Chapter Nine.
Despair Calls.
“It is not the perfect but the imperfect that have need of love.”
As I followed the little pathway which led from the house to the post-office buildings, where we were all to be shut in for the night, some one came running towards me and I presently recognised Mr Maurice Stair.
“Where are the other ladies?” he cried. “Is that you, Miss Saurin? Colonel Blow is fearfully annoyed that you aren’t all in long ago. There has been a warning sent in from the patrol and it’s quite on the cards that we may be attacked to-night.”
As he reached me I saw that there was another man behind him. The light was not good but I was able to distinguish a short, thick figure, and a puffy, fiery face. Upon the evening air I also recognised that faint sickening aroma of spirits I had already learned to associate with complexions of such radiant hue.
“This is Mr Skeffington-Smythe. He was so anxious about his wife that he left the column at Charter and has come down here to stay in laager and look after her.” Mr Stair was at no pains to conceal the note of irony in his voice, but it appeared to be quite lost upon his companion.
So this was the gallant dare-devil Monty!
“Where is the poor little woman?” he confidentially enquired, lurching towards me. But I withdrew hastily beyond his radius, and moved on, waving my hand towards the house I had just left.
“You’ll find them all there—and Mr Stair, bring my dressing-case will you? I’ve come without it.”
I had indeed come without anything, and without an idea of where I was to sleep or spend the night. It is true that I had seen Adriana piling up rugs and mattresses, mine amongst them, and carrying them out, but I could not suppose that Mrs Valetta had given any special directions for my comfort.
The post-office was humming like a beehive. Men were hastily finishing the barricades, and Colonel Blow was shouting instructions with a sandwich in one hand and a sand-bag in the other. Evidently he had had no time to dine. Lanterns flickered everywhere, and a group of men were getting a Hotchkiss into position on top of a piece of raised ground. One man was hopping about, groaning and swearing because the wheel of the carriage had gone over his toe. Others were struggling with barbed wire of which an entanglement was being made for an outer defence.
I passed through the doors of the building, and going along a wide passage came out into a verandah which gave on to a large court-yard. This was the prison yard, and away at the other end of it were the cells—a line of strong doors and barred windows. A fire near by had a three-legged pot upon it which gave up a smell of stew; and another fire had a large kettle boiling over it from a tripod.
All round the inside of the walls ran a wooden balcony. This had been roughly erected during the past week, but it was sufficiently strong to support the men who would have to stand to the walls, and fire over them in case of an attack at close quarters.
In the centre of the yard tents had been pegged out. Mrs Skeffington-Smythe’s, a red-and-white-striped affair dominated the situation, and struck a gay sort of sea-side note; several children were frolicking in and out of it, diving under the flaps and showering laughter. The Dutch women had slung all their things against the wall and were sitting on the heap, one of them nursing a baby, the other feeding a small child with bits cut off a strip of biltong. Many piles of rugs and blankets were lying about on the gravelled ground, and by the dim light of several paraffin lamps suspended from the verandah I recognised Mrs Marriott turning over pile after pile, evidently in search of her own. Near me in the verandah a little group of Fort George women were standing. They had the quiet air of sensible, self-possessed women, prepared for any emergency, and there was no fuss or excitement about them at all. They behaved as though sleeping in laager was an everyday affair. I heard Mrs Grant say that Colonel Blow had just told her that the alarm had been a false one occasioned by some stray oxen which had approached the outlying picket; and Mrs Burney said casually that she had felt sure it was something of the kind and that there was no likelihood of an attack until the main impis had been engaged with some of our men. They dismissed the subject carelessly. Another woman said:
“My Cliffie and your boy Dick are rather big to put in among the little ones, so I’ve fixed them up in a little dormitory by themselves behind the prisoners’ dock.”
“My chicks are fast asleep already, and now that we’ve got that curtain up don’t you think it would be as well if we all went off to bed?”
“It will certainly leave the coast clear for the other women.”
“Yes: that is what I mean.”
“Oh, and Mrs Grant have you got those biscuits for your little Allie?”
“Everything belonging to us is in there, and I’ve brought my spirit-lamp to make tea in the morning. I expect we shall have to turn out early.”
“At seven thirty Colonel Blow told me. Three of those tents are for the hospital sisters—they are coming into laager too—but not until the last thing at night, and they’re to go first thing in the morning; there will be a strong guard round the hospital all night.”
As I listened to these gentle, simple souls how I wished it had been to their set I belonged instead of to the set that looked over their heads and called them frumps and dowds. With their families of young children round them most of them had parted with a husband whom she might never see again. Yet here they were with cheerful faces making their plans and fixing up their children to take up as small amount of room and be as little nuisance as possible. I realised that as Dr Jameson had said, these were the real pioneers and patriots. These were the people Mr Rhodes needed for his new bit of Empire!
As they were leaving the verandah one of them gave a glance down the yard and stopped.
“There’s poor Mrs Marriott! I wonder if—couldn’t we ask her to come in with us?”
They discussed the matter softly amongst themselves.
“I’m afraid she wouldn’t, Mrs Burney. Poor thing, she is so frightfully sensitive—she might think we were pitying her.”
“We’ll chance that. I’ll go and ask her—shall I?”
She went quickly to where Mrs Marriott was now sitting with her hands in her lap, on an unshapely roll of blankets.
“Mrs Marriott—do let me help you get your things in,” she said. “And have you settled on a place yet? Won’t you come in with Mrs Grant and Mrs Shannon and me? We’re packed like sardines, with the children, but I’m sure we can make room for one sardine more—”
“Oh! no. No, thank you,” stammered the other woman. “I prefer being alone. It doesn’t matter where I am. I can manage without any one’s help.”
She had begun by being emotional and ended by being rude: but Mrs Burney did not take offence.
“Well, be sure and come to us if you find that you’re not comfortable,” she said cheerily as she hurried away.
A Dutch woman’s husband presently appeared and helped to sort out the children and various utensils from the Dutch domestic heap. It became plain that they were to be bestowed en bloc for the night in one of the prison cells. Whilst I was watching them make a trek to the end of the yard, a large stately woman, who looked like a dowager duchess, staggered in under the weight of many bundles, followed by a haughty satellite with a Wellington nose, who might have been at least a princess of the blood, so scornful was her air and the swish of her petticoat. I had never seen these imposing people before and wondered who they could possibly be, but they evidently had the advantage of me in this matter, for I distinctly heard my name whispered between them. They surveyed me curiously as if glad to have an opportunity of inspecting me so closely. I returned their gaze tranquilly and at last they went away.
Eventually there was no one left in the yard but Mrs Marriott and myself. I looked at her. She sat absolutely still on her untidy heap of clothes, her body slightly bent forward, both hands tucked down in her lap. A straw sailor-hat was pulled over her face, and her lank, heavy, dark hair lay in a dreary sort of knot far down the nape of her neck, shewing, between hat and hair, a long, unbeautiful line that had a kind of despair in it. Her thin figure in a well-fitting gown might have been pretty and temperamental, but in the faded pink blouse, and now historical grey skirt, soiled and shapeless and frayed at the edges, she was merely thin and shabby and utterly unattractive. I never saw a more hopeless look worn by any woman. It was not only that she was shabby—she was as spiritless as a dead crow. Her clothes drooped upon her as the leaves of a withering pumpkin flower droop in the sun. Her face wore the terrible look of uninteresting, unloved middle-age that even despair cannot mark with distinction. Yet she must once have had good looks far above the average. The traces of them were on her still—but they were only traces.
Presently Mrs Valetta and her party arrived. Adriana, loaded like a beast of burden, brought my dressing-case to me immediately, but the others when they saw me turned and fled as if from the yellow peril. Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, extraordinarily pale and subdued, made her way to her striped tent, followed by her husband who talked vivaciously and fondly to the back of her gown. He had a very thick-lipped mouth with a tiny straw-coloured moustache perched upon it, whilst around it a smile hovered unceasingly. He seemed to breathe the spirit of good-will and camaraderie (mingled with other spirits) towards all the world: but it was evident that Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was not under his spell. She kept on, saying nothing. Only, as she went to pull down the flap of the tent I saw her eyes snapping, and she pulled so hard that the tent flapped over on her and her devoted husband, whereupon a number of strange words issued in muffled tones from under the billowing canvas; and they were not all uttered in a man’s voice. Later, whilst they were at the business of pegging it out again, Mrs Valetta came on to the verandah and called out that she and Miss Cleeve had found a small room for themselves. Mr Skeffington-Smythe blithely responded:
“Ah! Good—That is good.—very good. I will come and see what I can do for you presently when I have fixed up my dear little woman.”
But Mr Skeffington-Smythe uttered never a word. Only, when next her Monty addressed a fond remark to her she very briefly and violently replied:
“Oh, shut up!”
It was plain that I was to be left to my fate. Adriana had brought some rugs and thrown them on to my dressing-case, and I seated myself upon them to consider the matter of accommodation for the night. A slight drizzle of rain began to fall, making the fires hiss softly, and throwing a sad little veil over everything.
Perhaps I looked nearly as hopeless and forlorn as Mrs Marriott, but I was far from feeling so. I had the light heart of the woman who loves and is beloved again, with the whole of life stretching out beautifully before me, and it would have taken more than all the rain out of heaven to drench the joy out of me that night. All the same it behoved me to be up and doing. There was no sense in getting wet and it also seemed indicated that I should rescue Mrs Marriott from a watery fate.
Certainly, I had heard her refuse to have anything to do with that nice, kind little Mrs Burney, but Mrs Burney had not had a passionate flame of love and faith re-lit in her heart that very night as I had. I felt loving-kind to all the world, and as though I could simply feed on snubs if only they came from some one who was really unhappy—not merely cross or spiteful.
And surely this poor woman sitting on the rugs was unhappy, and had cause to be. I remembered Dr Marriott’s face as he turned to the west, and the new light that had been lit in his doomed eyes by the strong, kind action of Anthony Kinsella—my Anthony Kinsella.
We were alone in the big yard now—Mrs Marriott and I; and silence reigned, except for the murmur of Mr Skeffington-Smythe’s voice inside the closed tent. Perhaps he was explaining to his dear little woman why he was the only man in the town not out on patrol or helping with the barricades.
I moved stealthily in the direction of my premeditated attack.
“Mrs Marriott!” I said in a pathetic way I have. “I do wish you would take care of me and let me stay with you to-night. I’ve been left out in the cold by the other women.”
She turned a pair of utterly tragic eyes upon me. Her mouth was the mouth of a woman with whom things had always gone wrong.
“I would rather be alone,” she said in her cold, dull way. This was not encouraging but I persisted, and my voice became very wistful indeed.
“Oh, do be friendly. I am a stranger here and I feel utterly lost. What does one do in laager?”
She looked at me vaguely.
“I don’t know. It is a new kind of misery to me, too.”
“Well, let’s beat it out together, shall we? We ought to be able to find a corner somewhere. Will you come with me to search?”
She stared at me for a moment, then stood up hesitatingly. I made haste to lead the way. After making a tour of the verandah and looking into every window we came to, we went inside and tried all the doors. Most of them were locked, signifying that the room was full-up. At last there was no place left except to try the room where the sorting and storing of mails went on. The main part of this was a wide passage with a door at each end—an impossible place to camp out in. However, there was a counter with a wooden partition above it, and going behind this I discovered quite a cosey little retreat. It had rather a mail-baggy smell, but that was a trifle to be ignored in such times of stress as these.
“We can make ourselves quite comfy here,” I said. “When we have locked both doors in case the postmaster unexpectedly returns. Now let us get our mattresses and rugs, shall we?”
She had no mattress: only a few striped coloured blankets of the kind that the natives drape around themselves. However, I had plenty of rugs, and my mattress though narrow was wide enough for two at a pinch. But she jibbed at sharing it.
“Why should I make you uncomfortable?” she said.
I stared at her and laughed. “Dear Mrs Marriott, I shall be ever so much more uncomfortable if you don’t. Now be a brick and do as I ask you.”
For some unknown reason her eyes filled with tears and her mouth began to quiver in a queer way. I turned away hastily, and having bolted the outside door began to barricade it with a heap of empty mail-bags. Whilst I was rummaging I came quite by accident upon the postmaster’s little private supply of stores, and in the spirit of martial-law I immediately commandeered them for the public benefit. There were sugar, tea, candles, some tins of “bully beef” and a canister of delicious-smelling coffee.
“Banzai! We’ll be able to make some coffee to keep their spirits up—they must be jolly tired. Come along, Mrs Marriott, let’s go and commandeer some of that crockery and the kettle of water in the yard.”
She seemed quite keen, so we unbarred and unbolted again and went out to the yard-fire where the kettle was still lustily boiling, and in five minutes we had two large jugs full of excellent coffee ready. There is a saying that Boers come to coffee as the asvogels come to dead ox. Very disgusting, but evidently true, for the smell of our coffee woke up the Boer family in their prison cell and they came meandering forth, sat down in a ring round the fire, and looked so wistfully and eloquently at the big jug that we had to give them some all round, especially as we were using their crockery. Afterwards they lent us their beakers and enamel cups and we made a forced march to the barricades. When the barricaders also smelt the arôme de Java on the breeze and saw the big jugs we were carrying they raised a cheer, and the postmaster said:
“By the Lord, that’s my coffee, or I’m a Boer!”
We gave him a cup for forgiveness’ sake, and Colonel Blow too, and afterwards the rest of them came up in parties and we ministered to them, washing the cups after each lot in a pail of water. When all the white men had finished, we served the black constables and convicts a beakerful apiece, Colonel Blow having sent to their quarters for their own beakers. The convicts, melancholy-looking fellows, surveyed me with a shy curiosity, I suppose because I was a newcomer. But Colonel Blow for some reason seemed to resent their looking at me, for as soon as he noticed it he gave a rough order in the native tongue that made them all look hurriedly in another direction.
I told the postmaster that we had invaded his sanctum, but he was quite charming about it, and at once bestowed upon us the freedom of the post-office. He said we could even use the postage stamps if they were of any use to us.
Later Mrs Marriott and I returned to our lettery retreat. When we were at last tucked in under our rugs with the candle out I asked her to give me her advice about what I should do next day.
“But I don’t understand, quite,” she said. “Aren’t you staying with the Salisbury ladies?”
“I was,” said I. “Mrs Valetta is supposed to be chaperoning me in the absence of my sister-in-law, but she has thrown up the position.”
“But—what have—what could you have done to offend her?”
“She has offended me.”
“But—can’t it be patched up? Can’t you overlook her offences? I don’t see how a young girl like you can live alone here.”
“I’m quite willing to patch up,” said I. “She and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and Miss Cleeve were all very rude to me, but—because of certain circumstances I can almost forgive them. However, I’m afraid they mean to declare war.”
“Well, but—forgive me for asking—what could you have done?”
“Weren’t you out seeing the patrol go off to-night?” I ventured.
“No!” she said in an abrupt kind of way, and I remembered then that I had not seen her in the crowd. She had of course said good-bye to her husband at home.
“I hardly know any of the men here,” she presently continued, “except Major Kinsella, and he came in during the afternoon to say good-bye. I thought it particularly nice of him to remember me—but then he is always kind.”
“It is about Major Kinsella that all the trouble is,” I said in a low voice. I thought I had better tell her the real story instead of letting her hear an embroidered version from some one else. She was silent.
“Anthony Kinsella and I love each other,” I said. “Before he rode away I kissed him good-bye before every one,”—I could not go on. The thought of that wonderful moment, and then, the sadness and bitterness of losing my lover overwhelmed me; my voice trembled and broke. A thin nervous hand grasped mine and held it tightly under the rugs. Yet her voice sounded doubtful when she spoke.
“He is a splendid fellow—any girl would be proud and happy to get him; but isn’t he—? I seem to have heard somewhere that he is—”
“Oh, don’t!” I cried. “Don’t! I’m sick of hearing it. That is what they all say. That is my offence against the manners and morals of this place—kissing a married man—” My hand was suddenly loosed and I could feel her draw away from me in the darkness. “But I don’t believe it for one moment!” I cried almost violently. “And I refuse to let these odious people poison my heart with their lies. I know he is a free man. He is incapable of lying.”
“Oh!” she said quickly and warmly, “if he told you he is free it is surely true. I do not believe either that he would lie.” She took my hand again and squeezed it.
“He did not tell me in words,” I said. “But his eyes could not lie to me. Oh, Mrs Marriott, he has such brave true eyes—”
“I know—” she began, and then fell silent again.
“Ah! you are like the rest,” I burst out bitterly, throwing her hand away from me, “ready to believe evil of a man whom you admit you have never known to be anything but kind and generous.”
“Don’t say that—it is not that I wish to believe evil, but I know men—a little, and my experience is that the best of them are terribly weak—and you are a very lovely girl. It is not impossible to think that he may have lost his head—”
“No, no, no!” I cried, “it is not so. I tell you I saw his eyes when he said good-bye to me. I will believe them against all the world.”
I felt that I had convinced her, too, even against her will—that was something. She never again chilled me with unbelief in my man.
But as to getting any advice out of her about my immediate course of action—it was simply hopeless. The poor woman’s unhappiness seemed to have dimmed her perception of what was going on round her in a place where she had lived for eight months. She knew of no place where I could stay. Did not even know if there were any hotels, or how many! I had to give her up as a guide and preceptor; but I was glad of the nervous pressure of her thin hand again before we slept, and something she said left my heart thrilling with happiness even while it ached for her.
“The men up here are all kind—but Major Kinsella’s kindness to me has been so different—there has never been any pity in it—you don’t know what that has meant to me—and his way with Rupert! He treats him as though he is still—Oh! perhaps you can understand?”
“As though he is still a man!”—that is what she would have said but her lips would not say it.
Poor soul! hers was the fag-end of a romance indeed!