“Then I expect I had better hide my attractions under a bushel during the remainder of my stay at Caddagat?”
“Yes. Be as nice to the child as you like, but mind, none of those little ladies’-man attentions with which it is so easy to steal—”
I waited to hear no more, but, brimming over with a mixture of emotions, tore through the garden and into the old orchard. Bees were busy, and countless bright-colored butterflies flitted hither and thither, sipping from hundreds of trees, white or pink with bloom—their beauty was lost upon me. I stood ankle-deep in violets, where they had run wild under a gnarled old apple tree, and gave way to my wounded vanity.
“Little country maiden, indeed! There’s no need for him to bag his attractions up. If he exerted himself to the utmost of his ability, he could not make me love him. I’m not a child. I saw through him in the first hour. There’s not enough in him to win my love. I’ll show him I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I’m not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. Bah, there’s no fear of that! I hate and detest men!”
“I suppose you are rehearsing some more airs to show off with tonight,” sneered a voice behind me.
“No, I’m realistic-ing; and how dare you thrust your obnoxious presence before me when I wish to be alone! Haven’t I often shown—”
“While a girl is disengaged, any man who is her equal has the right to pay his addresses to her if he is in earnest,” interrupted Mr. Hawden. It was he who stood before me.
“I am well aware of that,” I replied. “But it is a woman’s privilege to repel those attentions if distasteful to her. You seem disinclined to accord me that privilege.”
Having delivered this retort, I returned to the house, leaving him standing there looking the fool he was.
I do not believe in spurning the love of a blackfellow if he behaves in a manly way; but Frank Hawden was such a drivelling mawkish style of sweetheart that I had no patience with him.
Aunt Helen and Everard had vacated the drawing room, so I plumped down on the piano stool and dashed into Kowalski’s galop, from that into “Gaite de Coeur” until I made the piano dance and tremble like a thing possessed. My annoyance faded, and I slowly played that saddest of waltzes, “Weber’s Last.” I became aware of a presence in the room, and, facing about, confronted Everard Grey.
“How long have you been here?” I demanded sharply.
“Since you began to play. Where on earth did you learn to play? Your execution is splendid. Do sing ‘Three Fishers,’ please.”
“Excuse me; I haven’t time now. Besides I am not competent to sing to you,” I said brusquely, and made my exit.
“Mr. Hawden wants you, Sybylla,” called Aunt Helen. “See what he wants and let him get away to his work, or your grannie will be vexed to see him loitering about all the morning.”
“Miss Sybylla,” he began, when we were left alone, “I want to apologize to you. I had no right to plague you, but it all comes of the way I love you. A fellow gets jealous at the least little thing, you know.”
“Bore me with no more such trash,” I said, turning away in disgust.
“But, Miss Sybylla, what am I to do with it?”
“Do with what?”
“My love.”
“Love!” I retorted scornfully. “There is no such thing.”
“But there is, and I have found it.”
“Well, you stick to it—that’s my advice to you. It will be a treasure. If you send it to my father he will get it bottled up and put it in the Goulburn museum. He has sent several things there already.”
“Don’t make such a game of a poor devil. You know I can’t do that.”
“Bag it up, then; put in a big stone to make it sink, and pitch it in the river.”
“You’ll rue this,” he said savagely.
“I may or may not,” I sang over my shoulder as I departed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
One Grand Passion
I had not the opportunity of any more private interviews with Everard Grey till one morning near his departure, when we happened to be alone on the veranda.
“Well, Miss Sybylla,” he began, “when I arrived I thought you and I would have been great friends; but we have not progressed at all. How do you account for that?”
As he spoke he laid his slender shapely hand kindly upon my head. He was very handsome and winning, and moved in literary, musical, and artistic society—a man from my world, a world away.
Oh, what pleasure I might have derived from companionship with him! I bit my lip to keep back the tears. Why did not social arrangements allow a man and a maid to be chums—chums as two men or two maids may be to each other, enjoying each other without thought beyond pure platonic friendship? But no; it could not be. I understood the conceit of men. Should I be very affable, I feared Everard Grey would imagine he had made a conquest of me. On the other hand, were I glum he would think the same, and that I was trying to hide my feelings behind a mask of brusquerie. I therefore steered in a beeline between the two manners, and remarked with the greatest of indifference:
“I was not aware that you expected us to be such cronies—in fact, I have never given the matter a thought.”
He turned away in a piqued style. Such a beau of beaux, no doubt he was annoyed that an insignificant little country bumpkin should not be flattered by his patronage, or probably he thought me rude or ill-humored.
Two mornings later Uncle Jay-Jay took him to Gool-Gool en route for Sydney. When departing he bade me a kindly goodbye, made me promise to write to him, and announced his intention of obtaining the opinion of some good masters re my dramatic talent and voice, when I came to Sydney as promised by my grandmother. I stood on the garden fence waving my handkerchief until the buggy passed out of sight among the messmate trees about half a mile from the house.
“Well, I hope, as that dandified ape has gone—and good riddance to him—that you will pay more heed to my attentions now,” said Mr. Hawden’s voice, as I was in the act of descending from the fence.
“What do you mean by your attentions?” I demanded.
“What do I mean! That is something like coming to business. I’ll soon explain. You know what my intentions are very well. When I am twenty-four, I will come into my property in England. It is considerable, and at the end of that time I want to marry you and take you home. By Jove! I would just like to take you home. You’d surprise some English girls I know.”
“There would be more than one person surprised if I married you,” I thought to myself, and laughed till I ached with the motion.
“You infernal little vixen! What are you laughing at? You’ve got no more sense than a bat if such a solemn thing only provokes your mirth.”
“Solemn—why, it’s a screaming farce!” I laughed more and more.
“What’s a farce?” he demanded fiercely.
“The bare idea of you proposing to me.”
“Why? Have I not as much right to propose as any other man?”
“Man!” I laughed. “That’s where the absurdity arises. My child, if you were a man, certainly you could propose, but do you think I’d look at a boy, a child! If ever I perpetrate matrimony the participant in my degradation will be a fully developed man—not a hobbledehoy who falls in love, as he terms it, on an average about twice a week. Love! Ho!”
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.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He
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.
My Brilliant Career Page 9