“And your nose will always be subject to sun-blisters after this. Wretched, isn’t it?” Miss Cleeve said this.
I stared at them both, in surprise and indignation. My hair is not mahogany-coloured at all, but exactly like a mass of crushed wallflowers, and I am extremely fond of my nose, which is small and pale and distinguished. It may at that time have been faintly sunburnt, but certainly there was no slightest sign of a blister on it. Miss Cleeve herself had one of those wide-nostrilled noses that are called by their owners artistic, but which I consider degenerate.
“Oh, every one loses their good looks in this desolate place,” said Judy. “It is a truly awful country, isn’t it, Constance?”
Constance was Mrs Brand, a plump, tan-coloured woman with a silent manner and a leathery skin. She had so far given no sign of life, but she now made a graceful though brief contribution to the conversation.
“Rotten!”
She then beat a spot of dust off her skirt with a riding-crop she held in her hand, stuck out her boots and stared at them. I observed that they were riding-boots of the kind that finish somewhere near the throat, and I thought how very hot and uncomfortable they must be for evening wear. She was evidently eccentric, for my eye mechanically travelling upwards made the further discovery that she was dressed in a riding-habit. Certainly it fitted her as though it had been painted on her. But what an odd garment in which to make an evening call!
It is quite simple for plump women to have well-fitting clothes. All that is necessary is to have the things made tight enough—the plumpness does the rest. But I have noticed that a silent manner nearly always accompanies that kind of good figure. Women who have it do not seem to have any desire to talk, and when they do it is rather crossly—almost as if they had indigestion. They are also very fond of sitting down.
It is the graceful, curvy woman who has a bad time at her dressmaker’s, being fitted and fitted and fitted. Personally, I did not own a rag that hadn’t cost me hours of weary standing and having pins stuck in me before a mirror.
The behabited lady had transformed the glances of her sulky eyes from her boots to me with such a disagreeable expression in them that I couldn’t help thinking how pleasant it would be to tell her these things. In the meantime, Miss Cleeve was speaking again.
“I can’t think what anyone wants up here,” she said, with an air of the utmost ennui. I looked at her keenly, for I had heard her name on my journey up. At that time girls were not plentiful in Mashonaland; in fact, Miss Cleeve had so far enjoyed the distinction of being the only one in the country. People had hinted to me that she would not regard my arrival with ardour, and I couldn’t imagine why. Personally, I am fond of other girls, and think them ever so much nicer than married women, who get most frightfully tiresome with their stupid airs of mystery and superiority. Just as though any one couldn’t be married if they wanted to! I think it requires far more cleverness in a charming girl to keep unmarried.