Page 17 of My Brilliant Career

I was always desirous of enjoying the company of society people who were well bred and lived according to etiquette, and possessed of leisure and culture sufficient to fill their minds with something more than the price of farm produce and a hard struggle for existence. Hitherto I had only read of such or seen them in pictures, but here was a real live one, and I seized my opportunity with vim. At my questioning and evident interest in his talk he told me of all the latest plays, actors, and actresses with whom he was acquainted, and described the fashionable balls, dinners, and garden-parties he attended. Having exhausted this subject, we fell to discussing books, and I recited snatches of poems dear to me. Everard placed his hands upon my shoulders and said:

‘Sybylla, do you know you are a most wonderful girl? Your figure is perfect, your style refreshing, and you have a most interesting face. It is as ever-changing as a kaleidoscope — sometimes merry, then stern, often sympathetic, and always sad when at rest. One would think you had had some sorrow in your life.’

Lifting my skirt at either side, I bowed several times very low in what I called my stage bow, and called into requisition my stage smile, which displayed two rows of teeth as white and perfect as any twenty-guinea set turned out on a gold plate by a fashionable dentist.

‘The handsome gentleman is very kind to amuse himself at the expense of a little country bumpkin, but he would do well to ascertain if his flattery would go down before administering it next time,’ I said sarcastically, and I heard him calling to me as I abruptly went off to shut myself in my room.

‘How dare anyone ridicule me by paying idle brainless compliments! I knew I was ugly, and did not want any one to perjure his soul pretending they thought differently. What right had I to be small? Why wasn’t I possessed of a big aquiline nose and a tall commanding figure?’ Thus I sat in burning discontent and ill-humour until soothed by the scent of roses and the gleam of soft spring sunshine which streamed in through my open window. Some of the flower-beds in the garden were completely carpeted with pansy blossoms, all colours, and violets — blue and white, single and double. The scent of mignonette, jonquils, and narcissi filled the air. I revelled in rich perfumes, and these tempted me forth. My ruffied feelings gave way before the delights of the old garden. I collected a number of vases, and, filling them with water, set them on a table in the veranda near one of the drawing-room windows. I gathered lapfuls of the lovely blossoms, and commenced arranging them in the vases.

Part of the old Caddagat house was built of slabs, and one of the wooden walls ran along the veranda side of the drawing-room, so the songs aunt Helen and Everard Grey were trying to the piano came as a sweet accompaniment to my congenial task.

Presently they left off singing and commenced talking. Under the same circumstances a heroine of a story would have slipped away; or, if that were impossible without discovery, she would have put her fingers in her ears, and would have been in a terrible state of agitation lest she should hear something not intended for her. I did not come there with a view to eaves-dropping. It is a degradation to which I never stoop. I thought they were aware of my presence on the veranda; but it appears they were not, as they began to discuss me (wonderfully interesting subject to myself), and I stayed there, without one word of disapproval from my conscience, to listen to their conversation.

‘My word, didn’t gran make a to-do this morning when I proposed to train Sybylla for the stage! Do you know that girl is simply reeking with talent; I must have her trained. I will keep bringing the idea before gran until she gets used to it. I’ll work the we-should-use-the-gifts-God-hasgiven-us racket for all it is worth, and you might use your influence too, Helen.’

‘No, Everard; there are very few who succeed on the stage. I would not use my influence, as it is a life of which I do not approve.’

‘But Sybylla would succeed. I am a personal friend of the leading managers, and my influence would help her greatly.’

‘Yes; but what would you do with her? A young gentleman couldn’t take charge of a girl and bring her out without ruining her reputation. There would be no end of scandal, as the sister theory would only be nonsense.’

‘There is another way; I could easily stop scandal.’

‘Everard, what do you mean!’

‘I mean marriage,’ he replied deliberately.

‘Surely, boy, you must be dreaming! You have only seen her for an hour or two. I don’t believe in these sudden attachments.’

Perhaps she here thought of one (her own) as sudden, which had not ended happily.

‘Everard, don’t do anything rashly. You know you are very fickle and considered a lady-killer — be merciful to my poor little Sybylla, I pray. It is just one of your passing fancies. Don’t wile her passionate young heart away and then leave her to pine and die.’

‘I don’t think she is that sort,’ he replied laughingly.

‘No, she would not die, but would grow into a cynic and sceptic, which is the worst of fates. Let her alone. Flirt as much as you will with society belles who understand the game, but leave my country maiden alone. I hope to mould her into a splendid character yet.’

‘But, Helen, supposing I am in earnest at last, you don’t think I’d make her a bad old hubby, do you?’

‘She is not the girl for you. You are not the man who could ever control her. What I say may not be complimentary but it is true. Besides, she is not seventeen yet, and I do not approve of romantic young girls throwing themselves into matrimony. Let them develop their womanhood first.’

‘Then I expect I had better hide my attractions under a bushel during the remainder of my stay at Caddagat?’

‘Yes. Be as nice to the child as you like, but mind, none of those little ladies’-man attentions with which it is so easy to steal —’

I waited to hear no more, but, brimming over with a mixture of emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-coloured butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom — their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple-tree, and gave way to my wounded vanity.

‘Little country maiden, indeed! There’s no need for him to bag his attractions up. If he exerted himself to the utmost of his ability, he could not make me love him. I’m not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There’s not enough in him to win my love. I’ll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars in the old tree there. I’m not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there’s no fear of that! I hate and detest men!’

‘I suppose you are rehearsing some more airs to show off with tonight,’ sneered a voice behind me.

‘No, I’m realisticing; and how dare you thrust your obnoxious presence before me when I wish to be alone! Haven’t I often shown —’

‘While a girl is disengaged, any man who is her equal has the right to pay his addresses to her if he is in earnest,’ interrupted Mr Hawden. It was he who stood before me.

‘I am well aware of that,’ I replied. ‘But it is a woman’s privilege to repel those attentions if distasteful to her. You seem disinclined to accord me that privilege.’

Having delivered this retort, I returned to the house, leaving him standing there looking the fool he was.