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Chapter Thirty Nine
In the Twilight Oakwood
Yseulte Santorex was slowly wending her way homeward through the now leafless oak woods which overhung Elmcote.
The lonely ride looked ghostly and drear in the early dusk of the November afternoon. A chill and biting wind moaned through the covert, and now and again a pheasant or rabbit scuttling among the undergrowth, raised a stealthy rustling sound that would have been somewhat startling to any other of her sex who should find herself belated in that lonely place. But in this solitary pedestrian it inspired no fear, only a sweet, sad recollection – albeit reminding her of the most perilous moment in her whole life. For it brought back vividly, by an association of sound and surroundings, the shadowy timber belt, and the stealthy tread of the grim painted savages advancing to seize her on the lonely river-bank in the far Wild West.
But what a change had befallen her! The happy, even-tempered girl who had so gleefully left her home in keen anticipation of a period of adventurous travel amid new and stirring scenes had disappeared, and this pale, wistful-eyed woman walking here seemed but the mere ghost of the Yseulte Santorex of yore.
Often in her dreams she again goes through those terrible experiences – the perilous flight with the scout across the rugged ranges, momentarily expecting the volley of the lurking Sioux ambushed in the dense timber. Often in her dreams she is once more fleeing for dear life across those wild plains, the war-whoops of the painted fiends ringing in her ears, the thunder of their pursuing steeds shaking the ground. Often in her dreams she is again entering the frowning portals of that dread Thermopylae, where one man had unhesitatingly laid down his life in order that she might reach a place of safety. Often, too, she is once more amid her genial, kindly, travelling companions, only to wake up with a start and a shiver to the remembrance of their horrible fate.
But never as long as she lives will she forget the moment when her brother, finding her out at Fort Vigilance, brought the news which had confirmed her fears to the uttermost. He who had offered his life for her was dead – dead amid the horrid torments of the Indian stake, as the savages themselves affirmed – and to her, thenceforward, life seemed a grey and valueless thing. There was nothing further to be gained by opposing her brother’s wish that she should at once accompany him home to Lant-Hanger. Travelling through the British possessions safe beyond the reach of the hostile Sioux, who still carried terror and pillage over the plains of Dakota and Wyoming, they had set forth on their journey and had reached home in due course.
Shocked out of even his philosophy by the change, nothing could exceed the affectionate consideration her father had show for her since her return. Even her mother forgot to grumble and scold in her relief at having the girl back again safe and sound, for George had judiciously put them up to the real state of affairs. It was not in the nature of things that her parents should be well pleased that she had buried her heart in the grave of an unknown adventurer, who had, moreover, met with a horrible death, but time, they hoped, would work a gradual cure, and she was young yet. Then, too, apart from this unfortunate affair, her experiences had been terrible for a refined and luxuriously-nurtured English girl. So no care or trouble was spared to induce her to forget them.
But Yseulte herself was the last to second these well-meant efforts. She would brace herself up to appear cheerful and at ease, but seemed never so happy as when alone, rambling for hours through the fields and woods, to her parents’ concern and alarm. But any expression of the latter would be met by a wan smile and a remark that one who had heard the war-whoop and shots fired in grim earnest, and had twice been chased by red Indians on the war-path, felt pretty secure among the peaceful lanes and meadows of tame Old England. And one other thing noteworthy was that she avoided Lant Hall and its denizens with a horror and a persistency that was little short of feverish. She had never divulged poor Geoffry’s presence with the waggon train, and shrank morbidly from doing so now. He might have escaped, but that he had fallen in the general massacre which overtook the unfortunate emigrants she could hardly doubt.
This evening she was returning from a long walk, having gone out to join at luncheon her father and brother, who were shooting some distant coverts, and who would drive home by the road. She, preferring her solitary ramble through the fields and plantations, had left them early in the afternoon.
The sharp air had brought a tinge of colour to her pale cheeks, as, defying its rigours in her warm winter dress and toque, she stepped along the woodland ride with the easy grace of a perfect physical organisation. An owl dropped softly from overhead, hooting as it glided along on noiseless pinions, the bark of a fox echoed from the depths of the brake; but these weird sounds amid the gathering mists of night caused her no uneasiness, let alone fear. She even stopped to listen to them with a wistful yearning, for in the cry of the wild creatures of the woods, and the swirl of the wind through the denuded branches, she seemed to feel once more borne back to those nights of peril and of fear – but oh! how sweet the recollection – in the wild and blood-stained West, to walk alone in the spirit presence of him whom her mortal eyes should never more behold.
“Would to God we had died together!” she exclaimed aloud, her eyes dimmed with a rush of blinding tears. “Ah, why did I not die with him when it was still in my power to do so? Ah, why?”
And the owl flitting ghostly through the brake, answered:
“Tu-whoo – whoo-whoo!”
A sound smote upon her ear as she turned the bend of the path – a sound as of the footfall and snort of a horse. She looked up, and the sight that met her eyes rooted her to the ground, while the blood at her very heart stood still. But not with fear. Yet – what was that but a phantom – a phantom horseman – advancing towards her at scarce thirty paces? For the noble proportions of the coal-black steed there was no mistaking – and his rider – ah! – through many a night of horror and anguish she had seen in her dreams that towering frame, mangled and mutilated by the barbarous vengeance of the red demons, that splendid face, drawn and livid in the throes of an agonising death. Rider and steed had been parted in life – here in the lonely woods, in the glooming twilight, they were together again.
Her eyes met those of the phantom. An ecstasy shook her frame, and she was powerless to articulate. A sweet smile played on her lips; her gaze was strained upon the apparition, as though in the very strength of her yearning she could constrain it to remain with her, could retard its return to the shadowy unknown.
“Yseulte – love – I am no spectre,” said the voice she knew so well. “I have come straight to you as soon as I learned where to find you. Come to me, darling!”
He had sprung to the ground, and stood awaiting her. The spell was broken. A loud cry rang through the wood, and then she was in his arms – laughing, weeping, sobbing, then laughing again. Words were out of the question.
The wintry night fell black upon the glooming oakwoods, weirdly musical with the mournful hooting of the owls. But there was no gloom in the hearts of these two who now stepped from those thickening shades.
A crunch of wheels on the gravel, a flash of lamps, and the dog-cart deposited the two shooters at the front door.
“Hallo, Chickie! What’s in the wind, now?” exclaimed Mr Santorex, staring in amazement, as his daughter, hardly giving him time to alight, had flown at him and flung her arms around his neck, her face all aglow with more than the happiness of former days.
“Father! He’s in there. Go in and see him!”
“He? What the deuce! In where? Give a fellow a chance! Who’s he?”
“Mr Vipan.”
“Oh, ah – I remember. The champion scalp-hunter. Come to life again, has he? Let’s have a look at him.”
As the door opened a tall figure rose from a chair, advancing with outstretched hand.
“How do, Santorex?”
He thus unceremoniously addressed stared, as well he might. This was Western brusquerie with a vengeance, he thought.
“Confound it! am I altered so dead out of all recognition?” said the other with a careless laugh, standing full in the light.
“Why, no – that is, yes. We none of us grow younger in twenty years. Well, well, Ralph. I’m heartily glad to see you, heartily glad.” And the two men grasped hands in thorough ratification of the sentiment.
“No, by George! I should never have known you,” went on Mr Santorex. “And Chickie, here, called you something else just now – what the deuce was it?”
“Vipan? Yes, it was an old name in the family at one time. I’ve revived it lately for my own convenience. That’s how I was known out West.”
“Think you’d have known the child here?” went on “the child’s” father, turning to Yseulte, who had followed him into the room, and was now staring in amazement at this new revelation.
“Well, I’ve had rather the advantage of her; a mean advantage she’ll say.”
“She” was incapable of saying anything just then. That photograph of the disinherited Ralph Vallance, which, since her return home, she had managed to conjure out of her father’s boxes of old correspondence, and had treasured because it bore some slight resemblance to her dead lover, now turned out to be nothing less than his actual portrait. Yet during all their daily intercourse, so well had he guarded his secret, that not a shadow of a passing instinct had ever warned her of his identity. It was astounding.
“Been to call on Dudley yet, Ralph?” said Mr Santorex, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, yes. We had a talk over old times. By the way, that’s another misnomer. My real name’s Rupert. They used to call me the other for short. Heaven knows why, but they did, and I dropped it when I went West. Shan’t revive it.”
If ever there was a snug family party gathered together, it was that at the Elmcote dinner-table that night, when Rupert Vallance, as we must now call him, yielding to general request, but especially to an appealing glance from Yseulte’s blue eyes, narrated his experiences from the time of his capture to his escape from the camp of the hostiles, only generalising however as to the agency of this latter event, and omitting for the present all mention of poor Geoffry’s horrible death. But when it came to the narrator literally tucking himself in with the grisly denizen of the Indian grave, in the ghostly silence of the darkling forest, Mrs Santorex shivered and announced her intention of fainting; however, this effect was soon dispelled by the more pleasing dénouement of the stirring tale, how just in the nick of time, when alone, dismounted, barely half armed, and the savages still in search of him, he had been found by Smokestack Bill, who all this while, in hourly peril himself, had unweariedly watched his chances of coming to the aid of his friend. Smokestack Bill, too, with no less a companion than old Satanta, who had been wandering the country ever since his escape from the Ogallalla war-party, defying white or red to capture him, until, seeming to recognise his master’s friend, he ran whinnying to the latter of his own accord.
“He’s a grand fellow, that scout,” said Mr Santorex. “Why didn’t you bring him over with you, Rupert?”
“Wouldn’t come. He’s going as chief scout to an expedition just about to be sent against the hostiles. I made him promise, though, to come over directly after the war.”
But the acme of this marvellous and stirring life’s romance was reached when later – after the ladies had retired to bed – Rupert Vallance recounted, in strict confidence, the circumstances of his meeting in the Sioux camp, the unfortunate woman who had ruined his career hitherto by allowing him to suffer for another’s intrigue.
“By Jove!” said George Santorex, junior. “I’ve heard of that party. Always supposed, though, she was a common sort of woman. A lady! and prefers to live among a lot of dirty redskins! Why, the tallest yarn of old Mayne Reid’s is skim-milk to this. But I guess she pretty well wiped out old scores by chousing the reds out of your scalp in that clever way, eh, Rupert!”
He nodded. “That’s so.”
Just then there was an interruption. A messenger had arrived from Lant Hall. The Rev. Dudley was not expected to live through the night, and particularly wished to see Mr Santorex.
“Phew-w!” whistled the latter. “I suppose I must go. What on earth can he want to talk to me about? Perhaps it’s about you, Rupert.”
“Maybe it is,” replied the latter, puffing out a cloud of smoke with as complete nonchalance as though they were discussing the weather. And George Santorex, junior, furtively watching the unconcerned, relentless face, thought he could well understand the reputation which this man had set up in those Western wilds which had been for so many years their common home.
Chapter Forty
Conclusion
Summer has come round once more, and again, amid all the glories of a cloudless evening, we stand beside the banks of the rippling Lant – howbeit not without misgiving, for are we not about to enact the part of eavesdroppers towards those two strolling languidly, contentedly, there by the shining water?
“It strikes me, child, you seem inclined to find life rather a happy thing,” a voice well-known to us is saying. “And you’ve no business to.”
A loving pressure of the strong arm on which she is leaning is the only answer Yseulte deigns at first to make. Then:
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve done a very wrong thing. If the late lamented Dudley were alive, he would tell you that a man may not marry his grandmother, and by parity of reasoning a woman may not marry her grandfather. Now this is just what you have done, and it’s very wrong of you.”
She gave his arm a pinch.
“I never liked – boys!” she replied with a sunny smile. And then she sighed. For it was on this very spot, beneath this same spreading oak here on the river-bank, that poor Geoffry had made his passionate and despairing declaration barely a year ago. And now at the thought of the poor fellow and his miserable end far away in that savage land, she could not repress a sigh.
“By Jove!” cried Rupert Vallance, flinging a stone into the river. “Something here seems to remind me of that evening when I came upon you staving in the red brother’s grinders with the butt end of a fishing-rod. I wonder, by the way, what became of that same weapon? I expect Mountain Cat’s band still keep it as a big medicine-stick. Deuced bad medicine it was for the buck you were laying it into. Ho, ho!”
“Don’t remind me of that horrible moment,” she said, coming closer to him with a slight shiver. “Let us go home, it’s getting cold.”
The Rev. Dudley Vallance was dead. The shock of learning his son’s horrible end had brought on a stroke, and the following day he had breathed his last – not, however, before he had made what reparation he could for the wrong he had done his cousin, who, by the way, had so far relented as to satisfy him that he had borne no hand in poor Geoffry’s death, and, in fact was powerless to prevent it; added to which he had himself rescued him from the same fate on a previous occasion. So on his death-bed he had signed a hastily drawn-up will, bequeathing the Lant property to Rupert Vallance absolutely, save and except a yearly charge on the estate for the support of his widow and daughters. To this Rupert had added with ample liberality. Once “the old man had climbed down,” as he euphemistically put it, he himself was willing to let bygones be bygones, and had endowed the widow accordingly; needless to say, without earning the slightest degree of gratitude from the latter.
They strolled homeward across the meadows in the falling eve, and, lo, as they entered the gate of the home paddock there arose a whinny and a stamp of hoofs.
“Dear old Satanta!” said Yseulte, stroking the velvety black nose which the noble animal thrust lovingly against her hand. “You have well earned your ease for life, at any rate.”
“I should rather think he had. No more arrows flying in his wake. No more brack water or willow-bark provender. All oats and fun for life. We shall have to give the war-whoop occasionally, just to remind him of old times.”
“Please, sir,” said a man-servant, meeting them in the hall. “Postman says was he right in leaving this, sir?”
His master took the letter, glanced at the address, and exploded in a roar of laughter. It bore the United States stamp, and was directed —
“Judge Rupert Vipan, Lant Hall,
Brackenshire County,
Great Britain.”
“Nat Hardroper’s fist! Come along, Yseulte, and let’s see what that ’cute citizen’s got to say. ‘Judge!’ Great Scott! With infinite trouble I got him out of calling me Colonel, and now he’s elevated me to the judicial bench! ‘Vipan,’ too! The old name seems to stick, anyway.”
He broke open the letter and began to read —
Henniker City, Dakota, 14th July, 1876.
Dear Rupe, – Seems to me you’re fixed up pretty tight and snug, after “baching” around all these years. My respects to Madam.
May be you’ll not be sorry to hear I’ve sold your interest in the Burntwood Creek Mine to a New York Syndicate for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and five hundred fully paid-up shares in the new Co. If you weren’t so keen on settling down in Great Britain again I reckon this find would make you more than a millionaire. However, I’ve banked the specie here, where it’ll be safe enough till you undertake to ship it to Great Britain – safe enough, that is, while I’m Sheriff of Henniker City – though they did “hold up” the bank in Jabez Humbold’s time.
The pesky Sioux are still on the war-path, as I judge you’ll have learned even in Great Britain, but they’re in a fair way of being soundly whipped. And now I’ve got to tell you what you’ll be dead sorry to hear.
Yseulte, watching her husband’s face, marked the change that came into it, as he turned the sheet and glanced hurriedly down it. A terrible frown – a frown similar to that which she had seen there when, dismounted and alone, he had turned to face the savage pursuers at the entrance of the cañon that never-to-be-forgotten evening of her escape. Mastering himself, he continued to read:
Your old pard, Smokestack Bill, is rubbed out. He fell at the Little Bighorn with Custer and his command, and I reckon the red devils have had many a dance round his hair by this time. Poor Bill! I allow it’s kinder rough when men have been pardners all the years you and he have; but he fell in fair fight, and that’s better, as he himself would allow, than dying of a slow sickness, or being knifed in the back by some slinking wall-eyed rowdy in a saloon. Well, well! There wasn’t a straighter, stauncher, all-round man, nor a better scout on this continent than Smokestack Bill, and if so be as any man says there was, why he’ll be ill-advised to make the remark anywhere around this section. I judge that’s about all the news you’ll care for just now, and with my respects to Madam, now as ever, old hoss, your sincere:
Nathaniel J. Hardroper, Sheriff of Henniker City.
For some time Rupert Vallance stared vacantly at the hateful paper in dead silence. All the stirring experiences they had gone through together crowded upon his mind, and the fate of his friend, staunch, unswerving, true as steel, moved him more than he cared to show, even to his wife.
“Ah, well!” he said at last, laying down the letter with a sigh. “It’s bitterly rough on a fellow. For upwards of a dozen years we’ve chummed together like twin brothers, in tight fixes and out of them, and now the poor chap’s wiped out. Yes, it’s rough!” An arm stole round his neck. “Darling, can I forget that the noble, unselfish fellow saved your life and brought you back to me! And don’t think me unfeeling, but if I had never gone out there you might be lying there too, at this moment, having shared the poor fellow’s terrible fate.”
“That’s so,” he assented. “I hadn’t thought of it in that light.”