My Brilliant Career (9 page)

Aunt Helen's treatment for making me presentable was the wearing of gloves and a shady hat every time I went outside; and she insisted upon me spending a proper time over my toilet, and would not allow me to encroach upon it with the contents of my bookshelf.

“Rub off some of your gloomy pessimism and cultivate a little more healthy girlish vanity, and you will do very well,” she would say.

I observed
these rites most religiously for three days. Then I contracted a slight attack of influenza, and in poking around the kitchen, doing one of the things I oughtn't at the time I shouldn't, a servant girl tipped a pot of boiling pot-liquor over my right foot, scalding it rather severely. Aunt Helen and Grannie put me to bed, where I yelled with pain for hours like a mad Red Indian despite their applying every alleviative possible. The combined forces of the burn and influenza made me a trifle dicky, so a decree went forth that I was to stay in bed until recovered from both complaints. This effectually prevented me from running in the way of any looking glasses.

I was not sufficiently ill to be miserable, and being a pampered invalid was therefore fine fun. Aunt Helen was a wonderful nurse. She dressed my foot splendidly every morning and put it in a comfortable position many times throughout the day. Grannie brought me every dainty in the house and sent special messengers to Gool-Gool for more. Had I been a professional glutton I would have been in paradise. Even Mr. Hawden condescended so far as to express his regret concerning the accident, and favored me with visits throughout each day; and one Sunday his gallantry carried him to a gully where he plucked a bouquet of maidenhair fern—the first of the season—and put them in a bowl beside my bed. My uncle Julius, the only other member of the family besides the servants, was away “up the country” on some business or another, and was not expected home for a month or so.

The Bossiers and Beechams were leaders of swelldom among the squattocracy up the country, and firm and intimate friends. The Beechams resided at Five-Bob Downs, twelve miles from Caddagat, and were a family composed of two maiden ladies and their nephew, Harold. One of these ladies was Aunt Helen's particular friend, and the other had stood in the same capacity to my mother in days gone by, but of late years, on account of her poverty, Mother had been too proud to keep up communication with her. As for Harold Beecham, he was nearly as much at home at Caddagat as at Five-Bob Downs. He came and went with that pleasant familiarity practiced between congenial spirits among squatterdom. The Bossiers and Beechams were congenial spirits
in every way—they lived in the one sphere and held the one set of ideas, the only difference between them, and that an unnoticeable one, being that the Bossiers, though in comfortable circumstances, were not at all rich, while Harold Beecham was immensely wealthy. When my installation in the role of invalid took place, one Miss Beecham was away in Melbourne, and the other not well enough to come and see me, but Harold came regularly to inquire how I was progressing. He always brought me a number of beautiful apples. This kindness was because the Caddagat orchard had been too infested with codlin moth for Grannie to save any last season.

Aunt Helen used to mischievously tease me about this attention. “Here comes Harry Beecham with some more apples,” she would say. “No doubt he is far more calculating and artful than I thought he was capable of being. He is taking time by the forelock and wooing you ere he sees you, and so will take the lead. Young ladies are in the minority up this way, and every one is snapped up as soon as she arrives.”

“You'd better tell him how ugly I am, Auntie, so that he will carry apples twelve miles on his own responsibility, and when he sees me won't be vexed that all his work has been for nothing. Perhaps, though, it would be better not to describe me, or I will get no more apples,” I would reply.

Aunt Helen was a clever needlewoman. She made all Grannie's dresses and her own. Now she was making some for me, which, however, I was not to see until I wore them. Aunt Helen had this as a pleasant surprise, and went to the trouble of blindfolding me while I was being fitted. While in bed, Grannie and Auntie being busy, I was often left hours alone, and during that time devoured the contents of my bookshelf.

The pleasure, so exquisite as to be almost pain, which I derived from the books, and especially the Australian poets, is beyond description. In the narrow peasant life of Possum Gully I had been deprived of companionship with people of refinement and education who would talk of the things I loved; but, at last here was congeniality, here was companionship.

The weird witchery of mighty bush, the breath of wide sunlit plains, the sound of camp bells and jingle of hobble chains
floating on the soft twilight breezes, had come to these men and had written a tale on their hearts as had been written on mine. The glory of the starlit heavens, the mighty wonder of the sea, and the majesty of thunder had come home to them, and the breathless fullness of the sunset hour had whispered of something more than the humor of tomorrow's weather. The wind and rain had a voice which spoke to Kendall, and he too had endured the misery of lack of companionship. Gordon, with his sad, sad humanism and bitter disappointment, held out his hand and took me with him. The regret of it all was I could never meet them—Byron, Thackeray, Dickens, Longfellow, Gordon, Kendall, the men I loved, all were dead; but, blissful thought! Caine, Paterson, and Lawson were still living, breathing human beings—two of them actually countrymen, fellow Australians!

I pored with renewed zeal over the terse realism and pathos of Lawson, and enjoyed Paterson's redolence of the rollicking side of the wholesome life beneath these sunny skies, which he depicted with grand touches of power flashing here and there. I learnt them by heart, and in that gloriously blue receptacle, by and by, where many pleasant youthful dreams are stowed, I put the hope that one day I would clasp hands with them, and feel and know the unspeakable comfort and heart rest of congenial companionship.

Uncle Julius had taken a run down to Sydney before returning to Caddagat, and was to be home during the first week in September, bringing with him Everard Grey. This young gentleman always spent Christmas at Caddagat, but as he had just recovered from an illness he was coming up for a change now instead. Having heard much of him, I was curious to see him. He was Grandmamma's adopted son, and was the orphan of very aristocratic English parents who had left him to the guardianship of distant relatives. They had proved criminally unscrupulous. By finding a flaw in deeds, or something which none but lawyers understand, they had deprived him of all his property and left him to sink or swim. Grannie had discovered, reared, and educated him. Among professions he had chosen the bar, and was now one of Sydney's most promising young barristers. His foster mother was no end proud of him, and loved him as her own son.

In due time a telegram arrived from Uncle Julius, containing instructions for the buggy to be sent to Gool-Gool to meet him and Everard Grey.

By this time I had quite recovered from influenza and my accident, and as they would not arrive till near nightfall, for their edification I was to be dressed in full-blown dinner costume, also I was to be favored with a look at my reflection in a mirror for the first time since my arrival.

During the afternoon I was dispatched by Grannie on a message some miles away, and meeting Mr. Hawden some distance from the house, he took it upon himself to accompany me. Everywhere I went he followed after, much to my annoyance,
because Grannie gave me many and serious talkings-to about the crime of encouraging young men.

Frank Hawden had changed his tune, and told me now that it mattered not that I was not pretty, as pretty or not I was the greatest brick of a girl he had met. His idea for this opinion was that I was able to talk theaters with him, and was the only girl there, and because he had arrived at that overflowing age when young men have to be partial to some female whether she be ugly or pretty, fat or lean, old or young. That I should be the object of these puerile emotions in a fellow like Frank Hawden, filled me with loathing and disgust.

It was late in the afternoon when Hawden and I returned, and the buggy was to be seen a long way down the road, approaching at the going-for-the-doctor pace at which Uncle Julius always drove.

Aunt Helen hustled me off to dress, but I was only half rigged when they arrived, and so was unable to go out and meet them. Uncle Julius inquired for that youngster of Lucy's, and Aunt Helen replied that she would be forthcoming when they were dressed for dinner. The two gentlemen took a nip, to put a little heart in them Uncle Julius said, and Auntie Helen came to finish my toilet while they were making theirs.

“There now, you have nothing to complain of in the way of looks,” she remarked at the completion of the ceremony. “Come and have a good look at yourself.”

I was decked in my first evening dress, as it was a great occasion. It was only on the rarest occasion that we donned full war paint at Caddagat. I think that evening dress is one of the prettiest and most idiotic customs extant. What can be more foolish than to endanger one's health by exposing at night the chest and arms—two of the most vital spots of the body—which have been covered all day? On the other hand, what can be more beautiful than a soft, white bosom rising and falling amid a dainty nest of silk and lace? Every woman looks more soft and feminine in a décolleté gown. And is there any of the animal lines known pleasanter to the eye than the contour of shapely arms? Some there are who cry down evening dress as
being immodest and indecent. These will be found among those whose chest and arms will not admit of being displayed, or among those who, not having been reared to the custom, dislike it with many other things from want of use.

Aunt Helen took me into the wide old drawing room, now brilliantly lighted. A heavy lamp was on each of the four brackets in the corners, and another swung from the center of the ceiling, and candelabra threw many lights from the piano. Never before had I seen this room in such a blaze of light. During the last week or two Aunt Helen and I had occupied it every night, but we never lighted more than a single candle on the piano. This had been ample light for our purpose. Aunt Helen would sing in her sweet, sad voice all the beautiful old songs I loved, while I curled myself on a mat at her side and read books—the music often compelling me to forget the reading, and the reading occasionally rendering me deaf to the music; but through both ever came the solemn rush of the stream outside in its weird melancholy, like a wind ceaselessly endeavoring to outstrip a wild vain regret which relentlessly pursued.

“Your uncle Julius always has the drawing room lighted like this; he does not believe in shadowy half light—calls it sentimental bosh,” said Aunt Helen in explanation.

“Is Uncle like that?” I remarked, but my question remained unanswered. Leaving a hand mirror with me, Aunt Helen had slipped away.

One wall of the drawing room was monopolized by a door, a big bookcase, and a heavy bevelled-edged old-fashioned mirror—the two last-mentioned articles reaching from floor to ceiling. Since my arrival the face of the mirror had been covered, but this evening the blue silken curtains were looped up, and it was before this that I stood.

I looked, and looked again in pleased surprise. I beheld a young girl with eyes and skin of the clearest and brightest, and lips of brilliant scarlet, and a chest and pair of arms which would pass muster with the best. If Nature had been in bad humor when molding my face, she had used her tools craftily in forming my figure. Aunt Helen had proved a clever maid and dressmaker. My pale blue cashmere dress fitted my fully developed yet girlish
figure to perfection. Some of my hair fell in cunning little curls on my forehead; the remainder, tied simply with a piece of ribbon, hung in thick waves nearly to my knees. My toilet had altered me almost beyond recognition. It made me look my age—sixteen years and ten months—whereas before, when dressed carelessly and with my hair plastered in a tight coil, people not knowing me would not believe that I was under twenty. Joy and merriment lit up my face, which glowed with youth, health, and happiness, which rippled my lips in smiles, which displayed a splendid set of teeth, and I really believe that on that night I did not look out of the way ugly.

I was still admiring my reflection when Aunt Helen returned to say that Everard and Uncle Julius were smoking on the veranda and asking for me.

“What do you think of yourself, Sybylla?”

“Oh, Aunt Helen, tell me that there is something about me not completely hideous!”

She took my face between her hands, saying, “Silly child, there are some faces with faultless features, which would receive nothing more than an indifferent glance while beside other faces which might have few if any pretensions to beauty. Yours is one of those last mentioned.”

“But that does not say I am not ugly.”

“No one would dream of calling you plain, let alone ugly; brilliant is the word which best describes you.”

Uncle Julius had the upper part of his ponderous figure arrayed in a frock coat. He did not take kindly to what he termed “those skittish sparrow-tailed affairs.” Frock coats suited him, but I am not partial to them on everyone. They look well enough on a podgy, fat, or broad man, but on a skinny one they hang with such a forlorn, dying-duck expression, that they invariably make me laugh.

Julius John Bossier, better known as J. J. Bossier, and better still as Jay-Jay—big, fat, burly, broad, a jovial bachelor of forty, too fond of all the opposite sex ever to have settled his affections on one in particular—was well known, respected, and liked from Wagga Wagga to Albury, Forbes to Dandaloo, Bourke to Hay, from Tumut to Monaro, and back again to Peak Hill, as a
generous man, a straight-goer in business matters, and a jolly good fellow all round.