Chapter Thirty.

Conclusion.

Golden August—a sky of cloudless blue softening into the autumn haze which dims the horizon; golden August, with the whirr of the reaping-machine, as the yellow wheat falls to the harvest, blending with the cooing of wood-pigeons among the leafy shades of the park; golden August, with its still, rich atmosphere, and roll of green champaign and velvety coppice, and honeysuckle-twined hedgerow, and dappled kine standing knee-deep in shaded pond; in short, golden August in one of the fairest scenes of fair England.

Here and there red roofs clustering around a grey church tower, whose sparkling vane flashes in the sun; here and there a solitary thatch. In front a lovely sward stretching down to a sunken fence, and a gap, revealing the charming vista of landscape beyond—such is the outlook from the library window of the beautiful and sumptuous home into which we will take a brief and only peep, for it has been for some years past Nidia’s home, and is the property of her father. Has been? we said. That it should continue to be so, forms, as it happens, the subject-matter of the very conversation going on at that moment between them.

Nidia herself seems in no wise to have altered; indeed, why should she, unless to grow more charming, more alluring than before, that being the only alteration happiness is potent to effect? For on the third finger of her left hand a plain gold ring of suspicious newness proclaims that she is Nidia Commerell no longer. The other party to the conversation is her father.

“It is really good of you, child,” the latter is saying, “to come back so soon to your old father, left all alone. Not many would have done it—at any rate, at such a time as this. But I don’t want to be selfish. You had been away from me so long, and had been so near—well, being away altogether it would have been, I suppose, but for that fine fellow, John Ames—that—well, I did want to see my little girl again for a few days before she started on her travels, not in an infernal savage-ridden country this time, thank God!”

“Of course I wanted to see you again, dear—and just as much as you did me,” returned Nidia, meaning it, too. “But even the ‘infernal savage-ridden country’ has its bright side.”

“Meaning John Ames,” said the old gentleman, with a laugh.

In aspect Mr Commerell was of about medium height, scrupulously neat in his attire. He wore a short white beard, and had very refined features; and looking into his eyes, it was easy to see whence Nidia had got hers. In manner he was very straight to the point and downright, but it was not the downrightness which in nineteen cases out of twenty degenerates into mere brusquerie. He and John Ames had taken to each other wonderfully, and the old gentleman had already begun to look upon his son-in-law as his own son.

“What I have got to say, child, is this,” he went on; “and mind you, I don’t much like saying it. However, here it is. When you have done your round on the Continent, why not come back here and make this your home? I know the old argument against relations-in-law in the same house and all that, but here it’s different. You should both be as free as air as far as I am concerned. You know I am not of the interfering sort—indeed, you could have your own set of apartments, for the matter of that. But when I bought this property to retire to in my old age, it was with an eye to some such contingency, and—um—well, it could not have befallen better. Well, what I was coming to is that it is a large property and wants some looking after, and John will find plenty to do in looking after it. He will have to look after it for himself and you when my time is up, so may as well begin now.”

But Nidia took the old man’s face between her hands as he sat, and stopped his utterance with a very loving kiss.

“Father, darling, don’t say any more about relations-in-law and interfering, and all that—bosh. Yes, bosh. You interfering, indeed! And for the matter of that, I know that John is awfully fond of you; you get on splendidly together. Of course we will come back and take care of you, and we’ll all be as happy together as the day is long.”

“God bless you, Nidia, child! Hallo! here he comes.”

“Who?” asked Nidia, with a ripple of mirth over the inconsequence of the remark—which certainly was funny.

“John, of course. He is a fine fellow, Nidia. Didn’t know they grow men like that in those parts”—with a very approving gaze at the advancing figure of his son-in-law, who, strolling along the terrace, was drinking in the lovely panorama of fair English landscape, contrasting it, perchance, with certain weird regions of granite boulder and tumbled rock and impenetrable thorn thicket. And here it may be noted that, her present happiness notwithstanding, Nidia had by no means forgotten her sad and terrible experiences, and there were times when she would start up in her sleep wild-eyed and with a scream of horror, as she saw once more the mutilated corpses of the murdered settler’s family, or found herself alone in the shaggy wilds of the Matopos. But the awakening more than made up for the reminiscence. She was young, and of sound and buoyant Constitution, and the grim and ghastly recollection of appalling sights and peril passed through would eventually fade.

“Am I interrupting you?” said John Ames, as at his entrance the two looked up. “Nidia was going to stroll down to the bridge with me, Mr Commerell; but if you want her, why, I shall have to keep myself company.”

“Considerate, as few of them are or would be under the circumstances,” thought the old gentleman to himself. But aloud he said, “No—no. It’s all right. We’ve done our talk, John. You’d better take her with you, and she can tell you what it has all been about. Besides, I have some business to attend to.”

He watched them strolling along the terrace together, and a strange joyful peace was around the old man’s heart.

“God bless them!” he murmured to himself—his spectacles, perhaps, a trifle dim. “They are a well matched pair, and surely this is a Heaven-made union if such a thing exists. God bless them, and send them every happiness!”

And here we take leave to join in the above aspiration; for although ourselves no believers in the old-fashioned “lived-happy-ever-after” theory, holding that about nineteen such cases out of twenty, putting it at a modest proportion, are, in actual fact, but sparsely hedged around with the a “happy” qualification, yet here we think it possible that the twentieth case may be found, if only that all the circumstances attendant upon it go to make for that desirable end.

The End.