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

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 yrs,

S. Penelope Melvyn.

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 his 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 Melvyn,

I regret your decision, but 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-routes from Riverina to Monaro. A glorious day was languidly smiling good night on abundance of ripe 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 the 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 smoke, 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 Beecham 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 contained so few somethings, 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 be this 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.

Gertie’s letters would contain: “Harold Beecham, 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, Caddagat 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 Wyambeet next month, and Harry says I am to keep nearly all my dances for him. Frank Hawden sailed for England last week. We have a new jackeroo. He is better-looking than Frank, but I don’t like him as well.

Grannie’s and aunt Helen’s letters to my mother corroborated these admissions. Grannie wrote:

Harry Beecham seems to be very much struck with Gertie. 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 favourite of mine, and we cannot expect a man without some faults.

Aunt Helen remarked:

Don’t be surprised if you have young Beecham 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 likeable young fellow, and I think will 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 waif 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 averred he was “full up of life under the old man’s rule. It was too slow and messed up.”