Wild Honey Part 24

And now it did not look as if things were going to work out that way!

He found himself desiring something that was already in the possession of someone else--for "better or worse, for richer or poorer!" He who had made up his mind never to have a wife and baby of his own, was now hankering to take possession of the wife and baby of someone else! The thing was ridiculous of course. It was so silly that he could even laugh at it himself.

"What a fool I should look carting Stannard's baby round the world.

Blow that Aimee! After all, if I'm going to be a nurse-maid, surely I can get a baby of my own to mind!"

Yes, he could laugh and gibe at it himself, but even in the act of doing so something gripped him round the heart and made him feel physically sick. It was the thought of the day when he would see the Amber Eyes no more! Wherefore he gazed into them all that day as much as decency permitted, and a trifle over. He was overjoyed to see that she could no longer return his gaze with her frank, disarming glance of girlish innocence. A bird sang in his breast every time the colour sprang into her cheek under his hardy eye.

She had got another nurse-boy for the baby and so had a little liberty in which to roam about Beira, looking at the coolie curio-shops, and riding on the trollies that ran up and down the town. She bought herself an Indian silk shirt of delicate rainbow tints softly blending into one another, and he acquired a set of six twisted gold bangles for an imaginary sister, and a little one for Aimee. Then he wanted to give Amber Eyes a little black ebony walking-stick k.n.o.bbed and tipped with ivory. But she would not have it.

"Not even a little remembrance of our journey down?" he pleaded.

"It looks like a _memento mori_," she protested.

"It will be one if you use it to walk away from me."

"I am able to do that without the use of a crutch," she laughed.

"I daresay. What you are _not_ able to do is to prevent me from following, even if I have to come on crutches."

"Surely you are too clever a man to waste your time?"

She turned away from him with a bright cheek, leaving no time for a response. Not that he had a response ready. He was not quite sure whether he _was_ a clever man or not, nor whether he stood on his head or his heels. But he meant to keep his balance. And he did--right up to nine o'clock that night.

At that time he was seated beside her in a trolley car which also contained half a dozen other people bent on a moonlight drive. The little bag she carried slipped to the floor and in stooping to recover it for her in the contracted s.p.a.ce his face touched her knee whereon lay her hand. Under an uncontrollable impulse he pressed his lips to it.

She instantly drew it away, and they sat in silence for a moment. Then, below the noise of the trolley wheels she heard his voice very low and vibrating:

"Amber, I love you!"

She stared straight ahead, making no kind of response. He was left to wonder whether or not she had heard, and obliged to a.s.sume an air of calm he did not feel. A little of the red had slipped out of his complexion before they reached the end of the drive, but also his jaw had taken on its most dogged look, and as they all dismounted and began to stroll towards the hotel he said with the quiet deliberation of the man who means to have his way:

"Walk down to the little bridge with me, please. I must speak to you."

"It is getting late," she demurred.

"I shall not keep you long."

They walked in silence, their feet slipping and slithering in the loose sand, until they reached the bridge; then stopped to lean on the low parapet and stare down at the water just below.

"You heard what I said in the car?" he asked.

Perhaps she thought he was addressing the fishes for she made no answer.

Then very quietly he said again:

"I love you, Amber!"

There was a great stillness between them. Truly as the wise people of old held, to give a man the use of your name is to give him power over you! He felt that he had power over her and perhaps that was why her hand lying on the bridge rail trembled, though her voice was quite level.

"Why do you call me by that name, Mr Bettington?"

"Because I love you, woman with the amber eyes, and the amber hair, and the clear amber heart," he said gently and strongly, and took her hands in his. "And I think that you love me."

"You are mistaken," she said coldly, drawing away her hands.

The light went out of his face like a quenched flame. He turned away and leaned heavily on the bridge. She continued calmly:

"You merely have for me the terrible charm that a bad man has for a woman when he is the first bad man she has ever known."

"Me?" cried Bettington, forgetting dignity and grammar and everything else in genuine astonishment. "I'm not bad! I like that! What about Stannard?"

She seemed flabbergasted for a moment, then:

"How generous you are!" she said scornfully. "Besides he is not really a bad man, only a weak one."

"One bad man is worth forty weak ones," averred Bettington bitterly. He was astonished and indignant at the line the conversation had taken.

"I do not deny that there is much good in you," she said more kindly.

"I can never forget how kind you have been on the journey down. When I think of all the things you did for me and Aimee I hardly know how to thank you."

"Don't try," he interrupted. "I did nothing any man wouldn't have done for you."

He had to gulp all the same, thinking of Aimee and her bottles and her bag of impedimenta.

"And now you spoil it all," she said sorrowfully. "By taking me for one of those hateful, disloyal women to whom any man may make love the moment she is out of her husband's sight!"

"In all humility I beg you to forgive me," said Bettington.

There was no doubt about it that for once in his life he was getting the worst of it, but somehow he minded that fact less than he minded the tightening grip round his heart. In grim earnest, now, he heard "the tolling of Life's curfew" bidding them to part, and he wondered what he should do with the rest of his life. She had not quite finished rubbing his nose in the dust.

"How can I forgive you? I should not consider myself worthy of the worst or weakest man in the world if I were such a woman as you thought."

But Bettington's nose was too sore for any further ill-treatment. His natural combativeness began to rea.s.sert itself.

"I didn't think anything," he said moodily. "I just couldn't help loving you, that's all. If you want me to abase myself any more, Amber, say so, and I'll do it. But that won't prevent me from going on loving you."

She intimated with great dignity that she wished nothing further of him but the courtesy of his escort back to the hotel. They returned in silence, but at the door of the stoep, just as she was on the point of going in, she said quietly:

"I may as well tell you that my name is Juliet. Amber is my sister's name."

That was the last straw! He went away raging. How could he have wasted the golden treasure of his heart on her? She was one of those coldblooded brutes of women who think they can do anything they like with men--(instead of letting men do anything they like with them!) He thought he should never feel better again, except after a bottle of Guinness's mixed with a pint of champagne. But even that had a less satisfactory effect than usual.

No sign of her for the greater part of next day, and discreet inquiry of Rupee, the new nurse-boy, elicited the fact that she was resting with a bad headache. For some occult reason the information cheered Bettington wonderfully. The steamer that was to take them all down to Durban arrived, and he and some of the warrior men went down to choose their cabins for the next day's departure. Bettington knew the Captain well, and accepted an invitation to lunch. He had a sort of feeling that by so doing he was scoring off the falsely-called Amber. She should see that though she didn't want him somebody else did,--if it was only the Captain of a Union-Castle liner. He knew the feeling was childish, but he had it all the same.

When he got back to the hotel, there she was sitting in the verandah.

She went on writing her letters and pretended not to see him, so he got a newspaper and pretended to read it. This state of affairs continued for a long time, until an interruption came in the shape of a Cape cart with four spanking mules which pulled up before the hotel. A little hardy blue-eyed woman descended, and Bettington immediately recognised in her a lady whom he knew very well. She was the wife of a South African railway contractor, and the Madame Sans Gene of Salisbury, from whence she and her husband had evidently just driven in their own conveyance. She did not see Bettington at once, but pounced on Amber Eyes and shook her hand vigorously.

"How do, Miss van Rimmel? We came through Umtali and I saw your sister, Mrs Stannard. She loaded me with loving messages for you. I also have a parcel for the baby. Hope she's fit?"