Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt

“Friends! I should have thought you had plenty. For instance – ”

“For instance what?”

“Well, I was going to say, look how anxious we have all been to see you become your old self again; but it struck me that after what you begun by saying I had better not.”

“Will you do something if I ask you?” she said suddenly.

“Certainly, if it is anything within my power.”

“I want you to take me for a ride – now, this morning. Will you?”

“With pleasure,” he answered, brightening up – all prudent resolves scattered to the winds.

“I think it will do me good. Besides – I want to talk to you. Now, I’ll go and get ready. But mind – don’t let’s have any of the others, or it will be no use. Make some excuse about there being no horses or something.”

And she started off indoors, while he went round to see about getting the horses up from the large paddock, wherein a certain supply of the noble animal was always kept for home use.

Violet was not much of a rider; in fact, she was rather timid in the saddle. But she had a good seat for all show purposes, and being one of those girls who do everything gracefully, she looked as well on horseback as anywhere else.

In the eyes of her present escort, this lovely sunshiny morning, she looked more than bewitching; which being so, it is not surprising that all his strongly formed and salutary resolutions should rapidly ooze out at his finger-ends. For he had half-unconsciously formed many resolutions, not the least of which was that he would think no more of Violet Avory – at any rate, except as a friend.

Though his strong, self-contained nature had rendered him an easy prey to her wiles – easier because so thorough, once he had succumbed – yet it supplied a wholesome counterbalance. Which counterbalance lay in an unswerving sense of self-respect.

Try as she would, Violet had not been able to conceal altogether her partiality for Sellon. All her sage precepts to the latter notwithstanding, she had more than once allowed her prudence to lull. The sharp precocity of the children had discovered their secret in no time, and, disliking her as they did, they had, we may be sure, been at no pains to hold their prying, chattering little tongues. Then the whole thing had become common property to all around.

That she should prefer Sellon seemed to Renshaw quite a natural thing. In his single-heartedness, his utter freedom from egotism, he was sublimely unconscious of any advantages which he himself might possess over the other. She had rejected him unequivocally, for he had once put his fate to the test. She was therefore perfectly free to show preference for whosoever she pleased. The one consideration which caused him to feel sore at times – and he would not have been human had it been otherwise – was the consciousness that he himself was the agency through which the two had been thrown together. Many a man would have reflected rather bitterly on the strange freak of fortune which had once appointed him the preserver of his successful rival’s life. But Renshaw Fanning’s nature was too noble to entertain any such reflection. If it occurred to him, he would cast forth the idea in horror, as something beyond all words contemptible.

This being so, he had made up his mind to accept the inevitable, and had succeeded so well – outwardly, at least – as to give his tormentor some colour for the opening words of our present chapter. But he little knew Violet Avory. That insatiable little heart-breaker fully believed in eating her cake and having it, too. She was not going to let it be said that any man had given her up, least of all this one. The giving up must come from her own side.

“How glum you are, Renshaw,” she began, at last. “You have said nothing but ‘yes’ or ‘no’ ever since we left the house. And that was at least half an hour ago.”

He started guiltily. The use of his Christian name was an artfully directed red-hot shot from her battery. In public it was always “Mr Fanning.” And they had not met otherwise than in public since his return.

“Am I?” he echoed. “I really beg your pardon, but I am afraid I must be.”

“First of all, where are you going to take me?”

“We had better ride up to the head of the Long Kloof. It is only a gradual ascent, and an easier ride for you.”

This was agreed to, and presently they were winding between the forest-clad spurs of the hills; on, leisurely, at a foot’s-pace; the great rolling seas of verdure, spangled with many a fantastic-hued blossom, sweeping down to the path itself; the wild black-mouthed gorges echoing the piping call of birds in the brake, and the sullen deep-throated bark of the sentinel baboon, squatted high overhead.

But the ride, so far from doing her good, seemed, judging from results, to be exercising a still further damping effect upon Violet’s spirits. It had become her turn now to answer in monosyllables, as her companion tried to interest her in the scenery and surroundings. All of a sudden she wildly burst into tears.

Down went Renshaw’s wise resolutions, the result of a painful and severe course of self-striving, like a house of cards. The sight of her grief seemed more than he could bear.

“Good heavens! Violet – darling – what is it? Why are you unhappy?”

The tone was enough. The old tremor of passion struggling to repress itself. Had she forged this weapon deliberately, Violet must have rejoiced over its success. But this time the outburst was genuine.

“Oh, I sometimes wish I could die!” she answered, as soon as she could control her voice. “Then there would be a peaceful ending to it all, at any rate.”

“Ending to what? You have been very much shaken, dear – since that unfortunate skirmish the other night. But you must try and forget that and become your own bright self again. It cannot be that you have any real trouble on your mind?”

“Oh, Renshaw – you have been so hard to me of late – so cold and silent, as if you didn’t care so much as to speak to me – and I have felt it so – so much. Ah, but you don’t believe me.”

The man’s face grew white. What did this mean? Had he been deceiving himself all this time? While he had thought she was trying once more to whistle him back to her lure, to amuse herself with him and his most sacred feelings as a mere pastime during the other’s absence – could it be after all that she had merely been playing off the other against him – piqued at the outward cooling of his attentions? A tumultuous rush of feeling went through his heart and brain. But like a douche of cold water upon the fainting patient came her next words, bringing him to with a kind of mental gasp.

“You have felt it so much?” he echoed, quickly.

“Yes. I could not bear the thought of losing such a staunch, true-hearted friend as you would be – as you are. You don’t know how I value the idea of your sympathy.”

Crash went the newly born resuscitation of his hopes – scattered to fragments – shivered into empty nothingness by just one word. “Friend!” Hateful word in such conjunction! His voice seemed numbed and strained as he rejoined —

“I am sorry you should think of regarding me as anything less than a friend – and you must know that you could never lack my sympathy. Then there is something troubling you?”

“Now you are angry with me. Oh, Renshaw – and I am so miserable. You speak in such a cold, severe tone. And I thought you would have been so different.”

“God forgive me if I should have seemed to be angry with you,” he replied. “But – how can I help you? You have not told me what your trouble is.”

“Renshaw, I believe you can be as secret as the grave. It concerns myself – and another. But nothing that you can do can remove it. Nothing but misery can come of it, if I do not die myself, that is.”

“One word, Violet. You are sure nothing I can do will help you? I do not wish to force your confidence, remember.”

“Nothing,” was the despairing answer. “Only this, Renshaw. Promise that you will stand my friend – Heaven knows I may need it and do need it – whatever others may say or do. Promise that if ever you can help me you will.”

Their eyes met – then their hands.

“I promise both things,” he answered gravely.

But, as they turned their horses’ heads to ride homewards, there was a heavy heart within Renshaw Fanning’s breast; a heart full of sad and heavy despair. His love for this girl was no mere fleeting passion, but the terribly earnest and concentrated abandonment of a man of mature years and strong feelings. Now there was an end of everything. He had as good as heard from her own lips that her affections were bound up with another, and who that other was his perceptions left him no room for doubt. But why, then, should all the misery ensue at which she had hinted? Could it be that her preference was but inadequately returned? Or was there some obstacle in the way – lack of means, opposition of parents, or similar difficulties, which are apt to seem to those most closely concerned so insurmountable under the circumstances? In his own mind, he had no doubt but that things would all come right sooner or later, and said as much.

But then, you see, they were at cross purposes, as people who deal in veiled hints and half-confidences well-nigh invariably are.

And the promise thus deliberately uttered during that sunny morning’s ride in the Long Kloof, will he ever be called upon to take it up?

We shall see.

Chapter Nineteen.

A Good Offer

Time went by, and weeks slipped into months. Amid congenial surroundings and magnificent air, Renshaw had completely shaken off all lingering remnants of his fever attack. He began to think seriously of starting in quest of “The Valley of the Eye.”

Sellon, too, had begun to wax impatient, though with any less tempting object in view he would have been loth to exchange this delightfully easygoing life for a toilsome and nebulous quest, involving possible risks and certain hardship and privations. Moreover, a still lingering misgiving that the other might cry off the bargain acted like a spur.

“It’s all very well for you, Fanning,” he said one day, “but, for my part, I don’t much care about wearing out my welcome. Here I’ve been a couple of months, if not more, and I shouldn’t wonder if Selwood was beginning to think I intended quartering myself on him for life. I know what you’re going to say. Whenever I mention leaving, he won’t hear of it. Still, there’s a limit to everything.”

“Well, I don’t mind making a start, say, next week,” Renshaw had answered. “I’ve got to go over to Fort Lamport on Saturday. If it’ll suit you, we’ll leave here about the middle of the week. We shall have roughish times before us once we get across the river, mind.”