An Australian Lassie Part 14

"There _must_ be some self-made women," insisted Betty. "I'll ask father to-night."

John thought deeply for a few minutes, seeing her distress. He really ransacked his mind, for besides sorrow for her sorrowing he could plainly see the admiration with which she regarded him, and he wanted to show her that he knew something about women too.

"There's Joan of Arc," he said, "and--there's Grace Darling!"

But Betty was indignant. "They're in the history book!" she said.

John thought again, but could only shake his head.

"All women can do," he said, "is wash up, and cook dinners, and mend clothes!"

Betty's lips quivered.

"I won't be a woman," she said, "I _won't_!"

John owned to sharing her craving to be rich, but he wanted to _make_ his wealth himself--which set Betty's imagination galloping down a new road. _She_ had only thought hitherto of her grandfather's riches, which had seemed to her and Cyril to be all the money there was in the world.

But now John had slid back a door and let her peep into all the glories of a new world, and she had seen there wealth and fame to be had for the earning--by men and boys!

"Try and find out about self-made women," she said, when he left her at the turn through the bush. "See if there were any women artists, or women inventors, or women pirates, or _anything_. Good-bye."

CHAPTER XII

BETTY IN THE LION'S DEN

So that it was John who showed Betty the thing in all its beauty. It was he, who, so to speak, called her to the mountain top, and pointed out to her the cities of the world to be climbed above. And it seemed to little independent-hearted Betty to be the most glorious thing in the world to climb upon one's own feet, pulling oneself upwards with one's own hands.

She wondered how she could have ever wanted such a very ordinary happening as for her grandfather to _adopt_ them and give them _his_ money. Here was this wonderful John Brown actually longing to give up her grandfather--his grandfather. For he had soon convinced her that Captain Carew was his grandfather too, and while allowing that he might be hers, he showed her how very little in the eyes of the world _her_ relationship counted for. He, he said, was the son of his grandfather's eldest son--that their names were different was solely owing to the fact that his father had changed his name for private reasons. She and Cyril and all the rest of them were merely the children of his grandfather's _daughter_. And, as he impressed upon Betty, women didn't count for much in the world's eyes.

Yet Betty was very earnest in her intention to be something great--something self-made, and John was willing enough not to stand in her way. He himself was going to start at once; _he_ was not going to waste any more time over going to school and doing lessons. He pointed to his grandfather as a fine example of a man who had risen _because_ he had not wasted time in learning. He told Betty they could not begin their "career" too early.

It was Betty who suggested waiting till the Christmas holidays, and it was John who said--

"Perhaps you'd better wait till the next Christmas. I will have got a bit of a start by then and will be able to help you."

But Betty was indignant at that.

"I won't be helped!" she said. "I won't be helped by you, John Brown.

Stay at home till Christmas yourself--I'm going _now_!"

Her career had to be decided upon, and very little time remained in which to decide. John intended beginning life as an errand boy. In his spare time, he said, he would go on with his drawing, and if an opportunity occurred, he would work his pa.s.sage out somewhere in some ship. He was rather vague about all but the errand running; that he saw to be the first step towards greatness.

Betty was not long before she decided he was keeping some part of his design from her. And every afternoon when they had left school and each other, she was nervous lest he should have gone by morning--gone and left her to find her way into the world alone!

And here was she unable to decide upon her career! She even asked questions about Joan of Arc and Grace Darling, and set herself to find out if there were any other women in the history book.

"It isn't fair!" she said at last to the thoughtful John Brown. "You'd never have known about being an errand boy and an artist only for your books. You've got a lot of books to help you."

But John told her how he had been decided upon his "career" all his life, ever since his father had left him alone on the station in the country which time was, as the reader will be aware, situated somewhere about his first birthday. But he magnanimously proposed to place his grandfather's library at her feet, or rather to place her feet within his grandfather's library.

"You can come and take your pick," he said.

At this period of her life Betty was not troubled with pride--the pride of the slighted and poor relation.

She accepted his offer rapturously, only adding, "You'd better keep my grandfather out of the way when I come."

"Come when he's having his afternoon sleep," said John.

So Betty was smuggled into her grandfather's library.

It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon when she went to the great house. She had to slip away from Dot, who was making elaborate alterations to a pretty blue muslin frock (she was invited to spend the next Sat.u.r.day and Sunday with Alma Montague, the doctor's daughter); her mother was calling "Betty, come here," in the front garden as she reached the track through the bush, and Cyril and Nancy had implored her to "come and play something."

But Betty had a "career" to think of. She ran through the bush and arrived breathless at that part of her grandfather's fence which ran past their coral islands. At a certain hour every afternoon, John said, his grandfather went to sleep. It was during this sleep time that Betty was to search the shelves of his library for a book that should enlighten her as to the best way to become a "self-made woman."

She slipped under the fence, and into the little belt of bush that bounded the emu run, and where she, as a ghost, had waited.

John's signal came very soon, and Betty immediately took off her bonnet and rolled it up under her arm--the better to hear--and marched boldly across the gravel paths to the library window where John stood.

"Where is he?" asked Betty.

"Asleep on the little verandah," said John; "he always sleeps a long time after dinner."

Betty stepped into the room and looked around her curiously.

It was such a room as she had never seen yet, and it pleased her greatly. Two enormous bookcases full of books stood side by side against one wall. Another wall was book-lined for about eight feet of its height and ten of its length. The centre-table had a dark blue cloth upon it and bore magazines, books and newspapers and writing materials.

Betty's feet rested pleasurably on the thick rich carpet and her eyes went from easy chair to easy chair.

"My father ought to have this room," she said, "he writes the most beautiful books, and I know he'd write ever so many more if he lived here."

"Here's the book I got myself from," said John, advancing to a bookcase.

But Betty was oblivious of her errand. She lingered by the table, turning over the covers of the magazines, and picture after picture caught her eye.

One in particular she lingered over. It represented a bric-a-brac strewn room.

"The boudoir of Madam S----," it said.

"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's chair. "Oh, John, when I've made myself, I'll have a room like _this_!"

She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor, carrying the book with her, and leaning her back against a table-leg she lost herself in an interview with Madam S----.

Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little story about her large family of brothers and sisters, their extreme poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic touch when sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home, and she, a mite of eight, had stood at a street corner in a foreign city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a keen-eyed, bent-shouldered man had been pa.s.sing by hurriedly, and had stopped, caught by a "something" in the little singer's voice, and face, and att.i.tude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside the little girl in the tattered frock.