Kitabı oku: «The Triumph of Hilary Blachland», sayfa 10
Chapter Six.
Concerning the Unexpected
“How do, Earle?” cried George Bayfield, pulling up his horses at the gate of the first named.
“So, so, Bayfield. How’s all yourselves? How do, Miss Bayfield? Had a cold drive? Ha – ha! It must have been nipping when you started this morning. Just look at the frost even now,” with a comprehensive sweep of an arm terminating in a pipe over the dew-gemmed veldt, a sheeny sparkle of silver in the newly risen sun. “But you – it’s given you a grand colour anyway.”
“Yes, it was pretty sharp, Mr Earle, but we were well wrapped up,” answered Lyn, as he helped her down. Then, as an ulster-clad figure disentangled itself from the spider – “This is Mr Blachland, who is staying with us.”
“How do, sir? Pleased to meet you. Not out from home, are you?” with a glance at the other’s bronzed and weather-beaten countenance.
“No. Up-country,” answered Bayfield for him. “Had fever, obliged to be careful,” – this as though explaining the voluminousness of the aforesaid wrapping.
“So? Didn’t know you had any one staying with you, Bayfield.”
“By Jove! Didn’t I mention it? Well, I wrote that brievje in a cast-iron hurry, I remember.”
“That’s nothing. The more the merrier,” heartily rejoined Earle, who was a jolly individual of about the same number of years as Blachland. “Come inside. Come inside. We’ll have breakfast directly. Who’s this?” shading his eyes to look down the road.
“That’s Fred and Jafta, and a spare horse. The youngster won’t be in the way, will he, Earle? I don’t let him shoot yet, except with an air-gun, but he was death on coming along.”
“No – no. That’s all right. Bring him along.”
Their hostess met them in the doorway. She was a large, finely built woman, with a discontented face, but otherwise rather good-looking. She was cordial enough, however, towards the new arrivals. They constituted a break in the monotony of life; moreover, she was fond of Lyn for her own sake.
“Let’s have breakfast as soon as you can, Em,” said Earle. “We want to get along. I think we’ll have a good day. There are three troops of guinea-fowl in those upper kloofs, and the hoek down along the spruit is just swarming with blekbuck.”
During these running comments a door had opened, and someone entered.
“How d’you do, Mrs Fenham?” said Bayfield, greeting the new arrival cordially. He was followed by Lyn, somewhat less cordial. Then arose Earle’s voice:
“Mrs Fenham – Mr – There now, I believe I didn’t quite catch your name – ”
“Blachland.”
“Ah, yes, I beg your pardon – Blachland. Mr Blachland.”
Hilary bowed – then obliged by that other’s outstretched hand to put forth his, found it enclosed in a tolerably firm clasp, by that of – Hermia.
Thus they stood, looking into each other’s eyes, and in that brief glance, for all his habitual self-control, he would have been more than human had he succeeded in concealing the unbounded surprise – largely mingled with dismay – which flashed across his face. She for her part, if she had failed to read it, and in that fraction of a minute to resolve to turn it to account – well, she would not have been Hermia Saint Clair.
To both the surprise was equal and complete. They had no more idea of each other’s propinquity than they had – say, of the Sultan of Turkey suddenly arriving to take part in the day’s sport. Yet, of the two, the woman was the more self-controlled.
“Are you fond of sport?” she murmured sweetly, striving not to render too palpable to other observers the dart of mingled warning and defiance which she flashed at him.
“Yes, as a rule,” he answered indifferently, taking his cue. “Been rather off colour of late. Touch of fever.”
There was a touch of irony in the tone, to the only one there who had the key to its burden. For the words brought back the long and helpless bout of the dread malady, when this woman had left him alone – to die, but for the chance arrival of a staunch comrade.
“Well, lug that big coat off, old chap,” said Earle, whose jovial nature moved him to prompt familiarity. “Unless you still feel it too cold, that is. We’re going to have breakfast.”
The coat referred to was not without its importance in the situation. With the collar partly turned up, Blachland had congratulated himself that it helped to conceal the effect of this extraordinary and unwelcome surprise from the others, and such, in fact, was the case. For nothing is more difficult to dissemble in the eyes of bystanders, in a chance and unwelcome meeting, than the fact of previous acquaintanceship. It may be accounted for by the explanation of extraordinary resemblance, but such is so thin as to be absolutely transparent, and calculated to impose upon nobody. And of this Hilary Blachland was thoroughly aware.
They sorted themselves into their places. Hilary, by a kind of process of natural selection, found himself seated next to Lyn. Hermia was nearly opposite, and next to her three of the Earle progeny – preternaturally well-behaved. But on her other side was a vacant chair, and a place laid as though for somebody. There was plenty of talk going on, which enabled Blachland to keep out of it and observe.
First of all, what the deuce was she doing there? Hermia masquerading as instructor of youth! Oh, Heavens, the joke would have been enough to send him into a fit, had he only heard of it! But there she was, and it would be safe to say that there was not a living being on the wide earth, however detestable, whose presence would not have been warmly welcome to him in comparison with that of this one seated there opposite. What on earth was her game, he wondered, and what had become of Spence? Here she was, passing as a widow under the name of Fenham. And this was the unknown fair who had been the subject of their jokes, and Lyn’s disapproval! Why, even on the way over that morning, Bayfield had been full of chaff, pre-calculating the effect of her charms upon himself. Great Heavens, yes! It was all too monstrous – too grotesque entirely.
“Are you still feeling cold?”
It was Lyn who had turned to him, amid all the chatter, and there was a sort of indefinably confidential ring in her voice, begotten of close friendship and daily intercourse. Was it something of the kind that softened his as he replied to her? But even while he did so he met the dark eyes opposite, the snap of which seemed to convey that to their owner nothing could go unobserved.
“Oh no, I’m quite all right now,” he answered lightly. And then, under cover of all the fanning talk that was going on between Earle and Bayfield, he talked to Lyn, mostly about matters they had discussed before. A sort of ironical devil moved him. He would let this woman opposite, imperceptibly watching every look, weighing every word, understand that she and her malevolence, whether dormant or active, counted absolutely nothing with him.
There was the sound of a footstep outside, and the door was opened.
“Awful sorry I’m so late, Mrs Earle,” cried a voice – a young and refined English voice – as its owner entered. “How d’you do, Miss Bayfield – Er – how d’you do?”
This to the only one who was personally unknown to the speaker, and who for that very reason seemed to have the effect of a damper upon his essentially English temperament.
“Mr Blachland – Mr West,” introduced their host.
“What?” almost shouted the last-named. “Blachland, did you say? Not Hilary! Why – it is! Hilary, my dear old chap, why, this is real good. By Jove, to think of my running against you here. Where on earth have you dropped from? Earle, you’ve heard me talk about this chap. He’s my first cousin.” And grabbing hold of the other’s hands, he started wringing them as though that newly found relative were the harmless, necessary village pump. “Who’d have thought of running against you here?” went on Percival West volubly. “Why, I thought you were in some out-of-way place up-country. Well, this is a gaudy surprise!”
“Isn’t it? But somebody or other has defined this country as the land of surprises, Percy. So it’s got to keep up its character,” said Blachland, with a queer smile, fully conscious that the irony of the rejoinder would not be lost upon at any rate one other at the table.
“I say, West. Get on with your grub, old chap,” said Earle. “You can have a yarn on the way. We want to make a start, you know.”
“Right you are!” cried Percival, with a jolly laugh, as he slid into the vacant chair beside Hermia. But even amid his surprise, he did not omit to give the latter the good morning in an unconscious change of tone, which in its turn was not lost upon Hilary Blachland; for in it was an unconscious softening, which with the look which came into the young fellow’s eyes as he turned to the woman beside him, caused those of his newly found relative to open – figuratively – very wide indeed. For two considerable surprises had been sprung upon him – enough in all conscience for one morning, yet here was a third. This young fool was already soft upon Hermia. As to that there could be no doubt. Here was a situation with a vengeance, the thinker told himself. How on earth was it going to pan out? And his anticipations on that head were of no pleasurable nature.
“I say, West!” cried Bayfield. “That old ram we drove over you the other day has come to a bad end at last. Blachland’s knocked him over.”
“Oh, well done, Hilary, old chap. I suppose you’ve had a great time with big game, eh? Shocked over no end of lions and elephants, and all that sort of thing?”
“A few, yes,” answered the other, rising, for a signal for a move had been given.
A few minutes of filling up cartridge-belts and fastening reims to saddles, and other preparations, and the sporting party was ready.
“Good luck, father. Good luck, Mr Blachland,” said Lyn, as she stood watching them start.
“That ought to bring it,” answered the latter, as he swung himself into his saddle. But Hermia was not among those who were outside. Percival, who had been, had dived inside again Blachland did not fail to notice. He emerged in a moment, however, looking radiantly happy and brimming over with light-hearted spirits.
“Now, Hilary, old chap, we can have a yarn,” he said, as they started, for the others had the start of them by a hundred yards or so. “So you’re stopping with Bayfield? If only I’d known that, wouldn’t I have been over to look you up. Good chap Bayfield. Nice little girl of his too, but – not much in her, I fancy.”
“There you’re wrong, Percy. There’s a great deal in her. But – how did you fall in with Earle?”
“Knew him through another Johnny I was thick with on board ship, and he asked me over to his place. Had a ripping good time here, too. I say, what d’you think of that Mrs Fenham? Fancy a splendid woman like that spending life hammering a lot of unlicked cubs into shape. Isn’t it sinful?”
“Why didn’t you say you were coming out, Percy? Drop a line or something?” went on his relative, feeling unaccountably nauseated by what he termed to himself the boy’s brainless rattle.
“Drop a line! Why, that’s just where the joke comes in! We none of us knew where on earth you were exactly. In point of fact, I came over here to find you, and by George I have! Never expected to find you so easily, though.”
“Nothing wrong, eh?”
“No. But Uncle Luke is dying to see you again. He said I must be sure and bring you back with me.”
The other looked surprised. Then his face softened very perceptibly.
“Is that a fact, Percy? Why, I thought he never wanted to set eyes on me again as long as he lived.”
“Then you thought jolly well wrong. He does. So you must just make up your mind to go home when I do.”
“Why are you so keen on it, Percy? Why, man, it might be immeasurably to your advantage if I never went back at all.”
“Look here, Hilary, if you really mean that, I’m not a beastly cad yet.”
“Well, I don’t really mean it,” said the other, touched by the young fellow’s chivalrous single-heartedness. “Perhaps we may bring off your scheme all right. I would like to see the dear old chap again. I must have treated him very shabbily. And the old Canon – is he still to the fore?”
“Rather, and as nailing good an old sort as ever. He wants to see you again too – almost as much as Uncle Luke does.”
“Ah, he always was a straight ’un – not an ounce of shoddy or humbug about him – ”
“Come on, you fellows, or we’ll never get to work,” shouted Earle’s voice, now very far ahead of them.
And leaving their home talk and reminiscences for the present, they spurred on their steeds – to join the rest of the party.
Chapter Seven.
“It cannot be.”
In the conjecture that his cousin had fallen into an infatuation for Hermia, Hilary Blachland was right – the only respect in which he had failed to grasp the full situation being that he had not fathomed the depth of that infatuation.
He knew her little ways, none better; knew well how insidiously dangerous she could be to those who did not know them, when she saw fit to lay herself out to attract. That she was laying herself out to entrap Percy was the solution of the whole problem.
Yet not all of it. She had been with the Earles before Percy’s arrival, before she could even have known he was in the country at all. And what had become of Spence? Well, this, too, would be cleared up, for he knew as well as though she had told him in so many words, that before they parted again she meant to have a private talk with him, and an understanding, and to this he was not averse. It would probably be a stormy one, for he was not going to allow her to add young West to her list of victims; and this he was going to give her emphatically to understand.
A rustle and a rush in front, and a blekbuck leaped out of the long grass almost at his horse’s feet, for they were riding in line – a hundred yards or so apart. Up went his gun mechanically – a crack and a suspicion of a puff of smoke. The graceful little animal turned a complete somersault, and lay, convulsively kicking its life away. Another started up, crossing right in front of Percival. The latter slipped to the ground in a moment, got a sight on, and turned it over neatly, at rather a long distance shot.
“I say, Bayfield. Those two Britishers are leading off well,” said Earle, as they pulled in their horses and lighted pipes, to wait till the other two should be ready to take the line again.
There are more imposing, but few more enjoyable forms of sport, than this moving over a fine rolling expanse of bontebosch veldt, beneath the cloudless blue of the heavens, through the clear exhilarating air of an early African winter day; when game is plentiful, and anything may jump out, or rise at any moment; blekbuck or duiker, guinea-fowl or koorhaan, or partridge, with the possibility of a too confiding pauw, and other unconsidered trifles. All these conditions held good here, yet one, at any rate, of those privileged to enjoy them, keen sportsman as he was, felt that day that something was wanting – that a cloud was dimming the sun-lit beauty of the rolling plains, and an invisible weight crushing the exhilaration of each successful shot.
Blachland, pursuing his sport mechanically, was striving to shake off an unpleasant impression, and striving in vain. Something seemed to have happened between yesterday and to-day. Or was it the thought that Lyn Bayfield would be more or less in Hermia’s society throughout the whole of that day? Yet, even if such were the case, what on earth did it matter to him?
The day came to an end at last, but there had been nothing to complain of in the way of the sport. They had lunched in the veldt, in ordinary hunter fashion – and in the afternoon had got in among the guinea-fowl; and being lucky enough to break up the troop, had about an hour of pretty sport – for scattered birds lie well and rise well – and by the time they turned their faces homeward, were loaded up with about as much game – buck and birds – as the horses could conveniently carry.
A flutter of feminine dresses was visible on the stoep, as they drew near the house, seeing which, an eager look came into Percival West’s face. It was not lost upon his kinsman, who smiled to himself sardonically, as he recalled how just such a light had been kindled in his own at one time, and by the same cause. What a long while ago that seemed – and to think, too, that it should ever have been possible.
A chorus of congratulation arose as the magnitude of the bag became apparent.
“Those two Britishers knocked spots out of us to-day!” cried Earle. “Bayfield and I can clean take a back seat.”
“You wouldn’t call Mr Blachland a Britisher, surely, Mr Earle?” struck in Hermia. “Why, he’s shot lions up-country.”
“Eh, has he? How d’you know?” asked Earle eagerly – while he who was most concerned mentally started.
“Didn’t he tell us so this morning?” she said, and her glance of mischief was not lost upon Blachland, who remarked:
“Does that fact denationalise me, Mrs Fenham? You said I couldn’t be counted a Britisher.”
“Well, you know what I meant.”
“Oh, perfectly.”
There was a veiled cut-and-thrust between these two: imperceptible to the others – save one.
That one was Lyn. Her straight instinct and true ear had warned her.
“She is an adventuress,” was the girl’s mental verdict. “An impostor, who is hiding something. Some day it will come out.” Now she said to herself, watching the two, “He doesn’t like her. No, he doesn’t.” And there was more satisfaction in this conclusion than even its framer was aware of.
Throughout the evening, too, Hilary found himself keenly observing new developments, or the possibility of such. At supper, they were mostly shooting all the day’s bag over again, and going back over the incidents of other and similar days. Percival, in his seat next Hermia, was dividing his attention between his host’s multifold reminiscence and his next-door neighbour, somewhat to the advantage of the latter. A new development came, however, and it was after they had all got up from the table, and some, at any rate, had gone out on to the stoep to see the moon rise. Then it was, in the sudden transition from light to darkness, Blachland felt his hand stealthily seized and something thrust into it – something which felt uncommonly like a tiny square of folded paper. Hermia’s wrap brushed him at the time, and Hermia’s voice, talking evenly to Percival on the other side, arrested his ear. There was a good deal more talk, and lighting of pipes, and presently it was voted too cold to remain outside. But, on re-entering, the party had undergone diminution by two. Mrs Earle was looking more discontented than ever.
“What’s the odds?” chuckled her jolly spouse, with a quizzical wink at his two male guests. “They’re a brace of Britishers. They only want to talk home shop. Fine woman that Mrs Fenham, isn’t she, Blachland?”
“Yes. How did you pick her up?” he replied, noticing that the discontented look had deepened on the face of his hostess, and bearing in mind Bayfield’s insinuations, thought that warm times might be in store for Hermia.
“Oh, the wife found her. I hadn’t anything to do with it. But she’s first-rate in her own line: gets the nippers on no end. Makes ’em learn, you know.”
Would surprises never end? thought Hilary Blachland. Here was an amazing one, at any rate, for he happened to know that Hermia’s mind, as far as the veriest rudiments of education were concerned, was pretty nearly a blank. How on earth, then, did she contrive to impart instruction to others? He did not believe she could, only that she had succeeded in humbugging these people most thoroughly.
Then they had manoeuvred Lyn to the piano, and got her to sing, but Hilary, leaning back in his chair, thought that somehow it did not seem the same as up there in her own home, when night after night he had sat revelling in the sweet, clear, true notes. And then the other two, entering from their moonlight stroll, had subsided into a corner together. The sight reminded him of Spence, who must needs make an open book of his callow, silly face. Percival was doing the same.
“Just as I thought,” he said to himself, an hour later, as under cover of all the interchange of good nights, he managed to slip away for a moment to investigate the contents of the mysterious paper. “‘Meet to-morrow and have an explanation, or I may regret it all my life.’ Um – ah! very likely I shall do that in any case. Still, I’m curious about the explanation part of it myself, so meet we will.”
“Come along, old chap,” said Percival, grabbing him by the arm. “You’ve got to doss down in my diggings, and we’ll have a good round jaw until we feel sleepy. Phew! it’s cold!” he added, as they got out on to the stoep – for Percival’s room was at the end of the stoep, and was quite shut off from the house. The moonlit veldt stretched away in dim beauty around, its stillness broken by the weird yelp of hunting jackals, or the soft whistle of the invisible plover overhead.
They had been talking of all sorts of indifferent things. Blachland knew, however, that the other wanted to talk on a subject that was not indifferent, and was shy to lead up to it. He must help him through directly, because he didn’t want to be awake all night. But when they had turned in and had lit their pipes for a final smoke, Percival began —
“I say, Hilary, what do you think of that Mrs Fenham?”
“Rather short acquaintance to give an opinion upon, isn’t it?”
“No. Skittles! But I say, old chap, she’s devilish fetching, eh?”
“So you seem to find. It strikes me, Percy, you’re making a goodish bit of running in that quarter. Look out.”
The other laughed good-humouredly, happily in fact.
“Why ‘look out?’ I mean making running there. By Jove, I never came across any one like her!”
Blachland smiled grimly to himself behind a great puff of smoke. He had good reason to believe that statement.
“It’s a fact,” went on Percival. “But I say, old chap, she doesn’t seem to fetch you at all. I’m rather glad, of course – in fact, devilish glad. Still, I should have thought she’d be just the sort of woman who’d appeal to you no end. You must be getting blasé.”
“My dear Percy, a man’s idiocies don’t stay with him all his life, thank Heaven – though their results are pretty apt to.”
“Well, Hilary, I’m mortal glad to have the field clear in this case, because I want you to help me.”
“I don’t think you need any help. Judging from the very brief period of observation vouchsafed to me, the lady herself seems able and willing to help you all she knows.”
“No, but you don’t understand. I mean business here – real serious – ”
“Strictly honourable – or – ”
The young fellow flushed up.
“If any one else had said that – ” he began, indignantly.
“Oh, don’t be an ass. You surely don’t expect me – me, mind – to cotton to heroics in a matter of this kind. What do you know about the woman? Nothing.”
“I don’t care about that I can’t do without her.”
“She can do without you, I expect, eh?”
“She can’t. She told me so.”
“Did she? Now, Percy, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But how many men do you suppose she has told the same thing to – in her time?”
“None. Her marriage was only one of convenience. She was forced into it.”
“Of course. They always are. Now, supposing she had told me, for instance, she couldn’t do without me? What then?”
“You? Why, you never set eyes on her till this morning.”
“No. Of course not. I was only putting a case. Again, she’s rather older than you.”
“There you’re wrong. She’s a year or two younger. She told me so.”
Blachland, happening to know that she was, in fact, five or six years the young fellow’s senior, went on appreciating the humours of the situation. And really these were great.
“By Jove! Listen!” said the other suddenly, as a chattering and clucking of fowls was audible outside. “There’s a jackal or a bushcat or something getting at the fowls. They roost in those low trees just outside. I’ll get the gun, and if we put out the light, we may get a shot at him from the window.”
“Not much,” returned Blachland decisively. “The window’s at the head of my bed, not yours. I wouldn’t have it opened this beastly cold night for a great deal. Besides, think what a funk you’d set up among the women by banging off a gun at this ungodly hour. The hens must take their chance. Now look here, Percy,” he went on, speaking earnestly and seriously, “take a word of warning from one who has seen a great deal more of the world, and the crookedness thereof, than you have, and chuck this business – for all serious purposes I mean. Have your fun by all means – even to a fast and furious flirtation if you’re that way disposed. But – draw the line at that, and draw it hard.”
“I wouldn’t if I could, and I couldn’t if I would. Hilary – we are engaged.”
“What?”
The word came with almost a shout. Blachland had sat up in bed and was staring at his young kinsman in wild dismay. His pipe had fallen to the ground in his amazement over the announcement. “Since when, if it’s a fair question?” he added, somewhat recovering himself.
“Only this evening. I asked her to marry me and she consented.”
“Then you must break it off at once. I tell you this thing can’t come off, Percy. It simply can’t.”
“Can’t it? But it will. And look here, Hilary, you’re a devilish good chap, and all that – but I’m not precisely under your guardianship, you know. Nor am I dependent upon anybody. I’ve got a little of my own, and besides, I can work.”
“Oh, you young fool. Go to sleep. You may wake up more sensible,” he answered, not unkindly, and restraining the impulse to tell Percival the truth then and there, but the thought that restrained him was the coming interview with Hermia on the morrow. He was naturally reluctant to give her away unless absolutely necessary, but whatever the result of that interview, he would force her to free Percival from her toils. To do him justice, the idea that such an exposure would involve himself too did not enter his mind – at least not then.
“I think I will go to sleep, Hilary, as you’re so beastly unsympathetic,” answered the younger man good-humouredly. “But as to the waking up – well, you and I differ as to the meaning of the word ‘sensible.’ Night-night.”
And soon a succession of light snores told that he was asleep, probably dreaming blissfully of the crafty and scheming adventuress who had fastened on to his young life to strangle it at the outset. But Hilary Blachland lay staring into the darkness – thinking, and ever thinking.
“Confound those infernal fowls!” he muttered, as the cackling and clucking, mingled this time with some fluttering, arose outside, soon after the extinguishing of the light. But the disturbance subsided – nor did it again arise that night, as he lay there, hour after hour, thinking, ever thinking.
