Harold Bindloss - Long Odds

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

"That," said Mrs. Ratcliffe, "is a mistake nowadays. There are so many excellent 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 sardonic twinkle in his eyes. He was not, as a rule, addicted to passing on a responsibility, but he remembered then that he had handed a little Belgian priest £200 to carry out a duty that had been laid on him. The fact 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 one is thrown into contact with," she said. "I find it depressing. You will 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 an enormity, and Ormsgill wondered afterwards what malignant impulse suddenly possessed him. Still, the worthy lady's coldly even voice and formal manner jarred upon him, while the pleasure of meeting the girl he had thought of for four long years was much less than he felt it should have been. He resented the fact, and most men's tempers grow a trifle 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 which seemed to suggest that she was wondering whether the African climate had been too much for him.

"Yes," said Ormsgill, "cocoa, or, at least, that grown in parts of Africa where the choicest comes from, could almost be considered human flesh and blood. Any way, both are expended lavishly to produce it. I fancy you will bear me out in this, Señor?"

He looked at the little, olive-faced gentleman in plain white duck who sat not far away across the table. He had grave dark eyes with a little glint in them, and slim yellow hands with brown tips to some of the fingers, and was just then twisting a cigarette between them. Ormsgill surmised that it cost him an effort to refrain from lighting it, since men usually smoke between the courses of a dinner in his country. There was a certain likeness between him and the Commandant of San Roque, sufficient at least, to indicate that they were of the same nationality, but the man at the table in the Catalina had been cast in a finer mold, and there was upon him the unmistakable stamp of authority.

"One is assured that what is done is necessary," he said in slow deliberate 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. Some day, 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 remember when, it seems to me, senhor, that I have had the pleasure of meeting you before."

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

"I recollect perfectly. Still, as it happens, I had just finished breakfast, which was, I think, in some respects fortunate. One is rather apt to proceed summarily before it – in the rainy season."

Ormsgill laughed, and the girl who sat beside the man he had spoken to flashed a swift glance at him. She was dressed in some thin, soft fabric, of a pale gold tint, and the firm, round modeling of the figure it clung about proclaimed her a native of the Iberian peninsula, 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 arms and shoulders, was of the whiteness of ivory. Her eyes, which had a faint scintillation in them, were of a violet black, and her hair of the tint of ebony, though it was lustrous, too. She, however, said nothing, and Major Chillingham, who seemed to feel himself neglected, broke in.

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

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

Chillingham shook his head reproachfully. "One can't help these things now and then, and I don't know where you got your notions from," he said. "It certainly wasn't from your father. He was a credit to the service, and a sensible man. You can only expect trouble when you kick against authority."

Ormsgill looked at Ada Ratcliffe, but there was only a faint suggestion of impatience in her face. Then, without exactly knowing why, he glanced across the table, and caught the little gleam of sardonic amusement in the other girl's violet eyes. She, at least, it seemed, had comprehension, and that vaguely displeased him, since he had expected it from the woman he had come back to marry, instead of a 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. "At least, 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 bear you any great good will in that country."

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

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

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

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

He turned, and glanced towards a great block of hotel buildings that cut harsh and square against the soft blueness of the night not far away. The long rows of open windows blazed, and the music that came out from them reached the two who sat listening through the deep-toned rumble 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 should have 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."