Читать книгу Told by Peter - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 5

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I DIDN’T come straight home at the end of last term, because I had to get some teeth fixed up. I stayed at my uncle’s in Sydney, and had a pretty good time going to shows and doing Christmas shopping, which made up for some unpleasant interviews with the dentist. So it was Christmas Eve before I got back to Weeroona.

Christmas morning was the usual medley of presents and excitement, and after that was over Binkie and I went up into the Crowsnest. This is a very special place of our own, which we have had for years. It is at the top of a sort of pine-tree, the kind that grows very thick branches close together, so that when you are up in it you can’t possibly be seen from the ground. It got struck by lightning in a big storm once, and all its top was split and generally knocked about. So Dad said we could do what we liked with it, and we had great fun fixing it up.

Each lot of boughs comes out from the same level on the trunk, spreading like the spokes of a wheel. We cut away the broken bits and lugged up planks with a rope and built a platform. It was rather a job to do it round the curves, and we were both pretty young at the time, so there are a few gaps, but nothing to bother about once you know them. We left a hole big enough to climb through. I mean, we forgot that at first, and nailed on the planks so that we were trapped up there and hadn’t any way of getting down. We didn’t realize it until Mother called us down to tea; and that day we didn’t have any tea. It took a long while to saw through the boards and make an opening large enough to escape. This was nothing but an accident that might have happened to anybody, but the family still make a tactless joke of it.

Anyhow, when what Dad called the initial agonies of construction were over, the job was quite a good one. The platform is big enough to hold a lot of people if it had to, and after we had each fallen through the hole a few times we made a trap-door to cover it when we were up there. We fixed up two boxes with water-tight lids to hold books and games and tins of biscuits and other useful things, and they made seats as well. It’s rather jolly to sit up there. The ends of the branches stick out beyond the platform so that you are in a big ring of green, and the whole thing sways gently when there’s any breeze. And you can see miles and miles: all over the paddocks on three sides, and far out to sea on the fourth.

Our greatest treasure is a telescope. It is a real ship’s telescope, one that belonged to Uncle Edward when he was captain of a liner. When he came to stay at Weeroona we took him up to the Crowsnest, and he was awfully impressed. He said it only needed one thing to furnish it completely, and he would send us that thing when he went home. We hadn’t the ghost of a notion what he meant, and we guessed nearly everything under the sun, but he wouldn’t tell us. You can just imagine how we felt when the parcel came and we unpacked it with palpitating fingers. It was one of the most wonderful moments of our lives when that gorgeous thing appeared. Even Dad just looked at it and said, “Whew! You kids ought to be proud of yourselves.”

We were, too—at least we were proud of the telescope. It lives in its leather case wrapped up in an old mackintosh in one of our boxes in the Crowsnest, and we keep its brasswork polished as well as Uncle Edward did, and that is saying something. When he comes here he is our guest of honour up aloft. Dad and Mother say he comes oftener than he used, and they think it is because of the telescope. He is a bit stiff in the joints, and he says he can’t climb as easily as he did when he was a boy in sail, but every fine day he goes aloft and sits looking out to sea, telling us marvellous yarns of sailing-ship days. Binks and I liked the look he gave us the first time, when he took the telescope out of its case and the brasswork gleamed at him. But of course he didn’t say anything.

I had a long look through it on Christmas morning. It was great to see all the paddocks again, stretching away over what seemed miles, and the river winding through them. Lots of golden wattles were still masses of flower, with the river glittering in between. I don’t know one garden flower from another, and I don’t want to: there was never any flower in a garden that could come up to wattle. Uncle Edward says that at the other side of the world they call it mimosa. Extraordinary what people will do, isn’t it?

I looked at the paddocks, and at the bullocks knee-deep in the long grass and at the horses standing under the gum-trees swishing their tails at the flies. Roona was there, but of course I’d been out to see her before breakfast. The men were bathing down at the billabong: I saw Joe dive in off the spring-board and come a gorgeous flop—flat as a pancake. You could hear the others roaring with laughter at him. I looked at the orchard, where the big black-heart cherries seemed so near that you would have thought you could put out a hand and pick them, and I thought it would be a pretty good plan to visit the orchard fairly soon. Then I looked out to sea.

Ours is a lonely bit of coast, and you don’t often see boats except our own. The beach is very wide, but the cliffs hide most of it from the Crowsnest: I could see just a bit of clean sand with the waves rippling up on it. The sea was very calm, and as blue as blue. Out by Castle Island there was a school of porpoises playing. I could see the shine of their wet bodies when they curved out of the water in big leaps.

Castle Island isn’t far from the shore. I don’t suppose it really has a name, but we always call it that because it looks just like the old castles you see in pictures—big solid masses of rock coming sheer down into the sea, breaking at the top into crags like chimneys and pinnacles. To look at it from the Crowsnest you would think nobody could land there, but we know several landing-places on the far side. It is a rather exciting island, with little caves and rock-chambers, and it’s a ripping place for scrambling, though you have to watch your step pretty carefully. But Binkie and I have known it since we were small, and we always reckon it belongs to us. Dad and Mother taught us to climb there. They said we were sure to climb anyhow, and we might as well be taught how to do it with sense. That is rather a sample of the way Dad and Mother treat us. They don’t say many “Don’ts” about things, they say, “Do it—properly.” And they jolly well see we do.

Well, when I had looked through the telescope until my eyes felt all screwy, I gave it to Binks, and she had a look at a bird’s nest she had been watching for weeks on one of the ledges on the Castle Island cliffs. She said the young ones were nearly ready to fly. I had rather a job to make them out, but then I haven’t got eyes like Binkie’s. Even without a telescope she can see farther than anyone I know. So after that we just sat on the boxes and felt lazy, the way you do on Christmas morning.

“Clem and Mr. Hardy are coming over to dinner, of course, aren’t they?” I asked her. (They always do on Christmas Day.)

Binkie nodded.

“They’ve got a strange man staying there,” she said. “He’s coming too.”

“Who on earth’s he?” I said in great surprise, for, as I have related, the Hardys never seem to know anyone.

“He’s an Englishman,” said Binkie. “Sort of cousin of Clem’s.”

“Then he must be a cousin of Mr. Hardy’s, too,” I said.

“No, he isn’t. He’s a relation of Clem’s mother—I mean, he would be if she was alive. His name’s Mr. Smedley.”

“What’s he like?”

“Oh, he’s right enough, I suppose,” she said. “We haven’t seen much of him.”

“Clem never told me,” I said. “I had a letter from him ten days ago.”

“Well, he hadn’t come then. He turned up last week, quite unexpectedly. At least, he wrote to Mr. Hardy from Sydney to say he’d come out from England on a tour, and he’d like to see them, so of course they asked him to come and stay.”

“He’s not going to get in the way these hols, I hope,” I said. “Will Clem have to take him round everywhere and show him things?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Binkie said. “You see, Mr. Hardy can’t go about much, and Clem can hardly let a stranger mooch round by himself, can he?”

I said I supposed he couldn’t. All the same, I thought it was a jolly nuisance, and Binkie thought so too. Grown-ups can be awfully in the way, even if you know them well; and when it came to a perfectly strange Englishman you can understand that we felt he might easily be a blight on the hols. Not that some Englishmen aren’t real good sorts. We’ve had a lot at Weeroona, and we know. But when you get the kind who look down on everything Australian, and don’t trouble to hide their feelings, they’re not so good. We had one last year who gave Dad lots of hints on running a station, and he hadn’t an idea how funny he was.

“Oh, well, he may be a sensible one,” I said. “Anyhow, we’ll have to back Clem up. After all, if he’s Clem’s cousin he ought to be all right. Can he ride?”

“Clem says he’s not too bad on a horse. And he can swim, and he likes fishing. I expect he’ll do,” Binkie said. “And I don’t think he means to stay long, anyhow. He has a friend coming from somewhere or other in a motor-boat, and they’re going for a fishing-trip along the coast.”

“Good for them!” I said. “I hope it will be soon. But I suppose it’s rather a treat for Mr. Hardy to have him.”

“Well, do you know, Peter, I don’t think it is,” answered Binkie. “He looks pretty solemn, anyhow. Clem says he thinks his father doesn’t want to be reminded about that family at all. You know they were perfectly beastly to Mrs. Hardy.”

“What, this man too?” I exclaimed, beginning to feel hot.

“Oh, no—he couldn’t be old enough for that. He isn’t at all a near cousin, and I don’t know if he really ever saw Mrs. Hardy. But he belongs to the crowd, anyhow, and it can’t be much pleasure for Mr. Hardy to see him.”

“For all we know, he may be a sort of messenger,” I suggested. “Like it would happen in a book—sent out to Australia to find the poor and ill-used relations, and end up by giving them pots of money.”

Binkie said there was not a hope. She believed Clem’s grandmother had the pots of money all right, only she hadn’t any intention of letting any of them come Mr. Hardy’s way. She and her unpleasant daughter hated the very name of Hardy. Indeed, they seemed to make a habit of hating most people—this Smedley cousin had told Clem that they didn’t like him either, and wouldn’t have anything much to do with him. Binkie said that this gave Clem quite a fellow-feeling for Mr. Smedley. Clem and his father would have shied off anyone who was matey with his grandmother and aunt.

It’s not much wonder they felt that way. When Mrs. Hardy was ill they were awfully poor, and Mr. Hardy had put his pride in his pocket and written to ask them for help, so that he could get proper treatment for her. And all he got by way of answer was an envelope addressed in his sister-in-law’s writing, and inside it his own letter, torn in two. And Mrs. Hardy had died. So after that Clem and his father looked on them as no better than murderers, and you couldn’t blame them.

Not that they ever talked about it. It was before they came to live near Weeroona: after they got really friendly with us Clem told Binkie and me, and we knew Mr. Hardy told Mother. Perhaps it was because we might have asked awkward questions, because they’re not the sort of people to talk much. We hadn’t said much either, but they knew how we felt. Then the matter had dropped altogether, and we hadn’t spoken of it for years until this cousin had come along and sort of revived it. I could understand how Mr. Hardy wouldn’t have wanted it revived.

Well, Binks and I agreed that the whole show was rather a pity, and that the Smedley man might just as well have stayed at the other side of the world instead of butting in to rake up old sores; and then we beat it to the orchard to sample the cherries. Then Binkie had to get dressed for dinner, much to her disgust, and presently I saw Mr. Hardy’s buggy coming up the paddock. Clem was riding, and he’d waited to shut the gate. Then he came up as hard as he could lick and passed them. We met in the stable-yard, and pounded each other on the back, and it was jolly good to see old Clem again.

I rather liked Mr. Smedley, though I hadn’t quite expected to. For one thing, when Dad took Mr. Hardy into the house he insisted on staying behind to help unharness the buggy-horse and give it a feed: and you can generally judge by little things like that. He wasn’t patronizing and matey with Clem and me, either, and he didn’t ask me any questions about school; in fact, he just behaved as if we were ordinary human beings. He did ask some questions, but they were about cattle, and quite sensible.

Rather a good-looking fellow, too; not tall, but well-built, and he looked very fit. A bit like Clem, with fair hair and grey eyes. It’s funny, you know: I’m quite vague about what Binkie’s eyes are like, or most people’s, for the matter of that, but I could never forget Mr. Smedley’s. Sometimes they looked quite pale, but there were other times when you’d wonder how you could ever have thought they were anything but very dark. I don’t know anyone else with eyes like that.

Well, I summed him up as not half so bad as he might have been, and I could see Clem was on very good terms with him, so I knew it would be all right. We had a tremendous Christmas dinner. The day was blazing hot, so all the dinner came out of the ice-chest. Mother said she was afraid Mr. Smedley might miss the regulation English hot dinner, but he said that the very idea of a steaming plum-pudding made him shudder, and when the trifle came along he treated it nearly as unmercifully as Binks and I did. He was good fun, too: he told two or three stories that made us rock with laughter, and one of them was all against himself. That was the only one he laughed at; over the others he was as sober as a judge.

Afterwards we rested. Binkie and Clem and I rested in the orchard under a cherry-tree, and I don’t know what the others did. Later on we packed tea-baskets and all of us went down to the beach. It is a good beach, with big masses of red rock here and there, so that you can always get shade, and there are natural dressing-rooms among the rocks. Mother has quite a swagger one, with a door that Dad and I built on to it, but the rest of us don’t worry about doors. We all had a swim, except Mr. Hardy: poor chap, he can’t ever bathe. It must be pretty ghastly to have to sit on the beach and watch other people larking in the sea. But he never seems to mind, and when we came out he had the billy boiling ready for tea.

We ate so much that Mother wouldn’t let us go back into the water for awhile, so we lay flat on the hot sand and let the sun soak into us. Mr. Smedley sat up when he was thoroughly cooked. He looked out to sea and gave a big sigh of happiness.

“And to think,” he said, “that last Christmas Day, and all the other Christmas Days of my life, I’ve spent the afternoon crouching over a fire—unless I was hardy and put on two mufflers and an overcoat and went for a nice brisk walk! Mist and snow and ice and driving wet gales—and now, this! Why must I ever go back to England!”

“Well, why must you?” asked Clem. “Plenty of room in Australia.”

“I don’t know why,” he said. “There really doesn’t seem any good reason. Perhaps I won’t.”

He got up and walked down to the edge of the water. We thought he was going in, but he just stood there, looking out to sea for what seemed quite a long time. Clem and Binkie and I got tired of waiting, so we made a move. Mr. Smedley turned round when he heard us.

“Have you any diving places off your rocks?” he asked.

“Rather!” I said. “We’ll show you.”

Well, I’ll admit he showed us. At ordinary swimming he was nothing extra: I could beat him in a race, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for the way he could dive. He had the best clean straight dive I ever saw, and when it came to fancy work there was nothing he couldn’t do. Of course, we hadn’t a spring-board, but even without it he was wonderful. And he was decent about it, too: no showing-off. He took a lot of pains trying to teach us a complicated sort of somersault that he said he’d invented for himself. We hadn’t a hope of doing it, but he was ever so patient.

“Only wants practice,” he said. “I’ll teach you every day while I’m here if you like. You’ll soon get the knack.”

I didn’t feel as if I’d get knack like his in a hundred years, but we practised until we were too sore to do any more. Mother was beginning to pack up by that time, so we dressed in a hurry and went home. The visitors stayed for supper, and we had a sing-song afterwards. Mr. Smedley was useful at that too: he sang jolly well, and he could play the piano like a wizard—all the tunes you ever knew, made up into medleys. We didn’t turn on the radio once.

Mr. Hardy was the only one who didn’t seem to be having a good time. He kept very quiet, just smoking and watching us. Of course, he’s never very well, but that night he looked even whiter than usual. I saw Mother keeping a wary eye on him pretty often. About ten o’clock he got up.

“Sorry I’ll have to drag you away, Mervyn,” he said to Mr. Smedley. “Mrs. Forsyth knows I have to keep early hours.”

Clem and I went out to see to their horses. Clem wanted to know what I thought of Mr. Smedley, and I said I liked him. I thought Clem looked a bit relieved.

“I’m glad you do,” he said. “Father will be, too. I’ll have to knock round with him, and we thought it might be a nuisance if I brought him over here much.”

I said that would be all right, and it was rot to talk about being a nuisance. I asked him wouldn’t Mr. Smedley think it a bit slow to spend his time with people of our age, and Clem said he knew he wouldn’t. “He’s keen on seeing something of station life,” he said. “Your Dad has offered to lend him a horse, and he’s looking forward awfully to going round with us.”

“Well, you bring him over to-morrow,” I said. “I don’t mind how often he comes if he’ll teach me to do that blessed dive of his.”

“Binkie had a look at a bird’s nest she had been watching

for weeks.”

Told by Peter)(Page 29