PART IV

Produced by David Garcia, Matthew Wheaton and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: "IN HIS LOOMING ABOUT THE ROOM HE HAD STOPPED DEAD

BEFORE WATTS'S PICTURE 'HOPE' OVER THE MANTELPIECE"

From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A.

(_See p. 336_)]

POPPY

THE STORY OF A

SOUTH AFRICAN GIRL

BY

CYNTHIA STOCKLEY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1910

Published, March, 1910

Reprinted, March, 1910; May, 1910

July, 1910 (twice); August, 1910

September, 1910; October, 1910

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To

Em

PART I

"... and some do say of poppies that they be the tears of the moon

shed in a land beyond the seas: and that they do bring forgetfulness

and freedom from pain."

(_From an old Irish Legend_.)

POPPY

Nothing more unlike a gladsome poppy of the field was ever seen than

Poppy Destin, aged nine, washing a pile of dirty plates at the kitchen

table.

Pale as a witch, the only red about her was where she dug her teeth into

her lips. Her light lilac-coloured eyes were fierce with anger and

disgust. Her hair hung in long black streaks over her shoulders, and her

dark hands, thin and bony as bird's claws, were each decorated with a

bracelet of greeny-yellowy grease.

There had been curry for dinner. Horrible yellow rings floated on the

top of the water in the _skottel_ and Poppy hated to put her hands into

it.

She was hating her work more than usual that day because she was hungry

as well as angry. She had slapped her little cousin Georgie for throwing

a heavy hammer at her which had cut a gash in her leg; and her

punishment for this crime had been two stinging boxes on the ear and

sentence to go without food all day. Fortunately the incident had

occurred after breakfast.

Once or twice she looked longingly at the scraps on the plates, but she

did not touch them, because her aunt had eaten from one and she was not

sure which, and she knew that to eat from anything her aunt had touched

would choke her.

So she threw the scraps to Nick the black cat, under the kitchen table,

and went on hating her aunt, and washing up the plates. She would have

liked to smash each plate on the floor as she took it out of the water,

and to have thrown all the greasy water over the freshly-scrubbed white

shelves and dresser. And she would have done it too, only that she did

not like boxes on the ear.

Presently she tried to fill her bitter little heart and her empty little

stomach by going on with the story inside her head. She always had a

story going on inside her head, and it was always about just two

people--a beautiful lady and a man with a face like Lancelot. She used

to begin at the end to make sure they should be quite happy, and when

she had married them and they were living happily "ever after," she

would go back to the beginning--how they met and all the sad things they

had to go through before they could be married. Afterwards she would

make a little song about them.

That day she had a heroine with red gold hair for the first time,

because she had seen such a beautiful red-gold-haired lady in the street

the day before, dressed in brown holland with a brown hat trimmed with

pale green leaves. Poppy dressed her heroine in the same fashion,

instead of the usual white velvet with a long train and a wreath of

white roses resting on her hair. Just as Lancelot was telling the

heroine that her eyes were as beautiful as brown wine, a harsh voice

called out from the dining-room:

"Porpie! Haven't you done that washing-up yet? Make haste there! You

know you got to smear the kitchen before you clean yourself and take the

children up to the Kopje."

Poppy gritted her teeth and furious tears came into her eyes; her aunt's

voice always seemed to scrape something inside her head and make it

ache; also, she detested taking the children up to the Kopje. It was

such a long way to carry Bobby--all up Fountain Street in the broiling

sun--and she _had_ to carry him, because if she put him into the pram

with his twin, Tommy, they kicked each other and screamed, and when the

children screamed, Aunt Lena always got to hear of it and boxed Poppy's

ears for ill-treating them.

Listlessly she dried the plates and stuck them up in lines on the

dresser, soaked the _fadook_ and washed all round the edges of the bowl,

making the water swirl round and round so that the grease would not

settle again, then, while the water moved swiftly, carried the basin to

the back door and emptied it with a great "swash" into the yard. The

fowls flew shrieking in every direction and the water ran down in little

rivers to where old Sara was doing some washing under the shade of the

biggest acacia tree. When the little stream reached her bare black feet

she clicked her teeth, crying, "Aah," and moved round to the other side

of the stones on which she banged the clothes to make them white.

Poppy dried her basin out with the _fadook_, wiped the table dry, and

put the bowl upside down upon it. Then she went into the yard again and

approached an old pail which stood in the forage-house. It was full of

an atrocious mess, slimy and thick, giving out a pungent odour that made

her nose wrinkle in disgust. Nevertheless she took it up and carried it

down to old Sara to get some soapy water. The old Basuto in her red

_kop-dook_, rolled the whites of her eyes sympathetically and muttered

in her native tongue as she watched Poppy stir the green slime with a

stick. She was sorry for the child. She knew it was Kaffir's work to

smear floors. Black hands are hard, and the little thorns and stones to

be found in the wet cow-dung do not hurt them; neither does the pungent

smell disgust black noses.

"But the _old missis_ had strange ways! Clk! It seemed she liked the

_klein-missis_ to do Kaffir's work!" Old Sara shrugged her fat, wobbly

shoulders, and flopped over her wash-tub once more.

Poppy went back to the kitchen. She had swept it just before dinner, now

she sprinkled it heavily with water, then kneeling down on a folded sack

beside the bucket, she rolled up her sleeves, closed her eyes, and

plunged her hands into the sickening mess. Quickly she withdrew them,

flinging two handfuls on to the floor and began to smear it with the

flat of her right hand.

Kitchens and verandahs (or stoeps) in old-fashioned South African houses

always have what are called "mud floors," which means that they are just

mother-earth with all the stones picked out and the surface kept smooth

and level by constant smearing in or pasting on of wet cow-dung once or

twice a week. Smearing is a disgusting business, but joy comes after.

When freshly dry the floor looks cool and green and fresh, and no longer

does the _mis_ smell vilely; rather, there is a soft odour of grasses

and flowers, as though some stray veldt wind had blown through the room.

But Poppy had no time to enjoy the result of her labour. After she had

spread sacks upon the floor to prevent feet from marking her work until

it was dry, she stopped for a moment to dig out a thorn from her thumb

with a needle, but immediately her aunt's menacing voice could be heard

from the front stoep, where now she sat drinking her after-dinner cup of

coffee with her husband, admonishing the slowness of Poppy's

proceedings, and demanding that she should "makaste."

Poppy ran into the bedroom which she shared with her two elder cousins,

and cleaned herself of all traces of her recent occupation. Later she

appeared on the front stoep, in a print pinafore over her grey linsey

dress, and an old straw hat much bitten at the edges shading her pale

fierce little face.

"My word, that child looks more like an Irish Fenian every day!" was her

aunt's agreeable greeting.

Weak, good-looking "Uncle Bob," who was really no more than a second

cousin of Poppy's, laughed in a deprecating kind of way. He was cutting

a twist of tobacco from a great roll that hung drying from the stoep

roof.

"Och, you're always going on at the girl, Lena!"

"And good cause I have," retorted Mrs. Kennedy. "Stand still, Ina, while

I tie your cappie."

Poppy said nothing, but if having black murder in your heart makes you a

Fenian, she knew that she was one.

Silently she assisted her aunt to put their pinafores upon the

struggling twins, and to array Ina in her cape and bib--all starched to

stand about them like boards, to their everlasting misery and

discomfort. Mrs. Kennedy gloated upon the fact that all the neighbours

said, "How beautifully kept Mrs. Kennedy's children are!"

At last Tommy was in the pram; Bobby pranced astride on Poppy's small

bony hip, and Ina, who was just four, clung toddling to her skirt. Thus

Poppy set forth, pushing the pram before her.

"And mind you bring them in before sun-down, and don't let them sit on

the damp grass--" was Mrs. Kennedy's last word shouted up the street

after the procession.

A little lane lined with syringa trees led from the house and was shady

and sweet to loiter in, but Fountain Street glared and blazed under the

afternoon sun. Poppy was pale and sadly-coloured as some strange

cellar-plant when at last she brought her charges to a halt by the

Kopje. She put Bobby down from her hip with a bump, tilted the pram and

let Tommy scramble out the best way he could, then sat down on a rock

and covered her face with her hands.

Bobby was a heavy-weight, and though she changed him from one hip to

another all the way up the street, she never got to the Kopje without a

pain in her stomach and a feeling of deathly sickness.

Nearly all the children of the town came to the Kopje in the afternoons.

It was only a slight hill, but it had bushes and clumps of mimosa trees,

and little quarried-out holes and masses of rocks, and other fascinating

features dear to children. The Kaffir-girl nurses squatted under the

trees jabbering amongst themselves, and the children congregated in

small herds. Poppy was the only white-girl nurse to be seen. She had a

little circle of trees and stones where she always took her brood, and

if she found anyone else in possession, she threw stones at them until

they retreated.

When she had spread a rug for them to sit on, the children were left to

amuse themselves in whatsoever fashion seemed good unto them. Poppy sat

dreaming to herself, wrapped in the veils of poetry and romance. Near

the Kopje was St. Michael's, a high school for girls kept by an English

sisterhood, and when Poppy and her brood reached their haunt before

three o'clock, she would see all the girls coming out of the gates,

passing by in their nice dresses and hats with bags of books in their

hands. They would stare at Poppy, and sometimes laugh; then the pain in

her stomach would come into her throat and almost choke her. No one ever

spoke to her. They knew quite well who she was, but she did Kaffir's

work, and her clothes were old and ugly, and she was altogether a person

to be despised and laughed at.

But sometimes a little ray of human friendliness would break through the

hedge of snobbery. On this summer day a girl called Edie Wyllie, who

used to sit next to her in Sunday-school, called out in quite a jolly

way as she passed:

"Hullo, Poppy Destin!"

But her sister pulled at her arm at once and rebuked her.

"Edie! You know mother doesn't let us speak to Poppy Destin."

"Pooh!" called out Poppy with the utmost scorn and derision. "Who wants

to speak to you? I hate you."

She made fearful faces at them; but when they had all gone past, she

rocked on her stone and wept.

"I hate them! I hate them!" she sobbed. "And I hate God! God is a

beast."

Ina stood by and listened, with her pinafore in her mouth.

"I'll tell mother that, what you say," she remarked gravely.

"'Tell-tale-tit, your tongue shall be slit.' Go away from me, else I'll

beat you," shouted Poppy, and Ina ran for her life and hid behind some

rocks. Poppy continued her weeping, dry-eyed now, but sobbing

spasmodically.

Suddenly a voice behind her!

"What's the matter little girl?"

Turning round she saw that the beauteous lady in the holland dress was

sitting on a stone opposite her, smiling kindly. Her hair was like

sovereigns shining in the sunlight, Poppy thought.

"Do tell me what is the matter!"

"Nothing's the matter," said Poppy defiantly.

The lady laughed long and merrily as though she found something

refreshing in the child's sulky misery.

"Well, but how silly of you to cry and make your eyes red for nothing!

You've got such pretty eyes, too!"

Poppy stared at her, gasping.

"Oh! If I only thought I had pretty eyes--" she said breathlessly.

"Well, you have indeed. And they are most uncommon too--just the colour

of lilac, and 'put in with a smutty finger' like an Irish girl's. Are

you Irish?"

Poppy was about to inform her that she was a Fenian, but she thought

better of it.

"I was born here in Bloemfontein," she answered.

"Well, perhaps your mother came from Ireland, for you have _quite_ an

Irish face: only you're so thin, and you look so cross--are you?"

"Yes. I am always cross. I hate everybody."

"Good heavens! What a little savage! but you shouldn't. It makes one so

ugly to hate."

"Does it?" Eagerly. "Do you think if I was never cross I'd get

beautiful?"

"You are much more likely to," said the other encouragingly, thinking in

the meantime that nothing could ever make harmonious and beautiful that

small tormented face.

"Is that why you are so beautiful?" was the next question.

The beauty smiled: a little complacently perhaps.

"I expect so. I am never cross and never unhappy, and I never mean to

let anyone make me so." She opened her brown holland sunshade lined with

sea-green silk and got up to go.

"Now be sure and remember that," she said pleasantly. "Never cry, never

be unhappy, never hate anyone, and never be cross and--you'll see how

beautiful you'll become."

"Oh, I will, I will," cried Poppy ardently.

"Now I must go," said the beautiful one. "I want to take one last walk

round your pretty Bloemfontein, because I am going back to Cape Town

to-morrow."

"Have you any little girls in Cape Town?" asked Poppy, wishing to detain

her a little longer. She laughed at that.

"You funny child! Why I'm not even married. But I'm going to be, and to

the most fascinating man in Africa."

"Is his name Lancelot?"

"No. His name is Nick Capron. How old are you, child?"

"Nine."

"Only nine! You look about thirteen, you poor little thing. Well,

good-bye, I must really go."

"Good-bye; and thank you so much for speaking to me," Poppy stammered.

She felt that she could adore the beautiful study in brown holland, who

only laughed at her again and went on her way.

But Poppy, sitting on her rock had a gleam of hope and happiness; for at

last she knew the secret of being beautiful; _and_--it had been told

her--her eyes were pretty.

She sat thinking for a long time and making resolutions. She even

determined to strive to hate Aunt Lena less. Minor resolutions were--not

to be unkind to the children when they made her angry and told tales on

her; not to quarrel with her two elder cousins, Clara and Emily; not to

scratch them and beat them with her fists when they called her

_Foelstruis_,[1] because her legs were so long and thin; not to fly into

awful rages in which she could not speak, only shake all over and bite

her hands and lips till the blood came; not to sit and think of Aunt

Lena's ways until a red curtain came down before her eyes and her heart

felt like a red-hot coal burning her to death.

[1] Ostrich.

These were a few of the terrible obstacles in the path to beauty which

she set herself to overcome. There were other arts, too, she would

practise to the same end. She would brush her hair until it sprang into

waves, even as the hair of the beautiful one in brown. She would cut her

eyelashes, as Clara did, to make them thick and long. She would run and

jump, even when she was tired, to make her body strong and her cheeks

pink. She would walk upright, even when she had the pain in her stomach,

so that she might grow tall and graceful. Furthermore, she would find

out from old Sara where that wonderful milky cactus grew, which the

young Basuto girls gathered and rubbed upon their breasts in the

moonlight to make them grow round and firm as young apples.

Last, but most important of all, she evolved from her dreamings and

devisings a promise to herself that she would never, _never_ do mean

things, for meanness she surely knew to be the friend of hideousness.

Meanness showed in the face. Could not anyone see it in Aunt Lena's

face? The traces of mean thoughts and deeds showed in the narrow space

between her eyebrows, in the specks in her pale eyes, were brushed into

her sleek, putty-coloured hair and crinkled her coarse thick hands. If

you only looked at the freckles and loose skin all round her wrists, her

fat fingers and the way her ears stuck out, you must see how cruel and

hateful she could be, thought Poppy. Whereupon, forgetting the greatest

of her resolutions in a moment, she fell to hating her Aunt Lena again

with a particular malignancy. But presently she noticed that the trees

were casting long giant shadows towards the town, pansy-coloured clouds

were in the sky, and a certain dewiness had come into the air. Hastily

collecting the children she departed with them. In the same order as

they came, they returned home down the long white street.

* * * * *

But it was hard in the house of Aunt Lena Kennedy to attain beauty

through virtue.

On Saturdays Poppy even forgot that she had ever made resolutions to

that end. Upon that day of days, Mrs. Kennedy subjected her house and

all that therein was to a scrubbing in which there was no niggardliness

of what she termed "elbow grease." Poppy was not exempt; her turn came

at ten o'clock at night; and that was the hour of shame and rage for

Poppy. When all the rest of the children were comfortably in bed,

sucking their weekly supply of _lekkers_, Mrs. Kennedy would roll up her

sleeves and approach in a workmanlike manner the big pan-bath in the

middle of the kitchen, wherein stood Poppy, lank, thin-limbed, and

trembling--but not with cold--under the scrutiny of the speckled eyes

she hated so well.

"Ah! you bad-tempered little cat!" was the usual preliminary; "why can't

you be grateful to me for taking the trouble to keep you clean? It isn't

every aunt by marriage who would do it, I can tell you. I suppose you'd

like to go about with the dirt ingrained in you! What are you shivering

and cringing like that for? Are you ashamed of your own body?"

"It is horrible to be naked, aunt," she would retort, striving to keep

tears from bursting forth and full of apprehension that someone might

come into the wide-open kitchen doors.

"Horrible! what's horrible about it, I'd like to know, except in your

own nasty little mind? A body like a _spring-kaan_,[2] that's what

you've got ... and don't want me to see it, I suppose! Dirty pride! the

ugliest child _I've_ ever seen ... the longest legs ... and the

skinniest arms ... look what nice fat arms Clara and Emily's got! ...

one would think you never got enough to eat ... pass me that other arm."

[2] Grasshopper.

With a rough flannel and blue mottled soap she scoured Poppy's body and

face as if it had been the face of a rock; scrubbing and rubbing until

the skin crackled like a fire beneath her vigorous hand. Later came a

scraping down with a bath towel made of something of the same fibre as a

door-mat. At last Poppy crept to her bed, her eyes like pin-points in

her head from the scalding of the strong soap; her hair strained back

from her sore, glazed face and plaited as tightly as possible into two

pig-tails behind her ears.

On such nights she was far enough from the beauty she so much coveted.

To herself she appeared hideous--_hideous_. It gave her pain to look at

herself in the glass. And she believed that her aunt made her hideous

with malignant intent. Her cousins had their hair loosely plaited, and

it hung nicely over their faces, and they had frills to their

nightgowns. Poppy's nightgown of unbleached calico had a tight narrow

neck-band that nearly strangled her when buttoned with a linen button

the size of a small saucer.

Those were the nights when a thousand devils ate at her heart and fought

within her, and she knew she could never be beautiful. She would lie

awake for hours, just to loathe her aunt and concoct tortures for her.

In imagination she cut slits in that hated body and filled them with

salt and mustard, or anything that would burn; dug sharp knives into the

cruel heart; saw the narrow hard face lying on the floor and beat into

it with a hammer until it was red, red, red--and everything was red.

"Scorpion! Scorpion!" she would rave.

Worn out at last and half asleep she would choke and groan and bite her

pillow, thinking she had her enemy under her hands, until her cousins in

their big bed across the room would call out:

"Ma! I wish you would come and speak to Miss Poppy here. She's calling

you a 'scorpion'!"

The chances were that Mrs. Kennedy, in no pleasant temper after all her

exertions, would fly into the room, tear down the bedclothes, and

administer two or three stinging slaps on Poppy's bare body, crying out

upon her for an ungrateful, vile-tempered little fagot.

"You want a _sjambok_ round you, that's what you want, my lady, and

you'll get it one of these days. I shan't go on with you in this patient

way for ever."

"I won't have a _sjambok_ used on a child in my house," Uncle Bob would

mutter in the dining-room, asserting himself in this one matter at

least.

But Clara and Emily would jeer from their beds, calling her _Miss_ Poppy

in fine derision.

"_Now_ you've got it! How did you like that, hey? _Lekker_, hey?"

Some time after midnight Poppy would weep herself to sleep.

* * * * *

Once Poppy used to go to St. Gabriel's Infant School, where she had

learned to read and write; but when the twins arrived in the world, Aunt

Lena could no longer spare her from home, and her education languished

for three years. But at last there came a letter from her god-mother in

Port Elizabeth saying that she had sent five pounds to St. Michael's

Home, asking the Sisters to give Poppy as much education as possible for

that sum.

Poppy was wild with delight. It had been beyond her wildest dreams to go

to St. Michael's and learn all sorts of wonderful things with all the

_grand_ children of Bloemfontein. She could not believe that such joy

was to be hers. Mrs. Kennedy made great objections to the scheme, and

seemed likely to get her way until her husband took the trouble to

insist. So Poppy went off one morning full of hope and high ambition, in

a clean, very stiffly starched overall of faded galatea, her old straw

hat freshly decorated with a yellow pugaree that hung in long tails down

her back.

But school was only the beginning of a fresh era of misery. The girls

stared at her old boots and sneered at her pugaree, and no one would be

friends with her because she wore white cotton stockings, which were

only sixpence a pair, and sold to Kaffir girls to wear on Sundays.

Poppy gave back sneer for sneer and taunt for taunt with great

versatility; but her heart was sometimes near bursting under the galatea

overall. It seemed to her that even the teachers despised her because of

her shabbiness and ugliness, and that when she worked hard at her

lessons she got less praise than the pretty girls. "Yes! it's because

I'm ugly, and everything I wear is ugly," she whispered to herself as

she walked home alone every day, hurrying because she knew the children

would be dressed and ready, waiting to be taken to the Kopje as soon as

she had bolted her cold dinner. Clara's and Emily's dinner was always

kept hot. They went to the Dames' Institute, another school of some

importance where all the nice high Dutch Boers sent their children: and

they got home at two o'clock. Mrs. Kennedy said she would keep no dinner

hot later than that hour, so that Poppy, arriving at three, found her

stewed mutton cold in a dish of fatty gravy, and sometimes a bit of cold

suet pudding. She would always have "filled up" contentedly enough with

bread, but Mrs. Kennedy grumbled when too much bread was eaten, as she

only baked once a week.

Sometimes, when Poppy had been very unhappy at school, she used to stop

at the Kopje instead of hurrying home, so that she could cry without

being spied on by Ina or the twins. She would lie down among the rocks

and the kind green leaves, and moan and cry out against God and

everybody in the world. Her little songs and stories seemed to have died

in her heart and been buried. She would call out to God that He _might_

have let her have _something_--a kind mother, or golden hair, or brains,

or a white skin, or a happy home, or _something_; it wouldn't have hurt

_Him_, and it would have made all the difference to her. Later she

passed from argument to anger and from anger to frenzy; shouting at the

sky because she was ugly and poor and horrible within as well as

without, so that no one loved her and she hated everyone.

At last, tired out, hopeless, sick with bitter crying, she would lay her

head against an old mimosa tree that had a curve in its trunk like the

curve of a mother's arm, and the soft odour of the fluffy round yellow

blossoms would steal over her. Later, a land of peace and strength

seemed to come out of the tree to her, and she would have courage to get

up and go on her way.

One of the teachers, Miss Briggs, was always scolding her about her

hands. She would draw the attention of the whole class to them, covering

Poppy with shame. They were not big hands like Clara's and Emily's but

they were rough and coarse with housework and through being continually

in the water washing stockings and handkerchiefs and plates; and in the

winter they got horribly chapped, with blood marks all over them, so

that the teachers couldn't bear to see them and the girls used to say

"Sis!" when she reached for anything. Her nails, too, were often untidy,

and her hair. She never had time in the mornings to give it more than

just one brush and tie it back in her neck, and she used to have to

clean her nails with a pin or a mimosa thorn while she was hurrying to

school, learning her lessons on the way. It was the only time she had to

learn them, except in the afternoons when she took the children out. If

they were good and would stay happy, she could get out her books from

under the pram seat and learn; but almost immediately Ina would want to

be played with, or Georgie would fall down and hurt himself and whimper

in her arms for half an hour. The fact was that the children had been

brought up to believe that Poppy was in the world entirely for their

comfort and convenience, and they could not bear to see her doing

anything that was not for them.

"I'll tell ma," was their parrot cry: and that meant boxes on the ear.

"I up with my hand" was a favourite phrase of Aunt Lena's.

In the evenings Ina must always be sung to sleep, and sometimes would

not go off for more than an hour. Then Mrs. Kennedy would say briskly:

"Now get your lessons done, Porpie!"

But by then Poppy's head would be aching and her eyes would hardly keep

open, and what she did learn would not stay in her head until the next

morning.

And after all, none of the teachers seemed to care much whether she

learned them or not. If by accident she did them well, she got no

praise; if she did them ill she was scolded and the lesson was

"returned"--that meant being kept in on Friday afternoons until the

lesson had been learnt or rewritten. But when Friday afternoon came,

Poppy could not stay; there were the children to be taken out, and her

ears would be boxed if she were too late to do that; she would get no

tea, and the whole house would be thoroughly upset. So the "returned"

lessons had to go to the wall. She would slink home when supposed to be

taking recreation in the play-ground before the "returned" bell rang.

That meant bad conduct marks, unpopularity with the teachers, and as the

deserted Fridays mounted up--all hope lost of gaining a prize. After a

while the teachers said she was incorrigible, and gave her no more

attention.

"I wonder you bother to come to school at all, Poppy," was the favourite

gibe of Miss Briggs.

When examination days came she did badly, except in history and

geography, which she liked and found easy.

Break-up day was the worst of all.

The girls all came in their pretty soft white frocks and looked sweet.

Only Poppy was ugly, in a pique frock, starched like a board, her hair

frizzed out in a bush, her pale face looking yellow and sullen against

the over-blued white dress; her long legs and her narrow feet longer and

narrower than ever in white stockings and elastic-sided boots.

There was never any prize for her.

She knew there never would be. She used to keep saying inside herself:

"_Of course_ there isn't a prize for you"; and yet she was so silly,

her ears were cracking and straining all the time to hear her name read

out of the list. And her heart used to feel like a stone when the list

came to an end without her name being called; and her pale face would be

strangely red and burning like fire. Sometimes a little extra piece

would be read, that Poppy Destin's historical essay or geography paper

was the best, but the prize had been passed on to the second best on

account of this girl's disobedience, untidiness, and the number of

undone returned lessons against her name. Then everybody would look at

Poppy Destin, and her heart would stop so still that she believed she

must fall down dead in one minute.

But the entertainment would go on. The girls fetched their prizes from

the table covered with lovely books, and curtseyed to Lady Brand, who

spoke and smiled to each one of them. Afterwards would come the

recitations and songs that everyone joined in but Poppy. She had been

turned out of the singing-class because she sang off the key. Also,

Sister Anna said, she moaned instead of singing; though Poppy was aware

that she had lovely tunes going on inside her head all the time. It must

have been true about the moaning, for Ina used to say when Poppy sang to

her at nights:

"Your songs always sound just's if you are crying all the time, Poppy."

She loved music, but was not allowed to learn it. Clara learned and

Emily could have if she had liked, but Aunt Lena said she couldn't

afford those "frills" for Poppy. Once a lady named Mrs. Dale offered to

teach the child if she could be spared two afternoons a week, and Poppy

begged her uncle to let her go. He shook his head.

"You must ask your aunt if she can spare you, Poppy."

"Spare her!" shrieked Mrs. Kennedy. "Isn't she away all day now? What

help do I get from her, I'd like to know? and now she wants to go

gadding off in the afternoons, the only time she can be of a little use

to take the children off my hands. Music indeed! Gadding with Nellie

Dale is more like it."

"Only twice a week, uncle," pleaded Poppy.

"My girl, you must do what your aunt thinks best. Can't you spare her

two afternoons a week, Lena?"

"Oh, let her go ... fine musician she'll make, _I'm_ sure," said that

lady. And for two weeks Poppy went. Then Mrs. Kennedy, storming and

raving, refused to let her go again. She missed her slave; so Poppy went

back to the old life of weariness; but she had something new to think

over. Mrs. Dale had known her mother quite well, and remembered Poppy as

a baby.

"You were a sweet little thing," she said. "So beautifully kept, and the

apple of your mother's eye."

This was most wonderful and shining news. Any illusions Poppy might have

had about her mother had long since been scattered by such remarks from

her aunt as:

"Your mother ought to be alive. She'd have skinned you for your

dirtiness--your deceit, your laziness" (whatever the crime might be).

Or:

"It's a good thing your mother's lying cold in her grave, my girl--she

would have had murder on her soul if she had had _you_ to deal with."

Now, to hear that her mother had been a gentle and kind woman, not

beautiful, but with wonderful Irish eyes and "a laugh like a bird's

song!"

"Clever, too," said Mrs. Dale. "Though she was only a poor Irish girl

and came out here with the emigrants, she had a lot of learning, and had

read more books than anyone in Bloemfontein. I think the priests must

have educated her."

"But why has no one ever told me before?" asked Poppy in amazement. "No

one speaks of her, or of my father, to me! Why?"

Mrs. Dale shook her gentle head.

"Ah well, my dear, she's at rest now and your wild Irish father too. Her

heart broke when he broke his neck somewhere down on the diamond

diggings, and she didn't want to live any longer, even for you--her

Poppy-flower she always called you. One day, when I went to see her, she

said to me, looking at you with those eyes of hers that were like dewy

flowers: 'Perhaps my little Poppy-flower will get some joy out of life,

Mrs. Dale. It can't be for nothing that Joe and I have loved each other

so much. It must bring some gift to the child.' And she told me that the

reason she had called you Poppy was that in Ireland they have a saying

that poppies bring forgetfulness and freedom from pain; but then she

took to weeping, that weeping that is like lost melodies, and that only

the Irishry know.

"'But I see,' she wailed, 'that she's marked out for sorrow--I see it--I

see it.' And three nights after that she died."

This was Mrs. Dale's story. Poppy treasured it in her heart with the

verbal picture of her mother, "eyes like a dewy morning, black, black

hair, and a beautiful swaying walk."

"It must have been like hearing one of those old Irish melodies played

on a harp, to see her walk along the street," was the thought Poppy

evolved from Mrs. Dale's description.

After that she never found life quite unlovely again. But she longed to

hear more, and whenever she could, even at the risk of curses and blows,

she would steal to kind Mrs. Dale for another word. How ardently she

wished her mother had lived. How unutterably beautiful to be called

Poppy-flower! instead of _Porpie_! Her mother would have understood,

too, the love and craving for books which had seized her since she had

more learning. She would not have been obliged to creep into the fowls'

_hok_ or the forage-house when she wanted to read some book she had

borrowed or found lying about the house, or the old Tennyson which she

had rescued from the ash-heap one day and kept hidden under the

chaff-bags in the forage-house.

"There's that Porpie with a book again!" was her aunt's outraged cry.

"Lazy young huzzy! For ever squatting with her nose poked into a book

reading some wickedness or foolishness I'll be bound.... Anything rather

than be helpful ... no wonder your face is yellow and green, miss ...

sitting with your back crooked up instead of running about or doing some

housework ... more to your credit if you got a duster and polished the

dining-room table or mended that hole in the leg of your stocking." Oh,

the thousands of uninteresting things there are to be done in the world!

thought Poppy. The dusters and damnations of life!

* * * * *

She used to long to be taken ill so that she might have a rest in bed

and be able at last to read as much as she liked. But when she broke her

arm she was too ill to care even about reading, and when she got scarlet

fever she could not really enjoy herself, for Ina sickened of it too,

and was put into bed with her, and was so fretful, always crying unless

she was told stories or sung to. So they got better together and _that_

was over.

Before she was twelve Poppy's schooldays came to an end. The five

sovereigns had been spent and there was no more to come. Wasted money,

Mrs. Kennedy said, and wrote and told the god-mother so. The fact that

never a single prize had been won was damning evidence that the culprit

was both idle and a dunce. It was quite true that she had learnt

nothing much in the way of lessons. History and geography or anything

with a story in it, or poetry, were the only things that interested her.

Grammar and arithmetic were nothing but stumbling-blocks in her path,

though she never spoke bad grammar, being quick to detect the difference

in the language of her teachers and that of her aunt, and profiting by

it, and she learned to use her voice as they did too--softly and

low--never speaking the half-Dutch, half-English patter used by Mrs.

Kennedy and her children to the accompaniment of "Och, what?" "Hey?" and

"Sis!" Her Uncle Bob had a sweet way of turning his words in his lips,

which made even the kitchen-Dutch pleasant to the ear, and with great

delight Poppy discovered one day that she also had this trick. Not for

years however, did she realise that this was Ireland in her tongue; her

country's way of marking Bob Kennedy and Poppy Destin as her own, in

spite of Africa.

Her ear was fine for beautiful sounds and her aunt's voice scraped the

inside of her head more and more as time went on, and whenever the

latter dropped an "h" Poppy picked it up and stored it in that dark

inner cupboard of hers where was kept all scorn and contempt.

She never made a remark herself without _thinking_ it first and deciding

how it was going to sound, so afraid was she of getting to speak like

her aunt. Often she used to practise talking, or recite to herself when

she thought no one was listening, but when overheard, fresh sneers were

thrown at her.

"Was she going daft then? ... speaking to herself like a crazy

Hottentot ... concocting impudence, no doubt ... the lunatic asylum

was _her_ place ... and don't let me hear you again, my lady, or I'll

up with my hand ... etc."

One day Ina fell very ill, and Mrs. Kennedy sent a messenger flying for

the doctor. When he came he shook his head gravely, and after a week or

two announced that the child had dropsy. It sometimes followed on

scarlet fever, he said ... especially if the child had taken cold ...

probably she had been sitting on the damp ground. At once Mrs. Kennedy's

imagination conjured up a picture of Ina sitting on a damp stone on the

Kopje while Poppy amused herself reading a book. That was quite enough

to convince her as to who was the cause of the child's illness.

Thereafter she never ceased to reproach Poppy with this new crime.

"If it hadn't been for _your_ wicked carelessness, my child wouldn't be

lying at death's door now," was her eternal cry, followed by a long list

of all the sins and offences committed by Poppy since first the

affliction of her presence had fallen upon the Kennedys' home.

"A thorn in my side, that's what you've been ever since I first set eyes

on your yellow face.... I don't know what God lets such beasts as you go

on living for ... no good to anyone ... dirty, deceitful little slut ...

nose always in a book ... muttering to yourself like an Irish Fenian ...

ill-treating my children.... Your mother ought to have been alive,

that's what ... _she_ would have learned you ... etc."

A fresh offence was that little Ina would have no one else with her but

the despised and evil one. The cry on her lips was always, "Poppy,

Poppy--come, Poppy!"

She lay in her cot, white and swollen, and marbly-looking, and at first

the doctor steamed her incessantly; a wire cage covered with blankets

over her body, a big kettle, with its long spout stuck into the cage,

boiling at the foot of the bed. She would moan and fret at the heat and

Poppy had to be singing to her always; even fairy tales she would have

sung to her. One day the doctor cut three slits in the instep of each

poor little foot while she lay in Poppy's arms, clinging and wailing,

and Poppy, quivering and sick, watched the sharp little knife and the

water spouting out almost up to the ceiling--no blood came. After that,

all Ina's marbly look was gone, and it was plain to see that she was

nothing but a little white skeleton; and so weak she could hardly

whisper to Poppy to sing to her--"There's a Friend for little children,"

and "Snow-white and Rose-red"--her favourite hymn and her favourite

fairy-tale.

It had never occurred to Poppy that the child would die; but one day the

doctor stood a long time watching her as she lay staring straight at the

ceiling with her pretty brown eyes all glazy, and her little ghost hands

clutching the bars of her cot, and presently he shrugged his shoulders

in a hopeless way and turned to Mrs. Kennedy.

"I thought we might save her as she was so young, but----"

* * * * *

Then he went away and did not come so often after. And day by day Ina

grew thinner and whiter, and her eyes got bigger and shone more, and she

never made a sound except to whisper, "Poppy--sing, Poppy."

Poppy's voice had gone to a whisper too, then, and she could only make

strange sounds in her throat; but Ina did not notice that.

The whole family used to creep into the room and stand round the cot,

while Poppy sat there with Ina's hand in hers, whispering songs between

the bars of the cot, while her head felt as though there were long sharp

needles running through it, and her throat and body were full of

horrible pains. Sometimes the room seemed all cloudy and she only

faintly saw dead faces through the dimness; Ina and she whispering

together seemed to be the only alive people in the world.

Even Aunt Lena's tongue was still those days, and forgot to abuse, but

sometimes when Ina turned away from her, moaning for Poppy, the mother's

eyes could be seen gleaming malignantly across the cot. Poppy glared

back, for she had come to love little Ina so passionately that she could

hardly bear anyone else to come near. No one had ever wanted Poppy and

loved her before, and from her gratitude sprang a deep love for the sick

child. All through the day she sat by the cot, even taking her food

there, and at night she slept wrapt in a blanket on the floor or sitting

in a chair by the bed.

* * * * *

One evening at nine o'clock Ina died.

Poppy had been singing a little Boer love song to her in a dreadful

rustling voice, with face pressed against the cold bars and eyes shut,

when she heard a gentle sigh that seemed to pass over her face like soft

white feathers. She left off singing and peered down into the cot. The

room was very dim, but she could see the little white face with the soft

damp rings of hair round it, lying very still and with eyes closed.

"Ina," she whispered with a dreadful fear. "Ina, speak to Poppy--open

eyes, darling."

But Ina never opened eyes or spoke again.

* * * * *

Immediately Mrs. Kennedy filled the house with her lamentations, and

mingled with them were cursings and revilings of Poppy. She would kill

her, she shrieked, even as her child had been killed by that cursed

Irish Fenian. She was raving mad for the time, and no doubt she would

have killed Poppy, or attempted it, if her husband had not been there to

keep her by main force from violence. But that Poppy should be driven

from the house she insisted.

"She shall not sleep under my roof with that innocent little corpse,"

she screamed. "Go, go out of the house, brute and beast and devil." And

breaking loose from her husband's hands she caught hold of the

ghost-like child and flung her into the yard.

When Poppy got up from the ground it was late and the door was shut for

the night. The world was black save for a few pale stars. She wondered

heavily where she could go and lie down and sleep. She was like a man

who has walked unceasingly for hundreds of miles. She could think of

nothing but sleep. She groped for the forage-house door, thinking how

sweet it would be to rest there on the bundles of forage, with the smell

of the pumpkins coming down from the roof, where they were ripening; but

the door was locked. The fowl-hok swarmed with lice in the summer; even

in her weariness her flesh crept at the thought of spending the night

there. She remembered the Kopje and her old friend the mimosa tree, but

there was a certain gloom about the Kopje on a dark night. At last she

thought of the poplar trees by the Big Dam; they were her friends--all

trees were her friends. When her heart hurt her most and her eyes seemed

bursting from her head because she could not cry, if she could get close

to a tree and press against it, and put the leaves to her eyes, some of

her misery seemed to be taken away: thoughts and hopes would come into

her mind, she could forget what had made her unhappy and her little

songs would begin to make themselves heard.

When she broke her arm she used to cry all night for them to put green

leaves on the place to stop the aching, but they would not. Only the

doctor, when he heard about it, brought her a bunch of geranium leaves

one morning. She put them quickly under her pillow and when no one was

there laid them down by her side, because she could not get them under

the splints, and they eased the pain, until they were withered and "Aunt

Lena" found them in the bed and threw them away: then the pain was as

bad as ever.

The poplar trees grew in a long line of thirty or so by the side of the

Big Dam which lay just outside the town past the Presidency. Poppy was

sometimes allowed to take the children there, when Clara and Emily went

to help mind the children, in case they climbed up the dam wall and fell

into the water. They were tall, grand trees, that never ceased rustling

in the breeze that crept across the big expanse of water, even on the

hottest days. Poppy had climbed every one of them, and she never forgot

the moment of pure gold joy that she felt when she reached the top of

each and sat there silent and afar from the world, cloistered round by

the mysteriously whispering leaves. But the seventh tree was her

specially loved friend. It belonged to her--and she had climbed to its

very tip, higher than anyone ever had before, and cut her name in the

soft pale bark.

And this was the friend she turned to on that night of dreadful

weariness when Ina died.

She never knew how she got through the town, silent and dark, and over

the little hill thick with _bessie_ bushes and rocks that lay between

the Dames' Institute and the Presidency. She did not even remember

climbing the tree, which had a thick smooth trunk and was hard to get up

for the first six or seven feet. But at last she was in her seat at the

top between two branches, cuddling up to the mother-trunk with her arms

round it and her eyes closed.

Then, even though her heart took comfort, the darkness and strange

sounds of the night terrified her, and filled her with dread and

despair. There were wild ducks flying and circling in long black lines

against the pallid stars over the dam, wailing to each other as though

they had lost something they could never, never find again. And the wind

on the water made a dreary pattering that sounded like the bare feet of

hundreds of dead people who had come out of the graveyards close by, and

were hurrying backwards and forwards on the dam. Then there would be a

mysterious rushing through the trees and all the leaves would quiver and

quake against each other, like little ghosts that were afraid to be out

in the dark night. Poppy wondered if Ina's little ghost was with them.

In the highest windows of the Dames' Institute there were still a few

lights showing, and a dim red glow came from a window at one end of the

Presidency, and when Poppy opened her eyes these seemed like friends to

her. But they went out one by one, and with the last, light seemed to go

out of her mind too. She shut her eyes again, and pressed her heart

against the poplar tree, and called through the darkness to her mother.

She did not know whether she really called aloud, but it seemed to her

that a long thin shriek burst from her lips, as a bullet bursts from a

gun, piercing through the air for miles.

"Mother! Mother! Mother, my heart is breaking." She sobbed, and sobbed,

and sobbed, gripping the little ghostly leaves and pressing them to her

eyes. But her mother did not come, of course. No one came. Only the

little ghostly leaves shivered more than ever and the dreary dead feet

came pattering over the water. At this time a sweet, sad cadence of

words streamed into Poppy's head and began to form a little song.

Strange, that though its burden was misery and wretchedness, it

presently began to comfort her a little.

"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea"--it ran.

Yet Poppy had never seen the sea.

Everyone in the world seemed to be sleeping except the dead people and

Poppy. Even the clock in the Government buildings struck as though

muffled up in blankets, speaking in its sleep. When it was striking she

raised her head to listen and count the strokes, and forgetting the

horror of the night opened her eyes--and beheld a terrible, shroudy

vision creeping over the world. It came very slowly and stealthily, like

a grey witch in a tale of horror, and ate up little patches of darkness

as it came, swelling larger as it ate. Oh! the dead people swaying to

and fro on the water! She prayed they might be gone back to their graves

before the grey witch reached them with her long, clutching fingers; she

prayed in a frenzy of fear for herself, calling to Christ and Mary

Mother of God, to save her from the grey witch. She rocked herself

backwards and forwards, praying and moaning, and almost falling from the

tree, and at last in reckless desperation opened her eyes, and glared

out over the dam--and saw that the dawn had come. The grey witch had

turned into a lovely lady, all decked in palest pink, with her arms

spread wide in the sky, trailing long veils of sheeny lavender cloud

behind her.

* * * * *

A man and a boy with guns in their hands were creeping along under the

dam wall, trying to get near a covey of wild duck on the water.

Presently they stopped, and crouching, took aim and fired. The birds

rose in a swarm and flew shrieking in long black lines, leaving two poor

little black bodies on the dam--one flapping the water with a feeble

wing, trying to rise, and falling back every time. The boy threw off his

clothes and went in after them, while the man drew under the shadow of

the dam wall, and began to run, making for the far side of the water,

where the ducks seemed likely to settle again.

Presently the lady of the sky grew brighter and streaks of gold came

into her pink and lavender veils; the grass was all silvery with the

heavy dew, and the earth gave up a sweet and lovely smell. God seems to

go away from Africa at night, but He comes back most beautiful and

radiant in the morning. Birds began to chirrup and twitter in the trees

and bushes, and take little flying journeys in the air. The clock

struck five--clear and bell-like strokes now, that sang and echoed out

into the morning.

Poppy felt cold and stiff and hungry, and very tired, as though she

should fall down and die if she stayed in the tree any longer.

There was nothing to do, and nowhere to go but home. After all, Aunt

Lena could only kill her once. Then she would join Ina and see her

mother, and hear Irish melodies, and be where it was not cold or lonely

any more. She got down from the tree almost cheerfully and made her way

through the grass, plucking a few _crase bessies_ by the way and

munching them as she walked. There was hardly anyone about the town,

except a few _boys_ carrying pails of water from the fountain. When she

reached home, she found that the house was still shut and locked, with

all the blinds down. So she sat on the kitchen step and waited until old

Sara, coming out to get wood for the fire, nearly fell over her.

"Tch! Tch! Tch!" she clucked. "_Arme kentze! War vas sig gisterand?_"

(Poor child! Where were you last night?)

"_Dar bij de dam. Ge koffi O'Sara. Ik is freeslik kow._" (Up by the Big

Dam. Give me some coffee, Sara. I am very cold.)

"Jah! Jah!" said old Sara, and hurried away, clucking and muttering, to

make the fire and get the morning coffee. Poppy went in and warmed

herself, and presently got down the cups and beakers and stood them in a

row on the kitchen table. Cups and saucers for aunt and uncle and Clara

and Emily, and beakers for the children. Old Sara poured them full of

steaming black coffee, added milk and sugar and a home-made rusk in each

saucer, and carried them away to the bedrooms. Poppy sat down with a

beaker full, dipping a rusk into the coffee and eating it sopped,

because the rusks are too hard to eat any other way. Presently old Sara

came and squatted on her haunches by the fire too, drinking her coffee

from a white basin with a blue band round it (blue that it gave Poppy a

pain to look at, it was so cold and livid), and making fearful

squelching noises, she sopped and ate. Rolling her big black and white

eyes at Poppy, she whispered all that had happened after she had gone.

Aunt Lena had screamed and cried for hours, raving that she would not

have her child's murderess in the house again. She could go and live in

the fowls' _hok_, or the forage-house, until another home was found for

her, but if Poppy came into her sight again, she would tear her limb

from limb. Afterwards she had coughed and spat up blood. Old Sara wagged

her head, giving this piece of information as one who should say: "Serve

her right, too." The doctor had come and said that "something was broken

inside." Old Sara patted her wobbly stomach. "She must go to bed and not

move for a month or she would go too." Old Sara pointed sanctimoniously

upwards.

It was even so. Aunt Lena lay for weeks on her bed, but still ruling her

house from it. Poppy was not allowed to eat or sleep under the house

roof. A blanket was given to her, and she slept on the bales of chaff in

the out-house with a bundle of forage for a pillow. Old Sara brought to

her there such meals as she was allowed to receive.

The twins were not allowed to speak to her: a strange girl was hired to

take them out--Poppy did not mind that. Clara and Emily passed her in

the yard as though she was a jackal or some unclean beast--she minded

that even less. The only thing she minded at all, was not being allowed

to see Ina before she was buried.

On the day of the funeral, the little cold form in the coffin was not

more cold and numb than one lying out in the out-house between two bales

of chaff. Despair of mourning had Poppy by the throat. She could have

wailed like a banshee. Indeed, if her voice had not gone from her, it

is probable that she would have relieved the pressure on her heart and

brain in this fashion. As it was, she was the only person in the place

who gave no outward sign of mourning. Her old blue galatea overall, with

the pattern worn faint in front, and the sleeves in rags, might have

grown to her back. But old Sara was given a dark dress of Aunt Lena's,

and a new black _dook_ to wear on her head. Clara and Emily had new

black alpaca dresses, with tucks round the bottom and black ribbon

sashes. Eight little girls came dressed in white, with their hair down

and long floating white muslin veils hanging behind, and bunches of

white flowers in their hands. They were to carry the coffin in turns,

four carrying and four walking behind, because it was a very long way to

the graveyard. Mr. Kennedy and Georgie and Bobby walked behind them, and

then a great many men. But the saddest mourner of all watched from the

crack of the forage-house door, and thought how sad and beautiful it all

was, and how it would have been spoilt if she had gone out and joined it

in her blue overall; and after the procession was out of sight, lay

there on her face on the chaff, and could not cry; and seemed to have

swallowed a stone, that stuck in her throat and gave her dreadful pains

all across her chest; and whose heart kept saying: "I hate God! I hate

aunt!" And when she tried to scream it aloud, found that she had no

voice.

In the evening when the sun was set, but before it was dark, a figure

stole out of the back yard, crept through the empty _spruit_, slipped

through a private garden and came out by the cathedral steps; then up

past the big church bell that tolled for the dead, and so to the

graveyard.

All the way she gathered wild flowers and grasses--rock-maiden-hair,

_rooi gras_, moon-flowers, and most especially shivery-grass, and the

little perky rushes with a flower sprouting out of them, which the

children call _tulps_. Ina had always loved these. Some "four o'clocks"

too, stolen from a front garden as she passed, were added, and even a

_stink bloem_ graced the great bunch with which Poppy entered the

churchyard.

She found a new little heap of red earth that she knew must be Ina's

grave, for it was all covered with wreaths and the bunches of flowers

the eight girls had carried. Scraping them all to the foot of the grave,

Poppy laid hers where she thought Ina's hands would be, whispering down

through the earth:

"From Poppy, Ina--Poppy who loves you best of all."

* * * * *

Some nights old Sara would come sneaking softly over to the

forage-house, to sit a while with Poppy; sometimes she had a rusk to

give the prisoner; most often she had nothing but an end of candle, but

that was very welcome. Lighting it, and sticking it on a side beam, she

would squat on the floor, and taking off her _dook_, proceed to comb her

wool. Poppy was glad of company, and interested in the frank way old

Sara attended to the business of catching and killing her

_chochermanners_; besides, there were a lot of interesting things in old

Sara's wool besides _chochermanners_: there was a little bone box full

of snuff, and a little bone spoon to put it in the nose with; and a

piece of paper with all old Sara's money in it; and a tooth belonging to

old Sara's mother, and several small home-made bone combs and pins and

charms.

Old Sara's Dutch was poor, and Poppy could not speak Basuto, so that

much conversation did not ensue, but black people can tell a great deal

without saying much.

Once Poppy asked her why she did not go to her _kraal_ and live with her

children instead of working for white people.

Old Sara took snuff and answered briefly:

"_Ek het ne kinders, oor Ek is ne getroud._" (I have no children,

because I am not married.)

This was good, but not infallible logic, as Poppy even in her few years

had discovered.

"Why didn't you get married when you were young, old Sara?" she queried.

Old Sara rolled her eyes mournfully at the child, and muttered some

words in her own language. Then slowly she undid the buttons of many

kinds and colours which adorned the front of her dress. From the left

bosom she took a large bundle of rags, and placed them carefully on the

floor, then opening her bodice wide, she revealed her black body bare to

the waist. Poppy's astonished gaze fell upon a right breast--no object

of beauty, but large and heavy; but where the left breast should be was

only a little shrivel of brown skin high up out of line with the other.

That was old Sara's only answer to Poppy's question. Afterwards she

quietly replaced her bundle of rags, and rebuttoned her dress.

As for Poppy, she pondered the problem long. At last she made a little

song, which she called:

"The woman with the crooked breast."

* * * * *

One night old Sara brought news.

Poppy's box was being packed. In two days she was going to be sent away

in the post-cart. Poppy thrilled with joy, and had no foreboding until

next day when she overheard Clara and Emily whispering together in the

yard. It transpired that though they envied Poppy the journey to Boshof

in the post-cart, they did not envy her subsequent career under the

protection of their mother's sister, Aunt Clara Smit.

"Do you remember that time ma sent us there when Ina had the diphtheria?

We never got anything but bread and dripping, and she was eating chops

and steaks all the time."

"Yes," said Clara, "and remember how she used to beat _Katzi_, the

little Hottentot girl, in bed every night for a week until the blood

came, just because she broke a cup."

"Ha! ha!" they chirruped, "won't Miss Poppy get it _just_!"

"Yes, and mammer's going to give her something before she goes, too. She

sent me to buy a _sjambok_ this morning, because pa's hidden his away,

and when he's gone out to the 'Phoenix' to-night, she's going to have

Poppy across the bed in front of her. You're to hold her head and me her

feet."

"Tlk! Won't she get it!"

This interesting piece of news determined Poppy on a matter which had

long been simmering in her mind. She decided at last that she would take

no more beatings from Aunt Lena, and neither would she sample the

quality of Aunt Clara Smit's charity. She would run away.

All that afternoon she lay turning the matter over, and later she took

old Sara into her confidence for two reasons: old Sara must commandeer

some food for her, and must also get for her the only thing she wanted

to take away with her--a round green stone brooch which had belonged to

her mother, and which Aunt Lena kept in her top drawer.

Poppy felt sure that with her mother's brooch on her she need fear

nothing in the world; it was green, and therefore kindly disposed, as

all green things were, being akin to trees.

It took a long while to beguile old Sara to obtain the brooch, for the

old woman was very honest and she thought this looked too much like a

stealing matter. Eventually she was persuaded, and a little after seven

o'clock she brought it stealthily to the forage-house, together with a

pocketful of food-scraps saved from her own portion of the evening meal.

After this, Poppy did not dare wait another instant. She knew that as

soon as he had finished his supper, her uncle would light his pipe and

stroll off to spend a cheerful evening in the billiard-room of the

"Phoenix Hotel"; then they would come to fetch her indoors!

With a hasty farewell to old Sara, her only friend, she slipped out

through the dark yard and ran swiftly up the street. Her direction was

towards the _Uitspan_, a big bare place about half a mile from the town

where wagons halted for a night before starting on a journey, or before

bringing their loads into town in the morning. There was a big _Uitspan_

out beyond St. Michael's, and she made for that one, remembering there

were always plenty of wagons there.

When she stole near it in the darkness, she counted eight wagons, four

of which were loaded to depart, since their dissel-booms were turned

away from the town.

There were several fires burning, and the fume of coffee was on the

night air. Someone was making _as-kookies_ (ash-cakes) too, for a

pleasant smell of burnt dough assailed Poppy's nose. Four Kaffir _boys_

were sitting round a three-legged pot, dipping into it and jabbering

together, and by the light of another fire a white woman and three

children were taking their evening meal. The wagon behind them was

loaded with furniture and boxes, and by this Poppy was sure that they

were a family on the move. She crept nearer to them, keeping in the

shadow of the close-growing bushes. The dull red fires and the stars

gave the only light there was.

"Ma," said one of the children at the fire, "I see a spook over there by

the bushes." The mother's response was: "Here, you make haste and finish

your coffee and get into the wagon. It's time you children were asleep.

They're going to inspan at eleven and you'd better get a good sleep

before the wagon starts creaking and jolting."

This was useful information to Poppy. Her plan was to follow the wagon

when it started and keep near it until late the next day, when too far

from Bloemfontein to be sent back.

She crouched lower among the bushes, and presently began to munch some

of her oddments of food, while still she watched the family she meant to

adopt. When they had finished their meal they first washed up their tin

beakers and plates with water from a small _fykie_ which hung under the

wagon; then everything was carefully put away into a wooden locker, and

they prepared to retire for the night. The mother was a round-faced,

good-natured-looking, half-Dutch colonial, evidently. She climbed

sturdily into the tented wagon by the help of the brake and a little

_reimpe_ ladder. Across the tent was swung a _cartel_ (thong mattress)

and atop of this was a big comfortable mattress with pillows and

blankets arranged ready for use. By the light of the lantern which the

woman fixed to the roof of the tent, Poppy could see that the sides of

the tent were lined with calico bags with buttoned-over flaps, all

bulging with the things that would be needed on the journey. The woman

proceeded to store away more things from a heap in the middle of the

bed, some she put under the pillows, some under the mattress, and many

were tied to the wooden ribs of the tent so that it presently resembled

a Christmas-tree. Meantime the children clustered on the brake and the

_reimpe_ ladder, fidgeting to climb into the snug-looking nest. The

mother talked while she worked:

"Here, Alice! I'll put this pair of old boots into the end bag, they'll

do for wearing in the veldt----"

"Oh, sis, ma! I hate those old boots, they hurt me--" expostulated

Alice.

"Nonsense, how can they hurt you? You keep your new ones for Pretoria,

anything'll do on the veldt. Now you all see where I'm putting the

comb--and this beaker we'll keep up in your corner, Minnie, so we don't

have to go to the locker every time we're thirsty. I hope that boy will

hang the _fykie_ where we can reach it. Begin to take your boots off,

Johnny. I'm not going to have you in here treading on my quilt with

those boots; no one is to get in until they're _carl-foot_."

"I'll get _deviljies_ (thorns) in my feet if I take them off out here,"

says Johnny. "Can't I sit on the edge of the bed?"

"All right then, but keep your feet out. Minnie, take off that good

ribbon and tie your hair with this piece of tape," etc.

Eventually they were all in the tent, lying in a row crossways, the

mother by the opening as a sort of barricade. They did not undress--only

loosened their clothes.

Everyone wanted to lie across the opening. They couldn't see anything at

the back of the tent, they complained; only had to lie and stare at the

things bobbing overhead.

"You never mind that," said the mother, arguing. "You've got three or

four weeks to see the veldt and the oxen in. I'm going to lie here so

that I can keep you children from falling out while we're trekking. Why

I knew a woman once who let her baby lie on the outside, and in the

middle of the night she woke up and heard an awful crunching under the

wheels, and when she felt for the baby it wasn't there!" This story

caused a great sensation, but presently Johnny asked how the baby's

bones could crunch under the wheels "if it fell out behind the wagon!"

The mother considered for a moment, then said:

"It was the wheels of the wagon behind, of course, _dom-kop_."

But Johnny pointed out that a whole span of oxen would come before the

wheels of the next wagon, and that the baby would be all trodden to bits

before the wheels reached it.

"Oh, _Kgar! Sis!_" cried the sisters; and at this his mother told him

amiably to shut his mouth and go to sleep.

But though she put out the lantern the talk still went on intermittently

until replaced by snores.

The _boys_ and the transport-drivers all lay wrapped in their blankets,

snoring too. Only afar the oxen could be heard moving as they grazed,

and the bell on the neck of one of them clanked restlessly. The fires

had died down to dim red spots. The watcher in the bushes was the only

one awake in the camp. She feared that if she slept the family in the

wagon might be up and away. Her mind was made up to accompany that

good-natured-looking woman and her family to Pretoria, since that was

where they were bound for. She would follow the wagons and join them

when a long way from Bloemfontein, and her tale would be that she

belonged to a wagon which had gone on in front. She would pretend that

she had got lost, and ask to be taken on to rejoin her relations in

Pretoria.

At about eleven o'clock the moon rose, but no one stirred in the camp.

Suddenly the figure of a man arose, took a long whip from the side of a

wagon, unwound it, walked a little way from the camp, swung it whistling

softly round his head for a moment, then sent a frightful report ringing

across the veldt. Afterwards he lay down again until a great crackling

and trampling and shouting told that the oxen were in the camp with

their herders hooting and yelling round them. In a moment other still

figures were on their feet; a clamour arose of voices shouting, wooden

yokes clattering, dissel-booms creaking; bullocks were called at by

their names and sworn at individually:

"_Rooi-nek! Yoh Skelpot! com an da!_" (Redneck! You tortoise! come on

there!)

"_Viljoen! Wat makeer jij?_" (Viljoen! What's wrong with _you_?)

Loud blows and kicks were heard and demands for missing oxen.

"_Jan, war is de Vaal-pans?_" (John, where is the yellow-belly?)

"_Ek saal yoh net now slaan, jou faarbont._" (I'll strike you in a

minute, you baseborn.)

"_De verdomder Swart-kop!_"

Each wagon had a span of eighteen or twenty oxen, and as soon as the

last pair was yoked, a small black boy, the _voerlooper_, would run to

their heads, seize the leading _rein_ and turn them towards the road.

Then came a tremendous crack of the driver's whip, a stream of oaths and

oxen's names, intermingled and ending in:

"_Yak!_"

One by one the four wagons took the road, raising clouds of red dust,

the drivers and boys running alongside.

Usually passenger-wagons go first in the line, but the wagon with

Poppy's adopted family in it, started last, because _Swart-kop_, a big

black-and-white ox, had been particularly fractious, and had delayed the

operation of inspanning, putting the driver into a terrible passion.

Poppy waited until his cursings and revilings were only faintly heard on

the air, then slipping quietly through the camp which had returned to

peaceful sleeping, she plunged into the clouds of dust.

Throughout the night hours she padded along, her throat and ears and

mouth filled with the fine dirt, her eyes running and sore; afraid to

get too near the wagons for fear of being seen; afraid to be too far

behind for fear of she knew not what.

Towards dawn they passed through a narrow _sluit_. The water was filthy

at the _drift_ when all the wagons had gone through it, but she left the

road and found a clean place higher up where she thankfully drank and

laved her begrimed face. As the dawn broke she could see that the veldt

was well-bushed with clumps of rocks, and big ant-heaps here and there;

there would be plenty of hiding-places when the wagons stopped.

Presently there were signs of a coming halt. The oxen slackened pace,

the drivers began to call to each other, and the man who was evidently

the _Baas_ of the convoy went off the road and inspected the ground.

Then a long loud:

"_Woa! An--nauw!_" passed along the line, each wagon took to the veldt,

drawing up at about fifty yards from the road.

Thereafter came the outspanning, with the identical accompaniments of

the inspanning. When the oxen had gone to seek water and food in charge

of their herders, the _voerloopers_ departed to gather wood and _mis_

(dry cow-dung) for the fires, and the drivers unrolled their blankets

and lay upon them resting, but not sleeping, until a meal had been

prepared; someone began to play a concertina at this time. Afar from the

encampment Poppy had found a big dry hole in the heart of a clump of

bushes. The thorns tore her face and her clothes as she struggled

through them, but in the hole at last she fell down and succumbed to the

passion for sleep which overwhelmed her. She lay like a stone all

through the day, hearing nothing until the loud clap of a whip pulled

her out of her dreams.

"_Yak--Varns!_"

Half dead with weariness--stiff, wretched, hungry--she crept from her

hiding-place and stumbled on her way, wrapped once more in the

impenetrable dust.

On the night of the second day she discovered herself to the family in

the tented wagon. Staggering from the bush at the side of the road she

climbed on to the brake of the slowly moving wagon and appeared before

the comfortable contented occupants--a filthy, tattered, unkempt vision;

her face peaked and wan under the dirt, her eyes glazy. "Give me food

and water," she whispered--her voice had never returned since Ina's

death.

After one long stare, and amidst screams from the children, the woman

pulled her up into the tent, bade the children make room, and quickly

found water and biscuits.

Poppy ate and drank ravening, then lay back and cried weakly, the big

hot tears washing white streaks down her cheeks. The woman with an eye

to her clean bedclothes, proceeded to sponge her face with water in a

tin beaker, and told Alice to take off the tattered boots and stockings.

She questioned Poppy the while, but Poppy cared for nothing but sleep.

She lay back and slept even as they washed her. About noon she awoke and

found herself still lying on the big bed, and the woman was standing on

the brake with coffee and a plate of stew.

"Wake up and eat this, girl; and now you are better tell me where you

come from and where you're going, hey?"

Poppy, between eating and drinking, recited her tale: she was travelling

with her father and brothers and sisters to the Transvaal; had wandered

away from the wagons and got lost on the veldt--believed she had been

wandering for a week; her name she fancifully gave as Lucy Gray (it

seemed to wake no echoes in the minds or memories of her listeners); no

doubt, she said, these wagons would catch the others up in a few days.

She begged the woman to take care of her in the meantime. She would

help with the cooking and the children--she wouldn't eat much.

The woman regarded her suspiciously once or twice, but she was stupid as

well as good-natured and had not the wit to find flaws in the

well-thought-out tale. She consented to fall in with Poppy's request--in

common humanity she could do little else--found some clean clothes for

her and a pair of old boots, and gave her _fat_ to smear on her wounds

and sore feet.

But first Poppy had to be passed before the _Baas_ of the wagons--the

big fierce-looking Boer who fortunately was not at all fierce, only very

stupid, and although he refused to believe her tale, turning to Mrs.

Brant and remarking briefly: "_Sij le!_" (she lies!) he could not offer

any suggestion as to what the truth might be; nor did he make any

objection to Mrs. Brant's plans; so Poppy was outcast no more. She

became one of a family, and speedily made herself so useful to Mrs.

Brant that the good woman was glad to have her.

Followed many long happy weeks. Happy even when the wet-season swooped

down on them and they had to wait on the banks of swollen rivers

fireless for days; or remain stuck in a mudhole for hours, until their

wheels could be dug out or pulled out by three spans of oxen combined,

while mosquitoes bit and swarmed over them, leaving a festering sore for

every bite they gave; even under the heavy sweltering _sail_ that was

flung over them at nights to keep rain out, and which also kept the air

out and made the small tent like a pest-house; even when the food gave

out and they had to rely on what they could get at the scattered farms.

In spite of all the mishaps, everyone was kind and good-natured. No one

offered blows or taunts to Poppy, and her starved heart revived a little

and began to hold up its head under the gentle rain of kindliness and

friendliness. Then, the glamour of travel was upon her for the first

time. Never before had she seen the hills, the mountains, the great

rolling spaces of veldt, the rivers sweeping and boiling down their wide

ravines. It was most wonderful and beautiful, too, to wake every dawn

and step out of the wagon to a fresh world. Where last night had been a

hill, to-morrow would be a rushing river, befringed with mimosa, whose

odour had been sweet on the breeze all the day before. The next day

would find them on a bare plain, with no stick or stone to give shelter

from the burden of the sun or the rain, and the next they would lie in

the purple shadow of a mountain, on which were scarlet geraniums as tall

as trees, and strange flowers shaped like birds and insects grew

everywhere.

And oh! the fresh glory of the morning dews! The smell of the wood smoke

on the air! The wide open empty world around them and the great silence

into which the small human sounds of the camp fell and were lost like

pebbles thrown into the sea! Happy, rain-soaked, sun-bitten days!

Bloemfontein and misery were a long way behind. Poppy's sad songs were

all forgotten; new ones sprang up in her heart, songs flecked with

sunlight and bewreathed with wild flowers.

* * * * *

But a cloud was on the horizon. The convoy of wagons drew at last near

its destination. Poppy began to be haunted at nights with the fear of

what new trouble must await her there. Where would she go? What would

she do? How could she face kind Mrs. Brant with her tale of parents and

friends proved false? These frightful problems filled the nights in the

creaking wagon with terror. The misty bloom that had fallen upon her

face during the weeks of peace and content, vanished, and haggard lines

of anxiety and strain began to show.

"Child, you look peaky," said good Mrs. Brant. "What'll your ma say? I

must give you a Cockle's pill."

But Poppy grew paler and more peaky.

Two days' _trek_ from Pretoria she was missed at inspan time. Long

search was made. The wagons even waited a whole day and night for her;

the _boys_ called and the drivers sent cracks of their great whips

volleying and echoing for miles, as a signal of their whereabouts in

case she had wandered far and lost her bearings. At night they made

enormous fires to guide her to their camping-places. But she never

returned. It was then and for the first time that two little lines of

verse came into the memory of Alice, the eldest girl, who had been at a

good school. She recited them to the family, who thought them passing

strange and prophetic:

"But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen."

* * * * *

Unfortunately, after leaving the wagons and hiding herself in a deep

gulch, Poppy had fallen asleep, and that so heavily after her many

nights of sleepless worry, that she did not awake for more than fourteen

hours. When she did wake she found that some poisonous insect or reptile

had stung one of her feet terribly: it was not painful, but enormously

swollen and discoloured, and she found it difficult to get along. The

wagons had gone and she could never catch up with them again, even if

she wished. On the second night she heard, many miles away, the cracking

of the whips and saw little glow-worms of light that might have been the

flare of fires lighted to show her the way back to the wagons; and her

spirit yearned to be with those friendly faces and kindly fires. She

wept and shivered and crouched fearsomely in the darkness.

The next day it rained: merciless, savage, hammering rain. Sometimes she

wandered in it, fancying herself wandering in a forest of trees, all

with stems as thick as a rain-drop; sometimes it was so strong she could

lean against it; sometimes she thought she was a moth beating against

glass, trying, trying to get out.

Another night came.

Through most of that she lay prone on her face,

thinking--believing--hoping that she was dead and part of the earth she

lay on.

And, indeed, the greater part of her was mud.

She had long ago lost the road. She supposed she must be in the

Transvaal somewhere; but at this time, half-delirious from pain, hunger,

and terror, she believed herself back near Bloemfontein--seemed to

recognise the hills outside the town. Terrified, she took another

direction, falling sometimes and unable to rise again until she had

slept where she lay. Whenever she saw bushes with berries or fruits on

them she gathered and ate.

Sometimes from her hiding-places she could see Kaffirs pass singly, or

in small parties; but after searching their faces, she let them pass.

Even in her delirium something warned her not to make herself known.

One night, it seemed to her weeks after she had left the wagons, she was

suddenly dazzled by the sight of a red light shining quite near her. She

gathered up her last remnants of strength and walked towards it; she

believed she urged and ran--in reality she merely drifted by the help of

a friendly wind that happened to be blowing that way. At last she saw

that it was not one--but many lamps and candles shining through the

windows of a house. But the windows themselves could be only dimly seen

through the leaves of a tree, which overhung the house and threw long

claw-like shadows everywhere. Next, her broken feet knew gravel under

them: white walls were before her, too--and green doors and green

window-shutters, all laced and latticed with the shadows of one great

tree that stood like a monster in the path by the big door. The lights

that shone out and dazzled showed her that the tree was very, very

green, with a myriad strange scarlet eyes glowing in it; eyes that

glowed with an alert brightness that was not friendly. Poppy had always

loved trees and believed them to be her friends, but this tree

frightened her. Nevertheless she crept closer to the biggest, brightest

window of the house, and peered in through the glass panes, a little

dulled and dimmed by the ever-beating, everlasting rain. She saw a man

sitting at a table spread with beautiful shining vases of flowers,

dishes of food, plates and glasses that glittered, fruit--two black

_boys_ waited on him, dressed in white uniforms, and through an open

doorway a tan-skinned old woman with a white _dook_ could be seen

speaking to one of the _boys_--handing him a dish that flamed with

little blue flames. The man at the table leaned back in his chair and

faced the window. If it had not been that she believed herself dying, or

perhaps already dead, Poppy would rather have gone back to the veldt

than into the house where that face was master, for it terrified her

even as the faces of the Kaffirs on the veldt had done. The man was not

ugly; but his mouth was cruel and bitter, and his eyes were of the same

hard, cold blue as the stripe on old Sara's coffee-basin. And across his

face, from the left eye to the corner of his mouth, was a long, raw,

newly-healed scar.

It seemed to Poppy that while she stood watching this man, something

inside her shrivelled up and blew away from her like a leaf in the wind.

It came into her head then that, after all, she would not stay here at

this house; it would be better to go back to the veldt. Wearifully she

stepped down from the high steps she had climbed, reached the green

door, and then her hobbling feet would go no further.

She sank on the steps and her head knocked against the door. At once

dogs barked inside, voices came near, the door opened, letting strong

light fall across the face of Poppy, now lying on the floor. She saw

black faces around her and heard native voices crying, "Wha!" in

astonishment. Then someone lifted her up very strongly and held her

under a hanging lamp and looked at her. She saw through failing eyes

that it was the man with the scar.

"Who are you, child?" he asked, and his voice was quite kind and

friendly.

Again the feeling of terror and panic swept over the child's heart; but

she was very tired. She believed she was already dead. Her head fell

back.

"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf," is what she answered.

PART II

"I never saw anything like the way a poppy lives with its heart and

soul every second of the day.

"It is the most joyful flower in the world. Not a joy of strength, for

it is fragile, but just sheer delight in existence and devil-may-care.

I would much rather have poppies on my coffin than stupid affected

lilies and white roses.

"Then the sheer cheek of a poppy, and the way it dies quickly,

without any bother, when picked! It is such a definite vivid thing,

whether it is braving the sun, or sleeping folded under the stars. A

wild, fresh individuality; not a banal neutral-tinted affair out of

the garden, or something with a smile on its face and a claw

underneath, like a rose."

(_Extract from a letter._)

CHAPTER I

The girl, with a little curling motion, leaned back in the rickshaw and

gazed with fascinated eyes at the moving picture before her, seen

through the hazy heat of a summer day.

Above the wide main street of Durban the sun blazed and glared like a

brazen image of itself in the high ardent blue. Men in loose white ducks

and flannels sauntered along, or stood smoking and talking under the

shop awnings.

Carriages and rickshaws flew past, containing women in light gowns and

big veils, with white and sometimes scarlet sunshades. Black boys at the

street corners held out long-stalked roses and sprays of fragrant mimosa

to the passers-by, beguiling them to buy. Coolies with baskets of fish

on their heads and bunches of bananas across their shoulders, shambled

along, white-clad and thin-legged. One, with a basket of freshly-caught

fish on his arm, cried in a nasal sing-song voice:

"Nice lovely shad! Nice lovely shad!"

Two water-carts, clanking along in opposite directions, left a dark

track behind them on the dusty road, sending up a heavy odour of wet

earth which the girl snuffed up as though she had some transportingly

sweet perfume at her delicate nostrils.

"I'm sure there is no smell in the world like the smell of wet Africa,"

she cried softly to herself, laughing a little. Her eyes took on a misty

look that made them like lilac with the dew on it.

Her black hair, which branched out on either side of her forehead, had a

trick of spraying little veils of itself over her eyes and almost

touching her cheek-bones, which were pitched high in her face, giving it

an extraordinarily subtle look.

She was amazingly attractive in a glowing ardent fashion that paled the

other women in the street and made men step to the edge of the pavement

to stare at her.

She looked at them, too, through the spraying veils of her hair, but her

face remained perfectly composed under the swathes of white chiffon

which she wore flung back over her wide hat, brought down at the sides

and twisted round her throat, with two long flying ends.

The big Zulu boy between the shafts, running noiselessly except for the

pat of his bare feet and the "Tch-k, tch-k, tch-k" of the seed bangles

round his ankles, became conscious that his fare was creating interest.

He began to put on airs, giving little shouts of glorification, taking

leaps in the air and tilting the shafts of the rickshaw backwards to the

discomfort of its occupant.

She leaned forward, and in a low voice spoke a few edged words in Zulu

that made him change his manners and give a glance of astonishment

behind him, crying:

"_Aa-h! Yeh--boo Inkosizaan!_" behaving himself thereafter with decorum,

for it was a disconcerting thing that an _Inkosizaan_ who had come

straight off the mail-steamer at the Point should speak words of reproof

to him in his own language.

Presently he came to the foot of the Berea Hill, which is long and

sloping, causing him to slacken pace and draw deep breaths.

A tram-car dashed past them going down-hill, while another climbed

laboriously up, both open to the breeze and full of people. The road

began to be edged with fenced and hedged-in gardens, the houses

standing afar and almost hidden by shrubs and greenery.

The girl spoke to the rickshaw-puller once more.

"The _Inkos_ at the Point told you where to go. Do you know the house?"

He answered yes, but that it was still afar off--right at the top of the

Berea.

She leaned back again content. It delighted her to be alone like this.

It was quite an adventure, and an unexpected one. A malicious,

mischievous smile flashed across her face as she sat thinking of the

annoyance of the _Inkos_ left behind at the docks. He had been furious

when he found no closed carriage waiting for them.

There was one on the quay, but it was not theirs, and on approaching it

and finding out his mistake, he stood stammering with anger. But she had

flashed into a waiting rickshaw, knowing very well that he could not

force her to get out and go back to the ship without making a scene.

Nothing would induce him to make a scene and attract the attention of

people to himself. He had indeed told her in a low voice to get out and

come back with him to wait for a carriage, but she merely made a mouth

and looked appealingly at him, saying:

"Oh Luce! It will be so lovely in a rickshaw. I have never ridden in one

like this yet."

"Well, ride to the devil," he had amiably responded, and turned his back

on her. She had called out after him, in an entrancingly sweet voice:

"Yes, I know, Luce; but what is the address?"

"It was a shame," she said to herself now, still smiling; "but really I

don't often vex him!"

A man and a woman passed, as she sat smiling her subtle smile through

her spraying hair, and looked at her with great curiosity.

Afterwards the man said excitedly:

"That girl takes the shine out of Mary----"

The woman, who looked well-bred with a casual distinguished manner,

agreed with him, but did not tell him so. She said:

"Her eyes look as though they were painted in by Burne-Jones, and she is

dressed like a Beardsley poster; but I think she is only a girl who is

glad to be alive. Mary, however, is the most beautiful woman in Africa."

The girl heard the words "Burne-Jones eyes," and knew they were speaking

of her.

At last she arrived at the gates of her destination. Big, green iron

gates, that clanged behind her as she walked quickly forward down a

winding path into a deep dim garden. There was no more to be seen but

trees and tangles of flowering shrubs and bushes and stretches of green

grass, and trees and trees and trees. Some of the trees were so tall and

old that they must have been growing there when Vasco da Gama first

found Natal; but there were mangoes and sweetly-smelling orange arbours,

that could only have been planted a mere twenty or thirty years. The

magnolia bushes were in bud, and clots of red and golden flowers were

all aflare. Cacti, spreading wide prickly arms, and tall furzy grasses.

Cool wet corners had grottos frondy with ferns; other corners were like

small tropical jungles with enormous palms trailed and tangled over with

heavy waxen-leaved creepers and strangely shaped flowers.

At last, deep in the heart of this wild, still garden, she found the

house. A tall rose-walled house, its balconies and verandahs, too, all

draped and veiled with clinging green. One lovely creeper that clothed

the hall-porch was alive with flowers that were like scarlet stars.

She broke one of them off and stuck it in the bosom of her gown, where

it glowed and burned all day.

Then she rang the bell.

After a minute, someone came bustling down the hall and the door opened,

discovering a stout and elderly coloured woman in a tight dress of

navy-blue sateen with large white spots. Upon her head she wore a snowy

_dook_. At the sight of the girl she shrieked, and fell back into a

carved oak chair that stood conveniently at hand.

"Poppy!" she cried; "and no carriage sent for Luce! What time did the

steamer come, in the name of goodness me?"

"It's no use asking that question now, Kykie," said the girl grimly.

"The only thing to do is to send a carriage down at once."

Kykie departed with amazing alacrity, while the girl examined the hall,

and opening the doors that gave off it, peeped into several rooms.

"Most of the old furniture from the farm!" she commented with a look of

pleasure. Presently she came to a flight of three stairs, and directed

by the sound of Kykie's voice, she stepped down them and found herself

in a large white-washed kitchen lined with spotless deal tables and

broad shelves. An enormous kitchen range, shining and gleaming with

steel and brass, took up the whole of one side of the kitchen. Wide

windows let in a flood of cheerful sunshine.

Kykie, having loaded three Zulu boys with imprecations and instructions

and driven them forth, had sunk into a chair again, panting, with her

hand pressed to her heart, and an expression of utter misery on her

face.

"Don't be so excited, Kykie," said the girl. "You can't escape the wrath

to come; what is the use of making yourself miserable about it

beforehand?"

Kykie rolled her big eyes heavenwards; the whites of them were a golden

yellow.

"His first day home!" she wailed. "They told me at the shipping office

the steamer wouldn't be in before three. May their mothers----"

Poppy walked round the kitchen, looking at everything.

"You've got all the same nice old copper things you had at the farm,

haven't you, Kykie? But it is a much bigger kitchen. Which table will

you let me have to mix the salads on?"

Kykie's face became ornamented with scowls.

"My salads are as good as anyone's," she asserted.

"Nonsense! you know Luce always likes mine best. Come upstairs now and

show me my room."

"Me? With the lunch to get ready!" screamed Kykie, and jumping up she

ran to the stove and began to rattle the pots.

"Well, I will find it myself," said Poppy, going towards the door, "and

I think you're very unkind on my first day home."

But Kykie gave no heed. As a rule she was of a sociable turn of mind and

under other circumstances would have hung about Poppy, showing her

everything and bombarding her with questions; but now she was in the

clutches of despair and dismay at the thought of her neglect of her

adored master, Luce Abinger, and her very real fear of the storm that

would surely break over her head when he arrived.

Kykie called herself a "coloured St. Helena lady," but by the fat

gnarled shape of her, it is likely that she was more than half a

Hottentot. Also the evidence of her hair was against her: it was crisp

and woolly, instead of being lank and oily as a proper "St. Helena

lady's" should be. However, she always kept it concealed beneath a

spotless _dook_. Her real name, as she often informed Poppy in aggrieved

accents, was Celia Frances Elizabeth of Teck Fortune; but Luce Abinger

had brutally named her Kykie, and that was all she was ever called in

his house. By way of retaliation it was her agreeable custom to address

her master and Poppy Destin by their Christian names; but Luce Abinger

only laughed, and Poppy didn't mind in the least. The old woman was

quite ignorant and uneducated, but she had lived all her life as a

servant amongst civilised people, and she spoke correct and fluent

English, tacking many curious expressions of her own to the tails of her

remarks with an air of intense refinement.

She was often crabbed of temper and cantankerous of tongue, but the

heart within her wide and voluptuous bosom was big for Luce Abinger and

all that pertained to him. She had served him during the whole of his

twenty-five years of life in South Africa; and she was a very pearl of a

cook.

Poppy found her room without any difficulty. On opening the first door

on the first landing and looking in, she recognised her books, and the

faded yellow silk counterpane with the border of red poppies worked by

Kykie in past days. She took off her hat and surveyed the room with

contentment. Her cushions were in her chairs; her books in their

accustomed book-shelves; her long mirror with the slim gilt frame hung

between two windows that gave upon the balcony; her writing-table stood

opposite the mirror where she could look up and see herself as she

wrote. Her brown print of _Monna Lisa_ was above her dressing-table, and

her silver cross with the ivory Christ nailed to it hung over her head--

"To keep a maid from harm!"

There were no pictures on the pale gold walls: only three wonderful

drawings of herself, done in grey and blue and scarlet chalk on sheets

of rough-edged common brown paper and fastened up by drawing-pins. These

were the work of Luce Abinger.

She observed that all the bowls and vases were filled with green

leaves--no flowers. Kykie and the _boys_ knew that green leaves were

dearer to her than flowers.

Presently she rose and went to the mirror on the wall. Her hair did not

quite please her, so she took out two little gold side-combs and ran

them through it, until it branched out characteristically once more. She

performed this ceremony on an average of twenty times a day, and always

with a look of the frankest pleasure at the sight of herself.

"How nice my hair is!" she thought, "and how glad I am that it branches

out in that fascinating way that just suits my face! If it were any

other kind of hair, sleek, or smooth, or curly, I should not look nearly

so charming."

Later she stepped into the balcony. The sun still glared, but the place

was full of dim coolness, for its roof was massed with clematis and

Virginia creeper, and heavy curtains of creeper hung from roof to rail;

but long openings had been cut in the greenery to afford a view of the

town and sea. Over the tops of the trees, far away below, beyond many

white houses and gardens and a shining beach, was the Indian Ocean. It

lay very still and splendid: a vast sheet of Sevres enamel with a

trivial frill of white at its edges, like the lace froth at the bottom

of a woman's ball-gown. When storms sweep the Natal coast, that still

shining sea can boom and roar and flash like a thousand cannons

bombarding the town; but on the day that Poppy Destin first looked at it

from her balcony, it was as still and flat as a sea on a map.

Long, long thoughts were hers as she stood gazing there; and the best of

them all was that she was back once more in the land where the roots of

her heart were planted deep.

While she stood lost in her reveries, Luce Abinger passed through the

garden below, walking noiselessly across the green lawns. He saw her

dreaming there, in her white gown with the scarlet flower flaming at

her breast, and his tormented face became even less lovely. At that time

his mood resembled the mood of Job when he desired to curse God and die.

Poppy, becoming hungry, went down to look for lunch. She found the

master of the house already seated, beating and jangling his forks

together, a habit of his when he was impatient. He never touched his

knives. Poppy had come to the conclusion that, like James I, he had some

reason to hate and fear naked blades.

"The g-gong has been sounded twice for you," he began agreeably. "Were

you afraid the view wouldn't be there after lunch?"

"I beg your pardon, Luce. I didn't know you were in, and I never heard a

sound of the gong. Kykie, you should beat it louder."

Kykie was at the sideboard decanting whiskey. She resembled a person who

had recently taken part in a dynamitic explosion. Her _dook_ was pushed

to the back of her head, her eyes stuck out, and perspiration beaded her

nose and cheek-bones. Several of the buttons of her tight dress had come

undone.

"Heavenly me!" she retorted in shrill staccato, "you never hear anything

you don't want to, Poppy." With that she banged the decanter down and

floundered from the room.

"What can be the matter with Kykie!" said Poppy in a wondering voice.

What she was really wondering was, whether the fireworks had all been

exhausted on Kykie's devoted head or whether there would be a detonation

in her own direction shortly.

Babiyaan, a _boy_ who had been in Luce Abinger's service for ten years,

waited upon them with deft, swift hands. Poppy gave an inquiring glance

at him; but though he had also received a generous share of obloquy and

vilification, his face was as serene and impassive as an Egyptian's.

Some delicious fish was served, grilled as only Kykie could grill,

followed by cutlets and green peas, and a salad of sliced Avocado pears,

delicately peppered, and with a ravishing dressing.

Luce Abinger always preferred Poppy to mix the salads. He said that she

combined all the qualifications demanded by the old Spanish receipt for

the maker of a good salad--a spendthrift for the oil, a miser for the

vinegar, a counsellor for the salt, and a lunatic to stir all up. It

appeared that she sometimes fell short in the matter of salt, but she

assured him that he had a fine stock of that within himself to fall back

on, and acids too, in case of a lack of vinegar.

Kykie's salad was very good, and Poppy told Babiyaan to tell her so.

Later, she also sent a message of praise concerning the _omelette au

Kirsch_. Except for these remarks the meal was partaken of in silence.

Poppy, while she ate, observed and approved the old-rose walls, the few

beautiful mellowy pictures upon them, the dark polished floor and the

Persian praying-rugs spread sleekly down the room. She looked everywhere

but at the face of Luce Abinger, for she knew that his devils were at

him; and as the possessor of devils of her own, she both felt compassion

and exhibited courtesy in the presence of other people's. She never

looked at Luce Abinger's face at any time if she could help it, for the

sight of unbeautiful things always gave her intense pain; and his face

had the added terror and sadness of a thing that has once been

beautiful. Its right side was still strong and fine in line; and it was

easy to see that the mouth, before it was dragged out of drawing by the

scar and embittered and distorted by its frightful sneer, must have been

wonderfully alluring. The scar had left his eyes untouched, except for a

slight pulling-down of the outer corner of the left one where the

disfigurement began. They must have been strikingly beautiful blue eyes

once, but now a sort of perpetual cold fury at the back of them gave

them an odd and startling light. Apart from that, they were eyes which

it was not good for women to search in. Poppy sometimes thought of them

as dark and sinister pools from which it was best to retreat, for fear

of drowning and strangling in strange waters.

Presently Babiyaan brought in the little silver urn and placed it before

Poppy, and she lighted the spirit-lamp under it and made the coffee as

she was always used to do in the old white farm. Cigars and cigarettes

were put before Abinger.

Abinger drank his coffee as he had eaten, in absolute silence. Then,

getting up suddenly, he bit off a word of apology with the end of his

cigar, and left the room, Babiyaan following him.

Poppy immediately helped herself to a cigarette, put her elbows on the

table and began to smoke. Later, she took her coffee and sat in the

verandah. It was shady and full of deep comfortable chairs. From thence

she presently saw Abinger emerge from the front door and depart into the

garden; the closing clang of the gate told her that he had gone out. The

heat of the day was oppressive. She lay back, staring at the lacy green

of the trees against the blue, and considering the horrible affair of

Luce Abinger's devils.

"It is bad enough for me to have to live with them--what must it be for

him!" was her thought. She had seen his torment coming upon him as they

neared Africa. Day by day he had grown more saturnine and unsociable. At

last he spoke to no one; only Poppy, as a privileged person had an

occasional snarl thrown in her direction. It was plain to her that

returning to Africa meant to him returning to purgatory; especially

since he did not intend to go back to seclusion, but to take up his

residence in this house in Durban, where he had often lived in past

years. Poppy had gathered from Kykie that before he "got his mark," as

she curiously expressed it, and went to live at the old white farm,

Abinger had kept house in Johannesburg and Durban; had lived for a part

of the year in each house, and was well known in both places. So that

coming back would cause him all the torture of meeting old friends who

had known him before his disfigurement. He would have to run the

gauntlet of familiar eyes grown curious and questioning.

"Why should he have chosen to come back at all to the place of his

torment?" Poppy wondered. "It would surely have been simpler and easier

to have settled in Italy or somewhere where he knew no one, and would

not be noticed so much. It can only be that Africa has her talons in

_his_ heart, too; she has clawed him back to her brown old bosom--he

_had_ to come."

As Poppy sat in the verandah thinking of these things, she heard the

_boys_ in the room behind her clearing the luncheon-table, and talking

to each other in their own language. Either they had forgotten her or

they thought she could not hear.

"Where has _Shlalaimbona_ gone?" asked Umzibu; and Babiyaan answered

without hesitation:

"He has gone to the _Ker-lub_ to make a meeting with _Intandugaza_ and

_Umkoomata_."

Few things are more amazing than your Kaffir servants' intimate

knowledge of your affairs, except it be their absolute loyalty and

secrecy in these matters outside your own walls. Abroad from home their

eyes and ears and tongue know nothing. They are as stocks and stones.

They might be fishes for all the information they can give concerning

you and yours.

Also, whether they love or hate or are indifferent to him they serve,

they will infallibly supply him with a native name that will fit him

like his own skin. Sometimes the name is a mere mentioning of a physical

characteristic but usually it is a thing more subtle--some peculiarity

of manner or expression, some idiosyncrasy of speech--a man's secret sin

has been known to be blazoned forth in one terse Zulu word.

It must not be supposed, however, that South African natives are as deep

in mysterious lore as the Chinese, or as subtle as Egyptians. The fact

is merely, that like all uncivilised peoples they have a fine set of

instincts; an intuition leads them to nearly the same conclusions about

people as would a trained reasoning power. Only that the native

conclusion has a corner of the alluring misty veil of romance thrown

over it, while the trained reason might only supply a cold, hard, and

perhaps uninteresting fact.

Instances are, where the meaning of a native nickname is too subtle for

the nominee himself--though any Zulu who runs may read and understand.

If Luce Abinger had asked his servants why they called him

_Shlalaimbona_, they would have shrugged shoulders and hung their heads,

with a gentle, deprecating gesture. Being questioned, they would look

blank; being told to get out and go to the devil, they would look

modest. Afterwards they would exchange swift dark glances, and smiling,

repeat among themselves with a gesture of stabbing: "_Shlalaimbona!_"

Literally this word means--_stab when you see him_. What they meant by

applying this name to Abinger, God and themselves knew best. Poppy had

often pondered the reason, but she had never made any inquiries for fear

it might have something to do with Abinger's scar. For another thing,

Abinger desired her never to talk to the _boys_.

"Keep them at a distance: they will be all the better servants," was his

command; and in this, as in most things, Poppy found it wiser to obey

him.

Babiyaan continued to give interesting information to Umzibu.

"Just as _Shlalaimbona_ was going to get into the carriage, _Umkoomata_

came to the docks and fell upon him with great friendliness. Afterwards

they went to an hotel to drink. Then _Umkoomata_ made a plan for meeting

at the _Ker-luk_ when _Intandugaza_ would be there and others--_Baas

Brookifield_, he with the curled hair and the white teeth; and that

other one, _Caperone_, whose wife is like a star with light around it;

and _Port-tal_, who is always gay with an angry face."

At this juncture Umzibu missed Poppy's coffee-cup, and coming into the

verandah to seek it, the presence of Poppy was revealed to him. He

immediately communicated the fact by sign to Babiyaan, and a silence

fell. Thereafter no more confidences; Poppy was left to speculate upon

the identity of the person who wore so fascinating a title as

_Intandugaza_, which name she translated to herself as _Beloved of

women_. The word _Umkoomata_, too, had a charm of its own.

"That means someone who is very reliable, literally _Sturdy One_. I

should like to know that man," she thought.

At about this time it occurred to her that she was tired and would go to

rest in her room a while. She had risen at five that morning to watch

the African coast and revel in the thought that she would soon have her

foot on her own land again. The excitement of the day had tired her more

than she knew. When she looked in her glass to rake the little gold

combs through her hair, she saw that she was pale. The only colour about

her was her scarlet ardent mouth and the flower at her breast.

She flung off her gown and plunged her arms and face into cold water,

then let down her hair with a rush and pulling her chair opposite her

mirror, she sat down in company she had never so far found

uninteresting--the company of her own reflection.

She did not put on a wrapper. For one thing the day was warm, for

another she found great pleasure in seeing her bare pale arms and

shoulders, and the tall pale throat above them, so slim and young.

Indeed, there are few more beautiful things in the world than a young

throat--be it girl's or boy's, bird's or beast's.

The scarlet flower she had plucked at the door she wore now between her

breasts. She looked at the girl in the glass a long, long time, and the

girl looked back at her. But it was not the look of the woman who counts

and examines her weapons, for Poppy Destin was heart-whole; she had

never yet looked into her glass to see how she was reflected in some

man's eyes. Always she looked to wonder. The transformation of herself

from what she had been only six years ago to what she was now at

eighteen, never ceased to fascinate and amaze her. When she thought of

the tormented, tragic features she had feared to catch a glimpse of, and

looked now into that narrow scarlet-lipped, lilac-eyed subtle face,

crowned with fronds of black, black hair, she believed she must be

witnessing a miracle. When she remembered her aching, thin, childish

body, beaten, emaciated, lank, and beheld herself now, long-limbed,

apple-breasted, with the slim strong grace and beauty of a Greek boy,

she could have shouted for joy and amazement at the wonder of it all.

Yet in the old white farmhouse where she had found refuge and a

remarkable education, she had been able to watch with her own eyes the

change of the famished, wretched little two-leaved seedling into a

beautiful flowering plant.

She had often thought of herself as one set alone in an arid waste to

travel where and how she could, with no help from anyone, and who, in

her terrible travelling had found hidden gifts by the wayside, and

little pools of consolation to lave her wounds and her weary heart,

little patches of flowers to refresh her senses--all left there for her

by the loving forethought of those who had travelled that way before

her; her beauty, her voice, the grace of her body, her clear

understanding, grace of tongue, had come upon her as she travelled to

womanhood--all so unexpectedly; all wonderful gifts hidden deeply away

until she came suddenly upon them, one by one.

At last, through long thinking and piecing together of many broken ends

of memory and disjointed scraps of information concerning her family

history, she had come very close to realising the truth--that she owed

much of what she was to the sweet simple Irish-women who had been her

maternal ancestors. If your grandmother has worn a shawl over her head

and walked barefoot on the bitter coast of Clare with a smile on her

lips and a melody in her heart, she had something better to bequeath to

you than money or possessions: her song and her smile will come down

through the years and make magic in your eyes; her spirit will trample

your troubles underfoot. If your mother has laid her heart in a man's

hands, and her neck under a man's feet, and died for want of his kisses

on her mouth, she, too, will have had something to bequeath: a cheek

curved for caresses, lips amorously shaped, and sweet warm blood in the

veins.

And there was more that Poppy Destin did not know. She was only eighteen

and could not know all her gifts yet--some women never know them at all

until they are too old to use them! She had unwittingly left uncounted

her biggest asset, though it was signed and sealed upon her face--the

sign and seal of Ireland. Ireland was in the frank, sweet eyes of her;

in the cheek-bones pitched high in her face; in her branching black

hair; in her soft sad voice, and her subtly curved lips. Though she had

never seen that sad, lovely land, she was one of its fair daughters:

there lay her beauty; that was her magic.

Presently she left her glass and going to the load of trunks which had

been piled up inside the door, she took her dressing-case from the

summit of the pile, and unlocking it, extracted a little white

vellum-covered note-book. Sitting down before her writing-table she

opened the book at random and kissed its pages with a rush of tears and

a passion that always surged in her when she touched it. For it

contained the story of her childhood, sung in little broken, wretched

songs. Her blurred eyes looked from one heading to another:

"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea!"

"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf!"

"The woman with the crooked breast."

This was the title of old Sara's story made into a little song.

Poppy Destin dreamed of being a great writer some day; but she knew,

with the sure instinct of the artist, that even if her dream came true

she could never surpass these little studies in misery; these cries of

wretchedness wrung from a child's heart by the cruel hands of Life.

Nothing had ever yet been able to wipe from her mind the remembrance of

those days. For six years she had lived a life in which fresh events and

interests were of daily occurrence; and like a blighted seedling

transplanted to a warm, kind climate, she had blossomed and bloomed in

mind and body. But the memory of those days that had known no gleam of

hope or gladness hung like a dark veil over her youth, and still had

power to drive her into torments of hatred and misery. Her soul was

still a shrivelled leaf, and her heart as cold as a stone in the sea.

She was very sure that this should not be so; she knew that she was

incomplete. The instincts of her artist nature told her that somewhere

in the world there must be someone or something that would wipe this

curse of hatred from her; but she had never been able to find it, and

she knew not where to seek it. Art failed her when she applied it to

this wound of hers that bled inwardly. Despairingly she sometimes

wondered whether it was religion she needed; but religion in the house

of Luce Abinger was a door to which she found no key.

Often, abroad, she had stolen away and knelt in quiet churches, and

burnt candles in simple wayside chapels, trying, praying, to throw off

the heavy, weary armour that cased her in, to get light into her, to

feel her heart opening, like a flower, and the dew of God falling upon

it. She had searched the face of the Madonna in many lands for some

symbol that would point the way to a far-off reflection in herself of

"The peace and grace of Mary's face."

She had knelt in dim cathedrals, racking her ears to catch some note in

gorgeous organ strains or some word from the lips of a priest that would

let loose a flood of light in her and transform her life. But always,

when the ecstasy and exaltation had passed off, and the scent of incense

no longer wrapped her round, she could feel again the cold of the stone

and the rustle of the leaf in her breast. She could hear without

annoyance the bitter fleers of Abinger at religion and priests and

churches, and though they offended her taste, could listen serene-eyed.

She understood very well what ailed Luce Abinger, for she was touched

with the blight that lay thick upon him. His nature was warped, his

vision darkened by hatred and evil memories. His soul was maimed and

twisted in the same cruel fashion that his face had been scarred and

seamed, and he terribly hated God. Poppy often thought of it as an

ironical trick of fate, that she and Luce Abinger--just the two people

in all South Africa, perhaps, who could do least for each other's peace

and healing--should be thrown together to live under the same roof for

many years. In some ways they had served each other well. He had made

his house a refuge for her from persecution, and had been the means of

educating and bringing her to fine womanhood. She, on the other hand,

had come into his life at a time when he was on the verge of madness and

when it meant everything to him to have some interest that would tear

his thoughts from himself and his disgust of life.

The solitude of the quiet old farm, chosen for its isolated position,

was lightened by the presence of the young girl. Abinger had been

diverted to watch the change and development in the small, shipwrecked

vagabond. Afterwards it had first amused, then interested him, to feed

her eager appetite for learning. For three years he had taught her

himself, in strange desultory fashion it is true, but it happened to be

the fashion best suited to her needs and temperament. He imported from

England huge weekly packages of books of both modern and classical

literature, together with every variety of journal and magazine. He

allowed Poppy the free run of all; only, always she must recount to him

afterwards what she had read. A sort of discussion ensued, so dominated

by his mordant cynicism and biting wit that she certainly ran no danger

of developing any _mawkish_ views of life. This for two or three hours

daily. The rest of time was hers to read in or wander for hours in the

lovely silent country, knowing a peace and tranquillity she had never

dreamed of in her early wretched years. The part of the Transvaal they

were in was but thinly populated--a few scattered Boer farms, and a

native mission-house with a chapel and school instituted by a

brotherhood of French priests of the Jesuit order. These were their

only neighbours, and they not close ones.

Abinger had chosen his retreat well.

After three years it had occurred to him to leave the farm and go back

to the world. He had tired of seclusion, and longed, even while he

feared, to be amongst his fellows again. He was not yet prepared,

however, to go back to the African haunts that had known him in the

past, but made for the big open world beyond the seas; and Poppy went

with him as his sister. Wherever they went he never allowed her to make

any friends; only when they reached any city or place where he cared to

stay for any length of time, he at once engaged masters and mistresses

for her, to continue the education that he had by now tired of

superintending, but which, for reasons of his own, he wished to perfect.

CHAPTER II

At five o'clock Kykie appeared with a tea-tray. She had assumed an air

of calm, and her afternoon dress, which afforded a fine display of roses

trellised on a bright blue background, and gave her the appearance of a

large and comfortable ottoman. She cast an outraged look about the room.

"Haven't you unpacked yet, for gracious' sake, Poppy?"

"No, I haven't. Bring the tea over here, Kykie."

She was lying on her bed, which was long and narrow as the path to

heaven, and yet seemed to have grown too short for her, since she was

obliged to perch her feet upon the brass bar across the end.

"Then what have you been doing, in the name of goodness me?"

"Nothing ... just thinking ... pour it out and come and sit by me

here.... I haven't had a word with you yet."

Kykie poured out the tea, and put some little toasted cakes on a plate,

using her fat, yellow hands with extraordinary delicacy. Afterwards she

sat in a chair with the things in her lap, waiting until Poppy should be

ready.

"What is it like here in Durban, Kykie?... How long have you been here?"

Kykie became very important, waggling her shoulders and rolling her

eyeballs.

"More than six months getting this house ready for habitation ... men

working in the garden day and night, for it was a wilderness and the

poor old place all gone to pot, dearest me."

"It looks all right now; I should think Luce was pleased?"

"Never so much as a thank you extremingly."

"Oh well, you know his ways ... but I am sure he appreciates all you do.

He has often said to me while we were away that he wished you were with

us."

Kykie looked well pleased at this, but having passed the tea, she waved

her hands deprecatingly.

"You're just buttering me up to heaven, Poppy!"

"No, I'm not. And he will eat again now he has you to cook for him.

Abroad he used to eat frightfully little, but to-day I noticed he made

an excellent lunch."

Smiles wreathed Kykie's wide and dropsical face, and every tooth in her

head was revealed.

"Dearest me, now Poppy, really? Well! but then I don't suppose they know

how to cook very well abroad in London, do they?"

"Not so well as you, of course," said Poppy smiling and munching toast.

Suddenly Kykie's face became dolorous.

"Did they look at his mark much, for heavenly goodness?" she inquired in

a dismal whisper.

"Not so much. You know, Kykie, the world is full of all sorts of

strange-looking people--especially France and Italy. In Naples, now,

they didn't take the slightest notice of him."

"For goodness' sake there must be some sights there!"

"More tea. It is lovely to be home again and have you waiting on me."

"Ah! I expect you liked it best abroad in that London, now Poppy?"

"Never. I _thought_ I should, but I had forgotten that my roots were

planted out here. As soon as I got out of sight of Africa they began to

pull and hurt ... you've no idea of the feeling, Kykie ... it is

terrible ... and it always came upon me worst in cities. I used to be

sick with longing for a glimpse of the big open spaces with nothing in

view but land and sky ... for the smell of the veldt, _you_ know, when

it is baking hot and the rain comes fizzling down on it; and the early

morning wind, when it has blown across a thousand miles of sun-burnt

grass and little stalky, stripy, veldt-flowers and stubby bushes, and

smells of the big black patches on the hill-sides where the fires have

been, and of the _dorn bloems_ on the banks of the rivers ... and the

oozy, muddy, reeking, rushing rivers! Oh Kykie, when I thought of

Africa, in some prim blue-and-gold continental hotel, I felt like a

caged tiger-cat, raging at the bars of the cage!... In Paris and London

I couldn't bear to go to the big open parks for fear the sickness would

come upon me.... It was like being a wild ass of the desert,

knee-haltered in a walled-in garden."

Kykie might have been an amazingly-arrayed copper idol representing

Africa, so benign and gratified was her smile.

"Tell me some more, Poppy. Where else did you think of Africa?"

"Well, Palermo nearly drove me wild. It has the same hot moist air as

Natal, and the flowers have the same subtle scents. The big spotted

mosquitoes bit like terriers and followed us as high as we could go; but

I couldn't even hate _them_, Kykie, they were so like the wretches we

have out here--there's been one biting my instep all the afternoon." She

pulled up her foot, and began to rub the spot gently through her

stocking.

"I think Norway was the worst of all. The men there have beards and the

same calm eyes as the Boers, and the people are all simple and kind,

just as they were on the farms in the Transvaal ... and sometimes on

the top of a steep still hill I could close my eyes and pretend that I

was on a wild mountain krantz and the hush of the waterfalls all round

one was the hush of the tall veldt grasses waving in the wind.... But

when I looked, and saw only the still green waters of the fjords and

afar off a glacier thrust out between two hills like the claw of some

great white monster ... oh Kykie, I could have torn the heart out of my

breast and thrown it into the waters below."

"Heavenly me! And were there coloured people there too?"

"Not in Norway; but America is full of them, and I hate them for cheats

and frauds ... for I was always listening and waiting to hear some

Kaffir or Dutch word from their lips ... and they never spoke anything

but mincing, drawling American, through their noses, like this, Kykie:

"'Oh say, would _you_ tell _me_ what time this _kyar_ is due to start?'

"Once I saw a boy in an elevated-railway car, who, though he was

magnificently dressed in navy blue serge and wore a brimmer hat, looked

so _exactly_ like Jim Basuto who ran away from the farm, that I said to

him in Kaffir:

"'You had better make haste and come back to the farm, Jim, and mind the

sheep!'

"He simply stared at me, and said to another _boy_, who might have been

a Zulu chief except for his clothes:

"'Say, this one looks to me as if she is dippy. I think she is the new

star at Hammerstein's that _ky-ant_ speak anything but French.'

"Luce was so furious, he used fearful language at the Kaffir, and made

me leave the train at the next station, and wouldn't speak to me for a

week."

Having finished her tea and eaten all the bread-and-butter and cakes,

the girl lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes.

"For gracious' sake, and so you have seen the world!" said Kykie. "And

now you have come back to the old quiet life?"

"Not at all, Kykie. I'm going to persuade Luce to go about here, and

meet people, and let me do the same."

"He'll never do it," said Kykie vehemently. "I can see that he is worse

than ever about his mark."

"But he knows a lot of people here. I don't see how he can keep them

from coming to the house; and I heard the _boys_ saying that he had gone

to the Club this afternoon. Surely that is a sign that he is not going

to shut himself up again?"

"He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come here. He has given

me strict orders that no one is to come in the front gates; they are to

be locked and he will keep the key. Everything is to come by the back

entrance and that, too, is to be locked."

Poppy's face clouded.

"Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old farm with the free

veldt all round us; but to be shut up in a house and garden--(and with

Luce's devils," she added to herself),--"even if it _is_ a lovely

garden!"

Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she held out no hope.

"You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before, with your music, and

your reading, and writing, and be a good child," she said.

"But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how I've grown up?"

"I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus to rub on your

breasts any more," said Kykie, eyeing her with the calm candour of the

native.

Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw a corner of the

quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.

"For the sake of grace you needn't mind me," remarked Kykie. "Haven't I

watched you many a moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the

old _spruit_?"

The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little side glance at the

old woman.

"I _did_ so want to be beautiful. I would have dived to the bottom of

the filthiest hole in that old _spruit_ a dozen times a day to make

myself the tiniest atom less ugly than I was. Do you remember that deep

part where the water was so clear and we could see hundreds of crabs

pulling pieces of flesh off the leg of the dead horse?"

"Oh _sis_ yes! I wondered how you could go and look at the stinking

thing day after day."

"I used to be pretending to myself that it was my aunt they were eating.

Oh Kykie! I have some dark caves in my soul!"

"And no wonder, surely to goodness. Never will I forget the night we

opened the door and you fell into the house, all blood and mud, and your

eyes like a _mal-meit's_[3] flaring and flickering like the sulphur on a

match."

[3] Mad-maid.

Poppy covered her eyes.

"Don't talk about it----"

At this time a telephone bell began to ring somewhere in the house, and

Kykie on her feet in an instant, flew from the room at top speed. She

came back later to say that Luce Abinger had called up to tell her he

would not be home to dinner. Poppy was delighted.

"Oh Kykie! that means that he is dining with old friends; and it will do

him _so_ much good, and he'll want to be cheerful and sociable with all

the world again, and we shan't be locked up any more," she cried all in

one breath. "And now you needn't bother about dinner, but come and help

me unpack, and I'll show you all my clothes and the nice things I've

brought back for you."

"For me, gracious saints!"

"Yes, for you, you wicked old thing; silks and satins of every shade of

the rainbow. You need never dress in anything else any more."

They spent an engrossed hour unpacking, and afterwards Poppy dined

alone, and betook herself to the garden. She knew that she had the whole

place and the whole long evening to herself, without disturbance, for it

was a peculiarity of Kykie's that she could not keep her eyes open after

nine o'clock at night. As for the _boys_, after they had performed their

duties in the kitchen and stables, their time was their own, and they

made the most of it elsewhere than within reach or sight of their

employers.

It was early still, and though the darkness had fallen, the moon was at

the full, and showed to advantage the solemn splendour of the trees, the

long soft stretches of sward, and the festooned jungle-like arbours and

arcades. In many a winding path she lost her way (for the place was of

enormous extent), and had difficulty in locating once more the house or

the gate or any point she was acquainted with. Coming to the gate once

she tried it, and finding it securely locked she shook it with the

sudden fury of a wild thing that finds itself caged. Then she stood

still, and presently two great tears rolled down her face; but

afterwards her wanderings became curiously systematised. Taking the gate

as her starting-post she commenced a _detour_ of the wilderness, keeping

to its outskirts and examining as she travelled every inch of the

enclosing walls. The part which gave on to the main road she found to be

hopelessly impregnable; it had first a high stone wall with a cresting

of particularly sharp and jagged bottle-glass; and further, was backed

by a species of laurel that grew both tall and bushy, and rattled

aggressively if anyone so much as looked at it. Then came a long

side-stretch of thick-set green bushes of what she judged--after

pinching the leaf and smelling it--to be quince, with an undergrowth of

pink pepper. After penetrating this, in a weak spot, and discovering

that the outside rampart consisted of galvanised iron, standing

lengthways and painted dark green, she did not feel so confident, but

she went bravely on, until at last she came to a gate; it also was made

of iron and painted green, but though it was unlocked, Poppy did not go

through it, for she saw beyond, the stables and iron houses that were

evidently the quarters of the black servants. She could hear their

voices and the sound of a concertina. Plainly this was the back

compound, through which all trades-people must make their way to the

house. No doubt there was an entrance at the other side--but it was not

for Poppy! She proceeded. The wall continued of the same quality,

monotonously familiar; then occurred an impassable jungle that it would

have taken a herd of buffalo to make any impression upon. After beating

round this for some time, to the detriment of her trailing white gown,

Poppy pursued her way with a frowning brow and a quivering under-lip.

Next came a hedge of prickly-pear; she turned her head away from this in

disgust. Farmers plant prickly-pears round their gardens to keep out

cattle. It is the most perfect barrier in the world. Certainly, a human

being _might_ cut his way through it; but he would spend the rest of his

life picking from his festering flesh tiny invisible white thorns. On

and on she marched; it seemed to her that the large pale hands of the

pear-hedge flapped mockingly at her. Sometimes she was obliged to make a

wide _detour_ to avoid a clump of trees, or a rockery, or a summer-house

with a pergola leading to it, smothered with vines and passion-flowers

and roses. It seemed that she walked miles and miles. Suddenly she saw

light glimmering through a trellised opening, and ran forward. Her hands

touched cold wrought-iron. It was the front gate! This time, when she

shook it, she did not cry. Her gown was torn, her hair was loosened,

there was a scratch on her cheek and blood on her hands, but she

laughed.

"Ah, my _very_ dear Luce Abinger," she said, "we shall see if you can

keep a creature of the veldt behind a padlock."

Immediately she recommenced a fresh tour of the garden, and though the

long hot day and all its incidents must have told upon her strength, she

seemed to have suddenly acquired fresh life and buoyancy. She had that

within which urged her on--a taste for liberty. At that time it seemed

to her that the whole world was too small a place for a free spirit; and

that if this were indeed the world, she would somewhere find some

desperate edge and leap over, even if it should be into the abyss of

nothingness. On this tour she included the arbours and the summer-houses

in her itinerary. The third one she came to was only a small hut of a

place, but it had a long spire to its roof, and from thence trailed and

hung long lines and stalks of the passion plant--everyone knows it:

vine-leaved, with great round cream-coloured flowers, a purple outer

ring divided into ten thousand tiny leaves, signifying the crowd that

gathered to listen to Christ on the Mount; and in the centre,

mysteriously arranged, like the dishes upon the table of some oracle,

the three loaves and the five fishes! They call it the grenadilla in

Africa, and eat its fruit with port wine and cream. Poppy dived in under

the trailing vinery, and entered the hut. All round it had a low seat

running, but everything was old and damp and rotten she could feel by

the touch, and in one place the wood crumbled under her fingers, and

thrusting her arm forward, she was able to feel that it was part of the

wall itself; there was no further barrier beyond.

She had found an exit.

For a time she sat still on the cool mossy floor of the arbour,

trembling a little at the thought of the spiders and strange beasts that

might be dropping upon her from above. At last she nerved herself to the

point of pushing and urging and disentangling the thick partition of

green that kept her in. Her idea was to make an opening without making a

gap; something she could re-arrange afterwards, leaving no sign of

disturbance.

At length she was through, and behold! she found herself in another

garden. Was it a maze too, she wondered rather drearily? A maze without

an opening? But no, there was a pleasing openness of view about the

place. A few bushes and trees, a straggly flower-bed or two. Almost

immediately she came upon a gravelled path; but she did not walk on it,

choosing rather to follow its direction by way of the grass and soft

earth which enflanked it. In the natural course of events a house was

discovered. Quite a simple affair of galvanised iron, painted green,

with a verandah running all round it and heaps of shrubs and bushes and

creepers to hide its nakedness. Its front verandah was full of pale,

heavenly light that was certainly not contributed by the moon; nor could

the words that came floating over the bushes into the garden, be, by the

wildest and most poetic imagination, endowed with a heavenly meaning.

"Oh, damn it, I'm sick of this rotten typewriter and everything else in

the world. I wish Brookie would type his own beastly law-papers."

Poppy approached with the utmost gentleness, and through the screen of a

bush covered with tiny pink flowers that smelt of musk she surveyed the

scene.

The room itself was terrible as an army with banners. It contained

"gypsy-tables," antimacassars, "what-nots," plush fans upon the walls,

indescribable villainies of wool and paper, a crewel-worked

mantel-border, and every atrocity under the moon. In the midst of all

was a good solid mahogany table, with a typewriting-machine on it, and

seated before this was a girl. For pity of herself Poppy was glad to see

another girl; and more especially a girl who, like herself, appeared to

have reason to be bored with her surroundings and the general management

of the universe. In the enthusiasm engendered by a fellow-feeling, she

had an inclination to march in and take the girl to her heart, but after

a further survey she changed her mind.

In a large, ripe fashion, the girl was very good-looking indeed, with a

tall and generous figure of the kind that attracts prompt and frank

attention from the generality of men, but is not deeply admired by other

women. Her face was of a familiar Colonial type, large-featured but

well-shaped, with big brown eyes, rather inclined to roll, suggestive of

what is known as "a dash of colour"; a mouth of the kind that expresses

nothing at all until the twenties, when by the aid of a _retrousse_

nose, grown unaccountably coarse it suddenly expresses things which

should be left unexpressed; a round, rather plump chin, and masses of

dark hair which had been sadly maltreated by curling-irons, and had a

dusty appearance. On the whole a handsome girl, probably good-natured

enough for the ordinary purposes, and of a personality pleasing enough

for an ordinary acquaintance.

Certainly not a girl to be made a friend of, thought Poppy, and decided

that she would go no further.

"I'll wait and see first if Luce is going to let me out to meet nice

people," she thought. "If he doesn't, this girl may help to pass away an

idle hour sometimes, and she might serve as one of the characters in my

novel. At any rate she could teach me to use the typewriter, and I

could teach her not to live in a chamber of horrors."

With these reflections she stole back soft-footed in her tracks, and

through her little exit-hole, which she covered up with the greatest

care and skill, for fear that in the future it should prove to be her

only mode of entrance into the world of men and women she longed to

know.

For a whole week she refrained from broaching to the tyrant of the house

the subject which lay uppermost in her thoughts. For one thing she

thought it would be well to allow him to regain some semblance of good

humour; for another she wished to give him full opportunity and time to

make daily excursions into the town and lunch and dine with his friends,

so that she might have some grounds for the reproaches she meant to

level at him when she demanded freedom. In the meantime she was absorbed

in affairs which included the inspection and re-arrangement of every

room in the house, excepting only Abinger's, which she never ventured

near. Touches of her personality soon lay upon everything, from the

chintzes in the drawing-room which she had chosen herself at Waring's,

and sent out to Kykie for the making, down to the curtaining of Kykie's

own bedroom windows with some cobwebby snowy muslin she had bought in

Shanghai. She spent several hours every day at the piano, playing old

Irish melodies, for which she had a passion, and of which she had made

an enormous collection; but she always waited until Luce was out of the

house, for he had a peculiar aversion to melodies of any kind and more

especially Irish melodies. He said:

"There may have been something in them when the strolling poets played

them on their harps, but since that fellow Moore made them pretty, I

consider them damned mawkish."

So Poppy kept her melodies to herself. The rest of her time was divided

between studying literature, writing, dreaming and wandering in the

garden, which became dearer to her day by day.

At last, one evening, on hearing from Kykie that Abinger would be dining

at home, she made herself look as charming as possible in a pale maize

satin gown with a wreath of green leaves on her hair, and went down

prepared to do battle.

Luce Abinger was already in the drawing-room, standing at one of the

French windows, staring out into the garden--a sombre, solitary figure.

She noticed, as often before, how tall and well-built he was, and the

fine line of his head under the smooth, fair hair. He always looked

distinguished and well-born in evening-dress. At the sound of Poppy he

turned, and the lights shining on his maimed and distorted face, showed

her that he was entertaining at least seven devils. A mental shiver

passed through her and hope fell several degrees; but she advanced with

a serene smile and a gay word. She had long ago learnt to control the

expressions of her face, so that he might not guess the mingled terror,

pity, and repulsion he often roused in her; and though she knew that in

most things he had intuition as cruel as the grave, she believed that in

this, at least, she was able to deceive him.

The second gong had not yet sounded. She sat down at the piano and ran

her fingers up and down the keys by way of bracing up her nerves.

"Luce," she began, "I hope you are in a good temper, for I want to talk

to you very seriously about something."

He gave a croaking sort of laugh.

"Oh certainly. I am at my very b-best. It is only necessary for you to

p-play an Irish melody to have me p-purring at your feet. _Il ne

manquerait plus que ca._"

This was inauspicious, but Poppy refused to be daunted; and the gong

sounding at this moment, she rose and put her hand upon his arm, saying

cheerfully:

"That's right, come along then, we'll talk it over in the dining-room."

His smile was grim. They sat down to dinner, and Babiyaan and Umzibu,

arrayed in white, hovered over them like guardian angels. Abinger ate

little and said nothing. Only when the _boys_ were not in the room he

fixed his eyes on Poppy in a curious way that caused in her a sensation

of indescribable discomfort and annoyance. Once, for some unknown

reason, she found herself remembering how she had covered herself up

with the bed quilt from Kykie's eyes, and wishing that she had it round

her now. She had never felt like that in a low gown before, and she

could not understand it at all. For a time it quite unfitted her for the

task she had in hand, but the idea occurring to her that this was

perhaps what Luce intended, she plucked up heart again, and with the

fruit fired her first shot.

"Luce, what are you going to do about getting me a chaperon?"

He gave a little jerk of his fruit-knife, so that she knew that he was

taken unawares, otherwise he remained undisturbed by what she supposed

must be something in the nature of a bomb-shell going off under his

nose. He did not, however, proceed with the business of peeling his

peach, and on giving him a swift side-glance, she found that he was

smiling at her. Now, his smile was at no time an alluring affair, but

when it was field day for his devils----!

"Am I not a sufficiently p-proper and responsible p-person to have the

care of your young white s-soul?" he inquired blandly.

She knew _that_ mood. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to postpone

the discussion; but then, sometimes these fits of fury and rudeness

lasted for months. It was impossible to wait all that time.

"I am not particularly concerned about my soul," she answered

carelessly, dipping her fingers in the fine Venetian bowl before her and

drying them delicately. One of Abinger's devils betrayed itself by

laughing loudly and with character, but she did not even wince.

"Your young white b-body, then?" He pushed back his chair from the table

with a horrible scrench on the polished floor.

"You talk like some odious sultan, but you forget that I am not a

slave," she flashed back at him.

She pushed her chair from the table also, and loosening from her wrist a

little painted inlaid fan which she had bought from a street-seller in

Algiers, she essayed to cool her flushed face.

"Cigarettes, Babiyaan!" she said. "It is very hot; I think I will smoke

out in the garden," she finished coldly to Abinger.

But he had risen too, and lounged in the doorway leading to the

verandah.

"Oh, p-pray let us finish this interesting discussion."

They stood looking at each other for a moment: she, quite collectedly;

he, smiling with his eyes and sneering with his mouth. Babiyaan, well

aware that she was not allowed to smoke, knew better than to hand her

the cigarettes, but placed them on the table and discreetly retired.

"There is no discussion, Luce," she said quietly, though her voice

contained a tremor. "I simply want you to realise that it is impossible

for me to go on living like this for ever. It isn't fair...." she added

petulantly. He said nothing, only smiled. She regained her dignity and

spoke more gently:

"I am a woman now, Luce, and it is only natural that I should wish to

know other women--and men too."

At that he laughed raspingly.

"Why d-drag in the women?"

She looked at him scornfully. It was ridiculous of him to pretend that

men meant more to her than women.

"It is unreasonable of you to expect me to spend my youth in secrecy and

seclusion, just because you--" she stopped hastily.

"Go on!" he said with a devilish gaiety. "'Just because _you_ happen to

have a face like a mutilated b-baboon'--was that what you were going to

say?"

"Oh Luce, you _know_ it was not! Because ... because ..." she stood

stammering with distress, while he stood grinning. "Because _you_ don't

happen to care for the society of other people--was what I was going to

say.... Don't think," she went on appealingly, "that I don't appreciate

all you have done for me. I remember it every day and every night.... I

shall never forget it ... and though I know I can never repay you, I

will show you all the rest of my life how grateful I am.... But I don't

see what difference it would make to you to let me know a few people ...

you have so many friends ... surely you know some nice women who would

call on me----"

He broke out in a harsh voice, smiling no longer. "You are mistaken; I

have no friends. The whole thing is out of the question and impossible."

"I don't see why it should be at all," she pursued valiantly; "if you

get me some pleasant woman as a chaperon."

"In God's name what do you want with women?" he burst out. "A g-girl

like you will never find a friend amongst them. They will hate you for

your face, and your brains, and your youth.... They are d-devils

all--lock, stock and barrel.... They'll rip you open and tear the story

of your life out of you; if they once find out that you are a South

African they'll never rest until they have nosed out the whole thing,

and then they'll fling the t-tale to the four winds and the first thing

you know you'll have your Bloemfontein aunt bearing down on you----"

"Oh Luce! I don't believe they're as bad as all that----"

"Then don't believe it," he retorted, with the utmost rudeness. "But

understand one thing, I'll have no she-devils round this house."

"Very well, let them be he-devils," she flung back at him. "I am

accustomed to those."

At that he stamped away from her towards the other door, gesturing with

rage, and throwing broken words in her direction.

"Isn't my life bad enough already?... Oh Hades!... I wouldn't stand it

for a minute ... curse all women ... don't ever talk to me about this

again ... I tell you.... It's monstrous ... a lot of thieves and

blackguards.... You're driving me out of my own house ... I shall go to

the Rand to-morrow ... why, by God, I!..."

The door closed with a crash behind him.

CHAPTER III

At two o'clock one afternoon Sophie Cornell walked into her sitting-room

and flung upon the table by the side of her typewriter a great roll of

MSS. She was gorgeously attired in a hat massed with roses of a shade

that "never was on land or sea," and a furiously befrilled gown of

sky-blue silk-muslin. But her face was flushed and heated, and her

eyebrows met in a scowl of decided ill-temper. Opening a door that led

through a long passage to the kitchen, she shouted:

"Zambani! Zambani! _Checcha_ now with my lunch. Send Piccanin to lay

table. _Checcha wena!_"

She flung her hat into one chair and herself into another, and stared at

a telegram which she spread out before her.

"'Sorry can't come,'" she read, muttering; "'something better turned up;

you understand!' Yes, I understand well enough! Just like the rotter to

study her own convenience and throw me over at the last moment. What am

I to do _now_, I'd like to know?"

She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black _boy_ in a

blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his knees, who was laying

a cloth on one end of the table.

"Is there any soda in the house, Piccanin?" she demanded; and when he

signified yes, ordered him to fetch it then and be _checcha_. In the

meantime, she rose and unlocked from the sideboard a bottle of whiskey.

Lunch was a slovenly meal, consisting of burnt mutton-chops, fried

potatoes, and a beet-root salad liberally decorated with rings of raw

onion. Miss Cornell, however, ate heartily, and enjoyed a

whiskey-and-soda. She then proceeded to attack a wobbly blanc-mange

beringed with strawberry jam. Occasionally she demanded of some

invisible personage:

"And what am I going to do _now_, I'd like to know?" and the scowl

returned to her brows.

Suddenly, upon the front door which stood slightly ajar fell a soft

knock. Miss Cornell's hands slipped to her hair, the scowl disappeared

from her face, and in a high affected voice she called:

"Come in!"

Entered, with a shy and demure air, a girl dressed in the simplest kind

of dress made of thin black muslin, with a white fichu over her

shoulders falling in long ends below her waist. Her large white-straw

hat had round it a wreath of lilac, which was of exactly the same colour

as her eyes. Her lips were amazingly scarlet.

"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft, entrancing voice. "I am sorry

to disturb you at your lunch----"

"That's all right," said Sophie affably; "I'm just done. Do sit down!"

The girl seated herself daintily. Sophie, observing that she wore no

jewelry of any kind except a ring, in which the diamond was so large

that it must surely be paste, decided that her visitor must be "hard

up." She (Sophie) had not much of an opinion of that "black rag of a

gown" either, but she thought she detected the faint murmur of a silk

lining as her visitor moved. The lilac eyes looked at her winningly.

"I heard that you had a typewriting machine," she said, "and I wondered

if you would be so good as to do a little typing for me--" She indicated

a tiny roll of writing which she held in her hand. Miss Cornell sat up

with an air.

"Oh, I don't take in work!" she said perkily. "I couldn't be bothered

with that sort of thing. I'm _sekertary_ to a gentleman who has an

office down town."

"Lilac Eyes" regarded her calmly and did not seem overwhelmed by the

importance of this communication.

"What a bother!" said she serenely.

Miss Cornell became languid.

"I get an enormous salary, and I have more work than I know how to get

through already. Indeed, I am trying to get an assistant."

"Really?" said the other girl. "I wonder if I would suit you?"

"You!" Miss Cornell's face lit up with sudden interest and eagerness.

She surveyed the other again. _Of course_, she was only a "hard-up" girl

looking for work, and that air of gentle insolence that Sophie had been

conscious of, was, after all, only "side" stuck on like the rose in the

front of the simple black gown to hide poverty. Upon these reflections

Miss Cornell's air became exceedingly patronising.

"You? Well, I don't know, I'm sure. Can you type?"

"Not at all. But I daresay I could soon learn."

"Oh well! I couldn't give you much salary if you are only a beginner."

"I shouldn't want any salary," said "Lilac Eyes"; but added quickly, as

she saw the other's look of amazement: "At least, not for some months.

If you would allow me to use your machine for my own work sometimes I

should be repaid."

At this Sophie had neither the wit nor the patience to conceal her

satisfaction. Her haughty air departed and she beamed with delight. She

had suddenly seen a clear way through a very difficult _impasse_.

"You'll suit me down to the ground," she declared joyfully. "When can

you move in?"

"Move in?" the other gave her a wondering smile. "Oh, I couldn't come to

live--only for a few hours every day."

Sophie's face clouded again, but in a moment her eyes took on the

absorbed look of a person who is rapidly reviewing a difficult

situation. Presently she said:

"Well, perhaps that wouldn't matter so much if you wouldn't mind

_pretending_ sometimes that you live here."

The other girl looked puzzled.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"Well, if there's any chance of you're doing as I ask you, I'll

explain," said Sophie; "but, of course, I don't want to talk about my

private affairs if it's no good. There's nothing in the reason for

_pretending_ that you need object to," she added boldly. "What is the

reason you can't come and live? Got a sick mother, or an old aunt, or

something?"

The other hesitated for a moment, then her lovely lilac eyes took on a

curious expression.

"Yes, I have an aunt," was her odd answer, but Sophie was no acute

reader of eyes or odd answers.

"More fool you," said she cheerfully. "I'd like to see the old aunt

who'd get _me_ to support her. Well, all right now, if you think you'll

come I'll tell you the whole thing."

"Yes, I think I'll come. But as I have said, it will only be for a few

hours daily; sometimes in the mornings, more often in the afternoons."

"That'll do all right. Have a whiskey-and-soda and we'll talk it over."

"I don't care for whiskey, thank you," said "Lilac Eyes"; "but I am very

thirsty, and will have some soda, if I may."

Sophie shouted to Piccanin to bring another glass, and pushed the soda

and lemons across the table.

"Make yourself at home," said she affably; "but I hope you're not one of

those asses who don't drink!"

"No, I drink if I want to--but not spirits."

"Oh, I know--those old Cape pontacs. Save me from them!" Miss Cornell

looked piously at the ceiling. The other girl, who had never tasted Cape

pontac in her life, only smiled her subtle smile.

Sophie seated herself in a lounge-chair, opposite her visitor, and

crossed her legs, incidentally revealing her smart French-heeled shoes

and a good deal of open-work stocking through which to lilac-coloured

eyes her legs looked as though they were painted red. Piccanin meanwhile

removed from the room the luncheon debris, his bare feet cheeping on the

pale native matting and his long black eyes taking interested glances at

the visitor whenever she was not looking his way.

"And now let's get to business," said Miss Cornell. "First of all, you

haven't told me your name yet."

The lilac eyes were hidden for a moment under white lids, and a faint

colour swept over the pale skin.

"Rosalind Chard."

"Well, I shall call you Rosalind, of course, and you can call me Sophie

if you like. Sophie Cornell's my name. Rather pretty, isn't it?"

"Very," said Miss Chard in her gentle, entrancing voice.

"Well, now I'll tell you: I come from Cradock, in the Cape Colony, but

I've been living all over the place since I left home. First, I went to

stay with my sister in Kimberley. Have you ever been to Kimberley?

_Man!_ I tell you it's the most glorious place--at least, it used to be

before everybody went to Jo ... you know Jo-burg, _of course_?"

Miss Chard shook her head.

"Never been to Johannesburg?" Sophie's tone expressed the utmost pity

and contempt. "Well, but you're an English girl, I can see. Not been

long out here, have you?"

"Only a week or so."

"Great Scott! you've got a lot to learn!"

Miss Cornell took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one.

She then offered the packet to Miss Chard, who did not, however, take

one.

"Don't smoke either? Och, what! You're not _half_ a good fellow! Well,

take off your hat, then. Do be sociable."

Miss Chard unpinned her floppy white hat and wore it on her knee for the

rest of the interview. Sophie noticed the piled-up crown of black, black

hair; also, the peculiar branching way in which it grew above the girl's

brows. ("I wonder if she uses bay-rum to make it all dry and electriccy

like that?" was her inward comment. "And I'll bet she wears a switch.")

"Well, to continue my tale--I had a lovely time in _darling_ old

Kimberley: dances, theatres, suppers, everything you can think of; then

my sister's husband must needs go off and buy a rotten old farm at the

back of nowhere--Barkly East, if you love me! They wanted _me_ to come,

too, but I said, Dead off! No, _thanks_! I want something more out of

life than mountain scenery."

Rosalind Chard looked at her and could well believe it. At the moment

Sophie reminded her of nothing so much as a full-blown cabbage-rose,

dying to be plucked.

"And so you came here instead?"

"Well, no; first I went to Jo-burg, and I _must_ say I had a heavenly

time _there_; but--well--it didn't suit my health, so I became

_sekertary_ to an old snook called Johnson. He had been in Rhodesia,

poking about in some ancient ruins there, and--oh, my garden

flower!--the stuff he used to give me to write and type! And the way he

used to bully me when I didn't get through it! And then complained of

my spelling, if you please. I didn't stay with _him_ any longer than I

could help, you bet, though the screw was good. But I _must_ tell you,

such fun--just as I was going to leave him I discovered from his

correspondence that he was going up to Zanzibar to make some researches

for some rotten old society or other, so I stuck to him for another

month. I thought I might as well get a passage to Durban for nix. So I

started with him from the Cape, but when the boat touched here, I said,

Good-bye, Johnnie! Oh crumbs! The row he made when he found me

trekking!"

The listener's sympathy happened to be with the old snook, but Sophie

was not asking for an opinion.

"And do you mean to say," demanded the latter unexpectedly, "that you

would rather live with your old aunt than in a sweet little house like

this, with me?"

Miss Chard did not mean to say anything at all as far as her own affairs

were concerned.

"Never mind about me, Sophie," was her reply. "Tell me some more of your

interesting adventures, and how you came to live in this sweet little

house."

Miss Cornell's glance shifted from her new friend. She looked out of the

window, round the room, at the pictures on the wall, at the

typewriter--anywhere but into the two clear wells of lilac light

opposite her, as she answered:

"I rent it, of course. I told you, didn't I, that I am _sekertary_ to a

man down town, named Brookfield. He thinks the world of me, and gives me

a big salary; and then I get other work from a man called Bramham. Oh, I

have more to do than I want, and I really _had_ to get help, so I wrote

last week to a pal of mine up in Jo-burg, and told her to come and join

me. She promised, and I expected her right up till to-day, when I got a

telegram, if you please, to say that she'd got something better. Wasn't

that a low-down trick? And after I had told Brookfield and Bramham and

all! Brookie gave me the morning off to go and meet her, and I waited

for the train and found she wasn't in it, and when I got back to the

office there was the telegram! Fortunately Brookie was gone from the

office when I got back, so he doesn't know that she hasn't come."

"But why should it matter to him and to the other man whether she comes

or not?"

Again Miss Cornell's glance took flight.

"Because of the work, of course--there's such tons to do ... and I can't

get through it all by myself."

Miss Chard watched her narrowly.

"Well, but why do you wish me to pretend that I live here, and am your

friend from Johannesburg?"

"You see, it's this way ... Brookie and Mr. Bramham take an interest in

me.... They don't think that I ought to live alone here, and all that

sort of rot--and if I could show _you_ to them they'd think it was all

right."

Miss Chard looked startled.

"Oh, I couldn't promise to meet strange men! I didn't suppose you would

want me to do that or----"

An exasperated look came over Miss Cornell's face.

"You're not going to back out now, after me telling you everything?" she

demanded angrily, but Miss Chard's scarlet lips took a firm line.

"I don't wish to meet strange people," she said. To her surprise, the

other girl at once became propitiatory and beseeching.

"Well, but I won't ask you to meet anyone else. I'll keep you a deadly

secret. And I can assure you that Brookie and Bramham don't matter in

the least. Brookie is--well, to tell you the truth, he is entirely my

property; he's crazily in love with me, and he won't bother you at all.

Neither will Brammie, if it comes to that. He is an _awfully_ nice

man--everybody likes him, and he's fearfully rich too. He's married, and

his wife lives in England for her health, they say, but of coarse that

must be all rot. Anyway, he never goes into society at all--only has men

friends."

"Well, what does he want here?" asked Miss Chard calmly, watching the

flushed face before her.

"Nothing--nothing at all. It's only a matter of business, and a friendly

interest in me, and all that--and, you see, as he employs me as well as

Brookie, I have to be civil and ask him to tea sometimes."

It seemed to Miss Rosalind Chard that there was more in this than met

the eye, but she was not able to fathom it at present. However, after

listening to another long description of Mr. Bramham's inoffensiveness,

she consented at last to be at the house one afternoon when he called.

"As for Brookie----" began Sophie, ready to open up another chronicle of

guilelessness.

"No, no! I won't meet Brookie, I absolutely jib at Brookie!"

Sophie became lugubrious. "But he knows that you were to have arrived

to-day----"

"Well," said Miss Chard decidedly. "Tell him that I came, but that I am

as ugly as a monkey and as old as the sea. And now I must go, or

my--aunt will be looking for me. I shall try and come in to-morrow and

take a lesson on the typewriter. What time will be best?"

"You'll have to teach yourself, my dear. I go to the office every

morning at ten, and I lunch in West Street, and don't get back until

above five in the afternoon. But I'll bring you all the MSS. there is no

immediate hurry for--and you can do it one day and I'll take it back the

next. We shall get along like one o'clock."

"That's all settled then; good-bye!" Miss Chard had stepped out of the

room into the verandah and was gone before Sophie could remove her high

heels from the bars of the chair in front of her, where she had hooked

them for extra ease and comfort. Inadvertently she listened for the

click of the gate. But the gate did not click. Miss Chard, having got

out of view of both house and gate, made a dash for the tall green hedge

on the right side of the garden. Stooping down, she instantly

disappeared.

A few moments later Poppy Destin sat in the passion-leaved summer-house,

delicately smoking a cigarette and brushing all traces of dust from her

thin black muslin gown. Between little puffs of smoke she presently

spoke to herself.

"Certainly she is a terror ... a common mind, terrible clothes, Colonial

slang ... I don't know that I can put up with her at all ... and those

awful Brookies and Brammies! ... but it will be useful to be able to go

through her garden whenever I want to make a little excursion into the

world ... and, of course, I couldn't be there without some right or

reason ... besides, it will be splendid to learn typewriting, and do all

my own writing ready to send to the publishers ... but what a room! ...

and those roses in her hat! Can such things be?... I must go and see

whether Kykie has my tea ready."

* * * * *

A few days later it would have been hard to recognise the sitting-room

of Sophie Cornell's little green bungalow. Books had spread themselves

about the room, the tawdrinesses had been removed, flowers were

everywhere, and a fine vine in a long glass crept delicately up the side

of the mirror above the mantel. When Poppy had hinted that she would

like to change the room a little, Sophie had good-naturedly given her

_carte-blanche_ to do anything she wished, saying:

"It was not _my_ taste either, you know; but the place was furnished

when I came into it and I haven't bothered to do anything since."

The only things Miss Cornell would not allow to be banished were the

photographs of her numerous admirers, which she insisted on ranging

along the narrow wooden ledge running round the room above the dado.

They were in all degrees of preservation--some of them yellow with age

or exposure, some quite new; all were autographed and inscribed. Some of

the inscriptions ran thus: "From your loving Jack"; "To the best girl I

know"; "To one of the best from one of the worst," etc. It was to be

observed that the most ardent _mots_ were merely initialled. But Sophie

was equally proud of them all, and would exhibit them on the smallest

provocation, giving a short narrative-sketch of each person which

included the most striking features of his character, together with a

thrilling account of his passion for her and the reason why she did not

marry him.

"Now, isn't _he_ good looking? Such a dear boy too ... and _generous_!

My dear, that man would have given me the boots off his feet ... but

there--he had no money; what was the good?... He's in Klondyke now ... I

do hope he'll have luck, poor boy...."

"This is Captain Halkett. No, I don't know his regiment, and he never

would give away his photos in uniform, though he had some perfectly

lovely ones.... Someone told me he was a 'cashier' in the Army ... but

that was silly, of course ... there are no such things as cashiers in

the Army, _are_ there? ... he simply adored me ... he gave me this

bangle ... such a darling ... but he was married--or, _of course_----"

"Oh, _that_ is Jack Truman, of Kimberley. Everyone knows _him_ ... a

fearful devil, but most fascinating.... Isn't he handsome? ... such

eyes ... you simply couldn't look into them, they made you blush all

over. The women were all crazy after him, but he told me he didn't give

a pin for any of them except me.... He wanted me to run away with

him ... but he had a wife in a lunatic asylum ... obliged to allow her

forty pounds a month, and he was _dreadfully_ in debt ... they tried to

arrest him at Cape Town, but he got away dressed like a woman ... and

now he is in the Australian Mounted Police, they say.

"And, _of course_, you know who this is? One of the biggest men on the

Rand ... with _thousands_, my dear.... Och! you should see him in riding

kit ... you never saw any one look so perfectly _noble_ ... he was

_madly_ in love with me ... everybody said so ... he told me I was the

only girl who could ever keep him straight ... but he behaved rather

badly.... I always believe some snake of a woman made mischief ... and

when he went to England, one of those English girls snapped him up ...

they live out at Jeppestown now ... and they say she's the _living

image_ of me ... funny, isn't it?... but I think it just proves how he

adored me, don't you?"

Listeners of defective vision and an over-developed sense of credulity

might have believed that Helen of Troy II had come to town--unless they

had been long enough in South Africa to realise that the best way to

enjoy a little quiet humour is to take a Cape-Colonial girl at her own

valuation.

Poppy listened to all with tranquil eyes. She was willing to believe

that it might be true that Sophie was admired and adored and desired.

But in the type of men who formed the army of admirers and adorers and

desirers she could not pluck up the faintest kind of interest. It seemed

to her that it was impossible that any man worth knowing could forgive

the size of Sophie's hands and the shape of her feet, the look about her

mouth, the paint on her face, and the dust in her hair.

She was aware, however, that life in South Africa is too busy and too

eventful to allow men much time for digging into personality--and that

it has to suffice, as a rule, if the surface-metal shines pleasantly

and looks like the real thing. Sophie's surface, no doubt, had an

attractive glitter, but Poppy felt sure that if anyone with the time and

inclination for such occupation had ventured to go a-quarrying into the

nature of Sophie Cornell, the output would be found to be surprising,

even in a land where surprises are every-day fare and the unexpected is

the only thing that ever happens.

CHAPTER IV

In the meantime all went well. Secure in the knowledge that Abinger was

away for some weeks, that Kykie would never search for her except at

meal-times, every day found Poppy spending four or five hours at her new

occupation--typewriting. She had determined that she would master this

art before she went adventuring further into the world that lay beyond

Sophie Cornell's gate.

Sometimes she would arrive before ten in the morning, in time to see

Sophie depart, gloriously arrayed, with the air of one due at the same

garden-party as royalty.

When she inspected the huge rolls of work which Sophie invariably

brought back, she would sometimes wonder if the latter had indeed been

to a garden-party and never put in at the office at all, except to fetch

the MSS.

The little house in the morning hours was always calm and peaceful.

Through the trees of the garden Poppy could hear the world go buzzing

by--the grating of the tram-cars on the lines, the clatter of horses,

and the hiss of wheels going down hill, and an occasional street cry. No

one ever came down the little pathway. Only the click of the machine,

the voices of Zambani and Piccanin, busy with the pots and the pans in

the kitchen and yard, broke the silence; or Poppy's trilling whistle as

she corrected her proofs. By half-past twelve there would be piles of

neat manuscript ready for Sophie to take back the next day, and Poppy

would be speeding home through her own garden to luncheon. Sometimes in

the afternoon she would finish early, and, going out into the kitchen,

would toast buns and prepare the tea, and Sophie, coming home at five

o'clock, would find it laid cool and dainty among flowers on the long

table.

One day, when Poppy had arrived almost directly after lunch, with the

idea of getting in a long afternoon at her own work, she was

disagreeably surprised to find Sophie stalk in a few moments later,

flushed and handsome, and bringing with her a large bale of papers and

the faint but unmistakable odour of good cigars.

Poppy's little nose went up and a warmth ran through her; the smell of a

good cigar unaccountably roused in her a vivid interest in life. For a

moment she slightly envied Sophie, but a glance at the brilliant languid

eyes and heavy mouth changed her mind, and singularly inspired her with

the thought that good cigars were probably often smoked by hateful men.

"Would you like me to order you a cup of tea, Sophie?" she asked

presently.

"No, thanks!" said Sophie, languidly stretching herself in a chair. "I

couldn't drink tea. I've had a most tiring morning. Brookie brought Nick

Capron in, and they simply _wouldn't_ let me work."

After which calmly contradictory statement, she closed her eyes and

fanned herself with a legal-looking document, chosen for its stiffness

from among the papers she had brought, and which were now at sixes and

sevens upon the floor.

At the name "Nick Capron," Poppy gave a little start. How well she

remembered the day she had heard that name from the lips of a beautiful

woman in Bloemfontein! Could this Nick Capron possibly be the "most

fascinating man in Africa" whom the gold-haired heroine was going to

marry? She must try and discover.

"I think a cup of tea would refresh you, Sophie," she presently said.

"_Och ni vat!_ I can't eat or drink when I get worn out like this--I

become a perfect wreck."

Poppy surveyed the healthy, not to say opulent proportions stretched

before her, and could not forbear to smile.

"Oh, you should keep up your strength," she said, with irony entirely

thrown away.

"The only thing that would be the _slightest_ use to me, now," announced

Sophie, "is a glass of champagne--and, of course, I can't have that."

Poppy began to pore over her manuscript. She was in the mood for work

and hated not to take advantage of it.

"I wish I were rich enough to drink champagne whenever I am tired," was

Miss Cornell's next contribution; and Poppy laughed without being

amused.

"You'd soon be bored with that."

"Never!" said Miss Cornell fervently; then relapsed into languor.

"I hope those papers are not important, Sophie, they are blowing all

over the room."

"Yes, they're _very_ important. They're all about a Malay abduction case

which a friend of Brookie's is defending in the Courts next week. It's

the greatest fun, Brookie and Capron were shrieking over it this

afternoon."

"Is Mr. Capron a lawyer?"

"Oh, no--he isn't anything; just a pal of Brookie's. He's a

Johannesburger, but he has a house here as well, and _tons_ of money,

and a lovely wife--a perfect stunner, my dear--Brookie says she is the

loveliest woman in Africa; but Capron has always got his eye on some

other woman. By the way, Rosalind, to-day he was describing a girl he

had seen in a rickshaw, and from the description I feel sure it was

you. Your particular style of beauty appears to have struck him all in a

heap."

Miss Cornell made this statement as though she thought it humorous,

which, indeed, she did, for that anyone should admire a girl so unlike

her own type, and her own idea of beauty which that type represented,

seemed to her really funny and incredible. Yet she looked intently now,

and observed, so far as in her lay, "with the seeing eye," and for the

first time since they had met--the girl before her. Nick Capron's

unmistakable enthusiasm had made a great impression upon her.

"He said that you were alone in a rickshaw," she told Poppy, "and that

he and Mrs. Portal were walking together and met you. And Mrs. Portal

said you looked like a Burne-Jones dressed like a Beardsley poster. What

rot these society women talk! Who can understand a thing like that?"

"What is Mrs. Portal like?" asked Poppy, remembering now the

well-bred-looking woman who had been talking about Burne-Jones to the

man with the dissipated eyes on the day of her arrival.

But Sophie took no heed of the question. She was closely and furtively

regarding Poppy, and thinking: "Has she any attraction for men, I

wonder? She's not a bit smart ... and so pale ... and yet, and yet ..."

Here Sophie's expression of thought gave out. If she could have

expressed it, she would have added: "She is pale, and yet glows as

though something within her is alight."

"I hope you did not tell him anything about me?" asked Poppy suddenly.

"No, I did _not_!" said Miss Cornell emphatically, and her annoyed look

as she said it brought a ring of laughter from Poppy and a lovely

mischievous glimmer to her eyes.

Suddenly Sophie sprang up.

"Great Scott! I _quite_ forgot to tell you--Brammie is coming to tea.

That's why I came home so early. Do buck up, old girl, and make things

look nice. Your papers are all over the place. I want the room to look

as nice as possible for old Brammie."

"Oh! blow Brammie," thought Poppy crossly. "I was just going to write

something extraordinarily fine; now it will be lost for ever!"

Nevertheless, she put her papers away with a good grace, tidied the

room, laid the tea-things--as only she could--and went out to pluck

fresh flowers for the vases. Sophie stood in her bedroom door buttoning

a plaid silk blouse over her richly-endowed bosom.

"That's ripping," she said approvingly. "Och! but you _can_ arrange

flowers--I'll say that for you, Rosalind. Wouldn't you like to run home

and change your dress, though?"

"No," said Poppy, her head slightly on one side as she surveyed a great

flaming hibiscus-blossom she had just put by itself amidst a heap of

green on the mantlepiece. "Why should I change my gown?" she asked.

"This is quite all right. And the man's coming to see you, Sophie, not

me."

"Oh, he really _wants_ to see you, and I think you ought to try and look

nice. I'll lend you one of my silk blouses, if you like."

"No, no, thank you," hastily. "It's awfully good of you, Sophie, but I

think my gown is quite presentable."

She looked absolutely charming in a pale-blue linen, perfectly laundered

by Kykie; but Sophie considered anything less than silk very ordinary

wear indeed.

Poppy began to arrange her hair at the mantel-mirror, pulling out her

little side-combs, running them through strands of hair, then plunging

them in deeper, so that great waves leaned out on either side of her

face and delicate fronds fell veil-wise just over her eyes. Then she

took a bunch of green leaves and fastened them under her throat with a

big, old malachite brooch she had.

"Well, put some colour on your cheeks, or something," said Sophie

discontentedly.

Poppy flew into one of the fierce little rages that sometimes seized

her. "I will _not_, Sophie! Why on earth should you suppose that because

_you_ have a violent colour no one admires pale women? Do not make the

mistake of thinking that everyone adores your type because _you_ do!"

Sophie, utterly taken aback, was about to make a tart rejoinder, when

there came a light tap with a crop on the front door.

"Anyone at home?"

Sophie flew to her room to complete her toilette, leaving Poppy to

swallow her rage and open the door. A big, grey-eyed man, with a kind

smile, was standing in the verandah. He was in riding-clothes and

carried a crop in his hand.

"Come in," said Poppy, without enthusiasm; adding: "Miss Cornell will

not be long."

"Are you Miss Chard?" said he pleasantly, and came in.

He looked round in a friendly, boyish way that rather charmed her.

"By Jove! How pretty you've made this place look! It's quite different."

"Ah, I suppose you were here before, when it was a chamber of horrors,"

said Poppy coolly. "I never saw a more impossible place in my life."

He looked at her curiously as though greatly surprised. Then he said

carelessly, and rather curtly she thought:

"Oh, yes, I have been here before."

He sat down in one of the easy chairs and Poppy began to put in order

some books that had fallen from the book-case on to the floor. When she

turned she found him still staring at her in that curious fashion, but

without his smile. She missed it because it was a singularly

heart-warming smile.

"The last people here were rather addicted to antimacassars and

glass-shades and things," she said, appearing not to notice his curious

look; "and as it seemed to me a pity to let such things spoil a pretty

room, I put them out."

"Oh!" was all he vouchsafed. She felt chilled. But here Sophie burst

into the room, very magnificent and highly coloured.

"How _sweet_ of you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand up to her hair and

the other outstretched, while her body performed the Grecian bend.

"Rosalind, _do_ see about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure Mr. Bramham must

be _parched_."

Correctly estimating this as a hint to leave them alone, Poppy retreated

to the kitchen, and did not reappear until she followed Piccanin in with

the tea-tray. Sophie was saying, "_Do_ bring him around, Mr. Bramham. We

should _just love_ to meet him."

Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable curiosity to

know whom she should _just love_ to meet; but she made no remark; merely

sat down.

"Shall I pour out tea, Sophie?"

The latter nodded, but made no other attempt to include her in the

conversation, continuing to monopolise Mr. Bramham entirely.

In a short time Poppy became wearied of this state of affairs. After

observing "Brammie's" boots, his fingers, his tie, the shape of his

lips, his hair, the size of his ears, and his manner of sitting on a

chair (all while she was apparently arranging the cups and looking into

the teapot to see if the tea was drawing properly), the "eternal

feminine," which is only another name for the dormant cat in every

woman, awoke in her. She did not exactly want "Brammie" for herself, but

she decided that he was too nice for Sophie.

Immediately afterwards, Bramham began to realise that there was a

charming personality in the room.

"Do you take sugar?" blew like a cool little western wind into his right

ear; while on his left, Sophie Cornell was bombarding him with

instructions to bring someone to call.

Poppy got her answer first, and a sudden glance of recognition fell upon

the slim, pale hands amongst the tea-cups; then:

"Certainly, Miss Cornell! I'll ask him to come, but I can't promise that

he will. He's not much given to calling."

"Bosh! I know he goes to the Caprons and the Portals--I've seen him with

that horrid Mrs. Portal."

"Ah! you don't admire Mrs. Portal?"

"I don't see anything to admire," said Sophie. "She is not a bit smart,

and her hats are simply awful!"

"She is considered one of the most delightful women in South Africa,"

said Bramham.

"Oh, she may be," Sophie's air was unbelieving; "but I don't see where

it comes in."

She took her tea sulkily from Poppy's hand. Bramham looked bored. The

little western wind blew again in his ear.

"Perhaps her charm is not to be seen. Perhaps it is an essence--a

fragrance----"

Sophie scoffed at what she did not understand.

"Oh, you and your old poetry----"

"That's just what it is," said Bramham. "There's an odour of happiness

about her that infects everyone who comes near her--no one cares a hang

about what she wears or anything like that."

"Well, I don't like her, anyway," said Sophie, now thoroughly

ill-tempered, "and I don't see why you do. She's covered with freckles."

That should have ended the matter, but Poppy's taste for torment was

whetted.

"Perhaps Mr. Bramham doesn't know her as well as you do, Sophie," she

said softly.

Sophie glared. Mr. Bramham looked amused. They all knew that Mrs. Portal

could never be anything but a name to Sophie--that it was really an

impertinence on her part to be discussing Mrs. Portal at all.

"Do _you_ know her?" she retorted rudely.

"Of course not!" answered Poppy. "I know no one in Durban except you,

Sophie--and now Mr. Bramham," she smiled, a sudden smile of great

sweetness at Bramham, and at that he gave her his whole attention.

"That's dull for you, surely!"

"Oh, no! I have plenty to do; and books to read; and how can one be dull

in such a lovely place as Natal?"

The sun came out in Bramham. He was a Natalian and proud of it.

"I believe she gets up in the morning and goes out to see if the sun

rises!" said Sophie, as if denouncing the conclusive symptom of idiotcy.

The cold look with which Bramham had at first surveyed Poppy had now

quite disappeared, and his grey-eyed smile was all for her. He also was

a sun-rise man.

"Do you like books?" he asked. "I can lend you any amount. We get all

the new ones, and as soon as they're read the Lord knows where they go!

I'll send you some up, if I may."

"Thank you, that _will_ be good of you," said Poppy with enthusiasm.

"Send her up all the old poetry books you can find," jeered Sophie.

"Personally, _I_ like a jolly good yellow-back."

Mr. Bramham looked extremely bored by this priceless piece of

information, and more so still when she returned immediately to the

subject of the men she was anxious to meet. Poppy got up and, opening

the piano, began to play a little gay air to which she whistled softly;

she never sang.

"I'm just _dying_ to know him," said Sophie ardently. "He looks as

though he has committed every sin you ever heard of. And how _did_ he

get that fearful scar right across his face? Vitriol?"

The little air at the piano stopped suddenly.

"I really couldn't tell you. He is not communicative on the subject,"

said Bramham drily. "But perhaps he will unfold to you--do go on

playing, Miss Chard!"

He adored music, and had an excellent view of an extraordinarily pretty

pair of ankles under the music-stool.

Poppy complied, but she changed the air to something savage that made

Bramham think of a Zulu war-chant.

"Well, I shall certainly ask him when I meet him. I wonder you haven't

been able to find out! He lives with you, doesn't he?"

"He is staying with me, at present, yes." Bramham's tone was full of

weariness.

"And that dark, strange Irishman everyone is talking about--Carson--he

is staying with you, too, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Are they great friends?"

"We all know each other very well."

Miss Cornell laughed genially.

"I should say you do--isn't it true that you are called the three bad

men all over Africa--come now?"

"I'm afraid someone has been filling your head with nonsense. Who

spreads these stories, I wonder?"

"Ah, yes, that's all very well, but you know it's true, all the same.

You are three dangerous, fascinating men, everyone says so, and the

Kaffirs have names for you all. What is yours, Mr. Bramham?"

"Kaffirs have names for everybody if one had time to find out what they

were."

"Oh, I know--_Umkoomata_--that's what they call you. Now, what

wickedness can that mean?"

"Who tells you these wonderful things, my dear young lady? You really

have a lot of inside information about everything. You should start a

newspaper." Bramham was slightly exasperated.

"Oh, I know a lot more besides that," said Miss Cornell, shaking her

finger at him archly. "About you, and Mr. Carson, too. He is going up on

a secret expedition into Borapota for the English Government, isn't he?"

"_Very_ secret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How the devil do these

things leak out?"

"Something or other, yes," he said aloud.

"They say the English Government thinks an _awful_ lot of him."

"Yes, he's a clever fellow," said Bramham, casually. No one would have

supposed him to be speaking of a man dearer to him than a brother.

Bramham did not wear his heart where it could be pecked at by the Sophie

Cornells of the world.

Poppy got up from the piano, and Bramham got up, too, and looked at his

watch.

"I must be off," said he, with a great air of business-hurry, which left

him as soon as he got out of the gate.

"Now, don't forget to bring Mr. Abinger next time," Sophie called after

him from the verandah; "and that Mr. Carson, too," she added, as an

afterthought.

Poppy positively blushed for her.

"Sophie, how can you! It was perfectly plain that he did not want to

bring the man--and that he doesn't intend to, anyway. Are you really as

dense as you pretend to be?"

"Bosh!" said Sophie, retiring to the table and beginning to make a fresh

onslaught on the bread-and-butter. "They'll turn up here in a day or

two, you'll see. Isn't there any jam, I wonder?"

"I shall not see anything of the kind. I wash my hands of you and your

men friends. I didn't engage to meet anyone but Mr. Bramham, and I've

done all I promised."

She had done a little more than she had promised, as she very well knew,

but observation was not Sophie's strong point, as her next remark made

plain.

"Now, don't be cross just because he didn't admire you. I told you to

put on my silk blouse, didn't I?"

Poppy laughed her entrancing laugh.

"Do you really think men care for clothes, Sophie?"

"Of _course_ they do! They love to see a well-dressed woman--especially

when they don't have to pay for the dress. Lots of men won't even be

_seen_ with a woman unless she's _perfectly_ turned out. Brookie is like

that; and I'll bet that man Abinger is, too!"

"Is he, indeed! Then remove him far from me. I'm afraid you won't suit

him, either Sophie," with a touch of malice.

"Why not? Don't I pay enough for my clothes? I dress far better than

Mrs. Portal does, anyway. She always has on faded old linens and things,

and I've only seen her in two hats since I came here--both of them

_awful_!"

"I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her."

"Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear. _I_ think she is a frump.

Capron's wife now _is_ good looking, and always dressed

mag-_nif_-icently. But it makes a person sick to see the way they freeze

on to all the decent men and never let them meet anyone else."

"But do the men want to meet anyone else? If one woman is witty, and the

other pretty, what more is there to be desired?"

"You talk like a book with all the pages torn out, and the cover lost,"

said Sophie irritably.

Poppy laughed provokingly, and lay back in her chair, thinking--the

whole thing was rather amazing. Abinger still here, and moving amongst

pretty and witty women, whilst he pretended to be up in the Transvaal!

His friend _Umkoomata_ the _Sturdy One_, whom she had told herself she

would like to know, here too, visiting Sophie Cornell, whom he plainly

didn't like. Nick Capron! How odd the world was! She began to ponder

about _Intandugaza_, too--whether he was the mysterious dark Irishman

who went on secret expeditions----

"_Man!_ Rosalind," broke in Sophie suddenly. "That fellow Abinger is

just crazy to meet me. We ran into each other as I was coming out of

Brookie's office yesterday, and he gave me a look that made me go hot

all over. He's got those bad eyes that make you feel curly all down your

spine--_you_ know!"

Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance of certain recent

sensations still burning within her, she could not say that she did

_not_ know; but her mouth expressed weariness and disgust.

"It seems to me that you are talking about some kind of brute, Sophie,"

she said.

"Brute! Oh, I don't know," said Sophie, and laughed. The laugh sent

Poppy out of the room with her teeth in her lip.

"I can't stand Sophie any longer," she said to herself in her own

garden, looking at the rose-red walls of the house and the flaming

flowers on the plant before the door. As she went indoors her thought

changed; she began to smile subtly to herself.

"So Luce is in Durban all the time! He simply pretended to go away, to

avoid discussing that matter of going out with me! And Mrs. Nick Capron!

If I were to go out here, should I meet her? And would she recognise in

me, I wonder, the little wretched vagabond of six years ago?"

She reached her glass, and looked in.

"I think not."

CHAPTER V

Bramham and Carson sat smoking in the verandah of Sea House. Before

them, not two hundred yards away, lay the sea, washing and rippling on

the beach under the full of the moon. Behind them, through the open

French windows a number of large woolly moths were _buzzing_ in and out,

much intrigued by the light that shone through a pink silk lamp-shade,

which had been made and presented to the establishment by Mrs.

Brookfield, on the occasion of her husband's accession to Bramham's mess

for six weeks. The electric-lights had been turned out to keep the room

as clear as possible of insects. It was Bramham's house, and they were

Bramham's native servants who stepped so gently, removing the

dinner-things deftly without clamour, making no sound but the rustle of

bare feet on polished boards and an occasional softly-spoken Zulu word.

Bramham's household included no woman, but there was no better-appointed

one in Natal. Having laid bare the gleaming oak dining-table, one of the

_boys_ solemnly spread down its centre a strip of silver embroidery,

while another placed two silver bowls of roses at each end, and removed

the lamp with the pink shade to a side table. Afterwards the ice-bucket

was replenished and fresh glasses placed near the spirit-tantalus.

Having performed these duties with the greatest decorum and ceremony,

they withdrew silently to the back regions of the house, where their

solemnity slipped from them as suddenly as water slips from a Kaffir's

skin. They disported themselves amongst the pot-washers and dish

cleaners, the cooks and stable-boys, with many a merry snicker and

laugh, chattering like magpies, clicking and clacking, and crying "Hah!"

over the affairs of the _Old Baas_ (the master of natives is always

_Old_ whatever his age) and the various other _Baases_ who sat at

Bramham's board with regular irregularity.

Ha! ha! where was _Shlalaimbona_ to-night, they inquired among

themselves. It is true that he would sleep here in the house of the _Old

Baas_, as he had now done for many nights, but where did he eat

to-night? In the house on the hill, where a white star was hidden by day

and by night?

No; the information was forthcoming that he dined to-night at the house

of Por-tal--he who was gay always with an angry face and had the wife

whose hands could smooth away troubles.

And where, the cook particularly desired to know, was _Bechaan_? He whom

the world called Brookfield--who had slept in the house of _Umkoomata_

for the matter of six weeks now? Where was he to-night? Followed the

tale of the return of Mrs. _Bechaan_, with particulars amazing.

_Vetta_, Carson's personal servant, gave an imitation of the lady, from

which might have been gathered that her chief characteristics were a

kangaroo-walk and a face which in contour and complacency resembled a

camel's.

In the meantime, _Umkoomata_ and _Intandugaza_ smoked in the verandah,

which was like the deck of a yacht, broad and white-planked, and lined

with a long row of every kind of easy-chair, a Madeira lounge, and a

hammock with Union-Jack cushions.

Carson, with his head far back in a canvas chair and his hands behind

it, was smoking a cigar at the mosquitoes, sending them in shrieking

swarms to roost in the roof. Incidentally, he was trying to persuade

Bramham that the fine weather indicated a three-weeks' trip into

Zululand, to get some good shooting.

"I have another three weeks to put in, Charlie, and what is the good of

loafing here, at a loose end?" He gave a glance at Bramham seated by

him, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, the picture of health and

well-being. "And you are looking really seedy. A trip would do you

good."

Bramham immediately began to think himself precariously ill.

"I know," said he uneasily; "I feel confoundedly slack. I must take a

dose of quinine to-night. A trip would be just the thing to set me up,

damn it!" He stared at the moonlit night, his eyes full of a wistfulness

that was extraordinarily boyish in a man on the wrong side of forty. He

thought of a lovely spot he knew up on the Tugela, where the moon would

just be rising over a great Kop, and he seemed to smell the wood fires

on the night air----

"But I can't get away. I've got a big case coming on next month, you

know." His face changed, the boyishness passed and the business-man

reappeared. "Those fellows in Buenos Ayres are trying to do me up for

five thousand."

They smoked in silence for a moment or so, then Bramham continued:

"My lawyer, of course, wants to see me almost every day on some point or

another. I really couldn't get away at present, Carson. Why not take a

run up to the Rand? By the time you are back I'll have those fellows on

toast, and then we'll go off for a few weeks."

"No," said Carson discontentedly, "everything is confoundedly dull on

the Rand. I was sick of the place when I was there last month."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It is not the same as it was, Charlie. The old crowd has all gone away

or gone to bits--Webb is in the Colony; Jack Lowther is mostly engaged

(I think) in praying that his wife won't be too much for him when she

comes out--she is on the water! The Dales are away. Bill Godley is up

Inyanga way. McLeod's finances are in bits, and he's too busy keeping a

stiff lip to be sociable. Clewer is now Public Prosecutor and has become

a saint. Little Oppy has gone home. Solomon says he has met the Queen of

Sheba at last, and expects that to account for his never being in

evidence anywhere except in the stage box of the Standard Theatre."

"Oh, damn it! disgusting!" commented Bramham.

"And, anyway, the Rand air always chips the edges off my nerves, Bram.

It's too high. Lord knows, I don't feel any too fit now! I believe I

have another go of fever coming on."

Bramham looked at him critically and affectionately. "You _do_ get some

doses, but I hope you're not in for another, Karri!" he said. "By Jove!

When South African fever puts her loving arms round a man she clings as

only fever and a woman can."

Bramham's face was clouded, but there was no real bite in his words. He

had no quarrel with the clinging arms of women, or of fever. But he

blamed these things for the look of bitter discontent and cynicism that

lay across the beauty of the fine face beside him. Carson wore in his

eyes the look, and round the mouth the marks, of one who has "wearied of

every temple he has built"; or, as Bramham's thought expressed itself

with no great originality, yet not without point--the look of a man who

has got to the core of his apple and finds it rotten.

"It's that look," Bramham told himself, "that gives women an instinct to

comfort him; while if they had only let him alone from the first, maybe

it wouldn't be there at all! And you can't comfort a man for his soul's

bitterness, as though he has the stomach-ache. Besides which, Karri

takes to comfort badly; he'd rather get a smack in the teeth any day

from someone he can hit back!"

Thus Bramham, musing and staring at the sea. In spite of its marred

beauty, Carson's face seemed to him finer than that of any man he had

ever known--and he knew most men of any consequence in South Africa.

Meanwhile Carson, giving him another glance, wondered what kept him

quiet.

"Thinking of some woman, I suppose!"

Presently Bramham did turn his mind to his own affairs.

"I want your advice about something, Karri."

"Fire away, Bram; let's hear all about her."

At this Bramham, for reasons of his own, became slightly annoyed.

"Don't be an ass, Carson."

"Don't be a rake-hell, Bram. You know quite well you are always at some

apron-string."

Indignation dried up Bramham's eloquence.

Carson mocked him further.

"Why don't you lay the 'deadly doing' down, before it lays you out?"

"Take your own excellent advice, my dear fellow. Or give it to Abinger;

perhaps he needs it," said Bramham.

"Poor old Abinger! I don't think it would be of much use to him. He

scarcely does much 'roving by the light of the moon' these days."

"Good Lord, no! the less moon the better in his case!" said Bramham

grimly. "Where the deuce has he been all these years, Karri?"

Carson shrugged.

"Not much doubt about where he has been! He could give us some vivid

inside information about the slow-fires that consume."

They smoked a while in silence. Later, Bramham said:

"Whatever Carmen Braganza found to do, she did it well! She told me that

it had only taken her six months to learn to dance as she did--and _you_

know how she danced! And, I suppose, if she had studied her man for a

hundred years, instead of three months, she could not have got in a

subtler revenge on Abinger--laying waste his looks like that! It's hard

to believe what a magnificent specimen he was; and how mad the women

were about him! Bah! it was a foreign devil's trick!"

"But she _was_ a foreign devil. That was the point Abinger lost sight

of."

"Did you ever hear who the other woman was, Karri?"

"Never. It was an amazing thing that it never leaked out, considering

that the whole Rand was nose to trail. But the fact was, I suppose, that

no one knew who she was except Abinger and his old housekeeper."

"_And_ Carmencita herself. She swore to me afterwards that she had

sprung upon them from behind a curtain in Abinger's room and slashed his

face open before the other woman's eyes. Why she kept silence God only

knows! More foreign tricks probably."

"The other woman must have felt mighty uncomfortable all the months

after, while Carmen stayed on dancing, and everyone was hot to find

Abinger and get to the bottom of the mystery. There is no doubt that if

he hadn't disappeared so neatly afterwards the police would have found

some ground for rooting out the whole scandal for the public benefit,

and the other woman's name would have been thrown to the beasts!"

"Perhaps that was what Carmen was waiting for!"

Carson got up to get another cigar and the subject dropped. When he came

back Bramham reverted to his own troubles.

"Colonial girls don't interest me at any time," he proclaimed

aggrievedly; "especially the adventuress brand. I didn't think that

even I was such an idiot as to get tangled up with one."

Carson stared straight before him with a smile at the sea.

"This girl is Brookfield's typewriter--confound him!"

Carson's satirical eyebrows moved, but he said nothing.

Bramham continued:

"A tall girl, with a fine figure and a high colour--but what has that

got to do with me?"

"What, indeed?" an ironical echo from the canvas chair.

This irritated Bramham.

"If you think you're going to hear a tale of love you'll be

disappointed. Nothing of the sort. It's a matter of highway robbery, if

it's anything."

Karri began to laugh.

"Oh, come, Bram! This is not like you!"

Neither was it. If Bramham made alms and oblations on strange altars, he

was the last man to talk about it afterwards, or sigh over the stub-end

of his cheque-book even with his closest friend. At this time, however,

he was too much taken up with his grievances to defend his principles to

Carson.

"I don't say the girl isn't good looking," he now interpolated, as one

who wishes to be quite fair and square; "and she _may_ be a good girl,

for all I know," he added doubtfully.

Carson grinned.

"Any way, I'm quite sure the other girl is straight."

"Great God of War! Are there two?"

"What a fellow you are, Carson!" said Bramham peevishly. "Of course

there are two, but the other one is quite different--English, I think;

anyway, she's no Colonial. I don't know what to make of it, to tell you

the truth, Karri. She's a friend of that Cornell girl and _that's_

against her; yet she looks good----"

"Do you mean that she is unlovely?" asked Carson with a wry smile.

"No, I don't!" emphatically. "But the odd thing is that she didn't

strike me at all at first; except as being bright and alive-looking--not

like some of the dead ducks you see around these parts sometimes--then

suddenly right under my eyes she blossomed out. You never saw anything

like it--eyes, hair, feet, hands, everything--perfect; and her voice a

melody."

This was the most astonishing tale of highway robbery Carson had ever

heard.

"What next?" asked he.

Bramham beat the bowl of his pipe against the balcony rail.

"Cursed if I know what next!" he proclaimed. After a pause he added: "I

wish you'd come and help me sift it out, Karri."

Carson shrugged; his face grew a little weary.

"I am not particularly interested in girls, Bram; I'm afraid I couldn't

help you much."

Bramham might have made a rude retort, but he didn't. He got up and

leaned against a pole of the verandah, facing Carson.

"Well, I should like to have had your opinion, Karri. What with that

girl with the saint's eyes, and Brookfield's slippery ways----"

"But where does Brookfield come in?"

Bramham did not answer immediately. He appeared to be turning it over in

his mind as to whether he should tell that part of the story at all.

Eventually he roused himself to a point of indignation when he _had_ to

tell.

"Well, now, look here, Karri--this is the whole thing: About a month ago

Brookfield came to my office with a yarn about his typewriter--pretty

girl--good girl--knew her business, but fearfully poor, and he hadn't

enough work to keep her going--would I give her some of my typing? It

meant bread-and-butter to her, etc. _Of course_, I said 'Right!' But

when it came to finding the work for her ... well, Milligan, my head

man, put it to me that it meant taking away the typewriting from our own

man, who can't do anything else, and has a wife and family ... and when

I thought it over, anyway, I kicked at having a woman about the office.

However, as I'd promised Brookfield to do something, I went round to see

him about it and met the girl--Miss Cornell. I didn't take to her much;

but she's poor, you know, and something had to be done to help her out."

"I don't see what business it was of yours at all."

"Karri, it's everybody's business when a woman's down on her luck--even

if she has the shifty eye of Miss Sophie Cornell. All the same, I didn't

contemplate having to tip up three hundred pounds, and I feel deuced

sore about it."

"Three hundred _what_?" cried Carson.

"Well, look here, what was I to do?" said Bram sullenly. "Brookie

badgered me into promising to do something; then the girl said she had a

friend who wanted to come and join her, and if they could only get a

little hole of their own they could set up an agency and take in work.

Presently Brookie heard that some people called Lumsden were going to

leave, and wanting to sell up their cottage--offered to sell the whole

bag of tricks as it stood for three hundred, and Brookie said he would

stand in for half if I would for the other half. I wasn't prepared to

plank down one-fifty by any means, but the Cornell girl got hold of me

and pitched me a long story about her friend, an English girl, who had

got left in Kimberley by some people she was governessing for ... also,

she was so full of gratitude about all our plans for them, that before I

knew where I was I had promised. Well, Brookie asked me to arrange the

thing quietly and take the house over from the Lumsdens in my name, as

he didn't want to appear in the matter, because Mrs. Lumsden's sister at

the Cape is a great friend of his wife's and he was afraid it might get

to her ears. So I paid Lumsden one-fifty down on the nail, and the rest

was to be paid in a month, and Miss Cornell settled in and the other

girl turned up from Kimberley, and they've made the place all snug and

seem as happy as sandboys. In fact, everything was going all right until

this afternoon, when Brookie looms up with a face as long as a horse's,

and says he's not prepared to pay the other one-fifty."

"The little blackguard!"

"Exactly. Just what I said to him. He said: 'Not at all!' Declared he

hadn't let me in for anything.... I could get three hundred pounds any

day of the week for Lumsden's place.... Just as if I could, or would,

turn those two poor girls out now they're so happy! So, of course, I've

just got to tip up the rest of the money and look pleasant ... and,

after all, you know, Karri, why should I?... They're nice little women,

and all that, and I'd gladly have done something, but three hundred!...

I've troubles of my own, by Jove!... My wife doesn't live on Quaker Oats

and barley water, by any means."

"And then there's the pleasure of knowing you've been rooked. I never

heard of such a piece of barefaced roguery in my life."

"Well, what could I do? He said his wife was coming back unexpectedly

and he couldn't raise the money."

"You're three hundred different kinds of fool, Bram, if you let him rook

you like that."

"He's been too clever for me," grumbled Bramham, and shut his mouth on

his pipe.

"H'm! Mind the girl's not too clever for you too."

A plaintive expression came into Bramham's face, mingled with

irritation; he took his pipe out again.

"My dear Karri, don't I tell you that I have nothing to do with the

girl, or she with me? I was sorry for her and helped her out of a hole,

and there the matter ends. I don't really regret the money--because of

that other girl--but as you know, I am not a millionaire, and three

hundred _is_ three hundred. What annoys me is that I should have been

such a fool----"

"Why did you pay? I should have refused."

"Oh no, you wouldn't, because the women would have had to get out. No,

that would never have done."

"Well," said Carson, getting up and walking down the long verandah.

"It's just as well that Mrs. Brookfield has come back. I wouldn't live

in the house with Brookfield after this." He went indoors and began to

negotiate a whiskey-and-soda.

"Oh, come, I say, Karri!" Bramham got up and came and leaned in the

doorway, one leg in the room and one in the verandah. "This isn't your

affair, you know. Don't you get your back up about it. I've really no

right to have told you; but you understand that I've been a good deal

annoyed, and it's been a relief to speak of it. Of course, if Brookie

had been here I should have gone into his room and blazed away at him

after dinner and got rid of it that way. As it is, I feel better and

there's no harm done. By Jove! what a glorious moon! Let's go for a

tramp before we turn in."

"Right!"

They fortified. Later, without hats, they tramped off along the shining

sands silvered by the light of a shimmering moon gazing at herself in

the sea.

* * * * *

Brookfield's wife having returned, he came no more to Sea House. But he

hailed Carson blithely at the Club next day.

"What do you say to a drink, Karri?"

"I don't want a drink," said Carson shortly.

"Why not?"

"Don't ask me why not. I don't want one, that's all."

"O God! look here! Now, damn it, why not?"

Brookfield was as easily infuriated as Carson.

On this occasion Carson stayed cool.

"Because I don't like you--if you must have it."

Brookfield at once became calm; he prepared to argue out the matter.

"Karri," he began plaintively, "I want to tell you one thing. I like you

and Charlie Bramham better than anyone in this rotten country, but

there's no one who can annoy me more than you can----"

Carson yawned, got up, and walked out of the room.

CHAPTER VI

It was a moonless night, but the stars were out in their legions, and

the garden was full of a warm, silvery silence--the silence composed of

the thousand tiny sounds and scents that make the charm and wonder of an

African night. The moon-flowers were tolling their heavy, white bells,

and some big flowering-bush, with pale, subtle blossoms, seemed to have

all the fragrance of a beautiful woman's hair.

Poppy walked in the gracious dimness, her bare, pale feet picking their

way delicately amongst bright things lying like fallen stars in the

grass. A green, clinging plant, waving long tendrils, clutched at her

gown as she passed, and she broke it off, and, twining it into a crown,

put it on her hair. It had tiny flowers dotted amongst its leaves. The

trees shut her in from all the world, and it was as though she walked in

some great, dim, green well.

She had been all through the garden and was tired. At last she threw

herself down and lay at full-length on the soft, short grass, in which

there was no dampness, for a terrible pall of heat had lain all day upon

Natal, and through the thin nainsook of her gown Poppy could feel the

warmth still in the earth. She stared into the solemn velvet sky where

Orion, in gleaming belt and sword, leaned above her, and the Milky Way

was a high-road to Heaven, paved with powdered silver. Far away, in the

town below, a church clock flung out eleven clear strokes upon the night

air. Poppy turned on her side and lay with her cheek to the earth.

"Old Mother Africa! What have you hidden in your bosom for me?" she

whispered.... "I believe that if I sleep on your breast to-night I will

dream my destiny. I love you, and you love me.... I am your child ... a

poppy growing in your old brown bosom. You are the only mother I have

ever known.... Whatsoever you give unto me, I will take and say it is

good. I feel predestined to-night.... If I lay my ear to you, will I

hear the foot-falls of my fate approaching?... What is there for me?

Fame? Love? Those are the only two things in the world! ... but no one

can have them both it is said.... Which have you for me, Mother? Will

you tell me in a dream?... I will sleep here to-night," she said at

last; and shutting her eyes she lay still.

A man, coming very softly and wonderingly across the grass lawns,

thought he saw a slim beam of moonlight lying there, and gave a startled

exclamation when it sprang up and flickered into a cluster of tall

shrubs.

"That was an odd thing!" he said to himself. "I'll swear I saw.... And

yet there is no moon to-night!"

He stood long, looking into the darkness of the bushes until at last he

imagined that he saw a moonbeam, shaped graciously like a woman's face,

looking back at him. But when he approached it retreated. He stepped

back again and it returned.

"H'm!" he remarked; "I must have a bad attack when I see moonbeam faces

on a moonless night!"

The wedge of moonlight in the bushes seemed to him to give out two

little gleams at that.

"This is a fool's game," said the man aloud. "I must go behind these

bushes and see where this thing begins and ends."

Instantly the moonbeam disappeared altogether.

"I thought so," he muttered. "Then it _is_ a woman, and I'm not

delirious yet, though by the Lord my head feels.... I wonder if she will

come back if I behave myself very nicely.... I'd like to see that face a

little closer ... it looked.... Is it possible that I've made a mistake

and this is not Portal's place at all? Perhaps I've found my way into

Brookfield's zenana! It was _something_ like the gate Bram pointed out

to me yesterday.... But what am I doing _here_, by the way?... I wish

someone would tell me ... perhaps she will ... how can I get her to come

back? ... it might be a good idea to light a cigar and let her see my

guileless features.... I think I'll sit down too ... it's odd how queer

I feel!" He sat down in the grass among the fallen stars, a tall,

powerful figure in a light-grey lounge suit, and taking out a cigar he

carefully lighted it, making as long a process of the lighting as

possible. Then he threw away the remains of the match and looked up at

the bushes, but his dazzled eyes could see no wedge of moonlight in the

Egyptian darkness. It was there, however. And by the time the match had

burnt his fingers, Poppy had been able to take a long absorbing look at

what seemed to her the most wonderful face she had ever seen. She

believed that in that short time she had read all that should, and

should not, be written on the face of a man--strength, weakness,

tenderness, tyranny, gentleness, bitterness, cynicism, gaiety,

melancholy, courage, despair. But how came he here? How had he found

his way through a locked gate? Was it possible that he had come

through the _boys'_ compound? ... or by way of her secret hole in the

summer-house? ... but he had not come from either of these directions.

What did he want?

In the meantime the man was holding his cigar between his knees and

gazing in her direction.

"O moon of my desire that knows no wane," he gently misquoted, "come out

and talk to me!"

His voice had a rustle in it of leaves before the wind. No woman could

listen to it cold-hearted.

"But what are you doing in my garden?" she said in her own entrancing

tones.

The man's veins thrilled in turn.

"_Is_ it your garden? I was looking for the house of a friend. I'll go

if you tell me to, but I'd much rather sit here and listen to your

voice. I can't see you very well--" he finished with an air of

complaint.

"How did you get in?" asked Poppy. "Isn't the gate locked?"

"My _boys_ have a name for me of which one translation runs--all gates

open to him."

"But it _must_ be locked."

"It is not, I assure you. Though if this were my garden, it should

always be--with me inside."

"You talk very oddly," said she, trying to speak coldly; "nearly as

oddly as old Khayyam himself ... I trust not for the same reason!"

"You wrong me bitterly," he said. "I am trying to speak and behave with

unusual decorum. It is the poetry of the night which affects me in spite

of myself. You suspect some more occult reason, I see, but I can assure

you on my honour that I dined quietly at the Club and drank no more than

one whiskey-and-soda with my dinner."

A silence prevailed.

At last he said: "I think it would be a gentle and kind thing to do, to

come and sit near me on the grass. I would like to look at you closely

and see if you are a moonbeam I used to know long ago in Rhodesia."

"I have never been in Rhodesia."

"No? Then perhaps it was in my own land. The women there have voices

like you.

"There be none of beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee,

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me--"

Poppy heard the rustle of leaves again through Byron's beautiful words,

and a little shiver of happiness flew through her. She hoped he would

sit there for ever, beguiling her with his sweet Irish tongue.

"Tell me that you came from Ireland and I'll believe you with all my

heart," said he next.

"No; I was born out here."

"In this bad, mad land?" His voice had a note of disappointment in it;

he added: "I wish _you_ were mad and bad--but that is too much to

expect, I suppose?"

"Why do you wish it?"

"Because then you would come and sit by me on the grass and talk to me.

I am a very bad man, and I want company."

"But," said Poppy softly, "_Il n'est jamais de mal en bonne compagnie._"

"Voltaire in an African garden! O Lord! I _must_ be delirious," he

muttered to himself. "I suppose you haven't such a thing as a pinch of

quinine about you?"

Poppy having very little about her at that time, began to laugh. Her

laugh was rather like the first note of a bird's song, and she

understood very well when he said:

"O thrush, sing again!"

"I think you must really be a little bit mad----"

"If you would only be a little bit bad----"

"Oh, I am--I often am----"

"Where will you sit? On my right there is a patch of lesser darkness

that smells passing sweet, and might be mignonette; on my left----"

"No; I can't come over there; don't ask me."

Her voice was tremulous now, for in her blood there was the strangest,

wildest urging to come at his call. She wondered how long she could

hold out against it--if he did not go soon.

"Why should you want me to?"

"Why? Because I want to know whether you are real ... or only a wraith,

a streak of moonlight, a phantom of my brain. I want to be sure that the

world is still going round, and that I am still in it. All I can see is

a faint wedge-shaped gleam of white, crowned with strange stars. Have

you tiny white stars in the darkness of your hair? Is your hair as black

as the raven's wing, as night--as hell?"

"Yes; it is."

"And are your eyes long cameos of carved moonlight?"

"They are indeed!"

"Then Carissima--Adorissima ... come and sit on the grass."

All the magic sweetness and sadness of Ireland was in his words. But he

did not expect the slightest result from this impassioned entreaty, for

he had long ago made up his mind that this strange witch of the night,

who could throw the thrush's note into her voice, and quote Voltaire,

and daintily but cynically suggest that he was drunk, was no simple maid

to be beguiled by the tongue. This was a woman who knew her world and

all the moves in the great game, and as a man who had played that same

game often and well, and could appreciate a clever opponent, he awaited

her next move, secure in the thought that it would not fail to be an

interesting one.

What he was wholly unprepared for was a glimmering fragrant presence

beside him on the grass. The breath of her mouth was so close that he

could feel it in little waves across his face. In the purple darkness he

descried her white gown, and down each shoulder of it a long, long rope

of blackness. The thought of a woman's hair had always some sorcery for

him. He could never look at beautiful hair, even in the most

conventional surroundings, without turmoil of flesh and spirit, inward

curses at his own base nature, and revilings of all things feminine

formed to lure the brain and bind the soul of man.

At this moment every instinct of his being, every desire of his nature,

fought with his self-control, desiring, inciting, almost compelling him

to stretch out his hands to this witch-woman's hair and draw her nearer.

Little beads broke out on his forehead; he dug his hands into the earth

beside him. He could hear her breathing. A perfumed warmth came out of

her and stole to him. He desired greatly that she should speak; but she

did not; only sat there giving out perfume and weaving God knew what

Ephesian spells to bind him. At about this time it seemed to him that

this was a very fine dream and that a fine thing to do would be to get

up and go hence before the dream could break. But that mood was soon

inconstant. Silence enfolded them--a silence that was mutable and

disquieting. At last he leaned towards her and spoke, dry-throated:

"You win!" His voice was very low, and jarred like a fine instrument

that has been struck.

"Victory is to you! Tell me to go--or stay!"

The girl, glowing and swaying beside him, could not speak; but her hands

made some little motion to him that he interpreted as he wished. He

grasped them in his, which were broad and powerful, but had eyes in the

fingers: hands with the gift of discovery by touch. In that moment his

heart and his purpose changed. At the greatest of all games he was no

novice; but he had always played honestly as far as in him lay. It was

his principle not to gamble unless the chances were equal for both

players. As if they ever can be between a man and a woman! But,

strangely enough, all honest men honestly believe it possible. By the

feel of those soft hands quivering and burning in his, he had reason to

believe that he had made a mistake--with regard to his opponent, at

least.

His head was far from clear that night in any case, and sitting there,

with those hands in his, that fragrance ... those ensnaring plaits of

hair ... was not conducive to coolness and sanity. It should be written

down to him that he made an enormous effort to fight the sweet fumes

that pressed upon him to cloud his brain and slacken his moral muscles.

"Tell me something about yourself, Carissima," he said softly. "Tell me

that you are married, and that your husband is a brute!"

She drew her hands away swiftly. This was a jarring note that broke

_her_ dream at least. What could he mean? How strange he was! Was it

possible that he was mad? Was it at the bidding of a madman that the

little cold stone in her breast was turning into something

living--something that felt like a sweet red rose bursting into blossom?

"Of course I am not married!" she said slowly and clearly. "I am only a

girl of eighteen ... I do not understand why you say such things."

He made a sound which might have been a groan.

"My dear little girl, you must forgive me.... I believe I am ill

to-night.... _Of course_ you are only a girl ... a good girl! ... gates

and girls! ... gates!..." Suddenly he leaned closer to her and peered

into her face, striving to distinguish the features he instinctively

knew were lovely. "Who are you? What are you?" he strangely asked.

"I am a poppy ... a poppy growing in Africa," said she, smiling subtly

to herself, but trembling--trembling.

"A poppy! ... then that is why your hair has that mystic odour!... 'Give

me of poppy and mandragora.'... Poppies give sleep ... I believe that is

what I want ... I am a sick man ... like Peter's wife's mother, I am

sick of a fever ... and you are--a girl ... O Lord God!"

"Oh, you really are ill!" she cried "Let me go to the house and get you

something--some brandy. Rest here a while----"

"Rest here, by St. Anthony!... No, no, nothing, it's nothing ... I'll

go." He sprang up and stood at his full height above her. She, too, rose

on her feet. She put out her hands to him, but he did not take them.

"Good-night, Carissima ... I'll go home ... be good.... Girls should

always be good ... and gates ... I must find the gate----"

Strangely he went, striding away as silently as he had come through the

darkness, and leaving her standing there on the grass. Later, she flung

herself down and burst into bitter crying.

"Oh, what a brute!... how I hate him!... how my heart hurts!... O God!

what shall I do?... where has he gone?... I shall never see him

again ... I wish to die! I wish to die!... Does he love some other

woman?... Oh, I cannot live any longer ... he despises me because I am

a girl.... How my heart hurts!... There is a knife in it.... If I could

only hear him speak again!... I shall never see him again!"

Suddenly she sprang up and ran swiftly across the grass, in the

direction he had gone--the direction of the gate. But the gate was a

long way off, and the way was dim. She ran into trees, and hurt her feet

on stones and thorns, and presently, as she ran, she stumbled and fell

over something or someone lying prone on the grass. In horror and fear

she sprang away, but the figure did not move, only breathed heavily. She

stole closer and peered down. It was he. She recognised the tall figure,

the pale-grey clothes, the faint aroma she had recently known.

"Oh, what has happened to you?" she tearfully cried, leaning over him.

"Are you dead; are you dead?" Using her utmost strength she lifted his

head and leaned it against herself as she half kneeled, half sat upon

the grass. He was leaden-limbed as the dead, but his loud breathing

reassured her; peering into his face she could see that his eyes were

closed. She considered swiftly what thing she could do that would be

best, presently resolving to run to the house and get brandy and restore

him; and quinine, too, as he had asked for it--she knew that Abinger

always kept a supply in his room. But first she would try and prop him

against this tree-trunk. She dragged and strained at his arms, trying to

move him, but he was a dead-weight. Tears of terror and distress

streamed down her face and fell hot on his.

"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "What is it with you?" Just as she made

to let his head gently to the ground again, he stirred, and his

breathing changed to that of a conscious, wakened man. In a moment he

had dragged himself up into a sitting pose, with the tree-trunk at his

back. She still remained kneeling by him--breathless, glad, afraid, and

he leaned his handsome head against the laces of her bosom.

"Are you better?" she whispered tremulously, joyously. "I am going to

fetch you some restorative if you will let me leave you an instant."

"You must never leave me again, dearest of all women," he said, and

flung his arm about her. "I love you! Give me your lips." He slewed his

head round suddenly and his mouth was hard on hers, dragging terrible

kisses from it--kisses that shook her through and through as with some

strange ague. He felt the trembling of her and laughed with his hand on

her heart to still its loud beating.

"'Your mouth is as sweet as bracket,'" he said, quoting some old song

that sang in his brain, and kissed her again; then took her hair in his

hand and wound it round his throat, holding the long plaits across his

face and smelling them as though they were wonderful flowers.

"And I never knew that your hair had this mystic fragrance!... What is

it? It is not only sweet, it has some other essence, some fragrance that

has a touch of earth in it, and pet, by God! it breathes of Heaven,

too!... I think it is a flower that grows upon the eternal hills ...

those strange red flowers.... Ah! poppies smell so, I think!... yes,

poppies! poppies!... Dearest, if I were stricken blind and deaf in this

hour, from ten thousand women I could search you out by this sweet scent

of your hair."

He kissed the soft sprays that fell over her eyes. "Speak to me!" he

cried down on to her lips. "Speak to me in the voice I love!... _O! Ci

risuoniamo in cristallo_ ... _wine in a crystal beaker_.... I never knew

until to-night there was so beautiful a voice in the world!... Speak to

me----"

"If I could tear the heart out of my breast," she said, "I would put it

into these two hands. I love you! I give you my life."

"God forgive me, I will take it!... I will rob you of all your gifts!"

"I give them to you ... I was born for this hour!" she whispered.

A wave of the great sea that can submerge all the world rushed over

them, beat them, drenched them, kissed them, crushed them to its breast;

lapped them round, blinded them--flung them quivering and broken on the

sands; left them.

He said: "I cannot see your face, darling ... I will never forget this

night. There has never been a night like it in all my life, and never

will be again."

"I love you! I love you!" her voice cried faintly.

"I have loved you for so long," he said gently. "But always you have

turned your face from me ... though I knew you were mine. I saw it in

your eyes ... but always you denied me even the touch of your hand ...

and I never knew that your hair smelled so sweet until to-night....

_Loraine_, dearest of all women, kiss me again...."

A terrible chill crept through the veins of Poppy Destin. Now she lay

like one dead against the wild, loud-beating heart under the grey coat.

Her own had ceased to beat; what words were these?

He held her closer. The seeing fingers touched the fabric of her gown,

and the slim, boyish body beneath.

"Why, you're only a girl!" he muttered wonderingly. "You have slipped

back to girlhood for love of me. God forgive me my sins! I am not worthy

to touch your little bare feet, Loraine."

At that she wrenched herself from his arms, sprang to her feet, and ran

from him, blindly; she knew not, cared not, where. At one time she

stumbled into a Christ-thorn bush and tore her hands and gown, but she

felt no pain nor the warm blood running down. She only stopped at last

because she found herself in the street with a rickshaw boy demanding

where she wished to go. That recalled her to her senses and she stepped

back hastily out of the light of his lamps, and stood in the shadow of

the gate.

"There is a _M'rungo_ in here who is ill. Come and help him to your

rickshaw," she said, suddenly inspired.

"Where does he want to go?" demanded the boy. "I go no more on the Berea

to-night--only townwards."

"Yes, that will do." She collected her thoughts hastily. He would

probably not be able to give the boy his address, the safest thing would

be to send him to the Club, where he had dined and was probably well

known. She added, therefore: "He wishes to go to the Club."

"Ker-lub!" repeated the boy and nodded sagaciously; _Ker-lub M'rungos_

always paid well!

Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gates and over the

soft, dark lawns to the tree where the _M'rungo_ was sitting. She spoke

in a clear, cold voice:

"Here is a boy with a rickshaw; you had better let him help you home.

You are certainly ill."

He rose easily, and stood up like a well man, but his voice was hoarse

and vague.

"Ah, thanks, Mrs. Capron--you are always kind. I shall be all right in

the morning. Good-night!" He went away muttering, followed by the

rickshaw boy. Poppy stood like a stone woman.

Later, she heard the gates clang and the rickshaw bell begin to tinkle

down the long hill. Then she broke into dry sobbing, clutching at her

throat with both hands, like one suffocating. At last some wild words

burst from her lips.

"Oh, I could kill myself to-night!... but first I will kill that woman

Loraine!"

CHAPTER VII

A storm shook the house next day when Luce Abinger returned. Kykie's

shrill crescendo, expostulations and denials, were smothered like little

frothy waves in the breakers of her master's wrath. Once the words "key"

and "gate" came floating up the staircase and reached Poppy where she

lay on her pillows, as she had lain until dawn, staring at the walls and

the ceiling with dry eyes, and her pale lips took a wry and bitter

curve. Later, pandemonium was extended to the yard and stables; then,

after all these voices there was peace.

Behind her locked door Poppy was vaguely thankful for safety from

Abinger's fury and tyrannical questioning; and not all Kykie's

cajoleries and threats could make her emerge.

"Go away, Kykie. I'm not well. I want nothing," she repeated

monotonously to all demands, until at last Kykie, from sheer weariness,

obeyed.

The strange emotions and events of the past night had left the girl

numb. The ecstasy of hatred which had possessed her for that other

woman, the birth-pains her heart had suffered, the anguish of

humiliation and defeat had all passed. She felt nothing. She thought of

nothing. Only sometimes as she lay there staring at _Monna Lisa_ on the

wall, she had the fancy that she was a little wrecked boat, lying broken

and useless on a beach where of late had raged a cruel storm.

In the torrid afternoon hours she slept a while--dead, dreamless sleep,

that revived her into at least some mechanical resemblance of herself;

so that when Kykie once more pounded upon her door and demanded

admittance with a tea-tray, she arose and let the anxious flustered

creature in.

"For goodness' gracious, and what do you look like, Poppy!"

"Kykie, stop asking questions, or go!" was the answer given so fiercely

that the old woman thought it wiser to say no more on the subject. She

inveigled Poppy to sit down and take some tea and some delicately

prepared sandwiches; in the meantime, she unfolded the tale of her woes

to the girl's unhearing ears. Luce had beaten her best kitchen _boy_,

and he had run away, so that she had been obliged to do all his work as

well as her own. Every dish at luncheon time had been sent out untasted,

and nothing eaten but bread and cheese--a terrible insult to poor Kykie!

"And he's been prowling round the house like a lion all the afternoon,

wanting to know what's the matter with you. Promise to come down to

dinner, Poppy, or in the name of gracious me I don't know what I shall

do."

"I'll come down, Kykie," said Poppy dully. "What is all the trouble

about?"

"Just because the front gate was left unlocked all the time he was away.

Of course, we little knew that it was open. But he said that I or the

_boys_ ought to have found out and looked for the key in his room and

locked it. _Me!_ Me that is on my weary feet in that kitchen all day

thinking of his stomach--heavenly me! Take some more tea, my poor child;

you look like a spook."

"No, I have had enough, Kykie. Go away now, and see about your dinner.

I'll be down."

"Let me brush your hair first; you know you always like me to when you

feel bad." The old woman took up Poppy's hair-brushes and approached

the long ruffled plaits of hair; but the moment she touched them the

girl sprang away from her like a white flame.

"No, no, Kykie; never dare touch my hair again!" she cried violently.

"In the name of--!" Words failed the indignant Kykie. She grabbed her

tea-tray and floundered from the room.

At dinner-time, white and fateful as a narcissus with a broken stalk,

the girl faced Abinger's curious eyes across the table. But there was

more than curiosity in his glance as it swept over her. The same

peculiar quality was in it that had troubled her at their last dining

together. Only now she did not notice it. If she could have given her

thoughts to anything at all but weariness and despair, she might have

wondered to see his very real concern at her appearance.

"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?" he said. "You look half

dead. Here, drink this wine at once." He poured out a glass of champagne

for her, and would eat nothing himself until she had partaken of one of

the _hors-d'oeuvre_. And when the soup appeared, he waved hers away

and ordered an _entree_ to be brought at once. The wine flew into

Poppy's cheeks and sent a little scarlet to her lips. She felt a warmth

stealing into her being that had been sadly absent since the past

midnight. Presently she smiled a little wan smile across at him.

"Oh, I'm all right, Luce! Only I didn't sleep much last night ... the

heat----"

"We'll get out of this infernal place--" he began.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried violently, then pulled herself together and

added more calmly: "I like the place, Luce--and the garden ... is so

lovely ... I should hate to go away."

He was curiously amenable.

"Very well, we'll stay if you say so. And I've been thinking over what

you asked the other day, Poppy ... we'll change things. You could go out

if you want to ... we must talk about it ... I want to talk ..." he

halted a little in his speech--"to you."

"I'm not keen about it any longer, Luce. I don't want to know people,

after all. I think I'll shut myself up and work for ten hours every day.

I mean to write. I will write a wonderful book. Surely people who work

hard are happy in a way, aren't they, Luce?" Her voice and her eyes were

wistful. "One would never want anything else--after a time--but to go on

writing wonderful stories of life, would one?"

He smiled grimly. She thought he was going to hurl a barb at her, but he

only said with the same unusual gentleness:

"Work will never fill _your_ life, Poppy. You are the kind of girl who

will live the wonderful stories that the other women write."

The lilac eyes in the _troublante_ face opposite gave a sad long look

into his; then fell. She shivered a little.

"Some wonderful stories are terrible, Luce," she said in a low voice.

When she rose from the table, he said:

"Come and smoke in the garden with me."

She turned her face away from him, staring vaguely at a picture on the

wall.

"I don't care about the garden to-night, Luce. The drawing-room, if you

like--but I am very tired."

"I shan't keep you long. There is something I want to say to you."

He followed the slim, upright figure walking with such weary grace and

trailing her white chiffons behind her, to the drawing-room, where the

lights were low, the windows open to the night scents, and the big

chintz-covered chairs and sofas held out rose-clad arms to them. She

went straight to one she knew well, and dropped into it, laying her

cheek against the cool, shiny chintz. Close beside her was an open

window, and Abinger came and stood in it, his face in profile to her,

staring out into the darkness. His hands were clasped behind him tightly

gripping a cigar which he had taken out but did not light. Poppy closed

her eyes and the lids burned against them. She had a great longing to be

alone with her thoughts. But Abinger had begun to speak.

"Now--about your going out, Poppy, and meeting people, and all that; my

chief reason for being disturbed when you mentioned the thing the other

day was that I was unprepared. I hadn't had time to think out what was

the best plan for you--for us. Of course, you know--it was very well for

you to travel all over the place as you have done as my sister; but the

thing is, that it won't do here. I can't spring a sister on people who

know that I haven't got one."

"No, I suppose not," said she vaguely, from the depths of her chair.

"You realise that then?" he went on evenly. "Well, you see, you rushed

me before I had been able to decide what was best to do, and of course I

got mad. I'm sorry, Poppy, I beg your pardon, I'm sure."

Poppy, dimly surprised at this unwonted penitence, would have murmured

something, but he went on quickly:

"Had _you_ any plan? How did you think of accounting to people--women

particularly--for the fact that you were living here alone with me?"

"Accounting to them?" she echoed faintly. "Will they ask me?"

"Well, not exactly you, but they'll ask anyone who can tell them, and

expect a satisfactory answer before they take you to their breasts."

"But, Luce, you could tell them, or let it be known. I shouldn't

mind ... _not_ how I first came to you, starving and ragged and beaten;

I couldn't bear anyone knowing that ... but they could know how good you

have been to me, bringing me up and educating me and being a guardian to

me."

"And you think that would satisfy them?"

"I don't see why not. Of course, it is unconventional. But I believe it

is not unheard of for a girl to have a guardian ... and guardians are

not always old."

"That is so. Unfortunately, my dear girl, there is one thing you omit to

take into consideration."

"What is that?"

"I happen to be a dog with a bad name."

Poppy made a little weary exclamation. In truth, she did not see any use

in prolonging the discussion. The desire to go out into Durban and meet

men and women no longer burned within her. In her present state of

weariness she believed she would never again have any taste for human

society. Abinger, however, pursued the course of his remarks.

"It is very sad, but my reputation is not one that would commend me to

the good ladies of South Africa as the guardian-angel of a young and

remarkably pretty girl."

Poppy sat silent.

"I regret to say that the very notion of my appearance in such a _role_

would be received with ribald shouts of laughter by all the men who have

the pleasure of my acquaintance, and in Durban and Johannesburg it would

be considered the best joke ever told in the clubs."

At last the girl was moved out of her apathy. She shrank back in her

chair with her hands before her face. She thought of the Durban Club and

a man in it listening and laughing.

"O God!" she softly cried.

"As for the women," continued Abinger calmly, still staring out of the

window. "Well, generally speaking, all the women out here are of the

genus crow, and their virtue is a matter of whitewash. Of course, there

are degrees. Some of them have managed to assume four or five coats of

it, and there's not a speck to be seen anywhere. These are saintly far

beyond the understanding of you and me, my child, but as they mostly

live in Johannesburg and we don't, we won't worry about them. There are

others there too, who are only in the grey, or one-coat stage, and I've

no doubt they would extend a claw of welcome to you, if you'd like to go

and live up there. Durban is another matter altogether. This, I must

tell you, is a city of the highest moral rectitude. The whitewash is

within, as well as without. It flows in the women's veins. Some of them

are solid blocks of it! I'm afraid, Poppy, that by the time their

husbands have handed the highly delectable tale of my guardianship round

the morning tramcars on the way to office, and discussed it in the

evening while having their high-teas in carpet slippers, you will not

stand much chance of being received into the 'white and winged throng'

which makes up Durban society. You will be black-balled."

Poppy sat up in her chair now, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.

"Why do you say all this?" she demanded haughtily. "If it is as you say

and through your fault, you must put the matter right. I do not wish to

know these women, but I do not choose that they shall shake their skirts

at me, because you have a vile reputation. You will have to find some

way out----"

Abinger looked away from the window at last and at her. There was a tall

lamp to his hand, and he turned it up high, and she saw that he was

smiling--a smile none the less unlovely because it had in it the same

unusual quality of gentleness that had distinguished it all the

evening.

"But, of course, my dear girl!" he said with a note of surprise in his

voice, "that is what I am coming to. I have told you these things simply

to show you the impossibility of your living any kind of social life

here, unless you are prepared to let everybody know the real state of

affairs. When everything is known it will be a simple affair for you to

take your place, and you will have an assured position that no one will

be able to cavil at. It is for you to say now, whether or not you are

ready for the truth to be published."

Poppy's look was of amazement.

"The truth? But what do you mean, Luce? You have been at great pains to

tell me why they won't accept the truth."

He stood looking down at her vivid face for a moment. There was an

expression on his own that she found arresting too, and she said no

more; only waited till he should speak. He turned the lamp down again.

"Poppy," he said in a very low, but clear voice, "do you remember the

old French Jesuit coming to the White Farm?"

She stared at him. Her expression reverted to irritation and surprise.

"Father Eugene? Of course I do. And I remember how furious you were,

too. And how you stormed at each other in French for about twenty

minutes, while Kykie and I stood wondering what it was all about."

"Do you remember any other details? I'm not asking out of idle

curiosity," he added, as she threw herself back impatiently in her

chair. She wrinkled her brows for a moment. Her head really ached very

badly, but she wished to be reasonable.

"I didn't understand French at that time, but you explained the meaning

of it all to me. You remember you took me into your study and told me

how he thought you frightfully immoral to have a young girl living in

your house without her parents, and that he wished you to make a solemn

set of promises to him to the effect that you would be a good friend and

guardian to me all your life. You said it was a fearful nuisance, but

that if you didn't do it, he meant to get to work and find my proper

guardians and make things generally unpleasant."

"You remember that clearly?"

"Certainly I do, and so do you. What is the use of this tiresome

repetition? It is quite beside the point."

"No, it is not. Just one more question--you remember going back into the

dining-room to the priest and making the promises, I suppose?"

"Yes; we stood before him and _you_ made the promises. I didn't--though

I certainly said '_Oui_' whenever you told me to, and some words after

him once. It was then you gave me this ring that I always wear. By the

way, Luce, I'm tired of wearing it. You can have it back."

"Thank you, my dear girl; but I wouldn't think of depriving you of it.

It is your wedding-ring."

"My--? I think you have gone mad, Luce."

"Not at all. That is your wedding-ring, Poppy. When we stood before the

priest that day we were being married."

She burst out laughing. "Really, Luce," she said contemptuously, "you

are developing a new form of humour. Does it amuse you?"

"Not much," he said drily; "not so much as it does you, apparently. I

don't see anything funny in a marriage ceremony. I remember being

exceedingly annoyed about it at the time. But I have come round since

then." As he went on, Poppy ceased to smile contemptuously; when he had

finished speaking, her mouth was still disdainful, but she was

appreciably paler.

"Of late," said Abinger in a voice that had a meaning, "I have begun to

find the fact that you are my wife wonderfully interesting."

She sprang up from her chair.

"This is the most ridiculous nonsense I ever listened to!" she cried

excitedly. "I don't want to hear any more about it. I refuse to listen."

She turned to go, but he caught her by the wrists and stood holding her

and looking into her deathly pale face.

"Am I the kind of man who wastes time talking nonsense? Kykie was a

witness. She knows we were married that day."

"Kykie! I'm _sure_ it is not true. She has never spoken of it----"

"I forbade her to do so. I told her that she'd go out at a moment's

notice if she did. Further, as you are so very hard to convince, Poppy,

I will show you the marriage certificate signed by Father Eugene."

He took a paper from his pocket, and held it towards her. But she had

suddenly sunk back into the big chair with her hands over her scared and

ashen face.

"Oh, Luce! Luce!" she cried pitifully. "Say it is not true! say it is

not true!" and burst into wild weeping.

CHAPTER VIII

Sophie Cornell sat at her breakfast-table looking pasty-faced and

unwholesome, without any colour on her cheeks, her good looks

effectively disguised in hair-wavers and a hideously-figured heliotrope

dressing-gown.

Poppy stared at her in dull amazement, wondering how she could have so

little vanity as to allow another girl to see her look so unlovely.

"She will probably hate me for it, but that doesn't matter," was the

thought that came into her mind as she encountered Sophie's eyes,

sleep-bedimmed, but distinctly resentful, taking her in across the

table. As a matter of fact, Sophie's vanity was so great, that it never

occurred to her that she could appear unlovely to anyone--even in her

unpainted morning hours. Her resentfulness was roused entirely by reason

of the fact that this was the first time she had laid eyes on her

assistant typewriter for a full three weeks, and that even now the

recalcitrant only came to say that she didn't feel quite equal to work.

"Och! nonsense!" said Miss Cornell, eyeing her coolly. "You look all

right. A little pale, but, then, you're always as washed out as a

_fadook_."[4]

[4] Dishcloth.

Poppy's lips performed a twisted, dreary smile. She was entirely

indifferent to Miss Cornell's opinions of her looks. To anyone's. As she

stood there in the little black muslin gown she always wore to come to

Sophie's house in the morning, she might have posed for a

black-and-white drawing of Defeat.

Sophie saw nothing but the prospect of another two or three days' hard

work, and she didn't like it.

"You're a fine sort of assistant," she grumbled, her mouth half full of

toast. "And another thing: Bramham's been here several times inquiring

for you, and the whole place is littered up with parcels of books and

magazines he has sent you. I couldn't think what excuse to make for his

not seeing you, for, _of course_, he thinks you live here, so I told him

at last that you had a touch of dengue fever and wanted quiet. He's

stayed away ever since, but he's been sending flowers and fruit. You've

evidently made a mash."

Poppy had no inclination to disguise her feelings from Miss Cornell.

"Sophie, you make me sick!" she said and turned away.

"Yes, that's all very well; but you made a bargain with me, that you

would meet Bramham sometimes, and if he likes you, so much the better.

You don't seem to know when you're lucky!"

"Lucky?" Something broke from her lips, that might have been only an

exclamation, but had the sound of a moan.

"Pooh!" said Sophie. "Some fellow's been kidding you, I suppose, and you

don't like it. Oh! I know all about it."

"You know some wonderful things, Sophie!" said Poppy at last, in her

soft, low voice. "Your mind must be a treasure-house of dainty thoughts

and memories."

But irony was ever wasted on Sophie. She got up and stretched her

well-shaped arms above her head until the heliotrope sleeves cracked and

gaped at the seams.

"Well, all I can say is that you are a donkey not to want to meet nice

fellows when you get the chance. Don't you ever intend to marry?"

Poppy, who had gone over to smell some flowers, probably Bramham's,

which were clumsily bunched in rows on the mantel-shelf, faced her with

an air of insolent surprise.

"What can that possibly have to do with you or your men visitors?"

"Oho!" said Sophie aggressively. "You won't get many chances of marrying

without _my_ assistance, my dear. Perhaps you don't know it, but men

don't come to Africa with the idea of entering into the holy state of

matrimony. When they _do_ marry, it's _quite_ by accident, and the girl

has to work the accident. You don't know much about that business, my

child," she added contemptuously. "Better take a few lessons from me."

"Why? Have you been very successful?" Poppy's tone was one of polite

inquiry. The other girl flushed.

"Jolly sight more than _you'll_ ever be, with your white face and thin

figure," she retorted, adding pleasantly: "Your eyes remind me of a

snake's."

Poppy sauntered carelessly towards the door.

"And _you_ remind me of the man who, when he was getting the worst of a

discussion on original sin, said to the other man: 'If I were you, I

would not drink with my mouth full.' I am quite willing to believe

anything you like to tell me about your conquests, Sophie; only please

don't bother to hunt a husband for me. The good God kindly supplied me

with the same instincts as other women. I can do my own hunting."

She went out and closed the door behind her with a gentle, sad movement,

as though she was shutting in the light of the world and regretted doing

it. A little colour had come to her face. She felt better.

* * * * *

Abinger had gone away. This time his destination was really the Rand,

for the _boys_ had taken his luggage to the station and seen him leave.

He had told Kykie that he would be away for six weeks at least.

After that stormy scene in the drawing-room, when he had left Poppy

wrapped in wild weeping, nothing further had passed between them on the

subject of their marriage. Indeed, she had not seen him again. But he

had left a letter for her, and enclosed was a copy of the marriage

certificate, to show her that he had not been inventing. He further

informed her that Father Eugene was still alive, and that by writing to

the Jesuit Monastery in the Transvaal she could at any time ascertain

the simple truth. The rest of the letter was written in a strain of

casual indifference, that Poppy found singularly reassuring. His

attitude appeared to be that of a man rather bored with the subject

because it bored her; but, facts being facts, he plainly felt it his

duty to show her that there were less pleasing and many more boring

things in life than to be called Mrs. Abinger. He told her first of all,

not to be a foolish girl and make herself ill about nothing; that it

would be in every way to her advantage to make her _debut_ in South

African society as the wife of a well-known man.

* * * * *

"I have not disguised from you," he wrote, "that I have what is called a

bad reputation, but that will not affect you--rather redound to your

credit in fact, since the wives of rakes are always looked upon as

possessing something unusual in the way of brains and charm. As my wife,

your lines will be laid in not unpleasant places. You may have as many

friends as you like, and I will allow you five thousand pounds a year to

entertain them and yourself upon. In making the matter public, no

painful details need be gone into. All that is necessary is that you

give me permission to make the truth public. Tell me when you are ready

to assume the title of Mrs. Abinger--I'll do the rest. In this, dear

girl, as in all things, pray please yourself. Only, remember that if

you don't choose to accept the situation, the situation still

remains--_we are married_. And it is only under the conditions stated

that I can permit you to live any other life than the one you have lived

so long."

* * * * *

When first she received this letter, Poppy read it and flung it from

her. But in the calm that came after a week's intolerable torment of

longing, and despair, she read it again. The fierce fires that had

consumed her were burning low then, and cast but a faint and dreary

flicker down the pathway of the future. That future looked a land all

shadows and gloom, whatsoever pathway she chose to take towards it. The

simplest thing to do seemed the most desirable; and surely it was

simplest just to let things stay as they were! She would tell Luce

Abinger that her choice was to let things remain as they had always

been, and then she would live on, drifting through the weary days and

months and years, working a little every day, until work at last would

become everything and fill her whole life. Perhaps, as she had missed

love she would find fame. It did not seem to matter very much whether

she did or not.

All she asked was to find peace. Knowing very little of life she did not

realise that in asking for this she asked for everything. For no woman

finds peace until she has tasted of all the poisoned dishes at the

banquet of life--and then the peace is either of the dead body or the

dead mind.

After those seven days of suffering, Poppy sat with her broken

love-dream, like a pale child with a broken toy. She thought because she

was numb that all was over then, except the dreary living through the

dreary days. But the young have a great capacity for suffering, and she

had forgotten how very young and strong she was, and how hot the blood

ran in her veins. After a day she was back again in the trough of the

sea. When at last she emerged she was a child no longer, but a woman

with something to hide from the world--a wound that bled inwardly and

would always ache.

Abinger had been gone nearly three weeks then, and wrote to say that he

should probably be away for two or three months, as he was selling all

the property he owned on the Rand, and the final settlements would take

him quite that time. The thought of the long respite from his presence

was a great relief to the girl, and by unconsciously lifting a little of

the strain from her mind helped her to come back the sooner to her

normal self. Kykie's delight was enormous when Poppy was to be seen

wandering aimlessly through the house once more and into the garden;

though _there_ she never stayed long now, and there were parts of it she

did not go near.

From Kykie she learned incidentally, and without resentment, that the

front gate was locked once more and the key safe with Abinger. That

reminded her of her secret exit, and then she remembered Sophie Cornell,

whose image had quite faded from her memory. It occurred to her that she

ought to visit her self-imposed employer, and make her excuses and

farewells as simply as possible, for something in her now strongly

repudiated further association with the Colonial girl.

The visit and quarrel had braced her in a remarkable way. Afterwards she

felt that in spite of all she was really alive still, and she found

herself regretting that through Sophie's garden must lie her only way

into the world beyond. The restrictions of the house began to irk her,

and she was afraid of the garden. She felt she _must_ go out. She

determined to visit the sea and explore the Berea; choosing such times

as would be safest to make entries and exits through the little opening

in the passion-flower house. In the early mornings she knew well that

wild horses might pass through Sophie's garden without her knowing or

caring--and again, under cover of darkness it would be simple to slip

through unseen. She told Kykie that in the future she always desired

dinner at six-thirty; and Kykie, who had grown curiously meek and

obedient of late, made no demur. This arrangement gave Poppy a long

evening to herself, and she had never allowed anyone to intrude upon her

evening hours. It would be supposed that she spent them in the garden,

for always she had found great pleasure in wandering in the moonlight,

and in the early morning hours, and the servants were well acquainted

with her habits.

So she took to going forth. As soon as darkness fell she would depart,

darkly-cloaked and with her head draped mantilla-wise, to see what the

forbidden world looked like "'twixt gloam and moon." Her favourite route

was by the Musgrave Road, a long thoroughfare that leads to the top of

the Berea. Over gates would come to her glimpses of charmingly-lighted

rooms, and pretty women sitting down to dinner, or sauntering with their

husbands, enjoying the gardens after the heat of the day. Past one house

and another she would go, catching little pictures between the trees, at

windows, and through open doors--sometimes an exquisite little vision of

a mother romping with her children and kissing them good-night; or a

husband standing back with a critical cock to his head to get a better

view of his wife's new gown, or the way she had done her hair. She never

stayed for the kiss that would come after the verdict, but flew swiftly

on with her eyes suddenly hot and teeth set in her lip. Other sights

were amusing: a face contorted and a head and arm screwed in the agony

of fixing a collar-stud; a man grooming his head before an open window

with two brushes, and a drop of something golden out of a bottle. Once

she saw quite a sensible-looking man practising a charming smile on

himself in the glass, and at that could not restrain a little jeer of

delight at the "nobler" sex. When she caught children at windows in

their nightgowns, peering out, she just gave a weird "_Who! Who!_" like

the lesser-owl common in Natal, and they scuttled like rats.

These things affected her variously. Times she mocked the peaceful

citizens of Natal for Philistines and flesh-potters. Times her heart

came into her throat and tears scalded her eyes, and she felt like a

prowling hungry jackal. But most often she flung a bitter laugh to the

wind and said:

"I have the best of it--better prowl the veldt lean and free, than be

caged and full."

Once or twice she had occasion to recall a French saying she had come

across while her French was in the elementary stage. She had studied the

phrase for an hour or two, and applied the dictionary to it, and

eventually it read to the effect that if all the roofs in Paris were

lifted one night the devil might be observed in every house lighting the

fires to make the pots boil. The remark seemed to have lost some of its

original point in translation, but it still bore an air of significance,

and came singularly to hand once or twice, startling Poppy to the

thought that Paris and Durban are both under the same sky, and that fuel

of fire is the same all the world over. On these occasions it was she

who scuttled, and she did it with good-will, almost cured of her taste

for living pictures. But the pastime was fascinating to a lonely and

lonesome creature, and she returned to it.

Many of the houses she passed stood hidden away in thick gardens, with

nothing to indicate their presence but glimmering lights and voices, or

sometimes music, or the clank of dinner plates. But if sound attracted

her, Poppy was not deterred by gates or gravelled paths. With a fleet

foot, a sweet tongue, and an excellent imagination, there is little to

fear in forbidden gardens, or anywhere else for that matter. The chief

thing is to have the bump of adventure sufficiently developed!

Sometimes she found that there were others abroad for adventure

also--some of these of a sociable temperament most inconvenient. Once a

magnificent person in evening-dress followed her so persistently, that

she was driven at last to the expedient of walking under the glare of a

street lamp with her shoulders humped and her skirts held high enough to

display to all who took an interest in the matter a pair of knock-kneed

legs and horribly pigeon-toed feet. The device worked like magic; she

was followed no further.

On another occasion she allowed a youthful Romeo to sit beside her on a

bench, only to discover that she was afflicted with a painful sniffing

cold--about forty sniffs to the minute. She was soon left sole occupant

of the bench.

There were other _contretemps_. Once her evening out cost her sixpence,

and she was very much annoyed, for her stock of sixpences was low.

Abinger paid all bills and did not expect her to have any need for

money. It was her habit, if she saw a native policeman eye her

suspiciously, to step quietly up to him with a most grand air and tell

him to send her a rickshaw when he reached the main road, as she was in

a hurry and could not wait for the car. The minute he was out of sight

she would scud down a side street. But upon this occasion a rickshaw was

so close at hand that she was obliged to take it and boldly direct the

boy to Sophie's front gate. Arrived there, she ran full into a man

coming out. The light from a passing car showed her his face, dark and

dissipated, but keen. He was carrying his hat in his hand, as men do on

hot nights, and she observed that his hair was parted down the centre

with a curl on either side.

"Ah! What Luce calls a German from Jerusalem!" was her comment.

Incidentally she smelled a smell she was familiar with, from daily

contact with Sophie and sheets of MSS. This made her certain that it was

the redoubtable "Brookie" himself whom she had encountered.

Often as she glided like a wraith through Sophie's garden the sound of

laughter and the flavour of smoke came to her through the trees, or

Sophie's voice, outraging the gentle night by some sentimental ballad.

* * * * *

One late February evening, when all the world was steeped in silver

light, Poppy's heart seemed to her to be lying very still in her breast.

As she walked over the trembling moonlight shadows a curious feeling of

happiness stole across her.

"Am I at peace already?" she asked herself wonderingly at last. "Has my

soul forgotten what I did to it, and how I found it only to give it away

to a man who called me by another woman's name?"

It must have been late, for carriages and cars passed her, bearing

homewards people who had been to the theatre or dining out. She caught

scraps of conversation concerning the play, and little intimate remarks

about people were flung freely to her upon the night wind. But her ears

heeded nothing, for she had a companion who singularly engrossed her

attention. She believed it was herself she walked with--a new-found,

detached, curiously-contented self. She did not know that it was Destiny

who had her by the hand.

At the top of the Berea Hill, not far from her own gate, she stopped a

moment under the deep shadow of some wayside trees. All in black she

seemed part of the shadow, and she stood very still, for she heard

rickshaws coming up the hill, and she thought she would let them pass

before she essayed the glare of a street lamp a few yards ahead. As it

happened, the first rickshaw stopped at a double white gate which was

full under the light of the lamp. A man descended, turned, and held out

his hand, and a woman stepped daintily down. She was a thin, slim woman,

wrapless, in a black satin gown with silvery sleeves. She looked as

interesting, though not as wicked, as the Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. In

the lamp-light her hair, which was dark brown, appeared to have seven

red lights in it. Her face was neither beautiful nor pretty, but

well-bred and harmonious, with a sort of glimmering gaiety about the

eyes. Poppy instantly recognised her as the woman she had seen on the

day of her first arrival in Durban and had subsequently ascertained to

be Mrs. Portal. She was carrying on a desultory conversation with the

man, and they continued it as he stood feeling in his pockets for money

for the _boy_.

"Why don't you flirt with her yourself, Billy--Bill?" said she. "You

would be good for her and she wouldn't do you any harm!"

He was a heavily-built, sullenly-handsome man, who looked as though he

had never said a good-tempered thing in his life.

Poppy was astounded when he blithely answered:

"Darling, when there is only one woman in a man's life, he can't

convincingly imply to the woman he is with that she is the only one in

the world----"

Mrs. Portal fell to laughing.

"Billy, you fraud! You know you always carry along on top-ropes when I'm

not there."

"Not with Mary," the man asseverated. "Mary would want too much of a

deuce of a lot of convincing. She would smell a rat."

"Don't be subtle, Billy," cried Mrs. Portal, laughing and going in at

the gates.

The other rickshaw drew near, and "Billy" waited to receive it. As it

passed Poppy, two scraps of conversation floated to her.

"I've a great mind to persuade Nick to go with you--and to take me too,"

said the woman, laughing a little.

"Yes, why don't you? 'Better a bright companion on a weary way, than a

horse-litter,' you know. But it would be too rough a journey for you,

I'm afraid."

The man's voice sent all the blood in Poppy's body rustling to her ears.

She burnt and glowed at the thought of his nearness. _Now_ she knew that

it was Destiny who had walked with her. Now she knew that peace would

never be hers so long as this man's feet trod the earth.

The rickshaw appeared to be filled with something resembling yellow

foam--billows and billows of it fell everywhere, even upon the shafts

and the folded hood behind. The moment the bearer stood still, the man

called Billy came forward and put out his hand to the woman in the

rickshaw, and she regally descended. The watching girl, through eyes dim

with jealous pain and anger, seeking nothing but the dark face that came

after, still saw that the woman was very beautiful and recognised in her

the heroine of her childhood's days. It was, indeed, Mrs. Nick Capron!

She also was cloakless, with magnificent bare arms and shoulders

gleaming white above the rippling waves of yellow chiffon. Her hair

rippled and waved too, and shone in masses on her head, and diamonds

twinkled in it. She seemed almost too bright a vision for the naked eye.

"And what did you think of _that_ for a play?" asked the sullen-faced

one as he opened the gate.

"Enchanting," said she vivaciously. "So full of introspection and

retrospection, and all that, and----"

"Yes, and mighty little circumspection," was the ready answer, and they

passed in, laughing.

The last man, moving with casual deliberation, came slowly to the

side-walk, and stood there speaking to the bearer, a powerful Zulu, as

he paid him, asking if he had found the pull uphill too hard. The _boy_

laughed in response and shook his winged arms boastfully, saying:

"_Icona._"

Afterwards both rickshaws jingled away. The man should have followed the

others in, but he stood still. He stood still, with a yellow chiffon

wrap flung over his arm, and distinctly snuffed the air.

"Poppies!" he muttered. "What makes me think of poppies?... God! I could

almost dream that dream again...."

For an instant his brilliant moody eyes stared straight into the black

shadows where Poppy stood, watching him with both hands on her heart.

Then the voices of the others called, and he turned abruptly and went

in.

Poppy fled home to dark, sad dreams.

CHAPTER IX

One blue-eyed morning, about a month after Abinger's departure, Poppy

was down on the sea-beach. She sat in the loose sand, and ran her hands

restlessly in and out of it, making little banks about her. She was

wondering if she would be able to sleep if she came out and lay in these

cool white sands some night. She was so tired of never sleeping.

The sun had not risen, but there was a pale primrose dado painted across

the East.

Presently the girl became aware of another woman sauntering along close

to the edge of the sea. She was digging a walking-stick in the sand

every few yards and watching the hole fill with water afterwards. She

carried the tail of her white-linen skirt under her chin, and her feet

all wetted by the little incoming waves, had caught the pale light and

seemed shod with silver as she walked, singing a little French song:

"Le monde est mechant, ma petite,

Avec son sourire moqueur:

Il dit qu'a ton cote palpite

Une montre en place du coeur."

When she came opposite Poppy she left off singing and stood for a minute

looking at her. Then came slowly sauntering up the beach to where she

sat. Poppy recognised Mrs. Portal. Mrs. Portal recognised the

Burne-Jones eyes; but she wondered where the gladness of living was all

gone.

"You look like a pale, sea-eyed mermaid, forsaken by your lover," she

said. "Why aren't you combing your hair with a golden comb?"

"What is the use, if my lover is gone?" said Poppy, with a smile.

"Oh! if you did it a new way he might come back," laughed Mrs. Portal,

and sat down by her side. "I thought I was the only sun-worshipper in

Durban," she remarked, as one continuing an ordinary conversation with

an old friend. "I have felt rather superior about it, and as lonely as a

genius."

"I am often down here in the morning," said Poppy, "but it must be

lovely at night, too. I was thinking that I should come and sleep here

one night when it is moonlight."

"_Never_ sleep under the moon," said Mrs. Portal darkly, "or an awful

thing will happen to you--your face will be all pulled out of drawing."

Poppy unconsciously put up one hand and felt her face. But Mrs. Portal

burst out laughing. "You have done it already? Well, she must like you,

for she hasn't done you any harm."

"I like _her_," said Poppy.

"And well you may. She's the only woman who knows everything about one

and yet doesn't give one away." Mrs. Portal plugged her stick deep in

the sand and made a support for her back. She then clasped herself about

the knees and continued her remarks:

"Yes ... she knows too much ... but she keeps on smiling. I suppose it's

because the old pagan is so used to sinners.

"'There's not a day: the longest--not the 21st of June--

Sees so much mischief in a wicked way

On which three single hours of moonshine smile----'"

"And yet she looks so modest all the while!" Poppy finished.

Mrs. Portal reproved her.

"I consider you too young and good looking to read Byron."

"Do you think he wrote for the old and ugly?" laughed Poppy. "And how

came you to read him?"

"What! The retort flattering! _You're_ no Durbanite. _You_ don't grow in

the cabbage garden. Ohe! I can say what I will to you. Ding-Dong!"

Her little, high-bred face was neither too sunny nor too sad, but had a

dash of both sunshine and sorrow about the eyes and lips. She screwed it

up in a way she had, and began to sing her little French song again:

"Le monde est mechant, ma petite:

Il dit que tes yeux vifs sont morts,

Et se meuvent dans leur orbite

A temps egaux et par ressorts."

The odour of happiness which Bramham had spoken of began to make itself

felt. Little fronds and scents of it caught hold of Poppy and enfolded

her. Looking at the face beside her she saw in it no signs of any mean

content with life. There were fine cobwebby lines around the eyes and

mouth, and a deep one between the brows, and Poppy wished that they were

upon her face, too, for they were beautiful. Yet they could only have

come through suffering, for Mrs. Portal was not old.

"She has had sorrows, too--but not shameful ones. She wears them like

jewels," thought the girl.

The woman beside her had indeed greater gifts than mere beauty. She had

seven red lights in her hair, which was always extraordinarily tumbled

without being untidy; a heart of gold; and a tongue of silver.

Many men loved her, as fine men cannot help loving what is lovable and

sweet, and gentle, and kind, and brave, and gay, and wise.

Even women loved her; and so the worst thing they could find to say of

her was that she must have been quite pretty--once!

In return, she loved all men, and was kind to all women, loving one

steadfastly.

But now, half in pity, half for some reason she could not fathom, she

found a place in her heart for Poppy Destin, too. She was touched by the

girl's beauty, on which her seeing eyes saw the shadow of tragedy.

"_Quite_ a child!" was her thought. "Too young to have so much to hide

behind those lovely eyes!" A line from Pater's monograph on _Monna Lisa_

came into her mind:

"Hers are the eyes that have looked on all the world; and the

eyelids are a little weary."

She put out her hand to Poppy. If Poppy had eyes like _Monna Lisa_, she

herself had the hands of that Mother of all saints and sinners--only a

little browner.

"I would like to be your friend," she said quietly.

Poppy flushed, and then became pale. The hand Mrs. Portal touched

stiffened a little, and the lilac eyes looked away at the sea rather

than meet the kindness of the other's glance--but they were dim with

tears. Mrs. Portal's warm, Irish heart felt a chill. She was a little

sore too, for her friendship was more often sought than proffered, and

never before had she known a repulse. She could not know that the girl

before her felt honoured as never in her life before, and was filled

with gratitude and affection. But Clementine Portal was a creature full

of intuition and understanding. Possibly some of the girl's feeling

subtly communicated itself to her, for she became aware that the rebuff

did not come of rudeness or indifference--or coldness of heart; but of

some other strange feeling.

"Is it possible that she's afraid of me?" she thought at last. "Poor

child! doesn't she know an enemy from a friend? It must be that she has

found all women her enemies!"

They had been saying little ordinary things to one another in the

meantime, while they gazed before them to where the risen sun was

transforming the curved, purple waves into a sheet of dazzling copper.

Presently Clementine got up from the sands, very reluctantly.

"I must go home to breakfast, or my household will be searching for me,"

she said, with a mournful smile, shaking her skirt into shape. "Heaven

meant me to roam the deserts and run in the woods; but Fate laid upon me

the burden of respectability and planted me in the cabbage garden. I

must run and catch a tram-car!"

Poppy laughed at her; but her laugh ended on a queer note.

"Being a wild ass of the desert has its drawbacks, too!" said she, with

something of bitterness.

Clementine put out her hand and touched the girl's. "Well, don't be a

wild ass any more. Come and see me. I hold agricultural shows on the

first and last Fridays of the month, and you will find the best kinds of

turnips and cabbages in my drawing-room. But if you seek me in love and

charity as a friend _should_, come on Sundays. You never told me your

name, yet, mermaid!"

Poppy held the brown, thin hand and answered firmly:

"Rosalind Chard."

But afterwards, when the other had gone a little way, she ran after her

and caught her up and said:

"But I wish you would call me 'Poppy.'"

* * * * *

Nevertheless, it was not until a month later that she visited Mrs.

Portal. Strongly attracted by the kind, gay ways and looks of that

fascinating woman, she yet feared to know her better. And she feared,

too, that in the house of Mrs. Portal she might meet the man whom she

knew not whether most she loved, or feared, or hated; for whose sake she

gashed herself with the knives of defeat and despair. She knew that he

belonged to Mrs. Portal's circle of friends, and she had heard from

Sophie Cornell that the chief of these was Mrs. Capron. _Mrs. Capron!_

That was the name in which he had bidden her good-bye, speaking in his

drunkenness or delirium, she knew not which. Mrs. Capron, the splendid,

milky creature, who had been with him in the rickshaw, and whom Poppy

had so clearly recognised! Would _she_, too, recognise Poppy? The girl

was not so certain now of the improbability of such a thing, for of late

it seemed to her that she had begun to present a singular resemblance to

herself as she had looked in those unhappy, far-off days. The strain of

suffering had told upon her terribly, and her face was tragically drawn,

with a sharp, childish look of suffering about her mouth, and soft,

though not unlovely hollows, in her cheeks. Her eyes looked larger and

more unreal for the shadows beneath them.

The day she decided to go to Mrs. Portal's found her examining herself

in her glass with apprehensive eyes, keen for every defect. She was a

woman now, examining her weapons for battle, and her courage misgave her

as she saw her reflection. She had put on a white gown that was all

simple lines and soft laces, and she really looked very young and

girlish, but she hated her appearance when she thought of those two

charming-looking women of the world with their eloquent clothes. What if

she should meet _him_ there and he should compare her with them? What if

either the thin, vivacious, sunburnt woman, whom she herself could

hardly help loving--or the regal-milky-woman of yellow chiffon should be

that _Loraine_ whom he so loved?

"With either of them what chance should I stand?" she asked herself,

desperate-eyed. "Why have I got these vile, purple shadows?--and holes

in my cheeks? I never had them before!" She burst into tears, and at

this juncture Kykie thought fit to make her entrance unannounced with

her everlasting tea-tray.

"Now, Poppy, to goodness! what you ought to do is to take off that tight

frock and put on a nice cool gown and rest," said the beldame

importantly.

"You're mad, Kykie--and I wish you wouldn't come into my room without

knocking." Poppy made occasion to fling a towel over her hat and gloves

which lay on the bed, and which it was not desirable Kykie should see.

"Ah! you needn't mind old Kykie, darling," was the response; and Poppy,

unused to such blandishments, stared at the yellow face which continued

to waggle archly at her.

"What will Luce say when he comes back, if I haven't taken care of you?"

The girl suddenly sickened at her tone.

"How dare she speak to me like that!" was her furious thought. "As if

Luce has any right over me or my health!" She could have struck the

leering smile from the woman's face; she turned away trembling with

anger to her dressing-table.

"So you knew all the time about Luce and me being married?" she said in

a toneless voice, when she had presently mastered herself.

"Heavenly me! yes, and I knew it would all work out and come right in

the end. But I think you ought to wear your wedding-ring now, Poppy....

All right, all right, you needn't look at me like a _mal-meit_!... I'm

going now ... I wouldn't stop with you another minute when you look like

that ... you and Luce are a nice pair for temper ... surely to goodness

one would think all would be peace and love _now_--" The door was

closed and locked on her and she was obliged to continue her soliloquy

on the stairs.

* * * * *

An hour later found Poppy letting herself in at the double white gates

of Mrs. Portal's garden. It was neither the first nor last Friday in the

month, nor yet Sunday afternoon; but she had not come for society. She

came because she must; because of her bitter need of some word

concerning the man she loved.

The house was a big, red-brick villa, with many verandahs and no

pretentious, except to comfort. An English maid, in a French cap and

apron, showed her into a drawing-room that was full of the scent of

flowers, with open windows and drawn shades. Almost immediately Mrs.

Portal blew into the room like a fresh wind, seized her hands, and shook

them warmly.

"I knew you would come to-day," she said. "I dreamed of you last night.

Poppy, I have a feeling that you and I are going to be mixed up in each

other's lives somehow."

A creature of moods and impulses herself, Poppy thoroughly understood

this greeting, and it warmed her sad and lonely spirit gratefully; she

let herself be beguiled to the fireside of Clementine Portal's

friendship. Before she realised it, they were seated together in a deep

lounge just big enough for two people, and a pile of cushions with cool,

dull-toned surfaces, talking like friends of long standing. Mrs. Portal

was quite in the dark as to who the girl was, but that did not bother

her at all, and her remarks contained no shadow of a question. It was

enough that she "had a feeling about her," and had dreamed of her and

believed in her.

To ordinary persons these might not seem very cogent reasons; but

Clementine Portal was in no sense ordinary. Her judgment concerning

things in general, and women in particular, was both keen and sound;

but she never allowed it to interfere with her inspirations, which she

considered far safer. Apparently intensely practical and conventional,

she was, in reality, a woman who lived the most important part of her

life in a hidden world. She had the seeing-eye and the hearing-ear for

things that went unnoted by the every-day man and woman. Being Irish,

she was packed full of superstition, but, fortunately, a strong vein of

common sense counterbalanced it. As for her humour, that most fatal gift

in a woman, it sometimes resembled a fine blue flame, that scorched

everything in reach; and sometimes, to the consternation of the

conventional, was the rollicking wit of a fat and jolly Irish priest

addicted to the punch-bowl. She had a wonderful way of attracting

confidences from people about the things they most cared for in life. In

a little while Poppy had told her what she had never told to a living

soul before--about her little book of songs--and her great ambitions as

a writer. For some unknown reason the girl felt these ambitions very

much alive in her that afternoon. Clementine Portal sat like a creature

entranced, with her lips slightly apart. When Poppy had given her, upon

urgent requesting--a halting, eloquent outline of her novel, Clem said:

"I _know_ it will be good.... I can feel that it will have big bits of

open space like the veldt in it, with new sorts of trees growing by the

wayside as one passes along.... I hate the modern woman's book, because

it always makes me gasp for air. It is too full of the fire that burns

up all there is in life."

"You would write far better than I, probably," said the girl. "I know so

little of life--only what I feel. You know everything----"

"Dear girl, you are better as you are. When you know everything, you

will have discovered that the world is full of sawdust, and the people

stuffed with shavings, and no one worth writing about--then, where will

your fine books be?"

"Have you ever thought of writing?"

"Often," she began to laugh. "And when I discover a real good man in the

world I shall burst into glory in a novel. But no such man exists. He

died when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Here

is tea. We'll drown my pessimism in the cream-bowl, shall we?"

She went to the tea-table. The maid drew up the window-shades, letting

the lovely rose-lights of late afternoon into the room. It was a real

woman's room, full of flowers and photographs, and cushions, and piles

of magazines and weeklies everywhere. There were no wonderful pictures

on the walls, or valuable china in cases. Only a few well-arranged

native curios, a good piano, and the kind of things people from home

gather about them when they are sojourning in a foreign land. As Poppy

followed to the tea-table, her eye caught a full-length photograph on

the wall over the writing-desk, and she stayed a moment to look. It was

a woman in her presentation gown--two long, lovely eyes smiled

contentedly on the world. Underneath, in a woman's writing, were the

words: "To Clem, from Mary."

It was the regal-milky-woman--Mrs. Capron. Mrs. Portal turned round from

her tea-cups.

"Ah! everyone looks at that photograph! She is very beautiful. The

remarkable thing is that she is good, too. That _is_ remarkable, isn't

it? I'm sure if I had a face like that I should go to my own head and be

a perfect divil."

"Who is she?" asked Poppy, still before the smiling picture.

"My friend, Mrs. Capron."

"Is that her name written there?"

"Yes, hers and mine. She is my dearest friend, and so she is allowed to

call me Clem; you may, too, if you like."

Poppy came, thanking her, and sat by the tea-table. She felt suddenly

happier, for now she could follow the dictates of her heart and love

this woman--whose name was _Clem_.

As they took tea the door opened gently and a little figure stole into

the room straight to her mother's knee.

"I like you, and love you," said she solemnly.

"Hyacinth, what have you been doing?" Mrs. Portal asked anxiously.

It was easy to see that they were mother and child, for they had the

same golden-brown eyes, full of dots and dashes and shadows, and the

same grave-gay mouths. There, however, all resemblance ceased. The

child's physique consisted of a head covered with long, streaky brown

hair, and a pair of copper-coloured legs which apparently began under

her chin.

"I love and like you," she repeated glibly.

"Then I know you have been doing something very wicked, Cinthie. You

always have when you like and love me."

"_Pas!_" said Cinthie, now gazing calmly at Poppy.

"I shall go and find out," said Mrs. Portal. "I have to go, anyway, to

speak to cook about dinner; do forgive me for five minutes, dear;

Cinthie will look after you. Cinthie, I hope I can trust you to be good

with Miss Chard for five minutes."

The moment she was gone Cinthie made a boastful statement.

"My face is bigger than yours!"

Poppy put up her hand and felt her face carefully; then looked at

Cinthie's with the air of one measuring with the eye.

"Well, perhaps it is!" she acceded.

"It's bigger'n anyone's," continued Cinthie, even more bragfully. "Who

are you married to?"

This was an awkward and surprising question, but Poppy countered.

"Why should you think I am married, Cinthie?"

"Everybody's married," was the swift response. "_I'm_ married to Mammie,

and Mammie's married to Daddie, and Daddie's married to the moon, and

the moon's married to the sun, and the sun's married to the sea, and the

sea's married to the stars, and the stars are married to the

stripes--Daddie says so. Let me sit on your lap, I'm as tired as a bed."

Poppy lifted her up, and Cinthie, lolling against the white, lacy dress,

gazed for a space into the lilac eyes. She then carefully selected a

long streak of her own hair and put it into her mouth, thoughtfully

sucking it as she continued her remarks:

"I think you had better marry Karri," she said. "I like Karri better'n

anyone, except Daddie. His face is bigger than anybody's."

"Is Karri a man, then?"

"Yes; but he's got two women's names, isn't that funny? One's Karri and

the other's Eve. I'll show you his photo."

She ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a frame from a table, and

brought it back triumphantly.

"There!" she cried, and dumped it into Poppy's lap.

Poppy stared down into the pictured face of the man she loved.

Mrs. Portal reappeared.

"Oh, Cinthie, I've heard all about it from Sarah, and I'm very angry

with you. I knew you had been doing something specially wicked. You're a

_petite mechante_."

"_Pas!_" said Cinthie stoutly.

"You are. Go away, now, to the nursery. I'm very angry with you."

Cinthie retreated, bitterly reasseverating:

"_Pas! pas! Pas petite mechante! Pas!_"

Clem observed the photograph in Poppy's lap.

"She has been showing you her hero--the hero of us all. Everyone in this

house genuflects before Eve Carson."

And so at last Poppy knew the name of the idol before which she, too,

worshipped!

"By the way, did Cinthie mention that his face is bigger than anyone's?

That is the final point of beauty with Cinthie--to have a big face.

Well, Evelyn Carson's face is not so big, but his ways are, and his

ideas, and those things make for bigness of soul----"

Poppy said nothing: only she prayed with all her soul that Clem would

continue to talk upon this subject; and Clem, looking dreamily at the

girl, but obviously not thinking of her, responded to the prayer.

"He is a wonderful person, and we all adore him, even though our

judgment sometimes asks us why, and our ears sometimes hear the untoward

things that are not compatible with reverence," she was smiling. "I

daresay you have heard of him."

"Yes," said Poppy, in an even voice.

"Most people have, by now--he's been one of the foremost figures in

South African life for years, one of the many Irishmen who have left

their native land, burning with the sense of England's tyranny, only to

go and strive for England's fame and glory in some other part of the

world. We met him first on the Rand, where all the interesting

blackguards forgather at some time or another; but he was always in

trouble there, for, you know, Oom Paul doesn't approve of Imperialistic

Irishmen, and invariably contrives to make anyone of the kind

exceedingly uncomfortable. Karri Carson has been a marked man, watched

by the Secret Service, and his every action and every word reported,

with the result, of course, that he has said and done many daringly

foolish things, and nearly been deported over the border once or twice.

Fortunately, there are more interesting places than the Rand, and there

is always a rumpus going on in _some_ quarter of Africa, and he has been

in all the rumpuses of the last fifteen years--Uganda--Matabelel

and--anywhere where there was anything in the wind and where _real men_

were wanted. He's earned the V.C. a dozen times, though he's only got

the D.S.O. But it is not love of honours that is his moving spirit--just

an Irishman's lust for being in the "redmost hell of the fight." Between

intervals of active service he has gone off into the wild deeps of

Africa, where no one has ever been before--discovered a new quadruped

and a new tribe of natives. The Royal Institute is _dying_ to trim him

up with blue ribbons and exhibit him in London, but Africa has kissed

him on the mouth, and he will not leave her." Clem drew a long breath.

"I can't think what we shall all do now that he is gone," she finished

sadly.

"Gone!" Poppy wondered what kept her voice so calm while her soul cried

out within her.

"Yes, gone away to Borapota: a little red-hot spot in the red-hot heart

of Africa. It is very conveniently situated for us--not too far from our

lovely Mombassa harbour--and it is very rich and fertile, and in every

way desirable, and the Imperial Unionists think we ought to own it, and

the Liberal Little Englanders think we ought to get it--without spilling

a drop of blood or saying a single bad word to anybody. And Evelyn

Carson has gone to get it for us _sans_ Maxims and _sans_ men and _sans_

anything much besides a high heart and a squad of _boys_ who have been

everywhere with him. He has gone on a _peaceful expedition_ into the

midst of one of the fiercest tribes in Africa to barter or bargain for

Concessions that will eventually extend the Empire by sixty thousand

square miles, and add a country crammed with coal and iron and ivory and

a dozen other lovely things to the pink part of the map. And he has gone

without even _official_ permission, so that if he succeeds--why, hurrah!

for the Union Jack and everything under it! And if he fails--only

another reputation buried in an African grave! No one will care a rap,

and everyone will forget him except the people who love him. The only

thing I care to think of in the matter is, that the Borapotans are said

to be extremely intelligent and reasonable men, who will make splendid

soldiers--and then everyone knows what a way Evelyn Carson has with all

natives! The Zulus and the Basutos, and all the war-loving tribes,

simply adore him! Still, there's no denying the fact that he's gone with

his life in his hand. Even if the natives prove to be sweet and

reasonable, there are half a dozen other deaths lurking in every mile of

the Interior."

"Has no other white man gone with him?" Poppy heard herself asking.

"No one except his _boys_ will go with him once he starts on the

unbeaten track--but our friends the Caprons have sailed with him as far

as Mombassa, and Mrs. Capron declares they will accompany him inland,

too, until he drives them back. Of course, he's sure to do that before

they reach the danger zone--but isn't it intrepid of her?"

Poppy did not know what she answered. Darkness engulfed her spirit,

almost her senses.

"They started about a month ago, and I am terribly lonely without them

all. Mrs. Capron and her husband will be back within three months, I

expect, but we feel--_everybody_ who knows--very anxious about Eve

Carson, more especially because he is very susceptible to malarial

fever. He had a frightful attack about six weeks before he left; he was

found raving in a rickshaw one night, and for nearly a fortnight

afterwards was practically delirious. However, no sooner was he out of

danger than he took up his preparations again, and in spite of the

doctors, he sailed on the date he had originally fixed."... Mrs. Portal

looked extremely mournful, but presently she added: "We are so thankful

to think that Mrs. Capron will be with him for a while, because her

husband has often had fever, and she thoroughly understands it."

"I must go home," said Poppy suddenly; and Clementine, roused from her

reverie by the strangely sounding voice, stared at the girl.

"You look quite ill, dear," she said gently. "I am so sorry; I have been

wandering on, about all the things that interest _me_!... Will you lie

down a little while? or shall I ring for some wine?"

"No, no, I must go home ... it is nothing ... I feel odd sometimes ..."

she spoke vaguely, but she stood up, arranging her veil and pulling on

her gloves. Clem came with her through the garden, and they stood for a

moment with the low double gate between them, bidding each other

good-bye. Mrs. Portal kissed her and told her to come again soon, but

the girl answered nothing. Suddenly a visionary look passed like a veil

across Clementine Portal's face.

"Poppy," she said in a dreamy, yet intent way; "there will be deep

waters around you soon! ... you will need courage, resolution, _and_

silence ... those are a woman's greatest friends in this world ... but,

in so far as one human being can count on another--count on me, too, for

a friend."

Already the swirl of the waters was in Poppy's ears, but the kind, brave

message came to her like a friendly oar in the dark sea of trouble. For

a moment she clung to the older woman's hand like a child afraid; then

they parted. Poppy walked away through the vapoury, delicate light shed

by a slender fragment of moon, and Clem Portal stayed staring

abstractedly over the gate. It was three years before they met again.

CHAPTER X

Poppy lay upon her bed like a drowned woman. She had come in almost

fainting, and Kykie, meeting her on the stairs and seeing her face, had

flown after her to her bedroom with water and brandy. The old woman had

taken the girl in her arms bodily, and placing her on the bed, proceeded

to drench her face and hair with ice-cold water and eau-de-Cologne, and

to force doses of brandy between the white lips.

At last, reviving somewhat under this vigorous treatment, Poppy found

breath and sense to remonstrate:

"What do you mean, Kykie? Do you want to choke me? Stop that ... I'm

nearly drowned."

"You were drownded enough before you came in," responded Kykie with

asperity; "your dress is soaking. Where have you been?"

Poppy had been lying in the dew-drenched grass of the garden for some

two hours or more after her return from Mrs. Portal's, but she was not

conscious of the fact.

"... And, Luce coming home without warning, and you not in to dinner,

and everything in the world to aggravate a gracious Christian woman!"

continued Kykie, panting like a stout sheep.

"Luce? Dinner?" said Poppy vaguely. "What is the time, Kykie?"

"I think you're going cracked," said Kykie with fresh ire, "not to know

the time! Half-past nine it is, indeed, and me not in bed yet, when you

_know_ what I suffer if I don't get my night's rest. You and Luce

simply haven't the consideration of a _cow_ for me."

"Oh, go to bed!" said Poppy wearily.

"I'll do nothing of the sort, thank you, extremingly. I will not go to

my bed until you have eaten some dinner. Do you think I want all the

trouble of a funeral in the house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself,

Poppy, not taking any care of yourself, knowing what you do----"

The old woman paused with some significant intention, but Poppy only

waved a pale hand in her direction.

"Go away and hold your peace, Kykie, for the love of Heaven!"

"I'll only go away to get you some food ... and you're to eat it, Poppy

dear," she began to coax. "I'll bring you some nice hot soup, lovey, and

a little chicken mayonnaise, and you _will_ try and eat it, won't you?

and a little glass of champagne."

"I couldn't Kykie ... only leave me alone...."

The old woman promptly seated herself upon the side of the bed with the

air of an immovable rock.

"Well.... Oh, all right, then ... _anything_ ... why can't you leave me

alone?"

Kykie did; but she took the precaution of removing the bedroom door-key

and taking it with her, for she knew her mistress's ways well. In a few

moments she was back again, with half a pint of champagne and a little

pile of caviare sandwiches, which she warranted to put life into a

corpse if she could only force them down its throat. She almost

proceeded to this extreme measure with Poppy, threatening, cajoling, and

complaining all the while.

Eventually she took her departure with an empty plate and glass, and as

she went she threw back a last menacing remark to the bed.

"And _I shall stay up to speak to Luce_ when he returns from the Club."

What she could mean by this Poppy neither knew nor cared. Revived a

little by the wine and food, but with a body and mind demanding rest,

she closed her eyes and fell into dead slumber.

* * * * *

When the candles which Kykie had lighted in the tall silver sticks on

the dressing-table had burnt far down from their scarlet shades, Poppy

awakened to the fact that someone was moving about her bedroom. She

opened her eyes, but did not stir or make a sound.

A man was standing by her writing-table humming softly to himself while

he took up each little ornament and article upon it, and gently broke it

between his hands. There were several paper-knives of wood and silver

and tortoise-shell; quaint pens, and two gold-set rose-glasses. He broke

them all gently between his hands, and the snapping of them was like the

snapping of little bones. He then tore up some photographs, and a

black-and-white etching of the Bay of Naples, and piled the pieces into

two little heaps. As he walked away from the writing-table towards the

lighted dressing-table, the candles gleamed on his profile, and Poppy

saw that it was, as she supposed, the profile of Luce Abinger. He was

humming between his teeth, a little tune--an odd noise resembling much

the sort of monotonous hum made by black fighting ants when they go out

seeking battle with other ant tribes.

Something resembling panic stole over the girl as she listened, and once

she saw his distorted mouth smiling terribly, and could have cried

aloud, but she controlled herself and continued to lie still with

half-closed eyes, watching his strange proceedings. From the

dressing-table he took up her two beautiful ivory brushes with her name

written in silver across their backs, and bending them in his hands,

snapped off their handles, laying the broken bits down. Then carefully

and methodically he broke every one of the silver articles on the

table. The sound of them snapping seemed to give him acute pleasure.

Even two tall vases of silver and cut-glass were not too strong for his

skilful hands; nor was a little porcelain trinket-tray, with a scene

from the _Tokaido_ inlaid upon it (for which he had paid thirty pounds

at Yokohama), spared.

A handful of rings and bracelets, which Kykie had removed from her

fainting mistress and placed in a little heap upon the table, he dropped

upon the floor and ground his heel upon.

With no look towards the bed where Poppy lay, he left the table then,

and sauntered to the walls, from which he stripped the wonderful chalk

drawings and flung them in ribbons to the floor. His eye caught the

silver and ivory crucifix.

"Ah, Christ! I had forgotten you," said he, speaking for the first time,

in a soft and pleased tone, and picking up a boot-tree left carelessly

by a chair he approached, and struck a ringing blow upon the beautiful

ivory face, shattering it. Again and again he struck until it lay in a

hundred tiny splinters on the ground. Poppy's eye had sought the door

and found it closed; the lock gleamed and there was no key to be seen.

She came to the conclusion that she was locked in with a man who had

gone mad. The house was absolutely silent.

"If he chooses to kill me, he can; no one will hear my calls," she

thought, and she continued to lie very still.

In smashing the crucifix Abinger had for the first time made a noise

louder than the gentle cracking and crunching of bones; but he had now

awakened to the charm of breaking things with a crash. He beat the

boot-tree full into the smiling face of _Monna Lisa_.

"Stop smiling, you leaden-jawed Jewess," he said softly.

The glass flew in jingling showers in every direction, but the strong,

quiet face remained on the wall in its frame; and though the mouth was

full of splintered glass, the eyes smiled gravely on--the eyes of a

woman who had seen many such violent scenes come and go.

There was a tiny bronze bust of Daniel O'Connell, standing on a little

cedar-wood shelf, which Abinger caught up and flung with a calm, sure

aim at the long gilt-edged mirror, making a great white radiating

asterisk full in the centre of it.

All vases and flower-bowls he took from their places and dropped upon

the floor. The sound of their breaking was not unmusical.

He still continued to hum. At last there was nothing left to destroy

except the books arranged in their shelves round the room. A few he

pulled from their cases and tore them across, but the sound of their

tearing was tame and had no charm for him after so much exciting noise.

Leisurely he left them at last and came to the foot of the bed and stood

looking down upon the girl lying there. She met his eyes with a calm and

quiet glance, though the soul within her was apprehensive enough.

The smile on his mouth was like the carved smile on the mouth of some

hideous Japanese mask, and his eyes resembled the eyes of a gargoyle. He

was in full evening-dress and very immaculate, and his fair hair lay as

smooth and sleek upon his head as a sleeping child's.

"Awake?" he asked, with continual and unfailing pleasantness.

"You hardly expected me to have remained asleep?" asked Poppy equably.

She saw very well now that he had not lost his reason. His eyes were not

an insane man's eyes, though they were lit by some frightful emotion,

and he was plainly in the grip of one of his extraordinary rages: the

worst she had ever witnessed. It did not occur to her that she could in

any way be the cause of his anger, and she felt wearily indignant that

it should be obtruded upon her at this time. She did not mind much about

all her beautiful things with which he had made such holocaust, though

her possessions had always had for her that pathetic value and meaning

which the lonely attach to inanimate things. But her whole life was

_bouleverse_ now, and she understood that such things mattered little.

Abinger was looking at her with a tinge of something that might have

been expectancy in his fury. Was he waiting for her to demand what he

meant by this unprecedented outrage on her privacy? Ill and careless of

life as she felt, she still had strength to rebel against this new form

of tyranny, and to meet it with courage and disdain. It seemed to her

that it would be more insolent not to ask him what he meant, but to

simply take such vile and brutal conduct as a matter of course. So she

stared back calmly at him from her pillows, not knowing what a strange

picture she presented, lying there. Her arms wide from her, revealing

the long, curved line of her boyish young form; her subtle face, pale,

with strong ivory tints in it against the whiteness of the pillows, the

blue scornful light of her eyes, and her drowned black hair lying like

gorgon ropes about her. Passion-racked and pale as Magdalene, she was a

sight to kindle the fires of pity and chivalry in any good man; but the

lust of Luce Abinger's eyes was for the grace and bloom and beauty of

her, that even misery and fatigue could not rub out, and these things

kindled his blood to such a fury of savagery and desire that he scarce

knew what he did. With one quick movement he had left the foot of the

bed and was sitting beside her with an iron hand on each of hers. So she

lay there, like a pinioned bird, with his tormented face above her.

"Harlot!" he whispered, still smiling; and the word leapt from his lips

like a shrivelling flame and scorched across her face.

"Harlot!" he repeated softly. "Tell me the name of your lover!"

That bleached her. Disdain departed from her looks and she lay there

quivering under his hands; her dry lips parted, but her tongue was stiff

in her mouth. The blow was so utterly and profoundly unexpected. What

did he mean? What could he mean? How could he know of that secret idol

in that secret grove of her heart, before whose altar she had slain her

girlhood--and his honour? How could he know of that sweet shameful

secret that she shared with a mad or drunken man--but mad or drunk, the

man she loved? Had she not buried the secret deep and sworn that no one

should ever drag it from the depths of her? Was it possible that she had

not buried it deep enough? Was it written across her face for all the

world to see? She searched the scorching eyes above her and then at last

she was afraid; her own fell and the lids closed over them.

Vile epithets fell again and again from his lips, and under each her

face blenched and shrank as though little flickering flames or drops of

corrosive acid had touched it; but her eyes were sealed and her lips

gave forth no word.

At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly to overcome

Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's hands, his tense

features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over his face.

Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly and vaguely,

made his way from the room.

In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the door and locked

it soundlessly.

* * * * *

Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor. "Well," said he.

"Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am. As soon as she feels well enough, I

shall send up my carriage, and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh

air."

"Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some time yet," was Miss

Cornell's answer. "She is very dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised

if she croaked."

Bramham gave her a searching look.

"Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in. I'll ask Ferrand

to call. He's my doctor, and the best I know----"

"Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've called a doctor in

already, you know."

"Who have you got?"

"I must go--I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly. "Good-night."

Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and Bramham was left to

pick his way through the dark garden as best he might.

After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole from among the

trees to the verandah, softly opened the front door and walked in upon

Miss Cornell, who was in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda.

The drink spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart.

"My God, Rosalind! What a _shrik_[5] you gave me! _Man!_ What's the

matter with you?" At the end of her question her voice fell into a

whisper. She stared with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before

her: Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched hair,

a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.

[5] Start (fright).

"_Gott!_ Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has someone been trying

to murder you?"

"Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here for safety. Will

you take me in, Sophie?"

"Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet--or has your old aunt gone

up the tree?"

"Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if I have to talk. Only,

hide me and never let anyone know I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The

girl fell exhausted into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a

long face. It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind

Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However, she saw that

this was no time to argue the point, and that her present pressing

business was to get the exhausted girl to bed.

This she proceeded to do.

CHAPTER XI

The person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy back to health and a

remote interest in life was Charles Bramham.

One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and asked him to come and

call.

"I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she looks like a dying

duck, and I believe she _will_ die if someone doesn't buck her up. It

would be a _real_ charity if you would come and talk to her."

Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted the invitation with

vivacity, for he was much _intrigue_ on the subject of Miss Chard, and,

further, he had not forgotten the romantic and piquant sensations she

had inspired in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now, piquant

and romantic sensations are very valuable in South Africa, and should

always be followed up in case of life becoming too monotonously saltless

and savourless. Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived one

afternoon in Sophie's absence.

He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl. He came upon her

suddenly, sitting in the verandah with her hands laced round her knees

and her eyes staring straight in front of her with a look in them that

was not good to see.

"Why! _you_ ought to be away up in the country somewhere, out of this

sweltering heat," was his first remark after ordinary conventionalities.

She observed him coldly and assured him that she was perfectly well.

Her invitation to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite,

but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt Charles Bramham when

he was looking for sensations. Besides which, he felt a genuine and

chivalrous interest in this desperate-eyed girl.

"This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he said pleasantly.

"It's quite unfit for white men in summer--to say nothing of a delicate

English girl unaccustomed to it."

A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description of herself,

and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went on to tell her about just

the ideal spot for her to recover her health.

"At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you can stand on hills

that undulate to the sea five hundred feet below, with the whole veldt

between brilliant with flowers."

Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face. She believed

Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had such a scrutinising,

business-like look about him. But to her astonishment he went on to tell

her of a valley where arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked

like miles of snowdrifts lying on the grass.

"All along the south coast," he continued, warming to his subject,

"there are thousands of acres covered with flowers--red and variegated

and white. I think the white ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of

the sea wind blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or

soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added wistfully, and

the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd way.

"But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly.

"No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the quail come down,"

was the artless rejoinder. "Not that _that_ will be for a long time

yet; September is the time. But I like that place."

And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help it. She remembered

now that she had experienced the same pleasure in his frank, kind

glances and direct remarks the first time she had met him. Certainly

there were dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain too, if

one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is something attractive

about a man who can forget he is talking to a woman and remember acres

of flowers instead--and get that boyish look into his eyes at the same

time! She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the charm of

Charles Bramham. When he had finished with Upper Natal, he fell to

telling her of a woman, a _great_ friend of his, who had once lived in

Durban, until the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad.

"Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham gravely. "She said

her temperament did it; but _they_ said it was wickedness. So she went

away and wrote a book about them. She let some of them down on a soft

cushion, but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging there

yet--food for the aasvogels."

"She must be very clever," said Poppy drily.

"She is. She's a _bird_," said Bramham with enthusiasm. "When her book

came out everybody here black-guarded her, and said it showed what an

immoral wretch she was to know such things about men and women." He gave

Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something else that was hot

on his tongue, but he decided that she was too innocent-eyed.

"All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and looked at the

Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across the counter: 'Please send

me two copies of _Diana Amongst the Wesleyans_ at once; wrap each in the

_Sunday at Home_ and despatch to my office.'"

Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:

"Is she here now?"

"Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France, where, she says,

they understand temperament better than out here, and I believe it. Last

night I went to a dinner-party--a thing I never do, and it served me

right--and a woman opposite started tackling me about her; said she had

seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she was older-looking than ever."

"'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love with her than

ever.' At which she giggled, and they all turned up their mirthless eyes

at me. That woman is an old enemy of mine, and she always trains her

guns on me whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruyere, and

if ever you meet her, beware!"

"'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she snippered at me.

"'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but not _too_ old. She may be

ugly, but not _too_ ugly. She may be bad, but not _too_ bad. It is a

pity you didn't find someone to tell you about this before,' I finished.

That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."

Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something like two hours, and

then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left

her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She

went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.

"What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly, "that I can laugh

and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things."

Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was

away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with

the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling

with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but also

fresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her

personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in

the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But

not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth

through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly

original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and

everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying

there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a

swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at

last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for

she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when

she saw it.

That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with

the "black butterflies" swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What

was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The

poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being

born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when

the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own

time.

Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the

black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only

knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.

In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun

to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for

Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof

over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought

her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden.

Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate

and had escaped that way, or else through the _boys'_ compound.

Certainly he would never dream of seeking for her in the house of

Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her

presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was

exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that

the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of

the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and

assistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the

astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own

quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at

the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was,

in the slang of the day, either "moth-eaten," or "cracked."

At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by

telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she

feared would find her out.

Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His

visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts,

a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her

a strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the same feeling

for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.

She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's

man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he

was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure

of existence--to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very

often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no

doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature.

"Life out here is saltless and savourless--just one day's march nearer

_voetsack_, unless someone takes an interest in you," was the

disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that

was even more direct than his words.

"But you must have heaps of people who do that," Poppy answered evenly,

"and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure

you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life."

"How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily.

"Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured look of a man whose

future is secure."

"You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!"

"Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money

merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting

than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when

he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?"

"Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham, grinning.

"Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals

of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His

endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose

there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach

success."

"You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There are plenty of men out here

who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties,

and come out top-dog."

Poppy smiled sceptically.

"Difficulties, yes--but poverty and bitter want?

"'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'

"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often

starved, but never their bodies, and there is always the sunshine, to

clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs

filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be

happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real

meaning of the word poverty--you, for instance?"

"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a

Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part

of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I

thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will

notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten--there's

the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't

suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and

go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"

Poppy _could_ understand; but she was so much surprised that she said

nothing.

"My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a

pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of

ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and

teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out

of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as

we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a

profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth

and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and

had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an

undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business

and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was

invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of

auctioneers, and the experience I got _there_ has been mighty useful

too. But their place of business was a long way from Chelsea, and I

couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the

mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself

on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day

meal--a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what

is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to

that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on

for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was

always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put

heart into me for my long walk--and she would be waiting for me in the

evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done

without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some

astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle

with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a

brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader--I don't think

the life of _any_ famous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put

heart into _me_ to know that finer men than I had gone through the same

mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say

that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a

wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his

help never went any further than writing letters of advice and

forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to

come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I

can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars

sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet

him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those

collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used

to be."

Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what the worst mental suffering

had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.

Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.

"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out

here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother

and I had our memories all to ourselves."

He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her

elbows among the papers on the table listening intently.

"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight

for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever

should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the

time."

"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it

up to her afterwards."

"She died just when things were beginning to come our way," said

Bramham.

CHAPTER XII

Poppy and Bramham were alone together as they had been many times

before. The verandah being the coolest place, they were sitting there,

on a low basket-lounge affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and

squares of light that stretched through the open windows and door of the

sitting-room, falling across the verandah and losing themselves in the

massed greenery of the garden. The little red glow at the end of

Bramham's cigar gave enough light at times for him to observe that upon

the face of his companion the strained, tortured look which often

haunted it, was getting full play under cover of the dimness. She

laughed lightly, however, at his sallies as they talked--the disjointed

intermittent conversation of people who are far from the subject under

discussion.

By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were seated rather close

together; so close, that when Bramham's arm, which was lying along the

back of the sofa, slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her

waist. Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light enough he

could not see the troubled look that flashed across it. She sat

perfectly still, however, and said nothing. It _might_ be an

accident--she would wait and see. But presently she felt personality and

magnetism in the touch of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her;

and she knew that this was not an accident.

"Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless, but there was a

_timbre_ in her voice that chilled. Bramham instantly removed his hand.

"Why not?" he asked discontentedly.

"Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone pleasant and

friendly again.

Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended, but he chose to

pretend to be. His experience of women presently prompted him to make a

remark which he had discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt.

"I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."

Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot had missed fire,

and, having no other ready at the moment, repeated it with as much

disagreeableness as he could muster--which was not any very great

amount.

"It must be unpleasant to be so cold."

"Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding, with a touch of

malice: "and there are always plenty of fires where one can warm

oneself, _quelquefois_."

"I think that what _you_ need is a bonfire." Bramham was feeling

distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily at this _mot_ that his

good-humour was restored. He began to smoke again, sitting sideways now,

because he was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be no

object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:

"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright flame."

Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and she desired to keep

him friendly; only, there was a thing he had to understand clearly. She

was learning to make use of any twist of the tongue in difficult

situations, but she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type

and it seemed indicated that a _little_ of the truth would not be out of

place at this juncture--a little only! the real, bitter, wonderful truth

she would share with no one in the world!

"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said at last, very

gently. "But I happen to want you for a friend, not an enemy."

Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this. However, he

declared stoutly that he had never been a woman's enemy yet.

"Then you must often have been your own," she retorted, with a little

glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the conversation flagged again.

Bramham had missed his cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat

sullen expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had lost a

lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled her with sadness.

Only God and she knew how much she needed a friend; and she was sure she

could find no stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man,

if she could only get him away from these shoals of emotion on to the

firm ground of friendship.

But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his forefinger at the

end of his cigar, as though he had no further use for it. Obviously, he

was thinking of making a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand

and touched his, resting on his knee.

"You are quite right, I _am_ cold," she said softly; "starving with

cold; and you can never know how charming and attractive your fire looks

to me, but--after all, the best seat is already taken isn't it?"

Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something. This was the first

time his wife had been mentioned between them. She did not falter.

"Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside of my very own?"

She spoke with the soft bird note in her throat, and her smile was a

wistful thing to see.

Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and gave it a great grip.

"By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."

A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his words. Her eyes

filled with tears.

"Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and added, on a swift

impulse: "The fire I want seems to me the most wonderful in the

world--and if I can't be there, I'll never sit by any other."

She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking at him with a

smiling mouth, while the heavy drops fell down her cheeks. Bramham

thought that, because of the smile, he had never seen any woman look so

tragic in his life.

"Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully. "I can't bear to

see a woman cry. Do you love someone, Rosalind?" he asked, using her

name shyly.

"Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is a knife in my

heart." She turned from him now, and looked away, that he might not see

the despair and humiliation in her face.

"I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't understand at all.

You are altogether a mystery to me; I can't understand, for one thing,

how a girl like you comes to be living with Sophie Cornell----"

"I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him. "I have always

meant to tell you, though I know that for some reason Sophie doesn't

want you to know. I walked into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using

a typewriter, and I came in and asked her to take me for an assistant."

"What! But weren't you a governess to some people in Kimberley, and an

old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?"

"No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw Sophie until I walked

in here some three months ago. The girl you take me for never came at

all, and Sophie was glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But,

indeed, it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful. I

will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money will repay for

anything." She added this rather bitterly, for, indeed, Sophie never

ceased to make her feel her obligations, in spite of daily slavery on

the typewriter.

"Well, of all the--!" Bramham began. Later, he allowed himself to

remark:

"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his eulogy on Sophie

Cornell.

"But how comes it that a girl like you is--excuse me--kicking about the

world, at a loose end?--How can any fellow that has your love let you

suffer!--The whole thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say

stands. You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to----"

"I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If I could tell

_anyone_, it would be you--but I can't. Only--I want a friend,

Charlie--I want help."

"I'll do anything in the world for you--all you've got to say is

'Knife.'"

"I want to get away from Africa to England, and I haven't a penny in the

world, nor any possessions except the things I am wearing now."

"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to

go to in England?"

"I have no friends anywhere--except you.

"'I have no friend but Resolution

... and the briefest end!'

"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I

love it most--as _you_ did, Charlie. There are things to do and things

to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean

to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."

She jumped up and stood in the light of the window, and Bramham could

see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a

beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking,

derisive hand at Fate.

"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a

child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and

beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her

yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and

pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it

will be _my_ turn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly,

but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my

face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a

little beauty, something of wit--and I can write, Charlie. Don't you

think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws

of that brute Life--a little Fame, a little Love----?"

"I should just say I _do_," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all

through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."

PART III

Nothing is better I well think

Than Love: the hidden well water

Is not so delicate to drink.

CHAPTER XIII

Poppy sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that run direct between

Natal and England without touching at East London or the Cape.

"If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down with diamonds at

breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds at lunch, and the whole

jewel-box for dinner, take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And

then, of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively.

"Personally I like them; but _you_ look to me like a girl who wants

rest, and to forget that there is such a place as Africa on the map."

Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats before, and thought

them excellent places--for anyone who values above all things a little

quiet humour. Also, persons returning from Africa with little else than

a bitterly acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting their only

possession upon the sound basis of contempt for riches. For herself, not

only was she able to sustain life for three weeks without scandals and

the elevating sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each

other and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed and prayed

with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with nothing about her but

the blue sea and the horizon.

The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and to prepare that she

must have time and rest. First, there must be some bitter days spent in

wiping from her mind, and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She

realised that if the greater part of her thought and force was afar

from her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was deep in the heart

of Africa, it would be futile to expect anything great of the future.

Abinger and his soul-searing words must be forgotten too; and Clem

Portal's fascinating friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes

and generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If she admitted

thoughts of them into her life, they would eat her time, and her

strength, which must austerely be hoarded for the future.

Courage, resolution, silence--those were three good things, Clem Portal

said, to be a woman's friends. And those were the things the girl strove

to plant firm in her soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless

eyes, the retreating coast of her beloved land.

She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed hours of thought

and study in some canvas-shaded corner; or swinging up and down the

decks, drinking in the freshness of the wind. Before many days were

past, care departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her face.

Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart Evelyn Carson had

waked to life, sang like a violin in her breast. Her feet were on the

"Open Road" and she loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:

"Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night,

brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet

things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."

She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound of women's feet

upon the Open Road. Its long, level stretches are easy to the feet of

men, but for women it most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and

the going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the pack the

journey was commenced with. Youth and Love are stout friends with whom

to begin the climb, and Poppy knew not that she had a pack at all.

Certainly she suspected nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and her

own wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still she went

glad-foot. No one who watched her could have believed that she was a

girl out in the world alone--a girl breaking away from a past that was a

network of sorrows and strange happenings, to face a future that lay

hidden and dark.

The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be middle-aged, and not

greatly curious about the affairs of other people; but they often

pondered idly among themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed

girl with the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to what

had happened to her chaperon at the last moment; for they thought it

would be ridiculous to suppose that she was travelling alone, except by

accident.

Only one person thought differently--the ship's doctor. He had seen her

eyes the day she came on board, and he knew a few things about women's

eyes. Indeed, it is certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as

much attention to medical science as he had divided between the

engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table, he would not

have been preparing black-draughts for able seamen, and treating

passengers for _mal-de-mer_, in return for a passage home. He was a good

doctor gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy,

ambition--anything but brains. Ten years of roaming through Africa found

him at last kicking its dust from his feet with his achievements and

fortune ably represented by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the

prospect, at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic

liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven face that would

soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness--physical and mental; intellect

gone to rack and ruin; savage boredom with the world in general--these

were the things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart the

few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women, and the men who only

went to the smoke-room when it was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game

of whist. And always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat

dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck--trying to place her and

read her story. He was sure that she had a story. He considered her

clothes, and her manners, and her walk, distinguished, and in keeping

with the general theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally

travelling alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had

seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the conclusion she was

facing life on her own responsibility. He told himself _then_, that they

were the eyes of a girl who had come to a bad bit of the road, and

though she had wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye,

blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress and storm.

Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad bits of the road. He had

stumbled through muddy and broken places himself, and seen others do the

same; some dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the

wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct for a

fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not deliberately blunted.

Therefore he greatly desired to make the acquaintance of "Miss R.

Chard," as the passenger-list described her. Moreover, he was attracted

by her unusual beauty.

However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did not wish to form

acquaintances. When the women made pleasant little overtures, she smiled

a kind of cold vague smile, and let _that_ be her answer. And she simply

looked through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several times on

deck and on the companionway, forcing her to meet his eyes, but she

remained composed and indifferent under their bold glance. He had almost

despaired of ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could

lay claim to, intervened.

On a hot day in the tropics the ship's _chef_ had resort to tinned

supplies, and amongst other things sent to the luncheon-table was an

_entree_, which had the appearance of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly

wreathed with lettuce and cress. Most people attracted by the greenery,

partook of this dish, and though they immediately discovered themselves

to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly continued the cannibalistic

performance, for "bully beef" is too old and close a friend to be

despised by any South African sojourner. However, on this occasion

"bully" was an enemy--perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really present

at last (in portions)--for before night everyone who had partaken of the

fascinating bewreathed _entree_ was _hors de combat_ with a mild attack

of something in the nature of ptomaine.

Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means the worst. She was

ill enough to require the services of Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful

for them. He was always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than

a few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her health. Soon

she was up on deck again; but for a few days he continued to

professionally superintend her doings. Afterwards he fell naturally into

the habit of staying to talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these

things are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to talk to

someone. In the few days spent below she had grown weary of herself, and

Newnham was an interesting interlude--as interesting as a character on

the down-grade always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the

wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But efforts that are not

natural cannot be kept up long. The old Adam soon reasserts himself.

Poppy began to get prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid

under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and they sickened

her. She knew too much about white savages, and she much preferred the

real thing--Zulu or Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for

the sake of the curious things he knew about people in different parts

of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the Karoo to the Kalahari, from

Boshof to Blantyre, and from Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.

Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history made, and in the

telling of these things he possessed that idle eloquence so often found

in men of a dissolute type. In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the

trained observation of his student years, was specially striking.

At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence, he had been in

charge of a native Hospital in one of the mine compounds. He said he had

cut off enough Kaffirs' legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft.

"If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it into a reason for

cutting his leg off," he said malevolently. "I hate the brutes."

"I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled lip of disgust.

"You know very little of natives, if you think they all come under

_that_ heading."

"Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart that goes with the

tender-foot. If you only knew as much of them as I do----"

She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it at that.

Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa, where a man

forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through fevered swamps, with no

companions but his faithful _boys_, upon whose courage and staunch

loyalty his life must of necessity often depend--and not depend in vain;

for "good men" (the expression has nothing to do with morals) trust

their _boys_, and are trusted by them to the death.

Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts from across the sea.

That way madness lay! She gave her ears once more to Newnham and the

Rand.

He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred and admiration everyone

who has ever lived there feels for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of

money, and tragedy, and suffering.

"It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding: "At least,

that is what all the old residents say, and you can understand the

emotion with which they say it when you consider that most of them came

out as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into millionaire

squires and dames of society."

"But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?" smiled Poppy.

"Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It lures them across the

sea. A poignant longing comes to them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for

the glitter of galvanised-iron and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand--and

the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do precious little

for the place that has done so much for them," he sneered. "I should say

that with the exception of the Barnato ward, and an open space for

games, not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify or

benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot' has always been the

watchword. But I suppose it isn't in human nature for a debtor to love

his creditor!"

Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa. The evenings, which

were all blue and gold--sea and sky alike thickly sown with stars--she

loved to dream away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the

taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves reflected on her

face. But when Newnham sought her out she would either walk, or have her

chair put where a big electric-light blazed on the face of her

companion.

"Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," was a Spanish proverb

well known to her, and she had another of her own:

"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man you distrust."

She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to say, but she

distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went ashore with him at Teneriffe and

they wandered about the narrow debris-strewn streets, and were stared at

by the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and rouge upon their

handsome olive skins and grow stout so early in life.

Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna, but Newnham

looked lugubrious at the idea--probably his muscles had long been out of

gear for climbing or any other physical activity--and hastily suggested

that the boat would not be making a very long stay. So they roamed about

the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched the barefooted women in

the washing pools, and did some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her

travels to have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought,

quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five pounds, the

remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed Bramham to lend her (she had

been obliged to expend twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with

rapture, upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five pounds

without the turn of an eyelash. It was only afterwards that she realised

her foolish extravagance. As they were returning to the ship followed by

two men carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham, he

suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous.

"What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive manner.

"Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a sudden thought. "Do you

think the woman would take that lace back again?"

"That five pounds' worth? No--not for a minute. I saw the gleam in her

eye when she stowed away your fiver. But why--don't you like it?"

"Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered that I can't afford

it."

"Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back. But _I'll_ buy

it, if you like?"

"You? What for? What would you do with it?"

"Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but she flushed and her

manner instantly became cold.

"I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I like it and will

keep it myself."

"I wonder how many times to the minute a woman changes her mind!" he

jested, but he was secretly much amazed.

"She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the picture had not

presented itself to his mind before, and it "gave him to think." He

later resolved that he would offer to buy the lace from her to give to

his sister--and then get her to take it back under the name of a

"keepsake" when they reached England.

"I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.

But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the next day she let

Newnham see very plainly that she was offended. For two more days she

kept the atmosphere about her so frigid that he did not dare venture

into it. He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing to do but

sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that he was born, between

drinks. On the third evening she relented and allowed him to approach

her under the blaze of electric-light.

"Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded almost violently. "What

have I done to make you angry?"

He half expected that she would--as girls generally do--first feign

ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow herself to be persuaded that

she had never been angry at all. But she was not of the same kidney as

the girls Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten years. She

spoke at once, and to the point.

"I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give me five

pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much taken aback, could only find

tongue to utter:

"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent."

"Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and when I remember the

way you looked, I wonder that I allow myself to speak to you again."

"I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you would take it in

such a way. It was an ordinary thing to do, I thought. Most women or

girls in Africa would think nothing of taking a little bit of lace."

"I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa," was the cool

response. "However, I will say nothing further about it, Dr. Newnham.

Only please, if you care to talk to me, behave yourself--and don't ever

mention _lace_ again."

Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by a woman since he

came to Africa, and he did not take to it at all. But he was afraid to

show his resentment for fear she would carry out her threat and never

speak to him again. And if she turned her back on him now, he believed

he should go mad. It had come to _that_ with him. He was half-crazed

with passion for this girl who could look at him so composedly and speak

to him so contemptuously. But together with his passion was bitter rage

with himself and with her. He was torn between primitive emotions. At

one moment he longed with all the malignity of a mean weak nature to

fling coarse words at her that would make her crouch before him; in the

next he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck, his body, his

soul to her feet.

While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations, breathing hard at

her side, she composedly arose and left him with a cool good-night.

He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward busy for the next two

hours; and when at last, by reason of the emphatic dimming of the

electric lights, he roused himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a

conclusion and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!

All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was never far from her,

and the look in his eyes stirred her to discomfort and foreboding,

although it was not comprehensible to her. Something in his eyes she

understood only too well--she began to expect _that_ in men's eyes now!

But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression mean? She

resented it extremely; but her curiosity was aroused. In the evening,

therefore, she let him pull his chair next to hers in the usual corner.

Only, the electric light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone

had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while to do so, for

this was the last night at sea and the ship was to dock on the morrow.

They were creeping near the grey-green English coasts now, and the

English weather was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and

the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness in the

late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar of her coat and take

shelter under the lee of her chair cushion.

Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some trace of emotion:

"O to be in England

Now that Spring is there."

But his emotion was neither for Spring nor England. He led the talk to

London with the hope of getting her to speak of her destination; but she

went off at a tangent and began to tell him about the wonderful shades

of blue to be found in the interior of a glacier. He ignored that, and

made occasion to give her his card with a Kensington address written on

it, saying in rather strained fashion:

"If ever you want a friend--doctors are sometimes useful people, you

know."

She thanked him and took his card, holding it carefully in her hand. But

she offered no information on the subject which so engrossed his

thoughts. An uncomfortable pause followed. Suddenly in the darkness she

felt a hand hot on hers.

"Miss Chard ... Rosalind ..." he had discovered her name--"I will do

anything for you."

It was far from being a surprise to her that he should make some kind of

avowal. But his words seemed to her rather odd--and somehow in keeping

with his odd looks at her. She very gently drew away her hand from under

his and put it behind her head. The other was quite out of his reach.

"Thank you, Dr. Newnham," she said kindly, but with no particular

fervour.

"Do you understand what I mean?" he said huskily, after another pause.

"I can help you."

He could not see the expression on her face, but he saw that she turned

her head to look at him as she answered:

"What can you mean?"

"Oh, you needn't beat about the bush with me," he spoke with coarse

irritation. "I know what you have to face."

"You must be wonderfully clever," she said, with a touch of sarcasm;

"but I should like to know just what you mean."

Irritation now became anger.

"You know well enough," he said brutally. "What is the good of playing

pure with me! It is my business to see what isn't plain to other

people."

In the darkness she grew pale with anger at his tone, but she had fear

too, of she knew not what. Her wish was to rise and leave him at once;

but curiosity chained her--curiosity and creeping, creeping fear. Dimly

she became conscious of the predestined feeling that once or twice

before in her life had presaged strange happenings. What was she going

to hear? She sat very still, waiting.

The man leaned close to her and spoke into her ear. His breathing was

quick and excited, but he had some difficulty with his words; he

muttered and his sentences were halting and disjointed.

But Poppy heard everything he said. It seemed to her that his lowest

whisper pierced to the inmost places of her being, and reverberated

through her like the echoing and resounding of bells. Afterwards there

was a terrible quiet. He could not see her face. She appeared almost to

be crouching in her chair, all bundled up, but he did not venture to

touch her--some instinct kept him from that. Pity, mingled with his base

passion and scorn. He regretted that he had spoken so violently. He

feared he had been brutal. At last she spoke, in a faint voice, that

seemed to come from far away.

"I don't know what you mean ... I think you must be mad."

Newnham laughed--derisively, devilishly.

"I'll bet that's what you are going home for, all the same."

While he was furiously laughing, with his hand flung above his head, she

flamed up out of her chair, and spoke for a moment down at him in a low,

vibrating voice:

"You vile man! Never dare speak to me again. You are not fit to live!"

Then she was gone.

After a time he got up and stumbled towards the smoke-room, intending to

get drunk; but he changed his mind before he reached it, and went to his

cabin instead. Having closed his door, he sat in the berth and stared at

his boots. He said at last:

"H----! What a beast I am! But what is worse, I am a fool. I am no good

any longer. I made a mistake in my diagnosis. That girl is straight!

Pure as the untrodden snow! I had better cut my throat."

However, he did not.

* * * * *

Poppy, lying on her face in her cabin, was tasting shame. Bitter-sweet,

mysterious, terrifying knowledge was hers at last--and with it was

shame. Shame that the knowledge should come to her from profane and

guilty lips! Shame that the child of the king of her heart should be

unworthily born; that a king's child should be robbed of its kingdom;

that the mother of her child should be one to whom men might throw vile

words. Shame that she was a transgressor.

CHAPTER XIV

London was not new to Poppy. She had lived there for months at a time,

but always at the best hotels and under luxurious conditions. Now, she

hardly knew where to seek a home in accord with her limited means, but

she had heard of Bloomsbury as being the resort of writers and artists

and people whose riches are rather to be found in their heads and hearts

than in their purses; so she took her way thither.

She walked the old-fashioned squares the day after her arrival and found

them all green-tracery, and darts of spring sunshine that touched the

gloomy houses with the gilt of past romance. After much roaming, and

knocking, and climbing of stairs, and making of awkward adieus to angry,

disappointed landladies, she eventually discovered a tall, white house,

whose front windows overlooked the pigeons pecking in the straggly grass

that grows in the courtyard of the British Museum. A room on the top

floor but one seemed likely to suit her purse and her tastes, and she

seized upon it eagerly. It was big and bare, with no noise overhead,

except the footsteps of two tired maids, who crept to bed at eleven

o'clock with very little to say to each other. It seemed to Poppy that

she could not have found any better place to start hard work in, and

yet, from the first day there, a dreariness crept over her spirit--a

kind of mental numbness she had never known before, oppressed her. She

supposed it must have something to do with her physical condition and

the shock she had lately received, and that after a few days it would

pass. Instead, it increased. Her nights became indescribably weird and

unhappy. Always it seemed to her that she heard someone calling

somewhere, and she used to wake up, thinking that she had been urgently

roused to fetch something. Sometimes, still half asleep, she would get

up and begin to dress to go out; then, gradually becoming conscious of

what she was doing, she would light the gas and stare round the room,

looking for the person who had been speaking to her. In the daytime it

became impossible to work, though she perpetually goaded herself to her

writing-table. The only time she could get any ease from the intolerable

restlessness and depression that filled her, was when she was half out

of her window, leaning above the street, watching the intermittent

stream of uninteresting-looking people who passed up and down the broad,

dingy steps of the Museum, and listening to the roar of London afar.

Trying to interpret the street calls was an idle amusement, too,

wondering why the coal-carters should shout _Ko-bel_, and the cry of the

oyster-man be exceeding dolorous like the cry of a soul in the depths.

_Clam ... Clam ... clamavi._

In the afternoons, when still haunting sadness obsessed her, she would

put on her hat and visit a picture-gallery, or walk in the park, or roam

the streets looking at the shop-windows and into the strained, anxious

faces of the hurrying passers-by. She speculated as to whether she would

ever get that look, and always she wondered what was worth it; then one

day, as she walked, she felt what seemed tiny fluttering fingers

clutching at her heart-strings, and she _knew_! Flying home on swift

feet, she nailed herself once more to her work-table. She _must_ work,

she told herself feverishly; and when she could not, frenzy seized her,

then terror, then despair. Yes, those were the things she had seen in

the strained, hurrying faces that passed along--frenzy, terror,

despair; not for themselves, but for _others_. _She must work!_

But Inspiration hid Her face; and shadows came out of the four corners

of the room and closed in upon her.

* * * * *

Breakfast was always brought on a tray by a maid called Kate. For the

rest of her meals she frequented A.B.C. shops, and the like, existing on

cups of tea and boiled eggs and glasses of milk, after the manner of

women who live alone and have to economise. But sometimes in a wild

burst of extravagance she would wend her way to Soho and order a little

Italian meal all _hors-d'oeuvres_ and thin Chianti. She loved to hear

the French and Italian chatter about her, and felt more at home there

than anywhere, not minding the men's bold, dark glances, for in her

travels with Abinger she had learnt to know that there was really little

of harm in them. Of course, she attracted much attention and often had

uncomfortable adventures in her lonely goings and comings; but she did

not let these ruffle her greatly, telling herself that all such things

were part and parcel of the fight. She minded nothing, in fact, except

the tragic atmosphere of her room, which engulfed her spirit as soon as

she entered. The nights began to be even more eerie. She lay awake often

until dawn, and presently longings and urgings came upon her to procure

something that would produce sleep. She had never known anyone who took

drugs or sleeping-draughts, and could not imagine what put such an idea

into her head--indeed, having read De Quincey's _Confessions_, she had a

horror of such things, and so, fought the suggestion with all her might.

But still it returned. Once when she was sitting at her table, with a

throbbing head, biting her pencil before a blank sheet of paper, she

distinctly heard someone softly say:

"Go and _buy_ some inspiration."

She stared about the empty room.

"What can be the matter with me?" she demanded of herself, after a time,

and strove with all her strength to work and drive such insane thoughts

from her. But the writer within her was mute, the poet dumb, and her

woman's body was very weary.

One day, she had been striving with herself for many hours, writing down

dry, banal words that she almost dug out of the paper a moment

afterwards. At intervals she sat with her head on her arms, wondering

what had ever caused her to dream that she was born to the pen; brooding

over the possibilities of her chances as a shop-girl, a waitress in a

tea-shop, a chorus-girl, a housemaid--as _anything_ but a writer of

poems and romantic fiction, at which she was obviously a dismal failure.

At last she flung papers and pencils to the four corners of the room,

and left the house. Out of doors it was raining fearsomely. After

tramping for an hour or so, soaked through, she found herself back near

home, in Theobald's Row--a hateful street that smells of fish and rank

cheese, where men bawl out the price of pork-chops, and women come

furtively stealing from side-doors, wiping their lips. She made haste to

get into Southampton Row, which has a sweeter savour to the nostrils and

a staid, respectable air. At a corner she passed a paper shop, which had

many news-boards exposed, with the "sheets" hanging dripping and torn

from them. One yellow sheet stood out boldly with the words "_South

Africa_" in black letters across it. A pang of joy shot through her. She

could have fallen down before that tattered paper and kissed the magic

words. The name of her own land! The land that had beaten her and

bruised her and flung her out to seek a living and safety in another

country--but her own land! Some words came to her lips:

"She said: God knows they owe me naught.

I tossed them to the foaming sea,

I tossed them to the howling waste,

_Yet still their love comes home to me._"

So far she had forbidden herself entirely the luxury of journals and

magazines, saying that she could not afford them; but now she went into

the shop and recklessly bought up everything that had any connection

with South-African affairs.

Afterwards, going home, she saw a flower-girl crouching in a doorway

with a bale of wet daffodils and narcissi in her arms. Flowers, too,

were luxuries, concerning which she had laid down a law unto herself;

but the girl made a piteous appeal, and without a thought of dwindling

funds, Poppy bought up the whole wet fragrant bale. Before she reached

home she was reproaching herself bitterly.

"How _can_ I be buying magazines and flowers with money I have not

earned?... I am becoming degraded! ... a parasite!"

Only the smell of the narcissi reassured her, and changed the trend of

her thoughts, for they reminded her of Charles Bramham and his acres of

flowers seen from the hilltops.

"He would be glad to think that his money brings this rift of blue into

my grey sky," she thought; and she turned her dreary room into an

enchanted spring garden, extravagantly ordered a fire and sat before it,

tearing the news out of the papers with her eyes, searching for the name

of Evelyn Carson. She had not far to look. In every paper she found news

of him. His party had arrived at Borwezi, a spot in Central Africa, the

last civilised touching-place before they plunged into the savage

unknown. He had made a long stay there--for it was on the banks of a

"fever river," second only to the Pungwe. Carson was reported to have

been laid up with malarial fever for a week, and a doctor who had joined

the expedition at Mombassa had been so ill from the same cause as to be

obliged to abandon his intention and to be taken back to civilisation

under the care of people who had accompanied the expedition as far as

Borwezi. One paper mentioned the names of Mr. and Mrs. Nick Capron as

being of the returning party. This was as far as the actual news went.

Rumours there were in plenty. One arresting story, brought into Borwezi

by native runners, was that the natives of Borapota were departing from

every part of their country to assemble in the capital, where the King

would receive Carson and his men--whether in a friendly or hostile

spirit was unknown. Several papers devoted articles to Carson himself,

dealing with his achievements in different parts of Africa, his

personality, his influence with the Zulus and Basutos, and other

less-known tribes. One journal headed an article with the

word--_Intandugaza_: fortunately the writer did not attempt to translate

the Zulu word, nor explain how Carson came to bear it. (Perhaps that was

"one of the untoward things about him not compatible with reverence,"

thought Poppy sadly.) After she had drunk in every word of him, the

papers lay scattered at her feet, and she, lapsing from the decree she

had made not to think of him, lost herself at last in dreams of him. She

had lived according to the rules of Alice Meynell's _Renouncement_:

"I must not think of thee; and tired yet strong

I shun the thought that dwells in all delight,

The thought of thee: and in the heaven's blue height:

And in the sweetest passage of a song----"

Now she forgot the fine, firm words, and long, long sat dreaming by the

fire, with her hands before her face. Anyone looking into the room would

merely have seen a girl lying back in her chair resting, asleep

perhaps. But only the lesser part of Poppy Destin was there. The spirit

of her wandered in a moonlit Natal garden, listening to a voice with a

rustle in it, and from thence ... far, far!

Afterwards, she reconstructed all the chapters of her life since the

magic night that began so wonderfully and ended in despair with the

uttering of another woman's name. Of that woman--_Loraine_, she thought

little now, having fought down and killed the bitter hatred of her, as

once she had wished to kill the woman. There was no room in her awakened

heart for hatred--only Love could be there. Love of the man who had

awakened it, and to whom, whether he loved her or not, she believed

herself to be secretly linked for ever; and to whom, whether she saw him

again or not, her hopes, her future, her life were dedicated. But she

_would_ see him again!--of that she was blindly, fatalistically certain:

and he would know her for his mate, as she knew him--or of what use her

beauty, her wit, her charm, her life at all? All things would entangle

themselves, she told her heart. As soon as she had money enough she

meant to free herself from the marriage with Luce Abinger that was no

marriage at all; and from which he knew a Court of Justice would free

her as an innocent, unwitting victim. As she sat thinking, many things

that had been dark became clear. The meaning of Abinger's fearsome

conduct was plain to her now--he _knew_! Kykie had told him. That was

what she had stayed up for, supposing herself to be the herald of glad

tidings.

It made the girl recoil and quiver to think that those two had known and

spoken of what had been hidden from _her_; of what, even now, she dared

hardly consider with herself because of its wonder and terror--something

that no one in the world should know except just two people: so it

seemed to her.

"But, oh, Mother of God!" she cried aloud and bitterly. "Why is this

thing so sweet, and yet so terrible to bear?"

Even while she asked she knew, and gave herself the answer.

"I am a Transgressor----"

* * * * *

At last, far into the night, she undressed and went to bed; so tired

from emotion that she fell at once into dead slumber. But no sooner was

she asleep than she was dreaming that a woman lay by her side on the bed

whispering into her ear, pleading, asking for something, begging,

urgently demanding. With a wrench Poppy threw off sleep and sat up

staring into the darkness of the room. She was only half-awake, but she

was certain--she could have _sworn_ that a shadowy figure rose, too,

from the bed, and slipped into the far shadows.

Beads of fright sat on her forehead.

"I am going mad!" she thought. "There was a woman on my bed ... she is

still in the room. I am going mad!"

She was afraid to lie down again, and afraid to get out of bed. She sat

there in cold terror until she thought herself turned to stone. Then,

slowly, reason reasserted itself, and courage. She clenched her teeth

and nerved herself to move, to get from the bed and from the room. The

whole house was wrapped in darkness. Instinctively she made for the room

above her, where she knew the servants were. Reaching the door she

knocked and then entered. One of them was awake at once.

"Who's there? What do you want?" said an excited voice, ready to scream.

"Don't be afraid, Kate ... I am the girl who sleeps in the room

below ... Miss Chard.... I don't want to disturb you--only--let me stay

here until morning, will you?... I'm afraid to be in my own room."

Kate was "a good sort." She struck a match and stared at the intruder

before answering; then she said: "Lock the door," and was obeyed with

alacrity.

The maid hopped out and soon had a blanket round Poppy's trembling form.

She made room on the bed, and they sat whispering together. The other

maid slept on like the dead.

"What did you see?" asked Kate.

"See? I don't know ... there was something strange----"

"It was _'er_, sure enough!"

"What do you mean, Kate?" Poppy felt her spine curling.

"I'm new here," whispered Kate mysteriously; "but I got five minutes'

talk with the last girl, though the missis tried hard to keep us from

meeting. Miss--_no one ever sleeps in that room long_. A lydy cut her

throat there!"

"What!"

"Yes--sure as I'm sitting here. I've been afraid to creep up the stairs

at night for fear of _her_. How you could a _slep_ there, Heavin knows!"

She lowered her voice to a whisper: "She used to take them drugs. She

was a hactress, and she and her 'usbin had that room. She was very

clever, they said, but she hadn't had no work for a long time, and she

used to eat away at them drugs night and day, and 'er 'usbin never knew.

And at last, one day he found 'er out, and there was an awful shindy and

he said as 'e'd leave her if she didn't knock it off. And she tried and

tried. For a whole three days she did without ... walked the room all

day and would go out and no sooner out than in again ... she told the

girl it was _'ell_. Every time anyone came to the door she would stand

up and just say, ''ell! 'ell! ell!' very quiet to herself all the time

they was speaking. Then on the third night she went out and got _it_.

And the 'usbin found out as soon as he came in. She was so gentle and

sweet-like, and began to 'elp 'im off with his coat. He gave her a

look ... like _hanythink_, then 'e put his hat and coat on again and

walked out. And that very night she done for 'erself with one of the

razors 'e left behind. _She done it in the very bed you bin sleeping

in._ I says to cook I says it's a shime of the missis to do it!--but

there! she's one of them would sell 'er mother's shroud for sixpence.

I shan't stay here no more after this, don't you believe it, miss--not

for a thousand pound; and nor won't you, I reckon."

Poppy's reckoning came to much the same sum. When she stole down in the

morning light, it was to dress herself and pack her belongings swiftly

for departure. Kate stayed by the door until all was done, casting

fearsome glances about her, ready to fly at a sound. They left the

flower-decked room then, to the poor, disquieted spirit that haunted it,

and sought the mistress of the house. But she discreetly excused herself

from an interview, and only sent the cook to demand a week's extra money

in lieu of the notice that should have been given. Poppy expostulated,

but it was of no use: she was told that it was the rule under which

rooms were let and that her luggage could be detained. When she had

paid, she realised that this extra expense would force her to seek still

cheaper lodgings. That evening found her installed in a dingy room in

Hunter Street--another top-floor-but-one.

How she wished at this time, that she had betaken herself from the first

to Paris, where, she had been told all top-floors are white-and-gold

rooms, with faded true-lovers' knots festooning the ceiling, and wide

oak fireplaces in which burnt little bright _briquette_ fires. Once,

wishing to have a picture in the Louvre copied for Luce, she had visited

a clever but penniless girl-artist in such a room, in quite a poor part

of the _Quartier_; and the girl had carelessly told her that there were

plenty of the same kind to be had.

In her new quarters Poppy had barely room to turn round: but she was

more content. No tragic ghosts kept vigil there, it was certain. A

healthy scent of Irish stew pervaded the atmosphere, and the walls were

decorated with smiling faces and charming figures. The landlady, a

stout, breezy woman on the right side of forty-five, had once been a

chorus girl at the Gaiety, and her circle of acquaintances had evidently

been large. Little now remained to her of beauty, but she had an

attractive _bonhomie_ and a wide charity for the world of women.

CHAPTER XV

In Hunter Street, Poppy put the finishing touches to her book of

poems--as far as anything is ever finished until it appears in print.

For it is certain that a writer will always find something new to do to

a book as long as it is in MS. and within reach. But with Poppy, time

pressed. She knew that shortly she would be wanting money. Moreover, she

was horrified to reflect that after nearly four months in England she

had nothing ready for publication but the poems, which had been the work

of years. The thought came to her that if she could get this book

accepted and published it would bring courage and inspiration back, and

so spur her on that she would presently come to her own on a full tide.

With this hope high in her, she sent the poems to a publisher whom she

had read of in a literary journal as having a reputation for encouraging

new authors on new subjects. The journal in question had omitted to

mention that the new authors got very little out of the process _beyond_

the encouragement, so poor Poppy went home gay of heart from posting her

precious manuscript and essayed to start work on a batch of short

stories. She had six of them in a skeleton condition; some of them

consisting of no more than half a dozen startling phrases which were

almost stories in themselves. These she intended to finish and get into

the magazines.

Afterwards, she would complete her book and fire it off at the world.

She knew she could write. All she needed was time--and peace of mind.

Alas! Time began to press terribly; and peace of mind was anywhere but

in a little fourth-floor room in Hunter Street. Inspiration appeared to

have fled from so commonplace an atmosphere; and again the lurking

shadows came out of their corners, and cast themselves across the pages

she could not fill.

Her physical condition began to oppress her sorely, too, and she no

longer _wanted_ to work, for sitting at her desk caused headaches and

dizziness. She longed for fresh air and bracing walks across grass and

in the wind: for peaceful and beautiful scenes. But London was stifling

in the grip of summer, and Bloomsbury was the hottest, most stifling

place in it. The little room was suffocating, and out-of-doors the

conditions were not much better. The streets gave up a white, afflicting

dust; the pavements burned the feet. The best Poppy could do was to take

a 'bus to some park where she could seek the quiet little unfrequented

walks. Most of all, she loved the river when it swelled serene and

full-bosomed from Chelsea onwards to Putney and the upper reaches. Along

the Embankment how often she lingered before the beaten-copper lilies on

Whistler's door, wishing dreamfully that she might see that master of

paint and satire come forth, eye-glass perched in eye and cane in hand:

but he never did--for her. From thence she would go to the statue of

grey old Carlyle, who sits always in his little green garden watching

Mother Thames flow by. On, past the Rossetti Fountain, and the house

where the poet lived; and George Eliot's dull and drearsome residence.

The Clock House charmed her, and she thought that if she _could_ live in

London she would choose to live there. Always she trembled a little when

she passed Tite Street, thinking of the tragic genius who had made it

famous and who was eating out his heart in Reading Gaol. She would

never pass through the street, or look at No. 16, for fear her action

might seem to savour of the cruel curiosity that lifts the cere-cloth

from a dead face to seek upon it the marks that life has made and death

been unable to erase.

At last she would be home again, braced and fresh from her long walk and

her thoughts--until she sat to her table. Then slowly, but unfailingly,

physical weariness would steal upon her, and mental depression that

could not be shaken off.

The facts were to be faced at last that the six stories had sped no

further ahead than the first few startling phrases; and that living with

the utmost frugality she was down to the bare cold sum of ten pounds.

She had long ago decided that she could make no further demand on

Bramham, although he had urged her to do so if she found herself in need

"before her ship came home" laden with the rewards of labour. She had

received several kind and cheery letters from him, and answered them in

the same spirit. Afterwards, she had let the correspondence lapse, for

he wrote of a trip "home" before long, and she was afraid that he might

seek her out.

She possessed no valuables to realise on, except the piece of Spanish

lace which had been valued by a pawnbroker at thirty shillings. She had

nothing, in fact, but her literary genius, which had gone back upon her

in her hour of need. Terrible doubts of her powers assailed her now.

Could she really write? Or was she merely a scribbling woman who _might_

be successful as the editress of a woman's dress paper?

No! no! She denied it vehemently. She _knew_ that she had the "restless

heart and plotting brain" of the born writer; the cunning hand for the

swift, smiting word; the fine eye for the terse or sonorous sentence;

the tuned ear for the phrase that, like a chord of music, caused her

exquisite pleasure. And she had knowledge of a magic land full of

strange people and cruel ghosts and dear delights: and an imagination:

and a vocabulary.

Of these things she was certain, when she was sane and calm; but she was

not often sane and calm. No woman in her state ever is, even under the

kindliest circumstances. Terrors, pleasures, fears, hopes--all are seen

through the blurred, exaggerating glass of emotion.

The fear began to haunt her that she would not have enough money in hand

to pay the expenses of her approaching illness. Sometimes she threw fear

down and trampled on it; but other times it overcame her, swept her off

her feet, engulfed her. Lest she should succumb entirely and ignobly she

would wrench herself free, and, hastening out of doors, spend the

remainder of the day wandering, resting sometimes in the Abbey,

sometimes in the Brompton Oratory, seeking always a scene of peace and

beauty.

One day her breezy landlady approached her, using all the tact and

kindness she had command of, yet taking the girl cruelly unawares.

"My dear," she said pleasantly, "I hope you have found a place to go to

when your time comes?"

Poppy sat paling and reddening before her, speechless with confusion.

"Ah, my dear, you needn't mind me," said Miss Drake kindly. "I've lived

among 'theatricals' all my days, and I know what life is for a lovely

girl like you--and I can see you're a good girl, too!"

Poppy got up and walked away to the window, so unnerved she knew not

what to do or say. The kind woman's words threw her into a state of

misery. She had no idea that her secret was shared by others yet.

"What I wanted to say, dear," continued Miss Drake, "was, that if you

haven't made your arrangements, you ought to do so at once: because it

would be very inconvenient if anything happened here. You can see

yourself, dear, the kind of house this is, full of quiet business

people, who wouldn't like things to be upset--a doctor coming and going

on the stairs and a nurse and all that fuss, you know. So, much as I

shall regret losing you----"

"Oh, don't say anything more, Miss Drake," Poppy interposed hastily. "Of

course, I shall go--I am going quite soon; I haven't made up my mind

_where_, but I will do so at once--I'll find out as soon as I can----"

"Yes, yes, of course--don't worry; don't upset yourself,

dear--_Butterton's Weekly_ is a good paper to find a nursing home in, if

you haven't the address of any woman. But there! I expect you will get

along all right."

The moment she had gone Poppy flew out to the nearest paper-shop, bought

a _Butterton's Weekly_, and brought it home for deep study. It is an

odious paper. When she had read a few of its advertisements, nausea

seized her. Was she one of the army of these asking for _secret_ and

_confidential_ homes? And were these homes offered by _discreet nurses_

who could _get the baby adopted if desired_, meant for people like her?

Again shame flushed her, flooded her. She crushed the paper into a ball,

hid it, and went out for the whole day. But when she came in she

uncrushed it, and read in it again with dull eyes.

One little shabby advertisement drew her at last. The address it gave

was a little mean street in Westminster. But the advertiser with great

subtlety, and doubtless at the cost of extra pence, had added the magic

words, "_Near Westminster Abbey._"

Those little words redeemed the whole of the wretched sordid rag for

Poppy. Her soul lifted up its head once more. Westminster Abbey! The

sight of that beautiful place was for all the poor creatures who wanted

these homes--it was for her! _His_ son should be born near Westminster

Abbey!

The next day she sought the address--No. 10, Old Street--and found it

after long wandering. It was, indeed, near Westminster Abbey, but the

street was terribly poor. The minute she got into it, she cried out

within herself:

"No: it cannot be here: I will not have it here--." But at last she

found the number staring at her from a dingy door. At that she turned

and looked for Westminster Abbey--but there was no sign of it: only

tall, narrow, sad houses, with frowsily-curtained windows; bleak

children playing in the gutter and a knife-grinder wailing out his

chant:

"Knives to grind.

Scissors to grind.

Pots and tea-

Kittles to mend."

"I shall die if I come here," she said desperately, and turned to fly,

but the door opened suddenly and a woman came out and ran an eye over

her.

"Good-evening, lady. I see it is me you want," was her laconic greeting.

"Step inside."

And Poppy found herself doing as she was bidden, following the woman

into a tawdry sitting-room, which a seething gas-jet lighted with a blue

and pallid glare. She and the woman faced each other over a

plum-coloured table-cloth that had a border of yellow-floss flowers in

hideous free-hand design.

"Are you Nurse Selton?" Poppy asked; and Mrs. Selton smilingly

acknowledged her name. She was a little dark villain of a woman, with a

hard mouth full of assorted teeth, and shrewd, black eyes. Her

expression, however, was good-tempered, and the nursing costume she wore

gave her an air of respectability, even refinement. She proceeded to

inform Poppy that she was well known and _esteemed_ in the

neighbourhood; that the house was quiet and private "in the extreme";

and that, as a nurse, she possessed all the necessary diplomas and

certificates. (Whether this last was true or not her listener never

discovered.)

"You will be _most_ comfortable," she finished. Poppy shuddered.

"What are your terms?" she asked, in a dull voice, having entirely made

up her mind not to stay with this hateful woman in this hateful house.

But she wished to parley and give herself time to rest, for she felt

strangely ill. The woman named a sum ridiculously high.

"I could not afford to pay that," she answered; and Nurse Selton

regarded her coldly.

"That is not much for a lady of your sort--_first_, I presume? You won't

get lower terms anywhere else. Won't _the gentleman_ help you?"

When Poppy realised the meaning of this question, the best she could do

was to bite her lips and avert her eyes from the odious woman, who

discontentedly continued:

"Well--I'll make it thirty shillings a week _until_, and two pounds a

week _after_. Two guineas _for the little affair_--and if you want a

doctor, a guinea extra."

"I don't think I care to stay," said the girl in a low voice. "You said

in your advertisement that your house was near Westminster Abbey, but I

see that it is nothing of the kind."

"Well, you make a great mistake," said the nurse perkily. "I'll show you

a room where you can see the Abbey as plain as the nose on my face.

Follow me."

And Poppy followed again, through the hall that smelled of frying

herrings and soapsuds, up a narrow, oil-clothed staircase; across two

landings; higher and higher, darker and darker, stumbling and kicking

the narrow steps, to the top landing of all. There were three doors upon

it, and one of them Mrs. Selton opened and drove forward to light a

gas-jet. It smelled close and dank, but yet was inoffensively plain and

simple--the ordinary bedroom furniture with no adornments of any kind.

Straight facing the door was a little casement-window, with a wide ledge

to lean upon; this the nurse approached and threw open.

"There you are," said she stormily; and Poppy looked forth, and looked

again, and stayed looking, for it was well worth having "clomb the

deadly stair" to see. There was the grey old spired pile, lying lovely

against the pale evening light.

"I will stay," she said simply.

The woman thought her a fool.

"Everything paid in advance," said she in a business-like tone. Being

satisfied on that point they descended. Presently, after answering a few

more odiously piercing questions, Poppy escaped.

CHAPTER XVI

In the room overlooking the Abbey were spent many dark and ominous

hours. By direction of Nurse Selton, Poppy presented herself at No. 10

one dreary October day, and while she stood knocking at the door of the

mean house, the grey, sad shadows of Westminster fell across her, and

were not lifted by day or night.

Each part of London has its own peculiar atmosphere. Chelsea is

cheerful; Kensington reserved; Bayswater extremely refined; Bloomsbury

vulgar and pathetic--and a number of other things. Westminster is

essentially sad--sad with a noble, stately sadness.

"It cannot grieve as them that have no hope," but its high towers and

spires, its statues, cloisters, yards, hospitals, and ancient walls--all

have an aloof air of haunting melancholy. Beautiful but unsmiling,

Westminster dreams always and sadly of the great, noble past.

So, when Poppy came into it that October day, its brooding spirit

enfolded her, and all her life after she was never quite able to lift

from her heart the sad, lovely hand of Westminster.

At night, when she could open her little casement-window and gaze out at

the profile of the Abbey, and hear sometimes the bells of "sweet St.

Margaret's," life went kindly with her. Before leaving Hunter Street, at

the last moment, a fair thing had happened. The editor of _The

Cornfield_ had sent her a cheque for eight pounds seventeen shillings,

in payment for a story which she had written in Sophie Cornell's

bungalow and discovered of late at the bottom of a trunk. It was a story

full of sunshine and gay, gibing wit, and the editor asked her for more

work in the same vein. She had none, indeed, to send, but the request

put her in good heart for the future. She essayed to write a little from

day to day in the upper chamber; but the atmosphere was wrong for the

romantic sun-bitten tales of her own land that seethed within her, and

yet evaded her pen when she sought to fasten them to paper. Also, though

she had but to close her eyes to see Africa lying bathed in spring

sunshine, and to remember every detail of scents and sounds, it broke

her heart to write of these things in a room dim with fog and full of a

piercing smell that found its way from the kitchen up four flights of

stairs and through closed doors--the smell of bloaters.

She brightened her room as much as possible with flowers, and taking

down Mrs. Selton's tawdry pictures, had the walls bare, except for a

blue print of Watts's _Hope_--a statuesque-limbed woman, with

blindfolded eyes, who sits at the top of the world sounding the last

string of a broken viol. On a day when hope was bright in her, Poppy had

bought the picture at a little shop in Victoria Street, and now she

counted it one of her dearest possessions. Always it comforted and

cheered her on.

Days came when she needed all the comfort she could get. There were

other women in the house who were apparently in the same case as

herself, but they were haggard, furtive creatures, holding converse with

none, shutting doors swiftly at the approach of anyone but Nurse Selton,

creeping out for air under the cloak of night.

Sometimes the woman in the adjoining room moaned all night, railing at

Fate and God that she should have been brought to this pass.

Once through an open door Poppy heard haggling going on about the

premium to be paid with a baby that was to be "adopted."

The sordidness of life, and the meanness of human nature, pressed around

her. It was hard to keep ideals in such an atmosphere; hard to flaunt

the green flag of love and hope, when there were so many hands eager to

pull it down and trample it in the mire. A joyful spirit seemed out of

place here. To the people she had got among, the thing that she thought

wonderful and lovely was a curse and a bane! The mean house in the back

street and the common-minded people seemed in a conspiracy to make her

feel low, and shameful, when she wished only to be proud and happy.

"This must be part of the terror that comes of breaking the moral law,"

she whispered to herself. "One's act can bring one into contact with

sordid people, and squalor and vice--one may become degraded and soiled

in spite of oneself." She looked around her with hunted eyes. "There is

nothing fine or noble anywhere here, except Watts's picture!" she

thought; but when she opened her window and saw the grand old Abbey, she

could think it no longer. There it lay in the gloom, grand and silent,

standing for great, proud things: the long pile with the hunch at one

end of it and at the other the stately twin pinnacles facing Palace

Yard, where Raleigh's head fell, and where London goes rolling by to

East and to West.

Yes: it stood for all high and noble things and thoughts! All grand

ideals! Nothing squalid there, or shameful! Surely it belonged to

her--belonged to everyone who loved it, and loved what it meant. But did

it? Was she cut off from it because--? She drew in her breath, and

thought for a long time with closed eyes and clasped hands.

"... I suppose morality is one of the high things--and I am not moral. I

am one of the Magdalenes of the earth now!... whoever knows, will call

me an immoral woman! I think I am only a mistaken one. I can see _that_

now, thinking not of myself, but of my son to be. I should, if I had no

moral instincts, at least have thought of consequences to my child!

Well-brought-up girls are trained to think of these things, I suppose.

But I was not well brought up--I was never brought up at all. I was a

child of Nature. A poppy, blowing and flaming in the field--and plucked.

If I had been anything else I should not have been in the garden that

night at a time when well-brought-up girls were in bed! And I should

have flown at the first sound of danger--but I didn't. Not because I did

not recognise danger; but because I _did_ recognise something I had been

looking for all my life--Love. And I put out both arms and embraced it.

_Now_ it seems revealed to me that I should not have done this ... I

should have fenced and fended ... guarded myself ... given nothing ...

until he had asked for me and taken me, before all the world ... and

made a nest for me somewhere away from the squalor of the world where no

begriming thoughts could touch me and smirch the mother of _his_ son.

_Then_ I suppose the Abbey would have been for me too!----"

She twisted her lips and flung out her fingers.

"And I wouldn't change a thing that is done. Not for all the world could

give would I forget or have undone that radiant hour!... And yet ... and

yet ... how I should love the nest for my child ... the peace and fine

honour of a wife's bed to lay _his_ son upon! Oh! why does life tear the

hearts of women in half like this?" She rested her head on her hands and

shed passionate tears for herself and for all women like her. At last

she said:

"Good-night, old Abbey! You are _mine_ all the same--mine because,

moral or immoral, I love the things you stand for. You cannot rob even

bad people of the love of beauty. And no one can rob me of the peace you

have put into my heart night after night."

* * * * *

At last illness descended upon her. She had often known torment of mind,

now she knew torment of body, and her mind did not suffer at all; but

was possessed of a kind of exultation that supported and refreshed her

through terrible gaps of time.

Nurse Selton came in often, but the girl preferred to be alone. Most of

the day was spent between _Hope_ over the mantelpiece and the

casement-window. Often she thought of the native women in her own land,

who, when the time comes to bring forth, go quietly away and make a soft

green bed in some sheltered place, and there suffer in silence and

alone; then, after a few hours, return as quietly to every-day work and

go serenely on with life, the new-born child slung behind the shoulders.

The thought appealed to Poppy. She said:

"That is the way I should have borne my son if I had stayed in

Africa ... out in the air--with the sun shining. But oh! these terrible

walls that shut one in!... and without--cold, fog, mud!"

When evening fell, sickly and grey-green, she opened her casement-window

and leaned upon its sill. The roar of London heard through the fog was

like the dull boom of the breakers on the Durban back beach. Far away,

the sky above Trafalgar Square was spasmodically lit by electric

advertisements.

In the street below, a woman's raucous voice pathetically shrieked:

"It's 'ard to give the 'and

Where the 'eart can _Nev_-ver be."

But Poppy did not hear. With hidden eyes and hands clasped tight upon

the pains that racked her, she was unravelling the mystery of Life and

Love.

* * * * *

Evelyn Carson's son was born in the dawn of a late October day: heralded

in by Big Ben striking the hour of five. Poppy gave one long, ravished

glance at the little dimpled morsel, with its sleek, black head and

features like crumpled rose-leaves, then lay back content and at peace

with all the world.

"How sweet it is to be a woman!" she thought, forgetting all past pain

and despair, all anguish to come. "My heart can never be a stone again,

nor my soul a shrivelled leaf."

She drowsed happily through the days that followed, letting her mind

rest with her body; she thought of nothing but the sweetness of being a

mother; she was intoxicated by the cling of the little lips to her

breast.

"I am a _real_ woman," she said. "This is what I was born for and made

beautiful for. Poor, _poor_ old Sara!"

When Nurse Selton came one day and asked if she would like to get her

child "adopted," she would have struck the woman's face if it had been

within reach. As it was not, she said in a voice that was a drawn sword:

"Go away! I hate you!" And Nurse Selton actually understood and went

away. She considered Poppy--taking one thing with another--the craziest

patient she had ever had.

Poppy talked to her baby afterwards. "I said I would be at peace with

the world for evermore dear one; but here I am, my old self already. And

I see that it will always be so. I must be at war for _your_ sake now. I

must fight _your_ enemies--until you are old enough to fight them for

yourself. To _dare_ suggest such a thing!" A little while after she

whispered passionately to the sleek, black head:

"She did not know she was speaking of a king's son!"

CHAPTER XVII

When the time came for departure from No. 10, Old Street, Poppy did not

go from Westminster. The grip of the place was on her and she did not

care to leave it. But she sought and found a part of more cheerful

aspect--a quiet square with a triangle of green in its centre, and the

spire of an old church showing above the branches of trees in one of its

corners. The house where she engaged two rooms had an old-fashioned air,

though upon the opening of the front door was disclosed the depressing

interior common to most houses of its kind--the worn linoleum in the

hall and stairway; the inevitable pretentious hall-chair and

umbrella-stand; the eternal smell of fish and boiling linen. But the two

rooms were an artistic find. They had been inhabited and furnished by an

actress, who was married to an artist, and were original without being

uncomfortable.

The walls were papered with ordinary brown paper to a ledge of painted

wood, above which rose a smoke-grey paper with pale zigzags upon it,

making a charming background for a number of water-colour sketches and

black-and-white etchings of all the chief theatrical celebrities, from

Sir Henry Irving downwards.

There was also a piano--old and wicked, but still a piano, and various

odd and quaint bits of furniture. The owners of these things had gone to

America for a two-years' tour, and being anxious to come back to their

rooms when they returned, had given the landlady instructions to "let

furnished," and make what she could out of them. Poppy seized them with

joy, glad to have so pleasant a setting for the struggle and fight she

knew must ensue.

From the first it was bound to be a handicapped fight, for the king's

son behaved like one, and a tyrannical despot at that. It was plain that

work would only be achieved by desperate and persistent effort at all

sorts of odds and ends of time in the day and night.

Probably things would have been more difficult still, but for the

offices of a kindly soul who lived in the lower regions of the house by

day, and ascended to somewhere near the stars at night, accompanied by

her husband and two children.

She had opened the door to Poppy on the first visit, and having been the

medium through which the rooms and tenant were brought together, she

thereafter looked upon the tenant as her special _protegee_. She was a

real Cockney, born and bred in Horseferry Road--quite young still, but

with the hopelessly middle-aged, slack-waisted, slip-shod look of the

English working man's wife who, having achieved a husband and two

children, is content to consider her fate fulfilled and herself no more

a player, but merely a _passee_ looker-on at the great game of life.

However, Mrs. Print did her looking on very good-humouredly. Her teeth

were decayed, her hair in strings, but she carried an air of perpetual

cheer and a wide smile. Her husband, a spruce, fresh-cheeked young

cabman, looked, on the contrary, as though all the cares of the universe

lay across his shoulders.

"'E always puts on that look," smiled Mrs. Print to Poppy; "in case I

might ask 'im for an hextra sixpence for the 'ousekeeping."

She "charred" for Poppy; did various things, such as lighting the

sitting-room fire and keeping the hearth and fire-irons clean. During

this last business, which she always managed to prolong to the best

part of an hour, she would give Poppy a brief summary of the morning

news; an account of what the rest of the people in the house had been

doing; what her George had said to her before he went to work; little

bits of information about her two children; and advice about the

treatment of Poppy's baby--generally sound.

She nearly drove poor Poppy frantic, yet it was impossible to be really

angry with her: she was so essentially well-meaning and so unconsciously

humorous. Besides, she took the king's son into the garden of the Square

for a couple of hours every fine afternoon, carrying him most carefully

up and down whilst she conversed in loud, agreeable tones with a dozen

and one people who passed by, exchanging chaff and banter, roaring with

laughter, scolding her own children--Jimmy and Jack--who were left to

amuse themselves by staring at the immaculate plots of arsenically-green

grass and the bare branches of the trees. If they did anything else,

their mother's tongue would wag and her finger threaten.

"Come off there, Jimmy! Jack, if you do that again, I'll pay you--I'll

pay you _somethink merciful_!" Jack, a stolid, emotionless boy, looked

as though he had been badly carved out of a log of wood; but Jimmy was

of a more vivid appearance, being afflicted with what his mother called

_St. Viper's Dance_.

In her window Poppy would sit at her table, her eyes occasionally

glancing at the figures in the Square, her pen flying over the paper

before her. She was writing for money. Thoughts of Fame had slipped away

from her. She put her child before Fame now: and wrote no better for

that.

Day by day she grew paler, and the high cheek-bones had shadows beneath

them that might easily turn into hollows. She had not regained flesh

much, and a little of her buoyancy was gone. What she needed was to sit

in the air and sunshine all day playing with her baby's dimples. Dank

Westminster, built on a swamp, low-lying and foggy, when all the rest of

London was clear, was no place for her or for her baby; but she did not

know it, and had no time to find out, so wrapt was she in the business

of making money that would assure home and life for her child and

herself.

The days were all too short, and soon the midnight-oil began to burn.

Thereafter, shadows really _did_ change gradually into hollows--very

soft hollows, however. Still, her eyes were always blue and brave. Mrs.

Print used to observe her disapprovingly and tell her that she should

take a leaf out of the book of the _lydy_ upstairs, who lay on the sofa

all day reading novels.

"Miss Never-Sweat--that's what I calls her!" she said, contemptuously

dismissing thus an anaemic blonde damsel on the first floor, who

mysteriously did nothing except take a fat poodle for half an hour's

walk every day. Mrs. Print's attitude towards this graceful _dilettante_

was one of resentful suspicion--resentful because she did nothing:

suspicious for the same reason!

"With everybody helse in this 'ouse, including you, Mrs. Chard, it is

"'Come day, go day,

Please, God, send Sunday.'

"But all days looks the same to _'er_," she remarked, as she diligently

polished the fire-irons in Poppy's sitting-room. The latter, intensely

bored, knew that it was no use trying to divert Mrs. Print from the

subject until it was exhausted; _then_, mayhap, she would depart.

"When I went up to do 'er fire this morning, she says to me, she says"

(here Mrs. Print pitched her voice high and fell into a drawl), "'Oh,

Mrs. Print, _dear_, I _do_ feel so hill this morning. I've got pains in

my 'ead and chest, and I can't henjoy my food at all. And my nerves is

quite _rore_.' I gives one look at her yeller skin, and I says: 'Why,

you've got the _boil_, that's what _you've_ got, for want of getting

about on your two pins. Wot you want to do is to go to the chimist's

round the corner, and arst him for a pennorth of ikery-pikery. When

you've took _that_, come back 'ome and turn out these two rooms of yours

and cook your dinner--' She give me a look like a mad hyhena, and

slabbed the door."

"Now, Mrs. Print," said her listener wearily, "do make haste and finish

that fender. I want to work while baby is asleep."

"Yes ma'am, I shan't be another minit. I must just give the 'earth a

brush up, 'a dirty 'earth makes dinner late,' and that's what mine'll be

to-day, same as breakfast was, and Old George gone off in a dandy

because he was late."

She always spoke of her husband as Old George, her children as _our_

Jack and _my_ Jimmy.

* * * * *

As the days went by, writing became more and more impossible to Poppy.

It had begun to be a weary grinding out of words, common-place, and

uninspired. She came to hate the sight of her writing-table, because of

the torment of disgust that seized her as she sat at it and read over

such things as she had been able to write. And her longing to be out in

the air became almost intolerable. She felt like a starved

woman--starved for want of the wind and trees and flowers, anything that

smelt of open free spaces such as she had known all her life until now.

And nothing happened to encourage her. She had no news of her _Book of

Poems_, and when she called to see the publisher, he was never visible,

and when she wrote she got no answer except that the reader for the firm

had not been able to look through the book. Her story had not yet

appeared in _The Cornfield_, and the one she had followed it up with

came back, accompanied by a little printed paper, which read to the

effect that the editor was at present "overstocked." Of course, this was

a polite way of saying that the story wasn't up to the standard of the

magazine. She burned with chagrin when she first read it. Afterwards,

she became hardened to the daily sight of intimations of the kind, and

to the sickening thud of returned manuscripts in the letter-box.

The day when she had no money in the world but the thirty shillings

realised by the sale of her piece of Spanish lace, she left the baby

with Mrs. Print and walked all the way to Hunter Street, on the forlorn

hope that some editor might have addressed a letter to her there,

enclosing a cheque. Miss Drake, the good-natured landlady, was alarmed

to see her looking so ill.

"You are sitting to your desk too much, dear, and losing your

beauty--and you know no girl can afford to do _that_ until she has forty

thousand in the bank," she said with a broad smile. "Why don't you chuck

writing over and try the stage? A girl of your appearance could get into

the Gaiety or Daly's any day, especially if you have any kind of a

voice. The change of life and scene would do you a lot of good--and take

it from _me_, dear, there's nothing so comforting in this world as a

regular salary."

On top of the 'bus she was obliged from sheer weariness to take back to

Westminster, Poppy turned the idea over in her mind. The stage had never

had any attraction for her. Unlike most girls, she did not hold the

belief that she had only to be seen and heard upon the boards to become

famous. But she could not turn away from the thought of the change from

sitting at her desk; and the regular salary had its potent charm,

too--Miss Drake spoke like an oracle there!

However, she put the thought by for another day or two. She would give

literature another chance, she said, with an ironical lip, and she

essayed to finish her novel. For three days and the better part of three

nights she hung over it in every moment she could spare from her child;

at the end of that time she thrust the manuscript into the drawer of her

table and locked it up.

"Lie there and wait for the inspired hour," she said. "I must look for

other ways and means to boil the pot."

The wrench was to leave the "king's son" at home crooning in hired arms

beneath the eye of Mrs. Print.

It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of theatrical agents

and managers. She presented herself at the office of one of the

best-known agents in London.

The staircase that led to his waiting-room was crowded with lounging,

clean-shaven men, and the waiting-room hummed with the voices of girls

and women and more men, all gabbling at once. Phrases made themselves

heard above the din.

"No: I won't go into panto--not if Frankie goes down on his knees to

me."

"Oh, he's sure to do _that_, dear!"

"She says that her figure is her stock-in-trade--musical comedy, of

course."

"H'm! more stock than trade, I should say."

A score or so of made-up eyes raked Poppy from under heavy

_complexion_-veiling; she became aware of such strong scents as

_frangipani_ and _chypre_; many ropes of large pearls; heavy fur coats

flung open to reveal sparkling _art_-chains slung round bare,

well-powdered necks. A wry-lipped quotation of Abinger's flitted through

her memory:

"Diamonds me.

Sealskins me,

I'm going on the stage."

When, after weary waiting, her turn came to be admitted to the agent's

inner sanctum, she found a clean-looking, brown young man, with grey

hair and a shrewd eye. He shot an enveloping glance over her while she

was closing the door.

"Well, dear, what do _you_ want?" he asked briskly, but pleasantly--all

theatrical people "dear" each other automatically, but Poppy, not

knowing this, flushed at the term. She explained that she was seeking

work on the stage.

"Any experience?"

"No."

"Can you sing?"

"No."

"Dance?"

"Yes." (Abinger had allowed her to take lessons in Florence.)

"Good legs?"

He regarded her puzzled eyes with impatience.

"Any photographs in tights? I like to know what I'm engaging, you know.

A lot of you girls come here with your spindle-shanks hidden under

flounced petticoats and flowing skirts; and your bones wrapped up in

heavy coats and feather boas, and you cut a great dash, and when we get

you on the stage in tights it's another story altogether--not that I'm

saying it about _you_, dear, for I can see----"

"I don't think I am what you require in any case," she said as she

reached the door. "Good-morning."

She fled through the waiting-room and down the stairs. Some of the

loungers shared a smile.

"A greenhorn, evidently!" they said. "What has Frankie been saying?"

The next day she beat her way through wind and rain to another office.

And the next day to yet another. Within a week she did the whole dreary

round. All the waiting-rooms were crowded, for the spring provincial

tours were coming on, and engagements were being booked briskly; also,

there were many vacancies occurring in the pantomimes.

Several managers, taken with Poppy's appearance, offered her small parts

(with a good understudy) in touring companies. But she knew that it

would be impossible to think of travelling with her baby, and she did

not for a moment contemplate leaving him.

By talking to all the people who talked to her, and "theatricals,"

generally, are a kindly, sociable people, she learned that it was of no

great use to try the agencies for London engagements.

"Go to the theatres themselves," they said; adding cheerfully: "not that

_that's_ much good either. Every stage manager has a gang of pets

waiting for an opening to occur, and they never let an outsider get in."

One agent, rather more kindly than the rest, suggested that she should

try the Lyceum Theatre.

"Ravenhill is taking it for a Shakespearian season," he said. "And I

should say that class of work would just suit you."

Poppy thought so too, and wasted no time about finding the Lyceum.

"Yes, Mr. Ravenhill is seeing small-part ladies and walkers-on to-day,"

the door-keeper informed her confidentially, and after a long waiting

she was eventually shown into the Green-room, where she found the

well-known Shakespearian actor sitting on a trunk, reading his letters,

in the midst of piles of scenery and robes.

He was a thin, Hamlet-faced man, with a skin of golden pallor and

romance-lit eyes, and he looked at Poppy with kindness and comradeship.

"Have you had any experience?" he asked.

"None at all," said Poppy sadly. She was getting tired of the question,

and felt inclined to vary the answer, but the truthful, kind eyes

abashed the thought.

"Is there anything you could recite to me?"

Poppy thought swiftly. She knew volumes of prose and poetry, but at the

word everything fled from her brain except two things--Raleigh's "O

Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death!" which she in somewhat morbid mood had

been reading the night before, and a poem of Henley's that had been dear

to her since she had loved Carson. In desperation, at last she opened

her lips and gave forth the sweet, tender words, brokenly, and with

tears lying on her pale cheeks, but with the voice of a bird in the

garden:

"When you are old and I am passed away--

Passed: and your face, your golden face is grey,

I think--what e'er the end, this dream of mine

Comforting you a friendly star shall shine

Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.

"Dear Heart, it shall be so: under the sway

Of death, the Past's enormous disarray

Lies hushed and dark. Still tho' there come no sign,

Live on well pleased; immortal and divine

Love shall still tend you as God's angels may,

When you are old."

When she had finished she stood, swaying and pale, tears falling down.

Ravenhill looked at her sadly. He thought: "This girl has more than her

share of the world's hard luck."

"I will take you as a walker-on," he said, "with an understudy and with

the chance of a small part. You have a fine voice, and a

temperament--but I need not tell you that. Of course, if you want to get

on, you need to study and work hard. I can't offer you more than thirty

shillings a week--with a difference if you play."

He did not mention that all other walkers-on with understudies were only

getting a guinea; some of them nothing at all. He only looked at her

with kindness and comradeship.

As for her: she could have fallen at his feet in thankfulness. The

contract was signed and she went home happy.

Thirty shillings a week _certain_!

CHAPTER XVIII

It was in bitter February weather that Poppy's engagement began, and

there had been a week of heavy rehearsing before the opening night. She

soon felt the strain of the unaccustomed work. Ravenhill's was a

Repertoire-Company, and the bill was changed every week, so that while

they played one play at night they were busy most of the day rehearsing

another for the coming week. This meant that from ten o'clock in the

morning until three or four in the afternoon, and again from seven until

eleven at night, Poppy was parted from her baby. She was obliged to

permanently employ a little nursemaid, and also, to her bitter sorrow,

to wean her baby.

She comforted herself disconsolately with the thought that the change

was better for him, because she was not so vigorous now as at first. But

many a time the silky black head was scalded with its mother's tears,

for that she might no more feel the cling of little lips.

The theatre began to interest her from a literary point of view. The

writing of plays suggested itself as a fascinating medium for the

expression of herself; she saw that knowledge of stage-craft would be of

enormous use to her in this direction, and she became absorbed in

observing and making notes on everything concerning stage technique and

production.

Her appearance, when "made up," was quite charming, and Ravenhill was

always glad to put her into a scene, and would give her a one-line part

whenever it was possible. Often she would find herself "on" alone with

the "star" in a scene--a court lady, perhaps, lingering by a window

while the Queen gave forth an impassioned soliloquy; or a picturesque

figure in the background of a garden-scene; but terrible shyness and

emotion affected her when she had to open her lips on the stage, if only

to say "Good-morrow" or "Come hither"; and her voice was altogether too

delicate and canorous for stage use. She preferred to be on with the

crowd--a peasant woman in a tattered skirt and kerchief, leading a

hooting riot in _Richard II_, or a stately lady dancing in the house of

the _Capulets_, or an Egyptian girl in the streets of Alexandria

carrying a torch to light _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ to bed. Ravenhill was

disappointed in her that she did not work at her voice, nor seem anxious

for parts. He did not know that she was trying to serve two gods; and

that all her incense was burnt at the altar of literature, for still she

returned and returned again to the mistress she loved, but whose face

was turned from her.

She could not afford to ride to and fro from the theatre, for there were

four journeys to be made on ordinary days, and on _matinee_ days six,

and tenpence a day made too large a hole in a salary needed for many

things. So at night she took a 'bus to Westminster Bridge at the cost of

a halfpenny and from thence, in all weathers, she faithfully

padded-the-hoof for home. The shelter of the long stretch of St.

Stephen's and the Houses of Parliament was always grateful; sometimes,

just as she turned the corner of the Victoria Tower, the wind from the

river would sweep and curl around her, nearly rushing her off her feet.

Then came the long, cutting tramp along the Embankment. Often in those

midnight walks she thought of Charles Bramham. He, too, had known

walking in the biting cold on tired feet and with a painfully empty

stomach! The fatigue that got hold of her sometimes was terrible. But

always for the sake of the silky black head of a king's son, she laughed

and worked on.

The people at the theatre were kind and pleasant, and she made many

friends. But they were friends of the theatre only, she kept them all

rigidly out of her private life; and that not without effort, for her

personality was magnetic and people always wanted to know her. She was

interesting and mysterious, they thought, and presently she became the

enigma of the theatre because she never lied about her salary, nor

bragged of her genius, nor repeated fascinating things that "someone in

front" had said about her voice and her face, nor bored anyone with

tales of the great future predicted for her.

Indeed, she was at this time striving with a valorous heart to live

according to Stevenson's creed:

"To be honest: to be kind:

To earn a little--and to spend a little less."

* * * * *

One day when she had got home early from rehearsal, and was spending

some rapturous moments over the adored silken head asleep on its pillow,

Mrs. Print came to her very much _en deshabille_, her head wrapped in a

towel, full of excitement.

"There's a gentleman at the front door, knocking," she said; "and, oh,

ma'am, Mrs. Chard would you be so kind as to open it? As sure as I wash

my 'ead, it always 'appens so!"

Poppy, good-naturedly, complied, giving a switch of her eye at a mirror

first, for vanity was far from being dead in her yet. She opened the

door to--Charles Bramham!

Pale with amazement, she stood glimmering at him through her hair.

"You!" she cried; then held out her hands in welcome, for welcome he

truly was, with the smell and burn of Africa on him.

"Yes; me! I bet you didn't think I'd have the cheek to come and find you

out. I had a great time digging your address out of Miss Drake. But why

should you hide? Mayn't I come in?"

"Of course," she said, and led the way; but her manner was a little

constrained. It had not been on her programme at all to let Charles

Bramham, or any other man, into the secret of her life.

"What do you want?" she asked half crossly, when they were in the

sitting-room.

"To see you. And you looked mightily glad to see me, at first. Don't

tell me now, that you are not! But what have you been doing to yourself?

London is killing you. You'd better come back to Africa, or you'll pass

out. You're so thin I can see through you, and your eyes are too big for

your face."

He sat down and they talked eagerly. She told him something of her

disappointments, more of her hopes, and at last, of being obliged to

take to the theatre as a stop-gap "until such time as she began to

succeed in literature."

"But why work like this?" he said discontentedly. "You'll kill yourself

burning two candles at once."

"Not I?" said she gaily. She had no intention of letting him know that

but for her stage salary she would be penniless.

"I don't see any sense in it," he muttered. "It can't be because you

like work. No woman ever yet liked work--they weren't meant to. Anyhow,

you can knock off for to-day. Put your hat on and come out for a drive

and to dinner. I'll drive you to your theatre afterwards."

"I'm afraid I can't," Poppy faltered. "I never go out ... I can't leave

my work ... I am tired." She stopped lamely. He knew that she was not

speaking the truth. The fact was, that she had given the little

nursemaid an hour or two off.

"Ah! there's something you don't care to tell me," he said with a

half-smile; but a shadow crossed his face. At that moment they were both

transfixed by a sound. The king's son began to lament in the next room.

Bramham would never have guessed, but he happened to see the look that

leapt into her eyes at the sound; then he stood staring at her with a

question in his, while the scarlet slowly mounted to her cheeks.

In truth, she was filled with confusion, and did not know what to say.

She remembered the time she had accepted his offer of money and help;

how she had talked to him then of her work and aspirations, but had

breathed no word of _this_. How could he know that the truth had been

hidden even from her? What could he think but that she had deceived him,

made use of him?

The king's son cried again, indignantly, beseechingly. Again Bramham saw

the mother-look leap to her eyes. With no word she flew from the room.

When she returned she was carrying a little fragrant bundle, and she

came to Bramham, who was apparently rooted to the spot where she had

left him. He had heard her crooning to the child in the next room, but,

like an unbelieving Thomas, he wanted still more proof. Her face gave it

to him. Confusion was gone. Only tender, brooding peace and love was

there. She held the baby under his eyes.

"My son, Charlie!"

He stared down blankly at the little lovely thing, and it stared back at

him.

"Good God!" said he; "am I dreaming? I could swear that was Eve Carson's

child!"

"Yes," said Poppy softly, and her voice was _ci risuoniamo in

cristallo_. "It is. But how did you know?" she wonderingly asked.

Charles Bramham was dumb. He could only stare. Later, he sat down

heavily in a chair and used his handkerchief.

"Life has held a good many surprises for me, but never one like this.

_Carson!_ ... and _you_!... He my dearest friend! You, well, you know

what I feel about you. Yet you two have deceived me! Sprung this amazing

thing on me. Why! I _can't_ understand it.... Good God! I love that

fellow! ... _he_ could--?"

"Oh! Charlie, dear friend, you go too fast. Don't judge or misjudge.

Nothing is as you think. He did not deceive you ... nor did I. That

night you offered to help me and I accepted, I ... _I didn't know that

this wonderful thing was going to happen to me_ ... and _he_ knows

nothing. It is _my_ secret."

Bramham digested these things as best he might. Later, he said:

"Well he's _got_ to know--and I shall tell him. Why, he's not that sort

of fellow at all, Rosalind ... he would throw everything to Hades for

the sake of a woman he loved ... and, of course, he loves you, and would

be here with you if he knew.... The whole thing is the craziest mystery

I ever heard of ... _of course_, he can't know ... but I shall tell him,

if I have to go up to Borapota after him."

"Never, _never_!" said she. "No one shall ever tell him. It is _my_

secret. You dare not interfere. I would never forgive you."

He turned away from her, angry, sore, bitterly puzzled.

"Oh, Charlie," she said wistfully. "Don't be angry. This is _my_

life--my secret.... Leave me to do as seems best to me.... Tell me," she

said softly, "how did you know that my child ... is ... _his_ son?"

"Know? Why, anyone would know. He is the dead image--and there are Eve

Carson's eyes staring at me. No two men in the world have eyes like

that."

"Are they not beautiful? And yet so strange!--one blue and one brown! I

never--" she stopped suddenly. She had almost told Bramham that she did

not know that Carson's eyes looked thus, since she had never seen them,

except in the darkness. But much as she liked Bramham, she could not

share with him _that_ strange, sweet secret.

Only one more question Bramham asked her.

"Was it Karri you told me of that night, Rosalind?--the man you loved?"

"Yes," she said. "The only man I have ever loved, or will love."

She dined with Bramham, after all, and before they parted she had bound

him by every oath he honoured never to reveal her secret to Carson.

"If you do," she passionately told him, "you may precipitate both him

and me into terrible misery, and neither of us would forgive you. We

should probably hate you for ever. Leave alone things that you do not

understand.... How _should_ you understand! You have accidentally

touched on the fringe of a strange story ... something you would never

have known except by accident. For I don't intend the world to know this

when it knows _me_ some day, Charlie."

"Why?" said he, looking keenly at her. "Are you ashamed of your child?"

"Ashamed!" she laughed happily. "Ashamed of the greatest joy that ever

came to a woman; the son of the man she loves!"

A happy look came into his face, too, for the first time since he had

known the truth.

"That's the spirit! If a woman has the courage to take the big jump, she

should have the grit to face the fences all round the course ... but I

don't believe many do; and you can't blame them for that either.

Rosalind, I want to tell you something. I'm a rich man, and I ... I have

no children." He swallowed an odd sound in his throat and averted his

eyes for a moment, but went on calmly: "I long ago made up my mind to

leave every rap, when I die, to women who have done what you have

done--and had to suffer for it."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a while.

"I think you would be wrong, Charlie. People would call it putting a

premium on sin, and--you couldn't really help the woman who suffered.

Nothing could help her. The right kind of woman would value her

suffering more than your money, believe me." Then, as she saw his

saddened face, she said, "Help the little love-babies, if you like, and

bring them up to be as kind and sweet a friend as _you_ are to women--"

Impulsively he put his hand on hers lying on the dinner-table.

"Let me--" he began.

"But never offer to help _my_ love-baby," she said warningly, "as long

as he has a mother to work for him, and a king for his father somewhere

in the world."

CHAPTER XIX

At the end of April the season at the Lyceum drew to a close, and

Ravenhill re-formed his company to tour the provinces.

Many of those who had worked with him throughout the season were moneyed

girls, with such a passion for the stage, that they were only

too glad to give their services--"walking-on," dancing, and

understudying--without salary, for the sake of the experience in a

London theatre; and it would have been an easy matter for the manager to

have composed his touring company largely of such people. But he

happened to be a man with a big heart for the stragglers of the

profession; those who were in it for the love of their art, too, but

incidentally obliged to make a living. And so, though he did not disdain

to employ occasional rich amateurs, he never allowed them to usurp the

work of legitimate actors and actresses.

In making a selection of people who would be useful to him by reason of

their looks, or talent, or both, he included Poppy on his list, and

forthwith she received a little notice during the last London week to

the effect that if she cared to go on tour (with the hope of advancement

if she studied) the offer was open to her. But the salary offered was

smaller than she had been receiving, and she knew that it was useless to

think of travelling with her small Pat and supporting herself and him on

it. (Ravenhill was unaware, of course, that there was any question of

supporting a child.) She was obliged to refuse the offer.

With the closing of the theatre the face of the future took on a blank

and appalling expression. Exercising the greatest economy, she had yet

not been able to save more than three pounds out of her long engagement;

and she knew not where the next money was to come from. The stories she

wrote still faithfully returned. The _Book of Poems_, the one brave

string in her viol of hope, had been lost. The publisher said that it

was only mislaid and might be found at any moment; but Poppy felt a sick

certainty that she would never hear of or see her darling book again.

Most foolishly, she had kept no copy of it, and though she believed that

by turning up the pages of her memory she might re-write it, she could

not spare the time it would cost to do this. Even if she had the

necessary leisure, she despaired of ever writing her poems again in all

their first perfection--a thought would surely be lost here, a line

missing there!

Heart-broken, rage seized her when she first received the news. She saw

a red haze before her eyes as in the days when she hated Aunt Lena, and

she longed for a hammer and the publisher's head on a block. Afterwards

she achieved calmness that was not resignation, and went to interview

the publisher and find out what he meant to do. Apparently he had not

meant to do anything except take up the bland and Micawberesque attitude

of waiting for the book to "turn up." But Poppy's heart was full of the

rage and fear of a mother-wolf who sees famine ahead, and though she

successfully hid these primitive emotions under a composed manner, there

was a feverish urgency about her which, strangely convincing, subtly

communicated itself to the publisher, so that presently, quite

unintentionally, he found himself promising (in the event of the book

not being found within three months) to pay her a sum to be agreed upon,

but not less than twenty pounds. In the meantime he engaged, if the

book should "turn up," to read it and make her a _conscientious offer_

for it. He did not forget to add that poems were unmarketable ware at

the best of times, and that he could not hold out hope of any specially

high price for hers.

With these conditions Poppy was fain to be content, though there was

poor comfort in them for her. Three months is not long if fame and name

wait at the end. But it is a long time to wait for twenty pounds. And it

is too long to starve. In a panic she started out once more on the

dreary round of agents' offices and theatres. At the end of a week's

wasted walking, and talking, chill despair began to eat its way into her

brave heart; in the second week the chill was freezing bitter cold that

enwrapped, and seemed to paralyse her senses, so that she could feel

nothing but dull fear, not for herself, but for little crowing, merry

Pat. At that time her thoughts turned to Bramham, her friend. But he was

gone, and she knew not where to find him. He had bidden her good-bye and

sailed for South America on a prolonged visit. It would be many months

before he returned to Durban.

In the third week, while she was eking out her last ten shillings, still

desperately seeking work at the theatres, she met in the Strand a girl

who had been with her at the Lyceum--one of Ravenhill's moneyed girls,

pretty and charming, with a host of friends and acquaintances, of whom

she bitterly complained that they would not allow her to fulfill her

destiny and become a _Sarah Bernhardt_. She and Poppy had shared the

same mirror in a Lyceum dressing-room, and become friendly over their

"make-up" boxes.

By many little marks and signs that women judge on, Marion Ashley had

concluded that Miss Chard needed every penny of the small salary she

earned. Her idea was that Poppy probably had an invalid mother or sister

to support; and she had often wished for an opportunity to lend a

helping-hand to a girl whom she sincerely liked and admired. When, in

the Strand, she met Poppy, pale and harassed, in worn shoes and an

unseasonable gown, a thought shot through her quick mind and she

advanced gaily, holding out her hands.

"You are the _very_ girl I wanted to see," she cried. "Come into

'Slater's' for tea, and _do_ see if you can help me in a _great_

difficulty."

While Poppy took off her gloves Marion Ashley poured out the tea and her

tale. It transpired that she had a cousin who was young and pretty and

rich, but with a broken back. She had injured herself in the

hunting-field and would never be able to walk again.

"Ever since, she has become the most awful peevish creature in the

world, poor thing, and one can't be surprised at that! But no one can

put up with her temper, and no one will stay with her, though she has

had companion after companion. She insists on their being young and

pretty, and afterwards she is jealous of them and fires them out. Then

her mother and her husband come and fetch _me_ round, no matter where I

am, and really, you know, dear, it's a _little_ hard on _me_ to have my

_career_ interfered with ... it isn't as though I can be of any real

use, for Frances is jealous of me too, if I am in the house much. Well,

I'm looking out for someone for her now, and--I thought perhaps you

could help me. _Do_ say you can?"

She looked appealingly at the pale face opposite her, but Poppy gave no

sign. She had considered the matter rapidly, but--companionships were

badly paid, as a rule, and she would have to be separated from her

little Pat. Marion Ashley's face fell.

"To tell the truth, dear," she said, "I thought you might undertake it

yourself. Of course, I know you're far too good for that sort of thing;

but I thought you might make a stop-gap of it--and the salary would be

good--a hundred a year Frances pays, and you'd have no expenses."

Poppy's face changed. A hundred a year! If she _must_ part with Pat that

would at least ensure him a home in the country, and she could save the

rest.

"It is very good of you, Miss Ashley.... Will you let me think it over?"

"Oh, yes--_anything_, if you will only take it on. I should be _so_

glad. Her husband is always round bothering the life out of me to find

someone. Oh! I must tell you, dear there's _one_ thing besides Frances's

temper ... _he_ is difficult."

"Bad-tempered, too?" smiled Poppy.

"_Far_ from it--altogether too good-tempered and fascinating--especially

where a pretty girl is concerned. In fact, my dear, he's rapid--and

Frances is jealous; so there you have the trouble in a nutshell.

Tiresome, isn't it? It's just as well to know these things beforehand.

But I daresay you'll be able to keep him in his place."

This information depressed Poppy more than a little. She was beginning

to realise that whether she liked them or not, she attracted men, and

she would rather have heard of some place where there was no man on the

scene. As it happened, she was still smarting from an experience of the

night before. She had, in mistake, opened the door of a first-class

carriage in the underground station at Victoria. She speedily closed it,

but the one occupant, a man, had had time to observe her, and instantly

he whipped the door open again and was out on the platform. A minute

afterwards she found an almost empty "third" and stepped into it just as

the train started, someone hard on her heels. When she looked up there

was the first-class passenger opposite, smiling at her. For the rest of

the journey he made ardent love to her with his eyes, and she sat,

flaming and paling there with anger. The man was serenely handsome, a

gentleman in appearance at least, but his eyes had a look that angered

and terrified her; a look that now she seemed to know the meaning of.

"It is terrible to have no innocence left! to know the meaning of a man

like that!" she thought shudderingly, and she would not meet his eyes.

Only she resolved that _always_ she would turn her feet away from the

paths frequented by men.

"Where does your cousin live?" she asked at last. "Perhaps, I'd better

go and see her, if I make up my mind I can take the engagement."

"Yes, _do_, dear--Lower Sloane Street--I'll write the number down for

you. I must fly now for rehearsal. I'm going to be in the new romantic

play at The York. Send me a line there after you've seen Frances. _Do_

take it on, there's a darling--good-bye."

Poppy spent the afternoon crooning and weeping over Pat's head. It

seemed to her that she died a little death every time she thought of

parting with him. But--was it not true that the little face had lost

some of its pink tints of late?--that the odd eyes were growing larger?

After she had dried her desperate tears and could trust herself to speak

equably and reasonably, she called Mrs. Print into consultation.

Mrs. Print had a sister-in-law who lived in a rose-clad cottage in

Surrey, and adored babies. Poppy had often seen and talked to her, and

let her take Pat out; for she came up to London constantly to try to

beguile Mrs. Print to part with one of her little boys--even the

vivacious Jimmy would have been made welcome.

Mrs. Print assured Poppy that no _Dook's_ baby would be better looked

after than a child in Sarah Print's care, and that she (Poppy) could go

and stay down in the little rose-clad cottage whenever she was free,

for Sarah had lots of room, a lovely garden, and corn-fields all round

her.

"You can't see nothing but 'ills and corn-fields wheresumever you look!

It would drive me off my nut to live there a week, but Sarah likes it.

You tike baby down and go and 'ave a look to-morrow, ma'am."

"Nothing but hills and corn-fields!"

The words brought a mist over Poppy's eyes. _That_ was what she wanted

for her son. She kissed him and asked Mrs. Print to mind him for an hour

while she went to Sloane Street.

* * * * *

In a bright room, among flowers, the invalid woman lay on a couch, with

an embroidered coverlet of crimson satin drawn up to her chin. Her face

was pale and petulant, with great brown eyes that roamed restlessly and

were full of peevish misery. She was of the fickle, impetuous nature

that indulges in groundless hates and likings, and the moment she saw

Poppy standing there, she put out her hands feverishly, as if for

something she had long wanted. Poppy, indeed, was sweet and

dewy-looking, as always when she came from her little love-baby, and now

the added beauty of courageous renouncement lighted her lilac eyes.

"Ah! I _know_ you are the girl Marion was talking about," cried the

invalid. "You _will_ come, won't you? How lovely you are--I shall just

_love_ having you with me! Come and sit here where I can see you--but

don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."

Poppy sat down by the couch and submitted to being stared at, even

touched by the pale, restless hands. Mrs. Chesney did most of the

talking. She only required a monosyllable here and there, and her manner

varied oddly, from a cold hauteur which she vainly tried to make

indifferent, to entreaty that was almost servile.

"Do you like reading aloud?" she demanded, and before Poppy could speak,

continued swiftly: "Oh, never mind, I don't care if you don't--_of

course_, everybody _hates_ it. Can you play?"

This time she waited for an answer, and Poppy saying yes, was waved

towards a beautiful Erard that stood in a far corner. Taking off her

gloves, she went over to it, and immediately her fingers fell into a

soft and haunting melody of Ireland. The woman on the couch closed her

eyes and lay like one in a trance.

While she played, Poppy resolved to take the opening offered her here.

It was a living and a well-paid one. Little Pat could be sent away

to a good home in the country, and though the parting must be

bitter--bitter-- Ah! she could not think of it! What she _must_ think of

was food to keep life in his little loved body, health for him in fresh

sweet air; money to keep herself alive to work for him.

As she rose from the piano there was a prayer of thankfulness on her

lips for this fresh chance to live. A door opened and a man came

nonchalantly in.

"Oh, Harry!" cried the invalid. "This is Miss Chard--she is going to be

my new companion. Miss Chard--my husband."

Poppy bowed to the man, meeting the amused cynicism of his glance

gravely. Not by word or look did she betray the fact that she had ever

seen him before. But thankfulness died away in her, and once more the

face of the future lowered.

Harry Chesney was the hero of the adventure in the underground railway

carriage.

While she was putting on her gloves, preparing to go, she told Mrs.

Chesney that she would call in the morning, when the engagement could be

finally arranged.

It would have been awkward and painful to have told the sick woman _now_

that she was not able to accept the engagement. Being of so jealous a

temperament, the invalid would probably suspect that the decision had

something to do with her husband and would be caused misery in this

thought.

"It will be simple to write to-night that circumstances have occurred

which prevent me from coming," was Poppy's thought as she said good-bye.

"Touch the bell twice," said Mrs. Chesney.

"Oh! I'll see Miss Chard down," said Chesney, but Poppy had made no

delay in touching the bell and a maid magically appeared.

* * * * *

The next day she waited at the York Theatre and saw Marion Ashley after

rehearsal.

"I wanted to thank you," she said, "and to tell you that after all I

couldn't undertake that companionship. Something has happened that makes

it impossible for me to leave home. I wrote to Mrs. Chesney last night."

The brightness of Marion's smile was dashed for an instant, but she

speedily recovered.

"Never mind; a lucky thing has happened here. One of the walking-on

girls dropped out to-day and they want another. Mr. Lingard is a friend

of mine, and he's sure to have you when he sees you--you've just the

face for romantic drama. Come along and see him; he went into his office

a minute ago--don't forget to say you've been with Ravenhill."

And so through Marion Ashley's kindly offices Poppy found herself once

more signing a contract to "walk-on-and-understudy" at a guinea a week!

But the romantic drama was an unromantic failure.

Long before the end of the first week, the principals were looking at

each other with blank faces, and holding conclaves in each other's

dressing-rooms for the purpose of exchanging opinions and reports on the

probable duration of the run. In the "walkers-on" room they gave it

three weeks, and _that_ playing to "paper houses" every night.

Marion Ashley met Poppy in the wings during a quarter of an hour's wait

that occurred in the second act.

"Isn't this an awful disappointment?" she said. "Have you anything in

view, dear, if we come to a full-stop here?"

"Nothing!" said Poppy, with a brave, careless smile. "Divil a thing!"

"Well ... wouldn't you ... what about Mrs. Chesney? She's hankering

after you still. In fact, she appears to have developed a craze for your

society. She wrote to me this morning, asking me to search you out."

Poppy flushed slightly. "I'm afraid I should be a failure as a

companion," was all she could say. Marion looked at her with curiosity,

vexation.

The next day a terrible thing happened. For the first time in his short

life little Pat was ill. Not very ill, just white and listless and

disinclined to eat. Poppy, like a pale and silent ghost, held him in

tender arms every moment of the day, except while he slept, when for his

own sake she put him into his bed, but hovered near, watching, praying.

Mrs. Print pooh-poohed the sickness as nothing but teething-fever, but

the wild-eyed mother begged her to go out and find a doctor. A grave,

kind man was found, and his words were not comforting.

"He is not very ill, but he wants care. London is hardly the right place

for babies at this time of the year. If it is possible, I should advise

you to take him away into the country."

When the hour came for her to go to the theatre, Poppy called in the

faithful Mrs. Print once more to watch over the sleeping child. It

broke her heart to leave him, but there was nothing else to be done. She

might forfeit her engagement if she did not appear at the theatre; or,

at any rate, she would forfeit part of her salary, and she needed that

more than ever.

She took a halfpenny tram to Victoria Street, meaning to walk from there

to the theatre. Someone had left an evening paper on the seat, and she

took it up to glance at the advertisements, and see if any hope for the

future might be gleaned from them. As she turned over the pages her

distracted eyes caught the impression of a name she knew, printed large

among several other names. She looked again, and flame came into her

face, light to her eyes.

It was, indeed, a name she knew: and yet did not. _Sir_ Evelyn Carson!

His name was on the Birthday List of Honours. He had been made a baronet

_for services rendered to the Empire_. Swiftly she scanned the column,

until she found the short biographical paragraph which told in brief

outline of his daring expedition into Borapota; of the extraordinary

personal influence he had speedily acquired over the warlike people of

that country and of the remarkable concessions he had gained for the

Empire. He had, in fact, without bloodshed or political complications,

succeeded in establishing a British Protectorate in a rich and

profitable country.

At the end of the column there was a further piece of information

concerning Carson. It was embodied in a cablegram from Durban, which

stated, with the convincing brevity peculiar to cables, that Sir Evelyn

Carson, having arrived from Borapota, was to be married immediately to

Miss May Mappin, only daughter and heiress of the late Mr. Isaac Mappin,

former Mayor of Durban.

* * * * *

On her dressing-table at the theatre Poppy found a little envelope,

pale-tan in colour, containing a week's salary and a note from the

manager, saying that after the next night (Saturday) the play would be

taken off the boards; no further salaries would be paid. Every member of

the company had received a similar notice.

During the wait in the second act she sought out Marion Ashley.

"Does Mrs. Chesney still want me?" she briefly inquired, and Marion

turned to her eagerly.

"Of course she does. Will you go? Oh, you dear girl! I'm _so_ glad. When

will you be able to take up your residence with her?"

"On Monday next, I think. I can't go before as I have to ... take some

one ... who is ill ... into the country. I shall stay a day there

only ... unless, unless ... the ... person is ... _worse_."

"And if the person is better?" asked Marion quickly. "Oh, my dear, you

won't fail poor Frances, will you, if you can help it?"

"No." Poppy spoke in a perfectly calm and composed voice now, though her

eyes were strange to see. "If I am alive, and have any reason to wish to

continue living, you may rely upon me not to fail Mrs. Chesney."

Marion did not quite understand this, but she came to the conclusion

that some man Miss Chard was in love with was desperately ill, and that

that accounted for her distraught look and strange words.

PART IV

"This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,

Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,

Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."