Chapter Sixteen.
Nel showed something of the disposition of a boy when later he revealed to Matheson the secret of his rondavel. He fixed his rope ladder to a beam in the roof, mounted, and, removing a part of the thatch, disappeared into the obscurity beyond through the opening he had made. For a moment his face showed in the opening, smiling down on Matheson, who stood below watching the proceedings with interest.
“Follow me,” he said. “It is quite spacious up here, but somewhat hot. And there are cockroaches.”
Matheson swarmed up the ladder after him, and thrust his head and shoulders through the opening and looked about him. It was difficult to see anything in the gloom, but after a while he made out Nel’s figure seated with the shoulders against the thatch. It was not possible to stand upright; the room at its highest point was not above five feet; but there was space enough for three or four persons to sit with ease, and a certain amount of ventilation came through holes in the grass roof.
“One would not perhaps use it for a sitting-room,” Nel said; “but it is a good hiding place.”
“Excellent,” Matheson replied. “No one would suppose, judging from the exterior, that there was space enough between the roof for a room like this. It’s deceptive from below.”
“Yes. I decided on a high roof for coolness, and the double thatch for the same reason. It was an afterthought to make use of the space between. I planned this loft, and elaborated it until it developed into my secret chamber. The movable thatch and rope ladder I made myself. I will ask you to descend now. It would not distress me if Miss Krige surprised my secret, but I would not have it generally known.”
Matheson, as he observed Nel unhitch his ladder and fold it up and thrust it inside a chest which stood on the floor, realised that this display of confidence was Herman Nel’s way of showing that he trusted him, that he accepted his word as to his ignorance of the nature of the enterprise he had so heedlessly embarked upon. It was a practical proof of faith in his future discretion.
They resumed their seats and discussed South African politics and the future of the country, until the arrival of Honor, with Cornelius, his wife, and the baby, broke up their talk.
Mrs Nel was a heavily made woman, dark complexioned and far from handsome. Cornelius had married her for no physical attraction, but for the many domestic qualities for which she was justly renowned. The baby was not handsome either; but it was good, and in Cornelius’ opinion a good baby was preferable to a pretty baby. He, himself, was rather like his brother, only taller and more stoutly built.
Matheson was introduced, and the newcomers shook hands.
“Why did you not come to my house?” asked Cornelius. “My wife and I would have been very pleased.”
Matheson explained that the rondavel had interested him, that Mr Herman Nel had kindly invited him to breakfast, and he had been glad to accept Mrs Nel laughed when he finished speaking.
“Ach! Herman lives like the Kaffirs,” she said. “There is never anything to eat by his house. You will be hungry just now.”
“Indeed, we fared sumptuously,” Matheson answered.
“And we have not finished,” Herman Nel put in. “We are about to taste some of your very good meiboss. Come and join us.”
Mrs Nel took some meiboss, and allowed the baby to suck a small piece, which it did with considerable enjoyment. She listened complacently to the general appreciation of this delicious preserve which she made according to a recipe that had been in the family for generations. Mrs Nel’s meiboss was unrivalled.
“Lekker!” she said to the baby. “It is lekker, eh?”
She put her fingers in the jar and drew out another piece. For the first time since she had entered Honor looked in Matheson’s direction, looked with a quick gleam of hostility in her eyes, as though expecting to detect in his expression something of the amusement she believed he experienced at the Nels’ expense. His steady gaze as it met hers disarmed her resentment. If it was a little unusual to thrust one’s fingers into a jar the contents of which others were sharing, it was a practice for which a precedent could be claimed. He helped himself from the jar and passed it to Honor.
“Jolly good stuff,” he said. “I don’t know when I have tasted anything half so good. Made with apricots... They’d like this in England.”
Mrs Nel proceeded to ply him with elucidatory questions about England.
“It is always raining there,” she announced by way of comment.
“The sun is to be seen on occasions,” he returned. “Also cases of heat apoplexy have been known. Still, it is drier on the Karroo.”
“Ach, the Karroo! Generally we have a drought here. One wishes the Lord had distributed things more evenly. But no doubt. He had His reasons. It would not be well for us to have everything as we would like.”
The conversation hung after that, until Herman Nel revived it by a discussion of the various accepted methods for raising water: he put forward certain projects of his own in this connexion which Cornelius and Matheson disposed of as impractical. Cornelius was inclined to accept the drought, as the unenlightened Boer accepts scab and other evils, as a visitation of Providence which it would be futile as well as impious to attempt to evade. He was a fairly prosperous man, but the profitable working of the farm was largely owing to the more energetic younger brother, whose keener intelligence and sound judgment co-operated successfully with the other’s undoubted skill in, and knowledge of, all branches of farming. Cornelius disapproved of many of his brother’s advanced, and what he termed English, ideas; but he was quick to appreciate the advantage when he reaped a profitable return on them. He was shrewd enough to recognise that alone he could not have achieved the prosperity he enjoyed.
The conversation shifted from wells to motor-cars. This convenient means of transport had found its way on to many farms. It linked up scattered districts and decreased distances enormously. Herman Nels spoke of getting a car, but his brother, and his brother’s wife, opposed the idea energetically.
“My! I would never trust myself in one of those things,” Mrs Nel declared emphatically, unconscious that her decision was in her brother-in-law’s opinion an argument in favour of the thing she depreciated. “It was never intended that we should rush through the air like that.”
“And yet there is the railway,” Matheson reminded her.
“Ach! the railway has its uses. But it does a lot of damage. Do you remember, Cornelius, when a spark from the engine fired your good trucks loaded with forage? And the Government would give no compensation, because no one actually saw the spark that set it alight come from the engine. As though it could have been fired any other way! Ach né! the railway is no good. The Lord gave us oxen for beasts of burden.”
“A bit slow in the going, aren’t they?” Matheson suggested.
“Those who travel slowly travel surely,” she answered conclusively.
“I would like a car if we could afford one,” Honor said. “But nothing is so good as a horse.” She looked at Matheson, and added: “We ought to be mounting.”
He rose promptly, and a general move followed. When he was on his feet Cornelius delivered himself of the weighty reflections which had kept him silent during the recent discussion.
“The railway is very well; but it should make full compensation for all loss. The railway is controlled by the government; the government is controlled by the capitalists. That is not good, no!”
“The landowner is something of a capitalist himself,” Herman Nel put in drily.
His brother bent on him a look of heavy displeasure.
“The landowner in the future will represent the power of this country,” he said, and closed the argument by lighting his pipe.
Every one accompanied the visitors outside, and watched them mount and ride away. Herman Nel assisted Honor to the saddle, and while he remained with his hand on the rein he looked up at her and said quietly:
“Carry my love to Freidja.”
He did not seem to expect an answer, for he stepped back as he spoke; and Honor made no response, only when the other adieux were spoken and the horses started, she looked back at the man standing apart from the rest and smiled at him as she rode away.
For a while Matheson and his companion rode in unbroken silence. He was busy with the thoughts which Herman Nel’s disclosure had set fermenting in his brain. The course he would follow was plain. But it was not easy after the Kriges’ courtesy to leave them summarily; it was not possible, he felt, to do so and refuse to carry Krige’s message without causing offence. The risk had to be taken however. He could no longer lend himself to the furtherance of a matter which he now admitted freely he had not approved of from the first. He ought never to have allowed himself to be mixed up in the affair. It was not easy to draw back; it was less easy to rid himself of the influences which, spreading over three weeks of intimate daily life with Honor—for it was always in Honor his thoughts centred—affected him powerfully, changing all his view of things, altering his entire perspective. It was amazing what a grip this girl had succeeded in getting on his imagination. Try how he would he could not shake his thoughts clear of her. Abruptly he glanced in her direction. She rode with the reins loose on the horse’s neck; her face, which was partly averted, wore an air of abstraction, the eyes fixed with unfocussed vision upon the distance. She too seemed to have much to occupy her thoughts.
“I say!” he said, and broke off suddenly, not knowing after all what he intended saying.
She turned her face and looked towards him with gravely inquiring eyes.
“I’ve got to go away,” he jerked out after a pause. “I’ve got to get back. This is very pleasant, but... it has to come to an end.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and looked a little puzzled—“of course. We expected you would be leaving shortly. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to go.” He was insistent on this point. “I regret going—immensely.” He paused, and added after a thoughtful moment: “For some reasons I regret that I ever came.”
“That is not very kind,” she said. “No,” he allowed; “it doesn’t sound kind. But... you know. You understand... I’ve been here too long.”
“I think,” she said, breaking the short embarrassed silence with a remark so apposite that he was considerably taken aback, “that Herman Nel’s company has affected you. I did not wish to leave you with him.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“He is a man who holds mistaken ideas,” she replied. “In my opinion he is a very fine man,” he returned, a note of quiet admiration in his voice. “But I don’t see what grounds you have for assuming my mind to be so responsive to tutelage. I am not more readily impressed than most people.”
She laughed in some amusement, but made no comment on his speech. It flashed into her mind to wonder whether he was so fixed in his opinions that she would fail to sway him if she essayed the task? And thinking so, and looking up with the laugh still in her eyes, she surprised so warm an expression of admiration in his glance that her cheeks burned under his look. She turned her face away. It seemed to her that in his eyes she had read an answer to her thought.
“You do not go to-day?” she asked presently.
“No,” he answered sharply.
A conviction that he ought to go without delay assailed him with irritating persistence. With the moment for decision, the thought of leaving Benfontein became less easy; he did not want to go. He believed that she was aware of his reluctance, that in a measure she shared it. He felt her will joining with his to oppose his decision.
“Then at least we can have one other ride together,” she said softly.
“Yes.” He flicked at the flies that were worrying the horse, and did not look at her. “We will have one last ride together—since you are good enough to propose it.”
“That is my way of showing I am sorry for being disagreeable,” Honor observed.
Which remark, calling for contradiction, making too a special claim upon his gratitude, moved him to express warm appreciation of her consistent kindness, and his deep regret at the thought of departure. He did not intend to have any misunderstandings on that head. He wanted to make it quite clear that it was in relation to herself the approaching separation affected him so gravely. He was busy with his explanation, and getting, as he was aware, somewhat deeply involved in an analysis of emotions that threatened, while leading nowhere in particular, to leave him presently stranded high and dry above the watermark of conventional intercourse, when Honor interrupted him, snapping effectually the chain of his ideas.
“Visitors!” she cried.
The displeased ring in her voice, the vexed surprise of her expression, were eloquent of her resentment at this unlooked-for event. They were nearing the homestead. Matheson, intent upon his companion to the exclusion of everything, failed, until roused by her exclamation to a closer observation, to see the low buggy standing in the shade of the big aloes. A Kaffir stood by the horses’ heads. He presently led the animals towards the stable, and the buggy, bumping into the open, showed a heavy list on the driving side which witnessed to the girth of the owner beneath whose weight the springs had all but collapsed. This familiar sight drove the vexation out of Honor’s eyes. She smiled suddenly.
“It’s Oom Koos,” she said—“Oom Koos Marais. That’s all right. I feared it might be a stranger.”
On the whole, Matheson decided on reflection, the presence of the newcomer would facilitate rather than hinder his departure.