Page 7 of My Brilliant Career

‘Sybylla!’ said my mother in a shocked tone. ‘It is a wonder God doesn’t strike you dead; I never heard —’

‘I don’t believe there is a God,’ I said fiercely, ‘and if there is, He’s not the merciful being He’s always depicted, or He wouldn’t be always torturing me for His own amusement.’

‘Sybylla, Sybylla! That I should ever have nurtured a child to grow up like this! Do you know that —’

‘I only know that I hate this life. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it,’ I said vehemently.

‘Talk about going out to earn your own living! Why, there’s not a woman living would have you in her house above a day. You are a perfect she-devil. Oh God!’ And my mother began to cry. ‘What have I done to be cursed with such a child? There is not another woman in the district with such a burden put upon her. What have I done? I can only trust that my prayers to God for you will soften your evil heart.’

‘If your prayers are answered, it’s more than ever mine were,’ I retorted.

‘Your prayers!’ said my mother, with scorn. ‘The horror of a child not yet sixteen being so hardened. I don’t know what to make of you, you never cry or ask forgiveness. There’s dear little Gertie now, she is often naughty, but when I correct her she frets and worries and shows herself to be a human being and not a fiend.’

So saying my mother went out of the room.

‘I’ve asked forgiveness once too often, to be sat upon for my pains,’ I called out.

‘I believe you’re mad. That is the only feasible excuse I can make for your conduct,’ she said as a parting shot.

‘Why the deuce don’t you two get to bed and not wrangle like a pair of cats in the middle of the night, disturbing a man’s rest?’ came in my father’s voice from amid the bedclothes.

My mother is a good woman — a very good woman — and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord.

She wondered why I did not cry and beg forgiveness, and thereby give evidence of being human. I was too wrought up for tears. Ah, that tears might have come to relieve my overburdened heart! I took up the home-made tallow candle in its tin stick and looked at my pretty sleeping sister Gertie (she and I shared the one bed). It was as mother had said. If Gertie was scolded for any of her shortcomings, she immediately took refuge in tears, said she was sorry, obtained forgiveness, and straightaway forgot the whole matter. She came within the range of mother’s understanding, I did not; she had feelings; mother thought, I had none. Did my mother understand me, she would know that I am capable of more depths of agony and more exquisite heights of joy in one day than Gertie will experience in her whole life.

Was I mad as mother had said? A fear took possession of me that I might be. I certainly was utterly different to any girl I had seen or known. What was the hot wild spirit which surged within me? Ah, that I might weep! I threw myself on my bed and moaned. Why was I not like other girls? Why was I not like Gertie? Why were not a new dress, everyday work, and an occasional picnic sufficient to fill my mind? My movements awakened Gertie.

‘What is the matter, dear Sybylla? Come to bed. Mother has been scolding you. She is always scolding some one. That doesn’t matter. You say you are sorry, and she won’t scold any more. That’s what I always do. Do get into bed. You’ll be tired in the morning.’

‘What does it matter if I will be. I wish I would be dead. What’s the good of a hateful thing like I am being alive. No one wants or cares for me.’

‘I love you, Sybylla, better than all the rest. I could not do without you,’ and she put her pretty face to mine and kissed me.

What a balm to the tempest-tossed soul is a little love, though it may be fleeting and fickle! I was able to weep now, with wild hot tears, and with my sister’s arms around me I fell asleep without undressing further.

7 WAS E’ER A ROSE WITHOUT ITS THORN?

I arose from bed next morning with three things in my head — a pair of swollen eyes, a heavy pain, and a fixed determination to write a book. Nothing less than a book. A few hours’ work in the keen air of a late autumn morning removed the swelling from my eyes and the pain from my temples, but the idea of relieving my feelings in writing had taken firm root in my brain. It was not my first attempt in this direction. Two years previously I had purloined paper and sneaked out of bed every night at one or two o’clock to write a prodigious novel in point of length and detail, in which a full-fledged hero and heroine performed the duties of a hero and heroine in the orthodox manner. Knowing our circumstances, my grandmother was accustomed, when writing to me, to enclose a stamp to enable me to reply. These I saved, and with them sent my book to the leading Sydney publisher. After waiting many weeks I received a polite memo to the effect that the story showed great ability, but the writer’s inexperience was too much in evidence for publication. The writer was to study the best works of literature, and would one day, no doubt, take a place among Australian novelists.

This was a very promising opinion of the work of a child of thirteen, more encouraging than the great writers got at the start of their literary career; but it seemed to even my childish intelligence that the memo was a stereotyped affair that the publisher sent in answer to all the MSS. of fameless writers submitted to him, and also sent in all probability without reading as much as the name of the story. After that I wrote a few short stories and essays; but now the spirit moved me to write another book — not with any hope of success, as it was impossible for me to study literature as advised. I seldom saw a book and could only spare time in tiny scraps to read them when I did.

However, the few shillings I had obtained at odd times I spent on paper, and in secret robbed from much-needed rest a few hours weekly wherein to write. This made me very weary and slow in the daytime, and a sore trial to my mother. I was always forgetting things I should not have forgotten, because my thoughts were engaged in working out my story. The want of rest told upon me. I continually complained of weariness, and my work was a drag to me.

My mother knew not what to make of it. At first she thought I was lazy and bad, and punished me in various ways; but while my book occupied my mind I was not cross, gave her no impudence, and did not flare up. Then she began to fear I must be ill, and took me to a doctor, who said I was much too precocious for my years, and would be better when the weather got warmer. He gave me a tonic, which I threw out the window. I heard no more of going out as a nurse girl: father had joined a neighbour who had taken a road contract, and by this means the pot was kept, if not quite, at least pretty near, boiling.

Life jogged along tamely, and, as far as I could see, gave promise of going to the last slip-rails without a canter, until one day in July 1896 mother received a letter from her mother which made a pleasant change in my life, though, like all sweets, that letter had its bitter drop. It ran as follows:

My dear daughter, Lucy,

Only a short letter this time, I am pressed for time, as four or five strangers have just come and asked to stay for the night, and as one of the girls is away, I have to get them beds. I am writing about Sybylla. I am truly grieved to hear she is such a source of grief and annoyance to you. The girl must surely be ill or she would never act as you describe. She is young yet, and may settle down better by and by. We can only entrust her to the good God who is ever near. Send her up to me as soon as you can. I will pay all expenses. The change will do her good, and if her conduct improves, I will keep her as long as you like. She is young to mention in regard to marriage, but in another year she will be as old as I was when I married, and it might be the makings of her if she married early. At any rate she will be better away from Possum Gully, now that she is growing into womanhood, or she may be in danger of forming ties beneath her. She might do something good for herself up here: not that I would ever be a match-maker in the least degree, but Gertie will soon be coming on, and Sybylla, being so very plain, will need all the time she can get.

Your loving mother,

L. Bossier.

My mother gave me this letter to read, and, when I had finished perusing it, asked me would I go. I replied coldly:

‘Yes. Paupers and beggars cannot be choosers, and grandmother might as well keep me at Caddagat as at Possum Gully’ — for my grandmother contributed greatly to the support of our family.