XV
INTERVIEWS
My experience of being interviewed began many years before the invention of the present fashion of demanding from perfect strangers answers to questions which one’s most intimate friend would hesitate to ask. My interviewers had not the smallest desire to be informed as to what I liked to eat or drink, or at what hour I got up of a morning. The conversation on these occasions used to be strictly confined to my visitor’s own affairs. Perhaps “strictly” is not the word I want, for I well remember that my greatest difficulty at these interviews was to keep the information showered on me at all to the subject in hand, and to avoid incessant parenthetical reminiscences of bygone events.
Both in Natal and Mauritius we lived so far away from the town that it was too much trouble for the interviewer to seek me out, nor indeed do I remember hearing of cases which needed help and advice there so often as at other places.
My real début in being interviewed was made in Western Australia some twenty years ago in the dear old primitive days, when I felt that I was the squire’s wife and the rector’s wife rolled into one, and most of the troubles used to be brought straight to me. Indeed, so numerous were my visitors of this class that a special room had to be set aside in which to receive them; and certainly, if its walls had tongues as well as ears, some droll confidences might be betrayed by them.
But I must confess I began badly. Almost my first visitor in that room was a “pensioner’s” widow. There can be very few “pensioners” left now, for fifteen years ago, when we left dear Western Australia, hardly thirty of the old “Enrolled Guard” survived. The colloquial name by which they were known in those latter days was Pensioner, though it does not really express their status.
Fifty years ago a large military force had been sent out to the Swan River Settlement—all that was then known of a colony now a million square miles in extent—to guard the convicts asked for by the first settlers to help them to make roads and bridges and public buildings. After twenty years the deportation of convicts to Western Australia ceased, and the troops were withdrawn.
As, however, it was desirable to induce respectable settlers to make the colony their home, special advantages had been offered to soldiers to remain and take up free grants of land. Many of those who had wives and families accepted the offer, and, whenever they proved to be sober and industrious men, did extremely well. In addition to the liberal grants of land, each man was given a small pension, and ever since the convicts left his military functions had been confined to mounting guard at Government House. Even that slight duty came to an end, however, during our stay, and smart young policemen replaced the old veterans in out-of-date uniforms, their breasts covered with numerous medals for active service in all parts of the globe.
But to return to my first interviewer—an old Irishwoman, very feeble and very poor, her man long since dead, and the children apparently scattered to the four winds of heaven; the grant of land sold, the money spent, the pension always forestalled, and the inevitable objection to entering the colonial equivalent for “the House.” To more practised ears it would no doubt have sounded a suspicious story, but it went to my heart, and I gave the poor old body some tea and sugar, an order for a little meat, and—fatal mistake—a few shillings. Next day there was a coroner’s inquest on the charred remains of my unfortunate friend, who had got, as it seems she usually did, very drunk, and had tumbled into her own fireplace. Every one seemed to know how weak and foolish I had been in the matter of even that small gift of money, and the newspapers hinted that I must be a Political Economist of the lowest type! So pensioners’ widows tried in vain to “put the com-mether” on me after that experience.
“If you please, my lady, an ’Indoo wants to speak to you,” ushered in a little later my next interviewer. I beheld a small, trim, and cleanly clad little man entering at the door. His request was for a pedlar’s licence. I timidly pointed out that I did not deal in such things, and that he must have been wrongly advised to apply to me for the document. This brought on a rambling story, very difficult to comprehend until I furbished up the scanty remains of my own knowledge of Hindustani. I then gathered that my friend was somewhat of a black sheep in character as well as complexion, and had so indifferent a record in the police sheets that he could not get a licence to start a hawker’s cart unless some one would become security for his good behaviour. He explained very carefully how he could manage to raise sufficient money to stock his cart, but no one would go security for him. I knew that hawkers made quite a good living in the thinly populated parts of the colony, and he seemed desperately in earnest in his desire to make a fresh start and gain his bread honestly. I told him that I would consult the Commissioner of Police and see him again; which I did, with the result that I went security for his good conduct myself! No doubt it was a rash thing to do, but I wanted him to have another chance, and I impressed on him how keenly I should feel the disgrace if he did not run straight. “Very good, lady Sahib; I won’t disgrace you,” were his last words in his own language; and he never did. It all turned out like a story in a book, and two or three times a year my “Indoo” turned up, bringing a smiling little wife and an ever-increasing series of babies, to report himself as being on the high road to fortune, if not actually at her temple gate. It was one of the most satisfactory interviews that little back room witnessed.
Sometimes I had a very bad quarter of an hour trying to explain to the relatives of prisoners that I did not habitually carry the key of the big Jail in my pocket, and so was unable to go up that very moment, unlock its door, and let out their, of course, quite wrongfully tried and convicted friends. I have often been asked, “Why did you see these weeping women at all?” but at the time it was very hard to refuse, for, in so small a community as it then was, one knew something of the circumstances, and how hardly the trouble or disgrace pressed on the innocent members of the family. Sympathy was all there was to give, and it was impossible to withhold that.
Looking back on those interviews one sees how comedy treads all through life on the heels of tragedy, and I am sure to a listener the comic element, even in the most pathetic tales, would have been supplied by my legal axioms. I used to invent them on the spot in the wildest manner, and I observed they always brought great comfort, which is perhaps more than can be claimed for the real thing. For instance, when I was very hard put to it once to persuade a weeping girl who had flung herself on her knees at my feet, and was entreating me to at once release her brother, who was in prison for manslaughter, that I had no power to give the order she begged for, I cried, “Why, my poor girl, the Queen of England could not do such a thing, how much less the wife of a Governor? I dare not even speak to my husband on the subject.” I have often wondered since if the first part of that assertion was true. The second certainly was.
Although I could not promise to overthrow the action of the Supreme Court in the high-handed manner demanded of me, still I have never regretted my habit of seeing these poor women and listening to their sad stories. It really seemed to comfort them a little to know how truly sorry I felt for them, and I always tried to keep up their own self-respect, and so help them over the dark days. I had very few demands on me for money, which was seldom needed for such cases; only when illness—rare in the beautiful climate—supervened, was that sort of aid at all necessary.
But my interviewers did not invariably consist of supplicants against the course of justice. When it was found that a visit to me did not affect in any way the carrying out of the just-passed sentence, my petitioners fell off in numbers, for which I was very thankful. Sometimes I received visits of the gratitude which is so emphatically a sense of favours to come, but I very soon learned the futility of attempting to deal with those daughters of the horse-leech, and cut their visits as short as I could.
Once, however, after a brief interview with a fluent and very red-faced lady, leading a demure little boy by the hand, a great and bitter cry was raised in my establishment, and I was implored by my housemaids not to “see any more of them hussies.” The lady in question said she came to thank me for letting her dear, innocent, good little boy out of the reformatory. In vain I protested that I knew nothing whatever about the matter. The boy had been one of six or seven little waifs who had been sent to the reformatory on Rottnest Island, where we always spent our summers. These children used to come down to me every Sunday afternoon for a sort of Bible lesson, which I tried to make as interesting as I could; but beyond their names I knew nothing about them. I found that they were well taught and cared for, and, as they could not possibly escape from the island (I never heard that they had ever tried to do so), were allowed a good deal of liberty after the hours spent in school or the carpenter’s shop. I presume this boy’s sentence had expired in due course, and that he had returned to his loving mother; hence the wail from my distracted handmaidens, who found empty clothes-lines in the back-yard, through which these visitors had departed, taking with them all the socks, stockings, and pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole household. As a feat of legerdemain it certainly deserves credit for the rapidity with which it was done, as well as the way the articles had been hidden so as to escape the sentries’ eyes. I don’t know what happened to the lady, who I heard was quickly caught, but I saw the little boy, looking as cherubic as ever, the next summer when we went over to Rottnest. The subject was, however, never alluded to between us, and he used to get his stick of barley sugar as did the others after the Bible lesson was ended.
Once I had a visit from a delightful old gentleman who certainly possessed the nicest “derangement of epitaphs” I have ever met with in real life. And he was so proud of his choice language, and repeated his distorted expressions so constantly, that I don’t know how I preserved the smallest show of gravity. He was an office-keeper of some sort, and was threatened with the loss of his post for neglect of duty. “You know, my lady, it’s with regard to that there orfice fire. I never did know fires was my special providence, never. No one could be more partikler than me about my dooty. Why, when we was over at Rottnest last year, I was always a prevaricating with the shore for orders. There was never no inadvartences about me, never;” and so on. I wish I could remember half his flowers of rhetoric.
There was, however, one class of interviewer of whom I saw far too many specimens during the last year or two of my stay in Western Australia. The colony had been making great progress in every direction. The first indications of its splendid gold-fields were passing from vague rumours to hopeful facts. Railways were being rapidly pushed on to every point of the compass, work at high wages was plentiful, and every week brought shiploads of men for the railways and all other public works. As a rule, I believe, the immigrants were fairly satisfactory, and I heard of the various contractors gladly absorbing large numbers of workmen. In many instances these men brought their wives and families with them, and it was with the modern colonist’s wife that my troubles began.
I had heard wonderful stories of the struggles and hardships of the early settlers, and admired the splendid spirit in which the older sons and daughters started empire-building. One dear old lady showed me the packing-case of a grand piano, which she declared she should always treasure, as she had brought up a large and healthy family in it.
“You see, my dear, my piano was not much use to me in those days, and I don’t know what became of it, but the case made a splendid crêche for the babies.” And on every side I saw instances of difficulties overcome and hardships borne with the same indomitable pluck and cheerfulness. But the modern colonist’s wife is a very different lady. We seem to have educated the original woman off the face of the earth, and we have got instead a discontented, helpless sort of person, who is wretched without all the latest forms of civilisation, who wants “a little ’ome” where she can put her fans and yellow vases on the walls, and sit indoors and do crewel work.
One woman wept scalding tears over the cruel fate which brought her to a country as yet innocent of Kindergartens. She had two sweet little girl-babies, certainly under three years old, who looked the picture of rosy health. I tried to comfort her by saying that surely there was no hurry about their education.
“Oh no, it’s not the schooling I mind, ma’am,” she sobbed; “it’s the getting ’em out of the way. They do mess about so, and I want ’em kept safe and quiet out of the house.” This elegant lady’s hardships consisted in being required to go a hundred miles or so up the railway line to live in a little township, where her husband had highly paid work. She wished me to tell him that she could not possibly go away from Perth, though she despised our little capital very heartily. I declined to interfere, and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, so she ended the interview by sobbing out that “she did think a lady as was a lady might feel for her.”
“And what can I do for you?” was my question to a neat, rather nervous young woman, who said she was Mrs. Jakes.
“Well, mum, would you be so good as to ask his Excellency to order Mr. ——” (the great contractor of that day) “to send my ’usband back to me.”
“Why?” I inquired.
“Well, mum, Jakes, he wants me to go up the line ever so far and live in a bush, leastways in a tent, and I never can do it.”
“Dear me, why not?” I inquired. “Many of my friends camp out in the bush, and like it very much. Why don’t you go?”
With a deeply disgusted glance at my cheerful aspect Mrs. Jakes answered with dignity, “I don’t ’old with living among wild beasts, mum, and Jakes ought to be ashamed of ’isself asking a decent woman to go and live in bushes with lions and tigers.”
As soon as I could speak for laughing, I assured Mrs. Jakes that the forests of Western Australia were absolutely innocent of such denizens, but she did not seem to willingly believe my assertions, and left me much disappointed at my advice to go up and join her husband, who was perfectly well and happy, and working for excellent wages.
I stopped at that very same road-side station later, in one of my spring excursions after wild flowers, and I inquired if Jakes was still working there. “Yes; he is a capital man, and is now foreman, getting over two pounds a week.” So then I asked to be conducted to his tent, which I found pitched in a lovely sylvan glade, and there, to my great satisfaction, I saw Mrs. Jakes preparing his tea. She was fain to confess that bush-life was very different from her alarming anticipations of it. She looked ever so much better herself, and the children, whom I carried off to tea with me—only on account of the buns—were as rosy as the dawn.
Some of my interviews were too sad to be spoken of here: interviews in which I had often to helplessly witness the awful creeping back to the capacity for suffering which is the worst stage in that long viâ dolorosa.
One terrible night, spent in walking up and down the shore at Rottnest with a distracted lighthouse-keeper, who had just heard that his young wife had been wrecked and lost on her way out to him, can never be forgotten. The poor man was literally beside himself. His mates brought him down to me, declaring that they could not manage him, and felt sure he meant to jump into the sea. There was not much to be said, so we paced the shore in the moonlight outside my house in silence. I did not dare to leave him for a moment, and it was not until I saw the smoke of the kitchen fire very early in the morning that I took him indoors, gave him some hot tea, and made him go and lie down. He promised me, like a child, “to be good,” and kept his word bravely—poor, heart-broken mourner.
And then there was my “loving boy Corny,” a red-headed imp of mischief, whose mother used, when he “drove her past her patience,” to bring him to me to scold. Poor Corny’s mischief was only animal spirits unemployed, and we became great friends. The difficulty was to induce Corny to go to school or to learn anything, but it chanced that I was going to England for a few months, and Corny declared himself grieved, so I promised to write to him regularly, if he would learn to write to me, which he did with ease, clever little monkey that he was, and signed himself as above. From what I knew of Corny I strongly suspect he would be one of the very first to volunteer for service in South Africa. Our troublesome boys generally make splendid “soldiers of the Queen,” and bestow their troublesomeness on her enemies.
Instead of interviews, which were seldom or never asked for in the next colonies we went to, I was assailed by letters, which, however, were chiefly directed to the Governor, who passed on some to me to inquire into, though the Inspector-General of Police made short work of those submitted to him. A visit from a constable to the suppliant’s address would generally discover the existence of a very different state of affairs from what was represented in the piteous application. A youthful and starving family, afflicted by divers strange maladies, would resolve itself into a comfortable old couple, who could not even be made the least ashamed of their barefaced imposture.
The language employed in these begging letters was of the finest, if not always the most intelligible. I sometimes wondered in what dictionary they found the words they used. For instance, here is a literal copy of what I imagine was meant for a sort of appeal from a decision on a very barefaced case of imposture. “We rectitudely beg to recognise our hesitation of his Excys dogma thereon.”
Perhaps the most wonderful of these epistles purported to come from an old woman who begged for money, and detailed her ill-success in obtaining an order for a coffin for her daughter, who, she declared, was “in a ridiculous condition on the roof of her cottage.” This statement seemed to open up such a vista of horrors that a mounted policeman was at once despatched to inquire into the case. It was then found that the young lady was in rude health and wanted the money for toilette purposes.
One of the most unsatisfactory interviews I ever had was in one of those languid sunny isles. My interviewer was a nice, pretty young widow, slightly coloured, who had lost her excellent husband under very sad and sudden circumstances. Of course, help was forthcoming for the moment, but it was suggested that I should try to find out from her how she could be helped to earn her own living. She appeared at the stated hour, most beautifully and expensively dressed, and had charming, gentle manners. But any one so helpless I never came across. She seemed to have received a fairly good education, but to be quite incapable of using it. I asked if she would undertake the care of little children. “Oh, no!” she “did not like children.” Could she set up as a dressmaker? “Oh, no!” she “did not like dressmaking,” and so on through every sort of occupation. There were plenty of openings for any talent of any sort which she might possess. At last, in despair, I asked if she had a plan of her own, and it seems she had, but the plan consisted in my making her a handsome weekly allowance out of a large fund which she had been told I had at my disposal. This I energetically denied, so at last she wound up by asking if I would order a certain insurance office to pay her a small sum for which her husband’s life had been insured. I suggested that no doubt she would receive the money in due time without my interference. But she thought not, “Because the premiums had not been paid lately, as she always wanted the money for something else.” Dress, I should think.
I often wish I had kept any of the wonderful letters we received upon every sort of subject. One was addressed to “Sa Majesté le Roi de Trinidad,” and contained a request for a decoration or order of some unknown kind. Another, with a similar address, only asked for stamps. It appeared later that both these epistles were intended for the other Trinidad, which at present is only inhabited by hermit-crabs, and certainly could not be expected to furnish either commodity.