CHAPTER IX

THE SCANDALISING OF SLABBERT'S POORT

"Priests Should study passion; how else cure mankind, Who come for help in passionate extremes?" --ROBERT BROWNING (Caponsacchi).

When Carol Mayne got back to the Mission on the afternoon of the second day after this, he was told that Oom Pieters and the Boer Predikant were waiting to see him.

The news they brought fairly staggered him.

Bert Mestaer had, during the night after the funeral, forced an entrance into Lutwyche's and abducted Millie. That he had done this by force was evident from the blood-stained floor of her garret and the evidences of a struggle, the bedding being torn and scattered about. He had taken her to his own house, and kept her there, in defiance of all Christian laws, to the crying scandal of the whole community. Oom Pieters had been insulted when he went to remonstrate; and the Predikant, who, at his urgent entreaty, had gone to warn the headstrong girl of the penalties of living in sin, had been literally, not metaphorically, kicked off the premises by the lawless ravisher. Putting things together, they would have been inclined to fear that the girl had actually been made away with, but for the assurance of Anna to the contrary. They thought that heavy drinking must be the cause of Bert's outrageous behaviour, since he had picked a quarrel with Otis earlier in the evening, and so mishandled him that he had been unable to appear in public since.

Horrible as the news was, Mayne, knowing the violence of Bert's passion, his fear that Millie was to be taken away, and his intemperate habits, felt it possible that a great part of what he heard might be true. His disappointment was keen. He had looked for better things from Mestaer, whom he liked better than anyone else in Slabbert's Poort; and the behaviour now attributed to him was that of a wild beast. He hurried off without rest or refreshment to the High Farm; and all the way he was trying to piece the story together--to think how the lover who had always been so tongue-tied and shamefaced, could possibly have proceeded to such lengths; and the more he reflected, the more he felt sure that he had heard a perverted version of what had really happened.

But when he neared the white house, with its pleasant green shutters, his fears became acute; for the owner was leaning over the little garden gate, and one glance at his face showed that he was inflamed with triumph. He had evidently been gathering flowers; his hands were full of them; the fact impressed the new-comer much as though he had seen a lion sitting down to tea in a lady's drawing-room.

Bert was dressed with scrupulous care; his linen was fresh. He looked ten years older; had graduated from boy to man in two days. There was a steady blaze in his eyes; his mouth wore a defiant curve. The exaltation and triumph of his aspect affected Mayne strongly. But no look of guilt or remorse crossed his handsome face at sight of the approaching guardian.

"Hallo!" he frankly cried; "come in! Things have hummed since you went away."

Mayne stiffened in fierce wrath.

"Mestaer," he said, keeping himself calm with difficulty, "tell me that this I have heard of you is a slander--tell me that Millie Lutwyche is not here!"

Bert's eyes flamed.

"Millie Lutwyche is here," he cried, "and what's more, she'll stay here. Didn't you leave it to me to see she wasn't murdered? Well, I managed it, but only just."

Mayne came in through the gate and walked into the house.

"I've heard one side of the story," he said. "It's only fair that I should hear yours."

Bert followed him in. His style was abrupt but convincing. He told how Amurrica and Tante Wilma had tried to steal a march on Mayne, and how the Predikant had been willing to aid and abet. He told how he had foiled this plan, how he had been sent a message to decoy him out of the way, how he had gone down to the farm, but too late to prevent violence. He told how he had brought Millie home, and at once called in Dr. Fraser, who could corroborate all he said. He spoke without eagerness, and with an underlying confidence in his voice which showed how sure he felt of his position.

"If ever a man earned a woman fair, I done it," he remarked simply. "She's better to-day; but Dr. Fraser was a bit afraid of collapse at first. Anna's nursed her. I've not been near, except just to pass the time of day. I done the square thing, as I told you all along I meant to; an' we'll come to church an' get married, soon as she's up and dressed."

Mayne slowly shook his head.

"Mestaer," he said, "I have done you an injustice, I freely own it. I believe all you tell me. You have done better than I thought you would; now it remains for you to do better than you yourself believe that you can. You must let Millie go."

Bert flung himself into a chair, and pulling out a tobacco-pouch, began to fill his pipe. He gave an insolent laugh.

"We're engaged; you can't alter that."

"Under the terms of her father's will, Millie cannot marry under the age of twenty-one without my consent She is going to England."

Bert looked earnestly at him.

"Look here! I've played the game so far," he said. "Don't you push me; you'd better not. Hands off Millie; she's going to marry me."

"Perhaps she may, when she is grown up, if you have the courage and constancy to wait for her; but not now."

"Now, by ----!" His oath made Carol wince.

He sat for a minute in complete silence and close thought; then he rose.

"I should like to see Millie, if she is awake," he said, very quietly.

Bert looked at him piercingly. Had there been one shade of arrogance in his tone, or had he seemed to suggest that he doubted Bert's assent, there might have been open war. But he gave no handle; and the master of the house, after a very brief hesitation, rose and tapped at the parlour door.

Anna peeped out, and admitted them, with an anxious glance from one face to the other. Mayne walked in, and Bert followed him, with his bunch of flowers in his hand.

The waxen-white Millie lay with her flaxen hair loose upon the pillows. Her eyes were wide open, and flashed restlessly. Her whole mien otherwise was so still that one would have hardly thought her living. A look of expectancy kindled for a moment upon her face when she saw Mayne, but it soon died down.

He went over and sat down by her, with the naturalness of manner which frequent visits to sick-chambers give to the priest. Bert felt a pang of envy; he himself was so completely a fish out of water.

"I am grieved indeed to hear of the way you have been treated," said Mayne gently. "Poor girl! I wish you had gone away to Leitersdorp as I suggested."

"So do I," said Millie, under her breath.

"You thought yourself so secure," he went on regretfully, looking at her bandaged arm.

"Well, I'm paying for it," said the girl distinctly, "and got to go on doing that all the rest of my life, so I hear."

"Oh, I hope not! You will be all right in a few weeks," he assured her hopefully.

"Ah!" said she, "but he's got to be paid, you see, for what he did." She raised her uninjured arm and pointed to Bert, who turned scarlet as he stood awkwardly dandling his flowers. "Men don't help you for nothing; I've found out that much," she said, with biting intention.

"I am sure you do Mestaer injustice," said Mayne quietly. "No Englishman could possibly ask anything in return for the privilege of helping a woman."

"He says," said Millie, "that I promised to marry him the night he brought me here. I don't remember; but if I did, I got to do it, I s'pose."

"Certainly not!" was the emphatic reply. "Get rid of that idea. No man worthy of the name could hold you to a promise made under such circumstances. Besides, you are not free to marry for the next five years. Don't you want to go to England?"

The living blood flooded the white face with lovely colour; the eyes flashed fire.

"May I? Could I?" she gasped, half raising herself among her pillows, her face transformed with an energy, a desire for life, most strikingly at variance with her lethargy of a few minutes before. "Have they written? Do they want me?"

He drew a letter from his coat-pocket. "They have written, and they do want you," he said.

She sat quite up, unsupported. "Read it! Read it!"

Bert stood still as a stone, while Mayne unfolded a sheet of paper, written in a small, niggling, but cultivated hand, and read:

"FRANSDALE VICARAGE, CLEVESHIRE.

"Dear Sir,--I am in receipt of your letter, and note that my brother-in-law, Arnold Lutwyche, is dying, and leaving my niece, Melicent, only daughter of my late sister, wholly unprovided for. I also note that you consider her Boer step-mother is not a fit person to have the charge of her, and is likely to treat her ill.

"Under these circumstances, my duty seems clear, and my wife and I have no hesitation in directing you to send my niece to England by the earliest available boat, and we will give her a home for the present.

"At the same time, I must acquaint you with the fact that our means are small, and we have seven children of our own, so that Melicent will be under the necessity of making herself useful.

"Please send her by the cheapest line of boats, and notify me of her arrival. I fear that I shall not be able to come to London to meet her, but if she is fifteen or sixteen years old, she should be able to make her way to us as far as the railway will bring her--that is to say, to Birdmore Junction, where she shall be met.

"I note that my brother's estate will be sufficient to meet her travelling expenses, so conclude that no advance from me is necessary.

"With thanks to you for the trouble you take in the matter, and remembrances to Mr. Lutwyche, should this letter find him still alive.--I am, very faithfully yours,

"EDMUND CHETWYND-COOPER."

This letter had chilled Mayne by its formal coldness. No love was sent to the orphan, no message of welcome. But the frigidity of the style made apparently no difference to Millie. The great fact was there. Her way to England lay open, her destination fixed. Of all safe shelters, a remote English vicarage should have satisfied her guardian. But somehow, to Carol, the idea of Miss Lutwyche in such a situation, was not convincing. He could not see her in the part, as actors say.

No such doubts troubled her. For the very first time since Mayne had known her, her face beamed and sparkled with joy.

"I can be ready to travel soon," she cried. "In a fortnight--in ten days--ask the doctor!"

Bert made three strides across the room, hurling with violence the flowers he carried into the English grate.

"So you'll break your word," he began, and choked

Melicent turned her head towards him languidly.

"Bert Mestaer," said she, "have I ever once, since you knew me, said one word to make you think I liked you?"

He fought with himself for composure to enable him to bring out the monosyllable, "No."

"Then what d'you wanter marry me for?" she asked calmly.

"You know," he cried, terribly, wildly, in his frantic emotion. "You know I love you--you know I don't care for anything else, but just to have you! Where'd you be now, if it wasn't for me? Tell me that! I wish to God I'd never seen you! I'll--I'll kill you with my own hands before I'll let you go now! I'll do worse--I'll..."

He stopped himself suddenly, meeting the steady contempt of Mayne's eyes.

There was a moment of awful silence, broken only by two dry, tearing sobs from the furious lover; then Millie, who had turned chalk-white once more, fell back among her pillows with an impatient motion of the hand.

"Oh, get away; you make me sick," she said.

Before Bert could speak or move, Mayne went up to him, took him by the arm, and led him out of the room. Then, handing him his hat, he drew him as passively out of the house.

Neither spoke till they had walked half a mile. Mayne was half in fear that Bert, in his rage, might set upon him bodily, and congratulated himself, not for the first time in his missionary career, upon the possession of thews and sinews. But no ebullition came. Bert's face had gone grey, and he looked worn and shrunken in the strong sunlight.

At last, smitten by the despair in his altered manner, the elder man ventured to speak.

"Mestaer, you must come and put up at my place till Miss Lutwyche is well enough to travel. You did the best you could for her--you did well; but the strain is too great, and it must cease. I shall wire for one of the Sisters from Leitersdorp to come and help Anna to nurse her. As to you, you have to fight and win a man's hardest battle; and I'll give you a bit of advice--"

"Go to h-- with your advice!"

"I'm not far away now, to judge by the sulphur in the atmosphere," retorted Mayne drily, and said no more.

They walked on until they came to the little Mission, and turned in to the sparsely-furnished living-room, with its crucifix and Albrecht Dürer _fac-similes_, and the Da Vinci Virgin on the rude mantel.

Bert walked across the room, planted both elbows on the shelf, and stared with blank eyes at the ineffable smile of the pictured face. Suddenly he wheeled round.

"Well, what's your blasted advice?" he said rudely. "A black-coated prig that doesn't know what it means to be..."

"Tempted," suggested Mayne drily. But he pushed a chair for his discourteous guest, and got down the tobacco-jar. "No man can fight the flesh and win, if he's living in idleness," he said reflectively, standing before the hearth and filling his pipe. "But there's another consideration. Do you realise that we are on the brink of war?"

"Kruger, perhaps."

"Steyn, too. You heard the news the other day? All the men ordered out on commando. What does that mean? The Orange Free State is going in against England."

"Well, they can fight their own blank battles without my help."

"That's rubbish, Mestaer. You'll have to fight on one side or the other. Now is the time to show yourself an Englishman. England wants men. They think at home that this war is to be a walk over. You and I know better. Go and enlist. There's a career for you."

"I'll be d--d if I do."

"That's a condition that seems to me far more likely to supervene if you don't," was the temperate reply.

Bert laid down his miserable head upon his arms.

"You don't see, and I can't explain," he said haltingly, "that it's not a thing--not a question of what you call the flesh. If there's such a thing as spirit anywhere in me, I've put it all in my love for her. If you take her away, I shall go to the devil."

"If I take her away! My dear chap, you cannot seriously mean to pretend that you think Millie wants to marry you?"

Sulky silence.

"I know you better than to believe you would be cad enough to marry her against her will. Were you to do so, I fail to see in what respect you would be any better than Otis."

No reply.

Mayne stood up, searching his book-shelves for the "Divina Commedia."

"Bert, did you ever hear of Dante?"

"No. Nobody as lives hereabouts, is he?"

Mayne did not smile.

"I'll tell you something of him--how all his life he lived for the memory of a dead woman--a woman of whom he knew even less than you know of Millie, and lived in hope, and cleanly, for her sake. Now, Millie is not dead. You are but a boy, and she a girl. Five or six or seven years hence, if you make a career for yourself what is to prevent you from trying again? By that time she would at least realise the enduring nature of your love; whereas now, neither you nor I nor she could say that it will last. It is just a boy's hot flame."

Bert stamped.

"You don't believe me capable of it," he stormed. "You just think that if you can get her out of my way now, that'll be the end of it all. You don't think I've the manhood or the pluck to stick to the thing through years of absence--"

He broke off, staring at the kindled face of the priest, who had risen, and stood facing him.

"That's just where you make your mistake, Bert," said his friend earnestly. "I do believe you capable of the best. Listen! When I came first to Slabbert's Poort, I found you a loafer. You were idle and good-for-nothing and intemperate. Now you have shown me what you are capable of. Your love for Millie has made you a different man. You have fought for her, saved her, respected her! ... I rather wish you had heard tell of one Caponsacchi; but never mind. It's better to do knightly deeds than to read about 'em. Anyhow, you have set your foot on the road to become a true gentleman; why turn back now? Hubert Mestaer"--his voice took on the deep note it sometimes had in the pulpit--"by the memory of your mother, I ask you, why turn back now?"