"Hallo, Colvin!" cried Frank, going out on the stoep. "Why, man, we had
begun to think you were dead."
"So?" said Colvin Kershaw, who was busy loosening the girths preparatory
to off-saddling. "Whose cart is that, Frank? Looks like Stephanus'."
"It is."
"Is he here then?"
"No; only the girls."
"Which of them?"
"All three."
"Oh--. No, don't have him put in the camp," as a Hottentot came up to
take the horse. "Just knee-halter him, and let him run. He can pick up
enough round the house."
As he entered, and greeted the girls, a subtle instinct told him that
two of them were watching each other and him. May's reception of him
was somewhat brusque and rather too studiously off-handed. He read her
face like the page of a book. She, keenly observant, noticed that he
greeted the other three with the easy friendliness of people who know
each other well, but without the faintest difference of tone or
inflection in talking to each and all of them.
"Why, Mr Kershaw, we were thinking you were dead," said Mrs Wenlock,
in her cordial, breezy way. "It is a long time since we saw you last."
"So Frank was saying, Mrs Wenlock. But I am not. Death has not given
me a call yet."
None there knew how very near truth their jesting words came--save one.
One knew it, and with her Colvin, for the life of him, could not help
exchanging a look. It was an exchange, and, swiftly as it flashed
between them in its fulness of meaning, it did not go unobserved--by
one.
"Hallo, Colvin, you've got your rifle along this time," cried Frank,
through the open window, who was examining the piece. "Why, I thought
you never carried anything but a shot-gun down here."
"I don't generally. But I might be going up into the Wildschutsberg,"
and again he brought his eyes round to those of Aletta. "Now and then
you get a long shot at a reebok up there."
"Why, this is the same old gun you had up in Matabeleland," went on
Frank, sighting the weapon and pointing and recovering it. "Nothing
like these Lee-Metfords with the Martini block. By George, Miss De la
Rey, how he used to make the niggers skip in the Matopos with this same
pea-shooter!"
"Yes?" said Aletta, brightly, with simulated interest, but with a dire
chill at her heart. What if this weapon should come to be pointed at
others than dark-skinned barbarians, and that soon? Truth to tell for
some occult reason the patriotic enthusiasm had cooled a little of late.
"Adrian had one of the new guns round at our place the other day," said
Jan. "A Mauser. He said it would shoot three miles. It is wonderful.
I can hardly believe it."
"Well, try a shot or two out of that, Jan," said Colvin. "Only leave a
few cartridges, in case I should come in for a good chance, riding
along."
Jan did--making some excellent practice, at ant-heaps scattered at
varying distances over the veldt. Then his sisters declared that he had
better see about inspanning, for it was time they were getting home.
"I shall have to be moving soon myself," said Colvin. "I want to be in
Schalkburg to-night."
"In Schalkburg?" echoed Mrs Wenlock. "Why, you are in a hurry--and we
haven't seen you for such a time."
"Yes; it's a pity. But I have to do some business there first thing in
the morning, so it's as well to get there over-night."
"I thought you said you might be going up to the Wildschutsberg," said
Aletta, with a spice of mischief. "Isn't that rather a long way round?"
"It is rather. Only in the opposite direction. But I won't go that
way."
And then, the cart being inspanned, they exchanged farewells. The
handclasp between Colvin and Aletta was not one fraction more prolonged
than that which he exchanged with the other two girls--if anything
shorter. May, watching, could not but admit this, but did not know
whether to feel relieved or not.
"So that is `the only English girl'!" said Aletta to herself as they
drove off. "Old Tant' Plessis was both right and wrong. They are not
engaged, but still there is a sort of something between them, and that
something is all, or nearly all, on her side. She would not make him
happy, either--or be happy with him. She is pretty, very pretty, but
common. She is gusty-tempered, has no self-command, and would be
horribly jealous. No. She could never make him happy."
Those whom she had left, however, were at that very moment formulating
their opinions upon her, but aloud.
"What a nice girl Aletta has grown into!" Mrs Wenlock was saying.
"She used to be shy and awkward, and nothing to look at, before she went
away, and now she's so bright, and smart, and stylish, and almost
pretty. It's wonderful what her stay at Cape Town has done for her."
"I don't think she's pretty at all," said May decisively. "I call her
ugly."
"No, I'll be hanged if she's ugly," said Frank.
"No, indeed," agreed his mother; "look what pretty hair she has, and
pretty hands, and then her manner is so delightful. And there is such a
stylish look about her, too! Don't you agree with me, Mr Kershaw?"
"Yes; I do," was the reply, made as evenly as though the subject under
discussion had been Andrina or Condaas, or any other girl in the
district.
"Well, I think she's a horrid girl," persisted May. "Style, indeed?
What you call style, I call `side.' She puts on a kind of
condescending, talk-down-to-you sort of manner. These Dutch girls,"
with withering emphasis on the national adjective, "are that way. They
go away from home for a little and come back as stuck-up as they can be.
That one is too grand for anything--in her own estimation. A horrid,
stuck-up thing."
Colvin, listening, winced. The idea expressed, the very wording of its
expression, grated upon him horribly, apart from the identity of the
subject thereof. In such wise would May from time to time lapse, and
become, as Aletta had put it to herself, "common."
He made no comment upon her vehement and ill-natured dictum, knowing
perfectly well that it was uttered quite as much as a challenge to
himself as to relieve the utterer's feelings; and he was far too old and
experienced to be drawn by any such transparent device. But as they
re-entered the sitting-room the jarring effect of the words was
intensified, bringing back in vivid contrast the last time he was there;
that evening when he had been so near turning the most momentous corner
which could meet him within the career of life. He had not turned it.
A warning hand had, so to speak, been held up. This girl--he could see
her as she was then, in her sweet alluring beauty, soft-voiced,
appealing. He could see her now, hard-eyed, vindictive, and expressing
herself in a manner that savoured of the wash-tub. What a near thing it
had been--how narrow his escape!
He would have been tied fast, bound hand and foot. Even now there was a
certain length of loose coil around him, which would need some care and
judgment entirely to cast off. Still there was no hard-and-fast bond,
and looking backward over the events of the past three weeks or so, he
felt lost in thankfulness because of the trivial, fortuitous incident
which had availed to stay his tongue when it had so nearly spoken.
"You are not particularly lively, after all this time, Colvin."
He started, and put down the paper he had pretended to read, while the
above reflections were coursing through his brain. They were alone
together in the room, he and May. Frank, divested of his coat and
waistcoat, could be seen in the distance doing odd jobs, and Mrs
Wenlock had withdrawn for an afternoon nap. Her visitors, she declared,
although dear girls, had tired her.
"No, I'm afraid I'm not," he said. "I believe I'm tired. Well, let's
talk."
Something in the words brought back that last evening they were thus
alone together. The recollection softened her, but only for a moment.
"I can imagine it seems dull now that your Dutch friends are gone," she
began, in a crisp, gunpowdery way which was more than a declaration of
war. It was in fact the firing of the first shell.
"Oh, bother it, May, why will you harp on that insane prejudice of
nationality?" he expostulated, but quite good-humouredly, purposely
ignoring her real drift. "A good sort is a good sort, no matter what
his or her nationality. And I think you'll allow that old Stephanus and
his crowd come under that heading."
"So you seem to think," was the acid reply. "You have been there a good
deal of late, haven't you?"
"Yes, I like them very much, and the shoot is choice." And then he went
on to tell her about the bags he had made, and old Tant' Plessis and her
absurd perversities, and the ridiculous muddle the old woman had made
between his name and that of the sixteenth-century Reformer. His object
was to keep her attention away from personalities. But that object she
saw through.
"You were not so fond of them three or four weeks ago," she said, half
turned away from him, and beginning to speak quickly, while the sea-blue
eyes filled. "That is just the time that girl has been back. Goodness!
I never thought to see you--_you_--running after an ugly Dutch girl."
Every word grated upon Colvin's mind--grated intensely, so much so
indeed as to leave no room for anger, only disgust and disillusionment.
At that moment, too, there flashed vividly through his mind a vision of
the speaker, as contrasted with this "ugly Dutch girl" here in this very
room but a few minutes ago, and the contrast was all in favour of the
latter--yes, a hundred times over in her favour, he told himself. And
now this one was going to make a scene; so much was evident. She was
crudely, unsophisticatedly jealous, and had no self-control whatever.
Heavens! what an escape he had had!
"See here, May," he said. "That sort of remark is not to my liking at
all. It is--well, exceedingly unpleasant, and really I don't care about
listening to all this. I am responsible to nobody for my actions,
remember, and there is not one living soul who has the slightest right
or title to call me to account for anything I do or don't do. And I am
a little too old to begin to obey orders now. So if you will kindly
give up abusing people I like, and with whom I happen to be very
friendly, I shall be grateful. I don't like to hear it, and it doesn't
come well from you."
But the girl made no answer. She had dropped her face into her hands,
and was silently sobbing. He, watching her, was softened directly. His
first impulse was to take her in his arms and strive to comfort her. He
still had a very weak place for her, although the scales had fallen from
his eyes, owing to two causes. But an instinct of prudence and a great
deal of cynicism born of experience rose up to restrain him. He had
gone through this sort of thing before. He had seen women utterly
miserable and heart-broken seemingly, on his account, as they said,
meaning it, too, at the time; but six months or a year thence had found
them laughing in his face, if not playing the same game with somebody
else; but he himself had not taken them seriously, wherefore it didn't
matter. Yet it was all part of an education, and of what use was an
education save to be applied?
"Don't cry like that, little one," he said gently. "Why should we say
hard things to each other, you and I? We never used to."
The gentle tone melted her at once. She dropped her hands. All the
hardness had gone out of her face, and the sea-blue eyes were limpid and
tender and winning.
"No, we used not. I have become very bad-tempered--very quarrelsome.
But--oh, Colvin, I am so tired of life--of life here. It gets upon my
nerves, I think. And I have hardly any friends, and you--you the
greatest of them all, hardly seem to care for me--for us--now. I--we--
never see you in these days, and--I feel it somehow."
Colvin's heart smote him. He need not have stayed away so long and so
markedly, but there was a reason, and he had acted with the best
intentions. Wherein he had blundered, as people invariably do when they
suffer their actions to be guided by such tissue-paper motives, instead
of by the hard and safe rule of judiciousness, expediency, and knowledge
of human nature.
"Poor little girl! You must not run away with all those ideas," he
said. "And, you are flattering me. Well, I will come over again soon,
and have a talk, but I must go now. There, will that do?"
He was talking to her quite gently, quite soothingly, just as he used to
do, and the effect was wonderful. All the dejection, the sullenness,
disappeared from her face, dispelled by a bright, almost happy smile.
"Good-bye, then," she said. "I don't think I'll come and see you start
this time. Good-bye, dear."
Her eyes shone soft and dewy in the upturned face. Her lips were raised
invitingly. It was not in mortal man to refuse them, however stern
rectitude under the circumstances might dictate such a course. This one
did not refuse them.
"Good-bye, my darling!" she breathed into his ear, in a voice so barely
audible as to be almost inarticulate. And as he left her and went out
to find his horse and see about saddling up, it was with a vague
misgiving that the loose coil, to which he had made allusion in his own
mind, had, within the last few moments, very perceptibly tightened.
We made use just above of the expression "under the circumstances." The
"circumstances" were, that by that time this cautious, and cynical and
experienced man of the world was deeply, devotedly, and entirely in love
with Aletta De la Rey.