Chapter Eight.
“You are in Love with her.”
Bright and clear and cold, the morning arose. There had been a touch of frost in the night, and the house, lying back in its enclosure of aloe fence, looked as though roofed with a sheeting of silver in the sparkle of the rising sun. The spreading veldt, too, in the flash of its dewy sheen, seemed to lend a deeper blue to the dazzling, unclouded vault above. The metallic clatter of milk-pails in the cattle-kraal hard by mingled with the deep-toned hum of Kaffir voices; a troop of young ostriches turned loose were darting to and fro, or waltzing, and playfully kicking at each other; and so still and clear was the air, that the whistling call of partridges down in an old mealie land nearly a mile away was plainly audible.
“Where’s West?” Bayfield was saying, as three out of the four men were standing by the gate, finishing their early coffee.
“Oh, he’s a lazy beggar,” answered Earle, putting down his cup on a stone. “He don’t like turning out much before breakfast-time.”
“I believe you’ll miss some of your fowls this morning, Earle,” said Blachland. “There was a cat or something after them last night. They were kicking up the devil’s own row outside our window. Percy wanted to try a shot at it, whatever it was, but I choked him off that lay because I thought it’d scare the house.”
“Might have been a two-legged cat,” rejoined Earle. “And it isn’t worthwhile shooting even a poor devil of a thieving nigger for the sake of a chicken or two.”
“Who are you wanting to shoot, Mr Earle?”
“Ah! Good morning, Mrs Fenham. Blachland was saying there was a cat or something after the fowls last night, and it was all he could do to keep West from blazing off a gun at it. I suggested it might have been a two-legged cat—ha—ha!”
“Possibly,” she answered with a smile. “I’m going to take a little stroll. It’s such a lovely morning. Will you go with me, Mr Blachland?”
“Delighted,” was the answer.
The two left behind nudged each other.
“Old Blachland’s got it too,” quoth Earle, with a knowing wink. “I say, though, the young ’un ’ll be ready to cut his throat when he finds he’s been stolen a march on. They all seem to tumble when she comes along. I say, Bayfield, you’ll be the next.”
“When I am I’ll tell you,” was the placid reply. “Let’s go round to the kraals.”
“Well, Hilary, and how am I looking? Rather well, don’t you think?”
She was dressed quite simply, but prettily, and wore a plain but very becoming hat. The brisk, clear cold suited her dark style, and had lent colour to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes—and the expression of the latter now, as she turned them upon her companion, was very soft.
“Yes. Rather well,” he answered, not flinching from her gaze, yet not responding to it.
“More than ‘rather’ well, you ought to say,” she smiled. “And now, Hilary, what have you been doing since we parted? Tell me all about yourself.”
Most men would have waxed indignant over her cool effrontery in putting things this way. This one, she knew, would do nothing of the sort. If anything, it rather amused him.
“Doing? Well, I began by nearly dying of fever. Would have quite, if Sybrandt hadn’t tumbled in by accident and pulled me through it.”
“Poor old Hilary!—What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing much. Something funny struck me, that’s all. But you were always deficient in a sense of the ridiculous, Hermia, so it’s not worth repeating. You wouldn’t see it. By-the-way, when I was lying ill, a squad of Matabele came around, under that swab Muntusi, and looted a little, and assegai-ed the two piccaninnies.”
“What? Tickey and Primrose? Oh, poor little beasts!”
“I couldn’t move a finger, of course—weak as a cat. In fact, I didn’t know what had happened till afterwards.”
Again the humour of the situation struck him irresistibly. The matter-of-course way in which she was asking and receiving the news just as though they had parted quite in ordinary fashion and merely temporarily, was funny. But it was Hermia all over.
“I’d become sick of it by that time,” he went on. “So I sold out everything, and came down country.”
“To think of your being at the Bayfields’ all this while, Hilary. And you didn’t know I was here?”
“Hadn’t the ghost of a notion. Of course I had heard you were here, but there was nothing to lead me to locate you as ‘Mrs Fenham.’ By the way, Hermia, what on earth made you strike out in the line of instructor of youth? No. It’s really too funny.”
“Isn’t it?” she said ingenuously. “It often amuses me too. I did it for a freak—and—a reason.”
“But why ‘Fenham’? You haven’t really married any—er—fool of that name?”
“Not a bit. Thanks for the implied compliment all the same. The name did as well as any other. That’s all.”
“What has become of Spence?”
“I don’t know, and don’t care. He turned out rather a cur,” she answered with a light laugh, showing no more confusion or restraint in alluding to the circumstance, than he had done when first she broached the subject of their parting. “I had more than enough of him in three months, and couldn’t stand the sight of him in five. He had just succeeded to a lot of money, you know, and became afflicted with swelled head there and then; in fact, became intolerably bumptious.”
“Yes, I heard that from Skelsey, just when I was wondering hard how Spence was in a sudden position to undertake a—well, not inexpensive liability.”
She gave him a little punch on the arm—not ill-naturedly, for she was rather amused.
“It’s mean of you to say that, Hilary. Come now, you can’t say you found it an ‘expensive liability.’”
“Well, I’ll concede I didn’t, Hermia—not pecuniarily, that is. But it isn’t to say that Spence would not have. I thought you were going to make a serious business of it that time. Why didn’t you? You had hooked your fish, and seemed to be playing him all right. Then, just when you ought to have gaffed him—up goes the top joint, whipping aloft, and the fish is off.”
“He was a cur, and I’m well rid of him,” she returned, and there was a hard, vindictive gleam in her dark eyes. “I did mean serious business, and so did he—very much so. Do you know what choked him off, Hilary? It was when he learned there was no necessity for you to set me free—that I was free as air already. While he thought I was beyond his reach, he declared he was only living for the day when I was no longer so. But, directly he found I was quite within it, and had been all along, he cooled off with a sort of magical rapidity.”
“Yes. Human nature is that way—and here too, there was an additional psychological motive. The knowledge would be likely to make a difference, you know. Knock a few chips out of your—er—prestige.”
She burst out laughing. “You have a neat, but rather horrid way of putting things, Hilary. Yes. I quite see what you mean.”
He made no reply, and for some moments they strolled on in silence. He could not refuse to entertain a certain amount of admiration for the consummate and practical coolness of this woman. She would make an ideal adventuress. Nor did he in the very least believe that she was destined to come to grief—as by all the rules of morality he ought to have believed. That was not the way of life. She would probably end by entrapping some fool—either very old, or very young—endowed with infinitely more bullion or valuable scrip than gumption or self-control, and flashing out into a very shining light of pattern respectability.
“What are you thinking about, Hilary?” she said at last, stealing a side look at him. “Are you still the least little bit angry with me about—er—about things?”
“Not in the least. I never was. You had had enough of me—we had had enough of each other. The only thing to do was to separate. You may remember I told you so not long before?”
“I remember. And, Hilary—You would not—stand in my way if—”
“Certainly not. If you can humbug, to your advantage, any fool worth humbugging, that’s no business on earth of mine—”
“Ah, that’s just what I thought of you, Hilary,” she said, her whole face lighting up with animation. “You were always a head and shoulders above any other man I ever knew.”
”—But—” he resumed, lifting a warning hand as he stopped and faced her. “There is one and one only I must warn you off, and that most uncompromisingly.”
“Who is it?”
The very tone was hard and rasping, and her face had gone pale. All the light and animation had died out of her eyes as she raised them to his.
“That unspeakable young ass of a cousin of mine—Percy West.”
“But—why?”
“Hermia, think. How on earth can you ask such a question? The boy is like a younger brother to me, and on no consideration whatever will I stand by and allow his life to be utterly spoiled, wrecked and ruined at the very outset.”
“Why should his life be wrecked or ruined?” she said sullenly, but with averted gaze. “I could make him very happy.”
“For how long? And what then? No. Knowing what we know, it could not be. The thing is impossible—utterly impossible, I tell you. You must simply give up all idea or thought of it.”
“And if I refuse?”
“But you won’t refuse. Good Heavens! haven’t you got the whole world to pick and choose from, but you must needs come here and make a fool of this boy?”
“I didn’t come here and ‘make a fool of him.’ I was here already when he came. I told you I had a reason for stopping here. Well—that is it.”
“It was to tell me this that you arranged to meet me alone,” went on Blachland. “I conclude it wasn’t merely for the pleasure of having a talk over old times. Am I right?”
“Perfectly.”
“Well, then, Hermia, I can’t agree to it. Do be reasonable. You have the whole world to choose from, and you may rely upon it that in any other connection I will never stand in your way by word or act. But in this I will. Why are you so bent on winning this boy? He isn’t wealthy, and never will be, except by his own exertions, i.e. the development of some potential but hitherto undiscovered vein of rascality in his nature. He is much younger than you, too.”
“So you were careful enough to tell him last night,” she flashed. “That was mean of you.”
“Last night!” echoed the other, for the moment taken aback, for Percival had certainly had no opportunity of communicating with her at all that morning.
“Why, yes. I heard you. Remember the ‘bushcat’ that was disturbing the fowls? I was the ‘bushcat’!” And again she broke into a ringing peal of laughter.
“Eh?”
“I was the ‘bushcat,’ I tell you,” she repeated. “That window of yours is very convenient. I heard every word you said to each other. It was very mean of you, Hilary, to try and set him against me.”
“Well, if you heard every word, you must admit that I might have set him against you a great deal more than I did. Moreover, Hermia, I believe I was the unconscious means of saving your life by refusing to open the window and let him shoot. So you owe me a little gratitude after all.”
“No, I don’t,” came the prompt response. “You don’t suppose I’d have waited there to be shot at, do you? Why, directly you touched the window to open it. I’d have made myself scarce. You don’t catch this weasel asleep.”
“Evidently not,” he answered dryly. As a matter of fact she had heard very little indeed of their conversation, only a scrap here and there. For the rest, she had been drawing a bow at a venture.
“Now, Hermia,” he went on, “Let’s have the motive—there’s always a motive, you know. You can’t really care for this youngster—let alone love him—”
“Oh, as for love—You know, Hilary, I never loved any one but you—” she broke off, almost passionately—“never—before or since.”
“Well then, if in that case you couldn’t stick to me, how are you going to stick to this one when you don’t even love him? You know you never would. And he’s got nothing of his own to speak of, and never will have more when you have estranged him from the only relative he has who can help him.”
“But I needn’t estrange him from anybody. Nothing need ever be known.”
“Let’s turn back,” said Hilary. “We have gone far enough. And now, Hermia, I’ll tell you straight. If you don’t give Percy to understand this very morning that you have changed your mind, and will on no account consent to marry him, I shall put him in possession of all the facts concerning ourselves.”
“You will?” she said. “You will do that?”
She had stopped short, and with eyes burning from her pale face, and breast heaving, she stood defiant, facing him, with a very blast of hate and fury in her look.
“Certainly I will,” he returned sternly, and absolutely undaunted. “I forbid this thing—forbid it utterly.”
“He won’t believe you,” she jeered. “Even if he does, he won’t care, he loves me too well. It’ll make no difference to him.”
“I think it will though. In fact I’m sure it will. There was young Spence. He loved you just as well, but it made a good deal of difference to him.”
“Very well, Hilary. Play your hand by all means. Throw your best card, but I can trump it. I have a better hand than you. I hold all the honours, and you shan’t even take the odd trick.”
“Explain,” he said shortly, with, however, more than an inkling as to her meaning.
“Well, I will then. You give me away. I give you away. See?”
“Oh, perfectly. But it’ll make no difference. You can’t injure me, and I wouldn’t for the world injure you—but—I won’t allow this scandalous affair to go any further, no, not at any cost!”
“I can’t injure you, can’t I?” she said, dropping out her words slowly, a sneer of deadly malice spreading over her face. “No? What will the Bayfields say when they hear what you and I have been to each other?”
With infinite self-control, he commanded his features, trusting they did not betray any inkling of the direful sinking of heart with which he grasped the import of her words. He was not altogether taken by surprise, for he had taken such a possibility into account—as a possibility, not a probability.
“That can’t be helped. At any cost I told you I should prevent this. At any cost mind, and at a far greater loss to myself than even that would be. And—I will.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” and the jeering laughter, shrill in its hate and vengeful malevolence, rang out clear on the sweet morning air. “Ha-ha-ha! But I don’t think you’ve altogether counted the cost, my Hilary. How about Lyn—your sweet, pure, innocent Lyn? What will she say when she knows? What will her father say when they both know—that you have allowed her to be under the same roof with—to grasp in ordinary social friendship the hand of your—for years—most devoted and affectionate... housekeeper?”
Well was it for the speaker, well for both of them, that the words were uttered here, and not in the far-away scene of the life to which she referred. For a second, just one brief second, the man’s eyes flashed the murder in his soul. With marvellous self-restraint, but with dry lips and face a shade pale, he answered:
“That would be a regrettable thing to happen. But, it doesn’t shake my determination. I don’t see, either, how the outraging of other people’s finer feelings is going to benefit you, or, to any appreciable extent, injure me.”
“Don’t you? Why, in that event, the sweet, pure, and beautiful Lyn—yes, she is beautiful—I’d concede that and more—will bid you an extremely cold and curt farewell—even if she condescends to speak to you again at all for the remainder of your natural life.”
“That too, would be regrettable, and would pain me. But we should have to say good-bye sooner or later.”
“No, Hilary. You never intended to say anything of the sort. You can’t fool me, you see.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Again the jeering laugh rang out. “What am I talking about?” she echoed, quite undaunted by the curt, stern tones. “You know perfectly well. You are over head and ears in love with her.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? It is though,” she answered, her eyes fixed full upon his and rippling into mischievous laughter. “Why, you have grown quite pale at the bare mention of it! Shall I say it again? You are over head and ears in love with her. And—I wonder if she is with you?”
“Oh, hold your scandalous tongue, woman,” he rejoined wearily, knowing better than to delight her by exhibiting what must necessarily be impotent anger. “Really, you are rendering yourself absolutely and uncompromisingly loathsome. Again I say you must give up this scheme. I will prevent it at any cost.”
“Well, you know what the cost is—and if you don’t, it isn’t for want of warning. Keep quiet and so will I. Interfere with my plans and I’ll wreck all yours. Give me away and I’ll give you away, and then we’ll see which comes out best. Now we are nearly back at the house again, so you’d better be civil, or, what is more important still, look it.”
[a/]