“Adelaide, here’s Nora,” said Stirling.
She took my hand and kissed me coolly.
“Welcome to Melbourne, Nora,” she said.
“I hope you had a good journey.”
“Interesting,” commented Stirling.
“All things considered.”
“We’re staying at the Lynx,” she said, ‘and catching the Cobb coach tomorrow morning. “
“Goodo,” said Stirling.
“The Lynx?” I queried.
“Our father’s hotel in Collins Street,” Adelaide explained.
“I expect you’d like to be getting along. Is all the baggage here?” Her eyes had come to rest on Jemmy.
“He’s part of the baggage,” said Stirling. I frowned at him, fearing that Jemmy might be hurt to hear himself so described; but he was unaware of the slight.
“We picked him up on the ship,” went on Stirling.
“Nora thinks he should be given some work to do. “
“Have you written to our father about him?”
“No, I am leaving it to Nora to explain to him.”
Adelaide looked a little startled but I pretended to be not in the least disturbed at the prospect of explaining Jemmy to their formidable parent.
“I have a buggy waiting,” she said.
“We’ll get all this stuff sent to the hotel.” She turned to me.
“We’re some forty miles out of Melbourne, but Cobb’s are good. You can rely on Cobb’s. So we come in frequently. The men ride in but I like Cobb’s. I hope you will settle down here.”
“I hope so too,” I said.
“She will if she makes up her mind to,” said Stirling.
“She’s a very determined person.”
I walked off with Adelaide and Stirling Jemmy following. I was only vaguely aware of the bustle all around me, and the carts drawn by horses or bullocks and loaded with wool hides and meat.
“It’s a busy town,” said Adelaide.
“It’s grown quickly in the last few years. Gold has made it rich.”
“Gold!” I said a little bitterly; and she must have known that I was thinking of my father. There was something very sympathetic about this woman.
“It’s pleasant to have the town not too far away,” she said.
“I hope you won’t find us too isolated. Have you ever lived in a big city?”
“I did for a time, but I have lived in the country, too; and I felt very isolated in the place where I was first a pupil, then a teacher.”
She nodded.
“We’ll do our best to make you feel at home. Ah, here’s the buggy. I’ll tell John to see about the baggage.”
“Jemmy will help,” said Stirling.
“Let him be worth his salt. He can come along later with John and the baggage.”
So it was arranged and I rode beside Stirling and Adelaide my new brother and sister into the town of Melbourne, just as the lamp lighters riding on horseback, were lighting the street-lamps with their long torches. They sang as they worked the old songs which I had heard so often at home. I remember particularly “Early One Morning’ and ” Strawberry Fair’; and I felt that although I had journeyed thousands of miles, I was not far from home.
The hotel was full of graziers who had come in from the 48 outback to Melbourne in order to negotiate their wool. They talked loudly of prices and the state of the market; but I was more interested in another type those men with bronzed faces and calloused hands and an avid look in their eyes. They were the diggers who had found a little gold, I imagined, and came in to spend it.
We ate dinner at six o’clock in the dining-room. I sat between Adelaide and Stirling, and it was Stirling who talked of these men and pointed out those who had struck lucky and those who hoped to.
I said, “Perhaps it would have been better if gold had not been discovered here.”
“Many of the good citizens of Melbourne would agree with you,” conceded Stirling.
“People are leaving their workaday jobs to go and look for a fortune. Mind you, many of them come back disillusioned before long. They dream of the nuggets they are going to pick up and a few grains of gold dust as is all they find.”
I shivered and thought of my father and wondered if he had ever come to this place and talked as these men were talking now.
“It’s a life of hardship they lead at the diggings,” said Adelaide.
“They’d be much better off doing a useful job.”
“But some of them make their fortunes,” Stirling reminded her.
“Money is the root of all evil,” said Adelaide.
“The love of it,” Stirling corrected her.
“But don’t we all love it?”
“Not it,” I put in.
“The things it can buy.”
“It’s the same thing,” Stirling replied.
“Not necessarily. Some people might want it for the sake of others.”
Both he and Adelaide knew that I was thinking of my father and Adelaide hastily changed the subject. She told me once more that the homestead was some forty miles north of Melbourne. Their father had built it ten years before; he had designed it himself and it was a fine house as houses in this part went. It was not exactly like an English mansion of course; but that would be absurd in such a place.
I asked what I should be expected to do there and Adelaide replied that I could help in the house. She supposed that in all the activities that went on I would be sure to find some thing which would appeal to me.
It doesn’t like idle folk,” said Stirling.
“Don’t call him by that ridiculous name,” reproved Adelaide. She turned to me.
“I’m sure you’ll find plenty to do.”
She talked a little about the country until Stirling said:
“Let her find out for herself.”
Then Adelaide asked me questions about England and I told her of Danesworth House and how I had become a pupil teacher there.
“You must have been most unhappy there,” she said and seemed rather pleased about this. I understood. She felt I should fit more happily into my new life since the old had not been very good.
And so we talked until dinner was over; then I returned to my room and when I had been there a short time there was a knock on the door and Adelaide came in. She looked so anxious that I immediately asked her if anything was wrong.
Oh no. I just thought we should have a little talk about everything.
I’d like you to be prepared. ” Then I knew that she was anxious on my behalf and that I had been right when I had thought her kind.
She sat down on the armchair and I took my place on the bed.
“This must be very strange to you.”
“Strange things have happened since my father died.”
“It is terrible to lose a father. I know what it is to lose a mother.
I lost mine when I was eight years old. It’s a long time ago, but it’s something I shall never forget. “
“She died when Stirling was born. He told me.”
She nodded.
“Don’t be afraid of my father,” she said.
Why should I be? “
“Most people are.”
“Perhaps that is because they are dependent on him. I shall not feel that. If he wants to be rid of me I shall go away. I suppose it would be possible to find a post here-perhaps with a family who need a governess and are going to England. Perhaps …” I was making situations to fit my needs, Stirling would say—just as my father had.
“Please don’t talk of leaving us just as you have come. You’ll give it a fair trial, won’t you?”
“Of course. I was only thinking of what I should do if your father decided he didn’t want me here.”