised and offended at being taken to task for presuming to exercise his own judgment in the matter. He little knew what the consequences had been to Mr. Churchill's temper and his mistress's peace of mind. Tony was a handful that day, and sincerely did Mary regret having tried to play Providence to him.

She went to church with her family--to her own little bush church which her own money maintained; the parson, ritual, and general affairs of which were wholly under her direction--hoping to find the lovers together on her return. In the afternoon they all walked for miles on the track of the expected buggy, and walked back again, casting wistful looks behind them. Then d.i.c.kson came leisurely ambling home--they saw him from the verandah sitting in solitary state--and Jenny's letter was delivered and the suspense ended.

Mary tore it open, read it with distress, almost with tears, and handed it to her brother. He perused it with a grim smile, put it into his pocket, and ordered a horse to be saddled immediately.

"What, at _this_ hour?" she cried.

"I have wasted too many," he answered stiffly. "Good-night. You need not expect me back again."

CHAPTER XVIII

JENNY IS TREATED LIKE A LADY

That night the Rogersons went to church in a body, as usual, for they were a churchy family. Mrs. Rogerson was that power in the congregation which only a self-a.s.serting, middle-aged, highly-respectable female of p.r.o.nounced religious views can be, and fully recognised her responsibilities as such; knew that she was expected to set an example, and believed that the parochial machine would certainly get out of gear if she did not keep a constant eye upon it. Alice and Clementine were both in the choir, and particularly indispensable to it of an evening, when anthems were performed. Mr. Rogerson carried round the plate and counted the money in the vestry--most important function and functionary of them all. When the early tea was disposed of, and the table prepared for the substantial supper which was the concluding ceremony of the day, whereat the minister and several leading church members a.s.sisted, the family put on their best bonnets, and brushed their hats, and went forth to their devotions, leaving a G.o.dless young clerk, with a cigar and a novel, to keep guard over the bank's treasure in their absence.

Leaving also Jenny--not with the young bank-clerk, who was invisible, but on a sofa in the hot drawing-room upstairs, complaining of a headache, which she had legitimately come by through exciting her little soul over Mrs. Oxenham's letter and the perplexing questions that it raised. They had urged her to go to church, that she might hear the anthem and see how well they did things, but her intense craving to be alone to think gave her strength to resist their importunities. She was provided with Drummond's _Natural Law_ and a smelling-bottle, and left in peace.

Just as the church bells were silenced by the striking of the town clock, Mr. Churchill reached the princ.i.p.al hotel; and he quickly unpacked the small valise he had carried on his saddle, washed and brushed, and fortified himself with whisky and a biscuit, in lieu of his lost dinner, which he had not time to think of now. And at about the moment when Clementine began her solo in the anthem he rang the bell at the bank door. Somebody, he knew, would be upon the premises, and he was prepared to explain the object of his visit to any whom it might concern.

The young clerk thought of burglars, and was at first reluctant, but, on recognising the untimely caller, admitted the great man, and did what in him lay to be obliging. Jenny heard the ring and the little stir in the hall, but took no notice. She was entirely absorbed in wondering why Mrs. Oxenham wanted to throw her at Mr. Churchill's head to-day, after taking such extreme measures to remove her from him yesterday; and why Mr. Churchill, supposed to be engaged to Lady Louisa, should be in "a great way" because he had not found at Wandooyamba the girl of whom he had taken no notice while they were both in town and he was at liberty to interview her at any time. She was lying all along on a sofa, with her arms thrown up and her hands under her head. Her little figure was clad in a white gown--a costume insisted on by Mrs. Oxenham in this midsummer weather. The light from the window beside her touched her chestnut hair and her pure skin and her bright eyes, that were fixed in deep abstraction upon the wall. If she had posed to look her prettiest, she could not have succeeded better.

A heavy step came up the stairs, and she did not stir, for _she_ had no thought of burglars. Not until it slackened and paused at the open door of the drawing-room, threatening an intrusion upon her precious hour of peace, did she turn her head apprehensively. When she saw who it was that stood there, looking at her, she bounded to her feet as if she had been shot.

"Oh--h--h!" she breathed almost inaudibly.

"Miss Liddon, I am so glad to find you at home."

He was as sober as one could desire that a gentleman should be, but probably it was whisky on an empty stomach which made him bold at a time when most men are liable to be daunted; for, seeing her standing there, trembling, cowering, but visibly glowing from head to foot, he made up his mind that then and there would he settle the great question between them. No, not _there_. As he took his resolution, he remembered how short the evening service is, though it may not seem so to the persons taking part in it, and how horrible it would be to be disturbed in the middle of his proposal by the Rogersons and the parson and half a dozen gossips of the towns.h.i.+p coming in. So he said to Jenny, holding her hand very firmly, "As you wouldn't come to Wandooyamba, I have been obliged to come to you. I have something of great importance to say to you; and I want to know if you will come out for a little walk on the hills with me? It is not very hot now."

Jenny's colour deepened, and her tremblings increased. She withdrew her hand. "There is no one here," she said.

"But there will be soon. And I have a great deal to tell you--I want to be free to talk. Come out for a walk. Your aunt won't object when she knows it is I who am with you. Go and put your hat on--quick."

She hesitated still. "It is not--not anything the matter? Not anybody ill? Nothing wrong at home?"

"No, no! Make haste and get ready, or they will be back before we can get away."

She ran off to her room, and there stood still for a minute, clenching her hands and drawing long breaths that shook her little frame. Thoughts raced too fast to be followed, but if she could not think she could feel. If she could not understand him she was sure she could trust him; his sister's endors.e.m.e.nt of his proceedings was a guarantee of that. She put on her hat, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pair of gloves, and returned to him speechless.

"You don't want gloves," he said, and took them from her, and laid them on a table on the landing. They went downstairs, and the young clerk let them out of the iron-lined door.

"You can tell Mrs. Rogerson that I will bring Miss Liddon home safely,"

said Anthony, with the air of a lawful guardian. It was nearly eight o'clock, and daylight was fading fast. He had an idea that there would be a moon, which would make a walk on the hills delicious, forgetting that the moon was not due for another hour and a half. Jenny had no ideas upon the subject; she left all to him.

Immediately behind the towns.h.i.+p the rocky ranges began to rise and to break like waves into little valleys and gorges that were as lonely as a desert island, though so near the haunts of men. He knew all their ins and outs, and in his own mind had marked the group of boulders where he and Jenny would sit while he asked her to marry him. He had found it years before, when out on a picnic; it had wattle-feathered rock on three sides of it, and in front the ground fell into a ravine that opened the whole way to the sunset. Two quiet streets, a lane, and a rather weary mountain path led to this airy solitude, and one could reach it with steady walking in a little over half-an-hour. One might have thought it would certainly be occupied or invaded on a Sunday night, with so many wanderers abroad, but as a fact the townspeople cared nothing for the beautiful scenery at their doors, and did not go into the ranges from year's end to year's end. Anthony knew that, and chanced finding his eyrie untenanted.

Through the streets where 'Arry and 'Arriet were strolling on the footpaths and flirting over their garden gates, he led his spell-bound companion, chatting commonplaces by the way.

"You know that I have been absent from town?" he said.

She replied that she had not known it till the other day.

"Yes, for several weeks. And I had no idea you were here all this time.

Of course I got no letters at sea."

"The sea must have been delicious in the hot weather," remarked Jenny, thinking of her sufferings during the Cup season in the stifling air of Little Collins Street.

"No, it wasn't. At least, I did not enjoy it. I daresay the sea was right enough; I might have enjoyed it in other company."

"But I thought your company--Mrs. Oxenham told me----"

"What did Mrs. Oxenham tell you?" But he divined what it was. "That there was a lady on board whom I was specially interested in?"

"She thought you were engaged to her."

"Oh, did she? People have no business to _think_ about those matters; they ought to _know_, before they talk. That lady was just about the last woman in the world to suit me. And they bored me to death--the whole lot of them."

Jenny's heart leaped in her breast, but still she did not dare to ask herself what his words and his visit portended. They had begun to climb the mountain pathway, a devious and stony track through wattle bushes and gum saplings, and it had grown almost too dark to see his face.

"Have we not gone far enough?" she asked him, pausing.

"It is the scrub that shuts the light out," he said quickly. "And there will be a moon directly. Just a little further, and we shall get the breeze from the top. Does it tire you? Let me help you up."