Part 30 (2/2)
As soon as she was alone she sat down to compose a reply to Mrs.
Beamish. It was no easy job: she was obliged to say that Richard felt unable to come to their aid; and, at the same time, to avoid touching on his private affairs; had to disappoint as kindly as she could; to be truthful, yet tactful. Polly wrote, and re-wrote: the business cost her the forenoon.
She could not even press Tilly to pack her box and come at once; for her second letter that morning had been from Sara, who wrote that, having decided to shake the dust of the colony off her feet, she wished to pay them a flying visit before sailing, ”POUR FAIRE MES ADIEUX.” She signed herself ”Your affectionate sister Zara,” and on her arrival explained that, tired of continually instructing people in the p.r.o.nunciation of her name, she had decided to alter the spelling and be done with it. Moreover, a little bird had whispered in her ear that, under its new form, it fitted her rather ”FRENCH” air and looks a thousand times better than before.
Descending from the coach, Zara eyed Polly up and down and vowed she would never have known her; and, on the way home, Polly more than once felt her sister's gaze fixed critically on her. For her part, she was able to a.s.sure Zara that she saw no change whatever in her, since her last visit--even since the date of the wedding. And this pleased Zara mightily; for as she admitted, in removing hat and mantle, and pa.s.sing the damped corner of a towel over her face, she dreaded the ageing effects of the climate on her fine complexion. Close as ever about her own concerns, she gave no reason for her abrupt determination to leave the country; but from subsequent talk Polly gathered that, for one thing, Zara had found her position at the head of John's establishment--”Undertaken in the first place, my dear, at immense personal sacrifice!”--no sinecure. John had proved a regular martinet; he had countermanded her orders, interfered about the household bills--had even accused her of lining her own pocket. As for little Johnny--the bait originally thrown out to induce her to accept the post--he had long since been sent to boarding-school. ”A thoroughly bad, unprincipled boy!” was Zara's verdict. And when Polly, big with pity, expostulated: ”But Zara, he is only six years old!” her sister retorted with a: ”My dear, I know the world, and you don't,” to which Polly could think of no reply.
Zara had announced herself for a bare fortnight's stay; but the man who carried her trunk groaned and sweated under it, and was so insolent about the size of the coin she dropped in his palm that Polly followed him by stealth into the pa.s.sage, to make it up to a crown. As usual Zara was attired in the height of fas.h.i.+on. She brought a set of ”the hoops” with her--the first to be seen on Ballarat--and once more Polly was torn between an honest admiration of her sister's daring, and an equally honest embarra.s.sment at the notice she attracted. Zara swam and glided about the streets, to the hilarious amazement of the population; floated feather-light, billowing here, depressing there, with all the waywardness of a child's balloon; supported--or so it seemed--by two of the tiniest feet ever bestowed on mortal woman. Aha! but that was one of the chief merits of ”the hoops,” declared Zara; that, and the possibility of getting still more stuff into your skirts without materially increasing their weight. There was something in that, conceded Polly, who often felt hers drag heavy. Besides, as she reminded Richard that night, when he lay alternately chuckling and snorting at woman's folly, custom was everything. Once they had smiled at Zara appearing in a hat: ”And now we're all wearing them.”
Another practical consideration that occurred to her she expressed with some diffidence. ”But Zara, don't you ... I mean ... aren't they very draughty?”
Zara had to repeat her shocked but emphatic denial in the presence of Mrs. Glendinning and Mrs. Urquhart, both ladies having a mind to bring their wardrobes up to date. They agreed that there was much to be said in favour of the appliance, over and above its novelty. Especially would it be welcome at those times when... But here the speakers dropped into woman's mysterious code of nods and signs; while Zara, turning modestly away, pretended to count the st.i.tches in a crochet-antimaca.s.sar.
Yes, nowadays, as Mrs. Dr. Mahony, Polly was able to introduce her sister to a society worthy of Zara's gifts; and Zara enjoyed herself so well that, had her berth not been booked, she might have contemplated extending her visit. She overflowed with gracious commendation. The house--though, of course, compared with John's splendour, a trifle plain and poky--was a decided advance on the store; Polly herself much improved: ”You DO look robust, my dear!” And--though Zara held her peace about this--the fact of Mahony's being from home each day, for hours at a stretch, lent an additional prop to her satisfaction. Under these conditions it was possible to keep on good terms with her brother-in-law.
Zara's natty appearance and sprightly ways made her a favourite with every one especially the gentlemen. The episcopal bazaar came off at this time; and Zara had the brilliant idea of a bran-pie. This was the success of the entertainment. From behind the refreshment-stall where, with Mrs. Long, she was pouring out cups of tea and serving cheesecakes and sausage-rolls by the hundred, Polly looked proudly across the beflagged hall, to the merry group of which her sister was the centre.
Zara was holding her own, even with Mr. Henry Oc.o.c.k; and Mr. Urquhart had const.i.tuted himself her right hand.
”Your sister is no doubt a most fascinating woman,” said Mrs. Urquhart from the seat with which she had been accommodated; and heaved a gentle sigh. ”How odd that she should never have married!”
”I'm afraid Zara's too particular,” said Polly. ”It's not for want of being asked.”
Her eyes met Purdy's as she spoke--Purdy had come up laden with empty cups, a pair of infants' boots dangling round his neck--and they exchanged smiles; for Zara's latest AFFAIRE DU COEUR was a source of great amus.e.m.e.nt to them.
Polly had a.s.sisted at the first meeting between her sister and Purdy with very mixed feelings. On that occasion Purdy happened to be in plain clothes, and Zara p.r.o.nounced him charming. The next day, however, he dropped in clad in the double-breasted blue jacket, the high boots and green-veiled cabbage-tree he wore when on duty; and thereupon Zara's opinion of him sank to null, and was not to be raised even by him presenting himself in full dress: white-braided trousers, red faced sh.e.l.l jacket, pill-box cap, cartouche box and cavalry sword. ”La, Polly! Nothing but a common policeman!” In vain did Polly explain the difference between a member of the ordinary force and a mounted trooper of the gold-escort; in vain lay stress on Richard's pleasure at seeing Purdy buckle to steady work, no matter what. Zara's thoughts had taken wing for a land where such anomalies were not; where you were not asked to drink tea with the well-meaning constable who led you across a crowded thoroughfare or turned on his bull's eye for you in a fog, preparatory to calling up a hackney-cab.
But the chilly condescension with which, from now on, Zara treated him did not seem to trouble Purdy. When he ran in for five minutes of a morning, he eschewed the front entrance and took up his perch on the kitchen-table. From here, while Polly cooked and he nibbled half-baked pastry, the two of them followed the progress of events in the parlour.
Zara's arrival on Ballarat had been the cue for Hempel's reappearance, and now hardly a day went by on which the lay-helper did not neglect his chapel work, in order to pay what Zara called his ”DEVOIRS.” Slight were his pretexts for coming: a rare bit of dried seaweed for bookmark; a religious journal with a turned-down page; a nosegay. And though Zara would not nowadays go the length of walking out with a dissenter--she preferred on her airings to occupy the box-seat of Mr. Urquhart's four-in-hand--she had no objection to Hempel keeping her company during the empty hours of the forenoon when Polly was lost in domestic cares.
She accepted his offerings, mimicked his faulty speech, and was continually hauling him up the precipice of self-distrust, only to let him slip back as soon as he reached the top.
One day Purdy entered the kitchen doubled up with laughter. In pa.s.sing the front of the house he had thrown a look in at the parlour-window; and the sight of the prim and proper Hempel on his knees on the woolly hearthrug so tickled his sense of humour that, having spluttered out the news, back he went to the pa.s.sage, where he crouched down before the parlour-door and glued his eye to the keyhole.
”Oh, Purdy, no! What if the door should suddenly fly open?”
But there was something in Purdy's pranks that a laughter-lover like Polly could never for long withstand. Here, now, in feigning to imitate the unfortunate Hempel, he was sheerly irresistible. He clapped his hands to his heart, showed the whites of his eyes, wept, gesticulated and tore his hair; and Polly, after trying in vain to keep a straight face, sat down and went off into a fit of stifled mirth--and when Polly did give way, she was apt to set every one round her laughing, too.
Ellen's shoulders shook; she held a fist to her mouth. Even little Trotty shrilled out her tinny treble, without knowing in the least what the joke was.
When the merriment was at its height, the front door opened and in walked Mahony. An instant's blank amazement, and he had grasped the whole situation--Richard was always so fearfully quick at understanding, thought Polly ruefully. Then, though Purdy jumped to his feet and the laughter died out as if by command, he drew his brows together, and without saying a word, stalked into the surgery and shut the door.
Like a schoolboy who has been caned, Purdy dug his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed his hindquarters--to the fresh delight of Trotty and the girl.
”Well, so long, Polly! I'd better be making tracks. The old man's on the warpath.” And in an undertone: ”Same old grouser! Never COULD take a joke.”
”He's tired. I'll make it all right,” gave Polly back.
--”It was only his fun, Richard,” she pleaded, as she held out a linen jacket for her husband to slip his arms into.
”Fun of a kind I won't permit in my house. What an example to set the child! What's more, I shall let Hempel know that he is being made a b.u.t.t of. And speak my mind to your sister about her heartless behaviour.”
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