An Unfinished Love Story

Brook let down the heavy, awkward sliprails, and the gaunt cattle stumbled through, with aggravating deliberation, and scattered slowly among the native apple-trees along the sidling. First there came an old easygoing red poley cow, then a dusty white cow; then two shaggy, half-grown calves⁠—who seemed already to have lost all interest in existence⁠—and after them a couple of “babies,” sleek, glossy, and cheerful; then three more tired-looking cows, with ragged udders and hollow sides; then a lanky barren heifer⁠—red, of course⁠—with half-blind eyes and one crooked horn⁠—she was noted for her great agility in jumping two-rail fences, and she was known to the selector as “Queen Elizaberth;” and behind her came a young cream-coloured milker⁠—a mighty proud and contented young mother⁠—painfully and patiently dragging her first calf, which was hanging obstinately to a teat, with its head beneath her hind legs. Last of all there came the inevitable red steer, who scratched the dust and let a stupid bwoo‑ur‑r‑rr out of him as he snuffed at the rails.

Brook had shifted the rails there often before⁠—fifteen years ago⁠—perhaps the selfsame rails, for stringy-bark lasts long; and the action brought the past near to him⁠—nearer than he wished. He did not like to think of that hungry, wretched selection existence; he felt more contempt than pity for the old-fashioned, unhappy boy, who used to let down the rails there, and drive the cattle through.

He had spent those fifteen years in cities, and had come here, prompted more by curiosity than anything else, to have a quiet holiday. His father was dead; his other relations had moved away, leaving a tenant on the old selection.

Brook rested his elbow on the top rail of an adjacent panel and watched the cattle pass, and thought until Lizzie⁠—the tenant’s niece⁠—shoved the red steer through and stood gravely regarding him (Brook, and not the steer); then he shifted his back to the fence and looked at her. He had not much to look at: a short, plain, thin girl of nineteen, with rather vacant grey eyes, dark ringlets, and freckles; she had no complexion to speak of; she wore an ill-fitting print frock, and a pair of men’s ’lastic-sides several sizes too large for her. She was “studying for a schoolteacher;” that was the height of the ambition of local youth. Brook was studying her.

He turned away to put up the rails. The lower rail went into its place all right, but the top one had got jammed, and it stuck as though it was spiked. He worked the rail up and down and to and fro, took it under his arm and tugged it; but he might as well have pulled at one of the posts. Then he lifted the loose end as high as he could, and let it fall⁠—jumping back out of the way at the same time; this loosened it, but when he lifted it again it slid so easily and far into its socket that the other end came out and fell, barking Brook’s knee. He swore a little, then tackled the rail again; he had the same trouble as before with the other end, but succeeded at last. Then he turned away, rubbing his knee.

Lizzie hadn’t smiled, not once; she watched him gravely all the while.

“Did you hurt your knee?” she asked, without emotion.

“No. The rail did.”

She reflected solemnly for a while, and then asked him if it felt sore.

He replied rather briefly in the negative.

“They were always nasty, awkward rails to put up,” she remarked, after some more reflection.

Brook agreed, and then they turned their faces towards the homestead. Halfway down the sidling was a clump of saplings, with a big log lying amongst them. Here Brook paused. “We’ll sit down for a while and have a rest,” said he. “Sit down, Lizzie.”

She obeyed with the greatest of gravity. Nothing was said for awhile. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, gazing thoughtfully at the ridge, which was growing dim. It looked better when it was dim, and so did the rest of the scenery. There was no beauty lost when darkness hid the scenery altogether. Brook wondered what the girl was thinking about. The silence between them did not seem awkward, somehow; but it didn’t suit him just then, and so presently he broke it.

“Well, I must go tomorrow.”

“Must you?”

“Yes.”

She thought awhile, and then she asked him if he was glad to go.

“Well, I don’t know. Are you sorry, Lizzie?”

She thought a good long while, and then she said she was.

He moved closer to the girl, and suddenly slipped his arm round her waist. She did not seem agitated; she still gazed dreamily at the line of ridges, but her head inclined slightly towards him.

“Lizzie, did you ever love anyone?”⁠—then anticipating the usual reply⁠—“except, of course, your father and mother, and all that sort of thing.” Then, abruptly: “I mean did you ever have a sweetheart?”

She reflected, so as to be sure; then she said she hadn’t. Long pause, and he, the city man, breathed hard⁠—not the girl. Suddenly he moved nervously, and said:

“Lizzie⁠—Lizzie! Do you know what love means?”

She pondered over this for some minutes, as a result of which she said she thought that she did.

“Lizzie! Do you think you can love me?”

She didn’t seem able to find an answer to that. So he caught her to him in both arms, and kissed her hard and long on the mouth. She was agitated now⁠—he had some complexion now; she struggled to her feet, trembling.

“We must go now,” she said quickly. “They will be waiting for tea.”

He stood up before her, and held her there by both hands.

“There is plenty of time. Lizzie⁠—”

“Mister Br-o-o-k-er! Li-i-z-zee-e-e! Come ter yer tea-e-e!” yelled a boy from the house.

“We must really go now.”

“Oh, they can wait a minute. Lizzie, don’t be frightened”⁠—bending his head⁠—“Lizzie, put your arms round my neck and kiss me⁠—now. Do as I tell you, Lizzie⁠—they cannot see us,” and he drew her behind a bush. “Now, Lizzie.”

She obeyed just as a frightened child might.

“We must go now,” she panted, breathless from such an embrace.

“Lizzie, you will come for a walk with me after tea?”

“I don’t know⁠—I can’t promise. I don’t think it would be right. Aunt mightn’t like me to.”

“Never mind aunt. I’ll fix her. We’ll go for a walk over to the schoolteacher’s place. It will be bright moonlight.”

“I don’t like to promise. My father and mother might not⁠—”

“Why, what are you frightened of? What harm is there in it?” Then, softly, “Promise, Lizzie.”

“Promise, Lizzie.”

She was hesitating.

“Promise, Lizzie. I’m going away tomorrow⁠—might never see you again. You will come, Lizzie? It will be our last talk together. Promise, Lizzie.⁠ ⁠… Oh, then, if you don’t like to, I won’t press you.⁠ ⁠… Will you come, or no?”

“Ye-es.”

“One more, and I’ll take you home.”

It was nearly dark.

Brook was moved to get up early next morning and give the girl a hand with the cows. There were two rickety bails in the yard. He had not forgotten how to milk, but the occupation gave him no pleasure⁠—it brought the past near again.

Now and then he would turn his face, rest his head against the side of the cow, and watch Lizzie at her work; and each time she would, as though in obedience to an influence she could not resist, turn her face to him⁠—having noted the pause in his milking. There was a wonder in her expression⁠—as if something had come into her life which she could not realize⁠—curiosity in his.

When the spare pail was full, he would follow her with it to the little bark dairy; and she held out the cloth which served as a strainer whilst he poured the milk in, and, as the last drops went through, their mouths would come together.

He carried the slop-buckets to the pigsty for her, and helped to poddy a young calf. He had to grip the calf by the nape of the neck, insert a forefinger in its mouth, and force its nose down into an oil-drum full of skim milk. The calf sucked, thinking it had a teat; and so it was taught to drink. But calves have a habit, born of instinct, of butting the udders with their noses, by way of reminding their mothers to let down the milk; and so this calf butted at times, splashing sour milk over Brook, and barking his wrist against the sharp edge of the drum. Then he would swear a little, and Lizzie would smile sadly and gravely.

Brook did not go away that day, nor the next, but he took the coach on the third day thereafter. He and Lizzie found a quiet corner to say goodbye in. She showed some emotion for the first time, or, perhaps, the second⁠—maybe the third time⁠—in that week of her life. They had been out together in the moonlight every evening. (Brook had been fifteen years in cities.) They had scarcely looked at each other that morning⁠—and scarcely spoken.

He looked back as the coach started and saw her sitting inside the big kitchen window. She waved her hand⁠—hopelessly it seemed. She had rolled up her sleeve, and to Brook the arm seemed strangely white and fair above the line of sunburn round the wrist. He hadn’t noticed it before. Her face seemed fairer too, but, perhaps, it was only the effect of light and shade round that window.

He looked back again, as the coach turned the corner of the fence, and was just in time to see her bury her face in her hands with a passionate gesture which did not seem natural to her.

Brook reached the city next evening, and, “after hours,” he staggered in through a side entrance to the lighted parlour of a private bar.

They say that Lizzie broke her heart that year, but, then, the world does not believe in such things nowadays.

Board and Residence

One o’clock on Saturday. The unemployed’s one o’clock on Saturday! Nothing more can be done this week, so you drag yourself wearily and despairingly “home,” with the cheerful prospect of a penniless Saturday afternoon and evening and the long horrible Australian-city Sunday to drag through. One of the landlady’s clutch⁠—and she is an old hen⁠—opens the door, exclaims:

“Oh, Mr. Careless!” and grins. You wait an anxious minute, to postpone the disappointment which you feel by instinct is coming, and then ask hopelessly whether there are any letters for you.

“No, there’s nothing for you, Mr. Careless.” Then in answer to the unspoken question, “The postman’s been, but there’s nothing for you.”

You hang up your hat in the stuffy little passage, and start upstairs, when, “Oh, Mr. Careless, mother wants to know if you’ve had yer dinner.”

You haven’t, but you say you have. You are empty enough inside, but the emptiness is filled up, as it were, with the wrong sort of hungry vacancy⁠—gnawing anxiety. You haven’t any stomach for the warm, tasteless mess which has been “kep’ ’ot” for you in a cold stove. You feel just physically tired enough to go to your room, lie down on the bed, and snatch twenty minutes’ rest from that terrible unemployed restlessness which, you know, is sure to drag you to your feet to pace the room or tramp the pavement even before your bodily weariness has nearly left you. So you start up the narrow, stuffy little flight of steps call the “stairs.” Three small doors open from the landing⁠—a square place of about four feet by four. The first door is yours; it is open, and⁠—

Decided odour of bedroom dust and fluff, damped and kneaded with cold soapsuds. Rear view of a girl covered with a damp, draggled, dirt-coloured skirt, which gapes at the waistband from the “body,” disclosing a good glimpse of soiled stays (ribs burst), and yawns behind over a decidedly dirty white petticoat, the slit of which last, as she reaches forward and backs out convulsively, half opens and then comes together in an unsatisfactory, startling, tantalizing way, and allows a hint of a red flannel under-something. The frayed ends of the skirt lie across a hopelessly-burst pair of elastic-sides which rest on their inner edges⁠—toes out⁠—and jerk about in a seemingly undecided manner. She is damping and working up the natural layer on the floor with a piece of old flannel petticoat dipped occasionally in a bucket which stands by her side, containing about a quart of muddy water. She looks round and exclaims, “Oh, did you want to come in, Mr. Careless?” Then she says she’ll be done in a minute; furthermore she remarks that if you want to come in you won’t be in her road. You don’t⁠—you go down to the dining-room⁠—parlour⁠—sitting-room⁠—nursery⁠—and stretch yourself on the sofa in the face of the painfully-evident disapproval of the landlady.

You have been here, say, three months, and are only about two weeks behind. The landlady still says, “Good morning, Mr. Careless,” or “Good evening, Mr. Careless,” but there is an unpleasant accent on the “Mr.,” and a still more unpleasantly pronounced stress on the “morning” or “evening.” While your money lasted you paid up well and regularly⁠—sometimes in advance⁠—and dined out most of the time; but that doesn’t count now.

Ten minutes pass, and then the landlady’s disapproval becomes manifest and aggressive. One of the little girls, a sharp-faced little larrikiness, who always wears a furtive grin of cunning⁠—it seems as though it were born with her, and is perhaps more a misfortune than a fault⁠—comes in and says please she wants to tidy up.

So you get up and take your hat and go out again to look for a place to rest in⁠—to try not to think.

You wish you could get away upcountry. You also wish you were dead.

The landlady, Mrs. Jones, is a widow, or grass-widow, Welsh, of course, and clannish; flat face, watery grey eyes, shallow, selfish, ignorant, and a hypocrite unconsciously⁠—by instinct.

But the worst of it is that Mrs. Jones takes advantage of the situation to corner you in the passage when you want to get out, or when you come in tired, and talk. It amounts to about this: She has been fourteen years in this street, taking in boarders; everybody knows her; everybody knows Mrs. Jones; her poor husband died six years ago (God rest his soul); she finds it hard to get a living these times; work, work, morning, noon, and night (talk, talk, talk, more likely). “Do you know Mr. Duff of the Labour Bureau?” He has known her family for years; a very nice gentleman⁠—a very nice gentleman indeed; he often stops at the gate to have a yarn with her on his way to the office (he must be hard up for a yarn). She doesn’t know hardly nobody in this street; she never gossips; it takes her all her time to get a living; she can’t be bothered with neighbours; it’s always best to keep to yourself and keep neighbours at a distance. Would you believe it, Mr. Careless, she has been two years in this house and hasn’t said above a dozen words to the woman next door; she’d just know her by sight if she saw her; as for the other woman she wouldn’t know her from a crow. Mr. Blank and Mrs. Blank could tell you the same.⁠ ⁠… She always had gentlemen staying with her; she never had no cause to complain of one of them except once; they always treated her fair and honest. Here follows story about the exception; he, I gathered, was a journalist, and she could never depend on him. He seemed, from her statements, to have been decidedly erratic in his movements, mode of life and choice of climes. He evidently caused her a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and I felt a kind of sneaking sympathy for his memory. One young fellow stayed with her five years; he was, etc. She couldn’t be hard on any young fellow that gets out of work; of course if he can’t get it he can’t pay; she can’t get blood out of a stone; she couldn’t turn him out in the street. “I’ve got sons of my own, Mr. Careless, I’ve got sons of my own.”⁠ ⁠… She is sure she always does her best to make her boarders comfortable, and if they want anything they’ve only got to ask for it. The kettle is always on the stove if you want a cup of tea, and if you come home late at night and want a bit of supper you’ve only got to go to the safe (which of us would dare?). She never locks it, she never did.⁠ ⁠… And then she begins about her wonderful kids, and it goes on hour after hour. Lord! it’s enough to drive a man mad.

We were recommended to this place on the day of our arrival by a young dealer in the furniture line, whose name was Moses⁠—and he looked like it, but we didn’t think of that at the time. He had Mrs. Jones’s card in his window, and he left the shop in charge of his missus and came round with us at once. He assured us that we couldn’t do better than stay with her. He said she was a most respectable lady, and all her boarders were decent young fellows⁠—gentlemen; she kept everything scrupulously clean, and kept the best table in town, and she’d do for us (washing included) for eighteen shillings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer⁠—for the want of somebody else to ask⁠—and after that he said that Mrs. Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we’d be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we’d be allowed to do as we liked⁠—she wasn’t particular; she wouldn’t mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way⁠—she was used to that, in fact; she liked to see young fellows enjoying themselves. We afterwards found out that he got so much on every boarder he captured. We also found out⁠—after paying in advance⁠—that her gentlemen generally sent out their white things to be done; she only did the coloured things, so we had to pay a couple of bob extra a week to have our “biled” rags and collars sent out and done; and after the first week they bore sad evidence of having been done on the premises by one of the frowsy daughters. But we paid all the same. And, good Lord! If she keeps the best table in town, we are curious to see the worst. When you go down to breakfast you find on the table in front of your chair a cold plate, with a black something⁠—God knows what it looks like⁠—in the centre of it. It eats like something scraped off the inside of a hide and burnt; and with this you have a cup of warm grey slush called a “cup of tea.” Dinner: A slice of alleged roast beef or boiled mutton, of no particular colour or taste; three new spuds, of which the largest is about the size of an ordinary hen’s egg, the smallest that of a bantam, and the middle one in between, and which eat soggy and have no taste to speak of, save that they are a trifle bitter; a dab of unhealthy-looking green something, which might be either cabbage leaves or turnip-tops, and a glass of water. The whole mess is lukewarm, including the water⁠—it would all be better cold. Tea: A thin slice of the aforesaid alleged roast or mutton, and the pick of about six thin slices of stale bread⁠—evidently cut the day before yesterday. This is the way Mrs. Jones “does” for us for eighteen shillings a week. The bread gave out at teatime this evening, and a mild financial boarder tapped his plate with his knife, and sent the bread plate out to be replenished. It came back with one slice on it.

The mild financial boarder, with desperate courage, is telling the landlady that he’ll have to shift next week⁠—it is too far to go to work, he cannot always get down in time; he is very sorry he has to go, he says; he is very comfortable here, but it can’t be helped; anyway, as soon as he can get work nearer, he’ll come back at once; also (oh, what cowards men are when women are concerned), he says he wishes she could shift and take a house down at the other end of the town. She says (at least here are some fragments of her gabble which we caught and shorthanded): “Well, I’m very sorry to lose you, Mr. Sampson, very sorry indeed; but of course if you must go, you must. Of course you can’t be expected to walk that distance every morning, and you mustn’t be getting to work late, and losing your place⁠ ⁠… Of course we could get breakfast an hour earlier if⁠ ⁠… well, as I said before, I’m sorry to lose you and, indeed⁠ ⁠… You won’t forget to come and see us⁠ ⁠… glad to see you at any time⁠ ⁠… Well, anyway, if you ever want to come back, you know, your bed will be always ready for you, and you’ll be treated just the same, and made just as comfortable⁠—you won’t forget that” (he says he won’t); “and you won’t forget to come to dinner sometimes” (he says he won’t); “and, of course⁠ ⁠… You know I always try⁠ ⁠… Don’t forget to drop in sometimes⁠ ⁠… Well, anyway, if you ever do happen to hear of a decent young fellow who wants a good, clean, comfortable home, you’ll be sure to send him to me, will you?” (He says he will.) “Well, of course, Mr. Sampson, etc., etc., etc., and-so-on, and-so-on, and-so-on, and-so-on,⁠ ⁠…” It’s enough to give a man rats.

He escapes, and we regard his departure very much as a gang of hopeless convicts might regard the unexpected liberation of one of their number.

This is the sort of life that gives a man a God-Almighty longing to break away and take to the bush.