“That was the last day you were here, Miss Lalanté; with the Baas I mean.”
The sadness of the smile deepened, and the wide eyes gazing forth over the panorama of rolling plain and distant rock as seen from the stoep at Seven Kloofs, grew misty. Did she not remember that day, the last perfect one before the final rupture! Now Seven Kloofs was the property of her father, his only bad bargain, as we have said elsewhere. He had wanted to turn off old Sanna, if only that she formed a link between Lalanté and the former owner, whose memory he by no means wished kept green; but Lalanté had pleaded so hard against this that he had given way, and the old woman remained on in charge of the unoccupied house.
Hither Lalanté would sometimes ride over, even as to-day, to dwell, in imagination, among the past again. Now she turned from the stoep and entered the living room. The same, and yet not. Bare walls and floor, and yet how replete with memories. Here was where the dear old untidy table—with its litter heap shoved as much off one end as possible—had stood—there the low chair in his favourite corner—even the mark on the wall, where her portrait had hung, showed plain. All so familiar in the memories it brought that it almost seemed as though his tall figure should suddenly darken the doorway, or that some inexplicable replica of his presence should enter the room. Oh if she could but obtain some news, read but one line that his hand had traced!
It is a truism to insist on the associations which this or that particular spot, sometime occupied in common with a presence—gone, it may be, for ever—calls back to the mind, because even the most unimaginative must, in their heart of hearts, own to a consciousness of having at sometime in their lives gone through this feeling. Lalanté of course, was not unimaginative, and the associations which every stick and stone of the place conjured up were overwhelming in their sense of utter desolation. It seemed that every word that had passed between them sounded again in her ears, this jest here and on such an occasion, that light banter or grave discussion there, each and all at such a time and on such a spot. Within doors, outside on the stoep, or in the open veldt it was all the same, that awful, intense craving for the presence which was no longer there.
The patter of running feet and the light laughter of child voices—then her two small brothers came round from the back of the house.
“Time to go back Lala, hey? Oh!”
There was that in their sister’s look which turned both of them suddenly grave. A small hand—hot and of course not over clean—stole into each of Lalanté’s, and two untidy heads nestled against her, one on each side. These two had long since gained an inkling of the real state of affairs. Now they meant to be consolatory, but of course didn’t know what to say, so they said nothing.
“You darlings, yes it is,” she answered. “Go and tell Sixpence to bring round the horses.”
The former unreliable herd had been given the post of general out-door caretaker of the place—owing again to Lalanté’s pleading. Now he appeared, leading the three horses, a grin of cordiality making a white stripe across his broad face. He, again launched forth into inquiry as to when the Baas would return.
“Ou! but he hoped it would be soon,” he went on, when he got his answer. “That was a Baas to serve, none like him in the land. He was great, he was a chief indeed. He was his—Sixpence’s—father, and his heart was sore until his father’s presence was over him once more.”