My Brilliant Career (14 page)

At this point I said, “Bah! I'm mad to write to Everard Grey like this. He would laugh and call me a poor little fool.” I tore the half-finished letter to shreds, and consigned it to the kitchen fire. I substituted a prim, formal note, merely thanking him for
the books and magazine he had sent me. To this I never received an answer. I heard through his letters to Grannie that he was much occupied. Had been to Brisbane and Melbourne on important cases, so very likely had not time to be bothered with me; or, he might have been like the majority of his fellows who make a great parade of friendship while with one, then go away and forget one's existence in an hour.

While at Caddagat there were a few duties allotted to me. One of these was to attend to the drawing room; another was to find Uncle Jay-Jay's hat when he mislaid it—often ten times per day. I assisted my grandmother to make up her accounts and write business letters, and I attended to tramps. A man was never refused a bit to eat at Caddagat. This necessitated the purchase of an extra ton of flour per year, also nearly a ton of sugar, to say nothing of tea, potatoes, beef, and all broken meats which went thus. This was not reckoning the consumption of victuals by the other class of travelers with which the house was generally full year in and year out. Had there been any charge for their board and lodging, the Bossiers would surely have made a fortune. I interviewed on an average fifty tramps a week, and seldom saw the same man twice. What a great army they were! Hopeless, homeless, aimless, shameless souls, tramping on from north to south, and east to west, never relinquishing their heart-sickening, futile quest for work—some of them so long on the tramp that the ambitions of manhood had been ground out of them, and they wished for nothing more than this.

There were all shapes, sizes, ages, kinds, and conditions of men—the shamefaced boy in the bud of his youth, showing by the way he begged that the humiliation of the situation had not yet worn off, and poor old creatures tottering on the brink of the grave, with nothing left in life but the enjoyment of beer and tobacco. There were strong men in their prime who really desired work when they asked for it, and skulking cowards who hoped they would not get it. There were the diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and glum, while some were impudent and thankless, and said to
supply them with food was just what I should do, for the swagmen kept the squatters—as, had the squatters not monopolized the land, the swagmen would have had plenty. A moiety of the last-mentioned—dirty, besotted, ragged creatures—had a glare in their eyes which made one shudder to look at them, and, while spasmodically twirling their billies or clenching their fists, talked wildly of making one to “bust up the damn banks,” or to drive all the present squatters out of the country and put the people on the land—clearly showing that, because they had failed for one reason or another, it had maddened them to see others succeed.

In a wide young country of boundless resources, why is this thing? This question worried me. Our legislators are unable or unwilling to cope with it. They trouble not to be patriots and statesmen. Australia can bring forth writers, orators, financiers, singers, musicians, actors, and athletes which are second to none of any nation under the sun. Why can she not bear sons, men of soul, mind, truth, godliness, and patriotism sufficient to rise and cast off the grim shackles which widen round us day by day?

I was the only one at Caddagat who held these silly ideas. Harold Beecham, Uncle Julius, Grannie, and Frank Hawden did not worry about the cause of tramps. They simply termed them a lazy lot of sneaking creatures, fed them, and thought no more of the matter.

I broached the subject to Uncle Jay-Jay once, simply to discover his ideas thereon.

I was sitting on a chair in the veranda, sewing; he, with his head on a cushion, was comfortably stretched on a rug on the floor.

“Uncle Boss, why can't something be done for tramps?”

“How done for 'em?”

“Couldn't some means of employing them be arrived at?”

“Work!” he ejaculated. “That's the very thing the crawling divils are terrified they might get.”

“Yes; but couldn't some law be made to help them?”

“A law to make me cut up Caddagat and give ten of 'em each a piece, and go on the wallaby myself, I suppose?”

“No, Uncle; but there was a poor young fellow here this morning who, I feel sure, was in earnest when he asked for work.”

“Helen!” bawled Uncle Jay-Jay.

“Well, what is it?” she inquired, appearing in the doorway.

“Next time Sybylla is giving a tramp some tucker, you keep a sharp eye on her or she will be sloping one of these days. There was a young fellow here today with a scarlet mustache and green eyes, and she's dean gone on him, and has been bullying me to give him half Caddagat.”

“What a disgusting thing to say! Uncle, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I exclaimed.

“Very well, I'll be careful,” said Aunt Helen, departing.

“What with the damned flies, and the tramps, and a pesky thing called Sybylla, a man's life ain't worth a penny to him,” said Uncle.

We fell into silence, which was broken presently by a dirty, red-bearded face appearing over the garden gate, and a man's voice: “Good day, boss! Give us a chew of tobaccer?”

“I'm not the boss,” said Uncle with assumed fierceness.

“Then who is?” inquired the man.

Uncle pointed his thumb at me and, rolling out on the floor again as though very sleepy, began to snore. The tramp grinned, and made his request of me. I took him round to the back, served him with flour, beef, and an inch or two of rank tobacco out of a keg which had been bought for the purpose. Refusing a drink of milk which I offered, he resumed his endless tramp with a “So long, little missy. God bless your pleasant face.”

I watched him out of sight. One of my brothers—one of God's children under the Southern Cross. Did these old fellows really believe in the God whose name they mentioned so glibly? I wondered. But I am thankful that while at Caddagat it was only rarely that my old top-heavy thoughts troubled me. Life was so pleasant that I was content merely to be young—a chit in the first flush of teens, health, hope, happiness, youth—a heedless creature recking not for the morrow.

About a week or so after I first met Harold Beecham, Aunt Helen allowed me to read a letter she had received from the elder of the two Misses Beecham. It ran as follows:

and as a postscript the letter had—“Harold will go up for Sybylla on Wednesday afternoon. I do hope you will be able to spare her to me for a while.”

“Oh, Auntie, how lovely!” I exclaimed. “What are you laughing at?”

“For whom do you think Harry wants the companion? It is
nice to have an old auntie, as a blind, is it not? Well, all is fair in love and war. You have permission to use me in any way you like.”

I pretended to miss her meaning.

Grannie consented to Miss Beecham's proposal, and ere the day arrived I had a trunk packed with some lovely new dresses, and was looking forward with great glee to my visit to Five-Bob Downs.

One o'clock on Wednesday afternoon arrived; two o'clock struck, and I was beginning to fear no one was coming for me, when, turning to look out the window for the eighteenth time, I saw the straight, blunt nose of Harold Beecham passing. Grannie was serving afternoon tea on the veranda. I did not want any, so got ready while my escort was having his.

It was rather late when we bowled away at a tremendous pace in a red sulky, my portmanteau strapped on at the back, and a thoroughbred American trotter, which had taken prizes at Sydney shows, harnessed to the front. We just whizzed! It was splendid! The stones and dust rose in a thick cloud from the whirling wheels and flying hoofs, and the posts of the wire fence on our left passed like magic as we went. Mr. Beecham allowed me to drive after a time while he sat ready to take the reins should an emergency arise.

It was sunset—most majestic hour of the twenty-four—when we drove up to the great white gates which opened into the avenue leading to the main homestead of Five-Bob Downs Station—beautiful far-reaching Five-Bob Downs! Dreamy blue hills rose behind, and wide rich flats stretched before, through which the Yarrangung River, glazed with sunset, could be seen like a silver snake winding between shrubberied banks. The odor from the six-acred flower garden was overpowering and delightful. A breeze gently swayed the crowd of trees amid the houses, and swept over the great orchard which sloped down from the south side of the houses. In the fading sunlight thirty iron roofs gleamed and glared, and seemed like a little town; and the yelp of many dogs went up at the sound of our wheels. Ah! beautiful, beautiful Five-Bob Downs!

It seemed as though a hundred dogs leapt forth to greet us
when that gate flew open, but I subsequently discovered there were but twenty-three.

Two female figures came out to meet us—one nearly six feet high, the other, a tiny creature, seemed about eighteen inches, though, of course, was more than that.

“I've brought her, Aunt Gussie,” said Harold, jumping out of the sulky, though not relinquishing the reins, while he kissed the taller figure, and the small one attached itself to his leg saying, “Dimme wide.”

“Hullo! Possum, why wasn't old Spanker let go? I see he's not among the dogs,” and my host picked the tiny individual up in his arms and got into the sulky to give her the desired ride, while after being embraced by Miss Beecham and lifted to the ground by her nephew, I went with the former over an asphalted tennis court, through the wide garden, then across a broad veranda into the great, spreading, one-storied house from which gleamed many lights.

“I am so glad you have come, my dear. I must have a good look at you when we get into the light. I hope you are like your mother.”

This prospect discomfited me. I knew she would find a very ugly girl with not the least resemblance to her pretty mother, and I cursed my appearance under my breath.

“Your name is Sybylla,” Miss Beecham continued, “Sybylla Penelope. Your mother used to be very dear to me, but I don't know why she doesn't write to me now. I have never seen her since her marriage. It seems strange to think of her as the mother of eight—five boys and three girls, is it not?”

Miss Beecham had piloted me through a wide hall and along an extended passage out of which a row of bedrooms opened, into one of which we went.

“I hope you will be comfortable here, child. You need not dress for dinner while you are here; we never do, only on very special occasions.”

“Neither do we at Caddagat,” I replied.

“Now, child, let me have a good look at you without your hat.”

“Oh, please don't!” I exclaimed, covering my face with my
hands. “I am so dreadfully ugly that I cannot bear to have anyone look at me.”

“What a silly little girl! You are not like your mother, but you are not at all plain-looking. Harold says you are the best style of girl he has seen yet, and sing beautifully. He got a tuner up from Sydney last week, so we will expect you to entertain us every night.”

I learnt that what Harold pronounced good no one dared gainsay at Five-Bob Downs.

We proceeded direct to the dining room, and had not been there long when Mr. Beecham entered with the little girl on his shoulder. Miss Beecham had told me she was Minnie Benson, daughter of Harold's married overseer on Wyambeet, his adjoining station. Miss Beecham considered it would have been more seemly for her nephew to have selected a little boy as a plaything, but his sentiments regarding boys were that they were machines invented for the torment of adults.

“Well, O'Doolan, what sort of a day has it been?” Harold inquired, setting his human toy upon the floor.

“Fine wezzer for yim duts,” she promptly replied.

“Harold, it is shameful to teach a little innocent child such abominable slang; and you might give her a decent nickname,” said Miss Beecham.

“O'Doolan, this is Miss Melvyn, and you have to do the same to her as you do to me.”

The little thing held out her arms to me. I took her up, and she hugged and kissed me, saying, “I luz oo, I luz oo,” and turning to Mr. Beecham, “zat anuff?”

“Yes, that will do,” he said; and she struggled to be put down.

Three jackeroos, an overseer, and two other young men came in, were introduced to me, and then we began dinner.

O'Doolan sat on a high chair beside Mr. Beecham, and he attended to all her wants. She did everything he did, even taking mustard, and was very brave at quelling the tears that rose to the doll-like blue eyes. When Mr. Beecham wiped his mustache, it was amusing to see her also wipe an imaginary one.

After dinner the jackeroos and the three other men repaired
to a sitting room in the backyard, which was specially set apart for them, and where they amused themselves as they liked. My host and hostess, myself, and the child, spent the evening in a tiny sitting room adjoining the dining room. Miss Beecham entertained me with conversation and the family albums, and Harold amused himself entirely with the child.