 CHAPTER 29 Mr. McSwatt very kindly told me I need not begin my duties until Monday morning, and could rest during Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, which was sickly hot and sultry, and which seemed like an eternity, I spent in arranging my belongings, brushing the dust from my travelling dress, and in mending a few articles. Next morning rain started to fall, which was a godsend, being the first which had fallen for months, and the only rain I saw during my residence at Barney's Gap. That was a hideous Sabbath, without a word of remonstrance from their parents, the children entertained themselves by pushing each other into the rain, the smaller ones getting the worst of it, until their clothing was saturated with water. This made them very cold, so they sat upon the floor and yelled outrageously. It was a custom of Peter to spend his Sundays in writing about, but today, being deterred by the rain, he slept some of the time, and made a muscle for one of his dogs between wiles. From breakfast to the midday meal, I shut myself in my bedroom and wrote letters to my mother and grandmother. I did not rant, rave, or say anything which I ought not to have said to my elders. I wrote those letters very coolly and carefully, explaining things just as they were, and asked Granny to take me back to Categette, as I could never endure life at Barney's Gap, and asked her if she would not let Granny take me again, would she get me some other situation? What, I did not care, so long as it brought emancipation from the McSwats. I stamped and addressed the missives, and put them by until a chance of posting should arise. Mr. McSwat could read a little by spelling the long words and blundering over the shorter ones, and he spent the morning and all afternoon in the perusal of the local paper. The only literature which Barney's Gap was acquainted. There was a long list of the prices of stock and farm produce in this edition, which perfectly fascinated its reader. The ecstasy of a man of fine artistic mental calibre, when dipping for the first time into the work of some congenial poet, would be completely wiped out, in comparison to the utter soul satisfaction of McSwat when drinking in the items of that list. By damn! Pigs was up last Tuesday. Tames the things to make profit on, he would excitedly exclaim, or, Weeds rose a shill in the bushel. By dad, I must double my crops this year. When he had plotted to the end, he started at the beginning again. His wife sat the whole afternoon in the one place, saying and doing nothing. I looked for something to read, but the only books in the house were a Bible, which was never opened, and the diary kept most religiously by McSwat. I got permission to read this, an opening it saw. September 1st. Fine went to Boogert Creek for a cow. 2nd. Fine got the chestnut mare showed. 3rd. Fine on the jewellery. 4th. Fine. Tail the lamb. Sixty years, fifty-two weathers. 5th. Cloudy went to Duffy's. 6th. Fine. Dave Duffy called. 7th. Fine roped the red filly. 8th. Showery sold the grey mare's foal. 9th. Fine went to Redhill after a horse. 10th. Fine found tree sheep dead in square paddock. I closed the book and put it up with a sigh. The little record was the perfect picture of the dull, narrow life of its writer. Week after week the diary went on the same, drearily monotonous account of a drearily monotonous existence. I felt I would go mad if forced to live such a life along. Pa has a lot of diaries. Would I like to read them? They were brought and put before me. I inquired of Mr. McSwat, which was the liveliest time of the year, and being told it was shearing and threshing, I opened one first in November. November 1896. 1st. Fine started to muster sheep. 2nd. Fine. Count and sheep, very dusty, twenty short. 3rd. Fine started shearing. Joe Harris cut his hand bad and went home. 4th. Showery. Shearing stopped on account of rain. Then I skipped to December. December 1896. 1st. Fine and hot stripped the wheat sixty bags. 2nd. Fine killed a snake very hot day. 3rd. Fine, very high alley, had a bogey in the river. 4th. Fine got returns of wool. Seven and a half fleas, five and a quarter bellies. 5th. Fine, awful hot, got a circular from Tattersaw by the post. 6th. Fine saw Joe Harris at Duffie's. There was no entertainment to be had from the diaries, so I attempted a conversation with Mrs. McSwat. A penny for your thoughts. I was just watching the rain and thinking. It would put a couple of bob-ahead moor on sheep if it keeps on. What was I to do to pass the day? I was ever very restless, even in the midst of full occupation. Uncle JJ used to accuse me of being in six places at once, and of being incapable of sitting still for five minutes consecutively. So it was simply endurance to live that long, long day. Nothing to read, no piano on which to play hymns, too wet to walk, none with whom to converse, no possibility of sleeping, as in an endeavour to kill a little of the time. I had gone to bed early and got up late. There was nothing but to sit still, tormented by the maddening regret. I pictured what would be transpiring at Categette now, what we had done this time last week, and so on, till the thing became an agony to me. Among my duties before school I was to set the table, make all beds, dust and sweep, and do the girl's hair. After school I had to mend clothes, so set the table again, take a turn at nursing the baby, and on washing day iron. This sounds a lot, but in reality was nothing, and did not half occupy my time. Setting the table was a mere sinecure, as there was nothing much to put on it, and the only ironing was a few articles outside my own, as Mr. McSwot and Peter did not wear white shirts and patronised paper collars. Mrs. McSwot did the washing and a little scrubbing, also boiled the beef and baked the bread, which formed our unvaried menu week in and week out. Most peasant mothers with a family of nine have no time for idleness, but Mrs. McSwot managed things so that she spent most of the day rolling on her frowsy bed playing with her dirty infant, which was as fat and good-tempered as herself. On Monday morning I marshaled my five scholars, Lizza age 14, Jimmy 12, Tommy Sarah and Rose Jane Younger in a little black skillion, which was set apart as a schoolroom and store for flour and rock salt. Like all the house it was built of slabs, which erected while green and on a count of the heat had shrunk until many of the cracks were sufficiently wide to insert one's arm. On Monday, after the rain, the wind which disturbed us through them was piercingly cold, but as the weak advance summer and drought regained their pitiless sway, and we were often sunburned by the rough gusts which filled the room with such clouds of dust and grit that we were forced to cover our heads until it passed. A policeman came on Tuesday to take some returns, and to him I entrusted the posting of my letters, and then eagerly waited for the reply which was to give me glorious release. The nearest post office was eight miles distant, and thither Jimmy was dispatched on horseback twice a week. With trembling expectancy every mailday I watched for the boy's return, down the torturous track to the house. But there was always no letters for the school misses. A week a fortnight dragged away on the slow horror of these never-ending days. At the end of three weeks Mr. McSwot went to the post, unknown to me, and surprised me with a couple of letters. They bore the handwriting of my mother and grandmother, what I had been widely waiting for, and now that they had come at last I had not the nerve to open them while anyone was subserving me. All day I carried them in my bosom till my work was done. When I shut myself in my room and tore the envelopes open to read first my granny's letter, which contained two. My dear child, I have been a long time answering your letter on account of waiting to consult your mother. I was willing to take you back, but your mother is not agreeable, so I cannot interfere between you. I enclosed your mother's letter so you can see how I stand in the matter. Try and do good where you are. We cannot get what we would like in this world and must bow to God's will. He will always, etc. Mother's letter to Granny My dear mother, I am truly grieve that Zabella should have written and worried you. Take no notice of her, it is only while she is unused to the place. She will soon settle down. She has always been a trial to me, and it is no use of taking notice of her complaints, which no doubt are greatly exaggerated, as she was never contented at home. I don't know where her rebellious spirit will eventually lead her. I hope McSwats will tame her. It will do her good. It is absolutely necessary that she should remain there, so do not say anything to give her other ideas, etc. Mother's letter to me My dear Zabella, I wish you would not write and worry your poor old grandmother, who has been so good to you. You must try and put up with things. You cannot expect to find it like holidaying at Catagat. Be careful not to give offence to anyone, as it would be awkward for us. What is wrong with the place? Have you too much work to do? Do you not get sufficient to eat? Are they unkind to you or what? Why don't you have sense and not talk of getting another place, as it is utterly impossible. And unless you remain there, how are we to pay the interest on that money? I've always been a good mother to you, and the least you might do in return is this. When you know how we are situated. Ask God, etc. Full of contempt and hatred for my mother, I tore her letters into tiny pieces and hurled them out the window. Oh, the hard-wanted sympathy they voiced. She had forced me to this place. It would have been different had I wanted to come off my own accord, and then sung out for a removal immediately. But no, against my earnest pleading, she had forced me here, and now would not heed my cry. And to whom in all the world can we turn when our mother spurns our prayer? There never was any sympathy between my mother and myself. We are too unlike. She is intensely matter of fact and practical, possessed of no ambitions or aspirations not capable of being turned into cash value. She is very ladylike, and though containing no spice of either poet or musician, can take a part in conversation on such subjects and play the piano correctly. Because in her young days she was thus cultivated. But had she been born a peasant, she would have been a peasant, with no longings unattainable in that sphere. She no more understood me than I understand the works of a watch. She looked upon me as a discontented, rebellious bad child, possessed of evil spirits, which wanted trouncing out of me, and she would have felt that she was sinning had she humoured me in any way. So, after calling, I did not blame her for her letters. She was doing her duty according to her lights. Again, it was this way, Granny did not come to my rescue on this occasion on account of her attitude towards my father. The bossiers were not at enmity with him, but they were so disgusted with his insubriity that they never visited Possum Gully, and did not assist us as much as they would have done had my father's failure been attributable to some course more deserving of sympathy. After reading my letters, I wept till every atom of my body writhed with agonised emotion. I was aroused by Mrs. McSwatt's hammering at my door and inquiring. "'What owls, you child? Did you get bad news from home?' I recovered myself as biomiracle and replied, No, that I was merely a little homesick and would be out presently. I wrote again to my mother, but as I could not truthfully say I was hungry or ill-treated for according to their ability, the McSwatt's were very kind to me. She took no notice of my plait, but told me that instead of complaining of monotony, it would suit me better if I cleared up the house a little. Acting upon this advice, I asked Mr. McSwatt to put a paling fence round the house, as it was useless trying to keep the house respectable while the fowsome pigs ran in every time the door was opened. He was inclined to look with favour upon this proposition, but his wife sat upon it determinedly, said the fowls would lose the scraps. Would it not be possible to throw them over the fence to the fowls, I asked? But this would cause too much waste, she considered. Next I suggested that the piano should be tuned, but they were united in their disapproval of such a fearful extravagance. The piano makes a good niece. What owls it?' Then I suggested that the children should be kept tidier, for which I was insulted by their father. I wanted them to be dressed up like swells, and if he did he would soon be a pauper like my father. This I found was the sentiment of the whole family regarding me. I was only the daughter of old hard-up Melvin. Consequently I had little weight with the children, which made things very hard for me as a teacher. One day at lunch I asked my mistress if she would like the children to be instructed in table manners. Certainly her husband replied, so I commenced. "'Jimmy, you must never put your knife in your mouth.' "'Par does it at any rate,' replied Jimmy. "'Yes,' said Par, and I'm a richer man today than them as didn't do it. "'Lyza, do not put a whole slice of bread to your mouth like that, and cram so. Cut it into small pieces.' "'Ma doesn't,' returned Lyza. "'You'll have your work cut out with them,' laughed Mrs. McSwot, who did not know how to correct her family herself, and was too ignorant to uphold my authority. That was my only attempt at teaching manners there. In the face of such odds it was a bootless task, and as there were not enough knives and forks to go around, I could not inculcate the correct method of handling those implements. Mrs. McSwot had but one boiler in which to do all her cooking, and one small tub for the washing, and there was seldom anything to eat but bread and beef, and this was not because they were poor, but because they did not know or want to know any better. Their idea of religion, pleasure, manners, breeding, respectability, love, and everything of that ilk was the possession of money, and their one idea of accumulating wealth was by hard-sworded dragging and grinding. A man who rises from indigence to opulence by business capabilities must have brains worthy of admiration. But the man who makes the fortune as McSwot of Barney's gap was making, he must be dirt-meaned grasping narrow-minded and soulless, to me the most uncongenial of my fellows. I wrote once more to my mother to receive the same reply. One hope remained. I would write to Aunt Helen. She understood me somewhat, and would know how I felt. Acting on this inspiration I requested her to plead for me. Her answer came as a slap in the face, as I had always imagined her above the common can of ordinary religionists. She stated that life was full of trials. I must try and bear this little cross patiently, and at the end of the year they might have me back at Categette. A year! A year at Barney's gap! The possibility of such a thing made me frantic. I picked up my pen and bitterly reproached my aunt in a letter to which she did not ordain to reply, and from that day to this she has rigidly ignored me. Never so much as sending me the most commonplace message, or casually using my name in her letters to my mother. Aunt Helen is as such a thing as firm friendship when even yours, best of women, quibbled and went under at the hysterical wail from the overburdened heart of a child. My predecessor, previous to her debut at Barney's gap, had spent some time in a lunar ticker solemn, and being a curious character allowed the children to do as they pleased. Consequently they knew not what it meant to be ruled, and were very bold. They attempted no insubordination while their father was about the house, but when he was absent they gave me a dog's life. Their mother sometimes smiling on their pranks, often lazily heedless of them, but never administering any form of correction. If I walked away from the house to get rid of them, they would follow and hoot at me. And when I reproved them, they informed me that they were not going to knuckle under to old Melvin's data, the damnedest fool in the world, who's lost all his property, and has to borrow money off of par. Did I shut myself in my room? They shoved sticks in the cracks and made grimaces at me. I knew the fallacy of appealing to their father, as they and their mother would tell falsehoods, and my word would not be taken in contradiction to theirs. I had experience of this, as the postmistress had complained to Jimmy to be insulted by his father, who could see no imperfection in his children. McSwatt was much away from home at that time. The drought necessitated the removal of some of his sheep, for which he had rented a place eighty miles coastwards. There he left them under the charge of a man, but he repaired them frequently to inspect them. But sometimes he was away from home a fortnight at a stretch. Peter would be away at work all day, and the children took advantage of my defenseless position. Jimmy was the ringleader. I could easily have managed the others had he been removed. I would have thrashed him well at the start, but for the letters I constantly received from home warning me against offence to the parents, I knew that to set foot on the children's laryconism would require measures that would gain their mother's ill will at once. But when McSwatt left home for three weeks, Jim got so bold that I resolved to take decisive steps towards subjugating him. I procured a switch, a very small one, as his mother had a great objection to corporal punishment, and when, as usual, he commenced to check me during lessons, I hit him on the coat sleeve. The blow would not have brought tears from the eyes of a toddler, but this great calf emitted a wild yoke, and opening his mouth led his saliva pour onto his slate. The others set up such blood-curdling yells in concert that I was a little disconcerted, but I determined not to give in. I delivered another tap, whereupon he squealed and roared so that he brought his mother to his rescue like a ton of bricks on stilts. A great fuss in her eyes, which generally beamed with a powerful calm. Seizing my arm, she shook me like a rat, broke my harmless little stick in pieces, threw it in my face, and patting Jimmy on the shoulder said, "'Poor man, she shan't touch me, Jimmy, while I know.' "'Sure you've got no sense. You'd had him dead if I hadn't come in.' I walked straight to my room and shut myself in. I did not teach any more that afternoon. The children rattled on my door handle and jeered. She thought she'd hit me, but Ma settled her. "'Old poor Melvin's data. Won't try no more of her heirs on us.' I pretended not to hear. What was I to do? There was no one to whom I could turn for help. McSwot would believe the story of his family, and my mother would blame me. She would think I had been in fault because I hated the place. Mrs. McSwot called me to tea, but I said I would not have any. I lay awake all night and got desperate. On the morrow I made up my mind to conquer or leave. I would stand no more. If in all the wide world and the whole of life this was the only use for me, then I would die, take my own life if necessary.' Things progressed as usual next morning. I attended to my duties and marched my scholars into the schoolroom at the accustomed hour. There was no decided in subordination during the morning, but I felt Jimmy was waiting for an opportunity to defy me. It was a fearful day, possessed by a blasting wind laden with red dust from Riverina, which filled the air like a fog. The crockery ware became so hot in the kitchen that when taking it into the dining room we had to handle it with cloths. During the dinner hour slipped away unnoticed to where some Queen's Trees were growing and procured a sharp rod, which I secreted among the flower bags in the schoolroom. At half-past one I brought my scholars in and ordered them to their work with a confident air. Things went without a ripple until three o'clock when the writing lesson began. Jimmy struck his pen on the bottom of the bottle every time he replenished it with ink. "'Jimmy,' I gently remonstrated, "'don't jab your pen like that, it will spoil it. There is no necessity to shove it right to the bottom.' "'Jab, jab,' went Jimmy's pen. "'Jimmy, did you hear me speak to you?' Jab went the pen. "'James, I'm speaking to you.' Jab went the pen again. "'James,' I said sternly, "'I give you one more chance.' He deliberately defied me by stabbing into the ink bottle with increased vigor. Lisa giggled triumphantly, and the little one strove to emulate her. I calmly produced my switch, and brought it smartly over the shoulders of my refractory pupil in a way that sent the dust in a cloud from his dirty coat. Knocked the pen from his fingers and upset the ink. He acted as before, yelled eardrum breakingly, letting the saliva from his distended mouth run on his copybook. His brothers and sisters also started to roar, but bringing the rod down on the table, I threatened to thrash every one of them if they so much as whimpered. And they were so dumbfounded that they sat silent in terrified surprise. Jimmy continued to bawl. I hid him again. "'Cease instantly, sir.' Through the cracks Mrs. McSwot could be seen approaching. Seeing her, Jimmy hollered anew. I expected her to attack me. He stood five feet nine inches and weighed about sixteen stones. I measured five feet one inch, and turned the scale at eight stones. Scarcely a fair match, but my spirit was aroused, and instead of feeling afraid, I rejoiced at the encounter which was imminent, and had difficulty to refrain from shouting, "'Come on, I'm ready, physically and mentally, for you and a dozen others such.' My curious ideas regarding human equality gave me confidence. My theory is that the cripple is equal to the giant, and the idiot to the genius. As if on account of his want of strength, the cripple is subservient to the giant. The latter, on account of that strength, is compelled to give in to the cripple. So, with the dolt and the man of reign, so with Mrs. McSwot and me. The fact of not only my own, but my family's dependence on McSwot sank into oblivion. I merely recognised that she was one human being, and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chitchat and inexperience. Thus we were equal. Jimmy hollered with renewed energy to attract his mother, and I continued to rain blows across his shoulders. Mrs. McSwot approached her within a foot of the door, and then, as though changing her mind, retraced her steps and entered the hot, low-roof kitchen. I knew I had won, and felt disappointed that the conquest had been so easy. Jimmy, seeing he was worsted, seized his uproar, cleaned his copybook on his sleeve, and sheepishly went on with his writing. Whether Mrs. McSwot saw she had been in fault the day before, I know not. Certain it is that the children ever after that obeyed me, and I heard no more of the matter. Neither, as far as I could ascertain, did the ruction reach the ears of McSwot. How long, how long, was my cry, as I walked out ankle-deep in the dust to see the sun, like a ball of blood, sink behind the hills on that February evening? CHAPTER 30 WHERE RIGNORANCE IS BLISS It is folly to be wise. When by myself, I frighted so constantly, that the traces it left upon me became evident even to the dull comprehension of Mrs. McSwot. I don't hold with too much pleasure and dissipation, but you ain't had over much of it, let's say. You've stuck at home pretty constant, and yeah, and Lisa can have a little fly-round. It will do you good, she said. The dissipation, pleasure, and flying-round, delotted to Lisa and me, were to visit some of the neighbors. Those, like the McSwot, were ship-farming selectors. They were very friendly and kind to me, and I found them superior to my employers. In that, their houses were beautifully clean. But they lived the same slow life, and their souls' existence fed on the same small ideas. I was keenly disappointed that none of them had a piano, as my hunger for music could be understood only by one with a passion for that art. I borrowed something to read, but all that I could get in the way of books were a few young ladies' journals, which I devoured rathernously, so to speak. When Lisa's back would be turned, the girls would ask me how I managed to live at Barney's Gap and express themselves of the opinion that it was the most horrible halt in the world. And Mrs. McSwot, the dirtiest creature living, and that they would not go there for fifty pounds a week. I made a point of never saying anything against Mrs. McSwot, but I fumed inwardly that this life was forced upon me, when girls with no longings or aspirations beyond being the wife of a Peter McSwot required from the thought of it. My mother insisted upon my writing to her regularly, so once a week I had in a letter blackscamp and condemned the place. My mother as unfailingly replied that these bedtimes I should be thankful to God that I was fat and clothed. I knew this as well as anyone, and was aware there were plenty of girls willing to jump at my place. But they were of different temperament to me, and when one is seventeen, that kind of reasoning does not weigh very heavily. My eldest brother Horace, twin brother of my sister Goethe, took it upon himself to honor me with the following letter. Why the dews don't you give up writing those letters to mother? We got tongue-pie on account of them, and it's not as if they did you any good. It only makes mother more determined to leave you where you are. She says, you're that considerate you think you ought to have something better, and you're not fit for the place you have, and she glad it is such a place, and it won't do you the world of good, and take the nonsense out of you. That is time you got a bit of sense. Sullivan's ginger. After she gets your letters, she does pure, and wishes she never had a child, and what the good mother she is, and what bad divils we are to her. You are a fool not to stay where you are. I wish I could get the way, to Emsworth, or Markport, and I would jump at the chance like a good un. The boss still sprees and roves the downtown, till someone has to go and haul him home. I'm about full of him, and I'm going to leave home before next Christmas, or my name ain't what it is. Mother says, the kiddies will starve if I leave, but Stanley is coming on like a haystack. I tell him, and he does kick up, and he ought to be able to plow next time. I plowed when I was younger than him. I put in 40 acres of wheat and oats this year, and I don't think I'll cut the will barrel load of it. I'm full of the place. I never have a single penny to my name, and it ain't father's drinking that's all to blame. If he doesn't booze, it wouldn't hear much better. It's the slowest haul in the world, and I won't chuck it, and go shearing or driving. I hate this daring. It's too slow for a funeral. They would hear more life in trapping possums out on Timlin building. Mother always says, to have patience, and when the drought wakes, and good seasons come round again, things will be better, but it's no good of trying to stuff me like that. I remember when the seasons were wet. It was no good growing anything, because everyone grew so much that there were no market, and the sheep died of foot rot, and you couldn't give your butter away. But it is not much worse to have nothing to sell, than not hearable to sell a thing when you have it. And the long and short of it is, that I hate daring like blue murder. He said to him as the clocking hand, cancel your cough, sitting down to every morning and evening, pulling other cow's dits, fit to bust himself, and then turning an old separator, and washing it up in a dish of water, like a blooming girl's walk. And if you go to your picnic, just when the fun commences, you have to nick off home and milk, and when you talk yourself on Sunday evening, you have to undress again, and lay into the milking, and then you have to change everything on you, and have a bath. Or your best girl would send the cow yard on you, and not have you within crew of her. We won't know what rain is when we see it, but I suppose it will come in floods, and finish the little left by the drought. The grasshoppers have eaten all the fruit, and even the bark of the trees, and the caterpillars made a croaker of the few tomatoes we kept alive with the sun. All the cockies around here, and it, are applying to the government to have their hands suspended for a time. We have not heard yet whether it will be granted, but if cough doesn't like it, they will have to lump it. For none of us have a penny to bless ourselves with, let alone dub up for taxes. I've written you a long letter, and if you growl about the spelling and grammar, I won't lie to you anymore. So there, and you take my tip, and don't lie to your mother on that flute anymore, for she won't take a bit of notice, you loving brother, Horace. So mother had no pity for me, and the more I pleaded with her, the more determined she grew upon leaving me to suffer on. So I wrote to her no more, however, I continue to correspond with Gweny, and in one of her letters, she told me that Harry Beckham, that was in February, was still in Sydney settling his affairs. But when that was concluded, he was going to Queensland. He had put his case in the hands of squatters he had known in his palmy days, and the first thing that turned up in managing, or overseeing he was to have, but for the present, he had been offered the charge of 1,600 head of bullocks from a station up near the gulf of Capantaria, overland to Victoria. Uncle JJ was not home yet. He had extended his tour to Hong Kong, and Gweny was afraid he was spending too much money. As in the face of the drought, she had difficulty in making both ends meet, and fear she would be compelled to go on the banks. She grieved that I was not becoming more reconciled to my place. It was dull, no doubt. But it would do my reputation no harm, whereas, were I in a lively situation, there might be numerous temptations hard to resist. Why did I not try to look at it in that way? She sent a copy of the Australasian, which was a great treat to me, also to the children, as they were quite ignorant of the commonest things in life, and the advent of this illustrated paper was an event to be recorded in the diary in capital letters. The cluster rubbed me eagerly to see the pictures. In this edition, there chance to be a page devoted to the portraits of eleven Australian singers, and our eyes fell on Madame Melmber, who was in the middle. As what character she was dressed, I do not remember, but she looked magnificent. There was a crown upon her beautiful head. The plentiful hair was one flowing, and the shapely bosom and dame they exposed. Who's that, the inquired? Madame Melmber, did you ever hear her name? Who's Madame Melmber? What she do, is she a queen? Yes, a queen, and a great queen of song, and being inspired with great admiration for our own Australian cantor Trissie, who was great among the greatest primordowners of the world. I began to tell them a little of her fame, and that she had been recently offered 40,000 pounds to sing for three months in America. They were incredulous. 40,000 pounds, ten times as much as Pa had given for a pet of selection he had lethally bought. They told me it was no use of trying to tell them feeps. No one would give a woman anything to sign, not even one pound. Why? Susie Duffy was the best singer on the Mirambici, and she would sing for anyone who asked her, and free of charge. At this juncture, Jimmy, who had been absent, came to see the show. After grazing for a few seconds, he remarked what the others had failed to observe. Why? The woman's naked. I attempted to explain that among rich people in high society, it was customary to dress like that in the evening, and that it looked very pretty. Mrs. Amsworth admonished me for showing the children low pictures. She must be a very bold woman, said Jimmy, and Lisa pronounced her mad, because, as she pointed, it's the wonder she be half undressed in her photo. You think she ought to dress herself up complete then? Lisa certainly acted upon this principle as the photo of her which had been taken by a traveling artist bore evidence that for the occasion she had delayed herself in two pairs of ill-fitting cuffs, pictures watching chain, strings, jackets, flowers, and others who caused galore. The end, no such person as Madame Melmber, is only a fairytale, said Mrs. Amsworth. Did you ever hear of Gladstone? I inquired. Nay, what is that place? Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? Sure, yes. He got something to do with God, and he? After that, I never attempted to enlighten them regarding our celebrities. Oh, how I envied them their ignorant contentment. They were as dark as on a dark porn, but I was the dark, forced forever to live in a desert ever widely longing for water, but never reaching it outside of dreams. CHAPTER XXXI Mr. McSwat and I have a bust up. Men only, and they merely on business, came to Barney's Gap. Women tabooed the place. Some of them told me they would come to see me, but not Mrs. McSwat, as she always allowed the children to be as rude to them as they pleased. With the few individuals who chanced to come, McSwat would sit down, light as this pipe, and vulgarly and profusely expectorate on the floor, while they yarned and yarned for hours and hours about the price of wool, the probable breeding capacity of the male stock they kept, and of the want of grass, never a word about their country's politics or the events of the day. Even the news of the mountain murders by Butler had not penetrated here. I wondered if they were acquainted with the names of their governor and prime minister. It was not the poor food or the filthy way of preparing it that worried me, or that Mr. McSwat used damn, on an average, twice in five minutes when conversing, or that the children forever nagged about my father's poverty and tormented me in a thousand other ways. It was the dead monotony that was killing me. I longed feveredly for something to happen. Agony is a tame word wherewith to express what that life meant to me. Very confinement to a gypsy would be something on a par. Every night, unfailingly, when at home, McSwat sat in the bosom of his family and speculated as to how much richer he was than his neighbours, what old Reese lived on, and who had the best breed of sheep, and who was the smartest at counting these animals, until the sordidness of it turned me dizzy, and I would steal out under the stars to try and cool my heated spirit. This became a practice with me, and every night I would slip away out of hearing of the household to sing the songs I had heard at Categette, and in imagination to relive every day and hour there, till the thing became too much for me, and I was scarcely responsible for my actions. Often I knelt on the parched ground beneath the balmy summer sky to pray, wild, passionate prayers that were never answered. I was under the impression that my nightly ramble was not specially noticed by any one, but I was mistaken. Mr. McSwat it appeared suspected me of having a lover, but was never able to catch me red-handed. The possibility of a girl going out at night to gaze at the stars and dream was as improbable a thought for him as flying as to me, and having no soul above mud, had I attempted an explanation he would have considered me mad, and dangerous to have about the place. Peter, Junior, had a sweetheart, one Susie Duffy, who lived some miles on the other side of the Murram Bidgy. He was in the habit of courting her every Sunday and two or three nights during the week, and I often heard the clang of his stirrup irons in the clink of hobble chain when he returned late. But on one occasion I stayed out later than usual, and he passed me going home. I stood still and he did not see me, but his horse shied violently. I thought he would imagine I was a ghost, so called out. It is I. Well, I'll be hanged. What are you doing at this time of night? Each is afraid of ghosts? Oh, dear no! I had a bad headache and couldn't sleep, so came out to try if a walk would cure it, I explained. We were a quarter of a mile or so from the house, so Peter slackened his speed that I might keep pace with him. His knowledge of etiquette did not extend as far as dismounting. There is a great difference between rudeness and ignorance. Peter was not rude. He was merely ignorant. For the same reason he let his mother feed the pigs, clean his boots, and chop wood while he sat down and smoked and spat. It was not that he was unmanly, as that this was the only manliness he had known. I was alone in the school room next afternoon, when Mr. McSwat cycled in, and after stuttering and hauling a little, delivered himself of, I want to tell you that I don't hold with a girl going out of nights for to meet young men. If you want to do any courting, you can do it inside, if it's a decent young man. There are no objections to your hanging your cap up to our Peter, only that you have no property. In yourself, I like you well enough, but we have other views for Peter. He's almost as good as made it sure with Susie Duffy, and as old Duffy will have a bit of property, I want him to get her, and wouldn't like you to spoil the fun. Peter was tall and freckled and sandy, face of a country lout, and, like Middleton's rouse about, hadn't any opinions, hadn't any ideas, but possessed sufficient instinct and common bushcraft with which, by hard slogging, to amass money. He was developing a moustache, and had a girl. He wore tight trousers and long spurs. He walked with a sidling swagger that was a cross between shyness and flashness, and took as much pride in his necktie as any man. He had a kind heart, honest principles, and would not hurt a fly. He had worked away from morning till night, and contentedly did his duty like a bullock in the sphere in which God had placed him. He never had a bath while I knew him, and was a man according to his lights. He knew there was such a thing as the outside world, as I know there is such a thing as algebra, but it trouble him no more than algebra troubles me. This was my estimation of Peter McSwat, Junior. I respected him right enough in his place, as I trust he respected me in mine, but though fate thought fit for the present to place us in the one groove, yet our lives were unmixable commodities as oil and water, which lay apart and would never meet until taken in hand by the omnipotent leveler, Death. Marriage with Peter McSwat. Consternation and disgust held me speechless, and yet I was half inclined to laugh at the preposterousness of the thing, when Peter's father continued, I'm sorry if you've got smitten on Peter, but I know you'll be sensible. You see, I have a lot of children, and when the place is divided among them it won't be much. I tell you what, old Duffy has a good bit of money, and only till children, Susie and Mick. I could get you to meet Mick. He may not be so personable as our repeater. He reflected with evident pride in his weedy firstborn, and he got no farther, for I had been as a yeast-bottle bubbling up, and now went off with a bang. Silence, you ignorant old creature! How dare you have the incomparable impertence to mention my name in conjunction with that of your boar of a son! Though he were a millionaire I would think is touch contamination. You have fallen through for once, if you imagine I go out at night to meet anyone. I merely go away to be free for a few minutes from the suffocating atmosphere of your odious home. You must not think that because you have grasped and slave and got a little money that it makes a gentleman of you, and never you dare to again mention my name in regard to matrimony with anyone about here. And with my head high and shoulders thrown back I marched to my room where I wept till I was weak and ill. This monotonous sordid life was unhinging me, and there was no legitimate way of escape from it. I formed wild plans of running away. To do what I did not care so long as it brought a little action, not anything but this torturing, maddening monotony, but my love for my little brothers and sisters held me back. I could not do anything that would put me forever beyond the pale of their society. I was so reduced in spirit that had Harold Beecham appeared then with a matrimonial scheme to be fulfilled at once I would quickly have erased the fine lines I had drawn and accepted his proposal. But he did not come, and I was unacquainted with his whereabouts or welfare. As I remembered him, how lovable and superior he seemed in comparison with the men I met nowadays, not that he was any better than these men in their place and according to their lights, but his lights. At least not his lights, for Harold Beecham was nothing of a philosopher, but the furniture of the drawing which they illuminated was more artistic. What a prince of gentlemanliness and winning gallantries he was in his quiet way. This information concerning him was in a letter I received from my grandmother at Easter. Who should surprise us with a visit the other day but Harold Beecham? He was as thin as a whipping-post and very sunburnt. I smiled, imagining it impossible for Harold to be any browner than of your. He has been near death's door with the measles, caught them in Queensland while droving and got wet. He was so ill that he had to give up charge of that sixteen hundred head of cattle he was bringing. He came to say good-bye to us, as he is off to Western Australia next week to see if he can mend his fortunes there. I was afraid he was going to be like young charters and swear he would never come back unless he made a pile, but he says he will be back next Christmas, three years for certain, if he is alive and kicking, as he says himself. Why he intends returning at that stipulated time I don't know, as he never was very communicative and is more unsociable now than ever. He is a man who never shows his feelings, but he must feel the loss of his old position deeply. He seemed surprised not to find you here, and says it was a pity to set you teaching, as it will take all the life and fawn out of you, and that is the first time I ever heard him express an opinion in any one's business but his own. Frank Hoddon sends kind regards, et cetera. Teaching certainly had the effect upon me anticipated by Harold Beecham, but it was not the teaching but the place in which I taught which was doing the mischief—good, my mother termed it. I was often sleepless for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch, and cried through the nights until my eyes had black rings round them, which washing failed to remove. The neighbors described me as a sorrowful-looking delicate creeder, that couldn't laugh to save her life. Quite a different character to the girl who had cataget was continually chid for being a romp, a hoidon, a boisterous tomboy, a whirlwind, and for excessive laughter at anything and everything. I got into such a state of nervousness that I would jump at the opening of a door or an unexpected footfall. When cooling down, after having so vigorously delivered Mr. McSwad a piece of my mind, I felt that I owed him an apology. According to his lights—and that is the only fair way of judging our fellows—he had acted in a kind of fatherly way. I was a young girl under his charge, and he would have in a measure been responsible had I come to harm through going out in the night. He had been good-natured too in offering to help things along by providing an eligible, and allowing us to spoon under his surveillance. That I was of temperament and aspirations that made his plans loathsome to me was no fault of his, only a heavy misfortune to myself. Yes, I had been in the wrong, entirely. With this idea in my head, sinking ankle-deep in the dust and threading my way through the pigs and fowls which hung around the back door, I went in search of my master. Mrs. McSwad was teaching Jimmy how to kill a sheep and dress it for use, while Liza, who was nursed to the baby and spectator of the performance, was volubly and ungrammatically giving instructions in the yard. Peter and some of the younger children were away, felling stringy bark trees for the sustenance of the sheep. The fall of their axes and the murmur of the murmur-bidgey echoed faintly from the sunset. They would be home presently and at tea. I reflected it would be, the old yeos looks terrible skinny, but the hog-guts is fat yet—by crikey they did go into the bushes, they chawed up stems and all, some as thick as a pencil. This information and that parlance had been given yesterday, the day before, would be given to-day, to-morrow, and the next day. It was the boss-item on the conversational program until further orders. I had a pretty good idea where to find Mr. McSwad, as he had lately purchased a pair of stud rams, and was in the habit of admiring them for a couple of hours every evening. I went to where they usually grazed, and there, as I expected, found Mr. McSwad, pipe in mouth, with glistening eyes, surveying his darlings. Mr. McSwad, I have come to beg your pardon. That's all right, McGurl, I didn't take no notice to anything you might spit out in a rage. But I was not in a rage, I meant every word I said, but I want to apologize for the rude way in which I said it, as I had no right to speak so to my elders. And I want to tell you that you need not fear me running away with Peter, even supposing he should honor me with his affections, as I am engaged to another man. By dad, I'll be hanged," he exclaimed, with nothing but curiosity on his wrinkled, dried, tobacco-leaf-looking face. He expressed no resentment on account of my behavior to him. Are you to be married soon? Is he got any property? Who is he? I suppose he's respectable. You're very young. Yes, he is renowned for respectability, but I am not going to marry him till I am twenty-one. He is poor, but has good prospects. He must promise me not to tell anyone, as I wish it kept a secret, and only mention it to you so that you need not be disturbed about Peter. He assured me that he would keep the secret, and I knew it could rely on his word. He was greatly perturbed that my intended was poor. Never ye marry a man without a bit of property, me girl! Take my advice, that divils in a poor match, no matter how good the man may be. Don't you be in a hurry? You're personable enough in your way, and there's as good fish in the seas as ever come out of them. You're very small. I admire a good lump of a woman myself. But don't you lose heart. I've heard some men say they like little girls. But as I said, I like a good lump of woman myself. And you've got a good lump of a squaw, I thought to myself. Do not mistake me. I do not for an instant fancy myself above the McSwats. Quite the reverse. They are much superior to me. Mr. McSwat was upright and clean in his morals, and in his little sphere was as sensible and kind a man as one could wish for. Mrs. McSwat was faithful to him, contented and good-natured, and bore uncomplainingly, year after year, that most cruelly agonizing of human duties, childbirth, and did more for her nation and her maker, more than I will ever be noble enough to do. But I could not help it that their life was warping my very soul. Nature fashions us all. We have no voice in the matter, and I could not change my organization to one which would find sufficient sustenance in the mental atmosphere of Barney's Gap. CHAPTER 32 I chanced at last as June gave place to July and July to August, that I could bear it no longer. I would go away even if I had to walk, and what I would do I did not know or care. My one idea being to leave Barney's Gap far and far behind. One evening I got a lot of letters from my little brothers and sisters at home. I fretted over them a good deal and put them under my pillow. And as I had not slept for nights and was feeling weak and queer, I laid my head upon them to rest a little before going out to get the tea ready. The next thing I knew was that Mrs. McSwap was shaking me vigorously with one hand, holding a flaring candle in the other and saying, "'Lizah, shut the window quick. She's been lying here in the draught till she froze, and must have the nightmare, the way she's been singing out that queer. And I can't get her to wake up. What hails you, child, are you sick?' I did not know what hailed me, but learnt subsequently that I had laughed and cried very much, and pleaded hard with Granny and some Harrell to save me, and kept reiterating, "'I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it.' And altogether behaved so strangely that Mr. McSwap became so alarmed that he sent seventeen miles for the nearest doctor. He came next morning, felt my pulse, asked a few questions, and stated that I was suffering from nervous prostration. "'Why, the child is completely run down, and in a fair way to contract brain fever,' he exclaimed. "'What has she been doing? It seems as though she had been under some great mental strain. She must have complete rest and change, plenty of diversion and nourishing food, or her mind will become impaired.' He left me a bottle of tonic, and Mr. and Mrs. McSwap many fears. Poor kind-hearted souls, they got in a great state, and understood about as much of the course of my breakdown as I do of the inside of the moon. They ascribed it to the paltry man of teaching and work I had done. Mrs. McSwap killed a fowl and stewed it for my delectation. There was part of the inside with many feathers to flavour the dish, and having no appetite I did not enjoy it, but made a faint of so doing to please the good-natured cook. They intended riding at once to give my parents notice when I would be put on the train. I was pronounced too ill to act ascribed. Mr. McSwap was suggested, and then Jimmy, but McSwap settled the matter thus. Sure, damn it, I'm the proper one to write on an important business matter like this. So pen, sink and paper were laid on the dining-room table, and the great proclamation went forth among the youngsters. Paz is going to write a whole letter all by himself. My door opened with the dining-room, and from my bed I could see the proceeding. Mr. McSwap hitched his trousers well through the saddle strap which he always wore as a belt, took off his coat and folded it on the back of a chair, rolled his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, pulled his hat well over his eyes, and shaped up to the writing material, none of which met with his approval. The ink was water, the pens had not enough pint, and the paper was trash, but on being assured it was the good stuff he had purchased especially for himself he buckled to the fray, producing in three hours a half-sheet epistle, which in grammar, composition and spelling, quite eclipsed the entries in his diary. However, it served its purpose, and my parents wrote back that did I reach Goldburn on a certain day, a neighbour who would be in town then would bring me home. Now that it was settled that I had no more to teach the dirty children out of dirty books, lessons for which they had great disinclination, and no more to direct Liz's greasy fingers over the yellow keys of that demented piano in a vain endeavour to teach her tunes of which her mother expected her to learn on an average two daily. It seemed as though I had a mountain lifted off me, and I revived magically, got out of bed, and packed my things. I was delighted at the prospect of throwing off the lead and shackles of Barney's gap, but there was a little regret mingled with my relief. The little boys had not always been bold. Did I express a wish for a parrot wing or a water-worn stone or such like, after a time I would be certain on issuing from my bedroom to find that it had been surreptitiously laid there? And the little soft-eyed fellows would scobble for the privilege of bringing me my post, simply to give me pleasure. Poor little Lizza and Rose Jane, too, copied me in style of dress and manners in a way that was somewhat ludicrous but more pathetic. They clustered around to say goodbye. I would be sure to write. Oh yes, of course, and they would write in return and tell me if the bay mare got well, and where they would find the yellow turkey hen's nest. When I got well I must come back, and I wouldn't have as much work to do, but go for more rides to keep well, and so on. Mrs. McSwatt very anxiously impressed it upon me that I was to explain to my mother that it was not her, Mrs. McSwatt's, fault that I ailed from overwork, as I had never complained and always seemed well. With a kindly light on his homely sunburned face, Mrs. McSwatt said as he put me on the train, Sure, tell your father he needn't worry over the money, I'll never be hard on him, and if ever I could help you, I'd be glad. Thank you, you are very good, and have done too much already. Too much, sure, damn it, what's the good of being alive if we can't help each other sometimes? I don't mind how much I help a person if they have a little gratitude, but damn it, I can't bear ingratitude. Goodbye, Mr. McSwatt, and thank you. Goodbye, my girl, and never marry that bloke of yours if you don't get a bit of property for the divils in a poor match. End of Chapter 32. Chapter 33 of My Brilliant Career. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. Chapter 33. Back at Possum Gully. They were expecting me on the frosty evening in September, and the children came bounding and shouting to meet me when my self and luggage were deposited at Possum Gully by a neighbor as he passed in a great hurry to reach his own home ere it got too dark. They bustled me to a glowing fire in no time. My father sat reading and greeting me in a very quiet fashion, continued the perusal of his paper. My mother shut her lips tightly, saying exultingly, it seems it was possible for you to find a worse place than home. And that little speech was the thorn on the rows of my welcome home. But there was no sting in Gertie's greeting and how beautiful she was growing and so tall. It touched me to see she had made and a special dainty for my tea and had put things on the table which were only used for visitors. The boys and little Aurora chattered and danced around me all the while. One brought for my inspection some soup plates which had been procured during my absence. Another came with a picture book and nothing would do them but that I must, despite the darkness, straight away go out and admire a new fowl house which Horace and Stanley built all by their selves and no one helped them one single bit. After Mrs. Meswat, it was a rest, a relief, a treat to hear my mother's cultivated voice and observe her ladylike and refined figure as she moved about. And what a palace the place seemed in comparison to Barney's gap, simply because it was clean, orderly and bore traces of refinement for the stamp of indigent circumstances was legibly imprinted upon it and many things which had been considered done for when 13 months before I had left home were still in use. I carefully studied my brothers and sisters. They had grown during my absence and were all big for their age and though some of them not exactly handsome, yet all pleasant to look upon, I was the only one wanting in physical charms. Also, they were often discontented and wished as children will for things they could not have. But they were natural, understandable children, not like myself, cursed with a fevered ambition for the utterly unattainable. Oh, were I seated high as my ambition, I'd place this loot on naked necks of monarchs. At the time of my departure for Catagot, my father had been negotiating with Beer regarding the sale of his manhood. On returning I found that he had completed the bargain and held the stamped receipt in his miserable appearance and demeanor. In the broken down man, regardless of manners, one would have failed to recognize Dick Melvin, smart Dick Melvin, Jolly Goodfellow Melvin, thorough gentleman and manly Melvin of the handsome face and ingratiating manners, one-time holder of Brugabrong, Binbin East and Binbin West. He never corrected his family nowadays, and his example was most deleterious to them. Mother gave me a list of her worries in private after tea that night. She wished she had never married. Not only was her husband a failure, but to all appearances her children would be the same. I wasn't worth my salt, or I would have remained at Barney's Gap, and there was Horace. One only knew where he would end. God would surely punish him for his disrespect to his father. It was impossible to keep things together much longer, et cetera, et cetera. When we went to bed that night, Gertie poured all her troubles into my ear in a jumbled string. It was terrible to have such a father. She was ashamed of him. He was always going into town and staying there till mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbors were so good as to bring him home. It took all the money to pay the publican's bills, and Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which Granny sent, as the neighbors said the Melvins ought to pay up the old band's bills instead of dressing like swells. And she couldn't help it, and she was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of such odds. I comforted her with the assurance that the only thing was to feel right within ourselves and let people say whatsoever entertained their poor little minds. And I fell asleep thinking that parents have a duty to children greater than children to parents. And they who do not fulfill their responsibility in this respect are as bad in their morals as the debauchee, corrupt the community as much as a thief, and are among the ablest underminers of their nation. On the morrow the first time we were alone, Horace seized the opportunity of holding forth on his woes. It was no use. He was chuck full of possum gully. He would stick to it for another year and then he would chuck it even if he had to go on the wallaby. He wasn't going to be slaving forever for the boss to swallow the proceeds and there was nothing to be made out of daring. When it wasn't drought it was floods and caterpillars and grasshoppers. Among my brothers and sisters I quickly revived to a certain extent and mother asserted her opinion that I had not been ill at all but had made up my mind to torment her, had not taken sufficient exercise and might have had a little derangement of the system but nothing more. It was proposed that I should return to Barney's gap. I demurred and was anathematized as ungrateful and altogether corrupt that I would not go back to Meswat who was so good as to lend my father money out of pure friendship. But for once in my life I could not be made submit by either coercion or persuasion. Granny offered to take one of us to Katagat. Mother preferred that Gertie should go so we sent the pretty girl to dwell among her kindred in a land of comfort and pleasure. I remained at Possum Gully to tread the same old life in its tame narrow path with its never-ending dawn till daylight round of tasks with as its entertainments an occasional picnic or funeral or a day in town when should it happen to be Sunday I never fail to patronize one of the cathedrals. I love the organ music and the hush which pervades the building and there is much entertainment in various ways if one goes early and watches the well-dressed congregation filing in. The costumes and the women are pretty and in his own particular line the ability of the verger is something at which to marvel. Regular attendants of course pay for and have reserved their seats but it is in classing the visitors that the verger displays his talent. He can cull the commoners from the Parmenu aristocrats and put them in their respective places as skillfully as an expert horse dealer can draft his stock at a sale. Then when the audience is complete in the middle and front of the edifice are to be found they of the white hands and fine jewels and in the topmost seat of the synagogue praying audibly is one who has made all his wealth by devouring widow's houses. While pushed away to the corners and wings are they who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and those who cannot afford good linen are too proud to be seen here at all. The choir sings and the organ rings the uninteresting prayers are rattled off oh come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker a sermon mostly of the debts of the concern of the customs of the ancients or of the rites and ceremonies of up-to-date churchism is delivered and the play is done and as I leave the building a great hunger for a little Christianity fills my heart oh that a preacher might arise and expound from the book of books a religion with a God a religion with a heart in it a Christian religion which would abolish the cold legend whose center is respectability and which rears great buildings in which the rich recline on silken hassocks while the poor perish in the shadow thereof through the hot dry summer then the heartless winter and the scorching summer again which have spent themselves since Gertie's departure I have struggled hard to do my duty in that state of life under which it had been pleased God to call me and sometimes I have partially succeeded I have had no books or papers nothing but peasant surroundings and peasant tasks and have encouraged peasant ignorance ignorance being the main spring of contentment and contentment the bedrock of happiness but it is all to no purpose a note from the other world will strike upon the court of my being and the spirit which has been dozing within me awakens and fiercely beats at its bars demanding some nobler thought some higher aspiration some wider action a more Saturnalian pleasure something more than the peasant life can ever yield then I hold my spirit tight to wild passionate longing sinks down down to sickening dumb despair and had I the privilege extended to Job of old to curse God and die I would leap at it eagerly End of Chapter 33 Chapter 34 of my brilliant career this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org My Brilliant Career by Myles Franklin Chapter 34 but absent friends are soon forgot we received a great many letters from Gertie for a little while after she went up the country but they grew shorter and farther between as time went on in one of granny's letters there was concerning my sister I find Gertie is a much younger girl for her age than Sibylla was and not nearly so wild and hard to manage she is a great comfort to me everyone remarks upon her good looks from one of Gertie's letters Uncle Julius came home from Hong Kong and America last week and brought such a lot of funny presents for everyone he had a lot for you but he has given them to me instead as you are not here he calls me his pretty little sunbeam and says I must always live with him I sighed to myself as I read this Uncle JJ had said much the same to me and where was I now my thoughts were ever turning to the people and old place I love so well but Gertie's letter showed me that I was utterly forgotten and unmasked Gertie left us in October 1897 and it was somewhere about January 1898 that all the letters from Catagot were full to overflowing with the wonderful news of Harold Beecham's reinstatement at Five Bob Downs under the same conditions as he had held sway there in my day from granny's letters I learned that some old sweetheart of Harold's father had bequeath untold wealth to this her lost love son the wealth was in bonds and stocks principally and though it would be some time Harold was actually in possession of it yet he had no difficulty in getting advancements to any amount and had immediately repurchased Five Bob I had never dreamed of such a possibility true I had often said were Harold a character in fiction instead of real life some relative would die opportunity and set him up in his former position but here this utterly unanticipated contingency had arisen in a manner which would affect my own life and what were my feelings regarding the matter I think I was not fully aware of the extent of my lack of wifely love for Harold Beecham until experiencing the sense of relief which stole over me on holding in my hand the announcement of his return to the smile of fortune he was rich he would not need me now my obligation to him ceased to exist I was free he would no longer wish to be hampered with me he could take his choice of beauty and worth he might even purchase a princess did his ambition point that way one of Gertie's letters ran that Mr. Beecham you used to tell me so much about has come back to live at Five Bob he has brought his aunts back everyone went to welcome them and there was a great fuss and Helen says he Mr. B is very conservative he has everything just as it used to be I believe he is richer than ever everyone is laughing about his luck he was here twice last week and has just left this evening he is very quiet I don't know how you thought him so wonderful I think he is too slow I have great work to talk to him but he is very kind and I like him he seems to remember you well and often says you were a game youngster and could ride like old Nick himself I wrote to the owner of Five Bob desiring to know what I had heard concerning his good fortune was correct and he replied by return post my dear little Sib yes thank goodness it is all true the old lady left me nearly a million it seems like a fairy yarn and I will know how to value it more now I would have written sooner only you remember our bargain and I was just waiting to get things fixed up a little when I'm off at great tracks to claim you in the flesh as there is no need for us to wait above a month or two now if you are agreeable I am just run to death it takes a bit of jigging to get things straight again but it's simply too good to believe to be back in the same old beat I've seen Gertie a good many times and find your descriptions of her were not at all overdrawn I won't send any love in this or there would be a bust up in the post office because I'd be sure to overdo the thing and I'd have all the officials on to me for damages gather up your goods and chattels because I'll be along in a week or two to take possession of you you're devoted how I screwed the letter into and dropped it into the kitchen fire I knew Harold meant what he had said he was a strong natured man of firm determinations and having made up his mind to marry me would never for an instant think of anything else but I could see what he could not see himself that he had probably tired of me and was becoming enamored of Gertie's beauty the discordance of life smote hard upon me and the letter I wrote was not pleasant it ran to H.A. Beecham Esquire five bob down station gul gul New South Wales sir your favorite duly to hand I heartily rejoice at your good fortune and trust you may live long and have health to enjoy it do not for an instant consider yourself under any obligations to me for you are perfectly free choose someone who will reflect more credit on your taste and sense with all good wishes faithfully yours as Penelope Melvin as I closed and directed this how far away Harold Beecham seemed less than two years ago I had been familiar with every curve and expression of his face every outline of his great figure every intonation of the strong cultivated voice but now he seemed as the shadow of a former age he wrote in reply what did I mean was it a joke just a little of my old tormenting spirit would I explain immediately he couldn't get down to see me for a fortnight at the least I explained and very tersely that I had meant what I said and in return received a letter as short as my own dear miss melvin I regret your decision but I trust I have sufficient manhood to prevent me from thrusting myself upon any lady much less you your sincere friend Harold Augustus Beecham he did not demand a reason for my decision but accepted it unquestionably as I read his words he grew near to me as in the days gone by I closed my eyes and before my mental vision there arose an overgrown old orchard skirting one of the great stock roots from River Reina to Manaro a glorious day was languidly smiling goodnight on abundance of rife and ripening fruit and flowers the scent of stock and the merry cry of the tennis players filled the air I could feel Harold's wild jolting heartbeats his burning breath on my brow and his voice husky with rage in my ear as he wrote that letter I could fancy the well-cut mouth settling into a sullen line as it had done on my birthday when by caressing I had won it back to its habitual pleasant expression but on this occasion I would not be there he would be angry just a little while a man of his strength and importance could not long hold ill will towards a woman a girl a child as weak and insignificant as I then when I should meet him in years to come when he would be the faithful and loving husband of another woman he would be a little embarrassed perhaps but I would set him at his ease and we would laugh together re what he would term our foolish young days and he would like me in a brotherly way yes that was how it would be the tiny note blackened in the flames so much for my romance of love it had ended in a bottle of spoke as all my other dreams of life bid fair to do I think I was not fully aware how near I had been to loving Harold Beachham until experiencing the sense of loss which stole over me on holding in my hand the acceptance of his dismissal it was a something gone out of my life which contains so few some things that I crushingly felt the loss of anyone our greatest heart treasure is a knowledge that there is in creation an individual to whom our existence is necessary someone who is part of our life as we are part of theirs someone in whose life we feel assured our death would leave a gap for a day or two and who can this be but a husband or wife our parents have other children and themselves our brothers and sisters marry and have lives apart so with our friends but one's husband would be different and I had thrown behind me this chance but in the days that followed I knew that I had acted wisely Curdie's letters would contain Harold Beachham he makes me call him Harry took me to five Bob last week and it was lovely fun again it would be Harry says I am the prettiest little girl ever was categette or anywhere else and he gave me such a lovely bracelet I wish you could see it or this we all went to church yesterday Harry rode with me there is to be a very swell ball at Wyham Beat next month and Harry says I am to keep nearly all my dances for him Frank Hodden sailed for England last week we have a new Jackaroo he is better looking than Frank but I don't like him as well Granny's and Aunt Helen's letters to my mother corroborated these admissions Granny wrote Harry Beachham seems to be very much struck with Curdie I think it would be a good thing as he is immensely rich and a very steady young fellow into the bargain they say no woman could live with him on account of his temper but he has always been a favorite of mine and we cannot expect a man without some faults Aunt Helen remarked don't be surprised if you have young Beachham down there presently on an asking Papa excursion he spends a great deal of time here and has been inquiring the best route to Possum Gully do you remember him? I don't think he was here in your day he is an estimable and likable young fellow and I think we'll make a good husband apart from his wealth he and Gertie present a marked contrast sometimes on reading this kind of thing I would wax rather bitter love I said was not a lasting thing but knowledge told me that it was for those of beauty and winsome ways and not for me I was ever to be a lonely hearted way from end to end of the world of love an alien among my own kin but there were other things to worry me Horace had left the family roof he avert he was full up of life under the old man's rule it was too slow and messed up his uncle George Melvin my father's eldest brother who had so often and so kindly set us up with cows had offered to take him and his father had consented to let him go George Melvin had a large station out back a large sheep-sharing machine and other improvements then strong in the hope of sixteen years Horace set out on horseback one springless spring morning ere the sun had risen with all his earthly possessions strapped before him bravely the horse stepped out for its week's journey and bravely its rider sat leaving me and the shadeless wooden sun-baked house on the side of the hill with the regretlessness of teens especially masculine teens I watched him depart until the clacking of his horse's hooves grew faint on the stony hillside and his form disappeared among the she-oak scrub which crowned the ridge to the westward he was gone such is life I sat down and buried my face in my apron too miserable even for tears here was another article I ill could spare wrenched from my poorly and sparsely furnished existence true our intercourse had not always been carpeted with rose-leaves his pitiless scorn for my want of size and beauty had often given me a sleepless night but I felt no bitterness against him for this but merely cursed the potter who had fashioned the clay that was thus described on the other hand he was the only one who had ever stood up and said a word of extenuation for me in the teeth of a family squall father did not count my mother thought me bad from end to end Gertie in addition to the gifts of beauty and lovableness possessed that of holding with the hair and running with the hound but Horace once had put in a word for me that I would never forget I missed his presence in the house his pounding of the old piano with four dumb notes in the middle as he balled there too, rollicking sea and comic songs I missed his energetic dissertations on spurs, whips and bloodhorses and his spirited rendering of snatches of Patterson and Gordon as he came in and out, banging doors and gates, teasing the cats and dogs, and tormenting the children End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 of My Brilliant Career This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org My Brilliant Career Chapter 35 The Third of December, 1898 It was a very hot day. So extreme was the heat that to save the lives of some young swallows, my father had to put wet bags over the iron roof above their nest. A galvanized iron awning connected our kitchen and house. In this some swallows had built, placing their nest so near the iron that the young ones were baking with the heat until rescued by the wet bagging. I had a heavy day's work before me and from my exertions of the day before was tired at the beginning. Bushfires had been raging in the vicinity during the week and yesterday had come so close that I had been called out to carry buckets of water all the afternoon in the blazing sun. The fire had been allayed after making a gap in one of our boundary fences. Father and the boys had been forced to leave the harvesting of the miserable pinched wheat while they went to mend it, as the small allowance of grass the drought gave us was precious and had to be carefully preserved from neighbors' stock. I had baked and cooked, scrubbed floors and whitewashed hards, scoured tinware and cutlery, clean windows, swept yards and discharged numerous miscellaneous jobs, and half-past two in the afternoon found me very dirty and very tired and with very much more yet to do. One of my half-starved potty calves was very ill and I went out to doctor at previous debating and tidying myself for my finishing household duties. My mother was busy upon piles and piles of wearying mending which was one of the most hopeless of the many slaveries of her life. This was hard work and my father was slaving away in the sun and mine was arduous labor and it was a very hot day and a drought smitten and a long day and potty calves ever have a tendency to make me moralize and snarl. This was life, my life and my parents' life and the life of those around us and if I was a good girl and honored my parents I would be rewarded with a long stretch of it. Yeah! These pagan meditations were interrupted by a footfall slowly approaching. I did not turn to ascertain who it might be but trusted it was no one of importance as the potty and I presented rather a grotesque appearance. It was one of the most miserable and sickly of its miserable kind and I was in the working uniform of the Australian peasantry. My tattered skirt and my odd and bursted boots laced with twine were spattered with white wash for coolness my soiled cotton blouse hung loose and exceedingly dilapidated sun bonnet surmounted my head and a bottle of castor oil was in my hand. I supposed it was one of the neighbors or a tea agent and I would send them to mother. The footsteps came to a halt beside me. Could you tell me if? I glanced upwards. Horrors! There stood Harold Beecham as tall and broad as of yore even more sunburnt than ever and looking very stylish in a suit of gray and a soft fashionable dented-in hat and it was the first time I had ever seen him in a white shirt and high collar. I wished he would explode or I might sink into the ground or the calf would disappear or that something might happen. On recognizing me his silence grew profound but an unmistakable expression of pity filled his eyes and stung me to the quick. I have a faculty of self pity but my pride promptly refuses the slightest offer of sympathy from another. I could feel my heart grow as bitterly cold as my demeanor was icily stiff when I stood up and said curtly, this is a great surprise, Mr. Beecham. Not an unpleasant one, I hope, he said pleasantly. We will not discuss the matter. Come inside out of the heat. I'm in no hurry, Sib, and couldn't I help you with that poor little devil? I'm only trying to give it another chance of life. What will you do if it lives? Sell it for half a crown when it's a yearling? It would pay better to shoot the poor little beggar now. No doubt it would, the owner of Five Bob, but we have to be more careful, I said tartly. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm not offended, I returned, leading the way to the house, imagining with a keen pain that Harold Beecham must be wondering how for an instant he could have been foolish enough to fancy such an object two years ago. Thank goodness I have never felt any humiliation on account of my mother, and felt none then, as she rose to greet Harold upon my introduction. She was a lady and looked at, in spite of the piles of coarse mending, and the pair of trousers almost bulletproof with patches out of which she drew her hand, roughened and reddened with hard labour. In spite of her patched and faded cotton gown, and the commonest and most poverty-stricken of peasant surroundings, which failed to hide that she had not been always thus. Leaving them together I expeditiously proceeded to relieve the livery stable horse on which Harold had come, of the valise, saddle, and bridle with which it was encumbered, and then let it loosen one of the grassless paddocks near at hand. Then I threw myself on a stool in the kitchen, and fell to the bone, the sting of having ideas above one's position. In a few minutes mother came hurrying out. Good gracious, what's the matter? I suppose you didn't like being caught in such a pickle, but don't get in the dumps about it. I'll give him some tea while you clean yourself, and then you'll be able to help me buy and buy. I found my little sister Aurora, and we climbed through the window into my bedroom to get tidy. I put a pair of white socks and shoes and a clean pinafore on the little girl, and combed her golden curls. She was all mine, slept with me, obeyed me, championed me, while I, while I worshipped her. There was a hole in the wall, and through it I could see without being seen. Mother was dispensing afternoon tea and talking to Harold. It was pleasant to see that manly figure once again. My spirits rose considerably. After all, if the place was poor it was very clean, as I had scrubbed it all that morning. And when I came to consider the matter, I remembered that men weren't such terrible creatures, and never made one feel the sting of one's poverty half as much as women do. Aurora, I said, I want you to go out and tell Mr. Beecham something. The little girl assented. I carefully instructed her in what she was to say, and dispatched her. She placed herself in front of Harold, a wide-eyed might of four that scarcely reached above his knee, and, clasping her chubby hands behind her, gazed at him fearlessly and unwinkingly. Aurora, you mustn't stand staring like that, said Mother. Yes, I must, she replied confidently. Well, and what's your name, said Harold, laughingly. Aurora and Roy, I belong to Sibyla, and got to tell you something. Have you? Let's hear it. Sibyla says, use Mr. Beecher. When you're done tea, you'd like me if I would to escort you to Farver and the boys and deuce you. Mother laughed. That sum of Sibyla's nonsense. She considers Rory her a special property, and delights to make the child attempt long words. Perhaps you would care to take a stroll to where they are at work by and by. Harold said he would go at once, and, accepting Rory's escort, and with a few directions from Mother, they presently set out. She, importantly, trudging beneath a big white sunbonnet, and he looking down at her in amusement. Presently he tossed her high above his head, and depositing her on his shoulder, held one sturdy brown leg in his browner hand while she held on by his hair. My first impressions are very much in his favor, said Mother, when they had got out of hearing. But fancy Gertie, the wife of that great man. She is four inches taller than I am, I snapped, and if he was as big as a gum-tree, he would be a man all the same, and just as soft on a pretty face as all the rest of them. I bathed, dressed, arranged my hair, got something ready for tea, and prepared a room for our visitor. For this I collected from all parts of the house a mat from one room, a toilet set from another, and so on, till I had quite an elaborately furnished chamber ready for my one-time lover. They returned at dusk, Rory again seated on Harold's shoulder, and two of the little boys clinging around him. As I conducted him to his room, I was in a different humor from that of the sweep-like object who had met him during the afternoon. I laughed to myself, for as on a former occasion during our acquaintance I felt I was master of the situation. I say, Sib, don't treat a fellow as though he was altogether a stranger, he said diffidently, leaning against the doorpost. Our hands met in a cordial grasp as I said, I'm awfully glad to see you, Hal, but, but, but what? I didn't feel over-delighted to be caught in such a stew this afternoon. Nonsense, it only reminded me of the first time we met, he said with a twinkle in his eye. That's always the way with you girls. You can't be civil to a man unless you're dressed up fit to stun him, as though you couldn't make fool enough of him without the aid of clothes at all. You'd better shut up, I said over my shoulder as I departed, or you'll be saying something better left unsaid like at our first meeting. Do you remember? Do I not? Great Scott, it's just like old times to have you giving me impudence over your shoulder like that, he replied merrily. Like, yet unlike, I retorted with a sigh. End of Chapter thirty-five. Next day was Sunday, a blazing one it was, too. I proposed it in the afternoon some of us should go to church. Father sat upon the idea as a mad one, walked two miles in such heat for nothing. As walk we would, he compelled to do, horse flesh being too precious in such a route to fritter it away in idle johns. Surprising to say, however, Harold, who never walked anywhere when he could get any sort of a horse, uttered a wish to go. Accordingly, when the midday dinner was over, he, Stanley, and I set out. Going to church was quite the event of the week, to the residence around Possum Golly. It was a small dissenting chapel, where laymen ungrammatically held forth at three p.m. every Sunday. But the congregation was composed of all denominations, who attended more for the sitting about on logs outside, and yarning about the price of butter, the continuance of the drought, and the latest gossip, before and after the service, than for the service itself. I knew the appearance of Harold Beecham would make it quite a miniature sensation, and form food for no end of conjecture and chatter. In any company he was a distinguished-looking man, and particularly so among these hard-worked farmer-selectors, on whose care-worn features the cruel effects of the drought were leaving additional lines of worry. I felt proud of my quantum sweetheart. There is an unconscious air of physical lordliness about him, and they looked such a swell, not the black clothes, clean-shave great display of white collar and cuff swell, appertaining to the office and city street, but of the easy sun-burnt squatter type of swelldom, redolent of the sun, the saddle, the wide open country, a man who was a man, utterly free from the least suspicion of effeminacy, and capable of earning his breed by the sweat of his brow with an arm ready and willing to save in an accident. All eyes were turned on us as we approached, and I knew that the attentions he paid me out of simple courtesy, tying my shoe, carrying my book, holding my parasol, would be put down as those of a lover. I introduced him to a group of men who were sitting on a log under the shade of a stringy bark, and leaving him to converse with them, bade my way to where the women sat beneath the gum-tree. The children made a third group at some distance. We always divided ourselves thus. A young fellow had to be very far gone ere he was willing to run the gauntlet of all the chaff leveled at him, had he the courage to single out a girl and talk to her. I greeted all the girls and women, beginning at the great-grandmother of the community, who illustrated to perfection the grim sarcasm of the Fifth Commandment. She had worked hard from morning till night, until too old to do so longer, and now hung around with aching weariness waiting for the grave. She generally poured into my car as a wail about her rheumatisms, and how long it do be waiting for the Lord, but today she was too curious about Harold to think of herself. Sure, Sybiller, who's that? Is he your sweetheart? Sure, he's as fine a man as I've ever clapped my eyes on. I proceeded to give his pedigree, but was interrupted by the arrival of the preacher, and we all went into the weather-board iron-roofed house of prayer. After service, one of the girls came up to me and whispered, That your sweetheart, isn't it, Sybiller? He was looking at you all the time in church. Oh dear, no, I'll introduce him to you. I did so, and watched him as they made remarks about the heat and drought. There is nothing of the cat or snob about him, and a short season of adversity had rubbed all the little crudities off his character, leaving him a man that the majority of both sexes would admire, women for his bigness, his gentleness, his fine-brown mustache, and for his wealth, men because he was a manly fellow. I knew he had walked to church on purpose to get a chance of speaking to me about Gertie, before approaching our parents on the matter, but Stanley accompanied us, and Boylike never relaxed in his vigilance for an instant, so there was no opportunity for anything but matter of fact remarks. The heat was intense. We wiped the perspiration and flies from our face frequently, and disturbed millions of grasshoppers as we walked. They had devoured all the fruit in the orchards about, and had even destroyed many of the trees by eating the bark, and now they were stripping the briars of foliage. In one orchard we passed the apricot, plum, and peach-stones hung naked on their leafless trees as evidence of their ravages. It was too hot to indulge in any but the most desultory conversation. We doddled along. A tiger snake crossed our path. Harold procured a stick and killed it, and Stanley hung it on the top wire of a fence which was near at hand. After this we discussed nakes for a few yards. A blue sea breeze right along through the bushfires was deraging at Tocanwall in Bomballa, came rushing and roaring over the ranges from the cast, and enshrouded the scene in its heavy fog-like folds. The sun was obscured, and the temperature suddenly took such a great drop that I felt chilled in my flimsy clothing, and I noticed Harold draws coat together. Stanley had to go after the cows, which were a little better than walking hides, yet were yarded morning and evening to yield a dribble of milk. He left us among some sally trees and a secluded nook walled in by briars, and went across the paddock to round the cows. Harold and I came to a halt by tacit consent. Sib, I want to speak to you, he said earnestly, and then came to a dead stop. Very well, tear into it, as Horace would say, but if it is anything frightful, break it gently, I said flippantly. Surely, Sib, you can guess what it is I have to say. Yes, I could guess. I knew what he was going to say, and the knowledge left a dull bitterness at my heart. I knew he was going to tell me that I had been right, and he wrong, that he had found someone he loved better than me, and that someone being my sister, he felt I needed some explanation before he could go in and when, and though I had refused him for want of love, yet it gave me pain when the moment arrived that the only man who had ever pretended to love me was going to say he had been mistaken and preferred my sister. There was silence saved for the horror of countless grasshoppers in the briar bushes. I knew he was expecting me to help him out, but I felt doggedly savage and wouldn't. I looked up at him. He was a tall grand man and honest and true and rich. He loved my sister. She would marry him, and they would be happy. I thought bitterly that God was good to one and cruel to another. Not that I wanted this man, but why was I so different from other girls? But then I thought of Gertie, so pretty, so girlish, so understandable, so full of innocent, winning coquetry. I softened. Could anyone help preferring her to me, who was strange, weird, and perverse, too outspoken to be engaging, devoid of beauty, and endearing little ways? It was my own misfortune and nobody's fault that my singular individuality excluded me from the ordinary run of youthful, joyous heartedness, and why should I be nasty to these young people? I was no heroine, only a common little bush girl, so had to make the best of the situation without any fooling. I raised my eyes from the scanty, baked wisps of grass at my feet, placed my hand on Hal's arm, and tiptoeing so as to bring my five-foot stature more on the level of his, said, Yes, Hal, I know what you want to say. Say it all, I won't be nasty. Well, you see you are so jolly touchy, and have snumbly so often, that I don't know how to begin. And if you know what I'm going to say, won't you give me an answer without hearing it? Yes, Hal, but you'd better say it, as I don't know what conditions. Conditions? Catching me up eagerly at the word. If it is only conditions that are stopping you, you can make your own conditions if you will marry me. Marry you, Harold. What do you mean? Do you know what you're saying? I exclaimed. There, he replied, I knew you would take it as an insult. I believe you were the proudest girl in the world. I know you were too clever for me, but I love you, and could give you everything you fancied. Hal, dear, let me explain. I'm not insulted, only surprised. I thought you were going to tell me that you love Gertie, and would ask me not to make things unpleasant by telling her of the foolish little bit of flirtation there had been between us. Marry Gertie, why? She's only a child, a mere baby, in fact. Marry Gertie, I never thought of her in that light. And did you think I was that sort of a fellow? Seb, he asked reproachfully. No, Hal, I promptly made an answer. I did not think you were that sort of fellow, but I thought that was the only sort of fellow there was. Good Heaven, Seb. Did you really mean those queer little letters you wrote me last February? I never for an instant looked upon them as anything, but a little bit of playful quranteriness. And have you forgotten me? Did you not mean your promise of two years ago that you speak of what passed between us as a paltry bit of flirtation? Is that all you thought it? No, I did not consider it flirtation, but that is what I thought you would term it when announcing your affection for Gertie. Gertie, pretty little Gertie, I never looked upon the child as anything but your sister, consequently mine also. She's a child. Child, she's 18, more than a year older than I was when you first introduced the subject of matrimony to me, and she's very beautiful and 20 times as good and lovable as I could ever be even my best moments. Yes, I know you were young in years, but there's nothing of the child in you. As for beauty, it is nothing. If beauty was all a man required, he could, if rich, have a harmful of it every day. I want someone to be true. The world is filled with folly and sin, and love must cling where it can, I say. For beauty is easy enough to win, but one isn't loved every day. I quoted from Owen Meredith. Yes, he said, but that is why I want you. Just think a moment. Don't say no. You're not vexed with me, are you, Seb? Vexed, Hal? I'm scarcely inhuman enough to be angry on account of being loved. Why did I not love him as I have it in me to love? Why did he look so exasperatingly humble? I was weak, oh, so pitifully weak. I wanted a man who would be masterful and strong, who would help me over the rough spots of life. One who had done hard grinding in the middle of fate. One who had suffered, who had understood. No, I could never marry Harold Beecham. Well, Seb, little chum, what do you say? Say, and the words fell from me bitterly. I say, leave me. Go and marry the sort of woman you ought to marry. The sort that all men like. A good conventional woman who will do the thing she showed at the proper time. Leave me alone. He was painfully agitated. A look of pain crossed his face. Don't say that, Seb, because I was beastly cad once. I've had all that knocked out of me. I am the cad, I replied. What I said was nasty and unwombly, and I wish I had left it unsaid. I'm not good enough to be your wife, Hal, or that of any man. Oh, Hal, I've never deceived you. There are scores of good noble women in the world who would wed you for the asking. Marry one of them. But, Seb, I want you. You were the best and truest girl in the world. Oh, surely the Blarneystone is getting a good rub now, I said, playfully. Annoyance and amusement struggled for mastery in his expression, as he replied. You're the queerest girl in the world. One minute you snub a person, then extra the jolliest girl going, and then you get as grave and earnest as a fellow's mother would be. Yes, I am queer. If you had any sense, you'd have nothing to do with me. I'm more queer, too. I'm given to something which a man never pardons in a woman. You will draw his ways, though I was snake when you hear. What is it? I'm given to writing stories, and literary people predict I will yet be an authoress. You laughed, his soft, rich laugh. That's just into my hand. I'd rather work all day than write the shortest letter, so if you will give me a hand occasionally, you can write as many arms as you like. I'll give you a study, and then send for a truckload of writing gear at once, if you like. Is that the only horror you had to tell me? I bowed my head. Well, I can have you now, he said gently, folding me softly in his arms, such tender reverence that I cried out in pain. Oh, Hal, don't, don't, and struggled free. I was ashamed knowing that I was not worthy of this. He flushed a dusky red. Am I so hateful to you that you cannot bear my touch? He asked, half wistfully, half angrily. Oh no, it isn't that. I'm really very fond of you. If you'd only understand, I said, half to myself. Understand. If you care for me, that is all I want to understand. I love you and have plenty of money. There is nothing to keep us apart. Now that I know you care for me, I will have you in spite of the devil. There will be a great tussle between you, I said mischievously, laughing at him. Old Nick has a great hold on me, and I'm sure he will dispute you right. At any time, Harold's sense of humor was not at all in accordance with his size, and he failed to see how my remark applied now. He gripped my hands in a passion of pleading. As two years previously, he had seized me in jealous rage. He drew me to him. His eyes were dark and full of entreaty. His voice was husky. Sibb, a poor little sibb, I will be good to you. You can have what you like. You don't know what you mean when you say no. No, I would not yield. He offered me everything but control. He was a man who mentally said. His were no idle promises on the spur of the moment. But no, no, no, no. He was not from me. My love must know, must have suffered, must understand. Sibb, you do not answer. May I call you mine? You must, you must, you must. His hot breath was upon my cheek. The pleasant open manly countenance was very near perilously near. The intoxication of his love was overpowering me. I had no hesitation about trusting him. He was not distasteful to me in any way. What was the good of waiting for that other, the man who had suffered, who knew, who understood? I might never find him. And if I did, ninety-nine chances to one, he would not care for me. Sibb, Sibb, can't you love me just a little? There is a winning charm in his manner. Nature had endowed him liberally with a virile fascination. My hard, uncongenial life had rendered me weak. He was drawing me to him. He was irresistible. Yes, I would be his wife. I grew dizzy, and turned my head sharply backwards, and took a long, gasping breath. Another, and another, of that fresh, cool air suggestive of the grand old sea, and a creek of cordage and bustle and strife of life. My old spirit revived, and my momentary weakness fled. There is another to think of than myself, and that was Harold. Under a master hand I would be harmless. But to this man I would be as a two-edged sword in the hand of a novice, gashing his fingers at every turn, and eventually stabbing his honest heart. It was impossible to make him see my refusal was for his good. He was as a favorite child, pleading for a dangerous toy. I desired to gratify him, but the awful responsibility of the after-effects loomed up and deterred me. Hal, it could never be. He dropped my hands and drew himself up. I will not take your no till the morning. Why do you refuse me? Is it my temper? You need not be afraid of that. I don't think I'd hurt you, and I don't drink, or smoke, or swear very much. And I've never destroyed a woman's name. I would not stoop to press you against your will if you were like the ordinary run-of-women, but you were such a queer little party that I'm afraid you might be boggling at some funny little point that could easily be wiped out. Yes, it is only a little point, but if you wipe it out you will knock the end out of the whole thing, for the point is myself. I would not suit you. It would not be wise for you to marry me. But I'm the only person concerned. If you are not afraid for yourself, I am quite satisfied. We faced about and walked homewards in unbroken silence, too perturbed to fall into our usual custom of chewing bush-leaves as we went. I thought much that night when all the house was a bed. It was tempting. Harold would be good to me, and would lift me from his life of poverty, which I hated, to one of ease. Should I like to remain where I was, till the grave there is nothing before me but the life I was leading now? My only chance of getting above it was by marriage, and Harold Beecham's offer was the one chance of a lifetime. Perhaps he could manage me well enough. Yes, I had better marry him. And I believed in marriage. That is, I think it was the most sensible and respectable arrangement for the replenishing of a nation, which has yet been suggested. But marriage is a solemn issue of life. I was as suited for matrimony as any of the sex, but only with an exceptional help-meet, and Harold was not he. My Latin womanliness arose and pointed this out so plainly that I seized my pen and wrote, Dear Harold, I will not get a chance of speaking to you in the morning, so right. Never mention marriage to me again. I firmly made up my mind. It must be no. It will always be comfort to me in the years to come to know that I was loved once, if only for a few hours. It is not that I do not care for you, as I like you better than any man I have ever seen, but I do not mean to ever marry. When you lost your fortune I was willing to accede to your request, as I thought you wanted me, but now that you are rich again you will not need me. I am not good enough to be your wife, for you are a good man, and better, because you do not know you are good. You may feel uncomfortable or lonely for a little while, because when you make up your mind you are not easily thwarted, but you will find that your fancy for me will soon pass. It is only a fancy, Hal. Take a look in the glass, and you will see reflected there the figure of a stalwart man who is purely virile, possessing not the slightest attribute of the weaker sex. Therefore your love is merely a passing flame. I do not impute fickleness to you, but merely point out a masculine characteristic, and that you are a man, and only a man, pure and unadulterated. Look around, and from the numbers of good women to be found on every side choose one who will make you a fitter help-meat, a more conventional comrade than I could ever do. I thank you for the inestimable honor you have conferred upon me, but keep it till you find someone worthy of it, and by and by you will be glad that I set you free. Goodbye, Hal, your sincere and defectionate friend, Cibela Penelope Melvin. Then I crept into bed beside my little sister, and though the air inside had not cooled, and the room was warm, I shivered so that I clasped the chubby golden-haired little sleeper in my arms that I might feel something living and real and warm. Oh, Rory! Rory! I whispered, raining upon her lonely-hearted tears. In all the world is there never a comrade strong and true who teach me the meaning of this hollow, grim little tragedy? Life? Will it always be this ghastly aloneness? Why am I not good and pretty and simple, like other girls? Oh, Rory! Rory! Why was I even born? I am of no use or pleasure to anyone in the world. End of Chapter 36. Recording by J.B. Crawford. J.B. Crawford. U.S.