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 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 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 matchmaker 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.
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.
As regards scenery, the one bit of beauty ’Possum Gully possessed was its wattles. Bowers of grown and scrubs of young ones adorned the hills and gullies in close proximity to the house, while groves of different species graced the flats. Being Sunday, on this afternoon I was at liberty for a few hours; and on receiving the intelligence contained in the letter, I walked out of the house over a low hill at the back into a gully, where I threw myself at the foot of a wattle in a favourite clump, and gave way to my thoughts.
So mother had been telling my grandmother of my faults—my grandmother whom I loved so dearly. Mother might have had enough honour and motherly protection to have kept the tale of my sins to herself. Though this intelligence angered, it did not surprise me, being accustomed to mother telling every neighbour what a great trial I was to her—how discontented I was, and what little interest I took in my work. It was the last part of the letter which finished up my feelings. Oh heavens! Surely if my mother understood the wild pain, the days and hours of agony pure and complete I have suffered on account of my appearance, she would never have shown me that letter.
I was to be given more time on account of being ugly—I was not a valuable article in the marriage market, sweet thought! My grandmother is one of the good old school, who believed that a girl’s only proper sphere in life was marriage; so, knowing her sentiments, her purpose to get me married neither surprised nor annoyed me. But I was plain. Ah, bosh! Oh! Ah! I cannot express what kind of a feeling that fact gave me. It sank into my heart and cut like a cruel jagged knife—not because it would be a drawback to
