"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often starved, but never their bodies, and there is always the sunshine, to clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real meaning of the word poverty—you, for instance?"
"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten—there's the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"
Poppy could understand; but she was so much surprised that she said nothing.
"My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of auctioneers, and the experience I got there has been mighty useful too. But their place of business was a long way from Chelsea, and I couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day meal—a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put heart into me for my long walk—and she would be waiting for me in the evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader—I don't think the life of any famous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put heart into me to know that finer men than I had gone through the same mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his help never went any further than writing letters of advice and forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used to be."
Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what the worst mental suffering had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.
Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.
"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother and I had our memories all to ourselves."
He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her elbows among the papers on the table listening intently.
"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the time."
"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it up to her afterwards."