JESS GOES TO PRETORIA
That day, at dinner, Jess suddenly announced that she was going on the
morrow to Pretoria to see Jane Neville.
“To see Jane Neville!” said Bessie, opening her blue eyes wide. “Why,
it was only last month you said that you did not care about Jane
Neville now, because she had grown so vulgar. Don’t you remember when
she stopped here on her way down to Natal last year, and held up her
fat hands, and said, ‘Ah, Jess—Jess is a _genius!_ It is a privilege to
know her’? And then she asked you to quote Shakespeare to that lump of
a brother of hers, and you told her that if she did not hold her tongue
she would not enjoy the privilege much longer. And now you want to go
and stop with her for two months! Well, Jess, you are odd. And, what’s
more, I think it is very unkind of you to run away for so long.”
To all of which prattle Jess said nothing, but merely reiterated her
determination to go.
John, too, was astonished, and, to tell the truth, not a little
disgusted. Since the previous day, when he had that talk with her in
Lion Kloof, Jess had assumed a clearer and more definite interest in
his eyes. Before that she was an enigma; now he had guessed enough
about her to make him anxious to know more. Indeed, he had not perhaps
realised how strong and definite his interest was till he heard that
she was going away for a long period. Suddenly it struck him that the
farm would be very dull without this very fascinating woman moving
about the place in her silent, resolute way. Bessie was, no doubt,
delightful and charming to look on, but she had not her sister’s brains
and originality; and John Niel was sufficiently above the ordinary run
to thoroughly appreciate intellect and originality in a woman, instead
of standing aghast at it. She interested him intensely, to say the
least of it, and, man-like, he felt exceedingly annoyed, and even
sulky, at the idea of her departure. He looked at her in protest, and,
with an awkwardness begotten of his irritation, knocked down the
vinegar cruet and made a mess upon the table; but she evaded his eyes
and took no notice of the vinegar. Then, feeling that he had done all
that in him lay, he went to see about the ostriches; first of all
hanging about a little in case Jess should come out, which she did not
do. Indeed, he saw nothing more of her till supper time. Bessie told
him that she said she was busy packing; but, as one can only take
twenty pounds weight of luggage in a post-cart, this did not quite
convince him that it was so in fact.
At supper Jess was, if possible, even more quiet than she had been at
dinner. After it was over, he asked her to sing, but she declined,
saying that she had given up singing for the present, and persisting in
her statement in spite of the chorus of remonstrance it aroused. The
birds only sing whilst they are mating; and it is, by the way, a
curious thing, and suggestive of the theory that the same great
principles pervade all nature, that now when her trouble had overtaken
her, and that she had lost the love which had suddenly sprung from her
heart—full-grown and clad in power as Athena sprang from the head of
Jove—Jess had no further inclination to use her divine gift of song.
Probably it was nothing more than a coincidence, although a strange
one.
The arrangement was, that on the morrow Jess was to be driven in the
Cape cart to Martinus-Wesselstroom, more commonly called Wakkerstroom,
there to catch the post-cart, which was timed to leave the town at
mid-day, though when it would leave was quite another matter.
Post-carts are not particular to a day or so in the Transvaal.
Old Silas Croft was to drive her with Bessie, who wished to do some
shopping in Wakkerstroom, as ladies sometimes will; but at the last
moment the old man felt a premonitory twinge of the rheumatism to which
he was a martyr, and could not go. So, of course, John volunteered,
and, though Jess raised some difficulties, Bessie furthered the idea,
and in the end his offer was accepted.
Accordingly, at half-past eight on a beautiful morning up came the
tented cart, with its two massive wheels, stout stinkwood disselboom,
and four spirited young horses; to the heads of which the Hottentot
Jantje, assisted by the Zulu Mouti, clad in the sweet simplicity of a
moocha, a few feathers in his wool, and a horn snuffbox stuck through
the fleshy part of the ear, hung on grimly. In they got—John first,
then Bessie next to him, then Jess. Next Jantje scrambled up behind;
and after some preliminary backing and plunging, and showing a
disposition to twine themselves affectionately round the orange-trees,
off went the horses at a hand gallop, and away swung the cart after
them, in a fashion that would have frightened anybody, not accustomed
to that mode of progression, pretty well out of his wits. As it was,
John had as much as he could do to keep the four horses together, and
to prevent them from bolting, and this alone, to say nothing of the
rattling and jolting of the vehicle over the uneven track, was
sufficient to put a stop to any attempt at conversation.
Wakkerstroom is about eighteen miles from Mooifontein, a distance that
they covered well within the two hours. Here the horses were outspanned
at the hotel, and John went into the house whence the post-cart was to
start and booked Jess’s seat, and then joined the ladies at the
_Kantoor_ or store where they were shopping. When their purchases were
made, they went back to the inn together and ate some dinner; by which
time the Hottentot driver of the cart began to tune up lustily, but
unmelodiously, on a bugle to inform intending passengers that it was
time to start. Bessie was out of the room at the moment, and, with the
exception of a peculiarly dirty-looking coolie waiter, there was nobody
about.
“How long are you going to be away, Miss Jess?” asked John.
“Two months, more or less, Captain Niel.”
“I am very sorry that you are going,” he said earnestly. “It will be
dull at the farm without you.”
“You will have Bessie to talk to,” she answered, turning her face to
the window, and affecting to watch the inspanning of the post-cart in
the yard on to which it looked.
“Captain Niel!” she said suddenly.
“Yes?”
“Mind you look after Bessie while I am away. Listen! I am going to tell
you something. You know Frank Muller?”
“Yes, I know him, and a very disagreeable fellow he is.”
“Well, he threatened Bessie the other day, and he is a man who is quite
capable of carrying out a threat. I can’t tell you anything more about
it, but I want you to promise me to protect Bessie if any occasion for
it should arise. I do not know that it will, but it might. Will you
promise?”
“Of course I will; I would do a great deal more than that if you asked
me to, Jess,” he answered tenderly, for now that she was going away he
felt curiously drawn towards her, and was anxious to show it.
“Never mind me,” she said, with an impatient little movement. “Bessie
is sweet enough and lovely enough to be looked after for her own sake,
I should think.”
Before he could say any more, in came Bessie herself, saying that the
driver was waiting, and they went out to see her sister off.
“Don’t forget your promise,” Jess whispered to him, bending down as he
helped her into the cart, so low that her lips almost touched him, and
her breath rested for a second on his cheek like the ghost of a kiss.
In another moment the sisters had embraced each other, tenderly enough;
the driver had sounded once more on his awful bugle, and away went the
cart at full gallop, bearing with it Jess, two other passengers, and
her Majesty’s mails. John and Bessie stood for a moment watching its
mad career, as it fled splashing and banging down the straggling street
towards the wide plains beyond; then they turned to enter the inn again
and prepare for their homeward drive. At that moment, an old Boer,
named Hans Coetzee, with whom John was already slightly acquainted,
came up, and, extending an enormously big and thick hand, bid them
“_Gooden daag._” Hans Coetzee was a very favourable specimen of the
better sort of Boer, and really came more or less up to the ideal
picture that is so often drawn of that “simple pastoral people.” He was
a very large, stout man, with a fine open face and a pair of kindly
eyes. John, looking at him, guessed that he could not weigh less than
seventeen stone, and that estimate was well within the mark.
“How are you, Captain?” he said in English, for he could talk English
well, “and how do you like the Transvaal?—must not call it South
African Republic now, you know, for that’s treason,” and his eye
twinkled merrily.
“I like it very much, _Meinheer_,” said John.
“Ah, yes, it’s a beautiful veldt, especially about here—no horse
sickness, no ‘blue tongue,’ [*] and a good strong grass for the cattle.
And you must find yourself very snug at _Oom_ Croft’s there; it’s the
nicest place in the district, with the ostriches and all. Not that I
hold with ostriches in this veldt; they are well enough in the old
colony, but they won’t breed here—at least, not as they should do. I
tried them once and I know; oh, yes, I know.”
[*] A disease that is very fatal to sheep.
“Yes, it’s a very fine country, _Meinheer_. I have been all over the
world almost, and I never saw a finer.”
“You don’t say so, now! Almighty, what a thing it is to have travelled!
Not that I should like to travel myself. I think that the Lord meant us
to stop in the place He has made for us. But it is a fine country, and”
(dropping his voice) “I think it is a finer country than it used to
be.”
“You mean that the veldt has got ‘tame’, _Meinheer_?”
“Nay, nay. I mean that the land is English now,” he answered
mysteriously, “and though I dare not say so among my _volk_, I hope
that it will keep English. When I was Republican, I was Republican, and
it was good in some ways, the Republic. There was so little to pay in
taxes, and we knew how to manage the black folk; but now I am English,
I am English. I know the English Government means good money and
safety, and if there isn’t a _Raad_ (assembly) now, well, what does it
matter? Almighty, how they used to talk there!—clack, clack, clack!
just like an old black _koran_ (species of bustard) at sunset. And
where did they run the waggon of the Republic to—Burghers and those
damned Hollanders of his, and the rest of them? Why, into the
_sluit_—into a _sluit_ with peaty banks; and there it would have
stopped till now, or till the flood came down and swept it away, if old
Shepstone—ah! what a tongue that man has, and how fond he is of the
_kinderchies!_ (little children)—had not come and pulled it out again.
But look here, Captain, the _volk_ round here don’t think like that.
It’s the ‘_verdomde Britische Gouvernment_’ here and the ‘_verdomde
Britische Gouvernment_’ there, and _bymakaars_ (meetings) here and
_bymakaars_ there. Silly folk, they all run one after the other like
sheep. But there it is, Captain, and I tell you there will be fighting
before long, and then our people will shoot those poor _rooibaatjes_ of
yours like buck, and take the land back. Poor things! I could weep when
I think of it.”
John smiled at this melancholy prognostication, and was about to
explain what a poor show all the Boers in the Transvaal would make in
front of a few British regiments, when he was astonished by a sudden
change in his friend’s manner. Dropping his enormous paw on to his
shoulder, Coetzee broke into a burst of somewhat forced merriment, the
cause of which, though John did not guess it at the moment, was that he
had just perceived Frank Muller, who was in Wakkerstroom with a
waggon-load of corn to grind at the mill, standing within five yards,
and apparently intensely interested in flipping at the flies with a
cowrie made of the tail of a vilderbeeste, but in reality listening to
Coetzee’s talk with all his ears.
“Ha, ha! _nef_ (nephew),” said old Coetzee to the astonished John, “no
wonder you like Mooifontein—there are other _mooi_ (pretty) things
there beside the water. How often do you _opsit_ (sit up at night) with
Uncle Croft’s pretty girl, eh? I’m not quite as blind as an ant-bear
yet. I saw her blush when you spoke to her just now. I saw her. Well,
well, it is a pretty game for a young man, isn’t it, _nef_ Frank?”
(this was addressed to Muller). “I’ll be bound the Captain here ‘burns
a long candle’ with pretty Bessie every night, eh, Frank? I hope you
ain’t jealous, _nef_? My _vrouw_ told me some time ago that you were
sweet in that direction yourself;” and he stopped at last, out of
breath, looking anxiously towards Muller for an answer, while John, who
had been somewhat overwhelmed at this flood of bucolic chaff, gave a
sigh of relief. As for Muller, he behaved in a curious manner. Instead
of laughing, as the jolly old Boer had intended that he should,
although Coetzee could not see it, his face had been growing blacker
and blacker; and now that the flow of language ceased, with a savage
ejaculation which John could not catch, but which he appeared to throw
at his (John’s) head, he turned on his heel and went off towards the
courtyard of the inn.
“Almighty!” said old Hans, wiping his face with a red cotton
pocket-handkerchief; “I have put my foot into a big hole. That
stink-cat Muller heard all that I was saying to you, and I tell you he
will save it up and save it up, and one day he will bring it all out to
the _volk_, and call me a traitor to the ‘land’ and ruin me. I know
him. He knows how to balance a long stick on his little finger so that
the ends keep even. Oh, yes, he can ride two horses at once, and blow
hot and blow cold. He is a devil of a man, a devil of a man! And what
did he mean by swearing at you like that? Is it about the _missie_
(girl), I wonder? Almighty! who can say? Ah! that reminds me—though I’m
sure I don’t know why it should—the Kafirs tell me that there is a big
herd of buck—vilderbeeste and blesbok—on my outlying place about an
hour and a half (ten miles) from Mooifontein. Can you hold a rifle,
Captain? You look like a bit of a hunter.”
“Oh, yes, Meinheer!” said John, delighted at the prospect of some
shooting.
“Ah, I thought so. All you English are sportsmen, though you don’t know
how to kill buck. Well now, you take _Oom_ Croft’s light Scotch cart
and two good horses, and come over to my place—not to-morrow, for my
wife’s cousin is coming to see us, and an old cat she is, but rich; she
has a thousand pounds in gold in the waggon-box under her bed—nor the
next day, for it is the Lord’s day, and one can’t shoot creatures on
the Lord’s day—but Monday, yes, Monday. You will be there by eight
o’clock, and you shall see how to kill vilderbeeste. Almighty! now what
can that jackal Frank Muller have meant? Ah! he is the devil of a man,”
and, shaking his head ponderously, the jolly old Boer departed, and
presently John saw him riding away upon a fat little shooting-pony
which cannot have weighed much more than himself, but that cantered off
with him on his fifteen-mile journey as though he were a
feather-weight.