Part 18 (1/2)
She presently left the veranda, and I took the opportunity to say, ”It is yourself that requires the hot bath and a drop of spirits, Mr Beecham.”
”Yes; I think I'll take a good stiff n.o.bbler. I feel a trifle squeamish.
It gave me a bit of a turn when I rose to the top and could not see you.
I was afraid the boat might have stunned you in capsizing, and you would be drowned before I could find you.”
”Yes; I would have been such a loss to the world in general if I had been drowned,” I said satirically.
Several jackeroos, a neighbouring squatter, and a couple of bicycle tourists turned up at Five-Bob that evening, and we had a jovial night.
The great, richly furnished drawing-room was brilliantly lighted, and the magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling. I made the very pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham was an excellent pianist, a gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained tenor, which penetrated far into the night. How many, many times I have lived those nights over again! The great room with its rich appointments, the superb piano, the lights, the merriment, the breeze from the east, rich with the heavy intoxicating perfume of countless flowers; the tall perfect figure, holding the violin with a master hand, making it speak the same language as I read in the dark eyes of the musician, while above and around was the soft warmth of an Australian summer night.
Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love! What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! _When fortune smiles!_
Fortune did smile, and broadly, in those days. We played tricks on one another, and had a deal of innocent fun and frolic. I was a little startled one night on retiring to find a huge goanna near the head of my bed. I called Harold to dislodge the creature, when it came to light that it was roped to the bedpost. Great was the laughter at my expense.
Who tethered the goanna I never discovered, but I suspected Harold. In return for this joke, I collected all the portable clocks in the house--about twenty--and arrayed them on his bedroom table. The majority of them were Waterburys for common use, so I set each alarm for a different hour. Inscribing a placard ”Hospital for Insane”, I erected it above his door. Next morning I was awakened at three o'clock by fifteen alarms in concert outside my door. When an hour or two later I emerged I found a notice on my door, ”This way to the Zoo”.
It was a very busy time for the men at Five-Bob. Waggons were arriving with shearing supplies, for it was drawing nigh unto the great event of the year. In another week's time the bleat of thousands of sheep, and the incense of much tar and wool, would be ascending to the heavens from the vicinity of Five-Bob Downs. I was looking forward to the shearing.
There never was any at Caddagat. Uncle did not keep many sheep, and always sold them long-woolled and rebought after shearing.
I had not much opportunity of persecuting Harold during the daytime. He and all his subordinates were away all day, busy drafting, sorting, and otherwise pottering with sheep. But I always, and Miss Augusta sometimes, went to meet them coming home in the evening. It was great fun. The dogs yelped and jumped about. The men were dirty with much dust, and smelt powerfully of sheep, and had worked hard all day in the blazing sun, but they were never too tired for fun, or at night to dance, after they had bathed and dressed. We all had splendid horses.
They reared and pranced; we galloped and jumped every log which came in our path. Jokes, repartee, and nonsense rattled off our tongues. We did not worry about thousands of our fellows--starving and reeking with disease in city slums. We were selfish. We were heedless. We were happy.
We were young.
Harold Beecham was a splendid host. Anyone possessed of the least talent for enjoyment had a pleasant time as his guest. He was hospitable in a quiet unostentatious manner. His overseer, jackeroos, and other employees were all allowed the freedom of home, and could invite whom they pleased to Five-Bob Downs. It is all very well to talk of good hosts. Bah, I could be a good hostess myself if I had Harold Beecham's superior implements of the art! With an immense station, plenty of house-room, tennis courts, musical instruments; a river wherein to fish, swim, and boat; any number of horses, vehicles, orchards, gardens, guns, and ammunition no object, it is easy to be a good host.
I had been just a week at Five-Bob when uncle Julius came to take me home, so I missed the shearing. Caddagat had been a dull hole without me, he averred, and I must return with him that very day. Mr and Miss Beecham remonstrated. Could I not be spared at least a fortnight longer?
It would be lonely without me. Thereupon uncle Jay-Jay volunteered to procure Miss Benson from Wyambeet as a subst.i.tute. Harold declined the offer with thanks.
”The schemes of youngsters are very transparent,” said uncle Jay-Jay and Miss Augusta, smiling significantly at us. I feigned to be dense, but Harold smiled as though the insinuation was not only known, but also agreeable to him.
Uncle was inexorable, so home I had to go. It was sweet to me to hear from the lips of my grandmother and aunt that my absence had been felt.
As a confidante aunt Helen was the pink of perfection--tactful and sympathetic. My feather-brained chatter must often have bored her, but she apparently was ever interested in it.
I told her long yarns of how I had spent my time at the Beechams; of the deafening duets Harold and I had played on the piano; and how he would persist in dancing with me, and he being so tall and broad, and I so small, it was like being stretched on a hay-rack, and very fatiguing. I gave a graphic account of the arguments--tough ones they were too--that Miss Augusta had with the overseer on religion, and many other subjects; of one jackeroo who gabbed never-endingly about his great relations at home; another who incessantly clattered about spurs, whips, horses, and sport; and the third one--Joe Archer--who talked literature and trash with me.
”What was Harry doing all this time?” asked auntie. ”What did he say?”
Harold had been present all the while, yet I could not call to mind one thing he had said. I cannot remember him ever holding forth on a subject or cause, as most people do at one time or another.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Idylls of Youth