Alfreda Holme: a story of social life in Australia

Front matter

ALFEEDA HOLME: A STORY OF SOCIAL LIFE IN AUSTRALIA. ALFREDA HOLME A of jloiM Jifc in gatsiraliiL BY ELISABETH BOYD BAYLY, Author of "Jonathan Merle," etc. "The poetry of industry and home is deeper than the poetry of strife. Peter Bayne. THIRD EDITION. LONDON : JARROLD AND SONS, 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS [All rights reserved.] TO THOSE DEAR PARENTS WHOSE EARNEST YET CHEERFUL THOUGHTS ON HUMAN LIFE AND LOVE I HAVE TRIED TO ILLUSTRATE, AND WHOSE PLEASLT.E IN MY WORX HAS BEEN ITS HIGHEST STIMULUS AND REWARD, I DEDICATE THE STORY OF ALFREDA. HE was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best, made of sunshine and snow, Drop to shade, melt to nought, in the long-trodden ways, While she's still remembered on warm and cold days. ITer air had a meaning, her movements a grace ; You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face : And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke. You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke : When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone. She never found fault with you, never implied Your wrong by her right ; and yet men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer,— as through the whole town The children were gladder that pulled at her gown. Few knelt at her feet, confessed lovers in thrall ; They knelt more to God than they used, — that was all. If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, But the charm of her presence was felt when she wrent. Prom "My Kate," by E. B. Browning. FREFACE. EYERA.L years ago, a picture was exhibited at tbe Royal Academy, called "Lending a Helping Hand." It represented a girl standing among the rubbish-heaps on the outskirts of some manufacturing town.

The sky behind her was dark with furnace-smoke. She wore the rough garb of a toiling woman, and carried a basket on her head. By her side was a man, also in working dress, but of grave and noble look. With one hand he was helping to poise her basket ; his other hand sought hers, and their eyes met. Was not that picture a poem ? The scene of my story is laid in most prosaic regions. Yiewed from afar, Australia is conspicuous chiefly for the speed with which fortunes have there been amassed. Even the wild adventures which once gave a dash of romance to colonial history, are falling out of date, in the settled districts. Of these districts I have written, trying to sketch the peculiarities of their social life, and of the varied types of character it produces ; describing such cir. cumstances as would probably surround any youth or girl who should emigrate to-morrow. Not an heroic state. Yet noiseless heroism may be found in it ; and there, as everywhere, human life and love are rich in pathos, VI

Preface

. and have a comical side to boot ; helping hands can find a ministry, and the poetry of truth and hope is seen in working dress. If any of those dear friends whose happy homes I shared during my years of wandering, incline to think that I have scarcely made my picture bright enough, I can plead only that to paint their households would be a breach of hospitality. The darkest shadows on colonial life have necessarily been omitted : also, the brightest of those personal memories cherished in my own heart for ever. CONTENTS. CHAPl'EIt PAGB I. An Arrival ... ... ... ... 9 II. SUNDAY ... ... ... ... 14 III. Changes. A New Vista Opens ... ... 17 IV. Freda's Mother ... ... ... 25 V. Leave-takings ... ... ... 34 VI. Salt Water ... ... ... 42 Til. Which any Reader more interested in Freda than in Melbourne is advised to skip 51 VIII.

The First Meeting ... ... ... Cl IX. A Novel View or Human Nature ... 73 X. Tantalised ... ... ... ... 89 XL "A Weary Foot" ... ... ... 100 XII. Active Measures ... ... ... 109 XIII. Remonstrance ... ... ... 116 XIV. More or Reuel Brown ... ... ... 124 XV. Ha.?.old's Wife and Sister ... ... 133 XVI. A New Acquaintance ... ... ... 142 XVII. Arnold's Choice ... ... ... 157 XVIII. Life or Death ... ... ... 165 XIX. His Highness ... ... ... 178 XX. Affairs of the State ... ... ... 188 XXI. Affairs of the Heart ... ... 195 XXII. The Charlcombe Party ... ... ... 205 XXIII. Buffalo Courtship ... ... 220 XXIV. The Strange Cvsket Unlocks ... ... 231 XXV. A Winter Evening ... ... 242 XXVI. A Good Angel in Homespun ... ... 256 XXVII. Freda's New Scheme ... .. CONTENTS. CHAPTER IMGK XXVIII. " The Saucy Arethtjsa " ... ... 284 XXIX.

Wherein a New Element Begins to Shew Itself ... ... ... ... 297 XXX. Arnold's Holiday ... ... ... 313 XXXI. A Heavy Stroke ... ... ... 325 XXXII. After the Blow ... ... ... 343 XXXIII. Reuel Brown's Opinion... ... ... 357 XXXIV. Starting Afresh ... ... ... 371 XXXV. Courting and Conquest ... ... 381 XXXVI. Public Service ... ... ... 396 XXXVII. Which Brings a Breath of English Air ... 413 XXXVIII. Several Surprises ... ... 432 XXXIX. Still Waters Run Deep ... ... 447 XL. John Airlie Comes Back ... ... 458 XLI. Requital ... ... ... ... 470 XLII. " The Beginning of Peace " ... ... 488 XLIII. Won! ... ... ... ... 496 XLIV. Not Wholly Lost ... ... 508 XLV. Farewell ... ... ... ...

Chapter I. An Arrival

" A song of a nest : — There was once a nest in a hollow : Down in the mosses and knot grass pressed, Soft, and warm, and full to the brim — - Vetches leaned over it, purple and dim, With buttercup buds to follow." Jean Inyelorr. il^^U! ATURDAY afternoon at the Crystal Palace. Manns is stand- |!rs§|! ing with bent head and outstretched arms, enforcing a pause EgSgUI at the end of a long, most delicately shaded rallentando and diminuendo. Suddenly he throws back his head, shakes his long hair and uplifted baton, and a hundred instruments dash off into the magnificent allegro which closes one of the grandest of Beethoven's sonatas. A thundering burst of applause is followed by " God Save the Queen," and the crowded audience disperses. Two young girls left the rest of their party, and paced together up and down the long promenade.

They were sisters : the elder had been married little more than six weeks. She was very fair, tall, and graceful — an ideal type of that old-fashioned conception of lovely womanhood which takes it for granted that every woman has a home to be lovely in. The sister who walked by her side bore her scarcely enough of family likeness to mark the points of difference. Nature had cast Alfreda Holme in a rugged mould. Irregularities of feature, hardly noticeable in her sister's fair sweet face, were distinctly pronounced iu hers. Her only beauties were her well-shaped head and silky black hair, now hidden by her hat — her pearl-white teeth, and, above all, her eyes — large, dark, beautifully fonned, shaded by curling black lashes, and intensely blue — blue to a depth that looked almost black in shadow and repose, but when lit up, sparkled and gleamed with light that never shewed a trace of grey or violet, but, like a perfect sapphire, pure, living blue.

Beside the delicate lilies and roses of her companion, her warm, rathor dark complexion reminded one of an honest wallflow-er, or heartsease, or a dark sweet pea, useful in a nosegay to set off the hues of fairer flowers. Her shoulders were rather broad for her height, which was slightly below the average ; but she held herself upright as a dart, and if her feet were not very pretty, her step was firm and elastic — nay, almost bounding, as though she would rather have skipped than walked. Such a wealth of life spoke in that hght, springing tread — such irrepressible fun laughed out of those blue eyes — you felt as if the whole world could not be heavy enough to crush her ; and as yet she knew but little of this old world's weight, being a year younger than her sister, though she looked the elder of the two.

Seen together, they were not unlike a snowy, soft-coated, insinuating Persian kitten, walking beside an active tabby, a splendid mouser, with any amount of romp in the ends of her stout grey paws. Had you been walking in front of them, you would have observed that their voices were very low and sweet. They talked first of music. For music had intermingled with every interest of their lives : from " I like little pussy, her coat is so warm," up to Beethoven's funeral sonata, every strain they knew was a cord which became more and more encrusted with tiny jewels of associa tion as time flowed on, stretching from the day when they first heard it to the present hour — " To hold together what they were and are." One of the sonatas played that afternoon carried back their thoughts to a period in Eleanor's life when true love had brought deep sorrow in its train.

" How everything has changed since that time," she said. " When you stuck up your Easter motto with a black pin, to be consistent with your feelings," said Alfreda. "Yes, I have the very same card up now, with a white pin in it," rephed Eleanor. " Oh, Freda, these are such white days. I can't help wishing you could have some Uke them." " It is all very fine for you to say that," said Freda ; " like preach ing that everybody ought to be vaccinated when one's own arm is healed; but think of the forests of black pins I should have to march through first." " But lovers haven't always so much of the black as Ed«ar and I had," said Eleanor. "Not always," returned Freda; "but they are all a melancholv set— always sighing, and pining, and stopping awake at night ; and as I am always asleep the minute after I get into bed, I don't see how I am ever to begin— particularly as nobody asks mo."

They were obliged to hasten back to the spot where their uncle and aunt, and Edgar Harland, Eleanor's husband, were waiting for them. Their father had died when Freda was a month old; their mother married again three or four years afterwards, and lived only twelve months after this second marriage. Her husband, rest less with grief, sailed for Australia a few months after her death, accompanied by his only remaining sister, leaving his little step daughters in the home of his wife's eldest sister, Mrs. Delincourt, where nothing ever reminded them that they had less right to their place than her own three sons. The only shadowon their sunny youth came through Eleanor's early attachment to Edgar Harland, and consequent share in his youthful struggles and sorrows — he had many. Now that his high character and brilliant talents had triumphed over adverse fortune, and Eleanor was his joyful wife Freda's young life seemed to her a morning without clouds.

Her three cousins were all happily married — two of them settled within easy reach of the old home at Westwood Lodge. To her was left the sweet task of ministering, in their declining years, to the dear foster-parents who still cared so tenderly for her, and delighted to share in her interests and pleasures. Mrs. Delincourt could hardly be described as on her decline, as yet. In full possession of her strength and faculties, she was still her children's bright companion and friend, and after a long afternoon at the Crystal Palace, spent her evening in working delicate embroidery for one of her grandchildren, while Mr. Delincourt dosed in Ids easy chair, and Freda played long passages from the music they had been hearing, and then pulled out a basketful of sound plain sewing — she hated fancy work.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by a peculiar knock at the hall door, which caused a general cry of " Charlie ! " and Freda lushed to give a sister's greeting to her eldest and favourite cousin. " Charlie " had been the Uttle girl's refuge from the pranks of his two younger brothers in old times, and was now the most welcome of all visitors to the dear old home. A joyous bustle ran through the house : the servants knew Master Charles' knock as well as their mistresses did, and would gladly have risen at midnight to cook chops for him. He declared himself overwhelmed by the conflicting duties of eating and talking, since he was of course over flowing with remarkable anecdotes of his two children, and had, besides, to taUi over all that had happened since he was last in town for Eleanor's wedding.

His home was at Plymouth, but busmess often brought him up to London. " And what is the news from AustraUa ? " asked Charles at last, as they sat round the fire after supper. Freda's stepfather, Martin Raymond, had married again about six years after his first wife's death, and had several children ; notwithstanding, on hearing of Eleanor's engagement, he had im mediately claimed the privilege of giving her a marriage portion. Each of the girls inherited about £'40 a year from the Home side of the family, and the promise of £'2,000, well invested, had shortened the expected long engagement, and set Eleanor's little white fingers to work on her trousseau. The distant stepfather, hitherto a cipher, became an active power in the two girls' Uves, and it was towards Freda that Charles Delincourt looked, wUcn he asked, "What is the news from Australia ?

" "Another baby," said Freda. "Do you caU that news, child? Why, it's a standing order! Uncle Martin never writes without reporting another baby, either at his own house or his sister's." "Which shews what a poor correspondent he is, I am afraid," said Mrs. Delincourt. "Which house have the storks been visiting this time?" in quired her son. His first theories as to the perpetuation of the human race were founded on Hans Andersen's pretty fable of the storks bringing new babies from a great pond where they aU Ue sleeping, and he still kexat up the old phrase. " Koorianda," replied Freda. " I don't profess to keep count of tho little Blackthorns." " How many Raymonds does this make ? " "Five, I believe — no, six — this makes six," said Freda. " In nine years," said Charles, solemnly. " Positively it's enough to make a family man think what he may come to himself."

"I expect Martin Raymond takes it about as seriously as you do," observed his mother. " Is he fond of children ? " asked Charles. "He was, of these two," said Mrs. Delincourt. "It was all we could do to persuade him to leave them behind. I shall never forget the parting, especially from NelUe — he was simply devoted to her." " Ah, the beauty," said Charles cynicaUy. " If there was any difference, he loved Freda best himself." "No, indeed," rephed his mother. "Freda was far the prettiest in those days. It won't make her vain now to say that I never iu my life saw such a lovely chUd : people used to stop her nurse in the street to look at hor." " What a pity it didn't last ! " observed Charles. "I don't think so at all," said Freda; "it would be horrid to have people stopping me in the street to look at me."

" Then it is a pity you ever began it, my dear," persisted Charles ; " for if Uncle Martin has the impression that you are such a stunning beauty, he may think two thousand pounds quite a super fluous attraction." "Ah, we don't want her made any mere attractive than she is," said old. Mr. Delincourt, rousing up. " Don't want to lose the last Uttle bird from the old nest. Not that we shaU grudge her, either, when her time comes," he added, quickly guarding his words, and laying his wrinkled hand very tenderly on Freda's silky hair. "If anybody comes along that deserves my Uttle girl, he shall have her and welcome. I wouldn't like her to break somebody's young heart for the sake of her uncle's old one." " ' Somebody ' could find plenty of olhcr girls to marry him," said Freda. No words came to express the thought of her heart — that the whole world could never find her another foster-father, who had rained such tenderness upon her over since she was a little child.

"Ah, I believe in there being only one right one," said the old man. " No one else would ever have been what Rose is to Charlie, or Nellie to Edgar Harland. No, no. We old people have had good days together : and of all God's great mercies to us, it's among the greatest to havo seen our three sons and one daughter be "in good days in homes of their own, and have this little daughter left to cheer us now. But whenever she wants to go — " Again he laid his old hand fondly on her head, and looked at her. Freda looked up. It was not her way to speak when deeply moved. but in her heart she felt what years and years of faithful love were gathered up in that one look of his. What young lover could ever give her such another '? She stored it in her inmost soul as some thing so precious, even heaven would be sweeter for such a memory there.

It was prayer time, and bed time followed. Charlie stopped Freda at the top of the kitchen stairs, where he met her on his way down to pay his respects to old Kezia the cook, demanding to bo told, in confidence whether she really was entirely happy without Eleanor. His wife had Freda very much upon her mind, and had charged him to find out whether his little sister wanted a change of scene or anything else that a loving sister-in-law could suppl}7. Freda could assure him with all her heart, that she was like Andersen's snails on the burdock-leaf, when "tho whole farui'y were happy — inexpressibly happy ! "

Chapter II. Sunday

" I pray you bear my song of a nest, For it is not long : — You shall never light, in a summer quest The bushes among — Shall never light on a prouder sitter, A fairer nestful, nor ever know A. softer sound than their tender twitter, That wind-like did come and go." K§S|]I.AY and cold the March Sunday morning had risen, when I fesj Freda bounced into the breakfast-room, singing what may have been a revival hymn, but sounded remarkably like a jig. " Frips, Frips, that isn't a Sunday song, surely," said Charles, walking in after her. Freda's name, having no legitimate abbreviation, was changed into "Frips," "Frumps," anil "Fripsie," at "the boys'" con venience. " Oh, 'souse me, massa, I is so full of tickle I can't hold in," said Freda, brandishing the caddy-spoon in his face, and dancing away to settle her small domestic affairs before breakfast, having to set off to Sunday school directly afterwards.

She started late enough to make an excuse for running down the road, to work off her spirits. And though she could not look at the pinched faces of her ragged boys (hers was the roughest class in the school), without realising a httle of this world's sin and sorrow, there was all the glorious gospel of the grace of God to bring healing and peace. Freda talked to her boys of that crowning joy, out of the fulness of her heart, till the saddest faces brightened. Meanwhile Charles ran round to his brothers and the Harlands, and brought word that they would all come to tea. Freda was in her glory that evening, behind the great family teapot, which had almost retired upon its laurels of late, with Charlie in his old place on the fire side of her, ready to bring the kettle — with the table stretched out to its old-fashioned length, and all the faces round it beaming with the pleasure of being all together again.

" Only one wanting," said the mother. " We ean't be quite per fect without Rose." " She must come with me next time, and the little fry too," said Charles. After tea they spent a long sweet hour in the sacred music they all loved. Freda's was a very little voice, though sweet, — fit only for singing second to Eleanor's lovely soprano. Walter and his wife and Edgar Harland aU had fine ears and voices ; but no one sang like Eleanor. Her favourite of all songs was " I know that my Redeemer liveth," and rarely, in private, has that perfect melody been as perfectly interpreted as by her. It was a pity to be forced to breathe while her sweet, sweet voice rang through the room, or sank, like the murmur of a cushat, in the softest notes. No one spoke for some moments after the last sound died away.

When Eleanor moved, her uncle looked up and said, " That is too good to end with. Play us something very sweet and quiet, that we mayn't leave off longing." She played the old favourite, No. 3 in the second book of Mendelssohn's " Songs Without Words." Then Mrs. Norman began to think about her baby. "Good Uttle mother," said the grandfather. "AVe won't keep you : but let us have prayers now, and then you shall go back to baby." Freda brought the books : the servants had gone to church . Mr. Delincourt read the 103rd Psalm ; then, laying aside the book of prayers, he knelt in sUence for a little ; and they aU knew they were to hear his voice — as they had heard it only on rare occasions of family joy or sorrow — in spontaneous words of prayer. This time he spoke in praise — praise "for national, social, tem poral, and family mercies."

He dwelt on each, in few and earnest words. Last came "our mercies as a family." He paused — then went on with faltering voice, " For all the abundant joy we have had in each other, we bless and praise Thy name. And, my God, / bless Thee for the joy, the perpetual joy and comfort my children have been to me, from the day my heart was made glad by my first-born to this present hour. For the children born to us, and for aU whom time and Thy mercy have given us, I bless — we bless and praise Thy name. May their father's blessing go down to the third and fourth generation ; and give them back, O Lord, a thousandfold in their own children, all the love and faithful duty they have shewn to me. Bless all who are dear to them, or have shewn them any kindness, both far and near. And we also bless Thy name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear ; beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom."

Again he paused — then slowly repeated the General Thanksgiving, in which all joined aloud. The good-nights that followed were even more loving than usual. Walter and Cicely went home with Norman and his wife, Edgar and Eleanor stayed till late, making much of the precious hours with CharUe, and Ucaring about good works going on iu Plymouth for B soldiers, sadors, and emigrants — Charles was interested in them all. "How very happy we are!" said Freda, when at last Eleanor went upstairs with her, to prepare for leaving. " I wonder if we are having our best days now. It seems too good to last." A strange foreboding, foreign to her joyous nature, crossed her mind for an instant — but it had passed away before she reached the foot of the stairs.

Chapter III. Changes

A NEW VISTA OPENS. " What are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil ; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. God did anoint thee with His odorous oil, To wrestle, not to reign." E. B. Browning. IM'^aii^ '^ no^ 'as*- At least, the form departed: the inner joy JO hM was eternal. |Ka_»gaa| Monday was one of those bitter, sunless days which bring winter almost to the equinox. Mr. Delincourt came home, stricken with bronchitis. Three days of illness, and his beautiful life was ended. And Freda walked in the small suburban garden, where crocuses and snowdrops began to bloom at last, in the tardy March sunshine, and felt the whole world would always be more sacred because that one pure and gentle hfe had been lived in it.

He was gone — but nothing could undo those seventy years of love, and purity, and peace. He had lived. And he was so happy ! It had been her cry as, one after another, the younglings flew out from the old nest ; and now tho best-beloved had gone on a longer journey, the old comfort came back — stronger and deeper, to meet the deeper need — " He is so happy." This time there was no shadow of foreboding, no sad sense of inevitable " trouble in the flesh," to add an undertone of sorrow : the joy was perfect, if the separation was complete. And it iras complete — for the present. Freda looked at the young flowers, their petals shining in the sunlight after the dreary winter, and realised, as never before, that life, at best, is only a rough seedling bulb, hke those she had put in the ground six months ago only a winter, though it has its sunny hours ; the perfect, golden days are all to come.

Again the table was lengthened, and the household stores given out, as for a birthday or holiday gathering ; and Freda went about, doing what she could to spare her aunt, and feehng all the time that this was a birthday and a holiday to one. He had finished his work ; the guests were coming in his honour : his words of love and bless ing were still so fresh, as yet the orphan-ache had scarcely begun. There would still be something left to do for him, while his dearest, her own precious foster-mother, lived to be cared for. Freda's heart bounded, in the midst of her grief, to think how much her aunt would need a daughter now. She could have sung for joy that this in estimable work was left for her, and her alone. The others would be much — but no one else was free to give aU in aU to the mother.

A large part of Mr. DeUncourt's income ceased with his Use. It would be necessary to give up the old home. He had left no special provision for Freda, knowing that all her wants would be suppUed wliile his wife Uved, and thinking it best to leave Mrs. DeUncourt and Charles, his two executors, at Uberty to arrange whatever might seem desirable in the future. H Freda were to marry a rich man, or receive the same gift as Eleanor had from her step-father, it would hardly be just to his own sons and their children, for any of the smaU Delincourt property to be given, unnecessarily, to his wife's niece. Her own Uttle income would supply her with pocket money when she came of age. Mrs. Delincourt was too unselfish to give herself up to incurable sorrow. She resigned the intense happiness of her married life, and took up her pilgrimage in the pilgrim spirit, striving against the weary heart-sighing that would come when she thought how much of her course might stiU be left to run : she was sixteen years younger than her husband.

" Honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," were hers, and she kept her spirit open to receive every dewdrop of comfort, from any source, into the deep river of her inward peace. After the funeral came some weeks of great stillness, which Freda remembered afterwards as a kind of twilight hush at the close of one summer day, before the night which prepares us for another. The old Use was broken off — the new was yet to come. She and Mrs. DeUncourt looked forward to a few quiet months in which to gather up the threads of the treasured past before they raveUed, and seek fresh courage for the next stage of their journey, Uttle thinking that twilight was to merge into the shadow of death. Mr. DeUncourt died early in March. One May morning a telegram arrived, telling that another Uttle grandson was born at Plymouth, and the mother was very ill.

At night came the tidings that she was gone. Mrs. DeUncourt put down the coarse pink paper which had borne the fatal news, with a keener anguish in her tearless eyes than had been there when her husband died, but firm and coUected as ever. " Freda, tell Kezia to order a fly for eight o'clock to-morrow. I must go to Plymouth by the morning train." Freda obeyed, feeling as if words and tears were crushed out of her for ever. The faithful servants were waiting at the foot of the stairs to hear the news : they saw it in her face, and their outburst of grief brought a thick, choking sensation into her throat ; stiU sUe could not cry. She gave needful orders, standing close to where she stood that night with Charlie, when he told her that Rose could not be satisfied without knowing how she bore the loss of Eleanor ; then slowly went up to her aunt's room.