Blue Aloes Part 23

"Mother, I feel I hate her!" Rosalie muttered, with burning eyes. Her mother was profoundly shocked.

"Oh, hush, my darling!" she whispered. "You don't know what you are saying."

Linking her arm in her daughter's, she led the way in silence to the carriage.

Rosanne, meanwhile, went into the dining-room and had something cold brought to her there by Maria, the old Cape cook. All the other servants were out for the evening, as was the rule on the rare occasions when the family did not entertain. Having dined, the girl went to her bedroom. The house was of the bungalow type--everything on the ground floor and no upper stories. All the bedrooms gave on to the great veranda that ran round the house, but Rosanne's room, being at the corner, had two French windows, one facing the front garden with a full view of the tennis-courts and drive, the other, shaded by creepers and a great tree-fern, looked out to the cl.u.s.tered trees and winding paths of the side gardens. It was from this door that Rosanne emerged, half an hour later, dressed in something so subtly night-coloured that she looked like a grey moth flickering through the trees of the garden.

Softly she let herself out of the little side gate chiefly used by the servants, and, slipping from shadow to shadow in the dim lights of quiet back streets, she made her way toward the commercial part of the town. The main street--that same Du Toit's Pan Road where John Ozanne's hotel had once flourished--was brightly lighted by large arc-lamps, but never once did Rosanne come within range of these. It was in a dingy lane giving off from the big thoroughfare that she at last stopped before a shop whose shuttered window bore the legend--"Syke Ravenal: Jeweller." Upon an undistinguished looking side door she knocked gently, distinctly, three times. It opened as if by magic, and, like a shadow, she slipped into the darkness behind it.

Harlenden was a little early. Rosanne had said nine o'clock, and it wanted, perhaps, twenty minutes to the hour when he rang at Tiptree House and was told by Maria, after a few moments' waiting, that she could not find Miss Rosanne anywhere.

"Very well; I'll wait here," he said, and, lighting a cigar, sat down in one of the deep chairs in the dimly lighted veranda.

He was a lean, fair, well-groomed man, with a hard-cut face that told nothing. You had to make your own deductions from a pair of stone-grey eyes, a mouth close-lipped without being cold, and a manner not wanting in indications of arrogance that yet pleased by a certain careless grace and sureness. As Emerson says, "Do as you please, and you may do as you please, for, in the end, if you are consistent you will please the world." Perhaps it was his unfailing habit of following out this rule that made the world respect Denis Harlenden, even if it were not pleased with him. Certainly, his people would not be very pleased that he had chosen a Kimberley hotel-keeper's daughter to carry on the line of one of the oldest baronetcies in England. But, to speak with truth, he had given neither his people nor the Kimberley Hotel a thought in the matter. He loved Rosanne for her wit, her beauty, her courage, a certain sportsmanlike daring which showed in all her actions, and her unlikeness to any other woman he had ever known. Moreover, he was certain that she was the one woman who could keep his love without boring him. He, like Kitty Drummund, was aware of unfathomed depths in her, and he was not at all sure that he should like everything he found in those depths if he ever fathomed them. But, in any case, he preferred them to shallows. A shallow woman could not have kept Denis Harlenden's heart for a week--or a day. He also valued surprises, and Rosanne was full of surprises.

She gave him one now. At the sound of a slight, crushing of gravel underfoot, he had risen and stepped toward the end of the veranda, and, standing there beside the great tree-fern, he saw her coming from the side garden into the faint rays of light from the house. She had her two hands folded over her breast as though holding something precious there, and her face was rapt. He had never before seen her in that odd, sheathlike garment of silver-grey velvet. It gave her, he thought, with that brooding look on her face and her faintly smiling mouth, an air of moon-like mysteriousness. Almost as silently as a moonbeam, she slid into the veranda and would have pa.s.sed on into her room but that he put his arms round her and drew her to his heart.

The thought had come over him suddenly to test her courage and coolness thus, and she did not disappoint him. For a moment he felt her heart fluttering like a wild bird against his; then she gave a little low laugh.

"Oh, Denis!" she whispered, against his lips. But when he let her go he saw that her face was white as milk.

"You _were_ frightened, then?" he questioned.

"No, no; I knew at once it was you--by the scent of your dear coat."

She stroked it with one hand, then made to move away, but he still held her. What had made her turn white, then, if she were not afraid?

"Let me go away and change my gown," she said, trying to edge away into the dark.

"But why? I love it. You are like a witch of the moon in it."

"No; it isn't a nice gown," she insisted childishly and still tried to escape, but he could be obstinate, too.

"I want you to keep it on--and, darling, darling, don't waste any of the moments we may be together! You told me yourself it could only be an hour."

She gave a deep sigh. It was true. Moments spent with him were too precious to waste. There might not be so many more. Still, she did not abandon her plan to get away from him to her room, if only for a minute. Gently she resisted his half-movement to lead her to a chair.

He knew, by now, that she was holding something in her left hand which she did not wish him to see. They remained standing by the tree-fern, each will striving for supremacy. In the meantime, he went on speaking in his extraordinary charming voice that had power to make her heart ache with even the memory of its dear sound.

"Not that I can see why I should only have an hour."

"Mother will be back by ten," she said.

"Why shouldn't she know at once? I don't like this hole-and-corner business, Rosanne. It is not good enough for you." He kissed her on the lips, and added, "Or me."

Her face was in shadow, but his was not, and she could see that fires were lighted in the stone-grey eyes that banished all its masklike impa.s.sivity and brought a wonderful beauty into it. She stood trembling to his kiss and his voice and the magic of her love for him.

Almost it seemed as if she must do as he wished. But she knew she must not. If her mother once knew, everyone would have to know, and how brutal that would be to him when she had to tell him that it must all come to an end, that she could not and would not marry him!

"You must let me tell her tonight," he was saying, with quiet firmness.

"No, no!" she faltered.

"Yes. And there is another thing; give me your left hand, Rosanne."

She did not give it so much as that he drew it from behind her. It was tightly clenched. Holding it in his own, he drew her to a chair at last. She seemed to have no more strength to resist. Then, sitting down before her, he gently unclenched one finger after another until what she had hidden there lay sparkling in the night. Almost as if it had been something evil, he shook it from her palm into her lap, and taking her hand to his lips, kissed it, then placed upon the third finger a ring.

"You must only like the jewels I give you, Rosanne," he said, with unveiled meaning.

They sat there for a long, aching, exquisitely silent moment, her hand in his, the great square emerald set in a wonderful filigree and scrolling of gold on her finger, the other thing gleaming with a baleful light between them. Then the spell broke with the roll of carriage wheels on the drive. A minute later, Mrs. Ozanne came into the veranda, Rosalie clinging to her arm. Harlenden was on his feet instantly, and, before Rosanne could intervene, had proffered his request to speak to her mother. The latter looked as much dazed by his words as his presence.

"Not tonight, Sir Denis, please."

"It is rather important," he pleaded, looking very boyish. But she seemed to notice nothing, and shook her head.

"Some other time--my poor Rosalie is ill--in trouble; she has heard some distressing news."

He drew back at once, apologizing, and a few minutes later was gone.

Rosanne followed her mother and sister into the house, a strangely yearning, sorrowful look upon her face. Nothing was said. Rosalie seemed half-fainting, and her mother, still supporting her, led her to the door of her bedroom. They disappeared together. Rosanne stared after them, but made no attempt to help. When they had gone, she sat still in the hall, waiting. Sometimes she looked at the sparkling thing in her hand (she had caught it up from her lap when her mother came into the veranda), a slim, flexible string of diamonds for weaving in the hair--glowing and glimmering like spurts of flame imprisoned within frozen dewdrops. Sometimes she looked at the great emerald Denis Harlenden had set on her finger. But her eyes had something of the fixed, unseeing stare of the sleep-walker. At last Sophia Ozanne came back and stood beside her. Neither looked at the other.

"What is it mother?" she asked, in a low voice.

"Richard Gardner is very ill. They hoped it was only a sore throat that would soon yield to treatment; but he went to a specialist today--that Doctor Stratton who came out to see the Cape governor's throat--and he seems to think--" Poor Mrs. Ozanne halted and choked as if she herself were suffering from an affection of the throat. Rosanne still sat silent and brooding.

"He seems to think it is something malignant--and, in that case, he and poor Rosalie--" She broke down.

"Will never be able to marry, mother?" asked Rosanne, not curiously, only sadly, as if she knew already. Her mother nodded.

"Who told you?"

"Richard's brother was at the Chilvers'; he thought we had better know at once."

Mrs. Ozanne sat down by the little Benares table and, resting her face on her hands, began to cry quietly. Rosanne stared before her with an absorbed stare. She seemed in a very transport of grave thought. When Mrs. Ozanne at length raised her eyes for an almost furtive glance, she thought she had never seen anything so tragic as her daughter's face.

Her own was working horribly with misery and some urgent necessity.

"Rosanne!" she stammered at last, afraid of the sound of her own words.

"Couldn't you do something?"

The girl removed her dark gaze from nothingness and transferred it to her mother's imploring, fearful eyes.

"Oh, mother!" she said quietly. "Oh, mother! I am more unhappy than you or Rosalie can ever be!"

PART II

Rosalie Ozanne kept her bed for a week or more. She had sunk into a sort of desolate lethargy of mind and body from which nothing could rouse her. Her mother was in despair. Richard Gardner was too ill to come to see the girl he loved, and he did not write. The blow that had fallen upon his promising and prosperous life seemed to have shattered his nerves and benumbed his initiative. He had no words of hope for Rosalie; so he said nothing. Thus, in silence and apart, the two were suffering their young agony of wrecked hopes and love laid on its bier.

Rosanne, meanwhile, to all appearances, went on her way rejoicing. For a moment, in the shock of mutual grief over Rosalie's trouble, she and her mother had drawn nearer in spirit, and strange words of sorrow and sympathy, as though dragged from her very depths, had come faltering from the girl's lips. But the next day all trace of such unaccustomed softness had disappeared. She was her gay, resilient self once more, bright and hard as the stones she loved to wear, and more reserved and withdrawn from her family than ever. She avoided both her mother and sister as much as possible, spending most of her time in her own room or with her friend Kitty Drummund. As usual, too, she was often out riding and driving--but no longer with Denis Harlenden. Major Satchwell had been received back into the favour of her intimate friendship, and it was he who was always to be found riding or limping at her side.