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

Gertie, and only eleven months older; but to me it was “You must think of something besides pleasure.”

The lot of ugly girls is not joyful, and they must be possessed of natures very absurdly sanguine indeed ever to hope for any enjoyment in life.

It was cruel, base, horrible of my mother to send me to M’Swat’s. I would not go⁠—not for 50 pounds a day! I would not go! I would not! not for any consideration.

I stamped about in a fever of impatience until grannie appeared, when I handed both letters to her, and breathlessly awaited her verdict.

“Well, child, what do you say?”

“Say? I won’t go! I can’t! I won’t! Oh, grannie, don’t send me there⁠—I would rather die.”

“My dear child, I would not be willing to part with you under any circumstances, but I cannot interfere between a mother and her child. I would not have allowed anyone to do it with me, and believe in acting the same towards any other mother, even though she is my own daughter. However, there is time to get a reply before you would have to start, so I will write and see what can be done.”

The dear old lady, with her prompt businesslike propensities, sat down and wrote there and then. I wrote also⁠—pleaded with my mother against her decree, begged her to leave me at Caddagat, and assured her I could never succeed at M’Swat’s.

I did not sleep that night, so arose betimes to await the first traveller, whom I asked to post the letters.

We got an answer to them sooner than we expected⁠—at least grannie did. Mother did not deign to write to me, but in her letter to grannie I was described as an abominably selfish creature, who would not consider her little brothers and sisters. I would never be any good; all I thought of was idleness and ease. Most decidedly I could not get out of going to M’Swat’s, as mother had given her word.

“I am sorry for you,” said grannie, “but it cannot be helped. You can stay there for two or three years, and then I can have you here again.”

I was inconsolable, and would not listen to reason. Ah! that uncle Jay-Jay had been at home to rescue me from this. Then aunt Helen brought her arguments to bear upon me, and persuaded me to think it was necessary for the benefit of my little brothers and sisters that I should take up this burden, which I knew would be too much for me.

It was a great wrench to be torn away from Caddagat⁠—from refinement and comfort⁠—from home! As the days till my departure melted away, how I wished that it were possible to set one’s weight against the grim wheel of time and turn it back! Nights I did not sleep, but drenched my pillow with tears. Ah, it was hard to leave grannie and aunt Helen, whom I worshipped, and turn my back on Caddagat!

I suppose it is only a fancy born of the wild deep love I bear it, but to me the flowers seem to smell more sweetly there; and the shadows, how they creep and curl! oh, so softly and caressingly around the quaint old place, as the great sun sets amid the blue peaks; and the never-ceasing rush of the crystal fern-banked stream⁠—I see and hear it now, and the sinking sun as it turns to a sheet of flame the mirror hanging in the backyard in the laundry veranda, before which the station hands were wont to comb and wash themselves. Oh, the memories that crowd upon me! Methinks I can smell the roses that clamber up the veranda posts and peep over the garden gate. As I write my eyes grow misty, so that I cannot see the paper.

The day for my departure arrived⁠—hot, 110 degrees in the shade. It was a Wednesday afternoon. Frank Hawden was to take me as far as Gool-Gool that evening, and see me on to the coach next day. I would arrive in Yarnung about twelve or one o’clock on Thursday night, where, according to arrangement, Mr. M’Swat would be waiting to take me to a hotel, thence to his home next day.

My trunks and other belongings were stowed in the buggy, to which the fat horses were harnessed. They stood beneath the dense shade of a splendid kurrajong, and lazily flicked the flies off themselves while Frank Hawden held the reins and waited for me.

I rushed frantically round the house taking a last look at nooks and pictures dear to me, and then aunt Helen pressed my hand and kissed me, saying:

“The house will be lonely without you, but you must brighten up, and I’m sure you will not find things half as bad as you expect them.”

I looked back as I went out the front gate, and saw her throw herself into a chair on the veranda and cover her face with her hands. My beautiful noble aunt Helen! I hope she missed me just a little, felt just one pang of parting, for I have not got over that parting yet.

Grannie gave me a warm embrace and many kisses. I climbed on to the front seat of the buggy beside my escort, he whipped the horses⁠—a cloud of dust, a whirr of wheels, and we were gone⁠—gone from Caddagat!

We crossed the singing stream: on either bank great bushes of blackthorn⁠—last native flower of the season⁠—put forth their wealth of magnificent creamy bloom, its rich perfume floating far on the hot summer air. How the sunlight blazed and danced and flickered on the familiar and dearly loved landscape! Over a rise, and the house was lost to view, then goodbye to the crystal creek. The trees of Five-Bob Downs came within eye-range far away on our left. What merry nights I had spent there amid music, flowers, youth, light, love, and summer warmth, when the tide of life seemed full! Where now was Harold Beecham and the thirty