Long Odds, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  HIS OWN PEOPLE

  The velvet dusk that crept up from the eastwards was held in check bythe brightening flood of moonlight on the sea when Ormsgill leaned onthe balustrade of the veranda outside the _Hotel Catalina_ in GrandCanary. Close in front of him the long Atlantic swell broke upon thehammered beach with a drowsy rumbling, and flung a pungent freshnessinto the listless air, for the Trade breeze had fallen dead away. Thefringe of surf ran southwards beside the dim white road to where thelights of Las Palmas blinked and twinkled in the shadow the greatblack peaks flung out upon the sparkling sea.

  Ormsgill, who had turned from its contemplation at the sound of avoice he recognized, had, however, no longer any eyes for theprospect. He had arrived on an African mail-boat two hours earlier,and had somehow missed the girl whose voice had sent a little thrillthrough him. She had, it seemed, gone in through one of the long,lighted windows instead of by the door, but the horse she had justdismounted from was still standing with another, which carried a man'ssaddle, just below the veranda. Ormsgill could see that it was one ofthe sorry beasts the Spaniards hire to Englishmen, but it was alsojaded and white with lather.

  "These English have no consideration," said the peon who held itsbridle, to a comrade. "This horse is old, but when I brought it hereit was not more than a very little lame. Now it is certain I cannothire it to anybody to-morrow. They were at Arucas, which for a horseof this kind is a long way, but they came home by the barranco andacross the sand heaps at the gallop. The Senorita must not be late fordinner. _Vaya!_ it is a cruelty."

  The matter was, perhaps, not a great one in itself, but it had asomewhat unpleasant effect upon Ormsgill, who knew that the Iberian isnot as a rule squeamish about any cruelty that the lust of gainrenders it necessary to inflict upon his beast. The horse, as he couldsee, had certainly been ridden hard, and was very lame. The thingjarred on him, and as he leaned on the veranda waiting until themessage he had left to announce his arrival should be delivered, ascene he had looked upon in the dark land forced itself upon hisrecollection. It was a line of jaded men staggering under the burdenson their heads through an apparently interminable sea of scorched anddusty grass. There was little water in that country at the season, andthey dragged themselves along, grimed with the fibrous dust, intorments of thirst, with limbs that were reddened by the stabbing ofthe flinty grass stems. Then rousing himself he drove the suggestivevision from his brain and entered the hall of the big hotel.

  It blazed with light, there was music somewhere, and alreadyconventionally attired men and elaborately dressed women weredescending the stairway, and appearing by twos and threes from thecorridors. They were for the most part Englishmen and women, butOrmsgill was a little astonished to feel that instead of arousingsympathy their voices and bearing jarred on him. Their conversationappeared to have no point in it, and their smiles were meaningless.They seemed shallow and artificial, and he had lived at high pressure,face to face with grim realities, in the land of the shadow. He stooda little apart, quietly regarding them, a lonely figure in plain whiteduck with a lined brown face, until a burly man in the conventionalblack and white strode up to him.

  "I'm uncommonly glad to see you, Tom," he said. "Ada will be down in aminute. I left her and her mother almost too startled to understandthat you had arrived. The man you gave your message to had justbrought it in. You should have let us know what boat you were sailingby. But I mustn't keep you talking. You have just time to change yourthings."

  Ormsgill shook hands with him, but was conscious of a lack ofenthusiasm as he did it that irritated him. He had once consideredMajor Chillingham a very good fellow, but now there seemed to besomething wanting in his characteristic bluff geniality. Ormsgillcould not tell what it was, but he felt the lack of it.

  "I suppose there is," he said with a smile. "Still, you see, I haven'tanything to change into. In fact, my present outfit is a considerablysmarter one than the get-up I have been accustomed to dining in."

  Chillingham's gaze was at first expressive of blank astonishment, andthere was a sardonic gleam in Ormsgill's eyes. "You must try toremember that I've got out of the way of wearing evening clothes. Ithink I'd made it clear that I have been down in the depths the pastfour years."

  His companion's red face flushed a trifle, but he laughed. "Well," hesaid, "that's one of the things we needn't talk about, and I'm notsure that everybody would be so ready to mention it." Then he drewback a trifle. "Tom, you're greatly changed."

  Ormsgill nodded. "Yes," he said, "I dare say I am. In several ways thething's not unnatural."

  After that Chillingham discoursed about English affairs, and though itappeared to cost him a slight effort Ormsgill made no attempt to helphim. He stood still, perfectly at his ease, but for all that consciousthat he was an anachronism in such surroundings, while the men andwomen who smiled or nodded to his companion as they came into the hallcast curious glances at him. This duck-clad man with the lined faceand steady eyes was clearly not of their world, which was, in the caseof most of them, an essentially frivolous one.

  At last he turned, and strode forward impulsively as the girl hewaited for came down the stairway in a filmy dress of lace-liketexture that rustled softly as it flowed about her. She wasbrown-haired and brown-eyed, warm in coloring, and her face, which wasas comely as ever, had a certain hint of disdain in it. That, however,did not strike Ormsgill then, for she flushed a little at the sightof him, and laid a slim white hand in his.

  "Tom," she said, "I am very glad, but why didn't you cable? Still, youmust tell me afterwards. We are stopping the others, and mother iswaiting to speak to you."

  Ormsgill was conscious of a faint relief as he turned to the tall ladywho stood beside the girl, imposing and formal in somber garments. Themeeting he had looked forward to with longing, and at the same time avague apprehension, was over. He had, he felt, been reinstated,permitted to resume his former footing, and the manner of the elderlady, which was quietly gracious, conveyed the same impression. ThenMrs. Ratcliffe sent her brother, the Major, on to see that places werekept for them together, and Ormsgill was thankful that the dinnerwhich was waiting would render any confidential conversation out ofthe question for the next hour. He wanted time to adjust himself tothe changed conditions, for a man can not cut himself adrift from allthat he has been accustomed to and then resume his former life just ashe left it, especially if he has dwelt with the outcast in themeanwhile.

  A chair had been placed for him between Ada Ratcliffe and her mother,while Major Chillingham sat almost opposite him across the long table.The glow of light, glitter of glass and silver, scent of flowers andperfumes, and hum of voices had a curious effect on him after thesilence of the shadowy forest and the primitive fashion in which hehad lived with Lamartine, and some minutes had passed before heturned to the girl at his side.

  "I was a little astonished to hear that you were in Las Palmas," hesaid.

  Ada Ratcliffe looked at him with a smile, and a slight lifting of herbrows. She was perfectly composed, and in one way he was glad of that,though he vaguely felt that her attitude was not quite what he hadexpected.

  "Astonished only?" she said. "As you would have had to change steamershere and wait a few days it would probably have taken you two weeksmore to join us in England. At least, so the Major said."

  Ormsgill felt he had deserved this, for he had recognized the inanityof the observation when he made it. It was evident that his companionhad recognized it, too. Still, it is difficult to express oneselffeelingly to order.

  "I should have said delighted," he ventured.

  The girl smiled again, and he felt that he had chosen an injudiciousword. "In any case, it isn't in the least astonishing that we arehere. It is becoming a recognized thing to come out to Las Palmas inthe winter, and I believe it is a good deal cheaper than Egypt orAlgeria. That is, of course, a consideration."

  "It certainly is," broke in the lady at her side. "When they arealways finding a new way to
tax us in, and incomes persist in goingdown. Tom is fortunate. It will scarcely be necessary for him totrouble himself very much about such considerations."

  Ormsgill for the first time noticed the signs of care in Mrs.Ratcliffe's face, and the wrinkles about her eyes. Neither had, hefancied, been there when he had last seen her in England nearly fiveyears earlier, but the change in her was as nothing compared to thatin her daughter. Ada Ratcliffe was no longer a fresh and somewhatsimple-minded English girl. She was a self-possessed and dignifiedwoman of the world, but what else she might be he could not at themoment tell. He blamed himself for the desire to ascertain it, sincehe felt it was more fitting that he should accept her without questionas the embodiment of all that was adorable. Still, he could not do it.The four years he had spent apart from her had given him too keen aninsight.

  "Well," he said, "there are people who believe that the possession ofeven a very small fortune is something of a responsibility."

  "That," said Mrs. Ratcliffe, "is a mistake nowadays. There are so manyexcellent organized charities ready to undertake one's duties for one.They are in a position to discharge them so much more efficiently."

  Ormsgill did not reply to this, though there was a faint sardonictwinkle in his eyes. He was not, as a rule, addicted to passing on aresponsibility, but he remembered then that he had handed a littleBelgian priest L200 to carry out a duty that had been laid on him. Thefact that he had done so vaguely troubled him. Mrs. Ratcliffe,however, went on again.

  "One of the disadvantages of living here is the number of invalids oneis thrown into contact with," she said. "I find it depressing. Youwill notice the woman in the singularly unbecoming black dress yonder.She insists on drinking thick cocoa with a spoon at dinner."

  One could have fancied that she felt this breach of custom to be anenormity, and Ormsgill wondered afterwards what malignant impulsesuddenly possessed him. Still, the worthy lady's coldly even voice andformal manner jarred upon him, while the pleasure of meeting the girlhe had thought of for four long years was much less than he felt itshould have been. He resented the fact, and most men's tempers grow atrifle sharp in tropical Africa.

  "Well," he said dryly, "one understands that it is nourishing, and,after all, we are to some extent cannibals."

  "Cannibals?" said Mrs. Ratcliffe with a swift suspicious glance whichseemed to suggest that she was wondering whether the African climatehad been too much for him.

  "Yes," said Ormsgill, "cocoa, or, at least, that grown in parts ofAfrica where the choicest comes from, could almost be considered humanflesh and blood. Any way, both are expended lavishly to produce it. Ifancy you will bear me out in this, Senor?"

  He looked at the little, olive-faced gentleman in plain white duck whosat not far away across the table. He had grave dark eyes with alittle glint in them, and slim yellow hands with brown tips to some ofthe fingers, and was just then twisting a cigarette between them.Ormsgill surmised that it cost him an effort to refrain from lightingit, since men usually smoke between the courses of a dinner in hiscountry. There was a certain likeness between him and the Commandantof San Roque, sufficient at least, to indicate that they were of thesame nationality, but the man at the table in the _Catalina_ had beencast in a finer mold, and there was upon him the unmistakable stamp ofauthority.

  "One is assured that what is done is necessary," he said in slowdeliberate English. "I am, however, not a commercialist."

  "You, of course, believe those assurances?"

  The little white-clad gentleman smiled in a somewhat curious fashion."A wise man believes what is told him--while it is expedient. Someday, perhaps, the time comes when it is no longer so."

  "And then?"

  A faint, suggestive glint replaced the smile in the keen dark eyes."Then he acts on what he thinks himself. Though I can not rememberwhen, it seems to me, senhor, that I have had the pleasure of meetingyou before."

  "You have," said Ormsgill dryly. "It was one very hot morning in therainy season, and you were sitting at breakfast outside a tent beneatha great rock. Two files of infantry accompanied me."

  "I recollect perfectly. Still, as it happens, I had just finishedbreakfast, which was, I think, in some respects fortunate. One israther apt to proceed summarily before it--in the rainy season."

  Ormsgill laughed, and the girl who sat beside the man he had spokento flashed a swift glance at him. She was dressed in some thin, softfabric, of a pale gold tint, and the firm, round modeling of thefigure it clung about proclaimed her a native of the Iberianpeninsula, the Peninsula, as those who are born there love to call it.Still, there was no tinge of olive in her face, which, like her armsand shoulders, was of the whiteness of ivory. Her eyes, which had afaint scintillation in them, were of a violet black, and her hair ofthe tint of ebony, though it was lustrous, too. She, however, saidnothing, and Major Chillingham, who seemed to feel himself neglected,broke in.

  "I'm afraid you were at your old tricks again, Tom," he said. "Whathad you been up to then?"

  "Interfering with two or three black soldiers, who resented it. Theywere trying to burn up a native hut with a couple of wounded niggersinside it. I believe there was a woman inside it, too."

  Chillingham shook his head reproachfully. "One can't help these thingsnow and then, and I don't know where you got your notions from," hesaid. "It certainly wasn't from your father. He was a credit to theservice, and a sensible man. You can only expect trouble when you kickagainst authority."

  Ormsgill looked at Ada Ratcliffe, but there was only a faintsuggestion of impatience in her face. Then, without exactly knowingwhy, he glanced across the table, and caught the little gleam ofsardonic amusement in the other girl's violet eyes. She, at least, itseemed, had comprehension, and that vaguely displeased him, since hehad expected it from the woman he had come back to marry, instead ofa stranger. Then the man with the olive face looked up again.

  "You have it in contemplation to go back to Africa?"

  "No," said Ormsgill, who felt that Mrs. Ratcliffe was listening. "Atleast, I scarcely think it will be necessary."

  "Ah," said the other, with a little dry smile, "It is, one might,perhaps, suggest, not advisable. There are several men who do not bearyou any great good will in that country."

  Ormsgill laughed. "One," he said, "is forced to do a good many thingswhich do not seem advisable yonder, and I have one or two veryexcellent friends."

  Then he turned to Ada Ratcliffe, and discoursed with her and hermother on subjects he found it difficult to take much interest in,which was a fresh surprise to him, for he had considered them subjectsof importance before he left England. The effort he made to display abecoming attention was not apparent, but it was a slight relief to twoof the party when the dinner was over. Another hour had, however,passed before he had the girl to himself, and they sauntered downthrough the dusty garden and along the dim white road until theyreached a little mole that ran out into the harbor. The moon had justdipped behind the black peaks, and they sat down in the soft darknesson a ledge of stone, and listened for a while to the rumble of thelong Atlantic swell that edged to the strip of shadowy coast with afringe of spouting foam. Both felt there was a good deal to be said,but the commencement was difficult, and it was significant that theman gazed westwards--towards Africa--across the dusky heaven, until helooked round when his companion spoke to him.

  "Tom," she said quietly, "you have not come back the same as when youwent away."

  "I believe I haven't," and Ormsgill's voice was gentle. "My dear, youmust bear with me awhile. You see, there are so many things I havelost touch with, and it will take me a little time to pick it upagain. Still, if you will wait and humor me, I will try."

  He turned, and glanced towards a great block of hotel buildings thatcut harsh and square against the soft blueness of the night not faraway. The long rows of open windows blazed, and the music that cameout from them reached the two who sat listening through the deep-tonedrumble of the surf. It was evident that an entertainment of some kind
was going on, but Ormsgill found the signs of it vaguely disquieting.

  "One feels that building shouldn't be there," he said. "They shouldhave placed it in the city. It's too new and aggressive where it is,and the ways of the folks who stay in it are almost as out of place."

  He stopped a moment with a little laugh. "I expect I'm talkingnonsense, and it's really not so very long since that kind of thingused to appeal to me. After all, there must be a certain amount ofsatisfaction to be got out of purposeless flirtation, cards, dining,and dancing."

  It was not very dark, and, when he looked round, the shapely form ofhis companion was silhouetted blackly against the sky on the stepabove him. There was something vaguely suggestive of an impatiencethat was, perhaps, excusable in her attitude.

  "Oh," she said, "there is not a great deal. I admit that, but one mustlive as the others do, and have these things to pass the time. Youknow there is nothing to be gained by making oneself singular."

  Ormsgill smiled, though once more the smell of the wilderness, theodors of lilies and spices, and the sourness of corruption, was in hisnostrils. Men grappled for dear life with stern and occasionallyappalling realities there, and he was one in whom the love of conflicthad been born.

  "No," he said, "I suppose there isn't. At least, it usually involvesone in trouble, and, as you say, one must have something to pass thetime away. Still, Ada, for a while you will try to put up with mylittle impatiences and idiosyncrasies. No doubt I shall fit myself tomy surroundings by and by."

  Ada Ratcliffe had a face that was almost beautiful, and a slim,delicately modeled form in keeping with it, but perhaps they had beengiven her as makeweights and a counterbalance for the lack of moreimportant things. At times, when her own interests were concerned, shecould show herself almost clever but she fell short of averageintelligence just then, when a sympathetic word or a sign ofcomprehension would have bound the man to her.

  Leaning a little towards him she laid her hand on the sleeve of hisduck jacket. "I would like you to do it soon," she said. "Tom, toplease me, you won't come in to dinner dressed this way again."

  There was a suggestion of harshness in Ormsgill's laugh, but hechecked himself. "Of course not, if you don't wish it. If there is atailor in Las Palmas I will try to set that right to-morrow. Now wewill talk of something else. You want to live in England?"

  It appeared that Ada did, and she was disposed to talk at length uponthat topic. She also drew closer to him, and while the man's armrested on her shoulder discussed the house he was to buy in thecountry, and how far his means, which were, after all, not very large,would permit the renting of another in town each season. He listenedgravely, and saw that there were no aspirations in the scheme. Theirlives were evidently to be spent in a round of conventionalfrivolities, and all the time he heard the boom of the restless sea,and the smell of the wilderness, pungent and heady, grew stronger inhis nostrils. Then he closed a hand tighter on the shoulder of thegirl, in a fashion that suggested he felt the need of something tohold fast by, as perhaps he did.

  "There is one point we have to keep in view, for the thing may beremembered against me still," he said. "I was turned out of theservice of a British Colony."

  "Ah," said the girl, "I felt it cruelly at the time, but, after all,it happened more than four years ago--and not very many people heardof it."

  Ormsgill sat still a minute, and his grasp grew a trifle slacker onher arm. "I told you I didn't do the thing they accused me of," hesaid.

  "Of course! Still, everybody believed you did, and that was almost ashard to bear. The great thing is that it was quite a long while ago.Tom," and she turned to him quickly, "I believe you are smiling."

  "I almost think I was," said Ormsgill. "Still, I don't know why Ishould do so. Well, I understand we are to stay here a month or two,and we will have everything arranged before we go back to England."

  It was half an hour later when his companion rose. "The time isslipping by," she said. "There is to be some singing, and one or twoof the people we have met lately are coming round to-night. I must goin and talk to them. These things are in a way one's duty. One has todo one's part."

  Ormsgill made no protest. He rose and walked quietly back with her tothe hotel, but his face was a trifle grave, and he was troubled byvague misgivings.