Volume One—Chapter Twenty Three.
“Sunshine Outside—Ice at the Core.”
“After all, this is a glorious sort of life!” exclaimed Hicks, striking his hatchet into a thorn-stump and standing upright, in all the elation of his health and strength, to gaze at the sun—now rather more than an hour high—and then at the surrounding veldt, all dewy and sparkling.
“It is,” assented his companion, making a final chop at a thorn-bush which he had cut down. “Here, Tambusa, lay hold of that ‘tack’ and bang it up against the others. There. The devil himself would yell if chucked against that hedge now.”
For they were repairing sundry breaches in the fence of the wet-weather kraal.
Tambusa obeyed; but in the act of doing so stumbled, and, trying to save himself, sat right on the most thorny end of the branch he was manipulating.
“I never did see such a nigger for blundering,” laughed Claverton, as Tambusa, picking himself up, endeavoured to extract the sharp mimosa spikes which had stuck in his naked carcase. “Hang it, man; you had the whole district for as far round as you can see to sit down in, and yet you pick out such a seat as that.”
The Kafir grinned dolefully, not much relishing this keen jest; but he liked its propounder, and so he grinned.
“Yes. It’s a glorious life,” continued Hicks, bent on philosophising, apparently. “One never feels off one’s chump. Suits a fellow down to the ground.”
“It does,” acquiesced the other. “By the way, I hear the Brathwaite girls are going away next week.”
“Eh!—what? No. Who told you that?” cried Hicks, turning sharply.
“Oh! didn’t you know? My informant was Ethel herself. I thought you knew.”
Hicks looked “off his chump” enough now, to use his own expression, and his companion’s satirical soul discovered something irresistibly comic in this sudden transition from elation to crestfallenness, which would have amused him vastly, but that the laugh was not entirely on his own side. So he only repeated: “I made sure you knew.”
“No, I didn’t. But, I say, though, that’s a blue look out. I don’t know how we shall get on without them, it’ll be slow as slow can be,” and then, remembering that his companion might have good reasons for not agreeing with this latter statement, Hicks stopped short, and began blundering out something about “it making all the difference, you know, having a lot of people in the house—or only a few.”
“Let’s knock off,” suggested Claverton. “We’re about done here. Tambusa, lug along those ‘tacks,’ we’ll bang them up somewhere and go.”
It was a couple of days after the fishing picnic, and just each a morning. There had been plenty of work of one kind or another to occupy the whole of the time since then; but to-day they would only ride round the place, and give an eye to the stock, picking up, perchance, a stray shot or two on the way.
“Arthur,” said Mr Brathwaite, meeting the two young men on the stoep. “Driscoll’s just sent over to say he can take you down to see that place of his to-day. I advise you to ride over there and go with him. It’s a good place, and going for a mere song. I’d think twice, if I were you, before letting it slip.”
“You’re right; I’ll go over and see it. But could you come too, and give me the benefit of your experience?”
“I can’t to-day, I’m afraid. It’s a long way, and I don’t feel up to it. Still, you have a good eye to the capabilities of a place, I should say. Anyhow, go and look at it.”
On second thoughts, Claverton was rather glad. He would be more the master of his own movements if alone, and would be able to return as soon as possible, whereas, at the ordinary regulation speed, the undertaking would carry him through the whole day.
“Have you far to go?” asked Lilian, as after breakfast he sat buckling on his spurs in the passage.
“Yes; it’s a good way. I may not be back till nearly dark,” he answered, ruefully, taking down his riding-crop from the peg. “But to-day I’m going to imagine myself riding another fellow’s horse with my own spurs. I may as well be off, there’s that little chatterbox, Gertie, bearing down upon us. Good-bye.”
He mounted and rode off in a very discontented frame of mind. What did he care if any one made him a present of the whole continent of Africa, if he were not to win her? The days were so precious and so few now, and here he was throwing away a whole one for the sake of a wretched “bargain.” He wouldn’t go—he would let the thing slide—he would turn back. And his face, as he rode, wore an aspect of troubled preoccupation.
Turning from the door, Lilian encountered Gertie Wray in the passage.
“Oh, there you are, Lilian,” exclaimed that volatile young lady. “I was just coming to look for you. Do come and teach me that lovely song you promised to, last night. We shall have it all to ourselves. Ethel and Laura are fixed for the morning with Mrs Brathwaite, making dresses or something.”
“Very well, dear,” assented Lilian, always ready to oblige others. She was not feeling inclined just then to sit hammering out accompaniments for a not very apt learner to murder a song to; but self came second with her. So she did her best to instil the desired accompaniment into the other’s understanding; but in about half an hour her pupil got tired of it.
“I think I shall sit indoors and read,” said Gertie. “It’s too hot to go out.”
“Is it? I like the heat,” said Lilian. “I think I shall go for one of what you call my ‘somnambulisms.’”
“And a very good name for them,” laughed the other. “To see you walking along, so still and stately, any one would think you were walking in your sleep, but that your eyes are open. Well, go for your ‘somnambulism,’ my peerless Lilian, only don’t get too much in the sun or you’ll get freckles,” and the speaker nestled down comfortably in a chair in a cool corner to while away the morning over a novel.
“You silly child,” replied Lilian, laughing as she bent down to kiss her. “You’ll be asleep yourself, really and in good effect, in about half an hour at that rate. Good-bye.”
She went out, and paused for a moment on the stoep with head gracefully poised and the beautiful figure erect as she stood gazing, with eyes opened wide, upon the glories of the sun-steeped landscape. Then she picked up a volume which lay on a chair under the verandah.
“I’ll sit and read a little on that comfortable old seat under the large pear-tree when I’m tired,” she thought, and, with the book in her hand, she passed on, down between the orange-trees, and out through the gate in the wooden fence, where the great scarlet-cactus blossoms twined in all their prismatic gorgeousness. Now and then she would stop and bend down to pick a wild flower or to examine some queer insect, and the warm glow of the summer morning seemed to favour her scheme of solitude and meditation. It was hot, but she loved the warmth, there was nothing of enervation in it to her; on the contrary, her thoughts and intellect never had clearer or freer play than on a day like this.
Dreamily and in meditative mood, Lilian wandered on; along the wall of the mealie-land, where the tall stalks spread their broad, drooping leaves, and many a white tufted ear, just bursting through its vernal husk, gave promise of an abundant crop; past the dam, where she lingered a moment to mark the clear shadows in its burning waters now cleft into ripples as, one by one, the mud-turtles, who had been basking on the bank, shuffled their slimy, flat shapes in with an ungainly slide; then by the ostrich camp, whose fierce occupant lazily ambled towards the wall, and then stopped half-way as if changing his mind. Dreamily still she leaned, looking over the wall, her taper fingers gathering together little fragments of stone, which, hardly knowing what she did, she threw into the enclosure, as if enticing the bird to approach. Then turning to pursue her way, behold, a high quince hedge barred it.
“How tiresome!” she said to herself. “I shall have to go such a long way round.”
But she had not. A friendly gap opened a few yards further down, and, passing through it, she found herself in a wild, seldom visited part of the garden. Here tangled grass flourished in delightful confusion; and tall fig-trees, branching overhead, cast the sunlight in a network upon the shadowy ground, while among the topmost boughs a few spreuws lazily piped to each other as they revelled in the purple fruit. Then an open bit and sunshine, and the boughs of a large peach-tree swept nearly to the earth, as though to lay its load at her feet. She plucked off one of the peaches, and pressed its blushing, velvety skin against her own soft cheek.
“It seems almost a pity to eat such lovely fruit,” she murmured. “They look so smooth and delicate.”
Still turning over the peach in her hands, she swept aside the long drooping boughs of a great espalier. A rustic seat was fixed to the trunk, forming a shady nook—though sun-pierced here and there in a qualified degree—and on this she sat down. The surrounding branches falling around, shut in the spot as if it were a tent.
“It is delicious here, after that glare. I wonder who made this seat,” mused Lilian, throwing off her hat and preparing to discuss her peach and otherwise enjoy to the full the glories of the golden noontide. Mechanically she opened the book she had caught up as she came out; but without attempting to read. The call of birds echoed through the leafy arches; bees droned in subdued murmur; now and again a tree-cricket broke the quietude with a shrill screech; the air, though not close or sultry, was rich and warm and languorous, and presently Lilian’s thoughts began to get confused; her eyes closed; then the book slid from her lap. The influences of the prevailing calm had conquered—she slept.
And what a picture she made, reclining against the rough, twisted arm of the old rustic seat, one hand supporting the graceful head, and the delicate oval face, with its refined beauty of feature! The long lashes lay in a dark fringe upon each smooth cheek, which, lovingly kissed by the warm, generous air, was tinged with a faint but inexpressibly charming flush. The sweet, red lips were closed, but without a trace of hardness in their tender curves; and the whole attitude one of ease, abandonment, and yet of infinite grace in its every contour. A figure thoroughly in harmony with the place, clime, and hour. A lovely picture indeed.
So thought its only spectator, as, with a rapturous yearning pain at his heart, he noiselessly moved aside the trailing boughs and stepped within their shade. He would not disturb the spell, but stood gazing entranced upon the slumbering form in all its wealth of refinement of beauty.
A large pear fell to the ground with a dull thud. Lilian stirred uneasily, then half rose, letting fall the hand she had been leaning upon. It was seized in a firm grasp by two other hands, and in tones wherein earnest tenderness struggled with a gleeful laugh, a voice whispered:
“One doesn’t wear gloves on the frontier, or what a chance of being set up in them for life!”
The long lashes unclosed, and she started ever so slightly. It was too much. The hot blood rushed through Claverton’s veins as though it were molten liquid, and lifting her from the seat, he pressed her to him, raining down warm, passionate kisses upon her lips, forehead, eyes, and the soft dark hair which lay against his cheek, whispering wild, delirious words of love and entreaty. Then he felt ashamed of his fierce impulsiveness—his brutality as it seemed, in taking her at a disadvantage. Was she angry or humiliated, or both? She made no resistance as he held her there. Or had he about frightened her to death? Then he held her from him.
“You—here?” she cried, in astonishment; but there was no anger in her tone, although a lovely blush suffused her face, even to the very roots of her dark hair. “I thought you were going to be away all day. You told me you would hardly get back before night.”
“I thought better of it. I couldn’t remain away from you anything like so long; wherefore I turned back. That’s the plain, unvarnished truth. Am I not improving in veracity?”
“Oh! I am hurting your hand!” she exclaimed, suddenly becoming aware that her fingers had been leaning hardly on the place where the scorpion had stung him. No fault of hers, by the way, for she could not have withdrawn them if she would.
“Say, rather, you are healing it. Your touch would have more effect in that line, with me, than that of a whole legion of Apostles,” he replied, still holding her.
“Hush! You must not talk like that,” said she, gently. Then, referring to the sting: “But I ought not to lecture you, when it was done for me. Ah, why do you take such care of me?” she cried, in conclusion, and her eyes were brimming.
“Why do—Oh, I do take care of you, then, do I?”
“Always. If I want anything, you are sure to have it ready. If ever I have a misgiving about anything, you are sure to be there to dispel it and reassure me. In fact, I can’t walk a yard but you are spreading metaphorical carpets before my feet. And yet—Oh, Arthur, why did we ever meet?”
She turned away from him, standing with hands clasped before her, and her eyes fixed on the ground.
“Why did we ever meet?” he repeated, again drawing her to him and bending down to whisper in her ear, a low, quick, passionate whisper. “Because you and I were made for each other. Because we were brought together here, both of us, from the other side of the world on purpose for each other. Darling, that was the first thought that flashed through me the very moment I saw you that first day. All of me before that, was a different self; I hardly recognise it, now. You remember that night by the water—it was the hardest blow I ever had, that that little hand dealt me. But I wouldn’t take it as final, I wouldn’t give it up, and now I’ve served my apprenticeship fairly well, haven’t I? What you’ve just said tells me that, even if nothing else did.”
There was a frightened, despairing look in her eyes; her lips moved as if she were trying to speak, but the words would not come, and she made as if she would draw away from him.
“Lilian—sweetest—life of my life! Don’t look so frightened, darling,” he cried, in a tone of thrilling tenderness. “Remember what you have just told me, and for God’s sake don’t look so frightened. Tell me now that you are going to give me the care of your whole life—your sweet, love-diffusing life. Tell me this: Haven’t I fairly established a claim to it? Look at the sunshine around. That shall be an earnest of your life, if you give it to me. My darling—my more than Heaven—only say you will.”
He paused, hanging breathlessly on the reply. Again she struggled to speak. The tension was fearful. Would she faint or die? Then he bent his ear yet lower to catch two words hoarsely whispered:
“I—cannot!”
And then again the black bolt of despair shot through Claverton’s heart. This was the last throw of the dice, the last chance, and he felt it was. Hitherto he had been almost confident in his hopefulness, now the cup was dashed to the ground. Thus they stood for a space, neither speaking. To Lilian it seemed as if the hour of her death had come, and with her own hand she must drive home the weapon—down, down to her very heart. The stray sunbeams crept along the ground beneath the old pear-tree, insects hummed, and a bird twittered in the radiant light without, and all told of calm and peace, and the very air seemed like a glow from Heaven. With that mysterious instinct which stamps upon the mind the veriest trifles at the time of some momentous crisis, she marked the efforts of two large black ants who were carrying the dead body of a cricket up the trunk of the tree; and to the end of her days she would remember the persevering attempts of the laborious insects as they dragged their burden, regardless of check or stumble, over the rough bark of the old espalier. It seemed to her that hours had passed instead of moments. Then he spoke, but his voice had lost its confident, hopeful ring. “Don’t say that. Say you can, and you will!” She tried to lift her head, to speak firmly, but the attempt was a failure.
“I cannot,” she repeated. “Forget me—hate me, if you will,” and she shuddered; but he clasped her closer to him. “I can be nothing to you. I am bound—tied—bound firmly. Nothing can release me—nothing!”
A look so stony and awful came into Claverton’s face that, had she seen it, she would inevitably have fainted away then and there.
“Oh, Lilian! It can’t be—that you are—that—you are—married?” he gasped, and his brow was livid as he hang upon her answer.
“No,” she replied, “I am not—that,” and again she shuddered.
For a moment the other did not speak, but his face would have made a study passing curious as he analysed the position. In the midst of the shock his coolness seemed to have come back to him in a sudden and dangerous degree.
“Listen, now, Lilian,” he said. “You are under a promise to some one—a rash, hasty promise. That much I might almost have seen for myself. I don’t care whether it was made in Heaven or in hell; but you are going to annul it, and to annul it in favour of me. For it was a rash promise, and if you keep it you will be doing evil that good may come of it. Your own creed would tell you that much, and would forbid it, too.”
“You don’t care for this man, whoever he is,” went on Claverton, having paused for her reply, but none came, “and he doesn’t care for you, or he would never have allowed you to throw yourself on the world’s tender mercies as he has done,” and his voice grew hard at the thought. “You don’t care for him, and you do—for—me,” he said, in a desperation which rose far above conventionalities of speech.
Again she made no reply, so he continued; but now his tones were very soft and pleading.
“Yes, you do for me, darling. I could see it. Haven’t I seen your sweet face light up at my approach? Haven’t I noticed the softening in that exquisite voice when you turned to me? You remember when I came back that time we went after the stolen oxen,” (referring to an episode which had involved a three days’ absence from Seringa Vale). “You were so glad to see me, then, sweetest. There was no mistaking the speech of those divine eyes of yours. There’s no conceit in my saying this, because love sometimes begets love, and have not I poured out the whole of mine at your feet? And I should be a fool not to see that you had been happy when with me. Oh, my darling, I cannot lose you. We cannot part. Only think of it! How can we? What will life be worth? Lilian, I won’t live without you. Only give me your future, your past shall never trouble you in your future’s sunshine. This wretched promise, it is nothing. It was made unthinkingly; you must retract it. You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise. You cannot, you dare not?”
He was terribly in earnest. There was something heartrending in the wild and, as it were, clinging tones of his entreaty, as he saw the prize slipping from his grasp just as he had thought to win it. He had played a bold stake, but it was his last, and the game must be boldly played if it was to be won.
To Lilian the moment was awful. She looked up at the dark, pleading face bent over her, drank in every tone of the strong, earnest voice. It was maddening, delirious. Ah! what happiness might be hers! She would yield. Then came the recollection of another face, another voice none the less pleading, a promise given, spoken low in a darkened chamber and at the side of a deathbed, but spoken in all pure faith and trust, a promise which was to hold good to the end of time, come weal, come woe. A promise—and such a promise—was sacred. She might tear out her own heart in keeping it, but it must be kept. Oh, God! this was indeed awful. Would she be able to bear up much longer, or would she die? And in her ears kept ringing his voice—his loving, earnest, firm voice—firm now, though at times so terribly shaken. “You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise.” And the picture he had drawn for her! Oh, no; the price to be paid was to be counted in tears of blood, but a promise is sacred to the end of time.
“Only think of the future, Lilian,” he whispered, entreatingly. “The future, the bright future. Always sunny like this,” glancing at the surroundings. “An earnest of our lives. Yours and mine.”
With a low cry she tore herself from his hold and sank down upon the rustic seat.
“Ah, don’t tempt me!” she wailed, despairingly, with her face buried in her hands. “You don’t know what you are saying. Why do you tempt me like this? It is not fair, it is not manly of you.”
The first words of reproach he had ever heard pass her lips—and they were addressed to him!
“I want to save two lives from shipwreck,” he said. “Yours and mine.”
“Then listen,” she said, sitting up, and for the first time speaking firmly. “You must forget all this—you must forget me—hate me, if you will, for having brought you to this. I told you from the first that I could give you no hope whatever, and yet I was selfish enough to ask you to undertake a one-sided bargain. All through, I have been deceiving you, more and more. Think me utterly heartless—but forget me. And you—you have urged me to break a sacred promise for you,” she went on in a hard, dry, monotonous voice, as unlike her usual tones as it was possible to be. “Arthur Claverton, I have treated you shamefully. You will always; look back upon my memory with the scorn and contempt it deserves; but on one point you are wrong: I do not love you!”
“You do.”
The answer came quietly and confidently, as if he had been setting her right upon some trivial point under discussion.
She looked up at him with burning, tearless eyes; for she wae about to pluck her very heart out.
“What! you refuse to believe me? I must have sunk low in your estimation. I have told you the truth, and—and—you must leave me. Will you?” she went on, speaking fast in her fear lest she should break down in the act of sacrifice. “Will you go quite away until I leave this place? It will only be for a few days now, and it will be best for both of us. Will you do this for me?”
“No.”
“No? You will not? Then that is the extent of your love for me?” she said. “Ah! now I know you.”
Claverton reeled giddily, as if her words had struck him, as he stood facing her. He passed his hand across his eyes as though to clear away a mist. Was it indeed Lilian Strange who sat there before him, dealing out her pitiless, scornful words in that hard, steely voice—Lilian Strange, his ideal of all that was tender, and loving, and pitiful—or had some beautiful demon assumed her form to torment him? He felt half inclined to break away, and dash off to the house, where he would find the real Lilian in all her truth and sweetness. No; he was under a spell.
Taking a couple of turns of half-a-dozen steps, he again stood before her.
“Lilian, do you indeed mean what you say?” he asked, in a quiet, hopeless tone. “Are you really going to drive me from you? I will go—your lightest wish has ever been sacred to me. After this day you will never see me again; but that will be nothing to you. I see I was quite mistaken, darling,” he said, wishing to spare her the humiliation of thinking that he knew her love to be his, “quite mistaken. Forgive me—it was my fault, not yours—but it does not matter now, we shall never meet again. Am I to stay or—go?”
She did not lift her eyes to his—she did not move from her fixed, rigid position; but, hoarsely her lips framed a single small word:
“Go.”
With a quick shudder, as one who feels the stab of a knife, Claverton heard it. And he knew there was no disputing the decree.
“Lilian, for the love of my whole life which I have laid down before you—for the sake of the time that is past—give me one more kiss before we part for ever.”
He bent down to her, and she did not resist. He took her to his heart, but the burning eyes, dilated and tearless, did not seek his; he pressed one long, warm, passionate kiss upon her pallid lips, such as he might have done if he had been looking upon her for the last time ere the lid of her coffin was shut down, but she made no response. Then he released her.
“There. No other woman’s lips shall meet mine, after this, till the grave closes over me—Lilian—my darling love—Heaven send you all happiness—Good-bye!”
Still she did not look up. She could not, she dared not. There was a rustle as the surrounding branches were parted, a sound as of retreating footsteps, and he was gone. Then, as the last of his footsteps died away, Lilian fell prone to the ground, and, with her face buried in her hands, sobbed as if her heart was reft in twain. She had driven him away—driven him from her with scornful words and with a lie—he, whose love was to her as something more than life. Now she had kept her promise. She had been true to that sacred bond, but at what a cost! She had torn out her own heart, and her act of self-immolation was complete. Never again in life would she see him whom she had now sent from her. Ah God! it was terrible.
So she lay with her face to the earth, watering it with her tears. Yet the sun continued to shine above; the sky was all cloudless in its azure glory; bright butterflies glanced from leaf to leaf; birds piped blithely and called to each other; all nature rejoiced in the golden forenoon; and there, prostrate on the grass, lay the beautiful form of that stricken woman pouring out her very heart in tears. For the light of her life had gone out, and her own was the hand that had quenched it.