“You ar-r-re not.”
“I am”.
“You are, ar-r-re not.”
“We’ll see whether I will or not in a minute or two,” he said with
amusement.
“But, Mr Betcham, I object to your company. I am quite capable of
taking care of myself; besides, if you come home with me I will not be
allowed out alone again—it will be altogether unpleasant for me.”
Mrs Butler now appeared with the mail and some parcels, and Harold
stowed them in the buggy.
“You’d better come in an’ ’ave a drop of tay-warter, miss, the kittle’s
bilin’; and I have the table laid out for both of yez.”
“No, thank you, Mrs Butler. I can’t possibly stay today, it’s getting
late. I must hurry off. Good-bye! Good afternoon, Mr Beecham.”
I turned my buggy and pair smartly round and was swooping off. Without
a word Harold was at their heads and seized the reins. He seized his
horse’s bridle, where it was over the paling, and in a moment had him
tied on the off-side of Barney, then stepping quietly into the buggy he
put me away from the driver’s seat as though I were a baby, quietly
took the reins and whip, raised his hat to Mrs Butler, who was smiling
knowingly, and drove off.
I was highly delighted with his action, as I would have despised him as
a booby had he given in to me, but I did not let my satisfaction
appear. I sat as far away from him as possible, and pretended to be in
a great huff. For a while he was too fully occupied in making Barney
“sit up” to notice me, but after a few minutes he looked round, smiling
a most annoying and pleasant smile.
“I’d advise you to straighten out your chin. It is too round and soft
to look well screwed up that way,” he said provokingly.
I tried to extinguish him with a look, but it had not the desired
effect.
“Now you had better be civil, for I have got the big end of the whip,”
he said.
“I reserve to myself the right of behaving as I think fit in my own
uncle’s buggy. You are an intruder; it is yourself that should be
civil.”
I erected my parasol and held it so as to tease Harold. I put it down
so that he could not see the horses. He quietly seized my wrist and
held it out of his way for a time, and then loosing me said, “Now,
behave.”
I flouted it now, so that his ears and eyes were endangered, and he was
forced to hold his hat on.
“I’ll give you three minutes to behave, or I’ll put you out,” he said
with mock severity.
“Shure it’s me wot’s behavin’ beautiful,” I replied, continuing my
nonsense.
He pulled rein, seized me in one arm, and lifted me lightly to the
ground.
“Now, you can walk till you promise to conduct yourself like a
Christian!” he said, driving at a walk.
“If you wait till I promise anything, you’ll wait till the end of the
century. I’m quite capable of walking home.”
“You’ll soon get tired of walking in this heat, and your feet will be
blistered in a mile with those bits of paper.”
The bits of paper to which he alluded were a pair of thin-soled white
canvas slippers—not at all fitted for walking the eight miles on the
hard hot road ahead of me. I walked resolutely on, without deigning a
glance at Harold, who had slowed down to a crawling walk.
“Aren’t you ready to get up now?” he inquired presently.
I did not reply. At the end of a quarter of a mile he jumped out of the
buggy, seized upon me, lifted me in, and laughed, saying, “You’re a
very slashing little concern, but you are not big enough to do much
damage.”
We were about half-way home when Barney gave a tremendous lurch,
breaking a trace and some other straps. Mr Beecham was at the head of
the plunging horse in a twinkling. The harness seemed to be scattered
everywhere.
“I expect I had better walk on now,” I remarked.
“Walk, be grannied! With two fat lazy horses to draw you?” returned Mr
Beecham.
Men are clumsy, stupid creatures regarding little things, but in their
right place they are wonderful animals. If a buggy was smashed to
smithereens, from one of their many mysterious pockets they would
produce a knife and some string, and put the wreck into working order
in no time.
Harold was as clever in this way as any other man with as much bushman
ability as he had, so it was not long ere we were bowling along as
merrily as ever.
Just before we came in sight of Caddagat he came to a standstill,
jumped to the ground, untied Warrigal, and put the reins in my hand,
saying:
“I think you can get home safely from here. Don’t be in such a huff—I
was afraid something might happen you if alone. You needn’t mention
that I came with you unless you like. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mr Beecham. Thank you for being so officious,” I said by way
of a parting shot.
“Old Nick will run away with you for being so ungrateful,” he returned.
“Old Nick will have me anyhow,” I thought to myself as I drove home
amid the shadows. The hum of the cicadas was still, and dozens of
rabbits, tempted out by the cool of the twilight, scuttled across my
path and hid in the ferns.
I wished the harness had not broken, as I feared it would put a
clincher on my being allowed out driving alone in future.
Joe Slocombe, the man who acted as groom and rouseabout, was waiting
for me at the entrance gate.
“I’m glad you come at last, Miss Sybyller. The missus has been in a
dreadful stoo for fear something had happened yuz. She’s been runnin’
in an’ out like a gurrl on the look-out fer her lover, and was torkin’
of sendin’ me after yuz, but she went to her tea soon as she see the
buggy come in sight. I’ll put all the parcels on the back veranda, and
yuz can go in at woncest or yuz’ll be late fer yer tea.”
“Joe, the harness broke and had to be tied up. That is what kept me so
late,” I explained.
“The harness broke!” he exclaimed. “How the doose is that! Broke here
in the trace, and that strap! Well, I’ll be hanged! I thought them
straps couldn’t break only onder a tremenjous strain. The boss is so
dashed partickler too. I believe he’ll sool me off the place; and I
looked at that harness only yesterday. I can’t make out how it come to
break so simple. The boss will rise the devil of a shine, and say you
might have been killed.”
This put a different complexion on things. I knew Joe Slocombe could
mend the harness with little trouble, as it was because he was what
uncle Jay-Jay termed a “handy divil” at saddlery that he was retained
at Caddagat. I said carelessly:
“If you mend the harness at once, Joe, uncle Julius need not be
bothered about it. As it happened, there is no harm done, and I won’t
mention the matter.”
“Thank you, miss,” he said eagerly. “I’ll mend it at once.”
Now that I had that piece of business so luckily disposed of, I did not
feel the least nervous about meeting grannie. I took the mail in my
arms and entered the dining-room, chirping pleasantly:
“Grannie, I’m such a good mail-boy. I have heaps of letters, and did
not forget one of your commissions.”
“I don’t want to hear that now,” she said, drawing her dear old mouth
into a straight line, which told me I was not going to palm things off
as easily as I thought. “I want a reason for your conduct this
afternoon.”
“Explain what, grannie?” I inquired.
“None of that pretence! Not only have you been most outrageously
insulting to Mr Hawden when I sent him with you, but you also
deliberately and wilfully disobeyed me.”
Uncle Julius listened attentively, and Hawden looked at me with such a
leer of triumph that my fingers tingled to smack his cars. Turning to
my grandmother, I said distinctly and cuttingly:
“Grannie, I did not intentionally disobey you. Disobedience never
entered my head. I hate that thing. His presence was detestable to me.
When he got out at the gate I could not resist the impulse to drive off
and leave him there. He looked such a complete jackdaw that you would
have laughed yourself to see him.”
“Dear, oh dear! You wicked hussy, what will become of you!” And grannie
shook her head, trying to look stern, and hiding a smile in her
serviette.
“Your manners are not improving, Sybylla. I fear you must be
incorrigible,” said aunt Helen.
When uncle Jay-Jay heard the whole particulars of the affair, he lay
back in his chair and laughed fit to kill himself.
“You ought to be ashamed to always encourage her in her tomboyish ways,
Julius. It grieves me to see she makes no effort to acquire a ladylike
demeanour,” said grannie.
Mr Hawden had come off second-best, so he arose from his half-finished
meal and stamped out, banging the door after him, and muttering
something about “a disgustingly spoilt and petted tomboy”, “a hideous
barbarian”, and so forth.
Uncle Jay-Jay related that story to everyone, dwelling with great
delight upon the fact that Frank Hawden was forced to walk four miles
in the heat and dust.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Short as I Wish had been the Majority of Sermons to which I have
been Forced to give Ear
When alone I confessed to aunt Helen that Harold had accompanied me to
within a short distance of home. She did not smile as usual, but looked
very grave, and, drawing me in front of her, said:
“Sybylla, do you know what you are doing? Do you love Harry Beecham? Do
you mean to marry him?”
“Aunt Helen, what a question to ask! I never dreamt of such a thing. He
has never spoken a word of love to me. Marriage! I am sure he does not
for an instant think of me in that light. I’m not seventeen.”
“Yes, you are young, but some people’s age cannot be reckoned by years.
I am glad to see you have developed a certain amount of half-real and
half-assumed youthfulness lately, but when the novelty of your present
life wears away, your old mature nature will be there, so it is of no
use feigning childishness. Harold Beecham is not given to speech—action
with him is the same thing. Can you look at me straight, Sybylla, and
say that Harold has not extended you something more than common
politeness?”
Had aunt Helen put that question to me a day before, I would have
blushed and felt guilty. But today not so. The words of the jackeroo
the night before had struck home. “A hideous barbarian”, he had called
me, and it seemed to me he had spoken the truth. My life had been so
pleasant lately that I had overlooked this fact, but now it returned to
sting with redoubled bitterness. I had no lovable qualities to win for
me the love of my fellows, which I so much desired.