“Isn’t it awful?” said Judy. “That is the way they buried my poor Dick too. A Scotch-cart with bullocks! But Dr Jim and every one came to Dick’s funeral. He was one of the ‘old crowd.’ This must be some stranger.”
“Fellow from Lomagundis’, died of the jim-jams last night,” said Mr Courtfield pleasantly. “Anderson’s barmaid was sweet on him. That’s her behind, hanging on to Browne’s grey. The horse will have a raw back before it gets back to Police quarters.” He finished his informing remarks with a cheerful snigger, seeming to take some kudos unto himself for discovering that the bunched-up, red-eyed woman could not ride.
Having at last got round the brown hill we came suddenly upon the town. In a moment we were in the main street, which was called Pioneer Street, and the shops of galvanised iron were blinking and winking at us from either side. There were a few brick buildings, and many thatched roofs. All had the conventional verandah, which at the sound of our cart rapidly filled with the usual brown-faced, shirt-sleeved men. Judy dispensed a number of queenly bows and one or two charming smiles, all gratefully received. I smiled too, sometimes, when I saw a face I knew, for many old Fort Georgians were in Salisbury; but my heart was aching, aching, as the sight of brown-faced, shirt-sleeved men now always made it ache.
It was explained to me that this was the business part of the town, known as the Kopje; the residential quarter was on the other side of a large green swamp, and was called the Causeway. A number of squat-looking houses were scattered far and wide over the veldt.
“How I wish,” said Judy, “that Dick had bought a place in town instead of going so far out. Kentucky Hills is still twelve miles away, on the Mazoe Road.”
Mr Courtfield agreed with her that it was very annoying she should have to ride twelve miles for society, or society for her. My head and heart ached dully. I was thankful when at last Maurice Stair rode up to tell me that Kentucky Hills, my brother’s place, was just round the next kopje.
It looked very homelike as we suddenly came upon it, lying in a wide green kloof with low hills winging away from it on either side—a big square bungalow house, painted green, with verandahs all round, and the beginnings of a charming garden about it. At one side of the house a tennis-court had been laid out, and a summer-house put up. It was certainly far ahead of most of the Mashonaland houses, but Dick had begun to build it as soon as he came up, and having the advantage of a little capital had been able to do more than most people.
The verandahs were blinded and full of ferns growing in native pots, and the inside of the house was charmingly comfortable: big airy rooms and windows looking out on the ever-changing changelessness of the red-brown veldt and the far-off hills. The furniture consisted chiefly of deep, comfortable lounge chairs, and tables of polished brown wood that I took for oak, but was really teak, a wood of the country. Judy had her English things scattered about, and photographs of Dick and home-scenes that brought blinding tears to my eyes. There was also a piano, the first that had come into the country, Judy told me; a hotel-keeper had brought it up to make his bar more alluring, but Dick offered him a hundred and fifty pounds for it, though it was only a simple instrument of no particular make. Since the war plenty of pianos have come into the country, but in those days one in hand was worth ten en route.
Judy had asked the men to stay to lunch, and while they were in the dining-room and we were taking off our veils in her room, a boy brought in little Dickie, a darling wee man of five with his father’s eyes and his mother’s blond colouring.
“This is your Auntie Deirdre,” said Judy, and he lifted a shy face to be kissed. At the touch of his innocent cherubic lips the great loneliness that filled me dispersed a little. My world was not so empty after all. Here was Dick’s son for kinsman!