Read Ebook: From Billabong to London by Bruce Mary Grant Leist Fred Illustrator

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Ebook has 194 lines and 20500 words, and 4 pages

still in many ways the small boy your mother left me."

"Well, except for this I don't want to be any different," Jim answered. "You've never made me feel it, except in being jolly good to me--look how you've treated me as a sort of equal in managing the place, ever since I left school. I've never said anything, but I've noticed it every day."

"Well, you have common sense--and you don't do wild things with your authority," his father answered. "You've made it possible for yourself. And you know, Jim, I didn't actually forbid you to enlist. I don't give you orders."

There was silence for a moment. Jim rammed tobacco into his pipe furiously, and then laid it aside again with a gesture of impatience.

"There are things a fellow can't talk about," he said. "I'm an awful fool at talking, anyhow. But one can't open a paper without reading about Belgium and the things the Germans have done there; and it makes one feel one has simply got to go. Fighting men is all very well, and in the way of business. But--women and kids!"

"I know," said David Linton.

From the drawing-room came the cheerful sound of a piano, and Norah's fresh young voice in a verse of a song, with Wally joining in. The father gripped the arms of his chair and stared in front of him; seeing, perhaps, blackened Northern cornfields, and children who fled, crying, before an army.

No one spoke for a long time. The silence in the room was only broken by the tick of the clock and the sputter and crackle of the wood fire. From his post on the hearthrug Jim watched his father, trying vaguely to read his answer in the grave face. But David Linton, staring into the fire, gave no sign. His thoughts were wandering back over the long years since his wife's death had fallen upon him suddenly, tearing the fabric of his life to pieces. Then it had seemed to him that nothing could ever mend it or make it again worth living; but as time crept on, baby fingers unconsciously had taken up the broken threads and woven them into something new--not the old, perfect happiness, but a life full of interest and contentment.

Such mates they had been, he and his children. All through the years, they had shared things: worked, and played, and laughed together until their relationship had grown into a companionship and a mutual comprehension that held little of authority on one side, but all of love on both. For that short, terrible season after the little mother had gone away, the house had been home no longer, but a place of desolation; and then the father had realised that his babies needed more from him, and that through them alone lay his way of peace. There is nearly always something bigger than one's personal grief, no matter how great it seems; and it is that one thing bigger that spells comfort. David Linton had never put aside his grief altogether, for it was part of himself. But he had put his children first, since to do so was part of his doctrine of doing "the square thing." Little and helpless, their happiness must not suffer. Somewhere, he knew, the little mother was watching them. Heaven could not keep her from watching her babies--from straining hungry eyes to see how he was managing the task she had left him. When the time came to go to her he must be able to give a good account.

He knew, looking back, that they had been happy. Life had held no cares beyond the necessary trial of leaving home for school--a trial always compensated by the joy of getting back. They had known no loneliness; Billabong and its wild acres, its free, simple life, had filled each day with work that was pleasure and with the thousand cheerful recreations of the Bush. He had tried to make them healthy, wholesome, and useful, holding as he did that no life was complete without all three attributes. They had repaid him by coming up to his standard in other things as well; by being sound in mind and body, honest as the day, and of a clean, straight courage. Throughout all they had been his mates. The little watching mother would be satisfied.

Now, for the first time in sixteen years, the parting of the ways must come. Authority had never been one of his methods; and if it had been, this was not the time to use it. He had taught the tall lad who stood before him his version of "the decent thing," and his teaching had come home; even in his pain he welcomed it. Jim would not have been Jim had he been willing to sit contentedly at home.

He looked up, and smiled suddenly at the boy's unhappy face. "Don't look like that, old son," he said. "It's all right."

A great load rolled off Jim's heart.

"Well, a fellow doesn't cheerfully give up his only son," David Linton said. "But I've seen it coming, Jim, and, as you say, this thing is bigger than we are. I wouldn't have you not want to go."

"Oh, thank goodness!" said Jim, and sat down and lit his pipe.

"I couldn't make up my mind to it at first," his father went on. "One didn't know how far things were going; and it's hard to realise you grown up. After all, you're only nineteen, Jim, lad, and for all that I know, you are capable of doing a man's work, to my mind soldiering demands an extra degree of toughness, if a fellow is to be of real use. Still, as you say, much younger boys are going; I won't ask you again to stay. Perhaps it wasn't fair to ask you in the beginning. I was doubtful in my own mind; but I had to be sure there was real need."

"And are you satisfied now?"

"Oh, yes. There isn't any room for further doubt. Every day brings evidence of what the job is going to be--the biggest the Empire ever had to tackle. And the cry from Belgium comes home to every decent man. I'd rather go myself than send you; but as I said, I'm glad you don't want to stay."

"Then that's all right," Jim said, with a mighty sigh of relief. "You don't know what a weight it is off my mind, Dad. I've hated to seem a beast over it, and you know I always go by your judgment. But somehow I knew you'd have to think differently yourself. Why, great Scott! I couldn't face you and Norah, in ten years, if I had stayed at home!"

"No; and I couldn't face you if I had been the one to keep you," said his father. "So that is settled. But there are other things to settle as well."

"Rather!" said Jim. "I wonder, can I get into the first contingent, or if I'll have to wait for the second."

His father paused before replying.

"There is something else, altogether," he said at length. "My own plans seem on the verge of an upheaval, just now."

"Yours? Nothing wrong, is there, Dad?"

"Nothing in the main. But you know I've been bothered for some weeks over that business of the English property your uncle Andrew left me. There is a lot of complicated detail that would take me a week to explain--it's all in the lawyer's letters over there, if you'd care to go through them. Some of it ought to be sold, and some apparently can't be sold just now, and there are decisions to be made, at which it's almost impossible for me to arrive, with letters alone to go upon. Last week's English mail left me in a state of complete uncertainty as to what I ought to do about it."

"And has to-day's mail straightened out matters at all?"

"Well--it has," said Mr. Linton, with a wry smile. "I can't say it has exactly eased my mind, but at least the letters have made one thing abundantly clear, which is that the business cannot be settled from Australia. I'm needed on the spot. As far as I can see, there is no way out of it; I'll have to go home."

"Go to England!"

"Yes."

"But," Jim was on his feet, his face radiant. "Why, you'll be there when I'm in France--we might come home together! How ripping, Dad! When would you go?"

"Very soon, I think."

Jim sat down, the flash of joy suddenly dying away.

"Dad--what about Norah?"

"I wish I knew," said his father, uneasily. "I could leave her at school, of course; and she has always invitations enough for twice as many holidays as are in the year. But she won't like it, poor little girl. It would be bad enough if only one of us were going; as it is, she will feel that the bottom has dropped out of the universe."

"I can't see us leaving her," Jim said. "Why not take her with you?"

"Why, I don't even know if it's safe," said his father, his brow knitted. "The voyage is a certain risk; and who knows what will be the conditions in England? I can't run the child into danger."

"If Germany wins you may not be able to keep her out of it," Jim answered. "One thing is certain--Norah would rather be in danger with you than feel that you were running risks and leaving her in safety. I think it would break her heart to be left here alone."

"I've been turning it backwards and forwards in my mind for a fortnight," said the father. "I felt that the time was coming to give you a free hand: and then, on top of that, came this complication." He laughed a little. "Life has been too easy for me, Jim: I'm not used to big decisions."

"Well, I am a beast," said Jim, frankly. "I've been chewing over my own disappointment; and about the worst part of it was that I got hold of the idea that you had put it right out of your mind, and that you didn't care. I wish I had known you were up to your eyes in worry. But you never let us suspect a thing."

"Well, I kept hoping against hope that each mail would straighten things out," his father answered. "Until I was certain I did not want to cast any shadows on Norah's holidays. Poor little lass; she'll have trouble in earnest now."

"Well, Nor will face it," Jim said, confidently. "She isn't made of the stuff that caves in--and as far as I'm concerned, Dad, she wants me to go. She knew I'd only eat my heart out if I didn't. But to have you go away is another matter. Don't you think you can take her?"

"If I were sure England would be safe . . ." mused Mr. Linton. "You can be very certain I don't want to leave her."

"Well, I don't think there's much risk for England," said Jim, with the cheerful optimism of youth. "And anyhow, there's always America--you and she could slip across there if there were any real fear of invasion. My word, Dad, it would be grand to think you and Nor were so near. Just think if I got wounded, how jolly it would be to come over to you!"

"I've thought," said his father, drily. The jollity of the idea seemed to him slightly exaggerated.

"Well, it would be heaps better than hospital. And then we'd all be together after the finish, and do London. It would be such a lark. Fancy old Norah in Piccadilly!"

"Me?" asked a startled voice.

Norah stood in the doorway, with Wally behind her. She had exchanged her riding-habit for a soft white frock, and her brown curls, released from their tight plait, fell softly round her face. No one would have dreamed of calling her pretty; but there was an indefinable charm in the merry face, lit by straight grey eyes. She was tall for her age; people found it difficult to believe that she was not yet sixteen, for she had left the awkward age behind her, and there was unstudied grace in the slender, alert form, with its well-shaped hands and feet. Occasionally--when she was not too busy--Norah had fleeting moments of regret, mainly on account of her men-folk, that she was not pretty. But it is doubtful if her father and brother would have cared to change a feature of the vivid face.

"Did you say Piccadilly? And me?" she asked, advancing into a startled silence. "I've always imagined Piccadilly must be rather worse than Collins Street, and I don't fit in there a bit. Stella Harrison says there are rather jolly motor-busses there, and you can get on top. That wouldn't be so bad." She perched on the arm of her father's chair. "Why are you talking about streets, Daddy? You know you don't like them any more than I do."

"No," said David Linton, finding that some answer was expected of him. Something in his tone brought Norah's eyes upon him quickly.

"There's something wrong, isn't there?" she asked.

No one spoke for a moment. Then Wally got up quietly and moved towards the door.

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