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

“Where are you off to?” inquired grannie, as I rushed through the house.

I explained.

“What horse are you going to take?”

“Old Tadpole. He’s the only one available.”

“Well, you be careful and don’t push him too quickly up that pinch by Flea Creek, or he might drop dead with you. He’s so fat and old.”

“All right,” I replied, snatching a bridle and running up the orchard, where old Tadpole had been left in case of emergency. I clapped a sidesaddle on his back, a hat on my head, jumped on just as I was, and galloped for my life in the direction of Bimbalong, seven miles distant. I eased my horse a little going up Flea Creek pinch, but with this delay reached my destination in half an hour, and sent the men galloping in the direction of the fire. I lingered for afternoon tea, and returned at my leisure.

It was sundown when I got in sight of Caddagat. Knowing the men would not be home for some time, I rode across the paddock to yard the cows. I drove them home and penned the calves, unsaddled my horse and returned him to the orchard, then stood upon the hillside and enjoyed the scene. It had been a fearfully hot day, with a blasting, drought-breathed wind; but the wind had dropped to sleep with the sunlight, and now the air had cooled. Blue smoke wreathed hill and hollow like a beauteous veil. I had traversed drought-baked land that afternoon, but in the immediate vicinity of Caddagat house there was no evidence of an unkind season. Irrigation had draped the place with beauty, and I stood ankle-deep in clover. Oh, how I loved the old irregularly built house, with here and there a patch of its low iron roof peeping out of a mass of greenery, flowers, and fruit⁠—the place where I was born⁠—home! Save for the murmur of the creek, the evening was wrapped in silence⁠—sweet-breathed, balmy-browed, summer quietude. I stretched out my hand and stained my fingers, next my lips and teeth, with the sweet dark fruit of a mulberry-tree beside me. The shadows deepened; I picked up my saddle, and, carrying it housewards, put it in its place in the harness-room among the fig- and apricot-trees⁠—laden to breaking point with ripe and ripening fruit. The two servant girls had departed on their Christmas holiday that morning, so grannie and auntie were the only members of the family at home. I could not see or hear them anywhere, so, presuming they were out walking, I washed my hands, lit a lamp, and sat down to my tea, where it had been left for me on the dining-table. I remembered⁠—wonderful aberration from my usual thoughtlessness⁠—that the book I had left in the hammock had a beautiful cover which the dew would spoil, so I left my tea to bring it in. Two little white squares struck my eye in the gathering dusk. I picked them up also, and, bringing them to the light, opened the one addressed to me, and read:

No doubt what I have to write will not be very palatable to you; but it is time you gave up pleasuring and began to meet the responsibilities of life. Your father is lazier if anything, and drinks more than ever. He has got himself into great debt and difficulties, and would have been sold off again but for Peter M’Swat. You will remember Peter M’Swat? Well, he has been good enough to lend your father 500 pounds at 4 percent, which means 20 pounds per year interest. Your father would have no more idea of meeting this amount than a cat would have. But now I am coming to the part of the matter which concerns you. Out of friendship to your father, Mr. M’Swat is good enough to accept your services as governess to his children, in lieu of interest on the money. I have told him you will be in Yarnung In Friday the 8th of January 1897, where he will meet you. Be careful to remember the date. I am sorry I could not give you more notice; but he wants his children to commence school as soon as possible, and he deserves every consideration in the matter. Perhaps you will not find it as pleasant as Caddagat; but he has been very good, and offers you a fair number of holidays, and what he will give you is equal to 20 pounds. That is a lot in these times, when he could easily get so many better girls than you are in every way for half the money, and make your father pay the interest, and thereby be 10 pounds in pocket. You will have to help Mrs. M’Swat with the work and sewing; but that will do you good, and I hope you will try hard to give every satisfaction. I have also written to your grandmother.

That letter wiped away ever vestige of my appetite for the dainties before me. M’Swat’s! Send⁠—me⁠—to M’Swat’s! I could not believe it! It must be a nightmare! M’Swat’s!

Certainly, I had never been there; but all those who had gave graphic descriptions of the total ignorance of Mrs. M’Swat. Why, the place was quite tabooed on account of its squalor and dirt!

The steel of my mother’s letter entered my soul. Why had she not expressed a little regret at the thing she was imposing on me? Instead, there was a note of satisfaction running through her letter that she was able to put an end to my pleasant life at Caddagat. She always seemed to grudge me any pleasure. I bitterly put it down as accruing from the curse of ugliness, as, when mentioning Gertie, it was ever, “I have let Gertie go to such and such an entertainment. We could not very well afford it, but the poor little girl does not have many pleasures for her years.” I was smaller than