My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

“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 moustache, 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.

Once when they were absent for a few minutes, Miss Beecham told me it was ridiculous the way he fussed with the child, and that he had her with him more than half his time. She also asked me what I thought of her nephew. I evaded the question by querying if he was always so quiet and good-tempered.

“Oh dear, no. He is considered a particularly bad-tempered man. Not one of the snarling nasty tempers, but⁠—”

Here the reentry of the owner of the temper put a stop to this conversation.

Harold gave O’Doolan rides on his back, going on all-fours. She shouted in childish glee, and wound up by curling her small proportions on his broad chest, and going to sleep there.

Mrs. Benson had sent for little O’Doolan, and Harold took her home next day. He invited me to accompany him, so we set out in the sulky with O’Doolan on my lap. It was a pleasant drive of twelve miles to and from Wyambeet. O’Doolan was much distressed at parting from Mr. Beecham, but he promised to come for her again shortly.

“One little girl at a time is enough for me to care for properly,” he said to me in the winning manner with which, and his wealth, unintentionally and unconsciously made slaughter among the hearts of the fair sex.

“Now, Harold, you have compelled Sybylla to come here, you must not let the time drag with her,” said Miss Beecham.

It was the second day after my arrival at Five-Bob. Lunch was over, and we had adjourned to the veranda. Miss Beecham was busy at her worktable; I was ensconced on a mat on the floor reading a book; Harold was stretched in a squatter’s chair some distance away. His big brown hands were clasped behind his head, his chin rested on his broad chest, his eyes were closed, he occasionally thrust his lower lip forward and sent a puff of breath upwards to scatter the flies from his face; he looked a big monument of comfort, and answered his aunt’s remarks lazily:

“Yes, aunt, I’ll do my best;” and to me, “Miss Melvyn, while here, please bear in mind that it will be no end of pleasure to me to do anything for your enjoyment. Don’t fail to command me in any way.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beecham. I will not fail to avail myself of your offer.”

“The absurdity