Chapter Thirteen.
Discomfiture.
“Well, girlie, and what d’you think of our prospective guest now that you’ve had time to form an opinion?” said Ben Halse, a few days after their arrival at Ezulwini.
“Candidly,” answered Verna, “I think him one of the nicest and pleasantest men I ever met.”
“Or the nicest?”
“Perhaps that.”
“Well, that’s lucky, because it’ll be much jollier for you to have some one fresh to talk to for the next few weeks. Shall we get Harry Stride along too—on the principle of the more the merrier?”
“N-no; I don’t think in this case the more would be a bit the merrier, rather the reverse.”
“Same here. But I thought perhaps a young un about might be jollier for you while we old ’uns yarned,” answered her father, with a spice of lurking mischief.
“‘Old ’uns?’” echoed Verna, raising her eyebrows. “Why, you don’t call Mr Denham old?”
“Oh, that’s drawn you, has it?” cried Ben. “Quite right, dear. He isn’t old.”
Under her father’s straight gaze and quizzical laugh Verna could not for the life of her restrain a slight change of colour.
“I shall have to give you such a pinch, dear, if you talk like that,” she said. “One that’ll hurt.”
The two were standing among the rose-bushes in the garden of the Nodwengu Hotel. It was a lovely morning, though Alp-like masses of cloud in the distance gave promise of thunder. Ben Halse had been detained longer than he had reckoned on, but had found it unnecessary to go on to Durban. In a day or two he expected to return home. The time at Ezulwini went by pleasantly enough. The trader had several old friends in the place, and Verna was in request for tennis, here or there. So, too, was Denham, who had at once been made free of the ready friendliness of a small community.
“Talking of Denham,” went on Ben Halse, puffing at a newly lighted pipe that would only half draw, “it’s a rum thing, Verna, that just as you had been wondering what sort of chap he was he should have turned up here.”
“Yes, isn’t it? But I hope he won’t find it too rough with us,” she added somewhat anxiously.
“Not he. Didn’t he say he’d knocked about in South America? I expect it’s a sight rougher in parts there than here. He’s a man who takes things as they come, rely upon it. And he doesn’t put on an atom of ‘side.’”
Incidentally, “side” is the unpardonable sin among our colonial brethren, and rightly so.
“No, that he certainly doesn’t,” assented Verna decisively. “Oh, I dare say it’ll be all right.”
At the same time she was wondering as to this anxiety on behalf of this particular guest’s comfort. She had never done so on behalf of any other, had never dreamed of giving any such consideration a second thought. They must just take them as they found them, or, if not, stay away, was her rule.
“Why, here comes Harry Stride,” said Ben, looking up. “He seems a bit cross by the way he’s walking. You can nearly always tell a man’s mood by the way he walks. Hallo, Harry!”
The young prospector turned to join them, only too delighted. He was a handsome and manly-looking young fellow, as Verna was not slow to recognise as she noted his tall form coming down the garden path.
“Come from the club, Harry?” said the trader.
“Yes, I couldn’t stick it any longer. That man Denham’s there, laying down the law, as usual. I’m fed up with Denham. It seems that a man has only to come out from home with enough coin, and crowd on enough ‘side,’ and—”
“But this one doesn’t crowd on ‘side,’” interrupted Verna quietly.
The other stared.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said. “I forgot he was a friend of yours. I ought to have remembered.”
“We most of us suffer from lapse of memory at times, Harry,” said Ben Halse kindly. “Often two people don’t take to each other, and that through no fault on either side. Now the sun’s over the yard-arm and I’m going in to wet the bosun’s whistle. You join?”
“No, thanks, Mr Halse. It’s rather too early for me.”
“Sure? Well, I’ll have to do it alone, then. So long.” And he strolled off, leaving the two young people together.
“What a splendid chap your father is, Verna,” began Stride, for on the strength of his former “refusal,” with which we heard him acquaint his partner, she conceded him the use of her Christian name—at any rate, in private. “So kind and tactful.”
Verna smiled. The encomium holding good of herself, she refrained from lecturing him on the subject of the vilified Denham. As a matter of fact, since Stride’s arrival she had been about with him far more than with the other, so that really there was no ground for the younger man’s jealous irritation—as yet. As yet? Exactly. But he, for his part, was looking ahead. Would she not be under the same roof for an indefinite time with the objectionable stranger? He knew by experience that it was impossible to be under the same roof for an indefinite time with Verna Halse and go forth again heart-whole. And this stranger seemed to be “coiny,” and, to give the devil his due, was a fine-looking fellow, poor Stride allowed, whereas he himself hardly had a “fiver” to his name, and lived mainly on the great god Hope. In fact, remembering this he was inclined to abandon the resolution we heard him express to his partner—trying his luck again. It was hopeless. He had better make up his mind to throw up the sponge. But Verna’s next words acted upon him like a spur.
“We start for home to-morrow,” she said.
“No!”
“Yes.” She could not help smiling a little at his crestfallen look. All the woman within her accepted the tribute, and at the same time felt pitiful towards him.
“Do you know why I came over here now, Verna?” he burst forth suddenly, impulsively. “It was because I heard you would be here, and I couldn’t help trying my luck again.”
His animated face and eager eyes held her. Yet her reply was unequivocal, though kind.
“Your luck is elsewhere, Harry,” she answered softly but firmly. “Try it. I don’t want to hurt you, but there is no other way out.”
He began to plead. He was at low ebb now, but luck might change. Beyond that he had expectations; nothing very great, but substantial. Would she not wait? And a great deal more he poured forth, there in the golden sunshine among the roses, and the bees humming from flower to flower, and the flitting butterflies. But Verna’s answer was the same steady shake of the head.
“It’s of no use, Harry,” she said. “I like you very much, as you know, but not in that way. People are drawn towards each other—in that way—or they are not. I mean, you were talking about luck changing, and so on, but if you were ever such a millionaire I’m afraid it would make no difference in that way. Now do you see?”
He said nothing. He looked at her with misery in his eyes. Never had she seemed so all-alluring as here under the burning midday sun, so cool and fresh and self-possessed. And it was hopeless.
“Well, I suppose I’m nothing but a born idiot,” he said, but not resentfully.
Verna laid a hand upon his arm.
“No, you’re not,” she said. “Only—your luck is elsewhere. You’ll find it some day sooner or later, and remember my words.”
Then she looked at him in astonishment, for a scowl had come over his face. Following his glance she saw the reason. Denham was walking along the path which led to the house. He must have seen them, but looked as if he had not, and passed on without any attempt to join them. Verna’s astonishment was dispelled, but she made no remark as to it or its cause. Tactfully she led Harry Stride on to other topics, and his jealous eyes noted that she made no excuse to return to the house, in fact, she drew him off down a little-used path under the trees; nor was it until an hour after that they returned, a little late for lunch, Verna declaring, publicly, that they had had a most delightful walk.
Yes, but for all that, she and Denham would be for weeks beneath the same roof, thought poor Stride. How lucky some men were, how unlucky others. This one apparently had not a care in the world, and now he was going to rob him, Stride, of all that made life worth living. How he hated him, sitting there beside Verna, chatting easily to her.
“What’s the matter with your appetite, Mr Stride?” remarked the hostess, noticing that he sent everything away almost untouched.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mrs Shelford. It’s too hot, I suppose. Or it may be that I tried a new concoction at the club that some fellow left them a recipe for. It’s supposed to be an appetiser, but I thought it vile. Heard any more about Shelford coming back, by the way?”
“I’m expecting him next week.”
“Sorry, because I shall miss seeing him. Am starting back to-morrow.”
The other smiled faintly to herself. She thought she knew what was wrong with Stride’s appetite.
“You’re making a short stay this time,” she said.
Harry mumbled something about “rough on Robson being left alone,” which caused the smile to deepen.
“How are the niggers out your way, Stride?” asked a man who had only arrived that morning.
“Getting bumptious. A boy of ours came at me with a pick-handle the other day because I threatened to hammer him. Only threatened, mind! hadn’t started in to do it. I did it then, though—had to, you know.”
“I should think so,” said the hostess emphatically. “They want all the hammering they can get.”
“Rather. Well, we cleared this dev—er—this chap out. When he got to a safe distance he turned round and sang out that it didn’t matter now, all the whites in the country were going to be made meat of directly, and he and some others would take particular care of us. I got out a rifle, but that didn’t scare him. He knew I daren’t fire.”
“Quite right. Mustn’t take the law into your own hands, Stride,” said Inspector James humorously. “Only, if you do, see that you abolish the corpus delicti.”
“Talking of corpus delicti,” said the man who had first spoken. “Is there anything in this rumour that a white man has been killed in the Makanya forest? I heard that something had been found that pointed to it, but not the remains of the chap himself.”
“You mustn’t swallow every yarn you hear,” said James.
“We’ve been killed at least three times this year already on those terms,” said Ben Halse.
“I suppose I shall be included in the fourth,” laughed Denham, alluding to his approaching visit.
Stride, however, had suddenly grown silent.
The Ezulwini Club was not large, as we have said; however, it would sometimes get lively at night, but not always. To-night it was lively, very; the circulation of whiskies-and-sodas brisk.
“Anything more been heard about that yarn from the Makanya?” began the man who had sprung the subject at the hotel table. Others asked, “What yarn?”
“You ought to know something of it, Hallam,” went on the first speaker, the point of the emphasis being that the man addressed was an official holding an important post.
“Why?” curtly.
“Because you’re in a position to.”
This was all the other wanted.
“Exactly,” he retorted. “But if I’m in a position to know, I’m in a position not to tell. See?”
There was a laugh, in which the offender, who at first looked resentful, joined.
“What’s the joke?” asked James, who at that moment entered.
“Joke? Oh, Slingsby’s putting up idiotic questions,” answered Hallam shortly. “Here, Mabule,” to the Bar-keeper, “set ’em up again—you know every one’s pet poison. What’s yours, Mr Denham? You’ll join?”
“Thanks. All right,” answered Denham, who had come to the conclusion that the hospitality of this club required a strong head, which, fortunately, he possessed. But Harry Stride, less fortunate, did not.
“I can tell you all about that yarn,” he broke in. “Slingsby’s not so wide of the mark either. Some one has come to grief in the Makanya, and a white man too, for I picked up a saddle in the Bobi drift, and it had a bullet hole through the flap, an unmistakable bullet hole.”
“You picked it up?” said some one, while Inspector James, who was “in the know,” muttered to himself, “Damned silly young ass!”
Then followed a considerable amount of questionings and discussion. When was this, and where, and how would it have happened, and what had he done with the saddle, and so forth? Hallam, it might have been noticed, stood out of the discussion altogether. Perhaps he was “in the know” also; at any rate, as an official, he was instinctively averse to making public property of this kind of thing. But Harry Stride had got outside of quite as many whiskies-and-sodas as were good for him, and the effect, coming on top of his then state of frothy mental tension, was disastrous. Now he said—
“You must have crossed just above the Bobi drift, Mr Denham. I hear you came through the Makanya that way.”
“Yes, I shouldn’t wonder if it was somewhere about there,” answered Denham easily. “But, you see, I didn’t know any of the names of drifts and so on. I just ‘drifted’ on.”
“Were you alone?” queried Stride, with a marked emphasis on the last word, and looking the other full in the face.
There could be no possible mistake as to the meaning. A scarcely perceptible start ran through those present. This was getting too thick altogether, was the general opinion.
“Very much so, except when I could get hold of some black chap for a guide,” answered Denham, easily again. “I suppose, though, in the light of your discovery I must consider myself jolly lucky to have come through with a whole skin.”
The ease and tactfulness of the answer saved the situation. The tension relaxed. Stride had been having a little too much whisky, was the consensus of opinion. But, by a strange instinct, one, or even two there present were not prepared to swear to themselves that there could be nothing in it.