Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land | Page 5

scones and fruit. The end nearest her
was littered with sheaves of manuscript, newspaper-cuttings,
photographs and sepia sketches--obviously for purposes of illustration:
gum-bottle, stylographs and the rest, with, also, several note-books held
open by bananas, recently plucked from the ripening bunch, to serve as
paper-weights.
She had meant to be very busy that morning. There was her weekly
letter for THE IMPERIALIST to send off by to-morrow's mail, and,
moreover, she had to digest the reasons of the eminent journal for
returning to her an article that had not met with the editor's
approval--the great Gibbs: a potent newspaper-factor in the British
policy of the day.
It had been an immense honour when Mr Gibbs had chosen Joan
Gildea from amongst his staff for a roving commission to report upon
the political, financial, economic and social aspects of Australia, and
upon Imperial interests generally, as represented in various sideshows
on her route.
But it happened that she was now suffering from a change at the last
moment in that route--a substitution of the commplace P. & O. for the
more exciting Canadian Pacific, Mr Gibbs having suddenly decided
that Imperialism in Australia demanded his special correspondent's
immediate attention.
For this story dates back to the time when Mr Joseph Chamberlain was
in office; when Imperialism, Free Trade and Yellow Labour were the
catch words of a party, and before the great Australian Commonwealth
had become an historical fact.

THE IMPERIALIST's Special Correspondent looked worried. She was
wondering whether the English mail expected to-day would bring her
troublesome editorial instructions. She examined some of the
photographs and drawings with a dissatisfied air. A running inarticulate
commentary might have been put into words like this:
'No good . . . I can manage the letterpress all right once I get the hang
of things. But when it comes to illustrations, I can't make even a
gum-tree look as if it was growing . . . . And Gibbs hates having
amateur snapshots to work up . . . . Hopeless to try for a local artist. . . .
I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea. . . . . Why to
goodness didn't Biddy join me! . . . . If she'd only had the decency to let
me know in time WHY she couldn't. . . . Money, I suppose--or a
Man! . . . . Well, I'll write and tell her never to expect a literary leg-up
from me again . . .'
Mrs Gildea pulled the sheet she had been typing out of the machine,
inserted another, altered the notch to single spacing and rattled off at
top speed till the page was covered. The she appended her signature
and wrote this address:
To the Lady Bridget O'Hara,
Care of Eliza Countess of Gaverick,
Upper Brook Street, London, W.
on an envelope, into which she slipped her letter--a letter never to be
sent.
A snap of the gate between the bamboos added a metallic note to the
tree's reedy whimperings, and the postman tramped along the short
garden path and up the veranda steps.
'Morning, Mrs Gildea . . . a heavy mail for you!'
He planked down the usual editorial packet--two or three rolls of proofs,
a collection of newspapers, a bulky parcel of private correspondence
sent on by the porter of Mrs Gildea's London flat, some local letters and,
finally, two square envelopes, with the remark, as he turned away on
his round. 'My word! Mrs Gildea, those letters seem to have done a bit
of globe-trotting on their own, don't they!'
For the envelopes were covered with directions, some in Japanese and
Chinese hieroglyphics, some in official red ink from various postoffices,
a few with the distinctive markings of British Legations and
Government Houses where the Special Correspondent should have

stayed, but did not--Only her own name showing through the
obliterations, and a final re-addressing by the Bank of Leichardt's Land.
Mrs Gildea recognised the impulsive, untidy but characteristic
handwriting of Lady Bridget O'Hara.
'From Biddy at last!' she exclaimed, tore the flap of number one letter,
paused and laid it aside. 'Business first.'
So she went carefully through the editorial communication. Mr Gibbs
was not quite so tiresome as she had feared he would be. After him, the
packet from her London flat was inspected and its contents laid aside
for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was
embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a
cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received
at Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her--first along the route
originally designed, afterwards, with zigzagging, retrogression and
much delay, along the one she had taken. That it had reached her at all,
said a good deal for Mrs Gildea's fame as a