Part 31 (1/2)
”Walter,” began Mrs Brathwaite, when the voices outside were out of earshot, ”I'm greatly afraid Arthur has lost his heart in that quarter.”
”Bah!” replied her husband, with a good-natured laugh; ”not he.
Arthur's made of tougher stuff than that. And,” he added, ”you women think of nothing but match-making.”
”But I tell you he has,” persisted she, ignoring the latter insinuation.
”Now look here. For the last fortnight he has been a changed man. I can see it, if you can't. Why, he hardly speaks to any one else when Lilian is there. Every moment that he is not at work he is in the house, or in the garden, or wherever she is. For some days he has been looking pale and worn, and no wonder, for he doesn't eat enough to support life in a child of three years old. And he has become, for him, quite captious and irritable. Now,” she concluded, triumphantly, ”do you mean to tell me all this is only my imagination?”
”Well, perhaps you are right,” answered the old settler, reflectively.
”But somehow I've almost thought, of late, he was rather fond of Ethel.”
”That's because you're not a woman,” rejoined his wife. ”Now I never thought so. And I've noticed what I've been telling you ever since the night of the dance, that is, ever since the day after Lilian's arrival.
You'll see I'm right.”
”Not sure I don't hope you are. It would be a good thing for both of them. She's one of the sweetest girls I ever saw, as well as the prettiest. And to be thrown upon the world like that, gaining her livelihood by hammering a lot of dirty, uproarious brats into shape-- it's abominable; and if it is as you say I heartily congratulate Arthur.”
Mrs Brathwaite laughed rather dubiously. ”Not so fast,” she said, ”I'm by no means sure that Arthur will find it all plain sailing. Mark my words, that girl has a history, and she isn't to be won by any chance comer. Ah, well; we shall see.”
Meanwhile the objects of their discussion are wandering on beneath the orange trees, even as they had done barely a fortnight ago for the first time.
”You are highly entertaining, I must say,” remarked Lilian, amusedly, when they had strolled some hundred yards further in absolute silence.
”I suppose I ought to offer you the regulation penny.”
”You must make a much higher bid, then. I was thinking of what you have just been singing.”
”Really now? I should never have thought you were so easily impressed.”
”I don't know. There is a world of pathos in that composition. Those few lines contain the story of two people who might have been happy.
Why weren't they? Because it pleased a beneficent Providence-- beneficent, mark you--to decree otherwise, and so Death put in his oar.
Now if all hadn't been going well with them, it isn't likely that Providence would have been so accommodating.”
There is a brusque harshness in his tones which causes his listener to glance up at him in surprise and dismay, and she can see that his features are haggard. She is even alarmed, for she remembers hearing vaguely that her companion's life had been a stirring and chequered one.
Has she now unwittingly rasped some hidden but unforgotten chord? It must be so, and she feels sorely troubled.
They are standing on the brink of the little rock-bound pool where they lingered and talked on the night of the dance. Almost mechanically they have struck out the same path and wandered down it, but this time no deadly foe dogs their footsteps. They are alone; alone in the dim hush of the African night. Overhead the dark vault is bespangled with its myriads of golden eyes, which are reflected in the still waters of the pool, and the Southern Cross flames from a starry zone. Now and then a large insect of the locust species sends forth a weird, tw.a.n.ging note from far down the kloof, but no sign of life is there among the _spekboem_ sprays, which sleep around them as still as if cut out of steel.
He picks up a pebble and jerks it into the pool. It strikes the surface with a dull splashless thud, and sinks. A night-jar darts from beneath one of the fern-fringed rocks and skims across the water, uttering a whirring note of alarm.
”Hadn't we better be going back?” hazards Lilian, at last. Anxious to withdraw from the dangerous topic, she takes refuge in a commonplace.
”It was rather late when we came out.”
Claverton is standing half turned away from her--his face working curiously as he looks down into the water. For a minute he makes no answer; then he faces round upon her, and his voice, hoa.r.s.e and thick, can scarcely make its way through his labouring throat.
”Lilian, Lilian--my darling--my sweet--my own sweetest love. For G.o.d's sake tell me what I would die at this moment to know?”
He has taken both her hands in his and is gazing hungrily down into the lovely eyes. She gives a slight start of unfeigned surprise, and he can see the sweet face pale in the starlight. Trying to speak firm she gently repeats her former question: ”Hadn't we better be going back?”
Can he read his fate in her eyes? Do those gentle tones echo his sentence? It seems so.