You will wonder that a clever woman like my mother did not see through this systematic deceit; but she was bitterly annoyed at the issue of Clarence Fairfax’s attentions to me; she fancied herself pointed at by the finger of pity—you know how sensitive she is on this point—and she was impatient at my belief that Clarence had loved me. “Had he ever told me so seriously? Was I blind enough to believe him in earnest? He had never loved me; his regard, such as it was, was contemptible.”
More, much more, she said—I admitted that Clarence had never been my acknowledged lover; but—
“Are there no looks, mute, but most eloquent?”
I confessed that he was fickle—“And vain?”—“Yes.” “And selfish, and heartless, and unprincipled!”
I could not answer these allegations—I dared not say he had been the victim of a vicious woman, years older than himself, and deeply versed in intrigue. I had once ventured to speak in this strain, and had drawn forth words of scorn and anger, which my mother afterwards repented using, but which I ever dreaded to evoke again.
But the climax of Lyle’s art lay in an incident I shall record.
My father and I were riding one day, sauntering through a kloof, when we were overtaken by him. At the end of this kloof was a branch of a rapid stream. Here it was deep and dangerous; but my horse and I knew the ford well—Lyle rode a little behind me. In the middle of the stream my horse began to plunge among the stones—my father was a few yards in advance; he could not easily turn to my aid, owing to the strength of the current—I was alarmed, yet tried to restrain the animal, but he plunged the more; Lyle, with his powerful arm, drew me from my saddle, and bore me before him safely across the drift—my horse was swept down—it is the same old grey we pet sometimes; he was found two days after, hanging to a branch by his bridle, having found a footing on the bank.
Can you conceive a man afterwards boasting of this trick? It was Lyle who had made the animal plunge that he might rescue me, and thus place me under a supposed obligation for my life!
My mother insisted on my going into society—she was doubtless right; but you know what society consists of in a great garrison,—a few ladies, crowds of gentlemen, and some women, whose friendship is far from desirable; I believe some of the latter were unsparing in their scandalous chronicles of Cape Town, when Mrs Rashleigh and I were both made subjects of remark. The girl of seventeen, the daughter of a representative of authority, and of a mother whose abilities and lofty aspirations rendered her an object of fear and dislike with many, was not likely to be dealt with gently by these idle, frivolous, uneducated women; the story of Miss Daveney’s “liaison” with Captain Fairfax lost nothing in such hands; and although most of our earliest friends stood by us through good report and evil report, these were not many, and it was evident that the faith of some was shaken. Lyle took care that my father and mother should see this—he alluded to it with indignation, and avowed himself more devoted than ever—