"LIGHT THROUGH THE GLOOM..."
We have said that in purchasing Seven Kloofs, as his farm was named,
Wyvern had been largely moved by a sense of its beautiful site, and it
certainly had that redeeming feature. Now as these two sat there on the
stoep, a fair and lovely panorama lay spread forth before them. The
house was built on the slope of a hill, and, falling away in front, lay
miles and miles of undulating veldt, now of a young and tender green--
for the season had been a good one--alternating with darker patches of
bush, and the lighter green, still, of the feathery mimosa. While
beyond, walling in the river valley at some miles distant, ran a lofty
ridge, far as the eye could see, stern with stately cliffs, alternating
with the ruggedness of rock and boulder which crowned the height.
Behind the homestead a network of dark and bushy kloofs interseamed the
hills on that side; which, if a very Alsatia for mischievous wild
animals, furnished a compensating element in affording sport to the
owner--and his neighbours--in their periodical destruction.
Nor were the voices of Nature stilled in the sensuous glory of the
unclouded sunlight. The strange call of strange birds echoed
unceasingly, blending with the cheery whistle of the familiar spreeuw,
ubiquitous in his sheeny flash from bough to bough, and the far-off,
melodious call of the hoepoe, in the dusky recesses of bushy kloofs.
Dove notes, too, in ceaseless cooing, and the shrill, noisy crow of
cock-koorhaans was seldom stilled, any more than the murmuring hum of
bees and the screech of crickets; but Nature's voices are never
inharmonious, and all these, and more, blended to perfection in a chorus
of praise for a spring-reviving world.
"No--that is too far from you, dearest," objected the girl, as Wyvern
dragged forward the most comfortable of the cane chairs for her in the
vine-trellised shade of the stoep. "Now, you sit there, and I'll sit--
here," flinging down a couple of cushions beside his low chair, and
seating herself thereon so as to nestle against him. "Now we shall be
quite comfy, and can talk."
She had taken from his hand the pouch from which he had begun to fill
his pipe, likewise the pipe itself. This she now proceeded to fill for
him.
"Aren't you afraid of quite spoiling me, darling?" he murmured tenderly,
passing a caressing hand over the soft brown richness of her abundant
hair. "Would you always do it, I wonder?"
She looked up quickly.
"`Would you,'" she repeated "Oughtn't you rather to have said `Will
you'?"
"My sweet grammarian, you have found me the exact and right tense," he
answered, a little sadly, wondering if she really had any approximate
idea as to how badly things were going with him.
"That's right, then. This is getting quite worn out," examining the
pouch. "How long ago did I make it? Well, I must make you another,
anyhow."
"That'll be too sweet of you."
"Nothing can be too sweet to be done for you."
If it be doubted whether all this incense could be good for any one man,
we may concede that possibly for many--even most--it would not. But
this one constituted an exception. There was nothing one-sided about
it, for he gave her back love for love. Moreover, it was good for him;
now, especially, when he stood in need of all the comfort, all the
stimulus she could give him; for these two were engaged, and he--was
tottering on the verge of ruin.
He looked down into her eyes, and their glances held each other. What
priceless riches was such a love as this. Ruin! Why ruin was wealth
while such as this remained with him. And yet--and yet--Wyvern's
temperament contained but little of the sanguine; moreover he knew his
own capabilities, and however high these might or might not stand for
ornamental purposes, no one knew better than he did that for the hard,
practical purpose of building for himself a pecuniary position they were
_nil_. Nor was he young enough to cherish any illusions upon the
subject.
"You said you had some serious talk for me, sweetheart," he said. "Now
begin."
"It's about father. He keeps dinning into me that you--that you--are
not doing well."
"He's right there," said Wyvern, grimly. "And then?"
"And then--well, I lost my temper."
"You have a temper then?"
She nestled closer to his side, and laid her head against him.
"Haven't I--worse luck!"
He laughed, softly, lovingly.
"Well, I'll risk that. But, why did you lose it?"
"He told me--he said--that things ought not to go on any longer between
us," answered the girl, slowly.
"Oh, he said that did he? What if he should be right?"
She started to her feet, and her eyes dilated as she fixed them upon his
face; her own turning ghastly white.
"You say that--_you_? _If_ he should be right?"
Wyvern rose too. The greyness which had superseded the bronze of his
face was an answer to her white one.
"I am ruined," he said. "Is it fair to bind you to a broken and ruined
man, one who, short of a miracle, will never be anything else?"
"You mean that? That he might be right?" she repeated.
The ashen hue deepened on his countenance.
"In your own interest--yes. As for me, the day that I realised I should
see you no more in the same way, as I see you now--that is as _mine_--
would be my last on earth," he said, his voice breaking, in a very
abandonment of passion and despair. Then with an effort, "But there.
It was cowardly of me to tell you that."
"Oh, love--love!" Now they were locked in a firm embrace, and their
lips met again and again. In the reaction great tears welled from her
eyes, but she was smiling through them. "Now I am answered," she went
on, "I thought I knew what happiness was, but, if possible, I never did
until this moment."
"Did you think I was going to give you up then?" he said, a trifle
unsteadily.
"Don't ask me what I thought I only know I seem to have lived a hundred
years in the last minute or so."
"And I?"
"You too. You have an expressive face, my ideal?"
"Listen, Lalante. How long have we known each other?"
"Since I first came home. Just a year."
"And how long have we loved each other?"
"Exactly the same time, to a minute."
"Yes. And have we ever had the slightest misunderstanding or exchanged
one single word that jarred or rankled?"
"Never."
"Why not?"
"Because of our love--our complete and perfect love."
"Yes. Now we have had our first misunderstanding, but not in the
ordinary and derogatory sense in which the word is used--and it has only
served to cement us more closely together. Hasn't it?"
"It has."
"Then we will sit down again and talk things over quietly," he said.
"You have been standing long enough, after your long, hot ride."
He released her beautiful form from his embrace, though reluctantly, and
only then after another clinging kiss. She subsided again on to her
cushions.
"After my long, hot ride!" she echoed. "Why, it was nothing. I'm as
strong as a horse."
"You are perfect."
"Oh, and all this time you have not even lighted your pipe!" she cried,
gleefully, and radiant with smiles as she picked up that homely and
comforting implement where he had let it fall. "Now light it up,
dearest, and then we will be comfy, and talk."
"Yes. Well then, I suppose your father was rather abusing me on the
whole, Lalante; saying I was doing no good, and so forth. He has been
doing that more and more of late. Don't be afraid I shan't mind; nor
shall I feel at all ill-disposed towards him on that account."
"I'm sure you won't; first because you are you, secondly because you
know that he is utterly powerless to part us. Well then, he said again
that your affairs were rapidly going from bad to worse, and that you
would never do any good for yourself or anybody else."
"As for the first he's right. For the second--I'm not so sure."
Wyvern spoke with a new confidence that was a little strange to
himself--a confidence begotten of the very trust and confidence which
this girl had shown in him. His love for her thrilled every fibre of
his body and soul. Now that he knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that
nothing on earth could part them--and he did know it now--a new, and as
we have said, a strange confidence and self-reliance had been born
within him.
She, for her part, laughed--laughed lightly, happily.
"But I am," she answered. "For instance you have done a great deal of
good for _me_. You have turned my days into a sunlight of bliss, and my
nights into a dream beside which Heaven might pale. Is that nothing?"
"Child--child!" he said, still passing his hand caressingly over the
soft luxuriance of her hair. "Will it last--will it last? Remember you
are enthroning a poor sort of idol after all. What then?"
Again she laughed!--lightly, happily.
"What then? Last? Oh, you'll see. You are a bit older than me,
darling, but even you don't know everything--no, not quite everything."
The mocking face was turned up, radiant in the love-light of its
obsession. Upon the rich, full lips he dropped his own. And the golden
glory from above warmed down upon a shining world in its wild splendour
here of forest and waste and cliff, and the joyous voices of Nature
echoed their multitudinous but ever blending notes. The glow of Heaven
lay upon all, and its peace upon two hearts.
"No, I do not know everything," he said at last, "for I did not know
that the whole world could contain one like you."
Her fingers, intertwined with his, closed upon them in unspoken
response. Both seemed to lack heart to revert to more serious and
mundane talk in the happiness of the hour; and in God's name, why should
they, seeing that such hours can come to few, and then but seldom in a
lifetime?
"_Baas. Myn lieve Baas_?"
"What do you want, old Sanna?" said Wyvern, frowning at the
interruption, yet not moving. "Go away. You are disturbing us."
"But _myn Baas_," persisted the old woman, deprecatorily. "I think
something must be dead--there--down by the river. The aasvogels are
like a very cloud."
"I don't care if something is dead," he answered. "I don't care if all
the world were dead--in fact I wish it was. So go away and don't come
bothering me again until I call you."
She obeyed, not in the least huffy. Romance appeals to all natures and
nationalities and ages, and even this semi-civilised old scion of a very
inferior race was not impervious to a sympathetic heart-warming over the
situation.
"Let's go and see what she means, dearest," said Lalante after the old
woman had gone. "I feel as if I should like to move a little, and--are
we not still together?"
They went round to the angle of the house, whence they could see to the
point indicated. The great scavengers of the air were wheeling and
circling in hundreds, away down by the river bank, white and fleecy
against the cloudless blue.
"They must have found that wretched Kafir," said the girl. "Isn't that
somewhere about where he'd be lying?"
"Yes. But they wouldn't be able to get at him. He fell into a part of
the _donga_ which is entirely sheltered by bush and prickly pears. What
they have found is the mutton, which in the delight of your arrival I
clean forgot to send someone to fetch."
She pressed to her side the hand which lay passed through her arm, and
they stood for a little, watching the great white scavengers in the
distance.
"I could almost find it in me to vow never to kill another puff-adder
after the service that one rendered me," went on Wyvern. "I had a tough
contract on hand, and that other fellow was big and powerful, and had a
business-like sort of knife. The stone trick might not have worked out
so well twice running."
"Darling, don't take any more of those foolish risks. Why don't you
carry a pistol?"
"Oh, it's heavy and therefore hot. I shall have bother enough now over
that wretched Kafir. There'll be an inquest and so on. By the way, I
shall have to notify your father about the affair. He's the nearest
Field-cornet."
"That's all right. You can come over to-morrow and tell him, then we
shall see each other two days running, or rather three--for of course
you must stop the night."
"He won't ask me. I'm out of favour, remember."
"Won't he? Well, if he doesn't I will; and I think I know who's _Baas_
in household arrangements of that kind."
Both laughed. "I think I do," Wyvern said. "Now let's go round to the
stable and see to your horse. It's not very far from counting-in time--
worse luck."
"Ah, yes. How time gallops. Now, you will be wanting to get rid of
me."
"That of course."
"Well then, you won't--not just yet that is. I'm going to stay and have
supper with you. There's a splendid moon, and you can ride back with me
until I'm in sight of the house. How does that appeal?"
"In the way of perfection."
"Same here. I didn't let on I was coming here to-day, but nobody will
give me away whatever time I get back, that's one thing."