When George entered the service of the bank, through the influence of his uncle, Tobias Chard, his prospects1 had appeared in the colours of the dawn; now they were set in more of a winter-grey perspective.
Tobias Chard was the proprietor2 of an immense run in the nor’-west. His younger brother, George’s father, having no business instinct, and a depraved taste for water-colour, was a clerk in the Crown Lands Office. He was blessed with a family of five girls and a boy. Tobias, the bachelor, declared that his brother had been improvident3 in all things.
It was impossible to give young George a profession, so the uncle was persuaded to use his[135] influence—ungraciously—with the Bulk and Bullion4, Limited, to secure his nephew a junior appointment.
As the balance of Tobias Chard was great, and his herd5 and flocks numerous, this was a mere6 matter of an interview with the directors.
Next week Chard, junior, received a note from the Board to say that his application for service had been favourably7 considered.
He entered upon his duties at the copying press with a strong determination to work himself up to the position of city manager.
His chances were not too remote, inasmuch as that he had Uncle Tobias’s big account behind him.
Nothing in this world will help an ambitious young man along in a bank like the influence of a solid banking8 account.
But three consecutive9 droughts struck Uncle Tobias, and he mortgaged.
That was the beginning of a rapid end. The Lord sent him a rot among his sheep. The devil followed with a law suit. The homestead was burnt out. Misfortune followed misfortune, and Tobias, being no Job, lost patience, and died of a sudden stroke of paralysis10.
Everything remained in the hands of the bank. The stoop-shouldered brother in the Lands Office got nothing. The patient little, white haired old-young woman, for whom George would have laid down his life at any moment, got nothing. None of the five girls, nor George, received a shilling.
And the property turned out to be one of the worst speculations11 in which the bank had put money.
[136]
If George had had any station experience he might have been sent up to look after things, and having some sort of personal or family interest in the matter he might have recovered on the bank’s bad investment; but as he had no experience on the run, the B. and B., Ltd., transferred a man from one of their foreclosures on the South Australian Border to act as manager. This man had no organising faculties12; he was, moreover, out of his latitude13, and the property began to rapidly represent a dead yearly loss to the B. and B. These things did not improve the prospects of George Chard.
In some indefinite way he was connected in responsibility with Uncle Tobias, who it was felt at headquarters, had deceived the Board of Directors.
The Directors did not know that Tobias’s run, with proper handling, might be made to pay twenty or thirty per cent. But the lesson had been pretty clearly taught in New South Wales and Queensland during past years that financial institutions cannot conduct stations from a metropolitan14 head office. Nor is it good for either institution or the country that they should make the attempt.
As George Chard grew in years and knowledge, he learned that merit is most frequently its own reward. He saw his juniors the sons of rich men or of men who had rich relatives, promoted over his head. He was sent out relieving in the far back country in summer time.
His father died, leaving the mother and five girls mainly dependent on him. The girls were good girls,[137] and they wanted to sell up the home, representing all the Chard assets, and to leave the country town, where they had spent so many tranquil15 years, and go to Sydney and earn a living.
But George had been in the head office in Sydney for six months before the demise16 of Uncle Tobias, and he knew what making a living in Sydney meant for girls like his sisters.
So he existed cheaply, and sent the balance of his cheque home every month—to keep the house going. He applied17 for a removal to the country town where his people were, but there was no vacancy18. The chief grocer’s son was in the bank and as he showed decided19 proclivities20 to the waste and loose-living of cities, his people wanted to keep him under personal surveillance. The grocer had an account in the bank. The transfer of his son against the family wishes meant a transfer of the family accounts, which were large. The manager stated these facts to the Board, and the Board intimated to George Chard that his application for removal had been taken into consideration, and the Board could not see its way clear to comply with his request.
George allowed a decent interval21 of two years to elapse, and respectfully applied for a rise in salary.
The Board was pleased to graciously consider his request, added ￡10 a year to his salary, and sent him up north to a small branch under an acting-manager who was known throughout the B. and B., Limited, as a “pig.”
George Chard, leaning over a ledger22 in his box of[138] an office by the river bank, the galvanised roof above him crackling under the awful heat, considered the general injustice23 of things with a sore heart.
But when the pig was more hoggish24 than usual, he forced up before his mind a picture. It was a homely25 enough picture of a cottage with a pepper-tree growing in front and a grapevine trailing over the porch, and it was a long way off, but it steadied him.
Now the average bank clerk in the average country town is an insipid26 animal who plays tennis and says “Haw!”
As a rule he belongs to the “inner set,” in which revolve27 a dozen or so of social suns, very much dazzled by their own individual and mutual28 splendour.
The bank clerk is regarded as a catch by country young ladies, and as his commercial training stands him in good stead, he frequently manages to matrimonially annex29 a good banking account.
The minor30 bank official, whose wife can transfer a big account at pleasure, is a greater man than the major bank official whose wife like the little pig in the nursery rhyme, “got none.” The Pig’s wife under whom George had been sent to serve was lean and yellow and rich, in her own right, and in the right and light of a tribe of money makers31 with whom she was related and connected by marriage, which comes to the same thing.
The Pig’s wife’s people were the people of the place; in fact, the place pretty well belonged to the people of the wife of the Pig.
Hence the Pig, in spite of his delinquencies, was a[139] desirable manager for that branch on the Bulk and Bullion.
Now, the Pig’s wife had several lean, yellow sisters, and a host of yellow-lean cousins of the feminine gender32, and George Chard, who accepted social evenings as a painful duty, and loathed33 tennis, found himself tangled34 in the meshes35 of a family cobweb, wherein the spider in the multiplex personality of the Pig’s people by marriage threatened to extract the substance from him.
In such a situation, to succeed, a man must be either a born diplomatist or a born fool—George Chard was neither. For preference he ought to have been a fool. A fool who could ape city fashions, talk idiocies36, and affect the manners of a cheesemonger who has unexpectedly won a Tattersall’s Sweep (which is the manner of the little shoddy aristocrats37 of country villages), would have been accepted as a social Pygmalion, before whom the plaster Galateas might decently become flesh and blood at the first invocation. Nineteen out of every twenty bank clerks would have fitted such a position naturally, but George belonged to the twentieth section, which is rare and unpopular—unpopular because rare.
Inside the office the Pig, of his general nature, made life bitter, and outside, the Pig’s people did their best in the same direction.
It was a negative relief when Number One set of Wharfdale Society finally decided that George Chard should be “cut” altogether.
Number Two Set would have accepted him with open arms, but as Number Two Set was only a shade less[140] objectionable and vulgar than Number One Set, George elected to spend his Saturday afternoons fishing.
So he chummed with the Postmaster, who was unmarried, and reported to be an Athiest, or something equally awful, and they grew wise together on the matter of dragon flies and crickets and cockroaches38, and other occult bait.
In the intellectual desert of Wharfdale, Dan Creyton, the Postmaster, was to George Chard the only oasis—Dan Creyton and his sister Nora.
Dan Creyton represented three generations of native-born Australians.
His grandfather had grown corn on the Hawkesbury in the old convict days; his father had been a farmer on the Hunter, and had left Dan and his sister a little property equally divided.
With a hundred and fifty pounds a year each in rent and interest, and another hundred and twenty-five from the Government, Nora found no difficulty in keeping house for her brother, and saving money. The Creytons came of good stock, and because of the Breed, which can be transplanted to any climate without degeneration, and which carries its mark on the mouth and the hands, Dan was a gentleman and Nora a lady. And there will be ladies and gentlemen—of Nature and the Breed—just as there will be cads and she-snobs to the end of all time.
Dan Creyton was a reader. Poor George had found little time for the ennobling education of literature, but he recognised the superior intellect, and regarded Dan as his elder friend.
[141]
Creyton had watched the play of life in its local relation to George with an amused interest, and when the Meanness-of-Small-Things was sitting on the stool beside the young man one day at the bank, and George was regarding it out of hollow, hopeless eyes, Dan Creyton dropped in and shook hands with him without saying anything.
Thereafter George Chard was Dan Creyton’s friend for weal or for woe39.
After all, life and death are small matters.
It is the other things which count—love and hate, and the sunlight down the water.
Nora Creyton, with the warm sympathetic blood of the Celt in her veins40; Nora Creyton, with the high, white forehead and the red lips and lustrous41 eyes, soon became the sunlight of George Chard’s life.
Nora Creyton was a sensible girl. She knew that the prospects of George Chard, bank clerk, with a mother and five sisters dependent on him, were not worthy42 of serious consideration from a matrimonial point of view. She knew that and a lot more, but she could no more help her heart beating ridiculously fast on occasions, or her cheeks reddening or her eyes sparkling than she could help her breath.
George did not see these things, or, if he had, the last thought that would have entered his mind would be the presumption43 that his presence accounted for them.
And George and Nora might have gone on for ever caring for one another in secret but for an accident, which will be detailed44 in another chapter.
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1
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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bullion
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| n.金条，银条 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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16
demise
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| n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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proclivities
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| n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 ) | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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hoggish
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| adj.贪婪的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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insipid
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| adj.无味的，枯燥乏味的，单调的 | |
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revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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gender
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| n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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meshes
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| 网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境 | |
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idiocies
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| n.极度的愚蠢( idiocy的名词复数 )；愚蠢的行为；白痴状态 | |
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aristocrats
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| n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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41
lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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42
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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43
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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