HALLIDAY'S HONEYMOON.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 17 August 1888, Page 30

HALLIDAY'S HONEYMOON.

Halliday— Badgery.— On the 14Mi inst., at Eosebank Farm, Lonely Snaint>, the residence of the bride'B father, William, eldest son of Mr George Halliday, farmer, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Xr John Badgery, farmer. No cards. " How do you think that will do, Liz ? It seems to read all right, don't it," Mr William Halliday remarked, whilst he handed to his newly-made bride the back of an Envelope upon which appeared in pencil the manuscript of the above announcement, as they travelled in the train together to town fco spend their honeymoon ; and having been successful in securing a small compartment to themselves they were enabled to indulge in their interesting conversation without the fear of attracting the attention of possible listeners amongst their fellow passengers. They were from the country. You could see that at a glance, by his store hand-me-down gray tweed suit, by the remarkable crease up the front of each leg with which ready-made trousers are so unmistakeably branded, by the extreme roomy appearance of William's coat and vest, for he was tall and slim and took long trousers, but was not favoured with the breadth of shoulders and width of .girth that ready-made clothes manufacturers seem to consider should, in accordance with the laws of symmetry, correspond , with the length of leg of their patrons; by the starchless appearance and general bad get-up of the linen he displayed, the vividness of the colour of his cravat, the run-to-seed condition of his hair and beard, and to crown all, by the remarkably shaped soft felt hat that is inseparable from individuals of his class; whilst his better half, although thoroughly convinced' that she looked wonderfully fascinating and charming in the extreme, would certainly j have surprised the elite in Melbourne " doing the block " by appearing in Bourke street with the ill-fitting dress, which, though composed of a material doubtless expensive, was old fashioned and shopworn, and the wonderful combination of artificial flowers, berries, and hat that she wore on the top of her banged coarse red hair. William, eldest, son of Mr George Halliday, had in all probability never been farther than 10 miles away from the baok-blocks ; and the eldest " hostage to fortune " of John Badgery had only had her life illumined with brief views at distant intervals of civilised existence, calculated only to dazzle her with its display and just sufficient to make her thoroughly dissatisfied with the position in life that the Catechism, describes as that to which it has pleased God to call her, and to fill her with exaggerated desires that it was very improbable would ever be gratified. " No indeed, Bill," she replied, " that is not half . enough ; you haven't got in the clergyman's name, and you know what an honour it was for Mr Slowbury to come all that way to unite us. You must put that in, you know, • by the Rev. Mr Slowbury ' ; and then you must put in something about • niece of Benjamin Badgery, Esq., of Badgery and Co., soapboilers, Melbourne' — it's no good having rich relations without you show them oil to the neighbours when you have a chance. And, by-fche-bye, Bill, you'll have to give up calling me Liz in company ; I've made up my mind to call rayselE Lilly, and I intend to call you Willy — Bill is so j vulgar." " All right, Liz— Lilly, I mean," William answered. " Our names have done very well up to now, and I don't see any reason why we should change them ; but if you wish it, let it be so. But I don't see any reaspn why we should drag your uncle's name into our announcement. You are always parading your rich relations, as you call them, before me ; and it is quite sufficient if we are going to stop with them a week in town, without trying to tack ourselves on to them any more." Matters were beginning to take rather an awkward turn from the present line of conversation. Liz Badgery 's rich relations were always rather a sore subject with Halliday, such connections on his side of the house being an unknown quantity, and a matter in which his bride of a few hours had completely the advantage of him ; and it had not been without considerable hesitation that he had agreed to accept the kind and pressing invitation to Benjamin Badgery, Esq., to spend with his bride their honeymoon with her uncle's family at St. Kilda. , The brothers Badgery had landed together

in Melbourne in the early days, but having chosen different walks in life had seen little of each othei since their arrival, and then only at long intervals. Benjamin had taken employment in a soap factory, and by dint of industry, intelligence, and honesty had reached the highest rang in the ladder of fortune, and was now leading partner in the affair, whilst John, whose inclinations were more agriculturally inclined, had gone upcountry and remained there ever since, and had managed to acquire little more than a heavily mortgaged farm and a large family during his residence in the colony. Benjamin Badgery's mansion at St. Kilda was a very imposing looking edifice, and its owner was one of the best-known of the aristocracy of Melbourne, and had filled one, or two important municipal appointments, and had he desired it could easily have obtained a seat in the Legislative Assembly. It, is only reasonable that the splendour of the avuncular riches had frequently been discussed in the comparative squalor of the farmhouse of Lizzie's father at Lonely Swamp, and the subject had been frequently dilated on "by her family du:ing William's courtship for the purpose evidently of impressing upon him the advantages of marrying into so rich a family, even it the member ot it with whom he was • to be connected would not benefit one brass farthing from its existence ; and now, as he was journeying so quickly to witness the reality of this fairyland, which had hitherto appeared to him much of such a problematic nature as those faY away lands --the descrip-** tions of which wo have read, but which we arc never likely to visit — do to us, thoughts of the utter incongruity of his and his wife's a2)pearance at such a place, and their absolute unfitness for occupying such a position filled his rm'nd ; and the conviction began to dawn upon him that they would have been far happier had they arranged to stay at some modest boarding hoase, from which they conld have wandered forth each day to see the sights of the town in their own quiefe way, and when satiated with the pleasures of the city they could have returned to their own native home prepared to face together the stern realities of life. ■ The bride's thoughts also began to concentrate themselves as to the appearance they would make in her rich uncle's drawing room, but it was entirely on her husband'a account that she had any qualms of conscience, for as to her own tout ensemble and polite bearing she had full confidence; and whilst enforcing upon her husband the great honour he would enjoy by being entertained by people of so exalted a position, and impressing upon him that such benefits were entirely due to herself, the sickening thought passed through her mind of the figure he would cut under circumstances for which he was so decidedly unfitted. " You ought to be much obliged to me for raising you from so low a position," -Lizzie said, "and not get out of temper when I want to let people see what a good match you have made. Anyhow I am determined it shall go in, and so you will see when we get to Melbourne." And thus was caused their first matrimonial quarrel; not that they had never fallen out before, for they had often had a bit of a breeze, which, thanks to Halliday's stupidity, want of power of expressing and enforcing his wishes or good temper, whichever way one may dessribe it, had died stillborn, and in any case we are informed that • lovers quarrels are but the renewal of love. A painf uf ill-tempered silence was broken by another traveller entering the compartment during a stoppage at a small wayside station. This proved to-be a smart dapper little woman of about 25 years of age, carrying a baby about three months old. Not being ;disinclined to enter in';o conversation, Mrs Halliday and herself were soon in the middle ol an animated discussion disclosing their most private business, and' Mrs Halliday ' having little desire to conciliate her husband, was enlarging upon the surprising advantages he had gained by their union, and the almost regal splendour in which they were about to enjoy their- honeymoon trip. The stranger was equally loquacious. Sl-.e was a^out to join her husband in a neighbouring colony, and was expecting to meet her mother at one of the stations 01 route to wish her "good-bye." On their arrival at the station the dapper little stranger was unable to pick out her mother amongst the ' crowd assembled on the platform awaiting the train, and requested Mrs Halliday to hold her baby whilst she went down to the other cud of the train to endeavour to find her, holding it out in her arms and almost placing it in Mrs Halliday's lap as she did so. Mrs Halliday- naturally assented and looked across at her husband to see how he took the roasting she had been giving him in her conversation with the stranger. His quiet phelgmatic dull nature, however, had evidently not been disturbed, and his temper appeared so unruffled that his bettorhalf -almost felt ashamed of herself, and considerable anxiety was depicted on her face when the bell rang and her fellow passenger had not returned. Shortly the engine whistled and the train commenced to move, when', panic-struck, she leant out of the window searching the platform for the mother of the baby, but, alas ! unavailingly. When the train had assumed its full travelling speed, William Halliday looked over to his loving bride and quietly remarked — " I guess you are properly fixed up now for your visit to Benjamin Badgery's man k sion." " Oh, Bill," she replied, "whatever will we do ? What can have become of that fearful woman 1 Is it possible she was anxious to get rid of the child and has chosen this way of doing it, or do you think she has merely missed the train ? " Poorgood-tempered Halliday freely forgave her the cruel remarks she had made about him both to himself previous to the arrival of the stranger, and afterwards by innuendo during her conversation with that lady, and by way of comforting her said they would— failing any inquiries having been made by telegraph on their arrival in Melbourneleave ' the child with the police. On reaching the city they hastened to carry this resolution into effect, but on making their statement and leaving their intended address — for they had found that the telegraph office at the station where the lady had left the carriage had closed before the event had happened, and it would be impossible to get any news until the following

morning, — the police sergeant remarked: "Well, mum, we've got your name and address, so if we hear anything from the mother of the' child we'll communicate with you at once. You must do your best to make the poor little thing as comfortable as possible for to-night, and I've no doubt we'll be able to relieve you of it in the morning." " But you don't mean to say you won't let me leave it here with you, do you ? " Lizzie almost screamed. " You don't mean to say I've got to carry it away with me, do you ? ' " Indeed, mum," the, sergeant replied, " if we took babies off everybody's hands as said they didn't belong to them, we'd have to turn the.police station into a baby farm : not that I doubt one word you've said, mum, for a moment ; but, bless you, for all that it's an old game, and many's the time we've had it tried on, but we never hear anything more about it after the first application. However, mum," he added, as he made a movement as though he were about to retire into an inner room, " I'll wish you good night, mum, trusting you'll hear some good news in the morning. ' What a wonderful contrast does difference o£ employment and environment effect on human beings otherwise similar in parentage and appearance I Hard work, coarse fare, exaggerated hopes met by sickening disappointments, and all the petty harassings that the cultivator of the soil meets with at every turn could be plainly discerned in the grey hair, rugged brow, careworn face, and shrunken body of John Badgery, who in the wildest flight of fancy would have never been taken to be the brother of that sleek, wellproportioned, well-preserved, gentlemanly old fellow seated so comfortably in an easy chair drawn up conveniently near to a cheerful fire burning in the library of his mansion at St. Kilda. There was an oleaginous appearance about Benjamin Badgery's bald head and forehead that was simply lustrous, and the portly frame, well supplied with adipose tissue, reaching almost aldermanic proportions in the neighbourhood of the fifth button of his yest — counting from the top, — increasing in a gentle swell as the buttons followed down, had a prospeiK>us, unctuous presence tli.it almost hinted at soap. [n contradistinction to John's numeious olive branches Benjamin had only been blest with two children — a son and a daughter — who were of the respective ages of 22 and 18. Benjamin Badgery, jun., was being educated for the medical profession, having years ago foresworn soiling his hands in the manufacture of so useful but essentially vulgar a commodity as soap. He avoided the sabject of his father's pursuit as he would the plague, and when forced in the course of conversation to admit its existence always alluded mysteriously to thefactory as " down at the works." Miss Badgery, who was engaged to the Honourable Fitz William Fitz Herbert, a younger son of an impoverished lord who had left his native home for a trip in search of a colonial heiress, positively ignored the very existence of such a place as the factory at all, and always described her father as the chairman of the Australian Colonial Bank, to which office, from his eminent position, he had happened to have been appointed. In spite of the opposition of his family old Benjamin Badgery influencedby recollections of his and his brother's early boyhood, and the many happy days they had passed together, upon hearing of his niece's intended wedding, thought that it would only be doing the decent thing to invite them to spend their honeymoon with his family, forgetting that his rise in the social scale had been gradual, the fact of his children having been almost reared in the colonial purple, that it took years for people to be educated from the lowest surrouudings to take their position in polite society, and the utter misery of both interested witnesses and performers caused by novices of polite manners out of their element. Mrs and Miss Badgery, however, had fully realised the inappropriateness ' of the proposal, and had endeavoured to arrange that the family should be entirely alone during the Hallidays' visit, but were unfortunately doomed to disappointment. Of course the Hon. Fitz William Fitz Herbert had carte blanche, and came when he liked, and having escorted Miss Badgery whilst enjoying horse exercise (luring the afternoon, remained to dinner as a matter of everyday occurrence, and as though to thoroughly overwhelm the ladies with vexation, their most intimate friends Jlr and Mrs and the two Misses Montague made their appearance, having just arrived by steamer en route for their sheep station on the following day, and in common courtesy Mrs Badgery could not do less than invite them to remain the night. Mrs and Misses Montague were great sticklers as to the proprieties and privileges of fashion, and were in fact almost the leaders of the ion ton, and were ladies in whom Mrs and Miss Badgery stood in considerable awe, feeling as they did that compared to the blue blood and riches of the Montagues they were somewhat parvenus and merely nouveaux riches The hour arrived, the company which had previously been informed — or in plain fact apologetically warned —of the expected anival of a newly married niece of Mr Badgery's were assembled in the drawing room preparatoiy to going into dinner, when •Mr and Mrs Halliday were auuounced, and ushered into the room. Poor Lilly's sayigfroid, tthich she depended upon, had entirely left ncr, and at the sight of the lights, luxurious furnishings, and well dressed company present, her head swam, whilst the foundling, pissing the comforts of the maternal fountain, filled the room with such astonish- ! jQg; yells as to render conversation utterly hopeless. William's fears had indeed been °uly too well founded, and letting alone his ow n particular miseries, the sight of his common place wife clutching the squalling bUtb 'Ut took all the stiffening out of his legs, and he felt like falling to the floor ; and had jt opened and swallowed kirn up in some tearful abyss he would have considered it tl ie most merciful treat he could have experienced under the circumstances. Mvs and Miss Badgery, overwhelmed as they were with vexation at the humiliating s Pectacle which semed almost to have been arr anged by Nemesis for their degradation, i^« the suspected although concealed de"gnt of the Montagues, hurried Elizabeth jtoa the baby out of the room and secured in the library. Even old Mr Benjaniin Badgery's surprise overcame his be-

nignity, a fact which was evinced by the ejaculation. "Good gracious, young man, you &eem pretty wall equipped for your wedding day." On their arrival in the library Mrs Badgery commenced the attack with " Oh, what do you mean, you wretched girl -by coming here on your wedding day carrying a three months old baby? • Surely your relationship to us itself is sufficiently humiliating without thrusting on us this degradation. " Oh, spare me, Mrs Badgery," Lizzie replied, bursting into tears, " ifc is all an unfortunate mistake;" and she proceeded to give her aunt a full account of her troubles. Of course Mrs Badgery was considerably mollified by the narration of her niece's experiences, and felt great pity for her on account of the result or her unfortunate kindness, but it was arranged that she should remain in private during the rest of the evening, and endeavour to pacify the source of her trouble, which continued to be terribly fractious, and refused to be I comforted in any other way than that with which it was perfectly impossible to gratify it. Mr Montague, who was a pleasant old gentleman, and who had just returned to the drawing room on the arrival of the Hallidays, and had only heard in a general way that the Badgerys expected a married niece and her husband from the country, noticing at dinner that young Halliday, next to whom he was sitting, looked sadly distrait and embarrassed, and, thinking to place him more at his ease, determined to enter into conversation with him, and commenced by saying : " That's a remarkable fine child of yours, Mr Halliday ; wonderful strong lungs it has got?" " It's not my child," William replied. " Indeed," said Mr Montague ; " married a young widow, I presume." " No," answered Halliday, "my wife was never married before to-day." " God bless me," muttered old Montague. " Tut, tut, tut." "Lovely day it's been, hasn't it," he remarked in his natural voice, making a frantic attempt to change the conversation, but in vain, for he relapsed to his muttering. "Well,- well, to be sure, married a young woman with a thumping big baby like that ! Well, to be sure, dear me, dear me." William Halliday plainly saw that in the vernacular "he had properly put his foot in it," but felt thoroughly unequal to the task of making a detailed explanation, and, being overcome with a burning thirst and a choking sensation in the throat, took a refreshing drink from a large-mouthed, rather flatlooking glass that stood ready filled by the side of his plate. The rule at Lonely Swamp had always been not to be too particular as to the utensil made use of for drinking purposes, and anything in the way of a broken cup, pannikin/or even old soup-and-boulli tin, whichever happened to come first, was impressed into the service; but this custom evidently did not obtain in higher society, for the surprise that his action had evidently created, not to mention anything of one or two suppressed titters, convinced him that he had committed some very serious offence indeed. William had never been taught the use of finger glasses, and in any case would have considered that a good wash at the pump previous ( to dinner would have been quiet sufficient to carry him through that operation without the necessity of further ablutiens. After dinner poor Halliday joined his wife, and in attempting to assist her in calming the squalling foundling, passed his first night of wedded bliss. In the morning he hastened to the police station to ascertain if any inquiries had been made as to the whereabouts of the baby's mother, and was enraptured to find that the first person he saw on his arrival there was the smart dapper little woman who had been the cause of all their woes. It appeared that after considerable difficulty she had been successful in finding her mother, and as they had beed parted for a length of time, and a far longer absence was imminent, it was only natural that the poor old lady- should be stricken with that peculiarity that overcomes the weaker sex in parting with their friends, by which the necessity for freeing her daughter from her embraces was lost sight of in the desire to give her a few more, hugs before they were separated once more, and possibly for ever ; and when she had arrived at the conclusion of her farewell, the quickly departing train had left the station. The telegraph office being closed the mother and daughter suffered fearful paroxysms of grief at the baby being torn from them, and if Mrs Halliday had undergone much misery at its possession the dapper little woman's grief at being deprived of her child had been far more poiguant. Nothing, however, could be done till the following morning, when the two women hastened to Melbourne by the early train to make exhaustive inquiries. The two ladies accompanied William Halliday to St. Kilda, where they resumed with intense joy the possession of the child. The Hallidays had now an opportunity of consulting with each other in private without- the accompaniment of the yells of the infuriated infant, and they determined to return to Lonely Swamp and the little house that had been erected for their occupation, and in thanking the Badgerys for their kindness in inviting them to their mansion remarked that they felt they would be far happier in their own home. The announcement of their wedding in the local paper did not include, as threatened by Mrs Halliday, the paragraph, " And niece of Benjamin Badgery, Esq., of Badgery and Co., soapboilers, Melbourne,", and rich relations are now with Liz (not Lilly) a "bete iwir and a subject that is religiously tabooed. Weka.

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