This was Sunday afternoon. The sun was warm. The lonely man was just pushing off his boat on the lagoon. It sat deep in the water, half full of sand. Somers and Harriet lay on the sand-bank. Strange it was. And it HAD a sort of fascination. Freedom! That’s what they always say. “You feel free in Australia.” And so you do. There is a great relief in the atmosphere, a relief from tension, from pressure. An absence of control or will or form. The sky is open above you, and the air is open around you. Not the old closing-in of Europe.
But what then? The VACANCY of this freedom is almost terrifying. In the openness and the freedom this new chaos, this litter of bungalows and tin cans scattered for miles and miles, this Englishness all crumbled out into formlessness and chaos. Even the heart of Sydney itself — an imitation of London and New York, without any core or pith of meaning. Business going on full speed: but only because it is the other end of English and American business.
The absence of any inner meaning: and at the same time the great sense of vacant spaces. The sense of irresponsible freedom. The sense of do-as-you-please liberty. And all utterly uninteresting. What is more hopelessly uninteresting than accomplished liberty? Great swarming, teeming Sydney flowing out into these myriads of bungalows, like shallow waters spreading, undyked. And what then? Nothing. No inner life, no high command, no interest in anything, finally.
Somers turned over and shut his eyes. New countries were more problematic than old ones. One loved the sense of release from old pressure and old tight control, from the old world of water-tight compartments. This was Sunday afternoon, but with none of the surfeited dreariness of English Sunday afternoons. It was still a raw loose world. All Sydney would be out by the sea or in the bush, a roving, unbroken world. They all rushed from where they were to somewhere else, on holidays. And to-morrow they’d all be working away, with just as little meaning, working without any meaning, playing without any meaning; and yet quite strenuous at it all. It was just dazing. Even the rush for money had no real pip in it. They really cared very little for the power that money can give. And except for the sense of power, that had no real significance here. When all is said and done, even money is not much good where there is no genuine culture. Money is a means to rising to a higher, subtler, fuller state of consciousness, or nothing. And when you flatly don’t want a fuller consciousness, what good is your money to you? Just to chuck about and gamble with. Even money is a European invention — European and American. It has no real magic in Australia.
Poor Richard Lovat wearied himself to death struggling with the problem of himself, and calling it Australia. There was no actual need for him to struggle with Australia: he must have done it in the hedonistic sense, to please himself. But it wore him to rags.
Harriet sat up and began dusting the sand from her coat — Lovat did likewise. Then they rose to be going back to the tram-car. There was a motor-car standing on the sand of the road near the gate of the end house. The end house was called St. Columb, and Somers’ heart flew to Cornwall. It was quite a nice little place, standing on a bluff of sand sideways above the lagoon.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said Harriet, looking up at St. Columb.
But Somers did not answer. He was shut against any of these humiliating little bungalows. “Love’s Harbour” he was just passing by, and it was “4 Sale”. It would be. He ploughed grimly through the sand. “Arcady”—“Stella Maris”—“Racketty-Coo.”
“I say!” called a voice from behind.
It was Mrs. Callcott running unevenly over the sand after them, the colour high in her cheeks. She wore a pale grey crepe de chine dress and grey suede shoes. Some distance behind her Jack Callcott was following, in his shirt-sleeves.
“Fancy you being here!” gasped Mrs. Callcott, and Harriet was so flustered she could only cry:
“Oh, how do you do!”— and effusively shake hands, as if she were meeting some former acquaintance on Piccadilly. The shaking hands quite put Mrs. Callcott off her track. She felt it almost an affront, and went red. Her husband sauntered up and put his hands in his pockets, to avoid mistakes.
“Ha, what are YOU doing here,” he said to the Somers pair. “Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?”
Harriet glanced at Richard Lovat. He was smiling faintly.
“Oh, we should LOVE it,” she replied to Mr. Callcott. “But where? — have you got a house here?”
“My sister has the end house,” said he.
“Oh, but — will she want us?” cried Harriet, backing out.
The Callcotts stood for a moment silent.
“Yes, if you like to come,” said Jack. And it was evident he was aware of Somers’ desire to avoid contact.
“Well, I should be awfully grateful,” said Harriet. “Wouldn’t you, Lovat?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling to himself, feeling Jack’s manly touch of contempt for all this hedging.
So off they went to “St. Columb”. The sister was a brown-eyed Australian with a decided manner, kindly, but a little suspicious of the two newcomers. Her husband was a young Cornishman, rather stout and short and silent. He had his hair cut round at the back, in a slightly rounded line above a smooth, sunburnt, reddened nape of the neck. Somers found out later that this young Cornishman — his name was Trewhella — had married his brother’s widow. Mrs. Callcott supplied Harriet later on with all the information concerning her sister-in-law. The first Trewhella, Alfred John, had died two years ago, leaving his wife with a neat sum of money and this house, “St. Columb”, and also with a little girl named Gladys, who came running in shaking her long brown hair just after the Somers appeared. So the present Trewhellas were a newly-married couple. The present husband, William James, went round in a strange, silent fashion helping his wife Rose to prepare tea.
The bungalow was pleasant, a large room facing the sea, with verandahs and other little rooms opening off. There were many family photographs, and a framed medal and ribbon and letter praising the first Trewhella. Mrs. Trewhella was alert and watchful, and decided to be genteel. So the party sat around in the basket chairs and on the settles under the windows, instead of sitting at table for tea. And William James silently but willingly carried round the bread and butter and the cakes.
He was a queer young man, with an Irish-looking face, rather pale, an odd kind of humour in his grey eye and in the corners of his pursed mouth. But he spoke never a word. It was hard to decide his age — probably about thirty — a little younger than his wife. He seemed silently pleased about something — perhaps his marriage. Somers noticed that the whites of his eyes were rather bloodshot. He had been in Australia since he was a boy of fifteen — he had come with his brother — from St. Columb, near Newquay — St. Columb Major. So much Somers elicited.
“Well, how do you like Sydney?” came the inevitable question from Mrs. Trewhella.
“The harbour, I think, is wonderful,” came Somers’ invariable answer.
“It is a fine harbour, isn’t it. And Sydney is a fine town. Oh yes, I’ve lived there all my life.”
The conversation languished. Callcott was silent, and William James seemed as if he were never anything else. Even the little girl fluttered into a whisper and went still again. Everybody was a little embarrassed, rather stiff: too genteel, or not genteel enough. And the men seemed absolute logs.
“You don’t think much of Australia, then?” said Jack to Somers.
“Why,” answered the latter, “how am I to judge! I haven’t