SHORT STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2258, 10 June 1897, Page 42

SHORT STORY.

A CAPETOWN STORY. I. The Cape is a long way off. Perhaps the emancipation of woman had not reached it yet, and that was why Hilda Vaughan accepted Robert Rashleigh. ■ More probably she was the kind of girl who would have obeyed her mamma if she had been brought up next door to the Pioneer Club. Hilda was born to be put upon, and to live her life for other people, and to weep of nights over the results of her pliability, and to make more concessions in the morning. Thera are still a great many of her type in the world, and men generally love them vary much. Rashleigh was not her first admirer. She was the prettiest girl in Mowbray, the pretty suburb of Capetown, with the temper of an angel, and a pathetic contralto which went straight to masculine hearts. Rashleigh, aB everybody knew, was as ugly as sin — a gmall, mean little screw of a man — and his temper and habits were intolerable ; but his farm was a b ; g concern, and he banked money every year with the regularity of clockwork, while everybody else's ostriches were turning up their toes in j the sun, and everybody else's vineyards were ravaged with vicious reptiles, all legs and jaws and appetites. Hilda's papa, who had never succeeded in anything in his life except the acquirement of an expansive taste in cigars, said that it was uncanny, Rashleigh's luck, and savoured of sulphur ; but he realised at an early date that it was pleasant to have a prospective son-in-law who could make little advances on crops which never realised. So Rashleigh used to come three times a week, beside* Sundays, to see Hilda, brniging her economical presents, and staying to dinner ; and Mowbray understood that whan the vintage was over they were to be married. Hilda began to maie her trousseau under her mamma's supervision, aad

decorated her handiwork with embroidery and tesrs. This was the position of affairs, and December was drawing near, when a letter for Rashleigh arrived from England per R.M.S. Dunottar Castle. •'Dear Robert," it ran, '• your letter to hand. How can I thank you for your offer ? It could not have come at a more opportune time. Things are very queer here ; I am sbout tired of a city desk, whioh offers me no prospect, and the idea of t'rtedom and fresh air and the South African sunshine sends my heart into my throat. You say I can bo ufeful to you, and that I might as well have the poot as a stranger. AH the same, I thank you a thousand times, and accept with all my heart. I shall ba with you the mail after you receive this. — Your affectionate cousin, Fraxk." 11. I The next week Rashleigh went down to Capetown to meet his couain. They did not know each other in the leasr, for Rishleigh was the elder of the two by 15 years, and Frank had been a hmall boy when Robert went abroad. Robert, looking up sourly from oft 4in to 6ft lin, said he was glad to sec that Frank had grown into such a fine, strapping follow ; and Frank, who was of a generous disposition, and quite unnecsssarily grateful, tried to find something in Robert to admire. They lunched in Capetown, and Robert sighed as he paid the bill. Then they drove out to Mowbray in the Capo carfc, and on the way Robert told the young man that he was engaged. Frank was hearty and genuine in his congratulations, and stifled doubt concerning the youth and attractions of a lady who would marry his oousin Robert. The next day he saw her, and she handed him teaoake with her ayes cast down, and sang " Auld Robin Gray " when the sun had gone down in a purple baza and the canaries were at rest; and he vroudered why he had never before been able to see the pathos and beauty of that much-lauded ditty, and went home with a queer aohing in his broad breast and his cheeks aglow. " She's pretty, eh 1 " asked the fiancS, fishing for compliments to his property, after the manner of his kind. ] The two men were smoking a final cigar j before bed. i Frank strolled to the open window. The i black mass of Table Mountain loomed out of the moonlit sky, and the scent of the syringa cams in heavy and close to miagls with the tobacco fume's. " Yes," said Frank, exhaling smoke, " she is pretty. She is very pretty. God help her 1 " The last three words were a murmur which Robert did not, hear. He smirked, selfsatisfied, and offered Frank another cigar. There was a pretty considerable pause after this. Frank still stared cut into the night, and Robert mixed himself some whisky-and-water. The deep mournful baying of a large dog came from ths re,*r of the house, but otae; wise there were no sounds to | break the silence of the semi-tropical night. " It's pretty quiet here," rsmatked Frank at.last, " after London." • Yes," said Robert. " I suppose you find it a change." A heavy pair of feet clattered across the tiled ball, and a woolly haad and a black face appeared round the corner of the door. " Anythin' mo' to-night, baas ? " " Noi you can go," said R-Jshleigh senior. " I'll shut the window. Don't forget to loose the dog." " No, bass." "Do you mean to say you give that brute of a mastiff the run oi" the place?" said Frank. " Dangerous, isn't it ? " " It's safe for the chickens and the grapes," replied Robert, with a grim chuckle. " He's worth hie keep. He never lets go when once he grips. If folks come prowling round after bedtime it's their own lookout ; they've got no business here. This isn't Hampstead or Kew." " I think I'll turn in," said Frank, yawning. Through his dreams that night flitted the figure of a girl in a blue frock, with a voice full of tears. And once the man started awake, moaning and crying aloud in the grotesque terror of nightmare, because a great dog had flown at her — a dog with flaming eyes and gaping jaws and the features of Robert Rashleigh.

111. This was after he had seen her once ; the sequel to half a dozen meetings did not require a prophetess to foretell, when the man was young and handsome and sympathetic, and the girl weeping over her wedding gown, and cherishing ideals. Mrs Vaughan's artificial smile became a ghastly exhibition of false teeth at sight of him, and she would have liked to ask him not to come bo often, but her hands were tied. Robert Rashleigh, like all plain men, was as ]ealous as Othello ; to have forbidden Frank the house would have been to admit the possibility of a doubt respecting her daughter's affections — a fatal step which must be avoided at any cost. It was at this inauspicious time, when a mother's care was bo necessary to dear Hilda, that the prospect of a demise anda legacy drew Mrs Vanghan from home. " Rsmember," she said solemnly to her girl, " that your mother will be with you in spirit, if not in person. As Robert is comirig 'fo dinner to-nigbt put on your white dress and his pearls. Your cousin Helen's marriage has turned out wretchedly, I hear; she does her own housework. Be grateful for dear Robert's love." Hilda wore the white dress. She had begun to take a pleasure lately in making the most of herself. Sha looked like a lily to-night. There was no harm in Frank thinking so, but to tell her was raßh. After all, perhaps ib only forced the inevitable end. Suddenly he was holding her hand in the scented darkness of the stoep, and she was crying. " You don't care for him," be said. " I believe you bate bim now. Dishonourable? My God I why should I hold my tongue ? To see you driven to the edge of a precipica, with that look on your faea ! Do you think I am wood, or a man of flesh and blood 1 " Sbe trembled at his passion like a pale flame in a draught, and the trees rustled mvßteriouaiv in the airless nisht. and the

windows of the dark room behind them creaked as with a warping of dry wood. " I've promisee!," she wept. " I must go on." " If you feel like this now, what will you feel on your wedding day 7 You will drive us both mad 1 Be brave, while there is time." "It is too lats," she said. " There are obligations; you don't understand. And I have promised. Don't torture me, Frank. We are not to be happy. It can't be I " " Oh, you weak women I " cried he ; " you are God's curse — and blessing — to men on earth ! " Sbe left him then. She fancied from his attitude that he was crying. She dare not 3tay. She had never seen a man cry before, or supposed it could be co ; it made her feel sick. She longed to take his head on her breast and comfort him. Bub it is alwayß so much easier to drift with the current than to fight. Sbe had no courage to assert herself — no nerve for scenes. As she went upstairs to bathe her eyes the door of the dark room opened stealthily, and Robert Rashleigh came out and rejoined his host in the lighted dining room. " Did you find your pocket knife 1 " asked Vaughan. " I found what I went to look for," replied Rashleigh. His face was the colour of cigar asb, and liß looked like an old man. " Good God, Rashleigh I Have yora eezn a ghost 7 " "A touch of my old complaint, nothing more," said Robert, smiling horribly. "I think I'll go home, if you dou'c mind. Excuse 'me to Hilda." IV. . Of course it was something more than indigestion which was the matter with Mr Robert. Rsshleigb. He' was not as blind as Mrs Vaughan hoped. For several days ho had been suspicious, and now he was sure that window had not creaked for naught. He want home with, a fire in his breast and paced the room, brooding and raging, and working himself into the fever which makes men murderers. "So she hates me, does Bhe 7 She is mlseJ rable ! She was satisfied enough till he came j aloDg 1 " Rashleigh thought a great deal more which is not polite enongh tor print. His deductions were logical from his point of view. Before Frank's advent, if she had not cared for .him, at least she had cared for nobody else. Now the unsettling ideals which float through girl*' minds had become concrete, tangible, and responsive. Robert's skinny fingers quivered in the air as though he were gripping his cousin's throat. " I wish he was out of the way ; then she would forget him," he thought. " I wish he was dead I " And he afcoked the furnace inside him with whisky and more whisky, and his ayea I grew bloodshot as the hanas of the clock crept on, and" his head, which was not as strong as the spirit, swam with a lurid chaos of horrible ideas. " I never loved a woman before," he raved ; " and this one I will have. No man shall come between her and me ! " The steps of John the houseboy clattered as usual across the hall to the door. " Anythin' mo' to-night, baaz 7 " The old question aeemed to reach Rashlesgh from a long way off. Year in year out John cams .with the same words in bis broken tongue ; but to-night it meant more than it had ever done ; to-night it wan not the Kaffir, but the devil, who spoke in Rashleigh'i) ears. He stopped in bis feverish stride, and put his hand to his head. He and his cousin always returned home of an evening together; the Kaffir, no doubt, thought, Frank was in the house. ; " No," he said huskily ; " there is nothing ! more to-night." " Massa Frank, baaa 7 " " He's gone to bod," aaid Rashleigh. And his voice shook. " You can loose the dog." V. The incident seemed to have a quietiDg effect upon him for a time. He sat down and drank more whisky, and the clock struck 11. Eleven was the hour when they usually left the Vaughans'. Robert calculated that it would take his cousin 25 minutes to walk the mile and a-half which separated the two farms. He sat as still as a stone, with his cy«s glued to the face of the clock, while the minute band began to race. It passed 1, it reached 2 ; the sands of time seemed running out as though shaken in a giant's grasp. Silence hung like a pall over the room where this man waited .for a moment he dare not name; the atmosphere grew close and oppressive ; his breath laboured in his chest ; , heat glazed the prominent bones of hischeeks. A moth suddenly flattered round the lamp, and singed its wings and fell, beating the tablecloth. He watched it till it lay still, and then his eyes went to the clock again. Twenty minutes passed. Only ten more, at most, remained. He could sit still no longer. [ Every nerve in him was vibrating ; his heart bsat like a big drum. The French windows were still ajar. Out of the blackness suddenly floated a sound on ' the wings of the night which smote his ; straining ears with the deathnote of his soul— the signal he had been waiting for : the deep bay — mysterious, faint, remote — of a dog. ' Then Rashleigh sank a shivering heap on ' the floor, and the light went out. , The next morning at breakfast-time a , man came up the road to Rashleigh'a, and walked in. [ " Where's the baas ?" he asked John. " I , went home with Mr Hamilton last night. I r hope my cousin didn't wait up for me. What's the matter with you 7 Are you sick 1 " \ Robert Rashleigh had not waited up for r his cousin for several reasons, the most apparent of which was that he had fallen dead of heart disease as the dog barked. The unconscious Frank preserved a decent } period of mourniDg, and then, being Robert's j heir and a rich man, found no parental opposition to bis request for Hilda's hand. The Emprees Frederick has received from 5 England a yearly income of £8000 since her I marriage — £312,000 in hard caeh, by regular 3 ' Davmeute. Her dowry also was £40,000.