# Tussock Land/Chapter 26

XXVI
It was with a keen dissatisfaction stirring within him that King went the following night to meet Effie. Miss Barbara Smith had wakened some repugnance to himself that left him irritable and restless. He had found that Effie meant much to him. The thought that he might break with her had, of course, often enough occurred to him; he had never intended such an acquaintance to be permanent. In the nature of things it could not be permanent. Neither Effie nor himself had ever shirked that certainty. Indeed, they had often alluded to it, only to shelve the thought of the inevitable parting as a thing unpleasant, far off, and assured, needless to be spoken of.
But Miss Smith had such absurd ideals about him. She should cease from that hero-worship at once. He would tell her about―about Effie. It was time that Miss Smith knew that―that he was just an ordinary, commonplace, unheroic man. Perhaps hardly that.
So he decided as he went toward the street corner where he usually met Effie. As he passed the post-office he noticed that he was a few minutes late. That had never happened before. He had always made it a point to be at the meeting-place before the time appointed; he did not like the idea of Effie waiting alone in the street for him. He hurried on, calling himself names for his lack of consideration.
​She ran out to meet him from the little crowd at the street corner.
“Oh, I thought you were not coming, dear!” Then, almost petulantly, “Why were you so late? Why were you so late?”
King had never seen her angry before. Her lips trembled in a piteous petulance. He apologised quickly, and drawing her arm into his led her away.
“I was so frightened, standing there alone and waiting, waiting. And all the time I was wondering if you were coming, if you had forgotten, if you were never coming to meet me again.”
This was another Effie. Before, she had always met him with a little laugh of utter happiness.
They went through the Domain toward Macquarie’s Chair. As they entered the long fig-tree avenue that runs beside the Gardens, the hooting of the ferry steamers from the harbour reached them.
“There must be a fog coming up the harbour,” said King. “The ferries are calling to each other already.”
Where they were the night was dim and still, a thousand big stars cold in the sky. But as they turned toward the harbour they were met by creeping veils of mist faintly white among the shadows of the trees. They went on slowly, and soon the dim, clinging fog closed impalpably about them. As they moved along the familiar paths it seemed to King that they were venturing into unknown regions of lurking, mysterious terrors. Here and there the mist parted for a few minutes and the black trees stood out, heavy and flat, with a startling suddenness. Then silently the scarves of dim white wound, as it were, faint fingers about the world, and once again these two moved across a solitary, immeasurably lonely and desolate universe.
​They came to their favourite seat and sat down, looking toward the harbour. The water’s edge was just beneath them, but now a sea of vague silver lay about them and above them, secluding them from all the world. Beneath them, almost at their feet, they could hear the waves sulking among the unseen rocks. And across the harbour came again and again the sustained melancholy hooting of the blinded ferry-boats, groping across the unfamiliar water-ways. The steady beat of their paddles throbbed across the blank, clammy whiteness like the loud pulses of a sick man. A dull silver stain in the drear whiteness, like a moon behind a wet cloud, hinted at the unseen presence of a lamp. The heavy foliage of the fig-tree beneath which they sat cut black and solid into the pale radiance of the mist. Voices came vaguely from unguessed neighbourhoods, startlingly near.
King and Effie sat for a minute silent, almost awed by the strange unreality of the mist. Then in an instinct of protection he put his arm about her slight figure.
She shrank from his touch.
“No,” she said softly, “you must not kiss me tonight, dear. I’ve been thinking since you saw me last, and it seems to me that you want me only to kiss. I don’t think you like me at all except when you have me in your arms.”
King stared. There had been nothing that Effie liked better than being kissed. When he met her in the street, where a kiss was not to be risked, her delicate, fragile hands had a way of hovering about him till they took his hand in their tendril clasp. It was the mere touch of him that she was impatient for. And one night, out of the mere delight of anticipating her kiss, he had made no motion to lift ​her lips to his, till at last, stung into a swift impatience by his dallying, she had put her arms about his neck and drawn him to her.
Indeed, this was a new Effie. She did not want his kiss.
“I want you to be very, very good to-night, King,” she said. “I would just like to sit here and talk and listen, like old friends. Please do not kiss me to-night. Please be very, very good.”
And in this speech King’s keen ear noticed something. She had a way of mispronouncing certain words that, in a land where dialects are rare, seemed quaint and piquant. In particular she had a peculiar furry pronounciation of the word “very,” calling it “vurry,” that was the inherited remnant of some English dialect. And now he noticed twice that she put a prim and affected emphasis upon the word. He missed the rich, warm pronunciation, and laughed at her about it.
She took him up with a new seriousness. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve been trying to speak better, dear. I often feel that I’m so much beneath you in—everything. So I’ve been trying to be more careful in the way I speak. You know I’m not a lady, and I notice the way you say some words; there are some words you use that I’ve never heard before. And I would like to talk like you do; and so—it’s very silly of Effie, but she’s got so little to do—so I’ve been trying to improve my pronunciation.” (She pronounced it “pronownciation.”) “And I’ve been at work on my writing. I got a ‘Letter-writer’ and a copy-book, and I’ve been trying to improve my hand-writing. Didn’t you notice the improvement in my last letter? I was hoping you would notice it and ask me about it.”
Effie’s writing was thin and quavering, the mark ​of a hand that took to the pen awkwardly and on rare and important occasions. King always felt, when he received her spasmodic, impetuous scrawls, that they had, nevertheless been the work of a laborious hour. When with a hairpin she prized the cork out of the penny ink-pot he felt that she knew herself about to perform a momentous ceremony.
“But why?” asked King, with a little laugh. “Why do you take all that trouble? I like your writing as it is, and I often laugh over the way you spell some words, and I love to hear the funny way you sometimes pronounce. Your voice is so rich and liquid that it seems to give the words a new meaning. Often I catch myself remembering the way you say certain words, and I would miss them if you pronounced them the ordinary way. I don’t want you to change, please. It seems to make you just like anybody else. It isn’t my Effie any more.”
She flared up into a little gust of passion. “Yes, you laugh at me—at my ways—at my ignorance. You’re so much above me, I know. But you started so much above me. It isn’t fair to look down on me so. It’s not... nice to me, King. I do try not to disgrace you. I’m sure from my dress, and the way I walk, nobody would know I wasn’t a lady. And I do want to be more your equal, dear. I don’t want you to be ashamed of me—oh, yes, you are ashamed of me sometimes, King; I’ve seen it, though you are a dear boy and try not to let me see. But I’ve seen you flush up sometimes at something I’ve said to you when other people might hear—those hateful, supercilious women whom you know and who look down on me and wonder who I am. They’re ladies, and it comes easy to them to speak properly and not forget themselves. And all the time I’ve got to be on my ​guard, watching to see I don’t forget. Oh, yes, I’ve seen you ashamed of me, King. Sometimes when I meet you in the street—and, dear, if you only knew how I want to see you every day you wouldn’t wonder at me so often being in Pitt Street near your office. I don’t want to take you from your own friends, King; but sometimes I’ve seen you wish you hadn’t seen me, and you look past me when you raise your hat. A woman can always see these things; and, dearest, I want you so that perhaps my eyes are keener than other women’s.”
King glanced furtively at her, startled by the intensity of feeling in her voice. Did she care for him so much as that?
And suddenly he noticed that the grey mist had come very close about them. All the world was a dull vagueness. Even the overhanging leaves of the tree hung vague and dim before him—a darker blur on the pervading greyness. It seemed to him that this insidious, shrouded mystery that had so silently crept upon them was something sinister, callous, horrible. Within this phantom greyness he felt his foothold slipping beneath him. He was losing touch with reality. The grey mist wound vague arms about him, bound his soul with clinging scarves of horror. Where was he? What was he doing? What had eaten away his robust self, what horror was rotting his soul?
He gripped the iron side of the seat with an uncertain hand and forced himself back to sanity by the help of the safe assurance that grasp gave him. He was on a solid earth, after all. And at his side was a pretty girl called Effie, whose pallid face of the perfect purity of a nun he had kissed so often. He sank back silent and reassured.
And Effie, too, was silent. About her the mist ​was gathering, and in her heart was gathering a vague pain. During that waiting at the street corner for King she had learnt something. She had been startled by a sudden suspicion that perhaps he was not coming, that perhaps he would never come again. The pain of that thought had wakened her to a recognition that life without him would be a terrible and lonely place. She had not imagined that she loved him so much. She was utterly startled to see how much. The thought that after all he might go away from her, leave her—alone—to begin again, find some other man...
“King, do you love me?” she said quietly.
“Yes, of course, Effie.”
“But how much?”
“This much,” he answered readily, and tried to kiss her.
But she would not. “No; I want to be sure,” she said.
“Well, I love you very much. You and I are very good—friends, aren’t we?” King stirred uneasily. Effie seemed strangely insistent. The mist seemed to come closer, threateningly, its blind eyes shadowing an implacable menace. He wanted to shriek, cry out against this impending—what?
“King,” she began again, after a pause, “do you think you love me enough to ... to marry me?”
Ah, now he knew. The terror had taken shape. He felt almost relieved.
She saw the sudden move of his body and went on in a torrent of words. “I don’t mean now, dear; not now. But say in three—five years’ time. I could educate myself to be your wife. I could make you a good wife, dear. I’ve been true to you—you know I have—ever since the first day I met you. I’ve met any amount of men, but they were none of ​them like you. And I know you have never met a woman who could love you like I do. Haven’t I shown that? And, King, God knows I’ve not been—not lived like other women live—but love comes so easily to me, and my mother was horrid to me, and I was so young and—how could I know? And my heart is so thirsty to be loved that it seems impossible for me to be stern, and till you came I did not care much who loved me so long as I was loved; and then you came and—it was all different. It seems to me that now I understand. I didn’t understand what love was before. I’ve been going through life thinking I saw everything, and all the time I’ve been blind in a place of great light. And now the bandages have been taken from my eyes, and it all seems wonderful and glowing and splendid—I did not know that love was like this. You see, I had let other people love me: I had not loved. And now, dear, all my heart yearns to change this life. I want, oh, how I want! to be good! And I could be good for always. It would be so easy to be good—with you, now that I love you. I never understood before how easy it is for married women to be good. It comes so easy, I see, now, when they are in love. They could not be anything else. It is because they love. And I would not shame you, King; you know I would not shame you. I would educate myself. You don’t know how hard I would work. I would go to school again. I have a mother in Brisbane; she was horrid to me, and I ran away from home. But I would go back to her and live with her. She would be glad to have me back. She has written three times. I’m very quick at picking up things, dearest, and I would never disgrace you. I’ve been thinking and thinking about all this. And if it was for you I would not take long educating myself. I ​would go to a school. Won’t you take me into your life, King? Won’t you lift me up into your ways? I could be such a true wife to you, and—you do love me, dearest, don’t you?”
She ended, turning an imploring face to him. The delicate grace of her attitude forced itself upon his consciousness even at that moment. She was always so graceful, so pretty in her unpremeditated movements. But he turned his face away from her, staring with unseeing eyes into the blankness of the mist. So she was taking the delicious game seriously. And so she had begun to feel and suffer too. Well, he had suffered with Gertrude. One of the two must always suffer. She had to learn that lesson, as he had had to learn it. It was part of the universal education called Life.
But marry her? The thing was impossible. How impossible she could not guess. She was incapable of estimating the width of the chasm separating the two. Yet was there such a difference—any difference at all?
Yet, what could he do? Morally she had some claim on him, a great claim on him, the greatest of all moral claims. And now she appealed to him to save her from that life he had helped her to lead. And for himself surely the sacrifice was very small. He had abdicated from the world; its decisions, its criticisms did not matter to him any more. His actions concerned nobody but himself—and Effie. And she did love him, more than any woman had loved him in his life before. With all her looseness of moral character, with all her fundamental commonness, she loved him. And her love, by its great sincerity, triumphed over the love of better women. Like one other, much would be forgiven her. And she could make him happy—if he did not demand ​too much. And was he justified in demanding much, in demanding anything? No; he must be content now with what life had left for him. Why should he not marry Effie? She talked of his lifting her to his level! She, too, put him on the inevitable pedestal. How he hated pedestals now! No; there need be no condescension; there was no chasm between them. He hoped he was worthy of her great love. He felt that whatever Effie had been this love of hers was without alloy. It transported her to regions of dim purity.
Yes, he would marry Effie, flout the world, make her, the outcast of the world, happy. She had been so sinned against, and by men such as he! He would make some reparation, clutch her from that dark gulf. A great wave of pity went through him as he turned and looked at the girl. She asked so little, and he could do so much. Yes, he would marry Effie. It was all the honour he had left in him.
“Effie,” he said, “if you’ll have me, I’ll marry you. I’m not much of a man, but if you’ll have me, I’ll marry you.”
It was not a fine speech. There was more pity than love in it.
“Oh, King!” she said softly and gladly, and put her arms about his neck. “You love me, then? I dreamed of it, but I did not know; I thought you were like the rest, that you only talked. And I will make you a good wife. I swear I will. God bless you, darling! God bless you!”
She ended in weak tears.
And King, holding that sobbing, tremulous little girl in his protecting arms, felt a great gladness within him. Here, at least, was a use he could be to the world. Here was a task, a duty near at ​hand and obvious. Life had made him responsible for Effie. He was almost grateful to life. And—for he was young—he could not help a feeling that he had behaved well. In a vague way he felt that he was a hero.
And then he grew conscious that the world had widened out. The mist had stealthily, insidiously withdrawn. The little world within which he and the girl had seemed to be so isolated had expanded, disclosing wider vistas beyond. The mist wreaths drifted back, lost themselves in the grass, dissolved within the heavy mass of the foliage. Another black tree stood sharply up from the grey nothingness, like a black picture suddenly projected upon a grey screen. Another tree followed it out of the mist; the gas-lamp took on sudden shape, meagre and straight; other lights sprang out across the water. The world swiftly widened. He noticed a man and a woman sitting on a bench not ten yards away. They must have been there all the time. And it had seemed to him that they, he and this poor stray soul, had been immeasurably distant from all the living world! And still the scarves of mist, like torpid snakes, writhed dimly further and further away. The earth was disclosing itself. It seemed to King that he was watching that first command of the Creator. Out of impalpable chaos, with vague, confused struggle and striving, form was slowly emerging. His heart was immeasurably gladdened. He felt for the soul beside him a wonderful and momentous pity.
“How good you are to me, King!” Effie was saying weakly. “I swear you’ll never regret it. I’ll be a good wife. God bless you, King, God bless you!”
His quick ear noted the banality of the repeated ​phrase. He was hurt, offended by the commonness.
And in a lightning flash he saw the sacrifice he was making. For, despite his splendid heroics, it was a sacrifice. He knew he had ruined himself, he had delivered himself into the hands of fate. Up till now the way back to life was still open to him; the door was not immutably closed. But this marriage with Effie would end his nagging ambitions. He would have to devote himself to winning an income to set up housekeeping with her. He must marry her at once. This life could not go on any longer. That was his immediate plain duty to Effie. It was not her fault that she had played the game seriously. She was no scheming woman. He felt sure that he was the only man she had ever asked to marry her. She was genuinely in love with him. And he? Now he saw that he did not love her that way. She could not satisfy the best part of him. Between their minds, between their modes of outlook, there was a chasm, terrible in its hopelessness, implacable in its grim reality. Yet that was part of his task, to shut his eyes to that chasm. Then, as he took her, pityingly, into his arms again, he thought of Miss Barbara Smith. She would not allow him to do this thing, even though she would have admitted that his honour dictated it. He remembered how little sympathy she had been able to show to the Anæmic Niece. So he must not tell her till it was too late for her to interfere. And his mother and father? They would be disappointed, of course; but this was his own affair.
Effie lay in his arms in a moveless content. She knew herself safe for ever in that strong grasp, safe from the world, safe from the grim future towards which sometimes she gave a brief, shrinking, terrified ​glance. She did not dare look forward. But now from the shelter of King’s love she could contemplate that vague terror with serene eyes. She was safe at last. A great, almost filial, gratitude welled up in her impulsive heart for this strong, splendid, conquering, pitying man.
And now, as they sat silent, gazing out across the dim night, suddenly they noticed that the mist was inscrutably closing in upon them again. The blind dimness crept closer; the long, vaguely-stirring arms of the mist insinuated their delicate grey fingers nearer and nearer, winding about the trees and creeping along the wet grass with a horrible suggestion of sinister life. The walls of greyness grew heavier, draping, as with successive curtains, the world of vision. As the trees slowly melted into the prevailing blankness, as the gas-lamp lost shape and became a mere luminous stain in the dim greyness, as the stars of light across the water spread into vague blurs and dispersed, King felt that he was retreating into a world where there were no senses. Creation was dissolving before his eyes. All merged sullenly into an impalpable, space-pervading greyness. The damp, winding arms of the mist, grown arrogant, put clammy fingers at his throat.
“You know,” Effie said, after a long sigh of exquisite content, “if you hadn’t said you’d marry me I don’t know what I would have done. If you left me now I would not care for anything. I would give up every hope. I would just go on, go on.... You have saved me from so much—from that!” She thrust her hand out against the enveloping mist and shuddered. “I would have just gone drifting down—drifting down.... And now—”
She laid her cheek close to his, and the two gazed, long silent, into that dim, sightless face of the grey ​mist that stared blindly and passionlessly back at them—these two helpless, clinging things caught in the grip of unimaginable forces, looking bravely out into the vague, awful face of space, seeking, with a human haplessness, to find some recognition, some glimmer of human sympathy in the vague immensity of its features—imperturbable, pitiless, dead.
And from behind that blank visage came, like a menace, the long hooting of the ferry boats, the throbbing of unseen paddle-wheels that heavily pulsed and pulsed like the enormous laboured beating of some vast and inconceivable heart.