My Brilliant Career (10 page)

I was very proud to call him uncle.

“So this is yourself, is it!” he exclaimed, giving me a tremendous hug.

“Oh, Uncle,” I expostulated, “I'll wipe your old kisses off! Your breath smells horribly of whisky and tobacco.”

“Gammon, that's what makes my kisses so nice!” he answered; and, after holding me at arm's length for inspection, “By George, you're a wonderful-looking girl! You're surely not done growing yet, though! You are such a little nipper. I could put you in my pocket with ease. You aren't a scrap like your mother. I'll give the next shearer who passes a shilling to cut that hair off. It would kill a dog in the hot weather.”

“Everard, this is my niece, Sybylla.” (Aunt Helen was introducing us.) “You will have to arrange yourselves—what relation you are, and how to address each other.”

The admiration expressed in his clear sharp eyes gave me a sensation different from any I had ever experienced previously.

“I suppose I'm a kind of uncle and brother in one, and as either relationship entitles me to a kiss, I'm going to take one,” he said in a very gallant manner.

“You may take one if you can,” I said with mischievous defiance, springing off the veranda into the flower garden. He accepted my challenge and, being lithe as a cat, a tremendous scamper ensued. Round and round the flower beds we ran. Uncle Jay-Jay's beard opened in a broad smile, which ended in a loud laugh. Everard Grey's coattails flew in the breeze he made, and his collar was too high for athletic purposes. I laughed too, and was lost, and we returned to the veranda—Everard in triumph, and I feeling very red and uncomfortable.

Grannie had arrived upon the scene, looking the essence of brisk respectability in a black silk gown and a white lace cap. She cast on me a glance of severe disapproval, and denounced my conduct as shameful; but Uncle Jay-Jay's eyes twinkled as he dexterously turned the subject.

“Gammon, Mother! I bet you were often kissed when that
youngster's age. I bet my boots now that you can't count the times you did the same thing yourself. Now, confess.”

Grannie's face melted in a smile as she commenced a little anecdote, with that pathetic beginning, “When I was young.”

Aunt Helen sent me inside lest I should catch cold, and I stationed myself immediately inside the window so that I should not miss the conversation. “I should think your niece is very excitable,” Mr. Grey was saying to Aunt Helen.

“Oh, very.”

“Yes; I have never seen any but very highly strung temperaments have that transparent brilliance of expression.”

“She is very variable—one moment all joy, and the next the reverse.”

“She has a very striking face. I don't know what it is that makes it so.”

“It may be her complexion,” said Aunt Helen; “her skin is whiter than the fairest blonde, and her eyebrows and lashes very dark. Be very careful you do not say anything that would let her know you think her not nice-looking. She broods over her appearance in such a morbid manner. It is a weak point with her, so be careful not to sting her sensitiveness in that respect.”

“Plain-looking! Why, I think she has one of the most fascinating faces I've seen for some time, and her eyes are simply magnificent. What color are they?”

“The grass is not bad about Sydney. I think I will send a truck of fat wethers away next week,” said Uncle Jay-Jay to Grannie.

“It is getting quite dark. Let's get in to dinner at once,” said Grannie.

During the meal I took an opportunity of studying the appearance of Everard Grey. He had a typically aristocratic English face, even to the cold, rather heartless expression, which is as established a point of an English blueblood as an arched neck is of a thoroughbred horse.

A ringer, whose wife had been unexpectedly confined, came for Grannie when dinner was over, and the rest of us had a delightful musical evening. Uncle Jay-Jay bawled “The Vicar of Bray” and “Drink, Puppy, Drink” in a stentorian bass voice,
holding me on his knee, pinching, tickling, pulling my hair, and shaking me up and down between whiles. Mr. Hawden favored us by rendering “The Holy City.” Everard Grey sang several new songs, which was a great treat, as he had a well-trained and musical baritone voice. He was a veritable carpet knight, and though not a fop, was exquisitely dressed in full evening costume, and showed his long-pedigreed blood in every line of his clean-shaven face and tall, slight figure. He was quite a champion on the piano, and played Aunt Helen's accompaniments while he made her sing song after song. When she was weary, Uncle Jay-Jay said to me, “Now it's your turn, me fine lady. We've all done something to keep things rolling but you. Can you sing?”

“No.”

“Can this youngster sing, Helen?”

“She sings very nicely to herself sometimes, but I do not know how she would manage before company. Will you try something, Sybylla?”

Uncle Jay-Jay waited to hear no more, but carrying me to the music stool, and depositing me thereon, warned me not to attempt to leave it before singing something.

To get away to myself, where I was sure no one could hear me, and sing and sing till I made the echoes ring, was one of the chief joys of my existence, but I had never made a success in singing to company. Besides losing all nerve, I had a very queer voice, which everyone remarked. However, tonight I made an effort in my old favorite, “Three Fishers Went Sailing.” The beauty of the full-toned Ronisch piano, and Everard's clever and sympathetic accompanying, caused me to forget my audience, and sing as though to myself alone, forgetting that my voice was odd.

When the song ceased, Mr. Grey wheeled abruptly on the stool and said, “Do you know that you have one of the most wonderful natural voices I have heard? Why, there is a fortune in such a voice if it were trained! Such chest notes, such feeling, such rarity of tone!”

“Don't be sarcastic, Mr. Grey,” I said shortly.

“Upon my word as a man, I mean every word I say,” he returned enthusiastically.

Everard Grey's
opinion on artistic matters was considered worth having. He dabbled in all the arts—writing, music, acting, and sketching, and went to every good concert and play in Sydney. Though he was clever at law, it was whispered by some that he would wind up on the stage, as he had a great leaning that way.

I walked away from the piano treading on air. Would I really make a singer? I with the voice which had often been ridiculed; I who had often blasphemously said that I would sell my soul to be able to sing just passably. Everard Grey's opinion gave me an intoxicated sensation of joy.

“Can you recite?” he inquired.

“Yes,” I answered firmly.

“Give us something,” said Uncle Jay-Jay.

I recited Longfellow's “The Slave's Dream.” Everard Grey was quite as enthusiastic over this as he had been about my singing.

“Such a voice! Such depth and width! Why, she could fill the Centennial Hall without an effort. All she requires is training.”

“By George, she's a regular dab! But I wish she would give us something not quite so glum,” said Uncle Jay-Jay.

I let myself go. Carried away by I don't know what sort of a spirit, I exclaimed, “Very well, I will, if you will wait till I make up, and will help me.”

I disappeared for a few minutes, and returned made up as a fat old Irish woman, with a smudge of dirt on my face. There was a general laugh.

Would Mr. Hawden assist me? Of course he was only too delighted, and flattered that I had called upon him in preference to the others. What would he do?

I sat him on a footstool, so that I might with facility put my hand on his sandy hair, and turning to Uncle, commenced:

“Shure, sir, seeing it was a good bhoy yez were afther to run errants, it's meself that has brought this youngsther for yer inspection. It's a jool ye'll have in him. Shure I rared him meself, and he says his prayers every morning. Kape sthill, honey! Faith, ye're not afraid of yer poor old mammy pullin' yer beautiful cur-r-rls?”

Uncle Jay-Jay was laughing like fun; even Aunt Helen deigned to smile; and Everard was looking on with critical interest.

“Go on,” said Uncle. But Mr. Hawden got huffy at the ridicule which he suspected I was calling down upon him, and jumped up looking fit to eat me.

I acted several more impromptu scenes with the other occupants of the drawing room. Mr. Hawden emitted “Humph!” from the corner where he grumpily sat, but Mr. Grey was full of praise.

“Splendid! splendid!” he exclaimed. “You say you have not had an hour's training, and never saw a play. Such versatility. Your fortune would be made on the stage. It is a sin to have such exceptional talent wasting in the bush. I must take her to Sydney and put her under a good master.”

“Indeed, you'll do no such thing,” said Uncle. “I'll keep her here to liven up the old barracks. You've got enough puppets on the stage without a niece of mine ever being there.”

I went to bed that night greatly elated. Flattery is sweet to youth. I felt pleased with myself, and imagined, as I peeped in the looking glass, that I was not half bad-looking after all.

“Bah, you hideous animal! Ha-ha! Your peerless conceit does you credit. So you actually imagined that by one or two out of every hundred you might be considered passable. You are the most uninteresting person in the world. You are small and nasty and bad, and every other thing that's abominable. That's what you are.”

This address I delivered to my reflection in the glass next morning. My elation of the previous night was as flat as a pancake. Dear, oh dear, what a fool I had been to softly swallow the flattery of Mr. Grey without a single snub in return! To make up for my laxity, if he continued to amuse himself by plastering my vanity with the ointment of flattery, I determined to serve up my replies to him red hot and well seasoned with pepper.

I finished my toilet, and in a very what's-the-good-o'-anything mood took a last glance in the glass to say, “You're ugly, you're ugly and useless; so don't forget that and make a fool of yourself again.”

I was in the habit of doing this; it had long ago taken the place of a morning prayer. I said this, that by familiarity it might lose a little of its sting when I heard it from other lips, but somehow it failed in efficacy.

I was late for breakfast that morning. All the others were half through the meal when I sat down.

Grannie had not come home till after twelve, but was looking as brisk as usual.

“Come, Sybylla, I suppose this comes of sitting up too late, as I was not here to hunt you to bed. You are always very lively
at night, but it's a different tune in the morning,” she said, when giving me the usual morning hug.

“When I was a nipper of your age, if I didn't turn out like greased lightning every morning, I was assisted by a little strap oil,” remarked Uncle Jay-Jay.

“Sybylla should be excused this morning,” interposed Mr. Grey. “She entertained us for hours last night. Little wonder if she feels languid this morning.”

“Entertained you? What did she do?” queried Grannie.

“Many things. Do you know, Gran, that you are robbing the world of an artist by keeping Sybylla hidden away in the bush? I must persuade you to let me take her to Sydney and have her put under the best masters in Sydney.”

“Under masters for what?”

“Elocution and singing.”

“I couldn't afford it.”

“But I'd bear the expense myself. It would only be returning a trifle of all you have done for me.”

“What nonsense! What would you have her do when she was taught?”

“Go on the stage, of course. With her talent and hair she would cause quite a sensation.”

Now, Grannie's notions re the stage were very tightly laced. All actors and actresses, from the lowest circus man up to the most glorious cantatrice, were people defiled in the sight of God, and utterly outside the pale of all respectability, when measured with her code of morals.

She turned energetically in her chair, and her keen eyes flashed with scorn and anger as she spoke. “Go on the stage! A granddaughter of mine! Lucy's eldest child! An actress—a vile, low, brazen hussy! Use the gifts God has given her with which to do good in showing off to a crowd of vile, bad men! I would rather see her struck dead at my feet this instant! I would rather see her shear off her hair and enter a convent this very hour. Child, promise you will never be a bold, bad actress.”

“I will never be a
bold
,
bad
actress, Grannie,” I said, putting great stress on the adjectives, and bringing out the actress very faintly.

“Yes,” she continued, calming down, “I'm sure you have not enough bad in you. You may be boisterous, and not behave with sufficient propriety sometimes, but I don't think you are wicked enough to ever make an actress.”

Everard attempted to defend his case. “Look here, Gran, that's a very exploded old notion about the stage being a low profession. It might have been once, but it is quite the reverse nowadays. There are, of course, low people on the stage, as there are in all walks of life. I grant you that; but if people are good they can be good on the stage as well as anywhere else. On account of a little prejudice it would be a sin to rob Sybylla of the brilliant career she might have.”

“Career!” exclaimed his foster mother, catching at the word. “Career! That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended. All they think of is gadding about and being fast, and ruining themselves body and soul. And the men are as bad to encourage them,” looking severely at Everard.

“There is a great deal of truth in what you say, Gran, I admit. You can apply it to many of our girls, I am sorry to confess, but Sybylla could not be brought under that classification. You must look at her in a different way. If—”