CHAPTER 14

The next time Biddy came, Joan tackled matters boldly.

'Biddy, I've had my marching orders. Mr Gibbs finds Leichardt's Land a bit stale. I take train to Sydney next week and tour the Riverina, the Blue Mountains and the country along the railway line to Melbourne. Are you coming with me?'

Bridget gave a deprecatory laugh. 'I don't know what Rosamond would say.'

'She'd recognise the necessities of the situation. Besides, you could come back again.'

'I haven't been here a month. And I don't find Leichardt's Land stale.

On the contrary, I find it extremely stimulating. No, I think the Riverina and the Blue Mountains will keep, as far as I'm concerned.'

'But I won't keep. Mr Gibb and the drawings for THE IMPERIALIST won't keep. The question is whether you want to make some money or not?'

'It's the one thing I've WANTED to do all my life, and have never yet succeeded in doing except when we collaborated in "The Lady of Quality."

'Here's your chance for a continuation series, "The Lady of Quality in the Bush." How does that sound?'

'Rather clumsy and long, don't you think? "Lady Bridget in the Bush"

would be more alliterative and catching. Only I should be giving myself away.'

'I think you're doing that already,' said Mrs. Gildea.

'How do you mean, Joan? I don't see it.'

'Yes, you do. Look here, Biddy. Colin McKeith isn't Mr Willoughby Maule.'

'He's a hundred times better man, Joan.'

'That you needn't tell me; and I'm glad you recognise the fact. But from the point of view of "The Lady of Quality," would he be a better husband?'

'You forget, my dear, that I'm not the genuine article. I'm nothing but a pinchbeck imitation of the real "Lady of Quality." If HIS grandfather was a peasant, remember that my maternal grandparents were peasants too. I told him so yesterday.'

'Has it come to that? You go fast, Biddy. But I warn you--Colin McKeith isn't the man to be trifled with. He knows his own mind. The question is whether you know yours.'

Biddy nodded her head like a Chinese Mandarin.

'Two months ago you were wildly in love--or, at least, from your letters one might have judged so--with another man,' said Mrs Gildea.

'No--no--don't call that love.'

'Call it a violent attraction, then. I suspect the man could have made you marry him if he had chosen. So far as I can understand, you quarrelled because neither of you would face matrimony on what you considered an inadequate income.'

'Middle-cla.s.s respectability--living in Pimlico or further Kensington,'

scoffed Biddy. 'Ordering sprats and plaice for dinner and pretending they're soles and whitebait. Perambulators stuffing up the hall; paying your own books and having your gown made at home! No, thank you.

'Possum skins and a black's gunya--that's Australese for a wigwam, isn't it?--appeal to me infinitely more.'

Mrs Gildea threw up her hands.

'Biddy, you haven't the faintest notion how dull and uncomfortable--how utterly unpoetic--how sordid the life of a struggling bushman can be.'

'No! You know, Joan, I think that it might be perfectly fascinating--if one really cared for the bushman.'

'Really cared! Have you EVER really cared for any man? COULD you ever really care?'

'That's what I've been asking myself. It would have to be someone quite different from all the other men I've liked--something altogether above the ordinary man, to make me REALLY care.'

'You said that Mr Willoughby Maule was different from any man you'd ever met. Each man you've ever fancied yourself in love with has been different from all the rest.'

Lady Bridget laughed rather uneasily.

'How tiresomely exact you are, Joan! Of course, they were different.

Everybody is different from everybody else. And I attract marked types.

Will was more marked and more attractive--as well as attracted--that's all.'

'His attraction doesn't seem to have been as strong as self-interest, any way,' said Joan, with deliberate terseness.

The girl's small, pale face flushed to deep crimson for a moment.

'Joan, you are cruel! You know that was the sting! And it wouldn't have stung so if I hadn't cared. Sometimes I feel the maddest desire to hurt him--to pay him out. I never felt like that about any of the others--the ones I really did ALMOST want to marry. And then--at other times I'd give ANYTHING just to have him again as he used to be.'

'I'm certain you weren't really in love with him,' exclaimed Mrs Gildea.

Bridget seemed to be considering. 'Wasn't I?--I'm not so sure of that.

No--' she went on impetuously, 'I was not REALLY in love with him. He had a magnetic influence over me as I told you. Perhaps I might get a little under it again if he were to appear suddenly without his wife--it turns me sick to think of a married man having a magnetic influence over me.... Even if there was no wife--now. So, when you've idealised a person and can't idealise him any more: C'EST FINI. There's nothing but a ghost to come and make you uncomfortable sometimes--and that CAN'T last.... Besides, I've been breathing the strong clear air of your gum trees lately. It's a case of pull devil--pull bushman. Do you see?'

'I see, my dear, that you're idealising Colin McKeith, and let me tell you that a bushman is very far removed from the super-man. Oh, Colin is a fine enough specimen of a pioneer in a rough country. But his rough life, his bush surroundings, and all the rest--why, he'd jar upon you in a hundred ways if you were alone with him in them. Then--he's not of your order--though I hate the phrase and I hate the kind of man. All the same, Biddy, you may pretend to despise the men of your own cla.s.s, but I fancy that, after a spell of roughing it with Colin on the Upper Leura, you'd hanker after something in them that Colin hasn't and never will have.... And then,' Joan's swift imagination carried her on with a rush, 'you don't know in the least the type of man he is. You'd have to give in to him: he'd never give in to you. He's domineering, jealous, vindictive and reserved. Before a month was out you'd quarrel, and there would be no chance of your ever making it up again.'

'I must say, Joan, that for a friend of his you're not an enthusiastic advocate.'

'It's because I'm so fond of Colin that I hate the thought of your making him miserable. Anyway, however, you're bound to do that.'

'I don't see why.'

'If you flirt with him and then drop him, he'll suffer, though he'll be too proud to show it. And as for the alternative, it's out of the question. You must see that it would be sheer folly.'

'I've committed a great many follies,' said Bridget wistfully.

'But, so far, none that are quite irrevocable.'

'Well, he hasn't asked me yet to commit this one.'

'You're leading him on to it. Biddy, it is abominable of you to encourage him as you do--coming here with him that day.... And you let him take you riding....'