Part 98 (1/2)
”Eh--what? Hang it, this beats me. I don't understand it at all!”
”Don't you? Well, then, poor Herbert Spalding was my cousin--a very distant one--and I hardly knew much about him. He was very pleasant and kind, though, the little I did see of him at Dynevard Chase; but at the last he seems to have had the bad taste to prefer you to me. Undue influence, sir, undue influence--isn't that what the lawyers call it?”
concluded she, in a playfully reproachful tone.
”For Heaven's sake don't joke about it, Lilian,” he interrupted, in a pained voice. ”For it amounts to this, that I have simply been robbing you all these years--robbing you--you, whom I would have given the last drop of my heart's blood to s.h.i.+eld from a single want. All this time, while you have been fighting a hard battle alone and unaided, I have been literally robbing you of your own. Good Heavens! the very idea is enough to make a fellow cut his throat.”
”You were not robbing me of anything of the sort. Don't be absurd, you dear old goose! But, darling, you don't know how pleased I am that you should take this from me now, even though it is like giving you back what belongs to you,” she added, lovingly.
”But, upon my soul, I don't understand it yet,” he repeated, amazedly.
”Who on earth was that old parson who came badgering me one morning? I thought _he_ was the next in reversion.”
”'That old parson,' as you so disrespectfully term my dear old uncle, George Wainwright, went to you on _my_ behalf, Arthur,” she answered, with a smile. ”I tried to prevent him, but he would go. He failed, for you stuck to it like a leech,” she concluded, with a merry laugh.
”Heavens! Of course I thought he was speaking for himself. He never mentioned you.”
”Didn't he? That's so like Uncle George! And when I asked him who you were, he had forgotten your name. Said it was Clinton, or something like that.”
”But, Lilian, is this the first you've heard of the rights of the affair? Didn't you ever suspect anything?”
A soft smile stole over her face. ”I did once,” she replied, ”long ago--here. Something Mrs Brathwaite was telling us about you gave me a sort of an inkling.”
”Oh, but this is simply dreadful! How could I have any idea how things stood? I never saw the will, and never heard the name of the next in reversion. 'A distant relative' was all that old Smythe said. But I'll write to the parson, Mr--what's his name?--Wainwright, and get him to tell you all that pa.s.sed between us. I'll--”
”I'm afraid not. Poor Uncle George died four years ago,” she answered.
”But, darling, don't take things to heart like this. I only see it in an amusing light. Isn't it a queer chapter of coincidences?”
”Good G.o.d!”
”Don't be profane,” she repeated. ”And if you don't want to make me quite unhappy, you will think no more of this odd little coincidence, Arthur dearest. I declare I mean it. And then, isn't it best, after all? Why, nothing now can rid me of the knowledge that it was entirely for myself, and myself alone, just as I stood, that you threw away that dear, foolish heart of yours.” And she gave him such a look of tenderness, and love, and trust, that he caught her to him with all the pa.s.sionate love of the old yearning, hopeless days.
”My Lilian, nothing can rid _me_ of the knowledge that I have robbed you all this time; and how am I to pa.s.s it off so lightly?” he whispered, in a broken voice. ”My darling, you see it was impossible that I could have known--do you not?”
”Why, of course. How should you have? But isn't it the most amusing of coincidences! Come now, you are to own that it is. We women are supposed to be deficient in a sense of humour; but, I declare, in this instance I am proving the rule by making an exception to it, while you are not keeping up the credit of your lordly s.e.x. Do you hear that, sir?” she went on, in a tone of soft banter that was very bewitching.
Her great happiness had completely changed Lilian. The longing sadness in the sweet, l.u.s.trous eyes had given way to a calm peace that was infinitely beautiful, and a sunny, gladsome smile had taken the place of that former tinge of melancholy which had always been upon her, even at the brightest of times. No cloud was in her sky now. The lurid curtain of war had lifted, and though still upon the horizon, daily receded-- rolling back farther and farther. The Past might be put away, as the golden Future disclosed in bright, fair vista.
Yes. The war was at an end, now--or nearly so--for the wretched insurgents, broken-spirited, half-starving, and thoroughly sick of fighting, were flocking in daily to surrender themselves at the different frontier posts. The gaols were crowded with red-blanketed, forlorn-looking beings, squatting about in sullen apathy, their chief speculation--next to the interest of their daily rations--being whether _Ihuvumente_ [the Government] would be very hard on them, when they should be placed in the dock in batches, at the approaching special Circuit, and called upon to answer to the charge of having ”wrongfully, unlawfully, and maliciously taken up arms and waged war against our Sovereign Lady, the Queen, etcetera, etcetera,” of which exalted personage most of them had but a very hazy idea. The insurgent leaders had either been captured or slain, and in the latter category was the fate of Sandili, the Great Chief of the house of Gaika, who was shot by a party of Fingoes during his flight; and when his body was found some days afterwards in the Perie Forest, behold, it was partially eaten by wild animals. So the fate which his captive had predicted, when condemned to the torture and to death, to the old chief, was fulfilled to the very letter. His two sons, Gonya and Matanzima, together with Gungubele, Umfanta, Tini Macomo, and other rebel leaders, were also in gaol, awaiting their trial for high treason [Note 1], and altogether the war had come to about as ignominious an end as was possible.
Jim Brathwaite was at home again; his corps, which had done such good service, having been disbanded. Indeed, nothing remained to be done. A few forlorn bands of insurgents were still under arms; but these clung so pertinaciously to the wildest and most inaccessible tracts of country--a region of holes, and caves, and dense tangled bush--that the work of hunting them out was left to the Police and native levies, aided by that powerful ally, starvation. So troop after troop of burghers and volunteers left the field, and soon there were signs of re-occupying the long-deserted farms in Kaffraria and upon the immediate line of hostilities; for the savage enemy had lain down his arms, and the prospect was that of a speedy return to the ways of peace.
Jim Brathwaite is at home again, and there is quite a gathering of our old friends at Seringa Vale on this first occasion of their meeting together since the war. And how they fight their battles all over again, for, needless to say, the conversation turns wholly upon the doings of the colonial forces in general, and upon the exploits of that doughty corps, Brathwaite's Horse, in particular. Some growling, too, is heard. Time has to be made up for. Things have gone more or less to the deuce during the period our friends have all been away at the front, which period, with the exception of a brief interval, covers the best part of a year. In fact, campaigning has been an undertaking of neither pleasure nor profit. Stay--as to the pleasure. The jolly, sunburnt visage of our friend Hicks, yonder, has lost none of its br.i.m.m.i.n.g contentment. Indeed, its owner has been heard to say, that he, for one, would be quite ready for another bout of Kafir-shooting as soon as convenient--a remark which obtains for him an angry scowl from his right-hand neighbour, Thorman, who growls resentfully that ”the sooner fellows shut up talking that sort of d.a.m.ned bosh, the sooner the country will settle down to its legitimate business again.” A sentiment which, though ungraciously expressed, contains a strong element of truth; for, undoubtedly, the irregular, happy-go-lucky, jolly good fellows.h.i.+p of camp-life, and the glorious uncertainty of war, is not without a somewhat demoralising influence on the energies of the colonial youth in the more prosaic run of workaday life--to which it must now return. But Hicks is young yet, and brimful of animal spirits. His losses during the outbreak have been but slight; and now he is back among his old friends, after having seen some real good service. And opposite him sits his wife--quiet, gentle-looking as ever--for whom he has abated not one jot of his old adoration; for Laura, in spite of her reserve and apparent self-obliteration, has a shrewd, sensible little head of her own, and manages her lord completely, he being just the fellow who requires management--and Hicks is as happy as a king. So, with a laugh, he tells Thorman to shut up, for a jolly old growler, as he is, ”and always was, by Jove!” and to let a fellow have his say now that they are all festive together again, and to knock up a sort of grin himself, for once in his life, if he can.
Naylor, too, is there, quieter and staider, but full of dry ”chaff,”
which he every now and then turns on one or other of the party. His hair and large beard are beginning to show streaks of grey; but, then, as he says, a fellow ceases to be a chicken at some time in his life, and he, for instance, is growing a fine crop of ”prime whites.” Which ostrich-feather witticism so tickles his son and heir, Tom--a well-grown, st.u.r.dy boy of fifteen--that he bursts into a fit of immoderate mirth, necessitating his sudden retreat from the room.
As for Allen, he has not changed in any single particular, but, having shown that there was good stuff in him, underlying his external eccentricity, he has gone up several pegs in the estimation of his friends; and now that poor Jack Armitage is no longer at his side, he enjoys a kind of immunity from chaff, for even Naylor leaves him in peace, failing the more merciless wag to arouse the spirit of emulation, and to keep the ball rolling.
There sits Will Jeffreys, not much more happy-looking than of yore. He is doing by no means badly in the world, for he has five waggons on the road--transport-riding is paying well just now--and owns two flouris.h.i.+ng and well-stocked farms left him by his father, who has gone the way of all flesh. But his saturnine temperament remains pretty much as it was, and Claverton has a bet on, of considerable magnitude, with Mrs Jim Brathwaite that, in a year hence, Jeffreys will have attained greater proficiency in the art of scowling than even Thorman.