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Oscar and Lucinda
an excess of detachment from his own life.
He knew he was clever but not distinguished, influential but not powerful, or if so only in the most indirect way through the fathers who took an interest in the rugby-playing of their sons. Waiting for Monsieur Leplastrier, he arranged a piece of glass cullet on his desk, a large clear piece, like a great chunk of diamond, clear enough to make optical glass, made from the fine leached sands of Botany.
Glass was his enthusiasm but not his passion, and while-for instance-he had enjoyed giving his lectures ("Some Surprising Properties of Glass") to the East Sydney Mutual Improvement Society — the newspaper report of which had, he presumed, drawn the impending Leplastrier to him-he did not care sufficiently. There was something missing from his engine. It could not sustain the uphill grades.
This quality, however, was represented in plenty by the young lady who was being admitted to his household at this moment. The Reverend De
"Jolly good, Frazer," said De
She sat opposite him. She was very young, but he could not tell exactly how young. Her ma
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After Whitsunday
expansive which, combined with the shyness which her shifting eyes betrayed, gave an impression of great pluck. De
She wore an unusual garment: grey silk with a sort of trouser underneath. De
The mouth was small, but there was no suggestion of mea
She wore a wide-brimmed grey hat with a kingfisher-blue feather which was, although
"dashing," not quite the thing. Her hair-what one could see of it-was brown, less than perfectly tidy. This lack of care, when every other part of her was so neat, and pressed, produced an unsettling impression. The hair seemed wilful. It did not occur to him that her hair was, as she would put it, "like that."
In any case, he knew he had met a remarkable young woman, not his type, but unlike anyone he had known before.
"Of course," he said, pouring the leaves from Lucinda's first cup of tea into the little maidenhair fern he kept for just this purpose. "Of course you must, dash it." He gave her a lot of milk, more than she liked. (It was in deference to her youth, which he felt he must insist on.)
"But you understand that although I write a pamphlet or two, I really don't know anything about the manufacturing process. I might look at a glass factory and see no more than you might." Lucinda felt quite hot. If he would not help, she would go to the accountant whom Chas Ahearn had recommended. She would pay
Oscar and Lucinda
the accountant. She would write him a cheque and have him employ a man for her who could do what she required. Or was this man actually in the process of helping? He spoke less directly, more playfully, than she was accustomed to. Her mother had been proud to call a spade a spade. They had despised "shilly-shallyers." The tea was worse than Mrs O'Hagen's. The room was too hot. She was confused to end up with a clergyman when she had begun with a small pamphlet titled "On Laboratory Arts," a practical guide to glass work in the chemistry laboratory. She had written to the printer who had supplied her with the address of the author. She did not think of clergymen as practical people. Mr Horace (at Gulgong near Mitchell's Creek) had managed to chop off three fingers while trying to kill a sick hen. This man seemed to be confirming her prejudice, to be taking pride in confirming his uselessness.
"So I must warn you," he said, "that while I have adequate theory-in fact you have your saucer resting on it-I have no knowledge or experience of the commercial side."
"Then you ca
"On the contrary," he declared.
He saw her adjust to this. She did not say thank you, but rather: "The vendors must not know me as a woman."
"And why not?"
"They will act strange," she said, gesturing with her flexible fingers and palms, letting her eyes roll away. (Should she pay the clergyman for his labour?) "It would occupy you a great deal," she suggested. "There would be books-wouldn't there? — to examine." (He ca
"Yes," he agreed, "a great deal to do. But the object is a lovely one, is it not? It is the object we should celebrate."
He stared at her so excitedly that she looked away, blushing crimson. When she looked up again he saw her eyes had hardened in some way. She lifted her chin. She sat straighter in her chair. He had been misunderstood.
De
After Whitsunday