Read Online Ultima Thule by Henry Handel Richardson - Free Book Online
Authors: Henry Handel Richardson
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who's pleasanter. I heard you just the other day with that lawyer's wife who called . . . how you blew her up! She'll never come again. -- A morbid hypochondriac? I daresay. But in old days you'd never have told a patient to her face that she was either shamming or imagining."
"I'm too old to cozen and pander."
"Too old to care, you mean. -- Oh, for God's sake, think what you're doing! Try to stop on here a little longer, and if it's only for six months. Listen! I've got an idea." She raised herself on her elbow. "Why shouldn't we take in boarders? . . . just to tide us over till things get easier. This house is really much too big for us. One nursery would be enough for the children; and there's the spare room, and the breakfast-room . . . . I could probably fill all three; and make enough that way to cover our living expenses."
"Boarders? . . .you? Not while I'm above the sod!"
The children wilted . . . oh, it was a dreadful week! Papa never spoke, and slammed the doors and the gate whenever he went out. Mamma sat in the bedroom and cried, hastily blowing her nose and pretending she wasn't, if you happened to look in. And Cook and Eliza made funny faces, and whispered behind their hands. Cuffy, mooning about the house pale and dejected, was -- as usual when Mamma and Papa quarrelled -- harassed by the feeling that somehow or other he was the guilty person. He tried cosseting Mamma, hanging round her: he tried talking big to the Dumplings of what he meant to do when he was a man; he even glanced at the idea of running away. But none of these things lightened the weight that lay on his chest. It felt just as it had done the night Luce had the croup and crowed like a cock.
And then one afternoon Mahony came home transfigured. His bang of the gate, his very step, as it crunched the gravel, told its own tale. He ran up the stairs two at a time, calling for Mary; and, the door of the bedroom shut on them, broke into excited talk. It appeared that in a chance meeting that day with a fellow-medico ("Pincock, that well-known Richmond man!") he had heard of what seemed to him "an opening in a thousand," a flourishing practice to be had for the asking, at a place called Barambogie in the Ovens District.
"A rising township, my dear, half mining, half agricultural, and where there has never been but one doctor. He's an old friend of Pincock's, and is giving up -- after ten years in the place -- for purely personal reasons . . . nothing to do with the practice. It arose through Pincock asking me if I knew of any one who would like to step into a really good thing. This Rummel wants to retire, but will wait on of course till he hears of a successor. Nor is he selling. Whoever goes there has only to walk in and settle down. Such a chance won't come my way again. I should be mad to let it slip."
This news rang the knell of any hopes Mary might still have nursed of bringing him to his senses. She eyed him sombrely as he stood before her, pale with excitement; and such a wave of bitterness ran through her that she quickly looked away again, unable to find any but bitter words to say. In this glance, however, she had for once really seen him -- had not just looked, without seeing, after the habit of those who spend their lives together -- and the result was the amazed reflection: "But he's got the eyes of a child! . . . for all his wrinkles and grey hairs."
Mahony did not notice her silence. He continued to dilate on what he had said and the other had replied, till, in alarm, she burst out: "I hope to goodness you've not committed yourself in any way? . . . all in the dark as you are."
"Come, come now, my dear!" he half cozened, half fell foul of her. "Give me credit for at least a ha'p'orth of sense. You surely don't imagine I showed Pincock my cards? I flatter myself I was thoroughly off-hand with him . . . so much so, indeed, that before night he'll no doubt have cracked the place up to half a dozen others. -- Come, Mary, come! I'm
"I'm too old to cozen and pander."
"Too old to care, you mean. -- Oh, for God's sake, think what you're doing! Try to stop on here a little longer, and if it's only for six months. Listen! I've got an idea." She raised herself on her elbow. "Why shouldn't we take in boarders? . . . just to tide us over till things get easier. This house is really much too big for us. One nursery would be enough for the children; and there's the spare room, and the breakfast-room . . . . I could probably fill all three; and make enough that way to cover our living expenses."
"Boarders? . . .you? Not while I'm above the sod!"
The children wilted . . . oh, it was a dreadful week! Papa never spoke, and slammed the doors and the gate whenever he went out. Mamma sat in the bedroom and cried, hastily blowing her nose and pretending she wasn't, if you happened to look in. And Cook and Eliza made funny faces, and whispered behind their hands. Cuffy, mooning about the house pale and dejected, was -- as usual when Mamma and Papa quarrelled -- harassed by the feeling that somehow or other he was the guilty person. He tried cosseting Mamma, hanging round her: he tried talking big to the Dumplings of what he meant to do when he was a man; he even glanced at the idea of running away. But none of these things lightened the weight that lay on his chest. It felt just as it had done the night Luce had the croup and crowed like a cock.
And then one afternoon Mahony came home transfigured. His bang of the gate, his very step, as it crunched the gravel, told its own tale. He ran up the stairs two at a time, calling for Mary; and, the door of the bedroom shut on them, broke into excited talk. It appeared that in a chance meeting that day with a fellow-medico ("Pincock, that well-known Richmond man!") he had heard of what seemed to him "an opening in a thousand," a flourishing practice to be had for the asking, at a place called Barambogie in the Ovens District.
"A rising township, my dear, half mining, half agricultural, and where there has never been but one doctor. He's an old friend of Pincock's, and is giving up -- after ten years in the place -- for purely personal reasons . . . nothing to do with the practice. It arose through Pincock asking me if I knew of any one who would like to step into a really good thing. This Rummel wants to retire, but will wait on of course till he hears of a successor. Nor is he selling. Whoever goes there has only to walk in and settle down. Such a chance won't come my way again. I should be mad to let it slip."
This news rang the knell of any hopes Mary might still have nursed of bringing him to his senses. She eyed him sombrely as he stood before her, pale with excitement; and such a wave of bitterness ran through her that she quickly looked away again, unable to find any but bitter words to say. In this glance, however, she had for once really seen him -- had not just looked, without seeing, after the habit of those who spend their lives together -- and the result was the amazed reflection: "But he's got the eyes of a child! . . . for all his wrinkles and grey hairs."
Mahony did not notice her silence. He continued to dilate on what he had said and the other had replied, till, in alarm, she burst out: "I hope to goodness you've not committed yourself in any way? . . . all in the dark as you are."
"Come, come now, my dear!" he half cozened, half fell foul of her. "Give me credit for at least a ha'p'orth of sense. You surely don't imagine I showed Pincock my cards? I flatter myself I was thoroughly off-hand with him . . . so much so, indeed, that before night he'll no doubt have cracked the place up to half a dozen others. -- Come, Mary, come! I'm
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