Ernest Hornung - Denis Dent - A Novel

"On board?" queried Mrs. Kitto; and she set down her work.

"Isn't he to be one of the officers on the ship we are all going home by?"

"I didn't know of it," said Mrs. Kitto, with equal embarrassment and surprise.

"But he is," declared the girl, with all an invalid's impatience. "I understood that from papa the day he came; he had spoken to the agents, or he was going to speak to them, and Denis – I mean Mr. Dent – was to have the best berth they could give him. I do wish he would go on board. I – I almost wish he hadn't saved my life!"

And she tossed her face to the wall, for it was burning as it had burned so often since her deliverance.

"It's meeting him again," said Mrs. Kitto to herself; "and she does care for him, or she would mind less." It made it all the harder to ask aloud, "Did your father say he had succeeded, dear?"

"We have never mentioned Mr. Dent again," said Nan to that, quite haughtily.

"Because I don't think he's sailing in the Memnon at all," continued Mrs. Kitto, gently. "I think he's going to the diggings instead."

"Going where?" the girl asked after a pause. The first sentence was all that she had heard.

"To Ballarat or Bendigo – to make his fortune."

"I hope he'll succeed," said Nan, after a pause; but her voice was a sweet bell jangled, and an hour went before she turned her face from the wall. It was still red, but there was a subtle difference in the shade. And in the hazel eyes, which were the most obvious of Miss Merridew's natural attractions, there was a crude, new light.

"I am going to get up," said she.

Mrs. Kitto proved not unprepared for the announcement; it appeared that all her needlework had been for Nan, and now it was as though the last stitch had just been put into everything. It was all a surprise to the girl, who had not given the matter a thought. She was to get a fresh outfit at Geelong, before the ship sailed, but Mrs. Kitto insisted on sending her so far equipped by herself. And the dress which the kind soul had been so busy altering was almost the last remnant of her own trousseau, and some years behind the fashion.

In point of fact it was what used to be called a "double robe" of lavender cashmere; and it was trimmed with braid of the same colour, but the braid was a shade darker than the rest, and its criss-cross pattern as unlovely in its way as the voluminous skirts it was intended to adorn. But the fabric was soft and fine, and the delicate tint happened to suit Nan Merridew, who had a singularly clear and pale skin, and dark gold ringlets almost the colour of her eyes. For she was of the type dear to the pre-Raphaelites, with rather more flesh and blood, and a much more conspicuous spirit of her own, perhaps a little too conspicuous when Nan reappeared in the sunlight, with quite another light in her eyes, on the fourth day after the wreck.

It was near the close of a radiant afternoon, and Mr. Merridew was absent for the day; but Captain Devenish had been seen strolling toward the cliffs, and Nan thought that she would stroll after him in spite of the direction. No one must think of accompanying her; she would so enjoy finding the way for herself. To this Mrs. Kitto pretended to make no objection, but expressed a belief that Mr. Dent was with Captain Devenish, thinking she had named the last deterrent. On the contrary, it only decided Nan to go quickly; and go she did with that peculiar light stronger than ever in her eyes.

Now the way led through a belt of young pines, by which the station was almost surrounded, and in the middle of them Nan met a man in moleskins and a red shirt. Him she was approaching with downcast eyes, as one who must regard her curiously, when his voice thrilled her at close quarters.

"Nan! And you'd have passed me without a word!"

Denis was standing in her path, a common wide-awake drooping from one hand, the other reaching out for hers.

"I didn't recognize you," she said, scarcely touching his hand. "And I was looking for Captain Devenish – can you tell me where he is?"

"He has gone down to bathe," replied Denis with some reluctance. To bathe where a ship's company had been drowned that week! No wonder Nan winced. "Can't you spare me a few minutes instead?" he added as she was about to turn.

"Oh, yes, if you wish it."

"Of course I wish it!" exclaimed Denis. His shoulders looked very square under the coarse red flannel; but they were heaving, too.

Nan was her own mistress on the spot. "I couldn't know," said she. "You see, you never sent me any message – not one word."

"I shall tell you why."

"And then I understood you were going to the diggings."

"So I am," said Denis. His voice was preternaturally deep and vibrant. She looked up at him with the odd light in her eyes.

"And why haven't you gone yet?"

"I wanted to see you first."

"That was very kind."

"To tell you why I was going at all – to tell you everything, Nan, if you will let me – if you aren't determined to misunderstand me before I open my mouth!"

Their eyes were together now, his dark with passion, in hers a certain softening of the unlovely light that hurt him more than her tone: and her eyes were the first to fall, to wander, to espy a stump among the pines.

"I must sit down," she faltered. "It's my first appearance, and I tire directly. But I'm not too tired to listen to you – I want to."

Yet already a change had come over her, and either she was physically weaker or else softer at heart than she had been but a minute before. At all events she took his arm to the stump, which was one of several in a little clearing lit and checkered by the slanting sun. And she sat there almost meekly in his sight, while Denis planted a foot upon one of the other stumps and said what he had to say with bare arms folded across a moleskinned knee.

"In the first place," he began, "I saved your life."

Nan's smouldering spirit was in flames upon the word, and her face caught its fire.

"And you remind me of it!" she cried in red scorn. "Is it the sort of thing one forgets? Is it a thing to thank you for like any common service, and are you the one to put the words in my mouth?"

Denis did not wince.

"I am wrong," he said, quietly. "In the first place, I asked you to marry me; it was only in the second place, and before you had time to give me an answer, that I was so unfortunate as to save your life."

"Unfortunate!"

"Most unfortunate to be the one to save you, Nan, because if it had been any one else it would have made no difference between us; as it is it makes all the difference in the world."

"I don't understand," she said, trembling because she was beginning to understand so well. "I only know how brave you were – how brave!"

And she raised her sweet face without restraint, for now she was thinking of nothing but his bravery.

"Most men are that at a pinch," said Denis, with a twitch of his red shirt: "but I was luckier than most. I won't make too light of it. I can swim. But you don't suppose I was the only strong swimmer on board. And which of the rest, I should like to know, wouldn't have made as good use of my chance?"

"But it wasn't only the swimming!" the girl cried without thinking, to break off with her bent face in its besetting fever.

"If you mean the climbing," he continued equably, "there was still less merit in that, for it was absurdly unnecessary, as you probably know, besides which I was full of Spanish brandy at the time. Not that I'm ashamed of that," added Denis with the absolute candour of the dales. "I believe that brandy was the saving of us both; but it was another piece of pure luck."

Nan said nothing for a minute. She was trying to see his hands, and he showed her with a shrug the only finger that was still in rags. His wounds had not been serious; he was scarcely walking lame; the scratches had skinned over on his face. She could look in it again, steadfastly, simply; she was even beginning to like it better between a wide-awake and an open throat than in the spruce cap and collar of the voyage. Her own scarlet she had conquered in a tithe of the time it had often taken her in secret: it was not so dreadful to be with him after all. And if he loved her nothing mattered: not even her long agony in the ti-tree thicket. Yet he had hurt her by belittling himself, and by something else of which his last words reminded Nan.