My Brilliant Career (26 page)

“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 kind-hearted 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 a 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 to 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 wonderful quick; and she uses them big words wot you couldn't understand without bein' eddicated.”

“She has tree brooches, and a necktie better than your best one wots you keeps to go seeing Susie Duffy in,” and Lizer giggled slyly.

“You shut up about Susie Duffy, or I'll whack yuz up aside of the ear,” said Peter angrily.

“She ain't like Ma. She's fat up here, and goes in like she'd break in the middle, Peter.”

“Great scissors! She must be a flyer,” said Peter. “I'll bet she'll make you sit up, Jimmy.”

“I'll make her sit up,” retorted Jimmy, who came next to Lizer. “She thinks she's a toff, but she's only old Melvyn's darter, that Pa has to give money to.”

“Peter,” said another, “her face ain't got them freckles on like yours, and it ain't dark like Lizer's. It's reel wite, and pinky round here.”

“I bet she won't make me knuckle down to her, no matter wot color she is,” returned Peter, in a surly tone.

No doubt it was this idea which later in the afternoon induced him to swagger forward to shake hands with me with a flash insolent leer on his face. I took pains to be especially nice to him, treating him with deference, and making remarks upon the extreme heat of the weather with such pleasantness that he was
nonplussed, and looked relieved when able to escape. I smiled to myself, and apprehended no further trouble from Peter.

The table for tea was set exactly as it had been before, and was lighted by a couple of tallow candles made from bad fat, and their odor was such as my jockey traveling companion of the day before would have described as a tough smell.

“Give us a toon on the peeany,” said Mrs. M'Swat after the meal, when the dishes had been cleared away by Lizer and Rose Jane. The tea and scraps, of which there was any amount, remained on the floor, to be picked up by the fowls in the morning.

The children lay on the old sofa and on the chairs, where they always slept at night until their parents retired, when there was an all-round bawl as they were wakened and bundled into bed, dirty as they were, and very often with their clothes on.

I acceded to Mrs. M'Swat's request with alacrity, thinking that while forced to remain there I would have one comfort, and would spend all my spare time at the piano. I opened the instrument, brushed a little of the dust from the keys with my pocket handkerchief, and struck the opening chords of Kowalski's “Marche Hongroise.”

I have heard of pianos sounding like a tin dish, but this was not as pleasant as a tin dish by long chalks. Every note that I struck stayed down not to rise, and when I got them up the jarring, clanging, discordant clatter they produced beggars description. There was not the slightest possibility of distinguishing any tune on the thing. Worthless to begin with, it had stood in the dust, heat, and wind so long that every sign that it had once made music had deserted it.

I closed it with a feeling of such keen disappointment that I had difficulty in suppressing tears.

“Won't it play?” inquired Mr. M'Swat.

“No; the keys stay down.”

“Then, Rose Jane, go ye an' pick 'em up while she tries again.”

I tried again, Rose Jane fishing up the keys as I went along. I perceived instantly that not one had the least ear for music or idea what it was; so I beat on the demented piano with both hands, and often with all fingers at once, and the bigger row I made the better they liked it.

Mr. M'Swat very kindly told me I need not begin my duties until Monday morning, and could rest during Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, which was sickeningly hot and sultry, and which seemed like an eternity, I spent in arranging my belongings, brushing the dust from my traveling dress, and in mending a few articles. Next morning rain started to fall, which was a great God-send, being the first which had fallen for months, and the only rain I saw during my residence at Barney's Gap.

That was a hideous Sabbath. Without a word of remonstrance from their parents, the children entertained themselves by pushing each other into the rain, the smaller ones getting the worst of it, until their clothing was saturated with water. This made them very cold, so they sat upon the floor and yelled outrageously.

It was the custom of Peter to spend his Sundays in riding about, but today, being deterred by the rain, he slept some of the time, and made a muzzle for one of his dogs, between whiles.

From breakfast to the midday meal I shut myself in my bedroom and wrote letters to my mother and grandmother. I did not rant, rave, or say anything which I ought not to have said to my elders. I wrote those letters very coolly and carefully, explaining things just as they were, and asked Grannie to take me back to Caddagat, as I could never endure life at Barney's Gap. I told my mother I had written thus, and asked her if she would not let Grannie take me again, would she get me some other situation? What I did not care, so long as it brought emancipation from the M'Swats. I stamped and addressed these missives, and put them by till a chance of posting should arise.

Mr. M'Swat could read a little by spelling the long words and blundering over the shorter ones, and he spent the morning and all the afternoon in perusal of the local paper—the only literature with which Barney's Gap was acquainted. There was a long list of the prices of stock and farm produce in this edition, which perfectly fascinated its reader. The ecstasy of a man of fine, artistic, mental caliber, when dipping for the first time into the work of some congenial poet, would be completely wiped out in comparison to the utter soul-satisfaction of M'Swat when drinking in the items of that list.

“By damn, pigs was up last Toosday! Thames the things to make prawfit on,” he would excitedly exclaim; or—“Wheat's rose a shillun a bushel! By dad, I must double my crops this year.” When he had plodded to the end, he started at the beginning again.

His wife sat the whole afternoon in the one place, saying and doing nothing. I looked for something to read, but the only books in the house were a Bible, which was never opened, and a diary kept most religiously by M'Swat. I got permission to read this, and opening it, saw:

I closed the book and put it up with a sigh. The little record was a perfect picture of the dull, narrow life of its writer. Week after week that diary went on the same—drearily monotonous account of a drearily monotonous existence. I felt I would go mad if forced to live such a life for long.

“Pa has lots of diaries. Would I like to read them?”

They were brought and put before me. I inquired of Mr. M'Swat which was the liveliest time of the year, and being told it was shearing and threshing, I opened one first in November:

Then I skipped to December:

There was no entertainment to be had from the diaries, so I attempted a conversation with Mrs. M'Swat. “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I wuz jist watchin' the rain and thinkin' it would put a couple a bob a head more on sheep if it keeps on.”

What was I to do to pass the day? I was ever very restless, even in the midst of full occupation. Uncle Jay-Jay used to accuse me of being in six places at once, and of being incapable of sitting still for five minutes consecutively; so it was simply endurance to live that long, long day—nothing to read, no piano on which to play hymns, too wet to walk, none with whom to converse, no possibility of sleeping, as in an endeavor to kill a little of the time I had gone to bed early and got up late. There was nothing but to sit still, tormented by maddening regret. I pictured what would be transpiring at Caddagat now; what we had done this time last week, and so on, till the thing became an agony to me.

Among my duties before school I was to set the table, make all the beds, dust and sweep, and “do” the girls' hair. After school I had to mend clothes, sew, set the table again, take a turn at nursing the baby, and on washing day iron. This sounds a lot, but in reality was nothing, and did not half occupy my time. Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing
much to put on it; and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr. M'Swat and Peter did not wear white shirts, and patronized paper collars. Mrs. M'Swat did the washing and a little scrubbing, also boiled the beef and baked the bread, which formed our unvaried menu week in and week out. Most peasant mothers with a family of nine have no time for idleness, but Mrs. M'Swat managed things so that she spent most of the day rolling on her frowsy bed playing with her dirty infant, which was as fat and good-tempered as herself.