"The poor thing! Oh! the poor thing!" and looked at April as though she too were "a poor thing," instead of a fraud and an adventuress to be abjured and cast out. For the first time since her mother's death the girl felt herself sheltering in the warmth of womanly sympathy, and the comfort of it was very sweet.
"Don't worry too much," said Clive cheerfully.
"Tout s'arrange: that's my motto. Everything comes straight if you leave it alone."
A cheerful motto indeed, and one seeming to fit well with the picture of the old farmhouse lying in the morning sunshine. Low-roofed and white-walled, it was tucked under the shelter of the Qua-Qua mountains, with apricot orchards stretching away on either side. Six immense oaks spread their untrimmed branches above the high stoep, and before the house, where patches of yellow-green grass grew ragged as a vagabond's hair, a Kerry cow was pegged out and half a dozen black babies disported themselves amongst the acorns. Dozens of old paraffin tins stained with rust, and sawed-off barrels bulging asunder lined the edge of the stoep, all filled with geraniums, begonias, cacti, red lilies, and feathery bamboos. Every plant had a flower, and every flower was a brilliant, vital thing. Other decorations were a chopping-block, an oak chest, blistered and curled by the sun, several wooden beds with the bedding rolled up on them, and two women, who smiled a welcome. These were Ghostie, and belle Helène—the only names April ever knew them by.
"Welcome to the home for derelicts, broken china, and old crocks," they said. "You may think you are none of these things, but there must be something the matter with you or you wouldn't be here."
"Too true!" thought April, but smilingly answered, "There doesn't seem much wrong with you!"
"Oh, there is, though. Ghostie is a journalist, recovering from having the soul trampled out of her by Johannesburg Jews. I am a singer with a sore throat and a chronic pain in my right kidney that I am trying to wash away with the juice of Clive's apricots and the milk from Clive's cows."
"Nuff sed," interposed Clive. "Let's think about some grub. I've brought back sausages for breakfast."
Meekie, the mother of the black babies, had fetched in the parcels from the cart, and already there was a fizzling sound in the kitchen. The rest of the household proudly conducted April to the guest-chamber. There was nothing in it except a packing-case and a bed, but the walls were covered by noble studies of mountains, Clive pointed out some large holes in the floor, warning April not to get her foot twisted in them.
"I don't think there are any snakes here," she said carelessly. "There is an old cobra under the dining-room floor, and we often hear her hissing to herself, but she never does any harm."