Volume One—Chapter Twenty Four.
Forth—a Wanderer.
After that last heart-breaking farewell, Claverton tried to walk quickly away, but in vain. Several times he paused to listen. Once he turned and retraced his steps a few yards, feeling sure he had heard his name called. But no. It was only the rustle of the leaves as a bird fluttered among them, or the murmur of a tiny whirlwind which now and again whisked round a few leaves and bits of stick in the stillness of the summer morning. On, on he strode, whither he knew not nor cared, his lips drawn tight over his set teeth, a tumult of desperate thoughts raging wildly in his breast, a glare almost of mania in his eyes, dragging his steps heavily as one who staggered beneath a load. This dream which he had been cherishing, this sweet hope which had made a new man of him, was dashed from his grasp, and so cruelly, so mercilessly. Ah, good God! how he had loved her—how he did love her! He had never loved any living thing before, and now the long-pent-up torrent had burst its barrier and overwhelmed him; and he tried to look into the black, bitter future till his brain reeled and all was confusion again—wild, surging, chaotic thoughts—as he strode on through the shadeless glare of the burning veldt. Shade or bud, what was it to him? But human endurance has its limits. Even his iron frame, weakened by the mental strain, began to fail after hours of tramping beneath that fierce sun, and he sank to the ground nearly exhausted at the foot of a small mimosa-tree. He was desperately hard hit, if ever man was.
“Why, Arthur! What on earth brings you here? I thought you were away at Driscoll’s!” said a voice behind him.
In his preoccupation he had not heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs. Turning quickly, he saw Mr Brathwaite.
“Oh, I didn’t go there after all—and I’ve been taking a little stroll,” he answered, with a ghastly attempt at a laugh, and in a voice so harsh and strange that the old man, looking at him, began to think he had had a sunstroke, and was a little off his head.
“Anything the matter?” he asked, kindly. “You don’t look at all the thing. Have you heard any bad news?”
Ah, that was a good idea! Claverton remembered that the post had come in that morning, bringing him two or three letters, which he had thrust unopened into his pocket. This would cover his retreat. He would be able to leave without any awkward explanations—called away suddenly. They would think he had heard of the death of some relative; and grimly he thought to himself how the death of a hecatomb of relatives would be mere gossip compared with the “news” he really had heard.
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s what it is; and I am afraid I must leave here as soon as possible.”
“H’m! But where’s your horse?”
“My horse? Oh, I walked.”
“H’m,” said the old man again. “Now look here, Arthur, my boy, I’ve got through a pretty long spell of life, during which I’ve learnt the art of putting two and two together. Whatever you may have heard to upset you, didn’t come through the post. Now I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but I can see tolerably well now how things have gone. Is it so bad as you think?”
There was a world of delicate, kindly-hearted sympathy in the other’s voice, and Claverton felt as if it did him good. Grasping the hand extended to him, he replied:
“It is. I will not try to convince you that you have got upon the wrong tack, even if it would not be useless to do so. I must go from here; you will understand, you will appreciate my reasons, and know why this place, which has been a dear home to me, the only real home I have ever known, has become unendurable now, at any rate for a time.”
His voice failed him, and he broke down. Recovering himself with an effort, he went on:
“I know it seems abominably hard-hearted, ungrateful even, suddenly to leave the best and kindest friends I have, in this way, to say nothing of the possible inconvenience to you. Yet I am going to trespass even more upon your large-heartedness. I am going to ask you to help me to leave quietly, not to make it known that I have done so until after I am gone, and even then to let it be supposed that something I heard through the post has compelled my departure. Is this too much? I do not ask it so much for my own sake, as for—for another’s.”
Mr Brathwaite mused a moment.
“You’re sure you’re right about this, Arthur?” he said. “Well, I suppose you are; you’re hardly the sort of fellow to do a thing by halves. Now listen: if things are as bad as you say, I think your plan is a good one. Go away for a change, and do some travel or up-country hunting. You’re naturally a restless man, and a little excitement and change may do you a world of good now. As to any inconvenience to me, that’s nothing. We are not very busy just now, and though we shall all miss you terribly, Hicks and I will manage to rub along somehow. And I’ll do what you want about getting off. When do you want to leave?”
“To-night, or to-morrow morning, rather. There’s a good moon now, nearly at half.”
“All right; but look here, my boy. Don’t remain away from us a minute longer than you feel inclined; and whatever happens, or wherever you may be, remember that my door is always open to you, all you have to do is to walk in and make your home with us, as long as we are above ground if you feel inclined. Now we’d better be going. You are looking very ill; get on my horse, I’ll walk a bit.”
But this the other firmly refused to do. “I feel much better now,” he said, “I’ll walk alongside.”
They were not very far from home, for Claverton’s wandering had been of a somewhat tortuous nature, so that he had got over a great deal of ground without covering much of actual distance. So they started upon their way back, and for the time he felt calmed by the other’s strong, manly sympathy; but it was the calm of exhaustion rather than that of relief.
Assuredly there were disturbing elements underlying the surface of the household at Seringa Vale, or, at any rate, of its younger members. Yet that evening, when they met, there was little or no sign of anything of the kind. Claverton looked rather worn and haggard, but not conspicuously so, and though quieter than usual, this was accounted for by one or two hints that Mr Brathwaite had let drop in accordance with the plan the two had agreed upon. Hicks, however, counterbalanced this by being uproariously lively on his own account. He had had a rare old time of it in the veldt that afternoon, having brought back a wild guinea-fowl, three partridges, and a red koorhaan slung to his saddle, the spoils of his bow and spear. “Not bad, you know,” as he said. “To say nothing of that other guinea-fowl and another partridge, too, that I ought to have got.”
“Why didn’t you get them, then?” asked Mr Brathwaite.
“Oh, I dropped them all right, but the grass was so long and they got away somehow,” at which reply the old man laughed meaningly, and remarked that Hicks was becoming such a crack shot that he felt himself bound to leave something for another time.
“By the way, where’s Lilian?” went on Mr Brathwaite, forgetting.
“She isn’t very well to-night,” replied his wife. “Poor child, I told her it was too hot to sit out this morning, and she stayed out too long. It’s only a headache, she says, that will be all right to-morrow. I made her go to bed early and sent her some tea in her room.”
“Well, yes, it has been rather warm to-day,” rejoined Mr Brathwaite. “She ought to be more careful.”
”—And then I heard no end of a cackling on the opposite bank,” continued Hicks, who was narrating how he had circumvented his quarry, “and I crawled along from bush to bush, and came bang into the middle of a lot of guinea-fowl. The ground was black with them—by George it was—perfectly black. Well, the beggars wouldn’t rise; they kept legging it along till I thought I should never get a shot.”
“Well, but don’t you know what you should have done then?” said Mr Brathwaite.
“What?”
“Why, shot one on the ground. They’d have got up then.”
So the evening wore on, and Claverton thought it would never end. Was it a subtle instinct that this would be their last meeting, he wondered, that made Ethel persist in talking to him the whole evening, while Laura and Gertie Wray were singing duets together, with Hicks in attendance turning over, usually at the wrong place, by the way, for which he was rewarded by a half-angry, half-amused glance from Gertie’s big blue eyes? Somehow or other, things reminded him of that earlier time there—before this turning-point in his by no means uneventful life—but he remembered it only as a far-away recollection. Then at last good-night was said all round, and he found himself alone, though not yet, for Mr Brathwaite followed him to his room just to say a more formal good-bye.
“So you haven’t changed your mind about going, Arthur? Well, I didn’t much think you would, and perhaps it’s best, for a time. You’ve got your horse I see, and we can send on anything you may want after you. The women will be sorry when they find you’ve gone. I’ll only say what I did this afternoon—come back when, and as soon as you like, the sooner the better. Good-bye, now, my boy. Don’t take things too much to heart, all comes right in time, as you’ll see when you get to my age.”
Claverton wrung his hand in silence, then the door closed on the figure of the old man. Would he ever see that kindly face and genial presence again?
He went round to the stable to see that his horse was all ready for him in the morning. Yes, there stood the fine chestnut, and it snorted and then whinnied as it recognised its master by the dim light of the stable-lantern. He cut up a bundle of forage and threw it into the manger.
“Ah, Fleck!” he said, as he stood watching the horse eat it. “You and I have had many a good time of it together, and now we’ll have many a bad time, but we’ll never part, old horse. That glossy skin of yours, which her hand used to stroke half timidly and her eyes used to look upon and admire, shall never belong to any one but me, go we north, south, east, or west.”
He patted the shining neck, and passed his hand down each of the smooth forelegs, and the horse, making one or two playful bites at his shoulder, whinnied again. Then he extinguished the lantern and went out of the stable.
“No use trying to go to sleep. I’ll take a walk.”
So saying he strolled away down into the kloof. The moon, nearly at half, was shining above, silvery and clear. Not a breath stirred the sleeping foliage, and, except that now and again something would rustle in the grass or bushes, the stillness was oppressive. He skirted the dam, whose dark glassy surface twinkled with the reflected stars, and passing through the gap in the quince hedge, stood under the old pear-tree, and the network of light beneath its moon-pierced shade was there still, but paler than that of the golden sun. A gleam of something lying on the ground caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a ring—two ropes of twisted gold welded together. Moved by the same instinct that chilled him the last time he held this trinket in his hand, he dropped it as if it had been some live thing. Then he changed his mind, and, picking it up again, slipped it into his pocket, intending to restore it to its owner, somehow. But the finding of it created a sudden revulsion of feeling—fierce resentment drove out the sad, heart-breaking thoughts with which he had come to that spot—and dark, murderous projects crowded upon his raging soul. Why could he not find out the original owner of that bauble, and remove him from his path? The end would more than justify the means. He had shot a man before to-night, merely to save his own life; and the stake to be won here was far more than his own life. He would keep the ring, it might be turned to account. Thus ruminating he passed through the wicket-gate, and on along the path towards the rocky pool. Here was where Lilian had started in alarm at the cry of the jackal that first evening; and then how happily they had conversed, wending their way down this path—but, be it remembered, with Death stalking the while unknown to them upon their footsteps.
At last he returned to the house, and re-entering his room threw himself upon his couch, sinking, from sheer exhaustion, into a troubled sleep. And the Southern Cross turned in the heavens, and the moon sank lower, and the world slumbered; but, at length, that worn-out brain was awake again.
Claverton rose, plunged his head into cold water, dressed himself for travelling, and within half an hour of awaking had saddled-up Fleck, and nothing remained but to start. Stay—something did remain. Where was his riding-crop? Then he remembered that he had left it in the dining-room. It had slipped down behind the sideboard, and something had diverted his attention at the time so that he had forgotten to pick it up. Noiselessly he turned the handle of the door and let himself into the dark passage; then into the dining-room, fearing lest the tread of his riding-boots or the creak of the floor should disturb the house; but no—all was still. He found the missing article just where he had left it; quietly he regained the passage again, in another instant he would be gone, when—What was that?
For the dining-room door, which he had just come through, was softly opened, and a figure stood at the end of the passage—a female figure—wrapped in a dressing-gown. Heavens! how his heart leaped! Had she yielded? Was this indeed her, come to cancel his departure? His thoughts were running so entirely upon her, or he would have seen that the figure before him was not tall enough for that of Lilian. But he turned towards it transfixed.
“Arthur,” whispered a voice, dispelling the illusion at once. “Arthur. You are going away—for good; I know you are.”
“Ethel! Good Heavens, child! What are you doing here?” he exclaimed in blank astonishment.
“You are going away,” she answered. “I guessed it last night. I could feel it, somehow. And you were going to leave us all without saying good-bye—to leave us without a word,” she went on in tones of suppressed excitement.
“Ethel, for goodness’ sake go back to your room at once,” said Claverton gently, yet firmly. “You don’t know what you are doing. Only think, if any one were to hear you and to come out now.”
To do him justice, he was anxious far more for her than for himself in the exceedingly awkward position in which her impulsiveness was in danger of placing them both.
“Oh, I don’t know what I am doing?” repeated the girl, bitterly, and stifling down a sob. “And you are very anxious to see the last of me; but remember this, Arthur. At any rate, I did not let you go without wishing you good-bye, however imprudent I may have been in doing so.”
“Ethel, believe me, I was thinking entirely for you. You never would think for yourself, you know,” he parenthesised, with a sad smile. “I can’t tell you how I appreciate your doing this; but I have too much regard for you to allow you to remain a moment longer. Now do go back to your room, if it is the last thing I ever ask you.”
For a moment the girl made no reply. A flood of moonlight streamed in at the open door, playing with her golden hair, which fell in waves upon her shoulders as she stood with her hands clasped before her.
“Good-bye, Arthur. And remember, I was the only one here who saw the very last of you,” she added in a tone of strange triumph, lifting her eyes suddenly to his. Was it that he had seen that look before in other eyes, and, recognising it, desired to save her from herself? Was it that in his mind was seared that last vow, uttered that morning and wrung from a breaking heart? Who may tell? He pressed both her little hands in his own, and, without again looking at her, passed through the doorway and was gone.
The red half-moon glowered in the sky, with its points turned angrily upwards, and a cloud-cap stole over the distant mountains one by one, spreading, creeping over the face of the land, and day broke. And in the cold grey dawn the wanderer rode on—on in the misty drizzle which swept through the dark spekboem sprays and made the big stones on the hillside, far and near, gleam like lumps of ice. Rain or shine, warmth or chill, it was nothing to him. Down the bush path, smooth or rugged; winding along a kloof; through a river; neither looking to the right nor to the left he held on his way, on, on—ever on.