My Brilliant Career (12 page)

I moved in the direction of the house. He barred my path.

“You are not going to escape me like that, my fine lady. I will make you listen to me this time, or you will hear more about it,” and he seized me angrily by the wrist.

I cannot bear the touch of anyone—it is one of my idiosyncrasies. With my disengaged hand I struck him a vigorous blow on the nose, and wrenching myself free sprang away, saying, “How dare you lay a finger on me! If you attempt such a thing again I'll make short work of you. Mark my words, or you'll get something more than a bleeding nose next time, I promise you.”

“You'll hear more of this! You'll hear more of this! You fierce, wild, touch-me-not thing,” he roared.

“Yes; my motto with men is touch-me-not, and it is your own fault if I'm fierce. If children attempt to act the role of a man with adult tools, they are sure to cut themselves. Hold hard a bit, honey, till your whiskers grow,” I retorted as I departed, taking flying leaps over the blossom-burdened flower beds.

At tea that night, after gazing interestedly at Mr. Hawden's nose for some time, Uncle Julius inquired, “In the name of all that's mysterious, what the devil have you been doing to your nose? You look as though you had been on the spree.”

I was quaking lest he would get me into a fine scrape, but he only muttered, “By Jove!” with great energy, and glowered menacingly across the table at me.

After tea he requested an interview with Grannie, which aroused my curiosity greatly. I was destined to hear all about it next morning. When breakfast was over, Grannie called me into her room and interviewed me about Mr. Hawden's interview.

She began without any preliminaries: “Mr. Hawden has complained of your conduct. It grieves me that any young man should have to speak to me of the behavior of my own granddaughter. He says you have been flirting with him. Sybylla, I scarcely thought you would be so immodest and unwomanly.”

On hearing this, my thoughts of Frank Hawden were the reverse of flattering. He had persecuted me beyond measure, yet I had not deigned to complain of him to either Uncle, Grannie, or Auntie, as I might reasonably have done, and have obtained
immediate redress. He had been the one to blame in the case, yet for the rebuffs he had brought upon himself, went tattling to my grandmother.

“Is that all you have to say, Grannie?”

“No. He wants to marry you, and has asked my consent. I told him it all rested with yourself and parents. What do you say?”

“Say,” I exclaimed, “Grannie, you are only joking, are you not?”

“No, my child, this is not a matter to joke about.”

“Marry that creature! A boy!” I uttered in consternation.

“He is no boy. He has attained his majority some months. He is as old as your grandfather was when we married. In three years you will be almost twenty, and by that time he will be in possession of his property which is very good—in fact, he will be quite rich. If you care for him, there is nothing against him as I can see. He is healthy, has a good character, and comes of a high family. Being a bit wild won't matter. Very often, after they sow their wild oats, some of those scampy young fellows settle down and marry a nice young girl and turn out very good husbands.”

“It is disgusting, and you ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, Grannie! A man can live a life of bestiality and then be considered a fit husband for the youngest and purest girl! It is shameful! Frank Hawden is not wild, he hasn't got enough in him to be so. I hate him. No, he hasn't enough in him to hate. I loathe and despise him. I would not marry him or anyone like him though he were King of England. The idea of marriage even with the best man in the world seems to me a lowering thing,” I raged; “but with him it would be pollution—the lowest degradation that could be heaped upon me! I will never come down to marry anyone—” Here I fell a victim to a flood of excited tears.

I felt there was no good in the world, especially in men—the hateful creatures!—and never would be while it was not expected of them, even by rigidly pure, true Christians such as my grandmother. Grannie, dear old Grannie, thought I should marry any man who, from a financial point of view, was a good match for me. That is where the sting came in. No, I would never marry.
I would procure some occupation in which I could tread my life out, independent of the degradation of marriage.

“Dear me, child,” said Grannie, concernedly, “there is no need to distress yourself so. I remember you were always fearfully passionate. When I had you with me as a tiny toddler, you would fret a whole day about a thing an ordinary child would forget inside an hour. I will tell Hawden to go about his business. I would not want you to consider marriage for an instant with anyone distasteful to you. But tell me truly, have you ever flirted with him? I will take your word, for I thank God you have never yet told me a falsehood!”

“Grannie,” I exclaimed emphatically, “I have discouraged him all I could. I would scorn to flirt with any man.”

“Well, well, that is all I want to hear about it. Wash your eyes, and we will get our horses and go over to see Mrs. Hickey and her baby, and take her something good to eat.”

I did not encounter Frank Hawden again till the afternoon, when he leered at me in a very triumphant manner. I stiffened myself and drew out of his way as though he had been some vile animal. At this treatment he whined, so I agreed to talk the matter over with him and have done with it once and for all.

He was on his way to water some dogs, so I accompanied him out to the stables near the kennels, to be out of hearing of the household.

I opened fire without any beating about the bush. “I ask you, Mr. Hawden, if you have any sense of manliness, from this hour to cease persecuting me with your idiotic professions of love. I have two sentiments regarding it, and in either you disgust me. Sometimes I don't believe there is such a thing as love at all—that is, love between men and women. While in this frame of mind I would not listen to professions of love from an angel. Other times I believe in love, and look upon it as a sacred and solemn thing. When in that humor, it seems to me a desecration to hear you twaddling about the holy theme, for you are only a boy, and don't know how to feel. I would not have spoken thus harshly to you, but by your unmanly conduct you have brought it upon yourself. I have told you straight all that I will ever
deign to tell you on the subject, and take much pleasure in wishing you good afternoon.”

I walked away quickly, heedless of his expostulations.

My appeal to his manliness had no effect. Did I go for a ride, or a walk in the afternoon to enjoy the glory of the sunset, or a stroll to drink in the pleasures of the old garden, there would I find Frank Hawden by my side, yah, yah, yahing about the way I treated him, until I wished him at the bottom of the Red Sea.

However, in those glorious spring days the sense of life was too pleasant to be much clouded by the trifling annoyance Frank Hawden occasioned me. The graceful wild clematis festooned the shrubbery along the creeks with great wreaths of magnificent white bloom, which loaded every breeze with perfume; the pretty bright green senna shrubs along the riverbanks were decked in blossoms which rivaled the deep blue of the sky in brilliance; the magpies built their nests in the tall gum trees, and savagely attacked unwary travelers who ventured too near their domain; the horses were rolling fat, and invited one to get on their satin backs and have a gallop; the cry of the leather heads was heard in the orchard as the cherry season approached. Oh, it was good to be alive!

At Caddagat I was as much out of the full flood of life for which I craved as at Possum Gully, but here there were sufficient pleasant little ripples on the stream of existence to act as a stop-gap for the present.

Here goes for a full account of my first, my last, my only
real
sweetheart, for I considered the professions of that pestiferous jackeroo as merely a grotesque caricature on the genuine article.

On making my first appearance before my lover, I looked quite the reverse of a heroine. My lovely hair was not conveniently escaping from the comb at the right moment to catch him hard in the eye, neither was my thrillingly low sweet voice floating out on the scented air in a manner which went straight to his heart, like the girls I had read of. On the contrary, I much resembled a female clown. It was on a day toward the end of September, and I had been up the creek making a collection of ferns. I had on a pair of men's boots with which to walk in the water, and was garbed in a most dilapidated old dress, which I had borrowed from one of the servants for the purpose. A pair of gloves made of basil, and a big hat, much torn in struggling through the undergrowth, completed my makeup. My hair was most unbecomingly screwed up, the short ends sticking out like a hurrah's nest.

It was late in the day when, returning from my ramble, I was met on the doorstep by Aunt Helen.

“While you are in that trim, I wish you would pluck some lemons for me. I'm sure there is no danger of you ruining your turnout. A sketch of you would make a good item for the
Bulletin
,” she said.

I went readily to do her bidding, and fetching a ladder with rungs about two feet six apart, placed it against a lemon tree at the back of the house, and climbed up.

Holding a number of lemons in my skirt, I was making
a most ungraceful descent, when I heard an unknown footstep approaching toward my back.

People came to Caddagat at all hours of the day, so I was not in the least disconcerted. Only a tramp, an agent, or a hawker, I bet, I thought, as I reached my big boot down for another rung of the ladder without turning my head to see whom it might be.

A pair of strong brown hands encircled my waist, I was tossed up a foot or so and then deposited lightly on the ground, a masculine voice saying, “You're a mighty well-shaped young filly—‘a waist rather small, but a quarter superb.'”

“How dare anyone speak to me like that,” I thought, as I faced about to see who was parodying Gordon. There stood a man I had never before set eyes on, smiling mischievously at me. He was a young man—a very young man, a bushman tremendously tall and big and sunburnt, with an open pleasant face and chestnut mustache—not at all an awe-inspiring fellow, in spite of his unusual, though well-proportioned and -carried, height. I knew it must be Harold Beecham, of Five-Bob Downs, as I had heard he stood six feet three and a half in his socks.

I hurriedly let down my dress, the lemons rolling in a dozen directions, and turned to flee, but that well-formed figure bounded before me with the agility of a cat and barred my way.

“Now, not a step do you go, my fine young blood, until you pick up every jolly lemon and put them away tidily, or I'll tell the missus on you as sure as eggs.”

It dawned on me that he had mistaken me for one of the servant girls. That wasn't bad fun. I determined not to undeceive but to have a lark with him. I summed him up as conceited, but not with the disgusting conceit with which some are afflicted, or perhaps blessed. It was rather an air of I-have-always-got-what-I-desire-and-believe-if-people-fail-it-is-all-their-own-fault, which surrounded him.

“If you please, sir,” I said humbly, “I've gathered them all up, will you let me go now?”

“Yes, when you've given me a kiss.”

“Oh, sir, I couldn't do that!”

“Go on, I won't poison you. Come now, I'll make you.”

“Oh, the missus might catch me.”

“No jolly fear; I'll take all the blame if she does.”

“Oh don't, sir; let me go, please,” I said in such unfeigned distress, for I feared he was going to execute his threat, that he laughed and said:

“Don't be frightened, sissy, I never kiss girls, and I'm not going to start at this time of day, and against their will to boot. You haven't been long here, have you? I haven't seen you before. Stand out there till I see if you've got any grit in you, and then I am done with you.”

I stood in the middle of the yard, the spot he indicated, while he uncurled his long, heavy stock whip with its big lash and scented myall handle. He cracked it round and round my head and arms, but I did not feel the least afraid, as I saw at a glance that he was exceedingly dexterous in the bushman's art of handling a stock whip, and knew, if I kept perfectly still, I was quite safe. It was thanks to Uncle Jay-Jay that I was able to bear the operation with unruffled equanimity, as he was in the habit of testing my nerves in this way.

“Well, I never! Not so much as blinked an eyelash! Thoroughbred!” He said after a minute or so, “Where's the boss?”

“In Gool-Gool. He won't be home till late.”

“Is Mrs. Bossier in?”

“No, she's not, but Mrs. Bell is somewhere around in front.”

“Thanks.”

I watched him as he walked away with an easy swinging stride, which spoke of many long, long days in the saddle. I felt certain as I watched him that he had quite forgotten the incident of the little girl with the lemons.

“Sybylla, hurry up and get dressed. Put on your best bib and tucker, and I will leave Harry Beecham in your charge, as I want to superintend the making of some of the dishes myself this evening.”

“It's too early to put on my evening dress, isn't it, Auntie?”

“It is rather early; but you can't spare time to change twice. Dress yourself completely; you don't know what minute your uncle and His Worship will arrive.”

I had taken a dip in the creek, so had not to bathe, and it took me but a short time to don full warpaint—blue evening
dress, satin slippers, and all. I wore my hair flowing, simply tied with a ribbon. I slipped out into the passage and called Aunt Helen. She came.

“I'm ready, Auntie. Where is he?”

“In the dining room.”

“Come into the drawing room and call him. I will take charge of him till you are at leisure. But, Auntie, it will be a long time till dinner—how on earth will I manage him?”