Read Ebook: Given in Marriage by Croker B M Bithia Mary

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Ebook has 1420 lines and 83957 words, and 29 pages

"Well, if you won't believe me, you can see the certificate of birth and baptism.--I was born at Fairplains."

"Don't tumble yet; stick on, and I'll explain. Daddy likes me to look a mere child, and can't endure the idea of my growing up. So I always wear simple frocks, and short skirts--it was only the other day, I put my hair up."

"Did you wear a pig-tail?"

"Yes, of course I did--it was a beauty, too."

"And I know I'd have pulled it! that's one temptation removed! Well, let me here and now apologize for my many enormities. I'm most frightfully sorry; I wish you were only sixteen."

"You may go on just as if I were. They all do."

"Thank you, Nancy. And so Mrs. Ffinch is law-maker, the local dictator, and match-maker?"

"Yes. She is immensely proud of the Meach affair; but not so proud of Fred Pollard's match. She married him off to a girl who was most unsuitable--so much so, that Fred fled to Ceylon, and the Pollards are not very good friends with Finchie! She does not wish Ted to marry Jessie Hicks; for then Nicky would have to move out of The Corner, and he might take it into his head, to run away with Nellie--and she has magnificent plans for her."

"Wheels within wheels," exclaimed Mayne. "It strikes me all the same, that these young people are not desperately in love; if they were, they'd never take all this so tamely, or so to speak, lying down."

"Yes, I saw; but I must confess I did not notice the usual interesting signs of mutual attachment."

"No? What are the signs?"

"I don't know much about it, but sitting in one another's pockets, holding one another's hands, and obviously wishing us all at Jericho."

"Getting on, you rude child! Why, I'm only seven and twenty. As to being in love--no, never what you may call, seriously."

"Seriously?"

"Ah, you jeer at love! Perhaps it may pay you out one day."

"Perhaps! And what about you, Nancy? Has no smart young tennis champion awakened your interest?"

She burst into a peal of laughter--her first laugh for four whole days.

"No, I've never been in love--or ever will; I haven't a tiny scrap to spare from Daddy; and here he comes to meet us--with poor lonely Togo."

"Well, Nance," he called out, "I've just fixed up a splendid treat for your birthday."

"What is it? Oh, tell me quickly--quickly!"

"We are going down to Holikul for three days for a shoot. There is a big native holiday that draws off our coolies, and I've invited the Corner boys; you shall undertake the commissariat, and play the queen of the party."

"How delightful, Daddy!" cried Nancy; then as she glanced at Mayne, "Oh, poor Captain Mayne!--your jaw has dropped four cubic inches; but I do assure you, it will be all right--when I'm out on a beat, and sit up in a machan, I'm so deadly, deadly, quiet, that you might hear a fly sneeze!"

THE PANTHER'S SECOND VICTIM

The expedition down to the Holikul jungle, proved a triumphant success, not only in the matter of sport, but of well-chosen and congenial company; Nancy, far from being an encumbrance, largely contributed to the comfort of the party.

The little camp was surprisingly well found; ice never failed, a tablecloth and brilliant tropical flowers, gave a touch of civilization to the alfresco meals, and after a long arduous beat among sweltering undergrowth, it was agreeable and refreshing, to sit out in the starlight, whilst Nancy and Nicky Byng sang solos and duets, the servants squatted round at a respectful distance, and Togo kept solitary ward.

Nancy proved to be well versed in forest lore. What she had picked up as a small child, when accompanying her father on various shooting expeditions, had never faded from a mind which held all impressions with tenacity. She knew the names of strange trees, and gorgeous flowering shrubs, and could relate, stirring legends and fabulous tales of the mysterious white tiger.

In her own line, Miss Travers proved as successful a hostess, as her great example at Clouds Rest, and in spite of her ingenuous girlhood,--had a way of mothering, and managing, the entire circle. There was not a spark of coquetry in her composition. She chatted to Ted and Nicky, precisely as if she were their pal and comrade, and it was evident to Mayne, that the "Corner boys," no less than Travers himself, worshipped the sole of this wood elf's small brown shoe!

Her birthday was an auspicious occasion. The house-servants, and head shikari, offered bouquets and wreaths; "The Corner" presented a tennis bat, and Mayne had surreptitiously placed a little parcel upon Nancy's plate. As she opened the blue velvet case, and beheld its contents, she gave a scream of delighted surprise.

"Here is the wicked man," he protested, pointing to Mayne; "my present has not arrived, but I expect it is waiting for you up at Fairplains."

"Captain Mayne," she exclaimed, with dancing eyes, "how ever so much too kind of you! I declare I'd like to kiss you. May I, Daddy?" glancing at him interrogatively.

Mayne looked at him expectantly, and stood up, prepared to accept this astonishing favour.

"My dear child," said Travers, "you are eighteen to-day, and must not go thrusting your kisses on young men."

"But I never did before," she protested.

"You should keep your first kiss for someone, who may come along one day!"

"Oh, Daddy," she murmured, blushing deeply through her tan, "now you have made me feel so shy, and uncomfortable. You all know," appealing to Ted and Nicky, "that I only wanted to do something, just to show Captain Mayne, how delighted I was--and am."

"You can do that in another way, Nancy," he replied, resuming his seat. "Call me by my Christian name--the same as these fellows."

"Derek--yes--and it's much prettier than Ted, or Nicky."

It was a merry, not to say noisy breakfast party; Nancy with two long white wreaths round her neck , the wristlet watch on her mahogany wrist, was in the wildest spirits.

"I woke this morning very early," she said; "almost before the birds, not because I was expecting presents in my stocking,--like at Christmas time, but because I was going to be eighteen, and I seemed to hear the bamboos--you all know how they whisper--murmuring to one another, 'Eighteen, eighteen, eighteen!'"

"Eighteen, will have to take to gloves and corsets," said Nicky, as he fumbled for his pipe.

"Fancy mentioning such an article in the free-as-air jungle," protested Nancy; "and anyway, my waist is only twenty inches."

"Nancy, spare us these particulars," protested her father. "One would think you were among a pack of women."

"Never mind him, Nancy," said Byng. "Tell him it's too late to start to keep you in bounds--and as for waists--Ted's is fifty."

"Daddy, I do wonder what you have got for me," she asked abruptly. "Won't you tell me?"

"I know," said Mayne; "it's awfully nice, you'll like it better than anything--and it's coming all the way from London."

"Then it must have cost a heap of money," she exclaimed. "Oh, Daddy!"

"Oh, Nancy," he echoed, "it's time we made a start; the shikaris are hanging about, so don't let us waste any more time," and he rose, and broke up the party.

Those three days in the Holikul jungles were a delightful, and flawless memory, to all concerned. How rarely can mortals say this! Sunburnt and weary, the Fairplains party returned to the shelter of a roof, and a daily delivery of letters, and parcels. The habit had arrived--moreover, it fitted.

Two evenings later, Travers and Mayne, Nancy and the head shikari, had been for a short, perfunctory beat, round the base of the hill on which the bungalow was situated. They were homeward bound, the bag, a mere peacock. Mayne and his host were a little in advance of Nancy, and last came the shikari, carrying the peacock, and Travers' gun.

As he was speaking, they turned an abrupt corner, and there, within forty yards, on a slab of rock, lay a sleek panther, and her two fat cubs! As she sprang erect, Mayne ran forward, and fired. But slightly wounded, she instantly leapt at him, and with such headlong ferocity, and impetus, that the weight of her body knocked him down, and sent his gun flying. Without a second's hesitation, Travers, armed with only a stick, rushed to where the savage brute was worrying her prostrate victim, and with all his might, hit her a smashing blow across the nose. Turning on him, with a furious snarl, she seized him by the forearm, but before she could do more, Tipoo ran up, and shot her through the head. She fell back, and after a few kicks, and one convulsive quiver, rolled over stone dead.

The whole scene had taken place within less than the space of two minutes. Nancy at first had stood by, a horrified, and paralysed spectator, but when the panther attacked her father,--she ran forward, and struck at it frantically, with her stick.

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