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Frank Melton's Luck, Or, Off to New Zealand

Chapter XXII. Recovery—Cadeting—Baronet's Son Again to the Fore

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Chapter XXII. Recovery—Cadeting—Baronet's Son Again to the Fore.

The next day saw Miss Grave again at the hospital. She found her patient much improved. She was determined, if possible, not to let Harry know of Julia's refusal to see him, but, to her dismay, she found that one of the nurses had endeavoured to entertain him by repeating the conversation of the young ladies at the door on the previous afternoon. The woman naturally thought that it was Miss Grave he cared for, and he, therefore, would only be amused at the other young lady for not caring to come to him. He was, of course, much incensed at the epithet of ‘penniless private’ being applied to him. He ground his teeth and swore he would be even with her some day. After worrying for some time, and cursing the inconstancy of women—forgetting, as we too often do, what a monument of inconstancy he himself was—he suddenly seemed to think of Miss Grave and her kindness to him. This put him in a good humour just as she entered. He professed himself full of gratitude to her for coming to see him. She could not bring herself to speak of Julia at once, so she gave him a kind, but earnest, lecture on the wickedness of using such language as she had heard issue from his lips on the previous day. Raving she allowed it was, but if he had not been in the habit of using it, it would not have come into his head then. ‘Is it manly?’ she said—‘Is it even sensible?—Is it just, because we are put out, to call down curses on the heads of those we think have offended us? Let us leave punishment to God, and not entreat Him to pour it on others. No; let us rather pray for mercy on others as well as ourselves, than for punishment.’

She casually mentioned Julia's name later on.

‘Don't tell me anything of her,’ he exclaimed with a shudder. ‘She is a cruel, heartless girl!’

‘Mr Baker, what has she done to deserve those words from you?’ ‘Never mind what she has done, but speak about yourself, my darling. You are all the world to me. You are worth a thousand such as she. If I could only make you believe that I love you with my whole soul. If you would only admit that you love me a little in return, it would be almost too much bliss. But you must! you do!’ he exclaimed, regardless of her efforts to silence him, her fear that they might be overheard overcoming the delight she could not help feeling on hearing his avowal, although she knew she must not yet place any reliance on it. ‘You must! you do!’ he repeated in impassioned tones, ‘or you would not have troubled to come and nurse me.’

‘Am I not your sister?’ she exclaimed, hurt that he also should so misunderstand her motives, but determined to adhere to the path of duty, regardless of all unkind criticism. ‘And as your nurse,’ she continued, ‘I command you to be quiet instantly. This excitement is doing you a world of harm. Not another word, or I go and leave you to the other nurses. I am always your sister, nothing more, remember that,’ holding out her hand to him.

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He clutched it eagerly, and the very touch of the soft white palm appeared to have a soothing effect on him, for he soon fell into a quiet sleep.

Her fears that their conversation might have been overheard proved groundless. Harry's bed was in the corner of the room, and the occupants of the nearest beds were too much engaged with their own sufferings to listen to Harry's earnest pleadings.

In a few days he was pronounced almost fit to join his regiment. On Miss Grave's last visit, she found him just about to take his first walk outside the precincts of the hospital. He at once begged her to accompany him, and they strolled up amongst the hills.

‘Are you sure, Mr Baker, you are not overtaxing your strength?’ she asked, anxiously noticing the palour of his face as he gazed at hers. ‘Perhaps we had better sit down and rest.’

‘Yes, it will be best,’ he said, dropping easily on to the ground at her feet. ‘Do not alarm yourself, though. It is not physical weakness that takes the colour from my cheeks; it is the thought of what must come of me, if you will persist in the answer you gave me the other day. Oh, darling, if you only knew what you are to me! You are life itself! When I first came out this morning from that stuffy hospital, I felt the delicious intoxication of the fresh air, of the vital fluid bounding through my veins again. The glorious sun seemed shining for me; the blue sea in the distance appeared to put new life into me. This will be all dashed into the blackest darkness if you will not consent to be mine. I know I have been weak and vacillating, but that is all past. My love is firmly and irrecoverably fixed. How could I have been such a dolt, such an utter idiot, as to have entertained half a thought for that worthless girl? It was not love, it was mad infatuation! I was not in my right senses!’ he exclaimed, passionately, gazing into her pure, pale face as she sat on the bank above him.

Two tiny tears glistened on the deep-fringed lashes of her liquid eyes—tears of sympathy and sorrow for him, and for herself—sorrow that she could not credit him, and take him to her heart.

‘Give me some hope, darling, something to live for!’ he continued hurriedly, arguing well from what he saw.

It was but now that she could find words to stop the torrent of his pleading—that she could steel herself to inflict the blow, which she knew would wound herself as much, nay, more than it would him. But it must be done. ‘Mr Baker, it hurts me cruelly to be forced to give you pain, but you must remember that you have made these protestations to me several times before, and you know too well how false they have proved. I cannot alter my fixed determination. Why will you continue to press me so cruelly?’

‘And you can accuse me of cruelty?’ he answered, springing to his feet, his voice hoarse with passion. ‘You, who could nurse and save a man from what would be a welcome death, to watch him from day to day gaining strength, gaining hope at your hands, only to wait till you think him strong enough to stand it, then coolly administer to him the torture of the damned! You could show him the heaven he would enter only to cast him into a living hell! But I will not live to endure it! I vow before God I will not leave the next battle-field alive! False, cruel girl, a Hauhau bullet will be more merciful than you are!’

She had turned from him to hide her sobs, and her voice was broken page 93 with the violence of her emotion as she answered; ‘For shame, Mr Baker! what is this love of yours worth, when the least opposition to your wishes makes you treat the object of it with such bitter injustice?’

Heeding neither her words, nor the effect his brutal outburst had on the gentle girl who had done so much for him, he strode angrily away without a word of farewell. Her heart bled for him as she watched his retreating form. His sufferings were as nothing compared to hers. The very coarseness and cruelty of his denunciation was an alleviation to his pain, and one which she could never obtain. It was not till he left her, that she felt the full force of her disappointment in him. How much she had built on the hopes that she had at last a chance of doing him some real good. But the one comfort left her was that she had done her duty. Until she was assured in her own mind that she had his whole heart, beyond any power of infatuation to rob her of it, in justice to herself she would not alter her resolution, whatever it might cost her to abide by it.

She did not see Harry again, as he at once rejoined his comrades, and it was not his fault that he failed to carry out his mad threat, for in their next encounter with the enemy he surpassed himself in desperate recklessness, and fought more like an incarnate fiend than a human being. For many months he was engaged with his company in hunting down the rebel Maoris on the East Coast, who had been concerned in various brutal outrages and coldblooded murders. Those who witnessed his utter disregard for life or limb, marvelled at the fact that he always remained comparatively unscathed. The life of a soldier in the New Zealand bush was a hard one, but it admirably suited his restless condition, and when the boldest and hardiest spirits amongst the militia and volunteers, were selected from the band known as the Forest Rangers, he was foremost on the list. He was spending a few days' leave in Auckland when I met him. Having given the account, from which the previous information of his doings was taken, I questioned him as to whether he had seen anything of Grosvenor in his travels.

‘Grosvenor! I should think so; curse him! The beggar loafed about Auckland borrowing money, and working the oracle one way and another, till the place got too hot to hold him. He had me for a few notes I was fool enough to lend him.

‘But have you seen anything of him lately?’

‘No, I haven't, nor do I want to; but here comes someone who can tell you more about him than I can. You remember Brown, our shipmate, the fellow that was always after molly-hawks, Cape pigeons, and things? Here Brown,’ he shouted, ‘you remember Frank Melton! He was just asking after that detestable sneak, Grosvenor. You told me the other day that you often saw him.’

‘Ah, but first of all let's hear how you have been flourishing, old man,’ I exclaimed, returning with interest his hearty handshake.

‘Well, you shall hear all I have to tell, but I promise you brevity will be the most noticeable feature in my account of my doing. I expect you will remember that I came out as a cadet to a gentleman in Hawke's Bay. I use the word gentleman purely out of courtesy. I could not use it in any other sense. His method of teaching sheepfarming reminded me much of old Squeers in “Nicholas Nickleby.” The cadets (for he had several) were sent out to the shepherds’ huts, one to each, and as soon as one got to understand the work— page 94 principally boundary riding — the shepherd got the sack, and the cadet was left in the lonely hut to do the job, that is, if he would stay. I tried it for three months, principally because my old dad had paid the beggar fifty pounds, which he could ill-afford, and I knew he would be very vexed if he got nothing at all for his money. At the end of that time I wired into the boss like one o'clock, and told him I could not stand the solitude, for I only saw a fellow-creature once a week, and that was a half-cranky boy who brought my provisions. Queer as he was, I used to try every artifice to get him to stop and have a yarn. My job was to ride along a certain boundary, and turn back any sheep I saw likely to stray, or any of the neighbours that were encroaching. My remonstrance did not do much good. The boss merely said that it was good training; he had to do it at my age. I told him I didn't care a hang what he did at my age, that I wasn't going to do it any longer, and that he was an old fraud to take my father's money for teaching me, which he didn't do, for how could I learn anything stuck up there by my self; instead of which he made me save him a shepherd's wages. Here the old devil got savage, and growled out that it was little enough pay, too, for having an insolent young new chum about the run, so I said he shouldn't have me long, and hooked it. Since then, up to a few weeks ago, I have been doing similar work for your friend, Robinson. He has been giving me a note a week, and there were two of us in the hut. My mate was a gentlemanly young fellow, but like me, slightly impecunious. He used to take the boundary northwards from the hut, and I had to travel southwards. We managed to hit it uncommonly well, cooked turn about, and as we both had guns, we got plenty of wild pigs and pigeons to vary our regular rations, so altogether it wasn't bad fun. But after promising you brevity I've been spinning you a yarn as long as my boundary line. I'll have done with myself. You wanted to know if I'd seen Grosvenor? Yes, I have seen a good bit of him off and on. Why, he has quite made it up with the fair Julia. I hope I am not ruffling you fellows' feelings, but it's a fact.’

‘Good Lord, you don't say so!’ exclaimed both of us in a breath.

‘But how about the dad?’ I added.

‘Oh, my noble G. waited until the boss had to return to England, after he had been out barely three months, to attend to some lawyer's business, which he had thought was completed. Then G. happened to meet Julia, and she asked him up to the station. You know the old lady always was partial to him, and with a little care, and a good deal of confounded cheek, he soon managed to get engaged to the dear girl.’

‘Engaged to her! But when did this happen?’ inquired I.

‘Well, I'm sorry for you, Frank, for I see it's into you, but it was just a week or so before last Christmas Day twelvemonths. I remember it, for they asked me in to their Christmas party, and he was there. The old lady was blowing about her daughter's brilliant conquest.’

‘Are you sure of this, Brown?’

‘Sure of it? yes; the old lady bored me so infernally, I'm not likely to forget it. I am awfully sorry old man, it's hot on you.’

‘No occasion to pity me, my boy. I was off that lay before I left the ship. I only want to get at the truth of the affair, because the page 95 infernal scoundrel is also engaged to a girl I know at Wanganui, in fact my own cousin. He made all sorts of stupid excuses to account for not being at a Christmas party with her, and he has treated her abominably all along, though she can't see it, worse luck. He was positively to have married her a few months since, day fixed and everything, but he never turned up—another paltry excuse about having to leave for England, his father dying, etc. I knew these were lies, but he managed to put them in such a way that the girl and her father believed them. But has not Robinson returned yet?’

‘Yes; he got back two or three months since. He has been detained an unconscionably long time by a stupid lawsuit. I believe they are keeping Julia's engagement a secret from him. The old lady thinks herself quite justified in hoodwinking her husband to prevent, what she calls, his absurd suspicions of the poor boy standing in the way of her daughter's happiness.’

‘But, suppose when he comes to hear of it, he were to say he'd cut her off with a bob?’

‘Then the noble G. would cut off to Wanganui, I presume. He's always bothering the old lady to make it right with her husband, and to tell him that Julia will die if he doesn't consent to the marriage.’

‘I see his move. He's engaged himself to both girls, and means to marry the one with the most coin, when he really finds out which that is. He relies on the fact that Wanganui and Napier people rarely meet, and trusts to chances to keep each family ignorant of the terms he is on with the other. However, we'll try and spoil his little game.’

‘Yes, that must be his move, the villain! I remember now, I heard Julia say he had written to her something about having to go home, and we have not seen him since. But how do you account for him fixing the day with your cousin? He evidently meant to marry her. Perhaps he would have gone for Julia as well, and made a rush for Salt Lake.’

‘No; I am inclined to think he had come to the conclusion that Fanny was the best line, but neglected to break off with Julia, till he was certain of the other.’

‘Anyhow his behaviour is scandalous. What can he be doing now?’

‘I believe his friend, who he sent up to us with a message to put off the wedding, said he was in Wellington when he heard of his father's illness, and that he had embarked there for the old country. He always claimed to have some mysterious business of great importance to transact in the principal towns of both Islands. I believe my cousin really thought he was a wealthy potentate, without whose assistance, the various provinces would all come to grief.’

Harry now entered the room again; he had been out for some time. ‘What, haven't you done yarning about that beast of a fellow yet? I left the room because I can't bear to hear his name mentioned, and you are at it still. Here, I have brought a bottle of whiskey. Let's have a drink to take the taste of the reptile out of our mouths. Here's to our next merry meeting.’

I need hardly add we did justice to the toast.