Читать книгу Gathered In - Catherine Helen Spence - Страница 11

Table of Contents

The good ship 'Kent' was a regular trader and a favourite passenger ship. Bets rising from a new hat to a £5 note were made as to her making the passage in seventy-five days on each outward voyage, and Kenneth was surprised to find what an Australian atmosphere pervaded the vessel. There were some new people like Kenneth going out for the first time, but they were completely overpowered by the superior position and the superior knowledge of returning colonists. The bulk of these were from Melbourne, but there were two or three Tasmanian people and two Adelaide families. It would appear by the prevailing talk that Melbourne was the "hub" of the Australian universe, and, although Kenneth had been told that the gold was the largest interest, both as an article of export and as employing most labour, it was the wool and the pastoral interests that enormously preponderated in the talk at the cuddy table. He could have had no better introduction to lead him to appreciate his uncle's peculiar walk in life than this voyage in the 'Kent'. Many of the passengers had taken the Suez route home, but preferred the long stretch of sailing for their return, and the extraordinary differences of opinion and of power of observation between people who had led the same lives and seen the same things and places interested the young Scotchman, whose travels had been hitherto very limited. It was pretty clear to him that if people did not take anything with them in the shape of ideas or information, they brought wonderfully little away from the sight of the most interesting places and the hearing of the most eloquent speeches. Some few, who had greatly enjoyed the excitement and the change of foreign travel, went back reluctantly as to a place of dullness and quasi-banishment; but most of the returning passengers seemed glad to have a prospect of taking up their work again, and mixing with their compeers on a platform where they occupied a place more or less conspicuous. A gold-broker and a manager of a Quartz--crushing Company represented the diggings interest, at least the capitalist side of it. Among the second-class passengers there were some small storekeepers and even artisans who had gone home for a holiday, but the bulk of such passengers were on their first outward voyage. The captain and officials were as familiar with Melbourne streets and Melbourne politics and general affairs as with those of their native land, and Kenneth thought he imbibed the atmosphere around him very fairly. He saw the tone of his uncle's letters reproduced in various gradations, and with more or less pronouncement on all sides. England owed much more to her colonies, especially to her Australian Colonies, and most especially to the premier colony of Victoria, than she acknowledged, or than she was at all aware of.

Among such a number of Victorians, Kenneth hoped to hear some particulars about his Uncle George, but there were none who knew him personally. By name, George Oswald was well known as a successful squatter of the old type, shrewd, hardworking, and prompt to seize opportunities as they offered, and habitually close-fisted, though liberal in spots. He had been originally an overseer--had managed for the Brothers Dirom till they got disgusted with the colony at the outbreak of the gold--diggings, and were anxious to go home. Their overseer had bought them out, and it had turned out a splendid bargain for the purchaser. Tingalpa was so near the large mining township of Castlehurst that the market for stock had been of incalculable value, even better than for Mr. William Gray's station at Wilta, who was another squatting magnate even wealthier, and, by what Kenneth could gather, of much higher social rank than his uncle. But George Oswald was spoken of with respect, his wool fetched splendid prices in the London market, and he was extending his operations, as yet undisturbed to any extent by the free selectors, whom the squattocracy are wont to stigmatize as the curse of the country--depriving men of means of their runs, and doing no good for themselves or the colony by their acquisitions. The liberal land laws were looked on by these sufferers, either in esse or in posse, with most extreme disgust, and in their eyes Victorian politics generally appeared framed for the destruction of capital and the ruin of capitalists.

Kenneth was a favourite on board; his desire for information made him popular with the prosers, who were eager to give it; his readiness to be obliging was agreeable to a few very limp ladies on board, who appeared to have no power to help themselves; his interest in navigation recommended him to the officers, and his love of fun to the children. There were some pleasant girls on board, with frank manners and a great readiness in conversation; and he did not escape the inevitable flirtation which at nineteen, in the enforced idleness of a voyage, has so many attractions; but he discovered before they reached Melbourne Heads that Miss Dunne was only passing the time with him, and that she was engaged to a middle-aged man on the New South Wales side. Kenneth's vanity was wounded, and his heart a little too; he thought of Harry Stalker's assertions that in most things there must be one failure, and it would be well if there were no more than one; and burned the verses he had written, and the little tokens he had treasured as marks of affection which did not exist. Emily Dunne had enjoyed the flirtation while it lasted, and was perhaps as sorry to find it brought to a close by one incautious speech of her mother's as Kenneth was, but she was not so much hurt or humiliated, and her conscience being of a very robust kind, never reproached her. She considered that she had helped in forming the young man, and done him no end of good. She as well as others had been somewhat surprised at the handsome, well educated, gentlemanly young man, who was going out to join his plebeian uncle, and predicted that he would be disappointed with the society he would meet with at the sheep station of Tingalpa.

Kenneth had fancied that going on board as a stranger he would be left much to himself, and had taken books with him for a little serious study. In the seventy-five days of leisure he hoped to take stock of all that he knew, and fix old acquisitions by building on them new ones; but he found he was dragged into the vortex of society, and chat, and amusement. Books of light reading were abundant, and they furnished subjects for talk which his serious ones could not have done. He thought he frittered away his time sadly with novels and Emily Dunne and her compeers, and regretted his instability of purpose. But often we are mistaken in our estimate of what is best for us. It was a weaning from the keen intellectual life--a throwing--off of the spirit of mental competition, and mixing with the world, invaluable to him. Nay, the common courtesies which were to be observed towards the stupid and the boorish were good preparations for the new life in the new home.

When Mrs. Honey, who, though the wife of a very rich squatter, and the mother of three stylish daughters, talked of her Continental tour with the vagueness of utter ignorance, and was occasionally sharply brought to book by those young ladies when she fell into any blunder more egregious than usual, Kenneth kept his countenance better than any young fellow on board. She had hoped to get her daughters' portraits painted by the old masters when they were at home, at any rate, as they were said to be the best; and if it was expensive, Mr. Honey could afford it; but she had found that was not so easily accomplished, as these old masters had been dead and buried for centuries. Her only idea of the places she had visited was by the purchases she had made; and at the mention of Rome, she flatly denied she had ever been there. In vain did Miss Honey speak of St. Peter's and the Colosseum, of the Catacombs and the Tiber. She could not recall anything about the place till Miss Tilly, the youngest, reminded her that in the Corso there she had bought some tasselled and three-buttoned gloves, which had split at the first wearing. At this evidence Mrs. Honey gave in, and Emily Dunne, wondered at Kenneth's good breeding, for he neither laughed nor smiled, and turned the conversation in another direction.

The Honeys were the richest of the passengers, but by no means the highest in social position; and though the girls were fearfully and wonderfully fashionable in their attire, they had been too wilful to profit by the education their father had paid so much for, and too ignorant to pick up anything but the merest shreds of information in their travels.

The hats and £5 notes were won easily by all those who betted on the good sailing capabilities of the 'Kent'. She was in port six days before the usual time, and captain and officers were jubilant. Even the losers of the bets reckoned that six days gained was full compensation, without taking into account the pleasantness of a rapid favourable passage. Owing to his being before his time there was no one to meet Kenneth at his landing, but he went straight to the hotel recommended by his uncle, telegraphed his arrival, and his intention to start on the following morning; and walked through Melbourne streets all day and part of the night with another new chum--the passenger he had liked best, and with whom he had most in common, but who was unfortunately bound for Adelaide. They acknowledged that their passengers had some cause for their pride in the extent, the handsomeness, and the life of the southern metropolis.

In the afternoon Kenneth and his friend Evans met the three Misses Honey "doing the block", as they called it, in Collins Street. The young ladies fastened on their fellow-passengers as an available escort, and as they walked up and down for an hour and a half, they were accosted by numerous friends and acquaintances, not with the wonder or the questioning which would greet an English family after an absence of eighteen months at the Antipodes, but more like that of the same family after their autumn tour.

"Ah! you're back. It seems like yesterday that you went home. Came in the 'Kent' I suppose. Papa told me it was sighted this morning."

"You're all well, I hope".

"Quite well, thanks. Nora's married; of course you know."

"Oh! yes; heard that ages ago. Got the letters at Paris."

"Paris is divine; is it not?"

"Yes; heavenly."

"How did you get on with the languages?"

"Oh, first-rate. Everybody speaks English."

"Sorry to get back?"

"Ain't we, just? but the pater got rusty, and we had to turn back."

"Any balls on?"

"Lots. Going out to-night and Friday."

"Could you get us invitations?"

"Don't think so; rather crowded with girls. Anything new to wear?"

"Lots; and so scrumptious. You look a little old-fashioned."

"Ah, you mistake, Tilly, my love. We get the fashions in advance."

"So your Melbourne dressmakers say; but we know better," said Miss Honey. "Ma has brought out the very most recent things for herself and us--cost no end of money. Things are really dearer, you know, at West-End shops in season than here."

"Cannot you introduce me?" in an audible whisper. "English friends, I suppose."

"Only fellow-passengers," said Miss Honey, coolly, and walked on to other friends, with whom the same course of conversation went on with very slight variation.

Kenneth thought his young lady friends were ashamed of him and of young Evans, but he was quickly undeceived. "A likely thing, indeed, to introduce you to them, who would not go out of their way to get us a invitation when we wanted it. Overdone with girls, forsooth! that's always the cry. We shall introduce you to our favourites, not to mere acquaintances like them."

The Misses Honey did not happen to meet with any favourite in this afternoon's walk in Collins Street, and they enjoyed the curiosity they raised as to their companions. They compared the dresses they saw with their own, and with those they had in their mamma's packing-cases with general complacency and satisfaction, and parted with Oswald and Evans in the conviction that they had impressed them powerfully with their good position as well as their fashionable easy manners in their old accustomed haunts. Kenneth and his companion drew a different conclusion, but of that the fair ladies were happily ignorant.