“Sybylla Penelope Melvyn, your conceit is marvellous and unparalleled!
So you actually imagined that you were of sufficient importance to
assist a man through life—a strong, healthy young man too, standing six
feet three and a half in his socks, a level-headed business man, a man
of high connections, spotless character, and influential friends, an
experienced bushman, a man of sense, and, above all, a man—a man! The
world was made for men.
“Ha ha! You, Sybylla, thought this! You, a chit in your teens, an ugly,
poor, useless, unimportant, little handful of human flesh, and, above,
or rather below, all, a woman—only a woman! It would indeed be a
depraved and forsaken man who would need your services as a stay and
support! Ha ha! The conceit of you!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Because?
The Beechams were vacating Five-Bob almost immediately—before
Christmas. Grannie, aunt Helen, and uncle Jay-Jay went down to say
good-bye to the ladies, who were very heartbroken about being uprooted
from Five-Bob, but they approved of their nephew settling things at
once and starting on a clean sheet. They intended taking up their
residence—hiding themselves, they termed it—in Melbourne. Harold would
be detained in Sydney some time during the settling of his affairs,
after which he intended to take anything that turned up. He had been
offered the management of Five-Bob by those in authority, but could not
bring himself to accept managership where he had been master. His great
desire, now that Five-Bob was no longer his, was to get as far away
from old associations as possible.
He had seen his aunts off, superintended the muster of all stock on the
place, dismissed all the female and most of the male employees, and
surrendered the reins of government, and as Harold Augustus Beecham,
boss of Five-Bob, on Monday, the 21st of December 1896, was leaving the
district for ever. On Sunday, the 20th of December, he came to bid us
good-bye and to arrive at an understanding with me concerning what I
had said to him the Sunday before. Grannie, strange to say, never
suspected that there was likely to be anything between us. Harold was
so undemonstrative, and had always come and gone as he liked at
Caddagat: she overlooked the possibility of his being a lover, and in
our intercourse allowed us almost the freedom of sister and brother or
cousins.
On this particular afternoon, after we had talked to grannie for a
little while, knowing that he wished to interview me, I suggested that
he should come up the orchard with me and get some gooseberries.
Without demur from anybody we set off, and were scarcely out of hearing
before Harold asked me had I really meant what I said.
“Certainly,” I replied. “That is, if you really care for me, and think
it wise to choose me of all my sex.”
Ere he put it in words I read his answer in the clear brown eyes bent
upon me.
“Syb, you know what I feel and would like, but I think it would be mean
of me to allow you to make such a sacrifice.”
I knew I was not dealing with a booby, but with a sensible
clear-sighted man, and so studied to express myself in a way which
would not for an instant give him the impression that I was promising
to marry him because—what I don’t know and it doesn’t matter much, but
I said:
“Hal, don’t you think it is a little selfish of you to want to throw me
over just because you have lost your money? You are young, healthy,
have good character and influential connections, and plenty of good
practical ability and sense, so, surely, you will know no such thing as
failure if you meet the world bravely. Go and be the man you are; and
if you fail, when I am twenty-one I will marry you, and we will help
each other. I am young and strong, and am used to hard work, so poverty
will not alarm me in the least. If you want me, I want you.
“Syb, you are such a perfect little brick that I couldn’t be such a
beggarly cur as to let you do that. I knew you were as true as steel
under your funny little whims and contrariness; and could you really
love me now that I am poor?”