My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

road, I’d have drunk every one of em dry today. I never felt such a daddy of a thirst on me before.”

“Good gracious, Julius!” exclaimed grannie, as he offered the governess a pot full of beer, “Miss Craddock can’t drink out of that pint.”

“Those who don’t approve of my pints, let ’em bring their own,” said that mischievous uncle Jay-Jay, who was a great hand at acting the clown when he felt that way inclined.

I was dispatched for glasses, and after emptying the bottles uncle proposed a game of tennis first, while the light lasted, and tea afterwards. This proposition being carried with acclamation, we proceeded to the tennis court. Harold came too⁠—he had apparently altered his intention of going home immediately.

There were strawberries to be had in the orchard, also some late cherries, so uncle ordered me to go and get some. I procured a basket, and willingly agreed to obey him. Mr. Goodchum offered to accompany me, but Harold stepped forward saying he would go, in such a resolute tragic manner that Goodchum winked audaciously, saying waggishly, “Behold, the hero descends into the burning mine!”

XXIII “Ah, for One Hour of Burning Love, ’Tis Worth an Age of Cold Respect!”

We walked in perfect silence, Harold not offering to carry my little basket. I did not dare lift my eyes, as something told me the face of the big man would not be pleasant to look upon just then. I twirled the ring he had given me round and round my finger. I occasionally put it on, wearing the stones on the palm-side of my finger, so that it would not be taken for other than one of two or three aunt Helen had lent me, saying I was at liberty to use them while at Caddagat, if it gave me any pleasure.

The Caddagat orchard contained six acres, and being a narrow enclosure, and the cherries growing at the extreme end from the house, it took us some time to reach them. I led the way to our destination⁠—a secluded nook where grapevines clambered up fig-trees, and where the top of gooseberry bushes met the lower limbs of cherry-trees. Blue and yellow lupins stood knee-high, and strawberries grew wild among them. We had not uttered a sound, and I had not glanced at my companion. I stopped; he wheeled abruptly and grasped my wrist in a manner which sent the basket whirling from my hand. I looked up at his face, which was blazing with passion, and dark with a darker tinge than Nature and the sun had given it, from the shapely swelling neck, in its soft well-turned-down collar, to where the stiff black hair, wet with perspiration, hung on the wide forehead.

“Unhand me, sir!” I said shortly, attempting to wrench myself free, but I might as well have tried to pull away from a lion.

“Unhand me!” I repeated.

For answer he took a firmer hold, in one hand seizing my arm above the elbow, and gripping my shoulder with the other so tightly that, through my flimsy covering, his strong fingers bruised me so severely that in a calmer moment I would have squirmed and cried out with pain.

“How dare you touch me!” He drew me so closely to him that, through his thin shirt⁠—the only garment on the upper part of his figure⁠—I could feel the heat of his body, and his big heart beating wildly.

At last! at last! I had waked this calm silent giant into life. After many an ineffectual struggle I had got at a little real love or passion, or call it by any name⁠—something wild and warm and splendidly alive that one could feel, the most thrilling, electric, and exquisite sensation known.

I thoroughly enjoyed the situation, but did not let this appear. A minute or two passed and he did not speak.

“Mr. Beecham, I’ll trouble you to explain yourself. How dare you lay your hands upon me?”

“Explain!” he breathed rather than spoke, in a tone of concentrated fury. “I’ll make you explain, and I’ll do what I like with you. I’ll touch you as much as I think fit. I’ll throw you over the fence if you don’t explain to my satisfaction.”

“What is there that I can explain?”

“Explain your conduct with other men. How dare you receive their attentions and be so friendly with them!”

“How dare you speak to me like that! I reserve the right of behaving as I please without your permission.”

“I won’t have a girl with my engagement ring on her finger going on as you do. I think I have a right to complain, for I could get any amount of splendid women in every way to wear it for me, and behave themselves properly too,” he said fiercely.

I tossed my head defiantly, saying, “Loose your hold of me, and I’ll quickly explain matters to my own satisfaction and yours, Harold Beecham.”

He let me go, and I stepped a pace or two away from him, drew the costly ring from my finger, and, with indifference and contempt, tossed it to his feet, where the juice of crushed strawberries was staining the ground, and facing him, said mockingly:

“Now, speak to the girl who wears your engagement ring, for I’ll degrade myself by wearing it no more. If you think I think you as great a catch as you think yourself, just because you have a little money, you are a trifle mistaken, Mr. Beecham, that is all. Ha ha ha! So you thought you had a right to lecture me as your future slave! Just fancy! I never had the slightest intention of marrying you. You were so disgustingly conceited that I have been attempting to rub a little of it out of you. Marry you! Ha ha! Because the social laws are so arranged that a woman’s only sphere is marriage, and because they endeavour to secure a man who can give them a little more ease, you must not run away with the idea that