Allan's Wife Read online

  Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

  ALLAN'S WIFE

  by H. Rider Haggard

  DEDICATION

  My Dear Macumazahn,

  It was your native name which I borrowed at the christening of that Allen who has become as well known to me as any other friend I have. It is therefore fitting that I should dedicate to you this, his last tale--the story of his wife, and the history of some further adventures which befell him. They will remind you of many an African yarn--that with the baboons may recall an experience of your own which I did not share. And perhaps they will do more than this. Perhaps they will bring back to you some of the long past romance of days that are lost to us. The country of which Allan Quatermain tells his tale is now, for the most part, as well known and explored as are the fields of Norfolk. Where we shot and trekked and galloped, scarcely seeing the face of civilized man, there the gold-seeker builds his cities. The shadow of the flag of Britain has, for a while, ceased to fall on the Transvaal plains; the game has gone; the misty charm of the morning has become the glare of day. All is changed. The blue gums that we planted in the garden of the "Palatial" must be large trees by now, and the "Palatial" itself has passed from us. Jess sat in it waiting for her love after we were gone. There she nursed him back to life. But Jess is dead, and strangers own it, or perhaps it is a ruin.

  For us too, Macumazahn, as for the land we loved, the mystery and promise of the morning are outworn; the mid-day sun burns overhead, and at times the way is weary. Few of those we knew are left. Some are victims to battle and murder, their bones strew the veldt; death has taken some in a more gentle fashion; others are hidden from us, we know not where. We might well fear to return to that land lest we also should see ghosts. But though we walk apart to-day, the past yet looks upon us with its unalterable eyes. Still we can remember many a boyish enterprise and adventure, lightly undertaken, which now would strike us as hazardous indeed. Still we can recall the long familiar line of the Pretoria Horse, the face of war and panic, the weariness of midnight patrols; aye, and hear the roar of guns echoed from the Shameful Hill.

  To you then, Macumazahn, in perpetual memory of those eventful years of youth which we passed together in the African towns and on the African veldt, I dedicate these pages, subscribing myself now as always,

  Your sincere friend,

  Indanda.

  To Arthur H. D. Cochrane, Esq.

  ALLAN'S WIFE

  CHAPTER I

  EARLY DAYS

  It may be remembered that in the last pages of his diary, written justbefore his death, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead wife,stating that he has written of her fully elsewhere.

  When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as hisliterary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which thefollowing is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr.Quatermain was not personally concerned--a Zulu novel, the story ofwhich was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy hadoccurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present.

  I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain's manuscript begins) that I wouldset down on paper the events connected with my marriage, and the loss ofmy most dear wife. Many years have now passed since that event, and tosome extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows itis still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even begun therecord. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed me beyondbearing, once because I was suddenly called away upon a journey, andthe third time because a Kaffir boy found my manuscript convenient forlighting the kitchen fire.

  But now that I am at leisure here in England, I will make a fourthattempt. If I succeed, the story may serve to interest some one in afteryears when I am dead and gone; before that I should not wish it tobe published. It is a wild tale enough, and suggests some curiousreflections.

  I am the son of a missionary. My father was originally curate in chargeof a small parish in Oxfordshire. He had already been some ten yearsmarried to my dear mother when he went there, and he had four children,of whom I was the youngest. I remember faintly the place where we lived.It was an ancient long grey house, facing the road. There was a verylarge tree of some sort in the garden. It was hollow, and we childrenused to play about inside of it, and knock knots of wood from the roughbark. We all slept in a kind of attic, and my mother always came andkissed us when we were in bed. I used to wake up and see her bendingover me, a candle in her hand. There was a curious kind of poleprojecting from the wall over my bed. Once I was dreadfully frightenedbecause my eldest brother made me hang to it by my hands. That is allI remember about our old home. It has been pulled down long ago, or Iwould journey there to see it.

  A little further down the road was a large house with big iron gates toit, and on the top of the gate pillars sat two stone lions, whichwere so hideous that I was afraid of them. Perhaps this sentiment wasprophetic. One could see the house by peeping through the bars of thegates. It was a gloomy-looking place, with a tall yew hedge round it;but in the summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the grassplat. This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived there. OneChristmas--it must have been the Christmas before my father emigrated,or I should not remember it--we children went to a Christmas-treefestivity at the Hall. There was a great party there, and footmenwearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the dining-room, which waspanelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree. Squire Carson stood infront of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet in his manners, and hewore a bunch of seals on his waistcoat. We used to think him old, butas a matter of fact he was then not more than forty. He had been, asI afterwards learned, a great traveller in his youth, and some sixor seven years before this date he married a lady who was half aSpaniard--a papist, my father called her. I can remember her well. Shewas small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, andglittering teeth. She spoke English with a curious accent. I supposethat I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know that my hairstood up on my head then as it does now, for I still have a sketch ofmyself that my mother made of me, in which this peculiarity is stronglymarked. On this occasion of the Christmas-tree I remember that Mrs.Carson turned to a tall, foreign-looking gentleman who stood besideher, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder with her goldeye-glasses, said--

  "Look, cousin--look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes;his hair is like a--what you call him?--scrubbing-brush. Oh, what adroll little boy!"

  The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson'shand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard herwhisper--

  "Leave go my hand, cousin. Thomas is looking like--like thethunderstorm."

  Thomas was the name of Mr. Carson, her husband.

  After that I hid myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I wasshy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire's only child,giving the children presents off the tree. She was dressed as FatherChristmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, andshe had large dark eyes, which I thought more beautiful than anythingI had ever seen. At last it came to my turn to receive a present--oddlyenough, considered in the light of future events, it was a large monkey.Stella reached it down from one of the lower boughs of the tree andhanded it to me, saying--

  "Dat is my Christmas present to you, little Allan Quatermain."

  As she did so her sleeve, which was covered with cotton wool, spangledover with something that shone, touched one of the tapers and caughtfire--how I do not know--and the flame ran up her arm towards herthroat. She stood quite still. I suppose that she was paralyse
d withfear; and the ladies who were near screamed very loud, but did nothing.Then some impulse seized me--perhaps instinct would be a better word touse, considering my age. I threw myself upon the child, and, beating atthe fire with my hands, mercifully succeeded in extinguishing it beforeit really got hold. My wrists were so badly scorched that they had to bewrapped up in wool for a long time afterwards, but with the exception ofa single burn upon her throat, little Stella Carson was not much hurt.

  This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall.What happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep Isometimes see little Stella's sweet face and the stare of terror in herdark eyes as the fire ran up her arm. This, however, is not wonderful,for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined tobe my wife.

  The next event which I can recall clearly is that my mother and threebrothers all fell ill of fever, owing, as I afterwards learned, to thepoisoning of our well by some evil-minded person, who threw a dead sheepinto it.

  It must have been while they were ill that Squire Carson came one dayto the vicarage. The weather was still cold, for there was a fire inthe study, and I sat before the fire writing letters on a piece of paperwith a pencil, while my father walked up and down the room talking tohimself. Afterwards I knew that he was praying for the lives of his wifeand children. Presently a servant came to the door and said that someone wanted to see him.

  "It is the squire, sir," said the maid, "and he says he particularlywishes to see you."

  "Very well," answered my father, wearily, and presently Squire Carsoncame in. His face was white and haggard, and his eyes shone so fiercelythat I was afraid of him.

  "Forgive me for intruding on you at such a time, Quatermain," he said,in a hoarse voice, "but to-morrow I leave this place for ever, and Iwish to speak to you before I go--indeed, I must speak to you."

  "Shall I send Allan away?" said my father, pointing to me.

  "No; let him bide. He will not understand." Nor, indeed, did I at thetime, but I remembered every word, and in after years their meaning grewon me.

  "First tell me," he went on, "how are they?" and he pointed upwards withhis thumb.

  "My wife and two of the boys are beyond hope," my father answered, witha groan. "I do not know how it will go with the third. The Lord's willbe done!"

  "The Lord's will be done," the squire echoed, solemnly. "And now,Quatermain, listen--my wife's gone."

  "Gone!" my father answered. "Who with?"

  "With that foreign cousin of hers. It seems from a letter she left methat she always cared for him, not for me. She married me because shethought me a rich English milord. Now she has run through my property,or most of it, and gone. I don't know where. Luckily, she did not careto encumber her new career with the child; Stella is left to me."

  "That is what comes of marrying a papist, Carson," said my father. Thatwas his fault; he was as good and charitable a man as ever lived, but hewas bigoted. "What are you going to do--follow her?"

  He laughed bitterly in answer.

  "Follow her!" he said; "why should I follow her? If I met her I mightkill her or him, or both of them, because of the disgrace they havebrought upon my child's name. No, I never want to look upon her faceagain. I trusted her, I tell you, and she has betrayed me. Let her goand find her fate. But I am going too. I am weary of my life."

  "Surely, Carson, surely," said my father, "you do not mean----"

  "No, no; not that. Death comes soon enough. But I will leave thiscivilized world which is a lie. We will go right away into the wilds, Iand my child, and hide our shame. Where? I don't know where. Anywhere,so long as there are no white faces, no smooth educated tongues----"

  "You are mad, Carson," my father answered. "How will you live? How canyou educate Stella? Be a man and wear it down."

  "I will be a man, and I will wear it down, but not here, Quatermain.Education! Was not she--that woman who was my wife--was not she highlyeducated?--the cleverest woman in the country forsooth. Too clever forme, Quatermain--too clever by half! No, no, Stella shall be broughtup in a different school; if it be possible, she shall forget her veryname. Good-bye, old friend, good-bye for ever. Do not try to find meout, henceforth I shall be like one dead to you, to you and all I knew,"and he was gone.

  "Mad," said my father, with a heavy sigh. "His trouble has turned hisbrain. But he will think better of it."

  At that moment the nurse came hurrying in and whispered something in hisear. My father's face turned deadly pale. He clutched at the table tosupport himself, then staggered from the room. My mother was dying!

  It was some days afterwards, I do not know exactly how long, that myfather took me by the hand and led me upstairs into the big room whichhad been my mother's bedroom. There she lay, dead in her coffin, withflowers in her hand. Along the wall of the room were arranged threelittle white beds, and on each of the beds lay one of my brothers. Theyall looked as though they were asleep, and they all had flowers in theirhands. My father told me to kiss them, because I should not see them anymore, and I did so, though I was very frightened. I did not know why.Then he took me in his arms and kissed me.

  "The Lord hath given," he said, "and the Lord hath taken away; blessedbe the name of the Lord."

  I cried very much, and he took me downstairs, and after that I have onlya confused memory of men dressed in black carrying heavy burdens towardsthe grey churchyard!

  Next comes a vision of a great ship and wide tossing waters. My fathercould no longer bear to live in England after the loss that had fallenon him, and made up his mind to emigrate to South Africa. We must havebeen poor at the time--indeed, I believe that a large portion ofour income went from my father on my mother's death. At any rate wetravelled with the steerage passengers, and the intense discomfort ofthe journey with the rough ways of our fellow emigrants still remainupon my mind. At last it came to an end, and we reached Africa, which Iwas not to leave again for many, many years.

  In those days civilization had not made any great progress in SouthernAfrica. My father went up the country and became a missionary among theKaffirs, near to where the town of Cradock now stands, and here I grewto manhood. There were a few Boer farmers in the neighbourhood, andgradually a little settlement of whites gathered round our missionstation--a drunken Scotch blacksmith and wheelwright was about the mostinteresting character, who, when he was sober, could quote the Scottishpoet Burns and the Ingoldsby Legends, then recently published, literallyby the page. It was from that I contracted a fondness for the latteramusing writings, which has never left me. Burns I never cared for somuch, probably because of the Scottish dialect which repelled me. Whatlittle education I got was from my father, but I never had much leaningtowards books, nor he much time to teach them to me. On the other hand,I was always a keen observer of the ways of men and nature. By the timethat I was twenty I could speak Dutch and three or four Kaffir dialectsperfectly, and I doubt if there was anybody in South Africa whounderstood native ways of thought and action more completely than Idid. Also I was really a very good shot and horseman, and I think--as,indeed, my subsequent career proves to have been the case--a great dealtougher than the majority of men. Though I was then, as now, light andsmall, nothing seemed to tire me. I could bear any amount of exposureand privation, and I never met the native who was my master in featsof endurance. Of course, all that is different now, I am speaking of myearly manhood.

  It may be wondered that I did not run absolutely wild in suchsurroundings, but I was held back from this by my father's society. Hewas one of the gentlest and most refined men that I ever met; even themost savage Kaffir loved him, and his influence was a very good onefor me. He used to call himself one of the world's failures. Would thatthere were more such failures. Every morning when his work was done hewould take his prayer-book and, sitting on the little stoep or verandahof our station, would read the evening psalms to himself. Sometimesthere was not light enough for this, but it made no difference, he knewthem all by heart. When he had fin
ished he would look out across thecultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their huts.

  But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church,and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate.

  It was there on the stoep that he died. He had not been well, and oneevening I was talking to him, and his mind went back to Oxfordshire andmy mother. He spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never beenout of his mind for a single day during all these years, and that herejoiced to think he was drawing near that land whither she had gone.Then he asked me if I remembered the night when Squire Carson came intothe study at the vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away, andthat he was going to change his name and bury himself in some remoteland.

  I answered that I remembered it perfectly.

  "I wonder where he went to," said my father, "and if he and his daughterStella are still alive. Well, well! I shall never meet them again. Butlife is a strange thing, Allan, and you may. If you ever do, give themmy kind love."

  After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from thedepredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and,as I had done before, and not without success, I determined to watch thekraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit ofmine of watching at night that I first got my native name of Macumazahn,which may be roughly translated as "he who sleeps with one eye open." SoI took my rifle and rose to go. But he called me to him and kissed me onthe forehead, saying, "God bless you, Allan! I hope that you will thinkof your old father sometimes, and that you will lead a good and happylife."

  I remember that I did not much like his tone at the time, but set itdown to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as theyears went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hourof sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As Icame near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my father's chair.At first I thought it must be a drunken Kaffir, then that my father hadfallen asleep there.

  And so he had,--for he was dead!