CHAPTER II

A DISH OF GOSSIP

“I ALWAYS knew,” said Murty O’Toole, “that Billabong House was a trifle
elastic. But even so, Mrs. Brown, ma’am, it fails me to guess how you’re
goin’ to stow away all the people that’ll be in it, at all.”

Mrs. Brown, housekeeper, nurse, and presiding genius of Billabong for
thirty years, smiled comfortably.

“P’f!” she said lightly. “Easy enough, Murty, when you put your mind to
it. Mr. Jim and Mr. Wally are goin’ to pitch tents for themselves, down
in the shrubbery—that gives us two rooms extry, to start with. There’s
the best spare-rooms for the uncles and aunts and Mr. Wally’s
people—that Mrs. Meadows from Queensland has got to have the best, as
I’m told she’s particular. Well, she won’t have anything she can turn
her proud nose up at, at Billabong. And the east balcony will be
curtained off as a dormitory for all Miss Norah’s friends, and they can
use Mr. Jim’s and Mr. Wally’s rooms for dressing-rooms—we’re clearin’
them out to-day to make room for all their clo’es. Dresses don’t take up
as much space as they did when I was young, an’ now that there ain’t as
much ‘air on any ten girls’ ’eads as ’ud make a decent bun, they don’t
need near as much in the way of lookin’-glasses.”

“Don’t they!” said Murty. “What about all the powdther an’ stuff they’re
after puttin’ on their faces?” He grinned, delighted to show that
although he never went away from Billabong he was still a man of the
world. “I’m told that gerrils use that much powdther nowadays you’d
think they washed their faces in the flour-barrel!”

“Too right, they do,” agreed Mrs. Brown. “But they carry that about,
Murty, in portable boxes, with a little glass fixed ’andy in the lid.
Miss Norah, she was give no less than three of ’em last Christmas.
Didn’t she offer me one, sayin’ she was always too busy to remember to
use ’em!” She gave a fat chuckle. “Me, to be powderin’ me nose!—not as
I’ll say it doesn’t need it, particular after an ’eavy batch of cookin’.
An’ they carry little choobs of red stuff for their lips. Well, there
ain’t much ’arm in it, if they like it. It ain’t no more silly than them
crinoline-things their gran’mothers used to wear.”

“People move with the times,” said Murty, wisely. He gave a sly glance
downwards. “I mind the time, Mrs. Brown, when I’d never have known you
had an ankle on you, yourself!”

Brownie chuckled again.

“Me mother ’ud have thought it was a fair disgrace to have shown your
ankles, once you’d put your ’air up,” she said. “Funny, it didn’t seem
to matter to ’ave ’em until then; but the minute you bought your first
packet of ’air-pins, your ankles disappeared for ever.” She gave a
twitch to a fresh print skirt which, viewed by modern standards, was
distinctly demure. “Well, thank goodness, Miss Norah persuaded me to
become up-ter-date. Many’s the time, gettin’ up from lookin’ into the
oven, I’ve caught me ’eel in me skirt an’ sat down sudden. Gives you a
shock, when you’re my weight, Murty.”

“It would, so,” said Murty, sympathetically. “Yerra, an’ if it had been
annywan else than Miss Norah that had been the first gerril to go about
here in boots an’ breeches, I’d have criticized her pretty sevare, so I
would. But ’twas herself, so I cud only see the sinsibility there was in
it.”

“Makes all the difference,” agreed Brownie. “Fancy me, now, Murty, in
boots an’ breeches!”

“I can’t, ma’am,” said the Irishman, truthfully.

“Well, you won’t have the chance. Me apron an’ a good print is right
enough for me.”

“An’ if there’s annywan looks betther than yourself, Mrs. Brown, in them
big white aprons, I’d like to see them!” Murty hastened to reassure her.
“Me ould mother wore them, an’ I do be thinkin’ they make a tasty finish
to a dress. Nowadays the gerrils wear quare flowery things that don’t
show the dirt—I’m thinkin’ they’d all be the betther of a visit to the
wash-tub.”

“So they would,” agreed Mrs. Brown. “Well, then, Murty, there’s the
barracks for all the young gentlemen that’s to be here for the dance the
night before. A mercy we’ve heaps of spare stretchers and blankets. An’
the housemaids’ll sleep down at Mrs. Evans’s, an’—oh, well, if anyone
unexpected turns up, there’s always the loft! Mr. Jim offered to sleep
in the big car. He said he could easy twine his legs round the
steering-wheel!”

Murty gave a crack of laughter.

“I’d like to see the six-fut-four of him doin’ it,” he said. “But he’d
sleep in the pigsty if he thought it would be anny convanience to you,
so he would.” His honest face grew grave. “I do be thinkin’ long an’
often, Mrs. Brown, how’s it goin’ to be with Mr. Jim, with Miss Norah
and Mr. Wally gone. The Masther’s ould, an’ when you’re ould things
don’t matther as much. But them three have always been together. It’ll
hit Mr. Jim hard, for all he’s that cheery about it. Them two, in the
long evenings, each on wan side of the fire-place, with their pipes
goin’—it’ll be different, entirely, from now, with Miss Norah and Mr.
Wally up to some nonsense all the time. I dunno why couldn’t they have
all gone on livin’ at Billabong just the same as ould times.”

Brownie shook her grey head in its neat white cap.

“I don’t hold with that at all,” she said briskly. “Young people
starting married life had ought to be in a home of their own. Bless you,
Murty, it’ll be near as good as their bein’ here when they get
settled—the new house won’t be half a mile away, an’ they’ll be in and
out of Billabong all the time. An’ some day Mr. Jim’ll be gettin’
married himself. Send it soon, I say! I’m all for people gettin’
married,” said Brownie, with determination.

“Mr. Jim! Yerra, who’d be good enough for him?”

“No one in the world, in your opinion an’ mine, Murty. But he’ll marry
some one, sure as fate—an’ you an’ me’ll have to make the best of it,
an’ be glad he’s happy. You wouldn’t have him a sour old bachelor like
yourself, now, Murty?”

“Well, I would not,” said Mr. O’Toole, grinning. “Truth is, Mrs. Brown,
I don’t seem able to hould with them growin’ up at all. They’re just the
children always they were, in my eyes, an’ there’s something quare an’
unnatural in talkin’ of marryin’. But I suppose it’s like powdtherin’
noses—one must move with the times. I’ll be powdtherin’ me own before I
know where I am! Tell me now, have ye all the arrangements made for next
week?”

“Gettin’ on nicely,” said Brownie. “The weddin’s to be in the
drorin’-room, of course, with the big foldin’ doors open into the
dinin’-room—that’ll hold every one quite comferable. An’ the
presents’ll be in the billiard-room for all the people to see. Such
things she ’ave give ’er already, Murty: there’s an outfit of
table-silver as ’ud move your ’eart, from Mrs. Linton in Melbourne,
though Miss Norah she don’t seem to set much store by it, beside that
Eye-talian leather-work Mr. Jim give her. That’s Mr. Jim’s little
special present—of course he’s giving them both the new car they’re
goin’ travellin’ in. It ain’t come yet, but by the picksher Miss Norah
showed me, it’s a beauty.”

“Trust Mr. Jim,” said Murty. “Well, they can’t show the Masther’s
present—it ’ud be a big billiard-room that ’ud hold a house that isn’t
built yet!”

“Wise, ain’t you!” scoffed Brownie. “I don’t b’lieve the Master looks on
the new ’ouse as a present at all. He’s give her a wonderful
dressin’-case, apart from that.”

“An’ what might that be?” asked Mr. O’Toole, politely.

“Oh, a big leather case, all fitted up with tortoise-shell brushes an’
bottles an’ things.”

“That ’ud be a pleasant thing to have,” said Murty, plainly mystified.
“Would it be in it she would get to dress, Mrs. Brown, an’ she
thravellin’?”

“Murty, you’ll be the death of me some day,” said Brownie, giggling.
“It’s a thing you’d carry in your ’and—to hold all the oddments a lady
like Miss Norah needs.”

“I’d have said Miss Norah wasn’t needin’ that many oddments—whatever
they might be,” said Murty. “But it’s ignorant I am about the ways of
women, the saints be praised! Tell me more about the arrangements, Mrs.
Brown, me dear. Well, yes, I cud do with a cup of tay—talkin’s dry
work.”

“Let me ’ave a look at me cake, an’ I’ll sit down,” said Brownie. She
bent to peer into the oven, rising with heightened colour and closing
the door gently. “Rose on me somethink beautiful, it ’as—the Master’s
talkin’ of gettin’ me an electric stove, but I tell him I wouldn’t
change me old range for all the new-fangled stoves in creation.” She
poured out a cup of tea for herself, and sat down at the snowy
kitchen-table. “Well, now—after the weddin’ the big lunch is to be in
the barn. You’ll have to get all the men decoratin’ it on Monday,
Murty.”

“Mr. Jim’s afther tellin’ me. He says we’ve got to beat all our own
records for makin’ the barn gay—an’ we done it pretty thorough for the
welcome to them all when they come back from the War. I dunno will we
beat it; there wasn’t a man or woman on the place that didn’t put their
backs into it then. But we’ll try.”

“You’ll have Mr. Jim with you this time,” said Brownie. “He’ll have lots
of ideas—I know he’s sent to town for Chinese lanterns an’ flags an’
things. There’ll be the big dance the night before, with all the
districk ’ere; and then the weddin’ is to be at twelve next day, so’s to
give plenty of time for anyone that wants to get into Cunjee for the
afternoon train. An’ then we’ll sit down an’ feel flat!”

“An’ how long is it they’ll be away?”

“Miss Norah and Mr. Wally?” Mrs. Brown shrugged her fat shoulders.
“Goodness only knows. They’ll wander in that car all over Victoria and
New South Wales, I b’lieve. There’s nothink to ’urry them. Before they
come back the Master’s goin’ to see his sister in Tasmania, and Mr.
Jim’ll be off to stay with Mr. Paxton in Queensland. Mr. Paxton’s due on
the weddin’-day, Miss Norah told me this morning: he can’t get here any
sooner. Goin’ to fly in an airyplane all the way from the North of
Queensland!”

“The boys do be leppin’ mad with excitement about that same,” remarked
Murty. “Much work I’ll get out of any hand on the run when that
airyplane’s due. I never seen wan o’ them things yet, only in pictures
in the papers. Fine care I’ll take to have all the horses in a paddock
with trees too thick for him to land! I wance knew a steady ould horse
that dropped dead in his tracks at the sight of an elephant; there’s no
reason why annywan of them shouldn’t do the same when they see an
airyplane for the first time—an’ I’d hate it to be Monarch or Miss
Norah’s horse.”

“I suppose they’re safe—them flyin’-machines,” said Brownie,
doubtfully. “They seem to go all over the world with them, and not get
killed more often than people get killed walkin’ in a street. But I
don’t mind tellin’ you, Murty, I’ll be relieved in me bones when that
thing’s safely landed. I keep thinkin’ in bed at night, what if it got
out of control an’ came down on top of the ’ouse!”

“Yerra, woman, it ’ud hurt the airyplane more than the house!” said the
astonished Mr. O’Toole. “Pretty solid, Billabong House is; I’d back it
agin a flyin’-machine, any day.”

“Somethin’ would be damaged, even if it was only the poor young gent,”
said Mrs. Brown, despondently. “It ’ud cast a gloom over the ’ole thing,
as you might say. Oh, well, it’s wrong not to hope for the best—but
I’ll be glad when he’s safely on earth an’ eatin’ his dinner at
Billabong.”

“Unchancy things, I’d call them,” remarked Murty. “Mr. Jim’s all for
flyin’ back to Queensland with Mr. Paxton, but it’s wishin’ I am the
Masther ’ud persuade him against it. Earth’s a fine substantial thing to
have undher your feet. These modrun inventions turn life upside down, so
they do. In a way I’m broke-in to mothor-cars, seein’ there’s no denyin’
they’re handy at times—but give me a good high buggy with a pair of
fresh horses, an’ there’s no finer means of gettin’ over the ground. But
the way things are goin’, a horse’ll be a curiosity shown at the Zoo in
fifty years!”

“And I’ll go to see him when I’m a doddering old lady,” said a fresh
voice at the door, “and I’ll tell people I used to ride one once, and
that a bad old Irishman taught me. And they won’t believe that such a
feeble old woman ever did anything so mad!”

Murty was on his feet.

“Is it yourself, Miss Norah? Sure, Mrs. Brown an’ meself was discussin’
the ways of the world.”

“And making out that it’s a bad world, Murty?”

“Sure, not with yourself in it, Miss Norah,” he said gently.

“Oh, Murty, there’s no one that says things so nicely as you!” Norah
said. “Sit down—I’m going to have a cup of tea with you and Brownie.
You want some more too, don’t you? Keep still, Brownie, or I’ll be
cross.” She brought the teapot, and filled their cups before pouring out
one for herself. Then she sat down and smiled at them both.

“The others are all playing tennis, so I came to find you. I didn’t know
Murty would be here, but, as I went to the stables first, and his saddle
and stock-whip were both in their places, I thought there was a fair
chance of finding him in these parts.”

“I do be an ould woman for a cup of tay and a gossip, Miss Norah,” Murty
said, with a grin. “An’ there’s no denyin’ that wan gets the best of
both from Mrs. Brown!” At which Brownie wagged her head at him, and told
him to get along with his Irish tongue.

“I agree with him, all the same, Brownie,” Norah said “Think of all the
good gossips we’ve had in this old kitchen—and all the cups of tea
we’ve brewed! Do you think I’ll ever get anyone to keep the new kitchen
as you keep this? I don’t.”

“I’ve an idea, Miss Norah,” said Brownie, excitedly. “Whenever your cook
goes out I’ll get the Master to let me go over to you for the day——”

“So that you can do my work? No, you won’t do that, Brownie darling; but
you’ll come, and we’ll have a cooking together, and pretend that it’s
old times. And it will be as good as a picnic!”

She put a smooth brown hand over the worn, work-gnarled hand on the
table.

“But you needn’t think—either of you—that the old times are gone,” she
said earnestly. “It will be just the same as it always has been—we’ll
never be one bit less friends, and I’ll always want you both. You see,
we all belong to each other on Billabong, and we can’t alter. Mr. Wally
knows that just as well as I do.”

“My dear!” said Brownie.

“There’s no man, woman, or child on Billabong that wouldn’t give their
heads for you,” said Murty, gruffly. “That’s the way it always has been,
and ’tis the way it always will be. I’m thinkin’ it won’t be very long
before the track to the new house is worn very bare, with the thraffic
there will be on it.”

“I’m sure of that,” Norah said. “Think how lonesome I should be without
you all. I’m quite certain that when I’m out after cattle with Mr. Wally
I’ll just naturally come back here for lunch, quite forgetting that my
own lunch is waiting for me at the other place. And think how annoyed my
cook will be!”

“Let her be annoyed!” said Brownie, loftily. “Would she have you never
come near your own people, the proud thing! I pray very ’ard not to be
jealous of Mr. Wally, but I know well I’ll never be Christian enough not
to be jealous of your cook!”

“Poor thing, I haven’t even got her yet, or even a kitchen to put her
in—and when I do get her she may be as tame as a rabbit,” laughed
Norah. “So don’t worry about being jealous of her, Brownie, for she’ll
probably eat from your hand. Anyhow, it’s ages before I need think of
housekeeping, and when I do I am coming to you for advice every five
minutes.”

“I taught you to cook when you were twelve, so I don’t reckon as ’ow
you’ll need much advice,” said Brownie, laughing. “An’ you ran a house
in England in that old War, an’ I’ll always be jealous ’cause I wasn’t
there to ’elp. But as long as you keep pretendin’ you need advice an’
come over an’ tell me about it, I’ll manage to get on.”

David Linton’s big form loomed in the doorway.

“Are you trying to keep a hold on her, Brownie?” he asked. “As far as I
can see, we are each making a special pair of hobbles, so that she will
never get too far away.”

“I won’t need the hobbles,” Norah said, laughing. “Perhaps you’d better
give them to Wally, to keep me at the new house!”