Part 26 (1/2)
_She_ to be discussed according to the clod-hopping ideas of louts and scullery-maids. He turned away disgusted. Suddenly he heard himself hailed in loud and jovial tones, and, looking up, found himself in the vicinity of the refreshment table, where three or four ancient settlers were exchanging reminiscences, and occasionally clinking gla.s.ses.
Prominent among them was old Garrett, his rubicund visage now nearly purple.
”I sh-shay, C-Claverings.h.!.+” called out this worthy. ”C-come and have a what-sh-may call a eye-opener--hic!”
”All right.”
”Thas righ'sh. Told yer 'ee ain't proud,” cried the old fellow, beaming triumphantly on the rest, and attempting to bestow upon Claverton a friendly slap on the back, which the latter quietly evaded. He contemplated the individual before him with vast amus.e.m.e.nt, and speculated as to how soon this worthy's early retirement would become imperative.
The rout went on, and presently Naylor and his violin were pressed into the service to second the piano. In the pa.s.sage outside a number of the Hottentot servants, emulative of their betters, had got up a dance of their own and waxed merry, and laughed and chattered exceedingly, till at last Jim Brathwaite, hearing the row, sallied forth and cleared them all out summarily.
The hours wear on apace. In the silence of the garden the air is fragrant with the cool breaths of night distilling from the myrtle and the flowering pomegranate. High in the heavens hangs a gold half-moon whose l.u.s.tre pierces a leafy canopy, scattering a network of filmy light upon the shaded earth. In and out of the gloomy shadows of the orange trees a firefly or two trails in mid air a floating spark. All is rest.
Now and again a burst of voices and music is borne from the house, yet here it penetrates but feebly, and Night--silver, moon-pierced, star-studded Night--is queen amid the mysterious silence of her witching court.
Two figures wandering down the orange walk in the alternate light, and gloom, and dimness. Listen! That low, melodious voice can belong to no other than Lilian Strange.
”I am so glad we came out here for a little. I had no idea there could be such a night as this except in books.”
”Perhaps it strikes you the more, contrasted with the row and junketing indoors,” said her companion.
”No. In any case it would be delicious. And yet there is something of awe about a night like this--don't laugh at me--it always seems a mysterious shadow-land connecting us with another world.”
”Laugh at you! Why won't you give me credit for a capability of entering into any of your ideas?”
”But I do. You are more capable of it than any one I know. There.”
”Thanks for that, anyway.”
”Don't stop my rhapsodies, but listen. Doesn't it seem--standing here in this stillness--as if the world lay far beneath one's feet; that all the littlenesses and prosaic worries of every-day life could not enter such an enchanted realm? Ah-h!”
She uttered a little cry and instinctively drew closer to him as the sudden, yelping bark of a jackal sounded from the bush apparently within fifty yards of them, but really much further off, the stillness and a slight echo adding loudness to the unlooked-for and ill-sounding ”bay.”
”Don't be afraid,” he said, rea.s.suringly. ”It's only a jackal. What would you have done if it had been a wolf?”
”I should have been dreadfully frightened. What a coward I am!”
”At any rate, this time I am not the author of the scare, which is subject-matter for gratulation,” he said.
She laughed. ”No; but the interruption came in most opportunely, in time to stay my flights. Here am I, inveighing against, and thinking to rise superior to the prosaic commonplaces of life, when a sound, a mere sound, fills me with an overwhelming impulse to rush headlong back into the despised prose. What a step from the sublime to the ridiculous!”
”I was thinking something of the kind,” replied Claverton, with a half smile; and his voice grew very soft as he looked at her sweet, serious face. ”But don't be in the least afraid. A jackal is about as formidable or aggressive as a tabby cat, though he does make a diabolical row; and as for wolves, they are very scarce, and even more cowardly; and a yet bolder animal would flee from two such unwonted apparitions in the South African bush,” he added, with a laugh, as he glanced at the regulation ”evening-dress” of his companion and himself.
”Come this way.”
He opened a small gate in the high quince hedge, and they pa.s.sed out into a narrow bush path which, wound along through the _spekboem_ and feathery mimosa.
”Don't be in the very least afraid,” he repeated, as they wandered on.
”I want you thoroughly to appreciate and enjoy about the most perfect night I ever knew--and I've seen a good many--and you can't do so if you're expecting a wolf or a tiger to spring out of every bush.”
She laughed. ”I'll try and be less of a coward, and keep my too-vivid imagination under control.” Yet the light hand which rested on his arm seemed to lean there with ever so increased a pressure of trust or dependence, or both.