This world is not for aye, nor'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
... so you must take your husbands.
It is our trick. Nature her custom holds
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone
The woman will be out.--_Hamlet._
|OF course,” said Lottie, as she stood by the side of Oswin Markham
when the small steamer which had been specially engaged to take the
field-officers of the Bayonetteers over the dreaded bar of Durban
harbour was approaching the quay--“of course we shall all go together up
to Pietermaritzburg. I have been there before, you know. We shall have a
coach all to ourselves from Durban.” She looked up to his face with only
the least questioning expression upon her own. But Mr. Markham thought
that he had made quite enough promises previously: it would be unwise
to commit himself even in so small a detail as the manner of the journey
from the port of Durban to the garrison town of Pietermaritzburg, which
he knew was at a distance of upwards of fifty miles.
“I have not the least idea what I shall do when we land,” he said. “It
is probable that I shall remain at the port for some days. I may as well
see all that there is on view in this part of the colony.”
This was very distressing to the young lady.
“Do you mean to desert me?” she asked somewhat reproachfully.
“Desert you?” he said in a puzzled way. “Ah, those are the words in a
scene in your part, are they not?”
Lottie became irritated almost beyond the endurance of a naturally
patient soul.
“Do you mean to leave me to stand alone against all my difficulties, Mr.
Markham?”
“I should be sorry to do that, Miss Vincent. If you have difficulties,
tell me what they are; and if they are of such a nature that they can be
curtailed by me, you may depend upon my exerting myself.”
“You know very well what idiots these Bayonetteers are,” cried Lottie.
“I know that most of them have promised to act in your theatricals,”
replied Markham quietly; and Lottie tried to read his soul in another of
her glances to discover the exact shade of the meaning of his words, but
she gave up the quest.
“Of course you can please yourself, Mr. Markham,” she said, with a
coldness that was meant to appal him.
“And I trust that I may never be led to do so at the expense of
another,” he remarked.
“Then you will come in our coach?” she cried, brightening up.
“Pray do not descend to particulars when we are talking in this vague
way on broad matters of sentiment, Miss Vincent.”
“But I must know what you intend to do at once.”
“At once? I intend to go ashore, and try if it is possible to get a
dinner worth eating. After that--well, this is Tuesday, and on Thursday
week your entertainment will take place; before that day you say
you want three rehearsals, then I will agree to be by your side at
Pietermaritzburg on Saturday next.”
This business-like arrangement was not what Lottie on leaving Cape Town
had meant to be the result of the voyage to Natal. There was a slight
pause before she asked:
“What do you mean by treating me in this way? I always thought you were
my friend. What will papa say if you leave me to go up there alone?”
This was a very daring bit of dialogue on the part of Miss Lottie, but
they were nearing the quay where she knew Oswin would be free; aboard
the mail steamer of course he was--well, scarcely free. But Mr. Markham
was one of those men who are least discomfited by a daring stroke. He
looked steadfastly at the girl so soon as she uttered her words.
“The problem is too interesting to be allowed to pass, Miss Vincent,” he
said. “We shall do our best to have it answered. By Jove, doesn't that
man on the quay look like Harwood? It is Harwood indeed, and I thought
him among the Zulus.”
The first man caught sight of on the quay was indeed the special
correspondent of the _Dominant Trumpeter_. Lottie's manner changed
instantly on seeing him, and she gave one of her girlish laughs on
noticing the puzzled expression upon his face as he replied to her
salutations while yet afar. She was very careful to keep by the side
of Oswin until the steamer was at the quay; and when at last Harwood
recognised the features of the two persons who had been saluting him,
she saw him look with a little smile first to herself, then to Oswin,
and she thought it prudent to give a small guilty glance downwards and
to repeat her girlish laugh.
Oswin saw Harwood's glance and heard Lottie's laugh. He also heard the
young lady making an explanation of certain matters, to which Harwood
answered with a second little smile.
“Kind? Oh, exceedingly kind of him to come so long a distance for the
sake of assisting you. Nothing could be kinder.”
“I feel it to be so indeed,” said Miss Vincent. “I feel that I can never
repay Mr. Markham.”
Again that smile came to Mr. Harwood as he said: “Do not take such a
gloomy view of the matter, my dear Miss Vincent; perhaps on reflection
some means may be suggested to you.”
“What can you mean?” cried the puzzled little thing, tripping away.
“Well, Harwood, in spite of your advice to me, you see I am here not
more than a week behind yourself.”
“And you are looking better than I could have believed possible for any
one in the condition you were in when I left,” said Harwood. “Upon my
word, I did not expect much from you as I watched you go up the stairs
at the hotel after that wild ride of yours to and from no place in
particular. But, of course, there are circumstances under which fellows
look knocked up, and there are others that combine to make them seem
quite the contrary; now it seems to me you are subject to the influence
of the latter just at present.” He glanced as if by accident over to
where Lottie was making a pleasant little fuss about some articles of
her luggage.
“You are right,” said Markham--“quite right. I have reason to be
particularly elated just now, having got free from that steamer and my
fellow-passengers.”
“Why, the fellows of the Bayonetteers struck me as being particularly
good company,” said Harwood.
“And so they were. Now I must look after this precious portmanteau of
mine.”
“And assist that helpless little creature to look after hers,” muttered
Harwood when the other had left him. “Poor little Lottie! is it possible
that you have landed a prize at last? Well, no one will say that you
don't deserve something for your years of angling.”
Mr. Harwood felt very charitably inclined just at this instant, for his
reflections on the behaviour of Markham during the last few days they
had been at the same hotel at Cape Town had not by any means been
quieted since they had parted. He was sorry to be compelled to leave
Cape Town without making any discovery as to the mental condition of
Markham. Now, however, he knew that Markham had been strong enough to
come on to Natal, so that the searching out of the problem of his former
weakness would be as uninteresting as it would be unprofitable. If
there should chance to be any truth in that vague thought which had been
suggested to him as to the possibility of Markham having become attached
to Daireen Gerald, what did it matter now? Here was Markham, having
overcome his weakness, whatever it may have been, by the side of Lottie
Vincent; not indeed appearing to be in great anxiety regarding the
welfare of the young lady's luggage which was being evil-treated, but
still by her side, and this made any further thought on his behalf
unnecessary.
Mr. Markham had given his portmanteau into the charge of one of the
Natal Zulus, and then he turned to Harwood.
“You don't mind my asking you what you are doing at Durban instead of
being at the other side of the Tugela?” he said.
“The Zulus of this province require to be treated of most carefully
in the first instance, before the great question of Zulus in their own
territory can be fully understood by the British public,” replied the
correspondent. “I am at present making the Zulu of Durban my special
study. I suppose you will be off at once to Pietermaritzburg?”
“No,” said Markham. “I intend remaining at Durban to study the--the Zulu
characteristics for a few days.”
“But Lottie--I beg your pardon--Miss Vincent is going on at once.”
There was a little pause, during which Markham stared blankly at his
friend.
“What on earth has that got to say to my remaining here?” he said.
Harwood looked at him and felt that Miss Lottie was right, even on
purely artistic grounds, in choosing Oswin Markham as one of her actors.
“Nothing--nothing of course,” he replied to Markham's question.
But Miss Lottie had heard more than a word of this conversation. She
tripped up to Mr. Harwood.
“Why don't you make some inquiry about your old friends, you most
ungrateful of men?” she cried. “Oh, I have such a lot to tell you.
Dear old Mrs. Crawford was in great grief about your going away, you
know--oh, such great grief that she was forced to give a picnic the
second day after you left, for fear we should all have broken down
utterly.”
“That was very kind of Mrs. Crawford,” said Harwood; “and it only
remains for me to hope fervently that the required effect was produced.”
“So far as I was concerned, it was,” said Lottie. “But it would never do
for me to speak for other people.”
“Other people?”
“Yes, other people--the charming Miss Gerald, for instance; I cannot
speak for her, but Mr. Markham certainly can, for he lay at her feet
during the entire of the afternoon when every one else had wandered
away up the ravine. Yes, Mr. Markham will tell you to a shade what her
feelings were upon that occasion. Now, bye-bye. You will come to our
little entertainment next week, will you not? And you will turn up on
Saturday for rehearsal?” she added, smiling at Oswin, who was looking
more stern than amused. “Don't forget--Saturday. You should be very
grateful for my giving you liberty for so long.”
Both men went ashore together without a word; nor did they fall at once
into a fluent chat when they set out for the town, which was more than
two miles distant; for Mr. Harwood was thinking out another of the
problems which seemed to suggest themselves to him daily from the fact
of his having an acute ear for discerning the shades of tone in which
his friends uttered certain phrases. He was just now engaged linking
fancy unto fancy, thinking if it was a little impulse of girlish
jealousy, meant only to give a mosquito-sting to Oswin Markham, that had
caused Miss Lottie Vincent to make that reference to Miss Gerald, or if
it was a piece of real bitterness designed to wound deeply. It was
an interesting problem, and Mr. Harwood worked at its solution very
patiently, weighing all his recollections of past words and phrases that
might tend to a satisfactory result.
But the greatest amount of satisfaction was not afforded to Mr. Harwood
by the pursuit of the intricacies of the question he had set himself
to work out, but by the reflection that at any rate Markham's being at
Natal and not within easy riding distance of a picturesque Dutch cottage
at Mowbray, was a certain good. What did it signify now if Markham had
previously been too irresolute to tear himself away from the association
of that cottage? Had he not afterwards proved himself sufficiently
strong? And if this strength had come to him through any conversation
he might have had with Miss Gerald on the hillside to which Lottie
had alluded, or elsewhere, what business was it to anybody? Here was
Markham--there was Durban, and this was satisfactory. Only--what did
Lottie mean exactly by that little bit of spitefulness or bitterness?