BEATRIX.
Thirty-six hours later Julian Ritherdon sat among very different
surroundings from those of Desolada; certainly very different ones
from those of his first night in the gloomy, mysterious house owned by
that other man who bore his name.
He was seated now in a wicker chair placed beneath the cool shadow
cast by a vast clump of "shade-trees," as the royal palm, the thatch
palm, and, indeed, almost every kind and species of that form of
vegetation are denominated. These shade-trees grew in the pretty and
luxuriant garden of Mr. Spranger's house on the southern outskirts of
Belize, a garden in which, for some years now, Beatrix Spranger had
passed the greater part of her days, and sometimes when the hot simoon
was on, as it was now, and the temperature scarcely ever fell below
85°, a good deal of the early part of her nights.
She, too, was seated in that garden now, talking to Julian, while
between them there lay two or three books and London magazines (three
or four months old), a copy of the Times of the same ancient date, and
another of the Belize Advertiser fresh from the local press. Yet
neither the news from London which had long since been published, nor
that of the immediate neighbourhood, which was quite new but not
particularly exciting, seemed to have been able to secure much of
their attention. And this for a reason which was a simple one and
easily to be understood. All their attention was at the present moment
concentrated on each other.
"You cannot think," Beatrix Spranger was saying now, "what a welcome
event the arrival of a stranger is to us here, who regard ourselves
more or less as exiles for the time being. Moreover," she continued,
without any of that false shame which a young lady at home in England
might have thought necessary to assume, even though she did not
actually feel it, "it seems to me that you are a very interesting
person, Lieutenant Ritherdon. You have dropped down into a place where
your name happens to be extremely well known, yet in which no one ever
imagined that there was any other Ritherdon in existence anywhere,
except the late and the present owners of Desolada."
"People, even exiles, have relatives sometimes in other parts of the
world," Julian murmured rather languidly--the effect of the heat and
the perfume of the flowers in the garden being upon him--"and you
know----"
"Oh! yes," the girl said, with an answering smile. "I do know all
that. Only I happen to know something else, too. You see we--that is,
father and I--are acquainted with your cousin, and we knew his father
before him. And it is a rather singular thing that they have always
given us to understand that, so far as they were aware, they hadn't a
relation in the world."
"They had, though, you see, all the same. Indeed, they had two until a
short time ago; namely, when my father, Mr. George Ritherdon, was
alive."
"Mr. Ritherdon, Sebastian's father, hadn't seen him for many years,
had he? He didn't often speak of him, and always gave people the idea
that his brother was dead. I suppose they had not parted the best of
friends?"
"No," Julian answered quietly, "I don't think they had. As a matter of
fact, my--George Ritherdon--was almost, indeed quite, as reticent
about his brother Charles as Charles seems to have been about him."
Then, suddenly changing the subject, he said: "Is Sebastian popular
hereabouts. Is he liked?"
"No," the girl replied, rather more frankly than Julian had expected,
while, as she did so, she lifted a pair of beautiful blue eyes to his
face. "No, I don't think he is, since you ask me."
"Why not? You may tell me candidly, Miss Spranger, especially as you
know that to-night I am going to have a rather serious interview with
your father, and shall ask him for his advice and assistance on a
matter in which I require his counsel."
"Oh! I don't know quite," the girl said now. "Only--only--well! you
know--because you have told us that you saw him doing it--he--he--is
too fond of play, of gambling. People say--different things. Some that
he is ruining his brother planters, and others that he is ruining
himself. Then he has the reputation of being very hard and cruel to
some of his servants. You know, we have coolies and negroes and Caribs
and natives here, and a good many of them are bound to the employers
for a term of years--and--and--well--if one feels inclined to be
cruel--they can be."
As she spoke of this, Julian recognised how he had been within an ace
of discovering, some time before he reached the inn at All Pines, that
the late Mr. Ritherdon had not died without leaving an heir, apparent
or presumptive, as he had supposed when he landed at Belize. The negro
guide on whom he had bestowed so many good-humoured sobriquets had
spoken of Mr. Ritherdon as being a hard and cruel man, both to blacks
and whites. But--in his ignorance, which was natural enough--he had
supposed that the statement could only have applied to the one owner
of Desolada of whom he had ever heard--the man lately dead.
Now, he reflected, he wished he had really understood to whom that
negro referred. It might have made a difference in his plans, he
thought; might have prevented him from going on farther on the road to
All Pines and Desolada; from meeting this unexpected, unknown of,
possessor of what he believed to be his, until those plans had become
more matured. Until, too, he had had time to decide in what form, if
any, he should present himself before the man who was called Sebastian
Ritherdon.
However, it was done. He had presented himself and, if he knew
anything of human nature, if he could read a character at all, his
appearance had caused considerable excitement in the minds of both
Sebastian Ritherdon and Madame Carmaux.
"Do _you_ like Sebastian?" he asked now, and he could scarcely have
explained why he was anxious to hear a denial of any liking for that
person on the part of Beatrix Spranger. It may have been, he thought,
because this girl, with her soft English beauty, which the climate of
British Honduras during some years of residence had--certainly, as
yet--had no power to impair, seemed to him far too precious a thing to
be wasted on a man such as Sebastian was--rough, a gambler, and
possessing cruel instincts.
"Do you think I should like him?" she asked in her turn, and again the
eyes which he thought were so beautiful glanced at him from beneath
their thick lashes, "after what I have told you of the character he
bears? What I have told you, perhaps, far too candidly, saying more
than I ought to have done."
"Do not think that," he made haste to exclaim. "To-night I am going to
be even more frank with Mr. Spranger. I am going to tell him one or
two things in connection with my 'cousin,' when I ask him for his
assistance and advice, which will make your father at least imagine
that I have not formed a very favourable impression of my new-found
relative."
"And mayn't I be told, too--now?" she asked, thoroughly womanlike.
"Not yet," he answered, with a smile. "Not yet. Later--perhaps."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with something that might almost be described as
a pout. "Oh! Not even after my candour about your cousin! You _are_ a
man of mystery, Lieutenant Ritherdon. Why! you won't even tell us how
it happens that you arrived here from Desolada with that round your
arm," and as she spoke she directed her blue eyes to a sling around
his neck in which his arm reposed. "Nor that," she added, nodding now
towards his forehead, where, on the left side, were affixed two or
three pieces of sticking-plaster.
"Yes," he said, "I will tell you that. I feel, indeed, that I ought to
do so, if only as an apology for presenting myself before you in such
a guise. You see, it is so easy to explain this, that it is not worth
making any mystery about it. It all comes from the fact that I am a
sailor, and sailors are proverbial for being very bad riders," and as
he spoke he accompanied his words with another smile.
But Beatrix did not smile in return. Instead, she said, half gravely,
perhaps almost half severely: "Go on. Lieutenant Ritherdon, if you
please. I wish to hear how the accident happened," while she added
impressively, "on your journey from Desolada to Belize."
"I'm a bad rider," he said again, but once more meeting her glance, he
altered his mode of speech and said:
"Well, you see, Miss Spranger, it happened this way. I set out on my
journey of inspection, on my road to Desolada, on a rather ancient
mustang which the worthy landlord of the hotel with a queer Spanish
name recommended to me as the proper thing to do the journey easily
on. Later, when I had made Sebastian's acquaintance, he rather
ridiculed my good Rosinante."
"Did he!" Beatrix interjected calmly.
"He did, indeed. In fact he said such creatures were scarcely ever
used in the colony except for draught purposes. Then he said he would
mount me on a good horse of Spanish breed, such as I believe you use a
great deal here; so that when I was returning to Belize yesterday to
present myself before you and Mr. Spranger, I should be able to make
the journey rapidly and comfortably."
"That was very kind of him," Beatrix exclaimed. "Though, as you did
not arrive until nine o'clock at night, you hardly seem to have made
it very rapidly, and those things," with again a glance at the sling
and the plasters, "are not usually adjuncts to comfort."
"Well, you see, I'm a sailor and not a good ri----"
"Go on, please."
"Yes, certainly. I started under favourable circumstances at six in
the morning, receiving, I believe, a kind of blessing or benediction
from Sebastian and Madame Carmaux, as well as strong injunctions to
return as soon as possible."
"People are hospitable in this country," Beatrix again interrupted.
"We got along very well, anyhow, for a time; at a gentle trot, of
course, because already it was getting hot, and as we neared All Pines
I was just thinking of slowing down to a walk when----"
"The creature bolted? Was that it?"
"As a matter of fact it was. By the way, you seem to know the manners
and customs of the animals in this country, Miss Spranger."
"I know that many lives are lost in this country," the girl said
gravely now, "owing to unbroken horses being ridden too young horses,
too, that are sometimes full of vice. The landlord of the hotel here
did you a better service than your cousin."
"Perhaps this was one of those horses," Julian remarked. "But, anyhow,
it bolted. Then, a little later, it did something else. It stopped
dead in a gallop and, after nearly shooting me over its head, it
reared upright and did absolutely throw me off it backwards.
Fortunately, I fell at the side of the road onto a sort of undergrowth
full of ferns and interspersed with lovely flowering shrubs; so I got
off with what you see. The horse, however, had killed itself. It fell
over on its back with a tremendous sort of backward bound and, when I
got up and looked at it, it was just dying. Later, I came on from All
Pines in a kind of cart--that is, when I had been bandaged up.
Perhaps, however, it wouldn't have happened if I had not been such a
bad rider and----"
"It would have happened," Beatrix said, decisively, "if you had been a
circus rider or a cowboy. That is, unless you had been well acquainted
with the horse, and, even then, it would probably have happened just
the same."
After this they were silent for a little while, Julian availing
himself of Beatrix's permission to smoke, and she sitting meditatively
behind her huge fan. And, although he did not tell her so, Julian
agreed with her that the accident would probably have happened even
though he had been a circus rider or a cowboy, as she had said.