"I wonder why Mr Wyvern never comes over to see us now," remarked small
Frank Le Sage, one morning.
"I believe he and Lala have had a row," rejoined smaller Charlie; for
thus were they wont at times to abbreviate their sister's uncommon, and
to them high-sounding name.
She for her part smiled. She would not "shut them up," she liked to
hear them talk about him.
"Man, but he's a fine chap," went on the first speaker. "I seem to miss
him no end."
"Rather," assented the other. "And doesn't he just know how to make
stunning catapults!"
"And to use them too," came the rejoinder.
Lalante, who had been contemplating the small speakers with a smile of
tender approval, burst out laughing at this ingenuous and whole-hearted
appreciation of the absent one's claim to esteem.
"And so that's all he's a `fine chap' for, is it?" she said.
"Oh, no. He's a jolly fine chap all round, you know."
"Rather," confirmed the other. Then, insinuatingly, "I say, Lalante.
Let us off that beastly catechism this morning, won't you? It's such a
jolly morning to go down the kloof and humbug about."
It was Sunday, and the form of instruction thus irreverently qualified,
was wont on that day to take the place of the "three R's" already
referred to.
"Yes, and get yourselves into a nice mess, and tear yourselves to
pieces. Supposing any visitors were to turn up--you wouldn't be fit to
be seen," answered the girl. But her tone was, for the object they had
in view, anything but hopeless.
"We shan't get any visitors except Mr Wyvern, and he won't care,"
replied he who had made the request.
"I hope he will turn up," declared the other. "He does spin such
ripping good yarns. Do let us off, Lala."
For answer they were encircled by an arm apiece, and upon each eager,
pleading face was bestowed a hearty kiss.
"You darlings, I will then," she said, releasing them. "But--go and put
on your old clothes. I'm not going to have you running wild in those."
Away they sped rejoicing. The condition was not a hard one. It is only
fair to say, however, that their hymn of praise to the absent Wyvern was
in no way inspired by ulterior motive. Their admiration for him was
whole-souled and genuine.
Lalante looked after them with something of a sigh. They could be happy
enough--a small trifle would accomplish that. But she? However
cheerful and sanguine and comforting she might be in the presence of her
lover, there were times, when alone, that her heart failed her. And now
that presence was withdrawn.
Nearly a month had gone by since her father had fixed an open quarrel
upon him, which quarrel, for all its tragic potentialities, had found a
somewhat tame and commonplace outcome at the time, to all outward
seeming, that is. She had, as Wyvern had foreseen, come out to welcome
him on that eventful morning; and while obliged to bid him good-bye
then, had assured him openly and unmistakably, and in the presence of
her father, that she had no more intention of giving him up than she had
of jumping off the nearest _krantz_; a declaration which caused Le Sage
to snarl and curse. Then Wyvern, having the good sense to see that no
good purpose could be served by further irritating his quondam friend,
had bidden her good-bye--not less affectionately than usual we may be
sure--and had ridden off.
Since then a frost had set in between Lalante and her father, but it was
of his own creation and nursing, for after the first soreness, the girl
had shown him the same affection as before, possibly even more; for,
strange to say, she was capable of seeing the matter from his point of
view; moreover she knew that his own soreness was largely a matter of
jealousy in that he was no longer first. But she would not promise not
to see Wyvern again, and this rankled in Le Sage's mind more than ever,
especially as he felt certain she would find opportunities of seeing
him.
As a matter of fact she did so find them, but they were few and far
between--and only then, when her father's business necessitated his
absence from home. Now of this Le Sage was aware, or at any rate more
than suspicious. He was too proud to question Lalante, she having
frankly declared that she could not defer to his wishes in the matter.
But his hatred of Wyvern became almost an obsession, dangerous alike to
himself and its object. He had one satisfaction, however, out of which
he gleaned grim comfort--he held the power now to eject Wyvern from
Seven Kloofs within the space of a few months; in the acquisition of
which power Vincent Le Sage had made the first bad bargain he had ever
been known to make in his life.
Her small brothers having skipped off down the kloof, clad in their old
garments and armed with a catapult apiece--to the latter extent
supremely happy, Lalante dropped into a roomy cane chair upon the stoep
and let herself go in meditation. Let it not be supposed, however, that
hers was any mere contemplative life; far from it. Her strong, capable
young nature was eminently cut out for the discharge of everyday duties,
and the discharge of them well, too. We have seen how she managed her
two small brothers, but her father's comfort came second to nothing, and
into all that concerned him, and occupied his daily interest, she
entered thoroughly. Whereby it is manifest that from his point of view
there was a good deal of excuse to be made for his soreness now. And
if, as we have said, she had no "accomplishments," and no high opinion
of mere schooling, of which, by the way, she had undergone her full
share, she had what was better, tact and the capability of rendering the
lives of those belonging to her happy and comfortable.
Leaning back in her chair now, in an attitude of meditative ease, her
hands knitted behind the soft masses of her sheeny hair, the curving
lines of her figure, gowned in cool white, revealed to a sensuous
advantage that was wholly unstudied and unconscious, her large grey eyes
dilated between their thick lashes, accentuated by the sun-kissed tinge
of brown in her clear complexion, the girl made a beautiful picture. In
and out beneath the green leaves of the trellised vine which verandahed
the stoep, long-waisted hornets winged their way, the winnowing draught
of their flight fanning her face; but to such she paid no heed. Her
wide gaze was fixed on nothing, but wandered afar--beyond the green and
gold of the rolling, _spek-boem_ clad ridges. What was _he_ doing on
this heavenly morning? If only he would come over, moved by some
afterthought? Why not? Surely a few words need not open so wide a
gulf--a few words between men, and one of them angry. But with a sigh
she recognised, young as she was, that a few words might open a wider
gulf than even a few deeds. If only he would!
There was small chance of it--in fact none. Yet, even then, Lalante
could not be pronounced unhappy. She had all his love, and he had hers.
No room was there for any shadow of a doubt or misgiving upon that
score, and now she, so to say, bathed herself in its consciousness, even
though temporarily reft of the presence of the other of the two thus
making to themselves a very paradise within the world!
Strange to say, considering her youth, and the circumstances, after the
first natural soreness Lalante had shown no resentment against her
father for the part he had borne in the matter. Him she had treated in
the same way as ever, indeed in a manner calculated to soothe rather
than feed his rancour. On one or two occasions when he had savagely
abused the absent one, she had, with great mastery of self-control,
refrained from angry retort, and had begged him, as a matter of
consideration for her, to refrain from wounding her. "You would not
hurt your little Lalante, would you, dear?" she had said with an arm
round his shoulder. "Well, when you say these things you hurt me as
much as you would if you hit me with a stick or a stone. No--more."
And Le Sage had stared, startled, into the moist eyes, and mumbling
something, had left the room--hurriedly. But he never abused Wyvern
again, at least not in her presence--nor when there was any possibility
of her being within earshot. It is even possible that he might have
relented, and extended a helping hand to the unlucky one, or at any rate
have tolerated a further effort; but the hard, business instinct of the
invariably successful man rose, as a bar--as a very bulkhead of hard
oak--between him and his more human, and better inclinations.
The hot, dreamy hours of the forenoon flowed on, and still Lalante sat,
to all outward appearance doing nothing, but in reality with racing
thoughts. She did not even care to read. You read in order to be taken
out of yourself, which was just what she didn't want. Her father was in
a small inner room, with a pipe in his mouth, making up--we regret to
say, having previously stated that the day was Sunday--certain accounts,
for, in addition to his farming ventures, he did a good deal in the
stock-jobbing line. And the girl sat there, dreaming on, reconstituting
in her mind a retrospection of all that had passed within that year,
which was, if there had ever been such a thing, literally and actually
_annus amoris_.
She recalled, for instance, their first meeting; how she had come in,
hot and dishevelled--or at any rate feeling it--after a long scramble
with the two small boys away over the veldt--to find, all unexpectedly,
the man of whom she had heard so much as her father's--then--intimate
friend. She remembered every line of the expression of the clear-cut,
high-bred face, the look of admiration that had momentarily leapt into
his eyes directly they rested upon her--hot and dishevelled--in
straight, kindly glance; the tall, fine proportions of his frame, the
courteous, interested conversation in which he had engaged her. She
went over the hiatus of their prompt confidence and growing mutual
interest, until--a certain evening, when standing together under the
radiant moon amid the fragrant breaths of night--an evening which seemed
specially created for such an object--their love had, as it were,
_rushed_ together and declared itself as one--yes, as one from the very
first. For a brief time life had been a perfectly uninterrupted
Paradise, and that to both--and then--and then--trouble, care--black
care--had stolen in more and more, but--through it all, love was ever
the same, ever undimmed, indeed if possible refined and winnowed by the
prospect of adversity. No--assuredly there was no room for unhappiness
in Lalante's present any more than in her past. The cloud hung heavy,
but it would surely lift. It must. It should.
"Who the devil is this?"
The girl started from her day-dream, and turned quickly. In the doorway
behind her stood her father, a pair of binoculars in his hand. Then she
looked in the direction in which under the circumstance she naturally
would look.
Away, where the road topped the ridge, two horsemen were riding; and
they were approaching the house. They might have been merely passers-by
certainly, but the girl's true instinct informed her that it was not so,
and her heart beats quickened. Yet--why _two_?
"One of 'em's Warren," pronounced Le Sage, with the glasses at his eyes.
"And the other--why, damn it! it's--it's that fellow, Wyvern."
This staccato. Lalante, rising, saw that her father's face had paled,
and the hands that held the binoculars shook.
"Now, dear," she adjured, putting a hand round his shoulder. "Don't
lose yourself, and remember he may have some particular object in
wanting to see you. He has never been here since, and it's quite
possible that he has. Now do receive him with common civility. You
must, you know. You can't be offensive to a man on your own doorstep.
Now can you?"
"Oh, can't I? I seem to remember telling this one never to come near my
`own doorstep' again," snorted Le Sage.
"Never mind. Wait till you hear what he has got to say. You will,
won't you."
By this time she had got both arms round his neck, and was holding it
tight. He looked into her luminous eyes with his own sombre and angry
ones, and somehow the anger seemed to die.
"Very well, dear," he said with an effort, though more gently, and
loosening her hold. "I'll wait and see."
Meanwhile the two horsemen were drawing very near.