My Brilliant Career (11 page)

“I look at her as the child of respectable people, and will not have the stage mentioned in connection with her.” Here Grannie thumped her fist down on the table and there was silence, complete, profound. Few dared argue with Mrs. Bossier.

Dear old lady, she was never angry long, and in a minute or two she proceeded with her breakfast, saying quite pleasantly, “Never mention such a subject to me again; but I'll tell you what you can do. Next autumn, sometime in March or April, when the fruit-preserving and jam-making are done with, Helen can take the child to Sydney for a month or so, and you can show them round. It will be a great treat for Sybylla, as she has never been in Sydney.”

“That's right, let's strike a bargain on that, Gran,” said Everard.

“Yes; it's a bargain, if I hear no more about the stage. God intends His creatures for a better life than that.”

After breakfast I was left to entertain Everard for some while. We had a fine time. He was a perfect gentleman and a clever conversationalist.

I was always desirous of enjoying the company of society people who were well bred and lived according to etiquette, and possessed of leisure and culture sufficient to fill their minds with something more than the price of farm produce and a hard struggle for existence. Hitherto I had only read of such or seen them in pictures, but here was a real live one, and I seized my opportunity with vim. At my questioning and evident interest in his talk he told me of all the latest plays, actors, and actresses with whom he was acquainted, and described the fashionable balls, dinners, and garden parties he attended. Having exhausted this subject, we fell to discussing books, and I recited snatches of poems dear to me.

Everard placed his hands upon my shoulders and said, “Sybylla, do you know you are a most wonderful girl? Your figure is perfect, your style refreshing, and you have a most interesting face. It is as ever-changing as a kaleidoscope—sometimes merry, then stern, often sympathetic, and always sad when at rest. One would think you had had some sorrow in your life.”

Lifting my skirt at either side, I bowed several times very low in what I called my stage bow, and called into requisition my stage smile, which displayed two rows of teeth as white and perfect as any twenty-guinea set turned out on a gold plate by a fashionable dentist.

“The handsome gentleman is very kind to amuse himself at the expense of a little country bumpkin, but he would do well to ascertain if his flattery would go down before administering it next time,” I said sarcastically, and I heard him calling to me as I abruptly went off to shut myself in my room.

“How dare anyone ridicule me by paying idle, brainless compliments! I knew I was ugly, and did not want anyone to perjure his soul pretending they thought differently. What right had I to be small? Why wasn't I possessed of a big aquiline nose and a tall commanding figure?” Thus I sat in burning discontent and ill humor until soothed by the scent of roses and the gleam
of soft spring sunshine which streamed in through my open window. Some of the flower beds in the garden were completely carpeted with pansy blossoms, all colors, and violets—blue and white, single and double. The scent of mignonette, jonquils, and narcissi filled the air. I reveled in rich perfumes, and these tempted me forth. My ruffled feelings gave way before the delights of the old garden. I collected a number of vases and, filling them with water, set them on a table in the veranda near one of the drawing-room windows. I gathered lapfuls of the lovely blossoms, and commenced arranging them in the vases.

Part of the old Caddagat house was built of slabs, and one of the wooden walls ran along the veranda side of the drawing room, so the songs Aunt Helen and Everard Grey were trying on the piano came as a sweet accompaniment to my congenial task.

Presently they left off singing and commenced talking. Under the same circumstances a heroine of a story would have slipped away; or, if that were impossible without discovery, she would have put her fingers in her ears, and would have been in a terrible state of agitation lest she should hear something not intended for her. I did not come there with a view to eavesdropping. It is a degradation to which I never stoop. I thought they were aware of my presence on the veranda; but it appears they were not, as they began to discuss me (wonderfully interesting subject to myself), and I stayed there, without one word of disapproval from my conscience, to listen to their conversation.

“My word, didn't Gran make a to-do this morning when I proposed to train Sybylla for the stage! Do you know that girl is simply reeking with talent; I must have her trained. I will keep bringing the idea before Gran until she gets used to it. I'll work the we-should-use-the-gifts-God-has-given-us racket for all it is worth, and you might use your influence too, Helen.”

“No, Everard; there are very few who succeed on the stage. I would not use my influence, as it is a life of which I do not approve.”

“But Sybylla
would
succeed. I am a personal friend of the leading managers, and my influence would help her greatly.”

“Yes; but what would you do with her? A young gentleman
couldn't take charge of a girl and bring her out without ruining her reputation. There would be no end of scandal, as the sister theory would only be nonsense.”

“There is another way; I could easily stop scandal.”

“Everard, what do you mean!”

“I mean marriage,” he replied deliberately.

“Surely, boy, you must be dreaming! You have only seen her for an hour or two. I don't believe in these sudden attachments.”

Perhaps she here thought of one (her own) as sudden, which had not ended happily. “Everard, don't do anything rashly. You know you are very fickle and considered a lady-killer—be merciful to my poor little Sybylla, I pray. It is just one of your passing fancies. Don't wile her passionate young heart away and then leave her to pine and die.”

“I don't think she is that sort,” he replied laughingly.

“No, she would not die, but would grow into a cynic and skeptic, which is the worst of fates. Let her alone. Flirt as much as you will with society belles who understand the game, but leave my country maiden alone. I hope to mold her into a splendid character yet.”

“But, Helen, supposing I am in earnest at last, you don't think I'd make her a bad old hubby, do you?”

“She is not the girl for you. You are not the man who could ever control her. What I say may not be complimentary but it is true. Besides, she is not seventeen yet, and I do not approve of romantic young girls throwing themselves into matrimony. Let them develop their womanhood first.”

“Then I expect I had better hide my attractions under a bushel during the remainder of my stay at Caddagat?”

“Yes. Be as nice to the child as you like, but mind, none of those little ladies'-man attentions with which it is so easy to steal—”

I waited to hear no more, but, brimming over with a mixture of emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-colored butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom—their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep
in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple tree, and gave way to my wounded vanity.

“Little country maiden, indeed! There's no need for him to bag his attractions up. If he exerted himself to the utmost of his ability, he could not make me love him. I'm not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There's not enough in him to win my love. I'll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I'm not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there's no fear of that! I hate and detest men!”

“I suppose you are rehearsing some more airs to show off with tonight,” sneered a voice behind me.

“No, I'm realistic-ing; and how
dare
you thrust your obnoxious presence before me when I wish to be alone! Haven't I often shown—”

“While a girl is disengaged, any man who is her equal has the right to pay his addresses to her if he is in earnest,” interrupted Mr. Hawden. It was he who stood before me.

“I am well aware of that,” I replied. “But it is a woman's privilege to repel those attentions if distasteful to her. You seem disinclined to accord me that privilege.”

Having delivered this retort, I returned to the house, leaving him standing there looking the fool he was.

I do not believe in spurning the love of a blackfellow if he behaves in a manly way; but Frank Hawden was such a drivelling mawkish style of sweetheart that I had no patience with him.

Aunt Helen and Everard had vacated the drawing room, so I plumped down on the piano stool and dashed into Kowalski's galop, from that into “Gaite de Coeur” until I made the piano dance and tremble like a thing possessed. My annoyance faded, and I slowly played that saddest of waltzes, “Weber's Last.” I became aware of a presence in the room, and, facing about, confronted Everard Grey.

“How long have you been here?” I demanded sharply.

“Since you began to play. Where on earth did you learn to play? Your execution is splendid. Do sing ‘Three Fishers,' please.”

“Excuse me; I haven't time now. Besides I am not competent to sing to you,” I said brusquely, and made my exit.

“Mr. Hawden wants you, Sybylla,” called Aunt Helen. “See what he wants and let him get away to his work, or your grannie will be vexed to see him loitering about all the morning.”

“Miss Sybylla,” he began, when we were left alone, “I want to apologize to you. I had no right to plague you, but it all comes of the way I love you. A fellow gets jealous at the least little thing, you know.”

“Bore me with no more such trash,” I said, turning away in disgust.

“But, Miss Sybylla, what am I to do with it?”

“Do with what?”

“My love.”

“Love!” I retorted scornfully. “There is no such thing.”

“But there is, and I have found it.”

“Well, you stick to it—that's my advice to you. It will be a treasure. If you send it to my father he will get it bottled up and put it in the Goulburn museum. He has sent several things there already.”

“Don't make such a game of a poor devil. You know I can't do that.”

“Bag it up, then; put in a big stone to make it sink, and pitch it in the river.”

“You'll rue this,” he said savagely.

“I may or may not,” I sang over my shoulder as I departed.

I had not the opportunity of any more private interviews with Everard Grey till one morning near his departure, when we happened to be alone on the veranda.

“Well, Miss Sybylla,” he began, “when I arrived I thought you and I would have been great friends; but we have not progressed at all. How do you account for that?”

As he spoke he laid his slender shapely hand kindly upon my head. He was very handsome and winning, and moved in literary, musical, and artistic society—a man from my world, a world away.

Oh, what pleasure I might have derived from companionship with him! I bit my lip to keep back the tears. Why did not social arrangements allow a man and a maid to be chums—chums as two men or two maids may be to each other, enjoying each other without thought beyond pure platonic friendship? But no; it could not be. I understood the conceit of men. Should I be very affable, I feared Everard Grey would imagine he had made a conquest of me. On the other hand, were I glum he would think the same, and that I was trying to hide my feelings behind a mask of brusquerie. I therefore steered in a beeline between the two manners, and remarked with the greatest of indifference:

“I was not aware that you expected us to be such cronies—in fact, I have never given the matter a thought.”

He turned away in a piqued style. Such a beau of beaux, no doubt he was annoyed that an insignificant little country bumpkin should not be flattered by his patronage, or probably he thought me rude or ill-humored.

Two mornings later Uncle Jay-Jay took him to Gool-Gool en route for Sydney. When departing he bade me a kindly goodbye, made me promise to write to him, and announced his intention of obtaining the opinion of some good masters re my dramatic talent and voice, when I came to Sydney as promised by my grandmother. I stood on the garden fence waving my handkerchief until the buggy passed out of sight among the messmate trees about half a mile from the house.

“Well, I hope, as that dandified ape has gone—and good riddance to him—that you will pay more heed to my attentions now,” said Mr. Hawden's voice, as I was in the act of descending from the fence.

“What do you mean by your attentions?” I demanded.

“What do I mean! That is something like coming to business. I'll soon explain. You know what my intentions are very well. When I am twenty-four, I will come into my property in England. It is considerable, and at the end of that time I want to marry you and take you home. By Jove! I would just like to take you home. You'd surprise some English girls I know.”

“There would be more than one person surprised if I married you,” I thought to myself, and laughed till I ached with the motion.

“You infernal little vixen! What are you laughing at? You've got no more sense than a bat if such a solemn thing only provokes your mirth.”

“Solemn—why, it's a screaming farce!” I laughed more and more.

“What's a farce?” he demanded fiercely.

“The bare idea of you proposing to me.”

“Why? Have I not as much right to propose as any other man?”

“Man!” I laughed. “That's where the absurdity arises. My child, if you were a man, certainly you could propose, but do you think I'd look at a boy, a child! If ever I perpetrate matrimony the participant in my degradation will be a fully developed man—not a hobbledehoy who falls in love, as he terms it, on an average about twice a week. Love! Ho!”