"Sarah!--I mean Sara--do you really mean to say Hempel has made you a proposal?" cried Polly, wide-eyed in her tears.

"I won't say, my dear, that he has so far forgotten himself as to actually offer marriage. But he has let me see only too plainly what his feelings are. Of course, I've kept him in his place--the preposterous creature! But all the same it's not COMME IL FAUT any longer for me to be here."

"Did she say where she was going, or what she intended to do?" Mahony inquired of his wife that night as she bound the strings of her nightcap.

No, she hadn't, Polly admitted, rather out of countenance. But then Sara was like that--very close about her own affairs. "I think she's perhaps gone back to her last situation. She had several letters while she was here, in that lady's hand. People are always glad to get her back. Not many finishing governesses can teach all she can"--and Polly checked off Sara's attainments on the fingers of both hands. "She won't go anywhere under two hundred a year."

"A most accomplished person, your sister!" said Mahony sleepily.

"Still, it's very pleasant to be by ourselves again--eh, wife?"

An even more blessed peace shortly descended on the house; for the time was now come to get rid of the children as well. Since nothing had been heard of John, they were to be boarded out over Polly's illness.

Through the butcher's lady, arrangements were made with a trooper's wife, who lived outside the racket and dust of the township, and had a whole posse of little ones of her own.--"Bless you! half-a-dozen more wouldn't make any difference to me. There's the paddock for 'em to run wild in." This was the best that could be done for the children. Polly packed their little kit, dealt out a parting bribe of barley-sugar, and saw them hoisted into the dray that would pa.s.s the door of their destination.

Once more husband and wife sat alone together, as in the days before John's domestic catastrophe. And now Mahony said tentatively: "Don't you think, love, we could manage to get on without that old Beamish woman? I'll guarantee to nurse you as well as any female alive."

The question did not come as a surprise to Polly; she had already put it to herself. After the affair with Sara she awaited her new visitor in fear and trembling. Sara had at least stood in awe of Richard and held her tongue before him; Mrs. Beamish prided herself on being afraid of n.o.body, and on always speaking her mind. And yet, even while agreeing that it would be well to put "mother" off, Polly drooped her wings. At a time like this a woman was a woman. It seemed as if even the best of husbands did not quite understand.

"Just give her the hint we don't want her," said Mahony airily.

But "mother" was not the person to take a hint, no matter how broad. It was necessary to be blunt to the point of rudeness; and Polly spent a difficult hour over the composition of her letter. She might have saved her pains. Mrs. Beamish replied that she knew her darling little Polly's unwillingness to give trouble; but it was not likely she would now go back on her word: she had been packed and ready to start for the past week. Polly handed the letter to her husband, and did not say what she thought she read out of it, namely that "mother," who so seldom could be spared from home, was looking forward with pleasure to her trip to Ballarat.

"I suppose it's a case of making the best of a bad job," sighed Mahony; and having one day drawn Mrs. Beamish, at melting point, from the inside of a crowded coach, he loaded Long Jim with her bags and bundles.

His aversion was not lightened by his subsequently coming on his wife in the act of unpacking a hamper, which contained half a ham, a stone jar of b.u.t.ter, some home-made loaves of bread, a bag of vegetables and a plum pudding. "Good G.o.d! does the woman think we can't give her enough to eat?" he asked testily. He had all the poor Irishman's distrust of a gift.

"She means it kindly, dear. She probably thought things were still scarce here; and she knew I wouldn't be able to do much cooking,"

pleaded Polly. And going out to the kitchen she untied the last parcel, in which was a big round cheese, by stealth.

She had pulled Mrs. Beamish over the threshold, had got her into the bedroom and shut the door, before any of the "ohs" and "ahs" she saw painted on the broad, rubicund face could be transformed into words.

And hugs and kisses over, she bravely seized the bull by the horns and begged her guest not to criticise house or furnishings in front of Richard.

It took Mrs. Beamish a minute or two to grasp her meaning. Then, she said heartily: "There, there, my duck, don't you worry! I'll be as mum as mum." And in a whisper: "So, 'e's got a temper, Polly, 'as 'e? But this I will say: if I'd known this was all 'e 'ad to h'offer you, I'd 'a' said, stop w'ere you are, my lamb, in a comfortable, 'appy 'ome."

"Oh, I AM happy, mother dear, indeed I am!" cried Polly. "I've never regretted being married--never once!"

"There, there, now!"

"And it's only ... I mean ... this is the best we can afford in the meantime, and if I am satisfied ..." floundered Polly, dismayed to hear her words construed into blame of her husband. "It's only that it upsets Richard if people speak slightingly of our house, and that upsets me--and I musn't be worried just now, you know," she added with a somewhat shaky smile.

"Not a word will I say, ducky, make yer pore little mind easy about that. Though such a poky little 'en-coop of a place I never was in!"--and, while tying her cap-strings, Mrs. Beamish swept the little bedroom and its sloping roof with a withering glance. "I was 'orrified, girls, simply 'ORRIFIED!" she related the incident to her daughters.

"An' I up an' told 'er so--just like me, you know. Not room enough to swing a cat in, and 'im sittin' at the 'ead of the table as 'igh an'

mighty as a dook! You can thank yer stars, you two, 'e didn't take one o' you instead o' Polly." But this was chiefly by way of a consolation-prize for Tilly and Jinny.

"An' now, my dear, tell me EVERYTHING." With these words, Mrs. Beamish spread her skirts and settled down to a cosy chat on the subject of Polly's hopes.

But like the majority of her s.e.x she was an adept at dividing her attention; and while making delicate inquiries of the young wife, she was also travelling her shrewd eye round the little bedchamber, spying out and appraising: not one of poor Polly's makeshifts escaped her. The result of her inspection was to cause her to feel justly indignant with Mahony. The idea! Him to rob them of Polly just to dump her down in a place like this! She would never be able to resist telling him what she thought of him.

Here, however, she reckoned without Polly. Polly was sharp enough to doubt "mother's" ability to hold her tongue; and saw to it that Richard and she were not left alone together. And of an evening when talk languished, she would beg her husband to read to them from the BALLARAT STAR, until, as often as not, Mrs. Beamish fell asleep. Frequently, too, she persuaded him to go out and take a hand in a newlyformed whist club, or discuss politics with a neighbour.

Mahony went willingly enough; his home was less home than ever since the big woman's intrusion. Even his food lost its savour. Mrs. Beamish had taken over the cooking, and she went about it with an air that implied he had not had a decent bite to eat since his marriage.

"There! what do you say to that now? That's something LIKE a pudding!"

and a great plum-duff was planked triumphantly down in the middle of the dinner-table. "Lor, Polly! your bit of a kitchen ... in this weather ... I'm fair dished." And the good woman mopped her streaming face and could herself eat nothing.

Mahony much preferred his wife's cooking, which took account of his tastes--it was done, too, without any fuss--and he persisted in upholding Polly's skill, in face of Mrs. Beamish's good-natured disbelief. Polly, on edge, lest he should openly state his preference, nervously held out her plate.

"It's so good, mother, I must have a second helping," she declared; and then, without appet.i.te in the cruel, midday heat, did not know what to do with the solid slab of pudding. Pompey and Palmerston got into the way of sitting very close to her chair.

She confided to Richard that Mrs. Beamish disapproved of his evening outings. "Many an 'usband takes to goin' out at such a time, my dear, an' never gets back the 'abit of stoppin' at 'ome. So just you be careful, ducky!" This was a standing joke between them. Mahony would wink at Polly when he put his hat on, and wear it rakishly askew.

However, he quite enjoyed a crack with the postmaster or the town-surveyor, at this juncture. Colonial politics were more interesting than usual. The new Const.i.tution had been proclaimed, and a valiant effort was being made to form a Cabinet; to induce, that was, a sufficient number of well-to-do men to give up time to the service of their country. It looked as if the attempt were going to fail, just as on the goldfields the Local Courts, by which since the Stockade the diggers governed themselves, were failing, because none could afford to spend his days sitting in them.

Yet however high the discussion ran, he kept one ear turned towards his home. Here, things were at a standstill. Polly's time had come and gone--but there was no end set to their suspense. It was blazing hot now in the little log house; walls and roof were black with flies; mosquitoes made the nights hideous. Even Polly lost patience with herself when, morning after morning, she got up feeling as well as ever, and knowing that she had to steer through another difficult day.

It was not the suspense alone: the strain of keeping the peace was growing too much for her.

"Oh, DON'T quarrel with her, Richard, for my sake," she begged her husband one night. "She means so well. And she can't help being like she is--she has always been accustomed to order Mr. Beamish about. But I wish she had never, never come," sobbed poor Polly. And Mahony, in a sudden flash of enlightenment, put his arms round her, and made humble promises. Not another word should cross his lips! "Though I'd like nothing so well as to throw her out, and her bags and bundles after her. Come, laugh a little, my Polly. Think of the old lady flying down the slope, with her packages in a shower about her head!"

Rogers, M.D., looked in whenever he pa.s.sed. At this stage he was of the jocular persuasion. "Still an unwelcome visitor, ma'am? No little tidbit of news for me to-day?" There he sat, twiddling his thumbs, reiterating his singsong: "Just so!" and looking wise as an owl. Mahony knew the air--had many a time seen it donned to cloak perplexity--and covert doubts of Rogers' ability began to a.s.sail him. But then he fell mentally foul of every one he came in touch with, at present: Ned, for the bare-faced fashion in which he left his cheerfulness on the door-mat; Mrs. Beamish for the eternal "Pore lamb!" with which she beplastered Polly, and the antiquated reckoning-table she embarra.s.sed them by consulting.

However, this state of things could not last for ever, and at dawn, one hot January day, Polly was taken ill.

The early hours promised well. But the morning wore on, turned to midday, then to afternoon, and matters still hung fire. While towards six o'clock the patient dismayed them by sitting up in bed, saying she felt much better, and asking for a cup of tea. This drew: "Ah, my pore lamb, you've got to feel worse yet afore you're better!" from Mrs.

Beamish.

It ended in Rogers taking up his quarters there, for the night.

Towards eleven o'clock Mahony and he sat, one on each side of the table, in the little sitting-room. The heat was insupportable and all three doors and the window were propped open, in the feeble hope of creating a draught. The lamp had attracted a swarm of flying things: giant moths beat their wings against the globe, or fell singed and sizzling down the chimney; winged-ants alighted with a click upon the table; blowflies and mosquitoes kept up a dizzy hum.

From time to time Mahony rose and stole into the bedroom, where Mrs.

Beamish sat fanning the pests off Polly, who was in a feverish doze.

Leaning over his wife he let his finger lie on her wrist; and, back again in the outer room, he bit nervously at his little-finger nail--an old trick of his when in a quandary. He had curtly refused a game of bezique; so Rogers had produced a pack of cards from his own pocket--soiled, frayed cards, which had likely done service on many a similar occasion--and was whiling the time away with solitaire. To sit there watching his slow manipulation of the cards, his patent intentness on the game; to listen any longer to the accursed din of the gnats and flies pa.s.sed Mahony's powers of endurance. Abruptly shoving back his chair, he went out into the yard.

This was some twenty paces across--from the row of old kerosene-tins that const.i.tuted his flower-garden, past shed and woodstack to the post-and-rail fence. How often he walked it he did not know; but when he went indoors again, his boots were heavy with mud. For a brief summer storm had come up earlier in the evening. A dense black pall of cloud had swept like a heavy curtain over the stars, to the tune of flash and bang. Now, all was clear and calm again; the white star-dust of the Milky Way powdered the sky just overhead; and though the heat was still intense, the air had a fragrant smell of saturated dust and rain-soaked earth--he could hear streamlets of water trickling down the hillside to the river below.

Out there in the dark, several things became plain to him. He saw that he had not had any real confidence in Rogers from the start; while the effect of the evening spent at close quarters had been to sink his opinion to nothing. Rogers belonged to an old school; his method was to sit by and let nature take its course--perhaps just this slowness to move had won him a name for extreme care. His old fogyism showed up unmistakably in a short but heated argument they had had on the subject of chloroform. He cited such h.o.a.ry objections to the use of the new anaesthetic in maternity cases as Mahony had never expected to hear again: the therapeutic value of pain; the moral danger the patient ran in yielding up her will ("What right have we to bid a fellow-creature sacrifice her consciousness?") and the impious folly of interfering with the action of a creative law. It had only remained for him to quote Genesis, and the talking serpent!

Had the case been in his own hands he would have intervened before now.

Rogers, on the contrary, was still satisfied with the shape of affairs--or made pretence to be. For, watching lynx-eyed, Mahony fancied each time the fat man propelled his paunch out of the sickroom it was a shade less surely: there were nuances, too, in the way he p.r.o.nounced his vapid: "As long as our strength is well maintained ...

well maintained." Mahony doubted Polly's ability to bear much more; and he made bold to know his own wife's const.i.tution best. Rogers was shilly-shallying: what if he delayed too long and Polly slipped through his hands? Lose Polly? Good G.o.d! the very thought turned him cold. And alive to his finger-tips with the superst.i.tion of his race, he impetuously offered up his fondest dream to those invisible powers that sat aloft, waiting to be appeased. If this was to be the price exacted of him--the price of his escape from exile--then... then ...

To come back to the present, however, he was in an awkward position: he was going to be forced to take Polly's case out of the hands of the man to whom he had entrusted it. Such a step ran counter to all the stiff rules of conduct, the punctilios of decorum, laid down by the most code-ridden profession in the world.

But a fresh visit to Polly, whose pulse had grown markedly softer, put an end to his scruples.

Stalking into the sitting-room he said without preamble: "In my opinion any further delay will mean a risk to my wife. I request you to operate immediately."

Rogers blinked up from his cards, surprise writ across his ruddy countenance. He pushed his spectacles to his forehead. "Eh? What? Well, well ... yes, the time is no doubt coming when we shall have to lend Mother Nature a hand."