A Veldt Official Part 13

But the enlightenment? What was to be the upshot of it? She had saved his life--could she not therefore claim it? _Would_ she not therefore claim it? And at the thought his mind stirred uneasily. For he did not return her love.

How should he? Again drawing upon the stores of his experiences he could recall that same look in other eyes, could recall even the same utterances--the latter far more impa.s.sioned, far more self-oblivious than hers had been--all perfectly genuine at the moment. _At the moment_! For how had it ended? A year or two of absence, of separation--new interests surrounding--the gradual dimming effects of time, and all that warm, real, live pa.s.sion had cooled down into the dry ashes of worn-out memories--had faded into extinction. How should he, we repeat, credit with any more lasting properties the fervour of this latest instance?

He tossed restlessly from side to side, the same feverish thirst tormenting him. Suddenly his room grew light--he could distinguish objects quite plainly. The moon had risen, suffusing the heavens and the black loom of the mountain-top across the vista of the open window with golden light. Wearily, hopelessly, he flung himself out of bed and made another attempt at uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the flask. Once more in vain. Well, he did not want to disturb the household, but even consideration had its limits. He would go and knock up Suffield.

Sick with pain and exhaustion, he made for the door; but before he reached it, to his surprise it opened--opened softly.

"Roden, darling! Where are you?" whispered a voice.

"Good G.o.d!--Mona!" was all he could e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, in his unbounded astonishment.

"Something told me you were in pain, and wretchedly ill," she whispered, her voice shaking with a thrill of tenderness. "And you are. I came to see what I could do for you."

"Just this, Mona," was the firm reply. "Go back to your room at once.

Good G.o.d! Only think! Supposing any one were to hear you! Heavens! it would be too awful."

In the light of the newly risen moon he could distinguish the soft, velvety gleam in her eyes, that wondrous kindling of her face into a love-light which rendered it strangely beautiful. She wore a white clinging dressing-gown, which set off the lines of her splendid form, and as she stood thus before him, Roden Musgrave would not have been human if he had remained unmoved.

"Mona, Mona, why are you doing this?" he whispered, his voice slightly thrown off its balance. Then encircling her with his uninjured arm, he kissed the lips uplifted to his. And at the same time, while her eyes closed, and she nestled against him with a long, shuddering sigh of contentment, he recognised that on his part this was not love.

"But--how selfish I am, keeping you standing like this!" she said suddenly. "I can tell by your very voice that you are in pain."

"I am that. But go back at once to your room."

"Not yet. I am here now; and I want to do something for you, and I will."

"Then see if you can unscrew this infernal flask. I've been trying hard at it all night, but can't do anything with only one hand."

She took the recalcitrant flask. A firm hold, a vigorous grip with her strong, lithe fingers--the stopper came off in the most provokingly easy manner.

"Ah, I feel better now!" he said, after a liberal admixture of its contents with a little water. "And now, Mona, having done guardian angel to very considerable purpose, you must go."

"Not even yet. I am going to do guardian angel to more purpose still.

You must try and get some sleep. You are hot and feverish; but see, I have brought a fan. I am going to sit by you and cool your forehead.

You will soon drop off then."

"Mona, you are too self-sacrificing," he whispered. "Do you think I could sleep knowing the ghastly risk you are running? Now, to please me, do go back at once. It is still safe, but you can't tell how long it may remain so. One of those brats of Suffield's might wake at any moment and yell, and set the house generally agog. Go while it is safe.

You have already done a great deal for me, and I feel immensely the better for it."

But his adjurations fell on deaf ears, and he was really feeling very feverish and exhausted; far too much so to continue to urge the point.

So she sat by his bedside, softly fanning his burning and aching brow, and presently he dropped off into a delicious state of restfulness and ease, such as he had not known since first receiving his injuries. Was it the helplessness engendered by weakness and suffering and exhaustion that rendered his mind more amenable to her sway? Was there a languorous, all-pervading mesmerism in the very force and power of her love, which drew him beneath its spell in spite of himself? Whatever the cause, he was soon sleeping soundly and peacefully.

For upwards of an hour Mona sat there watching him, but he never stirred. At last she rose, and gazing intently for a few moments upon the sleeping face, she bent down and imprinted a long kiss upon the unconscious forehead.

"Darling love--_my_ love! I have won you from Death, and I claim you,"

she murmured pa.s.sionately. "You _shall_ be mine. You _are_ mine."

And still turning to look at him as though she could not tear herself away, she moved to the door, and was gone--gliding forth as softly and silently as she had come.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"I HOLD YOU!"

On the morning following his misadventure Roden Musgrave was far too bruised and feverish to undertake the journey back, and accordingly a note was sent in to his official superior asking for a day's leave, which missive Suffield undertook to deliver in person, and supplement with his own explanations; and not only was the application readily granted, but Mr Van Stolz, full of concern, must needs ride out with Suffield in the afternoon to see his damaged subordinate, and to impress upon the latter that he was not to think of returning until he felt thoroughly able to do so.

"Don't you break your neck about anything, Musgrave, old boy," he said, on taking his leave. "We shall manage to get along all right for a day or two. I can put Somers on to copy the letters, and even to write some of them. When a fellow is bruised and shaken about, he wants to lie quiet a little. I wouldn't mind swapping places with you, to have Miss Ridsdale as a nurse," he added waggishly, as Mona appeared on the scene.

"Take care of him, Miss Ridsdale; good men are scarce, at any rate in Doppersdorp. Well, good-bye, everybody; good-bye, Mrs Suffield.

Suffield, old chap, give us a fill out of your pouch to start on; mine has hardly enough in it, I find, to carry me home."

And amid a chorus of hearty farewells, the genial R.M. flung himself into his saddle and cantered off townwards.

"What a delightful man Mr Van Stolz is!" said Mrs Suffield, gazing after the retreating horseman.

"I agree entirely," a.s.sented Roden. "And now I shall feel bound to go back to-morrow, if only that one is sensitive on the point of seeming to take advantage of his good-nature."

"Well, wait till to-morrow comes, at any rate," rejoined his hostess.

"Meanwhile, whatever you have to suffer you have richly deserved, mind that. Wicked people, who break the Sabbath, are sure to suffer. I told you I had a severe lecture in store for you when you were well enough, and now you are."

"Then all I can say is the moral you want to draw is no moral at all, or a very bad one at best," laughed Roden. "For I am 'suffering' for it in the shape of indulging in the most delicious and perfect laze, and, better still, being made such a lot of, that I feel like Sabbath-breaking again, if only to ensure the same result. For instance, it's rather nice sitting here taking it easy all day, and being so efficiently taken care of."

"Ah, you didn't find it such fun in the night, when you couldn't unscrew the flask top. Do you know, I'll never forgive you for such foolishness. The idea of being afraid to knock anybody up!" said Mrs Suffield tartly.

He dared not look at Mona. The joke was too rich, and he was inwardly bursting with the kind of mirth which is calculated to kill at the longest range of all--mirth of a grim nature, to wit. He had told his tale of Tantalus, when asked what sort of a night he had had. The sequel to that episode, we need hardly say, he had not told.

"I never like disturbing anybody's hard-earned slumbers. Don't you think I'm right, Miss Ridsdale?"

Mona, who was watering flowers just below the _stoep_, thus appealed to, looked up with a half-start. He had relapsed into the formal again.

But she understood.

"It depends," she said. "No one would grudge being disturbed for such a reason as that."

There was a caress in the tone, latent, subtle, imperceptible to any but himself. The voice, the att.i.tude, the supple grace of her beautiful form, emphasised by the occupation she was then engaged in, as indeed it was in almost any and every movement she made, stirred him with a kind of enchantment, an enchantment that was strange, delicious, and rather intoxicating. He thought that he could lie there in his long cane chair, amid the drowsy hum of bees and the far-away bleating of sheep upon the sunny and sensuous air, and watch her for ever.

But a very much less soothing sound now rose upon the said air, in the shape of a wild yell, quick, shrill voices, and a series of vehement shrieks.

"My goodness! what on earth are those children about?" cried Mrs Suffield, springing to her feet, and hurrying round to the back of the house, where the tumult had arisen, and whence doleful howlings and the strife of tongues still continued to flow.

"They've been scratching each other's faces, or got stung by a bee, or something of the kind," said Mona composedly, her figure drawn up to its full height in an att.i.tude of unconscious grace, as she rose from her occupation and stood for a moment with one foot on the lower step of the _stoep_, looking half over her shoulder at the flower bed, while calculating how much more watering it needed. Then she put down her watering can and came up the steps.

"Hot for the time of year," she said, sweeping off her wide-brimmed straw hat, which became her so well, and drawing off her gardening gloves.

"Perhaps; but you looked such a vision of coolness, moving about among the flowers, that it made up a sort of Paradise. Now, come here, Mona, and talk to me a little. There is something about you which is the very embodiment of all soothing properties."

A soft light grew in the hazel eyes. With a pleased smile she stepped to the head of his couch, and placing a cool hand on his forehead for a moment, bent down and kissed him.

"You poor invalid!" she murmured, looking down at him tenderly. "I feel responsible for you now--you seem to belong to me--until you are well."