Chapter Five.
The Heart Calls.
“All charming people are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.”
On the second day after my arrival I descended upon my enemies in open field, or rather on open court. Judy, having reviewed my toilette before starting, was suddenly smitten with a violent headache, and said that Mrs Valetta would chaperon me to tennis.
In ordinary circumstances I should have felt distinctly mean about appearing amongst people who had for some time been cut off from shops and civilisation by about eight thousand miles of rolling land and sea, in a pale yellow muslin gown concerning which Lucile considered she had received special inspiration from Heaven, and a black chip Lentheric hat which no woman could look upon unmoved. However, I was not at that time considering the feelings of other women, but the ways of certain members of the family felis. It had come to my ears, through the kindly offices of my sister-in-law, that Mrs Skeffington-Smythe had informed the world at large that I was suffering from a boil on my nose and fifty-six mosquito bites variously distributed over the rest of my features. Miss Cleeve had contented herself with saying that she personally did not care for the new shade in hair—it had a pink tone in it that was bizarre. What Mrs Valetta said had not yet transpired, but looking at her as she slouched beside me in her tired coat and skirt, I felt sure that it was something equally malicious.
We arrived at the court in an hour of brazen heat. Four men were playing a sett, and several others were clustered round a tea-basket and Mrs Brand, who still wore her habit. On the other side of the court was a little group of women sitting in canvas chairs with white umbrellas over their heads and needlework in their hands. I was informed that these were the Fort George women—“frumps and dowds of the most hopeless order.” However, they appeared to be very happy and content in spite of this utter depravity on their part, and they had a number of nice, keen, clean-looking men with them. These did not stay for any time, having apparently business of their own to attend to.
“Husbands!” said Mrs Valetta scornfully, “and mostly shopkeepers and farmers at that.”
This naturally lessened my interest in them, for I did not suppose I should meet them if they belonged to the tradespeople class, and, in fact, I rather wondered what they were doing there at all. I had not at that time learned that in a new country like Mashonaland men can, and do, turn their hands to any trade or calling that is clean, without in the least prejudicing themselves or their future. Most of those nice, keen-looking men had left good professional livings to come adventuring to a new, sweet land full of radiant possibilities, but until some of the possibilities materialised the main thing was to get a living in the best way that offered. But as I say, I did not at the time realise these things.
Mrs Valetta in her rôle of chaperon languorously introduced the Salisburian side of the court to me. Between that and the Fort George side was evidently a great gulf fixed. I did not, however, think any of the men on the chic side desperately engaging. There was an ancient doctor with baggy cheeks and the leer of a malicious wild goat in his left eye; a sepulchral-looking parson; a man with a beard, whose first cousin was a duke, but who wore dirty hands and an unspeakable shirt without a coat, and several boys of sorts (all scions, it transpired, of noble houses). But I never take the slightest notice of boys or beards.
The men on the court were better; a big, grave man with a frolicking laugh—Colonel Blow, the Magistrate; the Mining Commissioner, a sleek, fair man; a rather handsome, chivalrous-looking young fellow called Maurice Stair; and a man with turquoises set in his ears, and blue eyes that compelled me to look his way the moment I reached the court, and then to drop my lids with the old, strange weighted sensation on them. I did not look his way again until, all introductions over I was seated, when I put on my most cynical expression and let him see that I was not observing him, but the game.
He was not as tall as any of the others if you came to measure by inches, but his figure had a strong, careless air, and the distinction of his head appeared to give him an advantage of about thirty inches over every other man in sight. His hair was certainly getting thin, and I was delighted to observe it. It was really impossible to bother for a moment about a man who had such hair. The black hank of it hanging down was not beautiful. He looked about forty, too. Still, he couldn’t have been that: no man who was old could have gone after the balls as he did. When I watched him I remembered the Bible words, “Like a swift ship upon the waters.” Of course, I knew all about sculpture, having lived with it and been brought up to it, so to speak, and I could not help knowing that only a beautifully built man could move like that. I could not help knowing it, but it did not interest me; in fact, it bored me, and I looked away from his careless glance when it came my way as carelessly as ever he looked in his life.
Presently the sett finished and the players came briskly towards the Salisburian side. But they were skilfully intercepted by Miss Cleeve and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, who chose this moment to arrive most gloriously arrayed.
“Yes, but why have you got on your best stars and stripes this afternoon?” the baggy doctor loudly demanded of them. He was evidently a person who said what he liked to every one. They turned away from him, disdaining to answer; but I knew why they were so glorious.
Miss Cleeve made haste to walk off with Colonel Blow to the end of the court, where there was a rustic seat evidently belonging to John Dewar and his sons, for their names were printed everywhere in black letters over the packing-case wood of which it was composed.
Mrs Skeffington-Smythe who had halted the blue-eyed man was reproaching him plaintively because he had not been to call on her since his return.
“But I haven’t had a minute since I got back,” he protested.
“You’ve had time to call on Mrs Valetta. Why couldn’t you have found a moment to come and see Anna and me?”
Mrs Valetta turned and bit at her:
“Kim and I have known each other for many years,—
“Old friends are best—
Old loves, old books, old songs.”
She broke off the quotation at that, smiling a little acrid smile. These things did not interest me in the least. I merely felt that I detested Mrs Valetta and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, and most of all the detestable man they were squabbling so crudely about. Mrs Valetta had returned to her business of introducing to me a large queue of freshly arrived men. She presented each with a brief biographical note, regardless of the protests of the victim.
“This is our disreputable postmaster, Mr Mark Bleksley. Plays the banjo divinely, but steals our letters.”
“Oh! I say—”
“Mr Maurice Stair—quite eligible—five hundred a year—Assistant Native Commissioner, and not bad-looking.”
“Handsome, Mrs Valetta—”
“These are Hunloke and Dennison. They keep a shop and rob us shamefully. Mr Hunloke is an American lawyer by profession, but he finds that overcharging us for bully beef pays better than law, and gives him more time for picnics.”
“I could take action on those statements. They are scandalous and libellous.”
“As for Tommy Dennison—”
“Please don’t rob me of my good name, Mrs Valetta. It’s all I have left. I’m as eligible as Stair, anyway.”
“No, Tommy. You are a younger son—and you have a past. Every one says you have.”
“Yes, but it’s past.”
“This is our only real Earl—Lord Gerald Deshon—Irish, penniless, and raving mad. You are a great friend of Miss Saurin’s brother, aren’t you, Gerry?”
“Yes, but I object to that biography. If you will listen to me, Miss Saurin—”
I did listen, but they all talked together, surrounding me and making a great deal of noise and saying the silliest, wildest things about themselves and each other; and a few yards away was that hateful voice, low and level, with the disturbing crake in it that suggested power and the habit of issuing orders. Whatsoever his orders were to Mrs Skeffington-Smythe she was evidently disinclined to carry them out.
“Nonsense!” she was protesting. “Let us go and talk to Anna. Don’t you think it is time you made up your quarrel with her? What did you fall out about, by the way?”
“You are mistaken. I’m sure Miss Cleeve has no quarrel with me.”
Mrs Skeffington-Smythe laughed gaily.
“You’re a fraud, Kim. Every woman has a quarrel with you.”
I hadn’t the faintest desire to hear these enigmatical sayings, but they all talked at the top of their voices, brandishing each others’ affairs. It appeared to be true that no one’s secrets were their own in this hateful country.
Mrs Valetta had broken up the crowd round me, ordering them to go and pick up sticks to boil the kettle for tea. They straggled away, complaining and abusing each other, to a patch of bush about five hundred yards from the court. The Earl was sent to Mrs Brand’s hut to fetch the milk which had been forgotten. I now saw myself menaced by the approach of the beard, and the thought of flight occurred to me, but at that moment the argument between the man and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe ceased.
“Oh, very well, since you are so very insistent,” she said crossly, and turning to me added sweetly, “Dear Miss Saurin, how is your poor nose? This is Major Kinsella. He is dying to inquire after it.”
If this was meant to cover us both with confusion it did not have the desired effect. At her words the smile suddenly left his face, and he bowed courteously; the steel-blue eyes looked into mine with a grave serenity. I could not but know that he was incapable of such gratuitous rudeness. Wherefore, instead of snubbing him, as I had intended to do, I bowed back to him and bestowed upon him the bright, cold smile of a frosty morning: I had the satisfaction of knowing that he recognised the quality of it, if Mrs Skeffington-Smythe did not. She changed her tactics.
“Major Kinsella, if you do not find me a seat I shall faint, I am so hot and tired. Do let us go over and sit in the shade with Annabel. It is much cooler there.”
Major Kinsella was something of a tactician himself it appeared.
“I hope you can have Miss Saurin’s seat in a moment. I am just going to ask her to play with me against Blow and Miss Cleeve.”
“I play terribly,” I said coldly. But he blithely announced that they all did, and no one cared a button; the main thing was to annoy your opponents as much as possible. As that rather appealed to my frame of mind at the moment, I eventually allowed myself to be beguiled to the court, where another sett had just broken up, Major Kinsella shouting unceremoniously to the others as we walked:
“Blow, come on. You and Miss Cleeve against Miss Saurin and me.”
The game was not uninteresting. My partner, whom Colonel Blow addressed as Tony, did all the work and only left me the slow balls, which I gracefully missed. The rest of the time we talked: at least he did. Secretly I preserved a bleak manner. He could not fail to plainly understand. But as I did not wish the whole world to know that I even cared to be cold to him, I filled in any prominent gaps in the conversation with a soft little laugh that he knew perfectly well was not meant for him, but that seemed to vex Miss Cleeve very much. For some reason not very apparent she lost her temper early in the sett, and said quite crossly that if we did not pay more attention to the game it was not worth while going on. That was très drôle, considering that we were winning all the time! I thought so, and Major Kinsella said it, laughing gaily. Her only answer was to slam the balls into me as hard as she could, and as I was out of practice and she a remarkably good player we should have come off badly in the end if it had not been for my partner’s speed and skill. I did not like him in the least, but I had to admit he could play tennis like a fiend.
Later, we approached the tea-table, which was a large packing-case presided over by Mrs Brand, and covered with a beautifully embroidered tea-cloth belonging to the postmaster, who kept bragging about it, and saying that it was the nicest cloth in South Africa, and how he had haggled for it at Madeira until the coolie was black in the face, and got it for half price.
Several of the men who had returned from the wood hunt with a few sticks in each hand lay upon the ground in an exhausted condition. The rest of us sat in a wide circle round the packing-case, and the men who had no seats took up a Yogi attitude upon the ground. The tea had a smoky flavour, but somehow it was the nicest tea I had ever tasted, and the smell of the dying fire of wood branches was fragrant in the air, seeming to remind me of some old sweet dream, until, glancing up, I saw Major Kinsella breathing it in too, like some lovely perfume, while he looked at me with a curious smile in his eyes. I knew then that we were both remembering the same thing; not a dream at all, but a real memory strangely poignant.
The sun had fallen to the horizon line and lay there like a great golden ball, sending long rays of fire into our very faces.
In those last searching beams, playing upon us so mercilessly it was revealed to me for the first time that though all were cheerful and merry every face about me wore some trace of stress or storm. For the first time I observed that men whose laughter was blithe enough had haggard eyes; that jests came gaily from lips that fell into desperate lines a moment later. On faces that were like tanned masks there were marks that dissipation might have made, or careless sins, or I know not what mischance of Fate. The women under their heavy veils and pretty hats had, to my suddenly sharpened vision, a pathetic disillusioned look, and some were careworn, and in the eyes of some there was the fateful expression of the losing gambler. Anthony Kinsella’s dark countenance, too, was scored with deep lines between the eyes and about the mouth—hieroglyphics I had no gift to read, and his eyes were as inscrutable as the points of blue in his ears.
For the first time I forgot all the things that annoyed me in these people, and began to like them with pity in my heart.
Were these the claw-marks that the witch Africa put upon those who dwelt in her bosom? Were these the scars of her fierce embrace? Surely not. Surely a witch’s cypher would be finer, more subtle, something secret yet plain as the sunlight to those who could read. What was it? Where was it? I sought it in the faces round me, and after a time I believed I found it, in the nil desperandum air that each flaunted like a flag. It was Hope. God knows what they hoped for—each for something different perhaps—but that was what woke the jest upon their haggard lips and brightened their disillusioned eyes; that was the secret gift the witch put into their hearts, the masonic sign she wrote across their brows. Hope!
“Hope—the heroic form of despair!”
My heart strangely thrilled with the thought that if I had read aright the witch’s symbol then I, too, was of the initiated. I was one of them—if only for a time!
While I thought and felt these things, I was vaguely aware that they watched me in a curious, searching way, as if I had for each of them some hidden message I had not yet delivered. Perhaps it was that coming from “home” and being quite new to the country I had a different look to the rest of them, I cannot tell; but there it was—they jested and laughed and gossiped with each other, but always their eyes came back to me with that wistful, searching glance. And my clothes seemed to have an extraordinary charm for them. One would have supposed I had dropped from some wonderful land from which they were life exiles, and that the glamour of that fair, lost country hung about me still. I saw men’s eyes examining my shoes and the tucks in my gown; even the one great La France rose in my hat had some magic; and the women looked so wistful that I felt tears rising, and was miserably ashamed of myself for having put on my prettiest gown to annoy them. It seemed to me then that even if they had been cats, I had been the worst cat of all. Lord Gerald Deshon said to me boyishly:
“May I sit next to you, Miss Saurin? you smell so nice.” And when the old doctor picked up my glove which had fallen, he gave it a little stroke with his hand before handing it back, as though it were something alive.
The sun sank out of sight at last, disappearing in a billowy sea of wild-rose clouds. Golden day departed, and silver eventide was born.
Gold for silver! I cannot tell why those three little words stole through my mind and settled in my heart, as we walked home under a great canopy of purple haze full of coolness and the scent of evening fires: but it seemed to me suddenly that they were the most beautiful words ever written and the meaning of them more beautiful still.
The entire party conducted Mrs Valetta and me to our doors. The women seemed loth to lose sight of us, and the men talked feverishly of commandeering all the horses in the town for a moonlight picnic. Unexpectedly to me, somehow, Major Kinsella killed this delightful plan by saying quietly: “No, the horses are not available.” The crake in his voice had become suddenly most pronounced; perhaps that was why the men, who had been so keen for the picnic, accepted this dictum without a word, but I thought the fact rather curious. Mrs Brand and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe were the only people who did not abandon the idea immediately.
The latter petulantly demanded reasons and told him that he did not own all the horses in the town, any more than he owned all the hearts. Mrs Brand said sturdily:
“I don’t know what you are up to, my dear Kim, but don’t you lay your hands on either of my horses.”
He smiled but made no promises, and instead of giving reasons to Mrs Skeffington-Smythe began to discuss the possession of hearts with her. I said good-bye hastily and went indoors.
Judy rid of her headache had cheered up and put on a pretty gown, but her hair was done anyhow and her manner unchangingly languid.
After dinner we spent the evening playing cards at Mrs Brand’s. She had a really comfortable two-roomed brick house lent her by the postmaster, on the condition that he could drop in whenever he liked. However, some gay spirits had rigged up in the hall a toy Maxim belonging to a mining engineer, and this was trained on to the front door and loaded with “mealies” for the benefit of the postmaster, in case he should “drop in” at the wrong time. Really these were the silliest people!
Somehow the evening did not prove so interesting as the afternoon. Almost all the same people were there but to me there seemed a lack of fire about the proceedings, even when Mrs Brand had a supper of curried eggs sent in from Swears’s to rouse us, and a delightful dessert consisting of the contents of grenadillas mixed with port wine, was served in champagne glasses.
The man called Stair attached himself to me in a quiet, unassuming way that I could not object to. He talked little but seemed to be content to sit near me and look at me with his rather romantic dark eyes. Neither Major Kinsella nor Colonel Blow appeared.
Incidentally, and without asking questions, I learned a great many things about the former. Off and on, he was the main topic of conversation during the evening. His name cropped up faithfully every five minutes. When Lord Gerry said that he had certain information that “Kim” was going to be in command of the Mounted Police that would be formed as soon as the trouble with Lobengula was over, Mrs Skeffington-Smythe said acidly:
“He behaves as if he were in command of the country now.”
“It wouldn’t be such a dusty thing for the country if he were,” a boy cockily announced; but this was rank treason to the gods in charge, and he was hooted down and told to go to bed.
“I wish I had his future,” said some one else.
“Even if you had to take his past with it?” a woman asked (Mrs Valetta).
“Certainly: that wouldn’t hurt me.”
“It might hurt a few women though,” sneered Mrs Skeffington-Smythe.
“How unfair women are!” said Lord Gerry. “If a man said a thing like that he would have to back it up or take the consequences.”
“Oh! I am quite ready to do both,” she answered perkily, and glanced at her great friend Miss Cleeve, who merely stared at her cards.
“You can’t blame a man because women are fools,” said the Mining Commissioner, a slight man full of heavy philosophy. Judy, with a prim air, abruptly changed the subject, but in five minutes they were back to it again, like cats to cream.
It transpired that “Kim” was short for Kimberley, where he had dealt with diamond mines, and made and lost a fortune.
“But wasn’t that a very long time ago?” I was surprised into asking. For I had passed through Kimberley and found that its day of glory had departed.
“Long? why, yes, it certainly wa-s,” drawled Mr Hunloke, the lawyer, wagging his head. “But Kim is no newly-hatched birdling.”
“Haven’t you observed that there’s no wool on his head where the wool ought to grow?” said one of the cheeky boys of whom I thought there were far too many about.
“No, I have not,” I answered disdainfully.
“Well, it’s getting mighty sparse,” he proclaimed, with increased cheekiness.
“Oh! that’s holy living,” said the doctor, and leered his goat-like leer.
I thought what horrid people they all were. It appeared that Anthony Kinsella was not an army man as English people understand the term. His rank had been gained in various bodies of African Mounted Police which he had belonged to in the intervals of making and losing money in the gold and diamond capitals. He had a great head for finance they said, but in the midst of successful undertakings and deals he would break away and disappear, and the next heard of him would be that he was living with his boys in a lonely part of the veldt, or had rejoined for a time some old corps of his. He had come adventuring to South Africa when he was quite a boy, knew every inch of the country, and was looked upon as almost a colonial.
“Almost, but not quite,” said Gerald Deshon, “he is one of us. Also, he is a born leader, and no colonial was ever that, though I daresay some will come along by-and-bye as the years roll on.”
“But why does he wear turquoise ear-rings?” I asked involuntarily, thinking no one but Lord Gerry was listening.
I was mistaken.
“Some woman stuck them in his ears, I suppose,” said Mrs Valetta fiercely; and she and Miss Cleeve glared at me across their cards. I stared at them in surprise for a moment, then laughed, though I was not greatly amused.
“I never thought of that.”
“You would have if you had known Kim long,” said Mrs Brand dryly.
“I’ve heard that there have been more men hurt than you can count on your fingers and toes through a too pressing curiosity about those ear-rings,” some one remarked.
“Yes, a fellow on the Rand once nearly died of that complaint,” added Tommy Dennison. “It is a subject that Kim will stand no ragging about.”
“She must have been a very pretty woman,” grinned the doctor.
I suddenly felt very tired and low-spirited and longed to go away from them. I was sick of their wretched card-party. I wondered what all the “frumps and dowds” were doing and their nice business-like men, and was inspired to make a remark.
“Do the Fort George men spend their evenings talking scandal also?”
There was absolute silence and then all the men began to grin.
“You can search me!” averred Mr Hunloke, but his partner answered blithely:
“Oh! they’re getting ready to tackle Loben.”
“There’s a lot of dirty work attached to an expedition and some one’s got to do it,” Gerry Deshon said. “Blow and Kinsella are up to their eyes, and a lot of the other fellows here are experienced men in wars with niggers. None of us would be of much use at present.”
“It takes all sorts of men to make a war. Perhaps if we are no good now we may be when the fighting comes along.”
I was rather attracted by this quiet, modest little statement made by Maurice Stair.
Every one walked home with every one else as usual, and discussed what they should do the next day to kill time. In the absence of any authority some bold spirits reverted to the moonlight-picnic plan for the next evening, but a man said decidedly:
“No good! Kim has got down some inside information from headquarters, and won’t let the horses a mile away from the town.”
An important resolution that we should all meet at the tennis-court the following afternoon was passed, and my sister-in-law was invited to invite every one to supper and cards in the evening.
“Oh, very well,” said she, swathed in languor as usual. “But I’ve no genius for entertainment. You’ll have to fish for your supper.”
“All right, we will,” they blithely cried, and announced to me, “You can bank on us, Miss Saurin. We’ll be there.”
I did not doubt the fact, but it failed to interest me. I, too, was wrapped in weariness. Life in Africa seemed to me to be inconceivably petty.