Читать книгу The Hillyars and the Burtons - Henry Kingsley - Страница 4

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THE Houses were "up" and the Colonial Secretary was in the bosom of his family.

It had been one of the quietest and pleasantest little sessions on record. All the Government bills had slid easily through. There had been a little hitch on the new Scab Bill; several members with infected runs opposing it lustily; threatening to murder it by inches in committee, and so on: but, on the Secretary saying that he should not feel it his duty to advise his Excellency to prorogue until it was passed, other members put it to the opposing members whether they were to sit there till Christmas, with the thermometer at 120°, and the opposing members gave way with a groan; so a very few days afterwards his Excellency put on his best uniform, cocked hat, sword and all, and came down, and prorogued them. And then, taking their boys from school, and mounting their horses, they all rode away, east, north, and west, through forest and swamp, over plain and mountain, to their sunny homes, by the pleasant river-sides of the interior.

So the Colonial Secretary was in the bosom of his family. He was sitting in his veranda in a rocking-chair, dressed in white from head to foot, with the exception of his boots, which were shining black, and his necktie, which was bright blue. He was a tall man, and of noble presence,--a man of two-and-forty, or thereabouts,--with a fine fearless eye, as of one who had confronted the dangers of an infant colony, looking altogether like the highly intellectual, educated man he was; and on every button of his clean white coat, on every fold of his spotless linen, in every dimple of his close--shaved, red-brown face, was written in large letters the word, Gentleman.

He had come down to one of his many stations, the favorite one, lying about sixty miles along the coast from Palmerston, the capital of Cooksland; and, having arrived only the night before, was dreaming away the morning in his veranda, leaving the piles of papers, domestic and parliamentary, which he had accumulated on a small table beside him, totally neglected.

For it was impossible to work. The contrast between the burning streets of Palmerston and this cool veranda was so exquisite, that it became an absolute necessity to think about that and nothing else. Just outside, in the sun, a garden, a wilderness of blazing flowers, sloped rapidly down to the forest, whose topmost boughs were level with your feet. Through the forest rushed the river, and beyond the forest was the broad, yellow plain, and beyond the plain the heath, and beyond the heath the gleaming sea, with two fantastic purple islands on the horizon.

The Colonial Secretary had no boys to bring home from school, for only six months before this he had married the beauty of the colony, Miss Neville, who was at that moment in the garden with her youngest sister gathering flowers.

The Secretary by degrees allowed his eyes to wander from the beautiful prospect before him, to the two white figures among the flowers. By degrees his attention became concentrated on them, and after a time a shade of dissatisfaction stole over his handsome face, and a wrinkle or two formed on his broad forehead.

Why was this? The reason was a very simple one: he saw that Mrs. Oxton was only half intent upon her flowers, and was keeping one eye upon her lord and master. He said, "Botheration."

She saw that he spoke, though she little thought what he said; and so she came floating easily towards him through the flowers, looking by no means unlike a great white and crimson Amaryllis herself. She may have been a thought too fragile, a thought too hectic,--all real Australian beauties are so; she looked, indeed, as though, if you blew at her, her hair would come off like the down of a dandelion, but nevertheless she was so wonderfully beautiful, that you could barely restrain an exclamation of delighted surprise when you first saw her. This being came softly up to the Secretary, put her arm round his neck, and kissed him; and yet the Secretary gave no outward signs of satisfaction whatever. Still the Secretary was not a "brute"; far from it.

"My love," said Mrs. Oxton.

"Well, my dear," said the Secretary.

"I want to ask you a favor, my love."

"My sweetest Agnes, it is quite impossible. I will send Edward as sub--overseer to Tullabaloora; but into a Government place he does not go."

"My dear James--"

"It is no use, Agnes; it is really no use. I have been accused in the public papers of placing too many of my own and my wife's family. I have been taunted with it in the House. There is great foundation of truth in it. It is really no use, if you talk till doomsday. What are you going to give me for lunch?"

Mrs. Oxton was perfectly unmoved; she merely seated herself comfortably on her husband's knee.

"Suppose, now," she said, "that you had been putting yourself in a wicked passion for nothing. Suppose I had changed my mind about Edward. Suppose I thought you quite right in not placing any more of our own people. And suppose I only wanted a little information about somebody's antecedents. What then?"

"Why then I have been a brute. Say on."

"My dearest James. Do you know anything against Lieutenant Hillyar?"

"H'm," said the Secretary. "Nothing new. He came over here under a cloud; but so many young men do that. I am chary of asking too many questions. He was very fast at home, I believe, and went rambling through Europe for ten years; yet I do not think I should be justified in saying I knew anything very bad against him."

"He will be Sir George Hillyar," said Mrs. Oxton, pensively.

"He will indeed," said the Secretary, "and have ten thousand a year. He will be a catch for some one."

"My dear, I am afraid he is caught."

"No! Who is it?"

"No other than our poor Gerty. She has been staying at the Barkers', in the same house with him; and the long and the short of it is, that they are engaged."

The Secretary rose and walked up and down the veranda. He was very much disturbed.

"My dear," he said at last, "I would give a thousand pounds if this were not true."

"Why? do you know anything against him?"

"Well, just now I carelessly said I did not; but now when the gentleman coolly proposes himself for my brother-in-law! It is perfectly intolerable!"

"Do you know anything special, James?"

"No. But look at the man, my love. Look at his insolent, contradictory manner. Look at that nasty drop he has in his eyes. Look at his character for profligacy. Look at his unpopularity in the force; and then think of our beautiful little Gerty being handed over to such a man. Oh! Lord, you know it really is--"

"I hate the man as much as you do," said Mrs. Oxton. "I can't bear to be in the room with him. But Gerty loves him."

"Poor little bird."

"And he is handsome."

"Confound him, yes. And charming too, of course, with his long pale face and his dolce far-niente, insolent manner, and his great eyes like blank windows, out of which the Devil looks once a day, for fear you might forget he was there. Oh! a charming man!"

"Then he will be a baronet, with an immense fortune; and Gerty will be Lady Hillyar."

"And the most unfortunate little flower in the wide world," said the Secretary.

"I think you are right," said Mrs. Oxton, with a sigh. "See, here she comes; don't let her know I have told you."

Gertrude Neville came towards them at this moment. She was very like her sister, but still more fragile in form; a kind of caricature of her sister. The white in her face was whiter, and the red redder; her hair was of a shade more brilliant brown; and she looked altogether like some wonderful hectic ghost. If you were delighted with her sister's beauty you were awed with hers; not awed because there was anything commanding or determined in the expression of her face, but because she was so very fragile and gentle. The first glance of her great hazel eyes put her under your protection to the death. You had a feeling of awe, while you wondered why it had pleased God to create anything so helpless, so beautiful, and so good, and to leave her to the chances and troubles of this rough world. You could no more have willingly caused a shade of anxiety to pass over that face, than you could have taken the beautiful little shell parrakeet, which sat on her shoulder, and killed it before her eyes.

The Secretary set his jaw, and swore, to himself, that it should never be; but what was the good of his swearing?

"See, James," she said to him, speaking with a voice like that of a stock--dove among the deep black shadows of an English wood in June, "I am going to fill all your vases with flowers. Idle Agnes has run away to you, and has left me all the work. See here; I am going to set these great fern boughs round the china vase on the centre-table, and bend them so that they droop, you see. And then I shall lay in these long wreaths of scarlet Kennedia to hang over the fern, and then I shall tangle in these scarlet passion-flowers, and then I shall have a circle of these belladonna ilies, and in the centre of all I shall put this moss-rosebud,--"For the bride she chose, the red, red, rose, And by its thorn died she."

"James, don't break my heart, for I love him. My own brother, I have never had a brother but you; try to make the best of him for my sake. You will now, won't you? I know you don't like him,--your characters are dissimilar,--but I am sure you will get to. I did not like him at first; but it came upon me in time. You don't know how really good he is, and how bitterly he has been ill-used. Come, James, say you will try to like him."

What could the poor Secretary do but soothe her, and defer any decided opinion on the matter. If it had been Mr. Cornelius Murphy making a modest request, the Secretary would have been stern enough, would have done what he should have done here,--put his veto on it once and forever; but he could not stand his favorite little sister-in-law, with her tears, her beauty, and her caresses. He temporized.

But his holiday, to which he had looked forward so long, was quite spoilt. Little Gerty Neville had wound herself so thoroughly round his heart; she had been such a sweet little confidant to him in his courtship; had brought so many precious letters, had planned so many meetings; had been, in short, such a dear little go-between, that when he thought of her being taken away from him by a man of somewhat queer character, whom he heartily despised and disliked, it made him utterly miserable. As Gerty had been connected closely with the brightest part of a somewhat stormy life, so also neither he nor his wife had ever laid down a plan for the brighter future which did not include her; and now!--it was intolerable.

He brooded for three days, and then, having seen to the more necessary part of his station-work, he determined to go and make fuller inquiries. So the big bay horse was saddled, and he rode thoughtfully away; across the paddocks, through the forest, over the plain, down to the long yellow sands fringed with snarling surf, and so northward towards the faint blue promontory of Cape Wilberforce.