Let not men think, however, that they have it all their own way in the matter of clothes. White jackets and trousers are commonly worn here in summer, and it is very soothing, I am told, to try to put them on in a hurry when the arms and legs are firmly glued together by several pounds of starch. Then as to boots and shoes: they get so mildewed if laid aside for even a few days as to be absolutely offensive; and these, with hats, wear out at the most astonishing rate. The sun and dust and rain finish up the hats in less than no time.
But I have not done with my clothes yet. A lady must keep a warm dress and jacket close at hand all through the most broiling summer weather, for a couple of hours will bring the thermometer down ten or twenty degrees, and I have often been gasping in a white dressing-gown at noon and shivering in a serge dress at three o’clock on the same day. I am making up my mind that serge and ticking are likely to be the most useful material for dresses, and, as one must have something very cool for these burning months, tussore or foulard, which get themselves better washed than my poor dear cottons. Silks are next to useless—too smart, too hot, too entirely out of place in such a life as this, except perhaps one or two of tried principles, which won’t spot or fade or misbehave themselves in any way. One goes out of a warm, dry afternoon with a tulle veil on to keep off the flies, or a feather in one’s hat, and returns with the one a limp, wet rag and the other quite out of curl. I only wish any milliner could see my feathers now! All straight, rigidly straight as a carpenter’s rule, and tinged with red dust besides. As for tulle or crêpe-lisse frilling, or any of those soft pretty adjuncts to a simple toilette, they are five minutes’ wear—no more, I solemnly declare.
I love telling a story against myself, and here is one. In spite of repeated experiences of the injurious effect of alternate damp and dust upon finery, the old Eve is occasionally too strong for my prudence, and I can’t resist, on the rare occasions which offer themselves, the temptation of wearing pretty things. Especially weak am I in the matter of caps, and this is what befell me. Imagine a lovely, soft summer evening, broad daylight, though it is half-past seven (it will be dark directly, however): a dinner-party to be reached a couple of miles away. The little open carriage is at the door, and into this I step, swathing my gown carefully up in a huge shawl. This precaution is especially necessary, for during the afternoon there has been a terrific thunderstorm and a sudden sharp deluge of rain. Besides a swamp or two to be ploughed through as best we may, there are those two miles of deep red muddy road full of ruts and big stones and pitfalls of all sorts. The drive home in the dark will be nervous work, but now in daylight let us enjoy whilst we may. Of course I ought to have taken my cap in a box or bag, or something of the sort; but that seemed too much trouble, especially as it was so small it needed to be firmly pinned on in its place. It consisted of a centre or crown of white crêpe, a little frill of the same, and a close-fitting wreath of deep red feathers all round. Very neat and tidy it looked as I took my last glance at it whilst I hastily knotted a light black lace veil over my head by way of protection during my drive. When I got to my destination there was no looking-glass to be seen anywhere, no maid, no anything or anybody to warn me. Into the dining-room I marched in happy unconsciousness that the extreme dampness of the evening had flattened the crown of my cap, and that it and its frill were mere unconsidered limp rags, whilst the unpretending circlet of feathers had started into undue prominence, and struck straight out like a red nimbus all round my unconscious head. How my fellow-guests managed to keep their countenances I cannot tell. I am certain I never could have sat opposite to any one with such an Ojibbeway Indian’s head-dress on without giggling. But no one gave me the least hint of my misfortune, and it only burst upon me suddenly when I returned to my own room and my own glass. Still, there was a ray of hope left: it might have been the dampness of the drive home which had worked me this woe. I rushed into F—— ’s dressing-room and demanded quite fiercely whether my cap had been like that all the time.
“Why, yes,” F—— admitted; adding by way of consolation, “In fact, it is a good deal subdued now: it was very wild all dinner-time. I can’t say I admired it, but I supposed it was all right.”
Did ever any one hear such shocking apathy? In answer to my reproaches for not telling me, he only said, “Why, what could you have done with it if you had known? Taken it off and put it in your pocket, or what?”
I don’t know, but anything would have been better than sitting at table with a thing only fit for a May-Day sweep on one’s head. It makes me hot and angry with myself even to think of it now.
F—— ’s clothes could also relate some curious experiences which they have had to go through, not only at the hands of his washerwoman, but at those of his temporary valet, Jack (I beg his pardon, Umpashongwana) the Zulu, whose zeal exceeds anything one can imagine. For instance, when he sets to work to brush F—— ’s clothes of a morning he is by no means content to brush the cloth clothes. Oh dear, no! He brushes the socks, putting each carefully on his hand like a glove and brushing vigorously away. As they are necessarily very thin socks for this hot weather, they are apt to melt away entirely under the process. I say nothing of his blacking the boots inside as well as out, or of his laboriously scrubbing holes in a serge coat with a scrubbing-brush, for these are errors of judgment dictated by a kindly heart. But when Jack puts a saucepan on the fire without any water and burns holes in it, or tries whether plates and dishes can support their own weight in the air without a table beneath them, then, I confess, my patience runs short. But Jack is so imperturbable, so perfectly and genuinely astonished at the untoward result of his experiments, and so grieved that the inkosacasa (I have not an idea how the word ought to be spelt) should be vexed, that I am obliged to leave off shaking my head at him, which is the only way I have of expressing my displeasure. He keeps on saying, “Ja, oui, yaas,” alternately, all the time, and I have to go away to laugh.
February 16.
I was much amused the other day at receiving a letter of introduction from a mutual friend in England, warmly recommending a newly-arrived bride and bridegroom to my acquaintance, and especially begging me to take pains to introduce the new-comers into the “best society.” To appreciate the joke thoroughly you must understand that there is no society here at all—absolutely none. We are not proud, we Maritzburgians, nor are we inhospitable, nor exclusive, nor unsociable. Not a bit. We are as anxious as any community can be to have society or sociable gatherings, or whatever you like to call the way people manage to meet together; but circumstances are altogether too strong for us, and we all in turn are forced to abandon the attempt in despair. First of all, the weather is against us. It is maddeningly uncertain, and the best-arranged entertainment cannot be considered a success if the guests have to struggle through rain and tempest and streets ankle-deep in water and pitchy darkness to assist at it. People are hardly likely to make themselves pleasant at a party when their return home through storm and darkness is on their minds all the time: at least, I know I cannot do so. But the weather is only one of the lets and hinderances to society in Natal. We are all exceedingly poor, and necessary food is very dear: luxuries are enormously expensive, but they are generally not to be had at all, so one is not tempted by them. Servants, particularly cooks, are few and far between, and I doubt if even any one calling himself a cook could send up what would be considered a fairly good dish elsewhere. Kafirs can be taught to do one or two things pretty well, but even then they could not be trusted to do them for a party. In fact, if I stated that there were no good servants—in the ordinary acceptation of the word—here at all, I should not be guilty of exaggeration. If there are, all I can say is, I have neither heard of nor seen them. On the contrary, I have been overwhelmed by lamentations on that score in which I can heartily join. Besides the want of means of conveyance (for there are no cabs, and very few remises) and good food and attendance, any one wanting to entertain would almost need to build a house, so impossible is it to collect more than half a dozen people inside an ordinary-sized house here. For my part, my verandah is the comfort of my life. When more than four or five people at a time chance to come to afternoon tea, we overflow into the verandah. It runs round three sides of the four rooms called a house, and is at once my day-nursery, my lumber-room, my summer-parlor, my place of exercise—everything, in fact. And it is an incessant occupation to train the creepers and wage war against the legions of brilliantly-colored grasshoppers which infest and devour the honeysuckles and roses. Never was there such a place for insects! They eat up everything in the kitchen-garden, devour every leaf off my peach and orange trees, scarring and spoiling the fruit as well. It is no comfort whatever that they are wonderfully beautiful creatures, striped and ringed with a thousand colors in a thousand various ways: one has only to see the riddled appearance of every leaf and flower to harden one’s heart. Just now they have cleared off every blossom out of the garden except my zinnias, which grow magnificently and make the devastated flower-bed still gay with every hue and tint a zinnia can put on—salmon-color, rose, scarlet, pink, maroon, and fifty shades besides. On the veldt too the flowers have passed by, but their place is taken by the grasses, which are all in seed. People say the grass is rank and poor, and of not much account as food for stock, but it has an astonishing variety of beautiful seeds. In one patch it is like miniature pampas-grass, only a couple of inches long each seed-pod, but white and fluffy. Again, there will be tall stems laden with rich purple grains or delicate tufts of rose-colored seed. One of the prettiest, however, is like wee green harebells hanging all down a tall and slender stalk, and hiding within their cups the seed. Unfortunately, the weeds and burs seed just as freely, and there is one especial torment to the garden in the shape of an innocent-looking little plant something like an alpine strawberry in leaf and blossom, bearing a most aggravating tuft of little black spines which lose no opportunity of sticking to one’s petticoats in myriads. They are familiarly known as “blackjacks,” and can hold their own as pests with any weed of my acquaintance.
But the most beautiful tree I have seen in Natal was an Acacia flamboyante. I saw it at D’Urban, and I shall never forget the contrast of its vivid green, bright as the spring foliage of a young oak, and the crown of rich crimson flowers on its topmost branches, tossing their brilliant blossoms against a background of gleaming sea and sky. It was really splendid, like a bit of Italian coloring among the sombre tangle of tropical verdure. It is too cold up here for this glorious tree, which properly belongs to a far more tropical temperature than even D’Urban can mount up to.