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

months. Mrs. M’Swat apologized for the lack of sugar, stating she was quite out of it and had forgotten to send for a fresh supply.

“You damned fool, to miss such a chance wen I was goin’ to town with the wagonette! I mightn’t be groin’ in again for munce [months]. But sugar don’t count much. Them as can’t do without a useless luxury like that for a spell will never make much of a show at gettin’ on in the wu-r-r-r-ld,” concluded Mr. M’Swat, sententiously.

The children sat in a row and, with mouths open and interest in their big wondering eyes, gazed at me unwinkingly till I felt I must rush away somewhere and shriek to relieve the feeling of overstrained hysteria which was overcoming me. I contained myself sufficiently, however, to ask if this was all the family.

“All but Peter. Where’s Peter, Mary Ann?”

“He went to the Red Hill to look after some sheep, and won’t be back till dark.”

“Peter’s growed up,” remarked one little boy, with evident pride in this member of the family.

“Yes; Peter’s twenty-one, and hes a mustatche and shaves,” said the eldest girl, in a manner indicating that she expected me to be struck dumb with surprise.

“She’ll be surprised wen she sees Peter,” said a little girl in an audible whisper.

Mrs. M’Swat vouchsafed the information that three had died between Peter and Lizer, and this was how the absent son came to be so much older than his brothers and sisters.

“So you have had twelve children?” I said.

“Yes,” she replied, laughing fatly, as though it were a joke.

“The boys found a bees’ nest in a tree an’ have been robbin’ it the smornin’,” continued Mrs. M’Swat.

“Yes; we have ample exemplification of that,” I responded. It was honey here and honey there and honey everywhere. It was one of the many varieties of dirt on the horrible foul-smelling tablecloth. It was on the floor, the door, the chairs, the children’s heads, and the cups. Mrs. M’Swat remarked contentedly that it always took a couple of days to wear “off of” things.

After “dinner” I asked for a bottle of ink and some paper, and scrawled a few lines to grannie and my mother, merely reporting my safe arrival at my destination. I determined to take time to collect my thoughts before petitioning for release from Barney’s Gap.

I requested my mistress to show me where I was to sleep, and she conducted me to a fairly respectable little bedroom, of which I was to be sole occupant, unless I felt lonely and would like Rose Jane to sleep with me. I looked at pretty, soft-eyed, dirty little Rose Jane, and assured her kindhearted mother I would not be the least lonely, as the sickening despairing loneliness which filled my heart was not of a nature to be cured by having as a bedmate a frowzy wild child.

Upon being left alone I barred my door and threw myself on the bed to cry⁠—weep wild hot tears that scalded my cheeks, and sobs that shook my whole frame and gave me a violent pain in the head.

Oh, how coarse and grating were the sounds to be heard around me! Lack, nay, not lack, but utter freedom from the first instincts of cultivation, was to be heard even in the great heavy footfalls and the rasping sharp voices which fell on my ears. So different had I been listening in a room at Caddagat to my grannie’s brisk pleasant voice, or to my aunt Helen’s low refined accents; and I am such a one to see and feel these differences.

However, I pulled together in a little while, and called myself a fool for crying. I would write to grannie and mother explaining matters, and I felt sure they would heed me, as they had no idea what the place was like. I would have only a little while to wait patiently, then I would be among all the pleasures of Caddagat again; and how I would revel in them, more than ever, after a taste of a place like this, for it was worse than I had imagined it could be, even in the nightmares which had haunted me concerning it before leaving Caddagat.

The house was of slabs, unlimed, and with very low iron roof, and having no sign of a tree near it, the heat was unendurable. It was reflected from the rocks on either side, and concentrated in this spot like an oven, being 122 degrees in the veranda now. I wondered why M’Swat had built in such a hole, but it appears it was the nearness of the point to water which recommended it to his judgment.

With the comforting idea that I would not have long to bear this, I bathed my eyes, and walked away from the house to try and find a cooler spot. The children saw me depart but not return, to judge from a discussion of myself which I heard in the dining-room, which adjoined my bedchamber.

Peter came home, and the children clustered around to tell the news.

“Did she come?”

“Yes.”

“Wot’s she like?”

“Oh, a rale little bit of a thing, not as big as Lizer!”

“And, Peter, she hes teeny little hands, as wite as snow, like that woman in the picter ma got off of the tea.”

“Yes, Peter,” chimed in another voice; “and her feet are that little that she don’t make no nise wen she walks.”

“It ain’t only becos her feet are little, but cos she’s got them beautiful shoes like wot’s in picters,” said another.

“Her hair is tied with two great junks of ribbing, one up on her head an’ another near the bottom; better than that bit er red ribbing wot Lizer keeps in the box agin the time she might go to town some day.”

“Yes,” said the voice of Mrs. M’Swat, “her hair is near to her knees, and a plait as thick as yer arm; and wen she writ a couple of letters in a minute, you could scarce see her hand move it was that