Читать книгу Bill of Billabong - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 4

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The two houses of Billabong were more than a quarter of a mile apart, and the trees between grew thickly, so that one might at first have thought that the site of the newer house had been carefully selected with the purpose of shutting it off from the old homestead. There was a road connecting them but it was not a straight road. It wound in and out among the trees as if it tried to hide itself or to make it quite a puzzling matter to reach Little Billabong.

To hide Big Billabong was difficult, for it was many-angled and lofty, and the red-brick stables and out-buildings stretched away from the red-brick house so that the whole was like a village. There were many glimpses of it to be caught from Little Billabong. But the new house was of one storey only, and though its rooms were large they were not many; though, indeed, its master and mistress said they were too many, since they lived principally on the wide verandahs that encircled it. From Big Billabong one would have said that it could not be seen at all.

David Linton knew better, however, though for the most part he kept his knowledge to himself. He knew, and he had confided the secret to one other person, that from one point in his house it was possible to look through the tree-trunks that seemed so effective a screen. It was curious that this one point was the big window of his den—a room sometimes dignified as the study, sometimes called the smoking-room, but at all times the heart of Billabong homestead.

To look through that green tunnel among the trees it was necessary to stand on just one spot on the carpet. There was grave danger that David Linton’s secret might leak out, since the carpet, which had seen its best days, having arrived at a period of dignified shabbiness, was at this point showing more obvious signs of wear. Billabong’s owner had not noticed this. Perhaps he did not realise how often his feet were drawn to the one place whence he could see his daughter’s home.

Just outside the window a deep cane chair stood on the verandah. It was David Linton’s special chair, and, sitting in it, he had the same view: the green tunnel through the trees that ended in the verandah of Little Billabong, with one window in sight. By day one might see Norah on the verandah or moving in her garden: by night the window winked a light of greeting through the tunnel. To Norah’s father it was as though a wireless ray linked the two houses.

Yet it was not necessary, for, wherever one might be about the two Billabongs, each house was always conscious of the other. The trees between, that hid them, did not keep them apart. An imaginary ring-fence encircled them, holding them together, so that the two houses made one thought, one life.

That, indeed, was what it amounted to. Through many years Billabong Station had known but one house, one family; David Linton and his son and daughter, and the Queensland orphan boy, Wally Meadows, who had slipped into their life and become as a son of the house. There had been no upheaval when Norah and Wally had decided to be married. It meant no real separation. Billabong merely produced another house, dropped it among the trees of the homestead paddock, and said, “Bless you, my children—especially if you don’t go away!”

Norah and Wally had no wish to go away. Life without Billabong, or without Jim and his father, did not even occur to them. The land that had seen them grow from childhood had seen their marriage: had watched them drive off adventuring, in the full knowledge that they would come back. Three months they wandered, finding adventure, indeed, and with it a happiness that deepened day by day: and meanwhile David Linton and Jim, assisted by Bob and Tommy Rainham, had pored over plans of houses, disdaining architects, none of whom seemed to grasp exactly what Little Billabong should be. Then the wanderers came home and entered into the discussion; so that most of the plans were scrapped. And finally, out of all the talks, grew up the new home.

It was something of an experiment in houses, and an architect would certainly have torn his hair over it. It was oddly shaped, with big bow windows thrown out in unexpected places, so that the verandah had to wander round them, forming sheltered nooks and corners; and it was built round a wide central space, a courtyard where palms and shrubs grew in great oaken tubs, and basket-chairs and lounges invited one to forget the heat of the most scorching summer day. There was an inner verandah, surrounding the courtyard, as well as the outer one; part of each screened off with mosquito-wire to form insect-proof rooms. And the house had a flat roof, edged by a broad railing, whence the owners of Little Billabong could look across their world.

“It looks like nothing earthly,” Jim Linton had said, when the plans were completed. “But I believe it will be rather jolly to live in.”

Norah and Wally had no doubt on the point—nor was their confidence disturbed when Tommy made the discovery that they had omitted to have a front door! Indeed, it seemed to them hardly necessary. They solved the problem, Jim asserted, by pulling the rooms further apart and slipping into the space thus obtained a square hall which allowed the world to walk through the house into the courtyard. Plans, in the eyes of Norah and Wally, were only made to be adjusted—by people of firmness.

At one end of the courtyard a tall screen of lattice, creeper-clad, shut off the working part of the house. This had its own verandah, and it was thoroughly practical—Norah and Mrs. Brown had seen to that. They had planned the kitchen section of Little Billabong with more lingering care than was given to the drawing-room: the men at this point being driven off to plan dull matters of drainage and electric plant.

All these, and many other, matters took time, but at last the foundations were laid, and Little Billabong rose into being. Nobody wished to hurry its building. Life and work on the station went on as of old, steadily, quietly. Perhaps Norah sewed more, in company with Tommy, since there were such matters as curtains and cushions. Certainly Hogg and Lee Wing, the Billabong gardeners, led a double life, for to Hogg it was inconceivable that an alien hand should plant Norah’s flowers, just as Lee Wing was firmly determined that none but he should guide the destinies of “L’il Missee’s” vegetables. They permitted working-bees, when even the horse-breaker lent a hand with the digging: but Lee Wing and Hogg supplied the brains. Over the construction of the stables Murty O’Toole and Dave Boone came into their own, planning details with artistic care; permitting a garage, but revelling in loose-boxes. And so, out of the united love and work of Big Billabong, the new home grew.

Easier to build it than to go to live in it, Norah thought. Even when all the workmen had gone away; when the last remnant of building litter had been tidied up; when all the curtains were hung and the new furniture in position, with the new cushions plumped into the new easy-chairs; when the maids whom Brownie had trained—daughters of old Billabong stockmen—were all agog to take possession of their new rooms—still Wally and Norah hesitated.

Finally, it was David Linton who turned them out tactfully, by the simple means of inviting himself and Jim, with the Rainhams, to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Walter Meadows at Little Billabong. So that Norah, who had been allowed to know nothing of the arrangements, found herself—somewhat bewildered—presiding at her own table for the first time. The house was full of flowers, the rooms all ready, the maids installed. There was nothing to do except bid the guests good-bye at the end of a merry evening and enquire of Lizzie, the new cook, if she had materials for breakfast. And Brownie had seen to that.

So it was that the old home of Billabong seemed to split into two. But there was no real cleavage. They were still one home; and the four inmates wandered in and out of the two houses until Jim said that it was difficult to tell where each belonged. Norah called each house “home” impartially, and Wally declared that she constantly forgot that she had ever been married.

They were all very busy. Life on Billabong had never been idle, and now there was far more to do. Wally had bought from Mr. Linton part of the station land—his own homestead and the paddocks that stretched away to the foothills: good fattening paddocks where store bullocks could be trusted to develop into the prime beasts for which butchers competed eagerly in the Melbourne sale-yards. Other land he had acquired, less good, but with possibilities of irrigation: already a scheme was on foot, and Norah and he planned crops of lucerne which should help to take the sting out of a bad season.

But this was not enough, and there was a tameness in it which suited neither Jim nor Wally. There was wild, rough, range-country to the north, little known, save to gold fossickers, few of whom had ever managed to do more than scratch the barest of livings out of the search. David Linton had long had his eye upon it as an adjunct to Billabong’s smooth acres.

“There’s money in it,” he said one evening, as they strolled back from inspecting the foundations of Little Billabong. “Not to be dug up—at least, I think not, though you never know. But that’s as it may be. The money I see is in store-cattle.”

“They’d need to be goat-footed, wouldn’t they?” Wally asked.

“Oh, they develop that fast enough if you put them there as youngsters. It’s rough, of course, but there is plenty of good grazing in the gullies and pockets, and there’s always water. We have to buy all our store bullocks, and pretty good ones: they cost a good bit. I should like you boys to consider taking up a stretch of that country, buy cheap young ones, and turn them out on it. I always planned doing it—when I had two grown sons to take a hand. Until then it was rather too much to consider.”

“I’d like it,” Jim said, with decision. “Billabong as it stands, even with Wally’s new land, is not big enough to keep us all busy. And it’s too tame. You’ve got the place to such a pitch of perfection that it runs on greased wheels. Wally and I need something to keep us from getting sleek and lazy.”

“Not much sign of either about you,” remarked his father, glancing at the lean, tall figures. “Still, I agree; and moreover, I think it’s up to every Australian, who has the chance, to do something towards reclaiming waste land. I should be glad to see you boys putting your mark on that country. Plenty to be done there, with judicious clearing and burning off useless timber: many of the best gullies must be choked with fallen stuff. You could give employment, too, and that is a big reason for doing it, with so many men needing work.”

“It’s a great idea,” Wally said. “We’ll go in for raising our own calves, and Norah shall feed all the delicate ones on the bottle. How about fencing that country? Wouldn’t it be difficult, sir?”

“Not such a big thing as it looks,” Mr. Linton answered. “The ranges beyond are a barrier in themselves: no cattle could get up most of them. There might be a few places to fence, but not many. The river would be your western boundary, and you could wire the east. And you could take up the land from the Government on very low terms: no one has ever wanted it. There would be very little in it except as an out-station to Billabong.”

“Oh, let’s do it!” Norah cried. “We’re sure to find adventures in that wild country!”

Wally regarded his wife with something of concern.

“Young woman,” he said firmly, “I should think you had had adventures enough to last a lifetime. I have reached an age when I want peace.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Norah,—“and you don’t, either. You know very well that peace is the last thing that agrees with you!”

“There’s something in what you say,” said Wally, twinkling. “And having married you I’m not likely to get it!”

“Cease ragging, you infants,” commanded Jim; “this is serious. Does the Billabong firm take up this country or not?”

“Why, didn’t I say we would?” inquired Norah, meekly. “I thought it was all settled.”

“You don’t settle things quite so easily—not where Government is concerned,” remarked Mr. Linton. “However, we may as well begin to study plans and make applications. So we’ll get to work to-night.”

That was months back, and now the new country was added to Billabong in the joint names of Linton and Meadows, and already young cattle were grazing in the area enclosed by the new wire-fence that climbed dizzily up stony rises and slid as abruptly into deep hollows. The owners had not, as yet, fully explored their territory—not a matter to be done in a hurry. But to them all there was joy in the knowledge that it was theirs—that beyond the old boundaries there was an undiscovered land with new possibilities of work and adventure. Something of the pioneer spirit was in them. David Linton, looking on quietly, was glad at heart that it was so—that Billabong had not reared its children to become “sleek and lazy.”