Read A Bride from the Bush Online
Authors: E. W. Hornung
The stranger in question was by way of being illustrious. He was a Midland magnate, and his name, Travers, was a good one; but, what was for the moment much more to the point, he was a very newly elected Member of the House of Commons; in fact, âthe new boy' there. He came down to dinner at Twickenham flushed with the agreeable heat of successful battle. Only the week before
he had snatched his native borough from the spreading fire of Democracy, and won one of the very closest and most keenly contested by-elections of that year. Naturally enough, being a friend of some standing, he talked freely of his electioneering experiences, and with a victor's rightful relish. His manner, it must be owned, was a trifle ponderous; according to Granville, he was an inflated bore. But Mr Travers, M.P., was sufficiently well listened to (Lady Bligh was such a wonderful listener); and he fought his good fight over and over again with such untiring energy, and depicted it from so many commanding points of view, that, even when it came to tea in the drawing-room, the subject was still unfinished. At all events, it then for the first time became lively; for it was then that Mr Travers turned to young Mrs Bligh (also for the first time), and honoured her with an observation:â
âNo doubt you order these things better in Australia; eh?'
âWhat things?' asked the Bride, with some eagerness; for of Australia she had been thinking, but not of Mr Travers or his election.
âWhy,' said the Member, with dignity, âyour elections. I was speaking of the difficulty of getting some of the lower orders to the poll; you have almost to drive them there. What I say is, that very probably, in Australia, you manage these things on a superior system.'
âWe do,' said the Bride laconically.
The new Member looked astonished; he had expected a more modest answer.
âIndeed!' he said stiffly, and addressed himself to his tea-cup.
âFor,' explained the Bride, exhibiting dangerous symptoms, âwe do drive 'em to the poll out there, and make no bones about it either!'
âIndeed?' said Mr Travers again; but this time there was some curiosity in his tone. âThis is interesting. I always thought Australia was such a superlatively free country!'
The Bride scented a sarcasm.
âSo it is,' she cried warmly, beginning to speak at a perilous pace, and with her worst twang; âmy word it is! But you don't understand me. It's like this: we do drive 'em to the poll, up the Bush; I've driven 'em lots o' times myself. They're camped outâthe voters, likeâall over the runs, for all the hands have a vote; and to get 'em to the police-barracks (the poll, d'ye see?) on election day, each squatter's got to muster his own men and drive 'em in. I used to take one trap with four horses, and father another. Gracious, what a bit of fun it was! But the difficulty wasâ'
She hesitated, for Lady Bligh was staring at her; and, though her ladyship's face was in shadow, the Bride was disturbed, for a moment, by the rigid pose of the old lady's head. A queer expression was come over the face of the new Member, moreover; but this Gladys could not see, for he was a tall man, standing, while she was seated.
âWhat was the difficulty?' asked Granville from a corner, in an encouraging tone.
Gladys instantly forgot Lady Bligh. âTo keep 'em from going to the shanty first,' she answered, with a merry laugh.
âThe shanty?' repeated Mr Travers, with a vague idea of sailors' songs.
âThe pub., then. Of course they all went afterwards, andâbut we were obliged to keep them sober till they'd voted; and that's where the difficulty came in.'
The assembly shuddered; but, before new ground could be broken, Mr Travers, for the first time interested in somebody else's electioneering experiences, said inquiringly:â
âThese squatters I presume, represent the landed interest; my party, in fact?'
âOh, I don't know nothing about that,' replied the Bride.
At this juncture Alfred announced, in an uncommonly loud and aggressive tone, thatâwhat do you think?âthe glass was going down!
âIs it?' cried Sir James, with a lively concern quite foreign to his habit. âDear, dear! And Mr Travers just now assured me that the
weather was quite settled. I fear that this will disappointâerâMr Travers!'
But it failed even to attract that gentleman's attention; and Granville, in the background, chuckled satanically over the ingenuousness of the device. Mr Travers, in fact, was sufficiently interested elsewhere. âYet, of course,' he was saying, âthere are two parties?'
âMy word, there are!' returned the Bride.
âAnd do you call them Whig and Tory?'
âI don't think it'âdoubtfully.
âConservative and Liberal, perhaps?'
âNot that I know of.'
âYet you say you have two partiesâ'
âOf course we have, same as you,' broke in the Bride, who would brook anything rather than the implied inferiority of Australia in the most trivial respect. âBut all ever I heard 'em called was the squatters' candidate and the selectors' man!'
âAnd your men, I suppose, voted for the squatters' candidate?'
âI should rather hope so!' said Mrs Alfred, with severe emphasis. âEven Daft Larryâwho's both deaf and madâhad sense enough to give us his vote!'
Mr Travers, though astonished at her tone, said nothing at the moment; but Granville asked from his corner:â
âWhat if they didn't, Gladys?'
The Bride was seized with a sudden fit of uncontrollable mirth. Some reminiscence evidently tickled her.
âThere was one man that we knew of that voted wrong,' she said, âand he got it pretty hot, I can tell you!'
âAdvanced Australia!' murmured Granville.
âI am sorry to hear that, Mrs Bligh,' said Mr Travers (who had ceased to deal with those local tradesmen, at his place in the Midlands, who were suspected of having âvoted wrong' the previous week). âI am sorry indeed to hear that. May I ask who punished him?'
âCertainlyâI did.'
It was a startling reply. The Judge quietly quitted the room. Alfred, with his back to every one, surveyed his red face in the mantel-mirror, and ground his teeth; only Lady Bligh sat stoically still.
âHe came back to the trap very drunkâblind, speechless, paralytic,' the Bride explained rapidly, âand owned up what he'd done as bold as brass. So I let him have it with the whip, pretty sudden, I can tell you. It was chiefly for his drunken insolenceâbut not altogether,' said Gladys, candidly.
Mr Travers had been glad to pick up a thing or two concerning Australian politics, but he seemed now to consider himself sufficiently enlightened.
âDo you sing, Mrs Bligh?' he asked somewhat abruptly.
âNot a note,' said the Bride, perceiving with regret that the subject was changed.
âYou play, perhaps? If soâ'
âNo, I can't play neither,' said the Bride, smiling broadlyâand bewitchingly. âI'm no good at all, you see!'
It seemed too true. She had not the saving grace of a single accomplishmentânothing, nothing, nothing but her looks!
The day after Mr Travers dined at Twickenham was almost the first day that passed without the happy pair running up to London together.
âIt's far too hot to think of town, or of wearing anything but flannels all day,' said Alfred in the morning. âBut there's plenty to see hereabouts, Gladdie. There's Bushey Park and Hampton Court, and Kew Gardens, and Richmond Park. What do you say to a stroll in Richmond Park? It's as near as anything, and we shall certainly get most air there.'
Gladys answered promptly that she was âon' (they were alone); and they set out while the early haze of a sweltering day was hanging closely over all the land, but closest of all about the river.
There was something almost touching in the air of serious responsibility with which these two went about their daily sight-seeing; though Granville derived the liveliest entertainment from the spectacle. The worst of guides himself, and in many respects the least well-informed of men, Alfred nevertheless had no notion of calling in the aid of a better qualified cicerone, and of falling into the rear himself to listen and learn with his wife. At the same time, the fierce importance, to his wife, of this kind of education exaggerated itself in his mind; so he secretly armed himself with âBaedeker,' and managed to keep a lesson ahead of his pupil, on principles well known to all who have ever dabbled in the noble art of âtutoring.' But, indeed, Alfred's whole conduct towards his wife was touchingâtouching in its perpetual tenderness, touching in its unflagging consideration, and ten times touching in the fact that his devotion was no longer blind. His eyes had been slowly and painfully opened during this first week at home. Peculiar manners, which, out there in the Bush, had not been peculiar, seemed worse than that here in England. They had to bear continual comparison with the soft speech and gentle ways of Lady Bligh, and the contrast was sharp and cruel. But the more Alfred realised his wife's defects the more he loved her. That was the nature of his simple heart and its simple love. At least she should not know that he saw her in a different light, and at first he would have cut his tongue out rather than tell her plainly of her peculiarities. Presently she would see them for herself, and then, in her own good time, she would rub down of her own accord the sharper angles; and then she would take Lady Bligh for her model, instinctively, without being told to do so: and so all would be well. Arguing thus, Alfred had not allowed her to say a word to him about that escapade with the stock-whip on the first morning, for her penitence was grievous to himâand was it a thing in the least likely to happen twice? Nevertheless, he was thoroughly miserable in a weekâthat electioneering conversation was the finisherâand at last he had determined to speak. Thus the walk to Richmond was strangely silent, for all the time he was casting about for some way of expressing what was in his mind, without either wounding her feelings or letting her see that his own were sore.
Now they walked to Richmond by the river, and then over the bridge, but, before they climbed the hill to the park gates, a solemn ceremony, insisted upon by Alfred, was duly observed: the Bride ate a âMaid-of-Honour' in the Original Shop; and when the famous delicacy had been despatched and criticised, and Alfred had given a wild and stumbling account of its historic origin, his wife led the way back into the sunshine in such high spirits that his own dejection deepened sensibly as the burden of his unuttered remonstrances increased. At last, in despair, he resolved to hold his tongue, for that morning at least. Then, indeed, they chatted cheerfully together for the first time during the walk, and he was partly with her in her abuse of the narrow streets and pavements of Richmond, but still stuck up for them on the plea that they were quaint and thoroughly English; whereat she laughed him to scorn; and so they reached the park.
But no sooner was the soft cool grass under their dusty feet, and the upland swelling before them as far as the eye could travel, than the Bride became suddenly and unaccountably silent. Alfred stole curious glances as he walked at her side, and it seemed to him that the dark eyes roving so eagerly over the landscape were grown wistful and sad.
âHow like it is to the old place!' she exclaimed at last.
âYou don't mean your father's run, Gladdie?'
âYes, I do; this reminds me of it more than anything I've seen yet.'
âWhat nonsense, my darling!' said Alfred, laughing. âWhy, there is no such green spot as this in all Australia!'
âAh! you were there in the drought, you see; you never saw the run after decent rains. If you had, you'd soon see the likeness between those big paddocks in what we call the “C Block” and this. But the road spoils this place; it wants a Bush road; let's get off it for a bit.'
So they bore inward, to the left, and Gladys was too thoroughly charmed, and too thoughtful, to say much. And now the cool bracken was higher than their knees, and the sun beat upon their backs very fiercely; and now they walked upon turf like velvet, in the shadow of the trees.
âYou don't get many trees like these out there,' said Alfred.
âWellânot in Riverina, I know we don't,' Gladys reluctantly admitted; and soon she added: âNor any water-holes like this.'
For they found themselves on the margin of the largest of the Pen Ponds. There was no wind, not a ripple could be seen upon the whole expanse of the water. The fierce sun was still mellowed by a thin, gauzy haze, and the rays were diffused over the pond in a solid gleam. The trees on the far side showed fairly distinct outlines, filled in with a bluish smoky gray, and entirely without detail. The day was sufficiently sultry, even for the Thames Valley.
âAnd yet,' continued Gladys, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, âit does remind one of the Bush, somehow. I have sometimes brought a mob of sheep through the scrub to the water, in the middle of the day, and the water has looked just like thisâlike a great big lump of quicksilver pressed into the ground and shaved off level. That'd be on the hot still days, something like to-day. We now and then did have a day like this, you knowâonly, of course, a jolly sight hotter. But we had more days with the hot wind, hot and strong; what terrors they were when you were driving sheep!'
âYou were a tremendous stock-rider, Gladdie!' remarked her husband.
âWasn't I just! Ever since I was that high! And I was fond, like, of that old runâknew every inch of it better than any man on the placeâexcept the old man, and perhaps Daft Larry. Knew it, bless you! from sunriseâyou remember the sunrise out there, dull, and red, and suddenâto sundown, when you spotted the station pines black as ink against the bit of pink sky, as you came back from mustering. Let's seeâI forget how it goesâno, it's like this:â