Grannie consented to Miss Beecham’s proposal, and ere the day arrived I
had a trunk packed with some lovely new dresses, and was looking
forward with great glee to my visit to Five-Bob Downs.
One o’clock on Wednesday afternoon arrived; two o’clock struck, and I
was beginning to fear no one was coming for me, when, turning to look
out the window for the eighteenth time, I saw the straight blunt nose
of Harold Beecham passing. Grannie was serving afternoon tea on the
veranda. I did not want any, so got ready while my escort was having
his.
It was rather late when we bowled away at a tremendous pace in a red
sulky, my portmanteau strapped on at the back, and a thoroughbred
American trotter, which had taken prizes at Sydney shows, harnessed to
the front. We just whizzed! It was splendid! The stones and dust rose
in a thick cloud from the whirling wheels and flying hoofs, and the
posts of the wire fence on our left passed like magic as we went. Mr
Beecham allowed me to drive after a time while he sat ready to take the
reins should an emergency arise.
It was sunset—most majestic hour of the twenty-four—when we drove up to
the great white gates which opened into the avenue leading to the main
homestead of Five-Bob Downs station—beautiful far-reaching Five-Bob
Downs! Dreamy blue hills rose behind, and wide rich flats stretched
before, through which the Yarrangung river, glazed with sunset, could
be seen like a silver snake winding between shrubberied banks. The
odour from the six-acred flower-garden was overpowering and delightful.
A breeze gently swayed the crowd of trees amid the houses, and swept
over the great orchard which sloped down from the south side of the
houses. In the fading sunlight thirty iron roofs gleamed and glared,
and seemed like a little town; and the yelp of many dogs went up at the
sound of our wheels. Ah! beautiful, beautiful Five-Bob Downs!
It seemed as though a hundred dogs leapt forth to greet us when that
gate flew open, but I subsequently discovered there were but
twenty-three.
Two female figures came out to meet us—one nearly six feet high, the
other, a tiny creature, seemed about eighteen inches, though, of
course, was more than that.
“I’ve brought her, aunt Gussie,” said Harold, jumping out of the sulky,
though not relinquishing the reins, while he kissed the taller figure,
and the small one attached itself to his leg saying, “Dimme wide.”
“Hullo! Possum, why wasn’t old Spanker let go? I see he’s not among the
dogs,” and my host picked the tiny individual up in his arms and got
into the sulky to give her the desired ride, while after being embraced
by Miss Beecham and lifted to the ground by her nephew, I went with the
former over an asphalted tennis-court, through the wide garden, then
across a broad veranda into the great, spreading, one-storeyed house
from which gleamed many lights.
“I am so glad you have come, my dear. I must have a good look at you
when we get into the light. I hope you are like your mother.”
This prospect discomfited me. I knew she would find a very ugly girl
with not the least resemblance to her pretty mother, and I cursed my
appearance under my breath.
“Your name is Sybylla,” Miss Beecham continued, “Sybylla Penelope. Your
mother used to be very dear to me, but I don’t know why she doesn’t
write to me now. I have never seen her since her marriage. It seems
strange to think of her as the mother of eight—five boys and three
girls, is it not?”
Miss Beecham had piloted me through a wide hall and along an extended
passage out of which a row of bedrooms opened, into one of which we
went.
“I hope you will be comfortable here, child. You need not dress for
dinner while you are here; we never do, only on very special
occasions.”
“Neither do we at Caddagat,” I replied.
“Now, child, let me have a good look at you without your hat.”
“Oh, please don’t!” I exclaimed, covering my face with my hands. “I am
so dreadfully ugly that I cannot bear to have anyone look at me.”
“What a silly little girl! You are not like your mother, but you are
not at all plain-looking. Harold says you are the best style of girl he
has seen yet, and sing beautifully. He got a tuner up from Sydney last
week, so we will expect you to entertain us every night.”
I learnt that what Harold pronounced good no one dared gainsay at
Five-Bob Downs.
We proceeded direct to the dining-room, and had not been there long
when Mr Beecham entered with the little girl on his shoulder. Miss
Beecham had told me she was Minnie Benson, daughter of Harold’s married
overseer on Wyambeet, his adjoining station. Miss Beecham considered it
would have been more seemly for her nephew to have selected a little
boy as a play-thing, but his sentiments regarding boys were that they
were machines invented for the torment of adults.
“Well, O’Doolan, what sort of a day has it been?” Harold inquired,
setting his human toy upon the floor.
“Fine wezzer for yim duts,” she promptly replied.
“Harold, it is shameful to teach a little innocent child such
abominable slang; and you might give her a decent nickname,” said Miss
Beecham.
“O’Doolan, this is Miss Melvyn, and you have to do the same to her as
you do to me.”
The little thing held out her arms to me. I took her up, and she hugged
and kissed me, saying:
“I luz oo, I luz oo,” and turning to Mr Beecham, “zat anuff?
“Yes, that will do,” he said; and she struggled to be put down.
Three jackeroos, an overseer, and two other young men came in, were
introduced to me, and then we began dinner.
O’Doolan sat on a high chair beside Mr Beecham, and he attended to all
her wants. She did everything he did, even taking mustard, and was very
brave at quelling the tears that rose to the doll-like blue eyes. When
Mr Beecham wiped his moustache, it was amusing to see her also wipe an
imaginary one.
After dinner the jackeroos and the three other men repaired to a
sitting-room in the backyard, which was specially set apart for them,
and where they amused themselves as they liked. My host and hostess,
myself, and the child, spent the evening in a tiny sitting-room
adjoining the dining-room. Miss Beecham entertained me with
conversation and the family albums, and Harold amused himself entirely
with the child.
Once when they were absent for a few minutes, Miss Beecham told me it
was ridiculous the way he fussed with the child, and that he had her
with him more than half his time. She also asked me what I thought of
her nephew. I evaded the question by querying if he was always so quiet
and good-tempered.
“Oh dear, no. He is considered a particularly bad-tempered man. Not one
of the snarling nasty tempers, but—”
Here the re-entry of the owner of the temper put a stop to this
conversation.
Harold gave O’Doolan rides on his back, going on all-fours. She shouted
in childish glee, and wound up by curling her small proportions on his
broad chest, and going to sleep there.
Mrs Benson had sent for little O’Doolan, and Harold took her home next
day. He invited me to accompany him, so we set out in the sulky with
O’Doolan on my lap. It was a pleasant drive of twelve miles to and from
Wyambeet. O’Doolan was much distressed at parting from Mr Beecham, but
he promised to come for her again shortly.
“One little girl at a time is enough for me to care for properly,” he
said to me in the winning manner with which, and his wealth,
unintentionally and unconsciously made slaughter among the hearts of
the fair sex.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Fortune Smiles
“Now, Harold, you have compelled Sybylla to come here, you must not let
the time drag with her,” said Miss Beecham.
It was the second day after my arrival at Five-Bob. Lunch was over, and
we had adjourned to the veranda. Miss Beecham was busy at her
work-table; I was ensconced on a mat on the floor reading a book;
Harold was stretched in a squatter’s chair some distance away. His big
brown hands were clasped behind his head, his chin rested on his broad
chest, his eyes were closed, he occasionally thrust his lower lip
forward and sent a puff of breath upwards to scatter the flies from his
face; he looked a big monument of comfort, and answered his aunt’s
remarks lazily:
“Yes, aunt, I’ll do my best;” and to me, “Miss Melvyn, while here,
please bear in mind that it will be no end of pleasure to me to do
anything for your enjoyment. Don’t fail to command me in any way.”
“Thank you, Mr Beecham. I will not fail to avail myself of your offer.”
“The absurdity of you two children addressing each other so formally,”
said Miss Beecham. “Why, you are a sort of cousins almost, by right of
old friendship between the families. You must call me aunt.”
After this Mr Beecham and I called each other nothing when in Miss
Beecham’s hearing, but adhered to formality on other occasions.
Harold looked so comfortable and lazy that I longed to test how far he
meant the offer he had made me.
“I’m just dying for a row on the river. Would you oblige me?” I said.
“Just look at the thermometer!” exclaimed Miss Augusta. “Wait till it
gets cooler, child.”
“Oh, I love the heat!” I replied. “And I am sure it won’t hurt his
lordship. He’s used to the sun, to judge from all appearances.”
“Yes, I don’t think it can destroy my complexion,” he said
good-humouredly, rubbing his finger and thumb along his stubble-covered
chin. The bushmen up-country shaved regularly every Sunday morning, but
never during the week for anything less than a ball. They did this to
obviate the blue—what they termed “scraped pig”—appearance of the faces
of city men in the habit of using the razor daily, and to which they
preferred the stubble of a seven-days’ beard. “I’ll take you to the
river in half an hour,” he said, rising from his seat. “First I must
stick on one of Warrigal’s shoes that he’s flung. I want him tomorrow,
and must do it at once, as he always goes lame if ridden immediately
after shoeing.”
“Shall I blow the bellows?” I volunteered.
“Oh no, thanks. I can manage myself. It would be better though if I had
some one. But I can get one of the girls.”
“Can’t you get one of the boys?” said his aunt.
“There’s not one in. I sent every one off to the Triangle paddock today
to do some drafting. They all took their quart pots and a snack in
their saddle-bags, and won’t be home till dark.”
“Let me go,” I persisted; “I often blow the bellows for uncle Jay-Jay,
and think it great fun.”
The offer of my services being accepted, we set out.
Harold took his favourite horse, Warrigal, from the stable, and led him
to the blacksmith’s forge under an open, stringybark-roofed shed,
nearly covered with creepers. He lit a fire and put a shoe in it.
Doffing his coat and hat, rolling up his shirt-sleeves, and donning a
leather apron, he began preparing the horse’s hoof.
When an emergency arose that necessitated uncle Jay-Jay shoeing his
horses himself. I always manipulated the bellows, and did so with great
decorum, as he was very exacting and I feared his displeasure. In this
case it was different. I worked the pole with such energy that it
almost blew the whole fire out of the pan, and sent the ashes and
sparks in a whirlwind around Harold. The horse—a touchy beast—snorted
and dragged his foot from his master’s grasp.
“That the way to blow?” I inquired demurely.
“Take things a little easier,” he replied.
I took them so very easily that the fire was on the last gasp and the
shoe nearly cold when it was required.
“This won’t do,” said Beecham.