CHAPTER V.
KING SCRIP.
"Hallo, Stanninghame! And so, here you are?"
"Here I am, Rainsford, as you say; and from what I have heard in processof getting here, I'm afraid I have got here a day too late."
The other laughed, as they shook hands. He was a man of Laurence's ownage, straight and active, and his bronzed face wore that alert, eagerlook which was noticeable upon the faces of most of the fortune-seekers,for of such was the bulk of the inhabitants of Johannesburg at thattime.
"You never can tell," he rejoined. "Things are a bit slack now, becauseof this infernal drought; but a good sousing rain, or a few smartthunder showers, would fill all the dams and set the batteries workingagain harder than ever. It's the rainy time of year, too."
It was the morning after Laurence's arrival in Johannesburg, and, whilesallying forth to find Rainsford, the two had met on CommissionerStreet. The brand-new gold-town looked anything but what it was. It didnot look new. In spite of the general unfinishedness of the streets andsidewalks, the latter largely conspicuous by their absence; in spite ofthe predominance of scaffolding poles and half-reared structures of redbrick; in spite of the countless tenements of corrugated iron, and thetall chimneys of mining works which came in here where steeples wouldhave arisen in an ordinary town; in spite of all this there was abattered and weather-beaten aspect about the place which made it lookcenturies old. Great pillars of dust towered skywards, then dispersing,whirled in mighty wreaths over the shining iron roofs, to fall hissingback into the red-powdery streets whence they arose, choking withpungent particles the throats, eyes, and ears of the eager, busy,speculative, acquisitive crowd, who had flocked hither like wasps to ajar of beer and honey. And to many, indeed, it was destined to provejust such a trap.
"Well, what do you advise, Rainsford?" said Laurence, after some moretalk about the Rand and its prospects.
"Wait a day or two. You don't want to buy in a falling market. There areseveral good companies to put into, but things haven't touched bottomyet. When they do and just begin to rise, then buy in. Meanwhile lielow."
"You speak like a book, Rainsford," said one of two men who joined themat that moment. "There's a capital company now whose shares are on therise again. Couldn't do better than take two or three hundred of them.What do you say?"
"Name?"
"Bai-praatfonteins."
"I'll watch it!" said Rainsford, with an emphatic and negative shake ofthe head.
"I say, you don't want a couple of building stands? They'll trebletheir value in as many weeks. Going cheap as dirt now."
"Not taking any, Rankin," was the uncompromising reply, for Rainsfordknew something about those building stands.
"You're making a mistake. Bless my soul, if only I had the money tospare, I'd take them at double myself. I'm only agent in the matter,though. I can't do any business at all with you fellows this morning."
All this was said in the most genial and good-humoured tone imaginable.The speaker was a spare, straight, neatly dressed individual of middleage. His face was of a dark bronze hue, lit up by a pair of keen blackeyes, and his beard was prematurely gray, almost white. The expressionof keenness on a deal was not characteristic of him alone. Everyone woreit in those days.
"That was a great old shot you did on me, Rainsford, with those VerneukDraais," cut in the other man, in a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort ofvoice. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, whose conditionlooked as hard as nails. "_Ja_, it just was."
"Well, I'll buy them back if you like, Wheeler."
"How much?"
"Sixteen and a half."
A roar of good-humoured derision went up from the other.
"Sixteen and a half? And I took them over from you at twenty-eight.Sixteen and a half?"
"Well, are you taking?" said Rainsford.
"Dead off," returned the other.
"What do you say, you fellows?" cut in the first who had spoken. "Alittle 'smile' of something before lunch won't do us any harm. Eh? whatdo you say?"
"_Ja_, that's so. Come along," sung out the tall man, spinning roundupon one heel and heading for the Exchange bar.
"There's nothing like an Angostura to give one an appetite," said thedark man to Laurence as they walked along. "It gives tone to the system.Angostura--with a little drop of gin in it."
"With a little drop of gin in it?" repeated Wheeler, with a derisiveroar. "That's where the tone to the system comes in--eh, Rankin?"
"Only just out from home, are you?" said the latter to Laurence as,having named their respective "poisons," the original four, with two orthree others who had joined them _en route_, stood absorbing the same."Heavens! did you ever hear such a row in your life?" he went on, asthrough the open door connecting with the Exchange came the franticbawling of brokers, competing wildly for Blazesfonteins, and VerneukLaagtes, and Hellpoorts, and Vulture's Vleis, and Madeiras, and Marshes,and up and down the whole gamut. And there in the crowd lining the bar,and in the crowd outside the Exchange, and in the crowd upon MarketSquare, where the auctioneers stood, well-nigh elbow to elbow, bellowingfrom their tubs, and where you might bid for anything from a buildingstand or a pair of horses to a concertina or a pair of stays--everywherethe talk was the same, and it was of scrip. King Scrip ruled the roost.
Just then, however, the subjects of King Scrip were undergoing ratheran anxious time, for the drought was becoming serious. Dams being empty,batteries could not work; result, scrip drawing within alarming distanceof touching its own value--paper, to wit. And as the dams became moreempty, those with an "n" appended became more and more full--yea,exceeding full-bodied, and both loud and deep. In the churches they werepraying for rain,--praying hard,--for rain meant money; and in the barsthey were "cussing" for lack of it,--"cussing" hard,--on the sameprinciple. Then the rain came, and in the churches they sang "Te Deum";and in the bars they drove a humming trade in champagne, where "JohnWalker" had been good enough before. Up went scrip, and LaurenceStanninghame, having judiciously invested his little all, cleared aboutthree hundred pounds in as many days. Things began to look rosy.
By this time, too, Laurence got sick of hanging around the Exchange andtalking scrip. He had no turn that way, wherefore now he was glad enoughto leave his affairs in the hands of Rainsford, who, being an inhabitantof Johannesburg, was, of course, a broker; and, having picked up a verydecent No. 12 bore on one of the open-air sales aforesaid, laid himselfout to see what sport was obtainable in the surrounding country. Thiswas not much, but it involved many a hard and long tramp; and theTransvaal atmosphere is brisk and exhilarating, with the result that eyeand brain grew clearer, and his condition became as hard as nails. Andas there is nothing like a thoroughly healthy condition of body,combined with an equally healthy mental state,--in this instance theelation produced by an intensely longed-for measure ofsuccess,--Laurence began to realize a certain pleasure in living, asensation to which he had been a stranger for many a long year, andwhich, assuredly, he had never expected to experience again.
For the market still continued to hum, and by dint of judiciousinvestments and quick turnings over, Laurence had more than doubled theoriginal amount he had put in. At this rate the moderate wealth to whichhe aspired would soon be his.
And now, with the ball of success apparently at his feet, sounsatisfying, so ironical are the conditions of life, that he wasconscious of a something to damp the anticipatory delights of thatsuccess. Those long, solitary tramps over the veldt after scant coveysof partridge, or the stealthy stalk of wild duck at some _vlei_, werevery conducive to introspection; that wealth which he imagined withinhis grasp did not now look so all-in-all sufficing, and yet he haddeemed it the end and all-in-all of life. Even with his pastexperience--the depressing, deteriorating effects, mental and physical,of years of poverty in its most squalid and depressing form,"shabby-genteel" poverty--he realized that even the possession of wealthmight leave something to be desired. In fact, he became conscious of anunsatisfied longing, b
y no means vague, but very real, which came to himat his time of life with a sort of dismayed surprise. He would give upthese solitary wanderings in search of sport. The sport was of a poordescription, and the intervals between were too long. He had too muchtime to think. He would knock around the town a little for a change, andtalk to fellows.
One morning he was walking down the street with Rainsford andWheeler,--the latter, who was an up-country hunter, busy, in pursuanceof the prevailing spirit, in trying to trade him sundry pairs of biggame, horns, and other trophies,--when he heard his name called in avery well remembered voice. Turning, he beheld Holmes.
"Stanninghame, old chap, I _am_ glad to run against you again!" criedthe latter, advancing upon him with outstretched hand.
"I begin to believe you are," answered Laurence genially, with a comicalglance at the other's beaming countenance. "Why, you actually have alook that way. When did you get here?"
"By last night's coach. And, I say,"--trying to look wondrouslymysterious and knowing,--"who do you think travelled up by it too?"
"I can't even venture the feeblest guess."
"Can't you?" chuckled Holmes. "What about Miss Ormskirk, eh? How'sthat?"
"So? Now I remember, she did say something about a possibility of comingup here before long," replied Laurence equably, while conscious that theannouncement had convulsed his inner being with a strange, sweet thrill.For it came so aptly upon his meditations of late. The one unsatisfiedlonging--her presence. And now even that was to be fulfilled.
"You don't seem to take it over enthusiastically, Stanninghame," went onHolmes. "And you and she were rather thick towards the end of thevoyage," he added mischievously.
"Did you ever know me enthuse about anything, Holmes? But it's aboutlunch time; let's go and get some, and you can tell me what you havebeen doing since we landed from the old _Persian_, and what the deucehas brought you up here."
This was all very friendly and plausible; but before they had beenseated many minutes at lunch in a conveniently adjacent restaurantHolmes was discoursing singularly little upon his doings spread over theweeks which had elapsed since he had landed, but most volubly upon hisrecent coach journey congested within a space of three days--to whichtopic he was tactfully moved by his audience of one and also by his owninclination, as will hereinafter appear.
"Was Miss Ormskirk travelling alone, did you say, Holmes?" queriedLaurence, in initiation of his deft scheme for "drawing" the other.
"Not much. There was a big parchment-faced Johnny with her. He scowledat me like sin when we were introduced--was inclined to be beastly rudein fact, until he saw that I--er--that I--talked most to the other; thenhe got quite affable."
"To the other? What other? Out with it, Holmes," said Laurence, with ahalf smile at his friend's thinly veiled embarrassment.
"Oh, there was another girl in the crowd--Miss Falkner--deuced prettygirl, too. The sulky chappie was her brother."
"Whose brother? Miss Ormskirk's?" said Laurence innocently.
"No; the blue-eyed one's. At least they both called him George."
"Yes. I remember they came on board the _Persian_. You had landedalready, I think. From your description I recognize them. So they are uphere? Where are they staying?"
"At that outlying place where the coach first begins to get amonghouses. I can't remember the name. There's a biggish pub, you know, anda lot of houses."
"Booyseus?"
"That was it; Booyseus. They asked me to go and see them. You'd bettercome along too, Stanninghame. I say, d'you think it'd be too soon if wewent to-morrow, eh? Sort of excuse to ask if they'd recovered from thejourney--eh?"
"Was George so very exhausted then?"
"Oh, hang your chaff, Stanninghame! What do you think? You're an olderchap than I am, and know more about these things. Would it be too soonif we went to-morrow?"
"Be comforted, Holmes. As far as it rests with me, you shall behold yourforget-me-not-eyed charmer to-morrow if she's at home."
The conversation worked round to the inevitable topic, King Scrip.Holmes was fired with eagerness when in his unenthusiastic way the otherbegan to tell of such successes as he had already scored. For he, too,had come up there to take advantage of the boom. He was eager to rushout there and then to buy shares. Nothing would satisfy him but thatLaurence must take him round and introduce him to Rainsford on the spot.
But on the way to that worthy's office something happened. Turning intoCommissioner Street, they ran right into a party of four.Result--exclamations of astonishment, of recognition, greetings fromboth sides.
Three of the quartette we have already made the acquaintance of. Thefourth, Mrs. Falkner, a good-looking middle-aged lady, was the aunt ofthe other three, and with her they were staying.
"I've heard of you, Mr. Stanninghame," said this one, when introductionshad been effected. "I hope you have made a success of Johannesburg sofar. Everybody turns up here. I can hardly come up to the camp--we usedto call it that in the old days. I was among the first up here, youknow, and it's difficult to get into the way of calling it the town--Ican hardly come up here, I was saying, without meeting some one or otherI had known elsewhere."
"Yes, it's an astonishing place, Mrs. Falkner," answered Laurence. "Onlybare veldt but a very few years ago, now a population of fortythousand--mostly brokers."
She laughed, and Lilith cut in:
"I thought you were going to adopt the Carlylean definition of thepeople of England, Mr. Stanninghame."
"Oh, that'll come in time. I only trust I may not hold on too long tocome under its lash."
"Let us hope none of us will," said Mrs. Falkner. "Oh, dear, we are alldreadfully reckless, I fear. We are nothing but gamblers up here. Haveyou caught the contagion too, Mr. Stanninghame?"
"I'm afraid so," he answered, thinking how, even among the softer sexhere, King Scrip bore the principal sway.
He was thinking of something else at the same time. Lilith was lookingeven more sweet, more bewitchingly attractive than when last he had seenher. There was a warm seductive glow of health in her dark brilliantbeauty, a winsomeness in her simple, tasteful attire--the cooleasy-fitting blouse and skirt in a soft harmony of cream colour andlight gray, and the plain, wide-brimmed straw hat of the "sailor"kind--which made, to his eyes, an irresistibly entrancing picture.
She, no less than himself, was comparing notes--as two people will whohave been apart for a space, and have thought much of each other in theinterim. He, too, was improved in appearance. The fine climate, theopen-air life had lent a deeper bronze to his face and a clearness tohis eyes--even as an emancipation from sordid cares, together with apresent modicum of success and a prospect of further in the future, hadimparted a certain stamp of serenity to his expression which was notthere before. "Air, freedom, life's healthier side are good--success isgood--all good things are good--behold their result," was Lilith's innerverdict as the summing up of this inspection.
Now George Falkner's efforts at cordiality were about as effective asthe demeanour of a crusty mastiff encountering another of his kind wellwithin sweep of his owner's lash. His jealous soul had noted the glanceexchanged between his cousin and Laurence Stanninghame--the responsiveglance which for a brief second would not be disguised; the great anddeep-reaching gladness, which shone in both pairs of eyes as a result ofthis meeting. He stood gloomy and grim, while the two were talkingtogether, and then rather brusquely--and to the disgust of Holmes, whowas discoursing eagerly with pretty Mabel Falkner--he reminded his auntthat they were due to call at So-and-So's, and were far behind theirtime.
"Ah, yes, I was forgetting. Well, good-bye, Mr. Stanninghame. I hope youwill come and see us. It is nothing of a walk out to Booyseus, andbesides, there are several omnibuses in the course of the day. Mind youcome too, Mr. Holmes. Good-bye."
And the four resumed their way, and so did our two.
"Jolly, genial old party that Mrs. Falkner," pronounced Holmes, halfturning, slyly, to sneak a last glance after the blue-ey
ed and recedingMabel.
"Spare my susceptibilities, Holmes, even in your exuberance. That 'oldparty,' as you so unfeelingly define her, cannot own to more than two orthree years seniority over my respectable self--four at the outside,"said Laurence maliciously.
"Oh, go along with you, old chap," retorted Holmes, yet conscious offeeling just a trifle foolish. "But, I say," eagerly, "can we still goand look them up so soon as to-morrow, eh?"
"Don't let that misgiving interfere with your beauty sleep, Holmes," wasthe reply, dashed with a touch of good-humoured impatience. "People arenot so beastly ceremonious over here."
"I've brought you another sheep to shear, Rainsford," said Laurence, asthey entered the broker's office. "Don't clip him any closer than youdid me, though he's dying to set up as a millionaire on the spot."
And then, having effected this introduction, he left the pair to dobusiness or not, as the case might be, and strolled back to his ownquarters.
What was this marvellous metamorphosis which had come upon him, floodinghis life with golden waves of sweetness and of light? Now that he hadbeheld Lilith once more, he realized what entire hold she had taken ofhis thoughts since they two had parted on the deck of the _Persian_. Itwas a certainty there was no getting away from--but a certainty nowwhich he was not in the least desirous of getting away from. He hadbeheld her once more. Their meeting had been of the briefest, theirinterchange of remarks of the most commonplace, every-day nature. Yet hehad beheld her, had listened to the sound of her voice, had looked intoher eyes. And the glance of those sweet eyes had been responsive; andhis ear could detect a subtile note in the tones of her voice. SweetLilith! the spells she had begun to wreathe around him, so unconsciouslyto herself, so unconsciously to him, when first they talked together,were drawn, woven, more thoroughly now. And in his strange, newrevivification--the return of strength and health and spirits--herejoiced that it was so, and laughed, and defied circumstances, and Fateand the Future.