Jasper Lyle Part 26

I stood mute and tearless.

Something like "Good-bye" was whispered. I looked up in that face, once so ingenuous, so happy. The laughing eyes were clouded with melancholy; the saucy curled lip pale and compressed; the tall, graceful form trembling with emotion. Not one word could I utter. My fingers closed upon his shaking hand for an instant. I withdrew them. He had pressed them so tightly in his nervous agony, that the indentation of a little ring I wore drew blood.

"Poor child! poor child!" said Sir Adrian, very kindly--a sudden thought about me causing him to stop and look fixedly at my sad countenance; "I pity you, too, from my heart. Amabel, this has been a sad business; it has moved me more than I like to own."

I looked up--Clarence Fairfax was gone!

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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sociated 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 hors.e.m.e.n rode up the bank--my father and--Lyle!

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 a.s.sailable 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 a.s.sisted 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, a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sion; 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 a.s.surance 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."

I trembled, and began to waver in my resolution.

She said that the _esclandre_ had been injurious to my sister's prospects in life.

I feared that I had been more to blame than I had believed.

I said "the world was very hard."

"Very," replied my mother--"so hard, that your imprudence has been visited on all of us. I have been blamed for launching you into the gaieties of life at Cape Town, with all its incidental temptations.

Marion is pointed out as the sister of 'that flirt, Miss Daveney, Mrs Rashleigh's rival;' and your father reproaches himself for not remaining with you when he discovered that Lady Amabel Fairfax had lost rather than gained in strength of character--"

I could have said, "Ah! mother, how do you learn what the world says of us?--who dares tell _you_ these things?" I was not aware then that Lyle, in his own specious, deprecatory way, was her informant, directly or indirectly--"grieving to set such unpleasant truths before her, but deeming it his duty to do so."

You will wonder that a clever woman like my mother did not see through this systematic deceit; but she was bitterly annoyed at the issue of Clarence Fairfax's attentions to me; she fancied herself pointed at by the finger of pity--you know how sensitive she is on this point--and she was impatient at my belief that Clarence had loved me. "Had he ever told me so seriously? Was I blind enough to believe him in earnest? He had never loved me; his regard, such as it was, was contemptible."

More, much more, she said--I admitted that Clarence had never been my acknowledged lover; but--

"Are there no looks, mute, but most eloquent?"

I confessed that he was fickle--"And vain?"--"Yes." "And selfish, and heartless, and unprincipled!"

I could not answer these allegations--I dared not say he had been the victim of a vicious woman, years older than himself, and deeply versed in intrigue. I had once ventured to speak in this strain, and had drawn forth words of scorn and anger, which my mother afterwards repented using, but which I ever dreaded to evoke again.

But the climax of Lyle's art lay in an incident I shall record.

My father and I were riding one day, sauntering through a kloof, when we were overtaken by him. At the end of this kloof was a branch of a rapid stream. Here it was deep and dangerous; but my horse and I knew the ford well--Lyle rode a little behind me. In the middle of the stream my horse began to plunge among the stones--my father was a few yards in advance; he could not easily turn to my aid, owing to the strength of the current--I was alarmed, yet tried to restrain the animal, but he plunged the more; Lyle, with his powerful arm, drew me from my saddle, and bore me before him safely across the drift--my horse was swept down--it is the same old grey we pet sometimes; he was found two days after, hanging to a branch by his bridle, having found a footing on the bank.

Can you conceive a man afterwards boasting of this trick? It was Lyle who had made the animal plunge that he might rescue me, and thus place me under a supposed obligation for my life!

My mother insisted on my going into society--she was doubtless right; but you know what society consists of in a great garrison,--a few ladies, crowds of gentlemen, and some women, whose friendship is far from desirable; I believe some of the latter were unsparing in their scandalous chronicles of Cape Town, when Mrs Rashleigh and I were both made subjects of remark. The girl of seventeen, the daughter of a representative of authority, and of a mother whose abilities and lofty aspirations rendered her an object of fear and dislike with many, was not likely to be dealt with gently by these idle, frivolous, uneducated women; the story of Miss Daveney's "_liaison_" with Captain Fairfax lost nothing in such hands; and although most of our earliest friends stood by us through good report and evil report, these were not many, and it was evident that the faith of some was shaken. Lyle took care that my father and mother should see this--he alluded to it with indignation, and avowed himself more devoted than ever--

"My _mither_ urged me sair, my _father_ could na speak, But he looked in my face--"

I asked for time--I sincerely believed that I had banished Clarence from my heart, if not from my mind. I accustomed myself to receive Lyle's attentions; they were offered, though not offensively, in the sight of other men, and in an evil hour for all, I yielded.

I admired Lyle--I admired his courage, his abilities, his apparently independent spirit, his resolution; I was perpetually told that his perseverance deserved reward.

I married him, believing that I felt a regard and admiration for him, which would ripen into affection. How much it has already cost me to set down these details, these reasons, or excuses--if you think the last word the truest--for consenting to a union which has blighted so many years of my young life!