And I thought how fortunate I was. I might have been sent away to an orphanage. But my beloved father would never have allowed any harm to come to me. And that was how it would always be.
Elsie’s house was set in grounds of about three acres. It was built in the old Colonial style with a platform round the front and six steps leading up to a porch before the main door.
We were about to mount these when a little dark man came running from some outbuildings which were obviously stables.
“Captain! Captain!” he cried.
“Why!” said Toby.
“If it isn’t Agio! How are you. Agio? It’s good to see you.”
The little man stood before Toby, grinning. They shook hands.
“Missus waiting. Miss Mabel, work hard. All clean. All waiting for Captain.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Toby.
“Polishing for me, is that it?” He winked at Agio to show he was joking as he went on: “I should have been heart-broken if they hadn’t put on a bit of polish to greet me.”
He turned to me and, at that moment, a door opened and a woman came on to the porch.
“Captain!” she cried, and flung herself at him.
“Mabel, Mabel … wonderful to see you. This is Carmel.”
He was smiling at me and, before Mabel had time to speak, another woman came out of the house.
“Well, here you are at last, Toby,” she said.
“What’s been keeping you? I saw the ship come in early this morning.”
“Duty, Elsie. What else could keep me?”
She kissed him on both cheeks and he said: “This is Carmel.”
She turned to me. She was tall, with reddish-brown hair a good deal of it coiled about her head. Her eyes were decidedly green. They sparkled and her teeth were very white against her suntanned skin.
There was an openness about her. I knew at once that she was the sort who would say exactly what she meant. There would be no subterfuge about her. I liked her immediately. She was a person one could trust.
“Carmel,” she was saying.
“Well now. I’ve heard about you and now here you are. Come to Sydney, eh? Had a good trip, have you?”
She took my hands and looked intently into my face. I wondered fleetingly what a wife would think of a daughter her husband had had, who was not hers. But not for long. Elsie would have said what she thought of it and she did not appear at this stage to think it was so very odd.
“A pity you’re only staying a week,” she said to me.
“Can’t see a lot of the place in that time. And there’s something to see, I can tell you. Well, we’ll make the most of what we have. And what are we doing standing about here? Come on in, you two. Now, I reckon you’re hungry.
Don’t suppose they fed you very well on board that old thing, did they?”
She threw a glance at Toby which showed she was teasing, and he said immediately: “Our food was excellent, wasn’t it, Carmel?”
“Oh yes,” I said.
“It was very good.”
“You wait until you see what we can give you, love. Why, at the end of the week, you’ll be wanting to stay here. I’ll take a bet on that.”
She took my arm as we went in, and I could see that Toby was very pleased by this reception.
“You know where to go, To be,” said Elsie. It sounded strange to hear his name pronounced thus, but I had to learn that Elsie had a habit of shortening people’s names. She turned to me.
“Always the same room when he stays here, which isn’t as often as I’d like. But we have to make the best of what we can get, don’t we? And you, love. I’ll show you where you are. You’ve got a lovely view of the harbour. We’re proud of our harbour. Show it off when we’ve got the chance. You’ll find a bit of mail in your room, To be. Letters from home. I’ve been storing them up, but don’t start on them yet, because you’ve got a meal waiting for you.”
Toby stretched himself and looked up at the sky and at the house.
“Good to be here,” he said.
“Good to have you,” said Elsie.
“Isn’t that so, Mabe?”
“I’d say,” said Mabel.
“And Agio agrees with us,” said Elsie.
The aborigine grinned.
“He’s a good boy. Agio. He wouldn’t go walkabout when the Captain’s coming.”
Agio shook his head and grinned.
When I asked later what was meant by this, Toby told me that the aborigines were good workers when they worked, but it had to be remembered that they were unused to living in houses or being confined in any way, and now and then the urge came to them to ‘go walkabout’ which meant going off. Sometimes they came back, sometimes not; but one could never be sure; and even the most devoted ones could take it into their heads to go walkabout.
“Now come on in,” Elsie was saying.
It was undoubtedly a warm welcome. I thought of Mrs. Marline greeting Lady Crompton on the rare occasions when she had come to Commonwood House. How different that had been!
My room was large and, as Elsie had said, had a good view of the harbour. There was a bed, wardrobe and washbasin, a dressing-table and a few chairs. The floor was wooden blocks with a few mats on it. The room had been furnished with the essentials and again Commonwood was brought to my mind by its very difference.
I had been told to come to the dining-room as soon as I was ready, and when I opened my door Toby was just coming out of his room.
“All right?” he asked, with a touch of anxiety in his voice.
“Yes. It’s fun.”
“I knew you’d get along with Elsie. Most people do.”
“Except you,” I said.
“Oh, that’s different. We get along well in most things, but not in marriage.” He took my arm and pressed it.
“Pity,” he went on, ‘but that’s how it is. You’ll like it here. There’s lots to see. Elsie couldn’t wait to meet you. Come and look at my room. “
It was very like mine-wooden floor, rugs and essential furniture.
“Not much like Commonwood,” said Toby.
“No … I was thinking that.”
“Different atmosphere. No formality here. It’s all open and honest.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“I feel that.”
He ruffled my hair and kissed me.
“I’ve just combed it!” I said.
“Never mind. Elsie won’t scold.”
I looked round his room.
“There are a lot of letters waiting for you,” I said.
“Yes, I didn’t want to delve into them yet. They can wait. Nothing important, I guess. Come on. Let’s go down. Otherwise there’ll be trouble.”
It was a good meal. We were joined by Mabel, who seemed to be a kind of housekeeper friend There was a young girl of about fifteen who waited at table. She was Jane and again I was struck by the lack of formality. And because it was all so different from Commonwood, I found myself yet again wondering what was happening there. It would all be changed now Mrs. Marline had gone. Miss Carson would be there and Adeline would have nothing to fear.
Elsie talked a great deal in a bantering sort of way to Toby, but her conversation was directed mainly at me. She told me what we must do while we were in Sydney. There was so much she wanted to show me. We could take a boat trip across the harbour. That’s if I wasn’t a bit tired of boats! But this would be a little rowing-boat perhaps. Though there was a ferry. Did I ride?
“Oh, goo do You need a horse out here. You’d be lost without one.”
We’d have some meals outside.
“The weather’s good, you see. You can rely on it more than you can at home.”
I discovered that she often talked of England with a kind of affectionate contempt. Things were always done better ‘down under’, which was Australia. I learned afterwards that she had been born in Australia, and had never been to England, yet she called it ‘home’.