My Cousin from Australia

Chapter I

" This nephew of mine will prove, I fear, a sad incubus to us all, my dear Cicely," said my stepfather, as he arranged the cushions behind his head in a fashion rather more to his liking. " But a young savage from the Antipodes has such strange ideas. He takes it absolutely for granted that he will be welcome at the house of any kinsman of his." " Why, and so he will, papa," I answered readily. " Very welcome indeed so far as I am concerned. I don't suppose he will be very interest ing to us ; but of course if he wants to come, he must. " " You are very good, my dear love, " said the first speaker in the languid and gently mo- I dulated tones in which he habitually spoke. " I have not seen the boy since he wore knicker bockers — and then he was the daringest young imp that you can imagine.

But no doubt he has changed somewhat since then. He has knocked about the world, and no doubt it has done him good. But those colonial bush-rangers, or globe trotters, or whatever they please to call them selves, are not much to my taste — nor I imagine to yours; so I fear that we may find this visit something of an infliction. I am sorry you should be subjected to any sort of annoyance on account of any relative of mine. But he appears to take it for granted that he may come here — and really I did not exactly know what to say." " Of course you could not have refused him, papa, " I answered at once. " Any relation ot yours would, of course, be welcome. What is the name of this nephew? And what do you know about him?" I did not ask these questions because I felt any great interest in the subject.

There were often guests staying at Ladywell of whom I saw but little— visitors of my stepfather's and stepbrother's who were nothing whatever to me, and I had no reason to suppose that 'this young savage from Australia (if he did come from Australia) would in any wise affect my daily life. He would be there, and I should see him at the table, and perhaps in the garden or drawing-room at times, and that would be all. I lived my life very much to myself in my own daintily furnished rooms, and was often little of my time in the rest of the house. I had been used to this sort of life ever since I could remember, and the fact that it was in any way an unusual or peculiar existence had not as yet dawned upon me. I took things just as they came to me, and lived happily and pleasantly enough in my luxurious seclusion.

However, as I was now engaged in arranging great bowls of roses in the drawing-room, where my stepfather spent the greater portion of his time, I had to talk about something, and so not unnaturally asked some questions about " the latest importation," as I had heard my step brother Roland call his expected cousin from Australia. "His name?— Oh, his name is Griffeth, I think. I know it is something harsh and guttural. Griffeth Colquhoun. My poor sister married a Colquhoun — a man of good family enough, but with no money or prospects, and they emigrated and never returned to England. I suppose this boy was born out in Australia, and that this is his first visit to England. I hardly knew whether he was alive or dead, for the only time I ever saw my sister was when I took your mother to Australia for a seavoyage shortly before her death, and my sister and this boy came to see us in Melbourne.

I know I thought him then the most audacious, dare-devil imp of a creature that had ever come in my way; but then I was never used to the ways of children. You, my dearest Cicely, were always the most charming and delicate bit of nature's workmanship, and my acquaintance even with you was but slender in those days. You were little more than an infant, and your mother's extremely precarious health obliged her to seek such relief as she could obtain by wandering from place to place in search of a climate that would suit her." I knew all about that. I could not remember my mother, and the story of her marriage with my stepfather when I was but an infant of two summers, and her death scarcely more than two years later was familiar history to me. I had often wondered what my life would have been like had I known a mother's love and care; but inasmuch as we seldom greatly long after an experience which has never been ours, I hardly realised my own loss nor the isolation of my own position, and I was certainly treated with every attention in this house, which (as I knew) was really my own, although until I attained the age of twenty-one my stepfather had the right to live in it, acting as my guardian and as its absolute master.

"There was Roland," I remarked, a little mischievously. " Surely you could not have been so very ignorant of the ways of boys ? " My stepfather waved his hand with a gesture I well knew. It seemed to dismiss the suggestion as one of no moment whatever. " Roland, my dear Cicely, was never in the least like any other boy it has been my fortune, or misfortune, to come across. Roland displayed from his very birth indications of a character altogether congenial to my own, and which made his companionship, even as a child, pleasant and agreeable to me and to others who, in the main, cannot bear the sound of children's voices. You surely have been sometimes struck yourself by the difference that exists between Roland and other young men of your acquaintance?" I could not help laughing at that. I was very fond of Roland.

I hardly knew how I should get on without him. But he had never yet struck me in the light of a paragon. I knew his father doted on him — in such measure as he could spare any attention from himself — but he did not often speak so openly of his opinions. " Roland is very lazy — the laziest man I think that I know. Is that his great recommendation, papa ? " "Ah, my dearest Cicely, you are a sad, sad quiz — you always were ; but I delight in the sweet exuberance of your spirit. But be merciful, my love, to our new visitor. I suspect he will be greatly puzzled at your light badinage. You will have a little mercy upon him, will you not. my queen ? " " I did not know I was so merciless to your friends, papa," I answered laughing; for I often felt as though papa were somehow trying to stroke me down and flatter me in saying these smooth things, as one strokes and smooths a great cat whom one wants to keep in a good temper.

I had never got so far as to put this idea into words ; but I often felt a sense of covert amusement at his words which, however, I did not in the least resent even in my thoughts. " My dear love, you are always everything that is charming — you hardly need that I should tell you that. You have the most exquisite knack of administering a soft snub to a too forward admirer, or to a young man striving to show himself off and to make himself great in your eyes. I positively delight in your delicate power offence and repartee. It is a real treat to listen to you sometimes. But I fear that possibly this untamed young savage from the Antipodes may not altogether understand your delicate raillery, and may grow irritated at his lack of ability to cope with you. So I ask your mercy on his behalf at start ing.

He is no foe for your feminine steel. And you are aware, my dear love, how quickly my nerves are tried if there is anything like mis understanding or irritation on the part of those about me. So humour him and be good to him, just out of consideration for my jaded nerves," and the speaker again arranged his cushions and lay back with a gentle sigh. " I will certainly try to avoid irritating theanimal, " I answered, with what gravity I could assume. " Will he be more dangerous at feeding time, do you suppose? — as we are told is the case with the lions and tigers at the Zoo. " " Ah, my queen, there you go poking your fun at the poor fellow before you have ever seen him! I really do not know in the least what he will be like; but I do remember that the Colquhouns had all very short, quick tempers ; and of course this young man will have laboured under other disadvantages besides those which have come to him by descent.

All I would suggest would be that we should strive to remember the disadvan tages under which he has laboured, and be patient with his shortcomings. He lost both his parents whilst still young, and must have dragged himself up any how, as best he could. My poor sister was a remarkably beautiful woman — fitted to shine in any society. How she could have made up her mind to encounter the life of a colonist and pioneer with all its attendant hardships, I never could imagine." I looked across the luxurious room with its soft harmony of colours, its picturesque statuary, flowers, and ferns, and the subdued light of the glowing summer's day stealing in through the amber-tinted blinds; I looked at the graceful languid figure reclining in absolute idleness in the cane chair, so softly padded, that was my step father's especial delight, and a sudden sense of restlessness and disquiet possessed me, very much to my own surprise, for I was wont to accept the facts of life very quietly.

" Perhaps she was wise, after all. Perhaps she was tired of the luxury, the perfume, the flattery and froth of life. Perhaps she pined for some thing fuller, freer, less artificial. I think I can fancy what that feeling might be like — in time. A bird in a gilded aviary, with every choice dainty at command, might sometimes long for the freedom of the forest, do you not think? even though there he might know hunger, and cold, and peril." My stepfather opened his almond-shaped eyes just a little wider as I spoke these words, and bent a look upon me which I felt to contain more of scrutiny that approval. " What do you mean, my queen?" he asked, very gently. In a moment I felt quelled without knowing why. The momentary impulse had passed. I could laugh at the sudden idea which had prompted the words.

My own gilded cage was dear to me, and I had not yet learnt the weight of my gilded fetters. I had no idea that they were fetters at all. I reassumed my light banter ing tone. " I must talk to Griffeth about it, and see how he feels. I suppose I ought to call him Griffeth, ought I not, papa ? If he is your nephew, he must surely be my cousin ? " My stepfather smiled indulgently. He liked me to identify my family with his, as I had discovered before this. " Well, my love, I do not exactly go so far as to say you are cousins, though I suppose Griffeth will take you for one. His ideas appear to be rather hazy on such points. Doubtless he will be flattered at any advance upon your part. And if Ferdinand does not object, I am sure that I do not." I drew back for a moment at the sound of that name.

I suppose I looked as though I was merely contemplating the result of my handiwork. "Ferdinand!" I repeated slowly, and with just a touch of rebellion in my tone. " I do not see what Ferdinand has to do with it one way or the other!" and I flashed a quick glance at the recumbent figure on the sofa. " My love, my pretty queen, surely your future husband has a right to an opinion upon any point in which you are concerned?" I looked again at my roses, but I felt a little ruffled. " I wish you would not call Ferdinand that. It is not true— and it annoys me. I am sure I have told you so before." Papa raised his delicate eyebrows and smiled the sweetest smile in the world — how well I knew that smile ! "My sweetest Cicely — my saucy queen— you are privileged to say what you will to your old father.

But, dearest, be just a little more careful of your words, and curb the impatience of that free spirit. You do not wish to pain me, I am sure. Yet these little needless jars do help to unhinge my nerves — even though I do know them to be nothing more than the natural ebulli tion of happy, girlish freedom." " I am very sorry, papa; but " " My queen, there are no buts in this particular question, and that you know as wrell as I do. You know that Sir Ferdinand Trevor is the match of the county. You know that even from your childhood you have received from him every mark of devotion. You know that some while since he paid you the highest compliment that a man can pay a woman, by asking of me, your guardian and lawful protector, your hand in. marriage. You are well aware what answer he received, and you know that he has been waiting all these years to lead you to the altar, so soon as the time has come when you shall be ready to enter upon the life which is right and natural to all women who have passed their childhood and early girlhood.

" I knew all this very well. I had had it gently instilled into my mind from my very early girlhood. I had received Sir Ferdinand's attentions almost as a matter of course for many years. In one sense of the word I had most certainly regarded him in the light of my affianced husband, but my feelings on the subject had been altogether vague, and the idea of anything like an immediate marriage had never occurred to me as yet. " I have no objection to Ferdinand, " I answered negligently, for I rather liked teasing my stepfather, although we were excellent friends in the main, " I am used to him, and I suppose some day I shall marry him. But I do not think I should ever fall in love with a man like Sir Fer dinand Trevor. " My stepfather raised one white hand in a protest of languid horror. " My dearest Cicely — where did you pick up such a fearful phrase ?

My queen, never let me hear those sweet lips pronounce it again. It makes me think of the housemaid — and the penny novel which forms the staple, I believe, of her literature. Fall in love ! My dearest child, when did anybody demand that of you? Xo, my precious girl, I trust it will be seen you have been far too well brought up ever to fall into those senseless and unbridled raptures to which that name has been given. Nevertheless, I trust you will in time make an excellent and appropriate marriage. Founded upon a basis of thorough mutual knowledge and esteem, such a union as yours will be will prove a thousand times more conducive to real happiness than any other founded on mere sentimentalism could possibly do. What happiness do you think falls to the lot of those headstrong, modern girls, who take their for tunes into their own hand and make themselves the arbiters of their own fate before they have had experience to form any judgment of their own on such important points as their own future life?

" I had not a word to say on that subject. I supposed that it wras both wise and right to be guided in such decisions. I merely placed my bowl of roses carefully in position as I answered, " But you know, papa, I am not actually engaged yet. You do know that I always have said that I will not promise anything until I come of age. And if anything should happen before that to make me change my mind — why, I am not bound ! " Was there the least little bit of anxiety in my stepfather's voice as he made his half-playful rejoinder? I was not sure, but I scarcely thought there could be. " You will be of age in such a short time now, my love, that the probability of anything having arisen to change your mind appears to me to be very remote. It has been your whim to wait till your majority before ratifying the unspoken promise made in your name, and we all know that we must bow to the whims of fair ladies: but the whim will scarcely serve you much longer, my queen; and then Sir Ferdinand will be rewarded for the exemplary patience with which he has waited."

" Ah, well, we shall see, " I answered, still playing at uncertainty, for the only way in which I was able to assert myself was in a teasing way of addressing my stepfather, whose will was really law to me, as I had on more than one occa sion discovered. " A good many things, as I say, sometimes happen in a very short time. It is better not to make too sure of anything. Isn't that what philosophers always tell us? — Is it not always the unexpected that really happens ? " With that I prepared to depart, giving a satisfied look at my handiwork as I approached the long window which stood open to the soft summer air, and disregarding my stepfather's entreaties that I would not adventure myself hatless into the blazing sunshine, I passed out upon the long verandah draped in creepers, and stood looking down upon the terrace garden below.

My home was a very beautiful one — a charming old Elizabethan Manor-house that would have been one of the show places of the county had we ever permitted its quaint beauties to be exhibited to strangers. The garden was as quaint and old and delightful as the house, and perhaps it looked its very best lying beneath the golden glory of a July sun, the flowers a perfect blaze of glory, the lawns, not yet embrowned by the heat, still soft to the foot and green to the eye, the dark foliage of the magnificent cedar trees contrasUng wonderfully with the brilliant blue of the sky; every object seeming wrapped in a shimmering haze as one looked forth across the gardens towards the wide sweep of park-land and the wooded hills beyond. I loved my home — I think I still loved the soft, luxurious, shielded life I led there.

I had never been abroad into the world. I had never mixed in any but the dilettante, do-nothing society which my stepfather had gathered about him. I scarcely knew — certainly never realised that the battle of life was raging fiercely all around my sheltered home. I never read any papers but art journals or literary reviews, and such books as found their way within these walls were not such as would give me insight into the burning questions of the day. I knew certain things about myself — knew that I was heiress to this estate and to a large fortune which had come to me at my mother's death, and that I was in some sort a person of importance on that account ; but I did not realise my position any more than the exotic in the hot-house can do; and although I was not without my own girlish dreams and aspirations, these were altogether of too vague a character for me to think of putting them into definite shape.

Life had always been made soft and pleasant for me. I had been trained in habits of absolute dependence, and was in many matters actually a child. I naturally looked to those about me to arrange every detail of my life, and the thought of ever asserting myself or of taking my life into my own hands had no more occurred to me than it occurs to the infants in their sheltered nurseries. I had been courted, tended, petted from the time I could remember. The sound of a harsh word was unknown to me. It would have been impossible for me to seriously contemplate opposing seriously any of those about me. I should not have known where to begin, nor how to carry on the warfare. From childhood I had been told that Sir Fer dinand Trevor would some day be my husband, and he had paid some sort of court to me from my nursery days.

Naturally I had myself supposed that no choice was left me in the matter; nor did I particularly desire to exercise my own will in selecting anybody else. I liked Ferdinand as well as any of the other men I had seen within the walls of my home, and I was more used to him than to any of the others. He was always very gentle, suave, and deferential in his manner towards me, which I liked, and he had never given me any cause of offence. I did not love him, to be sure; but, then, as I had been told that day, that was not expected of me. I had begun to believe that the love of which the poets wrote and sang, was an imaginary feeling which wras never translated into the prose of real life. I had a sensation at times deep down in my heart that I, too, could love like that if seldom went farther than that.

I did not know how to complete my sentence even to my self. To-day, as I stood looking out across the sunny garden, with the words lately spoken still ringing in my ears, the same feeling came over me, to be brought up short just at this point. It was absurd to try and think that such things ever happened now, I told myself. I would go down into the garden and talk to Roland. I was sure that was his tall figure I saw lying full length beneath the cedar tree. Roland, my stepbrother, was to me exactly what an own brother might have been. I never really realised that he was not a blood relation. He lived with us during the greater part of the year. He had teased me and played with me from my childhood upwards. He was to me one of the necessary elements of existence, and I was very fond of him, though we generally fell out a dozen times a day.

At least, I used to fall out with him and give him a sound rating; though nothing ever disturbed his serenity or roused him to any thing but languid humorous retaliation. He was lying full length upon the grass beneath the cedar tree, a pile of cushions beneath his head. He opened his long sleepy dark eyes to watch my approach, and negligently stretched out a hand as though to invite me to make myself comfort able in one of the long, padded cane chairs that always stood beneath this tree in hot weather. " Pray do not trouble to move, " I said, as I sank down into the luxurious resting-place. * Exertion might bring on some ill-result in such heat. We are not inured to it as your cousin will probably be." " My cousin ! Ah ! I had hardly looked upon him in that light before! Then you have heard of the importation from the wilds of the earth now about to descend upon our devoted heads ?

" " Don't mix your metaphors, Roland — it would distress your father's nerves to hear you. I suppose you are talking of the visit of our cousin from Australia? Yes, I have heard about it." " Our cousin from Australia," he repeated, in a languidly ironical tone. " Come, we are getting on! Our cousin!" "Papa said so," I returned, not perhaps with great accuracy. " I mean to adopt him for a cousin, anyhow. You are my brother, you know, to all intents and purposes. If he is your cousin, he must be mine." " Have it your own way, O feminine logician. Beg all the premises and then deduce false con clusions! A new cousin will be a new toy to you. And a new toy to a woman is almost as good as a new frock!" " Anyhow, a new cousin may be a great improve ment on an old brother ! —especially when that brother is a cross between a dormouse and a marionette !

" Roland opened his eyes wide enough to let me see the twinkle in their depths as he made a slight bow. " Pray do not exert yourself to be so preter naturally sparkling this sultry day. You will feel the after-effects, I fear. But I dare say the young savage will afford you excellent sport for awhile, till the novelty wears off. I dare say you will endue him with all the qualities of one of your ideal heroes of romance!" " Oh, I think I have lived through all my ideals," I answered laughing. " I used to live in hopes of seeing a hero some day. But I don't believe such creatures exist. At any rate they never come here!" " Perish the thought ! What on earth should we do with such a paragon here? My father's nerves wouldn't stand him for half an hour. Per haps you would fall in love with him — young maidens always seem to take to the hopelessly impracticable characters.

Possibly you will com mence on Griffeth Colquhoun. You will find in him such a breezy contrast that you will at once become enamoured, eh, Cicely? Is that what it all comes to? Is there to be a chance for him?" I was fanning myself lazily with Roland's big rush hat. I laughed again at his question. " Oh, certainly there is a chance. Who knows what may happen?" " A chance of what?" asked a new voice just behind us, which I recognised in an instant. I did not need to turn my head to know that we had been joined by the man who was destined by my relatives to become my future husband. The next moment he had come round to the front and had taken my hand in his. I looked up into his darkly handsome and somewhat saturnine face, and felt that I would just as soon he had not heard my carelessly-spoken words.

"A chance of what?" he repeated, still holding my hand, but I drew it quickly away, for I felt secretly chafed at the air of authority with which he spoke, and was too much the spoilt child not to show petulance sometimes when put out. Roland answered the question for me. " A chance for this young savage from Austra lia — our bush-ranger cousin in Griffeth Colquhoun — to enslave Cicely's young imagination, and turn into the ideal hero of romance, for which doubtless her ardent soul has long been craving!" Roland spoke in a tone that could not but provoke a laugh, yet Ferdinand's face wras slightly darker and sterner than its wont as he turned the som bre light of his eyes upon me. " I trust that Cicely's imagination is under bet ter control than that," he remarked in his peculiar level, polished tones, beneath the smoothness of which, however, a world of determination could be heard.

"I trust that it has also better food with which to feed itself, and that it has no need to run such wild riot. I have never seen indica tions of such a peril before — and I hope I never may. " Was there any significance or emphasis upon the last words? — or was it only my fancy that there was an unwonted ring of authority in those smooth tones? I think, perhaps, the heat had a little unhinged my nerves or ruffled my temper, for I was conscious of a sudden and (as it seemed to me when I thought over it afterwards) an unrea sonable access of irritation against Ferdinand which I had certainly never experienced before. He had taken another of the long cane chairs and had removed his hat. He was irreproachably clad from head to foot, and had one of the most faultless figures I have ever seen. He was w-atching my face with close attention, but not in lover-like fashion.

Not that I was able to define this lack, for I had never known what it wTas to receive affection or lover-like devotion. I had been far too closely watched and guarded for that. Nevertheless, something in the jealous watchfulness of those keen dark eyes annoyed me; and I spoke with unusual heat of manner. " I presume I can think as I choose, and form my own opinions without asking leave of any body else. I do not know what Roland means by his nonsensical talk of heroes of romance. I do not believe in heroes or in romances. But I believe I should like the society of a manly man, if ever one were to come in my way; and I shall be very pleased to welcome this cousin of ours from Australia, whatever Ferdinand may like to say about him." There was a moment's silence and then Roland remarked lazily, " Go it, Cicely !