That evening Ormsby went to Mr Daveney, and solicited leave to pay his addresses to his daughter Marion.
Mr Daveney desired time to think; but, at any rate, refused to hear of a definite engagement until the young soldier had reconsidered the subject, and written home to his father for “consent and approbation.” Nay, the honest-hearted settler—Mr Daveney and his wife often referred to themselves as settlers—would have had the young man return to his regiment without delay, that he might try the test of time and absence, before Marion was even consulted; but despatches suddenly arrived, bringing accounts of the result of the great meeting with the chiefs, who, contrary to their usual practice, breathed nothing but war and defiance in the very teeth of the authorities. It was clear, the borders of the colony could not be passed with any chance of safety. There seemed no alternative now but to await the reiteration of the war-cry, and stand to arms from Port Elizabeth to Natal. The Dutch in the upper districts refused their aid in the Colonial cause, and the Kafirs chuckled at hearing that the Amahulu and the Amaglezi—(the Boers and the English)—were “barking at each other like dogs.”
The little episode of which Marion was the heroine had been the means of bringing Eleanor and Frankfort into nearer communion than during the first week of their acquaintance. The young widow’s gravity of manner was little changed, but the deep melancholy was gradually giving way before the influence of a mind that opened its stores chiefly for her. She did not talk more than usual, but she listened, and Frankfort felt he had gained a vantage-ground.
He kept it, too. Like Scheherazade in the “Arabian Nights,” he always contrived, when he quitted this fair, sad creature’s side, to leave something for her mind to rest upon; some subject which she would wish resumed. I am wrong in using the word “contrived”—that was not Frankfort’s “way”—but the interest Eleanor took in all that he so pleasantly and intelligently discussed invested it with an additional charm to himself.
Meanwhile, father, mother, friends, looked on, and hoped that a light was dawning on the horizon of Eleanor’s clouded life, and they rejoiced. They had no doubt of Frankfort’s honesty of purpose. His bearing and his sentiments were alike frank, just, kind, manly, and single-minded. He was not blindly, passionately in love with the soft voice and mournful eyes that had certainly at first enchained his attention—bewitched him, as some would have it—but he was most deeply interested in the young widow; anxious to penetrate the cloud of sorrow that even in his presence shaded her brow, and, as he reluctantly admitted to himself, created a gulf between her and him, which he only hoped to remove or pass over. Every night, as he paced the avenue after the sentinels were posted, did he resolve on openly addressing Mr Daveney on the subject of his widowed daughter’s position; but the resolve faded into air, when he reconsidered what had passed between himself and Eleanor in the day. He had two weighty reasons for pausing. He was by no means sure of Eleanor’s sentiments towards himself, and he had a dread, though this he was unwilling to acknowledge, in his own mind, of lifting the veil of mystery with which he felt more than he knew she was invested.
But as soon as he did gain courage to sound the depths of his own heart, he recognised the duty he owed to her, to her family, especially his gracious, generous host, and to himself; and he resolved that another sun should not set till the question, on which he felt whole years of happiness must depend, was decided.
The dew was on the leaves and the sun high in the east, when Eleanor Lyle came through the cool hall into the glowing verandah on the morning when Frankfort had at last resolved on requesting an interview with her father.
He had a very strong idea that she liked him. She was one who had evidently suffered from the treachery or the evil humour of man; everything she said or did was tinged with some fatal remembrance. She shrunk from the sound of the name she bore; she could not believe in Ormsby’s faith; she did not openly ignore all honourable feelings in the other sex, but she clearly set no store by men’s promises to women. She did not volunteer these strong opinions—they were drawn from her; but Frankfort soon discovered that it was he only who could elicit them. Yes, she most certainly liked him—she had a good opinion of him, too, he fancied; he had tested it at times in his own quiet way.
They met together in the verandah this fine, warm, balmy, dewy morning, while the world was pleasantly astir. Children creeping out of the wagon bivouacs with “shining morning faces;” herd-boys coming by the house with baskets of meelies and fine burnished English tins of milk; graceful Fingo girls, with fresh-gathered pumpkins and cool green water-melons on their heads; Mrs Trail’s Bechuana nursemaid and ruddy children—such contrasts to their dusky Abigail—loaded with heather, lilac, pink, and white, and purple; and then there swung out from the old mulberry-tree in the vineyard the call to prayers in the school. The people from the wagons hurried off; the front garden and avenue were deserted; there was not a sound but the whooming of a great bee that was always rifling the doricas and invading the roses and convolvuluses, till the “morning hymn” swelled on the warm, still air in solemn chorus, and true, though unstudied, harmony.
They descended the steps, and sought the shade of the avenue. It was flanked on either side by a little nursery of trees; there was a good deal of low bramble and brushwood, which made almost a labyrinth of the ground; but there was a shady spot beside a silver thread of water that stole from the rill irrigating the vineyard, and Frankfort and Eleanor were bent on gathering water-cresses for breakfast. I doubt if people not interested in each other would have thought of taking all this trouble for a few green leaves; but these two went about it as if they had laid out for themselves a serious employment.