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

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 abed. It was tempting. Harold would be good to me, and would lift me from this life of poverty which I hated, to one of ease. Should I elect to remain where I was, till the grave there was 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 believe in marriage⁠—that is, I think it 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 helpmeet⁠—and Harold was not he. My latent 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 write. Never mention marriage to me again. I have firmly made up my mind⁠—it must be No. It will always be a 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 ever to 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 helpmeet, a more conventional comrade, than I could ever do. I thank you for the inestimable honour 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 have set you free.

Goodbye, Hal!

Your sincere and affec. friend,

Sybylla Penelope Melvyn.

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 to 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 ever born? I am of no use or pleasure to anyone in all the world!”

XXXVII He That Despiseth Little Things, Shall Fall Little by Little I

The morning came, breakfast, next Harold’s departure. I shook my head and slipped the note into his hand as we parted. He rode slowly down the road. I sat on the step of the garden gate, buried my face in my hands, and reviewed the situation. I could see my life, stretching out ahead of me, barren and monotonous as the thirsty track along which Harold was disappearing. Today it was washing, ironing tomorrow, next day baking, after that scrubbing⁠—thus on and on. We would occasionally see a neighbour or a tea-agent, a tramp or an Assyrian hawker. By hard slogging against flood, fire, drought, pests, stock diseases, and the sweating occasioned by importation, we could manage to keep bread in our mouths. By training and education I was fitted for nought but what I was, or a general slavey, which was many degrees worse. I could take my choice. Life was too much for me. What was the end of it, what its meaning, aim, hope, or use?

In comparison to millions I knew that I had received more than a fair share of the goods of life; but knowing another has leprosy makes our cancer none the easier to bear.

My mother’s voice, sharp and cross, roused me. “Sybylla, you lazy unprincipled girl, to sit scheming there while your poor old mother is at the washtub. You sit idling there, and then by and by you’ll be groaning about this terrible life in which there’s time for nothing but work.”

How she fussed and bothered over the clothes was a marvel to me. My frame of mind was such that it seemed it would not signify if all our clothes went