Over the Blue Mountains Page 11

  “Father told me this afternoon—”

  “You have no right to worry your father with business affairs when he is so ill,” interrupted Aunt Katherine, with an angry glance at her younger daughter. “Oh, I wish Andrew were home! I sometimes think he is the only one of my children who really understands me.”

  Penelope ignored this tribute to her brother, and merely said rather obstinately, “I didn’t ask father any questions. He told me of his own accord that he hoped to be able to make an honorable settlement with his creditors since—”

  “And what about us?” inquired her mother fretfully. “What is to happen to us?”

  Neither of the girls offered to answer this for a moment. Then Penelope said, with what Juliet could not help recognizing as obstinate courage, “We must save what we can from the wreck. The creditors can’t touch what you have, mother. And Andrew must go to work, and as soon as possible I’ll do the same.”

  “Andrew? But Andrew hasn’t even started at the university yet,” protested Aunt Katherine. “What nonsense you do talk, Penelope.”

  “He probably won’t be able to go to the university now,” Penelope countered, in spite of a warning glance from her cousin.

  This, somewhat to Juliet’s astonishment, was the signal for quite a violent outburst on her aunt’s part. She accused her younger daughter of being callous, jealous of her brother, grudging him the opportunities to which his position and talents entitled him.

  It was not, Juliet thought from the calm way her young cousin took this, an entirely unusual occurrence. But, unable to allow this tirade to continue without interruption, she said firmly after a minute or two, “Aunt Katherine, you entirely misunderstood Penelope. She was only trying to make some practical suggestions, and she didn’t suggest that her brother should do anything she was not prepared to do herself. Please don’t upset yourself. I feel sure Max will have some good advice to give, and once we know Uncle Edmund is going to recover we can make plans. I don’t believe any situation ever looks so bad once one has decided how to tackle it.”

  The logic might not be perfect, but the tone in which Juliet spoke carried some cheering conviction with it. Penelope actually smiled faintly, while Aunt Katherine clutched Juliet’s hand and said, “Do you really think things may not be so bad, after all?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Juliet insisted.

  “Oh, I do hope you’re right! Do you think we may even be able to stay on in this house?” Aunt Katherine continued unrealistically. “I don’t think I could ever really be happy anywhere else.”

  “I’m afraid that’s hoping rather a lot, Aunt Katherine. But places don’t really matter as much as all that, you know. Provided one’s family is well and happy—”

  “But it’s almost impossible to be well and happy in reduced circumstances,” protested Aunt Katherine, who honestly believed that.

  Juliet laughed.

  “Don’t you believe it! I’ve been supremely happy in what I’m sure you would call reduced circumstances,” she declared. “In any case, as Max says, happiness is largely a state of mind.” She checked slightly and felt a little uncomfortable under the surprised glance that her aunt gave her when she quoted Max so glibly. “I’m sure he is right,” she added firmly.

  “I wonder.” Aunt Katherine smiled a little skeptically. “But you make me feel better when you talk so confidently, Juliet, dear. I’m so glad you will be able to be with us, after all, now that you aren’t going to marry that horrid young man who let you down so badly.”

  Until Aunt Katherine actually put that into words, Juliet had not really faced the possibility of staying indefinitely with her relations. But when her aunt spoke with such genuine relief, and Penelope turned a brightening face toward her at the very thought, it was difficult to see how she could add a warning that she was not entirely willing to throw in her lot with them.

  For the moment certainly, there was nothing she could say. And, in any case, it was her full intention to remain with them for the time being and be of what assistance she could. The future, she decided, with characteristic though rash generosity, must look after itself.

  Later, on the way back to the hotel, she told Max of her intention. But he did not, she thought, give the proposal his wholehearted approval.

  “Don’t commit yourself to anything long-term, Juliet,” was what he said.

  “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t do that. But—they’re going to need someone to take a practical hold of the household management, apart from anything else,” Juliet declared. “Aunt Katherine isn’t really much good at that, you know. I am sure she is a lovely hostess, and all that sort of thing. But I can’t imagine that she knows much about running a household on practical and economical lines.”

  “And you feel you could do that?” He looked slightly amused.

  “Oh, yes! Mother and I never had much money. But we lived well and enjoyed ourselves enormously. I think I might be able to help them a little over the difficult change from luxurious living to something more modest. I haven’t seen Andrew yet, of course, but I liked Penelope on sight, and I feel I could make things easier for her and my uncle and aunt.”

  “And where,” asked Max, looking thoughtfully out of the taxi window, “does Verity come in all this?”

  “Oh, but—” Juliet hesitated, stammered, and felt quite extraordinarily embarrassed “—I imagined you and she—I mean, isn’t she going to marry you?”

  “We are officially engaged now,” Max said. “We fixed that this evening. But we are going to have a six or nine months’ engagement.”

  “Was that her idea?” asked Juliet incredulously before she could stop herself.

  He raised his eyebrows slightly to emphasize the fact that this was hardly her business. But he replied coolly, “The idea was mine. But Verity agreed with me that this was not quite the time to leave her parents to face the music alone. She is, after all, the eldest of their children. In fact, the only one who is grown-up.”

  Juliet concealed her astonishment with difficulty. Verity would never, she felt certain, have come to any such conclusion on her own. She must have been very anxious indeed to please Max if she had been persuaded to take this view of her parents’ troubles.

  In addition, Juliet was a good deal surprised that Max himself should have chosen to delay. From everything she knew of his rather masterful way of settling other people’s difficulties, she would have supposed that he would insist on an early wedding so that his beloved at least should be saved any drastic changes, and then give any practical and generous help he could to what would have become an extension of his own family.

  A little curiously, Juliet glanced at Max in the passing lamplight. He looked grave, as was natural, but—something she had never seen him look before—restless. She wondered if he had had a good deal of trouble with Verity over that decision, and why, in that case, he had been so determined to press it.

  Well, one thing was certain. They were officially engaged now. He had said so himself.

  “Of course, if Verity is going to be at home—” Juliet spoke again at last, after a longer pause than she had intended “—she will naturally take on the role I suggested for myself.”

  “I don’t think so, Juliet.”

  “No? What would she want to do, then?”

  “I don’t think any form of domestic management would be much in Verity’s line.” He smiled, not critically, but as though one might as well look facts in the face. “It’s difficult to make detailed suggestions yet, of course, until we know just how complete the financial debacle is. But obviously they will have to leave that place and live in much more modest circumstances—in Melbourne, I suppose. I imagine Verity’s best contribution to the problem would be to get a job and give something toward the family budget. Of course, they could live far more cheaply in the country, and—” he looked thoughtful “—I could fix them up myself, in those circumstances. But I don’t quite know how they would take to such a complete change. Besides,
if Verity—and Andrew, too—need jobs, they will find those better in town.”

  “What was your idea,” Juliet inquired curiously, “if they did decide they would live in the country?”

  “I have a little place—a small holding, I suppose you would call it back home—about a hundred miles from Bathurst—”

  “Near Carol, do you mean?” Juliet interrupted eagerly.

  “Not more than fifty miles away from her. Near enough to go to lunch sometimes,” he replied with a smile. “It was left me by an old friend last year, and has always presented something of a problem. If the Burletts really cared to take the place they could have it free, of course. I suppose Verity could work in Bathurst—” he looked reflective “—Andrew could, too, unless the family have other plans for him. Or he might work on the place. I don’t really remember much about it, for it’s some years since I saw it, but no doubt one could raise enough for modest living on the place itself.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Juliet said. At which he laughed rather derisively.

  “I’m afraid your aunt wouldn’t think it did, my dear. Poor woman, it wouldn’t be her idea of a livable life at all. But, of course, the question simply is—what is left? If there is virtually nothing, a free home anywhere is not to be turned down without thought.”

  “No, indeed,” Juliet agreed soberly. And then, because she found that, in any future plan, she wanted to know what Max’s own place might be, she asked something she had wanted to ask several times in the past two weeks. “Max, where would you be during the next six, months? I mean—what do you do, exactly, for a living? You always seem to have time to do anything you want or go anywhere you want.”

  He laughed again at that, more heartily than she had ever seen him laugh before.

  “It’s not quite such a good life as that, Juliet, though I admit I have been very much my own master during the past six months. Usually I am kept working eighteen hours out of twenty-four on my own place in South Australia. But I turned the estate over to a capable manager for twelve months near the beginning of the year, because I had to go to Europe for a while on family business. That leaves me some months of freedom still, and during that time, I hope to see the Burletts settled in one way or another.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad!” she exclaimed. “I mean—” she blushed, but fortunately he could not see that in the gloom of the taxi “—I mean that we shall have you at hand for a while to advise and give us a sense of security.”

  “You needn’t worry about that.” He put out his hand and patted hers, sharply but with reassurance, as it lay on her knee.

  And then the taxi drew up outside the hotel and they got out.

  The long sweep of Collins Street was almost deserted by now, and as she stood there for a moment, breathing in the clear night air, Juliet looked up at the brilliant stars in the night sky, far above the buildings that towered around her.

  “It’s so queer to find that even the stars are different here,” she said to Max as he paused beside her. “I never can get over no longer being able to see the Plow and the Great Bear.”

  “You have to take the Southern Cross as your guiding point now,” he told her with a laugh. And, taking her arm, he pointed with his other hand to where the bright points of the Southern Cross blazed among lesser stars. “There it is, my dear. Make friends with it and all it stands for.”

  “Why, Max—” she turned her laughing face to his “—what an odd thing to say! What do you mean exactly?”

  He turned his head, too, and for a moment she saw that his brilliant eyes shone with some intense emotion that she could not in the least identify. He did not laugh as she did, and if he had not become engaged to Verity that very evening, she would have vowed that he was on the point of kissing her.

  But Max was no philanderer, she knew, and she could only suppose that it was some deep patriotic feeling that roughened his voice as he answered abruptly, “I mean that I want you to love Australia—and us.”

  “But, Max, dear—” she was curiously moved “—I do! Indeed I do. In spite of all that happened in the first few days, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was at Bakandi.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “But come—you’ll get cold if we stand out here.”

  They went into the hotel together and, as she walked toward the elevator, Juliet found that she was trembling. She was not cold, however. Not in the least. She told herself she must be suffering from weariness after the long day—and perhaps a little from the crowded events of the evening.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  During the next few days, Juliet began not only to get to know something of Melbourne, but also to take the measure of the task she had undertaken in deciding to devote herself, at any rate for the time being, to the welfare of her relations.

  She moved from the hotel to the beautiful house overlooking the Yarra. And here—at least so far as making use of her was concerned—she became very much one of the family.

  Aunt Katherine, ever ready to lean on anyone who would relieve her of unwelcome tasks or responsibilities, began to look to Juliet in even minor difficulties, and she would not so much as make a telephone call if her niece were at hand to do it for her.

  “It depresses me, you see, darling, even to talk to people who have known us in such different circumstances,” she explained.

  Juliet pointed out tactfully that she could not live isolated for the rest of her life and that possibly the sooner she persuaded herself to take up the broken threads again the better she would feel. But Aunt Katherine only sighed and said, “It’s all right for you to talk, my dear. Nothing has happened to you.”

  Juliet, who was patient by nature, did finally point out that other people had their sorrows and humiliations, too.

  “You, do you mean?” Aunt Katherine looked surprised.

  “Well, among other people—yes, Aunt Katherine.”

  “Oh, but your trouble was a natural one. It must happen to us all eventually. And it’s several months since your mother died,” was what Aunt Katherine said.

  “I wasn’t thinking of my mother’s death.” Juliet bit her lip sharply. “Though that isn’t so easily put behind one, either, Aunt Katherine. I was thinking of—of losing Martin.”

  Her aunt appeared to recall Martin’s identity with difficulty and, when she did, she exclaimed in a tone of incredulous reproof, “The young man who married some other girl? Oh, my dear child, what a small thing to measure against what has happened to us! Why, you probably had a lucky escape. In fact, you certainly did if he was so unreliable. There are plenty of other young men in the world. Don’t exaggerate your troubles.” She sighed again. “There are enough for us all without doing that.” And then she smiled faintly to show how philosophical she could be about other people’s troubles.

  With a great effort, Juliet restrained herself from continuing the argument. After all, she was there to try and comfort her aunt.

  Verity, for her part, though she expressed no special gratitude to Juliet, was evidently satisfied to have her take over any tiresome duties that might otherwise have fallen to herself.

  She seemed already resigned to the idea of earning her own living during the months of her engagement. But she was adamant on one point. She would not do it in Melbourne.

  “Not where people know me,” she exclaimed angrily, when Max discussed the subject with her in front of Juliet. “And not in Adelaide, where I’ll later be known as your wife.”

  “But, my dear girl, earning your own living is nothing to be ashamed of,” her fiancé protested. “Very much the contrary. Why should you mind anyone knowing that you are tackling a difficult situation with dignity and determination?”

  Verity laughed skeptically.

  “You haven’t ever been connected with a shameful sensation, Max,” she said. “People aren’t interested in your dignity then. Either they pity you, which is insufferable, or they feel pleasantly superior and show it—which is worse.”

  “
I think you take a hard view of human nature,” Max said equably.

  But nothing he could add would persuade her. And when he saw that, he asked her where else she would care to try.

  “I don’t care, so long as it isn’t either of the two places I’ve named.” Verity spoke with rather bitter indifference, and Juliet saw that, to her, this business of helping her parents by earning her own living for a while was simply a distasteful way of satisfying some scruple of Max’s. She thought the idea absurd and unfair. But rather than risk trouble with the fiancé she had just acquired, she was prepared to gratify this inconvenient whim of his.

  “Well, in that case—” Max regarded her thoughtfully “—perhaps Bathurst might—”

  “Bathurst? Why Bathurst, for heaven’s sake?”

  He smiled slightly and began to explain about the house he had in the country about a hundred miles from Bathurst, which he was very willing to turn over to her parents, if it could be made to fit in with the general family scheme.

  “If you and Andrew had work in Bathurst—”

  “Andrew?” Verity looked as shocked as she could about the affairs of anyone other than herself. “Mother wouldn’t hear of Andrew doing anything.”

  “She may have to.” Max was unmoved. “It is probably just one of those things she will have to get used to.”

  “Max—” Verity looked at him curiously “—In some ways you are hard. You could so easily—” She broke off and colored faintly as though she had allowed her thoughts to become words without quite thinking what she was doing.

  He smiled, but dryly this time.

  “I would be doing Andrew no service by offering to rescue him from an early introduction to hard work, if that is what you mean. I come of people who have always worked hard. I have done so myself in my time, and expect to do so again.”

  “And is that why you insist on my learning about it before I marry?” Verity challenged him. “Just for the good of my soul?”

  He laughed and touched her cheek lightly.