第58章
As they rounded the point the warships swung into view,grim and forbidding,with the ugly strength of bulldogs.A light breeze flicked the waters of the harbour into white flakes like the lash of a whip,and Jonah felt the salt breath of the sea on his cheeks.His eye travelled over the broad sheet of water from the South Head,where the long rollers of the Pacific entered and broke with a muscular curve,to the shores broken by innumerable curves into bays where the moving waters,already tamed,lost their beauty like a caged animal,and spent themselves in fretful ripples on the sand.Overhead the sky,arched in a cloudless dome of blue,was reflected in the turquoise depths of the water.
Then Mosman came in sight with its shaggy slopes and terra-cotta roofs,the houses,on the pattern of a Swiss chalet,standing with spaces between,fashionable and reserved.Jonah thought of Cardigan Street,and smiled.
They walked in silence along the path to Cremorne Point,the noise of birds and the rustling of leaves bringing a touch of the country to Jonah.
"Had you been waiting long?"asked Clara,suddenly.
"Since twenty past two,"replied Jonah.
"The impudence of some people is incredible,"she said."I've just lost a pupil and a guinea a quarter--it's the same thing.The mother thought Ishould buy the music for the child out of the guinea.That means a hat and a pair of gloves or a pair of boots less through no fault of my own.
You don't seem very sympathetic,"she cried,looking sharply at Jonah.
"I ain't,"said Jonah,calmly.
"Well,I must say you don't pick your words.A guinea may be nothing to you,but it means a great deal to me.""It ain't that,"said Jonah,"but I hate the thought of yer bein'at the beck an'call of people who ain't fit to clean yer boots.Ye're like a kid 'oldin'its finger in the fire an'yellin'with pain.There's no need fer yer to do it.I've offered ter make yer cashier in the shop at two pounds a week,if yer'd put yer pride in yer pocket.""And throw a poor girl out of work to step into her shoes.""Nuthin'of the sort,as I told yer.She's been threatenin'fer months to git married,but it 'urts 'er to give up a good billet an'live on three pounds a week.Yer'd do the bloke a kindness,if yer made me give 'er the sack.""It's no use.My mother wouldn't listen to it.For years she's half starved herself to keep me out of a shop.She can never forget that her people in England are gentry.""I don't know much about gentry,but I could teach them an'yer mother some common sense,"said Jonah.
"We won't discuss my mother,if you please,"said Clara,and they both fell silent.
They had reached the end of Cremorne Point,a spur of rock running into the harbour.Clara ran forward with a cry of pleasure,her troubles forgotten as she saw the harbour lying like a map at her feet.The opposite shore curved into miniature bays,with the spires and towers of the city etched on a filmy blue sky.The mass of bricks and mortar in front was Paddington and Woollahra,leafless and dusty where they had trampled the trees and green grass beneath their feet;the streets cut like furrows in a field of brick.As the eye travelled eastward from Double Bay to South Head the red roofs became scarcer,alternating with clumps of sombre foliage.Clara looked at the scene with parted lips as she listened to music.This frank delight in scenery had amused Jonah at first.It was part of a woman's delight in the pretty and useless.But,as his eyes had become accustomed to the view,he had begun to understand.
There was no scenery in Cardigan Street,and he had been too busy in later years to give more than a hasty glance at the harbour.There was no money in it.
From where they sat they could see a fleet of tramps and cargo-boats lying at anchor on their right.Jonah examined them attentively,and then his eyes turned to the city,piled massively in the sunlight,studded with spires and towers and tall chimneys belching smoke into the upper air.
It was this city that had given him life on bitter terms,a misshapen and neglected street-arab,scouring the streets for food,of less account than a stray dog.
His eye softened as he looked again at the water.As the safest place for their excursions they had picked by chance on the harbour with its fleet of steamers that threaded every bay and cove,and little by little,in the exaltation of the senses following his love for this woman,the swish of the water slipping past the bows,the panorama of rock and sandy beach,and the salt smell of the sea were for ever part of this strange,emotional condition where reality and dream blended without visible jar or shock.
He turned and looked at the woman beside him.She was silent,looking seaward.He stared at her profile,cut like a cameo,with intense satisfaction.The low,straight forehead,the straight nose,the full curving chin,satisfied his eye like a carved statue.About her ear,exquisitely small and delicate,the wind had blown a fluff of loose hair,and on this insignificant detail his eye dwelt with rapture.This woman's face pleased him like music.And as he looked,all his desires were melted and confounded in a wave of tenderness,caressing and devotional,the complete surrender of strength to weakness.He wanted to take her in his arms,and dared not even touch her hand.There had been no talk of love between them,and she had kept him at a distance with her air of distinction and superficial refinements.She seemed to spread a silken barrier between them that exasperated and entranced him.Some identity in his sensations puzzled him,and as he looked,with a flash he was in Cardigan Street again,stooping over his child with a strange sensation in his heart,learning his first lesson in pity and infinite tenderness.
Another moment and he would have taken her in his arms.Instead of that,he said "I'm putting that line of patent leather pumps in the catalogue at seven and elevenpence,post free."Instantly Clara became attentive.