Finished by H. Rider Haggard (the best ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

“Really, Quatermain, you are admirable. I never knew anyone who could make a better use of the briefest opportunity.”

Then we were silent, waiting, not without a certain impatience, for the return of Miss Heda. She did return with surprising quickness considering that she had found time to search for her parent, to change into a clean white dress, and to pin a single hibiscus flower on to her bodice which gave just the touch of colour that was necessary to complete her costume.

“I can’t find my father,” she said, “but the boys say he has gone out riding. I can’t find anybody. When you have been summoned from a long way off and travelled post-haste, rather to your own inconvenience, it is amusing, isn’t it?”

“Wagons and carts in South Africa don’t arrive like express trains, Miss Marnham,” said Anscombe, “so you shouldn’t be offended.”

“I am not at all offended, Mr. Anscombe. Now that I know there is nothing the matter with my father I’m—But, tell me, how did you get your wound?”

So he told her with much amusing detail after his fashion. She listened quietly with a puckered up brow and only made one comment. It was,—

“I wonder what white man told those Sekukuni Kaffirs that you were coming.”

“I don’t know,” he answered, “but he deserves a bullet through him somewhere above the ankle.”

“Yes, though few people get what they deserve in this wicked world.”

“So I have often thought. Had it been otherwise, for example, I should have been—”

“What would you have been?” she asked, considering him curiously.

“Oh! a better shot than Mr. Allan Quatermain, and as beautiful as a lady I once saw in my youth.”

“Don’t talk rubbish before luncheon,” I remarked sternly, and we all laughed, the first wholesome laughter that I had heard at the Temple. For this young lady seemed to bring happiness and merriment with her. I remember wondering what it was of which her coming reminded me, and concluding that it was like the sight and smell of a peach orchard in full bloom stumbled on suddenly in the black desert of the burnt winter veld.

After this we became quite friendly. She dilated on her skill in having produced the Temple from an old engraving, which she fetched and showed to us, at no greater an expense than it would have cost to build an ordinary house.

“That is because the marble was at hand,” said Anscombe.

“Quite so,” she replied demurely. “Speaking in a general sense one can do many things in life—if the marble is at hand. Only most of us when we look for marble find sandstone or mud.”

“Bravo!” said Anscombe, “I have generally lit upon the sandstone.”

“And I on the mud,” she mused.

“And I on all three, for the earth contains marble and mud and sandstone, to say nothing of gold and jewels,” I broke in, being tired of silence.

But neither of them paid much attention to me. Anscombe did say, out of politeness, I suppose, that pitch and subterranean fires should be added, or some such nonsense.

Then she began to tell him of her infantile memories of Hungary, which were extremely faint; of how they came to this place and lived first of all in two large Kaffir huts, until suddenly they began to grow rich; of her school days at Maritzburg; of the friends with whom she had been staying, and I know not what, until at last I got up and went out for a walk.

When I returned an hour or so later they were still talking, and so continued to do until Dr. Rodd arrived upon the scene. At first they did not see him, for he stood at an angle to them, but I saw him and watched his face with a great deal of interest. It, or rather its expression, was not pleasant; before now I have seen something like it on that of a wild beast which thinks that it is about to be robbed of its prey by a stronger wild beast, in short, a mixture of hate, fear and jealousy—especially jealousy. At the last I did not wonder, for these two seemed to be getting on uncommonly well.

They were, so to speak, well matched. She, of course, was the better looking of the two, a really pretty and attractive young woman indeed, but the vivacity of Anscombe’s face, the twinkle of his merry blue eyes and its general refinement made up for what he lacked—regularity of feature. I think he had just told her one of his good stories which he always managed to make so humorous by a trick of pleasing and harmless exaggeration, and they were both laughing merrily. Then she caught sight of the doctor and her merriment evaporated like a drop of water on a hot shovel. Distinctly I saw her pull herself together and prepare for something.

“How do you do?” she said rapidly, rising and holding out her slim sun-browned hand. “But I need not ask, you look so well.”

“How do you do, my dear,” with a heavy emphasis on the “dear” he answered slowly. “But I needn’t ask, for I see that you are in perfect health and spirits,” and he bent forward as though to kiss her.

Somehow or other she avoided that endearment or seal of possession. I don’t quite know how, as I turned my head away, not wishing to witness what I felt to be unpleasant. When I looked up again, however, I saw that she had avoided it, the scowl on his face, the demureness of hers and Anscombe’s evident amusement assured me of this. She was asking about her father; he answered that he also seemed quite well.

“Then why did you write to tell me that I ought to come as he was not at all well?” she inquired, with a lifting of her delicate eyebrows.

The question was never answered, for at that moment Marnham himself appeared.

“Oh! father,” she said, and rushed into his arms, while he kissed her tenderly on both cheeks.

So I was not mistaken, thought I to myself, she does really love this moral wreck, and what is more, he loves her, which shows that there must be good in him. Is anyone truly bad, I wondered, or for the matter of that, truly good either? Is it not all a question of circumstance and blood?

Neither then or at any other time have I found an answer to the problem. At any rate to me there seemed something beautiful about the meeting of these two.

The influence of Miss Heda in the house was felt at once. The boys became smarter and put on clean clothes. Vases of flowers appeared in the various rooms; ours was turned out and cleaned, a disagreeable process so far as we were concerned. Moreover, at dinner both Marnham and Rodd wore dress clothes with short jackets, a circumstance that put Anscombe and myself to shame since we had none. It was curious to see how with those dress clothes, which doubtless awoke old associations within him, Marnham changed his colour like a chameleon. Really he might have been the colonel of a cavalry regiment rising to toast the Queen after he had sent round the wine, so polite and polished was his talk. Who could have identified the man with the dry old ruffian of twenty-four hours before, he who was drinking claret (and very good claret too) mixed with water and listening with a polite interest to all the details of his daughter’s journey? Even the doctor looked a gentleman, which doubtless he was once upon a time, in evening dress. Moreover, some kind of truce had been arranged. He no longer called Miss Heda “My dear” or attempted any familiarities, while she on more than one occasion very distinctly called him Dr. Rodd.

So much for that night and for several others that followed. As for the days they went by pleasantly and idly. Heda walked about on her father’s arm, conversed in friendly fashion with the doctor, always watching him, I noticed, as a cat watches a dog that she knows is waiting an opportunity to spring, and for the rest associated with us as much as she could. Particularly did she seem to take refuge behind my own insignificance, having, I suppose, come to the conclusion that I was a harmless person who might possibly prove useful. But all the while I felt that the storm was banking up. Indeed Marnham himself, at any rate to a great extent, played the part of the cloud-compelling Jove, for soon it became evident to me, and without doubt to Dr. Rodd also, that he was encouraging the intimacy between his daughter and Anscombe by every means in his power.

In one way and another he had fully informed himself as to Anscombe’s prospects in life, which were brilliant enough. Moreover he liked the man who, as the remnant of the better perceptions of his youth told him, was one of the best class of Englishmen, and what is more, he saw that Heda liked him also, as much indeed as she disliked Rodd. He even spoke to me of the matter in a round-about kind of fashion, saying that the young woman who married Anscombe would be lucky and that the father who had him for a son-in-law might go to his grave confident of his child’s happiness. I answered that I agreed with him, unless the lady’s affections had already caused her to form other ties.

“Affections!” he exclaimed, dropping all pretence, “there are none involved in this accursed business, as you are quite sharp enough to have seen for yourself.”

“I understood that an engagement was involved,” I remarked.

“On my part, perhaps, not on hers,” he answered. “Oh! can’t you understand, Quatermain, that sometimes men find themselves forced into strange situations against their will?”

Remembering the very ugly name that I had heard Rodd call Marnham on the night of the card party, I reflected that I could understand well enough, but I only said—

“After all marriage is a matter that concerns a woman even more than it does her father, one, in short, of which she must be the judge.”

“Quite so, Quatermain, but there are some daughters who are prepared to make great sacrifices for their fathers. Well, she will be of age ere long, if only I can stave it off till then. But how, how?” and with a groan he turned and left me.

That old gentleman’s neck is in some kind of a noose, thought I to myself, and his difficulty is to prevent the rope from being drawn tight. Meanwhile this poor girl’s happiness and future are at stake.

“Allan,” said Anscombe to me a little later, for by now he called me by my Christian name, “I suppose you haven’t heard anything about those oxen, have you?”

“No, I could scarcely expect to yet, but why do you ask?”

He smiled in his droll fashion and replied, “Because, interesting as this household is in sundry ways, I think it is about time that we, or at any rate that I, got out of it.”

“Your leg isn’t fit to travel yet, Anscombe, although Rodd says that all the symptoms are very satisfactory.”

“Yes, but to tell you the truth I am experiencing other symptoms quite unknown to that beloved physician and so unfamiliar to myself that I attribute them to the influences of the locality. Altitude affects the heart, does it not, and this house stands high.”

“Don’t play off your jokes on me,” I said sternly. “What do you mean?”

“I wonder if you find Miss Heda attractive, Allan, or if you are too old. I believe there comes an age when the only beauties that can move a man are those of architecture, or scenery, or properly cooked food.”

“Hang it all! I am not Methusaleh,” I replied; “but if you mean that you are falling in love with Heda, why the deuce don’t you say so, instead of wasting my time and your own?”

“Because time was given to us to waste. Properly considered it is the best use to which it can be put, or at any rate the one that does least mischief. Also because I wished to make you say it for me that I might judge from the effect of your words whether it is or is not true. I may add that I fear the former to be the case.”

“Well, if you are in love with the girl you can’t expect one so ancient as myself, who is quite out of touch with such follies, to teach you how to act.”

“No, Allan. Unfortunately there are occasions when one must rely upon one’s own wisdom, and mine, what there is of it, tells me I had better get out of this. But