“Playing truant, you see, Mrs. Lea!” The door had opened, and the object of my thoughts crossed the room to where I sat.
“Why, yes,” I exclaimed, starting, “I heard the whistles some time ago.”
“I daresay,” he answered; “the fact is there is nothing to he done this afternoon, so I mean to stop up here, and spoil your reverie.”
“How do you know I am going to stay at home?”
“Oh, come,” he remonstrated, “you won’t pretend you had any idea of taking a stroll, with the thermometer making rapid progress towards boiling-point? I’ve been looking forward to this ‘half-holiday’ all the morning, Mrs. Lea,—don’t be unkind I Why have you chosen that corner right in the sun; let me make it more comfortable for you!”
He pulled down the blind, and drew the curtains across the window, screening me from the glare.
“Next a cushion,” he observed; “there, is that better, and will you stay now?”
“Thank you,” I replied, “you are very good!”
“The mail is in, and I have brought you some of the English journals,” he continued. “I always think they are welcome out here myself; there are conditions under which a comic-paper may become the connecting link of hemispheres,—see!”
“And after working harder than the niggers since sunrise yon actually took the trouble to walk about the camp buying those for me?”
“No, I did not, because it wasn’t a trouble! It occurred to me as I was loafing in the engine-house throwing pebbles at the boiler (arduous occupation, was it not?). I said, ‘By Jove, the mail’s due; if it’s delivered before I go back to tiffin I’ll stroll round to the main street, and take that poor little traveller all alone in this Gott-verlassen hole something to read.’ Behold the result!”
He deposited a bundle of periodicals in my lap, and stood looking down at me as I turned them over.
“What is it?” he asked curtly; “you are worrying, tell me why?”
“ ‘Worrying’!” I repeated. “What makes you say that?”
“I am sure of it; you haven’t understood a single one of those printed lines, you haven’t even attempted to follow them. Tell me what’s the matter?”
“There isn’t anything the matter; I have a headache, perhaps, that is all,—what should there be?”
“There should be nothing if I could help it!” he said, with his deep grey eyes still fixed on me. “I can’t bear to see you wretched, and lately you have been getting quieter every day; when you do laugh, the laugh ends in a sigh. Is it only that the place depresses you, or——”
“Nonsense, are you adding geloscopy to your accomplishments! I’m bored, moping, out of sorts, that’s the alarming complaint; Kimberley isn’t the most lively town for a stranger,—I wish with my whole soul I’d never come to it!”
He gave that quick gesture of the shoulder which was a habit with him, and might mean anything, and for a while we were both silent. Presently he spoke again.
“That was not a considerate remark you made just now!”
“What wasn’t?” I inquired briefly; “I’ve quite forgotten what I said!”
“Thank you; to refresh your memory, you expressed a profound regret that you had ever come here!”
“Oh, yes, so I did; well, after the preface, the plot:—which was the remark you found inconsiderate?”
‘‘It was that one! Do you suppose it could have been pleasant to hear? Oh, I know you are going to reply that you did not regard me as responsible for Kimberley’s defects, that I didn’t build it, or with some retort equally ridiculous; but I think you might have kept that very heartfelt sorrow to yourself!”
“It was a gaucherie,” I rejoined coldly, “but there is no occasion to be rude!”
He muttered something complimentary or otherwise under his breath, (probably ‘otherwise’) and picked out an air with one finger on the piano. I wanted badly to own that if I had meant it it was for his sake; to tell him how he himself must repent our meeting if I dared but hint its cause, but I could not! I had to be dumb, and look indifferent.
The notion crossed my mind that if he should,—should grow to like me before my errand had been completed, how much more vile he would hold me when the blow fell; the thought was wonderful, it was so full of mixed emotions. To be hated by him would be torture, but—to be loved by him first! It seemed to me there would be joy enough in that to live upon in recollection through my future of suffering; besides I could always die!
And still that tune went on, jingling upon the sunshine.
But for him, I was only thinking of myself! Would not his punishment be greater if he were fond of the woman who had denounced him? If during those years of miserable atonement he should be deeming every sign of my affection false; be cursing that very utterance in one happy moment, when perhaps I had forgotten, as a trap to lead him to his ruin; greater? Yes, immeasurably more hard!
“Don’t let you and me quarrel,” he petitioned, closing the instrument with a bang. “I beg your pardon; I didn’t know I was so sensitive! By-the-bye, you’ve not wondered about my being ‘off duty,’ and after all my industry I expected it was going to create a sensation!”
“Why, is there another reason besides the one you volunteered?”
“Well yes, I didn’t go into details; it is true there is nothing much to be done this afternoon, but it’s because we have been hauling day and night, got the last load of reef out, and are ready to commence real work as soon as we have more funds. That’s good news, I take it?”
“It is, indeed;” I responded, “the claims being cleared you can begin to dig for diamonds, of course?”
“Certainly; we shall soon know the value of the ground now, and if it should yield well—! Will you shake hands, and wish me luck, Mrs. Lea?”
“What do you mean ‘As soon as you have more funds?’ ” I queried, evading the request; “was not the sum you had sufficient?”
“The hauling operations cost more than I had reckoned, but that’s of no consequence, I anticipate being able to raise as much as is essential; shake hands and prophesy me fortune, won’t you? Tell me I am going to make up for the past, and that it will be my own fault if I’m ever reminded of it!”
“How can I, I——, I’m not a Sibyl,” I objected nervously; “how could my prophecy affect you?”
“Never mind,” he insisted, “gamblers are notoriously superstitions; view it as a whim of mine if you choose, or think more truly that I want seriously to feel I have your interest as a talisman; think your encouragement would help me on, and your faith in me would be something to justify! Come, Mrs. Lea, it isn’t an enormous demand, you will give me your hand, and say what I asked?”
As he stood waiting to clasp it in his own, Dunstan interrupted us, bringing me a letter. The glance I threw at the superscription was unnecessary; it was a letter from my employers.
CHAPTER XIII.
January 26th.
MR. BAZALGETTE wrote in reply to the Report from Cape Town by which I had announced my immediate departure for the Fields; and as the amount with which he had furnished me on the eve of my voyage to South Africa had at that date been already so low as to warrant my application for further supplies, he remitted a draft for a hundred and fifty pounds.
A package of dilapidated notes, torn and pinned together, is lying before me on the dressing-table, and I have been sitting here all the morning stonily staring at it with a prayer for strength in my heart; for in cashing that remittance, I have this day seen the detective’s prognostications fulfilled, and the object of his instructions offering bonds for sale in the Standard Bank.
I hardly comprehended the meaning of the teller’s inquiry, “How will you take it?” I scarcely knew what directions I stammered in response; I only heard that fragment of the low quick colloquy on my right, reaching my ears across the persons who divided us: “When will he be disengaged? I wish, to dispose of the bonds without delay, I am pressed for ready-money!”
“O
ne fifty, five tens, and ten fives; you will find that correct, madam!”
Without counting I thrust them into a roll, and hurried out to meditate my mode of action; and yet I have done nothing. I have simply sat and asked for the courage to perform my duty.
The course I should pursue is a very easy one; it is to mail the intelligence to London. Easy—to say; easy and unavoidable according to the dictates of the commonest honour; but there is an influence at work in me stronger than honour, stronger than justice, which bids me pause and draw back while there is still time.
Oh, Heaven help me, what shall I do? Am I to betray the employers whose bread I eat; or am I to consign the man I love to gaol?
Those people in England have paid me, put their trust in me, perhaps saved me from starvation; if I deceived them should I not be the vilest wretch on earth? Gratitude, honesty, everything points one way, all the sophistry in the world cannot blind me to it; the information shall be sent! * *
The Report is ready for the post; it lies beside me now!
* * * * *
I had barely sealed the envelope when I heard a step in the next room,—it was his. As I joined him he came towards me evidently agitated by some joyful event; I had not to wait long to know the cause.
“Look,” he exclaimed triumphantly, “our first ‘find’!”
It was a two-hundred-and-fifty-carat stone discovered in the mine an hour before. Massive and pure, without a flaw or spot, it might be expected to realize, he told me, perhaps five thousand pounds; no wonder he was pleased.
“You see,” he laughed, “you are bringing me luck whether you will or no!”
Bringing him luck, I!
“If it should sell so well as that, it will be two-thousand-five-hundred to my share; no fortune, as I reckoned once, worth having now, though!” he continued; “Mrs. Lea, a diamond company is the finest gamble I’ve ever tried!”
He was like a child with a new toy; he kept spinning it on the cloth, and holding it up to gaze at it against the light. “Wait till it’s cut,” he repeated again and again, “it’ll be magnificent!” Then suddenly he threw it back upon the table, and said quite seriously:
“Are you glad?”
“I should be glad if you could remain as happy as you are at this minute,” I replied, and it was true.
“Do you mean that?” he questioned. “It rests with you to make me always much happier!”—“No, now you must listen to me; I didn’t intend to say it yet, I had made up my mind to wait until I had something to offer, but I can’t wait, and you shan’t go! I love you,—pshaw, what does that tell you? The first syllables we learn to speak are ‘I love,’ and we go on wearing them threadbare for the rest of our lives; what I want you to understand is that you are more to me than any woman I ever met, that you fill every one of my thoughts and hopes. You are my hopes; do you suppose I eared for this trumpery stone for its own sake? I cared for it for yours, because when that hulking nigger brought it over to me in the claims it seemed to be one step the nearer you! Oh, I have no right to ask it; to win you is the maddest thing a man in my position ever dreamed, but you’d he sorry for me if you guessed how I have cursed myself lately for that folly you know about; how I have wished we could have come together before it happened. Tell me you forgive me not being strong enough to stand by and run the risk of losing you; tell me you will forget how broke I am, and be my wife?”
“I cannot, it is impossible,” I answered thickly, “I entreat you not to say any more!”
My temples were throbbing; I loathed myself and my existence, everything but him I was sending from me, and yet how could I make the dismissal less harsh?
“Is my mistake irreparable?” he pleaded still; “won’t you believe I would work for you, and get something back? I would, I swear it; you should never be deprived of the comforts you are used to, I would never deny you a single request!”
“It isn’t that, ah don’t talk of money! What do you imagine me to be, a successful writer? I am a beggar; not one line of mine will ever be in print. I am a nobody without income, and without prospects, but nothing can alter my decision; it is useless for you to persist!”
“Do you care for anybody else?”
“What does it matter for whom I care; you will leave me, and only remember me to wonder how you could have been so weak!”
“Do you care for anybody else? Truthfully, with your eyes to mine, is there someone you like better?”
“I have no one to be fond of in the world,” I faltered, “no one to be fond of me; now go!”
“No, I will not go,” he said fiercely; “you have confessed the reason you refuse! You fancy because we are both poor you would be a drag on me, and I should one day be brute enough to regret your sacrifice; you are wrong! Mrs. Lea—, to think I should not even know your name! What is it? graceful, and yet hard too, the same as you can be, —tell me!”
“It is ‘Miriam.’ ”
“A beautiful one,” he murmured gravely; it sounds like a prayer! Miriam, my life is for you to guide; give yourself to me, and I will be worthy of your trust; reject me, and I shall be a failure to the end! Don’t let false pride rob me of you, my dear; don’t reply ‘no’ without trying to say ‘yes.’ A woman is very powerful when she is as much to a man as you to me, and you are able now, because I love you, to shape my whole future with a word!”
“You are cruel to urge that,” I retorted; “it is unfair!”
“Perhaps,” he rejoined, “but it is easy to be brave when yon are mistress of the situation; the very consciousness which strengthens yon makes me a coward! It must be always so, the man can only crave; a caprice may turn him away hopeless; a sentence is to decide his fate; can you blame him for appealing to all that is best in the nature of the girl who is to speak it! Sweetheart, am I to go from here miserable or blessed? Determine; be yourself, throw off the wretched cynicism that hides your real mind, and let us fight our difficulties together, boldly, side by side!”
He was supplicating for more than he divined; he was begging his escape of me, me who could save him! The knowledge made that petition an agony to hear; I could merely signify my resolution by a gesture.
“I can’t describe my feelings,” he cried, “I’m not sufficiently clever; I never found out how impotent speech was until I wanted it to express my soul. Grant me the opportunity, and I will prove my earnestness by my deeds! Each act shall he a witness of my sincerity, and an effort to deserve you. Darling, won’t you have faith?”
The capability for pain was passing from me at last; I was beginning to listen almost apathetically, as under an anæsthetic one may bear some horrible operation. Now I waited dumbly for the trial to finish.
“Well,” he resumed coldly, “I will not sue any more; you are inflexible, and I have humbled myself enough! Good-bye,—do we part friends?” Was it to be interminable? I could have flung myself at this man’s feet, but I might not aver I was his friend! I could only implore his pardon mutely, and wait to be alone. Heaven can testify the glance was not intended for encouragement, yet it must have revealed my suffering.
The sternness died from his gaze, and he strode towards me; he seized me by the wrists, and drew me to him:
“Miriam, my love, have mercy!”
The phrase broke from him that had been borne upon me in my dream. The room with its brackets and its mirrors seemed swimming round me as I strove to wrench myself free, and still he grasped me firmly, beseeching, and upbraiding me by turns. “Do you hate me?” he queried passionately, “is the doctrine of affinity such a lie that I whom you can influence for good or bad, sway like a child according to your will, am only able to inspire an antipathy in you? There is no sacrifice you could demand I would not deem it a privilege to make if it brought me your thanks; there isn’t a task I would shrink from if you said to me ‘do it, I shall be pleased;’ and yet I am so utterly nothing to you I cannot move you a hair’s breadth, that my distress doesn’t even excite your pity! Is it I love you so abs
olutely you despise me, or is it indeed that you have no sensibility to be touched? I can compel you to be passive, that is all; I can clasp your hands, and detain you by sheer physical force as I do now, but yon, the real you who attracted me, are as far away from me as ever, and I hold a piece of stone!”
I did not attempt to release myself any longer; the limits of endurance had been reached. I was guilty, I was wicked, but I was a woman, and I loved him! I lifted my face to his, and the joy I saw in it out-balanced the cognizance of sin. He caught me in his arms till my head lay upon his shoulder, and our lips met.
“You consent to marry me?”
“Yes,” I said, “you have conquered; I am willing to be your wife!”
And now that he has left me, I am revolving that promise, and the shame to which it pledges me. I have no excuse to offer, I am committing an infamous action, and I am aware of it; I may even be amenable to the law; let them punish me,—they shall never have him! I have done with scruples and conscience, and I will shield him against them all; no information of mine——! God! I had forgotten the Report! * * *
Dunstan has posted it, the letter has gone!
CHAPTER XIV.
February 14th.
I HAVE had time to meditate on that catastrophe while watching beside a sick-bed; Dunstan has been very ill. A fortnight ago her life was despaired of, and we thought Providence had destined another victim of the fever to be buried in this wilderness of sand. Then, when hope was least, the delirium passed; by degrees the awful yellow shade which had overspread her cheeks merged into the pallor of convalescence, and I saw the woman I had known so strong and self-reliant lying back upon the pillows spared, but as helpless as a little babe. She is now well enough to travel, and the doctor recommends the invariable prescription in such cases, a sojourn in the Colony. She will go to Cape Town to-morrow, ignorant of the fact that she and I will never meet again. In a week I shall have betrayed my trust, and saved him who is dearer than my honour. He pressed me to accede to a brief engagement, and I readily consented, for my reflection had shown me it was the wisest plan; that intelligence is only now due in England; the reply cannot be delivered till three weeks hence; by then we shall have quitted Kimberley, and escaped together!
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