Читать книгу From Billabong to London - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 7

Table of Contents

DUSK falls early in an Australian mid-winter, and as evening draws in, the frost in the air nips sharply after the brilliant sunshine of the day. It was half an hour later that David Linton put down his paper and glanced across at his son.

“Too dark to read—and too cold,” he said. “Come into the smoking-room.”

“I suppose it’s time to make a move,” Jim answered, rising, hat and stockwhip in one hand and a bundle of papers in the other. “It’s going to be a cold night. I wish this frosty weather would break, and there might be a chance of rain; we want it badly enough.”

“You’re getting worried about the place,” his father said, leading the way into the smoking-room, where the leaping light from a great fire of red-gum logs flung dancing shadows on deep leather chairs drawn invitingly near its warmth. The squatter sat down and glanced affectionately at his tall son. “Switch on the light, Jim. Drought is bad, but there’s no need to make yourself an old man over it; we won’t let the stock starve, and if we have a bad year—well, the old place is sound, and we’ve had many good ones. I’m not exactly a poor man, Jim, and one drought won’t make me so.”

“Oh, I don’t worry about being poor,” Jim answered. “After all, one doesn’t want to do much with money up here; and one can keep away from Sydney and Melbourne, if cash is short. It’s certainly disheartening to see the place looking its worst, and the stock getting poorer each week—there’s nothing jollier than riding over it when the grass is knee-deep and the creeks and the river high, and all the stock rolling fat, and the horses kicking up their heels with sheer joy at being alive. One doesn’t think then of the actual money it means; it’s only the feeling that it’s a good thing to be alive oneself. This sort of year does not come often, thank goodness, and one knows it can’t last for ever.”

“It is just a little rough on you that it should come in the first year you have helped me to manage the place,” said his father. “But then, from a selfish point of view, it’s better for me to have your help and companionship through a tough time. And it has been a help, Jim.”

Jim shot a grateful look at him. David Linton was a man of few words; the brief sentence meant much on his lips, and the boy’s eyes softened.

“I’m awfully glad if it has,” he said, awkwardly. “I haven’t had enough experience to be really useful, but I’m as interested as I can be—and there’s no life like it. I don’t want anything better than Billabong, and to work with you. But——”

He broke off, irresolutely. That which he had to say had never seemed easy; it was harder than ever, now, with his father’s kind words warm at his heart. All day, riding through the bare, bleak paddocks, he had tried to frame words that would be firm, and yet not hurt. Now, looking into the steady grey eyes that were like his own, he could not find speech at all. He rose, and taking a pipe from the mantel-shelf, began to fill it slowly.

“But you’re worried still,” said David Linton, watching him. “Well, so am I. And as open confession is good for the soul, and we’re all mates on Billabong, let’s have the worries out, old son. Tell me yours first.”

Jim stood up, straight and tall, on the hearthrug, forgetting his pipe. The light was full on his brown face, showing it older than his years warranted. He met his father’s eyes steadily.

“I can’t stand it, Dad,” he said. “I’ve tried, honestly, since we talked about it, and done my best to put it out of my head. But it’s no good. I’ve got to go.”

“You mean—to the war?”

“Yes. I know jolly well it’s rough on you—because I’m the only son. I suppose it doesn’t seem quite fair to you, my even wanting to go. But if you were my age it would. And all the fellows I knew best have enlisted; some of them are younger than I am; and I’m standing out. They used to look up to me in a sort of way when I was captain of the school. They can’t do it now. They’re doing their share, and I’m just a shirker.”

“That’s rubbish,” his father said, hastily. “You wanted to go from the first day, only you gave in to my wish. It’s my doing.”

“That doesn’t seem to matter,” Jim answered. “The only fact that matters is that I’m taking it easy, and they are getting ready. I know you had lots of good reasons, and I have tried not to care; and it was hard, when the men went, and I felt they were wondering why I didn’t go, too. You know it isn’t because I want to leave you and Billabong, don’t you, Dad?”

“Oh, I know that,” said David Linton.

“There are some things that get too big for a fellow,” Jim said, slowly. “Of course I’m only a youngster; but I’m tough, and I can shoot and ride, and I had four years as a cadet, so I know the drill. It seems to me that any fellow who can be as useful as that, and who isn’t really tied, has no right to stay behind. Lots of fellows younger than I am are joining in England—boys of sixteen are getting commissions. I don’t care about a commission, but I want to do my bit. I’ve got to do the square thing.”

“It is always a little difficult, I suppose, for a man to realise that his children are growing up,” David Linton said, heavily. “You were such babies when your mother died—and that seems only yesterday. I know that you’ll do a man’s work wherever you are. But to me you’re still in many ways the small boy your mother left me.”

“Well, except for this I don’t want to be any different,” Jim answered. “You’ve never made me feel it, except in being jolly good to me—look how you’ve treated me as a sort of equal in managing the place, ever since I left school. I’ve never said anything, but I’ve noticed it every day.”

“Well, you have common sense—and you don’t do wild things with your authority,” his father answered. “You’ve made it possible for yourself. And you know, Jim, I didn’t actually forbid you to enlist. I don’t give you orders.”

“That’s just it,” Jim burst out. “You never do—you’re so jolly decent to me. You asked me not to go; and I’d do anything rather than hurt you. But this is such a big thing, Dad—and it’s getting bigger. I want you to believe that it isn’t just the excitement and all that part of it. But——”

There was silence for a moment. Jim rammed tobacco into his pipe furiously, and then laid it aside again with a gesture of impatience.

“There are things a fellow can’t talk about,” he said. “I’m an awful fool at talking, anyhow. But one can’t open a paper without reading about Belgium and the things the Germans have done there; and it makes one feel one has simply got to go. Fighting men is all very well, and in the way of business. But—women and kids!”

“I know,” said David Linton.

From the drawing-room came the cheerful sound of a piano, and Norah’s fresh young voice in a verse of a song, with Wally joining in. The father gripped the arms of his chair and stared in front of him; seeing, perhaps, blackened Northern cornfields, and children who fled, crying, before an army.

No one spoke for a long time. The silence in the room was only broken by the tick of the clock and the sputter and crackle of the wood fire. From his post on the hearthrug Jim watched his father, trying vaguely to read his answer in the grave face. But David Linton, staring into the fire, gave no sign. His thoughts were wandering back over the long years since his wife’s death had fallen upon him suddenly, tearing the fabric of his life to pieces. Then it had seemed to him that nothing could ever mend it or make it again worth living; but as time crept on, baby fingers unconsciously had taken up the broken threads and woven them into something new—not the old, perfect happiness, but a life full of interest and contentment.

Such mates they had been, he and his children. All through the years, they had shared things: worked, and played, and laughed together until their relationship had grown into a companionship and a mutual comprehension that held little of authority on one side, but all of love on both. For that short, terrible season after the little mother had gone away, the house had been home no longer, but a place of desolation; and then the father had realised that his babies needed more from him, and that through them alone lay his way of peace. There is nearly always something bigger than one’s personal grief, no matter how great it seems; and it is that one thing bigger that spells comfort. David Linton had never put aside his grief altogether, for it was part of himself. But he had put his children first, since to do so was part of his doctrine of doing “the square thing.” Little and helpless, their happiness must not suffer. Somewhere, he knew, the little mother was watching them. Heaven could not keep her from watching her babies—from straining hungry eyes to see how he was managing the task she had left him. When the time came to go to her he must be able to give a good account.

He knew, looking back, that they had been happy. Life had held no cares beyond the necessary trial of leaving home for school—a trial always compensated by the joy of getting back. They had known no loneliness; Billabong and its wild acres, its free, simple life, had filled each day with work that was pleasure and with the thousand cheerful recreations of the Bush. He had tried to make them healthy, wholesome, and useful, holding as he did that no life was complete without all three attributes. They had repaid him by coming up to his standard in other things as well; by being sound in mind and body, honest as the day, and of a clean, straight courage. Throughout all they had been his mates. The little watching mother would be satisfied.

Now, for the first time in sixteen years, the parting of the ways must come. Authority had never been one of his methods; and if it had been, this was not the time to use it. He had taught the tall lad who stood before him his version of “the decent thing,” and his teaching had come home; even in his pain he welcomed it. Jim would not have been Jim had he been willing to sit contentedly at home.

He looked up, and smiled suddenly at the boy’s unhappy face. “Don’t look like that, old son,” he said. “It’s all right.”

A great load rolled off Jim’s heart.

“Dad! You don’t mind——”

“Well, a fellow doesn’t cheerfully give up his only son,” David Linton said. “But I’ve seen it coming, Jim, and, as you say, this thing is bigger than we are. I wouldn’t have you not want to go.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” said Jim, and sat down and lit his pipe.

“I couldn’t make up my mind to it at first,” his father went on. “One didn’t know how far things were going; and it’s hard to realise you grown up. After all, you’re only nineteen, Jim, lad, and for all that I know, you are capable of doing a man’s work, to my mind soldiering demands an extra degree of toughness, if a fellow is to be of real use. Still, as you say, much younger boys are going; I won’t ask you again to stay. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to ask you in the beginning. I was doubtful in my own mind; but I had to be sure there was real need.”

“And are you satisfied now?”

“Oh, yes. There isn’t any room for further doubt. Every day brings evidence of what the job is going to be—the biggest the Empire ever had to tackle. And the cry from Belgium comes home to every decent man. I’d rather go myself than send you; but as I said, I’m glad you don’t want to stay.”

“Then that’s all right,” Jim said, with a mighty sigh of relief. “You don’t know what a weight it is off my mind, Dad. I’ve hated to seem a beast over it, and you know I always go by your judgment. But somehow I knew you’d have to think differently yourself. Why, great Scott! I couldn’t face you and Norah, in ten years, if I had stayed at home!”

“No; and I couldn’t face you if I had been the one to keep you,” said his father. “So that is settled. But there are other things to settle as well.”

“Rather!” said Jim. “I wonder, can I get into the first contingent, or if I’ll have to wait for the second.”

His father paused before replying.

“There is something else, altogether,” he said at length. “My own plans seem on the verge of an upheaval, just now.”

“Yours? Nothing wrong, is there, Dad?”

“Nothing in the main. But you know I’ve been bothered for some weeks over that business of the English property your uncle Andrew left me. There is a lot of complicated detail that would take me a week to explain—it’s all in the lawyer’s letters over there, if you’d care to go through them. (“Not me!” from Jim, hurriedly.) Some of it ought to be sold, and some apparently can’t be sold just now, and there are decisions to be made, at which it’s almost impossible for me to arrive, with letters alone to go upon. Last week’s English mail left me in a state of complete uncertainty as to what I ought to do about it.”

“And has to-day’s mail straightened out matters at all?”

“Well—it has,” said Mr. Linton, with a wry smile. “I can’t say it has exactly eased my mind, but at least the letters have made one thing abundantly clear, which is that the business cannot be settled from Australia. I’m needed on the spot. As far as I can see, there is no way out of it; I’ll have to go home.”

“Go to England!”

“Yes.”

“But,” Jim was on his feet, his face radiant. “Why, you’ll be there when I’m in France—we might come home together! How ripping, Dad! When would you go?”

“Very soon, I think.”

Jim sat down, the flash of joy suddenly dying away.

“Dad—what about Norah?”

“I wish I knew,” said his father, uneasily. “I could leave her at school, of course; and she has always invitations enough for twice as many holidays as are in the year. But she won’t like it, poor little girl. It would be bad enough if only one of us were going; as it is, she will feel that the bottom has dropped out of the universe.”

“I can’t see us leaving her,” Jim said. “Why not take her with you?”

“Why, I don’t even know if it’s safe,” said his father, his brow knitted. “The voyage is a certain risk; and who knows what will be the conditions in England? I can’t run the child into danger.”

“If Germany wins you may not be able to keep her out of it,” Jim answered. “One thing is certain—Norah would rather be in danger with you than feel that you were running risks and leaving her in safety. I think it would break her heart to be left here alone.”

“I’ve been turning it backwards and forwards in my mind for a fortnight,” said the father. “I felt that the time was coming to give you a free hand: and then, on top of that, came this complication.” He laughed a little. “Life has been too easy for me, Jim: I’m not used to big decisions.”

“Well, I am a beast,” said Jim, frankly. “I’ve been chewing over my own disappointment; and about the worst part of it was that I got hold of the idea that you had put it right out of your mind, and that you didn’t care. I wish I had known you were up to your eyes in worry. But you never let us suspect a thing.”

“Well, I kept hoping against hope that each mail would straighten things out,” his father answered. “Until I was certain I did not want to cast any shadows on Norah’s holidays. Poor little lass; she’ll have trouble in earnest now.”

“Well, Nor will face it,” Jim said, confidently. “She isn’t made of the stuff that caves in—and as far as I’m concerned, Dad, she wants me to go. She knew I’d only eat my heart out if I didn’t. But to have you go away is another matter. Don’t you think you can take her?”

“If I were sure England would be safe ...” mused Mr. Linton. “You can be very certain I don’t want to leave her.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s much risk for England,” said Jim, with the cheerful optimism of youth. “And anyhow, there’s always America—you and she could slip across there if there were any real fear of invasion. My word, Dad, it would be grand to think you and Nor were so near. Just think if I got wounded, how jolly it would be to come over to you!”

“I’ve thought,” said his father, drily. The jollity of the idea seemed to him slightly exaggerated.

“Well, it would be heaps better than hospital. And then we’d all be together after the finish, and do London. It would be such a lark. Fancy old Norah in Piccadilly!”

“Me?” asked a startled voice.

Norah stood in the doorway, with Wally behind her. She had exchanged her riding-habit for a soft white frock, and her brown curls, released from their tight plait, fell softly round her face. No one would have dreamed of calling her pretty; but there was an indefinable charm in the merry face, lit by straight grey eyes. She was tall for her age; people found it difficult to believe that she was not yet sixteen, for she had left the awkward age behind her, and there was unstudied grace in the slender, alert form, with its well-shaped hands and feet. Occasionally—when she was not too busy—Norah had fleeting moments of regret, mainly on account of her men-folk, that she was not pretty. But it is doubtful if her father and brother would have cared to change a feature of the vivid face.

“Did you say Piccadilly? And me?” she asked, advancing into a startled silence. “I’ve always imagined Piccadilly must be rather worse than Collins Street, and I don’t fit in there a bit. Stella Harrison says there are rather jolly motor-busses there, and you can get on top. That wouldn’t be so bad.” She perched on the arm of her father’s chair. “Why are you talking about streets, Daddy? You know you don’t like them any more than I do.”

“No,” said David Linton, finding that some answer was expected of him. Something in his tone brought Norah’s eyes upon him quickly.

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” she asked.

No one spoke for a moment. Then Wally got up quietly and moved towards the door.

“Don’t go, Wally, my boy,” Mr. Linton said. “You’re so much one of the family that you may as well join the family councils. No, there’s nothing exactly wrong, Norah. But there are happenings.”

“Jim’s going?” said Norah, quickly. Her keen eyes saw that the new and unfamiliar shadow had lifted from her brother’s face. Jim nodded, smiling at her.

“Yes, I’m going. Dad says it’s all right.”

Norah drew a long breath, and Wally gave an irrepressible whistle of delight.

“Lucky dog—I’m so glad!” he cried. “Oh, why can’t I be eighteen!”

“There will be plenty of fighting after you are eighteen,” Mr. Linton said. “This isn’t going to be any lightning business. But that’s not all, Norah. Your old father has to pack up, too. I must go to England.”

“Daddy! You!”

The voice was a cry. Then Norah shut her lips tightly, and said nothing more, looking at her father.

“It’s business,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t want to go, my girl. It may not take me long.”

There was a long pause.

“I can’t ask to go,” said Norah at last, rather breathlessly. “It’s too big a thing—not like a trip to Melbourne or Sydney. I know it would cost a fearful lot of money—and there are other things. It’s—it’s all right, Daddy, if you say so—only I want to know. Have I got to stay behind?”

There was no answer. Jim was watching the set, childish face pitifully, longing to help, and powerless. Norah got up from the arm of her father’s chair at length, and turned her face away.

“It’s—it’s quite all right, Daddy,” she said, unsteadily. “I understand. Don’t go worrying.”

“Worrying!” said David Linton, explosively. “No, I’m not going to worry—if I can help it: and I’m not going to leave you, either. We’ll stick together, little mate.”

“Daddy!” said Norah, very low. She went to him like a little child, and he put her on his knee, one arm round her, while Jim beamed on them both.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” he said laughing. “It was so altogether ridiculous to think of old Nor here alone, and you and me at the other side of the world. Things like that simply can’t occur!”

“Well—there may be danger” began his father.

“There would be strong danger of my losing my few wits if you did it,” Norah said. “I thought I was going to lose them a minute ago, as it was. Oh, Daddy won’t it be lovely! Think of the ship—and the queer ports—and England! It’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened. And we’ll be near Jim, and he’ll get leave and come over to see us!”

“That’s another thing,” Mr. Linton said. “It’s settled that you’re to enlist, Jim; that matter is decided. But is there any particular reason why you should enlist in Australia?”

“In Australia?” repeated Jim, blankly. “Why—where else?”

“Well, if Norah and I are going home, why should we not all go together? You would have no difficulty in joining the Army in England, if boys of sixteen are getting commissions there.”

“What?” burst from Wally.

“Oh, yes—you’d be quite a veteran, judging by to-day’s news, Wally,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “There would be no difficulty at all, I should think, Jim; I know enough people in London to pull a few strings, though even that would hardly be necessary. But if you wanted a commission I should think it could be managed. It would leave us all together a bit longer.”

“That would be ripping,” Jim said, doubtfully. “I don’t know, though; I’m an Australian, and I rather think Australians ought to stick together. And I would know such a lot of the fellows in our own contingent.”

“That counts, of course,” said his father. “But there’s another point; there are rumours that our men may not be sent direct to the Front. You might get hung up in Egypt, or the Persian Gulf, or Malta; I’ve heard suggestions that the Australians should even be used for garrison duty in India.”

“By Jove!” said Jim. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“No; and it would mean that you might never get to England at all, to join Norah and me after the show. If you’re going, I don’t want you to be shelved in some out-of-the-way corner of the earth; I’d like you to have your chance.”

“Oh, Jimmy, come with us!” said Norah. “Just think how jolly it would be—not like the voyage in a horrid old troopship, where you mightn’t be allowed to see a single port. And perhaps we’d be together quite a lot in England, before you were sent to the Front.”

Wally jumped up with such emphasis that his chair fell over backwards. He did not notice it.

“Let’s all go!” he cried.

Three pairs of eyes turned upon him for information.

“If it’s really true that boys younger than I am are being taken in England, I’d have a chance, wouldn’t I, Mr. Linton?”

“I suppose you would—yes, of course, my boy. You’re only a year younger than Jim, aren’t you?”

“Yes—and he knows as much drill as I do, to say nothing of shooting and riding,” Jim exclaimed. “Would you come, Wal?”

“I should just think I would!” Wally uttered. “But you’d have to join in England, Jim—not here.”

“But your guardian—and your brothers, Wally. Would they be willing?” Mr. Linton asked. “It’s rather an undertaking to arrange off-hand. And it would mean your leaving school.”

“I know it would be all right, sir,” Wally answered. “My brothers were only sorry I couldn’t get into the first contingent; and old Mr. Dimsdale never worries his head about me, except to look after the property and send me my allowance. He knows I’m to join as soon as I can. The money part of it would be all right; I don’t know much about it, but the money that’s to come to me has been accumulating since I was a kid, and there must be plenty. If you’d let me go under your wing, nobody would think of objecting.” He stopped, his brown, eager face flushing. “By Jove, you must think me awfully cool, sir. I sort of took it for granted I could go with you!”

“Well, you old goat!” said Jim, disgustedly. David Linton laughed.

“My dear boy, I think you’re pretty well established as one of the family,” he said. “You have been Jim’s chum for five years, and somehow we’ve come to regard Billabong as your home. I have liked to think you felt that way about it, yourself.”

“It’s the only real home I ever remember,” said Wally, still greatly confused. “And you’ve all been such bricks to me. I’ve quite forgotten I’m really a sort of lost dog.”

“It’s rude to say you’re a lost dog, when you belong to Billabong,” said Norah solemnly, though her eyes were dancing. “Isn’t he talking a lot of nonsense, Dad?—and this is much too exciting an evening to waste any time. I wish someone would sort me out, for I’m all mixed-up in my mind. We’re going to England, you and I, Dad.”

“And me,” said Wally, cheerfully disregarding grammar.

“And me, I suppose,” Jim followed. “If you think I’ve as good a chance there, Dad?”

“Better, I should think—judging from the rush of men here,” said his father.

“Then we’re all going,” finished Norah blissfully. “In a ’normously large ship, Dad?”

“Most certainly,” said David Linton, hastily. “I came out forty years ago in a five-hundred tonner, and I’ve no desire to repeat the experience. We’re built on lines that demand space, we Lintons.”

“And when we get to London?”

“We’ll settle down somewhere—where we can be near the boys until they are sent out to the Front, and I can attend to business.”

“And then——?”

“We’ll wander about a bit until they come back to us. If it’s likely to be long, you’ll have to resume your neglected education, young woman,” said her father severely.

“M’f!” said Norah, wrinkling her nose. “How unpleasant!—that’s the first dismal thing you’ve said, Daddy. But I suppose one has to take the powder with the jam. And after the war——?”

“Oh, after the war——” said David Linton; and fell silent, looking at his son.

“After the war,” said Wally, happily, “we’ll all meet in London, and see the Kaiser led in triumph down Piccadilly. My own preference leads me to hope that it will be on a donkey with his face towards the tail of the ass, but I’m sadly afraid the world has grown too civilised.”

“Well, you can’t call him and his crowd civilised, anyhow,” Jim said.

“No. But we’ll have to be, I suppose, to show how nicely we were brought up. Anyhow, after that we’ll explore all the things we’ve always wanted to see—London, and Stonehenge, and the Dublin Horse Show, and Killarney, and David Balfour’s country, and heathery moors, and the Derby, and punts on the Thames, and the Dartmoor ponies, and——” Wally’s extraordinary mixture left him breathless, but the others took up the tale.

“And English lanes——”

“And ruins—truly ruins——!”

“And old castles——”

“And woods and hedges——”

“And real hunting country——”

“And real hunts——!”

“And trout-streams——”

“And Irish loughs——”

“And then,” said Norah, as the dinner-gong clashed out its summons,—“then——”

“If we’ve any money left!” put in her father.

“Or even if we haven’t,” said Norah, and smiled at him—“we’ll go back to Billabong!”