By Veldt and Kopje Part 12

"Dear me," said Mrs Wiseman, "what a dreadful thing; but whoever can it be?"

"I regret to have to tell you that the person I refer to is Miss Mason."

"What! Stella? Surely not!"

"I regret, Louisa, to have to say that there can be no doubt on the subject."

"Dear me; I _am_ sorry. I have got so fond of the girl. Is there no mistake? Whatever has she done?"

"I regret, Louisa, that no possibility of there being any mistake in the matter exists. It appears, to take events in their proper sequence, that both Miss Simpson and Miss Whitmore noticed signs of most reprehensible frivolity in Miss Mason's conduct on the voyage, and their sense of duty even compelled them to take the unpleasant step of remonstrating with her for encouraging the attentions of a certain Mr Ramsay, one of the officers of the s.h.i.+p. This morning Mr Bloxam found a letter which had evidently been dropped by Miss Mason, and which, there can be no reasonable doubt, was written to her by this Ramsay. It is a doc.u.ment which, under the circ.u.mstances, reveals an amount of depravity absolutely shocking, and we must all, and especially Mr Bloxam, be humbly thankful to Providence that the true character of this whited sepulchre, who is so fair externally, has been revealed in time. I have now to request you to bring the shameless girl here, so that she may be confronted with the proof of her guilt."

"What a dreadful thing!" said Mrs Wiseman, in a bated tone; "I will fetch her at once. May I have a look at the letter?"

"Here is the letter, Louisa; it is hardly fit for the perusal of any lady; but you are a minister's wife, and have reached an age at which one may have knowledge of this cla.s.s of evil without suffering moral damage."

Mrs Wiseman gave a perceptible sniff at the reference to her age.

Her husband lifted the letter by one of its corners between the reluctant tips of a defilement-fearing finger and thumb, and pa.s.sed it across the table to her. She received it in the same manner, and held it almost at arm's length.

"Oh!" she said with a start of surprise, "how _could_ you suspect the poor girl of having anything to do with a thing like this? Why, I picked this letter up in the street this morning when I was returning from my visit to Mr Wardley. I meant to have shown it to you; I must have dropped it out of my pocket in the summer-house."

"But," said the careful Mr Winterton, "may not the note after all have been intended for Miss Mason. The initials correspond with those of Mr Ramsay, and we are told that their conduct on the voyage was very suspicious."

"Stuff and nonsense!" replied Mrs Wiseman. "Stella told me all about young Ramsay, who is engaged to a girl in Scotland. Besides, the letter is not in his handwriting. I got Stella to write him a note asking him to come to luncheon to-day, and here is his reply; you can see that the writing is quite different."

Mr Bloxam gave a gasp of relief when Stella's innocence was established, but he suddenly remembered Lavinia, and a look of such abject misery came into his face that Mrs Wiseman felt a twinge of regret at the success of her plan. Mr Wiseman collapsed into abject helplessness; he felt he had been a party to some dark plot, and his wife became, for the moment, terrible to him. She, however, relieved the tension of the situation by saying--

"You have all been guilty of a cruel injustice to poor Stella, and the least atonement you can make is to say nothing whatever about this business to anyone. It would cause Mr Wardley, besides, great annoyance if he were to hear that she had been suspected in this manner. Let us try to forget all about it. Luncheon will be ready in a few minutes."

In the course of the afternoon Stella, although still rather pallid and extremely nervous, discovered that she felt well enough to come to the drawing-room, and it was at about the same time that Mr Wardley found himself sufficiently recovered to walk down to the Parsonage. He also looked pale, and there was an alarming brightness about his eye. Mrs Wiseman ushered him into the drawing-room in which Stella was sitting alone, closed the door on him, and mounted guard at the pa.s.sage.

After a reasonable interval Mrs Wiseman, who had been sadly neglecting her housekeeping duties whilst following the dark and devious paths of intrigue, tapped at the door. Mr Wardley arose, drew Stella's arm within his own, and advanced to meet the good conspirator. The faces of the lovers shone with such radiant happiness that any twinges of remorse she felt with reference to the part she had played disappeared for ever.

She wept for very joy of sympathy, and rejoiced as Jael did after her treacherous undoing of Sisera, at the laying of the foundation-stone of this edifice of happiness which had been hewn from the quarries of circ.u.mstance by her own reprehensible hands.

It is not necessary to refer to subsequent events otherwise than in the most general terms, with the exception of a conversation which took place on the night of the day upon which all these important occurrences took place. By the time Mrs Wiseman felt justified in resting from her labours incidental to preparing for the triple wedding which was to be solemnised on the following day, the night was somewhat far spent. Then she had to go and enjoy a final gush over Stella, and take a hurried survey of that enraptured damsel's wardrobe, which, so great had been the general preoccupation during the past week, she had not even given a pa.s.sing thought to. What with one thing and another, it was midnight before she retired to her bedroom. One circ.u.mstance may possibly have weighed with her in indulging herself in such a long dawdle in Stella's room--namely, that she was just a little bit afraid of a _tete-a-tete_ with her husband, and she wanted to give him ample opportunity of going to sleep before she joined him. However, when she entered the room, she found him wide awake and looking like Rhadamanthus in an extremely bad temper.

"My goodness, Joe, are you still awake?"

"Yes, Louisa; and so will you be until I hear a full explanation of the events of to-day."

"Very well, Joe; where shall I begin? Pray do not forget that you a.s.sisted me in bringing about what happened after I told you what I was working for."

Mr Wiseman groaned heavily in spirit. This fact, which his wife so flippantly reminded him of, had been rankling all day in his. .h.i.therto blameless conscience like a torturing thorn. The other thing that caused him acute misery was the suspicion that his wife had told him a falsehood.

"Louisa, you said you picked up that letter in the street. Was that statement true?"

"Of course it was." She answered him with indignant asperity. "May I inquire if you suspect me of telling a lie?"

"Louisa, do you know how the letter came to be in the street before you picked it up?"

"Of course I do. I dropped it there myself." Mr Wiseman groaned heavily in body and turned his face to the wall. He now realised for the first time that there is a feminine code of ethics which is radically different in some important respects from the masculine, and he recognised the hopelessness of further discussion...

Next day the triple wedding was duly solemnised by the Reverend Josiah, and the three couples departed in their several wagons for their respective homes. There is good ground for believing that as marriages go, these unions resulted in a highly satisfactory average of happiness.

The Prince and Princess, of course, sailed down the flowing stream of their days in a shallop with a fortunate keel, drawn by a sail which was ever arched to the balmy breath of happy gales. Mr Winterton and Matilda lived for a satisfactory number of years, and were continually discovering new and admirable qualities in each other. Their many good works are still bearing fruit in the little village in which they dwelt; and the gorgeous hues of the smoking-caps and slippers with which the industrious and devoted Matilda used to clothe the upper and nether extremities of her spouse are still vivid in the memories of the older inhabitants.

It is only doing Mr Bloxam justice to say that he came out of his painful ordeal like a gentleman. From the ruins of the fabric of antic.i.p.ated bliss, in which he had fondly dreamt of dwelling by the side of the beauteous Stella, he built what proved to be a durable tenement of unpretentious design, in which he and Lavinia lived for many days in sober comfort. His sufferings at first were extremely bitter, and it is high praise of his manliness to say that he concealed their existence from his wife. Had he but known it, his life with Lavinia was far more satisfactory than it could possibly have been with Stella. It has been said that Mrs Bloxam found her husband's temper very trying during the first few years of their married life, but that things mended in this respect as time went on, and that the esteem which these two learned to feel for each other made the autumn of their united life like unto a calm, rich-skied Indian summer.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A CASE FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.

_One_.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made of."

Once upon a time it was my hap to dwell in a certain town in the Eastern Province of Cape Colony, which will not be recognised under the name of Hilston. With a population of about a thousand Europeans, it bore a strong resemblance to several other communities in the same province.

It contained the usual disproportionate number of churches and liquor-shops, the usual utter absence of anything like Christianity as a rule of life--or, in fact, as anything but a mere form--the usual number of persons whose only occupation appeared to be that of killing time, and the usual intellectual dry-rot and deadly dulness. The morning market was the great rendezvous for the gossips. Here, around the b.u.t.ter and vegetable-laden tables would the neighbouring farmers and their town cronies foregather every week-day morning; here they would swop mild and superannuated jokes, rank tobacco, scandalous tales, and insinuations more or less damaging to their neighbours' characters.

Being engaged upon special duty, and living in daily expectation of having to move on to new official pastures, I had taken up my abode at a small hotel near the outskirts, my choice of a sojourning place being determined by the comparative nocturnal quiet of the vicinity. Here I dwelt in moderate comfort tempered by accidents which it is needless to specify.

By far the most interesting feature of Hilston, to me at least, was old Isaac, the septuagenarian billiard-marker at the hotel where I lodged and boarded. Isaac (it may be premised that he had, once upon a time, possessed a surname, although all trace of it was lost) had a phenomenally bad temper and an exceedingly bitter tongue. Being badly hump-backed, he was only about three feet nine in height. Twenty-eight years previously he had drifted as a tramp to Hilston, whence no one knew, and had been employed as a stable-hand by the then proprietor of the hotel. Eight years after this the establishment changed hands, and Isaac was taken over with the other fixtures. The new proprietor, a young man with a little capital at his command, built a billiard-room and imported a brand new and first-cla.s.s table. Isaac, to his great satisfaction, was appointed marker, and he at once experienced what was probably the one great pa.s.sion of his life, for he fell violently in love with his charge. It was said that he had been more than once watched through the window, when alone in the room, rubbing his cheek softly over the new, silky, green cloth, and that he was wont to stand for an hour at a time, when no players were about, gently pa.s.sing his hand over the sides and fondling the cus.h.i.+ons.

When I made the acquaintance of the table and its custodian, they looked equally the worse for wear. The original cloth was still doing duty, but was patched and darned in nearly a dozen places. In spite of the shabby attire, however, Isaac still loved his mistress with ardour and constancy. The proprietor informed me confidentially that he would long since have invested in a new cloth and cus.h.i.+ons but for the strenuous way in which the old man opposed any suggestion towards a change. He still slept, as he had done for twenty years, rolled up in an old rug on one of the lumpy benches provided for the use of spectators, and no matter how late the habitual loafers, who practically lived in the room, or the gilded youth of the town, who now and then gambled mildly over the clicking ivories, kept up their threepenny black pool, he carefully dusted down his darling, and covered her with a drab holland cloth before retiring to rest on his narrow and uneven couch.

In South African towns of the Hilston cla.s.s there are neither clubs, theatres nor music-halls. The billiard-room is, therefore, the only place of general resort for relaxation, and in it you will meet the local male inhabitant, or the greater part of him, in his most interesting--that is to say in his most natural--mood. Here he is relaxed and unconstrained; here he joins with his fellows in a brotherhood which, although temporary, is often renewed; here the tobacco-smoke cloud unites those who create it in a common humanity, and even seems to inspire those who breathe it with a common human soul.

Many of the a.s.sociations of the billiard-room are, no doubt, unedifying; but so long as man remains a gregarious animal, so long will he seek out some spot in which to meet his fellows without restraint. In my individual case the billiard-room was the only place in the hotel suitable for smoking in; consequently I spent a great deal of time in it, especially in the evenings.

In the very early stage of our acquaintances.h.i.+p I won old Isaac's heart by remonstrating with a semi-intoxicated player for allowing burning tobacco to fall from his pipe upon the cloth. Soon after I got an inkling of the old man's affection for his charge I began, for the sake of amus.e.m.e.nt, to play up to it; then the evident genuineness of the feeling gained my involuntary respect, and I could not avoid being struck by the pathos of the situation.

As our acquaintance grew, Isaac became more and more confidential, and I was astonished at the critical faculty displayed in his caustic comments upon the different frequenters of the billiard-room. He had the faculty of ticking people off in a terse phrase of epigrammatic force and inevitable application. Being more or less of a b.u.t.t for cheap witticisms on the part of those among whom his daily life was thrown, Isaac cordially disliked nine people out of every ten whom he knew. One of the favourite diversions of the gilded youth was to abuse the table in the old marker's hearing, and to compare its capabilities unfavourably with those of the rival hotel up the street. This Isaac would stand for a time, but when the limit of endurance had been reached, he would break into a withering storm of profane invective such as I have never heard equalled. His power of venting ingenious and fantastic scurrility on these occasions might have rivalled that of Thersites, the "deformed and scurrilous Grecian."

Over and over again has he told me the history of each individual tear in the cloth. Two of the worst of these had been perpetrated nearly ten years' previously, and, although the perpetrators were still constant frequenters of the room, Isaac had never from the dates of their respective delinquencies spoken a word to either of them. When one of these persons lost a game and thus had to pay for the use of the table, Isaac would silently hold out a claw-like hand for the money, and no matter how brutal the chaff to which he might be subjected, he could never be provoked to retort.

One morning, after I had been for about two months a resident at the hotel, I entered the billiard-room, and there found Isaac sitting on the bench and weeping bitterly. His head was bowed upon his hands, and his poor twisted frame shook to the violence of his sobs. A large parcel lay next to him; one end of this had been opened and a new cloth thus revealed. It was quite clear what had happened: the evil and much-dreaded day had arrived; the old cloth was about to be discarded and another subst.i.tuted. As a matter of fact the proprietor of the rival table up the street had invested in a new cloth and cus.h.i.+ons, and consequently was drawing away custom in an alarming manner. Isaac's master had at length put his foot down, and Isaac's darling was to be re-clothed and re-cus.h.i.+oned. This Isaac regarded more or less as Mr Ruskin would regard draping the "Venus de Medicis" in a velveteen polonaise.

"I'd rather they took off my skin and put new calves to my legs," he said between his sobs. "If I only knowed where to get gunpowder I'd blow the two of us up."

I tried to reason with him, but he turned and withered me, in company with the proprietor and everyone else he could think of, in a blast of anathema that would have made a pope of the Middle Ages weep with envy, so I beat a hasty retreat.

Later in the day Isaac was reported to be very ill. Next morning I found him crouched on his face among pillows in a comfortable little room which formed a lean-to at the side of the stable. He was breathing stertorously and evidently had not long to live. When I addressed him he looked up at me with pain-shot eyes, but appeared to be unable to reply. Sounds of tacking could be heard coming from the direction of the billiard-room; the old cloth was being removed and the new one fixed in its place. A man named Scarren was sitting at the bedside; every now and then he puffed strong tobacco-smoke into the sick man's face. This, Scarren explained in a whisper, was done at Isaac's request. I noticed that when Scarren, during the conversation with me, allowed a longer interval than usual to elapse without puffing, Isaac became very uneasy.

Isaac died during the night. I forget exactly how the doctor who attended him described his malady, but judging from the length of the name it must have been something as uncommon as deadly. My private, unprofessional opinion was that the poor old man had died of a broken heart. Strange, that for the commonest of all diseases there should be no medical name--to say nothing of a cure.

Next day old Isaac's body was carried to its resting-place in the pretty little cemetery, in the beautifying of which the inhabitants of Hilston spent a lot of money, which would have been far better devoted to sanitation, the same being very badly needed. Scarren, two of the regular votaries at the billiard-room and myself were the only mourners.

Before the body was placed in the coffin I had, with the consent of the proprietor, laid the old cloth, neatly folded, where the worn-out body would rest upon it. The editor of the local paper heard of this circ.u.mstance and took me roundly to task for what he called my "heartless practical joke at the expense of a dead man." I had, just previously, been the means of having a heavy reduction effected in his bill for some Government printing, the details of which proved, upon examination, to be as untrustworthy as his leading articles.