Oscar and Lucinda

She accepted the large brass key, the crown piece, and the Tom bag of salt which De

108

Oscar and Mlriim

When Oscar Hopkins and Miriam Chadwick came down the stairs to the cobbler's shop at last, it was to a

There was a small wet stain on the back of my great-grandmother's green silk riding habit. This was remarked on-how could it not bebut nothing was ever said out loud, and, in any case, Miriam had plied the young traveller with Mr Hammond's expensive emollients and creams, with stinging iodine, blue-red mercurochrome, bright yellow "Healing Ointment," had rubbed him with so many healing dyes that he soon looked like a tropical fish in his father's aquarium; with so many wet and greasy substances about, no one could be surprised if Miriam also spilled a wee drop on her clothing.

Oscar, when at last he opened the heavy cedar door at the top of the stairs above the cobbler's, had the stu

47?

Oscar and Miriam

I love Lucinda Leplastrier. ,

The cobbler was working at his bench. Oscar could not meet his gaze. He Ipoked instead at a pair of dancing pumps hanging from the door. To these he nodded.

He had fornicated in God's temple, he who had judged the cedar cutters at Urunga. All my life, he thought, I have sought the devil's murmuring in my ear, have let him persuade me that it is holy that I bet, that I abandon my father, that I draw poor Stratton into the morass, and all the while I am armoured by conceit. I play the saint. When Miss Leplastrier and I were most passionately engaged, I imagined it was I who restrained us from sin, I who ensured our chastity until that happy day (today, today I might have written to her in triumph) when she might have seen what I am and accepted my proposal that we stand as bride and bridegroom in God's sight. But it was not I. And the proof is here: that the moment a ministering hand is placed on that part of my anatomy, the minute, the instant it is touched, the first time in all its life-why, then, I fail the test. And find my Christianity to be but a spiderweb, so easily it is brushed aside. And I am a dog in the street prepared to be crushed by a waggon's wheel in order to let its beastly nature have its head. I ca

Oscar's eyes remained focused in the middle distance. He sucked in his cheeks, biting them harder than he knew. He limped beside my great grandmother as they set about this business, each equally determined that the job be done properly, and yet with a definite distance between them, like allies in a business venture, or the captains of opposing cricket teams. They posted the ba

Only when my great-grandmother saw he did not write "Reverend" in their engagement notice, did she suspect he might not be a clergyman. She certainly had no idea that he was now the owner of

423

Oscar and Lucinda

a glass church in Sydney and a fortune of ten thousand pounds.

Oscar had forgotten this himself. He was sick at heart, preoccupied by what he had lost, not gained. All he could think was that the glass church was the devil's work, that it had been the agent of murder and fornication. The only clear thing he could think, the only thing he could hear above the raging passions of his beating heart, was how he could destroy the hateful thing. It was just five o'clock, and the government clerks were already dosing their shutters for the day, when he began to bid her goodbye. She had employment to return to, and although he should have seen the word "Governess" on both her will and the marriage ba

109

A Cheque amidst Her Petticoat

When Miriam was old, she wore long black dresses and violent-coloured petticoats (crimson, royal purple, blazing yellow) and it was easy enough at that time to see her as an ugly old parrot in a Victorian cage, but when she stood in De

A Cheque amidst Her Petticoat

what they call, in Bellingen, a sleep-out, a makeshift enclosure of a pleasant back veranda-when she stood there, she was straight and young and strikingly handsome. She had strong features, a straight nose, a long jaw, wide-placed brown eyes above defined cheekbones. She was almost severe, but yet was not severe, and her true obsessive qualities were clouded by her habit of making small flirtatious gestures which she offered-she could not seem to help herself-even when she was in a hurry. Thus she might lower her eyes, or lean forward in a certain way or even let some part of her clothing brush against her listener, all this in a soft, yes, even seductive style, while you could see, if you had an eye for these things, the tight and secret clenching of her jaw. She was in mourning for Oscar, and although she would very soon grow out of her flirtatious habits, she would never abandon this particular style of mourning. It was not a fashion in mourning. It was something she invented herself to cater for all her conflicting needs, and although this style would finally look-as I said before-cranky, Victorian, simply crazy, this was not the effect when De

She wore long black watered silk, cut tight around her well-formed bosom and flowing in expensive folds across her bustle. She wore a black veil and a black hat with feathers in it. Her petticoats showed here and there. They were bright red. They said: To hell with you; I will do what

Hike.

If De