The vacant appointment of aide-de-camp was offered to Mr Lyle; I
applauded his delicacy when he told me he could not accept it under the
circumstance of Clarence's disgrace.
I rather quailed, though, at that term, "disgrace," applied to "poor
Clarence," as Lady Amabel began to designate him as soon as he departed.
Another staff appointment fell vacant in the frontier districts. Lyle
applied for and obtained it.
He was happy, he said, in the prospect of being associated with me
hereafter, but did not press his suit.
It was not long before I followed him to the upper districts of South
Africa.
Lady Amabel and I parted with sorrow; she had been ever kind to me; her
very errors were those of a tender-hearted, loving woman, and what would
it have booted me had she been strong-minded and resolute? Clarence
Fairfax's nature was fickle--I will add no more.
My journey homeward was a melancholy one; my friends were kind--you know
them--Mrs and Miss C--; but I retired within myself, and they had the
good taste not to weary me with their sympathy.
On the last day of our journey we halted on the banks of a rapid river;
night fell, and we were about to close the wagons and seek repose, when
we heard voices on the opposite bank. Your little bushman May was one
of our drivers--he had been in our service before, and came to tell me
that he recognised my father's voice. I ran from my tent to the brink
of the river; it was dark, and the rushing of the waters among the
stones in the ford prevented my distinguishing any other sound; at last
I heard my father nailing us--he was in the middle of the stream--he
came nearer--some one accompanied him--two horsemen rode up the bank--my
father and--Lyle!
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I had not been two days at home before I discovered that Lyle had
established himself in my mother's favour--he was quite a person
calculated to make a decided impression on her imagination--for,
sensible, well-principled, and firm-minded, as she is, you know she is
highly excitable and imaginative. The late _emeute_ in Kafirland had
brought my father from Annerley to B--, a small town largely garrisoned.
Here Lyle held his appointment--here my father was now acting in a high
official capacity in the absence of one of the authorities; both were
thus brought together professionally. Lyle necessarily had the _entree_
of our house.
Original in design, prompt to act, and of a determined spirit, Lyle was
a most useful coadjutor to my father. His quickness of perception
taught him at once all the assailable points, so to speak, in my
mother's character, appealing to her judgment frequently in Government
matters; and, although doing this apparently in jest, constantly abiding
by her propositions. It was fortunate that her experience in the colony
was such as to make her advice really available, and this artful man
turned it to full account publicly and privately. He knew well how to
please my father, who had not at first been inclined towards him as my
mother was; whenever the former gave him credit for good policy, he
would refer him to Mrs Daveney as the suggester of the plan; my mother
would disclaim the suggestion, but would confess that Lyle had appealed
to her ere he began to work it.
At a time when this beautiful colony was on the verge of ruin from the
commotions subsisting between the various races of inhabitants, you may
well believe that men of comprehensive mind and dauntless courage were
invaluable to the Government. My father and Lyle, both personally known
to Sir Adrian, were constantly selected by him for the most difficult
and dangerous services; and it is due to the latter to admit, that he
was ever ready for the severer duties of the field, entreating my father
to consider how much more valuable was the life of the one than the
other.
The soldiers adored him; in his capacity as a staff-officer he was not
expected to volunteer heading large bodies of the settlers, accompanying
commandos into Kafirland; but he did so with a spirit and efficiency
that materially assisted the Government agents in their measures with
the chiefs. He shared the fatigues and privations of those he
commanded, he was ever first in a foray, and he was such an excellent
sportsman, that his return with a foraging party was always welcomed by
the hungry wanderers in the bush.
Were this man still living, dear friend, I could not dwell on these
details; but, assured of his death, I have been able to review much of
my past life more calmly than I could ever suppose would be possible.
This clever, handsome, resolute man had, as I afterwards found,
resolved, in the first period of our acquaintance, on making me his
wife--you will wonder why,--since there was little love on his part, and
my poor heart was bleeding from a sense of wrong at the hands of one I
had loved. But I began to be ashamed of my girlish passion, verily not
without reason.
Nevertheless, youth receives such impressions readily, fake though they
be, and afterwards the heart shudders at the bare remembrance of what it
suffered in its bewilderment of a first passion; the experience taught
by such a sorrow is very bitter, and can never be forgotten.
I cannot bear to detail the artful schemes by which this man persuaded
my father at first to listen to his proposals for me; but, on my
assurance that I loved him not, Lyle was forbidden to press his suit
farther, at any rate for a time.
Thus he was not dismissed finally; he declared himself grievously
mortified, and, obtaining leave of absence during a lull in the
political storms that had threatened to desolate the country, departed
on a sporting expedition.
He returned in three months laden with the spoils of the chase, and
designated the White _Somtsen_, or, in the Kafir language, a mighty
hunter.
He again renewed his suit.
Woe is me! I could see that my father and my mother were not agreed in
this matter; the latter openly reproached me for my weakness in adhering
to my first love--she appealed to my pride.
Alas, alas! my friend, I own that I had been wanting in that--I admitted
my error, and deplored it.
She spoke of the family reputation being sullied by the union of my name
with that of Clarence Fairfax and the miserable Mrs Rashleigh.
I could not see it in the light she did, but I wept sorely when she
alluded to the mortification it had caused her _and my father_; she
emphasised the last two words of this sentence.
She dwelt on a difference of opinion now existing between her and my
father--"it might estrange them seriously."