george chard had been transferred from the red desert of gilgargery to the rivers. the bank for which he laboured was one of the institutions of the country. its clients lay chiefly among the western pastoralists. the bulk of its business was done on mortgages.
when george entered the service of the bank, through the influence of his uncle, tobias chard, his prospects had appeared in the colours of the dawn; now they were set in more of a winter-grey perspective.
tobias chard was the proprietor 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 improvident 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 bullion, limited, to secure his nephew a junior appointment.
as the balance of tobias chard was great, and his herd and flocks numerous, this was a mere 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 favourably 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 banking account.
but three consecutive 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 paralysis.
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 speculations in which the bank had put money.
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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 faculties; he was, moreover, out of his latitude, 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 metropolitan 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 tranquil years, and go to sydney and earn a living.
but george had been in the head office in sydney for six months before the demise 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 applied for a removal to the country town where his people were, but there was no vacancy. the chief grocer’s son was in the bank and as he showed decided proclivities 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 interval 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 ledger in his box of[138] an office by the river bank, the galvanised roof above him crackling under the awful heat, considered the general injustice of things with a sore heart.
but when the pig was more hoggish than usual, he forced up before his mind a picture. it was a homely 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 insipid animal who plays tennis and says “haw!”
as a rule he belongs to the “inner set,” in which revolve a dozen or so of social suns, very much dazzled by their own individual and mutual 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 annex a good banking account.
the minor 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 makers 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 gender, and george chard, who accepted social evenings as a painful duty, and loathed tennis, found himself tangled in the meshes 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 idiocies, and affect the manners of a cheesemonger who has unexpectedly won a tattersall’s sweep (which is the manner of the little shoddy aristocrats 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 cockroaches, 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.
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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 woe.
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 veins; nora creyton, with the high, white forehead and the red lips and lustrous 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 worthy 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 presumption 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 detailed in another chapter.
