A DETERMINED MAN
It was the following afternoon when Ormsgill stood on the wide veranda
outside Mrs. Ratcliffe's room. That lady sat somewhat stiffly facing
him in a big basket chair, while her daughter lay close by in one of
canvas with her eyes also fixed upon the man languidly. She was
dressed in white, and looked very cool and dainty, though her face was
almost expressionless. In fact, her attitude was characterized by a
certain well-bred serenity which is seldom without its effect when it
is an essential part of the person who exhibits it, though a passable
imitation of it may be cultivated.
Then one sometimes wonders what may lie behind it, though an attempt
to ascertain is not always advisable. In some cases there is nothing,
and in others things which it is wiser to leave unseen.
Ormsgill had, as it happened, been busy that morning with an English
lawyer whom he had met at the hotel, and had taken him over to the
office of the Vice-Consul, who signed a document the lawyer drew out.
He had also made other preparations for a journey, but he had sent the
priest no word that he was going back to Africa. This, he felt, was
not necessary, since Father Tiebout would expect him. He leaned
bareheaded against the rails, with the furrows showing plainly on his
bronzed face, while the Trade breeze, which was fresh that afternoon,
swept the cool veranda and piled the long Atlantic swell rumbling on
the beach. He could see the spray fly high and white, and the dust
whirl down the glaring road that led to the Spanish city, and once
more he felt his blood stir in harmony with the throb of restless life
in the frothing sea. Still, the task before him was difficult, and he
set about it diffidently.
It was, as he realized, a very lame story and one open to serious
misconception that fell from his lips. He could, of course, say
nothing in favor of Lamartine's mode of life, though it was by no
means an unusual one, and he had to mention it. The subject was a
somewhat delicate one in itself, but it was not that alone which
brought a faint flush to his face. Mrs. Ratcliffe's pose grew
perceptibly primmer as he proceeded, and he recognized that any
confidence she might have had in him was being severely shaken. Still,
he had not expected her to understand, and he glanced at her daughter
with a certain anxiety. The girl's languid indifference was less
marked now, for there was a spot of color in her cheek, and her lips
were set disdainfully. Ormsgill closed one lean hand a trifle, for
these things had their significance, and he had expected that she, at
least, would have found his assurance sufficient.
"I think you will agree with me that I must go," he said.
Mrs. Ratcliffe's tone was sharp and she looked at him steadily.
"I'm afraid I don't," she said. "The man was on your own showing an
altogether depraved person."
"No," said Ormsgill dryly. "I should be sorry to admit as much. But if
he had been, would that have rendered a promise to him less binding?"
"Yes," said the elder lady sturdily. "If he really felt any remorse at
all--of which I am very dubious--he brought it upon himself. One
cannot do wrong without bearing the consequences. Still, I do not
suppose it was penitence. It was more probably pagan fear of death.
The man, you admit, was under priestly influence. Of course, if he had
been brought up differently----"
Ormsgill could not help a little smile. "He would have considered
repentance sufficient, and left the woman to bear the consequences?
Somehow I have a hazy notion that restitution is insisted on. But if
we dismiss that subject there are still the boys. You see, I pledged
myself to send them home again."
Ada Ratcliffe looked up, and her expression was quietly disdainful.
"Half-naked, thick-lipped niggers. Would it hurt them very much to
work a little and become a trifle civilized? One understands that
there is no actual slavery in any part of Africa under European
control."
Ormsgill winced, and it was, perhaps, only natural that Mrs. Ratcliffe
should not understand why he did so. Then his face grew a trifle hard,
but he answered quietly.
"I have no doubt there are folks who would tell you so, but there is,
at least, something very like it in one or two colonies," he said.
"Still, that is not quite the point."
The girl laughed. "I am a little afraid there is no point at all."
She rose languidly, and the way she did so suggested collusion, though
Ormsgill had not noticed that her mother made her any sign. She swept
past him with a swish of filmy fabric, and he turned to the elder
lady, who made a little gesture of resignation.
"It seems," she said, "you are determined to go, and in that case
there is something to be said. As you are bent on exposing yourself to
the hazards of a climate I have heard described as deadly, one has to
consider--eventualities."
"Exactly!" and Ormsgill found it difficult to repress a sardonic
smile. "I have endeavored to provide against them in the one way
possible to me. An hour ago I handed Major Chillingham a document
which will place Ada in possession of a considerable proportion of my
property in six months from my death. The absence of any word from me
for that period is to be considered as proof of it. I have no
relatives with any claim on me, and I think I am only carrying out an
obligation."
"You are very generous," and his companion's tone was expressive of
sincere satisfaction. "Though it is, of course, painful, one is
reluctantly compelled to take these things into consideration."
She said rather more to the same effect, and the man's face, which was
a trifle hard when she went away, suggested that some, at least, of
her observations had jarred on him. He was also somewhat astonished
to find Ada waiting for him when he strolled moodily into the big
drawing-room.
"Tom," she said, "you won't go back there, after all. I don't want you
to."
There was a tinge of color in her cheeks and a tense appeal in her
eyes, and for a moment Ormsgill was almost tempted to forget his
promise and break his word. It seemed that she did care, though he had
scarcely fancied that she would feel the parting with him very much a
little while ago, and something suggested that she was apprehensive,
too. He stood very still, and she saw him slowly close one of his
hands.
"My dear," he said, "I have to go."
The girl looked at him steadily a moment, and then made a little
hopeless gesture of resignation.
"In that case I should gain nothing by attempting to urge you," she
said with a curious quietness. "Still, Tom, you will write to me when
you can."
Ormsgill was stirred, as well as a trifle astonished. She had seldom
shown him very much tenderness, and he had said nothing that might
lead her to believe that he was undertaking a somewhat dangerous thing
or that the country was especially unhealthy. Still, he could not help
feeling that she was afraid of something. Then, as it happened, they
heard her mother speaking to somebody in the corridor, and making him
a little sign she slipped out softly. Ormsgill sat where he was,
wondering why she had done so, until a rustle of dresses suggested
that she and the people she had apparently spoken to had moved away.
Then he went out, and met Desmond in front of the hotel.
"Been having it out with Mrs. Ratcliffe?" he said. "I saw you on the
veranda. Found it rather difficult? I couldn't stand that old woman."
"It was not exactly pleasant," said Ormsgill, dryly.
Desmond grinned. "Told her what you were going back for--and she
didn't believe a word of it? As a matter of fact, you could hardly
expect her to. Still, you needn't be unduly anxious. It wouldn't
matter very much what you did out there. She might be horrified when
she heard of it, but she wouldn't let you go."
The blood rose to Ormsgill's face. He fancied his companion was right
in this, but it suggested another thought, and it appeared impossible
that the girl's views should coincide with her mother's. It was
painful to feel that she might have placed an unfavorable construction
upon his narrative, but that she should believe him a libertine and
still be willing to marry him because he was rich was a thing he
shrank with horror from admitting. He was aware that women now and
then made such marriages, but although he did not as a rule expect too
much of human nature, he looked for a good deal from the woman he
meant to make his wife. He could not quite disguise the fact that
there were aspects of her character which did not altogether please
him.
"Well," he said grimly, "we will talk about something else. You are
still determined on going with me?"
"Of course," said Desmond.
Ormsgill took him into his room, and by and by unrolled a chart upon
the table.
"There's shelter off this beach in about six fathoms under the point,"
he said. "She will roll rather wildly, but the holding's excellent,
and a surf-boat could get off most days in the week. As some of the
mail-boat skippers will probably see you and mention it, you will call
and report yourself to the Commandant and the customs on your way down
the coast. Bring one or two of them off to dinner and inquire about
the sport to be had. As a matter of fact, there is something to shoot
a few days' march back from the beach, and there is no reason why you
shouldn't go after it."
"You haven't said very much about yourself," observed his companion.
"I'm going direct by mail-boat. There is to be no apparent connection
between us. If you are at the beach by the date I mentioned and wait
there fourteen days, it will be sufficient. If I don't join you by
that time something will have gone radically wrong."
"Then," said Desmond cheerfully, "I'll fit the whole crowd out down to
the firemen with elephant guns and rifles, and go ashore to fetch you,
if we have to sack every bush fort in the country."
Ormsgill only laughed, and going out together they swung themselves on
a passing steam tram and were whirled away to the steamship offices in
the Spanish city through a blinding cloud of dust.
Two days later Ormsgill boarded a yellow-funneled steamer, which crept
out of harbor presently with the Portuguese flag at the fore, and
faded into a streak of hull and a smoke trail low down on the dazzling
sea. From the veranda of the hotel, Ada Ratcliffe watched it slowly
melt, with her lips tight set and a curious look in her eyes, until
when the blue expanse was once more empty she rose with a little sigh.
There was, of course, nothing to be gained by sitting there
disconsolate, and she had to array herself becomingly for an excursion
to a village among the black volcanic hills. She also took a prominent
part in it very gracefully, while a quiet brown-faced man leaned on a
little wildly-rolling steamer's rail, looking southwest across the
dazzling white-flecked combers towards the shadowy land.
He reached it in due time, and one afternoon two or three days after
he arrived at a little decadent city, sat talking to the olive-faced
gentleman he had met at the Las Palmas hotel. The latter now wore a
very tight white uniform, and a rather high and cumbrous kepi lay on
the chair at his side. He was singularly spare in figure; his face,
which was a trifle worn and hollow, was in no way suggestive of
physical virility, and the brown-tipped fingers of the hand which
rested on his knee very much resembled claws; but, as Major
Chillingham had noticed, he wore the unmistakable stamp of high
authority.
"Ah," he said in Portuguese, "you are not as most of your countrymen,
and seem to understand that haste is not always advisable--especially
in this land."
Ormsgill smiled a little as he gazed down on the straggling city. The
room he and his companion sat in had no front to it. A row of slender
pillars with crude whitewashed arches between them served instead, and
he could look out on the curiously jumbled buildings below. Some were
of wood and had red iron roofs and broad verandas, others of stone, or
what appeared to be blocks of sun-baked mud, and these were mostly
glaringly whitewashed and roofed with tiles, though a few were flat
topped. Some stood in clusters, but as a rule there were wide spaces,
strewn with ruins and rubbish, between them. Scarcely a sound rose
from any of them. Here and there a white-clad figure reclined in a big
chair on a veranda, and odd clusters of negroes, some loosely draped
in raw colors, and some half-naked, slept in the shadow. Everything
was so still that one could have fancied the place was peopled by the
dead. Beyond the long strip of land across the harbor the glaring
levels of the Atlantic stretched away, and the hot air quivered with
the dull insistent roar and rumble of the surf.
"It is certainly as I suggested," said the little olive-faced
gentleman. "You have been here three days, and I do not even know what
you expect from me yet."
"It is very little. A concession of exploitation in the country
inland."
"In which district?"
Ormsgill mentioned it, and his companion looked at him with a little
smile. "The request can be granted, but I gave you good advice once
before, and I venture to offer it again. This Africa is not a healthy
country, and it is not, I think, advisable that you should stay here,
especially up yonder in the bush. There are gentlemen of some
importance there whom you have offended, and we are, it seems, not all
forgiving. It is, perhaps, a fact to be deprecated, but one to be
counted on."
"One has occasionally to do a thing that doesn't seem advisable," said
Ormsgill reflectively.
"In this case the reasons cannot be financial. I heard of your good
fortune in Las Palmas."
Ormsgill was not pleased at this, but he laughed. "A little money is
not always a fortune. Perhaps it would be permissible for me to
express my pleasure that your administrative genius has been
recognized?"
Dom Clemente made him a little grave inclination. "I hold authority,
but the man who does so seldom sleeps on roses, especially in this
country. Well, you still want the concession of exploitation, though
the region you mention is not a productive one?"
"There are articles of commerce which come down that way from the
interior."
Dom Clemente looked at him steadily. "Ah," he said, "if one could tell
what went on there. Still, as you say, there are things we have need
of that come down from the interior."
Ormsgill's face was expressionless, though he was not pleased to see a
little smile creep into his companion's eyes, but just then another
man of very dusky color came up the outside stairway with a big
clanking sword strapped on to him, and Dom Clemente rose.
"I make my excuses, but the permit will be ready to-morrow," he said.
"In the meanwhile my daughter, who is in the patio, would thank you
for several courtesies at Las Palmas."
Ormsgill turned away, and went down to the little pink-washed patio
which was filled with straggling flowers and was, at least,
comparatively cool. The girl who lay in a big chair did not rise, but
signed to him to take another near her side, and then looked up at him
with big violet eyes. It did not occur to Ormsgill that there was any
significance in the fact that the only two chairs in the patio should
be close together, but it struck him that Benicia Figuera was a very
well-favored young woman, and very much in harmony with her
surroundings. Colorless as her face was, there was a scintillation in
her eyes, and a depth of hue in her somewhat full red lips, which with
the sweeping lines of her lightly-draped, rounded form suggested that
there was in her a full measure of the warm and vivid life of the
tropics. Her voice was low and quiet, and her English passable.
"I believe my father has been giving you good advice," she said.
"Why should you think that?" asked Ormsgill, lightly.
His companion's gesture might have meant anything. "You feel the
advice is excellent, but you do not mean to take it? It is not a thing
you often do. In one way I am sorry."
Ormsgill laughed. "Might one ask why you should take so much interest
in an obstinate stranger?"
The girl moved her hands, which were white and very shapely, in a
fashion which seemed to imply a protest. Ormsgill noticed that they
had also the appearance of capable hands, and he fancied that their
grasp could be tenacious.
"Ah," she said, "there were little courtesies shown us at Las Palmas,
things that made our stay there pleasanter, and I think there was,
perhaps, no great reason why you should have done them for my father."
Then her eyes twinkled. "I am not sure that all your friends were very
pleased with you."
Ormsgill did not smile this time. He recollected now that Ada
Ratcliffe had been distinctly less gracious and her mother more formal
than usual after one or two of the trifling courtesies he had shown
Dom Clemente and the girl, but it had not occurred to him to put the
two things together.
"I wonder," he said reflectively "how you come to speak such excellent
English."
The girl laughed.
"My mother's name was O'Donnel, though she was rather more Portuguese
than I am. She was born in the Peninsula. It seems I have gone back
two or three generations. They assured me of it once in Wicklow.
Still, all that does not interest you. You are going into the
interior."
Ormsgill said he was, and the girl appeared thoughtful for a moment or
two.
"Then one might again advise you to be careful. There are, at least,
two men who do not wish you well. One of them is a certain Commandant,
and the other the trader Herrero."
"I wonder if you could tell me where the trader Herrero is?"
"If I can I will send you word to-morrow."
Ormsgill thanked her and took his leave ceremoniously, but he was a
little annoyed to find that his thoughts would wander back to the cool
patio as he strolled through the dazzling, sun-scorched town. He felt
it would have been pleasant to stay there a little in the shadow, and
that Benicia Figuera would not have resented it. There was something
vaguely attractive about her, and she had Irish eyes in which he had
seen a hint of the reckless inconsequent courage of that people. This,
he reflected, did not concern him, and dismissing all further thought
of her he went about his business. Still, when the concession was sent
to him next morning the negro who brought it also handed him a little
note. It had no signature, and merely contained the name of a certain
village on the fringe of the hills that cut off the coast levels from
the island plateaux.