Chapter Ten.
Charity Calls.
“To know anything about one’s self one must know all about others.”
The big main doors of the post-office were thrown open at an early hour of morning but the inmates of laager did not rise with the lark. They trickled forth at intervals, according to their use in life and the duties to be performed by them. When I came out on the verandah facing the barricades I found it strewn with the sleeping forms of men.
I stood for a moment looking at the landscape glowing and scintillating under the sparkling morning sunlight. Across the veldt a small body of horsemen came cantering towards the town; the men who had been out all night on picket duty.
I had slipped away from Mrs Marriott, for having long ago heard how sensitive she was about her tiny, barely-furnished hut, I did not want to cause her the embarrassment of offering to share it with me. I was looking at the mounting of one of the big guns and pondering the question of which hotel I should try, when Mrs Valetta swept past, her face coldly averted, and just the faintest suspicion of an intention to hold her skirt away from me. I flushed, then smiled disdainfully at the uplifted nose of Anna Cleeve who followed in her wake. Neither of them spoke a word. I had a childish inclination to whistle a time just to show them I didn’t care a button, but I conquered it, and started instead to pick my way through the wet grassy paths towards the Imperial Hotel—I had suddenly remembered that Hendricks had said the Imperial was kept by a woman.
Half-way across the township I was caught up by the doctor, and when I told him where I was bound for he very agreeably offered to escort me. But he peered at me curiously as if to know the reason of this odd departure. Arrived at the long, galvanised-iron building which glared and blinked in the morning sun, he left me in the verandah with the assurance that he would send Mrs Baynes out to me. A few minutes later I made the discovery that Mrs Baynes was the dropsical duchess with whom I had shared a staring acquaintance the night before. She immediately resumed her observations, but she was professionally civil and obsequious until she found that I wished to engage a room; her manner then underwent a series of rapid changes—from curiosity to amazement, to hauteur, to familiarity. She began to “my dear” me! I swallowed my indignation as best I might and assumed not to notice her impertinence, for I was beginning to fear that she would not take me in and there would be nothing for me but Swears’s.
“Aoah!” she said at last. (She had a peculiarly irritating way of pronouncing “oh!”) “Aoah! I thought you were staying with Mrs Valetta and all that swagger lot.”
She examined me intently from my hat to my shoes as though she had not done the same thing thoroughly the night before.
“Have you no rooms to let?” I repeated politely.
“Well—I don’t know—it depends.” She paused, tapping some dark blue teeth reflectively with her finger-nail whilst apparently counting the number of tucks in my skirt. She then closely inspected the gathers round my waist, and my belt-buckle.
“What does it depend upon?” I asked with deadly calm.
“Aoah! a lot of things.” She threw her head sideways revealing a generous splendour of double chin, and shouted over her shoulder in a tremendous voice. “Fanny! Come yerea minit.”
Fanny arriving was revealed as the tall and Junoesque girl with the swishing petticoat and the Wellington nose.
“This lady wants a room. What do you think, Fan?”
Fanny gazed at me in a queenly way over her military nose; but when she proceeded to count the tucks in my skirt and examine my belt-buckle I felt fury rising in me like a tidal wave.
“Madam!” I said, freezing the landlady with my eyes. “Will you be good enough to answer my question definitely? Can I or can I not engage a room in this hotel—and have my meals served to me there?”
“Aoah! meals served in bedroom! I never heard of such a thing.”
I turned away hot with wrath and met the eyes of Colonel Blow and Maurice Stair who had just come round the corner of the hotel and entered the verandah. They looked amazed at finding me there, so I explained hastily and haughtily to the former whilst Mr Stair and the doctor listened frankly, and the eyes of Mrs Baynes and “Fanny” seared the back of my frock and hat. Afterwards Colonel Blow said quietly and emphatically:
“Of course you have a room for this lady, Mrs Baynes—the best in the house. You can put me anywhere you like.” He added deliberately, “It would be a good thing to take Miss Saurin to her room at once and give her some breakfast.” There was no mistaking the “I-am-the-Commandant-and-mean-to-be-obeyed” tone of his voice.
He was probably Mrs Baynes’s best boarder in any case. Without a word she led the way, while “Fanny” dwindled from the scene like a bad dream. We walked through the dining-room, bare of anything but a long table and some dissipated-looking chairs, down a passage, and into a back verandah which had a row of doors facing the sunrise. At the third door she stopped and flung it wide:
“There you are!” she snapped. “Four pounds a week with board—paid in advance. Take it or leave it—I don’t care.”
She flounced away and left me. I went in and gazed about me. I had never been in a more hopelessly impossible room in my life.
One night just as we were straggling into laager, the look-out reported a small party of persons on the horizon, riding very slowly towards the town. It was not time for a change of pickets, neither could it be a patrol returning for there was no patrol out. When these two facts were thoroughly digested every one pranced for their field glasses, and the laager verandah became crowded with very busy people full of curiosity and excitement at the thought of news from the front. Later, as the little group came nearer to us out of the glamour of evening shadows it was seen to consist of three persons, and presently there materialised under our watching eyes two battered-looking troopers, coatless and (of course) extremely dirty, riding one on each side of a dandified slim young man in a suit of khaki of sulphurous shade but of the most precise and fashionable cut. His putties were put on beautifully: not a false fold or a bad line anywhere. His rifle-fittings shone brightly in the sunset glow, and the bandolier slung with debonair carelessness across his breast had not a cartridge missing!
All these details were noted and beheld with breathless interest before we could even see the face of this mysterious Brummel in khaki, for his police hat—the only inartistic thing about him—was pulled well down over his eyes. I think I was the first to see the glint of an amazing shade of golden hair, and the line of a defiant mouth. Some notion of the truth dawned upon me then and a moment after every one knew. Colonel Blow stepped forward and spoke to the troopers, and one of them, who was a sergeant, answered him briefly and to the point:
“The C.O. ordered me to escort this lady back to Fort George, sir.”
At this the slouch hat was pushed back, and Mrs Rookwood’s murky eyes stared defiantly at us all. Then her pretty mirthless laugh rang out.
“It was all that brute Anthony Kinsella’s fault,” she said, addressing herself exclusively to the Commandant. “When he joined the others and found me in his troop with George he immediately told the Doctor and had me sent back. Wasn’t it horrid of him, Colonel? I’m sure I should have made as good a soldier as any one else of them. I’m a first-class shot. You have said so yourself now, haven’t you?”
She was trying to carry her defeat off bravely under the remorseless stare of a number of feminine eyes. Her own were so bright that it was plain she was on the verge of tears, and as she left off speaking her mouth began to quiver. She hadn’t an atom of make-up on and looked almost middle-aged, but nevertheless extremely handsome. It was a difficult moment but Colonel Blow was true blue, and knew the right thing to do. He laughed cheerily and went forward to help her from her saddle.
“Well, you’ve had quite an adventure, Mrs Rookwood! But George will probably be put in the cells when he comes back for aiding and abetting you.”
“He didn’t,” she said, speaking more naturally. “I did it all on my own, but he was awfully glad to see me when I turned up.”
“Where did you leave them, Sergeant?”
“About thirty miles from Sigala, sir. Major Kinsella knew the way back was safe as he had just come along it and found it perfectly clear. But we had to ride hard.”
“Yes; you must all be fagged out. Mrs Rookwood, the best thing you can do is to get to bed at once. But finding a bed for you is another matter.”
He turned round in a half-appealing way to the group of women who had been standing behind him, but at the very suspicion of being asked to do anything for such a person as Mrs Rookwood almost every skirt disappeared like magic. In the twinkling of an eye there was no one to be seen but the spiteful Dutch woman and me, the tabooed of all tabooees.
“Miss Saurin”—he began in a persuasive voice.
“Of course,” I said, smiling at his distress, “I shall be delighted to do anything I can for Mrs Rookwood if she will let me. I’m afraid all the cosiest corners are gone, though,” I said to her, “and nothing but desks and mail-bags left to sleep on. But you’re welcome to share all we’ve got—and I’m sure Mrs Marriott will say so too.”
At this casual information she for some occult reason burst into tears, and stood there sobbing with her hands over her face. Poor Colonel Blow stared at her in dismay.
“She’s tired,” I said, “and hungry, too, I expect. Come along, Mrs Rookwood. I’ll serve you up one of my famous French suppers before you go to bed. Colonel, will you have the kit from her horse sent in, please?”
I put my arm round the slim trim khaki waist, and half led, half dragged her to the den behind the post-office counter. Mrs Marriott was there already reading a book by candle-light, and she looked absolutely aghast at seeing me with my arm round a man’s waist, for with her usual knack of missing any excitement that was going on she knew nothing of the event that had just taken place. From her nervous, horrified expression she evidently concluded that this was a fresh escapade on my part and that I was hopelessly incorrigible. When I explained the situation she was so much relieved that she did not show as I feared any coolness to the luckless Mrs Rookwood; but instead began in her absent-minded fashion to move her things so that there would be more room for the latter who was forlornly drying her tears.
“We’ve only one small mattress and that is stuffed with nails,” I said apologetically.
“I’ve slept on the ground ever since I left here, you know—and been fearfully cold at night, too. I don’t mind anything now. It is awfully good of you to bother with me at all.”
She looked as if she was going to howl again.
“Nonsense!” I said briskly. “Do you like coffee à la turc?—because I’m just going to make some. It picks you up like a balloon. You’ll feel like a roaring lion afterwards.” She began to smile. “And a Welsh rarebit,” I beguiled her. “Oh, don’t say you are one of those cowards who daren’t eat Welsh rarebits for fear of what dreams may come.”
“No; I love them.” I had her laughing at last. “And I’m so hungry, Miss Saurin.”
“Well! there will be Welsh rarebit and some cold Mashona hen I stole from the hotel—and let me see. Where is the box of sharks you had, Mrs Marriott?”
She produced the sardines, also two boiled eggs and a lettuce. It had become our pleasant custom to ask either Colonel Blow or Mr Stair or Mr Bleksley to come in to supper before the night watches began. Hence these luxurious stores.
“Good,” I said. “That will provide for three courses; chicken mayonnaise, Welsh rarebit, and a sardine savoury. Lie down and rest, Mrs Rookwood, while we prepare supper.”
She did as I told her without a word, and Mrs Marriott and I busied ourselves with the postmaster’s oil-stove and a pan and pot I had secured from Hunloke and Dennison’s. Mrs Marriott actually rose to the point of going out to the yard-fire by herself to make three slices of toast for the savoury.
“She’s coming along,” I boasted to Mrs Rookwood. “The first few nights she was in laager she had no more initiative than a dead duck, but she’s getting quite bright now. I really believe it is doing her good to come into laager and see society.”
“Your society would do any one good,” remarked my companion so warmly that I really felt she was sincere and I coloured all over with pleasure, for I always think a compliment from a woman is worth half-a-dozen from a man. I still had it in my heart against her that she had called my Anthony a brute, but her next words dissolved all my resentment and gave her my gratitude for ever.
“I never met any one more kind and generous—except Anthony Kinsella. I called him a brute this evening but that was only to cover my embarrassment and anger with all those cats staring at me. As a matter of fact he was perfectly sweet to me and at no one else’s command in the whole of this country—Mr Rhodes or Dr Jim or an Archangel—would I have left George and come back here to be laughed at. Not that you laughed—and I’ll never forget how good you’ve been, and Mrs Marriott too. And oh, Miss Saurin, you should see her husband. You wouldn’t know him, he has brightened and changed so much. He looks like a man again.”
“Oh, you must tell her,” I said. “Tell her as soon as she comes in. Did he speak to you?”
“Yes, they were all crowding round my horse cheering me at the last. I must tell you that though the Doctor was very cross with me, both he and Major Kinsella said things that made every one think I was a very brave woman indeed, instead of a silly little fool who thought she was doing something rather clever and found out that she was simply making extra difficulties for the men. Of course I know it disorganised things awfully—and then to have to send off two good men with me—and how they hated coming, poor fellows! Oh, I was awfully ashamed of myself, but I can assure you Tony Kinsella had every one of them cheering and kissing my hands as though I were a Joan of Arc—and all the time my heart was a wretched little speck of misery in me.”
She paused, staring wretchedly at the ceiling with her lovely murky eyes, and considering God knows what sad pages of her unhappy history. I was sorry for her, but my heart was glowing with joy to have heard tidings of the man I loved, and I could not be unhappy.
“Tell me about Mrs Marriott’s husband,” I presently said, when I could drag my thoughts away from Anthony.
“He was one of the last to take my hand and wish me good-bye and good-luck, and he said, ‘When you see my wife, Mrs Rookwood, will you tell her that I am feeling like another man, and give her—’ That was all, but he said it with such intensity that I’m sure he meant her to understand that he is another man, and he must have overcome his dreadful habit to a great extent to look as he does—quite bright-eyed and holding himself alert. I am sure that he was going to say ‘Give her my love,’ but a sudden shyness came over him in front of all those men, knowing, too, that every one knew how sad it had been for her.”
“You must tell her,” I said swiftly, for I heard her coming along the verandah. “Tell her everything, just as you’ve told me, and put in the love too—of course he meant to send it. You’ll be doing a fine action, Mrs Rookwood. That woman is half dead with despair.”
At this point we nimbly turned the conversation to the subject of supper, and having examined the toast which Mrs Marriott held out for my approval, I a few minutes later made it my business to go in turn to the yard-fire.
As I went along the side verandah, kettle in hand, I passed the window of the office in which Mrs Valetta and her party had their quarters. The room was brightly lighted with the N.C.’s rose-red lamp, round which a dozen woolly moths were buzzing, seeking destruction. The whole party was seated at the table playing cards. And Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was staring at her husband with a look of positive hatred in her eyes.
“I don’t cheat,” she was furiously asserting.
“Yes, you do; you always do; you think it’s funny. And all the time everybody else is hating you for it,” responded the warlike Monty amiably. Mrs Valetta and Miss Cleeve exchanged glances of the utmost boredom and disgust. Indeed, if there is anything more desperate in the way of ennui than to listen to a husband and wife quarrelling over cards, I don’t know it.
When I got back to our peaceful little den I felt inclined to decorate Mrs Rookwood with a gold medal with “Hurrah” on it in diamonds. Mrs Marriott had turned into another woman. To look at her one could almost believe that it was she who was emancipating herself from the drug habit. All her droopiness had gone. She looked like a flower upon which dew had fallen after long drought. She was not middle-aged any more. The Frenchman who wrote that age never comes to a woman who is loved, knew something about women and life!
My bed was not very comfortable that night, but I wrapped myself to sleep in a new dream of joy in my Anthony, who by his action in taking Dr Marriott in the face of all opposition had brought back fresh hope to two souls that bad seemed doomed to defeat and despair.