Jasper Lyle

Chapter Fourteen.

Strife.

I saw Clarence Fairfax but once again.

The exposure which had taken place separated the Rashleighs for ever. Challenges were interchanged between the gentlemen at the same hour.

The selfish woman who had thus brought disgrace on her husband, herself, and the man she had infatuated by her art, lost all prudence in her ungovernable state of excitement, and wrote a passionate appeal, from her retirement near Newlands, entreating Captain Fairfax to see her once again. But Sir Adrian had placed his nephew under arrest. Mrs Rashleigh had the hardihood to endeavour to force her way into his quarters by night; she was repelled from the door at the point of the bayonet, the sentry having due orders to prevent the ingress of such a visitor. In vain she implored, in vain she stormed.

Captain Walton kept watch upon his brother aide-de-camp within, and would not let him yield to the temptress.

Clarence resigned his appointment on his uncle’s staff, and was ordered to England forthwith.

Lady Amabel and I were in the library with Sir Adrian when his nephew entered to take his leave. It was before official hours, and such a meeting was wholly unexpected on our part, nor perhaps had he anticipated it.

Lady Amabel could not pass him by; her heart was full—her eyes swimming with tears as he caught her hand.

“Dear aunt,” said he, “you will wish me well.”

“Sit down, Amabel; sit down, Miss Daveney,” said Sir Adrian.

“Yes, Clarence, they will both wish you well; I do, from my soul; I take some blame to myself in this wretched business; but what is done cannot be undone. You have been the victim of that wretched, worthless being, whom it would be an insult to name here. Sit down, my lad, amongst us again; we are all deucedly sorry to part with you; when we meet again, you will be all the wiser for this business, I hope. I hardly like to let you go, but I suppose I must. I shall not get on at all well without you, my dear boy. Confound that devil.

“Well, Amabel, it is enough to make any one swear; for, now that she is fairly down, every one comes forward to say that she ought to have been banished from society long ago. I don’t pity her one bit,” continued the General, rising and pacing the chamber; “but I am heartily vexed to think she has seduced my sister’s son, and in this affair she is the seducer, not Clarence.”

“Oh! sir, I deserve more reproaches than you dream of,” replied his nephew. “I cannot stay; I unworthy of any kindness or consideration. Aunt, God bless you.”

Lady Amabel was sobbing audibly.

I stood mute and tearless.

Something like “Good-bye” was whispered. I looked up in that face, once so ingenuous, so happy. The laughing eyes were clouded with melancholy; the saucy curled lip pale and compressed; the tall, graceful form trembling with emotion. Not one word could I utter. My fingers closed upon his shaking hand for an instant. I withdrew them. He had pressed them so tightly in his nervous agony, that the indentation of a little ring I wore drew blood.

“Poor child! poor child!” said Sir Adrian, very kindly—a sudden thought about me causing him to stop and look fixedly at my sad countenance; “I pity you, too, from my heart. Amabel, this has been a sad business; it has moved me more than I like to own.”

I looked up—Clarence Fairfax was gone!

The vacant appointment of aide-de-camp was offered to Mr Lyle; I applauded his delicacy when he told me he could not accept it under the circumstance of Clarence’s disgrace.

I rather quailed, though, at that term, “disgrace,” applied to “poor Clarence,” as Lady Amabel began to designate him as soon as he departed.

Another staff appointment fell vacant in the frontier districts. Lyle applied for and obtained it.

He was happy, he said, in the prospect of being associated with me hereafter, but did not press his suit.

It was not long before I followed him to the upper districts of South Africa.

Lady Amabel and I parted with sorrow; she had been ever kind to me; her very errors were those of a tender-hearted, loving woman, and what would it have booted me had she been strong-minded and resolute? Clarence Fairfax’s nature was fickle—I will add no more.

My journey homeward was a melancholy one; my friends were kind—you know them—Mrs and Miss C—; but I retired within myself, and they had the good taste not to weary me with their sympathy.

On the last day of our journey we halted on the banks of a rapid river; night fell, and we were about to close the wagons and seek repose, when we heard voices on the opposite bank. Your little bushman May was one of our drivers—he had been in our service before, and came to tell me that he recognised my father’s voice. I ran from my tent to the brink of the river; it was dark, and the rushing of the waters among the stones in the ford prevented my distinguishing any other sound; at last I heard my father nailing us—he was in the middle of the stream—he came nearer—some one accompanied him—two horsemen rode up the bank—my father and—Lyle!

I had not been two days at home before I discovered that Lyle had established himself in my mother’s favour—he was quite a person calculated to make a decided impression on her imagination—for, sensible, well-principled, and firm-minded, as she is, you know she is highly excitable and imaginative. The late émeute in Kafirland had brought my father from Annerley to B—, a small town largely garrisoned. Here Lyle held his appointment—here my father was now acting in a high official capacity in the absence of one of the authorities; both were thus brought together professionally. Lyle necessarily had the entrée of our house.

Original in design, prompt to act, and of a determined spirit, Lyle was a most useful coadjutor to my father. His quickness of perception taught him at once all the assailable points, so to speak, in my mother’s character, appealing to her judgment frequently in Government matters; and, although doing this apparently in jest, constantly abiding by her propositions. It was fortunate that her experience in the colony was such as to make her advice really available, and this artful man turned it to full account publicly and privately. He knew well how to please my father, who had not at first been inclined towards him as my mother was; whenever the former gave him credit for good policy, he would refer him to Mrs Daveney as the suggester of the plan; my mother would disclaim the suggestion, but would confess that Lyle had appealed to her ere he began to work it.

At a time when this beautiful colony was on the verge of ruin from the commotions subsisting between the various races of inhabitants, you may well believe that men of comprehensive mind and dauntless courage were invaluable to the Government. My father and Lyle, both personally known to Sir Adrian, were constantly selected by him for the most difficult and dangerous services; and it is due to the latter to admit, that he was ever ready for the severer duties of the field, entreating my father to consider how much more valuable was the life of the one than the other.

The soldiers adored him; in his capacity as a staff-officer he was not expected to volunteer heading large bodies of the settlers, accompanying commandos into Kafirland; but he did so with a spirit and efficiency that materially assisted the Government agents in their measures with the chiefs. He shared the fatigues and privations of those he commanded, he was ever first in a foray, and he was such an excellent sportsman, that his return with a foraging party was always welcomed by the hungry wanderers in the bush.

Were this man still living, dear friend, I could not dwell on these details; but, assured of his death, I have been able to review much of my past life more calmly than I could ever suppose would be possible.

This clever, handsome, resolute man had, as I afterwards found, resolved, in the first period of our acquaintance, on making me his wife—you will wonder why,—since there was little love on his part, and my poor heart was bleeding from a sense of wrong at the hands of one I had loved. But I began to be ashamed of my girlish passion, verily not without reason.

Nevertheless, youth receives such impressions readily, fake though they be, and afterwards the heart shudders at the bare remembrance of what it suffered in its bewilderment of a first passion; the experience taught by such a sorrow is very bitter, and can never be forgotten.

I cannot bear to detail the artful schemes by which this man persuaded my father at first to listen to his proposals for me; but, on my assurance that I loved him not, Lyle was forbidden to press his suit farther, at any rate for a time.

Thus he was not dismissed finally; he declared himself grievously mortified, and, obtaining leave of absence during a lull in the political storms that had threatened to desolate the country, departed on a sporting expedition.

He returned in three months laden with the spoils of the chase, and designated the White Somtsen, or, in the Kafir language, a mighty hunter.

He again renewed his suit.

Woe is me! I could see that my father and my mother were not agreed in this matter; the latter openly reproached me for my weakness in adhering to my first love—she appealed to my pride.

Alas, alas! my friend, I own that I had been wanting in that—I admitted my error, and deplored it.

She spoke of the family reputation being sullied by the union of my name with that of Clarence Fairfax and the miserable Mrs Rashleigh.

I could not see it in the light she did, but I wept sorely when she alluded to the mortification it had caused her and my father; she emphasised the last two words of this sentence.

She dwelt on a difference of opinion now existing between her and my father—“it might estrange them seriously.”

I trembled, and began to waver in my resolution.

She said that the esclandre had been injurious to my sister’s prospects in life.

I feared that I had been more to blame than I had believed.

I said “the world was very hard.”

“Very,” replied my mother—“so hard, that your imprudence has been visited on all of us. I have been blamed for launching you into the gaieties of life at Cape Town, with all its incidental temptations. Marion is pointed out as the sister of ‘that flirt, Miss Daveney, Mrs Rashleigh’s rival;’ and your father reproaches himself for not remaining with you when he discovered that Lady Amabel Fairfax had lost rather than gained in strength of character—”

I could have said, “Ah! mother, how do you learn what the world says of us?—who dares tell you these things?” I was not aware then that Lyle, in his own specious, deprecatory way, was her informant, directly or indirectly—“grieving to set such unpleasant truths before her, but deeming it his duty to do so.”

You will wonder that a clever woman like my mother did not see through this systematic deceit; but she was bitterly annoyed at the issue of Clarence Fairfax’s attentions to me; she fancied herself pointed at by the finger of pity—you know how sensitive she is on this point—and she was impatient at my belief that Clarence had loved me. “Had he ever told me so seriously? Was I blind enough to believe him in earnest? He had never loved me; his regard, such as it was, was contemptible.”

More, much more, she said—I admitted that Clarence had never been my acknowledged lover; but—

“Are there no looks, mute, but most eloquent?”

I confessed that he was fickle—“And vain?”—“Yes.” “And selfish, and heartless, and unprincipled!”

I could not answer these allegations—I dared not say he had been the victim of a vicious woman, years older than himself, and deeply versed in intrigue. I had once ventured to speak in this strain, and had drawn forth words of scorn and anger, which my mother afterwards repented using, but which I ever dreaded to evoke again.

But the climax of Lyle’s art lay in an incident I shall record.

My father and I were riding one day, sauntering through a kloof, when we were overtaken by him. At the end of this kloof was a branch of a rapid stream. Here it was deep and dangerous; but my horse and I knew the ford well—Lyle rode a little behind me. In the middle of the stream my horse began to plunge among the stones—my father was a few yards in advance; he could not easily turn to my aid, owing to the strength of the current—I was alarmed, yet tried to restrain the animal, but he plunged the more; Lyle, with his powerful arm, drew me from my saddle, and bore me before him safely across the drift—my horse was swept down—it is the same old grey we pet sometimes; he was found two days after, hanging to a branch by his bridle, having found a footing on the bank.

Can you conceive a man afterwards boasting of this trick? It was Lyle who had made the animal plunge that he might rescue me, and thus place me under a supposed obligation for my life!

My mother insisted on my going into society—she was doubtless right; but you know what society consists of in a great garrison,—a few ladies, crowds of gentlemen, and some women, whose friendship is far from desirable; I believe some of the latter were unsparing in their scandalous chronicles of Cape Town, when Mrs Rashleigh and I were both made subjects of remark. The girl of seventeen, the daughter of a representative of authority, and of a mother whose abilities and lofty aspirations rendered her an object of fear and dislike with many, was not likely to be dealt with gently by these idle, frivolous, uneducated women; the story of Miss Daveney’s “liaison” with Captain Fairfax lost nothing in such hands; and although most of our earliest friends stood by us through good report and evil report, these were not many, and it was evident that the faith of some was shaken. Lyle took care that my father and mother should see this—he alluded to it with indignation, and avowed himself more devoted than ever—

“My mither urged me sair, my father could na speak, But he looked in my face—”

I asked for time—I sincerely believed that I had banished Clarence from my heart, if not from my mind. I accustomed myself to receive Lyle’s attentions; they were offered, though not offensively, in the sight of other men, and in an evil hour for all, I yielded.

I admired Lyle—I admired his courage, his abilities, his apparently independent spirit, his resolution; I was perpetually told that his perseverance deserved reward.

I married him, believing that I felt a regard and admiration for him, which would ripen into affection. How much it has already cost me to set down these details, these reasons, or excuses—if you think the last word the truest—for consenting to a union which has blighted so many years of my young life!

I have him before me now. I hear the solemn adjuration of the minister of God, as we stood before the altar of the little church of B—: “I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it.” I looked up at the tall, powerful man standing beside me. Never shall I forget his countenance—his features were suffused with a leaden hue, which faded to a deadly pallor, his lips were colourless, and he leaned against the altar-rails for support; but he recovered himself by a strong effort, and repeated the responses distinctly, though in a low time, and with his eyes fixed on the ground.

We retired for a time to a beautiful village near the sea. I soon noticed that my husband was moody, silent, but not unkind. I tried to please him; I fancied that I must be a dull companion for one so clever.

We had been married about two months, when I discovered that my husband was expecting letters from England; he was evidently anxious about these. And why? He had described himself to my family as being without a single relation on earth, except the uncle from whom he had brought recommendatory letters; he had made a fair settlement on me, and my father had placed before him a due account of his finances and my prospects. My father was then a wealthy landholder in Albany; but, unfortunately, he had placed the greater part of his savings in one of those great banking-houses in India, which failed so suddenly as to ruin thousands.

My family had returned to Annerley, and my husband and I had just taken up our abode at B—, when the fatal news of my father’s heavy loss reached us.

I had already had some experience of Lyle’s violence of temper on his resuming his official duties: there are some men, you know, whose tempers are more violent than hasty, who can curb their passions when obliged to bend before a superior power, and whose wrath finds vent for itself at home; but I was unprepared for the storm that burst on my devoted head at the announcement by letter of our pecuniary misfortunes.

He accused my father of wilfully deceiving him; he bestowed the most revolting epithets on my mother, and laughed bitterly at my having believed he could love “such a pale-faced, forsaken, meek-spirited little idiot for herself alone.”

But you would not have me repeat all the degrading and terrible imprecations that fell from his lips.

My first thought was of the pain this sad state of things would cause my father and mother.

In the course of a few days my father, rode over to see us. It was, at first, Lyle’s policy to appear on the best possible terms with me. He had no intention of openly disgracing himself, and it was also very plain that he was in deep anxiety about news from England.

My father received letters from Sir Adrian. Here is an extract from one:—“What will you think, my dear Daveney, when I tell you that this Lyle, whom we have received in our homes, proves to be nothing more than a swindler? I have discovered that, not only in England, but at the Cape, he has persuaded various persons to back bills to a considerable amount; he has not a sixpence beyond his commission, which he will be obliged to sell immediately. I have written him a letter on the subject; and for your sake, my dear Daveney, I do hope the affair will be managed as quietly as possible. I inclose a few lines from Amabel, who is deeply distressed for your daughter. We have all been grievously deceived; and I consider that the credentials he brought me from various military friends should never have been accorded to this young man, who, though professing to be a reformed character, was not to be depended upon. The person to whom he has been chiefly indebted for letters of introduction granted them under peculiar circumstances, and in the hopes that this handsome, plausible, clever vagabond would mend his ways: he is young enough; but, I am sorry to say, I have proofs of his being thoroughly depraved.”

Sir Adrian did not know the worst. The documents which Lyle had laid before my father, previous to our marriage, were forgeries.

You will wonder, since there was clearly no regard for me from beginning to end, why I was selected as a victim by this being, who, as you will learn some day, had been unfortunate. It was from his lips I heard the unwelcome truths: there was little time before him to obtain a sure footing in South Africa in an honourable position, ere bills, endorsed by men whom he had succeeded in duping, would become due. Subtle of purpose, he easily gained such information touching the young protégé of Lady Amabel Fairfax, as made him think it worth his while to lay siege to me. Lady Amabel was just the facile, guileless, unsuspecting woman to whom it was easy to gain access, and this once accomplished, he readily found favour with me—it would not have done to deliberate; and, furthermore, I was the only girl, with whom he was intimately associated, whose means were accredited. My father was known to possess a considerable sum of money, and a fine landed property. Lyle contrived to have a correspondence with my father touching settlements; the latter little knew that every line he wrote was sent to England to reassure creditors.

He had a deep-laid scheme, too, relative to my young sister, had I failed him. Time, time, was all he wanted; and by sending home the correspondence on my father’s part, he succeeded in persuading some of his dupes to renew the bills, offering high interest for this.

Will you believe it, when ruined in character and fortune, it was his pleasure to lay bare these schemes before me?

For some time after he had abjured his military career, it was his policy to keep up an outward show of kindness to me: he actually succeeded in making some think he was an ill-used man; and when those who were charitable enough to believe him more unfortunate than vicious would invite us to their houses; he would insist on my going. If I remonstrated, heaven help me! He is dead, and I forgive him all his trespasses: were he living, I could not confess to any man that he has sometimes taken me by the hair of my head, and swung me round the apartment, till, terrified, dizzy, and blind, I have fainted.

We had a wicked servant too, a Malay woman, who hated me, and who was readily persuaded into spreading a report that I was ill-tempered.

My poor father managed, in spite of difficulties, to make us an allowance that would have been amply sufficient for our wants had my husband been a reasonable being; but a man utterly devoid of principle, and angrily deploring the ruin he has brought upon himself, is not a reasonable being. My wretched partner for life grew frantic at last with rage and disappointment when Sir Adrian Fairfax found it necessary to denounce him as a swindler; for, some of the better class of merchants, deceived by his plausibility, were disposed to trust him; and he had the hardihood to expect that Sir Adrian, for the sake of my family, would place him in a situation, with certain emoluments, at the request of the most influential men connected with the commerce and the diplomacy of the Cape Colony.

Much that I have last noted down has been drawn from communications passing between my father, Sir Adrian, and some other gentlemen, who were anxious, if possible, to save Lyle from utter ruin.

His reputation was irretrievably gone; but they would still have given him, if they could, the means of existence. Sir Adrian, however, could not in honour permit this; and I was beginning to consider where we should hide our heads, at any rate till after my infant’s birth, when one morning I discovered that the little money we had had in the house had been taken from my desk. My husband had departed. Whither, it was not easy to say.

We traced him into Kafirland. I sought the shelter of my father’s house. My mother opened her arms to receive me. You see her sometimes look reproachingly upon me. She derives such unmitigated relief at the idea of my release from bondage by the death of my miserable husband, that she grows angry at times because I mourn the wasted years I have passed, and have no heart to meet the future.

I had remained three months at Annerley, often in dread of my husband’s return, but beginning to hope that a letter which my father had despatched to him, through a trader, would induce him to accede to a legal separation. Alas! it seemed to me that it only reminded him that he held in his hands the power of tormenting me.

I was one evening walking up and down the trellised passage, pondering mournfully on my future prospects, when the author of all my misery appeared before me. He was scarcely recognisable at first. His complexion was bronzed, his beard and whiskers, enormously grown, gave him a ferocious appearance, and his costume was more like that of a buccaneer than anything else. He carried pistols in his belt, and on my screaming as he seized my hand, he drew one of the weapons out, and, in sheer recklessness, discharged it. The ball entered the thatched roof; the noise attracted my father from the vineyard.

The scene that ensued baffles description. My father drew me towards him. Lyle held the pistol, with one barrel yet undischarged, close to my head. My father released me in dismay, and stood helpless, it had been useless to attempt to thrust the weapon aside—“Advance a finger, stir a foot,” said Lyle, “and I fire. She is my wife; you gave her to me, and a precious bargain I have got. I will keep her while it suits me, and when I am inclined to go roving again, I will send her back. Call me swindler!—it was you who took me in with your promises. Liar and scoundrel that you are, you had no funds in India, but you had a mind to palm off upon me what Fairfax had cast off!—and yet you were not so keen in this matter as your wife. Ah! start, if you will, but keep your distance, and send some one for this frightened fool’s kit. You are rightly served; I will take care that you shall pay me for keeping this daughter of yours, that was to have so fair a fortune.”

The servants, attracted by the noise, gathered round us. My father would fain have drawn Lyle away, to prevent so public an exposure. Little May was in our service at that time—he had a kierrie (stick), and, springing up, struck the pistol out of my persecutor’s hand.

It was impossible, however, to come to terms with him. All that my father could obtain from him was a Respite till a wagon could be prepared for travelling, and some arrangement made for occupying a small farm near B—. It was not far from Mr Trail’s mission station, and within a mile or two of a little military outpost.

You were speaking of Mimosa Drift the other day. You know the desert solitude of that beautiful spot. Ah! what terrible hours have I passed among the alders overhanging that hoarsely-murmuring river!

For there I would retire to weep, sometimes; there I would hide myself from my husband in his hours of wrath.

But these fits of insane rage became unendurable; and one night, after I had been struck to the earth, I had the presence of mind to lie as if insensible. The single Bechuana servant we had, terrified at the scene of violence she witnessed, rushed away in the darkness of the night to the little fort, where, on the commanding officer being informed of what was passing in our wretched home, he immediately set off with assistance to the rescue.

But I had flown—Lyle was there, raging like a wild beast from room to room; he was armed, too, and the officer was not sorry that the threatening language and gestures of my husband were such as to justify his taking him by force to the outpost. Thinking it wise to avoid public exposure, he released his prisoner next day.

The night was pitchy dark when I crawled to Mimosa Drift, and sat down by the riverside to recover my scattered senses. My feet were bare and bleeding, a shawl, hastily snatched up, covered my night-dress, and my hair streamed over my shoulders. I had been dragged from my bed to look for some ammunition which had been left out, and which I had unfortunately put away in my ignorance of my husband’s intentions to go out shooting at dawn. Tired, frightened, and confused, I could not remember where I had put it for safety; discovering it at last, he found that it had got damp from the rain dripping through the thatch, and I paid the penalty of my thoughtlessness.

He left me, as I have stated, lying apparently insensible on the ground. How I had strength to rise I know not, but I felt my way through the house and garden. Nettles and briars blistered my feet as I sped across the plain. The wind was howling between the hills; great masses of cloud were floating like palls in the lead-coloured atmosphere above; below all was gloom, except when bright forked tongues of lightning descended before me, showing every stone, every insect, in my path; a shower of light struck the earth, and spread into a sheet of flame, that ran past me, and seemed to set the ground on fire. My shawl was caught by the blast—I was drawn back—I fancied it was my tormentor—I shrieked aloud, and the tempest answered me from the hollows in the mountains; large drops of rain began to fall heavily upon my face—the thunder roared—I never thought of turning; on I sped, wild with fear. The drift sheltered me from the strength of the blast for a minute; the wolves and jackals were screaming to each other from their hiding-places; the hyenas gibbered and mocked at me, with their sneering laugh; the bats wheeled on the air whithersoever it drew them—their cold wings swept at times across my burning cheek—the murmur of the river increased to a tumult. I dreaded being seized unawares, and, springing into the stream, forded it, heaven knows how, in safety.

I must have lost my way, for, after wandering about for hours, I came at dawn to the foot of one of those sudden elevations which almost baffle human strength in ascending them. The tempest had subsided, but the rain shaded the heavens as with a veil. I ascended the mound with much toil, but could see nothing but bald rocks, and shrubs beaten by the torrent. I sat down upon a stone, shivering with cold and fear, and wept as I had not done for months.

The clouds lifted at last, and showed me more distinctly my utter loneliness. God sent help. I heard a sheep-bell tinkle, and guessed rightly that I was not far from Mr Trail’s mission station. I followed the welcome sound, and soon recognised the plentiful gardens sloping to the road. I crawled up the acclivity. Day was banishing the Genius of the Storm as I approached the gate. The windows of the school-house were open, and the servants of the household were assembled there in prayer. The “Amen” swelled like the murmur of an ocean wave; the voices of the worshippers rose in the matin hymn, and, overcome with exhaustion, and the transition from terror to peace, I fell insensible at the threshold of the mission-house.