Grit Lawless Part 22

"We'll take a mattress off one of the beds," he said, "and sleep in front of the fire..."

The next day Lawless announced his intention of going into town in quest of a further supply of comforts. Tottie suggested accompanying him, but he negatived the idea.

"I want your mount for a pack-horse," he said.

"That's all very fine," she grumbled. "What am I to do all day by myself? Think of the risk in a place like this... The white woman and the black man, you know."

He laughed grimly.

"You have a revolver. I'd back you against any n.i.g.g.e.r that happened along."

He rode away in the morning suns.h.i.+ne with the second horse on a lead.

For the first mile the woman accompanied him, walking beside him with her hand on his stirrup. Once or twice she looked up at him as he sat, a straight soldierly figure, in the saddle, with the strong stern face shaded by the wide-brimmed hat, and the keen sombre eyes fixed steadily ahead, and in her own eyes shone the light of loyal affection and admiration which so often appeared in them when they rested on him unseen.

"Bring some sort of a newspaper back with you, Grit," she begged.

"It'll help to keep up the fiction that we're still in the world, somehow."

Then she parted from him and started to walk back alone, and he put the horses at a canter and rode forward into the blue haze that shrouded and softened the scene. The morning air was delicately fresh and crisp with a touch of sharpness in it like the feel of an English spring. The African winter, with its warm suns.h.i.+ny days and cold nights, is the most perfect season in a land that boasts one of the finest climates in the world. White man's weather, it is called; and it sets the white man thinking pleasantly of the land he speaks of and thinks of as Home. It set Lawless thinking of Home as he rode across the veld,--of a gabled grey-walled house set down in a pretty garden that gave upon a lane.

The lane in summer was gay with wild flowers and shaded by find old elms, and he had walked there often with the beautiful woman who had lived in the grey stone house, the woman who had professed to love him, and who had written to him later that she never wished to see him again.

As he thought of it now a wave of bitterness surged over him. He recalled a sentence in her letter that had stung him at the time--that stung him still with a no less poignant pain: "_I do not know you... I think I have never known you. You are a stranger to me, and, I see now, my greatest enemy_." ... There were other things in the letter that had hurt; but that sentence stood out luridly with no whit of the bitterness gone from it after all the years...

And so he rode, haunted by memories, his consciousness lashed with the knowledge that what she had written was true. And he knew that the pain of it all was still fresh in her memory as in his. He had read that in her face, and in the tones of her voice, when, at what cost to her pride he dimly understood, she had met and spoken with him again. And he was consciously, deliberately, adding to her distress. At the time it had been a matter of indifference to him what she thought of the life he was leading; now, with his thoughts of her softened by distance, he regretted that he had not deceived her as to the manner of his leaving Cape Town. It had been a poor sort of revenge to flout his mistress in her face--and unnecessary. A man usually conceals such ugly facts. But it could avail little to harbour regrets at this stage. The thing was at an end for ever. He was out of her life now. If she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon him at all, it would only be, he felt, as upon one who was dead to her, and who had caused her no less pain in his dying than he had caused her in his life.

Lawless was late in getting back to the shanty. The light had fallen and night was settling upon the land. While he was still a good way off he discerned the house by the flickering yellow glimmer of the candles Tottie had put in the window as a landmark for him. It was the only means of illumination she had at hand. There was an oil lamp in the house, but the paraffin, which Lawless was bringing with him, had been forgotten on the day of their arrival.

He gave a short sharp whistle as he rode up, and she opened the door and came forth to meet him.

"Lend a hand at unloading," he said, swinging himself out of the saddle.

"The pack's heavy. Come round this side."

She helped him lift the sacks from the back of the led horse, and accompanied him to the stable to settle the animals for the night, carrying a dripping tallow-candle in her hand, by the feeble light of which they accomplished their task.

Lawless was very silent, almost taciturn, while he off-saddled and rubbed down his weary horse, giving to Tottie's gossiping inquiries curt monosyllabic replies.

"Tired, Grit?" she asked, noting his preoccupation.

He swore.

"It's something more than tired," he said.

They left the stables, and walking back to where they had deposited the sacks, lifted them, and carried them indoors.

"Got my paper?" she inquired.

He took the newspaper from his pocket and flung it on the table with an oath. The woman looked at him searchingly. It occurred to her that he had been drinking. If it were not that, something had happened to put him out.

Lawless suddenly approached the table and struck the paper, lying where he had flung it, with his open hand.

"They've bungled this business again," he said savagely,--"that pompous fool, Grey, and his crony, Simmonds... Simmonds has gone to his account, poor devil! And Van Bleit's in tronk, awaiting his trial for murder."

Tottie's mouth fell open.

"And the letters?" she gasped.

Having fired his bomb. Lawless cooled down. He took out his pipe, filled, and lighted it, and dropped wearily into a chair.

"You'll read it all in the paper," he said. "There's no mention of the letters." He gave a short laugh. "My little plan, which I've rehea.r.s.ed to you, in which you were to help, is knocked on the head. I might just as well never have come here. It's that cra.s.s, pig-headed, officious old muddler's doing. He never trusted me... He fancies I've done a bunk... That's because you're in it." He laughed again. "It hasn't occurred to them that you might be useful--I'm supposed to be simply enjoying myself."

He smoked for a few minutes at a furious rate, while Tottie opened and read the paper with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

"It's a case of the biter bit," observed Lawless. "Looks as though they had intended murdering him... A silly sort of a game."

"Do you think Van Bleit will hang for it?" she asked presently.

"It's impossible to say. If it pans out at a term of imprisonment it's checkmate. I've a mind to wash my hands of the job."

Tottie looked up.

"Don't do that," she said earnestly. "The Colonel might take it that his suspicions were justified, if you did."

"I don't care a d.a.m.n what he thinks. If a man can't trust me, he can do the other thing."

"But I care," she said quickly. "I'm jealous for your honour, Grit."

He lifted his head and surveyed her in surprise.

"You!" he said.

Then he laughed awkwardly at the half-shamed admiration he surprised in the woman's eyes. She turned her face aside quickly, and resumed her reading of the paper.

"All right!" he said sheepishly.

When she had finished the case, she got up and stood opposite him on the other side of the hearth.

"What is your next move?" she asked.

"I don't move," he answered quietly, "until after the case is finished."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime," he replied, smiling across at her, "you stay here with me in this G.o.d-forsaken hole."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Van Bleit's trial occupied considerably less time than was antic.i.p.ated.

It came on early in the session, and was quickly disposed of. The evidence was contradictory and unsatisfactory. Van Bleit, who was put in the witness box by his counsel, gave the only clear and unreserved account of the night's doings. His plea was that he killed Simmonds in self-defence. There had been ill-feeling between himself and Simmonds for some time. On the night in question he had gone to the bungalow in perfect good faith. There was nothing remarkable in his being armed.

He had carried a revolver ever since he had roughed it in Rhodesia. At the bungalow he had met with a hostile reception. Simmonds had locked the door of the room and put the key in his pocket. He had then drawn a revolver from his coat pocket and had covered Van Bleit with it.