The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Part 14

"Where is your mistress?" he asked in Sindabele.

"Gone, _Nkose_," was the reply.

"Gone!" he echoed mentally.

So Hermia had taken him at his word, and had decided to retreat to Fort Salisbury. Perhaps though, some disquieting news had arrived since his departure, causing her to take that step. His feeling of depression deepened as he entered the empty house. Ah! What was this?

A letter stared at him from a conspicuous place, a sealed enclosure--and it was directed in Hermia's handwriting. That would explain, he thought. And it did with a vengeance.

"You will not be astonished, Hilary," it began, "because even you must have seen that this life was getting beyond endurance. You will not miss me, because for some time past you have been growing more and more tired of me. So it is best for us to part: and you can now go back to your Matabele wives, or bring them here if you prefer it; for I shall never return to this life we have been leading. I warned you that if you did not appreciate me, others did--and now I am leaving, not only this country but this continent. I am going into the world again, and now, you too, will be able to make a fresh start. We need never meet again and in all probability we never shall. Farewell.

"Hermia."

Twice he read over this communication--slowly, carefully, as though weighing every word. So she had gone, had deserted him. There was truth in what she wrote. He had been growing tired of her--very: for he had long since got to the bottom of the utter shallowness of mind which underlay her winning and seductive exterior--winning and seductive, that is, when laying herself out to attract admiration, a thing she had long since ceased to do in his own case. The sting too, about his Matabele wives, he never having possessed any, was a not very adroit insinuation designed to place him in the wrong, and was all in keeping with a certain latent vulgarity of mind which would every now and then a.s.sert itself in her, with the result of setting his teeth on edge.

He smiled to himself, rather bitterly, rather grimly. He was sorry for Spence. The boy was merely a fool, and little knew the burden he had loaded up on his asinine and youthful shoulders, and, as for Hermia, his smile became more saturnine still, as he pictured her roughing it in a prospector's camp: for he looked upon her statement about leaving Africa as mere mendacious bounce, and of course was unaware of any change for the better in Spence's fortunes. For her he was not sorry, nor for himself. As she had said, he would now be able to make a fresh start, and this he fully intended to do. Yet, as he stood there, ill and tired and shaken, looking around on his deserted home, it may be that some tinge of abandonment and desolation crept over him. Hermia had chosen her time well, at any rate, he thought, as he busied himself fomenting and bandaging his throbbing and swollen ankle.

The sun had gone down, and the shades of evening seemed to set in with a strange, unaccountable chill, as he limped about, looking after his stock and other possessions. Decidedly there was a lonely feeling, vague, indefinable, which hovered about him. And then those dreadful chills increased. Lying out in that rock-crevice, in fact lying out for several nights insufficiently covered, had sown the seeds. a.s.suredly no luck had come to him through meddling with the King's grave. And then, before evening had merged for an hour into dark night, Hilary Blachland lay shivering beneath his piled-up blankets as though they had been ice--shivering in the terrible ague-throes of that deadly malaria--weak, helpless as a child, deserted, alone.

End of Book I.

CHAPTER ONE.

WISER COUNSELS.

"That scamp! That out-and-out irreclaimable scamp! A hundred is just ninety-nine pound nineteen more than he deserves. A hundred. No--I'll make it two."

Sir Luke Canterby looked up from the doc.u.ment he had been perusing and annotating, and biting the end of his pen, sat gazing meditatively out of the window. It was a lovely day of early spring, and the thrushes were hopping about the lawn, and the rooks in the great elms were making a prodigious cawing and fuss over their nest-building. All Nature was springing into new life in the joyous gladsome rush of the youthful year, but the old man, sitting there, was out of harmony with rejuvenated Nature. His meditations and occupation were concerned, not with life, but with death. The doc.u.ment before him was nothing less momentous than the draft of his last will and testament.

In appearance, however, there was nothing about Sir Luke Canterby to suggest impending dissolution, either now or in the near future. Seated there surrounded by the dark oak of his library, he represented a pleasant and wholesome type of old age. He was tall and spare, and, for his years, wonderfully straight. He had refined features and wore a short beard, now silvery white, and there was a kindly twinkle in his eyes. He was a rich man, but had not always been, and, although of good parentage, had made his money in commerce. He had been knighted on the occasion of a Royal visit to the mercantile centre wherein at the time he was prominent, but in his heart of hearts, thought but little of the 'honour' in fact, would have declined it could he have done so with a good grace.

His gaze came back to the paper with a troubled look, which deepened as he made the correction. For although to the legatee in question two hundred pounds would be better than none, yet the said legatee had had reason to expect that the bulk of the whole would be left to him. Still the testator sat staring at what he had just effected, as if it were something he did not relish at all, and in fact, no more he did. Then an interruption occurred in the shape of a knock at the door and the entrance of a servant.

"Canon Lenthall is here, Sir Luke, and would be glad to know if you can see him?"

"Eh? Yes, certainly. Show him up here. The very thing," he added to himself. "I'll take d.i.c.k's opinion about it. Ah, there he is. Come in, Canon. Real glad to see you, especially just now."

"Nothing wrong, Canterby?" said the other, as the two men shook hands cordially.

"Don't know about wrong, d.i.c.k. But I'm in a puzzle over something, and you always had a sound judgment. Sit down."

The Very Reverend Richard Lenthall was one of the canons attached to the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the adjacent town of Pa.s.smore; and the difference in their creeds notwithstanding, for Sir Luke did not profess the ancient faith, the two men had been fast friends for nearly a lifetime. In aspect and manner they were totally dissimilar. The priest was a broad, thick-set man of medium height, with a strong but jovial face, square-jawed and surmounted by a fine forehead, and illuminated by a pair of fine dark eyes, wonderfully searching, as they gazed forth from beneath bushy brows. He had a brisk, hearty, genial manner, differing entirely from the somewhat reposeful and dignified one of his friend. But mentally, both had many points in common--notably a keen sense of humour--and a delight in studying the contrasts and ironies of the satirical side of life.

"What's the puzzle?" he now said, dropping into a chair.

"I'll tell you. Oh, by the way, let me ring for a gla.s.s of wine for you after your walk."

"No, thanks. I'll wait till lunch. I'm going to stop and lunch with you, but I'll have to get away directly after."

"As to that you know your own business best. Look here, old friend, advise me. Do you know what this confounded doc.u.ment is?" holding it up.

"Um. It might be a lease, or a deed of partnership--or of sale."

"No. Try again."

"Or your will."

"You've struck it. That's just what it is. The draft of my will.

And--I want you to read it."

"Why?"

"Because I want your opinion, man--doesn't it stand to reason?"

"See here, Luke," said the other, and there was a twinkle in his eye.

"Aren't you afraid of the much-abused priest who is supposed to be always poking his nose into other people's business and interfering in family matters? You know."

"I only know that you are talking bosh when you ought to be serious, d.i.c.k. Do run through that paper and make any remarks on it you like."

"Well, if you really wish it," said the Canon, serious enough now, as he got out his gla.s.ses, and began to peruse attentively the ma.s.ses of legal jargon which covered up the testator's designs. He had not got far, however, before he came upon that which perturbed him not a little, but of such his trained impa.s.sive countenance betrayed no sign. Sir Luke sat looking out of the window, watching the thrushes hopping about the lawn.

"Well?" he said at last, but not extending a hand to receive the doc.u.ment which the other was holding out to him.

"You have altered all your former dispositions," said the Canon.

"Yes. I have been thinking things carefully over. I daren't trust him, that scamp. He has simply gone from bad to worse, and would make ducks and drakes of the lot. Percival won't."

"That scamp!" The hardly perceptible quiver in his old friend's voice as he uttered the word, did not escape the shrewd ecclesiastic. Indeed, to that skilled and experienced master of human nature in all its phases, the state of his friend's mind at this moment was a very wide open book.

"Are you sure of yourself, Canterby?" he said. "Is it quite just to entail upon him so ruthlessly sweeping a penalty as this? Are you sure of yourself?"

"Of course I am."

"No, you're not. My dear old friend, you can't throw dust in my eyes.

You are not sure of yourself. Then why not give him another chance?"

"Why, that's just what I have done. Anybody else would have cut him off with a shilling--with the traditional shilling. By George, sir, they would."

Canon Lenthall smiled to himself, for he knew that when a man of his friend's temperament begins to wax warm in an argument of this sort, it is a sure sign that he is arguing against himself. He considered the victory almost won. Turning over the sheets of the draft once more, he read out a clause--slowly and deliberately:

"To my nephew, Hilary Blachland, I bequeath the sum of two hundred pounds--in case he might find himself in such a position that its possession would afford him a last chance."

"Well?" queried Sir Luke.

"Please note two things, Canterby," said the Canon. "First you say I am to advise you, then that I am to read this doc.u.ment and make any remarks I like."

"Of course."