Peter Carey - Illywhacker

It was in this house that Charles and Emma came to stay before the marriage which took place in that little weatherboard church with the high galvanized-iron steeple. I was not at the wedding, being still retained at Rankin Downs, but I can see the steeple in my mind's eye, a slender shining dunce's cap protruding from an electric green field of the sugar cane for which Bacchus Marsh is so famous.

The bell inside that steeple is deep and sonorous and many people will tell you that this special quality is attributable to the fundamental resonance of the galvanized iron and not to the bell. Others say that it is the intrinsic quality of the bell that Captain Bacchus brought with him from Burma in 1846. This is a good example of the stupid arguments that seem to arise wherever churches are built and Emma's father, besides being a pound officer, was a passionate participant in all of them. He not only held strong views about bells but (to take only one instance) on the crucial matter of whether an altar was really an altar or a communion table. Disagreement on this subject was enough to make the vein on his forehead take on the appearance of a small blue worm.

In short, he was a fool.

Henry Underhill was a man who felt he had been called upon to rule, and he was not put off by the fact that no one else seemed to have noticed. Instead he patiently collected, one by one, those small positions of authority left vacant by others' indolence. When no one could see the point in drilling the militia, it was Henry Underhill who had his wife iron his uniform and bianco his webbing, who tucked a baton under his arm, and barked at the young men until the street lights came on and even he had to admit it was time to go home. He was secretary of the Progress Association and seconded the resolution to have public benches placed in the main street. He was the head chap in the vestry. And, last of all, he was the pound officer, even though he did cut a funny figure on a horse.

Now, as only the last of these positions paid a wage, and that not a very good one, he was not a rich man. And although responsible for the Progress Association's bookkeeping, he was a nervous fellow with money. When he heard that the first of his three daughters wished to marry he did not, as his wife did, worry about the quality of the unseen boy. His first emotion was relief, thatthat problem was out of the way. Then he became – it took only an instant – nervous. There was a wedding to pay for. Worse than that, the Education Department of Victoria, having paid for his daughter's expensive training, were expecting her to fulfil her obligations to them. He had signed a bond guaranteeing that she would teach for five years. But now she was going into the pet business. The Education Department therefore required their money back. Five hundred pounds. This figure put him in a panic proper. He did not know what to do about it. If he had calmed down a moment and reread his agreement with the Department he would have seen that he could pay off the bond in instalments. If he had been the sort of man to share his worries with his wife, she would have been sure to have pointed it out to him, and even done it nicely, so that he would not feel stupid. But he had a stern sense of a husband's responsibilities and it would never have occurred to him that he might show such a frightening document to a woman.

So he did not reread the agreement calmly. He did not discuss it with his wife. Instead he decided, even before he met Charles, that he would extract the sum from him.

Now all that, in its mingy way, is logical enough. It is not difficult to persuade yourself that it might even be fair, and a simpler man would have set to work extracting the money. But Emma's father was not a simple man, being burdened not only with officiousness, meanness and nerves, but also with a sense of honour. He was therefore duty bound to make something clear to Charles before he began to lever away the five hundred quid.

What this "thing" was has never been made clear. And while you will find plenty of people in Bacchus Marsh prepared to smirk and roll their eyes about it, they don't seem to know very much about the particulars. Whatever the "thing" was took place when Emma was thrown from her family home into the teachers' college. One would gather that the strength of her reaction against being thrown out from under the parental roof gave rise to fears about her sanity.

Henry Underhill had a full month to consider how he would communicate this to Charles Badgery. The matter so concerned him that he thought of nothing else but how to express it diplomatically. And yet when he saw Charles Badgery help his daughter down from the train, his heart lightened. He saw the way he held her hand, how he fussed about her coat. The boy was infatuated. He smiled. The job would not be so difficult at all.

Charles, for his part, was eager to like Emma's father. He was also preparing himself to confess that his own father was in gaol. He had spent more time worrying about his confession than Henry Underhill had with his. Further, he had seen a photograph of his future father-in-law, and the photograph had frightened him. In the photograph Henry Underhill wore jodhpurs and carried a riding whip. He stood ramrod straight and his countenance was severe and military.

When he saw the smile his future father-in-law showed beneath his moustache, Charles, also, felt relieved. Henry Underhill was not only nicer, but far shorter than the photograph had showed. He was no more than five foot two. He was also energetic and brisk. He was a fellow who liked to get things done. He was also touchingly shy and awkward when he embraced his daughter.

"Right," said Henry Underhill, retreating from the embrace and slapping a rolled newspaper against his thigh. "We need a trolley for your cages. Clancy Shea has a good one in the parcels office. You and me, young fellah, can get the trolley. Emma, mind the birds."

Charles liked this. He didn't think it bossy at all. They walked off down the platform as the train pulled out of the station and laboured up towards Parwan. Soon you could hear the starlings again.

"It's a beaut day," said Charles, by way of approaching the question of Rankin Downs.

"I'm sure you'll be very happy."

"Oh yes," said Charles, who had not expected to be liked. "You bet."

Henry Underhill smiled, and stopped walking. Charles stopped, and smiled too. He was sorry to be so much taller.

"Do you know horses, Chas?"

"I reckon I know enough." Charles kicked a large lump of quartz gravel across the black bitumen platform. He sensed a birds-and-bees talk coming. He was wrong.

"Our Emmie", smiled Henry Underhill, showing perfect white teeth beneath that handsome brush of hair, "is what they call flighty."

Now "flighty" only had two meanings to Charles – either (a) Flirty or (b) Crazy – and Henry Underhill had the disturbing experience of watching the young man change before his eyes. He had, until this moment, stood round-shouldered as he tried to minimize his height. He had stood with his hands politely behind his back and his head in a permanent deferential bow. But now he grew a full six inches and if Underhill did not see his big fists curl he must have witnessed the other symptoms.

"She ain't," said Charles.

"No, no, not like that." Henry Underhill saw how badly he was understood. To him the word "flighty" had suggested something nervous, tentative, even beautiful. It had suggested prancing, spirit, fine breeding and the acceptable nervousness that often accompanies it.

"You may be her Dad, Mr Underhill, but my Emma is not flighty."

In any normal circumstances Henry Underhill would have started to lose his temper here. He could not stand to be contradicted by an underling. He would have had one of his outbursts, gone red in the face and threatened the stock whip.