Explore "Ultima Thule" by Henry Handel Richardson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Their final destination was a place called Gymgurra in the Western District, some two hundred miles from Melbourne; to be reached either by a night's sea voyage--round Cape Otway and along the wild coast-- or by a combined train and coach journey. With the ordeal of "taking over charge" before her, Mary dared not risk the physical upset of a voyage. So at Colac she got out of the train and into the mail coach, to lumber, the night through, over the ruts and jolts of bush roads, Lucie a dead weight on her lap, Cuffy lying heavily up against her.
There were only the three of them; Richard had had to be left behind. It had torn her heart to part from him, to hand him over to strangers but not only Bowes-Smith, every one she consulted had advised against the fatigues of the journey for him in his present state. So she had yielded--and not for his sake alone. In the beginning she would need to give her whole mind to her new work. Richard would be better looked after where he was. Thanks to Bowes-Smith, she had managed to get him into a kind of private hospital, where he would live in comfort under a doctor's eye.