It was a promise of long standing that, once fairly settled in her new house, Mary should invite to stay with her those of her friends to whom she lay under an obligation. She had plenty of room for them, plenty of time; all that remained to do was to fix the order of their coming.
First, though, she charged herself with Emmy and the children: to get them out of the workpeople’s way, and after the wedding — it was celebrated at All Saints, Brighton, and proved a very swell affair indeed, John’s four daughters following the bride up the aisle — to leave Miss Julia free to give the final touches to the house. Emmy cried bitterly when the day came to return to it: all Mary’s reasoning and persuading had not succeeded in plucking from the girl’s heart the sting this third marriage of her father’s had implanted there. A great hope had been dashed in Emmy; and she went back hot with resentment against the intruder. The young ones were easier to manage. The excitement of the wedding, new frocks, new dolls, helped them over the break. For them, too, this would not be so complete. Miss Julia proposed to open a select school for the daughters of gentlemen, at which the three little girls were to be day-pupils.
Not a word had passed between Mary and Miss Julia in criticism of John’s marriage. Their eyes just met for a moment in a look of complete understanding (“Oh, these men . . . these men!”). Then with a nod and a sigh they set resolutely to making the best of things — a task, said Mahony, in which the wife had at last found her peer.
John’s affairs having thus once more slipped from her grasp, Mary devoted herself to the long line of visitors who now crossed the threshold of “Ultima Thule.”
Louisa Urquhart headed the list. Louisa arrived one afternoon at Spencer Street railway station, and was drawn from the train, her bonnet askew, her cheeks scarlet with excitement at having undertaken without escort the four-hour journey from Ballarat. And after Louisa, who far outstayed her welcome, came Agnes Ocock and her children and her children’s nurses; came Zara and her husband, in search of expert medical advice; Jerry and his Fanny, the latter in a delicate state of health; a couple of Ned’s progeny; Amelia Grindle and a sickly babe; came Mrs. Tilly: not to speak of other, less intimate acquaintances.
Mahony groaned. It was all very well for Mary to say that, if he wished to be alone, he had only to go into his study and shut the door. He could and did retire there. But, like other doors, this, too, had a handle; and since Mary could never get it into her head that to be busy among your books was to be seriously busy, the petty interruptions he suffered were endless. Take, for example, the case of Louisa Urquhart. This was by no means exhausted with the stitching of a rose in a drab bonnet. Louisa had lived so long in semi-invalid retirement that she was little better than a cretin with regard to the small, practical affairs of life. She did not know how to stamp a letter or tie up a newspaper for the post; could not buy a pair of gloves or cross a crowded street without assistance. They had to accompany her everywhere. She also lived in a perpetual nervous flutter lest some accident should happen at Yarangobilly while she was absent: the house catch fire, or one of the children take a fit. “That Willy will not do a bolt with a less dismal party than she, it would be rash indeed to assume! Of all the woebegone wet-blankets . . .” Mahony was disgruntled: it spoilt his appetite for breakfast to listen to Louisa’s whining, did she learn by the morning post that one of her infants had the stomach-ache; or to look on at the heroic efforts made by Mary to disperse the gloom. (The wife’s tender patience with the noodles she gathered round her invariably staggered him afresh.) Then parties must needs be given in Louisa’s honour — and the honour of those who came after; the hours for meals disarranged, put backwards or forwards to suit the home habits of the particular guest.
Even more disturbing was the visit of Mrs. Henry which followed. Here, he could not but share Mary’s apprehensions lest something untoward should happen which might give servants or acquaintances an inkling of how matters stood. As for poor Mary, she grew quite pale and peaked with the strain; hardly dared let Agnes out of her sight. At dinner-parties — and the best people had to be asked to meet the wife of so important a personage as Mr. Henry — her eye followed the decanters their rounds with an anxiety painful to see. (Between-times, she kept the chiffonier strictly locked.) During this visit, too, the servants made difficulties by refusing to wait on the strange nursemaids, who gave themselves airs; while, to cap all, a pair of the rowdiest and worst-behaved children ever born romped in the passage, or trampled the flower-beds in the garden. No walls were thick enough to keep out their noise; any more than the fact of being in a stranger’s house could improve their manners. The walls were also powerless against Zara’s high-pitched, querulous voice, or the good Ebenezer’s fits of coughing, which shook the unfortunate man till his very bones seemed to rattle. Later on, for variety, they had the shrill screaming of Amelia Grindle’s sick babe (with Mary up and down at night, preparing bottles); had Ned’s children to be tamed and taught to blow their noses; pretty Fanny tumbling into faints half a dozen times a day. Of course, there was no earthly reason why all these good people should not make his home theirs — oh dear no! If Jerry got a fortnight’s holiday, what more natural than that he should choose to spend it in his sister’s comfortable, well-appointed house, rather than in his own poky weatherboard? If Mrs. Devine wanted to take sea-air (“And, really, Richard, one HAS to remember how extraordinarily kind she was to us on landing”), the least one could do was to beg her to exchange Toorak for Brighton-on-Beach. Only the fact of John’s house being but a paltry half-hour’s walk distant, and the ozone both families breathed of the same brand, saved them from having John and Lizzie quartered on them as well.
Yes, Mary’s hospitality was rampageous — no other word would describe it. He had given her CARTE BLANCHE and he kept to his bond; but as time went on his groans increased in volume, he was sarcastic at the expense of “Mrs. Mahony’s Benevolent Asylum,” and openly counted the days till he should have his house to himself again. A quiet evening was a thing of the past; he was naturally expected to escort the ladies to their various entertainments. Besides, he was “only reading.” What selfishness to shut yourself up with a book, when a visitor’s amusement was in question! For, as usual, Mary’s solicitude was all for others. Much less consideration was shown him personally than in the old Ballarat days. Then, he had been the breadwinner, the wage-earner, and any disturbance of his life’s routine meant a corresponding disturbance in their income. Here, with money flowing in without effort, and abundantly — as it continued to do-there was no such practical reason to respect his privacy. And so it was: “Richard, will you answer these cards for me?” “See to the decanting of the port?” “Leave an order at the fruiterer’s?” “Book seats for EAST LYNNE, or MARITANA?”
In this hugger-mugger fashion week after week, month after month ran away. Then, however, things seemed to be tailing off, and he was just congratulating himself that he had bowed the last guest out, when Tilly arrived, and back they fell into the old atmosphere of fuss and flutter. Tilly had originally stood high on Mary’s list. Then, for some reason which was not made clear to him, her visit had been postponed; and he had comfortably forgotten all about it.
Once she was there, though, it was impossible to forget Tilly, even for an hour. Her buxom, bouncing presence filled the house. There was no escape from her strident voice, her empty, noisy laugh. The very silk of her gowns seemed to rustle more loudly than other women’s; and she had a foot like a grenadier. The truth was, his old aversion to Tilly, and the type she represented, broke out anew directly she crossed his door-sill. And three times a day he was forced to sit next her at meals, attend to her wants, and listen, as civilly as he might, to her crude comments on people and things.
In vain did Mary harp on Tilly’s sterling qualities. Before a week was out, Mahony swore he would prefer fewer virtues and more tact. Goodness of heart could be rated too highly. Why should not quick-wittedness, and sensitiveness to your neighbour’s tender places, also be counted to your credit? Why must it always be the blunt-tongued, the hob-nailed of approach, who got all the praise?
It was at the dinner-table where, in the course of talk, the burning question of spirits and spirit-phenomena had come up; and Mary — Mary, not he: it would never have occurred to him to dilate on the theme before such as Tilly! — had told of the raps and movements of furniture that were taking place at the house of a Mrs. Phayre, a prominent member of Melbourne society. Now Tilly knew very well he did NOT belong to those who dismissed such happenings with a smile and a shrug. Yet the mere mention of them was enough to send her off into an unmannerly guffaw.
“Ha, ha! . . . ha, ha, ha! To see your furniture jumping about the room! I’D pretty soon nab the slavey — you take my word for it, Mary, it’s the slavey — who played such tricks on me. I’D bundle ‘er off with a flea in ‘er ear.”
A glance at Richard showed him black as thunder. Mary adroitly changed the subject. But afterwards she came back on it.
“It’s all very well, Richard, but you can’t expect a common-sense person like Tilly NOT to be amused by that sort of thing.”
“And pray do you mean to imply that every one who does not mock and jeer is devoid of sense?”
“Of course not. Besides, I didn’t say sense; I said common sense.”
“Well, since you yourself bring in the ‘common,’ I’ll quote you the dictum of a famous man. ‘Commonplace minds usually condemn everything that is beyond the scope of their understanding.’”
“How sweeping! And so conceited. But Tilly is NOT commonplace. In many ways, she’s just as capable as her mother was. But I don’t think we ought to be discussing her. While she’s our visitor.”
“Good God! Is one to go blind and dumb because a fool is under one’s roof?”
“Well, really! I do wonder what you’ll say next.” Mary was hurt and showed it.
But Mahony did not try to conciliate her. He had a further ground for annoyance. Ever since Tilly had come to the house, that side of Mary’s nature had prevailed with which he was least in sympathy. Never had she seemed so deadly practical, and lacking in humour; so instinctively antagonistic to the imaginative and speculative sides of life. Her attitude, for example, to the subject under discussion. At bottom, this was no whit different from Tilly’s. “THAT sort of thing,” said as Mary said it, put her opinion of the new movement in a nutshell.
Out of this irritation he now demanded: “Tell me: are we never in this world to have our house to ourselves again?”
“But, Richard, Tilly HAD to come! . . . after the time I stayed with her. And now she’s here — even though you despise her so — we’ve got to do all we can to make her visit a success. I should hate her to think we didn’t consider her good enough to introduce to our friends.”
“Among whom she fits about as well as a porpoise in a basin of goldfish.”
“As if a porpoise could get inside a basin! How wildly you do talk! Besides you don’t mean it. For if ever there was a person particular about paying debts, it’s you.”
Late one afternoon he came in............