Part 42 (1/2)
”H'm!” said John to himself as he gazed. And: ”H'm,” he repeated after an interval.--Then pulling down his waistcoat and generally giving himself a shake to rights, he reflected that, for his own two-and-forty years, he was a very well preserved man indeed.
Chapter VI
”Oh, Richard!... and my dress is blue,” said Mary distractedly, and sitting back on her heels let her arms fall to her sides. She was on her knees, and before her lay a cardboard box from which she had withdrawn a pink fan, pink satin boots with stockings to match, and a pink head-dress.
”Well, why the d.i.c.kens didn't you say so?” burst out the giver.
”I did, dear. As plainly as I could speak.”
”Never heard a word!”
”Because you weren't listening. I told you so at the time. Now what am I to do?” and, in her worry over the contretemps, Mary quite forgot to thank her husband for the trouble he had been to on her behalf.
”Get another gown to go with them.”
”Oh, Richard... how like a man! After all the time and money this one has cost me. No, I couldn't do that. Besides, Agnes Oc.o.c.k is wearing pink and wouldn't like it.” And with a forehead full of wrinkles she slowly began to replace the articles in their sheaths. ”Of course they're very nice,” she added, as her fingers touched the delicate textures.
”They would need to be, considering what I paid for them. I wish now I'd kept my money in my pocket.”
”Well, your mistake is hardly my fault, is it, dear?” But Richard had gone off in a mood midway between self-annoyance and the huff.
Mary's first thought was to send the articles to Jinny with a request to exchange them for their counterparts in the proper colour. Then she dismissed the idea. Blind slave to her nursery that Jinny was, she would hardly be likely to give the matter her personal supervision: the box would just be returned to the shop, and the transfer left to the shop-people's discretion. They might even want to charge more. No, another plan now occurred to Mary. Agnes Oc.o.c.k might not yet have secured the various small extras to go with her ball-dress; and, if not, how nice it would be to make her a present of these. They were finer, in better taste, than anything to be had on Ballarat; and she had long owed Agnes some return for her many kindnesses. Herself she would just make do with the simpler things she could buy in town. And so, without saying anything to Richard, who would probably have objected that Henry Oc.o.c.k was well able to afford to pay for his own wife's finery, Mary tied up the box and drove to Plevna House, on the outer edge of Yuille's Swamp.
”Oh, no, I could never have got myself such beautiful things as these, Mary,” and Mrs. Henry let her hands play lovingly with the silk stockings, her pretty face a-glow with pleasure. ”Henry has no understanding, dear, for the etceteras of a costume. He thinks, if he pays for a dress or a mantle, that that is enough; and when the LITTLE bills come in, he grumbles at what he calls my extravagance. I sometimes wish, Mary, I had kept back just a teeny-weeny bit of my own money. Henry would never have missed it, and I should have been able to settle a small bill for myself now and then. But you know how it is at first, love. Our one idea is to hand over all we possess to our lord and master.” She tried on the satin boots; they were a little long, but she would stuff the toes with wadding. ”If I am REALLY not robbing you, Mary?”
Mary rea.s.sured her, and thereupon a visit was paid to the nursery, where Mr. Henry's son and heir lay sprawling in his cradle. Afterwards they sat and chatted on the verandah, while a basket was being filled with peaches for Mary to take home.
Not even the kindly drapery of a morning-wrapper could conceal the fact that Agnes was growing stout--quite losing her fine figure. That came of her having given up riding-exercise. And all to please Mr. Henry. He did not ride himself, and felt nervous or perhaps a little jealous when his wife was on horseback.
She was still very pretty of course--though by daylight the fine bloom of her cheeks began to break up into a network of tiny veins--and her fair, smooth brow bore no trace of the tragedy she has gone through.
The double tragedy; for, soon after the master of Dandaloo's death in a Melbourne lunatic asylum, the little son of the house had died, not yet fourteen years of age, in an Inebriate's Home. Far was it from Mary to wish her friend to brood or repine; but to have ceased to remember as utterly as Agnes had done had something callous about it; and, in her own heart, Mary devoted a fresh regret to the memory of the poor little stepchild of fate.
The ball for which all these silken niceties were destined had been organised to raise funds for a public monument to the two explorers, Burke and Wills, and was to be one of the grandest ever given in Ballarat. His Excellency the Governor would, it was hoped, be present in person; the ladies had taken extraordinary pains with their toilettes, and there had been the usual grumblings at expense on the part of the husbands--though not a man but wished and privately expected HIS wife ”to take the s.h.i.+ne out of all the rest.”
Mary had besought Richard to keep that evening free--it was her lot always to go out to entertainments under some one else's wing--and he had promised to do his utmost. But, a burnt child in this respect, Mary said she would believe it when she saw it; and the trend of events justified her scepticism. The night arrived; she was on the point of adjusting her wreath of forget-me-nots before her candle-lit mirror, when the dreaded summons came. Mahony had to change and hurry off, without a moment's delay.
”Send for Purdy. He'll see you across,” he said as he banged the front door.
But Mary despatched the gardener at a run with a note to Tilly Oc.o.c.k, who, she knew, would make room for her in her double-seated buggy.
Grindle got out, and Mary, her bunchy skirts held to her, took his place at the back beside Mrs. Amelia. Tilly sat next the driver, and talked to them over her shoulder--a great big jolly rattle of a woman, who ruled her surroundings autocratically.
”Lor, no--we left 'im counting eggs,” she answered an inquiry on Mary's part. ”Pa's got a brood of Cochin Chinas that's the pride and glory of 'is heart. And 'e's built 'imself the neatest little place for 'em you could meet on a summer's day: you MUST come over and admire it, my dear--that'll please 'im, no end. It was a condition I made for 'is going on keeping fowls. They were a perfect nuisance, all over the garden and round the kitchen and the back, till it wasn't safe to put your foot down anywhere--fowls ARE such messy things! At last I up and said I wouldn't have it any longer. So then 'e and Tom set to work and built themselves a fowl-house and a run. And there they spend their days thinking out improvements.”
Here Tilly gave the driver a cautionary dig with her elbow; as she did this, an under-pocket c.h.i.n.ked ominously. ”Look out now, Davy, what you're doing with us!--Yes, that's splosh, Mary. I always bring a bag of change with me, my dear, so that those who lose shan't have an excuse for not paying up.” Tilly was going to pa.s.s her evening, as usual, at the card-table. ”Well, I hope you two'll enjoy yourselves.
Remember now, Mrs. Grindle, if you please, that you're a married woman and must behave yourself, and not go in for any high jinks,” she teased her prim little stepdaughter, as they dismounted from the conveyance and stood straightening their petticoats at the entrance to the hall.
”You know, Matilda, I do not intend to dance to-night,” said Mrs Amelia in her sedate fas.h.i.+on: it was as if she sampled each word before parting with it.