Capricornia

“Oh? Give’s an instance?”

“Well—Oh I’ve tried lots of things—for instance I’ve tried to teach ’em about the cattle-market—commerce generally—in a very rough way, of course, so’s they won’t think the Government’s my father and keeps me for love, as they do with their communistic ideas—so’s they won’t pole and waste. I put it to ’em very simple. Just as you would to a child. Oh, but they haven’t any idea to this day what I meant.”

“What language did you use?”

“Why—Pidgin, of course.”

“Ah! Now suppose I tried to explain to you in Pidgin how a locomotive works—” Oscar looked thoughtful. Differ went on, “If Binghis were taught English properly, sent to school like other people, instead of being excluded as they are—”

“That may be so. But they’re filthy cows. No get away from that. Look at their quarters here.”

“What about the slums of highly civilised cities? Why are teams of sanitary inspectors employed if the human race is naturally clean? Cleanliness as we know it, Oscar, is something we’ve learnt through living in crowds where it’s dangerous to be dirty. Binghis are clean enough in their camps. If they were properly taught they’d be clean elsewhere. Send ’em to school as infants.”

“But would they go?”

“Not they! Would anyone of us go if we could get out of it? I said send ’em, same as we’re sent as kids. Keep at it for generation after generation. Don’t look for immediate results. Consider how long it took to civilise our own race. Our condition is the result not of a mere ten years or so of schooling, but of ages. See that the Binghis get the same.”

After a pause Oscar said, “Well it’s not much use worrying about ’em now. They’re dying out.”

“What—with thousands upon thousands of ’em still in this country and many yet never seen a whiteman? Why, do you know that even as far as can be judged there are more more-or-less wild Binghis in this country than there are white people in India? Ah!—what you have just said, Oscar, was said twenty—fifty years ago too. If only the Nation’d give a little time to trying to understand the Binghi, they’d find he isn’t such a low fellow after all. All sorts of evil breeds—the sex-mad Hindoos, the voodooing Africans, the cannibals of Oceania, all dirty, diseased, slaving, and enslaving races—are being helped to decent civilised manhood by the thoughtful white people of the world, while we of this country, the richest in the world, just stand by and see our black compatriots wiped out. They’ll be like the Noble Redman someday—noble when gone! They put up as good a fight for their rights as the Redman, and without the guns of Frenchmen to help them. Why, the kids of this country honour the Redman in their games! What do they think of that just-as-good-if-not-better tracker and hunter and fighter the Binghi? And how was the Redman any better than the Binghi but in that he wore more clothes and rode a horse? You don’t need clothes in this country, and you can’t ride kangaroos. And look at the Maoris. They have seats in Parliament these days, go to the best schools, even receive knighthoods. They were as basely treated as the Binghis at first. How did they win honour? Why—someone put them in the way of handling firearms, sold them firearms as trade! And then one of them was taken to England, where he was given so many presents that he came back as a rich man able to buy enough firearms to start a great war against the whiteman. Matter of luck in getting hold of the firearms to show the whiteman they were as good as he. Poor Binghi missed it. Study the Binghi, Oscar, and you’ll find he’s a different man from you in many ways, but in all ways quite as good. Study him, and you’ll discover that dominant half of the inheritance of the half-caste you despise.”

Oscar pondered for a while, then said, “Oh, but half-castes don’t seem to be any good at all. All the men here are loafers and bludgers, the women practically all whores—”

“Do the men get a chance to work like whitemen? Look, the only half-castes of all the thousands in this country who are regularly employed are those who work on the night cart in town. Occasionally others get a casual labouring job. When it peters out they have to go back to the Old People for a feed. They get no schooling—”

“There’s a school in the Half-castes’ Home.”

“Bah! A kindergarten. A hundred children of all ages crowded into one small room and taught by an unqualified person. I’ll tell you something. Once I had a look at that school, hoping to get the job of running it, knowing that the teacher barely taught ’em more than A.B.C. and the fact that they’re base inferiors. The teacher there then—a woman—thought I was a visitor from South or somewhere. She led off by telling me not to get false notions into my head about her pupils’ unhappy lot. With a smile she told me they were Only Niggers. So ignorant of her job was she that one quarter-caste kiddie I pointed out she said was a half-caste, and to prove it called the child out and asked her, as one’d speak to a prisoner in jail, wasn’t her mother a lubra. As it happens I was right. A cruel ugly business. Of course the kiddie took it calmly, not knowing any other kind of treatment. Just think of it—when those kids leave that lousy school they have no-one to go to but the Binghis; and so they forget even the little they learn. The language of Compounds and Aboriginal reserves is Pidgin. A few score of words. No wonder such people come to think like animals! You said the women were whores. What chance have they to be anything else? Moral sense is something taught. It’s not taught to half-caste girls. They’re looked upon from birth as part of the great dirty joke Black Velvet. What decent whiteman would woo and marry one honestly? It wouldn’t pay him. He’d be looked upon as a combo. Look at Ganger O’Cannon of Black Adder Creek, with his half-caste wife and quadroon kids, a downright family man—yet looked on as as much a combo as if he lived in a blacks’ camp. Isn’t that so?”

“Oh I don’t see much difference between a black lubra and a yeller one. Anyway, Tim O’Cannon’s lubra’s father was a Chow, which makes her a full-blood and his kids half-caste. But this is a distasteful subject. I don’t like this Black Velvet business. It makes me sick.”

“You’re like the majority of people in Australia. You hide from this very real and terrifically important thing, and hide it, and come to think after a while that it don’t exist. But it does! It does! Why are there twenty thousand half-castes in the country? Why are they never heard of? Oh my God! Do you know that if you dare write a word on the subject to a paper or a magazine you get your work almost chucked back at you?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Why shouldn’t such a disgraceful thing be kept dark? Is that what you’re writing about in this book of yours?”

“No fear! I’ve learnt long ago that I’m expected to write about the brave pioneers and—Oh bah! this dissembling makes my guts bleed! But talking about Tim O’Cannon, Oscar—most of the men in this district go combo, mainly on the sly. How can they help it? There are no white women. Would moralists prefer that those who pioneer should be sexual perverts? Well, if there are any kids as the result of these quite natural flutters they are just ignored. The casual comboes are respected, while men like O’Cannon and myself, who rear their kids, are utterly despised. Take the case of your brother Mark for instance. A popular fellow—”

“All this talk about Mark has got to be proved.”

“There’s plenty more examples—popular and respected men, their shortcomings laughed over, while Tim O’Cannon’s been trying for years to get a teacher sent down to Black Adder for a couple of days a month to get his kids schooled a bit. The Government tells him again and again to send them to the Compound School—”

“Well, if he’s so keen on getting ’em schooled—”

“Better have ’em ignorant than taught humility, the chief subject on the curriculum of the Compound. But O’Cannon’s a taxpayer. He pays his whack towards the upkeep of the State School up in town—”

“Can’t he send ’em there?”

“Who’d look after ’em if he did? Who’d protect ’em from the contempt of the white kids? All he wants is a teacher sent down once a month to stay the couple of days while the train’s down the road. They won’t do it.”

A long pause fell. Both men smoked, and stared into the black breathless night. At length Differ said earnestly, “Don’t send the kid to the Compound, Oscar. It’ll mean the ruin of him. He’ll grow up to learn nothing but humility. And after all the Government will only send him out to work for some brainless cruel fool like Driver. My friend, any person who can adopt a half-caste as his own and doesn’t, will surely burn in Hell, if there is such a place. Think of the life before the kid—like Yeller Elbert’s—worse—like poor savage Peter Pan’s. Life-long humiliation. Neither a whiteman nor a black. A drifting nothing. Keep the boy a while, Oscar, teach him just a bit to test what I’ve said. You’re a good-hearted man I know. I’m sure you’ll see the good in him when it begins to show, in spite of the prejudices bred in you and drummed into you by Australian papers and magazines that use the Binghi as something to joke about. Remember that though his skin is dark and there is Aboriginal in his blood, half his flesh and blood is the same as your own.”

Oscar turned on him angrily and cried, “I told you that’s still got to be proved!”

Oscar let Nawnim play with Marigold, just for an hour or so now and again. Then Nawnim began to change, not in his own little body, but in Oscar’s idea of him, and came to be not so much a family disgrace as a personal problem, a fascinating terrible problem. If he were to grow up to be a cringing drudge like Yeller Elbert or a pariah like Peter Pan, how would fare the half of him that was proud Shillingsworth? Oscar began to think about him more than anything else that concerned him just then, and came at length to the decision that if it were proved that he was the son of Mark, he would see to it that Mark took care of him and would himself advise Mark how best to do so.

Another fortnight passed. Then Oscar went in to meet the train, fully expecting to get a letter of denial or contrite confession from Mark, and half expecting to see the fellow himself, since during the fortnight of changing and softening opinions he had forgotten how harsh was the letter he had sent him. Neither Mark nor letter came.

Oscar was annoyed. Much of the new softness hardened in a matter of minutes. He thought for a while, then telephoned the Princess Alice Hotel and learnt that Mark was still there. He spoke to Heather, but did not say who he was. She went to get Mark, and, in Oscar’s opinion, returned with him, because, although she said that she had been unable to find him, her manner of asking who was speaking and what his business was gave him the idea that she was repeating what someone near was whispering. He told her nothing but that he wished to speak to Mark concerning a matter of great importance and would be obliged if she would see to it that he was at hand when he would ring again at five.

Oscar came out of Mrs McLash’s little post-office prickling with heat and anger. As he did so, Mrs McLash crept out of her bedroom smirking. She had been listening. She guessed that it all had something to do with Nawnim, as she told Mrs Blaize of Soda Springs when she telephoned to learn what had been said by the other party.

At five o’clock Oscar rang the Princess Alice again. This time he would have no dealings with Heather when she said that Mark was still away. He asked for Mrs Shay, who addressed him by name and told him just what Heather had before. All his softness was callousness now. He went home vowing to teach Mark a lesson.

Two days later Oscar came to the Siding again, this time dressed for travelling and bringing with him a portmanteau and laughably-clad Nawnim. That was return-train day. As soon as Mrs McLash saw him she said to people sitting with her that she would bet her bottom dollar that he was taking Nawnim up to town to throw him at Mark’s head. Sure enough, Oscar asked if he might use the telephone, and rang up the Princess Alice. She heard him tell someone that he required Mark to meet him at the train in town, that Mark must be got if getting him necessitated calling in the help of the police.

As soon as the train left the Caroline, Mrs McLash rang up Mrs Shay, as it was usual for her to do, to tell her how many passengers were likely to require lodging at her hotel. She also told why Oscar was coming. Mrs Shay had no love for Mark and did not know that Heather had much; when she returned to the dining-room whence she had been called, she passed on what she had heard. Thus, while the train was still in the Caroline Hills, most of Mrs Shay’s lodgers knew that Mark was going to have a half-caste piccaninny thrown at his head that night. That was the first that most of the lodgers knew of the existence of a child of Mark’s. Indeed it was news to Mrs Shay herself. To Heather it was a thunderbolt. While landlady and lodgers laughed over the news, Heather stole up to her room and wept. Mark was down at the beach at work on his ship.

The people who heard the tale from Mrs Shay took it down to the station when they went to meet the train that evening and passed it on to the crowd. Before long it was generally known, so that as much attention was given to watching for Mark as for the train.

True to the tale, a sullen-faced Oscar arrived with a half-caste brat. But no Mark was there to have it thrown at his head. Mark was gone, sailing out into the Silver Sea. For Heather had gone to him to learn the truth and had told him everything. He denied Nawnim, but declined to prove himself by facing Oscar. She left him, telling him that she never wanted to see his face again. In two or three hours he completed arrangements for his pearling-expedition that otherwise he might have dallied over for weeks. He was not fleeing from responsibility for Nawnim, but from the shame of exposure before the town.

Oscar was infuriated. His reason for wanting Mark to meet him was mainly that he wished to save himself the embarrassment of having to carry the child through the town and hand him over to Mark in a public place. He never dreamt that Mark could be warned and would flee. As it was, he had to carry Nawnim to the Princess Alice and show him to Mrs Shay. The lady seemed amazed. He cursed himself for having trusted to the telephone, but not nearly so vigorously as he cursed Mark for deserting and Mrs McLash for tattling. That night Nawnim slept in his arms in the best room in the hotel. He had to be held in arms because, distrustful as he was of the strange surroundings and the noises of the bar, he was disposed to wail. Oscar was glad of the room to hide in.

Next morning after a quiet breakfast in the room, Oscar took Nawnim to the Aborigines Department and handed him over to the Protector, confessing with malicious pleasure that he was uncle to the child. He confessed because he wished the Government to take action against Mark. It was a mistake. Just then the Compound was being closed owing to an outbreak of measles among its people, on account of which the Protector could not admit Nawnim without endangering his life. The Protector said that Aborigines were particularly prone to die of the disease, and suggested that Oscar, as the child’s uncle, should continue to take care of him till the danger was past. Oscar dreaded measles since the death of his infant son, and was loth to expose Nawnim to it, but resented being expected to act charitably on account of a relationship he did not recognise. He became angry and told the Protector to place the child in some other institution. The Protector responded to his anger and told him that the measles was everywhere, and that he considered it extremely mean of him to avoid a trifling inconvenience that might be the means of saving the child’s life. Oscar went off in a rage, with the prospect of having to keep Nawnim with him in the town during the eleven days till next train-day.

Before returning to the hotel he took Nawnim to a Chinese store and bought him a tusser-silk suit and sandals and a sailor hat. A mighty improvement was effected in the child’s appearance. Oscar did not slink back to the hotel nearly as shyly as he had slunk away from it. Mrs Shay called Heather to look at Nawnim, little knowing that Heather’s eyes could scarcely see anything for tears of which Nawnim was the innocent cause. Heather came for fear that a refusal might set her mistress off suspecting what was the cause of the headache that had kept her out of company these many hours. The result of her coming was a further improvement in Nawnim’s appearance; for in spite of the pain his existence caused her, she was touched by the sight of him; she saw faults in his dress that were invisible to Oscar and a Chinaman, and therefore took him back to the store and had his suit changed, and at Oscar’s expense bought him more clothes and a Teddy Bear she found him staring at and a huge bag of lollies. Then she took him back to the hotel and bathed him, and had a cot fitted up for him on the veranda outside her own quiet bedroom. Oscar was grateful, but reluctant to let a Poundamore make free with a Shillingsworth disgrace.

For three rather miserable days Oscar lounged about the town, trailing or carrying Nawnim, since Heather was usually too busy to mind him and he would not suffer the company of others. Then the problem of disposing of the burden suddenly appeared to solve itself. Freddie Radato, the half-caste Philippino barber, while shaving Oscar one morning and talking about Nawnim, who sat near, offered to take care of him for thirty shillings a week till Mark returned. Oscar jumped at the offer. He left Nawnim in the saloon. But he did not experience the feeling of relief he had expected. He left Nawnim howling, and, because Radato’s house was near the hotel, heard him howling for hours afterwards. And he felt distinctly mean about abandoning him. Next morning at breakfast, to the sound of Nawnim’s howls, he confessed to Heather that he had come to like him.

When three days later the doctor came and told him that he must take Nawnim away from Radato’s at once because one of the Radato children had contracted measles, Oscar was not really dismayed. That night he took him to Tommy Tai Yun’s open-air picture-show and showed him his first moving pictures. Next day he took him aboard the mail-boat and showed him the wonders it contained, including the captain’s monkey, which he was even moved to try to buy for him. The days that followed were by no means miserable. There were more pictures—free pictures this time, because the last performance had been interrupted in the middle by a thunderstorm—and motor-rides out to Tikatika Point, and a fishing expedition down the jetty. Oscar came to find pleasure in watching Nawnim’s delight in these simple entertainments, and in teaching him to speak English properly. And he came to feel that it would be pleasant to introduce him to the mighty world as he had dreamt of introducing Roger. But at the same time he did not entirely give up trying to dispose of him nor forget to write to Mark a stinging letter in which he stated that if he refused to accept his responsibilities he would see that an action for affiliation was brought against him.

At length the day of the return journey came. Nawnim went down to the train with Oscar in Joe Crowe’s cab, clad in a neat little khaki suit and khaki topee. The rest of his belongings were packed away in Oscar’s bag, together with pencils and pads and slates and primers and picture-books. Oscar led him through the crowd with little of the shame he had felt when last he trod that ground with him. And Nawnim, holding the big brown hand he had come to love, felt none of the fear he had felt there only six weeks before.

Just as the train was moving out, a yellow face, round as the moon at full and wide-eyed and open-mouthed, came bobbing through the crowd towards the open window of the coach where Oscar and Nawnim stood, screaming, “Nawnee—Nawnee!” He recognised it. His eyes brightened. His body tensed.

“Nawnee—Nawnee! Hello lil manee—which way you walkim?”

“Who’s that?” asked Oscar, leaning out to stare—to stare back as the train passed on.

It was Fat Anna. But Nawnim did not know her name, nor much about her beyond the fact that she was something pleasant come suddenly out of the misty past. She was soon lost to view. Thus Oscar never realised how close he came to solving the problem completely.

They returned to Red Ochre. And as though it were true that clothes make a man, before many weeks were out, little Nawnim, under the respectable name of Norman, came to live in the Shillingsworth household as a Shillingsworth of the blood.

MARS AND VENUS IN ASCENDANCY (#ucc395e85-cad9-52ce-ae79-e64b7cf21d6b)

MARK’S pearling-expedition took him far. He made the acquaintance of most of the islands of the Silver Sea, Australian, Dutch, and Portuguese, and many of the Coral Sea as well. He might never have returned had he not been forced to do so when, towards the end of 1914, Freedom of the Seas suddenly ceased to be. The Spirit of the Land was dogged from island to island by gunboats, like a city loafer by police, received with suspicion at every port, sent on her way again and again, till at last she fell in with a particularly officious gunboat that escorted her home.

Oscar had almost forgotten Mark. The first he heard of his return was when he was disputing over the telephone with a Chinese storekeeper in town concerning £30 worth of stores he had not bought. The Chinaman told him that Mark had bought the stores in his name. Mark was at the time away on the Christmas Banks, pearl-fishing. He had bought the stores to go there, believing that he would be back with means to pay the bill before it was presented. Oscar had to pay to avoid the cost and inconvenience of having to face the legal action with which the Chinaman threatened him. He was furious. For a while he contemplated proceeding against Mark as he had not long before against Peter Differ for a similar imposition. It was only the thought of the severe lesson he had learnt in Differ’s case that restrained him.