KING SCRIP.
"Hallo, Stanninghame! And so, here you are?"
"Here I am, Rainsford, as you say; and from what I have heard in process
of getting here, I'm afraid I have got here a day too late."
The other laughed, as they shook hands. He was a man of Laurence's own
age, straight and active, and his bronzed face wore that alert, eager
look which was noticeable upon the faces of most of the fortune-seekers,
for of such was the bulk of the inhabitants of Johannesburg at that
time.
"You never can tell," he rejoined. "Things are a bit slack now, because
of this infernal drought; but a good sousing rain, or a few smart
thunder showers, would fill all the dams and set the batteries working
again harder than ever. It's the rainy time of year, too."
It was the morning after Laurence's arrival in Johannesburg, and, while
sallying forth to find Rainsford, the two had met on Commissioner
Street. The brand-new gold-town looked anything but what it was. It did
not look new. In spite of the general unfinishedness of the streets and
sidewalks, the latter largely conspicuous by their absence; in spite of
the predominance of scaffolding poles and half-reared structures of red
brick; in spite of the countless tenements of corrugated iron, and the
tall chimneys of mining works which came in here where steeples would
have arisen in an ordinary town; in spite of all this there was a
battered and weather-beaten aspect about the place which made it look
centuries old. Great pillars of dust towered skywards, then dispersing,
whirled in mighty wreaths over the shining iron roofs, to fall hissing
back into the red-powdery streets whence they arose, choking with
pungent particles the throats, eyes, and ears of the eager, busy,
speculative, acquisitive crowd, who had flocked hither like wasps to a
jar of beer and honey. And to many, indeed, it was destined to prove
just such a trap.
"Well, what do you advise, Rainsford?" said Laurence, after some more
talk about the Rand and its prospects.
"Wait a day or two. You don't want to buy in a falling market. There are
several good companies to put into, but things haven't touched bottom
yet. When they do and just begin to rise, then buy in. Meanwhile lie
low."
"You speak like a book, Rainsford," said one of two men who joined them
at that moment. "There's a capital company now whose shares are on the
rise again. Couldn't do better than take two or three hundred of them.
What do you say?"
"Name?"
"Bai-praatfonteins."
"I'll watch it!" said Rainsford, with an emphatic and negative shake of
the head.
"I say, you don't want a couple of building stands? They'll treble
their value in as many weeks. Going cheap as dirt now."
"Not taking any, Rankin," was the uncompromising reply, for Rainsford
knew something about those building stands.
"You're making a mistake. Bless my soul, if only I had the money to
spare, I'd take them at double myself. I'm only agent in the matter,
though. I can't do any business at all with you fellows this morning."
All this was said in the most genial and good-humoured tone imaginable.
The speaker was a spare, straight, neatly dressed individual of middle
age. His face was of a dark bronze hue, lit up by a pair of keen black
eyes, and his beard was prematurely gray, almost white. The expression
of keenness on a deal was not characteristic of him alone. Everyone wore
it in those days.
"That was a great old shot you did on me, Rainsford, with those Verneuk
Draais," cut in the other man, in a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of
voice. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, whose condition
looked as hard as nails. "_Ja_, it just was."
"Well, I'll buy them back if you like, Wheeler."
"How much?"
"Sixteen and a half."
A roar of good-humoured derision went up from the other.
"Sixteen and a half? And I took them over from you at twenty-eight.
Sixteen and a half?"
"Well, are you taking?" said Rainsford.
"Dead off," returned the other.
"What do you say, you fellows?" cut in the first who had spoken. "A
little 'smile' of something before lunch won't do us any harm. Eh? what
do you say?"
"_Ja_, that's so. Come along," sung out the tall man, spinning round
upon one heel and heading for the Exchange bar.
"There's nothing like an Angostura to give one an appetite," said the
dark man to Laurence as they walked along. "It gives tone to the system.
Angostura--with a little drop of gin in it."
"With a little drop of gin in it?" repeated Wheeler, with a derisive
roar. "That's where the tone to the system comes in--eh, Rankin?"
"Only just out from home, are you?" said the latter to Laurence as,
having named their respective "poisons," the original four, with two or
three others who had joined them _en route_, stood absorbing the same.
"Heavens! did you ever hear such a row in your life?" he went on, as
through the open door connecting with the Exchange came the frantic
bawling of brokers, competing wildly for Blazesfonteins, and Verneuk
Laagtes, and Hellpoorts, and Vulture's Vleis, and Madeiras, and Marshes,
and up and down the whole gamut. And there in the crowd lining the bar,
and in the crowd outside the Exchange, and in the crowd upon Market
Square, where the auctioneers stood, well-nigh elbow to elbow, bellowing
from their tubs, and where you might bid for anything from a building
stand or a pair of horses to a concertina or a pair of stays--everywhere
the talk was the same, and it was of scrip. King Scrip ruled the roost.
Just then, however, the subjects of King Scrip were undergoing rather
an anxious time, for the drought was becoming serious. Dams being empty,
batteries could not work; result, scrip drawing within alarming distance
of touching its own value--paper, to wit. And as the dams became more
empty, those with an "n" appended became more and more full--yea,
exceeding full-bodied, and both loud and deep. In the churches they were
praying for rain,--praying hard,--for rain meant money; and in the bars
they were "cussing" for lack of it,--"cussing" hard,--on the same
principle. Then the rain came, and in the churches they sang "Te Deum";
and in the bars they drove a humming trade in champagne, where "John
Walker" had been good enough before. Up went scrip, and Laurence
Stanninghame, having judiciously invested his little all, cleared about
three hundred pounds in as many days. Things began to look rosy.
By this time, too, Laurence got sick of hanging around the Exchange and
talking scrip. He had no turn that way, wherefore now he was glad enough
to leave his affairs in the hands of Rainsford, who, being an inhabitant
of Johannesburg, was, of course, a broker; and, having picked up a very
decent No. 12 bore on one of the open-air sales aforesaid, laid himself
out to see what sport was obtainable in the surrounding country. This
was not much, but it involved many a hard and long tramp; and the
Transvaal atmosphere is brisk and exhilarating, with the result that eye
and brain grew clearer, and his condition became as hard as nails. And
as there is nothing like a thoroughly healthy condition of body,
combined with an equally healthy mental state,--in this instance the
elation produced by an intensely longed-for measure of
success,--Laurence began to realize a certain pleasure in living, a
sensation to which he had been a stranger for many a long year, and
which, assuredly, he had never expected to experience again.
For the market still continued to hum, and by dint of judicious
investments and quick turnings over, Laurence had more than doubled the
original amount he had put in. At this rate the moderate wealth to which
he aspired would soon be his.
And now, with the ball of success apparently at his feet, so
unsatisfying, so ironical are the conditions of life, that he was
conscious of a something to damp the anticipatory delights of that
success. Those long, solitary tramps over the veldt after scant coveys
of partridge, or the stealthy stalk of wild duck at some _vlei_, were
very conducive to introspection; that wealth which he imagined within
his grasp did not now look so all-in-all sufficing, and yet he had
deemed it the end and all-in-all of life. Even with his past
experience--the depressing, deteriorating effects, mental and physical,
of years of poverty in its most squalid and depressing form,
"shabby-genteel" poverty--he realized that even the possession of wealth
might leave something to be desired. In fact, he became conscious of an
unsatisfied longing, by no means vague, but very real, which came to him
at his time of life with a sort of dismayed surprise. He would give up
these solitary wanderings in search of sport. The sport was of a poor
description, and the intervals between were too long. He had too much
time to think. He would knock around the town a little for a change, and
talk to fellows.
One morning he was walking down the street with Rainsford and
Wheeler,--the latter, who was an up-country hunter, busy, in pursuance
of the prevailing spirit, in trying to trade him sundry pairs of big
game, horns, and other trophies,--when he heard his name called in a
very well remembered voice. Turning, he beheld Holmes.
"Stanninghame, old chap, I _am_ glad to run against you again!" cried
the latter, advancing upon him with outstretched hand.
"I begin to believe you are," answered Laurence genially, with a comical
glance at the other's beaming countenance. "Why, you actually have a
look that way. When did you get here?"
"By last night's coach. And, I say,"--trying to look wondrously
mysterious and knowing,--"who do you think travelled up by it too?"
"I can't even venture the feeblest guess."
"Can't you?" chuckled Holmes. "What about Miss Ormskirk, eh? How's
that?"
"So? Now I remember, she did say something about a possibility of coming
up here before long," replied Laurence equably, while conscious that the
announcement had convulsed his inner being with a strange, sweet thrill.
For it came so aptly upon his meditations of late. The one unsatisfied
longing--her presence. And now even that was to be fulfilled.
"You don't seem to take it over enthusiastically, Stanninghame," went on
Holmes. "And you and she were rather thick towards the end of the
voyage," he added mischievously.
"Did you ever know me enthuse about anything, Holmes? But it's about
lunch time; let's go and get some, and you can tell me what you have
been doing since we landed from the old _Persian_, and what the deuce
has brought you up here."
This was all very friendly and plausible; but before they had been
seated many minutes at lunch in a conveniently adjacent restaurant
Holmes was discoursing singularly little upon his doings spread over the
weeks which had elapsed since he had landed, but most volubly upon his
recent coach journey congested within a space of three days--to which
topic he was tactfully moved by his audience of one and also by his own
inclination, as will hereinafter appear.
"Was Miss Ormskirk travelling alone, did you say, Holmes?" queried
Laurence, in initiation of his deft scheme for "drawing" the other.
"Not much. There was a big parchment-faced Johnny with her. He scowled
at me like sin when we were introduced--was inclined to be beastly rude
in fact, until he saw that I--er--that I--talked most to the other; then
he got quite affable."
"To the other? What other? Out with it, Holmes," said Laurence, with a
half smile at his friend's thinly veiled embarrassment.
"Oh, there was another girl in the crowd--Miss Falkner--deuced pretty
girl, too. The sulky chappie was her brother."
"Whose brother? Miss Ormskirk's?" said Laurence innocently.
"No; the blue-eyed one's. At least they both called him George."
"Yes. I remember they came on board the _Persian_. You had landed
already, I think. From your description I recognize them. So they are up
here? Where are they staying?"
"At that outlying place where the coach first begins to get among
houses. I can't remember the name. There's a biggish pub, you know, and
a lot of houses."
"Booyseus?"
"That was it; Booyseus. They asked me to go and see them. You'd better
come along too, Stanninghame. I say, d'you think it'd be too soon if we
went to-morrow, eh? Sort of excuse to ask if they'd recovered from the
journey--eh?"
"Was George so very exhausted then?"
"Oh, hang your chaff, Stanninghame! What do you think? You're an older
chap than I am, and know more about these things. Would it be too soon
if we went to-morrow?"
"Be comforted, Holmes. As far as it rests with me, you shall behold your
forget-me-not-eyed charmer to-morrow if she's at home."
The conversation worked round to the inevitable topic, King Scrip.
Holmes was fired with eagerness when in his unenthusiastic way the other
began to tell of such successes as he had already scored. For he, too,
had come up there to take advantage of the boom. He was eager to rush
out there and then to buy shares. Nothing would satisfy him but that
Laurence must take him round and introduce him to Rainsford on the spot.
But on the way to that worthy's office something happened. Turning into
Commissioner Street, they ran right into a party of four.
Result--exclamations of astonishment, of recognition, greetings from
both sides.
Three of the quartette we have already made the acquaintance of. The
fourth, Mrs. Falkner, a good-looking middle-aged lady, was the aunt of
the other three, and with her they were staying.
"I've heard of you, Mr. Stanninghame," said this one, when introductions
had been effected. "I hope you have made a success of Johannesburg so
far. Everybody turns up here. I can hardly come up to the camp--we used
to call it that in the old days. I was among the first up here, you
know, and it's difficult to get into the way of calling it the town--I
can hardly come up here, I was saying, without meeting some one or other
I had known elsewhere."
"Yes, it's an astonishing place, Mrs. Falkner," answered Laurence. "Only
bare veldt but a very few years ago, now a population of forty
thousand--mostly brokers."
She laughed, and Lilith cut in:
"I thought you were going to adopt the Carlylean definition of the
people of England, Mr. Stanninghame."
"Oh, that'll come in time. I only trust I may not hold on too long to
come under its lash."
"Let us hope none of us will," said Mrs. Falkner. "Oh, dear, we are all
dreadfully reckless, I fear. We are nothing but gamblers up here. Have
you caught the contagion too, Mr. Stanninghame?"
"I'm afraid so," he answered, thinking how, even among the softer sex
here, King Scrip bore the principal sway.
He was thinking of something else at the same time. Lilith was looking
even more sweet, more bewitchingly attractive than when last he had seen
her. There was a warm seductive glow of health in her dark brilliant
beauty, a winsomeness in her simple, tasteful attire--the cool
easy-fitting blouse and skirt in a soft harmony of cream colour and
light gray, and the plain, wide-brimmed straw hat of the "sailor"
kind--which made, to his eyes, an irresistibly entrancing picture.
She, no less than himself, was comparing notes--as two people will who
have been apart for a space, and have thought much of each other in the
interim. He, too, was improved in appearance. The fine climate, the
open-air life had lent a deeper bronze to his face and a clearness to
his eyes--even as an emancipation from sordid cares, together with a
present modicum of success and a prospect of further in the future, had
imparted a certain stamp of serenity to his expression which was not
there before. "Air, freedom, life's healthier side are good--success is
good--all good things are good--behold their result," was Lilith's inner
verdict as the summing up of this inspection.
Now George Falkner's efforts at cordiality were about as effective as
the demeanour of a crusty mastiff encountering another of his kind well
within sweep of his owner's lash. His jealous soul had noted the glance
exchanged between his cousin and Laurence Stanninghame--the responsive
glance which for a brief second would not be disguised; the great and
deep-reaching gladness, which shone in both pairs of eyes as a result of
this meeting. He stood gloomy and grim, while the two were talking
together, and then rather brusquely--and to the disgust of Holmes, who
was discoursing eagerly with pretty Mabel Falkner--he reminded his aunt
that they were due to call at So-and-So's, and were far behind their
time.
"Ah, yes, I was forgetting. Well, good-bye, Mr. Stanninghame. I hope you
will come and see us. It is nothing of a walk out to Booyseus, and
besides, there are several omnibuses in the course of the day. Mind you
come too, Mr. Holmes. Good-bye."
And the four resumed their way, and so did our two.
"Jolly, genial old party that Mrs. Falkner," pronounced Holmes, half
turning, slyly, to sneak a last glance after the blue-eyed and receding
Mabel.
"Spare my susceptibilities, Holmes, even in your exuberance. That 'old
party,' as you so unfeelingly define her, cannot own to more than two or
three years seniority over my respectable self--four at the outside,"
said Laurence maliciously.
"Oh, go along with you, old chap," retorted Holmes, yet conscious of
feeling just a trifle foolish. "But, I say," eagerly, "can we still go
and look them up so soon as to-morrow, eh?"
"Don't let that misgiving interfere with your beauty sleep, Holmes," was
the reply, dashed with a touch of good-humoured impatience. "People are
not so beastly ceremonious over here."
"I've brought you another sheep to shear, Rainsford," said Laurence, as
they entered the broker's office. "Don't clip him any closer than you
did me, though he's dying to set up as a millionaire on the spot."
And then, having effected this introduction, he left the pair to do
business or not, as the case might be, and strolled back to his own
quarters.
What was this marvellous metamorphosis which had come upon him, flooding
his life with golden waves of sweetness and of light? Now that he had
beheld Lilith once more, he realized what entire hold she had taken of
his thoughts since they two had parted on the deck of the _Persian_. It
was a certainty there was no getting away from--but a certainty now
which he was not in the least desirous of getting away from. He had
beheld her once more. Their meeting had been of the briefest, their
interchange of remarks of the most commonplace, every-day nature. Yet he
had beheld her, had listened to the sound of her voice, had looked into
her eyes. And the glance of those sweet eyes had been responsive; and
his ear could detect a subtile note in the tones of her voice. Sweet
Lilith! the spells she had begun to wreathe around him, so unconsciously
to herself, so unconsciously to him, when first they talked together,
were drawn, woven, more thoroughly now. And in his strange, new
revivification--the return of strength and health and spirits--he
rejoiced that it was so, and laughed, and defied circumstances, and Fate
and the Future.