Читать книгу Grit Lawless - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 6

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Mrs Lawless was dining out. She had become the fashion in Cape Town; no function was complete without her. Hostesses who wished to attract those they could never hope to capture of themselves knew that by adding Mrs Lawless to their list they could command the most exclusive. Mrs Lawless had a friend at Government House. A cousin of hers was aide-de-camp to the Governor. In addition she was wealthy, with an intellect above the average, and a beauty that was quite remarkable. The last qualification was sufficient for the male population of Cape Town. It rallied round her like the swarm round the queen bee, and those women who wished to be well considered of their males rallied round her also, and in submitting to an obligation were forced to acknowledge that her charm was undeniable. Though she had many male admirers she made more feminine friends. She did not seek popularity with her own sex from any sense of diplomacy, but because she liked, and got on better with, women. While the men considered her cold, the women found her peculiarly sympathetic.

She had made one close friend in this new country, which was to her still so strange, so alien; so careless and pleasure-seeking in its social life, so keenly self-seeking in its business methods, and withal so vivid and picturesque and stirring. This friend, brilliant in political and literary circles, and connected with one of the oldest families in the Colony, was of Dutch extraction. She had married an Englishman, named Smythe; an alliance that had uprooted an old and bitter racial prejudice, not only on her side, but on her husband’s. Smythe, the erstwhile rabid anti-Boer, had been heard warmly supporting universal tolerance.

“After all,” he would blandly assert, “it is only one world, and one mother for the whole of us. There are bound to be factions in a very large family. But one needn’t carry things to extremes.”

His theory, however, did not include the natives.

“A nigger’s a nigger,” he answered, when approached on this point. “He’s not a human being; he’s a link,—the one that wasn’t lost. If any man chooses to call him a brother he’s at liberty to do so. Personally, I’d as soon fraternise with a chimpanzee.”

There was one Dutchman, however, whom the tolerant Smythe could not swallow, and that was his wife’s cousin, Van Bleit. It seemed as though all his former dislike for the entire race had been concentrated into hatred of this one man. He made no attempt to conquer this aversion, because he knew it was something beyond his control, but he did his best to hide it from his wife, whose fondness for, and admiration of, her cousin was a never-ending source of wonder to him.

Van Bleit had a confident, masterful manner that won him an easy way to the hearts of certain women. By nature he was a bully: a few of the women who had fallen prey to the roystering charm of his personality had found this out. But they invariably made the discovery too late; Van Bleit squeezed his victims dry before he revealed his less amiable side. It was usually in making the discovery that they had been drained that they discovered the other thing. If Van Bleit knew how to overcome feminine reluctance with a masterful manner, he also knew how to shout down feminine recrimination. In cases where shouting alone would not avail, he showed no hesitation whatever in having resource to physical force. The woman who pitted her strength against his came off worse than the victim who suffered in silence, knowing her case to be beyond hope of redress.

Van Bleit had carried on most of his intrigues in Europe. Because Europe, on account of the suicide of an inconsiderate widow who had really cared for him, had become for a time inconvenient as a place of residence, he had brought his handsome body and his evil mind back to the land of his birth; and was now pursuing with greater zest than he had pursued any of his former conquests the beautiful and wealthy woman who was his cousin’s particular friend. And Mrs Smythe, with the best intention in the world, took every opportunity of throwing them together.

It was at the Smythes’ house that Mrs Lawless was dining on the evening of the day that Lawless called upon her. Van Bleit was there also. He was her dinner partner. It was not a large gathering. Of the half-dozen guests only one was a stranger to Mrs Lawless, a tall, military-looking man, with iron-grey hair, and an awkward habit of hunching his shoulders which gave them the appearance of being round. After dinner, the hostess, at his request, introduced him; and Mrs Lawless, as she acknowledged the presentation and met the intent gaze of the unsmiling eyes, wondered why the name should be familiar while the owner was quite unknown. Then in a flash she remembered where she had heard it before; young Hayhurst had talked of Colonel Grey in his drunken confidence on the night that the papers had been lost. She understood why he had wished to be introduced; he was curious to discover for himself something of the woman whom he believed to be his enemy.

He was summing her up even while he looked at her; and he was forced to acknowledge with considerable impatience that he too was influenced like any young hotheaded fool by her wonderful fairness and the beauty of her candid eyes. His summary was surely at fault, since, despite the proof against her, he felt that here was a woman to be trusted, a woman who would be loyal to her friends and just to her enemies. He squared his shoulders as though conscious of the awkward hunching habit, and said in his harsh voice:

“I am glad to meet you, Mrs Lawless. I have recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a kinsman of yours.”

He observed the quick suspicion of the look that flashed from her eyes, the sudden reserve that masked her features, changing their smiling indifference to a cold displeasure, and he remembered a sentence that Lawless had uttered which the change in her manner corroborated: “The lady disapproves of me.” Good taste should have prohibited his touching on the subject, but in the game he was playing he set all laws at defiance and pushed forward with but the one aim in view.

“A kinsman—of mine!” she echoed, and the soft contralto voice was a little unsteady. He watched her curiously.

“Someone of the same name,” he added.

“Oh! someone of the same name... That’s rather a broad claim to kinship.”

The change in her tone was unmistakable. Her manner became more guarded, more studiously careless, but the face exposed to the merciless raking of his gaze wore a faintly distressed flush.

“He claimed kinship with you,” he insisted, smiling pleasantly at her, while he pulled at his iron-grey moustache with a large, well-shaped hand. “I can’t help feeling he was justified even on the most slender grounds. He was related to you by marriage, so he said.”

She looked at him inquiringly.

“By marriage only,” he added, unconsciously quoting Lawless.

“Yes!”

Her composure had reasserted itself. The man who watched her felt puzzled to understand what there had been in his tactless speech to cause her embarrassment, what there was in his further speech to relieve the strain. Her disapproval of the man must be fairly deep-rooted when an indirect mention of him caused her distress. She turned the tables while he was thus wondering, and roused dark doubts and anxious suspicions in his own breast as to the honesty of purpose of the reckless adventurer in whom he had confided an important trust.

“You speak of Mr Lawless,” she said quietly. “He called upon me to-day.”

“Indeed?”

The Colonel’s eyes snapped. He hunched his shoulders, and jerked his big head forward and peered hard at her. Intuition told her what he was thinking. He feared treachery. Distrust grew in him, distrust of the man for whose services he was paying,—the man who was connected by marriage with this woman who had tricked a drunken boy and robbed him; who was on visiting terms with her, though he had emphatically stated that the connection counted for nothing,—the man who was a friend and comrade of the scoundrel Van Bleit,—the man who was cashiered from the Army for a reason the Colonel had yet to find out. And he intended to find out. He had already started inquiries.

She looked back at him steadily, and her slightly raised eyebrows betokened a faint curiosity. She was fencing with him. They were fighting a duel with wit for their weapons; and if the first advantage had been on his side, the second and greater advantage was to her. The knowledge annoyed him.

“Mr Lawless is to be doubly congratulated,” he said drily. “Many men would envy him his reputation, all men would envy him the privilege of calling himself your kinsman.”

She smiled faintly.

“That is flattery, Colonel Grey,” she answered. “But tell me why men should envy him his reputation. I was not aware that it justified envy.”

“Is there nothing enviable in a reputation for valour?” he asked.

She turned deathly white, and her eyes glittered angrily in her tense face.

“If I do not misunderstand you,” she replied, “that is the meanest speech man ever made.”

He looked, as he felt, wholly nonplussed. There was to come a day when he better understood her then incomprehensible indignation, when he not only understood but sympathised with it; but at the time he was entirely baffled. He could only feel astonishment at her outbreak.

“I fear you do misunderstand me,” he said. “There was nothing unworthy in the speech. I merely conceded to a brave man a brave man’s due. I have heard many tales of his courage. Men call him Grit who remember him by no other name. If there is truth in hearsay, he has earned the nickname.”

His manner was sufficiently earnest to convince her of his sincerity. The swift anger died out of her eyes, leaving them softly pensive, and wistful, like the eyes of a woman who meets Hope on the road of Disillusion, and being unprepared for the meeting, is inclined to doubt that it is Hope that she encounters.

“Grit!” she repeated softly. And added: “I have not been out here long, and I have heard nothing of Mr Lawless for years... I have not heard the nickname before, but—I like it... Why do men call him Grit?”

“Because,” he answered quietly, “they credit him with being without fear. They tell tales of his courage—or, rather, less of his courage than of his absolute fearlessness. He is a man to whom fear is unknown... That is the popular belief.”

“And you do not share it?”

He was not altogether prepared for the question. She sprang it upon him suddenly, as if something in his manner challenged her to the inquiry.

“I have his word for it that he has known terror,” he answered quietly, after a brief hesitation.

“That does not disprove his courage,” she said quickly.

“No,” he allowed. “Courage is fear overcome.”

There was another and longer pause. He ended it with the reluctant admission:

“I am inclined to believe myself that Grit Lawless has earned his nickname.”

“You give your meed of praise grudgingly,” she said. But she smiled while she spoke, and the Colonel was dazzled, as many men had been dazzled before him, by the extraordinary seductiveness of her smile.

It was not until he was back in his bungalow going over the interview, and that part of their talk that had related to Lawless, that it occurred to him her manner had been rather that of a person jealous for a friend’s reputation than of a woman who disapproved of, and disowned, a kinsman. And his old suspicion of her, and of the man whom he had trusted in a difficult and dangerous enterprise, returned with renewed force. It struck him as a highly suspicious circumstance that while Lawless was on visiting terms with the woman he should have given him to understand that the relationship between them was the reverse of friendly. He would have liked to question Lawless on the subject; but it had been agreed between them for the greater success of their plans that it was safer to hold no intercourse. If either wished to communicate with the other it was left to his discretion to select a trustworthy messenger. The occasion scarcely justified, in the Colonel’s opinion, so extreme a measure. If he had enlisted the services of a traitor, it was but another false move of the many that had been made. Trickery could only be mated by trickery. He must keep his own counsel and watch the game...

He remembered, thinking quietly over the evening’s entertainment, how Van Bleit had come forward while he was talking with Mrs Lawless, and ignoring him with pointed insolence, had offered her his arm and led her away on some pretext or another. She had glanced back over her shoulder and given him another of her wonderful dazzling smiles as she left him; and he had uttered the wish then, which now in the lonely silence of his own quarters he repeated:

“I would to God that woman were on our side!”