Business to me is a great mystery, into which I haven"t the slightest desire to penetrate. I have no brains in that direction,--so will not attempt to correctly reproduce all that Harold Beecham told me on that afternoon while leaning against a tree at my feet and looking down at me as I reclined in the hammock.
There was great mention of bogus bonds, bad investments, liabilities and a.s.sets and personal estates, and of a thing called an official a.s.signee--whatever that is--voluntary sequestration, and a jargon of such terms that were enough to mither a Barcoo lawyer.
The gist of the matter, as I gathered it, was that Harold Beecham, looked upon as such a "lucky beggar", and envied as a pet of fortune, had been visited by an unprecedented run of crushing misfortunes. He had not been as rich and sound in position as the public had imagined him to be. The failure of a certain bank two or three years previously had given him a great shaking. The tick plague had ruined him as regarded his Queensland property, and the drought had made matters nearly as bad for him in New South Wales. The burning of his wool last year, and the failure of the agents in whose hands he had placed it, this had pushed him farther into the mire, and now the recent "going bung" of a building society--his sole remaining prop--had run him entirely ash.o.r.e.
He had sequestrated his estate, and as soon as practicable was going through the courts as an insolvent. The personal estate allowed him from the debris of his wealth he intended to settle on his aunts, and he hoped it might be sufficient to support them. Himself, he had the same prospects as the boundary-riders on Five-Bob Downs.
I had nothing to say. Not that Harold was a much-to-be-pitied man when one contrasted his lot with that of millions of his fellows as deserving as he; but, on the other hand, considering he had been reared in wealth and as the master of it since his birth, to be suddenly rendered equal with a labourer was pretty hard lines.
"Oh, Harold, I am so sorry for you!" I managed to stammer at last.
"Don"t worry about me. There"s many a poor devil, crippled and ill, though rolling in millions, who would give all his wealth to stand in my boots today," he said, drawing his splendid figure to its full height, while a look of stern pride settled on the strong features. Harold Beecham was not a whimpering cur. He would never tell anyone his feelings on the subject; but such a sudden reverse of fortune, tearing from him even his home, must have been a great blow to him.
"Syb, I have been expecting this for some years; now that it is done with, it is a sort of grim relief. The worst of all is that I"ve had to give up all hope of winning you. That is the worst of all. If you didn"t care for me when I was thought to be in a position to give you all that girls like, you could never look at me now that I"m a pauper. I only hope you will get some fellow who will make you as happy as I would have tried to had you let me."
I sat and wondered at the marvellous self-containment of the man before me. With this crash impending, just imagine the worry he must have gone through! But never had the least suspicion that he was troubled found betrayal on his brow.
"Good-bye, Syb," he said; "though I"m a n.o.body now, if I could ever be of use to you, don"t be afraid to ask me."
I remember him wringing the limp hand I mechanically stretched out to him and then slowly revaulting the fence. The look of him riding slowly along with his broad shoulders drooping despondently waked me to my senses. I had been fully engrossed with the intelligence of Harold"s misfortune--that I was of sufficient importance to concern him in any way had not entered my head; but it suddenly dawned on me that Harold had said that I was, and he was not in the habit of uttering idle nothings.
While fortune smiled on him I had played with his manly love, but now that she frowned had let him go without even a word of friendship. I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature. Suffering the cold heart-weariness of this state myself, I felt anxious at any price to save Harold Beecham from a like fate. It would be a pity to let one so young be embittered in that way.
There was a short cut across the paddocks to a point of the road where he would pa.s.s; and with these thoughts flashing through my mind, hatless and with flying hair, I ran as fast as I could, scrambling up on the fence in a breathless state just as he had pa.s.sed.
"Hal, Hal!" I called. "Come back, come back! I want you."
He turned his horse slowly.
"Well, Syb, what is it?"
"Oh, Hal, dear Hal! I was thinking too much to say anything; but you surely don"t think I"d be so mean as to care a pin whether you are rich or poor--only for your own sake? If you really want me, I will marry you when I am twenty-one if you are as poor as a crow."
"It is too good to be true. I thought you didn"t care for me. Sybylla, what do you mean?"
"Just what I say," I replied, and without further explanation, jumping off the fence I ran back as fast as I had come.
When half-way home I stopped, turned, looked, and saw Harold cantering smartly homewards, and heard him whistling a merry tune as he went.
After all, men are very weak and simple in some ways.
I laughed long and sardonically, apostrophizing myself thus:
"Sybylla Penelope Melvyn, your conceit is marvellous and unparalleled!
So you actually imagined that you were of sufficient importance to a.s.sist a man through life--a strong, healthy young man too, standing six feet three and a half in his socks, a level-headed business man, a man of high connections, spotless character, and influential friends, an experienced bushman, a man of sense, and, above all, a man--a man! The world was made for men.
"Ha ha! You, Sybylla, thought this! You, a chit in your teens, an ugly, poor, useless, unimportant, little handful of human flesh, and, above, or rather below, all, a woman--only a woman! It would indeed be a depraved and forsaken man who would need your services as a stay and support! Ha ha! The conceit of you!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Because?
The Beechams were vacating Five-Bob almost immediately--before Christmas. Grannie, aunt Helen, and uncle Jay-Jay went down to say good-bye to the ladies, who were very heartbroken about being uprooted from Five-Bob, but they approved of their nephew settling things at once and starting on a clean sheet. They intended taking up their residence--hiding themselves, they termed it--in Melbourne. Harold would be detained in Sydney some time during the settling of his affairs, after which he intended to take anything that turned up. He had been offered the management of Five-Bob by those in authority, but could not bring himself to accept managership where he had been master. His great desire, now that Five-Bob was no longer his, was to get as far away from old a.s.sociations as possible.
He had seen his aunts off, superintended the muster of all stock on the place, dismissed all the female and most of the male employees, and surrendered the reins of government, and as Harold Augustus Beecham, boss of Five-Bob, on Monday, the 21st of December 1896, was leaving the district for ever. On Sunday, the 20th of December, he came to bid us good-bye and to arrive at an understanding with me concerning what I had said to him the Sunday before. Grannie, strange to say, never suspected that there was likely to be anything between us. Harold was so undemonstrative, and had always come and gone as he liked at Caddagat: she overlooked the possibility of his being a lover, and in our intercourse allowed us almost the freedom of sister and brother or cousins.
On this particular afternoon, after we had talked to grannie for a little while, knowing that he wished to interview me, I suggested that he should come up the orchard with me and get some gooseberries. Without demur from anybody we set off, and were scarcely out of hearing before Harold asked me had I really meant what I said.
"Certainly," I replied. "That is, if you really care for me, and think it wise to choose me of all my s.e.x."
Ere he put it in words I read his answer in the clear brown eyes bent upon me.
"Syb, you know what I feel and would like, but I think it would be mean of me to allow you to make such a sacrifice."
I knew I was not dealing with a b.o.o.by, but with a sensible clear-sighted man, and so studied to express myself in a way which would not for an instant give him the impression that I was promising to marry him because--what I don"t know and it doesn"t matter much, but I said:
"Hal, don"t you think it is a little selfish of you to want to throw me over just because you have lost your money? You are young, healthy, have good character and influential connections, and plenty of good practical ability and sense, so, surely, you will know no such thing as failure if you meet the world bravely. Go and be the man you are; and if you fail, when I am twenty-one I will marry you, and we will help each other. I am young and strong, and am used to hard work, so poverty will not alarm me in the least. If you want me, I want you.
"Syb, you are such a perfect little brick that I couldn"t be such a beggarly cur as to let you do that. I knew you were as true as steel under your funny little whims and contrariness; and could you really love me now that I am poor?"
I replied with vigour:
"Do you think I am that sort, that cares for a person only because he has a little money? Why! that is the very thing I am always preaching against. If a man was a lord or a millionaire I would not have him if I loved him not, but I would marry a poor cripple if I loved him. It wasn"t because you owned Five-Bob Downs that I liked you, but because you have a big heart in which one would have room to get warm, and because you are true, and because you are kind and big and--" Here I could feel my voice getting shaky, and being afraid I would make a fool of myself by crying, I left off.
"Syb, I will try and fix matters up a bit, and will claim you in that time if I have a home."
"Claim me, home or not, if you are so disposed, but I will make this condition. Do not tell anyone we are engaged, and remember you are perfectly free. If you see a woman you like more than me, promise me on your sacred word that you will have none of those idiotic unjust ideas of keeping true to me. Promise."
"Yes, I will promise," he said easily, thinking then, no doubt, as many a one before him has thought, that he would never be called upon to fulfil his word.
"I will promise in return that I will not look at another man in a matrimonial way until the four years are up, so you need not be jealous and worry yourself; for, Hal, you can trust me, can you not?"
Taking my hand in his and looking at me with a world of love in his eyes, which moved me in spite of myself, he said:
"I could trust you in every way to the end of the world."
"Thank you, Harold. What we have said is agreed upon--that is, of course, as things appear now: if anything turns up to disturb this arrangement it is not irrevocable in the least degree, and we can lay out more suitable plans. Four years will not be long, and I will be more sensible at the end of that time--that is, of course, if I ever have any sense. We will not write or have any communication, so you will be perfectly free if you see anyone you like better than me to go in and win. Do you agree?"
"Certainly; any little thing like that you can settle according to your fancy. I"m set up as long as I get you one way or another, that"s all I want. It was a bit tough being cleared out from all the old ways, but if I have you to stand by me it will be a great start. Say what you said last Sunday, again. Syb, say you will be my wife."
I had expected him to put it in that way, and believing in doing all or nothing, had laid out that I would put my hand in his and promise what he asked. But now the word wife finished me up. I was very fond of Harold--fond to such an extent that had I a fortune I would gladly have given it all to him: I felt capable of giving him a life of servitude, but I loved him--big, manly, lovable, wholesome Harold--from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he was good in my sight, but lacking in that power over me which would make me desirous of being the mother of his children.
As for explaining my feelings to him--ha! He would laughingly call them one of my funny little whims. With his orthodox, practical, plain, commonsense views of these things, he would not understand me. What was there to understand? Only that I was queer and different from other women. But he was waiting for me to speak. I had put my hand to the plough and could not turn back. I could not use the word wife, but I put my hand in his, looked at him steadily, and said--