My Brilliant Career

by Miles Franklin

  This monotonous, sordid life was unhinging me, and there was no legitimate way of escape from it. I formed wild plans of running away, to do what I did not care so long as it brought a little action, anything but this torturing, maddening monotony; but my love for my little brothers and sisters held me back. I could not do anything that would put me forever beyond the pale of their society.

  I was so reduced in spirit that had Harold Beecham appeared then with a matrimonial scheme to be fulfilled at once, I would have quickly erased the fine lines I had drawn and accepted his proposal; but he did not come, and I was unacquainted with his whereabouts or welfare. As I remembered him, how lovable and superior he seemed in comparison with the men I met nowadays: not that he was any better than these men in their place and according to their lights, but his lights—at least not his lights, for Harold Beecham was nothing of a philosopher, but the furniture of the drawing room which they illuminated—was more artistic. What a prince of gentlemanliness and winning gallantries he was in his quiet way!

  This information concerning him was in a letter I received from my grandmother at Easter:

  Who should surprise us with a visit the other day but Harold Beecham. He was as thin as a whipping post, and very sunburnt [I smiled, imagining it impossible for Harold to be any browner than of yore]. He has been near death’s door with the measles—caught them in Queensland while droving, and got wet. He was so ill that he had to give up charge of that 1,600 head of cattle he was bringing. He came to say good-bye to us, as he is off to Western Australia next week to see if he can mend his fortunes there. I was afraid he was going to be like young Charters, and swear he would never come back unless he made a pile, but he says he will be back next Christmas three years for certain, if he is alive and kicking, as he says himself.

  Why he intends returning at that stipulated time I don’t know, as he never was very communicative, and is more unsociable than ever now. He is a man who never shows his feelings, but he must feel the loss of his old position deeply. He seemed surprised not to find you here, and says it was a pity to set you teaching, as it will take all the life and fun out of you, and that is the first time I ever heard him express an opinion in anyone’s business but his own. Frank Hawden sends kind regards, &c.

  Teaching certainly had the effect upon me anticipated by Harold Beecham, but it was not the teaching but the place in which I taught which was doing the mischief—good, my mother termed it.

  I was often sleepless for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch, and cried through the nights until my eyes had black rings round them, which washing failed to remove. The neighbors described me as “a sorrowful lookin’ delicate creetur, that couldn’t larf to save her life”—quite a different character from the girl who at Caddagat was continually chid for being a romp, a hoyden, a boisterous tomboy, a whirlwind, and for excessive laughter at anything and everything. I got into such a state of nervousness that I would jump at the opening of a door or an unexpected footfall.

  When cooling down, after having so vigorously delivered Mr. M’Swat a piece of my mind, I felt that I owed him an apology. According to his lights (and that is the only fair way of judging our fellows) he had acted in a kind of fatherly way. I was a young girl under his charge, and he would have in a measure been responsible had I come to harm through going out in the night. He had been good-natured, too, in offering to help things along by providing an eligible, and allowing us to “spoon” under his surveillance. That I was of temperament and aspirations that made his plans loathsome to me was no fault of his—only a heavy misfortune to myself. Yes; I had been in the wrong entirely.

  With this idea in my head, sinking ankle-deep in the dust, and threading my way through the pigs and fowls which hung around the back door, I went in search of my master. Mrs. M’Swat was teaching Jimmy how to kill a sheep and dress it for use; while Lizer, who was nurse to the baby and spectator of the performance, was volubly and ungrammatically giving instructions in the art. Peter and some of the younger children were away felling stringybark trees for the sustenance of the sheep. The fall of their axes and the murmur of the Murrumbidgee echoed faintly from the sunset. They would be home presently and at tea; I reflected it would be “The old yeos looks terrible skinny, but the hoggets is fat yet. By crikey! They did go into the bushes. They chawed up stems and all—some as thick as a pencil.”

  This information in that parlance had been given yesterday, the day before, would be given today, tomorrow, and the next day. It was the boss item on the conversational program until further orders.

  I had a pretty good idea where to find Mr. M’Swat, as he had lately purchased a pair of stud rams, and was in the habit of admiring them for a couple of hours every evening. I went to where they usually grazed, and there, as I expected, found Mr. M’Swat, pipe in mouth, with glistening eyes, surveying his darlings.

  “Mr. M’Swat, I have come to beg your pardon.”

  “That’s all right, me gu-r-r-r-1.1 didn’t take no notice to anything ye might spit out in a rage.”

  “But I was not in a rage. I meant every word I said, but I want to apologize for the rude way in which I said it as I had no right to speak so to my elders. And I want to tell you that you need not fear me running away with Peter, even supposing he should honor me with his affections, as I am engaged to another man.”

  “By dad, I’ll be hanged!” he exclaimed, with nothing but curiosity on his wrinkled, dried, tobacco-leaf-looking face. He expressed no resentment on account of my behavior to him. “Are ye to be married soon? Has he got any prawperty? Who is he? I suppose he’s respectable. Ye’re very young.”

  “Yes; he is renowned for respectability, but I am not going to marry him till I am twenty-one. He is poor, but has good prospects. You must promise me not to tell anyone, as I wish it kept a secret, and only mention it to you so that you need not be disturbed about Peter.”

  He assured me that he would keep the secret, and I knew I could rely on his word. He was greatly perturbed that my intended was poor.

  “Never ye marry a man widout a bit er prawperty, me gu-r-r-r-1. Take my advice—the divil’s in a poor match, no matter how good the man may be. Don’t ye be in a hurry; ye’re personable enough in yer way, and there’s as good fish in the seas as ever come out of ’em. Yer very small; I admire a good lump of a woman meself—but don’t ye lose heart. I’ve heerd some men say they like little girls, but, as I said, I like a good lump of a woman meself.”

  “And you’ve got a good lump of a squaw,” I thought to myself.

  Do not mistake me. I do not for an instant fancy myself above the M’Swats. Quite the reverse; they are much superior to me. Mr. M’Swat was upright and clean in his morals, and in his little sphere was as sensible and kind a man as one could wish for. Mrs. M’Swat was faithful to him, contented and good-natured, and bore uncomplainingly, year after year, that most cruelly agonizing of human duties—childbirth, and did more for her nation and her Maker than I will ever be noble enough to do.

  But I could not help it that their life was warping my very soul. Nature fashions us all; we have no voice in the matter, and I could not change my organization to one which would find sufficient sustenance in the mental atmosphere of Barney’s Gap.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Ta-Ta to Barney’s Gap

  It chanced at last, as June gave place to July and July to August, that I could bear it no longer. I would go away even if I had to walk, and what I would do I did not know or care, my one idea being to leave Barney’s Gap far and far behind. One evening I got a lot of letters from my little brothers and sisters at home. I fretted over them a good deal, and put them under my pillow; and as I had not slept for nights, and was feeling weak and queer, I laid my head upon them to rest a little before going out to get the tea ready.

  The next thing I knew was that Mrs. M’Swat was shaking me vigorously with one hand, holding a flaring candle in the other, and saying, “Lizer, shut the winder quick. She’s been lyin’ here
in the draught till she’s froze, and must have the nightmare, the way she’s been singin’ out that queer, an’ I can’t git her woke up. What ails ye, child? Are ye sick?”

  I did not know what ailed me, but learnt subsequently that I laughed and cried very much, and pleaded hard with Grannie and some Harold to save me, and kept reiterating, “I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it,” and altogether behaved so strangely that Mr. M’Swat became so alarmed that he sent seventeen miles for the nearest doctor. He came next morning, felt my pulse, asked a few questions, and stated that I was suffering from nervous prostration.

  “Why, the child is completely run down, and in a fair way to contract brain fever!” he exclaimed. “What has she been doing? It seems as though she had been under some great mental strain. She must have complete rest and change, plenty of diversion and nourishing food, or her mind will become impaired.”

  He left me a bottle of tonic and Mr. and Mrs. M’Swat many fears. Poor kind-hearted souls, they got in a great state, and understood about as much of the cause of my breakdown as I do of the inside of the moon. They ascribed it to the paltry amount of teaching and work I had done.

  Mrs. M’Swat killed a fowl and stewed it for my delectation. There was part of the inside with many feathers to flavor the dish, and having no appetite, I did not enjoy it, but made a feint of so doing to please the good-natured cook.

  They intended writing at once to give my parents notice when I would be put on the train. I was pronounced too ill to act as scribe; Lizer was suggested, and then Jimmy, but M’Swat settled the matter thus: “Sure, damn it! I’m the proper one to write on an important business matther like this here.”

  So pens, ink, and paper were laid on the dining-room table, and the great proclamation went forth among the youngsters, “Pa is goin’ to write a whole letter all by hisself.”

  My door opened with the dining room, and from my bed I could see the proceeding. Mr. M’Swat hitched his trousers well through the saddle strap which he always wore as a belt, took off his coat and folded it on the back of a chair, rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, pulled his hat well over his eyes, and “shaped up” to the writing material, none of which met with his approval. The ink was “warter,” the pens had not enough “pint,” and the paper was “trash”; but on being assured it was the good stuff he had purchased especially for himself, he buckled to the fray, producing in three hours a half-sheet epistle, which in grammar, composition, and spelling quite eclipsed the entries in his diary. However, it served its purpose, and my parents wrote back that, did I reach Goulburn on a certain day, a neighbor who would be in town then would bring me home.

  Now that it was settled that I had no more to teach the dirty children, out of dirty books, lessons for which they had great disinclination, and no more to direct Lizer’s greasy fingers over the yellow keys of that demented piano in a vain endeavor to teach her “choones,” of which her mother expected her to learn on an average two daily, it seemed as though I had a mountain lifted off me, and I revived magically, got out of bed and packed my things.

  I was delighted at the prospect of throwing off the leaden shackles of Barney’s Gap, but there was a little regret mingled with my relief. The little boys had not been always bold. Did I express a wish for a parrot wing or water-worn stone, or such like, after a time I would be certain, on issuing from my bedroom, to find that it had been surreptitiously laid there, and the little soft-eyed fellows would squabble for the privilege of bringing me my post, simply to give me pleasure. Poor little Lizer, and Rose Jane too, copied me in style of dress and manners in a way that was somewhat ludicrous but more pathetic.

  They clustered round to say good-bye. I would be sure to write. Oh yes, of course, and they would write in return and tell me if the bay mare got well, and where they would find the yellow turkey-hen’s nest. When I got well I must come back, and I wouldn’t have as much work to do, but go for more rides to keep well, and so on. Mrs. M’Swat very anxiously impressed it upon me that I was to explain to my mother that it was not her (Mrs. M’Swat’s) fault that I “ailed” from overwork, as I had never complained and always seemed well.

  With a kindly light on his homely sunburnt face, M’Swat said, as he put me on the train, “Sure, tell yer father he needn’t worry over the money. I’ll never be hard on him, an’ if ever I could help ye, I’d be glad.”

  “Thank you; you are very good, and have done too much already.”

  “Too much! Sure, damn it, wot’s the good er bein’ alive if we can’t help each other sometimes. I don’t mind how much I help a person if they have a little gratitood, but, damn it, I can’t abear ingratitood.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. M’Swat, and thank you.”

  “Good-bye, me gu-r-r-r-1, and never marry that bloke of yours if he don’t git a bit er prawperty, for the divil’s in a poor match.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Back at Possum Gully

  They were expecting me on the frosty evening in September, and the children came bounding and shouting to meet me, when myself and luggage were deposited at Possum Gully by a neighbor, as he passed in a great hurry to reach his own home ere it got too dark. They bustled me to a glowing fire in no time.

  My father sat reading, and, greeting me in a very quiet fashion, continued the perusal of his paper. My mother shut her lips tightly, saying exultingly, “It seems it was possible for you to find a worse place than home”; and that little speech was the thorn on the rose of my welcome home. But there was no sting in Gertie’s greeting, and how beautiful she was growing, and so tall! It touched me to see she had made an especial dainty for my tea, and had put things on the table which were only used for visitors. The boys and little Aurora chattered and danced around me all the while. One brought for my inspection some soup plates which had been procured during my absence; another came with a picture book; and nothing would do them but that I must, despite the darkness, straightaway go out and admire a new fowl house which “Horace and Stanley built all by theirselves, and no one helped them one single bit.”

  After Mrs. M’Swat it was a rest, a relief, a treat, to hear my mother’s cultivated voice, and observe her ladylike and refined figure as she moved about; and, what a palace the place seemed in comparison to Barney’s Gap, simply because it was clean, orderly, and bore traces of refinement; for the stamp of indigent circumstances was legibly imprinted upon it, and many things which had been considered “done for” when thirteen months before I had left home, were still in use.

  I carefully studied my brothers and sisters. They had grown during my absence, and were all big for their age, and though some of them not exactly handsome, yet all pleasant to look upon—I was the only wanting in physical charms—also they were often discontented, and wished, as children will, for things they could not have; but they were natural, understandable children, not like myself, cursed with a fevered ambition for the utterly unattainable.

  Oh, were I seated high as my ambition, I’d place this loot on naked necks of monarchs!

  At the time of my departure for Caddagat my father had been negotiating with beer regarding the sale of his manhood; on returning I found that he had completed the bargain, and held a stamped receipt in his miserable appearance and demeanor. In the broken-down man, regardless of manners, one would have failed to recognize Dick Melvyn, “Smart Dick Melvyn,” “Jolly-good-fellow Melvyn,” “Thorough Gentleman,” and “Manly Melvyn,” of the handsome face and ingratiating manners, onetime holder of Bruggabrong, Bin Bin East, and Bin Bin West. He never corrected his family nowadays, and his example was most deleterious to them.

  Mother gave me a list of her worries in private after tea that night. She wished she had never married: not only was her husband a failure, but to all appearances her children would be the same. I wasn’t worth my salt, or I would have remained at Barney’s Gap; and there was Horace—heaven only knew where he would end. God would surely punish him for his disrespect to his father. It was impossible to keep things t
ogether much longer, etc., etc.

  When we went to bed that night Gertie poured all her troubles into my ear in a jumbled string. It was terrible to have such a father. She was ashamed of him. He was always going into town, and stayed there till Mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbors were so good as to bring him home. It took all the money to pay the publican’s bills, and Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which Grannie sent, as the neighbors said the Melvyns ought to pay up the old man’s bills instead of dressing like swells; and she couldn’t help it, and she was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of such odds.

  I comforted her with the assurance that the only thing was to feel right within ourselves, and let people say whatsoever entertained their poor little minds. And I fell asleep thinking that parents have a duty to children greater than children to parents, and they who do not fulfil their responsibility in this respect are as bad in their morals as a debauchee, corrupt the community as much as a thief, and are among the ablest underminers of their nation.

  On the morrow, the first time we were alone, Horace seized the opportunity of holding forth on his woes. It was no use, he was choke full of Possum Gully: he would stick to it for another year, and then he would chuck it, even if he had to go on the wallaby. He wasn’t going to be slaving forever for the boss to swallow the proceeds, and there was nothing to be made out of dairying. When it wasn’t drought it was floods and caterpillars and grasshoppers.

  Among my brothers and sisters I quickly revived to a certain extent, and Mother asserted her opinion that I had not been ill at all, but had made up my mind to torment her; had not taken sufficient exercise, and might have had a little derangement of the system but nothing more. It was proposed that I should return to Barney’s Gap. I demurred, and was anathematized as ungrateful and altogether corrupt, that I would not go back to M’Swat, who was so good as to lend my father money out of pure friendship; but for once in my life I could not be made submit by either coercion or persuasion. Grannie offered to take one of us to Caddagat; Mother preferred that Gertie should go. So we sent the pretty girl to dwell among her kindred in a land of comfort and pleasure.