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

“You’ll be sun-struck!” he said in dismay.

“Take care you don’t get daughter-struck,” I said perkily, turning to flee, for it had suddenly dawned upon me that my thin wet clothing was outlining my figure rather too clearly for propriety.

By a circuitous way I managed to reach my bedroom unseen. It did not take me long to change my clothes, hang them to dry, and appear on the main veranda where Miss Augusta was still sewing. I picked up the book I had left on the mat, and, taking up a position in a hammock near her, I commenced to read.

“You did not stay long at the river,” she remarked. “Have you been washing your head? I never saw the like of it. Such a mass of it. It will take all day to dry.”

Half an hour later Harold appeared dressed in a warm suit of tweed. He was looking pale and languid, as though he had caught a chill, and shivered as he threw himself on a lounge. I was feeling none the worse for my immersion.

“Why did you change your clothes, Harold? You surely weren’t cold on a day like this. Sybylla has changed hers too, when I come to notice it, and her hair is wet. Have you had an accident?” said Miss Augusta, rising from her chair in a startled manner.

“Rubbish!” ejaculated Harold in a tone which forbade further questioning, and the matter dropped.

She presently left the veranda, and I took the opportunity to say, “It is yourself that requires the hot bath and a drop of spirits, Mr. Beecham.”

“Yes; I think I’ll take a good stiff nobbler. I feel a trifle squeamish. It gave me a bit of a turn when I rose to the top and could not see you. I was afraid the boat might have stunned you in capsizing, and you would be drowned before I could find you.”

“Yes; I would have been such a loss to the world in general if I had been drowned,” I said satirically.

Several jackeroos, a neighbouring squatter, and a couple of bicycle tourists turned up at Five-Bob that evening, and we had a jovial night. The great, richly furnished drawing-room was brilliantly lighted, and the magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling. I made the very pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham was an excellent pianist, a gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained tenor, which penetrated far into the night. How many, many times I have lived those nights over again! The great room with its rich appointments, the superb piano, the lights, the merriment, the breeze from the east, rich with the heavy intoxicating perfume of countless flowers; the tall perfect figure, holding the violin with a master hand, making it speak the same language as I read in the dark eyes of the musician, while above and around was the soft warmth of an Australian summer night.

Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love! What a warmhearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! When fortune smiles!

Fortune did smile, and broadly, in those days. We played tricks on one another, and had a deal of innocent fun and frolic. I was a little startled one night on retiring to find a huge goanna near the head of my bed. I called Harold to dislodge the creature, when it came to light that it was roped to the bedpost. Great was the laughter at my expense. Who tethered the goanna I never discovered, but I suspected Harold. In return for this joke, I collected all the portable clocks in the house⁠—about twenty⁠—and arrayed them on his bedroom table. The majority of them were Waterburys for common use, so I set each alarm for a different hour. Inscribing a placard “Hospital for Insane,” I erected it above his door. Next morning I was awakened at three o’clock by fifteen alarms in concert outside my door. When an hour or two later I emerged I found a notice on my door, “This way to the Zoo.”

It was a very busy time for the men at Five-Bob. Wagons were arriving with shearing supplies, for it was drawing nigh unto the great event of the year. In another week’s time the bleat of thousands of sheep, and the incense of much tar and wool, would be ascending to the heavens from the vicinity of Five-Bob Downs. I was looking forward to the shearing. There never was any at Caddagat. Uncle did not keep many sheep, and always sold them long-woolled and rebought after shearing.

I had not much opportunity of persecuting Harold during the daytime. He and all his subordinates were away all day, busy drafting, sorting, and otherwise pottering with sheep. But I always, and Miss Augusta sometimes, went to meet them coming home in the evening. It was great fun. The dogs yelped and jumped about. The men were dirty with much dust, and smelt powerfully of sheep, and had worked hard all day in the blazing sun, but they were never too tired for fun, or at night to dance, after they had bathed and dressed. We all had splendid horses. They reared and pranced; we galloped and jumped every log which came in our path. Jokes, repartee, and nonsense rattled off our tongues. We did not worry about thousands of our fellows⁠—starving and reeking with disease in city slums. We were selfish. We were heedless. We were happy. We were young.

Harold Beecham was a splendid host. Anyone possessed of the least talent for enjoyment had a pleasant time as his guest. He was hospitable in a quiet unostentatious manner. His overseer, jackeroos, and other employees were all allowed the freedom of home, and could invite whom they pleased to Five-Bob Downs. It is all very well to talk of