The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Part 23

"She can't. She told me so."

"Did she? Now, Percy, I don't want to hurt your feelings. But how many men do you suppose she has told the same thing to--in her time?"

"None. Her marriage was only one of convenience. She was forced into it."

"Of course. They always are. Now, supposing she had told me, for instance, she couldn't do without me? What then?"

"You? Why, you never set eyes on her till this morning."

"No. Of course not. I was only putting a case. Again, she's rather older than you."

"There you're wrong. She's a year or two younger. She told me so."

Blachland, happening to know that she was, in fact, five or six years the young fellow's senior, went on appreciating the humours of the situation. And really these were great.

"By Jove! Listen!" said the other suddenly, as a chattering and clucking of fowls was audible outside. "There's a jackal or a bushcat or something getting at the fowls. They roost in those low trees just outside. I'll get the gun, and if we put out the light, we may get a shot at him from the window."

"Not much," returned Blachland decisively. "The window's at the head of my bed, not yours. I wouldn't have it opened this beastly cold night for a great deal. Besides, think what a funk you'd set up among the women by banging off a gun at this unG.o.dly hour. The hens must take their chance. Now look here, Percy," he went on, speaking earnestly and seriously, "take a word of warning from one who has seen a great deal more of the world, and the crookedness thereof, than you have, and chuck this business--for all serious purposes I mean. Have your fun by all means--even to a fast and furious flirtation if you're that way disposed. But--draw the line at that, and draw it hard."

"I wouldn't if I could, and I couldn't if I would. Hilary--we are engaged."

"What?"

The word came with almost a shout. Blachland had sat up in bed and was staring at his young kinsman in wild dismay. His pipe had fallen to the ground in his amazement over the announcement. "Since when, if it's a fair question?" he added, somewhat recovering himself.

"Only this evening. I asked her to marry me and she consented."

"Then you must break it off at once. I tell you this thing can't come off, Percy. It simply can't."

"Can't it? But it will. And look here, Hilary, you're a devilish good chap, and all that--but I'm not precisely under your guardianship, you know. Nor am I dependent upon anybody. I've got a little of my own, and besides, I can work."

"Oh, you young fool. Go to sleep. You may wake up more sensible," he answered, not unkindly, and restraining the impulse to tell Percival the truth then and there, but the thought that restrained him was the coming interview with Hermia on the morrow. He was naturally reluctant to give her away unless absolutely necessary, but whatever the result of that interview, he would force her to free Percival from her toils. To do him justice, the idea that such an exposure would involve himself too did not enter his mind--at least not then.

"I think I will go to sleep, Hilary, as you're so beastly unsympathetic," answered the younger man good-humouredly. "But as to the waking up--well, you and I differ as to the meaning of the word 'sensible.' Night-night."

And soon a succession of light snores told that he was asleep, probably dreaming blissfully of the crafty and scheming adventuress who had fastened on to his young life to strangle it at the outset. But Hilary Blachland lay staring into the darkness--thinking, and ever thinking.

"Confound those infernal fowls!" he muttered, as the cackling and clucking, mingled this time with some fluttering, arose outside, soon after the extinguishing of the light. But the disturbance subsided--nor did it again arise that night, as he lay there, hour after hour, thinking, ever thinking.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH HER."

Bright and clear and cold, the morning arose. There had been a touch of frost in the night, and the house, lying back in its enclosure of aloe fence, looked as though roofed with a sheeting of silver in the sparkle of the rising sun. The spreading veldt, too, in the flash of its dewy sheen, seemed to lend a deeper blue to the dazzling, unclouded vault above. The metallic clatter of milk-pails in the cattle-kraal hard by mingled with the deep-toned hum of Kaffir voices; a troop of young ostriches turned loose were darting to and fro, or waltzing, and playfully kicking at each other; and so still and clear was the air, that the whistling call of partridges down in an old mealie land nearly a mile away was plainly audible.

"Where's West?" Bayfield was saying, as three out of the four men were standing by the gate, finishing their early coffee.

"Oh, he's a lazy beggar," answered Earle, putting down his cup on a stone. "He don't like turning out much before breakfast-time."

"I believe you'll miss some of your fowls this morning, Earle," said Blachland. "There was a cat or something after them last night. They were kicking up the devil's own row outside our window. Percy wanted to try a shot at it, whatever it was, but I choked him off that lay because I thought it'd scare the house."

"Might have been a two-legged cat," rejoined Earle. "And it isn't worthwhile shooting even a poor devil of a thieving n.i.g.g.e.r for the sake of a chicken or two."

"Who are you wanting to shoot, Mr Earle?"

"Ah! Good morning, Mrs Fenham. Blachland was saying there was a cat or something after the fowls last night, and it was all he could do to keep West from blazing off a gun at it. I suggested it might have been a two-legged cat--ha--ha!"

"Possibly," she answered with a smile. "I'm going to take a little stroll. It's such a lovely morning. Will you go with me, Mr Blachland?"

"Delighted," was the answer.

The two left behind nudged each other.

"Old Blachland's got it too," quoth Earle, with a knowing wink. "I say, though, the young 'un 'll be ready to cut his throat when he finds he's been stolen a march on. They all seem to tumble when she comes along.

I say, Bayfield, you'll be the next."

"When I am I'll tell you," was the placid reply. "Let's go round to the kraals."

"Well, Hilary, and how am I looking? Rather well, don't you think?"

She was dressed quite simply, but prettily, and wore a plain but very becoming hat. The brisk, clear cold suited her dark style, and had lent colour to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes--and the expression of the latter now, as she turned them upon her companion, was very soft.

"Yes. Rather well," he answered, not flinching from her gaze, yet not responding to it.

"More than 'rather' well, you ought to say," she smiled. "And now, Hilary, what have you been doing since we parted? Tell me all about yourself."

Most men would have waxed indignant over her cool effrontery in putting things this way. This one, she knew, would do nothing of the sort. If anything, it rather amused him.

"Doing? Well, I began by nearly dying of fever. Would have quite, if Sybrandt hadn't tumbled in by accident and pulled me through it."

"Poor old Hilary!--What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing much. Something funny struck me, that's all. But you were always deficient in a sense of the ridiculous, Hermia, so it's not worth repeating. You wouldn't see it. By-the-way, when I was lying ill, a squad of Matabele came around, under that swab Muntusi, and looted a little, and a.s.segai-ed the two piccaninnies."

"What? Tickey and Primrose? Oh, poor little beasts!"

"I couldn't move a finger, of course--weak as a cat. In fact, I didn't know what had happened till afterwards."

Again the humour of the situation struck him irresistibly. The matter-of-course way in which she was asking and receiving the news just as though they had parted quite in ordinary fashion and merely temporarily, was funny. But it was Hermia all over.

"I'd become sick of it by that time," he went on. "So I sold out everything, and came down country."

"To think of your being at the Bayfields' all this while, Hilary. And you didn't know I was here?"

"Hadn't the ghost of a notion. Of course I had heard you were here, but there was nothing to lead me to locate you as 'Mrs Fenham.' By the way, Hermia, what on earth made you strike out in the line of instructor of youth? No. It's really too funny."