"Do try and be serious a little while if you can, Nidia, if only that I
have something very serious to say to you."
"Drive ahead, then, Govvie. I promise not even to laugh."
Susie Bateman looked at the girl as she sat there, with hands clasped
together and downcast eyes, striving to look the very picture of
be-lectured demureness, and tried to feel angry with her. Yet, somehow,
she could not--no, not even when she thought to detect a suspicious
heave of the shoulders which denoted a powerful fund of compressed
laughter. With the absent object of her intended "straight talk" she
felt venomously savage. With this one--no, she could not.
"Well, what I want to say is this," she went on. "Nidia, is it fair to
encourage that man as you do?"
"Which man? There are so many men. Do I encourage them?"
"Oh, child, don't be so wildly exasperating. You know perfectly well
who I mean."
Then Nidia lifted her eyes with a gleam of delightful mischief in them.
"I have a notion you are ungrammatical, Govvie. I am almost sure you
ought to have said `_whom_ I mean.' Well, we won't be particular about
that. But, as my American adorer, `Major' Shackleton, would say, `Oh,
do drive on,' By the way, is he the man I am encouraging?"
What was to be done with such a girl as this? But Susie Bateman was not
to be put off.
"You know perfectly well that I mean John Ames."
"Oh! Now you're talking, as my `Major' aforesaid would rejoin. And so
I encourage John Ames, do I? Poor fellow! he seems to need it."
There was an unconscious softness wherewith these words were uttered.
It drove the other frantic, "Need it indeed! On the contrary, what he
needs is discouragement, and plenty of it. Well, he gets it from me, at
any rate."
"Oh yes, he does," came the softly spoken interpolation.
"Well, but, Nidia, how much further is this thing to go? Why, the man
comes here and talks to you as if you belonged to him; has a sort of
taken-possession-of-you way about him that it's high time to put an end
to."
"And if he had not `taken possession' of me in that ghastly place on the
Umgwane, and kept it ever since, where would I be now?" came the placid
rejoinder.
"Yes, I know. That is where the mischief came in. It was partly my
fault for ever encouraging the man's acquaintance. I might have known
he would be dangerous. There is that about him so different to the
general run of them that would make him that way to one like yourself,
Nidia. Yes; I blame myself."
"Yes; he is different to the general ruck, isn't he?" rejoined Nidia,
with a softness in her wide-opened eyes that rather intensified than
diminished the bitterness of her friend and mentor.
"Well, at any rate he is nobody in particular," flashed out the latter,
"and probably hasn't got a shilling to his name; and now I hear he has
resigned his appointment"--again that provoking smile, "Once for all,
Nidia; do you intend to marry him?"
"Marry who? John Ames?"
"Yes," with a snap.
"He hasn't asked me."
The innocent artlessness of the tone, the look of absolute and childlike
simplicity in the blue eyes as the answer came tranquilly forth, would
have sent a bystander into convulsions. It sent Mrs Bateman out of the
room in a whirlwind of wrath. After her went the offender.
"Don't get mad, Susie. I can't help being a tease, can I? I was built
that way. Come along out, and we'll drop in on some other frightened
and beleaguered female, and swap camp and laager gossip."
But the other refused. She was seriously put out, she said, and never
felt less like going anywhere. So Nidia, who understood her--at times,
somewhat crusty--friend thoroughly, and managed her accordingly, put on
her hat and went alone.
To do her justice, Mrs Bateman, from her point of view, was not without
cause for concern. Nidia's father--she had lost her mother--was the
senior partner of an exceedingly wealthy firm of shipowners, and had
certainly a more brilliant future planned for his only and idolised
daughter than an alliance with a penniless nobody; for so, with a
certain spiteful emphasis, Mrs Bateman delighted to designate the
object of her abhorrence. The girl had been allowed to accompany her
only after long and much-expressed opposition on the paternal side, and
now she felt simply weighted down with responsibility. And this was the
way in which she had fulfilled her trust!
But fortune seemed inclined to favour her to-day. Scarcely had Nidia
been gone ten minutes, than there came a knock at the door of their
diminutive abode. John Ames himself! Susie Bateman snorted like the
metaphoric warhorse, for she scented battle. She was about to indulge
this obnoxious person with a very considerable fragment of her mind.
Nevertheless she welcomed him pleasantly--almost too pleasantly, thus
overdoing the part. But she had no intention of sending him off at a
tangent, as she knew full well would be the result of letting him know
that Nidia was not in.
Observing him keenly, she noted the quick shade of disappointment as he
became alive to the fact that the room was empty save for herself. She
knew exactly what was passing in his mind, and found a cruel enjoyment
in observing every sign of expectation evoked by this or that sound
outside, for she had not told him that Nidia was out, and knew that he
was still hoping she might only be in another room. At length he
enquired.
"Miss Commerell has gone out," she replied. "She went round to see some
people; I didn't even hear who they were. She won't be back till
lunch-time, if then; and perhaps it is just as well, Mr Ames, for I
have been wanting to have a little quiet conversation with you. Now we
can have it."
"Yes?" he said enquiringly. But tranquil as the tone was, she had not
failed to note the scarcely perceptible start of conscious dismay evoked
by the announcement. Yet now it had come to the point, she for her part
hardly knew how to begin, and he was not going to help her. Besides,
his tranquil self-possession was somewhat disconcerting. However, she
started in at it, characteristically, headlong.
"Now, you must not be angry with me, Mr Ames; but I want to talk to you
as a woman of the world to a man of the world. In short, about Miss
Commerell."
"Such a subject cannot but be interesting, Mrs Bateman."
"She is under my charge, you know."
"Yes. You are to be congratulated on the delightful nature of such a
charge."
"But you admit that it is one which entails a grave responsibility?"
"The gravest responsibility," he replied.
"Well, then, the gravity of that responsibility must be my excuse for
what I am about to say. Don't you think you come here rather often?"
She was exasperated by his imperturbability. She could see he meant
fencing, wherefore she clubbed him without further preliminary.
"Do I?" he answered, in the same even tone.
She could hardly restrain her wrath, and her voice took a higher pitch.
"Do you?" she echoed somewhat stupidly, because fast losing her temper.
"Well, when I tell you people are beginning to talk about it?"
"Yes; they would be sure to do that. You see, they have so little to
talk about, all crowded up together here."
She was taken wildly aback. The unparalleled impudence of the man,
taking everything for granted in this way!
"Well, I can't have Miss Commerell talked about, and I won't. And
that's all about it."
"Oh, it's about Miss Commerell they are talking? I understood you to
mean it was about my coming here."
Then Mrs Bateman lost her temper, and, as women of her stamp usually do
under such circumstances, she became rude.
"Bless the man, is he quite a fool?" she broke forth, fairly quivering
with rage. "Don't you, or won't you, understand that you are the cause
of getting Nidia talked about? You! And I won't have it. Indeed,
under the circumstances, your acquaintance with Miss Commerell had
better cease. She is in my charge, remember."
"Yes. But she is not a child. I should first like to hear Miss
Commerell's own views in the matter; indeed, shall do so before deciding
on whether to fall in with yours or not, and so I tell you frankly, Mrs
Bateman. Of course this is your house, and I need hardly say I shall
visit it no more."
"One moment. I have not quite done," she went on, for he had risen to
go. "Again you must forgive me for plain-speaking; but let me advise
you, as a friend, to entertain no hopes that can only end in
disappointment. You are probably aware that Miss Commerell's father is
a very wealthy man, and therefore you will not be surprised to learn
that he has mapped out a brilliant future for his only daughter."
The speaker was alive to the slight stirring of dismay that passed like
a ripple over the countenance of her hearer. She knew him well enough
to be sure that the bolt had gone home, and at heart secretly respected
him. In making this statement she had thrown her king of trumps.
"It is very painful for me to be obliged to speak like this, Mr Ames,"
she went on, deftly infusing a little less acerbity into her tone,
"especially when _I_ think of all you have done for Miss Commerell
throughout a time of terrible danger. But as to this, you will
certainly not find her people ungrateful; you may take my assurance as
to that. Let me see. You have resigned your appointment, have you not?
At least, so I have been told."
She paused. She had thrown her ace.
John Ames, his face white to the lips with this culminating outrage,
replied--
"Pardon me if I decline to discuss my own private affairs with anybody,
Mrs Bateman. For the rest, there is a pitch of perfection in
everything, even in the art of plain-speaking, and perfection in that
art I must congratulate you on having attained. Good morning!"
He bowed and left the house, with, at any rate, all the honours of war
on his side; and this she could not but recognise, feeling rather small
and uncomfortable as she looked after his retreating figure. But she
had thrown her ace of trumps, anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How will you face the parting of the ways?"
The Umlimo's question came back to his mind as he walked away from the
house in a very fury of turmoil. The Umlimo's predictions seemed to
fulfil themselves to the letter in every particular. In his then frame
of mind John Ames found his thoughts reverting to that strange
personality with a kind of fascination, of deepened sympathy. He
himself began to feel the same hatred of his kind, the same intuition
that even as the hand of everybody was against him, so should his hand
be against everybody. It was significant that Nidia should have been
out of the way. Could it be that she had deputed this cursed,
parrot-faced, interfering woman to take up her part and so clear the
ground for her? His part was played. He had been Nidia's Providence
during that perilous flight, but now his part was played. She had no
longer any use for him. The "brilliant future mapped out for her"--the
words seemed burnt into his brain--what part or lot had he in such, he a
mere penniless nobody? And then all the outrageous insult conveyed by
the woman's words--a sort of patronising assurance that he would be
compensated, yes, compensated--paid--why did she not call it? Faugh!
It was sickening. Well, again, as the Umlimo had pronounced, it was the
way of life. Black and bitter were his thoughts. All was dark--blankly
dark. He knew not which way to turn. And at this juncture "The Major,"
otherwise Shackleton, his ankle now restored sufficiently to enable its
owner to hobble about, barred his material way with a pressing
invitation to come round and lunch. Lunch, indeed! Mentally he
consigned that estimable American to the devil, and, leaving him
astonished, went on to his own quarters, like a wounded animal, to hide
his pain and heartbreak alone. Besides, he was sick of the story of his
own "heroism." Damn such "heroism"! He thought of the luckless trooper
who had been with them in their peril, probably conjured up by the sight
of Shackleton, and envied him. Why had he not been the one to end his
hopes and fears then in that swift and easy manner? That poor devil
probably had plenty of life's sweets in front of him. He had none.
That was all over and done with.
He gained his quarters. The post had come in, and on his table lay a
pile of official-looking letters, most of them addressed to him by his
late official style. He glanced through them listlessly, one after
another, and then--What was it that caused his hand to shake and the
colour to leave his face, and started him bolt upright? He stared at
the sheet again and again. Yes, there it was. He was not dreaming.
The sheet of paper was material, substantial; the words on it, written
in a somewhat flourishing, clerkly hand, were plain enough, and they
were to the effect that there had been placed to his credit, and lay at
his disposal, in the Standard Bank in Cape Town, the sum of twenty-five
thousand pounds.
Twenty-five thousand pounds! At his disposal! Heavens, what did it
mean? Some hoax? Some practical joke? Of course. But with the bank
communication was an enclosure. This he opened with trembling fingers,
and thus it ran--
"In carrying out my instructions, John Ames, as you have done to the
very letter, you have rendered me a service beyond any money value. Go
now and be happy with her whom you love, and this end the accompanying
communication will materially further. Do not spoil your happiness by
any cursed foolish pride, or insane ideas of being under an obligation,
for this sum is less to me than a five-pound note would be to you
probably at this moment"--again that well-nigh superhuman gift of
forecast--"and take no more risks, but go in peace while you, or rather
while _ye_, may--_the road is still open_--and by your lifelong
happiness continue to justify the forecasts of:--
"Umlimo."