Matheson explained that the rondavel had interested him, that Mr Herman Nel had kindly invited him to breakfast, and he had been glad to accept Mrs Nel laughed when he finished speaking.
“Ach! Herman lives like the Kaffirs,” she said. “There is never anything to eat by his house. You will be hungry just now.”
“Indeed, we fared sumptuously,” Matheson answered.
“And we have not finished,” Herman Nel put in. “We are about to taste some of your very good meiboss. Come and join us.”
Mrs Nel took some meiboss, and allowed the baby to suck a small piece, which it did with considerable enjoyment. She listened complacently to the general appreciation of this delicious preserve which she made according to a recipe that had been in the family for generations. Mrs Nel’s meiboss was unrivalled.
“Lekker!” she said to the baby. “It is lekker, eh?”
She put her fingers in the jar and drew out another piece. For the first time since she had entered Honor looked in Matheson’s direction, looked with a quick gleam of hostility in her eyes, as though expecting to detect in his expression something of the amusement she believed he experienced at the Nels’ expense. His steady gaze as it met hers disarmed her resentment. If it was a little unusual to thrust one’s fingers into a jar the contents of which others were sharing, it was a practice for which a precedent could be claimed. He helped himself from the jar and passed it to Honor.
“Jolly good stuff,” he said. “I don’t know when I have tasted anything half so good. Made with apricots... They’d like this in England.”
Mrs Nel proceeded to ply him with elucidatory questions about England.
“It is always raining there,” she announced by way of comment.